ONE:Such language was certain to irritate, in no ordinary degree, the full-blown pride of Buonaparte. It is probable that he was only too desirous of finding a cause of quarrel with Prussia. He longed to avenge himself on her for keeping him in a state of tantalising uncertainty during his Austrian campaign; and he wished to bring the whole of Germany under his dominion. He replied, through Talleyrand, that Prussia had no right to demand from him that he should withdraw his troops from friendly States, and that they should remain there as long as he pleased. In fact, he was already watching the movements of Prussia. He was well aware of the negotiations with Russia, he had full information of the man?uvring of troops, and that the Queen of Prussia, in the uniform of the regiment called by her name, had been at reviews of the army, encouraging the soldiers by her words. He had, weeks before, assembled his principal marshalsSoult, Murat, Augereau, and Bernadottein Paris, and, with them, sketched the plan of the campaign against Prussia. Four days before Knobelsdorff presented the King of Prussia's letter to Talleyrand Napoleon had quitted Paris, and was on the Rhine, directing the march of his forces there, and calling for the contingents from the princes of the Rhenish Confederation; nay, so forward were his measures, that his army in Germany, under Berthier, stretched from Baden to Düsseldorf, and from Frankfort-on-the-Main to Nuremberg. At the same time he commenced a series of the bitterest attacks on Prussia in the Moniteur and other papers under his control, and of the vilest and most unmanly attacks on the character of the Queen of Prussia, a most interesting and amiable woman, whose only crime was her patriotism.
ONE:Two of the workmen from Butterley Foundry entered the "White Horse," which was kept by a widow Wightman, whose son George was deep in the foolish conspiracy into which Oliver and this his blind, savage tool, the Nottingham Captain, were leading him. They found Brandreth with a map before him, and telling them there was no good to be done, they must march up to London and overthrow the Government. He said all the country was rising; that at Nottingham the people had already taken the castle and seized the soldiers in their barracks, and were waiting for them. This shows that he had come straight from Oliver, who, on the 7th, was at Nottingham, attending the meeting there, and who knew that the meeting in Yorkshire had been prevented. Yet he had allowed the people of Nottingham to believe that the Yorkshire men were coming, according to agreement, in thousands; and he allowed Brandreth to go and arouse Derbyshire, under the belief that Nottingham that night would be in the hands of the insurgents. On Monday night, the 9th of June, Brandreth and a knot of his colleagues proceeded to muster their troop of insurgents for the march to Nottingham. They roused up the men in their cottages, and, if they refused to go, they broke in the doors with a crowbar, and compelled them to join them. Most of these unwilling levies slipped away in the dark on the first opportunity. At South Wingfield he assembled his forces in an old barn, and then they proceeded through the neighbourhood demanding men and guns. An old woman had the courage to tap the "captain" on the shoulder, and say"My lad, we have a magistrate here;" and many of the men thought Brandreth must be mad or drunk. At the farm of widow Hetherinton he demanded her men and arms, and when she stoutly refused him, he put the gun through[127] the window and shot one of her men dead. As the day dawned, Brandreth and his infatuated troop appeared before the gates of Butterley Foundry, and demanded the men; but Mr. Goodwin, the manager, had been apprised of their approach, and had closed the gates. Brandreth had planned to take Butterley Foundry, and carry away not only the men but a small cannon kept there; but Mr. Goodwin went out and told Brandreth he should not have a man for any such insane purpose, and seeing an old man that he well knew, Isaac Ludlam, who bore a good character, and had been a local preacher amongst the Methodists, he seized him by the collar and pushed him into the foundry court, telling him not to be a fool, but stay at home. Ludlam, however, replied, "he was as bad as he could be," rushed out, and went onto his death; for he was one of those that were executed.
ONE:IRISH TRAMPS.
