× FORE:The Session of 1850 was creditably distinguished by the establishment of a policy of self-government for our colonies. They had become so numerous and so large as to be utterly unmanageable by the centralised system of the Colonial Office; while the liberal spirit that pervaded the Home Government, leading to the abolition of great monopolies, naturally reacted upon our fellow-subjects settled abroad, and made them discontented without constitutional rights. It was now felt that the time was come for a comprehensive measure of constitutional government for our American and Australian Colonies; and on the 8th of February, Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, brought the subject before the House of Commons. It was very fully discussed, Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Labouchere, and others who had taken an active part in colonial affairs, being the principal speakers. With regard to Canada, great progress had already been made in constitutional government. The same might be said of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, in which the practice of administration approximated to that observed in Great Britain. It was determined to introduce representative institutions of a similar kind in Cape Colony. In Australia it was proposed that there should be but one Council, two-thirds elected by the people and one-third nominated by the Governor. Mr. Roebuck objected strongly to the Government measure, because it left the colonists free, to a great extent, to gratify the strong desire almost universally felt among them to have power to choose a Constitution for themselves, instead of[606] having a Constitution sent out to them, cut and dry. He wanted the House to plant at once liberal institutions there, which would spare the colonists the agony of working out a scheme of government for themselves. He declared that "of all the abortions of an incompetent Administration, this was the greatest." A ready-made Constitution had been sent out by the Government to South Africa; why, then, could not Parliament send out a ready-made Constitution to Australia? Lord John Russell replied to Mr. Roebuck's arguments, and after a lengthened debate the Bill was read a second time. There was a strong division of opinion in committee as to whether there should be two Chambers or one. Sir William Molesworth moved an amendment to the effect that there should be two, which was rejected by a majority of 218 against 150. The Bill passed the House of Commons on the 18th of May, and on the 31st was brought into the Lords, where also it was subjected to lengthened discussions and various amendments, which caused it to be sent back to the Commons for consideration on the 1st of August. On the motion of Lord John Russell the amendments were agreed to, and the Bill was passed. This was the principal legislative work of the Session and possessed undoubted merits.

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× FORE:What immediately follows shows that Oliver had planned and brought to a crisis, by his personal exertions, this unhappy rising. On Sunday, the 8th of June, Jeremiah Brandreth, a framework-knitter of Nottingham, appeared with some others at a public-house called the "White Horse," in the village of Pentrich, in Derbyshire. This village is about fourteen miles from Nottingham, and about a mile from the small market town of Ripley. It is in a district of coal and iron mines, and is near the large iron foundry of Butterley. The working people of the village, and of the neighbouring village of South Wingfield, were chiefly colliers, workers in the iron mines or iron foundry, or agricultural labourers��a race little informed at that day, and therefore capable of being readily imposed on. This Brandreth had been known for years as a fiery agitator. He was a little, dark-haired man, of perhaps thirty years of age. He had been much with Oliver, and was one of his most thorough dupes, ready for the commission of any desperate deed. He had acquired the cognomen of the "Nottingham Captain," and now appeared in an old brown great-coat, with a gun in his hand, and a pistol thrust into an apron, which was rolled round his waist as a belt. "Believe me, ever yours most sincerely,

× FORE:In the latest period scarcely any acting dramas were produced. Amongst the unacted tragedies, or such as were acted with no great success��being better fitted for private study��were Coleridge's "Remorse" and "Zapolya;" Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound" and "The Cenci;" Byron's "Cain," "Manfred," "Sardanapalus," etc.; Maturin's "Bertram," "Manuel," and "Fredolpho;" Joanna Baillie's "Plays on the Passions," "The Family Legend"��the last acted with some success at Edinburgh, through the influence of Sir Walter Scott, in 1810��Charles Lamb's "John Woodvill," Milman's "Fazio," and Walter Savage Landor's "Count Julian," "Andrea of Hungary," "Giovanni of Naples," "Fra Rupert," "The Siege of Ancona," etc., all masterly dramas, constituting a blaze of dramatic genius which, had it been adapted to the stage, would have given it a new grandeur at the close of this reign.At Vereiva, where Buonaparte halted on the 27th of October, Mortier arrived from Moscow, having blown up the Kremlin with gunpowder, and with it a crowd of Russians who had rushed in at the moment of his evacuation. Mortier on his march had also surprised and captured General Winzengerode. From this place Buonaparte issued a bulletin, announcing that not only Moscow but the Kremlin was destroyed; that the two hundred thousand inhabitants of Moscow were wandering in the woods existing on roots; and that the French army was advancing towards St. Petersburg with every means of success. Such was the audacity of lying by which he hoped to conceal the truth from Paris. At this moment he was exasperated almost to frenzy by his prospects, and since the defeat of Maloi-Jaroslavitz he had been gloomy and unapproachable from the violence of his temper. On the march the army passed with horror the field of Borodino. "The ground," says Segur, "was covered with fragments of helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms, and standards steeped in blood. On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half devoured corpses. A number of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the whole. It seemed as if here death had fixed his empire. The cry, 'It is the field of the great battle!' found a long and doleful murmur. Napoleon passed quickly; no one stopped; cold, hunger, and the enemy urged us on. We merely turned our faces as we proceeded to take a last melancholy look at our late companions in arms."

