THREE:
THREE:CAPTURE OF GODOY. (See p. 551.)At first victory seemed to attend the French. Lefebvre defeated the Spaniards in Aragon, on the 9th of June, and General Bessires beat the insurgents, in several partial actions, in Navarre and Biscay. But his great success was over the united forces of Generals Cuesta and Blake, on the 14th of June, at Medina de Rio Seco, a few leagues from the city of Valladolid. Duchesne thought he should be able to send reinforcements to assist in reducing Valencia and Aragon; but he soon found that he had enough to do in his own district. Marshal Moncey, all this time expecting the co-operation of Duchesne, had advanced into Valencia. For a time the country seemed deserted; but as he advanced he found the hills and rocks swarming with armed people, and he had to force his march by continual fighting. There were Swiss troops mingled amongst the Spanish ones opposed to him, and whilst they attacked him in front, the Spaniards assaulted his flanks and rear. When he arrived before the city of Valencia, on the 27th of June, he found the place well defended. On the 29th Moncey retired from before the walls, despairing of the arrival of Duchesne. Moncey, like Bessires, now found himself called to Madrid to defend the new king, who, it was clear, could not long remain there; and already the British were landing on the shores of the Peninsula, to bring formidable aid to the exasperated inhabitants.
THREE:On the 13th of February the Opposition in the Commons brought on the question of the validity of general warrants. The debate continued all that day and the next night till seven o'clock in the morning. The motion was thrown out; but Sir William Meredith immediately made another, that a general warrant for apprehending the authors, printers, and publishers of a seditious libel is not warranted by law. The combat was renewed, and Pitt made a tremendous speech, declaring that if the House resisted Sir William Meredith's motion, they would be the disgrace of the present age, and the reproach of posterity. He upbraided Ministers with taking mean and petty vengeance on those who did not agree with them, by dismissing them from office. This charge Grenville had the effrontery to deny, though it was a notorious fact. As the debate approached its close, the Ministers called in every possible vote; "the sick, the lame were hurried into the House, so that," says Horace Walpole, "you would have thought they had sent a search warrant into every hospital for Members of Parliament." When the division came, which was only for the adjournment of Meredith's motion for a month, they only carried it by fourteen votes. In the City there was a confident anticipation of the defeat of Ministers, and materials had been got together for bonfires all over London, and for illuminating the Monument. Temple was said to have faggots ready for bonfires of his own.Amongst the followers of Whitefield became[170] conspicuous Rowland Hill, Matthew Wilks, and William Huntington. Of the followers of Whitefield, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, became the patron, as she had been of Whitefield himself, whom she made her chaplain. This remarkable woman founded schools and colleges for the preachers; and so completely did she identify herself with this sect that it became styled "Lady Huntingdon's Society." Perhaps the most celebrated of these preachers, after Whitefield, was Rowland Hill, who was a younger son of Sir Rowland Hill, of Hawkstone, in Shropshire. He was educated at Cambridge for the Church of England, but preferred following Whitefield, and for many years went about preaching in the open air, like Whitefield, in different parts of the country, and particularly amongst the colliers of Kingswood. In 1783 his chapel, called the Surrey Chapel, being built, he settled in London, and continued his ministry in the metropolis till his death in 1833, at the age of eighty-eight. Rowland Hill was as much celebrated for his humour and eccentricity, which he carried into his preachings, as for his talents. He was also an author of various productions, the most popular of which were his "Village Dialogues."