THREE:In England a remarkable event closed the year 1810the appointment of a Regency. For some time the old malady of the king had returned upon him. He had not attended to open and close the last Session of Parliament, and there was a general impression as to the cause. But on the 25th of October, when Parliament had voted the celebration of a general jubilee, on the king's entrance upon the fiftieth year of his reign, it was announced publicly that his Majesty was no longer capable of conducting public business, and the House of Commons adjourned for a fortnight. This was a melancholy jubilee, so far as the king and his family were concerned; but the nation celebrated it everywhere with an affectionate zeal and loyalty. The royal malady had been precipitated by the death of his favourite daughter Amelia. On the 20th or 21st of October he visited her on her death-bed, and she put on his finger a ring, containing her own hair, and with the motto, "Remember me when I am gone." This simple but sorrowful act completed the mischief in progress, and George retired from the bedside of his dying daughter a confirmed lunatic. The princess died on the 2nd of November, but her father was past consciousness of the event.
ONE:On the 1st of February the inquiry into the crimes of Warren Hastings was renewed. The third charge of the impeachment, the treatment of the Begums, was undertaken by Sheridan, as the first was by Burke, and the second by Fox. We have stated the facts of that great oppression, and they were brought out in a most powerful and dramatic light by Sheridan in a speech of nearly six hours. Sheridan had little knowledge of India; but he was well supplied with the facts from the records of the India House and the promptings of Francis, who was familiar with the country and the events. The effect of Sheridan's charge far exceeded all that had gone before it. When he sat down almost the whole House burst forth in a storm of clappings and hurrahs. Fox declared it the most astounding speech that he had ever heard, and Burke and Pitt gave similar evidence. The wit and pathos of it were equally amazing; but it was so badly reported as to be practically lost. The following remark, however, seems to be reported fairly accurately:"He remembered to have heard an honourable and learned gentleman [Dundas] remark that there was something in the first frame and constitution of the Company which extended the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive operations, connecting with their civil policy, and even with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar and the profligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and the military line could be observed auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals; and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an army employed in executing an arrest; a town besieged on a note of hand; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was they exhibited a government which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre and the little traffic of a merchant's counting-housewielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the other." The debate was adjourned to the next day, for the House could not be brought to listen to any other person after this most intoxicating speech. The motion was carried by one hundred and seventy-five votes against sixty-eight.The progress of our manufactures was equally satisfactory. At the commencement of this period that great innovator and benefactor, the steam-engine, was produced. The idea thrown out by the Marquis of Worcester, in his "Century of Inventions," in 1663, had been neglected as mere wild theory till Savery, in 1698, constructed a steam-engine for draining mines. This received successive improvements from Newcomen and Crawley, and further ones from Brindley in 1756, and Watt extended these at the end of this period, though this mighty agent has received many improvements since. Navigable canals, also, date their introduction by the Duke of Bridgewater, under the management of Brindley, from the latter end of this period, 1758. Other great men, Arkwright, Compton, Hargreaves, etc., were now busily at work in developing machinery, and applying steam to it, which has revolutionised the system of manufacture throughout the world. In 1754 the Society of Arts and Manufactures was established.
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