Parliament met on the 17th of January, 1727. The Royal Speech breathed a decidedly warlike tone. The king informed Parliament that he had received information, on which he could rely, that a secret article of the treaty between Spain and the Emperor bound those parties to place the Pretender on the throne of Great Britain, and that the surrender of Gibraltar and Port Mahon was the price to be paid for this service. He asked whether the public would not regard with indignation the imposition of a Popish Pretender on the nation at such a cost. He added that the King of Spain had ordered his Ambassador to quit the kingdom, leaving behind him a formal demand for the surrender of the above-named places. There was a great ferment in the House. Palm, the Emperor's envoy, wrote to his Imperial master, advising him to disavow any such secret agreement in the treaty at Vienna, and thus allay the excitement in England. But Charles, who owed his throne to the victories of Marlborough, and whose claims on Spain had been prosecuted by Britain at serious cost of men and money, performed this disavowal with as much arrogance as stupidity. He was not contented to say that the King of England was mistaken, but he declared that his speech was false. This gross insult to the head of the nation roused the indignation of all parties, even of the Opposition; and Wyndham, Pulteney, and Shippen denounced it as loudly as any, and supported a motion of Walpole, declaring it an insolent affront. Palm was ordered to quit the kingdom immediately.
ONE:The same day it was carried by the Home Secretary to the House of Lords, accompanied by an unusual number of members. In introducing the measure in the Upper House the Duke of Wellington spoke with great force, and with all the directness and simplicity for which he was remarkable. One memorable passage deserves to be recorded in this history:"It has been my fortune," said the Duke, "to have seen much of[297] warmore than most men. I have been constantly engaged in the active duties of the military profession from boyhood until I have grown grey. My life has been passed in familiarity with scenes of death and human suffering. Circumstances have placed me in countries where the war was internalbetween opposite parties in the same nation; and rather than a country I loved should be visited with the calamities which I have seenwith the unutterable horrors of civil warI would run any risk, I would make any sacrifice, I would freely lay down my life. There is nothing which destroys property and prosperity as civil war does. By it the hand of man is raised against his neighbour, against his brother, and against his father! The servant betrays his master; and the master ruins his servant. Yet this is the resource to which we must have lookedthese are the means which we must have appliedin order to have put an end to this state of things, if we had not embraced the option of bringing forward the measure for which I hold myself responsible."THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO: FRENCH CUIRASSIERS CHARGING A BRITISH SQUARE.
TWO:In this battle the Allies lost in killed and wounded ten thousand men, the French not less than fifteen thousand. The French generals Bruyres, Kirchner, and Duroc were amongst the killed. Duroc had long been one of the most intimate friends and attendants of Buonaparte, who was so much cut up by his loss that for the first time in all his terrible campaigns he became unable to attend to further details, but answered every call for orders with "Everything tomorrow!" When he came to find that not a gun, not a prisoner was left behind by the Germans and Russians, Napoleon seemed to comprehend the stern spirit in which they were now contending, and exclaimed, "How! no result after such a massacre? No prisoners? They leave me not even a nail!" He advanced to Breslau, various slight conflicts taking place on the way, and on the 1st of June he entered that city, the princesses of Prussia removing thence into Bohemia.[See larger version]
TWO:The Canadas at that period contained only about sixty thousand souls, Quebec about seven thousand. But the city occupies a most formidable site. It stands on a steep and rocky promontory running into the left bank of the St. Lawrence, about a hundred leagues from its mouth, and where the river, from a breadth of from twelve to twenty miles, rapidly narrows to about one mile. The city is built part on the rocky heights, part on the slopes below. Up the river from the city rose still higher and almost inaccessible steeps, called the Heights of Abraham, and, on the other hand, the side of the city down the stream was bounded by the river St. Charles, which there runs into the St. Lawrence. The stretch of ground between the St. Charles and the stream of Montmorency, some miles lower, called Beauport, was connected by a bridge with Quebec. On this ground, as the most accessible side of the city, Montcalm had encamped his army, consisting altogether of ten thousand French, Canadians, and Indians.[See larger version]
THREE:DEFEAT OF GENERAL BRADDOCK IN THE INDIAN AMBUSH. (See p. 119.)Whilst matters were in this discouraging condition, Lord Lexington was sent to Spain to receive the solemn renunciation of the Crown of France for Philip and his successors, in the presence of the Cortes, which accordingly took place on the 5th of November. Portugal, also, on the 7th of November, signed, at Utrecht, the suspension of arms, at the same time admitting to the Allies that she did it only as a matter of absolute necessity. The Portuguese had held out firmly till the English refused to give them any assistance, when the Marquis de Bay invaded the kingdom at the head of twenty thousand men, and laid siege to Campo-Major. The English troops in Spain were ordered to separate from those of the Allies under Count Stahremberg, and were marched into Catalonia to embark at Barcelona. The people of that province beheld the English depart with sentiments of indignant contempt. England had first incited them to take up arms and declare for King Charles under the most solemn engagements never to make peace without them. But now they had broken their faith in the most shameless manner, and left them to the vengeance of the French triumphant in Spain. Such on all sides were the facts which forced on the world the conviction of the perfidy of England, which had hitherto borne so fair a reputation.
