In this uneasy state of things Austria very unnecessarily put the match to the political train, and threw the whole of the south of Europe again into war. Don Joseph Molina, the Spanish Ambassador at Rome, being appointed Inquisitor-General at Spain, commenced his journey homewards, furnished with a passport from the Pope, and an assurance of safety from the Imperial Minister. Yet, notwithstanding this, he was perfidiously arrested by the Austrian authorities and secured in the citadel of Milan. The gross insult to Spain, and equally gross breach of faith, so exasperated the King and Queen of Spain that they would listen to nothing but war. The earnest expostulations of Alberoni, delivered in the form of a powerful memorial, were rejected, and he was compelled to abandon the cherished hopes of peaceful improvement and make the most active preparations for war.Sir John landed in Calabria on the 1st of July, in the Gulf of Santa Euphemia, not far from Nicastro, and advanced to seek Regnier. He had not quite five thousand troops with him, all infantry, and a third of these Corsicans, Sicilians, and other foreigners in British pay. Regnier had started for Naples with ten thousand men, but some of these were lost, and others stationed to occupy different posts. On the 3rd of July Sir John Stuart learned that Regnier was near Maida, about ten miles from Sir John's landing-place. Leaving a detachment to guard the stores, Sir John, on the 4th, marched forward, under a burning sun, to come up with him. He found Regnier drawn up in a strong position on a woody slope below the village of Maida, flanked by a thick, scrubby wood on each hand, and having in front the river Amato, at this season of the year perfectly fordable. The position was formidable, and, had Regnier kept it, it must have tried the British severely to dislodge him, especially as they had no cavalry; but Regnier, probably honestly of opinion that the British need only be encountered to be beaten, descended from his vantage ground into the plain. One reason might be, that his cavalry could better avail him there; another, that, after his boasts, Lebrun, the Commissioner of Buonaparte, who always, in the old Jacobin style, had such a person in the field to watch the conduct of his generals, would be ready to condemn him if he showed any delay when engaged with so despised an enemy. The two armies approached each other about nine o'clock in the morning. They fired two or three rounds at each other, and then advanced with fixed bayonets. The officer commanding the British advance column, seeing that the men were oppressed by the blankets which they carried at their backs in that sultry weather, commanded a halt a little before they closed, and ordered them to let their blankets go. The French, seeing this momentary halt, were confirmed in their general's opinion of the cowardice of the British, and rushed on with loud cheers. They were bronzed and bearded veterans; the British, who composed the advance column, were chiefly young and beardless youths; and an officer present informed Sir Walter Scott, that, as he glanced first on the grim-looking French, and then at the smooth, young faces of the British, he could not help feeling a momentary anxiety. But no sooner were the British freed from their blankets than they dashed forward with loud hurrahs; and the French, who, since the battle of Austerlitz, had boasted that no soldiers in Europe could stand against them in a charge of bayonets, were, in their turn, staggered. Some few stood firmly to cross bayonets with the foe, but the greater part fell back. The French officers rushed along their lines to encourage their men, but in vain; nothing could urge them to the points of the British bayonets. The hills around were crowded with the Calabrians, anxious spectators of the fight. When the British halted, they raised loud exclamations of dismay, believing they were about to fly, but the next moment they saw them springing forward with shouts and the French waver, turn, and fly. The First Light Infantrya crack French regimentwere the first to break and run for the hills. But it was too late; the British were at their backs, and pursued them with a terrible slaughter. Regnier's left thus routed by our right, he rode furiously about, bringing all the force he could muster on our left, but there the result was just the same: the French scarcely stayed to feel the bayonets, but fled in headlong confusion. The British took all the forts along the coasts, and drove the French into Upper Calabria, where they were joined, near Cassano, by Massena, with a powerful army. But the British force was not strong enough to do more than it had done. Malaria also began to decimate his troops, and Sir John Stuart returned, in August, to Sicily, carrying with him a great quantity of stores and artillery, which the French had prepared for the reduction of Calabria. The chief benefit of the battle of Maida was to show that the British troops, in proper quantities, were able to drive the French before them, but that, in the small numbers usually sent on expeditions, they were merely wasted. The battle of Alexandria, and now that of Maida, demonstrated that, if Britain would continue to fight on the Continent, she must prepare to do it with a sufficient force; and the after campaigns of Portugal and Spain, and the conclusive battle of Waterloo, were the results of this public conviction. At the same time, the brilliant episode of Maida had wonderfully encouraged the Neapolitans and Calabrians. Joseph Buonaparte, the French intruded king, was once or twice on the very point of flying to the army in Upper Calabria, and many of his counsellors strongly advised it. Massena advised Joseph to remain, and assured him that he would soon reduce the whole kingdom to obedience to him. But, in fact, it took Massena and his successors five years to accomplish the subjugation, with the sacrifice of one hundred thousand men.
