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every retort in that of his antagonist. Those of Brougham remained within, as in a citadel which no artillery could batter and no mine blow up; and even when he was putting forth all the power of his eloquence, when every ear was tingling at what he said, and while the immediate object of his invective was writhing in helpless and indescribable agony, his visage retained its cold and brassy hue; and he tri umphed over the passions of other men by seeming to be without passion himself When Canning rose to speak, he elevated his countenance, and seemed to look round for applause as a thing dear to his feelings; while Brougham stood coiled and concentrated, reckless of all but the power that was within himself.

"From Canning there was expected the glitter of wit and the glow of spirit-something showy and elegant; Brougham stood up as a being whose powers and intentions were all a mystery-whose aim and effect no living man could divine. You bent forward to catch the first sentence of the one, and felt human nature elevated in the specimen before you; you crouched and shrunk back from the other, and dreams of ruin and annihilation darted across your mind. The one seemed to dwell among men, to join in their joys, and to live upon their praise; the other appeared a son of the desert, who had deigned to visit the human race merely to make it tremble at his strength.

"The style of their eloquence and the structure of their orations were just as different. Canning arranged his words like one who could play skillfully upon that sweetest of all instruments, the human voice; Brougham proceeded like a master of every power of reasoning and the understanding. The modes and allusions of the one were always quadrable by the classical formulæ ; those of the other could be squared only by the higher analysis of the mind; and they soared, and ran, and pealed, and swelled on and on, till a single sentence was often a complete oration within itself; but still, so clear was the logic, and so close the connection, that every member carried the weight of all that went before, and opened the way for all that was to follow after. The style of Canning was like the convex mirror, which scatters every ray of light that falls upon it, and shines and sparkles in whatever position it is viewed; that of Brougham was like the concave speculum, scattering no indiscriminate radiance, but having its light concentrated into one intense and tremendous focus. Canning marched forward in a straight and clear track; every paragraph was perfect in itself, and every coruscation of wit and of genius was brilliant and delightful; it was all felt, and it was felt all at once: Brougham twined round and round in a spiral, sweeping the contents of a vast circumference before him, and uniting and pouring them onward to the main point of attack.

"Such were the rival orators, who sat glancing hostility and defiance at each other during the session of eighteen hundred and twenty-three-Brougham, as if wishing to overthrow the Secretary by a sweeping accusation of having abandoned all principle for the sake of office; and the Secretary ready to parry the charge and attack in his turn. An opportunity at length offered. Upon that occasion the oration of Brougham was disjointed and ragged, and apparently without aim or application. He careered over the whole annals of the world, and collected every instance in which genius had prostituted itself at the footstool of power, or principle had been sacrificed for the vanity or the lucre of place; but still there was no allusion to Canning, and no connection, that ordinary men could discover, with the business before the House. When, however, he had collected every material which suited his purpose-when the mass had become big and black, he bound it about and about with the cords of illustration and argument; when its union was secure, he swung it round and round with the strength of a giant and the rapidity of a whirlwind, in order that its impetus and its effects might be the more tremendous; and while doing this, he ever and anon glared his eye, and pointed his finger, to make the aim

and the direction sure. Canning himself was the first that seemed to be aware where and how terrible was to be the collision; and he kept writhing his body in agony and rolling his eye in fear, as if anxious to find some shelter from the impend ing bolt. The House soon caught the impression, and every man in it was glancing fearfully, first toward the orator, and then toward the Secretary. There was, save the voice of Brougham, which growled in that under tone of muttered thunder which is so fearfully audible, and of which no speaker of the day was fully master but him self, a silence as if the angel of retribution had been flaring in the faces of all parties the scroll of their personal and political sins. The stiffness of Brougham's figure had vanished; his features seemed concentrated almost to a point; he glanced toward every part of the House in succession; and, sounding the death-knell of the Secretary's forbearance and prudence with both his clinched hands upon the table, he hurled at him an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more torturing in its effects, than had ever been hurled at mortal man within the same walls. The result was instantaneous-was electric. It was as when the thunder-cloud descends upon the Giant Peak; one flash-one peal-the sublimity vanished, and all that remained was a small and cold pattering of rain. Canning started to his feet, and was able only to utter the unguarded words, 'It is false !' to which followed a dull chapter of apologies. From that moment the House became more a scene of real businesa than of airy display and angry vituperation."

SPEECH

OF MR BROUGHAM ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,

MARCH 11, 1816.

