FORE:An address, founded on this resolution, was carried to the king, who faithfully kept the word he had given nearly three years before. Chatham had then, through Lord North, sought to get his own pension continued to his second son, William Pitt, afterwards the celebrated Minister. On that occasion, George III. had declared that the conduct of Chatham of late had totally obliterated any sense of gratitude for his former merits; but that, when decrepitude or death should put an end to him as a trumpet of sedition, he would not punish the children for the father's sins, but would place the second son's name where Chatham's had been. He now consented to that; an annuity bill settled four thousand pounds a-year on the heirs of Chatham to whom the title should descend, which received the sanction of Parliament; and the Commons, moreover, voted twenty thousand pounds to pay the deceased Earl's debts. Both these motions passed the House of Commons unanimously; but, in the Upper House, the Duke of Chandos attacked the grants, and condemned severely the custom of loading the country with annuities in perpetuity. The bill was, however, carried by forty-two votes to eleven, though four noble Lords entered a protest against it, namely, Lord Chancellor Bathurst, the Duke of Chandos, Lord Paget, and Markham, Archbishop of York.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:Now, though in some obscure and ignorant parts of the country there were clubs which contemplated the foolish idea of seizing on neighbouring properties, the committees must have been very ill-informed to have drawn any such conclusion as to the Hampden Clubs, which were organised for Parliamentary reform under the auspices of Sir Francis Burdett, Major Cartwright, Lord Cochrane, Cobbett, and others. Most of these persons had large properties to be sacrificed by the propagation of any such principles, and the great topics of Cobbett's Register, the organ through which he communicated with the people, were the necessity of refraining from all violence, and of rising into influence by purely political co-operation. But these reports answered the purposes of the Government, and they proceeded to introduce, and succeeded in passing, four Acts for the suppression of popular opinion. The first was to provide severe punishment for all attempts to seduce the soldiers or sailors from their allegiance; the second to give safeguards to the person of the Sovereign, but which did not include the most effectual of allthat of making him beloved; the third was to prevent seditious meetings, and gave great power to the magistrates and police to interfere with any meeting for the mildest Reforms; the fourth was the old measure of suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which armed the magistrates with the fearful authority to arrest and imprison at pleasure, without being compelled to bring the accused to trial. The last of these Acts was not passed till the 29th of March, and it was to continue in force only till the 1st of July. But in the meantime events took place which occasioned its renewal.[370]
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:[16]
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:Lord Redesdale in a letter to Lord Eldon, written in 1821, soon after the king's visit, gave expression to some important truths about the Government of Ireland. "Ministers," he said, "have fancied that Ireland would do better without a Lord-Lieutenant, and some of them have called his office a useless pageant, but under the present circumstances they would govern the colonies as well without governors as they can govern Ireland without that pageant. If the pageant is useless, it is because they make it useless, because they give him a Secretary to thwart him, or to be a viceroy over him. The office of Lord-Lieutenant requires, in my opinion, a considerable portion of ability, sound judgment, discretion, firmness, good temper, and conciliating[246] manners. Such a Lord-Lieutenant ought to be supreme. If Ministers think fit to appoint to such an office a man wholly unqualified for it, they must put him in leading-strings, and give him a Secretary with all the qualities the Lord-Lieutenant ought to have; and, moreover, with a disposition to conceal rather than display his power over his superiorto lead, and not to command, the Lord-Lieutenant. In England the machine goes on almost of itself, and therefore a bad driver may manage it tolerably well. It is not so in Ireland. The country requires great exertion to bring it into a state of order and submission to law. The whole populationhigh and low, rich and poor, Catholic and Protestantmust all be brought to obedience to law; all must be taught to look up to the law for protection. The gentry are ready enough to attend grand juries, to obtain presentments for their own benefit, but they desert the quarter-sessions of the peace. The first act of a constable in arrest must not be to knock down the prisoner; and many, many reforms must be made, which only can be effected by a judicious and able Government on the spot. Ireland, in its present state, cannot be governed in England. If insubordination compels you to give, how are you to retain by law what you propose to maintain while insubordination remains? It can only be by establishing completely the empire of the law."
