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On the first notice I sounded the alarm on the hazard of meddling CHAP. with the Toleration Act. The appeal was heard, and the Bill, XI. which was held in abhorrence by the Methodists, served only to display the numbers and improve the organisation of that powerful sect. For some days no places were to be had in the stage-coaches; all were occupied with petitions to Parliament against the measure. On the day fixed for the debate such innumerable petitions were presented by Lord Grey, Lord Erskine, Lord Stanhope, myself and others, that not only the table but the House was filled with parchment. The Peers could hardly get to the doors, the avenues were so crowded with men of grave deportment and puritanical aspect. Lord Sidmouth, with a bad grace, was obliged to yield. In the result, religious liberty was a gainer. To pacify the alarms raised and the passions excited, several important concessions were successively granted in subsequent sessions to the various Protestant Dissenters.' During the years of the Great War British liberty made little progress; but without the unceasing efforts of men like Lord Holland and Lord Stanhope it would have made none at all.

CHAPTER XII

THE LAST BATTLES, 1811-1816

I

CHAP. AMONG the domestic problems created by the Great War there XII. was none more grave nor more difficult than that of the currency.

The suspension of cash payments by the Bank in 1797 had produced its inevitable results. Gold almost ceased to circulate, and there was an over-issue of notes. After a decade the depreciation could no longer be hidden. The alarm was raised by Ricardo, and in February 1810 Horner moved for returns as to the quantity of bullion and the issue of bank-notes. A committee was appointed to investigate the causes of the high price of gold and the state of the circulating medium. The committee, presided over by Horner, reported that paper issues were always liable to depreciate unless at any moment convertible into gold. The paper currency had in fact depreciated, and the only remedy was to provide for the resumption of cash payments after two years. Horner's principles, sound though they were, aroused sharp opposition. Such was the repugnance felt at that time to doctrines now universally approved,' wrote Lord Holland some years later, 'that I was assured by Lord Lansdowne that the borough of Calne would hardly have chosen the Chairman of the Bullion Committee for their representative even if supported by his recommendation.'1 On May II Horner moved sixteen resolutions, embodying the findings of the committee, in a celebrated speech. The Bank and the Government were hostile and he was defeated. The report, however, influenced public opinion, and prepared the way for the resumption of cash payments after the close of the war.

In June 1811 Stanhope expressed his opinions in a letter

1 Further Memoirs, p. 104.

to the Lord Chancellor, which he read in the House of Lords. CHAP. Bank-notes, he maintained, ought not to be made legal tender, XII. since no one knew if a particular note was forged. He therefore proposed that the Bank of England should have branches all over the country. Possessors of bank-notes, on depositing them, should be credited with the amount, and could transfer the whole or part of it to any other person. Such a transfer might be legal tender, as the danger of forgery would be avoided. The rapidity of such transfers without any danger of loss from the mail being robbed or from insurrections or invasion was an additional recommendation. The plan was that which he had proposed to Condorcet twenty years before.

At this moment the problem was rendered urgent by the action of a Peer. Lord King, now remembered only as the biographer of Locke, determined to enforce the strict letter of his leases and to call for the payment of rent in the lawful coin of the kingdom. He sent a circular to his tenants while Parliament was still in session. 'Lord Stanhope,' writes Lord Holland, 'by some accident obtained very early intelligence of this proceeding.' The nature of this 'accident' is revealed by the Chevening archives. Two days after his speech in the House of Lords Stanhope received the following letter:

'Kingston June 26, 1811.

'My Lord,-Will you excuse the address of a private citizen to a peer of the realm? Yes! my Lord. I know the freeness of your heart is such that you can and will, more particularly when it is a public subject. Why I address you is that I see you mentioned the subject of money in last night's debate. My Lord King, who is a great landholder in this county, has served all his tenants with notice that he will have guineas for his rent or otherwise take paper after the rate of 16/- in the pound, and if they do not approve of it they may quit. It does, my Lord, strike me, that something said in the House before the prorogation might be very useful in this matter.

'Your Lordship's most humble servant and one of your best wishers,

'JOHN LEACH.'

