ONE:It was upon this very able report of Mr. Nicholls that the Irish Poor Law was based. After undergoing much consideration, it was finally adopted by the Government on the 13th of December, 1836, and on the following day he was directed to have a Bill prepared, embodying all his recommendations. This was accordingly done; and after being scrutinised, clause by clause, in a committee of the Cabinet specially appointed for the purpose, and receiving various emendations, the Bill was introduced on the 13th of February, 1837, by Lord John Russell, then Home Secretary, and Leader of the House of Commons. His speech on the occasion was able and comprehensive. "It appears," he said, "from the testimony both of theory and experience, that when a country is[406] overrun by marauders and mendicants having no proper means of subsistence, but preying on the industry and relying on the charity of others, the introduction of a Poor Law serves several very important objects. In the first place, it acts as a measure of peace, enabling the country to prohibit vagrancy, which is so often connected with outrage, by offering a substitute to those who rely on vagrancy and outrage as a means of subsistence. When an individual or a family is unable to obtain subsistence, and is without the means of living from day to day, it would be unjust to say they shall not go about and endeavour to obtain from the charity of the affluent that which circumstances have denied to themselves. But when you can say to such persons, 'Here are the means of subsistence offered to you'when you can say this on the one hand, you may, on the other hand, say, 'You are not entitled to beg, you shall no longer infest the country in a manner injurious to its peace, and liable to imposition and outrage.'" Another way, he observed, in which a Poor Law is beneficial is, that it is a great promoter of social concord, by showing a disposition in the State and in the community to attend to the welfare of all classes. It is of use also by interesting the landowners and persons of property in the welfare of their tenants and neighbours. A landowner who looks only to receiving the rent of his estate may be regardless of the numbers in his neighbourhood who are in a state of destitution, or who follow mendicancy and are ready to commit crime; but if he is compelled to furnish means for the subsistence of those persons so destitute, it then becomes his interest to see that those around him have the means of living, and are not in actual want. He considered that these objects, and several others collateral to them, were attained in England by the Act of Elizabeth. Almost the greatest benefit that could be conferred on a country was, he observed, a high standard of subsistence for the labouring classes; and such a benefit was secured for England chiefly by the Quest Act of Elizabeth. Lord John Russell then alluded to the abuses which subsequently arose, and to the correction of those abuses then in progress under the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act, and said that we ought to endeavour to obtain for Ireland all the good effects of the English system, and to guard against the evils which had arisen under it.The next great architect of this period is Sir John Vanbrugh, who, when in the zenith of his fame as a dramatic writer, suddenly started forth as an architect, and had the honour of erecting Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle; Blenheim House, built for the Duke of Marlborough, in reward of his victories; Duncomb Hall, Yorkshire; King's Weston, in Gloucestershire; Oulton Hall, Cheshire; Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire; Eastbury, in Dorsetshire, now destroyed; and Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, since partly destroyed by fire. Besides these, he built the opera house, also destroyed by fire. In all these there is a strong similarity, and as a general effect, a certain magnificence; but, when examined in detail, they too frequently resolve themselves into a row of individual designs merely arranged side by side. This is very much the case with the long fa?ade of Blenheim. There is a barbaric splendour, but it has no pervading unity, and only differs from the Italian manner of Wren by a much bolder and profuser use of the Grecian columns and pilasters. In fact, the architecture of the whole of this period is of a hybrid character, the classical more or less modified and innovated to adapt it to modern purposes and the austerity of a northern climate.
