The first great battle was destined to be fought on the very ground where Gustavus Adolphus fell, 1632. Buonaparte marched upon Leipsic, expecting to find the Allies posted there; but he was suddenly brought to a stand by them at Lützen. The Allies, who were on the left bank of the Elster, crossed to the right, and impetuously attacked the French, whose centre was at the village of Kaya, under the command of Ney, supported by the Imperial Guard, and their fine artillery drawn up in front of the town of Lützen; the right wing, commanded by Marmont, extending as far as the defile of Poserna, and the left stretching from Kaya to the Elster. Napoleon did not expect to have met the Allies on that side of Leipsic, and was pressing briskly forward when the attack commenced. Ney was first stopped at Gross-G?rschen. Had Wittgenstein made a decided charge with his whole column, instead of attacking by small brigades, he would assuredly have broken the French lines. But Buonaparte rode up, and galloped from place to place to throw fresh troops on the point of attack, and to wheel up both of his wings so as to enclose, if possible, both flanks of the Allies. The conflict lasted some[65] hours, during which it was uncertain whether the Allies would break the centre of the French, or the French would be able to outflank the Allies. Blucher was late on the field; the officer who was sent overnight to him with orders from Wittgenstein is said to have put them under his pillow and slept on them till roused by the cannon. At length, after a desperate attack by Napoleon to recover the village of Kaya, out of which he had been driven, the Allies observing that the firing of Macdonald and Bertrand, who commanded the two wings, was fast extending along their flanks, skilfully extricated themselves from the combat, and led back their columns so as to escape being outflanked by the French. Yet they did not even then give up the struggle for the day. The Allied cavalry made a general attack in the dark, but it failed from the mighty masses of the French on which they had to act. The Allies captured some cannon, the French none. The loss of the Allies was twenty thousand men, killed and wounded: that of the French was equally severe. Seven or eight French generals were killed or wounded. On the side of the Allies fell General Scharnhorstan irreparable loss, for no man had done more to organise the Prussian landwehr and volunteers. The Prince Leopold of Hesse-Homburg and the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, both allied to the royal family of England, were slain, and Blucher himself was wounded; but he had his wounds dressed on the field, and would not quit it till the last moment.
On the 17th of Julya week after the burial of the Kingthe Queen went in state to meet Parliament. She was received along the line of procession with extraordinary enthusiasm; and never on the accession of a Sovereign was the House of Peers so thronged by ladies of rank. A tone of kindness, mercy, and conciliation, befitting her youth and sex, marked her first Speech from the Throne. She stated that she regarded with peculiar interest the measures that had been brought to maturity for the mitigation of the criminal code, and the reduction of the number of capital punishments; promised that it should be her care to strengthen our institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, by discreet improvement, wherever improvement was required, and to do all in her power to compose and allay animosity and discord. Immediately on the delivery of the Royal Speech Parliament was prorogued in order to its dissolution. The general elections speedily followed, and were all over early in August. The Ministerial candidates were accused of making an unconstitutional use of the Queen's name in their addresses, and availing themselves of her popularity to strengthen the position of the Government, and the Conservatives asserted that the Queen had no partiality for her present advisers, whom she found in office, and bore with only till Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues should feel strong enough to take their places. The elections did not materially alter the balance of parties, the Whigs still commanding a small majority.
