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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1281: DEBATE ON THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DEBATE ON THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW.

The annexation of Cracow to the Austrian empire has been already related in this chapter. Several allusions were made to this in the debates on the address, but on the 4th of March Mr. Hume brought the subject forward in a formal manner. Mr. Hume, however, so mixed up the subject with the Russo-Dutch loan, that his resolutions as far as regarded Cracow were impracticable, and he withdrew them after uselessly occupying the time of the house by a long debate.

There were few matters of interest connected with the remainder of the session. Lord Palmerston delivered a speech in which he animadverted so severely on the bad faith of the Spanish government, in reference to Spanish bonds, as to produce great indignation in Spain. It was supposed that the good effects of the speech, however, would be felt by those interested in the punctual disbursements of the Spanish government. That government had too little probity to meet the calls of honour, and too little shame to be moved by the disapprobation of honest men.

It was resolved by the government of Lord John Russell to advise her majesty to dissolve parliament, so that the elections might terminate before harvest; various bills were therefore postponed or abandoned.

Lord Lyndhurst had been accustomed to take a retrospective view of each session, in a speech which recapitulated the doings and misdoings of government, according to his lordship’s view of them. Lord Brougham, ambitious to do everything, even when he knew others could do it better, resolved to perform the task usually sustained by his brother ex-chancellor. The performance was inferior to that usually accomplished by the noble Baron Lyndhurst, although in declamatory force Lord Brougham’s oration was perfect. All the bills passed in the session he described as bad ones. Many of those lost or abandoned, if introduced by government, he represented as useless, and their introduction as a waste of time. Every epithet of contempt furnished by the English language, and by any other which his lordship knew, however imperfectly, was heaped upon the defunct bills. They were consigned to the shades below, to that “lean world” where—

“Ibant obseuri sola sub nocte per nmbram Perque domos Ditis vacuas et mania regna.”

What his lordship said of the defunct measures will be true of himself, when his great energies are still, and his eloquent tongue silent for ever—“A thousand faults and a thousand freaks died with them.” His lordship appended a condemnatory motion to his speech, which, like most of his motions, came to nothing. The house was greatly amused, and even instructed, by the noble lord’s oration, but not at all edified. The Marquis of Lansdowne replied with that calm and graceful dignity by which that venerable peer was so much distinguished; and his reply carried with it the weight of his consistent political character, for the house unanimously adopted his course.