Notes:
[Footnote 226: The second resolution affirmed that "this House looks forward to a progressive improvement in the character of the slave population, such as may prepare them for a participation in those civil rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects." (Stapleton's "Life of Canning," iii., 98, where also large extracts from the minister's speech are given.)]
[Footnote 227: Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Demerara were the only British islands which had not separate Legislatures.]
[Footnote 228: Miss Martineau. "History of the Thirty Years' Peace," book iv., c. viii.]
[Footnote 229: Alison, "History of Europe," 2d series, c. xxxi., sec. 74.]
[Footnote 230: In the debate on the Registration Bill, in 1836, Lord John Russell stated that two hundred and twenty eight unions had already been formed in England and Wales, and that it might be calculated that when the whole country was divided into unions the entire number would amount to something more than eight hundred.]
[Footnote 231: See Lord Althorp's speech, of parts of which an abstract is given in the text.-Parliamentary Debates, xxii., April 17.]
[Footnote 232: Lord Althorp made the following frightful statement of the crimes committed in the province of Leinster alone in the last three months of 1832 and the first three of 1833: 207 murders, 271 cases of arson. The assaults attended with grievous personal injury were above 1000; burglaries and robberies, above 3000.]
[Footnote 233: It was often asserted that fourteen-fifteenths of the land in Ireland belonged to Protestants, but this estimate was, probably, an exaggeration.]
[Footnote 234: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," ii., 3, 19.]
[Footnote 235: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," pp. 31, 32.]
[Footnote 236: "One important question I found practically, and perhaps unavoidably, decided before my arrival, namely, the dissolution of the existing Parliament. Every one seemed to have taken it for granted that the Parliament must be dissolved, and preparations had accordingly been made almost universally for the coming contest."-Peel's Memoirs, ii., 43.]
[Footnote 237: "Middle Ages," ii., 31 seq. See also Stubbs, "Constitutional History," i., 82-92 et seq.]
[Footnote 238: See Hallam's "Constitutional History," ii., 155.]
[Footnote 239: This was a matter of no small importance. The number of boroughs included in the bill was 183, having a population of about two millions. Their annual income was stated by Lord John Russell to be as nearly as possible L2000 a year for each, being L367,000; but their annual expenditure exceeded that amount by L10,000, being L377,000; "besides which there was a debt of L2,000,000 owing by these bodies."]
[Footnote 240: See Hallam, "Middle Ages," ii., 205-207.]
[Footnote 241: "Life of Pitt," ii., 131. Lord Stanhope imagines that the plan was relinquished in consequence of discouraging comments by the Archbishop (Dr. Moore).]
[Footnote 242: These objections were founded on the following calculations, or something similar to them. The tithe was the tenth of the produce. In letting estates it was estimated that a farm ought to produce three rents; in other words, that a farm let at L1 an acre ought to produce yearly L3 an acre. One-tenth of three pounds, or 6s., therefore, was what the clergyman was entitled to claim. Out of this, however, he had to defray the cost of collection, which might, perhaps, be one shilling, leaving him five shillings. But the average of compositions over the whole kingdom was under 2s. 9d., or eleven-twentieths of what he was entitled to; and if augmented by ten per cent., it would not exceed three shillings.]
[Footnote 243: The fund so created was expected to amount to L130,000 a year.]
[Footnote 244: As instances of the want of church-room in such towns, Lord John cited the dioceses of London, Chester, York, Lichfield, and Coventry, containing a population of 2,590,000 persons, with church accommodation for only 276,000, or one-ninth of the population; the Commissioners, from whose report he was quoting, reckoning that church-room ought to be provided for one-third.]
CHAPTER XI. Death of William IV., and Accession of Queen Victoria.-Rise of the Chartists.-Resignation of Lord Melbourne in 1839, and his Resumption of Office.-Marriage of the Queen, and Consequent Arrangements.-The Precedence of the Prince, etc.-Post-office Reform.-War in Afghanistan.-Discontent in Jamaica.-Insurrection in Canada.-New Constitution for Canada and other Colonies.-Case of Stockdale and Hansard.
The reforms mentioned in the preceding chapter were the last measures of the reign of William IV. In the summer of the next year, 1837, he died, and was succeeded in his British, though not in his Hanoverian, dominions by our present gracious sovereign, who had only just arrived at the age which entitled her to exercise the full authority of the crown. The change was calculated to strengthen the crown, by enlisting the chivalrous feelings of all that was best in the nation in the support of a youthful Queen, and in a lesser degree it for a time strengthened the ministry also; but, with respect to the latter, the feeling did not last long. For the next three years the summers were very unfavorable to the farmer; the harvests were bad; the inevitable accompaniment of a rise in prices had caused severe and general distress, and distress had produced clamorous discontent, and in some districts formidable riots. It had been greatly aggravated in the manufacturing counties by the operations of the trades-unions, which had gradually put forth pretensions to regulate the wages and other conditions of work, and had enforced them with such tyrannical violence, not flinching from the foulest crimes, that in many instances they had driven the masters to close their factories rather than submit to their mandates; and in others had compelled the workmen themselves to discontinue their labors, thus spreading destitution among thousands whose earnings, if they had been allowed to consult their own wishes, would have been amply sufficient for the support of their families;[245] and the evil had grown to such a height, that in 1838 a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the whole subject of trade combinations. But the turbulent spirit excited by this distress did not now confine itself to single outbreaks of violence, but, under the guidance of some demagogues of a more methodical turn of mind than usual, developed itself in a systematic organization having for its object what they called "the people's charter," which aimed at a total revolution of the existing parliamentary system, with the avowed design that, when adopted, it should eventually lead to an entire reconstruction of the government. The Chartists, as they called themselves, had advocates even in Parliament, who presented their petitions to the House of Commons, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to give them importance by the appointment of a committee to investigate the character of the reforms which they demanded. They were not, however, contented with peaceful modes of pressing their demands, but, in the course of the summer of 1839, broke out in formidable riots in different parts of the country. At Birmingham they set fire to different parts of the town, carrying on their work of pillage and destruction to such a pitch that the Duke of Wellington compared the condition of the town to one taken by storm in regular warfare; and at Newport, in Monmouthshire, they even planned and carried out an attack on the troops quartered in the district. But this violence led for a time to the suppression of the movement, the leaders in the Newport riots being convicted of high-treason; and, though the government forbore to put the extreme severities of the law in force against them, those who remained unconvicted had been taught by their example the danger which they incurred by such proceedings; and some years elapsed before a series of revolutionary troubles on the Continent again gave a momentary encouragement to those in this country who sympathized with the revolutionists, and prompted them to another attempt to force their views upon the government and the people.