ONE: Prorogation of ParliamentAgitation against the House of LordsO'Connell's CrusadeInquiry into the Orange LodgesReport of the CommitteeMr. Hume's MotionRenewed Attack in 1836The Lodges dissolvedLord Mulgrave in IrelandHis ProgressesWrath of the OrangemenProsperity of the CountryCondition of CanadaA Commission appointedViolence of the KingLord Gosford in CanadaHis Failure to pacify the CanadiansUpper CanadaPepys becomes Lord ChancellorOpening of ParliamentThe King's SpeechO'Connell and Mr. RaphaelThe Newspaper DutyThe Irish PoorAppointment of a CommissionIts numerous ReportsThe Third ReportPrivate Bills on the SubjectMr. Nicholls' ReportLord John Russell's BillAbandonment of the MeasureDebate on AgricultureFinanceThe Ecclesiastical CommissionIts first ReportThe Commission made permanentThe Tithe Commutation ActThe Marriage ActThe Registration ActCommercial PanicsForeign AffairsRussian AggressionOccupation of CracowDisorder in SpainRevolution in PortugalPosition of the MinistryA Speech of Sheil'sThe Church Rates BillDeath of the KingHis Treatment of the Ministry.
ONE:On the 2nd of November the following letter was addressed to the Minister by Lord Stanley, containing an exposition of the grounds on which he dissented from the proposals submitted to the Cabinet:At this juncture Napoleon proceeded to set all Europe against him. A conspiracy had been set on foot against his Government by the Royalists, notably by one Lajolais, who had formerly fought under Pichegru, and in 1794 had assisted him in his intrigues with the Bourbon princes. On arriving in London he had interviews with Pichegru, Georges Cadoudal, the Chouan chief, the Polignacs, the Count d'Artois, the Duke of Berry, etc., and assured them that such was the feeling against Buonaparte in France, that it only needed the appearance of the Royalist leaders, and their forming a league with Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, whom he truly represented as greatly disgusted with Buonaparte, to produce a revolution and crush the aspiring First Consul. The statements of Lajolais were listened to, and a vessel, under the command of Captain John Wesley Wright, was despatched to the coast of Brittany, with General Georges Cadoudal, the Marquis de la Rivire, the brothers Armand and Jules Polignac, and some others, whom he put safely ashore in the autumn of 1803. Pichegru, Georges Cadoudal, the Polignacs, de la Rivire, and the rest of the Royalists, about thirty in[497] number, had made their way to Paris, and were living there secretly, endeavouring to learn the real state of the public mind, and Pichegru and Cadoudal had been introduced to Moreau. Pichegru saw Moreau at least twice, and on one of these occasions he took with him Georges Cadoudal; but Moreau seemed taken by surprise by their communications with him, and was so horrified by the language and proposals of the daring Chouan, that he desired Pichegru not to bring that irrational savage again into his company. It appeared pretty clear that there was some mistake somewhere; and that Moreau, however much dissatisfied with Napoleon, was by no means disposed to enter into any Royalist conspiracy. Had the delegates found things ripe for such a revolution, they were to inform the Bourbon princes in London, and they were to make a strong descent on the coast of Brittany; but they all felt so satisfied that Lajolais had given them false information, that they were about to quit the capital, and to return to England, Captain Wright having been lingering with his frigate on the Breton coast for that purpose, when Fouch the Minister of Police, pounced upon them. He had been keeping a strict watch on all their movements; he had now established their intercourse with Moreau, and trusted to be able to make sufficient use of that fact to destroy both them and him. It was asserted, although there is no proof whatever of the fact, that the plan included the murder of the First Consul. Further, in order to bring odium upon England, Buonaparte succeeded, by means of his agents, in entrapping Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith, our Ministers at the courts of Bavaria and Würtemberg, into consenting to the conspiracy. They knew nothing of the real plot, but being informed that a Royalist conspiracy was on foot, gave it a certain amount of countenance. Napoleon thereupon accused them of being accomplices in a diabolical plot to assassinate him, forced the Courts to which they were accredited to expel them, and circulated throughout Europe a violent attack on the British Government. In an exceedingly able and dignified reply Lord Hawkesbury pointed out that Britain was at war with France, and had a right, which she intended to use, to take advantage of the political situation in that country. Napoleon gained little by his Machiavellian man?uvre.
