FORE:On the 21st of March Lord John Russell moved the second reading of this great Reform Bill. Sir Richard Vivian moved, as an amendment, that it be read a second time that day six months. There was nothing new in the debate that followed, though it lasted two nights. On the 22nd the division occurred. The second reading was carried by a majority of one. This was hailed with exultation by the Conservatives, as equivalent to a defeat. But there were prophets who saw something ominous in this majority of one. They remembered that the first triumph of the Tiers Etat in the National Assembly, in 1789, when they constituted themselves a separate Chamber, was carried by one. The House was the fullest on record up to that time, the numbers being 302 to 301, the Speaker and the four tellers not included. A remarkable circumstance connected with the division was, that about two to one of the county members in England and Ireland were in favour of the Bill. No less than sixty votes on the same side were for places to be disfranchised or reduced. Although in the House it was felt that the division was equivalent to a defeat, the Reformers out of doors were not in the least disheartened; on the contrary, they became, if possible, more determined. The political unions redoubled their exertions, and the country assumed an attitude of defiance to the oligarchical classes which excited serious alarm, from which the king himself was[332] not exempt. The pressure from without accumulated in force till it became something terrific, and it was evident to all reflecting men that the only alternative was Reform or Revolution.
FORE:
FORE:The business of the session now hastened to its close. Votes were given for forty thousand seamen and eleven thousand marines; for sixteen thousand British troops in Flanders, and twenty-three thousand for guards and garrisons at home. For the year's supplies six millions of pounds were voted, and then Parliament was prorogued on the 21st of April. In doing this, George told the Houses that he had ordered his army to pass the Rhine to support the Queen of Hungary. No sooner had Parliament closed, than George, accompanied by his son, the Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Carteret, hastened off to Germany. The British army, which the king had ordered to march from Flanders to aid the Austrians, had set out at the end of February. They were commanded by Lord Stair, and on their route were joined by several Austrian regiments under the Duke of Aremberg, and the sixteen thousand Hanoverians in British pay, who had wintered at Lige. They marched so slowly that they only crossed the Rhine in the middle of May. They halted at H?chst, between Mayence and Frankfort, awaiting the six thousand Hanoverians in Electoral pay, and an equal number of Hessians, who had been garrisoning the fortresses of Flanders, but who were now relieved by Dutch troops. Stair had now forty thousand men, and might easily have seized the Emperor at Frankfort. All parties had respected, however, the neutrality of Frankfort, and Stair did the same, probably because the Emperor, having no subjects to ransom him, might have proved rather a burden on his hands. De Noailles, on his part, had sixty thousand men, independently of the twelve thousand furnished to Broglie. He kept an active eye on the motions of the allied army, and as Stair encamped on the northern bank of the Main, he also passed the Rhine and encamped on the southern bank of the Main. The two camps lay only four leagues from each other, presenting a most anomalous aspect.The king and his war cabinet were now compelled to sue to France for the peace which was so freely offered the year before. Newcastle wrote to Sandwich in April, that the impossibility of arresting the progress of the French army, the discordant pretensions of the Allies, and their gross neglect of their engagements, rendered it absolutely necessary to make peace. Sandwich was to communicate this necessity to the Plenipotentiaries of the Allies, and if they declined to assent to it, to sign the preliminaries without them. The Ministers of the Allies still refused to join; it suited them very well to receive vast subsidies to fight their own battles, and yet to leave England to fight them. On the other hand, Count St. Severin, the Plenipotentiary of France, now felt his vantage-ground, and offered far worse terms than before, and, to force their acceptance, threatened that if they were not agreed to without delay, the French would leave the fortifications of Ypres, Namur, and Bergen-op-Zoom, and march directly into Holland. The treaty was signed by England, France, and Holland on the 18th of April. The general conditions were a mutual restoration of conquests. All the nations were placed very much in statu quo, except that Prussia had got Silesia, and Sardinia had lost Placentia and Finale. As for England, she firmly established her maritime supremacy, which from that date has remained unchallenged. The Young Pretender was compelled to leave France, and thenceforward ceased to be of any political importance.
THREE:No small curiosity was experienced to see the man that had maintained a defence, obstinate and protracted beyond any related in the annals of modern war. Gorgeously attired in silks and splendid arms, he rode a magnificent Arab steed, with a rich saddle-cloth of scarlet. He but little exceeded the middle size, was powerfully but elegantly formed; his keen, dark, piercing, restless eyes surveyed at a glance everything around. He neither wore the face of defiance nor dejection; but moved along under the general gaze as one conscious of having bravely done his duty.Both Pitt and Fox died in 1806, and a circumstance occurred in the following year which showed the inveterate obstinacy of the king regarding the Catholics. Lord Howick, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, obtained leave to bring in a Bill to enable Catholics to hold the higher offices in the army and navy; but the king soon let him know that he should not ratify any such Bill, and he agreed to withdraw it. But this did not satisfy George; he demanded from the Ministers a written engagement to propose no further concessions to the Catholics, and as they declined to do this, he dismissed them, and placed the Duke of Portland at the head of a new Cabinet.
THREE: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.