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FORE:Mr. Baring, who represented the Duke in the House of Commons, seemed to regard this declaration from the high-minded member for Oxford University as fatal to the Tory scheme for recovering power. They came at length to understand that the new Premier would be equally unacceptable to the country, whether he appeared with a Reform Bill or a gagging Bill. Both Baring and Sutton, the late Speaker, sent in their resignations. The Duke at length confessed that he had failed in his attempt to form an Administration; and the king had no other resource but to submit to the humiliation of again putting himself in the hands of his late Ministers. He had before him only the terrible alternative of a creation of peers or civil war. Earl Grey was determined not to resume office, "except with a sufficient security that he would possess the power of passing the present Bill unimpaired in its principles and its essential provisions." The consequence was, that on the 17th of May the following circular was sent to the hostile Lords by Sir Henry Taylor:"My dear lord, I am honoured with his Majesty's commands to acquaint your lordship that all difficulties to the arrangements in progress will be obviated by a declaration in the House of Peers to-night from a sufficient number of peers, that in consequence of the present state of affairs they have come to the resolution of dropping their further opposition to the Reform Bill, so that it may pass without delay as nearly as possible in its present shape." Wellington, as usual, obeyed and withdrew from the House, but his seceding comrades prefaced their departure by defiant speeches in which they reserved to themselves the right of resuming their position. Then the Cabinet insisted on obtaining the royal[352] consent to an unlimited creation; and it was given on condition that they, in the first instance, called to the House of Lords the eldest sons of peers or the collateral heirs of childless noblemen. But Sir Henry Taylor's circular had done its work, and the extreme step was unnecessary.
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FORE:[See larger version]
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THREE:Perhaps a still more remarkable man of the same denomination was William Huntington, originally a coalheaver, struggling with severe poverty; yet, believing himself called to the ministry, he boldly followed his conceived duty, through much discouragement and persecution. He has left an autobiography, in which his perfect faith in and reliance on God are justified by the most remarkable supply of all his wants, and support in a widely extended and useful ministry. After the death of his first wife he married the wealthy widow of Sir James Sanderson, a London alderman, and passed his latter years in affluence.
Why not give one of these popular Games a look?
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THREE:With his hat in his hand.FIVE-GUINEA PIECE OF GEORGE I.
TWO:The career of Lord Ellenborough as Governor-General of India was one of the most remarkable in its annals. He went out for the purpose of inaugurating a policy of peace, conciliation, and non-intervention. His course from that day was one of constant aggression and war. The conquests of Scinde and Gwalior were planned and prepared for deliberately and in good time; and when the Governments to be subdued were goaded into hostilities, he was ready to pounce upon them with overwhelming force. His friends defended this policy on the ground that, though it was aggressive it was self-defensive; to guard against a possible, but very remote contingencyan invasion of the Sikhs to drive the British out of India. The Governor-General, however, had become entirely too warlike; and since he had smelt powder and tasted blood at Gwalior, the Board of Control, who had already formally censured his Scinde policy, became so alarmed at his martial propensities that they determined on his immediate recall, and sent out Sir Henry Hardinge to rule in his stead.
