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 PAGE 
 THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE 
 Ill. TO THE END OF THE FRENCH WAR, 
 1760-1815 a.p.—ConriINuRD FROM 1793. 
 
 CHAP. VIII, NARRATIVE OF CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 TRANSACTIONS—CONTINUED, . A : 1 
 
 CHAP. IX. HISTORY OF RELIGION, : ; 748 | 
 
 CHAP. X. HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION, GOVERN- 
 MENT, AND LAWS, 2 - ; Poa hh 
 
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 CHAP, XII. HISTORY OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND 
 
 THE FINE ARTS, : ; * . 849 
 
 CHAP, XIII, HISTORY OF MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 906 
 
 CHAP, XIV. HISTORY OF THE CONDITION OF THE 
 
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 Duke of York, F F ° A * 
 Young Napoleon, : 3 . : A 5 
 Marseille, . “ ; . : . ; A 
 Sir Sidney Smith, ; 
 
 The Conciergerie, Paris: The populace conveying Marie 
 Antoinette to prison there.—An Original Design, from 
 Sketches on the spot, . 
 
 Interior of the Revolutionary Tr bunal “during the Reign of 
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 Frangaise, . 3 . ; . 
 
 Charette, . ‘ ° ; 
 
 Lord Howe’s Victory of the hehe of J une, : : . 
 
 General Paoli, ° ‘ ; A . 
 
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 Lavoisier, . ° : : aS 5 : = 
 
 Barras, . : 
 
 peecrnreere: —From a Portrait by Duplessis- “Bertaux, : : 
 
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 Kosciuszko, . ° : : ; : . . 
 Suvaroff, é ; 3 - “ 5 
 Horne Tooke, ‘ : . . 
 Costume of British Infantry i in 1795, F a : 
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 Nelson, . 
 Peace of La Vendée. —From Tableaux Historiques de la a REvo- 
 
 lution Frangaise, . A . . 
 Fort Penthiévre, 2 : : 
 Lord Howe’s Monument, in St. Paul’s, , 3 ° . 
 Battle off Cape St. Vincent, 4 : - ¢ 
 Lord Duncan’s Monument, in St. Paul’s, : . 
 Pope Pius VI., . “ Z ° . , 
 Battle of the Pyramids, 4 b ° ° . . 
 Battle of the Nile, : . ‘ ° . 
 Siege of Acre, : ° : ° -* 
 Bonaparte crossing the Alps, > - e Py ° 
 deed of Alexandria, ° - ° a . 
 Wi ind ham, re ° . . . ° 
 Pope Pius VII., . - * ° ° . 
 Lucien Bonapar te, ° : 4 P . . 
 Toussaint Louverture, - ; : 5 
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 General Lake, . F - : ° . 
 
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 Fortress of Alli Ghur, ‘ . : : ‘ : 
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 Vincennes : Death of the Duke d@’Enghien, i _ . 
 Pichegru, °° . 4 a ° 3 . 
 
 Coronation of Napoleon, : . 
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 Vienna, . 4 
 
 Archduke Charles, ‘ 3 
 
 Francis, Emperor of Austria, “ Soa». teat) F 
 
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 Funeral of Nelson, . 3 A ° : 
 
 Nelson’s Sarcophagus, . ‘ ° e ° . 
 Hill Fortress, whe . F ‘ ; ° . 
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 Buenos Ayres, . ° ° ° ° 
 
 Jerome Bonaparte, ° . ° ° ° 
 Louis Bonaparte, - ° ° ° . 
 Queen of Prussia, . a ; 3 ° ‘ 
 King of Prussia, 5 $ - . ° 
 Berlin, 2 r . N i ° 
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 Constantinople, ~ ° 
 Copenhagen. —From a Print by Har radin, . “ 
 Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, : . 
 Joseph Bonaparte, . A > . . 
 Zaragoza, . : : ‘ : . 
 
 Sir John Moore, ; : - ° 
 Palace of San Ildefonso, - s ° : ‘ 
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 Tomb of Sir John Moore, : 3 : 
 Monument to Sir John Moore, in St. Paul’s, : 
 
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 Oporto, . ° . 
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 The Rock of Scylla, 3 - . ° 
 
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 Badajoz, : : : 2 
 
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 Initial Letter, . ° A ° s 
 
 Earl Stanhope, ° ° A ° c 
 Bishop Horsley, , F 4 
 
 Porteus, Bishop of London, : F : 
 Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, . : 3 . 
 Dr. John Erskine, . : ‘ ° F 
 
 Rev. Robert Hall, x . ; ° . 
 Initial Letter, : A : : ‘ J 
 Lord Thurlow, ; ; ‘ ‘ ° 
 Lord Ellenborough, . A - 
 Jeremy Bentham, ‘ A : F ; 
 Hon. ‘'homas Erskine, “ c : : ‘ 
 Sir S. Romilly, . . . : : . 
 Lord Eldon, . . ° 5 . 
 
 Initial Letter, . ; ‘ : R ; 
 Thomas Telford, . “ ° : , 
 
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 Jedediah Strutt, F “ é - ‘ 
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 Initial Letter, A ° ’ Zs 
 
 849 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 v1 
 i ae 
 
 PAGE PAGE 
 Cowper, ° . ° : 849 | Vulcan nursed by Thetis and Eurynome.—From the same, 878 
 Darwin, . : , ; A ‘ . 852 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, : ‘ * P - 885 
 Burns, . ‘ ; 4 ‘ ° . , 859 | Sir Walter Scott, ‘ ‘ . ‘ A ‘ 886 
 Paley, ’ Py . 862 Lord Byron, . . ‘ - 888 
 Harewood House, Yorkshire, ‘ a . 864 Jeremy Bentham, in his old age, “ 4 2 : 890 
 The Crescent, Bath, ‘ . F 4 - . 864 Bank of England: North-west,View, . * a « 892 
 Bank of England, 1785, ° ‘ * “ 865 Grange Park, Hants, . ‘ ‘ 893 
 The Quadrangle, Somerset House, e ‘ . 866 Regent Street, from Waterloo Place, Fs : r . 894 
 Caen Wood, Hampstead, . r 867 Ashridge, Buckinghamshire, . ‘ é ° 895 
 Interior of the Pantheon, 1771, « . . ° - 868 Eaton Hall, Cheshire, . e 7 . ‘ - 896 
 Fonthill, ‘ , 2 ‘ : 869 Sir D. Wilkie, sss we ‘ . $ » . 899 
 Alderman Boydell, - F é ; k 5. bel Sir F. Chantrey, . ° ‘ i * ? - 902 
 Thomas Banks, ° . * ° . : 874 Initial Letter, - - 6 ; 906 
 John Bacon, . ° ‘ : ‘ ; . 875 Fashions from 1785 to 1801, s . 912-917 
 John Flaxman, 877 Fashions and Military Costumes, 1800 to 182070 - 921-923 
 Juno and Minerva hastening to assist the Greeks. rom Initial Letter, : ; ‘ rn * » 924 
 Flaxman’s Designs to the Iliad, : : » SOUT Tail-piece, = ° . : - ‘ e 937 
 
 Map ov SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, ; ancs (Frontispiece) 
 
BOOK X.—CHAPTER VILItI. 
 NARRATIVE OF CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS—Consinven. 
 
 GEORGE 
 
 HE parliamentary pro- 
 ceedings of the year 1793 
 on general subjects pos- 
 sessed but slight interest, 
 
 is & so absorbing was the atten- 
 @)) tion paid to French affairs. 
 
 -_— 
 
 )S Two or three propositions 
 —<< in favour of reform in 
 parliament, and a resolu- 
 f tion declaring the barrack 
 system to be dangerous to 
 the liberties of the people, were rejected very 
 decisively, as being inconsistent at a somewhat 
 critical period. The East India Company’s charter 
 was renewed during this session, without any 
 notable diminution of privileges. Mr. Dundas, in 
 relation to this subject, stated that the government 
 would have introduced any reforms likely to be 
 advantageous to the natives of our Indian empire ; 
 that in former years, Hastings, Barwell, Clavering, 
 Francis, Monson, Chambers, and Impey had all 
 been invited to offer suggestions on this matter ; 
 and he added: “If I had found that so many able 
 men had agreed in opinion, it would have been 
 an inducement to build up a new system; but 
 from their differences of opinion I can only draw 
 this conclusion—that it is safer to rest on the 
 present system, which experience has rendered 
 practicable, than to intrust myself to theories 
 about which ingenious and informed men are 
 not agreed” Fox and Francis opposed the 
 renewal of the charter, but they were defeated 
 without a division. Endeavours were made by 
 the Whig party to bring on the slave question, 
 and also to obtain a removal of the shackles 
 recently placed or proposed on the liberty of the 
 press; but the temper of the House was such as 
 to leave great power in the hands of the govern- 
 ment, and to reject all proposals that might 
 embarrass them in the prosecution of the war. 
 Evidence was speedily afforded that the ministers 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 IT1.—A.D, 1793. 
 
 did not believe the war with France would be 
 a great or costly one; for Pitt acquainted the 
 Commons, on the 6th of March, that the king 
 had engaged a body of his Hanoverian troops to 
 assist Holland against France; and on the 11th, 
 he expressed his opinion that a loan of four 
 millions and a half, and an issue of four millions 
 of Exchequer bills, would cover the additional 
 expenditure of the year. The English minister 
 had yet to learn the full proportions of a war 
 against the unscrupulous French republic. A 
 vehement debate arose on the 15th of March in 
 connection with the “ Traitorous Correspondence 
 Bill;” declaring it treasonable for any of the 
 king’s subjects, during the war, to sell munitions 
 of war to the French government, to purchase 
 lands or funds in that country, to go to that country 
 without a licence from the great seal, or to insure 
 vessels either proceeding from or going to France. 
 Fox declared this bill to be more unjust in its 
 principle, more inadequate in its provisions, and 
 more tyrannical in its effect, than any Dill that 
 had ever passed through the House of Commons; 
 that it was an extension of the terrible laws of 
 treason that honest traders and others might find 
 themselves involved in its penalties without ever 
 having had any treasonable intention. Burke, on 
 the other hand, defended the bill warmly; he 
 asserted the absolute necessity of opposing the 
 French revolutionists by all legitimate means, and 
 spurned the idea of relaxing in our endeavours in 
 subservience to mere trading instincts. “Let us 
 not,” he said, “sacrifice everything—the love of 
 our country, our honour, our virtue, our religion, 
 our security—to mere trade and traflic ; let us not 
 estimate these high things by the scale of pecuniary 
 or commercial reckoning, The nation that goes 
 on that calculation destroys itself!” The bill was 
 carried against Fox by 154 to 53, and speedily 
 passed through the Lords. 
 
 Two or three months after the declaration of 
 A 
 
 ar ng rete Ss a te ee ee ne 
 
2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 war, a curious overture was made by Lebrun for 
 negotiations with England. On the 26th of April, 
 one Mr. John Salter, a notary-public of Poplar, 
 delivered to Lord Grenville two notes from the 
 French minister for foreign affairs, bearing date 
 the 2nd of April. In one of these notes, Lebrun 
 announced the desire of the French republic.to 
 terminate its differences with Great Britain, and 
 requested a passport and safe-conduct for a person 
 intrusted with full powers to treat ; in the other, 
 Lebrun stated that M. Maret was the person that 
 would be sent over. A few days afterwards, a 
 declaration was made by Mr. James Mathews, of 
 Biggin House, in Surrey, to the effect that those 
 two notes were perfectly authentic, that they had 
 been signed by Lebrun in his presence, and that 
 he (Mathews) had delivered them to Salter. Lord 
 Grenville felt himself justified in disregarding 
 overtures made in such a strange way; and 
 nothing further was done in the matter. 
 
 On the 30th of April, consequent on many 
 embarrassments in the commercial world, Pitt 
 obtained from the House of Commons permission 
 to issue five millions of Exchequer bills, to be 
 placed in the hands of commissioners, to be by 
 them advanced, under certain regulations, to those 
 who should apply for such assistance, and should 
 give proper security for the repayment at limited 
 dates. Twenty commissioners, among whom were 
 Sir John Sinclair, Mr. Baring, Mr. C. Grant, Mr. 
 Pulteney, Mr. Bosanquet, and Mr. Raikes, were 
 appointed to carry out the plan. Manufactured 
 goods were accepted as proper security ; and such 
 goods were deposited at London, Bristol, Hull, 
 Liverpool, Glasgow, and Leith, It was in principle 
 a national application of pawnbroking, for a 
 temporary exigency, 
 
 Another debate on French affairs arose out of 
 the following circumstance. The British and 
 Austrian ministers at the Hague, Lord Auckland 
 and Count Stahremberg, presented a memorial 
 to the States-general of Holland on the 5th of 
 April, calling upon them to prevent any of the 
 French regicides from finding an asylum in any 
 part of the Dutch dominions. This memorial led 
 to violent discussions in both Houses. Earl 
 Stanhope moved in the Upper House that Lord 
 Auckland should be recalled and impeached ; but 
 this was defeated by a resolution, passed on the 
 motion of Lord Grenville, approving the conduct 
 of the ambassador. Some of the friends of the 
 government, during the discussion, held very 
 intemperate language, and threw out audacious 
 threats against all the members of the National 
 Convention who had voted for the execution of 
 Louis XVI.; thereby increasing the animosity of 
 the French towards England, without in the 
 slightest degree benefiting the unfortunate family 
 of the deceased king. In the Commons, Sheridan 
 and Fox sought to strengthen their complaint 
 against the arbitrary conduct of Auckland and 
 Stahremberg, by coupling this conduct with the 
 atrocious wrong committed against Poland by 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Most moderate 
 persons agreed with Sheridan that “No robbery 
 had been committed by the most desperate of the 
 French, no crimes had been perpetrated in France, 
 that exceeded in infamy the injustice and tyranny 
 of the sovereigns of those three countries.” The 
 House, however, not recognising any immediate 
 connection between the affairs of Poland and those 
 of Holland, rejected the vote of censure by 211 
 against 36. 
 
 Mr. Fox now engaged in another warm struggle, 
 not so much in favour of the French regicides, as 
 against the intense bitterness which marked the 
 conduct of the English ministers towards France. 
 An address to the people of Norwich was published 
 by Mr. Gurney, a banker of that town, applauding 
 Fox for his conduct throughout the session, and 
 requesting him to make a motion in the House of 
 Commons for an immediate peace with France. 
 Fox, when informed of this, stated that his move- 
 ments would be greatly strengthened by petitions to 
 the same effect from the general public. After 
 these preliminaries, and only four days before the 
 prorogation of parliament, Fox moved an address 
 to the throne, the substance of which was that, 
 having obtained the only avowed object of the war 
 —the evacuation of Holland by the French— 
 England ought to conclude an instant peace; and 
 he did not fail to bring up again the case of 
 Poland, as_ showing how little sympathy the 
 German courts deserved from England, Burke* 
 afterwards pointed out that Fox had been in error 
 in thus limiting the cause of the war to the 
 conduct of the French in Holland: several other 
 causes, he insisted, might easily be assigned, such 
 as the following—the overbearing ambition of 
 the revolutionary government in France; their 
 hostile attacks on various European states; their 
 unwarranted usurpation of territory in the Ger- 
 manic Empire; their appropriation, as French 
 provinces, of every country their arms might 
 enable them to conquer; the mischief attending 
 their example, if unscrupulous ambition should 
 prove to be successful; their formal public decrees, 
 of November 19, December 15, and December 25, 
 against the kings and regular governments of all 
 countries; their attempts to infuse republican ideas 
 in England by means of paid emissaries; their 
 public reception of intended revolutionists from 
 England; and the execution of their sovereign, 
 intended as a menace against a// kings whatever. 
 Burke, who was more intensely anti-Gallican at 
 this time than even Pitt, poured out all his 
 eloquence against Fox’s motion. When he de- 
 scended from his passionate appeals, he soberly 
 quoted Vattel, who, in relation to the laws of 
 nations in peace and war, had said: “If one 
 country adopt principles maleficent to all govern- 
 ment and order, such a country is to be opposed 
 from principles of common safety;” and Burke 
 contended that such “maleficent principles” were 
 
 * Letter to the Duke of Portland. 
 
 en ne ny ete a ee 
 
Guar. VIII] 
 
 most unquestionably in the ascendant in France. 
 Mr. Windham, on the same side, argued, that 
 although there had been a disavowal by England 
 of any intention to interfere in the internal govern- 
 ment of France; yet it was one of the avowed 
 objects of the war to endeavour to bring about 
 the establishment of such a government in that 
 country as might with safety be trusted—war, in 
 other words, was to be prosecuted till peace could 
 be made with safety. Mr. Pitt made a great 
 impression on the House by his reference to the 
 character of Marat and his associates, and to the 
 atrocities that marked the reign of terror, then just 
 beginning. He spoke of the disgust which any 
 English minister would entertain at the idea of 
 treating with such a monster as that man, and 
 added: “It is not only to the character of Marat, 
 and to the horror of those crimes which have 
 stained their legislators—crimes in every stage 
 rising above another in enormity—that I object; 
 but also to the consequences of that character 
 and the effect of those crimes. They are such as 
 to render a negotiation useless, and must entirely 
 deprive of stability any peace which could be 
 concluded in such circumstances. Where is our 
 security for the performance of a treaty, when 
 we have neither the good faith of a nation, nor 
 the responsibility of a monarch? The moment 
 that the mob of Paris comes under the influ- 
 ence of a new leader, mature deliberations are 
 reversed, the most sclemn engagements are 
 retracted, or free-will is altogether controlled 
 by force. In every one of the stages of their 
 repeated revolutions we have said: ‘Now we 
 haye seen the worst; the measure of iniquity 
 is complete ; we shall no longer be shocked by 
 added crimes and increasing enormities.’ The 
 next mail gaye us reason to reproach ourselves 
 with our credulity, and by presenting us with 
 fresh crimes and enormities still more dreadful, 
 excited impressions of new astonishment and 
 accumulated horror. All the crimes which disgrace 
 history have occurred in one country, in a space so 
 short, and with circumstances so aggravated, as 
 outrun thought and exceed imagination.” Fox 
 replied, and divided the House, when his motion 
 was negatived by 187 against 47. On the 21st of 
 June, the king prorogued parliament. 
 
 The important events at the seat of war now 
 demand notice; interlaced as those events were 
 with repeated visits by French commissioners to 
 the French commanders—one among the many 
 remarkable aspects presented by this struggle. 
 
 General Dumouriez, in his operations against 
 the Dutch government, sketched a plan for pene- 
 trating rapidly into the heart of Holland or the 
 United Provinces (as the country was at that time 
 more generally called)—there to be joined by his 
 second in command, General Miranda, whom he 
 had sent by another route to reduce the important 
 town of Maestricht,* On the 17th of February, 
 
 * Dumouriez, Correspondence with Miranda. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 
 
 ee) 
 
 Dumouriez moved from Antwerp, and captured 
 the town of Breda; Klundert and Gertruydenburg 
 capitulated soon afterwards; and it appeared 
 evident that the garrisons of many of the Dutch 
 towns had become so smitten with republican 
 ideas as to surrender to the French with great 
 willingness, At Williamstadt, however, Dumouriez 
 happened to encounter a brave old general, Count 
 Botzlaer, who had under his command some steady 
 Dutch troops, and a small body of English guards, 
 lately arrived ; there was also a small squadron of 
 English gun-boats on an arm of the sea called 
 Bies Bosch, near Williamstadt ; and superadded to 
 this, a few English and Dutch ships kept in check 
 one French flotilla at Dunkirk and another near 
 Antwerp. From this combination of circum- 
 stances, it arose that Dumouriez failed before 
 Williamstadt, Difficulties thickened around him, 
 too, in other ways, General Miazinski, who had 
 
 ‘been placed in @ defensive position at Aix-la- 
 
 Chapelle, was suddenly attacked on the last day 
 of February by the Austrians under General 
 Clairfait; he was defeated with the loss of a 
 thousand killed, several hundreds wounded, twelve 
 guns, thirteen ammunition carriages, and the 
 military-chest. On the lst of March, a portion of 
 the Austrian army under the Archduke Albert 
 gave a second defeat to the French under 
 Miazinski ; and on the 8th, another portion under 
 the Prince of Saxe-Coburg fairly drove the French 
 from Aix-la-Chapelle to Liege, inflicting a loss of 
 4000 killed and wounded, 1000 prisoners, and 
 twenty pieces of cannon. These disasters to 
 Miazinski seriously affected General Miranda, who 
 had invested Maestricht, but who thought proper 
 to abandon the siege with some loss, and to seek a 
 junction with his defeated colleague in the heart 
 of Belgium: the junction was effected between 
 Tongres and Brussels. This discomfiture, together 
 with letters received from Paris, compelled 
 Dumouriez to abandon his Dutch campaign, and 
 to join Miranda and Miazinski in Belgium. Here 
 he found that the commissioners sent by the 
 National Convention had exasperated the Belgians 
 by their ruthless exactions, plunderings, and con- 
 fiscations: he instantly put two of those men into 
 prison, dismissed others, restored some of the 
 stolen pr@Perty, and regained the good-will of the 
 people; but in so doing he brought down upon 
 himself renewed animosity from the Jacobins at 
 Paris. Dumouriez felt well disposed to play the 
 dictator, and assert independence of the factions 
 at Paris; but he lacked the necessary assurance of 
 the support of his own soldiers, Even the rein- 
 forcements sent to him from time to time embar- 
 rassed him: so prone were his men to interpret 
 liberty and equality in a way inconsistent with 
 military subordination, On the 18th of March, he 
 received so severe a defeat from the Austrians at 
 Neerwinden, that he lost 4000 killed and wounded 
 on the field of battle; but what was worse, more 
 than double that number deserted, crossed the 
 frontier into France, and spread rumours that he 
 
 8 NE Rage RES NF SENSES TIP TNS eT ne OR Ly en nS ew ee ee Ee 
 
4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 was betraying them. While Dumouriez, troubled 
 by these numerous difficulties, was retreating and 
 fighting alternately, he was visited by Lacroix 
 and Danton, sent as commissioners from Paris to 
 
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 Danton.—From a Portrait by Duplessis-Bertaux. 
 
 examine into his conduct. This appears to have 
 decided his future career. Seeing that his influence 
 with the Convention and the Jacobins was not 
 worth a straw, he suddenly changed his politics; 
 agreed to an armistice with the Austrians; and 
 resolved to march with his army upon Paris, there 
 to put down the factions. A secret arrangement 
 of some kind was made, apparently tending to a 
 co-operation of Dumouriez with the English, 
 Prussians, and Austrians, towards a restoration of 
 monarchy in France; but the details of such 
 compact, if any, have never been publicly known : 
 it was not sufficiently successful to induce men to 
 talk about it. 
 
 When Dumouriez, with this new project to guide 
 him, commenced his return to France, he met 
 three emissaries sent by the Jacobin Club, named 
 Dubuisson, Proly,and Pereyra. The Jacobins were 
 sufficiently hostile to him; but as they were quite 
 as violently opposed to the Girondists who ruled 
 in the National Convention, they wished to sound 
 the general touching his willingness to aid in 
 crushing the Convention altogether, and placing 
 the governing power in the hands of their own 
 club. Dumouriez had as much dislike for the 
 Convention as they; but as he dreamed rather 
 of a kingly ruler than of club rulers, his interview 
 with the Jacobin emissaries ended without any 
 satisfactory result. He commenced his operations 
 in his native country by endeavouring to gain 
 possession of the important frontier fortresses of 
 Condé, Valenciennes, and Lille; but the garrisons 
 of those towns, well Jacobinised, repulsed him. 
 On the 31st of March he narrowly escaped assas- 
 sination by a small band of conspirators among 
 his own troops. General Miazinski, acting under 
 his orders in an attempt to capture Lille, was taken 
 prisoner, and soon afterwards guillotined at Paris 
 as a traitor, At St. Amand, on the 2nd of April, 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Dumouriez was visited by Camus, Beurnonville, 
 Quinette, Lamarque, and Bancal, commissioners 
 sent by the Convention to summon him to Paris, 
 there to give an account of his proceedings and 
 his alleged plots. He told them very plainly that 
 he trusted neither them nor their employers; 
 whereupon Camus, as chief commissioner, for- 
 mally declared him to be no longer general of 
 the army, and desired him to consider himself in 
 custody Whereupon Dumouriez ordered in some 
 German hussars, who took the whole of the com- 
 missioners prisoners, and conveyed them across 
 the frontier, where they remained incarcerated 
 many months. Dumouriez, by this act, finally 
 committed himself to rebellion against the ruling 
 powers at Paris, On that same night, he drew . 
 up a proclamation to his army and to all France, 
 in which he recalled his past services—his exploits 
 at Argonne, his victory at Jemappe, and his 
 rapid conquest of Belgium; he attributed his 
 reverses to the enmity of Marat and the Jacobins, 
 who had devoted him and all honourable men to 
 destruction; he drew a frightful picture of the 
 prevailing sanguinary anarchy; and he called 
 upon all Frenchmen to rise and rally round him 
 and the monarchical constitution of 1791. But 
 the day went against him. Although his best 
 troops had been faithful and trusting, they began 
 now to waver when they heard that their general 
 had been formally deposed by the Convention, and 
 that Dampierre had been appointed in his stead; 
 on the 4th, he narrowly escaped from being shot 
 by a troop of volunteers more Jacobinical than 
 his regular troops; and on the 5th, so many of 
 these regulars went over to General Dampierre at 
 Valenciennes, that Dumouriez gave up in despair, 
 ceased to be a French general, and escaped as a 
 fugitive across the frontier into Belgium. He was 
 accompanied by the Dukes of Chartres and 
 Montpensier, sons of the Duke of Orleans; the 
 elder of these made his way, principally on foot, 
 to Switzerland, where he found his sister and 
 Madame de Genlis, who had escaped from the 
 horrors of Paris.* The ill-will of Dumouriez’ 
 army had been mainly brought about by his now 
 openly avowed amity with the Austrians, who 
 were greatly disliked by the French. If he could 
 have waged war against the Convention by French 
 troops alone, there is a possibility, though a 
 remote one, that he might have succeeded; but 
 his disciplined troops neither relished nor under- 
 stood the policy of attacking their own country- 
 men by the aid and favour of the Austrians. 
 The fall of Dumouriez was as complete as it 
 was sudden: he never again held command, or 
 was looked up to as a person of importance. 
 A price being set upon his head by the Con- 
 vention, he could not return to France; while 
 in Germany and Belgium his position soon 
 became a painful one. He discovered that, 
 although he had intended to re-establish constétu- 
 
 * Madame de Genlis, Mémoires. 
 
 ee ll 
 
- se mene i ee 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 tional monarchy in France, the German princes 
 would listen to nothing but despotte monarchy : 
 they had not fully understood each other in their 
 recent compact. Dumouriez declined to join the 
 princes in an attack on his native country for 
 such purposes as they now avowed; and as they 
 would not have him on any other terms, he 
 became a wanderer, suspicious and suspected, The 
 greater part of his subsequent life was spent in 
 England, where he died at a very advanced age, 
 twenty years after his expatriation. 
 
 The command of the French army on the 
 Belgian frontier now devolved on General Dam- 
 pierre, an officer of no note. The English officer 
 sent to confront him, the Duke of York, was 
 
 Dvuxe or York. 
 
 still less known to military fame; and hence the 
 skirmishes that followed were not of a brilliant 
 character. The motley army of the allies—English, 
 Dutch, Prussian, and Austrian—was placed under 
 the command-in-chief of General Clairfait, not 
 without some jealousy in other quarters. The 
 first military question to decide was, which belli- 
 gerent force should obtain and hold Valenciennes, 
 Lille, and Condé, since the command of these 
 towns would give control over a long line of 
 frontier. On the 8th of May, the allies having 
 advanced towards Valenciennes, Dampierre went 
 out to attack them; he was defeated, and was 
 struck by a cannon-ball, by which he died the 
 next day—thus bringing his military career to a 
 very speedy end. In this action, the French lost 
 4000 men, and the allies only 800, By an inexcus- 
 able and unaccountable delay, the allies remained 
 idle from the 9th to the 23rd, during which time 
 General Lamarche, who had succeeded Dampierre, 
 was enabled to collect his scattered army and to 
 receive reinforcements from the interior. He 
 received a defeat on the last-named day, on 
 account of the inefficiency of his new levies, and 
 was compelled to evacuate the fortified camp of 
 Famars; but he succeeded in reaching another 
 fortress between Valenciennes and Bouchain. 
 The allies then, in three divisions, besieged 
 Valenciennes, blockaded Condé, and confronted 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 5 
 
 Lamarche’s army; but many weeks of fine 
 weather were wasted by Clairfait and his col- 
 leagues, who certainly might have achieved more 
 against the raw troops that formed the bulk of 
 Lamarche’s army. The king of Prussia, too, was 
 slow in his movements against Custine’s army 
 of the Rhine; while Prince Hohenlohe effected 
 nothing at all against the army of the Moselle. 
 The narrative of the war with France must here 
 be interrupted by a paragraph relating to the 
 affairs of Poland—that dark stain on the powers 
 with which England was at that very time in 
 alliance ; for it became evident that the efficiency 
 of Prussian co-operation against France was 
 damped by the cruel and unjust machinations of 
 the king in reference to Polish affairs. At the 
 beginning. of the year, Frederick William had 
 seized Thorn and Dantzic, and issued a manifesto 
 or proclamation explanatory of his grounds for 
 so doing: the chief reasons assigned being—the 
 disrespectful conduct of the Poles towards his 
 excellent ally the Empress Catherine, and the 
 necessity of checking the republican ideas borrowed 
 by the Poles from France; but the whole mani- 
 festo was a hollow mockery, intended as a blind 
 to the grasping ambition of the king. The Polish 
 Diet met at Grodno on the 3rd of February, and 
 entered a solemn protest against the Prussian 
 invasion; but this was all they could do: the 
 Emperor of Austria refused to aid them, On their 
 appeal to the empress, not only did she sharply 
 rebuke them, but announced her intention of 
 taking a part of Poland to herself, “to indemnify 
 herself for her many expenses” (for the good of 
 Poland), “to insure the future safety of her empire 
 and of the Polish dominions, and to cut off at once 
 and for ever all future disturbances and changes of 
 government,” Evidently acting in concert, the king 
 and the empress announced about the same time— 
 the one on the 25th of March, and the other on the 
 29th—that they would appropriate to themselves 
 certain large districts of Poland, and require all 
 the inhabitants of any influence to take oaths of 
 allegiance to them. The empress’s second mani- 
 festo poured out violent insults on the unfortunate 
 Poles, charging them with favour towards France, 
 and with ingratitude towards their best friends, 
 Prussia, Russia, and Austria; and it wound up 
 by declaring that the empress and the king “are 
 thoroughly convinced that they cannot better pre- 
 vent the entire subversion the Polish republic is 
 threatened with, after the discord that has divided 
 it, and especially in consequence of the monstrous 
 opinions that begin to manifest themselves, than 
 by uniting to their respective states those of the 
 provinces of Poland which actually border upon 
 their territories, and by taking an immediate and 
 effective possession of them, in order to shelter 
 themselves in time from the fatal effects of these 
 opinions.” Everything combines to show that 
 the Russian and Prussian sovereigns availed them- 
 selves of the French revolution as a lucky excuse 
 for ravaging and appropriating such large portions 
 
ee sh ssn ese sv sss sss hss ths 
 
 6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 of the Polish dominions, The general confeder- 
 ation or diet expressed their astonishment and 
 dismay at these propositions: they protested, 
 expostulated, appealed ; and their powerless king 
 Poniatowski petitioned; but all in vain: the 
 government was compelled to the degradation 
 of ratifying a partition which gave to Russia a 
 territory containing a population of more than 
 three millions and a half, and to Prussia a terri- 
 
 tory containing one million and a half, together 
 
 with Dantzic and the navigation of the Vistula. 
 Poniatowski was allowed to remain king of the 
 rest of Poland, with orders to govern as his tyrant 
 masters should dictate ; but three armies, Russian, 
 Prussian, and Austrian, hovered on his borders, 
 to check any movements on the part of the out- 
 raged people—This iniquitous proceeding threw 
 ereater intensity into the warlike ardour of the 
 French republicans; for it showed that the same 
 allied sovereigns who had just stolen more than 
 half of Poland, would entertain no scruple in 
 partitioning France, should the fortune of war 
 afford them an opportunity. 
 
 To return to the seat of war. When the king 
 of Prussia had performed his part in this robbery, 
 he crossed the Rhine, and invested Mayence with 
 an army of 50,000 men, comprising Prussians, 
 Saxons, Bavarians, and Hessians. Soon after- 
 wards, he was joined by Wurmser with 20,000 
 Austrians, and by the Prince of Condé with 5000 
 French emigrants. On the other hand, France 
 had 40,000 men in the Rhenish fortresses, 50,000 
 in the army of the Rhine, 30,000 in the army of 
 the Moselle, and reinforcements constantly arriving 
 from the interior. There were, therefore, the 
 materials for an obstinate struggle in this region. 
 Mayence held out until the 22nd of July, when it 
 surrendered, and its garrison of 20,000—starved 
 into submission—were allowed to march out with 
 all the honours of war. Napoleon had not yet 
 arisen to teach European generals the value of 
 rapid movements; the allies proceeded in the old 
 stereotyped fashion, slowly advancing, while a 
 
 ‘bold dash was the only course that would have 
 
 effectually crushed the revolutionists. Besides this, 
 the various kings and princes had jealousies and 
 private schemes among themselves, weakening 
 a coalition which would otherwise have been truly 
 formidable to France. The Prussians spent three 
 months besieging Mayence; the Austrians remained 
 two months before Condé; and the English an 
 equal time before Valenciennes. At length the 
 two last-named places were captured, but not 
 till the garrisons were almost starved, and the 
 towns reduced to ruins. The Duke of York, in 
 the month of August, marched back to Menin, to 
 relieve the Prince of Orange from a sudden attack. 
 The young duke was less successful in his 
 endeavour to capture Dunkirk, which he besieged 
 for some weeks, but was obliged to abandon on 
 the 7th of September. Two successes were obtained 
 about the same time on the other side: the capture 
 of Quesnoy on the 11th by the Prince of Coburg ; 
 
 [Book X, 
 
 and the defeat of a French force under Houchard 
 by the Austrians under Beaulieu, on the 15th. 
 The French, however, had by this time collected 
 immense reinforcements on the Belgian frontier ; 
 and had they possessed a general of commanding 
 ability, they might have inflicted serious mischief 
 on the allies; but mediocrity on the one side was 
 opposed to mediocrity on the other, leading to 
 partial skirmishes instead of bold attacks, After 
 many futile encounters, General Jourdan sallied 
 from Maubeuge with a large force on the 15th of 
 October, attacked the Prince of Coburg with great 
 spirit, and, after two days’ fighting, compelled him 
 to recross the river Sambre, This retreat frustrated 
 the plans of the Duke of York; and the allies had 
 some difficulty, with the aid of a considerable 
 English armament under Sir Charles Grey, in 
 preserving the Low Countries during the rest of 
 the year. Meanwhile, the king of Prussia, having 
 effected very little beyond the capture of Mayence, 
 resigned the command of his army to the Duke of 
 Brunswick, and returned to Berlin, Brunswick, 
 in conjunction with an Austrian force under 
 Wurmser, by cautious but well-planned move- 
 ments, drove the French from Weissemburg, 
 Lauter, and other fortified posts; and having done 
 this, the Prussians laid siege to Landau, and the 
 Austrians to Strasburg, At this eritical juncture, 
 the Convention sent St, Just and Lebas to Alsace, 
 to organise measures for repelling the invaders; 
 they used terrorism and the guillotine among the 
 instruments for their purpose; but it is neverthe- 
 less true that they showed astonishing energy in 
 collecting an army at the attacked points, which 
 army they placed under young General Hoche— 
 Custine having been recalled to Paris to give an 
 account of his failures, Portions of the army 
 of the Moselle having been hastily brought to the 
 same spot, Hoche found himself strong enough 
 to defend Strasburg against Wurmser. He beat 
 off that general, but experienced a defeat in an 
 attack on the Prussians under Brunswick, Further 
 reinforced, the young republican general, early in 
 December, crossed the Vosges, took the Austrians 
 by surprise, outflanked them, defeated them, and 
 captured many prisoners, and nearly all the 
 artillery. This was followed by numerous disasters 
 to the allies, The Duke of Brunswick and the 
 Prussians entertained petty national jealousies 
 against Wurmser and the Austrians, which 
 jealousies were returned with equal force; the 
 operations were weakened by this divergence, 
 and, as a consequence, the French recovered 
 Weissemburg, Landau, and their former frontier- 
 line, besides the Palatinate, where Hoche fixed his 
 winter-quarters. 
 
 Another series of operations had been in pro- 
 gress on the Pyrenean frontier, where Spain. 
 employed a small but active army. Servan, 
 formerly Girondist minister of war, commanded 
 a French army at the eastern end of this chain, 
 and Deflers another at the western end. About 
 the middle of May, Deflers was suddenly attacked 
 
Cuap, VIII. ] 
 
 by 16,000 Spaniards under Ricardos, who advanced 
 from Figueras, in Catalonia, to Mas-d’Hu, near 
 Perpignan; the attack was so successful that the 
 French were driven into Perpignan, which might 
 have been taken by a bold advance of the 
 Spaniards, had not Ricardos been fearful of two 
 small forts in his rear. Until the middle of July 
 the two armies remained near each other, doing 
 nothing effectively; but on the 17th of that 
 month, Ricardos received so complete a defeat 
 from Deflers, that he was compelled to cross the 
 frontier into Catalonia—just as a British fleet 
 was gaining advantages over the French in the 
 neighbouring waters. The other Pyrenean army, 
 under Servan, received a few partial defeats from 
 a Spanish force under Don Ventura Caro; but 
 before the campaign had well begun, the fall of 
 the Girondists led to the resignation of Servan, 
 and the appointment of General Dagobert in his 
 place. After that event, the conflicts of the 
 summer and autumn ended slightly in favour of 
 the Spaniards; Caro’s army greatly harassing the 
 French in the country between Bayonne and 
 Fuenterabia; while Ricardos, recovering from his 
 first defeat, was enabled to maintain himself in 
 that strip of the coast of Roussillon which lies 
 between the borders of Catalonia and Perpignan. 
 Another theatre of operations, Savoy, engaged 
 a further portion of the wonderful energy dis- 
 played by the French republicans, The king of 
 Sardinia, aided by subsidies from England, and 
 by several Austrian regiments under General 
 Devins, hesitated between two plans: to repel 
 the French forces that occupied the country of 
 Nice; or to drive the French out of Savoy, and 
 advance upon Lyons. The king preferred the 
 former plan; Devins, the latter. Devins yielded, 
 and a disastrous result followed—which the 
 Austrians did not fail to attribute to the defective 
 scheme of the Sardinian monarch. To carry out 
 the views put forth by Vittorio Amedeo, the 
 mass of the Austro-Piedmontese army was col- 
 lected on the Maritime Alps, fortified camps made, 
 and sundry fortresses improved. Kellermann, 
 who commanded the French army on this 
 frontier, as a means of protecting the former 
 conquests in Nice and Savoy, established his 
 main forces in a fortified camp at Tornus, in the 
 Alpine valley of Queiras, about equidistant from 
 Chambery and Nice; and the remainder of his 
 army he distributed in three divisions—one to 
 occupy the long valley of St. Jean de Maurienne, 
 and to watch the pass of Mont Cenis, over which 
 lay the most direct road to Turin; a second to 
 occupy the Tarantaise; and a third to remain 
 posted at Conflans, where the two valleys of the 
 Isére and the Are join. He constructed forts, 
 camps, and redoubts on the tops of mountains, 
 or at the head of mountain regions; and the 
 solemn silence of the Alps was broken by the 
 sound of drums and trumpets, The government 
 at Paris, before commencing the campaign in 
 this quarter, sent an emissary to Turin, to 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 
 
 a eh a nt nt 
 
 7 
 
 endeavour to detach the king from the coalition, 
 by offering to connive with him in schemes for 
 enriching France and Sardinia at the expense 
 of the Austrian and Genoese dominions; but 
 Vittorio Amedeo spurned the overture, on the 
 twofold ground that he would not break faith © 
 with his allies, and that the Jacobins would 
 readily break faith with him.* Frustrated in 
 this attempt, the government ordered Keller- 
 mann to proceed with his operations, That 
 active general at once directed Brunet, who 
 commanded the French in Nice, to push forward 
 to the west of the Maritime Alps, and dislodge 
 the Austro-Piedmontese before they should have 
 time to complete the works they were throwing 
 up. This operation, skilfully commenced, after- 
 wards met with a severe check. Three columns 
 of Brunet’s force captured three small forts on 
 the 8th of June, and then joined with a remaining 
 column in an attack upon Fort Raus, a strong 
 post that was a key to all the adjacent country. 
 They ascended steep heights, dragging their 
 artillery after them by sheer strength of muscle; 
 but at Fort Raus they were repulsed by well- 
 served Italian artillery, and driven down the 
 mountain, with a frightful loss in killed and 
 wounded. On the 12th, they brought 12,000 men 
 to renew the assault, but were again driven back 
 with greater loss than before; and in a very 
 short time the Piedmontese generals, Colli and 
 Dellera, were enabled to recover the other three 
 forts. It required all Kellermann’s tact so to 
 dispose the different divisions of his army, after 
 Brunet’s defeat, as to prevent the Piedmontese 
 from making a descent from the mountains 
 and paralysing his movements. At this critical 
 moment, instead of following up his success, 
 the king wavered concerning his own plan of 
 operations in Nice, and resolved to combine . 
 with it Devins’s plan of operations in Savoy, 
 He was urged by the royalists or reactionists in 
 the south of France to aid them in their struggle 
 against the republican armies, by a bold advance 
 through Savoy; while the capture of Toulon by 
 the British fleet encouraged him to a victorious 
 march along the coast through Nice. Thus 
 tempted in two directions, he failed in both. 
 Taking himself the command in Nice, he sent 
 his son, the Duke of Montferrat, to command in 
 Savoy. The duke had at first much success, 
 driving the French out of Upper Savoy; but 
 instead of advancing upon Chambery, he lingered 
 near Aigue-Belle, and gave Kellermann an oppor- 
 tunity to join with the Savoyard republicans in 
 a sudden attack upon him. The surprise was 
 such, that the duke had to give up everything 
 he had gained, recrossing Mont Cenis and the 
 Little St. Bernard from Savoy into Piedmont, 
 and only retaining his artillery by the firmness 
 and gallantry of his troops. He was, in effect, 
 beaten—not so much by the French, as by the 
 
 * Carlo Botta, Storia d’Italia. 
 
8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 republican insurgents among the Savoyards, who 
 were as well acquainted as the Piedmontese with 
 the rugged passes of the Alps. Disheartened by 
 the news of this failure, the Lyonese abandoned 
 the defence of their city, which had been besieged 
 for two months by the troops of the Convention. 
 The king met with no more success than his 
 son; he received so severe a defeat, on the 18th 
 of October, at Giletta, that he was compelled to 
 retreat into Piedmont, leaving Nice in the hands 
 of the French, and depriving the English and the 
 Spaniards at Toulon of any hope they might 
 have entertained of co-operation with him. On 
 the Italian frontier, therefore, as on the German 
 and Dutch frontiers, the campaign of 1793 was so 
 far successful to the French as to enable them 
 to retain all they had gained in the preceding 
 year, with additions in many quarters—a result 
 certainly extraordinary, considering that France, 
 a country torn by internal dissensions, had at that 
 time to contend in arms against England, Holland, 
 Prussia, Saxony, Austria, Sardinia, and Spain, 
 
 The naval operations of the year must next 
 engage attention. 
 
 Before war was declared against Great Britain, 
 the French despatched Admiral Truguet, with 
 nineteen ships of the line, a few frigates, and 6000 
 troops, to seize the island of Sardinia, which gave 
 name to the multi-part dominions of Vittorio 
 Amedeo. The island produced much corn, which 
 France greatly needed; its ports would be closed 
 against French commerce as long as the House 
 of Savoy held it; and the neighbouring French 
 island of Corsica was not so obedient as the 
 Convention could wish—three reasons quite 
 sufficient to influence the unscrupulous rulers 
 of France. The Sards, a rude, rough, unculti- 
 vated people, being somewhat turbulent subjects, 
 Truguet thought he might win them over by 
 golden promises of liberty, if they were so 
 happy as to fraternise with France; but they 
 knew and cared little about that country, and 
 saw no reason to exchange the liberty they 
 possessed for the liberty promised to them. This 
 was one of the mistakes made by the French 
 admiral. On the 24th of January, he cast 
 anchor before Cagliari, the chief town of the 
 island, and sent an officer and twenty men to 
 summon the place to surrender, and to invite 
 the authorities to confer with him on his pro- 
 posals, The Sards fired upon the boat, whereupon 
 he commenced a bombardment. The fortifications 
 being strong, bore the cannonading well; while 
 the half-clad country people, in sheepskin coats, 
 with long muskets slung across their shoulders, 
 rushed down from the hills, some entering the 
 town to assist the garrison, and others spreading 
 themselves behind rocks and trees near the shore. 
 Truguet, unaware of this movement, landed a 
 strong detachment of troops near the town; but 
 these were speedily attacked by an unseen or 
 scarcely seen enemy, with such fierceness that 
 600 of them were laid prostrate on the beach, 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 while the rest hastened back to their ships, 
 having scarcely wrought any injury to the Sards. 
 Truguet continued his bombardment fur three 
 days; but as the forts inflicted more mischief 
 on his ships than his ships on the forts, and as 
 he would not venture upon another landing of 
 troops, he abandoned the enterprise, and returned 
 to Toulon. 
 
 On the 22nd of January, two days before 
 Truguet had entered the bay of Cagliari, a small 
 affair occurred at La Madalena, worthy of note 
 only as bringing upon the stage of public life the 
 afterwards renowned NAPOLEON BoNAPARTE, La 
 
 Youne Napo.reon, 
 
 Madalena, a small island belonging to the Sards 
 in the Straits of Bonifacio, was attacked by a 
 French detachment from Corsica under General 
 Cesare; Bonaparte, as a young artillery officer, 
 directed the firing of bombs from a French 
 corvette. When he became famous, the Sards 
 preserved a bomb-shell which had fallen upon 
 one of their churches, and which they believed 
 had been fired by his own hands.* 
 
 The English government was but ill prepared 
 for a naval war at this period; there was no 
 English fleet in the Mediterranean until some 
 months after Truguet’s Sardinian adventure; nor 
 was it until the 14th of July that Lord Howe was 
 enabled to set sail from Spithead with the Channel 
 fleet, which was at that time inferior in strength 
 to the French fleet at Brest. On the 31st, he 
 caught sight of the enemy, and offered battle; 
 the French fleet escaped from him, and a storm 
 coming on, he returned to Torbay with many of 
 his ships disabled, after remaining four or five 
 weeks near Brest. With the best part of the 
 autumn wasted, Howe set sail again at the end 
 of October; but although his fiecet had been 
 augmented, and although he came a second time 
 in presence of the French, he was again baffled, 
 and returned to England without any naval battle. 
 The only achievements were the gallant capture 
 of a large French frigate off Barfleur by Captain 
 
 * Valery, Voyage en Corse ct en Sardaigne. 
 
 =~ 
 
‘St. Domingo. 
 
 - _ 
 a. 
 
 Cuap. VIII] 
 
 Saumarez in the ‘ Crescent,’ a vessel of much 
 smaller size; and the spirited conduct of Captain 
 Thornborough in the ‘ Latona, who on one 
 oceasion gained fast ahead of the French, passed 
 ‘under a fire from three or four of their first- 
 rates, and made a spirited attempt to cut the 
 rigging of their foremost ships, and stop them 
 till Lord Howe could come up and engage—an 
 engagement that never took place. The English 
 public were much chagrined at the failure of his 
 lordship.* 
 
 In the West Indies, the British captured Tobago, 
 St. Pierre, and Miquelon, and took possession of 
 the western or French portion of the island of 
 A severe encounter took place off 
 Martinique between Captain Courteney in the 
 ‘Boston, with 32 guns and 204 men, and the 
 ‘Ambuscade, a French frigate of 36 guns and.400 
 men; it served to show the pluck of the smaller 
 force, but was unattended with other results, 
 
 In the Hast Indies, all the enemy’s posts were 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 9 
 
 successively taken, putting an end to French 
 occupation in that quarter. 
 There remains to notice the series of naval 
 events in the Mediterranean, full of interest and 
 importance. In the month of July, Lord Hood 
 appeared before Toulon with a small fleet of 
 seven sail of the line, four frigates, and a few lesser 
 craft, He was encouraged by the royalists of 
 Toulon, Marseille, Lyon, Aix, and other places in 
 the south of France, who were horror-stricken at 
 the excesses committed by the revolutionists. Te 
 made a demand that they should proclaim Louis 
 the Seventeenth as a preliminary to all other proceed- 
 ings. Hereupon arose a fierce struggle between 
 the royalists and the Jacobins of the respective 
 towns, in which the former, gaining an ascendency 
 over the latter, behaved towards them with a 
 madness and cruelty that seemed almost to have 
 become part of the French character. This brought 
 down upon the royalists terrible retribution, when 
 General Cartaux, at the head of a republican army, 
 
 MARSEILLE. 
 
 entered Marseille, and prepared to march upon 
 Toulon. The royalists of the last-named town 
 accepted Lord Hood’s proposal ; and then was to 
 be seen the strange spectacle of Admiral Trogoff 
 hoisting the Bourbon colours, and Admiral St. 
 Julien the tricolor—the one willing to give up the 
 French fleet to the English, the other wishing to 
 retain it for the Convention: the crews of some of 
 the French ships royalist, the crews of others 
 
 * Barrow, Life of Howe.—Rosc, Naval History. 
 
 republican. Lord Hood, aided by the royalists, 
 speedily obtained possession of Marseille, and of 
 the greater number of the French ships at that 
 port. Immediately after this, however, General 
 Cartaux arrived by land, cantoned his army in the 
 villages around Toulon, and made vigorous appeals 
 to the French in all quarters, to rise against the 
 invaders of their native soil. Gradually, volunteers 
 poured in, and Kellermann sent him a reinforce- 
 ment of 5000 men. On the other hand, Hood 
 sought for assistance to enable him to retain 
 
 a lr ir tremens singer eNO SS 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Toulon; Spain, Naples, and Sardinia sent small 
 fleets and detachments of troops, while more ships 
 joined him from England. The first actual contest 
 between the now powerful opponents was a 
 gallant attack by Captain Elphinstone and 600 
 men on the village of Ollioules, where Cartaux’ 
 advanced post of about 700 men was placed ; 
 the struggle was short but fierce, and ended in 
 the capture by Elphinstone of several cannon, 
 standards, and other trophies. The republicans, 
 gradually increasing in strength, approached nearer 
 and nearer to the semicircle of hills surrounding 
 Toulon, and it remained for some time doubtful 
 which side would commence operations on a large 
 scale. General O’Hara came out from England to 
 command the troops, which amounted to about 
 11,000 men of various nations; and these troops 
 had to protect Toulon, itself very slightly fortified, 
 from an enemy who could approach it on various 
 sides. Matters became more serious as the season 
 advanced; for the successes of the republicans at 
 Lyon, Savoy, and Nice, had set free various bodies 
 of troops, which hastened towards Toulon. General 
 Dugommier, appointed to succeed Cartaux, found 
 himself at the head of 40,000 men. Young 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, supported by Robespierre’s 
 brother and other Jacobins, was placed in com- 
 mand of the artillery, consisting of about 200 
 guns; and so great was the reliance of Dugommier 
 on his judgment, that a plan of strategy suggested 
 by him was adopted—which was, to refrain from 
 a tedious and difficult attack upon the English 
 in the town; but to endeavour to occupy the 
 rocky promontory of La Grasse, so as to render 
 the position of any ships in the harbour perilous. 
 Two forts, L’Aiguillette and Balaguier, relied on 
 by the English as excellent defences, were com- 
 manded by this promontory, on which they had 
 built three redoubts and formed an abattis, Under 
 the direction of Bonaparte, batteries were erected 
 by the republicans opposite the English redoubts, 
 and other batteries were thrown up near Fort 
 Malbousquet, on the opposite side of the inner 
 harbour. These preparatory works were disturbed 
 by many sharp encounters, attended with much 
 loss on both sides. The English, with their hetero- 
 geneous allies, met with a severe repulse on the 
 30th of November: -when General O'Hara, after 
 driving the republicans from Fort Malbousquet, 
 pursued them so heedlessly, that Bonaparte was 
 enabled to intercept his retreat by a battalion con- 
 cealed among willows and bushes. O’Hara him- 
 self was severely wounded; and his troops fought 
 their way back to the town with serious loss. This 
 disaster had an unfavourable effect upon the allies ; 
 English, Spaniards, Neapolitans, and Piedmontese, 
 had certain jealousies among themselves; while 
 the French royalists cared for none of them except 
 as instruments for gaining their own ends: hence 
 there was indecision in the measures adopted. 
 Advancing step by step in their works, the republi- 
 cans took one of the redoubts on the promontory 
 on the 17th of December, and compelled the allies 
 
 to abandon the two others. As the republicans 
 had now gained a position that commanded the 
 inner harbour and the town, Lord Hood called a 
 council of war; which resolved that Toulon should 
 be abandoned, that as many of the French ships 
 as possible should be taken as prizes, that all the 
 rest in the harbour should be destroyed, and that 
 the royalists of Toulon should be carried by sea to 
 some place of safety, beyond the vengeance of 
 their republican compatriots. This arrangement 
 was terrible in all its parts; for the burning of 
 ships and the explosion of magazines in the 
 harbour, under Sir Sidney Smith, who had 
 
 Sin SrpneEy SMIrxH. 
 
 recently arrived at Toulon, filled the air with 
 deafening sounds and lurid sights; while the 
 Toulonese had cause to regret that they had ever 
 co-operated with the English. On the morning of 
 the 18th of December, as soon as the sick and 
 wounded and the field-artillery were embarked, 
 the Jacobins within the town rose en masse, and 
 taking possession of some of the houses, fired upon 
 their royalist brethren and upon the allied troops. 
 At night, the troops and many of the royalists 
 embarked; but Hood and Smith, to their great 
 regret, were compelled to set sail without taking 
 off the rest of the wretched people, who appeared 
 at the water’s edge putting up prayers for protec- 
 tion, The more rabid of the townsmen murdered 
 these persons in cold blood. ‘The result of the 
 whole series of operations, then, was this—that 
 while the republican army regained possession of 
 Toulon, the allies brought away with them eighteen 
 French vessels of war of various sizes, and burned 
 eleven others. Fourteen sail of the line and five 
 frigates, which the allies had not time either to 
 capture or to destroy, were left behind, and were 
 made available by the French in later contests, 
 No less than 15,000 men, women, and children 
 were carried away from Toulon by Lord Hood, to 
 seek in other parts safety denied them in their 
 own native country—not all Toulonese, but inha- 
 bitants of various towns and villages in the south 
 of France, who knew that their royalistic or consti- 
 tutional ideas would render them obnoxious to the 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 republicans. When the French army entered the 
 town, the soldiers murdered right and left, as if 
 simply to gratify a wanton passion; but after- 
 wards, the “revolutionary vengeance,” as Thiers 
 calls it, assumed a more regular form. Several 
 hundreds of poor workmen and labourers, who 
 had been employed by the allies on the fortifications 
 of the town, were condemned in a mass, and were 
 mowed down by grape-shot; the guillotine was 
 set up and made permanent; Barras, Fréron, and 
 the younger Robespierre appeared as commis- 
 sioners from the Convention; and Toulon was 
 made bitterly to rue the day when the English 
 left it. 
 
 As another Mediterranean adventure, Admiral 
 Gell was sent to Leghorn and to Genoa, to demand 
 explanations touching certain assistance rendered 
 to the French republicans by states that professed 
 hostility to them, The Grand Duke of Tuscany 
 had certainly no affection for France in its present 
 state; but he was cowed by the audacity of the 
 Convention, and long deferred the adoption of 
 a bold course. The threats of Admiral Gell, 
 however, compelled him to break off intercourse 
 with the French diplomatists and secret agents. 
 In the republic, or rather aristocratic oligarchy, of 
 Genoa, the case was somewhat different, for a 
 strong feeling had grown up there in favour of the 
 new views promulgated at Paris. The Genoese, 
 too, hated their neighbours the Piedmontese, and 
 rejoiced in the recent defeat of the king of that 
 state. The Genoese government had allowed con- 
 traband stores to be conveyed in Genoese vessels 
 to Kellermann’s army, had made their harbour a 
 station for French ships of war, and had displayed 
 hostility towards England in minor ways. Admiral 
 Gell now sent the ‘Scipio’ of 74 guns into Genoa 
 harbour, where it seized the ‘Modeste’ French 
 frigate; and the English resident, Mr. Drake, 
 sternly demanded a change in the tactics of the 
 government. The younger Robespierre, at that 
 time at Nice, issued a flaming proclamation to 
 the Genoese, urging them to resist the English to 
 the utmost, and denouncing the proceeding of 
 Gell as an infraction of the law of nations, since 
 Genoa was at that time a neutral port; he threat- 
 ened the senate that unless they at once repelled 
 the English, they would be considered in a state of 
 hostility against the French republic, “which on 
 her part would resort to whatever means she 
 might think proper in order to secure vengeance 
 for so horrible an act as the seizure of the frigate.” 
 The senate, trembling between two powers, con- 
 trived to pacify both for a time by a neutral 
 course, being enabled so to do by the unwilling- 
 ness both of the English and the French to drive 
 Genoa into the arms of the other by severe pro- 
 ceedings. The neutrality, however, was much 
 more advantageous than disadvantageous to the 
 French, who nevertheless punished the Genoese 
 wofully for it at a later day. 
 
 In other parts of the Mediterranean, little was 
 done. The pope, and the Grand-master of the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 11 
 
 Su gg gm a 
 
 Knights of Malta, closed their respective ports 
 against the French, At Venice, the senate refused 
 to join against France, hoping to better their own 
 interests by neutrality. French emissaries went 
 to Constantinople, to entice the sultan into an 
 alliance, tempting him with promises of territory 
 on the Danube and the Adriatic; but without 
 success. * 
 
 Having thus glanced at. the various warlike 
 operations by land and sea in 1793, arising out 
 of the hostility of France to the rest of Europe, 
 we must now attend to the internal affairs of 
 France herself, marked by a double current 
 of operations—the struggles of the factions at 
 Paris; and the dreadful civil war between the 
 republicans and the royalists in the provinces, 
 
 No sooner was the unfortunate Louis XVI. put 
 to death, than the enmities between the rival 
 parties of republicans, stayed for a time, broke out 
 afresh. The Gironde and the Mountain renewed 
 their struggle for supremacy: the former being 
 actually in office, but the latter stronger among the 
 masses. Roland, harassed by the attacks of the 
 Jacobins, resigned his office as minister of the 
 interior ; but Claviére and Lebrun retained their 
 portfolios, while Brissot assumed the position of 
 leader of the party. Pache, who had now become 
 their mortal enemy, superseded Chambon as 
 mayor of Paris, an appointment that worked 
 mischief to the Girondists. Brissot, Gorsas, and 
 Condorcet, writing in journals which circulated 
 chiefly among the respectable classes, accused the 
 Jacobins of all sorts of crimes; while Robespierre, 
 Marat, and Desmoulins, addressing a lower class 
 of readers, charged the Girondists with peculation 
 and non-republican intentions, One of these 
 charges was grossly and manifestly libellous; for 
 Roland, accused of abstracting twelve millions of 
 livres, did in fact leave the government a poor 
 man, He was a cold rigid man, who owed 
 his reputation mainly to his wife; but posterity 
 has given him a rank among those who served 
 France honestly, whether wisely or not. On the 
 25th of February there were frightful disorders in 
 Paris, the people breaking open and plundering 
 the shops where provisions were sold ; prices were 
 high, and the people were not unwilling to believe. 
 the doctrines of their demagogues, that this state 
 of things was due to royalist machinations. In 
 the Jacobin Club that night, and in the Con- 
 vention next day, the Jacobins and the Girondists 
 accused each other of having fomented the riots, 
 hurling the wildest personalities as weapons of 
 argument, The main instigator was unquestionably 
 Marat, who, in his number of the “ Republican” 
 for the morning of the 25th, had plainly told his 
 readers that the proper way to obtain sugar and 
 coffee cheap would be to help themselves, and to 
 hang a few of the grocers at their shop-doors. 
 Shortly after this occurrence, the Gironde gave 
 
 * Barrow, Life of Earl Howe.—Rose, Naval History of the Late 
 War.—Schomberg, Naval Chronicle—Lord Hood’s Dispatches.— 
 
 ; Carlo Botta, Storia d’ltalia.—Colletta, Storia di Napoli. 
 
12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 new offence to the Mountain by the publication of 
 a report, from the constitution committee of the 
 Convention, on a new republican constitution for 
 France. Condorcet was the chief author of this 
 report, in which such a form of constitutional 
 government was recommended as would have 
 extinguished the sans culottes, on whom the 
 Jacobins mainly relied. When the troubles broke 
 out in the south of France, and when the defection 
 of Dumouriez took place, the same scenes were 
 renewed at Paris—each party laying the blame 
 upon the other. The Girondists held the executive 
 power, and it thus became easy, whether just or 
 not, to throw on them the responsibility for all 
 failures. Although, in accofdance with a recom- 
 mendation of Danton, the Convention decreed on 
 the 8th of March the raising of 30,000 new recruits 
 in Paris alone, to join the armies on the frontiers ; 
 and although the Parisians displayed great war- 
 like ardour in enlisting—yet they left behind 
 them a long list of black suspicions, showing how 
 slight was the mutual trust between the several 
 parties of republicans. In the Convention, the 
 neutrals or Plain had gradually approximated 
 their politics to those of the Jacobins or Mountain ; 
 and, as a result, the Girondists found themselves 
 more frequently than before in a minority, Under 
 these altered circumstances, a decree was passed, 
 on the 9th, establishing a new Extraordinary 
 Criminal Tribunal, authorised to pronounce 
 sentence, without any appeal, upon conspirators 
 and counter-reyolutionists ; another, imposing an 
 excessive war-tax on the wealthy; and a third, 
 authorising specially appointed commissioners to 
 go into the departments, there to arrest all 
 suspected persons, to seize all pleasure-horses for 
 the use of the army, and to levy extraordinary 
 contributions. The legislation of this day may 
 be regarded as the commencement of a new kind 
 of despotism, under which France groaned for 
 many months : seeing that the first and last of the 
 three decrees conferred elastic powers that might 
 be stretched to any degree. The commissioners 
 for the departments obtained the designation of 
 pro-consuls, and some of them exceeded in tyranny 
 the worst of the pro-consuls of ancient Rome. 
 On the 10th, the Convention met to discuss the 
 organisation of the new Revolutionary Tribunal ; 
 the Girondists endeavoured to curb the despotism 
 of the plan proposed ; but they ultimately yielded 
 to a scheme by which a tribunal of nine judges 
 and several jurymen was to be appointed, always 
 in session, empowered to deal summarily with all 
 charges of offences against the republic, to receive 
 accusations from various bodies, and to appoint 
 a public accuser for themselves.* On that same 
 night the Jacobin Club was the scene of violent 
 contentions, in which some of the members, and 
 the gallery spectators, openly suggested a purgation 
 of the Convention of all the Gironde; and but for 
 a hesitation on the part of Santerre to allow his 
 
 * Debates in Histoire Parlementaire. 
 
 oe yy pees ee 
 
 [ Book X. 
 
 National Guards to be involved in the matter, 
 Paris would probably have witnessed another 
 night of violence, and perhaps slaughter. 
 
 The new Revolutionary Tribunal having been 
 appointed, Brissot and his party were startled on 
 the 12th of March by a demand, made by one of 
 the Paris sections, that twenty-two of the leading 
 Girondists should be accused before the Tribunal: 
 it was only a demand, but it familiarised all 
 parties with an idea destined to be realised within 
 a short time. When the month of April brought 
 to light the treason of Dumouriez towards the 
 republic, a renewed outcry was made against the 
 Girondists, who were accused of being the legiti- 
 mate successors to the royalists and Feuillants of 
 former days. Robespierre, in a virulent speech . 
 in the Convention on the 10th, charged them with 
 drawing to their party all the enemies of true 
 equality, of setting the middle classes against the 
 sans culottes, of stopping the progress of public 
 spirit, of reawakening the pride and the hopes 
 of the aristocracy, of oppressing the energetic 
 patriots, of protecting the hypocritical moderates, 
 of corrupting the defenders of the people, and of 
 persecuting such of them as they could not 
 corrupt. He sought especially to show that 
 Gensonné, Vergniaud, Pétion, and Brissot had 
 had something to do with the treason of Dumouriez. 
 Vergniaud replied to Robespierre in an impassioned 
 speech; in which he insisted that the Girondists 
 were in heart and soul republicans, and that it ill 
 became a coward like Robespierre, who crept into 
 cellars when personal danger was near, to accuse 
 men who had stood boldly at their posts. On the 
 llth and 12th, the debate continued with the 
 wildest violence: Marat, David, Danton, and other 
 Jacobins fiercely attacking the Girondists, and 
 being as fiercely attacked by them in return. 
 After Marat had been denouncing the Duke of 
 Orleans, Barbaroux rose to swear that Marat 
 himself had received 15,000 livres as a bribe 
 from the duke at a former time; this gave a 
 new direction to the debate, which was further 
 strengthened by an extract read by Guadet from 
 a speech by Marat at the club—recommending 
 the people to march to the Convention, and put 
 down all who were opposed to them. Pétion, once 
 a Jacobin himself, spoke of that body in a tone to - 
 convince them that they must either annihilate or 
 be annihilated. He said: “It is time that these 
 infamies should end; it is time that the traitors 
 and calumniators should be sent to the scaffold; 
 and I here take a solemn engagement to pursue 
 them even unto death. ... Yes, Robespierre, you 
 must be marked and branded as false witnesses 
 and calumniators were in former times, The 
 people will soon know you and your party, who, 
 under the mask of a false patriotism, mislead 
 them, betray them, and drive them to the abyss; 
 and I will never rest until I have seen the men 
 who would sacrifice liberty and the republic lose 
 their heads on the scaffold. For too long a time 
 have they been exciting the people to rise against 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 the Convention and massacre us.” At one part 
 of his speech he called Marat “a vile scoundrel, 
 that had been perpetually preaching despotism— 
 despotism under a dictator or under a triumvirate.” 
 The neutrals, alarmed at the plots against the 
 Convention itself, on this occasion joined with the 
 Gironde; and Marat, by a majority of 220 against 
 92, was committed to the Abbaye for inciting the 
 populace to attack the Convention.* 
 
 Only three days after this debate, the vengeance 
 of the Jacobins began to show itsclf. No fewer 
 than thirty-five of the Paris sections sent deputa- 
 tions, with Mayor Pache at their head, to demand 
 the expulsion from the Convention of twenty-two 
 of the leading Girondists—namely, Brissot, Guadet, 
 _Vergniaud, Gensonné, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Bar- 
 baroux, Salles, Biroteau, Pontécoulant, Pétion, 
 Lanjuinais, Valazé, Hardy, Louvet, Lehardy, 
 Gorsas, Fauchet, Lanthenas, Lasource, Valady, 
 and Chambon: Roland was not in the Convention, 
 A few days afterwards, the commune of Paris 
 sent a similar demand, and coalesced with the 
 Jacobin Club in raising the animosity of the 
 provincial republicans against the Girondists. 
 Marat, tried before the new Revolutionary 
 Tribunal on the 24th, was almost instantly ac- 
 quitted, either because the evidence against him 
 was insufficient, or because the judges and jury 
 all belonged to his own party. He was carried 
 back in triumph to the hall of the Convention, 
 by a sans-culotte mob, with the most frantic 
 manifestations of joy; and after an ovation there, 
 he went over to receive new honours at the 
 Jacobin Club. This prosecution of Marat hastened 
 the downfall of the Girondists, who were from 
 that day in constant peril of violence outside the 
 Convention as well as within. 
 
 On the 10th of May, the Convention transferred 
 its sittings from the Salle de Manége to the 
 Tuileries, now styled the Palais National; and 
 the Girondists, in their new hall of meeting, made 
 a vigorous attempt to recover their former ascend- 
 ency. Guadet rose to propose, as a means of 
 putting down the anarchists, that the authorities 
 of Paris should be annulled, and that the muni- 
 cipality should be replaced by the presidents 
 of sections; but the neutrals, fearing that this 
 would lead to civil war in Paris as well as 
 in the provinces, opposed it ; and the Convention, 
 as a middle course, adopted a proposition of 
 Barrére for nominating a Committee of Twelve 
 to watch over the designs of the commune, to 
 examine into the late disorders and plots, and 
 to arrest the persons concerned in them. This 
 committee, composed chiefly of Girondists and 
 neutrals, commenced its labours in a way unsatis- 
 factory to the clubbists and commune; hence 
 renewed schemes arose for getting rid of the 
 committee as well as of the Girondists. Danton 
 and the Cordeliers took the lead in this movement. 
 On the 22nd of May it was discussed among the 
 
 * Flistoire Parlementaire. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 13 
 
 members of that club, to murder not only the 
 leading Girondists, but three hundred members 
 of the Convention supposed to be inimical to the 
 people. Such was the state of feeling in Paris 
 at that time, that murder and patriotism became 
 regarded almost as convertible terms. <A few 
 of the sections shortly afterwards addressed the 
 Convention, pointing out the danger attending 
 the discussions in the clubs and the Hotel de Ville; 
 it was thereupon resolved, at the recommendation 
 of the Committee of Twelve, to arrest Hébert and 
 other persons as dangerous to the state. This 
 Hébert was a journalist of the most rabid kind, 
 and one of the municipal authorities of the Hétel 
 de Ville; his arrest roused all the clubbists and 
 communists to act together. On the 25th, when 
 a petition was presented for the suppression of 
 the Committee of Twelve, a violent debate took 
 place in the Convention; Isnard the Girondist 
 threatening the Jacobins of Paris, and_ being 
 threatened in turn by Danton, Marat, Dronet, 
 Fabre d’Eglantine, and other Montagnards or 
 members of the Mountain party. On the 26th 
 and 27th, similar scenes occurred in the hall of 
 the legislature—some of the ultra-republicans 
 demanding the release of Hébert, some the sup- 
 pression of the Committee of Twelve, and others 
 the expulsion of the leading Girondists from the 
 Convention. Garat, the minister of the interior, 
 and Pache, the mayor of Paris, were summoned 
 to give evidence touching the state of the 
 capital; from which it appeared that the armed 
 force was becoming bewildered; some of the 
 troops obeying the Convention and the Com- 
 mittee of Twelve, others the municipality. Late 
 in the evening of the 27th, after most of the 
 Girondists had left, the Mountain passed many 
 decrees amid the cheers of deputations from the 
 majority of the sections. This course led to a 
 fierce contention on the 28th, when the Mountain 
 asserted, and the Gironde denied, the validity of 
 such legislation : the Convention decided, by 279 
 against 238, that the decrees of the preceding 
 night were not valid. Nothing could exceed the 
 rage of the Jacobins at this decision ; they poured 
 out threats of vengeance in which blood marked 
 every sentence. The only concession made at 
 this time was the liberation of Hébert.* 
 
 On the 29th, evidences of a desperate organ- 
 isation appeared, under the management of 
 Robespierre, Marat, Danton, Chaumette, and 
 Pache ; in which the commune and the sections 
 were to act boldly against the Convention and 
 the Committee of Twelve. At the electoral club 
 of the Evéché this new society was formed, under 
 the name of the Republican Union, consisting of 
 deputies from the sections, from the commune, 
 from the department of the Seine, and from 
 various political societies ; and this club undertook 
 to marshal the sans culottes and the National 
 Guards in an insurrection against the ruling 
 
 * Moniteur, and other newspapers of the day. 
 
 — 
 
14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 powers. On the 30th, amidst a stormy debate 
 in the Convention, it came to light that the 
 municipal authorities at the Hétel de Ville had 
 given the command of the National Guards to 
 one Henriot, a man closely in league with the 
 ultra-republicans ; and had, moreover, engaged to 
 allow a sans-culotte mob forty sous a day each 
 man as long as they should be under arms. The 
 purport of these arrangements was not to be 
 mistaken, As evening approached, the hall 
 became filled with deputations from the commune, 
 the sections, and other bodies; and the Girondists 
 and the neutrals became so paralysed that the 
 Mountain passed decree after decree without wait- 
 ing to see whether the votes were legally taken. 
 The speeches of Robespierre, Vergniaud, Chabot, 
 and others showed that the death-struggle was 
 approaching. Among the decrees were four to 
 the effect that the Committee of Twelve should 
 be suppressed ; that the forty sous a day to. the 
 armed sans culottes should be paid by the Conven- 
 tion; that the Girondists and others denounced 
 by the commune and the sections should be forth- 
 with impeached ; and that the proceedings of the 
 day should be announced to all France in a pro- 
 clamation. Nothing but a sense of terror could 
 have driven the Convention to pass such decrees 
 as these—terror growing out of the noise of cannon 
 booming occasionally from amid.the armed bands 
 in the streets. One of the decisions of this day 
 was the appointment of a committee of the com- 
 mune to sit in the Tuileries, and to act with the 
 Convention: a simple proceeding in its origin, 
 but rendered terrible afterwards by the tyran- 
 nical power exercised by that committee—indeed, 
 it became the executive government, in effect, 
 on the very next day. At the next meeting of 
 the Convention, on the 3lst of May, the leading 
 Girondists, dismayed at the frightful threats hurled 
 against them, abstained from attending, and 
 remained concealed in their homes ;* as a@ con- 
 sequence, the Mountain carried everything in the 
 Convention—including a decree that the new 
 committee of the commune, called the Comité de 
 Salut Public, or Committee of Public Safety, should 
 present within three days a schedule of measures 
 for protecting the republic; and another that 
 the department of the Seine, the municipality of 
 Paris, and private citizens, should place in the 
 hands of the committee all evidence they might 
 collect against suspected persons. These decrees 
 gave a vast and terrible power to the new com- 
 mittee. The threats against the Girondists became 
 more and more savage; the number branded 
 as traitors was raised from twenty-two to twenty- 
 seven ; and Madame Roland, during the conceal- 
 ment of her husband, was arrested. 
 
 On the morning of Sunday, the 1st of June, 
 the tocsin sounded, alarm-guns were fired, barriers 
 were closed, black flags were hoisted, and armed 
 men paraded the streets of Paris, An insurrection 
 
 * Louvet, Mémoires.—Madame Roland, Mémoires, 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 Ville and by the clubbists, to terrify the Conven- 
 tion into a surrender of the obnoxious Girondists. 
 Some of the bolder members of this party went to 
 the Convention on this day, and demanded the 
 meaning of the threatening outbreak ; a demand 
 that led to fierce vituperation and contention 
 between the rival parties. Later in the day, a 
 deputation from the armed multitude entered, and 
 fiercely insisted on a surrender of the Girondists, 
 Another terrible scene ensued, during which the 
 Committee of Public Safety sent in a recom- 
 mendation that the accused Girondists would 
 “voluntarily retire” from the Convention, as a 
 means of allaying the excitement out of doors. 
 Isnard, Lanthenas, Fauchet, and Dussaulx con- 
 sented to do this—probably, though not avowedly, 
 in the hope of saving their heads, Lanjuinais 
 and Barbaroux expressed scorn at the idea, declar- 
 ing their intention rather to die at their posts ; 
 while some of the Jacobins insisted that arrest 
 and not withdrawal would be the proper treat- 
 ment for such men, By this time, it was ascer- 
 tained that the Tuileries, where the Convention 
 was sitting, was surrounded by an immense force 
 of armed men, headed by Henriot, who had also 
 160 pieces of artillery; the insurrection was so 
 complete and formidable, that the municipal 
 authorities at the Hétel de Ville had placed the 
 whole of the National Guards and the Paris force at 
 the disposal of the leaders, at the head of whom 
 was Marat. Even the bold Danton was astonished 
 at the audacity of this measure, in which others 
 of the popular leaders had gone beyond him, The 
 members marched out in a body to two separate 
 entrances, and ascertained clearly enough that 
 they were prisoners at the mercy of an armed 
 populace; thus menaced, they returned to their 
 chamber, and voted a decree demanded by the 
 insurgents, This decree was to the effect, that 
 certain Girondists, thirty-two in number, were 
 declared prisoners in their own houses, until 
 further proceedings were taken against them. The 
 list comprised Guadet, Gensonné, Brissot, Gorsas, 
 Pétion, Vergniaud, Salles, Barbaroux, Chambon, 
 Buzot, Lidon, Biroteau, Rabaud, Lasource, Lan- 
 juinais, Grangeneuve, Lehardy, Lesage, Louvet, 
 Valazé, Lebrun, Claviére, Kervelegan, Gardien, 
 Rabaut St. Etienne, Boileau, Bertrand, Vigée, 
 Molleveau, Larivitre, Gomaire, and Bergoing. 
 Some of these accused men escaped from Paris, 
 and endeavoured to get up a counter-revolution in 
 
 Brittany and other provinces, but without any — 
 
 other result than bringing themselves one by one 
 to a miserable death ; a few contrived to secrete 
 themselves in Paris until the day of peril was 
 over; while most of the leaders of the party 
 remained to brave openly the accusations against 
 them.* 
 
 An episode of a remarkable character—the 
 assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday—arose 
 
 * Mémoires, by Garat, Louvet, and Roland. 
 
 A Na a EEE ee 
 
 had been organised by the officials at the Hétel de 
 
 — 
 
Char VIL. 
 
 immediately out of this violent proceeding against 
 the Girondists, An unmarried lady of twenty- 
 five, graceful, handsome, enthusiastic in repub- 
 lican opinions, Charlotte Corday lived at Caen 
 in Normandy with a relative, at the time when 
 Barbaroux, Pétion, Salles, and other Girondists, 
 hastily escaping from Paris, sought concealment in 
 that town. Worked up to a frenzy of hate against 
 Marat as the sanguinary persecutor of this party, 
 she resolved to make a journey to Paris on pur- 
 pose to put him to death, believing that she would 
 thereby render a service to her country. There 
 is conflicting evidence on the question whether 
 the concealed Girondists knew the full extent of 
 her plan; but Barbaroux, at anyrate, gave her 
 a letter for Duperret, to facilitate any object for 
 which she made the journey. Leaving Caen by 
 diligence on the 9th of July, she arrived at Paris 
 on the 11th, and took up her abode at a hotel 
 near Marat’s residence. On the 13th, after pur- 
 chasing a large sheath-knife in the Palais Royal, 
 she drove in a fiacre to Marat’s. She applied to 
 see him, but could not, as he was ill. She returned 
 to her hotel, and wrote a note entreating for an 
 interview, on the ground that she had important 
 facts to communicate concerning the political state 
 of Normandy. It was not until after a second 
 note, and much entreaty, that she succeeded in 
 gaining access to him, in a room where he was 
 immersed in a warm bath. The repulsive man, 
 hideous in mind and in body, was really ill, and 
 could not have been seen except in bath or in 
 bed. She found him sitting on a stool in the 
 bath, with pen and paper by his side. He began 
 
 to question her as to the proceedings of the . 
 
 Girondists in Caen; but in a very few minutes 
 his words were stopped by a desperate plunge in 
 his right side—a blow so firmly directed by her 
 that the knife penetrated right through the lungs. 
 The wretched man shrieked in agony, and then 
 fell dead. Charlotte was seized and conducted 
 to the Abbaye—declaring as she went that she 
 was satisfied with a deed that relieved her country 
 from such a monster. After one or two examin- 
 ations before the Committee of Public Safety, she 
 was transferred to the Conciergerie, where she 
 employed herself in writing to her friends at 
 Caen, while the authorities were collecting evidence 
 against her. Of course, at such a time they would 
 not have scrupled to guillotine her without any 
 trial, for having killed “the friend of the people ;” 
 but they wished to ascertain whether she had any 
 Girondist accomplices; and on this account, her 
 trial was conducted at considerable length. The 
 trial took place before the. Revolutionary Tribunal ; 
 and Fouquier-Tinville, the public accuser or 
 attorney-general, conducted the prosecution. She 
 at once and frankly confessed, as she had con- 
 fessed before, that she had purposely killed Marat. 
 “ Who induced you to commit the assassination ?” 
 asked the president of the tribunal. “It was his 
 _ crimes that induced me.” “What do you mean 
 by his crimes?” “The miseries he has caused 
 
 “Who are those who 
 
 engaged you to undertake this deed?” “ Myself 
 alone.” Such was the staple of the examination : 
 nothing was drawn from her tending to implicate 
 others. M. Chauveau, named by the tribunal as 
 her advocate, saw no course to pursue but to 
 plead her insanity, a plea that excited a smile 
 on her countenance; for in truth there was no 
 evidence of her being otherwise than sane, She 
 was convicted, and sentenced to be guillotined.* 
 At seven o'clock in the evening of the same day, 
 the 17th of July, she was covered with a red 
 shirt (chemise rouge), put into an open cart, and 
 drawn to the Place de la Révolution, where the 
 guillotine was erected. She looked calm and 
 beautiful, amid the savage execrations of the mob, 
 She placed her head in the appointed spot without 
 force or assistance from the executioners; and in 
 an instant it was severed from the body. The 
 executioner Legros, more than usually brutal even 
 at that brutal time, struck the cheeks insultingly 
 as he held up the bleeding head to the people—a 
 proceeding somewhat too far steeped in ruffianism, 
 for it brought upon him a reprimand.t Marat 
 was honoured with an apotheosis. His body, 
 embalmed, was carried to the church of the 
 Cordeliers, where it lay in state in a very repul- 
 sive fashion, befitting the taste of the Parisians in 
 those times; the clubs, the sections, the popular 
 societies, all went in procession to this lying in 
 state, strewing the wretched corpse with flowers, 
 and pronouncing the most extravagant praises on 
 the deceased as a “rare and sublime soul” who 
 had lived for the people, worked for the people, and 
 died for the people. He was buried in the garden 
 of the Cordeliers, with such honours as eclipsed 
 even the funeral of Mirabeau. The Jacobin Club 
 purchased his printing-presses as precious relics ; 
 busts of him were made and sold in all materials, 
 from marble down to sugar-paste ; the Convention 
 gave a pension to a woman with whom he had 
 lived; they changed the name of the Rue de 
 Cordeliers into that of Rue Marat; they gave to 
 a square near it the name of Place de Amr du 
 Peuple; and they put up a bombastic, lying, 
 versified inscription over the door of the house in 
 which he had lived.t Thus ended the career of 
 Jean Paul Marat, one of the worst among the 
 many bad men brought forward by the French 
 revolution ; he was almost worshipped by the half- 
 insane Parisians of 1793; but later days have 
 scarcely supplied a single word to say in his 
 favour. 
 
 The Retcn oF TERROR began with the month 
 of June, when the Convention, by mere brute 
 force, was compelled to eject and accuse the 
 leading Girondists at the bidding of an armed 
 
 since the revolution,” 
 
 * Procés Verbal, in Hist. Parlementaire.—Bulletin du Tribunal 
 Révolutionnaire. Pa Pi 
 + Chronique de Paris, in Hist, Parlementaire.—Louvet, Mémoires. 
 + ** Peuple, Marat est mort; l’amant de la patrie, 
 Ton ami, ton soutien, Vespoir de l’affligé, 
 Est tombé sous les coups d’une horde fiétrie. 
 Pleure, mais souviens toi qu’il doit étre vengé!” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 5 
 
16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 I 
 
 multitude, encouraged by the self-appointed 
 municipal authorities. In the first month, the 
 executions at Paris were only fourteen; they 
 gradually swelled as the year advanced, The 
 Committee of Public Safety was not at first a 
 terrible body; but when, in the beginning of 
 August, Robespierre was appointed one of its 
 members, the consequences soon became apparent. 
 This inexplicable man had hitherto filled few 
 definite offices; his influence had been shewn as 
 a writer in journals, and as a speaker in the 
 Convention and the Jacobin Club; now he 
 became the leader of the leading committee or 
 government department; and a mixture of 
 energy and cruelty was the immediate result. 
 In the Convention, the Plain or neutrals nearly 
 all went over to the Mountain, or Jacobins; and 
 as Robespierre was the most powerful of Jacobins, 
 he became, in effect, the most influential man in 
 Paris, or in all France. Ministry there was none, 
 in the usual sense of the word; the executive 
 duties were performed by committees, appointed 
 in part by the Convention, and in part by the 
 commune sitting at the Hotel de Ville; and 
 Robespierre speedily made the Committee of 
 Public Safety, sitting at the Tuilerics, the most 
 powerful of these executive or ministerial bodies, 
 The Convention busied itself in making a new 
 constitution, and in decreeing a new féte of 
 extraordinary character, got up by Hérault de 
 Sechelles and the painter David. This féte was 
 at once an inauguration of the new constitution, 
 and a sort of installation of atheism; it comprised 
 the erection of statues of Liberty, Nature, and the 
 People; and the worship of these statues, on the 
 10th of August, was one of the strangest spectacles 
 ever witnessed in modern times.* No sooner was 
 this festival over, than Robespierre began his 
 work of blood; he insisted, in the committee and 
 in the club, that terror must be stricken into the 
 hearts of all the enemies of the people, including 
 any republican generals who should fail in their 
 battles against the enemy. Within a few days, 
 consequent on this dictum, General Custine was 
 brought to the guillotine; and other men of note 
 speedily followed. The legislative decrees and 
 proposals during the autumn presented a singular 
 medley. One was a decree awarding the punish- 
 ment of death to all who trafficked in or discredited 
 the assignats; another withdrew all pensions or 
 allowances to priests, and authorised a seizure of 
 the revenues of colleges and hospitals for state 
 use; another related to the formation of a revo- 
 lutionary army of 6000 men at Paris, expressly 
 to carry out the projects of the Convention and 
 the committee against conspirators; a fourth 
 authorised a levée en masse, so as to raise the 
 fourteen armies of the republic, already numbering 
 a million men, to still greater force;. a fifth 
 awarded a payment of three livres per day to 
 every member of the revolutionary committces 
 
 * Féte Nationale du 10 Aodt, 1793: in Hist. Parl. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 established by this time in every town in France; 
 another gave power to the commissioners or pro- 
 consuls, sent by the Convention to various parts 
 of the country, to seize all money or property for 
 the public service, if they could find a reasonable 
 excuse for so doing; and another, worst of all, 
 was the terrible Zot des Suspects of the 17th of 
 September, which enclosed in its wide-spreading 
 meshes whatever individuals the governing powers 
 might choose to sacrifice, and which struck with 
 doubt and terror all classes except the very poorest 
 and lowest; and even their poverty and obscurity 
 did not invariably preserve them from the 
 operation of this law. By the joint action of 
 all these decrees, the property, liberty, and lives 
 of the French nation were put at the disposal of 
 the Committee of Public Safety, the Committee 
 of Surveillance, the Revolutionary Tribunal, and 
 the other bodies established by the Jacobins, 
 The Salut Public demanded still more power; 
 and the obedient Convention granted this by 
 decree on the 10th of October, placing a// the 
 government departments and all the generals 
 of armies under the immediate control of that 
 pitiless committee. 
 
 The last days of the unfortunate Marie 
 Antoinette now arrived. Nearly nine months 
 of misery had passed since the execution of her 
 husband the king, during which time she was 
 in constant expectation of her own death. The 
 execrable Hébert was appointed her chief gaoler 
 shortly after the death of Louis; and this monster 
 revelled in the delight of rendering her position 
 more and more intolerable. He deprived the 
 royal captives of every comfort, and half-starved 
 them; he sent away the faithful Cléry; he 
 indulged in the petty spite of substituting tallow 
 candles for wax, copper forks and spoons for 
 silver, common crockery for china; he tore from 
 them all the little articles that might serve as 
 memorials of the hapless king; he separated the 
 young dauphin from his mother, aunt, and sister ; 
 and he forced the unhappy boy to sign a paper 
 containing charges against them so hideously 
 obscene, that nothing but a mind steeped to the 
 dregs of profligacy could have conceived them. 
 Even Robespierre, though eager for the queen’s 
 trial and death, was exceedingly enraged at these 
 charges, because he thought them impolitic. “ That 
 fool Hébert,” said he, “ will make her an object of 
 pity.” After being separated from her son, and 
 then from her daughter and sister-in-law, Marie 
 Antoinette was removed on the Ist of August 
 from the Temple to the Conciergerie, in the 
 midst of a tumultuous mob, who loaded her with 
 every imaginable term of execration, revolting to 
 a degree hardly credible to an English mind. 
 The Austrian minister endeayoured to obtain 
 Danton’s aid to the escape of the queen; and it is 
 believed that this aid would have been given, for 
 Danton had never countenanced severe measures 
 against her: he loved money rather than blood, 
 and would probably have been willing to save 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 her for a large bribe. He, however, like others, 
 was now in dread of the terrible committee, and 
 declined the risk. A few other plans were 
 formed for extricating the queen, but none were 
 put in force; such of them as were discovered 
 only made her treatment more severe, She 
 remained in the Conciergerie ten weeks, passing 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. ‘2 
 
 most of her time in prayer. At last, on the 13th 
 of October, her indictment was delivered to her; 
 and on the following morning she was carried 
 before the Revolutionary Tribunal, sitting at the 
 Palais de Justice. Fouquier-Tinville read the 
 indictment, which charged her with almost 
 everything that had been done amiss since her 
 
 Tne ConcIERGERIE, PARIs. 
 
 arrival in France—with all the embarrassments 
 and public debt that had. preceded the revolution ; 
 with every counter-revolutionary project which 
 had been conceived since the meeting of the 
 States-general; with an implacable and savage 
 hatred to the generous French people; with 
 having maintained at all times a close connection 
 and correspondence with the worst enemies of 
 France; and with having enriched her Austrian 
 relatives with countless sums of money taken 
 from the national treasury. ‘To all the numerous 
 questions arising out of these charges, she replied 
 in a calm, clear, concise manner, her composure 
 and dignity unruffled. Only once did she lose her 
 equanimity, when ordered to reply to the loath- 
 some calumny invented by Hébert: she then 
 said—“* I have not answered to this, because 
 nature refuses to answer such a charge brought 
 against a mother. I appeal to all the mothers 
 that are here!” And at this moment she 
 was indeed dreadfully excited. After the 
 public accuser had exhausted his charges, and 
 examined all his witnesses; after Chauveau and 
 Ducoudray had done their best as advocates for 
 the queen; after Herman, the president, had 
 addressed the jury in a speech which almost 
 compelled them to decide against the accused— 
 the jury found her guilty of conniving at various 
 conspiracies against the republic. On the 16th 
 she received formal sentence of death, and was 
 conducted back to the Conciergerie. She cut 
 off her hair, changed her mourning attire for a 
 
 white muslin dress, threw herself on her bed, 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 Tne, POPULACE CONVEYING MARIE ANTOINETTE TO PRISON THERE, 
 An Original Design from Sketches on the spot, 
 
 and slept soundly for a few hours. About noon 
 she was aroused, placed in a cart with her hands 
 tied behind her, and conducted to the place of 
 execution, amid the same execrations from the 
 populace as had visited her so many years. She 
 was calm to the last. After the guillotine had 
 done its work, the executioner held up the head to 
 the people, who vociferated “ Vive la République!” 
 The headless body was thrown into a cart, and 
 carried to a grave partly filled with quicklime. 
 Thus perished Marie Antoinette, who, as queen 
 of France, had borne many years of such misery 
 as seldom falls to the lot of a queen-consort; 
 she was only thirty-eight years of age, but 
 grief had in effect added twenty years to that 
 number.* 
 
 The execution of many of the leading Girondists 
 followed closely on that of the queen. Some, like 
 Gensonné, had remained in Paris since the 
 decree of the Ist of June; some, like Brissot, 
 had been intercepted in their flight ; while others 
 were now for the first time accused. On the 3rd 
 of October, twenty-two Girondists were formally 
 impeached ; and at the same time no less than 
 seventy-three members of the cdté droit in the 
 Convention, who had signed a protest against the 
 violent proceedings of the Jacobins in May and 
 June, were arrested. St. Just, one of the most 
 cold-blooded adherents of Robespierre, would have 
 had the whole ninety-five brought to the block 
 at once; but his more calculating leader opposed 
 
 * Duchess d’Angouléme, Private Memoirs of what passed in the 
 
 Temple. 
 B 
 
 EE 
 
18 
 
 this, as something too audacious. Gorsas was 
 guillotined early in the month, on a sentence of 
 outlawry ; the other twenty-one, brought up for 
 formal trial on the 24th, before the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal, were Gensonné, Vergniaud, Brissot, 
 Duperret, Carra, Ducos, Gardien, Valazé, Duprat, 
 Sillery (the husband of Madame de Genlis), 
 Fauchet, Boyer Fonfréde, Lasource, Lestrope, 
 Beauvais, Duchatel, Mainvielle, Lacaze, Lehardy, 
 Boileau, Antiboul, and Vigée. They were all in 
 the prime of life, and most of them men of letters. 
 Fouquier-Tinville, the Jacobin public accuser, 
 brought the charges; while Chauveau, who had 
 defended Charlotte Corday and Marie Antoinette, 
 was permitted again to act as counsel for the 
 accused. The chief witnesses were Pache the 
 mayor, Chaumette the procureur-general, Hébert 
 the atheist, Chabot the ex-capuchin, Fabre 
 d’Eglantine, and Montaut, all violently opposed 
 to the Girondists. It would be useless to go over 
 the details of the trial; for as the accusers, the 
 judges, and the jury were all predisposed against 
 the accused on party grounds, a conviction was 
 certain from the outset; and it mattered little 
 how this conviction was brought about, The 
 Girondists adopted various forms of defence, all 
 equally fruitless against those who were set against 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 * 
 * 
 1a 
 
 them. Danton took no part whatever in these 
 proceedings: he had become a quieter, less 
 ferocious man during the past few months, 
 Robespierre also held aloof from the court; but 
 he got the Jacobin Club to demand from the 
 Convention an acceleration of the trial; and a 
 decree, passed by the Convention in accordance 
 
 with this demand, gave permission to the Tribunal — 
 
 “to declare itself satisfied in conscience, without 
 hearing more.” At ten o’clock in the evening of 
 the 30th, the jury returned a verdict against all 
 the prisoners, finding them guilty of treason, &e. ; 
 and the twenty-one Girondists were at once 
 condemned to death. One of them, Valazé, stabbed 
 himself with a poniard; the rest, confined for 
 one more night in the Conciergerie, passed that 
 night in endeavours to encourage each other to 
 a brave confronting of death. On the morning of 
 the 31st of October, they were put into carts, and 
 carried to the place of execution, with heads bare, 
 hands tied behind them, and shirt-collars open, 
 When they arrived at the foot of the scaffold, they 
 descended from the death-carts, embraced one 
 another, and cried “ Vive la République.” Samson 
 and his co-executioners decapitated the whole 
 twenty in about half an hour. 
 
 From this day, the guillotine was seldom idle at 
 
 mc 
 
 INTERIOR OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL DURING THE ReicN or TeRRon.—From “ Tableaux Historiques de la Réyolution.” 
 
 Paris during the remainder of the Reign of Terror, 
 Philippe HEgalité, the profligate Duke of Orleans, 
 accused by the Girondists of being a Jacobin, and 
 by the Jacobins of being a Girondist, had been 
 six months a state-prisoner at Marseille; and was 
 now, on the 6th of November, brought before the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, His trial was as great a 
 mockery as had been that of Marie Antoinette, so 
 
 far as concerned the mode in which evidence was 
 got up against him ; but, unlike her, his character 
 was so despicable as to demand pity from no 
 one. Robespierre had determined that the duke 
 should die; the Tribunal quickly responded to 
 this determination ;* and Hgalité was guillotined 
 
 * Bulletin du Tribunal Révolutionnaire, 
 
 [Boor X. | 
 
 ore 
 
 i 
 | 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 that same day, after a life of forty-five years 
 marked by almost every species of profligacy. The 
 next victim of note was a far different person, 
 the graceful and accomplished Madame Roland, 
 who, since the beginning of June, had been succes- 
 sively in the prisons of the Abbaye, Sainte Pélagie, 
 and the Conciergerie. On the 8th of November, 
 she was brought before the Revolutionary Tri- 
 bunal, found guilty of being an accomplice of the 
 Girondists, and was guillotined the next day. As 
 she approached the scaffold, she gazed on a 
 gigantic statue of Liberty erected near it, and 
 exclaimed ; “Oh, Liberty! how many crimes are 
 committed in thy name!” She died calmly and 
 firmly.* Roland, who had been hiding near 
 Rouen for five months, killed himself in despair 
 when he heard of the execution of his wife. The 
 party now in power hunted out all offenders, 
 whether legitimists, constitutionalists, or Girondists, 
 and brought them with equal rapidity to the 
 guillotine, On the 16th of November, Bailly, the 
 illustrious astronomer, who had been mayor of 
 Paris in the earlier scenes of the revolution, was 
 dragged from his retirement, hastily tried before 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal, found guilty of various 
 offences against the Jacobins, and executed under 
 circumstances of more than usual brutality. 
 During November and December, one hundred 
 and twenty-six persons were in this manner 
 hastily tried and guillotined at Paris; the slightest 
 accusation sufficed to produce a trial, and almost 
 every trial ended in death. The Parisian appetite 
 for’ blood seemed truly to grow with what it fed 
 upon ; the place of execution was the commonest 
 place of rendezvous; the executions, as the most 
 exciting, were the most popular exhibitions of the 
 day; and the Place de la Révolution, which 
 continued for many months to be the principal 
 slaughter-house, was always crowded. The guillo- 
 tine was employed upon all parties and all ranks 
 in life. Manuel, the cz-devant procureur-general ; 
 General Brunet, General MHouchard, General 
 Oustine’s son; Generals Biron, Beauharnais, and 
 Westermann ; Barnave, of the National Assembly ; 
 Duport-Dutertre, the minister; Clavicre, Lebrun— 
 all were swept away; as was Madame Dubarry, 
 the once powerful mistress of Louis XV.; and as 
 were likewise numerous journalists, men of letters, 
 lawyers, and others. It mattered little what 
 were the grounds of accusation; the Jacobins 
 thirsted for the blood, and the executive thirsted 
 for the confiscated property of the condemned 
 persons, 
 
 The provinces of France, during this dreadful 
 half year, witnessed their own share of sanguinary 
 work. In July, the Girondists had joined with 
 the royalists of Lyon against the Jacobins, and had 
 put to death two leading men of that party, Chalier 
 and Riard. This enraged the authorities at Paris, 
 who sent an army to besiege and capture Lyon, 
 with a view of taking terrible vengeance for the 
 
 * Kotzebue, Travels from Berlin to Paris. 
 
 I a a 
 
 $n 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 19 
 
 offence committed, Dubois-Crancé, a commissioner 
 sent by the Convention, summoned the town to 
 surrender on the 2lst of August. The Lyonese 
 royalists held out firmly for two months. Couthon 
 arrived with a new army of 25,000 men on the 
 2nd of October; and after a terrible bombardment, 
 the town surrendered on the 7th, Then ensued a 
 scene scarcely paralleled in modern history for 
 ruthless blood-shedding. Couthon established a 
 tribunal of Lyonese Jacobins, and worked with 
 these against their fellow-townsmen; while Barrére, 
 in the Convention, organised a plan for destroying 
 Lyon, and appropriating all its wealth to the 
 service of the state. Couthon departed for Paris, 
 leaving Collot d’Herbois, Fouché, and Maribon- 
 Montaut, to put Barrére’s plan into execution, 
 Terrible was the result, although Barrére’s idea 
 was not fully carried out. The slaughter con- 
 tinued nearly five months, during which time 
 6000 persons were put to death. The guillotine 
 being found too slow, Collot introduced the practice 
 of sweeping down his miserable victims with 
 musketry and grape-shot. On one day, 269 per- 
 sons of both sexes perished in this manner; they 
 were tied together in pairs, and driven into an 
 enclosed space from which there was no issue ; 
 Collot superintended the carnage in person, and 
 killed some of the prisoners with his own hand, 
 On another occasion, the scene of execution was 
 the principal square of the town; where Collot 
 and Fouché looked on from the windows of one 
 of the best houses.* 
 
 Some of the struggles in the provinces were 
 connected with the unfortunate Girondists who 
 had left Paris in search of safety. Buzot, Barbar- 
 oux, Gorsas, Louvet, Pétion, and Guadet, as has 
 already been stated, contrived to meet together in 
 safety at Caen in Normandy; but their subsequent 
 disasters were sad enough. General Wimpfen took 
 command of an army of Normandy and Brittany 
 volunteers, to wage war against the Jacobins; but 
 his want of success soon placed the Girondists in 
 great peril. They wandered about the west of 
 France during many months, as did other Girond- 
 ists who contrived to escape from Paris—all hiding 
 in lofts or caverns under the most deplorable 
 circumstances. Valady was captured by the 
 Jacobins in a field near Bordeaux, in the month 
 of November; Guadet and Salles were guillotined 
 a few days afterwards at Bordeaux; Buzot, Barbar- 
 oux, and Pétion died miserably, near the same 
 town ; Gorsas was guillotined at Paris; Roland 
 killed himself; Rebecqui drowned himself in the 
 harbour of Marseille; Condorcet, the philosopher, 
 after months of extreme misery, took poison. 
 Louvet, Isnard, Lanjuinais, Lariviére, and a few 
 others, survived the Reign of Terror; but none 
 of them ever afterwards resumed their former 
 political importance. The utter extinction of the 
 Girondist party was in great measure due to the 
 
 growth of Jacobinical principles in the very 
 
 * Barante Mélanges Historiques. 
 
20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 department which had been their stronghold—the 
 Gironde.* 
 
 The civil war that arose in the west of France 
 during the autumn of this year, was due to certain 
 differences in the national character. In the 
 central departments, the revolution was almost as 
 complete, the taste almost as Jacobinical, as in 
 Paris itself; but in many of the remoter depart- 
 ments, the respectable inhabitants, and even the 
 common people, still retained an affection for the 
 throne and the altar, and lamented the sin and 
 bloodshed that had marked their destruction. 
 This feeling was especially manifested in the mari- 
 time portion of the west lying between the rivers 
 Vendée and Loire—once the province of Poitou, 
 but in modern times comprising chiefly the depart- 
 ment of La Vendée. From this district arose the 
 name of the Vendéan war, which, however, 
 extended far beyond on the north, south, and 
 east. The scigneurs or gentry of La Vendée were 
 among the best in France, somewhat akin to 
 the country squires of England or to the clan- 
 chiefs of Scotland, living among their tenants, 
 and trusted and beloved by them: they were 
 not absentees, like too many of the landowners 
 of Ireland. As a consequence, 2 warm attach- 
 ment existed between the gentleman and the 
 peasant. The Vendéans felt loyalty for their 
 king, reverence for their priests, and trust in 
 their gentry—sentiments utterly alien to those felt 
 at Paris. The gentry, not being very wealthy, 
 could not afford to live in the luxurious capital, 
 and thus had little sympathy with Parisian changes 
 of fashion or feeling; they were, as gentry, rather 
 unpolished and uninformed. The clergy, born 
 and bred as Vendéans, were intensely local in 
 their attachments. The peasants, ignorant and 
 prejudiced, trusted their seigneurs as the only 
 great men they knew, and placed the most abiding 
 faith in their curés; as to the king, they were 
 loyal because their seigneurs and curés were loyal, 
 not because they thought much of anything so 
 remote from their daily life as a throne and a 
 crowned head. 
 
 Long before the execution of Louis XVI., the 
 Vendéans had had many fierce struggles with the 
 emissaries and armed bands sent down by the 
 Jacobins of Paris, or raised in the towns, which 
 were in all cases more republican than the country 
 districts. It was in March, 1793, however, that 
 revolt openly began. The Convention decreed a 
 levy of 300,000 men, which the Vendéans resolutely 
 refused to assist in. The republicans had officials 
 in all the towns and many of the villages ; and as 
 these officials had small numbers of armed men 
 at their disposal, collisions speedily arose. At 
 first, the peasants passively resisted the orders sent 
 to them to enter the republican armies; but by 
 degrees they armed themselves, and engaged in 
 petty contests with republican troops; such con- 
 tests took place at Saint-Florent, Jallars, Chemillé, 
 
 * Louvet, 
 
 Mémoires, — Lamartine.—Hist. 
 Moderne. 
 
 Parl, — Biographie 
 
 [Book X. | : 
 
 Chollet, Challans, Machecoul, and other towns 
 and villages, generally to the advantage of the 
 Vendéans. At first, the insurgents had no leaders, 
 but by degrees, men of influence began to organise 
 them into regular armies, ready to fight battles or 
 to besiege fortresses. Among these leaders were 
 Count Henri de la Roche-Jaquelein, the Marquis 
 de Lescure, Count Charles d’Autichamp, M. 
 d’Elbée, M. Artus de Bonchamp, M. Charette de 
 
 CHARETTES, 
 
 la Conterie, M. de Royrand, and a wool-dealer 
 named Jacques Cathelineau. Three or four armies, 
 or at least armed bodies, were raised, not such 
 as could be kept in the field for any length of 
 time, but such as were available on emergencies. 
 They thoroughly defeated the republican General 
 Quétineau at Thouars—an achievement that led 
 to the decreeing of savage proclamations against 
 them by the Convention. The country of La 
 Vendée was so peculiar as to afford many advant- 
 ages to peasants situated as the royalists then 
 were. Nearly three-fourths of the department 
 were occupied by the Bocage, a region of trees and 
 woods, covering an undulatory surface of hills and 
 valleys ; the enclosures or farms were small, and 
 surrounded by strong hedges and deep ditches, 
 These trees, hedges, and ditches were so numerous, 
 that as soon as a body of republican troops had 
 penetrated through some of them, others presented 
 themselves, The fields and farms communicated 
 with each other only by means of small wickets 
 made of the same materials as the hedges, and 
 concealed by leaves and briers; the peasants alone 
 could discover these openings, called échaliers; 
 and, if pursued, they could raise a wicket and 
 replace it so as to render their place of exit 
 imperceptible. Added to these peculiarities, the 
 roads were few and bad; the Bocage was bounded 
 on the south by a plain very difficult to traverse, 
 on account of the mode in which the brooks 
 collected into rivers; and between the Bocage 
 and the sea was the Marais, a marsh intersected 
 by innumerable ditches and canals. Any hostile 
 force, therefore, had formidable obstacles to con- 
 tend against. The Vendéans were enabled to 
 
 — 
 
Cuapr. VIII.] 
 
 foil every strategic calculation of the military 
 art, by this configuration of their country and 
 arrangement of their fields; they adopted a 
 guerrilla style of warfare, presenting no front that 
 could be boldly attacked, but picking off their 
 embarrassed enemies from behind every tree and 
 hedge. ‘This, at least, was the system adopted 
 in the later stages of the Vendéan war; at the 
 beginning, when the republican armics were 
 yet weak, the Vendéans more boldly attacked 
 towns and fortresses. Lescure and La Roche- 
 Jaquelein captured Fontenay, and compelled 
 Generals Sandos and Chalbos to retreat; Charette 
 drove General Boulard before him; and Generals 
 Coustard and Berthier were driven from Saumur 
 with great loss. On the 29th of June, Charette 
 and Cathelineau, with an army~ of 30,000 
 Vendéans, made a bold attempt to storm the 
 important city of Nantes, at that time held by 
 a strong party of republicans; the attempt failed, 
 and led to the death of Cathelineau, ‘The repub- 
 licans pursued the retreating Vendéans, and 
 inflicted terrible devastation and slaughter on 
 their homes and families; this was frightfully 
 revenged when, a few days afterwards, the 
 Vendéans gained an advantage over the repub- 
 licans; and thus the war became one of extermin- 
 ation and savage ferocity on both sides. During 
 July, the Vendéans held their Bocage entire, 
 the republicans remaining on the watch beyond 
 its limits. In August, enormous masses of troops 
 were sent by the Convention, which hemmed in 
 La Vendée on every side; and whenever a contest 
 arose, the result was very sanguinary, for no quarter 
 was given. On one occasion, 40,000 Vendéans 
 fought and defeated a large republican army under 
 General Kléber; but this success was followed 
 by many discomfitures, and the year ended most 
 deplorably for them. Unfortunately for the 
 Vendéans, the Prince of Tatmont, a noble who 
 held large property in Brittany, persuaded them 
 to abandon their own country, and cross the Loire 
 into that province, there to seek safety from the 
 now overwhelming influx of republicans. ‘They 
 followed his advice, after another battle in which 
 
 they were severely defeated by Kléber. Eighty 
 thousand fugitives—soldiers, women, children, 
 
 the sick, the aged, the wounded—crowded, on the 
 left bank of the Loire, waiting, in an agony of 
 impatience, the passing and repassing of a few 
 boats and rafts, which were all the means they 
 had of getting across into Brittany; behind them 
 rose the smoke and flame of their burning villages, 
 and every minute that passed was bringing the 
 merciless republicans nearer to them. Now com- 
 menced another series of fierce battles, in which 
 many thousand men were slain on both sides, 
 Again yielding to suggestions from others, who 
 possibly had selfish motives to guide them, the 
 Vendéans advanced still further north, and crossed 
 from Brittany into Normandy. Here defeat awaited 
 them; and their retreat, during the month of 
 December, from Normandy through Brittany back 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793, 21 
 
 to their own Bocage, was marked by misery at 
 every step; the slaughter was far greater than in 
 any of the foreign wars that engaged the French 
 at that. time, At the close of the year, the only 
 Vendéans actually in arms were cooped up with 
 Charette in the Ile Noirmoutier, a little southward 
 of the mouth of the Loire. For the present, the 
 Vendéan war ended—to burst out again with 
 great fury in the following year.* 
 
 Meanwhile the Convention sent the ferocious 
 Carrier as commissioner to Nantes, to wreak 
 vengeance on those who had opposed the repub- 
 licans. His proceedings excelled in atrocity every- 
 thing that occurred throughout the revolution. 
 He guillotined both royalists and Girondists by 
 hundreds in a day; he employed musketry and 
 artillery as being more expeditious weapons than 
 the head-chopping machine; and he invented a 
 species of noyade or drowning that should carry off 
 victims still more quickly. Flat-bottomed boats, 
 with traps or plugged holes in the middle, were 
 laden with unhappy wretches, towed out into the 
 middle of the Loire, and then opened, precipi- 
 tating all the persons into the water. Fifty-eight 
 Vendéan priests were thus drowned in one day; 
 a hundred and forty civilians in another; and thus 
 did the murderous work go on—Carrier boasting, 
 in his letters to the Convention, that he had 
 “made the Loire a revolutionary torrent.” Find- 
 ing that even the sowpape or false bottom worked 
 too slowly for his vengeance, he drove multitudes 
 into the river at the point of the bayonet, and 
 fired on those who floated until all were drowned. 
 With a mixture of indecent levity and savage 
 cruelty that so strangely characterised the French 
 at that time, he stripped women and girls 
 stark naked, that their executioners might have 
 their clothes before the drowning, the baptéme 
 vépublicain, commenced; and on other occasions 
 young men and young women, in a state of 
 nudity, were tied together hand to hand and 
 foot to foot, making what he with monstrous 
 ribaldry called mariages républicains, and thus 
 plunged in couples into the river, where they 
 speedily sank. During the last four months of the 
 year, this atrocious miscreant put to death no fewer 
 than jifteen thousand persons at Nantes, partly 
 inhabitants of that city, but in part prisoners sent 
 in from the districts on both sides of the Loire. 
 The river for a long period presented a horrid 
 spectacle, putrefying corpses floating up and down 
 with the tide, and the water red with blood. Collot 
 d’Herbois at Lyon, Lebon at Arras, Maignet at 
 Orange, and Tallien at Bordeaux, were commis- 
 sioners who exhibited barbarous cruelty against 
 those who had fallen under the displeasure of 
 the Paris Jacobins; but Carrier at Nantes went 
 beyond them all in revolting brutality.t 
 
 A few words more must close our notice of 
 French affairs during this mournful year.. 
 
 * Mémoires de Madame la Marquise de la Roche-Jaquelein.— 
 Dermoncourt. 
 
 + Barante, Mélanges Historiques.—Reports and Debates in Hist. 
 Parl. 
 
22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Feast of Reason was celebrated—one of the most | 
 
 Among the proceedings at Paris during the later 
 months of 1793, was a reformation of the calendar, 
 appointed by the Convention, and carried out by 
 the philosophers Laplace, Monge, and Romme, 
 aided by Fabre d’Eglantine. The year was 
 divided into four equal seasons; there were 
 twelve months of thirty days each; the five odd 
 days received the absurd name of sans-culottides 
 or days of the unbreeched, and were dedicated 
 respectively to Genius, Industry, Benevolence, 
 Rewards, and Opinion; in leap-year, the addi- 
 tional sans-culotiide was to be dedicated to the 
 Revolution, and all six were to be féte-days ; 
 the seventh-day Sabbath was abolished; the 
 month was divided into three décades or periods 
 of ten days each, every tenth day being a sort 
 of pagan Sabbath; the day was divided into 
 tenths, hundredths, and thousandths, instead of 
 hours, minutes, and seconds. This new calendar 
 commenced at the autumnal equinox, 21st of 
 September 1793, which was ranked as the first 
 day of the first year of the republic. The 
 twelve months were called Vendémiaire, Brumaire, 
 and Frimaire; Nivose, Pluviose, and Ventose ; 
 Germinal, Floréal, and Prairial; Messidor, Ther- 
 midor, and Fructidor. The first three implied 
 vintage, foggy, and frosty ; the next three, snowy, 
 rainy, and windy; the next, budding, flowering, 
 and haymaking; and the last, reaping, hot, and 
 fruity ; an attempt being made to characterise the 
 prevailing weather (in France) of each month by 
 its name. This calendar remained in use from 
 1793 till 1806. A more revolting change, however, 
 was the avowed installation of atheism, in which 
 Hébert, Chaumette, Anacharsis Clootz, Fouché, 
 and L’Huillier were the chief high-priests. It 
 began at the cemeteries, where crosses and other 
 religious symbols were destroyed, and replaced 
 by statues of Sleep, and inscriptions denoting that 
 Death is an eternal sleep, there being no resur- 
 rection. The chief leaders were afterwards joined 
 by Momoro, Grammont, Ronsin, Vincent, and 
 Bourdon de l’Oise; and presently the depth of 
 irreligion in Paris made itself manifest. On the 
 7th of November, Gobel, constitutional bishop of 
 Paris, and head of the so-called Gallican Church, 
 joined a procession of these atheists to the Con- 
 vention, where he made a _ speech, declaring, 
 amongst other things, that he knew no duty so 
 sacred as that of submission to the will of the 
 people ; that the people had declared there could 
 be no public and national worship but that of 
 Liberty and Holy Equality; that he bowed to 
 that opinion; and that he from that moment 
 renounced his dignity and the exercise of his 
 functions. Depositing his mitre, crozier, and 
 episcopal ring on the table of the House, he was 
 welcomed with vociferous cheering. After him 
 came vicars, canons, and priests, in great number, 
 voluntarily to surrender their ecclesiastical 
 functions and insignia; most of them put on red 
 worsted caps, “caps of liberty,” after having thus 
 secularised themselves, On the 10th, the first 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 extraordinary spectacles of those extraordinary 
 days. The cathedral of Notre Dame was converted 
 into a theatre, with a wooden mountain where 
 the altar had been, a temple dedicated to 
 Philosophy, and statues and busts of infidel 
 philosophers. The wife of Momoro, the printer, 
 personated the goddess of Reason; a premiere 
 danseuse from the opera was the goddess of 
 Liberty ; while troops of opera-girls and grisettes, 
 in a semi-nudity of white muslin, took part in the 
 performance, which was intended to portray the 
 triumph of Philosophy, Reason, and Liberty, over 
 Religion, Royalty, and Ignorance, So low had the 
 Convention fallen, as an assembly of legislators 
 for a great nation, that this goddess of Reason, 
 mounted in a classical chair borne by four citizens 
 dressed in Roman costume, was allowed to enter 
 and address the members, inviting them to attend 
 her festival in the evening ; and not only did they 
 assent, but, on the demand of Chaumette, they 
 decreed that the cathedral of Notre Dame should 
 henceforth be consecrated solely to the worship of 
 Reason.* Similar Feasts of Reason were, in 
 imitation of this, afterwards celebrated in many 
 provincial towns, and in many cases descended 
 still lower into orgies of debauchery. Throughout 
 the winter at Paris, a republican Sabbath was 
 celebrated every tenth day ; the mayor and other 
 authorities went to the “Temple of Reason,” and 
 there expounded the Rights of Man, read decrees 
 and dispatches, made orations on the successes 
 of the armies, pronounced so-called moral dis- 
 courses, and ended with music and singing—this 
 being the form of worship adopted. On the 11th 
 of November, Chaumette, as a means of carrying 
 still further the lights of the new philosophy, 
 obtained a decree for demolishing all statues of 
 saints and similar objects; and then followed a 
 scene of the most heartless desecration—statues, 
 tombs, coffins, altars, church-bells, sacred vessels, 
 reliquaries, shrines, pictures, carvings—all were 
 either appropriated to the purposes of the state, 
 or destroyed as emblems of religious feeling, 
 The Abbey of St. Denis, the Westminster Abbey 
 of France, was despoiled of its dead bodies of 
 kings and queens, which were treated in a 
 manner altogether loathsome. LHighteen carts 
 were filled with costly relics from this abbey. 
 The dances and songs of this fearful period, even 
 in presence of the Convention, were such as can 
 hardly be described in English ; it seemed as if the 
 Parisians, in formally throwing off every vestige 
 of religion, threw off at the same time decency 
 and common sense. The brutalised atheistical 
 Hébertists were in the ascendant: the Robes- 
 pierrians and Dantonists, as will be shown in a 
 later page, were not enamoured of this obscene 
 foolery. 
 
 A.D. 1794.—On the 21st of January, when the 
 British parliament met, the speech from the throne 
 
 * Newspapers of the day, in Hist. Parlementaire. 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 and the arguments of ministers urged the necessity 
 of continuing the war with an increase of vigour, 
 inasmuch as the wild and destructive system of 
 rapine, anarchy, and impiety, which the French 
 had adopted, had displayed itself fully to the world, 
 and made it more than ever impossible to think of 
 treating with such an enemy. On the other side 
 the opposition urged that the constant failures of 
 the armies of the coalition, and the victories and 
 triumphs of the French republicans, rendered the 
 prosecution of the war hopeless and ruinous; and 
 that, as we must recognise their government and 
 negotiate with it at last, the best thing we could do 
 would be to acknowledge it and treat with it at 
 once, leaving the other powers of Europe to follow 
 their own course. Amendments to the address, 
 requesting his majesty to take the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of concluding peace with France, were 
 moved in both Houses; but the failures on the 
 continent had not yet brought about any popular 
 discouragement, the successes of the French had 
 not increased the number of the Foxite party, who 
 had always predicted those successes as certain and 
 inevitable ; and in the Commons the amendment was 
 rejected by 277 to 59, in the Lords by 97 to 12. 
 Although sure of exhibiting their numerical weak- 
 ness at every division, Fox and his friends lost no 
 opportunity of attacking the war-measures of go- 
 vernment. Only on the vote for augmenting the 
 navy to 85,000 men they agreed with ministers. 
 When it was proposed to raise the regular army 
 to 60,000 men (far too small a force), they renewed 
 their opposition with all their vigour or eloquence ; 
 and they were unfortunately furnished with strong 
 facts and arguments wherewith to throw oppro- 
 brium and contempt on the way in which the war 
 had been managed. There was, however, the 
 ustial unfairness of party—and, whatever may be 
 said of the spirit and motives of some of the mem- 
 bers of this opposition, or of the good services they 
 did in many instances in checking a certain 
 tendency to despotic measures, we believe it is now 
 pretty generally admitted by the candid and well 
 informed, that there never was a set of men more 
 thoroughly imbued with the mere spirit of party, 
 or more personally animated against a ministry. 
 In all their proceedings their eyes seemed fixed 
 rather upon William Pitt than upon the fate of 
 Europe. When that minister said in one of his 
 speeches that France had been converted into an 
 armed nation, they laboured to show that it was to 
 him and his policy that this conversion was owing, 
 overlooking the facts (or hoping to make the world 
 overlook them) that France was one great camp or 
 drill-ground before any war with foreign powers 
 began; that the French had declared war against 
 all established governments whatsoever, and had, 
 wherever they could reach them, preached insur- 
 rection and revolution to the subjects of those 
 governments ; and finally, that an armed demo- 
 cracy like the French, even though less addicted 
 by temperament and old habit to war and conquest, 
 must inevitably spread itself, and seek not merely 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 23 
 
 oO 
 
 agerandisement, but employment and food among 
 its neighbours. 
 
 On the 2nd of February the minister laid before 
 the House of Commons an estimate of the supplies 
 necessary for the prosecution of the war. He 
 stated that the interior strength of the kingdom, 
 including regulars, militia, fencibles, and some 
 volunteer corps which had been raised, amounted 
 to about 140,000 men; and that there were 60,000 
 German troops in the pay of Great Britain. The 
 total of the supply requisite for this force he calcu- 
 lated at 19,939,000/.; and among his ways and 
 means he proposed some new taxes, and a loan of 
 11,000,000/. On this occasion he moved that the 
 double taxation to which the Roman Catholics had 
 been liable in times of war should be abolished ; 
 and this, with all his other propositions, was voted 
 forthwith. On the 17th of February the Marquess 
 of Lansdowne moved in the Lords, ‘‘ That his 
 majesty should be earnestly requested to declare, 
 without delay, his consent to enter into a negotiation 
 for peace with France, upon such equitable terms 
 as would evidently tend to secure its duration ; and 
 that he would signify his determination to his 
 allies, to the intent of putting an immediate stop 
 to hostilities.’? There was little new in the debate 
 which followed, except a lamentation from the 
 noble marquess, that, while we and our allies were 
 involving ourselves in a hopeless contest, Russia, 
 left to herself, was pursuing her schemes of ag- 
 grandisement, and was daily becoming more for- 
 midable to the mdependence of Europe. The 
 motion was finally negatived by 103 against 13. 
 On the 6th of March Pitt moved for an augmenta- 
 tion of the militia, and for the levy of a volunteer 
 force of horse and foot in every county, intimating 
 that the chances of war possibly might expose the 
 coast of Great Britain to invasion. The motion 
 was carried, but not without vehement opposition, 
 Fox and Mr. Grey asserting that all that we had 
 got by the war and the coalition was the chance of 
 being invaded. Strong objections were taken to a 
 requisition circulated by ministers, and to a sub- 
 scription entered into by country gentlemen and 
 others for the purpose of providing arms and other 
 necessaries for the volunteer corps. Sheridan 
 moved, * That it was dangerous and unconsti- 
 tutional for the people of this country to make 
 any loan of money to the crown without consent 
 of parliament.”” He spoke of the feeling which 
 had led to the subscription as an infatuation, and 
 yet said that the list of subscribers was chiefly 
 composed of the servants, dependents, and emis- 
 saries of the ministry. The previous question was 
 carried by a large majority. ‘The small minority, 
 and more especially Sheridan, continued to pal- 
 liate the massacres and atrocities committed in 
 France ; and, as they had urged in the preceding 
 session that we might very decently and honour- 
 ably negotiate with Lebrun, Brissot, and the Gi- 
 rondists, so they maintained that we might now 
 negotiate with Robespierre, Hébert, and the Ja- 
 cobin executive. The minister brought a Dill 
 
 Dre hs a See eter 
 
24 
 
 into the House of Commons to enable French 
 royalists and emigrants to enlist in the service of 
 the king of Great Britain on the continent of 
 Europe, and to employ French officers as engi- 
 neers, under certain restrictions. Two amend- 
 ments were offered : one by the attorney-general, to 
 exact the oath of allegiance from such as enlisted ; 
 the other by Sheridan, to limit the number of 
 such French troops at any time stationed in the 
 kingdom to 5000 ; and both were adopted by the 
 House. Nevertheless Pitt’s bill was violently op- 
 posed in its after-stages by Sheridan, Fox, and 
 others of that party. While it was under debate, 
 Burke made one of his passionate and splendid. 
 harangues against the nature and tendency of the 
 whole French system, insisting that it was better 
 to submit to any cost, sacrifice, and hazard, than 
 to allow the lawless career of men who, under 
 pretext of asserting the liberties of mankind, were 
 seeking the extension of their dominions, the in- 
 crease of their influence and power, the propa- 
 gation and enforcement of their destructive prin- 
 ciples. In the end, the minister’s proposition 
 was carried in the Commons by the usual ma- 
 jority. When the bill came to be debated in 
 the upper House, the Marquess of Lansdowne 
 declared that the common people of France had 
 benefited by the revolution—which was true, and 
 in the manner we have explained—and Lord 
 Stanhope expressed dissatisfaction and anger at 
 some persons of exalted rank in this country who 
 had spoken disparagingly of the Declaration of the 
 Rights of Man. 
 
