It was not till between eleven and twelve o'clock on the morning of Sunday, the 18th of June, that this terrible conflict commenced; for the troops of Napoleon had not yet all reached the ground, having suffered from the tempests of wind and rain equally with the Allies. The rain had now ceased, but the morning was gloomy and lowering. The action opened by a brisk cannonade on the house and wood of Hougomont, which were held by the troops of Nassau. These were driven out;[99] but their place was immediately taken by the British Guards under General Byng and Colonels Home and Macdonald. A tremendous cannonade was kept up on Hougomont by Jerome's batteries from the slopes above; and under cover of this fire the French advanced through the wood in front of Hougomont, but were met by a terrible fire from the British, who had the orchard wall as a breastwork from which to assail the enemy. The contest here was continued through the day with dreadful fury, but the British held their ground with bull-dog tenacity. The buildings of the farmyard and an old chapel were set fire to by the French shells; but the British maintained their post amid the flames, and filled the wood in front and a lane running under the orchard wall with mountains of dead.Surely, both magistrates and soldiers might now have been satisfied. A defenceless multitude have no means of resistance, and, doing their best to get away, might have been left to do so without further molestation, which would be equally brutal in the magistrates, and cowardly in the soldiers. But neither of these parties seems to have thought so on this unhappy occasion. The magistrates issued no orders to desist, and the soldiers, by the confession of one of their officers, went on striking with the flats of their swords at the impeded people, who were thrown down in their vain efforts to get away, and piled in struggling heaps on the field. Mr. Hulton confessed that he walked away from the window after he had let loose the horse-soldiers on the people. "He would rather not see any advance of the military." He was, in fact, so tender-hearted that he did not mind the peoplemen, women, and children, met to exercise their political rightsbeing trodden down under the iron hoofs of horses, and cut down by the sword, so long as he did not see it.
ONE:On the 22nd of January, 1801, the first Imperial Parliament met, and Addington was re-elected Speaker. The king did not meet this Parliament till the whole of its members had been sworn; his opening of it for business took place on the 2nd of February, and his speech had no cheering topics to give spirit to its first proceedings; on the Continent there had been nothing but defeat on the part of the Allies, of triumph on that of France. Our late ally, Paul, had not only seized our merchant vessels in the ports of the Baltic, and the property of our merchants in the Russian towns, but he had entered into a league with Sweden and Denmark to close the Baltic altogether to us, and to compel us to relinquish the right of search. This confederacy, by stopping the supplies of corn from the North, threatened us with great aggravation of the distresses at home; and some members advocated the surrender of the right of search, or the acceptance of the principles of an armed neutrality, such as Catherine of Russia had endeavoured to establish. But Pitt plainly showed that to allow neutral vessels to carry arms, ammunition, and commodities of life into the ports of our enemies would render all blockades of their forts useless, and enormously increase our difficulties during war. Orders were immediately issued to send a powerful fleet into the Baltic to chastise the insane Czar.
