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On the 20th of May Fox moved for a Grand Committee on courts of justice, to inquire into some late decisions of the courts in cases of libel. Thomas Erskine, the eloquent advocate, had lately, in the case of the Dean of St. Asaph, delivered a most brilliant and effective speech on the right of juries to decide both on fact and on law in such cases, the duty of the judge being only to explain the law. Fox adopted this doctrine of Erskine, and framed his speech in the most glowing terms. He complained, however, that such was not the practice of the courts, and he particularly animadverted on the custom and the doctrine of Lord Mansfield on this subject. He observed that in murder, in felony, in high treason, and in every other criminal indictment, it was the admitted province of the jury to decide both on law and fact. The practice in the case of libel was an anomaly, and clearly ought not to be so. He said that the doctrine which he recommended was no innovation; it had been asserted by John Lilburne, who, when prosecuted for a libel under the Commonwealth, declared that the jury were the real judges, and the judges themselves mere cyphers, so far as the verdict was concerned; and Lilburne had been acquitted, in spite of the judge and of the influence of Cromwell. He reviewed the doctrines of the Stuarts regarding libel, and observed that these could not be wrong then and right now. He contended that the late practice had been a serious inroad on the liberty of the press, and noted the case of the printer of the Morning Herald, who had been tried for merely commenting strongly on the sending of an armament to Nootka Sound, and on the conduct of Parliament in granting supplies for this purpose. He had been condemned to a year's imprisonment and to stand in the pillory. Pitt observed that he had always, since he had had a place in the Ministry, condemned the use of the pillory, and that there could be no difficulty in remitting that part of the sentence in this particular case. He supported Fox's view of the law, and recommended him to bring in two short Bills, instead of going into committee on the subject. Fox followed this advice, and brought in two Billsone to remove doubts respecting the rights and functions of juries in criminal cases; and the other to amend the Act of the 9th of Queen Anne for rendering the proceedings upon writs of Mandamus and informations in the nature of a Quo Warranto more speedy and effectual. The first Bill passed the Commons on the 2nd of June, but was thrown out in the Lords, through the influence of Chancellor Thurlow, who had never forgiven Pitt his contempt of his conduct on the Regency question during the king's malady. This defeated the object of Fox during this Session, but it was carried in the next, and Lord Thurlow's opposition lost him his position. The Great Seal was put into commission.
TWO:The cider tax passed, opposed by thirty-nine Peers and a hundred and twenty Commoners; but it left a very sore feeling in the western counties, that cider, worth only five shillings a hogshead, the poor man's meagre beverage, should have a tax levied on it nearly doubling the price; whilst that at fifty shillings a hogshead, the rich man's luxury, only paid the same. The growers even threatened to let the apples fall and rot under the trees, rather than make them into cider, subject[179] to so partial a tax. No imposition had excited so much indignation since Sir Robert Walpole's Excise Bill, in 1733. In the cider counties bonfires were made in many places, and Bute was burnt emblematically as a jack-bootJack Buteand his supposed royal mistress under that of a petticoat, which two articles, after being carried about on poles, were hurled into the flames.
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    FORE:He despatched a squadron of ten ships of the line to the Mediterranean, under Admiral Haddock; another strong squadron sailed for the West Indies; letters of marque and reprisal were issued to the merchants; and troops and stores were forwarded to Georgia, which the Spaniards had threatened to invade. He gave directions to all merchants in Spanish ports to register their goods with a public notary in case of a rupture. These measures produced a rapid change of tone at the Spanish Court. On comparing the demands on both sides for damages sustained in commerce, there appeared a balance in favour of England of two hundred thousand pounds. Against this, the Spaniards demanded sixty thousand pounds in compensation for the ships taken by Admiral Byng in 1718a claim which Stanhope would never allow, but which had been recognised in the Treaty of Seville, and was now, therefore, acknowledged. This reduced the sum to a hundred and forty thousand pounds, which the Spanish Court proposed should be paid by assignments on the American revenues. This, the Ministers were well aware, might involve the most endless delays and uncertainties, and they certainly showed a most conceding spirit by allowing a deduction of forty-five thousand pounds for prompt payment at Madrid. The sum was now reduced to ninety-five thousand pounds; and this being agreed to, a convention was signed on the 14th of January, 1739.
