THE FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH THROUGH THE TOWN OF VITTORIA, JUNE 21st, 1813.Earl Grey was not slow to avail himself of these exciting topics in order to point the lightning of popular discontent against the head of the Government. "We ought," he said, "to learn wisdom from what is passing before our eyes; and, when the spirit of liberty is breaking out all round, it is our first duty to secure our own institutions by introducing into them a temperate reform. I have been a Reformer all my life; and on no occasion have I been inclined to go farther than I am prepared to go now, if an opportunity were to offer. But I do not found the title to demand it on abstract right. We are told that every man who pays taxesnay, that every man arrived at the years of discretionhas a right to vote for representatives. That right I utterly deny. The right of the people is to have a good Government, one that is calculated to secure their privileges and happiness; and if that is incompatible with universal, or very general suffrage, then the limitation, and not the extension, is the true right of the people."
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In the East Indies France agreed to keep no troops, and raise no fortifications in Bengal, and on these conditions their settlements were restored, but merely as places of trade. Goree, on the coast of Africa, was restored, but Senegal was surrendered.Tillotson and South were the great authors of sermons of this period. Tillotson was one of the most popular preachers of the time, but may be said to have done more good by his liberal and amiable influence at the head of the Church than by his preaching. There is a solid and genuinely pious character about the sermons of Tillotson which suited the better-trained class of mind of his age, but which would now be deemed rather heavy. South has more life and a more popular style; he was therefore more attractive to the courtiers of his day than to the sober citizens, and he has larded his text with what were then deemed sprightly sallies and dashing phrases, but which are now felt as vulgarisms. Both divines, however, furnished succeeding preachers with much gleaning.The king now announced to Ministers his fixed resolve to call in another Cabinet, though the Whigs had endeavoured to keep office by dropping the Bill, and on the 25th of March they delivered to the king their seals of office. Erskine alone retained his for a week, that he might pronounce his decrees on the Chancery suits which had been heard by him; and two days before he parted with the Seal, he took the opportunity to make his son-in-law, Edmund Morris, a Master in Chancery. This was regarded as a most singular act, Erskine being no longer bona fide Chancellor, but only holding the Seal for a few days after the resignation of his colleagues, to complete necessary business. The House adjourned to the 8th of April, and before this day arrived the new appointments were announced. They werethe Duke of Portland, First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Hawkesbury, Secretary of the Home Department; Canning, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Lord Castlereagh, Secretary for War and the Colonies; the Earl of Chatham, Master of the Ordnance; Spencer Perceval, Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer; Lord Camden, Lord President of the Council; Lord Bathurst, President of the Board of Trade, with George Rose as Vice-President; the Earl of Westmoreland, Keeper of the Privy Seal; Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor; and the Duke of Richmond, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. As the Duke of Portland's health was bad, the real Prime Minister was Mr. Perceval.But, in the first place, he announced to the Queen of Etruria, whom he had hitherto allowed to retain her Italian territory in right of her infant son, that she must give that up and accept the kingdom of Northern Lusitania in Portugal. This princess had an ominous persuasion that her son would never possess, or, if he possessed, would never retain this Northern Lusitania; but she had no alternative and, in the month of June following, the kingdom of Etruria was converted into three new departments of France. This having been arranged, this setter-up and puller-down of kingdoms proceeded to compel the Pope to adopt his system. Pius VII. did not seem disposed to comply. He had no quarrel with Britain; had no advantage, but much the contrary, in depriving his subjects of articles of British manufacture; besides that, amongst the numerous adherents of the Church in Ireland he would create great prejudice. But all these reasons had no more weight with the haughty egotism of Buonaparte than so much air. He forced his troops into the Papal territories; threw a strong body into Ancona on the Adriatic, and another into Civita Vecchia, and at the mouth of the Tiber. The Pope protested against the violent invasion of his principality, but in vain; Buonaparte insisted that he should declare war against Britain. Pius then consented to close his ports, but this did not satisfy Napoleon; he demanded that war should be declared, pronouncing himself the heir of Charlemagne, and therefore suzerain of the Pope, and he demanded compliance. On the Pope continuing obstinate, Buonaparte forced more troops into his States, and sent General Miollis to take possession of Rome. This accordingly was done in February, 1808. The Pope shut himself up in the Quirinal palace, and the French surrounded him with troops and cannon, and held him prisoner to compel him to comply. The Pope, though shut up in the Quirinal and deprived of his cardinals, remained unshaken, and protested solemnly against this violent usage and robbery by the man whom he had consented to crown and to make a concordat with. When the magistrates and priests of the Marches were called on to take the oath of allegiance to Napoleon, they refused almost unanimously, and were driven out of the States, or shut up in prisons and fortresses in the Alps and Apennines.The spring of 1810 witnessed one of the most important events of the reign of Napoleon, and one which, no doubt had a decided influence on his fatehis divorce from Josephine and his marriage with Maria Louisa, the archduchess of Austria. It had long been evident to those about[2] Napoleon that a change of this kind would take place. Josephine had brought the Emperor no child, and, ambitious in every way, he was as much so of leaving lineal successors to the throne and empire which he had created, as he was of making that empire co-extensive with Europe. Josephine, strongly attached to him, as well as to the splendour of his position, had long feared such a catastrophe, and had done all in her power to divert his mind from it. She proposed to him that he should adopt an heir, and she recommended to him her own son, Eugene Beauharnais. But this did not satisfy Buonaparte. She then turned his attention to a child of her daughter, Hortense Beauharnais, by his brother Louis, the King of Holland. This would have united her own family to his, and to this scheme Buonaparte appeared to consent. He showed much affection for the child, and especially as the boy displayed great pleasure in looking at arms and military man?uvres; and on one occasion of this kind Buonaparte exclaimed, "There is a child fit to succeed, perhaps to surpass me!" But neither was this scheme destined to succeed. The child sickened and died, and with it almost the last hope of Josephine. Whilst at Erfurt with the Emperor Alexander, in 1808, Buonaparte had actually proposed for a Russian archduchess; nay, in 1807 he had made such overtures at the Treaty of Tilsit. Thus the idea had been settled in his mind three years, at least, before it was realised. The Russian match had on both occasions been evaded, on the plea of the difference of religion; but the truth was that the notion of such an alliance was by no means acceptable to the Imperial family of Russia. The Empress and the Empress-mother decidedly opposed it; and though the plea of difference of religion was put forward, Buonaparte could not but feel that the real reasons were very differentthat he was looked on as a successful adventurer, whose greatness might some day dissolve as speedily as it had grown, and that, be this as it might, the Russian family were not disposed to receive him, a parvenu monarch, into their old regal status.English cookery, even in the greatest houses, had not yet been much affected by French art. The dinners were remarkably solid, hot, and stimulating. Mulligatawny and turtle soups came first, then at one end of the table was uncovered the familiar salmon, and at the other the turbot surrounded by smelts. Next came a saddle of mutton, or a joint of roast beef, and for the fourth course came fowls, tongue, and ham. French dishes were placed on the sideboard, but for a long time such weak culinary preparations were treated with contemptuous neglect. The boiled potato was then very popular, and vegetables generally were unaccompanied with sauce. The dessert, which was ordered from the confectioner's, was often very costly. The wines used at dinner were chiefly port, sherry, and hock. "A perpetual thirst seemed to come over people, both men and women," says Captain Gronow, "as soon as they had tasted their soup, as from that moment everybody was taking wine with everybody else till the close of the dinner, and such wine as produced that class of cordiality which frequently wanders into stupefaction. How this sort of eating and drinking ended was obvious from the prevalence of gout; and the necessity of every one making the pill-box a constant bedroom companion."[See larger version]
