THREE:Argyll, who received the news of the retreat about four in the afternoon of that day, occupied Perth with Dutch and English troops by ten o'clock the next morning. They had quitted Stirling on the 29th, and that night they encamped on the snow amid the burnt remains of the village of Auchterarder. Argyll and Cadogan followed the advanced guard and entered Perth on[32] the evening of the 1st of February; but the remainder of the troops did not arrive till late at night, owing to the state of the roads and the weather. Some few of the rebels, who had got drunk and were left behind, were secured. The next day Argyll and Cadogan, with eight hundred light foot and six squadrons of dragoons, followed along the Carse of Gowrie to Dundee. Cadogan, in a letter to Marlborough, complained of the evident reluctance of Argyll to press on the rebels. When he arrived at Dundee on the 3rd, the rebel army was already gone. He and Cadogan then separated, taking different routes towards Montrose. Cadogan, whose heart was in the business, pushed on ahead, and on the 5th, at noon, reached Arbroath, where he received the news that the Pretender had embarked at Montrose and gone to France. In this manner did the descendant of a race of kings and the claimant of the Crown of Great Britain steal away and leave his unhappy followers to a sense of his perfidious and cruel desertion. His flight, no doubt, was necessary, but the manner of it was at once most humiliating and unfeeling. The consternation and wrath of the army on the discovery were indescribable. They were wholly broken up when Argyll reached Aberdeen on the 8th of February.Burgoyne was now in a condition which demanded all the talents of a great general. His forces were heavily reduced, those of the enemy much increased, and he was amongst bogs and wildernesses, which Barrington and Barr had from the first declared would be fatal to any army. He had sent express after express to Howe to urge a movement in co-operation, but no news of it arrived, and every day he was becoming more and more cut off from advance or retreat. Whilst these circumstances were operating against him, Burgoyne collected his artillery and provisions for about a month, and, forming a bridge of boats, passed his army, on the 13th and 14th of September, over the Hudson, and encamped on the heights and plains of Saratoga. Just at this juncture Schuyler had been superseded by his successor Gates, yet he himself remained to give his assistance in the campaign. The day after Gates assumed the command, Morgan had marched in with his rifle corps, five hundred strong, and Major Dearborn with two hundred and fifty other picked men. Arnold, too, had returned from pursuit of St. Leger, with two thousand men. The Americans numbered, with militia continually flocking in, nearly eight thousand, whilst Burgoyne's force did not exceed half that number. To approach the Americans it was necessary to cross the low ground, seamed with watercourses and rugged with scrub and stones, and to lay down bridges and causeways. This being completed, on the 19th the British army took position at Bemus's Heights in front of the American left. Gates, stimulated by the presence of Arnold, began the attack by sending out a detachment to turn Burgoyne's right flank, but they soon perceived the covering division of Fraser, and retreated. Gates then put Arnold at the head of a still stronger detachment to fall directly on Burgoyne's position, and a severe fight commenced about three o'clock in the afternoon, which lasted until sunset. Arnold made the most impetuous[243] assaults on the British line to break it, but everywhere in vain, although the whole weight of the attack fell on three or four of our regiments, the rest being posted on some hills, and the Germans on the left at a greater distance. Whenever they advanced into the open field, the fire of the American marksmen from their concealment drove them back in disorder; but whenever the Americans ventured out, the British rushed forward and committed havoc amongst them; so the contest continued till night. The British remained in the field and claimed the victory; but it was a victory severely won, and far from decisive. The losses on both sides had been from five hundred to six hundred killed and wounded.
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THREE:Under the influence of this persuasion, Buonaparte suddenly made overtures of peace to Great Britain, though, on the conditions which he proposed, they were certain to be rejected. The Duke of Bassano wrote to Lord Castlereagh, offering to secure the independence of Spain under the present reigning dynasty; that Portugal should continue under the rule of the House of Braganza, and Naples under Murat. Lord Castlereagh replied that if by the present reigning dynasty of Spain was meant King Joseph, there could be no treaty, and there the matter ended; for even Fouch says that Napoleon's Ministers were ashamed of so clumsy a proposal of ignorance and bad faith. Failing with Great Britain, Buonaparte turned to Russia herself, intimating a desire for peace, but not finding it in his heart to offer any terms likely to be accepted. In fact, he was now so demented by the ambition which meant soon to destroy him, that he fancied that a mere mention of peace was enough to win over any of his enemies in face of his vast armies. Including the forces of his German and Italian subsidiaries, he had on foot one million one hundred and eighty-seven thousand men. Of these, he led four hundred and seventy thousand men into Russia. Italy, Naples, Austria, Prussia, Würtemberg, Baden, Saxony, Westphalia, and other Confederates of the Rhine furnished each from twenty thousand to sixty thousand men. To swell up his French portion, he had called out two conscriptions, each of a hundred thousand men, in one year, and had organised a new system of conscription under the name of "National Guards," which professedly were only to serve in France as a militia but which were soon drafted off into foreign service. This consisted of three levies, or bans"the ban," "the second ban," and "the arrire ban." They included all who were capable of bearing arms of all classes. The ban was composed of youths from twenty to twenty-six years of age; the second ban of men from twenty-six to forty, and the arrire ban of those from forty to sixty. By such means was the native population of France being rapidly drawn off into destruction by this modern Moloch.