FORE:[See larger version]Rt. Hon. J. Toler, a peerage and chief justiceship.
FORE: W. G. Joscelyn, promotion in the army, and his brother made Bishop of Lismore.
FORE:A Commission had been appointed to inquire into the Department of Naval Affairs. The Commissioners, at whose head was Mr. Whitbread, had extended their researches so far back as to include the time when Lord Melville, as Mr. Dundas, had presided over that Department. They there discovered some very startling transactions. Large sums of money had been drawn out of the Bank of England on the plea of paying accounts due from the Naval Department; these sums had been paid into Coutts's Bank in the name of the Treasurer of the Navy, Mr. Trotter, who, for long periods together, used these sums for his own benefit. Other large sums had been drawn in the name of Dundas, and had been employed for his profit. Other sums had disappeared, and there was no account showing how they had vanished; but these were scored under the name of Secret Service Money, and Melville declared that the money paid into his account had gone in the same way. As much as forty-eight thousand pounds had been paid over to Pitt at once, and no account given of its expenditure. Indeed, as Pitt had nothing to do with that Department, the payment to him was altogether irregular. These discoveries created a great sensation. George Rose, who had begun life without a sixpence, but who, after attracting the attention of Pitt, had rapidly thriven and become extremely wealthy, had confessed to Wilberforce that some strange jobs had come under his notice as a member of that Department. There was a loud outcry for the impeachment of Melville. Melville appears to have been a jovial, hard-drinking Scotsman, of a somewhat infidel turn, according to Scottish philosophy of that period. Amongst Melville's faults, however, it does not appear that he was of an avaricious character, but rather of a loose morale, and ready to fall in with the licence practised by the officers of all departments of Government in the duties entrusted to them.The plan of the campaign is said to have been laid down by Bernadotte, and adopted, after some slight revision, by General Moreau. That general, whom the jealousy of Buonaparte had expelled from France, and who had retired to America, now returned in the hope of seeing the fall of Buonaparte effected, and peace and a liberal constitution given to his country. He came not to fight against France, but against Buonaparte. The plan showed that they who devised it knew Napoleon's art of war. It was to prevent him from attacking and beating them in detail. Whichever party was first assailed was to retire and draw him after them, till the other divisions could close round him, and assail him on all sides. Blucher was the first to advance against Macdonald and Ney. As had been foreseen, Buonaparte hastened to support these generals with the Imperial Guard and a numerous cavalry, under Latour-Maubourg. But Blucher then retired, and, crossing the Katzbach, sat down near Jauer, so as to cover Breslau. The purpose was served, for Schwarzenberg, accompanied by the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, as well as by Moreau, had rushed forward on Dresden, driving St. Cyr and twenty thousand men before them, who took refuge in Dresden. The Allies were at his heels, and on the 25th of August began to attack the city. They hoped to win it before Buonaparte could return, in which case they would cut off his line of communication with Francestopping the advance both of his[69] supplies and reinforcements. But the very next day, whilst they were in vigorous operation against the city, and had already carried two redoubts, Buonaparte was seen advancing in hot haste over the bridges into Dresden. Warned of its danger, he had left Macdonald to defend himself, and now led his troops across the city and out at two different gates upon the enemies. The battle continued that day, and was resumed the next, by Buonaparte pushing forward immense bodies of troops from different gates, and concentrating them on the Allies. The attempt to take the city in Buonaparte's absence had failed, and now they saw themselves in danger of being enclosed by Muratwho had again been induced to join the Emperoron the Freiberg road, and by Vandamme on the road to Pirna, by the Elbe. They were, therefore, compelled to fall back, and the withdrawal soon proved a flight. Napoleon pursued them hotly amid torrents of wind and rain, and made great slaughter, especially of the Austrians, who were seized with a panic of the enemy who had so often beaten them. Seven or eight thousand French were killed and wounded; but of the Allies, chiefly Austrians, more than twenty thousand were killed or disabled. During the engagement Moreau had both his legs shot away by a cannon ball, and died in a few days.
FORE:
