Among many studies which deal with George Canning's foreign policy in 1822–7, none is more important than Harold Temperley's The foreign policy of Canning, 1822–1827: England, the Neo-Holy Alliance, and the New World (1925). The book has a clear central theme: the principal aim of Canning's foreign policy in the period was to destroy the post-1815 system of great-power concert in Europe. In Temperley's view, there were two reasons for Canning's opposition to the so-called ‘Concert of Europe’. First, post-war British public opinion, which was predominantly isolationist and liberal, disliked the government's close association with the conservative monarchies of the European Continent – a dislike fuelled by the Continental powers' repeated attempts to use the Concert as an instrument to regulate the internal affairs of European states. Canning attached great importance to securing popular support for the government's foreign policy and, therefore, opposed Britain's continued participation in the Concert. Second, Canning thought that the Concert was unduly restraining Britain's freedom of action, and sought to replace it with a more fluid eighteenth-century style balance-of-power system to give Britain greater freedom of action. According to Temperley, many of Canning's foreign policy decisions and diplomatic manoeuvres in 1822–7 were aimed at destroying the system of great-power concert. Accordingly, he refused to send British representatives to any congresses or conferences of the five allied powers – Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia – except five ambassadorial conferences at Paris which were all connected with implementation of the treaty of Vienna of 1815.Footnote 1
Studies published since 1925 on aspects of Canning's diplomacy share one common premise: they accept Temperley's general thesis on Canning's foreign policy.Footnote 2 To give a recent example, Klaus Gallo echoes Temperley when he defines the aims of Canning's policy on the question of Spanish American independence as follows: ‘first, to shatter the Congress system, and second, to declare as soon as possible the recognition of the Spanish American colonies, not only as a matter of economic advantage for Great Britain, but also on the basis of political and ideological principle’.Footnote 3 Another recent example is John Charmley's book on Princess Dorothea Lieven, wife to the Russian ambassador in London in 1812–34. While emphasizing the opportunistic nature of Canning's policy, Charmley does not praise his diplomatic skills as unreservedly as Temperley, pointing out that his diplomatic manoeuvring was at times ‘too clever by half’. Charmley, however, concurs with Temperley that Canning's foreign policy was strongly influenced by his ‘aversion’ to European congresses and conferences which ‘amounted almost to a phobia’.Footnote 4
While Temperley's study still dominates our understanding of Canning's foreign policy, it also exerted considerable influence on our perception of nineteenth-century British foreign policy and European international relations. For example, when Henry Kissinger credited Canning with originating a ‘relentlessly pragmatic’ style of diplomacy that helped Britain reach the apogee of its influence in Europe in the nineteenth century, he evidently had Temperley's account of Canning's foreign policy in mind. Kissinger, in fact, praises Canning as the first of a series of Castlereagh's nineteenth-century successors who ‘did not understand the Continent nearly as well as he [Castlereagh] had’, but ‘had a surer grasp of what constituted the essential British national interest, and … pursued it with extraordinary skill and persistence’. Kissinger argues that Canning's ‘guiding principle was the national interest, which, in his view, was incompatible with permanent engagement in Europe’. According to Kissinger, it was this emphasis on freedom of action that enabled Britain to fulfil its role as ‘protector of the balance of power’ in Europe for the rest of the century.Footnote 5 Some historians, however, believe that this type of explanation underestimates Castlereagh's legacy. Muriel E. Chamberlain, for example, argues that the nineteenth century saw the emergence of two different ‘traditions’ in British foreign policy: ‘the Castlereagh tradition’ and ‘the Canning tradition’. Chamberlain thus differs from Kissinger in identifying ‘an alternative tradition’, but, like Kissinger's analysis, her classification of British leaders of the period owes much to Temperley's thesis. When Chamberlain classifies Wellington and Aberdeen as Castlereagh's heirs and Palmerston as heir to Canning, she uses their attitudes to Europe as a ‘vital’ criterion.Footnote 6
Elsewhere, there are also historians who, unlike Kissinger, do not accept Temperley's view that Canning's traditional balance-of-power policy eventually contributed to the stability of the European international system. In The transformation of European politics, 1763–1848 (1994), for example, Paul W. Schroeder describes how Canning's success in breaking up the European Concert, by exploiting Austro-Russian differences over the so-called question of Greek independence, put Europe's peace and stability in danger, paving the way for the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–9. Schroeder, in fact, uses the case of Canning's Greek policy as evidence to support his thesis that the stability of the ‘Vienna system’ rested not on a balance of power, but on a European-wide consensus on international norms and rules. Schroeder's disagreement with Temperley, however, is more apparent than real. Schroeder accepts Temperley's portrait of Canning as an isolationist who disliked great-power concert and his account of what Canning did, disagreeing with him only about whether what Canning did was good for Europe or not. Thus, the Schroeder thesis on the stability of the Vienna system builds – at least partly – on Temperley's account of Canning's Greek policy.Footnote 7
None of these historians, however, has undertaken a comprehensive reappraisal of Canning's foreign policy in 1822–7, although there have been a small number of archivally-based studies focused on a single issue, such as Spanish American independence or Brazilian independence.Footnote 8 Likewise, while two biographies of Canning published in the 1970s are based on extensive archival research, insufficient space is devoted to the analysis of his foreign policy.Footnote 9 This article is intended to be the first step in a thorough reappraisal of George Canning's foreign policy in 1822–7. It re-examines Canning's diplomacy with regard to the Spanish crisis of 1822–3, the first major issue he confronted at the beginning of his second foreign secretaryship.
