ONE:
TWO:The fall of Robespierre produced a marked change in the policy of the Convention towards the Royalists of this district, and they were promised, on laying down their arms, that they[445] should enjoy their country and their religion in peace. On this assurance, Charette signed a treaty of pacification with the agents of the Government at Nantes, in February, 1795. But scarcely was the peace signed, when Charette received a letter from Monsieurbrother of the late king, and now appointed by the Royalist party Regent to the Dauphin, now styled by them Louis XVII.assuring him of his confidence, declaring him the second founder of the monarchy, and appointing him his Lieutenant-General. Charette wrote back to inform him that he had been compelled to sign a peace, but that his submission was only apparent, and when the Royalist affairs were somewhat reinstated, he should be ready to take up arms and die in the service of his prince. The young General Hoche, who was sent to reduce the insurgents of Brittany, whilst Canclaux reduced those of La Vende, did not for a moment believe in the sincerity of the peace. He was aware that Puisaye, the chief of the insurgents in Brittany, was gone to England, to endeavour to induce Pitt to do what all the efforts and importunities of the Bourbon princes and Emigrant nobles had failed to doto send an expedition to the coast of Brittany, with another to the coast of La Vende, in which the British fleet should support the bodies of Emigrants who had, in England and the Channel Islands, formed themselves into regiments for the purpose. Aware of this, he still did all he could to reconcile the peasantry to the peace, and very soon they would have been pacified by this judicious treatment, and been averse from rising again, with a prospect of re-experiencing their former sufferings; but the Bourbon princes and the tribes of Emigrants now driven from the Rhine did not allow them that chance.During his absence from the extreme south, General Graham, with about four thousand British and Portuguese, had quitted Cadiz by sea, and proceeded to Alge?iras, where he landed, intending to take Victor, who was blockading Cadiz, in the rear. His artillery, meanwhile, was landed at Tarifa; and on marching thither by land, over dreadful mountain roads, he was joined, on the 27th of February, by the Spanish General Lape?a, with seven thousand men. Graham consented to the Spaniard taking the chief commandan ominous concession; and the united forcesoon after joined by a fresh body of about one thousand men, making the whole force about twelve thousandthen marched forward towards Medina Sidonia, through the most execrable roads. Victor was fully informed of the movements of this army, and advanced to support General Cassagne, who held Medina Sidonia. No sooner did he quit his lines before Cadiz than the Spanish General De Zogas crossed from the Isle de Leon, and menaced the left of the French army. On this Victor halted at Chiclana, and ordered Cassagne to join him there. He expected nothing less than that Lape?a would manage to join De Zogas, and that fresh forces, marching out of Cadiz and the Isle of Leon, would co-operate with them, and compel him to raise the siege altogether. But nothing so vigorous was to be expected from a Spanish general. Lape?a was so slow and cautious in his movements that[15] Graham could not get him to make any determined advance; and on arriving at the heights of Barrosa, which a Spanish force had been sent forward to occupy, this body of men had quitted their post, and Victor was in possession of these important positions, which completely stopped the way to Cadiz and at the same time rendered retreat almost equally impossible. Lape?a was skirmishing, at about three miles' distance, with an inconsiderable force, and the cavalry was also occupied in another direction. Seeing, therefore, no prospect of receiving aid from the Spaniards, General Graham determined to attack Marshal Victor, and drive him from the heights, though the latter's force was twice as strong as the former's. This Graham did after a most desperate struggle. Had Lape?a shown any vigour or activity, Victor's retreating army might have been prevented from regaining its old lines; but it was in vain that Graham urged him to the pursuit. Lord Wellington eulogised the brilliant action of the heights of Barrosa, in a letter to Graham, in the warmest terms, declaring that, had the Spanish general done his duty, there would have been an end of the blockade of Cadiz. As it was, Victor returned to his lines and steadily resumed the siege. In the meantime, Admiral Keats, with a body of British sailors and marines, had attacked and destroyed all the French batteries and redoubts on the bay of Cadiz, except that of Catina, which was too strong for his few hundred men to take.
