The Government determined to make the most formidable preparations for the preservation of the peace, and for putting down a riot, should it occur. Troops were seen directing their march from all quarters to the metropolis, and there was not a village in the vicinity which did not display the plumed helmet. George IV., always excessively fond of show and pomp, was resolved that the ceremonial of his coronation should outshine anything in history. The nation entered into the spirit of the occasion, and the metropolis was full of excitement. As early as one o'clock on the morning of the 19th of July, Westminster, the scene of this magnificent pageant, presented a dazzling spectacle. Even at that early hour, those who were fortunate enough to obtain places were proceeding to occupy them. From Charing Cross two streams of carriages extended, one to the Abbey and the other to Westminster Hall. The streets were crowded with foot passengers eager to secure seats on the platforms erected along the way, or some standing-place. All distinctions of rank were lost in the throng of eager expectants; judges, bishops, peers, commanders, wealthy citizens, richly dressed ladies, all mingled in the moving masses that converged towards the great centre of attraction.'Tis a sign that he had rather
ONE:In the meantime, the Ateliers Nationaux, or Government workshops, had, as might have been expected, miserably failed to answer their object, and the working classes were now in a state of great destitution and dangerous discontent. The number of persons employed in the national workshops had increased to 120,000; misery was extending to all classes of society; one half of Paris was said to be feeding the other half, and it was expected that in a short time there would not be a single manufacture in operation in Paris. It was therefore determined to reduce the number of workmen employed by the Government, and the[554] reduction was begun by sending back 3,000 who had come from the provinces. But having passed the barrier, 400 returned, and sent a deputation to the Executive Committee at the Palace of the Luxembourg. The interview was unsatisfactory, and the deputation marched through the streets, shouting, "Down with the Executive Commission! down with the Assembly!" They were joined by great numbers, and it was soon discovered that an insurrection had been fully organised; and, although next morning the National Guard appeared in great force in the streets, the people began to erect barricades at the Porte St. Denis, the Porte St. Martin, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and in various other places. The Government had, however, made effectual arrangements for putting down the riots; but the army, the National Guard, and the Garde Mobile had to encounter the most desperate resistance. Paris was declared by the Assembly to be in a state of siege, and all the executive powers were delegated to General Cavaignac. Next day he was reinforced by large numbers of National Guards from the provinces. Sunday came, and the dreadful conflict still continued. In the evening of that day the President of the Assembly announced that the troops of the Republic were in possession of a great number of the strongholds of the insurgents, but at an immense loss of blood. Never had anything like it been seen in Paris. He hoped that all would that night be finished. This day (June 25th) was signalised by the murder of the Archbishop of Paris.
TWO:At the very time that these measures were occupying the British Parliament, the Bostonians were driving affairs to a crisis. In nearly all the seaports committees were in active operation for examining all cargoes of ships, and reporting the result. These committees also kept a keen observation on each other, and visited publicly any that appeared lukewarm. Boston, as usual, distinguished itself most prominently in this business. Regular meetings were held in Faneuil Hall, and votes passed denouncing all who dared to import the prohibited goods. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson exerted himself to form an[201] association amongst the traders in opposition to these anti-importers, but he tried in vain. They insisted that the merchants who had imported goods in their shops and warehouses should be compelled to ship them back to those who had sent them. One merchant, more stubborn than the rest, was immediately waited on by a deputation, headed by an axeman and a carpenter, as if prepared to behead and bury him; and he was told that a thousand men awaited his decision, and they could not be answerable for his safety if he refused to comply.
