TWO:Perceiving the fatal separation of the Prussians from each other, and from their supplies at Naumburg, he determined to cut their army in two, and then to cut off and seize their magazines at this place. He therefore ordered the French right wing, under Soult and Ney, to march upon Hof, while the centre, under Bernadotte and Davoust, with the guard commanded by Murat, advanced on Saalburg and Schleitz. The left wing, under Augereau, proceeded towards Saalfeld and Coburg. Naumburg was seized, and its magazines committed to the flames, and this, at the same moment that it ruined their resources, apprised them that the French were in their rear; and, still worse, were between them and Magdeburg, which should have been their rallying-point. To endeavour to make some reparation of their error, and to recover Naumburg, the Duke of Brunswick marched in that direction, but too late. Davoust was in possession of the place, and had given the magazine to the flames, and he then marched out against Brunswick, who was coming with sixty thousand men, though he had only about half that number. Brunswick, by activity, might have seized the strong defile of Koesen; but he was so slow that Davoust forced it open and occupied it. On the evening of the 13th of October the duke was posted on the heights of Auerstadt, and might have retained that strong position, but he did not know that Davoust was so near; for the scout department seemed as much neglected as other precautions. Accordingly, the next morning, descending from the heights to pursue his march, his advanced line suddenly came upon that of Davoust in the midst of a thick fog, near the village of Hassen-Haussen. The battle continued from eight in the morning till eleven, when the Duke of Brunswick was struck in the face by a grape-shot, and blinded of both eyes. This, and the severe slaughter suffered by the Prussians, now made them give way. The King of Prussia, obliged to assume the command himself, at this moment received the discouraging news that General Hohenlohe was engaged at Jena on the same day (October 14) with the main army, against Buonaparte himself. Resolving to make one great effort to retrieve his fortunes, he ordered a general charge to be made along the whole[527] French line. It failed; the Prussians were beaten off, and there was a total rout. The Prussians fled towards Weimar, where were the headquarters of their army, only to meet the fugitives of Hohenlohe, whose forces at the battle of Jena were very inferior to those of the French, and whose defeat there was a foregone conclusion.The Ministry lost no time in introducing their Irish measuresthe new Municipal Reform Bill and the Bill for the Relief of the Poor. The former, after three nights' debate, passed the Commons by a majority302 to 247. It was during this debate that Mr. Sheil delivered his brilliant reply to the indiscreet and unstatesmanlike taunt of Lord Lyndhurst, who, when speaking on the same question in the Upper House, declared that the Irish were "aliens in blood, in language, and religion." "The Duke of Wellington," said Mr. Sheil, "is not a man of sudden emotions; but he should not, when he heard that word used, have forgotten Vimiera, Badajoz, and Salamanca, and Toulouse, and the last glorious conflict which crowned all his former victories. On that day, when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, when the batteries spread slaughter over the field, and the legions of France rushed again and again to the onset, did the 'aliens' then flinch? On that day the blood of the men of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland was poured forth together. They fought on the same field, they died the same death, they were stretched in the same pit; their dust was commingled; the same dew of heaven fell on the grass that covered them; the same grass sprang from the soil in which they reposed together. And is it to be endured that we are to be called aliens and strangers to that empire for whose salvation our best blood has been poured out?"
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