I
The Spanish crisis of 1822–3 originated from a military revolt in Spain which, despite a false start in January 1820, succeeded two months later in forcing King Ferdinand VII to proclaim the radical Spanish constitution of 1812. The revolution, which some – including Castlereagh and Prince Metternich, the Austrian foreign minister – hoped would burn itself out, became a question of European concern, largely due to Tsar Alexander I of Russia's insistence that it be treated as such. He proposed a European conference to discuss ways of assisting the Spanish king, and also suggested that the powers of the so-called ‘European Alliance’ – Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia – jointly recommend the establishment of a moderate constitutional regime to Ferdinand VII. Unwilling to allow Alexander to extend Russian influence by posing as a guarantor of internal stability of European states, Castlereagh and Metternich rejected the tsar's proposal. Yet within two years, the question of Spain returned to the fore of European diplomacy. Notwithstanding the rejection of his plan for allied constitutionalist intervention in Spain, the tsar endorsed a similar idea after a military revolt had forced King Ferdinand IV of the Two Sicilies, an Austrian puppet, to proclaim the Spanish constitution of 1812 in July 1820. Metternich, however, had no doubt that the establishment of a moderate constitution in Naples under allied auspices would fatally undermine Austria's dominant position in Italy and Germany, acquired in 1815. Ultimately, at the congress of Troppau in late 1820, the tsar was persuaded by Metternich that any constitutional compromise at Naples would encourage revolution throughout Europe, and gave Austria a free hand to crush the Neapolitan revolution. Although Alexander's commitment to the maintenance of legitimate order in Europe was severely tested by the outbreak of a Greek revolt against Turkish rule in the spring of 1821 and the ensuing crisis between Russia and Turkey, in May 1822 he decided to forgo unilateral action against the Turks and leave decisions on the eastern question to an allied conference in Vienna late that autumn. Metternich, however, soon found that the tsar had learnt his lessons on the danger of revolution a little too well. In fact, wishing to distract his subjects' attention from his failure to assist the cause of fellow Orthodox Christians in Greece, Alexander proposed the formation of a European army to end the Spanish revolution and demanded that the question of Spain be made a major focus of the forthcoming allied conference. No less significant than Alexander's diplomatic offensive was growing support in France for military intervention in Spain. Sir Charles Stuart, the British ambassador in Paris, reported in July 1822 that some members of the French government advocated war, vocally supported by French ultra-royalists whose influence in French politics had been increasing since the early 1820s.Footnote 10
On assuming office, Canning found several ongoing questions of importance, of which Spain was the first to become critical. Temperley contended that, at the start of his second tenure as foreign secretary, Canning was not at all concerned about the growing danger of foreign intervention in Spain. For Temperley, Canning's main concern was to weaken the power and authority of the Concert of Europe by exploiting allied differences over the question of Spain. According to Temperley, not only was Canning determined to withdraw Britain from the Concert, but he also schemed to separate France from it.Footnote 11 Elsewhere, in his chapter on Canning's foreign policy in The Cambridge history of British foreign policy, 1783–1919 (1923), Temperley even asserted that Canning was content to accept French military action against Spain so long as France acted independently of the European Alliance, because he ‘saw in this process a way of breaking up the European Concert’.Footnote 12 Historians have hitherto accepted this account of Canning's policy with regard to the Spanish crisis of 1822–3, which is perfectly in line with Temperley's general thesis on Canning's foreign policy in 1822–7. For example, Irby C. Nichols, Jr, wrote in his study of the congress of Verona: ‘The prospect of a French invasion of Spain did not alarm Canning, for he had anticipated this possibility and had seen it as a means of detaching France from the Alliance, which he wanted to destroy.’Footnote 13 More recently, Charmley argued that ‘Canning did not care what happened as long as there was no intervention by the alliance’.Footnote 14
Temperley, however, failed to supply documentary evidence to support his view that Canning tried to destroy the Concert by separating France from it, while the two biographies of Canning that used his private papers, unavailable to Temperley, rejected Temperley's account of Canning's Spanish diplomacy. Wendy Hinde maintains that Canning was ‘determined to prevent’ a French invasion of Spain, while Peter Dixon argues that he worked ‘anxiously for peace’.Footnote 15 Of necessity, however, Hinde and Dixon pay only limited attention to the subject within their biographies.