 The subsidiary treaties concluded with some of 
 the powers of the coalition, who were too poor to 
 maintain the expenses of the war without English 
 money, were criticised and condemned by the op- 
 position in an unsparing manner ; and this censure 
 became the more violent when parliament was 
 informed by royal message that a large subsidy 
 had been granted to the King of Prussia. Every 
 ministerial motion on these subjects was, however, 
 carried by an undiminished majority. On the 
 30th of May the Duke of Bedford produced a 
 series of resolutions binding the government to 
 terminate the war; and on the same day Fox 
 moved similar resolutions in the Commons. The 
 arguinents used were precisely the same as those 
 which had been refuted by Burke in the preceding 
 session: his grace was defeated by 113 against 12, 
 and Fox by 208 against 55. Before this time the 
 news of many fresh reverses and monstrous blun- 
 ders on the part of the coalesced powers had reached 
 England, but the intelligence which came at the 
 same time of the augmented and still augment- 
 ing atrocities in France encouraged the belief that 
 such a system could not possibly sustain itself 
 much longer. Fresh efforts were made to get up 
 popular petitions for a peace; but the vast majo- 
 rity of the people had conceived a horror and 
 loathing of the French republicans—in many 
 places an extravagant fear that there were men in 
 England capable of imitating their bloody and sa- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Rrra nee ra 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 crilegious deeds—and, except among some political 
 clubs, the members of which were at open enmity 
 with the church or the state, or with both, no pro- 
 gress was made in this petitioning. 
 
 The heat of some of these political societies (a 
 scarcely visible minority), and the panic-dread 
 inspired in the immense majority of all classes 
 and conditions of the nation, led to strong mea- 
 sures on the part of government, and to some 
 extreme proceedings, the political wisdom of which 
 was questioned at the time, and will perhaps re- 
 main for ever doubtful. Of the madness and 
 perilous tendency of some of these political clubs 
 there can indeed be little doubt, but there may be 
 a rational difference of opinion as to their power 
 or capability of doing mischief in England or 
 Scotland. The heat and violence of both parties 
 was, for very obvious reasons, greater in Scotland 
 than in England, although some of the English 
 societies had certainly gone to great lengths, first 
 in corresponding with the Jacobins, and after- 
 wards in holding them up as models to their coun- 
 trymen. 
 
 Proceedings against some of these over-hot re- 
 formers had been commenced before the High 
 Court of Justiciary sitting at Edinburgh in the 
 beginning of 1793, the indictments charging 
 sedition and seditious libel, but not high treason. 
 The first person tried was one James Tytler, a 
 chemist, residing in King’s Park in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Edinburgh, who had written and pub- 
 lished an inflammatory address ‘To the People 
 and their Friends,” and a paragraph besides, in 
 which he asserted that all the unrepresented classes 
 were robbed and enslaved, and recommended them 
 to pay no more taxes until universal suffrage were 
 established. Not appearing in court, he was out- 
 lawed, or, in Scotch legal phraseology, he was ad- 
 judged ‘to be an outlaw and fugitive from his 
 majesty’s laws,’’ and ordained “to be put to his 
 highness’s horn, and all his moveable goods and 
 gear to be escheat.” His bail, two Edinburgh 
 booksellers, were made to pay the amount of their 
 bond and penalty, being the insignificant sum of 
 600 merks Scots. ‘Three days after this (on the 
 8th of January, 1793) John Morton, a printer’s 
 apprentice, James Anderson and Malcolm Craig, 
 both journeymen printers in Edinburgh, were put 
 upon their trial, charged with sedition, for having 
 come into the castle of Edinburgh with intention 
 to seduce a corporal and some soldiers ; for having, 
 in the said castle, drunk as a toast ‘“* George the 
 Third and d/ast, and damnation to all crowned 
 heads; for having told the soldiers that their 
 pay was much too small, and held out to them 
 the prospect of higher pay if they would only join 
 a certain description of men whom they styled 
 ‘* The Friends of the People,” or a ‘ Club for 
 Equality and Freedom.” ‘The trial lasted three 
 days, and ended in. sentencing the three young 
 men to nine months’ imprisonment, after which 
 they were to give security, in 1000 merks Scots 
 each, for their good behaviour for three years. 
 
 eens a te ED le A A Ye NC A a 
 
— 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 The next trial was that of John Elder, bookseller | 
 
 of Edinburgh, and William Stewart, merchant in 
 Leith, who were charged with writing and printing 
 a seditious libel, entitled “‘ Rights of Man Deline- 
 ated, and the Origin of Government.”” The mer- 
 chant, who had fled, was outlawed, but proceedings 
 were dropped against the bookseller. There fol- 
 lowed in rapid succession the trials of James 
 Smith, gunsmith of Glasgow, and John Mennings, 
 printer of the same town, who had got up a club 
 ealled “* The Sons of Liberty and Friends of 
 Man,” which was to co-operate with another so- 
 ciety in Glasgow, called ‘The Friends of the 
 People,” and “ with the innumerable host of re- 
 form associations in Scotland, England, and Ire- 
 land, for the glorious purpose of vindicating the na- 
 tive rights of man, liberty, a fair, full, free, and equal 
 representation of all the people in parliament,” &c., 
 and who had taken for their guides ‘‘ the whole 
 works of the immortal author of the Rights of Man, 
 Thomas Paine; and then those of James Cal- 
 lender, Walter Berry, and James Robertson, book- 
 sellers of Edinburgh, for writing and publishing 
 various libels against the constitution, &c., in one 
 of which libels it was said that our most excellent 
 constitution was in practice altogether a conspiracy 
 of the rich against the poor. One or two absented 
 themselves and were outlawed; the others were 
 sentenced to short terms of imprisonment; and no 
 more attention was paid to these Scots trials than 
 to others of a like kind which had taken place 
 in England, until proceedings were commenced 
 against Thomas Muir, Esq., and the Rev. Thomas 
 Fyshe Palmer. Muir, a member of the faculty 
 of advocates—a young member, for he was only 
 twenty-eight years old—was tried at Edinburgh 
 on the 30th and 31st of August (1793). The 
 general offences imputed were, the formation of 
 political clubs holding extreme views; the ex- 
 pressing a constant and warm admiration of the 
 French revolution, with joy for all the successes of 
 the republican arms, and sorrow for their reverses ; 
 the writing or circulating pamphlets and papers 
 of a revolutionary or ultra-democratic tendency ; 
 the corresponding with clubs of the same sort in 
 various parts of Scotland, England, and Ireland, 
 and the assembling a convention, or an assembly 
 of delegates from all the societies of the friends of 
 the people. A great meeting of this kind had 
 actually been held at Edinburgh on the 11th of De- 
 cember, 1792, where Muir had been president, and 
 the language and proceedings had rather closely 
 resembled those of the French National Conven- 
 tion and Jacobin Clubs, which clubs continued to 
 style themselves “ Friends of the People.’’? These 
 mere titles or denominations now filled the ma- 
 jority of the country with horror and alarm. There 
 was in Edinburgh a loyal association of the most 
 intemperate and flaming kind, seemingly ready to 
 go as far in the opposite extreme; there were 
 similar associations and societies got up in other 
 towns to check what were now commonly termed 
 
 the Scots Jacobin Clubs, and these societies and | Empires. 
 
 a ae 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794.. 25 
 
 the general sentiment heated the lawyers of the 
 crown, who were hot and impetuous enough with- 
 out this excitement and encouragement. Violence 
 had begotten violence, and to that degree, that there 
 was a chance of seeing the renewal of the days of 
 Duke Lauderdale or of Judge Jeffries. In the in- 
 dictment Muir was more especially charged with 
 feloniously advising and exhorting persons to pur- 
 chase and peruse seditious and wicked publica- 
 tions, and writings calculated to produce a spirit 
 of disloyalty and disaffection to the king and go- 
 vernment; with getting up public meetings in 
 various parts of the kingdom; with advising and 
 exhorting Jobn Muir, sen., late hatter in Glasgow, 
 Thomas Wilson, barber in Glasgow, and John 
 Barclay of Calder, to read Paine’s ‘ Rights of 
 Man,’ and to purchase the same; with distribut- 
 ing himself Thomas Paine’s works, ‘a Declaration 
 of Rights,’* a‘ Dialogue betwixt the Governors and 
 the Governed,’+ and other inflammatory publica- 
 tions; and with having caused to be received, 
 read, and answered by the Convention of Dele- 
 gates, “* An Address from the Society of United 
 Irishmen in Dublin to the Delegates for Promoting 
 a Reform in Scotland,” which address was de- 
 scribed—and certainly not incorrectly—as a paper 
 of a most inflammatory and seditious tendency, 
 representing the Irish and Scotch nations as in a 
 state of downright oppression, and exciting the 
 people to rise up against the government. Muir 
 had been brought before the sheriff-depute of the 
 county of Edinburgh on the 2rd of January, 1793, 
 shortly after the meeting of his Convention, and 
 had signed a declaration ; but immediately after- 
 wards he disappeared. His trial had been fixed 
 for the 11th of February, and time had been given 
 him till the 25th of that month, when, on his non- 
 appearance, the Court of Justiciary had declared 
 him “ fugitate.” In the month of July he had 
 been discovered and apprehended at Port Patrick, 
 when there had been found upon him a copy of 
 Paine’s works, a copy of the Address from the 
 Society of United Irishmen, and other papers 
 held to be highly suspicious. These facts were 
 inserted in the indictment, where it was declared 
 that, conscious of his guilt, he had absconded 
 from his own country; and that he had lately, 
 in a private and clandestine manner, come back, 
 by way of Ireland. On the trial it appeared, 
 and vastly to the disadvantage of the prisoner, 
 that he had been in France, as well as in Ire- 
 land, and that he had remained in France a con- 
 siderable time after the declaration of war, living 
 in friendly and intimate terms with some of the 
 most conspicuous men of the revolution. Muir 
 declared, and in good part proved, that he had not 
 gone off in a secret manner; that he had publicly 
 announced his journey in a numerous meeting of 
 
 * This § Declaration of Rights’ proceeded from a society calling 
 themselves ‘* The Friends of Reform in Paisley.” The members were 
 chiefly working weavers. 
 
 + This dialogue, which contained the essence of Paine’s system of 
 
 Olitics and religion, was an extract from M. Volney’s ‘ Ruins of 
 
26 3 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 citizens at Edinburgh; that he had first gone to 
 London, where he had appeared in public and had 
 attended the meeting of a distinguished society, the 
 Society of the Friends of the People; that by the 
 advice of some friends he had proceeded to Paris 
 some days before the execution of Louis XVI., in 
 order to attempt to mitigate the fate of that unfor- 
 tunate prince, whose death, it was thought, might 
 afford a pretext for plunging Great Britain into 
 war, and for denying or retarding that parlia- 
 mentary reform which good men held to be ne- 
 cessary to our salvation ;* that while in Paris he 
 had pleaded the cause of mercy, of individual and 
 of general humanity; that the sudden declaration 
 of hostilities, the embargo laid on all vessels, &c., 
 had prevented his quitting France earlier than the 
 month of May; that he had gone to Ireland be- 
 cause he had found at Havre a neutral American 
 vessel that was to touch at Belfast; that, if insur- 
 rections had happened in Ireland during his stay 
 in that country, he had had nothing to do with 
 them; that he had indeed associated with Mr. 
 Hamilton Rowan, a leader of the United Irishmen, 
 but that Rowan was a patriot and a gentleman of 
 whose acquaintance he should ever feel proud ; and, 
 finally, that he had not returned to Scotland in a 
 clandestine manner, but openly and with the ob- 
 ject of demanding justice and a fair trial to wipe 
 away the imputations which had been cast upon him. 
 Muir, who defended himself with great ability and 
 considerable eloquence, maintained that the societies 
 to which he belonged had never entertained any 
 other plan or notion than that of reforming a part 
 of the constitution—the House of Commons—by 
 strictly constitutional means, such as representa- 
 tions and petitions. The witnesses in his favour 
 seem to have been on the whole of a more respect- 
 able kind than those produced by the prosecution 
 against him: among them they swore that Muir 
 had frequently moderated the too great warmth 
 of other reformers in the clubs and meetings ; 
 that he had repeatedly declared that the monar- 
 chical part of our constitution was good, and to be 
 preserved, and that many of the principles of Paine’s 
 book were altogether impracticable, while others 
 were inapplicable to these countries; that he had 
 reprobated the doctrine of equality, as it implied 
 violation of property, and asserted that a lasting 
 equal division of property was.a chimera which 
 never could exist; that he had said that there was no 
 comparison to be instituted between Great Britain 
 and France; that in France they had sought a 
 revolution, and had brought it about, but that in 
 Britain we wanted no revolution, but only a mo- 
 derate reform ; that in his addresses to the people, 
 in their political societies, he constantly endea- 
 voured to impress upon their minds the necessity 
 
 * The Scots crown lawyers endeavoured to show that Muir had 
 gone to Paris commissioned by the English Society of the Friends of 
 the People, but they evidently failed in proving the fact. Thomas 
 Paine had numerous correspondents, and, as he was most anxious to 
 prevent the execution of Louis, he very possibly suggested the send- 
 ing over of some British liberal or liberals to plead the cause of 
 
 mercy with the deputies of the Convention. But the idea may have 
 occurred without any suggestion from Paine. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 of good order, and that, before they attempted 
 public reformation, they should begin by reforming 
 themselves; that he had endeavoured to promote 
 the self-education of the people, recommending 
 good and constitutional books, histories and works 
 of general literature, and assisting in the formation 
 of societies for the purchasing and reading such 
 works. ‘The most valuable witness, on the part of 
 the crown, was a woman-seryant that had lived in 
 his father’s house, where Muir himself usually 
 resided. She deposed that Muir used.to be much 
 busied about reading and writing, but she could 
 not tell the subject: that he had frequently told 
 country-people and others that Paine’s ‘ Rights of 
 Man’ was avery good book; that at his desire she 
 had frequently bought copies of the said book for 
 sundry persons; that Muir, in her hearing, had 
 advised his hairdresser to buy a copy and keep it 
 in his shop to enlighten the people, as it confuted 
 Mr. Burke entirely, and as a barber’s shop was 
 a good place for reading in; that Mr. Muir had a 
 great many books and pamphlets, and among 
 them, ‘ Flower on the French Constitution,’ the 
 ‘Declaration of Rights, the ‘ Dialogue betwixt 
 the Governors and the Governed,’ which last he 
 used to read to his mother, sisters, and others, say- 
 ing it was very clever, and written by one Volney, 
 one of the first wits in France; that Mr. Muir fre- 
 quently read French law-books, and had a good 
 many copies of Paine’s * Rights of Man’ “ up 
 stairs ;”? that she recollected hearing him say, that 
 if everybody had a vote he would be a member of - 
 parliament for Calder; that members of parlia- 
 ment would then have thirty or forty shillings 
 a-day ; that none would be members but honest 
 men who would keep the constitution clean, and 
 give new councillors to the king, such as would 
 govern the nation with justice: that she had heard 
 it said by him that France was the most flourish- 
 ing nation in the world, since they had abolished 
 tyranny and got a free government; but that she 
 had also heard him say that the constitution of 
 this country was very good, but that many abuses 
 had crept in, which required a thorough reform— 
 that he was for a monarchy under proper restric- 
 tions, and a parliament that knew what they were 
 about—that a republican form of government was 
 the best, but that the monarchy had been so long 
 established in this country, that it would be im- 
 proper to alter it; and, finally, she deposed that 
 she herself had been sent by Mr. Muir to a grind- 
 ing organist in the streets of Glasgow to desire 
 him to play Ca Jra. The evidence for the prose- 
 cution failed completely in proving any intention on 
 the part of the prisoner, or any society with which he 
 was connected, of having recourse to insurrection, 
 or riot, or any act of violence—and much less of 
 seeking for any French assistance :—all that it esta- 
 blished was, that Muir had proposed in the Conven- 
 tion the receiving and answering of the violent 
 address of the United Irishmen; that during his 
 stay in Paris, and even after the execution of the 
 king, he had professed great friendship for many 
 
 aan neem ee AR i” 
 . ‘sg 
 : 
 
 WE PRE On Se BR ag 
 
Cup. VIII.] 
 
 of the French leaders; that before and since he 
 had expressed exultation at the trial and victories 
 of the French republicans over the armies of the 
 coalition, or over his majesty’s allies and his ma- 
 jesty’s own troops; that during his stay in Ireland 
 he had given the pledge and had been admitted a 
 member of the society of United Irishmen of 
 Dublin ; that his reformers and clubbists consisted 
 almost entirely of weavers and mechanics, villagers, 
 and small manufacturers; and it also seemed 
 proved by some letters from the prisoner’s father, 
 found upon him when he was arrested at Port 
 Patrick, that Muir had seriously thought of fly- 
 ing from Ireland to America, instead of returning 
 to Scotland. Upon these points the lord-advocate 
 and the judges dwelt at rare length, and with rare 
 violence. Morally, Muir, with hundreds of others 
 who were never molested, had been guilty of im- 
 prudence ; and in his continued admiration of the 
 French reyolutionists he had shown himself want- 
 ing both in intellectual and moral discrimination : 
 eyen legally he might be guilty of conduct not 
 strictly justifiable in all respects, but the court 
 and the public prosecutor maintained that his 
 offences fell but little short of high treason. The 
 lord-advocate called him “ that unfortunate wretch 
 at the bar,’ “ that demon of mischief,” “ that 
 pest of Scotland,” who had intended to revolu- 
 tionise these countries in the manner of France, 
 who had gone to Paris in furtherance of that ob- 
 ject, &c. The lord justice-clerk in summing up 
 took several things for granted, which assuredly 
 were not proved. Not being quite bold enough 
 to give the lie to the witnesses who had sworn that 
 Muir had always discountenanced violent proceed- 
 ings (a fact as plainly and as largely admitted by 
 the witnesses for the prosecution as by the wit- 
 nesses for the defence), he turned that very 
 moderation against him, saying, “ Mr. Muir’s 
 plan of discouraging revolt, and all sort of tumult, 
 was certainly political; for, until everything was 
 ripe for a general insurrection, any tumult or dis- 
 _ order could only tend, as he himself said, to ruin 
 his cause: he was, in the mean time, however, 
 evidently poisoning the minds of the common 
 people, and preparing them for rebellion”? The 
 jury (though unanimity is not necessary ina Scots 
 jury), “all in one voice” found the prisoner 
 guilty of sedition or of the crimes imputed to him. 
 It seems to have been expected by Muir and his 
 friends that his punishment would not exceed in 
 Severity that already allotted by the same court to 
 the printers and other persons who had been con- 
 victed under similar charges. But their lordships, 
 after saying that they had their choice of banish- 
 ment, fine, whipping, imprisonment, and trans- 
 portation, agreed that the proper punishment for 
 Muir was transportation for fourteen years! We 
 have said that the prisoner defended himself with 
 ability and eloquence; but in some respects his 
 eloquence did him dis-service with the jury, for it 
 carried him away into useless and unseasonable 
 declamations about the virtues of the: common 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 27 
 ee eS O nO arene eS 
 
 people and the vices of the aristocracy, about the 
 patriotism of the United Irishmen and the pa- 
 triotism and virtue of reformers in general— 
 and this at a moment when, right or wrong, the 
 word reform, more especially in Scotland, had 
 come to be considered as a synonyme for revolu- 
 tion. His friends and admirers, too, did him no 
 good: they loudly cheered him when he finished 
 his speech; and the court, not satisfied with re- 
 proving this irregularity, construed it into an ex- 
 aggeration and proof of the prisoner’s guilt, or of 
 the perilous and disaffected state of a part of the 
 country. The ministerial influence was indeed 
 great and disproportionate in Scotland in those 
 days ; but it should appear that the spontaneous 
 feeling of the majority of the people was cause 
 enough to account for precipitate conclusions and 
 harsh judgments in trials of this nature. . 
 Palmer was not a Scotsman, but an Englishman, 
 settled in the country. He was descended from an 
 ancient and wealthy family in Bedfordshire. He 
 was educated at Eton, and was afterwards entered 
 at Queen’s College, Cambridge, where he took the 
 several degrees of B.A., A.M., and B.D., and ob- 
 tained a Fellowship. He was for some time curate 
 at Leatherhead, in Surrey. But a short time after 
 taking his last degree at Cambridge, which was in 
 the year 1782, when he was in his thirty-fifth year, 
 he abandoned the Church of England and embraced 
 the doctrines of the Unitarians. The sincerity of 
 his conversion, attributed to the perusal and study 
 of the controversial writings of Dr. Priestley 
 and Mr. Lindsey, seemed to be tested by the 
 sacrifices he made, sacrifices which included 
 an estrangement from his family and_ friends. 
 Shortly afterwards he went to Montrose, in Scot- 
 land, where a Unitarian chapel had then re- 
 cently been opened by Mr. W. Christie. He 
 resided some twenty months in this town, and 
 then removed to Dundee to take charge of another 
 Unitarian chapel there. He preached very fre- 
 quently in some neighbouring towns where there 
 were small Unitarian congregations; and at For- 
 far and in Edinburgh he delivered a series of dis- 
 courses in vindication of the religious principles he 
 had adopted. However acceptable these proceed- 
 ings may have been to those who entertained the 
 same opinions as himself, they were little likely to 
 propitiate the rigid Calvinists of Scotland, who were 
 indeed somewhat slow in learning the lessons of 
 religious toleration. His theological creed alone 
 was enough tocrush him. His trial came on be- 
 fore the circuit court of justiciary at Perth on the 
 12th of September. He was simply charged with 
 writing and publishing an ‘ Address to the People,’ 
 which had proceeded from the Society of the 
 Friends of Liberty at Dundee. In his case there 
 had been no evasion or appearance of evasion, no 
 residence in France or in Ireland, no voting upon 
 the extreme principles of the Society of United 
 Irishmen ; but he had been the friend or political 
 correspondent of Muir, and on the trial of that 
 gentleman the court had artfully endeavoured to 
 
 Re aE ENE RIOT a eR a mR RE een ee ee 
 
28 
 
 link them or their offences together. Palmer, 
 whose enthusiasm appears to have been, on some 
 points, nearly allied to insanity, may very pos- 
 sibly have delivered from the pulpit, or in club- 
 meetings, or in private society, extravagant, and, 
 as they were then considered, dangerous political 
 opinions ; but on the trial this was neither proved 
 nor attempted to be proved, the prosecution con- 
 fning itself to the writing and publishing the 
 Dundee Club Address to the People. The fact of 
 publication was distinctly proved against him, but 
 with the drawing up of the Address he appeared to 
 have had little to do: one of the witnesses for the 
 crown, George Mealmaker, a raw youth and weaver 
 of Dundee, avowed that he himself had written the 
 Address. It appeared that Palmer had revised 
 itfur the press, amending the spelling and the 
 grammar ; but it further appeared that in so doing 
 he had struck out some strong passages altogether, 
 and had softened the language of others. His 
 counsel delicately hinted at the touch of insanity, 
 speaking of ‘‘ certain peculiarities in the character 
 of Mr. Palmer,” and of the extravagance of some 
 pamphlets he had published to vindicate his prin- 
 ciples as a Unitarian. He was going toread some 
 passages from one of these pamphlets, but he stop- 
 ped himself and said, “‘ No! Icannot read these 
 wild effusions—I am afraid they would be consi- 
 dered as unfit fora public reading. I shall only say 
 that no one upon reading the pamphlet (if, indeed, 
 it can be read) would think the mind of the au- 
 thor perfectly rational.”* But what his counsel 
 might wish to represent as madness, the jurymen 
 might take for deliberate wickedness and horrible 
 impiety: without any attention to this plea they 
 brought in their verdict, ‘* all in -one voice,’’ of 
 Guilty, and their lordships ordered and adjudged 
 that the prisoner should be transported beyond the 
 seas for seven years. 
 
 The result of these trials did not check the ar- 
 dour of the reformers and the clubbists, and the 
 so-called Convention, instead of dissolving itself, 
 extended its connexions and proceeded to much 
 more questionable acts. On the 29th of October 
 the Convention assembled at Edinburgh under the 
 presidency of Mr. John M‘Intyre, and delegations 
 were received from other political societies in Lon- 
 don, Sheffield, Glasgow, Paisley, Dundee, Dun- 
 fermline, Kirkaldy, Perth, Linlithgow, Hamilton, 
 and a score of other towns. Letters were pre- 
 sented from some English clubs sigued by Thomas 
 Hardy and others. Mr. William Skirving, a 
 friend of Muir and Palmer, and secretary to the 
 Convention, read several papers which were cer- 
 tainly of a very inflammatory kind; and among 
 them was one, setting forth the necessity of apply- 
 ing for universal suffrage and annual parliaments, 
 to the king, and not to the British Parliament ; 
 
 * Palmer had published various pamphlets and theological tracts. 
 Among them are enumerated—1l. ‘An Attempt to refute a Sermon, 
 by H, D. Inglis, on the Godhead of Jesus Christ, and to restore the 
 long-lost Truth of the First Commandment.’ 2, ‘An Attempt to 
 prove the Fallen Angels to have been only the Sons of Scth.’ 
 3. ‘An Attempt to show that the Cock-crowing which Peter heard 
 was the Sound of a Trumpet.’ 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 and another, proposing an address to the distressed 
 and out-of-work weavers, mechanics, &c. The 
 Convention continued sitting for several days, 
 making nearer and nearer approaches to the pro- 
 ceedings and prepotency of the great Mother So- 
 ciety of Paris. There was, however, one very 
 notable difference,—the Scotsmen generally opened 
 and closed their sittings with a prayer. Fresh 
 deputations continued to arrive from other affili- 
 ated or corresponding societies, and with this 
 seeming accession of strength the Conyention be- 
 came bolder and hotter. ‘The evidence on his 
 trial had failed to prove that Muir had ever gone 
 these lengths; but now from his prison in the 
 Tolbooth he communicated with these assembled 
 delegates, and seemed to identify his opinions and 
 principles with theirs. If he could not be tried 
 again, neither was this the way for obtaining a 
 revision of his sentence or a mitigation of his pu- 
 nishment. Subscriptions were set on foot for 
 defraying the public charges of the Convention ; 
 and some notion may be conyeyed of the condition 
 of these national delegates by the sum total of their 
 first subscription—3/. 11s. 63d. The delegates 
 were of one mind on the capital question of uni- 
 versal suffrage. 
 
 On the 6th of November Citizens Hamilton 
 Rowan and Simon Butler appeared in the Con- 
 vention in the name of the United Irishmen, and 
 Citizens Margarott and Gerald presented them- 
 selves as delegates from London, and were all 
 introduced and received with acclamations. Ci- 
 tizen Margarott stated that he had escaped from 
 five hundred constables, who had beset a popular 
 meeting at London in order to prevent the sending 
 of delegates to Edinburgh; that he trusted the 
 Convention would sirtke terror in their enemies; 
 that the political societies in London were very 
 numerous, though sometimes fluctuating; that in 
 some parts of England whole towns were reform- 
 ers; that in Sheffield and its environs there were 
 50,000 ; that, if they could only get a convention of 
 England and Scotland united, they might represent 
 six or seven hundred thousand males, which would 
 be a majority of all the adult males in the kingdom, 
 and constitute such a force that ministry would 
 not dare to refuse their rights—universal suffrage, 
 annual parliaments, &c. Citizen Gerald, speaking 
 for England, said that he came armed with a full 
 power of delegation: everything the people had 
 gained had been through conventions; and what 
 was the great revolution of 1688 but the conse- 
 quence of a convention? Citizen Butler said he 
 would give an actount of Ireland: there the 
 executive part of the government was almost 
 omnipotent, the landed interest was almost wholly 
 aristocratic, the manufacturer was idle. Last 
 parliament was expected to have given Ireland 
 emancipation, but that prospect had been overeast. 
 An infamous coalition had taken place between the 
 Irish opposition and ministry. The Catholics had 
 retired with what they had got; and, no longer 
 opposed by them, the government had turned their 
 
th FF 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 oppressive measures against the friends of reform. 
 The United Irishmen were prosecuted: he himself 
 had experienced six months’ imprisonment. But 
 freedom dwelt in almost every heart and must tri- 
 umph. In Scotland he was happy to see the 
 delegates of the people still met in convention, but 
 in Ireland the parliament had enacted laws against 
 it. It was agreed that the thanks of the Conven- 
 tion should be sent to the societies in England and 
 Ireland; that Citizens Hamilton Rowan, Simon 
 Butler, Margarott, &c., should be admitted as 
 members of the Convention; and that the powers 
 of the delegates of this Convention should continue 
 until another Convention was called. As far as 
 we can discover, no plain and direct mention was 
 made by any of them of an appeal to arms; but 
 a score of them spoke of striking terror into their 
 enemies by their numbers and strength. They 
 seemed, indeed, to have a very clear notion of what 
 the Parisians had meant by an insurrection toute 
 morale. ‘There were several mad gentlemen sit- 
 ting as delegates, and among them one mad lord, 
 the maddest of them all. ‘This was Lord Dacr 
 (son of the Earl of Selkirk), who had passed a 
 considerable time in Paris, and who had _ been 
 thoroughly indoctrinated by Brissot, Thomas 
 Pame, and other prophets. It was his lordship 
 that. recommended the organization after the 
 fashion of the great Jacobin Club in the Rue 
 St. Honoré ; but in this he was much assisted by 
 Margarott. They divided the Convention into 
 sections and committees, the committees to meet 
 in the forenoon, and the Convention at five in the 
 afternoon: they had their committees of organiza- 
 tion, of correspondence, of finance, of secrecy ; 
 they named their places of meeting after the 
 French—there was ‘‘ Liberty Hall,’’? “ Liberty 
 Stairs,’ &c. They made ‘* honourable mention,” 
 and gave the “ honours of the sitting,” even as in 
 France. ‘They proceeded to institute primary and 
 provincial assemblies, and the division of the 
 country into departments. Margarott, on the 19th 
 of November, moved that a committee should be 
 appointed “to consider and draw up a proper plan 
 of union between the two nations, according to the 
 resolution passed yesterday by the Convention.” 
 They named their gazettes and official journals, 
 and agreed that.a committee of five should be ap- 
 pointed for the purpose of drawing up weekly an 
 abstract of the debates and proceedings of the Con- 
 vention, in order that the same might be printed, 
 and a copy sent to every affiliated society. Great 
 anxiety was expressed about the Highland clans, 
 who were now as remarkable for their loyalty to 
 the House of Brunswick as they had once been 
 for their attachment to the unhappy race of the 
 Stuarts ; and it was unanimously resolved that the 
 Convention should take means to convert all the 
 Maes to its own way of thinking, or, as it was ex- 
 pressed in the minutes, ‘should take some method 
 of enlightening the Highlands of Scotland.” It 
 was moved and carried that a fund should be 
 raised by subscription for defraying the expense 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 29 
 
 of small patriotic publications to be distributed 
 in the Highlands; that every publication should 
 bear the figure of a Highlandman in full dress, 
 with target and broadsword, to attract the attention 
 of Highlandmen; and that none of these pub- 
 lications should cost more than one halfpenny, 
 Citizen Skirving insisted that all the members, 
 both of the Convention and of the primary as- 
 semblies, ought to subscribe a solemn league 
 and covenant, as the Scots had done when pre- 
 paring to make war against Charles I.; but this 
 was considered unnecessary, as all the members 
 were already bound. Several of the Conventional- 
 ists now expressed their contempt for the revolu- 
 tion of 1688: Citizen Gerald compared the con- 
 stitution we got by it to a dead horse. The same 
 citizen was very indignant not only at titles, like 
 lord, marquess, or duke, but at the use of the word 
 gentleman ; he thought no designation ought to be 
 used among freemen except that of citizen—and 
 citizens they all called themselves and one another, 
 from my Lord Daer down to the weaver’s appren- 
 tice. A Citizen Brown, delegate from Sheftield, 
 thought it would be proper to determine whether 
 the next Convention should not meet south of the 
 Tweed, in the free town of Sheffield, or some other 
 English town abounding in political reformers. 
 Citizen Hastie said—‘*‘ The spot of ground on 
 which we meet is of little moment. Englishmen 
 and Scotsmen have declared for universal suffrage 
 and annual parliaments; to cbtain these objects 
 they are united; they will proceed until they are 
 secured, or yield the pursuit only with their lives.” 
 For his part he thought the best place for the next 
 meeting would be on the borders of England and 
 Scotland. Another delegate spoke as if York were 
 a proper place; but this proposition was very un- 
 palatable to Citizen Gerald, one of the London 
 delegates, who said—* The city of York has been 
 proposed as a proper and centrical place; but I 
 can assure you that city is the seat of a proud 
 aristocracy, the seat of an archbishop! However, 
 I would not altogether object to going thither: as 
 the Saviour of the world was often found in the 
 company of sinners, let us go there for the same 
 gracious purpose, to convert to repentance! But 
 certainly I should prefer some place on the bor- 
 ders.” Citizen Newton, who had probably some 
 Cameronian blood in him, moved that the com- 
 mittee of regulations should appoint a day of 
 solemn fasting, prayer, and humiliation, to be kept 
 by all the friends of reform in Great Britain and 
 Ireland. ‘This motion occasioned a very warm de- 
 bate. [The violent differences in religious opi- 
 nions would soon have set these reformers by the 
 ears if they had been left to themselves.] But 
 Citizen Gerald moved the following amendment, 
 which, in a great measure, conciliating opinions, 
 was agreed to:—‘* That it be recommended to 
 the individual members of this Convention, and to 
 all the friends of liberty in Great Britain and Ire- 
 land, to invoke the assistance of God Almighty, 
 the common father of all, in the cause in which 
 
30 | HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 we are engaged.’? The Convention had gone these 
 lengths, and further, when (on the 4th of Decem- 
 ber) it was announced that the Edinburgh magis- 
 trates intended to break it up and disperse its 
 members. Hereupon it was voted that the mo- 
 ment of any illegal dispersion should be considered 
 as a summons to the delegates to repair to the 
 place of meeting to be appointed for the Conven- 
 tion of Emergency; and that the secret committee 
 should be directed to proceed without delay to fix 
 the place of meeting. On the next day the presi- 
 dent announced that he had been arrested, that 
 Margarott had been arrested, that several other 
 delegates had been arrested, but that they had all 
 been admitted to bail, their several papers, which 
 had been seized and sealed, remaining in the hands 
 of the sheriff. He had scarcely finished this an- 
 nouncement when the lord provost, properly 
 attended, presented himself, and insisted upon 
 their immediate departure thence, telling them that 
 they might meet in any private houses. Skirving 
 told his lordship that that was a private house— 
 that he had taken it for a time certain for the use 
 of the British Convention—that it was a Free- 
 masons’ lodge, and nothing could be more private 
 than a masons’ lodge. The lord provost said that 
 he looked upon their meeting and proceedings as 
 illegal and unconstitutional, that it was his duty to 
 disperse them, and that he was determined to 
 doit. The delegates said that their meeting was 
 strictly legal and constitutional, and that they were 
 determined to remain. Citizen Paterson, how- 
 ever, vacated the president’s chair, The Conyen- 
 tion instantly elected another president, and 
 Citizen Brown took the chair in defiance of the 
 provost. After some altercation, the lord provost 
 said he would act as chief constable, and, stepping 
 up to the chair, he pulled Brown from it by force. 
 The cry of violence was then raised, and a dele- 
 gate, getting on a table, moved to adjourn to ano- 
 ther masons’ lodge at the head of the Canongate. 
 This was agreed to; and they met that same even- 
 ing at the place named, and then and there, under 
 the presidency of the same Citizen Brown, they 
 declared the Convention to be in permanent ses- 
 sion. But, on the very next day, as they were in 
 the act of receiving deputations from various parts 
 of the country, the sheriff-substitute, attended by 
 the magistrates of Edinburgh and a little army of 
 constables, invaded this lodge at the head of the 
 Canongate, and intimated that, unless the meeting 
 dissolved quietly, he had orders to dissolve it by 
 force; and, hereupon, after a short unctuous 
 prayer from Citizen Gerald, who prayed the Lord 
 of Hosts to be a pillar of fire to them, as he was 
 to their fathers of old, to enlighten and direct 
 them, and to be to their enemies a pillar of cloud, 
 of darkness, and confusion, the delegates and depu- 
 ties of this British Convention began to disperse. 
 It appears, however, that actual force was neces- 
 sary to remove some of them. Four days after 
 this dispersion an ‘ Address to the Friends of the 
 People,’ signed by Skirving, appeared in the 
 
 Be 
 a 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 public newspapers, stating that, the British Con- | 
 vention being now constrained to adjourn to the 
 place appointed for its meetings of emergency, the 
 general committee were requested to assemble in a 
 house belonging to Mr. Skirving, their secretary, 
 formerly denominated the Cock-pit.* 
 
 But Citizen Skirving could not rally in any 
 great force the scattered Convention ; and on the 
 6th of January (1794) he was brought before the 
 Court of Justiciary, and condemned on the follow- 
 ing day to fourteen years’ transportation. On the 
 13th of the same month Citizen Margarott, the 
 London delegate, who styled himself ‘* a merchant 
 residing in Marylebone,” was put upon his trial 
 before the same court, and was sentenced on the 
 next day to the same term of transportation as 
 Skirving and Muir. In the month of March 
 Gerald, another of the English delegates, was 
 tried by -the Court of Justiciary, and was also 
 sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation. 
 
 In the mean time Muir and Palmer were brought 
 from Leith on board a revenue cutter, and on the 
 19th of December (1793) they were delivered into 
 the custody of Duncan Campbell, the contractor for 
 the hulks at Woolwich, who put them on board 
 one of the hulks. ‘Though confined among com- 
 mon felons, and for some time, it is said, in irons, 
 they were treated with much humanity, being 
 allowed all the accommodations which their situ- 
 ation would admit of, and being freely permitted 
 to see their friends. Among those who hastened 
 to visit them in the hulks, and to get up a subserip- 
 tion in their behalf, were Dr. Priestley and Mr. 
 Lindsey. By some this punishment was con- 
 sidered as unreasonably severe. arly in the pre- 
 sent session Mr. Adam moved in the House of 
 Commons for leave to bring in a bill for making 
 some important alterations in the crimimal law of 
 Scotland, and for allowing of appeals from the 
 Court of Justiciary in matters of law. Leave be- 
 ing refused, Mr. Adam, on the 14th of February, 
 gave notice that he would bring forward a motion 
 for the relief of Messrs. Muir and -Palmer in 
 another form. In the mean time Sheridan, on 
 the 24th, presented a petition from Palmer, repre- 
 senting that he conceived the sentence passed upon 
 him by the High Court of Justiciary, from which 
 there was no appeal, to be unjust. Pitt objected 
 that the petition could not be received by the 
 House without an improper interposition between 
 the sentence of a competent court and its execu- 
 tion. But it was Dundas that most startled those 
 who were pleading, or about to plead, for the two 
 prisoners: he intimated that the sentence was 
 already executed, that the warrant for the trans- 
 portation of Mr, Palmer was both signed and 
 issued. A motion for adjourning the debate to 
 Thursday, the 27th, having been carried, it was 
 moved by Mr. Whitbread that his majesty should 
 
 * * Copy of the Minutes of that assembly which at first called 
 itself the General Convention of the Friends of the People, and 
 which afterwards took the name of the British Convention of the 
 Delegates of the People, associated to obtain Universal Suffrage and 
 Annual Parliaments,” in Howell, State Trials. 
 
. Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 be requested to prevent Mr. Palmer from being 
 sent off before that day; but this proposition was 
 negatived by a large majority. In the end, how- 
 ever, Pitt found himself compelled to allow the 
 reception of Palmer’s petition. On March the 
 10th Adam was allowed to move for a revision 
 of the trials of Muir and Palmer. He said that 
 * leasing-making,” the crime for which those two 
 men ought to have been indicted, corresponded 
 to that misdemeanour called in England a public 
 libel on government tending to disturb the peace; 
 that the only punishment provided by Scottish law 
 for leasing-making was fine, imprisonment, or 
 banishment ; that transportation was consequently 
 illegal; and he further declared that, in his opi- 
 nion, the trial had been unfair and oppressive, and 
 the sentence altogether illegal, arbitrary, and un- 
 warrantable. ‘The trial had certainly been con- 
 ducted with improper heat and violence. Fox 
 mentioned that one of the lords of Justiciary had 
 said that no man had a right to speak of the con- 
 stitution unless he possessed /anded property, and 
 that another of those judges had asserted that 
 since the disuse of torture there was no adequate 
 punishment for sedition.* The lord-advocate of 
 Scotland, Pitt, and Windham, defended the Scottish 
 court and its sentence. ‘The first of these gentle- 
 men, who was therein supported by Dundas, said 
 that the Scotch laws were better than the English 
 for the punishment of libels and the suppression 
 of seditious practices. The majority of the House 
 seemed to agree with them, and Adam’s motion 
 was negatived by 171 against 32. Motions made 
 
 in favour of the two convicts in the Upper House, 
 
 by Earls Lauderdale and Stanhope, were not more 
 successful; and there the lord chancellor carried a 
 resolution that there were no grounds. for interfer- 
 ing with any of the criminal courts of justice as 
 now established. Skirving and Margarott, having 
 been brought up from Leith, were put on board 
 the same convict-ship, ‘ the Surprise,’ which, being 
 obliged to wait for convoy to a certain latitude, 
 did not set sail for New South Wales until the end 
 of April. Before their departure from the Thames 
 it was discovered that the general character of 
 Margarott did not stand very high: on the voyage 
 he quarrelled with his brother delegates and com- 
 panions in misfortune; he entered into a most 
 friendly intercourse with the master of the ship, 
 while an accusation was brought against Palmer 
 and Skirving of heading a conspiracy to murder the 
 master and the crew, in order that they might carry 
 the ship into some foreign port, and for this the 
 two accused were closely confined below deck, and 
 otherwise treated with great severity. Muir, who 
 was not included in the accusation, and who was 
 
 * The lord justice-clerk had said roundly and roughly, “A 
 government in every country should be just like a corporation; 
 and, in this country, it is made up of the landed interest, which 
 alone has a right to be represented; as for the rabble, who have 
 nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation of them? 
 They may pack up all their property on their backs, and leave the 
 country in the twinkling of an eye!” It was Lord Swinton who 
 had said, ‘‘ If punishment adequate to the crime of sedition were to 
 
 be sought for, it could not be found in our law, now that torture is 
 happily abolished.” oes 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 31 
 
 treated with comparative kindness by the ship- 
 captain and those who had charge of the convicts, 
 bore strong evidence to the injustice and falsehood 
 of the charge, and joined Palmer and Skirving in 
 representing Margarott as an accessary to the 
 wrongs they had suffered, as an instigator of their 
 accusation, and as a man rejected and expelled 
 from their society. They all four arrived at Port 
 Jackson at the end of October, and were not long 
 afterwards joined by Gerald. They were treated 
 with great kindness by the governor and the few 
 respectable inhabitants of the infant and penal 
 colony: houses were allotted to Muir, Skirving, 
 and Palmer, near to each other; but ‘‘ the mer- 
 chant of Marylebone”? was accommodated with a 
 lodging at some distance from them. Palmer 
 wrote to his friends that they had no cause to com- 
 plain of any want of civility or attention. He 
 and Skirving employed themselves in cultivating 
 the land allotted to them; and both sent home 
 favourable accounts of the climate, thé country, and 
 the fertility of the soil. Muir, shortly after his 
 arrival, effected his escape to South America. He 
 was at San Sebastian, Rio Janeiro, in July, 1794. 
 From South America he took a passage to Spain 
 on board a Spanish ship in 1796, when Spain had 
 made her peace with the French, and declared war 
 against England. During this voyage he was in 
 great jeopardy, for the ship he sailed in was at- 
 tacked by a British frigate: he received a wound 
 im the head during the action, but if he had been 
 captured he would have been hanged. On his 
 arrival in Spain he was cast into prison, where he 
 languished until Talleyrand applied for and ob- 
 tained his release in the name of the French re- 
 public. Muir then repaired to France, and died at 
 Bordeaux. Gerald, who was in very bad health 
 when he left England, died soon after his arrival 
 in New South Wales, and Skirving did not survive 
 him long. Palmer lived nearly two years beyond 
 the term of his transportation, and might very 
 possibly have returned to England if he had not 
 chosen to take a very roundabout adventurous 
 course. At the beginning of 1800 (by the end of 
 which year it was lawful for him to re-appear in 
 his own country) he was allowed to embark in a 
 vessel, which he and some others had purchased 
 with the intention of going to New Zealand to take 
 in a cargo of timber for the Cape of Good Hope 
 market. The ship, principally the property of 
 Palmer, was soon found to be a very crazy craft; 
 and, though they had only taken in provision for 
 six months, they spent twenty-six weeks at New 
 Zealand, where they could obtain no supplies pro- 
 per for a long sea-voyage. Famishing, and ap- 
 parently very deficient in the sciences of geography 
 and navigation, they beat about the great Pacific, 
 wandering in search of proyisions from one group 
 of islands to another, and never hitting upon a land 
 of plenty, until they got to the island of Goraa, 
 where they ran their crazy vessel on a reef, and 
 well nigh lost her and themselves. Having, by 
 the friendly assistance of the natives, repaired the 
 
 i et TS 
 
32 
 
 craft and obtained some provisions, they resolved 
 to go; not to the Cape of Good Hope, but to China. 
 They shaped their course for Macao, but meeting 
 with contrary winds they made little way; their 
 provisions were soon exhausted, and the ill-repaired 
 vessel began again to open her seams. ‘To escape 
 the double risk of starviug and drowning, they ran 
 into the island of Guam, a possession of the 
 Spaniards, who seized their vessel and made them 
 prisoners of war, but otherwise treated them with 
 much kindness and hospitality. After remaining 
 here about eighteen months, Palmer died of dysen- 
 tery, in the beginning of June, 1802. The only one 
 of the five who returned to England was Margarott, 
 who is said to have conducted himself through- 
 out with abandoned and shameless profligacy. 
 In the year 1812 he appeared before a committee 
 of the House of Commons appointed to examine 
 the transportation system. By his testimony it 
 appeared that he had remained in New South 
 Wales until the year 1810, and that the expense 
 attending his return to London amounted to 450/. 
 He died in 1815, while a subscription was raising 
 for his relief.* 
 
 Before the departure of the condemned Scottish 
 reformers from the Thames two political trials 
 were begun and terminated in England. Eaton, a 
 bookseller of Bishopgate-street, was brought before 
 the city court at the Old Bailey, on an indictment 
 for publishing a seditious libel entitled ‘ Politics 
 for the People, or Hogs’-wash.’? English juries 
 being much less alarmed and excited than Edin- 
 burgh ones, Eaton was acquitted. It soon became 
 apparent that it was as difficult for the crown 
 lawyers to obtain verdicts in England as it was 
 easy for their brethren to obtain them in Scotland: 
 there every political prisoner was brought in guilty,t 
 and here every one was acquitted. On the 2nd of 
 April, Mr. Thomas Walker, merchant, of Manches- 
 ter, and a leader of the political societies in that 
 place, was with six others (four labourers or me- 
 chanics, one § gentleman,’ and one surgeon) tried at 
 the Lancaster assizes for a conspiracy to overthrow 
 the constitution and government, and to aid and 
 assist the French in case they should invade this 
 kingdom. Walker and his brother Richard (who 
 was not indicted) were both hot-headed men, evi- 
 dently capable of going great lengths. Walker had 
 signed addresses to the Jacobins, but not since the 
 declaration of war. He had brought himself into 
 such disrepute by his revolutionary politics, that 
 his fellow-townsmen, hot on the other side, had 
 attacked his house and well nigh destroyed it. 
 
 The counsel for the prosecution attempted to prove | 
 
 a great deal too much, and some of the witnesses 
 appeared to have been tampered with by the 
 Tory and high-church magistrates, and more than 
 one of them grossly perjured themselves. The jury 
 
 * Howell, State Trials. 
 + On the trial of Muir, the lord advocate took occasion to glory 
 in this fact. ‘* All of these persons,” said he, ‘* who have had the 
 
 courage to come and stand a trial at this bar, have met with the | 
 Bill was carried through all its stages in the 
 
 same fate;—they have all been found guilty! And TI trust, that, as 
 the evidence has clearly unfolded the diabolical conduct of this 
 person, he will receive a similar verdict.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 acquitted all the prisoners, and one of the wit- 
 nesses was committed for perjury, and, when tried 
 at the next assizes, this man was fonnd guilty 
 and sentenced to stand once in the pillory, and to 
 be imprisoned for two years. Not deterred by 
 these acquittals, government resolved to pursue 
 some of the principal members of the Correspond- 
 ing Society and the Society for Constitutional In- 
 formation in London ; and in the month of May 
 Thomas Hardy, Daniel Adams, the Rey. Jeremiah 
 Joyce, private secretary to Earl Stanhope, and 
 tutor to his son, Lord Mahon, John Thelwall, a 
 political lecturer, the celebrated Horne Tooke, and 
 three or four others, were seized and committed to 
 the Tower, charged with high treason. Their 
 trials did not commence until the close of the year, 
 On the 12th of May, Dundas went down to the 
 House of Commons with a message from the king, 
 informing the House that seditious practices had 
 been carried on by societies in London in corre- 
 spondence with other societies for the purpose of 
 assembling a Convention to represent the people, in 
 defiance of and in opposition to parliament, and on 
 principles subversive of our constitution, and cal- 
 culated to introduce among us the anarchy pre- 
 vailing in France; that the papers of these societies 
 had been seized, and would be laid before parlia- 
 ment; and that his majesty recommended them 
 carefully to examine these papers, and-to adopt 
 such measures as might appear necessary. The 
 papers were produced on the very next day, when 
 Pitt moved an address of thanks to the king, and 
 proposed that the papers should be referred to a 
 committee of secrecy, consisting of twenty-one 
 members, chosen by ballot. This was agreed to 
 On the 16th of May Pitt produced to the House 
 the report of this committee of secrecy, which, if it 
 had found out, certainly did not reveal anything 
 secret or mysterious—the report merely containing 
 
 -the proceedings of the two London societies from 
 
 the year 1791, most of which had been already 
 published by the societies themselves in the news- 
 papers. If the extreme measures, amounting to 
 little less than the suspension of English liberty, 
 were really rendered necessary by circumstances, 
 the ministry ought to have explained that neces- 
 sity and those circumstances ; but Pitt rested upon 
 that bag of wind the report of the secret committee, 
 which, if it proved anything, proved that, in Eng- 
 land at least, no danger was to be apprehended 
 from these clubs and societies. And upon this 
 foundation he demanded, as necessary to the salya- 
 tion of the country, the immediate suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act. Nor did the great majo- 
 rity of the House consider the demand dangerous, 
 irrational, or excessive; Burke maintained that it 
 was the best means of preventing the vast and im- 
 
 -minent dangers with which we were menaced; 
 | Windham said that, if these evils could not be 
 
 averted by the laws in being, other laws more 
 stringent must be framed; and the Suspension 
 
 shortest time possible, and by overwhelming ma- 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 jorities. In the Lords, Earl Stanhope said that 
 ministers were going to establish a Bastile and to 
 introduce the use of /ettres de cuchet. Lord Lau- 
 derdale asserted that, while ministers were talking 
 of innovations and revolutions, they were them- 
 sclyes pursuing a revolutionary system, and esta- 
 blishing that reign of terror which we so much 
 reprobated in France. Lord Thurlow expressed 
 himself very cautiously, saying he acceded to the 
 bill merely on the presumplion that its necessity 
 had been proved. ‘The bill was, however, carried 
 through that House also with the greatest haste, 
 though not without a strong protest from the Duke 
 of Bedford, and the Earls Stanhope, Lauderdale, 
 and Albemarle. An address being moved on the 
 13th of June, by Lord Grenville, to assure the 
 king of their lordships’ loyalty and determination 
 to punish the participators in the conspiracy which 
 had been laid before them, and to invest his ma- 
 jesty, if needful, with additional power for the 
 suppression of attempts against government, it was 
 warmly opposed by Lord Lauderdale, but carried 
 and sent to the Commons for their concurrence. 
 In the debate which ensued in the Lower House, 
 Mr. Lambton noticed that’ in the report of the 
 secret committee mention had been made of war- 
 like preparation and arms. But what were these 
 arms? ‘They amounted, according to the specifi- 
 eation in the report, to eighteen pike-heads, ten 
 battle-axes, and twenty sword-blades. Such were 
 the warlike preparations for encountering and de- 
 stroying the British government! Fox, alluding to 
 the individuals under arrest, and to the inembers 
 of the political societies generaily, said they ap- 
 peared to be men who might co-operate in a revo- 
 lution, but could never produce one ;—that they 
 might have held imprudent and even seditious lan- 
 
 guage, but that was punishable without recurring | 
 
 to suspensions and severities that would terrify the 
 
 whole community, and without anticipating the de- | 
 
 claration of their guilt by a court of justice after 
 regular trial. Such an auticipation parliament could 
 manifestly be charged with if it declared its be- 
 lief in the accusations brought against these per- 
 sons. In states where the destruction of a few 
 persons subverted the whole order of things, a 
 small number of obscure individuals might pos- 
 sibly effect a revolution ; but in a country like this 
 he thought it unreasonable to fancy that so insig- 
 nificant and diminutive a set of men could seriously, 
 with any remains of sanity in their minds, have 
 engaged in such an undertaking. He moved to 
 omit that part of the address which expressed the 
 conviction of parliament that a conspiracy had 
 been carrying on against the constitution ; but his 
 amendment was rejected, and the House concurred 
 in the address as sent down by the Lords. The 
 reverses of our allies and the triumph of the repub- 
 licans on the continent, together with the turbulent 
 state of Ireland, certainly kept wp ina large part 
 of the community an unreasonable but perfectly 
 sincere dread of invasion; and, taking at their 
 lieated idie words men who for the greater part 
 VOL. VI. : 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 
 
 | their own, ran close in, and were taken. 
 
 33 
 
 would have been among the foremost to hurl back 
 the invaders if they could have come, it continued 
 to be believed that there were not merely in Ire- 
 land (where, alas! the belief was reasonable), but 
 in England and in Scotland, phalanxes ready to 
 join the French. To judge of the violence of the 
 times, we should place ourselves amid the anxieties, 
 the unceasing apprehensions, and agonizing fears 
 of the times; and this we can hardly do. The 
 fears seem tu us to have been irrational and almost 
 disgraceful ; but they appeared not so to great and 
 good men, and to Burke, the greatest man of that 
 day or of any day since. It was the last session 
 the philosophical statesman sat in the House of 
 Commons, and some of his Jast words there were 
 words of warning to the country to beware of the 
 fate of France. On the 20th of June he received 
 the thanks of the House for the management of 
 the Hastings trial, which only ended now; and a 
 few days aiter he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds. 
 
 In the course of the session a bill, brought for- 
 ward by Wilberforce, and supported by Pitt, for 
 the abolition of that branch of the slave-trade by 
 which we supplied the islands and territories be- 
 longing to foreigners with slaves, was passed by 
 the Commons, notwithstanding the strenuous op- 
 position of the West India interest ; the second 
 reading having been carried on the 25th of Fe- 
 bruary, in a thin House, by 56 against 38. But 
 on the 2nd of May the Lords threw out the bill by 
 a majority of 45 to 4. The king prorogued par- 
 liament in person on the 11th of July, congratu- 
 lating the Lords and Commons on the glorious 
 victory obtained over the French at sea on the Ist 
 of June, and the acquisitions made in the Kast 
 aud West Indies, and exhorting them to firmness, 
 notwithstanding the successes of the French in the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 Lord Howe’s naval victory was both scasonable 
 and glorious. About the middle of April the ships 
 composing the Channel flect, commanded by his 
 lordship, had received the requisite repairs, and 
 had assembled at St. Helens. It consisted of 
 thirty-two sail of the Ime and nine frigates, but 
 six of the ships of the line and four of the frigates 
 were detached under Rear-Admiral Montague to 
 escort some outward-bound convoys into the pa- 
 rallel of Cape Finisterre. It was, therefore, with 
 only twenty-six sail of the line and five frigates 
 that Lord Howe proceeded for Ushant to look 
 after the Brest fleet and a great French convoy 
 known to be expected from America and the West 
 India Islands. ‘The English cruised for a good 
 many days in blowing, foggy weather, and when 
 they were enabled to look into Brest harbour they 
 discovered that the fleet had put to sea. On the 
 25th of May, after the English had made a fruit- 
 
 _ less search for the enemy, who had gone some- 
 
 where to meet their homeward-bound convoy, two 
 French corvettes, mistaking Lord Howe’s fleet for 
 On the 
 28th Howe caught sight of the French fleet, and 
 
 on the evening of that day some of his ships 
 © 
 
34 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 attacked a part of their line; but it grew dark, and 
 the firing ceased after the ‘ Révolutionnaire,’ a 
 three-decker and the sternmost ship of the enemy, 
 had been beaten out of the line. On the 29th, 
 soon after daybreak, the two fleets were within 
 random-shot distance; at various times in the 
 course of the day there was some heavy and close 
 firing between the English van and the French 
 rear; three of the French ships were much dis- 
 abled, but the wind and weather, and the indifferent 
 sailing of some of his ships, did not permit Lord 
 Howe to gain the weather-gage, and get in proper 
 order for breaking the enemy’s line.* During 
 most of the time Howe’s own ship, the ‘ Charlotte,’ 
 was engaged, a considerable quantity of water was 
 taken in at the lower-deck ports, and the pumps 
 were at work constantly. On the 30th and 31st 
 there was little wind and a great fog; but on the 
 afternoon of the 3lst, the fog clearing off, the 
 enemy were seen—and seen to leeward. But be- 
 fore the English could get up abreast of them the 
 day was too far advanced for bringing them pro- 
 perly to action. Howe watched them closely with 
 his frigates during the night; but the French had 
 no intention of being off: they had fully deter- 
 mined to risk a close action rather than abandon 
 the anxiously expected convoy to be intercepted 
 and captured. ‘They had sent their disabled ships 
 back into Brest, and they had been joined by 
 
 *It appears that Lord Howe himself passed through the French 
 line on this day, between the fifth and sixth ship in their rear; that 
 the ‘ Bellerophon,’ Captain Hope, and the ‘Leviathan,’ Captain 
 Lord Henry Seymour Conway, followed him closely, but that, no 
 other ships following him, and his two seconds being very much 
 disabled, he could derive no material advantage from his bold 
 mancuvre, as the rest of his ships had passed to leeward of the 
 enemy, and, having tacked astern of the French line, did not rejoin 
 him in time to give any effectual support. 
 
 (Book X. 
 
 other ships fresh out of dock or port.* Their 
 admiral (Villaret-Joyeuse) who had distinguished 
 himself under Suffrein, in the East Indies, during 
 the last war, was both a brave and a skilful officer. 
 Jean Bon Saint-André, the friend or creature of 
 Robespierre, and one of the most terrible members 
 of the Mountain, was on board the fleet as com- 
 missioner from the Convention, to remind every 
 officer and man of the guillotine, and of what he 
 owed to the republic. 
 
 The dawn of the Ist of June disclosed the 
 French about three or four miles to leeward in 
 order of battle, under an easy sail to the westward. 
 They had twenty-six line-of-battle ships, while the 
 English had but twenty-five, the * Audacious,’ 
 74, Captain Parker, having separated on the 
 28th in a shattered condition. In the size of their 
 vessels, in their aggregate number of guns and 
 men, and in their weight of metal, the French had 
 a considerable superiority.t Lord Howe imme- 
 diately stood towards them. Being abreast of them 
 at about seven in the morning, heavore to the lar- 
 board tack, while the French waited his approach 
 in the same position. Having made the necessary 
 arrangements in his line for opposing his large 
 ships to the large ships of the enemy, bethinking 
 himself of a good English proverb, he lay-to, and 
 intimated by signal that there was time for the 
 men to breakfast before going into action., At 
 about half-past eight he made the signal for the 
 
 * During the fog the French admiral Neilly joined Villaret wi 
 reinforcement of four sail of the line and two Eigates. tS 
 
 British. French 
 
 + Number of guns e * e 2,098 2 158. 
 Weight of metal . . . 21,5191bs. 25,591 ths 
 Number of men . : - 16,647 19,828 . 
 
 Size in tons ° ° ° - 45,338 51,520 
 
 Lorp Howe’s Victory OF THE FIRsT OF JUNE, 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 fleet to close, to pass through the French line and 
 engage them to leeward, van to van, rear to rear, 
 every ship engaging her opposite in the enemy’s 
 lime. His previous orders had been clear and 
 peremptory, and, as he steered for the ‘ Montagne,’ 
 Villaret-Joyeuse’s ship, which mounted 120 guns, 
 he kept the signal for close action flying on board 
 his own ship the ‘Queen Charlotte.’ The ships 
 ahead and astern of the admiral kept away parallel 
 to her, receiving a heavy fire from the French, 
 which they did not return till their closeness to 
 their adversaries made every shot tell. Although 
 there was scarcely space to effect the passage, the 
 * Queen Charlotte’ forced her way between the 
 stern of the ‘ Montagne’ and the head of the ‘ Ja- 
 cobin’ 84, and was soon so closely engaged to lee- 
 ward that the ensign of the ‘ Montagne,’ a much 
 loftier ship, frequently waved over her quarter- 
 deck. ‘These two ships opened their fire a little 
 after nine o’clock, and at nearly the same moment 
 the action became general in the centre. Unfor- 
 tunately only the ‘ Defence’ (Captain Gambier), 
 the * Marlborough’ (Hon. G. Berkeley), the 
 ‘Royal George’ (Domett), the ‘ Queen’ (Nott), 
 and the ‘ Brunswick ’ (J. Harvey), pushed through 
 the enemy’s line and engaged them to leeward. 
 The ‘ Gibraltar’ (Mackenzie) omitted to cross 
 the French admiral in order to engage his second 
 ahead, as his station required, and Captain Molloy 
 of the ‘ Czesar’ backed his main-top-sail, and whilst 
 distant from the enemy, though the signal for 
 closer engagement was abroad. The far greater 
 part of the ships, to the infinite mortification of 
 Howe, engaged their respective adversaries to wind- 
 ward; thus allowing the French, when beaten, to 
 go off before the wind. But, notwithstanding the 
 failures in the British manoeuvre, it was soon 
 found that the French could not stand that close 
 fighting. After behaving manfully for about an 
 hour Villaret-Joyeuse gave way and stood off to 
 the northward, and was_ followed by all the ships 
 in his van that could carry sail. He left ten of 
 his ships, almost all of them totally dismasted, to 
 the windward, nearly surrounded by the English. 
 But the uninjured state of some of the French 
 ships, which still continued the engagement, and 
 the dispersed and crippled condition of a part of 
 the British squadron (among others Howe’s own 
 ship, which had lost her fore-top-mast, and then, 
 just as the French admiral sheered off, her main- 
 top-mast) enabled many of the French to escape, 
 when the only canvas three of them could spread 
 was a small. sail raised en the stump of the fore- 
 mast. ‘The retreat of these ships was covered by 
 Villaret-Joyeuse, who, haying lain to leeward, and 
 repaired his damages, brought up eleven or twelve 
 of his ships, not disabled by the loss (at least) of 
 ‘any of their masts, to the succour of his dismasted 
 ones. Seven, howeyer—‘ Le Juste’ of 80 guns, 
 the ‘Sans Pareil’ of 80, ‘ L?’America’ of 174, 
 *L’Achille’ of 74,‘ Le Northumberland’ of 74, 
 * L.’Impetueux’ of 74, and ‘ Le Vengeur,’ 74—were 
 abandoned to their fate, struck their flags, and 
 
 ee. eee ee af cm a ps nena pts pps see 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 35 
 
 were immediately taken possession of by the Eng- 
 lish. The ‘ Vengeur,’ however, had received too 
 many English shots between wind and water to 
 remain a prize: she filled and went down in deep 
 water almost as soon as the English flag was 
 hoisted on her.* After securing his six other 
 prizes, and giving assistance to the most shattered 
 of his own ships, Lord Howe made the signal for 
 his fleet to close round him. This was done with the 
 intention of again attacking Villaret-Joyeuse, if he 
 should attempt to cut off the ‘ Queen’ (one of the 
 five ships which had followed his lordship in 
 breaking the enemy’s line and attacking to lee- 
 ward, but which now, from her disabled state, had 
 drifted to a considerable distance from the English 
 fleett) ; or if, by trying to weather his captured 
 ships, he should attempt to retrieve the fortune of 
 the day. The French admiral, however, aimed at 
 nothing but securing his own retreat : he attempted 
 neither to cut off the ‘Queen’ nor to molest the 
 * Brunswick,’ which had lost her mizen-mast and 
 had driven to leeward of some of his ships: he 
 collected his nineteen sail of the line and made 
 away for the coast of Britany. The damage in the 
 mast and rigging of the English ships generally 
 was so considerable that they were obliged to lay- 
 to; and the 2nd and 3rd of June were employed 
 in securing such injured masts as were left, fixing 
 jury-masts where requisite, removing the prisoners, 
 and taking the six prizes in tow. The victory had 
 not been obtained without a considerable loss, for 
 as long as the French remained in action they 
 fought gailantly, and their advantages were, as we 
 have stated, not inconsiderable. The number of 
 killed in the British fleet was 279, of wounded 
 877. Of the officers of rank Captain Montagu of 
 the ‘ Montagu’ was killed, and Captain Nott of the 
 ‘Queen’ and Captain J. Harvey of the ‘ Bruns- 
 wick’ died of their wounds: Rear-Admiral Pasley 
 (‘ Bellerophon’), Rear-Admiral Bowyer (* Bar- 
 fleur’), and Admiral Graves (‘ Sovereign’), were 
 badly wounded and mutilated: Captain the Hon. 
 George Berkeley (‘ Marlborough’), Captain Sir 
 Andrew S. Douglas (second captain of the ‘ Queen 
 Charlotte’) were also wounded severely, and a con- 
 tusion which Sir Andrew received occasioned his 
 death after the lapse of some years. ‘Three lieu- 
 tenants of the navy, one captain and one lieutenant 
 of the army, three masters, seven master’s-mates 
 and midshipmen, were killed: one master, two 
 captains, and one lieutenant of marines, ten lieu- 
 tenants of the navy (two of whom died), and 
 eighteen midshipmen, were severely wounded. But 
 the carnage on board the more crowded French 
 ships was far more dreadful. In the six captured 
 ships alone the killed were 690, the wounded 580. 
 Above 300 were supposed to have gone down with 
 
 * The ‘ Vengeur’ had been so closely engaged with the ‘ Bruns- 
 wick,’ one of the six ships that broke the line, that many of their 
 ports were torn away by the collision. The sides of both ships being 
 extremely straight, they lay so close together that on the lower decks 
 
 the crews fought hand to hand, with the implements for loading the 
 
 guns, with cold shot, and with any weapon that chance supplied. 
 + The ‘Queen’ had been greatly injured, and had fallen into the 
 same critical situation, on the 29th of May. 
 
tvs HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the ‘ Vengeur.’ The number of prisoners removed 
 is stated at 2300.* 
 
 Of some of his captains Lord Howe evidently 
 thought he had good reason to complain, and it 
 has been hinted that more than one of them ought 
 to have been brought before a court-martial for 
 misconduct and disobedience of orders. His lord- 
 ship’s biographer, whose opinions carry with them 
 a professional weight, says, ‘The commander-in- 
 chief’s orders were undoubtedly not carried into 
 effect by a very large portion of his fleet, as to 
 passing through the line, and each engaging his 
 opponent to leeward; but this did not appear to 
 have arisen from any wilful disobedience, but from 
 inability in some, on account of the bad sailing of 
 the ships, and in others from the very compact 
 line in which the French were formed, so that five 
 captains only of the British fleet had the nerve to 
 let their ships ‘make their own way,’ like the 
 ‘ Charlotte,’ through the line: others again erred 
 by mistake of signals, which may very often happen 
 in the midst of the smoke and confusion that must 
 occur in an engagement between two fleets. There 
 was besides a signal, which left to each commander 
 a discretionary power to engage his opponent either 
 to windward or leeward, as circumstances might 
 arise...-..+++1na letter from a gallant admiral, 
 who was in the battle of the 1st of June, and now 
 living, it is justly observed,—‘ The Ist of June 
 was the first general action fought in the course of 
 the war, and led to many glorious results ; had it 
 been the last, not one of the French ships would 
 have been allowed to return to port ;’—alluding to 
 the inexperience of many of the captains and the 
 rawness of the crews, some of the former of whom, 
 in particular, completely defeated the intention of 
 the commander-in-chief, by mistaking his order— 
 the most simple and intelligible that could be given 
 —that each ship should pass through the enemy’s 
 line, and each engage his opponent to leeward. 
 The subsequent signal, that ‘each ship should steer 
 for and engage the ship opposed to her in the enemy’s 
 line,’ relieved the commanders from the difficulty 
 and danger of passing through the enemy’s compact 
 line, but enforced the order for each ship to en- 
 gage her opponent.” + Possibly there were among 
 Lord Howe’s captains some who would have pre- 
 ferred waiting for the rich-freighted French convoy 
 from America and the West Indies to fighting the 
 republican fleet ; for the temptation of prize-money 
 was great, and it might very reasonably be appre- 
 hended that while they were getting their ships dis- 
 masted in close combat the convoy might steal into 
 
 * William Stewart Rose, Naval History of the last War.—James, 
 Naval History.—Lord Howe’s Private Journal, written with his own 
 hand, in Sir John Barrow’s Life of his Lordship. 
 
 + Sir John Barrow, Life of Earl Howe (published in 1838). The 
 biographer adds :—‘‘ It has been said that, if Lord Nelson had been 
 in the place of Lord Howe on the Ist of June, the probability is that 
 not a ship of the French would have escaped. Granted ;—and, if Lord 
 Howe had heen fortunate enough to have had Lord Nelson’s cap- 
 tains and crews, which gained the battle of the Nile, the probability 
 is equally strong that he would have been equally successful; for 
 Lord Nelson only followed Lord Howe’s example in assigning to 
 every commander his opponent; but what could Lord Nelson or 
 any other commander effect, if his whole plan was deranged by the 
 bad qualities of his ships, and the inexperience and incapacity of 
 many of their commanders?” 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 "port; and it really happened, after the battle, and 
 
 when the disabled fleet was returning to England 
 for repairs, that the rich convoy, escorted by eight 
 sail of the line and some frigates, arrived in safety 
 in Brest harbour. But still, with every deduction, 
 ‘** the Glorious First of June” was a day honour- 
 able to the British navy—was a most seasonable 
 victory, proper to keep up the national spirit, and 
 to lead to greater exploits hereafter. 
 
 Not satisfied with claiming the merit of the 
 safe arrival of the great convoy, and with praising 
 the valour which the French sailors had really dis- 
 played, deputy Jean Bon Saint-André (who had 
 wished himself ashore as soon as the battle began) 
 claimed the victory over the English.* With the 
 national impudence, and a bold defiance of evi- 
 dence, and of facts which had been visible to many 
 thousands of individuals, he declared, in his report 
 to the Convention, that the English had thirty-six 
 ships of the line, or ten more than the French ; 
 that the battle lasted from nine o’clock in the morn- 
 ing till three in the afternoon, when the English, 
 after seeing several of their ships sunk, suspended 
 their fire and sheered off with all the sail they 
 could carry. But Jean Bon’s strength of lying and 
 power of invention + were not strong enough for 
 Barrére, the great reporter and oracle of the com- 
 mittee of Salut Public, who, on the 9th of July, 
 amused the National Convention with an account 
 of the victory of the republican fleet ten times 
 more fabulous than the commissioner’s. Jean Bon 
 had admitted, in a periphrastic manner, that some 
 ships had been captured by the English, but Bar- 
 rére merely said that the French had been com- 
 pelled to leave seven of their dismantled ships at 
 sea, which he feared were lost. Jean Bon in 
 relating, in a hyperbolical style, many acts of hero- 
 ism, said not a word about the sinking of the 
 *Vengeur ;’ but Barrére garnished his oration with 
 a poetical description of that catastrophe, declaring 
 that the republicans on board the ‘ Vengeur,” see- 
 ing that she was filling, refused, to a man, to seek 
 safety by surrendering, fought their lower-deck 
 guns till the water reached them, then gathered 
 on the quarter-deck, and, having hoisted every flag, 
 pennant, and streamer they had on board, went 
 down with her, shouting Vive la République ! 
 Vive la France /—the last thing disappearing 
 beneath the waves being the tri-color flag. He 
 moved, and the Convention most enthusiastically 
 decreed, that a model of the * Vengeur’ should be 
 suspended from the roof of the Pantheon, or the 
 temple dedicated by the gratitude of the republic 
 board the Admirals chip, the «Montagne B6. gal Iiisaae mann 
 on board one of the frigates which never came into action, and 
 remained perdu at the bottom of the hold under pretence of getting 
 his wound dressed. 
 
 + The commissioner’s report, here and there, lets out the truth 
 and the melancholy conviction that his countrymen were not quite 
 such good sailors as they were soldiers. ‘* We have sustained,” 
 said he, ‘*the rudest and most horrible combat that the ocean has 
 ever witnessed. The French fleet was in good order, and its dis- 
 positions were well made, But the French at sea have always more 
 impetuosity than method, and this is a vice which it appertains to 
 
 the legislature to cure them of. Faults have been committed.”— 
 Jean Bon’s Report to the Convention, in Hist. Parlement. 
 
Cnar, VIII.) 
 
 to the memory of her great men. Painters and 
 poets seized upon the splendid fiction, and many 
 were the hard pictures and harder verses painted 
 and written upon it and about it. Chenier, the 
 lyrist and laureat of the revolution, put it into his 
 ‘Song of Victories ;’ and, not satisfied with making 
 the heroes of the ‘ Vengeur’ sing ‘Vive la Re- 
 publique’ while they were sinking, he made them 
 sing on when they were at the bottom of the 
 sea!* The “ Pindaric muse”’ of old republican 
 Lebrun “ could not be mute ;”’ and she or he de- 
 voted an entire ode to the ‘ Vengeur.’ The story 
 spread far and wide, becoming an article of histo- 
 rical belief, not only in France and all over the 
 continent, but also in England. It had been in- 
 serted in hundreds or thousands of respectable 
 books, and no one seemed to doubt its perfect au- 
 thenticity, when, in 1838, an English veteran, who 
 had been in the battle, extinguished it for ever for 
 all the world, but France, by a plain statement of 
 facts in a homely letter to the newspapers. It was, 
 however, strange that the bubble should not have 
 been burst at least thirty-six years earlier, for Mr. 
 William Stewart Rose, who had the best means of 
 information, and who knew personally many of 
 the officers engaged on the lst of June, exposed 
 Barrére’s fiction in the volume of his ‘ Naval His- 
 tory’ which was published in 1802.* Mr. Rose 
 then said, in the most distinct manner, that the 
 whole story was an extravagant fiction. ‘The fol- 
 lowing passages from his book ought not to have 
 been allowed to slide out of memory :—“ Far 
 from challenging certain death, and glorying in 
 their fate, these poor wretches (the crew of the 
 ‘Vengeur’), whose gallant defence deserved a 
 better fate, substituted our union-jack for the re- 
 publican ensign, and spread themselves over the 
 sides and rigging of the ship, stretching out their 
 hands to their enemies, and supplicating their 
 assistance. Part of the crew were saved by the 
 exertions of their enemies; but the crowds which 
 attempted to spring into each boat, threatening these 
 unfortunate men and those who came to their suc- 
 cour with equal destruction, made all further efforts 
 desperate, and checked the compassionate zeal of 
 their conquerors. T'wo of the French officers, in- 
 deed, betrayed no anxiety to avail themselves of 
 any means of safety, and continued walking up 
 and down the stern-gallery apparently engaged in 
 conversation, while the ship, heeling and gradually 
 sinking deeper and deeper, at length admitted the 
 water into her ports, then righted for a moment, 
 and was immediately engulphed. ......- So 
 entirely destitute of foundation is this (Barrére’s) 
 account, that there is not an officer who was 
 present at the moment but bears witness to the 
 fact of the French crew having actually hoisted 
 * D’ou partent ces cris déchirans ? 
 Quelles sont ces voix maguanimes ? 
 Les voix des braves expirans, 
 
 Qui chantent au fond des abimes. ¥e} 
 (CEwvres de Chénier. 
 
 + Mr. W. S. Rose, who has since acquired reputation as a poet, 
 traveller, translator, and as a man of exquisite humour, is second 
 son of Pitt’s friend and subaltern, the late Sir George Rose, who 
 was, for so many years, treasurer to the navy. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 
 
 oT 
 
 the British ensign, there is not one who does not 
 testify to the eagerness with which they implored 
 succour, and the generous anxiety with which the 
 English attempted to save them. It is a curious 
 fact, that, while -Barrére was expatiating on 
 the noble ardour of republicanism, which thus 
 excited a whole ship’s*company to prefer death to 
 slavery, several of the crew were actually enrolled 
 in the royalist regiment of Count d’Hervilly.” 
 [D’Hervilly’s was a regiment composed chiefly of 
 French emigrants, then raising or raised in Eng- 
 land.] Yet so it was: in spite of these almost 
 official, and thoroughly reliable revelations in 1802, 
 Barrére’s story was allowed to pass current, even 
 in this country, until November, 1838, when Rear- 
 Admiral Griffiths checked and finished its career.* 
 
 At least nine-tenths of the marvellous things 
 told by the French of their exploits in the revolu- 
 tionary and Bonaparte wars rest on a foundation 
 just as slender as this incident of the ‘ Vengeur ;’ 
 but, until some more Griffithses and Carlyles raise 
 up their hands, the unrebuked lies are likely to 
 maintain their credit. So long as our writers take 
 upon trust the inventions or exaggerations of the 
 French, without exercising logic or common sense 
 —without referring to German, Spanish, Italian, 
 and other contemporary authorities (less easy to 
 read than the French accounts)—-we must expect 
 no rational history of the last war. We have hinted 
 
 * Rear-Admiral Griffiths’s letter to the ‘ Sun’ newspaper was to 
 this effect :— 
 
 «« Since the period of Lord Howe’s victory, on the Ist of June, 1794, 
 the story of the ‘ Vengeur,’ French 74 gun ship, going down with 
 colours flying, and her crew erying ‘ Vive la Képublique !—Vive la 
 Liberté !* &e., and the further absurdity that they continued firing 
 the main-deck guns after her lower deck was immersed, has been re- 
 peatedly declared, and has been very recently re-asserted by a French 
 author. It originated, no doubt, on the part of the French, in poli- 
 tical and exciting motives—precisely as Buonaparte caused his vie- 
 tory at Trafalgar to be promulgated through France. While these 
 reports aud confident assertions were confined to our neighbours, it 
 seemed little worth the while to contradict it. But now, when two 
 English authors of celebrity—Mr. Alison, in his ‘ History of Europe 
 during the French Revolution,’ and Mr. Carlyle, in his similar work 
 —give it the confirmation of English authority, I consider it right 
 thus to declare the whole story is a ridiculous piece of nonsense. At 
 the time the ‘ Vengeur’ sunk the action had ceased some time. The 
 French fleet were making off before the wind, and Captain Renaudin 
 and his son had been nearly half an hour prisoners on board her ma- 
 jesty’s ship ‘ Culloden,’ of which ship i was fourth lieutenant, and about 
 127 of the crew were also prisoners, either on board the ¢ Culloden,’ 
 or in her boats, besides, I believe, 100 in the ‘ Alfred’s,’ and some 40 
 in the hired cutter, commanded by Lieutenant (the late Rear-Admiral) 
 Winne. The ‘ Vengeur’ was taken possession of by the boats of the 
 ‘ Culloden,” Lieutenant Rotherham, and the ‘ Alfred,’ Lieutenaut 
 Deschamps; and Captain Renandin and myself, who were, by Cap- 
 tain Schomberg’s desire, at lunch in his cabin, hearing the cries of 
 distress, ran to the starboard quarter-gallery, and thenee witnessed 
 the melancholy sceue. Never were meu in distress more ready to 
 save themselves.” ‘ 
 
 Although the gallant rear-admiral seems to do s9, we are anxious 
 it should be understood that we do not confound the celebrity or 
 merit of Mr. Alison and Mr. Carlyle—that we do not consider the 
 works of these two gentlemen as being at all similar. ; ; 
 
 Mr. Carlyle, in his second edition, retracts his error with his usual 
 
 oint, declaring that Fernando Mendez Pinto, Baron Munchausen, 
 Cagliostro, Psalmanazar, were great liars, but not the greatest—that 
 Barrére, ‘‘ Anacreon of the guillotine,” surpassed them all—that this 
 story about the ‘ Vengeur “was Barrére’s masterpiece, ‘the largest, 
 most inspiring piece of blaque (blarney and rhodomontade ) manu- 
 factured, for some centuries, by any man or nation. For which 
 words a black mark has been set upon Mr. Carlyle, in France, for 
 ever and evermore. We should think his life would scarcely have 
 been in safety if he had ventured over to Paris shortly after the pub- 
 lication of this his second edition. The French journalists and writing 
 people in general clung and still cling to the exploded fable, and 
 were and are furious, rabid, stark-staring mad against all who have 
 dared to doubt it, but most of all against Rear-Admiral Griffiths and 
 Thomas Carlyle, who put doubt out of the question. _ If M. Thiers's 
 History should go through fifty editions in his lifetime, Barrére’s 
 lie will be found, unreduced, unmitigated, unspoilt in the fiftieth 
 edition. 
 
 ees 
 
 ——~—— 
 
38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 at the absurdity of placing implicit confidence in 
 the stilted casuistical mémoires of the Girondists ; 
 but what shall we say of the English writer who 
 places the same reliance on Girondist authorities in 
 one page, and on Jacobin authorities in the next, 
 or perhaps in the same page, or even in the very 
 same paragraph ; making a pot-pourri of coutradic- 
 tions and inconsistencies—who goes on bestowing 
 the same confidence on the Bonaparteans or Impe- 
 rialists as he had given to the Girondists and 
 Jacobins, and who seems not to be aware of the 
 existence of any other continental authorities what- 
 soever—who, even when there is good English au- 
 thority at hand, either overlooks it in ignorance of 
 its existence, or couples it with the French bom- 
 bast, as if truth and fiction could march together, 
 or, by being blended, present a perfect truth ? 
 
 Lord Howe’s Channel fleet was at sea again on 
 the 3rd of September, and then consisted of thirty- 
 seven sail of the line, and seven frigates, to which 
 were added a squadron of four seventy-fours, one 
 sixty-four, and three frigates, furnished by our ally 
 the King of Portugal. The French fleet had not 
 yet come out of Brest; but towards the end of the 
 year, when Howe had returned to port, they ven- 
 tured out to sea, and began a most unfortunate 
 cruise, which ended in the loss of five of their ships 
 of the line by bad weather and accidents. It is 
 impossible to comprise in our narrative all the 
 frigate fights, or even the contests between small 
 squadrons, which took place in these first years of 
 the war. There was a variety and inequality in 
 the spirit displayed in some of these numerous en- 
 gagements; but, in general, the superiority of the 
 English, as sailors and combatants on their own 
 element, was maintained and enhanced; while 
 many of the actions showed a combination of skill, 
 coolness, and bravery, which will never be sur- 
 passed. These engagements took place in the 
 Channel, on the coast of France, in the Mediter- 
 ranean and Archipelago, in the East Indies and in 
 the West; for the French had ships enough to 
 show in all these seas, and in some places they 
 had for a time a decided superiority of force. 
 During the whole of the present year the British 
 lost only one ship of the line, the ‘ Alexander’ 
 74, and she did not surrender until she had sus- 
 tained the assault of three French ships of the 
 line for two hours. Nothing was more evident 
 than that the spirit of our officers and men was 
 incomparably higher than it had been during the 
 American war. 
 
 In the West Indies, where land forces co-ope- 
 rated with the navy, our success was sufficiently 
 brilliant. Perhaps too much importance was at- 
 tached to the conquest of some sugar islands ; but, 
 if we had not taken theirs, the French would have 
 taken ours, subjecting the planters and colonists to 
 a horrible fate. The troops under the command 
 of Lieut.-General Sir Charles Grey, which had 
 been Janded on the coast of Flanders in the pre- 
 ceding autumn, when the Duke of York and his 
 allies were closely pressed by the French, were 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 soon re-embarked, and continued their voyage to 
 Barbadoes, the place of their original destination ; 
 and in the month of February they proceeded, 
 with a squadron of four ships of the line, and four- 
 teen frigates and other vessels, under the command 
 of Admiral Sir John Jervis, to reduce the island of 
 Martinique, against which an unsuccessful attempt 
 had been made in 1793. The French defended 
 themselves in their forts, which were rather nume- 
 rous and strong; but the British squadron and 
 army were both reinforced during the siege of 
 Fort Louis and Fort Bourbon, and by the 25th of 
 March the island was completely reduced.* Saint 
 Lucie surrendered after the mere show of a defence. 
 The rich and well-fortified island of Guadaloupe 
 held out for some time, and gave occasion to 
 several sieges and stormings; but by the end of 
 April the garrisons capitulated, five or six thousand 
 men laid down their arms, and the isles of Marie- 
 galante, Deseada, and the Saintes (the dependencies 
 of Guadaloupe), were included in the surrender. Sir 
 Charles Grey then despatched some of his troops, 
 under General Whyte, to complete the expulsion of 
 the French of the republican party from the island 
 of St. Domingo. In the month of May, the repub- 
 licans having fled in all directions, Port-au-Prince, 
 the French capital, was captured by Whyte. In 
 the mean time the yellow fever broke out in Gua- 
 daloupe, committed great ravages among the Eng- 
 lish troops there, and carried off General Dundas, 
 who had been appointed governor of the island ; 
 and at this sad moment, and when our ships were 
 engaged elsewhere, a squadron arrived from 
 France, having on board fifteen hundred or two 
 thousand land troops, and a commissioner of the 
 Conyention—the bloody and terrible Victor 
 Hugues, who, upon the death of the commandant 
 by the fever, took upon himself the entire di- 
 rection of the troops. Being the bearer of the 
 decrees of the Convention, which gave imme- 
 diate liberty to all the blacks, he was immedi- 
 ately joined by the negroes and mulattoes. The 
 French royalists of the island, who had joined the 
 English, and invited them thither, in order to be 
 protected from the fury of the sans-culottes, either 
 changed sides or faintly adhered to the English. 
 Sir Charles Grey and Sir John Jervis, who were 
 away at St. Christopher’s, collected a force from 
 the adjoining islands, and attempted to dislodge 
 Victor Hugues, who had made himself master of 
 one or two of the forts. On his side the Conven- 
 tionalist attracted a number of blacks and despe- 
 rate adventurers of nearly all kinds and nations to | 
 his standard, promising the poor the property of 
 the rich, promising the blacks a perfect equal- 
 ity with the whites, assuring to all the Rights of 
 Man, and every blessing and advantage which the 
 * On the 4th of March, Prince Edward (Duke of Kent), father of 
 her present Majesty, arrived at Martinique from Canada, and took 
 the command of one of the British brigades. The French com- 
 mander was General Rochambeau, son of the officer of that name 
 who had served in America with Lafayette, and who was now 
 hiding himself in France to escape the guillotine. His Royal High- 
 
 ness distinguished himself here, and still more at Guadaloupe, 
 where he commanded and led a storming detachment. 
 
 Ot cere 3 il 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 39 
 
 revolution had conferred on the common people in 
 France. These motley republicans, who plun- 
 dered, burned, and murdered the respectable colo- 
 nists, were well beaten in three encounters, but 
 their number kept increasing, while the English 
 force was thinned by incessant fatigue, the spread 
 of the yellow fever, and the miseries of the rainy 
 season. After some desperate but unfortunate 
 and apparently ill-directed attacks on Point-a- 
 Pitre, the capital of the island, Sir Charles Grey 
 returned to Martinique, which was in danger from 
 fierce insurgents and banditti, the proselytes of 
 Victor Hugues. The weak English force which 
 remained behind in Guadaloupe, with some three 
 or four hundred desperate French royalists—men 
 who had nothing to hope from Victor Hugues, but 
 death by the guillotine he had brought with him, 
 or fusilade and massacre at the hands of his eman- 
 cipated blacks—kept their ground for a long time 
 in a corner of the island. When they were sur- 
 rounded and reduced almost to extremities, Sir 
 John Jervis, though the hurricane months were not 
 passed, sailed to their assistance. On arriving, he 
 found that he could not so much as communicate 
 with them, and a day or two after his arrival Ge- 
 neral Graham, who had been badly wounded, made 
 a very bad capitulation, by which the French 
 royalists were given up to Victor Hugues and his 
 black, white, and mulatto republicans. The guil- 
 lotine was set to work upon them at Point-a-Pitre, 
 the negroes being taught how to manage that holy 
 instrument; but the greater part of these royalists 
 were fusiladed in heaps by the republicanized ne- 
 groes. If the same deeds had not been perpe- 
 trated in France by scores of the generals and 
 commissioners of the Convention, this Hugues, 
 whose name to this day is never mentioned in the 
 West India Islands without shuddering, might 
 pass for a most extraordinary and conspicuous 
 villain: he showed no mercy; the sick and 
 wounded in the hospitals, the very dead in their 
 graves, were the objects of his cruelty or outrage. 
 At his command the remains of General Dundas 
 were torn from their sanctuary and thrown into 
 the river. Some British officers, whom the 
 chances of war had made his prisoners, were con- 
 demned to the most servile labours. By the end 
 of the year he had entirely recovered the island, 
 but had reduced a great part of it to a frightful 
 waste, having destroyed the plantations and seats 
 of the royalists, and marked his course everywhere 
 with devastation and blood. 
 
 A curious triumph attended our arms in the 
 Mediterranean, where Corsica, the native island of 
 the man who was so soon to be the master and 
 despot of France and the arbiter of Europe,. an- 
 nexed itself to the British crown. The cruelties 
 committed by the French, under Louis XV., in 
 their subjugation of the island, were of too recent 
 a date to be forgotten by avery brave but very re- 
 vengeful people. To the Corsicans the French 
 settlers were aliens in blood, in language, in man- 
 ners, in interests, in everything ; and a very large 
 
 part of the population, including all the moun- 
 
 taineers and most of the peasantry, who pretty 
 closely resembled their neighbours, the Sards, who 
 had so mauled Admiral Truguet’s fleet last year, 
 were incensed at the changes introduced into the 
 isle, and the disrespect shown to their priests since 
 the revolution. At the dawn of that mighty 
 change, which deluded so large a portion of man- 
 kind with false and extravagant hopes, many of 
 the better-educated Corsicans fondly believed that 
 their country would be improved and rendered 
 happy by the political reforms in progress at Paris, 
 and by remaining a portion of the French empire, 
 a realized Utopia. In 1789, on the motion of 
 Mirabeau, in the Constituent Assembly, all the 
 Corsican patriots, who had bravely fought against 
 the French twenty years before, for the independ- 
 ence of their country, and who had been living in 
 exile ever since, were recalled with honour, and 
 invited to concur in the new order of things. Pas- 
 quale de Paoli, who had gallantly fought the Ge- 
 noese for twelve years before they ceded the island 
 
 GENERAL PAOLI. 
 
 by an iniquitous treaty to Louis XV., who had » 
 been a sort of king or president under the title of 
 “General of the Kingdom and Chief of the 
 Supreme Magistracy of Corsica,”? who.had after- 
 wards struggled hard with the French, and de- 
 feated them in more than one terrible battle, was 
 the most eminent of all these recalled Corsican 
 exiles. He had passed nearly the whole of his 
 exile, from the year 1769 to the year 1789, in 
 England, living in familiar intercourse with the 
 noblest, the most enlightened, and best of our 
 countrymen. very English reader is acquainted 
 with him as the friend and frequent companion 
 of Doctor Samuel Johnson, who held him in 
 high estimation. With habits almost become 
 English, Paoli repaired to Paris in the autumn 
 of 1789: he was received with acclamations 
 in the Assembly, and in their hall swore fidelity 
 
40 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox 
 
 —_— 
 
 Wye. ; 
 to France and the new and unfinished monarchic | untenable, burned one frigate they had in the har- 
 
 constitution. He was presented to Louis XVI., 
 who made him lieutenant-general and military 
 commandant in Corsica. After being entertained 
 in Paris by the patriots and popular idols of that 
 day, he proceeded to his native island, where he 
 was received with enthusiasm, and placed at the 
 head of the national guards that were then raised 
 or in process of being raised in Corsica. He 
 acted faithfully towards the constitutional monarchy 
 so long as it existed; but when the Girondists and 
 Jacobins united and destroyed that government, to 
 which equally with himself they had all promised 
 and vowed fidelity, when they had set up an 
 anarchical republic, and destroyed or proscribed 
 all those friends who had brought him back, he 
 separated himself from the French party, and be- 
 gan to concert measures with the old Corsican pa- 
 triots. He was presently denounced to the Con- 
 vention, who placed his name on their lists of 
 proscription. He assembled his countrymen, ex- 
 plained his danger and their own, held up to exe- 
 cration the cruelty and impiety of the French, and 
 was forthwith appointed general-in-chief and pre- 
 sident of the council of government.* Paoli knew 
 that the island was not strong enough to defend 
 itself against France; his predilections made him 
 look towards England; and, as soon as war broke 
 out between this country and France, he put him- 
 self in communication with our government, and 
 with the English commanders cruising in the 
 Mediterranean. Lord Hood, who commanded the 
 Mediterranean fleet, instantly gave him some assist- 
 ance; and at the appearance of a few English 
 ships the insurrection became general, and the 
 I’rench were driven cut from all the places they 
 held, with the exception of San Fiorenzo, Calvi, 
 and Bastia. This was in the summer and autumn 
 of 1793, when the mother of Bonaparte and all of 
 that family who remained in the island fled in sad 
 plight for Marseilles, to call upon the triumphant 
 Jacobins there for succour and for vengeance upon 
 Paoli and the English. Commodore Linzee, who 
 had only three shij:s of the line and two frigates 
 with him, was, however, roughly handled and _ re- 
 pulsed in making an attempt upon San Fiorenzo. 
 But, after the evacuation of Toulon, Lord Hood, 
 having received certain information that the Con- 
 vention intended throwing a very strong French 
 reinforcement into the island, made his prepara- 
 tions for attacking their garrisons there with his 
 whole force. By the 7th of February of the pre- 
 sent yeir he completely blockaded the ports, and 
 landed five regiments under the command of Ge- 
 neral Dundas—a spiritless, incompetent pedant, 
 who ought never to have been employed beyond 
 _the drill-ground and the reviewing-field. Dundas 
 invested San Fiorenzo in form, as if it had been a 
 fortress of the first order and defended by a well- 
 appointed garrison. ‘The French, finding the post 
 
 * “The horn of the islanders resounded in every valley, and its 
 threatening voice carried alarm even to the ramparts of Ajaccio.”— 
 Lucien Bonaparte, Mémoires écrits par lui-méme. 
 
 rn ee. 
 hn re en 
 
 bour, scuttled another, evacuated San Fiorenzo, 
 and retreated with proper speed to Bastia—with 
 such speed that the slow and lagging Dundas 
 seems scarcely to have touched their rear during 
 the retreat. This was on the 19th of February. 
 Lord Hood now proposed the immediate reduction 
 of Bastia, then the principal town of the island ; 
 but Dundas, after advancing to the heights behind 
 the town, retreated, and declared that he could not 
 
 co-operate in the undertaking until the arrival of 
 
 2000 more land troops who were expected from 
 Gibraltar.* Hood thereupon determined to reduce 
 the place himself with his naval force, and without 
 co-operation or assistance from Dundas. In this 
 resolution his lordship was encouraged by Horatio 
 Nelson, now captain of the ‘ Agamemnon,’ and the 
 youngest captain in the fleet. ‘‘ A thousand men,”’ 
 said Nelson, ‘‘ would certainly take Bastia: with 
 500 men and the ‘Agamemnon’ I would attempt it. 
 My seamen are now what British seamen ought to 
 be, almost invincible: they really mind shot no 
 more than peas.’?+ General Dundas retained his 
 former opinion, saying that he considered the siege 
 of Bastia, with their present means and force, to be 
 a most visionary and rash enterprise, such as no 
 officer would be justified in undertaking. Hood 
 replied, that he would gladly take the whole re- 
 sponsibility upon himself, and attempt the place 
 with the means and force at his own disposal, At 
 this time there was a change in the military com- 
 mand; but General d’Aubant agreed in opinion 
 with his predecessor, and refused to furnish the 
 admiral with a single soldier, cannon, or any stores, 
 Lord Hood, however, obtained a few artillerymen ; 
 and, as a part of the troops had been originally 
 embarked as marines, and were borne on the ships’ 
 books, he could call them on board, as his own 
 men. ‘* We are but few,” said Nelson, * but of 
 the right sort.” That hero superintended the land- 
 ing of the besieging force, which consisted of 1183 
 soldiers, artillerymen, and marines, and 250 sailors. 
 The landing was effected on the 4th of April, and 
 immediately the sailors began to drag the great 
 guns up the faces of almost perpendicular rocks, 
 which had seldom been scaled except by Corsican 
 goats. ‘The soldiers, removed from the benumbing 
 influences of their pedantic, over-cautious leaders, 
 and under the command of “ Brigadier”? Nelson 
 (for he had now obtained that title from the army), 
 vied with the seamen; and, tothe astonishment of the 
 French and Corsicans, artillery, ammunition, and 
 stores were soon lodged on the topsof these precipices, 
 and the ridges of them were seen bristling with 
 batteries that commanded the town and citadel, as 
 well as the outworks of the enemy. Paoli sent a 
 
 Xe 
 «ae 
 ) 
 
 small Corsican force to co-operate on the oj} posite 
 
 * Nelson, who had Janded, and was serving on shore witha few — 
 
 sailors and marines, was greatly astonished and annoyed. He said, 
 ‘Tf I had had with me 500 troops, to a certainty I should have 
 stormed the town; and I believe it might have been earried. Armies 
 go so slow, that seamen think they never mean to get forward... . 
 
 What the general could have seen to make a retreat necessary, I ¢an- 
 
 not comprehend,” —Svuthey’s Life of Nelson, 
 + Id. id. 
 
 EN ee tN ec te tet Rt neta tg Nal 
 
et ee poe oP aie 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794, 
 
 , 
 
 side of the town, but it coes not appear that these 
 islanders rendered any essential service: they were, 
 probably, destitute of artillery and proper officers. 
 By the 10th Nelson and his brave coadjutor, Co- 
 lonel Villettes, had everything ready on the heights, 
 and on the morning of the 11th the place was sum- 
 
 moned by Lord Hood. The National Convention 
 had sent thither one of their most energetic com- 
 missioners, Lacombe-Saint-Michel, who had been 
 a captain of artillery, and an officer of high repute 
 before the French revolution began. This function- 
 ary replied to his lordship’s summons—“‘I have 
 red-hot shots for your ships, and bayonets for your 
 troops. When two-thirds of our men are killed, 
 I will then trust to the generosity of the English.” 
 Nelson, who remained on shore in the batteries, 
 then took up the discourse with five twenty-four 
 pounders, two 13-inch mortars, two 10-inch mor- 
 tars, and two heavy carronades. The fleet could 
 do little beyond keeping up the blockade, for the 
 port of Bastia is not very safe, nor adapted for ves- 
 sels of high tonnage.* During the time which had 
 been lost through the hesitation and timidity of the 
 English generals the garrison had erected several 
 new works, and had strengthened the oid ones, 
 with the skill and rapidity Frenchmen usually dis- 
 play on these occasions: the place was, therefore, 
 '* The’ Préselyte’ guu-boat had been brought round from San 
 Fiorenzo, for the purpose of playing on a part of the town; but, on 
 getting undersail, she was prevented by a violent swell from taking 
 her proper station ; and, being exposed to a heavy fire of red-hot balis, 
 was soon in flames, several of the shots striking her between wind 
 and water, and lodging amongst the casks in her hold. Her com- 
 mander, Captain Serecold, immediately made the signal for assist- 
 ance, but, till boats arrived to carry off the crew, which they for- 
 
 tunately preserved, he never intermitted his fire upon the cnemy. 
 The gun-boat was of course burned.— WW. S. Rese. 
 
 © » <> Seep tn hrree trapeestesetesesemmarmeernemunetememeen iemeemneermeememmmenennmceense sees ee 
 
 much stronger now, when it was only attacked by 
 Lord Hood’s force, than it had been at the period 
 when it might have been assailed by this force 
 united with that of Dundas, whose five regiments 
 were now lying at San Fiorenzo doing nothing. 
 But, if Nelson and Villettes had but few pieces in 
 battery, they fired with such precision that a ball 
 or bomb was rarely thrown away ; they cleared the 
 outworks of the enemy, and knocked some of their 
 inner works about their ears. Lacombe-Saint- 
 Michel proved not quite so valorous and desperate 
 in deed as he had been in word. As early as the 
 11th of May, when the siege had lasted a month, 
 he began to speak of negotiation, and on the 19th 
 of May a treaty of capitulation was begun with 
 him. That night some of the troops from San 
 Fiorenzo made their appearance on the neighbour- 
 ing heights, and on the following morning Dun- 
 das’s successor, General d’Aubant, came up with 
 the whole force to take possession of Bastia, to the 
 reduction of which they had not in the slightest 
 degree contributed. On the 21st the articles of 
 capitulation were signed on board Admiral Hood’s 
 ship, the Victory: 1000 French regulars, 1500 
 national guards, and a large party of Corsican 
 troops attached to the French interest, in all be- 
 tween 3000 and 4000 men, laid down their arms, 
 to be shipped off for Toulon. 
 
 If our sieges had been more frequently intrusted 
 to seamen, or men who had been trained in the 
 navy; if our routine generals had been put on the 
 shelf, and their old books and systems into the fire ; 
 and if a set of post-captains had been draughted 
 from our fleets, there are good grounds for believ- 
 
42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ing that England might have been spared some 
 tremendous expenses, many reverses, and not a few 
 disgraces in the first fourteen years of this long 
 war. Wherever the seamen were landed and left 
 to act under their own officers, they did their work 
 well and rapidly. It was the same in the West 
 India Islands as in Corsica. The French repub- 
 licans were obtaining rapid victories mainly because 
 they had got rid of the old routines and systems, 
 and were employing commanders who had no other 
 theory than that of moving rapidly, and attacking 
 boldly and suddenly. The loss sustained by the 
 British during the whole of this daring siege 
 amounted only to seven sailors and seven soldiers 
 killed, and thirteen sailors and twenty-one soldiers 
 wounded. There still remained in possession of 
 the republicans the coast town and fortress of Calvi, 
 most strongly situated among rocks and precipices. 
 It was and is by far the strongest place in the 
 whole island, and in other respects most important, 
 being the point nearest to France, and with a fresh 
 wind only eight hours’ sail from the French port 
 of Antibes. It was resolved that Calvi should be 
 invested, without loss of time, by both army and 
 navy ; and, fortunately, at this juncture the com- 
 mand of the land troops was intrusted to General 
 Sir Charles Stuart, an officer of eminent talent, 
 and of almost romantic bravery and enterprise. 
 He suited Nelson, who was to take the chief ma- 
 nagement of the sailors on shore, as well as the 
 gallant Wolfe had suited Lord Howe in his younger 
 days. Two such men, with adequate means, 
 would have performed miracles if they had been 
 left to act together. 
 
 By the middle of June Calvi, in spite of its 
 thundering and commanding batteries, throwing 
 red-hot shot, was invested by sea and land. Nel- 
 son, together with Captains Hallowell and Serecold, 
 served in the batteries on shore, after having helped 
 tomake them. Serecold, who had given proof of 
 the greatest coolness and intrepidity at the siege 
 of Bastia, was killed by grape-shot whilst getting 
 the last gun into its place on one of these batteries. 
 **T trust it will not be forgotten,” said Nelson to 
 Lord Hood, ‘‘ that twenty-five pieces of heavy ord- 
 nance have been dragged to the different batteries, 
 mounted, and all but three fought by seamen, ex- 
 cept one artilleryman to point the guns.” These 
 heavy guns were all dragged up precipices as steep 
 as, and more lofty than, those at Bastia. This 
 tremendous fatigue was undergone in that scorch- 
 ing, almost African, climate, in the hottest season 
 of the year, or during the reign of the Sol-Leone, 
 or Lion-Sun, as the Italians and Corsicans poetically 
 call what we designate the Dog-days. But worse 
 than fatigue was suffered during the lengthened 
 siege of this strong place. Many of the neigh- 
 bouring hollows and flats were covered with under- 
 wood and stagnating water—were infectious pantani, 
 or maremme, differing only in extent from the 
 pestilential marshes on the Tuscan and Roman 
 coasts; and close under the ships and the encamp- 
 ment of the besiegers there was a great pestiferous 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 bog or pond, called by the natives La Vigna del 
 Vescovo (the Bishop’s Vineyard) ; and from: all 
 these points, sweltering and evaporating under the 
 Lion-Sun, there rose malaria enough to poison the 
 air for a considerable distance. Of two thousand 
 men that were landed, above half were sick, and the 
 rest looked like so many phantoms. On the 10th 
 of August, after a siege of fifty-one days, the re- 
 publican general, Casabianca, surrendered on terms ~ 
 of capitulation. The loss from the fire of the 
 enemy had not been great, amounting only to 31 
 killed and 60 wounded; but Nelson received a 
 serious injury: a shot struck near him, drove sand 
 and small gravel into one of his eyes, and deprived 
 him of the sight of it. 
 
 By the advice of Paoli, a deputation of the Con- 
 sulta, or Provisory Council of Government, pro- 
 ceeded to London, to offer the ancient crown of 
 Corsica to the King of Great Britain. The offer 
 was accepted ; and most Corsicans, and no doubt 
 Paoli himself, expected that he would have been 
 appointed viceroy. But the British government 
 chose to send in that high capacity Sir Gilbert 
 Elliott (afterwards Lord Minto), whom we have 
 seen as a great parliamentary debater on the side 
 of opposition, and as the bitter and unfair assailant 
 of Sir Elijah Impey. This appointment gave 
 almost universal dissatisfaction to the Corsicans, 
 and certainly both hurt the pride and cooled the 
 patriotism of Paoli—an old man indeed, being in 
 his sixty-eighth year (a year younger than Lord 
 Howe when he achieved the greatest of his vic- 
 tories), but still full of health, vigour, and activity, 
 and with his intellect in better order than at any 
 previous period of his life. Having alienated the 
 affections of the islanders by a step which hurt 
 them all, we set about gratifying them with a con- 
 stitution, which the great body of the people, unfit 
 and unprepared for aay such regimen, neither un- 
 derstood nor cared about. Sir Gilbert Elliott, on 
 the 21st of June, wrote exultingly to his govern- 
 ment, “‘ His majesty has acquired a crown; those 
 who bestow it have acquired liberty. The British 
 nation has extended its political and commercial 
 sphere by the accession of Corsica; Corsica has 
 added new securities to her ancient possessions, 
 and has opened fresh fields of prosperity and 
 wealth, by her liberal incorporation with a vast and 
 powerful empire.” But there was no chance of 
 durability for these mutual benefits, for that must 
 depend upon mutual good-will and the devotedness 
 of the people to the new system. Even the consti- 
 tution which Sir Gilbert Elliott helped to make, — 
 which he recognised and swore to for his sovereign 
 and for himself, was a most crude and defective 
 thing, containing the monstrous and inexcusable 
 blunder of a parliament of only one house or 
 chamber, the consequence of which must eternally 
 be, that the representative will be in constant 
 collision with the executive. It conferred trial by 
 jury, which, among a people like the Corsicans of 
 that time, can only be a curse, and the cause of 
 murder and perpetual feuds. A remarkable piece 
 
Guar. VII] 
 
 of diplomatic impudence seems to demand a brief 
 notice. The long since fallen and contemptible 
 republic of Genoa not only claimed the restoration 
 of some prizes taken by Corsican cruisers previous 
 to the arrival of the English, but preferred a claim 
 to the possession of the island itself. These de- 
 mands did not meet with much attention; but 
 orders were given that the Corsican privateers 
 should respect the Genoese flag as that of a neutral 
 state. 
 
 The management of the great armies of the 
 coalition on the continent was, by many degrees, 
 worse and more inexcusable than during the pre- 
 ceding year. The rising of the Polish patriots 
 under Kosciuszko distracted more than ever the 
 attention of the Emperor and the King of Prussia, 
 and induced his Prussian majesty to send a large 
 army into Poland to secure the territories which 
 had been allotted to him in the last partition, and 
 to set up a pretension to more. Frederick William 
 went into Poland to take the command of his 
 army there, and the Duke of Brunswick, dissatis- 
 fied with his conduct, and discouraged by the bad 
 termination of two campaigns, threw up the com- 
 mand of the Prussian army and its contingents on 
 the Rhine. The King of Prussia even authorised 
 some secret negotiations for a separate peace with 
 the National Convention, and, when these ma- 
 noeuyres became known, he frankly intimated that 
 he would abandon the coalition unless he were re- 
 tained by a liberal subsidy. A bargain—as bad 
 a one as ever was struck—was concluded in the 
 month of April: 2,200,000/. was to be paid to his 
 Prussian majesty, who was to furnish an army of 
 62,400 men; the money to be provided by Great 
 Britain and the States-General of the United Pro- 
 vinces (the only subsidizing powers in Europe), but 
 not in equal proportions, for Great Britain was to 
 pay more than five times as much as the Dutch. 
 _A great part of this subsidy went to Poland, where 
 Frederick William remained. As more and more 
 troops were required in that country, his army on 
 the Rhine fell short of the stipulated number; and 
 the gentlest thing that can be said of the conduct 
 of this latter Prussian army in this year’s campaign 
 is that it was loose and spiritless. 
 
 In the Netherlands, where Austrians, English, 
 Dutch, Hanoverians were to fight together, the 
 campaign scarcely opened under better auspices: 
 a great many of the Dutch, both officers and men, 
 were lukewarm or democratic. The Duke of York 
 quarrelled with the Austrian commanders, and re- 
 fused to serve under General Clairfait. This ill- 
 timed quarrel has been very gencrally attributed to 
 the pride, petulance, and jealousy of rank of the 
 young English prince ; but it appears that he had 
 better reasons for objecting to the supreme com- 
 mand of the Austrian general, who had evinced on 
 various occasions an indifference to the common 
 interest of the coalition, and even a readiness to 
 sacrifice that interest to the views and objects of his 
 own government. He had, too, in the preceding 
 campaign worn out the patience of the best part of 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 49 
 eS ovovwrwrwrercrc cr — 
 
 the English army by the slowness of his move- 
 ments. The Duke of York was not a military 
 genius, and possibly would never have become a 
 great general under any circumstances; but he 
 was badly mated, sadly hampered in this his brief 
 career: his energy and bravery, if they had been 
 allowed full play, might have maintained the war 
 in a better manner than that in which it was car- 
 ried on by the Austrian formulists. In order to 
 restore harmony (which never was restored), it 
 was agreed between the courts of London and 
 Vienna, that the emperor himself should take the 
 command of the army, that the Duke of York 
 should serve under him, that the campaign should 
 be opened with vigour on the French frontier, and 
 that the heads of the columns should be again 
 turned towards Paris.* It was also agreed, or 
 rather projected, that the army of the King of 
 Prussia should move from the Rhine by the valley 
 of the Moselle, traverse Luxembourg, and join the 
 allieson the Sambre, or co-operate with them in 
 their advance; and England further undertook to 
 send Lord Moira with 10,000 men to the coast of 
 Britany to back the Vendeans, who seemed deter- 
 mined to make another effort, and to advance with 
 them towards Paris from the west, while the Eng- 
 lish, Austrians, Prussians, &c. advanced from the 
 north. It appears, too, that something more was 
 expected from the Spaniards and Sardinians than 
 a defensive war to cover their own territories—that 
 it was hoped that the Spaniards, who had fought 
 so well during the campaign of 1793, might ad- 
 vance from the Pyrenees, and that the King of 
 Sardinia might hurl back the French from the 
 Alps, repossess himself of Savoy, and once more 
 open the road towards Lyons. Thus, this was 
 still to be a * centrifugal war,’’ and those who had 
 honestly built their hopes upon it seem to have 
 lost sight of the inadequate strength of these five 
 widely-separated armies. The emperor arrived 
 early in April; but Francis II. was no soldier, was 
 more methodical than any of his generals, and, 
 though the flattering Imperialists of Brussels told 
 him that the Gauls would tremble now that Ceesar 
 was come, the fact proved otherwise.t As if to 
 demonstrate from the beginning that there was to 
 be no change of system, the emperor went with the 
 main army and laid siege to Landrecies, a second- 
 rate fortress. The republicans made several at- 
 tempts for its relief, but they were defeated with 
 considerable loss, and the place was obliged to 
 surrender. But, as the allies already possessed on 
 the same frontier Valenciennes, Condé, and Ques- 
 noy, Landrecies was far from being worth the 
 time and trouble it had cost to take it ; and, while 
 the emperor was engaged here, Pichegru pene- 
 trated into West Flanders, where Clairfait was 
 stationed with a division of the imperial army, 
 and captured Courtrai and Menin before that slow 
 
 * The plan of this campaign was drawn up by the Austrian General 
 Mack, whose reputation kept increasing. 
 
 + The good citizens of Brussels gave the Emperor Francis a tri- 
 umphant entrance, and inscribed over one of their gates, ‘* Cesay 
 adest, tremant Galli.” 
 
44 
 
 general could offer him any interruption. Another | 
 
 republican force, commanded by Jourdan, had en- 
 tered the country of Luxembourg before the siege 
 of Landrecies was begun; but while the siege con- 
 tinued Jourdan was allowed to increase his army 
 tu a prodigious extent, Without counting the 
 Prussians, who were to come, but who never came, 
 the allies, when they opened the campaign from 
 the Netherlands, had not, altogether, above 
 200,090 effective men in the field, and these were 
 absurdly seattered, divided, and subdivided under 
 a perplexing variety of commands. The French, 
 at the commencement of operations, must have 
 had, at the least, 350,000 men (garrisons in- 
 cluded) spread along this frontier, and later in 
 the year, when their successes on or beyond their 
 other frontiers allowed them to reinforce this army 
 of the North, not only were all the losses it had 
 sustained made up, but it was rendered much 
 stronger than it was at the opening of the cam- 
 paign. The republican generals cared little for the 
 loss of a few thousands of men here and there, for 
 the populous and armed hive was close behind them 
 whence they could always draw reinforcements. 
 On the other hand, the armies of the allies were 
 recruited with slowness and difficulty. It is ex- 
 tremely difficult to get even to an approximation of 
 the amount of the republican forces, for French 
 writers, in applauding the energy of the central 
 government, which raised them so rapidly, gene- 
 rally exaggerate numbers, and, in eulogising the 
 conduct of these armies in the field, they always 
 diminish numbers, as if calculating on a forgetful- 
 ness of their previous numerals and_ assertions. 
 Taking their own lowest estimate, the é/evée en 
 masse and réqutsttion permanente had given them 
 in the preceding year 1,250,000 men, who were 
 all put under arms to cover the frontiers or to fill 
 the depdts in the interior. Of these troops, 
 450,000 had been brigaded, two battalions of the 
 new levies being united with one battalion of troops 
 of the line, aud 800,000 men mixed in these pro- 
 portions were on the frontiers or in the frontier 
 fortresses at the beginning of the present year. 
 They state that of these 800,000 men (which left 
 in depdt 500,000) there were stationed under the 
 Alps 100,000, under the Pyrenees 120,000, on 
 the western cvast, between Cherbourg and La 
 Rochelle (to keep down the Vendeans and the 
 Bretons) 80,000, on the Rhine 200,000, and 
 along the froutier of the north (including the Ar- 
 dennes, where there were 40,000 or 50,000) 
 390,000; but it appears certain that the numbers 
 of four of these armies are overstated, in order to 
 diminish the strength of the fifth, or army of the 
 North, which alone had to sustain an obstinate 
 war with the allies, whose main force and principal 
 attack was in this quarter. The simplest rules of 
 arithmetic ought to have taught the allies the ab- 
 surdity of their plans and hopes (but some of them 
 had no longer a hope left, and were only idling 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 that, notwithstanding the myriads they had in 
 arms, they gained all their victories with handfuls 
 of men, or with numbers incomparably less than 
 those opposed to them. Jourdan, after being 
 greatly reinforced from the army of the Rhine, 
 fell upon the Austrian general, Beaulieu, who 
 attempted to check his progress in Luxembourg. 
 The Austrians were well placed behind fortified 
 lines, and they fought bravely for two days; but 
 Jourdan, throwing forward column after column, 
 perplexing them with a variety of attacks, and 
 then overwhelming them with numbers, drove 
 them from their lines with great loss. Pichegru, 
 after beating or outmanceuvring Clairfait, wheeled 
 round upon the Duke of York, who, with about 
 30,000 men, chiefly English and Hanoyerians, 
 was stationed at Tournay ; but here the republican 
 general was repulsed in every attack he made, and 
 compelled to retreat from a field which he left 
 covered with his dead; the celerity of his moye- 
 ments and the superiority of his numbers were of 
 no avail, Yet, on the very next day, the 11th of 
 May, Pichegru took by surprise Clairfait, who had 
 come up to try to retake Courtray. The Aus‘rians, 
 who had got possession of the suburbs, and who 
 had thrown up some hasty works on the road that 
 led from Bruges to Courtray, made a spirited re- 
 sistance, driving back their assailants, and at one 
 moment seemed secure of the victory, for the new 
 levies of the French, who very generally fell into 
 panics in their first actions, gave way and swept 
 off some of the veteran troops with them; but the 
 fugitives were rallied, the republican garrison made 
 sorties, and after fighting for twelve hours Clair- 
 fait abandoned his ground, faliing back into 
 Ilanders in good order, and taking up a position 
 which enabled him to cover Ghent, Bruges, and 
 Ostend. A few days afier this Pichegru, impelled 
 against his better judgment by the fanatical Saint- 
 Just, who was en mzssion with the army, threw 
 his right wing, under Kléber and Marceau, across 
 the Sambre, to attack the Austrian general Kau- 
 nitz, who was lying there to cover some towns. 
 [lere the republicans were defeated with terrible 
 loss, were driven back into the river and across it, 
 and must have been utterly annihilated but for 
 the over-caution and slowness of the Austrians and 
 the good generalship of Kléber. The actual loss of 
 the French was estimated at 4000. With spirits re- 
 vived by this victory the allies came to the determi- 
 nation of waiting no longer for the Prussians, who 
 showed no intention of moving, and whose march 
 along the Moselle would have now been obstructed 
 
 by Jourdan with an army far superior in numbers — 
 
 to their own: in a grand council of war they deter- 
 mined to envelop the left or chief and victorious 
 part of the French army on the Marne, by moving 
 upon it from the various points they occupied, in 
 five attacking columns. But the success of these 
 combined movements depended upon celerity and 
 a perfect understanding among the leaders of the 
 
 with the war); and the same simple rules ought to | several columns; and, while quickness could be 
 expected from none except the English column, 
 
 expose the mendacity of the French, who pieteud 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 there was, apparently, a total want of good under- 
 standing, good feeling, and concert among all the 
 commanders. They took no proper measures for 
 ascertaining the movements of the enemy, while all 
 their own movements were promptly and correctly 
 ascertained by the French, who still had a large 
 portion of the population of the Netherlands in 
 their favour. The Duke of York, whose experience 
 of the Austrian slowness ought to have moderated 
 his speed, dashed forward towards the appointed 
 centre, round which all the columns were to meet ; 
 but at Turcoing, where he expected to see the 
 head of Clairfait’s column, he was enveloped by 
 the republican columns of Souham and Bonnaud, 
 was attacked by a force three times greater than 
 his own, and completely defeated. ‘The duke him- 
 self narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the 
 enemy. The other columns of the allies which 
 had moved so slowly, or which had scarcely moved 
 at all, now fell into panic and confusion, and the 
 Hmperor Francis had the mortification of witness- 
 ing from the heights of Templeuve the retreat of 
 the entire army of the coalition. He soon returned 
 to Brussels, and then to Vienna, taking his great 
 military adviser Mack with him, and leaving the 
 Prince of Cobourg to command in his name. His 
 departure was important in this respect—it served 
 as a signal for the generals of different nations to 
 burst out into loud, vehement reproaches against 
 one another. The English and Hanoverian column, 
 though it had suffered a terrible loss in the battle 
 of Turcoing, soon rallied, and even foiled Pichegru 
 in an attempt to seize or invest Tournay. The 
 Austrian general Kaunitz, who had defeated 
 Kleber and Marceau, gained another victory on 
 nearly the same ground, and once more drove the 
 French across the Sambre. But these exploits 
 only retarded the crisis: Jourdan, having nothing 
 to do on the Moselle, brought the greater part of 
 his army towards the Sambre, Pichegru and all 
 the divisions under him were reinforced almost 
 daily, fresh corps d’armée were drawn from the 
 depots and advanced towards this theatre of war ; 
 for, whatever revolution took place in the central 
 government at Paris, and whether power was 
 in the hands of Robespierre and his party, or in 
 the hands of those who overthrew him, there was 
 no relaxation in these efforts, and the people, once 
 in arms and encouraged by victories that never lost 
 anything by quiet or modest reporting, were ready 
 to march without any effort on the part of their 
 strange government. More than ever war was the 
 best and most profitable business for the French ; 
 and, if there had been other employment for them, 
 they were losing their taste for it, through that in- 
 cessant drilling and soldiering which was kept up 
 1a every part of the country. At the same time 
 the reinforcements of the allies, which were to be 
 brought from great distances, arrived very slowly 
 and in very small numbers. Austria as well as 
 Prussia had need of a large force on the side of 
 Poland, unless she resigned herself to the loss of 
 her share in ancther and final partition, and to 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 45 
 ee CL CU UC Ch CSCS... re eee 
 
 the aggrandisement of her neighbour and rival. 
 Pichegru, after some manceuvres which per- 
 plexed the allies, struck off to the left and 
 laid siege to Ypres.  Clairfait, after waiting 
 for reinforcements which never arrived, marched 
 to the relief of the besieged town, and defeated 
 Pichegru in a smart action. But the French 
 general was reinforced immediately after by the 
 brigade of Devinthier, and he turned upon Clair- 
 fait, who had been left without any support on the 
 ground he had won—Prince Cobourg was coming, 
 but not come. Pichegru recovered the ground he 
 had lost, beat Clairfait, and took Ypres, the strong 
 garrison of that place opening the gates, and piling 
 their arms like traitors or cowards. In the mean- 
 time Jourdan marched to the siege of Charleroi, 
 and called in troops, who moved with lighter bag- 
 gage and a much quicker pace than any of their 
 adversaries, to fall in from various points and join 
 him. The Hereditary Prince of Orange was dis- 
 patched with a part of the army of the coalition to 
 cover Charleroi; and the prince performed this 
 duty so well that he defeated Jourdan in a pitched 
 battle, and drove him across the Sambre. This 
 was the third time in the course of the present 
 campaign that the French had been compelled to 
 recross that river. But again the republicans were 
 reinforced, and their assailants not. A proclama- 
 tion was issued by the Austrian authorities of 
 Brussels exhorting the people of the Austrian Ne- 
 therlands to rise en masse ; but, if these people rose 
 at all, it would be for the French and not for the 
 emperor. In a few days Jourdan crossed the 
 Sambre once more, and opened a tremendous bom- 
 bardment upon Charleroi. When the place was 
 reduced, and actually in the hands of the repub- 
 licans, Cobourg came up, joined the Prince of 
 Orange and General Beaulieu, and risked a general 
 action to save the town. On the 26th of June 
 Cobourg attacked Jourdan on the plains of Fleurus. 
 At first the allies were very successful: the Prince 
 of Orange drove in Jourdan’s left, pursued it 
 through the woods of Monceaux, and almost to 
 the banks of the Sambre ; but. in this advance they 
 were discouraged by learning for the first time 
 that the garrison of Charleroi had capitulated ; 
 and Kléber brought some batteries to bear upon 
 them, enveloped them in the wood of Monceaux, 
 and drove them back with great loss. Nearly at 
 the same moment Beaulicu thoroughly defeated on 
 the extreme right of the French the division of 
 Marceau, the greater part of which fled across the 
 Sambre, and appeared no more on the field of . 
 battle. Even in the centre the republicans were 
 worsted and driven out of some redoubts. Evening 
 was advancing when Jourdan reccived a powerful 
 reinforcement, including a great quantity of artil- 
 lery, which continued to be supplied with still 
 increasing profusion. Marceau, who had thrown 
 himself, with that portion of his division which did 
 not run away, into the village of Lambusart, close 
 on the bank of the Sambre, was joined there by 
 General Lefevre: Beaulieu attacked them both, 
 
46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ean nt LE Ce 
 
 and was gaining the village, when Jourdan brought 
 all his corps de reserve to the threatened point. 
 Here, and here only, the allies were at last beaten ; 
 but they had fought for thirteen hours in a hot 
 summer day, and could bear up no longer against 
 an enemy whose numbers were increased rather 
 than diminished in the course of the battle ; and, 
 as night was setting in, the Prince of Cobourg or- 
 dered a general retreat. This was by far the hardest- 
 fought battle of the campaign: the loss on both 
 sides was very great; and all that the French 
 could boast of was that they had repelled an attack. 
 Cobourg retired in good order to Halle, and pre- 
 pared to fight again for the preservation of what 
 remained to the house of Austria in the Nether- 
 lands. But the sans-culottic portion of the Bel- 
 gians now again declared everywhere for the 
 French: Bruges, having only a weak garrison to 
 resist the popular will, opened its gates to them ; 
 Pichegru, aided by General Moreau, compelled 
 the Duke of York to retreat to Oudenarde, from 
 Oudenarde to Tournay, and thence on to Antwerp. 
 The places the English left in their rear followed 
 the example of Bruges ; and the English garrison 
 at Ostend was embarked on board of transports, 
 and brought round to the Scheldt. At Antwerp 
 the Duke of York was joined by Lord Moira, with 
 10,000 British troops, who had been originally 
 intended for the war in the Vendée, but who had 
 not been got ready until some time after the ter- 
 rible destruction of the Vendeans at Savenay. 
 The duke’s communications with Clairfait were 
 re-established ; and these two armies occupied the 
 country between Antwerp and Louvain, holding 
 both these towns, and Mechlin, which lay between 
 them. Part of the army of Pichegru invested 
 Valenciennes, Cond¢, Quesnoy, and Landrecies, 
 those useless conquests of the allies ; the Conven- 
 tion, which had before this ordered that no quarter 
 should be given to any English or Hanoverian 
 troops, sent a fresh decree commanding that the 
 garrisons left in these places should be butchered 
 to a man if they prolonged their defence; and 
 these troops, otherwise disheartened, capitulated 
 almost immediately. A grand junction was made 
 between the armies of Pichegru and Jourdan, and 
 150,000 men advanced upon Brussels. Cobourg 
 threw himself before them, and formed an en- 
 trenched camp in the forest of Soignies, in the 
 hope of covering Brussels. When attacked, the 
 Austrians stood their ground manfully for some 
 time, and with their well-served artillery inflicted 
 a severe loss: but the republican columns were 
 precipitated upon them from all sides ; masses suc- 
 ceeded to masses ; and at last they were driven out 
 of their entrenchments at the point of the bayonet. 
 They retreated to Brussels, retreated through that 
 town during the night, leaving the sans-culottes 
 in it to welcome the French, who entered in 
 triumph on the 9th of July, just as the abundant 
 harvests of the country were ripe for the sickle. 
 The ancient town of Ghent had opened its gates 
 to the republicans on the5th. The Duke of York 
 
 re ; 
 
 and Lord Moira were attacked by the enemy in 
 great force on the 12th, and compelled to take 
 shelter in Mechlin ; but when the French at- 
 tempted to dislodge them Lord Moira drove them 
 back with loss. Three days after fresh columns of 
 the republicans renewed the attack, and drove the 
 English out of the place ; and on the fullowing day 
 Clairfait was overwhelmed near Louvain, and 
 obliged to abandon that city, as also Liege. So 
 wretchedly had all things been managed, and so 
 extensive had been the system of treachery, that 
 not one of the strong fortresses which studded the 
 country had been stored with provisions or am- 
 munition for standing a siege: thus General Beau- 
 lieu was compelled to evacuate Namur, so re- 
 nowned for the sieges it had stood in former days, 
 and to leave it open to the enemy, without its cost- 
 ing them the trouble of firing a gun. ‘The citadel 
 of Antwerp, to which the Duke of York had re- 
 treated, was in no better case than Namur: the 
 populace of the town were decided partisans of the 
 French ; and after staying there a week, in order 
 to give the Dutch time to prepare for the defence 
 of their own country on the other side of the river, 
 the English crossed the Scheldt, and abandoned 
 citadel and city to the French, who made another 
 triumphal entrance without burning any gun- 
 powder, except for a feu de joie, on the 23rd of 
 July. Thus the whole of Austrian Flanders and 
 Brabant fell under the dominion of the French in 
 one short campaign. The Prince of Cobourg, after 
 some altercations with the Dutch generals, who 
 refused to join him in risking another battle, and 
 after making a powerful appeal to his German 
 brothers and friends on the Rhine and the Moselle, 
 along all the frontier of Germany, to rise and arm 
 themselves for the defence of their altars, their 
 habitations, their emperor, their liberty, and the 
 old Germanic honour; to bring provisions for the 
 use of his army, to coin the treasures of their 
 churches, the utensils and vases of silver, for the 
 pay of their defenders (an appeal which made but 
 little impression), withdrew from the command of 
 the Imperial army. The emperor himself was so 
 discouraged by the events of the war, and so irri- 
 tated at the conduct of his ally the king of Prussia, 
 that a notion got abroad of his intending to abandon 
 the coalition, and seek a separate peace with the 
 republicans. As Francis had all the old Austrian 
 tenacity, it may be reasonably doubted whether he 
 ever seriously thought of relinquishing his rich 
 Netherland dominions without another struggle 
 for them (to obtain them back from the French by 
 negotiation, or by any peace that he could make 
 
 with them, must have been an idea too visionary — 
 
 to be entertained), and the report of the secession 
 was, perhaps, circulated only for the purpose of 
 putting himself on a par with Prussia, by obtaining 
 
 a round sum of money from England. Whatever 
 
 were his feelings or motives, this was the effect 
 produced. Alarmed at the sinister report, Pitt 
 dispatched Earl Spencer, and his own relative, Mr. 
 Thomas Grenville, to Vienna, and the diplomacy 
 
 [Boox X, — 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 of these two envoys ended in our offering, and the 
 
 emperor accepting, a very large subsidy, in the 
 
 shape of a guarantee ofa loan of four millions. A 
 
 new treaty was concluded with the Duke of Bruns- 
 
 wick, who engaged to furnish his Britannic ma- 
 jesty with a corps of 2289 men, infantry, light 
 horse, and artillery, and all well trained and dis- 
 ciplined, completely armed and equipped, upon 
 condition of his Britannic majesty’s paying these 
 troops on the same liberal scale on which he paid 
 the Hessians in his service, and granting over and 
 above to his serene highness the Duke of Brunswick 
 an annual subsidy of about 16,000/. sterling: But 
 it was too late in the year for these efforts to be of 
 any use in the present campaign; and we had no 
 security that the emperor would use the money in 
 ' aproper manner in the campaign to come, while 
 the Brunswick mercenaries were contemptible in 
 number, considered with reference to an enemy 
 who raised levies by half millions at a time, and 
 marched armies of hundreds of thousands. 
 
