
FORE:One of the most appalling of the narratives sent to the Central Committee of the Society of Friends was Mr. William Bennet's account of his journey in Ireland. He left Dublin on the 12th of January, and proceeded by coach to Longford, and thence to Ballina, from which he penetrated into remote districts of the county Mayo. In the neighbourhood of Belmullet he and his companion visited a district which may serve as a representation of the condition of the labouring class generally in the mountainous and boggy districts, where they burrowed and multiplied, more like a race of inferior animals than human beings. "Many of the cabins," wrote Mr. Bennet, "were holes in the bog, covered with a layer of turf, and not distinguishable as human habitations from the surrounding moors, until close down upon them. The bare sod was about the best material of which any of them were constructed. Doorways, not doors, were provided at both sides of the latter, mostly back and front, to take advantage of the way of the wind. Windows and chimneys, I think, had no existence. A second apartment or partition of any kind was exceedingly rare. Furniture properly so called, I believe, may be stated at nil. I cannot speak with certainty, and wish not to speak with exaggeration, we were too much overcome to note specifically; but as far as memory serves, we saw neither bed, chair, nor table at all. A chest, a few iron or earthen vessels, a stool or two, the dirty rags and night coverings, formed about the sum total of the best-furnished. Outside many were all but unapproachable from the mud and filth surrounding them; the scene inside is worse, if possible, from the added closeness, darkness, and smoke.... And now language utterly fails me in attempting to depict the state of the wretched inmates.... We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a portion of the covering, perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last stage of actual starvation. Crouched over the turf embers was another form, wild and all but naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred not nor noticed us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her, on something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer to our inquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a look of unutterable anguish and despair.... Every infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some, reason and intelligence had evidently flown. Many were remnants of families, crowded together in one cabin; orphaned little relatives taken in by the equally destitute, and even strangersfor these poor people are kind to each other, even to the end. In one cabin was a sister, just dying, lying beside her little brother, just dead. I have worse than this to relate; but it is useless to multiply details, and they are, in fact, unfit."When the House met again, Pitt moved for leave to bring in his Bill for the better government and management of the affairs of the East India Company. He was aware, he said, how certain men would triumph when he informed them that he had based his intended measures on the resolutions of the proprietors of India stock. He was so miserably irresolute, he said, as not to venture on a Bill founded on violence and disfranchisement. He was so weak as to pay respect to chartered rights; and he had not disdained, in proposing a new system of government, to consult those who had the greatest interest in the matter, as well as the most experience in it. These were all hard hits at Fox and his party. In his Bill he went on the principle of placing the commerce of India chiefly under the control of the Company itself; but the civil and military government, he admitted, required some other control than that of the Company, yet even this, in his opinion, ought to be established in accordance with the convictions of the Company. In truth, it was a Bill rather calculated to win the good will of the East India Company than to reform the abuses of that body and to protect the interests of the natives. Fox, with as much truth as personal feeling, designated the Bill as the wisdom of an individual opposed to the collective wisdom of the Commons of England.

FORE:The Queen reached the western entrance of Westminster Abbey at half-past eleven o'clock, and was there met by the great officers of State, the noblemen bearing the regalia, and the bishops carrying the paten, the chalice, and the Bible. The arrangements in the interior of the Abbey were nearly the same as at the previous coronation, but the decorations were in better taste. Galleries had been erected for the accommodation of spectators, to which about 1,000 persons were admitted. There was also a gallery for the members of the House of Commons, and another for foreign ambassadors. Soon after twelve o'clock the grand procession began to enter the choir, in the order observed on former occasions. The Queen was received with the most hearty plaudits[452] from all parts of the building, and when she was proclaimed in the formula"Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Victoriathe undoubted Queen of this realm. Wherefore, all you who are come this day to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?"there was a loud and universal burst of cheering, with cries of "God save the Queen." When the crown was placed on her Majesty's head there was again an enthusiastic cry of "God save the Queen," accompanied by the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. At this moment the peers and peeresses put on their coronets, the bishops their caps, and the kings-of-arms their crowns, the trumpets sounding, the drums beating, the Tower and park guns firing by signal. The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex removing their coronets, did homage in these words:"I do become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship and faith and truth I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folk, so help me God." They touched the crown on the Queen's head, kissed her left cheek, and then retired. It was observed that her Majesty's bearing towards her uncles was very affectionate. The dukes and other peers then performed their homage, the senior of each rank pronouncing the words. As they retired, each peer kissed her Majesty's hand. The Duke of Wellington, Earl Grey, and Lord Melbourne were loudly cheered as they ascended the steps to the throne. Lord Rolle, who was upwards of eighty, stumbled and fell on the steps. The Queen immediately stepped forward, and held out her hand to assist the aged peer. This touching incident called forth the loudly expressed admiration of the entire assembly. While the ceremony of doing homage was being performed, the Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of the Household, was scattering silver medals of the coronation about the choir and the lower galleries, which were scrambled for with great eagerness. The ceremonials did not conclude till past four o'clock.

