TWO:The consequence of the ill-advised despatch of a miserable force of British and Russians to Naples was equally as abortive and as mischievous to the King of Naples as the Northern expedition had proved to the King of Sweden. On the 27th of September of this year, only, a convention had been entered into in Paris between Napoleon and Ferdinand IV., King of Naples, which was ratified by Ferdinand on the 8th of October. By this the French engaged to withdraw their forces from the kingdom of Naples, and Ferdinand to preserve a strict neutrality. The French did, indeed, withdraw, under St. Cyr, to assist Massena in the north of Italy against Austria; and no sooner was this the case than Ferdinand raised his army to the war strength, and the British and Russians came to his support with their united army of twenty thousand men. But the news of the decisive victory of Buonaparte at Austerlitz, which had squandered the Northern coalition, had the same effect here. The Russians and British withdrew, and St. Cyr was ordered by Napoleon to march back into Naples, and punish severely the perfidy of the Court of Naples. He was particularly bitter against the Queen of Naples, to whom he attributed the movement and the total guidance of the king. He declared that she should be precipitated from the throne, should it cost another Thirty Years' War. He sent his brother, Joseph Buonaparte, to take the command of the army, and to assume the government of the country. The king and queen fled, abdicating in favour of their son, the prince royal; but this did not stop the march of the French, who were only too glad of such a plea for possessing themselves of the kingdom of Naples. Pescara, Naples itself, rapidly surrendered to the French. Ga?ta alone, which the governor, the Prince of Hesse Philippsthal, refused to surrender, stood out till the[508] following July. When summoned by the French to yield the fortress, he replied that Ga?ta was not Ulm, nor was he General Mack. But the defence of Ga?ta had no influence on the general fate of Naples, and only precipitated that of its brave defender, who died suddenly, as was asserted, of poison.

TWO:FREE TRADE HALL, MANCHESTER. (From a Photograph by Frith and Co., Reigate.)

TWO:On the 10th of February, 1797, the French made a descent on the Welsh coast, which created much alarm at the time, and no less speculation as to its meaning. Four armed vessels, containing about fourteen hundred men, had appeared in the Bristol Channel, off Ilfracombe, in north Devon. They did not attempt to land there, but stood over to the Welsh coast, and landed in a bay near Fishguard. They were commanded by General Tate, and commenced marching inland, and the whole country was in alarm. Lord Cawdor marched against them with three thousand men, including a considerable body of militia, and they at once laid down their arms and surrendered without a shot. Many were the conjectures as to the object of this descent, and historians have much puzzled themselves about a matter which appears plain enough. The men looked ragged and wild, more like felons than soldiers, and were apparently not unwilling to be made prisoners. They were, no doubt, a part of the great Brest fleet meant for Ireland, which had been driven about by the tempests ever since they quitted that port on the 17th of December, and were only too glad to set foot on any land at all, and probably were by this time so famished and bewildered that they did not know whether they were in England or Ireland. Many of their comrades of the same unfortunate expedition never did see land again.On the 5th of February General Pollock reached Peshawur, and found the troops under Brigadier Wild for the most part sick and disorganised. His first care was to restore the morale of the troops. Even the officers had yielded to an unworthy panic. Some of them openly declared against another attempt to force the Khyber Pass, and one said he would do his best to dissuade every sepoy of his corps from entering it again. Owing to this state of things, Pollock was compelled to remain inactive through the months of February and March, though the eyes of all India were turned upon him, and the most urgent letters reached him from Sale and M'Gregor to hasten to their relief. But the general was resolved not to risk another failure, and his duty was to wait patiently till the health, spirits, and discipline of the troops were restored, and until fresh regiments arrived.

TWO:In the face of such facts it was clear that something must be done, even by a Protectionist Ministry, to diminish the effect of the growing belief that bad legislation was at the bottom of the country's difficulties. In the spring men had looked eagerly for the Budget of the new Ministry. It had been bitterly remarked that at the time when Parliament was prorogued there were nearly 21,000 persons in Leeds whose average earnings were only 11-3/4 d. per week��that in one district in Manchester alone a gentleman had visited 258 families, consisting of 1,029 individuals, whose average earnings were only 7? d. per head a week; and that while millions were in this deplorable condition, the duty on wheat stood at 24s. 8d. a quarter, and Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues demanded four months' leisure at their country abodes before they would permit the Legislature to take the distress of the people into consideration. At length came the meeting of Parliament, at which the Queen in person read the Speech prepared by her Ministers. It acknowledged with deep regret "the continued distress in the manufacturing districts," and that the sufferings and privations which had resulted from it had been "borne with exemplary patience and forbearance." Finally, her Majesty recommended to the consideration of both Houses "the laws which affect the import of corn and other articles." What was the intention of the Ministers was not then known; but it was already understood that, unlike their rivals, who had proposed a fixed duty, the new Government would attempt some modification of the sliding scale. In the account of these transactions which Sir Robert Peel left to be published by his executors after his death, he says:��"One of the first acts of the Government over which I presided (the Government of August, 1841) was to propose a material change in the Corn Law of 1828. I brought the subject under the consideration of my colleagues by means of written memoranda, in preference to proposals made verbally. In the first of these memoranda I recommended my colleagues to undertake the revision of the Corn Laws of 1828, as an act of the Government. In the second, after I had procured their assent to the principle of revision, I submitted a proposal in respect to the extent to which such revision should be carried, and to the details of the new law." Then were seen the first symptoms of that estrangement from his party which reached its climax in 1846. Glaring as was the necessity for change, and evident as it was, even to the body of the landowners, that they must choose between the mild reform of Peel and the more objectionable measure of his antagonists, there were members of the Cabinet who would still have held out for no concession. The Duke of Buckingham retired from the Ministry, and the Duke of Richmond refused to allow his son to move the Address.