II
We may begin our investigation with Canning's famous ‘come what may’ instruction of 27 September 1822. Eleven days after becoming foreign secretary, Canning sent a set of general instructions to the duke of Wellington, who had held a seat in the cabinet since 1818 as master-general of the ordnance and had been appointed as British plenipotentiary to the Vienna conference before Canning's appointment. The last part of his instructions on the affairs of European Spain ran as follows:
But if, as I confess I see reason to apprehend in the late communications both from Paris and Vienna, there is entertained by the Allies a determined project of interference by force, or by menace, in the present struggle in Spain, so convinced are his Majesty's government of the uselessness and danger of any such interference, – so objectionable does it appear to them in principle, and so utterly impracticable in execution, – that, if the necessity should arise, or (I would rather say) if the opportunity should offer, I am to instruct your Grace at once frankly and peremptorily to declare, that to any such interference, come what may, his Majesty will not be a party.Footnote 16
In Temperley's view, these were the very words with which Canning opened his ‘attack on the Congress System’. Written shortly after his assumption of office, the paragraph seemed to confirm that Canning was already determined to separate Britain from the Continental allies.Footnote 17 Careful examination of Canning's official and private correspondence shows that the story is not, however, as straightforward as Temperley believed.
By the time Canning became foreign secretary, the delegations of the Continental allies had already started discussions in Vienna, from where reports indicated that Spanish affairs would dominate the allied meeting. According to Lord Londonderry, the British ambassador in Vienna, Tsar Alexander appeared ‘eager upon the State of Spain’. Besides, Metternich, now the Austrian chancellor, Count Nesselrode, the Russian foreign minister, and Viscount Montmorency, the French foreign minister, had remonstrated with Londonderry, demanding that the British government halt the journey, at Paris, of Sir William à Court, en route to Madrid to take up the post of British minister. The Continental allies evidently intended to propose issuing an allied joint declaration against the Spanish revolution, and feared that à Court's untimely arrival in Madrid would spoil its effect by giving the Spaniards the impression that Britain was in favour of their regime.Footnote 18
Meanwhile, Wellington remained in London on account of illness, only arriving in Paris on 20 September where he had two interviews with Count Villèle, the president of the French council of ministers. Villèle told Wellington that, although he desired the preservation of peace, he could not disregard the opinion of some members of the French council that aggravation of Spain's internal situation might result in its declaration of war against France or the deposition, or murder, of the king. Accordingly, the French government would keep its army of observation along the Pyrenees. As for the allied deliberations, Villèle declared that ‘his whole policy in relation to Spain was founded upon French interests, and that it was entirely unconnected with anything the Congress might determine’. He told Wellington that he was determined to refuse material assistance from any other power, especially ‘if the assistance to be given was to be a body of troops to be passed through France’.Footnote 19
The joint remonstrance of the Continental allies on à Court's dispatch to Madrid convinced Canning that they envisaged ‘some joint public declaration’ against the Spanish constitutional government. On the other hand, he was impressed by Villèle's declaration of his determination to maintain France's freedom of action from control of the Alliance. In fact, in his instructions to Wellington of 27 September, Canning expressed his hope that ‘discordance’ between France and the eastern allies ‘may probably afford to your Grace an opportunity of evading the proposal of a joint declaration’, evidently calculating that Alexander's desire to lead his army into Spain and Montmorency's opposition would paralyse allied negotiations. Canning instructed Wellington to prevent diplomatic or military intervention by the Continental powers in Spain's internal affairs, but he apparently expected that the duke would experience little difficulty in doing so.Footnote 20
It has not hitherto been noticed that Canning's original draft of his instructions to Wellington did not explain what the latter should do if he found the Continental allies determined to take diplomatic or military action against Spain; in other words, the draft did not contain the famous ‘come what may’ instruction. When Canning sent the draft to Lord Liverpool, prime minister, for his opinion, the latter returned a note, indicating his impression that the Continental powers now appeared more likely than previously to agree on collective action against Spain, and that Wellington should be prepared for this eventuality. Liverpool argued that, ‘considering this question as one of principle and practicability’, he could not conceive any case in which it would be expedient for the allies to interfere and feared that, in the event of allied interference, the government would be criticized by the British public for involvement in their discussions and would need to justify its conduct in parliament.Footnote 21 When Canning received Liverpool's note, he added the ‘come what may’ paragraph to the dispatch.Footnote 22 In sending the added paragraph to Liverpool, Canning wrote that ‘the sense of your Note … is completely my sense also’.Footnote 23 This minor episode is, however, significant in undermining Temperley's interpretation of the ‘come what may’ dispatch, as nothing but a declaration of war by Canning on the European Concert.