FORE:Puisaye's mission to London had been successful. Pitt was weak enough to fall into the plan of sending over the Emigrants in our shipsas if any such force could do more against the Republican armies than create fresh miseries to all parties, and bring down worse vengeance on the unfortunate Vendans and Bretons. Puisaye, with the aid of the Counts d'Hervilly, d'Hector, du Dresnay, Colonel Routhalier, and other Royalist officers, had mustered a most miscellaneous[446] body of three thousand Emigrants, most of whom had been soldiers, and who were accompanied by four hundred artillerymen of Toulon, commanded by Routhalier. Besides these men, of whom the Count d'Artois, for the time, gave the command to Puisaye, intending himself to follow, Puisaye carried over ten thousand pounds, furnished by the Count d'Artois, twenty-seven thousand muskets, six hundred barrels of gunpowder, uniforms for seventeen thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, as well as provisions for three months. These troops and stores were, after many delays, conveyed in a little squadron of three ships of the line and six frigates, attended by transports, and commanded by Sir John Borlase Warren. They sailed from the Isle of Wight in the beginning of June, another squadron being sent to take up the Emigrant troops in the Channel Islands, and land them at St. Malo, where they were to co-operate with bodies of Chouans. These Chouans were smugglers and bandits, who had led a life of plunder, and had been easily collected into a sort of guerilla force, and their mode of warfare still bore a strong resemblance to their old habits. These men, under their different chiefs, had been excited by Puisaye to combine for a strong resistance to the Republicans. They were dressed in green coats and pantaloons, with red waistcoats. During his absence, Puisaye had deputed the chief command of the Chouan bands to the so-called Baron Cormatin, or Sieur Dsoteux, who had assumed the title of Baron de Cormatin from an estate of his wife's. Cormatin was a vain, weak man, and by no means trustworthy, being ready, at any moment, to supersede his chief, Puisaye, and act for himself. If the expedition against St. Malo did not succeed, it was to join Puisaye and his detachment in the Bay of Quiberon; and transports were also sent to the mouth of the Elbe, to fetch thence the Emigrant regiments with the black cockade, and bring them to join Puisaye. If all went well, the Count d'Artois was to follow with British troops. The grand error of the whole was, that the French prince did not put himself at once at the head of the expedition, and see the different squadrons united in the Bay of Quiberon before making the descent, though, even then, it could have effected no great success.
Faucibus luctus
FORE:As to the silk and wool trades, in the ten years preceding 1824 the quantity of raw and thrown silk used by our manufacturers was on an average of 1,882,311 lbs. per annum. In the ten succeeding years the average was nearly double, viz. 95 per cent. higher; and in the sixteen years which ended in 1849 there was an increase of 120 per cent. over the quantity used under the restrictive system. According to the report of the inspectors of factories, there were, in 1835, 231 silk factories in England, six in Scotland, and one in Ireland. The total number of females thus employed was over 20,000, and the total number of both sexes was about 31,000. The total number of woollen and worsted factories at work in 1835 was returned by the inspectors of factories as being 1,313, showing an increase of ten per cent. in four years. The total number of persons employed in them in 1835 was 71,274, on which there was an increase of twenty per cent. up to 1839. There was a general depression in the price of British wool, in consequence of which a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the causes. From the evidence which they received, it appeared that the actual number of sheep in England and Wales had increased one-fifth since the year 1800, when it was 19,000,000, yielding about 95,000,000 lbs. of wool, or about five pounds[419] for each fleet. It was estimated that the quantity used for manufacturing purposes increased during the first half of the nineteenth century by 115 per cent. Yorkshire is the chief seat of the woollen manufacture, and the best proof of its progress, perhaps, is presented in the state of the population, which in the whole of the West Riding increased during the first forty years of the century at the rate of 104 per cent. At the census of 1801 it was 563,953, while the census of 1841 showed it to be 1,154,101.Lord Lovat was the last who was brought to the block for this rebellion, and we will conclude our account of it with his trial and execution, though they did not take place till March, 1747. Lovat had not appeared in arms, nor committed any overt act, and therefore it was difficult to[110] convict him. The cunning old sycophant hoped to elude the law, as he had done so often before, but Murray of Broughton, the brother of Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, to save his own life, turned king's evidence, and won eternal infamy by sacrificing his own friends. He not only produced letters and other documents which amply proved the guilt of Lovat, but threw broad daylight on the whole plan and progress of the insurrection from 1740 onwards. The conduct of Lovat on his trial was as extraordinary as his life had been. He alternately endeavoured to excite compassion, especially that of Cumberlandwho attended this, though he avoided the trials of the other insurgentsby representing how he had carried his Royal Highness in his arms about Kensington and Hampton Court Parks as a child, and then by the most amusing jests, laughter, execrations, and tricks, to puzzle or confuse the witnesses.
Sed ultricies