    FORE:No sooner did Howe return to port than he had orders to sail in aid of Gibraltar, which was not only greatly in need of stores and provisions, but was menaced by the combined armies and fleets of France and Spain with one great and overwhelming attack. The evil fortune of England did not yet, however, seem to have disappeared, for the Royal George, the finest vessel in the service, went down in a sudden squall. But this awful catastrophe did not hinder the sailing of Lord Howe. He had by great exertion mustered a fleet of thirty-four sail-of-the-line, and on the 11th of September steered out for Gibraltar. For upwards of three years this famous rock had now been beleaguered. After the relief thrown in by Admiral Darby, the Spaniards, despairing of reducing the garrison by blockade, determined to destroy the town and works by a terrific bombardment. This bombardment was, accordingly, opened with unexampled fury, and continued incessantly for days and weeks. The town was set on fire, and numbers of houses consumed; the damage done to the ramparts and public buildings was appalling. General Elliot displayed the utmost temper and skill during this bombardment, as he did throughout the whole siege. He continued by night, and at other opportunities, to repair actively the damages done; and, reserving his fire for occasions when he saw a chance of doing particular damage, he caused the enemy to wonder at the little impression that they made.The army of Lord Cornwallis, which had so triumphantly pursued Washington through the Jerseys, supposing the Americans now put beyond all possibility of action, if not wholly dispersed, lay carelessly in their cantonments on the left bank of the Delaware. The two main outposts, Trenton and Bordentown, were entrusted to bodies of Hessians. At Trenton lay Colonel Rahl, and at Bordentown Count Donop. As the Christmas of 1776 was approaching, they had abandoned all discipline. The British officers, too, had mostly quitted their regiments, and had gone to enjoy the Christmas at New York, where General Howe was keeping up great hospitality, imagining the war to be fast drawing to a close. But if the English paid no attention to Washington, he was paying every attention to them. His plans arranged, he set out on the evening of Christmas day, 1776, and crossed the river at Mackonkey's Ferry, nine miles above Trenton, to attack that fort. The river was so encumbered with ice that he found it a most arduous undertaking, but he accomplished it with the division immediately under his commandtwo thousand four hundred in number. He continued his march through the night on Trenton, and reached it at about eight o'clock in the morning. A trusted spy had informed him over night, that he had seen the soldiers, both British and Hessians, asleep, steeped in drink. When he arrived, the soldiers still lay sunk in their Christmas debauch; and it was only by the first crash of the cannon that they were roused. When they ran to arms Washington had already invested the town. The brave Colonel Rahl, in his endeavour to form his drunken troops, and lead them on, was mortally wounded by an American rifle, almost at the first discharge. The light horse and a portion of the infantry, who fled on the first alarm, escaped to Bordentown. The main body attempted to retreat by the Princeton Road, but found it already occupied by Colonel Hand and his regiment of Pennsylvanian riflemen. Thus cut off, ignorant of the force opposed to them, and without enthusiasm for the cause, they threw down their arms and surrendered. About a thousand prisoners and six cannon were taken. The Americans had two killed, two frozen to death, and a few wounded. As soon as Washington had refreshed his men, he re-crossed the Delaware, carrying with him his prisoners, the stores he had taken, and the six field-pieces that he brought with him.
    FORE:Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren's, and an assistant of Vanbrugh's in building Castle Howard and Blenheim House, was the architect of St. George's-in-the-East, Ratcliff Highway, begun in 1715; of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street; of St. George's, Bloomsbury; St. Anne's, Limehouse; of Easton Norton House, in Northamptonshire; and of some other works, including a mausoleum at Castle Howard, and repairs of the west front of Westminster Abbey. St. George's, Bloomsbury, is perhaps his finest structure. It has a Corinthian portico, like St. Martin's, and the steeple is surmounted by a statue of George II.After this complete surrender the House resumed its labours in committee on the Bill on the 1st of June. Few alterations were made, and the thinned ranks of the Opposition ceased to throw obstacles in the way. The third reading was carried by a majority of 84, the numbers being 106 and 22. The Lords' amendments having been acquiesced in by the Commons, the Bill was referred to the Upper House, and on the 7th of June it received the Royal Assent by commission, the Commissioners being Lords Grey, Brougham, Lansdowne, Wellesley, Holland, and Durham. The king was so hurt by the coercion to which he had been subjected, and by the insults heaped upon himself, the queen, and all belonging to him, that nothing could persuade him to go to the House and give his assent in person. "The question," he said, "was one of feeling, not of duty; and as a Sovereign and a gentleman he was bound to refuse."
