The forces on which the Ameers relied numbered about 20,000 men, who had retired to a great stronghold, eight days' journey distant, in the dreary desert of Beloochistan. Thither, notwithstanding the difficulties of the march, Sir Charles Napier boldly determined to pursue them. The wells being all dry, water for the troops and their horses had to be carried on camels' backs. With 360 men of the Queen's Regiment, mounted on camels, and 200 irregular cavalry, followed by ten camels bearing provisions, and eighty loaded with water, the adventurous general directed his perilous course into the desert, commencing his march on the 5th of January, 1843. After three or four days' march over burning sands, the camels became too weak to draw the howitzers. Their place was supplied, or their failing strength aided, by the hardy and indomitable Irishmen who formed part of the expedition. "At length, on the evening of the 14th, the square tower of Emaum-Ghur was discerned, rising on the distant horizon in solitary grandeur, in that profound solitude." They found the place deserted; Mahommed Khan, the governor, having retired with his treasure the day before, leaving an immense quantity of ammunition behind. With this the fortress was blown up. No fewer than twenty-four mines were run under it in different parts. As Major Warburton, the engineer, was applying his fusee to the last one, his assistant cried, "The other mines are going to burst." "That may be," he replied; "but this must burst also." He then set fire to the fusee with his own hand, and quietly walked away. In a few minutes the stronghold of the Beloochees was blown into fragments. They had another, of equal strength, farther on in the desert; but to attack that with the forces now at his command was an impossibility; and so Sir Charles Napier returned, and rejoined his main army near Hyderabad, having sent Outram to negotiate the details of the treaty.Encouraged by this unwonted success (for the words of the speaker, reminding them of the coming elections, had sunk deep into many hearts). Dunning immediately moved a second proposition, namely, that it was competent to that House to examine into and correct any abuses of the Civil List, as well as of any other branch of the public revenue. The resolution was carried without a division. Immediately on the heels of this, Thomas Pitt moved that it was the duty of the House to redress without delay the grievances enumerated in the petitions of the people. Lord North implored that they would not proceed any further that night; but this resolution was also put and carried, likewise without division. Immediately, though it was past one o'clock in the morning, Fox moved that all these motions should be reported. Lord North, in the utmost consternation, declared this procedure was "violent, arbitrary, and unusual;" but Fox pressed his motion, and it was carried, like the rest, without a division, and the Report was brought up.
ONE:[54]This was immediately made evident. The treaty was concluded on the 4th of April, 1769, and the first news was that Hyder had quarrelled with the Mahrattas, and called on the Presidency of Madras to furnish the stipulated aid. But the Presidency replied that he had himself sought this war, and therefore it was not a defensive but an offensive war. The Peishwa of the Mahrattas invaded Mysore, and drove Hyder to the very walls of Seringapatam, dreadfully laying waste his territory. Hyder then sent piteous appeals to his allies, the British, offering large sums of money; but they still remained deaf. At another time, they were solicited by the Mahratta chief to make an alliance with him, but they determined to remain neutral, and left Hyder and the Peishwa to fight out their quarrels. In 1771 the Mahrattas invaded the Carnatic, but were soon driven out; and in 1772 the Mahrattas and Hyder made peace through the mediation of the Nabob of the Carnatic, or of Arcot, as he was more frequently called. Hyder had lost a considerable portion of Mysore, and besides had to pay fifteen lacs of rupees, with the promise of fifteen more. The refusal of the English to assist him did not fail to render him more deeply hostile than ever to them.
