PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHES. No. III. THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL. "Civis, Senator, maritus, amicus, cunetis vitæ (et reipublico) officiis æqualibus, opum contemptor; recti pervicax, constans adversus metus. Erant quibus famæ appetentior videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur." Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull; TACIT. HIS., 1. iv. It is a remark oftentimes repeated, since the Stagyrite gave it existence, that the most unattractive period of a people's history is its most virtuous, and that, as a consequence, the interest of the historian's labors is inversely, as they are employed in noting the few calm and cloudless days that occur in a nation's annals. The remark is equally true and applicable to the history of individuals; and we may fairly presume the birth of the Millenium will be the death of history and biography. The attention of mankind is best roused and kept alive by startling and fearful incident; the more a man deserves the love of his followers, the less he obtains of their admiration; the more crime and suffering mark his path, the more ardent and general their curiosity about his temper and habits; the more they are scourged, the more they admire the scourger; in a word, the more Ali Pachas and fewer John Howards, the more "Lives' and the more readers. The source of these seemingly anomalous feelings, is neither profound nor malevolent, nor one of which the lover of mankind need complain; for the moral, sublime, and beautiful, spring from it; and to it we are, at least, as much indebted for what ornaments, as for what disfigures, humanity. These remarks will explain, in some degree, the meaning of our paradoxically-sounding declaration, that of all the Parliamentary "Sketches" within our reach, the easiest and the most difficult is the present (we fear we should rather say, the late) Prime Minister of Great Britain:-easy, for we might furnish a correct likeness by adding to the pithy epitome of his moral character contained in the title of one of the volumes of the Percy Anecdotes-" Anecdotes of Integrity; Portrait, "the Earl of Liverpool," that as a public speaker he is perhaps un-. rivalled for his precise, energetic satisfactoriness,-as a Statesman, for his profound sagacity and foreknowledge, and for his intimate acquaintance with the bearings and various relations of the several interests of his country ;---difficult, for the qualities of his mind are so nicely tempered and balanced, that it is not easy to make a selection where homogeneous proportion, if we may so speak, precludes partial developement. If the first would be defective from its indefinite superficialness, the latter, like the unvariegated prospect of a rich country, would most probably be tedious from its monotony and smoothness. As in the physical, so in the moral world, objects to strike and fix the eye, must be in abrupt relief, or contrastingly elevated above surrounding objects. Were Lord Liverpool's character therefore more idiomatic, were its elements, intellectual and moral, less in repose, or blended in less harmonious proportions, its picturesque effect would be so much heightened, as considerably to lessen our labors. But in him, firmness in the stern path of duty" (a favorite expression of his own,) is so tempered with urbanity, dignity of manner with bland condescension, energy with moderation, and the profound policy of the statesman is so pervaded by the candour and integrity of the man, that he is too often esteemed when he should be revered; and notwithstanding the lively sympathy of all classes with his recent afiliction, we fear too often vaguely admired without being duly appreciated. Besides the inherent difficulty in the attempt to strike off a correct, yet spirited, profile of the Prime Minister's character, there is another consequent upon his high station and long-felt influence upon the affairs of his country. A sketch even of Lord Liverpool, to be at all satisfactory, should be a chart of the political history of his times, a table of the "springs of action" of the remote and proximate effects of all the great events that since his entrance into public life (1792) have agitated Europe and the world. For not to take into account the all-important share he took in the actual proceedings of the Government for the last thirty years, his neutralizing, quiescing, and consolidating influence upon the harsh measures and jarring opinions of his Cabinet colleagues (particularly the present), alone would occupy more time and space than the design of this article admits of. To him, the hackneyed" Æolian" smile would be most happily appropriate. He was the true Eolus of the Cabinet; and how long the luctantes ventos will keep together, when the weight of his authority shall have been withdrawn, unfortunately it will take but little time to make evident. But all this, and much more, falls to the office of his biographer, an office which, notwithstanding the alarming symptoms of his illness, we would hope is far distant; ours the humbler task of presenting a summary of his leading acts and opinions. Lord Liverpool was most emphatically born and bred a Statesman; his early associations, great political connections, and the course of studies laid down for him by his gifted father, served all to prepare him for the station of an able Minister. His juvenile education was begun at the Charter House, where he was distinguished for his Latin and English verses, and finished at Christ Church, Oxford†, whence he departed with the reputation of "being better versed than any man of his time, or standing, in the political and commercial institutions of his country." When about twenty years old (in the year 1790), he travelled on the Continent, and was present at the demolition of the Bastile in Parist, and other early proceedings of the French Revolution. This circumstance, joined with the influence of his national feelings and early associations, may help to explain the vehemence of his Lordship's opposition to the progress of the French Revolution from its commencement to its conclusion, and the fact of his never, for a moment, having been affected with the contagion of sympathy and admiration which the glorious morning of the Revolution spread among the wisest and best meaning men of the empire. Here, we may remark, the first indications of that prophetic The late Earl of Liverpool was an extraordinary man, far before his age in financial and statesmanlike acquirements, as the treaty of commerce between England and