INTRODUCTION.

LORD CASTLEREAGH and his ministry, elated by their triumph over Bonaparte at the battle of Water. loo, had the ambition of still continuing an immense military establishment after the return of peace had rendered it wholly unnecessary.

For the year 1816, they proposed a standing force of one hundred and seventy-six thousand men, when the country was suffering under extreme embarrassments in every branch of its industry. A part of these forces consisted of the Household Troops, as they were called, to the number of ten thousand men, supported for mere parade in London or its vicinity, and confessedly of no use except in the case of mobs, which were then wholly out of the question.

When the debate took place on the army estimates, March 11, 1816, Mr. Calcraft moved to reduce the appropriation for the Household Troops to one half the sum proposed, intending, if this motion prevailed, to carry out the principle of retrenchment into the other branches of the army. In support of this motion, Mr. Brougham delivered the following speech, which is marked by that mixture of bold assertion, rapid argument, and fervid declamation which so generally characterized his speaking.

The speaker by challenges

istry.

SPEECH, &c.

SIR,-Although I on a former occasion deliv- | ered my opinion generally upon these called forth estimates, yet I am anxious now to from the min state my sentiments in more detail upon a subject of such great importance, and the rather because of the defiances flung out from the other side to all of us to go into the examination of it. I stand forward to take up the gauntlet which has thus been thrown down; and I affirm that the more minutely you scrutinize the several items of this bill, brought in against the country, the more objectionable you will find them.

"Household

that, with all the professed anxiety of the noble Lord and his friends to go through the estimates, item by item; with all their pretended readiness and even desire to court full investigation; with all the bluster of their defiance to us, and the bravado more than once used, that we durst not grapple with the question in detail, they have themselves wholly shrunk from the inquiry, fled from all particulars, and abandoned all attempts at showing, in any one instance, from any one conclusion, with a view to any single circumstance in the present situation of the country, that there is the shadow of a ground for this increase of force. We had the subject debated generally, indeed, but at great length, a few days ago, on bringing up the report; and it had been repeatedly before the House on former occasions. We have now renewed the discussion on the motion for going into this committee. We have been in the committee for some hours. At this very advanced stage of the debate have we arrived, and though all the members of the govern

I object, in the first place, altogether to the Objection to large force of guards which it is innew title of tended to keep up; and I even protest, Troops." though that is a trifle in comparison, but I do protest against the new-fangled French name of Household Troops, under which they are designated a name borrowed from countries where this portion of the national force is exclusively allotted to protect the Prince against a people in whom he can not trust-is the appointment have addressed themselves to the question, ed means given him to maintain his arbitrary power-is the very weapon put into his hands to arm him against the liberties of his country. However appropriate the appellation may be there, it can not be endured in this nation, where the Sovereign ought never to have any reason for distrusting his subjects, and never can be intrusted with any force except that which the defense of his people requires. But the name is of far less importance than the thing. Has the noble Lord [Lord Castlereagh] made out any thing like a case for raising the amount of this force to more than double of what it was in 1791? If any such proof had been given, I bjection to their number. should not have been found among the opposers of the proposition. But the truth is,

many of them once and again, yet I defy any one
to point out a single fact that has been stated, a
single argument urged, a single topic used, to
prove the necessity which alone can justify the
scale these estimates are framed upon. It has,
indeed, been said that 2400 of the guards are
destined for France, where I suppose the army
of occupation is required in order to demonstrate
how tranquil our famous negotiators have left the
whole Continent—how perfectly successful—
how absolutely final-the grand settlement of all
Europe is, upon which we so greatly plume our-
selves, and upon which, above all, the political
reputation of the noble Lord is built.'
But sup-

After the deposition of Bonaparte, the allied Sov.