TWO:THE COUNT DE MIRABEAU.Mr. Canning had now attained the highest summit to which the ambition of a British subject can aspire. With the acclamation of the country and of the House of Commons, he had taken the first place in the Government of the empire, to which he had raised himself by his talents and his merit alone, surmounting as he rose the most formidable impediments, aristocratic antipathies, class interests, and royal dislike. He was the idol of the nation, and not only in Great Britain, but throughout the world, his fame shone brightest of all the public men of his age. His name was associated with the triumph of Liberal principles throughout Europe and America; he was at the head of a strong Government, and he had conciliated the good-will of his Sovereign. Such a combination of what are usually regarded as the elements of human happiness has rarely, if ever, been known in the history of England, where alone such a phenomenon could occur. As a man of genius, as an orator, as a political leader, he enjoyed a reputation and a degree of success which in any one of these capacities would be regarded by the majority of men as the acme of human felicity. But in addition to these he enjoyed a position and wielded a power with which many great men have been content, without the brilliant halo of glory with which, in Canning's case, they were surrounded. But it is a singular and humbling illustration of the vanity of human wishes and human glory, that this great man was, after all, unhappy, and that the political enemies he had vanquished had the power of bringing him to an early grave. The Whig and Tory lords studied in every way to wound the proud spirit, which they knew to be extremely sensitive. They scowled upon him with looks of resentment and vengeance. Old friends averted their eyes from the affectionate companion[260] of earlier days; the cordial pressure of his hand was not returned; his associates and supporters in office and in Parliament were, for the most part, his former opponents in many a political battlefield. The odium of being a convert to Liberal principles settled upon his noble spirit like a fatal blight, the animosity with which intolerance pursues the honest and generous lover of truth and right pierced his susceptible nervous system like a keen, pitiless, persistent east wind. This was more than his delicate organism could long bear. The state of his mind affected his bodily health. The charm of his conversation made him the delight of his friends in private society, in which he found a solace and a welcome relaxation from the toils of office. It was natural, though to be regretted, that with such a susceptible, enjoying, and genial temperament, delighting in wit and humour, and diffusing pleasure around him by the coruscations of his own genius, he should have lingered longer in convivial parties than was prudent for his health. The consequence was an inflamed and irritable state of the system. Thus predisposed to disease, he caught cold by sitting under a tree, after being heated with walking, while on a visit with Lord Lyndhurst at Wimbledon. Attacked with inflammation of the kidneys, he went to Chiswick, on the advice of his doctors, and there, on the 8th of August, after a brief period of intense suffering, he died in the villa of the Duke of Devonshire, and in the same room in which a man of kindred genius, the illustrious Charles James Fox, breathed his last.
TWO:
TWO:[551]This proviso, however, by no means affected the treaty with America. This secret treaty was made binding and effectual so far as America and England were concerned. The first article acknowledged fully the independence of the United States. The second fixed their boundaries, much to the satisfaction of the Americans; and liberty was secured to them to fish on the banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and wherever they had been accustomed to fish, but not to dry the fish on any of the king's settled dominions in America. By the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles it was engaged for Congress that it should earnestly recommend to the several Legislatures to provide for the restitution of all estates belonging to real British subjects who had not borne arms against the Americans. All other persons were to be allowed to go to any of the States and remain there for the settlement of their affairs. Congress also engaged to recommend the restitution of confiscated estates on the repayment of the sums for which they had been sold; and no impediments were to be put in the way of recovering real debts. All further confiscations and prosecutions were to cease. By the seventh and eighth articles the King of England engaged to withdraw his fleets and armies without causing any destruction of property, or carrying away any negro slaves. By these articles, the navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, was to remain for ever free and open to both parties. If West Florida happened to be in the possession of Britain at the termination of a general peace, a secret article determined its boundaries.
