ONE:One of the first acts of the Parliament, which met on November 12th, was to punish the peculations and abuses of the Lord Chancellor, Parker, Earl of Macclesfield. The Court of Chancery, in former ages a sink of corruption, was at this time in its worst condition. The offices of Masters were regularly sold, and the Masters as regularly took care to recoup themselves by all manner of peculation. The estates of widows and orphans and the money of suitors were unscrupulously plundered. There was a loud outcry against these robberies, and especially against the Lord Chancellor, for his not only tolerating but partaking in them. He endeavoured to escape the storm of public indignation by resigning in January, but this did not avail him. He was impeached by Sir George Oxenden in the Commons, and tried in the Lords, and fined thirty thousand pounds. A motion for disabling him from ever again sitting in Parliament or holding any office was lost only by a very few votes. The king struck his name out of the list of Privy Councillors, and in 1725 Sir Peter King was made Chancellor in his stead, with the title of baron.217
TWO:Theres somebodyon the lawn! cried Dick, swinging off in that direction. From behind a large tree emerged a figure. Larry and the detective followed at a run. But the man who came quickly forward to meet them gave all three a surprise.The French were driven again out of Naples by the end of July. Cardinal Ruffo brought down a wild army of Calabrians, and an army made up of Russians, Turks, Portuguese, and British, completed the expulsion of the Republicans and restored the king. In this restoration Nelson and his squadron took a most effective part; but unfortunately for his fame, he at this time became acquainted with Lady Hamilton, the wife of the British ambassador, and gave himself up entirely to her fascinations. Lady Hamilton was the friend of the Queen of Naples (a sister of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette), and she was said to have instigated Nelson to take a melancholy part in the savage retaliations of the court on the Neapolitan Republicans, but the charge has since been completely disproved. Nelson sent Commodore Trowbridge to Civita Vecchia to blockade it, and both that port and the castle of St. Angelo soon surrendered, and Captain Lewis rowed up the Tiber in his barge, hoisted the British colours on the Capitol, and acted as Governor of Rome till Pius VI., ejected by the French in the previous year, was nominally restored. The poor old man, however, never returned to his kingdom; he died at Valence, on the Rh?ne, on the 29th of August of this year. The election of the new Pope, Pius VII., did not take place till March, 1800. Before the end of the year, nearly all Italy, except Genoa, was cleared of the French.
THREE:Carleton being, by the beginning of June, reinforced by still more troops from England, determined to follow the Americans. They had reached the Three Rivers, about midway between Quebec and Montreal, and about thirty miles from the American headquarters on the Sorel, when General Sullivan, who had succeeded Thomas, sent two thousand men under General Thompson. They got across the river and hoped to surprise the English; but it was daylight before they drew near the Three Rivers. Landing with confusion, they sought a place where they could form and defend themselves; but they found themselves entangled in a labyrinth of streams and morasses. Then they were attacked, front and rear, by Generals Fraser and Nesbit. In the suddenness of the surprise, no precaution had been taken to secure or destroy their boats; the remainder of the Americans, therefore, getting into them, pulled away and crossed. Sullivan, who had hastened to support them, now, accompanied by St. Clair, made the best of his way back to Fort Chambly. Carleton pursued, but coming to the Sorel, instead of sailing up it, by which he might have reached Chambly nearly a day earlier than Sullivan, with a strange neglect he continued lying at the mouth of the river for a couple of days. Had he not done this, Arnold would have been intercepted at Montreal, and Ticonderoga, now defenceless, would have fallen into his hands. By this false step much damage to the king's cause ensued. Carleton, however, determined to seek out Arnold himself, and sent on General Burgoyne in pursuit of Sullivan. Burgoyne made quick pursuit; but the Americans were too nimble for both himself and Carleton. Arnold hastily evacuated Montreal, and, crossing the river, joined Sullivan at St. John's, on the Sorel. There Sullivan proposed to make a stand, but his troops would not support him, for the whole army was in a state of insubordination. Burgoyne marched rapidly after them; but, on reaching the head of the Sorel, he found they had escaped him by embarking on the lake. Sullivan and Arnold had encamped on the Isle aux Noix, a swampy place, where their men perished, many of them, of fever, and Burgoyne was obliged to satisfy himself with the thought that they were driven out of Canada.
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