humour, and interesting by her high spirits, like a bird flown from a cage, that these exalted subjects should become familiar with a residence which had so lately been graced with the occupancy of their future sovereign. Exceptions however were made, and the Duke of York immediately was asked into a room on the ground-floor. It is an undoubted fact, that not one of the persons sent by the Regent, not even the Duke of York, ever was in any of the apartments above stairs for one instant until the young Princess had agreed to leave the house and return home. The Princess of Wales saw the Duke of York for a few minutes below; and this was the only communication between the company above and those below-of whom all but the Duke and the Bishop remained outside the house. After a great deal of discussion the Princess Charlotte asked Mr. Brougham what he, on the whole, would advise her to do. He said,- Return to Warwick House or to Carlton House, and on no account pass a night out of it.' She was exceedingly affected-even to tears-and asked if he too refused to stand by her. The day was beginning to break; a Westminster election to reinstate Lord Cochrane (after the sentence on him which abolished the pillory, and secured his re-election,) was to be held that day at ten o'clock. Mr. Brougham led the young Princess to the window, and said, 'I have but to show you to the multitude which in a few hours will fill these streets and that Park-and possibly Carlton House will be pulled down-but in an hour after the soldiers will be called out, blood will flow, and, if your Royal Highness lives a hundred years. it will never be forgotten that your running away from your home and your father was the cause of the mischief; and you may depend upon it the English people so hate blood that you will never get over it.' She at once perceived the truth of this statement, and without any kind of hesitation agreed to see her uncle below, and accompany him home. But she told him she would not go in any carriage except one of her father's, as her character might suffer; she therefore retired to the drawing-room until a royal coach was sent for, and she then went home with the Duke of York."* The Princess Charlotte was carried to Carlton House, and was understood to be kept there for some time a close pri[JULY 19, 1814.] soner. In consequence her uncle the Duke of Sussex put several questions to Ministers in the House of Lords," Whether, since her removal to Carlton House, she was allowed that degree of communication with her friends and connexions which she had enjoyed in Warwick House?” "Whether she had liberty of communication by letter?" "Whether she was in that state of liberty which persons considered not in confinement ought to be in?" and "Whether, as she had reached the age of eighteen, there was any intention of providing an establishment for her suitable to her rank?" Lord Liverpool having declined to answer any of these questions, Lord Eldon added, "If my noble friend had answered the questions put to him * Law Review, No. XI. 280. See also Edinburgh Review for July, 1838, p. 34. by the illustrious Duke, he would have been guilty of a gross breach of his duty to his Sovereign, and I will tell my noble friend that I never again would have conversed with him. What is meant by the question, 'Whether the Princess is allowed intercourse with her friends and connexions (it might as well have been said with her enemies) while living under the roof of her royal Father?' Is not this an imputation? But I must look upon it as an animadversion on the Ministers of the Crown with reference to supposed advice. I will now only say that the great person alluded to has the exclusive right to direct the education of his child, and that no man is entitled to interpose between them, and a very strong ground indeed must be previously established to warrant the interposition of Parliament upon such a subject. With reference to the whole of the conduct of the great person alluded to in this affair, I have the satisfaction of being able to state in the face of the country, that he is deserving of the applause and not the censure of mankind.'* The Duke of Sussex gave notice of a motion respecting the treatment of the Princess Charlotte, but withdrew it, saying, "he had learned that she had been seen riding on horseback in Windsor Park, so that he was inclined to hope that more lenient measures were to be taken towards her." The Lord Chancellor said, "he never had meant to contend that there might not be cases with regard to the treatment of members of the Royal Family, in which it might be the duty of Parliament to interfere, but in the present instance he maintained that no ground had been laid for such interference."