THREE:[See larger version]In pursuance of this resolution, Lord John Russell, soon after the meeting of Parliament in 1851, introduced his Jewish Emancipation Bill once more. The usual arguments were reiterated on both sides, and the second reading was carried by the reduced majority of 25. In the House of Lords the second reading was moved by the Lord Chancellor, on the 17th of July, when it was thrown out by a majority of 36. In the meantime Alderman Salomons had been returned as member for Greenwich, and, following the example of Baron Rothschild, he appeared at the bar, and offered to take the oath on the Old Testament, omitting the phrase, "on the true faith of a Christian." The Speaker then desired him to withdraw; but he took a seat, notwithstanding. The order of the Speaker was repeated in a more peremptory tone, and the honourable member retired to a bench behind the bar. The question of his right to sit was then debated. Sir Benjamin Hall asked the Ministers whether they were disposed to prosecute Mr. Salomons, if he persisted in taking his seat, in order to test his legal right. Lord John Russell having answered in the negative, Mr. Salomons entered the House, amidst loud cries of "Order!" "Chair!" the Speaker's imperative command, "Withdraw!" ringing above all. The Speaker then appealed to the House to enforce his order. Lord John Russell then moved a resolution that Mr. Salomons should withdraw. Mr. Bernal Osborne moved an amendment. The House became a scene of confusion; and in the midst of a storm of angry cries and counter-cries, Mr. Anstey moved the adjournment of the debate. The House divided and Mr. Salomons voted with the minority. The House again divided on Mr. Bernal Osborne's amendment, that the honourable gentleman was entitled to take his seat, which was negatived by 229 against 81. In defiance of this decision, Mr. Salomons again entered and took his seat. He then addressed the House, stating that it was far from his desire to do anything that might appear contumacious or presumptuous. Returned by a large constituency, he appeared in defence of their rights and privileges as well as his own; but whatever might be the decision of the House, he would not abide by it, unless there was just sufficient force used to make him feel that he was acting under coercion. Lord John Russell called upon the House to support the authority of the Speaker and its own dignity. Two divisions followedone on a motion for adjourning the debate, and another on the right of Mr. Salomons to sit, in both of which he voted. The latter was carried by a large majority; when the Speaker renewed his order to withdraw, and the honourable gentleman not complying, the Serjeant-at-Arms touched him lightly on the shoulder, and led him below the bar. Another long debate ensued on the legal question; and the House divided on two motions, which had no result. The discussion of the question was adjourned to the 28th of July, when petitions from London and Greenwich, demanding the admission of their excluded representatives, came under consideration. The Speaker announced that he had received a letter from Alderman Salomons, stating that several notices of actions for penalties had been served upon him in consequence of his having[604] sat and voted in the House. A motion that the petitioners should be heard at the bar of the House was rejected; and Lord John Russell's resolution, denying the right of Mr. Salomons to sit without taking the oath in the usual form, was carried by a majority of 55. And so the vexed question was placed in abeyance for another year so far as Parliament was concerned. But an action was brought in the Court of Exchequer, against Alderman Salomons, to recover the penalty of 500, for sitting and voting without taking the oath. The question was elaborately argued by the ablest counsel. Judgment was given for the plaintiff. There was an appeal from this judgment, by a writ of error, when the Lord Chief Justice Campbell, with Justices Coleridge, Cresswell, Wightman, Williams, and Crompton, heard the case again argued at great length. The Court unanimously decided that the words, "on the true faith of a Christian," formed an essential part of the oath; and that, according to the existing law, the Jews were excluded from sitting in either House of Parliament. This judgment was given in the sittings after Hilary Term, in 1852.
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FORE:MARIA THERESA AND THE HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT.The country societies were pointed out "as principally to be found in the neighbourhood of Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Mansfield, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Blackburn, Manchester, Birmingham, Norwich, Glasgow, and its vicinity; but," it added, "they extend, and are spreading in some parts of the country, to almost every village." The report of the Commons went over much the same ground, dwelling particularly on the Hampden Clubs as avowed engines of revolution. It dwelt on the acts and activity of the leaders, of the numbers which they had seduced and were seducing, the oaths which bound them together, and the means prepared for the forcible attainment of their objects, which were the overthrow of all rights of property and all the national institutions, in order to introduce a reign of general confusion, plunder, and anarchy.