× FORE:[See larger version]The Act of 1712 restored lay patronage, and then the strife began, but not between the people and the lay pastors, but between the clergy and the lay patrons. There grew up two parties in the General Assembly, styled the moderates, and the more advanced, or popular party. The moderates were those who were ready to concede to the demands of Government and lay patronage under a gentle protest; the more popular party, as it was called, was for transferring the right of presentation to the presbytery. The Act of William III., in 1690, gave the original and exclusive nomination to the heritors, land-owners, and elders. The person nominated was to be proposed to the congregation, who might approve or disapprove. But to what did this right amount? The congregation could not absolutely reject; and if they disapproved, the right passed on to the presbytery, whose decision was final. By this arrangement, either the landowners and elders remained the presenters,[168] or, after a vain show of conferring the choice upon the people, the appointment fell to the clergy, or presbytery. From 1690 to 1712, Sir Henry Moncrieff says, "there does not appear the least vestige of a doctrine, so much contended for at a later period, of a divine right in the people individually or collectively, to elect the parish minister." This opinion was fully maintained by the law of William III., in 1690, and confirmed by that of Anne, in 1712. Sir Henry Moncrieff, in confirmation of this doctrine that the people never had a right to elect their ministers in the Scottish Church, quotes the "First Book of Discipline," of 1567, which placed the election of pastors in the people at large; but this error, he says, was rectified by the "Second Book of Discipline," in 1581. By this book the congregation could only consent��the presbyters must finally determine. This contains the law of the Church of Scotland, and the great schism which took place in the Scottish Church, in 1843��known as the Disruption��arose merely from the resistance to lay patronage, but with the intention of transferring that patronage to the clergy, not the people.

× FORE:But Buonaparte did not content himself with stabs at the reputation of his enemies��he resorted to his old practices of assassination. The booksellers of Germany, ignoring the dominance of Buonaparte in their country, though he had completely silenced the press in France, dared to publish pamphlets and articles against the French invasion and French rule in Germany. Buonaparte ordered Berthier to seize a number of these publishers, and try them by court-martial, on the plea that they excited the inhabitants to rise and massacre his soldiers. Amongst the booksellers thus arrested was John Philip Palm, of Nuremberg. The charge against him was that he had published a pamphlet entitled, "L'Allemagne dans[525] son profond abaissement." This production was attributed to M. Gentz, a writer who was most damaging to the influence of Buonaparte, and Palm was offered his pardon if he would give up the author. He refused. Nuremberg, though occupied by French soldiers, was under the protection of Prussia, which was, just now, no protection at all. Palm was carried off to Braunau, in Austria. This place was still occupied by Buonaparte, in direct violation of the Treaty of Pressburg; so that Buonaparte, in the seizure and trial of Palm, was guilty of the breach of almost every international and civil law; for, had Palm been the citizen of a French city, his offence being a mere libel did not make him responsible to a military tribunal. The French colonels condemned him to be shot, and the sentence was immediately executed on the 26th of August. The indignation and odium which this atrocious act excited, not only throughout Germany, but throughout the civilised world, caused Buonaparte, with his usual disregard of truth, to say that the officers had done all this without any orders from him, but out of their own too officious zeal.In architecture the first place is due to the patriarch of the science, Sir John Soane, who was[434] employed in erecting or improving numerous public edifices in the metropolis and elsewhere. The atrocious law-courts, which he added to Westminster Hall, were happily removed in 1883. In 1826 he built the Freemasons' Hall, in Great Queen Street, having been chosen grand superintendent of works to the fraternity of Freemasons some years before. In 1833 he completed the State Paper Office in St. James's Park. He was now in his eightieth year, and he retired from the active labours of the profession in which he had been engaged for sixty years, during forty-five of which he had been in the service of the Bank of England. At his death, which occurred on January 20th, 1837, his house and museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields became the property of the public.

