In the West Indies a small squadron and some land troops took the islands of Tobago, St. Pierre, and Miquelon. At the invitation of the planters, we also took possession of the western or French portion of St. Domingo; but in Martinique, where we had had the same invitation, the Royalist French did not support our efforts according to promise, and the enterprise failed from the smallness of the force employed. Besides these transactions, there occurred a severe fight between Captain Courteney, of the frigate Boston, with only thirty-two guns and two hundred men, and the Ambuscade, a French frigate of thirty-six guns and four hundred picked men, in which both received much damage, and in which Captain Courteney was killed, but in which the Frenchman was compelled to haul off. In the East Indies we again seized Pondicherry, and all the small factories of the French.
On the 3rd of December Parliament was dissolved, and the first elections under the Reform Bill promptly followed. Though they were anticipated not without alarm, everything went off peacefully, and it was discovered that the new House of Commons was composed of much the same materials as the old. The two most singular choices were those of Oldham which retained Cobbett, and of Pontefract which selected the ex-prizefighter Gully. But the state of parties was considerably changed. The old Tory party was practically extinct; the Moderates began to call themselves Conservatives; and Whig and Radical, bitterly as they disagreed on many points, proceeded to range themselves under the Liberal banner. The Radicals promptly proved their independence by proposing Mr. Littleton for the Speakership against the old Speaker, Mr. Manners Sutton, but the Whigs voted against them, and they were in a minority of 31 against 241. It was clear from the Royal Speech that the Session was to be devoted to Irish affairs, and the Cabinet was much divided over the measures in contemplation. These were a Coercion Bill, much favoured by Mr. Stanley, and a Church Temporalities Bill, the pet project of Lord Althorp. After many evenings had been wasted in bitter denunciations of the Irish Secretary by O'Connell and his following, Lord Althorp, on the 12th of February, 1833, introduced the Church Temporalities Bill, and three days afterwards Earl Grey introduced the Coercion Bill in the House of Lords. It had an easy course through that House, and was then brought forward by Althorp in the Commons. Speaking against his convictions, he made a singularly tame and ineffective defence of the measure. Then Stanley took the papers which he had given to his leader, mastered their details in a couple of hours, and in a magnificent speech completely turned the current of debate, and utterly silenced O'Connell. Before the end of March the Bill had passed through all its stages in the House of Commons.What immediately follows shows that Oliver had planned and brought to a crisis, by his personal exertions, this unhappy rising. On Sunday, the 8th of June, Jeremiah Brandreth, a framework-knitter of Nottingham, appeared with some others at a public-house called the "White Horse," in the village of Pentrich, in Derbyshire. This village is about fourteen miles from Nottingham, and about a mile from the small market town of Ripley. It is in a district of coal and iron mines, and is near the large iron foundry of Butterley. The working people of the village, and of the neighbouring village of South Wingfield, were chiefly colliers, workers in the iron mines or iron foundry, or agricultural labourersa race little informed at that day, and therefore capable of being readily imposed on. This Brandreth had been known for years as a fiery agitator. He was a little, dark-haired man, of perhaps thirty years of age. He had been much with Oliver, and was one of his most thorough dupes, ready for the commission of any desperate deed. He had acquired the cognomen of the "Nottingham Captain," and now appeared in an old brown great-coat, with a gun in his hand, and a pistol thrust into an apron, which was rolled round his waist as a belt.
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FORE:During this year little was done in America. General Bradstreet defeated a body of the enemy on the River Onondaga, and, on the other hand, the French took the two small forts of Ontario and Oswego.EARL GREY STREET, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. (From a Photograph by Poulton & Son, Lee.)
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THREE:Mention must be made of the extraordinary calculating machines of Charles Babbage. A few years after leaving college he originated the plan of a machine for calculating tables, by means of successive orders of differences, and having received for it, in 1822 and the following year, the support of the Astronomical and Royal Societies, and a grant of money from Government, he proceeded to its execution. He also in 1834 contrived a machine called the "analytical engine," extending the plan so as to develop algebraic quantities, and to tabulate the numerical value of complicated functions, when one or more of the variables which they contain are made to alter their values; but the difficulties of carrying out this plan became insurmountable. In 1839 Babbage resigned the professorship of mathematics in the University of Cambridge. He died at the end of 1871, having devoted his life to the study and advancement of science.
Why not give one of these popular Games a look?