TWO:CHAPTER XIII. REIGN OF GEORGE III.(continued).The debate lasted four nights, and was kept up with the greatest spirit and vigour. The division was taken between three and four o'clock in the morning, when it was found that in a House of 611 members the numbers werefor the motion, 322; against it, 289; leaving the Government in a minority of 33. A Cabinet Council was held on the following day, when it was unanimously resolved to await the result of the debate on the Irish Tithe question on the same evening. Lord John Russell, on the report of the committee being brought up, moved the following resolution:"That it is the opinion of this House that no measure upon the subject of tithes in Ireland can lead to a satisfactory and final adjustment which does not embody the principle contained in the foregoing resolution." He referred to the principle of the appropriation clause. On this an animated debate followed, which lasted till one o'clock in the morning. When the House divided,[385] it was found that the resolution was carried by a majority of twenty-seven; the numbers beingayes, 285; noes, 258. As these divisions took place on a question of vital policy, Sir Robert Peel had no alternative but to resign. Accordingly, he announced his decision in the House next day. After the extraordinary efforts that he had made, and considering the circumstances in which he had been called upon to assume the reins of Government, it must have been very painful to him to be thus cut short in his patriotic labours; but he bore the disappointment with admirable spirit, and retired from his position so gracefully that he was warmly cheered from all parts of the House.
TWO: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."
Mr. Fyshe Palmer was not tried till the 12th of September. He was then brought before the Circuit Court of Justiciary at Perth, and charged with writing and publishing an "Address to the People," which had been issued by the Society of the Friends of Liberty, at Dundee. Palmer was an Englishman of good family, in Bedfordshire. He had taken his degree at Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship at Queen's College; but he had afterwards joined the Unitarians, and had resided and preached some time at Montrose and Dundee, and had delivered lectures on Unitarianism in Edinburgh and Forfar. It appeared that Palmer was not the author of the Address, but had only been asked to correct the proof of it, and that he had, whilst so doing, struck out some of the strongest passages. One Mealmaker, a weaver, acknowledged himself the author of the Address; but Palmer was a Unitarian, and this, to the bigoted Presbyterianism of his judges, was rank poison. His advocate pleaded that he was not quite sane, but neither did this avail; the jury brought in an instant and unanimous verdict of guilty, and the judges condemned him to be transported for seven years. This was a still more outrageous sentence than that of Muir, for Palmer had corresponded with no French or Reforming societies whatever; he had simply corrected a proof!Sheridan introduced the subject on the 18th of April, and Fox ably supported him; but the motion was negatived. But this defeat only appeared to stimulate the reformers to higher exertions. On the 28th of April a new Reform society, entitled the Society of the Friends of the People, was formally inaugurated by the issue of an address, which was signed by no less than twenty-eight members of the House of Commons, and a considerable number of Lords, amongst them the Lords Lauderdale, John Russell, Stanhope, and Fitzgerald. Their title was unfortunate, for, though they were united only for Parliamentary reform, this cognomen was so much in the French style as to create suspicion and alarm. Many of the members were known to be admirers of the French Revolution, and about the same time another and decidedly French-admiring society was started, calling itself the Corresponding Society, and prosecuting a zealous intercourse with the Girondists and Jacobins. The admiration of French political principles rendered the conservative portion of the population quite determined to resist all innovations; and as this Society of the Friends of the People was regarded as a direct imitation of the Jacobin Club, it was violently opposed and stigmatised. On the 30th of April Mr. Grey, as representative of this Society, rose to announce that in the next Session he meant to introduce a regular measure for the reform of Parliament; that it was necessary, he said, had long been asserted by the two leading men of the HousePitt and Fox. Pitt rose on this, and declared himself still the friend of Reform; but he contended that this was not the time to attempt it. He had only, he said, to point to[392] the state of things in France, and to the effervescence which those principles of anarchy had produced in Britain, to show the necessity of remaining quiet for the present; neither did he believe that the mass of the English people would