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The Grand Old Man

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THE GRAND OLD MAN

OR THE

Life and Public Services

of

The Right Honorable William Ewart

GLADSTONE


Four Times

Prime Minister of England

BY

Richard B. Cook, D.D.




PREFACE

William E. Gladstone was cosmopolitan. The Premier of the British Empire
is ever a prominent personage, but he has stood above them all. For more
than half a century he has been the active advocate of liberty, morality
and religion, and of movements that had for their object the prosperity,
advancement and happiness of men. In all this he has been upright,
disinterested and conscientious in word and deed. He has proved himself
to be the world's champion of human rights. For these reasons he has
endeared himself to all men wherever civilization has advanced to
enlighten and to elevate in this wide world.

With the closing of the 19th century the world is approaching a crisis
in which every nation is involved. For a time the map of the world
might as well be rolled up. Great questions that have agitated one or
more nations have convulsed the whole earth because steam and
electricity have annihilated time and space. Questions that have sprung
up between England and Africa, France and Prussia, China and Japan,
Russia and China, Turkey and Armenia, Greece and Turkey, Spain and
America have proved international and have moved all nations. The daily
proceedings of Congress at Washington are discussed in Japan.

In these times of turning and overturning, of discontent and unrest, of
greed and war, when the needs of the nations most demand men of
world-wide renown, of great experience in government and diplomacy, and
of firm hold upon the confidence of the people; such men as, for
example, Gladstone, Salisbury, Bismark, Crispi and Li Hung Chang, who
have led the mighty advance of civilization, are passing away. Upon
younger men falls the heavy burden of the world, and the solution of the
mighty problems of this climax of the most momentous of all centuries.

However, the Record of these illustrious lives remains to us for
guidance and inspiration. History is the biography of great men. The
lamp of history is the beacon light of many lives. The biography of
William E. Gladstone is the history, not only of the English
Parliament, but of the progress of civilization in the earth for the
whole period of his public life. With the life of Mr. Gladstone in his
hand, the student of history or the young statesman has a light to guide
him and to help him solve those intricate problems now perplexing the
nations, and upon the right solution of which depends Christian
civilization--the liberties, progress, prosperity and happiness of the
human race.

Hence, the life and public services of the Grand Old Man cannot fail to
be of intense interest to all, particularly to the English, because he
has repeatedly occupied the highest position under the sovereign of
England, to the Irish whether Protestant or Catholic, north or south,
because of his advocacy of (Reforms) for Ireland; to the Scotch because
of his Scottish descent; to the German because he reminds them of their
own great chancellor, the Unifier of Germany, Prince Bismarck; and to
the American because he was ever the champion of freedom; and as there
has been erected in Westminster Abbey a tablet to the memory of Lord
Howe, so will the American people enshrine in their hearts, among the
greatest of the great, the memory of William Ewart Gladstone.

"In youth a student and in eld a sage;
Lover of freedom; of mankind the friend;
Noble in aim from childhood to the end;
Great is thy mark upon historic page."




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND BIRTH

CHAPTER II
AT ETON AND OXFORD

CHAPTER III
EARLY PARLIAMENTARY EXPERIENCES

CHAPTER IV
BOOK ON CHURCH AND STATE

CHAPTER V
TRAVELS AND MARRIAGE

CHAPTER VI
ENTERS THE CABINET

CHAPTER VII
MEMBER FOR OXFORD

CHAPTER VIII
THE NEAPOLITAN PRISONS

CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST BUDGET

CHAPTER X
THE CRIMEAN WAR

CHAPTER XI
IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER XII
HOMERIC STUDIES

CHAPTER XIII
GREAT BUDGETS

CHAPTER XIV
LIBERAL REFORMER AND PRIME MINISTER

CHAPTER XV
THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM

CHAPTER XVI
THE EASTERN QUESTION

CHAPTER XVII
MIDLOTHIAN AND THE SECOND PREMIERSHIP

CHAPTER XVIII
THIRD ADMINISTRATION AND HOME RULE

CHAPTER XIX
PRIME MINISTER THE FOURTH TIME

CHAPTER XX
IN PRIVATE LIFE

CHAPTER XXI
CLOSING SCENES

[Illustration: Gladstone entering Palace Yard, Westminster.]



"In thought, word and deed,
How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure,
I find it easy to believe."
--ROBERT BROWNING




List of Illustrations.

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE (_Frontispiece_)

GLADSTONE ENTERING PALACE YARD, WESTMINSTER

GLADSTONE AND SISTER

INTERIOR OF THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS

BIRTHPLACE OF GLADSTONE

GLIMPSES OF GLADSTONE'S EARLIER YEARS

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

GLADSTONE'S LONDON RESIDENCE

LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

GRATTAN

KILMAINHAM JAIL

GLADSTONE'S MARRIAGE AT HAWARDEN

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET, LONDON

THE PARK GATE, HAWARDEN

OLD HAWARDEN CASTLE

HAWARDEN CASTLE, FROM THE PARK

WATERFALL IN HAWARDEN PARK

COURT YARD, HAWARDEN

GLADSTONE READING THE LESSONS AT HAWARDEN CHURCH

THE REV. H. DREW

DOROTHY'S DOVECOTE

DINING-ROOM IN THE ORPHANAGE

STAIRCASE IN THE ORPHANAGE

HAWARDEN CHURCH

HAWARDEN CASTLE

LOYAL ULSTER

GLADSTONE'S EARLY ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES

GLADSTONE'S LATER ENGLISH CONTEMPORARIES

GLADSTONE IN WALES

CITY AND COUNTY VOLUNTEERS OF DUBLIN

CONDITION OF IRELAND, 1882

GLADSTONE VISITING NEAPOLITAN PRISONS

GLADSTONE INTRODUCING HIS FIRST BUDGET

THE SUNDERLAND SHIPOWNER SURPRISED

FAMILY GROUP AT HAWARDEN

HOUSE OF COMMONS

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

GLADSTONE AND GRANDDAUGHTER

GLADSTONE'S AXE

GLADSTONE FAMILY GROUP

SALISBURY MINISTRY DEFEATED

THE OLD LION

GLADSTONE'S RECEPTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

GLADSTONE'S MAIL

RELEASE OF PARNELL, DILLON AND O'KELLY

GLADSTONE ON HIS WAY HOME

THE MIDLOTHIAN CAMPAIGN

QUEEN VICTORIA

GLADSTONE AND HIS SON, HERBERT

GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

IRISH LEADERS

IRISH CONSTABULARY EVICTING TENANTS

GLADSTONE'S STUDY AT HAWARDEN

FOURTH ADMINISTRATION CABINET

GLADSTONE ON THE QUEEN'S YACHT

ST. JAMES PALACE

QUEEN AND PREMIER

GLADSTONE IN HIS STUDY, READING

MR. AND MRS. GLADSTONE, 1897



INTRODUCTORY.

There are few, even among those who differed from him, who would deny to
Mr. Gladstone the title of a great statesman: and in order to appreciate
his wonderful career, it is necessary to realize the condition of the
world of thought, manners and works at the time when he entered
public life.

In medicine there was no chloroform; in art the sun had not been
enlisted in portraiture; railways were just struggling into existence;
the electric telegraph was unknown; gas was an unfashionable light;
postage was dear, and newspapers were taxed.

In literature, Scott had just died; Carlyle was awaiting the publication
of his first characteristic book; Tennyson was regarded as worthy of
hope because of his juvenile poems; Macaulay was simply a brilliant
young man who had written some stirring verse and splendid prose; the
Brontës were schoolgirls; Thackeray was dreaming of becoming an artist;
Dickens had not written a line of fiction; Browning and George Eliot
were yet to come.

In theology, Newman was just emerging from evangelicalism; Pusey was an
Oxford tutor; Samuel Wilberforce a village curate; Henry Manning a young
graduate; and Darwin was commencing that series of investigations which
revolutionized the popular conception of created things.

Princess, afterwards Queen Victoria, was a girl of thirteen; Cobden a
young calico printer; Bright a younger cotton spinner; Palmerston was
regarded as a man-about-town, and Disraeli as a brilliant and eccentric
novelist with parliamentary ambition. The future Marquis of Salisbury
and Prime Minister of Great Britain was an infant scarcely out of arms;
Lord Rosebery, (Mr. Gladstone's successor in the Liberal Premiership),
Lord Spencer, Lord Herschell, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman,
Mr. Asquith, Mr. Brice, Mr. Acland and Mr. Arnold Morley, or more than
half the members of his latest cabinet remained to be born; as did also
the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, among those who
were his keenest opponents toward the end of his public career.

At last the end of Mr. Gladstone's public life arrived, but it had been
extended to an age greater than that at which any English statesman had
ever conducted the government of his country.

