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ONE:They were now only one hundred and twenty-seven miles from the capital, both Wade and Cumberland behind them, and Charles, notwithstanding the conditions on which they had come on from Macclesfield, still confidently and enthusiastically dwelt on the onward march to London, and his certain success. In the morning a council was held, when Lord George Murray appealed to the prince whether they had received the least accession of strength, or the smallest sign of encouragement? Such being the case, what hope was there for them in proceeding? They had barely five thousand men to contend against three armies, amounting at least altogether to thirty thousand. If they got to London before Cumberland, and if they managed to elude the army at Finchley, they had scarcely numbers to take quiet possession of London. But were they forced to fight the king and his army under the walls of the metropolis, they could not do it without loss; and then, supposing Wade and Cumberland to unite behind them, as they certainly would do, how could they hope to contend against them? Assistance from France, as they had pointed out, was hopeless whilst the English had such a force in the Channel. Charles listened to these arguments with undisguised[102] impatience, and the probability is that, had his officers been willing to follow him, and live or die in the enterprise, he would have seized London, and accomplished one of the most brilliant exploits in history.

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ONE:The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1832-3. That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the grievances of which the nation complained were "proved abuses." The Reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned to the money disbursed in poor rates, or in voluntary charities; in which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice��the able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence��the aged and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling in such a society as that of a large workhouse, without discipline or classification, the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far exceeding, both in kind and in amount, not merely the diet of the independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who contributed to their support; in which a farmer paid ten shillings a year in poor rate, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary labourers, not required on his farm, at a cost of from ��100 to ��250 a year; in which the labourer had no need to bestir himself to seek work or to please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all a slave's security for subsistence, without the slave's liability to punishment; in which the parish paid parents for nursing their little children, and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying[364] in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of Christian duty. The Government, therefore, resolved to apply a remedy. The following is a brief outline of the main features of the measure they proposed, and which was adopted by the legislature. They found the greatest evils of the old system were connected with the relief of the able-bodied; and in connection with that lay the chief difficulty of administering relief. It was, above all things, an essential condition that the situation of the pauper should not be made��really or apparently��so desirable as that of independent labourers of the lowest class; if it were, the majority of that class would have the strongest inducements to quit it, and get into the more eligible class of paupers. It was necessary, therefore, that an appeal to the parish should be a last resource��that it should be regarded as the hardest taskmaster and the worst paymaster. This principle was embodied in the Poor Law Amendment Act; and the effects which quickly followed on its operation were most marked and salutary. Able-bodied paupers were extensively converted into independent labourers, for whose employment a large fund was created by the reduction of parochial expenditure; next followed a rise in wages; then a diminution, not only of pauper marriages, but of early and imprudent marriages of all sorts; and lastly, there was a diminution of crime, with contentment among the labourers, increasing with their industry: relief of a child was made relief to the parent, and relief of a wife relief to the husband. In fact, the law combined charity with economy.

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ONE:Now, much of this at the moment was true; the manufacturers were naturally anxious to resume their business, and a fall in the price of corn, after the plentiful harvest of 1817, to seventy-four shillings and sixpence, relieved a little the pressure on the working classes. Could cheap bread have[133] been secured, the condition of the people might soon have become easy; but the fatal Corn Law came immediately into operation. By the end of 1817 corn had risen in price again to eighty-five shillings and fourpence; and then the ports were opened, but the supplies did not bring down the markets. The spring of 1818 proved wet, and then about the middle of May a drought set in, and continued till September, so that the apprehension of a deficient harvest kept up the price of all articles of life, notwithstanding that a million and a half quarters of wheat had been imported during the year. So long as bread was tolerably cheap, and work more abundant, political agitation in the manufacturing districts subsided; but it was soon proved that the apparent increase of activity in manufacturing and commercial exports was but a feverish desire on the part of manufacturers and merchants to force a trade for which the exhausted Continent was not yet prepared. Nothing but a free importation of corn could have carried the country comfortably through the crisis; and this was denied by the measures of Government, except at a rate of price that put the proper consumption of bread beyond the means of the working classes.

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ONE:Dr. Arbuthnot, a great friend of Pope and Swift, was also one of the ablest prose writers, "The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," published in Pope's and Swift's works, and the political satire of "John Bull," a masterly performance, being attributed to him.

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THREE:On the 30th of August they reached Blair Castle. The Duke of Athol, the proprietor, fled at their approach, and old Tullibardine resumed his ancestral mansion, and gave a splendid banquet there to Charles and his officers. On the third day they resumed their march, and reached Perth on the 4th of September, which the prince entered on horseback, amid loud acclamations. Whilst at Perth he received two valuable accessions to his party��the titular Duke of Perth, who brought with him two hundred men, and Lord George Murray, the brother of the Duke of Athol, and a man of considerable military experience.