    FORE:When, therefore, Lord Wellington pondered over matters in Madrid, he looked in vain for anything like a regular Spanish army, after all the lessons which had been given to them. The army of Galicia, commanded by Santocildes, considered the best Spanish force, had been defeated by Clausel, himself in the act of escaping from Wellington. Ballasteros had a certain force under him, but his pride would not allow him to co-operate with Lord Wellington, and he was soon afterwards dismissed by the Cortes from his command. O'Donnel had had an army in Murcia, but he, imagining that he could cope with the veteran troops of Suchet, had been most utterly routed, his men flinging away ten thousand muskets[29] as they fled. Moreover, Wellington had been greatly disappointed in his hopes of a reinforcement from Sicily. He had urged on Ministers the great aid which an efficient detachment from the army maintained by us in Sicily might render by landing on the eastern coast of Spain, and clearing the French out of Catalonia, Valencia, and Murcia. This could now be readily complied with, because there was no longer any danger of invasion of Sicily from Naples, Murat being called away to assist in Buonaparte's campaign in Russia. But the plan found an unexpected opponent in our Commander-in-Chief in Sicily, Lord William Bentinck. Lord William at first appeared to coincide in the scheme, but soon changed his mind, having conceived an idea of making a descent on the continent of Italy during Murat's absence. Lord Wellington wrote earnestly to him, showing him that Suchet and Soult must be expelled from the south of Spain, which could be easily effected by a strong force under British command landing in the south-east and co-operating with him from the north, or he must himself again retire to Portugal, being exposed to superior forces from both north and south. The expedition was at length sent, under General Maitland, but such a force as was utterly useless. It did not exceed six thousand men; and such men! They were chiefly a rabble of Sicilian and other foreign vagabonds, who had been induced to enlist, and were, for the most part, undisciplined.The prejudiced old man fought with desperation against the measure in the Lords. He was tremendously severe on the Government. He said, much as he had heard of the march of mind, he did not believe that the march could have been so rapid as to induce some of the changes of opinion which he had witnessed within the last year. His opinions are now among the curiosities of a bygone age. His idea of religious liberty may be seen from the following:"The Sacramental Act, though often assailed, had remained ever since the reign of Charles II., and the Annual Indemnity took away all its harshness. The obnoxious Act did not interfere with the rights of conscience, as it did not compel any[267] man to take the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England, and only deprived him of office if he did not." He concluded by solemnly saying, "From his heart and soul, 'Not Content.'" He was effectually answered by the Duke of Wellington, and the Bill was read a second time, without a division, on the 17th of April. On the 21st he proposed an amendment to exclude Roman Catholics from the benefit of the measure by inserting in the declaration the words, "I am a Protestant." The amendment was negatived by 117 to 55; but so eager was he to have it adopted, that he renewed it on the third reading of the Bill, when the Contents were 52, Not Contents 154. Still he entered on the Journals a violent protest against the Bill, in which he was joined by the Duke of Cumberland and nine other peers. As soon as the measure was carried, all the world acknowledged the Duke of Wellington's sagacity in declining the offer of Lord Eldon to return to office; for if that sturdy adherent to ancient prejudices had been Lord Chancellor or President of the Council, the Government must either have been speedily dissolved by internal dissensions or overthrown by a vain resistance to the popular voice.
  • TUXEDO
    FORE:Thus the Cabinet was evidently fast breaking up, when Mr. Littleton introduced his Tithe Bill. Its object was much the same as Mr. Stanley's Act of 1832 for the Compulsory Commutation of Tithe. This last Act had been a failure, and Mr. Littleton was compelled to ask Parliament to grant the sum of 1,000,000 to pay the arrears. He hoped to remedy its defects by reducing the number of people who were liable to tithe, and then, after the 1st of November, to commute the tithe into a land tax, payable to the State, to reduce its amount by one-fifth, and to allow any person having a substantial interest in the estate to redeem the residue of it, after five years had expired, on easy terms. After a number of stormy debates the progress of the measure seemed assured, when Lord John Russell went out of his way to express his views in favour of the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to secular purposes. Stanley wrote to Graham the laconic note, "Johnny has upset the coach." Indeed, the declaration was the more indiscreet because the Cabinet was hopelessly divided on the point.
