THREE:During this summer the island of Corsica fell into our hands, and that by conduct as brilliant on the part of Nelson and the troops and seamen under him, as was at the time the formal inefficiency of our generals there. The Corsicans soon experienced the insolence and rapacity of the godless French Republicans, and rose in general insurrection. The patriot Paoli was the first to advise them to renounce all connection with such a race of fiends, and was, in consequence, proscribed by the Convention, but at the same time appointed General-in-Chief and President of the Council of Government by his own people. As he well knew that little Corsica was no match for France, he applied to the British for assistance. Lord Hood was then engaged in the defence of Toulon, but he sent a few ships and troops during the summer and autumn to Paoli's aid, and by this assistance the French were driven out of every part of the island except San Fiorenzo, Calvi, and Bastia. The mother of Buonaparte, and part of the family, who were living at Ajaccio, fled to France, imploring the aid of the Convention for her native island. Lord Hood, however, having evacuated Toulon, made haste to be beforehand with them. By the 7th of February, 1794, he had blockaded the three ports still in the hands of the French, and had landed five regiments, under the command of General Dundas, at San Fiorenzo. The French were soon compelled to evacuate the place, but they retreated to Bastia, without almost any attempt on the part of Dundas to injure or molest them. Lord Hood now urged the immediate reduction of Bastia, but Dundas, an incompetent officer, and tied up by all the old formal rules of warfare, declared that he could not attempt to carry the town till the arrival of two thousand fresh troops from Gibraltar. But there was a man of very different metal and notions serving there, namely, Nelson, who was indignant at this timid conduct. He declared that if he had five hundred men and the Agamemnon ship-of-war, he could take the place. Lord Hood was resolved that he should try, whilst he himself blockaded the harbour. Nelson, who declared his own seamen of the Agamemnon were of the right sort, and cared no more for bullets than for peas, had one thousand one hundred and eighty-three soldiers, artillerymen, and marines, with two hundred and fifty sailors, put under his command, with the title of brigadier. They landed on the 4th of April, dragged their cannon up to the tops of the rocks overhanging Bastia, to the astonishment of French, Corsicans, and the timid Dundas. On the 10th Nelson was aloft with his whole force, and with all his cannon in position. A body of Corsicans rather kept guard than gave any active assistance on another side of the town; for they had no cannon, or could not drag them up precipices like British seamen. On the 11th Lord Hood summoned the town to surrender; but the French commander and Commissioner, Lacombe-Saint-Michel, replied that he had red-hot shot for the ships and bayonets for the British soldiers, and should not think of yielding till he had two-thirds of his garrison killed. But Nelson, ably seconded by Colonel Vilettes, plied his artillery to such purpose, that, on the 10th of May, Lacombe-Saint-Michel made offer of surrender, and on the 19th the capitulation was completed. The French forces and the Corsicans in their interest were shipped off to Toulon, after the signing of the capitulation on the 21st; and now General D'Aubant, who had succeeded General Dundas, but who had continued lying at San Fiorenzo instead of assisting at the siege, came up with his troops and took possession of Bastia. The whole loss of the British in this brilliant affair was only fourteen men killed and thirty-four wounded. Calvi, the most strongly-situated and fortified[432] place, still remained to be taken. By the middle of June it was thoroughly invested, both by sea and land, and Nelson again serving on shore, assisted by Captains Hallowell and Serecold, was pouring shells and red-hot shot into the fort. Captain Serecold was killed at the very outset; but Nelson and Hallowell, chiefly with the sailors and marines, continued the bombardment through the terrible heat of the dog-days, and the enervating effects of malaria from stagnant ponds in the hills, and compelled the surrender on the 10th of August, but not before one-half of the two thousand men engaged were prostrated by sickness. The island was now, by the advice of Paoli, offered to the British Crown and by it accepted; but a gross blunder was made in not appointing Paoli Governor, as was expected both by himself and his compatriots. Instead of this most proper and conciliatory measure, Sir Gilbert Elliot was appointed Governor, to the disappointment and disgust of the Corsicans. Sir Gilbert attempted to gratify the islanders by framing a new Constitution for them, and granting them trial by jury; but neither of these institutions was adapted to their ideas, and both failed to heal the wound which the ignominious treatment of their great patriot occasioned.An effort was made to decide the long-agitated question of the emancipation of the Jews in the Session of 1849. On the 19th of February Lord John Russell moved that the House of Commons should go into committee for the purpose of considering the oaths taken by members of Parliament, excepting the Roman Catholic oath, settled in 1829. The oath of allegiance, he said, became a mockery when Cardinal York died, there being no descendants of James II. in existence; he therefore proposed to abolish it. The oath of abjuration, which was aimed against Papal aggression, had now no practical effect but to exclude the Jews from Parliament, which it did by the words "on the true faith of a Christian," which were never meant to exclude Jews, but only to give greater solemnity to the oath. He proposed, therefore, to omit these words when the oath was tendered to a Jew, and this he thought would complete the measure of religious liberty. The House resolved by a large majority214 to 111to go into committee on the subject. He then moved a resolution that it was expedient to alter the Parliamentary oaths so as "to make provision in respect of the said oaths for the relief of her Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion." A Bill founded on this resolution was brought in by Lord John Russell. The second reading was carried by a majority of 278 to 185. The third reading, after an important debate, was carried by a majority of 66. In the House of Lords the second reading was moved on the 26th of July, by the Earl of Carlisle, in an able speech, in which he observed that the Jews, though admitted to municipal privileges, were the only religious community debarred from political rights; but there was not, as far as he could see, a single valid objection upon which they could be refused. The Earl of Eglinton objected to their admission on religious grounds; so also did the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Exeter. The former argued that our national Christianity, to which we owed our greatness, would be grievously disparaged by the measure. The latter condemned it as a violation of the distinct contract between the Sovereign and the nationthat the Crown should maintain "to the utmost the laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel." The Archbishop of Dublin (Whately), always the powerful champion of religious freedom,[603] contended on the other hand that it was inconsistent with the principles and repugnant to the genius of Christianity that civil disqualifications and penalties should be imposed on those who did not conform to it. Their lordships must either retrace their steps, and exclude from office all who did not belong to the Established Church, or they must, in consistency, consent to the abrogation of this last restriction. The Bill was rejected by a majority of 25the numbers being, for the second reading, 70; against it, 95.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams
