Both Pitt and Fox died in 1806, and a circumstance occurred in the following year which showed the inveterate obstinacy of the king regarding the Catholics. Lord Howick, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, obtained leave to bring in a Bill to enable Catholics to hold the higher offices in the army and navy; but the king soon let him know that he should not ratify any such Bill, and he agreed to withdraw it. But this did not satisfy George; he demanded from the Ministers a written engagement to propose no further concessions to the Catholics, and as they declined to do this, he dismissed them, and placed the Duke of Portland at the head of a new Cabinet.The first place that reeled under the electric shock of the French Revolution was Glasgow. On the 5th of March, in the afternoon, a body of 5,000 men suddenly assembled on the Green in that city, tore up the iron railings for weapons, and thus formidably armed, they commenced an attack on the principal shops, chiefly those of gunsmiths and jewellers. The police, apprehending no outbreak of the kind, were scattered on their beats, and could afford no protection until forty shops had been pillaged and gutted, and property to the value of 10,000 carried off or destroyed. Next morning about 10,000 persons assembled on the Green, armed with muskets, swords, crowbars, and iron rails, and unanimously resolved"To march immediately to the neighbouring suburb of Calton, and turn out all the workers in the mills there, who, it was expected, would join them; to go from thence to the gas manufactory, and cut the pipes, so as to lay the city at night in darkness; to march next to the gaols and liberate all the prisoners; and to break open the shops, set fire to and plunder the city." They immediately set out for the Calton mills, meeting on their way fourteen pensioners in charge of a prisoner. These they attempted to disarm, but the veterans fired, and two men fell dead. Instantly the rioters raised the cry, "Blood for blood!" and were wresting the muskets from the soldiers, when a squadron of cavalry galloped up with drawn swords. The people fell back, and the riot was suppressed. It afterwards transpired that the Chartists in all the manufacturing towns of the west of Scotland only awaited the signal of success from Glasgow to break out in rebellion. The prompt suppression of the movement was therefore a matter of great importance.
Director
Meanwhile difficulties thickened daily about the king. His Cabinets resigned in rapid succession; there were no less than five of them between March and October; till at last he got a man of nerve for Prime Minister, in the person of Count von Brandenburg. The Ministry addressed a document to the king for the purpose of disclaiming on his behalf the desire to become German Emperor, stating that his assuming the German colours, and putting himself at the head of the movement for German unity, and proposing to summon a meeting of the Sovereigns and States did not justify the interpretation it had received; that it was not his intention to anticipate the unbiassed decision of the sovereign princes and the people of Germany by offering to undertake the temporary direction of German affairs. Thus the king was obliged to back quietly out of a position which he had rashly assumed. The United Diet acted as being itself only a temporary institution, having established the electoral law on the basis of universal suffrage in order to prepare the way for a constituent Assembly, by which means the revolutionary spirit penetrated to the very extremities of Prussian society.Hearing that General Copewho had seen his blunder in leaving open the highway to the Scottish capitalafter having reached Inverness, had begun a rapid march on Aberdeen, trusting to embark his army there, and reach Edinburgh in[95] time to defend it from the rebel army, Charles marched out of Perth on the 11th of September. He reached Dunblane that evening, and on the 13th he passed the fords of Frew, about eight miles above Stirling, knowing that several king's ships were lying at the head of the Firth. On their approach, Gardiner retired with his dragoons from the opposite bank. Stirling, being deserted by the troops, was ready to open its gates; but Charles was in too much haste to reach Edinburgh. Hearing that Gardiner, with his dragoons, intended to dispute the passage of Linlithgow Bridge, Charles sent on one thousand Highlanders, before break of day, under Lord George Murray, in the hope of surprising them; but they found that they had decamped the evening before, and they took peaceable possession of Falkirk and the old palace. The prince himself came up on the evening of that day, Sunday, the 15th, where the whole army passed the night, except the vanguard, which pushed on to Kirkliston, only eight miles from Edinburgh.Having thus arranged with the natives, Clive came to the far more arduous business of compelling the Europeans to conform to the orders of the Company, that no more presents should be received. In his letters home he recommended that to put an end to the examples of corruption in high places, it was necessary that the Governor of Bengal should have a larger salary; that he and others of the higher officers should be prohibited from being concerned in trade; that the chief seat of government should be at Calcutta; and the Governor-General should have the authority, in cases of emergency, to decide independently of the Council. These were all sound views, but to carry them out required the highest exercise of his authority. He exacted a written pledge from the civil servants of the Company that they would receive no more presents from the native princes. To this there was considerable objection, and some resigned; but he carried this through, nominally at least. To sweeten the prohibition of civil servants engaging in trade, he gave them a share in the enormous emoluments of the salt monopolytwo hundred per cent. being laid on the introduction of salt, one of the requisites of life to the natives, from the adjoining state of Madras into that of Bengal.In America, the belligerents were early afoot this year; but the attention and the forces of the English were drawn from the States to the West Indies by the determined attempts of the French to make themselves masters of our islands there. D'Estaing, who was joined by another French squadron under the Marquis de Vaudreuil, was early opposed by Admiral Byron, who arrived at St. Lucia from the American coast on the 6th of January. This Admiral Vaudreuil, on his way, had visited our settlements on the coast of Africa, and taken from us Senegal; but Sir Edward Hughes soon arrived there, and took their settlement of Goree, so that it was a mere exchange of territory. In June Admiral Byron was obliged to escort our merchant fleet to a certain distance, and D'Estaing seized that opportunity to make himself master of St. Vincent and Grenada, where the garrisons were weak. On the return of Byron, on the 5th of July, he came to an engagement with D'Estaing off Grenada; but the French admiral, after an indecisive action, took advantage of the night to sail away, boasting of a great victory. He now made for Georgia and Carolina, to assist the Americans in endeavouring to wrest from us our recent conquest of Savannah, in Georgia.