ONE:The next morning, by daybreak, the French were in full retreat over the river Alberche, and Sir Arthur employed the two following days in getting his wounded into hospital in Talavera, and in procuring provisions for his victorious but starving army. Sir Arthur complains that, though he had thus repulsed the French for them, neither the Spanish authorities nor the Spanish people did anything to assist him in this respect. They were very willing that the British should fight their battles, but they must provide for themselves, or starve. The state of our own Commissariat aggravated this evil. It had long been a Department of the most corrupt kind, the duties of which were neglected, and little was thought of by its officers but the enriching of themselves at the expense of our Government and our soldiers. These swindlers, long after this, continued to pay the contractors and muleteers in notes payable at Lisbon, or at headquarters; these the receivers[578] had often to get changed into coin at a monstrous discount, and Jews and jobbers flocked after the army for this purpose. To add to the mischief, some of these villains introduced loads of counterfeit dollars, merely copper-plated, so that, after losing enormously on the exchange of the paper, the receivers found themselves utterly defrauded of their payment. It was no wonder that the trading part of the Spanish population should feel shy of supplying us, more especially as Sir John Moorefrom the money which should have been in his chest having been, by Mr. Frere, carelessly handed over to the Spanish Juntahad had to pay in paper which the British Government had not yet redeemed. The reform of such abuses as these was one of the great things which Wellesley did for the British army, but at present he was suffering the extremest difficulties from them. He wrote sternly to Mr. Frere, who had not yet been superseded by the arrival of Lord Wellesley, that he (Sir Arthur) was blamed by the Junta for not doing more, whilst they were allowing his army, which had beaten twice their own number in the service of Spain, to starve. "It is positively a fact," he wrote, "that during the last seven days the British army have not received one-third of their provisions; that, at this moment, there are nearly four thousand wounded soldiers dying in the hospitals in this town from want of common assistance and necessaries, which any other country in the world would have given even to its enemies; and that I can get no assistance of any description from this country. I cannot prevail on them to even bury the dead carcases in the neighbourhood, the stench of which will destroy themselves as well as us." All this while, he added, Don Martin de Garay was urging him to push on, and drive the French over the Pyrenees; "but," added Sir Arthur, "I positively will not move; nay, more, I will disperse my army till I am supplied with provisions and means of transport as I ought to be."Lord Palmerston and Mr. Poulett Thompson treated the apprehensions of Lord Dudley Stuart as visionary, and expressed their conviction that there was nothing in the conduct of the Czar to excite either alarm or hostility in Great Britain. Their real opinions were very different. A few days later an event occurred which showed how little Russia was to be relied upon; and that it was impossible to restrain her aggressive propensities, even by the most solemn treaty obligations, undertaken in the face of Europe, and guaranteed by the Great Powers. Cracow, which comprised a small territory about 490 square miles in extent, with a population of about 123,000, including the city, was at the general settlement in 1815 formed into a free State, whose independence was guaranteed by the Treaty of Vienna in the following terms:"The town of Cracow, with its territory, is declared to be for ever a free, independent, and strictly neutral city, under the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia." During the insurrection of Poland in 1830 the little State of Cracow could not repress its sympathies, and the news of the outbreak was received there with the greatest enthusiasm. After the destruction of the Polish army, persons who were compromised by the revolt sought an asylum in Cracow; and 2,000 political refugees were found settled there in 1836. This served as a pretext for the military occupation of the city in February of that year, notwithstanding the joint guarantee that it should never be entered by a foreign army. This was only a prelude to the ultimate extinction of its independence, which occurred ten years later. Lord Palmerston launched a vigorous protest, but it had no result.
FORE:In May the gingham-weavers of Carlisle and that neighbourhood held a similar gathering, and in June meetings were held on Hunslet Common, near Leeds, at Glasgow, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other places. The meeting at Glasgow, on the 16th of June, was held on the Green, and amounted to thirty or forty thousand people. They complained of the low wages for cotton-weaving, and proposed a petition to the Prince Regent, praying that he would enable them to get over to Canada, promising that all such as received that favour should repay the outlay by yearly instalments. But the bulk of the assembly protested against emigration, asserting that the remedy for their distresses lay in annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the consequent reduction of taxation; and they proposed that they should march up to London in a body, and present their petition to the Prince Regent in person. At Ashton the chair was taken by the Rev. Joseph Harrison, and the strange creature called Dr. Healey, of whom Bamford gives an extraordinary account in his "Life of a Radical," made a most wild and seditious harangue. At a great meeting at Stockport, on the 28th of the same month, a very different personage presided. This was Sir Charles Wolseley, of Wolseley Park, in Staffordshire. Sir Charles said that he had been engaged in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and had assisted in the taking of the Bastille, and that he would spend his last drop of blood, if it were necessary, in destroying the Bastilles of his own country. The acquisition of such an advocate of Reform was not likely to be received with apathy. Sir Charles was invited to preside at a similar meeting at New Hall, near Birmingham, on the 12th of July. At this meeting he was elected "legislatorial attorney and representative" for that town. This was a circumstance that excited the alarm of Government. They immediately issued warrants for the apprehension both of Sir Charles and of Dr. Harrison for seditious expressions used at the Stockport meeting. Sir Charles was arrested at his own house, at Wolseley Park; and Harrison was taken on the platform of a public meeting, at Smithfield, in London, on the 21st of July, at which Hunt was presiding. On conveying Harrison to Stockport, the constable who arrested him was attacked by the mob, and a pistol was fired at him, the ball of which lodged in his body.In the year 1845 marked symptoms appeared of the approaching total failure of the national food. The early crop had been saved, but throughout the whole country the late crop was lost. As, however, the grain crop was abundant, the loss was not so severely felt. But the Government were so alarmed that they appointed a commission, consisting of Professors Kane, Lindley, and Playfair, eminent chemists, to inquire into the cause of the failure; but all their skill was unavailing to discover the nature of the mysterious agency by which the destruction was effected. The farmers and peasantry were not deterred from putting in an abundant crop of potatoes next year. In the beginning of the season the crops seemed in excellent condition, and there was every prospect of a plentiful harvest; but suddenly the blight came, as if the crop had been everywhere smitten with lightning, or a withering blast had swept over the whole country. "On the 27th of July," said Father Mathew, "I passed from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant harvest. Returning on the 3rd of August, I beheld one wide waste of putrefying vegetation. In many places the wretched people were seated on the fences of their decaying gardens, wringing their hands and bewailing bitterly the destruction that had left them foodless." First a brown spot appeared on the leaf; the spots gradually increased in number and size until the foliage withered, the stem became brittle, and snapped off immediately when touched. In less than a week the whole process of destruction was accomplished. The fields assumed a blackened appearance; the roots were like pigeons' eggs, which gradually rotted away, and were wholly unfit for food. In one week the chief support of the masses was utterly lost.