TWO:

TWO:On the 14th of September the Russian army filed through the streets of their beloved but doomed city, with sad looks, furled banners, and silent drums, and went out at the Kolomna gate. The population followed them. Rostopschin had encouraged vast numbers already to transplant all their wealth and stores from the place, and, as his last act, he called up two prisoners��a Russian traitor, and a Frenchman who had dropped hostile expressions. The Russian he ordered, with the consent of the culprit's own father, to be put to death; the Frenchman he set at liberty, telling him to go to Buonaparte and say that but one traitor had been found in Russia, and him he had seen cut to pieces. Rostopschin then mounted his horse and rode after his countrymen, having first[47] ordered all the gaols to be set open, and their wretched inhabitants to be allowed to make their escape.

TWO:[265]

TWO:Such was the state of affairs at home and abroad during the recess of 1829. The Government hoped that by the mollifying influence of time the rancour of the Tory party would be mitigated, and that by the proposal of useful measures the Whig leaders would be induced to give them their support, without being admitted to a partnership in power and the emoluments of office. But in both respects they miscalculated. The Duke met Parliament again on the 4th of February, 1830. It was obvious from the first that neither was Tory rancour appeased nor Whig support effectually secured. The Speech from the Throne, which was delivered by commission, was unusually curt and vague. It admitted the prevalence of general distress. It was true that the exports in the last year of British produce and manufacture exceeded those of any former year; but, notwithstanding this indication of an active commerce, both the agricultural and the manufacturing classes were suffering severely in "some parts" of the United Kingdom. There was no question about the existence of distress; the only difference was as to whether it was general or only partial. In the House of Lords the Government was attacked by Earl Stanhope, who moved an amendment to the Address. He asked in what part of the country was it that the Ministers did not find distress prevailing? He contended that the kingdom was in a state of universal distress, likely to be unequalled in its duration. All the great interests��agriculture, manufactures, trade, and commerce��had never at one time, he said, been at so low an ebb. The Speech ascribed the distress to a bad harvest. But could a bad harvest make corn cheap? It was the excessive reduction of prices which was felt to be the great evil. If they cast their eyes around they would see the counties pouring on them spontaneously every kind of solicitation for relief; while in towns, stocks of every kind had sunk in value forty per cent. The depression, he contended, had been continuous and universal ever since the Bank Restriction Act passed, and especially since the suppression of small notes took effect in the beginning of the previous year. Such a universal and continued depression could be ascribed only to some cause pressing alike upon all branches of industry, and that cause was to be found in the enormous contraction of the currency, the Bank of England notes in circulation having been reduced from thirty to twenty millions, and the country bankers' notes in still greater proportion. The Duke of Wellington, in reply, denied that the Bank circulation was less than it had been during the war. In the former period it was sixty-four millions, including gold and silver as well as paper. In 1830 it was sixty-five millions. It was an unlimited circulation, he said, that the Opposition required; in other words, it was wished to give certain individuals, not the Crown, the power of coining in the shape of paper, and of producing a fictitious capital. Capital was always forthcoming[308] when it was wanted. He referred to the high rents paid for shops in towns, which were everywhere enlarged or improved, to "the elegant streets and villas which were springing up around the metropolis, and all our great towns, to show that the country was not falling, but improving." After the Duke had replied, the supporters of the amendment could not muster, on a division, a larger minority than nine. In the House of Commons the discussion was more spirited, and the division more ominous of the fate of the Ministry. The majority for Ministers was only fifty-three, the numbers being 158 to 105. In the minority were found ultra-Tories, such as Sir Edward Knatchbull, who had proposed an amendment lamenting the general distress, Mr. Bankes, Mr. Sadler, and General Gascoigne, who went into the same lobby with Sir Francis Burdett, Lord John Russell, Mr. Brougham, Mr. Hume, and Lord Althorp, representing the Whigs and Radicals; while Lord Palmerston, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Charles Grant, and Sir Stratford Canning represented the Canning party. No such jumble of factions had been known in any division for many years.Amongst the fine arts, the first to which we direct attention, that is, music, was warmly patronised by the Royal Family, and therefore maintained the status which it had acquired in the last reign, though it produced no great original genius. Church music continued to be cultivated, and the anthems of Kent, published in 1773, and those of Nares, published in 1778, were of much merit. To these we may add the services and anthems of Doctors Hayes, Dupuis, Arnold, Cooke, Ayrton, and of Mr. Battishill. The "Shunamite Woman," an oratorio by Arnold, appeared at a later date, as well as the anthems and services of Dr. Whitfield.