FORE:
FORE:
FORE:The following is the general result of the Reform Acts upon the constitution of the Imperial Parliament:In England the county constituencies, formerly 52, returning 94 members, were increased to 82, returning 159 members. The borough members were 341, giving a total of 500 for England. In Ireland the number of the constituencies remained the same, but five members were added, making the total number 105, representing 32 counties and 41 boroughs including the University of Dublin. A second member was given to each of the following:Limerick, Waterford, Belfast, Galway, and Dublin University. The proportion of counties and boroughs in Scotland was 30 and 23, giving a total of 53. All the counties of the United Kingdom returned 253 members, all the boroughs 405, the total number constituting the House of Commons being 658.
THREE:On the morning of the 19th the battle recommenced with fury. The French were now fighting close under the walls of the town, and Napoleon, posted on an eminence called Thonsberg, watched the conflict. Till two o'clock the fight raged all along the line, round the city; and neither party seemed to make any advance. At length the Allies forced their way into the village of Probstheide, and threw the French on that side into great confusion. Ney, on the north side, was also fearfully pressed by Blucher and the Crown Prince of Sweden, and was compelled to retreat under the walls. On a sudden, as the Russians advanced also against Ney, the Saxonsten thousand in numberwent over to them with a shout. They were sent to the rear, but their cannon was at once turned against the enemy. By evening it was clear that the French could not hold their position another day. Schwarzenberg announced to the Allied sovereigns that victory was certain, and they knelt on the field and returned thanks to God. The French knew this better than their opponents, for in the two days they had fired two hundred and fifty thousand cannon-balls, and had only about sixteen thousand cartridges left, which would not serve for more than two hours, much of their artillery having been sent to Torgau. The retreat, therefore, commenced in the night. There was only one bridge prepared, of timber, in addition to the regular stone bridge, over which one hundred thousand men must pass, with the enemy at their heels. To add to the misery, the temporary bridge soon broke down. Napoleon took a hasty leave of the King and Queen of Saxony, ordered Poniatowski to defend the rear, and himself made for the bridge. It was not without much difficulty, and considerable alarm lest he should be surrounded and taken, that he and his suite got across. Then there was a terrible scene of crushing and scrambling; and the enemy, now aware of the flight, were galloping and running from all sides towards the bridge, to cut off the fugitives. Soon after Buonaparte had got over, the bridge was blown up by the French officer in charge of the mine already made, and twenty-five thousand men were left to surrender as prisoners in the town. Amongst these were Marshals Macdonald and Poniatowski; but, disdaining to surrender, they sprang, with their horses, into the Pleisseto swim. Macdonald escaped, but Poniatowski, though he crossed the Pleisse, was again nearly cut off, and plunging into the deep and muddy Elster, was drowned. No braver man perished in these tragic campaigns; both Allies and French in Leipsic followed his remains to the tomb, in sincere honour of his gallantry. The triumph of the Allied monarchs was complete. They met in the great square of the city, and felicitated each other. The King of Saxony was sent, without any interview, under a guard of Cossacks to Berlin, and at the General Congress he was made to pay dearly in territory for his besotted adhesion to the invader of Germany. In this awful battle the French lost three hundred guns. The slain on both sides amounted to eighty thousand, and thousands of the wounded lay for days around the city, exposed to the severe October nights, before they could be collected into lazarettos; and the view of the whole environs of Leipsic, covered with dead, was fearful.On the 7th of July the British and Prussian forces entered Paris. The former encamped themselves in the Bois de Boulogne, and the Prussians bivouacked along the Seine. There they came into full view of the Bridge of Jena, so named to commemorate the victory of Buonaparte on that field, so fatal to the Prussians, and of the column in the Place Vend?me, erected with cannon taken from the Austrians, and bearing insulting mementoes of the defeats of Prussia. The Prussians had already lowered the statue of Napoleon from the top of the column, and were beginning to demolish the bridge, when the Duke of Wellington interfered. He represented that, although these objects were justly offensive to Prussia, they ought to be left to the decision of the King of France, in whose capital they were, and that the name of the bridge might be changed. Blucher was unwilling to give way, and also insisted on the levy of a military contribution on the city of Paris of one hundred million francs, as some reparation for the[104] spoliations of the French in Berlin. Wellington suggested that these matters should be left for the determination of the Allied sovereigns, and at length prevailed.
THREE:Bearing his prizes with him, Rodney proceeded to Gibraltar, carrying great exultation to the besieged rock by the news of such victory and the timely supplies. He sent on some ships to carry similar relief to our garrison at Port Mahon, and, after lying some weeks at Gibraltar, he dispatched Admiral Digby home with a portion of the fleet, and then with the rest made sail for the West Indies. Digby, on his homeward route, also captured a French ship of the line, and two merchant vessels laden with military stores. This blow to the Spanish maritime power was never altogether recovered during the war.
