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ONE:Mr. Grey seized the professed desire of peace by Government, so soon as Parliament met after the Christmas recess, to bind them to it by a resolution. He complained that, so far from any intentions of peace, Ministers were making fresh preparations for the prosecution of the war. Pitt denied this, and asserted that the Government was really anxious for peace, but could not consent to it unless France agreed to yield up its conquests of Belgium, Holland, Savoy, and Nice. On the 10th of March Mr. Grey moved for an inquiry into the state of the kingdom. He showed that this contest, so unsuccessful, had[450] already, in three years, added seventy-seven millions to the national debt; more than the whole expense of the American war, which had cost sixty-three millions. He commented severely on the wasteful manner in which this money had been thrown away on monarchs who had badly served the cause, or had perfidiously betrayed it; and on the plunder of the country by jobbers, contractors, commissaries, and other vampires, who had left the poor soldiers to neglect, starvation, and death, amid the horrors of winter, and inhospitable, pretended friends, for whom they had been sent to fight. Grey and Fox followed this up by fresh resolutions and motions condemning Ministers for their misconduct of the war, and enormous waste of the public money; but all these were triumphantly got rid of by overwhelming majorities; and in the face of this ineffectual assault, Pitt introduced his Budget, calling for fresh loans, amounting to no less than twenty-five million five hundred thousand pounds, and for supplies to the amount of upwards of forty-five millions. Some of the items of this sum werenavy, seven million five hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred and fifty-two pounds; army, eleven million nine hundred and eleven thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine pounds; ordnance, one million nine hundred and fifty-four thousand six hundred and sixty-five pounds; miscellaneous and extraordinary, thirteen million eight hundred and twenty-one thousand, four hundred and thirty pounds. The last item alone amounted to more than the whole national expenditure before the commencement of this war, yet the whole of these startling sums were readily voted away by the Ministerial majority; and with these funds in hand for renewed prosecution of the war, the Session ended, on the 19th of May. TWO:
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ONE:"It was on foot," says Mounier, "in the mud, and under a violent storm of rain. The Paris women intermixed with a certain number of men, ragged and ferocious, and uttering frightful howlings. As we approached the palace, we were taken for a desperate mob. Some of the Gardes du Corps pricked their horses amongst us and dispersed us. It was with difficulty that I made myself known, and equally difficult it was to make our way into the palace. Instead of six women, I was compelled to admit twelve. The king received them graciously, but separated from their own raging and rioting class, the women were overcome by the presence of the king, and Louison Chabry, a handsome young girl of seventeen, could say nothing but the word 'Bread!' She would have fallen on the floor, but the king caught her in his arms, embraced and encouraged her; and this settled completely the rest of the women, who knelt and kissed his hand. Louis assured them that he was very sorry for them, and would do all in his power to have Paris well supplied with bread. They then went out blessing him and all his family, and declared to those outside that never was there so good a king. At this the furious mob exclaimed that they had been tampered with by the aristocrats, and were for tearing them to pieces; and, seizing Louison, they were proceeding to hang her on a lamp-post, when some of the Gardes du Corps, commanded by the Count de Guiche, "interfered and rescued her." One Brunout, an artisan of Paris, and a hero of the Bastille, having advanced so as to be separated from the women, some of the Guard struck him with the flat of their swords. There was an instant cry that the Guard were massacring the people; and the National Guard of Versailles being called on to protect them, one of them discharged a musket, and broke the arm of M. de Savonires, one of the Life Guard. The firing on the Life Guard by the National Guard then continued, and the Life Guard filed off, firing as they went. The mob, now triumphant, attempted to fire two pieces of cannon, which they turned upon the palace; but the powder was wet and would not explode. The king, having meanwhile heard the firing, sent the Duke of Luxembourg to order that the Guard should not fire, but retire to the back of the palace. The mob then retired into Versailles in search of bread, which Lecointre, a draper of the town, and commander of its National Guard, promised to procure them from the municipality. But the municipality had no bread to give, or took no pains to furnish it, and the crowds, drenched with rain, sought shelter wherever they could for the night. The women rushed again into the Hall of the Assembly, and took possession of it without any ceremony. Soon after midnight the roll of drums announced the arrival of Lafayette and his