 The Germanic Diet, at the beginning of the year, 
 had agreed to a conclusum for a general armament 
 of the people of the empire, of the burghers and 
 peasantry of all the circles, electorates, principali- 
 ties, and states comprised in the league. But the 
 king of Prussia had declared that if this conclusum 
 were not withdrawn and annulled, he would be 
 forced to withdraw his troops, as he could not ex- 
 pose them to the danger which must necessarily 
 result from such a measure. As many parts of his 
 patchwork kingdom were disaffected to the house of 
 Brandenburg, to which they had been united by 
 force and fortune of war, and at very recent dates, 
 he evidently feared that if the population were 
 armed they might assert their independence, or 
 struggle to be restored to the states and sovereigns 
 to which they had formerly belonged. But these 
 apprehensions were not good to put in a royal de- 
 claration, and therefore Frederick William gave 
 other reasons for objecting to the bold and great 
 measure which might have placed Germany in a 
 condition to withstand the armed millions of France. 
 He said that his reasons were—1l. That by em- 
 ploying the peasantry against the enemy, agricul- 
 ture would want hands. 2. That there were not 
 arms sufficient to give to such a mass of people. 
 3. That it was impossible, in so short a time, to 
 teach the manual exercise to the inhabitants. 
 4. That it had been found, by the experience of 
 the two last campaigns, that the soldiers exposed 
 to the French must be perfectly exercised to make 
 head against them. 5. That it was infinitely dan- 
 gerous, at a time like the present, when the French 
 were watching every opportunity to insinuate their 
 principles, to assemble such a mass of men, whose 
 ideas upon forms of government must be various, 
 and among whom, consequently, dissensions might 
 arise, disastrous in their consequences both to the 
 armies and to the constitution of the empire. The 
 example of the French might have shown his 
 Prussian majesty, if he had really wished to look 
 at it, how tbe first four of his difficulties might 
 
 eg ye 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 47 
 
 have been overcome ; and, as for his fifth objection, 
 it was scarcely applicable to any part of Germany, 
 except the provinces or states on the Rhine—the 
 vast mass of the German people having a strong 
 antipathy to French principles, and a natural in- 
 compatibility with the French character. Other 
 electors, however, also shrunk from the execution 
 of the bold project, for they were nearly all jealous 
 and distrustful of one another, and none of them, 
 except the House of Austria in their hereditary 
 states, had an entire confidence in their own sub- 
 jects. The conclusum of the Diet was let drop; 
 twenty years of loss, humiliation, disgrace, were 
 allowed to follow; and then, by acting upon its 
 principle, the German people were armed as land- 
 wehr, and Germany was freed, and bore honoura- 
 bly her full part in putting down the oppressors of 
 all Europe. 
 
 Early in the year, while these German poten- 
 tates were disputing with each other, and discou- 
 raging, in many ways, the army on the Rhine, 
 which stood in need of every encouragement after 
 their unfortunate campaign of 1793, the French 
 advanced, and took the fort of Kaiserslautern, 
 the town of Spires, and several other towns and 
 fortresses. Adhering to the routine of long winter- 
 quarters, and to the principle that armies were not 
 to take the field until the season of snow and frost 
 was over, the German commanders had no forces 
 on foot at all equal to contend with the repub- 
 licans ; nor was it until the month of May that 
 they got a-field in earnest. The Prussians, who 
 did not exceed 50,000 effective men, were now 
 commanded by Count Marshal Méllendorf. Be- 
 sides this force there was an Austrian army on the 
 Rhine of about the same strength, some small con- 
 tingent forces furnished by the lesser circles of the 
 empire, and the emigrant army of Condé, which 
 was still 12,000 strong—upon paper. ‘Towards 
 the end of May, Mollendorf, taking them by sur- 
 prise, drove the French out of their entrenchments 
 at Kaiserslautern, with slaughter, and took a good 
 many of their guns. But from this time till the 
 beginning of July, when the republicans were 
 greatly reinforced, the Prussians and their allies 
 did nothing of the least consequence. With a su- 
 periority of numbers which gave them the assurance 
 of success, the French, who were moreover cheered 
 by the intelligence of the successes obtained in the 
 Netherlands, and the news of the battle of Fleurus, 
 sought out MOdllendorf, and on the 12th of July 
 began a battle which was desperately maintained, 
 at different points, during four whole days. On the 
 night of the 15th, when both sides had suffered 
 tremendous loss, the allies made a hasty retreat. 
 The Imperialists crossed the Rhine, and the Prus- 
 sians retired down the left bank of that river to 
 Mayence. Neither of these armies was of any 
 further use during the remainder of this cam- 
 paign. AQ territory sixty miles im length was 
 abandoned to the republicans, who marched to the 
 easy reduction of Treves, and then poured down 
 in great numbers to the Netherlands, to help to 
 
48 
 
 finish the war there, and after that to conquer 
 Holland; for there was no intention of stopping 
 short at the Scheldt and Roer, as Dumouriez had 
 done in 1792. 
 
 The Duke of York assisted the Hereditary Prince 
 of Orange in covering the United Provinces ; but 
 their force was miserably insufficient: the demo- 
 cratic party was again on tiptoe, corresponding 
 with the French, giving every encouragement and 
 assistance in their power to those liberators; and 
 the Dulch army, infected by the same principles, 
 or disheartened by toilsoine retreats and many de- 
 feats, was, in more senses than the military one, 
 demoralized. In Dutch Flanders, Cadsandt and 
 Sluys were reduced by Moreau before the end of 
 August ; masses of men were thrown upon the re- 
 treating columns of Clairfait, who, after standing 
 another battle, left Juliers and Aix-la-Chapelle to 
 Jourdan. Clairfait rallied once more, and fought 
 a battle, or a succession of battles, which lasted 
 from the 29th of September to the 3rd of October ; 
 but this was the last effort his exhausted army 
 could make, and his continued retreat left Cologne 
 open to the French. He would have attempted to 
 maintain himself in that old town, if he had found 
 proper supplies, and a proper spirit among its in- 
 habitants; but there was nothing of the kind: the 
 people had been proselytized by the Jacobins, and 
 Clairfait was therefore constrained to recross the 
 Rhine with all expedition. The French were so 
 close on his rear that they entered Cologne as the 
 last division of his troops were hurrying over the 
 river, and thus had the opportunity of shouting 
 after them that that was not the road to Paris. 
 Bonn, and other towns on the left bank of the 
 Rhine, in the electorate of Cologne, submitted to 
 the conquerors. ‘These places were defenceless or 
 weak ; but Coblentz, a dependence of the electorate 
 of Mayence, had been strongly fortified, and con- 
 tained a considerable garrison, yet here too scarcely 
 any resistance was made. The Imperialists retired 
 to the other side of the river, and the republicans 
 took possession of the place with exceeding great 
 joy; for it had long been the head-quarters of the 
 emigrant princes and nobles—the foyer of royalism 
 and counter-revolutionism., Worms and several 
 other towns threw open their gates. With tle 
 exception of Mayence, the French remained abso- 
 lute masters of every place on the left bank of the 
 Rhine between Landau and Nimeguen. On the 
 Maes the strong fortress of Venloo had been allowed 
 to be taken by a coup de main; and Bois-le-Duc, 
 from which an obstinate resistance was expected, 
 was surrendered by its Dutch garrison after a very 
 short siege. The Duke of York, now stationed 
 near Nimeguen, was cut off from all hope of rein- 
 forcement from Germany; for if the allies had 
 meant to support him, which they certainly did 
 not, they could not have sent their troops to him 
 without making a circuitous march. He resolved, 
 however, with such force as he had, to cover that 
 important place, the possession of which by the 
 French would greatly facilitate their advance into 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boor X, 
 
 the heart of Holland. On their side the repub- 
 licans resolved to drive him thence, hoping, by a 
 decisive blow, to compel him and his English 
 troops to retire from the defence of the United 
 Provinces. To this end they attacked the Duke 
 on the morning of the 19h of October, with 
 60,000 men, and compelled him to retreat from 
 his covering positions. As the Duke, however, 
 took up another position which equally prevented 
 their investing Nimeguen, they attacked him again, 
 with still greater numbers and fury, on the 27th 
 of October, and finally compelled him to withdraw 
 entirely, and leave the town to the chances of a 
 siege. As Nimeguen was exceedingly strong by 
 situation, and well garrisoned, it was expected that 
 it would prove an exception to the general rule, 
 and make a vigorous defence; but there were 
 traitors within its walls in intelligence with the 
 French, and the place was allowed to be surprised 
 and carried a very few days after the Duke of. 
 York’s retreat. Nearly at the same time Kleber, 
 after a siege of only five weeks’ duration, obtained 
 possession of the formidable fortress of Maestricht, — 
 which was garrisoned by 8000 Dutchmen and ~ 
 Germans in the pay of the States-General, and 
 which was abundantly supplied with provisions, 
 stores, and all things necessary—except fidelity 
 and courage. It is true that the French conducted 
 their sieges upon a new system and with unpre- 
 cedented numbers and fury: it is true that they 
 astonished, perplexed, and struck with consterna- 
 tion the officers of the old school; but still the 
 ease and rapidity of these operations can hardly 
 be accounted for without admitting a very large 
 amount of disaffection, treachery, and corruption 
 on the part of the Dutch. ‘Their disaffection is 
 notorious, and proved by innumerable facts. With 
 respect to the corruption, the French’ had the means 
 of it in their hands, for every army had a chest of 
 secret-service money furnished by the Convention. 
 The Duke of York, with the wreck of his army, 
 retreated across the Waal and the Rhine, and sta- 
 tioned himself at Arnheim in the province of 
 Gelderland, with but a faint hope of stopping the 
 progress of Pichegru, who had been appointed by 
 the Convention to complete the conquest of Hol- 
 land. We have often been assured by cne who 
 was in the duke’s army, that such was the irri- 
 tation of both officers and men at the conduct 
 and countenance of the Dutch troops, that they 
 would rather have fallen upon those allies than 
 upon the French. . 
 The Spaniards secmed to have spent their 
 strength and spirit in their Roussillon campaign 
 in the preceding year. Their finances had long 
 been in a ruinous condition, and at present they 
 husbanded such resources as they could command 
 from a belief, which other powers shared in, that 
 the sway of the Jacobins was drawing to a close; 
 that public opinion fermenting in France would 
 soon pronounce itself against the promoters of — 
 anarchy; in short, that a reaction was on the: point 
 of breaking out, and that the salutary crisis must 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 be hastened by the least check the French might 
 experience in this campaign.* They have, how- 
 ever, been censured too severely ; for, after all, they 
 kept their banners on the soil of the republic 
 some time longer than any other power, and they 
 fought on when the most terrible reverses were 
 befalling the armies of the coalition on the side of 
 Italy, on the Rhine, and in the Netherlands. The 
 brave Ricardos, who had repeatedly beaten the 
 French in 1793, was carried off by a sudden illness 
 on the 3rd of March; Count O’Reilly, who was 
 appointed to succeed him, died on his journey in 
 the same sudden manner, and thereupon the com- 
 mand of the army of Roussillon fell to the Count 
 de la Union, who had distinguished himself in the 
 preceding campaign under the orders of Ricardos. 
 On the other side Dugommier, a native of Guada- 
 loupe, and one of the very bravest and best of the 
 generals of the republic, was sent by the Conven- 
 tion to take the command of the French troops, 
 which had been prodigiously reinforced. The 
 republicans had remained on the defensive ever 
 since the winter. Early in April Dugommier suc- 
 ceeded, by a number of feigned attacks, which his 
 numerical superiority allowed him to make on 
 ‘various points at once, in detaching large forces 
 from the Spanish centre, which lay in a fortified 
 cainp at Boulon; and on the Ist of May the 
 French made a general attack on that centre, and 
 carried, after a hot engagement of six hours, the 
 two redoubts of la Trompette and Montesquieu, 
 the chief defences of the Spanish camp. As 
 Dugommier had blocked up all other roads, the 
 defeated Spaniards were obliged to retire by the 
 narrow and difficult road of Morallés, and to aban- 
 don a great part of their artillery. La Union could 
 not rally his men until they were within their own 
 frontiers: he then took up a position in front of 
 Figueiras, and covered that important fortress, the 
 key of Catalonia. The Spanish garrisons he had 
 left behind in Roussillon, in the forts of St. Elme, 
 Portvendre, and Colliouvre, though beleaguered by 
 immense forces, made a gallant resistance. The 
 garrison of St. Elme made one bold sortie, in the 
 course of which Dugommier, badly wounded, had 
 the greatest difficulty to escape on the shoulders 
 of some of his grenadiers. At last, when a breach 
 was opened, the Spaniards abandoned this fort, 
 and, with the garrison of Portvendre, which was 
 no longer tenable, they threw themselves into 
 Fort Colliouvre. This place, being assailed by 
 20,900 men, could not hold out very long, but the 
 Spaniards nobly defended themselves until they 
 found the opportunity of sending off in fishing- 
 boats a corps of French emigrants, the remnant of 
 “ the Legion of the Queen,” who were serving 
 with them, and who were doomed to death by the 
 laws of the pitiless republic. As soon as these 
 unhappy men were safe the garrison made an ho- 
 novrable capitulation. The Spanish flag. still 
 floated over the French fortress of Bellegarde, 
 one of the strongest fortresses at the foot of the 
 
 * Mémoires of Don Manuel de Godoy, Prince of the Peace, 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 49 
 
 Eastern Pyrenees, and which the Spaniards, who 
 held it for nearly fifteen months, had put in good 
 repair. Even the impetuous Dugommier shrunk 
 from a close siege and assault, and contented him- 
 self with closely blockading Bellegarde. La Union 
 made several vigorous attempts to relieve the 
 place, but failed every time: at last, on the 18th 
 of September, after a blockade of four or five 
 months, the garrison of four or five thousand men 
 was fairly starved out of the place and obliged to 
 surrender. arly in October Dugommier poured 
 his columns into Catalonia, and drew them up ip 
 front of along line of posts which the Spaniards 
 had established to check the invasion. About the 
 middle of the month he attacked these posts from 
 three several points: leading on the centre himself, 
 he was killed by a cannon-ball; his left column of 
 attack was repulsed with terrible loss: the centre 
 was not more fortunate; but the right, led on by 
 Augereau, carried everything before it, and ob- 
 tained possession of a part of La Union’s line. 
 Everywhere the loss seems to have been consider- 
 able: the attack was not renewed until after two 
 or three days; but then Perignon, who had suc- 
 ceeded Dugommier, drove the Spaniards from all 
 their remaining positions and entrenchments. La 
 Union, fighting on foot like a common soldier, 
 and making every effort to rally his troops, was 
 killed. As he had never contemplated the possi- 
 bility of a defeat, he had made no arrangements 
 for securing a retreat ; and, while he had been en- 
 gaged in front, a French division had got into his 
 rear, and now actually blocked up the road to 
 Figueiras. This increased the panic of the flying 
 army, who took another route, and never rallied till 
 they reached Bascara, a position between Figueiras 
 and Gerona. Though thus left to itself, Figueiras, 
 with 200 pieces of artillery on its ramparts, with 
 a garrison of 10,000 men well supplied with am- 
 munition and provisions, might reasonably have 
 been expected to hold out for a few months: 
 through panic, or frensy, or treachery, it sur- 
 rendered in a few days, leaving Catalonia open to 
 the invaders, and supplying them with artillery 
 and other abundant means of war. On _ the 
 Western Pyrenees, on the side of the Biscayan 
 provinces, the Spaniards had gained some trifling 
 advantages at the beginning of the year ; but, after 
 standing for some months on the defensive, the 
 reinforced republicans burst into the valley of 
 the Bastan, overwhelmed the Spaniards in two en- 
 gagements, captured Fuenterabia, and advanced 
 rapidly towards the commanding fortress of San 
 Sebastian. Not only were the Spanish troops far 
 inferior in number to their assailants, but they 
 were environed with disaffection and treachery. 
 The never-ending antipathies between the Basques 
 and their fellow-subjects were not overlooked 
 by the French: Pinet, an adroit commissioner of 
 the Convention, persuaded some people of Gui- 
 puscoa that they might establish a separate re- 
 public altogether independent of Spain in the 
 
 Biscayan provinces; Michelena, the alcalde of San 
 D 
 
 ji neni ge cg i> ight APO LOL A nn SG 
 
50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Sebastian, with some other notabilities of that 
 place, succeeded in delivering it up to the French 
 republicans; and other madmen, deluded by the 
 same dream of independence under the motherly 
 protection of France, rendered Pinet and the army 
 some important services in other quarters.* Tolosa, 
 the capital of Guipuscoa, was abandoned almost 
 immediately afterwards; but this was an open 
 town, little capable of defence. The majority of 
 the people of the province, if they had ever been 
 duped, soon saw their error, and flying to arms 
 they joined their neighbours in Biscay and Navarre, 
 and for every other foot of ground the French had 
 to fight, and to fight desperately. But the invaders 
 had secured, without fighting, a good basis of 
 operations; their commander Muller was re- 
 placed by Moncey, an officer of much greater 
 ability, and they were reinforced with infantry, 
 cavalry, and artillery, there beimg among these 
 new arrivals one of those columns called ‘‘ the In- 
 fernal,” which had been seasoned to war and 
 atrocity in the Vendée. In the month of October, 
 when Moncey had sixty-six battalions of infantry, 
 four thousand horse, and three brigades of artillery, 
 he received the peremptory orders of the Convention 
 to overrun the whole of the Basque provinces, oc- 
 cupy Navarre, seize upon Pampeluna, and transfer 
 his camp to the banks of the Ebro. Moncey would 
 have hesitated and remonstrated, but this no 
 general of the republic durst do as yet ; and what 
 was still more to his disadvantage was, the not 
 uncommon circumstance of the commissioners or 
 proconsuls with the army insisting upon direct- 
 ing its movements. Under these mischievous 
 agencies the French general led his columns into 
 Roncesvalles, that deep valley formed by the Pyre- 
 nees of Navarre, between Pampeluna and Saint- 
 Jean-Pi¢-de-Port on the French frontier—the 
 pass in which, according to poets and romances, 
 Charlemagne and all his paladins had been put 
 to “ dolorous rout” by the people of Navarre. 
 He was harassed at every step, and on the 16th 
 and 17th of October he obtained, with the loss of 
 three thousand of his best men, a victory which 
 gave to him nothing but a momentary occupation 
 of the renowned valley, and to the commissioners 
 of the Convention some romantic materials for a 
 dispatch to Paris.t| Winter was fast approaching, 
 the tops of the Pyrenees were soon covered with 
 
 * Alcalde Michelena and his friends met with their proper reward. 
 Having assembled at Guetaria, as an independent Convention, 
 charged by the people with the high office of constituting the republic, 
 they were seized by Pinet and brought to trial before a French mili- 
 tary court, which condemned some of them to death as rebels, and sent 
 the rest into France as close prisoners. 
 
 + Messieurs Baudot and Garant wrote to the Convention—* Citi- 
 zens, the army of the Western Pyrenees, by obtaining a signal vic-. 
 tory over the Spaniards, has avenged an old insult inflicted on the 
 French nation. Ovr ancestors, in the days of Charlemagne, were 
 defeated in the plain of Roncesyalles. In memory of that event, the 
 proud Spaniard had erected a pyramid on the field of battle. De- 
 feated in turn, on the same’spot, by the French republicans, he has, 
 with his own blood, effaced all traces of it. Nothing was left but the 
 frail edifice, which has been instantly demolished. The banner of 
 the republic now waves where floated the standard of kingly pride, 
 and the fostering tree of liberty has replaced the destructive club of 
 the tyrant. The inauguration was followed by affecting and warlike 
 music. The shades of our forefathers have been comforted, and the 
 army of the republic has sworn to conquer for the glory of the French 
 name of all ages, and for the happiness of the country.” 
 
 deep snow, provisions were falling short, and, un- 
 less the republicans could force their way to Pam- 
 peluna, they must retreat to Saint-Jean-Pi¢-de- 
 Port. It is said that Moncey, who knew the diffi- 
 culties of his situation, would have returned at 
 once, and that the ignorant commissioners again 
 forced him to act against his better judgment. 
 The Spaniards, after their late reverses, had re- 
 treated in good order, and, under the command of 
 General Colomera, they now occupied excellent 
 ground at the head of the pass between Moncey 
 and Pampeluna. The French attacked them there 
 on the 26th of November: the French left wing 
 was completely defeated at Ortiz; one of their di- 
 visions was on the point of being cut off, when 
 Moncey made a skilful diversion, and then ordered 
 an immediate retreat. The republicans poured 
 down Roncesvalles under cover of the night, leav- 
 ing behind them their sick and wounded, who 
 were yery numerous. By the 29th the Spaniards 
 had recovered their old positions; and the French, 
 instead of wintering pleasantly in the city of Pam- 
 peluna, on the banks of the Ebro, were obliged to 
 take up their cantonments in the part of Guipuscoa 
 of which they had obtained possession, in the val- 
 ley of Bastan, and at Saint-Jean-Pi¢-de-Port.* 
 
 On the side of the Alps the republicans were 
 indebted for many advantages to the credulity, 
 simplicity, or stupidity of the King of Sardinia, 
 who conceived that they would respect the neu- 
 trality (to them a most friendly neutrality) of the 
 republic of Genoa, the territories of which covered 
 on one side the rich plains of Piedmont, and by 
 the Bocchetta and other passes afforded access to 
 Alessandria, and to his capital, Turin. In perfect 
 reliance on this respect for neutrality, Vittor 
 Amedeo neglected to fortify himself on that side, 
 collecting nearly all his strength in the passes of 
 the Alps, which led from Nice and from Savoy, 
 countries of his own which had been conquered and 
 occupied, and attached to France. The easy cre- 
 dulity of the court of Turin was the less excusable, 
 as they had before their eyes abundant proofs of 
 the disregard of these new republicans for the old 
 law of nations, as the weakness and venality of the 
 Genoese government, and the existence of a strong 
 French party both in that government and among 
 the Genoese people, were matters of notoriety, and . 
 as the French had already treated Genoa in a most 
 insolent and arbitrary manner. The Convention 
 had threatened that proud city with destruction, 
 because the English fleet had seized French ships 
 on the coast and in the harbours of the Genoese 
 republic: the government had made the most — 
 humiliating excuses, but they had only purchased 
 a temporary pardon by paying four millions of 
 livres, half into the treasury of Paris, and half to 
 the ‘ Army of Nice’ (now called prospectively the 
 ‘ Army of Italy’), for no other crime than their hay- 
 ing permitted what they could not possibly prevent. 
 At one moment they had run a narrow risk of see- 
 
 x * kar sey of Don Manuel de Godoy, Prince of the Peace.—Ann. 
 egist. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 ing their beautiful city bombarded by the British 
 fleet, solely on account of their subserviency to the 
 French. On the 30th of May the three commis- 
 sioners from the Convention superintending the 
 operations of this army of Italy—Robespierre the 
 younger, Saliceti the Corsican, and Ricord, another 
 potent. Jacobin—printed at Nice, and sent into the 
 contiguous states of the Genoese republic, a me- 
 morable manifesto,telling the people that the French 
 well knew that the kings and tyrants contemplated 
 taking possession of all the territories belonging to 
 Genoa, to put them under the dominion of their 
 hated neighbour, the despot of Piedmont, in order 
 that he might send his armies through them to 
 attack the territories of the French republic ; that, 
 therefore, the French found themselves obliged, out 
 of regard to their own safety, to anticipate the designs 
 of their enemies, by marching their army of Italy 
 into the Genoese territories, &c. The manifesto 
 was Closely followed by the advance of a part of 
 the army of Italy. On the 2nd or 3rd of April 
 sixteen thousand men, under the command of Du- 
 morbion, marched upon Mentone, a town in the 
 little principality of Monaco, close on the western 
 frontier of the Genoese republic; and on the night 
 of the 5th of April they sent forward General 
 Arena, another Corsican, to Vintimiglia, the first 
 Genoese town beyond that border, to inform the 
 governor of it, that France demanded a free passage, 
 that the army of the republic was in full march, 
 and would presently be under the walls of the 
 town. The governor, a right noble Spinola, 
 whose ancestors had been great in arms, protested 
 against the violation of neutrality; but protests 
 were worse than useless: the handful of Genoese 
 soldiers in the town mounted the tricolor cockade ; 
 and on the following morning Dumorbion’s army, 
 with Arena in the van, and Massena in the rear, 
 crossed the Genoese frontier, and entered Vintimi- 
 elia.* By this advance they were not only open- 
 ing their way towards the passes of the Apennines, 
 but they had actually turned some of the King of 
 Sardinia’s positions on the Alps, and were open- 
 ing upon more than one ill-defended pass in that 
 chain. One of their columns, leading to the left, 
 took possession of the Marquisate of Dolceacqua, a 
 territory belonging to the King of Sardinia, and 
 drove a weak Piedmontese garrison to the other 
 side ofthe mountains ; another column, ascending 
 lofty and rugged mountains, drove the Piedmontese 
 from the heights of Col delle Forche, and possessed 
 themselves of a direct though narrow and rough 
 pass leading to Saorgio, the most important of all 
 the King of Sardinia’s fortresses on this side, the 
 place which had kept the French so long at bay, 
 and which was the key to nearly all the rest; and 
 a third division of Dumorbion’s army, keeping to- 
 wards the sea-coast, seized upon the little town and 
 port of San Remo, belonging to the Genoese, and 
 then fell upon Oneglia, the only seaport in Italy 
 
 * ‘Tt was on the 6th day of April,” says Botta, ‘‘ that the repub- 
 lican army of France appeared for the first time on Italian territory : 
 its aspect was squalid and miserable, but with that confident 
 appearance which becomes conquerors.”—Storia @’ Italia. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 51 
 
 that then appertained to the King of Sardinia, and 
 the only place through which he could receive 
 assistance from, or promptly correspond with, the 
 English fleet in the Mediterranean. Since the 
 French bombardment which had nearly reduced 
 Oneglia to a heap of ruins at the end of the year 
 1792, the town had been partially repaired, and 
 the seaward defences had been strengthened ; but 
 as an attack by land, only to be made by violating 
 the Genoese territory, had not been anticipated, no 
 preparations had been made to resist it: there were 
 some Piedmontese troops in the town and neigh- 
 bourhood, but their total number was small. Being, 
 however, joined by the sailors and people of One- 
 glia, these troops posted themselves on some 
 heights, and made a gallant effort to defend the 
 approaches to the town. But Massena, who led 
 this division, dislodged these brave men, though 
 not without suffering a frightful loss, and then 
 took possession of Oneglia, which was deserted and 
 silent as the grave, for the inhabitants, on his 
 approach, had all fled to the mountains. Massena 
 next advanced to Loano, whence he soon moved to 
 the bridge of Nava, to which point his late adver- 
 saries had retreated. Those Piedmontese soldiers 
 were joined by some fifteen hundred Austrians ; but 
 this united force was incapable of resisting the 
 strong columns and superabundant artillery which 
 the French brought against them. After this vic- 
 tory Massena issued terrible manifestos, threaten- 
 ing with destruction all the slaves that should 
 attempt to oppose his progress or enter into a hope- 
 less struggle with the invincible armies of the 
 French republic, but promising at the same time 
 friendship, favour, honour, liberty, and equality to 
 all such as would throw off the yoke of their king, 
 &c. A greater than Massena was with this army, 
 and is said not only to have directed some of its 
 best movements, but also to have suggested the 
 whole plan of the campaign: this was Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, who had been recently raised to the 
 rank of brigadier-general of artillery. From the 
 bridge of Nava the republicans pushed forward to 
 Ormea, Garresio, Bagnasco, preceded by terror, 
 and the most extravagant reports of their audacity 
 and numbers. No further resistance was offered, 
 and, excepting the fortress of Ceva, they were now 
 masters of the whole of the valley of the Tanaro, 
 which gives access to the heart of Piedmont.* 
 
 In the mean time another strong division of the 
 army of Italy, moving from Nice, had carried a 
 number of Piedmontese outposts on the Col de 
 Tende, had even captured the hill and fort of 
 Raus, where they had been completely defeated the 
 year before, and were now gathering close round 
 Saorgio, to co-operate with the column which had 
 possessed itself of the Col delle Forche, the heights 
 of Dolceacqua, and the pass that led from that oppo- 
 
 * The republican army had not been long in Italy before it was 
 materially improved in substance as well as in appearance. They 
 had come hungry and half naked; they now found the best of bread, 
 good wine, abundance of provisions, and good cloth to clothe them- 
 selvesin. In the town of Ormea alone, they found provisions enough 
 to last them for months, and a great quantity of cloth, which they cut 
 
 ‘up into loose greatcoats, without caring for uniformity of colour. 
 
52 
 
 site direction to Saorgio, which place, if found too 
 formidable for an assault, was to be closely block- 
 aded. On a near approach to this formidable 
 place the boldest gave up all notion of assault, and 
 in order to establish a blockade it was necessary to 
 get possession of the upper parts of the Alpine 
 valley in which it was situated, and of the heights 
 of Col Ardente, which the Piedmontese had forti- 
 fied. But the advance into the Genoese territory 
 had opened another rough road which led across 
 the valley of the Roia to the rear of Col Ardente, 
 and Massena marched in force, and with wonderful 
 rapidity, considering the nature of the ground, by 
 this new route. Before the Piedmontese general 
 Colli could bring up any reinforcements from 
 the plains, he was attacked and defeated; and on 
 the 27th of April the French became masters of 
 Col Ardente, of other crests of the Alps, and of all 
 the valley above Saorgio. The blockade was now 
 completed, and the garrison cut off from Piedmont. 
 The place, however, was well supplied, and a long 
 resistance was expected from it (at least by the 
 King of Sardinia), when, at the beginning of May, 
 Sant Amore, the commandant, capitulated, and 
 thus left another passage to Turin open to the 
 French. Colli had sent this coward or traitor 
 orders to defend Saorgio to the utmost extremity, 
 informing him that he would soon return with his 
 army reimforced to its relief. Upon arriving at 
 Turin, whither he and his garrison were permitted 
 to go, upon condition of not serving any more 
 against the French during this war, Sant Amore 
 was brought to trial before a military tribunal, 
 was condemned and shot, together with the com- 
 mandant of another fortress who had behaved 
 equally ill. Vuittor Amedeo and his court were in- 
 censed at the numerous acts of treachery which 
 had been committed; but it is doubted whether 
 these executions did their cause any good. After 
 the reduction of Saorgio, the invaders, with com- 
 parative ease, made themselves masters of the 
 whole of the Col de Tende, the loftiest point of 
 those maritime Alps. The troops of the king all 
 retired disheartened and in confusion to the plain 
 of Piedmont or to the roots of the Alps; and only 
 the fortresses at the mouths of the passes on the 
 Piedmontese side of the mountains checked the ad- 
 vance of the French to the banks of the Po and 
 the city of Turin. Vittor Amedeo had now lost 
 one-half of his states and the principal passes and 
 defences of the Alps (for another Freuch army ad- 
 vancing from the side of Savoy was climbing 
 Mont Cenis and the Little St. Bernard), but he 
 did not yet lose heart or think of relinquishing the 
 struggle. He ordered a levy en masse, but unfor- 
 tunately Jacubin clubs had been established in 
 nearly all the towns of Piedmont, active conspi- 
 racies against the royal government were in pro- 
 gress, and a very considerable portion of his sub- 
 jects were either disaffected or dispirited. He 
 applied to the King of Naples and Sicily, a mem- 
 ber of the coalition, for assistance, and Ferdinand 
 was going to send an army of 18,000 men to the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 oy 
 “ 
 
 [Boox. X. 
 
 | north of Italy, to the plains of Lombardy and 
 
 Piedmont, when the discovery of a republican con- 
 spiracy among his own subjects at Naples, and 
 other critical events, compelled him to delay that 
 project. The other independent Italian states 
 were either powerless or timid: the republic of 
 Venice, which might have made a great effort at 
 this moment, preferred listening to French flat- 
 teries, assurances, and promises, and, without the 
 same excuse for its conduct, behayed as pusillani- 
 mously as Genoa. At this very moment the Ve- 
 netian senate received Lallemand, an ambassador 
 appointed by Robespierre and the committee of 
 Salut Public, and suspended a levy of troops 
 which had been ordered a short time before for the 
 defence of their continental possessions. ‘The 
 Austrians in Lombardy, who were apprehensive of 
 plots and conspiracies in all their part of Italy, 
 and who thought themselves obliged to strengthen 
 their own garrisons and their own frontier, could 
 not spare many reinforcements to the emperor’s 
 army serving with the troops of the King of Sar- 
 dinia; they, however, afforded some assistance 
 when the danger became imminent, and this was 
 the only succour the Piedmontese at present re- 
 ceived. The republican army, called the Army of 
 the Alps, which had moved from Savoy towards 
 the passes of Mount Cenis and St. Bernard, had 
 taken the field earlier and in much greater num- 
 ber than the army of Italy that started from Nice ; 
 and it was by inducing the King of Sardinia to 
 collect the mass of his forces in these Graian Alps 
 above Savoy that the Col de Tende and the rest of 
 the maritime Alps had been weakened. While the 
 snow was lying deep, not merely on the lofty 
 mountains, but in the valleys, the army of the 
 Alps gained the crests of the Cenis, the St. ber- 
 nard, and the Valaisan, and, taking the Piedmon- 
 tese and the Austrians by surprise, drove them 
 from their redoubts and gained possession of the 
 heads of some of the valleys, which lead down to 
 Piedmont and open upon Turin at the distance of 
 only twenty-five or thirty miles from it. ‘They 
 were in full march through the Alpine valley of 
 Aosta, and within a few miles of the capital town 
 of that province, when the king’s eldest son, the 
 Duke of Montferrat, advancing up the valley from 
 the Italian side with such volunteers, militia, and 
 regular troops as he could most readily collect, 
 brought the head of their column to a stand, and 
 then beat them back to their less comfortable quar- 
 ters among the snow and ice. Another division of 
 the republicans, climbing another mighty Alp, 
 captured the Fort Mirabocca, and then, descending 
 on the other side by the valley or pass of Lu- 
 cerna, they occupied Bobbio and other Alpine towns 
 or villages belonging to the King of Sardinia, and 
 even threatened the strong fortress of Pincrol with 
 assault: but bere again the Piedmontese behaved 
 manfully, driving back the invaders to the lofty 
 ridges from which they had descended. It was 
 the middle of May before the main body of this 
 Army of the Alps, led on by General Dumas, 
 
we ape sme san _ ~~ 
 
 Cuap. VII.) 
 
 completely cleared the important pass of Mont 
 Cenis, which was defended by forts, batteries, and 
 redoubts, some old, and some recently erected. 
 Dumas, who had studied mountain warfare, and 
 who had all the Savoyard peasantry, who best 
 knew the country, heartily disposed to assist him, 
 found ways for his troops which the Piedmontese 
 and Austrian generals had considered impassable : 
 he marched to his great enterprise by moonlight, 
 and so divided and directed his forces that they 
 fell upon the three principal redoubts at one and 
 the same moment. Though taken by surprise, 
 and thrown into an almost superstitious conster- 
 nation at seeing the French descending heights 
 which had been considered impracticable, and 
 rising out of hollows and chasms and black 
 abysses, the allies for some time stood properly to 
 their guns; but when the broad moonlight dis- 
 closed a fresh column of assailants on the edge of 
 a rock which was in the rear of the principal re- 
 doubt, and which almost overhung it, the men 
 burst away panic-stricken, leaving their artillery 
 and everything in the redoubt behind them. The 
 troops in the other redoubts abandoned their posts 
 without firing another gun, and the whole host 
 fled with mad haste down the steep valley of 
 Susa. Among the fugitives were some Savoyard 
 royalists, who, to escape the guillotine, which the 
 republicans had established at Chambery, threw 
 themselves over precipices and were dashed to 
 pieces. A part of the French never ceased the 
 pursuit until they reached the walls of Susa. All 
 the artillery, ammunition, and provisions collected 
 on the summits of the mountain and in the re- 
 doubts fell into their hands, together with a large 
 quantity of musketry which the Piedmontese had 
 thrown away in their flight. The short moonlight 
 fight had given the republicans possession of the 
 important pass, of all its defences, with the single 
 exception of Fort la Brunette, which stood upon a 
 detached solid rock, but which did not materially 
 interfere with their possession of the pass. Dumas 
 then spent some months in inactivity, not consi- 
 dering himself strong enough to venture through 
 the valley of Susa and into the plain between 
 Rivoli and Turin, where the King of Sardinia, with 
 the main body of his army, and Count Wallis with 
 Austrian troops hastily drawn from Pavia, Lodi, 
 Cremona, Como, Milan, Mantua, and other parts of 
 Lombardy, were stationed, with their flanks well 
 covered by rivers, their fronts by redoubts, and 
 with a fine high-road and all the resources of Turin 
 in their rear. The army of Italy, for somewhat 
 similar causes (as another good army of Piedmontese 
 and Austrians had gradually gathered at the mouths 
 of the passes of the maritime Alps and Apennines), 
 was equally inactive. It appears, too, that some 
 doubts were entertained as to the humour of the 
 Genoese ; and, perhaps, a plan was concerted for 
 taking possession of the city of Genoa and all the 
 strong places within the narrow limits of that re- 
 public before they crossed the Apennines, and 
 left them in their rear: for, on the 13th of July, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—17 
 
 94, 53 
 
 the deputies of the Convention, who were still 
 superintending the operations of the army, gave 
 Bonaparte a commission to proceed to Genoa, 
 with secret instructions to examine the state of the 
 fortifications and to observe the conduct of the 
 Genoese government towards the English and 
 other belligerent powers. At last, however, learn- 
 ing that the Piedmontese and Austrians were pro- 
 
 | Jecting an attack along their line of posts, with the 
 
 hope of compelling them to evacuate the passes and 
 the Genoese territory, they scaled the Apennines, 
 descended into Piedmont by the valley of the Bor- 
 mida, and, on the 21st of September, attacked the 
 allies at Cairo, where they were strongly intrenched. 
 The republicans were conducted to the assault by 
 Dumorbion, Massena, Laharpe, Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, Saliceti, and Albitte (the two civilians being 
 now the commissioners from the Convention), and 
 Buonaroti, an enthusiastic Florentine, a descendant _ 
 from the family of Michael Angelo, who had aban- 
 doned his country to become a republican and de- 
 magogue at Paris, and what was called a national 
 agent. They attacked in three columns, with 
 their usual impetuosity and assurance of victory ; 
 but they were repulsed with the loss of six hundred 
 of their best men, and obliged to retire to the de- 
 clivities of the Apennines, from which they had 
 moved to begin the battle. Yet, on the very next 
 day, the allies withdrew their artillery and stores, 
 abandoned their strong positions, and retired across 
 the Bormida to Acqui, fearing that the autumnal 
 swelling of the river might interrupt their commu- 
 nications with that town, which they had made 
 their dépdt, or, according to another account, re- 
 treating upon false intelligence artfully given by 
 some of the many friends of the republicans, that 
 another French army, collected at Savona, was 
 about to strike through another pass of the Apen- 
 nines and throw itself between Acqui and Cairo. 
 At first the republicans could not believe that they 
 Were gone; next they fancied it was a ruse de 
 guerre to draw them in pursuit into the plain, where 
 the Austrian cavalry could act with advantage ; 
 but at last they ventured forward as far as Cairo 
 and the other possessions which had been aban- 
 doned. On the other side of the Apennines, or at 
 least so long as they had been in the Genoese ter- 
 ritory, the French had behaved with moderation ; 
 but now they gave way to all their wonted ex- 
 cesses, plundering the towns and villages, destroy- 
 ing what they could not carry off, burning the 
 vineyards, which there produced a delicious fruit 
 aud a generous wine, and subjecting the poor 
 Piedmontese peasantry and their wives to every 
 humiliation, barbarity, and horror. After three 
 days of these practices they crossed the mountains 
 in haste, apprehending an attack from the allics, 
 who -were collecting in greater force at Acqui: 
 they returned to their former stations in the Ge- 
 noese territory, and threw up redoubts to defend 
 themselves in case the allies should cross the Apen- 
 nines: their head-quarters were fixed at Vado, 
 a town near the coast, which they strongly forti- 
 
54 
 
 fied. Nothing more was done this year; but the 
 republicans had laid an excellent basis for future 
 operations, by commanding the bulwarks of the 
 Alps and Apennines.* 
 
 In Paris, meanwhile, faction had been fiercely 
 engaged. The Jacobins, when the Girondists were 
 exterminated, turned their arms against each 
 other. The Hébertists were powerful in the 
 commune, in many of the committees, in the 
 army of Paris, and in the Convention; and 
 Robespierre began to see that he must crush 
 them if he would retain his power. Hébert and 
 his friends were avowed atheists, Robespierre a 
 deist ; and the wily dictator sought to make tlris 
 distinction an instrument in his favour, by winning 
 over to his side masses of the people not quite so 
 deeply plunged into licence of thought and action 
 as those who upheld Hébert. He declared in the 
 Jacobin Club, as a mode of discouraging the views 
 of Hébert, that “if the Divinity did not exist, a 
 wise legislator would invent one;” he had striven 
 in debate to expose the danger and absurdity of 
 atheism, as rendering France odious in the eyes 
 of all nations among whom a God was accepted, 
 In the Convention, he reprobated the monstro- 
 sities encouraged by Hébert, Anacharsis Clootz, 
 Chaumette, and Ronsin, connected with the 
 worship of the goddess of Reason; and in this 
 species of moderatism he had the support even 
 of such men as Danton, Camille Desmoulins, 
 Fabre dEglantine, and Philippeaux. It must 
 indeed have been an excess of licence that went 
 beyond the views of these republicans. Even 
 here, Robespierre felt his way cautiously; he 
 was doubtful of the allegiance of the “old 
 Cordeliers,” as they were called—such as the 
 four just named; but he was willing to make 
 use of them as instruments wherewith to put 
 down the “young Cordeliers” or Hébertists, 
 and therefore checked any manifestation of his 
 doubts. Danton and Desmoulins had married 
 prosperously, and now exhibited symptoms of 
 abated violence in their political proceedings ; 
 they professed, and perhaps with sincerity, to be 
 horror-stricken at the bloody proceedings of the 
 commissioners and generals whom the Hébertists 
 had been instrumental in sending to La Vendée. 
 Violent scenes occurred both in the Convention 
 and in the Jacobin Club between these Dantonists 
 and Hébertists: the former accusing the latter of 
 degenerating into savage excess; the latter accus- 
 ing the former of modérantisme; while Robes- 
 pierre looked on, aiding the Dantonists to put 
 down the Hébertists, and secretly resolving to get 
 rid of both parties as obstacles in the way of his 
 own ambition. Some of the governing committees 
 in Paris were strong in Dantonism, others in 
 _ Hébertism ; and as all these committees held or 
 claimed to hold a certain amount of executive 
 power, opponent partisans were frequently thrown 
 into prison—now Marnel the Hébertist, now Fabre 
 
 * Botta, Storia d’Italia—Colletta, Storia di Napolii—Annual 
 Reg.—Vieusseux, Life of Napoleon. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 d’Rglantine the Dantonist, now Desmoulins’s father- 
 in-law, now Ronsin and Vincent the Hébertists ; 
 while, during the whole time, the guillotine was 
 at work upon those hapless victims who were 
 hostile to the Jacobins and Cordeliers generally. 
 Kighty-three persons were guillotined at Paris 
 in January alone, 
 
 In February, Robespierre began more openly 
 to attack Dantonists as well as Hébertists. His 
 tactics consisted in accusing the one party of a 
 leaning towards modérantisme, and the other of 
 ultra-revolutionism, both departing from the true 
 patriotic, sensible, moral republicanism that could 
 alone make France happy. It seems astonishing, 
 at this day, that Danton and his companions could 
 ever have been charged with being moderates, too 
 aristocratic or conservative; but men, jealous of 
 each other, found ready materials for accusation, 
 according to the temper of the tribunal to which 
 appeal was made. On the 5th, Robespierre made 
 a speech on “the principles of political morality 
 that ought to guide the National Convention in 
 the internal administration of the republic ;” and 
 so well did he succeed in winning over his hearers, 
 that the Convention decreed that his discourse, 
 containing a condemnation both of the Dantonists 
 and the Hébertists, should be printed, and distri- 
 buted to all the constituted authorities, clubs, 
 and armies. It is difficult to understand, on 
 any rational ground, how the Convention could 
 suddenly have taken this turn; but, once taken, 
 Robespierre used it for his purpose. Danton, 
 seeing his danger, sought an interview with 
 Robespierre; but the two leaders could not or 
 would not trust each other, and they parted 
 bitter enemies. The Dantonists and Hébertists 
 were too bitterly opposed to join in a common 
 cause against Robespierre; and hence it arose 
 that there was no force, moral or political, that 
 could check that unscrupulous man. 
 
 The days of the Hébertists were numbered. On 
 the 26th of February, St. Just, the faithful sup- 
 porter of Robespierre, appeared at the Convention, 
 and presented a terrible report on the suspects, 
 or persons suspected of being dangerous to the 
 republic. The Hébertists were included in this 
 list, and the Dantonists also. The cold-blooded 
 orator declared that “That which constitutes a 
 republic is the destruction of every man that is 
 opposed to it. Your moderates are as bad as your 
 anarchists or ultra-revolutionists. Every dissident 
 is a traitor!” And apostrophising these “ dissi- 
 
 dents,” he added: “ Your last hour is approaching. | 
 
 You shall all perish! I say all/ Measures are 
 already taken to secure the guilty; they are all 
 known, watched, surrounded!” He demanded 
 that the Committee of Public Safety should alone 
 
 have the power of examining suspects (of whom | 
 
 there were five thousand at that moment in the 
 
 prisons of Paris) ; and that the property of these . : 
 
 persons should be divided amongst “indigent 
 patriots.” The Convention decreed in accordance 
 with these demands; the Hébertists and Dantonists 
 
 cay 
 
 he 
 
 [Book X. 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 seemed to have become all at once powerless in 
 the chamber, leaving the Robespierrians free to 
 rule with a high hand. Elsewhere the Hébertists 
 still had influence; for the Cordelier Club was 
 with them, and Hébert and Chaumette held office 
 in the commune, while Ronsin had an organised 
 force of four thousand armed men at his beck. 
 Robespierre and Couthon were at this time ill, 
 Billaud Varennes absent; and Hébert deemed it 
 a fitting time to rebel openly, and crush the 
 Robespierrians who were endeavouring to crush 
 him, On the 6th of March, a Hébertist mob went 
 to the Hotel de Ville to commence an émeute; but 
 many supposed friends doubted and wavered ; 
 while St. Just and Collot d’Herbois acted so 
 energetically on Robespierre’s side in the Con- 
 vention, as to procure an order for Fouquier- 
 Tinville to arrest all agitators and conspirators ; 
 and Collot also obtained the countenance of the 
 Jacobin Club, without which little could have 
 been done. As @ consequence, Hébert’s move- 
 ment failed, and he and his friends hid them- 
 selves. Their hiding was ineffectual, however. 
 Robespierre and Couthon, having recovered, 
 appeared both at the Convention and at the 
 club on the 13th; and such was the effect of 
 the speeches made, that before night Hébert, 
 Ronsin, Vincent, Chabot, Bazire, and a number 
 of others were safely incarcerated in the Luxem- 
 bourg. On the morrow, fresh arrests were made, 
 including Chaumette, Clootz, and Gobel; and all 
 were very speedily tried “for being the agents of 
 foreign powers.” ‘The trial lasted three days, and 
 ended in the condemnation of nineteen persons. 
 As their death had unquestionably been resolved 
 on beforehand by Robespierre, it mattered little 
 whether the evidence were really conclusive: the 
 judges had no tender consciences on this matter. 
 The guillotine was speedily set to work, and nine- 
 teen heads fell in one afternoon, amid the jeers 
 and blasphemings of a populace hardened to 
 scenes of blood.* 
 
 Nor were the days of the Dantonists less surely 
 numbered. Although this demagogue and his 
 friends had willingly assented to the prosecution of 
 the Hébertists, it did not in the least strengthen 
 his own position. He repeatedly said, in reply to 
 the advice of his friends to escape, that his enemies 
 “dare not” attack him: he did not know the 
 measure of their daring. On the other hand, he 
 neglected to make use of the power he still pos- 
 sessed in the Convention, where his terrible voice 
 might have stood him in some service. ‘Tired, 
 apparently, of revolution, he wished to sit down 
 quietly in possession of the wealth he had 
 managed to grasp as a commissioner in the 
 past two years; and he thus became unfit to 
 grapple with his opponents. One by one, his 
 friends were seized ; first Herault de Sechelles, 
 then Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, 
 then Danton himself; this was on the 30th of 
 
 * Journal of a Prisoner, in Hist. Parl. 
 
 ea 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 
 
 March, and the same Luxembourg palace that 
 had just been a prison for the Hébertists, now 
 served the same purpose for the Dantonists. In 
 the Convention, the next day, much agitation was 
 exhibited at the arrest of two men who had been 
 such especial favourites as Danton and Camille 
 Desmoulins; and Legendre rose to defend them ; 
 but Robespierre, who had reduced the Convention 
 to obedience, fiercely retorted: “ Why should we 
 treat Danton differently from the Girondists or the 
 Hébertists? The republic must be strictly impartial 
 —the law must be one and the same for all!” St. 
 Just made a long report, professedly an accusation, 
 but in effect a sentence of condemnation. Danton 
 had engaged with the Duke of Orleans in some 
 plot which had become known; and nothing 
 beyond this was required to satisfy a Revolutionary 
 Tribunal obedient to the dictator. On the 2nd of 
 April, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, 
 Lacroix, Fabre d’Eglantine, Herault de Sechelles, 
 and many others were put upon their trial. 
 Danton made a long defence, in which his old 
 boldness reappeared in full force. When asked 
 his name, age, &c., he replied: “My name is 
 George Jacques Danton—a name not unknown in 
 our revolution; my abode will soon be in nothing- 
 ness’’"—he was a disbeliever in a future state— 
 “but I shall live in the Pantheon of history.” He 
 demanded impetuously that St. Just, Couthon, 
 Lebas, and the Committee of Public Safety should 
 appear, that he might confront them face to face; 
 and when Herman, president of the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal, rebuked him for the “audacity ” of his 
 demeanour before the court, he replied: “‘ Audacity! 
 Mine is a national audacity—an audacity very 
 necessary in revolutions—an audacity which 
 France benefited by in 1792, when the Prussians 
 were in full march upon Paris, and when the 
 cowards of the Convention would have abandoned 
 the capital, would have fled behind the Loire, 
 would have sacrificed the republic, and have left 
 France to be dismembered and partitioned. There 
 was a time when the people, when the Convention, 
 thought well of the audacity of Danton!” This 
 was perfectly true, however little bearing it might 
 have on the circumstances of the trial. He then 
 poured out a stream of rough oratory, expatiating 
 on the services he had rendered in unmasking 
 Mirabeau and Lafayette, in bringing the king to 
 trial, and in advancing the several epochs of the 
 revolution—except the September massacres, con- 
 cerning which he was silent. The trial lasted 
 three days, during which the Robespierrians were 
 in some uneasiness; for Danton’s daring eloquence 
 might yet tell in his favour among the easily 
 excitable Parisians, A conspiracy was detected 
 among some of the prisoners in the Luxembourg 
 to incite a popular movement in Danton’s favour ; 
 or at least a conspiracy was alleged; and this 
 furnished a sufficient ground for St. Just to demand 
 from the Convention a decree authorising the 
 Revolutionary Tribunal to “hasten” the trial, by 
 limiting the speech-making privileges of the accused. 
 
A. violent scene occurred when this decree was 
 made known in the court; Camille furiously pro- 
 
 tested against it; and Danton shouted out: “We 
 
 are gagged; we are all immolated to the ambition 
 of a few cowardly brigands! But they will not 
 long enjoy the fruit of their guilty victory. I drag 
 down Robespierre in my fall—Robespierre follows 
 me!” The trial was hurried to a conclusion ; 
 judgment was passed ; death pronounced; and a 
 procession to the guillotine soon organised, Danton 
 and fourteen companions were put to death on the 
 5th of April—some in raging madness, some in 
 affected gaiety, some in sullen silence. 
 
 A supplementary day of horrors finished the 
 histories of the Girondists, Hébertists, and Dan- 
 tonists. This was on the 13th of April; when 
 nineteen persons, fragmentary members of those 
 three parties, were hurried to the scaffold together 
 —anarchical among themselves, but alike in 
 having incurred the jealous hatred of Robespierre. 
 Two women, the widows of Hébert and Camille 
 Desmoulins, were among the number. 
 
 Two hundred persons, mostly belonging to the 
 three parties just named, had been guillotined at 
 Paris in March and the first half of April; but 
 the madness of fear and suspicion still continued 
 to influence Robespierre and his colleagues; and 
 sixty more heads fell before the end of April. 
 The terrible sentence was now pronounced more 
 widely and wildly ; it was no longer royalists or 
 aristocrats, constitutionalists or moderates, reac- 
 tionnaires or ultra-anarchists, that composed the 
 list; but artisans and labourers—any or all, of 
 whatever rank, who said or did aught that offended 
 the Robespierrians—were hurried to the Reyo- 
 lutionary Tribunal, and thence to the scaffold. 
 Fouquier-Tinville was ready to accuse whomso- 
 ever the Committee of Public Safety ordered to 
 be accused; Samson was ready to decapitate those 
 who were condemned; and the Convention gave a 
 shrinking timid support to everything demanded 
 of them. D’Espréménil, one of the early parle- 
 mentaire reformers ; Chapelier, once president of the 
 Legislative Assembly; Malesherbes, the venerable 
 defender of the hapless king; the high-born 
 Chateaubriand; Lavoisier, the great chemist; the 
 Princess Elizabeth ; the Marchioness de Crussol 
 —were among the most notable of those whose 
 heads fell at this period. The accusations were as 
 trivial as the proceedings were indecently hurried: 
 indeed, very little more than the will of Robes- 
 pierre was deemed necessary to authorise -convic- 
 tion, Suicides became frequent among those 
 who knew or suspected that a mark had been 
 set upon them. The Cordelier Club, rent by the 
 dissensions of the Dantonists and Hébertists, 
 had closed its doors after the destruction of the 
 leaders of those parties; there was then left only 
 one powerful club in Paris, the Jacobin; and as 
 Robespierre still held the ascendency in this club 
 as well as in the Convention and the committees, 
 he was virtually dictator of France. A disappointed 
 man named Amiral attempted to shoot Collot 
 
 56 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ne irae at epee ts os eee P oar 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 d’Herbois in the open street; a young woman ~ 
 
 named Aimée Cécile Renault was suspected of 
 an intention to stab Robespierre, as Charlotte 
 Corday had stabbed Marat; and these two events 
 gave occasion for renewed insinuations touching 
 
 LAVOISIER. 
 
 plots and conspiracies, in which the names of Mr. 
 Pitt and the Prince of Coburg were strangely 
 mixed up with those of obscure persons at Paris. 
 Real or pretended, the Convention exhibited 
 great horror at these plots, and obsequiously 
 granted all the decrees demanded by Robespierre 
 in relation to them, The British government was 
 denounced as the source of all these plots, and as 
 “ouilty of treason against humanity.” On the 
 26th of May, Barrére presented to the Convention 
 a report on the subject, which led to a decree that 
 “henceforward no quarter should be given to any 
 English or Hanoverian soldier; and that this 
 order should be despatched immediately to the 
 armies of the republic, and to the representatives 
 of the people in mission to those armies.” The 
 Duke of York, on the 7th of June, made a dignified 
 comment on this brutal decree, in a general order 
 
 to his army; he forbade his troops to retaliate, . 
 
 and expressed a hope that the French soldiers 
 would not stoop to the unsoldierly cruelty recom- 
 mended to them—a hope realised by the result, 
 with a few exceptional instances. As an index to 
 the sense of suspicion, dread, and cruelty, that 
 suggested this order, the employment of execu- 
 tioner Samson was only too evident; not only 
 were Amiral and Cécile Renault guillotined, but 
 their relations, their friends, and numerous persons 
 quite unknown to them—some even young girls of 
 seventeen or eighteen—were hurried to the scaffold, 
 fifty-four in one day, with hardly the semblance 
 of a trial. It became quite customary among the 
 Parisians to apply the term “batch,” journée, to 
 each day’s group of victims, hurried off in carts 
 from the prisons to the terrible Tribunal, and 
 thence to the scaffold, 
 
 Amid all these frightful scenes of blood, 
 Robespierre and St. Just, Couthon and Collot 
 
 4 
 
 PRN a ar hare 
 
 1 
 
Sane ilteectir delist ite sil eno reat Sea anh 3, « ere ta mh Sy in ee emt, 
 
 Cuapr. VIII.J 
 
 d’Herbois, talked sentimentally in the Convention 
 and the Jacobin Club about morality and virtue, 
 the horrid atheism of the Hébertists and Danton- 
 ists, the certainty that atheism had been sent by 
 William Pitt into France to poison the minds of 
 true patriots, and the propriety of dethroning 
 the goddess of Reason, to make way for the 
 revival of religion, It is difficult to measure the 
 difference between cant and earnestness in the 
 speeches of men at that strange period; but the 
 Parisians took up the new idea with apparently as 
 much willingness as they had formerly adopted 
 the atheism of Hébert and Clootz. The commune 
 at the Hotel de Ville, converts in the new 
 school, petitioned the Convention to proclaim the 
 doctrines of the existence of a God and the tmmor- 
 tality of the soul, and to dedicate all churches 
 “to the Supreme Being,” instead of “to Reason.” 
 Robespierre obtained a decree from the Conven- 
 tion appointing every tenth day as a new Sabbath, 
 dedicated to God ; the first Sabbath to be on June 
 the 8th. The Convention and the Jacobin Club 
 haying accepted the religion thus strangely con- 
 cocted, the painter David drew up the programme 
 of a grand ceremony for the day in question. 
 On the day appointed, this #éte @ [Etre Supréme 
 was held in the Tuileries garden. Statues of 
 Atheism and of Anarchy, of Wisdom and of Reason, 
 were erected on artificial mounds; and Robespierre, 
 dressed out with great care, officiated as a sort 
 of high-priest in a performance symbolic of the 
 restoration of religion (natural, not revealed) over 
 the ruins of atheism. It was a theatrical affair, 
 thoroughly French, but had more consequences than 
 Robespierre anticipated. His face so glowed with 
 gratified vanity on this day, his manner exhibited 
 so much personal ambition, that the republicans 
 began to take alarm; they awoke to a conviction 
 that he really intended to be a dictator over them. 
 While the ceremony was going on, and Robespierre 
 displayed his sky-blue coat and silver-embroidered 
 waistcoat, comments were made on his anti-repub- 
 lican appearance; and these comments were 
 followed by others in the Convention, in the 
 Jacobin Club, and in the journals. Robespierre’s 
 “Ktre Supréme” began to be sneered at as a 
 mockery ; and even the members of his own 
 party failed to regard the proceedings of the day 
 with satisfaction.* It was a failure in every 
 Way; and on the very next day, Robespierre 
 renewed his career of blood. He went to the 
 Committee of Public Safety, denounced many who 
 had offended him by their demeanour on the 
 preceding day; and then found, for the first time, 
 that Billaud Varennes and Collot d’Herbois were 
 inclined to turn against him. Aided by Couthon 
 and St. Just, he obtained from the Convention a 
 decree for dividing the Revolutionary Tribunal 
 into four, as a means of getting through the dread- 
 ful work four times as rapidly as before ; while 
 the term “enemies of the people” received by 
 
 * Vilate, Révolution du 9 au 10 Thermidor.—Senart, Mémoires,— 
 Mercier, Tableaux. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS: 
 
 —1794. 57 
 
 this decree such an interpretation as would enable 
 Robespierre to include under it almost any one 
 he chose: it was a terrible power to place in the 
 hands of one man, and he used it to his own 
 destruction. Witnesses were not to be necessary, 
 counsel for the accused not permitted, at the trials; 
 and DEATH was to be the punishment for every 
 one convicted. Fouquier-Tinville was retained 
 as the chief public accuser, and with him were 
 associated three other adherents of Robespierre— 
 Coffinhal, Sellier, and Naulin. Indeed, each of the 
 four sections of the newly organised Revolution- 
 ary Tribunal—with its president, public accuser, 
 judges, and jury—was filled with Robespierre’s 
 supporters ; his mistake, as afterwards appeared, 
 consisted in leaving a power of accusation in the 
 hands of the Committees of Public Safety, c&c., 
 many members of which were no longer friendly 
 to him. 
 
 Now commenced the last great struggle amongst 
 these terrible men. The Legitimists, the Consti- 
 tutionalists, the Girondists, the Hébertists, and 
 the Dantonists had been successively put down, 
 Robespierre all the while rising step by step in 
 influence; and now the Robespierrians became 
 themselves divided, St. Just and Couthon being 
 the only two distinguished men who still allied 
 themselves closely with the leader. The dreadful 
 events of the next six weeks, during which eleven 
 hundred and eight victims were guillotined at Paris 
 alone, showed, however, that Collot d’Herbois, 
 Billaud Varennes, and Barrére, who were becoming 
 hostile to Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just, were 
 little, if any, less bloodthirsty than those men; for 
 they were active members of the Committee of 
 Public Safety, by which large numbers of the 
 accusations were made. During this period of 
 horror, one hundred and seventy-one victims were 
 handed over to executioner Samson in three days ; 
 and Fouquier-Tinville went so far as to erect the 
 guillotine in the great hall of the Palais de Justice 
 itself, in order to be conveniently near to the courts 
 where the four bloody tribunals were sitting! 
 Whatever may have been his motive, Robespierre 
 did not personally make use of the power given 
 to him by the recent decree ; some historians have 
 thought that he wished to bring Billaud and the 
 rest into discredit by allowing them to work out 
 their sanguinary theory at will; but be this as 
 it may, he left the Salut Public to manage most 
 of the accusations, while he strengthened himself 
 by new alliances at the Jacobin Club, gaining over 
 Henriot, Payan, Fleuriot, and others to his side; 
 he also formed a strong party in the new commune 
 at the Hotel de Ville. He knew that he had now 
 many enemies in the executive committees and 
 the Convention, and he looked to the club and 
 the commune for a counter-balance ; his agents, 
 too, were endeavouring to win over the armies 
 to his side. He spoke frequently in the club 
 against those whom he designated his enemies ; 
 and his enemies or opponents began to see that 
 unless they checked him their own heads would 
 
58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 fall; they laboured hard to make France believe 
 that Robespierre and his colleagues, St. Just and 
 Couthon, were, par excellence, the cruel men of the 
 revolution, and that Robespierre was the one great 
 tyrant. A strange episode aided their plan. 
 There was an old beldame in Paris at that time, 
 named Catherine Theot, who held some such 
 crazy opinion as Joanna Southcote in England— 
 that she was about to be delivered of a Messiah, 
 who should make all nations blessed. Robespierre’s 
 name became connected with this woman, in a 
 way not very clearly to be understood ; a letter 
 was found by the agents of the commune in her 
 bed, addressed to him, calling him “the son of 
 the Supreme Being,’ “the Eternal Word,” “the 
 Redeemer of Mankind,” “the Messiah spoken 
 of by the Prophets.” Some writers have supposed 
 that this letter was a forgery, part of a project 
 against Robespierre, in which his opponents had 
 made use of the old woman’s fanaticism. Whether 
 this were so or not, many of the Parisians began 
 to entertain an opinion that Robespierre’s religious 
 notions were connected with an intention on his 
 part to claim divine honours; and this opinion, 
 absurd as it may appear, was followed by dislike 
 of him in some quarters, and—what he dreaded 
 still more—ridicule in others. The whole pro- 
 ceeding damaged him at the Convention, though 
 not at the Jacobin Club, where he still reigned 
 supreme.* 
 
 Both parties, friends and opponents of Robes- 
 pierre, employed their spies and secret agents ; 
 and these spies brought forward alarming accounts 
 of the machinations of the respective cliques. The 
 committee’s spies pretended to have seen a paper 
 in which Robespierre had written down the names 
 of forty of his late supporters, now enemies, to be 
 handed over to the tender mercies of Fouquier- 
 Tinville and Samson; but, while it is very probable 
 that he made out such a list mentally, so crafty a 
 man would hardly have committed it to paper at 
 so critical a time. The temper of the times was 
 such that either party would unscrupulously have 
 forged documents or invented assertions to ruin 
 . the other. The guillotine must work on one side 
 or the other, they all knew; and the great 
 question was—which party could strike first. The 
 opponents of Robespierre were not exactly a 
 party, for they included remnants of the Hébertists 
 and Dantonists as well as some of his recent 
 supporters ; but they were temporarily united by 
 one common danger; and thus were seen Billaud 
 Varennes, Collot d’Herbois, Barrére, Barras, 
 Carnot, Tallien, Fréron, Legendre, Panis, and 
 Thuriot, acting together. St. Just and Henriot 
 warmly advised Robespierre at once to put down 
 all opposition by cannon and musketry, and follow 
 these up by the guillotine; but he appears to 
 have wished to depend upon the Revolutionary 
 Tribunals rather than upon military force. He 
 appeared at the Convention on the 26th of July, 
 
 * Hist. Parl.—Vilate, Mystéres de la Mére de Dieu dévyoilés,— 
 Senart, Mémoires.—Barrére’s Report to the Convention. 
 
 and read a paper denouncing his enemies on all 
 sides, including the members of the two committees 
 of Salut Public and Sureté Générale. He declared 
 that the country was demoralised and worn out, 
 the Convention degraded and chained by those 
 tyrannical and profligate men who were nothing 
 
 LYY YD i= 
 { ie 7s 
 gym) (hw =e 
 
 ~ 
 
 Y 
 
 BARRAS. 
 
 but foul remnants of the atheistical Hébertists 
 and corrupt Dantonists. He talked of religion as 
 something which touched his inmost soul. He had 
 recourse ,to arguments which go far to support 
 the hypothesis that he had purposely staid away 
 from the committees for six weeks, in order that 
 his opponents might make themselves unpopular 
 by their sanguinary proceedings. He flattered 
 the “ Plain,’ or “ Centre,’ or neutrals in the 
 Convention, making use of arguments to bind 
 them to his cause. He exclaimed, in his strange 
 mixture of so-called piety with ruthless cruelty: 
 “No! death is not an eternal sleep! Citizens, 
 erase from your cemeteries and tombs that maxim, 
 which, engraven by sacrilegious hands, throws the 
 black crape over all nature, discourages oppressed 
 innocence, and insults the virtuous dead, Citizens, 
 inscribe rather these words—Death is the com- 
 mencement of Immortality ;” and he wound up 
 by alluding to his declining health, which ought 
 to impart to his words the solemn character 
 of a voice from the grave, or a testamentary — 
 bequest to his countrymen. The Convention 
 remained for some time wavering ; the leaders on 
 both sides knew that it was a death-struggle, and 
 the neutrals waited to give their vote to the 
 stronger side, whichever that might prove to be. 
 One speech encouraged another; until at length, 
 while no one but Couthon spoke for Robespierre, 
 a host of violent voices were raised against him, 
 including those of Lecointre, Bourdon de POise, © 
 Barrére, Vadier, Cambon, Billaud Varennes, Panis, 
 Fréron, and Charlier; and the result of the 
 discussion was that the Convention referred | 
 Robespierre’s paper to the committees of Salut 
 Public and Sureté Générale—the very persons 
 
Guar. VIII] 
 
 chiefly accused by him. Discouraged by this 
 failure, Robespierre went over to the Jacobin 
 Olub, where his friends assembled round him; 
 Henriot, Couthon, David, and others, urged him 
 to adopt strenuous measures on the morrow ; and 
 on that very night the club erased from its books 
 those members who had just spoken in the 
 Convention against their favourite hero. If 
 Robespierre had acted boldly on the advice 
 tendered, he would have arrested the members 
 of the two committees on that very night—an 
 achievement apparently easy with Henriot’s 
 troops; but he thought he could conquer by 
 speech-making, and thus delayed action beyond 
 the hour when it would have been useful. During 
 the night, his opponents went to the houses of 
 the neutrals, and besought them to put on a bold 
 front on the morrow. This morrow, the 27th of 
 July, came, and the Convention filled to over- 
 flowing with the adherents of the two parties, 
 St. Just and Lebas continued the denunciations 
 which Robespierre had commenced on the pre- 
 ceding day; but those on the other side waxed 
 bolder and bolder; Collot d’Herbois, Billaud 
 Varennes, Bourdon de l’Oise, Tallien, and Barrére, 
 ascended the tribune in turn, and thundered out 
 denunciations against the Triumvirate, a name 
 now frequently given to Robespierre, St. Just, 
 and Couthon. Among other things, Billaud said: 
 “The moment to tell the truth, the whole truth, 
 is at last arrived. This assembly is placed between 
 two abysses: if it be weak, it must perish !” 
 Tallien exclaimed: “Citizens, last night, at the 
 Jacobins, I trembled for the republic, I shuddered 
 for the country! I saw formed there the army 
 of the new Cromwell. I armed myself with a 
 dagger, and I said to myself—if the Convention 
 should not dare to strike the tyrant, I will pierce 
 his heart with this!” Pulling forth a shining 
 dagger, he enacted a bit of stage-play, which told 
 well upon the Assembly, now rapidly deserting 
 the fallen man. St. Just and Couthon were 
 paralysed by the turn events had taken; but 
 Robespierre strove with frantic eagerness to reply 
 to his enemies; he had still faith in the power 
 of his oratory, if he could only make himself 
 heard, ‘This, however, was the one thing impos- 
 sible, for the Convention would not hear him. 
 The proceedings ended with a decree for the arrest 
 of Robespierre, his brother, Couthon, St. Just, and 
 Lebas ; another for the dismissal of Henriot from 
 the command of the Paris armed force; and 
 a third summoning two other Robespierrians, 
 Fleuriot the mayor, and Payan the procureur, to 
 render an account of the state of the capital.* 
 
 The five arrested men were taken to five 
 different prisons. During the day, Henriot had 
 endeavoured to make a diversion in favour of his 
 friends, by appealing to the faubourgs and to his 
 armed men ; but he managed his proceedings so 
 indiscreetly as to bring about his own arrest. The 
 
 * Durand-Maillane, Mémoires. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 59 
 
 commune at the Hotel de Ville, mostly favourable 
 to Robespierre, claimed the right of municipal 
 government in Paris, and ordered the gaolers to 
 release all the six prisoners, including Henriot. 
 This was done. During the night, Robespierre 
 and his friends were in full conference, discussing 
 plans for overcoming the Convention by means of 
 Henriot’s armed bands, the Jacobin Club, and the 
 sections. The Polytechnic School and the depart- 
 mental authorities, however, declared for the 
 Convention ; some of the sections and cannoneers 
 wavered in their allegiance to Robespierre; and 
 the crisis arrived. The Convention, instead of 
 being seized or dispersed by the Robespierrians, 
 gained an ascendency; the waverers within and 
 without the Assembly came to a decision; and 
 before daylight on the 28th of July, so completely 
 had the aspect of affairs changed, that Robespierre 
 found himself deserted by all except a small body 
 of supporters at the Hotel de Ville. Henriot was 
 thrown out of a window by Coffinhal, in a fit of 
 rage at the commandant’s mismanagement; the 
 younger Robespierre threw himself out of another 
 window; Lebas shot himself with a pistol; 
 Couthon inflicted an unimportant wound on 
 himself with a knife; St. Just clasped a knife or 
 dagger, but did not use it; while the wretched 
 leader of the party, Maximilian Robespierre, put a 
 pistol into his mouth to blow out his brains; but 
 in pulling the trigger, he changed the direction of 
 the piece, and the ball broke his under jaw and 
 went through his cheek, without touching any 
 vital part. At three in the morning, all these 
 men, five of them bloody and mutilated, were 
 removed from the Hotel de Ville; and in a few 
 minutes the Convention, which had been in 
 session all night, ordered their execution. The 
 Jacobin Club had remained in session also; but 
 Legendre, armed with sufficient power, had been 
 to the hall, turned out all the members, and 
 brought the key to the Convention. 
 
 The last hours of Robespierre were frightful in 
 every sense. He was carried to the committee- 
 room of the Salut Public, and laid upon a table— 
 speechless, senseless, and blood flowing from his 
 mouth, He recovered sensibility after a time, only 
 to hear the scoffs and insults of those who had 
 trembled at his name on the preceding day. At 
 six o'clock, a surgeon was brought from the Palais 
 Royal to dress his wounds, rendered hideous by 
 the way in which the lower jaw was shattered. 
 He looked fixedly at all around him, but said 
 nothing, except to ask for water and for rags 
 to cleanse his gore-besmeared visage. Some said 
 he showed moral courage; but others attributed 
 his impassibility to that physical dulness, that 
 sluggishness of nerve and sense, which had made 
 him so insensible to the sufferings of others. At 
 nine o'clock, Barrére, Billaud Varennes, and Collot 
 d’Herbois arrived at the Tuileries, and ordered the 
 removal of the prisoners to the Conciergerie ; and 
 about the same hour the Convention decreed that, 
 as the prisoners had been outlawed on the previous 
 
= te ee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 evening, no trial was necessary: they might be 
 executed at once. Towards eleven o'clock, Robes- 
 pierre and twenty of his companions were taken 
 before the Revolutionary Tribunal, simply to be 
 identified, and then ordered to the scaffold. It was 
 about four in the afternoon when the wretched 
 men were carted through some of the busiest 
 streets of Paris towards the place of execution. 
 Robespierre went in the same tumbril with his 
 brother and Henriot, all three bleeding and 
 shattered. A yelling mob followed, cursing and 
 charging him with all the cruelties and executions 
 from the beginning of the Revolution: they chose 
 to forget at the moment that others of the popular 
 leaders had been nearly as bloodthirsty as he. 
 One furious woman sprang on the tumbril, bent 
 over Robespierre’s prostrate figure, and gnashed 
 out against him: “Go down to hell, with the 
 curses of all mothers and wives!” Loathsome 
 oaths, and still more loathsome jests, filled the 
 air, as the cart-loads of miserable victims passed 
 through the streets; and bands of depraved women, 
 who had often enjoyed the guillotine scenes 
 ordered by Robespierre, danced round the vehicle 
 in which the fallen dictator lay. On arriving at 
 the Place de la Révolution, he was laid down on 
 the ground at the foot of the scaffold, for he was to 
 be executed last of the twenty-one: he could not 
 stand, his face was livid, and he appeared all but 
 dead. The executioner speedily commenced his 
 dread labours. At the fall of each head, the multi- 
 tude shouted and waved their hats—shouted louder 
 when St. Just and Couthon appeared, and loudest 
 of all when the leader of the party was adjusted 
 beneath the fatal knife. As his ghastly figure 
 and well-known sky-blue coat—now torn and 
 clotted with gore—slowly emerged to the surface 
 of the scaffoid, a roar of shouts arose. Samson 
 tore off his coat, and brutally wrenched the foul 
 linen bandage from his jaw: the broken left jaw 
 fell, and then a horrible cry or scream proceeded 
 from the wretched man, being the first sound of 
 suffering he had been heard to utter since his 
 arrest. ‘This fearful cry was still ringing in the 
 air, when the falling blade stopped it for ever; 
 and Samson instantly held up the hideous head to 
 the half-delirious multitude. Of the twenty-one 
 who fell on this “10th Thermidor,” as it was called 
 in the language of the revolution, or, in familiar 
 phrase, on the 28th of July, none of the chiefs— 
 Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Henriot, Fleuriot, 
 Payan, Dumas—had seen the age of forty: so 
 much was the French revolution carried out by 
 young men. 
 
 Historians and biographers have exhausted 
 their ingenuity in attempting to understand the 
 character of Robespierre, and the motives that 
 determined his actions at particular times. 
 Although always a great supporter and advocate 
 of the sans culottes, he was personally a gentle- 
 man, neat, and even finical in his attire ; although 
 ruling the destinies of France for a time, when 
 other demagogues were amassing fortunes at the 
 
 expense of the hapless country, he lived and died 
 poor, rejoicing in the appellation of the “Incor- 
 ruptible ;” although utterly heartless in consigning 
 others to the scaffold, he always absented himself 
 from the bloody scenes that degraded Paris; 
 although availing himself of the power of the 
 guillotine, his own taste was rather for speech- 
 making in clubs and assemblies than for the 
 physical force of armed men, The enigma of his 
 
 RoBEsPIeRRE.—From a Portrait by Duplessis-Bertaux. 
 
 character has been solved by some writers in the 
 theory that a species of madness affected him 
 The adhesion between him, St. 
 
 through life, 
 Just, and Couthon was most complete; they 
 
 remained faithful to each other to the last 
 hour—either because each believed in the disin- 
 terested patriotism of the other two; or, more 
 probably, because they had planned a triumvirate 
 to govern France, themselves to be the three 
 consuls, 
 
 When the three most terrible members of the 
 Comité de Salut Public had been thus got rid of, 
 it remained still to decide how to deal with the 
 others. Billaud Varennes, Barrére, and Collot 
 d’Herbois, although they had assisted to pull 
 down Robespierre, had had their full share in all 
 the frightful despotism of the committee ; and the 
 Convention was now called upon to show how 
 these men ought to be treated. On the day 
 following the “10th Thermidor,” the members of 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal, the remaining com- 
 mittee-men of the Salut Public, and the Conven- 
 tion, met to consider the state of public affairs. 
 So little was the thirst for blood extinguished, that 
 eighty-one persons, chiefly supporters of Robespierre 
 in the commune, were condemned and guillotined 
 within forty-eight hours ; but many of those who 
 thus fell were unquestionably the victims of private 
 revenge or spite on the part of the numerous 
 holders of temporary power. On the 29th of July, 
 and following days, proposals were made in the 
 Convention for lessening the power of the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal: these proposals were resisted 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 by the Salut Public—now composed virtually of 
 Billaud, Barrére, and Collot; and this resistance 
 gradually brought public opinion to bear against 
 these three men. Some of the deputies in the 
 Convention were really anxious to stay the effusion 
 of blood; others were thirsting for power; and 
 thus it arose that the chamber became a scene 
 of accusation and recrimination, in which it is 
 difficult to recognise the organisation of the old 
 parties. A decree was passed to arrest Fouquier- 
 Tinville, who, as public accuser or attorney- 
 general, was accused of having abetted all Robes- 
 pierre’s bloody schemes, Twenty-three jurors of 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal were also arrested ; 
 and that court was re-organised on a less savage 
 basis than before. The Convention became 
 stronger, the committee weaker, every day; and 
 a new party arose with the designation Thermi- 
 doriens, professing to include those who opposed 
 not only the lately decapitated triumvirate, Robes- 
 pierre, St. Just, and Couthon, but also the still 
 remaining members of the Salut Public, especially 
 Barrére, Collot d Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, 
 These Thermidoriens—named from the month 
 marked by the downfall of Robespicrre—made up 
 from the fragments of many parties, comprised 
 the Abbé Sityes, Chenier, Cambacérés, Boissy 
 d@’Anglas, Thibeaudeau, Legendre, Lecointre, Treil- 
 lard, Thuriot, Fréron, Tallien, Bourdon de l’Oise, 
 Barras, Bentibol, Rovére, Dumont, Merlin de 
 Douai, and Merlin de Thionville—all connected 
 in various ways with the preceding events of the 
 revolution, The two committees, of Salut Public 
 and Sureté Générale, were gradually Icavened 
 with so many of these Thermidoriens, that the 
 old committee-men found themselves in a weak 
 minority; the powers of both committees were 
 ereatly curtailed; and the forty-eight sections of 
 Paris were reduced to twelve, with lessened func- 
 tions. Just one month after the execution of the 
 Robespierrians, Tallien and other Thermidoriens 
 brought accusations against Collot, Billaud, and 
 Barrére, of the Salut Public; and against Vadier, 
 Amar, and Vouland, of the Sureté Générale, for 
 haying deluged Paris with blood during the six 
 weeks that Robespicrre had held aloof from the 
 meetings of those committees. The accusers urged 
 that it would be absurd to rest with the destruc- 
 tion of Robespierre and his friends, while the 
 other committee-men yet remaining were guilty 
 of the very same crimes. Billaud, however, in a 
 bold speech, pointed out that the Convention had 
 by its decrees sanctioned all the acts of the com- 
 mittees; he taunted many of the Thermidoriens 
 with their weathercock intrigues; and the Con- 
 vention rejected the accusation. The onslaught was 
 recommenced a few days afterwards; and now 
 Billaud, Collot, and Barrére sought to strengthen 
 themselves by appeals to the Jacobin Club and 
 the sans culottes of the faubourgs. But the club 
 had been paralysed by the fall of its great leader 
 Robespierre ; and it never again exhibited power 
 against the Convention. After a time, Fréron 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 61 
 
 organised a band of volunteer Thermidoriens, 
 young men of respectable position, to oppose in 
 the streets the armed Jacobins and sans culottes 
 of the lower class ; and thus the volatile Parisians 
 had a new excitement, the spectacle of bludgeon- 
 fights between these two parties—a melodrame 
 to succeed the frightful tragedy of the guillotine, 
 played to the music of the war-cries “Vive la 
 Convention ” and “Vive la Montagne.” On one 
 evening in November, the Jacobins were attacked 
 in their own hall, and a battle with stools and 
 tables ensued; and after this had becn repeated 
 one or two other nights, the Convention adopted 
 the bold plan of closing the hall, and extinguish- 
 ing the once terrible club altogether. Great, 
 indeed, must have been the convulsion in French 
 society, to sanction the death of Robespierre in 
 July, and the suppression of the Jacobin Club in 
 November—especially as many of those now in 
 power had been both Robespierrians and Jacobin 
 clubbists.* 
 
 Among the indications of change was a horror 
 felt or expressed at the butcheries which Carrier 
 had committed at Nantes. That ruthless man 
 asserted over and over again, and his assertions in 
 this matter were unquestionably true, that the 
 Convention had sanctioned all he had done, and 
 had applauded similar proceedings elsewhere. 
 Nevertheless, the Convention now proceeded 
 against him, On the 23rd of November, after 
 some of the deputies had expressed a doubt 
 whether proofs could be produced against Carrier, 
 Legendre exclaimed: “ Proofs? You ask for 
 material proofs! Well, then, if you will have 
 them, make the waters of the Loire flow back in 
 their bed; bring to Paris his vessels with the 
 false bottoms ; bring the corpses of the wretched 
 victims he sacrificed—they are numerous enough 
 to hide the living here!” That same night Carrier 
 was arrested in his bed; and after trying to blow 
 out his brains with a double-barrelled pistol, he 
 was taken to prison. He and about thirty more 
 persons were soon afterwards arraigned for having 
 
 * One of the expedients of the Thermidoriens, meant to maintain 
 themselves with the people, was to affect a great reverence for the 
 martyr of liberty, Marat. While meditating their attack on the 
 Jacobin Club, they made a pompous translation of the remains of 
 LD’ Ami du Peuple from under the trees in the Cordeliers’ garden, 
 to the Pantheon, a church dedicated to great men by their grateful 
 country. While the body of Marat went in by the front door, that 
 of Mirabeau was ejected from the rear, because it was thought 
 unworthy to rest near those of a real patriot. But short was the 
 rest of Marat in this grand temple. The Gilded Youth, becoming 
 speedily aware of their power, and no longer needing to maintain 
 a character for republicanism, began to express their real senti- 
 ments for the maniacal wretch who had preached bloodshed so 
 energetically. hey smashed his bust in theatres, halls, committec- 
 rooms, shops, wherever it was to be seen, giving the original the 
 epithets of butcher and monster. Finally (January, 1799), they 
 broke up his tomb, and dragging forth the remains, threw them 
 into a filthy pool at Montmartre, with loud laughter, and the brief 
 funeral oration, ‘Lie there, scélérat—that is the proper Pantheon 
 for thee!”? In the National Convention these proceedings were 
 not merely excused, but justified; and André Dumont, in the name 
 of the united committees, presented a decree, which was forthwith 
 passed, that the honours of the Pantheon should never again be 
 awarded to a citizen, nor his bust placed in the National Conven- 
 tion, or in any public place, until ten years after his death. “‘ Thus 
 the very men who had Pantheonised Marat, un-Pantheonised him 
 as soon as it suited their policy to do so.” They had disgraced the 
 dust of Rousseau by translating it to the Pantheon; and now, in 
 the theatres and nearly all public places, the bust of Jean Jacques 
 was substituted for that of Marat. 
 
62 
 
 been concerned in the atrocities at Nantes; the 
 fusilades, the noyades, were all brought up against 
 them. He brought forward his former arguments 
 in his own defence ; nevertheless, Carrier, Pinard, 
 and Moreau Grandmaison, were condemned to 
 death. On the 16th of December, these three men 
 were guillotined, Carrier persisting to the last that 
 the sentence was wholly unjust, and that he was 
 innocent of aught beyond obeying the orders of 
 the authorities at Paris. Execrable monster as 
 this man was, his accusers certainly failed in 
 
 CARRIER, 
 
 showing that he was much worse than many 
 among themselves.* The remaining companions 
 or accomplices of Carrier were acquitted at that 
 time ; but many of them afterwards suffered either 
 execution or deportation to Cayenne. Seventy- 
 three deputies of the Convention, it will be 
 remembered, had been cast into prison on the 31st 
 of May, 1793, for having protested against the 
 forcible expulsion of the Girondists; they had 
 languished in confinement eighteen months, in 
 almost daily expectation of death; but the 
 Convention, beginning to think that Girondists 
 were not very much worse than Jacobins, now 
 liberated them. A few other persons, including 
 the Englishman Thomas Paine, who had been 
 imprisoned on other grounds, were released at the 
 same time.t A further attempt was made to 
 obtain a recall from banishment of such men as 
 Lanjuinais, Louvet, and Isnard—Girondists who 
 had not so far implicated themselves as to mount 
 the scaffold which had proved fatal to their 
 companions Brissot and the rest, 
 
 * Biographie Moderne.—Barante, Mélanges Historiques.—Procés 
 de Carrier, in Hist. Parlementaire. 
 
 + The story of Paine’s escape (which is better known than it is 
 authenticated) is this :—On the night which preceded Robespierre’s 
 fall, as he was lying in the Luxembourg prison, a turnkey, with 
 Fouquier-Tinville’s list in his hand, went along the corridors mark- 
 ing with chalk the doors of such as were to be tried and executed 
 on the morrow. Paine’s room or cell had two doors: one of these 
 doors happened to be open; the turnkey chalked the inner door 
 that was closed: another turnkey, passing along the corridor, 
 slammed to the open or outer door, so that when they came in the 
 morning to drag out the victims and make up the fournée for that 
 day, the death-mark on Paine’s cell was not visible, and they passed 
 onward to other doors, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The year 1794 ended less miserably in France 
 than the two preceding years. Many of the blood. | 
 shedders had been put out of the way, and others 
 had lost somewhat of their sanguinary tendencies. 
 The severity of the police law was moderated ; 
 the priests and nobles were no longer subject 
 to banishment or imprisonment simply on the 
 ground of their profession or caste; and other 
 ameliorations were made in matters that 
 affected the people. Moderate men began to 
 hope that the next year was to be a year of 
 mercy—it was left to time to realise or falsify 
 that hope. | 
 
 Before passing from the affairs of France to 
 those of England in 1794, it is necessary to touch 
 upon that great European scandal—the ‘third 
 partition of Poland; that deed which in its 
 perpetration had weakened the armies of the 
 coalition employed against France; and which, 
 in its moral effects, threw a black cloud over the 
 reputation of kings at a crisis when that reputation 
 needed to be kept bright and spotless; nay, which 
 cast a shade of obloquy over all who were attached 
 to established governments and thrones. The 
 partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia, and 
 Austria, was, in truth, a political act equalling in 
 atrocity anything perpetrated by the conquering 
 generals of republican France in their dealings 
 with conquered countries. 
 
 Among the much-divided Polish nobility, whose 
 dissensions and ambition had kept their unhappy 
 country distracted and weak, was Thaddeus 
 
 Kosciuszko, of an ancient but not wealthy family 
 
 2 
 
 “GY 
 
 Kosciuszko. 
 
 in Lithuania; a man whose bravery, humanity, 
 and patriotism were unquestioned and unques- 
 tionable. Differences of opinion have been, and 
 still are entertained concerning his abilities as 
 a general and a statesman, In their enthusiastic 
 and laudable admiration of his gallantry and 
 entire honesty, the Polish patriots have been 
 wont to attribute more greatness and genius 
 to the gallant soldier than ever belonged to 
 
Guar. VIII] 
 
 him (his amiable and generous qualities they could 
 scarcely exaggerate) ; but at the same time it is but 
 fair to state that, even had Kosciuszko been as 
 great and able a man as he is represented, it may 
 be doubted whether he would have succeeded in 
 his grand enterprise of driving out the three great 
 powers from his native country—a country, for the 
 most part, open and ill-calculated for defensive 
 war, and most of the strong places in which were 
 occupied by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Kos- 
 ciuszko, in his early life, had resided a consider- 
 able time in France, studying the science of war. 
 While yet a very young man, he had volunteered 
 to accompany Lafayette to America: he served for 
 some time as aide-de-camp to Washington, and his 
 services to our revolted colonists had obtained for 
 him the rank of a general officer, and, after the 
 war, a pension from the United States. The 
 school or schools in which he had studied had 
 given him a preference for republican institutions, 
 but he had no excessiveness or extravagance in his 
 political opinions, and seems to have agreed that 
 the government best suited to his country would be 
 a representative monarchy, in which the aristocracy 
 shouid have its due share and influence. With 
 some of the patriot nobles who had adhered to the 
 constitution of 1793, and had gallantly fought the 
 overwhelming forces of the empress Catherine, 
 Kosciuszko had fled into Saxony. From Dresden 
 and Leipsic these unhappy exiles corresponded 
 with their friends who remained at home under the 
 harsh rule of Russian ministers and Russian 
 generals, and concerted with them the means of 
 attempting one struggle more for the independence 
 of their native country. What followed is vari- 
 ously told, according to the predilections of party or 
 of private friendship : some accounts state that the 
 fugitives and exiles, anxious to regain their homes, 
 precipitated the plan ; others state that the patriots 
 who remained in their country, suffering under 
 the insolence and arrogance and oppressions of the 
 Czarina’s agents, who were instructed to drive mat- 
 ters to extremity, were the more impatient and im- 
 prudent party: one thing is perfectly clear—the 
 plan was precipitated, and the insurrection broke 
 out at an inauspicious moment, and before half the 
 preparations it was really in their power to make had 
 been made in Poland. ‘The outbreak was hurried on 
 by an order from Catherine’s minister for the im- 
 mediate reduction of the Polish army to 15,000 
 men. The permanent council of government, 
 which had been set up by Stanislaus Augustus un- 
 der the dictation of Catherine, complied with this 
 mandate, and issued the necessary orders ; and, if 
 the patriots had been wise, they also would have 
 complied, if only in order to gain time. There was 
 not much to lose by this course, for the Polish 
 army actually organized and on foot consisted 
 only of some 30,000 men, and it would not have 
 been difficult to have recalled the 15,000 disbanded 
 men at any given moment, or when their other 
 preparations, including the recall of 50,000 and 
 more troops who had been disbanded already, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 
 
 63 
 
 should be in a state of maturity or of greater for- 
 wardness. But the Polish patriots, ever impetu- 
 ous and rash, resolved to strike the blow now, ra- 
 ther than suffer the reduction of a single regiment 
 of the small and scattered army—for the 30,000 
 men were not even collected on one point, but 
 spread all over the country, in order to keep 
 them weak and inefficient, and most of these de- 
 tachments were closely watched by detachments of 
 Russians, superior in number, in appointment, 
 and, perhaps, in discipline. The great engine on 
 which the patriots relied was clubism, or an organ- 
 ized system of secret societies, the head or mother 
 society being established at Warsaw, the capital, 
 and the affiliated societies being in the provin- 
 cial towns and villages. It may be doubted whe- 
 ther such a machine ever worked perfectly well: 
 and at this time there was a panic dread and _hor- 
 ror, in all Europe, of such political means. In pri- 
 vate conversation George III., while regretting the 
 inability of England to do anything at this moment 
 to avert the fate of Poland, and deploring its inevi- 
 table doom, was accustomed to say, “‘ But are not 
 the Poles all Jacobins? Look at their clubs! 
 Look at their secret societies.”* It issaid that Kos- 
 ciuszko had no very great reliance on this club- 
 ism; that in the autumn of 1793 he secretly sent 
 his friend and companion Zajonczek to Warsaw, 
 and that he reported that the members of the con- 
 spiracy were too enthusiastic, that their only con- 
 nexion with the army was through Madalinski, 
 Dzialynski, and a few subalterns. Madalinski, 
 a general officer, vowed he would risk everything 
 if they attempted to oblige him to disband his 
 brigade; and Kapustas, a banker of Warsaw, stren- 
 uously exerted himself, in various ways, in order 
 to give activity, spirit, and unanimity to the clubs, 
 and rouse the people from their unpatriotic le- 
 thargy. A supreme committee of four had been 
 appointed ; the ultra-revolutionists, the men who 
 would have imitated the ultra-revolutionists of 
 France (and there were such men, there was such a 
 party, in Poland), would have preferred Iasinski, but 
 Kosciuszko enjoyed the general confidence of the 
 patriots; his judgment was regarded almost as in- 
 fallible, and with something like unanimity, or with 
 far more agreement and mutual goodwill than usu- 
 ally attended the elections and deliberations of his 
 countrymen, Kosciuszko was appointed chief and 
 generalissimo of the confederacy. The wretched 
 king, who had always despaired of success, and 
 who foresaw that this premature struggle must end 
 in his total dethronement, in the ruin of all the 
 patriot nobles, and in the extinction of his country 
 as a nation, became acquainted with the operations 
 and intentions of the clubists, and with the secret 
 comings and goings of the exiles in Saxony. In 
 the hope of preventing the hopeless outburst, he 
 gave some information to Catherine’s minister, 
 Ingestrom, in consequence of which Zajonczek, 
 Kosciuszko’s comrade and one of the chiefs of the 
 confederacy, was discovered in Warsaw, and ordered 
 
 * Private information. 
 
 a SE a ES oe a A Be ee een AT A 
 
64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 to quit the kingdom—a mildness of treatment 
 which seems to prove either that Stanislaus did not 
 tell all he knew, or that Catherine was really anxi- 
 ous and impatient for the insurrection, in order to 
 have the opportunity of finishing in her old age 
 what she had begun in her prime, of terminating 
 a business which had occupied her mind for the 
 better part of half a century. It was agreed by 
 the confederates that Cracow, the ancient capital 
 of Poland, on the left bank of the Vistula, should 
 be the rendezvous of the patriots in arms, and the 
 point of junction to all such columns, regiments, 
 companies, brigades, or squadrons, as could tra- 
 verse the kingdom from their scattered positions 
 aud cantonments. Some money, it is said, was 
 procured from I’rance, the leading men of the 
 National Convention having been made to feel, by 
 some of the Polish patriots at Paris, the advantage 
 of exciting a powerful] diversion against Prussia. 
 In the month of March, Madalinski received 
 positive orders to disband his brigade. Instead of 
 obeving, he sounded boot and saddle, and, quitting 
 his quarters at Pultusk, in the neighbourhood of 
 Warsaw, he marched off with his brigade, about 
 700 strong, for Cracow. On his way he traversed 
 a part of the territory which had been partitioned 
 out to the king of Prussia ; and, as the Prussians had 
 proved even harder taskmasters than the Musco- 
 vites, and as no doubt could be entertained that 
 Frederick William, and the emperor Francis like- 
 wise, would make common cause with Catherine, 
 and assist her in quenching with blood the last 
 sparks of Polish independence, he fell upon and 
 beat all such Prussian detachments as he met, 
 made prisoners, harrowed the civil authorities ap- 
 pointed by Frederick William, and levied contribu- 
 tions. In this manner, to use the words of one of 
 the noble confederates, the Poles began, and left 
 to Providence the issue of the rashest enterprise 
 that man could conceive.* Madalinski reached 
 Cracow towards the end of March, and raised the 
 standard of independence, which attracted fewer of 
 the common people than the patriots had expected. 
 Kosciuszko arrived from Saxony a day or two 
 after ; he had no troops to bring, but his fame and 
 the magic of his name made the standard of inde- 
 pendence more attractive, and brought numbers of 
 enthusiastic young men of the higher and middling 
 classes to join the thin ranks of the patriotic army. 
 Oaths of obedience, and almost of allegiance, were 
 taken to him; he was invested with all powers, 
 civil and military —with the full and absolute 
 powers of a dictator; the choice of the members 
 of a provisionary government, or national council 
 of government, was left entirely to his own will; and 
 it is said to have been only his own good sense, mo- 
 desty, and moderation, which prevented their em- 
 powering him to nominate a successor to his more 
 than kingly office. At this time, Thaddeus Kos- 
 ciuszko was in the 39th year of his age, full of 
 health and vigour, and capable of enduring exces- 
 sive privations and fatigues. In his quality of dic- 
 * Count Michel Oginski, Mémoires sur la Pologne et les Polonais, 
 
 tator he instantly imposed a property-tax, which in- 
 disposed not a few minds to the cause,* and calied 
 upon ali nobles and citizens to join his standard, 
 or to adopt measures to facilitate its progress from 
 Cracow to Warsaw, from the Vistula to the Niemen, 
 and onward to the farthest limits of Lithuania, his 
 own native province, which longest of all had been 
 possessed by the Russians. Soon, in conjunction 
 with the National Council, he issued proclama- 
 tions enfranchising all the peasants, who had hi- 
 therto been neither more nor less than serfs, like 
 the same class in Russia, and calling upon them 
 to arm themselves as best they could, and to fall 
 upon the enemies of their country and of all na- 
 tional and personal liberty. Kosciuszko was not 
 to blame in this, but unfortunately the emancipa- 
 tion came too late, and with hurry and confusion 
 in a moment of crisis. The degraded serfs of 
 Poland could not be all at once elevated to the dig- 
 nity of citizens, or converted into enthusiastic pa- 
 triots : some of them scarcely understood the advan- 
 tages offered them; some thought that the benefit 
 had been withheld until the moment when the no- 
 ble and wealthy classes found they could not do 
 without them; some doubted that the fine pro- 
 mises given in a season of danger and distress 
 would not be kept when the peril was over; and 
 from these and various other causes the proclama- 
 tion of enfranchisement produced bnt a very par- 
 tial effect. Many of the serfs did indeed fight 
 bravely ; but it appears that these men principally 
 belonged to the patriot nobles who had confede- 
 rated, and that the vassals of such magnates as were 
 neutral, and of such as were of the Russian party 
 (and this last class of unpatriotic nobles was not 
 inconsiderable in number), remained deaf and 
 blind to the charms of the proclamation, and con- 
 tinued to look to their lords as the absolute masters 
 and disposers of their actions and their will, of 
 their souls and bodies. At the same time the pro- 
 clamation, while it carried alarm among the nobles 
 of Russia, the magnates of the emperor’s Hunga- 
 rian dominions, and all the serf-holding aristocra- 
 cies in the north-east of Europe, scared and irri- 
 tated that very considerable body of the Polish no- 
 bles who had so strenuously opposed even a gra- 
 dual enfranchisement, and who looked upon their 
 serfs as our West India planters looked upon their 
 negro slaves. ‘The middle class, which constitutes 
 the great strength of civilized nations, was in 
 Poland exceedingly small and weak—in the very 
 weakness of infancy, fur it was only of late years 
 that it had begun to have a recognizable existence. 
 ‘In our country,”’ says Oginski, ‘* there was really 
 no Tvers Etat, and the people were plunged in 
 ignorance.” , 
 Early in April Kosciuszko marched from Cracow 
 at the head of 4000 men, who were for the most part 
 armed with scythes and other agricultural imple- 
 ments. He had no field artillery, but little ammu- 
 
 _* **T soon discovered, to my sorrow,” says Oginski, “that the 
 rich proprictors of Warsaw displayed, for the most part, a marked 
 indifference for the success of our arms.,”? 
 
Cua. VII] CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 65 
 
 \ 
 
 nition, and no stores of any kind: yet, when he en- 
 countered, at Raclawic¢, a village on the road be- 
 tween Cracow and Warsaw, an army of 12,000 or 
 13,000 men, he thoroughly defeated it after a bloody 
 battle which lasted five hours, killed 3000 of the 
 Russians, made many prisoners, and took eleven 
 cannon. ‘This success immediately brought him 
 a considerable accession of strength; and some of 
 the nobles who had hitherto been wavering began 
 to repair to his standard. Ingestrom was in con- 
 sternation, and almost in despair, writing to St. 
 Petersburgh “ that he had no hope but in God 
 and the good cause of his sovereign.’? On the 
 17th of April the Polish garrison of Warsaw, 
 about 4000 strong, unfurled the banner of inde- 
 pendence, attacked the Russian troops in the town, 
 about 8000 strong, gained possession of the ar- 
 senal and magazines, and distributed arms and 
 ammunition to the populace. After some murder- 
 ous and long street-fighting—it lasted, with slight 
 intermission, for two days and two nights—the 
 Russians were driven out of Warsaw, with the loss 
 of more than 4000 men in killed and prisoners. 
 On the 23rd of April Kosciuszko’s countrymen, 
 the Lithuanians, burst into insurrection at Wilna, 
 and, after a sanguinary contest, drove the Russian 
 garrison out of that capital city. At this juncture 
 Frederick William, who, but for Poland, might 
 have doubled or even trebled his army on the 
 French frontier (being aided by the liberal English 
 subsidy), marched 40,000 Prussians into the pala- 
 tinate of Cracow. This force effected a junction 
 with a large Russian corps, and within a few days 
 his Prussian majesty arrived and put himself at 
 the head of his army. Towards the end of May 
 Kosciuszko, with 16,000 regular troops and about 
 10,000 volunteers and armed peasants, marched 
 away from Warsaw to defend the city of Cracow. 
 On the 5th of June he fought the united Prussians 
 and Russians at Szezekociny, and was defeated 
 with the loss of 1000 men. He put into his 
 dispatch, or bulletin, that he had killed a great 
 many more of the enemy ; but Prussia and Russia 
 could better bear the loss of thousands than he 
 could of hundreds. ‘Three days after this affair 
 another Polish corps was defeated and almost 
 annihilated at Chelm, and on the 15th of June the 
 ancient city of Cracow, the fountain-head of the 
 
 insurrection, surrendered, after a short siege, to - 
 
 the King of Prussia. The patriot army retreated 
 in good order, and took possession of an intrenched 
 camp at Pracka-Wola, about three leagues from 
 Warsaw. Kosciuszko had committed the old and 
 seemingly incurable blunder of dividing his forces: 
 when he marched from Warsaw with such a 
 diminutive force, he had from 40,000 to 50,000, 
 or according to other accounts from 60,000 to 
 70,000 men of all kinds, including some ad- 
 mirable light cavalry, under arms. It is said— 
 but the thing is scarcely credible, or, if credible, 
 highly discreditable—that he was not aware of 
 the junction of the King of Prussia’s army with 
 the Russians; and even if he had been in this 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 state of ignorance, it behoved him to keep his 
 army together, to collect the mass of it on one 
 point, in order to strike one great blow at a time. 
 ‘The Russians that were expected to cross the 
 Niemen were as yet at a distance, no division of his 
 army could be capable of opposing their progress 
 when they came; but, if he had taken the whole 
 of his force with him into the palatinate of Cracow, 
 he might have defeated and exterminated the 
 Prussians and the Russians that were there, and 
 then have wheeled round in good time to meet the 
 fresh army of the Czarina on the Niemen. The 
 reverses he sustained, and the spiritless behaviour 
 of the citizens of Cracow, greatly depressed some 
 of the patriots, and drove others of them into a 
 mad and bloody fury. Generally the Poles are a 
 very excitable people ; the political clubs in several 
 particulars had too closely imitated the Jacobin 
 societies of France, had often roused suspicion 
 and inflamed the passions by violent demagogic 
 oratory; and among the citizens and patriots of 
 Warsaw there were a few individuals who had 
 attentively studied and were guite ready to imitate 
 the deeds of the Parisians. Like that fierce de- 
 mocracy, they attributed the ill-success of their 
 arms to treason and a traitorous correspondence 
 with the enemy. Upon the expulsion of the Rus- 
 sians from the city, the many whom they had im- 
 prisoned were liberated, and the partizans, both 
 real and only suspected, of the-Czarina were ar- 
 rested and confined. As at Paris, the report was 
 spread that these prisoners were the chief traitors 
 and conspirators, the provisional government was 
 accused of negligence in not bringing them to trial 
 and execution, and the principle was promulgated 
 that the people ought to do what their goverument 
 had leftundone. On the 27th of June a young hot- 
 headed clubist, a sort of an incipient Polish Camille 
 Desmoulins or Marat, harangued the rabble of War- 
 saw into a savage madness: on the following day 
 they demanded the immediate execution of the po- 
 litical prisoners, and, upon meeting with a refusal, 
 they burst open the prisons, and began to hang their 
 wretched inmates on twelve gibbets which had 
 been erected in different quarters of the city during 
 the preceding night. They had dispatched eight 
 victims when Zakrzewski, the president of the 
 city, who enjoyed the universal esteem of the peo- 
 ple, nobly despising all personal danger from the 
 maniacs, threw himself among them, placed his 
 own breast between the prisoners and their swords, 
 harangued them till his voice became hoarse and 
 inaudible, then threw himself on his knees, and 
 with joined and uplifted hands prayed them not to 
 disgrace the Polish name by such cruelty and in- 
 justice. The people separated, the imitation of 
 the Parisian Septembrizers was cut short, no more 
 murders were perpetrated, and tranquillity was 
 promptly restored. 
 
 Kosciuszko felt most acutely this revolutionary 
 blot. On the following day he said to Count 
 
 Oginski, who found him at an -early hour lying 
 
 upon straw in a rude tent, “ This will be an inde- 
 E 
 
66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 lible stain on the history of our, revolution! The 
 loss of two battles would have done us less harm: 
 our enemies will take advantage of what has hap- 
 pened to represent us in an unfavourable light to 
 the eyes of all Europe! The populace have in- 
 dulged in unpardonable excesses, which I must 
 punish severely.” An active investigation was 
 ordered, and seven of the ringleaders, including 
 the young mob-orator, were hanged on the gibbets 
 which they had erected for the prisoners. 
 
 The emperor of Germany observed a strict neu- 
 trality down to the end of June, but on the last 
 day of that month he announced his intention of 
 sending an army into Little Poland—“to pre- 
 vent,” said his manifesto, ‘‘the danger to which 
 the frontiers of Gallicia might be exposed, as well 
 as to insure the safety and tranquillity of the other 
 states of his imperial majesty.” An Austrian 
 army presently crossed the frontiers, meeting with 
 no opposition and offering no molestation to any of 
 the Poles. The united armies of the Prussians and 
 Russians, counting in all 50,000 men, of which 
 40,000 belonged to his Prussian majesty, advanced 
 from Cracow upon Warsaw, which city had been 
 hastily fortified at the commencement of the insur- 
 rection. Kosciuszko, who remained in his intrench- 
 ed and fortified camp at Pracka- Wola, did not risk 
 a general battle, but cruelly harassed the enemy, 
 and prevented their regular prosecution of the siege 
 of Warsaw, by numerous sorties and night attacks. 
 On the 27th of July, on the lst and on the 3rd 
 of August, the Prussians and Russians sustained 
 severe losses; other attacks followed in rapid suc- 
 cession: they tried to bombard the town, but did 
 that work so badly that hardly a house in it was 
 injured. At the same time other Polish detach- 
 ments under Dombrowski, Prince Joseph Ponia- 
 towski, and other brave leaders, gained signal ad- 
 vantages in other quarters; and, while his Prus- 
 sian majesty was wasting his time and his strength 
 in fruitless endeavours to take Warsaw, the inha- 
 bitants of the Polish provinces which had recently 
 been ceded to him flew to arms and endeavoured 
 to dispossess him of all those acquisitions, and of 
 every inch of ground he held in Poland. This 
 news obliged him, on the night of the 5th of Sep- 
 tember, to beat a sudden retreat, and to leave his 
 sick and wounded, and a good part of his baggage 
 behind him. Kosciuszko did not follow his dis- 
 heartened and disordered enemies: it is said that 
 he had been left in ignorance of the cause of 
 their hasty retiring, and thus fancied that the 
 movement was a feint intended to draw him from 
 his fortified camp. After some delay he detached 
 Dombrowski with a considerable corps to co-ope- 
 rate with the new insurgents. Dantzic evinced 
 the intention of throwing off the yoke, but a strong 
 Prussian garrison restrained the patriots. The in- 
 surrection, however, became general, and the whole 
 of Great Poland, with the exception of a few towns, 
 fell into the possession of the Poles. In the con- 
 flicts which took place, the Poles accused the Prus- 
 sians of being guilty of excessive cruelty; the 
 
 | [Boox X. 
 Prussians retorted the charge upon the Poles, and — 
 it appears that both parties were ferocious and — 
 bloody. Kosciuszko, who was not engaged here, 
 was a man of humane and generous feelings, but 
 Dombrowski was of a different character—or at — 
 least, wherever he commanded and his legion 
 fought, now, and hereafter when they had become 
 the mercenaries of the French republic, and after- 
 wards of Napoleon Buonaparte, great barbarities © 
 were committed. While these bright gleams of 
 success cheered the Poles at Warsaw and in Great 
 Poland, their cause, weakly and miserably defend- 
 ed, fell into ruin in Lithuania. Kosciuszko and 
 his officers patiently submitted to every privation, 
 to beds of straw, to scarce and coarse food, to 
 ragged and dirty attire, in order to be able to give 
 more food and clothing to the common soldiers ; 
 but the camp of the patriot army of Lithuania, es- 
 tablished at nine leagues beyond Wilna, presented 
 a very different scene: the greater part of the 
 officers of the staff gambled excessively in the very 
 quarters of the general, where there was daily a 
 well-served, luxurious table; and at the same time 
 the soldiers were left to suffer from scarcity and 
 hunger, the horses were perishing for want of pro- 
 per forage, and Wilna, the capital of Lithuania, 
 was abandoned to its fate, no means being adopted 
 to provide for its defence. The Russian party, 
 moreover, was stronger in that country than in the 
 other parts of Poland, and the misconduct of the 
 patriots gave them encouragement and confidence. 
 Fierce jealousies and dissensions broke out be- 
 tween the patriotic citizens of Wilna and the patri- 
 otic army. Clouds of Cossacks gathered round 
 the place as early as the end of July; and on the 
 12th of August, twenty-four days before the retreat 
 of the King of Prussia from Warsaw, a strong 
 Russian army entered Wilna, after a bombardment 
 of eleven hours, but without committing any of the 
 excesses of which they have been accused.* 
 
 In the meanwhile the formidable Suvaroff was 
 advancing by forced marches upon Warsaw, and 
 
 SUYVAROFF, 
 
 driving all the forces of Lithuania before him, In 
 two or three places these Lithuanians made a bold _ 
 * Oginski, | 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 were collectively in point of number, were unwisely 
 divided and scattered. A sanguinary affair on the 
 19th of September opened the road for Suvaroff 
 to the Polish capital. Kosciuszko advanced to 
 Grodno, gave the command of the army of Lithu- 
 ania to a better general, and then retracing his 
 steps he threw himself between two Russian armies, 
 one under Count Fersen and the other under Su- 
 varoff, who were moving from opposite points in 
 the view of effecting a junction somewhere between 
 Grodno and Warsaw. If the Polish hero had col- 
 lected and brought with him the whole army of 
 Lithuania, and if he had not detached Dombrowski 
 into Great Poland, he might have fallen upon Fersen 
 with a superior force, and then have turned round 
 with an army elate with victory upon Suvaroff, 
 and, though Poland was scarcely to be saved from 
 the crushing weight of her three great and greedy 
 neighbours, her doom might have been averted for 
 this year at least; but matters had been so ma- 
 naged that Kosciuszko, who attacked Fersen near 
 Macziewice, about fifty miles from Warsaw, on 
 the 10th of October, could bring into action only 
 20,000 or 21,000 men—Fersen having triple that 
 number, and a similar superiority in artillery and 
 general appointment. The Poles fought despe- 
 rately. ‘The Russians sustained a terrific loss, but 
 the battle terminated in the entire rout of the pa- 
 triots, half of whom perished on the field or in the 
 flight. Kosciuszko apparently displayed the most 
 chivalrous or romantic bravery, but little or no 
 strategy or generalship: when his cause was des- 
 
 erate he rushed into the midst of his enemies, at 
 the head of the édite of his cavalry and of his prin- 
 cipal and bravest officers: he fell, together with his 
 horse, covered with wounds, and nearly all who 
 followed him were either killed or taken prisoners. 
 He lay for some time senseless among the dead, 
 but was then recognised in spite of his disfiguring 
 wounds, and his simple and coarse uniform. At 
 mention of his name sume Cossacks, who had ap- 
 proached with the intention of plundering and 
 stripping him, testified a profound respect and a 
 generous feeling: they made a rude brancard with 
 their lances, put him upon it and carried him to 
 General Fersen, who ordered his wounds to be 
 attended to, and treated the fallen hero and his 
 comrades in misfortune with great respect and 
 kindness. ‘The imperial woman that occupied the 
 throne of the Czars was less generous than her 
 Cossacks and her general: as soon as Kosciuszko 
 was able to travel, he was conveyed to St. Peters- 
 burgh, and condemned, as a Lithuanian and rebel- 
 lious subject of Russia, to imprisonment for life— 
 condemned of course, by Catherine herself, without 
 the ceremony of a trial. 
 
 The victory of Macziewice removed every 
 obstacle to the junction of the two Russian armies, 
 and a few marches brought the united forces to the 
 neighbourhood of Warsaw. The hopes even of the 
 most sanguine and enthusiastic patriots had ex- 
 pired with the fall of Kosciuszko; but, like brave 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 67 
 
 ‘stand, but their forces, miserably inferior as they. 
 
 men, they resolved not to submit to their hard fate 
 without some further struggle. On the 26th of 
 October a body of them fought the van division 
 under Fersen, but were driven back to their in- 
 trenchments. Praya, one of the suburbs of War- 
 saw, separated from the city by the Vistula, as the 
 borough of Southwark is separated from the city _ 
 of London by the Thames, had been hastily but 
 strongly fortified: its batteries mounted 100 can- 
 non, and the surviving part of the flower of the 
 Polish army was collected within its walls. This 
 bulwark lay between Suvaroff and Warsaw, and 
 must be taken. As he sat down before it he re- 
 ceived intelligence that the King of Prussia, from 
 the opposite side of the river, was marching with 
 all speed upon the Polish capital: it neither suited 
 Suvaroff’s military pride nor his mistress’s policy 
 to permit the Prussians to gain possession of the 
 city, and therefore every nerve was strained to 
 carry Praga and cross the Vistula before Frederick 
 William should come up. On the 4th of Novem- 
 ber, at break of day, the energetic semi-barbarian 
 ordered a general attack. For four hours the Poles 
 stood well to their guns, and their grape and canis- 
 ter shot inflicted a terrible loss; but Suvaroff, who 
 cared little for the lives of a few thousand men, 
 more or less, precipitated column upon column, 
 drove forward the attacking parties, assaulted all 
 parts of the intrenchments at once, and at the 
 end of the four hours burst into Praga with an 
 overwhelming force. Then followed a massacre 
 as bloody as that which he had perpetrated at 
 Ismail. Twelve thousand inhabitants, of both 
 sexes and of all ages, were butchered in the streets 
 and in the houses; no quarter was given to the 
 brave Polish soldiers who had so thinned many 
 of the attacking columns, and 8,000 of them pe- 
 rished either in defending the place, or helplessly 
 after its capture. During the heat of the combat 
 the Russians had succeeded in burning the bridge 
 which afforded the only communication between 
 Praga and Warsaw: many of the Poles were 
 drowned in attempting to swim across the river. 
 When the suburb was running with blood and 
 heaped with dead bodies, the Russians set fire to 
 the four corners of it, and, as the houses were, for 
 the most part, built of wood, the whole place, in 
 the course of a few hours, was reduced to ashes. 
 All this cruelty was intended to strike terror into 
 the citizens of Warsaw, and it had that effect. 
 The magistrates, on the afternoon of the 4th, sent 
 a deputation to Suvaroff, who dictated his own 
 terms of capitulation, and took possession of the 
 city on the 6th of November. ‘The Polish corps and 
 detachments left scattered in Lithuania, in Great 
 Poland, and other parts of the country, laid down 
 their arms and retired to their homes, or entered 
 the Russian service for bread or by compulsion, or 
 fled in small parties to seek service in France. Rus- 
 sia, Prussia, Austria, each punished all such of the 
 chiefs of the confederates—or all of them that fell 
 into their hands—as were natives of the provinces 
 they had respectively seized, considering and 
 
68 
 
 treating them as revolted subjects. Austria was 
 the least and Prussia the most severe of the three ; 
 albeit. the Czarina sent some few of the Polish 
 nobles into Siberian exile. ‘The* independence of 
 the country had really been gone long before, but 
 now its name as a nation was blotted out, the co- 
 partitioners resolving to appropriate every inch of 
 the country to themselves, to govern it by their 
 own laws, and to treat the whole of it as conquered 
 territory. It was not, however, until the 24th 
 of October, 1795, that this last partition-treaty was 
 finally settled, and certain minor arrangements 
 between Prussia and Austria, touching the Pala- 
 tinate of Cracow, were not settled till the 21st of 
 October, 1796. The unhappy Stanislaus Augus- 
 tus, who had never been a king except in name, 
 was obliged to go to Grodno and there sign a formal 
 but empty and invalid act of abdication. He ac- 
 cepted an annual pension of 200,000 ducats from 
 the three partitioning powers, who further pro- 
 mised to pay his debts. On the death of Catherine, 
 towards whom he had stood in so many different 
 relations, he removed from Grodno to St. Peters- 
 burgh, where he finished his chequered and dis- 
 honoured career in the month of February, 1798, 
 about fifteen months after the demise of the 
 Czarina. 
 