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THREE:It was five o'clock��the House densely crowded; for Lord Surrey was going to make the great Opposition motion of want of confidence, and only waited for the arrival of the Minister. As North hurried up the House, there were loud cries of "Order! order! Places! places!" North no sooner reached the Treasury bench than he rose to make his important disclosure; but the Opposition called vociferously for Lord Surrey, while the Ministerial members called for Lord North. Fox then moved that "Lord Surrey do speak first," but North instantly exclaimed, "I rise to speak to that motion." Being now obliged to hear him, for he was perfectly in order, he observed, that, had they suffered him at once to proceed, he might have saved them much useless noise and confusion, for, without any disrespect to the noble lord, he was going to show that his motion was quite unnecessary, as the Ministers had resigned, and that that resignation was accepted by the king! He had only wanted to announce that fact, and to move an adjournment of a few days, in order to make the necessary arrangements for the new Administration. Never was there a more profound surprise. The House was adjourned for five days, and the members prepared to depart and spread the news. But it proved a wild, snowy evening; the carriages had not been ordered till midnight, and whilst the members were standing about in crowds waiting for their equipages, rather than walk home through the snow, Lord North, who had kept his carriage, put three or four of his friends into it, and, bowing to the other members, said, laughingly, "You see, gentlemen, the advantage of being in the secret. Good night!"

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THREE:Meanwhile, Washington and Rochambeau were mustering for the march to the Chesapeake. On the 14th of September Washington reached the headquarters of Lafayette, and took the supreme command, Rochambeau being second, and the especial head of the French. The next day Washington and Rochambeau held a conference with the Comte de Grasse. De Grasse told them that what they did they must do quickly, for that he could not remain on that station longer than the 1st of November; and it was resolved to act accordingly.

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THREE:The declaration of war against Britain by the Convention was unanimous. The decree was drawn up by the Girondists, but it was enthusiastically supported by the Jacobins, including Robespierre and Danton. A vote creating assignats to the amount of eight hundred million livres was immediately passed, a levy of three hundred thousand men was ordered, and to aggravate the whole tone of the affair, an appeal to the people of Great Britain was issued, calling on them to act against and embarrass their own Government.

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ONE:"No words," says Sir Archibald Alison, "can convey an adequate idea of the astonishment which the announcement of this project of Reform created in the House of Commons and the country. Nothing approaching to it had ever been witnessed before, or has been since. Men's minds were prepared for a change, perhaps a very considerable one, especially in the enfranchising of new cities and towns which were unrepresented; but it never entered into the imagination of any human being out of the Cabinet that so sweeping and entire a change would be proposed, especially by the king's Ministers. The Tories had never dreaded such a revolution; the Radicals had never hoped for it. Astonishment was the universal feeling. Many laughed outright; none thought the Bill could pass. It was supposed by many that Ministers neither intended nor desired it, but wished only to establish a thorn in the side of their adversaries, which should prevent them from holding power if they succeeded in displacing them. So universal was this feeling, that it is now generally admitted that had Sir Robert Peel, instead of permitting the debate to go on, instantly divided the House, on the plea that the proposed measure was too revolutionary to be for a moment entertained, leave to bring in the Bill would have been refused by a large majority. The Cabinet Ministers themselves are known to have thought at the time that their official existence then hung upon a thread." Such a result, however, was most unlikely, as Sir Robert Inglis and other Tory orators were eager to speak, having collected precedents, arguments, and quotations against the Bill. These they proceeded to impart to the House. After a debate of seven nights, the Bill was read a first time, without a division, and the second reading was set down for the 21st of March.

