FORE:To the Czar it appeared most politic that the war with Napoleon, as it must come, should come whilst the British in Spain were harassing him and draining his resources; and, on his part, Buonaparte, resenting the hostile attitude of Alexander, and suspecting his secret understanding with Bernadotte, determined, notwithstanding the ominous character of the war in Spain, to summon an army utterly overwhelming and crush the Czar at once. It was in vain that such of his counsellors as dared urged him to abstain from the Russian invasion. They represented the vast extent of Russia; its enormous deserts, into which the army could retreat, and which must exhaust so large a host as he contemplated; the inhospitable climate; the difficult rivers; the unprofitableness of the conquest, if it succeeded; and the improbability that success there would put an end to the war in Spain, whilst any serious disaster would cause the nations to stand up behind him as one man. These were all arguments of mere policy; for as to the considerations suggested by morality or justice, these had long been abandoned by Buonaparte, and therefore were never even adverted to by his friends.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The year 1816 was a most melancholy year. Both agricultural and manufacturing labourers rose in great masses to destroy machinery, to which, and not to the temporary poverty of the whole civilised world, exhausted by war, they attributed the glut of manufactured goods, and the surplus of all kinds of labour. In Suffolk and Norfolk, and on the Isle of Ely, the agricultural labourers and fen-men destroyed the threshing-machines, attacked mills and farms, pulled down the houses of butchers and bakers, and marched about in great bands, with flags inscribed "Bread or blood!" In Littleport and Ely shops and public-houses were ransacked, and the soldiers were called out to quell the rioters, and much blood was shed, and numbers were thrown into prison, of whom thirty-four were condemned to death, and five executed. The colliers and workers in the iron mines and furnaces of Staffordshire and Warwickshire, as well as in the populous districts of South Wales, were thrown out of work, and the distress was terrible. The sufferings and consequent ferments in Lancashire were equally great. In Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, the Luddites broke out again, as they had done in 1812, and by night demolished the stocking-frames and the machinery in the cotton-mills. Great alarm existed everywhere, and on the 29th of July a meeting was called at the "City of London" Tavern to consider the means of relieving the distress, the Duke of York taking the chair, the Dukes of Kent and Cambridge, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others attending. Many palliatives were proposed, but Lord Cochrane and other reformers declared that the only effectual remedy would be the abolition of the Corn Law. Soup-kitchens were recommended, but in Scotland these were spurned at as only insults to the sufferers; at Glasgow the soup-kitchen was attacked, and its coppers and materials destroyed; and at Dundee the people helped themselves by clearing a hundred shops of their provisions.The great maritime struggle of the year was at Toulon. The south of France was then in active combination against the Convention and the Jacobin faction. There was a determination in Toulon, Marseilles, and other places on the coast to support the Royalist party in Aix, Lyons, and other cities. For this purpose they invited the British to co-operate with them. Lord Hood, having obtained from the people of Toulon an engagement to surrender the fleet and town to him, to be held for Louis XVII., arrived before that port in July, with, however, only seven ships of the line, four frigates, and some smaller vessels. Nearly all the old Royalist naval officers were collected in Toulon, and were so eager for revenge on the Jacobin officers and sailorswho had not only superseded them, but had persecuted them with all the savage cruelty of their factionthat they were all for surrendering their fleet to Lord Hood, and putting him in possession of the forts and batteries. There was a firm opposition to this on the part of the Republicans, both in the fleet and the town, but it was carried against them. Besides the Royalist townsmen, there were ten thousand Proven?als in arms in the town and vicinity. As General Cartaux had defeated the Royalists at Marseilles, taken possession of the town, and, after executing severe measures on the Royalists there, was now in full march for Toulon, there was no time to be lost. Lord Hood landed a body of men under Captain Elphinstone, to whom the forts commanding the port were quietly surrendered. Lord Hood was thus at once put into possession of the best French port in the Mediterranean, and a great fleet, with all the stores and ammunition. But he knew very well that the place itself could not long be maintained against the whole force of Republican France. He resolved, however, to defend the inhabitants, who had placed themselves in so terrible a position with their merciless countrymen, to the utmost of his power. He therefore urged the Spaniards to come to his assistance, and they sent several vessels, and three thousand men. He received reinforcements of ships and men from Naplesthe queen of which was sister to Marie Antoinetteand from Sardinia. Fresh vessels and men also arrived from England. Lord Mulgrave arrived from Italy, and at Lord Hood's request assumed command, for the time, of the land forces.