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THREE:Very strong hopes were entertained by the Liberal party from the Administration of Lord Wellesley, but it was his misfortune to be obliged to commence it with coercive measures, always the ready resource of the Irish Government. The new Viceroy would have removed, if possible, the causes of public disturbance; but, in the meantime, the peace must be preserved and sanguinary outrages must be repressed, and he did not shrink from the discharge of his duty in this respect on account of the popular odium which it was sure to bring upon his Government. Mr. Plunket, as Attorney-General, was as firm in the administration of justice as Mr. Saurin, his high Tory predecessor, could be. The measures of repression adopted by the legislature were certainly not wanting in severity. The disorders were agrarian, arising out of insecurity of land tenure, rack rents, and tithes levied by proctors upon tillage, and falling chiefly upon the Roman Catholic population, who disowned the ministrations of the Established Church. The remedies which the Government provided for disturbances thus originating were the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the renewal of the Insurrection Act. By the provisions of the latter the Lord-Lieutenant was empowered, on the representation of justices in session that a district was disturbed, to proclaim it in a state of insurrection, to interdict the inhabitants from leaving their homes between sunset and sunrise, and to subject them to visits by night, to ascertain their presence in their own dwellings. If absent, they were considered idle and disorderly, and liable to transportation for seven years! These measures encountered considerable opposition, but they were rapidly passed through both Houses, and received the Royal Assent a week after Parliament met. Under these Acts a number of Whiteboys and other offenders were tried and convicted, several hanged, and many transported. Lord Wellesley must have felt his position very disagreeable between the two excited parties. To be impartial and just was to incur the hostility of both. Possibly he became disgusted with the factions that surrounded him. Whether from this cause, or from an indolent temper, or from the feeling that he was hampered and restrained, and could not do for the country what he felt that its well-being required, or from ill health, it is certain that he became very inactive. A member of the Cabinet writes about him thus:��"I find the Orange party are loud in their abuse of Lord Wellesley, for shutting himself up at the Ph?nix Park, lying in bed all day, seeing nobody, and only communicating with Secretary Gregory by letter. Indeed, I believe that the latter is more than he often favours Secretaries Peel and Goulburn with." In another letter, the same Minister, Mr. Wynn, complains of his total neglect of his correspondence with England. This, he said, was inexcusable, because those on whom the chief responsibility rested had a right to know his views upon the state of Ireland, in order to be able to meet the Opposition during the sitting of Parliament. This was written towards the end of April, and at that time the Government had not for a month heard a syllable from him on the agitated questions of tithes, magistracy, and police. The state of Ireland, indeed, became every day more perplexing and alarming. A revolutionary spirit was abroad, and all other social evils were aggravated by famine, which prevailed in extensive districts in the south and west. The potato crop, always precarious, was then almost a total failure in many counties, and left the dense population, whose existence depended upon it, totally destitute. The cry of distress reached England, and was responded to in the most generous spirit. Half a million[223] sterling was voted by Parliament, and placed at the disposal of Lord Wellesley, to be dispensed in charitable relief and expended on public works for the employment of the poor. In addition to this, the English people contributed from their private resources the sum of three hundred thousand pounds for the relief of Irish distress. On the 30th of May there was a ball given for the same object, in the King's Theatre, London, which produced three thousand five hundred pounds.[See larger version]

THREE:Sir John landed in Calabria on the 1st of July, in the Gulf of Santa Euphemia, not far from Nicastro, and advanced to seek Regnier. He had not quite five thousand troops with him, all infantry, and a third of these Corsicans, Sicilians, and other foreigners in British pay. Regnier had started for Naples with ten thousand men, but some of these were lost, and others stationed to occupy different posts. On the 3rd of July Sir John Stuart learned that Regnier was near Maida, about ten miles from Sir John's landing-place. Leaving a detachment to guard the stores, Sir John, on the 4th, marched forward, under a burning sun, to come up with him. He found Regnier drawn up in a strong position on a woody slope below the village of Maida, flanked by a thick, scrubby wood on each hand, and having in front the river Amato, at this season of the year perfectly fordable. The position was formidable, and, had Regnier kept it, it must have tried the British severely to dislodge him, especially as they had no cavalry; but Regnier, probably honestly of opinion that the British need only be encountered to be beaten, descended from his vantage ground into the plain. One reason might be, that his cavalry could better avail him there; another, that, after his boasts, Lebrun, the Commissioner of Buonaparte, who always, in the old Jacobin style, had such a person in the field to watch the conduct of his generals, would be ready to condemn him if he showed any delay when engaged with so despised an enemy. The two armies approached each other about nine o'clock in the morning. They fired two or three rounds at each other, and then advanced with fixed bayonets. The officer commanding the British advance column, seeing that the men were oppressed by the blankets which they carried at their backs in that sultry weather, commanded a halt a little before they closed, and ordered them to let their blankets go. The French, seeing this momentary halt, were confirmed in their general's opinion of the cowardice of the British, and rushed on with loud cheers. They were bronzed and bearded veterans; the British, who composed the advance column, were chiefly young and beardless youths; and an officer present informed Sir Walter Scott, that, as he glanced first on the grim-looking French, and then at the smooth, young faces of the British, he could not help feeling a momentary anxiety. But no sooner were the British freed from their blankets than they dashed forward with loud hurrahs; and the French, who, since the battle of Austerlitz, had boasted that no soldiers in Europe could stand against them in a charge of bayonets, were, in their turn, staggered. Some few stood firmly to cross bayonets with the foe, but the greater part fell back. The French officers rushed along their lines to encourage their men, but in vain; nothing could urge them to the points of the British bayonets. The hills around were crowded with the Calabrians, anxious spectators of the fight. When the British halted, they raised loud exclamations of dismay, believing they were about to fly, but the next moment they saw them springing forward with shouts and the French waver, turn, and fly. The First Light Infantry��a crack French regiment��were the first to break and run for the hills. But it was too late; the British were at their backs, and pursued them with a terrible slaughter. Regnier's left thus routed by our right, he rode furiously about, bringing all the force he could muster on our left, but there the result was just the same: the French scarcely stayed to feel the bayonets, but fled in headlong confusion. The British took all the forts along the coasts, and drove the French into Upper Calabria, where they were joined, near Cassano, by Massena, with a powerful army. But the British force was not strong enough to do more than it had done. Malaria also began to decimate his troops, and Sir John Stuart returned, in August, to Sicily, carrying with him a great quantity of stores and artillery, which the French had prepared for the reduction of Calabria. The chief benefit of the battle of Maida was to show that the British troops, in proper quantities, were able to drive the French before them, but that, in the small numbers usually sent on expeditions, they were merely wasted. The battle of Alexandria, and now that of Maida, demonstrated that, if Britain would continue to fight on the Continent, she must prepare to do it with a sufficient force; and the after campaigns of Portugal and Spain, and the conclusive battle of Waterloo, were the results of this public conviction. At the same time, the brilliant episode of Maida had wonderfully encouraged the Neapolitans and Calabrians. Joseph Buonaparte, the French intruded king, was once or twice on the very point of flying to the army in Upper Calabria, and many of his counsellors strongly advised it. Massena advised Joseph to remain, and assured him that he would soon reduce the whole kingdom to obedience to him. But, in fact, it took Massena and his successors five years to accomplish the subjugation, with the sacrifice of one hundred thousand men.