    FORE:In 1831 the number of churches and chapels of the Church of England amounted to 11,825; the number in 1851, as returned to the census officer, was 13,854, exclusive of 223 described as being "not separate buildings," or as "used also for secular purposes," thus showing an increase in the course of twenty years, of more than 2,000 churches. Probably the increase was, in reality, still larger, as it can hardly be expected that the returns were altogether perfect. The greater portion of this increase is attributable to the self-extending power of the Churchthe State not having in the twenty years contributed, in aid of private benefactions, more than 511,385 towards the erection of 386 churches. If we assume the average cost of each new edifice to be about 3,000, the total sum expended in this interval (exclusive of considerable sums devoted to the restoration of old churches) will be 6,087,000. The chief addition occurred, as was to be expected and desired, in thickly peopled districts, where the rapid increase of inhabitants rendered such additional accommodation most essential. In the ten years between 1821 and 1831 there was an addition of 276 churches; from 1831 to 1841, 667 were added. Taking the Nonconformist communities, we find the statistics of the progress of the Independents, or Congregationalists, to be scarcely less remarkable than those of the Established Church. The earliest account of the number of Independent congregations refers to 1812. Before that period Independent and Presbyterian congregations were returned together. At that time the number of Independent churches in England and Wales was a little over 1,000. In 1838 the churches had increased to 1,840, and the census of 1851 made the number 3,244, of which 640 were in Wales. These places of worship furnished sittings for 1,063,000 persons.Sir Charles Barry was the architect of numerous buildings, but his greatest work was the New Palace of Westminster. When the old Houses of Parliament were burned down in 1834, amongst the numerous designs sent in Mr. Barry's was selected, and he had the honour of constructing the magnificent temple of legislation in which the most powerful body in the world debates and deliberates, upon the old, classic site, rendered sacred by so many events in our history. It has been disputed whether the style of the building is altogether worthy of the locality and the object, and whether grander and more appropriate effects might not have been produced by the vast sums expended. But it has been remarked in defence of the artist, that the design was made almost at the commencement of the revival of our national architecture, and that, this fact being considered, the impression will be one of admiration for the genius of the architect that conceived such a work; and the conviction will remain that by it Sir Charles Barry did real service to the progress of English art.
    FORE:The Ministers and their supporters were complimentary, as a matter of course, to the new Sovereign, who had graciously continued them in their offices; and the Whigs, who had ascribed their exclusion from power to the personal dislike of the king, were resolved that there should not be again any obstacle of the kind, and that they would keep upon the best possible terms with the Court. During the previous part of the Session they had kept up a rapid fire of motions and questions upon the Government, especially with regard to the public expenditure, the distress of the operatives, and the necessity of rigid economy and large retrenchment. The attacks were led by Sir James Graham, who, though he was always left in a minority in the divisions on his motions, did much to weaken the Government by exciting public feeling against them on the ground of their alleged heartless extravagance, while many of the people were starving and the country was said to be going fast to destruction. The Duke of Wellington, however, moved an answer to the Royal Message, declaring that they would forward the measure necessary to provide for the temporary supply required. He suggested that as everybody would be occupied about the coming elections, the best mode of proceeding would be to dissolve at once. Lord Grey, in the name of the Opposition, complained of this precipitancy, and delivered a long speech full of solemn warnings of evil. He supposed that the king might die before the new Parliament was chosen; the Heir Apparent was[313] a child in fact, though not in law. No regency existing, she would be legally in the possession of her full regal power, and this was a situation which he contended would be fraught with danger. A long, unprofitable wrangle ensued, dull repetitions dragged out the debate, when at length the Duke wisely refused to accede to the proposition for a useless interval of delay, and proved the numerical strength of the Administration. Lord Grey having moved for an adjournment to allow time for providing a regency, the motion was lost by a majority of 44, the numbers being 56 against 100.Soon after, a resolute attack was made on the right of the British centre by a great body of cavalry, which rode impetuously into the front of the squares and of thirty pieces of artillery. Though cut down in heaps, they drove the artillerymen from their guns, but these only retreated amongst the infantry, carrying with them the implements for serving the guns, and, the moment the infantry repelled their assailants a little, the men were at their guns again, and renewed the firing. The cuirassiers fought most undauntedly; they rode along the very front of the squares, firing their pistols into them, or cutting at them with their swords. Again and again they dashed forward to break the squares, but in every instance were met with such a destructive fire that they were compelled to draw off, only a mere fragment of this fine cavalry surviving this heroic but fatal attempt. From that time the French continued the battle chiefly by an incessant fire of artillery along the whole line, which the British avoided in great part by lying on their faces.
