THREE:She sprang to her feet so suddenly that her arm struck him a blow in the face, and stood close in front of him, digging her nails into her palms and breathing hard. "If youif you dare to say that again, I will kill you. I can do it. You know that I can, and I will. I mean what I say, I will kill you." And she did mean what she said, for the moment, at any rate. There was just as surely murder in her soul as though those long, strong hands had been closed on his throat. Her teeth were bared and her whole face was distorted with fury and the effort of controlling it. She drew up a chair, after a moment, and sat in it. It was she who was leaning forward now, and he had shrunk back, a little cowed. "I know what you are trying to do," she told him, more quietly, her lips quivering into a sneer, "you are trying to frighten me into marrying you. But you can't do it. I never meant to, and now I would die first."
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THREE:The tumult in Ireland was succeeded by one in Scotland. The people of that country, though they were, by the provisions of the Act of union, to bear their proportion of the malt tax, had always refused compliance, and in 1713 had issued a violent resolution against it. They had never yet complied with the law, and Walpole, seeing the sturdy nature of the opposition, was willing to give up the point quietly. But during the Parliamentary Session of this year, Mr. Brodrick proposed that a duty of sixpence on every barrel of ale should be paid in lieu of it. Walpole was reluctant to go into the question, but the House was bent on it, and he therefore complied so far as to consent to a duty of threepence per barrel, or half the amount. There were promptly riots in Glasgow, and at Edinburgh the brewers refused to brew. Walpole sent down the Earl of Islay, the brother of the Duke of Argyll, and a zealous adherent of his own, to pacify the country. Islay behaved with equal prudence and firmness. He found the powerful combination of brewers essaying to make a stand against and then attempting to make terms with him. But he let them know that nothing but unconditional surrender to the laws would be accepted, and they at length held a meeting, where the chairman put the question, "To brew, or not to brew?" The members were to vote seriatim; but neither the man on his right nor the one on his left would venture to begin. In the long pause that ensued, one Gray declared that he thought there was nothing for them to do but to return to their trades; that he would not be bound by the majority, but would vote independently, and he voted to brew. The meeting broke up, and that night a number of breweries were set to work, and the next day, at noon, about forty brew-houses were in full action in Edinburgh, and ten in Leith.
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THREE:The year 1763 opened with the signing of the[176] definitive treaty at Paris on the 19th of February, whence it was called the Peace of Paris. Five days later, a peace was signed between Prussia and Austria at Hubertsberg, in Saxony, to which Saxony, as the ally of Austria, was a party. Indeed, when England and France, Russia and Sweden, had withdrawn from the contest, there was little prospect of the continuance of the war. Both parties were exhausted, and yet, of the two, Frederick, in his dogged firmness, and in the almost unparalleled endurance of his people, was more than a match for Austria. If Maria Theresa could not cope with him when she had France, Russia, Saxony, and Poland, all united with her to put him down, the case was now hopeless. The English had stipulated that France should evacuate all the places in Germany and Flanders that belonged to those countries, and Frederick had easily induced the German states, in these circumstances, to a maintenance of neutrality. Austria, therefore, consented to this peace. She stood out the longest for the retention of Glatz, the only place won from Frederick still in her hands, but she was compelled to yield that, too. Both parties returned to the same situations as before the commencement of this fatal Seven Years' War.
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THREE:Strong as was the majority of Ministers, however, the king did not wait for their resigning. The day after this debate (Thursday, December 18th), the king sent, at twelve o'clock at night, to Fox and Lord North an order to surrender their seals of office to their Under-Secretaries, as a personal interview, in the circumstances, would be disagreeable. Fox instantly delivered up his; but Lord North was already in bed, and had entrusted his seal to his son, Colonel North, who could not be found for some time. The Seals were then delivered to Lord Temple, who, on the following day, sent letters of dismissal to all the other members of the coalition Cabinet. Pitt, though in his twenty-fifth year only, was appointed first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and on him devolved the duty of forming a new Administration. Earl Gower was nominated President of the Council, and Lord Temple one of the Secretaries of State. When the House of Commons met in the afternoon, Fox imagined, from a motion of Dundas to proceed to business without the usual adjournment on Saturday, that it was the object of the new party to pass certain money Bills, and then resort to a dissolution. Fox opposed the motion, declaring that a dissolution at this moment would produce infinite damage to[304] the service of the nation, and that, should it take place in order to suit the convenience of an ambitious young man (meaning Pitt), he would, immediately on the meeting of the new House, move for an inquiry into the authors and advisers of it, in order to bring them to punishment. This caused Lord Temple, who had occasioned the breaking up of the Coalition, to resign again immediately, declaring that he preferred meeting any aspersions upon him in his private and individual capacity. This certainly removed a great danger from his colleagues, although it rendered the task of his friend and relative, Pitt, still more difficult, in having to form an Administration alone. The Ministry was then filled up thus:Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the Home Department; the Marquis of Carmarthen for the Foreign; the Duke of Rutland, Lord Privy Seal; Lord Gower became President of the Council; the Duke of Richmond, Master-General of the Ordnance; Lord Thurlow again Chancellor; Lord Howe, First Lord of the Admiralty. With the exception of Pitt, the whole of the Cabinet was drawn from the House of Lords. When the Commons met, on the 22nd, Mr. Bankes said he was authorised by Mr. Pitt, who was not in the House, a new writ for Appleby being moved for on his appointment to office, to say that he had no intention to advise a dissolution. His Majesty, on the 24th of December, having also assured the House that he would not interrupt their meeting after the recess by either prorogation or dissolution, the House adjourned till the 12th of January, 1784.
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THREE:
THREE:118During the recess of Parliament there was an active contest between the new French opinions and the old constitutional ones. One called forth and provoked the other. Clubs and societies for Reform were more after the model of the wholesale proceedings of France than the old and sober ones of England. The Society of the Friends of the People was compelled to disclaim all connection with the Society for Constitutional Information in London, which was in open correspondence with[394] the Jacobins of Paris. It was forced to disown societies in the country of the same stamp, and especially to check a branch of the Society for Constitutional Information in Sheffield, which, in May of the present year, called on the Society of the Friends of the People to establish a Convention in London. To allow of no mistake as to their principles, the Society of the Friends of the People held a great meeting on the 5th of May, in which they announced that they had no other object but to obtain Parliamentary Reform by strictly legal and constitutional means, and that after this end had been secured they should dissolve themselves. Yet, notwithstanding this, there were those in the Society who deemed that they were in connection with persons and associations whose views went farther than their own, and, on this ground, on the 9th of June, Mr. Baker, who had been the chairman at the late meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern, Lord John Russell, who had been deputy-chairman, Dudley North, Mr. Curwen, and Mr. Courtney, withdrew from it.
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