ONE:In the Commons, on the same day, Grenville delivered a message from the Crown, announcing to the House the imprisonment of one of their members during the recess. Wilkes immediately rose in his place, and complained of the breach of that House's privilege in his person; of the entry of his house, the breaking open of his desk, and the imprisonment of his personimprisonment pronounced by the highest legal authority to be illegal, and therefore tyrannical. He moved that the House should take the question of privilege into immediate consideration. On the other hand, Lord North, who was a member of the Treasury board, and Sir Fletcher Norton, Attorney-General, put in the depositions of the printer and publisher, proving the authorship of No. 45 of the North Briton on Wilkes, and pressing for rigorous measures against him. A warm debate ensued, in which Pitt opposed the proceedings to a certain extent, declaring that he could never understand exactly what a libel was.[181] Notwithstanding, the Commons voted, by a large majority, that No. 45 of the North Briton was "a false, scandalous, and malicious libel," tending to traitorous insurrection, and that it should be burnt by the common hangman.The consumption of Indian corn during the famine caused a great deal of wild speculation in the corn trade. Splendid fortunes were rapidly made, and as rapidly lost. The price of Indian corn in the middle of February, 1847, was 19 per ton; at the end of March it was 13; and by the end of August it had fallen to 7 10s. The quantity of corn imported into Ireland in the first six months was 2,849,508 tons.
TWO:[450]Calder had been sent after Nelson, with the hope that, if he missed Villeneuve and Gravina, he (Calder) might fall in with and intercept them. Scarcely was he under sail, when he discovered this fleet, on the 22nd of July, about thirty-nine leagues north-west of Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve and Gravina were congratulating themselves on having made their voyage in safety, when this British squadron stood in their way. They were twenty sail of the line, seven frigates, and two brigs; and Calder had only fifteen sail of the line, two frigates, and two smaller craft. The Spanish and French admirals endeavoured to give them the slip, and get into Ferrol; but Calder would not permit this. He compelled them to fight, and the battle lasted from half-past four in the afternoon till half-past nine in the evening. Calder captured two sail of the line, and killed and wounded between five hundred and six hundred men. He himself lost thirty-nine killed, and he had a hundred and fifty-nine wounded, and his ships, some of them, had suffered much damage. A thick fog parted the combatants for the night, and at daybreak the hostile fleets were distant from each other about seventeen miles. Villeneuve had the wind, and made as if he would renew the battle, but did not; and the same happened on the following day, when he sheered off, and Calder turned homewards without pursuing them. This action, though a victory, was regarded, both in France and England, as inferior to what was expected of British naval commanders. The French claimed a success; the English public murmured at Calder's conduct. They said, "What would Nelson have done had he been there?" Such was the popular discontent, that Sir Robert Calder demanded that his conduct should be submitted to a court-martial, and the verdict of the court confirmed the outcry:"This court," it said, "are of opinion that on the part of Admiral Sir Robert Calder there was no cowardice or disaffection, but error in judgment, for which he deserves to be severely reprimanded, and he is hereby severely reprimanded accordingly."[510] Buonaparte, however, was greatly exasperated at the result, and at Villeneuve putting into Ferrol instead of getting into Brest, where Napoleon wanted him to join the rest of the fleet. After this, endeavouring to obey the Emperor's positive orders to reach Brest, he put to sea, but was glad to run for Cadiz instead, on account of the union of Admiral Collingwood with Calder's fleet. In that harbour now lay five-and-thirty sail of the line, and Collingwood kept watch over them. Indeed, being soon reinforced, he kept a blockade on all the Spanish ports between Cadiz and Algeciras, in the Strait of Gibraltar. It was at this juncture that Napoleon came to the conclusion that it was hopeless to attempt the invasion of England.
