ABSTRACT
My grandfather, whom I remember vividly, was born on the eighteenth of August, 1792, a fortnight after the poet Shelley, whose life ended in 1822. At the moment of my grandfather’s birth the French revolution was just getting under way, and it was in the month of his birth that the monarchy fell. He was one month old when the September Massacres terrified Royalists at home and the Battle of Valmy began the twenty-two years’ war of the revolution against reaction. In this war, my grandfather, as became a follower of Fox, was more or less what would now be called a “fellow-traveller”. His first (unpublished) work contained an ironical dedication to Pitt, then still Prime Minister. During the Peninsular War he travelled in Spain, but with no wish to fight against Napoleon. He visited Napoleon in Elba, and had his ear pulled by the Great Man as was usual. When Napoleon returned from Elba my grandfather, who had been for two years a member of Parliament, made a speech urging that he should not be opposed. The Government, however, being in the hands of the Tories, decided otherwise, and the Battle of Waterloo was the result. His greatest achievement 100was the carrying of the Reform Bill in 1832, which started Britain on the course that led to complete democracy. The opposition to this Bill on the part of the Tories was very violent and almost led to civil war. The clash at this time was the decisive battle between reactionaries and progressives in England. It was the peaceful victory in this battle that saved England from revolution, and it was my grandfather who did most to secure the victory. He had after this a long career in politics and was twice Prime Minister, but did not again have the opportunity to lead decisively at a great crisis. In his later years he was only moderately liberal, except in one respect, and that was his hatred of religious disabilities. When he was a young man all who were not members of the Church of England suffered grave political disabilities. Jews especially were excluded from both Houses of Parliament and from many offices by means of an oath which only Christians could take. I still remember vividly seeing a large gathering of earnest men on the lawn in front of our house on May 9, 1878, when he was within a few days of his death. They cheered, and I naturally inquired what they were cheering about. I was told that they were leading nonconformists congratulating him on the fiftieth anniversary of his first great achievement, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which excluded nonconformists from office and Parliament. The love of civil and religious liberty was very firmly implanted in me by such incidents and by the teaching of history that illuminated them. This feeling has survived through the various totalitarian regimes that have seduced many of my friends of the Right and of the Left equally.