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ONE:The foreign relations of England at this period were, on the whole, satisfactoryas might be expected from the fact that our foreign policy was committed to the able management of Lord Palmerston, who, while sympathising with oppressed nationalities, acted steadily upon the principle of non-intervention. Considering, however, the comparative smallness o our naval and military forces, the formidable military powers of Russia and France created a good deal of uneasiness, which the king expressed in one of his odd impromptu speeches at Windsor. On the 19th of February there was a debate in the House of Commons on Eastern affairs, in which the vast resources and aggressive policy Of Russia were placed in a strong light. On that occasion Lord Dudley Stuart said, "Russia has 50,000,000 subjects in Europe alone, exclusive of Asia; an army of 700,000 men, and a navy of eighty line-of-battle ships and frigates, guided by the energy of a Government of unmitigated despotism, at whose absolute and unlimited disposal stand persons and property of every description. These formidable means are constantly applied to purposes of territorial aggrandisement, and every new acquisition becomes the means of gaining others. Who can tell that the Hellespont may not be subject to Russia at any moment? She has a large fleet in the Black Sea, full command of the mouths of the Danube, and of the commercial marine cities of Odessa and Trebizond. In three days she may be at Constantinople from Sebastopol; and if once there, the Dardanelles will be so fortified by Russian engineers that she can never be expelled except by a general war. She could be in entire possession of these important straits before any expedition could be sent from this country, even if such a thing could be thought of against the enormous military force at the command of Russia. That Russia is determined to have the Dardanelles is evident from the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, by which she began by excluding the ships of all other nations. The effect of this treaty was to exclude any ship of war from these straits, except with the permission of Russia. Russia might at any moment insist on the exclusion of our ships of war from the Dardanellesnay, she has already done so; for when Lord Durham, going on his late embassy to the Court of St. Petersburg, arrived at the Dardanelles in a frigate, he was obliged to go on board the Pluto, an armed vessel without her guns, before he could pass the straits; and when he arrived at Sebastopol no salute was fired, and the excuse given was that they did not know the Pluto from a merchant vessel. But both before and since Lord Durham went, Russian ships of war, with their guns out and their streamers flying, passed through the Black Sea to the Dardanelles, and again through[412] the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Russia has now fifteen ships of the line and seven frigates in the Black Sea. Sebastopol is only three days' sail from the Hellespont. Turkey has no force capable of resisting such an armament; the forts of the Hellespont are incapable of defence against a land force, for they are open in the rear. Russia might any day have 100,000 men in Constantinople before England or France could even fit out expeditions to defend it."
TWO:Napoleon also exerted himself to excite a rebellion in Ireland. He was the more bent on this, because he saw that it was hopeless to make a direct descent on England itself. He had collected a great fleet in the harbours of Boulogne, Dieppe, Havre, Dunkirk, Ostend, and other smaller ports, many of them capable only of receiving the gunboats in which he proposed to transport his soldiers. He had assembled a very fine army on the heights above Boulogne, called the Army of England, and there continually exercised it, under the inspection of Soult, Ney, Davoust, and Victormen, the pride of his army; but he saw such powerful fleets crowding the Channel, blockading his very ports, cutting out, every now and then, some of his gunboats under the very batteries, and the war-ships of Britain even standing in and firing at him and his suite as they made observations from the cliffs, that, combined with the information that England was almost all one camp, he abandoned the project, for the present, in despair. But Ireland he deemed vulnerable, from the treason of her own children. He assembled all the Irish refugees in Paris, formed the Irish Brigade into the Irish Legion, and sent over active agents to arouse their countrymen in Ireland. Amongst these were Quigley and Robert Emmett, who had been engaged in the Rebellion of 1798. Quigley had been outlawed, and Emmett had been so deeply implicated in that Rebellion with his brother Thomas, who was banished, that he had found it necessary to quit the country. These emissaries soon collected around them, in Dublin, disaffected associates, amongst them being Dowdall, Redmond, and Russell. They formed a central committee, and corresponded with others in different towns, and especially with one Dwyer, who had also been in the former Rebellion, and had ever since maintained himself and a knot of desperate followers in the mountains of Wicklow. The Government received, from time to time, information of the proceedings of these foolish menEmmett being a rash youth of only twenty-two or twenty-three years of agebut they took no precautions; and when, on the 23rd of July, the eve of the Festival of St. James, these desperadoes rushed, at evening, into the streets of Dublin, armed with pikes, old guns, and blunderbusses, the authorities were taken entirely by surprise. There were from two thousand to three thousand soldiers in the Castle, but neither police, soldier, nor officer appeared till the mob had murdered Colonel Brown, who was hastening to the Castle to arouse the troops, and Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice, whom they dragged from his carriage as it passed, and killed, along with his nephew, but, at the same time, they allowed the Chief Justice's daughter, who was with them, to depart. Soon after thisbut not before the insurgents had severely wounded a Mr. Clarke, a manufacturer, who was riding to alarm the Castlethe soldiers appeared, and the mob fled at their very sight. The same day Russell had turned out at Belfast, and Quigley at Kildare, but with as little success. Emmett had escaped to the Wicklow mountains to join Dwyer; but having assumed the fatal disguise of French officers, the country people, who hated the French since their appearance under General Humbert, when they had ridiculed the Catholic religion, drove him and twelve of his companions back. In a short time, Emmett, Russell, Redmond, and others were all secured and executed. Dowdall escaped, with Allen and others, out of Ireland; Quigley and Stafford, one of his companions, were admitted as king's evidence, and thus escaped. The project of Napoleon had thus entirely failed, with the sacrifice of some of his leading agents.