ONE:The Bute Ministry was now in power, and determined on reversing the policy of Pittpolicy which had added so magnificently to the territory[172] and glory of the country. Bute had now to seek powerful connections to enable him to carry on. The commonplace man seeks to make up for his feebleness by associating with him, not men of merit, but men of aristocratic connection. For this reason he conferred the Privy Seal on the Duke of Bedford, and the Seal of Secretary on the Earl of Egremont. To break the force of popular indignation for the loss of Pitt from the helmfor the people knew who was the great man and successful minister well enoughthe king was advised to confer some distinguished mark of favour on Pitt. He was offered the government of Canada as a sinecure, with five thousand pounds a year. Pitt was not the man to undertake a highly responsible office without discharging the duties, and he was next offered the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster; but he preferred a simple pension of three thousand pounds a-year, and that a title should be conferred on his wife. By this arrangement he was left in the House of Commons, and in a position to continue his exertions for the country. Both these suggestions were complied with.To contend against this enormous force, Buonaparte, by the most surprising exertions, had again collected upwards of two hundred thousand men of considerable military practice; but he dared not to name the conscription to a people already sore on that point; and he endeavoured to raise further reinforcements by an enrolment of National Guards all over France. For this purpose commissioners were sent down into the Departments, on the authority of an Imperial decree of April the 5th; and he proposed to raise as many federates, or volunteers of the lower ordersthe only class which had raised a cheer for him on his return. But these schemes proved, for the most part, abortive. In the northern Departments, where heretofore the commands of Buonaparte had been most freely obeyed, the inhabitants showed a sullen and dogged resistance, and the same was the case in Brittany. Farther south matters were worse. In the Departments of Gard, Marne, and Nether Loire, the white flag and cockade were openly displayed; and wherever the tree of liberty was plantedfor it was now the trick of Buonaparte to associate the sacred name of liberty with his, a name and a thing on which he had so uniformly trampledit was cut down and burnt. It was in such circumstances that Buonaparte had to put his frontiers into a state of defence against the advancing hosts. He had defended the northern side of Paris with a double line of fortifications; strongly fortified Montmartre, and on the open southern side cast up some field-works, relying, however, on the Seine as the best barrier. Paris he placed under the command of General Haxo; and the fortresses on the side of Alsace, the Vosges, and Lorraine were all strongly garrisoned. Lyons, Guise, Vitry, Soissons, Chateau-Thierry, Langres, and other towns were made as strong as forts, redoubts, field-works, and garrisons could make them; and trusting by these to retard the slow Austrians, and even the Russians, till he could have given a desperate blow to the Allies in the Netherlands, of whom he was most afraid, on the 11th of June he quitted Paris, saying, "I go to measure myself with Wellington!"
TWO:The subject of Church rates having created much ill-feeling in towns and districts where the Dissenters were most numerous, an attempt was made by the Government to abolish the impost. It was found that the sum which they produced was about 250,000 a year, and it was proposed to obtain that amount by a better management of the estates of bishops, deans, and chapters, by placing them under the control of eleven Commissioners, who should first pay the bishops and dignitaries' salaries out of the proceeds, and devote the rest of the fund thus realised to the objects for which Church rates were levied, namely, the repair of churches and the supply of the necessaries for public worship. But an outcry was raised against this plan as being based upon the principle of Church spoliation. The bishops and clergy resisted strenuously, and the friends of the Church were roused to such an extent that the majority in the House of Commons on the second reading of the Bill was only five. This majority was tantamount to defeat, and therefore the measure was abandoned.
TWO:Mr. Roebuck, the next day, moved a counter-resolution in the following terms:"That the principles which have hitherto regulated the foreign policy of her Majesty's Government are such as were required to preserve untarnished the honour and dignity of this country, and, in times of unexampled difficulty, the best calculated to maintain peace between England and the various nations of the world." He supported this position in an able and lengthened speech. The chief ground of dispute was the demand of Palmerston for compensation to a person named Don Pacifico, a Jew, and by birth a British subject, who resided at Athens, and whose house had been attacked on a Sunday, his property destroyed, and his family beaten by a mob headed by young noblemen. The Greek Government refused him reparation, and he sought protection from England. There was also the case of Mr. Finlay, whose land was seized in order that it might be converted into a garden for the King of Greece, the owner being refused payment; Lord