Chatham, on rising, severely blamed Ministers for the course which they had pursued, and which had driven the colonies to the verge of rebellion. "Resistance to your Acts," he said, "was necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally incompetent to convince or to enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether attempted by an individual part of the Legislature, or the bodies who compose it, is equally intolerable to British subjects." He eulogised the conduct of the Congress, and remarked that it was obvious that all attempts to impose servitude on such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. "We shall be forced," he said, "ultimately, to retract; let us retract while we cannot when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violently oppressive Acts; they must be repealed. You will repeal them; I pledge myself for it that you will, in the end, repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, this disgraceful necessity." He declared that the cause of America and England was one; that it was the glorious spirit of Whiggism which animated the colonists. "It is liberty to liberty engaged. In this great cause they are immovably allied; it is the alliance of God and natureimmutable, eternalfixed as the firmament of heaven. You cannot force them, united as they are, to your unworthy terms of submission. It is impossible." Lords Shelburne, Camden, and Rockingham, and the Duke of Richmond, zealously supported the views of Chatham, but the Ministerial party opposed the motion as obstinately as ever; and it was rejected by sixty-eight votes against eighteen.
The secession of the Duke of Savoy only the more roused the indignation of the Allies. The Dutch breathed a hotter spirit of war just as their power of carrying it on failed; and even the experienced Heinsius made an energetic oration in the States General, declaring that all the fruits of the war would be lost if they consented to the peace proposed. But to avoid it was no longer possible. The English plenipotentiaries pressed the Allies more and more zealously to come in, so much so that they were scarcely safe from the fury of the Dutch populace, who insulted the Earl of Strafford and the Marquis del Borgo, the Minister of the Duke of Savoy, when the news came that the duke had consented to the peace. Every endeavour was made to detach the different Allies one by one. Mr. Thomas Harley was sent to the Elector of Hanover to persuade him to co-operate with her Majesty; but, notwithstanding all risk of injuring his succession to the English Crown, he declined. Similar attempts were made[8] on the King of Prussia and other princes, and with similar results. The English Ministers now began to see the obstacles they had created to the conclusion of a general peace by their base desertion of the Allies. The French, rendered more than ever haughty in their demands by the successes of Villars, raised their terms as fast as any of the Allies appeared disposed to close with those already offered. The Dutch, convinced at length that England would make peace without them, and was bending every energy to draw away their confederates, in October expressed themselves ready to treat, and to yield all pretensions to Douay, Valenciennes, and Mauberg, on condition that Cond and Tournay were included in their barrier; that the commercial tariffs with France should be restored to what they were in 1664; that Sicily should be yielded to Austria, and Strasburg to the Empire. But the French treated these concessions with contempt, and Bolingbroke was forced to admit to Prior that they treated like pedlars, or, what was worse, like attorneys. He conjured Prior "to hide the nakedness of his country" in his intercourse with the French Ministers, and to make the best of the blunders of his countrymen, admitting that they were not much better politicians than the French were poets. But the fault of Bolingbroke and his colleagues was not want of talent, it was want of honesty; and, by their selfish desire to damage their political rivals, they had brought their country into this deplorable dilemma of sacrificing all faith with their allies, of encouraging the unprincipled disposition of the French, who were certain to profit by the division of the Allies, and of abandoning the glory and position of England, or confessing that the Whigs, however much they had erred in entering on such enormous wars, had in truth brought them to the near prospect of a far more satisfactory conclusion than what they were taking up with.Two of the workmen from Butterley Foundry entered the "White Horse," which was kept by a widow Wightman, whose son George was deep in the foolish conspiracy into which Oliver and this his blind, savage tool, the Nottingham Captain, were leading him. They found Brandreth with a map before him, and telling them there was no good to be done, they must march up to London and overthrow the Government. He said all the country was rising; that at Nottingham the people had already taken the castle and seized the soldiers in their barracks, and were waiting for them. This shows that he had come straight from Oliver, who, on the 7th, was at Nottingham, attending the meeting there, and who knew that the meeting in Yorkshire had been prevented. Yet he had allowed the people of Nottingham to believe that the Yorkshire men were coming, according to agreement, in thousands; and he allowed Brandreth to go and arouse Derbyshire, under the belief that Nottingham that night would be in the hands of the insurgents. On Monday night, the 9th of June, Brandreth and a knot of his colleagues proceeded to muster their troop of insurgents for the march to Nottingham. They roused up the men in their cottages, and, if they refused to go, they broke in the doors with a crowbar, and compelled them to join them. Most of these unwilling levies slipped away in the dark on the first opportunity. At South Wingfield he assembled his forces in an old barn, and then they proceeded through the neighbourhood demanding men and guns. An old woman had the courage to tap the "captain" on the shoulder, and say"My lad, we have a magistrate here;" and many of the men thought Brandreth must be mad or drunk. At the farm of widow Hetherinton he demanded her men and arms, and when she stoutly refused him, he put the gun through[127] the window and shot one of her men dead. As the day dawned, Brandreth and his infatuated troop appeared before the gates of Butterley Foundry, and demanded the men; but Mr. Goodwin, the manager, had been apprised of their approach, and had closed the gates. Brandreth had planned to take Butterley Foundry, and carry away not only the men but a small cannon kept there; but Mr. Goodwin went out and told Brandreth he should not have a man for any such insane purpose, and seeing an old man that he well knew, Isaac Ludlam, who bore a good character, and had been a local preacher amongst the Methodists, he seized him by the collar and pushed him into the foundry court, telling him not to be a fool, but stay at home. Ludlam, however, replied, "he was as bad as he could be," rushed out, and went onto his death; for he was one of those that were executed.During this time St. Leger had been investing Fort Schuyler. The whole of his miscellaneous force did not exceed six hundred, exclusive of Indians; and on the 5th of August he learned that General Herkimer was advancing to the relief. He instantly dispatched Sir John Johnson with a party of regulars and a number of Indians to waylay him. Herkimer fell into the ambush, and was himself mortally wounded. St. Leger, finding that his light artillery made no impression on the walls of Fort Schuyler, and hearing a false rumour that Burgoyne was defeated, raised the siege, leaving behind him his artillery, tents, and stores. His precipitation was occasioned by the more certain news of the approach of Arnold with ten pieces of artillery and two thousand men, who indeed, reached Fort Schuyler two days after his retreat.At this juncture Sir Henry Pottinger succeeded Captain Elliot, with orders to bring the war to a satisfactory conclusion. His measures were prompt; Amoy fell on the 26th of August, Chusan, which had been abandoned, was recaptured in September, and the Chinese experienced further reverses in 1842. At length the Chinese saw that resistance was vain, and that they must come to terms, as the "barbarians" could not be exterminated. Full powers had been given to three Commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace, which, after various conferences, was concluded on the 26th of August, 1842. It embraced the following stipulations:The payment by the Chinese of an indemnity of 4,375,000 in addition to the ransom of 1,250,000 already surrendered; the opening of the new ports of Canton, Amoy, Fou-chow-fou, Ning-po, and Shang-hai to British merchants, with permission to consular officers to reside there; the cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British in perpetuity; correspondence to be conducted on terms of perfect equality between the officers of both Governments; and the islands of Chusan and Ku-lang-su to be held by the British until the money payments were made, and arrangements for opening the ports were completed.
