ONE:THE DEATH OF NELSON, 1805.Gilbert's Act, (22 Geo. { 12 unions 200
TWO:This report was published in the Moniteur on the morning of Monday, July 26th. On the same day, and in the same paper, appeared the famous Ordonnances, signed by the king, and countersigned by his Ministers. By the first the liberty of the press was abolished, and thenceforth no journal could be published without the authority of the Government. By the second the Chamber of Deputies, which was to meet in the ensuing month, was dissolved. By the third a new scheme of election was introduced, which destroyed the franchise of three-fourths of the electors, and reduced the number of deputies to little more than one half. Thus the whole Constitution was swept away by a stroke of the royal pen. As soon as these Ordonnances became generally known throughout the city the people were thrown into a state of violent agitation. The editors and proprietors of twelve journals assembled, and having resolved that the Ordonnances were illegal, they determined to publish their papers on the following day. A statement of their case, signed by thirty-eight persons, was published in the Nationale. They said: "In the situation in which we are placed, obedience ceases to be a duty. We are dispensed from obeying. We resist the Government in what concerns ourselves. It is for France to determine how far her resistance ought to extend." In pursuance of this announcement the journalists were preparing to issue their papers when the police entered the offices and began to scatter the type and break the presses. In some of the offices the workmen resisted, and the locks of the doors had to be picked; but no smith could be got to do the work except one whose business it was to rivet the manacles on galley slaves. There was a meeting of the electors of Paris, who quickly decided upon a plan of operations. Deputations were appointed to wait on the manufacturers, printers, builders, and other extensive employers, requesting them to discharge their workpeople, which was done, and on the 27th 50,000 men were assembled in different parts of the town, in groups, crying, "Vive la Charte!" About thirty deputies, who had arrived in town, met at the house of M. Casimir Perier, and resolved to encourage the rising of the people. The troops were under arms; and it is stated that without any provocation from the people except their cries, the military began to sabre the unarmed multitude. The first shot seems to have been fired out of a house, by an Englishman, named Foulkes, who was fired on by the military, and killed. Alarming reports spread through the city that the blood of the people was being wantonly shed, and that women were not spared. The black flag was raised in various quarters, ominous of the desperate nature of the struggle. The night of the 27th was spent in preparation. The shops of the armourers were visited, and the citizens armed themselves with all sorts of weaponspistols, sabres, bayonets, etc. In every street men were employed digging up the pavements, and carrying stones to the tops of the houses, or piling them behind the barricades, which were being constructed of omnibuses and fiacres at successive distances of about fifty paces. The fine trees of the Boulevards were cut down and used for the same purpose. The garrison of Paris was commanded by General Marmont. It consisted altogether of 11,500 men. At daybreak on the 28th the citizens were nearly ready for battle. Early in the morning national guards were seen hastening to the H?tel de Ville, amidst the cheers of the people. Parties of cavalry galloped up and down, and occasionally a horseman, shot from a window, fell back out of his saddle. At ten o'clock Marmont formed six columns of attack, preceded by cannon, which were to concentrate round the H?tel de Ville. The insurgents retired before the artillery, and the troops, abandoning the open places, took shelter in the houses and behind barriers. In the meantime a desperate fight raged at the H?tel de Ville, which was taken possession of, and bravely defended by the National Guard. Their fire from the top of the building was unceasing, while the artillery thundered below. It was taken and retaken several times. It appears that hitherto the Government had no idea of the nature of the contest. The journals had proclaimed open war. They declared that the social contract being torn, they were bound and authorised to use every possible mode of resistance, and that between right and violence the struggle could not be protracted. This was on the 26th; but at four o'clock p.m., on the 27th, the troops had received no orders; and when they were called out of barracks shortly after, many officers were absent, not having been apprised that any duty whatever was expected. The night offered[317] leisure to arrange and opportunity to execute all necessary precautions. The circumstances were urgent, the danger obvious and imminent; yet nothing at all was done. The contest lasted for three days with varying fortunes. Twice the palace of the Tuileries was taken and abandoned; but on the third day the citizens were finally victorious, and the tricoloured flag was placed on the central pavilion. Marmont, seeing that all was lost, withdrew his troops; and on the afternoon of the 29th Paris was left entirely at the command of the triumphant population. The National Guard was organised, and General Lafayette, "the veteran of patriotic revolutions," took the command. Notwithstanding the severity of the fighting, the casualties were not very great. About 700 citizens lost their lives, and about 2,000 were wounded. It was stated that the troops were encouraged to fight by a lavish distribution of money, about a million francs having been distributed amongst them, for the purpose of stimulating their loyalty. The deputies met on the 31st, and resolved to invite Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to be lieutenant-general of the kingdom. He accepted the office, and issued a proclamation which stated that the Charter would thenceforth be a truth. The Chambers were opened on the 3rd of August; 200 deputies were present; the galleries were crowded with peers, general officers of the old army, the diplomatic body, and other distinguished persons. The duke, in his opening speech, dwelt upon the violations of the Charter, and stated that he was attached by conviction to the principles of free government. At a subsequent meeting the Chamber conferred upon him the title of the King of the French. He took the oath to observe the Charter, which had been revised in several particulars. On the 17th of August Charles X. arrived in England; and by a curious coincidence there was a meeting that day in the London Tavern, at which an address to the citizens of Paris, written by Dr. Bowring, congratulating them on the Revolution of July, was unanimously adopted. Meetings of a similar kind were held in many of the cities and towns of the United Kingdom. Feelings of delight and admiration pervaded the public mind in Britain; delight that the cause of constitutional freedom had so signally triumphed, and admiration of the heroism of the citizens, and the order and self-control with which they conducted themselves in the hour of victory. Thus ended the Revolution of July, 1830. It was short and decisive, but it had been the finale of a long struggle. The battle had been fought in courts and chambers by constitutional lawyers and patriotic orators. It had been fought with the pen in newspapers, pamphlets, songs, plays, poems, novels, histories. It had been fought with the pencil in caricatures of all sorts. It was the triumph of public opinion over military despotism. To commemorate the three days of July it was determined to erect a column on the Place de la Bastille, which was completed in 1840.It was time, if they were to avoid a battle. Cumberland was already on the march from Edinburgh. He quitted Holyrood on the 31st of January, and the insurgents only commenced their retreat the next morning, the 1st of February, after spiking their guns. With this force the prince continued his march towards Inverness, a fleet accompanying him along the coast with supplies and ammunition. On nearing Inverness, he found it rudely fortified by a ditch and palisade, and held by Lord Loudon with two thousand men. Charles took up his residence at Moray Castle, the seat of the chief of the Macintoshes. The chief was in the king's army with Lord Loudon, but Lady Macintosh espoused the cause of the prince zealously, raised the clan, and led them out as their commander, riding at their head with a man's bonnet on her head, and pistols at her saddle-bow. Charles, the next morning, the 17th of February, called together his men, and on the 18th marched on Inverness. Lord Loudon did not wait for his arrival, but got across the Moray Firth with his soldiers, and accompanied by the Lord-President Forbes, into Cromarty. He was hotly pursued by the Earl of Cromarty and several Highland regiments, and was compelled to retreat into Sutherland. Charles entered Inverness, and began to attack the British forts. Fort George surrendered in a few days, and in it they obtained sixteen pieces of cannon and a considerable stock of ammunition and provisions.
ONE:During these transactions the activity of the Pretender and his agents was encouraged by the growing influence of Bolingbroke in the English Court. Bolingbroke proposed to Oxford that they should pay the dowry of the Pretender's mother, the widow of James II.; but to this Oxford objected, saying that the widow of James had not contented herself with the title of queen-dowager of England, but had assumed that of queen mother, which, he observed, could not be lawfully admitted after the attainder of her son. This strengthened the hands of Bolingbroke with Lady Masham, who was violently in favour of the Pretender. Lady Masham's disgust with Oxford was wonderfully increased. In writing to Mesnager, she did not hesitate to say that if the Court of St. Germains trusted to Oxford, they would be deceived; that he was "famous for loving a secret, and making intricacies where there needed none, and no less renowned for causing everything of such a nature to miscarry." The Pretender, having every day increased encouragement from Lady Masham and Bolingbroke, demanded of the Emperor of Germany one of his nieces in marriage; and it was reported that the Emperor was agreeable to it, and ready to espouse his cause. It was well known that distinct propositions had been made to the Pretender through the Duke of Berwick, at the instance of Lady Masham, before her breach with Oxford, by which his restoration on the demise of Anne was agreed to on condition that he should guarantee the security of the Church and Constitution of England, and that not even his mother should be admitted to the knowledge of this agreement. At the last point, however, Oxford failed to conclude this secret treaty. The Duke of Berwick, in his Memoirs, says that, in consequence of this conduct of Oxford's, the friends of the Pretender turned their attention to other parties about the Courtto Lord Ormonde, the Duke of Buckingham, and many other persons. Buckinghamwho was married to the Lady Catherine Darnley, a daughter of James II. by Catherine Sedley, and was, therefore, brother-in-law to the Pretenderwrote to the Earl of Middleton, the Pretender's Minister, how earnestly he desired to see the king back on the English throne; that nothing but his religion stood in the way; that this was the only thing which prevented the queen from acknowledging him; and he urged him to follow the example of Henry IV. of France, who gave up the Protestant religion when he saw that he could not securely hold the Crown without doing so. But the Pretender was, much to his creditbeing firmly persuaded of the truth of his religionmuch too honest to renounce it, even for the Crown of such a kingdom as Great Britain; and he argued that the English people ought to see in his sincerity a guarantee for his faithful dealing with them in all other matters. But, unfortunately, the example of his father had barred the way to any such plea. No man was more positive in the adherence to his religion, or in his sacrifices on its account; but no man had at the same time so thoroughly demonstrated that he had no such honourable feeling as to breaking his word where any political matter was concerned.
TWO:The various triumphs in the direction of liberty of conscience evidence a sense of civil right in the community, which forced itself on the Government, rather than a sense of religion. But religion, too, was in steady growth. The Dissenters had greatly increased during this period, and amongst them the names of some of their ministers had acquired a general reputation. Robert Hall, of Leicester, and afterwards of Bristol, threw a new lustre on the Baptist community. He was the son of a Baptist minister, was at first educated by Dr. Ryland, the learned Baptist pastor of Northampton, and afterwards took his degree of M.A. at King's College, Aberdeen. He commenced his ministerial career in Bristol, and subsequently resided as minister at Leicester for twenty years. On the death of his old tutor, Dr. Ryland, he became the president of the Baptist Academy at Bristol, and pastor of Broadmead Chapel, in that town. Robert Hall was not inferior to any of the clergy of the Establishment in learning or eloquence. He was for eleven years the Baptist minister in Cambridge before removing to Leicester. In Cambridge he succeeded to a man nearly as remarkable, the celebrated Robert Robinson. At this university town he attracted the notice of some of the leading Established clergy and professors, and of the world at large, by his "Vindication of the Freedom of the Press," and his splendid sermon "On Modern Infidelity." Dr. Parr has left a testimony to the merits of Robert Hall in his will, which does honour to his liberality:"Mr. Hall has, like Jeremy Taylor, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the subtlety of a schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, and the piety of a saint." To the same body belonged the celebrated author of "Essays on the Formation of Character," John Foster, also of Bristol.