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THREE:On Tuesday, the 20th of June, the Commons entered on the consideration of the great Protestant petition, praying for the repeal of Sir George Savile's Act for the relief of Catholics. On this occasion Burke and Lord North went hand in hand. Burke drew up five resolutions, which North corrected. These resolutions declared that all attempts to seduce the youth of this kingdom from the Established Church to[271] Popery were criminal in the highest degree, but that all attempts to wrest the Act of 1778 beyond its due meaning, and to the unnecessary injury of Catholics, were equally reprehensible. In the course of July the rioters were brought to trial. Those prisoners confined in the City were tried at the regular Old Bailey Sessions; those on the Surrey side of the river by a Special Commission. The Lord Chief Justice De Grey, being in failing health, resigned, and Wedderburn took his place as Lord Chief Justice, under the title of Lord Loughborough. His appointment gave great satisfaction; but this was considerably abated by his speech at the opening of the Commission, in which he indulged in very severe strictures on the rioters, who had to appear before him as judge. Of the one hundred and thirty-five tried, about one half were convicted, of whom twenty-one were executed, and the rest transported for life. Amongst the convicted was Edward Dennis, the common hangman; but he received a reprieve. The trial of Lord George Gordon, who was foolishly accused of high treason, was postponed through a technical cause till the following January, when he was ably defended by Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Erskine; and the public mind having cooled, he was acquitted. Probably the conviction of his insanity tended largely to this result, which became more and more apparent, his last strange freak being that of turning Jew.
TWO:Lord Anglesey had expressed himself so strongly in his communications with the Government, that he was afraid of being regarded by them as a partisan. He deprecated giving the executive any additional powers, though not without apprehensions of a rebellion, which he believed he had sufficient force to quell, even in the improbable event of foreign aid, upon which some of the Irish people might, however rashly, rely for success. On the 20th of July he wrote: "It appears not improbable there may be an attempt to introduce arms, and finally insurrection. I am quite sure the disaffected are amply organised for the undertaking. They are partially, but ill, armed. Pikes, however, to any amount, and at very short notice, would be easily manufactured, if they are not already made and secreted. Still, I cannot bring myself to believe that the ruling characters are at all inclined to put their cause to the test of arms; and if they do, I cannot imagine how, without foreign aidof which there appears no fearthey can calculate upon success." The priests had become all silent and reserved, even towards those with whom they had hitherto maintained confidential intercourse. No money would tempt them to make a single disclosure, and there was a general impression among them that some great event was at hand. The law officers of the Crown had been consulted as to the expediency of prosecuting some of the agitators for the most violent of their speeches; but their advice was, that it could not be done with any prospect of success, because their most exciting stimulants were accompanied by declarations that they wished only to guard the Government against insurrection, which only concession could prevent. Such being the condition of Ireland, the position of the Government was in the highest degree perplexing. The House of Commons was for Emancipation; the Lords were opposed to it; the king was opposed to it. The strength of political parties was nicely balanced in Parliament, and strong political excitement prevailed on both sides of the Irish Sea. Peel, in view of this state of affairs, says: "I maturely and anxiously considered every point which required consideration, and I formed a decision as to the obligation of public duty, of which I may say with truth that it was wholly at variance with that which the regard for my own personal interests or private feelings would have dictated." His intention was to relinquish office; but he resolved not to do so without placing on record his opinion that a complete change of policy was necessary, that the Catholic question should no longer be an open question, and that the whole condition of Ireland, political and social, should be taken into consideration by the Cabinet, precisely in the same manner in which every other question of grave importance was considered, and with the same power to offer advice upon it to the Sovereign. He also gave it as his decided opinion that there was less evil and less danger in conceding the Catholic claims than in persevering in the policy of resistance. He left London for Brighton soon after the close of the Session, having made a previous arrangement with the Duke of Wellington that he should send him a memorandum explanatory of his views on the state of Ireland and on the Catholic question, and that he should write to the Duke fully in reply. On the 9th of August the Duke wrote to him as follows:"I now send you the memorandum which I sent to the king on the state of Ireland, a letter which I sent to him at the same time, his answer, a memorandum upon the Roman Catholic[281] question which I have since drawn up, and a letter which I wrote yesterday to the Lord Chancellor."
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TWO:Walpole ridiculed the notion which had gone abroad that the revenue officers would be increased into quite a standing army, and would endanger the common liberty by their being empowered to enter private dwellings to search for concealed excisable articles. He said the increase would be only a hundred and twenty-six persons and that the Customs now possessed more searching power than he proposed to give to the Excise.
THREE:CHAPTER XIV. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).
THREE:CHAPTER XVI. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued).On assembling his remnant of an army in Brelowa, Buonaparte beheld a state of general disorganisation prevailing. Perishing with cold and hunger, every man was only mindful of himself. In a short time the whole village was pulled down to make camp-fires of the timber, for the weather was fiercely cold. He could scarcely prevent them from stripping off the roof under which he had taken shelter. He set out on his march for Wilna on the 29th of November. The army hurried along without order or discipline, their only care being to outstrip the Russians, who were, like famished wolves, at their heels; the Cossacks continually cutting down numbers of their benumbed and ragged comrades, who went along more like spectres than actual men. The thermometer was at twenty degrees below zero.
