THREE:But the conquered Sikhs did not very easily acquiesce in the terms proposed by the conquerors, in spite of the wise administration of the great brothers John and Henry Lawrence, who organised a thoroughly efficient government in the new territories. Gholab Singh was chased from the territory the British had given him, and it became necessary that British arms should reinstate him, and that a British force should permanently garrison Lahore, at a cost to the Sikh Government of 220,000 a year. The intriguing and restless Ranee was sent off from the capital to Sharpoora, where she was kept under surveillance. Sir Charles Napier was obliged to resign his government in Scinde from ill-health, and he returned home in 1847. The Governor-General, after making a progress through various parts of the empire, in order to inaugurate and encourage works of social improvement, was also obliged to retire from his post, in consequence of the failure of his health owing to the fatigues and hardships he had endured in the campaign, and Henry Lawrence accompanied him. On his return home Hardinge was made Master-General of the Ordnance and Commander-in-Chief, being succeeded in India by Lord Dalhousie, who arrived there on the 10th of January, 1848. He, too, found disturbances to be quelled and treachery to be punished among our allies and tributaries. Troubles occurred at Lahore, where the hostility of the inhabitants to the British broke out with terrible effect. Mr. Vans Agnew, the British Resident, and Lieutenant Anderson were treacherously murdered at Mooltan, apparently by the orders of Moolraj, who had been ordered to pay a large sum as succession duty to the Sikh Government. Their death was avenged by Lieutenant Edwardes and General Courtland, who, at the head of a small force, attacked and defeated the revolted Sikhs, 3,000 strong. At length 26,000 troops under General Whish invested the place. But his troops went over to the enemy, and he was compelled to raise the siege and retire. At the same time an insurrection broke out in the Punjab, headed by the governor of the North-West Provinces; in fact, there was a general revolt of the Sikhs against British rule.The unnatural state of things induced by the war had now brought about a great change in our currency. As we could manage to get in our goods to the Continent by one opening or another, but could not get the produce of the Continent in return, it would have appeared that we must be paid in cash, and that the balance of specie must be in our favour; but this was not the case. By our enormous payments to our troops in Spain, Portugal, and Sicily, as well as in the East and West Indies, and by our heavy subsidies, gold had flowed out of the country so steadily that there appeared very little left in it, and bank paper had taken its place. On the Continent, impoverished as they were, the people tenaciously clung to their gold, and Buonaparte alone could draw it from them in taxes. He always took a heavy military chest with him on his expeditions, and his officers also carried the money necessary for themselves in their belts, or otherwise about their immediate persons. The gold being enormously diminished in quantity in England, was carefully hoarded on all hands, thus again increasing the scarcity, and raising the value of it. The price of bullion had risen from twenty to thirty per cent., and here was a further strong temptation to hoard or send guineas to the melting-pot. This state of things led a certain class of political economists to call for a repeal of the Act for suspension of cash payments, and Francis Horner obtained a committee of inquiry into the causes of the decrease of gold and the increase of paper: and this committee came to the conclusion that the true cause of the evil lay in the excess of paper, and that the way to restrain it would be to allow the demand for gold at the Bank. But the truth was that the cause of the evil was not the excess of paper, but the enormous diminution of gold; and to have opened a legal demand for gold which could not be had would only have produced a panic, and a complete and horrible assassination of all credit and all business. But there were clearer-sighted men in Parliament, who declared that, though bullion had risen in price, bank-notes would still procure twenty shillings' worth of goods in the market, and that they were not, therefore, really depreciated in value. That was true, but guineas had, notwithstanding, risen to a value of five- or six-and-twenty shillings, and might be sold for that. Gold had risen, but paper had not fallen; and gold could not take the place of paper, because it did not, to any great extent, exist in the country; if it had, paper must have fallen ruinously. Mr. Vansittart and his party, therefore, moved resolutions that the resumption of cash payments being already provided for six months after the conclusion of peace, was an arrangement which answered all purposes, and ought not to be disturbed; that this would keep all real excess of paper in check, and leave gold to resume its circulation when, by the natural influence of peace, it flowed again into the country. These were, accordingly, carried.
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THREE:Whilst these abominations were being done in Portugal, Buonaparte had proceeded to Italy to prosecute other parts of his one great design. He determined, in the first place, to shut the trade of Britain out of all the Italian ports, as he had now, in imagination, done in nearly all the other ports of Europe. Accordingly, at Milan, on the 17th of December, he issued his celebrated decree, which took its name from that city, as his Northern decrees had taken their name from Berlin. Henceforward the Berlin and Milan decrees acquired great notoriety. To counteract the ordinances of the Berlin decrees, which forbade any ship of any nation to be admitted into Continental ports without certificates of originthat is, without certificates showing that no part of their cargo was of British producevarious Orders in Council had been issued by Britain, permitting[549] all neutral vessels to trade to any country at peace with Great Britain, provided that they touched at a British port, and paid the British duties. Thus, neutrals were placed between Scylla and Charybdis. Ii they neglected to take out British certificates they were captured at sea by the British cruisers; if they did take them, they were confiscated on entering any Continental port where there were French agents. This led to an enormous system of bribery and fraud. The prohibited goods were still admitted by false papers, with respect to which the French officers, men of the highest rank, were well paid to shut their eyes. All the ports of Italy were now subjected to this system, and Buonaparte immediately seized a great number of American vessels, on the ground that they had complied with the British Orders in Council. It might be thought that America would so far resent this as to declare war on France, but Buonaparte calculated on the strength of American prejudices against Britain and for France at that time, that the United States would rather declare war against Britain, which, by its Orders in Council, brought them into this dilemma. The ports of the Pope alone now remained open, and these Buonaparte determined forthwith to shut.
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ONE:WILLIAM PITT. (After the Portrait by John Hoppner, R.A.)
