foe to the oppressor. It was the spirit if not the voice of
Canning which was powerful to save Portugal from the Bourbon, to
recognize the independence of the revolted American colonies of
Spain, and to restrain the enemies of freedom from handing
insurgent Greece back to the Turk. His predecessors had been
accustomed to sink the interests and desires of England in regard
for what the continental power called "the good of Europe." He
was the first statesman of his generation who dared to take an
independent position on "European" questions--"to write
'England,'" as he phrased it, "where it had been the custom to
write 'Europe.'" The policy which he inaugurated marks a turning-
point in the history of British foreign affairs.


Catholic Emancipation


George IV., who had been regent since his father's illness in
1812, reigned in his own name from 1820 to 1830, though his voice
in the affairs of state was small indeed. His Ministers,
Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, and Wellington, were confronted by
serious problems of domestic policy which had sprung up during
the long period of foreign wars and partly in direct consequence
of those disturbing conditions. The one recurrent question which
found definite settlement in this reign was that of Catholic
emancipation. The penal laws against Roman Catholics had
disgraced the English statute-books for two centuries. On the
first of January, 1801, the Legislative Union of Great Britain
and Ireland had gone into effect under the name of the United
Kingdom. The Irish Parliament, which had met in Dublin since