THREE:But on the 15th of December, only eight days later, Lord Shelburne followed up the question by moving that the alarming additions annually made to the Debt, under the name of extraordinaries incurred in different services, demanded an immediate check; that the distresses of landed and mercantile interests made the strictest economy requisite, and that the expenditure of such large sums without grants from Parliament was an alarming violation of the Constitution. He showed that these expenses bore no proportion to those of any former wars as to the services performed for them, and stated plainly that the cause was notoriousthat the greater part of the money went into the pockets of the Ministers' contracting friends. Lord Shelburne's motion was also rejected. He then gave notice for a further motion of a like nature on the 8th of February.At the same time, our seamenwho were the real and proper defenders of the country but were so miserably paid and so abominably treated in many ways, that they could only be compelled into the service by the odious operation of pressgangsnow burst forth into mutiny. Their complaints and resistance compelled a small advance and improvement. None since then had taken place. This advance of wages did not amount to more than eightpence-halfpenny a day to able seamen and sevenpence to ordinary seamen. And the low pay was but the smallest part of the complaint of these brave men. They complained that a most unfair system of prize-money had prevailed, by which the admirals and chief officers swept off most of the money and left little or nothing to the petty officers and the men; that their treatment on board was barbarous, unfeeling, and degrading; that their provisions were of the vilest description, being the direct consequence of the contracts with villainous purveyors, through equally rascally Navy Commissioners, so that, in fact, they were served with such salt beef, salt pork, and biscuit as no dog would touch. Nor did their list of grievances only too real end here. Instead of Government paying the pursers direct salaries, they were paid by deducting two ounces from every pound of provisions served out to the men. Thus, instead of sixteen ounces to the pound, they received only fourteen ounces; and the same rule applied to the measurement of liquidsbeer and grogserved out to them. Things had come to such a pass from these causes, and the neglect of their complaint was so persevering, that the whole fleet determined on a mutiny.
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THREE:But Wellington was not intending to stop here. He immediately made preparations for the siege of Badajoz. He had artillery sent out to sea from Lisbon, as for some distant expedition, and then secretly carried, in small boats, up the Setubal, to Alcacer do Sal, and thence, by land, across Alemtejo to the Guadiana. On the 16th of March, after a rapid march, he reached, with a strong body of troops, the Guadiana, crossed, and at once invested Badajoz. By the 26th he had carried the Picurina and the advanced work separated from the city by the little river Rivillas, and made two breaches in the city walls. There was the same want of besieging tools and battering trains which had retarded his operations before; but the men worked well, and on the 6th of April, there being three breaches open, orders were given to storm, for Soult was collecting his forces at Seville to raise the siege. One of the breaches had been so strongly barricaded by General Philippon, the governor of Badajoz, by strong planks bristling with iron spikes, and with chevaux-de-frise of bayonets and broken swords, that no effect could be produced on the obstruction; whilst the French, from the ramparts and the houses overlooking them, poured down the most destructive volleys. But the parties at the other two breaches were more successful, and on their drawing away the French from this quarter, the spike-beams and chevaux-de-frise were knocked down, and the British were soon masters of the place. Philippon endeavoured to escape with a number of men, but he was obliged to throw himself into Fort San Christoval, on the other side the Guadiana, where he was compelled to surrender. The loss of the allies was nearly one thousand men killed, including seventy-two officers, and three hundred and six officers and three thousand four hundred and eighty men wounded. The French, though they fought under cover of batteries and houses, lost nearly one thousand five hundred men; they also delivered up upwards of five thousand prisoners of their own nation, and nearly four thousand Spaniards, British, and Portuguese, who had been kept at Badajoz as a safe fortress. The British soldiers fought with their usual undaunted bravery, but they disgraced themselves by getting drunk in the wine cellars during the night of the storming, and committed many excesses. Wellington, who was extremely rigorous in suppressing all such conduct, reduced them to discipline as quickly as possible, and on the 8th Badajoz was completely in his hands. Soult, who was at Villafranca when he received the news, immediately retreated again on Seville, briskly pursued by the British cavalry, who did much execution on his rear-guard at Villagarcia.
