NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE "BELLEROPHON." (From the Picture by W. Q. Orchardson, R. A.)The changes in, and uncertainty about, the Ministry gave great uneasiness to Lord Wellington, whose operations in Spain depended so much on earnest support at home. During the latter part of the autumn and the commencement of winter, whilst his army was in cantonments, he was actively preparing to surprise the French, and make himself master of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. With much activity, but without bustle, he made his preparations at Almeida. Pretending to be only repairing the damages to its fortifications, he got together there ample stores and a good battering train. He prepared also a portable bridge on trestles, and regulated the commissariat department of his army; he also had a great number of light, yet strong waggons constructed for the conveyance of his provisions and ammunition, to supersede the clumsy and ponderous carts of the Portuguese.But the bullionists were still bent on forwarding their scheme, or on throwing the country into convulsions. Lord King announced to his tenants in a circular letter that he would receive his rents in specie or in bank-notes to an amount equalling the advanced value of gold. This raised a loud[12] outcry against the injustice of the act, which would have raised the rents of his farms twenty or more per cent.; and Lord Stanhope brought in a Bill to prevent the passing of guineas at a higher value than twenty-one shillings, and one-pound banknotes at a less value than twenty shillings. There was a strenuous debate on the subject in both Houses. In the Lords, Lord Chancellor Eldon demonstrated the enormity of people demanding their rents in gold when it did not exist, and when, if the person who could pay in notes carried these notes to the Bank of England, he could not procure gold for them. He denominated such a demand from landlords as an attempt at robbery. Yet the Bill was strongly opposed in both Housesin the Commons by Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Samuel Romilly, Brougham, and others. It underwent many modifications, but it passed, maintaining its fundamental principles, and landlords were obliged to go on taking their rents in paper.
ONE:Sir Arthur knew that at least one hundred thousand French were on the march to take him at once in flank and front; that Soult was advancing from Salamanca, Mortier from Valladolid; and, besideswhich he did not knowNey was en route from Astorga. He must, therefore, retreat at once or fight, and the enemy saved him the trouble of deciding. King Joseph, afraid of Sir Robert Wilson being joined by General Venegas, who had shown himself on the road towards Aranjuez, and of then falling on Madrid, ordered Victor to attack Wellesley at once, without waiting for any further reinforcements. Accordingly, Sir Arthur was attacked by Victor in front of Talavera. He had placed Cuesta and his Spaniards on his right, abutting on the Tagus, and protected by old enclosure walls and olive gardens; and his own troops on the left, on the open plain. The attack began on the evening of the 27th of July, on the outposts, which gradually fell back, and the battle was renewed the next day. The position of the Spaniards being found unapproachable, the whole fury of the French fell on the British, and the contest was kept up till it was pitch dark.[577] About midnight there was a tremendous firing on the Spanish side, and Sir Arthur rode there to ascertain the cause. No cause was visible, but the Spaniards were flying in great haste, and it was with difficulty that he and Cuesta could stop the rout. Next day the British line was attacked on all points by the troops of both Victor and Sebastiani, but they were repelled, and driven down the hills at the point of the bayonet. At one time the British centre was driven in, but it was re-established by the 48th, while the 23rd Dragoons, by a reckless charge, paralysed a whole division of the French army. In the words of Sir Arthur, the British everywhere maintained their positions gloriously, and gave the French a terrible beating. Out of the fifty thousand pitched against the less than twenty thousand Britishfor the Spanish were scarcely engaged at allthey lost in killed and wounded seven thousand men. General Lapisse was killed, and many prisoners were taken, besides seventeen pieces of artillery, with tumbrils and ammunition complete. The British lost eight hundred and fifty-seven killed, and had three thousand nine hundred and thirteen wounded. Major-General Mackenzie and Brigadier-General Langworth were killed. James M'Cleland, made Baron of Exchequer.
TWO:Whilst these events had been progressing, the Ministry had entered into a combat with the great unknown political essayist, Junius. Junius had advanced from Sir William Draper to the Duke of Grafton, and from the Duke of Grafton to the king in his sweeping philippics. For these daring censures, Woodfall, the printer of the Public Advertiser, was tried, and also Almon, the publisher of the London Museum, a monthly periodical, for reprinting the libel there. Almon was convicted of publishing, and sentenced to pay a fine of ten marks, and give security for his good behaviour for two years, himself in four hundred pounds, and two sureties in two hundred pounds each. He moved in vain for a new trial. Woodfall was convicted of "printing and publishing only;" but he obtained an order for a new trial, on the ground of the phrase "only" being ambiguous. But the circumstance which excited the attention and turned the resentment of both Liberal statesmen and the people was, that Lord Mansfield on these trials had instructed the juries to confine themselves to the facts alone, and to leave the question of legality to the judges. This was properly declared a dangerous infringement of the rights of juries, and calculated to make their verdicts merely the servile echoes of the dicta of the judges. Lord Chatham, on the 28th of November, denounced in the Peers this dictation of the judge to the juries. Serjeant Glynn, at the same time, moved in the Commons for an inquiry into the administration of justice in Westminster Hall, where such unconstitutional instructions could be given. This occasioned a warm debate, in which Burke, Dunning, and others, ably defended the public rights. The motion was negatived.
While an impulse was thus given to the mathematical theory of light in the University of Cambridge, similar progress was being made in the sister University of Dublin, where three of her most eminent professorsSir William Rowan Hamilton, Dr. Lloyd, and Mr. M'Cullaghdevoted themselves energetically to its improvement and verification. Sir William Hamilton, a geometer of the first order, having undertaken a more complete discussion of the wave surface of Fresnel, to the equation of which he gave a more elegant form, ascertained the exact nature of that surface, and consequently the exact direction of refracted rays in the neighbourhood of the optic axes. The beautiful and unexpected results he obtained were verified by his friend Dr. Lloyd. The names of Sir William R. Hamilton and Dr. Lloyd will be handed down to posterity in connection with this discovery. "But," says Professor Forbes, "they have other claims to our respect. The former has generalised the most complicated cases of common geometrical optics, by a peculiar analysis developed in his essays on 'Systems of Rays.' To Dr. Lloyd we are indebted for several interesting experimental papers on optics, for an impartial review of the progress of the science, and for an excellent elementary treatise on the wave theory."The marvellous increase of national wealth in Great Britain since the reign of George III. is to be mainly ascribed to two mechanical agenciesthe spinning-jenny and the steam-engine; both of which, however, would have failed to produce the results that have been attained if there had not been a boundless supply of cotton from the Southern States of America to feed our manufactories with the raw material. The production was estimated in bales, which in 1832 amounted to more than 1,000,000; and in 1839 was upwards of 2,000,000 bales. It appears from Mr. Woodbury's tables, that in 1834 sixty-eight per cent. of all the cotton produced in the world was shipped for England. In this case the demand, enormous as it was, produced an adequate supply. But this demand could not possibly have existed without the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and Cartwright, in the improvement of spinning machinery.[46]
