FORE:RETREAT OF THE HIGHLANDERS FROM PERTH. (See p. 31.)
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FORE:AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE, R. A., IN THE ROYAL COLLECTION.
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FORE:On the 5th of May, towards evening, Massena attacked the British right, posted in Fuentes d'Onoro, with great impetuosity, and the whole fury of the battle, from beginning to end, was concentrated on this quarter. At first the British were forced back from the lower part of the town, driven to the top, where they retained only a cluster of houses and an old chapel. But Wellington pushed fresh bodies of troops up the hill, and again drove down the French at the point of the bayonet, and over the river Das Casas. The next day the battle was renewed with the greatest desperation, and again the British, overwhelmed with heavy columns of men, and attacked by the powerful body of cavalry, seemed on the point of giving way. The cannonade of Massena was terrible, but the British replied with equal vigour, and a Highland regiment, under Colonel Mackinnon, rushed forward with its wild cries, carrying all before it. The battle was continued on the low grounds, or on the borders of the river, till it was dark, when the French withdrew across the Das Casas. The battle was at an end. Massena had been supported by Marshal Bessires, but the two marshals had found their match in a single English general, and an army as inferior to their own in numbers as it was superior in solid strength. Four hundred French lay dead in Fuentes d'Onoro itself, and the killed, wounded,[16] and prisoners amounted, according to their own intercepted letters, to over three thousand. The British loss was two hundred and thirty-five killedamongst whom was Colonel Cameron,one thousand two hundred and thirty-four wounded, and three hundred and seventeen missing, or prisoners. Almeida was at once evacuated; the garrison blowing up some of the works, then crossing the Agueda, and joining the army of Massena, but not without heavy loss of men, besides all their baggage, artillery, and ammunition.
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FORE:
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FORE:
FORE:Disappointed in their hopes from England, educated Roman Catholic opinion in Ireland began to drift towards the United Irishmen, in spite of the[462] peasants' war that was rife in various parts of the country between the members of the two religions. Suddenly their expectations received an unlooked-for impulse. During the spring of 1794 Pitt determined to send over Lord Fitzwilliam, who was heir to the Marquis of Rockingham and a prominent member of the Portland Whigs, as Lord-Lieutenant. It was clearly understood that Fitzwilliam should be allowed to inaugurate a policy of reform, but Pitt wished that reform to be gradual and cautious. It is plain that he gave Grattan intimation to that effect, and that Grattan thought the stipulation a reasonable one, but it is equally clear that he somehow or other failed to make much impression upon Fitzwilliam. No sooner had the new Lord-Lieutenant arrived in Ireland than he proceeded to dismiss Castle officials before he could possibly have had time to inquire into the rights and wrongs of their cases, and with equal abruptness turned out the Attorney, and Solicitor-General, and Mr. Beresford, the Commissioner of Revenue, the head of the most powerful of the Protestant families. The result was a violent outcry, which was increased when he proceeded, in conjunction with Grattan, to draw up a Bill for the immediate granting of the Catholic claims. The Ascendency party clamoured for his recall, and the Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon represented to the king that to admit Roman Catholics to Parliament would be to violate his Coronation Oath. Pitt was obliged to give way, and on March 25th, 1794, Fitzwilliam left Ireland, amidst every sign of national mourning. The incident is a melancholy one, but a calm review of the circumstances produces the conclusion that the indiscretion of Lord Fitzwilliam was very much the cause of it.[See larger version]
FORE:The affairs of Italy were the subject of warm debates in the British Parliament in the Session of 1849. Lord Palmerston was assailed by the Conservatives for having countenanced the Sicilian insurrection, and for having sent Lord Minto to Italy on a mission of conciliation, which they considered an unwarrantable meddling in the affairs of foreign countries. His assailants, he said, belonged to a school which maintained "the right divine to govern wrong," and they therefore stigmatised the Sicilians as rebels. But the Sicilians had had a Constitution for centuries, and their ancient and indisputable rights were confirmed in 1812. As to Lord Minto, he interfered at the instance of the King of Naples himself. The Treaty of Vienna recognised the title of the king as King of the Two Sicilies; "but the recognition of a title was one thing, the overturning of a Constitution another."
FORE:To reach the enemy the British had to cross the river, and that by a single bridge. This was commanded by the American artillery, and it might have been expected that it would not be easily carried; but, on the contrary, a light brigade swept over it, in face of the cannon, followed by the rest of the army; and the troops deploying right and left the moment they were over, this single divisionabout one thousand six hundred strongrouted the whole American force before the remainder of the British could come into action. Few of the Americans waited to be killed or wounded. Madison had the mortification to see his army all flying in precipitation, and the city open to the British.
FORE:But Wellington was not intending to stop here. He immediately made preparations for the siege of Badajoz. He had artillery sent out to sea from Lisbon, as for some distant expedition, and then secretly carried, in small boats, up the Setubal, to Alcacer do Sal, and thence, by land, across Alemtejo to the Guadiana. On the 16th of March, after a rapid march, he reached, with a strong body of troops, the Guadiana, crossed, and at once invested Badajoz. By the 26th he had carried the Picurina and the advanced work separated from the city by the little river Rivillas, and made two breaches in the city walls. There was the same want of besieging tools and battering trains which had retarded his operations before; but the men worked well, and on the 6th of April, there being three breaches open, orders were given to storm, for Soult was collecting his forces at Seville to raise the siege. One of the breaches had been so strongly barricaded by General Philippon, the governor of Badajoz, by strong planks bristling with iron spikes, and with chevaux-de-frise of bayonets and broken swords, that no effect could be produced on the obstruction; whilst the French, from the ramparts and the houses overlooking them, poured down the most destructive volleys. But the parties at the other two breaches were more successful, and on their drawing away the French from this quarter, the spike-beams and chevaux-de-frise were knocked down, and the British were soon masters of the place. Philippon endeavoured to escape with a number of men, but he was obliged to throw himself into Fort San Christoval, on the other side the Guadiana, where he was compelled to surrender. The loss of the allies was nearly one thousand men killed, including seventy-two officers, and three hundred and six officers and three thousand four hundred and eighty men wounded. The French, though they fought under cover of batteries and houses, lost nearly one thousand five hundred men; they also delivered up upwards of five thousand prisoners of their own nation, and nearly four thousand Spaniards, British, and Portuguese, who had been kept at Badajoz as a safe fortress. The British soldiers fought with their usual undaunted bravery, but they disgraced themselves by getting drunk in the wine cellars during the night of the storming, and committed many excesses. Wellington, who was extremely rigorous in suppressing all such conduct, reduced them to discipline as quickly as possible, and on the 8th Badajoz was completely in his hands. Soult, who was at Villafranca when he received the news, immediately retreated again on Seville, briskly pursued by the British cavalry, who did much execution on his rear-guard at Villagarcia.
