On the 10th of January the army came in sight of Corunna and the sea, but no transports could be seen in the bay. They were detained by contrary winds at Vigo, and the last hope of safety seemed cut off. Sir John, however, quartered his troops in Corunna, and determined to defend it manfully till the transports could get up. But great was his chagrin at the proofs of the miserable management of the Commissariat Department. On a hill above the town were four thousand barrels of gunpowder, which had been sent from England, and had been lying there many months, and the town was a great magazine of arms. Sir John replaced the weather-worn muskets of his troops with new ones, supplied them with fresh, good powder, and, after removing as many barrels of powder into the town as the time would allow, he blew up the rest, producing a concussion that shook the place like an earthquake.Such being the state of our relations with America, Sir Robert Peel's Government determined to send to Washington a special ambassador who should be clothed with full powers to effect an amicable adjustment of all the causes of dispute. The gentleman selected for this purpose was Lord Ashburton. A more judicious selection could not possibly have been made. Mr. Alexander Baring, who had been raised to the peerage in 1835, having been previously President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, was known throughout the world as one of our merchant princes, and was the husband of an American lady, the daughter of Mr. William Bingham, of Philadelphia, a senator of the United States. The hopes which his mission excited were not disappointed. He sailed from England in February, 1842, and after a tedious and stormy passage, arrived at New York on the 1st of April. He immediately entered upon negotiations with Mr. Webster. They continued till the month of August, when a treaty was agreed upon and signed at Washington by the two plenipotentiaries, the mutual exchange of ratifications to take place[493] in London within six months of that date. By that treaty the line of the north-eastern boundary was settled, concession on the St. John being purchased by the surrender of a strip of land to the States of New York and Vermont. It was stipulated that Great Britain and America should each maintain a sufficient squadron or naval force, carrying not less than eighty guns, for the purpose of enforcing, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obligations of each of the two countries for the suppression of the slave trade, and should use their joint influence for suppressing the slave markets. It also provided for the mutual delivery to justice of all persons charged with murder, or assault with intent to murder, or with piracy, robbery, forgery, and arson committed within the jurisdiction of either country, should they be found within the territories of the other; but the evidence of criminality should be sufficient to warrant the committal for trial of the fugitive according to the laws of the country in which he was apprehended. This was a distinct withdrawal of Lord Palmerston's pretensions with regard to the McLeod affair. The mission was thus eminently successful, but Lord Palmerston was of another opinion, and declaimed in the House of Commons against the "Ashburton surrender." But the Commons were unprepared to condemn the work, and the debate ended in a count-out. The House of Lords, on the motion of Brougham, passed a vote of thanks to Lord Ashburton.
ONE:The aspect of affairs in Spain at the commencement of 1810 was gloomy in the extreme. Scarcely a town, fortress, or army remained to the Spaniards; yet, perhaps, never did Napoleon feel a deeper anxiety concerning it. The spirit of the people had shown that it could not be easily subdued. He might beat its regular troops, and compel the surrender of cities, after long and severe sieges, but there still remained a whole population hostile to him. Throughout all the mountain districts the inhabitants might be said to be still in arms against him, and there was a fire burning in the general Spanish heart that might at any moment blaze up into a dangerous flame, or, if not, must wear out his troops, his energies, and his resources. Napoleon had yet to discover that it is impossible to subdue the people of a mountainous country, so as to rule them in peace, if they are at heart opposed to the ruler.One of the first things which the Regent did was to re-appoint the Duke of York to the post of Commander-in-chief of the Forces. Old Sir David Dundas, as thoroughly aware of his unfitness for the office as the army itself was, had requested leave to retire, and on the 25th of May the appointment of the duke was gazetted. There was a considerable expression of disapproval in the House of Commons of this measure. Lord Milton moved that it was highly improper and indecorous, and he was supported by Lord Althorp, Mr. Wynn, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Whitbread, and others; but the facts which had come to light through Mrs. Clarke's trials, both regarding her and her champion, Colonel Wardle, had mitigated the public feeling towards the duke so far, that the motion was rejected by a majority of two hundred and ninety-six against forty-seven. It is certain that the change from the duke to Sir David Dundas, so far as the affairs of the army were concerned, was much for the worse. The duke was highly popular in that office with the soldiers, and he rendered himself more so by immediately establishing regimental schools for their children on Dr. Bell's system.
TWO:Deserted by the Prussians, the French retired with precipitation to Prague, where they were followed by the Austrian army under Prince Charles of Lorraine and Prince Lobkowitz. Soon after the Grand Duke of Tuscany took the principal command, and the French offered to capitulate on condition that they might march away with their arms and baggage. This was refused; but Marshal Belleisle stole out of Prague in December, and, giving Lobkowitz the slip, made for the mountains with fourteen thousand men and thirty pieces of artillery. Belleisle[82] displayed unwearied activity in protecting his men and baggage from the harassing pursuit of Lobkowitz. Notwithstanding this his men perished in great numbers from famine and the severity of the season. They had been reduced to eat horseflesh before leaving Prague, and now they fell exhausted in the deep snows, and were mercilessly butchered by the Austrian irregulars and peasantry. On the 29th of December he reached Eger, and from that point marched into Alsace without further molestation; but he then found that of the thirty-five thousand troops which he took into Germany, only eight thousand remained. Though this retreat was celebrated as one of the most remarkable in history, the Marshal, on reaching Versailles, was received with great coldness.But all this could not have prevailed with Bernadottewho leaned fondly and tenaciously towards France from old associationshad not the unbearable pride, insolence, and domineering spirit of Napoleon repelled him, and finally decided his course. So late as March, 1811, Bernadotte used this language to M. Alquier, the French ambassador, when pressed by him to decide for France:"I must have NorwayNorway which Sweden desires, and which desires to belong to Sweden, and I can obtain it through another power than France." "From England, perhaps?" interposed the ambassador. "Well, yes, from England; but I protest that I only desire to adhere to the Emperor. Let his majesty give me Norway; let the Swedish people believe that I owe to him that mark of protection, and I will guarantee all the changes that he desires in the system and government of Sweden. I promise him fifty thousand men, ready equipped by the end of May, and ten thousand more by July. I will lead them wherever he wishes. I will execute any enterprise that he may direct. Behold that western point of Norway. It is separated from England only by a sail of twenty-four hours, with a wind which scarcely ever varies. I will go there if he wishes!"
THREE:
FORE:CHAPTER XX. REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).On the 5th of June, the day after the king's birthday, Pitt introduced his plan of military defence. It was to leave the militia what it was, but to increase the regular army by making it compulsory on parishes to furnish each a certain number of men to what was called the Army of Reservea body called out for five years, and only to be employed within the United Kingdom. He desired to break down the distinctions between this and the regular army by attaching the Reserve to the Regulars as second battalions, and encouraging volunteering thence into the Regulars. This was known as the Additional Force Bill, which was denounced by the Opposition as veiled conscription. In other ways, notably by the erection of his martello towers, Pitt set himself to rouse the spirit of the nation, in face of the very real danger of invasion.
All this was little less than madness on the part of the royal family. They knew that the army at large was disaffected to royalty, and of what avail were two regiments? If they really sought to escape, it could only have been done by the utmost quiet and caution. The Flanders regiment could have guarded them. But now the certain consequence must be to rouse all the fury of Paris, and bring it down upon them. This was the instant result. Paris, in alarm, cried, "To Versailles!" On the night of the 4th of October the streets were thronged with excited people; the National Guard were under arms everywhere, and maintained some degree of order. On the morning of the 5th the women took up the matter. They found no bread at the bakers', and they collected in crowds, and determined to march to the H?tel de Ville, and demand it of the mayor. The women had refused to allow the men to join them, declaring that they were not fit for the work they were going to do; but numbers had followed them, better armed than themselves, and they now assisted them to break open doors, where they obtained seven or eight hundred muskets, three bags of money and two small cannon. As they were proceeding to make a bonfire of the papers, which would probably have burnt the whole place down, the commander of the National Guard gave up the matter in despair; but one Stanislas Maillard, a riding-messenger of the municipality, with more address, called out to them to desist; that there was a much better thing to doto march at once to Versailles, and compel the Court to furnish bread, and that he would be their leader. He seized a drum and beat it; the women cried lustily, "To Versailles!" Some ran to the tower of the H?tel and sounded the tocsin. The bells soon began to ring out from every steeple in Paris; the whole population was afloat; the men and women, armed with all sorts of weapons, followed their new leader, who had been one of the heroes of the[368] Bastille, and he marched them to the Champs Elyses. There he arranged his motley and ever-increasing army: the women in a compact body in the middle, the men in front and rear. Horses, waggons, carriages of all kinds, were seized on wherever they were seen; some of these were harnessed to the cannon, and then Maillard, drumming at their head, put his army in motion, and on they went towards Versailles, stopping every carriage that they met, and compelling even ladies to turn again and accompany them.General Evans had taken the command of the Spanish Legion, which throughout the whole of the campaign was encompassed with difficulties and pursued by disasters, without any military success sufficiently brilliant to gild the clouds with glory. Within a fortnight after