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FORE:Britain had seen her Continental Allies fall away one by one. The time was now approaching when some good allies might have been very useful to herself, if such people were ever to be found. We have seen that, during the American Revolution, the rebellious colonists found admirable allies in the Irish. They had no difficulty in exciting disturbances amongst that ardent Celtic race, and thus greatly to augment our difficulties. No sooner did the French commence the work of revolution than the Irish became transported with admiration of their doings. Not all the bloodshed and horrors of that wild drama could abate their delight in them, and their desire to invite them over to liberate Ireland, as they had liberated Belgium. These views found expression in the north of Ireland, especially in Belfast and other places, where the population was Presbyterian and to a certain extent Republican. The Roman Catholics were inert, and disposed to wait patiently. Ever since the American revolt the necessity of conciliating the Irish had been impressed on the British Government, and many important concessions had been granted them. They had not yet obtained Catholic emancipation, but the public mind was ripening for it, and the chief difficulty was the opposition of the extreme Protestant party in the Irish Parliament. Whatever were the evils which England had inflicted on Ireland, they were nothing compared with those which French fraternity would have perpetrated. But the United Irishmen, as the revolutionaries called themselves, could see nothing of this, not even after all the world had witnessed the French mode of liberating Belgium, and French waggons, guarded by soldiers, were day after day, and month after month, bearing over the Alps the priceless chefs-d'?uvre of the arts from ravaged Italy. In the spring of 1798 the preparations of the French Directory for the invasion of Ireland were too open and notorious to be overlooked by anybody.
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FORE:Pichegru, on his part, having driven back Clairfait, turned round on the Duke of York, who lay at Tournay. There he met with a severe repulse, and fell back with heavy loss; but Clairfait having again advanced to regain Courtrai, Pichegru once more engaged and defeated him. Clairfait then fell back into Flanders, to cover Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend. Pichegru, urged on against his better judgment by St. Just, who was the Commissioner from the Convention, sent Kleber and Marceau across the Sambre to attack General Kaunitz; but Kaunitz gave the French a severe defeat, killing four thousand of them; and had the Austrians been as rapid as they were brave, they might have nearly exterminated the whole of the French division. This success inspirited the Allies to advance actively, but the Duke of York, not taking into account the habitual slowness of German troops, shot ahead, expecting to fall in with Clairfait's columns at Turcoing; but there he only found the French, under Souham and Bonnaud, who well nigh enveloped him by their vast numbers, totally defeated, and nearly took him prisoner. This gave such a panic to the Austrians, that the entire army fell back, and Francis II., thoroughly discouraged, withdrew from the command and left it to the Prince of Coburg. The Duke of York rallied, and maintained his ground at Tournay against Pichegru, and Kaunitz followed up his advantage against Kleber and Moreau, driving them across the Sambre; but these were only temporary successes. Jourdain, finding no Prussians in the Moselle, drew nearer to the camp of Pichegru. There were various conflicts at Ypres, Charleroi, and on the plains of Fleurus. The Allies drove the French three times across the Sambre, but they returned with fresh and never-ending forces, and compelled the Allies to a general retreat. Bruges opened its gates to the French; Pichegru, aided by Moreau, compelled the Duke of York to retire successively on Oudenarde, Tournay, and Antwerp, places filled with the fame of Marlborough. At Antwerp the Duke of York was joined by Lord Moira, with ten thousand men, intended originally for La Vende, but too late to prevent the massacre of Savenay. The English garrison quitted Ostend, and came round to Antwerp; and the British occupied that town, whilst Clairfait lay at Louvain, and the two armies, unitedly, protected Mechlin.THE LANDING OF PRINCE CHARLIE. (See p. 92.)
