scribed the circumstances which rendered it, in the opinion of Ministers, imperative that Portugal should not be left unaided. We go to Portugal,' he concluded, 'not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions, but to preserve and defend the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall not come.' The speech is a model of calm and elevated argument, tersely and vigorously expressed. Certain passages, that, for instance, in which he likens England to the ruler of the winds -Celsâ sedet Æolus arce, Sceptra tenens; mollitque animos, et temperat iras; Ni faciat, maria ac terras cælumque profundum, Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras rise without embarrassment into a grave and thoughtful eloquence. The speech was vehemently applauded; but the great triumph was reserved for a later period of the evening. A feeble opposition had been threatened by Mr. Hume and one or two other members, and after a vigorous_oration from Mr. Brougham, the Foreign Secretary rose to reply. That reply is a masterpiece of argument and eloquence; and to it alone, if need were, the vindication of the orator's fame might be left. The passage which explains the policy of the Government in not declaring war when Spain was occupied, is perhaps the most striking. The effects of the French occupation, the speaker said, had been infinitely exaggerated; but he did not blame these exaggerations, for he was aware that they were the echoes of sentiments which in the days of William and of Anne-'the best times of our history'-animated the debates and dictated the votes of the British Parliament. But Spain was then a great maritime power, and she was no longer so. Again, Sir (he continued), is the Spain of the present day the Spain of which the statesmen of the times of William and Anne were so much afraid? Is it indeed the Spain whose puissance was expected to shake England from her sphere? No, Sir, it was quite another Spain-it was the Spain within the limits of whose empire the sun never set-it was, Spain with the Indies' that excited the jealousies and alarmed the imaginations of our an cestors. But then, Sir, the balance of power! -The entry of the French army into Spain disturbed that balance, and we ought to have gone to war to restore it. I have already said, that when the French army entered Spain, we might, if we chose, have resisted or resented that measure by war. But were there no other means than war for restoring the balance of power?-Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard? or is it not a standard perpetually varying, as civilization advances, and as new nations spring up, and take their place among established political communities? The balance of power a century and a half ago was to be adjusted between France and Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and England. Some years afterwards, Russia assumed her high station in European politics. Some years after that, again, Prussia became not only a substantive, but a preponderating monarchy. Thus, while the balance of power continued in principle the same, the means of adjusting it became more varied and enlarged. They became enlarged in proportion to the increased number of considerable States-in proportion, I may say, to the number of weights which might be shifted into the one or the other scale. To look to the policy of Europe, in the times of William and Anne, for the purpose of regulating the balance of power in Europe at the present day, is to disregard the progress of events, and to confuse dates and facts which throw a reciprocal light on each other. It would be disingenuous, indeed, not to admit that the entry of the French army into Spain was in a certain sense a disparagement-an affront to the pride a blow to the feelings of England; and it can hardly be supposed that on that occasion the Government did not sympathize with the feelings of the people. But I deny that, questionable or censurable as the act might be, it was one which necessarily called for our direct and hostile opposition. Was nothing, then, to be done? Was there no other mode of resistance, than by a direct attack upon France-or by a war to be undertaken on the soil of Spain? What, if the position of Spain might be rendered harmless in rival hands-harmless as regarded us-and valueless to the pos 1859.] How Canning treated the Holy Alliance. sessors? Might not compensation for disparagement be obtained, and the policy of our ancestors vindicated, by means better adapted to the present time? If France occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of that occupation, that we should blockade Cadiz? No. I looked another way-I sought materials of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies.' I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old. The effect which this memorable speech produced on the House of Commons is admitted, both by friends and foes, to have been quite unprecedented. 