 The British parliament opened on the 30th of 
 December, but before proceeding to its debates a 
 few interesting circumstances which had occurred 
 since the prorogation must be briefly noticed. In 
 the month of July some important changes in the 
 cabinet took place. The old Whig or Portland 
 party, the ornament and strength of which had 
 been Burke, formed a coalition or junction with the 
 ministry, whom, ever since the alarming progress 
 of the French revolution, they had backed and sup- 
 ported against the new Whigs or Foxites. The 
 Duke of Portland received the order of the garter 
 and the office of third Secretary of State; Earl 
 Fitzwilliam was made President of the Council, 
 and, in December following, Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland ; Earl Spencer became Lord Privy Seal, 
 and, in December, First Lord of the Admiralty 
 (an office which was thought to have been rather 
 incompetently filled by Pitt’s elder brother, the 
 Karl of Chatham, who now took the Privy Seal) ; 
 Mr. Windhain, who prided. himself on being the 
 political pupil of Burke, became Secretary-at- War, 
 in lieu of Sir George Yonge; Loughborough, 
 who had identified himself with this party, had 
 already been for some time Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Notwithstanding the bad success which had in 
 England attended the crown prosecutions, the go- 
 vernment resolved to proceed against some other 
 conspicuous members of political societies. On 
 the 6th of October the grand jury of Middlesex 
 returned true bills against Thomas Hardy, John 
 Horne Tooke, John Augustus Bonney, Stewart 
 Kyd, Jeremiah Joyce, Thomas Wardle, Thomas 
 Holcroft, John Richter, Matthew Moore, John 
 Thelwall, Richard Hodgson, and John Baxter, for 
 high treason. Hardy, who had been secretary and a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 r + Ale dental 
 very active functionary to the Corresponding Soci- 
 
 p< 
 
 ety, was the first put upon his trial, which took place 
 before Lord Chief Justice Eyre (a judge, even for 
 his time, much given to hanging), Lord Chief Baron 
 Macdonald, Mr. Baron Hotham, Mr. Justice Bul- 
 ler, Mr. Justice Grose, and others of his Majesty’s 
 justices, &c., under a special commission, at the 
 Old Bailey. He was charged with nine overt acts 
 of high treason. The charge was opened by the 
 Attorney General (Sir John Scott, afterwards Lord 
 Eldon) in a speech of nine hours, in which all the 
 particulars mentioned in the reports of the secret 
 committee of the club or society were dwelt upon, 
 and the papers of the society to which the prisoner 
 was secretary (or all of those papers that could be 
 found) were produced in evidence against him. 
 Several of these papers were such as no cool and 
 rational Englishman ought to have set his name to; 
 some of them contained principles and doctrines 
 which, if adopted and carried out by any large 
 portion of the nation, must have led to a revolution 
 which would only haye been dissimilar to that of 
 France from the national and natural antipathy of 
 the people to any long continuation of cruelty and 
 bloodshed ; and there were in some of these papers 
 eulogiums on the Declaration of the Rights of Man 
 and on the conduct of the French revolutionists, 
 calculated to irritate and alarm all levers of the 
 British constitution and friends of humanity. It 
 was proved that there was a very close connexion 
 between the Corresponding Society and the men 
 (now convicted and transported) who had got up 
 the Convention at Edinburgh, and that Margarott, 
 the worst of that set, was the friend of and had been 
 most intimately linked with Hardy. But, though 
 some of the witnesses spoke of dangerous, con- 
 cealed intentions, not one of them deserving of 
 any credit criminated Hardy personally; the pro- 
 ceedings of the society were of public notoriety, 
 most of the papers the crown lawyers produced 
 had been published by Hardy or a committee in 
 the newspapers, and it was made to appear that, 
 however imprudent or illegal might have been 
 some of the means they had proposed, but not 
 acted upon, of obtaining their end, their sole 
 object was a sweeping parliamentary reform. 
 This reform would have thrown the constitution 
 under the feet of the democracy; but the thing 
 had not happened, nor was it likely to happen: 
 
 _ 
 ~~ 
 ete 
 
 [Boox a 
 
 the demagogic strength was contemptible, and a_ 
 
 humane jury shrunk from the horrible penalty 
 attendant on a conviction for high treason. The 
 
 trial lasted eight days, ending, on the 5th of No-— 
 
 vember, in a verdict of acquittal.* . 
 The trial of Horne Tooke, which next followed, 
 
 and which commenced on the 17th of November, 
 
 occupied six days, and was made remarkable by 
 
 the perfect self-possession, the wit, the acuteness, 
 
 and the dialectics of the accused, and by the per- 
 sons he summoned as witnesses—persons who had 
 
 * The jury had slept at the Hummums every night from the 29th 
 of October, attended by the proper officers of the court, sworn in 
 | the usual form. 
 
A re 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 once been in reality, or pretence, or to serve a pre- 
 sent purpose, hot parliamentary reformers; and 
 in this category were the Duke of Richmond, 
 master-general of the ordnance, and Pitt himself, 
 the prime minister, who was obliged to answer 
 from the witness-box the searching questions 
 which the prisoner put to him from the bar con- 
 cérning the not very remote days when they had 
 met as brother reformers under the roof of the 
 Thatched House Tavern. » Tooke also adopted an 
 
 liornve Tooke. 
 
 ingenious course ef argument, which was very 
 proper and potent to exonerate himself, but not 
 so well calculated to justify the political societies. 
 He had, he said, belonged to these reforming so- 
 cieties for a certain time and had gone along with 
 them to a certain legal length, but no farther : if 
 he took a place by a Windsor coach to be put down 
 at Hounslow, was it to be inferred that he had 
 gone the whole way, and must be answerable for 
 what passed in the coach after he had left it? 
 The jury, on the 22nd of November, and at a late 
 hour of the evening, brought in a verdict of Not 
 Guilty.* A loose impression has rather generally 
 obtained that it was the wit and ability of this very 
 remarkable man that took the sting out of the 
 government prosecutions, rendered political high 
 treason trials less perilous than a common process 
 for misdemeanour, and secured the lives and for- 
 tunes of all those who had been indicted with him: 
 but long before Horne Tooke was brought to the 
 bar of the Old Bailey the trial of Walker, at Lan- 
 caster, and other trials and proceedings had proved 
 that English juries would not give verdicts of 
 guilty in any such cases; and the acquittal of 
 Hardy had, in fact, deprived Tooke’s trial of 
 nearly all its political importance, and had insured 
 his acquittal, even if he had been as dull and ob- 
 tuse as he was quick and sharp. 
 
 On the Ist of December Bonney, Joyce, Kyd, 
 and Thomas Holcroft, the well-known dramatic 
 writer, and the author of one of the most interesting 
 fragments of autobiography that exist in our 
 
 * The jury had not been permitted to separate, from the time of 
 being sworn on the trial, till after they had delivered their verdict. 
 They slept at the London Coffee-house every night, attended by the 
 officers of the court, &c. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 69 
 
 language, were put to the bar; but the attorney- 
 general stated that, as the evidence adduced on 
 the two last trials and the evidence which applied 
 to the prisoners was the same, and as, after the 
 best consideration, those persons had been ac- 
 quitted, he would submit to the jury and the court 
 whether the prisoners should not be acquitted also, 
 and that for this end and purpose he would not 
 trouble them by going into evidence. The Lord 
 Chief Justice told the jury that, as there was no 
 evidence, they must, of course, find the prisoners 
 not guilty; and the jury gave a formal verdict 
 accordingly. ‘The acquitted prisoners all bowed to 
 the court and retired, except Holcroft, the author, 
 who was anxious to speak or read a long defence 
 which he had written in his prison. The Lord 
 Chief Justice told Holcroft that, having been 
 acquitted, he had no right to address one word 
 cither to the court or the jury. The author per- 
 sisted, and apparently in no very gentle manner: 
 he would not, he said, detain the court more than 
 half an hour. Baron Hotham called upon the 
 keeper of Newgate to do his duty and remove the 
 prisoner. Holcroft then begged to be permitted to 
 say one word: the Lord Chief Justice said that, if 
 he would be reasonable, and confine himself within 
 compass, he would not stop him; but that a speech 
 of half an hour was not a thing to be endured. 
 The author said that, as he found the judgment of 
 the court wished him to withdraw, he must take 
 some other means of publishing his sentiments 
 upon the prosecution. ‘The Chief Justice told him 
 he had better take care of that, or he might get into 
 another scrape as soon as he was relieved from this ; 
 and then Holcroft withdrew, saying he was very 
 willing to suffer for what he conceived to be right. 
 He svon printed his intended speech, and appa- 
 rently without getting into any trouble on that ac- 
 count. On the same day that he and the three 
 others were acquitted, ‘Thelwall was brought to 
 the bar, and, it being assumed that there was evi- 
 dence against him of a nature different from that 
 which had been produced against the rest of the 
 indicted, his trial was allowed to go on. In occu- 
 pied no less than four days, and also terminated in 
 a verdict of acquittal. Upon this succession of 
 acquittals the government let drop various other 
 prosecutions, and the prisoners were released. All 
 the more liberal part of the nation joimed in cele- 
 brating the honour and spirit of English juries ; 
 and many, who were no friends to the political 
 societies, and no admirers of the objects of the 
 accused parties, united in praise of a free and un- 
 biassed trial by jury. These feelings were, perhaps, 
 made the keener by the result of some other state 
 trials which had taken place before a special com- 
 mission at Edinburgh. On the 14th of August 
 Robert Watt, late citizen of Edinburgh, and an 
 embarrassed tradesman, was brought to the bar 
 charged with eighteen overt acts of high treason, 
 the most significant of which were that he had 
 agreed to cause and procure the meeting of divers 
 subjects under the name of a Convention, for 
 
 —— 
 
the purpose of assuming to themselves the powers 
 of government and legislation; that he had in- 
 stigated and incited persons to send delegates to 
 such convention; that he had conspired with 
 other false traitors to oblige, by force, the king 
 to alter the measures of government, to comply 
 with certain unlawful demands, &c., and consent 
 to the introduction of regulations and measures 
 respecting the government of the kingdom; that 
 he had conspired and agreed to seize the castle of 
 Edinburgh by force of arms, with guns, pikes, 
 spears, battle-axes, &c. ; that he had composed, 
 printed, published, and dispersed certain mali- 
 cious, wicked, and treasonable papers, inciting 
 people to subscribe money for the use of him and 
 his political clubs; that he had hired and em- 
 ployed one John Fairley to distribute such papers, 
 and to incite the king’s subjects to give assurance 
 of support, and to remit such money as should be 
 collected, &c. ; that he had employed the said John 
 Fairley to instigate the people to take up arms; 
 that he had further employed one William Brown 
 and one Robert Orrock to make and procure arms, 
 having paid them money for the same. It was 
 borne out by the crown witnesses, some of whom 
 had been his associates and brother club-men, and 
 who now betrayed him, as he, at one time, was 
 ready to betray them, that Watt had been a fore- 
 most member of the secret committee, and of the 
 committee of ways and means of the society; that 
 he had kept in his house the types (set up) of a 
 very seditious address to the soldiery, and had 
 caused a copy of the address to be given to a ser- 
 jeant in Lord Hopetoun’s Fencibles, with the view 
 of making that regiment mutiny; that he had 
 caused to be made certain pikes (not 50 in all) 
 and had kept 16 of the said pikes concealed in his 
 own house (where they were found); and that he 
 had often discussed a wild plan for getting posses- 
 sion of the Castle of Edinburgh, of all the banking- 
 houses in the city, and of the persons of all the 
 judges, &c. No opportunity was neglected by the 
 crown lawyers to identify the designs and pro- 
 ceedings of Watt with those of Muir, Palmer, and 
 the others who had been transported, and of Tho- 
 mas Hardy and the others whose trial was yet to 
 come on in England. Some very violent letters, 
 signed by Hardy as secretary to the London Cor- 
 responding Society, were read in evidence. The 
 counsel for the prisoner (Mr. Henry Erskine) 
 said he would rest his defence on a correspondence 
 carried on between the Right Honourable Henry 
 Dundas, the lord-advocate of Scotland, and 
 Robert Watt, by which it would appear that the 
 prisoner had been a spy in the employment of 
 government, and had attended the meetings of the 
 Friends of the People with no other view than 
 that of giving information of their proceedings. A 
 letter from the prisoner to Mr. Secretary Dundas 
 was read. It stated that he (Watt) did not approve 
 of the dangerous political principles which then 
 prevailed in Scotland ; and that, as a friend to the 
 constitution, he thought it his duty to communicate 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 styled themselves the Friends of the People; that, 
 from his acquaintance with several of the leading 
 men of that society, he flattered himself he had this 
 in his power. The letter mentioned that he knew 
 some of these leading men in Perth, Dundee, 
 Glasgow, and Edinburgh, (three of the Edinburgh 
 men were named,) and coneluded with enjoining 
 secrecy. To this letter a speedy answer was re- 
 turned from London, which was also read in court. 
 Secretary Dundas acknowledged the receipt of 
 Watt’s letter; and, after expressing a hope that 
 things were not so bad as he had represented, de- 
 sired him to go on, assuring him that he might 
 depend upon the strictest secreey—that he was 
 perfectly safe in any correspondence he might hold 
 with him. Another letter from Secretary Dun- 
 das to Mr. Ritchie, the prisoner’s agent, was 
 next read, in answer to one from Ritchie requesting 
 Mr. Dundas to return such letters as the prisoner 
 had written to him. The secretary’s answer to 
 this was that all the letters he had received from 
 Watt had been delivered to the lord-advocate. It 
 otherwise appeared—and it was afterwards so stated 
 by the prisoner, in his dying confession—that the 
 secretary turned him over to the lord-advocate, re- 
 commending him to correspond with that legal 
 functionary ; and that he did correspond with the 
 lord-advocate from some time in 1792 till August 
 or September, 1793, when all such intercourse 
 was stopped, and he (Watt), ceasing to be a go- 
 vernment spy, became, in reality, what before he 
 had only pretended to be, a hot reformer. The lord- 
 advocate assuming that in dangerous times govern- 
 ment must avail themselves of the services of spies, 
 or obtain information by any means that offered 
 themselves, said that he had admitted “ at night” 
 and several times conversed with the prisoner at 
 his own house ; that the prisoner had at one time 
 given him some information respecting the disaf- 
 fection of a portion of a regiment which he thought 
 of importance, but which, upon inquiry, he found 
 to be false or ill founded ; that in March, 1793, an 
 offer had been made to him by the prisoner to dis- 
 close some very important secrets, provided he 
 would give the prisoner 1000/.; that he had abso- 
 lutely refused, but that, some time after, upon the 
 
 prisoner’s representation that he was in great dis- | 
 
 tress to discharge a bill of 302, which he (Watt) 
 said he had been obliged to give to two men who 
 had given him information, he had sent him a 
 draft for that sum. All this, the lord-advocate 
 
 said, had happened previously to the meeting of | 
 
 the Convention at Edinburgh, since which time, or 
 at least since October, 1793, he did not recollect 
 seeing or having had any connexion with Mr. 
 Watt. 
 prisoner, dwelt upon the correspondence between 
 
 the secretary, the lord-advocate, and his client, en- 
 
 deavouring to show that the prisoner had not de- 
 serted the service in which he had engaged, but 
 
 had not had an opportunity of performing it 
 
 to him, as a good subject, what information he — 
 could procure of the proceedings of those who 
 
 Mr. Hamilton, the junior counsel for the 
 
 dni: domme eae To 
 
ee. 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 effectually till the very moment that he was appre- 
 hended as a principal plotter and conspirator. 
 Watt, he said, was nothing more nor less than a 
 paid spy of government; and every one knew that 
 a spy was obliged to assume not only the appear- 
 ance of those whose secrets he meant to betray, but 
 even to take part in their proceedings, in order to 
 prevent suspicion or discovery. Thus a spy in an 
 army was often obliged to wear a uniform of the 
 enemy, and even to appear in arms against his 
 country; and would it not be hard indeed to put 
 such a spy, if taken, to death for having had re- 
 course to the means necessary for the discharge of 
 the duty or service he had undertaken? All the 
 proceedings of the trial occupied five days, but, in 
 the end, the jury brought in their verdict—Guilty. 
 On the 5th of September Samuel Downie, a silver- 
 smith of Edinburgh, who had been closely con- 
 nected with Watt, was put upon his trial, charged 
 with high treason, and with eighteen overt acts, 
 the same as those with which Watt had been 
 charged. The evidence was also nearly the same, 
 but the character of the man was different; and 
 the jury, in giving their verdict against him (on 
 the 6th of September), unanimously recommended 
 him to mercy. The Lord President, who sat 
 at the head of the special commission, pronounced 
 sentence of death upon both prisoners, to be exe- 
 cuted by hanging, boweling, beheading, and quar- 
 tering. Downie was respited, and, in the end, 
 received the king’s free pardon; but Watt was 
 drawn on a hurdle, painted black, to the west end 
 of the Luckenbooths, and hanged until he was dead, 
 on the 15th of October. That part of the sentence 
 which related to boweling and quartering had been 
 previously remitted ; but, when the body was taken 
 down from the gallows, it was stretched upon a 
 table, and the executioner, with two blows of the 
 axe, cut off the head, which was received in a 
 basket, and then held up to the multitude, while 
 the executioner called aloud, “‘ This is the head of 
 a traitor, and so perish all traitors!” Watt died, 
 as he had lived, a shuflling, selfish, canting, cow- 
 ardly scoundrel. In the confession which he wrote 
 on the evening before his execution, when all hope 
 of a reprieve had abandoned him, he declared that 
 after the cessation of his correspondence with the 
 lord advocate, his ‘‘ mind changed in favour of re- 
 form ;” that, ‘‘ being naturally ambitious and en- 
 terprising,”’ he advised the formation of the com- 
 mittee of ways and means, and the secret com- 
 mittee, approved of and got printed the * Address 
 to the Fencibles,’ and other seditious papers; that 
 he had sent John Fairley and others ‘through the 
 country to sound the public mind and to give in- 
 structions ;” that he had conceived matters to be 
 ripe for a rising, or ‘that there remained almost 
 nothing tc do, for the execution of the whole, but 
 a visit to England and Ireland by intelligent and 
 confidential persons ;” that he had planned how 
 to seize Edinburgh Castle, the post-office, other 
 public offices, the banks, the judges, the city ma- 
 gistrates, the commander-in-chief, &c., together 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1794. 
 
 71 
 
 with “the property of such persons as were deemed 
 inimical to liberty ;”’ that his views in all this were 
 the good of society, and not robbery and murder, 
 although he would not say but his own interest 
 was blended in these views (“ for who ts he, that 
 of he serves society, but will naturally expect a 
 reward ?”); that he had hoped, by means of a 
 successful revolution of the three kingdoms, to be 
 able to pay his creditors; and, finally, that he 
 sorely repented him of all that he had done and 
 planned, being now convinced that it was the duty 
 of all sincere Christians to give honour to whom 
 honour is due, and fear to whom fear, ‘“* and to 
 leave the reformation of abuses in the state to those 
 who mind only earthly things.’”” But the guilty 
 intentions of this poor wretch will hardly cover the 
 conduct of the lord advocate and the government 
 in his regard; and (particularly after having been 
 employed as their spy) the imbecility of his plans, 
 the nullity of his means of execution, and the small 
 number and mean condition of his proven accom- 
 plices, ought assuredly to have saved him from 
 capital punishment. These accomplices were a 
 poor schoolmaster or usher, a half-starved weaver, 
 a cabinet-maker, and three others equally unwar- 
 like, and apparently just as poor. 
 
 On the assembling of Parliament (on the last 
 day but one of the year), the speech from the 
 throne, delivered by the king in person, insisted 
 on the necessity of a vigorous prosecution of the 
 war, and represented the resources of the French 
 republic as in a state of rapid decline. It openly 
 avowed, what there was no possibility of con- 
 cealing, that the disappointments and reverses 
 which we had experienced in the course of the 
 year’s campaign were great; but it maintained 
 that there was no ground for despair, that France 
 was exhausted by the unexampled efforts she had 
 made, and that everything which had passed in the 
 interior of that country had shown the progressive 
 decay of its resources and the instability of every 
 part of that violent and unnatural system. The 
 desperate condition of Holland and the United 
 Provinces, which the Duke of York had vainly en- 
 deayoured to defend against the overwhelming 
 force of Pichegru, was frankly admitted ; and his 
 majesty informed the Houses that the States Ge- 
 neral had been led, by a sense of present difficul- 
 ties, to enter into negotiations for peace with the 
 party now prevailing in that unhappy country, 
 France: but he added that no established govern- 
 ment or independent state could, under the present 
 circumstances, derive real security from negoti- 
 ations; and that, on our part, negotiations could 
 not be attempted without sacrificing both our 
 honour and safety to an enemy whose chief animo- 
 sity was avowedly directed against these kingdoms. 
 He mentioned the local importance of Corsica, the 
 spirited efforts of its inhabitants to deliver them- 
 selves from the yoke of the French, and his accept- 
 ance of the crown and sovereignty of that island. 
 Through the wisdom and moderation of General 
 Washington and his party, who had experienced 
 
72 
 
 some difficulty in resisting the negotiations of the 
 French republicans, and the animosities of a great 
 part of the American people, who fancied that this 
 might be a favourable opportunity for venting their 
 spite and aiding in ruining the country which gave 
 them their origin, their language, their laws, and 
 all that was good and tried in their institutions, 
 the king was enabled to announce the happy con- 
 clusion of atreaty of amity, commerce, and naviga- 
 tion with the United States of America; in which 
 it had been his object to remove, as far as possible, 
 all grounds of jealousy and misunderstanding, and 
 to improve an intercourse beneficial to both coun- 
 tries. His majesty also announced the conclusion 
 of a treaty for the marriage of the Prince of Wales 
 with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, trusting 
 that parliament would enable him to make provi- 
 sion for such an establishment as they might think 
 suitable to the rank and dignity of the heir ap- 
 parent. In both Houses the debates on the address 
 were exceedingly warm; but although the unfa- 
 vourable prospects of the war, and the downfall of 
 Robespierre and of all the Jacobin party, induced 
 some members, who had hitherto supported the 
 war, to object to a resolution which seemed to im- 
 ply an indefinite continuance of hostilities, the 
 ministerial majorities were not materially dimi- 
 nished. An amendment in the Upper House, 
 proposed by the Earl of Guildford, was rejected 
 by 107 against 12; and, in the Commons, the 
 strength of ministers proved, on the division, to 
 be 246 to 73. Mr. Canning, who was fast rising 
 into reputation, particularly distinguished himself 
 in these debates. He urged that our failures on the 
 Continent had been occasioned by the misconduct 
 and desertion of our allies ; that the fall of Robes- 
 pierre and the subsequent changes in the French 
 government—changes which left untamed the rage 
 for conquest—did not warrant this country to at- 
 tempt a treaty of peace; that a pacification with 
 that republic at present would bring so little secu- 
 rity, that no diminution of our fleets and armies 
 could possibly ensue, and our expenses must re- 
 main as great as though we were actually at war. 
 Mr. Windham also attributed the ill success of the 
 war on the Continent to the misconduct of some of 
 our allies. But the most alarming circumstance 
 attending this war of principles was, he said, the 
 fact that we were not true to ourselves. The poli- 
 tical societies in England had, in his apprehension, 
 done great mischief by propagating republican or 
 revolutionary principles. He represented in a 
 most odious light the acquittal of Hardy, Horne 
 Tooke, and the other members of those societies, 
 describing them as no better than acquitted felons. 
 When called to order for these strong expressions, 
 he explained himself by saying that, though proofs 
 had not been furnished of their degal guilt, it did 
 not follow that they were free from moral guilt. 
 A.v. 1795. On the 5th of January Sheridan, 
 who had introduced that subject in the debates on 
 the address, rose to move for leave to bring in a 
 bill for the repeal of the suspension of the Habeas 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 € : 
 ; 
 + Va 
 \ . 
 c , 
 
 ee ae > . «pega wen ema —— 
 
 Corpus Act. In his speech he said that the pre- 
 amble to that suspension act affirmed that a dan- 
 gerous and treasonable conspiracy existed in this 
 country; but that the recent verdicts at the Old 
 Bailey had shown this conspiracy to be a mere 
 
 fabrication of ministers, who had exercised an | 
 
 unlawful influence over the grand jury that found 
 the indictments. 
 dalous misapplication of language: the parties 
 accused of high treason had, he said, undergone 
 the strictest trial; no pains had been spared to 
 criminate them; 8000/. had been paid to the 
 crown lawyers, and no less than two hundred wit- 
 nesses had been procured at a vast expense against 
 one of the prisoners alone. He laughed at and was 
 very jocose on the epithet of ‘‘ formidable” which 
 had been applied by ministers to the alleged club 
 conspiracy, the strength and preparation of which 
 consisted of an arsenal furnished with one pike 
 and nine rusty muskets, and an exchequer con- 
 taining nine pounds and one bad shilling. In the 
 preceding debate he had declared that the mem- 
 bers of the House were not free so long as the sus- 
 pension of the Habeas Corpus lasted ; and he now 
 insisted that to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act 
 was in fact to suspend the whole British constitu- 
 tion, and that nothing less than imminent, as well 
 as evident and proved danger, could warrant any 
 such suspension. With more truth or less ex- 
 aggeration than usually entered into opposition 
 harangues, he declared that ministers were now 
 acting on the most questionable of all information, 
 that of spies; a species of agents more numerous, 
 more employed, and more relied upon than at any 
 preceding period. Windham, in replying with 
 great warmth to Sheridan, imputed the verdicts of 
 acquittal pronounced by the juries to ignorance 
 and incapacity to discern the true state and bear- 
 ings of the cases before them; and reasserted that, 
 whatever the overt acts might have been, the real 
 object of the political societies was to overturn the 
 constitution. In addition to the high consideration 
 and influence which Windham enjoyed in virtue 
 of his own personal character and shining abilities, 
 he was now, since the retirement of Burke from 
 parliament, considered, on these vital points at 
 least, as the mouth-piece of that great statesman, 
 the weight of Burke being thus superadded to his 
 own. Mr. Erskine, who had been counsel for 
 Walker of Manchester, for Hardy, Horne Tooke, 
 and every one of the prisoners brought to the bar 
 of the Old Bailey, contended, in a long and elabo- 
 rate speech, that the late trials had explicitly dis- 
 proved the existence of a conspiracy; that the 
 verdicts of juries were not to be questioned; and 
 that, as the existence of a conspiracy was the basis 
 on which the suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 rested, there could now be no pretence for its con- 
 tinuance. On the other side, Mr. Sergeant Adair 
 urged that, if the determination of a jury were 
 never, or in no case, to be called im question, the 
 liberty of the subject would stand upon very feeble 
 ground; that parliament was clearly entitled to 
 
 i 
 ae 4 
 
 = 
 ¢ 
 ' 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 He taxed Windham witha scan- . 
 
= Se 
 
 ee ee ancgee — > eA pans 
 
 Cnap. VIIL.] 
 
 investigate the conduct of juries, for otherwise 
 there would be no redress against the corruption of 
 juries or of judges, or against ministerial oppression. 
 With these maxims Adair justified the discussions 
 on the late political trials, the issue of which, 
 though in favour of the accused, had not, as he 
 thought, established their innocence in any deter- 
 minate manner. The suspicions entertained against 
 them had not been cleared up to their advantage: 
 in one particular case the jury had hesitated two 
 hours. He thought the transactions of the societies 
 sufficiently proved unconstitutional and even trea- 
 sonable intentions; and he held that, as the same 
 circumstances on which the suspension act was 
 grounded in 1794 still existed, no valid motive 
 could be alleged for its repeal. Fox made an elo- 
 quent speech on the other side, urging that, as 
 Hardy, whose trial had decided the others, had 
 been privy to all the transactions of the societies 
 and of the several parties accused, he must un- 
 avoidably have been condemned if any conspiracy 
 had existed; but, the debate being closed by a 
 speech from Pitt, Sheridan was outvoted by 185 
 against 41. On the 15th the attorney-general 
 moved for and obtained leave to bring in a bill for 
 continuing the suspension ; and the second reading 
 of this bill was carried on the 23rd, after another 
 long debate, by a majority of 239 against 53. In 
 the House of Lords, where much the same argu- 
 ments were used for and against the suspension, 
 the bill was passed without a division; but the 
 Dukes of Norfolk and Bedford, the Marquess of 
 Lansdowne, and the Earls of Jauderdale and 
 Guildford, entered a spirited protest. 
 
 On the 7th of January ministers called for an 
 augmentation jn the number of seamen and ma- 
 rines, stating that the service of the year, to be 
 properly conducted, would require $5,000 sailors 
 and 15,000 marines. In order to raise the defi- 
 cient number expeditiously, and without the harsh- 
 ness and violence of impressing, Pitt proposed that 
 a certain number of men should be furnished by 
 each merchant ship on clearing out, in proportion 
 to its tonnage; and that every parish in the king- 
 dom should be made to contribute one man; and, 
 after a few alterations, this plan was adopted. Some 
 severe strictures were passed by opposition on 
 the manner in which both the army and navy had 
 been managed; and the remarks made were cer- 
 tainly justified by the errors which government had 
 committed, and was still committing, in regard to 
 both branches of the service, and more particu- 
 larly in regard to the land forces. But the oppo- 
 sition overshot their mark and disgusted the great 
 body of the nation by exulting in the failures which 
 had attended our arms, and by representing that it 
 was absurd for England to think of contending 
 with France; and Pitt called English sympathies 
 round him by reminding the House that we were 
 not only masters of the seas, but had obtained, on 
 the Ist of June, 1794, one of the most signal naval 
 victories that ever graced our annals; that the 
 commerce and credit of Great Britain were never 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 
 
 — 
 
 eo 
 io 
 
 in a more splendid condition; that in the worst 
 days of our adversities no disgrace had sullied our 
 military character ; that we had been unsucccessful 
 on the continent of Europe, but that true courage 
 was not to be dismayed by temporary failures or 
 disappointments, at a time when we were contend- 
 ing for all that was dear to our hearts and that 
 made life of any value. 
 
 By this time it was visible that, besides the 
 United Provinces, both Prussia and Spain were on 
 the point of breaking with the coalition, and con- 
 cluding separate treaties with the French republic. 
 Austria too, our only steady ally, was in want of 
 money, and thought herself entitled to call upon 
 Great Britain for a supply. She did not, however, 
 demand a subsidy, as the king of Prussia had 
 done, but only a loan; and, whatever mistakes her 
 generals had committed in the field, she had, un- 
 like Prussia, made great and costly exertions in 
 the common cause. On the 4th of February Pitt 
 delivered a message from the king, stating the 
 earnest intention of the emperor l’rancis to make 
 still more vigorous exertions in the next cam- 
 paign, but intimating, at the same time, the urgent 
 necessity of a loan of four millions sterling, on the 
 credit of the revenues arising from his imperial 
 majesty’s hereditary dominions. It was impossible 
 for the opposition not to take notice of and de- 
 nounce the foul misapplication of the subsidy 
 granted to the king of Prussia: that money, as we 
 have stated, had been chiefly employed, not on the 
 Rhine or the Moselle, but on the Vistula,—not 
 against the common enemy the French, but against 
 the hapless and almost helpless Poles. Sheridan, 
 Fox, and others dwelt upon this iniquitous transac- 
 tion, and argued that the emperor was not more 
 trustworthy than his Prussian majesty. Pitt and 
 his supporters were forced to admit that the con- 
 duct of Prussia had been highly censurable; but 
 they insisted that there was a wide difference in 
 the case and conduct of Austria, whose own vital 
 interests were dependent on the issue of the pre- 
 seut war. The motion for complying with the 
 emperor’s demands was carried by the usual great 
 majority. 
 
 On the 23rd of February the minister, in 
 opening the budget, made a statement of the 
 entire force required for the service of the 
 year: it amounted to 100,000 seamen in all, 
 120,000 regulars for guards and garrisons, 
 56,000 militia, 40,000 regulars for Ireland and 
 for the West Indies and other colonies, besides 
 fencibles and volunteers, foreign troops in British 
 pay, and embedied French emigrants. The sup- 
 plies demanded for these immense forces were 
 16,027,0002. To this sum was to be added 200,090/. 
 annual subsidy to the king of Sardinia, whose 
 strength’ and resources were nearly exhausted, and 
 who would have required a subsidy of 2,000,000/. 
 to enable him to reconstruct and increase his army 
 and fortresses. There were also sundry deficien- 
 
 cies in taxes, &c. to be made up at home, so that 
 the sum total required by the chancellor of the 
 
74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 exchequer, including the interest on the debt, 
 somewhat exceeded 27,500,000/. In order to 
 make up this amount some new duties were im- 
 posed upon tea, coffee, raisins, foreign grocery and 
 fruits, foreign timber, insurances, writs and affida- 
 vits, hair-powder licences, &c., and, to increase the 
 receipts of the post-office, the privilege of franking 
 letters was somewhat abridged. ‘To the outcry 
 raised against these additional burthens Pitt re- 
 plied by triumphantly reciting the extraordinary 
 increase of the national commerce, which in 1794 
 had exceeded what it had ever been even in the 
 most flourishing year of peace. The opposition 
 clouded this bright prospect by alluding to the 
 very severe winter which had been experienced 
 throughout Europe, and to the apprehensions en- 
 tertained everywhere for the next harvest. Minis- 
 ters insisted that the strictest investigation had left 
 no reason for any such fears, but had proved, on 
 the contrary, that a most abundant harvest was to 
 be expected, as well in our own as in other coun- 
 tries. The ways and means were voted as the 
 chancellor of the exchequer desired, but some of 
 his adherents, whose love of pomp was greater 
 than their patriotism, seriously objected to the new 
 powder-tax, on account of the heavy expense they 
 must incur to be entitled to powder the heads of 
 their coachmen, grooms, and footmen. 
 
 In both Houses the opposition made repeated 
 efforts to drive the government into negotiations 
 with the French republic, which they represented 
 as much improved from what it had been during 
 the reign of terror, which was true; and as well 
 disposed to renounce conquest and propagandism, 
 which was false. Earl Stanhope, whose vio- 
 lent, inflammatory, and half-mad speeches had 
 served as texts to the intemperate reformers and 
 reforming societies, and more particularly to the 
 weavers and other political mechanics beyond the 
 Tweed, who could think it no sin to repeat what a 
 peer of the realm had uttered in parliament, had, 
 as early as the 6th of January, moved a reso- 
 lution in the Upper House to the effect that 
 Great Britain neither ought nor would inter- 
 fere:in the internal affairs of France, but would 
 enter into a pacific negotiation with that coun- 
 try. On the 26th of February Mr. Grey made 
 a motion of the same tendency in the Commons ; 
 and on the 27th of the same month the duke of 
 Bedford, in the Lords, moved for facilitating the 
 opening of a negotiation with France: but all these 
 motions, together with sundry others having the 
 same object, were negatived by immense majorities, 
 and a resolution for the vigorous prosecution of the 
 war was carried almost by acclamation. Minis- 
 ters and their friends admitted that the republican 
 nature of the French government was not to be 
 considered as an insurmountable bar to negotiation: 
 it was not, they said, because the French had made 
 themselves republicans that we were at war with 
 them, but because they wanted to make, by force 
 of arms, propagandism, intrigue, and internal sedi- 
 tion and dissension, republicans of all the nations 
 
 | was negatived in a thin House by a majority of 17. 
 
 of Europe, in order that they might reign over 
 them as their protectors—because they were effa- 
 cing the old landmarks of Europe, and aiming at, 
 and for the present achieving, conquests on all 
 sides,—that we must lavish our treasures and our 
 blood, or consent to see the ruin of all our allies, 
 the total destruction of the balance of power, and 
 the establishment of one immense, insolent, and 
 constantly aggressive power. The Earl of Mans- 
 field affirmed the right of a nation to interfere 
 in the government of another that acted on princi- 
 ples dangerous to its neighbours; and, as the 
 French had indisputably adopted and were still 
 acting upon such principles, he thought that those 
 against whom the principles were levelled might 
 justly demand the renunciation of them as the pre- 
 liminary to any peace or accommodation. On the 
 same side Lord Auckland said, that it would be bad 
 policy to betray despondency and a fear of France, 
 although the opposition had chosen to represent 
 that country as invincible ; that prudence dictated 
 perseverance in the contest until we could con- 
 clude it honourably; that, were it once made evi- 
 dent that France had renounced her dangerous 
 principles and ambitious designs, the British go- 
 vernment would not object to a fair and just nego- 
 tiation with her; that he did not mean, however, 
 that the restoration of monarchy in France should 
 be insisted on at all hazards, but only that while 
 hostilities lasted we should employ our strength 
 in restoring monarchy there, as that species of go- 
 vernment which would best answer the purposes of 
 general peace and security to all the powers in the 
 coalition. Lord Grenville urged that there was 
 still no government in France deserving of the 
 name, that everything in that country was in a 
 state of transition and change, that there was no 
 power or party or body of men with whom we 
 could safely or creditably negotiate ; and he very 
 justly observed, that, though the guillotine had be- 
 come less active at Paris, the Reign of Terror and 
 tyranny was far from being over. 
 
 On the 24th of March Fox moved that a com- 
 mittee of the whole House should take into consi- 
 deration the state of the nation, which he repre- 
 sented as degraded and dangerous in the extreme. — 
 Pitt allowed that some of the subjects proposed for 
 inquiry were of the highest importance; but he 
 held that this was not a proper season for discussing 
 them. Mr. Canning argued that the actual tur- 
 bulent situation of Ireland was a sufficient excuse 
 for declining all such discussions at present. Fox 
 was outvoted by 219 against 63. A similar mo- 
 tion, made six days after in the Lords by the Earl - 
 of Guildford, was negatived by a majority of 90.* 
 
 Great attention was bestowed upon the armed 
 forces and the means of bettering their food, ge- 
 neral condition, and discipline. In the month of 
 April ministers, without the authority of parliament, 
 made an extra allowance of bread and meat for | 
 
 * During the session Mr. Wilberforce made his annual motion for | 
 the abolition of the Slave Trade; and, on the 26th of February, it | 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 to this proceeding, as tending to impress the sol- 
 diery with the false idea that the bounty proceeded 
 from the generosity of the crown, and not from the 
 pockets of the people, and as being an insult offered 
 to the legislature which was sitting at the time. 
 General Macleod moved that a committee should 
 be appointed to take the matter into consideration, 
 and that the House should resolve that it was un- 
 constitutional to augment the pay or allowances of 
 the army, without previously consulting, or after- 
 wards submitting the measure to parliament. Fox 
 said that it was clear that, while parliament was 
 sitting, no additional pay could be granted to the 
 army without the consent of both Houses; that no 
 objection lay to the grant itself, but a great one to 
 the slight put upon the legislature by not applying 
 for its assent. Pitt endeavoured to exculpate the 
 ministry by representing the relief as temporary, 
 and as arising out of the circumstances of the mo- 
 ment, such as the increased price of provisions, &c., 
 and by representing that any augmentation of pay 
 voted by parliament would have become permanent. 
 This reasoning, however, did not give much satis- 
 faction; some of his out-and-out adherents seemed 
 ready to join the opposition on this point, and 
 Macleod’s motion was only got rid of by the pre- 
 vious question, which was carried by 67 against 23. 
 
 * Windham, who, as secretary-at-war, had signed 
 
 the obnoxious and irregular order, was more suc- 
 cessful in sundry measures he introduced in the 
 House for maintaining discipline and increasing 
 the strength of the militia regiments, for improving 
 their staffs, for allowing them the use of artillery, &c. 
 
 Mr. Canning had strong grounds for his asser- 
 tion as to the alarming state of affairs and opinions 
 in Ireland: that country was every day approach- 
 ing nearer to the verge of open rebellion; but we 
 reserve the narrative of events for the moment 
 when the mask was thrown off and the sword 
 drawn, in order to compress in one clear view the 
 circumstances which preceded, accompanied, and 
 followed that unhappy outbreak. 
 
 The marriage of the Duke of York with the 
 Prussian princess had not been, and did not seem 
 likely to be, productive of issue. Prince Augustus 
 Duke of Sussex had contracted a marriage with a 
 subject, in defiance of the Royal Marriage Act, 
 and the well-known resoluteness of his father to 
 enforce the rigours of that enactment. Whatever 
 doubt may cling to the celebration of a marriage 
 between the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert, 
 none can attach to the marriage—the double mar- 
 riage ceremony—of the Duke of Sussex. While 
 travelling in Italy in 1792 that prince became ac- 
 quainted at Rome with the family of Lord Dun- 
 more, a Scotch nobleman: he became enamoured 
 of Lady Augusta Murray, one of his lordship’s 
 daughters, and with or without the consent of her 
 family, who could not be ignorant of the Royal 
 Marriage Act, which struck all such unions with 
 the stamp of illegality, and who ought to have 
 been warned by the questionable position of the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 75 
 
 the army. The opposition very properly objected | 
 
 fair Fitzherbert, a private marriage took place at 
 Rome.* After staying some months at Rome the 
 prince returned to London with his bride, who 
 was now enceinte. At the instances of the lady 
 and her friends, Prince Augustus agreed to the 
 celebration of a second and a public marriage, to 
 be attended with all the forms of an ordinary 
 English marriage. To complete the residence 
 of one month in the parish of St. George, 
 Hanover-square, in order that banns might be 
 published in that parish church, they took lodgings 
 in South Molton-street in the house of a coal- 
 merchant. In due time the parties were regularly 
 asked in church, and, on the 5th of December, 
 1793, they were again united, according to the full] 
 ceremonies of the Church of England, in St. 
 George’s, Hanover-square, under the names of 
 Augustus Frederick and Augusta Murray.t The 
 king lost no time in instituting a suit of nullity, 
 in his own name, in the Arches Court of Canter- 
 bury, to set aside the validity of the marriage on 
 the ground of the Royal Marriage Act. On the 
 8th of January, 1794, Mr. Heseltine, the king’s 
 proctor, served a citation on Lady Murray to 
 answer the charges of the suit. On the 13th of 
 the same month Lady Augusta was brought to 
 bed of a son. The privy council occupied itself 
 for two days in investigating all the circumstances 
 attending the marriage, and in examining Lady 
 Dunmore, Lady E. Murray, the coal-merchant 
 and his wife, a gentleman who resided at Twicken- 
 ham, and the clergyman who performed the 
 marriage ceremony at St. George’s. The Royal 
 Marriage Act was clear and positive; the mar- 
 riage, by that act, was no marriage at all; 
 and the Ecclesiastical Court, with very little 
 deliberation, pronounced both the ceremony at 
 Rome and the ceremony at London to be null and 
 void. Though separated in law, the couple did 
 not séparate in fact: they lived together conjugally 
 at least till the birth of another child—a daughter 
 —and the perpetual separation which then took 
 place is said to have depended upon causes and 
 circumstances very different from the will of the 
 king of England, the law of parliament, or the 
 canons of the Arches Court. We will not attempt 
 to institute comparisons or make distinctions be- 
 tween the conduct, in these delicate matters, of 
 the eldest and the fifth son of George IIL, al- 
 though, in the spirit of party, that invidious task 
 has been undertaken by many, and things have 
 been extenuated or set down in malice to the one 
 or the other prince, according to party predilec- 
 tions. We would fain pass over all these facts in 
 total silence; but they were attended by not un- 
 important consequences ; and perhaps something 
 is attained by relating them simply as they oc- 
 curred, without comment or bias. Notwithstanding 
 
 * Lord Dunmore was not with his family in Italy. He was at 
 the time, or he became shortly afterwards, governor of the Bahama 
 Islands. Lady Dunmore was travelling with her two daughters, 
 Lady A. and Lady E. Murray. 
 
 + The Duke of Sussex, at the time of the marriage in St. George’s 
 Church, had very nearly attained his 21st year, having been born 
 on the 27th of January, 1773,_ 
 
76 HISTORY OF 
 
 her equivocal situation, and the declaration of Mr. 
 Fox in the House of Commons that in her case 
 there had never been any marriage or nuptial cere- 
 mony of any kind, Mrs. Fitzherbert continued to 
 live with the Prince of Wales, and no inconsider- 
 able pertion of the high society of England, re- 
 probating the severity of the Royal Marriage Act, 
 visited her and treated her as the lawful wife of 
 the heir to the throne; but a change and disse- 
 verance of that connexion also was about to take 
 place at the time when the Ecclesiastical Court 
 nullified the marriage of the Duke of Sussex. 
 The fair widow of two husbands had a friend, a 
 bosom friend, a grandmother, not merely without 
 a grey hair,* but with the full possession of that 
 kind of beauty which was most to the taste of his 
 royal highness of Wales. This was Lady Jersey, 
 the daughter of an Irish clergyman, who had -been 
 celebrated and toasted a quarter of a century ago 
 as “the beautiful Miss Twysden.”’+ The voice of 
 common fame had for some time proclaimed that 
 the Jersey had supplanted the Fitzherbert, when, 
 in the summer of 1794, a noticeable separation 
 took place: the Fitzherbert went to Margate, the 
 Jersey to Brighton; her noble lord and husband 
 Was appointed master of the horse to the Prince 
 of Wales. When the Fitzherbert returned to town 
 she gave up her house in Pall-mall ; her ci-devant 
 friend shone foremost in all the festivities at 
 Carlton House, as she had recently done in those 
 at the Pavilion at Brighton: from that time for- 
 ward the prince and the fair Catholic never met 
 again. Upon this separation the king and queen 
 renewed their instances to induce the heir to the 
 throne to marry a foreign and protestant princess ; 
 and the prince, again encumbered—and encum- 
 bered more than ever—with debt, at last consented, 
 upon the express condition, it is said, of obtaining 
 the payment of his debts, and a more liberal allow- 
 ance of money for the future. As his royal high- 
 ness had never been abroad, and had seen none of 
 the ladies among whom his choice could be made 
 (the whole number of them, what with political 
 considerations and what with religion, was exceed- 
 ingly limited), he appears to have left the choice 
 of a bride to his father and mother. The queen, 
 it is said, strongly recommended her own niece, 
 the Princess Louisa Augusta Amelia of Mecklen- 
 burg (afterwards the fair, graceful, high-minded, 
 but most unfortunate Queen of Prussia); but the 
 king preferred his own niece, his sister’s daughter, 
 the Princess Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, second 
 daughter of the reigning Duke of Brunswick 
 Wolfenbiittel, who had so unfortunately led the 
 Prussians against the French republicans in 1792; 
 and the choice was determined in favour of this 
 lady. Even in the list of royal matrimonial 
 alliances it would be difficult to find (at least in 
 
 * Among the glories and matchless felicities of Sarah, the great 
 and first Duchess of Marlborough, that pleasant rogue, Colley 
 Cibber, enumerates her having been a great-grandmother without 
 gray hairs !—Apology. 
 
 + This lady was married to George Bussey, fourth Earl of Jersey, 
 in March, 1770. Mer father, whose heiress she was, died Bishop of 
 Raphoe. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 modern days) one more unhappy than this, or one 
 that more clearly promised from the beginning to 
 be unhappy. If on the one side the prince, with 
 his ties, connexions, pursuits, and habits of life, 
 was a reluctant bridegroom, the princess was 
 scarcely a more willing bride; and, if a report 
 universally prevalent on the Continent, as in Eng- 
 land, is entitled to credit, she had been warmly 
 attached to a young German prince serving on her 
 father’s staff, and had for him rejected the prof- 
 fered hand of the Crown Prince of Prussia, who, 
 in 1797, became King Frederick William IIL, 
 aud espoused the Princess of Mecklenburg, whom 
 Queen Charlotte of England had wished to select 
 for her son the Prince of Wales. Whatever in- 
 fluences, paternal or extra-paternal (her father 
 was subsidized by England at the time), may have 
 been uséd to obtain her consent, or whether any 
 such influences were necessary, the negotiation was 
 soon settled by Lord Malmesbury, who went over 
 to Germany for that purpose towards the end 
 of the year 1794. After a circuitous route by 
 land, made necessary by the war on the Continent, 
 and after a rough voyage by sea, not wholly with- 
 out the risk of the British squadron that escorted 
 her from the mouth of the Elbe being attacked by 
 the French, the princess reached the British coast, 
 where the squadron, enveloped in a dense fog, was 
 obliged to lay-to for nearly forty-eight hours. At 
 last the ships glided safely into the estuary of the 
 Thames, and Caroline of Brunswick, embarking 
 in aroyal yacht, landed at Greenwich on Sunday 
 the 5th of April, 1795. On the evening of the 8th 
 the marriage ceremony was performed by the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury at St. James’s. On the 27th 
 of April the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered 
 a message from the king, recommending the set- 
 tling of some suitable provision upon the Prince 
 and Princess of Wales. His majesty at the same 
 time expressed the deepest regret at the necessity of 
 providing the means of freeing the Prince of Wales 
 from encumbrances to a large amount; but said 
 he entertained no idea of proposing to relieve him 
 otherwise than by the application of part of the in- 
 creased income which might be settled on his royal 
 highness. It is said that the prince, in consenting 
 to the marriage, had understood that his debts were 
 to be discharged by a parliamentary grant, or a 
 succession of grants, so as to leaye his increased 
 revenue entirely free; and that the course now 
 proposed annoyed and irritated him beyond mea- 
 sure, making more and more unpalatable the union 
 which he had contracted, and his dissatisfaction 
 with which he took litde care to conceal. Pitt 
 simply moved the taking into immediate considera- 
 tion his majesty’s message; but Colonel Stanley 
 observed, that, parliament having already paid the 
 debts of the prince, it was proper that a call of the 
 House should precede any further grant of this 
 
 “nature; and that the king’s message, for the last 
 
 payment of the Prince of Wales’s debts in 1787, 
 ought to be read. The minister opposed all this 
 
 as unnecessary; the king’s present intention not 
 
Cuar. VIII.} 
 
 being to require a grant to discharge at once the 
 whole of the debt, but only to enable the prince to 
 pay it off gradually out of his increased allowance. 
 Pitt also spoke of the propriety of making an ade- 
 quate provision for the splendour that ought to 
 attend the heir-apparent of the British crown, re- 
 marking that the allowance which would now be 
 asked for was smaller than that which had been 
 settled on the prince’s grandfather, Frederick 
 Prince of Wales, while the value of money was far 
 less now than then. The moment was not very 
 favourable for prodigality: the expenses of the war 
 were enormous, and constantly increasing; mil- 
 lions were wanted fur subsidies, and services avowed 
 or secret; new taxes, not very onerous in their 
 several amounts, but considerable in the aggre- 
 gate, perplexing in their number and variety, and 
 vexatious in their collection, had been imposed ; 
 provisions were exceedingly dear; and, notwith- 
 standing the prosperity of some branches of trade, 
 many classes of the people were suffering severe 
 privations. Many members of the House were dis- 
 satisfied and alarmed, and some of them expressed 
 their feelings strongly. Mr. Sumner thought that, 
 before the Commons proceeded to vote the prince 
 any more money, they ought to be informed how 
 the preceding grant for the payment of his debts 
 had been applied. Mr. Curwen warned the House 
 that one of the leading causes of the French revolu- 
 tion had been the unthinking prodigality of the 
 princes of the royal family; and Mr. Martin ex- 
 claimed, that the only sure way of maintaining 
 monarchy, in times like the present, was to pre- 
 vent it from becoming oppressive tothe nation. It 
 is said that the prince was exceedingly hurt by 
 these and other discussions which took place in both 
 Houses, and that he complained that the king and 
 the minister had broken faith with him; but, while 
 it is very doubtful whether he had not deceived 
 himself as to the assurances and intentions of his 
 father, it appears to be proved that Pitt had never 
 pledged himself to ask, at so critical a moment, a 
 separate grant for the liquidation of the debts. 
 The amount of these debts the chancellor of the 
 exchequer stated to be not less than 630,000/. He 
 proposed that 65,000/. should be added to his 
 highness’s income, which would thus be about 
 140,000/. a year; that 25,000/. per annum should 
 be deducted for payment of the debts, which might 
 thus be all paid off in the course of twenty-seven 
 years ; and that, in order to prevent the incurring 
 of further debts, no future arrears should be suf- 
 fered to go beyond the quarter, no claims should 
 be admitted after its expiration, and all suits for 
 recovery of debts due by the prince should lie 
 against his household officers only. Even the 
 Foxite opposition were divided on these delicate 
 matters ; for, although the Prince of Wales had 
 transferred his political confidence fronr Mr. Fox 
 to the Duke of Portland, some of them certainly 
 hoped to see him wear the blue and buff once 
 more, and calculated that his present irritation 
 against Pitt would lead to that happy party result. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY ‘TRANSACTIONS :—1795. ir 
 | Mr. Lambton boldly and broadly insisted that par- 
 
 liament ought both to pay the 630,000/. and in- 
 crease the prince’s revenue to 150,000/. clear, 
 Fox, preluding that the allowances to heirs appa- 
 rent had always been influenced by party motives, 
 or hadever been sheer party matters, said he would 
 vote for the additional 65,000/. a year, as moved 
 by the minister—provided only that requisite pre- 
 cautions were taken to obviate the necessity of 
 future applications for money. He added, how- 
 ever, that he thought that a contribution from his 
 majesty’s civil list ought to have come in aid of 
 the prince, and have obviated the necessity of any 
 painful discussion; that he must object to the 
 smallness of the sum set apart for the annual pay- 
 ment of the prince’s creditors ; and he proposed that 
 not less than 65,000/. a-year, together with the 
 revenues of the duchy of Cornwall, should be set 
 aside for the liquidation of the debts. Mr. Grey, 
 on the contrary, said that, though the prince was 
 entitled to a proper establishment, there would be 
 more dignity in declining than in requiring an ex- 
 pensive one; that times of public distress ought to 
 check the spirit of prodigality; that other means 
 ought to be resorted to than the money of the 
 people; that a refusal to liberate the prince from 
 his embarrassments would doubtless prove a morti- 
 fication, but it would, at the same time, awaken a 
 just sense of his imprudence, and in the mean 
 time his creditors, no longer presuming on the 
 facility of parliament, and deprived of expectations 
 from the public purse, would readily agree to a 
 composition of their claims. Mr. Grey concluded 
 by moving, that, in lieu of 65,000/. proposed by 
 the minister, the addition to the prince’s revenue 
 should be only 40,000/.; but this motion, being 
 put to the vote, was negatived by 260 against 90— 
 a minority, however, larger than usual. Sheridan, 
 who was not present at this debate, delivered a 
 startling speech at a subsequent stage of the pro- 
 ceedings. He declared that, from political differ- 
 ences, his intimacy with the prince had ceased, 
 but that at the same time he must defend his royal 
 highness from injurious imputations, and give it 
 as his ‘ positive opinion that the debts ought to be 
 paid immediately, for the dignity of the country 
 and the reputation of the prince, who ought not to 
 be seen rolling about the streets, in his state-coach, 
 as an insolvent prodigal.” He even declared that 
 the prince had not really been a party to the pro- 
 mise and pledge given to parliament, in 1787, that 
 he would contract no more debts. He said that, 
 “on the subject of expense, and of keeping solemn 
 pledges to the public, the prince would not suffer 
 by comparison with the king.’? For these words 
 Pitt called him to order; but Sheridan proceeded 
 to say that the king, in the early part of his reign, 
 had given a solemn assurance that the civil list 
 should not be exceeded; and yet, since that pro- 
 mise, the debts of the civil list had been paid to an 
 amount which would, at compound interest, make 
 nearly 7,000,000/. He concluded with proposing 
 that the king and queen should contribute, the one 
 
78 
 
 10,000/., the other 5000/. a year; and that the 
 further deficiency should be made good out of 
 sinecure offices, &c. In the House of Peers the 
 ‘Duke of Clarence delivered a very hot speech 
 against ministers, accusing them of having eagerly 
 endeayoured to deprive his brother of the popu- 
 larity to which he was justly entitled, and of 
 having singled him out as an exception to the un- 
 bounded liberality with which they supplied the 
 foreign princes who applied to them for pecuniary 
 assistance.* In the end, and after two months’ 
 agitation of the question, it was settled, by a bill 
 which received the royal assent on the 27th of 
 June, that the Prince of Wales should have an 
 annual revenue of 125,000/., together with the 
 rents of the duchy of Cornwall, which were valued 
 at 13,000/. more; that 73,000/. should annually 
 be set aside, out of these sums, for the payment of 
 his creditors, under the direction of commissioners 
 appointed for that purpose by parliament; and 
 
 * The Duke of Clarence was not alone in this debate. The Duke 
 of Bedford expressed himself in much the same manner, saying that 
 a variety of circumstances would occur to candid minds in extenua- 
 tion of the errors of the prince, which were of a juvenile description, 
 and which by no means called for any asperity of censure. But it 
 was the Scotch Foxite Peer, the ultra-liberal or quasi-republican Earl 
 of Lauderdale, that went to the greatest lengths for his Highness of 
 Wales. Debts, he said, of a much larger amount, had been discharged 
 by parliament in preceding reigns, without exposing and stigma- 
 tizing the princes who had contracted them; and did it become so 
 great and opulent a people to be severe and parsimonious towards 
 a young prince (his Royal Highness was in his thirty-third year, 
 or within three years of being as old as the Chancellor of the 
 
 Exchequer), from whose virtues, abilities, and accomplishments 
 they might justly expect so much contentment? 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 debts, the regulations suggested ly the minister 
 should be adopted, and strictly enforced. All this 
 had been carried by great majorities in both 
 Houses, but there were few who really thought 
 that this settlement would be a final one. 
 
 On the same day (the 27th of June) the session 
 was closed by the king in person, who expressed 
 his hope “ that the present circumstances of 
 France might, in their effects, hasten the return 
 of such a state of order and regular government as 
 might be capable of maintaining the accustomed 
 relations of peace and amity with other powers ;”’ 
 but he also said that our main reliance must be on 
 our naval and military forces. 
 
 Long before this the wretched remnant of the 
 fine but small and ill-commanded army we had 
 sent to the Netherlands and the northern frontiers 
 of France was collected in barracks at home, or 
 drafted off to other quarters of the world. The 
 Dutch democratic party—who had done their ut- 
 most to facilitate the progress of the French, and 
 discourage, thwart, and disorganise the forces which 
 their stadtholder, the Prince of Orange, had col- 
 lected after the fall of Nimeguen, and the retreat 
 of the Duke of York behind the Waal—openly de- 
 clared themselves everywhere for friendship and alli- 
 ance with the Gallican republic, and for the entire 
 abandonment of the old connexion with Great 
 Britain and the forced connexion with Prussia. 
 
 CostuME oF Britisn INFANTRY IN 79D. 
 
 [Book X. : 
 
 that, in order to prevent the accumulation of future | 
 
 Fe 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 Early in December, 1794, the Duke of York re- 
 turned to London, leaving the command of the 
 British and Hanoverian troops to Count Walmoden, 
 a Hanoverian nobleman, said to be closely, though 
 illegitimately, connected in blood with the royal 
 family of England. Walmoden, and the general 
 officers under him, seem to have been fully pos- 
 sessed of the old notion that war was not to be waged 
 in winter, and to have slept over the fact that, in 
 
 the north of Holland, the frost was often severe 
 enough to convert the canals, and all the smaller 
 rivers, into solid high-roads, capable of bearing 
 any weight that men could put upon them. The 
 troops were in cantonments here and there, when, 
 in the middle of December, after one or two nights 
 of very hard frost, the French crossed the Waal on 
 the ice, drove in the few videttes that were on the 
 alert, and carried all the posts in the Isle of 
 Bommel. But on the 30th of December, General 
 Dundas, who was serving under Walmoden, ad- 
 vanced rapidly from Arnheim with only 8000 men, 
 almost entirely British infantry, and drove the 
 French, in spite of their vast superiority of number, 
 and the batteries they had thrown up or taken pos- 
 session of, back beyond the Waal, with a consider- 
 able loss in men, and the loss of several pieces of 
 cannon. This affair was in the highest degree 
 honourable to the staunch infantry of England; 
 but it could be of little service to the common 
 cause, for Pichegru soon collected a force of 
 200,000 men, the people of the country continued 
 to favour the French, and the English army, with 
 a miserable, and in part fraudulent, commissariat, 
 with an equally bad medical staff, was totally un- 
 
 provided with most of the requisites indispensable 
 in their hard and trying circumstances: the sick 
 and wounded had neither medicines nor able sur- 
 geons to attend them; and often wanted food, 
 covering, and proper places of shelter to receive 
 them. ‘The indignation of the army was the greater 
 as it was perfectly well known that the government 
 had provided, with a lavish hand, for all their 
 wants, as far as money, orders, and injunctions 
 could provide for them, and that a variety of those 
 comforts needed by the soldiery in a cold, inhos- 
 pitable country had been furnished by private 
 patriotic subscriptions raised throughout England. 
 
 ‘The standing orders of the army, and the orders of 
 the day issued by the Duke of York, were humane, 
 
 ‘clear, and altogether excellent ; but, unfortunately, 
 
 there was generally not only a want of an active 
 
 superintendence over the execution of these orders, 
 but also a want of knowledge and method in our 
 officers as to the means of carrying them into exe- 
 cution. Moreover, England had not at that time 
 any very numerous body of able well-trained sur- 
 geons to draw upon, and the pay offered was 
 scarcely sufficient to tempt good surgeons into the 
 service. Both on the medical staff and in the 
 commissariat a great many French emigrants and 
 other foreigners were employed pro tempore ; and, 
 although there is no cloaking the iniquity of some 
 of our own native-born subjects, it is easy to under- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 79 
 
 stand that most of these foreigners kept only in 
 view the making of as much money as they could 
 during the campaign. The medical department 
 was improved more rapidly; but we never had 
 anything like a good, honest, effective commis- 
 sariat, until Sir Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of 
 Wellington) was intrusted with the command of 
 our forces in Portugal; and half of our military 
 failures, and a very large portion of the excess in 
 expense of all our expeditions, are attributable to 
 this one great want. When the Duke of York 
 quitted the army, and came home, matters became 
 much worse, and the acts of cruel neglect and of 
 peculation more flagrant and barefaced.* 
 
 Five days after the French had sustained their 
 unexpected and inglorious defeat at the hands of 
 General Dundas, Pichegru crossed the Waal upon 
 the ice with an enormous force. It became evident 
 that nothing but a hasty retreat could possibly save 
 the remains of the British army ; and, after spiking 
 their heavy cannon and destroying all the ammu- 
 nition they could not carry off, they retired towards 
 the Leck on the 6th of January. The French van 
 pressed upon their rear. Though disheartened and 
 in some of the disorder inevitable in a hasty re- 
 treat, the gallant English infantry halted, formed 
 in order of battle, charged, and, after four charges, 
 attended with various success, drove the French 
 from the field witha frightful loss, for the most of 
 the battle had been fought as it were hand to hand. 
 On the 10th of January fresh columns of the re- 
 publicans crossed the Waal; and on the 11th 
 Pichegru, with a condensed force of 70,000 men, 
 fell upon General Walmoden in the defile of the 
 Greb, between Arnheim and Nimeguen, in the con- 
 fident hope of destroying or reducing to an uncon- 
 ditional surrender all that remained of the British 
 army and of their German subsidiaries. But Wal- 
 moden, after sustaining an assault, which was long 
 and general, made good his retreat. Four days 
 after this Pichegru fell upon some posts which had 
 been occupied to cover the retiring army: these 
 posts were gallantly held until the retreat of the 
 British was secured, and then the troops who had 
 
 * The following report was made by an eye-witness, whose veracity 
 and accuracy were found to be well attested :—‘‘ January 21st, 1795. 
 Our hospitals, which were so lately crowded, are for the present con- 
 siderably thinned. Removing the sick in waggons, without clothing 
 sufficient to keep them warm in this rigorous season, has sent some 
 hundreds to their eternal home; and the shameful neglect that 
 prevails through all that department makes our hospitals mere 
 slaughtering-houses. Without covering without attendance, and 
 even without clean straw, and sufficient shelter from the weather, 
 they are thrown together in heaps, unpitied and unprotected, to 
 perish by contagion, while legions of vultures—down to the stewards, 
 nurses, and the numberless dependents—pamper their bodies, and 
 fill their coffers with the nation’s treasure ; and, like beasts of prey, 
 fatten on the blood and carcases of their unhappy fellow-creatures, 
 of whom not one in a hundred survives, but perishes under the in- 
 fernal claws of those harpies, still thirsting for more blood, and 
 rioting in the jaws of death. For the truth of what I say, I appeal 
 to every man in the army, who has only for a few hours observed, 
 with an attentive eye, the general rule of conduct in our hospitals of 
 late. And witness here the scene before me, while I now write. A 
 number of men lying on a scanty allowance of dirty wet straw, 
 which, from the heat of their bodies, sends up a visible steam, un- 
 able to help themselves; and, though a sufficient number of men are 
 liberally paid for their attendance, none has been near for several 
 hours, even to help them to a drink of water.”—Annual Register. 
 
 It was notorious that, when an unfortunate man was sent to the 
 hospital, he generally perished through neglect, unskilfulness, or 
 misery. 
 
 ee ee ae 
 
80 
 
 held them drew off unpursued by the enemy, some 
 of whose columns hastened to take possession of 
 Utrecht and Rotterdam. By this time the Eng- 
 lish had lost nearly all their camp-equipage and 
 baggage. ‘The multitude of inferior commissary 
 agents, who had been appointed to procure the 
 requisites, had so grossly deceived their employers 
 that no provisions had been collected. Besides the 
 open enmity of the successful French, the English 
 found concealed enemies in every Dutch town and 
 village through which they passed; for the majo- 
 rity of the Dutch people looked upon them as the 
 original cause of the calamities inflicted on their 
 country, and took every opportunity of insulting 
 them in their misery, and of adding to their suffer- 
 ings. These sufferings, particularly among the 
 many sick and wounded, were as cruel as any that 
 ever fell to the Jot of a retreating army: they were, 
 in the midst of a rigorous winter, carried in open 
 waggons, exposed to the weather, and destitute of 
 all comforts and accommodations. Many were 
 frozen to death, many dropped and perished 
 through want ; especially during the day and night 
 marches of the 16th and 17th of January, when 
 they had to cross the sandy, desert, houseless 
 districts that intervened between Utrecht and the 
 towns of Deventer and Zutphen, in the midst of an 
 unceasing hurricane of wind, snow, and sleet. 
 After a march of nearly two months, through coun- 
 tries everywhere hungry and beggarly, and in 
 many parts churlishly inhospitable or inimical, 
 the wretched fragment of the Duke of York’s army 
 reached the mouth of the Elbe and embarked at 
 Bremen for England. Our ally, the Stadtholder, 
 arrived in this country long before them. The de- 
 mocrats at the Hague began to threaten his person 
 and his family; and the same triumphant party, 
 shutting their eyes to the exactions and oppressions 
 they must expect from the French, were every- 
 where insulting and menacing the aristocratic party, 
 and preparing solemn entrances and public feasts 
 for Pichegru and his generals. Taking with him 
 his son, the Hereditary Prince of Orange, the 
 stadtholder, not without difficulty, escaped from 
 the Hague to the small port of Scheveling, where, 
 on the 19th of January, he and his son embarked 
 in an open boat.* The fugitives arrived at Harwich 
 on the following day. The democrats of Amster- 
 dam, who had appointed a provisional council of go- 
 vernment, planted the tree of liberty in the chief 
 places of their city, and mounted the French cock- 
 ade, gave an enthusiastic reception to Pichegru, 
 who made his entrance at the head of 5000 men 
 on the 20th of January. The republican general 
 went through the form of proclaiming the magna- 
 nimity of France (who only wanted to assist the 
 peoples of Europe to break the chains of their 
 despots), and the freedom and independence of the 
 
 * On the morning of their departure from the Hague, a mob 
 assembled and insisted that the stadtholder should be brought to 
 justice for the part he had taken in favour of the English. His 
 guards, however, protected him from their violence, and conveyed 
 him to the sea-side, where he was again in danger, till the guards 
 that accompanied him dispersed the populace.—Ann. Regist. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Seven United Provinces. Haerlem and Leyden 
 adopted the same measures as Amsterdam ; and, 
 while the opposite party of Dutchmen ran away or 
 concealed themselves, or at the least kept close 
 within their houses, the democrats in nearly ever) 
 town and village welcomed the French, and de- 
 clared themselves their disciples and friends. In 
 the province of Zealand there lay a considerable 
 squadron of Dutch men-of-war: the admiral, said 
 to have been all along hot in the French interest, 
 hoisted the French flag on the 30th of January, 
 took possession of Flushing and Middlebourg, 
 and, on the 4th of February, concluded a very 
 agreeable negotiation with the republican general 
 Michaud. The States-General, or such portions 
 of them as chose to assemble at the Hague, an 
 open, defenceless town, where they were entirely 
 at the mercy and under the dictation of the French 
 army and the Dutch mob, issued proclamations, 
 calling upon the people, in consequence, as they 
 said, of the stadtholder’s flight, to admit the friendly 
 troops of the French republic. Scarcely one of the 
 formidable and well-provided fortresses which 
 lined and studded the country had made more than 
 a show of resistance: they had nearly all opened 
 their gates to the I’rench before the Duke of York 
 quitted the army; but some few fortresses on the 
 frontiers of Brabant still remained in the occupa- 
 tion of Dutch troops, or of Germans who had been 
 in the pay of the stadtholder. In this number 
 was Bergen-op-Zoom, one of the strongest for- 
 tresses in the world, and at the time in an admir- 
 able state of preparation—if only the garrison 
 within it had been true to their trust. But Ber- 
 gen-op-Zoom, with all the rest of them, threw its 
 gates wide open at the first invitation, and its gar- 
 rison fraternized with the French. A requisition 
 of clothes and provisions for the use of the repub- 
 lican army, to the value of one million and a half 
 sterling, caused some consternation among the 
 thrifty Dutchmen; but the republican party, or 
 all the ultra-democratic Dutch, were in an ecstasy 
 at their triumph by means of French bayonets over 
 their countrymen who had triumphed over them 
 by means of Prussian bayonets in 1787; and they 
 were flattered by the convocation of a Representative 
 Assembly on liberty and equality principles, which 
 abolished the hereditary stadtholderate, with all 
 the forms of the preceding constitution, published 
 in good Dutch the Declaration of the Rights of 
 Man, reversed the sentences passed against the 
 democrats of 1'787, and recalled all the exiles. It 
 is to be supposed that this class of patriots were 
 not greatly or immediately affected by the embargo 
 which the English government immediately laid 
 upon all Dutch ships and goods in the ports of 
 Great Britain, Ireland, and our colonies; but the 
 scizure or detention of the Dutch East Indiamen 
 and cargoes was a terrible disappointment to the 
 French, and at the same time a heavy blow to the — 
 monied interest and trading aristocracy, who ab- 
 horred the French and their principles. The 
 Council of Government, the merest puppets of the 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795, 
 
 sl 
 
 q 
 
 | 
 ! 
 
 | 
 
 ———= 
 
 Ke 
 
 DD 
 
 ue 
 
 BERGEN-OP-ZOOM. 
 
 French, sent over two delegates to London to re- 
 monstrate and claim restitution. Lord Grenville, 
 as secretary for foreign affairs, asked them in what 
 capacity they wished to be received? ‘The dele- 
 gates replied, as representatives of the Sovereign 
 People of Batavia. The secretary said, he knew 
 of no such delegating power, and therefore must 
 decline any further conference with them. The 
 ministry soon took into consideration the important 
 subject of the Dutch colonies: an expedition was 
 prepared ; and on July the 14th Vice-Admiral Sir 
 G. Keith Elphinstone, and Major-General Craig, 
 with a land force, appeared in the neighbourhood 
 of the Cape of Good Hope, and took possession of 
 Simon’s Town. From that point the troops ad- 
 vanced towards Cape Town: they soon carried by 
 assault the strong post of Muyzenberg, which com- 
 manded the road to it, and there waited for some 
 reinforcements from the island of St. Salvador. 
 These forces, under the command of Major-General 
 Alured Clarke, arrived at the beginning of Sep- 
 tember; and then the whole army—still a very 
 small one—pushed forward to Cape Town. The 
 Dutch governor, who had rejected a proposal to 
 place the whole colony under the protection of 
 Great Britain (the only protection which could 
 save it from the French) till the peace, yielded at 
 ‘once to this display of force, and surrendered the 
 town and castle on the 23rd of September. In- 
 structions were also sent out to our naval and 
 military commanders in the East Indies to pre- 
 
 pare for the reduction and occupation of the Dutch 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 settlements in that part of the world; and by the 
 end of the year, or by the beginning of 1796, all 
 the places the Dutch held in the island of Ceylon, 
 with Malacca, Cochin, Chinsura, Amboyna, and 
 Banda, were taken possession of, with scarcely 
 any resistance. Other plans of easy execution 
 were arranged for the seizure of the Dutch colonies 
 in the West Indies and on the coast of South Ame- 
 rica; so that it was made evident that the Batavian 
 republic would soon lose all those foreign pos- 
 sessions and plantations which had once poured a 
 continuous stream of wealth into the United Pro- 
 vinces. 
 
 Such, for along time, had been the equivocal con- 
 duct of the King of Prussia, that it excited little or 
 no surprise, when, in the spring of this year, he 
 concluded a separate treaty with the French, whom 
 he had been the first of all the coalition to assail. 
 By this treaty, which was definitively settled at 
 Basle, in Switzerland, on the 5th of April, the king 
 ceded to the republic all the Prussian territory on 
 the left bank of the Rhine, and the republic re- 
 stored to Prussia the territories she had overrun on 
 the right bank of that river. Both the contracting 
 powers pledged themselves not to grant a passage 
 through their respective territories to the enemies 
 of the other. All prisoners taken respectively since 
 the commencement of the war were restored, in- 
 cluding the prisoners taken by the French from the 
 corps of Saxony, Mayence, the Palatinate, Hesse- 
 Cassel, Darmstadt, &c., who had been serving with 
 
 the army of his Prussian majesty. Until a treaty 
 F 
 
82 
 
 of commerce should be made, all the commercial 
 communications and relations between France and 
 the Prussian states were re-established on the 
 footing upon which they stood before the present 
 war, &c. And on the 17th of May a supple- 
 mentary treaty was concluded at Basle by the 
 same plenipotentiaries—M. Barthelemy for France, 
 the Baron Hardenberg for Prussia—professing 
 that it was the interest and earnest desire of both 
 contracting parties to establish a line of demarca- 
 tion and neutrality for the purpose of removing the 
 theatre of war from all the north of Germany. 
 The French drew a line that admirably suited 
 them, and promised to consider as neutral states 
 all those that were situated behind that line, on 
 condition of the said states recalling their contin- 
 gents, and making no new contracts for furnishing 
 troops to the emperor, or any of the powers at war 
 with France: but every state that did not comply 
 and strictly conform to these conditions was to be 
 excluded from the benefits of the neutrality. The 
 sovereign princes on the right bank of the Rhine 
 were to be entitled to negotiate with the French 
 republic under the mediation of his Prussian ma- 
 jesty. In secret articles or overtures the pride 
 and cupidity of the court of Berlin were flattered 
 by prospective aggrandisements at the cost of its 
 old enemy and rival, Austria; and, perhaps, 
 England’s best and steadiest ally—as Frederick 
 William had heen so often represented to be by our 
 ministry—already anticipated the rounding of his 
 dominions by the occupation and sovereign pos- 
 session of Hanover. 
 
 One link of the chain once broken, other links 
 of the coalition were soon snapped asunder. Spain 
 was exhausted by the efforts she had made; the 
 Walloons in her service had all deserted to the 
 enemy; the republican columns again threatened 
 to advance even to the gates of Madrid; and, dis- 
 mayed and discouraged, and urged on by a strong 
 French party,* Godoy, the royal favourite and 
 prime minister, humbly sued for peace. The 
 French, who had chosen that place for the centre of 
 their diplomacy, or for their political Vatican, 
 whence they were to fulminate their will and terms, 
 and who had selected Barthelemy for their pontiff, 
 named Basle as the spot for the negotiations, and 
 Barthelemy as their plenipotentiary: Spain de- 
 puted Don Domingo d’Yriarte, and the Don, on 
 the 22nd of July, accepted and signed a definitive 
 treaty of peace. EHyen as Prussia had done, the 
 
 * There was a French party at Madrid; but the party that was far 
 more numerous and influential consisted of men who had no parti- 
 cular partiality for the French or their principles, but who had already 
 adopted the dishonourable and dangerous fallacy that those repub- 
 licans were and must continue to be invincible. Count d’ Aranda, 
 who had been president of the council of Castile as far back as 1765, 
 and who had heen called to the ministry in 1792, but who had made 
 way for Godoy towards the close of that year, declared to the court 
 that it would be better for Spain to unite with France against the 
 coalesced powers than to expose herself to certain ruin by continuing 
 a member of the coalition; that the war against France was both un. 
 just and impolitic; that the countless French people had an invincible 
 spirit of liberty like that which had animated the mighty Greeks and 
 Romans, &c.; that to the soldiery of Europe, who were mere ma- 
 shines and poe pace ineats, maeed opposed millions of intellectual 
 citizens, who must conquer whenever or wherever th — 
 Memoirs of Godoy, Pemee of the Peace. be ES 
 
 ahd his tae inact ci iin idles shana 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 proud monarchy of Spain, with its Bourbon sove- — 
 
 reign, fully recognised the French republic, and 
 
 engaged to a reciprocity of friendship and good 
 understanding. ‘The French republic restored all 
 the conquests she had made in the Spanish penin- 
 sula, and agreed to accept as an indemnity all the 
 Spanish part of the island of San Domingo. 
 Spain recognised the Batavian republic which the 
 French had set up in the United Provinces, and 
 stipulated that the same peace, amity, and good un- 
 
 derstanding should take place between the King of 
 
 Spain and those allies of the French republic as 
 between his majesty and the French. As a testi- 
 mony of amity to his catholic majesty, the French 
 republic agreed to accept his mediation in favour 
 of the King of Portugal, his relatives and allies 
 the King of Naples and the Infanta Duke of 
 Parma, the King of Sardinia, and the other states 
 of Italy; and also to accept his majesty’s good 
 offices in favour of other belligerent powers that 
 should apply to him in order to enter into nego- 
 tiations with the French government. 
 
 The Grand-duke of Tuscany, who had all along 
 aimed at a scarcely attainable or admissible neu- 
 trality, and who had shut his eyes to several in- 
 fractions of the law of nations, and of the rules 
 which govern a fair neutrality, published an edict, 
 dated the Ist of March, in which, terrified at the 
 close approach of the French armies of Nice and 
 Italy, which had nothing between them and the 
 maritime part of Tuscany but the narrow territory 
 
 of the Genoese republic, whose neutrality they 
 
 despised, and had repeatedly and for a perma- 
 
 nence violated, he deplored the calamities of war, — 
 
 asserted the principle that the welfare and safety 
 
 of his country ought not to be intrusted to the 
 
 preponderance of any of the belligerent powers, 
 
 +35 geek 
 
 but to the sacred right of nations and to the 
 
 inviolable faith of those treaties which guaranteed 
 the immunities and of course the neutrality of the 
 port of Leghorn ; that, the natural and political 
 
 situation of his dominions demanding the most 
 impartial line of conduct, he had resolved from 
 
 the beginning to observe the edict of neutrality 
 which had been published during the last war by 
 his august father; but that, though constantly 
 
 respected by the French republic, he had found 
 himself involved in those unpleasant transactions — 
 which were known to all Europe; * that, although _ 
 he had been unable to resist those influences, yet 
 
 all that he had really done was to consent to the 
 removal of the French minister residing at his 
 court, and that this act, extorted from him by the 
 imperious circumstances of the moment, could not 
 be quoted against him as a breach of neutrality 
 towards France, &c. 
 humility, that he had since treated the French 
 with all respect and kindness, and finished by 
 
 announcing that he had concluded a treaty with ' 
 - tk & 
 
 * The visits of the English fleet, the quarrel about ing 
 of corn from Leghorn for the use of then French are ae ae 
 the expulsion of the diplomatic agents of the French re ublic, > 
 was in a manner forced upon the grand-duke by the English waa 
 ter at his court and the English admiral in the Mediterranean, el 
 
 a 
 ‘ 
 
 ae: 
 ar 
 
 re 
 
 - | 
 
 He stated, with sufficient — 
 
 . 
 | 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 the National Convention, calculated to re-establish 
 his former neutrality for the benefit of his peaceful 
 subjects, without encroaching upon the rights and 
 interests of any of the belligerent powers, with 
 respect to whom he had never taken upon himself 
 any particular obligation. This treaty with a 
 prince of the House of Hapsburg, the near re- 
 lative of the emperor, flattered the pride of the 
 republicans ; but it was otherwise of little import- 
 ance to the interests of the coalition, while it was 
 quite certain that it would be of no benefit to 
 Tuscany, which would be overrun by the French 
 just as soon as it suited their purpose to overrun 
 it. Overtures were made through Spain to detach 
 the King of Sardinia and the King of Naples 
 _ from the league: but the first of these sovereigns 
 was heroically true to his treaties and obligations ; 
 and the second, though much less firm, rejected 
 the propositions for the present. 
 
 The court of Sweden and the Protestant can- 
 tons of Switzerland recognised the French repub- 
 lic, and its dependency, the nominal independent 
 Batavian republic; and, in consequence of the de- 
 fection of Prussia, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, 
 aud even George III., in his quality of Elector 
 of Hanover, were compelled to engage to furnish 
 no more troops to the emperor. Although our 
 diplomatists had not been idle, they had but little 
 to set off against the breach of treaties committed 
 by Prussia. Ever since the commencement of the 
 war strenuous efforts had been made to bring into 
 the coalition the Empress of Russia: that sove- 
 reign had professed the greatest detestation and a 
 scarcely credible dread of the French revolution 
 and of its principles and propagandists; though 
 she had at one time been the correspondent and 
 professed friend of d’Alembert, Diderot, and others 
 of the French philosophes, whose writings had 
 helped to make the present state of things in 
 France, and to furnish the principles and dogmas 
 upon which that democracy was acting, she had 
 put her interdict upon the introduction of all new 
 French books into her not very literary dominions, 
 had expelled a number of Frenchmen from Peters- 
 burg, and had made difficult the entrance of any 
 individuals of that nation except royalists and 
 emigrants ; but, having a tolerably clear foresight 
 that Russia had little to gain by becoming a party 
 to the war in the west of Europe, she declined be- 
 coming an active member of the coalition. But 
 at last she was induced to consent to a treaty of 
 defensive alliance with Great Britain. This treaty, 
 though not publicly announced or noticed in the 
 British parliament till the next session, was con- 
 
 cluded and signed at St. Petersburg on the 18th 
 of February. With most empty and unmeaning 
 words it was stipulated that there should be a sin- 
 cere and constant friendship between his Britannic 
 majesty and her majesty the Empress of all the 
 Russias, and between their heirs and successors. 
 The contracting parties guaranteed to each other 
 all their dominions, territories, &c., as well such as 
 they might actually possess as those which they 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 
 
 83 
 
 might hereafter acquire by treaty. In case of one 
 of them being attacked by sea or land, the other 
 was immediately to send succour; and, “as the 
 natural force of Russia consists in land troops, 
 whilst Great Britain’ can principally furnish ships 
 of war,” it was agreed that her imperial majesty, 
 whenever called upon, should send immediately to 
 the King of Great Britain 10,000 infantry and 
 2000 horse; and that his Britannic majesty, 
 whenever called upon, should send to Russia a 
 squadron of twelve ships of the line. To draw 
 still closer the bonds which united us to the 
 Emperor of Germany, a separate treaty of de- 
 fensive alliance was concluded with him also, and 
 was signed at Vienna on the 29th of May. Each 
 power guaranteed to the other all its dominions, 
 territories, &c., and engaged to succour its ally 
 without delay in case of any attack. As the 
 House of Austria was not assailable by sea, no 
 mention was made of ships; but the succours were 
 to consist on either side of 20,000 foot and 6000 
 horse, which were to be paid for by the party de- 
 manding the succour at the nicely-fixed rate of 
 10,000 Dutch florins per month for every thou- 
 sand infantry, and 30,000 Dutch florins per 
 month for every thousand cavalry. In case the 
 limited establishment of land forces in Great Bri- 
 tain should not permit the king to furnish the 
 succour in men at the time required, and the em- 
 peror should be obliged to take other troops into 
 his pay, then the confidence which his imperial 
 majesty reposed in the friendship and equity of 
 his Britannic majesty left him no room to doubt 
 that his Britannic majesty would grant him an 
 indemnification in money, &c. Added to these 
 treaties with high Christian powers and crowns 
 imperial—treaties which meant little more than 
 that Russia might require the assistance of an 
 English fleet, and Austria an Hnglish subsidy— 
 there was, towards the close of the year, a treaty 
 or agreement with the infidel and piratic Dey of 
 Algiers! This last piece of diplomacy originated 
 with Sir Gilbert Elliott,the viceroy of George III.’s 
 new and transitory kingdom of Corsica, who 
 wished to oblige a people whom he had in many 
 instances disobliged and irritated. There was 
 an ancient antipathy and enmity between those 
 islanders and the Barbary states; but now the 
 Algerines were to be permitted to carry their 
 prizes into the ports of Corsica, and to sell them 
 publicly there; they were to grant freedom to all 
 the Corsicans they had captured and made slaves 
 of, and to permit those islanders to frequent the 
 African coast for the coral fishery, &c.; in return 
 for which the Viceroy of Corsica was to pay to the 
 Dey 179,000 piastres of Algiers, and a further 
 sum of 24,000 piastres for a cargo of grain, the 
 property of Algerines, which had been taken by 
 the English. If this was a good arrangement for 
 the Corsicans, it was far otherwise for the neigh- 
 bouring Italian states, whose vessels might be 
 picked up and sold almost within sight of their 
 own coasts. 
 
 nee a ee ee eo ee eae ee ee a ene ae ere ree 
 
84 
 
 The French had fitted out all the ships in dock 
 or on the stocks at Toulon which Sir Sidney Smith 
 had failed of destroying ; some other vessels had 
 stolen round by the Straits of Gibraltar from 
 Brest; and on the 28th of February Rear-Admiral 
 Pierre Martin quitted the outer harbour of Toulon 
 and took the sea with fifteen sail of the line, six 
 frigates, and three corvettes—a force which he 
 believed to be superior to our Mediterranean fleet 
 under Vice-Admiral Hotham. The Frenchman 
 had positive orders to engage Hotham if he met 
 him, and to drive the English out of Corsica: he 
 had a powerful body of troops on board, and was 
 accompanied to sea by the conventional deputy 
 and commissioner Letourneur, who was to look to 
 the proper execution of the orders which the Con- 
 vention had given. On the 2nd of March Pierre 
 Martin gained sight of Corsica ; but a gale of wind 
 drove his fleet back, and damaged two of his ships. 
 It was not until the 8th that Hotham, who was 
 lying in Leghorn Roads, received intelligence that 
 the French fleet was at sea. The British flcet, 
 composed of thirteen sail of the line, four frigates, 
 and two sloops, to which were added a Neapolitan 
 74 and two frigates of the same flag, commanded 
 by the Chevalier Caraccioli, a veteran officer who 
 had both courage and skill, instantly unmoored 
 and went in search of the enemy. Through 
 storms and contrary winds, it was not until the 
 12th that the English came fully in sight of the 
 French between Corsica and Genoa. Martin, 
 having the wind, might have attacked, but did not. 
 During the ensuing night the ‘ Mercure’ lost her 
 maintop-mast in a squall, and was driven out of 
 the French fleet, which she did not join again until 
 after the battle. At eight on the following morn- 
 ing the ‘ Ca Ira,’ an 80-gun ship, and the third 
 ship from Pierre Martin’s rear, ran foul of the 
 ‘Victoire,’ and, in sight of the British fleet, car- 
 ried away her own fore and main topmasts. Cap- 
 tain Freemantle, who was nearest at hand, in the 
 ‘ Inconstant,’ a 36-gun frigate, presently ranged 
 up within musket-shot of the ‘ Ga Ira,’ gave her a 
 broadside and stood on. A French frigate, the 
 ‘ Vestale,’ bore down, and, after firing several dis- 
 tant broadsides, which did little or no harm to 
 Freemantle’s ship or crew, she took the ‘ Ga Ira’ 
 in tow. The ‘ Inconstant’ got under the lee of 
 the ‘Ca Ira,’ and fired into her; but by this time 
 the Frenchmen had cleared away the wreck of 
 their topmasts from their deck, and were enabled 
 to open a heavy fire from their first-deck guns, 
 which compelled Freemantle to bear up. Nelson, 
 in the ‘ Agamemnon,’ 64, now got abreast of the 
 ‘Ca Ira’ and ‘ Vestale ;? and, most of the time 
 quite alone, and part of it aided by the ‘ Captain,’ 
 74, he warmly engaged the French 80 and frigate 
 from ten o'clock till past two in the afternoon. 
 He so placed himself that the ‘ Ca Ira’ could never 
 get a single gun from either starboard or larboard 
 to bear on him; and when the French fired their 
 after-guns it was not with coolness and precision, 
 for every shot went far ahead. A little after two 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 p.M., several French ships of the line, including 
 the ‘ Sans-Culotte,’ of 120 guns, bore down to the 
 protection of the ‘ Ca Ira:’ this obliged Nelson to 
 bear away and leave her; but he left her with her 
 sails all hanging in tatters, her mizen-topmast and 
 cross jack-yards shot away. In the mean time 
 there had been some partial firing between two 
 English 74’s and the three rearmost ships of the 
 French; but, as soon as the ‘ Agamemnon,’ Nel- 
 
 NELSON. 
 
 son’s ship, dropped into line, the combat ceased 
 for that day, the French keeping to the wind un- 
 der all sail, and being followed by the British as 
 fast as four or five heavy-sailing ships would per- 
 mit. Rear-Admiral, Martin and Deputy Letour- 
 neur, for the alleged purpose of better directing 
 the manceuvres of the fleet, had removed from the 
 great flag-ship ‘ Sans-Culotte’ to the frigate * La 
 Kriponne.’* In the course of the night the ‘ Sans- 
 Culotte ’ separated from the rest of the fleet (as if 
 
 - 
 
 [Boox X, | : 
 
 ? 
 
 in spite at the admiral’s having separated himself — 
 
 from her), and the crew, fancying or pretending 
 that they were chased by five men-of-war, ran her 
 into Genoa. On the following morning, soon after 
 
 daybreak, a sudden change of wind gave Admiral — 
 
 Hotham the advantage of the weather-gage. The 
 * Ga Ira,’ which had suffered so much from Nel- 
 son’s fire, was now in tow of the ‘ Censeur,’ 74, 
 and a good way astern of the retreating French 
 line. The ‘ Captain,’ our foremost ship, closed 
 and sustained the united broadsides of the two 
 Frenchmen for fifteen minutes before she was in a 
 situation to return a shot; the ‘ Bedford,’ 174, 
 came up to her assistance ; but the ‘ Captain? was 
 soon terribly cut up in her masts and rigging, and, 
 becoming quite unmanageable, she made a signal 
 for assistance, and was towed out of the reach of 
 her opponents. About the same time Hotham, by 
 signal, recalled the ‘ Bedford’ to her station; and 
 the ‘Bedford’ fell into line, with her masts and 
 rigging in nearly as bad a state as the ‘ Captain’s.’ 
 
 * In general actions with ships of the line, it is not customary 
 for frigates to fire; ov, while they remain quiet, to be fired at. 
 This established usage may have had something to do in inducing 
 the French admiral and deputy to transfer themselves to a frigate | 
 from the ship of the line that was likely to attract most of the | 
 English attention—and cannon-balls. 
 
Cnar. VII] 
 
 The French van now came round in support of 
 their rear, and to rescue the ‘ Ca Ira’ and ‘ Cen- 
 seur:’ they were so hotly received by the British 
 ships that were now foremost, that they soon aban- 
 doned their two sternmost ships to their fate, and 
 crowded all sail to effect their own escape. After 
 making a brave resistance, and sustaining a great 
 loss in killed and wounded, the ‘ Ca Ira’ and the 
 * Censeur,’ with scarcely a spar left standing, 
 struck, and Nelson’s friend, Lieutenant Andrews, 
 of the ‘ Agamemnon,’ hoisted British colours on 
 board them both. Two or three French ships 
 suffered severely: but it seems to be proved, be- 
 yond a doubt, that all the rest, and M. Pierre 
 Martin, their admiral, behaved very ill. Nor was 
 Vice-Admiral Hotham “ quite awake enough for 
 such a command as that of the king’s fleet in the 
 Mediterranean,” * or sufficiently emancipated from 
 the old routine rules of his profession. Apparently 
 through the fear of disordering his line, he had 
 allowed two of his ships to be exposed a long time 
 to the desperate firing of the ‘ Ca Ira’ and ‘ Cen- 
 seur, when, by attacking in greater force, he 
 might have carried them at once; and, when the 
 French fleet fled, he rejected the bold proposition 
 of Nelson, to leave the two prizes with two English 
 ships of the line which had been crippled in the 
 action, and with the rest of the fleet to pursue the 
 enemy. With two prizes under his lee, and with 
 the certainty that Corsica was saved, Hotham said, 
 ** We must be contented: we have done very well.” 
 ‘** Now,” said Nelson, “‘ had we taken ten sail, and 
 allowed the eleventh to escape, when it had been 
 possible to have got at her, I could never have 
 called it well done.” The gallant Caraccioli, 
 whose name will be again, and most unhappily, 
 associated with that of Nelson, brought his 174, 
 *Tancredi,’ into action in good style: his ship 
 received several shots between wind and water, 
 and had her foremast injured. The total loss 
 sustained by the British and Neapolitans amounted 
 to 74 killed and 284 wounded: the loss on board 
 the French ships, which were rather crowded with 
 troops, and which, as usual, received more shots in 
 the hull than they gave, was incomparably greater. 
 The firmg had first commenced between six and 
 seven o'clock in the morning ; it ceased altogether 
 about two in the afternoon; and soon afterwards 
 the two fleets were out of each other’s sight, the 
 French running for Hieres Bay, near Toulon, and 
 the British retiring to San Fiorenzo Bay, in Cor- 
 sica, to refit.t 
 
 In spite of our Channel fleet, and other block- 
 ading or cruising squadrons, six more ships of the 
 lie, two frigates, and two cutters, succeeded in 
 getting from Brest into the Mediterranean, where 
 they joined the Toulon fleet, which had thus a de- 
 cided superiority over their adversaries. Great 
 things were expected from Earl Spencer, the new 
 first lord of the Admiralty, but, although in the 
 
 * Letter from Sir William Hamilton, ambassador at Naples, to 
 Captain Nelson, as quoted in Southey’s Life of Nelson. 
 + James, Naval History.—Southey, Life of Nelson. 
 
 eS a rele ee ce Oe ee Ee oe eT ea a ee ee 
 
 ! Frejus Bay, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 85 
 
 end some of these expectations were realized, there 
 was no great immediate improvement in the minis- 
 terial management of the navy; and, in spite of 
 numerous representations, our Mediterranean fleet 
 was left for some time in its state of inferiority. 
 Hotham was joined by another Neapolitan 74 ; 
 and, to the mortification of Nelson’s national pride, 
 this was matter of exultation to an English fleet. 
 At last, however, on the 13th of June, three months 
 after the battle with Pierre Martin, Hotham was 
 joined by eleven sail of the line and several frigates 
 from Gibraltar and England. The French, who 
 had avoided an encounter even when they were 
 superior in number, now shunned it more cau- 
 tiously than ever. They had, however, put to sea 
 before they learned the arrival of the British rein- 
 forcement; and, on the 13th of July, Hotham, who 
 had now twenty-one sail of the line, got sight of 
 them near Cape Roux. As they had only seven- 
 teen sail of the line, and six frigates and corvettes, 
 they fled for the coast. The English pursued, but 
 only a few of their van ships-were able to get up 
 with the French rear. Between these forces a 
 smart action ensued, which terminated in the sur- 
 render of the ‘* Alcide,? French 74. The rest of 
 the French ships got safely into Frejus Bay. Be- 
 fore the ‘ Alcide’ could be taken possession of, a 
 box of combustibles in her foretop took fire, and 
 presently set the whole ship, sails, masts, and hull, 
 in a blaze; and, though the English boats that 
 were nearest were put out to the assistance of the 
 frantic crew, they could only save three hundred of 
 them, and from three hundred to four hundred were 
 blown into the air with the ship—those unhappy 
 men thus experiencing ‘‘ how far more perilous 
 their inventions were to themselves than to their 
 enemy.” * Carnot and the other humane philo- 
 sophers, who were presiding or who had presided 
 over the Committee of Salut Public and the war 
 department, had introduced sundry novelties, with 
 the view of making war more murderous. For 
 obvious reasons, the use of red-hot shot at sea was 
 not considered honourable warfare ; but they or- 
 dered the French ships to be supplied with furnaces, 
 and to fire red-hot shot whenever it should be 
 thought advantageous. They had also invented, 
 or adopted the invention of, a certain preparation 
 which was thought to have the same properties as 
 the Greek fire—to become liquid when discharged, 
 and to be inextinguishable by water; and this pre- 
 paration, with the consent and concurrence of the 
 National Convention, they had sent to the Toulon 
 fleet. In the action of the 14th of March the ‘Ca 
 Ira’ and ‘Censeur’ had fired red-hot shot, and 
 had also on board some of this new Greek fire ; 
 and they have been supposed to have fought the 
 more desperately from a persuasion that, if they 
 
 * Southey, Life of Nelson. It is said in this admirable manual 
 for seamen, the author of which would not have hazarded such an 
 assertion without good foundation, that the ‘Agamemnon,’ Nelson’s 
 ship, and the ‘Cumberland,’ Captain Rowley, were just getting 
 into close action a second time, when Admiral Hotham called them 
 off, and this too at a moment when a baffling wind and a vexatious 
 calm had been succeeded by a fresh wind blowing directly into 
 
86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 struck, the English sailors, incensed at their new 
 methods, would have given them no quarter, 
 
 Except by Nelson, detached on some coast ser- 
 vice, scarcely a gun was fired by our Mediterranean 
 fleet during the remainder of the year. 
 
 Many encounters of detached ships took place 
 in various parts of the world, and were, generally 
 speaking, to the advantage of the English; but the 
 only other approach to a general action at sea took 
 place on the 23rd of June, off the French coast, 
 near Port l’Orient, between the Channel fleet of 
 fourteen sail of the line and eight frigates, under 
 Admiral Lord Bridport, and a part of the Brest 
 fleet, consisting of twelve ships of the line and 
 eleven frigates, under Vice-admiral Villaret. It 
 was a running fight, the French flying for their 
 own port and the protection of their own land bat- 
 teries, and the English pursuing along a difficult 
 and dangerous coast; but three French ships of 
 the line struck their colours and were taken pos- 
 session of. All the vigilance of our squadrons and 
 cruizers in the West Indies was not sufficient to 
 intercept the communications or foil the daring 
 projects of Victor Hugues, who was in one single 
 person the Marat, Robespierre, Carnot, and Bar- 
 rére of the negroes, mulattos, Caribbs, and all the 
 mixed populations of those parts. Pitt, in the last 
 session, had repeatedly referred to our acquisitions 
 in the West Indies as a set-off to our losses and 
 failures in other quarters: yet sufficient forces had 
 not been sent to keep what we had gotten ; and, 
 in the course of the year, we ran the risk of losing 
 not only those new conquests, but our old colonies, 
 including Jamaica, the oldest and most valuable of 
 them all. Early in the year the French succeeded 
 in gaining possession of St. Eustatius; and, having 
 put that island into a good state of defence, they 
 made it the basis and pivot of extensive designs 
 and operations, which were all conceived by the 
 teeming head, and in good part executed by the 
 daring stop-at-nothing energy, of Victor Hugues. 
 He flew from island to island, preaching, with 
 more fire than Peter the Hermit, liberty and 
 equality and the Rights of Man to the negroes, 
 and to all people of colour, and a crusade against 
 the English, the French royalists, and all who 
 adhered to them: he made the hot blood of the 
 tropics boil over ; he led his dark converts and dis- 
 ciples into the perpetration of the most horrible 
 cruelties ; and, when the deeds were done, he told 
 them that they could never more hope for quarter, 
 that they must now exterminate the English or be 
 utterly exterminated by them. Other emissaries 
 were sent among the slaves and the poorer part of 
 the French colonists, to excite them to a universal 
 and simultaneous insurrection, In St. Lucie, the 
 project succeeded completely; the English troops 
 were taken by surprise and overpowered; the fort, 
 after a blockade of three months, was compelled 
 to surrender; such of the British as were not 
 butchered were shipped off the island; and the 
 tri-color flag and the red cap of liberty (the new 
 Mumbo Jumbo of the African slaves) were erected 
 
 | Spring, made a rapid and skilful advance, took | 
 
 [Boox X. : / 
 
 triumphantly. The flame spread to Grenada, 
 Dominica, and St. Vincent; but, after a fierce 
 struggle, it was extinguished there by the British 
 —save only in the interior and mountainous parts 
 of St. Vincent, where the Caribb insurgents kept 
 their ground for a considerable time. Under the 
 same auspices, the Maroons of Jamaica—the de- 
 scendants of negroes who had revolted and fled to 
 the mountains in the time of the Spaniards—pro- 
 secuted a long and cruel war. 
 
 The conflict of armies on the European conti- 
 nent, in which our troops had no share, may be 
 briefly related. The old Austrian general Bender, 
 on the retreat and dissolution of the grand army of 
 the coalition, threw himself into Luxembourg with 
 some 10,000 men. ‘The republican government 
 at Paris was certainly less active and energetic in 
 war than it had been in the days of Robespierre 
 and St. Just. Although Bender was entirely iso- 
 lated and cut off from all succour, it was the 7th 
 of July before he was reduced to capitulate, and 
 then he and his numerous garrison were allowed 
 to retire to Germany, upon condition of not serving 
 against the French till exchanged. With the ex- 
 ception of Mentz, or Mayence, the republicans were 
 now masters of the whole of the left bank of the 
 Rhine, and of the estuaries through which the Rhine 
 flows into the North Sea, from Holland to Stras- 
 bourg ; and there was nothing on the right bank 
 of that river to disturb this their natural frontier, 
 except Manheim and a few other weak places. 
 In the month of August Pichegru, the conqueror 
 of Holland, undertook the reduction of Mayence, 
 which was occupied by Imperial and Austrian 
 troops : as preparatory steps, he crossed the 
 Rhine, captured Dusseldorf, and occupied Manheim. — 
 The emperor had kept his promise to England of 
 making a great effort for this campaign; and old 
 Wurmser, esteemed one of the best of his generals, 
 was now advancing with a good army to effect a 
 junction with Clairfait, suecour Mayence, and drive 
 the French from the left bank of the Rhine. 
 Pichegru detached a division to prevent this junc- 
 tion: the division put a part of the Austrians to 
 the rout; but, while the French were engaged in 
 plunder, Wurmser’s excellent cavalry advanced in 
 full force, threw the French into confusion, and 
 drove them back to Manheim. General Jourdan, 
 who had followed Clairfait at the end of the last 
 campaign from the Netherlands, came up to co- 
 operate with Pichegru in the reduction of May- 
 ence, and, crossing the Rhine, he established him- - 
 self on the right bank opposite to the town, to cover 
 the siege and assist in it. There was another urgent 
 reason for Jourdan’s movement: he had exhausted — 
 the country where he had been quartered during 
 the winter, the treaty with Prussia forbade him to 
 levy military contributions within the marked line — 
 of neutrality, and Mayence being once reduced, he ~ 
 must push forward towards the heart of Germany 
 to find food and forage for his army. Clairfait, — 
 who had been strongly reinforced early in the 
 
 i 
 | 
 
Cuapr. VIII. SE ie iti hc 
 
 Jourdan by surprise, obliged him to Si c.. obliced chim to. decamp | whole of the Palatinate, and of the country between, 
 hastily and leave part of his artillery behind him, 
 harassed him by continually skirmishing with 
 his rear until he reached Dusseldorf, and there 
 re-crossed the Rhine. Clairfait then threw a con- 
 siderable part of his army across the river into 
 Mayence, in spite of the French lines drawn round 
 that place. On the 29th of October Clairfait or- 
 dered a general attack on the French lines: part 
 of the garrison of Mayence made a sortie with the 
 fresh columns that had been thrown into the place ; 
 
 and, while these forces, divided into two columns 
 of attack, fell upon the lines in front and turned 
 one of their wings, 2 flotilla of gun-boats ascend- 
 ing the river began to cannonade the French in 
 their rear. The whole plan of attack was beauti- 
 fully conceived, was admirably executed; and, if 
 Clairfait had only brought over all his forces from 
 the opposite bank and risked them all in this one 
 great enterprise, nothing but a miracle could have 
 sayed the French army from entire destruction. 
 
 As it was, the Austrians drove the republicans 
 from their fortified lines with a terrible loss, cap- 
 tured their battering-train and most of their field- 
 pieces, separated them into two divisions, and 
 obliged one to retreat northward, while the other 
 fled southward.* The pride and confidence of the 
 French were sadly damped; but, if Clairfait had 
 acted in force upon their retreating, disorganised 
 columns, he might not only have annihilated them, 
 
 but have cut off two other corps d’armee that were 
 advancing by different lines of march towards 
 Mayence. On the opposite side of the river old 
 Wurmser, who was quite strong enough to have 
 contended with Pichegru, without the aid of that 
 large part of his army which Clairfait had left on 
 the right bank, obtained many advantages over the 
 republicans, (who never properly recovered from 
 the beating they got from his cavalry,) gained by 
 a simultaneous attack the bridge of the Necker, 
 and drove Pichegru within the walls of Manheim. 
 
 After the retreat of Jourdan, and the flight of all 
 the French forces from the lines of Mayence, 
 neither Manheim nor any other spot on the right 
 bank of the river was a proper abiding-place for 
 Pichegru: after strengthening the garrison, he 
 quitted Manheim, recrossed the Rhine, and was 
 allowed to effect a junction with Jourdan. Wurm- 
 ser, who would have done better if he had followed 
 Pichegru with his own and all the troops which 
 Clairfait had left on that side of the river,—by ra- 
 pidity of movement he might have rendered the 
 passage of the Rhine a desperate or most costly 
 affair to the retreating general,—sat down before 
 Manheim, which did not surrender until the 22nd 
 of November. + Wurmser then formed a junction 
 with Clairfait, and the two presently recovered the 
 
 * Considerable portions of these separated retreating columns fell 
 into a perfect panic; and many of these fuyards never ° stopped until 
 they got into the interior of France, where they spread the most 
 alarming reports, asserting (as Frenchmen always do when well 
 beaten) that there had been treason in the camp, that they had been 
 betrayed by some of their own officers. 
 
 + Six, or, according to others, eight thousand republicans sur- 
 rendered in Manheim. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 
 
 87 
 
 whole of the Palatinate, and of the country between 
 the Rhine and the Moselle.* The successes of 
 the Austrians emboldened them to form the pro- 
 ject of penetrating once more into Luxembourg, 
 the loss of which weighed heavily on the emperor’s 
 heart. ‘They made preparations to this intent, but 
 were, as usual, slow in collecting and concentrating 
 the necessary troops; and J ourdan and Pichegru 
 advanced along the Rhine by forced marches, and 
 kept them in check. Some obstinate and sangui- 
 nary encounters took place; but the winter was 
 now setting in with great severity; both repub- 
 licans and imperialists were much exhausted by a 
 campaign which had commenced very late in the 
 season, but which had been exceedingly active and 
 fatiguing while it lasted ; and it was thought ex- 
 pedient “to agree to an armistice, which was not to 
 be broken by either party without ten days’ pre- 
 vious notice, and during which both belligerents 
 were to confine themselves strictly to the positions 
 they actually occupied. 
 
 On the side of Italy, where the French had 
 gained such important advantages in the preceding 
 campaign, their army, all through the spring and 
 summer, was much neglected: the Austrians and 
 Sardinians, or Piedmontese, now assisted by some 
 troops from the south of Italy, comprising some 
 brigades of Neapolitan cavalry that behaved very 
 well, collected such a force in the passes of the 
 Maritime Alps and the Apennines as gave them a 
 decided superiority. Almost all that the republic- 
 ans tried to do was to keep possession of the posts 
 they had gained in 1794: and even some of these 
 posts they lost; and they must have lost many 
 more if the allies had been less sluggish and irre- 
 solute. Nelson, who had been detached with a 
 small part of his fleet to co- operate with Devins, 
 and who served on the coast of Nice, sometimes 
 at sea, sometimes on land, doing soldiers’? work 
 (and much better than mist soldiers did it), was 
 driven almost frantic by the Austrian general to 
 whom his Sardinian majesty had mainly intrusted 
 the salvation of his kingdom. ‘‘ This army,” 
 said he, ‘is slow beyond all description; and I 
 begin to think that the emperor is anxious to touch 
 another four millions of English money. As for 
 these German generals, war is their trade, and 
 peace is ruin to them; therefore we cannot expect 
 that they should have any wish to finish the war. 
 The politics of courts are so mean, that private 
 people would be ashamed to act in the same way: 
 all is trick and finesse, to which the common cause 
 is sacrificed.”? + Devins charged his inactivity 
 upon the Piedmontese and Neapolitans, and these 
 in their turn attributed it to the Tudesque dulness. 
 A good plan had been formed for getting between 
 the different French divisions that occupied the 
 Nissard territory and a part of the western Riviera 
 or coast of the Genoese republic, for taking the 
 
 * Wurmser joined Clairfait previously to the reduction of Man- 
 heim: but he left the greater part of his forces employed on that 
 siege; and very little was undertaken either on the right or left 
 
 side of the river until the republican garrison capitulated. 
 + Southey, Life of Nelson. 
 
— 
 
 88 
 
 foremost of these divisions in the rear, and finally 
 for blockading the important port and city of Nice. 
 To work out this plan it was necessary that the 
 allies should take possession of the town and bay 
 of St. Remo; but when Nelson proposed that 
 Devins, who had again obtained free communi- 
 cation with several parts of the coast between the 
 Nissard territory and Genoa, should embark a 
 considerable force for this object, the general pre- 
 tended to believe that Nelson only wanted pos- 
 session of St. Remo for the advantage and snug 
 harbouring of the English ships of war, and told 
 him that the Bay of Vado, which was open to our 
 shipping, but which could be of no use in_re- 
 ducing Nice, was a much better and safer anchor- 
 age. At last, after many equivocations, which left 
 Nelson no confidence in his word, Devins agreed 
 to send 10,000 men to St. Remo, if Admiral 
 
 _ Hotham would only send him ships of war and 
 
 transports enough to carry them. Nelson believed 
 at the time that, if the whole of our Mediterranean 
 fleet had been offered him for transports, he would 
 have found some other excuse. But Devins ought 
 to have been put to the test on the point, and this 
 was not done, for Hotham declined sending any 
 more ships ; and thus the old German was enabled 
 to attribute a part of his inactivity, and the total 
 evaporation of an excellent plan, to the British 
 admiral. 
 
 It has been well said that the neutral, or pre- 
 tended neutral, powers and states assisted France 
 more effectually than the allies or coalesced 
 powers assisted each other. We have seen what 
 respect the French republicans paid to the neu- 
 trality of the Genoese republic in 1794. Great as 
 had been the insults and wrongs suffered, the 
 Genoese senate made no complaint against the 
 French ; their subjects continued to serve and 
 assist them; and, while they presumed to claim 
 from the British fleet all the rights of a strictly 
 neutral state, they allowed—without making a 
 single effort or remonstrance to prevent it—all 
 their roadsteads, bays, harbours, and the strongly- 
 defended port of the city of Genoa itself, to be 
 crowded with French privateers, of nearly all sizes 
 and riggings, but of which the most mischievous 
 were swarms of long row-boats and galleys. Larger 
 privateers were allowed to be towed out of the port 
 of Genoa, to board trading vessels bound to that 
 very port, and then to return within the mole, 
 which was bristling with cannon—with cannon 
 the doge and his timid senate durst not fire upon 
 the French. There was, from the first advance of 
 the republicans, a strong party in their favour in 
 the city of Genoa; but the greater part of these 
 strange irregular proceedings were indisputably 
 attributable to the weakness and helplessness of 
 that small state—the neutrality was broken in 
 every way, because the government could not help 
 it. When a country is in this condition (and this 
 was the condition in the course of a very few 
 months of Tuscany as well as Genoa), when it is 
 invaded and domineered over by one belligerent 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 party, itcan have no reason to demand or expect 
 that the other belligerent party should observe 
 
 neutrality towards it. England and her allies 
 respected the pretended neutrality too long, and 
 suffered much by so doing: they ought to have 
 despised the pretension long before, telling the 
 Genoese republic that, as it was not strong enough 
 to defend itself against those who trampled upon 
 it and laughed at every precept and principle of 
 the law of nations, they would not permit it to 
 be converted into a basis of operations against 
 them. After all their scrupulosity the allies were 
 driven into extreme measures, which might have 
 greatly benefited their cause if they had resorted 
 to them many months before, or as soon as it was 
 made evident to the world that the territories and 
 ports of the now small and contemptible republic 
 
 were wholly controlled by the French. It required 
 
 some most barefaced and outrageous acts to rouse 
 them from their superstitious veneration for a 
 visionary neutrality—some of them had been less 
 scrupulous elsewhere. An Austrian commissary 
 left the city of Genoa to go to Vado: it became 
 known to the French minister at Genoa and to the 
 captain of a French frigate in that port, that he 
 carried about 10,000/. sterling with him, and that 
 he was to sleep at Voltri. The boats of the frigate 
 were sent out with some adroit privateers, the 
 greater part of whom were probably Genoese sub- 
 jects ; a party landed, robbed the commissary, and 
 brought back the money to Genoa. The very day 
 after this buccaneering exploit men were publicly 
 enlisted in the city of Genoa for the French army : 
 700 men, with 7000 stand of arms, were embarked 
 in the French frigate and in other vessels, were to 
 land between Voltri and Savona, there join a de- 
 tachment from the French army, and invite all the 
 Genoese peasantry to a liberty and equality insur- 
 rection. The opportune arrival of Nelson off the 
 mole-head of Genoa prevented for the present the 
 execution of this nice plan: the French frigate got 
 within the inner mole, and placed herself behind 
 the tiers of merchant-vessels of all flags that were 
 there. The squadron of the English hero was far 
 too small to perform all the duties required of it: 
 if he remained to blockade the port of Genoa, 
 half a dozen other ports along the Riviera and the 
 Nissard coast required watching. He had bitterly 
 complained of Admiral Hotham; that admiral 
 had now quitted the command, but Sir Hyde 
 Parker, who had succeeded to it till the arrival of 
 Sir John Jervis from England, was not more dis- 
 posed than Hotham had been to reinforce Nelson, 
 
 who only demanded two more ships of the line, 
 
 with some frigates and sloops. And, in a very 
 
 short time, Sir Hyde, instead of reinforcing the 
 
 squadron, diminished it, leaving Nelson nothing 
 but his own ship, the ‘Agamemnon,’ and one fri- 
 gate and a brig. ‘This reduction was made at the 
 
 very moment that the French were rousing them- 
 
 selves from their comparative lethargy, and making 
 immense preparations for recovering the advanced 
 posts they had lost, for clearing the Alpine and 
 
 {Book X. — 
 
 qj 
 
Cuap. VIIL] 
 
 Apennine passes, and for carrying the war into the 
 plains of Piedmont. They were in fact paving the 
 way for the brilliant campaign of 1796. Nelson 
 had destroyed many vessels on the coast; and, a 
 few days before, being called to Genoa, he had 
 chased a large convoy into a fortified harbour, 
 round which 2000 French troops were stationed. 
 While he lay watching Genoa other convoys got 
 into the same port, which was strengthened by the 
 French troops, with their accustomed activity and 
 ingenuity—and there were now above 100 sail of 
 transports, store-ships, gun-boats, and ships of 
 war collected in that one inlet. Nelson offered to 
 go in and destroy the whole of this fleet, if the 
 admiral would only send him two ships of the 
 line. ‘The admiral again returned a flat refusal, 
 and the hero was left to deplore that he could have 
 prevented the attack almost immediately after- 
 wards made upon the Austrian and Piedmontese 
 army, if he had been permitted.* And what were 
 the reasons of this strange conduct on the part of 
 Nelson’s superiors? ‘The Toulon fleet, too happy 
 at having been allowed to anchor unmolested in 
 the Gulf of Frejus, had not taken the sea again, 
 and our fleet was superior too, even numerically. 
 But the truth was that, in good part through im- 
 prudence and ill management, amounting in some 
 respects almost to imbecility, the Corsicans, who 
 had received us as friends ‘and deliverers, had 
 been brought to regard us as their worst enemies, 
 and even to desire a reunion with the French re- 
 public. The islanders were almost in an open state 
 of hostility, were carrying on a secret but active 
 correspondence with Toulon and with the French 
 at Nice and Genoa; and Sir Gilbert Elliott, the 
 viceroy of a royalty which lasted some eighteen 
 months, required nearly the entire service or pre- 
 sence of the British fleet. General Devins, after 
 patiently bearing so many insults and injuries, de- 
 manded satisfaction of the Genoese government, a 
 government only in name, for the seizure of his 
 commissary; and then, without waiting a reply, 
 took possession of some empty French magazines 
 on the territory of the republic, and pushed_his 
 advanced posts, forward to the very gates of the 
 city of Genoa. If he had taken these steps at first 
 he would have found the magazines full: “ but, 
 timid as the measure was, and useless as it was to 
 the cause of the allies, it was in character with the 
 whole of this Austrian general’s conduct ; and it is 
 no small proof of the dexterity with which he 
 served the enemy, that, in such circumstances, he 
 could so act with Genoa as to contrive to put him- 
 self in the wrong.” + The mass of the Austrian 
 troops was now collected on the shores of the bay 
 at San Pier d’Arena, which lies so close to Genoa 
 that it may be considered as a suburb of that city. 
 Devins, who could not but see the storm about to 
 burst upon him, implored Nelson not to leave 
 Genoa, as, if he did, and if the Austrians should be 
 worsted, their retreat by the Bocchetta pass would 
 be cut off, seeing that the French frigates would 
 * Southey, + Id. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 89 
 
 be sure to land the appointed troops between Voltri 
 and Savona; and Nelson staid where he was, 
 lamenting that his diminutive force would only 
 allow him to act at one point at a moment when 
 ships were yequired at several points. While 
 Nelson was thus chained to one narrow spot—for, 
 if he moved a mile from the mouth of the harbour 
 of Genoa, the French frigates and transports with- 
 in, with hundreds of galleys and row-boats to tow 
 them out, must escape and land the troops only a 
 few miles off—Devins was laid up with the gout, 
 which became so bad, or so available an excuse, 
 that, just before the French attacked him, or, as 
 others say, while the battle was raging, he trans- 
 ferred the command to General Wallis, and got 
 himself carried through the Bocchetta pass to 
 Novi, a Piedmontese town at the foot of those 
 Apennines. At the end of November the French 
 army of Italy, commanded by Massena, a Nissard 
 by birth, whom the revolution had raised from the 
 condition of a corporal—a young man of rare 
 energy and ability, and who knew thoroughly the 
 country he was to fight in—put itself in motion, 
 having been allowed to collect all its materials and 
 to mature all its necessary preparations. Generals 
 Scherer and Serrurier, commanding separate co- 
 lumns, and pursuing different lines, co-operated 
 with Massena; and Generals Laharpe, Charlet, 
 Victor, and Cervoni, Colonel Suchet, and other 
 officers whose names were soon made famous, 
 served under him.* Massena’s great object was 
 to get between the Austrians and Piedmontese, to 
 cut them off from one another, and then beat them 
 in detail ; for, partly through their old stone-blind- 
 ness, and partly through the necessity of watching 
 several accessible passes, both armies were scat- 
 tered over a wide extent of mountainous country. 
 The attacks of the republicans, superior in num- 
 ber and in all essentials, but above all in the qua- 
 lities of their commanders, were nearly everywhere 
 successful. The fighting took place among rocks 
 and precipices, and in the midst of hail and rain, 
 sleet and snow. The centre and the right wing 
 were beaten from post to post, and at last put to a 
 general and ignominious flight. The left, stationed 
 at San Pier d’Arena, and composed entirely of Aus- 
 trians, behaved better ; but, while attacked in front 
 and on one of their flanks by the republican 
 troops, flushed with their successes, they were 
 assailed on the other flank by a swarm of French 
 gun-boats, which Nelson, though so close at hand, 
 could not come round to scatter and annihilate. 
 And, after a bold stand, these Austrians also broke 
 and fled towards the Bocchetta pass. ‘* From that 
 moment,” says Nelson, in his expressive style, 
 ‘not a soldier staid at his post—it was the devil 
 take the hindmost. Many thousands ran away 
 who had never seen the enemy; some of them 
 thirty miles from the advanced posts. Had I not, 
 though I own against my inclination, been kept at 
 * Cervoni was a Corsican (there were a good many Corsican 
 Officers with this army, and most of them very alert, daring 
 
 fellows) : like Massena, he had been a non-commissioned officer in 
 the service of the King of Sardinia. 
 
90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Genoa, from 8000 to 10,000 men would have been 
 taken prisoners, and among them General Devins 
 himself; but by my means, the pass of the 
 Bocchetta was kept open.” Enriched by the 
 capture of immense military stores, the French 
 took up winter-quarters in Vado and Savona, 
 ready to descend once again into the Italian plains 
 in the forthcoming spring. The Austrians and 
 Piedmontese, driven from the coast, were again 
 deprived of direct communication with the British 
 fleet; and Nelson, being no longer of any use 
 there, went away to refit—his Agamemnon being 
 nearly shot to pieces, * 
 
 The internal affairs of France during 1795 now 
 require brief notice, since they involved contests 
 with the English on the western coast. 
 
