Whilst Parliament was busy with the Septennial Bill, George I. was very impatient to get away to Hanover. Like William III., he was but a foreigner in England; a dull, well-meaning man, whose heart was in his native country, and who had been transplanted too late ever to take to the alien earth. The Act of Settlement provided that, after the Hanoverian accession, no reigning sovereign should quit the kingdom without permission of Parliament. George was not content to ask this permission, but insisted that the restraining clause itself should be repealed, and it was accordingly repealed without any opposition. There was one difficulty connected with George's absence from his kingdom which Council or Parliament could not so easily deal with: this was his excessive jealousy of his son. The king could not take his departure in peace if the Prince of Wales was to be made regent, according to custom, in his absence. He proposed, therefore, through his favourite, Bothmar, that the powers of the prince should be limited by rigorous provisions, and that some other persons should be joined[34] with him in commission. Lord Townshend did not hesitate to express his sense of the impolicy of the king's leaving his dominions at all at such a crisis; but he also added that to put any other persons in commission with the Prince of Wales was contrary to the whole practice and spirit of England. Driven from this, the king insisted that, instead of regent, the prince should be named "Guardian and Lieutenant of the Realm"an office which had never existed since the time of the Black Prince.A hand fumbled with the catch: that located her.The commercial treaty with France, Pitt's greatest achievement as a financier, was not signed until the recessnamely, in September. It was conceived entirely in the spirit of Free Trade, and was an honest attempt to establish a perpetual alliance between the two nations. Its terms were:That it was to continue in force for twelve years; with some few exceptions prohibitory duties between the two countries were repealed; the wines of France were admitted at the same rate as those of Portugal; privateers belonging to any nation at war with one of the contracting parties might no longer equip themselves in the ports of the other; and complete religious and civil liberty was granted to the inhabitants of each country while residing in the other. One result of the treaty was the revival of the taste for light French wines which had prevailed before the wars of the Revolution, and a decline in the sale of the fiery wines of the Peninsula. But the treaty was bitterly attacked by the Opposition. Flood reproduced the absurd argument that wealth consists of money, and that trade can only be beneficial to the country which obtains the largest return in gold. Fox and Burke, with singular lack of foresight, declaimed against Pitt for making a treaty with France, "the natural political enemy of Great Britain," and denounced the perfidy with which the French had fostered the American revolt. In spite of the illiberality of these arguments, Pitt, with the acquiescence of the commercial classes, carried the treaty through Parliament by majorities of more than two to one.
ONE:Lawton believed himself to be ill-used. He had written to Stone a strangely composed and spelled account of the whole matter, and mingled reproaches for having gotten him into it; and Stone had replied that it was no affair of his one way or another, but so far as he could make out Lawton had made a mess of it and a qualified fool of himself.
ONE:Scarcely was the Rockingham Administration formed when they determined to recall England's ablest admiral, Sir George Rodney, and they carried this into execution in May of this year, and appointed Admiral Pigott in his stead. Lord Keppel, who had shown himself so sensitive in his own case, now he was at the head of the Admiralty not only recalled Rodney because he was of another party, but he did it in the coldest and most direct manner, through his secretary, Mr. Stephen. However, before this order of recall was issuedthe 1st of MayRodney had fought one of the greatest and most decisive battles which adorn the history of our navy. He had gone in all haste to the West Indies, with fourteen ships of the line, to join Sir Samuel Hood, who was vainly contending against the fleet of De Grasse and a strong land force at St. Christopher's. But, as De Grasse had landed eight thousand men, under De Bouill, and Hood had no land troops, he could not save the island. After its capture Rodney fell in with him, and their united fleet amounted to thirty-six ships of the line. It was well, for Hood informed Rodney that De Grasse was intending to join the Spanish general, Galvez, at St. Domingo, where they were to sail for a grand attack on the chief of the British West India Islands, Jamaica, almost the only island, excepting Barbadoes and Antigua, which Britain now owned in that part of the globe. On the 8th of April he was signalled that the French fleet was unmoored and proceeding to sea. Rodney instantly put out, and the next morning discovered this fleet under Dominica. The wind being in favour of De Grasse, he stood away for Guadeloupe; but Rodney gave chase, and Hood's squadron getting far in advance, De Grasse veered round in the hope of beating him before the rest of Rodney's fleet could come up. Hood received the fire of three men-of-war in the Barfleur, his ship, for some time; but he stood bravely to the enemy, and the wind now favouring Rodney, he came up and joined in the engagement. Several ships on each side were so much damaged that they were almost useless, and Captain Bayne, of the Alfred, was killed. The next morning the French were nearly out of sight; but Rodney pressed after them, for he knew that if they succeeded in joining the Spaniards, he should have sixty sail, instead of thirty-six, to contend with.
TWO:BOSTON "BOYS" DISGUISED AS INDIANS THROWING THE TEA CHESTS INTO THE HARBOUR. (See p. 210.)
TWO:A great raid of reform was made in the Opposition, and it fell first on the corruption of the boroughs, both in Scotland and England. The subject was brought on, as it were, incidentally. An Enclosure Bill, affecting some parts of the New Forest, Hampshire, was attacked, as a job intended to benefit Pitt's staunch supporter, George Rose, who had rapidly risen from an obscure origin to the post of Secretary to the Treasury. Rose had a house and small estate in the Forest, and there was a universal outcry, both in Parliament and in the public press, that, in addition to the many sinecures of the fortunate Rose, there was also a sop intended for him at the cost of the Crown lands. The reformers were successful in casting much blame on Ministers, and they followed it up by charging Rose with bribing one Thomas Smith, a publican in Westminster, to procure votes for the Ministerial candidate, Lord Hood. Though the motion for a committee of the House to inquire into the particulars of this case was defeated, yet the debates turned the attention of the country on the scandalous bribery going on in boroughs. The Scots, the countrymen of Rose, petitioned for an inquiry into the condition of their boroughs. Of the sixty-six boroughs, petitions for such inquiry came from fifty. They complained that the members and magistrates of those corporations were self-elected, and by these means the rights and property of the inhabitants were grievously invaded.116
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, LIEUTENANT OF ARTILLERY.Sandy will stop them, panted Dick, a little to the rear because of his weight. Larry called, over his shoulder, that with two to give battle to, Sandy might need them before they could arrive.He tried to see if the soldiers were safe, but though they were not a hundred feet away, the trunks and the mist of water hid them. The rain still pounded down, but the rush of the wind was lessening sensibly.
