TWO:In America, the belligerents were early afoot this year; but the attention and the forces of the English were drawn from the States to the West Indies by the determined attempts of the French to make themselves masters of our islands there. D'Estaing, who was joined by another French squadron under the Marquis de Vaudreuil, was early opposed by Admiral Byron, who arrived at St. Lucia from the American coast on the 6th of January. This Admiral Vaudreuil, on his way, had visited our settlements on the coast of Africa, and taken from us Senegal; but Sir Edward Hughes soon arrived there, and took their settlement of Goree, so that it was a mere exchange of territory. In June Admiral Byron was obliged to escort our merchant fleet to a certain distance, and D'Estaing seized that opportunity to make himself master of St. Vincent and Grenada, where the garrisons were weak. On the return of Byron, on the 5th of July, he came to an engagement with D'Estaing off Grenada; but the French admiral, after an indecisive action, took advantage of the night to sail away, boasting of a great victory. He now made for Georgia and Carolina, to assist the Americans in endeavouring to wrest from us our recent conquest of Savannah, in Georgia.
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FORE:Still more have "The Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence" of James Thomson retained, and are likely to retain, the public favour. "The Seasons" is a treasury of the life and imagery of the country, animated by a true love of Nature and of God, and abounding in passages of fire, healthy feeling, and strong sense, often of sublime conceptions, in a somewhat stiff and vicious style. "The Castle of Indolence" is a model of metrical harmony and luxurious fancy, in the Spenserian stanza. Another poet of the same time and countryScotlandis Allan Ramsay, who, in his native dialect, has painted the manners and sung the rural loves of Scotland in his "Gentle Shepherd" and his rustic lyrics. Till Burns, no Scottish poet so completely embodied the spirit, feelings, and popular life of his country. Amongst a host of verse-makers, then deemed poets, but who were merely imitators of imitators, we must except Gray, with his nervous lyrics, and, above all, his ever-popular "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." Gray also has a genuine vein of wit and merriment in his verse. Collins was a poet who under happier conditions might have done the greatest things. Parnell's "Hermit," Blair's "Grave," Shenstone's "School Mistress," Akenside's "Imagination," can yet charm some readers, and there are others in great numbers whose works yet figure in collections of the poets, or whose individual poems are selected in anthologies, as Smith, King, Sprat Bishop of Rochester, Duke, Montague Earl of Halifax, Nicholas Rowe, Dyerauthor of the "Fleece," "Grongar Hill," and "Ruins of Rome,"Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, Fenton, Somervilleauthor of "The Chase," "Field Sports," etc.,Hammondauthor of "Love Elegies,"Lord Lyttelton, Mallet, Mickleauthor of the ballads of "Cumnor Hall," "There's Nae Luck about the House," and translator of the "Lusiad" of Camoens,Shaw, Harte, West, Cawthorne, Lloyd, Gilbert Cooper, Graingerauthor of "The Sugar Cane," and the once popular ballad of "Bryan and Pereene,"Dodsley, poet and bookseller, Boyseauthor of "The Deity," a poem, etc.,Smollettmore remarkable as a novelist and historian,Michael Bruce, Walsh, Falconerauthor of "The Shipwreck,"Yalden, Pattison, Aaron Hill, Broome, Pittthe translator of Virgil,John Philipsauthor of "Cider," a poem, "The Splendid Shilling," etc.,West, and others. In fact, this age produced poets enough to have constituted the rhythmical literature of a nation, had they had as much genius as they had learning.
FORE:But Harley and St. John had deprived the nation of its triumph, and left the way open to fresh insults and humiliations. No sooner did Villars see the English forces withdrawn from the Allies, than he seized the opportunity to snatch fresh advantages for France, and thus make all their demands on the Allies certain. He crossed the Scheldt on the 24th of July, and, with an overwhelming force, attacked the Earl of Albemarle, who commanded a division of the Allied army at Denain. Eugene, who, from the reduction of Quesnoy, had proceeded to lay siege to Landrey, instantly hastened to the support of Albemarle; but, to his grief, found himself, when in sight of him, cut off from rendering him any assistance by the breaking down of the bridge over the Scheldt; and he had the pain to see Albemarle beaten under his very eyes. Seventeen battalions of Albemarle's force were killed or taken. He himself and all the surviving officers were made prisoners. Five hundred wagons loaded with bread, twelve pieces of brass cannon, a large quantity of ammunition and provisions, horses and baggage, fell into the hands of the French. Villars then marched on to Marchiennes, where the stores of the Allies were deposited, and took it on the 31st of July, the garrison of five thousand being sent to Valenciennes prisoners. He next advanced to Douay, where Eugene would have given him battle, but was forbidden to do so by the States, and thus Douay fell into Villars' hands. Then came the fall of Quesnoy and Bouchain, which had cost Marlborough and Eugene so much to win.[See larger version]