 After the signal defeat of the Vendéans at the 
 close of 1793, and the savage revenge taken by 
 Carrier at Nantes, the head-quarters of the 
 Vendéans were at the [le Noirmoutier, almost the 
 only place through which they could communicate 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 with England and with the emigrants scattered 
 in various places. Their leader Charette, early in 
 1794, set out on a land-expedition against the 
 republicans; but while he was gone, the repub- 
 lican general, Turreau, bribed the garrison at Ile 
 Noirmoutier to surrender, took possession of that 
 place, and fusiladed all the principal royalists, 
 Shortly after this, the young and generous La 
 Roche-Jaquelein, while marching at the head of 
 his own peasants and tenants to attack Nouaillé, 
 met with his death. Dissensions soon broke out 
 between Charette and Stofflet, and the contest 
 became little other than brigandage on both sides 
 during the greater part of the year. After the 
 fall of Robespierre, and the commencement of a 
 less terrible régime at Paris, pacific overtures were 
 made by the Convention to the Vendéans; and 
 consequent upon this change of affairs, Charette 
 signed a treaty of pacification at Nantes in 
 February, 1795. 
 
 This peace, however, proved short in duration. 
 
 \\\ ha # 
 PA A) 
 Nani )) 
 XSi gl) 
 
 PEACE OF LA VENDEE. 
 
 Each party suspected the other, and made secret 
 preparations for breaking the treaty. Charette 
 was encouraged by numerous emigrants and 
 adventurers in England, and by remittances of 
 money, to unfurl again the Bourbon flag, and 
 make another demonstration for royalty. It was 
 not now simply an heroic struggle of Vendéans to 
 defend their liberties; it became in great part a 
 scheme of selfish men to work for their own 
 advantage by the instrumentality of those sturdy 
 peasants. A plan was formed, embracing a rising 
 of the Vendéans under Charette; an arming of 
 the Chouans of Brittany under emigrant royalists ; 
 
 * Botta, Storia d’Italia,—Southey, Life of Nelson. 
 
 and the landing at Quiberon of an English force, 
 which Mr. Pitt had been over-persuaded to grant. 
 The fault of the English, in this as in many other 
 instances during the early years of the revolution, 
 was the sending of petty forces to the continent, 
 sufficient to irritate the French republicans, with- 
 out producing good results. The Count d’Artois, | 
 brother to the deceased Louis XVI., and after- | 
 wards Charles X., was the great personage on | 
 this occasion, although he gave the command to 
 
 Puissaye. A motley army of about 4000 emigrant — 
 and other Frenchmen was collected in England, 
 and was conveyed over in transports, guarded by 
 an English fleet of three ships of the line and six 
 
 frigates, under Sir John Borlase Warren; other 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 troops were brought from Hamburg and North 
 Germany; and English troops were to follow, 
 with the Count d’Artois, There were to be four 
 descents, by four armed bodies, on four points of 
 the French coast—a scattering of forces that led 
 to the failure of the whole enterprise. Warren 
 set sail from the Isle of Wight with Puissaye’s 
 small army, and cast anchor in the Bay of Quiberon 
 (coast of Brittany) on the 25th of June. Admiral 
 Villaret-Joyeuse had a large French fleet at hand, 
 but did not venture to attack Warren. After the 
 landing, the troops were joined by Breton royalist 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 91 
 cn a at er a Oe eI nO 
 
 insurgents, and formed with them an army of 10,000 
 men. Amid many quarrels for precedence between 
 the various leaders, Warren and Puissaye com- 
 menced operations on the 3rd of July by capturing 
 Fort Penthidvre, situated on Quiberon peninsula 
 in the bay. By this time General Hoche had 
 assembled a large republican army on the confines 
 of Brittany and Vendée; and so active were his 
 proceedings, that he drove the royalists before him, 
 until he had compelled 18,000 or 20,000 fugitives to 
 flee across the low sandy isthmus of La Falaise, that 
 connected Quiberon peninsula with the mainland, 
 
 They were thus hemmed into the peninsula, with 
 insufficient food, and their wretchedness was made 
 worse by quarrels and recriminations among the 
 leaders. On the 15th of July, another English fleet 
 brought a convoy of royalists from the Elbe, under 
 the young Count de Sombreuil, T'wo of the leaders, 
 Puissaye and Vauban, on the same day made two 
 attempts to dislodge Hoche from the heights that 
 commanded the isthmus; but both of these 
 attempts failed. Unfortunately for the royalists, 
 their strange motley army comprised many repub- 
 licans who had been taken prisoners in former 
 campaigns; and these republicans, sympathising 
 rather with than against Hoche, betrayed Fort 
 Penthiévre into his hands on the 20th. The 
 consequences were most disastrous: no one 
 knew friends from foes in the fort on a dark 
 night; men fired on their own officers; many 
 hundreds were killed; several thousands sur- 
 rendered prisoners of war to Hoche; and about 
 8500 royalists and Bretons took shelter on board 
 the English ships, yielding arms, ammunition, 
 Stores, everything. The captive officers were tried 
 and shot, while the men were incorporated with 
 Hoche’s army. Warren landed the Bretons near 
 L’Orient, where they recommenced a guerrilla 
 warfare against the republicans. In September 
 he was joined by another fleet with 4000 British 
 troops; but these troops, under General Doyle, 
 did nothing more than capture the small Ile d’Yeu, 
 remain there three months, and then re-embark 
 
 Fort PENTHIEVRE. 
 
 for England. The British and the Vendéans were 
 waiting for the Count d’Artois, who never came. 
 He came to the Ile d’Yeu, it is true, but did not 
 land on the continent; and so utterly discordant 
 were the plans of all the allies, that in the course 
 of a few weeks, Stofilet and Charette were taken 
 and shot, the Vendéan and Breton insurgents put 
 down, and the British ships and troops withdrawn. 
 It was afterwards calculated that this Vendéan 
 struggle had cost the lives of 100,000 Frenchmen, 
 and that not one-fifth part of the male population 
 of the department was left. Some of the towns 
 and villages were for a time wholly in the power 
 of ferocious dogs, which fed on the dead bodies of 
 republicans and royalists.* 
 
 In Paris, the year 1795 was not so sanguinary 
 as that which preceded it. The conquerors of 
 Robespierre did not chop off heads quite so ruth- 
 lessly as he had done. Nevertheless, the prisons 
 became crowded with Robespierrians or Terrorists ; 
 and in the south of France, the reaction was very 
 savage: royalists and Girondists joining to wreak 
 vengeance on those who had recently been in the 
 ascendant. The Reign of Terror having been 
 marked by fiendish atrocities in those provinces, 
 the thirst for revenge did not allow those atrocities 
 to cease until after the lapse of many months. 
 At Lyon, a body of young men, calling themselves 
 the Jeunesse Dorée, organised a regular system, 
 
 * Mémoires de Madame la Marquise de la Roche-Jaquelein.— 
 Barante, Mélanges Historiques.—Biographie Moderne. 
 
92 
 
 after the death of Robespierre, for hunting out and 
 exterminating Robespierrians and Jacobins of every 
 hue: if they could bring them to trial, they did so; 
 if not, they did not scruple to murder them in cold 
 blood. It was by members of the middle classes, 
 not sans culottes, that these things were done ; and 
 the awful state of French society at that time was 
 significantly shown by the impunity with which 
 the murders were committed. At Marseille, at 
 Toulon, at Aix, and at other towns in the south, 
 vengeance was wreaked in a similar brutal fashion 
 —vengeance so reckless, that multitudes were 
 butchered who had never taken any active part 
 in public affairs. 
 
 The political or governmental proceedings of 
 Paris did not calm down so speedily as the 
 destroyers of Robespierre had hoped. After Carrier 
 had been tried and executed for his atrocities at 
 Nantes, accusations were brought against Billaud 
 Varennes, Collot d’Herbois, and Barrére; and on 
 the 2nd of March, 1795, they were placed under 
 arrest. The chief charge against them was cruelty 
 in the exercise of the functions they had been 
 engaged in: charges perfectly true, but which they 
 contended ought to have been laid to the door of 
 Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon, rather than 
 to them, since they had only carried out the 
 orders of the triumvirate. The Thermidoriens— 
 those who had overthrown Robespierre in the pre- 
 vious Thermidor or July—did not reckon Collot, 
 Billaud, and Barrére among their number: those 
 three men, it is true, had assisted at the overthrow; 
 but they had been too closely associated with the 
 ferocities of the Jacobins to be forgiven. The 
 Thermidoriens, who now filled all the offices in 
 the executive, avoided the cruelty of their prede- 
 cessors; but they were more profligate and venal 
 in applying public money to their own uses, 
 Although Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon 
 had been monsters in blood-shedding, no one 
 doubted their honesty as stewards of the public 
 property; they had lived frugally, and died poor. 
 The sans culottes of Paris, rendered desperate by 
 the death of their favourite Robespierre, by the 
 scarcity of food, and by the withdrawal of the 
 allowance of forty sous a day, made a resolute 
 attempt to bring back the former order of things, 
 and to secure the acquittal of Billaud, Collot, and 
 Barrére. In this, however, they failed; for the 
 government committees had obtained control over 
 the troops and artillery; while Fréron—as noticed 
 in an earlier page—had organised a band of 
 Jeunesse Dorée, consisting of young men of the 
 middle classes, to contend against the violence of 
 the more ruffianly mob. On the 20th of March, 
 a struggle took place between these two bodies, 
 ending in a defeat of the sans culottes. On the 
 22nd, the trial of the three Jacobins commenced 
 before the Convention, the galleries being crowded 
 with spectators mostly favourable to them. The 
 trial continued many days, on the last of which 
 the spectators were so unruly, that the Convention 
 ordered Pichegru, who had recently come from his 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 victories in Holland, to enter with his troops and 
 expel them. This done, the Convention adjudged 
 a large number of the now-discomfited Mountain 
 party guilty of various offences against the well- 
 being of the state; condemning Billaud Varennes, 
 Collot d’Herbois, Barrére, and Vadier, to trans- 
 portation for life to French Guiana; and Crassous, 
 Ruamps, Bourgeois, Bourdon, Duhem, Amar, 
 Choudieu, Chasle, Lecointre, Cambon, and six 
 others, to imprisonment in the fortress of Ham. 
 The sans culottes made a bold attempt to rescue 
 these men, as they were being conveyed away 
 from Paris in carriages; but Pichegru, who had 
 been appointed commandant of the city for a time, 
 attacked them in*great force and routed them. 
 Collot died a miserable death at Guiana; but 
 Billaud and Barrére lived many years, and died the 
 one in the United States and the other in Paris. 
 After having thus got rid of the Robespierrians, 
 the Thermidoriens made many changes in the 
 constitution and laws, tending to exclude the sans 
 culottes from the powerful influence they had 
 hitherto exerted at Paris. This led to another 
 insurrection. The half-starved populace met on 
 the 20th of May, to organise another and complete 
 revolution; they overturned the Conventional 
 guard, and forced an entry into the hall, where 
 there were still many Montagnards ready to side 
 with them; and being armed with pikes and 
 bayonets their irruption was somewhat formidable, 
 Nearly all the Thermidoriens left the place in 
 dismay, and then the Mountain formed a house for 
 the despatch of business, The insurgents demanded 
 everything, and the Mountain decreed everything 
 demanded, even to the appointment of Bourbotte, 
 Duroi, Duquesnoy, Prieur de la Marne, and 
 Soubrany to various government offices. But 
 while legislating in this extemporaneous way, they 
 were interrupted by an immense force of persons 
 belonging to the respectable or middle classes ; 
 who, headed by Legendre, Barras, and Kervelegan, 
 and accompanied by many pieces of artillery, 
 penetrated into the hall, charged with bayonets, 
 and drove out the Montagnards and the insurgents, 
 The Thermidoriens, reinstated, speedily undid 
 all the legislation of the morning, and ordered 
 the arrest of most of the Montagnards who had 
 countenanced this insurrection. On the next day, 
 the 21st, the sans culottes returned to the charge, 
 armed with a few cannon which they had pro- 
 cured ; but the Thermidoriens were now stronger 
 than before, and the attack utterly failed. The 
 men of the faubourgs, those terrible ruffians who 
 
 had exercised so much power during five or six 
 years, now found that their strength was really. 
 
 gone ; for all the respectable classes were firmly 
 and resolutely against them. Those Montagnards 
 who had been involved in the recent outbreaks, 
 feeling that the galleys or the guillotine was 
 preparing for them, disappeared miserably: Ruhl 
 blew out his brains; Goujon, Romme, and 
 Duquesnoy stabbed themselves ; Bourbotte, Duroi, 
 and Soubrany were executed ; David, St. André, 
 
 [Boox X, 
 
Cuar. VIII.] CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 93 
 
 Vouland, and Lindet were thrown into prison ; 
 and Carnot, who had achieved such wonders as 
 minister of war during the Reign of Terror, narrowly 
 escaped, being let free solely on account of the 
 success of his military administration. In addition 
 to these, other Jacobins sought safety in flight, 
 insomuch that nearly one hundred were got rid 
 of in a few weeks. These sweeping removals 
 enabled the Thermidoriens to remodel entirely the 
 government of Paris—placing in every office, high 
 and low, men who had little sympathy with 
 Jacobins and sans culottes. 
 
 The poor little dauphin, through all the 
 frightful scenes of three years, had remained a 
 prisoner in the Temple, sceing first his father and 
 then his mother dragged from him to the scaffold. 
 His health had been giving way from the begin- 
 ning; he had been declining rapidly during the 
 past three months; and he died on the 8th of 
 June, in the twelfth year of his age. His body 
 was opened, to enable the surgeons to prepare a 
 proces verbal touching the cause of his death ; and 
 he was buried in a common grave on the 10th, 
 without prayer, ceremony, or respect. When his 
 death was known, Monsieur, eldest brother of 
 Louis XVI., took the title of king; the emigrant 
 princes, who had called the dauphin Louis XVII. 
 since his father’s death, now gave the designation 
 of Lonis XVIII. to the next representative of 
 royalty—he lived to be really crowned as such 
 nineteen years afterwards. 
 
 The Convention appointed a committee of eleven 
 to organise a new constitution; and the scheme 
 _ thus prepared, chiefly by the Abbé Sie¢yes—who 
 survived all the horrors of the revolution, and 
 who acted as constitution-maker to all parties in 
 turn—was accepted and decreed on the 22nd of 
 August. The new constitution differed wholly 
 from its predecessors. There were to be two 
 legislative chambers—one of seniors, called the 
 Conseil des Ancicens, to consist of 250 members, 
 none under forty years of age; and one of juniors, 
 called the Conseil des Cing Cents, to consist of 
 500 members, none under thirty years of age. 
 There was to be no third power, such as the 
 king in England or the president in America. 
 The Five Hundred were to initiate and discuss all 
 laws and decrees; the Ancients were either to 
 agree to them or to veto them; and no law could 
 become valid until both chambers had assented 
 to it. The executive power, instead of being 
 intrusted to committees, was to be vested in a 
 Directory of five persons, to be elected by the two 
 chambers; the directors were to form a kind of 
 cabinet, with ministers, generals, and negotiators 
 under them, for whose conduct they would be 
 responsible, The judges were to be elective. 
 Hlectors and the elected were to have a property 
 qualification, thus doing away at once with 
 universal suffrage. The constituents, in primary 
 
 assemblies, were to choose electoral assemblies, 
 and these electoral assemblies were to elect the 
 Every vestige 
 
 members of the two chambers, 
 
 of the much-vaunted “Rights of Man,” every 
 remnant of sans-culotte power, was swept away 
 by this new constitution, giving great offence to 
 large bodies of Parisians in the humbler ranks of 
 life. On the 6th of September, the primary 
 assemblies met throughout France, to decide on 
 the acceptance or rejection of the new constitu- 
 tion. So wearied had the people become with 
 scenes of bloodshed and confusion, that they 
 accepted readily a proposal which would give 
 more power to the thinking classes, less to the 
 ruffans who loved disorder rather than peace; 
 the constitution was voted with overwhelming 
 majorities in most of these assemblies, In Paris, 
 the satisfaction was less manifest; for the new 
 constitution had an appendix, to the effect that 
 two-thirds of the existing Convention should enter 
 the new chambers, leaving only 250 seats to be 
 contended for by new candidates: this disappointed 
 a motley collection of aspirants, varying from 
 royalists to Jacobins in political opinions, all of 
 whom hoped to become legislators under a state 
 of things less perilous than that which had just 
 passed, The opposition became so formidable, 
 that a committee was formed, defensive troops 
 engaged, and an election commenced in defiance 
 of the appendix above adverted to. Paris became 
 once again a scene of bloodshed. On the 4th of 
 October, musket was employed against musket, 
 bayonet against bayonet, in the streets of the 
 city. Some of the sections took up arms in 
 defence of their old Jacobinism; some of the 
 malcontents aimed rather at royalist or constitu- 
 tional objects ; but all joined for a time against 
 the Convention, which they accused of being a 
 set of greedy, ambitious, bloodthirsty usurpers. 
 The Convention had some reason to be alarmed, 
 especially when their general, Menou, shrank 
 before the armed insurgents. 
 
 At this critical moment, the balance was turned 
 by Napoleon Bonaparte, the young man who had 
 so great a future before him, Although he had 
 brilliantly distinguished himself at Toulon, at 
 Nice, and in the Maritime Alps, he had during 
 many months been in a sort of disgrace, owing to 
 his connection with the Robespierrians. His 
 mother, Madame Bonaparte; his brothers, Joseph, 
 Lucien, Louis, and Jerome; his sisters, Elize, 
 Pauline, and Caroline—all were poor at the 
 commencement of the revolution; and many of 
 them became Jacobins simply because Jacobinism 
 was the best passport to employment and bread. 
 After the young artilleryman had gained his first 
 promotion, his brother Joseph was made a com- 
 missary of war, while Lucien became a clerk of the 
 commissariat; and the three brothers supported 
 the rest of the family; but when the Thermi- 
 doriens gained an ascendency over the Robespier- 
 rians, the Bonapartes were deprived of their 
 employments, and the family became much 
 reduced, Napoleon had been in Paris during the 
 greater part of 1795, vainly soliciting employment 
 in some one of the many republican armies. On 
 
94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the 12th Vendémiaire, or 4th of October, when 
 the street-fights began, he happened to be sitting 
 in the gallery of the Convention, listening to the 
 debates. He heard the announcement that Menou 
 had timidly shunned a contest with the insurgents ; 
 and that Barras, who had rendered good service 
 in the struggle against Robespierre, had also 
 declined to take the command of the Conventional 
 troops on the present occasion. One of the 
 members was then heard to say: “ We have here 
 the very man we want for this business: it is that 
 little Corsican officer, who will not stand upon 
 ceremony!” Bonaparte was at once called before 
 the authorities, and speedily received the appoint- 
 ment of commandant for the day. Setting aside 
 all politics, he formed his plan of action as a 
 general. He sent Murat to bring up all the 
 artillery he could find at a camp established at 
 Sablons, a duty only just accomplished in time 
 to prevent the insurgents from seizing those 
 cannon. Bonaparte had not more than 7000 troops 
 at his disposal, but he relied mainly on his 
 numerous guns, loaded with grape-shot, and so 
 posted as to command all the avenues by which 
 the insurgents could advance towards the Tuileries. 
 The members of the Convention were also supplied 
 with 800 muskets, to aid in defending themselves, 
 The insurgents, variously estimated at from 20,000 
 to 30,000, but without cannon, commenced the 
 battle on the next day, October the 5th. The 
 young general decided to let them have their own 
 way at first, and not to attack them until they 
 approached the Tuileries. The insurgent leaders 
 were General Danican, General Duhoux, Count 
 Maulevrier, and Lafond de Soule, who had be- 
 longed to the Garde-du-Corps of Louis XVI.—men 
 so royalistic in their views, that harmony could 
 not long have been maintained between them and 
 the Jacobins of the sections, even if victory had 
 crowned their exertions on this day. It was about 
 four o’clock in the afternoon when the insurgents, 
 appearing on the quays and in the Rue St. Honoré, 
 were ordered by Bonaparte to disperse; they 
 answered this demand by a fire of musketry ; 
 whereupon he poured in upon them a fire of 
 grape-shot so destructive that they gave way, and 
 never again rallied to any good effect. The victory 
 was complete ; the insurgents were put down so 
 utterly as never to be able to rise again in a 
 similar way; and young Bonaparte gained an 
 increase of reputation as a military commander.* 
 The Convention hastened to complete the 
 changes rendered necessary by the new constitu- 
 tion. They formed themselves temporarily into 
 an Electoral National Assembly, to select among 
 themselves the members that were to constitute 
 ‘the two-thirds of the new conseils or parliamentary 
 bodies, and to name those who were to go out to 
 make room for the one-third elected by the 
 electoral colleges. This done, they grouped 
 themselves, according to their ages, in two bodies 
 
 * Hist. Parlementaire,—Vieusseux, Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.— 
 Mignet.—Carlyle, French Revolution. 
 
 | [[Boox X. 
 
 —one for the Conseil des Anciens, the other for 
 the Conseil des Cing Cents. Next, they elected — 
 the five directors, naming for those offices Barras, 
 Siéyes, Rewbell, Letourneur, and Réveillére- 
 Lepeaux. These directors were to preside, each — 
 in turn, for three months at a time; he who — 
 presided was to keep the great seals, and to sign — 
 for the whole Directory ; one director was to go — 
 out of office each year, and be replaced by 
 another newly elected; a military guard and a 
 civil list were placed at their disposal; and, finally, 
 the palace of the Luxembourg was appointed as — 
 their place of meeting. Si¢yes soon resigned, and 
 was replaced by Carnot, who at once began to 
 form vast schemes of military conquest in Germany 
 and Italy. The Directory published an amnesty 
 for political offences; changed the name of the 
 Place de la Revolution into the Place de la 
 Concorde; and issued diplomatic papers breathing 
 somewhat more of a spirit of peace than had 
 recently marked such documents. The Directory 
 next offered to liberate the dauphiness—the sole 
 sad survivor of the royal prisoners in the Temple— 
 on condition that the emperor of Austria would 
 liberate the commissioners of the Convention ~ 
 whom Dumouriez had given up to him—Lamargue, 
 Drouet, Quinette, Bancal, Beurnonville, and Camus. 
 This exchange being acceded to, the young 
 princess, with a face and heart already made old 
 by grief, was removed from the Temple on the 
 19th of December, after an incarceration of more 
 than three years; she went at once to Vienna, 
 where she arrived with no other property than 
 a small parcel of linen, a few miniatures, and © 
 sundry locks of hair and other relics to remind her ~ 
 of those whom violence and death had so cruelly 
 snatched away from her. She afterwards married — 
 her cousin, the Due d’Angouléme, son of the Count — 
 d’ Artois (Charles X.), ‘and lived far into the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 From this point, it will not be necessary that | 
 the present history should dwell at any great — 
 length on the internal affairs of revolutionised — 
 France. It is rather the wars beyond her frontier, 
 in which all Europe was interested, that will call — 
 for attention among the events of each year. 
 
 The autumn of 1795 was marked by much — 
 suffering in England, owing to the scarcity and 
 dearness of provisions. The summer had been so — 
 cold as to kill many thousands of newly shorn 
 sheep. The people were rendered discontented, — 
 too, by the paucity of brilliant achievements at sea, — 
 the positive discomfitures received in military — 
 matters, and the wavering conduct of the coalesced 
 princes on the continent. Many addresses and | 
 petitions were got up, condemning the measures of — 
 the government in strong terms; and the political 
 societies became again active. At the end of 
 June, a numerous meeting was held in St. 
 George's Fields, to petition for annual parlia-— 
 ments and universal suffrage: a riot was appre-— 
 hended, and the volunteers of the metropolis — 
 were drawn up on Kennington Common; but the 
 
 Pitsx 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 day passed over with nothing worse than some 
 very bad speeches. The harvest, however, had 
 been very abundant, bread was becoming compara- 
 tively cheap, and the worst cause of alarm was 
 gradually subsiding by the month of October. On 
 the 26th of October the London Corresponding 
 Society called a general meeting in the fields be- 
 tween Islington and Copenhagen House. The 
 multitude that assembled was vaguely computed at 
 50,000; but it was a fine day, and it appears that 
 the majority of those present were merely seeking 
 a little amusement. ‘Three rostra were erected, 
 and one John Binns was called to open the busi- 
 ness of the day, which he stated to be—an address 
 to the nation on its critical and calamitous state; a 
 remonstrance to his majesty on the neglect and 
 contempt shown to some previous addresses pre- 
 sented to ministers, and certain resolutions as to 
 the best mode of remedying the existing evils of 
 the country. ‘The multitude were informed that 
 every man among them who chose to make a 
 speech might do so, and was invited to do it, whe- 
 ther he were a member of the Corresponding So- 
 ciety or not. But not a single individual of all 
 those thousands accepted the invitation, so Thel- 
 wall, who had been so recently acquitted of high 
 treason at the Old Bailey, got upon one speaking- 
 place, Gale Jones got upon another, and one Hod- 
 son occupied the third, and these three Society-men 
 (no doubt, much to their own satisfaction) had all 
 the speech-making to themselves, with an occa- 
 sional word from Mr. President Binns. The ad- 
 dress, remonstrance, and resolutions were all 
 agreed to—though many of the men and women 
 and little boys and girls present could hardly hear 
 a word of them—and it was ordered that they 
 should all be printed and distributed at the ex- 
 pense of the Corresponding Society. It was a glo- 
 rious day for Copenhagen House, for the other 
 nearest taverns, and for the itinerants who sold hot 
 buns; and the meeting dispersed with the most 
 perfect tranquillity. Ministers had, however, taken 
 the alarm, and had convoked parliament for an 
 unusually early day. 
 
 On the 29th of October, as the king was going 
 ‘down to the House of Lords, to open the session 
 in person, he was surrounded by a numerous mob 
 who had previously hissed the Earl of Chatham, 
 the Duke of Portland, and his Royal Highness of 
 Gloucester, and who now hooted and groaned at his 
 majesty, and clamorously demanded peace and the 
 dismission of Mr. Pitt, and cheaper bread. As the 
 state-coach came opposite to the Ordnance Office, 
 then in St. Margaret Street, a pebble or a marble 
 thrown by a vigorous hand,or a ball discharged from 
 an air-gun, went through one of the glasses, and 
 passed between the king and Lord Westmoreland, 
 who was in the coach with him. ‘His majesty said, 
 “ That’s a shot!” and on entering the House of 
 Lords he said to the chancellor (Loughborough), 
 ** My lord, I have been shot at!?? A number of 
 persons were immediately arrested and carried for 
 
 - examination into the Duke of Portland’s office ; the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1795. 95 
 
 | glass of the carriage was examined, and the clean 
 
 round hole in it seemed to leave little doubt that it 
 had been made by a bullet. Waiting the result of 
 these examinations, no business was done by the 
 Lords till near six o’clock, when Lord Westmore- 
 land, having previously moved that strangers 
 should withdraw, related in a formal manner the 
 insult and outrage with which the king had been 
 treated, adding that his majesty and those who had 
 accompanied him were of opinion that the glass had 
 been broken by a ball from an air-gun, which had 
 been discharged from a bow-window of a house 
 adjoining the Ordnance Office, with a view to as- 
 sassinate the king. On going back from the House 
 to St. James’s Palace, a stone was thrown which 
 struck the wood-work between the windows of the 
 state coach ; there was a good deal of hooting and 
 shouting, ‘ Bread! Bread! and no Pitt! some 
 of the mob, either by design, or because they were 
 driven forward by the living heaving masses be- 
 hind them (the crowd having swelled prodigiously), 
 got so near to the coach that the king, somewhat 
 agitated, made a motion to the horse-guards who 
 rode on either side of him, to keep them off; and, 
 as his majesty was about to alight at St. James’s, 
 one of the carriage horses taking fright threw 
 down an old groom and broke one of his thighs. 
 After the king had entered the palace some fellows 
 in the mob threw stones at the carriage and did it 
 much injury. Staying but a short time at St. 
 James’s, the king put himself in a private coach 
 and drove to Buckingham House, the usual resi- 
 dence of the queen and the princesses. He was 
 again surrounded in the park, but, while part of 
 the crowd cried ‘‘ Bread, Bread! Peace, Peace!’? 
 another part cheered and applauded him, and a 
 detachment of horse-guards presently dispersed them 
 all. No bullet—though we believe one was used— 
 was ever found, and neither air-gun nor plot was 
 ever discovered, although the most determined 
 search was made for both. All that was clear was 
 that there were some ill-mannered ruffians in 
 London (no surprising fact in a population of near 
 a million), and that some one villain or madman 
 had fired at the king. The great mass of the people 
 of London, as of the whole nation, were filled with 
 disgust and horror, and were really animated by a 
 loyalty which suspicion ought not to have reached. 
 The king himself seemed to show that he did not 
 suspect them, for he went the very next night with 
 the queen and three of his daughters to Covent 
 Garden theatre, where he was received with enthu- 
 siastic bursts of applause, and where the audience 
 made the actors sing ‘God save the King’ three 
 times over. Some few critics in a corner of the 
 gallery, venturing a few hisses at the third call for 
 the national anthem, were presently ejected with 
 torn coats and sore bones. The nation in no way 
 merited the strong coercive bills which ministers 
 immediately prepared for it— bills which were 
 almost enough to provoke and create the evils they 
 were intended to prevent. 
 
 In the meanwhile the speech from the throne 
 
96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 had made the most of the check which the French 
 had received from the Austrianson the Rhine. It 
 also said that the ruin of their commerce, the di- 
 minution of their maritime power, and the unpa- 
 ralleled financial embarrassments of the French 
 seemed to have induced them to have some wish 
 for peace; and it gave the assurance that any dis- 
 position on their part to negotiate for a general 
 peace on just and suitable terms would not fail to 
 be met on the part of his majesty with an earnest 
 desire to give it the fullest and speediest effect. 
 The directorial government, which had certainly 
 put down anarchy, had scarcely yet been tried in 
 its foreign relations; and the speech held out a 
 hope (a most unfounded hope) that the rage of 
 foreign conquest was abating in France. Suill, 
 however, energy was recommended, in order to 
 meet the possible continuance of the war, and im- 
 prove our maritime superiority. 
 
 The first consequence of the late riot was a pro- 
 clamation offering 1000/. for the discovery of any 
 person guilty of the outrages against his majesty’s 
 person. This was followed by another proclama- 
 tion enjoining all magistrates and well-affected 
 subjects to exert themselves in suppressing all un- 
 lawful meetings and the dissemination of seditious 
 writings. These were but preludes to more strin- 
 gent measures. On the 6th of November, Lord 
 Grenville introduced in the House of Lords a bill 
 ‘for the safety and preservation of his majesty’s 
 person and government against treasonable and 
 seditious practices and attempts.”” And on the 
 same day a bill was brought into the Commons by 
 Pitt, “for the prevention of seditious meetings.” 
 These bills, which went to restrict the right of the 
 people to assemble for petitioning the crown and 
 the legislature, and for discussing political sub- 
 jects, were warmly opposed in all their stages and 
 in both Houses, as violent and unnecessary en- 
 croachments on popular liberty and the privileges 
 granted or acknowledged by our constitution, but 
 they were both carried by majorities even larger 
 than usual: for many men, without any rational 
 link, had chosen to connect the meeting in the Co- 
 penhagen fields with the outrages offered to the 
 king; and others were of opinion that the un- 
 checked harangues of the Thelwalls and Hodsons, 
 the Binnses and the Gale Joneses, might lead the 
 people into excesses. In this frame of mind the 
 majority would probably have voted the bills in 
 perpetuity ; but it was thought proper to limit 
 their duration to three years. With the Habeas 
 Corpus Act suspended, with these new enactments, 
 and with a fast increasing shoal of spies and in- 
 formers, it can scarcely be denied that the freedom, 
 tranquillity, and domestic enjoyment of English- 
 men were placed in great jeopardy; and a refer- 
 ence to the accumulating prosecutions and trials of 
 the day will show an uneasy and unhappy state of 
 society, the result of the political intemperance and 
 madness of a few, and the fears and suspicions of 
 the many—for the majority of the nation more than 
 shared in the panic of those who governed them. 
 
 ; 
 [Boox X. 
 
 On the 8th of December a message from the 
 King was delivered to both Houses, stating that 
 the present order of things in France would induce 
 his majesty to meet any disposition for negotiation 
 on the part of the enemy with an earnest desire to 
 conclude a treaty for a general peace; and that his 
 majesty hoped that the spirit and determination 
 manifested by his parliament, added to the recent 
 and important successes of the Austrian armies, 
 and to the continued and growing embarrassments 
 of the enemy, might speedily conduce to the attain- 
 ment of this great object. In the debates on the 
 address to be returned to this message the opposi- 
 tion insisted that it was absurd to pretend that any 
 of the recent changes in the French government 
 rendered that nation either more or less fit to be 
 treated with now than it had been last session, or 
 the session before, or at any other period when that 
 side of the House had recommended entering into 
 pacific negotiations. The address was, however, 
 carried in both Houses, by the usual high majori- 
 ties, and thus a most delusive hope was held out to 
 the people that the war was really about to be ter- 
 minated. 
 
 a.p. 1796. After the Christmas recess Mr. Grey, — 
 in the Commons, made a motion to bind the coun- 
 try to a peace, complaining that, contrary to gene- 
 ral expectation, the ministry, in lieu of opening ne- 
 gotiations, were making preparations for continuing 
 the war. Pitt said that there was a sincere desire 
 of peace if it could be obtained on honourable 
 terms, but that the country could not break her 
 faith with the allies that remained true to her, or 
 consent to any arrangement which should leave the 
 French in possession of Belgium, Holland, Sayoy, 
 Nice, &c.; and he added, rather haughtily, that it 
 was for ministers to determine when and how ne-~ 
 gotiations should be opened. Mr. Grey’s motion 
 was negatived by 190 against 50. 
 
 On the 10th of March the same honourable — 
 member moved that the House should resolve 
 itself into a committee to inquire into the state of 
 the nation. In his speech he dwelt upon the — 
 enormous expenses and the hopeless prospects of 
 the war. Within the last three years 7'7,000,000/. — 
 had been added to the national debt; to pay the 
 interest of which taxes had been imposed amount- 
 ing to 2,600,000/. per annum. ‘The American 
 war, from first to last, had not cost us so much as 
 this—the debt contracted on that account did not 
 exceed 63,000,000/. He represented our com- 
 merce as declining, and the country as reduced to 
 a state in which it could bear no new taxes. Pitt 
 and his adherents insisted that the commerce of 
 the country had increased and was rapidly in- 
 creasing ; and with bold faces they attempted to 
 justify an expenditure which was in good part 
 unjustifiable, for large sums had been thrown away 
 in absurd projects, and still larger sums had been 
 allowed to be robbed by jobbers, contractors, com- 
 missaries, and the other harpies that were fatten- 
 ing on a misconducted war, or reaping a golden 
 harvest at every blunder committed in the conduct 
 
Cuar. VIII.J 
 
 of it. The opposition, however, committed a po- 
 litical error in constantly repeating that England 
 was ruined and never could compete with France ; 
 and Pitt bitterly accused them of taking pains to 
 encourage the French to assume the arrogance of 
 dictating the terms of peace. Mr. Grey’s motion 
 Was negatived by 207 against 45. A few wecks 
 
 later, on the 6th of May, he moved a long series of 
 
 resolutions charging ministers with numerous acts 
 of misappropriation of the public money, in flagrant 
 violation of various acts of parliament, and of pre- 
 senting false accounts calculated to mislead the 
 judgment of the House; but the order of the day 
 was also carried against this motion by a majority 
 of 209 to 38. On the 10th of the same month a 
 motion was made in the House of Commons, by 
 Fox, and another in the Peers, by Lord Guildford, 
 for an address to the crown upon the manner in 
 which the war with France had been misconducted, 
 and against its continuance. Mr. Wickham, our 
 envoy to the Swiss Cantons, had already had some 
 communication with Barthelemy, the French ne- 
 gotiator in chief: ministers urged that these com- 
 munications were quite sufficient to induce the 
 republic to treat, if it really had any pacific inten- 
 tion; the opposition said that Mr. Wickham had 
 not done enough to conctliate the French: the 
 ministerial majority was, in the Lords 110 against 
 10, in the Commons 216 against 42. In the 
 course of the session two budgets were produced, 
 and two new loans contracted, amounting together 
 to 25,500,000/. The supplies granted for the year 
 were, for the navy, 7,522,552/.; for the army, 
 11,911,899/.; for the ordnance,1,954,665/.; for mis- 
 cellaneous and extraordinary services, 13,821,4301. 
 An absurd tax upon printed linens and calicoes was 
 removed ; a paltry tax upon dogs, and a still more 
 paltry one upon hats (estimated to produce to- 
 gether 140,000/.), and a tax of 20/. a tun upon 
 wine, which was calculated to produce 600,000/., 
 were laid on. On the 19th of May the session 
 was closed by a speech from the throne, which 
 expressed the happy effects experienced from the 
 provisions adopted for suppressing sedition and 
 restraining the progress of principles subversive of 
 all established government.. 
 
 In the course of the summer, Burke, to persuade 
 or to shame a part of the country out of its fears, 
 and to prove that there was more danger in treat- 
 ing with the French than in fighting with them, 
 published the two first of his celebrated ‘ Letters on 
 a Regicide Peace.’ These two Letters, the last of 
 his writings he lived to give to the world, and the 
 two others that were published after his death, are 
 to be classed among the most spiendid efforts of his 
 great mind. The war had been conducted on a very 
 different system from the one he had proposed ; but 
 the monstrous errors which had been committed did 
 not make him despair of the final result, provided 
 only a check could be given to that despondence 
 which had seized upon many minds, and which 
 the opposition were inculcating and promoting. 
 *To a people,” said he, “who have been once 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1796. 
 
 97 
 
 proud and great, and great because they were 
 proud, a change in the national spirit is the most 
 terrible of all revolutions!’ The Letters, which 
 were soon to be looked upon as a dying legacy to 
 his country, had a decided effect in re-animating 
 those whose spirit had been drooping. Neverthe- 
 less Pitt considered himself obliged to continue the 
 overtures which had been made to Barthelemy at 
 Basle. Mr. Wickham asked whether the Direc- 
 tory were desirous to negotiate with Great Britain 
 and her allies on moderate and honourable con- 
 ditions, and would agree to a meeting of a congress 
 for this purpose. Barthelemy replied that the Di- 
 rectors sincerely desired peace, but must positively 
 insist on keeping Belgium, or all the Austrian do- 
 minions in the Low Countries, as they had been 
 formally annexed to the French Republic by a 
 constitutional decree which could not be revoked. 
 It was after these overtures that the Directory, 
 who had already adopted the principle that Eng- 
 land was to be ruined only through her commerce, 
 issued and enforced a severe decree, preventing 
 the admission of English goods, not merely into 
 any part of France and Belgium, but into any of 
 the French dependencies, among which were now 
 to be reckoned Holland and the German States on 
 the Rhine. In the very country where the pacific 
 overtures were made, the French were dictating 
 the law, and domineering in the most insolent 
 manner. In the preceding year a democratic re- 
 volution, under their auspices, had been effected 
 in Geneva, where the sans-culottes established a 
 revolutionary tribunal, which capitally condemned 
 several of the principal citizens, and banished or 
 imprisoned many more; and it was already made 
 evident—as much by the mad fury of the native 
 democrats as by the tone and the increasing power 
 of the French—that all the cantons of Switzerland 
 would be converted into helpless dependencies of 
 France. Never had the Gallic propagandism been’ 
 more insidious and active, and, perhaps, at no pre- 
 vious period had it been so successful ; for, although 
 the Thermidoriens and the Directors had blotted 
 out the vaunted Rights of Man, and every day 
 and hour proved the fallacy of the popular dream 
 of liberty and equality and the unlimited sove- 
 reignty of the people, both their public and their 
 secret agents in foreign countries were still repeat- 
 ing the old naked Jacobin principles, in order to 
 excite the people to insurrection against their go- 
 vernments, and to co-operation with the /¢berating 
 armies of France. Moreover, at the very same 
 time, the Directors were fostering and entertaining 
 at Paris a number of Irish revolutionists, and were 
 contemplating a grand expedition to Ireland, to 
 co-operate with our rebellious subjects, and to 
 convert that country into another small depend- 
 ency. Nay, to such length had matters gone, that 
 in the preceding month of June the Directory had 
 concluded a treaty with Wolfe Tone, Arthur O’Con- 
 nor, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the leaders of 
 the Irish revolutionists, who had smuggled them- 
 selves over to Paris for that purpose; aad, though 
 G 
 
 a ye ee sper pepe le PSE! 
 
98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 all unknown to his lordship, a copy of that secret 
 treaty was lying not many yards from the spot 
 where they, in October, pretended to enter upon a 
 pacific conference with the noble English envoy. 
 This they were doing while pretending a desire to 
 treat; and yet they indignantly complained of an 
 English mission sent to the court of Berlin, which 
 mission, they said, could only be intended to bring 
 Prussia back to the coalition. Afterwards they 
 affirmed that it was on account of the failure of 
 this mission that Pitt was induced to renew his 
 overtures to France. In the autumn, not, we be- 
 lieve, with the slightest hope of bringing the ne- 
 gotiation to any admissible end, our government 
 actually applied for passports for an ambassador 
 and suite to goto Paris. ‘‘ Thus,” says Thiers, 
 who can still chuckle over the matter, “the En- 
 glish aristocracy were reduced to sue for peace to 
 the regicide republic!.....This striking proceed- 
 ing on the part of our most implacable enemy had 
 something glorious in it for our republic!” As 
 Thiers feels now, even so felt—but only much 
 more intensely—the republicans then. The step 
 raised their presumption and confidence by many 
 degrees: it was a gigantic faux-pas in politics, 
 from which the trumpet-tongue of Burke ought to 
 have warned every statesman, every Englishman : 
 its effects were likely to be as mischievous as all 
 the blunders united which had been committed in 
 the conduct of the war; but the opposition had 
 driven for this, and Pitt had thought it necessary 
 to prove to the nation that a peace with France 
 was not attainable. Lord Malmesbury and his nu- 
 merous retinue arrived at Paris on the 22nd of 
 October. The five kings of the Luxembourg—the 
 Directors were fast assuming a very regal state— 
 appointed their minister of foreign affairs to confer 
 with his lordship, who proposed mutual restitution 
 of conquests as the fundamental principle of a 
 treaty. The successes of England in the Kast and 
 West Indies, at the Cape of Good Hope, &c., 
 placed her out of the condition of requiring resti- 
 tutions for herself; but, as France had made large 
 acquisitions from the allies of England, the present 
 negotiation must turn upon the compensations 
 France would expect for the restitutions she was 
 expected to make. England, on her part, would 
 make restitutions, but not without some com- 
 pensations. Delacroix, who had not the shadow 
 of a power intrusted to him, withdrew to con- 
 sult the Directors. ‘These honourable men inti- 
 mated that England had better treat by and for 
 herself, and leave her allies to shift for themselves ; 
 considerately adding, however, that, if he could ob- 
 tain credentials from those allies, they would take 
 into consideration any specific proposals his lord- 
 ship might have to make. With a contempt for 
 all the rules of diplomacy they published in the 
 Moniteur the notes and observations of Lord 
 
 Malmesbury, and the answers of Delacroix. After 
 several discussions his lordship, on the 14th of 
 November, stated that it was usual for the am- 
 bassador of one allied power to demand to treat in 
 
 the name of its allies, without being named pleni- — 
 potentiary by each and all of them; that, for the 
 rest, England was sure of obtaining the consent 
 of her allies to all that was reasonable; and that 
 he must request the Directory to explain them- 
 selves clearly as to the principle of restitution and 
 compensation, as without restitution of territory on 
 the part of France there could be no treaty. The 
 directors replied, that they admitted the principle 
 of compensations, but that his lordship must im- 
 stantly state what compensations he had to offer. 
 On the very next day the directors hurried off to 
 Vienna General Clarke,* to endeavour to lead the 
 emperor into a separate negotiation, or, failing in 
 that, to render the English cabinet doubtful and 
 jealous of their steadiest ally. Clarke failed com- 
 pletely in his mission; he was even refused ad- 
 mission into the Austrian capital. When the 
 mock negotiations had lasted six or seven weeks, 
 Lord Malmesbury intimated that Belgium must be 
 restored to the emperor, that Holland must be eva- 
 cuated, and the Prince of Orange reinstated in the 
 stadtholderate, and that Russia and Portugal must 
 be included as parties to the new treaty, as well as 
 all our other allies; that, in return, England — 
 would give up the Dutch and French colonies she 
 had seized in the East and West Indies, only re- 
 quiring some compensation, or an equivalent, for 
 the half of San Domingo, which Spain had ceded 
 to France. The directors required him to define 
 what this compensation or equivalent was to be, 
 and to state categorically all his demands within — 
 four-and-twenty hours, telling him that they could 
 never listen to terms inconsistent with the consti- 
 tution, and the engagements formed by the repub- 
 lic; meaning thereby that, as by the constitution — 
 the republic was one and indivisible, and as a de- 
 cree, called a constitutional act, had annexed Bel- 
 gium, Luxembourg, &c. to the republic, they 
 must never be ceded. As the unfortunate King of — 
 Sardinia had been compelled to sue for a separate — 
 peace in the spring, no restitution was demanded 
 of the states of Savoy and Nice, although England — 
 could hardly have intended at that moment to sub- 
 mit to the French occupying those two countries, 
 
 or to recognise the spaliation of an ally who had 
 
 kept his faith to the utmost limits of his power. — 
 To the last haughty message Lord Malmesbury re- 
 plied, that their requisition precluded all further 
 negotiation ; and on the next day, the 19th of De- 
 cember, his lordship was told that his further pre- 
 sence in Paris was totally unnecessary, and that he | 
 and his suite must take their departure within 
 forty-eight hours. Rejoicing in the opportunity of 
 insulting a lord, the low-bred directors added, that 
 a common courier could do the business as well as 
 he, if the English government were disposed to 
 
 * This Clarke was descended from an Irish family settled in 
 France. In his youth he had been a page to the Duke of Orleans 
 (Philippe Egalite), and was a captain of dragoons when the revolution 
 broke out. At this moment he was a general officer, and employed 
 in the war-office under Carnot, who was his warm protector, Under 
 the empire he became Duke de Feltre, and obtained the reputation 
 of being one of the greatest plunderers in Bonaparte’s army. 
 
F< - 
 
 ~ 
 
 Guar. VIII] 
 
 accept the conditions of the republic.* Between the 
 ‘overtures made to Barthelemy at Basle and the 
 journey of Lord Malmesbury, Bonaparte had ob- 
 tained most of his brilliant successes in the north 
 of Italy; Spain had been driven to declare war 
 against Great Britain (on the 8th of October) ; 
 Genoa had just shut her ports against our ship- 
 ping; and the King of Naples had concluded a 
 peace with France. With their hopes elated, with 
 the plunder of Italy flowing fast into their coffers, 
 with a confident and happy belief in the assertions 
 of our parliamentary opposition, that Great Britain 
 was exhausted and undone, the directors thought. 
 
 that they had everything to gain and nothing to 
 
 lose by continuing the war. At the same time 
 they had much to fear from any discontinuance of 
 it; for in case of a peace what could they do with 
 the countless armed legions they had on foot? 
 These hosts were now supporting themselves on 
 the countries they overran, and even paying the 
 Directory for their licence to plunder ; but, should 
 they be recalled to France, there was slight provi- 
 sion for them there, and any sudden influx of 
 them must inevitably lead to fresh revolutions, and 
 the destruction of the present system, with its 
 Cing Cents, its Ancients, and its Directory. 
 
 Persevering in their old system, the English 
 government sent out some large reinforcements to 
 the Wést Indies. We had already more sugar 
 colonies than we needed, and most of the French 
 and Dutch colonies were wretchedly unhealthy— 
 charnel-houses to the British troops that were sent 
 to them—but the managers of the war are entitled 
 to the benefit of the doubt, whether without actual 
 possession of the French islands, at least, we 
 could have put down the terrible system of Victor 
 Hugues, or kept Barbadoes, Jamaica, and our other 
 really valuable islands in anything like a tranquil 
 and thriving state. In the month of March, Ge- 
 neral Nichols recovered from the French insur- 
 gents the island of Grenada ; and in May, General 
 Abercrombie, who was fitted for a wider and more 
 glorious field, regained entire possession. of St. 
 Lucie. General Whyte captured the Dutch settle- 
 ments of Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo; and 
 these, with the addition of some skirmishes with 
 French republicans and negro republicans in San 
 Domingo, where a small English army was perish- 
 ing rapidly of the diseases of the climate, were all 
 our operations for the year in this part of the 
 world. 
 
 The Dutch or Batavian republicans madea bold 
 effort to recover possession of the Cape of Good 
 Hope. They fitted out in the Texel two ships of 
 64, and two of 54 guns, six or seven frigates and 
 sloops, and embarked in them some of their best 
 land troops. The Texel was blockaded by a Bri- 
 tish squadron; but, taking advantage of a tem- 
 porary absence, the Dutch squadron escaped to sea 
 on the 23rd of February. A French squadron 
 had engaged to join them, but failed in so doing. 
 
 * Just two days before this message, General Hoche stole out of 
 Brest harbour with 25,000 men for Ireland, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1796. 
 
 99 
 
 Where the Dutch had passed the spring and sum- 
 mer months no one could tell; but on the 3rd of 
 August they appeared, with nine sail, off Saldanha 
 Bay. Rear-Admiral Sir George K. Elphinstone 
 immediately set sail from the Cape, with seven sail 
 of the line, one 50-gun ship and three frigates, and 
 to this superior force the Dutch admiral, surprised 
 in Saldanha Bay, and unable to escape out of it, 
 surrendered without firing a shot on the 17th of 
 August.* Towards the close of the year some fri- 
 gates belonging to the Cape of Good Hope squa- 
 dron destroyed a French settlement on the island 
 of Madagascar, and brought away five merchant 
 vessels that were lying there. 
 
 There were numerous encounters between single 
 ships and small squadrons, attended with the usual 
 amount of success to the English; but there was 
 no great battle fought at sea in any part of the 
 world ; the Brest fleet keeping in port till the end 
 of the year, and the Toulon fleet doing the same. 
 In October the Spanish admiral Don Juan Lan- 
 gara sailed from Cadiz as the ally of the French, 
 and, chasing the squadron of Admiral Mann before 
 him, entered the Mediterranean with nineteen sail 
 of the line and ten frigates. At Carthagena the 
 Spaniard added seven more sail of the line to his 
 fleet. He thence proceeded to Corsica, and there 
 covered the landing of a French invading force 
 which had been shipped off from Leghorn. The 
 English Mediterranean fleet had been madly di- 
 vided and scattered on various detached services, 
 or Don Juan would never have ventured thus far.+ 
 As it was, as soon as he had seen the French 
 troops safely landed, he made haste into Toulon 
 harbour, and there joined Admiral Villeneuve. 
 The united French and Spanish fleets, thirty-seven 
 sail of the line at the least, made no very heroic 
 use of their immense superiority: they only kept 
 a few cruizers out at sea, and when Sir John Jervis, 
 who had succeeded Admiral Hotham in the com- 
 mand of our fleet, was quitting the Mediterranean 
 with troops and stores, and suffering a variety of 
 misfortunes, no attack was attempted, and, after 
 little more than a parade of his formidable num- 
 bers, Don Juan de Langara returned to Cartha- 
 gena. Commodore Nelson hung off the Riviere of 
 Genoa, arduously attempting to assist the Austrians 
 and Piedmontese—who were not to be assisted— 
 until the battle of Montenotte. Months after that 
 affair he discovered between Toulon and Genoa 
 six vessels laden with cannon and stores for the 
 siege of Mantua: he drove them under a battery, 
 followed them, silenced the battery, and captured 
 the whole. ' The loss of this artillery is said to 
 have been one of the main causes which compelled 
 the French to raise their first siege at Mantua.} 
 
 * The Dutch ships that were taken were two 64’s, one 54, five fri- 
 gates and sloops, and one store-ship. 
 . + The English ships were not merely divided by a multiplicity of 
 services rendered necessary by thé rapid progress of the French army 
 in Italy, but also by the wavering councils, the rapid and contradic- 
 tory orders, and counter-orders they received. elson exclaimed, 
 “Do his majesty’s ministers know their own minds!” The 
 question might certainly have been answered with a negative. 
 
 + In the captured convoy were found military books, plans, and 
 
 EEE EE ST ee en One Tey Aen Se SEnene WmmnnTnIODRNUINUC NNO ETN Oe 
 
100 
 
 When the French seized Leghorn, Nelson, after 
 blockading that port, seized Elba, which belonged 
 to Tuscany, and the small island of Capraja, which 
 belonged to the Genoese republic. By this time 
 Sir Gilbert Elliotthad made the island of Corsica 
 too hot for him and the small English force there : 
 he had entirely alienated the affections of the is- 
 landers, and had quarrelled with nearly all the Eng- 
 lish officers about him ; he had so disgusted General 
 Sir Charles Stuart, that that brave and high-minded 
 man had sent in his resignation and returned to 
 England. After driving the venerable Paoli (with- 
 out whom the English would never have been there, 
 nor Sir Gilbert have been made a viceroy) into an 
 obscure retirement in the interior of the country, 
 he had driven him in his extreme old age into an- 
 otber exile, by sending hin an intimation that he 
 must immediately leave the island; he had taken 
 mortal offence at Colonel Moore *—the best officer 
 left on the island—because he had shown a ge- 
 nerous sympathy for the old Corsican patriot, 
 and had paid him a visit of respect in his na- 
 tive village in the mountains; he had accused 
 Moore, who was the very soul of honour, of in- 
 triguing against him, of leaguing himself with his 
 opponents, of taking a decided part against his 
 measures, of having too great an influence among 
 the Corsicans ; and, without any previous complaint 
 or intimation made to the party accused, he had 
 written home to the secretary of state, and had pro- 
 cured an order to dismiss Colonel Moore from the 
 island. As Moore had predicted, the constant dis- 
 respectful and harsh treatment, and then the ex- 
 pulsion, of Paoli was followed by immediate con- 
 fusion and anarchy: the peasantry, always inclined 
 to be lawless and unruly, set the laws at defiance, 
 laughed at the courts and the mockery of a parlia- 
 ment which Sir Gilbert had set up: as they never 
 quitted their arms, it would be an improper ex- 
 pression to say that they rose in arms; but in se- 
 
 maps of Italy, with the different points marked upon them, where 
 former battles had been fought, sent by the Directory for Bonaparte's 
 use.—Southey, Life of Nelson. 
 
 * Afterwards General Sir John Moore.—According to Moore, Sir 
 Gilbert, like a man bred to the Jaw, and then trained and exercised 
 in the House of Commons, was much addicted to playing the orator, 
 and making long speeches when he ought to have been doing, or at 
 least permitting others to act for him: he was exceedingly jealous 
 of his authority, and, though he knew nothing of war, he insisted 
 that, in his quality of deputy king, he must have the entire command 
 of the forces; and he was prone to flattery to that degree that he 
 was at last surrounded only by flatterers. Moore, or his brother and 
 biographer for him, says that the viceroy, most unfortunately, could 
 never perceive the necessity of conciliating the Corsicans, or of acting 
 in unison with their feclings. Those islanders are an exceedingly 
 proud race; yet, the streets leading to the citadel of Bastia being dirty, 
 the viceroy commanded that a party of a Corsican battalion which 
 had entered our service should be employed to cleanse the streets. 
 He was warned that this would give mortal offence, but he peremp- 
 torily insisted on obedience. When the men were assembled, and told 
 what they were to do, they angrily threw down the shovels and 
 dispersed, saying that they were enlisted for soldiers and not for 
 scavengers. ‘This was passed over at the time, but afterwards the 
 battalion became very troublesome. Soon after this the viceroy made 
 a visit to Ajaccio (Bonaparte’s birth-place), where the officers of a 
 Corsican corps resolved to give him a ball. The hall of the munici- 
 pality was chosen for the purpose, in which had been placed a bust 
 of Paoli. Some of the officers were consulting in the hall about the 
 decorations, when an aide-de-camp of the viceroy, pointing to the 
 bust, asked, ‘‘ What business has that old charlatan here?” The 
 aide-de-camp then pulled down the bust, and threw it into a closet, 
 where it was broken to pieces. This insult to their revered chief 
 was soon reported all over Corsica; yet no punishment was inflicted 
 upon the officer, who remained attached to the person of Sir Gilbert, 
 —Life of Sir John Moore, by his brother, James Carrick Moore, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ee ee 
 
 veral districts they met in considerable force, and 
 
 concerted measures for driving out the English, 
 who had so unceremoniously driven out Paoli. 
 The French party instantly raised their heads; 
 they were numerous in the principal towns of the 
 island ; and now a sort of patriotic feeling or na- 
 tional sympathy mingled with their partizanship 
 for a foreign power, for it was a young Corsican 
 general that was leading the armies of the republic 
 to unprecedented victories in Italy, many native 
 Corsicans were serving with Bonaparte, not a few 
 had obtained posts of eminence in the civil service 
 of France, and Saliceti, who had been a conspi- 
 cuous member of the National Convention, and 
 one of the most potent of its commissioners, was 
 also a Corsican. ‘They opened or renewed commu- 
 nications with the republicans, who by the summer 
 of the present year were absolute masters of all the 
 opposite Italian coasts from Nice to Genoa, and 
 from Genoa to Leghorn. ‘The Corsicans might 
 soon have been able to drive out our forces by 
 themselves; but it was evident that some great 
 effort would be made from the opposite contineit 
 to assist them ; and, as soon as our ministry saw 
 
 Spain declaring war, and preparing her fleets to 
 
 join the French, they transmitted orders for the 
 evacuation of the island and the retreat of our fleet 
 out of the Mediterranean, in order that our forces 
 
 might be at hand to assist our ally Portugal, © 
 
 against whom, with one of their ordinary miscal- 
 culations, ministers fancied the combined fleets of 
 France and Spain were going to act. Some of the 
 troops and stores had already been sent off to the 
 island of Elba, which lies between Corsica and the 
 
 . 
 
 Tuscan coast; but, when the Corsicans found that — 
 
 the English intended to evacuate their island en- 
 
 tirely, such of them as remained attached to our — 
 interests, or such as had too deeply committed — 
 
 themselves to have any hope left of a reconciliation 
 
 with the French and their own very vindictive © 
 countrymen of that party, were filled with grief and 
 despair, and constrained to make up their minds — 
 
 to flight and a lasting exile. 
 
 The partizans of 
 
 France met with hardly any resistance: a com- 
 
 mittee of thirty took upon them the government of 
 
 Bastia, and boldly ordered the seizure of all the — 
 
 British property : armed Corsicans mounted guard 
 in nearly every place, other bands were gathering 
 
 round the town, a plan was laid for seizing the 
 
 viceroy, and, but for the promptitude and energy _ 
 of Nelson, Sir Gilbert Elliott would have passed 
 
 from his vice-regal government to a French prison, 
 
 But, threatening to bombard the town about their 
 ears, the commodore imposed respect on the com- 
 
 mittee of thirty, and sent their guards scampering | 
 
 out of the town; and, quietly commencing the em- 
 barkation on the 14th of October, he saw that work 
 
 completed on the 19th, just as the great Spanish | | 
 
 fleet was coming in sight of Cape Corso. All pri- 
 vate property was saved, and our public stores, to 
 
 the value of 200,000/., were gotten safely on board. | 
 
 On the very next day, the French troops, who had 
 been pushed over from Leghorn, and who had 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 landed at Cape Corso under cover of the Spanish | 
 
 ships, marched into the citadel of Bastia only one 
 hour after the rear of the British had spiked the 
 guns and evacuated it. Nelson was the last man 
 that left the shore ; haying thus, as he said, seen 
 the first and the last of Corsica. He was then 
 sent with only two frigates, the ‘ Blanche’ and the 
 * Minerve,’ to superintend the evacuation of Porto 
 Ferrajo in the isle of Elba. On his way he fell in 
 with two Spanish frigates, the ‘Sabina’ and the 
 ‘Ceres.’ After a desperate engagement, which 
 lasted two hours and fifty minutes, the ‘ Sabina’ 
 struck. Her captain, Don Jacobo Stuart, an ille- 
 gitimate descendant from the royal line of Stuart, 
 the only surviving officer on board the ‘ Sabina,’ 
 was removed to the ‘ Minerve,’ where Nelson 
 treated his brave foe with all possible respect ; 
 and two English lieutenants and forty men were 
 put into the prize, which was taken in tow by the 
 * Minerve.’ The other Spanish frigate, the ‘ Ceres,’ 
 had made her escape from the ‘ Blanche,’ and the 
 * Blanche,’ in pursuing her, had got to a great dis- 
 tance from her consort the ‘ Minerve.’ At this 
 juncture another Spanish frigate, the ‘ Matilda,’ 
 came up and engaged the ‘ Minerve,’ who was 
 compelled to cast off the prize she had made, and 
 in reducing which she had sustained great damage 
 in her own masts, rigging, and sails, and had had 
 one midshipman and six seamen killed, and one 
 lieutenant, the boatswain, and thirty-two petty offi- 
 cers and men wounded. Yet, after half an hour 
 of close action, the ‘Matilda’ was compelled to 
 wear and haul off. Nelson was following with a 
 certainty of capturing her, when an immense Spa- 
 nish ship of the line, of 112 guns, and two fresh 
 frigates, came in sight. It was now Nelson’s turn 
 to haul off; and, crippled as the ‘ Minerve’ was, 
 she must have been taken if the Spaniards had not 
 “been more anxious to recover her now loose prize, 
 the ‘ Sabina,’ than to fight her. The consort Eng- 
 lish frigate ‘ Blanche,’ who before this time had 
 come up with the flying ‘ Ceres,’ and with eight or 
 nine broadsides had made her call for quarter and 
 strike her colours, was equally deprived of her 
 prize, and ran the same risk of being captured ; 
 but both the English frigates got safely in to Porto 
 Ferrajo; and the small prize party on board the 
 * Sabina,’ being readily joined by part or by the 
 whole of the surviving Spanish crew, manceuvred 
 her with great skill in the hope of bringing her 
 iuto Elba, and did not surrender the frigate 
 until her fore and main masts went over the side. 
 General De Burgh, who commanded our troops in 
 the isle of Elba, hesitated about abandoning the 
 place, as he had received no specific instructions 
 from England. He complained—-and most of our 
 
 commanding officers in all parts of the world might | 
 
 have re-echoed the complaint—that he was utterly 
 unable to decide between the contradictory orders 
 of government, or to guess at what their present 
 intentions might be. Had the Spaniards stood in 
 to Porto Ferrajo with even a small portion of their 
 immense fleet, De Burgh’s hesitation might have 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1796. 
 
 101 
 
 cost him dear, and might very possibly have cost 
 the country the life of its greatest hero, for strike 
 or surrender were words which Nelson had ex- 
 punged from his vocabulary. But the Spaniards 
 had not put their heart imto this war; and both 
 Don Juan de Langara and the admiral of the 
 Toulon fleet were evidently haunted with the dread 
 that Sir John Jervis might suddenly unite his 
 scattered fleet, which they fancied to be much 
 stronger than it was, and bring them to a general 
 action; and at last, General De Burgh’s scruples 
 being removed, Nelson was enabled, without any 
 molestation, to embark the troops and stores, to re- 
 pair his crippled frigates, and to remove the naval 
 establishment which we had formed at Kiba. Then, 
 late in the year, he sailed down the Mediterranean 
 with a numerous convoy for Gibraltar ; and was 
 fortunate enough to rejoin Admiral Sir John Jervis 
 in time to take part in the great battle off Cape 
 St. Vincent.* 
 
 The only important advantage (and that a very 
 inglorious one) obtained by the French marine 
 during the year was this :—Rear-Admiral Richery, 
 who had escaped from Toulon with six sail of the 
 line in 1795, and who, together with some English 
 prizes he had picked up, had remained closely 
 blockaded at Cadiz until the great Spanish fleet 
 put to sea from that port, stretched across the 
 Atlantic to Newfoundland, plundered and set fire 
 to our fishermen’s huts, destroyed their vessels and 
 fishing-stages, and then returned for Europe, with- 
 out seeking for Vice-Admiral Sir James Wallace, 
 who was on the Newfoundland station with only 
 one fifty-gun ship and three or four very light fri- 
 gates. On his homeward voyage Richery picked 
 up a great many English merchant vessels, and 
 was so fortunate as to get through our Channel 
 fleet and blockading squadrons in a haze, and to 
 make Rochefort and Brest with his sweep of prizes. 
 In the latter port he joined his flag to those 
 already flying, and moved with that great Brest 
 fleet on the 17th of December. This fleet num- 
 bered forty-three sail, of which seventeen were of the 
 line, four were frigates, six corvettes and brigs, and 
 the remaining six large transports. On board were 
 25,000 men, choice infantry and cavalry, who had 
 been tried in the war of the Vendée ; a great quan- 
 tity of field artillery, ammunition, and stores of 
 every description; a good many spare muskets 
 and bayonets to put into the hands, and some red 
 liberty nightcaps to put upon the heads, of the 
 Irish patriots, or insurgents, or rebels. The fleet 
 was commanded by Vice-Admiral Morard de 
 Galles, Rear-Admirals Richery, Nielly, and Bou- 
 vet; the commander-in-chief of the army was 
 Hoche, a young serjeant in the Gardes Frangaises 
 when the revolution began, a man full of courage, 
 energy, ability, and ambition; who, though very 
 unfortunate against the Prussians, had acquired 
 
 * Southey, Life of Nelson.—James, Naval History. : 
 + Villaret-Joyeuse had been displaced for representing to the 
 Directory that, in the indifferent way in which the ileet was 
 
 manned (almost entirely by landsmen), it could never encounter 
 the severe weather to be expected at this season of the year. 
 
102 
 
 great fame in the civil wars of Britany and the 
 Vendée, where he had had the handling of a re- 
 publican army of 100,000 men, stretching all along 
 that western coast from la Rochelle to Brest. 
 Hoche was accompanied by many distinguished 
 officers, including Generals Grouchy, Humbert, and 
 Adjutant-General Bruix. According to their usual 
 custom—to which we have already made allusion— 
 the French commanding officers, naval as well as 
 military, admirals as well as generals, did not em- 
 bark in ships of the line, but in several frigates. 
 At about dusk the fleet got under weigh, and, in a 
 very dark night, it rounded the Saintes, and stood 
 away to the southward. Sir Edward Pellew, in 
 the ‘ Indefatigable’ frigate, who had been watching 
 all their motions in the very jaws of the port, and 
 who by skilful and daring manceuyres watched 
 them on their progress to the Saintes, being fre- 
 quently within half gun-shot of their leading ships, 
 now went away in search of Admiral Colpoys, who, 
 with a large squadron of our Channel fleet, had 
 fixed a rendezvous eight leagues to the west of 
 Ushant. The ‘ Indefatigable,’ carrying a crowd of 
 sail in a gale of wind, and burning false fires and 
 blue lights all the way as signals, reached the spot 
 of rendezyous at about midnight, but no Colpoys 
 was there, nor was there a single English ship to 
 be seen, or to answer to Pellew’s signals. In the 
 course of the night the whole of the French fleet 
 came to anchor in Camaret Bay—and there, if our 
 Channel fleet had been united and at hand, it ought 
 to have been annihilated. On the following after- 
 noon the French again weighed and put to sea in 
 a gale of wind, and in evident haste and confusion. 
 In getting out, one of their ships of the line struck 
 on the rock called the Grand Stevenet, and was 
 totally lost, only 60 being saved out of the 1400 
 souls she had on board. Instead of keeping well 
 together, the fleet separated, some running through 
 the Passage du Raz to the southward, and others 
 running through the Passage du Four. The gale 
 increased, and, the wind chopping round to the 
 south-west, these divided forces could not join 
 again. ‘The commanders-in-chief never got near 
 Ireland; but, on the 24th of December, having 
 now the wind at N.N.E., Rear-Admiral Bouvet 
 
 rounded Mizen Head, at the southern extremity of © 
 
 Ireland, and entered Bantry Bay with seven ships 
 of the line and ten other vessels. His own ship 
 and two or three others got to a safe anchorage ; 
 but the rest dropped where there was no holding, 
 and a strong gale from the east came presently to 
 tell them the mistakes they had committed: most 
 of these ships had to cut their cables, all were 
 driven out to sea, and in the confusion an eighty- 
 gun ship ran foul of a frigate and carried away her 
 masts. Bouvet remained at anchor until the 30th, 
 refusing to comply with the requisition of some of 
 Hoche’s officers (who thought anything preferable 
 to the horrors of sea-sickness and the chance of 
 being drowned) to land that portion of the troops 
 he had brought to the appointed place; and, 
 seeing no chief commander arrive, and divided 
 
 Ce ee OE LTT BE a SC ETT Ta 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 between doubts whether Vice-Admiral Morard de 
 Galles and General Hoche had gone to the bottom 
 of the sea in the tempest, or had gone back to 
 Brest Harbour, or had been intercepted by a Bri- 
 tish fleet, he gave a few curses to Ireland, and to 
 those who had sent him thither, and, heaving an- 
 chor, sailed away for Brest, where he arrived 
 safely on the Ist of January (1797). In the © 
 meanwhile Rear-Admirals Nielly and Richery had 
 reached the Ivish coast; and there they remained 
 beating about, and hoping to be jomed by the com- 
 mander-in-chief, until another terrible gale scat- 
 tered them. Three or four were driven into Ban- 
 try Bay, as far up as Whiddy Island, and eight or 
 nine showed themselves off the mouth of the Shan- 
 non ; a frigate went on shore, and was lost, with 
 all her crew except seven; a cut-down seventy-four 
 foundered, but her crew was saved by another ship ; 
 and a frigate or large corvette, being found unsea- 
 worthy, was scuttled and sunk; some of the trans- 
 ports went down at sea, with all on board, and 
 others, scattered all about, were afterwards picked 
 up by English cruisers, as was also a frigate of 
 Richery’s squadron. One seventy-four, the ‘ Droits 
 de ’ Homme,’ remained at sea, to be intercepted and 
 destroyed when close to port; but the other ships, — 
 in scattered portions, reached Brest, ?Orient, and — 
 Rochefort. Among the last ships that arrived was 
 the ‘ Fraternité’ frigate, with Morard de Galles 
 and Hoche on board, who had not seen anything 
 of their fleet since their first leaving the French 
 coast. Of forty-three sail, thirty-one returned,* 
 The immense preparations which had been 
 making at Brest during the whole summer could 
 be no secret, but, although our government had 
 an almost unlimited command of secret service | 
 money, they threw away that money so badly that — 
 they never penetrated into the secret of the des- 
 tination of that threatening force: at times they — 
 thought it was intended to invade the western — 
 coast of England; and so strong was this impres- 
 sion, that even at the last moment, or when the 
 expedition was quite ready to sail, the Duke of — 
 Portland sent a circular to the lord-lieutenants of 
 counties on the coast to take an account of live 
 and dead stock in all parishes within twelve miles 
 of the sea, and to communicate with the military 
 commanders of their districts respecting the mea- 
 sures to be adopted for the removal of that stock — 
 and all articles of provision, if necessary ; at other — 
 times they thought the mighty armament was des- | 
 
 tined for the West Indies, or for Ireland,}+ or for | 
 
 Portugal, or for Gibraltar; and thus, to be pre- 
 
 * Tn all 7 were captured, 2 destroyed, 2 wrecked, and 1 foundered. 
 
 + Aweek or a fortnight before the Brest fleet sailed otir ministers 
 ought to have been fully aware of its destination. Early in Decem- 
 ber, an American vessel, laden with 20,000 stand of arms and cannon, 
 was taken by an English man-of-war, on the shrewd suspicion of being 
 bound for Ireland—which she unquestionably was. ‘She wasa 
 good emblem of American peace—her name was the Olive Branch 
 —with a covered cargo of arms.’’—Letter from Laurence to Burke, in 
 ** Epistolary Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke and Dr. 
 French Lawrence.”’ 
 
 Our American kinsmen had made very strenuous efforts to revolu- 
 tionize Ireland on their own account, during their war of in 
 ence; and now a very numerous party of them, partly through spite, 
 but more through the love of lucre, were willing to assist the French. 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 pared for whatever might happen, they had divided 
 the Channel fleet into three squadrons: one, under 
 Rear-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, to cruise well 
 to the westward ; another, under Colpoys, to cruise 
 off Brest; and the third, under Admiral Lord 
 Bridport, to remain at Spithead, to be despatched 
 wherever the surer intelligence received by govern- 
 ment might render expedient. Colpoys had 13 
 sail of the line—a force more than sufficient to 
 have destroyed the badly manned, crammed, and 
 confused French fleet—but he was left with only 
 two frigates, for some time with only one; and it 
 should appear that this want of scouts contributed, 
 if not as much as the tempestuous weather, at least 
 very considerably, to the comparative impunity with 
 which the French were allowed to traverse, in al- 
 most every direction, the English and Irish Chan- 
 nels. When Colpoys got the necessary informa- 
 tion, he endeavoured to regain his station off Ushant, 
 in the hope of picking up stragglers separated by 
 the tremendous gales that were blowing; but in 
 the continuance of these gales most of his own 
 ships parted company, and all sustained damage. 
 Sir Roger Curtis’s squadron had its attention oc- 
 cupied by Villeneuve, who, with five sail of the line 
 from the long idle Toulon fleet, had descended the 
 Mediterranean and stolen through the Straits of 
 Gibraltar to the western coasts of France, in order 
 to co-operate with the grand Irish armament. 
 Curtis discovered him as he was crossing his path, 
 gave him chase, and drove him into Port 1’Orient ; 
 but he could neither take nor touch one of his five 
 ships; and such a force, requiring watching, kept 
 Curtis for some time in-shore and away from the 
 chance of falling in with any portion of Morard de 
 Galles’s scattered fleet. Owing to the tardiness of 
 his information, to the baffling state of the winds, 
 and to accidents which occurred in putting to sea 
 in stormy weather, it was the 3rd of January be- 
 fore Lord Bridport could get fairly out with the 
 Spithead squadron, composed of 10 sail of the line. 
 By the time he reached the Irish coast, the bulk of 
 the French fleet had quitted it; and, though his 
 lordship made all possible haste to Ushant, he was 
 too late to do any good; and he was soon obliged 
 to return to Spithead, with his ships greatly da- 
 maged by the severe weather. The only fighting 
 that took place was between the stray ‘ Droits de 
 Homme,’ a 74-gun ship, and two English frigates 
 —the ‘ Indefatigable,’ of 44 guns, Captain Sir Ed- 
 ward Pellew, and the ‘ Amazon,’ of 36 guns, Cap- 
 tain Robert Carthew Reynolds ; but never was com- 
 bat more desperate than this, or attended with more 
 horrible circumstances. The French two-decker 
 was without a poop, and through a fault of con- 
 struction, and the terrible sea that was rolling, she 
 could make but little use of her first-deck guns, 
 being obliged to keep most of her lower ports 
 closed. In the dusk of the evening, on the 13th 
 of January (1797), Pellew, whose ship was the 
 better sailer of the two English frigates, brought 
 the French 74 to close action, and sustained it, 
 alone, for a full hour. Then the ‘ Indefatigable’ 
 
 i en 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1796. 
 
 103 
 
 unavoidably shot a little ahead. Captain Reynolds, 
 in the slower and smaller frigate, the ‘ Amazon,’ 
 came up, and poured in a well-directed fire ; but, 
 being under a press of sail, the ‘Amazon’ too 
 glided ahead. The ‘Droits de Homme’ then 
 nearly ran the ‘ Indefatigable’ on board, and kept 
 up a tremendous fire, frequently using her guns on 
 both sides at the same time, and pouring in from 
 her lofty decks and (having on board 1050 land 
 troops) from her tops incessant volleys of mus- 
 ketry. But, in brief space, the ‘ Indefatigable’? got 
 clear, and placed herself on one quarter, the ‘ Ama- 
 zon’ got upon the other quarter, and both main- 
 tained a fire—often within pistol-shot—for five 
 hours, the storm raging all the while, the night 
 being dark, and everybody ignorant of the precise 
 part of the coast on which they had run in pur- 
 suing the enemy, but all of them knowing that 
 alee shore and perilous rocks could not be far 
 distant. At the end of the five hours the ‘ Indefa- 
 tigable’ and the ‘Amazon’ sheered off, to secure 
 their wounded masts and loose rigging. The sea 
 was running so high that the men on the main 
 decks of the frigates were up to their middles in 
 water ; the ‘Indefatigable’ had four feet water in 
 her hold, the ‘ Amazon’ three, and scarcely a stick 
 was left standing in either of them.* In hauling 
 off they left the ‘ Droits de l’Homme’ in still worse 
 plight ; and when they renewed the action her fore- 
 mast was shot away by the board, and the main 
 and mizen masts were tottering; her rigging and 
 sails were all cut to pieces, and her crowded decks 
 were strewed with the killed and wounded. At 
 about half-past four in the morning, the two fri- 
 gates being close under the 74, starboard and lar- 
 board, the moon opened through the clouds with 
 some brightness, and Lieutenant G. Bell, who was 
 keeping an eager look-out from the ‘ Indefatiga- 
 ble’s’ forecastle, caught a glimpse of the land, and 
 had scarcely reported to Sir Edward Pellew, ere 
 the breakers a-head were visible to all. With ad- 
 mirable coolness and self-possession, Pellew’s crew 
 hauled on board the tacks, and the ship in an in- 
 stant made sail to the southward. ‘They still 
 knew not where they were, but calculated that the 
 land they saw was the Isle of Ushant, in which case 
 there would have been no danger. But they had 
 not run long to the southward, ere breakers were 
 seen upon their other bow. The ship was then 
 wore to the northward, and the lingering approach 
 of daylight expected with intense anxiety. When 
 it came, the land was close ahead, but the ship was 
 again wore to the southward. They now disco- 
 vered that they were, and had been nearly all the 
 
 *# So terrible was the motion of the two frigates, that some of the 
 ‘ Indefatigable’s’ guns broke their breechings four times ; some drew 
 their ring-bolts from her sides; and many of the guns, owing to the 
 water beating into them, were obliged to be drawn immediately after 
 loading. All the ‘ Indefatigable’s’ masts were wounded; her main 
 topmast was completely unrigged, and was saved only by the asto- 
 nishing coolness and alacrity of the men. ‘The ‘ Amazon’ had her 
 mizen topmast, gaff, spanker boom, and main topsail-yard completely 
 shot away, her fore and main masts cut through by shots, and all her 
 sails and rigging more or less injured; and she had expended, during. 
 the action, every inch of her spare canvas, The crews of bone 
 frigates, whose exertions, between the chase and the battle, ha 
 lasted nearly ten hours, were almost worn out with fatigue.—James, 
 
104 
 
 night, in Audierne Bay, half a degree to the south 
 of Ushant. As they looked in-shore they saw their 
 late enemy, the ‘ Droits de l’ Homme,’ lying broad- 
 side uppermost, with a tremendous surf breaking 
 ever her, and their consort, the gallant little ‘ Ama- 
 zon,’ at the distance of about two miles from the 
 Frenchman, in the same predicament. Pellew 
 passed at the distance of about a mile from the 
 French ship, but could do nothing te afford the 
 crew any assistance, as he must weather the much- 
 dreaded Penmarcks, or drive on shore himself, and 
 in the crippled state of the ‘ Indefatigable’ it 
 seemed next to impossible to keep her from the 
 breakers. Pellew, therefore, by the aid of a gale—a 
 gale now loaded with shriecks—and by force of skill 
 and steadiness, passed a short half-mile to windward 
 of the dreadful rocks, and was safe. The ‘ Amazon,’ 
 which wore to the northward at the first alarm of 
 breakers ahead, and which was far too crippled to 
 work off the land, had struck the ground at nearly 
 the same moment as the ‘ Droits de |’ Homme,’ but, 
 going higher up the beach, and the men preserving 
 better order (not being so crowded, and crammed, 
 and mixed), and making use of better means to 
 save themselves, the officers and crew, with the 
 exception of six men who selfishly stole the cutter, 
 all got safely on shore by nine o’clock in the morn- 
 ing.* The awful shrieks which Pellew had heard 
 proceeded from the ‘Droits de Homme,’ which 
 had grounded much farther from the beach, and 
 which became at once a scene of hopeless confu- 
 sion, for, between the ship’s complement and the 
 land troops, there were upwards of 1800 souls on 
 board when the night battle commenced ; and, of 
 the multitude that remained alive, many were dis- 
 abled by their wounds, or driven frantic by their 
 pain and their despair. Many threw themselves 
 into the surf, many were presently washed away by 
 the waves which broke over the ship incessantly. 
 The country-people lined the shore, but could ren- 
 der no help. At low-water rafts were constructed, 
 and the boats were got in readiness; but it was 
 found impossible to hoist them out, and the day 
 closed and another night of horror ensued. At low- 
 water on the following day, an English captain and 
 eight English sailors, prisoners on board the 
 * Droits de Homme,’ ventured into a small boat, 
 and succeeded in reaching the shore. A number 
 of the Frenchmen, thinking they might do what 
 those daring fellows had done, now launched out 
 on rafts and in boats, but not one of them reached 
 the beach alive. Another night of cold, hunger, 
 and maddening thirst followed. On the third day 
 larger rafts were constructed, and the largest of the 
 ship’s boats was got over the side. This boat was 
 intended for the women and for the wounded ; but, 
 heedless of the voice of their officers, soldiers and 
 sailors leaped into it, to the number of 120, and 
 the billows soon rolled over and swamped the boat. 
 Nearly 900 souls had perished, when the fourth 
 
 * They were, of conrse, all made prisoners; but the people of 
 Brittany, among whom they had fallen, treated them kindly. Their 
 escape from the wreck was effected by means of a raft, which went 
 and came with great order and regularity. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 
 
 night came with such an addition of horrors as 
 made men envy the fate of those whose lifeless 
 corpses were driving on the shore. The sense of 
 hunger was, in most cases, deadened, but a parch- 
 ing thirst made them madly drink salt water. The 
 ship began breaking to pieces, falling away from 
 the stern-posts. On the next morning some of the 
 
 [ Boox x 
 
 famishing survivors began to look at each other 
 
 with cannibal eyes, and were on the point of cast- 
 ing lots, when the sky cleared, and the winds and 
 waves subsided, and a French man-of-war brig 
 and a cutter stood in to the bay. These two ves- 
 sels soon anchored near the wreck, and sent off 
 boats and large rafts, on which about 150, of nearly 
 400 who attempted it, were saved that evening. 
 About 380 were left upon the wreck, to endure the 
 miseries of another night, which proved to be their 
 Jast to more than half of them. Of the 1800 and 
 odd souls, not many more than 300 were saved.* 
 Carnot, as one of the five directors, now entirely 
 monopolised the war department. Under his 
 auspices, but not at his original suggestion—for 
 the idea, obvious in itself, had occurred to Du- 
 mouriez, Moreau, Pichegru, Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 
 and a hundred officers besides—it was resolved, — 
 early in the year, to attack Germauy and Italy at 
 
 the same time, in order to divide the emperor’s 
 
 forces ; and, in case of the complete success of — 
 
 both the attacking armies, that of Italy was to 
 move through the passes of Tyrol or of Carinthia, 
 effect a junction with the army of Germany in 
 
 Bavaria, or farther on in the hereditary states of © 
 
 Austria, and then the two were to advance upon 
 Vienna, and impose their terms of peace there. 
 Pichegru, who had fallen out of favour with the 
 Directory, was superseded by Moreau, and this able 
 general and Jourdan, who had been foiled and 
 beaten by Clairfait the preceding year, undertook 
 the German part of this great plan. Jourdan, 
 who had 63,000 foot and 11,000 horse, driving 
 back some Austrian corps from the ground they 
 had conquered on the left bank of the Rhine at 
 
 the end of the last campaign, invested the renowned ~ 
 
 fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the right bank of 
 that river immediately opposite to Coblentz. The 
 Emperor’s brother, the Archduke Charles, who 
 had taken the command of Clairfait’s army, which 
 
 ee aed 
 
 so 
 
 now amounted to about 70,000 foot and 20,000 — 
 horse, advanced rapidly with a part of it to the 
 Rhine, defeated one of Jourdan’s divisions under — 
 
 General Lefebvre, and forced Jourdan to relin-— 
 
 But, — 
 
 quish his siege, and take up other positions. 
 while the archduke was thus occupied by Jourdan, 
 
 Moreau, who had about 72,000 foot and between — 
 6000 and 7000 horse, dashing across the Rhine 
 
 * James, Naval Hist.—E. Osler, Life of Admiral Viscount Ex- 
 mouth.—Ann. Reg. : 
 The particulars of the terrible wreck are derived from the narrative 
 
 (published in the Naval Chronicle, vol. viii.) of a British officer, — 
 Lieutenant Elias Pipon, of the 63rd regiment, who was a prisoner on~ 
 
 board the ‘ Droits de ‘Homme.’ The lives of the captain of the ship, 
 Jean-Raimond Lacrosse (a ci-devant baron), and the republican 
 general Humbert, were saved. The English prisoners, in considera- 
 tion of their sufferings, and the help they had given in saving many 
 lives, were sent home in a cartel, without ransom or exchange, 
 The ‘Amazon’ frigate went to pieces, like the ‘ Droits de l’Homme.’ 
 
rH eS in outer Se 
 
 Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 at Strasbourg, some hundred and fifty miles 
 higher up the river than Coblentz, captured on 
 the 24th of June the fortress of Kehl, and after a 
 series of victories advanced tqwards the heart of 
 
 | Swabia, his progress being facilitated by the rapid 
 
 drafts made upon the army of his opponent, old 
 General Wurmser, to reinforce the emperor’s 
 armies in Italy. When the campaign opened 
 Wurmser had not 60,000 foot to oppose to Moreau’s 
 72,000, but his cavalry was superior in number, 
 as in nearly every other quality—he having at one 
 moment upwards of 20,000 horse. At one draft 
 25,000 men were withdrawn from Wurmser’s 
 army, and‘sent through the Tyrol into Italy ; and in 
 a short time the veteran general himself was obliged 
 to hurry to the defence of Lombardy. On the 
 26th of June the archduke, with the mass of his 
 forces, marched up the Rhine in order to check 
 Moreau. Jourdan, thus disembarrassed, re-crossed 
 the Rhine, and, finding nothing to oppose him 
 except a small army of Imperialists under Warten- 
 sleben, he pushed forward, and, after a series of 
 skirmishes rather than battles, took Frankfort, 
 Wurtzburg, and other towns. Moreau kept ad- 
 vancing on nearly a parallel line, his army and 
 Jourdan’s, en echclonnant, presenting a front 
 which extended more than sixty leagues. It was 
 by the imperative order of Carnot that the two 
 armies thus spread themselves in order to turn 
 both wings of the Imperialists. The Archduke 
 Charles perceived the error, and, narrowing his 
 own front, and gradually bringing nearer to a con- 
 verging point the separate forces of Wartensleben 
 and Wurmser, he slowly retreated, frequently dis- 
 puting the ground, but determined not to hazard 
 a battle until his retiring forces were all brought so 
 near to each other, that he might fall with a 
 superior force either upon Jourdan or upon 
 Moreau. As the French advanced triumphantly, 
 and with the appearance of so little opposition, 
 some of the contingent corps, who, on the whole, 
 behaved indifferently, quitted the Imperial army 
 and disbanded, and several of the states of the em- 
 
 pire sued to the Directory for a separate peace, 
 
 which they obtained upon condition of paying 
 enormous contributions. Still extending his front, 
 and moving over a good deal of the ground which 
 our great Duke of Marlborough had traversed in his 
 Blenheim campaign, Moreau captured Ulm and 
 Donawert on the Danube, and was preparing to 
 cross the river Leck into Bavaria, and thence to 
 move onward to the defiles of the Tyrol, on the 
 Italian side of which the republican army was at 
 the moment completely victorious, when, on the 
 24th of August, the Archduke Charles, who had 
 gathered some reinforcements in the valley of the 
 Danube, and who had rapidly executed his ad- 
 mirably designed movements, fell upon Jourdan 
 with a superiority of force, and completely de- 
 feated him at Amberg. The Austrian prince 
 then followed the flying republicans to the Maine, 
 and gave them another tremendous beating, on the 
 8rd of September, at Wurtzburg. Still pressing 
 
 ie eC 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1793. 
 
 105 
 
 on the rear of the republicans, who fell into a 
 miserably disorganised state, he dcfeated them 
 again on the 16th of September, at Aschaffenburg, 
 and drove them with terrible loss to the opposite 
 side of the Rhine. In his retreat Jourdan had 
 lost 20,000 men, and nearly all his artillery and 
 baggage. Moreau, who was too far away to the 
 right to render any assistance to Jourdan, could 
 neither advance nor maintain himself where he 
 was, on the Bavarian frontier, without Jourdan: 
 he therefure began his famed retreat, which lay 
 through the Black Forest, on the 25th of Sep- 
 tember. Moreau had still 70,000 men, who had 
 suffered no serious disaster. The imperial general 
 Latour, who was nearest at hand to follow him, had 
 not above 24,000 men; and some scattered corps 
 did not join his standard with sufficient rapidity to 
 enable him to contend successfully with the republi- 
 cans. Latour, pressing too close on Moreau’s rear, 
 sustained a defeat on the 2nd of October at Bi- 
 berach. The republicans got safely through the 
 valley of Hell and the whole of the Black Forest ; 
 but when they reached the banks of the Rhine they 
 found the victorious Archduke Charles ready to 
 meet them, with a force equal, or perhaps some- 
 what superior, to their own. Moreau, at the end of 
 his too much praised retreat, found himself com- 
 pelled to fight two battles, and both battles were 
 to him defeats. On the 19th of October he was 
 beaten at all points, at Emmendingen; and, on 
 the 20th, in spite of his formidable position among 
 the rocks and cliffs of Schliengen, he was beaten 
 again ; and nothing but a violent storm, and the 
 pitchy darkness of the night and the roughness of 
 the ground, which prevented the splendid Austrian 
 cavalry from acting, enabled him to get his dis- 
 heartened columns to the safe side of the Rhine. 
 The Archduke Charles had saved Germany, 
 but, owing to the invasion of Jourdan and Moreau 
 on this side, the much smaller republican army of 
 Italy had subdued all the north of the Italian 
 peninsula. The command of this smaller army, 
 which took the field much earlier than the army 
 or the two armies on the Rhine, was given to the 
 
 aspiring young man who had “ killed the people 
 
 for the regicides,”* on the critical 13th Vende- 
 miaire, and who had since then married Madame 
 Josephine Beauharnais, a native of Martinique, 
 widow of Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais, who 
 had served as a general in the republican armies, 
 and who had been guillotined during the Reign of 
 Terror, which had also consigned his fair relict to 
 a prison. This very graceful, captivating woman 
 was linked in a close friendship with the fasci- 
 nating Cabarus, who now bore the name of Tallien, 
 the daring man who had been the first to beard 
 Robespierre in the Convention, and who, in con- 
 sequence of that deed, had obtained a large share 
 of political power and patronage. The Beau- 
 harnais was also exceedingly intimate with Director 
 Barras, and enjoyed the friendship or patronage 
 of other powerful individuals. It was unfair to 
 * Victor Ilugo, ‘C’est Lui.’ 
 
106 
 
 say that the young Corsican owed his appointment 
 to this marriage ; but it would be unreasonable to 
 doubt that Josephine contributed to it.* It was 
 Barras and Carnot that proposed to give the com- 
 mand of the army of Italy to Bonaparte, as the 
 fittest man for it, and the other three directors, 
 after some hesitation, assented. He arrived at 
 head-quarters, at Nice, on the 26th of March. He 
 found the disposable forces amounting to about 
 50,000 men, but badly provided and in a wretched 
 state of indiscipline. The combined army of the 
 Austrians and Piedmontese amounted to 60,000— 
 in Bonaparte’s reckoning to 75,000 men—and 
 was now under the command of Beaulieu, a gallant 
 veteran. It was stretched along the ridge of the 
 Apennines, at the foot of which the French, as in the 
 preceding campaign, were advancing. Not waiting 
 to be attacked, Beaulieu descended from the heights, 
 and on the 11th of April he met the advanced 
 guard of the French at Voltri, near Genoa, and 
 repulsed it. At the same time d’Argenteau, who 
 commanded Beaulieu’s centre, traversed the moun- 
 tains of Montenotte to descend upon Savona, and 
 thus take the French in flank. But, when more 
 than half his march was completed, d’Argenteau 
 met a French division of 1500 men, who threw 
 themselves into the old hill redoubt of Montelegino, 
 which in a manner shut up the road of Monte- 
 notte. The fate of the campaign, and perhaps of 
 the then young republican general, lay within that 
 old redoubt: d’Argenteau attacked it three times 
 with all his infantry, but Colonel Rampon main- 
 tained the post; and this gave time to Bonaparte 
 to march round by night by an unguarded road 
 to d’Argenteau’s rear ; and, before Beaulieu, who 
 was on the left, or General Colli, who was on the 
 right with the mass of the Piedmontese troops, 
 could come up to his support, d’Argenteau was 
 defeated, and driven in disorderly retreat beyond 
 Montenotte. The young republican general had 
 now pushed into the valley of the Bormida, be- 
 tween the two disjointed wings of the allied army. 
 Beaulieu and Coili hastened to repair this dis- 
 aster, by re-establishing their communications ; but 
 Bonaparte was too quick for them, and by two 
 attacks, one at Millesimo on the 13th of April, the 
 other at Dego on the 14th, Colli and the Pied- 
 montese army were completely separated from the 
 Austrians, and Provera, with an Austrian divi- 
 sion of 2000 men, was obliged to lay down his 
 arms. On the 15th, a mistake committed by 
 Wukassowich nearly retrieved the fortune of the 
 allies: that general, with 5000 Austrians, came 
 suddenly from Voltri, where Beaulieu had been 
 victorious over the French, ran upon Dego, where 
 he expected to find his countrymen, but where, 
 instead, he found Massena, with a division of 
 the French army, little prepared for any attack. 
 * All his friends, and particularly the cunning Talleyrand, whom 
 the amnesty had allowed to return to France, strongly recom- 
 mended this marriage as a means of promoting his interest with 
 the governing powers of the day. At the time of the marriage, 
 Bonaparte was 26, and the lady—the mother of two fine children, 
 
 Eugene and Hortense Beauharnais—was in her 29th, or according 
 to other accounts, in her 30th or 3lst year. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boor X. | 
 Woukassowich made a brilliant charge and scattered — 
 the French division; but General Laharpe came 
 down with reinforcements, and Bonaparte himself, 
 dreading the fatal consequences of a defeat in his 
 rear, hastened to the spot with still more troops. 
 Then, after the most heroic conduct, Wukassowich 
 was obliged to retire. As the republicans de- 
 bouched through the valley of the Bormida into 
 the rich plains of Piedmont, Beaulieu retreated in 
 good order to the Po, to defend the emperor’s 
 Milanese territories, leaving Colli and the Pied- 
 montese army to shift for themselves. Bonaparte 
 instantly turned against Colli, who had taken post 
 on the western declivities of the Apennines at 
 Ceva, drove him from that post, followed him to 
 Mondovi, dislodged him there, and pursued him 
 beyond Cherasco. Betrayed bya part of his army 
 who had been proselytised, and now badly served 
 by the rest, pressed by a superior force, and look- 
 ing in vain for aid from Beaulieu, Colli at length 
 retreated to Carignan, close to Turin. By this 
 time all the provinces of Piedmont south of the 
 Po were open to the republican invaders, the 
 capital itself was almost at their mercy, and the 
 resources of the country were consumed. Vittor 
 Amedeo sued for a truce, which Bonaparte granted 
 in consideration of having the key fortresses of 
 Cuneo and Tortona put into his hands. The 
 Directory soon afterwards extended the truce into 
 a treaty of peace, which his Sardinian majesty 
 paid for by delivering up all the other Piedmon- 
 tese fortresses and all the passes of the Alps, and 
 by ceding to the French republic for ever Savoy, 
 Nice, and some Alpine tracts of country. The 
 poor old king did not long survive this ruinous 
 peace, dying broken-hearted on the 16th of Oc- 
 tober. Immediately after concluding the truce 
 Bonaparte marched against Beaulieu, drove him 
 from the Po, beat him in a sharp battle at Fombio, 
 between Piacenza and Milan, and made him fall 
 back upon the river Adda. The Austrian general 
 occupied the town of Lodi and its bridge across the 
 Adda, which last he defended with a numerous and 
 excellent artillery—but, with that want of ensem- 
 ble or compactness which attended nearly all the 
 operations of all these generals, he stationed his in- 
 fantry too far off to be able properly to support the 
 artillery. On the 10th of May Bonaparte, after — 
 a terrific conflict, carried the bridge of Lodi, when, 
 as he said himself many years afterwards, the idea 
 first flashed across his mind that he might become 
 a great actor in the world’s drama. Beaulieu, with 
 an army now demoralised and panic-striken, made 
 a faint attempt to defend the line of the Mincio; 
 but, after throwing a garrison into Mantua, he with- 
 drew behind the Adige into the Tyrol. On the 
 15th of May Bonaparte made a triumphal entrance 
 into Milan, where the French had many converts — 
 and partizans. All Lombardy was now at the 
 feet of the conqueror except Mantua, and that for- — 
 tress was soon blockaded. Piedmont had been 
 pitilessly plundered, in a regular manner, by the _ 
 commissaries of the army and the commissioners — 
 
 a 
 
Onap. VIII.) 
 
 of the Directory, and in an irregular mariner by 
 the soldiery. As a good part of Lombardy seemed 
 to receive the republicans as friends and deliverers, 
 Bonaparte endeavoured to stop the irregular plun- 
 der here, but the regular plunder which he or- 
 dered himself was enormous. He imposed at 
 once a contribution of 20,000,000 of francs, which 
 fell chiefly on the nobility and clergy ; he authorised 
 his commissaries to seize whatsoever provisions, 
 stores, waggons, horses, &c. the army might want, 
 merely giving cheques (which for the most part 
 were never paid at all), to be paid out of the con- 
 tributions ; the horses and carriages of the nobility 
 were seized because they belonged to aristocrats ; 
 a great deal of property which belonged to the late 
 viceroy and the Austrian government, and a great 
 deal which did not belong to them, was seques- 
 trated as public property ; and, to finish the ac- 
 cursed climax, the Monte di Pietaé was broken 
 open by express orders from Bonaparte and his 
 countryman Saliceti, and all the property in it 
 that was worth sending was sent to Genoa to be 
 conyerted into money for the benefit of the Direc- 
 tory. In passing through Piacenza Bonaparte and 
 Saliceti (that most rapacious and terrible of com- 
 missioners) had already treated the Monte di 
 Pieta there in the same manner ; and it afterwards 
 became a rule to plunder all these charitable insti- 
 tutions. The five directors at the Luxembourg 
 were incessantly calling upon the general for 
 money —money— more money; and Bonaparte 
 himself says, that, besides clothing and feeding 
 and abundantly paying his army, he remitted to 
 them 50,000,000 of francs during his first Italian 
 campaign. ‘The petty principalities, into which so 
 much of the beautiful country was so unhappily 
 divided, had never made war, but they were all 
 obliged to purchase what was called a peace, at 
 prices which might have saved Italy from this in- 
 vasion, if they had been collectively poured into 
 the treasury of the keeper of the keys of the Alps, 
 the King of Sardinia. Thus the Duke of Parma 
 was made to pay 1,500,000 francs, to furnish cloth- 
 ing for the army, and to surrender twenty of his best 
 pictures; the Duke of Modena was made to pay 
 6,000,000 francs in cash, 2,000,000 more in pro- 
 visions, cattle, horses, &c., and to deliver up fifteen 
 of his choice paintings; and, as he could not feed 
 the voracity of the republicans fast enough, they 
 took his whole duchy from him a few months later. 
 Until the emperor should send another army, there 
 was absolutely nothing in Italy to offer any valid 
 resistance to these insatiable plunderers. An in- 
 surrection of the peasantry of Binasco, and of ‘the 
 common people of Pavia, provoked less by the 
 plunder carried on privately by the soldiery than 
 by the outrages offered to their women and their 
 religion, was quenched, by Bonaparte’s express 
 orders, in torrents of blood; and for a night and a 
 day the city of Pavia was given up to plunder, de- 
 bauchery, and every sort of violence and crime.* 
 
 * We have no less an authority than Lucien Bonaparte for some of 
 the horrors that are reported to have been committed. Lucien was 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1796. 
 
 107 
 
 Advancing southward Bonaparte showed how the 
 Directory respected neutrality by overrunning 
 Tuscany, taking possession of Leghorn, putting a 
 garrison in it, seizing and selling by auction the 
 English, Portuguese, and other goods found in the 
 warehouses of that great free port, and command- 
 ing the native merchants to deliver up all the pro- 
 perty they had in their hands belonging to any 
 enemies of the French republic. To escape the - 
 infamy of this last, and to screen themselves from 
 further exactions, the merchants of Leghorn agreed 
 to pay 5,000,000 francs. The next to be plundered 
 were the states and possessions of the poor old 
 helpless pope; and about this work the unbelievers 
 went with great zest. On the 18th of June a 
 marauding column entered Bologna, and at once 
 laid hands on the Monte di Pieta. Another di- 
 vision entered Ferrara and did the same; the papal 
 authorities were ordered away, a municipal govern- 
 ment composed of French partizans was set up; 
 and right and left, in town and in country, contri- 
 butions were levied at the point of the bayonet. 
 Pius VI. dispatched envoys to sue for terms; and, 
 on the 23rd of June, Bonaparte granted an ar- 
 mistice at the following price :—15,000,000 francs 
 in cash, and 6,000,000 in provisions, horses, &c. 
 &c.; anumber of paintings, ancient statues and 
 vases, and five hundred manuscripts to be selected 
 out of the Vatican library by commissioners sent 
 from Paris; the cession of the provinces of 
 Bologna and Ferrara, the cession of the port and 
 citadel of Ancona, and the closing of all the Papal 
 ports to the English and their allies. 
 
 Bonaparte was recalled from this easy and pro- 
 fitable work by intelligence that Wurmser was 
 coming against him with part of the imperial 
 army which had retreated before Moreau. The 
 German veteran descended from the valley of 
 Trento with from 50,000 to, 60,000 men, con- 
 sisting of some divisions he had brought with him 
 from the Rhine, the scattered remains of Beaulieu’s 
 troops which he had collected in the Tyrol, and 
 some Tyrolese levies. Blind as ever to the fatal 
 consequences of dividing his forces, Wurmser split 
 his army into two, moving himself with the larger 
 half along the eastern shore of the Lake of Guarda, 
 and sending Quosnadowich with the other division 
 along the western bank. Bonaparte, who had 
 raised his blockade of Mantua and concentrated 
 his forces, instantly threw their entire weight upon 
 Quosnadowich, crushed him at Lonato, drove him 
 back into the mountains, and then, turning quickly 
 round, faced old Wurmser with a force now 
 nearly double that of the Austrians; and in two 
 
 spectacle still more deplorable. : 
 up to pillage; the traces of blood had not been effaced; the bodies of 
 the peasants, who had refused to surrender, were not carried away 3 
 people were occupied by funeral rites within the gate by which I 
 entered. The streets and squares were transformed into a perfect 
 fair, where the conquerors were selling to hideous speculators the 
 spoils of the vanquished.” —Memoirs. 
 
108 
 
 ao : ; 
 bloody battles fought near Castiglione, on the 3rd | had been reposing himself for ten blessed days at — 
 
 and 5th of August, the dull but brave old man was 
 defeated, and driven back into the Tyrol with the 
 loss of his artillery and of several thousand men. 
 Bonaparte followed him up the lower valley of the 
 Tyrol, defeated an Austrian division on the 4th of 
 September, and entered as a conqueror into the 
 city of Trento. Wurmser then suddenly struck 
 away across the mountains to the east of Trento, 
 and, descending the valley of the Brenta, again en- 
 tered Italy and advanced to Bassano, where he 
 was joined by some reinforcements from Carinthia. 
 But his active young opponent followed close upon 
 his rear, and all that the veteran could do was to 
 throw himself into the important fortress of Mantua 
 with some 18,000 men, the wretched remnant of 
 his army.* It was the 14th of September when 
 Wurmeer got within the walls of the Virgilian city. 
 By the end of October, as the snows were begmning 
 to whilen the ridges of those Alps, two fresh Austrian 
 armies were descending into Italy. The British 
 government had supplied the court of Vienna with 
 some more money ; the emperor had made a solemn 
 appeal to his hereditary subjects and to the bold 
 Hungarians ; aud, misuse them as she would, the 
 warlike resources of Austria were immense, and 
 the loyalty and firmness of the people untouched. 
 But, again, these two armies, instead of being 
 united in the mountains, out of the reach of the 
 enemy, and then poured down on the plain as one 
 torrent, were allowed to come dribbling in different 
 directions, and to get into the presence of the 
 French divided and far apart. Marshal Alvinzi 
 descended from Carinthia upon Belluno with 
 30,000 men, while Davidowich with 20,000 men 
 moved down from the Tyrol. ‘The two armies 
 united would hardly have been a match for Bona- 
 parte, who could bring at the least 45,000 men 
 into action; but, as it was arranged, they had he- 
 tween them to traverse nearly one-half of the 
 breadth of Italy before Alvinzi and Davidowich 
 could join at the appointed spot, between Pes- 
 chiera and Verona, whence they were to march 
 together to Mantua, where Wurmser was to be 
 released,—and the general with the Sclavonic name 
 moved at a snail’s pace. With the mass of his 
 forces Bonaparte rushed to meet Alyinzi, and gave 
 him battle at Le Nove on the 6th of November ; 
 but, instead of defeating him, he himself sustained 
 a terrible repulse, and retreated, next day, towards 
 Verona to pick up the shattered columns of Vau- 
 bois, who was retreating before Davidowich. 
 Contrary to what might reasonably have been ex- 
 pected, Alvinzi, overcoming every obstacle, reached 
 the heights of Caldiero, in front of Verona. Dut, 
 instead of finding Davidowich there, he learned 
 that that sluggard and blockhead, or arch-traitor, 
 
 * From Bassano to Mantua was a very long and very difficult march, 
 but going at what for an Austrian army seemed a miraculous pace, 
 and marching by night as well as by day, old Wurmser outstripped 
 his light pursuers, avoided the divisions which were advancing 
 against him from various quarters, surprised the bridge of Legnago, 
 got safely across the Adige, and thence into Mantua. Had he only 
 made use of this skill and activity six weeks before, when he opencd 
 this campaign, and but kept his army together in one mass! 
 
 LL LC CC EA er eae 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 ra 
 
 Roveredo, between Trento and the Lago di Guarda, 
 
 and was still there or far away in that neighbour-- 
 
 hood.* Thus left to himself, Alvinzi was attacked, 
 
 on the 12th of November, by Bonaparte, who at- 
 
 tempted to dislodge him from Caldiero. This 
 effort proved fruitless ; the Austrians stood on those 
 
 heights like rocks, and after considerable loss the - 
 
 French were compelled to retreat again into 
 Veroua. For a moment the young Corsican’s 
 heart failed him, and he wrote a desponding letter 
 to the directors.t But he soon roused himself, 
 and, marching quietly out of Verona in the night 
 of the 14th of November, and moving rapidly by 
 across road that ran through a marshy country, 
 he got close to Villanova, in the rear of Alvinzi. 
 The Alpone, a mountain stream, almost dry in 
 some seasons of the year, ran between the French 
 and Villanova, and was traversed only by the nar- 
 row stone bridge of Arcole. Bonaparte made a 
 rush at the bridge, but found it defended by two 
 battalions of Croats and Hungarians with some 
 artillery. Three times the French column at- 
 tempted to storm it amidst a shower of grape-shot 
 and musketry, and three times reeled back with 
 terrific loss : many of the men ran away along the 
 narrow causeway which led up tothe bridge and 
 plunged into the marshes for safety. Bonaparte 
 himself was thrown from the causeway into a 
 marsh, and was very near being taken, for the 
 Croats and Hungarians rushed across the bridge 
 and swept everything before them. <A charge of 
 French grenadiers drove back the enemy, and ex- 
 tricated their general when he was up to his middle 
 in mud and water, and almost surrounded. B 
 
 this time Alvinzi had changed his front, and ad- 
 vanced from the heights of Caldiero, upon which 
 the battle became general. It lasted for three days, 
 avd was by far the hardest fought in all these 
 Italian campaigns. If Davidowich had been at 
 hand with only half of his 20,000 men, or if old 
 Wurmser, leaving Mantua to take care of itself, 
 had come up while Bonaparte was sacrificing his 
 best men in obstinate and fruitless efforts to carry 
 the bridge of Arcole, or when the French army was 
 divided, one part on one side of the Alpone and 
 the rest on the other side, there would have been 
 an end as perfect as could have been desired—the 
 invaders must have been exterminated. But so 
 bright an hypothesis was not to be realised by 
 Austrian generals, or by any other generals for 
 many a year to come. Intimidated by those ter- 
 
 * Davidowich, as we have seen, had driven in Vaubois, who had 
 
 been stationed between ‘Trento and Roveredo to block up that 
 
 narrow pass into Italy; and, if he had only followed up his suceess, 
 he might have pushed on to the right bank of the Adige near 
 Verona, and thus have placed Bonaparte in a most critical position 
 with Alvinzi in front, himself (Davidowich) on his left flank, and 
 Mantua in his rear, within which fortress Wurmser had at that 
 moment 18,000 men at the very least.—A. Vieusseux, Life of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 + In this letter he expressed his dread of being surrounded—as 
 
 he ought to have been, and must have been if Davidowich had but | 
 done his duty; he recapitulated the great losses he had sustained, 
 
 saying that his best officers were either killed or wounded, and his 
 men exhausted by thcir hard fighting, by their rapid marches and 
 counter-marches. 
 
 ig 
 
 [Book xen 
 
 ” 
 
bel 8 
 
 Cnaapr. VIII. ] 
 
 . ) 
 rible Croats and Hungarians and the well-served 
 
 guns on the bridge, the French detached General 
 Guyeux with 2000 men to cross the Adige lower 
 down, at the ferry of Albaredo, which js below the 
 confluence of the Alpone, and thence to march by 
 the left bank of the Alpone, where the ground 
 was firmer, to the village of Arcole. All this 
 Guyeux did successfully ; but in the evening, the 
 Austrians in that quarter, being reinforced, fell 
 upon him and drove him out of the village. Next 
 day (the 16th) Bonaparte obstinately renewed his 
 attacks upon the fatal bridge, which he did not 
 carry after all, and every attack on which cost him 
 many officers and heaps of men. On the 17th he 
 dil what he ought to have done at first—he threw 
 a bridge over the Alpone, just above its confluence, 
 and, sending Augereau across to advance along the 
 left bank with a-strong column to take the de- 
 fenders of the bridge in flank and in the rear, and 
 then push forward for the village of Arcole, he 
 himself charged with another strong column along 
 that unlucky causeway flanked by marshes, on 
 which he had been solong detained. Bonaparte’s 
 column was met in the teeth by such a fire that 
 men or fiends could not stand it, and again they 
 reeled back; but Augereau, after a sharp contest, 
 succeeded in his objects and gained possession of the 
 village. Alvinzi then made his retreat upon Vi- 
 cenza and Bassano, where he took up his winter- 
 quarters. The French estimate his loss at 4000 in 
 killed and wounded, and as many in prisoners ; they 
 do not state their own loss, but it must necessarily 
 haye been immense.* On the same day that Al- 
 vinzi began his retreat from the left bank of the 
 Adige, Davidowich, as if waking from a drunken 
 sleep, came blundering down by Ala to the right 
 bank of that river, and entered the Italian plains 
 between Peschiera and Verona; but Bonaparte, 
 who had now nothing else to do, turned against 
 him with his supericr and victorious forces, and 
 presently drove him back to Ala, to Roveredo, and 
 the steep hills that overhang the Tyrol pass. Thus 
 ended what was not incorrectly called the third 
 Italian campaign of the year 1796; and thus 
 Bonaparte had beaten successively Beaulieu, 
 Wurmser, and Alvinzi. Of the future campaigns 
 we shall say little or nothing, having already said 
 enough to explain how these matters were managed 
 by or for Austria, and there having been for a long 
 time no change of system, no wisdom taught by 
 a fatal experience and an accumulation of dis- 
 grace. 
 The British parliament had been dissolved by 
 
 * Bonaparte wrote to Carnot :—‘ Never was a field of battle so 
 obstinately contested; our enemies were numerous and resolute. [ 
 have hardly any general officers left.’” They were nearly all killed, 
 wounded, or prisoners. General Lannes had received three wounds. 
 Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp, Meuron, was killed in covering his general 
 with his body. 
 
 The young general has been strongly censured for attempting, so 
 many times, to carry the bridge of Arcole in front, instead of turning 
 it by throwing the temporary bridge over the Alpone, as he was obliged 
 to do at last. We have not seen any satisfactory excuse for this 
 dogged obstinacy; but it appears to have been part of the system 
 
 - already adopted by Bonaparte, to disregard the loss of human life, 
 and to precipitate column after column, or attack upon attack, 
 
 upon every important point, and never to swerve from a plan once 
 formed, except under the most imperious circumstances. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1796. 
 
 109 
 
 proclamation soon after the close of the last session. 
 Ministers had been more occupied by the elections 
 than by the war. The new parliament assembled 
 on the 6th of October, and was opened by a speech 
 from the throne, in which his majesty repeated his 
 anxious wish for an honourable peace, and an- 
 nounced the intended fruitless: and degrading mis-. 
 sion of Lord Malmesbury to Paris. Allusion was 
 also made to the success of our arms in the East 
 and West Indies, and to the brilliant campaign of 
 Archduke Charles. ‘The usual addresses passed 
 without a division. As the French fleet and 
 Hoche’s army were at this moment lying at Brest, 
 and as it was not yet known whether the English 
 coast was not the object of attack, Pitt, on the 18th 
 of October, moved * that a bill be brought in for 
 raising a certain number of men in the several 
 counties of Great Britain, for the service of his 
 majesty,’ and proposed a plan for augmenting the 
 national force, by a levy of 15,000 men from the 
 parishes, to be divided between the sea and land 
 service, and by a supplementary levy of 60,000 
 men for the militia, and 20,000 men for irregular 
 cavalry, not to be immediately called out, but en- 
 rolled and gradually trained. Many bitter remarks 
 were made by the habitual opponents of govern- 
 ment, who, numerically, were scarcely stronger 
 now than they had been in the last parliament ; 
 but, after the alteration of a clause which proposed 
 forcibly to convert gamekeepers into soldiers, the 
 plan was adopted, without any division. On the 
 20th of October, Windham, as secretary-at-war, 
 announced that the whole military force of this 
 country consisted of 195,674 men, the expense of 
 which would amount to 5,190,000/. Of this num- 
 ber the whole army, counting regulars, guards, in- 
 valids, militia, fencibles and all, amounted to 
 67,765: the troops abroad (excepting those in the 
 Kast Indies, which fell under a separate head, and 
 were otherwise provided for) amounted to 64,276, 
 all regulars, and some uf them veteran regiments. 
 On the 7th of November, Pitt opened the bud- 
 get. The meney required by ministers was 
 27,945,000/. Among the ways and means they 
 proposed was a new loan of 18,000,000/. There 
 seemed to be, on the whole, a good English spirit 
 in the House. Whatever Pitt said that was ani- 
 mating, as to the courage and resources of the 
 country, and our capability of achieving the safety 
 of Europe, our own glory and permanent advan- 
 tage, was well cheered; but Fox, on the other 
 hand, was heard in dead silence when he endea- 
 voured to attribute the zeal shown in the new loan, 
 called the Loyalty Loan, to a desire of peace.* It 
 had been stated by Pitt, in his speech on opening 
 the budget, that ministers had made an advance of 
 1,200,000/. to the hard-pressed emperor. On the 
 13th of November, Fox triumphantly moved ‘* That 
 his majesty’s ministers, having authorised and di- 
 rected, at different times, and without the consent 
 and during the sitting of parliament, the issue of 
 various sums of money for the service of his im- 
 * Dr. French Lawrence to Burke; Epistolary Correspondence. 
 
110 
 
 perial majesty, and also for the service of the army 
 under the Prince of Condé, have acted contrary to 
 their duty, and to the trust reposed in them, and 
 have thereby violated the constitutional privileges 
 of this House.” At first, Pitt took up good ground, 
 by admitting that it was an irregular act which he 
 had hazarded, knowing his responsibility, but not 
 doubting his duty ; that he had had only a choice 
 of difficulties, from the exigencies of our ally on the 
 one side, and from the public panic on account of 
 the scarcity of specie at home, on the other. But 
 afterwards he quibbled, attempting to bring what 
 he had done within the authority of the ordinary 
 vote of credit, and endeavouring to find a principle 
 in other discretionary and indefinite expenditures. 
 When Pitt sat down, the Hon. Charles Bathurst 
 Bragge, treasurer of the navy, moved an amend- 
 ment upon Fox’s resolution, to the effect that the 
 advance to the emperor, “though not to be drawn 
 into precedent but upon occasions of special neces- 
 sity, was, under the peculiar circumstances of the 
 case, a justifiable and proper exercise of the discre- 
 tion vested in his majesty’s ministers by the vote 
 of credit, and calculated to produce consequences 
 which have proved highly advantageous to the 
 common cause, and to the general interests of Eu- 
 rope ;” and this was carried by a majority of 285 
 to 81. ; 
 
 The precipitate return of Lord Malmesbury 
 from Paris was followed, on the 26th of December, 
 by a message from the king to parliament, in which 
 his majesty declared that the rupture of the nego- 
 tiation did not proceed from the want of a sincere 
 desire on his part for the restoration of peace, but 
 from the excessive pretensions of the enemy, which 
 were incompatible with the permanent interests of 
 this country and the general security of Europe. 
 Copies of all the memorials and other papers relat- 
 ing to the negotiation, from the first overtures 
 made by Mr. Wickham to M. Barthelemy, were 
 laid before parliament, and on the 30th of 
 December the king’s message was taken into con- 
 sideration in both Houses. Although Fox, it is 
 said, confessed in private that this would have 
 been the very worst moment for making a peace 
 with France, and that he thought that England 
 might possibly be enabled to carry on the war two 
 or three years longer at the most, he himself in 
 the Commons, and his friend Lord Guildford in the 
 Lords, moved an amendment to the address to be 
 returned to the king’s message, full of inculpations 
 of ministers for not having concluded a treaty with 
 the French republic. The amendments, however, 
 were rejected by great majorities. 
 
 A.p. 1797.—During the last year the directors of 
 the Bank of England had several times represented 
 to the chancellor of the exchequer their inability of 
 supplying his rapid and increasing demands. The 
 dread of an invasion had, moreover, produced a 
 run upon the bank for specie, and certain opposi- 
 tion pamphlets and journals had done their best to 
 increase this panic, as a likely means of over- 
 throwing Pitt, not bearing in mind that it might 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 have overthrown the country as well. On the 9th — 
 of February, the bank directors informed Pitt that 
 
 to comply with his new request of making a further 
 advance of 1,500,000/. as a loan to Ireland would 
 most probably force the directors to shut their 
 doors. In this alarming state of affairs the Privy 
 Council, on Sunday, the 26th, sent an order pro- 
 hibiting the directors of the Bank of England from — 
 issuing any cash or specie in payment, till the 
 sense of parliament could be taken, and measures 
 be adopted for supporting public credit. This deci- 
 sive step was announced to parliament on the next 
 day by a royal message; and the subject was im- 
 mediately taken into consideration by both Lords 
 and Commons. ‘The opposition testified as much 
 glee as a noted smuggler is said to have done at 
 seeing the old Custom-house on fire. This must 
 crush the cold proud minister, who prided himself 
 most ofall on his financial ability, or nothing would. 
 Fox exultingly gave notice that he should feel it 
 necessary to move an inquiry into all the past 
 transactions between the bank and the minister, 
 and said several things very proper to keep up the 
 panic, and destroy what little credit there was left 
 at that moment. “I thought,” says a member of 
 the House, “that his tone should haye been, in 
 common policy, subdued, solemn, even alarmed at 
 the state of the country, professing a desire to take 
 all measures which the exigency might justify for 
 the support of our credit, and postpone personal 
 considerations; but he plainly showed himself to 
 have hardly any feeling but the ruin of Pitt.””* 
 Sheridan, Whitbread, and others made motions 
 with the same animus. The history of Pitt’s 
 paper system belongs to another chapter. We 
 need only mention here a few immediate measures. 
 Ministerial motions were carried in both Houses 
 for appointing by ballot a secret committee to exa- 
 mine into the affairs of the Bank. In the mean- — 
 while the Bank was authorised to issue small notes. — 
 The secret committee soon reported that there was 
 a clear balance or surplus belonging to the Bank, 
 of 3,826,890/., exclusive of a debt from govern- 
 ment of 11,666,800/.; that the Bank had lately — 
 experienced a drain of cash, owing to the preva- 
 lence ofalarm ; that, as this alarm might continue, — 
 the Bank might be deprived of the means of sup- | 
 plying the cash necessary for the exigencies of 
 the public service ; and that therefore it was pro- 
 per to continue the measures already taken, for 
 such time and under such limitations as should | 
 seem expedient to parliament. The Commons | 
 having resolved themselves into a committee of 
 the whole House to take this report into con- 
 sideration, Pitt mioved for a bill to continue and — 
 confirm for a limited time the restriction of the | 
 issue of specie by the Bank of England; and, | 
 after various clauses had been added, chiefly by | 
 ministers themselves, this bill was passed. The | 
 Bank was to be authorised to issue specie to the | 
 amount of 100,000. for the accommodation of 
 private bankers and traders ; and, saving and ex- 
 * Dr. French Lawrence. 
 
| Guar. VILL] 
 
 cept to the army and navy, who were to be paid in 
 cash, bank notes were to be a legal tender to all. 
 At starting—when one of the bank directors de- 
 clared in the House of Commons that there was 
 every reason to hope that the bank would soon be 
 enabled to resume its payments in specie—the bill 
 was limited in its operation to the 24th of June: 
 but the restriction was afterwards continued from 
 time to time by a succession of new acts; and the 
 return to cash payments did not take place till 
 1819, when Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Peel 
 carried his well-known bill. 
 
 _ Having established a precedent of two budgets 
 for one year, the chancellor of the exchequer, on 
 the 26th of April, demanded and obtained a further 
 supply. The whole of the money voted this session 
 amounted to 42,786,000/. Another loan was to 
 be made for 16,000,000. of this money; and go- 
 vernment was to guarantee besides a further loan 
 of 2,000,000/. for our ally the emperor. New 
 taxes were imposed, or old ones increased, to the 
 amount of 2,544,000/. The sum of 80,000/. was 
 voted as a marriage portion to the king’s eldest 
 daughter, Charlotta Augusta, who was married on 
 the 18th of May to Frederick William, Hereditary 
 Prince of Wurtemberg. The navy was still further 
 increased ; the number of seamen and marines for 
 the service of the year was 120,000, and the total 
 sum voted for that service, in all its branches, 
 was 13,133,673/. 
 
 While parliament was sitting mutinies broke 
 out in the fleets, which gave far greater alarm than 
 the Bank’s suspending cash payments. For some 
 time discontents had prevailed among the seamen, 
 the principal subjects of which were the miserable 
 smallness of their pay and of the Greenwich pen- 
 sions, neither of which had been augmented since 
 the reign of Charles II.; the very unequal distri- 
 bution of prize-money, which gave almost every- 
 thing to the admirals and superior officers, leaving 
 next to nothing to the petty officers and the crews ; 
 the excessive harshness and severity of the disci- 
 pline, and the haughty and tyrannical behaviour 
 of many of the officers. Within three days, at the 
 beginning of the month of March, Lord Howe, 
 who still held the chief command of the Channel 
 fleet, but who was then at Bath for the benefit of 
 his health, received four petitions, from the ‘ Royal 
 George,’ ‘ Formidable,’ ‘ Ramillies,? and ‘Queen 
 Charlotte,’ soliciting the interposition of his lord- 
 ship, as the seamen’s friend, with the Admiralty, in 
 order that the seamen might in their turn expe- 
 rience an act of munificence like that which had 
 been shown to the army and militia, in the provi- 
 sion made for an increase to their pay, and for 
 their wives and families. Lord Howe, considering 
 their tone rather mutinous, submitted the four pe- 
 titions to Earl Spencer, the head of the Admiralty, 
 and wrote to the port-admiral, Sir Peter Parker, 
 and to Lord Bridport, who was holding the 
 command of the Channel fleet* under him (Earl 
 
 * Letter of Lord Howe, in Life by Sir John Barrow. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1797. 
 
