THREE:Had Sir Home Popham been satisfied with this well-executed piece of service, he would have merited honour; but, this being done, he suggested to Sir David Baird that an expedition might be made with advantage against the Spanish colonies in South America. It was reportednot truly, as it turned outthat these colonies were as poorly defended as they were wealthy. Sir David was weak enough to fall into the scheme, and, without any authority from home, as it would appear, for so important a proceeding, he permitted General Beresford to sail in Sir Home's squadron with a part of his forces. The fleet touched at St. Helena, and took in a few more soldiers, but the whole body did not then amount to more than sixteen hundred. With this contemptible handful of men, the British squadron entered the river La Plata, and landed the troops, on the 24th of June, at a short distance from Buenos Ayres. The few Spanish troops in the city were easily routed, and the place capitulated on the 27th, and Beresford entered and took up his quarters there. But he was not long left at peace. The Spaniards discovering, as a matter of course, the insignificance of the force which had thus rashly surprised the city, collected in sufficient numbers to make prisoners of them all. A French officer in the Spanish service, M. Liniers, landed with a thousand men from Monte Video and Sacramento, and, being joined by the troops of the neighbourhood which had been repulsed by Beresford, appeared before the city on the 10th of July, and summoned the British to surrender. This was the signal for the inhabitants to rise en masse and fall on them. They were prevented from escaping to their ships by the badness of the weather, and were assailed from the windows and doors, and exposed to a general attack in the great square, and were compelled to yield, on condition of being allowed to re-embark; but no sooner had they laid down their arms, than Liniers, who probably looked on them as no better than filibusters, treated them as such, and marched them up the country, where they were rigorously treated. Four hundred of them had perished in this mad attempt. Meanwhile, Sir Home Popham had sent home upwards of a million of dollars, reserving two hundred and five thousand for the pay of the army. There were great rejoicings in London at the news, and at the receipt of the specie. Popham, in his despatches, represented himself as having conquered a great colony, and opened up a wonderful mart for our manufactures; and the Ministry, delighted at the receipt of the dollars, though they had, on first hearing of the scheme, sent out orders to stop the squadron, now, on the 20th of September, issued an Order in Council declaring Buenos Ayres and its dependencies open to our trade. Long before this order could have reached America the whole scene was reversed. Sir Home Popham had, indeed, blockaded the river La Plata, and had attempted to bombard Monte Video, but his ships could not get near enough. In October reinforcements arrived from the Cape and from England, but not in sufficient strength to enable him to do anything decisive. He therefore contented himself with landing troops at Maldonado, and drove the Spaniards from the isle of Gorriti, where he lay to, and waited for greater reinforcements.The restrictions, however, if not to any great extent a practical grievance, were felt to be a stigma utterly undeserved, and the necessity for an annual Indemnity Act continually reminded a large, influential, intelligent, energetic portion of the nation of their inferiority to the rest of the king's subjects. The Government felt that public opinion was against them. They therefore allowed the Bill to go into committee without opposition, and there they adopted it as their own by carrying certain amendments. It passed the Commons by a majority of 44, the numbers being 237 to 193. From the tone of the debate in the Commons it was evident that the Government was not sorry to be left in a minority. In the House of Lords the measure encountered more opposition. Lord Eldon, exasperated with the treatment he had received from the Ministers, denounced it with the utmost vehemence. When he heard of its success in the Lower House, he was in a state of consternation.
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THREE:In order to induce the people to attend to their ordinary spring work, and put in the crops, it was found necessary to adopt the plan of distributing free rations. On the 20th of March, therefore, a reduction of twenty per cent. of the numbers employed on the works took place, and the process of reduction went on until the new system of gratuitous relief was brought into full operation. The authority under which this was administered was called the "Temporary Relief Act," which came into full operation in the month of July, when the destitution was at its height, and three millions of people received their daily rations. Sir John Burgoyne truly described this as "the grandest attempt ever made to grapple with famine over a whole country." Never in the history of the world were so many persons fed in such a manner by the public bounty. It was a most anxious timea time of tremendous labour and responsibility to those who had the direction of this vast machinery. This great multitude was, however, rapidly lessened at the approach of harvest, which happily was not affected by the disease. Food became comparatively abundant, and labour in demand. By the middle of August relief was discontinued in nearly one half of the unions, and ceased altogether on September 12th. It was limited by the Act to the 1st of October. This was the second year in which upwards of 3,000,000 of people had been fed out of the hands of the magistrates in Ireland; but it was now done more effectually than at first. Organised armies, it was said, had been rationed before; but neither ancient nor modern history can furnish a parallel to the fact that upwards of three millions of persons were fed every day in the neighbourhood of their own homes, by administrative arrangements emanating from, and controlled by, one central office. The expense of this great undertaking amounted to 1,559,212a moderate sum in comparison with the extent of the service performed, and in which performance the machinery of the Poor Law unions was found to afford most important aid. Indeed, without such aid the service could hardly have been performed at all; and the anticipations of the advantages to be derived from the Poor Law organisation in such emergencies were fully verified.
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THREE:INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1742.
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THREE:The Lord High Commissioner immediately proceeded on his great mission, and after a tedious voyage landed at Quebec on the 29th of May. He took with him, as his private secretary, Mr. Charles Buller, a man of singular ability, an ardent friend of free institutions, gifted with a large mind and generous sympathies, and a spirit that rose superior to all party considerations. A more suitable man could scarcely have been found for such a work. But he also took out with him Mr. Turton and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, men of ability but hopelessly damaged in character. He promptly proceeded to dismiss his Council and to select another of five who had no acquaintance with Canadian politics. He found on his arrival 116 state prisoners, whose trial had been postponed, awaiting his instructions. On the 28th of June the Lord High Commissioner published an ordinance, in which it was stated that Wolfred Nelson, and seven other persons therein named, had acknowledged their guilt, and submitted themselves to her Majesty's pleasure; that Papineau, with fifteen others, had absconded. The former were sentenced to be transported to Bermuda during pleasure, there to be submitted to such restraints as might be thought fit; the latter, if they should return to Canada, were to be put to death without further trial. In each of these cases an unfortunate error was committed. The Lord High Commissioner had no legal authority out of Canada, and could not order the detention of any one at Bermuda; and to doom men to be put to death without further trial, was denounced in Parliament, by Lord Brougham and others, as unconstitutional. Lord Brougham described it as "an appalling fact." Such a proceeding, he said, was "contrary to every principle of justice, and was opposed to the genius and spirit of English law, which humanely supposed every accused party to be innocent until he was proved to be guilty." His reasons for the course he had adopted were given by Lord Durham, in a despatch to the Home Secretary, dated June 29th. The British party, he said, did not require sanguinary punishment; but they desired security for the future, and the certainty that the returning tranquillity of the province would not be arrested by the machinations of the ringleaders of rebellion, either there or in the United States. He said: "I did not think it right to transport these persons to a convict colony, for two reasons; first, because it was affixing a character of moral infamy on their acts, which public opinion did not sanction; and, secondly, because I hold it to be impolitic to force on the colony itself persons who would be looked on in the light of political martyrs, and thus acquire perhaps a degree of influence which might be applied to evil uses in a community composed of such dangerous elements."
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