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TWO:The news of this astonishing cowardice of the soldiery caused great consternation in Paris. Lafayette and Rochambeau wrote complaining of Dumouriez and the Gironde Ministry; the Girondists accused the Jacobins of inciting the troops to this conduct; and the Jacobins blamed the incompetence of the Gironde. The king proceeded to dismiss his Girondist Ministry, and to rule with something like independence. In the early part of July it was known at the Tuileries that the Prussians, having joined the Austrians, had marched on Coblenz, to the number of eighty thousand men, all old soldiers of the great Frederick, and commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, the nephew of Frederick, who had won so much distinction in the Seven Years' War. Marshal Luckner, not deeming himself strong enough to resist this force, had retired upon Lille and Valenciennes. The Court was in high spirits; the queen told her ladies, in confidence, that the Allies would be in Paris in six weeks. The king wrote to the allied camp recommending moderation. In this moment of effervescence appeared the proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick as commander of the allied armies, and in the name of the allied monarchs. This proclamation arrived in Paris on the 28th of July, though it was dated Coblenz, July 25th. It was far from being of the reasonable nature which the king had recommended, and was calculated to do the most fatal injuries to his interests. It stated that the Emperor and the King of Prussia, having seen the manner in which the authority of the King of France had been overturned by a factious people, how his sacred person and those of his family had been subjected to violence and restraint, in which those who had usurped his Government had, besides destroying the internal order and peace of France, invaded the Germanic Empire, and seized the possessions of the princes of Alsace and Lorraine, had determined to march to his assistance, and had authorised himself, a member of the Germanic body, to march to the aid of their friend and ally; that he came to restore the king to all his rights, and to put an end to anarchy in France; that he was not about to make war on France, but on its internal enemies, and he called on all the well-disposed to co-operate in this object; that all cities, towns, villages, persons, and property would be respected and protected, provided that they immediately concurred in the restoration of order. He summoned all officers of the army and the State to return to their allegiance; all Ministers of Departments, districts, and municipalities were likewise summoned, and were to be held responsible, by their lives and properties, for all outrages and misdemeanours committed before the restoration of order; and all who resisted the royal authority, and fired on the royal troops or the Allies, should be instantly punished with all rigour, and their houses demolished or burned. Paris, in case of any injury done to the royal family, was to be delivered up to an exemplary and ever-memorable vengeance; that no laws were to be acknowledged as valid but such as proceeded from the king when in a state of perfect liberty.Such were the advantages now possessed by the British over the French commander, that both the Portuguese and people at home were impatient that Wellington should at once attack and annihilate Massena's army. But Wellington knew better. He knew that a great battle, or battles, must vastly reduce his own as well as Massena's army. He knew that France could readily march down eighty or a hundred thousand fresh men into Portugal at extremity, but that Great Britain could not so readily do that; and, should the Whigs come into power, as was probable, he could not calculate on any support at all. The king now hopelessly insane, the Prince of Wales must be soon appointed Regent, and then, perhaps, would come in his friends the Whigs. There were many other considerations which made Wellington refuse to accede to a general attack on the French at present. He had, as it was, trouble enough with the Junta; but, should any reverse occur, his situation then would be intolerable. Just now the Portuguese troops were in good spirits for fighting, but defeat would ruin all the progress yet made with them. He knew that the winter would do for the French army all that he expected without any cost to himself, and he waited for that, ready then to follow up the advantages it would give him. It was his great plan of operations which already reduced them to the dilemma in which they were, and now came winter and did the rest, fully showing his superior sagacity. In November the weather became and continued wretched in the extreme. The country was flooded, cutting off the precarious supplies of the French, but adding strength to the encampment of Torres Vedras. The cross roads were impassable for artillery, and all but impassable for waggons bringing provisions, which had to be hunted for far and wide, with incredible hardships and little success. Leaving the hostile armies in this position till the spring, we must notice other important matters.
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THREE:Referring to the means at the disposal of Government for putting down the agitations by military force, Peel has this remarkable passage:"This is a very delicate matter to discuss; but why have I deferred for twenty years this vindication of my conduct? Why have I consented to submit for that long period to every reproach which malice, or mistake, or blindness to the real state of affairs could direct against me, except in the hope that the time would come (I cared little whether I were in the grave or not when it should come) when delicate matters might safely be discussed, and when, without prejudice to the public interests, or offence to private feelings, the whole truth might be spoken? I deliberately affirm that a Minister of the Crown, responsible at the time of which I am speaking for the public peace and the public welfare, would have grossly and scandalously neglected his duty if he had failed to consider whether it might not be possible that the fever of political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic populationwhich had inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and energy of a free manwhich had, in the twinkling of an eye, made all considerations of personal gratitude, ancient family connection, local preferences, the fear of worldly injury, the hope of worldly advantage, subordinate to the all-absorbing sense of religious obligation and public dutywhether, I say, it might not be possible that the contagion of that feverish excitement might spread beyond the barriers which, under ordinary circumstances, the habits of military obedience and the strictness of military discipline opposed to all such external influences."
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