ONE:There were other matters which the British representative was to bring forward, and foremost[232] among them all was the suppression of the slave trade, either by a general declaration from the Allies that it should be treated as piracy, or by obtaining from them an engagement that they would not admit into their markets any article of colonial produce which was the result of slave labour. "It will be seen," says Mr. Gleig, "that the recognition of the actual independence of many of the Spanish colonies had already been determined upon by Great Britain, and that the establishment of diplomatic relations with them all had come to be considered as a mere question of time. This is a point worthy of notice, because of the misunderstanding in regard to it which originated in a speech subsequently delivered by Mr. Canning in the House of Commons, and which still, to a considerable extent, prevails. It will be further noticed that the principle observed by Lord Londonderry as the true principle was that of non-interference by Great Britain in the internal affairs of foreign nations. That the Duke of Wellington entirely coincided with Lord Londonderry in this respect, his conduct both now and in the future stages of his career clearly demonstrates. The leading object of his political life was to preserve the peace at home and abroad which it had been the great aim of his military life to conquer."In September, 1791, the Assembly, having completed the Constitution, which was accepted by the king, dissolved. Its place was taken by the National Legislative Assembly, which met on the 1st of October. As the Jacobins had expected, the elections of the Departments had occupied but little attention. The public gaze had been fixed on the acts of the Assembly about to retire, so that a race of new men appeared, which seemed at first to divide itself into two partiesthe Cot Droit, or Constitutional party, and the Cot Gauche, or Democratic party; but the latter party soon divided itself into two, the Mountain and the Gironde. It is difficult to discern the distinguishing traits of these two Revolutionary parties. At first they all worked together, clearly for the downfall of the monarchy. Robespierre, Petion, Marat, Danton, were associated with those who afterwards divided themselves into the Gironde, with Condorcet, Brissot, the Rolands, and Vergniaud. Though Robespierre, Petion, and Danton were no longer in the Assembly, they ruled the Jacobin party there from the clubs. It was not till the question of war arose that the split took place. The Jacobins and Girondists were for war, Robespierre was obstinately against it. At first he stood nearly alone, but by degrees, though he did not draw the Jacobins very soon to his views, he drew them speedily away from the Girondists. This party of the Girondists had been growing and forming for some time. It took its rise originally at Bordeaux, the great commercial city of the department of the Gironde. Bordeaux was of Roman origin. It had always displayed a warm love of independence, which its Parliaments had continually kept alive. It had of late years become the chief commercial link between France and the revolutionised United States. It had early, too, become leavened with the new philosophy; it was the birthplace of Montaigne and Montesquieu. The Gironde sent up to the new Assembly twelve deputies, all as yet unknown, but all deeply imbued with the new principles. These, on arriving in Paris, soon found themselves mixed up, at the house of Condorcet and the Rolands, with Robespierre, Danton, Petion, Buzot, Brissot, Carra-Louvet, Thomas Paine, and, in fact, nearly all the thorough Revolutionists. The active centre of the whole party, up to the period of the question of the war against the Emigrants, was Madame Roland, and such she continued to be of the Girondists after their separation into a distinct party, and after that they had become the antagonists of the Mountain or Jacobin party.
FORE:The arbitrary crushing of the freedom of the Tyrol, and the handing of it over to the Bavarians as a gift, was not the only oppression of this period of Napoleon's career, which the Germans call his supremacy. He seemed to have put down all opposition on the Continent, except in Spain, and he dictated to all nations according to the arrogance of his will. His general in Poland, Poniatowski, himself a Pole, was employed to crush his countrymen. Poniatowski fell on the Austrians with forty thousand men, and made himself master of Warsaw, whilst the Archduke Ferdinand was besieging Thorn. He then advanced against the archduke, beat him in two battles fought in April and May, and eventually drove the Austrians out of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Buonaparte then divided Galicia, giving one portion to the Emperor of Russia, and adding the other to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which was restored to the King of Saxony. Thus the Poles saw an end of all the high hopes with which Buonaparte had artfully succeeded in inspiring them, in order to induce them to[594] fight his battles for the subjugation of other peoples.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."
FORE:Notwithstanding the constant wars of this time, British shipping, commerce, colonies, and manufactures made considerable progress. At the commencement of this period the amount of shipping employed in our commerce was altogether 244,788 tons, being 144,264 tons English, and 100,524 foreign; in 1701 the amount of shipping employed was 337,328 tons, of which alone 293,703 were English. In 1702, the end of William's reign, the number of English mercantile vessels was about 3,281, employing 27,196 seamen. The royal navy, at the end of William's reign, amounted to about 159,000 tons, employing some 50,000 sailors, so that the seamen of England must have amounted at that period to nearly 80,000.
FORE:"'Partes ubi se via findit in ambas.'"Half the London bridges were built, or rebuilt, during this period. Waterloo Bridge was begun in 1811, and completed by its designer and architect, John Rennie, on the 18th of June, 1817, having cost upwards of a million sterling. It is not only the longest of the Thames bridges, but was pronounced by Canova the finest bridge in the world, and is justly universally admired. Rennie built Southwark Bridge, an iron one, at a cost of eight hundred thousand pounds, and completed it in 1819, its erection occupying five years. Sir John Rennie, his son, built the new London Bridge from the designs of his father; but this was not begun till six years after the death of George III., nor finished till 1831, at a cost of five hundred and six thousand pounds.
