FORE:"I recommend you to take into your early consideration whether the principles on which you have acted may not with advantage be yet more extensively applied; and whether it may not be in your power, after a careful review of the existing[521] duties upon many articles, the produce or manufacture of other countries, to make such further reductions and remissions as may tend to ensure the continuance of the great benefits to which I have adverted, and, by enlarging our commercial intercourse, to strengthen the bonds of amity with foreign Powers."
THREE:The battle of Falkirk, which in itself appeared so brilliant an affair for Prince Charles, was really one of his most serious disasters. The Highlanders, according to their regular custom when loaded with plunder, went off in great numbers to their homes with their booty. His chief officers became furious against each other in discussing their respective merits in the battle. Lord George Murray, who had himself behaved most bravely in the field, complained that Lord John Drummond had not exerted himself, or pursuit might have been made and the royal army been utterly annihilated. This spirit of discontent was greatly aggravated by the siege of the castle of Stirling. Old General Blakeney, who commanded the garrison, declared he would hold out to the last man, in spite of the terrible threats of Lord George Murray if he did not surrender. The Highlanders grew disgusted with work so contrary to their habits; and, indeed, the French engineer, the so-called Marquis de Mirabelle, was so utterly ignorant of his profession, that the batteries which he constructed were commanded by the castle, and the men were so much exposed that they were in danger of being destroyed before they took the fortress. Accordingly, on the 24th of January they struck to a man, and refused to go any more into the trenches.
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THREE:But the loss of the Allies had also been perfectly awful. The Prussians, besides the great slaughter at Ligny, had been engaged in a bloody struggle at Planchenoit, and the British and their Allies had lost in the battle of Waterloo two thousand four hundred and thirty-two killed, and nine thousand five hundred and twenty-eight wounded; these, added to the numbers killed and wounded at Quatre Bras, raised the total to fifteen thousand. Of British and Hanoverian officers alone six hundred were killed or wounded at Waterloo. The Duke of Brunswick fell at the head of his troops at Quatre Bras, without having the satisfaction of witnessing the final ruin of Buonaparte. So many of Wellington's staff were disabled that he had at one time no officer to dispatch with a pressing order. A young Piedmontese, of the family of De Salis, offered himself. "Were you ever in a battle before?" asked the Duke. "No, sir," he replied. "Then," said the Duke, "you are a lucky man, for you will never see such another." When the Duke, who had witnessed so many bloody battles, saw the carnage of Waterloo, and heard, one after another, the losses of so many companions in arms, he was quite overcome. In his despatches he says: "I cannot express the regret and sorrow with which I look round me, and contemplate the losses that we have sustained." And again, "The losses I have sustained have quite broken me down, and I have no feeling for the advantages we have gained."On the 21st of June Pitt introduced and carried several resolutions, which formed the basis of his Commutation Act. These went to check smuggling, by reducing the duty on tea from fifty to twelve and a half per cent., and to raise the house and window tax so as to supply the deficiency. A Bill was then passed to make good another deficiency in the Civil List, to the amount of sixty thousand pounds. Early in August Mr. Pitt brought in his India Bill, which differed chiefly from his former one in introducing a Government Board of Commissioners, with power to examine and revise the proceedings of the Court of Directors. This, which afterwards acquired the name of the Board of Control, was opposed by Fox, but passed both Houses with little trouble.