'It was an epoch in a man's life to have heard him,' writes a member who was present. When, in the style and manner of Chatham, he exclaimed, “I looked to Spain in the Indies; I called a New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old;" the effect was actually terrific. It was as if every man in the House had been electrified. Mr. Canning seemed actually to have increased in stature, his attitude was so majestic. I remarked his flourishes were made with his left arm; the effect was new and beautiful; his chest heaved and expanded; his nostril dilated, a noble pride slightly curled his lip; and age and sickness were dissolved and forgotten in the ardour of youthful genius.' 'The whole House were moved,' says Mr. Stapleton; as if an electric shock had passed through them; they all rose for a moment to look at him! This effect I witnessed from under the gallery.' And Mr. Canning himself, writing two days afterwards to Lord Granville, says, 'If I know anything of the House of Commons from thirtythree years' experience, or if I may trust to what reaches me in report of feelings out-of-doors, the declaration of the obvious but unsuspected truth, that "I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old," has been more grateful to English ears and to English feelings ten thousand times, than would have been the most satisfactory announcement of the intention of the French Govern 531 ment to withdraw its army from Spain.' policy-a policy admirably conSuch was Mr. Canning's foreign ceived and admirably executed. Its success was complete. England, under his Administration, became the first Power in Europe-a model and an umpire. It discomfited the Alliance, which, after a succession of angry and ineffectual remonstrances, quietly subsided. We cannot resist the temptation to quote a letter published by Mr. Stapleton, which, though somewhat lengthy, gives a most amusing account of the manner in which the Secretary treated that devout body when it undertook to lecture him. The last three mornings have been occupied partly in receiving the three successive communications of Count Lieven, Prince Esterhazy, and Baron Maltzahn, of the high and mighty displeasure of their Courts with respect to Spanish America. Lieven led the way on Wednesday. He began to open a long despatch evidently with the intention of reading it to me. I stopped in limine, desiring to know if he was authorized to give a copy of it. He said no; upon which I declined hearing it, unless he could give me his word, that no copy would be sent to any other Court. He said he could not undertake to say that it would not be sent to other Russian missions, but that he had no notion that a copy of it would be given to the Courts at which they were severally accredited. I answered, that I was determined either to have a copy of a despatch which might be quoted to foreign Courts (as former despatches had been) as having been communicated to me, and remaining unanswered, or to be able to say that no despatch had been communicated to me at all. It was utterly impossible for me, I said, to charge my memory with the expicssions of a long despatch once read over to me, or to be able to judge on one such hearing whether it did, or did not contain expressions which I ought not to pass over without remark. Yet by the process now proposed I was responsible to the King and to my colleagues, and ultimately perhaps to Parliament, for the contents of a paper which might be of the most essentially important character; and of which the text might be quoted hereafter by third parties, as bearing a meaning which I did not on the instant attribute to it, and yet which upon bare recollection I could not controvert. Lieven was confounded. He asked me what he was to do? I said, what he pleased, but I took the exception now before I heard a word of his despatch, because I would not have it thought that the contents of the despatch, whatever they might be, had anything to do with that exception. I must, however, own that I was led to make it now, the rather because I had learned from St. Petersburg that he, Count Lieven, had been instructed not to give me a copy of the despatch on Turkey and Greece, which instruction his own good sense had led him to disobey; that in that instance it was absolutely preposterous to refuse a copy, that the despatch professed to be a narrative of which dates and facts were the elements; and that to have read such a statement to me, and then circulate it throughout Europe as what had been communicated to me, and acquiesced in by my silence, would have been an unfairness such as it was as well to let him know, once for all, I was determined to resist. Might he state to me verbally what he was ordered to state, without reference to his despatch? Undoubtedly, I was prepared to hear anything he had to say to me. I must afterwards take my own way of verifying the exactness of my recollection. He then proceeded to pronounce a discourse-no matter for the substance at present-after which he left me. I instantly wrote down the substance of what I understood him to have said to me, and sent him my memorandum, with a letter requesting him to correct any inaccuracies. The result is, that I have a document in spite of all their contrivance. Yesterday the same scene with Esterhazy, who had not seen Lieven in the interval, and therefore came unprepared. He too made me a speech, and to him I immediately sent a memorandum of what I understood him to have said; I have not yet received his answer. To-day Maltzahn came, evidently prepared; for he produced no paper, but