FORE:Meanwhile Ministers, anxious to exonerate themselves from the odium so fully their due for fomenting insurrection, commenced Parliamentary inquiries which only the more clearly demonstrated their guilt. On the 2nd of February the celebrated green bag was sent down by the Prince Regent to the Lords, and another green bag on the following day to the Commons. These green bagsor rather, this green bag, for they were classed as one by the public, their contents being onemade a great figure in the newspaper comments of the time. They were stuffed with documents regarding the late extraordinary powers assumed by Ministers, and the occurrences in the midland counties which had been held to justify them. No doubt the papers had been carefully selected, and they were now submitted to a secret committee of each House, which, being named by Ministers, was pretty sure to bring in reports accordingly. On the 23rd the Lords' committee brought up their report, and on the 27th the Commons' produced theirs. As might have been expected from their parentage,[134] there was a striking likeness in the offspring of the committees; they were veritable twins. Both travelled over the same ground; the statements made by the secret committee of 1816 averring that schemes of conspiracy were in agitation, and the events of 1817, particularly in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, as fully confirming these averments. They were compelled, however, to confess that the insurrections, though clearly connected in different counties, in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, were not very formidable, and that the mass of the population in these counties did not at all sanction, much less second, such proceedings. Yet, notwithstanding this confession, the fact remained that under the arbitrary measures of Ministers a great number of persons had been thrown into prison, against whom no charge could be established; and that at Derby three had been executed, and twenty others transported or imprisoned for long terms, and these, every one of them, through the acts and incitements of the emissaries of Ministers themselves. On the motion for printing the report of the Commons, which, of course, justified Ministers, Mr. Tierney said it was scarcely worth while to oppose the printing of "a document so absurd, contemptible, and ludicrous."
8.00 - 10.00 | JUN 09,2014
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FORE:It is only too true, however, that many of the Hampden Clubs entertained very seditious ideas, and designs of seizing on the property of the leading individuals of their respective vicinities. Still more questionable were the doctrines of the Spenceans, or Spencean Philanthropists, a society of whom was established in London this year, and whose chief leaders were Spence, a Yorkshire schoolmaster, one Preston, a workman, Watson the elder, a surgeon, Watson the younger, his son, and Castles, who afterwards turned informer against them. Mr. "Orator" Hunt patronised them. They sought a common property in all land, and the destruction of all machinery. These people, with Hunt and Watson at their head, on the 2nd of December, met in Spa Fields. The Spenceans had arms concealed in a waggon, and a flag displayed declaring that the soldiers were their friends. The crowd was immense, and soon there was a cry to go and summon the Tower. Mr. Hunt and his party appear to have excused themselves from taking part in this mad movement. The mob reached the Tower, and a man, supposed to be Preston, summoned the sentinels to surrender, at which they only laughed. The mob then followed young Watson into the City, and ransacked the shop of Mr. Beckwith, a gunsmith, on Snow Hill, of its firearms. A gentleman in the shop remonstrated, and young Watson[122] fired at him and severely wounded him. Young Watson then made his escape, but his father was secured and imprisoned; and the Lord Mayor and Sir James Shaw dispersed the mob on Cornhill, and took one of their flags and several prisoners. Watson the elder was afterwards tried and acquitted; but a sailor who was concerned in the plunder of the gunsmith's shop was hanged. A week after this riot the Corporation of London presented an Address to the Throne, setting forth the urgent necessity for Parliamentary reform.Least of all did the ambitious designs of the Czarina Catherine against Turkey seem menacing to us; yet these designs speedily drew into their current the whole power of Austria, endangered our relations with the countries on the Baltic, and attracted the revolutionary torrent over the fertile plains of the Netherlands, opposite to our own shores, menacing the stability of our allies, the Dutch. Catherine had found the Turks not so easily to be overcome as she imagined, feeble and tottering as she considered their empire. The absorption of the Ottoman kingdom and the establishment of the Muscovite throne at Constantinople had been her confident dream. But the Turks, though in a condition of decline and disorganisation which promised an easy subjugation[350] of them, had still their spirit of fanatic fatalism, which could rouse them to deeds of impetuous valour. The whole organisation and regulations of their army were in the worst condition. The janissaries, which had been amongst the finest infantry in the world, were now thoroughly demoralised and in insolent insubordination towards their own government. Their cavalry was numerous, but wretchedly disciplined. The commissariat was in the worst state conceivable, and their artillery, though it had received the energetic attentions of the French Baron De Toff, was contemptible. It might have appeared that nothing was necessary but to enter Turkey and drive the army, as a disorganised rabble, before the foe. But Catherine had not found it so. Her favourite, Potemkin, had been repeatedly defeated in his attempts to advance into Turkey from the Crimea, and Catherine had been glad to engage Joseph II. of Austria in the enterprise by a promise of an ample share of the spoil. In fact, the pair contemplated something like a partition of Europe. In their meeting at Cherson in 1787, Joseph had engaged to send one hundred thousand men to the campaign against Turkey. He had no quarrel with the Sultan, and though a zealous advocate for national reforms, he paid very little regard to national or international justice. In all his reforms, Joseph, with true Austrian spirit, showed the despot still. He did not attempt to carry such reforms as his subjects desired, but such as he thought proper for them; and he was always ready to force what he deemed liberalism and improvement upon them at the point of the bayonet. In attacking Turkey, he did not wait to proclaim war, much less to have a pretence for it, but he suddenly made a rush upon the neighbouring city and frontier fortress of Belgrade. The Turks, though taken by surprise, defended the place victoriously; and Joseph's subsequent assault on the fortress of Gradiska was equally unsuccessful and equally disgraceful.
9.00 - 10.00 | FEB 15,2014
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FORE:There was another point, besides the seizure of unsuspecting British travellers, on which Buonaparte could deeply wound the honour of the British monarch, and at the same time furnish himself with considerable materials of warthe seizure of Hanover. George III. held this hereditary territory distinct from his Crown of Britain, as a State of the German federation. It was impossible to defend this against France with the forces kept there, and Napoleon ordered General Mortier to cross the Dutch frontier, and march into the Electorate with twenty thousand men. The Duke of Cambridge, who was Viceroy there, and General Walmoden, at first, put themselves in an attitude of resistance; they called on the chief Powers of Germany to protest against this invasion of the German Empire, and to come to their aid, if this remonstrance was disregarded. The Duke of Cambridge, seeing himself totally deserted by Germany, thought it best to surrender[490] Hanover to France, by agreement that the troops should retire behind the Elbe, and not serve again till exchanged. This was done at the end of May; the different towns made their submission on the 3rd of June, and on the 5th Mortier entered Hanover; the Duke of Cambridge had quitted the country; and the British Cabinet refusing to ratify the Convention previously made with him, he called on the Hanoverian army to surrender as prisoners of war. Walmoden would have resisted with anything like equal forces, but as that was impossible, he made the best terms he could, which were that his army should give up their arms and disband themselves.
11.00 - 10.00 | JUN 10,2014
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