  • SWEATER
  • SHOES
  • GLASSES
  • T-SHIRT
  • WATCHES
THREE:[573]But, whilst Congress was sitting, the spirit of revolution was every day growing more rife in Massachusetts. Governor Gage had issued writs for a new Assembly, which was to meet at Salem on the 5th of October; but so many of the newly appointed members refused to act, that he issued a proclamation to countermand the writs. The patriots, however, set the proclamation at defiance; and confident, from the resignation of the timid loyalists, that they were in a majority, met at Salem, and formed themselves into a provincial congress, to be joined by such other persons as[214] should be chosen for the consideration of public affairs. They then adjourned to Concord, a town about twenty miles from Boston, and elected John Hancock, the owner of the Liberty sloop, as president. They then adjourned to Cambridge, and constituted Concord the dep?t of arms and ammunition for twelve thousand militia. They enrolled the militia under the name of "Minute Men," or men who were to turn out, at a minute's notice, with musket or rifle. They appointed committees and sub-committees for different purposes, and, in fact, put the province into a perfect attitude of war.

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THREE:On the 19th Collingwood signalled Nelson that the French fleet was coming out of Cadiz. On the morning of the 21st, when the British fleet lay about seven leagues north-west of Cape Trafalgar, the hostile fleet was discovered about seven miles to the eastward. Nelson ordered the fleet to bear down on the enemy. As Villeneuve approached, he veered so as to bring Cadiz under his lee, and thus secure a retreat into it. This compelled Nelson to shift his course a little more northward. Villeneuve had preconcerted a plan of action which he boasted would prevent Nelson from cutting his line, as was his custom. He determined to advance in two lines, with each alternate ship about a cable's length to the windward of her second ahead and astern, so that his fleet would represent the chequers of a draft-board. This plan, however, did not succeed. Nelson found now the shoals of San Pedro and Trafalgar under the lee of both fleets, and, dreading that he might be carried upon them at the end of the battle, he signalled, from the Victory, for the fleet to anchor at the close of the day. He then told Blackwood that he should not be satisfied unless he took twenty of the enemy's ships, and asked him whether he thought a general signal of action were not wanting. Blackwood replied that he thought the fleet all understood what they were about. But Nelson hoisted on his mizen top-mast his last signal"England expects every Man to do his Duty." It was seen, and responded to with loud hurrahs.Poland, abandoned to her own resources, made a brave but ineffectual defence. The Russians received several severe checks in their advance. At Zadorsk, at Palorma, and finally at Dulienska, the Poles fought them gallantly. At the last-named battle, on the 17th of July, the heroic Kosciusko made terrible havoc of the Russian lines, and was only prevented from utterly routing them by his flank being turned by another arrival of Russians, whom the Emperor Francis, of Austria, had allowed to march through Galicia. The Russians advanced to Warsaw, took regular possession of it, and of all the towns and military[399] forts throughout the country. They dismissed the patriot officers of the army, and dispersed the army itself in small divisions into widely-separated places. They abolished the new Constitution, thrust the burgher class again out of their newly-acquired privileges, and put the press under more ignominious restrictions than before. They confiscated the estates of nobles who had advocated the new reforms. Both Catherine and her Ministers treated the idea of any partition of Poland as the most groundless and ridiculous of notions. They pointed to the invasion of Germany already by Custine, the French Revolutionary general, and justified the temporary occupation of Poland as necessary to the security of both Poland and the neighbouring states. We must leave the three robber Powers, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, therefore, gloating over their prey, and ready to rend it asunder, in order to continue the narrative of the wild explosion of France.