On the 21st of October the British fleet sailed from Copenhagen Roads; at Helsingfors the fleet was saluted by the King of Sweden, who invited the admirals to breakfast; and, by the end of the month, was anchored in Yarmouth Roads safely, with all its captives. Fresh offers of alliance with Denmark were made before leaving, accompanied with promises of restoration, but were indignantly refused by the Crown Prince; and no sooner were the British gone, than the Danes converted their trading-vessels into armed ones, and commenced a raid amongst the British merchants, now in the Baltic, for the protection of which some men-of-war ought to have been left. The Crown Prince, now thrown completely into the arms of the French, made a declaration of war against Britain, and the British Government issued an order for reprisals on the ships, colonies, and property of the Danes. They also seized on the island of Heligoland, a mere desolate rock, but, lying at the mouth of the Elbe, and only twenty-five miles from the mouths of the Weser and the Eider, it was of the greatest importance, during the war, as a safe rendezvous for our men-of-war, and as a dep?t for our merchandise, ready to slip into any of the neighbouring rivers, and thus, by smugglers, to be circulated all over the Continent, in spite of Buonaparte's embargo. It served also to remind the people of those regions, that, though Buonaparte ruled paramount on land, there was a power on the sea that yet set him and all his endeavours at defiance.On the 22nd of April Mr. O'Connell brought forward a very comprehensive motion. It was for a select committee to inquire and report on the means by which the destruction of the Irish Parliament had been effected; on the results of the union upon Ireland, and upon the labourers in husbandry and operatives in manufactures in England; and on the probable consequences of[371] continuing the Legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland. This motion originated a debate on the Repeal question which lasted four days. O'Connell himself spoke for six hours. The debate was chiefly memorable for a speech of Mr. Spring-Rice, in defence of the union, which also occupied six hours in the delivery. He concluded by proposing an amendment to the effect that an Address should be presented to the king by both Houses of Parliament, expressing their determination to maintain the Legislative union inviolate. In a very full House the amendment was carried by an overwhelming majority, the numbers being for, 523; against, 38. Mr. Spring-Rice's speech served the Government materially, while by the Conservatives it was regarded as "a damper" to their own hopes.It would be useless to encumber these pages with a detailed narrative of the desultory conflicts that occurred at Candahar, where General Nott commanded, amidst the greatest difficulties, until General England came to his relief on the 10th of May; or at Khelat-i-Ghilzai, a post entrusted to Captain Lawrence; or in the country about Ghuznee, the garrison of which, commanded by Captain Palmer, was compelled to surrender for want of water. He was an officer in General Nott's division, and by his brother officers the fall of the place was regarded as more disgraceful than the loss of Cabul. At length Generals Pollock and Nott were enabled to overawe the Afghans. They were now at the head of two forces in excellent health and spirits, eager to advance on Cabul and avenge the national honour of Great Britain, which had been so grievously insulted. But Lord Ellenborough had come to the resolution that it was no longer necessary to imperil the armies of Great Britain, and with the armies the Indian Empire, by occupying Afghanistan. All that was now required to be done rested solely upon military considerations, and especially upon regard to the safety of the detached bodies of our troops at Jelalabad, at Ghuznee, at Khelat-i-Ghilzai, and Candahar. He was, therefore, feverishly anxious that the troops should retire at the earliest possible moment, and sent orders to that effect to Pollock at Jelalabad and to Nott at Candahar.With the reign of George III. began the real era of civil engineering. With respect to our highways there had been various Parliamentary enactments since the Revolution of 1688; but still, at the commencement of George III.'s reign, the condition of the greater part of our public roads was so dreadful as now to be almost incredible. Acts of Parliament continued to be passed for their amendment, but what was their general state we learn from the invaluable "Tours" of Arthur Young. He describes one leading from Billericay to Tilbury, in Essex, as so narrow that a mouse could not pass by any carriage, and so deep in mud that chalk-waggons were continually sticking fast in them, till so many were in that predicament that the waggoners put twenty or thirty of their horses together to pull them out. He describes the same state of things in almost every part of the countryin Norfolk, Suffolk, Wiltshire, and Lancashire. Some of them had ruts four feet deep by measure, and into these ruts huge stones were dropped to enable waggons to pass at all; and these, in their turn, broke their axles by the horrible jolting, so that within eighteen miles he saw three waggons lying in this condition. Notwithstanding, from 1785 to 1800 no fewer than six hundred and forty-three Acts of Parliament regarding roads were passed. But scarcely a penny of the money collected at the toll-bars went to the repair of the roads, but only to pay the interest of the debt on their original construction. Whatever was raised was divided amongst the members of the body known as the trustees for the original fund; and though many Acts of Parliament limited this interest, means were found for evading the restriction.
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