ONE:Buonaparte found that, during his absence in Syria, Egypt had been disturbed by insurrections, which Desaix had put down, and had again defeated, and driven back into Upper Egypt, Murad Bey, who had made a descent thence. Soon after his return, however, Murad was once more in motion, descending the Nile in two bodies, and Ibrahim Bey was moving on the frontiers of Syria, as if to form a union with Murad. Lagrange was despatched against Ibrahim, and Murat against Murad. Scarcely were they repulsed when the cause of their man?uvres became evident. A Turkish fleet, containing eighteen thousand men, appeared in the Bay of Alexandria, commanded by Mustapha Pacha. They seized the fort, and, landing, began to fortify themselves, expecting the arrival of the Mamelukes, as had been concerted. On the 25th of July Buonaparte attacked them, and drove in all their outposts; but on coming within reach of their batteries and their gunboats in the bay, the French were checked, and the Turks, rushing out, with their muskets slung at their backs, made terrible havoc amongst them with their sabres, poniards, and pistols. The defeat of Napoleon must have been complete had not the Turks stopped to cut off the heads of the slain, for which they were offered a reward. This gave time for the French to rally. It was now the turn of the Turks to give way, and Murat, who had fought at the head of the troops, followed them so impetuously with the bayonet that the confusion and panic became general. The Turks threw themselves en masse into the sea to regain their ships; and by drowning and the bayonets and bullets of the French, ten thousand out of the eighteen thousand perished. Mustapha Pacha himself was taken, and carried in triumph before[472] Buonaparte. This battle had been fought at Aboukir, near the spot where Nelson had so signally triumphed over them. The victory was the event which Buonaparte needed to enable him to return with credit to France. He immediately embraced it. All his plans and brilliant visions of empire in the East had perished for the present, and private letters from his brothers in Paris, and a number of newspapers, which Sir Sidney Smith had furnished him with to mortify him, roused him to instant action. From these he learnt that the Directory had, as he expected, consummated their unpopularity; that Italy, which he had won to France, was again lost by the other generals. To remain in Egypt was to sink into a sort of provincial or proconsular general; to return to Paris was, by a bold and adroit stroke, to make himself the master of France. He immediately ordered Admiral Gantheaume to have ready a couple of frigates, which lay in the harbour of Alexandria; and, taking with him his favourite generals, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, Berthier, Desaix, Androssy, and Bessieres, and the two principal savants, Monge and Denon, to give an account of the scientific results of the expedition, he rushed on board. He had left the care of the army to Kleber and Menou; and he issued a short proclamation, saying that events in Paris demanded his presence there, but that he would return with all possible expedition. He arrived in Paris without mishap.
TWO:These three eventsthe death of the Duke of York, the appointment of Mr. Canning as Prime Minister, and the entire remodelling of the Cabinet on Liberal principlessucceeding one another so rapidly in the early months of 1827, were regarded as the turning-points in the modern history of England, and fraught with most momentous consequences. The first changed the Heir-Apparent to the Throne, and for an obstinate bigot substituted a prince of popular sympathies. The second represented the triumph of intellect and public opinion over rank and monopoly. "Changes so vast," writes Sir Archibald Alison, "could not fail to exercise a powerful influence on the course of events in future times. The magnitude of the change appeared in the most decided manner when the Ministerial explanations usual in such cases took place in Parliament. Both Houses were crowded to excess, both in the highest degree excited, but the excitement in the two was as different as the poles are asunder: in the Commons it was the triumph of victory, in the Peers the consternation of defeat. So clearly was this evinced that it obliterated for a time the deep lines of party distinction, and brought the two Houses, almost as hostile bodies united under different standards, into the presence of each other. The Commons rang with acclamations when the new Premier made his triumphant explanation from the head of the Ministerial bench; but they were still louder when Mr. Peel, from the cross benches, out of office, said, 'They may call me illiberal and Tory, but it will be found that some of the most necessary measures of useful legislation of late years are inscribed with my name.' The tide of reform had become so strong that even the avowed Tory leaders in the Lower House were fain to take credit by sailing along with it. In the House of Lords, on the other hand, the feeling of the majority was decidedly hostile to the new Administration, and that not merely on the Tory benches, where it might naturally have been looked for, but among the old Whig nobility, who had long considered Government as an appendage of their estates. It was hard to say whether the old peers on both sides responded more strongly to the Duke of Wellington's and Lord Eldon's explanation of their reasons for declining to hold office, or to Earl Grey's powerful and impassioned attack on the new Premier. The division of the two Houses was clearly pronounced; the one presaged its approaching triumph, the other its coming downfall. The secret sense of coming change had raised their numbers in unwonted combinations, and the vital distinction of interest and order had for the time superseded the old divisions of party."
ONE:[See larger version]Whilst these changes had been passing at home, the effervescence in America had grown most riotous and alarming. Boston took the lead in tumultuous fury. In August, the house of Mr. Oliver, the newly appointed stamp-distributor, was attacked and ransacked; his effigy was hanged on a tree, thenceforward honoured by the name of the Liberty Tree. It was then taken down, paraded about the streets, and committed to the flames. The colonel of the militia was applied to, but sent an evasive answer, showing that there were others above the mob who enjoyed what the mob were doing. With this encouragement they broke out afresh, crying, "Liberty and Property!" which, said a colonial authority, "was their cry when they meant to plunder and pull down a house." This time they gutted and partly demolished the houses of the registrar-deputy of the Admiralty, the comptroller of the customs, and the lieutenant-governor, destroying a great quantity of important papers. In New York, delegates assembled from nine different colonial Assemblies. The governor forbade them to gather, declaring their meetings unprecedented and unlawful, but he took no active measures to prevent their deliberations. The Congress met in October, and sat for three weeks. They appointed Mr. Timothy Ruggles, from Massachusetts, their chairman, and passed fourteen resolutions denying the right of the mother country to tax them without their own consent; and they drew up petitions to the king and Parliament. Everywhere associations were established to resist the importation of British manufactures after the 1st of January next,[188] and it was agreed that they should dissolve themselves as soon as the stamp tax was abolished. But it is well known, from letters addressed to Franklin, that the Republican element was already widely spread through the colonies, and this very first opportunity was seized on by its advocates to encourage the idea of throwing off the allegiance to England without further delay.
TWO:With this force, tempted by the battering train, Charles committed the error of wasting his strength on a siege of Stirling Castle, instead of preparing to annihilate the English troops, which were in rapid advance upon him.