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THREE:NIAGARA FALLS.No sooner was this motion made than Spencer Perceval rose to oppose it. Sidmouth worked upon the king's feelings by sending in his resignation, and the Duke of Portland had offered to form a Ministry in accordance with the king's feelings. The Bill was, notwithstanding, brought in, read a first time, and the second reading fixed for the 12th of March. But now it was found that the king, who had previously received the Ministerial proposal without any comment, seeing his way clear with another Ministry, refused even his qualified consent to the prosecution of the measure. The Ministers postponed the second reading to the 18th, promising an after-statement of their reasons. But their reasons were already well known in both Houses of Parliament through the private communications of the embryo Cabinet. On the 25th of March there were motions made in both Houses for an adjournment: this was to allow the new Ministry to be announced in the interval. In the Lords, Earl Grenville seized the opportunity to make some observations in defence of the conduct of his Cabinet during its possession[534] of office. He said they had entered it with the determination to carry these important measures, if possible: the Sinking Fund, the abolition of the Slave Trade, and the relief of the Catholics. He was happy to say that they had carried two of them; and though they had found the resistance in a certain quarter too strong for them to carry the third, they conceived that never did the circumstances of the times point out more clearly the sound policy of granting it. France had wonderfully extended her power on the Continent; peace between her and the nations she had subdued would probably lead Buonaparte to concentrate his warlike efforts on this country. What so wise, then, as to have Ireland attached to us by benefits? With these views, the king, he said, had been induced to allow Ministers to make communications to the Catholics of Ireland through the Lord-Lieutenant, which he had seemed to approve; yet when these communications as to the intended concessions had been made, his Majesty had been induced to retract his assent to them. Ministers had then endeavoured to modify the Bill so as to meet his Majesty's views; but, not succeeding, they had dropped the Bill altogether, reserving only, in self-justification, a right to make a minute on the private proceedings of the Cabinet, expressing their liberty to bring this subject again to the royal notice, as circumstances might seem to require; but now his Majesty had called upon them to enter into a written obligation never again to introduce the subject to his notice, or to bring forward a measure of that kind. This, he said, was more than could be expected of any Ministers of any independence whatever. The point was, of course, of some constitutional importance, but there was much truth in Sheridan's remark: "I have often heard of people knocking out their brains against a wall, but never before knew of anyone building a wall expressly for the purpose."

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THREE:While these changes were being made in Italy, the British, with their new allies, the Russians, made an abortive attempt to drive the French from Holland. An army of seventeen thousand Russians and thirteen thousand British was assembled on the coast of Kent, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was destined to fall on a more memorable field, taking the command of a division of twelve thousand men, Admiral Mitchell put them across to the coast of Holland. Abercromby landed, and took the fort of the Helder, and our fleet, occupying the Texel, compelled the Dutch fleet to surrender and mount the Orange flag. So long as Abercromby commanded, he repelled all the attacks of the French general, Brune, with a force more than double in number; but on the 13th of September the Duke of York arrived with the remainder of the Anglo-Russian army and took the chief command. From that moment all went wrong. The old want of success followed the royal duke, who, whatever his courage, certainly possessed no abilities as a general. By the 17th of October, notwithstanding the bravery of his troops, he was glad to sign a convention by which he was allowed to withdraw his army, on condition of the liberation of eight thousand French and Dutch prisoners of war in England. In Switzerland, too, Massena defeated Korsakoff at Zurich, and Suvaroff, believing himself to have been betrayed by the Austrians, effected a brilliant retreat over the mountains.In the meantime the Chartists had made their preparations. The members of the National Convention met early in the morning at its hall in John Street, Fitzroy Square, and after this the members took their places in a great car, which had been prepared to convey them to the Common. It was so large that the whole Convention and all the reporters who attended it found easy accommodationMr. Feargus O'Connor and Mr. Ernest Jones sitting in the front rank. It was drawn by six fine horses. Another car drawn by four horses contained the monster petition, with its enormous rolls of signatures. Banners with Chartist mottoes and devices floated over these imposing vehicles. The Convention thus driven in state passed down Holborn, over Blackfriars Bridge, and on to the Common, attended by 1,700 Chartists, marching in procession. This was only one detachment; others had started from Finsbury Square, Russell Square, Clerkenwell Green, and Whitechapel. The largest body had mustered in the East, and passed over London Bridge, numbering about 6,000. They all arrived at the Common about ten o'clock, where considerable numbers had previously assembled; so the Common appeared covered with human beings. In all monster meetings there are the widest possible differences in the estimates of the numbers. In this case they were set down variously at 15,000, 20,000, 50,000, and even 150,000. Perhaps 30,000 was the real number present.
THREE:The brilliant successes of this campaign had clearly been the result of Pitt's plans before quitting office. Bute and his colleagues had no capacity for such masterly policy, and as little perception of the immense advantages which these conquests gave them in making peace. Peace they were impatient forless on the great grounds that peace was the noblest of national blessings, than because the people grumbled at the amount of taxationand because, by peace, they diminished, or hoped to diminish, the prestige of the great Minister, who had won such vast accessions to the national territory. Bute was eager to come to terms with France and Spain, regardless of the advantages he gave to prostrate enemies by showing that impatience. Had he made a peace as honourable as the war had been, he would have deserved well of the country; but to accomplish such a peace required another stamp of mind.