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ONE:Notwithstanding these checks at Emsdorf and Warburg, the French obtained possession of G?ttingen and Cassel. Ferdinand attempted, but in vain, to dislodge them from G?ttingen, and the hereditary Prince, attempting to surprise the Marquis de Castries at Wesel, was repulsed with a loss of one thousand two hundred men at Closter-Campen, near that town, and was compelled to retreat. This closed the campaign, and the French took up their winter quarters at G?ttingen and Cassel.
TWO:From this episode of fire and fanaticism we recur to the general theme of the war with Spain, France, and America, in which England was every day becoming more deeply engaged. From the moment that Spain had joined France in the war against us, other Powers, trusting to our embarrassments with our colonies and those great European Powers, had found it a lucrative trade to supply, under neutral flags, warlike materials and other articles to the hostile nations; thus, whilst under a nominal alliance, they actually furnished the sinews of war against us. In this particular, Holland, the next great commercial country to Britain, took the lead. She furnished ammunition and stores to the Spaniards, who all this while were engaged in besieging Gibraltar. Spain had also made a treaty with the Barbary States, by which she cut off our supplies from those countries. To relieve Gibraltar, Admiral Sir George Rodney, who was now appointed to the command of our navy in the West Indies, was ordered to touch there on his way out. On the 8th of January 1780, when he had been a few days out at sea, he came in sight of a Spanish fleet, consisting of five armed vessels, convoying fifteen merchantmen, all of which he captured. These vessels were chiefly laden with wheat, flour, and other provisions, badly needed at Gibraltar, and which he carried in with him, sending the men-of-war to England. On the 16th he fell in with another fleet off Cape St. Vincent, of eleven ships of the line, under Don Juan de Langara, who had come out to intercept the provisions which England sent to Gibraltar. Rodney had a much superior fleet, and the Spanish admiral immediately attempted to regain his port. The weather was very tempestuous, and the coast near the shoal of St. Lucar very dangerous; he therefore stood in as close as possible to the shore, but Rodney boldly thrust his vessels between him and the perilous strand, and commenced a running fight. The engagement began about four o'clock in the evening, and it was, therefore, soon dark; but Rodney, despite the imminent danger of darkness, tempest, and a treacherous shore, continued the fight, and the Spaniards for a time defended themselves bravely. The battle continued till two o'clock in the morning; one ship, the San Domingo, of seventy guns, blew up with six hundred men early in the action; four ships of the line, including the admiral's, of eighty guns, struck, and were carried by Rodney safe into port; two seventy-gun ships ran on the shoal and were lost; and of all the Spanish fleet only four ships escaped to Cadiz.
