FORE:If there wanted anything to prove the truth of Lord Wellington's warnings to the Spanish authorities of the undisciplined condition of their armies, and the incompetency of their generals, it came quickly. Whilst they continued to treat him more like an enemy than a friend, and had issued orders throughout the province where he lay, forbidding the sale of provisions and forage for his army, their own armies were again annihilated. The army of Venegas, which had retreated, on the advance of Sebastiani towards Madrid, into the Sierra Morena, had been taken from him, and given to a young, inexperienced man, General Areizaga. Cuesta, also, had been set aside for one still more incapable, a General Eguia, of whom Lord Wellington had already pronounced that he was a fool. Areizaga, instead of maintaining his strong post in the hills, being joined by the greater part of the army of Estremadura, now commanded by Eguia, imagined that he could beat the united forces of Mortier and Sebastiani, and drive them out of Madrid. With fifty thousand men and sixty pieces of artillery he descended from his hills into the open plains of Oca?a, where he was beaten on the 20th of November, with the loss of all his artillery but five guns, his baggage, military chest, provisions, and everything. There was immense slaughter of his soldiers, and the rest fled into the mountains. The Duke del Parque, who was placed for the protection of the line of the Tagus with another large army, was marching to support this intended conquest of Madrid, when, in the month of October, being strongly posted on the heights of Tamames, he encountered General Marchand, and defeated him. Elated by this success, he no longer trusted to hills and strong positions, but, like Areizaga, advanced boldly into the plains, and on the 28th of November he encountered Kellermann at Alba de Tormes, and received a most thorough defeat. His men, both cavalry and infantry, scarcely stayed to cross swords or bayonets with the French, but, flinging down their arms, and leaving all their baggage and artillery behind them, they fled in every direction. Kellerman pursued and cut them down without mercyaccording to his own account, killing three thousand men and making three hundred prisoners.The attention of the public was now again drawn to those unnatural feuds which disturbed the Royal Family. The exhibition of domestic discord and hatred in the House of Hanover had, from its first ascension of the throne, been most odious and revolting. The quarrels of the king and his son, like those of the first two Georges, had begun in Hanover, and had been imported along with them only to assume greater malignancy in foreign and richer soil. The Prince of Wales, whilst still in Germany, had formed a strong attachment to the Princess Royal of Prussia. George forbade the connection. The prince was instantly summoned to England, where he duly arrived in 1728.
FORE:The Irish corporations were included in the inquiry, which commenced in 1833. The Irish Commissioners took for their local investigations the one hundred and seventeen places which had sent representatives to the Irish Parliament. They found everywhere the grossest abuses. By an Act of George II., residence had been dispensed with as a qualification for corporate offices. The effect of this was to deprive a large number of them of a resident governing body. In some cases a few, very rarely a majority, of the municipal council were inhabitants of the town. In others, the whole chartered body of burgesses were non-resident, and they attended as a mere matter of form, to go through the farce of electing members of Parliament, or for the purpose of disposing of the corporate property. In some boroughs the charter gave the nomination of a member of Parliament to the lord of the manor or some local proprietor. In others the power of returning the Parliamentary representative was vested in a small self-elected body of freemen; almost invariably the power of nomination was actually possessed by the gentleman known as the "patron" or "proprietor," who could dispose of the seat as he thought proper, and if not reserved for himself or some member of his family, it was sold for the highest price it would bring in the markettreated in every respect as absolute property, which was transmitted, like the family estate, from father to son. This property was fully recognised at the union, and it was by buying it up at an exceedingly liberal price that Lord Castlereagh was enabled to carry that measure. By the Act of union a large number of those rotten corporations, some of which had not even a hamlet to represent, were swept away. But a considerable number remained, and of these the Commissioners of inquiry remarked:"This system deserves peculiar notice in reference to your Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. In the close boroughs they are almost universally excluded from all corporate privileges. In the more considerable towns they have rarely been admitted even as freemen, and, with few exceptions, they are altogether excluded from the governing bodies. In someand among these is the most important corporation in Ireland, that of Dublintheir admission is still resisted on avowed principles of sectarian distinction. The exclusive spirit operates far more widely and more mischievously than by the mere denial of equal privileges to persons possessing perfect equality of civil worth; for in places where the great mass of the population is Roman Catholicand persons of that persuasion are for all efficient purposes excluded from corporate privilegesthe necessary result is that the municipal magistracy belongs entirely to the other religious persuasions; and the dispensation of local justice, and the selection of juries being committed to the members of one class exclusively, it is not surprising that such administration of the law should be regarded with distrust and suspicion by the other and more numerous body."
FORE:TWOPENNY PIECE OF GEORGE III.
FORE:At the opening of the year 1814 Buonaparte was busy endeavouring to make good some of his false steps, so as to meet the approaching Allies with all possible strength. He made haste to liberate the captive Pope, and thus remove one of the causes of the hostility of the Italians to him, for in Italy the Austrians were bearing hard on his Viceroy, Eugene, who had but about forty-five thousand men there, whilst Murat, at Naples, so far from supporting the claims of Napoleon, was endeavouring to bargain with the Allies for the kingdom of Naples. Buonaparte, at the commencement of the year, sent Cardinal Maury and the Bishops of Evreux and Plaisance to Pius VII. at Fontainebleau. But even in such pressing circumstances Buonaparte could not make a generous offer. He endeavoured to bargain for the cession of a part of the Papal territories, on condition of the surrender of the rest. But Pius, who had always shown great spirit, replied that the estates of the Church were not his to give, and he would not give his consent to their alienation. Foiled on this point, Buonaparte then sent word that the Pope should be unconditionally liberated. "Then," said Pius, "so must all my cardinals." This was refused, but he was permitted to go alone, and a carriage and guard of honour were given him. Before departing, Pius called together the cardinals, seventeen in number, and commanded them to wear no decoration received from the French Government, and to assist at no festival to which they should be invited. He then took his leave, on the 24th of January, and reached Rome on the 18th of May. Thus ended the most foolish of all the arbitrary actions of Napoleon. The folly of it was so obvious that he disclaimed having ordered the seizure of the Pope, but he showed that this was false by keeping him prisoner more than five years.
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