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ONE:The Minister still claimed the character of the landowner's friend; and in the House of Commons, out of 658 members, 125 was the utmost number that could be considered as Free Traders. But the progress of the League agitation this year was immense. Five years had elapsed since the Anti-Corn-Law Association in Manchester had put forth its humble appeal for five-shilling subscriptions, and now in one single year ��50,000 had been given for the objects of the Association, and it was resolved to raise a further fund of ��100,000. Mr. Bright had been returned for Durham in July, and already his touching appeals for justice for the people had struck the ear of the House. Like his fellow-labourers, Cobden, Colonel Thompson, George Wilson, W. J. Fox, M.P., and others, he had been busy in all parts of England, addressing audiences sometimes of 10,000 persons. The League speakers had also visited Scotland, and had been everywhere received enthusiastically. The great Free Trade Hall in Manchester was finished, and had been the scene of numerous gatherings and Free Trade banquets, at which 7,000 or 8,000 persons had sometimes sat down together. The metropolis, however, was still behind the great provincial cities in supporting the movement; and the League, therefore, resolved on holding a series of great meetings in Drury Lane Theatre, which was engaged for one night a week during Lent. The first of these important meetings was held on the 15th of March, and was attended by so large a number of persons that the pit, boxes, and even the higher gallery were filled immediately upon the opening of the doors. The succeeding meetings were no less crowded and enthusiastic. Attempts were made to obstruct these meetings, but without success. The use of Drury Lane Theatre had soon to be relinquished, the Earl of Glengall and the committee of shareholders having prohibited Mr. Macready, the lessee, from letting it for political purposes. The League were, in like manner, refused admittance to Exeter Hall; but they were soon enabled to obtain the use of Covent Garden Theatre, where they quickly prepared for a series of great meetings, which proved to be no less crowded and enthusiastic. TWO:A number of satires and other poems appeared at this time which deserve only a mere mention. These are "The Pursuits of Literature," by Thomas James Mathias; "Anticipation," by Richard Tickell, being an anticipation of the king's Speech, and the debates of Parliament; "An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers," by Mason, under the assumed name of Malcolm Macgregor; "The Rolliad," also a political satire, in 1785. To this succeeded "Probationary Odes," from the same party. These were eclipsed by the publications of Dr. John Wolcot, under the name of Peter Pindar, who for twenty years kept the public laughing by his witty and reckless effusions, in which the king especially was most unmercifully ridiculed. Wolcot had the merit of discovering Opie, the painter, as a sawyer in the neighbourhood of Truro, and pushing him forward by his praises. Of the Royal Academicians he was a relentless enemy, and to them addressed several odes, of the most caustic and damaging kind. Later on came the inimitable poems of the "Anti-Jacobin," written by Canning, Hookham Frere, and others, among which it is sufficient to recall the "Needy Knife-grinder," and the satires on the Addington Administration. But now there came a voice from Scotland that filled with envy the crowd of second-rate poets of London, and marked the dawn of a new era. A simple but sturdy peasant��with no education but such as is extended to every child in every rural parish of Scotland; "following the plough along the mountain side," laboriously sowing and reaping and foddering neat; instead of haunting drawing-rooms in bob-tailed coat and kid gloves, dancing on the barn-floor, or hob-nobbing with his rustic chums at the next pot-house��set up a song of youth, of passion, of liberty and equality, so clear, so sonorous, so ringing with the clarion tones of genius and truth, that all Britain, north and south, stood still in wonder, and the most brazen vendor of empty words and impudent pretensions to intellectual power owned the voice of the master, and was for a moment still. This master of song was Robert Burns (b. 1759; d. 1796). Need we say more? Need we speak of the exquisite beauty of the "Cotter's Saturday Night"?��of the fun of "Tam o' Shanter"?��of the satiric drollery of his laughter at antiquarian and other pretenders?��of the scathing sarcasms on sectarian cant in "Holy Willie's Prayer," and a dozen other things?��of the spirit of love and the spirit of liberty welling[186] up in his heart in a hundred living songs?��of the law of man's independence and dignity stamped on the page of eternal memory in the few words��"A man's a man for a' that"? Are not these things written in the book of human consciousness, all the world over? Do not his fellow-countrymen sing them and shout them in every climate under heaven? At the time when they appeared the poems of Robert Burns clearly showed that true poetry was not altogether extinct, and effectually put an end to that fatal rage of imitation of the artificial school of Johnson and Pope which then prevailed.