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TWO:
FORE:It has been remarked that the "monster meetings" could never have been conducted in the orderly manner for which they were distinguished, but for the Temperance reform which had been effected by Father Mathew, a benevolent, tolerant, and single-minded friar from Cork, who was known as the Apostle of Temperance, and who had induced vast numbers from all parts of the country to take the pledge, which the majority religiously kept for some years. The monster meetings, of which forty-five were held during the year, were vast assemblages whose numbers it was difficult to calculate, but they varied from 20,000 to 100,000 each. The people, generally well-dressed, came crowding to the appointed place from every direction, some on horseback, some on jaunting cars and carts, generally preceded by bands with immense banners, and sometimes marching in military order. O'Connell, the "uncrowned monarch," as his followers called him, arrived from Dublin, sitting on the dickey of a coach, usually drawn by four horses. He was always accompanied by his devoted friend, Tom Steel, the "head pacificator," one of the most ardent of hero-worshippers, who looked up to his chief as a sort of demi-god. The first of the monster meetings was held at Trim, in the county Meath, on the 19th of March, and was said to have been attended by about 30,000 persons. A dinner took place in the evening, at which Mr. O'Connell delivered an exciting speech. Referring to the bright eyes and hardy look of the multitudes that surrounded him that day, he asked, would they be everlasting slaves? They would answer "No," and he would join in the response, and say, "I shall be either in my grave or be a free man. Idle sentiments will not do. It will not do to say you like to be free. The man who thinks and does not act upon his thoughts is a scoundrel who does not deserve to be free." The monster meeting held at Mullingar on the 14th of May (Sunday) was attended by Dr. Cantwell and Dr. Higgins, two Roman Catholic bishops, and a great number of priests. This was one of the largest of the meetings, and was remarkable for the declaration made by Dr. Higgins, to the effect that "every Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland, without exception, was a Repealer. He defied all the Ministers of England to put down the agitation. If they prevented them from assembling in the open fields, they would retire to their chapels, and suspend all other instruction, in order to devote all their time to teaching the people to be Repealers. They were even ready to go to the scaffold for the cause of their country, and bequeath its wrongs to their successors." This outburst excited tumultuous applause, the whole assembly rising and cheering for a considerable time.Soon after the prorogation of Parliament in the autumn her Majesty resolved to pay her first visit to her Irish subjects. At Cowes a royal squadron was in readiness to convoy the Victoria and Albert across the Channel. The Queen was accompanied by Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, the Princess Royal, and the Princess Alice. The royal yacht anchored alongside the Ganges, her arrival off the Irish coast being announced by the booming of artillery on the 2nd of August, which was the signal for the lighting of bonfires upon the hills around the picturesque town of Cove. In the morning a deputation went on board, consisting of the Marquis of Thomond, head of the house of O'Brien, the Earl of Bandon and several of the nobility and gentry of the county, with the Mayor of Cork, and Mr. Fagan, M.P. for that city. They were introduced to her Majesty by Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State in attendance during the visit. Arrangements were then made for the landing, and about three o'clock the Queen first set foot upon Irish[572] ground, amidst the most enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty from the multitudes assembled to bid their Sovereign welcome, mingling their cheers with the roar of cannon, which reverberated from the hills around. A pavilion had been erected for her Majesty's reception, and over it floated a banner, with the word "Cove" emblazoned upon it. The Queen had consented, at the request of the inhabitants, to change the name of the place and call it "Queenstown," and when she left the pavilion the first flag was pulled down and another erected in its stead, with the new name. Thus the old name of "Cove" was extinguished by the Queen's visit, just as the old name of "Dunleary" had been extinguished by the visit of George IV.
FORE:The Georges conspiracy, as it is commonly[498] called, was followed by a still more startling act of violence. As the Bourbons still continued to watch for the overthrow of his power, Buonaparte determined to take a deep revenge on the persons of any of that family whom he could by any means get into his hands. Could he have inveigled the Count d'Artois and the Duke of Berry, as he attempted, to leave London and land in Brittany, he would have seized them and put them to death without ceremony or mercy. But there was another member of the family, though the farthest off from succession to the throne, who was living on the French frontiers, within a tempting reach of his soldiers in Alsace, and him he determined to kidnap and kill. This proposed victim of a most lawless and wicked vengeance was Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, Duke d'Enghien, the son of the Prince of Cond. The project was so odious, so certain to cover both Napoleon and France with inextinguishable infamy, that it startled the not very sensitive mind of Talleyrand, who, it is said, gave the duke secret warning of his danger, and advised him to remove farther from the Rhine. In consequence, the duke applied to Sir Charles Stuart to get him a passport from the Austrian Minister, to enable him to cross the Austrian territory to rejoin his grandfather, then at Warsaw with Louis XVIII. Sir Charles Stuart applied to M. de Cobenzl for this purpose, and had the Austrian Court been quicker in its movements, the duke would have been safe enough from the myrmidons of Buonaparte; but, whilst lingering at Ettenheim in Baden for the necessary passport, the duke had so little suspicion of the prompt and deadly nature of the usurper's design against him, that he took no means to conceal himself, or he might still have escaped. But in the middle of the night of the 14th of March he was aroused by the sound of horses' hoofs, and, looking out, saw that the chateau was surrounded by a troop of French cavalry. Buonaparte had despatched his aide-de-camp, Caulaincourt, to Strasburg to effect this capture, and he had sent on Colonel Ordenner to bring the duke away from the heart of a neutral territory. The duke was summarily tried by a military tribunal and shot (March 21, 1804) at Vincennes. The news of this most audacious crime soon transpired, and filled Europe with horror and execration against its perpetrators.