 111 
 
 Howe). Sir Peter and Lord Bridport replied, 
 that the petitions (three of which seemed to be 
 in the same handwriting) were the work of some 
 ill-disposed person ; and, in consequence of this 
 reply, both Lord Howe and Earl Spencer 
 thought that no danger was to be apprehended. 
 But on the 12th of April the Board of Admi- 
 ralty were startled by Sir Peter Parker, who 
 reported that intelligence had been communicated 
 to him of a regular plan, concerted some time be- 
 fore, by the seamen, to take the command of the 
 ships from their officers, which plan was to be 
 carried into execution on the 16th of April. In- 
 stantly orders were given by telegraph from Lon- 
 don to Portsmouth for the fleet to proceed to sea. 
 But, when Admiral Lord Bridport made the signal 
 to prepare for sailing, the seamen mounted the 
 rigging, instead of going to the capstan, and gave 
 tremendous cheers—cheers of defiance. This as- 
 tounding act was followed by others still more de- 
 cistve: the men took all command from their 
 captains and officers; they appointed “ delegates,” 
 two from each ship, who met in council in the 
 great cabin of the ‘ Queen Charlotte,’ Lord Howe’s 
 flag-ship ; and there they wrote and issued orders 
 to all the seamen of the fleet to take oaths of fidelity 
 to the cause. By the 17th every man was sworn. 
 They put on shore a good many officers whom 
 they accused of oppression, keeping the others on 
 board as prisoners or hostages; but at the same 
 time they passed resolutions to maintain order and 
 sobriety, and to pay all due respect to the officers 
 on board from whom they had taken the command. 
 To strike terror ropes were then reeved (the sailors’ 
 preparation for hanging) at the fore-yard-arms of 
 every ship, but they found no occasion to use this 
 tackle, except for ducking minor offenders. There 
 is no denying or concealing the fact—the men had 
 been ill-paid, ill-fed, shamefully neglected by the 
 country which depended upon them for its all, 
 and, in many instances, harshly and_ brutally 
 treated by their officers, and belly-pinched and 
 plundered by their pursers; and, with a tithe of 
 their wrongs, or with no wrongs at all, if the 
 French sailors had made this mutiny, they would 
 have murdered most of their officers, as in fact 
 many French crews had done on the first promul- 
 gation of liberty and equality and the other Jacobin 
 principles. But here not a drop of blood was 
 spilt, nor, after the landing of the obnoxious offi- 
 cers, was there so much as an insult offered. 
 Punishments were inflicted on all who got drunk, 
 or misconducted themselves in any way. The 
 mutineers allowed all frigates with convoys to 
 sail, in order not to injure the commerce of the 
 country. The thirty-two delegates drew up and 
 signed a petition to parliament and another to 
 the Admiralty: their language was respectful, and 
 their demands were very far from exorbitant.* 
 
 * They prayed that the wages of the seamen should be increased ; 
 that their provisions should be of a better quality, and be weighed 
 and estimated as provisions were ashore, 16,0z. to the lb.; that their 
 
 measures should also be the same as those used in common trade ij 
 that while in port, vegetables, instead of flour, should be serve 
 
112 
 
 On the 18th of April a Board of Admiralty, con-- 
 sisting of Earl Spencer, Lord Arden, Rear-Admiral 
 Young, with Mr. Deputy-Secretary Marsden, met 
 at Portsmouth, and discussed with Admirals Lord 
 Bridport, Sir Allan Gardner, Colpoys, Pole, and 
 Halloway, the proper means of putting an end to 
 this perilous and (to the government) humiliating 
 state of things. It might have been expected of 
 them that previous care and attention to the con- 
 dition of the seamen should have prevented the 
 undeniable evils of which they complained. As it 
 was, they frankly admitted among themselves the 
 existence of those evils, and agreed to grant the 
 sailors some of the terms they demanded. But 
 they certainly stinted their generosity—perhaps 
 intending to extend it, when they might give with 
 a less appearance of giving under compulsion. 
 They offered additional allowances of pay, namely, 
 four shillings to able, three shillings to ordinary 
 seamen, and two shillings to landsmen, per month ; 
 aud their full pay to seamen wounded in action, 
 until they were either cured or pensioned off, or 
 received into Greenwich Hospital. The only an- 
 swer the delegates would give was that they would 
 take the terms into consideration, and return an 
 answer to-morrow morning. ‘The next morning 
 the delegates sent their reply: they urged that 
 there never existed more than two classes of men 
 in the navy, “able” and “ ordinary ;” and that 
 the distinction between “‘ ordinary”? and “ lands- 
 men” was an entirely new distinction (which it 
 certainly was, and introduced only in the view of 
 making a paltry saving—so economical was this 
 government in some things, and so profuse in 
 others) ; and they demanded that the wages of able 
 seamen should be raised to one shilling a-day, and 
 the wages of petty officers and ordinary seamen in 
 the same proportion ; and that the marines, while 
 embarked, should have their pay augmented in the 
 same ratio as that of ordinaries. They also de- 
 manded that the Greenwich pension, which was 
 now less than ‘/., should be raised to 10/. per 
 annum; that the weight and measure on board 
 should not be curtailed, as they had been, by one- 
 eighth (which some pursers made a sixth) ; that 
 they should have provisions of a better quality, 
 with an allowance of vegetables, essential to their 
 health, whenever attainable; and they concluded 
 with a declaration that, until their grievances should 
 be redressed, and an act of indemnity passed in 
 their favour, they were determined not to lift an 
 anchor, On the following day, the 20th of April, 
 with fresh beef; that the sick should be better attended to, and 
 their necessaries not be embezzled; and that the men, on returning 
 from a voyage or long cruize, should, like their officers, have short 
 leaves of absence to visit their friends, &c. 
 
 The seaman’s pound had hitherto been only 14 oz., the remain- 
 ing two being retained by the purser, to allow for waste, leakage, 
 &e. A similar reduction took place in the measures. Not only 
 was government privy to this, but it was actually a financial or 
 economical arrangement with them; for the pursers, who keep and 
 distribute the provisions, had no other pay than the difference, if 
 any, between the real and the assumed loss by waste, leakage, &c. If 
 to this system we add the villanous practices of navy commissioners, 
 contractors, &c., who passed (but too often!) biscuit, salt-beef, and 
 salt-pork, which a decently fed dog on shore would not have 
 
 touched, we may conceive that the poor sailors were very frequently 
 supplied with the worst food and in scanty quantities. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the Board of Admiralty sitting at Portsmouth in- ; 
 formed the mutineers by letter that they had re- 
 solved to recommend to his majesty the increase — 
 of wages they demanded, the full weights and mea- 
 sures, their full pay while laid up with wounds, 
 and an entire pardon ; but still they took no notice 
 of those two most capital and reasonable demands, 
 the augmentation of the Greenwich pension, and — 
 the allowance of vegetables while in port. On the 
 same or the following day the delegates expressed, 
 in a note exceedingly well written (as all their 
 papers were), their utmost satisfaction and grati- 
 tude for what had been granted ; but persisted in 
 demanding the two omitted conditions, as also the 
 redress of grievances in some particular ships,* 
 repeating their firm resolution not to lift an anchor 
 until all this should be granted. In the hope of 
 removing these obstacles, Admirals Gardner, Col- 
 poys, and Pole went on board the ‘Queen Char- 
 lotte,’ in the state cabin of which the delegates 
 were assembled, with sentinels at the door, who 
 paid the said delegates the military honours usually 
 paid to superior officers. ‘The delegates were evi- 
 dently irritated at the still stinted bounty of the 
 Admiralty,—were not satisfied with what, in fact, 
 was only the promise of the lords commissioners of 
 the Admiralty, and not law without the sanction of 
 higher authorities ; and. some of their heads were 
 turned by their brief possession of power and 
 dignity. On the other hand, there were cireum- 
 stances enough to exasperate the superior officers ; 
 and when one of the delegates, in an insolent tone, 
 told the admirals that they would be satisfied 
 with nothing less than an entire compliance with 
 their demands, and that no arrangement would 
 be considered as final, until sanctioned by the 
 king and parliament, and guaranteed by a pro- 
 clamation of pardon, Sir Allan Gardner lost all 
 eommand of his temper, and, seizing the man by 
 the collar, swore he would have all the delegates — 
 hanged, together with every fifth man ip the fleet. 
 The delegates in the cabin, and the crew upon the 
 decks, were thrown into a fury by this intemper- 
 ance. According to one account his brother 
 admirals pacified Gardner, but according to an- 
 other the difficulty lay in pacifying the mutineers, 
 and saving Gardner’s life from their rage. As 
 soon as the two delegates named by the crew of 
 the ‘ Royal George’ (Lord Bridport’s flag-ship) | 
 returned on board their own vessel, they sum- | 
 moned another meeting there, and immediately 
 hoisted that dreadful signal, the red or bloody flag. | 
 Forthwith all the crews in the fleet loaded all | 
 their guns, set their watches, and cleared their | 
 ships as if for action. But on the 22nd, the men 
 having become more tranquil, the delegates wrote 
 two letters, one to the Admiralty, in which they 
 stated their provocations, and the other to Lord | 
 Bridport, in which they styled him their father | 
 
 * This appears to have meant the immediate change of the | 
 captains and some of the officers of certain ships of the fleet. =) 
 + The blood-red flag, which is rarely hoisted except by renegado |} 
 privateers and pirates, is considered as an intimation that no | 
 
 quarter will be expected or given. 
 
eo) ig 
 ‘ Te 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1797. 
 
 | bullets and bayonets of the marines.* In vain 
 
 Cuar. VIII.] 113 
 
 and friend, and disavowed any intention of offend- 
 
 ing him. Earl Spencer, with Lord Arden and 
 the rest of the Board of Admiralty, had returned to 
 London on the 2lst; and in consequence of their 
 representations a royal proclamation was agreed to 
 by ministers, and, having received the sign manual 
 at Windsor, this document was forwarded with all 
 speed to Portsmouth. Furnished with the pro- 
 clamation, which contained a free pardon, but 
 which said not one word touching the redress of 
 grievances, except in an oblique manner, by re- 
 ferring to the measures taken by the lords com- 
 missioners of the Admiralty, Lord Bridport, on 
 the 23rd, went on board the ‘ Royal George,’ and 
 re-hoisted his flag; and having done this he de- 
 livered an address to the crew, informing them 
 that he had brought with him a redress of all 
 their grievances, and the king’s pardon for the 
 offenders. After some deliberation, arising out of 
 the silence of the proclamation as to their de- 
 mands, the crew of the ‘ Royal George,’ and then 
 the crews of all the ships in the fleet, hauled down 
 the red flag and returned cheerfully to their duty. 
 Ajl disputes being now considered as settled, the 
 fleet dropped down to St. Helens. But, on the 
 morning of the 7th of May, when Lord Bridport, 
 who had just received intelligence that the Brest 
 fleet was ready for sea, and was dropping into 
 their outward harbour, gave the signal to weigh 
 anchor, the crews of every one of his ships refused 
 obedience, and the fleet stood stock still. The 
 reasons alleged for this second great act of mutiny 
 were, that the king’s proclamation was not sufi- 
 ciently explicit, that government had been alto- 
 gether silent respecting the concessions demanded, 
 and that no act of parliament had been passed to 
 secure the redress of their grievances; from all 
 which they suspected an intention to deceive them. 
 They had been confirmed in this suspicion by certain 
 inflammatory hand-bills, which had been printed 
 on shore by some hired traitors, or by some mad 
 reformers, and widely circulated through the fleet. 
 But the suspicion was further excited by other 
 strong causes, little honourable to the wisdom and 
 discretion of the government and parliament. In 
 the House of Lords ministers had deprecated any 
 mention of the complaints of the sailors and the 
 disorders in the fleet, and Earl Spencer had said 
 that he was not aware of any intended message to 
 the House from the king on that subject. In the 
 Commons Pitt had indeed made a motion to in- 
 crease the wages of seamen; but the House had 
 not gone into the matter with any alacrity, and the 
 supply to cover the increase of pay had not yet 
 been voted. Moreover, the Board of Admiralty 
 had issued an order, bearing date the 1st of May, 
 which contained sundry paragraphs which almost 
 seem to have been purposely devised to drive the 
 suspicions of the sailors into frenzy and despair, 
 by making them believe that they were to gain 
 nothing by their late daring proceedings except an 
 increase to the already intolerable severity of their 
 
 discipline, with an occasional quictus from the 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 the captains and officers remonstrated with the 
 men, who resolyed to summon a convention of 
 delegates at Spithead, on board the ‘ London,’ 
 Vice-Admiral Colpoys’s flag-ship, and who, ac- 
 cordingly, put out their boats, collected delegates, 
 and rowed away to that ship. Colpoys, in obedience 
 to his instructions, refused to admit them, ordered 
 the officers to be armed, the marines to be in 
 readiness, and the ports to be let down, Upon 
 this the sailors of the ‘London’—Colpoys’s own 
 men—insisted that the delegates should come on 
 board: the armed officers resisted and ordered 
 the men to go below: the men refused, and one 
 of them began to unlash one of the foremost 
 guns, and to point it aft towards the quarter-deck : 
 Simpson, the first leutenant of the ship, cried out 
 to this man that he would shoot him if he did not 
 desist : the fellow continued to unlash; and the 
 lieutenant, keeping his word, fired, and shot him 
 dead on the spot.t The sailors then turned several 
 guns aft, seized their white arms, and presently 
 succeeded in disarming all the officers and all the 
 marines. ‘They were proceeding to hang the first 
 lieutenant at the yard-arm, when Admiral Colpoys 
 stepped forward and told them that Simpson had 
 acted in conformity to orders which he (the ad- 
 miral) had given him, and which orders had been 
 received from the Admiralty. The chaplain and 
 the surgeon of the ship interceded, and in the very 
 paroxysm of their fury, when blood had been 
 shed and when some of them were talking of 
 hanging the admiral as well as the lieutenant, 
 they promised to spare Simpson’s life, and to do 
 him no manner of harm. They then ordered the 
 admiral, the captain, and all the officers to their 
 respective cabins, and confined the marines as 
 prisoners. Matters remained in this state on board 
 the ‘London’ from the 7th to the 11th of May, 
 when Admiral Colpoys:and Captain Griffiths were 
 requested to go on shore, which they did, accom- 
 panied by the chaplain. In the meanwhile every 
 crew of the fleet had taken possession of their own 
 
 * This order, which was offensive to the officers as well as to the 
 men, stated among other things that, ‘* from the disposition lately 
 shown by the seamen belonging to several of his majesty'’s ships, it 
 had become highly necessary that the strictest attention should be 
 paid by all officers in his majesty’s service, not only to their own con- 
 duct, but to the conduct of those who may be under their orders; the 
 more effectually to insure a proper subordination and discipline, and 
 to prevent, as far as may be, all discontent among the seamen.” ‘* Un- 
 necessary,” says Sir John Barrow, *‘ as this was, at any time, as both 
 Aiticles of War and Instructions enjoin it, such an order, at this par- 
 ticular moment, reflecting on the conduct of both officers and men, 
 was, to say the least of it, indiscreet and inexpedient.’? But much 
 worse things followed in the same order. A new instruction was in- 
 troduced, importing that all captains of his majesty’s ships must 
 see ‘‘that the arms and ammunition belonging to the marines be cun- 
 stantly kept in good order, and jit fur immediate service, as well in har- 
 bour as at sea.’ This meant nothing less than that the marines were 
 to be kept in constaut readiness to fire upon the sailors in the case of 
 any symptom of mutiny ; and, lest the sailors should not clearly under- 
 stand it, a paragraph was added, enjoining, ‘‘ that the captains and 
 commanders be particularly attentive to the conduct of the nieuw under 
 their command; and that they be ready, on the first appearance of mu- 
 tiny, to use the most vigorous means to suppress it, and to bring the ring- 
 leaders to punishment.” 
 
 + Other accounts say that a sailor, one of the delegates, was the 
 first that fired, firing at and wounding Lieutenant Sims of the marines ; 
 that the first lieutenant of the ship then ordered the marines to fire ; 
 that the marines obeyed; that five seamen, two of them delegates, 
 were mortally and six others badly wounded: that then the men 
 turned their guns towards the stern, and threatened to blow all aft 
 into the water, &c. 
 
 It 
 
 Ie re ee 
 
114 
 
 ship; and several of them, with much less polite- 
 ness than the men of the ‘ London,’ had compelled 
 their captains and officers to land. At last, how- 
 ever, at the suggestion of the king, or, as some say, 
 of his prime minister, it was determined to send 
 down Lord Howe with plenary powers to settle 
 all matters in dispute ;—that is, to offer the seamen 
 an entire compliance with all their demands, which 
 would have settled everything so long before, and 
 have saved the country from a long agony of alarm, 
 and the government from an indelible disgrace. 
 Lord Howe arrived at Portsmouth on the 11th of 
 May, bringing with him an act of parliament, 
 agreeable to the wishes of the seamen, which had 
 been passed on the 9th, and not before. His first step 
 was to visit personally all the line-of-battle ships, to 
 ascertain precisely all their grievances. His pre- 
 sence touched the hearts of the men, for his vener- 
 able age and his very infirm state of health told 
 them that he was not long for this world; and 
 they could not forget the glories of the First of 
 June, and the many times that the older mariners 
 among them had braved with him “the battle and 
 the breeze.’ On his representations they soon 
 agreed to express generally a contrition for what 
 had happened, and to request his interposition to 
 obtain the king’s pardon for their transgressions. 
 Howe said that these poor sailors, though the 
 most suspicious, were the most generous minds he 
 ever met with in the same class of men. On the 
 13th deputies from each ship presented their peti- 
 tions to his lordship on board the ‘ Royal William :’ 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 j Mv 
 4 my oe 
 * 
 
 sternation, when, on the 20th of May, many of 
 the ships lying at the Nore, and soon afterwards 
 
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 Seiten 
 
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 Lorp Howe’s Monument, 1n Sr, PAvt’s, 
 
 they all expressed contrition, they were all full of *| nearly all of those belonging to the North Sea fleet, 
 
 respect and loyalty; but they all avowed a most 
 decided resolution not again to receive on board 
 those tyrannical officers whom they had sent on 
 shore. His lordship found himself obliged to 
 comply ; and a number of new appointments were 
 instantly made to fill up the vacancies thus created.* 
 A gracious proclamation of pardon under the great 
 seal was then published; and the sailors of the 
 fleet struck the flag of disaffection, and expressed 
 a great anxiety to be off to look after the French- 
 men at Brest.t ‘This was the last important ser- 
 vice rendered to his country by Richard Earl 
 Howe, who died on the 5th of August, 1799, in 
 his seventy-fourth year. 
 
 While these things were transacting at Ports- 
 mouth, a fresh mutiny broke out at Sheerness. At 
 first it gave little alarm, as it was reasonably cal- 
 culated that the terms which had satisfied Lord 
 Bridport’s ships, and which were to be extended 
 to all ships and fleets whatsoever, would satisfy the 
 
 * Among the officers thus charged with oppression, and dis- 
 carded by their men, were, 1 admiral (Colpoys), 4 captains, 29 lieu- 
 tenants, 17 master’s mates, 25 midshipmen, 5 captains of marines, 
 3 lieutenants of marines, 4 surgeons, and about 13 petty officers. 
 
 + The whole business was concluded on the 15th of May, when the 
 deputies from the ships landed at Portsmouth, proceeded to the 
 governor’s house, where Lord Howe was lodged, partook of some 
 refreshments, and then marched in procession to the Sally-port.as 
 an escort of honour to Lord and Lady Howe, who with a number 
 of officers and gentlemen were going to visit the fleet. Sir Roger 
 Curtis’s squadron had just come in from a cruize: his seamen had 
 showed symptoms of mutiny, but on learning what had passed they 
 became satisfied. In the evening, when the party returned to Ports- 
 mouth, the late organs of insurrection, the deputies or delegates, 
 carried Lord Howe on their shoulders to the governor’s house, 
 
 hoisted the red flag, chose two delegates from every 
 
 [Book Xa 
 
 mutineers at Sheerness; but great was the con-. 
 
 ship, and went much farther than their precursors - 
 had done, by electing a president, who styled him-_ 
 
 self “ President of the floating republic.” This 
 mutiny was, in fact, altogether different from the 
 other; and it was met in a very different spirit by 
 
 all classes on shore. 
 demanded nothing but a redress of long accumu- 
 lated and crying grievances ; in the midst of alarm, _ 
 the sympathy of the nation went along with them; 
 but these madmen at the Nore had been perverted — 
 by some floating demagogues, and had no griev= 
 ances left to complain of, and no demands to make, 
 but such as were ridiculous, or incompatible with 
 the service ; and, like so many other half or wholly | 
 Jacobinised classes of men, they knew not what 
 
 they were aiming at, : 
 perverter was the very aspiring man they had 
 elected for their president. This was Richard. 
 Parker, a native of Scotland, and at one time a 
 little tradesman of Edinburgh, who had ruined his. 
 affairs by a too close attention to politics, and who 
 had then abandoned his wife, and entered on board. 
 a man-of-war as acommon sailor. The man had_ 
 some education, and he had frequented debating 
 clubs and reforming societies until he conceited 
 himself an orator and a statesman. Under his di- 
 rection a committee of twelve was appointed in 
 
 every ship; and these committees decided upon 
 
 all affairs, and upon the merits of the respective 
 
 The Portsmouth men had — 
 
 f 
 : 
 
 It appears that their chief 
 
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 f 
 
 i 
 4 
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 ae 
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 - 
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 rf 
 
Guar. VIII. ] 
 
 delegates. There were some minor arrangements 
 which showed how attentive a student Parker had 
 been in the school of the Edinburgh clubs. On 
 the 20th of May the delegates delivered “ a state- 
 ‘ment of the demands of the sailors,’ peremp- 
 torily insisting upon compliance as the only condi- 
 tion upon which they would return to their duty. 
 On the 22nd they received from the lords com- 
 missioners of the Admiralty a firm, dignified, and 
 decided negative, together with the promise of a 
 pardon if they would immediately return to their 
 duty, and proceed to sea in search of the enemies 
 of their country. Hereupon the delegates declared 
 that some of the Board of Admiralty must come 
 down to Sheerness to negotiate with them. On the 
 next dav the mutineers in the ‘Sandwich,’ of 90 
 guns, Vice-Admiral Buckner’s ship, in which Pre- 
 sident Parker was serving, struck the admiral’s 
 flag, and hoisted the red or bloody flag in its stead ; 
 and then all the ships of war which lay near Sheer- 
 ness dropped down to the Great Nore. On the 
 24th the government offer of pardon was repeated 
 and rejected. On the 29th a committee of the Ad- 
 miralty went down to Sheerness, sent for the dele- 
 gates, and tried to bring them to reason, without, 
 however, yielding to any of their new demands. 
 The delegates, who often landed, with strong 
 escorts of armed seamen, and marched in proces- 
 sion alongshore, as if to entice the people of Kent 
 to join them, behaved with great insolence to the 
 commissioners; and, as soon as they returned to 
 the fleet, the mutineers moored their ships in a 
 line across the river, and detained every merchant- 
 vessel bound up or down the Thames. This was 
 nothing less than an effectual blockade of the port 
 of London. ‘Two vessels, laden with stores and 
 provisions, they seized and appropriated. The 
 conduct of the Foxite opposition, who had done 
 great mischief, during the previous mutiny, by de- 
 laying the minister’s bill in favour of the seamen, 
 was at this present crisis unpatriotic in the ex- 
 treme, and, in our humble estimation, infamous. 
 On the 26th of May, when the mind of the country 
 was wholly occupied and agitated by the daring 
 conduct of Parker and his delegates, Mr. Grey rose 
 in the House of Commons to move—for a sweep- 
 ing reform in parliament. He was seconded by 
 Erskine, and supported by Sir Francis Burdett, 
 Sir Richard Hill, Sir William Dolben, Mr. Smith, 
 Mr. Pollen, Mr. Fox, the great leader, and others 
 of his party. The vast majority of the House tes- 
 tified their disgust at the time chosen for agitating 
 such a question, and the motion was smothered by 
 a vote of 258 against 93. Not aman of the de- 
 feated party could have had the shadow of a hope 
 that the motion would pass; but now they pre- 
 tended to be driven to despair by its rejection, and 
 by the numbers and obstinacy of the Pittites; and 
 Fox and most of his friends instantly seceded from 
 parliament, declaring their attendance there use- 
 less, retired into the country, and hoisted, as it 
 were, the black flag of despair to the English 
 people, or to the, at that time, very limited portion 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1797. 
 
 115 
 
 of the nation that was eager for a reform of the 
 House of Commons. Some of the seceders re- 
 turned to their seats, and attended occasionally to 
 their parliamentary duties, but none of them re- 
 turned during Parker’s mutiny; and from this 
 time till the month of February, 1800, Fox spoke 
 only three or four times in the House. Sheridan, 
 who, for some time past, had been altering his tone 
 about the French revolution, refused to secede, or 
 follow his leader; and, when the anxious debate 
 came on touching the rebellion at the Nore, he 
 stood forward, in defiance of his party, to strengthen 
 the hands of government, to recommend. firmness, 
 and to exclaim, that, if we yielded to mutinous 
 sailors, we should extinguish, in one moment, three 
 centuries of glory!* ‘The Foxites could only ac- 
 count for this conduct by suspecting, and indeed 
 assuming, that Sheridan was acting under selfish 
 motives, and was, in fact, looking out for some 
 well-paid place and aseat on the treasury bench; 
 and it grieves us to say that there are sundry little 
 circumstances and indications which tend to con- 
 firm this suspicion.t Sheridan never recovered 
 the friendship and confidence of his party; nor 
 could that party soon remove the evil impressions 
 made upon the public mind by their conduct at 
 this crisis. The members of the House who re- 
 mained at their posts behaved with becoming spirit, 
 and imparted additional firmness to the govern- 
 ment. The buoys at the mouth of the river were 
 taken up, batteries were erected alongshore for 
 firing red-hot shot, and a proclamation was issued 
 declaring the ships in a state of rebellion, and for- 
 bidding all intercourse whatever with them. Fierce 
 dissentions now broke out among the mutineers, 
 who became sensible that their fellow-seamen in the 
 other fleets and the whole nation were against 
 them. For some time they had been sick of Par- 
 ker’s long speeches, and had deprived him of his 
 presidency. On the 4th of June, the king’s birth- 
 day, the whole mutinous fleet, to prove its loyalty, 
 fired a royal salute and displayed all the gay 
 colours and flags usual on such occasions, the red 
 flag being struck during the ceremony on board 
 every ship except the ‘Sandwich,’ where Parker 
 was. A day or two after this, several of the ships 
 deserted the rebels, who pointed their guns at them, 
 but did not fire, and went for protection either up the 
 Thames or under the guns of Sheerness. In those 
 that remained, the well-disposed rose upon the 
 determined rebels, and many wounds were given 
 and some few lives lost. By the 13th of June the 
 bloody flag had disappeared from every mast-head ; 
 and on the following morning, the crew of the 
 ‘Sandwich’ carried the ship under the guns at 
 
 * Mr, Moore says that, while the ministry were yet hesitating as to 
 the steps they should take, Sheridan went to Secretary Dundas and 
 said, ‘* My advice is, that you cut the buoys of the river, send Sir 
 Charles Grey down to the coast, and set a price on Parker’s head. If 
 the administration take this advice instantly, they will save the coun- 
 try—if not, they will lose it; and, on their refusal, I will impeach 
 them in the House of Commons this very evening.””— Life of Sheridan. 
 
 + It was never, we believe, thought that Sheridan had any inten- 
 tion of deserting to Pitt; but at this time there was a talk of a new 
 mixed administration, from which Fox must inevitably be excluded 
 by the old antipathies of the king. At this moment Sheridan’s pe- 
 cuniary embarrassments were thickening and becoming unbearable. 
 
 I ee 
 
116 
 
 Sheerness, and gave up ex-president Parker to a 
 guard of soldiers, who carried him on shore. 
 Parker was solemnly tried, and was hanged at the 
 yard-arm of the ‘ Sandwich’ on the 30th. <A few 
 of the delegates were executed shortly after, some 
 of the ringleaders were flogged through the fleet, 
 and others were left under sentence on board pri- 
 son-ships; but the general good behaviour of our 
 fleets at sea, and Admiral Duncan’s victory off 
 Camperdown, gave an excellent occasion for the 
 exercise of royal mercy, and in October a general 
 pardon was proclaimed.* The mutiny at the Nore, 
 which had madness for its origin and nothing but 
 mischief for its end, was thus put down with (for 
 the times) a very small sacrifice of human life. 
 From the other mutiny may be dated the most 
 rapid improvement in the management and condi- 
 tion of our sailors, with a proportionate improve- 
 ment in the discipline and spirit of the men and 
 the gallantry of their officers. 
 
 On the 20th of July the king prorogued par- 
 liament. 
 
 “The Year of Mutinies ” was not altogether an 
 
 * Sir John Barrow, Life of Earl Howe.—James, Naval Iist.— 
 Documents in Ann. Regist. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 1 
 
 inglorious year to the British navy. On the 14th 
 of February the late Mediterranean fleet, under 
 Admiral Sir John Jervis, fell in off Cape St. Vin- 
 cent with the great Spanish fleet, just come out of 
 Cadiz under the command of Don José de Cordova, 
 who had recently superseded Langara. The 
 Spaniards had 27 sail of the line, the English only 
 15; but the greater part of the Spanish crews were 
 about equally destitute of seamanship and spirit ; 
 and Nelson, who was in himself worth a whole 
 squadron of line-of-hattle ships, was with Sir John 
 Jervis, and executed all the daring and really 
 brilliant part of the action.* By breaking the 
 line, by battering and boarding, four Spanish ships 
 of the line, including one of 112 guns, were 
 taken ; and all the rest were driven into Cadiz 
 and there blockaded. The news of this opportune 
 victory reached London at the time of the panic 
 caused by the state of the Bank of England, and 
 had a great effect in reviving the national spirit. 
 Sir John Jervis was made Earl St. Vincent, and 
 Nelson a Knight of the Bath. 
 
 * Nelson had said, just before the breaking out of the war with 
 
 Spain, that, if her fleet were no better now than when it acted in 
 alliance with us, it would ‘* soon be done for.” _ 
 
 BATTLe OFF Care St. VINCENT. 
 
 On the 11th of October Admiral Duncan, with 
 16 sail of the line, attacked a Dutch fleet of 11 sail 
 of the line and four 56-gun ships, which had 
 stolen out of the Texel during a storm, and which 
 was on its way to join the great French fleet at 
 Brest. The Dutch admiral, de Winter, his officers, 
 and crews, fought their ships in a very different 
 style from the Spaniards—fought them like brave 
 men and excellent sailors, like worthy descendants 
 of the men who had so long disputed with us the 
 
 empire of the seas. Their inferiority of force was 
 very considerable, and the only particularly glo- 
 rious part of the action, on the side of the English, 
 was the daring way in which they ran between 
 the Dutch line, close in-shore, and the dangerous 
 coast; thus setting an example which Nelson 
 
 afterwards followed at the battle of the Nile. After 
 
 a most obstinate combat, and a terrible loss in 
 killed and wounded on either side, Admiral de 
 Winter struck ; and eight ships of the line, two 
 
- 
 
 Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 56-gun ships, and two frigates remained as trophies 
 
 ‘of victory to the English; but they were little 
 
 more than trophies, being all riddled in their hulls 
 like sieves, and otherwise so cut to pieces as to be 
 neatly all incapable of repair. ‘This victory off 
 
 ; nf » 
 \ y 
 \V 
 
 ij 
 
 a 
 io 
 
 Lornp Duncan’s MonuMENT, IN Sr. Patt’s. 
 
 Camperdown excited a rapturous joy at home, 
 Juncan was very properly elevated to the peerage. 
 In the meanwhile, in the month of July, misled 
 by incorrect intelligence, Nelson with a small force 
 had made a very unfortunate attack on Santa 
 Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, which had ended 
 in the loss of his own right arm and of the lives of 
 some 200 of his men. But for his admirable pre- 
 sence of mind and indomitable courage the loss 
 must have been fourfold what it was. 
 
 In the West Indies a squadron, under Rear- 
 Admiral Harvey, co-operated with General Aber- 
 cromby in reducing the Spanish island of Trini- 
 dad. A Spanish squadron lay at anchor there: it 
 was nearly as strong as his own, and was, more- 
 over, protected by some strong batteries on an 
 island at the mouth of the harbour. But, while 
 Haryey, on the night of the 17th of February, lay 
 at anchor off the harbour, within random shot of 
 the Spanish batteries and line-of-battle ships, four 
 of the Spanish ships caught fire, apparently by 
 accident, and burned with great fury till daylight, 
 when the huge boats entered and towed out the 
 filth ship; and the Spaniards, in. dismay, sur- 
 rendered the island without any further struggle. 
 Abercromby and Haryey were much less success- 
 ful at the island of Porto Rico, which they attacked 
 on the 18th of April; for the Spaniards had 
 strongly fortified the town and the approzches to 
 it, and the English general, after losing abcut two 
 
 ne 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1797. 
 
 { ° 
 hundred men, gave up the enterprise. 
 
 117 
 
 The mor- 
 tality among the troops employed in the West 
 Indies continued to be prodigious, nor was any 
 apparent improvement made in the management 
 of them.* 
 
 Before proceeding to the war on the continent 
 we must mention a strange expedition of the 
 French to the English coast, which occurred dur- 
 ing the money-panic. On the 20th of February 
 four vessels, three of them old French frigates, 
 came to anchor in the British Channel off Ilfra- 
 combe. They had troops on board, but no attempt 
 was made to land there, as the north Devonshire 
 volunteers presently lined the coast. The ships 
 stood over to the Welsh coast, and there, in a bay 
 near Fishguard, the troops were disembarked. 
 They advanced into the wild country of Pembroke- 
 shire, apparently without knowing whither they 
 were going. The alarm was spread rapidly, the 
 Welsh collected on every hill, and in every valley, 
 to oppose them; and more than 3000 men, in- 
 cluding 700 well-trained militia, with Lord Cawdor 
 at their head, marched directly against the in- 
 vaders, who, without firing a shot, laid down their 
 arms and surrendered as prisoners of war. There 
 were 1400 of them, without artillery, but well 
 supplied with ammunition. ‘The men were in 
 rags, and looked more like felons escaped from 
 prison than soldiers. It was concluded that they 
 must be prisoners let loose; but this conclusion 
 was perhaps too hasty, for Bonaparte’s conquering 
 army of Italy had been just as ragged a few 
 months before, and, in English eyes at least, would 
 have looked just as much hke escaped felons or 
 vagabonds. This petty invasion of Wales was not 
 intelligible at the time, and can hardly be said to 
 have been made intelligible since. Some thought 
 it was meant to alarm us by showing that a body 
 of troops might be thrown on our coasts in spite 
 of the vigilance and mighty force of our fleets (but 
 this object might have been attained without so 
 large a sacrifice of men as 1400); some thought 
 that it was meant to be a rapid predatory expedi- 
 tion ; some that it was meant to burthen us with 
 so many prisoners, who must be fed at our expense, 
 and who might afterwards increase the confusion 
 in the event of an actual invasion ; which last con- 
 jecture seems the most rational. 
 
 In order to strengthen the armies in Italy, the 
 victorious Archduke Charles had been left weak 
 on the Rhine. He recovered Fort Kehl at the 
 beginning of the year; but Moreau, strongly rein- 
 forced, again reduced that important fortress, and 
 defeated the Austrians in a great battle in the 
 month of April. Nearly at the same moment 
 Hoche, who commanded on the Lower Rhine, de- 
 feated General Krey; and other French divisions 
 were again advancing into the heart of Germany, 
 when their march was suspended by the intelligence 
 that the emperor was negotiating for a peace with 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 Both the young republican general and the old 
 
 * Life of Sir John Moore.—James, Naval Iist.—Ann. Regist. 
 
118 
 
 Austrian marshal had received reinforcements dur- 
 ing the winter. Alvinzi, as early as the month of 
 January, took the field with 50,000 men, intend- 
 ing not merely to relieve Wurmser, but also to 
 drive the French from the whole line of the 
 Adige; but he again divided his forces, was de- 
 feated at Rivoli on the 14th of January; and, after 
 General Provera, who had surrendered with 2000 
 men the year before, had surrendered with a divi- 
 sion of 5000 men, old Wurmser, being reduced 
 to extremities for want of provisions, was obliged 
 to capitulate in Mantua. 
 
 The pope was unable to pay the enormous con- 
 tributions demanded from him. After the surrender 
 of Mantua the French overran the greater part of 
 the papal states, scattered with a few shots some 
 6000 or 8000 very unwarlike troops in the pope’s 
 pay, took possession of the city and port of Ancona, 
 and at Tolentino dictated new and still harsher con- 
 ditions of peace to the helpless head of the Catholic 
 Church.* By this time Austria had poured an- 
 other army to the frontiers of Italy, and had given 
 the command of it to the Archduke Charles. But 
 this last Austrian army was composed almost en- 
 tirely of raw recruits, and of the disheartened frag- 
 ments of the forces of Beaulieu, Wurmser, Da- 
 vidowich, and Alvinzi; and the archduke, instead 
 of being left to his own genius and ready resources, 
 was checked and embarrassed by the Aulic Coun- 
 cil at Vienna. On the other side, the French, 
 already superior in numbers, were flushed with 
 victory ; and General Bernadotte, who had quitted 
 the army of the Rhine, joined Bonaparte with 
 20,000 men. After sustaining some terrible de- 
 feats in the month of March on the Tagliamento, 
 the archduke retreated slowly and in admirable 
 order towards Vienna, in the hope of receiving re- 
 inforcements from that capital and from Hungary, 
 and of drawing the French into the hereditary 
 states, where a population enthusiastically devoted 
 to the emperor would be sure to rise en masse and 
 attack them on their flanks and rear. The cam- 
 paign was not hopeless: the archduke was full of 
 hope and ardour; the French, who had violated 
 the continental territories of the republic of Venice, 
 were apprehensive of an attack on their rear from 
 that quarter ; General Laudon was pouring through 
 the valleys of the Tyrol with another Austrian di- 
 vision, was driving back the French detachments 
 on the Upper Adige, and was almost on the edge 
 of the plains of Lombardy. Bonaparte was full of 
 anxiety; but disguising this feeling, and suddenly 
 pretending to deplore the horrors of war, and to be 
 anxious, merely for humanity’s sake, for a peace, 
 he wrote a very flattering letter to the archduke, 
 calling him the saviour of Germany, and repre- 
 senting England as the only power in Europe that 
 had an interest in continuing the war. The arch- 
 duke referred him for an answer to Vienna. Bo- 
 
 * Fifteen millions of livres, part in cash, part in diamonds, were 
 to be paid within one month; 30,000,000 more were to be paid 
 within three months; horses and cattle were to be furnished to an 
 
 immense amount; and the Vatican was to be again plundered of 
 statues, paintings, and rare manuscripts. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 naparte was now at Judenburg, in Upper Styria, 
 
 about eight days’ march from Vienna; but, not- 
 withstanding the successes of Moreau and Hoche, 
 there was no republican army in the valley of the 
 Danube to co-operate with him, he had many 
 streams to pass, and several dangerous defiles be- 
 fore him, and behind him the Lombard Venetians, 
 though without any aid from their timid, con- 
 temptible government, were actually rising in in- 
 surrection, it being reported among the people, 
 who had many wrongs to avenge, that the French 
 army had got enclosed in the mountain passes of 
 Carniola and Styria, and would inevitably be com- 
 pelled to lay down their arms. But there was a 
 party at Vienna overcome by their fears, and ready 
 to purchase peace at almost any price: the arch- 
 duke was ordered to agree to a suspension of hos- 
 tilities; an armistice began on the 7th of April, 
 and the preliminaries of a peace were signed by 
 Bonaparte, at Leoben, on the 18th. The French 
 on their first advance into the Venetian dominions, 
 and many months before any popular insurrection 
 was heard of or thought of, had made up their 
 minds to overthrow that aristocratic republic, to 
 appropriate all its territories on the continent, toge- 
 ther with the city of Venice itself, seated on its 
 hundred isles, to keep all this as an affiliated or 
 dependent republic, or to barter it away (after 
 having well plundered it) for territory elsewhere 
 and other advantages.* In a secret article to the 
 preliminaries, Bonaparte now agreed to give the 
 neutral state of Venice to Austria in compensation 
 for her losses. This done, Bonaparte hurried back 
 to the Adige, took a sanguinary vengeance for 
 some disgraceful excesses which had been com- 
 mitted by the people of Verona and its neighbour- 
 hood, sent his propagandists into the city of 
 Venice, to excite a mad democratic party into in- » 
 surrection against the Doge and the aristocrats by 
 promising them liberty and equality, and by setting 
 up the tree of liberty under the shadow of the 
 winged lion in the square of St. Mark; roused the 
 people to rebellion in Bergamo, Brescia, and other 
 towns; got possession of the castles and other forti- 
 fied places by pretending that he meant merely to 
 keep them until a free, democratic, and essentially 
 independent republican government could be 
 settled by delegates and representatives of the 
 people (in all these deeds a body of Poles, who had 
 been so recently duped, betrayed, and then beaten 
 out of their own country, were active and zealous 
 co-operators with the French) ; introduced surrep- 
 titiously troops into Venice, and next, with some- 
 thing plainer than words, told the Doge and the 
 senate that the people must have a new constitu- 
 tion and form of government, and that they must 
 resign ; which the equivocating, heartless cowards 
 did in the month of May. Bonaparte then took 
 possession of the arsenal and docks, with all their 
 stores and all the ships of war; a provisional go- 
 
 * The correspondence of Bonaparte published by Panckoucke 
 fully establishes this fact, which is proved by a mass of other 
 evidence equally incontrovertible. “ 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 vernment of the required democratic form was set 
 up, and the mad Venetian democrats insulted their 
 pusillanimous, degenerate nobles with impunity, 
 sang the * Ca Ira” with the French soldiery, and 
 danced round the tree of liberty in the square 
 of St. Mark in an extasy, and down to the last 
 moment without any foreboding that they and their 
 country were to be given up to the hated rule of the 
 Austrian Kaiser—whose acceptance of this compen- 
 sation was only less infamous than Bonaparte’s offer. 
 
 At the same time, but with much less deception 
 and difficulty, Genoa was democratised and afiili- 
 ated. The shuffling senate and aristocracy of that 
 once proud republic had hoped to preserve them- 
 selves by their treaties of neutrality, and their secret 
 co-operation with the French; but one fine day-in 
 June the democrats of the city hoisted the red 
 nightcap, and told them that their government was 
 no longer compatible with the improved notions of 
 the times. Fearing plunder, and worse, most of 
 the respectability classes rallied round the senate : 
 the sans-culottes were beaten and put down; but 
 the vanquished applied to the French, who had 
 promised to support them; and then Bonaparte, 
 the conqueror, stepped in, with the intimation that 
 the Genoese government must submit. It sub- 
 mitted accordingly, and was remodelled in the 
 French fashion: Four millions of livres were 
 wrung from the principal nobility, and sent to the 
 five kings at the Luxembourg; a French garrison 
 took possession of the city, and of the mountain 
 fortifications which gird it; and all who gainsaid 
 what was done were put under arrest, while the 
 peasants who attempted to defend their native 
 mountains and their homesteads were tried by 
 martial law and shot. All this while negotiations 
 were going on, and the young republican general 
 was browbeating the Austrian diplomatists, now 
 hinting that he might have gained much more for 
 France by continuing the war, and now threat- 
 ening to shatter Austria like a potsherd. As 
 England was now clearly to be left in the war 
 without a single ally, Pitt, as early as the month 
 of June, intimated to the Directory a willingness 
 to enter into a new negotiation. The Directors, 
 who had taken up and echoed Bonaparte’s note 
 that France loved peace, agreed to the opening of 
 conferences at Lisle. In the beginning of July 
 Lord Malmesbury repaired to that city, and con- 
 tinued there exchanging useless notes and receiving 
 many insults until the middle of September, when 
 he was ordered to quit the place within four-and- 
 twenty hours. The French negotiators had acted 
 as if England had been beaten as well as Austria, 
 having demanded that we should give up the Cape 
 of Good Hope and every island or settlement, 
 French, Dutch, or Spanish, without receiving any 
 compensation. Again, as we believe, Pitt was 
 driven into a humiliating negotiation without any 
 expectation of concluding a treaty ; and again, the 
 French, while pretending to negotiate and to 
 blame the insincerity of the English cabinet, were 
 stirring up insurrection and civil war in Ireland. 
 
 ra IR a Se 0 ee eo 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1797. 
 
 119 
 
 | They had already been made to feel that in a ma- 
 ritime war with this country they must be losers ; 
 but they confidently calculated that the civil war 
 now on the point of breaking out in Ireland, and 
 popular insurrections in England and Scotland, 
 and the state of our navy, which they very incor- 
 rectly considered as still mutinous, must bring 
 Great Britain to the verge of ruin, and facilitate 
 their triumph over her. Bonaparte, who hated 
 the English and their institutions (which he never 
 during his whole life could understand) with a 
 hatred as bad as any Jacobin sans-culotte had ever 
 felt, and who had already begun uttering his pithy 
 oracular sentences, had said that the monarchy 
 and aristocracy of England must be destroyed— 
 that they were undermined already—and that it 
 would only take him three months to democratise 
 London as he had democratised Venice and Genoa. 
 On the 17th of October the definitive treaty of 
 peace between France and Austria was signed at 
 Campo Formio, near Udine. The emperor ceded 
 to France all the Netherlands, and the left bank 
 of the Rhine, with Mayence, the great outpost and 
 bulwark of Germany; he gave up, nominally to 
 the natives, but virtually to the French, all that he 
 had held in Lombardy, acknowledging the inde- 
 pendence of the Milanese and Mantuan states, 
 under their new name of the ‘ Cisalpine Repub- 
 lic ;?? and he consented that the French republic 
 should have the Ionian Islands, which then be- 
 longed to Venice, and the Venetian possessions in 
 Albania. The French republic, on its part, con- 
 sented (such was the word) that the emperor should 
 take and keep Venice, and its territory in Italy as 
 far as the Adige, together with Istria, at the head 
 of that sea, and all Venetian Dalmatia, on the 
 opposite side of the Adriatic. The Venetian pro- 
 vinces between the Adige and the Adda were to be 
 incorporated with that political phantom, the Cis- 
 alpine republic. The emperor, who, in the case 
 of Venice, had admitted the principle of taking 
 neutral or friendly states as compensations from 
 an enemy, was also to have an increase of territory 
 in Germany at the expense of Bavaria, and his 
 feudatory and relative by marriage, the Duke of 
 Modena, was to have the Brisgau. Modena, 
 Massa, Carrara, and all the papal provinces of 
 Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Faenza, and Rimini, 
 as far as the Rubicon, were declared to be annexed 
 to the Cisalpine republic aforesaid. Tuscany, 
 Parma, Rome, and Naples were left to their old 
 governments and monarchic institutions; but, ex- 
 cept Naples, they were all in complete subjection 
 to France and her liege vassals the new Italian 
 republicans, who never ceased promoting plots 
 and conspiracies against the said established go- 
 vernments. From these manceuvres Naples itself 
 was certainly not exempted: even now the road 
 was paved for that entrance of the French into the 
 Neapolitan kingdom which took place in 1799. 
 To General Serrurier was confided the honourable 
 task of finishing the spoliation of Venice, and then 
 delivering it over to the Austrians: having re- 
 
120 
 
 moved all their plunder, having stripped even the 
 Bucintoro of its gold and ornaments, the French 
 quitted Venice one day and the Austrians entered 
 it the next; and not only was the new-fangled tree 
 of liberty in St. Mark’s cut down, but an end was 
 put to a republic which had flourished for fourteen 
 hundred years. It was an oppressive, tyrannous, 
 jealous oligarchy when at its best; and for more 
 than a century it had fallen into decrepitude and 
 imbecility ; its proud patricians had become the 
 meanest of the mean, and not something, but 
 everything was rotten in the state of Venice ;—but 
 
 **men are we, and must grieve 
 When that which once was great hath passed away.” 
 
 To settle various questions relating to Germany it 
 was agreed at Campo Formio to hold a congress 
 at Rastadt. Bonaparte, being appointed by the 
 Directory to act as plenipotentiary at this congress, 
 took his leave of Italy in November, leaving his 
 victorious army behind him. As he passed through 
 Switzerland he found an opportunity of insulting 
 Bern and the other aristocratic cantons, thus in- 
 dicating that they were soon to be democratised 
 and plundered. After a short stay at Rastadt, in 
 which he proscribed and dictated at his pleasure, 
 he hastened back to Paris, where he arrived early 
 in December, to claim the command in chief of 
 the ‘‘ Army of England,” as an immense force was 
 called which was said to be prepared for the inva- 
 sion of this couniry. A proclamation had been 
 issued to that army, telling the soldiery that they 
 should soon be enriched by sharing among them 
 the uncountable wealth of London and the spoils 
 of the English aristocracy. 
 
 Since we last alluded to the internal government 
 of France, numerous turmoils, conspiracies, and 
 changes had taken place in Paris. In 1796 the 
 Montagnards and Jacobins made a terrible effort 
 to recover the power they had lost; but their deep 
 conspiracy was detected at the moment it was 
 about to break out by the vigilant Directors, who 
 had organised a very complete system of espionage 
 and treachery ; and Gracchus Babceuf, betrayed by 
 one Grisel, a brother conspirator, was arrested by 
 night, and all his papers, containing every parti- 
 cular of the plot, were found and seized. Forth- 
 with all the chiefs of the conspiracy, as Vadier, 
 Amar, Choudieu, Drouet (the hero of Varennes), 
 Rosignol (whose name in the Vendée was ‘ Devil’), 
 Ricord, and a great many others, were captured. 
 Gracchus Babceuf bullied the Directors, and en- 
 deavoured to make them believe that, from the 
 great strength of his party, the best thing they 
 could do would be to make terms with him, and 
 save his friends by declaring that there had been 
 no conspiracy at all; but the Directors sent him 
 and his friends to take their trial before the High 
 Court of Venddme. Their partizans in Paris 
 talked of liberating them and overthrowing the 
 five kings at the Luxembourg; but they talked 
 
 too long and too loudly. At last, in the month of’ 
 
 August (1796), about 700 desperadoes, and not 
 more, and only armed with swords and pistols, 
 
 ee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 4" 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 ‘ 
 marched over to the Luxembourg at about mid- 
 
 night to seize the directors. Finding that the 
 palace was defended by a numerous guard, and 
 that they could do nothing there, they marched 
 away to the camp at Grenelle, where they counted 
 on the co-operation of one battalion, and where 
 they hoped to win over the rest of the soldiery. 
 They entered the camp shouting “ Long live the 
 republic and the constitution of 793!” but their 
 friendly battalion had been removed, and the rest 
 of the soldiers, instead of joining, fell upon them 
 with sabres and bayonets, killed a great many of 
 them on the spot, and made prisoners of a great 
 many more. A military commission established 
 in the camp condemned thirty-one of these conspi- 
 rators to death, thirty to deportation to Guiana, 
 and twenty-five to a hard imprisonment at home. 
 After a very long delay the High Court of Ven- 
 déme proceeded with the trial of Baboeuf and the 
 other chiefs of the conspiracy, who kept up their 
 spirits on their trial by singing the Marseillese 
 hymn, and repeating the liberty and equality 
 dogmas which a few months before had been the 
 law and gospel of all France. Gracchus Babceuf 
 and Darthé were condemned to death, the rest to 
 deportation. On hearing their sentence Baboeuf 
 and Darthé stabbed themselves with concealed 
 daggers; but, not doing the thing effectually, they 
 were both carried to the scaffold in a half-dead 
 state, and guillotined. These men were about the 
 last of the honest fanatics of the revolution, and they 
 left behind them few or none but selfish time- 
 servers, or men prepared by want of principle, or 
 want of courage, to conform to the course of events, 
 be it what it might, and to submit to that military 
 despotism which was already forging for France. 
 Before the trial and execution of Baboeuf, which 
 did not take place till March, 1797, the royalists 
 in their turn began to conspire against the Direc- 
 tory and the so-called republic. ‘Two or three 
 men said to be secret emissaries of Monsieur or 
 Louis XVIII. were apprehended in January, and 
 accused of attempting, like the Babceufists, but for a 
 very different purpose, to seduce the soldiers in the 
 camp at Grenelle. In the month of March, when 
 the elections came on for one-third of the legisla- 
 ture, some of the ancient noblesse were returned, 
 and these decided royalists soon formed a powerful 
 coalition, in direct opposition to the Directory. In 
 May they were even strong enough to get General 
 Pichegru elected president of the Council of Five 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 — 
 
 Hundred, and Barbé-Marbois president of the 
 
 Council of Ancients. 
 alist before, the depriving him of his high com- 
 
 mand in the army had made him one now: Barbé- — 
 
 Marbois was a warm and honest constitutional 
 royalist. In the same month when, in conformity 
 with Siéyes’s last constitution, one of the Directors 
 went out, Barthelemy the diplomatist, who was also 
 by this time suspected of royalism, was brought 
 in to fill up the vacancy. [The director that re- 
 
 tired was Letourneur.*] Loud outcries were raised — 
 
 * This was decided by drawing lots. 
 
 If Pichegru was not a roy- — 
 
i i a mes 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 
 Cuar. VII.) 
 
 against the extravagance, corruption, and profli- 
 gacy of the directional government ; the full liberty 
 of the press, so often promised, was demanded by 
 the royalists ; peace—peace, even with England— 
 was recommended; some of the severest of the 
 decrees against the emigrants and non-juring priests 
 were actually revoked, and the coalition were evi- 
 dently making considerable progress, when Director 
 Barras secured the services of the astucious Talley- 
 rand by making him minister for foreign affairs, 
 and then appealed to General Bonaparte and the 
 victorious army of Italy. Bonaparte hereupon dis- 
 patched Augereau, one of the most devoted and 
 most daring of his satellites, to Paris, with terrible 
 addresses from the army of Italy, which were evi- 
 dently Bonaparte’s own compositions. ‘‘ Tremble,”’ 
 said one of these significant addresses, ‘‘ tremble, 
 royalists! From the Adige to the Seine is but a 
 step. Tremble! Your iniquities are counted, and 
 the reward for them is at the point of our bayo- 
 nets.”? Besides sending army addresses, Bonaparte 
 sent a few more millions of livres. It seems to 
 lave been gratefully acknowledged by Barras, Rew- 
 bell, and La Réveillére, that but for the plunder of 
 Italy thus remitted from time to time the Direc- 
 tory would have had very hard work to weather 
 this storm. To overawe the two councils numerous 
 detachments of troops were marched into Paris. 
 Everything announced that a coup d’¢tat or another 
 revolution was at hand. Carnot hated royalty and 
 royalists; but he hated three of his colleagues in 
 the Directory—Barras, Rewbell, and La Reéveillére 
 Lepeaux—quite as much; he was enraged too at 
 the tone of “ that little Corsican,” and, though he 
 did not league himseif with his new brother di- 
 rector Barthelemy, or with the coalition in the 
 legislature, he refused to co-operate in the energetic 
 measures proposed by Barras aud Rewbell, and 
 even thwarted them continually. Therefore it was 
 they determined that Carnot, that rabid republican, 
 should be treated even as a royalist, and classed 
 with Barthelemy in the Dies Ire. The legisla- 
 ture, on the motion of Pichegru, decreed the im- 
 mediate arming of the national guards, and the 
 remoyal of the regular troops which had been 
 brought into the capital or stationed around it. 
 General Willot, one of the coalition, and the most 
 determined royalist of them all, recommended that 
 Pichegru should put himself at the head of the na- 
 tional guards, that a decree of accusation and arrest 
 should be launched against Barras, Rewbell, and 
 La Réveillére (it is said he offered to go himself to 
 the Luxembourg, and bring them handcuffed to 
 the bar), that the old sectioners who had survived 
 Bonaparte’s hail-storm of grape and canister 
 should be called out, and that the coalition should 
 anticipate their enemies and strike the first blow 
 boldly, and in open day. But Pichegru hesitated ; 
 others were all for acting according to law or the 
 new constitution ; and, while they were thus deli- 
 berating, Bonaparte’s own Augereau took the com- 
 mand of the troops of the line in and round Paris, 
 put some more grape and canister into their guns, 
 
 TRANSACTIONS :—1797. 
 
 121 
 
 and with 12,000 men, and 40 pieces of artillery, 
 surrounded the Tuileries, and stepped in to execute 
 the order of the triumvirate—Barras, Rewbell, 
 and La Réveillére—and arrest all their enemies. 
 Eight hundred grenadiers of the guard of the 
 Corps Legislatif were under arms behind the iron 
 railing of the Tuileries—but what were they against 
 somany? “Are you republicans?” said Auger- 
 eau. ‘* Certes,’”? replied the 800, who then went 
 over and joined his 12,000.* Pichegru, Willot, 
 General Ramel, and about sixty other members of 
 the legislature, were instantly arrested and trans- 
 ferred from the Tuileries to the Temple, charged 
 with high treason. The triumvirate had also pro- 
 scribed Carnot and Barthelemy: the first of these 
 personages concealed himself, and afterwards es- 
 caped, but Barthelemy remained to be condemned 
 and deported or transported with his party. The 
 Council of Five Hundred, who had so recently 
 bowed to the majorities and the will of the coali- 
 
 -tion, now trimmed their sails to go with another 
 
 wind: they named a committee of Five, with 
 Sieyes (wroth that men should be so mad as to 
 mutiny under his best of constitutions) at the head 
 of it, to organize a new committee of Public 
 Salvation, or Salut Public. This committee, with 
 a power as dictatorial and absolute as that which 
 it had enjoyed under Robespierre, soon stepped 
 forth, annulled the elections of some forty-eight 
 or fifty departments, drove away the persons elected 
 by them into the legislature and into official posts 
 (as judges, municipal administrators, &c.), and 
 gave to the Directory the power of nominating to 
 the offices thus vacated. Fortunately the Parisians 
 had become sick of blood, and “‘ deportation’’ was 
 all the mode. Pichegru, Willot, and forty other 
 members of the Council of Five Hundred, Barbé- 
 Marbois and ten other members of the Council of 
 Ancients, Carnot and Barthelemy, the two losing 
 members of the Directory, one abbé, one ex-minis- 
 ter of police, two generals (Miranda and Ramel), 
 and seven other individuals were condemned to be 
 deported or transported for life to that same terri- 
 ble country where Collot d’Herbois had died, and 
 where Billaud-Varennes was living and educating 
 parrots. Cayenne and Sinimari, and the other 
 yellow-fever towns that lie between the Maroni 
 and the Oyapok, must have been astonished at 
 the mixed batches exported by these successive 
 governments of the mother-country! Considering 
 that the opposition journalists were quite as dan- 
 gerous as the deputies or members, and that there 
 were no means of striking them judicially, the 
 Salut Public “resolved to act revolutionarily (7é- 
 volutionnairement) in their regard, as they had 
 done with the members of the Corps Legislatif.”’ ¢ 
 
 * Some of the money sent by Bonaparte had been employed in 
 corrupting beforehand these grenadiers of the guard of the Corps 
 Legislatif. Barras had performed this office with his usual address, 
 and the coup d’état had been deferred until the arrival from Italy of 
 the necessary funds, &c. Augereau wanted to blow the Tuileries 
 and the enemies of the Directory into the air many days before; 
 but, though sure of an easy victory, Barras was anxious to avoid 
 any combat. 
 
 + Thiers, 
 
122 
 
 The proprietors, editors, and writers of forty-two 
 journals (collectively an immense number) were 
 also condemned to deportation to French Guiana. 
 It was laid down as good, free, republican law that 
 for the future the Directory should have the power 
 of suppressing whatsoever journals, or newspapers, 
 pamphlets, and books, it might think fit, of seizing 
 and deporting to Guiana without any trial (sur 
 un simple arrété) all such priests as were thought 
 to misbehave themselves politically, and of shut- 
 ting up all clubs, preventing with the armed force 
 all meetings, &c. &c. The re-organization of the 
 Paris national guard was suspended; but there 
 was an immense increase and a re-organization of 
 the police, which began from this time to mix in 
 nearly all matters, and to exercise a despotism 
 which has never since ceased, and which, appa- 
 rently, never will cease in France. All these 
 measures, which gave the Directors a power more 
 absolute and more revolutionary than any that had 
 been possessed by Robespierre, Couthon, and St. 
 Just, were voted on the 18th Fructidor, or 4th of 
 September, by the Council of Five Hundred. 
 ** Not a voice,” says Thiers himself, “* was raised 
 against their adoption; some deputies applauded, 
 the majority were silent and submissive.” The 
 Council of Ancients showed less promptitude in 
 their submission; but on the 19th the Directory 
 sent them a peremptory and insolent message ; 
 and forthwith they const¢tuttonally confirmed all 
 that the other House or council had voted. 
 Nearly all the emigrants and priests who had re- 
 turned now went flying out of France. Some 
 cargoes of the deported were shipped off for the 
 pestiferous settlement in South America; but a 
 good many of them remained on the French coast, 
 in prison or under strict police surveillance in the 
 Tsle of Ré. Poor diplomatic Barthelemy was of 
 the number of those who went to Guiana, where 
 he caught the endemic fever and nearly died; but 
 after some months of captivity he escaped with six 
 of his companions, and got safely to England. 
 Carnot, who had fled, took up his quarters in 
 Switzerland, waiting for some new revolution at 
 Paris. Merlin de Douai, a timid, submissive 
 lawyer, and Francois de Neufchateau, a man of 
 letters, a writer of republican odes, and as servile 
 as Merlin, were put into the Directory to fill up 
 the places left vacant by Barthelemy and Carnot. 
 Such was the revolution or coup d’état of the 18th 
 Fructidor. 
 
 The British parliament reassembled on the 2nd 
 of November. The speech from the throne dwelt 
 on the excessive pretensions of the French; the 
 failure of the negotiations at Lisle, the flourishing 
 state of trade and the revenue, our naval victories 
 and our new conquests in the West Indies; and it 
 once more recommended those vigorous exertions 
 which alone could make peace attainable. As Fox 
 and other great orators of the opposition continued 
 in their secession (as if to encourage the enemy by 
 showing what a divided people we were), there 
 was little interest in the very slight opposition 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X. 
 
 offered to the addresses, or in any of the debates 
 which followed during the session. The army and 
 navy estimates were smoothly passed, and, as a 
 beginning, supplies were voted to the amount of 
 25,500,0007. Among the ways and means adopted 
 was the trebling of all the assessed taxes. 
 
 A.D. 1798.—At the end of April, when the sword 
 of rebellion was all but drawn in Ireland, the mi- 
 nister demanded further supplies to the amount of 
 more than 3,000,000/. The money was voted 
 with little opposition, as was anew increase of taxes 
 to meet it. Sundry more millions would have 
 been required if our late ally the emperor had not 
 made his separate peace with the French. As the 
 storm thickened in the West, as the Irish were 
 flying to arms in all parts of the country, and as 
 the French were not merely preparing to co-operate 
 with them in the heart of that island, but also 
 threatening to invade England with 100,000 men, 
 a bill was readily passed for allowing men in the 
 supplemental militia to enlist into the regular 
 army; and another bill soon followed to enable his 
 majesty to provide more effectually for the security 
 and defence of the realm, and to indemnify persons 
 who might suffer in their property by such mea- 
 sures as it might be thought necessary to adopt. 
 The Alien Bill was revived, and the suspension of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act was renewed or prolonged. 
 
 Discussions on the state of Ireland were stopped 
 by ministers and their majorities, as being only 
 dangerous at so critical a moment. But in the 
 month of June, when the Irish insurgents had at- 
 tacked and beaten several detachments of the king’s 
 troops, and more of the militia, and had captured 
 several towns, a message was delivered to parlia- 
 ment from the king, desiring “ that he might be 
 enabled to take all such measures as might be ne- 
 cessary to defeat any enterprises of his enemies, 
 &c.”” The chief object of the message was to al- 
 low the officers and privates of different militia 
 regiments, who had made a voluntary tender of 
 their services to assist in the suppression of the 
 Irish rebellion, to go to that country and act with 
 his majesty’s regular troops. ' Although there was 
 no other force to send at this moment, several 
 members hotly opposed the measure as likely to 
 
 ‘be turned into a precedent, and made the means 
 
 of forcibly, and against the tenor of the Militia Acts, 
 obliging English militiamen to serve out of their 
 own country. The bill was, however, passed ; and 
 on the 29th of June the king prorogued parlia- 
 ment, with a good, manly, English-sounding speech, — 
 in which honourable testimony was borne to the ~ 
 public spirit of the nation. . 
 Not less through the faults of the government 
 than through the faults of the governors, Ireland 
 had never enjoyed any continuance of tranquillity, 
 not merely since the Reformation, which intro- 
 duced the capital, embittering difference of reli- 
 gion, but not even since its first connexion with 
 England in the 12th century. Since the period 
 of the American war, when the Irish volunteers” 
 were allowed to arm themselves, the turbulence 
 
3 rt fi 
 Mt 
 4 
 
 Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 had manifoldly increased; and, whether acting 
 wisely or unwisely, liberally or illiberally, whether 
 granting concessions or withholding them, nearly 
 eyery act of government had tended to augment 
 the disaffection. ‘To this unhappy end the fierce, 
 excessive, extravagant spirit of all parties, both in 
 the Irish parliament and in the country, could not 
 but contribute. Generally speaking, the period 
 from 1778 down to 1798 had been one of conces- 
 sion te the Irish Catholics, who formed about seven- 
 tenths of the population. Whilst the American 
 revolutionary war lasted, and for some years after it 
 ceased, the disaffected Irish took their inspiration 
 from the other side of the Atlantic, and in many 
 instances closely imitated the proceedings of the 
 Americans. But, as soon as the eruption of the great 
 yolcano commenced in France, they fixed their eyes 
 on that pillar of fire as that which was to lead them 
 through night and darkness, and waves more pe- 
 rilous than those of the Red Sea, to the glorious 
 light of day, and to regions more blessed than the 
 Promised Land. From that moment the French 
 reyolutionists became the models of the leaders of 
 the Irish reformers, some of whom, at a very early 
 stage of the revolution in France, contemplated 
 nothing less than a revolution in Ireland, and went 
 over to Paris to be indoctrinated into the modes 
 of making it, and to bargain for the disinterested 
 assistance of the French. Still, however, these 
 men maintained the broad and necessary fiction, 
 that they aimed at nothing and wished for nothing 
 beyond Catholic emancipation and a reform in par- 
 liament ; a fiction rendered necessary not more by 
 the decided aversion of all the respectable classes 
 of Catholics to the extremity of a revolution, than 
 by the fears the said chiefs entertained of govern- 
 ment prosecutions and trials for conspiracy and 
 treason. At the beginning of 1793, or almost im- 
 mediately after the declaration of war against Eng- 
 land, the ruling party in France (then Jacobin 
 Girondists) dispatched a secret agent to Ireland 
 to confer with the leaders of the Society of 
 United Irishmen, and to offer them the aid of 
 French arms for the liberation of their country. 
 This emissary brought.a letter of introduction to 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who had been dismissed 
 from the English army for having frequented the 
 Jacobin Club at Paris; for having been one, with 
 Thomas Paine, and men of that stamp, at a great 
 public dinner at Paris, where the most revolutionary 
 and jacobinical speeches were delivered, and the 
 hope expressed that England as well as Ireland 
 would soon be revolutionized a@ la Francaise.* 
 Soon after that unlucky dinner, he became ac- 
 quainted with the Genlis, and married her Pa- 
 
 * It would have become Lord Edward Fitzgerald, as a man of ho- 
 nour, to have resigned his commission before going to such lengths. 
 It was impossible for any government to overlook his daring, extra- 
 vagant conduct; and under any other government than the English 
 he would assuredly have been shot, or condemned to perpetual impri- 
 sonment in some fortress. Holding the commission of the king, 
 with the oath attached to it, his lordship, or, as he chose to call 
 himself at Paris, citizen Fitzgerald, proposed the toast—‘‘ May the 
 Ca Ira, the Carmagnole, and the Marseillese Hymn soon become 
 the favourite music of every army, and may the soldier and the 
 citizen join in the chorus!” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798. 
 
 123 
 
 mela—her own illegitimate daughter by the Duke 
 of Orleans, or Philippe Egatité, who was then uni- 
 versally considered as having contributed more to 
 the bloody crimes of the revolution than any other 
 man.* Lord Edward is said, by his warm hearted 
 biographer and countryman, to have apparently 
 done nothing more towards the object of the revo- 
 lutionizing mission of the beginning of 1793 than 
 to introduce the secret emissary to Mr. Bond, Mr. 
 Simon Butler, and a few others of the party, or 
 members of the Society of United Irishmen; but, 
 if he did no more than this, it fell little short of 
 treason; and if the fact had been known at the 
 time, or in the course of the two following years, 
 when several of these United Irishmen (as Hamil- 
 ton Rowan, who had been so closely linked with 
 the Scotch reformers and the Edinburgh Conven- 
 tion) were put upon their trials for seditious prac- 
 tices, and pleaded that they were only seeking 
 parliamentary reform and a redress of grievances, 
 through paths strictly constitutional, it may be 
 doubted whether they would have escaped with 
 such lenient sentences. In 1794, when the reign 
 of the Jacobins and of Terror was at its height, 
 another secret emissary came over from France to 
 Ireland. This individual, a subject of the king, an 
 Irishman by birth, and a protestant clergyman by 
 profession, was the Rev. William Jackson. He 
 conferred with Wolfe Tone, and many others of the 
 Irish revolutionists, and repeated the promises of 
 the French to assist them “in breaking their 
 chains.”” This Jackson was arrested in Dublin 
 soon after his landing, and was tried and con- 
 demned for high treason ; but he made no confes- 
 sions, he left government in the dark as to the 
 extent of the conspiracy, and he escaped a public 
 execution by committing suicide. Enough had 
 already transpired to call forth vigilance, and the 
 government and the anti-revolutionary party (a 
 party excessively hot) were provoked and alarmed 
 by the long line of carriages filled with United 
 Irishmen and Clubbists that followed the con- 
 victed traitor to the grave. A stop was put to 
 further concessions ; and in Ireland, with at least 
 as much reason as in England, every attempt at 
 reform or change was reprobated. Motions for 
 parliamentary reform, made by Grattan and Pon- 
 sonby, were rejected by large majorities in the 
 Irish Parliament; and the Catholics were told 
 that, having received much, they must wait more 
 tranquil times for more. When Burke’s party, or 
 the Old Whigs, strengthened Pitt’s government, 
 and arrayed themselves against Fox, they had 
 recommended a liberal system of policy towards 
 Ireland. In 1794 Lord Fitzwilliam, esteemed 
 one of the most liberal and enlightened men of 
 that party, was sent over as viceroy or lord-lieute- 
 nant. His lordship’s public conduct alarmed and 
 
 * Mr. Thomas Moore (Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald), after stating 
 in.a positive manner that Pamela was the daughter of Madame Genlis 
 by the duke, intimates in a later edition that the fact has been contra- 
 dicted by a good authority, whom he does not name. But we have 
 heard the fact affirmed and re-affirmed upon very good authority ; and 
 
 we believe that at this moment no doubt is entertained upon the sub- 
 ject by people in France who know most about these secret histories. 
 
— 
 
 124 
 
 exasperated the Orangemen, or Ultra-Protestant 
 
 party, a great deal more than it conciliated the Ca- 
 tholics, or than it disarmed the decided revolution- 
 ary party, which, far from being composed entirely 
 of Romanists, was in good part made up of Presby-: 
 terians, and other Protestant sectarians; and these 
 dissenters from the North of Ireland were, by an- 
 cestral, traditional, and other obvious reasons, by 
 far the most prone to republicanism.* In the 
 Irish parliament, which met in the end of Janu- 
 ary, 1795, the celebrated Grattan, with the avowed 
 consent and encouragement of Lord Fitzwilliam, ob- 
 tained leave to bring in a bill for the entire eman- 
 cipation of the Catholics. We cannot discuss the 
 long and difficult question whether the lord lieu- 
 tenant did or‘did not exceed his instructions from 
 the English ministry, who had certainly intimated 
 on many occasions that this was no time for trying 
 great political experiments ;—we can only state 
 that Lord Fitzwilliam was immediately recalled, 
 and that plotting and conspiracy, and the inter- 
 course with the French, increased rapidly under 
 his successor Lord Camden. We believe, however, 
 that it can be proved that a certain party had never 
 ceased that plotting, and that in the golden days of 
 Lord Fitzwilliam’s government there were emis- 
 saries going and coming between France and Ire- 
 land. Now, not satisfied with a test which had 
 hitherto bound them together, the United Irishmen 
 took themselves, and exacted from the converts 
 who joined their club, a solemn oath to be faithful 
 and secret; and a clause in the old test, which 
 seemed to limit their views to a reform in parlia- 
 ment, was cancelled. A new organization was in- 
 troduced for the provincial clubs; people were 
 sworn in everywhere ; and in their secret meetings 
 no secret was made to the initiated of the intention 
 and fixed plan of taking up arms and calling in 
 French assistance. Wolfe Tone, who had fled to’ 
 America, found at Philadelphia his friend Hamil- 
 ton Rowan, who had also escaped from justice, a 
 Dr. Reynolds, and other Irish patriots who had 
 made their own country too hot for them. Hamil- 
 ton Rowan (formerly the friend and guide of 
 Muir) introduced Wolfe Tone to citizen Adet, the 
 minister or ambassador of the French to the Ame- 
 rican republic; and a negotiation for invading 
 Ireland by a French army was opened forthwith. 
 Tone himself tells us that he consulted at every 
 step with Dr. Reynolds, Hamilton Rowan, and 
 James Napper Tandy; that, being at length sup- 
 plied with some money by Keogh, Russell, and 
 other United Irishmen in Ireland, and furnished 
 with a letter to the committee of Salut Public by 
 citizen Adet, he sailed for France to conclude his 
 treaty there. He arrived at Havre-de-Grace on 
 the Ist of February, 1796, and found that the 
 French “ are a humane people, when they are not 
 mad;’? and that he liked them, “ with all their 
 
 * All the Irish parties were in a state little short of madness at 
 the time. If Lord Fitzwilliam had gratified the Catholics by giving 
 
 them everything they desired, he would have had to fight the | 
 ultra-Protestants, or Orangemen, who, in spite of their numerical | 
 
 inferiority, would have been far more difficult to subdue than their 
 rivals and adversaries, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 a eee 
 EP AP Ne they ie a a i atin pet 
 
 \ 
 
 [Boox X. _ 
 
 faults, and the guillotine at the head of them, a i 
 
 thousand times better than the English.”* On 
 arriving at Paris he was received by Carnot and by 
 General Clarke, then a sort of secretary-at-war, and 
 afterwards the notorious Duke de Feltre, who told 
 him that General Hoche should sail for Ireland 
 with an irresistible army as soon as the Directory 
 could raise money to hire and equip transports. + 
 To make Clarke exert himself he promised him 
 1000/. a-year for life; and he always kept up the 
 idea that liberal provision should be made in /ibe- 
 rated Treland for all the French generals, commis- 
 sioners, &c. who should assist in her liberation. 
 But, while he promised birds in the bush, this Hi- 
 bernian patriot wanted a bird in the hand for his 
 own sustenance ; and he importuned the Directory, 
 like a barefaced beggar, and for a long time in 
 vain. It was ingeniously represented to him that 
 it might be considered beneath the dignity of his 
 character as representative at Paris of the Irish 
 nation to accept a military commission from the 
 French government; but, with equal ingenuity, he 
 explained away the objection, and at last he got a 
 commission as brigadier-general, together with a 
 whole month’s pay in advance. Besides showing 
 his poverty, this little briefless barrister, who had 
 been enabled to live in his own country only through 
 the pay he received from the political societies, 
 must have shown, to shrewd men like Carnot and 
 Clarke, that he was a vain, rash, empty-headed 
 coxcomb, not very likely to have any great weight 
 or influence in Ireland. The Directory expressed 
 an anxiety to see some ageut or agents from the 
 United Irishmen of a more exalted condition and 
 of better known name and character. Lord Ed- 
 ward Fitzgerald, brother to the then Duke of 
 Leinster, and Mr. Arthur O’Connor, nephew of Lord 
 Longueville, and said to be lineally descended from 
 Roderick O’Connor, king of Connaught, readily 
 accepted the mission at the request of the chiefs 
 of the United Irishmen. They left Dublin at the 
 end of May, 1796, Lord Edward being accom- 
 panied by his French wife. They took London in 
 their way; and during their short stay in that 
 city Lord Edward dined at the house of an oppo- 
 sition peer, in company with Fox, Sheridan, and 
 
 * Wolfe Tone’s own Diary, published by his son. 
 
 + The French did not engage in this liberation business without the 
 most extravagant promises of co-operation on the part of the Irish. 
 
 «* The Catholics of Ireland are 3,150,000, all trained from their in- 
 fancy in an hereditary hatred and abhorrence of the English name, 
 For these five years they have fixed their eyes most earnestly on 
 France, whom they look upon, with great justice, as fighting their 
 battles, as well as those of all mankind who are oppressed. Of this 
 class, I will stake my head there are 500,000 men would fly to the 
 
 standard of the republic, if they saw it once displayed in the canse of | 
 
 liberty and their country. The republic may also rely with confidence 
 on the support of the Dissenters, actuated by reason and reflection, as 
 
 well as the Catholics, impelled by misery, and inflamed by detestation _ 
 
 of the English name. . . . . . The militia are about 18,000 strong, 
 as fine men as any in Europe. Of these 16,000 are Catholics, and of 
 these a very great proportion are sworn defenders. I have not a 
 shadow of doubt that the militia would, in cases of emergency, toa 
 man, juin their countrymen in throwing off the yoke of England. 
 . .. « « It would be just as easy, in a month’s time, to have an 
 army in Ireland of 200,000 as 10,000. The peasantry would flock to 
 the republican standard in such numbers as to embarrass the general- 
 in-chief. A proclamation should instantly be issued, containing an 
 invitation to the people to join the republican standard, organize 
 themselves, and form a National Convention for the purpose of 
 Jraming a government, and administering the affairs of Ireland till 
 it was put in activity.”— Wolfe Tone’s Memorial to the Directory. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 several other distinguished Whigs of the Fox 
 party, to whom he is supposed to have revealed 
 the object of his mission to the continent.* If this 
 supposition, which has been advanced by a friend, 
 and not by an enemy, be correct, then were Fox, 
 Sheridan, and all who heard him, guilty of the 
 capital crime of misprision of treason. ‘Those 
 most nearly interested in the fame of Fox have not, 
 as far as we are aware, made any effort to remove 
 this suspicion; but, as we doubt several of Mr. 
 Moore’s inferences and conclusions, we may ven- 
 ture to doubt this most astounding one, which, after 
 all, is only given upon hearsay evidence.t From 
 London the secret negotiators proceeded to Ham- 
 burg, where they began to treat with a I'rench 
 agent; and from Hamburg they went to Basle, 
 and through Barthelemy negotiated with the Di- 
 rectory. ‘They were informed that an army for 
 Ireland would soon be ready, and that Hoche 
 would have the command of it. They wished to 
 confer personally with that general, who was on 
 the western coast of France. The utility, the ne- 
 cessity of such a conference must have been felt 
 by Hoche and the Directory; but a difficulty arose, 
 and the French government objected to receive 
 
 - Lord Edward Fitzgerald, “ lest the idea should get 
 
 abroad, from his being married to Pamela, that 
 his mission had some reference to the Orleans 
 family.” After a month’s stay at Basle, O’Connor 
 went into France to confer with Hoche and to 
 finish the negotiation ; and Lord Edward returned 
 to Hamburg, talking on the road with his fellow- 
 travellers in what appears to have been the most 
 rash and puerile style.{ Hoche, having full powers 
 
 * The startling passage in Mr. Moore’s biography is to this effect: 
 “ About the latter end of May, accompanied only by his lady, who 
 was then not far from the period of her confinement, Lord Edward set 
 out from Dublin on his perilous embassy—pussing a day or two in 
 London on his way; and, as 1 have been informed by a gentleman 
 who was of the party, dining on one of these days at the house of 
 Lord , Where the company consisted of Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, 
 and several other distinguished Whigs—all persons who had been 
 known to concur warmly in every step of the popular cause in Ireland, 
 and to whom, if Lord Edward did not give some intimation of the 
 object of his present journey, such an effort of reserve and secrecy was, 
 [ must say, very unusual in his character.” 
 
 + On the trial of Lord Edward's companion and brother negotiator 
 O'Connor, Fox was summoued as a witness to speak to his character. 
 After saying that he knew Mr. O'Connor very well, that during the 
 last three or four years he had had occasion to see him frequently and 
 converse with him on political subjects, that he lived chiefly with his 
 (Fox’s) friends, ‘‘ who are called the opposition,” that he also lived 
 mn esteem and confidence with him, &c., Fox said—‘‘ [am acquainted 
 with Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who is a near relation of mine. 1 believe 
 Lord Edward was anxious to go to France relative to some private 
 affairs concerning his wife, who had property there. Knowing the 
 political state of that country, and that a law against guing there 
 existed in this country, I advised him nvt to enter the French territory 
 on any account, if he went on the coutinent.’’-—The Trial at large of 
 Arthur O Connor, Esq., John Binns, §c., for High Treason, before Judge 
 Buller, under a Special Commissiun at Maidstone. Ridgway; London, 
 1798. 
 
 ¢ His biographer says :—‘‘ Leaving to Mr. O'Connor, therefore, the 
 management of their treaty with Huche, whom the French Directory 
 had imve-ted with full powers for the purpose, Lord Edward returned 
 to Hamburg,—having, unluckily, for a travelling companion, during 
 the greater part of the journey, a foreign lady who had been once the 
 mistress of an old friend and official colleague of Mr. Pitt, and who 
 was still in the habit of corresponding with her former protector. 
 Wholly ignorant of these circumstauces, Lord Edward, with the ha- 
 bitual frankness of his nature, not only expressed freely his opinions 
 on ali political subjects, but afforded some clues, it is said, to the 
 secret of his present journey, which his fellow-traveller was, ofcourse, 
 not slow in transmitting to her official friend.” 
 
 A writer less partial and less national than this amiable biographer 
 would surely describe in very different terms the conduct of a man 
 who could thus babble with a loose madame in a diligence or post- 
 waggon! Lord Edward's indiscretions were committing not merely 
 himself, but hundreds of his political friends who were then in Ireland 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798. 
 
 125 
 
 | from the Directory, very soon concluded the treaty 
 
 with O’Connor, and pledged himself that the ex- 
 pedition should sail in the course of the autumn, 
 All this time Wolfe Tone had been kept in the 
 dark as to any negotiation beyond his own; and, 
 when Hoche, after the conclusion of his treaty 
 with O’Connor, saw Tone for the first time at 
 Paris, he artfully drew from him all that he knew 
 or thought concerning O’Connor and Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald, without dropping the least hint about 
 his recent negotiation with them. Lord Edward 
 and O'Connor soon returned to Ireland; but Tone 
 remained to come over militarily with Hoche and 
 the French army. ‘The fate of the expedition has 
 been already narrated. Wolfe Tone went with it 
 to Bantry Bay, running two narrow and terrible 
 chances—the one of being taken and hanged, the 
 other of being shipwrecked and drowned. He, 
 however, got back safely to France, spent some 
 months at the head-quarters of the army of the 
 Sambre and Meuse, employing himself principally 
 in attempts to corrupt the British soldiers and 
 sailors that were prisoners of war in France, with 
 a view of embarking them with the next invading 
 army ;* for neither abroad nor at home in Ireland 
 was the notion given up of another invasion. The 
 winds of heaven had scattered the last armament, 
 but another might be more successful. In the 
 course of the spring of 1797 the chiefs of the 
 United Irishmen, thinking it expedient to have a 
 resident ambassador at Paris, dispatched thither a 
 Mr. E. J. Lewines, with powers to act as their ac- 
 credited minister, and with instructions to nego- 
 tiate, 7f possible, a loan of half a million sterling. 
 In the course of the summer “ the Irish Executive” 
 sent over Dr. MacNeven on a special mission, 
 which was to urge the Directory to hasten their 
 preparations. ‘The Directory, who were then on 
 the point of sending an ambassador to Lisle to 
 meet Lord Malmesbury, and delude the English 
 with a feigned negotiation for peace, told the doc- 
 tor that they would soon be ready, and that the 
 Batavian republic would have the honour of taking 
 the lead in the invasion of Ireland with the fleet 
 collected in the Texel. But that fleet, which could 
 not get ready or would not venture out to sea 
 until the month of October, was annihilated, as 
 we have seen, off Camperdown. Before this 
 event took place, Lord Edward Fitzgerald came 
 over from Dublin to London, and here conferred 
 with a secret and most confidential agent of the 
 French Directory, who were anxious to obtain 
 correct information respecting the state of Ireland 
 and the forwardness of the preparations of the re- 
 
 and within the grip of the law. What could be hoped but failure and 
 disgrace from a rebellion or revolution with such heads! His lordship 
 had not even the plea of youth in his favour, for, though it has been 
 the custom to speak of him as that ‘‘ young nobleman,”’ that ‘ light- 
 Hentied young man,’’ his lordship had attained the 34th year of his 
 age ! 
 
 °# © T know the Irish a little. When everything else is ready, let 
 them send in a large quantity of wine and brandy, a fiddle and some 
 French jyilles, and then, when Pat’s heart is a little soft with love and 
 wine, send in two or three proper persons in regimentals. and with 
 green cockades in their hats, to speak to them, of whom I will very 
 gladly be one. I think, in that case, it would not be very hard to 
 persuade him to take a trip once more to Ireland, just to see his 
 people a little.’— Wolfe Tone’s Diary. 
 
126 
 
 volutionists. By this time the United Irishmen 
 and their Executive had arranged everything for a 
 general insurrection ; and, although neither French 
 nor Dutch, neither money nor arms arrived from 
 the continent, it was with great difficulty that the 
 more prudent of the chiefs prevented a rising in 
 the north. Three of the more ardent chiefs, Lowry, 
 Teeling, and Tennant, being discovered in a plot 
 (warmly recommended by Lord Edward Fitzgerald) 
 to debauch some of the regiments then on duty in 
 Dublin, and seize the barracks and the castle, were 
 obliged to flyto Hamburg. There had always been 
 jealousies and discordant views between the dele- 
 gates of Ulster and the delegates of Leinster, and 
 these were increased by the difficulties and em- 
 barrassments which rose on every side, and by 
 their disappointment of receiving the promised 
 succour from France. The strong religious re- 
 pugnance of Catholics and Presbyterians had 
 manifested itself long before this, the Presby- 
 terians of the north pretending they could do 
 without the Catholics, the Catholics pretending 
 they could do without the Presbyterians. If they 
 had been left to themselves, these revolutionists 
 would soon have butchered one another. If a 
 French army had landed, the fanatic incredulity of 
 the soldiery, the insults they everywhere offered to 
 churches and priests, the intelligence of the barba- 
 rous treatment the pope of Rome had received at 
 the hands of their nation, their outrageous conduct 
 towards the women of the country (and it was not 
 to be expected that the French would have been 
 more devout or tolerant or moral in Ireland than 
 they had been in other countries), would, in a very 
 brief space of time, have brought the entire -Ca- 
 tholic population down upon the /iberateng army, 
 and a war without quarter would inevitably have 
 taken place between the liberators and the libe- 
 rated. As events ran, horrors and cruelties, for 
 ever to be deplored, were committed in the Irish 
 rebellion, and by both parties; but the aggregate 
 of these evils is a mere trifle compared with those 
 which must have desolated the country, and con- 
 verted it into one vast slaughter-house, if the 
 Irish could have been left to themselves, with 
 their feuds and their French allies. In the month 
 of February of this present year, 1798, a most 
 pressing letter was addressed by the so-called 
 Irish executive to the French Directory, urging 
 them to send immediate succour, and stating 
 that the people of all classes throughout Ire- 
 land then regimented, and partly armed, amounted 
 to little less than 300,000 men. ‘Talleyrand posi- 
 tively assured their agent at Paris that an expe- 
 dition was getting ready in the French ports, which 
 should certainly sail in the month of April. On 
 the 28th of February, Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s 
 friend, Mr. Arthur O’Connor, Quigley or O’Coig- 
 ‘ley, an Irish priest, and Binns, an active member 
 of the London Corresponding Society, were arrested 
 at Margate, as they were on the point of embarking 
 for France. A paper was found on the priest, ad- 
 dressed to the French Directory, and earnestly 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 inviting an invasion of England, which, it was cal- 
 
 ™ 
 
 4 
 | 
 
 [ Boox Ei 
 
 culated, would prevent our sending troops into Ire- — 
 
 land. ‘This paper, and the trial which followed, 
 put government in possession of many important 
 secrets; but a great deal had been unravelled before 
 this time. Quigley, the priest, who died protesting 
 his innocence of treason, and who really appears to 
 
 + 
 
 a 
 
 have been less deeply engaged in the conspiracy than — 
 
 any of them, was found guilty, and was executed on 
 Pennenden Heath; O’Connor was remanded on 
 another charge of high treason, and Binns was ac- 
 quitted.* Some arrests were forthwith ordered at 
 Dublin, and some more papers were found in a 
 printing-office—the office where O’Connor had 
 been publishing a revolutionary journal, called 
 ‘The Press.? But much completer revelations 
 were now about to be made, by one of the chief 
 revolutionists. Several obscurer members of the 
 Association of United Irishmen had played false 
 before; but the great secrets of the society were 
 not intrusted to such as those ; and the government 
 was anxiously looking for some higher and more 
 fully informed traitor to that cause, when a Mr. 
 Thomas Reynolds, who had Hsquire written after 
 his name, and who lived in what was called acast/e, 
 who had been deep in all the plots and intimate 
 
 y 
 
 with most of the leading plotters, who was the no- — 
 
 minal treasurer of a county and the appointed 
 colonel for a regiment of the insurgent army, pre- 
 tending that the United Irishmen were going much 
 farther than he, in his innocence, had ever antici- 
 pated, and that his love of the constitution and the 
 integrity of the empire induced him to betray his 
 friends, but in reality being hard driven by debt, 
 and filled with the hope of an immense reward, 
 divulged all that he knew to a friend of govern- 
 ment, and undertook to render further services to 
 enable or assist the government to counteract the 
 whole plan.t A warrant from the secretary of 
 
 * We have mentioned in a preceding note the appearance of Fox 
 on this trial. But Sheridan, the Earl of Suffolk, the Duke of Norfolk, 
 Lord John Russell, Lord Thanet, Lord Oxford, Michael Angelo Tay- 
 lor, and Whitbread, all of the Foxite party, appeared also to speak 
 to the frank, open, honourable character and constitutional politics 
 of O'Connor. Sheridan said he had known him for three years, and 
 had never met him in any company “‘ but that of the respectable yen- 
 tlemen of opposition” with whom he (Sheridan) associated ; that he 
 had always conversed with him on political subjects without any re- 
 serve; that his character was remarkable for its openness; that he 
 never met any man in his life who so much reprobated the idea of any 
 party in this country desiring French assistance, &c. Sheridan ap- 
 pears to have been somewhat disconcerted when, in his cross-qnes- 
 tioning by Mr. Garrow, he was asked how so remarkably open and 
 frank a character could disguise himself and assume a false name, 
 He had allowed before that he had advised O’Connor not to remain 
 in this country; and now he said that Mr. O'Connor was driven from 
 his own country and friends, and was endeavouring to go abroad. 
 The other distinguished witnesses all spoke of O'Connor as one of the 
 
 honestest of men and politicians. The Duke of Norfolk said: ** From 
 
 what I know, I consider him as a gentleman warm in the political 
 line, and attached to the constitution in the same manner as myself.” 
 Whitbread said: ‘“‘ I know Mr. O’Connor; his character amiable, 
 and his political principles the same as my own.” —Trial at Large. 
 
 + A-son of this Reynolds—a gentleman highly esteemed by those 
 who know him—published some four years ago a book in vindication 
 of his father’s conduct and character. The motive may have been 
 natural and laudable, but the work failed entirely of its object. Mr. 
 Reynolds could not disprove the following facts :—1. That his father 
 had run himself into debt by extravagance and over speculation; 
 2. That he was greatly distressed for a few hundred pounds, and got 
 that money immediately from government; 3. That he afterwards 
 claimed 20,000/. as compensation for the furniture, &c., destroyed 
 in his castle ; 3. That he obtained a consular appointment, and also 
 a pension to the amount of 1000/. per annum Irish, constantly 
 clamouring for more money until the end of his days. 
 
 Ta 
 
cel 
 { oa 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 = 
 
 Major Swan, a magistrate for the county of Dub- 
 
 lin, who, on the 12th of March, repaired to the 
 house of Mr. Oliver Bond (a merchant, and one 
 of the principal conspirators), where there was to 
 be a great meeting, attended by thirteen serjeants 
 in plain clothes, and by means of the pass-words 
 —“ Where’s MacCann? Is Ivers from Carlow 
 come?” obtained admission to the meeting, and 
 arrested all such persons as were there assembled. 
 Dr. MacNevin, who had _ been on the special com- 
 mission to Paris, Emmet, Sampson (both barris- 
 ters), and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, were not at 
 the meeting; but, separate warrants being issued 
 against them, MacNevin and Emmet were soon 
 
 _ apprehended :, Sampson fled to England, was seized 
 
 at Carlisle and brought back to Dublin; but Lord 
 Edward Fitzgerald concealed himself in Dublin 
 and the neighbourhood, and was not discovered till 
 the 19th of May. Itappears that, on the part of go- 
 vernment at least, the search after him had not been 
 very active, and that, on account of his noble family 
 and his numerous friends, his escape would gladly 
 have been connived at. But seemingly he never con- 
 templated escaping, but employed himself all the 
 time he was under hiding, in arranging how the in- 
 surgents were torise and marchupon Dublin. He 
 had fixed the 23rd of May for the general rising. 
 On being surprised, lying on a bed in the house of 
 one Murphy, on the evening of the 19th, he be- 
 haved more like a madman than a hero, savagely 
 shedding blood without the slightest hope of fight- 
 ing his way out, for the house was surrounded by 
 piquets, and a numerous and steady garrison were 
 under arms in the streets of Dublin. When Ma- 
 jor Swan entered the garret and showed his war- 
 rant, he sprang up like atiger. Swan, to stop his 
 attack, fired a pocket-pistol at him, but without 
 effect; and then Swan rammed the pistol into 
 the face of Murphy, who was in the room, and 
 whom he suspected of hostile intentions. A sol- 
 dier now entered, and at that instant Lord Ed- 
 ward ran at Swan with a dagger which had been 
 concealed in his bed. Mr. Ryan, a magistrate, next 
 entered, armed only with a sword-cane, and pre- 
 sently received a mortal wound from Lord Ed- 
 ward's dagger. Major Sirr, the active town-ma- 
 
 _jor who had been setting the piquets, next rushed 
 
 into the room, where he found Lord Edward, a 
 very tall and powerful man, struggling between 
 Swan and Ryan, Ryan being on the ground wel- 
 tering in his blood, but still clinging, like Swan, 
 who was also bleeding and wounded in several 
 places, to his adversary. Major Sirr, threatened 
 by the bloody dagger, took a deliberate aim, and 
 lodged the contents of a pistol in Lord Edward’s 
 right shoulder. A number of soldiers followed 
 Sirr up stairs, and, after a maniacal struggle, Lord 
 Edward was disarmed and bound, carried to the 
 Castle, and thence to Newgate. Ryan died of his 
 wounds, on the 23rd of May; Lord Edward died 
 of his wounds, or fever brought on by them and 
 by his anxiety of mind, on the 5th of June; Swan 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798. 
 
 state’s office was forthwith placed in the hands of | recovered from the frightful gashes he had re- 
 
 127 
 
 ceived, . 
 
 In spite of the fall of Lord Edward, who was to 
 have been their commander-in-chief, and in spite 
 of the flight or arrest of every member of the Di- 
 rectory or Executive, the Irish flew to arms in 
 various places on the appointed 23rd of May. On 
 the 24th they made an abortive attempt on Naas, 
 Carlow, and some other towns. Lord Roden, 
 with a party of 35 dragoons, drove 400 or 500 of 
 these ill-armed, disorderly insurgents before him; 
 and General Dundas dispersed a much more nu- 
 merous party at Kilcullen. But on the 25th an 
 army of 14,000, or more, pikemen, headed by a 
 Father John Murphy, marched to Wexford, de- 
 feated part of the garrison that sallied out to meet 
 them, killed all the prisoners they took, and terri- 
 fied the town of Wexford into a surrender on the 
 30th. Most of the Protestant inhabitants had fled ; 
 such as remained were barbarously used and 
 thrown into prison. The insurgents also made 
 themselves masters of the town of Enniscorthy ; 
 and, having now procured some artillery, they for- 
 tified a position at Vinegar Hill. Colonel Wal- 
 pole, with a small detachment, fell into an ambus- 
 cade, and was slaughtered, together with nearly all 
 his men. Encouraged by these and other trifling 
 advantages, the rebels made a rush at New Ross, 
 took part of the town, began to plunder and drink, 
 got for the most part very drunk, and were then 
 driven back by General Johnson, leaving 2600 of 
 their number behind them in killed, wounded, and 
 dead drunk. At the news of this success of the 
 king’s troops at New Ross, a body of the insur- 
 gents, stationed at Scullabogue, massacred in cold 
 blood more than 100 Protestants they had taken 
 prisoners. These and similar atrocities prevented 
 the Presbyterians of the North from rising, and 
 gave to the insurrection the old character of a 
 Popish rebellion and massacre. But the best of 
 the Catholics presently came forward to express 
 their abhorrence of the whole rising, and to offer 
 their assistance to government in suppressing it. 
 After a few other fights or skirmishes, General 
 Lake attacked, on the 21st of June, the forti- 
 fied position at Vinegar Hill, carried it with a 
 frightful loss to the msurgents, who never rallied 
 again, and then retook Wexford and Enniscorthy. 
 Lord Camden was now recalled from the heutenancy 
 of Ireland, and succeeded by Lord Cornwallis, who 
 brought with him a general pardon (with a very few 
 exceptions) to all who submitted. Of the leading 
 conspirators who had been taken, only four—Mac 
 Cann, Byrne, and two brothers of the name of 
 Sheares, the sons of a banker at Cork—were exe- 
 cuted. Bond was condemned to die; but his 
 life was spared on condition of disclosing all he 
 knew respecting the rebellion—a condition he ac- 
 cepted, with the proviso that his information should 
 not affect the lives of his fellow-prisoners. Arthur 
 O’Connor, MacNevin, Emmet, Sampson, and the 
 rest, were merely banished. In the month of 
 August, when the flames of rebellion seemed com- 
 
 ee 
 
pletely extinguished, three French frigates, elud- 
 ing the vigilance of our fleets, reached Killaia, and 
 threw on shore 900 troops of the line, commanded 
 by General Humbert, who had been in the former 
 expedition to Bantry Bay, and who had narrowly 
 escaped perishing in the wreck of the ‘ Droits de 
 VYHomme.’ A small number of the Catholic pea- 
 santry of the country joimed him, and Humbert 
 proceeded rapidly to Castlebar. There he encoun- 
 tered General Lake, with a force superior in num- 
 ber, but consisting chiefly of Protestant yeomanry 
 and militia. Lake was beaten, and in his retreat 
 lost six guns. From Castlebar Humbert marched 
 eastward into the very heart of the country, ex- 
 pecting to be joined by all the men of Connaught, 
 if not by all the Papists of the island, but finding, 
 wherever he advanced, that the mass of the people 
 shunned him and his soldiers as though they had 
 brought the plague with them. About seventeen 
 days after his first landing, Humbert was beaten 
 by the advanced guard of Lord Cornwallis, who 
 was marching against him with troops of the line ; 
 and, on the 8th of September, being entirely sur- 
 rounded, the French laid down their arms and be- 
 came prisoners of war. ‘To keep up the ferment 
 and suspicion, and to oblige England to keep a 
 large force in Ireland, rather than with any hope 
 of reviving a cause which was utterly lost, the 
 French, within a month after the surrender of 
 Humbert, ordered a squadron of one ship of the line 
 and eight frigates, with troops, arms, and ammu- 
 nition on board, to choose a favourable moment 
 for getting to sea, and then to proceed to Ireland 
 at all hazards. This armament actually reached 
 the western coast of Ireland; but Sir John Borlase 
 Warren, with his squadron, met it there, and gave 
 a very good account of it, capturing the ship of the 
 line and three of the frigates.* On board the 
 Trench ship of the line was seized Wolfe Tone, 
 who had not improved his very lax morality during 
 his residence at Paris, and whose deeds, words, 
 and writings had placed him beyond the liberally 
 extended verge of mercy.t On his trial, he 
 pleaded his commission of a brigadier-general in 
 the French army as a bar to punishment for all 
 
 * Eventually three more of the frigates were taken. 
 
 t+ Ashort time before starting on this his last trip, we find this 
 gentle reformer writing in his Diary:—** My heart is hardening 
 hourly, and J satisfy myself now at once on points which would 
 stagger me twelve months ago. The Irish aristocracy are putting 
 themselves in a state of nature with the people, and let them take the 
 consequences. If ever I have the power, I will most heartily concur 
 in making them a dreadful example... .. This is no slight affair ; 
 thousands and thousands of families, if the attempt succeeds, will be 
 reduced to beggary. Icannot help it! If it must be, it must.” 
 
 And in order to entice the Directory, and to show the officers of the 
 French army what a golden harvest they might reap, he enumerated 
 in one of his memorials what he delicately called the resources of 
 Ireland. ‘These were, the nett annual revenue of government, 
 2,000,0002.; the church, college, and chapter lands, whose exact value 
 he did not know, but he knew it to be of vast amount; the property 
 of all the absentees, amounting to at least 1,000,000/7, per annum; 
 the casual property of emigrants; the property of all Englishmen in 
 Ireland, whether vested in land, mortgages on land, trade, manu- 
 factures, bills, book debts, or otherwise ;—and all these Pactolian 
 streams could so easily be made to flow into the treasury of the 
 Irish republicans and their French allies! One English nobleman 
 he knew had 300,000/, lent on mortgages in Ireland; one single 
 English commoner had 150,000/. employed in the like manner. 
 
 ‘These grand sums being multiplied by 24, to turn them into 
 French francs, presented an array of figures which must absolutcly 
 have dazzled the French republicans. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 treasons present or past; but he was condemned to 
 die the death of a traitor, and, finding that the 
 sentence really meant hanging, he cut his throat 
 in Dublin gaol to escape the ignominy of the gal- 
 lows. His madness, and the madness of his friends 
 and party, cost the lives, from first to last, of many 
 thousands of individuals, and reduced a still greater 
 number to squalid misery and woe. They had be- 
 gun their attempts at revolution in drunkenness 
 and folly, with a thumping and breaking of glasses 
 and frantic huzzaing; they had conducted their 
 enterprise—scarcely with a single exception—like 
 a set of rash school-boys; and they had ended it 
 in the very spirit of fatuity. Amiuable and ho- 
 nourable traits are to be found in Lord Edward. 
 Fitzgerald and in Emmet; but we believe that the 
 characters of the rest will be best served by heing 
 consigned to silence and oblivion. ‘one’s execu- 
 tion was the last on account of this rebellion.* 
 
 In the month of May, while parliament was sit- 
 ting, a spirited attempt was made to interrupt the 
 preparations for invasion on the coast of Belgium, 
 and to destroy the sluices, gates, and basin of the 
 Bruges canal at Ostend. Captain Home Popham, 
 with a small squadron haying on board a body of 
 troops commanded by Colonel Coote, sailed from 
 Margate Roads, bombarded Ostend, and landed 
 about 1000 men at a short distance from that town. 
 The soldiers blew up the sluices, destroyed a good 
 many vessels, and did all the work they were sent 
 to do in very quick time; but, on returning to the 
 beach to re-embark, they were prevented by the 
 fury of the wind and surf; and, being next day 
 hemmed in by an immense force, Coote found him- 
 self under the necessity of surrendering, afier he 
 had lost about one man in every ten. 
 
 An expedition to Minorca was more successful, 
 and gave us possession of an excellent port, which 
 our Mediterranean fleet much needed. In the au- 
 tumn Admiral Duckworth’s squadron landed in 
 Addaya Bay, in the island of Minorca, a land force 
 of about 800 men, commanded by General Sir 
 Charles Stuart. Assisted by a hot fire kept up by 
 Duckworth’s smaller craft alongshore, Stuart de- 
 feated about 2000 Spaniards, drove them from post 
 to post, attacked them in some intrenchments, and 
 easily compelled the governor to surrender the 
 whole of the island by capitulation. 
 
 In the West Indies orders were received from 
 ministers to abandon that large portion of San Do- 
 mingo which we had reduced at the invitation and 
 with the aid of the French planters, but which we 
 could not retain without a constant, terrible sacri-— 
 fice of human life. General Maitland entered into 
 a compromise with Toussaint l’Ouverture, formerly 
 a slave, but now chief of the revolted negroes and 
 the founder of a sort of negro republic, who en- 
 gaged to respect the lives and properties of all the 
 European or Creole planters and inhabitants that 
 
 * Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, Founder of the United Irish Society, 
 and Adjutant-General and Chef-de-Brigade in the French and Bata- 
 vian Republics. Written by Himself, and continued and edited by his 
 Son, William Theobald Wolfe Tone. Washington, 1826.—1. Moore, 
 Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.—Sir Richard Musgrave, 
 Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ircland.—Ann. Regist. 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 nn 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798. 
 
 129 
 
 might choose to remain. In the month of May 
 all that were left alive of our troops were with- 
 drawn; and towards the end of the year some 
 French troops, who had maintained their ground in 
 some strong places, shipped themselves off, and left 
 Toussaint in undisturbed possession of the best 
 part of San Domingo. 
 
 The fate of Switzerland was decided in the 
 spring of this year. The unprovoked aggression 
 of the French was hardly more infamous than the 
 means they employed. They began by complain- 
 ing of the permitted residence of Mr. Wickham, 
 the English envoy, and they next demanded his 
 expulsion. ‘To remove this ground of quarrel Mr. 
 Wickham was recalled by his own government. 
 The Directory then ordered the French troops to 
 take possession of a part of the territory of Basle, 
 and almost as soon as this was done they sent a 
 strong division under General Menard into the 
 Pays de Vaud, a dependency of the aristocratic 
 canton of Bern. Menard was received as a libe- 
 rator by all the democrats and sans-culottes among 
 the Vaudois, who, like all the French-speaking 
 portion of the Swiss, had been stirred up by French 
 propagandists and French books. These people 
 had some reasons to complain of the pride and 
 oppression of their Bernese rulers; but to get rid 
 of these minor evils they threw themselves and the 
 whole of Switzerland at the feet of the Gallic re- 
 public. On the 7th of January, the Vaudois, being 
 joined by deputations and delegates from other 
 democratic cantons, held an assembly of repre- 
 sentatives chosen according to the French plan; 
 and presently they all agreed to send a deputation 
 to Paris to testify an entire devction to the repub- 
 lic, and to claim still more assistance to enable 
 them to put down aristocracy, and defend /zberty. 
 Notwithstanding the manner in which he had been 
 invited into the country, Menard soon began not 
 only to seize upon all public stores, but also to levy 
 military contributions; for, friends or foes, or 
 neutrals, the people of the country must support 
 every French army that traversed or remained 
 upon their territory. ‘The Federal Diet of the 
 Swiss, then sitting at Aarau, were perplexed and 
 distracted, for Basle, which had been thoroughly 
 demoeratized and revolutionized, refused to concur 
 in any of the measures proposed to secure the in- 
 dependence of the country, and hastily recalled its 
 deputies; and Mengaud, a fierce propagandist, 
 who had now assumed the title of ‘ Minister of the 
 French republic in Switzerland,’ came repeatedly 
 to Aarau, escorted by French hussars and accom- 
 panied by Swiss proselytes, vexing the diet with 
 notes, spreading fresh revolutionary pamphlets 
 among the people and the local militia, and pre- 
 siding over democratic clubs which he had himself 
 organised.* The Diet, still further embarrassed 
 
 * Mengaud, who is described in French biographical dictionaries 
 as a man of letters and diplomatist—liltérateur et diplomate—was 
 oviginally a penniless Jacobin from Belfort. In 1801, sacrificing 
 his republicanism, he became one of the most devoted slaves of 
 Bonaparte, who employed him as a supreme commissary of police 
 
 and surveillance in the seaports of Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, &c. 
 He was a sort of minor Fouché, but not so adroit; for, in 1804, he 
 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 ™ : 
 
 | by the fierce democracy of one or two other can- 
 tons, separated without coming to any resolution. 
 As soon as it had quitted Aarau, which was sub- 
 ject to Bern, an insurrection broke out in the town ; 
 the municipality proclaimed its independence, and 
 hoisted the tree of liberty; a regiment of militia 
 revolted against its officers, and formed a reyo- 
 lutionary committee; other things were done ac- 
 cording to the teaching of Mengaud and his agents, 
 and his pamphlets and handbills; the revolt 
 spread ; the ignorant or unthinking revolters being 
 assured that they should enjoy, together with the 
 old national independence, the perfection of a de- 
 mocratic government, an elysium of liberty and 
 equality. The aristocracy of Bern made a spirited 
 effort to resist this storm; several of the cantons 
 sent deputies to Bern, where a sort of federal re- 
 presentation was formed; some of the mutineers 
 were arrested, the rest were put to flight; and, a 
 call being made for the double contingent of the 
 Helvetic Confederation, 26,000 sturdy Swiss as- 
 sembled in arms—an admirable militia, but still 
 only a militia. But by this time General Menard 
 had 15,000 regular troops—a part of the victorious. 
 army of Italy—concentrated in the Pays de Vaud ; 
 and, with the Swiss demagogues to assist him, he 
 had organised a provisional government at Lau- 
 sanne; and, on the other side of Switzerland, the 
 peasants of Basle, encouraged by the presence of 
 a French force, had driven away their governors 
 and set fire to their castles, had compelled the 
 magistrates of the city to resign their authority 
 into the hands of a commission of sixty persons, 
 said to be selected from all classes, but composed, 
 as we believe, entirely of the lowest class and of 
 the most enthusiastic proselytes of the French. 
 After making a spirited beginning, the Council of 
 Bern fell into a fatal irresolution, and matters were 
 made almost hopeless by their choosing a pedantic, 
 scribbling blockhead, a Colonel Weiss, to head the 
 contingents. Instead of endeavouring to dissolve 
 the revolutionary committee of Lausanne, and 
 showing a bold front to the French on the fron- 
 tiers, he busied himself in writing a pamphlet ;* 
 and, as his enemies grew stronger, he retired to 
 the northern extremity of the Pays de Vaud, leaving 
 the whole country at the mercy of the democrats 
 and their French auxiliaries, who presently decreed 
 its separation for ever from Bern. As General 
 Menard approached nearer to Bern, the council 
 endeavoured to propitiate the French Directory by 
 numerous apologies and humiliating condescen- 
 sions: they invited the communes to elect a depu- 
 tation of fifty-two members to take their seats in 
 the sovereign council and assist in making a new 
 constitution of a more democratic kind; but, when 
 they announced this last measure to the Directory 
 and to Mengaud, they were told by this successful 
 preacher of insurrection that no leaven of aristo- 
 raised such a clamour by some of his proceedings, that the First 
 Consul was obliged to dismiss him. 
 * This pamphlet, which the colonel fancied was to put down 
 
 insurrection, and drive out the French, was entitled, * Teéveillez- 
 vous, Suisses! le danger approche.” 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 cracy must be left; that they must create a pro- 
 visional government framed on an entirely demo- 
 cratic basis, and from which all the members of 
 the old government should be excluded. This 
 rendered an appeal to arms inevitable; but the 
 vacillating counsels of the Bernese destroyed what- 
 ever hope their good cause might have had. 
 Brune, a general of high repute, and a protégé of 
 Director Barras, arrived on the Swiss frontiers 
 with 10,000 more troops, and took the command 
 over Menard. It ought to have been known or 
 suspected that Brune only waited for fresh rein- 
 forcements in order to begin the attack; yet the 
 Bernese sought and obtained a truce for fifteen 
 days, during which Brune’s army was raised to 
 40,000 or 45,000 men, and many of the Swiss 
 soldiers were made to believe that they were be- 
 trayed and sold tothe French by their own govern- 
 ment. ‘There were other insidious arts employed 
 on one side and other imbecile acts on the other 
 side ; but it will be enough for us to state that on 
 the Ist of March, before the expiration of the 
 armistice, some Irench columns surprised in the 
 hight a Swiss battalion and cut most of the men 
 to pieces, and on the following morning Brune led 
 the main body of his army against Freyburg. 
 Many of the contingents withdrew to look to the 
 protection of their own homes, leaving less than 
 15,000 men to defend Bern; and, as these men re- 
 treated before the French, in.the impression that 
 they were betrayed, they drove away many of their 
 officers and bayonetted two of their colonels. 
 _After committing these excesses, the Swiss sol- 
 diers, as if struck with a sudden horror, submitted 
 again to their officers, and prepared to fight the 
 French. And bravely did they fight on the 5th 
 of March, when Brune was repulsed with terrible 
 loss, and driven back for several miles on the road 
 to Freyburg. But the odds were too great, the 
 country was too much disorganised: the brave 
 General d’Erlach, who commanded a part of the 
 Swiss army, was defeated at another point, and 
 was afterwards murdered on the road by some in- 
 furiated Swiss soldiers and peasants.* On the 5th 
 of March Brune, in greater force, repeated his 
 attack, and a wavering on the part of the Swiss 
 troops was followed by a most sanguinary defeat. 
 More than one hundred officers—the pride of the 
 Bernese nobles—were killed on that dreadful day. 
 Their names may be read, inscribed in golden 
 letters upon six slabs of black marble in one of 
 the aisles of Bern cathedral. After this victory, 
 Brune, unopposed, entered the city of the Fighting 
 Bear—that bear ‘‘that once gave fearful strokes 
 with his paws.” 
 
 “Such,” says an excellent writer, in whose 
 veins flows some of the good blood of the Swiss, 
 ** such was the fall of Bern, a republic which had 
 
 * Some days after the murder of d’Erlach, his assassins acknow- 
 ledged that they had been shown, by emissaries of the French, 
 forged letters as evidence of his treachery. Similar papers were 
 profusely scattered in the Bernese camp previously to the battle of 
 the 5th of March. 
 
 + The Gugler’s Song, or the Song of Victory of the Bernese, 
 written in 1376, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 existed nearly 600 years. It fell by the same arts, 
 
 by the same hands, and nearly about the same time 
 as Venice and Genoa; like them it exhibited weak- 
 ness and hesitation in its councils, but, unlike 
 them, it showed something of old Swiss determi- 
 nation in the hour of struggle, and it fell neither 
 unhonoured nor unmourned.’’* General Brune, 
 
 in the name of the French Directory, who would — 
 
 have been less eager if the old republic had been 
 less rich, seized the public treasury of Bern, in 
 which were found above 30,000,000 of francs in 
 gold and silver; and emptied also the chests of the 
 
 various branches of the administration, as well as 
 
 those of the various trades or companies of the 
 burgesses and of the patricians. He cleared the 
 arsenal of 300 pieces of artillery, of a great quan- 
 tity of ammunition, and of arms and accoutre- 
 ments for 40,000 men. He obtained more arms 
 by disarming all the people both in town and 
 country; and he ransacked all the public magazines 
 of corn, salt, wine, &c. The whole plunder was 
 carried off to France. Some of the Bernese guns 
 were sent to Toulen for the Egyptian expedition, 
 and, but for the money seized in that old Swiss re- 
 
 public, Bonaparte might not have had the oppor- — 
 
 tunity of dating bulletins from the foot of the Pyra- 
 mids. Most of the Bernese money was employed 
 in fitting out that mighty armament. The Direc- 
 tory dispatched into Switzerland a commissioner 
 of the name of Le Carlier, who began his mission 
 with forced requisitions for provisions and more 
 money ;—“‘ For,”’ said he, in a proclamation, “ it 
 
 is but just that the Swiss should support their — 
 
 liberators.” Bern, plundered as she had been, 
 had to pay 800,000 more francs, Freyburg 
 300,000; and, that the money might be forth- 
 coming, sixteen members of the old government 
 were seized and carried to the French citadel of 
 Strasbourg, there to be kept until the last franc 
 was paid. When the aristocratic cantons were 
 exhausted by plunder, the liberators directed their 
 attention to the cantons that were or had become 
 
 ultra-democratic, and that had either invited them — 
 
 into Switzerland, or facilitated their progress when 
 they came. 
 
 The traders and manufacturers of " 
 
 Zurich and other towns, who had refused to send — 
 
 their contingents to the army of the Confederation, 
 
 and who had professed every principle which the — 
 
 French propagandists and then the French army 
 recommended, were taxed, fined, and harried, even 
 like the aristocrats of Bern, and were compelled to 
 admit within their walls a French garrison, to de- 
 
 SAR 
 
 bauch their wives and daughters, and tyrannize over — 
 
 all. Luzern became equally the object of Le Car-— 
 
 lier’s attention ; contribution was levied upon con- — 
 
 tribution, and confiscation of property ensued upon 
 every attempt at resistance. Many of the peasantry, 
 
 who would not and could not conform to the new — 
 
 system, were shot as traitors or rebels. The five 
 kings of the Luxembourg gave wings to a decree, — 
 
 # A, Vieusseux, Hist. Switzerland—the best work in the English 
 language on this interesting subject, and one of the best com- 
 
 rea 
 
 pendiums of history in any language. 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 declaring, in that phraseology which Bonaparte 
 afterwards adopted to several royal dynasties, that 
 the Helvetic Confederation had ceased to exist, 
 and that Switzerland was to form a single republic, 
 one and indivisible, under a central government to 
 be established in the well-democratized town of 
 Aarau. And, that this centralized government might 
 be spared the pains of making a constitution for 
 itself, the directors sent one ready-made from Pa- 
 ris, or a transcript of Abbé Sieyes’s last master- 
 piece, with its two councils, its executive directory, 
 &c. They also applied their compasses and their 
 “squares and measures to the country, changing the 
 old cantons, which were far too irregular in their 
 shape to suit their nice mathematical notions, into 
 
 twenty-two new cantons or departments, all cut. 
 
 and squared at Paris, and in the true Parisian 
 fashion. Under 45,000 bayonets there was a 
 smooth submission, until they called upon the 
 Waldstiitten, or mountain-cantons, to send their 
 deputies to the centralization at Aarau. These 
 hardy mountaineers, who had lived in a state of 
 pure democracy (not unsuited to the thinly-peopled, 
 poor, and primitive districts they inhabited—a 
 democracy which was, however, tempered by 
 the genial spirit of the early patriarchal system, 
 from which all systems of government originally 
 sprang), who were averse to all changes and no- 
 velties, and indignant at the thought of foreign 
 interference, boldly refused to send deputies, 
 stating that they were quite satisfied with their old 
 form of government, and only wished to be left to 
 themselves. The French Directors and system- 
 makers, who wanted a uniformity of government 
 everywhere, without the slightest allowance for 
 ancient habits and feelings, or any other cir- 
 cumstances, moral or physical, and the organ- 
 izers of conquests and subjugations, who were 
 eager to make Switzerland a post-road into 
 Italy, and to level the mighty Alps, or pro- 
 strate and keep in entire submission the brave 
 Teutonic or anti-Gallican tribes who inhabited 
 them, were in a fury at the contumaciousness 
 of the Waldstitten, and 15,000 men were ordered 
 to march against the stubborn democrats of the 
 mountains. A man with a Teutonic name, a na- 
 tive of a province which never ought to have been 
 allowed to belong to France, Schauenburg, an Al- 
 satian, was put at the head of this invading army. 
 He routed the shepherds and cowherds of Glarus, 
 Uznach, and some other districts ; but Aloys Red- 
 ing (honoured be the name!) who had served in 
 foreign armies, and who knew how to direct the 
 undisciplined yalour of his countrymen, met him 
 with only 1200 sturdy Schwyzers, beat him repeat- 
 edly, and, in conjunction with some auxiliaries 
 from Uri, so harassed and beset him in the moun- 
 tain passes, that he lost in all nearly 4000 men, 
 and was but too happy to conclude a convention, 
 In which it was agreed that no French soldier 
 should enter the canton of Schwyz, that no contri- 
 butions should be levied there, and that the Schwy- 
 zers should send deputies to Aarau. The Schwyzers 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798. 
 
 Ce eee ee 
 
 131 
 
 and others of the Waldstiitten sent their deputies 
 to Aarau; but, in the month of July, nothing less 
 would satisfy the French commissioners and com- 
 manders, than that the people should assemble in 
 every canton to take a solemn oath to preserve for 
 ever the new French-manufactured constitution of 
 the Helvetic republic. The French had proved 
 how lightly they thought of such matters ; but, to 
 a people with strong religious feelings, the oath 
 was a matter of high import, and the small moun- 
 tain cantons refused to perjure themselves. Upon 
 this the Alsatian marched again with 15,000 men. 
 Through a want of concert the brave men of Nid- 
 walden were left to stand the brunt by themselves. 
 The entire population of that district did not much 
 exceed 10,000, of whom about 1800 or 2000 might 
 be capable of bearing arms. ‘The rustic heroes 
 who took the field and stationed themselves in one 
 of the passes, being attacked in the rear as well as 
 in front, and assailed by artillery to which they 
 could not reply, were defeated on the 9th of Sep- 
 tember, but not until they had nobly fought from 
 sunrise to sunset, and strewed the pass with their 
 own and their enemies’ bodies. Fifteen hundred 
 Nidwalders perished there; the rest took refuge 
 among the caves and the glaciers of the higher 
 Alps. The victors showed no mercy. ‘‘ They 
 were rebels, whom we must subdue,”’ said the Al- 
 satian general, in his dispatch to the five kings, 
 who were faring sumptuously in the Luxembourg ; 
 ““we are now masters of this unhappy country, 
 which has been pillaged... . . The fury of our 
 soldiers could not be restrained; all that bore 
 arms, including priests, and unfortunately many 
 women also, were put tothe sword.* Our enemies 
 fought desperately ; it was the hottest engagement I 
 ever was in.” All the cattle that could be caught 
 were carried off by the French; the houses and 
 cottages were set on fire, the fruit-trees cut down, 
 three or four pretty little towns, built chiefly of the 
 Alpine fir, were burnt to ashes. With their hands 
 reeking with the blood of the Nidwalders, the 
 French, in contempt of their recent convention, 
 made a rush into the canton of Schwyz, butcher- 
 ing some of the inhabitants and disarming the rest. 
 The liberty for which William Tell had fought and 
 bled was now annihilated by these new Gallic re- 
 publicans, who had professed to give liberty and 
 equality and an augmented happiness to all man- 
 kind! 
 
 Meanwhile, the exactions of the Directory over the 
 rest of Switzerland had continued. Le Carlier had 
 been recalled as not sufficiently active, and a new 
 
 * Jn the churchyard of the rustic town of Stanz a chapel has been 
 built to the memory of 414 inhabitants of that town, including 102 
 women and 25 children, butchered by the French on the 9th of Sep- 
 tember, On the windiug road from Stanz to Sarnam is the chapel of 
 St. Joseph, outside of which eighteen women, armed with scythes, 
 and leaning against the wall, defended themselves against a party of 
 French soldiers until they were all killed. The priest-was saying 
 mass in the church of Stanz when the French rushed in: a shot struck 
 him dead, and fixed itself in the altar, where the mark is still seen. 
 Several hundred children were left helpless orphans, wandering 
 about their paternal fields: most of them were collected by the 
 people of the neighbouring cantons, and the philanthropic Pestalozzi 
 sheltered and educated many of them in his then newly-founded 
 institution —A. Viewsseux, Hist. of Switzerland. 
 