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The danger of civil war was felt to be so great that earnest attempts were made to conciliate the queen, and to effect a compromise. Mr. Wilberforce was very zealous in this matter. He wrote to the king, entreating him to restore the queen's name to the liturgy. This was a vital point. The Ministry had expressed their intention to resign if this must be done. Mr. Wilberforce headed a deputation from the House of Commons, who proceeded to her residence, in full court costume. He describes her manner as "extremely dignified,[207] but very stern and haughty." He got no thanks from either party for his attempts at negotiation. He was very much abused by Cobbett and other writers on the popular side. Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman met the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh on the 15th of June to discuss an adjustment; when it was laid down, as a preliminary, that the queen must not be understood to admit, nor the king to retract, anything; and that the questions to be examined werethe future residence of the queen; her title, when travelling on the Continent; the non-exercise of certain rights of patronage in England; and the income to be assigned to her for life. This fourth topic the queen desired might be altogether laid aside in these conferences; and the differences which arose upon the first proposition prevented any discussion on the second and third. They suggested that her Majesty should be officially introduced by the king's Ministers abroad to foreign Courts, or, at least, to the Court of some one state which she might select for her residence; and that her name should be restored to the liturgy, or something conceded by way of equivalent, the nature of which, however, was not specified by her negotiators. It was answered that, on the subject of the liturgy, there could be no change of what had been resolved; that, with respect to her residence in any foreign state, the king, although he could not properly require of any foreign Power to receive at its Court any person not received at the Court of England, would, however, cause official notification to be made of her legal character as queen; and that a king's yacht, or a ship of war, should be provided to convey her to the port she might select. These conditions were wholly declined by the queen, and on the 19th of June the negotiations were broken off. On the 22nd two resolutions were passed by the House of Commons, declaring their opinion that, when such large advances had been made toward an adjustment, her Majesty, by yielding to the wishes of the House, and forbearing to press further the propositions on which a material difference yet remained, would not be understood as shrinking from inquiry, but only as proving her desire to acquiesce in the authority of Parliament.The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1832-3. That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the grievances of which the nation complained were "proved abuses." The Reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned to the money disbursed in poor rates, or in voluntary charities; in which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vicethe able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolencethe aged and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling in such a society as that of a large workhouse, without discipline or classification, the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far exceeding, both in kind and in amount, not merely the diet of the independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who contributed to their support; in which a farmer paid ten shillings a year in poor rate, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary labourers, not required on his farm, at a cost of from 100 to 250 a year; in which the labourer had no need to bestir himself to seek work or to please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all a slave's security for subsistence, without the slave's liability to punishment; in which the parish paid parents for nursing their little children, and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying[364] in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of Christian duty. The Government, therefore, resolved to apply a remedy. The following is a brief outline of the main features of the measure they proposed, and which was adopted by the legislature. They found the greatest evils of the old system were connected with the relief of the able-bodied; and in connection with that lay the chief difficulty of administering relief. It was, above all things, an essential condition that the situation of the pauper should not be madereally or apparentlyso desirable as that of independent labourers of the lowest class; if it were, the majority of that class would have the strongest inducements to quit it, and get into the more eligible class of paupers. It was necessary, therefore, that an appeal to the parish should be a last resourcethat it should be regarded as the hardest taskmaster and the worst paymaster. This principle was embodied in the Poor Law Amendment Act; and the effects which quickly followed on its operation were most marked and salutary. Able-bodied paupers were extensively converted into independent labourers, for whose employment a large fund was created by the reduction of parochial expenditure; next followed a rise in wages; then a diminution, not only of pauper marriages, but of early and imprudent marriages of all sorts; and lastly, there was a diminution of crime, with contentment among the labourers, increasing with their industry: relief of a child was made relief to the parent, and relief of a wife relief to the husband. In fact, the law combined charity with economy.