Aberdeen, when Foreign Secretary, having applied in vain for redress. There was also the case of H.M.S. Fant?me, whose boat's crew had been arrested by Greek soldiers; also other outrages equally serious. Lord Palmerston defended his policy with his wonted spirit and ability, and with triumphant success in a speech which, said Mr. Gladstone, lasted "from the dusk of one day to the dawn of another." Mr. Gladstone arraigned the conduct of the first Minister in sitting down contentedly under the censure of the House of Lords, by sheltering himself under precedents which were in fact no precedents at all. He charged Lord Palmerston with violating international law, by making reprisals upon Greek property to the extent of 80,000 to satisfy the exorbitant demands of Don Pacifico; the fruit of this policy being humiliation, in regard to France, and a lesson received without reply from the autocrat of all the Russia's. Mr. Cobden also assailed the policy of Lord Palmerston, and asked if there was no other way of settling such trifling matters than by sending fifteen ships of war into Greek waters, which had seized several gunboats, and more than forty merchantmen. Lord John Russell defended the policy of the Government, and concluded by declaring that by the verdict of that House and the people of England he was prepared to abide, fully convinced that the Government had preserved at the same time the honour of the country and the blessings of peace. Mr. Disraeli, on the other hand, maintained that the House of Lords had exercised a solemn duty in pronouncing a censure upon the policy which had led to such terrible results. This debate will[607] be rendered for ever memorable in our annals by the speech of Sir Robert Peel. It was one of the best speeches he ever delivered in that House, and it was his last. He argued strongly against intermeddling with the affairs of foreign nations in order to procure for them free institutions, and concluded with the expression of his belief that the cause of constitutional liberty would only be encumbered by our help; whilst by intruding it we should involve Great Britain in incalculable difficulties. When the hour for the division came the House was very fullAyes310; Noes, 264; giving the Government a majority of 46.Sir John Soane, who had been a pupil of Dance, Holland, and Sir William Chambers, introduced a more purely Greek style, and his achievements may be seen in Dulwich Gallery and Trinity Church, Marylebone. The most eminent disciples of this school were William Wilkins and Sir Robert Smirke. Wilkins was a servile copyist, and the National Gallery is the chief monument of his skill, or want of it. Sir Robert Smirke was of a higher order, and his erection of Covent Garden Theatre, the Mint, the Post Office, the College of Physicians, the law courts at Gloucester, Lowther Castle, etc., speak for themselves. Nash, the contemporary and successor of these architects, has left us abundance of his Gr?co-Romano-Italian medleys in the church in Langham Place, Regent's Park, and Buckingham Palace. The great merit of Nash was, that, like the brothers Adam, he gave us space, and showed, as in Regent's Park, what was needed for an immense metropolis. Towards the end[201] of the reign Gothic architecture was more cultivated, and one of Wyatt's last works was Ashridge House, in Buckinghamshire, a vast and stately Gothic pile, imposing in general effect, but far from pure in style. Still less so was Eaton Hall, in Cheshire, built by William Pordon; but the real Anglo-Gothic was now receiving the true development of its principles by the works of James Bentham, Carter, John Britton; and, finally, Thomas Rickman, in 1816, published his "Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture," which placed these principles perspicuously before the public.
THREE: Growth of Material WealthCondition of the Working ClassesThe Charity SchoolsLethargy of the ChurchProposal to abolish Subscription to the ArticlesA Bill for the further Relief of DissentersThe Test and Corporation ActsThe Efforts of Beaufoy and Lord StanhopeAttempts to relieve the QuakersFurther Effort of Lord StanhopeThe Claims of the Roman CatholicsFailure of the Efforts to obtain Catholic EmancipationLay Patronage in ScotlandThe Scottish EpiscopaliansIllustrious DissentersReligion in Wales and IrelandLiteratureThe Novelists: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and SterneMinor and later NovelistsScottHistorians: Hume, Robertson, and GibbonMinor HistoriansMiscellaneous LiteratureCriticism, Theology, Biography, and SciencePeriodical LiteratureThe Drama and the DramatistsPoetry: Collins, Shenstone, and GrayGoldsmith and ChurchillMinor PoetsPercy's "Reliques," and Scott's "Border Minstrelsy"Chatterton and OssianJohnson and DarwinCrabbe and CowperPoetasters and GiffordThe Shakespeare ForgeriesMinor SatiresBurnsThe Lake School: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and SoutheyScott, Campbell, Byron, Shelley, and KeatsPoets at the close of the PeriodImprovement of Agricultural ScienceArthur YoungDrainage and RootsImprovements in Road-making: Telford and MacadamBrindley's and Telford's CanalsBridges and HarboursIron RailwaysApplication of the Steam-Engine to Railways and BoatsImprovements in MachineryWedgwoodManufacture of GlassCollieriesUse of Coal in Iron-worksImprovements in various ManufacturesScientific DiscoveriesMusicArchitecturePaintingSculptureEngravingCoins and CoinageManners and Customs.
