ONE:Immediately after this debate the Government took active steps to crush that spirit of free discussion in books, pamphlets and associations, which no doubt had been greatly stimulated by the excitement of the French Revolution, and which they professed to believe was aiming at the same objectthe destruction of the monarchy. But in attempting to check this spirit, they adopted the un-English plan of fettering the press and individual opinion. Pitt's Government issued a proclamation against seditious books, and societies corresponding with the Republicans across the water; and magistrates were desired to make diligent inquiries as to the authors of seditious books and pamphlets, to put down all mischievous associations, and to take the promptest means of suppressing and preventing riots and disturbances. An Address in approbation of this proclamation was moved by Mr. Pepper Arden, the Master of the Rolls, in the Commons, and a short debate was the consequence. In this Grey and Fox declared that the proclamation was unconstitutional, mischievous, and oppressive; that it was a stimulus given to hot-headed and bigoted magistrates all over the country to invade the freedom of the press and of private life, on pretence of preventing disturbance; that the true constitutional remedy for any wrong opinions promulgated by the press was their regulation by right and sound opinions; that the blow was aimed against the Society of the Friends of the People, and intended to crush Reform, and divide the Whig party; that, in truth, the riots and instigations to anarchy came not from the Reformers, but from the Church, the magistracy, and the Tories; and they appealed for the truth of this to the disgraceful scenes which had occurred at Birmingham. They reminded Government that in 1782 Pitt had joined the Duke of Richmond, Major Cartwright, and Horne Tooke, in a meeting, at the Thatched House Tavern, for Reform; that they, the Whigs, had never gone to the length of Cartwright and Horne Tooke in their principles of Reform, as Pitt had done; and they reproached the Minister with his shameful inconsistency. Lord John Russell, Francis, Lambton, and others, supported Grey and Fox; and Windham, Lord North, Dundas, etc., supported Pitt. The Address was carried; and when sent up to the Lords produced another striking exhibition of the change going on in the Whig party; for the Prince of Wales, who had hitherto been in such close union with them, and had been so zealously supported by them, now rose and gave his decided approbation to the Address, declaring that he had been educated in admiration of the established Constitution, and was determined, so far as in him lay, to support it. These words were received with triumph by the Government party, the Address was carried almost unanimously, and was followed by an immediate prosecution of the "Rights of Man," by the Attorney-General, which caused it to be far more generally read than it otherwise would have been.
FORE:But the Czarina, though mistress of Oczakoff, was far from the end of her designs. She contemplated nothing but the subjugation of the Turkish empire. For this purpose she determined to excite insurrection in all the tributary states of that empire. Her agents had excited the Montenegrins to an outbreak; they had prepared the Greeks for the same experiment, and the Mameluke Beys in Egypt. She determined to send a powerful fleet into the Mediterranean to co-operate with these insurgents, to seize on the island of Crete, to ravage the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and to force the passage of the Dardanelles, or, if that were not practicable, to blockade them. Thus opening the communication between her forces in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea, she considered that Turkey would lie helpless at her feet. To give the necessary ascendency to her fleet, she had long been encouraging English naval officers to take commands in it. At the famous battle of Chesm, it was the British Admirals Elphinstone, Greig, and others who had made Potemkin victorious. Greig was now at the head of the fleet that was being prepared at Cronstadt for this Mediterranean enterprise. She had also managed to engage eighteen British ships to serve as transports of troops, artillery, and stores.On the 1st of March Sir Francis Burdett presented a Catholic petition, and in a speech of great eloquence and force moved for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the grievances of which it complained. The question thus brought before the House of Commons was one on which the Cabinet was divided. Canning had come down to the House from a sick bed, and on a crutch, to give his support to the motion. Plunket delivered one of his most powerful speeches on the same side. Peel took upon himself the heavy task of replying to both. He was supported by Mr. Leslie Foster. Brougham closed the debate; and the motion was carried by a majority of thirteen, amid loud cheers. Resolutions were adopted, and a Bill founded upon them passed the Commons, but it was lost in the Upper House, where it was thrown out, on the 19th of May, by a majority of sixty-five. It was on that occasion that the Duke of York, then heir presumptive to the Throne, made the celebrated declaration against all concession to the Catholics, which excited against him intense animosity in Ireland. At the conclusion of a vehement speech he said:"If I have expressed myself warmly, especially in the latter part of what I have said, I must appeal to your lordships' generosity. I feel the subject most forcibly; but it affects me the more deeply when I recollect that to its agitation must be ascribed that severe illness and[252] ten years of misery which had clouded the existence of my beloved father. I shall therefore conclude with assuring your lordships that I have uttered my honest and conscientious sentiments, founded upon principles I have imbibed from my earliest youth, to the justice of which I have subscribed after careful consideration in maturer years; and these are the principles to which I will adhere, and which I will maintain, and that up to the latest moment of my existence, whatever may be my situation of life, so help me God!"
FORE:On the 28th of September the combined army of French and Americans came in sight of York Town, and encamped about two miles from the outworks. The next morning they extended themselves towards the left of Cornwallis, but cautiously; and the English pickets slowly retired within the outer lines at their approach. That evening Cornwallis received a despatch from Sir Henry Clinton, dated September 24th, which gave the cheering expectation that he was duly sensible of the imminence of the danger, and of his responsibility. He said:"At a meeting of the general and flag officers held this day, it is determined that above five thousand men, rank and file, shall be embarked on board the king's ships, and the joint exertions of the navy and army made in a few days to relieve you, and afterwards to co-operate with you. The fleet consists of twenty-three sail of the line, three of which are three-deckers. There is every reason to hope that we start on the 5th of October." On this promising intimation of speedy aid, Cornwallis immediately drew in his small force from the extended outworks, and concentrated them within the entrenchments round the town. Undoubtedly it was a measure calculated to save much life, which must have been lost in defending outworks too widely extended for the enclosed force; but it encouraged the Americans, who did not expect to gain them thus easily. Two thousand men took up their ground before Gloucester. Round York Town itself Washington, Rochambeau, Lafayette, and St. Simon concentrated their forces. On the night of the 1st of October, the French on the right and the Americans on the left drew nearer, and commenced breaking ground. Six days were then spent in bringing from the ships fifty pieces of cannon, some of them very heavy, ammunition, and other military stores; in fact, as much preparation was made for carrying this single post as if it had been a regular and first-rate fortress. On the night of the 6th of October the French and Americans began casting up their first parallel within six hundred yards of Cornwallis's lines. By the 9th of October their trenches and batteries were completed, and that afternoon they opened a tremendous fire on the town. Cornwallis replied to them with vigour,[283] but he found many of his guns on the left silenced, and his works greatly damaged. On the night of the 11th the enemy began their second parallel within three hundred yards of the lines. In its progress, for three days, Cornwallis committed much havoc amongst them by opening fresh embrasures for guns, and pouring an incessant shower upon them of balls and shells. Two redoubts on the left flank of the British more particularly annoyed them, and Washington determined to carry these by storm. Of course they were carried, and their guns then turned on York Town.[257]
