A leader in innovation for more than 100 years
FORE:These three eventsthe death of the Duke of York, the appointment of Mr. Canning as Prime Minister, and the entire remodelling of the Cabinet on Liberal principlessucceeding one another so rapidly in the early months of 1827, were regarded as the turning-points in the modern history of England, and fraught with most momentous consequences. The first changed the Heir-Apparent to the Throne, and for an obstinate bigot substituted a prince of popular sympathies. The second represented the triumph of intellect and public opinion over rank and monopoly. "Changes so vast," writes Sir Archibald Alison, "could not fail to exercise a powerful influence on the course of events in future times. The magnitude of the change appeared in the most decided manner when the Ministerial explanations usual in such cases took place in Parliament. Both Houses were crowded to excess, both in the highest degree excited, but the excitement in the two was as different as the poles are asunder: in the Commons it was the triumph of victory, in the Peers the consternation of defeat. So clearly was this evinced that it obliterated for a time the deep lines of party distinction, and brought the two Houses, almost as hostile bodies united under different standards, into the presence of each other. The Commons rang with acclamations when the new Premier made his triumphant explanation from the head of the Ministerial bench; but they were still louder when Mr. Peel, from the cross benches, out of office, said, 'They may call me illiberal and Tory, but it will be found that some of the most necessary measures of useful legislation of late years are inscribed with my name.' The tide of reform had become so strong that even the avowed Tory leaders in the Lower House were fain to take credit by sailing along with it. In the House of Lords, on the other hand, the feeling of the majority was decidedly hostile to the new Administration, and that not merely on the Tory benches, where it might naturally have been looked for, but among the old Whig nobility, who had long considered Government as an appendage of their estates. It was hard to say whether the old peers on both sides responded more strongly to the Duke of Wellington's and Lord Eldon's explanation of their reasons for declining to hold office, or to Earl Grey's powerful and impassioned attack on the new Premier. The division of the two Houses was clearly pronounced; the one presaged its approaching triumph, the other its coming downfall. The secret sense of coming change had raised their numbers in unwonted combinations, and the vital distinction of interest and order had for the time superseded the old divisions of party."
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FORE:At length Argyll, whose movements had been hastened by the arrival of General Cadogan, prepared to march northwards through deep snow and villages burnt by the Pretender's order. On the 30th of January the rebel army retreated from Perth, the Highland soldiers, some in sullen silence, others in loud curses, expressing their anger and mortification at this proceeding. The inhabitants looked on in terror, and bade adieu to the troops in tears, expecting only a heavy visitation for having so long harboured them. Early the next morning they crossed the deep and rapid Tay, now, however, a sheet of solid ice, and directed their march along the Carse of Gowrie towards Dundee.
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FORE:Before the termination of the reign there were active preparations for putting steam-engines on all iron railroads. So early as 1758, Watt, who afterwards did so much in the construction of steam-engines, had an idea that locomotive engines might be put on such roads. In 1770 such an engine was actually made and worked by John Theophilus Cugnot, in Paris, but he had not discovered sufficient means of controlling it. In 1802 Messrs. Trevethick and Vivian exhibited such an engine running along the streets in London. In 1805 the same gentlemen again exhibited one of their engines working on a tram-road at Merthyr Tydvil, drawing ten tons of iron at the rate of five miles an hour; and in 1811 Mr. Blenkinsop was running an engine on the Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, drawing a hundred tons on a dead level at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, and going at the rate of ten miles when only lightly loaded. Blenkinsop had made the wheels of his engines to act by cogs on indented rails; for there was a strong persuasion at that period that the friction of plain wheels on plain rails would not be sufficient to enable the engine to progress with its load. The folly of this idea had already been shown on all the colliery lines in the kingdom, and by the engine of Trevethick and Vivian at Merthyr. The fallacy, however, long prevailed. But during this time Thomas Gray was labouring to convince the public of the immense advantages to be derived from steam trains on railways. In five editions of his work, and by numerous memorials to Ministers, Parliament, lord mayors, etc., he showed that railroads must supersede coaches for passengers, and waggons and canals for goods. He was the first projector of a general system of railroads, laid down maps for comprehensive general lines for both England and Ireland, invented turn-tables, and very accurately calculated the cost of constructing lines. For these services he was termed a madman, and the Edinburgh Review recommended that he should be secured in a strait jacket. In his "Life of George Stephenson" Dr. Smiles takes exception to the statement that Thomas Gray was the originator of railways, and transfers that term to Stephenson. Let us be correct; Gray was the projector, Stephenson the constructor of railways. But it is not to be supposed that Gray had sold five editions of his work without Stephenson, and perhaps every engineer, having read and profited by it. Yet, so little had Stephenson any idea of the real scope and capacity of railways, that it was not till five years after the running of his engines on such lines, by Dr. Smiles's own showing, that he ever imagined such a thing as their becoming the general medium of human transit. He tells us Mr. Edward Pease suggested to him to put an old long coach on the Darlington and Stockton line, attached to the luggage trucks, and see if people might not wish to travel by it. Gray had demonstrated all this long before. He stood in the place of the architect, Stephenson only of the builder who carries out the architect's design. Seven years only after the death of George III. the railway line between Manchester and Liverpool was commenced, and from its successful opening, on the 15th of September, 1830, dates the amazing development of the present railway system.
