George Canning and the Concert of Europe, September 1822-July 1824 By Norihito Yamada London School of Economics and Political Science Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD, University of London 2004 /m :\ ( l O N D A . ) UMI Number: U615511 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615511 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 1VA£S,£ S F 3 5 ^ Library British Library of Political and Economic Science Abstract This thesis is a study of the diplomacy of George Canning between September 1822 and July 1824. It offers a detailed analysis of Canning’s diplomacy on all the major international questions of the period in which his country’s vital interests were involved. Those questions were: (1) the Franco-Spanish crisis in 1822-3 and the French intervention in Spain in 1823; (2) the affairs of Spanish America including the question of the independence of Spain’s former colonies and that of the future of Cuba; (3) political instability in European Portugal; (4) the question of Brazilian independence; (5) the Greek War of Independence and the Russo-Turkish crisis. This study challenges and revises the existing accounts of Canning’s diplomacy on these questions in many important points. However, it is not merely a narrative account of Canning’s diplomacy, but also an attempt to present a clear and comprehensive picture of the system of his diplomacy and some general principles which guided it. It pays particular attention to the relations between Canning’s diplomacy and the Concert of Europe—the post-1815 system of great-power co-operation in Europe. It has been generally believed that Canning was an isolationist whose principal aim in foreign policy was to destroy this system of great-power co-operation—which he believed was ideologically unacceptable to Britain and was unduly restraining her freedom of action—and replace it with a more fluid eighteenth-century-style balance-of-power system—which he believed would give Britain greater freedom of action and would be more beneficial to her interests and influence in and outside Europe. This study challenges this widely accepted view, and argues that Canning’s aim was not to break up the system of great-power concert 2 entirely but to transform it into such a shape that would be acceptable both to Britain and to the powers of the continent. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 4 Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations ^ Introduction 8 I. The Congress of Verona and the Spanish Question, September 1822-March 1823 44 n. The War in Spain and the Spanish American Question, April-9 October 1823 93 El. The Aftermath of the War in Spain and the Question of Spanish America, 10 October 1823-July 1824 142 IV. Portugal and Brazil, September 1822-July 1824 191 V. The Eastern Question, September 1822-July 1824 244 Conclusion 296 Bibliography 316 4 Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Alan Sked, without whose advice and support this thesis would never have been completed. I regret that I cannot show this thesis to the late Professor Masataka Kosaka of Kyoto University, whose work and lectures stimulated my interest in the nineteenth-century European international history. I would like to express my gratitude to many archivists, librarians and staff at the Public Record Office, the British Library, the West Yorkshire Archive Service (Leeds), the Institute of Historical Research, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, the University of London Library, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library, the University College (UCL) Library, and the King’s College (KCL) Library, I would like to acknowledge gratefully the financial support of the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme. Friends who have helped me during my research are too numerous to mention, but Hiroko Tabuchi, who allowed me to use her old computer for more than one year, deserves special mention. .Thanks to my sister, Yuiko Yamada, whose emotional assistance I could rely on. My mother, Shinko, has throughout my life encouraged and assisted me to pursue everything I am interested in. I hope that this thesis will partly repay what I owe to her. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Francesca, whom I met during my research at the Public Record Office, for her understanding, encouragement, and patience, and assure her that she is the more important result of my visits to the Public Record Office to me than this thesis. 