matter, not only with Bernadotte but with all the powers.
Castlereagh’s avowed intention to take this step without waiting
for sanction from his cabinet put an end to evasion and delay.
Blücher was reinforced by the two divisions; the battle of Laon
was fought and won, and the allies occupied the French capital.
In April 1814 Castlereagh arrived in Paris. He did not disguise
his discontent with Napoleon’s position at Elba, close to the
French coast, though he advised England not to separate
herself at this crisis from her allies. His uneasiness led him to
summon Wellington from the south to the Embassy in Paris.
He hastened himself to London during the visit of the allied
sovereigns, and met with a splendid reception. He was honoured
with the Garter, being one of the few commoners ever admitted
to that order. When the House of Commons offered to the Crown
its congratulations upon the treaty of peace, Castlereagh’s
triumph was signalized by a brilliantly eloquent panegyric
from Canning, and by a recantation of his former doubts and
denunciations from Whitbread. His own dignified language
vindicated his country from the charge of selfish ambition.
His appointment as British representative at Vienna, where the congress was to meet in September, was foreseen; but meanwhile he was not idle. The war with the United States, originating in the non-intercourse dispute and the Orders in Council, did not cease with the repeal of the latter. It lasted through 1814 till the signing of the treaty of Ghent, soon before the flight from Elba. In parliament the ministry, during Castlereagh’s absence, had been poorly championed. Canning had thrown away his chance by his unwise refusal of the Foreign Office. None of the ministers had any pretension to lead when Castlereagh was busy abroad and Canning was sulking at home, and Castlereagh’s letters to Vansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, show how these difficulties weighed upon him in facing the position at Vienna, where it was imperative for him to appear. At Vienna he realized at once that the ambition of Russia might be as formidable to Europe and to Great Britain as that of the fallen tyrant. His aim throughout had been to rescue Europe from military domination; and when he found that Russia and Prussia were pursuing ends incompatible with the general interest, he did not hesitate to take a new line. He brought about the secret treaty (Jan. 3, 1815) between Great Britain, Austria and France, directed against the plans of Russia in Poland and of Prussia in Saxony. Through Castlereagh’s efforts, the Polish and Saxon questions were settled on the basis of compromise. The threat of Russian interference in the Low Countries was dropped.
While the Congress was still unfinished, Napoleon’s escape from Elba came like a thunderclap. Castlereagh had come home for a short visit (Feb. 1815), at the urgent request of the cabinet, just before the flight was known. The shock revived the Great Alliance under the compact of Chaumont. All energies were directed to preparing for the campaign of Waterloo. Castlereagh’s words in parliament were, “Whatever measures you adopt or decision you arrive at must rest on your own power and not on reliance on this man.” Napoleon promptly published the secret treaty which Castlereagh had concluded with Metternich and Talleyrand, and the last left in the French archives. But Russia and Prussia, though much displeased, saw that, in the face of Bonaparte’s return, they dared not weaken the Alliance. British subsidies were again poured out like water. After Napoleon’s overthrow, Castlereagh successfully urged his removal to St Helena, where his custodians were charged to treat him “with all the respect due to his rank, but under such precautions as should render his escape a matter of impossibility.” Some of the continental powers demanded, after Waterloo, fines and cessions that would have crushed France; but in November a peace was finally concluded, mainly by Castlereagh’s endeavours, minimising the penalties exacted, and abandoning on England’s part the whole of her share of the indemnity. The war created an economic situation at home which strengthened the Whigs and Radicals, previously discredited by their hostility to a patriotic struggle. In 1816 the Income Tax was remitted, despite Castlereagh’s contention that something should first be done to reduce the Debt Charge. His policy, impressed upon British representatives abroad, was “to turn the confidence Great Britain inspired to the account of peace, by exercising a conciliatory influence in Europe.” Brougham’s action, at the end of 1815, denouncing the Holy Alliance, even in its early form, was calculated to embarrass England, though she was no party to what Castlereagh described as a “piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense.”
While he saw no reason in this for breaking up the Grand Alliance, which he looked upon as a convenient organ of diplomatic intercourse and as essential for the maintenance of peace, he regarded with alarm “the little spirit of German intrigue,” and agreed with Wellington that to attempt to crush France, as the Prussians desired, or to keep her in a perpetual condition of tutelage under a European concert from which she herself should be excluded, would be to invite the very disaster which it was the object of the Alliance to avoid. It was not till Metternich’s idea of extending the scope of the Alliance, by using it to crush “the revolution” wherever it should raise its head, began to take shape, from the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) onward, that Great Britain’s separation from her continental allies became inevitable. Against this policy of the reactionary powers Castlereagh from the first vigorously protested. As little was he prepared to accept the visionary schemes of the emperor Alexander for founding an effective “confederation of Europe” upon the inclusive basis of the Holy Alliance (see Alexander I. of Russia).
Meanwhile financial troubles at home, complicated by the resumption of cash payments in 1819, led to acute social tension. “Peterloo” and the “Six Acts” were furiously denounced, though the bills introduced by Sidmouth and Castlereagh were carried in both Houses by overwhelming majorities. The danger that justified them was proved beyond contest by the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820. It is now admitted by Liberal writers that the “Six Acts,” in the circumstances, were reasonable and necessary. Throughout, Castlereagh maintained his tranquil ascendancy in the House of Commons, though he had few colleagues who were capable of standing up against Brougham. Canning, indeed, had returned to office and had defended the “Six Acts,” but Castlereagh bore the whole burden of parliamentary leadership, as well as the enormous responsibilities of the Foreign Office. His appetite for work caused him to engage in debates and enquiries on financial and legal questions when he might have delegated the task to others. Althorp was struck with his unsleeping energy on the Agricultural Distress Committee; “His exertions, coupled with his other duties—and unfortunately he was always obstinate in refusing assistance—strained his constitution fearfully, as was shown by his careworn brow and increasing paleness.” In 1821, on Sidmouth’s retirement, he took upon himself the laborious functions of the Home Office. The diplomatic situation had become serious. The policy of “intervention,” with which Great Britain had consistently refused to identify herself, had been proclaimed to the world by the famous Troppau Protocol, signed by Russia, Austria and Prussia (see Troppau, Congress of). The immediate occasion was the revolution at Naples, where the egregious Spanish constitution of 1812 had been forced on the king by a military rising. With military revolts, as with paper constitutions of an unworkable type, Castlereagh had no sympathy; and in this particular case the revolution, in his opinion, was wholly without excuse or palliation. He was prepared to allow the intervention of Austria, if she considered her rights under the treaty of 1813 violated, or her position as an Italian Power imperilled. But he protested against the general claim, embodied in the Protocol, of the European powers to interfere, uninvited, in the internal concerns of sovereign states; he refused to make Great Britain, even tacitly, a party to such interference, and again insisted that her part in the Alliance was defined by the letter of the treaties, beyond which she was not prepared to go. In no case, he affirmed, would Great Britain “undertake the moral responsibility for administering a general European police,” which she would never tolerate as applied to herself.
To Troppau, accordingly, no British plenipotentiary was
