-
ONE:[584] TWO:
Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. Nam congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar. Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus.
-
ONE:The Conservative party had got the impression that the commercial interest in the House of Commons would swamp the landed interest, in consequence of the preponderance of the representatives of cities and boroughs. But that impression was shown to be a delusion by many votes. The number who supported a motion of Lord Chandos on the 27th of April, 1836, was, considering its nature, remarkable:"That in the application of any surplus revenue towards the relief of the burdens of the country, either by remission of taxation or otherwise, due regard should be had to the necessity of a portion thereof being applied to the relief of the agricultural interest." That interest had been relieved to a considerable extent in a variety of ways during the recent progress of legislation, and especially by the Poor Law Amendment Act, which had been an immense boon to both landlords and tenants. The policy of the motion of Lord Chandos was so unsound that Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, and Sir James Graham felt constrained to vote with Ministers[407] for its rejection. The motion was defeated by 211 votes to 150.Fox, on this occasion, also introduced the subject of the Prince of Wales's allowance, who, he contended, had far less than had been granted to a Prince of Wales since the accession of the House of Hanover, that allowance being one hundred thousand pounds a-year; and the present parsimony towards the prince being grossly aggravated by the royal Civil List having been raised, in this reign, from six hundred thousand pounds to nine hundred thousand pounds, and the Privy Purse from six thousand pounds to sixty thousand pounds. Fox's remarks were rendered all the more telling because, when the House went into committee on the finances, Pitt had made a most flourishing statement of the condition of the Exchequer. He took off the taxes which pressed most on the poorer portion of the populationnamely, on servants, the late augmentations on malt, on waggons, on inhabited houses, etc.,to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds and appropriated four hundred thousand pounds towards the reduction of the National Debt. Still blind to the storm rising across the strait of Dover, he declared that these were mere trifles compared with what he should be able to do shortly, for never was there a time when a more durable peace might be expected! TWO:On the 6th of April Whitbread brought forward these charges against Melville in the House of Commons, as detailed in the tenth report of the Naval Commissioners. In doing so, he paid a high compliment to the manner in which the naval affairs had been conducted since Lord St. Vincent became head of that Department; but he charged Lord Melville with having applied the public money to other uses than those of the Naval Department, in contempt of the Act of 1785an Act which Melville himself, then Dundas, had supported: that he had connived at a system of peculation in the Treasurer of the Navy, Mr. Trotter, an individual for whom he was responsible. The salary of this Mr. Trotter had been fixed by the Act of 1785 at four thousand pounds a year, but he contended that Dundas had allowed Trotter to draw large sums from the Bank of England out of the navy deposit, pay them into Coutts's Bank, and use them for his own benefit; and that, moreover, he had participated in the profits of this system. This charge called forth a vehement contest of parties. Tierney, who had been Treasurer of the Navy under Addington, declared that he had found no inconvenience in complying with the Act of 1785, whilst holding that office. Fox, Grey, Ponsonby, Windham, Wilberforce, Lord Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, supported Whitbread's charges, and Pitt, Canning, and Lord Castlereagh defended Melville. On putting the resolutions moved by Whitbread, after a debate till quite late in the morning, they were carried by the casting vote of the Speaker. The scene, which is one of the most striking in our Parliamentary annals, has frequently been described, notably by Lord Fitzharris:"I sat edged close to Pitt himself," he wrote, "the night when we were two hundred and sixteen, and the Speaker, Abbot, after looking as white as a sheet, and pausing for ten minutes, gave the casting vote against us. Pitt immediately put on the little cocked hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the evening, and jammed it down deeply over his forehead, and I distinctly saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. We heard one or two, such as Colonel Wardle, say they would see 'how Billy looked after it'! A few young ardent followers of Pitt, with myself, locked their arms together and formed a circle, in which he moved, I believe unconsciously, out of the House, and neither the colonel nor his friends could approach him." But the Opposition were not content with the vote of censure. Whitbread moved that an Address should be presented to his Majesty, praying him to remove Lord Melville for ever from his councils and presence, but the motion was withdrawn as soon as Melville's resignation was known. On the 6th of May Whitbread was about to move a resolution that his Majesty should be requested to erase the name of Lord Melville from the list of the Privy Council, but Pitt rose and said that the motion was unnecessary, as his Majesty had already done it.
Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus. Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar.
-
ONE:Better to die than wed: TWO:[See larger version]The domestic serenity of the realm was, however, greatly disturbed at this moment by Dean Swift, who seized on the occasion to avenge himself on the Whig Ministry for the defeat and punishment of his party, and especially of his particular friends and patrons, Oxford and Bolingbroke. There had long been a great deficiency of copper coin in Ireland. The Government undertook to remove this pressing want of so useful a medium, and they set about it in an honest and honourable manner as regarded the quality of the coin. Tenders were issued, and various offers received for the coining of farthings and halfpence to the value of a hundred and eight thousand pounds. The proposal of Mr. William Wood, an iron and copper founder, of Wolverhampton, was accepted; but the quality of the coin, both as to weight and fineness, was determined by the advice of Sir Isaac Newton, then Master of the Mint, and Wood was bound under heavy penalties to furnish it according to this stipulation. Every care was used by the Ministers and the Solicitor- and Attorney-General to insure the supply of a much better copper coinage than Ireland had ever possessed before.
Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus. Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar.
-
ONE:CHAPTER XV. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued). TWO:But, in spite of the importance of these measures, there was one question which engrossed the attention of both parliament and the public far more than any other. This was the demand by Burke for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, late Governor-General of Bengal, for high crimes and misdemeanours there alleged to have been by him committed. It therefore becomes necessary at this point to resume our narrative of Indian affairs from the year 1760, which our connected view of the events of the American war necessarily suspended.In the department of the Drama the fertility[180] was immense. Tragedy, comedy, and farce maintained a swelling stream during the whole reign. In the earlier portion of it the chief writers of this class were Goldsmith, Garrick, Foote, Macklin, Murphy, Cumberland, Colman the elder, Mrs. Cowley, and Sheridan. Several of these dramatistsas Garrick, Macklin, and Footewere, at the same time, actors. The most eminent of them as writers were Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Colman. Horace Walpole wrote the "Mysterious Mother," a tragedy, which, however, was never acted; Goldsmith his two comedies, "The Good-Natured Man" and "She Stoops to Conquer," which were extremely popular; Garrick, the farces of "The Lying Valet" and "Miss in her Teens." He was said also to have been a partner with Colman in writing "The Clandestine Marriage;" but Colman denied this, saying that Garrick wrote the first two acts, and brought them to him, desiring him to put them together, and that he did put them together, for he put them together into the fire, and re-wrote the whole. Another farce, "High Life below Stairs," attributed to Garrick, was, it seems, written by the Rev. James Townley, assisted by Dr. Hoadly, the author of "The Suspicious Husband." Garrick was the great actor of his time, but, as a dramatic writer, his merit is insignificant. Foote was the chief writer of the comic before Colman. His productions amount to upwards of twenty, the most of them farces; and amongst them are "The Minor," "The Liar," and "The Mayor of Garrat." Foote was the wit and punster of the age. His satiric keenness was the terror of his time, and he dared to think of trying it even on the great essayist, Dr. Johnson, by introducing him upon the stage; but Johnson sent him word that he would be in one of the stage-boxes with a good, knotty cudgel, and Foote thought it best to let him alone.
Integer suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. Nam congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar. Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Maecenas tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus.