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FORE:On the 3rd Parliament assembled, and the nation was full of expectation as to the measures of the Government. The great question of the day was understood to have been under their anxious consideration during the winter. It subsequently transpired that the measure of Reform contemplated by Lord Grey at the close of the year was far more moderate than the one which was brought forward by Lord John Russell. The material increase in the amount of concession was said to be chiefly owing to the growing demands of the people, enlightened by the discussions in the political unions. Lord Durham was the most advanced Liberal in the Cabinet, and most strenuously insisted on the necessity of a very liberal measure. In order that the Bill might be well matured, and might fully meet the wants of the country, Lord Grey appointed a committee to consider the whole subject, and report upon it to the Cabinet. This committee consisted of his son-in-law, Lord Durham, who was intimately acquainted with his own views; Lord John Russell, who had represented the Whig party in the House of Commons in the various proposals that he had made on the subject of Reform; Sir James Graham, who enjoyed the confidence of the advanced Liberals, and was considered something more than a Whig; and Lord Duncannon, who was supposed to be well acquainted with the Irish corporations. According to the general instructions given to the[329] committee, they were to prepare the outlines of a measure which should be sufficiently comprehensive to meet the demands of public opinion, so as to extinguish the desire for further change. But it must rest upon property as its basis, and be connected with existing territorial divisions. He wished that the prerogative of the Crown should be in no degree diminished, that the peers should lose none of their rights or privileges; but that, saving these, the democracy should play its due part in the legislation and government of the country. The committee began to work as soon as the Administration was organised. They first discussed the principles involved in the measure, then the details were separately examined, and when a point was decided and agreed upon, it was recorded in writing by Lord Durham. Lord John Russell furnished the materials for Schedules A and B, which were supplied to him by coadjutors, who were labouring diligently out of doors facilitating the work. The first draft of the measure, as adopted by the committee, was explained by Lord Durham in the form of a report to the Cabinet, showing how the plans thus propounded would fulfil the conditions required, and, by satisfying all reasonable desires, stop the tendency to innovation. The scheme, when thus placed before the Cabinet, became the subject of their anxious deliberation, and was unanimously adopted by them, with the exception of the ballot, which was rejected owing to Lord Grey's objections. It was then submitted to the king at Brighton, a few days from the meeting of Parliament, was discussed with him from point to point, and sanctioned.
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FORE:With "The Battle of the Books" appeared "The Tale of a Tub;" and though these were anonymous, it was soon well known that they were from the hand of Jonathan Swift, a friend of Harley and Bolingbroke, who now assumed a position in the public eye destined to be rendered yet more remarkable. Swift was of English parentage, but born in Dublin in 1667. He was educated at Kilkenny and the University of Dublin. In early life he became private secretary to Sir William Temple, and at this time he wrote his "Tale of a Tub," which cut off all his hopes of a bishopric. He edited a selection from the papers of Temple, and then accompanied Lord Berkeley to Ireland as chaplain. Disappointed of the preferment which he had hoped for, he went over from the Whigs to the Tories in 1710, and thenceforward was an unscrupulous adherent of Harley and Bolingbroke, defending all their measures in the "Examiner," and pouring out his vengeance on all opponents with unflinching truculence. In his political[148] character Swift has been styled the great blackguard of the age, and certainly with too much truth. In spite of rare intellectual power, wit, and sarcasm, no principle or tenderness of feeling restrained him in his attacks on his enemies. If Harley and Bolingbroke are guilty of inflicting the disgraceful peace of Utrecht on the nation, simply to avenge themselves on the Whigs, no man so thoroughly abetted them in that business as Swift. His "Conduct of the Allies," his "Public Spirit of the Whigs," and other political tracts and articles, bear testimony to his unscrupulous political rancour. His "Drapier's Letters," and his treatment of Wood in the affair of the Irish halfpence, show that no means, however base and false, came amiss to him in serving the objects of his ambition. The great work of Swift is his "Gulliver's Travels," a work characterised by a massive intellect and a fertile invention, but defiled by the grossness that was inseparable from his mind, and that equally pollutes his poems, in which there is much wit and humour, but not a trace of pathos or tenderness. There is none of that divine glow of love and human sympathy, mingled with the worship of beauty and truth, which courts our affections in the works of the greatest masters. When we are told that Swift's grossness is merely the grossness of the time, we point to "Robinson Crusoe," to "The Seasons" and "Castle of Indolence" of Thomson, and to the works of Addison, for the most admirable contrast. Swiftwho died in the famous year of the '45was one of the most vigorous writers of the age, but he was one of the most unamiable. He was the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century. Austria gets ready for WarNapoleon's PreparationsInvasion of Bavaria by AustriaThe Archduke Charles driven from BavariaOccupation of ViennaBattle of AspernThe Spirit of Revolt in Germany; Schill and BrunswickBattle of WagramPeace of ViennaVictories of the TyroleseDeath of HoferThe Betrayal of Poland and ItalyDeposition of the PopeMinisterial DissensionsDeath of Portland, and Reconstruction of the MinistryInquiry into the Walcheren ExpeditionImprisonment of Gale JonesBurdett committed to the TowerThe Piccadilly RiotsArrest of BurdettDebates in the House of CommonsAgitation for Parliamentary ReformLiberation of BurdettRemaining Events of the SessionCondition of SpainSoult's victorious ProgressHe fails at CadizThe Guerilla WarMassena sent against WellingtonCapture of Ciudad RodrigoCapitulation of AlmeidaBattle of BusacoThe Lines of Torres VedrasMassena baffledCondition of the rival ArmiesVictories in the East and West IndiesThe War in Sicily.
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