THREE:Another expedition, planned by the Grenville Ministry, produced no favourable result. This was to Constantinople. Buonaparte had sent thither the artful Sebastiani, and General Andreossi, to destroy British influence, and to engage the Sultan in war with Russia, so as to act as a most effectual diversion of the Russian forces, whilst he himself was occupied with the Czar in the North. The French agents had completely succeeded in their plans against Russia. The Sultan assumed an attitude which compelled Alexander to keep a strong army on the Lower Danube, thus weakening his force against Napoleon, and distracting his attention. There appeared every probability that British influence would be equally swamped in Turkey by the French, and it was determined to send a naval squadron to Constantinople to overawe the Sultan Selim, and to compel the removal of the French intriguants. Had this expedition been committed to such a man as Sir Sidney Smith, there is little doubt but that it would have been entirely successful; but it was altogether most miserably mismanaged, and therefore failed. To have been effectual it should have been sudden. There should have been no previous negotiation about it; the ships should have appeared off Constantinople, and then and there the ambassador should have stated his terms and have insisted on them. Instead of this, our ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot, commenced his negotiations for the strengthening of the British alliance in conjunction with Russia, and for the restriction of the French influence. But, excepting Britain, Russia had no advocates with the Porte, which had already declared war. The victories of Buonaparte now in Austria and Prussia gave the French great clat with the Turks, and Sebastiani made the utmost of this advantage. He was zealously supported by Spain and Holland. In the midst of these negotiations, Admiral Louis appeared off Constantinople with one ship of the line and one frigate. Had it[537] been a whole fleet, the effect would have been decisive. As it was, there was immediately a rumour that a great British fleet was on the way, and accordingly the Turks were in a hurry to strengthen their fortifications, and make every arrangement for defence. They were ably assisted in these measures by Sebastiani, Andreossi, and a number of French engineer officers. On the 10th of February Sir John Duckworth appeared off the Dardanelles, and, joining his squadron with that of Admiral Louis, the British fleet now consisted of eight line-of-battle ships, two frigates, and two bombs. But on the 14th the Ajax, one of the men-of-war, took fire, and blew up, killing two hundred and fifty of the people on board. They had then to wait till the 19th for a breeze that would carry them through the strait. The British ships passed the batteries under a brisk fire, without replying, and on the 20th of February Sir John Duckworth came to anchor off Prince's Islands, opposite to Constantinople, and at about ten miles' distance. Now was the time to have struck an effectual terror by demanding the immediate dismissal of the French, and to have begun storming the town unless the demand was at once complied with. The whole population was in an astounding panic, expecting every moment the commencement of the bombardment; and the Sultan sent Ismail Bey to request Sebastiani and his suite to quit Constantinople without delay. But Sebastiani replied that there was no cause of alarm from the British, he was perfectly indifferent to their presence, and that, as he was under the protection of the Porte, he should not quit Constantinople without an express order from the Sultan. Had Sir Sidney Smith been in command, Sebastiani would soon have received this order, for he would have quickened the Sultan's movements by some shot and shells sent into the Seraglio; but Duckworth was made of much more phlegmatic stuff. The wind on the 21st was fair, and the whole fleet expected the order to put across and commence bombarding the city. Instead of that, however, Sir John sent a fresh message and menace. As this received no answer, and yet was followed by no prompt action, the[538] Turks at once took heart, went on fortifying and planting batteries, and continued to amuse Sir John from day to day with hopes of treating, employing the time only to make their defences, under the supervision of Sebastiani and the French engineers, the more perfect. It is almost impossible to imagine a British admiral so besotted as to continue this course for ten days; yet this was precisely what Sir John Duckworth did, and that in spite of the orders of Admiral Collingwood. By this time every possible point of defence had its batteries, soldiers had poured into Constantinople, and every male inhabitant was armed, and foaming with fury at the British. On the morning of the 1st of March Sir John weighed anchor to return from his ignominious, abortive mission. The wind was fair for him, but his return was now not so easy a matter. Whilst he had been wasting his time before Constantinople, Turkish engineers, who had studied under the French, had been sent down to the Dardanelles with two hundred well-trained cannoneers. Numbers of troops had been collected on each side of the strait, and the batteries were supplied with enormous cannons, capable of carrying granite balls of seven or eight hundred pounds' weight. Towards nightfall he dropped down towards the strait, and the next day cast anchor before passing the castles and batteries, that he might sail through by daylight, when the enemy could best see him. On the morning of the 3rd he accordingly sailed through the strait, and was sharply assailed by the cannon of the forts and batteries, the stone shot doing some of his ships damage, and the loss of men being twenty-nine killed and a hundred and forty wounded. The object of the expedition failed, and the only resource was to keep the Turkish fleet blockaded.
FORE:[158][See larger version]
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FORE:[See larger version]Canning, now rising into note, and Windham, declared that there were no motives for peace, but everything to necessitate the active prosecution of the war; and Windham could not help severely condemning the acquittal of Horne Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, and the rest of the accused Reformers. He was called to order for thus impugning the conduct of independent juries, and reminded that no legal proofs of the guilt of the prisoners had been producedon which he replied that they ought to have been condemned, then, on moral proofs.
