ONE:During the recess of Parliament, a dispute occurred with Spain regarding the Falkland Islands, which led to the very verge of war. In 1764 the French, under Bougainville, made a settlement on Falkland Sound; but Spain putting in a claim that these isles were part of her South American territory, Choiseul, the French Minister, abandoned the settlement, and the Spaniards changed its name from Port Louis to Port Soledad. The very next year, 1765, Commodore Byron was sent to form a settlement on another of the islands, which he named Port Egmont, in honour of Lord Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty. Such were the distant islets to which, in 1769, Spain began to assert her claim. The Governor of Port Soledad sent repeated messages to Captain Hunt, of the Tamar, stationed at Port Egmont, requiring the abandonment of the place. When the notices were succeeded by threats, Captain Hunt sailed home to lay the matter before his Government. He landed at Portsmouth in June, 1770, and made known the Spanish interference to the Cabinet. Meanwhile, the Spaniards, taking advantage of Hunt's absence, had, about the time that he arrived in England, dispatched to the Falklands Buccarelli, the Governor of Buenos Ayres, with five frigates and one thousand six hundred men. Having entered the port on pretence of wanting water, and finding the Tamar absent, and only two armed sloops there, and a mere handful of soldiers, Buccarelli landed his force, and, after the firing of a few shots for form's sake, the English surrendered, and were permitted to depart with all the honours of war.
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ONE:On the 19th of August the new Parliament assembled. The Session was opened by commission; the Royal Speech, which was read by the Lord Chancellor, contained a paragraph referring to the duties affecting the productions of foreign countries, and suggesting for consideration the question whether the principle of protection was not carried to an extent injurious alike to the income of the State and the interests of the people; whether the Corn Laws did not aggravate the natural fluctuations of supply; and whether they did not embarrass trade, derange the currency, and by their operation diminish the comfort and increase the privations of the great body of the community. Here was a distinct enunciation of the principles of Free Trade in the Speech from the Throne, for which, of course, the Ministers were responsible. The Address in the House of Lords was moved by Earl Spencer, a decided Free Trader, and seconded by the Marquis of Clanricarde. The debate was relieved from nullity by the Duke of Wellington's testimony to the conduct of Lord Melbourne towards the Queen. The Duke said"He was willing to admit that the noble viscount had rendered the greatest possible service to her Majesty, in making her acquainted with the mode and policy of the government of this country, initiating her into the laws and spirit of the Constitution, independently of the performance of his duty as the servant of her Majesty's Crown; teaching her, in short, to preside over the destiny of this great country." The House divided, when it was found that there was a majority of 72 against the Government.
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ONE: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."
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ONE:
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ONE:In the morning of that daya fine and sunny dayHill leading on our right drove the French from the heights of La Puebla. This was not done without a severe struggle. The Spanish general, Morillo, led on his brigade bravely, and was wounded. Colonel the Hon. G. Cadogan, in the action on the heights, was also mortally wounded, but refused to quit the field, and was carried to an elevation where he could watch the progress of the battle while he lived. General Hill then pushed the French across the river Zadora and the defiles and heights beyond to the village of Subijana de Alava, which he took possession of, and the French left fell back on Vittoria. The other divisions, under Lord Dalhousie, Sir Thomas Picton, and General Cole, also crossed the river at different bridges or fords, and everywhere drove the French before them. The scene from the heights, which were crowded with people, was one of the most animating ever beheld; the British everywhere advancing amid the roar of cannon and musketry, the French retiring everywhere on Vittoria. In the meantime, our left, under Sir Thomas Graham, having a considerable number of Spanish and Portuguese troops in it, advanced to the heights beyond the Zadora, along the Bilbao road, and carried the village of Gamara Mayor, while the Spanish division of Longa carried that of Gamara Monor. Both the Spanish and Portuguese troops behaved admirably. While Major-General Robertson's brigade carried Gamara Mayor, Colonel Halkett's, supported by that of General Bradford, carried the village of Abechuco. Here a determined effort was made by the French to recover this post, but they were driven back by Major-General Oswald, with the fifth division.The Attorney-General defied the enemies of the administration to point out a single instance in which the Viceroy had deviated from the line of strict impartiality, yet he was the object of most virulent attacks by the fanatical members of the Orange societies in Dublin, and by the Orange press. Their animosity was excited to the utmost by a proceeding which he adopted with reference to the statue of King William III. in College Green. For some years a set of low persons, connected with the Orange lodges, had been in the habit of bedaubing the statue with ridiculous painting and tawdry orange colours, with a fantastic drapery of orange scarves. The Catholics believed that this was done with the avowed purpose of insulting them, and they thought that they had as much right to undress as others had to dress a public statue. On one occasion, therefore, they painted King William with lampblack. Consequently, on the 12th of July, 1822, a serious riot occurred, in the course of which lives were endangered, the tranquillity of the metropolis was disturbed, and evil passions of the most furious kind were engendered in the minds of the parties. As the peace must be preserved, the only course was to put an end to those senseless brawls by ordering that no unauthorised parties should presume to put their hands on a public monument, either for the purpose of decorating or defiling it. But this judicious order the Orangemen felt to be a wrong, which should be resented and avenged by driving Lord Wellesley out of the country. Accordingly, certain members of the Orange Society, amounting to nearly one hundred, entered into a conspiracy to mob him in the theatre. They were supplied with pit-tickets, and assembling early at the door, they rushed in, and took possession of the seat immediately under the Viceregal box. Other parties of them went to the galleries. They agreed upon the watchword, "Look out." They had previously printed handbills, which were freely distributed in and about the theatre, containing insulting expressions, such as "Down with the Popish Government!" Before the Viceroy arrived, they had been crying for groans for the "Popish Lord-Lieutenant," for the house of Wellesley, for the Duke of Wellington. When the marquis arrived he was received with general cheering, that overbore the Orange hisses; but during the playing of the National Anthem the offensive noise became so alarming that some of the audience[248] left the theatre. At this moment a bottle was flung from one of the galleries, which was supposed to be aimed at the head of the Lord-Lieutenant, and which fell near his box.
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ligula, ac luctus mi interdum a.