THREE:These events were a little diversified by the storming of Algiers on the 27th of August. In 1815 the Government of the United States of America had set the example of punishing the piratical depredations of the Algerines. They seized a frigate and a brig, and obtained a compensation of sixty thousand dollars. They do not appear to have troubled themselves to procure any release of Christian slaves, or to put an end to the practice of making such slaves; and, indeed, it would have been rather an awkward proposal on the part of North Americans, as the Dey might have demanded, as a condition of such a treaty, the liberation of some three millions of black slaves in return. But at the Congress of Vienna a strong feeling had been shown on the part of European Governments to interfere on this point. It was to the disgrace of Great Britain that, at the very time that she had been exerting herself so zealously to put an end to the negro slave trade, she had been under engagements of treaty with this nest of corsairs; and Lord Cochrane stated in Parliament this year that only three or four years before it had been his humiliating duty to carry rich presents from our Government to the Dey of Algiers. But in the spring of this year it was determined to make an effort to check the daring piracies of Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. Lord Exmouth was sent to these predatory Powers, but rather to treat than to chastise; and he effected the release of one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two Christian slaves. From Tunis and Tripoli he obtained a declaration that no more Christian slaves should be made. The Dey of Algiers refused to make such concession till he had obtained the permission of the Sultan. Lord Exmouth gave him three months to determine this point, and returned home. A clause in the treaty which he had made with Algiers ordered that Sicily and Sardinia should pay nearly four hundred thousand dollars for the ransom of their subjects; they accordingly paid it. This clause excited just condemnation in England, as actually acknowledging the right of the Algerines to make Christian slaves.
THREE:But on the 29th of February, 1776, the treaties lately entered into by the British Government with a number of German princes to furnish troops to fight in America, were laid on the table of the Commons; and intense indignation was raised against this most odious and impolitic measure. There had been negotiations with Russia for the purpose of procuring her savages to put down our kinsmen in America; but this barbarous attempt had failed. It was more successful with the petty princes of Germany. The Duke of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and other little despots, now greedily seized on the necessity of England, to drive the most extravagant terms with her. Under the name of levy-money, they were to receive seven pounds ten shillings for every man; and besides maintaining them, we were to pay to the Duke of Brunswick, who supplied four thousand and eighty-four men, a subsidy of fifteen thousand five hundred and nineteen pounds; the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who furnished twelve thousand men, did not get such good terms as Brunswickhe had ten thousand pounds; the hereditary Prince of Hesse received six thousand pounds a-year, for only six hundred and eighty-eight men. Besides this, the men were to begin to receive pay before they began to march. Brunswick was also to get double his sum, or thirty-one thousand and thirty-eight pounds a-year, for two years after they had ceased to serve; and the Landgrave of Hesse was to receive twelve months' notice of the discontinuance of the payment after his troops had returned to his dominions. The payment for 1776 was to be four hundred and fifty thousand crowns, or nearly one hundred thousand pounds. The Prince of Waldeck soon after engaged to furnish six hundred and seventy men on equally good terms. Beyond all these conditions, England was bound to defend the dominions of those princes in the absence of their troops. The independent members of both Houses nobly discharged their duty in condemnation of this engagement of German mercenaries, but without effect, and the king prorogued Parliament, under the pleasing delusion that his foreign troops would soon bring his rebellious subjects to reason; and the Ministers apparently as firmly shared in this fallacious idea.
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    But Wellington was not intending to stop here. He immediately made preparations for the siege of Badajoz. He had artillery sent out to sea from Lisbon, as for some distant expedition, and then secretly carried, in small boats, up the Setubal, to Alcacer do Sal, and thence, by land, across Alemtejo to the Guadiana. On the 16th of March, after a rapid march, he reached, with a strong body of troops, the Guadiana, crossed, and at once invested Badajoz. By the 26th he had carried the Picurina and the advanced work separated from the city by the little river Rivillas, and made two breaches in the city walls. There was the same want of besieging tools and battering trains which had retarded his operations before; but the men worked well, and on the 6th of April, there being three breaches open, orders were given to storm, for Soult was collecting his forces at Seville to raise the siege. One of the breaches had been so strongly barricaded by General Philippon, the governor of Badajoz, by strong planks bristling with iron spikes, and with chevaux-de-frise of bayonets and broken swords, that no effect could be produced on the obstruction; whilst the French, from the ramparts and the houses overlooking them, poured down the most destructive volleys. But the parties at the other two breaches were more successful, and on their drawing away the French from this quarter, the spike-beams