FORE:CHAPTER III. REIGN OF GEORGE III. (concluded).

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FORE:No sooner did Howe return to port than he had orders to sail in aid of Gibraltar, which was not only greatly in need of stores and provisions, but was menaced by the combined armies and fleets of France and Spain with one great and overwhelming attack. The evil fortune of England did not yet, however, seem to have disappeared, for the Royal George, the finest vessel in the service, went down in a sudden squall. But this awful catastrophe did not hinder the sailing of Lord Howe. He had by great exertion mustered a fleet of thirty-four sail-of-the-line, and on the 11th of September steered out for Gibraltar. For upwards of three years this famous rock had now been beleaguered. After the relief thrown in by Admiral Darby, the Spaniards, despairing of reducing the garrison by blockade, determined to destroy the town and works by a terrific bombardment. This bombardment was, accordingly, opened with unexampled fury, and continued incessantly for days and weeks. The town was set on fire, and numbers of houses consumed; the damage done to the ramparts and public buildings was appalling. General Elliot displayed the utmost temper and skill during this bombardment, as he did throughout the whole siege. He continued by night, and at other opportunities, to repair actively the damages done; and, reserving his fire for occasions when he saw a chance of doing particular damage, he caused the enemy to wonder at the little impression that they made.[158]

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FORE:On his return to the Vistula, Buonaparte displayed an unusual caution. He seemed to feel that his advance into Poland had been premature, whilst Prussia was in possession of Dantzic, whence, as soon as the thaw set in, he was open to dangerous operations in his rear, from the arrival of a British army. He therefore determined to have possession of that post before undertaking further designs. The place was invested by General Lefebvre, and capitulated at the end of May. Buonaparte all this time was marching up fresh troops to fill up the ravages made in his army. The Russians, after a drawn battle near Heilsberg on the 10th of June, then crossed the Aller, and placed that as a barrier between them and the French, in order that they might avoid the arrival of a reinforcement of thirty thousand men who were on the march.

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FORE:Although the division took no one by surprise, as the rejection of the Bill by the Lords was expected, yet the shock to society was very violent. The Funds suddenly fell, and there was that feeling of vague anxiety in the public mind which often portends some great calamity. At Derby they broke open the gaol and demolished the property of the anti-Reformers of the place. At Nottingham there was serious rioting, which ended in the utter destruction by fire of the ancient castle, once the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who had given violent offence by his rash declaration with regard to his voters at Newark, "that he had a right to do what he pleased with his own." The popular fury, however, soon subsided, and the public mind regained tranquillity, in the full assurance that the carrying of the Bill was only a question of time, and that the popular cause must ultimately triumph. What[340] most materially contributed to the restoration of public confidence was the fact that the king, alarmed at the prospect of a revolution, implored the Ministers to retain their places, and to shape their Bill so as to disarm their opponents; and on the following Monday, in the House of Commons, Lord Ebrington moved a vote of confidence in the Government, to the effect that, while the House lamented the present state of a measure in favour of which the opinion of the country had been so unequivocally expressed, and which had been matured after the most anxious and laborious discussions, they felt imperatively called upon to reassert their firm adherence to its principles and leading provisions, and their unabated confidence in the integrity, perseverance, and ability of the Ministers, who, in introducing it and conducting it so well, had consulted the best interests of the country. This motion was carried by the large majority of 131; the numbers being 329 to 198. Thus supported by the Commons, the Ministers retained their places; and the king, on the 20th of October, prorogued Parliament in person, in a Speech which the Lords might take as the king's answer to their vote, telling them in effect that by their obstinate bigotry they were setting themselves in antagonism to the two other estates of the realm, and that in their conduct and position lay the real danger to the Constitution. His Majesty said: "To the consideration of the important question of the Reform of the House of Commons the attention of Parliament must necessarily again be called at the opening of the ensuing Session; and you may be assured of my unaltered desire to promote its settlement by such improvements in the representation as may be found necessary for securing to my people the full enjoyment of their rights, which, in combination with those of the other orders of the State, are essential to the support of our free Constitution."Mr. Canning had now attained the highest summit to which the ambition of a British subject can aspire. With the acclamation of the country and of the House of Commons, he had taken the first place in the Government of the empire, to which he had raised himself by his talents and his merit alone, surmounting as he rose the most formidable impediments, aristocratic antipathies, class interests, and royal dislike. He was the idol of the nation, and not only in Great Britain, but throughout the world, his fame shone brightest of all the public men of his age. His name was associated with the triumph of Liberal principles throughout Europe and America; he was at the head of a strong Government, and he had conciliated the good-will of his Sovereign. Such a combination of what are usually regarded as the elements of human happiness has rarely, if ever, been known in the history of England, where alone such a phenomenon could occur. As a man of genius, as an orator, as a political leader, he enjoyed a reputation and a degree of success which in any one of these capacities would be regarded by the majority of men as the acme of human felicity. But in addition to these he enjoyed a position and wielded a power with which many great men have been content, without the brilliant halo of glory with which, in Canning's case, they were surrounded. But it is a singular and humbling illustration of the vanity of human wishes and human glory, that this great man was, after all, unhappy, and that the political enemies he had vanquished had the power of bringing him to an early grave. The Whig and Tory lords studied in every way to wound the proud spirit, which they knew to be extremely sensitive. They scowled upon him with looks of resentment and vengeance. Old friends averted their eyes from the affectionate companion[260] of earlier days; the cordial pressure of his hand was not returned; his associates and supporters in office and in Parliament were, for the most part, his former opponents in many a political battlefield. The odium of being a convert to Liberal principles settled upon his noble spirit like a fatal blight, the animosity with which intolerance pursues the honest and generous lover of truth and right pierced his susceptible nervous system like a keen, pitiless, persistent east wind. This was more than his delicate organism could long bear. The state of his mind affected his bodily health. The charm of his conversation made him the delight of his friends in private society, in which he found a solace and a welcome relaxation from the toils of office. It was natural, though to be regretted, that with such a susceptible, enjoying, and genial temperament, delighting in wit and humour, and diffusing pleasure around him by the coruscations of his own genius, he should have lingered longer in convivial parties than was prudent for his health. The consequence was an inflamed and irritable state of the system. Thus predisposed to disease, he caught cold by sitting under a tree, after being heated with walking, while on a visit with Lord Lyndhurst at Wimbledon. Attacked with inflammation of the kidneys, he went to Chiswick, on the advice of his doctors, and there, on the 8th of August, after a brief period of intense suffering, he died in the villa of the Duke of Devonshire, and in the same room in which a man of kindred genius, the illustrious Charles James Fox, breathed his last.

