THREE:When the advanced guard of the Allies came in sight of the Rhine, over which the last of the hated invaders had fled, they raised such shouts of "The Rhine! the Rhine!" that those behind rushed forward, supposing that it was a call to action; but they soon learned the true cause, and joined in a mighty acclamation, that proclaimed the haughty and sanguinary oppressor driven out, and the soil of Germany at length freed from his licentious and marauding legions. It turned out that they had left behind them one hundred and forty thousand prisoners, and seven hundred and ninety-one guns. On the 2nd of November Hanover was again delivered to Great Britain; the Duke of Brunswick, who had maintained his stern hatred to Buonaparte, also returned to his patrimonial domains; the kingdom of Westphalia dissolving like a dream, the different portions of Jerome's ephemeral realm reverted to its former owners. The Confederacy of the Rhine was at an end, the members of it hastening to make peace with the Allies, and save as much of their dominions as they could. Bernadotte, immediately after the defeat of Buonaparte at Leipsic, entered Denmark, and overran the country of that ally of France. The Danish army speedily consented to an armistice, by which it was agreed that the Swedes should occupy Holstein and a part of Schleswig till the French were expelled from all the Danish fortresses. It was already stipulated as the price of his co-operation, that the Crown Prince should receive Norway to add to the Swedish Crown.The crisis of extreme difficulty to which Peel referred was occasioned by the power acquired by the Catholic Association, which had originated in the following manner. Early in 1823 Mr. O'Connell proposed to his brother barrister, Mr. Sheil, and a party of friends who were dining with Mr. O'Mara, at Glancullen, the plan of an association for the management of the Catholic cause. At a general meeting of the Roman Catholics, which took place in April, a resolution with the same design was carried, and on Monday, the 12th of May, the first meeting of the Catholic[250] Association was held in Dempsey's Rooms, in Sackville Street, Dublin. Subsequently it met at the house of a Catholic bookseller named Coyne, and before a month had passed it was in active working order. From these small beginnings it became, in the course of the year, one of the most extensive, compact, and powerful popular organisations the world had ever seen. Its influence ramified into every parish in Ireland. It found a place and work for almost every member of the Roman Catholic body; the peer, the lawyer, the merchant, the country gentleman, the peasant, and, above all, the priest, had each his task assigned him: getting up petitions, forming deputations to the Government and to Parliament, conducting electioneering business, watching over the administration of justice, collecting "the Catholic rent," preparing resolutions, and making speeches at the meetings of the Association, which were held every Monday at the Corn Exchange, when everything in the remotest degree connected with the interests of Roman Catholics or of Ireland was the subject of animating and exciting discussion, conducted in the form of popular harangues, by barristers, priests, merchants, and others. Voluminous correspondence was read by the secretary, large sums of rent were handed in, fresh members were enrolled, and speeches were made to a crowd of excited and applauding people, generally composed of Dublin operatives and idlers. But as the proceedings were fully reported in the public journals, the audience may be said to have been the Irish nation. And over all, "the voice of O'Connell, like some mighty minster bell, was heard through Ireland, and the empire, and the world."
