THREE:From Clive, events cause us to pass at once to one accused of much greater misdemeanours, and one whose administration terminated in a more formal and extraordinary trial than that of Clive; a trial made ever famous by the shining abilities and eloquence of Burke and Sheridan, and the awful mysteries of iniquity, as practised by our authorities in India, which were brought to the public knowledge by them on this grand occasion. Hastings commenced his rule in Bengal under circumstances which demanded rather a man of pre-eminent humanity than of the character yet lying undeveloped in him. In 1770, under the management of Mr. Cartier, a famine, as we have mentioned, broke out in Bengal, so terrible that it is said to have swept away one-third of the population of the state, and to have been attended by indescribable horrors. The most revolting circumstance was, that the British were charged with being the authors of it, by buying up all the rice in the country, and refusing to sell it, except at the most exorbitant prices. But the charge is baseless. Macaulay says, "These charges we believe to have been utterly unfounded. That servants of the Company had ventured, since Clive's departure, to deal in rice, is probable. That, if they dealt in rice, they must have gained by the scarcity, is certain. But there is no reason for thinking that they either produced or aggravated the evil which physical causes sufficiently explain." Hastings promptly introduced a change in the land-tax by means of which more revenue was obtained with less oppression, and he also freed the country from marauders.Buonaparte found that, during his absence in Syria, Egypt had been disturbed by insurrections, which Desaix had put down, and had again defeated, and driven back into Upper Egypt, Murad Bey, who had made a descent thence. Soon after his return, however, Murad was once more in motion, descending the Nile in two bodies, and Ibrahim Bey was moving on the frontiers of Syria, as if to form a union with Murad. Lagrange was despatched against Ibrahim, and Murat against Murad. Scarcely were they repulsed when the cause of their man?uvres became evident. A Turkish fleet, containing eighteen thousand men, appeared in the Bay of Alexandria, commanded by Mustapha Pacha. They seized the fort, and, landing, began to fortify themselves, expecting the arrival of the Mamelukes, as had been concerted. On the 25th of July Buonaparte attacked them, and drove in all their outposts; but on coming within reach of their batteries and their gunboats in the bay, the French were checked, and the Turks, rushing out, with their muskets slung at their backs, made terrible havoc amongst them with their sabres, poniards, and pistols. The defeat of Napoleon must have been complete had not the Turks stopped to cut off the heads of the slain, for which they were offered a reward. This gave time for the French to rally. It was now the turn of the Turks to give way, and Murat, who had fought at the head of the troops, followed them so impetuously with the bayonet that the confusion and panic became general. The Turks threw themselves en masse into the sea to regain their ships; and by drowning and the bayonets and bullets of the French, ten thousand out of the eighteen thousand perished. Mustapha Pacha himself was taken, and carried in triumph before[472] Buonaparte. This battle had been fought at Aboukir, near the spot where Nelson had so signally triumphed over them. The victory was the event which Buonaparte needed to enable him to return with credit to France. He immediately embraced it. All his plans and brilliant visions of empire in the East had perished for the present, and private letters from his brothers in Paris, and a number of newspapers, which Sir Sidney Smith had furnished him with to mortify him, roused him to instant action. From these he learnt that the Directory had, as he expected, consummated their unpopularity; that Italy, which he had won to France, was again lost by the other generals. To remain in Egypt was to sink into a sort of provincial or proconsular general; to return to Paris was, by a bold and adroit stroke, to make himself the master of France. He immediately ordered Admiral Gantheaume to have ready a couple of frigates, which lay in the harbour of Alexandria; and, taking with him his favourite generals, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, Berthier, Desaix, Androssy, and Bessieres, and the two principal savants, Monge and Denon, to give an account of the scientific results of the expedition, he rushed on board. He had left the care of the army to Kleber and Menou; and he issued a short proclamation, saying that events in Paris demanded his presence there, but that he would return with all possible expedition. He arrived in Paris without mishap.
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THREE:These words, indiscreet as they were, and calculated to embarrass the Ministers, were regarded as in the highest degree precious by the bishops and clergy, and the whole Tory party. With the utmost despatch they were circulated far and wide, with the design of bringing public feeling to bear against Mr. Ward's motion. In the meantime, great efforts were made by the Government to be able to evade the motion. Its position at this time appeared far from enviable, and there was a general impression that it could not long survive. The new appointments did not give satisfaction. The Cabinet was said to be only patched up in order to wear through the Session. It was in these discouraging circumstances that Lord Althorp had to meet Mr. Ward's motion on Monday, the 2nd of June. In order to avoid a dissolution and a general election, the results of which might turn upon the existence of the Irish Church, it was necessary that Mr. Ward's motion should be defeated. He refused to withdraw it, because he apprehended the speedy dissolution of the Ministry, and he wished the decision of the House of Commons on the Irish Church question to be recorded, that it might stand in the way of a less liberal Administration. The anticipated contest in the Commons that evening excited extraordinary interest. The House was surrounded by a crowd anxious to obtain admittance or to hear the result, while within it was so thronged with members that the Ministers found it difficult to get to their seats. Rarely has there been so full a House, the number of members being 516. When Mr. Ward had spoken in favour of his motion, Lord Althorp rose to reply. He announced that a special commission of inquiry had been already issued, composed of laymen, who were to visit every parish in Ireland, and were to report on the means of religious instruction for the people; and that, pending this inquiry, he saw no necessity for the House being called upon to affirm the principles of Mr. Ward's motion. He would, therefore, content himself by moving the previous question. This was carried by an overwhelming majority, the numbers being 396 to 120.