FORE:The House of Commons received the speech with enthusiasm, and carried up an address of thanks in a body. Very different, however, was the reception of the speech in the House of Lords. Lord Wharton proposed that in the address they should declare themselves against a separate peace, and the Duke of Marlborough supported that view. He said that for a year past the measures pursued were directly opposed to her Majesty's engagement with the Allies, had sullied the glories of her reign, and would render our name odious to all nations. Lord Strafford, who had come over from the Hague purposely to defend the Government policy, and his own share in it at Utrecht, asserted that the opposition of the[6] Allies would not have been so obstinate had they not been encouraged by a certain member of that House who corresponded with them, and stimulated them by assurances that they would be supported by a large party in England. This blow aimed at Marlborough called up Lord Cowper, who directed his sarcasm against Strafford on the ground of his well-known illiterate character, observing that the noble lord had been so long abroad that he had forgotten not only the language but the constitution of his country; that according to our laws it could never be a crime in an individual to correspond with its allies, but that it was a crime to correspond, as certain persons did, with the common enemy, unknown to the allies, and to their manifest prejudice. The amendment of Lord Wharton, however, was rejected, and the protest, entered against its rejection by twenty peers and bishops, was voted violent and indecorous, and erased from the journal.
FORE:The Americans had marched on the evening of the 16th with orders to make themselves masters of Bunker's Hill. By some mistake, they had planted themselves on Breed's Hill, and instantly began to throw up a formidable redoubt and entrenchments, and to place their guns in battery. Gage then ordered a detachment of troops, under the command of General Howe and Brigadier Pigott, to drive the Americans, at all costs, from that position. It was noon before Howe crossed the river and landed on the Charlestown peninsula; but then Howe perceived the strength of the Americans to be greater than had been supposed, and, halting, he sent for reinforcements. They advanced up the hill, formed in two lines, the right headed by General Howe, the left by Brigadier Pigott. The left was immediately severely galled by the riflemen posted in the houses and on the roofs of Charlestown, and Howe instantly halted and ordered the left wing to advance and set fire to the town. This was soon executed, and the wooden buildings of Charlestown were speedily in a blaze, and the whole place burnt to the ground. The Americans reserved their fire till the English were nearly at the entrenchments, when they opened with such a deadly discharge of cannon and musketry as astonished and perplexed the British. Most of the men and the staff standing around General Howe were killed, and he stood for a moment almost alone. Some of the newer troops never stopped till they reached the bottom of the hill. The officers, however, speedily rallied the broken lines, and led them a second time against the murderous batteries. A second time they gave way. But General Clinton, seeing the unequal strife, without waiting for orders, and attended by a number of resolute officers, hastened across the water in boats, and, rallying the fugitives, led them a third time up the hill. By this time the fire of the Americans began to slacken, for their powder was failing, and the English, wearied as they were, rushed up the hill, and carried the entrenchments at the point of the bayonet. Had Gage had a proper reserve ready to rush upon the flying rout on the Neck, few of them would have remained to join their fellows. The battle was called the Battle of Bunker's Hill, though really fought on the lower, or Breed's Hill.
FORE:William Stanhope was rewarded for his accomplishment of this treaty with the title of Lord Harrington, and was soon after made Secretary of State. But whilst the English were delighted by the completion of the treaty, the Emperor was enraged by it, and his mortification was doubled by the fact that, when he sought to raise four hundred thousand pounds by a loan in London to supply the want of his Spanish subsidies, the Ministry brought in and rapidly passed a Bill prohibiting loans to foreign Powers, except by a licence from the king under the Privy Seal. The Opposition raised a loud outcry, calling it "a Bill of Terrors," an "eternal yoke on our fellow-subjects," and a "magnificent boon to the Dutch." But Walpole very justly answered, "Shall British merchants be permitted to lend their money against the British nation? Shall they arm an enemy with strength and assist him with supplies?"Such were the difficulties which Ministers had to contend with for commencing the war at sea. In one particular, however, there was more liberality; money was ungrudgingly voted; the land-tax was raised from two to four shillings in the pound, and the Sinking Fund was so freely resorted to, that the supplies altogether amounted to upwards of four millions. During these discussions, news came on the 13th of March, that on the 21st of November, 1739, Admiral Vernon had taken Porto Bello from the Spaniards. This was good news for the Opposition, for Vernon was one of their party, and a personal enemy of Walpole. There were great rejoicings and the Lords sent down an address of congratulation to the king, for the concurrence of the Commons. Yet in this they could not avoid making a party matter of it, the address stating that this glorious action had been performed with only six ships, and thus to mark[73] the contrast with the doings of Admiral Hosier in those seas, and so to blacken his memory. The address was carried in a thin House, but only by thirty-six against thirty-one, so that along with the news went the comment to Vernon, that the Ministry begrudged him his glory. Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of April, 1740, and the king set off on his summer visit to Hanover.