132 
 
 commissioner or commissary had been sent, whobore 
 the ominous and appropriate name of Rapinat.* The 
 rapine committed by this Rapinat surpassed the 
 slow conception of the poor Swiss: the rogue’s 
 only merit was his impartiality—he robbed all 
 alike. At the same time Schauenburg, after dis- 
 arming the people, forbade any one to leave his own 
 canton without a passport signed by the general. 
 Hitherto passports had been unknown in Switzer- 
 land: the use of them was first introduced by these 
 French republicans, as an appendage to their curi- 
 ous system of liberty. Such were some few of the 
 blessings which the Irish people would have en- 
 joyed if the Lord Edward Fitzgeralds, the Wolfe 
 Tones, could have succeeded in getting a French 
 army into the heart of their island! 
 
 The Swiss were not the only people in Europe 
 that felt the hollowness and bitterness of the 
 friendship of the French, and the implacability of 
 their hatred, during this eventful year. The Bel- 
 gians were so harassed by military conscriptions, 
 that they broke out into insurrections in five de- 
 partments—insurrections which added the loss of 
 blood and life to that of money and goods. In 
 Italy the people of the so-called Cisalpine Republic 
 were made to sigh and groan for the blessings they 
 had enjoyed under their old governments. 
 was made the seat of anarchy and woe. In order 
 to raise the money required from it by the treaty of 
 Tolentino, the papal government was obliged to 
 drain the pockets of its subjects. This created 
 violent discontents, which were fermented by a 
 strong French or revolutionary party, who recom- 
 mended, as a proper remedy for every evil, the de- 
 struction or expulsion of the old pope with all his 
 hierarchy, and the setting up of a Roman Repub- 
 fic under the immediate protection of ihe French. 
 These Roman patriots were about the worst that 
 had shown themselves in Italy—for the most part 
 unprincipled and cowardly, ready to plunge the 
 country into a domestic war, but shy in risking a 
 hair of their own heads; sensualists and mate- 
 rialists ; rabid atheists, who had rushed from the 
 extremity of superstition to the extremity of unbe- 
 lief; self-seekers, that calculated how much they 
 should gain per man by the spoils of the church 
 and the sale to foreigners of the antiquities and 
 masterpieces of art which attracted all the nations 
 of the civilised world to Rome, forgetting that, in 
 dealing with the French, they dealt with a nation 
 which took what it wanted without paying for it.t 
 Ever since the Director La Réveillére- Lepeaux had 
 taken it into his head to be the founder of a new 
 
 * This Rapinat was another Alsatian (it should scem that the 
 German blood in Alsace had not been improved by the French 
 mixture), and a relation of Rewbell, one of the five directors. Like 
 most of his school, he robbed on his own account as well as for 
 his employers. With his portion of the plunder of Switzerland 
 he afterwards purchased some of the finest estates in Alsace. The 
 following epigram has often been quoted : 
 
 ** Un bon Suisse que l’en rnine 
 Voudrait bien que l’on décidat 
 Si Rapinat vient de rapine, 
 Ou rapine de Rapinat.” 
 
 + We have known some few of these Roman patriots, or dema- 
 fogues, who were cured of none of their errors, even after a quarter 
 of a century of woful experience, 
 
 Rome | 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 religion under the name of Theophilanthropy, the 
 French agents at Rome had received urgent in- 
 structions to discredit all revealed religion, and 
 particularly the Roman Catholic, to give addi- 
 tional encouragement to the Roman reformers, in 
 order that the supreme head of the Catholic 
 Church might be humiliated, degraded, and driven 
 out, as all this might. serve to facilitate the esta- 
 blishment of La Reéveillére-Lepeaux’s new faith, 
 which was nothing but the old theism of Robes- 
 pierre furbished up and made more ridiculous. The 
 family of the fortunate Corsican general had risen 
 as he rose: his elder brother, Joseph Bonaparte, 
 was no longer in the commissariat but in the 
 diplomatic department, being at this time ambas- 
 sador at Rome, with instructions to change the 
 state of that government without appearing to take 
 any active part with its disaffected subjects. Jo- 
 seph, who loved his ease, and respected the ease 
 and comfort of others, had no zeal for la Réveillére- 
 Lepeaux’s new religion, and apparently no very 
 excessive anxiety to co-operate with the Roman 
 reformers and demagogues. To excite him to 
 more activity, or in order that they might act for 
 him, the five kings at the Luxembourg sent to 
 Joseph two fiery republican generals (whether 
 Theophilanthropists or not we are not informed) : 
 one was General Duphot, who had had the chief 
 management of the overthrow and change of the 
 ancient republic of Genoa; the other was General 
 Sherlock, who descended from an Irish family, 
 and who testified an earnest desire to date the era 
 of the new world, not from the birth of Christ, 
 but from the birth of the French republic. As 
 soon as these two men arrived, the Roman demo- 
 crats became uncommonly bold and turbulent, 
 They insulted the pope’s guards, and even the 
 pope himself when he showed himself in public. 
 This roused the common people, the true sans- 
 culottes of Rome, who had no French _ political 
 sans-culottism about them, but who were devout, 
 superstitious, attached enthusiastically to their 
 pontiff and their priests. A certain number of 
 the democrats armed themselves ; but, if the papal 
 government had chosen to put arms into the hands 
 of the populace in the quarter beyond the Tiber— 
 the athletic and daring Trasteverini, who looked 
 like ancient Romans—and to give them but the 
 word, these revolutionists would have been exter- 
 minated in a day, with all the French who encou- 
 raged them. The papal government only remon- 
 strated with the French embassy, and slightly 
 increased the town-guard or urban militia. On 
 the night of the 27th of December, (1797), while 
 Joseph Bonaparte was giving a grand ball, an 
 encounter took place in the streets between this 
 town-guard and a band of democrats, who had 
 mounted the French cockade in their hats: two 
 of the guards were badly wounded, and one of the 
 democrats was killed outright. On the very next 
 day some three hundred of the democrats assem- 
 bled at the Villa Medici: General Duphot was 
 
 | among them, haranguing and waving his hat, and 
 
 - - J 
 
Cua. VIII] 
 
 — 
 
 by his advice the madmen hoisted the tricolor flag 
 aud shouted, ** Down with the pope, and up with 
 the Roman republic!” Their valour was an after- 
 dinner valour, for they had dined and drunk 
 copiously before the flag was produced. As soon 
 as they saw or heard that some cavalry as well as 
 infantry of the pope’s guard were approaching, 
 they all ran away from Villa Medici to the Pa- 
 lazzo Corsini, the residence of Joseph Bonaparte 
 and of ail the French embassy. The papal troops 
 were held at bay by the arms or insignia of the 
 Gallic republic painted over the palace-gate; and 
 the democrats within the palace, made bold by 
 this awe and by the law of nations, which makes 
 an ambassadorial residence a sanctuary, harangued 
 from the balconies, called the Roman people to 
 liberty, and threatened to go and plant the tri- 
 color flag on the summit of the Capitol. Other 
 democrats gathered in the streets, making noise 
 enough to awaken the dead in the tomb of the 
 Scipios. The papal troops came up, fell upon 
 these out-of-door revolutionists, wounded some of 
 them, and saw the rest run into the vast court-yard 
 and up the broad staircases of the Palazzo Corsini, 
 whence, thinking themselves safe, they insulted the 
 soldiery with words and gestures. Part of a regi- 
 ment of dragoons galloped into the court-yard, 
 calling upon the ambassador, Joseph Bonaparte, to 
 turn those rebels out of his house. Joseph, who 
 
 never showed the least stomach for fighting, re- 
 
 mained under cover and proposed pacific mes- 
 sages ; but General Duphot drew his sword, and 
 ran down stairs into the court-yard, calling upon 
 the democrats to follow him and stand by him, 
 and he would drive away those cowardly soldiers 
 of priests, It should appear that the Roman he- 
 roes, who were under cover in the apartments 
 above, remained where they were; but a combat 
 took place between those in the court-yard and the 
 dragoons, and, at the very beginning of it, Du- 
 phot, who on the next day was to have married 
 Joseph Bonaparte’s sister-in-law,* was mortally 
 wounded by a shot from a carbine. Several of the 
 democrats there were killed in the same way, and 
 a greater number wounded ; most of their brethren 
 upstairs escaped through back doors and windows, 
 and fled across the garden behind the palace at the 
 first report of fire-arms. As soon as he was able, 
 Joseph Bonaparte, with his suite, fled to Florence, 
 ealling the poor old pope the assassin of Duphot. 
 The Directory, who had long wanted some such 
 Occasion, sent orders to General Berthier to march 
 instantly to Rome with a large body of troops. 
 Some weeks before the death of Duphot, Pesaro, 
 Senigaglia, and other towns in the Roman states, 
 Were in open rebellion, and the papal government 
 had vainly remonstrated with Joseph Bonaparte on 
 the encouragement and assistance the French were 
 giving to his revolted subjects. With nothing to 
 oppose them, the French and 4000 Poles, under 
 
 * This lady was afterwards married to Bernadotte, and so became 
 queen of Sweden. She was—in after life, at least—a quict, unpre- 
 tending, inoffensive, amiable woman, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798. 
 
 SNe 
 
 155 
 
 Dombrowski, advanced into the states of the 
 Church ; Loretto, with its Holy House, was sacked ; 
 Osimo was plundered and burned; and, on the 
 10th of February, Berthier drew up his forces on 
 the Roman hills, and planted his guns as if to 
 bombard the city. The terrified Cardinals who 
 formed the government signed a capitulation, in 
 which they gave up the castle of St. Angelo and 
 nearly everything else. On the same day the 
 pope’s garrison was turned out of the castle, and 
 the French entered it; and Cervoni, the Corsican, 
 took possession of all the principal posts in the 
 city. On the morrow, in the midst of the accla- 
 mations of the Roman democrats, Berthier made 
 his triumphal entrance into the capital of the an- 
 cient world. Four days after—the 15th of Febru- 
 ary, and the anniversary of the day on which the 
 reigning pontiff, Pius VI., who had now reigned 
 for 23 years, had first put on the triple crown—the 
 democrats of Rome assembled in the Campo Vac- 
 cino, the ancient Forum, erected a tree of liberty 
 with the tri-color and the red night-cap at the top 
 of it, renounced for ever the government of priests, 
 aristocrats, or kings, and proclaimed that, by the 
 will of the Roman people, the ancient republican 
 form of government was restored. A wretched 
 constitution, badly translated into Italian from the 
 French, was presented next day to Berthier for his 
 approval, without which they knew full well the 
 thing could not live for an hour. The French 
 general gave his approbation, but only condition- 
 ally. ‘The Roman democrats then crowned him with 
 laurel, and carried him in triumph to the Capitol, 
 where Berthier, in return, called them worthy 
 descendants of Brutus and Scipio. When these 
 farces were played out, the spoliation and the rob- 
 bery began. ‘The grey-headed Pope was confined 
 in the Vatican palace under a strong guard of un- 
 believing, mocking French; and seals were put 
 upon all the pontifical apartments and upon the 
 palaces of the absent cardinals. As a beginning, 
 immense contributions were demanded, and, as 
 security for the prompt payment of them, four 
 cardinals and a number of the principal lay nobles 
 were seized and thrown into the castle of St. An- 
 gelo. Not a word more was said about Duphot, 
 whose death had been stated as the provocation 
 which brought Berthier and his army to Rome: 
 his rashness had served the turn, and he was for- 
 gotten in his bloody grave. Full liberty was given 
 to the Roman demagogues to wreak their vengeance 
 on their late superiors and masters, and to gratify all 
 their personal animosities. These things provoked a 
 fearful reaction on the part of the common people: 
 assassinations by night and by day became hor- 
 ribly frequent; and, though they were masters of 
 the city, it was a long time ere either Frenchman 
 or Roman Republican could venture to show his 
 face among the Trasteverini. Berthier, having some 
 delicacy of feeling, some respect for venerable age 
 and fallen dignity, which made him shrink from 
 the task himself, sent the Corsican general Cer- 
 voni to the Vatican to tell Pius VI., in the 
 
 i ng a ee ee EE 
 
134 
 
 recognize the new Roman republic, lay down his 
 temporal authority, and quit his palace.* Pius 
 replied, that his eighty years and the infirmities 
 and maladies which oppressed him must soon end 
 his life and his sufferings, but that for the rest he 
 would not yield except to force; that his enemies 
 might have power over his body, but none over his 
 will or over his soul, which was looking to another 
 world where the wicked ceased from troubling, and 
 the weary found rest. The Corsican adventurer, 
 nourished with the French philosophy, could not 
 but laugh at the miserable old dotard. A commis- 
 sioner or commissary of the Directory, who had 
 come to look after the plunder, finished what Cer- 
 voni had begun, by telling Pius that by will or by 
 force he must leave Rome within forty-eight hours. 
 The aged pontiff replied that he could not resist 
 violence, but that his people would see and remem- 
 
 Pore Prius VI. 
 
 ber that he was torn from them by force. On the 
 20th of February he was seized in the Vatican, and 
 put into a coach with two or three faithful minis- 
 ters; and, escorted by aregiment of French cavalry, 
 he was whirled rapidly out of Rome and along the 
 northern road which leads to Tuscany. The com- 
 mon people were overcome by horror and conster- 
 nation; but, wherever he passed, crowds of them 
 fell upon their knees, blessing him and imploring 
 his blessing. Apart from spiritualities, the old 
 man had been a benefactor to the country. He 
 was allowed to take up his residence in a convent 
 of the Augustinian monks in Siena, in the domi- 
 nions, or in what had been the dominions, of 
 the Grand Duke of Tuscany; but his residence 
 was constantly surrounded by a guard of republic- 
 ans, and he was treated to all intents like a state 
 prisoner. 
 
 Shortly after these troubles at Rome, popular 
 insurrections, fomented by the French and the de- 
 mocrats of Genoa or the new Ligurian republic, 
 broke out in Piedmont, and the new king of Sardi- 
 nia was compelled to admit a French garrison into 
 
 * Cervoni is said to have performed his mission, not merely with 
 unnecessary severity, but with absolute brutality. Between the 
 French republicans and the new Roman republicans, Pius VI. 
 suffered torments much worse than death. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a 
 name of the French Republic, that he must-{ Turin, and all the other citadels which “he had { 
 
 virtually a province of France. 
 
 hitherto retained. Thus that fine country became 
 
 Bonaparte, after a rapid inspection of the 
 French coasts and of the so-called “ Army of Eng- 
 land ” stationed near them, had returned to Paris 
 to undertake the command of another army des- 
 tined for no less an object than the conquest of — 
 Egypt, which country, it was calculated, would not 
 merely supply to France the loss of her West In- 
 dian colonies, but also enable her first to annoy, 
 and afterwards to invade the British possessions 
 and dependencies in the East Indies. It was a 
 wild scheme, and as unjust as it was wild, for, 
 whatever might be the occasional contumacy of the 
 Mameluke Beys, Egypt was a country belongin 
 to the Turks, the ancient allies of the French, who 
 were living in peace with the republic, and had 
 done nothing to provoke an attack. Buta very — 
 extravagant estimate was formed of the wealth of 
 Egypt itself: the plunder of the land of the Pha- 
 raohs would, it was calculated, amply pay all ex- 
 penses of the expedition and enrich the army; 
 men’s heads were filled with high-sounding names 
 of places and dynasties, and with those always in- 
 toxicating comparisons with the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans ; Bonaparte’s fame as the conqueror of Italy, 
 or rather of the Austrians in Italy, was an addi- 
 tional inducement, and 30,000 men, chiefly from 
 the army of Italy, assembled with wonderful en- 
 thusiasm at Toulon, to sail, whenever the oppor- 
 tunity should offer, for Alexandria and the mouths 
 of the Nile. The secret of the expedition was well 
 kept from the enemies of the republic; a continu- 
 ance of violent winds drove the English blockad- 
 ing fleet from those waters; and on the night of 
 the 19th of May, Bonaparte, with a vast fleet of 
 men-of-war and transports, put to sea and sailed 
 up the Mediterranean. On the 9th of June the © 
 fleet arrived before Malta, the capture of which 
 important island was included in the plan adopted 
 by the Directory. The knights of the order of St. 
 John of Jerusalem, who had held Malta ever since 
 the days of the emperor Charles V., had not ac- — 
 knowledged the French republic; but not a fewof — 
 those noble knights entertained French notions or 
 had sold themselves to French interests. Hom- — 
 pesch the grand master, a weak old man, was bul- — 
 lied and terrified by these traitors, and, instead of — 
 manning the works of La Valetta, which might — 
 have defied the whole French fleet and army for — 
 months—whereas every moment was precious to — 
 them, and full of apprehension, for they knew that 
 the British fleet would soon be after them—he — 
 returned a miserable answer to Bonaparte’s sum- — 
 mons to surrender, and actually capitulated on the — 
 llth, the date fixed by the republican general. — 
 After plundering the churches and the alberghi — 
 and other establishments of the order, and thereby _ 
 collecting no inconsiderable quantity of gold and — 
 silver, Bonaparte re-embarked on the 19th for — 
 Egypt, leaving General Vaubois and a garrison to — 
 take care of Malta. As the French fleet sailed | 
 
 P 
 es; 
 
| Cuap. VIII.) 
 | by the island of Candia it passed near the English, 
 fleet, but without being seen by it ; for a thick haze 
 favoured the invaders, and prevented their utter 
 annihilation, with the destruction or captivity of 
 all the troops, and of Bonaparte himself, by Nelson. 
 On the 29th of June the French came in sight of 
 Alexandria; and on the following day the troops 
 landed within three miles of that city, without any 
 opposition, but with such haste and confusion, 
 produced by the dread lest Nelson should be upon 
 them, that a considerable number were drowned. 
 The town of Alexandria was easily taken. From 
 its ancient walls Bonaparte issued a proclamation 
 to the inhabitants of Egypt, telling them that he 
 came as the friend of the Sultan, to deliver them 
 from the oppression of the Mamelukes, and that 
 he and his soldiers had a particular respect for 
 God, the prophet Mahomet, and the Koran. On 
 the 7th of July he moved from Alexandria to Cairo, 
 marching over burning sands, where the French 
 troops suffered greatly and murmured not a little. 
 On the 21st, on arriving in sight of the great 
 pyramids, they saw objects less peaceful than those 
 stupendous memorials of the dead—they saw the 
 whole Mameluke force, under Murad Bey and 
 Ibrahim Bey, drawn up at Embabeh. Battle was 
 joined almost immediately. The Mameluke ca- 
 valry, 5000 in number, was splendid and brave ; 
 but their Arab auxiliaries were not so well armed ; 
 and their infantry, composed chiefly of Egyptian 
 Fellahs, or peasants, armed with matchlocks, was 
 altogether contemptible ; and they had no artillery. 
 The battle of the Pyramids, as the affair was called 
 by the French, was easily won : such of the Mame- 
 
 lukes as escaped destruction retreated towards | 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1798, 
 
 Upper Egypt; and two days after Bonaparte en- 
 tered Cairo without resistance. Here he assembled 
 a divan, or council, of the principal Turks.and Arab 
 chiefs, to whom he promised the civil administra- 
 tion of the country. He also endeavoured to con- 
 ciliate the Ulemas and Imams, holding frequent 
 conferences with those doctors and professors of 
 the Mohammedan faith, talking oracularly and 
 orientally (by means of interpreters) : he repeated 
 their brief credo, that there is but one God, and 
 that Mahomet is his prophet, and at least hinted 
 that he and his army, who had destroyed the Pope 
 of Rome, and those other ancient enemies of the 
 Moslem, the Knights of Malta, might some day 
 undergo the initiatory rite, and become thorough 
 converts to Islamism. While he was thus engaged 
 at Cairo, Nelson disturbed his visions by destroy- 
 ing the fleet which he had left near Alexandria. 
 The British hero had returned up the Mediter- 
 ranean without any instructions from his govern- 
 ment, and without any certain knowledge of the 
 French expedition. He was unfortunately without 
 frigates to scour that sea, and he was thus, as it 
 were, compelled to grope his way in the dark. The 
 first news he got of Bonaparte’s movements was 
 that he had surprised Malta. Instantly he bore 
 away for that island; but some days before he 
 could reach it the French were gone, and he could 
 find no one to tell him whither. Making, however, 
 a shrewd guess, he sailed for the mouths of the 
 Nile, and arrived off Alexandria on the 28th of 
 June. But no French fleet was there, and, although 
 it was so near at hand, he could learn nothing of 
 its whereabout. He then shaped his course to the 
 northward for the coast of Caramania, and steered 
 
 BATTLE OF THE PyRAMIDs. 
 
156 
 
 from thence along the southern side of Candia. It 
 was here he so nearly touched the objects he was 
 seeking. Baffled in his pursuit, he crossed the 
 whole Mediterranean and returned to Sicily. He 
 had sailed six hundred leagues with an expedition 
 almost incredible ; his flag-ship the old ‘ Vanguard ’ 
 was nearly strained to pieces; but as soon as he 
 could re-victual and take in fresh water he turned 
 his prow again toward Egypt, still holding to his 
 opinion that the French must have been bound 
 
 thither, but vowing that if they were bound to the | 
 
 Antipodes, or if they were anywhere above water, 
 he would find them out and bring them to action. 
 On the 28th of July he entered the Gulf of Coron 
 in the Morea; and there for the first time he re- 
 ceived certain intelligence that the French had 
 been seen about four weeks before steering between 
 Candia and the coast of Egypt. Then, setting every 
 sal that his ships could possibly carry, he stood 
 over once more for the mouths of the Nile, grieving 
 for the time which had been lost, and wishing it 
 had only been his fate to have tried Bonaparte 
 upon a wind. Karl St. Vincent had been severely 
 censured for sending se young an officer upon so 
 important a service; but the glory of the British 
 flag could not have been intrusted to better hands ; 
 and the perseverance, the ability, and self-resources 
 he displayed before the battle were as honourable as 
 the skill and the valour he displayed in it. Never 
 did mortal man more eagerly seek an enemy. 
 
 The British fleet, consisting of thirteen 74’s, 
 one 50-gun ship, and a brig of 14 guns, at about 
 ten in the morning of the Ist of August, again got 
 sight of Alexandria and its harbours, now crowded 
 with ships. At four in the afternoon, Captain 
 Hood, in the ‘ Zealous,’ signalised the enemy’s 
 fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay. The admiral im- 
 mediately hauled his wind, followed by the whole 
 flect ; signals were made to prepare for battle; to 
 attack the enemy’s van and centre, as they lay at 
 anchor. Nelson, who had scarcely taken rest or 
 food for some days, ordered dinner to be served, 
 observing to his officers as they rose from table, 
 *‘ Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained 
 a peerage or Westminster Abbey.” At half-past 
 five signal was made to form in line of battle 
 abreast and astern of the admiral. At a little be- 
 fore six they were rapidly approaching the enemy, 
 whose force comprised one ship of 120 guns, three 
 of 80, and nine of 74, moored in compact line of 
 battle, describing an obtuse angle, close m with 
 the shore, flanked by gun-boats, four frigates, and 
 a battery of guns and mortars on an island in their 
 van. Nelson no sooner perceived the enemy’s po- 
 sition than his plan of attack was formed. Where 
 an enemy’s ship cou!d swing, there was room for 
 a British one to anchor; and he therefore deter- 
 mined to station his ships on the inner side of the 
 French line.* At about twenty minutes past six 
 the French opened their fire on the two leading 
 
 * Captain Berry, when he comprehended the scope of the design, 
 exclaimed, ‘‘ If we succeed, what will the world say?” *‘ There is 
 no éf in the case,” replied Nelson: ‘‘ that we shall succeed is cer- 
 tain; who may live to tell the story is a very different question,” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 British ships. The guns on Aboukir Island also 
 fired at the ships as they rounded the shoal, but 
 ceased as the ships became closely engaged, to 
 avoid striking the French van. The ‘ Culloden,’ 
 74, Captain Trowbridge, unfortunately grounded 
 on a ledge of rocks, and could take no part in the 
 action. The ‘ Vanguard,’ Nelson’s flag-ship, with 
 six ensigns flying in different parts of the rigging, 
 lest any should be shot away, was the first that 
 anchored, within half pistol-shot of the ‘ Spartiate,’ 
 the third ship in the enemy’s line. 
 o’clock eight of the British fleet had anchored, 
 and were in close action with the enemy. At half- 
 past nine, or thereabouts, five of the French van 
 had surrendered ; the ‘ Orient’ was in flames, and 
 at about ten o’clock blew up with a tremendous 
 explosion. Nelson had received a severe wound 
 in the head; but in the confusion, to the astonish- 
 ment of every one, he appeared on the quarter- 
 deck, and immediately gave orders that the boats 
 should be sent to the relief of the enemy; and 
 many of the ‘ Orient’s’ crew were saved by our 
 boats, or dragged into the lower ports of British 
 ships by British sailors. The brave French admiral, 
 Brueys, was dead. He had received three wounds, 
 yet would not leave his post: a fourth cut him al- 
 most in two. He desired not to be carried below, 
 but to be left to die upon deck. Among the many 
 hundreds who perished was the Commodore Casa 
 Bianca, and his son, a brave boy, only ten years 
 old. ‘They were seen floating on a shattered mast 
 when the ship blew up. The dreadful shock stayed 
 the fury of battle: for full ten minutes not a gun was 
 fired on either side. The French ship ‘ Franklin’ 
 was the first to reeommence firing, but was soon 
 silenced, and struck her colours. At midnight the 
 only French ship whose guns continued in active 
 play was the ‘Tonnant ;’ but, her masts being shot 
 away, she ceased firing, and, by veering cable, 
 took up a station in the rear, and another interval 
 of silence ensued. As the day broke the battle re- 
 commenced between four of the French ships and 
 two of the English, soon assisted by two others. 
 The French frigate ‘ Artemise’ fired a broadside, 
 and then struck her colours, and soon afterwards 
 blew up. The four French line-of-battle ships, 
 and two frigates, kept dropping to leeward, and 
 were almost out of gun-shot of the British that had 
 anchored to attack them. Two of these ships ran 
 themselves on shore; and, after an exchange of a 
 few distant shots, struck their colours. The others 
 got under weigh, and escaped—only one of our 
 fleet, the ‘ Zealous,’ being in a condition to make 
 sail after them.* Of the thirteen French ships of 
 the line eight had surrendered, one had perished, 
 two had escaped, and two were on shore with their 
 
 colours flying, one of which soon after struck, and 
 
 was taken possession of, and the other was set fire 
 to by the crew, who escaped on shore—making 
 eleven line-of-battle ships lost to the French. If 
 Nelson had not been wounded, and the ‘ Culloden’ 
 
 * The two line-of-battle ships, and one of the frigates, were 
 afterwards taken by our squadron in the Mediterranean, 
 
 . 
 
 [Book xe 
 
 By seven — 
 
 wet 
 U 
 
 : 
 ce 
 : 
 ( 
 
 . 
 | 
 | 
 
A 
 
 ee ae eee cea 5m 7 
 
 137 
 
 BATTLE OF THE NILE. 
 
 could have got into action, it is probable that not 
 one of the enemy’s fleet would have left Aboukir 
 Bay.* 
 
 The British loss, in killed and wounded, was 
 895. Westcott, of the ‘ Majestic,’ was the only 
 captain who fell: 3105 of the French, including 
 the wounded, were sent on shore by cartel; and 
 5225 perished. The victory was complete. ‘* Vic- 
 tory,” said Nelson, “is not a name strong enough 
 for such a scene.” He called it a conquest.‘f 
 
 The destruction of the French fleet, which was 
 announced far and wide by bonfires kindled by 
 the Arabs along the coast and over the whole 
 land of Egypt, left Bonaparte with only such 
 stores and military materials as he had succeeded 
 in bringing with him, and shut him out from all 
 communication with France. If Nelson had been 
 provided, as he ought to have been, with small 
 craft—if he had only had three or four bomb- 
 Ketches—he would have burned all the French 
 transports and store-ships which Admiral Brueys 
 had prudently secured in shallow water in the 
 port of Alexandria, and thus the land army would 
 have been reduced at once to the greatest straits. 
 
 The Sultan now issued an indignant manifesto, 
 declaring war against France for invading one of 
 his provinces in a time of peace and pretended 
 
 * Comparative force of the two fleets :— 
 
 ae English. French. 
 Ships, in number - . . 13 13 
 Guns , E ‘ ° ‘ «.» 1,040 1,086 
 Aggregate broadside weight of 
 
 metal, in lbs. ‘ . « 10,895 14,029 
 Number of men , 4 ‘ eh 1401 9,710 
 Size in tons . . 20,660 25,560 
 
 Shewing a decided superiority on the French side, without counting 
 the four frigates (two of them carrying heavy 18-pounders), four 
 ot tae i oe and pres battery on Aboukir Island. 
 ames’s Nava istory.—Schomberg’s Naval Chronology.— 
 Southey’s Life of Nelson. i . = 
 
 amity ; he called upon the pashas of Syria to col- 
 lect their forces; and he prepared to send from 
 Constantinople an army for the recovery of Egypt. 
 On the 22nd of September the people of Cairo, 
 who had hitherto been quiet, puzzled and bewil- 
 dered at the French doings, burst out into insur- 
 rection, and killed a good many Frenchmen in the 
 streets. The insurrection was put down by a 
 dreadful massacre ; but the blood of 5000 Moslems, 
 shed in one single day, and mostly in the great 
 Mosque of the Prophet, called for vengeance, and 
 precluded all chance of the French ever retaining 
 quiet possession of the country.* 
 
 In Europe the victory at Aboukir, or the battle 
 of the Nile as it was called, produced an imme- 
 diate and an immense effect, reviving in every 
 country the drooping spirits of the anti-Gallican 
 party, and filling England from end to end with 
 transports of joy and triumph. Nelson was raised 
 to the peerage with the title of Baron Nelson of 
 the Nile, and all sorts of honours were heaped 
 upon him. From Egypt he returned to Naples, 
 where he found that King Ferdinand was collect- 
 ing a numerous army with the view of driving the 
 French from Rome and from Tuscany; that the 
 congress at Rastadt had been virtually broken 
 up; that the emperor was arming, and a new 
 coalition forming against the French, who, by 
 their conduct at Rome, in Switzerland, and in 
 other countries, had broken the conditions of the 
 treaty of Campo Formio. Nelson’s achievement, 
 
 * Tt was after this massacre at Cairo that Bonaparte issued his 
 well-known proclamation, in which, in Oriental style, he told the 
 inhabitants of Egypt that he was the Man of Destiny foretold in the 
 Koran; that any resistance to his will was impious as well as use- 
 less; and that he could call them to account even for their most 
 secret thoughts, as nothing was hid from him. All this seemed but 
 mountebank-work in the eyes of the Moslems. 
 
138 
 
 and the absence of Bonaparte, who it was expected 
 would never find his way back to Europe, were the 
 two grand circumstances of encouragement to this 
 new coalition. 
 
 In the month of November the island of Gozo, 
 separated from Malta by a narrow channel, capi- 
 tulated to a detachment of Nelson’s squadron ; 
 Malta itself was closely blockaded; and, as the 
 people were rising with great spirit and resolution 
 against the French, it was clear that the tricolor 
 flag would not float long over the stately city of 
 La Valetta. " 
 
 The British parliament assembled on the 20th 
 of November. The speech from the throne, after 
 grateful mention of our successes, and of the sup- 
 pression of the Irish rebellion, congratulated the 
 country on the hopes of new alliances, by which it 
 might be anticipated that the common enemy of 
 nations would be humbled and repressed. ‘This 
 alluded more particularly to Russia. The Czarina 
 Catherine had died of apoplexy in November, 1796, 
 and had been succeeded by her son Paul. At first 
 anxious doubts had been entertained whether, as 
 usual in despotic countries, the successor would 
 not pursue a line of foreign policy directly op- 
 posite to that of his predecessor. It was known 
 that tempting oyertures had been made to him by 
 the French; and Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt, 
 by embarrassing the Sultan, and obliging him to 
 send an army down the Archipelago, would pro- 
 bably leave the frontiers of European Turkey in a 
 weakened state, and even possibly lay open the 
 road to the Balkan pass and to Constantinople, 
 the grand object of Russian ambition. But Paul 
 had now engaged to respect existing treaties, had 
 declared his detestation of French principles and 
 French ambition, had contracted a close alliance 
 with Great Britain, and had engaged to take an 
 active part in the war against the conquering re- 
 public, upon condition of receiving from Great 
 Britain 112,000/. per month, during a campaign 
 of eight months, for the pay of troops. It was 
 not yet known that the eccentricities of the Em- 
 peror Paul’s character amounted to insanity: the 
 money, and even more than was asked for, was 
 readily voted, and high expectations were enter- 
 tained of the exploits to be performed by old 
 Suvaroff, who had never known defeat, and his 
 iron-framed Russian veterans. 
 
 The estimated supplies for the ensuing year 
 were put at 29,272,000/.; and Pitt presented a 
 new plan for raising a considerable part of them 
 by an Income ax. A series of resolutions re- 
 lating to this new and bold plan were passed in 
 the House of Commons before the close of the 
 year. 
 
 A.D. 1799.—The minister’s resolutions were, in 
 substance, that the augmentation of the assessed 
 taxes made in the last session should be repealed, 
 and have its place supplied by a duty upon all in- 
 comes above 60/. a-year. Every person whose in- 
 come exceeded 60/. a-year was to state, to the 
 commissioners appointed for collecting the tax, the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 exact amount of his income: the return was to be 
 according to his own statement, but liable to 
 checks and correction by surveyors, if there were 
 good reason to suspect a false or deficient return. 
 If a man’s income exceeded 200/. a-year, he was 
 to pay 1O/. per cent. upon it; if it only exceeded 
 100/., he was to pay considerably less than 10 per 
 cent. ; and, if his income was only between 60/. 
 and 100/., he was to be taxed in a still diminish- 
 ing proportion. Pitt calculated the yearly income 
 of the whole nation at 102,000,000/., from which, 
 by this income-tax, he anticipated a revenue of 
 10,000,000/.° A Dill, peek upon these prin- 
 ciples, after undergoing some amendments of de- 
 tail, was carried through both Houses by great ma- 
 jorities. 
 
 The regular army was slightly increased ; 
 120,000 men, including marines, &c., were voted 
 for the navy; the volunteers and yeomanry cavalry 
 had risen from 5000 to 80,000 men; and the 
 militia, a portion of which had done good service 
 in Ireland, was now about 85,000 strong. 
 
 A plan for uniting Ireland under one legislature _ 
 
 with Great Britain, as Scotland, to her inesti- 
 mable advantage, had been united to England 
 nearly a century ago, had been discussed and 
 seriously entertained before the breaking out of the 
 late unhappy rebellion; but that event had made 
 the necessity of such a union more apparent. On 
 the 22nd of January a royal message to both 
 Houses recommended the consideration of the most 
 effectual means to defeat the design of our enemies 
 to promote a separation between the two kingdoms, 
 by settling such a complete and final adjustment 
 as might perpetuate a connexion essential for their 
 common security, and consolidate the power and 
 resources of the British empire. Sheridan spoke 
 of taking the Irish people by surprise, and 
 of a design of ministers to carry their end by 
 fraud, corruption, and intimidation; but it was 
 agreed by an immense majority that the question 
 should be considered on the 3lst. On that day, 
 Pitt, after explaining the grounds which would 
 make the union, at the very least, as beneficial to 
 Ireland as to England, proposed certain resolutions 
 as the basis for the measure ; and his motion, that 
 the House should go into committee on these pro- 
 positions, was carried by 140 against 15. After 
 some long and warm debates, the resolutions, with 
 some slight amendments, were agreed to, and sent 
 up to the Peers. After equally warm debating in 
 the Upper House, a joint address to the king was 
 agreed to, presenting the resolutions as a proper 
 
 basis for the union. And here, as far as regarded | 
 England, the matter rested for the present year.* 
 
 * The most important of these resolutions were—That the United 
 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland should be represented by one 
 common parliament, in which a number of Lords and Commons, te 
 be hereafter agreed on, should represent Ireland.—That the churches 
 of England and Ireland should be preserved as now by law esta- 
 blished.—That the subjects of Ireland should be entitled to the same 
 privileges in trade and navigation as those of Great Britain.—That 
 the charge for the payment of the interest of the public debt of each 
 kingdom before the union should continue to be paid by Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland separately, but that the future ordinary expenses of 
 the United Kingdom should be defrayed by them jointly, according to 
 proportions to be established by the parliament of each kingdom as 
 
 } x 
 
 es 
 a, 
 . 
 
 rN 
 
Guar. VIII.) 
 
 On the 12th of July the king prorogued parlia- 
 ment with a very hopeful address. 
 
 The convention and subsidiary treaty with the 
 Emperor Paul had not been fully concluded until 
 the month of December of the preceding year; 
 but before that time the court of Vienna had formed 
 a close alliance with the czar, and Russian troops 
 had begun to collect on the frontiers of Austria, 
 while a great army of the German empire was assem- 
 bling between the rivers Inn and Lech. One great 
 object proposed was to drive the French out of 
 Italy, where, through the folly of King Ferdinand, 
 who had begun too soon, or through the slowness of 
 the Emperor Francis, who had begun too late, they 
 had been allowed to overrun the kingdom of 
 Naples, and to drive the court into Sicily. In the 
 autumn of 1798, long before he was ready himself, 
 the Emperor Francis sent Colonel (now General) 
 Mack, whom we last saw negotiating with Du- 
 mouriez on the frontiers of the Netherlands, to 
 organize and take the command of the Neapolitan 
 army—a fine army to the eye, but wofully 
 officered, and bad in nearly every other respect. 
 Nelson, who was then at Naples, formed almost at 
 a glance a correct estimate of the vaunted tacti- 
 cian. ‘* General Mack,” said he, ‘‘ cannot move 
 without five carriages! Ihave formed my opi- 
 nion.” On another occasion he exclaimed with 
 bitterness that the fellow did not understand his 
 business. Instead of waiting until the Austrians 
 and Russians should be ready to descend from the 
 Alps upon the other end of Italy, it was resolved 
 that this unwarlike army should march to Rome, 
 drive away the French, restore the pope, and liberate 
 Tuscany, if not all Italy. To make bad worse, it 
 was put into the head of King Ferdinand, the least 
 martial of sovereigns and the most indolent and 
 thoughtless of men, that he ought to march with 
 Mack and his army. To create a diversion, a 
 British and Portuguese squadron landed 5000 Nea- 
 politans at Leghorn, and took quict possession of 
 that port and city. The king, with the main body 
 of his army, 32,000 strong, entered the Roman 
 states at the end of November. The rainy season 
 alone was almost enough to dishearten his old- 
 womanly officers. The great strategist and tactician, 
 Mack, faithful to the old and fatal system, divided 
 this Neapolitan army, not into two, or three, but 
 into five columns ; and these columns were separated 
 by rivers, marshes, and mountains, some of them 
 by the entire breadth of the Apennines. Hardly 
 any of the troops had ever been under fire, and a 
 notion of their discipline and military morale may 
 he derived from the one simple fact, that most of 
 their officers were in the constant habit of robbing 
 or defrauding the men. Championnet, the French 
 general-in-chief there, had 20,000 veteran troops 
 in the territories of the church; these, it is true, 
 were also dispersed over a broad surface: but, 
 
 - agreed upon previously to the union’—That all laws in force in 
 
 ’ either kingdom at the time of the union, 
 
 Naar t and all courts, civil and 
 ecclesiastical, in each kingdom should remain as now established, 
 subject only to such future alterations as might seem requisite to 
 the united parliament. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1799. 
 
 139 
 
 with their habits of rapid motion, they could soon 
 be collected ; and the weakest of their columns, 
 which was about 5000 strong, was not only a 
 match for one of Mack’s five‘divisions, but for his 
 whole host if he couid have collected it together— 
 which it was evident from the beginning he never 
 could. The advanced posts of the French army 
 fell in without fighting; Championnet evacuated 
 Rome to concentrate his forces at Terni, and the 
 King of Naples entered the Eternal City in triumph 
 on the 29th of November. But there ended the 
 success of this contemptible expedition : the 
 triumph was immediately followed by shame and 
 by flight. One of Mack’s columns, far away on 
 the left, was beaten and scattered like chaff before 
 the wind by 3000 men of the Polish legion; 
 another column, far away on his right, was put to 
 an opprobrious route by the republican general 
 Macdonald ; and, after some petty skirmishing in 
 the hills near Terni, the King of Naples fled by 
 night from Rome to his own capital, and Mack, as 
 soon as might be, followed him with such portions 
 of the Neapolitan army as he could get and keep 
 together. Championnet soon followed the fugi- 
 tives with more than 20,000 men, for he had re- 
 ceived reinforcements from the north of Italy. On 
 the 21st of December king Ferdinand and _ his 
 family embarked in Lord Nelson’s flag ship, and 
 set sail for Palermo in a gale of wind. The demo- 
 cratic or revolutionary party at Naples, which had 
 been made the more numerous by long and sharp 
 persecution, prepared to co-operate with the ad- 
 vancing French; the lazzaroni, though deserted 
 by their king, and abandoned or betrayed on every 
 side, showed that it was not the qfality of courage 
 their country was most destitute of, fought the 
 French desperately for three days on the Capuan 
 road and in their own suburbs, and did not yield 
 the entrance of their fair city until their own 
 treacherous countrymen and townsmen hoisted the 
 tri-colored flag, delivered up the forts to the enemy, 
 and opened a fire upon them from the castle of St. 
 Elmo, which stands on a high hill close behind the’ 
 town. Championnet took possession of Naples on 
 
 the 23rd of January ; royalty was abolished, and 
 
 the country in Europe least fitted for such institu- 
 
 tions was converted into a republic, under the 
 
 name of Repusiica Parrenopea. The bank could 
 
 not be robbed, nor could the Monte di Pieta, as 
 
 the fugitive king had swept them both clean, and 
 
 had carried off their money with him into Sicily; 
 
 but the Freuch liberators imposed a contribution 
 
 of 12,000,000 of francs upon the impoverished 
 
 inhabitants of the capital, and another contribu- 
 
 tion of 15,000,000 of francs upon the people of 
 the provinces, made the Neapolitans pay for the 
 
 support of their army, seized not only the royal 
 
 property, but also the estates of the church and of 
 the rich monastic orders, ransacked the national 
 
 museum for choice manuscripts, books, statues, and 
 
 pictures, and appropriated not only all the curio- 
 
 sities and works of antiquity which had been dis- 
 
 covered in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but all such 
 
140 
 
 as might be discovered hereafter. These were 
 ordinary proceedings ; but Faypoult, the commis- 
 sioner and money collector of the Directory, 
 adopted such novelties in sequestration and plunder, 
 of a more private kind, that General Championnet 
 expressed his disgust, and interfered with his 
 authority. ‘The directors, who wanted the money, 
 and who could never tolerate such interference, 
 recalled Championnet, and gave the command of 
 the army to Macdonald. 
 
 It was while Naples was thus falling so easy a 
 prey to the French, that her Austrian and Russian 
 allies began collecting on the other side of the 
 Alps. The French negotiators at Rastadt, after 
 demanding from the Emperor of Germany the dis- 
 missal of the Russian troops, declared the congress 
 to be dissolved. A republican army forthwith 
 pressed the siege of the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, 
 which was obliged to capitulate at the end of 
 January. Jourdan then crossed the Rhine once 
 more, and established himself in Suabia. The 
 Directory, however, did not declare war against 
 the Emperor Francis until the month of March, 
 when Jourdan advanced towards the Danube; but 
 again the Archduke Charles met this unlucky 
 republican, and, after defeating or weakening him 
 in several rapidly succeeding engagements, he 
 drove Jourdan back over the Rhine in April. 
 Nearly at the same time the Austrian generals 
 Bellegarde and Hotze recovered the Grison country 
 which had been invaded, drove the French from 
 the St. Gothard, and poured into Switzerland, 
 where General Massena was reduced to act on the 
 defensive. Inthe month of May Massena occu- 
 pied a strong position in front of Zurich. In the 
 meanwhile another fine Austrian army had taken 
 the field with old General Melas for its com- 
 mander. Melas, pouring through the Tyrol to- 
 wards the end of March, drove all the French 
 outposts before him, entered Upper Italy, cleared 
 all the left bank of the Adige, and obliged Scherer, 
 the unpopular and very inferior general whom the 
 Directory had appointed to the supreme command 
 of their army of Italy, to retire beyond the Mincio 
 in great confusion. Scherer was ignominiously 
 recalied to Paris: he ran the hazard of being torn 
 to pieces by his infuriated soldiers; and he only 
 escaped imprisonment and impeachment by run- 
 ning away and hiding himself in some obscure 
 corner of France, where he lay for a few months, 
 until a new revolution overthrew the Directory. 
 Moreau, who had a much higher reputation, took 
 the command, but only to be beaten like Scherer. 
 On the 18th of April, when Melas was driving 
 Moreau before him, the famed Suvaroff came up 
 with some 50,000 Russians, joined the Austrians, 
 and assumed the chief command of both armies. 
 On the 27th of April the battle of Cassano decided 
 the fate of the Cisalpine Republic, the people of 
 which were almost everywhere in open insurrection 
 against the French and the native democrats 
 whom they had set up as a government. The 
 citadels of Brescia and Peschiera surrendered to 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 the allies, Mantua was closely invested, and Suva- 
 roff entered Milan in triumph. Moreau continued 
 his hasty retreat towards Genoa, hoping to be able 
 to guard the barrier of the Apennines, and to be 
 joined there by Macdonald with the army of 
 Naples, whom he had pressingly summoned to his 
 assistance. Leaving a small garrison in the castle 
 of St. Elmo under the command of Colonel Me- 
 gean, and advising the Neapolitan democrats to 
 defend that helpless infant, their three-months-old 
 republic, Macdonald, on the 7th of May, began 
 his rapid march from Naples, got out of the king- 
 dom (not without sustaining considerable loss from 
 some daring royalist partisans), traversed the Ro- 
 man states and the whole of Tuscany, reached the 
 river Trebia, and, being joined by General Vic- 
 tor, ventured to face the Russo-Austrian army. 
 But, after fighting for three days en the banks of 
 the Trebia, in the neighbourhvod of Piacenza, he 
 was crushed Ly Suvaroff; and, flymg thence to- 
 wards the pass of the Bocchetia, he jomed Moreau 
 with what was only a fragment of his army. Be- 
 fore Macdonald’s arrival, Moreau had drawn some 
 reinforcements from Nice and Genoa, and had 
 made some entrenchments on the declivities of 
 the Apennines and in the entrance of the Boc- 
 chetta pass behind the Piedmontese town of Novi. 
 Dissatisfied with Moreau, the Directors now sent 
 Joubert to take the command-in-chief of the army. 
 Joubert stationed himself on the same heights be- 
 hind Novi which Moreau had occupied, and im- 
 proved and extended his field-works. But, being 
 attacked in that formidable position by Suvaroff on 
 the 16th of August, Joubert was most thoroughly 
 beaten, and was killed in the action by a cannon- 
 ball ; and the miserable wreck of the French army 
 which survived his fall left nearly all their artil- 
 lery behind them, and fled like sheep over the 
 mountains and through the pass towards the city 
 of Genoa. Shortly after this victory, Suvarotf 
 quitted the Apennines and struck across the Alps 
 to make head against Massena, who had resumed 
 the offensive, and, marching from Zurich, had de- 
 feated the Russian corps of General Korsakof, who 
 had arrived in Switzerland to relieve or co-operate 
 with General Bellegarde and the Austrians. There 
 was some fearful fighting among the precipices 
 and ravines of St. Gothard, which the French had 
 again occupied, Suvaroff swept the republicans 
 back, and opened his way into the heart of Switzer- 
 land ; but the Austrian general, who had engaged 
 to form a junction with him, was nowhere to be 
 seen; and Korsakoff was too far separated, and too 
 
 weak, to move to meet him. This obliged Suva- 
 
 roff to turn aside towards the lake of Constance 
 and the frontiers of Germany. He was interrupted 
 on his march by Massena; but, fighting and re- 
 tiring, halting and fighting again, he attained his 
 object, and effected a junction with Korsakoff, 
 though with an army sadly diminished. Leaving 
 the French once more absolute masters of Switzer- 
 land,* the two Russian generals marched away to 
 
 * The Archduke Charles, when marching against Massena, was 
 
> 
 
 ay 
 
 Cua. VIII. ] 
 
 Augsburg, where they received orders to lead back 
 all their troops to their own country. 
 
 The Neapolitan kingdom was recovered in the 
 course of the months of June and July by Car- 
 dinal Ruffo, with an army of wild Calabrians, 
 
 by a motley force of English, Russians, Portu- 
 
 guese, and Turks, and by Lord Nelson and 
 his squadron. A sanguinary vengeance was taken 
 by the vindictive court on the Neapolitan re- 
 publicans; and the fame of Nelson, who had 
 surrendered his better feelings and judgment to 
 the fascinating Lady Hamilton, the wite of the 
 British minister at that court, the friend of the 
 queen (Caroline of Austria, sister of the unfor- 
 tunate Marie Antoinette), and the ready instru- 
 ment of her vengeance, was obscured by more than 
 oue dark deed, which no right-minded Englishman 
 will ever attempt to palliate. A detachment of 
 Nelson’s squadron, under Commodore Trowbridge, 
 blockaded the French garrison in Civita Vecchia, 
 the Pope’s sea-port town near the mouth of the 
 Tiber. “The French soon capitulated, as did also 
 a small garrison which had been left by Cham- 
 pionnet in the castle of St. Angelo at Rome. Cap- 
 tain Lewis, followed by a few English sailors and 
 marines, rowed up the Tiber in his barge, hoisted 
 English colours on the Capitol, and acted fora 
 time as governor of Rome.* The Papal govern- 
 ment was reinstated, but to restore the old Pope 
 was beyond the power of our bold man-of-war’s- 
 man. Pius VI., on the irruption of the-Austrian 
 and Russian armies, had been carried across the 
 Alps into the the south of France; and he died at 
 Valence on the Rhéne in the month of August. 
 The election of his successor, Pius VII., by thirty- 
 five cardinals, assembled at Venice under the pro- 
 tection of the Austrians, was not completed until 
 the month of March, 1800. <A detachment from 
 the army of General Melas easily recovered the 
 whole of Tuscany; and, long before the close of 
 the year, hardly anything was left to the French in 
 Italy except Genoa. 
 
 When Suvaroif was carrying everything be- 
 fore him in Italy, and when the French seemed 
 fully occupied by the wars in that country and in 
 Switzerland and Germany, the Emperor Paul sent 
 another Russian force to co-operate with the Eng- 
 lish in an attack on the French in Holland. It 
 was, however, the month of August before this ar- 
 mament was ready. An army of 20,000 men, of 
 which 17,000 were Russian and the rest British, 
 was collected on the Kentish coast. On the 13th 
 of August Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was in- 
 trusted with the chief command, sailed with the 
 first division, consisting of 12,000 British troops, 
 embarked in transports and in the squadron of 
 Admiral Mitchel, who was to join the fleet of Ad- 
 miral (now Lord) Duncan, then cruising in the 
 North Seas. The fort of the Helder was imme- 
 obliged to descend the Rhine by a fresh incursion of the French 
 
 into Germany. He fought several battles with varying success; 
 
 but, in the end, he once more drove the invaders to the other side 
 of the Rhine. 
 
 * Southey. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1799. 
 
 141 
 
 diately abandoned by its garrison; Abercromby 
 landed there; the Texel was occupied by our 
 fleet—the Dutch fleet surrendering or hoisting 
 the Orange flag.* General Brune, with a mixed 
 army of French and Dutch, 25,000 strong, at- 
 tempted to dislodge Abercromby, who was left 
 for a whole month in a very critical situation: 
 but his inferior force stood its ground man- 
 fully, and Brune was repulsed with consider- 
 able loss. At last, on the 13th of September, 
 another and a stronger division of the Anglo- 
 Russian army arrived, bringing, unfortunately, 
 with it the Duke of York to take the command in 
 chief of the whole. From this moment nothing 
 went well; and, after fighting several battles ho- 
 nourable to the troops, but rather disgraceful in 
 point of generalship, his royal highness was fain to 
 conclude a convention (on the 17th of October), 
 by which it was agreed that the English and Rus- 
 sians should be allowed to re-embark without 
 molestation ; and that, as the price for that favour, 
 8000 prisoners of war, French and Batavians, 
 taken before the present campaign, and now de- 
 tained in England, should be released. 
 
 Eight days before this convention or capitulation 
 by the Duke of York, Bonaparte arrived in France. 
 In the month of February he had quitted Cairo 
 with the intention of dispersing the Turkish forces 
 that were collecting near the Syrian frontier, and 
 then of conquering ail Syria. Crossing the desert 
 with 10,000 men, he took Gaza, stormed Jaffa, 
 butchered all the prisoners there in cold blood— 
 by fust/ades, as practiscd by the Carriers and the 
 other agents of the reign of terror—and carried 
 everything before him, like the Man of Destiny, 
 until he came under the old crumbling walls of 
 Acre, ‘This place, the key of Syria, was defended 
 by the Pasha Djezzar, a very cruei but very reso- 
 lute old man; hy Colonel Philippeaux, an emi- 
 graut royalist, and an able officer of engineers, who 
 at one time had been Bonaparte’s schoolfellow ; 
 and by the brave and alert Sir Sidney Smith, who 
 not merely brought two ships of the line close in- 
 shore to maul the besiegers, but also landed some 
 of his sailors and marines. After spending sixty 
 days before the place, making seven or eight as- 
 saults, and losing 3000 men, the French raised the 
 siege of Acre ;+ and on the 21st of May they began 
 their retreat, burning everything behind them, har- 
 vest and all. On the 14th of June, Bonaparte 
 re-entered Cairo. During his absence, General 
 Desaix, ascending the Nile, had driven the remnant 
 
 * This fleet consisted of eight ships of the line, three of 54 guns, 
 eight of 44, and seven of inferior rates. There were also four larze 
 Indiamen in the Texel. The ships were brought oyer to England; 
 but, as they had hoisted Orange colours, it was considered necessary 
 to pay the Prince of Orange, the ex-Stadtholder, for them. 
 
 7 When a prisoner in the island of St. Helena, Bonaparte said that 
 the fate of the East lay within the narrow walls of Acre :—‘* Once 
 possessed of Acre, the army would have gone to Damascus and the 
 Euphrates; the Christians of Syria, the Druses, the Armenians, 
 would have joined us. The provinces of the Ottoman empire which 
 speak Arabic were ready for a change, and were only waiting for a 
 man. .... With 100,000 men on the banks of the Euphrates, I 
 might have gone to Constantinople or to India; I might have 
 changed the face of the world. I should have founded an empire in 
 
 the East, and the destinies of France would have run in a different 
 | eourse!”—Las Cases. 
 
142 
 
 a 
 i 
 
 SincE OF ACRE, 
 
 of the Mamelukes from Upper Egypt, and beyond 
 the cataracts of Assouan; but this expedition had 
 no other importance than that of affording the ex- 
 aggerative French artists, and the savans, as they 
 were called, the opportunity of visiting the monu- 
 ments of Thebes, Dendera, and other ancient places. 
 In July, Bonaparte, with nearly his whole army, 
 was called down to the coast—to the point where 
 Nelson had annihilated the French fleet,—for a 
 Turkish army of 18,000 men _ had landed at 
 Aboukir. On the 25th of July a terrible battle 
 took place on the sandy coast. The Turks fought 
 with admirable courage; but their irregular, un- 
 disciplined, unformed masses could not stand long 
 against masses of French that were even in number 
 nearly equal to their own: 10,000 of them perished, 
 
 by shot, bayonet, or in the sea, where they threw 
 themselves in the hopes of reaching their ships. 
 
 Soon after this battle of Aboukir, Bonaparte began 
 to make secret preparations for getting back to Eu- 
 rope. If, as some have suspected, one strong in- 
 ducement which led him to quit France at a critical 
 moment, and embark on this wild Egyptian expe- 
 dition, had really been to allow the five kings at 
 the Luxembourg time and opportunity to disgust 
 the French people with their profligacy and inept- 
 ness, and to prove how essential he was to French 
 victory and conquest by or through the failures of 
 the other republican generals, he had most com- 
 pletely succeeded in his object. Letters from his 
 brothers Joseph and Lucien, and from his nume- 
 rous friends in Paris, informed him that Italy was 
 lost; that the French armies were being beaten 
 
 everywhere ; ; that the directors were quarrelling | Abbé Sieyes, though now one of the directors hi 
 
 among themselves—were intriguing and quarrel- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 i i : ¢ 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 } , 
 
 ~ yas e 
 > 7 J > 
 = Te 
 + ety Yo 
 fF roy an ae 
 F . 
 ee; : : 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 ling with the two legislative councils; and that the 
 people, whose rage for liberty and equality was 
 now merged in military pride and a passion for 
 conquest—with those good things which the con- 
 quests of rich countries bring with them—seemed 
 heartily sick of Directory, Ancients, and Cing 
 Cents, and ripe and ready for another revolution. 
 Two small frigates which lay in the harbour of 
 Alexandria were got ready for sea; and on the 
 23rd of August, leaving behind him his army, now 
 reduced to 20,000 men, and taking with him his 
 favourite officers, Murat, Lannes, Berthier, Mar- 
 mont, and three of the savans, he embarked se- 
 cretly in one of the frigates, and set sail for France. 
 Though happy to escape the comfortless life in 
 Kgypt, most of those who went with him expected 
 to be stopped on their passage, and carried prisoners 
 of war to England; but the extraordinary fortunes 
 of the man favoured him still, and, without being 
 pursued, or even seen, by any of our ships, he landed 
 
 in the Gulf of Frejus, to the eastward of Toulon, — 
 
 on the 9th of October. He had been at Paris two 
 days, privately consulting with chiefs of parties 
 and officers of the army, before the directors knew 
 of his arrival. 
 
 with troops and artillery, and had purged out two 
 former directors and all the refractory members of 
 the legislature, on the 18th Fructidor, 1797,* and. 
 who was now ready to do whatsoever Bonaparte 
 
 might command, was one of the first to wait upon — 
 
 Augereau, who had fought by his — 
 side at Arcole, who had surrounded the Tuileries | 
 
 him. In the course of a few days Talleyrand gave | 
 
 his councils the benefit of all his craft and ability. 
 
 * See ante, p. 121. 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 self, had made the notable discovery that his last 
 constitution was a great deal too democratic ; had 
 conceived a mortal hatred to his brother director 
 Barras, whom he accused of downright Jacobinism 
 and sans-culottism; and was now ready to co- 
 operate with the ambitious general, duping him- 
 self into the absurd belief that Bonaparte would 
 remain in allegiance to him and to another perfect 
 constitution which he had, all ready, in his port- 
 folio. Roger Ducos, another of the directors, 
 yielded to circumstances. Lucien Bonaparte had 
 just succeeded in obtaining the presidency of the 
 Council of Five Hundred, and was thus in a condi- 
 tion to render important services to his brother. 
 Cambacerés, minister of justice, and the atrocious 
 Fouché, now minister of police, went with the 
 strongest party, and powerfully seconded the views 
 of Bonaparte and Sieyes. Even Barras, the early 
 patron of the young Corsican officer, after listen- 
 ing in two or three private conferences to the per- 
 suasive tongue of Talleyrand, and to splendid 
 
 _ offers of honours and riches, agreed to give up the 
 
 last shred of his pretended republicanism, and to 
 remove all opposition by sending in his resig- 
 nation. The two directors, who remained to sup- 
 port the present constitution and resist a military 
 dictatorship, were Gohier and Moulins, a couple 
 of blockheads, who had obtained their places 
 through their known incapacity, which would 
 allow their associates to do with them as they 
 pleased. The Council of Ancients were easily 
 persuaded of the necessity of a new constitution ; 
 but a great majority of the Council of Five Hun- 
 dred vowed that they would die for the constitu- 
 tion they had got. On the 19th. Brumaire, or 
 10th of November, just one month and a day 
 after Bonaparte’s landing at Frejus, the business 
 was finished by Murat and a detachment of gre- 
 nadiers with levelled bayonets: the Council of 
 Five Hundred was cleared in a trice; most of the 
 members jumped out of the windows—not one of 
 them staid to die. Qn that night all the ardent 
 republicans were proscribed ; three provisional 
 consuls (for the government was now to be con- 
 sular) were appointed—and who so fit to be con- 
 suls as Abbé Sieyes, Roger Ducos, and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte? On the following day the rising 
 general took up his residence in the Luxembourg, 
 the palace of the ex-Directors. At the first sit- 
 tings ofthe three consuls Roger Ducos said, ‘‘ The 
 general takes the chair of course.”? Bonaparte 
 seated himself in the president’s chair as though 
 it had been a throne, and the throne of an abso- 
 lute monarchy to which he had succeeded in due 
 course of inheritance. Sieyes was quite chap- 
 fallen, for he found he had placed a master over 
 his head. The daring, irreverent soldier, who had 
 no thought of confining himself to the military 
 department, as the civilians who had worked with 
 him had calculated he would do, treated the logi- 
 cian’s last masterpiece with no more respect than 
 he would have treated an order of the day, or a 
 dispatch badly written out by a blundering aide- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1799. _ 
 
 143 
 
 de-camp ; and he clipped, cut, and hacked Sieyes’s 
 new constitution, until it was no longer recognis- 
 able. Sieyes had strengthened the executive, but 
 not half enough for Bonaparte; but both the 
 original scheme and the modification of it de- 
 prived the French people of every direct election 
 of their representatives, and set up a tri-partite 
 legislature which could only become slavish and 
 contemptible. As finally promulgated on the 
 24th of December, this ‘* Constitution of the Year 
 VIIL.,”’ as it is called, established three consuls, 
 or a chief consul with two inferior ones, who were 
 to have only a deliberative voice, the first or chief 
 consul having the power of appointing to all 
 public offices, and of proposing all public .mea- 
 sures, such as peace or war; while he also com- 
 manded the forces, and superintended both the in- 
 ternal and foreign departments of the state. There 
 were—l. A Senate called Conservative, composed 
 of only eighty members, appointed for life, and en- 
 joying high salaries; 2. A Legislative Body, of 
 three hundred members, one-fifth of whom were 
 to be renewed annually; 3. A Tribunate, of one 
 hundred members, of whom also one-fifth were to 
 be renewed every year. The consuls chose the 
 senate, and the senate chose, out of lists of candi- 
 dates presented by the electoral colleges, both the 
 legislative body and the tribunate. The consuls, 
 or rather the first consul, had the initiative, or the 
 sole right of proposing acts of legislation; the 
 senate was to sit privately with closed doors; the 
 legislative body was to vote, but not debate or 
 speak, all the speaking being reserved to the tri- 
 bunate. The process was this :—the first consul 
 sent in his project of law to the tribunate, who 
 debated it, but without voting upon it, for the 
 voting was reserved for the legislative body, who 
 were not allowed to speak ; when the tribunate 
 had debated the project, they left the business to 
 the legislative body, who silently voted by ballot, 
 and then returned the act to the quarter where it 
 had originated, or to the consul, who made it law 
 by putting his signature to it and promulgating it. 
 Left perfectly free to choose his own two satellites, 
 Bonaparte would have retained Sieyes, but the ex- 
 abbé preferred taking the place of senator, with 
 the yearly salary of 25,000 francs, and the royal 
 domain of Crosne in the park of Versailles. Cam- 
 bacérés and Lebrun, who had both been brought 
 up to the law, were appointed second and third con- 
 suls. Roger Ducos was also put into the senate. 
 The first consul very soon removed from the 
 Luxembourg to the palace of the Tuileries, where 
 he lived with royal state. He now wrote to the 
 King of England, as one sovereign writes to 
 another, expressing a wish for peace, but without 
 stating any conditions. George III., who could 
 scarcely do otherwise, gave the epistle to his secre- 
 tary for foreign affairs, to answer it. Lord Gren- 
 ville addressed his reply, not to the first consul, 
 but to Talleyrand, now the French minister for 
 foreign affairs. Talleyrand replied, Lord Gren- 
 ville rejoined, and there the matter ended. Our 
 
 I ae Ee a Te Erm es | 
 
144 
 
 opposition orators attached great importance to 
 the overture, which was the hollowest of all that had 
 been made, for the first consul was preparing at 
 the moment to recover Italy, and was determined 
 to keep Switzerland, Savoy, Nice, Belgium, Hol- 
 Jand, and all the German territories on the left 
 bank of the Rhine. 
 
 In the course of this year Tippoo Sultaun was 
 destroyed. ‘To recover what he had lost in the last 
 war, he had sent an embassy to Cabul to bring the 
 Affghan tribes down into India; he had negotiated 
 or intrigued with the Nizam of the Deccan, and 
 with other native princes; and, towards the end 
 of 1797, he had sent two ambassadors to the Isle 
 of France to propose an alliance with the French 
 republic, and to request an immediate supply of 
 troops (30,000 or 40,000 men Tippoo thought 
 would be sufficient) to enable him to expel the 
 English from every part of Hindustan. ‘The go- 
 vernor of the Isle of France, who was daily ex- 
 pecting a visit from the English, had no troops to 
 spare ; but he forwarded Tippoo’s letters to Paris, 
 and allowed his two ambassadors to enrol about 
 150 Frenchmen, ‘‘ the refuse of the democratic 
 rabble of the island,’ some of whom were lying in 
 gaol at the time. But, when the moment came for 
 embarking, nearly one-half of these desperadoes 
 refused to go to conquer India. Some sixty or 
 seventy of them, however, arrived at Mangalore, 
 and thence proceeded to Tippoo’s capital, where 
 one of their first operations was to set up a tree of 
 liberty, surmounted by the red nightcap of liberty 
 and equality. They next organised a Jacobin club 
 in Seringapatam, and bestowed upon the bewildered 
 Oriental despot the republican appellation of 
 Citizen Tippoo.* As soon as Bonaparte had ar- 
 rived in Egypt he had dispatched a letter to Tippoo, 
 requesting him to send a confidential person to 
 Suez or Cairo, to confer with him and concert 
 measures for the déberalion of India; but it ap- 
 pears doubtful whether this epistle ever reached 
 the Sultan. The embassy to the Isle of France, 
 the arrival of Frenchmen at Seringapatam (but not 
 their number), the intrigues set on foot in various 
 parts of the country, and the fact that Tippoo was 
 rapidly increasing his army, all became known to 
 the government at Calcutta. The Earl of Morn- 
 ington (afterwards Marquess Wellesley), who was 
 now governor-general, determined to anticipate the 
 Sultan ; and, after demanding explanations which 
 were never given, his lordship sent General Harris 
 into the Mysore country with 24,000 men, and 
 called up General Stuart with the Bombay army 
 of about 7000 men to co-operate with Harris.+ 
 General Harris, moreover, was joined at Vellore by 
 astrong British detachment serving with the Nizam, 
 
 * It appears that a good portion of these soi-disant Frenchmen, 
 who arrived in India and set up the amusing novelty of a Jacobin club 
 in the capital of Mysore, were Caffres and half-castes. 
 
 These Seringapatam Jacobin clubs were distinguished by this peen- 
 liarity, that the members were required to swear hatred to tyranny, 
 the love of liberty, and the destruction of alk kings and sovereigns—except 
 the good and faithful ally of the French republic, CrtizEN Trppoo, 
 
 + Most of these troops were sepoys: the number of Europeans in 
 Harris’s army was not much above 4000; in Stuart’s army it fell 
 short of 2000. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and by some regiments of sepoys which the Nizam 
 
 had raised, and which were officered by English- 
 men. Harris entered the Mysore territory on the 
 5th of March (1799), and moved straight on for 
 Seringapatam, reducing all the forts in his way. 
 General Stuart’s advance was attended with greater 
 difficulty, and with some loss, for he was encoun- 
 tered by the main army of Tippoo. On the 27th 
 of March, when Harris was within two days’ march 
 of Seringapatam, he found the active Sultan drawn 
 up to oppose him. In the action which ensued 
 Colonel Wellesley (late Duke of Wellington) par- 
 ticularly distinguished himself; and it was his re- 
 giment, the 33rd, that decided the affair. Tippoo 
 then retreated, and threw himself with his whole 
 army into Seringapatam, the fortifications of which 
 had been improved and increased since General 
 Abercromby’s attack in 1792. On the 5th of 
 April General Harris took up ground for the siege ; 
 and on the 14th he was joined by General Stuart 
 with the Bombay army. Now Tippoo sent the 
 most humble letters and messages: but it was too 
 late; and at no time could the slightest confidence 
 be placed in him, or in any treaty that he might 
 sign. On the 30th of April the besiegers began to 
 hatter in breach ; and on the 4th of May Seringa- 
 patam was stormed and captured. Two of his 
 sons were taken alive; but Tippoo fell near one 
 of the gates, and was found, not without a diligent 
 search, buried under a heap of dead bodies.* His 
 territories were immediately divided among his 
 enemies: the English kept Seringapatam, with the 
 island on which it is situated, the whole of his ter- 
 ritory on the Malabar coast, the district of Coim- 
 
 hatoor, with all the country that intervened between — 
 
 the Company’s possessions on the western and their 
 possessions on the eastern coast, thus obtaining a 
 direct communication and uninterrupted domi- 
 nion from sea’ to sea: the Nizam of the Deccan 
 obtained a more inland country, affording a re- 
 venue equal to that yielded by the country which 
 the English appropriated ; and another great tract 
 of country was conferred, as a separate and nomi- 
 nally independent sfate, on a child, the descendant 
 of the ancient Hindu Rajahs, who had been dis- 
 possessed by Tippoo’s father, Hyder Ali. In con- 
 sequence of these successes British India, instead 
 of being invaded, was enabled to send an armament 
 across the ocean and up the Red Sea, te assist in 
 driving the French invaders out of Egypt. ; 
 
 The British parliament was assembled as early 
 
 ox 
 
 as the 24th of September, when the government — 
 
 entertained sanguine hopes of success for the Anglo- 
 Russian army in Holland. A bill was instantly 
 introduced to facilitate the reinforcing our regular 
 army, by allowing three-fifths of the militia of each 
 county to enlist in the regulars for service within 
 Europe; and it was passed into a law on the 4th 
 of October. The remainder of the session, previous 
 
 * Tippoo’s body was warm when first discovered; his eyes wero 
 wide open; and Colonel Wellesley and Major Allan doubted for 
 some minutes whether he were not alive. 
 three in the body and one in his temple. 
 
 He had four wounds 55 
 
em 
 
 ei 
 : 
 
 SS 
 
 nar. VIII.] 
 
 to the Christmas recess, was occupied by commer- 
 
 cial and financial matters. 
 
 a.p. 1800. After the recess the sense of parlia- 
 ment was shown by divisions which took place on 
 an address to the king in approbation of the con- 
 duct pursued towards the first consul. I[n the 
 Lords there were 79 votes for the address to 6 
 against it, and in the Commons 260 to 64. “Asa 
 sincere lover of peace,” said Pitt, “I will not sacri- 
 fice it, by grasping at the shadow, when the sub- 
 stance is not within my reach.” In replying to 
 Mr. Erskine, who had published a pamphlet to 
 prove that England and her allies had been the 
 first aggressors, and had contracted the guilt of 
 beginning a war with France without necessity or 
 provocation, Pitt exposed the imaccuracy of dates, 
 and the false reasoning of all those who had spoken 
 or written on that side of the question. He de- 
 clared that the causes of war which existed at the 
 beginning, or arose during the course of the dis- 
 cussions with M. Chauvelin, were such as would 
 haye justified, twenty times over, a declaration of 
 war on the part of this country. It was only re- 
 cently that any party or person in France had 
 thought of accusing England of being the cause of 
 this destructive war. All the different parties in 
 France had accused one another of plunging their 
 country into an unnecessary contest with England: 
 thus the friends of Brissot charged Robespierre 
 with the war with this country, and the friends of 
 Robespierre charged it on Brissot; but both ac- 
 quitting England. The testimonies of the French 
 governments, during the whole interval since the 
 declaration of Pilnitz, gave the broadest contradic- 
 tion to the insinuations now made that England 
 had gone into the war through ambition, aud with 
 views of conquest, partition, or dismemberment. 
 He thought it necessary to recall to memory the 
 state of the continent, and the innumerable aggres- 
 sions of the French, many months before the war 
 began—the demand made by France upon Holland 
 to open the navigation of the Scheldt, on the ground 
 of a general and a national right, in violation of 
 positive treaties—the discovery of that sacred law 
 of nature which made the Rhine and the Alps the 
 legitimate boundaries of France—the assumption of 
 the power which the French had affected to exer- 
 cise ever since, of superseding, by a new meta- 
 physical code of their own, all the recognised prin- 
 ciples of the law of nations—the violated neutrality 
 of small and weak states, and the clear intimation 
 that all countries who were not friends to the new 
 principles would be considered and treated as ene- 
 mies—the confirmed practice of sending secret 
 agents into every country in Europe to inoculate 
 the people with the Jacobin virus, and drive them 
 into sedition and open rebellion against their esta- 
 blished governments, whether constitutional or 
 despotic. ‘* They had already shown their mode- 
 ration and self-denial by incorporating Belgium 
 with the I'rench republic. These lovers of peace, 
 who set out with a sworn aversion to conquest, and 
 
 with professions of respect for the independence of 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1800. 
 
 145 
 
 other nations, who now pretend that they departed 
 from this system only in consequence of your ag- 
 gression, themselves, in a time of peace, while 
 England was still confessedly neutral, without the 
 pretence or shadow of a provocation, wrested Savoy 
 from the king of Sardinia, and proceeded to incor- 
 porate it likewise with France. These were their 
 aggressions at that period when we were at peace 
 with them; and there were far more aggressions 
 than these! They had issued an universal declara- 
 tion of war against all the thrones of Europe; and 
 they had, by their conduct, applied it particularly 
 and specifically to us. They had passed their de- 
 cree of the 19th of November, 1792, proclaiming 
 the promise of French succour to all nations who 
 should manifest the wish to revolutionize them- 
 selves.” Pitt asserted distinctly and positively, 
 and with documents in his hand to prove it, that 
 from the middle of the year 1791, when the rumour 
 was first heard that the emperor of Germany was 
 taking measures to check the torrent, and till late. 
 in the year 1792, we were not only no parties to 
 any of the projects imputed to the emperor, but 
 we wholly declined all communications with him 
 on the subject of France; while to Prussia, with 
 whom we were in connexion, and still more deci- 
 sively to Holland, with whom we were in close and 
 intimate correspondence, we uniformly stated our 
 unalterable resolution to maintain neutrality, and 
 avoid interference in the internal affairs of France, 
 so long as France should refrain from hostile mea- 
 sures against us and our allies. No minister of 
 England had had any authority to treat with foreign 
 states, even provisionally, for any warlike concert, 
 till after the battle of Jemappe—till a period sub- 
 sequent to the repeated provocations which had 
 been offered to us, and subsequent particularly to 
 the decree of fraternity of the 19th of November. 
 After dwelling upon the seizure of the pope’s city 
 and territory of Avignon, and the atrocities com- 
 mitted there by the revolutionists, and upon the 
 seizure of a portion of the dominions of the 
 bishop of Basle, Pitt reminded the House how 
 in one year (1792) the French had hurled a decla- 
 ration of war against Austria, against Prussia, and 
 against the German empire—a declaration which 
 could have been justified only on the ground of a 
 combination and league of sovereigns for the dis- 
 memberment of France; and he then added, with - 
 great warmth, ‘‘I say that some of the documents 
 
 | brought to support this pretence are spurious and 
 
 false; I say, that in the documents that are not 
 so there is not one word to prove the charge prin- 
 cipally relied upon—that of an intention to effect 
 the dismemberment of [rance, or to impose upon 
 it, by force, any particular constitution. I say 
 that, as far as we have been able to trace what 
 passed at Pilnitz, the declaration there signed re- 
 ferred to the imprisonment of Louis XVI.: its 
 immediate view was to effect his deliverance, if a 
 concert sufficiently extensive could be formed with 
 other sovereigns for that purpose. It left the 
 
 internal state of France to be decided by the king 
 J 
 
146 
 
 restored to his liberty, with the free consent of the 
 states of his kingdom, and it did not contain one 
 word relative to the dismemberment of France.’’ 
 He insisted that the explanations which Austria 
 offered to France were in themselves satisfactory, 
 and sufficient to have prevented any war between 
 those two powers, if one of them had not been fully 
 determined to have war; that the then minister for 
 foreign affairs at Paris (M. Delessart) had an- 
 nounced that there was a great prospect of an ami- 
 cable termination to the discussions; but that it 
 was notorious, and had since been clearly proved, 
 on the authority of Brissot himself, that the violent 
 party in France considered such an issue of the 
 negotiation as likely to be fatal to their projects, 
 and thought, to use Brissot’s own words, that 
 “war was necessary to consolidate the revolution.” 
 Hence followed rioting and insurrection at Paris ; 
 the dismissal of M. Delessart ; a most insolent and 
 arrogant ultimatum ; and then a declaration of war 
 ‘against Austria, a war which was nothing but a 
 war of aggression on the part of France. The king 
 of Prussia had declared that he should consider 
 war against the emperor or the empire as war 
 against himself; that, as a co-estate of the empire, 
 he must defend its rights; that, as an ally of the 
 emperor, he must support him if attacked; and 
 that, for the sake of his own dominions, he felt 
 himself called upon to resist the progress of French 
 principles, and to maintain the balance of power 
 in Europe. With this notice before her, France 
 declared war against the emperor, and the war 
 with Prussia was the necessary consequence of this 
 aggression. The war against the king of Sardinia 
 followed next. 
 the seizure of Savoy by the republicans, who had 
 found out, by some light of nature, that the Rhine 
 and the Alps were the natural limits of France. 
 With respect to Spain the war was evidently and 
 incontestably begun by France. Beyond the Alps 
 the king of Naples had been outrageously insulted 
 in his capital, and the whole coast of Italy had 
 been threatened with destruction, long before any 
 prince or government in that peninsula thought of 
 joining the coalition. Pitt drew a striking picture 
 of the proceedings which had since taken place in 
 that beautiful country: the virtual deposition of 
 the king of Sardinia; the conversion of Genoa and 
 “Tuscany into democratic republics; the revolution 
 of Venice, and the iniquitous transfer of that an- 
 cient republic to Austria; the expulsion of some of 
 the helpless princes, the plunder of them all, the 
 beggary brought upon all the upper classes of 
 Italians, and the anarchy and demoralization intro- 
 duced among the poorer citizens. He bade the 
 House look at the fate of Switzerland, and at the 
 circumstances which led to the destruction of that 
 unoffending and devoted country—‘“‘a country 
 which had long been the faithful ally of France, 
 which had never given any cause of jealousy to 
 any other power, which had been for ages pro- 
 verbial for the simplicity and innocence of its 
 manners, and which had acquired and preserved 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The declaration of that war was 
 
 the esteem of all the nations of Europe—which had 
 almost, by the common consent of mankind, been 
 exempted from the sound of war, and marked out 
 as a land of Goshen, safe and untouched in the 
 midst of surrounding calamities.” He asked whe- 
 ther the disasters of Switzerland—of all Europe— 
 were to be charged upon the provocation of Eng- 
 
 land and her allies, or upon the inherent principles — 
 
 of the French revolution, which, after causing such 
 misery and carnage at home, had carried desolation 
 and terror over so large a portion of the world, 
 This inherent principle of the revolution was 
 nothing but an insatiable love of aggrandisement, 
 coupled with an implacable spirit of destruction, 
 directed against all the civil and religious institu- 
 tions of every country, This, the first moving 
 and acting spirit of the French revolution, was the 
 spirit which animated it at its birth, which grew 
 with its growth, and strengthened with its strength. 
 It had been invariably the same in every period, 
 and under the dominion of every party; it had 
 been inherent in the revolution in all its stages ; 
 it had equally belonged to Brissot, to Robespierre, 
 to Tallien, to Rewbell, to Barras, and to every one 
 
 of the leaders of the Directory, but to none more — 
 
 than to Bonaparte, in whom all powers were now 
 concentrated and united. He mentioned the seizure 
 of the island of Malta and the myasion of Egypt. 
 “The all-searching eye of the French revolution,” 
 said he, ‘looks to every part of Europe, and 
 every quarter of the globe, in which can be found 
 an object either of acquisition or plunder. Nothing 
 is too great for the temerity of its ambition—nothing 
 too small or insignificant for the grasp of its rapa- 
 city.” The character and position of Bonaparte, 
 and the habits and condition of the French people, 
 alike precluded the hope of any honourable or 
 lasting peace. In treating with them, the most 
 that we could expect would be a hollow truce of 
 some twelve or eighteen months’ duration; and 
 then, if tempted by the appearance of some fresh 
 insurrection in Ireland, encouraged by renewed 
 and unrestrained communication with France, and 
 fomented by a fresh infusion of Jacobin principles, 
 Bonaparte, taking advantage of the reduced state 
 of our fleets, of the disembodiment of our militia, 
 of the reduction of our regular army, might tell us 
 that the hollow truce was at an end by suddenly 
 landing 30,000 men on the Irish coast. 
 
 On the 17th of February a debate took place on — 
 a royal message, in which his majesty, after inti- — 
 
 mating that he was concerting such engagements 
 
 with the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Ba- | 
 
 varia, and other powers of the empire, as might 
 
 materially conduce to the advantage of the com- 
 
 mon cause in the course of the ensuing campaign, 
 stated that, in order to insure the benefit of this co- 
 operation at an early period, he was desirous of au- 
 
 thorising his minister to make (provisionally) such _ 
 
 advances of money as might be necessary in the 
 first instance for this purpose ; and his majesty re- 
 commended it to the House to enable him to make 
 
 such provision. Pitt declared that 500,000. and 
 
 a 
 
eae, VIII.) 
 
 no more was the sum which it would be necessary 
 to advance “ by way of commencement.’’ Mr. Tier- 
 ney objected in strong terms to every part of the 
 proposition, taxed Pitt with special-pleading ambi- 
 guity, and defied him to state the real aim and ob- 
 ject of the war. ‘‘ He defies me,” replied the mi- 
 nister, “‘ to state in one sentence what is the object 
 of the war. Not in one sentence, but in one word I 
 can tell him, that it is securrry—security against a 
 danger the greatest that ever threatened the world! 
 It is security against a danger which never existed 
 in any past period of society—against a danger 
 which threatens all the nations of the earth!’ The 
 motion was carried by 162 against 19. A proposal 
 for an inquiry into the causes of the disgraces 
 which had attended our arms in Holland—an in- 
 quiry which might have been productive of much 
 good, if it could only have been conducted in the 
 right spirit and with proper moderation—was in- 
 stantly quashed by the huge ministerial majority. 
 The total of the supplies voted for the year was 
 47,490,739/. In detailing his ways and means 
 Pitt now estimated his income-tax at only 
 5,300,000/., but expressed a confident hope that 
 it would soon yield a great deal more. He ne- 
 gotiated a new loan of 20,500,000/. by annuities, 
 and imposed a variety of new taxes. On the 
 annual motion for renewing the act for suspending 
 the Habeas Corpus bill, there was a very stormy 
 debate, but the measure was carried by the usual 
 majorities. The attempt of the maniac, Hadfield, 
 on the 15th of May,* to shoot the king in Drury 
 
 * The king, on this day, ran more than one risk of losing his life. 
 Tn the morning, while attending the field-exercises of the grenadier 
 battalion of the Guards, during one of the volleys, a bail cartridge 
 was fired from the musket of one of the soldiers, and the ball hit a 
 Mr. Ongley, a clerk in the navy-office, who was standing only eight 
 yards from the king. A rapid examination was made of the car- 
 touche-boxes of the soldiers, but it did not lead to the discovery of the 
 man that had fired the ball. In the evening, as the king entered the 
 box at Drury Lane, a man in the pit, standing near the orchestra and 
 just under the box, discharged a pistol at him. On hearing the re- 
 port his majesty, who had advanced about four steps from the door, 
 _ stopped and stood firmly. The man was instantly seized and carried 
 behind the scenes; the king, apparently not in the least disconcerted, 
 came forward to the front of the box, and then the crowded and very 
 loyal audience cheered enthusiastically, and made the performers 
 sing ‘‘ God save the king’”’ twice over. Inthe green-room it was pre- 
 sently discovered that the man, though now a working-silversmith 
 (to which trade he had been bred), had recently been a soldier, and 
 had served on the Continent in the 15th light dragoons; that he had 
 been repeatedly and badly wounded, particularly in the head; and 
 that, though sane and rational on most points, he was insane on 
 others, As the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York entered the 
 room he said to the duke, “‘ 1 know your royal highness—God bless 
 you !—You are'a good fellow!—I have served with your highness, 
 and (pointing to a deep cut over his eye, and another long scar on his 
 cheek) I got these, and more than these, in fighting by your side! At 
 Lincelles, I was left three hours among the dead in a ditch, and was 
 taken prisoner by the French. I had my arm broken by a shot and 
 eight sabre-wounds in my head; but I recovered, and here Iam!” 
 When asked what had induced him to attempt the life of his sovereign, 
 
 he replied, that he had not attempted to kill the king—that he had _ 
 
 fired purposely over the royal box,—that he was as good a shot as any 
 in England, and must have hit the king if he had tried,—that he was 
 weary of life, wishing to die, but not to die by his own hands; that 
 he had hoped the people would have fallen upon him and killed 
 him, and that now he hoped the law would finish him. To the ques- 
 tion whether he belonged to any of the political societies, he answered 
 No: that he only belonged to a club of Odd Fellows and to a benefit 
 society. After this he began to talk very incoherently about dreams 
 and visions, and a great commission he had received in his sleep— 
 about martyrdom and persecution, and especially some mysterious 
 persecutions he had undergone in France. He was tried in the Court 
 of King’s Bench for high treason. It was clearly proved that he had 
 been for some time insane, and he was therefore acquitted, but not 
 discharged. In the month of July, 1802, he found means to escape 
 from Bedlam ; but two days after he was re-taken at a public house 
 in Deal, and brought back to London. The rest of his life was 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1800. 
 
 147 
 
 Lane Theatre, led to the insertion of two additional 
 clauses in the Insanity Bull, by which the privilege 
 of bail allowed to alleged lunatics was considerably 
 abridged, and the personal safety of the sovereign, 
 which had been so often endangered by the at- 
 tempts of insane individuals, was specially con- 
 sulted. The scarcity of corn continued to ex- 
 cite serious alarm, and a committee of each House 
 was appointed to consider of the most effectual 
 means for remedying this distress. These com- 
 mittees neither brought any great store of know- 
 ledge to the subject nor displayed any great fer- 
 tility of invention: they could do little more than 
 recommend the use of brown bread instead of 
 white, and of stale instead of new bread. After 
 much discussion a bill was brought in and passed, 
 prohibiting the sale of bread which had not been 
 baked twenty-four hours, it being generally ad- 
 mitted by the noble and honourable members of 
 the committees, and by the reputable London 
 bakers, that people would eat a smaller quantity of 
 stale bread than of new. On the same day that this 
 bill was passed into a law the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury recommended a series of resolutions, and a 
 voluntary association, by which each of their lord- 
 ships should bind himself to lessen as much as 
 possible the consumption of bread and flour in his 
 family, and endeavour to introduce the use of such 
 articles as might be conveniently substituted in the 
 place thereof.* The resolutions of the archbishop, 
 being reduced to the proper form recommended 
 by the lord chancellor, were passed unanimously 
 in the Upper House, and a message was sent to 
 the Commons to acquaint them that their lord- 
 ships had come to the said resolutions and agree- 
 ment. The Commons forthwith concurred with 
 their lordships; and subsequently the example 
 was followed very generally by persons of superior 
 wealth and condition throughout the kingdom, 
 Bounties were granted on the importation of grain 
 not only from America and the Mediterranean, but 
 also from the Baltic; encouragement was given 
 to the fisheries, the corn-mills were placed under 
 certain regulations, and for the present the dis- 
 tilleries were allstopped. The opposition, without 
 attempting to suggest any better cure for the exist- 
 ing evil, laboured to show that the scarcity of 
 corn arose solely out of the war, and that the con- 
 tinuance of hostilities must subject the country to 
 
 spent between Newgate and the mad-house, and he died in New 
 Bedlam. We saw him in Newgate, loose and associating*with 
 other prisoners of nearly every description, about the year 1813, 
 He was then a good-looking, soldier-like man, with scarcely any 
 visible signs of insanity. But we were informed that he was 
 subject to occasional paroxysms, and that any excess in drinking 
 drove him into a furious state. And yet, when we saw him, he was 
 allowed to sit drinking beer nearly all day long ! 
 
 * One of these resolutions was thus solemnly worded :—*' We the 
 undersigned agree, that, until the 10th day of October next, we 
 will not consume, nor permit to be consumed, in any week, within 
 our respective families, more wheaten bread than in the proportion 
 of one quartern loaf for each of the individuals of whom our said 
 families may be composed; and also that, during the same period, 
 we will discontinue, and cause to be discontinued, within our said 
 families, all pastry.” 
 
 Before this, Mr. Wilberforce, in the Commons, had earnestly 
 recommended the prohibition of fancy rolls and biscuits, and the 
 prohibition of the use of oats, except for the use of mai, and of 
 horses in the service of government, 
 
148 
 
 all the horrors of famine and pestilence. Pitt com- 
 plained of the insidious use made of this language 
 in promoting certain measures out of doors— 
 meaning hereby petitions for peace, petitions for 
 parliamentary reform, &c.—and insisted that no- 
 thing could be more unfair in reasoning than to 
 connect the present scarcity with the war, or to in- 
 sinuate that its prosecution would interfere with 
 those supplies which we might require. 
 
 At first the Irish parliament testified no great 
 willingness to accede to the Union. The resolu- 
 tions which had passed the British parliament in 
 1799 excited a terrible storm in Dublin and other 
 towns; but it was observed that a large proportion 
 of the Roman Catholic party, who had suffered 
 most by the late rebellion, preserved a sullen neu- 
 trality. When the Irish Commons debated the ad- 
 dress proposed by ministers in answer to the speech 
 from the throne, in January, 1799, it was carried 
 by a majority of only one vole. Yet, on the 15th 
 of January, 1800, a motion made in the same 
 House to declare their disapprobation of an Incor- 
 porating Union was negatived by a majority of 42, 
 the numbers being 138 against 96. On the 5th 
 of February the whole plan of the Union was de- 
 tailed by Lord Castlereagh, then principal secre- 
 tary for Ireland. In addition to the resolutions 
 already mentioned, as adopted by the British par- 
 liament, it was now proposed that the number of 
 Irish peers to be admitted to the House of Lords 
 of the United Kingdoms should be four lords 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 | calculated to form the basis of an incorporation 
 
 spiritual by rotation of sessions, and twenty-eight | 
 
 lords temporal elected for life by the peers of Ire- 
 land; and that the number of representatives to be 
 admitted into the House of Commons should be 
 one hundred. The storm of opposition rose to a 
 hurricane: but Lord Castlereagh’s motion was 
 carried in the Irish Commons by 158 against 115; 
 and in the Lords the measure of the Union was 
 agreed to by a great majority. On the 13th of 
 March Sir John Parnell, a determined anti- 
 unionist, intimated his conviction that improper 
 influences had been employed over the present re- 
 presentatives of the Irish people, and that it would 
 be proper to take the sense of the nation in a less 
 questionable manner; and he moved an address to 
 request his majesty to dissolve the present and 
 convoke another parliament—a kind of Irish con- 
 ventional parliament. Mr. Saurin spoke strongly 
 in support of the motion, and of a direct appeal to 
 the Irish people. The solicitor-general accused 
 him of “ unfurling the bloody flag of rebellion.’ 
 Mr. Egan accused the solicitor-general and other 
 members of administration of having unfurled 
 ** the flag of prostitution and corruption.”” In the 
 end Parnell’s motion was negatived by a large ma- 
 jority. After some more vehement debates the 
 whole plan of the Union was approved by the 
 same parliament which the year before had all 
 but rejected it im toto; and on the 27th of March 
 the two Irish Houses agreed in a joint address, 
 informing his majesty that they considered the 
 resolutions of the British parliament as wisely 
 
 of Great Britain and Ireland into one kingdom ; 
 that they had adopted them as their guide, and 
 now felt it their duty to lay before his majesty the 
 resolutions to which they had agreed, and which, 
 if they should be approved by the two Houses of 
 the parliament of Great Britain, they were ready 
 to confirm and ratify, in order that the same might 
 be established for ever by mutual consent of both 
 parliaments. On the 2nd of April, this address, 
 together with the resolutions, was laid before the 
 British parliament. In the Upper House Lord 
 Hollaud contended that a Union would not remedy 
 the discontents of the various descriptions of per- 
 sons composing the Irish community; that it 
 would not insure a redress of their grievances, but 
 would increase that influence which was already 
 the object of general complaint; that it was evi- 
 dently offensive to the great body of the Irish 
 people ; and that, if it should be carried into effect 
 against the sense of the people, it would endanger 
 the connexion between the two. countries, and 
 might possibly produce irreparable mischief. Lord 
 Grenville defended the measure as equally bene- 
 ficial to both kingdoms; and, while eighty-one 
 peers voted with Grenville, only two—the Earl of 
 Derby and Lord King—diyided with Lord Hol- 
 land. In the Commons it was held by some of 
 the opposition that the Union would injure our 
 constitution, inasmuch as the influence of the 
 crown arising from places in Irejand, being now 
 to be concentrated upon only one hundred mem- 
 bers, instead of three hundred, the former number 
 of the Irish House of Commons, it must nec¢s- 
 sarily be augmented. Pitt replied that he wished 
 not to augment the influence of the crown; that 
 the system proposed was rather calculated to 
 favour the popular interest; that the members 
 for Irish counties and principal cities would be 
 sixty-eight, the remaining thirty-two members 
 being to be elected by towns the most consider- 
 able in population and wealth; and that, as the 
 proposed addition would not make any change 
 in the internal form of British representation, it 
 would entail none of those dangers which might 
 attend innovation. He said that, if anything could 
 counterbalance the advantages that must result from 
 the Union, it would be the necessity of disturbing 
 in any way the representation of England ; but that, 
 most fortunately, no such a necessity existed. He 
 went on :—‘ In stating this, I have not forgotten 
 what I have myself formerly said and sincerely 
 felt upon the subject of parliamentary reform: but 
 I know that all opinions must necessarily be sub- 
 servient to times and circumstances ; and that man 
 who talks of his consistency merely because he 
 holds the same opinion for ten or fifteen years, 
 when the circumstances under which that opinion 
 was originally formed are totally changed, is a slave 
 to the most idle vanity. Seeing ali that I have 
 seen since the period to which I allude; consider- 
 ing how little chance there is of that species of re- 
 form to which alone I looked, and which is as dif- 
 
 . 
 
 — 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 ferent from the modern schemes of reform as the 
 latter are from the constitution; secing that where 
 the greatest changes have taken place the most 
 dreadful consequences have ensued, and which have 
 not been confined to the country where they ori- 
 ginated, but have spread their malignant influence 
 to almost every part of the globe, shaking the fabric 
 of every government ; seeing that in this general 
 shock the constitution of Great Britain has alone 
 remained pure and untouched in its vital prin- 
 ciples; ... . . I say, when I consider all these 
 circumstances, I should be ashamed of myself, if 
 any former opinions of mine could now induce me 
 to think that the form of representation which, in 
 such times as the present, has been found amply 
 suflicient for the purpose of protecting the interests 
 and securing the happiness of the people, should 
 be idly and wantonly disturbed from any love of 
 experiment or any predilection for theory. Upon 
 this subject, I think it right to state the inmost 
 thoughts of my mind; I think it right to declare 
 my most decided opinion, that, even if the times 
 were proper for experiments, any, even the slightest 
 change in such a constitution must be considered 
 as an evil.” In conclusion, Pitt proposed the im- 
 mediate adoption of the resolutions voted by the 
 Irish parliament. Mr. Grey moved an amend- 
 ment, “ That an humble address be presented to 
 his majesty, praying that he will be graciously 
 pleased to direct his ministers to suspend all pro- 
 ceedings on the Irish Union till the sentiments of 
 the Irish people respecting that measure can be 
 ascertained.” This amendment was rejected by 
 236 against 30. The three first resolutions were 
 then carried without opposition ; and, all proceed- 
 ings both in Ireland and in England relative to 
 this great national measure being concluded in the 
 month of June, the Act of Union received the royal 
 assent on the 2nd of July. On the 29th parlia- 
 ment was prorogued, the speech from the throne 
 expressing peculiar satisfaction at the effecting of 
 an entire union between the two islands, which his 
 majesty would ever consider as the happiest event 
 of his reign, being persuaded that nothing could so 
 effectually contribute to the happiness of his Irish 
 subjects, and to the strength, prosperity, and power 
 of the whole empire. But there were other less 
 cheerful notes in the royal speech, for the course 
 of the campaign on the Continent had, by a sudden 
 reverse, disappointed the sanguine hopes which had 
 been entertained at its commencement. 
 
 Bonaparte tells us himself that the answer from 
 London filled him with secret satisfaction, as war 
 Was necessary to maintain union and energy in the 
 state, which was ill organised, as also to maintain 
 his own influence over the imagination of the 
 French people. But, notwithstanding this secret 
 satisfaction, he in public pretended to be greatly 
 grieved, and in a proclamation to the French peo- 
 ple he complained of the obstinate hostility of the 
 English ; and called upon the French to furnish 
 men and money in order to acquire peace by force 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1800. 
 
 149 
 
 Rhine to Moreau, the First Consul assumed the di- 
 rection of the army of Italy. Having made a de- 
 monstration of assembling an army at Dijon, in 
 Burgundy, where he never collected more than a 
 few thousand men, mostly raw recruits or old in- 
 valids, Bonaparte secretly directed a number of 
 regiments from the interior of France to assemble 
 in Switzerland, in the town of Lausanne and along 
 the Lake of Geneva. The Austrians, lulled into 
 security, continued their operations against Genoa 
 and on the side of Nice, recovering the greater 
 part of that maritime country, and menacing the 
 old French frontier beyond it. On the 13th of May 
 the First Consul himself appeared at Lausanne, and 
 prepared to march, with about 36,000 men and 
 40 pieces of cannon, up the Great St. Bernard, 
 which had till then been considered impracticable 
 for the passage of an army with artillery. His left 
 wing, 15,000 strong, under Moncey, was ordered 
 to cross the Alps by the pass of St. Gothard, while, 
 on his right, 5000 men under Turreau were to cross 
 at Mont Cenis, and 5000 more, under Chabran, 
 were to pass by the way of the Little St. Bernard. 
 The passage of the Great St. Bernard was attended 
 with the greatest difficulty, lying for the best part 
 of the way among rocks and precipices and cternal 
 snows. The cannons were dismounted, put into 
 the hollowed trunks of trees, and dragged by the 
 soldiers ; the carriages were taken to pieces and 
 carried on mules, or, slung upon poles, were 
 borne on men’s shoulders. The powder and shot 
 were packed into boxes of fir-wood, which were 
 carefully lashed on the backs of mules. Every 
 mule, nearly every sturdy peasant in those Alps 
 was hired or pressed into the service; so that, as 
 the artillery was not heavy, the baggage, as usual, 
 very light, and the command of labour immense, 
 both the fatigue and the difficulty must be consider- 
 ably exaggerated in most of the French accounts of 
 this enterprise. On the 16th of May Bonaparte’s 
 vanguard under Lannes descended from the Great 
 St. Bernard into the beautiful Piedmontese valley of 
 Aosta, being closely followed by the other divisions. 
 On the 17th Lannes drove in a detachment of 
 Austrians, who were as much astonished at the 
 appearance of the French in that quarter as if the 
 enemy had descended from the clouds. Between 
 Aosta and Ivrea the fort of Bard commanded the 
 direct road, the deep and narrow pass which leads 
 into the Piedmontese plains, and which at that 
 point is not above fifty yards wide, with rocks on 
 either hand, and the rapid river Dora running in 
 the midst. The French van in their haste came 
 suddenly upon it, and, after making a useless at- 
 tempt to carry the fort, they fell into a panic. But 
 Bonaparte came up and ordered that Fort Bard 
 should be turned ; and this was done by climbing 
 the heights of Albaredo. He then pushed forward, 
 driving several Austrian divisions before him, for 
 the Ticino, on the banks of which river he was to 
 be joined by Moncey, Chabran, and Turreau, who 
 had passed the barrier of the Alps by easier roads. 
 
 of arms. Giving the command of the army of the On the 2nd of June, Bonaparte entered Milan with- 
 
150 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Wy 
 \\\ \ \ 
 
 it 
 i 
 
 BONAPARTE CROSSING THE ALPs, 
 
 out any opposition, and was there joined by some 
 of his divisions. On the 5th of June, after his 
 soldiers had eaten their shoes and the leather of 
 their knapsacks, Massena gave up Genoa to the 
 Austrian general Ott and Admiral Lord Keith. 
 More than a week before this event Melas, the 
 commander-in-chief of the Austrian army, advised 
 of the descent of the First Consul into Italy by so 
 unexpected a route, retraced his steps through the 
 Nissard country and the territories of the Genoese 
 republic, being followed by Suchet, who had been 
 contending almost hopelessly on the old frontier- 
 line of France. With considerable rapidity the 
 old Austrian concentrated his scattered forces at 
 Alessandria, a well-fortified town in the open plain 
 of Piedmont. We must pass over the minor ope- 
 rations and combats to come to the decisive affair. 
 Marching to meet Melas, Bonaparte crossed the Po 
 at Piacenza, drove back Melas’s advanced-guard, 
 and took up a position in the plain of Marengo, 
 on the right bank of the insignificant river Bor- 
 mida, and close in front of Alessandria. On the 
 very next day, the 14th of June, Melas came out 
 of Alessandria, crossed the Bormida in three co- 
 lumns, and attacked the French. For a long time 
 the Austrians carried everything before them ; and 
 at four o’clock in the afternoon the battle seemed 
 lost to the French, who were retiring on all points, 
 and in considerable disorder. Melas, oppressed by 
 age and infirmities, exhausted by the fatigues he 
 had undergone, and fondly fancying the victory to 
 be secured, quitted the field and returned to Ales- 
 sandria. The commander-in-chief was scarcely 
 gone ere his advancing and victorious column was 
 suddenly confronted by a fresh French division 
 
 under General Desaix, and was presently after- 
 wards charged in flank by a mass of heavy cavalry 
 commanded by the younger Kellermann. But for 
 the opportune arrival of Desaix and Kellermann, 
 the main army of the First Consul was clearly 
 ruined; and nothing but the extraordinary luck of — 
 the man, and some new blunder or torpidity on the — 
 part of the Austrians, could have allowed him to : 
 recross the Alps otherwise than as a fugitive.* — 
 But now his flying columns rallied; and the Aus- — 
 trians, who had fought hard all day, allowed their q 
 column to be broken: General Zach, Melas’s se- — 
 cond in command, was taken prisoner with nearly — 
 all his staff; a panic arose, and horse and foot fled 
 back in confusion towards the Bormida, the cavalry 
 in their frantic haste riding over the infantry. The — 
 Austrian official report stated their total loss in — 
 killed, wounded, and prisoners at 9069 men and 
 1423 horses. The French stated their own loss at 
 only 4000, and that of the Austrians at 12,000. 
 But it has been proved that the loss of the French _ 
 must have been much greater. Desaix, who had ~ 
 saved them, was shot through the heart at his first _ 
 charge. He had arrived from Egypt only a very — 
 few days before, and had made all possible haste — 
 to join the First Consul. Neither during the battle _ 
 nor in his preceding campaigns in Italy had old — 
 Melas shown any want of judgment or of firmness 5 
 * At this crisis of his fortunes, Napoleon Bonaparte ran other. | 
 risks besides the perilous chances of war.. A commercial traveller, — 
 who had quitted the plain of Marengo at the moment when the 
 French were flying, posted to Paris with great speed, and announced 
 that Bonaparte’s army had been annihilated. A republican p 
 who were already disgusted by the more than regal power w 
 
 ho 
 
 the} young First Consul had assumed, promoted an intrigue for 
 removing him from the head of the government, and for giving 
 : 
 
 his power, with some proper limitations, to Carnot, whose pure. 
 republicanism was supposed to be above suspicion. . all 
 
 5 _ 
 
| Guar. VIII] 
 
 but after his defeat, and when he came to negotiate, 
 it seemed as if his eighty-four years had indeed 
 reduced him to a second childhood. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, the Austrian and Italian diplomatists who now 
 gathered around him may be more answerable than 
 he for the pusillanimous, imbecile (or it may be 
 treacherous) throwing up of a game which was not 
 yet lost—of a great game, where the stake was little 
 less than the whole of Italy. Even after his serious 
 reverse Melas might have collected in the field from 
 40,000 to 50,000 men ; General Ott had thrown a 
 great force into Genoa, and most of the fortresses 
 were well garrisoned. Yet, by the armistice con- 
 cluded on the 16th of June, the Austrians gave up 
 Piedmont and the Genoese territory, with all their 
 fortresses, including Alessandria, which might have 
 stood a long siege, and the superb Genoa, which 
 had only been taken from the French eleven days 
 before this disgraceful armistice, after a very long 
 siege and at an enormous expense. The French 
 were to keep all Lombardy as far as the river 
 Oglio. In return for all these immense sacrifices, 
 old Melas was allowed to withdraw his troops to 
 the line of Mantua and the Mincio. We have been 
 assured, both by French officers and by Italian 
 gentlemen, who were either in Bonaparte’s camp 
 or living near the scene of the battle, that, when 
 the conditions of the armistice were first made 
 known, all were astonished, and many could not 
 believe them. On his return, to Milan from Ma- 
 rengo, the First Consul was received in triumph, 
 like a consul and conqueror of ancient Rome. 
 The Milanese, who are rather distinguished by 
 their honest simplicity, called him the unique man, 
 the extraordinary hero, the incomparable model of 
 greatness, the liberator of Italy; and exulted at his 
 coming to restore liberty to hts beloved Cisalpine 
 people. Bonaparte, in return, gave back compli- 
 ment for compliment, spoke a great deal about 
 letters, sciences, and arts, about peace and its 
 blessings, and even about religion. He ordered 
 the University of Pavia to be re-opened, and a 
 liberal increase of salary to be paid to its pro- 
 fessors; he appointed a number of new men—for 
 the most part of indisputable merit—to fill chairs 
 in that ancient seat of learning. In Milan he 
 created a consulta, or council with legislative power, 
 and a committee of government with the executive 
 power; but over all these Milanese or Lombards 
 he put a Frenchman, who, nominally minister ex- 
 traordinary from the French republic, became 
 prime minister and president, or dictator, of this 
 provisional government. In all these matters 
 Bonaparte proceeded according to his own ab- 
 solute will, and on his own single authority, not 
 deigning to inform his brother consuls, or the 
 senate, or the tribunes, or the legislative body at 
 Paris, either of what he was doing, or of what he 
 intended to do in future. The Italian democrats 
 and ultra republicans, with whom alone he had 
 sought friendship and alliance at the time of his 
 first invasion of Italy, were now spurned, repro- 
 bated, and driven from the light of his presence, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1800. 
 
 rere iepcsinnsostoseeeoees oot ese easement my rennet 
 
 151 
 
 as dangerous fanatics, or selfish, rapacious, tho- 
 roughly immoral demagogues. The fools did not 
 dare to ask where was the perfect liberty and 
 equality which he had promised them in 1797 :— 
 among themselves they called him an aristocrat, 
 and even a tyrant, but in public they only spoke of 
 him as of a demigod. The men he called around 
 him were all of those classes which had passed for 
 the aristocratic ;—they were men of family, name, 
 and property, or men of learning and science, 
 there being among them even bishops.* But these 
 personages were in their turn to be almost as much 
 cajoled as the sans-culottic party had been, for they 
 were artfully led to hope that Bonaparte, himself 
 an Italian, or the native of an Italian island, whose 
 mother-tongue was Italian, whose family once flou- 
 rished on the banks of Arno, and had transferred it- 
 self from Tuscany to Corsica only a few generations 
 since, intended nothing less than to give a national 
 union and independence to Upper Italy at the first 
 peace he should be able to make, as a grand pre- 
 paratory step to the independence of the whole of 
 the peninsula! Other Milanese and Lombards of 
 the higher classes, whose Italianism was less fer- 
 vent and sanguine, whose patriotism was rather 
 limited to their own portion of Italy, and whose 
 hopes or wishes scarcely went beyond the enjoy- 
 ment of peace, and of a quiet, unoppressive, gentle 
 government, such as they had enjoyed more than 
 once under the dominion of Austria, and especially 
 in the days of Maria Theresa and Joseph II., but 
 which would be sweeter and dearer if it could be 
 enjoyed without any foreign dominion, trusted that, 
 when the storms of war were blown over, they might 
 be left to govern themselves in tranquillity. It is 
 difficult to conceive how any of these hopes could 
 ever have been entertained by rational, well-informed 
 men (and many of the two classes of hopefuls were 
 men of knowledge and of genius), but we know, 
 and from other sources than speeches and addresses 
 and adulatory poems, that they were entertained 
 and fondly cherished by many of the best of the 
 nobility and citizens of Upper Italy ; and that, too, 
 in the midst of a renewed system of plunder, spolia~ 
 tion, and dilapidation ; for, although the more pri- 
 vate robberies of the kind which had been prac- 
 tised by the Conventional commissioners were 
 checked under the Consulate, the public robberies 
 were perpetrated as unblushingly as ever. Having 
 established a provisional government in Genoa, and 
 another in Turin—although here the present King 
 of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel, was shut up in the 
 citadel of his capital—Bonaparte returned to Paris, 
 where he made a triumphal entrance on the 3rd of 
 July. 
 
 The French army on the Upper Rhine, under 
 Moreau, had been scarcely less successful than the 
 army of Italy. Moreau crossed the Rhine on the 
 25th of April; and, after defeating the Austrians 
 under Kray in several engagements, he penetrated 
 to Ulm. As soon as he was apprised of the First 
 Cousul’s successes beyond the Alps, he crossed the 
 
 * Carlo Botta. 
 
{ 
 Danube, drove the Austrians from an entrenched 
 
 camp, overran a great part of Bavaria, captured 
 Munich, the capital, and pressed upon the frontiers 
 of the emperor’s hereditary dominions. The armi- 
 stice concluded in Italy did not extend to Germany ; 
 but Bonaparte ordered Moreau to accede to the re- 
 quest of the Austrians for a truce till the month of 
 September. The Russian Czar, instead of assisting 
 his imperial brother, now seemed disposed to join 
 the First Consul. Conditions or overtures of peace, 
 such as became an ambitious conqueror, were now 
 tendered by Bonaparte; but Austria refused to 
 treat without England, and France demanded an 
 armistice by sea as a preliminary to the negotia- 
 tions with England.* The object of this last de- 
 mand was as transparent as air: the French gar- 
 rison in Malta, and the French army in Egypt, 
 seemed on the point of surrendering to the English, 
 and the First Consul wanted to send reinforcements 
 to those countries during the naval armistice. But 
 the armistice was instantly refused by the British 
 government, and hostilities were recommenced by 
 land and by sea, the Emperor of Germany and the 
 King of Great Britain reciprocally binding them- 
 selves not to conclude a peace the one without the 
 other. At the word given by Bonaparte from 
 Paris, three French armies put themselves in mo- 
 tion nearly at one and the same moment. The 
 army of Italy, now under General Brune, drove 
 the Austrians from the Mincio, and beyond the 
 Adige and the Brenta, and advanced to within a 
 few miles of Venice. Macdonald, with another 
 army, occupied the passes of the Tyrol, being pre- 
 pared to reinforce either Brune in Italy or Moreau 
 in Germany. Moreau himself directed the heads 
 of his columns towards Saltzburg and Vienna. He 
 was met near Haag by Archduke John, the 
 younger brother of his old adversary, as brave but 
 not so skilful a general as the Archduke Charles. 
 A battle took place, which was decidedly favour- 
 able to the Austrians ; but, hazarding a general en- 
 gagement on the 2nd of December, at Hohenlinden, 
 between the rivers Iser and Inn, the Archduke 
 John was thoroughly defeated and driven from the 
 field with the loss of 10,000 men. Moreau, ad- 
 vancing, occupied Saltzburg, and the road to 
 Vienna seemed almost open, not only to his army, 
 but also to the armies of Brune and Macdonald. 
 In this terrible condition the Emperor Francis 
 was compelled to sue for a separate peace, and the 
 British government obliged to release him from 
 the terms of his alliance. An armistice was con- 
 cluded on the 25th of December ; and the treaty of 
 peace, called the treaty of Lunéville, was signed 
 on the 9th of February, 1801. It ratified all the 
 conditions of the treaty of Campo Formio, and in- 
 cluded several new articles very humiliating to the 
 House of Austria. The emperor was to retain pos- 
 session of Venice, but Tuscany was taken away 
 from the Grand-Duke Ferdinand, and bestowed 
 
 * Preliminaries had actually been signed at Paris, by Talleyrand 
 for the First Consul, and by the Count de St. Julien for the 
 emperor, on the 8th of July. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 upon Louis, son of the Duke of Parma, who had , 
 
 married a Spanish princess—the first consul, who 
 had need of her further assistance, thinking it pro- 
 per to give some recompense to Spain for her past 
 services, and for the serious losses her fleet had 
 sustained in encounters with the British. The 
 emperor again acknowledged the independence of 
 the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, renouncing 
 
 all right or pretension to any part of those Italian. 
 
 territories, and a new and extended and more ad- 
 vantageous frontier was drawn for the Cisalpines, 
 the line of the Adige being taken from the point 
 where that river issues from the Tyrol down to its 
 mouth on the Adriatic. Piedmont, which lay 
 awkwardly between the Cisalpine and Ligurian 
 republics, was for the present left to his Sardinian 
 majesty Charles Emmanuel, whose fortresses and 
 cities were occupied by French troops, whose sub- 
 jects were in a state of revolt, and whose authority 
 scarcely extended beyond the walls of the citadel 
 of Turin, into which he had been compelled to 
 throw himself with his family, and a few faithful 
 adherents.* Through the mediation of the Czar 
 Paul, the King of Naples obtained a peace shortly 
 
 \ 
 
 after, agreeing to close all his ports against the 
 
 English, and our only remaining allies, the Turks ; 
 to withdraw some Neapolitan troops which he had 
 sent into the Roman States, and to give up the 
 principality of Piombino with some other small 
 detached territories which belonged to him on the 
 Tuscan coast. It was also prescribed to him by 
 the first consul that he must pardon all political 
 offences committed by his own subjects, restore 
 the confiscated property of the Neapolitan reyo- 
 lutionists, liberate all such of them as were in 
 prison, recall all that were in exile; both parties, 
 
 or royalists and republicans, being enjoined by — 
 
 Bonaparte to realize the political impossibility of 
 forgetting and forgiving everything that had passed 
 in that year of blood 1799. 
 
 Through the timidity of the court of Naples, 
 
 which became a perfect panic after the battle of — 
 Marengo, the supplies of corn and other provisions — 
 
 which had been drawn from Sicily for the use of 
 our Mediterranean fleet, and of our forces blockad- 
 
 ing the French in La Valetta, had been interrupted — 
 
 for many months before king Ferdinand obtained 
 the brief respite of this treaty of peace; and, in- 
 stead of starving out the French, our forces and 
 the poor Maltese, who co-operated with us to a 
 man, were in great danger of being starved away 
 themselves: but at last, after a blockade which 
 had lasted for more than two years, the island of 
 Malta was surrendered to the British troops, com- 
 
 manded by Major-General Pigot, on the 15th of — 
 
 * Never was country more cruelly plundered, agitated, and torn to 
 pieces, than was Piedmont at this moment. Massena demanded 
 from the exhausted treasury 1,000,000 livres per month, and food and 
 clothing for all the French garrisons. Brune, who succeeded Mas- 
 sena, agreed that the troops should be maintaiued out of the monthly 
 million; but he got the livres and did not maintain the troops; Pied- 
 mont was therefore obliged to make up the deficiency, because, if the 
 French soldiers did not get quietly all that they wanted, they took 
 it by force. When money became scarce, the French commissaries 
 demanded the lead which covered the cupola of the magnificent 
 church of Superga.—Carlo Botta, 
 
on er en agree = 
 
 Cnar. VIII] 
 
 September. The work ought to have been done 
 sooner, but the prize was truly great, though it 
 could be valuable only to the power that held the 
 dominion of the seas. 
 
 Except in the services which Admiral Lord 
 Keith had rendered at the useless reduction of 
 Genoa, there was little more deserving of attention 
 in any of our military operations during this un- 
 happy year. The small island of Goree, on the 
 western coast of Africa, with a dependent French 
 factory at Joul, surrendered to Sir Charles Hamil- 
 ton, who appeared before it with a small squadron 
 early inthe summer. The Dutch island of Cura- 
 ¢oa surrendered to a small British force at the end 
 of September. Repeating the miserable blunder 
 they had committed in the Quiberon expedition, 
 and the expedition to Ile Noirmoutier in 1795, 
 our ministers sent over an expedition to the western 
 coasts of France to co-operate with the Breton 
 royalists and the insurgents called Chouans, who 
 had flown to arms while Bonaparte was absent in 
 Iigypt, and had even made themselves formidable, 
 but who had either been beaten and dispersed, or 
 conciliated and won over by the consular govern- 
 ment, months before our insignificant expedition 
 appeared off the coast. All that could be done 
 was to destroy some brigs, sloops, and gun-boats, 
 and a few worthless trading vessels. The arma- 
 ment then proceeded to the coast of Spain to de- 
 stroy the arsenal and the shipping at Ferrol; but 
 the commander of our land troops, Sir James 
 Pulteney, fancying the defences of the place too 
 strong, re-embarked his troops almost as soon as 
 he had landed, and came away without doing any- 
 thing. Sometime after this Pulteney proceeded to 
 Gibraltar and joined his forces to those of Sir 
 Ralph Abercromby, who, with the Mediterranean 
 fleet, still commanded by Lord Keith, was to make 
 an attack upon Cadiz, to burn the arsenal, and 
 capture or destroy the Spanish fleet. Absurd and 
 apparently contradictory orders had been sent out 
 by our government—by the admiralty and by the 
 secretary of state—to the land and sea officers in 
 command ; a terrible epidemic was raging in the 
 city; Lord Keith shrunk from risking his ships 
 in a bad anchorage and among land batteries ; and 
 on the 6th of October, when General (afterwards 
 Sir John) Moore and three thousand men were 
 actually in the boats to make the first landing, they 
 were countermanded; and on the following day, 
 amidst heartburnings, jealousies, and a deplorable 
 confusion, the whole enterprise was given up, and 
 our fleet sailed round to Gibraltar, blushing at the 
 ridiculous figure it had cut before Cadiz. General 
 Pulteney was soon sent with six battalions to 
 Lisbon, as the Spaniards were threatening an in- 
 vasion of Portugal ; General Abercromby, who had 
 been beating about the Mediterranean, the Straits 
 of Gibraltar, and the part of the Atlantic nearest 
 to them, with fifteen thousand soldiers cooped up 
 in crowded transports, now fancying he was to be 
 called upon one expedition, and now upon another, * 
 
 * General Moore, who was heartily tired of this sailing about 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1800. 
 
 153 
 
 did at last receive positive information that he was 
 to be employed in Egypt: but the year was now 
 spent ; and it was the middle of December ere the 
 armament got so far as Malta. 
 
 The scarcity of grain still continued at home, 
 depressing the national spirit, which, during the 
 whole year, had scarcely a glimpse of victory or 
 of glory to cheer it. The city of London and other 
 places presented petitions to the king in the month 
 of October, imploring him to convene the parlia- 
 ment. That assembly, which had taken such 
 paltry means to relieve the distress during the last 
 session, met on the 11th of November, and passed, 
 in rapid succession, a number of acts, granting 
 bounties on the importation of foreign corn, en- 
 joining the baking of mixed and inferior flour, 
 &c. &c. The hand of private charity did more 
 good to the poor than all this legislation; sub- 
 scriptions were entered into in all parts of the 
 kingdom, immense sums were collected, and, 
 though the people continued to be stinted in the 
 luxury of the best wheaten bread—a luxury still 
 unknown to every labouring population in Europe 
 except the English—their sufferings were not so 
 severe as might have been expected. Some riots 
 which took place were mainly caused by the igno- 
 rance and impolicy of the government and courts 
 of law in enforcing the old laws against forestalling, 
 regrating, &c.; and they were put down without 
 bloodshed, having been attended with no conse- 
 quences more serious than the breaking of some 
 cornfactors’ and bakers’ windows, and some tri- 
 fling temporary addition to the price of wheat, the 
 holders being terrified from Mark-Lane.* The 
 impulsive ignorance was in both cases the same; 
 but in Paris the bread-rioters seldom took the field 
 without committing atrocities. 
 
 After sundry attacks rather on the foreign policy 
 of ministers than on their spiritless conduct and 
 undeniable mismanagement of the war, a motion 
 was made on the Ist of December, in the Com- 
 mons, by Sheridan, for an address to his majesty, 
 earnestly to desire him to enter into a separate 
 negotiation with France for a speedy and honouwr- 
 able peace. This being negatived by 156 against 
 35, Mr. T. Jones, on the 4th of December, moved 
 an address to implore his majesty to dismiss his 
 present ministers, ‘‘ who, by their profusion and 
 extravagance, had brought their country to the 
 brink of famine and ruin, and who, by their 
 incapacity, had shown themselves unequal to con- 
 duct the war with effect, or enter into negoti- 
 ations of peace with honour.’? This was rejected 
 by 66 against 13. Supplies were voted for three 
 lunar months only. For the service of the navy 
 120,000 men, including marines, were granted, 
 
 without any determined object, says that the armament looked as if 
 it were roving in quest of adventures and the chapter of accidents. 
 
 It is not easy to conceive anything more like imbecility than the 
 whole management of this year’s war by our government. 
 
 * There were men, even in the British parliament, so ignorant 
 of the first principles of public economy, that they would have made 
 the legislature interfere in regulating the price of corn and other 
 commodities, or in fixing that maximum law which had caused 
 such desperate confusion and mischief in France; but, luckily, 
 these legislators were but a contemptible minority. 
 
154 
 
 from the Ist of January to the Ist of April, 1801. 
 According to the army returns the number of men 
 killed in action, or who had died in the service of 
 the army, since the commencement of the present 
 war, was 48,971, and the number of effective men, 
 rank and file, including inyalids, militia, and fo- 
 reign corps, as well as the regular and fencible 
 troops actually serving in the pay of Great Britain, 
 was 168,082. 
 
 On the last day of the year the king closed the 
 session of parliament, notifying that the time 
 fixed for the commencement of the union of Great 
 Britain and Ireland necessarily terminated their 
 proceedings; and that the IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT 
 (as the united parliament was to be called) was 
 appointed to meet on the 22nd of January, 1801. 
 
