George Canning

British politician

• Born: April 11, 1770
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: August 8, 1827
• Place of death: Chiswick, Devon, England

During a long and distinguished political career in which he rose to prime minister during the last year of his life, Canning performed his most notable service as foreign minister. He placed British power behind the national independence movements in Latin America and Greece and thereby helped further Great Britain’s own economic and political interests and weakened the forces of reaction in Europe.

Early Life

George Canning’s father, who had the same name, came from an English family that had taken a manor in Londonderry, Ireland. The family had disinherited the elder George Canning, however, because of his misadventures, including his marriage to Mary Annie Costello, a beautiful but impoverished woman. The castoff son died on the first birthday of the younger George Canning. The widowed mother, desperate for a living, took up acting, a career then especially disdained by the more genteel. She married an actor named Reddish, who had a very unsavory reputation. Stratford Canning, a London banker and brother of the deceased father, ended the family’s isolation from the outcast son’s offspring. He took the young George Canning, then eight years old, into his home and provided for his education. The boy’s grandfather provided him with an estate worth two hundred pounds annually.

At Eton and Oxford, Canning’s knack for composition, prose, oratory, and witty expression soon became apparent. Along with other Etonians, he published the Microcosm, a journal that gave him an opportunity to develop further the witty style that he would later use to lampoon his political opponents. Canning would always be remembered as an acid-tongued rhetorician whose clever phrases could devastate an enemy. His opponents have so maligned his character that it is difficult to form a proper estimate of the man, but it is certainly true that self-effacing humility was not one of his virtues.

Early in his career, Canning displayed overweening ambition and arrogance. His obsession with seizing power so offended his contemporaries that sometimes his career would go into temporary eclipse. However, his rhetorical abilities were so impressive and his self-confidence so strong, that even with a legion of enemies he could not permanently be denied leadership. Canning had an abundance of energy and a capacity for hard work. Despite his flair for seeking the limelight, he was capable of spending long hours at work in government positions that brought him little attention or glamour. He also had a reputation for being a master of political intrigue. Portraits of Canning reveal a rather round face, a balding head with curly locks at each side, and eyes that suggest intensity and confidence.

In 1791, after completing three years at Christ Church, Oxford, Canning entered Lincoln Inn to begin the study of law. Politics quickly attracted the young scholar, and leading Whigs, such as Charles James Fox, saw in the oratorical skills of Canning a shining new star for the party. Canning’s early dislike for the aristocracy and his initial inclination toward French revolutionary ideas drew him toward the Whigs at first.

Canning’s Whig tendencies subsided quickly, however, as the revolution became a movement aiming to spread its excesses beyond France to the rest of the Continent. On the other hand, perhaps his perception that prospects for a rapid rise to political power were more favorable with the Tories motivated his decision to switch to that party. In 1793, it was as a Tory and a staunch supporter of Prime Minister William Pitt that Canning entered the House of Commons for Newton, Isle of Wight. His marriage to the wealthy Joan Scott on July 8, 1800, would give Canning the independence and financial security to pursue his political career without distraction. The marriage also produced four children.

Life’s Work

Pitt gave Canning the post of undersecretary of foreign affairs in 1796, and Canning served in that post until 1799. During this time, he contributed to the Anti-Jacobin, a weekly journal dedicated to ridiculing English and French revolutionaries. From 1799 to 1800, Canning served as a member of the board of commissioners governing India. In 1800, he began a brief term as paymaster of the forces but left that office the next year, when Pitt resigned as prime minister. Canning spent the next few years as a member of the opposition, but in 1804, when Pitt returned to power, Canning became treasurer of the Royal Navy.

Canning did not receive a cabinet position until 1807, a year after Pitt died, when he received the important post of foreign secretary under the administration of the duke of Portland. Canning displayed an ability to act with decision in his new office. Aware of a secret French plan to seize the Danish navy, Canning dispatched a force of twenty-seven ships of the line to attack Copenhagen and seize the Danish navy. British sailors manned the captured Danish warships and sailed them back to England. Canning’s decisiveness weakened the French effort, but because Copenhagen had not willingly surrendered its forces, Canning endured the abuse of foreign powers as well as the condemnation of the opposition party in England.

A dispute with Viscount Castlereagh, the secretary of war, produced even more suspicion of Canning. The foreign secretary had approved of the peninsular campaign against French power in Spain, but he disagreed with Castlereagh’s manner of conducting the operation. Canning had no patience with those he considered inferior to himself, and he was restless in his quest for command. He tried without success to persuade the duke of Portland, the prime minister, to remove Castlereagh. Finally, Canning gave up his purge effort and resigned on September 9, 1809. Shortly afterward, the secretary of war learned of Canning’s plot against him and challenged him to a duel. Canning suffered a slight injury to his thigh.

During the years from 1809 to 1822, Canning held no major office but continued to serve as a member of Parliament. Beginning in 1812, he represented Liverpool. In 1814, he became the ambassador to Portugal and two years later became a member of the board of control for India. Canning gave up his position in the government in 1820 because of his disapproval of the treatment of Queen Caroline, whose husband, George IV , had just become monarch. Caroline had been living in Europe for many years, and the new monarch tried to prevent her return to England or her recognition as queen. Failing this, George tried unsuccessfully to win his freedom in a divorce trial before the House of Lords. To protest his government’s support of King George IV in the dispute, Canning resigned in December, 1820.

From 1822 to 1827, Canning finally achieved the pinnacle of power he had so long sought. He was nominated governor-general of India on March 27, 1822, but resigned this post before embarking for India. Castlereagh’s suicide opened the path to be foreign secretary. Despite the king’s hesitation, he approved Canning for both the secretaryship and the leadership of the House of Commons. Canning would be at the helm for the next five years.