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ONE: TWO:But the conquered Sikhs did not very easily acquiesce in the terms proposed by the conquerors, in spite of the wise administration of the great brothers John and Henry Lawrence, who organised a thoroughly efficient government in the new territories. Gholab Singh was chased from the territory the British had given him, and it became necessary that British arms should reinstate him, and that a British force should permanently garrison Lahore, at a cost to the Sikh Government of ��220,000 a year. The intriguing and restless Ranee was sent off from the capital to Sharpoora, where she was kept under surveillance. Sir Charles Napier was obliged to resign his government in Scinde from ill-health, and he returned home in 1847. The Governor-General, after making a progress through various parts of the empire, in order to inaugurate and encourage works of social improvement, was also obliged to retire from his post, in consequence of the failure of his health owing to the fatigues and hardships he had endured in the campaign, and Henry Lawrence accompanied him. On his return home Hardinge was made Master-General of the Ordnance and Commander-in-Chief, being succeeded in India by Lord Dalhousie, who arrived there on the 10th of January, 1848. He, too, found disturbances to be quelled and treachery to be punished among our allies and tributaries. Troubles occurred at Lahore, where the hostility of the inhabitants to the British broke out with terrible effect. Mr. Vans Agnew, the British Resident, and Lieutenant Anderson were treacherously murdered at Mooltan, apparently by the orders of Moolraj, who had been ordered to pay a large sum as succession duty to the Sikh Government. Their death was avenged by Lieutenant Edwardes and General Courtland, who, at the head of a small force, attacked and defeated the revolted Sikhs, 3,000 strong. At length 26,000 troops under General Whish invested the place. But his troops went over to the enemy, and he was compelled to raise the siege and retire. At the same time an insurrection broke out in the Punjab, headed by the governor of the North-West Provinces; in fact, there was a general revolt of the Sikhs against British rule.

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ONE:It met on the 29th of November. The king, in his speech, alluded to the determined resistance to the imperial authority of the American colonists, and pre-eminently of those of Massachusetts Bay. He called upon Parliament to support him in his endeavours to restore order. There was strong opposition to the addresses in both Houses, demands being made for a full production of all papers and correspondence on this great subject, but the battle did not begin until January, 1775, when Chatham moved the repeal of the legislation of the previous year, and the withdrawal of the troops from Boston. TWO:On the 20th of March Sir Henry Hardinge brought forward the Ministerial plan for the settlement of the tithe question. It was proposed that in future tithes should be recoverable only from the head landlord, and that the owner should be entitled to recover only 75 per cent. of the amount, 25 per cent. being allowed for the cost of collection and the risk and liability which the landlord assumed. He might redeem it, if he wished, at twenty years' purchase, calculated upon[383] the diminished rate. The purchase-money was to be invested in land or otherwise for the benefit of the rectors and other tithe-owners. The arrears of 1834 were to be paid out of the residue of the million advanced from the Consolidated Fund, and the repayments of the clergy for the loans they had received were to be remitted. There was a good deal of discussion on this plan, Lord John Russell contending that it was the same in substance as the one brought forward last Session by the late Government. There was, however, some difference between the two measures. In the former, the landlords were to get two-fifths, or ��40, out of every ��100, securing to the clergy 77? per cent., and involving an annual charge of 17? per cent. on the Consolidated Fund. This was the shape the measure had assumed as the result of amendments carried in committee. The Ministerial resolution was carried by a majority of 213 to 198.Soon after the prorogation of Parliament in the autumn her Majesty resolved to pay her first visit to her Irish subjects. At Cowes a royal squadron was in readiness to convoy the Victoria and Albert across the Channel. The Queen was accompanied by Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, the Princess Royal, and the Princess Alice. The royal yacht anchored alongside the Ganges, her arrival off the Irish coast being announced by the booming of artillery on the 2nd of August, which was the signal for the lighting of bonfires upon the hills around the picturesque town of Cove. In the morning a deputation went on board, consisting of the Marquis of Thomond, head of the house of O'Brien, the Earl of Bandon and several of the nobility and gentry of the county, with the Mayor of Cork, and Mr. Fagan, M.P. for that city. They were introduced to her Majesty by Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State in attendance during the visit. Arrangements were then made for the landing, and about three o'clock the Queen first set foot upon Irish[572] ground, amidst the most enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty from the multitudes assembled to bid their Sovereign welcome, mingling their cheers with the roar of cannon, which reverberated from the hills around. A pavilion had been erected for her Majesty's reception, and over it floated a banner, with the word "Cove" emblazoned upon it. The Queen had consented, at the request of the inhabitants, to change the name of the place and call it "Queenstown," and when she left the pavilion the first flag was pulled down and another erected in its stead, with the new name. Thus the old name of "Cove" was extinguished by the Queen's visit, just as the old name of "Dunleary" had been extinguished by the visit of George IV.

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ONE:Such was the peace abroad and the prosperity of the country at this time, that there occur few events worthy of record. Of those which took place in 1731, the most remarkable was an Act abolishing the use of Latin in all proceedings of the Courts of Justice, and the next the renewal of the charter of the East India Company. If the country was peaceful and prosperous, however, it was neither free from corruption nor from the need of extensive reform. The very system of Walpole which produced such a show of prosperity that an old Scottish Secretary of State asked the Minister what he had done to make the Almighty so much his friend, was built on the most wholesale bribery and corruption. It was, in fact, a purchased domestic peace. In social life the example of the Government produced the like dishonesty. There was a fearful revelation of the proceedings of a charitable corporation for lending small sums of money to the industrious poor at legal interest; and Sir Robert Sutton, the late Ambassador at Paris, was found so deeply implicated in the frauds and extortions practised on those they were employed to benefit, that he was expelled from the House. There was also an inquiry into the state of the public prisons of London, which opened up a most amazing scene of horrors. It was found to be a common practice of the warders to connive at the escape of rich prisoners for a sufficient bribe, and to inflict the most oppressive cruelties on those who were too poor to pay heavy fees. TWO:COPENHAGEN.

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