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THREE:On the 28th Massena had discovered the pass of Boyalva through these hills, to the north of Busaco, which Wellington had ordered Colonel Trant to occupy. But Trant had missed his way, and did not reach the pass in time. Wellington saw, therefore, his flank turned, and the enemy on the highway to Oporto. He therefore quitted his position, and, taking Coimbra in his way, compelled such of the inhabitants as had not obeyed his order to march along with him. On the 1st of October he was on his route southward, accompanied by this strange crowd. It was a perfect exodus, and appeared to the poor inhabitants as a severe measure, but to it they owed their after-salvation. Had they remained, it would have been only to suffer the oppressions and insults of the French, and to see them supporting themselves on their provisions. As it was, the French, on entering Coimbra, found it, as they had done Viseu, totally deserted, and the stacks of corn and provision that could not be carried away, for the most part too adroitly buried to be easily found. They were left to the starvation that the English general designed for them. But what a scene on the road! The whole country moving south with the cattle and sheep, and waggons laden with their goods. "No power of description," said an eye-witness, "can convey to the mind of any reader the afflicting scenes, the[605] cheerless desolation that we daily witnessed on our march from the Mondego to the lines. Where-ever we moved, the mandate, which enjoined the wretched inhabitants to forsake their homes and to remove or destroy their little property, had gone before us. The villages were deserted; the churches��retreats so often, yet so vainly confided in��were empty; the mountain cottages stood open and untenanted; the mills in the valley, but yesterday so busy, were motionless and silent. From Thomar the flanks of our line of march were literally covered with the flying population of the country. In Portugal there are at no time many facilities for travelling, and those few the exigencies of the army had very greatly diminished. Rich indeed were those who still retained a cabriolet, and mules for its service. Those who had bullock-cars, asses, or any mode of transporting their families and property, looked contented and grateful; for respectable men and delicate women of the second class might on every side be seen walking slowly and painfully on foot, encumbered by heavy burdens of clothes, bedding, and food." It was a whole country in emigration; quitting their cities, homes, and fields to coop themselves up in the vicinity of Lisbon, for the stern purpose of starving the detested enemy out of the land.

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ONE:

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ONE:Such were the means by which the union of Ireland with Great Britain was accomplished, and it would be idle to argue that a majority in the Irish Parliament was not purchased by places, pensions, peerages, and compensation for suppressed seats. But it was a bargain, made above-board, and in the open market. It was, moreover, in agreement with the sentiment of the age, a borough-owner was thought to have a right "to do what he willed with his own," and Pitt, in one of his own Reform bills, had acted on the theory that boroughs were a species of property. Lord Cornwallis, though he acknowledged that he was engaged in dirty work, declared that the union was imperatively necessary, and could be accomplished only by those means. The Irish Parliament was profoundly corrupt, and from no point of view could its extinction be regretted, but that extinction could be accomplished only by further corruption. Nor is there any proof that the Irish nation as a whole were opposed to the union. It was, of course, hard on a pure patriot like Grattan to be involved in the fate of a corrupt gang of placemen, but, as a Protestant, he only[476] represented the minority. The Catholics were either indifferent, with the indifference resulting from long oppression, or in favour of the measure. They knew that from the Irish Parliament it had become, since the Rebellion, hopeless to expect Catholic emancipation; they believed the assurances of Pitt that a measure for their relief would speedily be introduced in the British Parliament. Had he been able to fulfil his promise, the union would have been��to use Macaulay's familiar phrase��a union indeed.

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THREE:[See larger version]In such very discouraging circumstances the American campaign began. Whilst insurrection was in their camp, Sir Henry Clinton dispatched General Arnold to make a descent upon the coast of Virginia. That general had been dispatched into that quarter, at the close of the year, with one thousand six hundred men, in ships so bad, that they were obliged to fling overboard some of their horses. Arnold, however, first sailed up the river James, and landed at Westover, only twenty-five miles from Richmond, the capital of Virginia. Jefferson, who was Governor of Virginia, was seized with great alarm; for, though the militia of the State were nominally fifty thousand, he could muster only a few hundreds. He therefore hastily collected what property he could, and fled up the country, dreading to fall into the hands of a man so embittered against the Americans as Arnold was, who was himself well aware that they had determined to hang him without mercy if they caught him. Arnold did not allow much time to elapse without action. The next day he was in Richmond, and sent word to Jefferson that, provided British vessels might come up the river to take away the tobacco, he would spare the town. Jefferson rejected the proposal, and Arnold burnt all the tobacco stores and the public buildings, both there and at Westham. After committing other ravages, he returned to Portsmouth, on Elizabeth River, where he entrenched himself. On the 26th of March, General Phillips, having assumed the command, in company with Arnold ascended James River with two thousand five hundred men, took and destroyed much property in Williamsburg and York Town, ravaged the country around, and then sailed to the mouth of the Appomattox, and burnt all the shipping and tobacco in Petersburg. After other depredations, and forcing the Americans to destroy their own flotilla between Warwick and Richmond, Phillips and Arnold descended the James River to Manchester, and proposed to cross over to Richmond. But Lafayette having just reached that place before them with upwards of two thousand men, they re-embarked, and, after destroying much other property, especially shipping and stores, at Warwick and other places, they fell down to Hog Island, where they awaited further orders.