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THREE:The Greeks had been struggling to emancipate themselves from the tyrannical dominion of the Turks, aided in their war of independence only by the voluntary contributions and personal services of enthusiastic friends of freedom, like Lord Byron. At length, however, the sanguinary nature of the contest, and the injury to commerce by piracy, induced the Great Powers of Europe to interfere in order to put an end to the war. Accordingly, on the 6th of July, 1827, a treaty was signed in London by the Ministers of Great Britain, France, and Russia, for the pacification of Greece. In pursuance of this treaty, a joint expedition, consisting of British, French, and Russian ships, entered the Bay of Navarino on the 20th of October, with the object of compelling the Sultan to concede an armistice, in order that there might be time for effecting an arrangement. The Sultan, Mahmoud, having declined the mediation of the combined Powers, and Ibrahim Pasha having received a large reinforcement of troops from Egypt, he was ordered to put down the insurrection at every cost by land and sea. He had accordingly recommenced the war with fanatical fury. All Greeks found in arms were to be put to the sword, and the Morea was to be laid waste. The combined fleet of the Allies had received orders to demand an armistice, and if this were refused by the Turkish admiral, they were to intercept the Turkish supplies, but not to commit hostilities. When the Turkish fleet met the Allies, the futility of these instructions became evident. They found it ranged at the bottom of the bay, in the form of a crescent. Instead of parleying, the Turks began to fire, and the battle commenced apparently without plan on either side. It soon became general. Admiral Codrington, in the Asia, opened a broadside upon the Egyptian admiral, and soon reduced his ship to a wreck; others in rapid succession shared the same fate. The conflict lasted with great fury for four hours. When the smoke cleared off, the enemy had disappeared, and the bay was strewn with the fragments of their ships. Among the Allies, the loss of the British was greatest, though not largeonly 75 men killed[263] and 197 wounded. The catastrophe produced immense excitement at Constantinople, and had the Janissaries (those fierce and bigoted defenders of Mohammedanism whom the Sultan had so recently extirpated) been still in existence, it would have fared ill with Christians in that part of the world. The Sultan demanded satisfaction, which would not be granted, and the European ambassadors left Constantinople. The battle of Navarino occurred at the time when the Duke of Wellington assumed the reins of office, our ambassador having then returned from Constantinople.The Budget was brought forward on the 13th of February. It proposed to continue the income tax, which experience had shown to afford a means of supplying the place of taxes repealed, until such time as the revenue should recover itself. The Minister then unfolded his scheme, which formed no unworthy complement to his great Budget of 1842. It proposed a reduction in the sugar duties, which could not be calculated at less than 1,300,000, and was expected to lower the price to the consumer by about 1-1/4d. a pound. The Minister then proceeded to refer to a list of articles, 430 in number, which yielded but trifling amounts of revenue, and many of which were raw materials used in the various manufactures of the country, including silk, hemp, flax, and yarn or thread (except worsted yarn), all woods used in cabinet-making, animal and vegetable oils, iron and zinc in the first stages, ores and minerals (except copper ore, to which the last Act was still to apply), dye stuffs of all kinds, and all drugs, with very few exceptions; on the whole of these articles he proposed to repeal the duties altogether, not even leaving a nominal rate for registration, but retaining the power of examination. The timber duties generally he proposed to continue as they were, with the one exception of staves, which, as the raw material of the extensive manufacture of casks, he proposed to include with the 430 articles, and to take off the duty altogether. On these articles the loss amounted to 320,000. The next and most important relief in the whole proposition was the article of cotton wool, on which the Minister proposed also to reduce the duty altogether, and on which he estimated the loss at 680,000; and these constituted the whole of the proposed reductions of the import dutiesthat is, sugar, cotton wool, and the numerous small articles in the tariff. The next items of reduction proposed were the few remaining duties on our exports, such as china-stone, and other trifling things, but including the most important article of coals, on which the duty had been placed by the Government, and at the result of which Sir Robert Peel candidly avowed his disappointment. The duties he estimated at 118,000. He then passed on to the excise duties, among which he had selected two items of great importance for entire repealthe auction duty and the glass duties. By a repeal of the auction duty he estimated a loss of 300,000; but as he proposed, at the same time, to increase the auctioneer's licence uniformly from 5 to 15 (making one licence answer for all purposes, whereas, at that time, several licences were often necessary to the same party) he expected from 4,000 auctioneers an increased income, so as to reduce this loss to 250,000. On the important article of glass he gave up 642,000. These constituted the whole of his proposals; and the surplus of 2,409,000 was thus proposed to be disposed of:Estimated loss on sugar, 1,300,000; duty on cotton repealed, 680,000; ditto on 430 articles in tariff, 320,000; export duty on coal, 118,000; auction duty, 250,000; glass, 642,000. Total, 3,310,000.
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ONE:GREAT SEAL OF WILLIAM IV.
ONE:Everything in Parliament and in Ministerial movements now denoted the near approach of the renewal of war. On the 8th of March a message was received by both Houses of Parliament from his Majesty, stating that great military preparations were going on in Holland and France, and that his Majesty deemed it highly necessary to take measures for the security of his dominions. It added that negotiations were going on with France, the issue of which was uncertain, but it neither stated what these negotiations were, nor the measures called for. The message was taken for what it wasa note of war, and both in the Lords and Commons strong expressions of defiance were used to France. This seemed to have encouraged Ministers to a plainer expression of their intentions, for only two days later another message came down, calling for an increase of the navy. The next day, the 11th, the Commons formed themselves into a committee, and voted an addition of ten thousand seamen to the fifty thousand already voted. The militia were embodied. Sheridan was very zealous for war; Ministers, however, professed to desire the continuance of peace if possible.
ONE:Notwithstanding the constant wars of this time, British shipping, commerce, colonies, and manufactures made considerable progress. At the commencement of this period the amount of shipping employed in our commerce was altogether 244,788 tons, being 144,264 tons English, and 100,524 foreign; in 1701 the amount of shipping employed was 337,328 tons, of which alone 293,703 were English. In 1702, the end of William's reign, the number of English mercantile vessels was about 3,281, employing 27,196 seamen. The royal navy, at the end of William's reign, amounted to about 159,000 tons, employing some 50,000 sailors, so that the seamen of England must have amounted at that period to nearly 80,000.