III
The Vienna conference was originally scheduled to conclude in late September, when the delegations of the eastern allies were to join their Italian counterparts in Verona to discuss Italian affairs. By the time Wellington reached Vienna on 29 September, the delegations of the Continental allies had, in fact, decided to postpone the transaction of all business to Verona in the hope that Wellington would consent to follow. Having received Canning's permission to do so, the duke resumed his journey in early October, reaching Verona on 15 October.Footnote 24
The outcome of the allied discussions at Verona on the Spanish question was entirely different from what Canning had hoped. His miscalculation partly arose from his failure to realize that Montmorency, the chief of the French delegation, was the principal advocate of an active policy in the French government. Ignoring Villèle's wishes, the French foreign minister had sought allied support in both Vienna and Verona for French military intervention in Spain at the expense of France's freedom of action. Worse, the tsar started to push France towards intervention, as he realized that his allies would not accept Russian troops passing through their territories. Although Wellington could still rely on Metternich to oppose French intervention in Spain, Russia's commitment to the counter-revolutionary doctrine was so vital to Austria's interests in the eastern half of Europe that Metternich dared not openly reject the tsar's demand for its application in the west. In fact, fearful lest an outright rejection of Alexander's project drive him into war against the Turks, Metternich intended that the allied powers appease the tsar's zeal by agreeing on a diplomatic demonstration against the Spanish revolution. By early November, ignoring Wellington's uncompromising opposition to interference in Spain's internal affairs, Metternich successfully brought the Russian, Prussian, and French delegations to agree to his proposal that the Continental allies send separate, but similar, dispatches of protest against the Spanish revolution to their representatives in Madrid with instructions to communicate them to the Spanish government, although Montmorency interposed the reservation that his dispatch was subject to approval of the French council. It was agreed that their dispatches should be so phrased as to lead unfailingly to a rupture of diplomatic relations with Spain. While Metternich believed that this agreement effectively settled the question, Alexander and Montmorency regarded it as preparatory towards a war.Footnote 25
Temperley insisted that Canning remained untroubled by Wellington's reports from Verona. ‘On hearing of these discussions’, he wrote, ‘Canning approved the attitude of the Duke, but clearly foresaw that France at least might be driven into war.’Footnote 26 Temperley suggested that Canning's only concern in the autumn and early winter of 1822 was to separate France from the eastern allies, and until late December, he failed to realize how injurious a French invasion of Spain might be to British interests.Footnote 27 Again, however, Temperley's account is unsupported by evidence. Far from being resigned to the inevitability of a Franco-Spanish war, Canning hoped that Villèle, who throughout the autumn repeatedly expressed peaceful intentions to Stuart,Footnote 28 would refuse to send a dispatch of protest. At the same time, however, having regularly received reports from Stuart on the growing outcry of the French ultra-royalists against Villèle's Spanish policy, and having just seen their sweeping victory in the November elections, he naturally feared that Villèle might be ‘overborne’. On 3 December, Canning requested Wellington to stay in Paris on his return from Verona and ‘encourage’ Villèle in his struggle against the French war party.Footnote 29 Three days later, Canning also instructed Wellington to offer Villèle Britain's mediation between France and Spain, ‘in the event of … the decision of war or peace being entirely with the French government’. Canning attached this last condition since British mediation was useless so long as France was committed to act together with the eastern powers and follow their counter-revolutionary doctrine.Footnote 30 As Temperley repeatedly insisted, Canning wished to separate France from the eastern powers, but France's separation from the eastern allies was not an end in itself for Canning. It was rather a means of achieving a peaceful settlement of the Franco-Spanish dispute through British mediation.
IV
Canning had several reasons for wishing to prevent a Franco-Spanish war. The most important was his fear that, once war started in the Iberian Peninsula, Britain would be ultimately involved in it. In late December 1822, Canning wrote to à Court:
We are, as you see, most anxious that war should be avoided. There can be no issue of a war between France and Spain that would not be disastrous in the extreme. A beaten or baffled French army, flowing back upon France, would infallibly set France in revolution – a new ‘Iliad of woes’ for Europe. The possession of the Peninsula, the occupation of it for three months by a French army, is an event which cannot be contemplated but as an equally infallible source of disquietude, and some way or other ultimately of war to this country.Footnote 31
Like many contemporary European statesmen, Canning remembered the generation of war and upheaval that had followed the French Revolution too well not to wish to avoid risking another war in Europe, especially one involving France, fought for ideological reasons. Doubting whether France's ‘yet unconfirmed institutions’ could survive a serious crisis, such as the death of Louis XVIII or a military setback in Spain, Canning feared that a French defeat would trigger another revolution in France, which would, in its turn, lead to another European war.Footnote 32 On the other hand, a French victory would also be problematic. One possible cause of Britain's involvement in another Peninsula war was Portugal, where liberals had been in power since the summer of 1820. Negotiations between Spain and Portugal for an alliance had already caused Canning alarm, raising the spectre of Portugal's – and possibly Britain's – involvement in a Franco-Spanish war.Footnote 33
