ONE:Where shall she lay her head?The consternation of the city may be imagined. The inhabitants, who had, at first, treated the rumour of the Young Pretender's landing with ridicule, now passed to the extreme of terror. On Sunday night the Highlanders lay between Linlithgow and the city, and on Monday morning Charles sent forward a detachment, which, on coming in sight of the pickets, discharged their pistols. The dragoon pickets did not wait to return the fire, but rode off towards Coltbridge, nearer to Edinburgh, where Gardiner lay with the main body of horse. No sooner, however, did this commander perceive the advancing Highlanders, than he also gave the order to retreat, and the order was so well obeyed, that from a foot's-pace the march quickened into a trot and presently into a gallop, and the inhabitants of Edinburgh saw the whole force going helter-skelter towards Leith, where they drew bit. The valiant troops mounted again, and galloped to Preston, six miles farther, some of them, it was said, not stopping till they reached Dunbar. This "Canter of Coltbridge," as it was called in derision, left the city at the mercy of the Highlanders, except for about six or seven hundred men mustered from the City Guard, the volunteer corps, and some armed gentlemen from Dalkeith and Musselburgh, who took post at the gates.
THREE:Such were the means by which the union of Ireland with Great Britain was accomplished, and it would be idle to argue that a majority in the Irish Parliament was not purchased by places, pensions, peerages, and compensation for suppressed seats. But it was a bargain, made above-board, and in the open market. It was, moreover, in agreement with the sentiment of the age, a borough-owner was thought to have a right "to do what he willed with his own," and Pitt, in one of his own Reform bills, had acted on the theory that boroughs were a species of property. Lord Cornwallis, though he acknowledged that he was engaged in dirty work, declared that the union was imperatively necessary, and could be accomplished only by those means. The Irish Parliament was profoundly corrupt, and from no point of view could its extinction be regretted, but that extinction could be accomplished only by further corruption. Nor is there any proof that the Irish nation as a whole were opposed to the union. It was, of course, hard on a pure patriot like Grattan to be involved in the fate of a corrupt gang of placemen, but, as a Protestant, he only[476] represented the minority. The Catholics were either indifferent, with the indifference resulting from long oppression, or in favour of the measure. They knew that from the Irish Parliament it had become, since the Rebellion, hopeless to expect Catholic emancipation; they believed the assurances of Pitt that a measure for their relief would speedily be introduced in the British Parliament. Had he been able to fulfil his promise, the union would have beento use Macaulay's familiar phrasea union indeed.The history of this question of Jewish Emancipation gives proof, as striking as any upon record, of the obstinacy and tenacity of prejudice established by law, although no possible danger could arise to the British Constitution from the admission of the Jews; although Mr. Salomons had been elected Sheriff of London in 1835, and a Bill was passed to enable him to act; although the year after, Mr. Moses Montefiore was likewise elected Sheriff of London, and knighted by the Queen; although in 1846 Jews elected to municipal offices were relieved by Parliament from taking the oaths;[605] although Baron Rothschild and Alderman Salomons had been repeatedly elected by immense majorities; although Bills for emancipating the Jews, the only class of her Majesty's subjects still labouring under political disabilities on account of their religion, were passed year after year by the House of Commons, but were indignantly rejected by the House of Lords. At length, in 1858, the Commons were obliged to admit the Jews by a resolution of their own House, but it was not till 1860 that an Act was passed permitting Jewish members of Parliament to omit from the oath the words "on the true faith of a Christian."
THREE:Our forces on the Italian coast were met by the active spirit of the new King of Naples, Joachim Murat. Sir John Stuart, who had won the splendid victory of Maida, embarked, on the 13th of June, fifteen thousand British troops in Sicily, and proceeded to menace Naples, and create alarm in various quarters, so as to draw the French from Upper Italy, and thus relieve the Austrians. With part of these forces siege was laid to Scylla; with the other Sir John anchored off Cape Miseno, close to Bai? and Puzzuoli, and directly across the bay, about a dozen miles from Naples. The greatest alarm was excited, and nothing would have been easier for Sir John than to have battered the town about the ears of the intruder king; but this the interests of the old king did not permit, especially as Ferdinand's second son, Don Leopold, was present as nominal commander, but he was of no use really, being a most effeminate and incapable person. Sir John then sailed to the islands of Procida and Ischia, compelled the garrisons to capitulate, dismantled the fortifications, and then abandoned these islands. During all this time our warships were scouring the whole of the coasts of Southern Italy, capturing every vessel that ventured out, and keeping the French generals on shore in constant agitation. In the encounters with the enemy's vessels on these coasts many brilliant exploits were performed by our captains, and by none more than by Captain Staines, of the Cyane frigate, who, on the 27th of June, stood a stout but most unequal fight with a Neapolitan frigate and corvette, under the very batteries of Naples. The siege of Scylla was raised by a strong French force, and Sir John Stuart returned to Sicily. Scylla was, however, shortly after abandoned again by the French, and its guns and stores, which appeared to have been left in some panic, fell into the hands of the British.In Canada the management of the war was more successful. To maintain the war in that quarter, Congress had ordered nine regiments to be raised. One of these was to be raised in Canada itself, and for this purpose a commission was given to Moses Hazen, who had formerly been a captain of rangers, under Wolfe. He was not, however, very successful. The Canadians were not to any extent disaffected to the British Government, and by no means well affected to the New Englanders, who were bitterly bigoted against Catholics, which the Canadians chiefly were. When Hazen and Arnold saw that the Canadians would neither enlist nor bring provisions to their camps, without cash payment, they commenced plundering for all that they wanted, and thus confirmed that people in their hatred of the Americans. They, moreover, insulted the Canadians by ridiculing their rites of worship.
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