ONE:Not one of these monarchs, whose subjects had shed their blood and laid down their lives by hundreds of thousands to replace them in their power, had in return given these subjects a recompense by the institution of a more liberal form of government. The German kings and princes had openly promised such constitutions to induce them to expel Buonaparte; and, this accomplished, they shamefully broke their word. As Lord Byron well observed, we had put down one tyrant only to establish ten. In Spain, where we had made such stupendous exertions to restore Ferdinand, that monarch entered about the end of March; and his arrival was a signal for all the old royalists and priests to gather round him, and to insist on the annihilation of the Constitution made by the Cortes. He went to Gerona, where he was joined by General Elio and forty thousand men. Thence he marched to Saragossa and Valencia. At that city Te Deum was sung for his restoration, and, surrounded by soldiers and priests, he declared that the Cortes had never been legally convoked; that they had deprived him of the sovereignty, and the nobles and clergy of their status; and that he would not swear to the Constitution which they had prepared. On the 12th of May he entered his capital, amid the most frantic joy of the ignorant populace, and proceeded at once to seize all Liberal members of the Cortes, and throw them into prison. Wellington hastened to Madrid, and with his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley, the British Ambassador, and General Whittingham, in vain urged on Ferdinand to establish a liberal constitution, and govern on liberal principles. It was clear there was a time of terrible and bloody strife before Spain between the old tyrannies and superstitions and the new ideas.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.
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THREE:Whilst showing this firmness towards others, Clive found it necessary to maintain it in himself. In face of the orders of the Company which he had been enforcing, that the British officials should receive no more presents, the Rajah of Benares offered him two diamonds of large size, and the Nabob-vizier, Sujah Dowlah, on the conclusion of his treaty, a rich casket of jewels, and a large sum of money. Clive declared that he could thus have added half a million to his fortune; and our historians have been loud in his praises for his abstinence on this occasion. Lord Mahon observes:"All this time the conduct of Clive was giving a lofty example of disregard of lucre. He did not spare his personal resources, and was able, some years after, to boast in the House of Commons that this his second Indian command had left him poorer than it found him." Ill-health compelled him to return to England in January, 1767.
THREE:"Father is gone!
THREE:[253]
