THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID. (From a Photograph by Frith & Co.)Before Walpole thus threw off the mask of moderationindeed, on the very day of his resignationhe introduced a well-matured scheme for the reduction of the National Debt, which was, in fact, the earliest germ of the National Sinking Fund. Though the ordinary rate of interest had been reduced, by the statute of the 12th of Queen Anne, to five per cent., the interest on the funded debt remained upwards of seven. The Long and Short Annuities were unredeemable, and could not be touched without the consent of the proprietors; but Walpole proposed to borrow six hundred thousand pounds at only four per cent., and to apply all savings to the discharge of the debts contracted before December, 1716. He proposed, also, to make some arrangement with the Bank and the South Sea Company, by which the Bank should lend two millions and a half, and the Company two millions, at five per cent., to pay off such holders of redeemable debts as should refuse to accept an equal reduction.
ONE:The Spaniards had at length made Lord Wellington Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies,[56] but this appointment was little more than nominal, for the Spanish generals continued as froward and insubordinate as ever; and the Spanish Government was poorer than ever, its remittances from the South American colonies, which were asserting their independence, being stopped. Wellington's dependence, therefore, continued to rest on his army of British and Portuguesesixty-three thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry.
TWO:Peel has been even more severely censured than the Duke of Wellington for the part he took on this memorable occasion. He wrote a long letter to the Duke, in which he earnestly[283] protested against taking charge of the Emancipation Bill in the House of Commons, offering, at the same time, to give it his earnest support. He also offered to resign, as a means of removing one obstacle to the adjustment which the interests of the country demanded. The letter concluded as follows: "I do not merely volunteer my retirement at whatever may be the most convenient time, I do not merely give you the promise that out of office (be the sacrifices that I foresee, private and public, what they may) I will cordially co-operate with you in the settlement of this question, and cordially support your Government; but I add to this my decided and deliberate opinion that it will tend to the satisfactory adjustment of the question if the originating of it in the House of Commons and the general superintendence of its progress be committed to other hands than mine." And in his "Memoirs" he remarks: "Twenty years have elapsed since the above letter was written. I read it now with the full testimony of my own heart and conscience to the perfect sincerity of the advice which I then gave, and the declarations which I then made; with the same testimony, also, to the fact that that letter was written with a clear foresight of the penalties to which the course I resolved to take would expose methe rage of party, the rejection by the University of Oxford, the alienation of private friends, the interruption of family affections. Other penalties, such as the loss of office and of royal favour, I would not condescend to notice if they were not the heaviest in the estimation of vulgar and low-minded men, incapable of appreciating higher motives of public conduct. My judgment may be erroneous. From the deep interest I have in the result (though now only so far as future fame is concerned), it cannot be impartial; yet, surely, I do not err in believing that when the various circumstances on which my decision was taken are calmly and dispassionately consideredthe state of political partiesthe recent discussions in Parliamentthe result of the Clare election, and the prospects which it openedthe earnest representations and emphatic warnings of the chief governor of Irelandthe evils, rapidly increasing, of divided counsels in the Cabinet, and of conflicting decisions in the two Houses of Parliamentthe necessity for some systematic and vigorous course of policy in respect to Irelandthe impossibility, even if it were wise, that that policy should be one of coercionsurely, I do not err in believing that I shall not hereafter be condemned for having heedlessly and precipitously, still less for having dishonestly and treacherously, counselled the attempt to adjust the long litigated question, that had for so many years precluded the cordial co-operation of public men, and had left Ireland the arena for fierce political conflicts, annually renewed, without the means of authoritative interposition on the part of the Crown."
THREE:
FORE:These were measures which must have greatly irritated the American colonists. They exhibited a disposition to curb and repress their growing energies between the interests of British merchants and British West Indian planters. The prospect was far from encouraging; whilst, at the same time, the English Ministers, crushing these energies with one hand, were contemplating drawing a revenue by taxation from them on the other. Britain argued that she sacrificed large amounts in building up colonies, and therefore had a right to expect a return for this expenditure. Such a return, had they had the sagacity to let them alone, was inevitable from the trade of the colonies in an ever-increasing ratio.Puisaye's mission to London had been successful. Pitt was weak enough to fall into the plan of sending over the Emigrants in our shipsas if any such force could do more against the Republican armies than create fresh miseries to all parties, and bring down worse vengeance on the unfortunate Vendans and Bretons. Puisaye, with the aid of the Counts d'Hervilly, d'Hector, du Dresnay, Colonel Routhalier, and other Royalist officers, had mustered a most miscellaneous[446] body of three thousand Emigrants, most of whom had been soldiers, and who were accompanied by four hundred artillerymen of Toulon, commanded by Routhalier. Besides these men, of whom the Count d'Artois, for the time, gave the command to Puisaye, intending himself to follow, Puisaye carried over ten thousand pounds, furnished by the Count d'Artois, twenty-seven thousand muskets, six hundred barrels of gunpowder, uniforms for seventeen thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, as well as provisions for three months. These troops and stores were, after many delays, conveyed in a little squadron of three ships of the line and six frigates, attended by transports, and commanded by Sir John Borlase Warren. They sailed from the Isle of Wight in the beginning of June, another squadron being sent to take up the Emigrant troops in the Channel Islands, and land them at St. Malo, where they were to co-operate with bodies of Chouans. These Chouans were smugglers and bandits, who had led a life of plunder, and had been easily collected into a sort of guerilla force, and their mode of warfare still bore a strong resemblance to their old habits. These men, under their different chiefs, had been excited by Puisaye to combine for a strong resistance to the Republicans. They were dressed in green coats and pantaloons, with red waistcoats. During his absence, Puisaye had deputed the chief command of the Chouan bands to the so-called Baron Cormatin, or Sieur Dsoteux, who had assumed the title of Baron de Cormatin from an estate of his wife's. Cormatin was a vain, weak man, and by no means trustworthy, being ready, at any moment, to supersede his chief, Puisaye, and act for himself. If the expedition against St. Malo did not succeed, it was to join Puisaye and his detachment in the Bay of Quiberon; and transports were also sent to the mouth of the Elbe, to fetch thence the Emigrant regiments with the black cockade, and bring them to join Puisaye. If all went well, the Count d'Artois was to follow with British troops. The grand error of the whole was, that the French prince did not put himself at once at the head of the expedition, and see the different squadrons united in the Bay of Quiberon before making the descent, though, even then, it could have effected no great success.
Alberoni now found himself in turn attacked by France. Whilst busying himself to repair a few of the shattered ships which had escaped from the tempest, in order to harass the coast of Brittany in conjunction with the malcontents there, he beheld an army of thirty thousand French menacing the Pyrenean frontier. War having begun, the Spaniards were utterly defeated by the French in Spain and by the Austrians in Sicily, thanks to the zealous co-operation of the British fleet under Admiral Byng. At length Philip was compelled to dismiss Alberoni.[See larger version]The Ministers, instead of making rational concessions to the demands of the people for Reform, proceeded without delay to fresh aggressions on their liberties. Not contented with the existing suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and with introducing into the Lords a Bill for the protection of the king's person and Government, they passed a law prohibiting all political meetings, and another to extend the law of treason; they recommenced arrests and prosecutions, and sent out shoals of spies and informers, so that all the safeguards of public liberty were completely annihilated. These despotic measures did not pass without energetic opposition and a good deal of violent language from Fox; but all remonstrance was useless against Pitt's majority. Still the alarm of the Government was not allayed. On the 8th of December the king sent a message to both Houses, reiterating his assurance of an earnest desire to negotiate peace with France. The Opposition very properly pointed out that, so far as France was concerned, victorious in its armies, and as anti-monarchical in its government as ever, there were less hopes of any consent on its part to peace than when the Opposition had so repeatedly urged the same measure. In this unsatisfactory state closed the year 1795.A new and surprising phenomenon was discovered in the attacks upon Ministers for these concessions: Fox and North were in coalition! Fox, who so lately had declared North and his colleagues men "void of every principle of honour and honesty," and who would consent, should he ever make terms with them, to be called "the most infamous of mankind," now as warmly declared that he had ever found Lord Norththis man void of honour and honestya man always "open and sincere as a friend, honourable and manly as an enemy, above practising subterfuges, tricks, and stratagems." Lord North, on his side, repaid the compliments of Fox, growing enthusiastic on the genius, eloquence, and generous nature of that statesman. "While I admire the vast extent of his understanding," exclaimed North, "I can rely on the goodness of his heart." The coalition was looked upon with disfavour, but it was justified to a considerable extent during the debate on the peace. Lord John Cavendish truly represented that France and Spain were on the verge of ruin; that Holland was in an exhausted and helpless condition; and that as for America, it was in the very gulf of destitution, the people refusing to pay the taxes ordered by[300] Congress for the continuance of the war. And it was to such defeated and demolished enemies that Ministers had conceded almost everything they had asked. Lord North turned more particularly to the concession made to the French in the East Indies. It was in that quarter, he said, that he looked for a consolidated and expanding empire, calculated to recompense us, and more than recompense us, for the loss of America. From that splendid continent we had completely driven the French, and the soundest policy dictated their continued firm exclusion from it. Yet here had Ministers most fatally readmitted them, to renew their old plots and alliances against us, by which they would to a certainty continue to harass, thwart, and weaken us, till we once more went through the ruinous and sanguinary process of expulsion. He was equally severe on the surrender of Minorca and the Floridas to Spain, and the admission of the unconceding, unconciliating Americans to our own proper fishing grounds. Fox called on Ministers to produce the treaty which he had sketched a few months before, and to see what very different terms he had demanded, and would have exacted. That the sense of the House went with these sentiments was shown by both the amendments of the Coalition being carried by a majority of sixteen. Lord John Cavendish moved another resolution strongly condemning the terms of the treaty, but consented that the peace now made should remain inviolate. This was also carried, by a majority of seventeen, being two hundred and seven votes against one hundred and ninety.Mr. Smith O'Brien returned to London, took his seat in the House of Commons, and spoke on the Crown and Government Securities Bill, the design of which was to facilitate prosecutions for political offences. He spoke openly of the military strength of the Republican party in Ireland, and the probable issue of an appeal to arms. But his[567] address produced a scene of indescribable commotion and violence, and he was overwhelmed in a torrent of jeers, groans, and hisses, while Sir George Grey, in replying to him, was cheered with the utmost enthusiasm.
$120
$340
$250
$378
$428
