ONE:
TWO:The same scenes, but on a still larger scale, were exhibiting in the capital. The Reign of Terror was fully inaugurated, and rapidly extending itself. At first, on the expulsion of the Girondists from the Conventionthat is, in Junethe guillotinings were only fourteen. In July the number was about the same; but in August Robespierre became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, which carried on the machinery of government, and then the work went on swimmingly. From the moment that Robespierre took his place on the Committee, the stream of blood flowed freely and steadily. His friendif such monsters can be said to have any friendsBarrre, who belonged to the timid Plain till the Girondists were[424] overthrown, now became his active agent. He proposed, on the 7th of August, that William Pitt should be proclaimed the enemy of the whole human race, and that a decree should be passed that every man had a right to assassinate him. On the 9th it was announced that the Republic was completed; that Hrault de Schelles had produced a new and perfect constitution, which was at once adopted by the Convention. It was a constitution containing all the doctrines of the Mountain, in the bombast of that truculent faction. As it was quickly set aside, we need not detail its principles. Then this constitution was celebrated on the 10th of August, the anniversary sacred to the downfall of monarchy. Next followed fresh executions, among the most notable victims being Marie Antoinette (October 16) and Madame Roland (November 9), while most of the prominent Girondists were hunted down and killed.Fox introduced his first Bill on the 20th of November. All went smoothly, and the second reading was ordered for that day week. Then the storm burst. Mr. Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville) described the Bill as a scheme to put the Company into the hands of Ministers, and to annihilate the prerogatives of the Crown at the same time. He denounced it as one of the most daring and dangerous attempts that had ever been brought into that House. He moved that it should lie over till after Christmas, and there was a strong phalanx ready to support him. Grenville did not press the motion to a division, and the Bill was read a second time on the 27th, when a vehement and long debate took place. Pitt put forth his whole strength against it, Fox for it, and it was carried by two hundred and twenty-nine votes against one hundred and twenty. On the 1st of December it was moved that the Bill be committed, when the Opposition was equally determined. On this occasion Burke, who had made himself profoundly acquainted with Indian affairs, took the lead, and delivered one of his very finest speeches, full of information and eloquence. Pitt resisted the going into Committee with all his power, and pledged himself, if the House would throw out the Bill, to bring in another just as efficacious, and at the same time devoid of its danger. The debate, like the former one, did not close till half-past four in the morning, and then it was with a triumphant majority of two hundred and seventeen against one hundred and three. The Bill, thus carried by such majorities through the Commons, was carried up to the Lords, on the 9th of December, by Fox, accompanied by a numerous body of the Commoners, and it was considered as certain of passing there; but the king and his party, exasperated at the resolute conduct of the Commons, had gone to such lengths to quash the Bill in the Lords as are rarely resorted to by the Crown. As in the Lower House, so here, it was allowed to be read the first time without dividing; but it was attacked with an ominous solemnity by Thurlow, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord Temple, who, since his recall from the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, had thrown himself into the Opposition with peculiar vivacity. It was known that he had been frequently closeted with the king of late, and he bluntly declared the Bill infamous. As a matter of fact, he had urged the king to use his personal influence with the House of Lords. Thurlow went further, and, fixing one of his most solemn glances on the Prince of Wales, who was sitting in the House to vote for the Bill, declared that if this measure passed, the crown of England would not be worth wearing;[303] and that if the king allowed it to become law, he would, in fact, have taken it from his head and put it on that of Mr. Fox. On the 15th, when the Bill was proposed for the second reading, the royal proceedings against it were brought at once to light. The Duke of Portland rose and said, before going into the question, he was bound to notice a report which was confidently in circulation, and which, if true, vitally affected the constitution of the country. This was no less than that the king had written a note to Lord Temple, stating that "his Majesty would deem those who voted for the Bill not only not his friends, but his enemies; and that if Lord Temple could put this into still stronger language, he had full authority to do so."
