1825 not remember so enjoyable a season, and this is exactly the place for enjoying it. I mean to be in town on Saturday, September 17, and to prolong my stay till within about a week of that time. Walter Scott (and his party) arrived on the banks of our lake yesterday, on his return from Ireland, and is coming here to-day. I wish you had carried your lake projects into execution. But being where you are, why should you not take Paris in your way home? By the way, it is whimsical enough that the D. of W. should have represented so strongly against my going to Paris last summer, and should think fit to establish himself there without a word of warning-now. Is it only the minority of the Cabinet on litigated questions that are to have the opportunity of talking to foreign. sovereigns and ministers on the points in litigation? I shall not be so easily diverted another time. Ever sincerely yours, G. C. [This letter is dated from the lakes, where Mr. Canning had retired to recruit himself after the fatigues of a heavy session. His end was still two years further on in the future; but even now one may notice in his letters occasional references to continual malaise, and physical disorder; and in the present letter a hint of want of elasticity and recuperative power, highly ominous of early breakdown. He anticipates meeting Sir Walter Scott; an agreeable element in his holiday pastimes. He refers with some irritation to the Duke of Wellington's visit at this time to Paris without consulting his colleagues; comparing it with objections raised to his own proposed visit to Paris a year before. It was good enough argument for Canning, under the circumstances; but we may observe that in Canning's case, at the time he contemplated the visit, he was not thoroughly in the saddle' either at home or abroad; and his known Liberal opinions, coupled with his fiery genius, if brought into contact with the comparatively unprepared Absolutist Court of France, were capable of unexpectedly striking fire in various directions to the danger of the bystanders, while, on the other hand, Wellington, personally of a singularly'safe' character, was possessed of opinions unpolemical in nature, and most agreeable to the reigning authorities in France.] 1825 MR. CANNING TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL. Storrs: September 5, 1825. My dear Liverpool,-I never had to deal with a more perplexing question than that on which you ask my opinion. I am so far from disputing your views of it, that I have myself stated the same views to three persons. Unless the latter ones can be made to sleep during the next session, we gain nothing in point of peace on that question, by postponing the dissolution, and if it is put to sleep by the narcotic of a previous question, the very arguments by which that process is to be justified are so many signals for preparation against the dissolution of next year. Add to which that a rest so procured may be very unquiet. All this I admit freely-nay more, all this I had written to Wellesley before I received your letter, not as delivering a made-up opinion, but as describing the elements out of which an opinion was to be formed. I have since heard from him. He is clearly and decidedly for a dissolution now. As to the general reasons for or against it, supposing the Catholic question out of the way, I think there can be no doubt but that those for it greatly preponderate. What, then, is my difficulty? Why this: that, right or wrong, there is a very general impression amongst friends of the R. C. question, almost a universal one, that dissolution now would be an appeal to the country on that question. The Lord Chancellor's unlucky speech, 1825 the language of the Ultra Protestants, of the publications which speak their sentiments, and the well-known declarations in high quarters, have contributed to create that impression; and as the only conclusive refutation. of it would be another session, with all the inconveniences resulting from the R. C. questions being brought on, or from the attempts to keep it off; and as a dissolution now would cut short the appeal to that other session, I am greatly afraid that the impression will be as lasting as it is deep and wide, that the dissolution now was resorted to in avowed and direct hostility to the Catholic question. This impression would be greatly increased by any partial proceedings in the course of a general election; by the admission of Lord Shaftesbury, for instance (as on the last occasion), into the committee of management, it would be confirmed beyond all possibility of denial. I know not with what face I could plead a belief, on my own individual part, of a fair intention, if a peer, the Lord Chancellor's canvasser, were called in to help in choosing the new H. of C. On this sole ground, therefore, it certainly would be my wish to postpone the dissolution till next year. The theory of a short session I fear to be impracticable. The voluntary abeyance of the R. C. question is more than I hope for. I am aware that it cannot