THREE:In the Peninsula, altogether, the French had upwards of two hundred thousand men, but the force which Massena led against Wellington did not amount to more than sixty thousand, Drouet remaining, for the present, in Spain with eighteen thousand men, and Regnier lying in Estremadura[603] with ten or twelve thousand more. To contend against Massena's sixty thousand veterans, Lord Wellington had only twenty-four thousand British on whom he could rely. He had thirty thousand Portuguese regulars, who had been drilled by General Beresford, and had received many British officers. Wellington had great expectation that these troops, mixed judiciously with the British ones, would turn out well; but that had yet to be tried. Besides these, there were numerous bodies of Portuguese militia, who were employed in defending the fortresses in Alemtejo and Algarve, thus protecting the flanks of Wellington's army.By six o'clock in the evening the Allied army had lost ten thousand men in killed and wounded, besides a great number of the dispersed Belgians and other foreigners of the worst class, who had run off, and taken refuge in the wood of Soigne. But the French had suffered more severely; they had lost fifteen thousand in killed and wounded, and had had more than two thousand taken prisoners. At about half-past four, too, firing had been heard on the French right, and it proved to be the advanced division of Bulow. Grouchy had overtaken the Prussians at Wavre, but had been stopped there by General Thielemann, by order of Blucher, and kept from crossing the Dyle till it was too late to prevent the march of Blucher on Waterloo; so that whilst Thielemann was thus holding back Grouchy, who now heard the firing from Waterloo, Blucher was on the track of his advanced division towards the great battle-field. When Buonaparte heard the firing on the right, he thought, or affected to think, that it was Grouchy, whom he had sent for in haste, who was beating the Prussians; but he perceived that he must now make one gigantic effort, or all would be lost the moment that the main armies of the British and Prussians united. Sending, therefore, a force to beat back Bulow, he prepared for one of those thunderbolts which so often had saved him at the last moment. He formed his Imperial Guard into two columns at the bottom of the declivity of La Belle Alliance, and supporting them by four battalions of the Old Guard, and putting Ney at their head, ordered him to break the British squares. That splendid body of men, the French Guards, rushed forward, for the last time, with cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and Buonaparte rode at their head as well as Ney, as far as the farm of La Haye Sainte. There the great Corsican, who had told his army on joining it this last campaign that he and they must now conquer[100] or die, declined the death by suddenly wheeling his horse aside, and there remaining, still and stiff as a statue of stone, watching the last grand venture. The British right at this moment was wheeling towards Buonaparte's position, so that his Guards were received by a simultaneous fire in front and in the flank. The British soldiers advanced from both sides, as if to close round the French, and poured in one incessant fire, each man independently loading and discharging his piece as fast as he could. The French Guards endeavoured to deploy that they might renew the charge, but under so terrible a fire they found it impossible: they staggered, broke, and melted into a confused mass. As they rolled wildly down the hill, the battalions of the Old Guard tried to check the pursuing British; but at this moment Wellington, who had Maitland's and Adams's brigades of Guards lying on their faces behind the ridge on which he stood, gave the command to charge, and, rushing down the hill, they swept the Old Guard before them. On seeing this, Buonaparte exclaimed, "They are mingled together! All is lost for the present!" and rode from the field. The battle was won. But at the same moment Wellington ordered the advance of the whole line, and the French, quitting every point of their position, began a hasty and confused retreat from the field.