and chevaux-de-frise were knocked down, and the British were soon masters of the place. Philippon endeavoured to escape with a number of men, but he was obliged to throw himself into Fort San Christoval, on the other side the Guadiana, where he was compelled to surrender. The loss of the allies was nearly one thousand men killed, including seventy-two officers, and three hundred and six officers and three thousand four hundred and eighty men wounded. The French, though they fought under cover of batteries and houses, lost nearly one thousand five hundred men; they also delivered up upwards of five thousand prisoners of their own nation, and nearly four thousand Spaniards, British, and Portuguese, who had been kept at Badajoz as a safe fortress. The British soldiers fought with their usual undaunted bravery, but they disgraced themselves by getting drunk in the wine cellars during the night of the storming, and committed many excesses. Wellington, who was extremely rigorous in suppressing all such conduct, reduced them to discipline as quickly as possible, and on the 8th Badajoz was completely in his hands. Soult, who was at Villafranca when he received the news, immediately retreated again on Seville, briskly pursued by the British cavalry, who did much execution on his rear-guard at Villagarcia.As it was, the extreme caution of Kutusoff saved Buonaparte and the little remnant of his army that ever reached France again. Buonaparte left Smolensk with only forty thousand, instead of four hundred and seventy thousand men, which he had on entering Russia, and a great part of the Italian division of Eugene was cut off by the Russians before the Viceroy could come up with Buonaparte. Napoleon, therefore, halted at Krasnoi, to allow of the two succeeding divisions coming up; but Kutusoff took this opportunity to fall on Buonaparte's division, consisting of only fifteen thousand men, and attacked it in the rear by cannon placed on sledges, which could be brought rapidly up and as rapidly made to fall back.Such a tremendous crash in the commercial world could not have occurred without involving the working classes in the deepest distress. In order fully to understand all that society has gained by the instruction of the people, by extending to them the blessings of education, and especially by the diffusion of useful knowledge through the medium of cheap literature, we have only to read the records of popular disturbance and destructive violence which occurred in 1825 and 1826. In the August of the former year there was a combination of seamen against the shipowners at Sunderland; and on one occasion there was a riot, when a mob of some hundreds flung the crew of a collier into the sea. They were rescued from drowning, but, the military having fired on the rioters, five persons were killed. Their funeral was made the occasion of a great popular demonstration. There was a procession with flags, and a band of singers, twelve hundred seamen walking hand in hand, each with crape round the left arm. In the Isle of Man the people rose against the tithing of their potatoes, and were quieted only by the assurance that the tithe would not be demanded of them, either that year or at any future time. In the spring of 1826 the operatives of Lancashire rose up in open war against the power-looms, the main cause of the marvellous prosperity that has since so largely contributed to the wealth of England. They believed that the power-looms were the cause of their distress, and in one day every power-loom in Blackburn, and within six miles of it, was smashed; the spinning machinery having been carefully preserved, though at one time the spinning jennies were as obnoxious as the power-looms. The work of destruction was not confined to one town or neighbourhood. The mob proceeded from town to town, wrecking mill after mill, seizing upon bread in the bakers' shops, and regaling themselves freely in public-houses. They paraded the streets in formidable numbers, armed with whatever weapons they could lay hands onscythes, sledge-hammers, and long knives. They resisted the troops fiercely, showering upon them stones and other missiles. The troops, in their turn, fired upon the crowds, and when they were dispersed the streets were stained with blood, the mob carrying away their wounded into the fields. In one week no less than a thousand power-looms were destroyed, valued at thirty thousand pounds. In Manchester the mob broke the windows of the shops. At Carlisle, Norwich, Trowbridge, and other places in England, similar lawless proceedings occurred. Even in Glasgow the blame of the general distress was thrown upon the machinery, not only by the ignorant operatives, but by the gentry and the magistrates. In Dublin the silk-weavers marched through the streets, to exhibit their wretchedness.[See larger version]Buonaparte had arrived in Rochefort on the 3rd of Julyonly fifteen days after the battle of Waterloo. The two frigates provided by the Provisional Government to convey him to Americathe Saale and the Medusa, accompanied by the corvette Balladire and the large brig Epervierlay in the Aix roads; but Buonaparte was very sure that the British Government would not permit them to sail. That Government, anticipating such an event as the endeavour of Napoleon to make his escape to Americawhence he might watch his opportunity of once more renewing the troubles of the worldhad, immediately after the battle of Waterloo, placed no less than thirty vessels of different descriptions along the whole coast of France, from Ushant to Cape Finisterre, thus making it impossible for any vessel to pass out of a French port without undergoing the severest search. Napoleon thereupon embarking in a British frigate, the Bellerophon, wrote a theatrical letter, claiming the hospitality of the Prince Regent:
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