At length, then, after all his marvellous doublings, O'Connell was hunted into the meshes of the law. He was convicted of sedition, having pleaded guilty, but was not called up for judgment. This was made a charge against the Government; with how little reason may be seen from the account of the matter given by Lord Cloncurry. The time at which he should have been called up for judgment did not arrive till within a month or two of the expiration of the statute under which he was convicted, and which he called the "Algerine Act." In these circumstances, Lord Cloncurry strongly urged upon the Viceroy the prudence of letting him escape altogether, as his incarceration for a few weeks, when he must be liberated with the expiring Act, "would only have the appearance of impotent malice, and, while it might have created dangerous popular excitement, would but have added to his exasperation, and have given him a triumph upon the event of his liberation that must so speedily follow."
Director
The chief difficulty was the king. At the commencement of the month of January, 1829, his Majesty had not yet signified his consent that the whole subject of Ireland, including the Catholic question, should be taken into consideration by his confidential servants. In his interview with the Duke of Wellington in the course of the autumn the king had manifested much uneasiness and irritation, and had hitherto shown no disposition to relax the opposition which (of late years, at least) he had manifested to the consideration by his Government of the claims of the Roman Catholics. In all the communications which Mr. Peel had with the king on this subject, his determination to maintain the existing laws was most strongly expressed. In November, 1824, the king wrote, "The sentiments of the king upon Catholic Emancipation are those of his revered and excellent father; and from these sentiments the king never can, and never will, deviate." All subsequent declarations of opinion on his part were to the same effect; and the events which were passing in Ireland, "the systematic agitation, the intemperate conduct of some[293] of the Roman Catholic leaders, the violent and abusive speeches of others, the acts of the Association, assuming the functions of government, and, as it appeared to the king, the passiveness and want of energy in the Irish executive, irritated his Majesty, and indisposed him the more to recede from his declared resolution to maintain inviolate the existing law."Cornwallis now announced to the Royalists of[275] North Carolina that he would soon send a force for their defence, and advanced to Charlotte. He next took measures for punishing those who had pretended to re-accept the allegiance of England only to relapse into a double treachery. He declared that all such being captured should be treated as traitors, and hanged. These severe measures were carried into execution on some of the prisoners taken at Camden and Augusta, and others were shipped off to St. Augustine. This system was as impolitic as it was cruel, for the Americans were certain to adopt it in retaliation, as they did, with a frightful ferocity, when the Royalists were overthrown in South Carolina, and avowedly on this ground. Lord Rawdon, adopting the example, wrote to his officers that he would give ten guineas for the head of any deserter from the volunteers of Ireland, and five only if brought in alive.Sir John Moore entered Spain under the impression that several brave and victorious Spanish armies were to co-operate with him; but he looked in vain for any such armies. Nay, on the very day of his arrival at Salamanca he heard of the defeat of the Count de Belvedere, near Burgos; and only two days afterwards that general had also been defeated at Espinosa, on the frontiers of the province of Biscay. He demanded from the Junta to know with whom he was to co-operate for the conduct of the campaign, and he was referred to Casta?os. But Casta?os had already lost the confidence of the proud and ignorant Junta, and had little information to give. On the 15th of November the governor of the province announced to him that the French had taken possession of Valladolid, only twenty leagues from Salamanca; from the dormant Mr. Frere he heard nothing. This was startling intelligence; for he had only a small portion of his army yet with him. Sir David Baird was still struggling with the obstructive junta at Corunna, and Sir John Hope was wandering near Madrid with the artillery. Moore began to have a very gloomy idea of the situation, not only of Spain, but of his situation in it. He wrote that there was no unity of action; no care of the juntas to promote it, or to furnish arms and clothing to the soldiers; that he was in no correspondence with the generals of the other armies, and knew neither their plans nor those of the Government. He declared that the provinces around him were not armed; and as for the national enthusiasm of which so much had been said, that he saw not a trace of it; that, in short, the British had no business there; but he would still try to do something, if possible, for the country, since he was there.In 1734 England was the witness of war raging in different parts of Europe without having any concern in it, generally known as the War of the Polish Succession. A sharp Parliamentary campaign had been conducted at home. The Opposition talked loudly of the lamentable and calamitous situation of England, because she was wise enough to keep out of the war. Their motions were all guided by the secret hand of Bolingbroke, whose restless and rancorous mind could not brook that partial obscurity to which he was doomed by the immovable spirit of Walpole. But the grand attack was on the Septennial Act. This was a delicate subject for the Whigs in Opposition, for they, and Pulteney especially, had, in 1716, supported this Act with many specious arguments. But Wyndham led the way again with amazing eloquence, and discharged a philippic against Walpole of such ruthless and scathing vigour, as must have annihilated a less adamantine man.On the 19th of June Paris was excited by the announcements of Buonaparte's bulletin that terrible defeats had been inflicted on the Prussians at Ligny, and on the British at Quatre Bras. A hundred cannon and thousands of prisoners were declared to be taken. The Imperialists were in ecstasies; the Royalists, in spite of the notorious falsehood of Buonaparte on such occasions, were dejected. On the 21st whispers were busily circulating that not only had a most dreadful pitched battle been fought, but that the fine French army which had so lately left France was utterly annihilated or dispersed. It was soon added that, instead of being at the head of victorious forces, as he had represented, Buonaparte had again fled from his army, and was in the Palace of the Elyse-Bourbon. And this last news was true. Napoleon had never stopped in his own flight till he reached Philippevill. There he proposed to proceed to Grouchy, and put himself at the head of his division; but he heard that that too was defeated, and he hurried on to Paris, fearful of the steps that the two legislative Chambers might take.