ONE:On the 27th of November, only two days after the receipt of the news of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Parliament met. The king adverted to the unhappy event, but still declared that he should be betraying his trust, as sovereign of a free people, if he did not refuse to give up the contest; that he still trusted in Divine Providence, and he called for fresh, animated, and united exertions. He turned with more satisfaction to the successes in the East Indies, and the safe arrival of our principal mercantile fleets. In the Lords, the Earl of Shelburne attacked the Address, supported by the Duke of Richmond and the Lords Camden and Rockingham; but the most tempestuous burst of indignant eloquence from the Opposition took place in the Commons. Fox asserted that he had listened to the Address with horror and amazement. He declared himself confounded at the hardihood of Ministers, after such a consummation of their imbecile management, who dared to look the House of Commons in the face. He would not say that they were paid by France, for it was not possible for him to prove the fact; but, if they were not, he avowed that they deserved to be, for they had served the French monarch more faithfully and successfully than ever Ministers served a master. He especially singled out Lord Sandwich for reprobation, as the author of the wretched condition of our fleets, which were inferior in number of ships and their appointments to those of the enemy all over the globe. He called on the House to insist on the total and immediate change of Ministers, and urged the adoption of measures which should, if possible, repair the incalculable injuries they had inflicted on the nation. The Ministers, however, had strength enough to carry the Address by two hundred and eighteen votes against one hundred and twenty-nine; but the debate was resumed on the Address being reported, and then William Pitt delivered a most scathing speech, declaring that so far from our being warranted in pressing this ruinous war, he was satisfied that, if he went from one end of the Treasury bench to the other, such was the condition of the Ministry, he should find that there was not one man who could trust his neighbour; and the truth of this was becoming strikingly evident. Dundas, the Lord Advocate, hitherto one of the staunchest supporters of Lord North, spoke now as in astonishment at the language of the Ministers, declaring that some of them in Council clearly did not give their honest opinions. There were other like symptoms of defection; the sensitive placemen saw that the end of the North Administration was at hand. Lord North, perceiving the ground failing beneath him, lowered his tone, and, on Sir James Lowther, seconded by Mr. Powys, proposing a resolution that the war against America had been an utter failure, he explained that he did not advocate, in future, a continental warfare there, a marching of troops through the provinces, from north to south, but only the retention of ports on the coast, for the protection of our fleets in those seas, and the repulse of the French and Spaniards. Parliament was adjourned on the 20th of December till the 21st of January, and thus closed the year 1781.
TWO:But whatever may have been the prudence of the chiefs of the party in Britain, however quietly the suppression may have been effected on the English side of St. George's Channel, the society was very far from dying quietly, or dying at all in Ireland, its native land. It was stunned for the moment, but very soon recovered all its pristine vigour and became as troublesome as ever. Lord Mulgrave went to that country as Viceroy, determined to govern on the principle of strict impartiality between sects and parties, but the Orangemen and the Tories generally denounced him as the most partial and one-sided of Viceroys. It was enough for them that O'Connell declared him to be the best Englishman that ever came to Ireland. Eulogy from his lips was the strongest possible censure in the estimation of the opposite party. The violence of party feeling against the Government may be inferred from the fact that the Recorder of Dublin, Mr. Shaw, one of the ablest and most eloquent of the Protestant chiefs, denounced the Melbourne Administration as infidels in religion. Lord Mulgrave, imitating some of the Viceroys of old times, made a "progress" of conciliation through the country, first visiting the south and then the north. This progress was signalised by the pardon and liberation of a large number of prisoners, which produced much excitement and clamour against the Government. It subsequently appeared that he had during his viceroyalty liberated 822 prisoners, of whom 388 were liberated without advice, the number of memorials which he received being 1,631. Although he evinced his impartiality by setting free all the Orangemen who had been imprisoned in Ulster for taking part in processions on the previous 12th of July, the members of that[396] body were not conciliated. The Dublin Grand Committee published a manifesto, declaring that the mere will of the king was not law, and that their watchword should still be "No Surrender." Sir Harcourt Lees, who had been long famous as an Orange agitator, issuing counter-blasts to O'Connell's letters and speeches, concluded one of his appeals on this occasion thus:"Orangemen, increase and multiply; be tranquil, be vigilant. Put your trust in God, still revere your king, and keep your powder dry." In Ulster the organs of the Orange party called upon its members to resist the law against processions, since the provisions of the Emancipation Act against the Jesuits and other religious orders, who treated the law with defiance, were allowed to remain a dead letter. The Londonderry Sentinel warned off the Liberal Viceroy from that citadel of Protestant ascendency, and said, "If he should come among us, he shall see such a display of Orange banners as will put him into the horrors." The irritation was kept up by various incidents, such as setting aside the election of a mayor of Cork, because he was an Orangeman, setting aside two sheriffs, and the dismissal of constables for the same reason. In the meantime a tremendous outcry was raised on account of the alleged partiality of the Irish Government on the subject of patronage. It was said that every office was at the disposal of the Roman Catholics; that from the bench of justice down to the office of police-constable there was no chance for any one else. In the midst of a war of factions in the spring of 1836 a tremendous sensation was produced by the blowing up of the statue of King William on College Green. On the 8th of February, a little after midnight, this astounding event occurred. The statue stood on a pedestal eighteen feet in height, surrounded by an enclosure of iron railing, the head being about thirty feet from the level of the street. The figure consisted of lead, and though weighing several tons, it was blown up to a considerable height, and fell at some distance from the pedestal. The Government and the corporation offered rewards for the discovery of the authors of this outrage, but without success. It was a mystery how such a quantity of gunpowder could have been got into the statue, and how a train could have been laid without detection in so public a place, the police being always on duty on College Green at night. King William, however, was restored to his position.
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