FORE:Mr. Lamb, the Chief Secretary, wrote to Mr. Peel to the same effect. The Act, he said, had failed in fulfilling its main object, as well as every other advantageous purpose. To re-enact it would irritate all parties, and expose the Ministry to odium. He alluded to sources of dissension that were springing up in the Roman Catholic body, particularly the jealousy excited in the Roman Catholic prelates by the power which the Association had assumed over the parochial clergy. On the whole, his advice was against renewing the Statute. On the 12th of April Lord Anglesey wrote a memorandum on the subject, in which he pointed out the impolicy of any coercive measure, which, to be effective, must interfere with the right of public meeting, and make a dangerous inroad on the Constitution, at the same time displaying the weakness of the Government, which is shown in nothing more than passing strong measures which there was not vigour to enforce. His information led him to believe that the higher orders of the Roman Catholic clergy had long felt great jealousy of the ascendency that the leaders of the Association had assumed over the lower priesthood. Besides, many of the most respectable of the Catholic landlords were irritated at their tenantry for continuing to pay the Catholic rent, contrary to their injunctions; and sooner or later he believed the poorer contributors must consider the impost as onerous, arbitrary, and oppressive. These matters he regarded as seeds of dissolution, which would be more than neutralised by any coercive attempt to put down the Association. He felt confident that no material mischief could result from allowing the Act quietly to expire, supported as the Government was by "the powerful aid of that excellent establishment, the constabulary force, already working the greatest[270] benefit, and capable of still further improvement, and protected as this force was by an efficient army, ably commanded."
FORE:DUEL BETWEEN THE "GUERRIRE" AND THE "CONSTITUTION." (See p. 36.)
FORE:Napoleon, finding Blucher gone, turned his attentions to Wellington, expecting to find him still at Quatre Bras; but, as we have said, the Duke was now on his retreat to Waterloo. Buonaparte dispatched his cavalry in hot haste after him, and they came up with his rear at Genappe, where the British had to pass through a narrow street, and over a narrow bridge across the Dyle. There the French came with such impetus that they threw the light cavalry into confusion; but the heavy dragoons soon rode back, and drove the French with such effect before them, that they made no further interruption of the march. Without an enemy at their rear the march was repugnant enough to the soldiers. British soldiers abominate anything like a retreat. They had heard of the defeat of the Prussians at Ligny; and this retrograde movement looked too much of the same character to please them. Besides, it was raining torrents all the way; and they had to tramp across fields up to the knees in mud. At five in the evening, however, the Duke commanded a halt, and took up his position on ground which thenceforth was to be immortal. He was on the field of Waterloo! Long before this the position had attracted his attention, and he had thought that had he to fight a battle anywhere in that part of the country, it should be on that ground. About two miles beyond the village of Waterloo, which has been chosen to bear the name of this famous battle, and about a mile beyond the hamlet of Mont St. Jean, there stretches across the Charleroi road a ridge of some elevation. On this Wellington posted his army, his left extending to a hamlet called La Haye, and his right across the Nivelles road, to a village and ravine called Braine Merbes. These two roads united in the highway to Brussels, just behind the hamlet of Mont St. Jean, and close behind the centre of Wellington's position was the farm of Mont St. Jean; a little below his centre, on the Charleroi road or causeway, leading through Genappe to Quatre Bras, whence they had come, was another farmhouse, called La Haye Sainte. On Wellington's right, but down in the valley near the Nivelles road, lay an old chateau, with its walled orchard, and a wood beyond it, called Hougomonta contraction of Chateau-Gomont. Below this[98] position ran a valley, and from it ascended opposite other rising grounds, chiefly open cornfields; and along this ascent, at about half a mile distant, Buonaparte posted his army, shutting in by his right the chateau of Hougomont, and commanding it from the high ground. Nearly opposite to Wellington's centre stood a farmhouse, enclosed in its orchards, called La Belle Alliance. There Buonaparte took his stand, and kept it during all the fighteach commander being able to view the whole field. Close behind Wellington the ground again descended towards Mont St. Jean, which gave a considerable protection to his reserves, and kept them wholly out of the observation of the French. To make the situation of Wellington's army clear, we have only to say that behind the village of Waterloo extended the beech wood of Soigne along the road to Brussels for the greater part of the way.
THREE:
THREE:Such being the facts of the case, the Liberals came to the conclusion that a reform was inevitable. In order to adapt the Establishment to the requirements of the Protestant population, there must be a large reduction, and the surplus funds that remained ought to be applied to some object by which the moral and religious instruction of the people would be promoted. The least objectionable mode in which the money could be applied was the general education of the poor under the National Board, by which children of all denominations could be educated in harmony together, as they had been ever since its establishment. The reformers denied that there was any analogy between the revenues of the Established Church and private property. The Acts of Parliament securing those revenues had all treated them as being held in trust for the benefit of the nation; and after leaving ample means for the due execution of the trust, so far as it was really practicable, the Legislature was competent to apply the balance in accomplishing by other agency than the Protestant clergy, to some extent at least, the objects originally contemplated by the founders of the religious endowments.