Another reason why Canning desired to prevent war was related to Spanish America, whose fate was closely connected with that of Spain, although most of Spain's colonies in the region had become independent by the early 1820s. Spanish American independence had wide-ranging international repercussions, but Canning's immediate concern was the grievances of British merchants against the deplorable state of navigation in the American seas, caused by ‘the utter relaxation of the authority of old Spain over the whole of that part of the world’. In fact, their vessels were not only attacked by pirates but also confiscated by the Spanish authorities on the grounds that they were trading with rebel colonies. Canning had no doubt that Britain was unable to protect its commerce without the co-operation of the new local authorities which occupied the ports and coasts of Spain's former colonies, while their co-operation could not be obtained without recognizing them, more or less formally. He desired that George IV's speech at the opening of the new parliament announce the government's decision to recognize some of the new states in Spanish America and tried to obtain his cabinet colleagues' consent.Footnote 34 From mid- to late October, Canning also sent à Court several dispatches, instructing him to demand, from the Spanish government, immediate redress for damages inflicted by Spain on British merchants and to communicate Britain's decision to send a squadron to the Spanish island of Cuba. À Court was to explain that the commanding officer of the squadron was instructed not only to protect British traders, but also to pursue pirates and, if necessary, to land on the island, with or without the local governor's consent, to ‘take signal vengeance’ for their outrages.Footnote 35 In mid-November, Canning also proposed to the cabinet that the government send additional naval forces to the West Indies with instructions to force the Spanish authorities in Porto Rico and Porto Cabello, with threats of reprisals, to accept such demands as the immediate restitution of a British merchant vessel and the retraction of orders to capture merchant ships of every country trading with the rebels.Footnote 36
Canning thus believed that it was necessary for the government to take active measures on the question of Spanish America ‘to soothe the growing impatience of our whole mercantile and manufacturing interests’.Footnote 37 As he became aware of the growing danger of a French invasion in Spain in late November, however, he faced a difficult dilemma. Should Britain maintain its firm stance on the affairs of Spanish America at the risk of driving the Spaniards to refuse British mediation in Europe, or should Britain postpone any measure for the protection of its commerce in America and focus on preserving peace in Europe? Canning did not readily abandon hope that the Continental powers might release Britain from this dilemma by failing to agree a common policy against Spain. On 24 November, having obtained cabinet approval for the proposal to send naval forces to Porto Rico and Porto Cabello, he penned a dispatch to à Court directing him to communicate the decision to the Spanish government,Footnote 38 but postponed sending it to à Court until the arrival of the next messenger from Verona.
The next messenger, however, brought news that the Austrian, Prussian, and French plenipotentiaries had already prepared their dispatches to their representatives in Madrid.Footnote 39 It was now almost clear that Britain could not avoid offering to mediate between France and Spain and, on 3 December, Canning first broached the idea of British mediation to Wellington.Footnote 40 On the same day, however, he sent his dispatch of 24 November to à Court with directions to press the Spanish government to issue immediate orders to Cuba, Porto Rico, and Porto Cabello to execute the objects of Britain's naval operations.Footnote 41 While hoping that Britain's effort to prevent foreign interference in Spain would impress the Spaniards,Footnote 42 Canning demanded that the Spanish government redress Britain's commercial grievances before requesting British mediation.Footnote 43
Canning thus persisted with measures to protect British trade in order to avoid opposition attacks in the forthcoming parliamentary session, while abandoning his plan for immediate recognition of Spanish American independence. This was not an act of charity towards the Spaniards, but rather a recognition that, once the French army crossed the Pyrenees, Britain would have to postpone establishing diplomatic or consular relations with the new states in Spanish America, lest it ‘should seem to act … in concert with France’.Footnote 44 As Canning wrote to à Court, the prevention of a French invasion of Spain now took ‘precedency’ over the recognition of the new states in Spanish America.Footnote 45 On 9 December, he instructed à Court to inform the Spanish government that Britain had decided to suspend ‘for a time’ the question of its political recognition of the new states in the hope that the decision would ‘incline her [Spain] the more to seek our Mediation with France’.Footnote 46 Postponing recognition ‘for a time’ was preferable to postponing it indefinitely, which the British government would need to do in the event of a French attack on Spain. This was yet another reason why Canning wished to prevent war.
V
Wellington reached Paris on 9 December, where Villèle told him that he had already instructed the French plenipotentiaries at Verona to request the eastern allies to suspend transmission of their protest dispatches to Madrid.Footnote 47 While this part of Wellington's report satisfied Canning, the rest did not. He was particularly concerned, first, by Wellington's discovery that Villèle had offered the duke of San Lorenzo, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, French mediation between Spain and its former American colonies whose independence Spain was willing to recognize, while simultaneously demanding that France be assured the same advantages in Spanish American trade as Britain and hinting that Spain's acceptance of the offer was France's new condition of peace. Even more alarming was Villèle's offer of France's naval intervention to set Spanish Bourbon princes on the thrones of the new states.Footnote 48 Villèle apparently abandoned his new project as soon as he had outlined it to Wellington, and Canning refrained from communicating his objection to Villèle. Yet Villèle's project for French armed intervention in Spanish America made a strong impression on Canning, who regarded it as nothing less than ‘invasions for Spain of the Spanish American colonies’.Footnote 49 It certainly made Canning redouble his efforts to preserve peace, fearing that Villèle would revive his plans in the event of a French victory in Spain.
A second cause of Canning's anxiety was Wellington's failure to make a formal offer of British mediation. Wellington was certain that Louis XVIII and his ministers ‘would prefer anything to an acknowledgment of the influence of the British government in that country [Spain]’.Footnote 50 In reality, Canning agreed in assuming that the French government was unlikely to accept a formal offer of British mediation,Footnote 51 but on 13 December, he instructed Wellington to make the offer immediately, concerned that, in the event of a French attack on Spain, failure to offer mediation would be criticized in parliament.Footnote 52 This, however, does not mean that Canning decided to offer mediation solely for the sake of appearances; rather, he hoped that the offer would encourage Villèle to seek British assistance behind-the-scenes to obtain concessions from Spain.
