FORE:The English Roman Catholics produced an[435] historianDr. Lingardwho, for the correctness and strength of his diction, as well as the extent of his learning, ranks among the first names in this department of literature. He was a man of great force of mind, remarkable acuteness in testing historical evidence, and considerable powers of description. Being a priest, it was not to be expected that he would be impartial in his treatment of the events and characters of the Reformation, and the subsequent conflicts between the Churches of England and Rome. Of his own Church he was a zealous defender and a skilful apologist; but where that bias did not interfere, his judgments were generally sound. He died in 1851.In America, all at the opening of the campaign seemed to favour the English cause. The army of Washington, still suffering the utmost extremities of cold and starvation, began in earnest to mutiny. A Pennsylvanian division of one thousand three hundred men marched out of their camp at Morristown, and proceeded to Princeton, carrying with them six field-pieces and their stores, and their demands were granted by Congress. The success of this revolt encouraged others to repeat the man?uvre. On the night of the 20th of January a part of the Jersey brigade, stationed at Pompton, marched to Chatham, and made precisely the same demands. But now seeing that, if this were suffered, the whole army would quickly go to pieces, Washington sent General Howe after them, with orders to surround them, and shoot them down, if they did not surrender; and if they did surrender, immediately to seize the most active ringleaders, and execute them. Howe readily accomplished his mission; he reduced the mutinous, and shot their leaders.
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TWO:At this juncture Napoleon proceeded to set all Europe against him. A conspiracy had been set on foot against his Government by the Royalists, notably by one Lajolais, who had formerly fought under Pichegru, and in 1794 had assisted him in his intrigues with the Bourbon princes. On arriving in London he had interviews with Pichegru, Georges Cadoudal, the Chouan chief, the Polignacs, the Count d'Artois, the Duke of Berry, etc., and assured them that such was the feeling against Buonaparte in France, that it only needed the appearance of the Royalist leaders, and their forming a league with Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, whom he truly represented as greatly disgusted with Buonaparte, to produce a revolution and crush the aspiring First Consul. The statements of Lajolais were listened to, and a vessel, under the command of Captain John Wesley Wright, was despatched to the coast of Brittany, with General Georges Cadoudal, the Marquis de la Rivire, the brothers Armand and Jules Polignac, and some others, whom he put safely ashore in the autumn of 1803. Pichegru, Georges Cadoudal, the Polignacs, de la Rivire, and the rest of the Royalists, about thirty in[497] number, had made their way to Paris, and were living there secretly, endeavouring to learn the real state of the public mind, and Pichegru and Cadoudal had been introduced to Moreau. Pichegru saw Moreau at least twice, and on one of these occasions he took with him Georges Cadoudal; but Moreau seemed taken by surprise by their communications with him, and was so horrified by the language and proposals of the daring Chouan, that he desired Pichegru not to bring that irrational savage again into his company. It appeared pretty clear that there was some mistake somewhere; and that Moreau, however much dissatisfied with Napoleon, was by no means disposed to enter into any Royalist conspiracy. Had the delegates found things ripe for such a revolution, they were to inform the Bourbon princes in London, and they were to make a strong descent on the coast of Brittany; but they all felt so satisfied that Lajolais had given them false information, that they were about to quit the capital, and to return to England, Captain Wright having been lingering with his frigate on the Breton coast for that purpose, when Fouch the Minister of Police, pounced upon them. He had been keeping a strict watch on all their movements; he had now established their intercourse with Moreau, and trusted to be able to make sufficient use of that fact to destroy both them and him. It was asserted, although there is no proof whatever of the fact, that the plan included the murder of the First Consul. Further, in order to bring odium upon England, Buonaparte succeeded, by means of his agents, in entrapping Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith, our Ministers at the courts of Bavaria and Würtemberg, into consenting to the conspiracy. They knew nothing of the real plot, but being informed that a Royalist conspiracy was on foot, gave it a certain amount of countenance. Napoleon thereupon accused them of being accomplices in a diabolical plot to assassinate him, forced the Courts to which they were accredited to expel them, and circulated throughout Europe a violent attack on the British Government. In an exceedingly able and dignified reply Lord Hawkesbury pointed out that Britain was at war with France, and had a right, which she intended to use, to take advantage of the political situation in that country. Napoleon gained little by his Machiavellian man?uvre.During this year Great Britain held that position which properly belonged to her, and which showed how unassailable she was whilst employed in self-defence. Her fleets covering the Channel, and at the same time plying in the most distant regions for that money which for years had been wasted on helpless and ungrateful Continental nations, were calculated to make her invincible on the ocean. So far from permitting Buonaparte to set foot on her coasts, she continually insulted his. She entered the ports and roadsteads of Havre, St. Valery, and other places, and brought away ships and gunboats; she attacked Dieppe, and destroyed its batteries; she bombarded Granville, and demolished its pier, under the eyes of some of Napoleon's[491] most distinguished officers. Her fleet amounted to nearly six hundred vessels of different kinds, and she began rapidly to recapture the colonies which she had so tamely, and without compensation, surrendered at the strange Peace of Amiens. St. Lucia was retaken by Commodore Hood and General Grinfield on the 22nd of June. In one day, the 30th of June, were retaken Tobago, in the West Indies, and St. Pierre and Miquelon, on the coast of Newfoundland. Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were soon after reconquered, and Guadeloupe was invested, and destined to fall into our hands ere long.
Integer vehicula efficitur dictum. Integer pharetra venenatis enim non porta.
Nothing To Hide Here
FORE:Alberoni, though defeated at sea, was more successful in Sicily, and he continued his cabals against England in nearly every Court of Europe with only the more assiduity. He was zealously at work in France, England itself, Holland, Piedmont, and Sweden. By his ambassador at the Hague he endeavoured to keep the Dutch out of the Quadruple Alliance by exciting their commercial jealousy; but he was ably opposed by our minister there, the Earl of Cadogan. In Piedmont he endeavoured to deter Victor Amadeus from entering into this alliance by assuring him that he was only endeavouring to secure Sicily to keep it out of the hands of the Austrians, and reserve it for him; while, on the other hand, he threatened him with thirty thousand bayonets if he dared to accede to the Quadruple Treaty. The Allies, however, threatened still greater dangers, and the Duke at last consented to accept Sardinia in lieu of Sicily, and that island remains attached to the kingdom of Italy to the present time.Henry Hallam, who died in 1859, occupies a higher ground than Lingard, having no party interests to serve, and having a mind singularly free from prejudice, as well as a conscientious regard for truth in his records and judgments; while his clear, impressive, and graceful style invests dry details with interest. His "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages," a work of great learning and value, was followed, in 1827, by his "Constitutional History of England;" and ten years later he published, in four volumes, an "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries." This is his greatest work, and in point of learning and utility and purity of style it may be regarded as one of the greatest in the English language. These works placed Mr. Hallam, by general consent, at the head of contemporary historians.
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- Justine Goliyad
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