pose I pass over this, and do not stop to ask what ty was unquestioned, though their wisdom might reason there can be for these 2400 men being be doubted, led them a good deal further thar. guards, and not simply troops of the line-those this. Meetings were encouraged to address the troops required to maintain our final and conclu- | Crown, and testify the resolution to support its sive settlement, and enforce the profound tran- prerogatives. Bonds were entered into for dequillity in which Europe is every where enwrapt; fending the Constitution, believed to be threat suppose I admit, for argument' sake, and in my ened. Pledges of life and fortune were given to haste to get at the main question, that these 2400 stand by the established order of things, and reguards may be necessary-what is to be said of sist to the death all violence that might be diall the rest? There remain no less than 7600 rected against it. Parliament was not alone in to account for. What reason has been assigned, countenancing these measures, proceeding from what attempt ever made by the noble Lord to alarm. Both Houses addressed the Throne; both assign a reason why 3600 more guards should joined in asserting the existence of great peril to be wanted more than in Mr. Pitt's celebrated the Constitution; both declared that the public establishment of 1792? I desire, however, to peace was in danger from the designs of the evilhave this explained—I demand the ground for disposed. To read the language of those times, this enormous augmentation of what you call both in public meetings and their addresses, and your "household force"-I have a right to know in parliamentary debates, and resolutions of the why this increase is called for-I call for the rea- two Houses, any one would have thought that a son of it, and the reason I will have. Deduct all wide-spreading disaffection had shot through the you require, or say you require, for France; what land; that the materials of a vast rebellion were has happened since Mr. Pitt's time to justify you every where collected; and that the moment was in nearly doubling the number of the guards? tremblingly expected when some spark lighting That is the question, and it must be answered to on the mass should kindle the whole into a flame, Parliament and to the country-answered, not and wrap the country in destruction. Yet in that by vague generalities-by affected anxiety for state of things, and with these testimonies to its discussion by shallow pretenses of desire to menacing aspect, Mr. Pitt, at the very time when have the fullest investigation-by blustering de- he was patronizing the doctrines of the alarmists, fiances to us—and swaggering taunts that we encouraging their movements, and doing all he dare not investigate. We do investigate-we do could to increase rather than allay their fears; advance to the conflict-we do go into the de- when he was grounding on the panic that pretails-we do enter upon the items one by one; vailed, those measures out of which his junction and the first that meets us on the very thresh- with a part of the Whigs arose, whereby he sucold, and as soon as we have planted a foot upon ceeded in splitting that formidable party-yet it, is this doubling of the guards. Then how do never dreamed of such a force as we are now you defend that? Where is the ground for it? told is necessary for preserving the public peace. What is there to excuse it or to explain? Mr. He proposed no more than 4000 guards; and Ne disorders Pitt found 4000 enough in 1792-then held that amount to be sufficient. throughout what is there to make 7600 wanting now? Look at home. Is the country as in 1792. less peaceable now than it was then? Quite the contrary. It was then disturbed; it is now profoundly quiet. Then, although there was no insurrection, nor any thing that could be called by such a name, unless by those who sought a pretext for violating the Constitution, and, by suspending its powers, securing their own, yet still no man could call the state of the country tranquil. Universal discontent prevailed, here and there amounting to disaffection, and even break-ous inhabitants ever more contented, more obeing out into local disorders; rumors of plots floated every where about; while meetings were held --unmeasured language was used-wild schemes were broached- dangerous associations were formed. Though no man had a right to say that the government was entitled to pursue unconstitutional courses for meeting those evils, every man fel: obliged to admit that there was reason for much anxiety-that the aspect of things was lowering; the alarm was a natural feeling that the duty of the executive was to be vigilant and to be prepared. The fears of men, whose loyally inaction. To the unnatural and costly excite

the country

to require these troops,

ereigns kept for a time a large body of troops in France, to secure the execution of the treaty made by the Bourbon government.

required for the

We are challenged to go into particulars; we are defied to grapple with the ques- The increase not tion in detail. Then I come to par- security of the ticulars and details with the noble metropolis. Lord. The main duty of the guards is the Lon don service-that is the district to which their force is peculiarly applicable. To keep the peace of this great metropolis is their especial province; and I grant the high importance of such functions. Then I ask when London was ever more quiet than at this moment? When were its numer

dient to the laws, more disinclined to any thing like resistance? At what period of our history was the vast mass of the people, by whom we are surrounded, ever more peaceably disposed, more unlikely to engage in any thing approaching to tumult than now? Why, they have even given over going to public meetings; the very trade of the libeler languishes, if it be not at end, in the general tranquillity and stagnation of these quiet times. All is silence, and indif ference, and dullness, and inertness, and assured

ment of war has succeeded a state of collapse, perhaps from exhaustion, but possibly from con trast alone. The mighty events of the latter days, when the materials for the history of a

