FORE:Dick tried to conceal the twinkle in his eye, but it got the better of him as he explained.Bolingbroke was well aware that a violent strife for power was going on in the British Cabinet. Lord Carteret, the new Secretary of State, and afterwards Earl Granville, was labouring hard to undermine both Walpole and Townshend. He was a very accomplished man and a great linguist, familiar with nearly all the Continental languages, including German, which, strangely enough, the English courtiers neglected, though they had a[51] German monarch on the throne who could not speak English. German then was regarded as a language rude and even vulgara tongue, as Voltaire afterwards said, "only fit for horses." But Carteret, by being master of it, could converse freely with the king, whilst Walpole, ignorant, too, of French, could hold communication with him only in Latin, which, from the wide difference between the English and foreign pronunciation of it, could not have been a very favourable medium. Carteret had ingratiated himself so much with the king by conversing in German, and flattering George's German tastes and politics, that he had succeeded to the influence which Stanhope had formerly possessed. He had also secured the same influence in the Court of Paris. He had by that means confirmed the appointment of Sir Luke Schaub at that Court, and thus kept open the most favourable communication with the Abb Dubois. The Courts of England and France continued during Dubois' life in close connection, and through the influence of George and his Ministers, Dubois obtained first the Archbishop's mitre, and then the Cardinal's hat.
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FORE:On the 30th of March the British cast anchor before Copenhagen, between it and the island of Huen. On reconnoitring, the defences of the place were found to be very formidable. Nelson was appointed to make the attack with twelve line-of-battle ships, and some smaller craft. He had asked for ten. The next morningthe 2nd of Aprilthe wind was favourable, and Nelson weighed and drew nearer to the townSir Hyde Parker on the outside threatening the batteries and vessels at the mouth of the harbour. At ten o'clock the firing commenced, and at eleven it was general. Three of the British vesselsthe Agamemnon, the Bellona, and the Russellstuck fast on the shoal. For three hours the battle raged fiercely, for the Danes fought with their well-known valour. It was necessary for Nelson to silence or destroy the floating batteries and gunboats before he could come at the ships of the line and the great land batteries. He had ordered five hundred seamen, under the Hon. Colonel Stuart and Captain Freemantle to storm the Kroner Battery as soon as it was silenced; but at this moment Sir Hyde Parker, seeing the signals of distress flying at the mast-heads of the three vessels aground, and that three others, which he had sent forward as a reinforcement, were making but slow way to the front, signalled for the fleet to draw off, and cease the engagement. But Nelson took no notice of the signal: he continued to walk the deck, and asked if his signal for close action was still hoisted, and, being told it was, said:"Mind you keep it so." About half-past one o'clock the fire of the Danes slackened, and by two it had nearly ceased. But the vessels that had struck their flags recommenced firing on our boats sent to take possession of them, and the fire of the batteries on land and on Amager Island struck these surrendered vessels on one side, and that of our ships on the other. To prevent the destruction of the unhappy Danes placed in this fatal situation, Nelson sent on shore[482] Sir Frederick Thesiger with a flag of truce, and a letter to the Crown Prince, entreating him to put an end to a contest that was uselessly wasting the lives of the brave Danes. Within half an hour after Thesiger's departure, the firing from the Kroner Battery ceased, and Adjutant-General Lindholm came on board to learn the precise object of Nelson's note. Nelson replied that his object was humanity. He demanded that the action should cease, and that the wounded Danes should be taken on shore; that then he would burn or carry away the surrendered vessels, as he should think fit. It was agreed that the combat should cease for twenty-four hours, during which negotiations should be entered into. After five days' arduous discussion, an armistice was concluded for fourteen weeks, during which the treaty of armed neutrality with Russia was to be suspended. Nelson was to have full liberty to purchase any necessaries for his fleet, in Copenhagen or along the coast, and in case of renewal of hostilities all the Danish prisoners were to be again surrendered.In this Session the first step was taken in one of the greatest achievements of humanity which adorn the name of Britain. It was the grand preliminary towards annihilating the slave trade. The spirit of revolt against this odious trade had been gaining rapidly in the British mind. One of the earliest stabs given to it was by the pathetic story of Inkle and Yarico, in the "History of Barbadoes," by Lygon, which was taken up and amplified in the Spectator, and afterwards elaborated into an effective drama by Colman. Defoe, Dr. Johnson, Warburton in his "Divine Legation of Moses," and in his sermons so early as 1766, Voltaire, and other writers, had diffused a strong and sound feeling on the subject. It had been early attempted to establish the legal maxim, that a slave becomes a freed man in England; but in 1729 this had been positively pronounced against by Talbot and Yorke, then the highest legal authorities. But a more successful essay was made by Granville Sharp in 1772, in the case of James Somerset, and the principle was established, that the moment a slave set his foot on English ground he became free. In 1782 the Friends presented a petition to Parliament for the abolition of the slave trade. In 1785 Thomas Clarkson, then a student at the University of Cambridge, competed for and won the first prize for an essay on "The Slavery and Commerce in the Human Species," and this, which was undertaken as an academical exercise, led him to devote himself to the great work of the utter extinction of this evil. Mr. Ramsay, a clergyman of Kent, who had lived in St. Kitts, published a pamphlet on the same subject. The friends of Ramsay, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Bouverie, became zealous advocates of the cause, and finally Wilberforce resolved to make it the great object of his life. A society was now established in London, consisting only originally of twelve individuals, including the benevolent Mr. Thornton, and having Granville Sharp for its chairman. The members, however, were opulent merchants and bankers, and they set agents to work to collect information on the subject. The feeling rapidly spread; committees were formed in Manchester and other provincial towns for co-operation.
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THREE:
THREE:REVENUE CUTTERS CAPTURING AN AMERICAN SMUGGLING VESSEL. (See p. 184.)[See larger version]
THREE:There was a mutter of thunder and a far-off roar, a flame of lightning through the trees, and the hills and mountains shook. Just where they rode the ca?on narrowed to hardly more than a deep gulch, and the river ran close beside the road.