support any change in our Constitution. Fox upbraided Pitt with the abandonment of his former sentiments, and contended that we had only to look at the money spent lately in the armament against Russia, money thus spent without any consent of the people, to perceive the necessity of reform in our representation. He referred to Pitt's remarks on revolutionary books and pamphlets recently published, and declared that he had read very few of them. He had only read one of the two books of Thomas Paine, the "Rights of Man," and did not like it. Burke replied to him, and drew a most dismal picture of the condition of France under her Revolutionists. He said that the French Assembly was composed of seven hundred persons, of whom four hundred were lawyers, and three hundred of no description; that he could not name a dozen out of the whole, he believed, with one hundred pounds a-year; and he asked whether we should like a Parliament in Great Britain resembling it. In this debate, the further dissolution of the Whig party became obvious when Windham and others took the side of Burke.The "History of Scotland, during the Reigns of Queen Mary and James VI.," by Dr. Robertson, was published in 1759, the year of the appearance of Hume's "History of the House of Tudor." It was at once popular; and Hume, writing to him, attributed this to the deference which he had paid to established opinions, the true source of the popularity of many works. This was followed, in 1769, by his "History of Charles V.," and, in 1777, by his "History of America." Robertson's chief characteristic is a sonorous and rather florid[177] style, which extremely pleased his age, but wearies this. His histories drew great attention to the subjects of them at that period; but time has shown that they are extremely superficial, and they have not held their place.Such were the difficulties under which Congress and Washington had been struggling through this winter to raise and keep together any considerable force; whilst General, now Sir William Howe, had been completely dozing at New York. The first movements of Howe were to execute several detached evolutions, and a vast quantity of stores were destroyed. As a retaliation, the Americans sent Colonel Meigs over to Long Island, to a place called Sag Harbour, where the English had a great quantity of provision stores, which they learned were very remissly guarded. Meigs, who had been trained under Arnold, conducted the enterprise very adroitly. He passed the Sound in whale-boats in the night, landed without much difficulty before the break of day, and began to fire the magazines. He met with a brave resistance from the crews of the merchants' vessels; but, having two hundred men, and there being no soldiers to oppose him, he destroyed twelve of the trading vessels, took ninety prisoners, and returned triumphantly without the loss of a single man. In the meantime, Washington had quitted his encampment at Morristown, and taken up a strong position at Middlebrook, about twelve miles from Princeton. On the 13th of June[238] Howe at last marched out of New Brunswick to attack him. On this, Washington called to his assistance a great part of the troops in the highlands, the whole force of the Jersey militia, whilst Arnold, who had the command at Philadelphia, was actively engaged with Mifflin in preparing defences for the Delaware. The object of Howe was to draw Washington from his entrenchments, certain that, on fair ground, it would require little exertion to totally dissipate his army; therefore, after marching up almost to the American lines, he commenced a retreat, evacuated even New Brunswick, and fell back to Amboy. Washington fell into the snare; he sent a strong force in pursuit of Howe, who, keeping up the ruse, threw a bridge over the narrow strait which divides Staten Island from the mainland, and sent over part of his baggage and a number of troops. Satisfied then that Howe was bent on resuming his old quarters at New York, Washington quitted his camp, which had cost him so much labour to create, and descended with his main body to Quibbletown. On seeing this, Howe advanced again, and dispatched several bodies of soldiers by different routes, to get, if possible, between Washington and his old post on the hills, so as to bring him to an engagement on the plain. Washington instantly became aware of his design, and retreated with all speed. Lord Cornwallis, who led the British van, notwithstanding, managed to come up with him, and fell upon a division of three thousand strong, advantageously posted, and defended with cannon. Cornwallis's charge, however, threw him into confusion, the rout became general, and the British pursued them as far as Westfield, when, coming to a woody country, and the heat of the day being intense, they halted for the night. This halt was the salvation of Washington: it enabled him to regain his old fortified post in the hills, leaving behind him part of his cannon, and about two hundred men killed.