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The foreign relations of England at this period were, on the whole, satisfactoryas might be expected from the fact that our foreign policy was committed to the able management of Lord Palmerston, who, while sympathising with oppressed nationalities, acted steadily upon the principle of non-intervention. Considering, however, the comparative smallness o our naval and military forces, the formidable military powers of Russia and France created a good deal of uneasiness, which the king expressed in one of his odd impromptu speeches at Windsor. On the 19th of February there was a debate in the House of Commons on Eastern affairs, in which the vast resources and aggressive policy Of Russia were placed in a strong light. On that occasion Lord Dudley Stuart said, "Russia has 50,000,000 subjects in Europe alone, exclusive of Asia; an army of 700,000 men, and a navy of eighty line-of-battle ships and frigates, guided by the energy of a Government of unmitigated despotism, at whose absolute and unlimited disposal stand persons and property of every description. These formidable means are constantly applied to purposes of territorial aggrandisement, and every new acquisition becomes the means of gaining others. Who can tell that the Hellespont may not be subject to Russia at any moment? She has a large fleet in the Black Sea, full command of the mouths of the Danube, and of the commercial marine cities of Odessa and Trebizond. In three days she may be at Constantinople from Sebastopol; and if once there, the Dardanelles will be so fortified by Russian engineers that she can never be expelled except by a general war. She could be in entire possession of these important straits before any expedition could be sent from this country, even if such a thing could be thought of against the enormous military force at the command of Russia. That Russia is determined to have the Dardanelles is evident from the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, by which she began by excluding the ships of all other nations. The effect of this treaty was to exclude any ship of war from these straits, except with the permission of Russia. Russia might at any moment insist on the exclusion of our ships of war from the Dardanellesnay, she has already done so; for when Lord Durham, going on his late embassy to the Court of St. Petersburg, arrived at the Dardanelles in a frigate, he was obliged to go on board the Pluto, an armed vessel without her guns, before he could pass the straits; and when he arrived at Sebastopol no salute was fired, and the excuse given was that they did not know the Pluto from a merchant vessel. But both before and since Lord Durham went, Russian ships of war, with their guns out and their streamers flying, passed through the Black Sea to the Dardanelles, and again through[412] the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Russia has now fifteen ships of the line and seven frigates in the Black Sea. Sebastopol is only three days' sail from the Hellespont. Turkey has no force capable of resisting such an armament; the forts of the Hellespont are incapable of defence against a land force, for they are open in the rear. Russia might any day have 100,000 men in Constantinople before England or France could even fit out expeditions to defend it."
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE: Napoleon's Plans of ConquestSebastiani's ReportNapoleon's Complaints against the British PressEspionage and ConfiscationHe continues his Continental AggressionsNapoleon's Interview with Lord WhitworthImminence of WarNegotiations for Pitt's Return to OfficeWar DeclaredNapoleon Arrests British subjects in FranceSeizure of HanoverEmmett's RebellionNaval Attacks on the French CoastThe Mahratta WarBattle of AssayeSuccesses of General LakeBattle of LaswareeBattle of ArgaumConclusion of the WarRenewed Illness of George III.Increasing Opposition of PittHe offers to undertake the GovernmentHe forms a Tory MinistryWilberforce's Abolition MotionThe Additional Force BillScheme for blowing up the French FleetWar with SpainThe Georges ConspiracyMurder of the Duke D'EnghienNapoleon becomes EmperorHis Letter to the British KingThe Condition of EuropeLord Mulgrave's Reply to the LetterMinisterial ChangesWeakness of the MinistryAttack on Lord MelvilleWhitbread's MotionMelville's DefenceHis Impeachment votedSecession of Lord SidmouthThe European CoalitionHastened by Napoleon's AggressionsRashness of AustriaInvasion of BavariaNapoleon marches on the RhineCapitulation of the Austrian Army at UlmOccupation of ViennaBattle of AusterlitzTreaties of Sch?nbrunn and PressburgThe Baltic ExpeditionExpedition to NaplesNaval AffairsNelson's Pursuit of VilleneuveCalder's EngagementBattle of TrafalgarDeath of NelsonContinuation of the Mahratta WarLord Lake's Engagements with HolkarSiege of BhurtporeDefeat of Meer KhanThe Rajah of Bhurtpore makes PeaceTreaties with Scindiah and HolkarDeath of PittPayment of his Debts by the Nation.DEATH OF WOLFE. (After the Painting by Benjamin West, P.R.A.)
