On the 3rd of February Mr. Darby brought forward a motion that the sheriffs should be discharged from the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms. This gave rise to a long and animated debate. The Attorney-General opposed the motion, contending that until they made their submission the House could not dismiss them with due regard to its dignity. Sir William Follett replied to the arguments of the Attorney-General, and was answered by the Solicitor-General. The debate was adjourned, and was resumed on the 7th. At its conclusion the House divided on the question that the sheriffs be discharged, which was negatived by a majority of 71. On the 12th Mr. Sheriff Wheelton was discharged on account of ill-health, a motion for the release of the other sheriff having been rejected.
FORE:Mr. Peel urged that it is dangerous to touch time-honoured institutions in an ancient monarchy like this, if the Dissenters did not feel the tests as a grievance; if they did, it would be a very strong argument for a change. "But," he asked, "are the grievances now brought forward in Parliament really felt as such by the Dissenters out of doors? So far from it, there were only six petitions presented on the subject from 1816 to 1827. The petitions of last year were evidently got up for a political purpose." He quoted from a speech of Mr. Canning's, delivered, in 1825, on the Catholic Relief Bill, in which he said, "This Bill does not tend to equalise all the religions in the State, but to equalise all the Dissenting sects of England. I am, and this Bill is, for a predominant church, and I would not, even in appearance, meddle with the laws which secure that predominance to the Church of England. What is the state of the Protestant Dissenters? It is that they labour under no practical grievances on account of this difference with the Established Church; that they sit with us in this House, and share our counsels; that they are admissible into the highest offices of State, and often hold them. Such is the operation of the Test and Corporation Acts, as mitigated by the Annual Indemnity Act; this much, and no more, I contend, the Catholics should enjoy." With regard to Scotland Mr. Peel appealed to the facts that from that country there was not one solitary petition; that there was not any military or naval office or command from which Scotsmen were shut out; that, so far from being excluded from the higher offices of Government, out of the fourteen members who composed the Cabinet, threeLord Aberdeen, Lord Melville, and Mr. Grantwere Scotsmen and good Presbyterians. Even in England the shutting out, he said, was merely nominal. A Protestant Dissenter had been Lord Mayor of London the year before. The Acts had practically gone into desuetude, and the existing law gave merely a nominal preponderance to the Established Church, which it was admitted on all hands it should possess.
100 GB
THREE:This majority of the Coalition compelled Lord Shelburne to resign; but the rest of the Administration remained in their places, in the hope that Pitt would now take the Premiership. In fact, the king, on the 24th of February, sent for Pitt and proposed this to him; but Pitt was too sensible of the impossibility of maintaining himself against the present combination of parties. The next day Dundas moved and carried an adjournment for three days, to give time for the arrangement of a new Cabinet. Pitt continued to persist in declining to take the Premiership, and on the 2nd or 3rd of March the king sent for Lord North. His proposal was that North should resume the management of affairs; but North insisted on bringing in his new friends, and to that the king objected. Matters remained in this impracticable condition till the 12th, when the king sent for North, and proposed that the Duke of Portland should be asked to form an Administration; but this did not at all advance matters, for Portland was equally determined with North to maintain the Coalition, and the king was resolved to have nothing to do with Fox, whilst Fox was equally determined not to admit the king's friend, Lord Stormont, to any Cabinet of which he was a member. On the 31st the announcement was made that Pitt had resigned, and that the king was prepared to submit to the terms of the Coalition. George, with deep and inward groans, submitted himself once more to the slavery of the great Whig houses, and, as some small recompense, the Coalition admitted Lord Stormont to a place in the Cabinet.
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THREE:To the north of Boston peninsula, separated from it only by an arm of the sea, called the Charles River, about as broad as the Thames at London Bridge, stands Charlestown, built also on a peninsula, surrounded everywhere by navigable water, except a neck somewhat wider than Boston Neck. On the peninsula of Charlestown were two eminences: the lower one, nearest to Boston, being called Breed's Hill, the higher and more remote, Bunker's Hill. These hills, which commanded Boston, would have immediately attracted the eye of any general of the least talent. But Gage had utterly neglected this most vital point; and, on awaking on the morning of the 17th of June, he suddenly saw the height of Breed's Hill covered with soldiers and military works, as by magic, and the Americans shouting and beginning to fire upon the town and shipping in the harbour.