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THREE:Meanwhile the aspect of foreign affairs was hardly reassuring. Britain was at war with China and Afghanistan, and within measurable distance of war with France and the United States. Postponing for the present our review of the first Afghan war and the differences with America, which will be dealt with more properly under the history of Sir Robert Peel's Ministry, we proceed to give a short sketch of the Chinese war and the Syrian crisis. The exclusive right of the East India Company to trade with China ceased on the 22nd of April, 1834, and from this time dates the great dispute about the opium traffic. The first free-trade ship sailed from England on the 25th of the same month. Lord Napier was sent out to China to superintend British commerce, and arrived at Macao on the 15th of July. He died soon after his arrival, and was succeeded by Mr., afterwards Sir, John Davis. But the Chinese were not disposed to recognise the authority with which he was vested. During 1835 and 1836 matters went on peaceably under the superintendence of the second and third Commissioners, Mr. Davis and Sir T. Robinson, the former of whom returned to England, and the latter was superseded by Captain Elliot, R.N., who in vain renewed the attempt to establish an official connection with the Chinese authorities. The opening of the trade in 1834 gave a powerful stimulus to all kinds of smuggling, and especially in opium, the importation of which into China was prohibited by the Imperial Government, in consequence of its deleterious qualities. During the following years, however, the supply of that drug was increased enormously, and the smuggling trade was carried on along the coasts of the northern provinces, in defiance of the laws of the country. The Imperial Government was naturally indignant at these encroachments, and became, moreover, seriously alarmed, perhaps not so much for its demoralising effects, as for the continued drain of specie which it occasioned. In March, 1839, Lin arrived at Canton, as Imperial High Commissioner, to enforce the laws in this matter. He immediately issued an edict requiring that every chest of opium on the river should be delivered up, in order to be destroyed; and that bonds should be given by traders that their ships should never again bring any opium, on pain of forfeiture of the article and death to the importer. Lin having taken strong measures to carry this edict into effect by blockading the British merchants, Captain Elliot proceeded to Canton, and issued a circular letter to his countrymen, requiring them to surrender into his hands all the opium then actually on the coast of China, and holding himself responsible for the consequences. On the 21st of May the whole of the opium, to the amount of 20,283 chests, was given up to the Chinese Government, and immediately destroyed. But even this great sacrifice did not propitiate Commissioner Lin. On the 26th of November he issued another interdict, ordering the cessation of all trade with British ships in a week; and in January, 1840, an Imperial edict appeared directing that all trade with Britain should cease for ever. Further numerous outrages were committed by the Chinese against British sailors. In consequence of these proceedings an armament was sent forth to teach the Chinese the principles of international law. The first part of the armament reached the Canton river in June, 1840, under the command of Captain Elliot. Having established a rigorous blockade in the river, the British, on the 5th of July, took possession of the large island of Chusan, in the Eastern Sea. It proved very unhealthy, and one man out of every four died. Proceeding still farther to the mouth of the Peiho, in the Yellow Sea, Captain Elliot attempted to overawe the Chinese. But the sea was too shallow to enable him to land his troops, and he was forced to put back to Chusan.
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THREE:The rapid growth of the commerce of the American colonies excited an intense jealousy[166] in our West Indian Islands, which claimed a monopoly of supply of sugar, rum, molasses, and other articles to all the British possessions. The Americans trading with the French, Dutch, Spaniards, etc., took these articles in return; but the West Indian proprietors prevailed upon the British Government, in 1733, to impose a duty on the import of any produce of foreign plantations into the American colonies, besides granting a drawback on the re-exportation of West Indian sugar from Great Britain. This was one of the first pieces of legislation of which the American colonies had a just right to complain. At this period our West Indies produced about 85,000 hogsheads of sugar, or 1,200,000 cwts. About three hundred sail were employed in the trade with these islands, and some 4,500 sailors; the value of British manufactures exported thither being nearly 240,000 annually, but our imports from Jamaica alone averaged at that time 539,492. Besides rum, sugar, and molasses, we received from the West Indies cotton, indigo, ginger, pimento, cocoa, coffee, etc.The army of Joseph dispersed at full speed, and as our cavalry could not pursue them across the hedges and ditches, they managed to escape, and made their way to Pampeluna in one wild, chaotic herd. On the field they profess to have left eight thousand men in killed and wounded, but their loss was far greater. They left, also, one hundred and fifty-one pieces of brass ordnance, four hundred and fifteen caissons, more than forty thousand rounds of ammunition, nearly two million musketball cartridges, forty thousand six hundred and sixty-eight pounds of gunpowder, fifty-six forage[59] waggons, and forty-four forge waggons. The allied army had killed, British, five hundred and one; Portuguese, one hundred and fifty; Spaniards, only eighty-nine: wounded, British, two thousand eight hundred and seven; Portuguese, eight hundred and ninety-nine; Spanish, four hundred and sixty-four. Lord Wellington reported the conduct of almost every officer engaged as admirable. King Joseph did not stop till he was safe, for a time, within the strong walls of Pampeluna, but the garrison there would not admit the rabble herd of fugitives, but sent them off like enemies; and they were forced to continue their flight into the Pyrenees.
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