set off at score. This rather provoked me (for he is the worst of all), but I was even with him. For whereas with the others, I merely listened and put in no word of my own, I thought it a good opportunity to pay off my reserve upon Maltzahn; and accor dingly said to him a few as disagreeable things as I could, upon the principle of legitimacy as exemplified in the readiness of the Allies to have made peace with Buonaparte (in 1814), and failing Buonaparte to have put some other than Louis XVIII. upon the throne; and also in the general recognition of Bernadotte, while the lawful King of Sweden is wandering in exile and begging through Europe. I asked him how he reconciled these things with the high principles which he was ordered to proclaim about the rights of Spain to her Spanish Americas? He had nothing to answer. I have sent him a memorandum too, in which my part of the dialogue is inserted. Of course I have not yet his answer. He left me only two hours ago. I think I shall teach the Holy Allance not to try the trick of these simultaneous sermons again. We have described the general principles of his foreign policy; one or two minor points remain to be noticed. Canning was personally a very skilful diplomatist. His tact, penetration, and judgment were conspicuous; and he played his antagonists with the ease of a master. His apparent frankness and unreserve disarmed the most astute; while he delighted to tease and perplex the dull and the pretentious with knotty problems and intricate complications. But when in earnest his tone was at once manly and moderate. He never bullied, or threatened, or stormed. I abhor menace, till one means action,' he said. A thorough Englishman both in taste and temper, he was the first Foreign Secretary who insisted that English, not French, should be used in our diplomatic correspondence. 'Whatever we may have to say hereafter, be it high or humble, soothing or threatening, warlike or pacific, I trust we shall never again submit to speak any language but our own.' When he came to the Foreign Office in 1822, he wrote to the ambassador at St. Petersburg-You know my politics well enough to know what I mean when I say, that for Europe I shall be desirous, now and then, to read England.' This is indeed one of the most characteristic features of his official life. In whatever he said or did there is the magnanimity of the English statesman, the moderation of the English gentleman. The last months of Mr. Canning's life, though the most brilliant, are also the most painful. His eleva tion to the Premiership on the death of Lord Liverpool was not 1859.] Last Months of Canning's Life. effected without great opposition. The Duke of Newcastle called on the Sovereign and threatened to withdraw the support of the Tory aristocracy from the Government if Mr. Canning were placed at its head. The Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel, Lord Eldon, and several other members of the Cabinet, simultaneously resigned, on the ground that on the question of Catholic Emancipation they differed from the Premier. It was confidently expected that, under these discouragements, Mr. Canning would be forced to abandon the task. But his enemies had misun derstood their man. He quickly succeeded in forming an Administration composed of the more tolerant section of the Whigs, and of the representatives of that great moderate middle party which his genius had created alike in the country and in the Legislature. The resentment of the defeated Tories knew no bounds. The language which they employed to denounce the Minister would have disgraced Billingsgate. Night after night he was attacked with an acrimony which recalled the more discreditable features of the conflict of the Coalition with Pitt. Canning maintained his position with simplicity, with manliness, with a Pitt-like hauteur. At length, after having answered, fully and temperately, all the charges directed against him, he declined to protract the controversy. Until a direct vote of censure was moved, no threats, no expostulations, no entreaties, would induce him, he declared, to open his lips. The subordinate members of 'the pack who bayed him to death' are now forgotten; but the conduct of Sir Robert Peel to his old colleague still invokes the justifications of his friends. These have been numerous and elaborate; successful they have not been. Upon the whole, it is better, we fancy, to admit that Sir Robert's treatment of Mr. Canning was the fruit of a very natural jealousy, than to trace it to the influence of high-toned and scrupulous 533 motives. Even great statesmen are not exempted from the vindictive frailties that afflict ordinary mortals. Peel disliked Canning, and under Canning it was virtually impossible that he could serve. That is the plain explanation of the whole mat ter, and posterity will not construe too hardly an inevitable antipathy. The contest killed Canning. That virulent and unscrupulous hostility proved too much for a constitution already shattered by disease. During the whole session he had been miserably ill; he rose from a sickbed to deliver his great speeches on Portugal; a cold caught at the Duke of York's funeral, in the chapel of St. George at Windsor, aggravated his disorder. He continued, however, to