FORE:The next day the Great Mogul went over to the stronger party. He had no further hope of assistance from Sujah Dowlah, and so he rode, with a few followers, to the British camp. He was received most willingly, for, though the British had shown no disposition to recognise his authority, now he was in their hands they acknowledged him as the rightful sovereign of Hindostan, and lost no time in concluding a treaty with him; and, on condition of his yielding certain territories to them, they agreed to put him in possession of Allahabad and the other states of the Nabob of Oude. After this, Munro continuing the war against Sujah Dowlah, endeavoured to take the hill fort of Chunar, in which all the treasures of Cossim were said to be deposited, but failed. On his part, Sujah Dowlah had obtained the assistance of Holkar, a powerful Mahratta chief, and, with this advantage, endeavoured to make a better peace with Munro; but that officer declined treating, unless Cossim and the assassin, Sombre, were first given up to[318] him. Dowlah proposed, instead of this surrender of those who had sought his protection, the usually triumphant argument with the English, a large sum of money. But Munro replied that all the lacs of rupees in Dowlah's treasury would not satisfy him without the surrender of the murderers of his countrymen at Patna. Dowlah, though he would not surrender the fugitives, had no objection to give a secret order for the assassination of Sombre; but Munro equally spurned this base proposal, and the war went on. Munro was victorious, and early in 1765, having reduced the fort of Chunar and scattered Dowlah's army, he entered Allahabad in triumph, and put the Mogul in possession of it.The Whig party were in consternation at this sudden disruption of the union of the heads of their party. A meeting was held on the night of the 11th of February at Burlington House, which did not separate till three in the morning. The result did not appear to have been very satisfactory, and the fears of the Whigs were greatly augmented by finding Pitt, who had hitherto praised the Revolution, now express the great obligations of the country to Mr. Burke, for the able warning which he had given against revolutionary principles. The king made no secret of his abhorrence of these principles. He considered the French Revolution as the direct result of the American one; and having come to the conclusion that he had himself erred by too much concession, he now censured the concessions of Louis XVI. as fraught with certain calamity. All this boded a decided resistance to the spirit of reform at home. There was a new schism amongst the organs of the press. Many of the newspapers still fostered in their columns the wildest hopes of universal advantage to the cause of liberty from the French Revolution; but others adopted the opinions and views of Burkeand no few of the Whig and Foxite papers were of this class. The effect of the alarm at the wild conduct of the French was speedily seen in the refusal to consider the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act, which was brought forward by Fox, on behalf of the Dissenters, and a motion for parliamentary reform, introduced by Mr. Flood. Both were strongly opposed, on the ground that this was not the time to make any changes whilst so riotous a spirit of change was near us, and was so warmly admired by many of our own people. Both motions were rejected by large majorities.
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FORE:Numbers of persons fled from the different towns to the frontiers of Holland, trade became stagnant, manufactories stood empty; the whole country began to assume a melancholy and ruinous aspect. Many of the refugees, formed into revolutionary clubs by French emissaries, were prepared not merely to oppose Joseph's despotism, but all monarchical government whatever. A powerful body of these placed themselves under the leadership of Van der Noot, a lawyer, who assumed the title of plenipotentiary agent of the people of Brabant; and of Van der Mersch, an officer who had served in the Seven Years' War, who was made their commander-in-chief. These two men were in league with the new Assembly of Breda, and issued their proclamations. These Trautmansdorff caused to be burnt by the executioner. The patriots in Brussels who sympathised with those in arms were, many of them, arrested; the citizens were disarmed, the fortifications strengthened by palisades, and every means of defence was resorted to.Fielding (b. 1707; d. 1754) began his career by an attempt, in "Joseph Andrews," to caricature the "Pamela" of Richardson. He represented Joseph as Pamela's brother; but he had not proceeded far when he became too much interested in his own creation to make a mere parody of him. This novel he produced in 1742, the year after the completion of "Pamela." The following year he gave to the world "Jonathan Wild;" in 1749, "Tom Jones;" and in 1751, but three years before his death, at the age of only forty-seven, "Amelia." But, besides a novelist, Fielding was a dramatic writer, a political writer, and the editor of four successive periodicalsThe Champion, The True Patriot, The Jacobite Journal, and The Covent Garden Journal. Fielding, unlike Richardson, was educated at Eton, and afterwards at Leyden. He had fortune, but he dissipated it; and had the opportunity of seeing both high and low life, by his rank as a gentleman and his office as a police-magistrate. His novels are masterly productions. His squire Western and parson Adams, and his other characters are genuine originals; and they are made to act and talk with a raciness of humour and a flow of wit that might even yet render them popular, if their occasional grossness did not repel the reader of this age. It is, indeed, the misfortune of Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett, that they lived in so coarse and debauched an epoch; their very fidelity now renders them repulsive. Richardson and Fielding were the Dickens and Thackeray of their day. In Fielding, the colder nature and the more satiric tone make the resemblance to Thackeray the more striking.
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