ONE:The year 1757 opened amid very gloomy auspices. War, of a wide and formidable character, was commencing in Europe, and the House of Commons was called on to vote no less than eight million three hundred thousand pounds for the supplies of the year, and to order fifty-five thousand men for the sea service, and forty-five thousand for the land. The National Debt had now reached seventy-two million pounds, and was destined to a heavy and rapid increase. Pitt commenced the admirable plan recommended years before by Duncan Forbes, of raising Highland regiments from the lately disaffected clans. The militia was remodelled, it was increased to thirty-four thousand, and it was proposed to exercise the men on Sunday afternoons, to facilitate their progress in discipline; but an outcry from the Dissenters put a stop to this. Serious riots, moreover, were the consequences of forcing such a number of men from their homes and occupations in the militia ranks; and the public discontent was raised to a crisis by the voting of two hundred thousand pounds, avowedly for the protection of Hanover. A measure which the nation beheld with astonishment Pitt himself introduced, notwithstanding his many thunderings against the Hanover millstone.
FORE:No sooner had the tribunate sent up its decision to the Senate, signed by all except Carnot, than the Senate hastened at once to adopt it, and to sign the answer to the message of the First Consul, which had been drawn up by Fouch for the Committee of Ten appointed by the Senate. In July Napoleon went to Boulogne to review the grand army of England, on the heights above the town, overlooking the English Channel, and from which the white cliffs of England were conspicuous. Everything had been elaborately got up for this occasion, on which the enthusiasm of the soldiers was to be raised to the highest pitch. The common people believed that he was going to lead the army at once across the Channel, and return loaded with the enormous wealth of London, and with the king, queen, royal family, William Pitt, and the leading members of the aristocracy as prisoners in his train. Buonaparte had no such wild idea; but since the Duke d'Enghien's murder the Powers of almost all Europe had manifested unequivocally their abhorrence of the act, and of the man who perpetrated it, and he now designed, by the display of enthusiasm in his army, at once to awe his own people and the sovereigns of other nations.The Ministerial changes consequent on the death of Mr. Canning were announced on the 17th of August. Viscount Goderich, afterwards Earl of[261] Ripon, became the First Lord of the Treasury, the Duke of Portland President of the Council, Mr. Herries Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Huskisson Colonial Secretary, and Mr. C. Grant President of the Board of Trade. On the 22nd the Duke of Wellington was gazetted as Commander-in-Chief. He accepted this office at the earnest request of the king, and it was universally felt that he was the fittest man for the post; but those who, with Lord Eldon, earnestly wished for the speedy downfall of the new Ministrywhich they regarded as almost exclusively Canningitelamented that he should have assumed that position which would necessarily paralyse his opposition in the House of Lords, and so far tend to keep in the Administration. There was, however, little chance of that, for perhaps no Cabinet was ever more divided. They intrigued man against man, section against section; and at last, without any external pressure, the Cabinet fell to pieces from its own weakness. Lord Goderich lost heart, and gave in his resignation before Parliament met. The king was at Windsor while the work of dissolution was going on. When it was complete, he said, "If they had not dissolved themselves by their own acts, I should have remained faithful to them to the last." They appeared before him on the 8th of January, 1828, to resign the offices which they had received from his hands. The Duke of Wellington was then sent for. It was not his wish to become Prime Minister of England. The reasons which had impelled him, on a former occasion, to resist the solicitations of his colleagues induced him now to remonstrate respectfully with the Sovereign; but the king would take no denial.