The downfall of the French monarchy was the cause, more or less directly, of a series of Continental revolutions, but Spain was less affected by the flight of the monarch who had exerted so baneful an influence upon its policy and its Royal Family than might have been anticipated. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer was then British Minister at Madrid, and Lord Palmerston was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He evidently expected another revolution in Spain, as appears from a remarkable despatch which he addressed to Sir Henry. Its tone was certainly rather dictatorial, and it is not much wonder that it fired the pride of the Spanish Government. The noble lord wrote as follows:"Sir,I have to recommend you to advise the Spanish Government to adopt a legal and constitutional system. The recent downfall of the King of the French and of his family, and the expulsion of his Ministers, ought to indicate to the Spanish Court and Government the danger to which they expose themselves in endeavouring to govern a country in a manner opposed to the sentiments and opinions of the nation; and the catastrophe which has just occurred in France is sufficient to show that even a numerous and well-disciplined army offers only an insufficient means of defence to the Crown, when the system followed by it is not in harmony with the general system of the country. The Queen of Spain would act wisely, in the present critical state of affairs, if she were to strengthen her executive Government, by widening the basis on which the administration reposes, and in calling to her councils some of the men in whom the Liberal party places confidence."
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CHAPTER XXI. REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued).But the most important operations were at this moment taking place in the south between Dupont and Casta?os. Casta?os was quartered at Utrera with twenty thousand men. Dupont had been ordered by Murat to march from Madrid into the south-west, and make himself master of the important post of Cadiz. After a countermand, he again advanced in that direction, and had crossed the Sierra Morena, so celebrated in the romance of "Don Quixote," and reached the ancient city of Cordova. There he received the news that Cadiz had risen against the French, and had seized the French squadron lying in the bay, and, at the same time, that Seville was in the highest state of insurrection. Whilst pausing in uncertainty of what course to pursue, Casta?os advanced from Utrera towards the higher part of the Guadalquivir. If Dupont had rushed forward to attack Casta?os at Utrera, he would have done it under great disadvantages. He was cut off from the main French army by the Sierra Morena, and these mountains being occupied by the insurgent inhabitants, he would have no chance of falling back in case of disaster. He now advanced to Andujar, which he reached on the 18th of June, having had to fight his way through bands of fiery patriots.
FORE:Bearing his prizes with him, Rodney proceeded to Gibraltar, carrying great exultation to the besieged rock by the news of such victory and the timely supplies. He sent on some ships to carry similar relief to our garrison at Port Mahon, and, after lying some weeks at Gibraltar, he dispatched Admiral Digby home with a portion of the fleet, and then with the rest made sail for the West Indies. Digby, on his homeward route, also captured a French ship of the line, and two merchant vessels laden with military stores. This blow to the Spanish maritime power was never altogether recovered during the war.
FORE:Dumouriez, the new Foreign Minister, advised the king to communicate this note to the Assembly without a moment's delay. There was immediate dissension in the royal council. This was the commencement of the division in the Gironde Ministry, which quickly destroyed it. Dumouriez proceeded, in the presence of the king, the rest of the Ministers, and a number of courtiers, on the 20th of April, to make that announcement which was to decide the fate of France and of Europe. Roland and the more determined Girondists had recommended that the king should himself make the declaration of war; but as the war itself was most repugnant to the king, Dumouriez had advised that he should only consult with the Assembly on the necessity of this declaration, and thus throw the responsibility on that body. There had been division of opinion amongst Ministers, and now Dumouriez read a detailed account of the negotiations with Austria, and then Louis, who looked jaded and anxious, stated that he had followed the recommendations of the Assembly, and of many of his subjects in various parts of France, in these negotiations, and, as they had heard the results, he put it to the Assembly whether they could any longer submit to see the dignity of the French people insulted, and the national security threatened. The speech was received with loud acclamations and cries of "Vive le Roi!" The President said they would deliberate, and the result was that a decree was passed resolving upon war. This resolve the Assembly justified by the declaration that the Emperor of Austria had concerted with the Emigrants and foreign princes to threaten the peace and the constitution of France; that he had refused to abandon these views and proceedings, and reduce his army to a peace establishment, as demanded of him by a vote of the 11th of March of this year; that he had declared his intention to restore the German princes by force to the possessions they had held[400] in Alsace, although the French nation had never ceased to offer them compensation; and that, finally, he had closed the door to all accommodation by refusing to reply to the dispatches of the king.