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× FORE:It was now proposed that as the Orange leaders had violated the law as much as the Dorsetshire labourers, they should be dealt with in the same manner, and that if evidence could be obtained, the Duke of Cumberland, Lord Kenyon, the Bishop of Salisbury, Colonel Fairman, and the rest should be prosecuted in the Central Criminal Court. There was an Orangeman, named Heywood, who had betrayed his confederates, and was about to be prosecuted by them for libel. The opponents of the Orangemen, believing his allegations to be borne out by the evidence given before the committee, resolved to have him defended by able counsel, retaining for the purpose Serjeant Wilde, Mr. Charles Austen, and Mr. Charles Buller. All the necessary preparations were made for the trial, when Heywood suddenly died, having broken a blood-vessel through agitation of mind, and alarm lest he should somehow become the victim of an association so powerful, whose vengeance he had excited by what they denounced as treachery and calumny. The criminal proceedings, therefore, were abandoned. Almost immediately after the opening of Parliament in February, 1836, Mr. Finn and Mr. Hume again made a statement in the House of Commons of the whole case against the Duke of Cumberland and the Orange Society, and proposed a resolution which seemed but a just consequence of their terrible indictment. The resolution declared the abhorrence of Parliament of all such secret political associations, and proposed an Address to the king requesting him to cause the dismissal of all Orangemen and members of any other secret political association from all offices civil and military, unless they ceased to be members of such societies within one month after the issuing of a proclamation to that effect. Lord John Russell proposed a middle course, and moved, as an amendment, an Address to the king praying that his Majesty would take such measures as should be effectual for the suppression of the societies in question. Mr. Hume having withdrawn his resolution, the amendment was adopted unanimously. The king expressed concurrence with the Commons; a copy of his reply was sent to the Duke of Cumberland, as Grand Master, by the Home Secretary. The duke immediately sent an intimation that before the last debate in the Commons he had recommended the dissolution of the Orange societies in Ireland, and that he would immediately proceed to dissolve all such societies elsewhere. "In a few days," Harriet Martineau remarked, "the thing was done, and Orangeism became a matter of history."On the 12th of February, 1843, Outram persuaded the Ameers, who were in deadly fear of Napier, to sign the treaty. But the negotiator, who continued to place implicit confidence in the pacific professions of the Ameers��they being anxious to gain time till the hot weather should come, and give them an advantage against their enemies��was convinced of his mistake by a treacherous attack made on the British residency; the Ameers boasting that "every man, woman, and child belonging to the British army in Scinde should be collected on the field of battle, and have their throats cut, except the general, who should be led, chained, with a ring in his nose to the durbar." Outram's garrison consisted only of 100 soldiers, with forty rounds of ammunition each, with which he had to defend himself against 8,000 men with six guns. The British fired with effect from behind a wall till their ammunition was exhausted, when they slowly retired till they got safe on board the British steamers, protected by their guns, which swept the flank of the enemy. The war had now come in earnest, and so Sir Charles Napier resolved to show the Ameers what British troops could do. The odds were greatly against him, for he had but 8,600 men, of whom only 400 were Europeans, with which he was to engage an army 22,000 strong, with 5,000 horse, and fifteen guns, all well posted in a strong position at Meeanee. It required marvellous hardihood in the veteran warrior of the Peninsula to enter upon such an unequal contest. But it was the first time that the ambition of his life was realised��in being placed in a position of supreme command��and he longed to show the world how worthily he could have filled it long ago. The officers who fought under him in that memorable battle deserve to be mentioned. Major Lloyd commanded the Artillery, Captain Henderson the Sappers and Miners; next to them stood the 22nd, commanded by Colonel Pennefather; Colonel Teesdale led the 25th Sepoys; Colonel Read the 12th Native Infantry; Major Clibborne the Bengal Engineers; Colonel Pattle the 9th Bengal Horse; and Captain[592] Tait the Poonah Horse. The plain between the two armies was about 1,000 yards in breadth. The space was rapidly passed over. Napier's men rushed forward, and crossing the bed of a river which intervened, they ran up the slope, while the artillery of the Beloochees fired over their heads. Reaching the summit, they beheld, for the first time, the camp of the enemy, which was carried by the 22nd. The Native Infantry also behaved well, and while the little army was doing terrible execution upon the enemy, the artillery swept their ranks with shot and shell. Nevertheless, they fought bravely, and held their ground for three hours in a hand to hand encounter with their assailants. The chasms which were repeatedly made by the guns in the living mass were quickly filled up by those behind rushing forward to the conflict. The pressure of numbers bearing down the hill seemed more than once on the point of overwhelming the British, and obliterating their "thin red lines." Nearly all the officers were killed or wounded. Everything now depended upon the cavalry, which were commanded by Colonel Pattle, who was ordered to charge instantly. They went at full gallop through the jungle: fifty were thrown off their horses, but the rest pressed on, ascended the ridge of the hill, dashed into the thick of the enemy's ranks, fiercely cutting their way with their swords right and left, trampling down the men under their horses' feet, never ceasing till they had traversed the whole camp. The confusion and wavering thus occasioned gave courage to the infantry. The Irish and the Sepoys, raising the cry of victory, pressed on with fury, drove the enemy back down the hill, and compelled them to retreat, abandoning their guns, their ammunition, and their baggage, leaving their dead on the field, and marking their course by a long train of killed and wounded. Their loss was estimated at 5,000��1,000 bodies being found in the bed of the river. The British loss was almost incredibly small: six officers and fifty-four privates killed, fourteen officers and 109 men wounded.