激情五月第四色_激情五月综合网_激情五月网_激情五月色播

TWO:Paskievitch and the other Russian generals pleaded earnestly with the Emperor of Austria, imploring him to extend his clemency to all the officers and soldiers who had been engaged in the insurrection. But the Emperor was deeply mortified at the humiliation of having to call for Russian aid against his own rebellious subjects; he was vexed at the horror the Hungarians felt about surrendering to his army, as well as jealous of the magnanimity of the Muscovites. He therefore answered the Russian appeal, that he had sacred duties to perform towards his other subjects, which, as well as the general good of his people, he was obliged to consider. The warmest apologists of Austria were forced to condemn the vindictive and cruel policy now adopted. G?rgei was pardoned and offered rank in the Russian army, which he declined, and Klapka escaped by the terms of his capitulation; but fourteen other Hungarian officers of the highest rank were cruelly immolated to Austrian vengeance. One lady was ordered to sweep the streets of Temesvar, another was stripped and flogged by the soldiery. Many eminent Magyars were hanged. But of all the atrocities which stained the name of Austria, and brought down upon her the execration of the civilised world, none was so base and infamous as the judicial murder of Count Batthy��ny. This illustrious man, who had presided over the Hungarian Ministry, was sentenced to be hanged. Having taken leave of his wife, he endeavoured, in the course of the night, to escape the infamy of such a death by opening the veins of his neck with[581] a blunt paper-knife; but the attempt was discovered, and the surgeon stopped the bleeding. Next day the noble patriot procured a less ignominious doom��he was shot (October 6, 1849).The prospects of the European war at this juncture, as observed from England, were gloomy in the extreme. The dispersion of the armies of Spain, the retreat and death of Sir John Moore, leaving the whole of the Spanish and Portuguese Peninsula under the feet of Buonaparte, disposed many to believe the power of the conqueror unassailable. The Whig Opposition made every use of this feeling to damage and, if possible, drive their rivals from office. That the Whigs, in power, would have refrained from Continental war any more than the Tories is not to be believed. They had always, when in office��except, in the case of Fox, for a short interval��been as ready to fight; but they had generally conducted their campaigns with much less ability. Now, their great organ, the Edinburgh Review, indulged in the most vehement censures on the Cabinet; charged all the adverse circumstances of the Spanish and Portuguese war to its bad management; and intimated that it was the most wicked and idiotic folly to hope to contend with Buonaparte at all. But if ever there was a time when the continuance of the war was excusable, and perhaps necessary, it was now. Great Britain had gone fully and freely into the conflict to assist the Continental nations. She had pledged herself[571] solemnly to Spain and Portugal, and to have withdrawn at this crisis would have been equally treacherous to our allies and pusillanimous as regarded the enemy. It would have been, in fact, to proclaim to the world that we had been completely beaten out of the field, that we could not do what we had promised to our allies, and that Napoleon must be left the master of Europe, and the dictator to Britain. Such a confession would have destroyed for ever the prestige of Great Britain, and justly. Ministers felt this, and never were more resolved to persevere to the end. To show that they did not for a moment despair, they signed a treaty of peace and amity with Spain only five days after the arrival of the news of the retreat and death of Sir John Moore, binding themselves never to acknowledge the authority of Buonaparte over Spain, or of any family but of Ferdinand VII. and his lineal successors. That they were supported in their views by Parliament was soon made evident by the rejection, by a majority of two hundred and eight against one hundred and fifty-eight, of a motion of Lord Henry Petty censuring the Convention of Cintra, and, by a majority of two hundred and twenty against one hundred and twenty-seven, of a motion of Mr. Ponsonby for inquiry into the conduct of the late campaign in Spain. Ministers had at length satisfied themselves that they had in Sir Arthur Wellesley a man capable of contending against the haughty tyrant of Europe. The most liberal votes were made for the prosecution of the war. The total of supplies for the year amounted to fifty-three million eight hundred and sixty-two thousand pounds, including a loan of eleven million pounds. For the army twenty-seven million pounds was voted, and for the navy nineteen million pounds. Between twenty and thirty thousand men were drafted from the militia into the regulars, and thus the army was augmented to that amount by soldiers already well trained. The loan was freely taken at a lower interest than any hitherto borrowed��the Opposition asserted, because trade was deranged, and capitalists were at a loss how to invest their money; but the Ministers contended, on the other hand, that it was solely because the war was popular with the nation. Before, however, entering into its arduous and bloody details, we must narrate some disgraceful affairs at home.

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