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TWO:Parliament, having so smoothly transacted its business, was prorogued on the 14th of June, and Walpole then addressed himself to the settlement of the Spanish difference. But here he found a spirit of resistance which had undoubtedly grown from the invectives of the Opposition. The outcries against the Spanish captains, the right of search, and the payment of compensation for the ships taken by Byng, had given great offence to the proud Spaniards. They were encouraged, also, by the earnest manner in which Walpole had argued for peace. They now assumed a high tone. They complained of the continuance of the British fleet in the Mediterranean. They demanded the payment of the sixty-eight thousand pounds which they said was due from the South Sea Company,[72] though it had been stipulated in the Convention that it should not come into consideration.Amid these popular outbursts the great body of the Spaniards were calmly organising the country for defence. A junta or select committee was elected in each district, and these juntas established communications with each other all over the land. They called on the inhabitants to furnish contributions, the clergy to send in their church plate to the mint, and the common people to enrol themselves as soldiers and to labour at the fortifications. The Spanish soldiers, to a man, went over to the popular side, and in a few days the whole nation was in arms. The crisis of which Buonaparte had warned Murat was come at once, and the fight in Madrid on the 2nd of May was but the beginning of a war which was to topple the invader from his now dizzy height. This made Buonaparte convene a mock national junta, or Assembly of Notables, to sanction the abdication, and the appointment of Joseph Buonaparte as the new monarch. Joseph entered Madrid on the 6th of June, and proclaimed a new constitution.
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TWO:Earl Grey had lived to witness the triumphant realisation of all the great objects for which throughout his public life he had contended, sometimes almost without hope. Catholic Emancipation had been yielded by his opponents as a tardy concession to the imperative demand of the nation. In the debates on that question in the House of Lords, Lord Grey was said to have excelled all others, and even himself. The long dormant question of Parliamentary Reform was quickened into life by the electric shock of the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Wellington, with equal honesty and rashness, affirmed that the existing system of representation enjoyed the full and entire confidence of the country. This declaration raised a storm before which he was compelled to retire, in order to make way for a statesman with keener eye and firmer hand, to hold the helm and steer the vessel in that perilous crisis of the nation's destiny. Throughout the whole of that trying time Earl Grey's wisdom, his steadfastness, the moral greatness of his character, and the responsibility of his position, made him the centre of universal interest, and won for him the respect and admiration of all parties in the nation. Baffled again and again in the struggle for Reform, undismayed by the most formidable opposition, not deterred or disheartened by repeated repulses, he renewed his attacks on the citadel of monopoly and corruption, till at last his efforts were crowned with victory. And well did he use the great power for good which the Reform Parliament put into his hands. The emancipation of the slaves, the reform of the Irish Church, and the abolition of the gigantic abuses of the Poor Law system, were among the legislative achievements which he effected. His foreign policy, in the able hands of Lord Palmerston, was in harmony with his own domestic policybold, just, moderate, true to the cause of freedom abroad, while vigilantly guarding the national honour of his own country. By his vigorous diplomacy he had saved Belgium from being overwhelmed by the Dutch, and at the same time kept her independent of France. A capable Sovereign had been provided for her in Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widowed husband of Charlotte of England. Finally, when the Dutch declined to give way to the remonstrances of the Western Powers, a joint Anglo-French expedition was dispatched, which compelled the citadel of Antwerp to capitulate on December 23rd, 1832. Nevertheless, such was the obstinacy of the Dutch that the question remained unsettled on the fall of the Grey Ministry. Lord Palmerston's foreign policy was equally noteworthy in other quarters of the globe. If he could do little for the revolution in Poland, he could at least preserve constitutionalism in the Peninsula, where it was threatened by Dom Miguel in Portugal, and, after the death of Ferdinand in 1833, by Don Carlos in Spain. On the 22nd of April, 1834, Palmerston, in concert with Talleyrand, now French Minister in London, drew up the Quadruple Treaty, by which the two Powers undertook to deliver the Peninsula from the Absolutist pretenders. Its effect for the time being was remarkable; they both fled from the country, and constitutionalism was restored.Lord Shannon, for his patronage in the Commons 45,000