ONE:When peace was made in Europe, the United States became anxious for peace too. Madison had begun the war in the ungenerous hope of wresting Canada from Great Britain, because he thought her too deeply engaged in the gigantic war against Napoleon to be able to defend that colony. He believed that it would fall an easy prey; that the Canadians must so greatly admire the model republic that they would abandon monarchy at the first call, and that he should thus have the glory of absorbing that great world of the north into the American Republic. In all this, he and those who thought with him found themselves egregiously deceived. The Canadians showed they were staunchly attached to Great Britain, and the attempts at invasion were beaten back by the native militia and by our handful of troops with the greatest ease. Meanwhile, the blockade of the east, and the seizure of the merchant shipping, drove the New England and other eastern States to desperation. Throughout this war Great Britain made a uniform declaration of a preference for peace, but her offers were regularly rejected so long as Napoleon was triumphant. The United States, professing the utmost love of freedom, were the blind and enthusiastic worshippers of the man who was trampling the liberties of all Europe under his feet. It was not till the last momentnot till he had been defeated in Russia, driven by Britain out of Spain, routed and pursued out of Germany, and compelled to renounce the Imperial Crown of Francethat the American Government began to understand the formidable character of the Power which it had so long and so insolently provoked, and to fear the whole weight of its resentment directed against its shores. It is certain that, had Britain been animated by a spirit of vengeance, it had now the opportunity, by sending strong fleets and a powerful army to the coast of America, to ravage her seaboard towns, and so utterly annihilate her trade as to reduce her to the utmost misery, and to precipitate a most disastrous system of internal disintegration. The New England States, in 1814, not only threatened to secede, but stoutly declared that they would not furnish another shilling towards paying the expenses of the war. They even intimated an idea of making a separate peace with Britain. In Massachusetts especially these[114] menaces were vehement. Governor Strong spoke out plainly in the Legislative Chamber of that State. Madison endeavoured to mollify this spirit by abandoning his Embargo and Emancipation Acts, but this was now too late, for the strict blockade of the British, in 1814, rendered these Acts perfectly dead.I forged the letterI disposed the picture
TWO:Most unexpectedly, however, the French were as desirous of peace as the Allies ought to have been. At sea and in Italy they had not been so successful as in Flanders. Admiral Anson had defeated them off Cape Finisterre, and taken six ships of the line, several frigates, and a great part of a numerous convoy; Admiral Hawke, off Belleisle, had taken six other ships of the line; and Commodore Fox took forty French merchantmen, richly laden, on their way from the West Indies. In fact, in all quarters of the world our fleet had the advantage, and had made such havoc with the French commerce as reduced the mercantile community to great distress.
THREE:
FORE:Meanwhile these disturbances elsewhere were having a disastrous effect upon the fortunes of the war in Lombardy. At first, indeed, everything pointed to the success of the Italian cause. In May Peschiera fell, and Radetzky, venturing beyond the Quadrilateral, was defeated by Charles Albert at Goito. Already the Italians had rejected the help which Lamartine offered them from France, and Austria in despair appealed to Lord Palmerston for the mediation of Britain. Well would it have been for the Italians if terms could have been arranged. Lord Palmerston, indeed, who had already sent off a private note to the British Minister at Vienna, advising the Austrians to give up their Italian possessions at once, now consented to propose an armistice, while asserting that "things had gone too far to admit of any future connection between Austria and the Italians." But nothing came of the proposal; the Sardinians declined to consent to the armistice, which would only be for the benefit of Radetzky, who was at this moment somewhat hardly pressed; and the maximum of the concessions offered by the Austrian envoy, Baron Hummelauer, was that Lombardy should be freed from its connection with Austria while Venice should be retained. Palmerston considered the surrender insufficient, and the war went on.
