ly relieve them but returning prosperity, and that depended
more on events which could not be foreseen than on legislation itself.

Such was the condition, in general terms, of high and low, rich and
poor, in England in the year 1815, and I have now to show what occupied
the attention of the government for the next fifteen years, during the
reign of George IV. as regent and as king. But first let us take a brief
review of the men prominent in the government.

Lord Liverpool was the prime minister of England for fifteen years, from
1812 (succeeding to Perceval upon the latter's assassination) to 1827.
He was a man of moderate abilities, but honest and patriotic; this chief
merit was in the tact by which he kept together a cabinet of
conflicting political sentiments; but he lived in comparatively quiet
times, when everybody wanted rest and repose, and when he had only to
combat domestic evils. The lord chancellor, Lord Eldon, had been seated
on the woolsack from nearly the beginning of the century, and was the
"keeper of the king's conscience" for twenty-five years, enjoying his
great office for a longer period than any other lord chancellor in
English history. He was doubtless a very great lawyer and a man of
remarkable sagacity and insight, but the narrowest and most bigoted of
all the great men who controlled the destinies of the nation. He
absolutely abhorred any change whatever and any kind of reform. He
adhered to what was already established, and _because_ it was
established; therefore he was a good churchman and a most reliable Tory.

The most powerful man in the cabinet at this time, holding the second
office in the government, that of foreign secretary, was Lord
Castlereagh,--no very great scholar or orator or man of business, but an
inveterate Tory, who played into the hands of all the despots of Europe,
and who made captive more powerful minds than his own by the elegance of
his manners, the charm of his conversation, and the intensity of his
convictions. William Pitt never showed greater sagacity than when he
bought the services of this gifted aristocrat (for he was then a Whig),
and introduced him into Parliament. He was the most prominent minister
of the crown until he died, directing foreign affairs with ability, but
in the wrong direction,--the friend and ally of Metternich,
Chateaubriand, Hardenberg, and the monarchs whom they represented.

But foremost in genius among the great statesmen of the day wa