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TWO:Since the appearance of the Waverley Novels the poetry of Scott has been somewhat depreciated, but his metrical romances, if not of the highest class of poetry, are always fresh, from their buoyancy and the scenery in which they are laid. They are redolent of the mountain heather and summer dews; and the description of the sending of the "fiery cross" over the hills, and the battle in "Marmion," as well as other portions, are instinct with genuine poetic vigour. Campbell, who won an early reputation by his "Pleasures of Hope," is more esteemed now for his heroic ballads "Hohenlinden," "The Battle of the Baltic," and his "Mariners of England;" Moore, for his "Irish Melodies," than for his "Lalla Rookh;" Byron, for his "Childe Harold," rather than for his earlier love tales of the East, or his later dramatic poems. Amongst the very highest of the poets of that period stands Percy Bysshe Shelley (b. 1792; d. 1822), the real poet of spiritual music, of social reformation, and of the independence of man. Never did a soul inspired by a more ardent love of his fellow-creatures receive such a bitter portion of unkindness and repudiation. John Keats, of a still more delicate and shrinking temperament, also received, in return for strains of the purest harmony, a sharp judgment, in no degree, however, equal to the severity of that dealt out to Shelley. In his "Ode to a Grecian Urn," and his "Lamia," Keats left us examples of beauty of conception and felicity of expression not surpassed since the days of Shakespeare. In his "Hyperion" he gave equal proof of the strength and grandeur to which he would have attained.During this Session a very important Bill was introduced, and passed both Houses, for the improvement of the police, and the administration of justice in London. The old unpaid and very corrupt magistrates were set aside. The metropolis was divided into five districts, each having its police office, at which three justices were to sit, each having a salary of three hundred pounds per annum. They were not allowed to take fees in their own persons, and all fines paid in the courts were to be put in a box towards defraying the salaries and other official expenses. Constables and magistrates were empowered to take up persons who could not give a good account of themselves, and commit them as vagabonds.
In July of the present year the union of Ireland with Great Britain was carried. Pitt and Lord Cornwallis had come to the conclusion that a double Government was no longer possible, and that unless the Irish were to be allowed to exterminate one another, as they had attempted to do during the late rebellion, the intervention of the British Parliament was absolutely necessary. A resolution had passed the British Parliament in 1799, recommending this union, and the news of this created a tempest of indignation in Protestant Ireland. In January, 1799, the speech on the Address to the throne in the Irish Parliament was, on this account, vehemently opposed, and an amendment was carried against the Government by a majority of one; yet in January, 1800, a motion was carried, at the instigation of Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary, in favour of the union, by a majority of forty-two. Whence this magical change in twelve months? On the 5th of February the whole plan of the union was detailed by Lord Castlereagh, the principal Secretary of State for Ireland, in the Irish Commons. He stated that it was intended to give to Ireland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom four lords spiritual sitting in rotation of sessions, and twenty-eight lords temporal elected for life by peers of Ireland, and that the Irish representatives in the united House of Commons should be a hundred. The motion for this plan was carried in the Irish Commons by a majority of forty-two in spite of a magnificent speech from Grattan, and by a great majority in the House of Lords; but this was in the face of the most unmitigated amazement on the part of the opposition, and of the people, who were not in the secret. Their rage was beyond description. On the 13th of March Sir John Parnell declared that this measure had been effected by the most unexampled corruption, and moved for an Address to his Majesty, imploring him to dissolve this Parliament, and present the question to be decided by a new one. But the Solicitor-General declared that this motion was "unfurling the bloody flag of rebellion;" and Mr. Egan replied that the Solicitor-General and other members of the[475] administration had already "unfurled the flag of prostitution and corruption." But the measure was now passed, and that by the same Parliament which, only a year before, had rejected the proposition in toto. But what were the means employed by the British Government to produce this change? The answer is simple; a million and a quarter was devoted to the compensation of borough owners, lawyers who hoped to improve their prospects by entering the House, and the Dublin tradesmen.All being ready, on the 6th of January Wellington suddenly pushed forward to Gallegos, and[26] on the 8th invested Ciudad Rodrigo. Nothing could be more unexpected by Marshal Marmont, who had never suspected any attack in winter, and had placed his army in cantonments, and had, moreover, sent several divisions to