† The firmness of the Princess Charlotte relieved her from any farther importunity upon this subject, and she afterwards contracted a marriage. of affection, which the whole country approved, and which promised the most auspicious results, when she was suddenly snatched away to an early tomb. It might have been supposed that at least in this glorious year, when Lord Eldon had met with so much to gratify him, and so little to annoy him, he might have been tolerably reconciled to the cares of office, but it turns out that all the while he was more eager than ever to get rid of them: thus he wrote to Dr. Swire: "I had thought that ere this time I should have been disengaged from the fatigue and oppression (for it begins to be oppressive at my years) of my office. But I have found it more difficult to persuade others than to persuade myself, that it is time for me to go. Providence and the country have bestowed upon me so much more than I could hope or deserve, that I ought perhaps to be somewhat ashamed of quitting my post, when those who are intrusted to judge, think that I may still be useful; but the struggle, between inclination to resign, and reluctance to be thought too willing to consult my own ease, cannot last much longer, because it must soon become a question about existence."‡ * 28 Parl. Deb 755. † Ibid. 895. I The letter likewise contains much about religion, which I do not copy, that may avoid all risk of seeming levity upon so awful a subject. The general rejoicings for the triumphant peace of 1814 were soon succeeded by dangerous riots on account of the bill to prohibit the importation of all foreign corn till wheat had reached the price of eighty shillings the quarter, and other cereals were proportionally dear. Lord Eldon probably thought, like Lord Sidmouth* and many other respectable politicians, that foreign corn should at all times be contraband, or that the price when importation was to be permitted should have been still higher, and no blame could have been imputed to him if he had felt and expressed such sentiments. But, in reality, he had taken no part in the corn law debates, except complaining of the violent clamour which had been raised upon the subject out of doors, and very properly resisting a petition from the Lord Mayor and Livery of London to be heard against the bill by counsel at the bar.† Nevertheless he was, for his supposed hostility to free trade, specially obnoxious to the mob. Once he was rescued from their violence by Lady Eldon. At the rising of the House of Lords a great assemblage of workmen and apprentices insulted him, as he was waiting for his carriage to return home; but on finding, when it drove up, that his wife, who had been in the habit of coming to fetch him, was in it, and had not been deterred from her duty by the fear of their violence,-they gave her three cheers, and allowed both of them to depart in peace. However, in the night of the 6th of March, his house in Bedford Square was attacked by a large body of the rioters, who broke the windows, tore up the iron railings, and bursting open the outer door, rushed into the hall. There they were checked by a guard of soldiers, called in through a back entry from the British Museum, which was close by, and a manœuvre intended to represent the military force much greater than it really was having succeeded, they were panic-struck, and took to flight. The Chancellor then gallantly sallying forth, brought in two prisoners, and said to them, "If you don't mind what you are about, lads, you will all come to be hanged." On which one of them said, -as their friends were coming to their rescue,"Perhaps so, old chap ; but I think it looks now as if you would be hanged first." In telling the story the old Peer would add, and I had my misgivings that he was in the right." However, he got his wife and children safely into the Museum, and the mob were dispersed by a large re-enforcement of soldiers. * See Letter, 15th March, 1815, in which he says,-" My apprehension and conviction is, that the protecting price (80s.,) as fixed by the bill, is not sufficient to give that confidence to the corn grower which is essential to the attainment of the great object of the bill,-namely, an ample and independent supply." He then goes on to explain that the continual dread of arriving at that price would check the application of capital and labour to the production of grain from our own soil. Life, iii. 127. † On this occasion, while he was saying, "Why must not Bristol be heardwhy not Birmingham-why not Cheltenham-why not every town in the kingdom?" the Duke of Gloucester cheered ironically and offensively; whereupon Lord Eldon said, with great spirit, "The illustrious Duke cries Hear! hear!" I wish he would hear; and I now tell him, that as I think all petitioners equal, I know all peers to be so."