FORE:So strongly did the latter feel the urgency of the case that Parliament was called together again on the 6th of December. It was opened by the king in person, who, in his Speech, recommended the speedy settlement of the Reform question; referred to the opposition made to the payment of tithes in Ireland; announced the conclusion of a convention with France for the suppression of the African slave trade; deplored the outrages at Bristol; and recommended improvements in the municipal police of the kingdom. On the 12th Lord John Russell introduced the Reform Bill the third time. It is said that his manner, like his proposal, had undergone a striking alteration. His opening speech was not now a song of triumph, inspired by the joyous enthusiasm of the people. He no longer treated the Opposition in a tone of almost contemptuous defiance. The spirit which had dictated the celebrated reply to the Birmingham Political union about the voice of the nation and the whisper of a faction seemed to have died within him. Lord John Russell proceeded to explain the changes and modifications that had been made in the Bill since it was last before the House. As the census of 1831 was now available, the census of 1821 was abandoned. But a new element was introduced in order to test the claim of a borough to be represented in Parliament. Numbers alone were no longer relied upon. There might be a very populous town consisting of mean houses inhabited by poor people. With numbers therefore, the Government took property, ascertained by the amount of assessed taxes; and upon the combination of these two elements the franchise was based. The calculations needed to determine the standard were worked out by Lieutenant Drummond, afterwards Under Secretary for Ireland. Upon the information obtained by the Government as to the limits of each borough, its population, and the amount of assessed taxes it paid, he made out a series of a hundred boroughs, beginning with the lowest, and taking the number of houses and the amount of their assessed taxes together, as the basis of their relative importance. Thus Schedule A was framed. In the original Bill this schedule contained sixty boroughs; in the present Bill it contained only fifty-six. The consequence of taking Mr. Drummond's report as a basis of disfranchisement was, that some boroughs, which formerly escaped as populous and large, were now placed in Schedule A; while others, which were better towns, were taken out of that schedule and placed in Schedule B, which now contained only thirty instead of forty boroughs, as in the former Bill. The diminution in this schedule, consisting of boroughs whose members were to be reduced from two to one, was owing to the fact that the Government had given up the point about reducing the number of members in the House of Commons, which was to remain as before, 658. Thus a number of small boroughs escaped which ought to have but one member eachso small that every one of them ought to have been in Schedule A, that their members might be given to new, prosperous, and progressive communities. Twenty-three members were now to be distributed. Ten were given to the largest towns placed in the original Schedule B, one to Chatham, one to the county of Monmouth, and the rest to the large towns, which, by the former Bill, obtained power to return one member only. The new Bill retained the 10 qualification. Every man who occupied a house of the value of 10 a year was to have a vote, provided he was rated for the poor. It was not the rating, however, that determined the value; it did not matter to what amount he was rated, if only at 5 or 1, if the holding was really worth 10 a year.The aggressive policy of the Holy Alliance, and the French invasion of Spain, despite England's remonstrances, provoked Mr. Canning to hasten the recognition of the revolted colonies in South America. It was in defending this policy that he uttered the memorable sentence so often quoted as a specimen of the sublime:"Contemplating Spain such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."