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country were crowded into the space of a few not the shadow of justification for this increase months, have left the public mind listless and of force, what shall we say of the vacant. The stimulus is withdrawn, and change state of foreign affairs? Above all, the state of foreign affair has had its accustomed sedative influence. They what shall we say of the comparison demand these who had been gazing till their eyes ached, and between the face of those affairs now they doubted if they were awake, upon the most and its aspect in 1792? That was really a prodigious sights ever presented in the political period of external danger. Never was there and the moral world-upon empires broken up greater room for anxiety; never had the statesand formed anew-dynasties extinguished or men, not of England only, but of all Europe, springing up the chains cast off by not merely more cause for apprehension and alarm-more a people, but a hemisphere; and half the globe occasion for wakefulness to passing eventssuddenly covered with free and independent more ground for being prepared at every point. states-wars waged, battles fought, compared to A prodigious revolution had unchained twentywhich the heroes of old had only been engaged six millions of men in the heart of Europe, galin skirmishes and sallies-treaties made which lant, inventive, enterprising, passionately fond of disposed of whole continents, and span the fate military glory, blindly following the phantom of of millions of men-could hardly fail to find the national renown. Unchained from the fetters contemplation of peace flat, stale, and unprofit- that had for ages bound them to their monarchs, able. The eye that had been in vain attempt- they were speedily found to be alike disentaning to follow the swift march of such gigantic gled from the obligations of peaceful conduct events, could not dwell with much interest upon toward their neighbors. But they stopped not the natural course of affairs, so slow in its mo- here. Confounding the abuses in their political tion as to appear at rest. And hence, if ever institutions with the benefits, they had swept there was a time of utter inaction, of absolute away every vestige of their former polity; and, rest to the public mind, it is the hour now chosen disgusted with the rank growth of corruption to for supposing that there exists some danger which religion had afforded a shelter, they tore which requires defensive preparation, and the up the sacred tree itself, under whose shade increase of the garrison with which the listless France had so long adored and slept. To the and motionless mass of the London population fierceness of their warfare against all authority, may be overawed. Why, my honorable and civil and religious at home, was added the fiery learned friend [the Attorney General] has had zeal of proselytism abroad, and they had rushed nobody to prosecute for some years past. It is into a crusade against all existing governments, above two years since he has filed an ex-officio and on behalf of all nations throughout Europe, information, unless in the exchequer against proclaiming themselves the redressers of every smugglers. Jacobinism, the bugbear of 1792, grievance, and the allies of each people that has for the past six years and more never been chose to rebel against their rulers. The uniform even named. I doubt if allusion to it has been triumph of these principles at home, in each sucmade in this House, even in a debate upon a cessive struggle for supremacy, had been folKing's speech, since Mr. Pitt's death. And to lowed by success almost as signal against the produce a Jacobin, or a specimen of any other first attempts to overpower them from without, kindred tribe, would, I verily believe, at this and all the thrones of the Continent shook before time of day, baffle the skill and the perseverance the blast which had breathed life and spirit into of the most industrious and most zealous col- all the discontented subjects of each of their lector of political curiosities to be found in the trembling possessors. This was the state of whole kingdom. What, then, is the danger things in 1792, when Mr. Pitt administered the what the speculation upon some possible and affairs of a nation, certainly far less exposed expected, but non-existing risk—which makes either to the force or to the blandishments of the it necessary at this time to augment the force revolutionary people, but still very far from beapplied to preserve the peace of the metropolis? ing removed above the danger of either their But I fear there are far other designs in this arts or their arms; and the existence of peril in measure, than merely to preserve a peace which both kinds, the fear of France menacing the inno man living can have the boldness to contend dependence of her neighbors, the risk to our dois in any danger of being broken, and no man mestic tranquillity from a party at home strongliving can have the weakness really to be ap-ly sympathizing with her sentiments, were the prehensive about. Empty show, vain parade, will account for the array being acceptable in some high quarters; in others, the force may be recommended by its tending to increase the powers of the executive government, and ex-peace thus menaced, both from within and from tend the influence of the prerogative. In either light, it is most disgustful, most hateful to the eye of every friend of his country, and every one who loves the Constitution-all who have any regard for public liberty, and all who reflect on the burdens imposed upon the people.

But if the internal state of the country offers

topics upon which both he and his adherents were most prone to dwell in all their discourses of state affairs. Yet in these circumstances, the country thus beset with danger, and the

without, Mr. Pitt was content with half the establishment we are now required to vote! But see only how vast the difference between the

2 This is a favorable specimen of Mr. Brougham's free, bold, animated painting and declamation, al ways made directly subservient to his argument, and filling his speeches with life and interest.

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