[46]Clinton, having now united his forces at New York, directed his attention to the approach of the fleet of D'Estaing. This had sailed for the Delaware, expecting to find Lord Howe there; but, finding that he had sailed for New York, it followed him, and arrived there six days after him. The fleet of D'Estaing consisted of twelve sail-of-the-line and six frigates. Howe had only ten sail-of-the-line, and some of them of only forty or fifty guns, and a few frigates. Besides, D'Estaing had heavier metal, and ships in much better condition, for those of Howe were old and out of repair, and their crews were considerably deficient. Altogether, D'Estaing had eight hundred and fifty-four guns; Howe, only six hundred and fourteen. From D'Estaing's superiority of force it was quite expected that he would attack Howe; but he was dissuaded by the pilots from entering the harbour, and lay outside eleven days, during which time he landed the Ambassador. Lord Howe showed much spirit in preparing for an encounter, though he was daily in expectation of Admiral Byron with some additional ships, the Admiral coming to supersede him. He put his ships in the best order he could, and the English seamen hurried in from all quarters to man his vessels. A thousand volunteers came from the transports, and masters and mates of merchantmen offered their services. Just, however, when it was expected that D'Estaing would avail himself of the tide, on the 22nd of July, to enter the harbour, he sailed away for Rhode Island, and up the Newport river. In a few days Howe sailed in quest of D'Estaing. They found D'Estaing joined by Lafayette with two thousand American troops, and by General Sullivan with ten thousand more, and D'Estaing proposed to land four thousand from his fleet. The English garrison in Newport amounted to only five thousand men. But here a contest arose between D'Estaing and Sullivan for the supreme command, and this was not abated till Howe with his fleet hove in sight. Then D'Estaing stood out to sea, in spite of the remonstrances of Sullivan, Greene, and the other American officers. Lord Howe endeavoured to bring him to action, at the same time man?uvring to obtain the weather-gauge of him. In these mutual endeavours to obtain the advantage of the wind, the two fleets stood away quite out of sight of Rhode Island, and Sullivan commenced in their absence the siege of Newport. Howe, at length, seeing that he could not obtain the weather-gauge, determined to attack the French to leeward, but at this moment a terrible storm arose, and completely parted the hostile fleets, doing both of them great damage. D'Estaing returned into the harbour of Newport, but only to inform the Americans that he was too much damaged to remain, but must make for Boston to refit. Sullivan and the other officers remonstrated vehemently against his departure; but in vain. Scarcely had D'Estaing disappeared, when Sir Henry Clinton himself, leading four thousand men, arrived in Rhode Island, and Sullivan crossed to the mainland in haste. He blamed the French for the failure of the enterprise.Kutusoff had made a dexterous march and encamped at Taroutino, a strong position near Kaluga, between Moscow and Poland, so as to be able to cut off the retreat of the French into the fertile plains of Poland, and to cover Kaluga and Tula, the great Russian manufactory of arms and artillery. Buonaparte sent Murat with the cavalry to watch the camp of Kutusoff, and the King of Naples established himself in front of the Russian lines. Murat entered into a sort of armistice with Kutusoff whilst waiting for the reply from Alexander, in the hope that thus they should obtain supplies from the peasants; but neither food nor firing was obtainable except by fighting for it, nor was the armistice at all observed, except just in the centre, where Murat lay. From every quarter Cossacks continued to collect to the Russian armystrange, wild figures, on small, wild-looking horses with long manes and tails, evidently drawn from the very extremities of the empire. All Russia was assembling to the grand destruction of the invaders. Behind the camp the French could hear the continued platoon-firing, indicating the perpetual drilling of the peasantry that was going on. Other bodies of peasants formed themselves into troops of guerillas, under the chiefs of their neighbourhood. The whole of the Russian population since the burning of Moscow had become grimly embittered, and had taken arms to have a share in the mighty revenge that was coming. And now, as the sudden descent of winter was at hand, the same men who had pretended to admire the soldier-like figure and gallantry of Muratwho galloped about in all his military finery in front of the Russian campbegan to ask the officers if they had made a paction with winter. "Stay another fortnight," they said, "and your nails will drop off, and your fingers from your hands, like rotten boughs from a tree." Others asked if they had no food, nor water, nor wood, nor ground to bury them in France, that they had come so far?
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