fight the enemy with indomitable resolution to the end. But it was plain that his exhausted system could not for any long time sustain the strain. On the 3rd of August he was declared to be in imminent danger; on the morning of the 8th he died. 6 Sir M. Tierney felt his pulse, thought for a second that he was gone, but he still breathed. In a few seconds there ceased to be any sign of breathing. He passed away so quietly that the exact moment could not be ascertained, but it was between twelve and ten minutes before four.' Almost the last intelligible words he uttered wereThis may be hard upon me, but it is harder upon the King.' And so he died. My road must be through character to power; I will try no other course; and I am sanguine enough to believe that this course, though not perhaps the quickest, is the surest. Mr. Canning wrote those words in 1801; and it is because we believe that they illustrate his career that we are grateful to Mr. Stapleton for his recollections of the man who used them. The book is a very interesting one; it contains an admirable selection of Mr. Canning's letters, memoranda, and official despatches; and the author's commentary is concise and graphic. SHIRLEY. IN INDIAN a brief but not uneventful reign of little more than two years, Lord Ellenborough managed to leave the four per cent. loan at par. The Indian Government are now in vain coaxing the wealthy classes with offers of what practically is a loan at six per cent. The Treasury is being emptied faster than a five and a half per cent. loan, received half in cash and half in five per cent. paper, can contrive to fill it. There was a serious deficit in the last annual report, which is threatened to be followed by a future deficit hardly less serious. A large native army, irregularly called into existence, must be regularly fed. A mutiny, or a revolt, or a rebellion, call it by whatever name we will, has been followed by open discontent and defiance of authority amongst the Company's European army. Money is equally required for expenditure on public works, for interest on railway debentures, and for the additional agency which a closer and more efficient administration imperatively demands. To meet the above, we require a more flourishing Indian exchequer. And it is to elucidate this subject that we intend to devote a few pages to Indian finance, explaining its main sources, and showing on what forms of wealth, trade, industry, financial burdens may perhaps be henceforth laid. In spite of strange and even uncouth phraseology, the chief points of Eastern finance are in reality extremely simple. The State derives its revenue from half a dozen sources at most. There is the immemorial land-tax, the payment of which implies recognition of, and obedience to, the dominant Power. There is the monopoly of the cultivation of the poppy, which results in the manufacture of several thousands of chests of opium, exported to, and paid by, the population of China. There is the monopoly in the manufacture and sale of salt, to which every inhabitant of India more or less contributes. Then come, in order of productiveness, the sea customs, the stamps, and the excise; and the few remaining contributions to the exchequer may FINANCE. be termed miscellaneous, being judicial fines and recoveries, tolls on ferries, roads, and bridges, escheats, unclaimed property, the tax for watchmen in towns, and waifs and strays in general. Every Englishman will thus easily understand that the chief characteristic of Indian finance is its entire want of elasticity. It has expanded with the empire, and grows with all its liabilities. But it is not elastic in the sense in which the term is applied to the huge net of taxes in some corner or other of which we are all likely to be entangled at home. The Indian Financial Secretary overwhelms the Indian public with yearly, quarterly, and even monthly statements of accounts. But on no occasion does he rise in his place' to inform an expectant public how the burdens are to be distributed in the ensuing year. There can be no shifting from one head to another, because all the ordinary articles of national consumption are positively untaxed. The annexation of a feeble province, the gradual increase of sea customs arising out of the spread of commerce, civilization, and luxury, a more numerous population which shall require more salt, aroused activity in the opium speculators at Bombay and Calcutta, and the progressive advancement of all classes in refinement and in comfort, under a wise and just administration—it is to these facts or expectations that the Indian Chancellor of the Exchequer has hitherto been led to look for consolation. In fact, such finance is only an elaborate system of audit and account. The figures and statements are undeniably correct. The operations of Government in this respect are no longer enveloped in mystery. But of the financial skill which detects such springs of industry and commerce as can bear a heavier load, which calls into existence new ways and means to pay old debts, which possesses a knowledge of what the native population will assent to without revolt or disturbance, as well as of the fundamental principles of exchange and of political economy, we have had little or |