ONE:Meanwhile Brigadier Wild occupied a position of great difficulty at Peshawur. He had four native infantry regiments, containing a large number of young soldiers, whom the mutinous Sikhs had impressed with a great horror of the Khyber Pass. The only cavalry he had was a troop of irregular horse, and the only guns, four pieces of Sikh artillery. Besides, the owners of the camels, which had been hired at Ferozepore to proceed as far as Jelalabad, refused to advance farther than Peshawur. It was in these circumstances that Sale and M'Gregor earnestly urged the advance of the brigade for the relief of that place. The fortress of Ali Musjid, regarded as the key to the Khyber Pass, is situated about[498] twenty-five miles from Peshawur: and as it lay between the two positions of Sale and Wild, it was of the utmost importance that it should be occupied. It was accordingly resolved that one-half of Wild's brigade should be dispatched for this service. On the 15th of January Colonel Moseley, with the 53rd and 64th Sepoy Regiments, started under cover of the night, and reached their destination early in the morning. The fortress was about five miles up the Pass. Soon after they had taken up their position they discovered to their dismay that owing to some mistake, instead of 350 supply bullocks, which had been ordered, only fifty or sixty had arrived. Here, then, were two regiments shut up in an isolated fortress without provisions. Day after day passed and no succour came. Wild made an effort to send forward supplies, but the attempt was a disastrous failure. The Sikh auxiliaries mutinied to a man, and refused to enter the Pass. There being no prospect of relief, Colonel Moseley determined to evacuate the fortress. Captain Burt and Captain Thomas offered to remain and keep possession of so important a position, if only 150 men would volunteer for the service. But none were found willing to undertake the perilous duty, and so Ali Musjid was abandoned and suffered to fall into the hands of the Afreedis. The brigade had some fighting on its way back. Some of its officers were killed, some wounded and sick were abandoned, and some baggage was lost.The corruptionists in Parliament were deaf to eloquence or remonstrance; the base contractors sitting there, and the other vile absorbers of the money voted by the country for the most sacred purposes, for the preservation of the integrity and existence of the empire, sat still in impudent hardihood; but the sound of these stirring words was already out of doors. The City of London voted thanks to the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Shelburne for their motions, and for their promised resumption of the subject on the 8th of February. A great meeting was called at York to induce that county to prepare a petition for reform in Parliament. Many efforts were made by persuasion and by menace to prevent these freeholders from meeting. But the Marquis of Rockingham and Sir George Savile stood forward, attended the meeting, and encouraged the freeholders. The meeting was held on the 30th of December, and, besides these distinguished men, was attended by peers, gentlemen, clergymenthe richest and noblest in the county. A petition was adopted to the House of Commons in the strongest terms. Before separating, this most important meeting appointed a committee of correspondence, consisting of sixty-one gentlemen, to carry out the objects of the petition, and still further to prepare the plan of a national association for the promotion of the great business of reform. The contagion spread rapidly; in numbers of other counties, and in many of the leading cities, similar petitions were got up, and committees of correspondence formed. The result was that very soon, in the counties of Middlesex, Chester, Hants, Hertford, Sussex, Huntingdon, Surrey, Cumberland, Bedford, Essex, Gloucester, Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Norfolk, Berks, Bucks, Nottingham, Kent, Northumberland, Suffolk, Hereford, Cambridge, Derby, Northampton, and the towns of York and Bristol, Cambridge, Nottingham, Newcastle, Reading, and Bridgewater, petitions were prepared, and in most of them corresponding committees organised.
TWO:
FORE:Gustavus despatched the chief mutineers under arrest to Stockholm; but he found those who remained equally infected. In fact, the whole of the Swedish aristocracy had long aimed at usurping the entire powers of the State, and of dictating to the king. Whilst thus suddenly disabled, the men themselves in a great measure assuming the language of their officers, Gustavus found that Sweden itself was menaced with an invasion of the Danes from the side of Norway, at the instigation of Russia. It was necessary to hurry home, leaving the portion of the army in Finland, which remained subordinate, under the command of his brother. On arriving, Gustavus issued an earnest proclamation to his people to follow him to the defence of their country. But to lose no time he hastened on to Dalecarlia, the brave inhabitants of which had first placed his great ancestor, Gustavus Vasa, on the throne. They speedily mustered to his aid, and he led them directly against the Danes, who, under the Prince of Hesse, were already in possession of Str?mstad and Uddevalla, and in full march on Gothenburg, the chief commercial town of Sweden.It would seem that the law officers of the Crown despaired of proceeding in the old way, but they, or the Ministers themselves, hit on a new and more daring one. On the 27th of March the Secretary of State addressed a circular letter to the lords-lieutenant of counties, informing them that the Law Officers were of opinion that a justice of the peace may issue warrants to apprehend persons charged with the publication of political libels, and compel them to give bail; and he required the lords-lieutenant to communicate this opinion to the ensuing Quarter Sessions, that all magistrates might act upon it. This was the most daring attack on the liberty of the subject which had been made in England since the days of the Stuarts. Lord Grey, on the 12th of May, made a most zealous and able speech in the House of Lords against this proceeding, denouncing the investment of justices of the peace with the power to decide beforehand questions which might puzzle the acutest juries, and to arrest and imprison for what might turn out to be no offence at all. He said:"If such be the power of the magistrate, and if this be the law, where, I ask, are all the boasted securities of our independence and freedom?" But it appears from the correspondence of Lord Sidmouth, that he was at this moment glorying in this expedient and triumphing in its imagined success. He said the charge of having put such power into the hands of magistrates, he would do his best and most constant endeavour to deserve; and that already the activity of the dealers in libellous matter was much diminished. He had, in truth, struck a deadly terror to the hearts of the stoutest patriots, who saw no prospect but ruin and incarceration if they dared to speak the truth. Cobbett then fled, and got over to America. In taking leave of his readers, in his Register of March 28th, he gave his reasons for escaping from the storm:"Lord Sidmouth was 'sorry to say' that I had not written anything that the Law Officers could prosecute with any chance of success. I do not remove," he continued, "for the purpose of writing libels, but for the purpose of being able to write what is not libellous. I do not retire from the combat with the Attorney-General, but from a combat with a dungeon, deprived of pen, ink, and paper. A combat with the Attorney-General is quite unequal enough; that, however, I would have encountered. I know too well what a trial by special jury is; yet that, or any sort of trial, I would stand to face. So that I could be sure of a trial of whatever sort, I would have run the risk; but against the absolute power of imprisonment, without even a hearing, for time unlimited, in any gaol in the kingdom, without the use of pen, ink, and paper, and without communication with any soul but the keepersagainst such a power it would have been worse than madness to attempt to strive."
Nunc at viverra risus. In euismod quam ac dictum varius. Nunc at viverra risus.
Nunc at viverra risus. In euismod quam ac dictum varius. Nunc at viverra risus. In euismod quam ac dictum varius. Nunc at viverra risus. In euismod quam ac dictum varius. Nunc at viverra risus.