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THREE:For this rebuff, to which he did not even venture an answer, Lord Palmerston speedily obtained a dexterous revenge. Kossuth, Bem, Dembinski, and some thousands of the Hungarian leaders, found refuge at Shumla, within the Turkish frontier. A joint and imperative demand was made by Austria and Russia upon the Sultan to deliver them up. This demand was enforced by two envoys from each Court. The pressure was resisted by the Sultan, who refused to yield to a demand which required him to violate his own honour, the national dignity, the dictates of humanity, and the most sacred rights of hospitality. He took this course at the risk of a rupture with Russia, and though he was pledged by treaty to refuse to shelter both Austrian and Russian malcontents. But he was strongly supported by Lord Palmerston and the French Government, who[582] having gained time by the Sultan's despatch of a special mission to St. Petersburg, ordered the British and French fleets to move up to the Dardanelles and Smyrna. Thereupon the autocratic Powers lowered their tone, Russia demanding only the expulsion of the Poles, Austria the internment of some thirty of the refugees. The refugees were removed to Kutaya, in Asia Minor, where they remained till August 22nd, 1851. On the 1st of September in that year Kossuth left Turkey. On his arrival at Marseilles he was refused permission to travel through France; but he was hospitably received at Gibraltar and Lisbon, and on the 28th of October arrived safely in England, where he was welcomed with unbounded enthusiasm. During these negotiations Palmerston had displayed a courage which raised his reputation both at home and abroad.
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ONE:This signal and unexpected defeat seemed to rouse the Government to a fresh effort for victory over the triumphant bookseller. The Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough, who was not accustomed to let juries and the accused off so easily, rose from his sick bed, where he was fast drifting towards the close of his career. The defendant was called into court the next morning, the 19th of December. There sat Ellenborough, with a severe and determined air. Abbott sat by his side. Hone this time was charged with having published an impious and profane libel, called "The Litany, or General Supplication." The Attorney-General again asserted that, whatever might be the intention of the defendant, the publication had the effect of bringing into contempt the service of the Church. Hone opened his books to recommence the reading of parallel productions of a former day, or by persons high in esteem in the Church, but this was precisely what the invalid Lord Chief Justice had left his bed to prevent. The judge told him all that was beside the mark, but Hone would not allow that it was so, opened his books, and read on in spite of all attempts to stop him. Never had Ellenborough, not even in his strongest and best days, been so stoutly encountered; scarcely ever had such a scene been witnessed in the memory of man. The spectators showed an intense interest in the combat, for such it was, and it was evident that the general sympathy went with the accused, who put forth such extraordinary and unlooked-for power. The exhausted Chief Justice was compelled to give way, and Hone went on reading one parody after another, and dwelt especially on the parodies of the Litany which the Cavaliers wrote to ridicule the Puritan Roundheads. When he had done, the Lord Chief Justice addressed the jury in a strain of strong direction to find a verdict for the Crown. He said "he would deliver the jury his solemn opinion, as he was required by the Act of Parliament to do; and under the authority of that Act, and still more in obedience to his conscience and his God, he pronounced this to be a most impious and profane libel. Believing and hoping that they, the jury, were Christians, he had no doubt but they would be of the same opinion." This time the solemn and severe energy of the Lord Chief Justice seemed to have made an impression on part of the jury, for they took an hour and a half to determine their verdict, but they again returned one of Not Guilty.In this same year, 1779, the Protestant Dissenters of Ireland were relieved by their Parliament from the operation of the Test and Corporation Acts, and it was not, therefore, very likely that the Dissenters of England would rest quietly under them much longer. These Acts were passed in the 13th of Charles II., and the 25th of the same monarch, and required that no person should be elected to any civil or military office under the Crown, including seats in Parliament or corporations, unless he had taken the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. On the 28th of March, 1787, Mr. Beaufoy, member for Yarmouth, moved that the House of Commons should resolve itself into a committee to consider the Test and Corporation Acts. Mr. Beaufoy represented that these Acts were a heavy grievance, not only to the Dissenters and to the members of the Established Church of Scotland, but to many members of the English Church itself, who regarded the prostitution of the most solemn ordinance of their faith to a civil test as little less than sacrilegious. In reply, it was contended that the Indemnity Acts had been passed to protect such as had omitted to take the sacrament within the time specified; but Mr. Beaufoy and his seconder, Sir Henry Houghton, who had carried the Bill relieving Dissenters from subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles, showed that these measures were not always sufficient, and were but a clumsy substitution for the abolition of the obnoxious Acts.
ONE:[18]
ONE:SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. (After the Portrait by J. Hoppner, R.A.)