Of the significance of the life of this great man, it would be
superfluous to speak. The story will signally fail of its purpose if it
does not carry its own moral with it. We can best conclude these
introductory remarks by applying to the subject of the following pages,
some words which he applied a generation ago to others:

In the sphere of common experience we see some human beings live and
die, and furnish by their life no special lessons visible to man, but
only that general teaching in elementary and simple forms which is
derivable from every particle of human histories. Others there have
been, who, from the times when their young lives first, as it were,
peeped over the horizon, seemed at once to--

"'Flame in the forehead of the evening sky,'"
--Whose lengthening years have been but one growing
splendor, and who at last--
"------Leave a lofty name,
A light, a landmark on the cliffs of fame."




CHAPTER I


ANCESTRY AND BIRTH

All history, says Emerson, "resolves itself into the biographies of a
few stout and earnest persons." These remarks find exemplification in
the life of William Ewart Gladstone, of whom they are pre-eminently
true. His recorded life, from the early period of his graduation to his
fourth premiership, would embrace in every important respect not only
the history of the British Empire, but very largely the international
events of every nation of the world for more than half a century.

William Ewart Gladstone, M.P., D.C.L., statesman, orator and scholar,
was born December 27, 1809, in Liverpool, England. The house in which he
was born, number 62 Rodney Street, a commodious and imposing
"double-fronted" dwelling of red brick, is still standing. In the
neighborhood of the Rodney Street house, and a few years before or after
the birth of William E. Gladstone, a number of distinguished persons
were born, among them William Roscoe, the writer and philanthropist,
John Gibson, the sculptor, Doctor Bickersteth, the late Bishop of Ripon,
Mrs. Hemans, the poetess, and Doctor James Martineau, Professor of
Mental and Moral Philosophy in Manchester New College, and the brother
of Harriet Martineau, the authoress.

The Gladstone family, or Gledstanes, which was the original family name,
was of Scottish origin. The derivation of the name is obvious enough to
any one familiar with the ancestral home. A _gled_ is a hawk, and that
fierce and beautiful bird would have found its natural refuge among the
_stanes_, or rocks, of the craggy moorlands which surround the
"fortalice of gledstanes." As far back as 1296 Herbert de Gledstane
figures in the Ragman Roll as one of the lairds who swore fealty to
Edward I. His descendants for generations held knightly rank, and bore
their part in the adventurous life of the Border. The chief stock was
settled at Liberton, in the upper part of Clydesdale. It was a family of
Scottish lairds, holding large estates in the sixteenth century. The
estate dwindled, and in the beginning of the seventeenth century passed
out of their hands, except the adjacent property of Authurshiel, which
remained in their possession for a hundred years longer. A younger
branch of the family--the son of the last of the Gledstanes of
Arthurshiel--after many generations, came to dwell at Biggar, in
Lanarkshire, where he conducted the business of a "maltster," or
grain merchant.

Here, and at about this time, the name was changed to Gladstones, and a
grandson of the maltster of Biggar, Thomas Gladstones, settled in Leith
and there became a "corn-merchant." He was born at Mid Toftcombs, in
1732, and married Helen Neilson, of Springfield. His aptitude for
business was so great that he was enabled to make ample provision for a
large family of sixteen children. His son, John Gladstone, was the
father of William E. Gladstone, the subject of our sketch.

Some have ascribed to Mr. Gladstone an illustrious, even a royal
ancestry, through his father's marriage. He met and married a lovely,
cultured and pious woman of Dingwall, in Orkney, the daughter of Andrew
Robertson, Provost of Dingwall, named Ann Robertson, whom the
unimpeachable Sir Bernard Burke supplied with a pedigree from Henry III,
king of England, and Robert Bruce, of Bannockburn, king of Scotland, so
that it is royal English and Scottish blood that runs in the veins of
Mr. Gladstone.

"This alleged illustrious pedigree," says E.B. Smith, in his elaborate
work on William E. Gladstone, "is thus traced: Lady Jane Beaufort, who
was a descendant of Henry III, married James I, of Scotland, who was a
descendant of Bruce. From this alliance it is said that the steps can be
followed clearly down to the father of Miss Robertson. A Scottish writer
upon genealogy, also referring to this matter, states that Mr. Gladstone
is descended on the mother's side from the ancient Mackenzie of Kintail,
through whom is introduced the blood of the Bruce, of the ancient Kings
of Man, and of the Lords of the Isles and Earls of Ross; also from the
Munros of Fowlis, and the Robertsons of Strowan and Athole. What was of
more consequence to the Gladstones of recent generations, however, than
royal blood, was the fact that by their energy and honorable enterprise
they carved their own fortunes, and rose to positions of public esteem
and eminence." It has been their pride that they sprang from the ranks
of the middle classes, from which have come so many of the great men of
England eminent in political and military life.

In an address delivered at the Liverpool Collegiate Institute, December
21, 1872, Sir John Gladstone said; "I know not why the commerce of
England should not have its old families rejoicing to be connected with
commerce from generation to generation. It has been so in other
countries; I trust it may be so in this country. I think it is a subject
of sorrow, and almost of scandal, when those families who have either
acquired or recovered wealth and station through commerce, turn their
backs upon it and seem to be ashamed of it. It certainly is not so with
my brother or with me. His sons are treading in his steps, and one of my
sons, I rejoice to say, is treading in the steps of my father and
my brother."

George W.E. Russell, in his admirable biography of Mr. William E.
Gladstone, says, "Sir John Gladstone was a pure Scotchman, a lowlander
by birth and descent. Provost Robertson belonged to the Clan Donachie,
and by this marriage the robust and business-like qualities of the
Lowlander were blended with the poetic imagination, the sensibility and
fire of the Gael."

An interesting story is told, showing how Sir John Gladstone, the father
of William E. Gladstone, came to live in Liverpool, and enter upon his
great business career, and where he became a merchant prince. Born at
Leith in 1763, he in due time entered his father's business, where he
served until he was twenty-one years old. At that time his father sent
him to Liverpool to dispose of a cargo of grain, belonging to him, which
had arrived at that port. His demeanor and business qualities so
impressed Mr. Corrie, a grain merchant of that place, that he urged his
father to let him settle there. Consent was obtained and young Gladstone
entered the house of Corrie & Company as a clerk. His tact and
shrewdness were soon manifest, and he was eventually taken into the firm
as a partner, and the name of the house became Corrie, Gladstone
& Bradshaw.

John Gladstone on one occasion proved the temporary preserver of the
firm of which he had become a member. He was sent to America to buy
grain for the firm, in a time of great scarcity in Europe, owing to the
failure of the crops, but he found the condition of things the same in
America. There was no grain to be had. While in great perplexity as to
what to do he received advices from Liverpool that twenty-four vessels
had been dispatched for the grain he was expected to purchase, to bring
it to Europe. The prospect was that these vessels would have to return
to Europe empty as they had come, and the house of Corrie & Company be
involved thereby in ruin. It was then that John Gladstone rose to the
emergency of the occasion, and by his enterprise and energy saved
himself and partners from financial failure, to the great surprise and
admiration of the merchants of Liverpool. It was in this way: He made a
thorough examination of the American markets for articles of commerce
that could be sold in Europe to advantage, and filling his vessels with
them sent them home. This sagacious movement not only saved his house,
but gave him a name and place among the foremost merchants of his day.
His name was also a synonym for push and integrity, not only on the
Liverpool exchange, but in London and throughout all England. The
business of the firm became very great and the wealth of its members
very large.

During the war with Napoleon, on the continent, and the war of 1812 with
the United States, the commerce of England, as mistress of the seas, was
injured, and the Gladstone firm suffered greatly and was among the first
to seek peace, for its own sake and in the interests of trade. In one
year the commerce of Liverpool declined to the amount of 140,000 tons,
which was about one-fourth of the entire trade, and there was a decrease
of more than $100,000 in the dock-dues of that port. John Gladstone was
among those who successfully petitioned the British government for a
change of its suicidal policy towards the American States.

After sixteen years of successful operations, during a part of which
time it had been government agent, the firm was dissolved and its
business was continued by John Gladstone. His six brothers having
followed him from Leith to Liverpool, he took into partnership with him
his brother Robert. Their business became very extensive, having a large
trade with Russia, and as sugar importers and West India merchants. John
Gladstone was the chairman of the West India Association and took an
active part in the improvement and enlargement of the docks of
Liverpool. In 1814, when the monopoly of the East India Company was
broken and the trade of India and China thrown open to competition, the
firm of John Gladstone & Company was the first to send a private vessel
to Calcutta.

John Gladstone was a public-spirited man and took great interest in the
welfare of his adopted city. He was ever ready to labor for its
prosperity, and consequently endeared himself to the people of all
classes and conditions, and of every shade of political opinion.

The high estimation in which he was held by the citizens of Liverpool
was especially manifest October 18, 1824, when they presented him with a
testimonial, consisting of a magnificent service of plate, of
twenty-eight pieces, and bearing the following inscription: "_To John
Gladstone, Esq., M.P., this service of plate was presented MDCCCXXIV, by
his fellow townsmen and friends, to mark their high sense of his
successful exertions for the promotion of trade and commerce, and in
acknowledgment of his most important services rendered to the town of
Liverpool_."

