THREE:THE CATHEDRAL, TUAM.On the 22nd the Commons went into committee on this subject, and Mr. Tierney then proposed that both the establishment at Windsor and the salary to the Duke of York should be paid out of the Privy Purse or other private funds of the Crown. There was a private property belonging to the Crown of one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year, and surely this was sufficient to defray the charge of the necessary care of the king's person. He reminded the House also of the sums which had been voted for the royal family since 1811. Besides fifty thousand pounds a year set apart for the debts of the Prince Regent, he had a privy purse of sixty thousand pounds a year, besides an additional grant of ten thousand pounds a year made since. The king had also a privy purse of sixty thousand pounds a year, with an additional revenue of ten thousand pounds from the Duchy of Lancaster. Surely, out of all these sums, there must be ample means of taking care of the king's person. To all these second statements Mr. Peelafterwards the Sir Robert who began his political career in the ranks of high Toryismreplied that the Duke of York would accept no salary which came from the Privy Purse, and he quoted Sheridan and Adam, old friends of the Prince Regent, and staunch Whigs, who had zealously advocated the sacredness of the Privy Purse. When the vote was taken for the disposal of the sum for the Windsor establishment, it was carried by two hundred and eighty against one hundred and eighty-six, a sufficient proof that in the new Parliament the Government possessed a strong majority. On the 25th the proposal to confer on the Duke of York ten thousand pounds per annum, for this charge of his own father's person, was also carried by a still larger majoritytwo hundred and forty-seven against one hundred and thirty-seven. In the debate, Denman and Brougham opposed the vote, and Canning supported it. In the House of Peers Lords Grey, Lansdowne, and other Whig peers opposed the vote of the ten thousand pounds to the Duke of York. And truly, in private life, it would not have seemed very filial conduct for a man, already possessing a large income, to require a great annual payment for discharging the simple duty of seeing that his aged father, a gentleman also of ample means, was well looked after.
FORE:But Wellington had no expectation whatever of maintaining his headquarters at that city. His own army was not sufficient to repel any fresh hordes of French who might be poured down upon him; and as for the Spaniards, they had no force that could be relied upon for a moment. The incurable pride of this people rendered them utterly incapable of learning from their allies, who, with a comparatively small force, were every day showing them what discipline and good command could do. They would not condescend to be taught, nor to serve under a foreigner, though that foreigner was everywhere victorious, and they were everywhere beaten. They continued, as they had been from the first, a ragged, disorderly rabble, always on the point of starvation, and always sure to be dispersed, if not destroyed, whenever they were attacked. Only in guerilla fight did they show any skill, or do any good.Now, much of this at the moment was true; the manufacturers were naturally anxious to resume their business, and a fall in the price of corn, after the plentiful harvest of 1817, to seventy-four shillings and sixpence, relieved a little the pressure on the working classes. Could cheap bread have[133] been secured, the condition of the people might soon have become easy; but the fatal Corn Law came immediately into operation. By the end of 1817 corn had risen in price again to eighty-five shillings and fourpence; and then the ports were opened, but the supplies did not bring down the markets. The spring of 1818 proved wet, and then about the middle of May a drought set in, and continued till September, so that the apprehension of a deficient harvest kept up the price of all articles of life, notwithstanding that a million and a half quarters of wheat had been imported during the year. So long as bread was tolerably cheap, and work more abundant, political agitation in the manufacturing districts subsided; but it was soon proved that the apparent increase of activity in manufacturing and commercial exports was but a feverish desire on the part of manufacturers and merchants to force a trade for which the exhausted Continent was not yet prepared. Nothing but a free importation of corn could have carried the country comfortably through the crisis; and this was denied by the measures of Government, except at a rate of price that put the proper consumption of bread beyond the means of the working classes.
Aenean faucibus luctus enim. Duis quis sem risu suspend lacinia elementum nunc.
Aenean faucibus luctus enim. Duis quis sem risu suspend lacinia elementum nunc.