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THREE:The new Premier, however, was resolute, and persevered with his arrangements. He found an excellent successor to Lord Eldon, as Chancellor, in Sir John Copley, the Master of the Rolls, who was created Lord Lyndhurst. Mr. Peel, as Home Secretary, was succeeded by Mr. Sturges Bourne, who retired after a few weeks to make way for the Marquis of Lansdowne. He represented a section of the Whigs, prominent among whom were Brougham, Tierney and Burdett, who gave[259] their support to the Ministry. The Duke of Clarence succeeded Lord Melville as First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Marquis of Anglesey the Duke of Wellington as Master-General of the Ordnance. Viscount Palmerston was appointed the Secretary at War, with which office he commenced his long, brilliant, and popular career as a Cabinet Minister. The new Master of the Rolls was Sir John Leech, the Attorney-General Sir James Scarlett, and the Solicitor-General Sir N. Tindal. Mr. Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne, succeeded Mr. Goulburn as Chief Secretary of Ireland.After the flight from Ballingarry, and the desertion of his followers, Smith O'Brien abandoned the cause in despair, and concealed himself for several days among the peasantry in a miserable state of mind. He had none of the qualities of a rebel chief, and he had not at all calculated the exigencies of the position that he had so rashly and criminally assumed, involving the necessity of wholesale plunder and sanguinary civil strife, from which his nature shrank. Besides, he soon found that the people would not trust a Protestant leader, and that there was, after all, no magic in the name of O'Brien for a Roman Catholic community. But to the honour of the peasantry it should be spoken, that though many of them were then on the verge of starvation, not one of them yielded to the temptation of large rewards to betray him or his fugitive colleagues, and several of them ran the risk of transportation by giving them shelter. In these circumstances, on the 5th of August, Mr. O'Brien walked from his hiding-place in Keeper Mountain into Thurles, where he arrived about eight o'clock in the evening. He[570] went immediately to the railway station to procure a ticket for Limerick. On the platform there were seventeen constables in plain clothes, who did not know him; but a railway guard named Hulme, an Englishman, recognised him, and tapping him on the shoulder, he presented a pistol at him and said, "You are the Queen's prisoner." A strong escort of police was immediately procured, and the prisoner was conveyed in a special train to Dublin, where he was lodged in Kilmainham gaol.
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THREE:The Budget was brought forward on the 13th of February. It proposed to continue the income tax, which experience had shown to afford a means of supplying the place of taxes repealed, until such time as the revenue should recover itself. The Minister then unfolded his scheme, which formed no unworthy complement to his great Budget of 1842. It proposed a reduction in the sugar duties, which could not be calculated at less than 1,300,000, and was expected to lower the price to the consumer by about 1-1/4d. a pound. The Minister then proceeded to refer to a list of articles, 430 in number, which yielded but trifling amounts of revenue, and many of which were raw materials used in the various manufactures of the country, including silk, hemp, flax, and yarn or thread (except worsted yarn), all woods used in cabinet-making, animal and vegetable oils, iron and zinc in the first stages, ores and minerals (except copper ore, to which the last Act was still to apply), dye stuffs of all kinds, and all drugs, with very few exceptions; on the whole of these articles he proposed to repeal the duties altogether, not even leaving a nominal rate for registration, but retaining the power of examination. The timber duties generally he proposed to continue as they were, with the one exception of staves, which, as the raw material of the extensive manufacture of casks, he proposed to include with the 430 articles, and to take off the duty altogether. On these articles the loss amounted to 320,000. The next and most important relief in the whole proposition was the article of cotton wool, on which the Minister proposed also to reduce the duty altogether, and on which he estimated the loss at 680,000; and these constituted the whole of the proposed reductions of the import dutiesthat is, sugar, cotton wool, and the numerous small articles in the tariff. The next items of reduction proposed were the few remaining duties on our exports, such as china-stone, and other trifling things, but including the most important article of coals, on which the duty had been placed by the Government, and at the result of which Sir Robert Peel candidly avowed his disappointment. The duties he estimated at 118,000. He then passed on to the excise duties, among which he had selected two items of great importance for entire repealthe auction duty and the glass duties. By a repeal of the auction duty he estimated a loss of 300,000; but as he proposed, at the same time, to increase the auctioneer's licence uniformly from 5 to 15 (making one licence answer for all purposes, whereas, at that time, several licences were often necessary to the same party) he expected from 4,000 auctioneers an increased income, so as to reduce this loss to 250,000. On the important article of glass he gave up 642,000. These constituted the whole of his proposals; and the surplus of 2,409,000 was thus proposed to be disposed of:Estimated loss on sugar, 1,300,000; duty on cotton repealed, 680,000; ditto on 430 articles in tariff, 320,000; export duty on coal, 118,000; auction duty, 250,000; glass, 642,000. Total, 3,310,000.EARL GREY STREET, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. (From a Photograph by Poulton & Son, Lee.)
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