be secured otherwise than by a determination to put it down if brought forward by a previous question, which I must either move or at least directly countenance. But upon the whole as at present advised-admitting as I fairly do the general expediency of immediate dissolutionacknowledging to you that Wellesley is so far as Ireland is concerned-satisfied that it would be wise; having had little or no communication with others, and not knowing, therefore, whether I stand alone (among our colleagues) in the importance which I assign to the impression which I have described as so prevalent, I yet, on account of that impression, cannot make up my mind to say—as I really wished to do that agreeing in most of your reasoning, I am also ready to subscribe to your conclusions. Like you, however, I am not bent upon my view of this matter to such a degree as not to be willing to hear reason against it. I shall be in town on Saturday, the 17th; shall I come down to you the next day? You might equally summon Huskisson and Lushington. (Poor Arbuthnot, I fear, is not in a condition to attend your summons.) Ever sincerely yours, GEO. CANNING. P.S.-We leave this place on Friday for Wortley, where we shall remain till Tuesday next, the 13th, and thence proceed by Welbeck (staying there a couple of days), to town. Wortley was most eager against immediate dissolution when I saw him last. G. C. [The perplexing question' related to the dissolution of Parliament; the existing House of Commons had been returned in March, 1820. Its powers did not expire until March 1827; but nevertheless it had completed its sixth session. It must have betrayed symptoms, known to anxious and curious politicians, of approaching dissolution, whether early at the hand of the Crown, or later by efflux of time. Eighteen months, or a session and a half, was the only possible extension of its existence; it might be dissolved in the autumn of 1825, or in the spring, or in the autumn of 1826. Canning's problem is propounded in the frankest and most undisguised manner to the very man whose public utterances had emphasised its difficulties. The existing House of Commons had by repeated votes sustained the cause of Catholic emancipation;' the constituencies, it was apprehended, failed to support the liberality of their representatives; it was also anticipated that they would take the Catholic question as one on which, amongst others, the result of a general election 1825 1825 would be looked upon as the verdict of the country on a fiercely litigated point. Canning's idea was that the question was not ripe to be put to the country in its full extent, and that it might arrive at an equitable settlement after further discussions in Parliament; but that, in the present mind of the constituencies, it would be premature and unfair to call for an authoritative mandate on the subject. He thinks it, however, at the moment almost unavoidable but that the question should take this shape to the nation; and he accounts for it by the recent emphatic utterances 'in high quarters,' referring to the Lord Chancellor, to Lord Liverpool himself, and to other Protestant leaders for this premature forcing of the question on the public mind. The extreme popular Protestant symptoms at this time which depressed the hopes of the Liberal supporters of Catholic emancipation appear real (vide the Annual Register,' 1825, p. 69), but, in a sectarian point of view, rather puzzle the student; for hardly at any period before or since had the energies of the Papal hierarchy seemed less active or formidable, or indeed, with a serpentine wisdom which deceived Canning himself, more gentle and solicitous for compromise. But things are not always what they seem. The Catholic cause, though religiously torpid, was politically alive with energy. The tremendous performances of the Catholic Association had made a political impression on the English mind, that no subsequent withdrawal could efface; the sharply accentuated priestcraft which beset the throne of France had become associated in the public understanding with the conspiracy of the Holy Alliance against liberty; the intolerable interference with the liberties of Spain, and the tightening of the chains on France herself; echoes of the cries from suffering nations on the Continent reaching the ears of the English people, sustained their healthy prejudices in favour of Protestant liberty, and of hostility to Papal guidance and authority. Canning stood forward the unflattering political foe of all that the British public thus associated with Papal policy. Hence a great part of his immense and growing popularity; his earnest strivings on behalf of Catholic emancipation could not neutralise in the public mind their appreciation of his foreign policy. Nevertheless, the mob proved wiser than the statesman; he saw the political energies of the Roman creed checked and foiled in every direction, by circumstances, by others, by himself: why, then, should he fear it? For the simple reason that the force underlying those energies might |