-30 Parl. Deb. 243. For three weeks his house was a garrison, and during all that time he could only get to Westminster Hall by going stealthily through the Museum Gardens, and diving into all the ob. [A. D. 1815.] scure alleys in which he could find a passage, attended by Townsend, the Bow Street officer, and a rear-guard of policemen. Such were the stories he told, but I think that, like other great lawyers giving an account of their conflicts with mobs, he must have exaggerated a little both his perils and his prowess. * The discussion about the corn laws and all internal disputes were suddenly suspended by the astounding intelligence that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, had landed at Cannes, had been joined by all the troops stationed at Grenoble, had proceeded in triumph to Paris, and was again established at the Tuilleries in the place of Louis XVIII., who had fled to Ghent. Although a wild Jacobin who thought that the world must be regenerated by the subversion of all the old monarchies in Europe, joyously tossed up his hat at the thought of the coming confusion-the rightly disposed of all parties in the state now cordially concurred in assisting the Government to crush our implacable foe, and to maintain our independence as a nation. It is not mine to record the glories of Waterloo, and there was no memorable occurrence, within my humble sphere, till, on Napoleon being brought captive in an English ship of war to Plymouth, the question arose, how his person was to be disposed of? Lord Ellenborough, Sir William Grant, Sir William Scott, and other JULY.] great jurists being consulted, they gave conflicting and very unsatisfactory opinions with respect to the law of nations upon the status of the Emperor, some saying that he was to be regarded as a prisoner of war—others as a subject of Louis XVIII., to whom he should be delivered up to be tried for treason-and others as a pirate or hostis humani generis, carrying about with him caput lupinum-while there were not wanting persons so romantically liberal as to contend that, having thrown himself on our hospitality, he was entitled to immediate freedom, and that he should be allowed to range at pleasure over the earth. I think Lord Eldon took a much more sensible view of the subject than any of them-which was "that the case was not provided for by any thing to be found in Grotius or Vattel, but that the law of selfpreservation would justify the keeping of him under restraint in some distant region, where he should be treated with all indulgence compatible with a due regard for the peace of mankind." Accordingly, St. Helena was selected as the place of his exile; and to put a stop to all experiments in our Courts, by writs of habeas corpus, or actions for false imprisonment, an Act of Parliament was passed to legalize his detention. Had the disgraceful disputes been avoided which afterwards * Vide ante, Vol. VI. † 56 Geo. 3, c. 22. Lord Eldon very properly resisted a motion of Lord Holland, for a reference to the opinion of the Judges relating to the character in which Napoleon Bonaparte stood after his surrender, and our right to detain him as a prisoner.-8th April, 1816. 33 Parl. Deb. 1019. · took place respecting the number of bottles of wine he should be allowed for dinner, and the domiciliary visits to which he should be liable, I believe that his captivity at Longwood would have brought no impeachment on British justice or generosity, either in his own age or with posterity. As things were managed, I am afraid it will be said that he was treated in the nineteenth century, with the same cruel spirit as the Maid of Orleans was in the fifteenth; and there may be tragedies on the Death of Napoleon, in which Sir Hudson Lowe will be the "SBIRRO❞—and even Lord Eldon may be introduced as the Stern Old Councillor who decreed the hero's imprisonment. CHAPTER CCIII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ELDON TILL THE DEATH OF GEORGE III. Ir will be impossible for the future historian to clear Lord Eldon's fame from the charge of sadly mistaking his duty respecting the institutions of his own country. Some thought that with peace a new era of improvement would have begun, the answer to all attempts at reform during [A. D. 1815.] the last quarter of a century having been-"This is not the time for such projects, when we are fighting for our existence;" but Lord Eldon still obdurately defended every antiquated abuse and absurdity which disgraced our jurisprudence. Sir Samuel Romilly sent up from the House of Commons a bill to subject freehold lands to simple contract debts, for the purpose of preventing this fraud (among others,) that a man might borrow 100,000l. to buy an estate, and dying, leave it unencumbered to his son-without a shilling of the debt being ever repaid. But Lord Eldon rejected the bill, after a long speech, in which he condemned it as contrary to the wisdom of our ancestors, and subversive of the Constitution under which we had long flourished. I believe he was quite sincere; and the great bulk of his audience listened to him with reverence-insomuch that Lord Grey, who ably advocated the measure, was obliged to give it up without a division. A few years after, I had the pleasure of humbly assisting my friend, Mr. John Romilly, the son of Sir Samuel, to pass this very bill through Parliament-when, even in the House of Lords, it met with hardly any opposition. Its justice and expediency are now so universally acknowledged, that people can hardly believe there was so recently a state of the public mind which could permit its rejection. Strange to say, Lord Eldon countenanced an innovation in the ad * 31 Parl. Deb, 1037. |