THREE:The third topic discussed at these conferences was the nature of the relations then subsisting between France and Spain, and the projects of the former power in reference to the latter. These were explained by the Minister without any reserve, and with no symptoms of apprehension that they would be disagreeable to Britain, or of anxiety as to the result, whether they were so or not. He frankly avowed that, under cover of the sanitary cordon, 100,000 French troops were assembled; that it was proposed to throw them in two columns into Spain; that one column, of 40,000 men, was to pass into Catalonia, while the other, of 60,000, was to march by the great road through Irun upon Madrid. He stated that the sole object of this invasion was to insure the personal safety of the king, to afford him the opportunity to collect a native force strong enough to enable him to protect himself against the schemes of the Revolutioniststhat is, to put down the Constitution. Of course, France said she entertained no views of conquest or aggrandisement, or even of prolonged occupation. She would withdraw her troops whenever the King of Spain said he could do without them, and yield up every inch of territory. In reference to this matter the Duke of Wellington wrote home for instructions, and in reply Canning said:"If there be a determined project to interfere by force or by menace in the present struggle in Spain, so convinced are his Majesty's Government of the uselessness and danger of any such interferenceso objectionable does it appear to them in principle, as well as utterly impracticable in executionthat when the necessity arisesor, I would rather say, when the opportunity offersI am to instruct your grace at once frankly and peremptorily to declare that to any such interference, come what may, his Majesty will not be a party." To say that England peremptorily declined "to be a party" to the invasion of an independent state, in order to force upon the people a government contrary to their will, was not saying very much, nor putting the objection very strongly. We are assured, however, that the Duke steadily set his face against the project, pointing out that the step would be not only unjust, but impolitic; that it would precipitate the catastrophe which the French Government feared; that the Revolutionists would probably remove Ferdinand from Madrid as soon as they heard of the passing of the frontier by the French troops, and that, even if these troops should reach the capital, the Spaniards would not therefore submit, nor would the king be set at liberty. He argued that a war between France and Spain for such a purpose would be pronounced a war to put down free institutions, and that if France sought the support of her allies, the only one amongst them that had free institutions would feel it her duty to meet such a request with a refusal. Europe would be ranged into two hostile camps, that of absolutism on the one side and of revolution on the other; amid which not thrones only, but settled governments in every form, might be overthrown. In reply to these arguments, both the king and his Minister stated that whatever France might do in the matter she would do single-handed, and that she would not only not apply for assistance from without, but that, if such assistance were offered, she would refuse it. The Duke could not, however, prevail upon the French Government to refrain from bringing the question between France[234] and Spain before the Congress. The king and his Minister both contended that vast moral good would accrue from a joint remonstrance on the part of the Allies against the treatment to which the King of Spain was subjected, and a joint threat that if any violence were offered to his person or family all would unite to avenge the outrage.
THREE:Sir Arthur was anxious to engage and defeat Victor before he was joined by the forces of Joseph from Madrid, and of Sebastiani from La Mancha. He therefore dispatched Sir Robert Wilson, at the head of a considerable body of Spanish and Portuguese troops, on the way towards Madrid; and Sir Robert executed this duty with so much promptitude and address that he threw himself into the rear of Victor at Escalona, only eight leagues from the capital. On the 22nd of July the united armies of Britain and Portugal attacked Victor's outposts at Talavera, and drove them in. The stupid old Cuesta was nowhere to be seen; and the next day, the 23rd, when the British were again in position, ready to attack the French, the day was lost, because Cuesta said he would not fight on a Sunday. This tried Sir Arthur's patience past endurance, for every moment was precious, and he wrote on the occasion"I find General Cuesta more and more impracticable every day. It is impossible to do business with him, and very uncertain that any operation will succeed in which he has any concern. He has quarrelled with some of his principal officers, and I understand they are all dissatisfied with him." The opportunity of beating Victor was thus lost. At midnight he quitted Talavera, and retreated to Santa Olalla, and thence towards Torrijos, to form a junction with Sebastiani. The next morning Wellesley took possession of Talavera, but he could not pursue the enemy, for he says, "he found it impossible to procure a single mule or a cart in Spain." Neither could he procure food for his army. He says his troops had actually been two days in want of provisions, though Cuesta's camp abounded with them. He declared that, under such treatment by those that he had come to save, he would return to Portugal before his army was ruined. On this, Cuesta