the debate on Lord Mahon's motion came the news of its utter defeat before Hernani. This defeat encouraged the opponents of Lord Palmerston's policy to renew their attacks. Accordingly, immediately after the recess, Sir Henry Hardinge brought forward a motion on the subject. He complained that no adequate provision was made for the support of those who were in the Legion. At Vittoria they were placed for four months in uninhabited convents, without bedding, fuel, or supplies of any kind. Not less than 40 officers and 700 men fell victims to their privations. The worst consequence was, however, the total demoralisation of the troops. Theirs was not honourable war, it was butchery. They were massacring a fine and independent people, who had committed no offence against Britain. Ill treatment, want of food and of clothing, habits of insubordination and mutiny, and want of confidence in their officers, had produced their natural effects. Let them palliate the disaster as they would, there was no doubt, he said, of the fact that a large body of Britons had suffered a defeat such as he believed no British soldiers had undergone in the course of the last five or six hundred years. The motion was defeated by 70 votes to 62, but as the Legion was dissolved in the following year, 1838, the object of the Opposition was gained.Mlas, who had been besieging Genoa, had left part of his army to reduce that city, defended by a strong French division under Massena and Soult, and advanced to Nice, which he had entered, and was contemplating his descent on Provence, when the news of Buonaparte's entrance of Piedmont reached him. He directed his march now to meet him. In the meantime, Massena and Soult, worn out by famine, the fort being blockaded by Admiral Lord Keith, had surrendered Genoa to General Otto, whom Mlas had ordered to raise the siege and join him. Mlas summoned his scattered forces to make head against Buonaparte, and was himself pursued from the neighbourhood of Nice by Suchet. Buonaparte deceived Mlas by false movements, making him imagine that his object was Turin, and so entered Milan in triumph on the 2nd of June. After various encounters and man?uvres between Buonaparte and Mlas, the First Consul crossed the Po at Piacenza, drove back the advanced guard of the Austrians, and took up a position on the plains of Marengo, on the right bank of the little stream, the Bormida, and opposite to Alessandria, where Mlas was lying. The next daythe 14th of JuneMlas drew out his forces, and attacked the French with great spirit. The Austrians amounted to about forty thousand, including a fine body of cavalry, for which the ground was highly[477] favourable; the French were not more than thirty thousand, posted strongly in and around the village of Marengo, in three divisions, each stationed about a quarter of a mile behind the other. After two or three attempts the Austrians drove the French out of the village of Marengo, threw the second division, commanded by Lannes, into confusion, and put to rout the left wing of Buonaparte's own division, threw his centre into disorder, and compelled him to retreat as far as St. Juliano. The whole tide of battle was running against Buonaparte, and a short time must have completed his rout, when the strength of the old general, Mlasmore than eighty years of agegave way, for he had been many hours on horseback. He retired from the field quite secure of the victory, and left General Zach to finish it. But, at this moment, General Desaix, who had lately arrived from Egypt, and had been sent by Buonaparte to make a diversion at Rivolta, came back with his detachment of twenty thousand men. Kellermann, also, who was posted in the rear with a body of reserve, marched up at the same time. A new and desperate charge was made on the fatigued Austrians, and they were broken and put to the rout. They retreated across the Bormida, towards Alessandria, in a panic, the horse galloping over the infantry. Mlas, dispirited by his defeat, but more by his age, gave up the struggle and on the 16th of June concluded an armistice, resigning not only Alessandria, where he might have stood a longer siege, but Genoa, which had just surrendered to the Austrians, and all the Genoese territory, agreeing to retire behind the line of Mantua and the Mincio, and leaving to the French all Lombardy as far as the Oglio. The French themselves could scarcely believe the reality of such a surrender.And all this time the spirit of revolt against Napoleon's domination was growing rapidly in Germany; and had the Austrians only made the slightest use of their present opportunity, the whole of the country would have been in arms and the French completely driven out. Though Prussia was still too much depressed to dare to rise and join Austria, there was a fast-growing spirit of indignation amongst its population, which the Tugend Bund had tended greatly to increase. The brave Major Schill, without waiting for any sanction from the King of Prussia, led forth his band of hussars, amounting to about five thousand, and prepared to join with Colonel D?rnberg, an officer of Jerome, the King of Westphalia's guard, to raise an insurrection in that State, and drive out Jerome and the French. The design was betrayed to Jerome by a traitorous friend of D?rnberg, and he was compelled to fly. Letters found amongst D?rnberg's papers showed the participation of Schill in the scheme. Jerome, of course, complained to the King of Prussia, and the unhappy monarch was obliged to disavow and denounce the conduct of Schill. The brave partisan made his way to Wittenberg and Halberstadt, and was pursued by the forces of Westphalia and Holland northwards to Weimar, and finally to Stralsund, which he prepared to defend. The place was stormed by the Dutch and Westphalians, and Schill was killed fighting in the streets of Stralsund, after having split the head of the Dutch general, Carteret, with his sword. Thus fell the gallant Schill, true to his motto"Better a terrible end than endless terror."SLAVERY EMANCIPATION FESTIVAL IN BARBADOES. (See p. 368.)
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