ONE:We have stated that the spirit rising again in Germany called Buonaparte suddenly from Spain, even before Soult had pursued Sir John Moore to Corunna. At Valladolid he met the Abb de Pradt, who had risen high in Buonaparte's favour. To De Pradt, he said he began to suspect that he had made his brother Joseph a grander present in Spain than he was aware of. "I did not know," he said, "what Spain was; it is a finer country than I imagined. But you will see that, by-and-by, the Spaniards will commit some folly which will place their country once more at my disposal. I will then take care to keep it to myself, and divide it into five great viceroyships." Such were the soaring notions of Napoleon at the very moment that the man was ready who was to drive the French from Spain for ever. In England, at last, almost every one had now awoke to the consciousness that Sir Arthur Wellesley was the only man to cope with the French in the Peninsula. There were a few individuals, like Lord Folkestone, who were blinded enough by party to oppose this general conviction; but before the close of March Sir Arthur was selected by the Government for this command. On the 15th of April he sailed from Portsmouth, and on the 22nd he arrived safely at Lisbon. Some regiments of both horse and foot soon followed him, and he assumed the command of the British army in Portugal, which had been some time in the hands of General Sir J. Cradock. The command of the Portuguese troops had been placed in the hands of General Beresford, who had been actively drilling them; and thus General Sir Arthur Wellesley found himself at the head of an effective army of[574] British and Portuguese numbering twenty-five thousand men.None of the princes who accepted our protection benefited more than Scindiah. He was relieved from the insolence of haughty military chieftains, who commanded his armies, and left him as little free will as they left to his subjects quiet possession of their property. He was enabled to disband his vast armies, and reduce them to thirteen thousand infantry and nine thousand horse. His disbanded soldiers returned home, and became tillers of the land lately running into jungle, by which, and other influences of peace, his revenue was nearly doubled. All the districts wrested from him by the Pindarrees were restored to him; he lost only the mischievous fortress of Aseerghur. Sir John Malcolm cleared the country of the swarms of Arabs, and of Mekranees from Beluchistan, who had acquired a most formidable ascendency in the armies of the Indian chiefs; and these chiefs were informed that again to employ these mercenary ruffians, or to allow them to remain on their territories, would be regarded as a declaration of hostility by the British Government. Similar changes were introduced into the territories of the dethroned Peishwa by the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, who resided at Poonah; and by the conquest of the Poonah territory, by the treaty of Mundissoor, made by Sir John Malcolm after his great victory at Mahidpore, and by exchanges made with the Guicowar of Baroda, and other arrangements, the British dominions were now linked together in one broad and continuous expanse, from Calcutta to Bombay, and from Bombay to Madras, as by the former Mahratta war they had been established between Madras and Calcutta.
TWO:[See larger version]At length, on the 22nd of September, Lord John Russell, attended by Lord Althorp, and a great body of the most distinguished Reformers, appeared at the bar of the House of Lords, and handed the English Reform Bill to the Lord Chancellor, praying the concurrence of their Lordships. This scene has been made the subject of a great historical painting. The Bill, without any opposition or remark from any Conservative peer, was read a first time on the motion of Earl Grey, and ordered to be read a second time on Monday week. The debate on the second reading commenced on the 3rd of October, with a speech from Lord Greygrave, elaborate, earnest, and impressive; simple, yet dignified. He described his own efforts in regard to Parliamentary Reform, spoke of the changes which had of necessity attended his opinions on the subject, and of the circumstances which, at the close of his long career, when the conservative spirit is naturally strongest in every man, had led him to endeavour to put in practice the theories and speculations of his youth and manhood. Lord Eldon described the progress of the debate from day to day in letters to members of his family. Lord Dudley and Lord Haddington quite surprised and delighted the zealous old manthey spoke so admirably against the Bill. Lord Carnarvon delivered a most excellent speech; but Lord Plunket's speaking[339] disappointed him. The fifth night of the debate was occupied by the lawyers. Lord Eldonfollowing Lord Wynford and Lord Plunketsolemnly delivered his conscience on this momentous occasion. He was ill and weak, and being an octogenarian, he might be said to be speaking on the edge of the grave. He expressed his horror of the new doctrines which had been laid down with respect to the law of the country and its institutions. He could not consent to have all rights arising out of Charters, and all the rights of close boroughs, swept away. Boroughs, he contended, were both property and trust. Close corporations had as good a right to hold their charters under the Great Seal as any of their lordships had to their titles and their peerages. He said that he was a freeman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; he had received his education in the corporation school of that town on cheap terms, as the son of a freeman; he had a right to it; and he had hoped that, when his ashes were laid in the grave, he might have given some memorandum that the boys there, situated as he was, might rise to be Lord Chancellors of England, if, having the advantage of that education, they were honest, faithful, and industrious. The closing night of the debate brought out the two most illustrious law lords in the House, who had long been rivals and competitors in the arenas of professional and political lifeLord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst. Each was holding back in order to have the opportunity of replying to the other; but Lord Lyndhurst managed to have the last word, the more excitable Lord Chancellor having lost patience, and flung himself into the debate. He implored the House on his knees to pass the Bill. But the coup de thatre miscarried, owing to the obvious anxiety of his friends lest he should be thought to be suffering from too much mulled port.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Fuga temporibus iusto illum libero, velit rem, eius quo eveniet earum accusantium in sunt, ullam impedit mollitia magni tempora voluptas fugit cum.