Wellington finally presented Montmorency a note offering British mediation on 17 December.Footnote 53 Two days later, Louis XVIII, Villèle, and Montmorency informed Wellington that France had no intention of accepting the offer, although Montmorency promised to return an answer that would enable Britain to continue ‘unofficial efforts to maintain peace’.Footnote 54 Meanwhile, Wellington discovered that Villèle's demands regarding Spain were moderate, Villèle being ‘very indifferent as to the nature or degree of the alteration’ of the Spanish constitution, but only that revision should be made so as to ‘imply the consent and approbation of the Sovereign to the whole system’.Footnote 55 Wellington left Paris on 20 December with Canning ultimately satisfied by the results of his short stay.Footnote 56
Villèle's ideas mattered only so long, however, as he maintained ascendancy over the French ultras. He faced a significant challenge after 20 December, when Viscount Chateaubriand, the French ambassador in London and one of the French plenipotentiaries at Verona, returned to Paris with the refusal of the eastern allies to suspend transmission of their dispatches of protest to Madrid.Footnote 57 Villèle now accepted that France should send its own dispatch to its chargé d'affaires in Madrid, Count La Garde, but insisted that France's dispatch, unlike those of the eastern allies, should not contain an order to quit Madrid if the Spanish government refused to change its political system. In two meetings of the French council of ministers, no one else agreed with him, but, at the end of the second meeting on 25 December, Louis XVIII overruled the council in favour of Villèle who immediately sent a dispatch to La Garde. Montmorency resigned, after sending a note to the British government, declining mediation but expressing hope that Britain's moderating influence over the Spanish government would be effective in Madrid.Footnote 58
Meanwhile, the Spanish government decided to demand full powers to settle all differences with Britain from the Cortes.Footnote 59 On receiving this news in early January 1823, Canning directed the British naval commander in the West Indies to suspend execution of his instructions with regard to Porto Rico and Porto Cabello.Footnote 60 A few days later, Canning sent Lord Fitzroy Somerset, formerly Wellington's aide-de-camp and military secretary during the Peninsula War, to Madrid. Somerset took Wellington's memorandum, which, responding to Villèle's demands, emphasized the need to alter the Spanish constitution ‘in concert with the King’. Canning hoped that Spain might offer concessions ‘less reluctantly’ through someone acting on behalf of Wellington, ‘the friend and well-wisher of Spain’, than directly to the British minister.Footnote 61
The Spanish government ignored à Court's advice to offer concessions to France. Responding to Villèle's dispatch to La Garde of 25 December 1822, the Spanish government demanded the withdrawal of the French army of observation without offering any concessions on 9 January, although this was more moderate than its answers to the violent communications of the eastern powers, which provoked their representatives in Madrid to demand their passports.Footnote 62 While La Garde remained in Madrid after his Continental colleagues had left, the Spanish government's answer to Villèle's dispatch eventually led to his recall. On 25 December, Villèle offered the post of foreign minister to Chateaubriand, who accepted it two days later.Footnote 63 To Villèle's dismay, Chateaubriand immediately started to pursue a policy no less warlike than Montmorency's.Footnote 64 On receiving the Spanish answer, Chateaubriand instructed La Garde to demand his passport on 18 January.Footnote 65
Canning had no means to halt unfavourable developments in Paris, but could only privately alert Chateaubriand of the danger that ‘a war in Europe at this moment, against the revolutionary principle, would shake the monarchy of France and its yet unconfirmed institutions to their foundation’ and ask him ‘to keep one channel open’ to obtain concessions from Spain.Footnote 66 Canning's hopes were dashed when he received Louis XVIII's speech on the opening of the French chambers. On 28 January, Louis declared that his army of 100,000 men was ready to march ‘to conserve the throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry IV, to preserve that beautiful Kingdom from ruin, and to reconcile it with Europe’. ‘Let Ferdinand VII’, he continued, ‘be free to give to his people institutions which they cannot obtain but from him.’Footnote 67 The speech did not signal immediate war, but Spain now had only a short time to make concessions and avert war.
VI
While Temperley maintained that Canning's Spanish diplomacy in its early stages was dominated by his dislike of the European Concert, he admitted that Canning made an ‘effort for peace’ in the early months of 1823.Footnote 68 Temperley attributed this sudden change of course to Villèle's dispatch to La Garde of 25 December 1822. ‘On Christmas Day’, he wrote, ‘the European aspect of the Spanish question gave way to a more purely French one. And as soon as it became purely a matter for France, England, her old enemy, became awake to the gravity of the situation.’ In other words, Villèle's dispatch, instructing La Garde to stay in Madrid after his Continental colleagues had left, fulfilled the principal aim of Canning's Spanish policy of weakening the European Concert by separating France from the eastern allies. Having achieved this aim, Canning thus suddenly started to see the question of Spain in the light of traditional Anglo-French rivalry in the Iberian Peninsula.Footnote 69 However plausible, this explanation is incorrect. As seen, Canning had already started his ‘effort for peace’ in early December. Moreover, Villèle's dispatch did not separate France from the eastern allies as completely as Temperley believed. Even after 25 December 1822, France could rely on the eastern allies to neutralize Britain in the event of a Franco-Spanish war, which was precisely why Canning ultimately failed to prevent France from attacking Spain.