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FORE:The ordinance was disallowed at home. Lord Brougham, who had never forgiven his former colleagues the constitution of the Cabinet without his forming a part of it, signalised himself by the extreme bitterness with which he headed the onslaught. The result was that, after protracted debates in both Houses of Parliament, which occupied the whole of the summer, and fill up nearly 500 pages of the Parliamentary Proceedings, the ordinance was annulled by Act of Parliament; but an Act was passed indemnifying Lord Durham and the Canadian authorities. The majority in the Commons was so large that the Opposition did not venture on a division; and in the Lords the disallowance was carried by a majority of 54 to 36. This result occurred on the 10th of August, and Lord Durham saw the news first in the American newspapers. Lords Melbourne and Glenelg softened the matter to him as well as they could; the former communicated the intelligence with the greatest regret and the deepest apprehension as to its consequences. Lord Durham betrayed his mortification unwisely in a proclamation which he immediately issued. As the banishment was an exception to the general amnesty he had published, he informed the prisoners at Bermuda that her Majesty being advised to refuse her assent to the exceptions, the amnesty existed without qualification, and added"No impediment, therefore, exists to the return of the persons who have made the most distinctive admission of guilt, or have been excluded by me from the province on account of the danger to which it would be exposed by their presence."
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FORE:At length General Pollock found himself in a position to advance for the relief of the garrison, and marched his force to Jumrood. On the 4th of April he issued orders for the guidance of his officers. The army started at twilight, without sound of bugle or beat of drum. The heights on each side of the Khyber Pass were covered with the enemy, but so completely were they taken by surprise that our flankers had achieved a considerable ascent before the Khyberese were aware of their approach. The enemy had thrown across the mouth of the Pass a formidable barrier, composed of large stones, mud, and heavy branches of trees. In the meantime the light infantry were stealing round the hills, climbing up precipitous cliffs, and getting possession of commanding peaks, from which they poured down a destructive fire upon the Khyberese, who were confounded by the unexpected nature of the attack. The confidence which arose from their intimate knowledge of the nature of the ground now forsook them, and they were seen in their white dresses flying in every direction across the hills. The centre column, which had quietly awaited the result of the outflanking movements by the brave and active light infantry, now moved on, determined to enter the Pass, at the mouth of which a large number of the enemy had been posted; but finding themselves outflanked, these gradually retreated. The way was cleared, and the long train of baggage, containing ammunition and provisions for the relief of Jelalabad, entered the formidable defile. The heat being intense, the troops suffered greatly from thirst; but the sepoys behaved admirably, were in excellent spirits, and had a thorough contempt for the enemy. It was now discovered that their mutinous spirit arose from the conviction that they had been sacrificed by bad generalship. Ali Musjid, from which the British garrison had made such a disastrous and ignominious retreat, was soon triumphantly reoccupied. Leaving a Sikh force to occupy the Pass, General Pollock pushed on to Jelalabad. Writing to a friend, he said, "We found the fort strong, the garrison healthy, and, except for wine and beer, better off than we are. They were, of course, delighted to see us; we gave three cheers as we passed the colours, and the band of each regiment played as it came up. It was a sight worth seeing; all appeared happy. The band of the 13th had gone out to play them in, and the relieving force marched the last few miles to the tune, 'Oh, but you've been long a-coming!'"
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ipsumorem
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FORE:[58]God's will be done!
FORE:
FORE:These unfortunate affairs precipitated the resignation of Lord George Germaine. His proud and impetuous temper had occasioned the resignation already of Sir Guy Carleton and of the two Howes. All complained that they could not obtain the necessary reinforcements and supplies from him as the Colonial Minister; and his tart and insolent replies to their complaints produced the retirement of these three commanders. He was already charged with having been the luckless projector of Burgoyne's disastrous expedition. Sir Henry Clinton was named the successor to the command of the forces in America, in the place of Sir William Howe. The punishment of North for the policy which had thus virtually lost America, was every day falling more crushingly upon him. On the 13th of March the Marquis de Noailles, the French Ambassador in London, and the uncle of Lafayette's wife, handed to Lord Weymouth a note formally announcing the treaty of friendship and commerce between France and America. On the 17th it was the bitter duty of Lord North to read this remarkable document to the House of Commons. The affected right to make such a treaty with the colonies of another nation, and the professions of goodwill, notwithstanding such an interference, amounted to the keenest irony, if not downright insult.