became as wildly and madly active as he had been before stubbornly passive. He dashed forward after Victor alone, never stopping till he ran against the rear of the[576] united army of Victor and Sebastiani, at Torrijos. Wellesley was quite sure what the result would be, and in a few days Cuesta came flying back with a confused mass of men, bullocks, flocks of sheep, baggage waggons, and artillery, beaten and pursued by the enemy.Napoleon now called up his auxiliary forces from Saxony, Würtemberg, Bavaria, and from all the Confederation of the Rhine, as well as new battalions from France, and advanced against the Russians. In the first place, the French, who had completed the subjugation of the Prussian states east of the Oder, pushed forward towards Poland, to attack the Russian general, Benningsen, who advanced to Warsaw, and occupied it in conjunction with the Prussians. Benningsen, however, finding the Prussians few and dispirited, fell back beyond the Vistula, and Murat, at the head of the French vanguard, entered Warsaw on the 28th of November. He was soon after joined there by Buonaparte, and Warsaw being put into a state of defence, the French army advanced to the Vistula and the Bug, in spite of the lateness of the season. Benningsen again retreated behind the Wkra, where he united his forces with those of Generals Buxhowden and Kaminskoi. Kaminskoi took the supreme command. When Napoleon arrived at the Wkra on the 23rd of December, he formed his army into three divisions, and forced the passages of the river. Kaminskoi fell back behind the Niemen, and the French pursued him, committing some injury on him. This trifling advantage Napoleon converted, in his bulletins to Paris, into the rout and general defeat of the Russians. It was true that the Russians were destitute of stores, having applied to Britain for money, and obtained only eighty thousand pounds. They fought, therefore, under great disadvantages, against an army furnished with everything. Notwithstanding, Benningsen, who was by far the most vigorous of their generalsfor Kaminskoi was fast falling into lunacyposted himself strongly behind Pultusk, his right led by Barclay de Tolly, and his left by Ostermann. Kaminskoi ordered Benningsen to retreat, but he refused, and stood his ground. At first Tolly was driven back by Lannes and Davoust, but Benningsen converted this disadvantage into a ruse, ordering Tolly to continue his retreat, till the French were drawn on, so that he could bring down his left wing on them. This he did with such effect that he killed and wounded nearly eight thousand of them, having, however, himself five thousand killed and wounded. Lannes and five other generals were amongst the wounded. The French seized the opportunity of darkness to retreat with such speed, that the next morning not a trace of them could be seen near Pultusk. Prince Galitzin fought another division of the French the same day at Golynim, and with the same success. Had Benningsen had the chief command, and brought down the whole united Russian army on Napoleon, the victory must have been most decisive; as it was, it taught the French that they had different troops to Prussians or Austrians to contend with. They drew off, and went into winter quarters at Warsaw and the towns to the eastward. The chief command of the Russian army was now conferred on Benningsen, and so far from Buonaparte having, as he boasted, brought the war to a close with the year, we shall find Benningsen, at the head of ninety thousand men, soon forcing him into a winter campaign.
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The silk trade received a great impulse by the erection of a silk-mill at Derby, in 1719, by John Lombe and his brothers. Lombe had smuggled himself into a silk-mill in Italy, as a destitute workman, and had then copied all the machinery. To prevent the operation of this new silk factory in Englandwhich was worked by a water-wheel on the river Derwent, had 97,746 wheels, movements, and individual parts, and employed three hundred personsthe King of Sardinia prohibited the exportation of the raw material, and thus, for a time, checked the progress of the manufacture. Parliament voted Sir Thomas Lombe[167] 14,000 as a compensation for loss of profits thus occasioned, on condition that the patent, which he had obtained for fourteen years, should expire, and the right to use the machinery should be thrown open to the public. By the middle of this period our silk manufactures were declared superior to those of Italy, and the tradesmen of Naples recommended their silk stockings as English ones. In 1755 great improvements were introduced by Mr. Jedediah Strutt in the stocking-loom of Lee.No wonder that pressing entreaties for succour came from Jelalabad. The garrison had exerted themselves with the utmost diligence to fortify the place, which they expected soon to be invested by hosts of Afghans, flushed with victory and thirsting for blood and plunder. The camp-followers were organised to assist in manning the walls, and foraging parties were sent out with good effect, while there was yet time to get in provisions. In the meanwhile Sale received a letter from the Shah, demanding what were his intentions, as his people had concluded a treaty with the Afghans, consenting to leave the country. There was an army preparing for their expulsion, and there were many of their countrymen and countrywomen hostages in the hands of a fanatical and vindictive enemy, while there was little prospect of any immediate relief from the Indian Government. There was even a feeling that they had been abandoned by