America evinces. Ile chalked out a particular line of reading for his son, the present Earl, to which he rigidly adhered; and as the result has proved, with the most beneficial consequence. The novel feature at the time of the course was, its extensive range of works on Political Economy. The reader will see an interesting account of the late Earl in the 1st volume of Wraxail's Memoirs. At Oxford, the friendship began between Lord Liverpool and Mr. Canning, which has, if possible, grown with their years. But for Lord Liverpool, the country could not boast of their present Foreign Secretary. Lord Liverpool first made the acquaintance of Mr. Huskisson at this time at Paris, and has continued his political creed ever since. Cobbett was also at Paris at this time, and tells a story, of his, Mr. Jenkinson's, Mr. Huskisson's, and Tom Paine's dining at some Jacobin club dinner together. sagacity which has imparted such a Cassandra character to his Lordship's predictions. Lord Liverpool was a strenuous opponent of the French Revolution, not that he clearly foresaw, with the second-sight genius of Mr. Burke, all the consequences which must follow changes introduced with abruptness, violence, and lack of forethought-the tyranny of the mob in the outset, and the tyranny of a military despot in the end. He saw that France required regeneration, that the overgrown evils of a corrupt Government required a check, and that a soil was prepared for the seeds of revolution, which she herself had imported from America. He knew, also, that a State, without the means of some change, was without the means of its conservation. But he knew that the republican institutions of America were not fitted for the genius of the French people; and though despotism was the worst of national evils, and freedom the greatest of national blessings, that the closet theories of philosophers, however perfect per se, were not the most effectual means of extirpating the one, or of introducing the other. While history informed him that all other nations began the fabric of a new Government, or the formation of a new, by establishing originally, or by enforcing more strictly, a particular form of religion, and that they laid the foundations of civil freedom in serener manners, and a system of more austere and masculine morality, he saw France sacrifice her religion and her morals at the shrine of equality, and he knew that out of the consequent chaos of ferocity and levity, in which "all sorts of crimes were jumbled with all sorts of follies," monsters and factions would spring to their own destruction, and the spreading of universal anarchy, and the upturning of all those institutions which the want of society have founded and require. He saw one of those factions accomplish the ends of justice upon another; and, that in the same place where dogs had licked the blood of Louis and his Queen, there, in "succession, did they lick the blood of Brissot, Danton, Hebert, Robes"pierre, and their respective associates." He saw crowds of metaphysical perfectionists and enlightened philanthropists driven off the stage by fanatics, and cut-throats, and intriguers; and these last, in their turn, driven off by others, till all, at length, was swallowed up in the military despotism of Napoleon Buonaparte. Lord Liverpool saw all this, and knowing the influenza nature of democratic contagion, opposed the French Revolution; not from any particular regard, or from hopes and fears, for the safety of the nation of France, but from a thorough conviction that, unless the diffusion of her principles and proceedings were checked in time, they would overflow into this country, and most probably destroy her free constitutions for ever---and that the security of a State was essential to its improvement. His national anxieties may have magnified the real danger; his conduct was not the less praiseworthy, or his forethought the less unerring. A war of opinions, and a war of interests, would certainly bave followed---a war illustrating one of Burke's many profound observations, that "Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle." We have the testimony of opponents and supporters, of political friends as well as political adversaries, to Lord Liverpool's having made the most solid and splendid debut ever made in Parliament. The occasion involved the principle, so elegantly developed in Mr. Canning's late celebrated speech on the invasion of Portugal---the interference of England in the affairs of Continental States to the preservation of the balance of power in Europe. The throne of the Czars was then filled by the Empress Catherine, the most ambitious of an ambitious succession of monarchs, who began and made rapid strides towards the attainment of the great object of Russian aggrandizement, the subjugation of the Ottoman empire, She would most probably have succeeded, but for the wisdom and deep policy of the English Government, who first mediated and then effected a treaty between the contending parties, known by the name of the Treaty of Oczakow. This treaty was a Russian treaty, made at convenience, to be broken when it had fitted her views; the Porte and she were again embroiled, and Russia redoubled her efforts to overwhelm the degenerate descendants of the Prophet. The Porte applied to England for its as sistance; Mr. Fox and his party were entirely against its being granted. Mr. Whitbread, on the 29th of February, 1792, brought the subject before the House of Commons, and after an able speech of four hours length, concluded by moving a resolution to the effect, that no arrangement, respecting Oczakow and its districts, justified the active interference of Great Britain between Russia and Turkey. Lord Liverpool (then Mr. Jenkinson) rose and defended the policy of Mr. Pitt and the Government, with an ability and eloquence never more eminently united in a maiden speech. The effect was, what the French call, a sensation, and from that time he has been actually and nominally a British Minister. Pitt, Fox, Wyndham, Sheridan, the present Lord Grey, Mr. Dundas, Francis, and all the other leading members of the House, took part in the discussion, and congratulated the House on its new powerful accession. Of those who took the opposite side to Mr. Jenkinson, the praise of the caustic and profound (and the probable author of Junius' Letters) Sir Philip Francis, is the most valuable. The concluding sentences are eminently characteristic. "When I allude," said Mr. Francis, "to sounding circumlocutions, and pompous declamations, believe me, sir, I do not mean to extend that