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FORE:After the coronation, the queen resided at Brandenburgh House, determined to lead a life of dignified retirement. But the violent agitation and excitement, and the terribly painful mortification to which she was subjected in her ill-advised attempt to form part of the coronation pageant, were too much for her constitution. As soon as it was evident that her end was approaching, much public sympathy was excited, and the vicinity of her residence was incessantly thronged with persons of all classes making anxious inquiries about her health, and solicitous for her restoration. On the 4th of August, when her professional advisers were receiving instructions about the disposition of her property, one of them suggested the propriety of sending a messenger to Italy to seal up her papers, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of her enemies. "And what if they do?" she exclaimed; "I have no papers that they may not see. They can find nothing, because there is nothing, nor ever has been, to impeach my character." One of them said that he was aware of that, but her enemies might put there what they did not find. She replied, "I have always defied their malice, and I defy it still." Nevertheless, it was her conscious failure in her efforts to make the public believe this, coupled with the public humiliation to which she had been subjected, that bowed down her spirit at last, and gave the victory to her enemies. She had painted their characters in vivid colours in her private diary, and might have transmitted their punishment to posterity had she ordered it to be preserved and published; but she gave directions to have it destroyed, and it was burnt in her presence by one of her foreign maids. After suffering intensely for four or five days, she sank into a stupor, from which she never woke, and on the 7th of August, after an entire absence of sense and faculty for more than two hours, expired Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort of George IV., in the fifty-fourth year of her age. She had by her bedside in her last hours her faithful friends and constant attendants, Lord and Lady Hood, and Lady Anne Hamilton; Alderman Wood, who had been devoted to her interests from the first, was also present, as well as her legal and medical advisers.
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FORE:On the 17th of March, a few nights after Mr. Cobden's motion, Mr. Miles brought forward a motion for relief to the agricultural interest in the reduction or remission of taxation. He complained that there had been an importation of wheat during the last thirty-two months seven or eight times greater in amount than in the thirty-six months immediately subsequent to the introduction of the Corn Law of 1828. The abundance of meat in Leadenhall, Smithfield, and Newgate Markets, through the importation of foreign cattle, was also made a subject of reproach against the Ministry, and he told the House, as the spokesman of the agricultural party, "that they had no confidence in the measures which the Government proposed." They thought that anything would be better than their present position. They saw that the tariff which was passed three years ago was now going to be revised again, and that the shield of protection which was thrown over some of the productions of their industry was about to be removed still farther from them. In such circumstances they could not refrain from asking themselves what there was to prevent the Corn Laws from going next? Mr. Disraeli then, in a strain of sarcasm which is stated to have elicited cheers and laughter from the House, assailed the consistency of the Premier, and the tone in which he rebuked the mutinous and rebellious members of his party. He believed, he said, Protection to be in the same condition now as Protestantism had been in 1828, and he, who honoured genius, would rather see the abolition of all Protection proposed by Mr. Cobden than by any right honourable gentleman or by any noble lord on either side of the House. It might be necessary, before such an abolition was accomplished, for the Premier to dissolve the Parliament for the benefit of the party which he had betrayed, and to appeal to the country, which universally mistrusted him. His solemn and deliberate conviction was that a Conservative Government was an organised hypocrisy.Scarcely was the Rockingham Administration formed when they determined to recall England's ablest admiral, Sir George Rodney, and they carried this into execution in May of this year, and appointed Admiral Pigott in his stead. Lord Keppel, who had shown himself so sensitive in his own case, now he was at the head of the Admiralty not only recalled Rodney because he was of another party, but he did it in the coldest and most direct manner, through his secretary, Mr. Stephen. However, before this order of recall was issuedthe 1st of MayRodney had fought one of the greatest and most decisive battles which adorn the history of our navy. He had gone in all haste to the West Indies, with fourteen ships of the line, to join Sir Samuel Hood, who was vainly contending against the fleet of De Grasse and a strong land force at St. Christopher's. But, as De Grasse had landed eight thousand men, under De Bouill, and Hood had no land troops, he could not save the island. After its capture Rodney fell in with him, and their united fleet amounted to thirty-six ships of the line. It was well, for Hood informed Rodney that De Grasse was intending to join the Spanish general, Galvez, at St. Domingo, where they were to sail for a grand attack on the chief of the British West India Islands, Jamaica, almost the only island, excepting Barbadoes and Antigua, which Britain now owned in that part of the globe. On the 8th of April he was signalled that the French fleet was unmoored and proceeding to sea. Rodney instantly put out, and the next morning discovered this fleet under Dominica. The wind being in favour of De Grasse, he stood away for Guadeloupe; but Rodney gave chase, and Hood's squadron getting far in advance, De Grasse veered round in the hope of beating him before the rest of Rodney's fleet could come up. Hood received the fire of three men-of-war in the Barfleur, his ship, for some time; but he stood bravely to the enemy, and the wind now favouring Rodney, he came up and joined in the engagement. Several ships on each side were so much damaged that they were almost useless, and Captain Bayne, of the Alfred, was killed. The next morning the French were nearly out of sight; but Rodney pressed after them, for he knew that if they succeeded in joining the Spaniards, he should have sixty sail, instead of thirty-six, to contend with.
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