Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/433

 Canning first of all suggested to his majesty that he should endeavour to construct an exclusively protestant administration, of which he himself, while giving it an independent support, should not be a member. This advice was given on 28 March, and between this time and 9 April George IV had interviews with the Duke of Wellington and Peel, who recommended just the contrary—namely, that his majesty should make no attempt to form an exclusively protestant administration. All three, Canning, Wellington, and Peel, would have been glad to form a neutral government like Lord Liverpool's, but they could find nobody exactly qualified to fill Lord Liverpool's place. The matter, in fact, stood as follows: If an anti-catholic premier was appointed over Canning's head, solely on religious grounds, there was a clear violation of neutrality; if a pro-catholic was appointed, then it could be nobody but Canning. He himself would not accept the first alternative, nor Peel and Wellington the second. The choice, therefore, lay between Canning without these, and these without Canning. The duke and his friend contrived to leave an impression on the king's mind that they were trying to dictate to him, and this was quite enough to turn the scale in Canning's favour. George IV, who, if he cared for nothing else, cared a good deal about his own prerogative and his right to name his own ministers, told the Duke of Buckingham, almost in so many words, that this was his reason for giving the seals to Canning, who accordingly on 10 April received his majesty's commands to form a new administration. Lord Eldon, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Westmorland, Lord Melville, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bexley, and Peel at once resigned, and drove Canning to an alliance with the whigs, for which he has frequently been blamed, but which he could hardly have avoided without either damaging the cause of Roman catholic emancipation and bringing doubts upon his own sincerity, or violating one of the cardinal doctrines of toryism by refusing to assist the king against an aristocratic cabal. That this was the light in which the situation appeared to Canning is evident from the letter to Croker, which is published in the first volume of the ‘Croker Papers.’ And that the reason we have assigned was the one which actuated George IV may safely be concluded not only from the Buckingham diary to which we have already referred, but also from a letter of Huskisson's likewise to be found in the ‘Croker Papers.’

It is known that the Duke of Wellington conceived himself to have been very ill treated by Canning in the course of these transactions, and those who are curious on such passages may consult their correspondence on the subject, which is to be found in full both in the ‘Duke of Wellington's Despatches,’ and also in Stapleton's ‘Life.’ A not unimportant question raised in it is whether the person first sent for by the sovereign is the one whom he necessarily intends to be prime minister. It does not seem to us that Canning is fairly open to the charge of underhand dealing, while as to the second point they seem to have been at cross purposes—Canning referring to the interview in which the king directly charged him with the formation of a ministry, Wellington to another in which the king only asked for his advice.

In justice to the memory of Canning it must be recorded here that in his agreement with the whigs he did not abandon a single article of his own creed, but that on the contrary he exacted from those who took office with him a pledge that they would neither raise the question of parliamentary reform nor support the repeal of the Test Act. In Canning's ministry, as finally constituted, Lord Lyndhurst was chancellor, Lord Lansdowne secretary for the home department, Lord Dudley for the foreign, Lord Carlisle privy seal, and Mr. Tierney master of the mint. Canning himself was chancellor of the exchequer, Huskisson president of the board of trade, and Lord Palmerston, remaining secretary-at-war, was now admitted into the cabinet. The ministry was strong in ability, and commanded a working majority in the House of Commons. Whether, had its existence been prolonged, it would have gathered round itself the confidence of the public and insured a new lease of power to the tory party, once again liberalised by Pitt's pupil as it had been formerly by Pitt himself, is now a matter of pure speculation. The session of 1827 was made bitter to Canning by the unrelenting hostility exhibited by his former friends. On all commercial questions both Lord Liverpool and Canning had always taken the same view as Pitt, and were, in theory at all events, free-traders. No one was readier than Lord Liverpool to acknowledge the mistake that had been made in the corn law of 1815, and before Canning's accession some modification of it had been adopted. In 1826 he was busily engaged in devising a further relaxation of the law, and it was the last thing on which he was intent before his retirement from public life. The measure, which was the joint production of himself and Huskisson, was introduced by Canning on 1 March 1827. It was founded on what is called the