THREE:Lord John Russell was immediately summoned from Scotland, and on the 11th arrived at Osborne, where he received her Majesty's commands to form a Government. On the ground that his party were in a minority in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell at first declined the honour presented to him; but on a paper being placed in his hands by the Queen, in which Sir Robert Peel promised, in his private capacity, to aid and give every support to the new Ministry in settling the question of the Corn Laws, he undertook the task. There was no amicable feeling between the new and the retiring Minister. Lord John Russell's letter, published a few days before, had excited as much attention for its bitter sarcasm against Sir Robert Peel as for the important change in the Whig policy which it announced. Lord John Russell held communication with the late Government, but through Sir James Graham. It was of importance to him to know more clearly the nature of that support which Sir Robert Peel's memorandum seemed to promise; and he was, therefore, anxious to know what the latter would consider a satisfactory settlement. This proposal, however, to the late Minister to become responsible for the measures of his successors was declined. Sir James Graham communicated to Lord John Russell the information as to the state of the country on which they acted; but Sir Robert Peel, through his colleague, declined to state the details of the measures which had lately been contemplated. Lord John Russell then gave, in writing, an outline of the measures which the new Cabinet would propose, and invited the opinion of the late Minister. Sir Robert Peel, however, still declined to take part in the plans of his opponents; and in a letter to the Queen, on the 17th of December, he stated the constitutional grounds on which he considered it improper that any one, not an adviser of the Crown, should take a part in the preparation of Ministerial measures. Lord John Russell thereupon immediately proceeded with his negotiations with his own party. It soon, however, appeared that the task he had proposed to himself was beyond his power. Earl Grey, who had agreed to take the Secretaryship of the Colonies in the new Ministry, suddenly declared that he would not join any Administration in which Lord Palmerston should hold the office of Secretary for Foreign Affairs. This unexpected accident was regarded by Lord John Russell as decisive. On the 20th of December he communicated the facts to the Queen, and begged to be relieved from the task he had undertaken.ASSASSINATION OF SPENCER PERCEVAL. (See p. 23.)
FORE:The rest of the Speech consisted of endeavours to represent the country as in a prosperous condition; to have escaped from insurrection by the vigilance of Ministers, and to have recovered the elasticity of commerce. No amendment was moved to the Address in either House, but not the less did the conduct of Ministers escape some animadversion. In the Peers, Lord Lansdowne ridiculed the alarms which had been raised regarding the movements in Derbyshire, which, he said, had not been at all participated in by the working population at large, and had been put down by eighteen dragoons. He contended that there was no evidence of any correspondence with these conspirators in other quarters; but this was notoriously incorrect, for there had been a correspondence in Lancashire and Yorkshire, a[132] correspondence especially disgraceful to Ministers, for it was on the part of their own incendiary agents. He observed truly, however, that the insurrection, as it was called, had by no means justified the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, for it could have been most readily put down without it by the regular course of law. In the Commons, Sir Samuel Romilly thought that the Derbyshire insurrectionists had been very properly brought to trial; for Brandreth had committed a murder, and, therefore, those who acted with him were, in the eye of the law, equally guilty. But if they were properly brought to trial, there were others who ought still more properly to have been brought to trial toothe very men whom Government had sent out, and who had aroused these poor people into insurrection by false and treacherous statements. There was no justice in trying and punishing the victims, and screening their own agents; and this was what Government had done, and were still doing. It is in vain, therefore, that their defenders contend that they gave no authority to Oliver and the other spies to excite the people to outbreak: these spies having notoriously done it, they still protected and rewarded them, and thus made themselves responsible for their whole guilt. If they had not authorised the worst part of the conduct of the spies, they now acted as though they had, and thus morally assumed the onus of these detestable proceedings. One thing immediately resulted from the p?ans of Ministers on the flourishing state of the countrythe repeal of the Suspension Act. The Opposition at once declared that if the condition of the country was as Ministers described it, there could be no occasion for the continuance of this suppression of the Constitution; and accordingly a Bill for the repeal of the Suspension Act was at once brought in and passed by the Lords on the 28th, and by the Commons on the 29th of January.
THREE:In the south, affairs had been as ill conducted by the English commanders as in the north they had been carried on well. Governor Martin had made an effort to recover North Carolina. He had collected a number of Highlanders, recently emigrated to America, and a number of back-woodsmen, called Regulators, and sent them, under the command of Colonels Macdonald and Macleod, to compel the inhabitants to submission. They were to be supported by regular troops to be landed at Wilmington, and General Clinton was daily expected with the reinforcements from England. But Clinton did not appear, and the impatient Highlanders and Regulators, in marching from Cross Creek to Wilmington, were decoyed into a swamp, and there attacked and beaten. Macleod and most of the Highlanders were taken prisoners, and the Regulators, such as escaped, made again for the woods.