army. An aide-de-camp soon after formally communicated his arrival to the Assembly; that they had been delayed by the state of the roads; and that Lafayette had also stopped them to administer to them an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king; that all was orderly, and that they had nothing to fear. Lafayette soon after confirmed this by leading a column of the National Guard to the doors of the Assembly, and sending in this message. The Assembly being satisfied, adjourned till eleven o'clock the next day. Lafayette then proceeded to the palace, where he assured the king and the royal family of the loyalty of the Guard, and that every precaution should be taken for tranquillity during the night. On this the king appeared to be at ease and retired to rest. The mob attacked the palace in the night, but Lafayette prevented an assault on the royal family, though two of the[369] Guard were butchered. The king during the night repeatedly sent to inform the deputies of his intention to go to Paris.BERNADOTTE (KING OF SWEDEN). TWO:
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ONE:[See larger version]As usual, a great cry was raised at the retreat of Wellington. The Spaniards would have had him stand and do battle for them, as foolishly as their own generals did, who, never calculating the fitting time and circumstances, were always being beaten. Amongst the first and loudest to abuse him was Ballasteros, the man who, by his spiteful disregard of orders, had been the chief cause of the necessity to retreat. But it was not the Spaniards only, but many people in England, especially of the Opposition, who raised this ungenerous cry. Wellington alluded to these censures with his wonted calmness in his dispatches. "I am much afraid," he said, "from what I see in the newspapers, that the public will be much disappointed at the result of the campaign, notwithstanding that it is, in fact, the most successful campaign in all its circumstances, and has produced for the common cause more important results than any campaign in which the British army has been engaged for the last century. We have taken by siege Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, and the Retiro has surrendered. In the meantime the allies have taken Astorga, Consuegra, and Guadalaxara, besides other places. In the ten months elapsed since January, this army has sent to England little short of twenty thousand prisoners; and they have taken and destroyed, or have themselves retained the use of, the enemy's arsenals in Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Valladolid, Madrid, Astorga, Seville, the lines before Cadiz, etc.; and, upon the whole, we have taken and destroyed, or we now possess, little short of three thousand pieces of cannon. The siege of Cadiz has been raised, and all the country south of the Tagus has been cleared of the enemy. We should have retained greater advantages, I think, and should have remained in possession of Castile and Madrid during the winter, if I could have taken Burgos, as I ought, early in October, or if Ballasteros had moved upon Alcaraz, as he was ordered, instead of intriguing for his own aggrandisement." TWO:The Whigs were as active to bring over the Electoral Prince of Hanover as they were to drive the Pretender farther off. With the Prince in England, a great party would be gathered about him; and all those who did not pay court to him and promote the interests of his House would be marked men in the next reign. Nothing could be more hateful than such a movement to both the queen and her ministers. Anne had a perfect horror of the House of Hanover; and of the Ministers, Bolingbroke, at least, was staking his whole future on paving the way of the Pretender to the throne. When the Whigs, therefore, instigated Baron Schutz, the Hanoverian envoy, to apply to the Lord Chancellor Harcourt for a writ of summons for the Electoral Prince, who had been created a British peer by the title of the Duke of Cambridge, Harcourt was thrown into the utmost embarrassment. He pleaded that he must first consult the queen, who, on her part, was seized with similar consternation. The Court was equally afraid of granting the writ and of refusing it. If it granted it, the prince would soon be in England, and the queen would see her courtiers running to salute the rising sun; the Jacobites, with Bolingbroke at their head, would commit suicide on their own plans now in active agitation for bringing in the Pretender. If they refused it, it would rouse the whole Whig party, and the cry that the Protestant succession was betrayed would spread like lightning through the nation. Schutz was counselled by the leading WhigsDevonshire, Somerset, Nottingham, Somers, Argyll, Cowper, Halifax, Wharton, and Townshendto press the Lord Chancellor for the writ. He did so, and was answered that the writ was ready sealed, and was lying for him whenever he chose to call for it; but at the same time he was informed that her Majesty was greatly incensed at the manner in which the writ had been asked for; that she conceived that it should have first been mentioned to her, and that she would have given the necessary orders. But every one knew that it was not the manner, but the fact of desiring the delivery of the writ which was the offence.DEPOSITION OF MEER JAFFIER. (See p. 316.)
