Granville being got rid of, and the Opposition bought up with place, the only difference in the policy which had been pursued, and which had been so bitterly denounced by the noblemen and gentlemen now in office, was that it became more unequivocally Hanoverian and more extravagant. "Those abominably Courtly measures" of Granville were now the adopted measures of his denouncers. The king had expressed, just before his fall, a desire to grant a subsidy to Saxony; but Lord Chancellor Hardwicke had most seriously reminded his Majesty of the increased subsidy to the Queen of Hungary, which made it impracticable: now, both the increased subsidy to Maria Theresa and the subsidy to Saxony were passed without an objection. A quadruple alliance was entered into between Britain, Austria, Holland, and Saxony, by which Saxony was to furnish thirty thousand men for the defence of Bohemia, and to receive a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, two-thirds of which were to be paid by England, and one-third by Holland. The Elector of Cologne received twenty-four thousand pounds, the Elector of Mayence eight thousand pounds. Nay, soon discovering that, as there was no opposition, there was no clamour on the subject, Ministers the very next year took the Hanoverians into their direct pay again, and in 1747 increased the number of them from eighteen thousand to twenty thousand.
Back along the hangar wall they crept, until they came up to the small wooden cupboard with its dusty, frayed protecting burlap across the front. Under the cupboard boards the wires ran well concealed by more dusty lint which seemed to have been swept into the corners by the lazy act of some cleaner.Meanwhile, the fleet which was to bear Buonaparte to Egypt was lying in various squadrons in the ports of Genoa, Civita Vecchia, and Bastia, ready, when any adverse wind should drive the British fleet from the coast, where it blockaded them, to drop down to Toulon and join the main body. On board of these vessels were thirty thousand men, chiefly from the army of Italy. Nelson, with a numerous fleet, was maintaining the blockade, though the secret of the fleet's destination had been so well kept that it was only surmised that Egypt might be its destination. Buonaparte himself had been recalled to Paris. A sudden message sent him back to Toulon. A gale had driven Nelson's fleet from the coast, and so much damaged it that he was obliged to make for Sardinia to repair. The moment was come; the different squadrons joined from the Italian ports, and the Egyptian armament issued on the 19th of May from Toulon. Napoleon was on the mission destined, he believed, to conquer Egypt, and thus to place not only a powerful barrier between us and our Indian possessions, but, having established a strong empire in Egypt and Syria, to enable France to maintain a large fleet in the Persian Gulf, and to accomplish the invasion and conquest of British India by land or sea, with the aid of Tippoo Sahib, who was once more at war with[466] Britain. Nay, like another Alexander, the boundless ambition of Buonapartean ambition which was his final ruincontemplated the conquest of all Asia and the founding of a giant empire there. "If St. Jean d'Acre," he said to Las Cases, "had yielded to the French arms, a great revolution would have been accomplished in the East. The general-in-chief would have founded an empire there, and the destinies of France would have undergone different combinations from those to which they were subjected." He would have come back and proceeded to the conquest of Europe.
Director
He glanced over his shoulder at the door. It was closed; so he leaned forward and spoke in a lower voice. "Felipa, are you going to marry Landor, or are you not?"The Scottish rebellion had been an auspicious circumstance for the arms of France. Marshal Saxe had taken the field, to the surprise of the Allies, in the very middle of winter, invested Brussels, and compelled it to surrender on the 20th of February, 1746. One town fell after another; Mons, Antwerp, Charleroi, and finally, Namur capitulated on the 19th of September, after a siege of only six days. As soon as Cumberland could leave Scotland after the battle of Culloden, he returned to London, in the hope that he should be appointed, covered, as he was, with his bloody laurels, to the supreme command of the Allied forces in Flanders, where he flattered himself he could arrest the progress of the French. But that command had been conferred on Prince Charles of Lorraine, the Emperor's brother, much to the disgust of both Cumberland and the king. On the 11th of October the Prince of Lorraine engaged the French at Raucoux, on the Jaar, and was signally defeated; the English cavalry, under General Ligonier, managing to save his army from total destruction, but not being able to stem the overthrow. At the close of the campaign the French remained almost entire masters of the Austrian Netherlands.[See larger version]