the Government at Calcutta, which did not wish to maintain the supremacy of the British arms in Afghanistan. A council of war was called on the 26th of January; a stormy debate ensued; the majority were for coming to terms with the enemy and withdrawing from the country, for which purpose the draft of a letter in reply to the Shah was prepared. For two days its terms were debated, the proposition to surrender being vehemently resisted by an officer named Broadfoot, who declared it impossible that the Government should leave them to their fate, and do nothing to restore the national reputation, especially as a new Governor-General was coming out, doubtless with new counsels, and the Duke of Wellington, now in power, would never sanction so inglorious a policy. He was overruled, however, by the majority, and the letter was sent to the Shah. An answer came demanding that they should put their seals to the document. Another council was held; Colonel Broadfoot renewed his remonstrances; he was joined by Colonel Dennie, Captain Abbott, and Colonel Monteith. An answer was sent which left the garrison free to act as circumstances might direct. Next day tidings came from Peshawar, that large reinforcements were moving up through the Punjab, and that all possible efforts were to be made for their relief. There was no more talk of negotiation; every one felt that it was his duty to hold out to the last.George III., at the time of the sudden death of his grandfather, was in his twenty-second year. The day of the late king's death and the following night were spent in secret arrangements, and the next morning George presented himself before his mother, the Princess-dowager, at Carlton House, where he met his council, and was then formally proclaimed. This was on the 26th of October, 1760.Immediately on the rising of Parliament O'Connell published a violent attack in the form of a letter to Lord Duncannon. This was taken up by Lord Brougham in the course of an oratorical tour which he was making through Scotland, and a mutual exchange of compliments ensued. Unfortunately the Chancellor's eccentricity did not stop there. Earl Grey was not permitted to retire into private life without some popular recognition of his great public services. On the 15th of September a grand banquet was given in Edinburgh in honour of this illustrious statesman. "Probably," says a contemporary chronicle, "no Minister in the zenith of his power ever before received so gratifying a tribute of national respect as was paid on this occasion to one who had not only retired from office, but retired from it for ever. The popular enthusiasm, both in the capital and other parts of Scotland, was extreme, which the noble earl sensibly felt, and gratefully acknowledged as among the proudest circumstances of his life. The dinner took place in a large pavilion, erected for the occasion in the area of the High School, and was provided for upwards of 1,500 persons, more than 600 having been admitted after the removal of the cloth. The principal speakers were Earl Grey, the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl of Durham. Earl Grey and the Lord Chancellor, in their speeches, said they considered that the Reform in Parliament afforded the means by which all useful improvements might be obtained without violence. Both advocated a deliberate and careful, but steady course of amelioration and reform, and both derided the idea of a reaction in favour of Tory principles of government. The Earl of Durham avowed his opinions in favour of the ballot and household suffrage, and declared that he should regret every hour which left ancient and recognised abuses unreformed." This involved the Lord Chancellor in a new controversy in which more personalities were exchanged.The system of Buonaparte, by which he endeavoured to prevent the knowledge of these events in Spain and Portugal from spreading through France, was one of unscrupulous lying. He took all sorts of false means to depress the spirits of the insurgents by mere inventions, which he had inserted in the Spanish and Portuguese Gazettes under his influence. At one time it was that George III. was dead, and that George IV. was intending to make peace with Napoleon. But whatever effect he might produce by such stories for a time in the Peninsula, the truth continued to grow and spread over France. It became known that Junot and his army were driven from Lisbon; that Dupont was defeated and had surrendered in the south of Spain; then that King Joseph had fled from Madrid; and that all the coasts of the Peninsula were in possession of the British, who were received by the Spaniards and Portuguese as friends and allies. Compelled to speak out at length, on the 4th of September a statement appeared in the Moniteur mentioning some of these events, but mentioning only to distort them. It could not be concealed that Britain was active in these countries, but it was declared that the Emperor would take ample vengeance on them. In order to silence the murmurs at the folly as well as the injustice of seizing on Spain, which was already producing its retributive fruits, he procured from his slavish Senate a declaration that the war with Spain was politic, just, and necessary. Buonaparte then determined to put forth all his strength and drive the British from the Peninsula; but there were causes of anxiety pressing on him in the North. Austria and Russia wore an ominous aspect, and a spirit of resistance showed itself more and more in the press of Germany, and these things painfully divided his attention. His burden was fast becoming more than he could bear.