5 Abbreviations Add. MSS Additional Manuscripts Adm. Admiralty Records, Public Record Office BFSP British and Foreign State Papers BILA Britain and the Independence o f Latin America, 1812-1830: Select Documents from the Foreign Office Archives, ed. C. K. Webster (2 vols., London, 1938). BL British Library Canning Papers Papers of George Canning, West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds Chateaubriand Correspondance generale de Chateaubriand, ed. Louis Thomas (5 vols., Paris, 1912-24). CO Colonial Office Records, Public Record Office cv CEuvres completes de Chateaubriand. Vol.12: Le Congres de Verone; Guerre d ’Espagne; Negociations: colonies espagnoles (nouvelle edition, Paris, n.d.). DCUS Diplomatic Correspondence o f the United States concerning the Independence o f the Latin American Nations, ed. William R. Manning (3 vols., New York, 1925). FO Foreign Office Records, Public Record Office GCHF George Canning and His Friends, ed. Captain Josceline Bagot (2 vols., London, 1909). GCHT George Canning and His Times, ed. Augustus Granville Stapleton (London, 1859). GCSOC Some Official Correspondence of George Canning, ed. Edward J. Stapleton (2 vols., London, 1887). Genesis ‘Some Original Documents on the Genesis of the Monroe Doctrine’, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 2nd series, vol. 15 (1901-2). n j Hansard Parliamentary Debates, new series (2 series). Lebzeltern Les rapports diplomatiques de Lebzeltern, ministre d ’Autriche a la cour de Russie (1816-1826), ed. Grand-Due Nicolas Mikhai'lowitch (St. Petersburg, 1913). Metternich Memoires, documents, et ecrits divers laisses par le prince de Metternich, ed. his son the Prince Richard de Metternich (8 vols., 6 Paris, 1880-4). Mrs. Arbuthnot The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820-1832, eds. Francis Bamford and the Duke of Wellington (2 vols., London, 1950). Princess Lieven The Private Letters o f Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich, 1820-1826, ed. Peter Quennell (London, 1937). PRO Public Record Office Manuscripts Prokesch-Osten Anton von Prokesch-Osten,Geschichte des Abfalls der Griechen vom Tiirkischen Reiche im Jahre 1821 und der Griindung des Hellenischen Konigreiches (6 vols., Vienna, 1867). Villele Memoires et correspondance du comte de Villele (5 vols., Paris, 1887-90). VPR Vneshniaia politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX veka: dokumenty Rossiiskogo ministerstva inostrannykh , deled. Ministerstvo inostrannykh del SSSR (Rossiiskoi Federatsii after vol.7), series 2 (8 vols., Moscow, 1974-95). Wellington Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda o f Field Marshal Arthur Duke o f Wellington, K.G., ed. his son the Duke of Wellington (8 vols., London, 1867-80). 7 Introduction In early November 1822, shortly after his appointment as foreign secretary, Canning wrote to Sir Charles Bagot, his close friend and the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, that ‘ten years have made a world of difference and have prepared a very different sort of “world to bustle in” from that which I should have found in 1812’.1 What had made the world look so different in Canning’s eyes since 1812, when he famously declined Viscount Castlereagh’s offer to give up the Foreign Office to him because of his reluctance to accept his rival’s lead in the House of Commons, were obviously the collapse of Napoleon’s empire and the peace settlement of 1814-15. However, when he wrote the letter, it does not seem that he had merely the territorial changes of 1814-15 on his mind. In fact, as we will see soon, between the two eras which were divided by these two eventful years, he saw greater changes in the way the European powers regulated their relations than in the map of Europe. Let us first look briefly at what these changes were.2 1 Canning to Bagot, 5 November 1822,GCHF, vol.2, p. 138. 2 For my account of the European international relations between 1814 and the summer of 1822,1 have depended chiefly on the following works: Walter Alison Phillips, The Confederation o f Europe: A Study of the European Alliance, 1813-1823, as an Experiment in the International Organization of Peace (2nd ed., London, 1920); C. K. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812-1815: Britain and the Reconstruction o f Europe (London, 1931), and The Foreign Policy o f Castlereagh, 1815-1822: Britain and the European Alliance (London, 1925); Paul W. Schroeder, Mettemich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, 1820-1823 (Austin, Tex., 1962); Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny,Metternich et la France apres le Congres de Vienne, Tome I: De Napoleon a Decazes 1815/1820 (Paris, 1968) and Metternich et la France apres le Congres de Vienne, Tome II: Les grandes Congres 1820/1824 (Paris, 1970). Other works I consulted include: Jacques-Henri Pirenne, La Sainte-Alliance: Organisation europeenne de la paix mondiale (2 vols., Neuchatel, 1946-9); H.