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While this was going on, the town of San Sebastian was stormed by the British. Sir Thomas Graham conducted the assault, which was led on by the brigade of General Robinson, bravely supported by a detachment of Portuguese under Major Snodgrass. The place was captured; the French were driven through it to the castle standing on a height, in which they found refuge. Seven hundred prisoners were taken. The British lost two thousand men in the assaulta loss which would have been far greater had a mine, containing one thousand two hundred pounds of gunpowder, exploded, but which was fortunately prevented by the falling in of a saucisson. Many less would have fallen, however, had General Graham allowed shells to be thrown into the town, which he would not, on account of the inhabitants. But the French had not only prepared this great mine, but exploded various other appliances for setting the town on fire. In fact they showed no care for the people or the town. When driven to the castle, after a murderous street fightin which they picked off our men from behind walls and windows, killing Sir Richard Fletcher, the commanding engineer, and wounding Generals Robinson, Leith, and Oswald, besides slaughtering heaps of our menthey continued to fire down the streets, killing great numbers of the inhabitants besides our soldiers. Yet, after all, they charged Lord Wellington with not only throwing shells into the town, but with[61] setting it on fire, and plundering it. His lordship indignantly repelled these accusations in his letter to his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley. He declares that he himself had been obliged to hasten to his headquarters at Lezaco, on the morning of the 31st of August, but that he saw the town on fire in various places before our soldiers entered it; in fact, the French had set it on fire in six different places, and had their mine exploded scarcely a fragment of the town would have been left, or a single inhabitant alive. The lenity shown to the town by Wellington and Graham, who acted for him, was not used towards their calumniators in the castle. It was stoutly bombarded, and being soon almost battered to pieces about the ears of the defenders, the French surrendered on the 8th of September, two thousand five hundred in number; but the siege of both town and fort had cost the allies four thousand men in killed and wounded. Had the town been, as the French represented, bombarded like the castle, some thousands of English and Portuguese lives would have been spared, but at the expense of the inhabitants.The first symptom of the breaking up was the[287] necessity felt for the dismissal of Lord George Germaine, who had contributed so essentially to the defeats in America. But even then the king would not consent that he should resign without conferring a peerage on him, observing, "No one can then say he is disgraced." No quiet was now allowed to the declining Ministers. Fox, on the 20th of February, strongly seconded by William Pitt, made another attack on Lord Sandwich, this time including the whole Board of Admiralty; and the motion was only lost by nineteen. Another, and perhaps more formidable, enemy now stood forward. This was General Conway, who enjoyed the highest esteem of the House, and had been the first to propose the abolition of the fatal Stamp Act. He moved, on the 22nd of February, that the House should address his Majesty, entreating that he would "listen to the advice of his Commons, that the war on the continent of North America might no longer be pursued for the impracticable purpose of reducing the inhabitants of that country to obedience by force." After a great debate, the House divided two hours after midnight, and Ministers were reduced to a majority of one, the votes being one hundred and ninety-four against one hundred and ninety-three. Five days after, General Conway again moved that any further attempts against America would weaken the efforts of England against her European enemies, and, by further irritating the colonies, render the desired peace more difficult. The resolution was carried against Government by two hundred and thirty-four against two hundred and fifteen. Finally, on the 15th of March Sir John Rous moved a vote of want of confidence, which was again lost by a minority of only nine. It was instantly determined to renew this motion through Lord Surrey; and Lord North saw so clearly that nothing could now avert his fall, that he implored the king most earnestly to accept his resignation. George sent for Lord North on the 20th, and addressed him in these words:"Considering the temper of the House, I thought the Administration at an end." Lord North instantly seized on the words, saying:"Then, sire, had I not better state the fact at once?" The king consented, and North hurried down to the House of Commons in his court-dress, as he was.[See larger version]On the death of Stanhope, Sir Robert Walpole was left without a rival, and he received his commission of First Lord of the Treasury on the 2nd of April, and from this period down to 1742 he continued to direct the government of Great Britain. His chief anxiety now was to restore the public credit. He drew up, as Chairman of the Committee of the Commons, a report of all that had been lost in the late excitements, and of the measures that had been adopted to remedy the costs incurred. Amongst these were the resolutions of the House respecting the seven and a half millions the directors of the South Sea Company had agreed to pay to Government; more than five had been remitted, and we may add that on the clamorous complaints of the Company the remainder was afterwards remitted too. The forfeited estates had been made to clear off a large amount of encumbrance, the credit of the Company's bonds had been maintained, and thirty-three per cent. of the capital paid to the proprietors. Such were the[49] measures adopted by the Commons, and these being stated in the report to the king, a Bill was brought in embodying them all. Many of the proprietors, however, were not satisfied. They were very willing to forget their own folly and greediness, and charge the blame on the Government. On the second reading of Walpole's Bill they thronged the lobby of the House of Commons. The next day the Bill was carried, and gradually produced quiet; but Walpole himself did not escape without severe animadversions. He was accused of having framed his measures in collusion with the Bank, and with a clear eye to his own interest; but he had been strenuously vindicated from the charge, and on the whole the vigour and boldness with which he encountered the storm and quelled it deserve the highest praise, and may well cover a certain amount of self-interest, from which few Ministers are free.