-
ONE:But there was a circumstance taken for granted in such a scheme which would never have been realisedthe consent of the queen. Anne, like most other sovereigns, abhorred the idea of a successor. She never liked the contemplation of the occupation of her throne after death, much less did she relish the presence of a competitor during her lifetime. Besides in her days of disease and weakness she had enough to do to manage her Ministry, without adding to her anxieties by a rival authority either from Hanover or St. Germains. There was still another obstaclethe unsatisfactory conduct of Oxford, who had[18] professed great zeal for the Pretender till he got the Peace of Utrecht signed, because this secured him the vote of the Jacobites, but who since then had trifled with them, and never could be brought to any positive decision. Berwick had sent over the Abb Gualtier to endeavour to bring Oxford to a point. Gualtier soon informed his employer that Oxford was actively corresponding with the House of Hanover and therefore Berwick and De Torcy wrote a joint letter to him, putting the plain question, what measures he had taken to secure the interests of the Pretender in case of the death of the queen, which no one could now suppose to be far off. Oxford, with unwonted candour this time, replied that, if the queen died soon, the affairs of the Prince and of the Cabinet too were ruined without resource. This satisfied them that he had never really been in earnest in the Pretender's cause, or he would long ago have taken measures for his advantage, or would have told them that he found it impossible. They determined, therefore, to throw the interests of the Jacobites into the party of Bolingbroke; and this was another step in Oxford's fall. They managed to set Lady Masham warmly against him, and this undermined him more than ever with the queen.In such very discouraging circumstances the American campaign began. Whilst insurrection was in their camp, Sir Henry Clinton dispatched General Arnold to make a descent upon the coast of Virginia. That general had been dispatched into that quarter, at the close of the year, with one thousand six hundred men, in ships so bad, that they were obliged to fling overboard some of their horses. Arnold, however, first sailed up the river James, and landed at Westover, only twenty-five miles from Richmond, the capital of Virginia. Jefferson, who was Governor of Virginia, was seized with great alarm; for, though the militia of the State were nominally fifty thousand, he could muster only a few hundreds. He therefore hastily collected what property he could, and fled up the country, dreading to fall into the hands of a man so embittered against the Americans as Arnold was, who was himself well aware that they had determined to hang him without mercy if they caught him. Arnold did not allow much time to elapse without action. The next day he was in Richmond, and sent word to Jefferson that, provided British vessels might come up the river to take away the tobacco, he would spare the town. Jefferson rejected the proposal, and Arnold burnt all the tobacco stores and the public buildings, both there and at Westham. After committing other ravages, he returned to Portsmouth, on Elizabeth River, where he entrenched himself. On the 26th of March, General Phillips, having assumed the command, in company with Arnold ascended James River with two thousand five hundred men, took and destroyed much property in Williamsburg and York Town, ravaged the country around, and then sailed to the mouth of the Appomattox, and burnt all the shipping and tobacco in Petersburg. After other depredations, and forcing the Americans to destroy their own flotilla between Warwick and Richmond, Phillips and Arnold descended the James River to Manchester, and proposed to cross over to Richmond. But Lafayette having just reached that place before them with upwards of two thousand men, they re-embarked, and, after destroying much other property, especially shipping and stores, at Warwick and other places, they fell down to Hog Island, where they awaited further orders. TWO:"Such is the extraordinary power of the Association, or, rather, of the agitators, of whom there are many of high ability, of ardent mind, of great daring (and if there was no Association, these men are now too well known not to maintain their power under the existing order of exclusion), that I am quite certain they could lead on the people to open rebellion at a moment's notice; and their organisation is such that in the hands of desperate and intelligent leaders they would be extremely formidable. The hope, and indeed the probability, of present tranquillity rests upon the forbearance and the not very determined courage of O'Connell, and on his belief, as well as that of the principal men amongst them, that they will carry their cause by unceasing agitation, and by intimidation, without coming to blows. I believe their success inevitable; that no power under heaven can arrest its progress. There may be rebellionyou may put to death thousandsyou may suppress it, but it will only be to put off the day of compromise; and, in the meantime, the country is still more impoverished, and the minds of the people are, if possible, still more alienated, and ruinous expense is entailed upon the empire. But supposing that the whole evil was concentred in the Association, and that, if that was suppressed, all would go smoothly, where is the man who can tell me how to suppress it? Many cry out that the nuisance must be abatedthat the Government is supinethat the insolence of the demagogues is intolerable; but I have not yet found one person capable of pointing out a remedy. All are mute when you ask them to define their proposition. All that even the most determined opposers to Emancipation say is, that it is better to leave things as they are than to risk any change. But will things remain as they are? Certainly not. They are bad; they must get worse; and I see no possible means of improving them but by depriving the demagogues of the power of directing the people; and by taking Messrs. O'Connell, Sheil, and the rest of them, from the Association, and placing them in the House of Commons, this desirable object would be at once accomplished.
Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. Nam congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar. Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus.