FORE:But the surprise of Antwerp and the destruction of the docks of Flushing were determined upon; and Lord Chatham, rather for his name than for any military talent that he possessed, was appointed the commander of the forces. Lord Chatham was so notorious for his sluggish and procrastinating nature, that he had long been nicknamed the late Lord Chatham; the justice of this epithet had been too obvious in all the offices that he had hitherto held; and yet this expedition which demanded the utmost promptness and active skill, was entrusted to him. At the head of the fleet was placed Sir Richard Strachan, a man of no energy. The commander of the ships on such an occasion should have been Lord Cochrane, for Sir Sidney Smith was already engaged on the coast of Italy. The orders for each commander were extremely loose and indefinite thereby leaving every chance of disputes and consequent delays and mishaps; and, to complete the disgraceful management of the Government, no inquiries had been made as to the healthiness or unhealthiness of the district where the army would have to encamp. Though the island of Walcheren had been occupied by our troops under William III., no record was to be found, or, indeed, was sought for, as to the cost of life to our men on that occasion from the climate. The whole plan was laid in ignorance and carried out with carelessness, and it was no wonder, therefore, that it ended in misery and disgrace.[See larger version]
FORE:From the Painting by J. Trumbull.The second reading of the Bill was not opposed, but Lord Francis Egerton, with Sir Robert Peel's concurrence, moved that the committee should be empowered to make provision for the abolition of corporations in Ireland, and for securing the efficient and impartial administration of justice, and the peace and good government of the cities and towns in that country. The Tories thought it better that there should be no corporations at all, than that their privileges should be enjoyed by the Roman Catholics. The motion was lost by a majority of 307 to 64, and the Bill ultimately passed the Lower House by a majority of 61. In the Upper House a motion similar to that of Lord Francis Egerton was moved by Lord Fitzgerald, and carried in a full House by a majority of 84. Other amendments were carried, and it was sent back to the Commons so changed that it was difficult to trace its identity. Lord John Russell said that it contained little or nothing of what was sent up: out of 140 clauses, 106 had been omitted or altered, and 18 new ones introduced. He moved that the amendments of the Lords be rejected, and that the Bill be sent back to the Upper House. The motion was carried by a majority of 66, the numbers being 324 to 258. But the Lords refused by a majority of 99 to undo their work; and upon the Bill being returned to the Lower House in the same state, Lord John Russell got rid of the difficulty by moving that the Bill should be considered that day three months.
FORE:It must be confessed that it was impossible to keep peace with a nation determined to make war on the whole world. Perhaps on no occasion had the pride of the British people and their feelings of resentment been so daringly provoked. War was proclaimed against Britain, and it was necessary that she should put herself in a position to protect her own interests. The country was, moreover, bound to defend Holland if assaulted. But though bound by treaty to defend Holland, Great Britain was not bound to enter into the defence of all and every one of the Continental nations; and had she maintained this just line of action, her share in the universal war which ensued would have been comparatively insignificant. Prussia, Russia, and Austria had destroyed every moral claim of co-operation by their lawless seizure of Poland, and the peoples of the Continent were populous enough to defend their own territories, if they were worthy of independence. There could be no just claim on Britain, with her twenty millions of inhabitants, to defend countries which possessed a still greater number of inhabitants, especially as they had never been found ready to assist us, but on the contrary. But Britain, unfortunately, at that time, was too easily inflamed with a war spirit. The people as well as the Government were incensed at the disorganising and aggressive spirit of France, and were soon drawn in, with their Quixotism of fighting for everybody or anybody, to league with the Continental despots for the purpose not merely of repelling French invasions, but of forcing on the French a dynasty that they had rejected.On the opening of the Session, the king called the attention of Parliament to the state of Canada. That colony had flourished since it had come into the possession of Britain, especially since the passing of the Bill of 1774, which had given freedom to the Roman Catholic church there, the church of the French inhabitants. But one part of the colony was still inhabited by the descendants of the French, and another by those of the English and Americans. It was, therefore, found desirable to put an end to the competition which still existed, from differences of faith and of national sentiments and customs, between the two races, by dividing the colony into two provinces, the one inhabited by the French to be called Lower Canada, and the other, inhabited by the British, to be called Upper Canada. On the 25th of February the king sent a message to Parliament, proposing to carry out this division; and on the 4th of March Pitt moved to bring in a Bill for that purpose, and stated the intended plan of arrangement. Besides an elective assembly, each province was to have a Council, the members of which were to be appointed for life, with hereditary succession to the descendants of such as should be honoured with hereditary titles, which titles were to confer on an inhabitant of either province the dignity of a member of the Council. Landed property was to be held according to English law, in soccage tenure; the Habeas Corpus was to be established in both provinces. An allotment of lands was to be made for the Protestant clergy; but, as the majority of the inhabitants in the Lower Province would be Catholic, the Council and Assembly were empowered to allot lands also to their clergy, which allotment, on sanction of the Crown, was to be valid without intervention of Parliament. No taxes were to be imposed by the British Government except such as were necessary for the regulation of commerce, and these were to be levied by the provincial legislature to prevent any heartburnings like those which had occurred in the American States.
