donable offence against
his lord and master. Indeed, it was only by playing upon the King's
personal vanity that Lord Liverpool at last brought him to accept the
wholesome advice tendered to him. Lord Liverpool reminded George again
and again that one of the noblest of a monarch's prerogatives was his
power to grant forgiveness to any repentant sinner. George was probably
beginning to be weary of the discussion, and perhaps had natural
shrewdness enough to see that it could only end in one way. He therefore
seemed to be taken by the appeal made to his generosity for pardon to a
penitent offender, and he consented to make approaches to Canning with
regard to the office of Foreign Secretary. At first, however, the King
made so ostentatious a profession of his magnanimous desire to pardon the
remorseful wrong-doer that Canning could not bring himself to accept the
abject position which {38} his sovereign was arranging for him. He
therefore declined at first to take any office under such conditions, and
the King had to come down from his high horse and treat with his subject
in less arrogant fashion. The King, at last, so far modified his
language as to leave the prerogative of mercy out of the question, and
Canning, by the advice of all his friends and supporters, consented to
become once more a member of the Administration and to undertake the
duties of Foreign Secretary.

[Sidenote: 1822-27--Canning's fitness for Foreign Minister]

This, we have said, was the turning-point in the career of Canning. It
was also a turning-point in the modern history of England. The violence
of the reaction against the principles of the French Revolution had spent
itself, and the public mind of this country was beginning to see that the
turbulence of democracy was not likely to be safely dealt with by the
setting-up of despotism. Canning himself was a living illustration of
the manner in which many great intellects had been affected by the course
of events between the fall of Napoleon and the death of Castlereagh.
Canning in his earlier days was in sympathy with the theories and
doctrines of popular liberty, and we have seen that up to the time of his
actually entering Parliament it was generally believed he would rank
himself with the Whig Opposition. But, like many other men who loved
liberty too, he had been alarmed by the aggressive policy of Napoleon,
and he believed that the position of England was best guaranteed by the
l