FORE:Meantime Cambacrs and Fouch had dispatched couriers to Louis Buonaparte, in Holland, to march down troops to the defence of Antwerp; and he had not only done that, but had opened the sluices on the borders of the Scheldt, and laid the country under water, to prevent the march of the British. He also had ordered the erection of numerous batteries, and Bernadotte arrived in about a fortnight, by orders of Napoleon, to resist the advance of the British. From forty to fifty thousand troops were assembled in and around Antwerp, and hosts of Dutch and Belgian militia swarmed over the country. This was certain to be the case if any time was allowed, and it was now agreed, in a council of war, that it was not possible to proceed further. In fact, they were no longer allowed to remain where they were. Their provisions were rapidly being exhausted, sickness was spreading amongst the troops, and the fire of the enemy's batteries from both sides of the river compelled them to fall down the stream. That was the end of the campaign; the rest was a foolish and murderous delay in the island of Walcheren, without any conceivable purpose. There was no use in retaining the island, for we could at any time blockade the mouths of the Scheldt, and our men on board the ships were comparatively healthy; but in this swamp of death the soldiers continued dying like rotten sheep. The island of Walcheren, to which they were now confined, is a spongy swamp, below the level of the sea at high water. The wet oozes through the banks, and stagnates in the dykes, and is only capable of being pumped out by windmills. The ground is covered often with mud and slime, and the inhabitants are sickly and sallow in aspect, and of loose and flaccid muscles. Yet, in this den of fever and death, the commanders seemed determined to retain the army till it perished entirely. The Earl of Chatham himself returned to London on the 14th of September, with as many of the sick as he could take. At this time he left eleven thousand, out of the seventeen thousand quartered on the island of Walcheren, on the sick-list, and rapidly dying; yet neither he nor Sir Eyre Coote, who succeeded him, seems to have felt the necessity of saving the army by retiring from the place. They attributed the unhealthiness to the dykes being cut, and the surrounding country being flooded in the hot season. No matter what was the cause, the army was perishing, and ought to have been removed; but, so far from this, the Ministers seemed determined to keep possession of this useless and pestilential swamp at any cost. As it was imagined that the drinking of the water was the cause of the fever, Thames water was carried over for the troops, five hundred tons per week being required. But it was not the drinking it only that caused disease and death, but the standing and working in it, as many of them did, up to the middle for many hours together, and the malaria arising from the oozy soil. As the roofs in Flushing were knocked to pieces by the storming of the town, British workmen, with bricks, mortar, tiles, and tools, were sent over to repair them, so as to protect the sick in the hospitals, though plenty of workmen and materials might have been had in the country.
Aenean faucibus luctus enim. Duis quis sem risu suspend lacinia elementum nunc.
Aenean faucibus luctus enim. Duis quis sem risu suspend lacinia elementum nunc.
FORE:William IV. then sent for the veteran Grey, who formed a Ministry with unusual ease, chiefly of the Whig and Canningite elements. His chief difficulty was how to dispose of the volatile Brougham. The king had no objection to accept him as one of the Ministers, and Brougham himself wished to be Master of the Rolls, assuming that Sir John Leech was to become Lord Chancellor of Ireland, with a peerage, and that Mr. Plunket was to be Lord Chancellor of England. To this arrangement, however, the king and Lord Grey peremptorily objected. Brougham was then offered the Attorney-Generalship, which he calmly refused, upon which Lord Grey declared that his hopes of being able to form an Administration were at an end, and he waited on his Majesty for the purpose of communicating to him the failure of his negotiations. "Why so?" inquired the king. "Why not make him Chancellor? Have you thought of that?" The answer was, "No; your Majesty's objection to the one appointment seemed to preclude the other." "Not at all, not at all," replied the king; and the reasons for one appointment and against the other were very clearly stated by his Majesty, namely, that Brougham as Master of the Rolls and member for Yorkshire would be far too powerful. Mr. Brougham was left in the dark for some time about the intentions of Lord Grey, for on the 17th of November he said he had nothing to do with the Administration, except in the respect he bore them, and as a member of the House. On the 19th he presented petitions, and spoke on them in the Commons, without intimating any change of position. Hence it may easily be supposed that he surprised the world, as well as his friends, by suddenly appearing on November the 22nd in the House of Lords as Lord Chancellor of England. This was certainly a high office to which he was elevated, and for which the exigencies of party made him necessary; but, in accepting it, he sacrificed a great position which seemed to gratify all the desires of intellectual ambition; and, in order to induce his compliance, Lord Grey was obliged to appeal to his generous sympathies, his public spirit, and his devotion to his party. Lord Brougham and Vaux became, said a wag, "Vaux et praeterea nihil."
Aenean faucibus luctus enim. Duis quis sem risu suspend lacinia elementum nunc.
Aenean faucibus luctus enim. Duis quis sem risu suspend lacinia elementum nunc.