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FORE:In Canada the management of the war was more successful. To maintain the war in that quarter, Congress had ordered nine regiments to be raised. One of these was to be raised in Canada itself, and for this purpose a commission was given to Moses Hazen, who had formerly been a captain of rangers, under Wolfe. He was not, however, very successful. The Canadians were not to any extent disaffected to the British Government, and by no means well affected to the New Englanders, who were bitterly bigoted against Catholics, which the Canadians chiefly were. When Hazen and Arnold saw that the Canadians would neither enlist nor bring provisions to their camps, without cash payment, they commenced plundering for all that they wanted, and thus confirmed that people in their hatred of the Americans. They, moreover, insulted the Canadians by ridiculing their rites of worship.
FORE:The Ministers being duly informed of all, the preparations for the dinner were carried on ostensibly as though nothing was suspected. On the 23rd of February, when the evening had arrived, carriages began to collect about the house of Lord Harrowby, and the scouts who were sent out to see that there were no soldiers or police stationed there, reported all right. But the carriages were driving to the house of the Archbishop of York, which adjoined Lord Harrowby's, and this had deceived the conspirators. The Ministers had remained at home to dine, and then had assembled at Lord Liverpool's to await the news of the result. The police, conducted by the spies, meanwhile reached the rendezvous of the conspirators, which was a stable in Cato Street, near the Edgware Road. The soldiers had orders to be in readiness, and surround the place immediately, and assist in securing the desperadoes. But it seems that the soldiers were not ready at the moment, and on the police entering the stable they found that the conspirators were in the hayloft over it. They were proceeding up the ladder to the loft, and Smithers, one of the police, had just entered it, when Thistlewood, seeing that they[155] were betrayed, stabbed the man to the heart, blew out the light, and made his escape. There was a confused firing of pistols in the dark, and the soldiers coming up, nine of the conspirators were secured, with a quantity of arms and ammunition; but fourteen were said to have succeeded in escaping.
TWO:The Parliament was punctually opened on the 16th of February, 1714, by the queen, as she had promised at Windsor, though she was obliged to be carried there; for during last autumn she had been obliged, by her gout and obesity, to be raised into her chamber by pulleys, and so let down again, like Henry VIII. After congratulating the two Houses on the peace with Spain, she turned to the subject of the Press, and the rumours spread by it regarding the danger of the Protestant succession. Bolingbroke had been active enough in prosecuting the Press because it was dangerous to the designs which he was cherishing, notwithstanding the affected warmth which he and Oxford had put into the queen's mouth. They had taxed the penny sheets and pamphlets which agitated these questions; but this, according to Swift, had only done their own side mischief. Bolingbroke had, further, arrested eleven printers and publishers in one day. But now the war was opened in Parliament, Lord Wharton, in the House of Peers, called for the prosecution of "The Public Spirit of the Whigs," and the printer and publisher were brought to the bar. These were John Morphew, the publisher, and one John Bache, the printer. But Lord Wharton, who was aiming at higher quarry, said, "We have nothing to do with the printer and publisher, but it highly concerns the honour of this august assembly to find out the villain who is the author of that false and scandalous libel." Oxford denied all knowledge of the author, yet, on retiring from the debate, he sent one hundred pounds to Swift, and promised to do more. Lord Wharton then turned upon the printer, whom he had first affected to disregard, and demanded that he should be closely examined; but the next day the Earl of Mar, one of the secretaries of State, declared that her Majesty had ordered his prosecution. This was to shield him from the Parliamentary inquiry. Here the matter dropped, for Swift was too well screened by his patrons, who had lately rewarded him by Church preferment, and shortly afterwards made him Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin.