Canning clearly knew that the French ministers could count on the support of the eastern powers. As soon as he received Louis XVIII's speech, he proposed omitting the profession of Britain's neutrality in the event of war from George IV's speech at the opening of parliament.Footnote 70 Accordingly, the king's speech on 4 February made no mention of Britain's future policy in the event of war.Footnote 71 But Canning did not intend war, or even to threaten war, aware that such a threat would only incite French anti-British sentiment and ‘rather tend … to give a national impulse to the feelings of the Country’, which seemed decidedly hostile to the idea of war against Spain.Footnote 72 Moreover, Canning expected that, if Britain declared war against France, Russia and Prussia – if not Austria – would come to France's assistance.Footnote 73 His intention was rather to imply that the government might be forced into war against its will by public opinion. In fact, in Britain Louis XVIII's declaration of the doctrines of legitimacy and divine right was disapproved by tories and whigs alike in parliament and in newspapers; in Canning's words, ‘throughout the nation’.Footnote 74 Canning was, however, aware that France's position was now ‘too much advanced to enable Her to retreat without utter disgrace, perhaps without the danger of confusion at home’, unless Spain offered substantial concessions. All that he sought was to provoke hesitation in the minds of French ministers that might give à Court and Somerset time to persuade the Spaniards to offer concessions. On 9 February, he duly instructed à Court to persuade the Spanish government to revise the constitution ‘at the present moment’.Footnote 75
In late February, while waiting for news from Spain, Canning made a last desperate effort to prevent war, clearly undermining Temperley's view that Canning was more concerned with the destruction of the Congress System than with the prevention of French intervention in Spain. Canning requested that the eastern allies renew the ambassadorial conference of the four Continental powers at Paris, which, in Temperley's own account, constituted an essential part of the Congress System,Footnote 76 and exert all their influence to dissuade France from war through their representatives in Paris.Footnote 77 Canning did not expect ‘any advantage from the interference of Russia with the French Government’, but he remained certain that the two German powers still wished to prevent a French invasion of Spain.Footnote 78
All Canning's efforts, however, were in vain. George IV's omission of the profession of Britain's neutrality did not trouble Chateaubriand unduly since he knew that Tsar Alexander would promise support against Britain, and ‘Austria and Prussia would be obliged to follow’.Footnote 79 In fact, certain that the tsar would never agree to dissuade France from war, both Metternich and Count Bernstorff, the Prussian foreign minister, declined to take any positive action in response to Canning's request.Footnote 80 In mid-March, the tsar instructed Count Pozzo di Borgo, his ambassador in Paris, to reassure the French government that Russia would support France if Britain declared war,Footnote 81 and refused to comply with Canning's request.Footnote 82 Canning's hopes were finally shattered when the Spaniards failed to offer concessions to France. In private, many leading Spaniards admitted to à Court and Somerset that the constitution required fundamental modifications to stabilize their country. However, fear of being accused of betraying their cause and distrust of Ferdinand prevented them from seeking to reach a compromise with the king.Footnote 83 On 13 March, Chateaubriand told Stuart that ‘all his endeavours to prevent a rupture having failed, the army will cross the frontier in the beginning of April’.Footnote 84 Speaking in the House of Commons on 18 March, Canning finally admitted that his hopes of maintaining peace were ‘almost extinguished’, and that ‘there was nothing in present Circumstances which need to excite an apprehension that this Country would be involved in Hostilities’.Footnote 85 After 18 March, he no longer tried to prevent war, but sought to limit damage to British interests. Significantly, on 31 March he instructed Stuart to inform Chateaubriand that, provided France did not try to establish a permanent military occupation of Spain, attempt to bring Spain's former colonies under its dominion either by conquest or by cession from Spain, or invade Portugal, Britain would remain neutral.Footnote 86 On 6 April, the French army crossed the Bidassoa and war finally started.
VII
C. K. Webster believed that the French invasion of Spain would not have happened if Castlereagh had not died in August 1822. As Webster suggested, had Castlereagh lived to see Villèle in Paris and Metternich in Vienna and discuss the affairs of Spain with these statesmen, he would have reached a better understanding with them than Wellington.Footnote 87 However, even a perfect understanding between a British foreign secretary and Villèle mattered little when the latter's policy had little chance of gaining ascendancy in his own country. As for Metternich, it is difficult to believe that Castlereagh would have succeeded in assuaging the Austrian chancellor's fear that his rejection of allied interference in Spain should drive the tsar to lend support to liberal movements in Germany, Italy, or the Near East. Under the circumstances, the combination of Russia and French ultra-royalists could dominate great-power relations over the Spanish question, and it was beyond the power of any British foreign secretary radically to alter this unfavourable international situation overnight. In fact, the moment Nesselrode declared – at the conference of 30 October 1822 – that his imperial master would support French military intervention, the Spanish question, as an international issue, was essentially decided. Certain of Russian support against Britain's possible intervention in the war and Austrian and Prussian neutrality, France could go to war at any time. Canning could only try to induce the Spanish government to yield to France. After 30 October 1822, only Villèle stood in the way of the march of French troops into Spain. All that Canning could do was to ‘encourage’ him. That Canning ultimately failed to prevent war was mostly due to circumstances beyond his control.
Although unsuccessful in preventing a Franco-Spanish war, Canning did try. While he initially underestimated the danger of foreign intervention in Spain in his first two months in office, once he became aware of it, he made the maintenance of peace along the Pyrenees his first priority. His fear that a war in the Iberian Peninsula would restrict Britain's freedom of action towards Spanish America was one reason. More important was his fear that a French defeat in Spain would lead to a revolution in France and, possibly, a general European war. A French victory and the resultant French military occupation of Spain, on the other hand, would lead to different problems, risking the danger of an Anglo-French confrontation over Portugal and giving France and the eastern powers greater opportunities to meddle in Spanish American affairs. Anticipating these problems, Canning tried every possible means to prevent war, refuting Temperley's claim that the prevention of war was merely a secondary concern for Canning.
Nor is there any validity in Temperley's claim that, with regard to the Spanish crisis of 1822–3, Canning's policy was dominated by a supposed aversion to the European Concert. The real author of the ‘come what may’ instruction was not Canning but Liverpool, who, in fact, was the most committed isolationist within the British cabinet. In late December 1822, when informed of Wellington's dissatisfaction with Britain's isolation from the Continental powers over the question of Spain, Liverpool wrote:
the truth is, he [Wellington] is rather more continental than we either are or ought to be permanently. I say permanently, because from circumstances we were brought into a course which was quite right at the time, but to which (with our different prejudices and form of Gov[ernmen]t.) we never could expect to adhere indefinitely.Footnote 88
While Liverpool's authorship of the ‘come what may’ instruction raises doubts about Temperley's claim, the request Canning made in late February 1823 to the eastern allies for the renewal of the ambassadorial conference of the four Continental allies at Paris clearly disproves it. But if Canning's Spanish policy was not influenced by a dislike of the European Concert, how should his attitude to the Concert be characterized? In his dispatch of 27 September 1822, Canning directed Wellington ‘to discourage the notion of armed interference in the affairs of Spain; and to evade any question of a threatening declaration without coming to an open difference of opinion with the Allies, such as might lead, though not to a general disunion, to a partial separation of counsels’.Footnote 89 Canning expressed his desire to prevent Anglo-Continental disagreements over Spain from weakening the system of great-power concert. Coming immediately before the ‘come what may’ instruction, this passage has not hitherto made any historiographical impression. Over the next few years, however, Canning repeatedly used the same or a similar argument. For example, after Britain refused Spain's invitation to an allied conference in Paris on the affairs of Spanish America in January 1824, Canning instructed Sir Charles Bagot, the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, to communicate to the Russian government:
in doing so [refusing the conference], the British Cabinet flatters itself that it took the best chance of avoiding contest and of preventing complications which might have put to hazard on one separate question that general harmony and confidence, which happily prevail between His Majesty and his Allies on so many subjects of vital interest, and which it is His Majesty's earnest desire to cultivate and maintain.
Canning explained that Britain's concern with colonial questions was ‘much more extended and immediate … than that of any other Power in Europe’, and that, whatever the opinions of the Continental powers, Britain ‘could not forbear from acting upon her own’. His opinion was that it was better not to open the proposed conference, which, if opened, would unnecessarily strain relations between Britain and its allies, making allied co-operation more difficult to achieve where the allies truly needed it. Writing while Tsar Alexander was eagerly awaiting Britain's acceptance of his proposal for an allied conference on Greek affairs, Canning clearly implied that the question of Greece was one such occasion.Footnote 90 There is, in fact, considerable evidence that, far from being an isolationist who detested the Concert, Canning recognized the importance of great-power concert in dealing with a real threat to the stability of the European international system. The strongest – although hitherto unknown – evidence was a proposal Canning made in January 1824 for the joint mediation of the allied powers between the Ottoman government and the Greek rebels.Footnote 91
There is no doubt that Temperley's general thesis on Canning demands re-examination. Not only has his study shaped our understanding of Canning's foreign policy, but it has exerted considerable impact on perceptions of nineteenth-century British foreign policy and international relations, through the works of historians such as Kissinger, Chamberlain, and Schroeder. If Temperley's account of Canning's foreign policy in 1822–7 proves to be flawed, we need to reconsider those explanations of nineteenth-century British foreign policy and European international relations that substantially rely on it. As a result of such reconsideration, we might find that there was nothing like ‘the Canning tradition’ that was distinct from ‘the Castlereagh tradition’ in terms of attitudes to Europe.