distant points. On the very first evening Wellington stormed an external redoubt called the Great Teson, and established his first parallel. On the 13th he also carried the convent of Santa Cruz, and on the 14th that of San Francisco. He then established his second parallel, and planted fresh batteries. On the 19th he made two breaches, and, hearing that Marmont was advancing hastily to the relief of the place, he determined to storm at once, though it would be at a more serious exposure of life. The assault was rapid and successful, but the slaughter on both sides was very severe. A thousand killed and wounded were reckoned on each side, and one thousand seven hundred prisoners were taken by the British. What made the British loss the heavier was that General Mackinnon and many of his brigade were killed by the explosion of a powder magazine on the walls. General Craufurd of the Light Division, was killed, and General Vandeleur, Colonel Colborne, and Major Napier were wounded. Much ammunition and a battering train were found in Ciudad Rodrigo. Marmont was astounded at the fall of the place. The Spanish Cortes, who had been so continually hampering and criticising Wellington, now created him Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo. He was also, in England, advanced to the dignity of an earl, and an annuity of two thousand pounds was voted him by Parliament.It was agreed between the Catholic Powers that the Papal territory should be invaded at the same time by Neapolitan, Austrian, and French troops. France was determined to have the chief part, and, if possible, all the glory of the enterprise. Odillon Barrot, President of the Council, explained the objects of the French expedition, on the 16th of April. The Minister demanded extraordinary credit for the expenses of the expedition. It was promptly voted without any opposition, save some murmurs from the Left. An expedition was immediately organised, and an army, 6,000 strong, was embarked at Marseilles, with astounding celerity, on the 22nd of April, 1849, under the command of General Oudinot. But the Romans had no confidence in their professed protectors. On the contrary, they set about making all possible preparations for the defence of the city. In consequence of the hints he had got, however, Oudinot sent forward a reconnoitring party, which was saluted with a fire of artillery, certainly not meant as a feu de joie. The French general then ordered an attack upon two gates, the Portese and San Pancrazio, both on the right bank of the Tiber. The Romans repelled them at both points with a discharge of grape-shot, and they were compelled to retire with heavy loss; General Garibaldi, with his Lombard legion, having surrounded a retreating column, and made 200 prisoners. After this mortifying repulse, Oudinot retired to Palo, near Civita Vecchia, to await reinforcements, in order to enable him to vindicate the honour of the French arms, which could now be done only by the capture of Rome; and the French Government were probably not sorry to have this pretext for their unwarrantable course of aggression. In the meantime reinforcements were rapidly sent from Toulon. During this period a Neapolitan army, 16,000 strong, commanded by the king in person, had entered the States of the Church. Garibaldi, disregarding the orders of Roselli, went forth to meet the invaders, fell upon them with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, won a victory over them, and compelled them to retreat. All negotiations having failed, the French general commenced a regular siege. The city was cannonaded from the 11th to the 21st of June, when Garibaldi assured the Triumvirs that the defence was no longer possible. So Pius IX. was restored by foreign bayonets. Shortly after, the Pope issued a decree, proprio motu, containing a programme of "liberal institutions," so far as they were compatible with an absolute authority, enjoyed in virtue of Divine Right. The people were up for a brief period; they were now down, and would be kept down, if possible. They had presumed to think that they were the source of political power; that they could give their representatives the right of making laws and dethroning kings; but they must now learn that their business was to obey, and submit to anything which their superiors might think proper, of their own will and pleasure, to ordain.The only matters of interest debated in Parliament during this year, except that of the discontent in the country, were a long debate on Catholic emancipation, in the month of May, which was negatived by a majority of only twenty-four, showing that that question was progressing towards its goal; and a motion of Lord Castlereagh for the gradual abolition of sinecures. This intimated some slight impression of the necessity to do something to abate the public dissatisfaction, but it was an impression only on the surface. This Ministry was too much determined to maintain the scale of war expenditure to which they had been accustomed to make any real retrenchment. A committee appointed to consider the scheme recommended the abolition of sinecures to the amount of fifty-four thousand pounds per annum, but neutralised the benefit by recommending instead a pension-list of forty-two thousand pounds per annum. The country received the amendment with disgust and derision.[See larger version]