FORE:The business of the session now hastened to its close. Votes were given for forty thousand seamen and eleven thousand marines; for sixteen thousand British troops in Flanders, and twenty-three thousand for guards and garrisons at home. For the year's supplies six millions of pounds were voted, and then Parliament was prorogued on the 21st of April. In doing this, George told the Houses that he had ordered his army to pass the Rhine to support the Queen of Hungary. No sooner had Parliament closed, than George, accompanied by his son, the Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Carteret, hastened off to Germany. The British army, which the king had ordered to march from Flanders to aid the Austrians, had set out at the end of February. They were commanded by Lord Stair, and on their route were joined by several Austrian regiments under the Duke of Aremberg, and the sixteen thousand Hanoverians in British pay, who had wintered at Lige. They marched so slowly that they only crossed the Rhine in the middle of May. They halted at H?chst, between Mayence and Frankfort, awaiting the six thousand Hanoverians in Electoral pay, and an equal number of Hessians, who had been garrisoning the fortresses of Flanders, but who were now relieved by Dutch troops. Stair had now forty thousand men, and might easily have seized the Emperor at Frankfort. All parties had respected, however, the neutrality of Frankfort, and Stair did the same, probably because the Emperor, having no subjects to ransom him, might have proved rather a burden on his hands. De Noailles, on his part, had sixty thousand men, independently of the twelve thousand furnished to Broglie. He kept an active eye on the motions of the allied army, and as Stair encamped on the northern bank of the Main, he also passed the Rhine and encamped on the southern bank of the Main. The two camps lay only four leagues from each other, presenting a most anomalous aspect.

FORE:Thus was O'Connell driven into a new course of agitation. He did not conceal, even in the hour of his triumph, that he regarded Catholic Emancipation as little more than a vantage ground on which he was to plant his artillery for the abolition of the Legislative union. After the passing of the Emancipation Act he appealed as strongly as ever to the feelings of the people. "At Ennis," he said, "I promised you religious freedom, and I kept my word. The Catholics are now free, and the Brunswickers are no longer their masters; and a paltry set they were to be our masters. They would turn up the white of their eyes to heaven, and at the same time slily put their hands into your pockets.... What good did any member ever before in Parliament do for the county of Clare, except to get places for their nephews, cousins, etc.? What did I do? I procured for you Emancipation." "The election for Clare," he said, "is admitted to have been the immediate and irresistible cause of producing the Catholic Relief Bill. You have achieved the religious liberty of Ireland. Another such victory in Clare, and we shall attain the political freedom of our beloved country. That victory is still necessary to prevent Catholic rights and liberties from being sapped and undermined by the insidious policy of those men who, false to their own party, can never be true to us, and who have yielded not to reason, but to necessity, in granting us freedom of conscience. A sober, moral, and religious people cannot continue slavesthey become too powerful for their oppressorstheir moral strength exceeds their physical powersand their progress towards prosperity is in vain opposed by the Peels and Wellingtons of society. These poor strugglers for ancient abuses yield to a necessity which violates no law, and commits no crime; and having once already succeeded by these means, our next success is equally certain, if we adopt the same virtuous and irresistible means." His new programme embraced not only the Repeal of the union, but the restoration of the franchise to the "forties."

FORE:Prince Ferdinand this summer had to contend with numerous armies of the French. De Broglie marched from Frankfort into Hesse with a hundred thousand men. On the 10th of July they met the hereditary Prince of Brunswick at Corbach, and defeated him, though he gained a decided advantage over them a few days after at Emsdorf, taking the commander of the division and five battalions prisoners. This was followed by Ferdinand himself, who was at Warburg, where he took ten pieces of artillery, killed one thousand five hundred of the French, and drove them into the Dimel, where many were drowned. The British cavalry had the greatest share in this victory. In fact, the Marquis of Granby led them on all occasions with such spirit and bravery, that Ferdinand placed them continually in the post of danger, where of course they suffered more severely than the other troops.
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