The new foreign secretary continued and extended Castlereagh’s policy of using England’s influence to weaken the reactionary forces of the four major monarchies in Europe: Austria, Russia, France, and Spain. Since the Congress of Vienna (1815), these powers had concerted their efforts to repress liberal, constitutional, republican, and nationalistic movements in Europe. They had attained a measure of success under the leadership of Austrian prince Klemens von Metternich.

In 1823, French forces entered Spain to shore up the rule of Ferdinand VII against revolutionary challengers. The fear that France, with the encouragement of other reactionary countries, might undertake the restoration of the recently independent Latin American republics to a colonial status under Spain spurred Canning to propose to President James Monroe that the United States join England in supporting the independent republics.

Canning’s suggestion intrigued Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who encouraged the president to state unilaterally a policy that has come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. Adams thought it would be unseemly for the United States to appear to be a cockboat following in the wake of the British man-of-war. The United States warned Europe to surrender any aspirations for recolonizing Latin America. It was George Canning who proposed the warning, however, and it was the power of the British Royal Navy that would enforce the prohibition. Great Britain hoped to protect its recently gained trading privileges with the former Spanish colonies. Thus, in 1825, Canning took the further step of granting recognition to the independent republics.

During the last years of his secretaryship, Canning put England’s diplomatic power behind the Greek struggle for independence from Turkey. He also helped the Portuguese repel a threatened Spanish takeover (1826-1827). On February 17, 1827, Lord Liverpool’s sudden paralysis removed him from office, and Canning became prime minister. Sir Robert Peel and other leading ministers resigned because of their disagreement with Canning’s Roman Catholic policies. Canning supported removal of Catholic civil disabilities. The difficulty of forming a government without his former allies and the strain of keeping his beleaguered government in control took a heavy physical toll, and Canning died on August 8, 1827, having served less than half a year as prime minister.

Significance

George Canning’s famous remark, “I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old,” summarizes his most important achievement in foreign affairs. The position taken by England nullified in advance any dreams of reinstituting European monarchical control over Latin America. The defeat of the “Holy Alliance,” a term used to describe the joint efforts to repress nationalistic efforts, can in part be attributed to Canning. No longer could Austria, Russia, Spain, and France hope by means of “congresses” to squelch revolutionary tendencies.

Canning’s support of national movements in Europe itself was also significant. No other person outside Greece had more to do with Greek independence. Canning was not carried away with romantic mysticism in his support for Greece against Turkey; he said that he would not go into battle for “Aristides or Saint Paul.” Nevertheless, public opinion in Great Britain strongly supported the Greek struggle for independence from the Turkish empire, and the death of Lord Byron in his attempt to aid the cause did stir the imagination of the English public. Canning’s concern was more political. He did not wish to see Russia impose its own solution.

Czar Alexander I proposed establishing three separate partially independent Greek states. Supposedly, the Greeks would still have a tie to the Turkish empire, but the situation would provide Russia a chance to exert influence in the new states. Canning’s negotiations with the Russians led to the Treaty of London of July, 1827. Russia, France, and England then undertook to make Greece autonomous, with only nominal control by Turkey. The three allies promised to take military action to force Turkish troops out of Greece. Canning did not live to see the Battle of Navarino in October of 1827, but his policies prepared the way for the destruction of Egyptian and Turkish naval forces at Navarino and the consummation of the Greek struggle for independence.

Bibliography

Bagot, Josceline. George Canning and His Friends. 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1909. Contains many letters not available to earlier biographers. Many of the letters display Canning’s distinctive wit. Included are not only letters to and from Canning but also references to him in the letters of third parties.

Canning, George. The Letter-Journal of George Canning: 1793-1795. London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1991. The Society has reprinted Canning’s journal for this period, which includes his initial years in the House of Commons.

Hinde, Wendy. George Canning. London: Collins, 1973. A well-written, scholarly account that ably blends the political and the personal life. Hinde views Canning as a victim of his own arrogance and stubbornness, a man whose own actions kept him in the twilight for long periods yet who was one of the ablest and most brilliant political leaders of his time.

Johnston, Henry McKenzie. Missions to Mexico: A Tale of British Diplomacy in the 1820’s. London: British Academic Press, 1992. Examines the diplomatic procedures Great Britain pursued to grant diplomatic recognition to Mexico, including Canning’s role and influence in the process.

Marshall, Dorothy. The Rise of George Canning. New York: Longmans, Green, 1938. A carefully researched study of Canning’s early career. It is concerned primarily with the formation of his character and views and does not cover the last decades of his life, when he held power.

Rolo, P. J. V. George Canning. London: Macmillan, 1965. Rolo’s book contains three parts. In the first section, Rolo deals with the man himself. He believes that personality played an especially significant role in Canning’s career. In the second section, Rolo provides a consecutive account of Canning’s political record. In the third, he evaluates Canning as a statesman. He concludes that the man was not exceptional in dealing with domestic matters but argues that he ranks with Otto von Bismarck in his brilliant handling of foreign policy.

Stapleton, Augustus Grenville. Political Life of Canning, 1822-1827. 3 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Browne, and Green, 1831. The author was Canning’s private secretary and wrote in part to clear the man’s memory from “aspersions” of his enemies. Despite bias and lack of access to documents as yet unavailable, it is an important work.

Temperley, Harold. The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822-1827. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1925. A very carefully researched and laudatory study of Canning’s record as foreign secretary from 1822 to 1827, written by one of the early biographers of Canning. This book places Canning’s later years in the context of European diplomacy.