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THREE:
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THREE:The year 1810 opened with violent debates on the conduct of the late Ministry, and the miserable management of the Walcheren Expedition. The King's Speech, read by commission, passed over the disasters in Belgium entirely, and spoke only of Wellesley's glorious victory at Talavera. But the Opposition did not pass over Walcheren; in both Houses the whole business was strongly condemned by amendments which, however, the Ministry managed to get negatived by considerable majorities. Both Castlereagh and Canning defended their concern in the expedition. They declared that the orders were to push forward and secure Antwerp, and destroy the docks and shipping there, not to coop up the troops in an unhealthy island swamp; and that they were not responsible for the mismanagement of the affair. This threw the onus on Lord Chatham, the commander, but did not exonerate Ministers for choosing such a commander; and though they were able to defeat the amendments on the Address, they were not able to prevent the appointment of a secret committee to inquire into the conduct and policy of the expedition. The committee was secret, because Buonaparte carefully read the English newspapers, and Parliament was desirous of keeping from his knowledge the wretched blunders of our commanders. This object, however, was not achieved, for the evidence given before the committee oozed out and appeared in our newspapers, and was duly set forth in the Moniteur for the edification of France and the Continent. Notwithstanding the frightful details laid before the committee, and the gross proof of dilatoriness and neglect, Ministers succeeded in negativing every condemnatory motion; and though General Craufurd actually carried resolutions affirming the propriety of taking and keeping the island of Walcheren, awfully fatal as it was, still Lord Chatham, though exculpated by the Court and Parliament, was by no means acquitted by the country, and he found it necessary to surrender his post of Master-General of the Ordnance.[See larger version]
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ONE:After a week's popular tumult in his capital, the King's eyes were opened, and he conceived the idea of putting himself at the head of the popular movement, with a view, no doubt, of directing and controlling it. On the 18th of March he issued an ordinance against convoking a meeting of the Diet which had closed its Session only a fortnight before. In this document he stated that he demanded that Germany should be transformed from a confederation of States to one Federal State, with constitutional representation, a general military system after the Prussian model, a single Federal banner, a common law of settlement for all Germany, and the right of all Germans to change their abode in every part of the Fatherland, with the abolition of all custom-house barriers to commercial intercourse, with uniformity of weights, measures, and coinage, and liberty of the press throughout Germany. Thereby he placed himself at the head of the United Germany movement.
ONE:[356]The spring of 1720 was a period of remarkable national prosperity. But "the grand money schemes projected of late," which appeared to the Jacobite Atterbury and others calculated to cement the royal peace and strengthen the foundation[46] of the Government and nation, were destined to produce a very different effect. For the South Sea Bubble was about to burst. In 1711, Harley, being at his wits' end to maintain the public credit, established a fund to provide for the National Debt, which amounted to ten millions of pounds. To defray the interest he made permanent the duties on wine, vinegar, and tobacco, etc. To induce the purchase of the Government stock, he gave to the shareholders the exclusive privilege of trading to the Spanish settlements in South America, and procured them an Act of Parliament and a royal charter, under the name of the South Sea Company. The idea, hollow and groundless as it was, seized on the imagination of the most staid and experienced traders. All the dreams of boundless gold which haunted the heads of the followers of Drake and Raleigh were revived. The mania spread through the nation, and was industriously encouraged by the partisans of Harley. But this stupendous dream of wealth was based on the promises of Ministers, who at the Peace of Utrecht were to secure from the Government of Spain this right to trade to its colonies. The right was never granted by that haughty and jealous Power, further than for the settlement of some few factories, and the sending of one small ship annually of less than five hundred tons. This, and the Assiento, or privilege of supplying those colonies with African slaves, were the sole advantages obtained, and these were soon disturbed by the war with Spain, which broke out under Alberoni. The South Sea Company, however, from its general resources, remained a flourishing corporation, and was deemed the rival of the Bank of England.
ONE:But whilst Tchitchagoff attacked the French on the right bank, Wittgenstein attacked them on the left. The Russians then threw a bridge of pontoons over the river at Borissov, and, being in communication, attacked the French vehemently on both sides of the river at once. Buonaparte and the troops who were over the river forced their way across some marshes over wooden bridges, which the Russians had neglected to destroy, and reached Brelowa, a little above Borissov on the other side. But terrible now was the condition of the forces and the camp-followers who had not crossed. Wittgenstein, Victor, and Oudinot were engaged in mortal combat on the left bank at the approach of the bridge, the French generals endeavouring to beat off the Russians as the troops and people pressed in a confused crowd over the bridges. Every moment the Russians drove the French nearer to the bridges, and the scene of horror became indescribable. The throngs rushed to make their way over the bridge; the soldiers, forgetting their discipline, added to the confusion. The weak and helpless were trampled down; thousands were forced over the sides of the bridge, and perished in the freezing waters. In the midst of the struggle a fierce tempest arose, and deluges of rain fell; and to carry the horror to the highest pitch,[53] the bridge over which the baggage was passing broke down, plunging numbers of sick, and women and children, into the flood, amid the most fearful cries and screams. But all night the distracted multitude continued to press over the sole remaining bridge under the fire of the Russian artillery, and amongst them passed the troops of Victor, who gave up the contest on the left bank, and left those who had not crossed to their fate. Thousands of poor wretches were seen, as morning dawned, huddled on the bank of the river, amid baggage-waggons and artillery, surrounded by the infuriated Russians, and in dumb despair awaiting their fate. To prevent the crossing of the Russians, the French set fire to the bridge, and left those behind to the mercy of the enemy.
