THREE:It was not only in the wild and dreary west, always the most neglected part of Ireland, without resident gentry, without a middle class, without manufacturers, and almost without towns, that the desolating effects of the famine were felt. In Ulster, even in the best counties and most thriving manufacturing districts, where the people were intensely industrious, orderly, and thrifty, some of its worst horrors were endured. In the county of Armagh, where the very small farmers kept themselves in comfort by weaving linen in their own houses, they were obliged to work their looms by night as well as by day in order to keep hunger from their homes. They worked till, by exhaustion and want of sleep, they were compelled to lie down. Many of them were obliged to sell or pawn all their clothes. In many cases, and as a last resource, those stout-hearted Presbyterians had to sell their Bibles in order to purchase a meal of food for their children. A clergyman of the Church of England in that county wrote to the Committee of the Society of Friends that he had seen the living lying on straw by the side of the unburied dead, who had died three days before. Not only the aged and infirm, not only women and children, but strong men, he had known to pine away till they died of actual starvation. Strong, healthy girls became so emaciated that they could not stand or move a limb. He visited[540] houses, once comfortable homes, in which not an article of furniture remained. The poor-house of Lurgan was shut. Seventy-five persons died there in one day. In Armagh poor-house forty-five died weekly. The poor-houses became pest-houses, which sent forth the miasma of death into every parish, already full of dysentery and fever. The congregations in the various churches were reduced to almost nothing. Deaths occurred so rapidly that the Roman Catholic priest ceased to attend funerals in his graveyard. The most deplorable accounts came from Cork, and especially from Skibbereen, a remote district of that county. In December, 1846, Father Mathew wrote to Mr. Trevelyan, then Secretary of the Treasury, that men, women, and children were gradually wasting away. They filled their stomachs with cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops, etc., to appease the cravings of hunger. There were then more than 5,000 half-starved wretches from the country begging in the streets of Cork. When utterly exhausted they crawled to the workhouse to die. The average of deaths in that union were then over 100 a week. At Crookhaven the daily average of deaths was from ten to twelve; and as early as the first Sunday in September a collection was made to purchase a public bier, on which to take the coffinless dead to the grave, the means to procure coffins being utterly exhausted in that locality. Earlier still in Skibbereen numerous cases had occurred of the dead being kept for several days above ground for want of coffins. In some cases they were buried in the rags in which they died. Throughout the entire west of the county of Cork it was a common occurrence to see from ten to a dozen funerals in the course of the day during the close of 1846.
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THREE:Such was the state of things with which the Duke of Wellington had to deal as British plenipotentiary when he left London on his mission early in September, taking Paris on his way. There he had some interesting conferences with the king and his Minister. The latter could hold out no hope that France would fulfil her engagements as to the slave trade. He spoke, indeed, of their African settlements as useless to the French people, and proposed to make them over to Britain in exchange for the Isle of France; but farther than this he declined to go, because there were too many interests, both public and private, engaged to thwart his efforts, should he be so unwise as to make any. His language with regard to South America was not less vague and unsatisfactory. He stated that France had not entered into relations with those provinces in any form, and did not intend to do so till they should have settled their differences with Spain one way or another. M. de Villele did not add, as he might have done, that France was feeling her way towards the severance of Spain from her colonies, and towards the establishment in the New World of one or two monarchies, with younger branches of the House of Bourbon at their head.Whilst this progress in operatic and sacred music was being made, the Church Service had received some admirable additions. Jeremiah Clarke, the Rev. Henry Aldrich, D.D., dean of Christ Church, John Weldon, organist to Queen Anne, and Georges I. and II., and the Rev. Dr. Robert Creighton, canon of Salisbury, composed many admirable pieces. William Croft, Mus. Doc., is the author of thirty-one splendid anthems, and Maurice Greene, Mus. Doc., of forty, which are still heard with solemn delight in old choirs. William Boyce, Mus. Doc., organist to Georges II. and III., added to these numerous anthems and services the oratorio of "Solomon," and many other compositions of a superb characterone of them the grand anthem performed annually at the Feast of the Sons of the Clergy. Boyce also composed a variety of secular pieces of rare merit.
FORE:
THREE:The aggressive policy of the Holy Alliance, and the French invasion of Spain, despite England's remonstrances, provoked Mr. Canning to hasten the recognition of the revolted colonies in South America. It was in defending this policy that he uttered the memorable sentence so often quoted as a specimen of the sublime:"Contemplating Spain such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."