FORE:Such language was certain to irritate, in no ordinary degree, the full-blown pride of Buonaparte. It is probable that he was only too desirous of finding a cause of quarrel with Prussia. He longed to avenge himself on her for keeping him in a state of tantalising uncertainty during his Austrian campaign; and he wished to bring the whole of Germany under his dominion. He replied, through Talleyrand, that Prussia had no right to demand from him that he should withdraw his troops from friendly States, and that they should remain there as long as he pleased. In fact, he was already watching the movements of Prussia. He was well aware of the negotiations with Russia, he had full information of the man?uvring of troops, and that the Queen of Prussia, in the uniform of the regiment called by her name, had been at reviews of the army, encouraging the soldiers by her words. He had, weeks before, assembled his principal marshalsSoult, Murat, Augereau, and Bernadottein Paris, and, with them, sketched the plan of the campaign against Prussia. Four days before Knobelsdorff presented the King of Prussia's letter to Talleyrand Napoleon had quitted Paris, and was on the Rhine, directing the march of his forces there, and calling for the contingents from the princes of the Rhenish Confederation; nay, so forward were his measures, that his army in Germany, under Berthier, stretched from Baden to Düsseldorf, and from Frankfort-on-the-Main to Nuremberg. At the same time he commenced a series of the bitterest attacks on Prussia in the Moniteur and other papers under his control, and of the vilest and most unmanly attacks on the character of the Queen of Prussia, a most interesting and amiable woman, whose only crime was her patriotism.
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THREE:In the following Session Sir Henry Houghton brought it forward again, on the 17th of February. On this occasion a great many Methodist congregations petitioned against the Bill; for the Methodists, though separating themselves from the Church, still insisted that they belonged to it, and held all its tenets, at least of that section of it which is Arminian. It again passed the Commons,[160] but was rejected by the Lords. Finding the Lords so determined against the measure, it was allowed to rest for six years, when circumstances appeared more favourable, and it was again brought forward, in 1779, by Sir Henry Houghton, and carried through both Houses, with the introduction of a clause to this effect, that all who desired to be relieved by the Act should make the affirmation"I, A. B., do solemnly declare that I am a Christian and a Protestant Dissenter, and that I take the Old and New Testaments, as they are generally received in Protestant countries, for the rule of my faith and practice."He next attacked and took Montereau from the Allies, but at a terrible cost of life. Finding then that the Austrians and Prussians were once more contemplating a junction, he sent an answer to the letter of the Allied sovereigns, but it was addressed only to the Emperor of Austria, and its tenor was to persuade the Emperor to make a separate peace. "Only gain the Austrians," he had said to Caulaincourt, on sending him to Chatillon, "and the mischief is at an end." The Emperor sent Prince Wenceslaus of Liechtenstein to Napoleon's headquarters, and it was agreed that a conference should be held at Lusigny, between him and Count Flahault, on the 24th of February. But Buonaparte did not cease for a moment his offensive movements. On the night of the 23rd he bombarded Troyes, and entered the place the next day. The Congress at Chatillon still continued to sit, Caulaincourt amusing the sovereigns and the ambassador of Great Britain, Lord Aberdeen, with one discussion after another, but having secret instructions from Buonaparte to sign nothing. At length he wrote to him, on the 17th of February, saying, "that when he gave him his carte-blanche it was for the purpose of saving Paris, but that Paris was now saved, and he revoked the powers which he had given him." The Allies, however, continued till the 15th of March their offer of leaving France its ancient limits, and then, the time being expired, they broke up the conference. It is said that as Caulaincourt left Chatillon he met the secretary of Buonaparte bringing fresh powers for treating, but it was now too late. On the 1st of March the Allies had signed a treaty at the town of Chaumont, pledging themselves to combined action against Napoleon, should he still prove to be obstinate.
FORE:To insure a powerful diversion, the Sultan had engaged the military co-operation of Sweden. Sweden had been forcibly deprived of Finland by Peter the Great, and she longed to recover it. She had a brave army, but no money. The Grand Turk, to enable her to commence the enterprise, had sent her a present of about four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Sweden put her fleet in preparation in all haste, and had Pitt merely allowed the Russian fleet to quit the Baltic, there was nothing to prevent the execution of the Swedish design on Finland, nor, indeed, of marching directly on St. Petersburg in the absence of the army.
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