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ONE:Muir and Palmer, on the 19th of December, 1793, had been conveyed on board the hulks at Woolwich, before being shipped off to the Antipodes, and were put in irons; but before they were sent off, the matter was brought before Parliament. It was introduced by Mr. Adams, on the 14th of February, 1794, moving for leave to bring in a bill to alter the enactment for allowing appeals from the Scottish Court of Justiciary in matters of law. This was refused, and he then gave notice of a motion for the revision of the trials of Muir and Palmer. Sheridan, on the 24th, presented a petition from Palmer, complaining of his sentence as unwarranted by law. Pitt protested against the reception of the petition, and Dundas declared that all such motions were too late; the warrant for Palmer's transportation was already signed and issued. Wilberforce moved that Palmer's being sent off should be delayed till the case was reconsidered, but this was also rejected by a large majority. Such was the determined spirit of Pitt and his parliamentary majority against all Reform, or justice to Reformers. On the 10th of March Mr. Adams again moved for a revision of the trials of Muir and Palmer, declaring that "leasing-making" (verbal sedition), their crime by the law of Scotland, was punishable by fine, imprisonment, or banishment, but not by transportation, and that their sentence was illegal. Fox exposed the rancorous spirit with which the trials had been conducted, and to which the judges had most indecently lent themselves; that the Lord Justice Clerk, during Muir's trial, had said, "A government in every country should be just like a corporation; and, in this country, it is made up of the landed interest, which alone has a right to be represented. As for the rabble, who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation on them? They may pack up all their property on their backs, and leave the country in the twinkling of an eye!" Lord Swinton said, "If punishment adequate to the crime of sedition were to be sought for, it could not be found in our law, now that torture is happily abolished." The Lord Advocate was in his place to defend his conduct and doctrine, but Pitt and Dundas supported these odious opinions. The House also sanctioned them by a large majority, and Adams's motion was rejected. In the Upper House, similar motions, introduced by Lords Lansdowne and Stanhope, were similarly treated.The victory of Napoleon over Austria had wonderfully increased his influence with those German States which formed the Confederation of the Rhine. Bavaria, Würtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and other of the small princes, especially those on the right bank of that river, were more than ever bound to him, and were prepared to follow him in any wars that he might make against other countries, or even their own fatherland. Whilst some of them received crowns for their unnatural subserviency, several smaller princes were sunk into the condition of mere nobles. The military contingents which he exacted from them amounted to sixty thousand men, and these he soon had in a state of discipline and efficiency very different to that which they exhibited under the old German federation. Under Napoleon they behaved as well as any of his troops, showing that they needed only leaders of activity and talent to make good soldiers of them. Thus France superseded Austria in its influence over all the south-west of Germany. Nor did he stop here. He had created dukes and princes, and resolved also to create kings. These were to be his brothers, who were to be placed on half the thrones of Europe, and set there as vassal monarchs doing homage and service to him, the[524] great emperor of France. He expected them to be the obedient servants of France, or, rather, of himself, and not of the countries they were ostensibly set to govern. He began by making his brother Joseph King of Naples in March, and in June he made his brother Louis King of Holland. He told them that they must never forget that their first duty was to France and to himself. He intended to make his brother Jerome King of Westphalia; but Jerome had married a Miss Paterson, the daughter of an American merchant, and he must have this marriage broken, and a royal one arranged, before he could admit him to this regal honour: he must also wrest part of this territory from Prussia. His sister Pauline, widow of General Leclerc, who perished in St. Domingo, he had now married to the Roman Prince Borghese, and he gave her the Italian duchy of Guastalla. Murat, who had married another sister, he made Grand Duke of Berg and Cleve, and Marshal Berthier he made Prince of Neuchatel. These territories, taken from Prussia, Bavaria, and Switzerland, he conferred, with all their rights and privileges, on these generals. The duchy of Parma he conferred on Cambacrs, and Piacenza on General Lebrun. TWO:The Marquis of Ely " " 45,000
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ONE:FROM THE PAINTING BY CLARKSON STANFIELD, R.A., IN THE CORPORATION ART GALLERY, GUILDHALL. TWO:On the 14th of September the Russian army filed through the streets of their beloved but doomed city, with sad looks, furled banners, and silent drums, and went out at the Kolomna gate. The population followed them. Rostopschin had encouraged vast numbers already to transplant all their wealth and stores from the place, and, as his last act, he called up two prisonersa Russian traitor, and a Frenchman who had dropped hostile expressions. The Russian he ordered, with the consent of the culprit's own father, to be put to death; the Frenchman he set at liberty, telling him to go to Buonaparte and say that but one traitor had been found in Russia, and him he had seen cut to pieces. Rostopschin then mounted his horse and rode after his countrymen, having first[47] ordered all the gaols to be set open, and their wretched inhabitants to be allowed to make their escape.
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