FORE:The Chartist trials took place at the September Sessions of the Central Criminal Court. The facts disclosed on the trial revealed, to a larger extent than is usual in such cases, how completely the men who are betrayed into such conspiracies are at the mercy of miscreants who incite them to crime for their own base purposes. The witnesses against Cuffey and others of the Chartists were all voluntary spiesthe chief of whom was a person named Powellwho joined the confederacy, aided in its organisation, and had themselves appointed "presidents" and "generals," with the sole purpose of betraying their dupes, in order that they might be rewarded as informers, or, at all events, well paid as witnesses. It was probably by those double traitors that the simultaneous meetings of the clubs were arranged, so that the police might seize them all at the same time. The trial lasted the entire week. On Saturday the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty" against all the prisoners. The sentence was transportation for life. Others were indicted for misdemeanour only, and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, with fines. About a score of the minor offenders were allowed to plead not guilty, and let out on their own recognisances. And so ended Chartism.Amongst these, for the most part working men, sat a number of gentlemen, and even one lord, Lord Dacre, who had lived in Paris and was a regular Revolutionist. The Convention sat unmolested till the 5th of December, arranging for a future meeting in England, and organising committees and correspondents in different towns. They also recommended to all Reform clubs and societies to invoke Divine aid on their endeavours for just reform. On meeting on the morning of the 5th, the president, Paterson, announced that himself, Margarot, and the delegates had been arrested, and were only out on bail. Immediately after this, the Lord Provost appeared with a force to disperse the meeting, and though Skirving informed him that the place of meeting was his own hired house, and that they had met for a purely constitutional purpose, the Lord Provost broke up the meeting and drove out the members. That evening they met again at another place, but only to be turned out again. Still they did not disperse before Gerald had offered up a fervent prayer for the success of Reform. Mr. Skirving then issued a circular inviting the delegates to meet in his private house, and for this he was arrested on the 6th of January, 1794, brought before the Court of Justiciary, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. On the 13th Margarot received the same sentence; and, in the month of March, Gerald likewise.
THREE:But, in the first place, he announced to the Queen of Etruria, whom he had hitherto allowed to retain her Italian territory in right of her infant son, that she must give that up and accept the kingdom of Northern Lusitania in Portugal. This princess had an ominous persuasion that her son would never possess, or, if he possessed, would never retain this Northern Lusitania; but she had no alternative and, in the month of June following, the kingdom of Etruria was converted into three new departments of France. This having been arranged, this setter-up and puller-down of kingdoms proceeded to compel the Pope to adopt his system. Pius VII. did not seem disposed to comply. He had no quarrel with Britain; had no advantage, but much the contrary, in depriving his subjects of articles of British manufacture; besides that, amongst the numerous adherents of the Church in Ireland he would create great prejudice. But all these reasons had no more weight with the haughty egotism of Buonaparte than so much air. He forced his troops into the Papal territories; threw a strong body into Ancona on the Adriatic, and another into Civita Vecchia, and at the mouth of the Tiber. The Pope protested against the violent invasion of his principality, but in vain; Buonaparte insisted that he should declare war against Britain. Pius then consented to close his ports, but this did not satisfy Napoleon; he demanded that war should be declared, pronouncing himself the heir of Charlemagne, and therefore suzerain of the Pope, and he demanded compliance. On the Pope continuing obstinate, Buonaparte forced more troops into his States, and sent General Miollis to take possession of Rome. This accordingly was done in February, 1808. The Pope shut himself up in the Quirinal palace, and the French surrounded him with troops and cannon, and held him prisoner to compel him to comply. The Pope, though shut up in the Quirinal and deprived of his cardinals, remained unshaken, and protested solemnly against this violent usage and robbery by the man whom he had consented to crown and to make a concordat with. When the magistrates and priests of the Marches were called on to take the oath of allegiance to Napoleon, they refused almost unanimously, and were driven out of the States, or shut up in prisons and fortresses in the Alps and Apennines.
FORE:Mr. Fyshe Palmer was not tried till the 12th of September. He was then brought before the Circuit Court of Justiciary at Perth, and charged with writing and publishing an "Address to the People," which had been issued by the Society of the Friends of Liberty, at Dundee. Palmer was an Englishman of good family, in Bedfordshire. He had taken his degree at Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship at Queen's College; but he had afterwards joined the Unitarians, and had resided and preached some time at Montrose and Dundee, and had delivered lectures on Unitarianism in Edinburgh and Forfar. It appeared that Palmer was not the author of the Address, but had only been asked to correct the proof of it, and that he had, whilst so doing, struck out some of the strongest passages. One Mealmaker, a weaver, acknowledged himself the author of the Address; but Palmer was a Unitarian, and this, to the bigoted Presbyterianism of his judges, was rank poison. His advocate pleaded that he was not quite sane, but neither did this avail; the jury brought in an instant and unanimous verdict of guilty, and the judges condemned him to be transported for seven years. This was a still more outrageous sentence than that of Muir, for Palmer had corresponded with no French or Reforming societies whatever; he had simply corrected a proof!Sir Francis Head had made a somewhat dangerous experiment in denuding Upper Canada of troops, conceiving it to be his duty to lay before the American people the incontrovertible fact that, by the removal of her Majesty's forces and by the surrender of 600 stand of arms to the civil authorities, the people of Upper Canada had virtually been granted an opportunity of revolting; consequently, as the British Constitution had been protected solely by the sovereign will of the people, it became, even by the greatest of all republican maxims, the only law of the land. This was not done, however, without an attempt at revolt, made chiefly by Irish Roman Catholics. The leader of this movement was W. L. Mackenzie, the editor of a newspaper. On the night of the 3rd of December, 1837, this leader marched at the head of 500 rebels, from Montgomery's Tavern, his headquarters, upon Toronto, having initiated the war by the murder of Colonel Moodie. They were, however, driven away. Mackenzie fled in disguise to Buffalo, in New York; a large number of the rebels were taken prisoners, but almost immediately released, and sent to their homes.
