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FORE:[See larger version]The Marquis of Ely " " 45,000
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FORE:The Council now recalled the English troops from Rohilcund; and Bristow demanded, in the name of the Council, from Asaph-ul-Dowlah, the young Nabob, a full payment of all arrears; and announced that, Sujah Dowlah being dead, the treaty with him was at an end. Under pressure of these demands, Bristow, by instructions from the new regnant members of the Council, compelled the young Nabob to enter into a fresh treaty with them; and in this treaty they introduced a clause to the full as infamous as anything which Hastings had done. In return for renewing the possession of the provinces of Corah and Allahabad, they compelled him to cede to them the territory of Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares, though this did not at all belong to the Nabob of Oude, and was, moreover, guaranteed to Cheyte Sing by Hastings, in solemn treaty. The revenue of Cheyte Sing, thus lawlessly taken possession of, amounted to twenty-two millions of rupees; and the Nabob of Oude was also, on his own account, bound to discharge all his father's debts and engagements to the Company, and to raise greatly the pay to the Company's brigade. Hastings utterly refused to sanction these proceedings; but the Directors at home, who cared not how or whence money came, warmly approved of the transactions.
FORE:The first great battle was destined to be fought on the very ground where Gustavus Adolphus fell, 1632. Buonaparte marched upon Leipsic, expecting to find the Allies posted there; but he was suddenly brought to a stand by them at Lützen. The Allies, who were on the left bank of the Elster, crossed to the right, and impetuously attacked the French, whose centre was at the village of Kaya, under the command of Ney, supported by the Imperial Guard, and their fine artillery drawn up in front of the town of Lützen; the right wing, commanded by Marmont, extending as far as the defile of Poserna, and the left stretching from Kaya to the Elster. Napoleon did not expect to have met the Allies on that side of Leipsic, and was pressing briskly forward when the attack commenced. Ney was first stopped at Gross-G?rschen. Had Wittgenstein made a decided charge with his whole column, instead of attacking by small brigades, he would assuredly have broken the French lines. But Buonaparte rode up, and galloped from place to place to throw fresh troops on the point of attack, and to wheel up both of his wings so as to enclose, if possible, both flanks of the Allies. The conflict lasted some[65] hours, during which it was uncertain whether the Allies would break the centre of the French, or the French would be able to outflank the Allies. Blucher was late on the field; the officer who was sent overnight to him with orders from Wittgenstein is said to have put them under his pillow and slept on them till roused by the cannon. At length, after a desperate attack by Napoleon to recover the village of Kaya, out of which he had been driven, the Allies observing that the firing of Macdonald and Bertrand, who commanded the two wings, was fast extending along their flanks, skilfully extricated themselves from the combat, and led back their columns so as to escape being outflanked by the French. Yet they did not even then give up the struggle for the day. The Allied cavalry made a general attack in the dark, but it failed from the mighty masses of the French on which they had to act. The Allies captured some cannon, the French none. The loss of the Allies was twenty thousand men, killed and wounded: that of the French was equally severe. Seven or eight French generals were killed or wounded. On the side of the Allies fell General Scharnhorstan irreparable loss, for no man had done more to organise the Prussian landwehr and volunteers. The Prince Leopold of Hesse-Homburg and the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, both allied to the royal family of England, were slain, and Blucher himself was wounded; but he had his wounds dressed on the field, and would not quit it till the last moment.
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FORE:As the wind was light, the British vessels set their studding-sails, and bore down steadily on the enemy. There were of the British twenty-seven sail of the line, four frigates, one schooner, and one cutter. Of the French and Spaniards there were thirty-three sail of the line, five frigates, and two brigs; but the French vessels were in far superior condition to the old weather-worn ones of Nelson. The French had two thousand six hundred and twenty-six guns, Nelson two thousand one hundred and forty-eight. Collingwood's line first came into contact with the enemy in the Royal Sovereign, and was speedily in the midst of a desperate conflict. It was some time before Nelson's line got up, and Collingwood, amid the din of cannon and the crash of spars, turned to his captain, and said, "Rotherham, what would not Nelson give to be here?" It was just past twelve o'clock at noon as Collingwood's vessel came to close quarters with the Spanish flagship, Santa Anna, and it was more than a quarter of an hour before Nelson's ship came close up to the stupendous four-decker Spaniard, the Santissima Trinidad. He was soon in a terrible contest not only with this great ship, but with the Bucentaure, of eighty guns, the Neptune, of eighty guns, and the Redoubtable, of seventy-four guns. The Victory and Redoubtable were fast entangled together by their hooks and boom-irons, and kept up the most destructive fire into each other with double-shotted cannon. Both ships took fire; that in the Victory was extinguished, but the Redoubtable finally went down. But it was from the mizen top-mast of this vessel that one of the riflemen marked out Nelson by his stars, and shot him down. He fell on the deck, on the spot where his secretary, John Scott, had fallen dead just before. Captain Hardy, to whom Nelson had shortly before said, "Hardy, this is too warm work to last long," stooped, and observed that he hoped that he was not severely wounded. He replied, "Yes, they have done for me at last, Hardy." Hardy said he hoped not. "Yes," he answered; "my back-bone is shot through." He was carried down to the cock-pit, amongst the wounded and the dying, and laid in a midshipman's berth. The ball was found to have entered the left shoulder and to have lodged in the spine; the wound was mortal. For an hour the battle went on in its terrible fury, as the dying hero lay amid those expiring or wounded around him. He often inquired for Captain Hardy, but Hardy found it impossible, in the midst of one of the fiercest and most mortal strifes that ever was wagedthe incessant cannonades sweeping away men, masts, tackle at every momentto go down. When he was able to do it, Nelson asked how the battle went. Hardy replied, "Well, fourteen or fifteen vessels had struck." "That is well," said Nelson; "but I bargained for twenty." He then told Hardy to anchor, foreseeing that a gale was coming on; and Hardy observed that Admiral Collingwood would now take the command. At this the old commander blazed forth in the dying man for a moment. He endeavoured to raise himself in the bed, saying, "Not while I live, Hardy! No, do you anchor!" And he bade Hardy signal to the fleet this order. His last words were again to recommend Lady Hamilton and his daughter to his country, and to repeat several times, "Thank God, I have done my duty!"
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