Stanhope acted with his usual promptitude. On the following day (June 27) he introduced a Bill to give effect to his plan.1 The matter, he remarked, was rendered urgent by a Peer ordering his tenants to pay their rents in gold; and he was reported

1 Parl. Debates, xx. 762-70.

CHAP. to have said that if he took bank-notes it must be at the rate XII. of sixteen shillings in the pound. Such a proceeding was a

gross injustice. Why should a tenant owing £400 pay £500 in notes? His scheme would obviate all such difficulties. The remedy was as simple as the evil was alarming. They had merely to render it illegal for any man to pay more than 21s. for a guinea, or to receive less for a bank-note than its face value. The farmers were a most oppressed class, and would suffer most if his plan was not adopted. Liverpool and the Chancellor praised the speaker's motives and described his remedy as most efficacious; but they felt sure that the evil example of a single landowner would not be followed, and the matter could therefore wait. Stanhope rejoined that the mischief arose from considering gold the proper or only circulating medium, and that he wished there were no gold in the country. Among his audience on this occasion there was at least one very critical listener. 'I happened to be waiting at the bar of the House of Lords yesterday,' wrote Horner to Grenville on June 28, ' when Lord Stanhope presented a Bill for maintaining and enforcing the value of Bank of England paper. The manner in which his extraordinary proposal was received by Lord Liverpool and the Chancellor convinces me that the Ministers are prepared to make bank-notes legal tender. As there will be no recovery after bank-notes are made legal tender, the discussions which precede such a measure are evidently of the last importance. If your Lordship can make it convenient to take part, the expression of your sentiments might deter the Ministers from that course into which their own infatuation and the ignorance of their commercial advisers seem driving them.'1

On July 22 Stanhope moved the second reading of his Bill. It was not, he explained, a measure to make bank-notes legal tender; yet it was impossible to pay large sums in gold. He again explained his proposals, and congratulated himself on its welcome by men who seldom approved any motion of his. The only argument against action was that Lord King's example would not be followed; but he had received information that others had already demanded payment in gold. He was followed by Lord King himself, whose elaborate speech defended not only the legality but the equity of his conduct. In view of the great depreciation of bank-notes he had no alternative but to recover the real amount stipulated in the contract, neither less nor more.

1 Horner's Memoirs and Correspondence, ii. 92-3.

2 Parl. Debates, xx. 784-90.

Lord Holland supported him, and regarded his action as a CHAP. salutary warning to the Government. The only remedy was XII. for the Bank to resume its payment in specie. He never listened to the speeches of his noble friend without instruction; but his latest proposal would involve the country in calamity. Though the Bill did not make bank-notes legal tender, we should soon be unable to get anything else. It was legal tender in disguise, and would banish all money from circulation while increasing the issue of paper. Bank-notes would become like assignats, and would ultimately be valueless. If specie payments could not be resumed at once, let a period be fixed. Grenville recalled the fact that Pitt had suspended cash payments as a purely temporary measure, and confessed that he himself now regarded it as a mistake. He opposed the Bill as leading away from the goal of resumption.

After a prolonged debate Stanhope replied that he was very little given to views of self-interest.1 He had always thought that the man who was in possession of a large property, not gained by his own talents and industry but derived from the mere accident of birth, was in fact but a trustee for the public, and should return some part of that estate for its benefit. He had never received a shilling from the public, and had expended thousands and thousands for its advantage. After many years' application and at much expense and with the assistance of the ablest artists, he had invented an effectual mode of preventing the forgery of bank-notes. He had also discovered how to strike off a million plates, all of them proofs; and when he had it complete he would give the invention to the Bank. On the second reading of this foolish and mischievous Bill,' records Romilly in his Diary, the Ministers had not determined what course they should take; but after consultations between Perceval, Liverpool and other Ministers while the debate was going on, they resolved to support it.' When the second reading was carried, Grenville, Grey, Holland and other members of the minority entered a protest in the journals. On moving to go into Committee Stanhope once more pointed out that it compelled no one to accept a bank-note. Something required to be done, since gold was not to be obtained. The evil did not arise from the Bank of England but from the issue of notes by small country banks. Rebuking Lord King's action he remarked that with great landlords a few pounds ought to be no object. He once more urged his scheme for making legal tender the sums

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1 Parl. Debates, xx. 830-1.

Romilly's Life, ii. 410-11.

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