John Gladstone, though devoted to commerce, had time for literary
pursuits. He wrote a pamphlet, "On the Present State of Slavery in the
British West Indies and in the United States of America; and on the
Importation of Sugar from British Settlements in India." He also
published, in 1830, another pamphlet, containing a statement of facts
connected with the same general subject, "in a letter addressed to Sir
Robert Peel." In 1846 he published a pamphlet, entitled "Plain facts
intimately connected with the intended Repeal of the Corn Laws; or
Probable Effects on the Public Revenue and the Prosperity of
the Country."

From the subject discussed it can be readily and truly imagined that
John Gladstone had given thought to political subjects. He was in favor
of a qualified reform which, while affording a greater enfranchisement
of the people, looked also to the interests of all. Having an opinion,
and not being afraid to express it, he was frequently called upon to
address public meetings. The matters discussed by him were, however,
rather national than municipal, rather humane than partisan. He was a
strong advocate for certain reforms at home in 1818, and in 1823 on the
seas, and for Greek independence in 1824. "On the 14th of February,
1824, a public meeting was held in Liverpool Town Hall, 'for the purpose
of considering the best means of assisting the Greeks in their present
important struggle for independence.' Mr. Gladstone spoke impressively
in favor of the cause which had already evoked great enthusiasm amongst
the people, and enlisted the sympathies and support of Lord Byron and
other distinguished friends of freedom."

It was in 1818 that he addressed a meeting called "to consider the
propriety of petitioning Parliament to take into consideration the
progressive and alarming increase in the crimes of forging and uttering
forged Bank of England notes." The penalties for these crimes were
already heavy, but their infliction did not deter men from committing
them, and these crimes increased at an enormous rate. Resolutions were
passed at the Liverpool meeting, recommending the revision and amendment
of existing laws.

Then again, so late as the year 1823, the navigation between Liverpool
and Dublin was in a lamentable condition, and human life was recklessly
imperiled, and no one seemed willing to interfere and to interest
himself in the interests of humanity. It was then that he again came to
the front to advocate a just cause. To illustrate the dangers to vessels
and passengers, the case of the sloop _Alert_ may be cited. It was
wrecked off the Welsh coast, with between 100 and 140 persons on board,
of whom only seventeen were saved. For the safety and rescue of all
those souls on board this packet-boat there was only one small shallop,
twelve feet long. Mr. Gladstone was impressed with the terrible nature
of the existing evil, and obtained an amendment to the Steamboat Act,
requiring imperatively that every passenger vessel should be provided
with boats sufficient for every passenger it was licensed to carry. By
this wise and humane provision thousands of lives were doubtless saved
that would otherwise have been lost--the victims of reckless seamanship
and commercial greed.

John Gladstone, either through the influence of Mr. Canning, or from
having imbibed some political taste, sat in the House of Commons nine
years, representing Lancaster in 1819, Woodstock from 1821 to 1826, and
Berwick in 1827; but he never would consent to sit in Parliament for the
city of Liverpool, for he thought that so large and important a
constituency required peculiar representation such as he was
unqualified to give.

He was the warm supporter and intimate friend of the celebrated Canning.
At first he was a Whig, but finally came to support Mr. Canning, and
became a Liberal Conservative. In 1812 he presided over a meeting at
Liverpool, which was called to invite Mr. Canning to represent the
borough in Parliament. After the election the successful candidates were
claimed and carried in procession through the streets. The procession
finally halted at Mr. Gladstone's house, in Rodney Street, from the
balcony of which Mr. Canning addressed the populace. His election laid
the foundation of a deep and lasting friendship between Mr. Canning and
Mr. Gladstone. "At this time the son of the latter was but three years
of age. Shortly afterwards--that is, as soon as he was able to
understand anything of public men, and public movements and
events"--says G.B. Smith, "the name of Canning began to exercise that
strange fascination over the mind of William Ewart Gladstone which has
never wholly passed away," and Mr. Gladstone himself acknowledged that
he was brought up "under the shadow of the great name of Canning."

John Gladstone presided at a farewell dinner given by the Liverpool
Canning Club, in August, 1822, in honor of Mr. Canning, who had been
Governor-General of India. But Mr. Canning, instead of going to India,
entered the British Cabinet, and in 1827 became Prime Minister, and John
Gladstone moved a congratulatory address to the king upon the formation
of the Canning Ministry.

In 1845 John Gladstone was created a baronet by Sir Robert Peel, but he
lived to enjoy his deserved honors but a short time, for he died in
1851, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. His motto had ever been,
"Diligent in business." His enormous wealth enabled him to provide
handsomely for his family, not only after death, but during
his lifetime.

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