character to a speech which we heard last night from an honorable gentleman (Mr. Jenkinson) who spoke for the first time. Without pretensions myself to qualifications of this kind, at no time perhaps within my reach, and now too late to be acquired, I am not so unread in the learning of former ages, or so inattentive to the talents that distinguish our own, as not to perceive that the honorable gentleman has chosen the best models of antiquity for his imitation, and that proceeding as he has begun, he may rival the most eminent in eloquence of the present times. His speech appeared to me to be a masterpiece of workmanship, in which the labor so completely outvalued the materials, that no comparison could be made, no proportion observed between them. It looked like a beautiful piece of lace, of the fictitious value of many pounds, wrought from a skein of thread not worth sixpence. The honorable gentleman, I think, accomplished every purpose of eloquence---but one---he did not convince; because without substantial truth and reason, conviction is not to be obtained." The next great question to which Mr. Jenkinson applied his prescient intellect was the Abolition of Negro Slavery. Mr. Burke had recently directed the attention of the people of England to the subject, and framed a code of regulations so admirably adapted to the case, that the experience of forty years has seemed but to confirm their wisdom. The scheme of Burke proposes, by gradually raising the moral condition, and above all, promoting the sound-the real instruction of the Slave, to render his gradual but ultimate manumission at once conducive to his own welfare, and to his master's safety. This great man was too sensible of the dangers to which the planter and the negro would be exposed by the rash interference of the government, not to reprobate all sudden alterations in the peculiar frame of society in the West Indies, and all that clap-trap declamation and fanatical vituperation which have constantly attached popular odium to the well-meaning measures of the Abolitionists. Liberty he knew was, and revolutions and changes he knew might be, absolutely good; but he also knew that circumstances (which with the ultra-abolitionists pass for nothing) gave in reality to every political question "its distinguishing color and discriminating "effect," and that it was they that "rendered every civil and political "scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind." All that has proved salu tary and beneficial in the measures for the bettering the condition of the negro is---Burke's; and all that has proved noxious and hurtful is-the clap-trap declaination, and fanaticism, which he contemned and reprobated. But while popular applause (says an able writer in the Quarterly Review) is lavished on vulgar intellects, incapable of originating anything, and equally incapable of treading in, without trampling into inutility, any path marked out by such a mind as this, the man who first directed the attention of England to the condition of the negro is utterly forgotten, and we may add---not once gratefully acknowledged by the party who have obtained some respectability from being the conduits of his feelings on the question of slavery. In March, 1794, Mr. Wilberforce brought the question before the House, supported by the theatrically ambitious of popular celebrity of all parties---Mr. Pitt, Fox, Wyndham, and the rest---and by the well-meaning, but short-sighted, of those who usually acted in unison with the feelings of their hearts. Lord Liverpool, whose views even at the early period of his life were never limited to a victory in debate, or to the success or defeat of a party, still less to a theatric display of his own ingenuity, or his own eloquence, ---alone opposed this phalanx of official influence, talent, and popular feeling. Being gifted with a most prophetic intellect, he foresaw and predicted the evils consequent upon the want of caution---of gradualness in the proposed measures; and being upright, the object of his ambition was not placed solely in the applause of the multitude. He was rarely satisfied with statements and measures of which the description alone is startling to ordinary minds, until they had conducted him to some permanent improvement in the laws, policy, or constitution of his country. He censured, therefore, precipitate legislation; he did more, he recommended a specific scheme of improvement. Gladly would we have availed ourselves of his lordship's language in explaining the scheme, but to give it piece-meal would be to mutilate it, and to give it at length would be incompatible with our limits. Besides, our explanation of the grounds of his reasoning would still be necessary. Certain British merchants were holders of a species of property in the British Colonies, in which property they had embarked all their capital, and which acquired for its alteration a particular species of labour. This species of labor was per se, bad; it had, however, been sanctioned by repeated acts of the British legislature. This property is the estate of the planters; the labor---that of negro slaves---of unhappy beings, by the dispensation of Providence, apparently endowed with a modicum of intellect that for ever debars their approaching the moral rank of the white man in the scale of being. Their slavery was, as we have said, an admitted evil. The main question then is, would these slaves, if enfranchised, work as much, or nearly as much, as they now do by compulsion; would the estates of the planters be as cheaply and profitably (or nearly so) cultivated by free men as slaves? Experience has answered decidedly in the negative. The Haytian experiment (tried under the most artificially favorable circumstances) and failure, as communicated by the daily press of the last month, settles the question. The question then is, ought the planters, from a regard to the sacred rights of property, of legislative and moral justice, to be compensated in proportion to their loss by a change from compulsory to free labor? Justice says, certainly yes. But then the estimate of this compensation is so great, as to place it beyond the reach of probability, or rather possibility; for it is almost certain, from the extreme ease with which the West Indian negro procures, or could procure, the articles of his subsistence in the fruitful climate of the tropics, and from the consequent absence of a motive for his voluntary exertions to the degree necessary for the planter's purposes, that the change in the mode of employing labor would effect not only its diminu |