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FORE:In history, as in fiction, a new school of writers arose during this period, at the head of which stood Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. David Hume (b. 1711; d. 1776) had already acquired a great reputation by his "Philosophical Essays concerning the Human Understanding," his "Inquiry into the Principles of Morals," and his "Natural History of Religion." In these metaphysical works he had indulged his extreme sceptical tendency, and in the "Essay on Miracles" believed that he had exploded the Christian religion. His works on this subject did not, at first, gain much attention; but in a while were seized on by the deistical and atheistical philosophers in Britain and on the Continent, and have furnished them with their principal weapons. The first two volumes of history met for a time with the same cold reception as his metaphysics. He commenced with that favourite period with historians��the reigns of James I. and Charles I.��because then began the great struggle for the destruction of the Constitution, followed by the still more interesting epoch of its battle for and triumph over its enemies. Hume had all the Tory prejudices of the Scottish Jacobite, and the reigns of James I. and Charles I. were extremely to his taste, but as little to that of the English public. Hence the dead silence with which it was received. But when there had been time to read the second volume, containing the Commonwealth and the reigns of Charles II. and James II., the storm broke out. In these he had run counter to all the received political ideas of the age. But this excitement raised both volumes into notice, and he then went back, and, in[176] 1759, published two more volumes, containing the reigns of the Tudors; and, going back again, in 1762 he completed his history by bringing it down from the invasion of Julius C?sar to the accession of Henry VII. It was afterwards, as has been mentioned, continued by Smollett.The purport of these Cabinet Councils was generally understood by the country; but as yet only the most sanguine anticipated the proposal of Sir Robert Peel, when the Times newspaper on the 4th of December announced, apparently from secret information, that it was the intention of the Government to repeal the Corn Laws, and to call Parliament together in January for that purpose. The assertion was received with incredulity, not only by the Opposition, but by the Ministerial journals. One organ of the Tory party placarded its office with a bill, headed "Atrocious fabrication of the Times!" But the latter journal, on the following day, declared that it "adhered to its original announcement." Day by day the controversy raged in the newspapers; but the news was too probable not to gain credence. The result was a conviction throughout the country that the Times had really obtained information of the Government's intentions; but as a matter of fact its information was incorrect, as the Cabinet, far from intending to repeal the Corn Laws, had made up its mind to retire.

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FORE:The next morning, Wednesday, the 7th of June, the consternation was universal. The shops continued closed, and people barricaded their houses as well as they could, many of them chalking "No Popery!" on their doors, or hanging blue silk, the Protestant Association colour, from their windows. Dr. Johnson, in a walk from Fleet Street to see the ruins of the Old Bailey, describes the coolness and composure with which "the Protestants," men and boys, were employed in plundering and stripping houses, unmolested by soldiers, constables, or any one. Great numbers of the mob were going about, armed with iron bars torn from the railings in front of Lord Mansfield's, to levy contributions on the householders. Some went singly; three mere boys were observed thus engaged in company; and one man, mounted on horseback, refused to receive anything less than gold.

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