In the manufacture of iron a most material discovery of smelting the ore by the use of pit-coal was made. The forests of England were so much reduced by the consumption of wood in the iron furnaces, that it was contemplated removing the business to our American colonies. This necessity was obviated by the discovery by Dud Dudley of a mode of manufacturing bar-iron with coal instead of wood. This discovery had been patented in 1619, yet, singularly, had been neglected; but in 1740 the principle was applied at Coalbrookdale, and iron thus made tough or brittle, as was wished. Iron works, now not confined to one spot by the necessity of wood, sprang up at various places in England and Wales, and the great works at Rotherham were established in 1750, and the famous Carron works in Scotland in 1760. The quantity of pig-iron made in 1740 was calculated at 17,000 tons, and the number of people employed in the iron trade at the end of this period is supposed to be little short of 300,000. Growth of Material WealthCondition of the Working ClassesThe Charity SchoolsLethargy of the ChurchProposal to abolish Subscription to the ArticlesA Bill for the further Relief of DissentersThe Test and Corporation ActsThe Efforts of Beaufoy and Lord StanhopeAttempts to relieve the QuakersFurther Effort of Lord StanhopeThe Claims of the Roman CatholicsFailure of the Efforts to obtain Catholic EmancipationLay Patronage in ScotlandThe Scottish EpiscopaliansIllustrious DissentersReligion in Wales and IrelandLiteratureThe Novelists: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and SterneMinor and later NovelistsScottHistorians: Hume, Robertson, and GibbonMinor HistoriansMiscellaneous LiteratureCriticism, Theology, Biography, and SciencePeriodical LiteratureThe Drama and the DramatistsPoetry: Collins, Shenstone, and GrayGoldsmith and ChurchillMinor PoetsPercy's "Reliques," and Scott's "Border Minstrelsy"Chatterton and OssianJohnson and DarwinCrabbe and CowperPoetasters and GiffordThe Shakespeare ForgeriesMinor SatiresBurnsThe Lake School: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and SoutheyScott, Campbell, Byron, Shelley, and KeatsPoets at the close of the PeriodImprovement of Agricultural ScienceArthur YoungDrainage and RootsImprovements in Road-making: Telford and MacadamBrindley's and Telford's CanalsBridges and HarboursIron RailwaysApplication of the Steam-Engine to Railways and BoatsImprovements in MachineryWedgwoodManufacture of GlassCollieriesUse of Coal in Iron-worksImprovements in various ManufacturesScientific DiscoveriesMusicArchitecturePaintingSculptureEngravingCoins and CoinageManners and Customs.Towards the end of the year Soult had been recalled to Madrid, to take the place of Jourdain, who was remanded to Paris. Soult then determined to make an expedition into the south, to subdue Seville and Cadizthe last places of[601] consequence left to the Spaniards. He took King Joseph with him, or rather, perhaps, King Joseph was afraid to be left in the capital without his protection. The battle of Oca?a, and the destruction of Areizaga's army, left the passes of the Sierra Morena all open, and on the 21st of January Soult was at Baylen, where the army of Dupont had surrendered. Thence he pushed forward for Seville, sending other divisions of the army to traverse Malaga and Granada. Nothing could be more favourable to the visit of Soult than the then condition of Seville. The stupid, proud, ignorant Junta had refused all proffers of aid from the British, and they had, at the same time, worn out the patience of the people, who had risen upon them, and expelled them from the place. They then fled to Cadiz, in the hope of renewing their authority there; but they met with a still fiercer reception from the people of Cadiz, and were compelled formally to resign. As for the inhabitants of Seville, they talked of defending the city against the French, but there was no order amongst them, no authority, and they did nothing. Soult marched on from town to town, collecting a rich spoil everywhere, which the Spaniards had left behind them. They seemed to think of carrying away with them only their money, but a mass of other wealth fell into the hands of the French, and amongst it, as usual, great quantities of British cannon, muskets, and ammunition, which assisted in enabling the French to fight with us. Soult entered Cordova in triumph on the 17th of January, and Seville on the 1st of February, and there King Joseph established his court for some time.FROM THE PICTURE BY C. R. LESLIE, R.A., IN THE POSSESSION OF THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
TWO:
