FORE:But there was one subject of general and permanent interest brought under the notice of the House of Commons. Mr. Henry Brougham made an important speech on the great and difficult subject of Popular Education, which he continued to advocate, with so much power and success, throughout the whole of his lengthened and brilliant career. He stated that there were then twelve thousand parishes or chapelries in England; of these three thousand five hundred had not a vestige of a school, and the people had no more means of education than the Hottentots or Kaffirs. Of the remainder, there were five thousand five hundred unendowed, depending entirely on the casual and fleeting support of the parents of the children attending them. The number of children receiving education at all the schools, week-day and Sunday, was seven hundred thousand. Estimating the number educated at home at fifty thousand, the whole number then under instruction would be seven hundred and fifty thousandabout one-fifteenth of the entire population. In Scotland the proportion at that time was about one-tenth; in Holland and Prussia the same; in Switzerland one-eighth. France was then at the bottom of the scale, only one-twenty-eighth of the population being under instruction. Mr. Brougham proposed a school-rate for England, according to the American plan.In London, notwithstanding, there was considerable alarm, but rather from fear of the Papists and Jacobites at home than of any danger from abroad. Every endeavour had been used, in fact, to revive the old Popery scare. There were rumours circulated that the Papists meant to rise, cut everybody's throats, and burn the City. There was fear of a run on the Bank of England, but the merchants met at Garraway's Coffee-house, and entered into engagements to support the Bank. They also opened a subscription to raise two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to enlist troops, and many of them gave as much as two thousand pounds apiece. A camp was formed in Hyde Park of the Household Troops, horse and foot, a regiment of horse grenadiers, and some of the battalions that came over from Flanders. In the provinces many of the great nobility proposed to raise regiments at their own expense, and this act of patriotism was loudly applauded. In some instances the patriotism was real. But the main body of the Whig nobility and some others cut a very different figure. No sooner did Parliament meet on the 18th of October, and whilst the Jacobites were in the highest spirits, and opposing both the Address and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, than the Dukes of Devonshire, Bedford, Rutland, Montague, the Lords Herbert, Halifax, Cholmondeley, Falmouth, Malton, Derby, and others, moved, contrary to their splendid promises, that their regiments should be paid by the king, and should be put upon the regular establishment. The king was as much disgusted as the most independent of his subjects, but he found himself unable to prevent the measure.
THREE:THE ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE ON THEIR WAY TO THE ASSEMBLY. (See p. 403.)
Amount Pending For Approval
THREE:Pitt's expeditions were not particularly well arranged. Instead of sending an army of thirty or forty thousand to the Baltic, and calling on Russia to do the same, which she could have done, notwithstanding the army under the Emperor Alexander, he sent only about six thousand, and sent another eight thousand from Malta, to co-operate with twelve thousand Russians in a descent on the kingdom of Naples. This expedition might have been left till the success in the North was secured; in truth, it had better have been left altogether. When General Don and Lord Cathcart landed in Swedish Pomerania, and were joined by the king's German legion and some other German hired troops, our army amounted only to sixteen thousand men, the Swedes to twelve thousand, and the Russians to ten thousandaltogether, not forty thousand men. But what was worse than the paucity of numbers was the disunion amongst the commanders. Lord Harrowby was sent to Berlin, to endeavour to induce Prussia to join this coalition, but Prussia was well aware of the want of unity in the Allied Army, and, weighing probabilities, she could not be moved. The King of Sweden was so incensed at the cold, shuffling conduct of the King of Prussia, that he wrote him some very indignant and undiplomatic letters, which only furnished him with a further excuse for holding aloof. Gustavus, seeing no good likely to be done, resigned his command of the Allied Army, where, indeed, he had enjoyed no real command at all, and retired with his forces to Stralsund. This was a fatal exposition of want of unity, and it was not till three weeks were gone that the breach was healed. By this time it was the middle of November. Ulm had surrendered, Napoleon was master of Vienna, and Prussia was still watching what would be the fate of the coming battle between Napoleon and the Emperors of Austria and Russia. The union of the Allies came too late; the force was altogether too small to turn the scale of the campaign. Had Gustavus marched into Hanover a month earlier, with sixty thousand men, he might have rendered Austerlitz a nonentity; as it was, he had only time to invest Hameln, where Bernadotte had left a strong garrison, when the news of Austerlitz arrived, and caused the Allies to break up the campaign, and each to hurry off to his own country.
Pending For New Events
THREE:
To Be Made For New Orders
THREE:The Privy Council decided that the petition from Massachusetts was framed on false and exaggerated allegations, and was groundless, vexatious, and scandalous. Two days afterwards, the king dismissed Franklin from the office, which he had till now held, of Deputy-Postmaster of America.
That Should Be Resolved Now