THREE:During these transactions the activity of the Pretender and his agents was encouraged by the growing influence of Bolingbroke in the English Court. Bolingbroke proposed to Oxford that they should pay the dowry of the Pretender's mother, the widow of James II.; but to this Oxford objected, saying that the widow of James had not contented herself with the title of queen-dowager of England, but had assumed that of queen mother, which, he observed, could not be lawfully admitted after the attainder of her son. This strengthened the hands of Bolingbroke with Lady Masham, who was violently in favour of the Pretender. Lady Masham's disgust with Oxford was wonderfully increased. In writing to Mesnager, she did not hesitate to say that if the Court of St. Germains trusted to Oxford, they would be deceived; that he was "famous for loving a secret, and making intricacies where there needed none, and no less renowned for causing everything of such a nature to miscarry." The Pretender, having every day increased encouragement from Lady Masham and Bolingbroke, demanded of the Emperor of Germany one of his nieces in marriage; and it was reported that the Emperor was agreeable to it, and ready to espouse his cause. It was well known that distinct propositions had been made to the Pretender through the Duke of Berwick, at the instance of Lady Masham, before her breach with Oxford, by which his restoration on the demise of Anne was agreed to on condition that he should guarantee the security of the Church and Constitution of England, and that not even his mother should be admitted to the knowledge of this agreement. At the last point, however, Oxford failed to conclude this secret treaty. The Duke of Berwick, in his Memoirs, says that, in consequence of this conduct of Oxford's, the friends of the Pretender turned their attention to other parties about the Courtto Lord Ormonde, the Duke of Buckingham, and many other persons. Buckinghamwho was married to the Lady Catherine Darnley, a daughter of James II. by Catherine Sedley, and was, therefore, brother-in-law to the Pretenderwrote to the Earl of Middleton, the Pretender's Minister, how earnestly he desired to see the king back on the English throne; that nothing but his religion stood in the way; that this was the only thing which prevented the queen from acknowledging him; and he urged him to follow the example of Henry IV. of France, who gave up the Protestant religion when he saw that he could not securely hold the Crown without doing so. But the Pretender was, much to his creditbeing firmly persuaded of the truth of his religionmuch too honest to renounce it, even for the Crown of such a kingdom as Great Britain; and he argued that the English people ought to see in his sincerity a guarantee for his faithful dealing with them in all other matters. But, unfortunately, the example of his father had barred the way to any such plea. No man was more positive in the adherence to his religion, or in his sacrifices on its account; but no man had at the same time so thoroughly demonstrated that he had no such honourable feeling as to breaking his word where any political matter was concerned.The animosity against the soldiers at Boston was actively kept up. The sentinel could not stand at his post without insult. Every day menaced a conflict. A fictitious account of an affray between the soldiers and the people of New York was circulated at Boston, in which the soldiers were represented as beaten. This gave impetus to the aggressive temper of the Bostonians. On the 2nd of March, a soldier, insulted by the men at Gray's rope-walk, resented it; they came to blows, and the soldier was overpowered. He fetched up some of his comrades, who, in their turn, beat and chased the rope-makers through the town. The passions of the mob were inflamed, and they began to arm themselves for an attack on the soldiery. In a few days the crowd assembled and assaulted a party of them in Dock Square. The officer prudently withdrew them to the barracks. As the evening advanced, the mob increased. They cried, "Turn out, and do for the soldiers!" They attacked and insulted a sentinel at the Custom House. A party of soldiers was sent by Captain Preston to the officers on duty to protect the man. The mob pelted them with pieces of wood, lumps of ice, etc., and denounced them as "cowards," "red-lobster rascals," and the like. The soldiers stood to defend the Custom House till they were fiercely attacked, and at length they fired in self-defence, killed three persons, and wounded several othersone mortally.
FORE:SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. (After the Portrait by Sir T. Lawrence, P.R.A.)Reproduced by Andr & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts.