 A.D. 1801. On the Ist of January a proclama- 
 tion was issued concerning the royal style and 
 titles and armorial ensigns, henceforward to be 
 used as appertaining to the crown of Great Britain 
 and Ireland. The regal title was expressed in 
 English by the words, “‘ George the Third, by the 
 Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith.” 
 Thus was judiciously relinquished the old title of 
 King of France, which, since the days of Henry 
 V., had been a ridiculous assumption on the part 
 of our sovereigns. The arms or ensigns armorial 
 of the United Kingdom were ordered to be, quar- 
 terly, first and fourth England, second Scotland, 
 third Ireland. A new great seal was made in con- 
 formity with the alterations made in the royal 
 titles and arms. In honour of the Union many 
 new titles were conferred on the Irish nobility, and 
 several of them were created peers of the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 On the 22nd of January the first imperial par- 
 liament was opened by commission. The former 
 members for England and Scotland continued, ac- 
 cording to the provision in the treaty of Union, to 
 form part of the House of Commons; and Mr. 
 Addington was re-elected speaker. The king did 
 not meet this parliament till the 2nd of Febru- 
 ary, when all the members had been sworn, and 
 other preliminary matters arranged. In his speech 
 from the throne, after adverting to the happy ac- 
 complishment of the Union, and to the unhappy 
 course of eyents on the continent, which had forced 
 his allies to abandon him, he announced that a 
 fresh storm was gathering in the north; that the 
 court of Petersburg had already proceeded to com- 
 mit outrages against the ships, property, and per- 
 sons of his subjects; and that a convention had 
 been concluded by that court with the courts of 
 Copenhagen and Stockholm, the object of which 
 was to renew their former engagement for re-esta- 
 blishing, by force of arms, a new code of maritime 
 law, inconsistent with the rights, and hostile to 
 the best interests, of this country. He stated that 
 he had taken the earliest measures to repel the 
 aggressions of this hostile confederacy ; and he ex- 
 pressed his confidence that both Houses of parlia- 
 ment would afford him the most vigorous and 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 effectual support in his firm determination to main- 
 tain to the utmost, against every attack, the naval 
 rights and interests of his empire. Some mem- 
 bers of opposition recommended conciliatory mea- 
 sures, and even the suspension of the right of 
 search we claimed at sea, or a tacit assent to the 
 principles of the armed neutrality, which the 
 Czarina Catherine had first raised against us 
 during the American war, and which the three 
 northern powers were now about to revive, hinting 
 at the terrible consequences which might attend 
 
 the closing of the corn ports on the Baltic in this | 
 
 season of scarcity. Sir William Watkins Wynne, 
 on the ministerial side, said that the emperor of 
 Russia, besides renewing these bygone claims of 
 the right of neutral flags, and abandoning his re- 
 cent alliance with Austria and England—abandon- 
 ing the common cause of order, and the balance of 
 power—had committed such outrages on British 
 subjects, as must unite every individual in these 
 kingdoms in a firm determination to avenge and re- 
 dress the indignity. The hostility of the northern 
 powers, he observed, by cutting us off from sup- 
 plies of grain, might aggravate the dearth of corn, 
 but the mildness of the present season afforded 
 hopes of relief at home; and from the power and 
 valour of our navy we might augur success in our 
 just and defensive efforts. Pitt expressed his re- 
 gret that members of the legislature should increase 
 our difficulties by starting a doubt on the question 
 of our right of search, observing that it was singu- 
 larly unfortunate that these honourable gentlemen 
 should have first begun to doubt when the enemy 
 began to arm. He defended the practice of 
 searching neutrals, which it might now be incum- 
 bent upon us to vindicate by force of arms, on the 
 plea of right as well as of expediency. The prin- 
 ciple on which we were acting had been universally 
 admitted and acted upon as the law of nations, 
 except in particular cases, where it had been modi- 
 fied by treaties between states. As to the particular 
 treaties between us and the present-hostile con- 
 federates of the north, they included the right of 
 search in strict and precise terms.’ So much for 
 the right; and now for the expediency. Were we 
 to permit the navy of France to be supplied and 
 recruited? Were we to suffer blockaded ports to 
 be furnished with stores and provisions? Were 
 we to suffer neutral nations, by hoisting a neutral 
 flag on a sloop or a fishing-boat, to convey the 
 treasures of South America to Spain, or the naval 
 stores of the Baltic to Brest and Toulon? He 
 asked the opposition whether the navy of France 
 
 would have been swept from the ocean, and left in — 
 
 the state of weakness in which it now was, if the 
 commerce of that power had not been destroyed, 
 and the fraudulent trade of neutrals prevented by 
 the vigilant exercise of the right of search? Mr. 
 Grey, allowing that the conduct of the Emperor 
 
 Paul had been that of a madman, and violent and : 
 
 hostile in the extreme, wished to draw a distinction 
 between the conduct of Russia and that of Sweden 
 and Denmark (the last of which three powers had 
 
 prey 
 
 Si at 
 diel Ae *) eal 
 
 8 a ae Ce ae Oe 
 
 arene 
 
 eR Re Pee + tote 
 
 : 85 So 
 
me 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 ever since the beginning of the war leaned towards 
 France, and shown a decided hostility towards Eng- 
 land); but an amendment he moved was rejected 
 by 245 against 63. Preparations were forthwith 
 made for sending that British fleet into the Baltic 
 which, together with the death of the insane czar, 
 put so speedy an end to this northern coalition ; 
 but before the tremendous battle of Copenhagen, 
 and also before the brilliant success of the Egyptian 
 expedition (the only army expedition, of all that 
 Pitt had planned, that was successful and ho- 
 nourable), the premier of seventeen years’ stand- 
 ing retired from his post. While recommending 
 and urging on the Union, he had flattered the 
 Irish with the hope that that grand measure would 
 be the best means of obtaining the abolition, or 
 very great mitigation, of the penal and disabling 
 laws affecting the Roman Catholics,—that in the 
 united parliament the obstacles might be removed 
 which stood in the way of emancipation; and two 
 anonymous but authoritative papers (one known to 
 proceed from himself, and the other from Lord 
 Cornwallis) had been circulated among the leading 
 Irish Catholics, and were supposed to have had no 
 small influence in removing the obstacles which 
 stood in the way of the Union. Before committing 
 himself thus deeply, he ought to have ascertained 
 whether the strong religious scruples of George IIT. 
 would allow him to redeem his pledge. When the 
 question was first mooted (apparently in a council 
 held towards the middle of January of the present 
 year), the king’s objections were found to be in- 
 surmountable. At the levee, on Wednesday the 
 28th of January, the king said to Dundas, “ What 
 is this that this young lord (Castlereagh) has 
 brought over, which they are going to throw at 
 my head?” Lord Castlereagh had brought over 
 some plan of Catholic emancipation. The king 
 continued, “I shall reckon any man my personal 
 enemy who proposes any such measure! ‘This is 
 the most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of!” 
 “You will find,” said Dundas, ‘“‘ among those who 
 are friendly to that measure, some you never sup- 
 posed to be your enemiés.”’** Onthe3lst of Janu- 
 ary Pitt wrote a letter to his majesty, stating that the 
 
 important questions respecting the Catholics and 
 
 dissenters must naturally be agitated in consequence 
 of the Union; that the knowledge of his majesty’s 
 general indisposition to any change of the laws on 
 this subject must always have made this a painful 
 
 task to him; and that it was become much more so 
 
 by learning from some of his colleagues, and from 
 other quarters, within these few days, the extent to 
 which his majesty had entertained, and had de- 
 clared, that sentiment; that every principle of 
 duty, gratitude, and attachment must make him 
 look to his majesty’s ease and satisfaction, in pre- 
 ference to all considerations, except those arising 
 from a sense of what, in his honest opinion, was 
 due to the real interest of his majesty and his do- 
 minions ; that under the impression of this opinion, 
 he had concurred in what appeared to be the pre- 
 
 * Wilberforce, Diary. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 vailing sentiment of the majority of the cabinet ; 
 that the admission of the Catholics and dissenters 
 to municipal offices, and of Catholics to parliament 
 (from which latter the Protestant dissenters were 
 not now excluded), would, under certain condi- 
 tions to be specified, be highly advisable, with a 
 view to the tranquillity and improvement of Ire- 
 land, and to the general interest of the United 
 Kingdom; that for himself he was fully convinced 
 that the measure would be attended with no danger 
 to the established church, or to the Protestant in- 
 terest in Great Britain or Ireland; that, now the 
 Union had taken place, and with the new provi- 
 sions which would make part of the plan, it could 
 never give any such weight, in office or in parlia- 
 ment, either to Catholics or dissenters, as could 
 give them any new means if*they were so dis- 
 posed) of attacking the,@stablishment; that the 
 grounds on which the laws of exclusion now re- 
 maining were first founded had long been nar- 
 
 rowed, and were, since the Union, removed. After 
 using various other arguments to prove that Catholic 
 
 emancipation would consolidate and give full effect 
 
 to the Union by tranquillising Ireland, and attach- 
 
 ing it by the bonds of affection to this country, Pitt 
 
 hoped that his majesty would maturely weigh what 
 he now humbly submitted to him, declaring’ that 
 
 in the interval that his majesty might wish for 
 
 consideration, he would not, on his part, importune 
 
 his majesty with any unnecessary reference to the 
 
 subject ; and would feel it his duty to abstain from 
 
 all agitation of this subject in parliament, and to 
 
 prevent it, as far as depended upon him, on the 
 
 part of others. But then he said, that, if his ma- 
 
 jesty’s objections to the measure proposed should 
 
 not be removed, or sufficiently diminished to admit 
 
 of its being brought forward with his majesty’s 
 
 full concurrence, and with the whole weight of 
 government, he must beg to be permitted to re- 
 
 sign—adding, however, that, if his majesty should 
 
 consider his services necessary at the present crisis, 
 
 he would not withdraw himself immediately, but 
 
 would even continue, for such a short further in- 
 
 terval as might be necessary, to oppose the agita- 
 
 tion or decision of the question in parliament, as 
 
 far as he could consistently with the line to which 
 
 he felt bound uniformly to adhere—of reserving to 
 
 himself a full latitude on the principle itself, and 
 
 objecting only to the time, and to the temper and 
 
 circumstances of the moment.* 
 
 On the very next day—the Ist of February—the 
 king replied by letter, beginning with expressing 
 his cordial affection for Mr. Pitt, and his high opi- 
 nion of his talents and integrity. “These feelings 
 greatly add,” said his majesty, “to my uneasiness 
 on this occasion; but a sense of religious as well 
 
 * Letters from his Majesty King George III. to the late Lord 
 Kenyon, on the Coronation Oath, with his Lordship’s Answers ; 
 and Letters of the Right Honourable William Pitt to his Majesty 
 King George III., with his Majesty’s Answers, previous to the 
 Dissolution of the Ministry in 1801. London, 1827. 
 
 These important letters were edited by the second Lord Kenyon, 
 son of the noble lord who wrote several of them, and to whom 
 several of the king’s letters were addressed, and by Dr. Philpotts, 
 afterwards Bishop of Exeter. 
 
156 
 
 as political duty has made me, from the moment I 
 mounted the throne, to consider the oath that the 
 wisdom of our forefathers have enjoined the kings 
 of this realm to take at their coronation, and en- 
 forced by the obligation of instantly following it in 
 the course of the ceremony with taking the Sacra- 
 ment, has so binding a religious obligation on me 
 to maintain the fundamental maxims on which our 
 constitution is placed, namely, the Church of Eng- 
 land being the established one, and that those who 
 hold employments in the state must be members 
 of it, and, consequently, obliged not only to take 
 oaths against Popery, but to receive the Holy Com- 
 munion agreeably to the rites of the Church of 
 England. This principle of duty must, therefore, 
 prevent me from discussing any proposition tending 
 to destroy the groundwork of our happy constitu- 
 tion, and much more so that now mentioned by 
 Mr. Pitt, which is no less than the complete over- 
 throw of the whole fabric. When the Irish pro- 
 positions [for the Union] were transmitted to me 
 by a joint message from both Houses of the British 
 parliament, I told the lords and gentlemen sent on 
 that occasion, that I would with pleasure and with- 
 out delay forward them to Ireland; but that, as 
 individuals, I could not -help acquainting them, 
 that my inclination to an Union with Ireland was 
 principally founded on a trust, that the uniting the 
 established churches of the two kingdoms would 
 for ever shut the door to any further measures with 
 respect to the Roman Catholics. These two in- 
 stances must show Mr. Pitt, that my opinions are 
 not those formed on the moment, but such as I 
 have imbibed for forty years, and from which I 
 never can depart; but, Mr. Pitt once acquainted 
 with my sentiments, his assuring me that he 
 will stave off the only question whereon I fear from 
 his letter we can never agree,—for the advantage 
 and comfort of continuing to have his advice and 
 exertions in public affairs, I will certainly abstain 
 from talking on this subject, which is the one 
 nearest my heart. I cannot help if others pretend 
 to guess at my opinions, which I have never dis- 
 guised; but, if those who unfortunately differ with 
 me will keep this subject at rest, I will, on my part, 
 most correctly on my part, be silent also; but this 
 restraint I shall put on myself from affection for 
 Mr. Pitt; but further I cannot go, for I cannot sa- 
 crifice my duty to any consideration. Though I 
 do not pretend to have the power of changing Mr. 
 Pitt’s opinion, when thus unfortunately fixed, yet 
 I shall hope his sense of duty will prevent his re- 
 tiring from his present situation to the end of my 
 life; for I can with great truth assert, that I shall, 
 from public and private considerations, feel great 
 regret if I shall ever find myself obliged, at any 
 time, from a sense of religious and political duty, 
 to yield to his entreaties of retiring from his seat 
 at the Board of Treasury.” * ‘To this letter, written 
 on the Ist, Pitt replied on the 3rd of February. 
 He said that the final decision which his majesty 
 had formed on the great subject in question, and 
 * Letters from his Majesty George III., &c. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 
 EE Re RN ES Nt eh Se 
 
 AG 
 ton 
 
 [Boox X. 
 his own unalterable sense of the line which public 
 duty required from him, must make him consider 
 the moment as now arrived when, on the principles 
 he had already explained, it ought to be his first 
 wish to be released as soon as possible from his 
 official situation ; that, although he wished to con- 
 sult as much as possible his majesty’s ease and 
 convenience, he must frankly confess that the diffi- 
 culty of even his temporary continuance in office 
 must necessarily be increased, and might very 
 shortly become insuperable, from what he conceived 
 to be the import of one passage in his majesty’s 
 letter, which hardly left him room to hope that 
 those steps could be taken for effectually discoun- 
 tenancing all attempts to make use of his majesty’s 
 name, or to influence opinions on this subject, 
 which he had ventured to represent as indis- 
 pensably necessary during any interval in which 
 he might remain in office. He said that, as his 
 majesty’s final decision was taken, the sooner he 
 was allowed to retire the better it would be for his 
 majesty’s service ; that he trusted no long delay 
 would he found necessary for forming a new ad- 
 ministration, which might conduct the service with 
 credit and adyantage, while the feebleness and un- 
 certainty almost inseparable from a temporary go- 
 vernment must soon produce an effect, both at home 
 and abroad, from which serious inconveniences 
 might be expected.* On the 5th of February the 
 king rejoined :—He had flattered himself that, from 
 the strong assurance he had given Mr. Pitt of keep- 
 ing perfectly silent on the subject whereon they 
 entirely differed, provided Mr. Pitt, on his part, 
 abstained from any disquisition on it for the pre- 
 sent, they had both understood their present line 
 of conduct ; but that, as he unfortunately found 
 Mr. Pitt did not draw the same conclusion, he 
 must come to the unpleasant decision of acquaint- 
 ing him, that, rather than forego what he looked 
 on as his duty, he would, without unnecessary delay, 
 attempt to make the most creditable ministerial 
 arrangement possible, and such as Mr. Pitt would 
 think most to the advantage of his service and to 
 the security of the country; adding, however, that, 
 though it should be done with as much expedition 
 as so difficult a subject would admit of, he could 
 not yet fix how soon a new administration would 
 be formed.t It soon became known that the king 
 had intrusted the formation of the new cabinet to 
 Mr. Addington, now Speaker, who was the son of 
 Pitt’s father’s favourite physician, Dr. Addington, 
 and who had been brought forward in public life 
 by the Pitt family and connexions. On the 10th 
 of February Lord Darnley rose in the Upper House 
 to move for an inquiry into part of the conduct of 
 the existing administration. Lord Grenville then 
 stated, in the most downright manner, that the 
 failure of their intentions in favour of the Roman 
 Catholics had induced them to resign their places, 
 which they now held only till their successors 
 should be appointed. At the earnest request of 
 several peers, who knew the real state of the king, 
 * Letters from his Majesty George IIL., &e. + Id. 
 
— 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 Lord Darnley agreed to postpone his motion.. On 
 the same day a letter was read in the Commons 
 from Addington, tendering the resignation of his 
 office of Speaker, on account of his majesty’s 
 declared intention of appointing him to a situa- 
 tion incompatible with that post. When this 
 letter had been read, Pitt rose to state that he 
 had his majesty’s commands to inform the 
 House that they were to proceed in due time to 
 the election of another speaker, and, in order that 
 time might be had for consideration, he moved an 
 adjournment till to-morrow. Old Sir William 
 Pulteney, who seconded the motion, said, “ I have 
 a right to say something: I am now an old man, 
 and have seen many changes, without a real change 
 of principle: I wish to see that kind of change 
 which I never yet saw; a change in which public 
 men of all descriptions shall act from no other 
 motive than the good of the public, without having 
 any view to their own personal interests.” The 
 adjournment was agreed to. On the following 
 day—the 11th of February—the House proceeded 
 to the election of a speaker. The choice fell on 
 the attorney-general, Sir John Mitford, who was 
 proposed by Lord Hawkesbury, and strongly com- 
 mended and recommended by the ministerial or 
 Pittite party. On the 14th of February it was 
 publicly announced that the king was confined to 
 the house by a severe cold; and on the 16th the 
 bulletin declared that he was affected by a fever: 
 but it appears now to be fully proved that his ma- 
 jesty was suffering under a return of his former 
 indisposition, brought on by anxiety and agitation 
 of mind—an agitation occasioned principally, if 
 not entirely, by the Catholic question and the re- 
 signation of Pitt.* On the 16th, the order of the 
 day for the House to resolve itself into a committee 
 of supply bemg read, Mr. Harrison rose to oppose 
 it. At the moment, he said, when the House was 
 called upon to pass a vote for so large a sum as 
 28,000,000/., there was no ostensible person at 
 the head of affairs, on whom responsibility could 
 
 * «Feb. 24. The king is very ill; it is reported he is mad, and 
 that Willis attends him. We are in a strange situation, half a mi- 
 nistry in and half another out. Pitt and Dundas are said to be over- 
 whelmed with debt.” . 2. 0. 
 
 ** Feb. 25. It is certain that Dr. Willis is with the king. The 
 prince and Pitt were together, and the prince said to Pitt, ‘You are 
 still minister.’ To which the other replied, ‘ I hope, if a regency is 
 required, your royal highness and I shall agree better than the last 
 time.’ '* Oh!” said the prince, ‘ I see things now in'a very different 
 light from what I did theu.’ So the ministry is finely mottled. St. 
 hye and Hawkesbury are installed, and perhaps Eldon—the rest 
 NS oe a ; 
 
 “Feb. 27. The king’s fever is leaving him, and he is just now as 
 he was when he began to mend twelve years ago. They say his ill- 
 hess was brought on by his taking a most extraordinary dose of 
 James’s powders of his own accord. If he does not make haste and 
 recover, there will be a regency established upon the resolution entered 
 Itoi 1789.” . . . 
 
 “Feb. 28. This morning I hear the king’s life is in danger, and 
 some talk of his not getting over the day; but, as these are not the 
 most loyal of his subjects, I cannot trust to their intelligence.” 
 
 “March 2, The king is recovering fast, both head and health, 
 and there will of course be no motion made in the House about his 
 situation.” —Diary ; in “ The Courts of Europe at the close of the 
 last century, by the late Henry Swinburne, Esq., author of Travels 
 in Spain, Italy, §c.” 
 
 Wilberforce says that * the king’s agitation at being urged to 
 grant power to the Romanists was not unlikely to expose him to 
 Such an attack. He says that it was on the 23rd of February he 
 heard in the House of Commons ‘of the king’s being ill in the old 
 way since Thursday evening last.”—Diary, in Life by his Sons. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 157 
 
 be fixed, for the proper use and application of the 
 money. It was quite evident that Mr. Pitt was 
 no longer in his former official situation, and it 
 Was yery proper to know who were the persons 
 that were to direct the government and the energies 
 of the country. If Mr. Pitt and his friends were 
 allowed to obtain this vote of supply, it might be 
 truly said that their entry into and their exit from 
 office were both equally marked by a wound to the 
 character and consequence of that House, and to 
 the constitution of the country. Pitt replied that, 
 whenever there arises a change of administration, 
 it must be left to the king to determine when the 
 new arrangements shall take place; that it was 
 contrary to the spirit of the constitution for the 
 House to assume any right of determination or 
 dictation on a subject of that kind; that, if any 
 further delay took place in voting the supplies, the 
 business of the country must be at a stand still; 
 and that, if any such delay now took place, it 
 would be impossible for him to retire from office. 
 He added that he conceived it to be his duty not 
 to resign till the House had voted the supplies for 
 the year, and he had explained the plans he had 
 in contemplation for the public service. As for 
 responsibility, he observed, that, though the present 
 ministers were to retire from office, they would 
 never be far out of the way when any inquiry was 
 proposed to be instituted into their conduct; and 
 the new ministers who were to succeed them, and 
 under whose administration the supplies must be 
 expended, would surely be responsible for their 
 use and application. Sheridan, Whitbread, and 
 others, supported Harrison; but his motion was 
 negatived, after some long debates, by an immense 
 majority ; and on the 18th of February the House 
 resolved itself into a committee of supply. The 
 sum required amounted altogether, for Great Britain 
 and Ireland, to 42,197,000/. To raise it recourse 
 was had to the old system :—25,500,000/. was 
 borrowed, and some new taxes were imposed.* 
 Pitt described the state of the finances and of 
 trade as very flourishing. The year 1801, he 
 said, might be called the era of our prosperity 
 as well as trial. Our imports and exports were 
 far greater than they were in the year 1791. The 
 war had been attended with a constant increase of 
 commerce and of revenuc; so that we were now 
 distinguished by our prosperity, commerce, and 
 naval superiority, above all the other nations of 
 the world; and it was singular, but not more sin- 
 gular than true, that, though we had suffered so 
 much from unfavourable seasons, and from two 
 bad harvests in succession, the present year was the 
 proudest the country had ever known with respect 
 to its commerce. ‘There was no denying the great 
 increase of the national debt; but, without any 
 diminution of confidence in that plausible inven- 
 tion, he pointed to the sinking-fund as a sure re- 
 medy for every financial evil. Besides the twenty- 
 five and a-half millions loan for Great Britain, it 
 
 * The total amount of the income-tax for the year ending on the 
 5th of April, 1801, amounted only to 5,822,741/. 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 : 
 re aT TUE TC) ‘ae a a RTT 
 creditable pride from treating with a party so i 
 
 was found necessary to borrow about 2,500,000/. 
 for Ireland. The House having agreed, after some 
 slight alterations, to the resolutions upon the 
 budget, Pitt, on the 14th of March, resigned, to 
 the regret and perhaps to the dismay of a great 
 majority in both Houses. He was accompanied 
 in his resignation by Dundas, Earl Spencer, Lord 
 Grenville, and Windham, two of these statesmen 
 being the ablest, and two of them the most high- 
 minded or most honest, of the public men of 
 that day; and other changes took place shortly 
 after. 
 
 It was assumed by Pitt’s enemies that his deli- 
 cacy about his pledged faith to the Irish, and his 
 decided sense of the justice and expediency of 
 granting Catholic emancipation, were but pretexts ; 
 and that the real cause of his resignation was, his 
 tardy conviction that he had involved the ‘country 
 in a labyrinth from which he knew not how to ex- 
 tricate it, being far too weak to carry on the war, 
 and far too proud to make peace with the French. 
 Whatever may have been the public and the 
 private faults of this minister, meanness never 
 appears to have been of the number; through the 
 publication of the interesting letters which we have 
 cited, we now know (what was only matter of sur- 
 mise at the time)* that the king most positively 
 refused to enable him to redeem his pledge to the 
 Irish, by carrying or promoting emancipation, and 
 we are inclined to take the word of Pitt that this 
 was the real cause which induced him to resign. 
 Credit is also due to the high character and veraci- 
 ousness of men like Lord Grenville and Windham, 
 who, both in parliament and in private and con- 
 fidential intercourse, declared this to be the sole 
 cause of their quitting office with Pitt at this crisis. 
 It does not appear in the least probable that these 
 individuals were dismayed at the northern coalition, 
 or reduced to despair by the continental successes 
 of Bonaparte and the forced dissolution of our 
 foreign alliances. There was not in England a man 
 who had more of the old English character— 
 bravery, resolution, and a loathing of all that is 
 mean—than Windham: almost the last words 
 that Pitt delivered in the House as prime minister 
 were words full of hope and confidence :—he felt 
 convinced, he said, that the British fleet would, 
 with one blow, shatter the coalition of the North— 
 but we can at the same time conceive that these 
 men, and Lord Grenville as well, seeing the pro- 
 babilityt of a short peace or truce being made in- 
 evitable, shrunk with a natural and not dis- 
 
 * «I give Mr. Pitt credit for his resignation, if it was occasioned by 
 
 a resistance from another quarter to his liberal sentiments towards the 
 Catholics in Ireland, and the Dissenters in this country.”—Letter from 
 the Bishop of Llandaff to the Duke of Grafton, in Anecdotes of the Life 
 of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff; written by himself at different 
 intervals, and published by his Son, 
 
 + It is, however, but fair to state, that at this moment the war party 
 in the country was still exceedingly strong, aud negotiation for peace 
 only a probability. For this we have the authority of Fox himself, 
 who says, even a month after Pitt had resigned and had been suc- 
 ceeded by Addington—“ Ihave heard a great deal of the country’s 
 - being materially turned with respect to the war, and I believe it in a 
 great measure ; but I do not see any approach to what I consider as 
 eo general principles.” —Letter to Dr. Parr, in the Works of Samuel 
 
 arr, LL.D., &c., with Memvirs of his Life and Writings, &c., by 
 John Johnstone, M.D. ‘ 
 
 arrogant as the first consul, and from exchanging 
 diplomatic terms of respect and amity with indi- 
 viduals whose characters they hated or despised, 
 and whose principles they detested; and we can 
 further conceive that, perhaps half unconciously to 
 themselves, this natural pride weighed in the same 
 balance with their point of honour respecting the 
 Catholic claims. This view of the case does not 
 seem to us to be disproved by the fact (in itself, 
 and by itself, not very creditable to him) that Pitt 
 returned to office in 1804, without making any 
 stipulations with the king for the Catholic claims. 
 A letter that was now circulating in Ireland, and 
 which was attributed to the retired prime minister, 
 who certainly never denied the authorship of it, 
 contained the following remarkable passage :— 
 “The Catholic body will prudently consider their 
 prospects as arising from the persons who now 
 espouse their interests, and compare them with 
 those which they could look to from any other 
 quarter. They may, with confidence, rely on the 
 zealous support of all those who retire, and of 
 many who remain in office, when it can be given 
 with a prospect of success. They may be assured 
 that Mr. Pitt will do his utmost to establish their 
 cause in the public favour (although he could not 
 concur in a hopeless attempt to force it now), and 
 prepare the way for their finally attaining their 
 objects.” This passage, which accompanied his 
 apology for resigning, has been considered more 
 open to objection than the credibility of the state- 
 ment of the cause of his resignation. 
 said that he spoke as if the candour, generosity, 
 and increasing enlightenment and toleration of 
 the English people, and all the other champions 
 of popular rights, were sources from which the Ca- 
 tholics had nothing to hope ;—as if all their hopes 
 were to be centred in him ;—that the language 
 betrayed the fault of his character, which was not 
 
 duplicity, but solitary ambition, an ambition soli- 
 
 tary yet not selfish, the public weal being the sin- 
 cerest wish of his heart, next to his being himself 
 the chief administrator of it. 
 
 As soon as the serious nature of the king’s in- 
 disposition was made known, a new regency bill 
 was expected. Fox quitted his pleasant retirement 
 at St. Anne’s Hill, came up to London, and pre- 
 sided over a meeting of the Whig Club, where he 
 deprecated any public allusion to the king’s ma- 
 lady, and declared that, still despairing of the 
 
 House of Commons, if he re-appeared there, it 
 
 should only be to support Mr. Grey’s motion for 
 an inquiry into the state of the nation. But all the 
 time Fox staid in town he was surrounded by 
 speculating, hopeful visitors, who would not divest 
 themselves of the expectation that he would soon 
 be prime minister to the regent, or to George LV, 
 These hopes were, however, damped by reports 
 that the old king was rapidly recovering, and they 
 were altogether extinguished on the 12th of March 
 (two days before Pitt’s final withdrawing), when 
 the physicians announced that his majesty was 
 
 It has been ~ 
 
2 3 
 
 Cuap. VIII. 
 
 well, and that no more bulletins would be issued. 
 Fox returned to St. Anne’s Hill, and his friends to 
 the opposition benches. The new ministry, now 
 installed in office, consisted of Addington, first 
 lord of the treasury and chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer; the Duke of Portland, president of the 
 council; Lord Eldon, chancellor; Earl St. Vin- 
 cent, first lord of the admiralty; the Earl of 
 Chatham, master-general of the ordnance ; Lord 
 Pelham, secretary for the home department; Lord 
 Hawkesbury (eldest son of the Earl of Liver- 
 pool), secretary for foreign affairs; Lord Hobart, 
 secretary for the colonies; Viscount Lewisham, 
 president of the board of control for the affairs of 
 India; Charles Yorke, secretary at war, &c.* 
 When Mr. Addington first informed the Prince of 
 Wales of these changes, the prince declared that, 
 though he had not been consulted in the arrange- 
 ments, he should take no part in opposition to 
 those who were chosen by the king. But at this 
 moment the prince was powerless, nor was the 
 Foxite party, if he had been disposed to resume his 
 close connexion with it, at all in a condition to 
 give him strength. It was almost immediately 
 asserted, by some, that Addington was but the 
 puppet of Pitt, and, by others, that the new govern- 
 ment was fairly and honestly bent on peace. Mr. 
 Wilberforce, who was frequently closeted with 
 Addington, devising means to better the condition 
 of the poor, appears to have been convinced of the 
 sincerity of the new premier’s anti-warlike profes- 
 sions: but we find him shortly afterwards re- 
 gretting that everything was kept ‘“‘ profoundly 
 secret ;”” expressing his disappointment that the 
 negotiations should have dragged on so long with- 
 out coming to a conclusion; and fearing that our 
 victories abroad would lead to a continuance of the 
 war. 
 
 Under the new cabinet bills were passed for 
 continuing the act for the suppression of rebellion, 
 and for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act 
 
 * The Earl of Liverpool was made chancellor of the duchy of Lan- 
 easter; Dudley Rider, treasury of the navy ; Thomas Steele and Lord 
 Glenbervie were joint paymasters of the forces; Lord Auckland and 
 Lord Charles Spencer joint postmasters-general ; and John H. Ad- 
 dington and Nicholas Vansittart secretaries of the treasury; Sir Wil- 
 liam Grant was master of the rolls; Sir Edward Law (afterwards 
 Lord Ellenborough) attorney-general, andthe Hon. Spencer Perceval 
 solicitor-general. For Ireland, the Earl of Hardwick was made lord- 
 lieutenant; the Earl of Clare, who was strongly opposed to emanci- 
 pation, lord chancellor; Lord Castlereagh remained chief secretary, 
 and Isaac Corry became chancellor of the exchequer. But Castlereagh 
 soon succeeded Viscount Lewisham as president of the board of con- 
 trol, and was succeeded iu his Irish secretaryship by W. Wickham. 
 
 A good many of these individuals had held office under the last 
 administration, but nearly everybody felt that the retirement of Pitt, 
 Dundas, Earl Spencer, Lord Grenville, and Windham, left little to 
 be hoped from the inferior men of their party who remained. 
 
 It has been said that a good part of these arrangements was made 
 before the king had perfectly recovered his sanity, and that he was 
 made to attend to public business of the most important and most cri- 
 tical kind while his mind was still unstrung. Wilberforce, in entering 
 the heads of a conversation he had at the time with Lord Eldon, says, 
 *« Eldon had just Teceived the great seal, and I expressed my fears 
 that they were bringing the king into public too soon after his late in- 
 disposition. ‘ You shall judge for yourself, he answered, ‘from what 
 feed between us when I kissed hands on my appointment. The 
 
 ing had been conversing with me, and, wheu I was about to retire, 
 he said, ‘ Give my remembrances to Lady Eldon.’ I acknowledged 
 his condescension, and intimated that I was ignorant of Lady Eldon’s 
 claim to such a notice. ‘Yes! yes!’ he answered, ‘I know how 
 much I owe to Lady Eldon; I know that you would have made 
 yourself a country curate, and that she has made you my lord 
 chancellor,’””—Diary, in Life. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 159 
 
 in Ireland, which country still remained in an un- 
 easy, turbulent state; and, a select committee of the 
 House of Commons having reported rather alarm- 
 ingly on the existence and proceedings of certain 
 political societies in Great Britain (particularly one 
 in London, entitled the United Britons), the sus- 
 pension of the Habeas Corpus was continued also 
 for England and Scotland, and an act for pre- 
 venting seditious meetings was revived. Acts of 
 indemnity were passed in favour of all persons 
 concerned in the securing, imprisoning, and detain- 
 ing individuals under the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act in Great Britain since February, 1793, 
 and in Ireland since March, 1799. Various mo- 
 tions relative to the state of the nation, to the mis- 
 carriage of expeditions, to the conduct of Admiral 
 Lord Keith in breaking the convention of El Arish, 
 &c., were made during the session, and were ne- 
 gatived by great majorities. Parliament was pro- 
 rogued, not by the king in person, but by com- 
 mission, on the 2nd of July. 
 
 As early as the 15th of April intelligence had 
 been received in London of the astonishing success 
 of our attack at Copenhagen, and of the death of 
 the Emperor of Russia. Various circumstances had 
 converted Paul from an ally into the bitterest 
 enemy of Great Britain, but the weightiest of them 
 all was the disappointment of his irrational ex- 
 pectation of obtaining possession of the island of 
 Malta. Some few of the fugitive, despicable 
 Knights of Malta had repaired to Petersburgh to 
 solicit Russian assistance, and to captivate the 
 vain czar by offering to elect him grand-master of 
 their order. It was even pretended that a legal 
 election was made to this effect, although there 
 were not nearly knights enough in Russia to form 
 a chapter, and although by the fundamental rules 
 of the order none but Catholics—none but mem- 
 bers of the Roman church who had taken the vows 
 of celibacy—could be admitted into it. Paul, the 
 reader will remember, was the head of the anta- 
 gonist Greek church. Bonaparte, who wanted to 
 keep Malta for himself, as a convenient stepping- 
 stone between France and Egypt, flattered Paul 
 that his claim would be acknowledged throughout 
 Europe, and that nothing but the cupidity of the 
 English could prevent his obtaining quiet pos- 
 session of the island. The First Consul had further 
 gratified the vanity of the insane czar by affecting 
 to submit to his mediation, and to spare the kings 
 of Sardinia and Naples solely in consequence of 
 Paul’s generous intercessions. Just as the French 
 garrison in La Valetta surrendered to the English, 
 Paul announced in the Petersburgh Gazette that 
 several political reasons induced the belief that a 
 rupture between Russia and England might ensue, 
 and that therefore he had collected large bodies of 
 troops on the coasts of the Baltic. Towards the end 
 of October (1800) he published in the same news- 
 paper a declaration, importing that on mounting 
 his throne he found his states involved in war, 
 provoked by a great nation (France) which had 
 fallen into dissolution ; that, conceiving the coalition 
 
 Speers nny -sureenp—resp- reser wns vn LC LOT SL 
 
160 
 
 a mere measure of preservation, he had been in- 
 duced to join it; that he did not think it necessary 
 then to adopt the system of an armed neutrality on 
 sea for the protection of commerce, as he did not 
 doubt that the sincerity of his allies and their re- 
 ciprocal interests would be sufficient to secure the 
 flag of the northern powers from insult ; but that 
 now, being disappointed by the perfidious enter- 
 prises of a great power (England), which had 
 sought to enchain the liberty of the seas by cap- 
 
 turing Danish convoys, the independence of the. 
 
 maritime powers of the North appeared to him to 
 be openly menaced ; and that therefore he consi- 
 dered it a measure of necessity to have recourse to 
 an armed neutrality, the success of which was ac- 
 knowledged in the time of the American war. 
 Paul also pretended, apparently without the slightest 
 ground, that the English ministers, who had nego- 
 tiated with him, and had induced him to become a 
 member of the coalition, had promised to restore 
 the island of Malta to the Knights—who had shown 
 that by themselves they could not keep it. On the 
 7th of November he stated in his Gazette, that 
 he had learned that Malta had been surrendered to 
 the English, but, as it was yet uncertain whether 
 the agreement entered into on the 30th of Decem- 
 ber, 1798, would be fulfilled, according to which 
 this island, after capture, was to be restored to the 
 order, of which his majesty the Emperor of all the 
 Russias was now grand-master, he, the emperor, 
 being determined to defend his rights, was pleased 
 to command an embargo to be laid on all English 
 ships in the ports of the empire. This was fol- 
 lowed in a few days by another declaration, pub- 
 lished in the same Gazette, importing that, as two 
 English ships in the harbour of Narva, on the ar- 
 rival of a military force to put them under arrest, 
 in consequence of the embargo, had made resist- 
 ance, forced a Russian soldier into the water, and 
 afterwards weighed anchor and sailed away, his 
 imperial majesty was pleased to order that the 
 remainder of the English vessels in that harbour 
 should be burned: that, having received the cir- 
 cumstantial account of the English general’s taking 
 possession of La Valetta and the island of Malta in 
 the name of the king of Great Britain, and hoisting 
 the English flag alone, his imperial majesty, in- 
 vensed at such a breach of good faith, was deter- 
 mined that the embargo should not be taken off 
 till the conditions of the convention concluded in 
 November, 1798, should be fulfilled. Above three 
 hundred British vessels were seized, and the cap- 
 tains and crews of them were hauled on shore, put 
 into irons, and sent into the interior of the country, 
 not without threats of undergoing the horrors of 
 the knout and of the Siberian exile. By another 
 proclamation this madman ordered that all the 
 English goods and effects whatsoever on shore 
 should be sequestrated and sold forthwith. A few 
 of his creatures congratulated him on the glory of 
 standing at the head of the great northern confed- 
 eracy; but the nobility and landed proprietors, 
 who were incensed by a hundred other freaks, and 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 rible tyranny, saw nothing but the annihilation of 
 the trade of Russia in this quarrel with England, 
 and nothing in the continuance of such a system of 
 government but destruction tothemselyes and total 
 ruin to the empire. 
 
 Sweden and Denmark were unfortunately too 
 ready to join Paul, and to work out the purposes 
 of the French. The Danes, in particular, had per- 
 sisted, ever since the beginning of the war, in 
 carrying French goods and articles contraband of 
 war, and had resisted or eluded the search wher- 
 ever they were able so to do. In December, 1799, 
 a Danish frigate, convyoying some merchantmen, 
 fired into an English man-of-war’s boat that was 
 
 sent to make the search. The Danish government’ 
 
 disavowed and condemned the conduct of their 
 officer. But in the summer of 1800 another and 
 a more serious collision took place. The ‘ Freya’ 
 Danish frigate, with a convoy under her protection, 
 was met in the Channel by four English frigates. 
 An officer from the nearest of the English frigates 
 went on board the ‘ Freya’ and desired leave to 
 search the merchantmen. The Danish captain re- 
 plied that he could give no such permission with- 
 out violating his instructions. After some alterca- 
 tion, the Dane persisting in his refusal, the English 
 officer returned on board his own frigate, which 
 presently was laid alongside the Danish frigate. 
 The captain of the ‘Freya’ was again desired to 
 permit the search, and his negative was replied to 
 by a broadside. The Dane returned the fire, and 
 several sailors were killed and wounded on each 
 side. At last the Danish frigate surrendered to 
 superior force, and was carried, together with her 
 convoy, into the Downs. Lord Whitworth was 
 immediately sent to the court of Denmark on a 
 special mission ; and, to give more weight to his 
 arguments, his lordship was accompanied by ten 
 ships of the line, three 50-gun ships, and_ several 
 frigates, under the command of Vice-Admiral Dick- 
 son. On arriving at the Sound some Danish ships 
 of the line were found moored across the narrowest 
 part of it; but, after various manceuvres, the Eng- 
 lish fleet, without any hostile encounter, reached 
 Copenhagen roads, and seemed to threaten the 
 bombardment of that capital. In this presence the 
 Danish government came to what was called an 
 amicable adjustment. On the 29th of August 
 
 Lord Whitworth and Count Bernstorff signed a 
 convention, agreeing that the ‘Freya’ and ccnvoy 
 
 should be repaired at English expense, and then 
 released; that the right of the British to search 
 convoys should be discussed on a future day in 
 London ; but that in the meantime Danish yessels 
 should only sail under convoy in the Mediterranean, 
 for protection against the Algerines, and should be 
 liable to search as heretofore. As soon as Paul 
 proposed his armed neutrality, the Danes, who 
 
 alone were likely to be formidable to us by sea, 
 
 joined it enthusiastically, and commenced making 
 immense preparations. 
 
 ‘The confederacy of the three northern powers, 
 
 by the incessant operation of a capricious and hor- | 
 
 a 
 
=a. 
 re ¢ 
 
 Guar. VILL] 
 
 under the influence of France, against England’s 
 naval supremacy, would soon have become formid- 
 able, if extraordinary efforts had not been made to 
 crush it. With this view a fleet was dispatched 
 from Yarmouth Roads, on the 12th of March, 
 consisting of eighteen sail of the line, and a number 
 of frigates and smaller vessels, under the command 
 of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, with Vice-Admiral 
 Lord Nelson as his second. The Russian, Swedish, 
 and Danish effective force in the Baltic was esti- 
 mated at more than forty sail of the line; but defi- 
 ciency in naval tactics (on the part of the Russians 
 and Swedes), it was presumed, would neutralise 
 this numerical superiority. As negotiation was 
 preferred to war, the Hon. Mr. Vansittart was em- 
 barked with full powers to treat. He left the ficet 
 in the Scaw, and proceeded in a frigate, with a flag 
 of truce, to Copenhagen, but returned unsuccessful 
 from his mission, which only served to stimulate 
 the Danes, and give them time to augment their 
 means of defence. Nelson disapproved of distant 
 negotiation: he said, ‘‘ The Dane should see our 
 flag every moment he lifts up his head,’? and 
 urged the necessity of instant decision; but the 
 pilots magnified the dangers of the expedition, and 
 more days were dissipated in inactivity. Admiral 
 Parker sent a flag of truce, to inquire of the go- 
 vernor of Elsineur if he meant to oppose the passage 
 of the fleet through the Sound. The governor re- 
 plied that the guns of Cronenberg Castle would 
 certainly be fired at them.* Sir Hyde was there- 
 fore persuaded to try the passage of the Belt. 
 “Let it be by the Sound, by the Belt, or anyhow,” 
 said Nelson, “ only lose not an hour.’? At last, 
 on the morning of the 30th of March, the British 
 fleet proceeded into the Sound, the van division 
 commanded by Nelson, the centre by Sir Hyde, 
 and the rear by Admiral Graves. The strait at 
 Elsineur is less than three miles across, and in 
 mid-channel vessels would be exposed to shot from 
 the batteries on either side. But, although a fire 
 was opened from about a hundred pieces of cannon 
 and mortars from Cronenberg Castle, not a shot 
 was fired from the Swedish shore. The fleet there- 
 fore passed in safety within a mile of that coast, 
 and about mid-day anchored between the island of 
 Huen and Copenhagen. The admirals, with some 
 of the senior captains and commanding officers of 
 artillery and troops, then proceeded to reconnoitre 
 the enemy’s defences, which, in vessels of various 
 kinds, supported by extensive batteries, were of 
 the most formidable description. At a council of 
 war, Nelson offered to make the attack with ten 
 sail of the line and the small craft. Sir Hyde gave 
 him twelve line-of-battle ships, and left all to his 
 judgment. The approach to Copenhagen was by 
 a channel extremely intricate and little known; the 
 Danes, having removed all the buoys, considered 
 this channel impracticable for so large a fleet; but 
 
 * An aide-de-camp of the Crown Prince came on board the English 
 fleet. Having something to write down, and finding the pen offered 
 to him a bad one, he threw it away, saying, ** Admiral, if your 
 cannons are not better pointed than your pens, we have not much 
 to fear from you.”—WNelson’s Letters to Lady Hamilton. 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 161 
 
 Nelson himself saw soundings made, and new 
 buoys laid down, nor ceased day or night until this 
 arduous preliminary duty was fully effected. At first 
 it was determined to attack from the eastward, but 
 another examination of the Danish position, on the 
 31st, induced Nelson to commence operations from 
 the southward. On the morning of the 1st of April 
 the fleet anchored within two leagues of the town, off 
 the north-western extremity of the Middle Ground, 
 a shoal covering the whole sea-front of Copenhagen. 
 In the channel that separates this shoal from the 
 city the Danish block-ships, praams, &c. &c. were 
 moored, flanked at the end nearest the town by the 
 formidable Crown batteries. Nelson, with Captain 
 Riou of the ‘ Amazon,’ again examined the enemy’s 
 position, and soon after his signal to weigh was 
 answered by a cheer throughout the whole division. 
 Riou led the way ; and the whole division anchored 
 at the farther extremity of the shoal as the day 
 closed, the headmost of the enemy’s line being 
 about two miles distant. As his own anchor 
 dropped, Nelson called out, ‘‘ I will fight them the 
 moment I have a fair wind.”? The night was 
 passed in completing the necessary orders and ar- 
 rangements. The morn of the 2nd of April dawned, 
 with a favourable south-easterly wind. Nelson 
 signalised for all captains. Riou had two frigates, 
 two sloops, and two fire-ships given him, to act 
 as circumstances might require: every other ship 
 had its station appointed. The land forces and 
 500 seamen, under Captain Freemantle and the 
 Hon. Colonel Stewart, were to storm the Crown 
 battery as soon as its fire should be silenced. 
 At about nine o’clock the pilots were called on 
 board the ‘ Elephant,’ Nelson’s flag-ship, but 
 their indecision as to the bearings of the shoal and 
 the exact line of deep water shewed the danger of 
 trusting to their guidance. At length Mr. Alex- 
 ander Bryerly, master of the ‘ Bellona,’ undertook 
 to lead the fleet, and went on board the ‘ Edgar’ 
 for that purpose. The other ships began to 
 weigh in succession. Simultaneously Admiral 
 Parker’s eight ships did the same, and took 
 up a position nearer to the mouth of the har- 
 bour, but too distant to do more than menace 
 the north wing of defences. A nearer approach 
 was impracticable ; at least in sufficient time to be 
 useful in the engagement. ‘The ‘ Agamemnon ’ 
 got immovably aground, as did the ‘ Bellona’ and 
 the ‘ Russell.’ Their absence from their intended 
 stations was seriously felt. At about ten o’clock 
 the cannonade commenced. For nearly half an 
 hour only five ships were engaged ; at about half- 
 past eleven the action became general. Owing to 
 the currents, only one of the gun-brigs could get 
 into action, and only two of the bombs could reach 
 their station in the Middle Ground, and open their 
 mortars on the arsenal. At the end of three hours, 
 few if any of the Danish force had ceased firing, 
 and the contest had taken no decisive turn. All 
 
 the floating batteries and gun-boats must be de- 
 stroyed or silenced, before Nelson could get at the 
 
 ships of the line and the great land-batteries of the 
 K 
 
162 
 
 Danes. At this time, seeing signals of distress at 
 the mast-heads of three English line-of-battle ships, 
 and the slow progress of three that he had dispatched 
 as a reinforcement, the commander-in-chief threw 
 out the signal to discontinue the engagement: this 
 was communicated to Nelson, but he continued to 
 walk the deck, and appeared to take no notice of it. 
 Soon after, he inquired if his signal for close action 
 was still hoisted, and, when answered in the affirma- 
 tive, said, ** Mind you keep it so.” The other ships 
 of the line, looking only to Nelson, continued the ac- 
 tion. But Riou’s little squadron (which had gal- 
 lantly taken the place destined for the three disabled 
 line-of-battle ships) was saved by the signal. Being 
 nearer to the commander-in-chief, Riou obeyed it, 
 exclaiming, as he unwillingly drew off, ‘*‘ What 
 will Nelson think of us?”? He had been wounded 
 in the head, and was sitting on a gun encouraging 
 his men, when, just as the ‘ Amazon’ showed her 
 stern to the battery, his clerk was killed by his 
 side. Another shot swept away several marines, 
 and a third raking shot cut him in two. Nelson 
 and the whole fleet bitterly deplored the loss of 
 “the gallant good Riou.’’ At about half-past 
 one the fire of the Danes slackened, and before 
 two it had nearly ceased ; but the vessels whose 
 flags had been struck fired on the boats as they 
 approached to take possession of them, and Nel- 
 son at one time thought of sending in the fire- 
 ships to burn the surrendered vessels. The shot 
 from the Trekroner, and from the batteries at 
 Amak island, struck the surrendered ships, and the 
 fire of the English, in return, was even more de- 
 structive to these poor devoted Danes. - It was 
 then that Nelson wrote thus to the Crown Prince :— 
 “* Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson has been commanded 
 to spare Denmark when she no longer resists. 
 The line of defence which covered her shores has 
 struck to the British flag: but, if the firing is con- 
 tinued on the part of Denmark, he must set on fire 
 all the prizes that he has taken, without having the 
 power of saving the men who have so nobly de- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book wy 
 The reply was, ‘“‘ Lord Nelson’s object in sending 
 the flag of truce was humanity: he therefore con- 
 sents that hostilities shall cease, and that the 
 wounded Danes may be taken on shore. And 
 Lord Nelson will take his prisoners out of the 
 vessels, and burn or carry off his prizes as he shall 
 think fit. Lord Nelson, with humble duty to his 
 royal highness the prince, will consider this the 
 greatest victory he has ever gained, if it may be 
 the cause of a happy reconciliation and union be- 
 tween his own most gracious sovereign and his 
 majesty the King of Denmark.” Sir Frederick 
 Thesiger was a second time dispatched, and the 
 Danish adjutant-general was referred to the com- 
 mander-in-chief for a conference upon this over- 
 ture. Nelson availed himself of the moments thus 
 gained to get his crippled ships under weigh, and 
 the imminent danger from which he had extricated 
 them soon became apparent :—his own ship, the 
 ‘Elephant,’ and three others remained fixed upon 
 the shoal for many hours. Nelson left the ‘ Ele- 
 phant’ soon after she took the ground. ‘ Well,” 
 said he, ‘‘ I have fought contrary to orders, and I 
 shall perhaps be hanged. Never mind ; let them !”? 
 It was soon agreed that a suspension of hostilities 
 should take place for twenty-four hours, that all 
 the prizes should be surrendered, and the wounded 
 Danes carried on shore. Nelson went on shore to 
 confer with the Crown Prince, to whom he says 
 he told more truths than he probably had ever heard 
 in his life—perhaps more truths than any sovereign — 
 prince had ever heard. The prince asked him — 
 why the British fleet had forced its way up the 
 Baltic. He replied: “To crush and annihilate 
 a confederacy formed against the dearest interests 
 of England.” Pointing out Bernsdorf, the prince’s 
 minister, who was present, and who was believed 
 to be wholly devoted to France, he said he was the 
 author of the confederacy, and answerable for all 
 the blood which had been spilt. In consequence 
 of his bravery and his humanity Nelson, on his 
 landing, was received with huzzas and shouts of 
 
 — 
 
 a 
 
 tk et eee 
 
 fended them. ‘The brave Danes are the brothers, 
 and should never be the enemies, of the English.” 
 A wafer was given him, but he ordered a candle 
 to be brought, and sealed the letter with wax. 
 ‘“* This,” said he, ‘‘is no time to appear hurried.or 
 informal.” Captain Sir Frederick Thesiger carried 
 this letter with a flag of truce. The Trekroner 
 battery, from the inadequate force of Riou’s little 
 squadron, had suffered scarcely any injury; to- 
 wards the close of the action it had been manned 
 with nearly 1500 men, and the intention of storm- 
 ing it was abandoned, It was also deemed not 
 advisable to advance against the yet uninjured part 
 of the Danish line, but, while the wind continued 
 fair, to remove the fleet out of the intricate channel 
 from which it had to retreat. In about half an 
 hour after Thesiger’s departure, the Danish adju- 
 tant-general, Lindholm, came, bearing a flag of 
 truce, when the Trekroner ceased firing, and the 
 action closed. He brought an inquiry from the 
 prince :— What was the object of Nelson’s note? 
 
 triumph, and was escorted to the palace amidst the — 
 acclamations of the admiring multitude. The — 
 negotiation continued for five days,* and on the — 
 9th Nelson concluded an armistice for fourteen — 
 weeks, the Danes engaging to suspend all pro- 
 ceedings under the treaty of armed neutrality, — 
 which they had entered into with Russia and | 
 
 i 
 * A difficulty arose respecting the duration of the armistice. The 
 Danes fairly stated their fears of Russia; and Nelson frankly told 
 them his reason for demanding a long term was, that he might have - 
 time to go and destroy the Russian fleet, and then return to C Ms 
 hagen. Neither party would yield upon this point; and one of the | 
 Danes hinted at the immediate renewal of hostilities. ‘ Renew hos- — 
 tilities |” cried Nelson to one of his friends ; ‘‘ tell him we are r | 
 at a moment !—ready to bombard this very night!” The conference, | 
 however, proceeded amicably on both sides; and, asthe commissioners _ 
 could not agree upon this head, they broke up, leaving Nelson to settle 
 it with the prince. A levee was held forthwith in one of the state- 
 rooms,—a scene well suited for such a consultation ; for all these rooms 
 had been stripped of their furniture, in fear of a bombardment. Toa — 
 bombardment also Nelson was looking at this time: fatiga atid | 
 anxiety, and vexation at the dilatory measures of the commander-in- 
 chief, combined to make him irritable; and, ashe was on the wayto 
 the prince’s dining-room, he whispered to the officer on whose. arm _ 
 he was leaning, ** Though I have only one eye, I can see all this will 
 burn well.” After dinner he was closeted with the prince; andthey 
 agreed that the armistice should continue fourteen weeks.—Southey, 
 
7 
 ie ; 
 at @ 
 p. re 
 mes | 
 
 ~ Guar, VIII] 
 
 Sweden ; that their prisoners sent on shore should 
 be accounted for in case of a renewal of hos- 
 tilities ; that the British fleet should have per- 
 mission to provide itself at Copenhagen or along 
 the coast, with whatever it might require for the 
 health and comfort of the seamen; and that four- 
 teen days’ notice should precede any recommence- 
 ment of hostilities. In this interval the prizes 
 were disposed of. Six line-of-battle ships and 
 eight praams had been taken, but only one ship, 
 the ‘ Holstein,’ 64, was sent home, all the others 
 being burned, and sunk in such shoal water, that 
 the Danes soon after recovered their brass batter- 
 ing-cannon. As early as the morning of the 3rd 
 all the grounded English ships, except the 
 ‘ Désirde,”’ were got afloat. Nelson repeatedly de- 
 clared that no men could have behaved with more 
 bravery and steadiness than the Danes; that the 
 battle of Copenhagen was the most dreadful affair 
 he had ever witnessed, that this was the most 
 difficult achievement, the hardest-fought battle, the 
 most glorious result that had ever graced the 
 annals of our country. The loss was terrible, the 
 British counting in killed and mortally wounded 
 about 350, and in recoverably and slightly wounded 
 850; while the Danes, at the lowest estimate, lost 
 1700 or 1800 in killed and wounded, the number 
 of their prisoners taken and restored, but to be ac- 
 counted for, exceeding 4000.* Nelson, who was 
 raised to a viscountcy for this exploit, lamented the 
 slowness, over-caution, and indecision of his su- 
 perior officer (Sir Hyde Parker) both during and 
 after the action; and, with no empty boast, he 
 wrote to Ear] St. Vincent, that, if he had been left 
 to himself, he would have settled all this business 
 in the Baltic much sooner, and far more effectually 
 than was done. Three days after the signing of 
 the armistice, Parker sailed from Copenhagen 
 roads with the main body of the fleet, leaving 
 Nelson in the ‘St. George’ with a few other ships, 
 to follow as soon as their spars and rigging were 
 repaired. The fleet directed its course along the 
 channel called ‘ The Grounds,’ between the islands 
 of Amak and Saltholm. In this tedious and dan- 
 gerous navigation most of the men-of-war were 
 obliged to tranship their guns into merchant ves- 
 sels: and, even thus lightened, several of the 
 largest ships grounded in that shallow water. In 
 all these operations the difficulties of the navigation 
 were extreme, and the skill and perseverance which 
 our sailors brought to overcome them were at least 
 as honourable as the gallantry they had displayed 
 in action.+ It was expected that the most dreadful 
 
 * Southey, Life of Nelson.—Nelson’s own Letters to Lady Hamil- 
 ton.—James, Naval Hist,—Captain Schomberg, Naval Chronology. 
 —Dispatches and other papers in Annual Register. 
 
 + Nelson, even in speaking of the actual battle, places the dangers 
 of the navigation foremost. He says, ‘‘ This was a day when the 
 greatest dangers of navigation were overcome.” 
 
 Nearly every part of this Baltic expedition was attended by dangers 
 of navigation, and by daring and successful experiments. In the 
 month of July, when both Sir Hyde Parker and Nelson had left the 
 fleet, Sir Charles Maurice Pole, who had succeeded to the command, 
 performed another novel exploit :—The fleet being ordered home, Sir 
 Charles carried it, with all its ships of the line, two of which were 
 three-deckers, safely through the intricate channel of the Little Belt, 
 and that too against a contrary wind, thus increasing the high reputa- 
 tion the British navy had gained in these inland seas.—James, NV. Hist. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 163 
 
 disasters would attend their present daring experi- 
 ment: but at Jength all the ships extricated them- 
 selves from the passage; and, to the astonishment 
 of Danes, Swedes, Russians, and Prussians, entered 
 the Baltic by this route. Their first object was to 
 attack the Russian fleet, which was lying frozen 
 up at Revel, waiting for a thaw, im order to get to 
 sea and join the Swedes. But on his way Sir Hyde 
 Parker received intelligence that a Swedish squa- 
 dron was at sea, and, altering his course, he went 
 in pursuit of it. The Swedes, who had only six to 
 oppose to sixteen British ships of the line, sought 
 refuge behind the strong forts of Carlscrona. Sir 
 Hyde sent in a flag of truce, stating that Denmark 
 had concluded an armistice, and requiring an ex- 
 plicit declaration from Sweden, whether she would 
 adhere to or abandon the hostile measures which 
 had been taken against the rights and interests of 
 Great Britain? The Swedish admiral replied 
 that he could not answer this question, but that 
 his sovereign would soon be at Carlscrona. Gus- 
 tavus, who had been dragged into the confederacy 
 against his will, arrived; and on the 22nd of 
 April he informed Sir Hyde that he would not re- 
 fuse to listen to equitable proposals, made by 
 deputies furnished with proper authority by the 
 King of Great Britain to the united northern 
 powers. Sir Hyde then sailed for the Gulf of 
 Finland, but was soon overtaken by a dispatch- 
 boat from the Russian ambassador at Copenhagen, 
 bringing intelligence that the Emperor Paul was 
 dead, and that his son and successor, Alexander, 
 had accepted the offer made by England to his 
 father, of terminating the dispute by a convention. 
 Paul had perished on the 24th of March, nine 
 days before the battle of Copenhagen; but his 
 death had been concealed for some time at Peters- 
 burgh, and was tardily communicated to the 
 neighbouring countries: he was reported to have 
 died of apoplexy; but the real circumstances of 
 his death were these :—A conspiracy was formed 
 among some of the courtiers, ministers, and officers 
 nearest to the person of the mad emperor, some of 
 whom had discovered that he contemplated sending 
 them to join the innumerable exiles he had already 
 sent into Siberia, and all of whom were disgusted 
 with his savage, capricious, and imbecile tyranny. 
 These individuals went in a body, by night, to his 
 sleeping apartment, found him naked and standing 
 trembling behind a screen, and stated to him the 
 acts of injustice and cruelty of which he had been 
 guilty, the ruin he was bringing upon the country, 
 the universal discontent of his subjects, concluding 
 by recommending him to abdicate quietly in favour 
 of his eldest son Alexander, and presenting him an 
 act of abdication to sign, on the score of mental 
 weakness. Paul refused, saying he was emperor 
 and would remain emperor. A violent dispute, 
 and then a scuffle ensued, in which the wretched 
 lonely man, who had not near him one arm to de- 
 fend him, or one voice to plead for mercy, was 
 knocked down, trampled upon, and strangled. His 
 body was then laid in the bed he had quitted, just 
 
 Ee ee ee ee ee 
 
164 
 
 as the conspirators were bursting into the room; 
 and on the following morning a physician was 
 called in to certify that he had died of apoplexy. 
 Sir Hyde Parker, who felt assured that the death 
 of Paul had dissolved the Baltic coalition, and that 
 the young emperor Alexander would pursue a sys- 
 tem of policy the very opposite to that of his father, 
 thought it no longer necessary to go to Revel to 
 look after the Russian fleet; but Nelson, who had 
 joined him off Carlscrona, was of opinion that they 
 ought to take advantage of the wind that was blow- 
 ing fair for Revel; that negotiations with Russia 
 would be best conducted with a fleet near at hand 
 to back them ; that nothing ought to be left to the 
 uncertain events of time, and the very possible 
 chances of insincerity on the part of the new Rus- 
 sian government; and it was with mortification 
 that Nelson saw his commander-in-chief returning 
 to Kioge Bay, on the coast of Zealand, there to 
 wait patiently for what might happen. As rein- 
 forcements had arrived from England, the fleet 
 counted eighteen good sail of the line, a force which 
 Nelson held to be sufficient to sweep the Baltic 
 clean of all enemies’ ships. On the 5th of May 
 dispatches arrived from London, recalling Sir Hyde, 
 and appointing Nelson commander-in-chief. Nel- 
 son’s first signal as chief was to hoist in all boats 
 and prepare to weigh; and on the 7th the fleet 
 sailed from Kioge. Nelson called at Carlscrona, 
 where he demanded and obtained an assurance 
 from the Swedes that the British trade should not 
 be molested by them: he told the Swedish admiral 
 that he hoped nothing would disturb the returning 
 harmony, but that he was not directed to abstain 
 from hostilities should he meet with a Swedish fleet 
 at sea. Leaving a part of his fleet to watch these 
 Swedes, he sailed away with ten ships of the line, 
 two frigates, a brig, and a schooner, for the Gulf 
 of Finland, vowing that he would have all the 
 English shipping, subjects, and property restored, 
 and that he would not suffer Russia to mix up:the 
 affairs of Denmark or Sweden with Paul’s irregular 
 embargo and the seizure of our ships. The wind 
 was fair, and in four days Nelson was in Revel 
 Roads. But the bay had been clear of firm ice on 
 the 29th of April, while Sir Hyde Parker was lying 
 idle at Kioge. The Russians had cut through the 
 ice in the mole six feet thick, and had sailed on the 
 3rd of May for Cronstadt, where they were pro- 
 tected by land batteries and other works of the 
 most formidable description. Nelson said that if he 
 had but found them at Revel, and if the necessity 
 of treating them hostilely had continued, nothing 
 could have prevented his destroying them zn toto 
 in a couple of hours, He now opened some friendly 
 communications with the shore, and wrote to the 
 Emperor Alexander, urging the immediate release 
 of British subjects and restoration of British pro- 
 perty, and proposing to wait on his imperial ma- 
 jesty personally, in order to congratulate him on 
 his accession. An answer from Petersburgh ar- 
 rived on the 16th of May: Alexander’s ministers, 
 though professing the most friendly disposition to- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ee 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 ae 
 
 wards Great Britain, declined Nelson’s visit unless 
 he came in a single ship, made use of expressions 
 
 which implied distrust and suspicion, and said no- 
 
 thing about the late embargo. ‘* These Russians,” 
 said Nelson, ‘* would not have written thus if their 
 fleet had been at Revel!’? He wrote immediatel 
 to tell the court of Petersburgh ‘‘ that the word of 
 a British admiral was as sacred as that of any so- 
 vereign in Europe ;”’ and “* that under other cir- 
 cumstances it would have been his anxious wish 
 to have paid his respects to the emperor, and to 
 have signed with his own hand the act of amity 
 between the two countries.”” And then he quitted 
 Revel, where it was pretended that his presence 
 created alarm, and stood out to sea, leaving only a 
 brig behind to bring off some provisions, and to 
 settle some accounts on shore. ‘I hope,”’ said he, 
 writing to the British ambassador at Berlin, ‘‘ that 
 all is right: but seamen are but bad negotiators ; 
 for we put to issue in five minutes what diplomatic 
 forms would be five months doing.” On his way 
 down the Baltic he met the Russian admiral 
 Tchitchagoff, who was dispatched by Alexander to 
 enter into friendly explanations. Nelson then 
 anchored off Rostock, where at the beginning of 
 June he received dispatches from the Russian court, 
 expressing their regret that there should ever have 
 been any misunderstanding between them ; inform- 
 ing him that the British subjects and vessels which 
 Paul had detained were ordered to be liberated ; 
 and inviting him to Petersburgh in whatever mode 
 might be most agreeable to himself. But Nelson, 
 whose services had chiefly been in warm, sunny 
 climates, and whose shattered, enfeebled constitu- 
 tion could ill bear the cold and the fogs of the 
 North, was now only anxious to return home, 
 feeling that if he stayed there he must die: on the 
 6th of June he returned to Kioge Bay; on the 13th 
 he received the sanction of the Admiralty to an 
 application he had made to return to England ; 
 and on the 19th he quitted the Baltic in the ‘ Kite’ 
 brig, declining, in his unwillingness to weaken the 
 British force, to accept of a frigate—a very unusual 
 sacrifice of comfort on the part of an admiral and 
 commander-in-chief, and the more to be remarked, 
 as Nelson, who is said never to have gone to sea 
 without suffering sickness for the first day or two, 
 though in a line-of-battle ship, was known to suffer 
 excessively from sea-sickness in a small vessel.* 
 
 In the meanwhile Lord St. Helens had proceeded 
 
 from London to Petersburgh; and on the 17th of 
 June, just two days before Nelson betook himself 
 to his comfortless berth on board the little brig, 
 a convention was. signed by his lordship and the 
 
 Russian ministers, in which all disputes were ad- 
 
 justed. Sweden and Denmark acceded to the same 
 terms, which included a more explicit definition of 
 
 the right of search, and of the law and principles — 
 of blockade, together with a limitation of articles — 
 
 considered as contraband of war to those of real 
 
 military and naval stores, ammunition, &c. The 
 
 Danish troops, who had occupied Hamburgh, eva- 
 * Southey, Life of Nelson, 
 
 ei | 
 - 
 
 ij 
 
i. 
 
 r-- 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 cuated that great trading city; the navigation of 
 the Elbe, and of the other German rivers which 
 had been closed, was re-opened to our flag ; and 
 Frederick William III. of Prussia, who had suc- 
 ceeded his father, Frederick William II., in No- 
 vember, 1797, who continued in vassalage or sub- 
 servience to the French, and who had seized not 
 only the independent trading city of Bremen, but 
 also the whole of the electorate of Hanover, the 
 hereditary dominion of George III., where he had 
 levied contributions, and acted as a conqueror and 
 sovereign, engaged to give up both these acquisi- 
 tions, and to withdraw his troops within his old 
 frontiers after certain amicable arrangements should 
 be completed. Except on the part of Denmark, 
 there seemed no reason to doubt the sincerity and 
 willingness with which these northern powers 
 abandoned French interests. Besides breaking the 
 confederacy of the Baltic, the battle of Copenhagen 
 and the death of Paul gave the death-blow to sundry 
 French schemes, and induced Bonaparte really to 
 wish for some short peace or truce. He had hoped, 
 by some sudden (though certainly not very prac- 
 ticable) junction of the fleets of Denmark, Sweden, 
 and Russia, with the navies of France and Spain, 
 to obtain the mastery of the British Channel and 
 the narrow seas, and to be enabled by these means 
 to throw an invading army of 100,000 men on our 
 coast. He had also secretly concerted with the 
 madman Paul the plan of a wondrous expedition 
 to India, which he found was not to be conquered 
 or disturbed from the side of Egypt: . 30,000 
 choice French troops were to have marched into 
 Poland, there to join 30,000 select Russian infantry, 
 and 40,000 Cossacks and other irregular cavalry ; 
 and from the heart of Poland this allied army was 
 
 to have proceeded to the shores of the Caspian Sea, 
 
 either to embark and cross that sea, or to march 
 by the way of Persia, whose consent had been soli- 
 cited both by the Czar and the First Consul. But 
 these splendid visions—and they were but visions 
 at the besi—were now dissolved into the thinnest 
 air, 
 The fate of the ’rench army in Egypt was sealed 
 about a fortnight before the battle of Copenhagen. 
 In the year 1800 General Kleber, after losing the 
 fortress of El Arish, and retreating before a’‘Turkish 
 army commanded by the grand vizier, and essen- 
 tially aided by an English squadron under Sir Sid- 
 ney Smith, found himself under the necessity of 
 agreeing to evacuate Egypt. On the 24th of Ja- 
 nuary, 1800, a treaty was concluded at El Arish 
 between the Turks and the French, and confirmed 
 by Sir Sidney Smith, who had received no instruc- 
 tions to that effect either from his commander-in- 
 chief or from the government at home. By the 
 conditions of this treaty the French army was to 
 be allowed to return to Europe unmolested. Pitt’s 
 ministry, naturally averse to permit the arrival of 
 such reinforcements to Bonaparte, then contending 
 or about to contend with the Austrians in Italy 
 and with the imperialists in Germany, sent out 
 
 orders to Lord Keith not to ratify any such con- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 165 
 
 vention as that of El Arish. The commander-in- 
 chief of our Mediterranean fleet accordingly ac- 
 quainted Kleber by letter that he could not permit 
 any of his troops to depart for France before they 
 had been exchanged in Europe as prisoners of war ; 
 that he must lay down his arms, give up the plun- 
 der which had been made in Egypt, and the French 
 transports and stores in the port of Alexandria, 
 before any capitulation could be agreed to. Hos- 
 tilities recommenced immediately, and on the 20th 
 of March Kleber routed the undisciplined, disor- 
 derly army of the grand vizier. But at this cri- 
 tical moment the Moslems of Cairo rose in insur- 
 rection, murdered many of the French that were in 
 that city, and drove the rest of them into the citadel. 
 Instead of following the flying vizier, Kleber was 
 obliged to return to Cairo. After some sanguinary 
 conflicts, and many atrocities committed on both 
 sides, the insurgents were obliged to capitulate. 
 Kleber was engaged in the very hopeless task of 
 restoring order and tranquillity, when, on the 13th 
 of June, he was stabbed by an Arab. He was 
 succeeded by General Menou, whose indecision or 
 pusillanimity had left so good an opening to Bona- 
 parte at the crisis of the 13th Vendemiaire,* who 
 had pretended to turn Mussulman, taking the turban 
 and the name of Abdallah, assiduously frequenting 
 the mosques, and marrying an Egyptian wife; and 
 who appears really to have been one of the most 
 contemptible of these French republican generals, 
 who, generally speaking, were raised far above 
 contempt by martial bravery and ability. The 
 French were, however, enabled to maintain them- 
 selves in Egypt until the arrival of the British 
 army under Sir Ralph Abercromby ; and in the 
 interval four French ships of war and some fast- 
 sailing transports escaped our cruisers, ran into 
 
 the mouth of the Nile, and landed important suc- 
 
 cours of troops and ammunition. By the Ist of 
 January, 1801, the fleet under Admiral Lord Keith, 
 which carried this small but excellent army, had 
 all come safely to anchor in the Bay of Marmorice, 
 on the coast of Karamania, one of the finest har- 
 bours in the world. Here the troops were kept 
 waiting for some time for horses which had been 
 promised from Constantinople to mount the cavalry, 
 and for other necessaries, some of which arrived 
 very slowly, and some not at all. But the time 
 was not entirely wasted ; the whole army was fre- 
 quently exercised in the manceuvre of Janding, 
 which they were shortly to practise in presence of 
 the enemy; and these manceuvres and experiments 
 were repeated until it was nicely ascertained that 
 6000 men might be landed in the most perfect 
 order, and ready for immediate action, in the short 
 space of twenty-three minutes.t 
 
 The capital defect of English armies had hitherto 
 been the almost total want of a proper staff of 
 officers, educated and trained in the scientific parts 
 of their profession, in planning and mapping, in 
 catching at a glance, or on a rapid survey, the 
 
 * See ante, p. 94. 
 $# Dr. Clarke, Travels in Egypt. 
 
166 
 
 military capabilities of a country for offensive or 
 for defensive operations, in judging of the relative 
 value of positions, of the best lines whereby to 
 advance or retreat, and of taking the field advan- 
 tageously, compactly, and scientifically. Through 
 the want of such a staff, and through the obsti- 
 nacy and blindness of ignorance, the armies led 
 by the Duke of York in the Netherlands and in 
 Holland had taken the field hap-hazard, or like 
 geese scattered over a common, rarely or never 
 knowing anything of the country that was before 
 them or behind them, or on their flanks ; and time 
 after time nothing but the doggedness of the Bri- 
 tish soldiery, who would never know when they 
 were beaten, had saved the army from an ignomi- 
 nious surrender. But now this capital defect was 
 beginning to be supplied by young officers who had 
 been duly educated in the military school or col- 
 lege established at Marlow, under the superintend- 
 ence of General Jarry, a veteran, who had devoted 
 his whole life to this sort of science, and who had 
 had ample practice and experience in the wars of 
 Frederick the Great. It was in this Egyptian 
 campaign that the French generals were first 
 astonished and alarmed at the skill and excellence 
 of the British staff.* During the stay of the army 
 in Marmorice Bay it was joined by two ‘more 
 regiments of dismounted cavalry; and a sloop of 
 war arrived in the harbour, which had a few days 
 before captured a French brig, having on board a 
 general officer and 5000 stand of arms for the use 
 of the French army in Egypt. ‘The horses for the 
 cavalry at last arrived; but they were such sorry 
 beasts, that the English dragoons were ashamed to 
 mount them or take charge of them, and every 
 commanding cavalry officer solicited rather to 
 serve with his corps as infantry.t About two 
 hundred of these half-starved, diminutive, galled 
 steeds were, however, kept for the cavalry, and 
 about fifty for the artillery, the remainder being 
 shot or sold for a dollar a-head. Miserable in- 
 deed would have been the state of our cavalry had 
 it not been amended by the purchase of some horses 
 in the neighbourhood of Marmorice ; but this sup- 
 ply was small, for the measure was not pressed 
 vigorously till too late: if the purchase had been 
 previously made, it would have rendered the dra- 
 goons an effective force, and have saved an enor- 
 
 * See General Foy’s History of the Peninsular War, in which the 
 able French officer acknowledges this fact, and the admirable qualities 
 of the staffs employed by Wellington and his generals in Spain and 
 Portugal. The best of our staff-officers who served in the Peninsular 
 war had been trained at Marlow under old Jarry. [We learn from 
 a register in the war-office that old Jarry was not commissioned 
 ** commandant of the royal military college of the senior depart- 
 ment”’ until the 25th of June, 1801; but he had given instructions 
 some time before receiving his commission—such practical instruc- 
 tions as no other man in England at that time could have given. ] 
 We believe we only repeat good professional opinions in saying 
 that there has been no regularly progressive improvement in these 
 branches of military education; that the military college of Sand- 
 hurst, the successor or continuator of the military college of Marlow, 
 has dwindled into a mere school of mathematics, where little or 
 nothing that is practical is practically taught, and where old Jarry’s 
 field lessons are never repeated, and scarcely known except by 
 tradition. The government of this country cannot too soon direct 
 its attention to this important subject. 
 
 + It is said that Lord Elgin, our ambassador at Constantinople, 
 had purchased 400 or 500 very good horses, but that these had been 
 changed on the road, through the knavery of the people employed 
 in conducting them through Asia Minor. 
 
 I Sr SSS ees 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Some gun-boats which had been : 
 
 mous expense. : 
 fitted out at Rhodes now joined the fleet, being in- 
 tended for covering the landing in Egypt, further 
 to facilitate which operation a number of small — 
 vessels, decked, but of easy draught of water, were 
 
 hired. General Moore, who had been sent to ex- 
 amine the grand vizier’s army, stationed at Jaffa, 
 returned with the melancholy intelligence that it 
 was weak as to numbers, without discipline, and 
 infected with the plague, so that its co-operation 
 offered no apparent advantage. At the same time 
 it was ascertained that the French force in Egypt 
 was far greater than had been supposed: it had 
 been calculated that, through disease, battle, assas- 
 sination, wounds, and other casualties, the army 
 under Menou had been reduced to 13,000 or ~ 
 14,000 men, whereas it was now found that, — 
 through reinforcements they had received, and — 
 some hundreds of auxiliaries they had raised, the 
 French were more than 30,000 strong, having with 
 them above 1000 pieces of cannon, exclusive of up- — 
 wards of 500 unserviceable pieces, in boats, ship- 
 ping, &c. When Abercromby had received all his 
 reinforcements, he could not muster more than — 
 15,330 men, including 996 sick, 500 Maltese, and — 
 all kinds and descriptions of people attached to an — 
 army except officers :—the effective force, therefore, — 
 could not be, at the highest computation, above — 
 12,000. Nothing was seen or heard of the Turkish 
 Capitan Pasha, whose co-operation with a fleet and 
 land troops had been promised: the Capitan Bey — 
 arrived, but he brought with him only two cor- — 
 vettes, his line-of-battle ship having been dismasted — 
 by lightning. It was resolyed, however, to wait — 
 no longer. The weather had been very stormy 
 for some time, and all the country pilots declared — 
 that, till after the equinox, it would be madness to — 
 attempt a landing on the Egyptian coast. But to 
 their astonishment the fleet, on the 23rd of Fe- — 
 bruary, weighed anchor, and set sail in a gale of : 
 wind. The number of vessels was so great, being 
 
 175 sail of all descriptions, that it took them a 
 
 whole day to clear out of Marmorice Bay and 
 
 assemble in the roads. According to an eye-wit- — 
 ness, a nobler sight could not be beheld. On the 
 2nd of March the whole fleet anchored in Aboukir — 
 Bay ; the men-of-war, riding exactly where the 
 battle of the Nile was fought, for one of our ships 
 
 of the line chafed her cables against the wreck of — 
 ‘ L’Orient,’ whose anchor she afterwards fished — 
 up. From the 2nd tothe 7th of March the state 
 of the weather prevented any operations in boats; 
 but, on the afternoon of the ‘7th, the weather mo- | 
 derating, Sir Ralph Abercromby and Sir Sidney 
 Smith, whose services were invaluable, went in 
 boats to reconnoitre the coast, and fix upon the best — 
 place for landing the troops. On the following 
 
 morning some gun-vessels and armed launches — 
 were sent forward to clear the beach, 5500 soldiers | 
 were put into the boats, and at a given signal a | 
 simultaneous dash was made for the shore. 
 Though rapidly, the boats advanced in perfect | 
 order, the soldiers sitting between the seats close 
 
Leg ae 
 Lee ag 
 co } 
 
 x 
 
 Mg 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 together, with unloaded arms. When the boats 
 came within range, fifteen pieces of ordnance 
 from the opposite hill, and the artillery of Aboukir 
 Castle, opened upon them with round and grape 
 shot ; and, on advancing still nearer, musket-balls 
 were showered upon them. The British soldiers 
 huzzaed occasionally, but never attempted to re- 
 turn a shot. Numbers of the soldiers were killed 
 and wounded ; some boats were sunk, some turned 
 aside to save the drowning men, but the mass of 
 them rowed steadily forward, until they touched 
 the strand, when the soldiers with wonderful ra- 
 pidity got all on shore, and General Moore, draw- 
 ing them up in line, gave the welcome word to load. 
 Some of the English guards were roughly handled 
 by a division of French cavalry before they could 
 form; some loss was sustained in ascending the 
 sand-hills which rose above the beach; but in less 
 than half an hour those heights were carried, and 
 the French fled, leaving all their field-pieces behind 
 them.* Advancing against the French, who took 
 post on the ridge of heights between Aboukir and 
 Alexandria, Sir Ralph Abercromby, with sailors 
 dragging the artillery through a deep and burning 
 sand, came to an indecisive action on the 13th of 
 March, and had a horse killed underhim. On the 
 
 # * Some of our troops formed and loaded as they quitted the boats, 
 while others pushed on without having time to load; and, notwith- 
 standing the rapid fire of musketry which assailed them, and the vio- 
 lent charge of the enemy, the latter were forced to give way. Not 
 more thun 2000 of our men were on shore when the French retreated ; 
 but every step was contested and carried. There was scarcely any in- 
 terval between the landing of the troops and their pushing up the hills, 
 under difficulties and amidst dangers that baffle the powers of descrip- 
 tion. Some marched up in an excellent line with charged bayonets, 
 while others proceeded on their hands and knees. But, however they 
 ascended, or whatever dangers they encountered, they gained their 
 object.”—Journal of the Forces which sailed from the Downs in April, 
 1800, §c.; with the subsequent Transactions of the Army under the com- 
 mand of General Sir Ralph Abercromby, in the Mediterranean and Egypt, 
 §¢.; by Aineas Anderson, Lieut. 40th Regt. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1801. 
 
 167 
 
 19th Fort Aboukir capitulated; and on the 20th 
 
 General Menou having arrived from Cairo, the 
 whole of the French disposable force was concen- 
 trated at Alexandria. The British forces now oc- 
 cupied excellent positions near the ground where 
 they had fought on the 13th. About three o’clock 
 in the morning of the 21st, when all was quiet, the 
 report of a musket was heard at the extremity of 
 the British left: this was followed by the report of 
 acannon; scattered musketry succeeded, and then 
 the roar of two more guns was heard. Larly as it 
 was, our men were all under arms; but it was still 
 dark, and, although some streaks of grey were per- 
 ceptible in the eastern horizon, the morning seemed 
 slow to break. While all eyes and ears were turned 
 towards the left, whence the sound of the firing 
 proceeded, of a sudden loud shouts were heard in 
 front of our right—shouts that were presently suc- 
 ceeded by a crash of musketry. Menou had hoped 
 to take the British by surprise, and had ordered a 
 general attack: the surprise failed, but the attack 
 soon became general enough, and the fighting more 
 terrible than any the French had hitherto met with. 
 For awhile the darkness was made greater by the 
 smoke of the guns and small-arms, and one of the 
 greatest difficulties of our troops was to discern 
 friends from foes. But anon the tardy dawn 
 brightened into day, and then the fighting went en 
 with increased vivacity.* At first the well-mounted 
 French cavalry made great impression, turning our 
 right wing and getting into the rear of our infantry ; 
 but the 42nd Highlanders and the 28th regiment, 
 aided by the flank companies of the 40th, and fight- 
 
 * In the dark, some confusion was unavoidable; but our men 
 whenever the French appeared, had gone boldly up to them. Even 
 the French cavalry breaking in had not dismayed them.”— General 
 Moore's own Journal, 
 
 AB 
 
 Poy 
 =< 
 
 4 
 ne A 
 i i ! i 
 
 ii i 
 
 | se 
 ie 
 bene uh it 
 
 BATTLE OF ALEXANDRIA, 
 
168 
 
 ing at the same time to the front, flanks, and rear, 
 not only kept their ground, but fired such volleys 
 that the field was presently covered with men and 
 horses, while other horses were galloping without 
 their riders: in short, the French cavalry was de- 
 stroyed. In several parts of the field the French 
 and English, who had exhausted their ammuni- 
 tion, were seen pelting one another with stones. 
 Wherever the British bayonet was used, its success 
 was complete and terrible. In addition to a re- 
 doubt, the English had possession of the ruins of 
 an ancient Roman palace, surrounded by a low stone 
 wall, like a Turkish cemetery. Menou had promised 
 a louis d’or to every French soldier who should pene- 
 trate into that quadrangle. After several desperate 
 attempts, the French, attacking on three sides at 
 once, got within the walls. Here they were re- 
 ceived by the 58th and 23rd, and followed by a 
 part of the 42nd, who blocked up every exit and 
 completely cut off their retreat. When they had 
 expended all their ammunition, our people had re- 
 course to stones and the butt-ends of their muskets. 
 Then they transfixed the French with their bayonets 
 against the walls of the old building, and covered 
 the whole area with the blood and bodies of their 
 enemies. Seven hundred Frenchmen were shot or 
 bayoneted among those ruins—scarcely a man of 
 them that had entered escaped. While this tre- 
 mendous conflict, which decided the fate of the 
 day, was at its height, Sir Ralph Abercromby, 
 riding towards the ruins, was nearly surrounded 
 by a party of French horse. A French officer 
 made a savage thrust at the old general; but Sir 
 Ralph, receiving the sabre under his left arm, 
 wrested the weapon from his antagonist. A French 
 hussar then rode up to aim a surer blow; but a 
 Highland soldier, perceiving his intention, and 
 being without ball, put his ramrod into his musket 
 and with it shot the hussar. Unfortunately the 
 brave old general, who had always been accused of 
 exposing his person too much, and whose shortness 
 of sight had often led him into danger, received a 
 sabre-wound in the breast in this mel¢e with the 
 French hussars ; and, a short time after, he re- 
 ceived a musket-shot in the thigh. Between nine 
 and ten o’clock a.m. the battle ceased. It was not 
 until he saw the French flying that Sir Ralph could 
 be prevailed upon to quit the field. He had con- 
 tinued walking about, paying no attention to his 
 wounds ; officers who went to him in the course 
 of the action had returned without knowing from 
 his manner and appearance that he had been 
 wounded at all, and even now many ascertained 
 it only by seeing the blood trickling down his 
 clothes: but at last, when exertion was no longer 
 necessary, his spirit yielded to the weakness of the 
 body: he became faint, was put into a hammock, 
 and was carried off the field in the midst of the 
 blessings and tears of the soldiery, who loved him 
 as a father. The cut or contusion in the chest was 
 trifling ; but the shot wound was dangerous from 
 the first, and proved mortal: he was carried almost 
 immediately to Lord Keith’s flag-ship, where he 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 { 
 ! 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 é 
 
 = es 
 
 expired on the evening of the 28th.* General 
 Moore was badly wounded early in the action, as 
 was also Brigadier-General Oakes; but both, like 
 their veteran commander-in-chief, remained on the 
 field till the action was over. Sir Sidney Smith, 
 who was serving on shore, and who was always in 
 the hottest fire, and Brigadier-General Hope, were 
 also wounded. On the other side, General Roize, 
 who commanded the French cavalry, was killed on 
 the field, with nearly all the men and horses he 
 led into action; and Generals Lanusse and Rodet 
 died of their wounds. The total number of British 
 killed and wounded is stated at about 1400, and 
 that of the French at more than double that num- 
 ber. The field was covered with the wounded and 
 the dead: on it were found above 1700 French, 
 1040 of whom were buried by the English in the 
 course of two days in the ground on which they 
 had fought and fallen, “I never,’ says General 
 Moore, “saw a field so strewed with dead!” A 
 corps which, like nearly all the regiments now 
 under Menou, had formed a part of the conquer- 
 ing army of Italy, and which in its pride had 
 taken the name of “The Invincible,’ was almost 
 annihilated. A standard was taken inscribed with 
 victories and exploits in Italy.t Menou, as well 
 as all his army, had gone into action quite confi- 
 dent of success: their numbers were from 12,000 
 to 14,000. Our effective force on the ground did 
 not exceed 10,000; and during nearly all the con- 
 flict, about half of that number had to sustain the 
 concentrated attack of the French, the left wing, 
 which had been the first threatened with attack, 
 and which continued to be observed by General 
 Regnier with 800 French, scarcely coming into 
 action at all until Menou was already in full 
 retreat. The French prisoners confessed that the 
 battles in Italy were nothing compared to those 
 they had fought since the landing of the British 
 in Egypt: some of them said they had never 
 fought till now.t 
 
 The consequences of the three victories we had 
 obtained were of the utmost importance; the 
 Arabs, who had witnessed fighting such as their 
 
 * «Sir Ralph was a truly upright, honourable, and judicious man ; 
 his great sagacity, which had been pointed all his life to military mat- 
 ters, made him an excellent officer. The disadvantage he laboured under 
 was being extremely short-sighted. He therefore stood in need of good 
 executive generals under him. It was impossible, knowing him as I 
 did, not to have the greatest respect and friendship for him...... 
 The only consolation I feel is, that his death has been nearly that 
 which he himself wished; and his country, grateful to his memory, 
 will hand down his nanie to posterity with the admiration it deserves.” 
 —Private Journal of Lieutenant- General Sir John Moore, in Life by his 
 Brother. 
 
 + As—** Le Passage de la Serivia, le Passage du Tagliamento, le 
 Passage de 1 Isonzo, la Pris de Graz, le Pont de Lodi.” 
 
 ¢ Sir Robert Wilson, History of the British Expedition to Egypt, — 
 &c.—Eneas Anderson, Lieut, 40th Regt., Journal of the Forces, f 
 and of the Transactions of the Army under the command of General 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby, &c.—James Carrick Moore, Life of his Bro- 
 ther, Lieut.-General Sir John Moore.—Narrative of a Private Soldier 
 in his Majesty's 92nd Regt. of Foot, written by himself. 
 
 Our forces had heen reduced by the actions of the 8th and 13th: — 
 many men were taken away for the care of the wounded; and three 
 regiments had been left in the rear to prosecute the siege of Fort 
 Aboukir. é 
 
 Even according to Regnier’s boastful account of the battle, the — 
 French had 9700 men, including 1500 cavalry, together with 
 pieces of artillery. The British had only some 300 cavalry, and _ 
 those miserably mounted. We had only two 24-pounders, and 34 
 field-pieces, and these were spread along the whole line. ty 
 
“Zs 
 
 — Gnar. VIII] 
 
 fathers had handed down to them no tradition of, 
 flocked into the British camp with abundance of 
 provisions ; the remnant of the splendid Mameluke 
 cavalry soon began to re-appear in Upper Egypt ; 
 and even the quiet, spiritless Fellahs thought of 
 resenting the wrongs and insults they had sustained 
 from the French soldiery. The French at Aboukir 
 soon surrendered : in a few days the Capitan Pasha’s 
 fleet anchored there, and landed 5000 or 6000 
 Turks ; and the grand-vizier, who had been dozing 
 at El Arish, began to rouse himself. General 
 (afterwards Lord) Hutchinson succeeded to the 
 command of the British army, which was rein- 
 forced in the month of April by 3000 men. 
 Rosetta and Fort Julien were taken from the 
 French about the middle of April. Alexandria, 
 into which Menou had retired, was almost insu- 
 lated from the rest of Egypt by General Hutchin- 
 son, by cutting through the embankments which 
 served to retain the waters of the Aboukir lake, 
 and by inundating the dry bed of the ancient Lake 
 Mareotis: a British flotilla ascended the Nile, 
 capturing the convoys of provisions destined for 
 the French, and carrying several works which had 
 been erected on the banks of that river. The 
 grand-vizier was crossing the desert, and the troops 
 from India were expected to be soon at Suez. 
 Leaving General Coote to maintain the lines be- 
 fore Alexandria with 6500 men, General Hut- 
 chinson proceeded to Ramanieh, where the French 
 had collected 4000 men, who had dug intrench- 
 ments and raised batteries. Having driven the 
 enemy from this important post, Hutchinson pro- 
 ceeded still farther up the Nile towards Cairo, 
 which the grand-vizier was approaching in an 
 opposite direction. Before he could effect a junc- 
 ture with the vizier’s army, the French sallied out 
 of Cairo and attacked it ; but so spiritless had they 
 become in their adversity, that 5000 disciplined 
 republicans, with twenty-four pieces of artillery, 
 allowed themselves to be repulsed by a most irre- 
 gular Turkish army. Now 1200 Mamelukes, 
 finely equipped, joined the vizier, and Turks, Arabs, 
 Syrians, and Copts, all offered their aid to expel 
 the French. Cairo was soon invested; and, on 
 the 27th of June, the French general, Belliard, 
 capitulated, on the condition that his troops, with 
 their arms, baggage, field-artillery, and effects, 
 should be embarked and conveyed to the French 
 ports of the Mediterranean at the expense of the 
 allied powers. The French, who issued out of 
 Cairo, exceeded 13,000 in all: they left behind 
 them 313 heavy cannon and 100,000 lbs. weight 
 of gunpowder. At this moment the Anglo-Indian 
 army, under Major-General Baird, was ascending 
 the Red Sea. Baird, who had sailed from Bom- 
 bay on the 7th of April, with about 2800 British, 
 2000 Sepoys, and 450 of the East Indian Com- 
 pany’s artillery, reached Jeddah, on the Red Sea, 
 on the 17th of May, and was there joined by an 
 English division from the Cape of Good Hope, 
 consisting of the 6lst regiment, some squadrons 
 of light horse, and a strong detachment of ar- 
 
 169 
 
 tillery. On the 8th of June Baird reached Kosseir 
 and commenced landing his troops; but it was the 
 month of July before his van division began to 
 cross the burning deserts which lie between the 
 Red Sea and Egypt ; and, before he could unite his 
 forces at Cairo, Menou capitulated upon the same 
 conditions as Belliard, and Egypt was cleared of 
 the French.* 
 
 In the month of March, the court of Madrid, 
 considering that it could only stop French inya- 
 sion by submitting in all things to the will of the 
 First Consul, declared war against Portugal; and 
 towards the end of April a Spanish army, com- 
 manded by Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, in- 
 vaded the Portuguese provinces. In June the 
 court of Lisbon purchased a treaty of peace (the 
 treaty of Olivenza), by yielding some territory to 
 Spain, and by engaging to shut their ports against 
 the English. Bonaparte refused to concur in this 
 treaty, and sent a French army, 25,000 strong, 
 through Spain to attack Portugal. The Spaniards 
 not merely allowed the passage of these Frenchmen, 
 but gave them every countenance and assistance 
 they could. The French soon invested Almeida 
 and menaced both Lisbon and Oporto. The help- 
 less Portuguese could do little beyond imploring 
 English succours in troops, ships, and money. 
 Some money—300,000/.—and some ships were 
 sent; but our government thought it could spare 
 no more troops than the three or four regiments 
 that were already in the country. During these 
 contests, however, an expedition was sent from 
 England to take possession of the island of Madeira, 
 in order to secure it for Portugal. As the negotia- 
 tions for peace with England, which had been se- 
 cretly renewed in the course of the summer, were 
 now drawing to a conclusion, and as the French 
 generals were gratified by enormous donations or 
 bribes, the operations of the invading army were- 
 soon suspended; and by a definitive treaty, con- 
 cluded at Madrid in the last days of September, 
 Bonaparte agreed to withdraw his troops and re- 
 spect the independence and integrity of Portugal, 
 the court of Lisbon, on their part, agreeing to con- 
 firm to Spain all the territory which had been 
 ceded by the late treaty of Olivenza; to make over 
 to France one-half of Portuguese Guiana ; to shut 
 allthe ports and roads of Portugal, in Europe, 
 against all English vessels until the conclusion of 
 peace between France and England ; to nullify all 
 preceding treaties and conventions with England ; 
 to treat France, in all matters of commerce, as the 
 most favoured nation, and to admit all French 
 commodities and merchandise whatsoever, particu- 
 larly French broad-cloths. By a more secret 
 article the Portuguese court paid immediately 
 twenty millions of francs to the French republic. 
 
 The naval war became very languid, the French 
 
 * Sir Robert Wilson.—AEneas Anderson.—Le Comte de Noé, Mé- 
 moires Relatifs 4 l’Expedition Anglaise partie du Benyale en 
 1800, &c. 
 
 The Comte de Noé, who was then a royalist emigrant and an 
 officer in the British 10th regiment of the line, went with Sir 
 David Baird on this expedition, his account of which contains 
 several interesting details not to be found clsewhere. 
 
170 
 
 and Spanish fleets not venturing out of port, and 
 their detached squadrons putting to sea only in 
 the absence of the English. Admiral Gantheaume, 
 however, escaped out of Brest with seven sail of 
 the line and two frigates, got through the Straits 
 of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean, and, 
 while our fleet in that sea was occupied on the 
 coast of Egypt, he contrived to pick up two of 
 our frigates, and the ‘ Swiftsure? a 74-gun ship. 
 The ‘Swiftsure,’ unaided and alone, fought two 
 French 80-gun ships, at the closest quarters, for 
 more than an hour, and did not strike until two 
 other French line-of-battle ships were within gun- 
 shot and closing fast upon her, Another French 
 squadron carrying troops from Toulon to Cadiz 
 was not so fortunate. It was obliged by contrary 
 winds to put into Algesiras Bay, right opposite 
 to Gibraltar. It consisted of three line-of-battle 
 ships, a Gallo-Venetian 36-gun frigate, and some 
 smaller craft. On the 6th of July, two days after 
 its arrival, this squadron was attacked by Rear- 
 Admiral Sir James Saumarez, with six sail of the 
 line; but the bay of Algesiras was defended by 
 several heavy land-batteries, some of them situated 
 on a rock about a quarter of a mile from the shore, 
 and others on commanding cliffs to the north and 
 south of the town: the cross-fire of these batteries 
 completely flanked the entrance to the harbour, 
 which harbour was in itself extremely difficult to 
 navigate, being surrounded by reefs of sunken 
 rocks, For some time, only three of Saumarez’s 
 ships could get into action, and they had to con- 
 tend with the three French line-of-battle ships, a 
 number of gun-boats, and the land-batteries, which 
 were well served. When two other English ships 
 brought their fire to bear, one of them, the ‘ Han- 
 nibal,’ struck and stuck fast on the rocks, where 
 she was soon dismasted and almost destroyed by 
 the terrible fire of the French and Spaniards, 
 After a stern contest, in which he was repeatedly 
 baffled by flaws of wind, Saumarez hauled off: he 
 left the ‘Hannibal’ behind him to strike; but he 
 had sunk five Spanish gun-boats, and had mate- 
 rially injured both the Spanish forts and the 
 French ships of the line. A few days after this 
 affair, five Spanish ships of the line and three 
 frigates, and another French ship of the line, came 
 into Algesiras Bay. By working night and day, 
 Admiral Saumarez repaired the damages he had 
 sustained in the late action, and on the afternoon 
 of the 12th of July, as the combined squadron, 
 now consisting of ten sail of the line, three frigates, 
 and an immense number of gun-boats, was working 
 round Cabarita Point to get into the Straits, he 
 made a dash at it with only five ships of the line, 
 two frigates, a polacca, and a hired armed brig. 
 The allies, whose chief anxiety was to land the 
 troops at Cadiz, went away before the wind through 
 the Straits, and it was night before the English 
 could get fairly up with them. The Spaniards 
 fought but loosely: one of their immense line-of- 
 battle ships, carrying 112 guns, was set on fire, 
 and as she blew up she set fire to another ship of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the same flag and of the same immense size, which 
 mounted in the air soon after her; between the — 
 two, nearly 1800 lives were lost. A Spanish 
 74-cun ship was taken; the rest of the com- 
 bined squadron, much crippled and in a frightful — 
 state of confusion, reached Cadiz. 
 
 On the Ist of August, Admiral Lord Nelson, 
 with a flotilla of gun-boats and other small vessels, 
 stood over to the coast of France to reconnoitre the 
 preparations said to be making for the invasion of 
 England. On the 4th, he made an experimental 
 attack upon the flotilla which lay at the mouth of 
 Boulogne harbour. He sunk two floating batteries | 
 and destroyed a few gun-boats which were outside 
 the pier. But on the night between the 15th and 
 16th, going right into the harbour, he was repulsed 
 with considerable loss.* 
 
 Many circumstances, some of which are explained 
 in the narrative of the events of this year, and 
 some of which will fall to be noticed hereafter, 
 now rendered the First Consul really eager for 
 some short suspension of hostilities with Eng- 
 land. The Addington administration, which had 
 started as a peace ministry, agreed to prelimi- 
 naries, which were signed on the Ist of October. 
 The Turkish sultan and the young ezar Alexander 
 treated with the First Consul, and there was a 
 grand interchange of compliments and of promises, 
 which were never meant to be kept. In the month 
 of November, the Marquess Cornwallis went over 
 to France as ambassador plenipotentiary. From 
 Paris, where he was received with the greatest 
 honours and with the very lively joy of a part of 
 the population, his lordship repaired to Amiens, — 
 the place appointed for holding the conferences. — 
 The discussions, in which Cornwallis had to contend 
 with Joseph Bonaparte and the wily Talleyrand, — 
 were prolonged beyond all expectation, and were 
 several times all but broken off in anger and with © 
 mutual defiance, Great and reasonable jealousies — 
 were excited by the use the First Consul made of 
 the suspension of hostilities, which had followed 
 the signing of the preliminaries in October, in~ 
 sending out the French fleets; but, at last, on the © 
 27th of March, 1802, the definitive treaty of peace 
 
 - 
 
 was signed at Amiens, h 
 
 A.D. 1802.—The peace of Amiens found the two 
 great belligerent powers with scarcely the means 
 of carrying on an active warfare against each other, 
 Without allies and auxiliaries on the continent, 
 England could not hope to touch France by land; 
 with fleets ruined or blockaded, with a navy 
 completely disheartened, France could not expect 
 to touch England by sea. The brilliant and 
 romantic campaign in Egypt, which reminded the 
 French of the old prowess of the British infantry, 
 
 * Besides being moored by the bottom to the shore, the French 
 boats and other craft were defended by long poles headed with iron — 
 spikes projecting from their sides; strong nettings were braced up ~ 
 to their lower yards; they were strongly manned by soldiers and ~ 
 protected by land-battcries, the whole shore, moreover, being lined _ 
 with troops. Nelson had complained that the force put af his — 
 
 disposal was not sufficient; but he could never come in sight of ai o 
 enemy without fighting him. i 
 
 at 
 
Onap. VIII.) 
 
 and which told the nations of Europe that the new 
 Gallic armies were not invincible, allowed us to 
 treat with a better grace and less sacrifice of 
 national pride than at any previous period of the 
 war. We could also treat without any sacrifice of 
 public faith, for the coalized powers on the con- 
 tinent, who were engaged in their arduous struggle 
 at the times when the Foxites had recommended 
 negotiation with Bonaparte, had now yielded, for a 
 season, to the terrible First Consul, and had sought 
 terms for themselves without heeding us. There 
 could indeed be little doubt but that the elements 
 of a new coalition would soon be found, or created 
 by the ambition and oppressions of France ; but 
 for the present they did not exist: Austria and the 
 other powers stood in need of repose, and to rouse 
 them prematurely would be to hurry them into the 
 arena weak and dispirited. The land armies of 
 Great Britain were scattered over the globe, to 
 defend our vastly augmented Indian territories and 
 colonial possessions, We had increased our forces 
 to 168,000 men and 80,000 militia, exclusive of 
 130,000 sepoys in the East India Company’s service, 
 and we had besides above 120,000 volunteers in 
 the British Islands. Though, from the nature of our 
 empire, we could never collect these forces within 
 the limits of Europe; yet a better war-ministry, 
 and a government more disposed than that of Pitt 
 or of Addington to rely upon “native steel and 
 native ranks,’ might out of them, and by wise 
 and energetic, yet strictly constitutional, means of 
 recruiting and augmenting them in England, Scot- 
 Jand, and Ireland, have given to us that preponder- 
 ance as amilitary nation which we had in the days 
 of Marlborough, and were to regain under Wel- 
 lington before this Theban warfare could have any 
 real end. Since the month of February, 1793, the 
 British navy had been raised, by the building of 
 new and the capture of enemies’ ships, from 135 
 sail of the line and 133 frigates, to 202 sail of the 
 line and 277 frigates.* In the same time, the 
 navy of France had been reduced from 73 sail of 
 the line and 67 frigates, to 30 sail of the line and 
 35 frigates. At the time of the signing of the 
 treaty of Amiens, counting sloops, brigs, cutters, 
 d&c., we had nearly 800 war-vessels to array against 
 our foes. Counting armed vessels of all kinds, we 
 had captured 298 and destroyed 55 French ships, 
 The loss of the voluntary or forced allies of the 
 French had been comparatively great: the 
 Spaniards had lost, in captured and destroyed, 78 
 ships ; the Dutch, 86; and the affair of Copenhagen 
 had inflicted a tremendous blow on the navy of 
 the Danes. Our ships, like our land forces, were 
 spread over the globe ; but, after providing for the 
 security of the continents and isles and archi- 
 pelagoes of islands which owned our dominion, 
 we might always confidently count on collecting 
 in the European seas a force capable of contending 
 
 * The two years of greatest increase were 1796 and 1798: in the 
 first of these years, 82 ships, measuring 64,847 tons, were added to 
 the navy; and in the second of these years, 63 ships, measuring 
 80,910 tons, were added.— Tables in James’s Naval Hist. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 171 
 
 with the united fleets of all the maritime powers 
 
 of Kurope. And what was better than numerical 
 superiority, than the build of ships and the weight 
 of their metal, was the conviction which Howe, 
 Duncan, Jervis, Nelson, and old traditions had put 
 into the head and heart of every true British sailor, 
 that the meteor flag of England must ever, in fact 
 as well as in song, be victorious on its own proper 
 element. The notion was as prevalent among 
 English sailors that under Nelson and his compeers 
 and disciples battle was only another word for 
 victory, as it could have been in the minds of the 
 French soldiery under Napoleon Bonaparte and 
 the best of his lieutenants, Since the commence- 
 ment of hostilities in 1793, our mercantile shipping 
 had increased nearly one-third, while that of 
 France had been almost annihilated. Notwith- 
 standing her vast territorial acquisitions, the-per- 
 manent revenue of France was considerably less 
 now than it had been previous to the revolution, 
 while our permanent revenue was nearly doubled. 
 The present contest had breathed new life and 
 energy into the national character, which had been 
 considerably depressed and degraded by the result 
 of the American war; and this improved spirit 
 was seen in our manufactures, trade, and distant 
 colonies ; in our home government, and perhaps, 
 most of all, in our native literature, which, as a 
 whole, had been so long languid or inane. On the 
 dark side of the account was the enormous increase 
 of our national debt, which in nine years had 
 swelled from above 244,000,0002. to above 
 520,000,0002, fanded and unfunded. Much of this 
 money had been spent abroad for coalitions and 
 subsidies, much had been wasted in crude and 
 petty expeditions, and still more had indisputably 
 gone in plunder to loan-jobbers, government con- 
 tractors, commissioners, commissaries, and other 
 rapacious functionaries: our army had cost us 
 103,212,0002; our ordnance, 15,605,7702; our navy, 
 98,729,0002. 
 
 One great desire of the French was gratified by 
 England’s recognition of their so-called Republic, 
 to obtain which had certainly been one of the 
 motives which induced the First Consul to treat.* 
 All the absolute monarchies of the continent had 
 given this recognition long before, having been 
 reduced to negotiate on a footing of equality with 
 the Convention, the Direct<y, or the Consul. The 
 contracting parties to the treaty of Amiens were, 
 the king of Great Britain and Ireland on the one 
 part, and the French Republic, his majesty of 
 Spain and the Indies, and the Batavian Republic 
 on the other, The leading articles of the treaty 
 were :—Art. III, His Britannic majesty restored 
 to France, Spain, and Batavia all the possessions 
 and colonies which he had occupied or conquered 
 during the war, with the exception of Trinidad 
 
 * The clauses of this treaty were not calculated to inspire the 
 hope of a very long peace... .. But England, heretofore so 
 haughty in her bearing to the First Consul, had at length treated 
 with him as the head of the French government. This, as Bona- 
 parte was aware, boded well for the consolidation of his power.” — 
 Bourrienne (private secretary to Bonaparte), Memoirs. 
 
172 
 
 and Ceylon, which Spain and Batavia severally 
 ceded and guaranteed to his Britannic majesty. — 
 Art. VI. The Cape of Good Hope was to remain 
 to the Batavian Republic in full sovereignty, in 
 the same manner as previous to the war; and the 
 ships of every kind belonging to the other contract- 
 ing parties were to be allowed to enter the port, 
 and there purchase provisions as heretofore, with- 
 out being liable to pay other imposts than such as 
 the Batavian Republic subjected its own ships 
 to.—Art. VII. The territories and possessions of 
 our ally, Portugal, were to be maintained in their 
 integrity, such as they were antecedent to the war; 
 but that portion of Portuguese Guiana which had 
 been ceded, was to remain to the French Republic, 
 and Spain was to keep the territory on the frontiers 
 of Portugal which had been yielded to her by the 
 treaty of Olivenza—Art. VIII. The territories, 
 possessions, &c, of the Sublime Porte were to be 
 maintained in their integrity as they were before 
 the war or the invasion of Egypt—Art. IX. A 
 Veneto-Greek Republic, which had started up, 
 under French care,in the Seven or Ionian Islands, 
 on the destruction of the ancient republic of Venice, 
 which had possessed these islands for many 
 ages, was recognised by the contracting parties.— 
 Art. X. Malta, with its dependent isles, Gozo and 
 Comino, was to be restored to its old masters, the 
 Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem ; 
 the knights of the order were inyited to return 
 to La Valette, and there elect a new grand- 
 master; any election made previous to the 
 signing of the preliminaries of this peace was 
 declared to be null and void. In order to the 
 greater independence of the chapter, no individual 
 belonging either to England or France was hence- 
 forward to be admitted into the order. A Maltese 
 Language* was to be established, into which 
 natives of the islands should be admitted without 
 being bound to prove their nobility; these Maltese 
 knights were to enjoy all the privileges, distinc- 
 tions, &c., of the other knights, however noble ; 
 and, at the least, one-half of the municipal, admi- 
 nistrative, civil, judicial, and other employments 
 were to be filled by the natives of the islands of 
 Malta, Gozo, and Comino. The British troops were 
 to evacuate Malta and its dependencies within 
 three months from the exchange of the ratifica- 
 tions, or sooner, if possible, when all was to be 
 given up to the order, provided the new grand- 
 master, or commissioners duly authorized, were 
 there to receive the surrender, and that the Nea- 
 politan troops were arrived. The King of Naples 
 was to be invited to send two thousand of his 
 native troops to serve in garrison for one year after 
 the restoration of the knights, or longer, if the 
 Maltese force should not be at that period deemed 
 competent by the guaranteeing powers to garrison 
 the island. The independence and neutrality of 
 Malta and its dependencies were proclaimed, and 
 
 * The Knights of Malta were divided into seven nations, which 
 were called ‘‘ Langues,” or Languages—namely, those of Provence, 
 Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, Germany, and England. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book 
 
 the independence was to be guaranteed by Great 
 Britain, France, Austria, Spain, Russia, and 
 Prussia, The ports were to be open to the vessels 
 of all nations, except those belonging to the Bar- 
 bary powers.—Art. XI. The French “troops were 
 to evacuate every part of the kingdom of Naples — 
 and of the Roman States, except such portions of 
 the latter as had been annexed to the Cisalpine 
 Republic; and the British were to evacuate all 
 the ports and islands they had occupied in the 
 Mediterranean or in the Adriatic—Art, XII. The 
 evacuations, cessions, and restitutions named in 
 the treaty were to be made, in Europe, within one 
 month; on the continents and seas of America 
 and Africa, within three months; and on the 
 continent and seas of Asia, within six months, 
 after the exchange of the ratifications—Art, XV. 
 The Newfoundland fisheries were to be placed on 
 the same footing as previously to the war.— 
 Art, XVIII. The Prince of Orange, late Stadtholder, 
 or the branches of the House of Nassau, were to 
 receive equivalent compensations for the losses 
 they could prove they had sustained, as well with 
 respect to private property as by the change of 
 constitution adopted in the Batavian Republic. 
 But by a secret article appended to this eighteenth 
 article, the Batavian Republic was exempted from 
 finding any part of this compensation, and, as 
 no other state or territory was pledged for it, 
 it was pretty evident that no compensation to 
 the House of Nassau Orange was intended.*— 
 Art, XXII. The present treaty, done at Amiens 
 on the 27th of March, 1802, was to be ratified 
 within thirty days, or sooner, if possible; and the 
 ratifications were to be exchanged in due form at 
 Paris.+ 
 
 The first use which Bonaparte made of the 
 suspension of hostilities at sea was to send out a 
 formidable armament to recover San Domingo 
 from the revolted or the free and independent 
 negroes. On the 14th of December, 1801, only 
 ten wecks and four days after the signing of the 
 preliminaries, a great fleet and a strong land 
 army set sail from Brest for the West Indies, The 
 English ministry, being solemnly assured that this 
 armament had no other object in view than that 
 
 * During the negotiations, there had been a talk of giving the 
 family of the ex-stadtholder equivalents or compensations in some 
 part of Germany. ; 
 
 + Between the Ist of October, 1801, when England agreed to the — 
 preliminaries, and the 27th of March following, when the definitive 
 treaty was signed, Bonaparte concluded a separate treaty of peace 
 with the young Emperor Alexander of Russia. This treaty was 
 little more than a series of secret articles, nearly every one of which | 
 betrayed the arrogance or the ambition of the two contracting 
 parties, and their determination of setting themselves up as arbiters — 
 or dictators in all the affairs of Europe, and to every independent — 
 sovereign. In one of these secret articles, the young ezar and the — 
 First Consul undertook ‘‘to preserve a just equilibrium between 
 the Houses of Austria and Prussia.” In another, they agreed to 
 come to a proper understanding ‘‘ how to terminate upon amicable — 
 terms the affairs of Italy and of the Holy See.” In another, the 
 agreed **to act in concert respecting the King of Sardinia.” In 
 another article they provided for the revival of the Armed Neutrality, — 
 or for the creation of a still more formidable system to deprive — 
 England of the maritime rights she claimed: the ezar and the 
 consul, in order ‘‘ to restore a just equilibrium in the different parts — 
 of the world, and to insure the liberty of the seas, binding themselves f 
 to act in concert for the attainment of those objects by all measures, — 
 whether of conciliation or vigour, mutually agreed on between them, 
 for the good of humanity, the general repose, and the independence — 
 of governments.” ae 
 
 ’ 
 
 ae 
 
~ Guar. VIILJ 
 
 which was publicly stated, agreed not to molest 
 it on its passage; but, as the force was so great, 
 and as the treaty itself was not yet signed, it was 
 deemed advisable to watch proceedings and to 
 reinforce our own fleet on the West Indian station ; 
 and to these ends Admiral Mitchell was despatched 
 with seven sail of the line. That French expedi- 
 tion, of which further details will be given, did 
 not, because it could not, depart from the object 
 laid down; and it terminated, not in any re- 
 occupation, or aggrandizement, or seizure, but in 
 the almost total destruction of the forces engaged 
 in it. But a few days after its first departure 
 from Brest, Bonaparte realized another great 
 project, which gave him in name—what he 
 already had in fact—the presidency and actual 
 command of all Lombardy and those other rich 
 portions of Italy which by his last treaty with 
 the Emperor of Germany (the treaty of Lunéville) 
 were to constitute the independent Cisalpine 
 Republic, to be freed alike from French and from 
 Austrian dominion and interference. On the 11th 
 of January, 1802, the First Consul entered Lyon 
 in triumph, and met there a grand consulta from 
 the Cisalpine Republic. This deputation of Italian 
 republicans, 450 in all, including nobles of ancient 
 names, and clerical, legal, military, literary, and 
 commercial notables, had all been drilled and 
 instructed beforehand by M. Petiet, the minister 
 Bonaparte had left at Milan, and for several days 
 preceding the First Consul’s arrival at Lyon they 
 had been indoctrinated by Talleyrand.* Before 
 crossing the Alps, some of these 2/ustrissimi were 
 informed that Bonaparte wished to convert his 
 temporary elective authority into a permanent 
 and hereditary one; that as regarded the French, 
 some caution and precaution were necessary ; and 
 that, as an excellent means of preparing the public 
 mind in France, they must offer him a presidency 
 or a consulship for life in Italy. The deputies 
 named a commission of thirty members, who 
 speedily drew up a report to the First Consul of 
 France on the state and prospects of the Cisalpine 
 Republic, stating that, owing to the heterogeneity 
 of its component parts, there was a want of 
 adhesion and of confidence among them ; that the 
 Cisalpina, being still only in her infancy, must 
 require the tutelage and support of France; that 
 there was no native Italian fit to be placed at the 
 head of the government, and that, therefore, they 
 
 * “Some went to Lyon through affection, some through force, 
 some through ambition. High were the expectations of men in the 
 Cisalpine Republic: in France, men watched most attentively all 
 that was doing. And yet it seemed strange that an Italian nation 
 should go into France to settle its government and fate.”—Carlo 
 Botta, Storia @ Italia, 
 
 When nations take such journeys, they are only fit for, and ought 
 only to expect, abasement and slavery. The deputation were indeed 
 requested by the Milanese and the rest of the Lombards to complain 
 of the licence and licentiousness of the French soldiery, of the 
 tyranny of the new government, of the new taxes, of the progressive 
 dilapidation of property, and of countless acts of violence and 
 oppression; but these complaints of the suffering Lombards were 
 drowned in the applauses and rejoicings at Lyon, ‘‘It was a fine 
 spectacle,” adds Botta, ‘‘ for those who merely looked at the outside 
 of things; but it was a sad sight for those who looked within, 
 because it was arranged at Lyon how to extinguish by forms of 
 pad hb Italian liberty which had already almost perished through 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 173 
 
 must implore the First Consul of France, the real 
 father and creator of the infant Italian republic, 
 to take upon himself the chief direction of its 
 affairs. Without attempting to play the farce of 
 modesty, Bonaparte echoed their own report, 
 itself an echo of his own sentiments and wishes 
 as made known to the Italians through Petiet, 
 Talleyrand, and others. He gave emphasis to the 
 doctrine, that Upper Italy could not yet be evacu- 
 ated by the French armies which had lberated 
 it: he told them that “they should still be 
 protected by the strong arm of the first nation 
 of Europe, and that, as he found no one among 
 them who had sufficient claims to the chief 
 magistracy, he was willing to assume the direction 
 of their affairs, with the title of President, and 
 to retain that office as long as circumstances 
 should require.” Through calculation, the words 
 “for life” were dropped; and he was only 
 appointed president for ten years, especial care 
 being, however, taken to enact and declare that 
 at the end of that period he should be re-eligible. 
 He was to appoint to all offices, civil or military ; 
 to have the power of peace and war; to transact 
 all diplomatic business, &c., &c. He appointed 
 Melzi d’EHril his vice-president, and gave his 
 assent to a new constitution, which differed only 
 in a few particulars from the last mockery of 
 a constitution set up in France. The whole 
 business was finished by the 26th of January, 
 1802. It rendered the éndependent Cisalpine 
 Republic a mere appendage of France; it was 
 an infraction of the treaty of Lunéville; and, 
 if the Emperor of Germany had been in a 
 condition to renew hostilities, the British cabinet 
 would scarcely have carried the preliminaries of 
 peace to a definitive treaty. The young Emperor 
 of Russia, who had stipulated for a share in the 
 settlement of Italy, was highly incensed ; but he 
 shrunk from a rupture with Bonaparte, and was 
 not in a state to do or attempt much except as a 
 member of a new European coalition. Before the 
 signatures were set to the treaty at Amicns, other 
 usurpations on the part of the First Consul, and 
 other provocations most difficult to be endured by 
 a proud nation, took place; but it was evident 
 that the continental powers who had been our 
 allies stood in need of repose, and it was deter- 
 mined at all hazards that England should try the 
 not very honourable and not very safe experiment 
 of a short peace. 
 
 When the preliminaries were first announced to 
 the imperial parliament which met in the autumn 
 of 1801, the ex-minister Pitt assisted the Addington 
 administration in defending what they had done 
 and were doing. He said that, after the great 
 coalitions had all been dissolved, nothing remained 
 for us but to procure just and honourable condi- 
 tions of peace for ourselves and the few allies who 
 had not deserted us; that, as long as the peace 
 was honourable, he should prefer accepting terms 
 even short of what he thought the country entitled 
 to, to risking the result of the negotiation by too 
 
174 
 
 obstinate an adherence to any particular point. 
 On the other hand, his late colleagues, Lord 
 Grenville and Mr. Windham, censured the conduct 
 of the Addington administration as mean and 
 pusillanimous, declared the preliminaries to be 
 disgraceful, and a prolongation of the war, though 
 single-handed, and to any indefinite period, to be 
 preferable to this insidious and insecure peace. 
 Fox, with his party, now voted with Pitt and the 
 Addingtons in approbation of the preliminaries ; 
 and, for some months, it was found that the 
 minority which followed Lord Grenville and Mr, 
 Windham in condemning the peace was even 
 smaller than that which had sided for so many 
 years with Mr. Fox in reprobating the war. In 
 these first debates, Lord Castlereagh expressed the 
 decided sentiment of the majority in both Houses 
 of parliament and in the country, when he said 
 that this peace would at least try France, and 
 that it was but fair to give her a trial. Some 
 simple men and some enthusiasts there were, who 
 fondly believed that the peace would be lasting, 
 and that the First Consul, intent only on re- 
 organising France, and on seating himself on a 
 hereditary but constitutional throne, would soon 
 prove himself the best and surest ally of George 
 III., the conservator of the tranquillity of the world, 
 and the promoter of all that most tended to civilize 
 it. The number of these speculators was small ; 
 but their obstinacy or fatuity was excessively great, 
 and not open to be cured by experience. An 
 opinion much more general was that, the Corsican 
 consul having put down the French Jacobins 
 —having scourged them like hounds at fault 
 —there was nothing to fear from Jacobinism and 
 propagandism. But in reality, Bonaparte’s system 
 was but a new Jacobinism, a fact very apparent 
 to Windham, who, in a debate in the Commons, 
 on the 4th of November, said that France had 
 uniformly aspired to universal empire: in the 
 beginning of the Revolution she had an empire 
 of opinion, but now she had an empire of power. 
 French principles had first paved the way for this 
 military power; and now this military power was 
 used to disseminate principles—not such principles, 
 indeed, as were now tolerated in France, but 
 principles which would not serve for home 
 consumption, and which, therefore, they were 
 sending abroad for the use of other countries. 
 Bonaparte knew well how to be at one and the 
 same time the supporter of despotism in France, 
 and of Jacobinism out of France! ‘The only 
 difference was, that in more Jacobinical times they 
 trusted chiefly to these principles and propagan- 
 dism, while now they trusted chiefly to their 
 arms and real power. 
 
 The sailing of the large armament from 
 Brest for San Domingo, pending the negotiation 
 of the definitive treaty, created much alarm, and 
 occasioned some demands in the House of Com- 
 mons for the recall of the Marquess Cornwallis 
 from Amiens. It was determined that the naval 
 and military establishments should be continued 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 + 
 
 as they were for three months longer. The trans- 
 actions with the Cisalpine Consulta at Lyon were 
 the cause of fresh excitement; and in the course 
 of January, 1802, it became known in England 
 that Bonaparte had exacted from Spain her Ameri- 
 can colony of Louisiana, and had claimed, in Italy, 
 Parma and the island of Elba, thus adding, in a 
 time of peace or of truce, to the enormous acqui- 
 sitions which he had made during the war. The 
 delays in the negotiations obliged Mr. Addington, 
 on the 38rd of March, to demand a supply on the 
 war establishment for sixty-one days more; and 
 in the debate, Dr. French Lawrence, the able friend 
 and disciple of Burke, Windham, and others, 
 pressed on the House the consideration of the 
 fraud and perfidy France had shown in every 
 transaction since the signing of the preliminary 
 articles. By the time the definitive treaty was 
 concluded, the English people were certainly much 
 less enamoured of this experimental peace than 
 they were at the arrival of the preliminaries, 
 During the long season of delay and doubt, recourse 
 had been repeatedly had to adjournments. On 
 the 10th of April, twelve days after the reception 
 of the news of the definitive treaty having been 
 signed, the Earl of Carlisle called the attention of 
 the House of Lords to some points involved in the 
 treaty; but ministers objected that these points 
 were not regularly before the House, and declined, 
 for the present, entering into any explanations; 
 and, no motion having been made, the House 
 passed to the order of the day. At the same time, 
 the House of Commons was occupied by a motion 
 made by Sir Francis Burdett for a searching 
 inquiry into the conduct of the late Pitt admini-— 
 stration—conduct which the ardent young orator 
 seemed to think would fully justify an impeach- 
 ment. The motion, upon a division, was rejected 
 by 246 against 39. As late as the 3rd of May, we 
 find Windham rising to request that a day might — 
 be appointed for taking into consideration the 
 whole of the definitive treaty ; and on the follow- 
 ing day this request was repeated in the Upper 
 House by Lord Grenville. During several succes- 
 sive days, calls for papers were made; and it was 
 not until the 13th of May that the important and 
 long-expected debate began in both Houses. In 
 the Lords, after Lord Grenville had moved the 
 order of the day for the House to take into 
 consideration the definitive treaty of peace, the 
 eccentric Stanhope desired that strangers might be © 
 excluded, having, he said, information of import _ 
 ance to lay before the House. Strangers were — 
 ordered to withdraw.* When they were re-ad-— 
 mitted, Lord Grenville was speaking with great 
 force against the conditions and tendencies of the 
 treaty, whose execution he wished not to impede, | 
 but whose dangerous tendency he was anxious to — 
 demonstrate. In all negotiations for peace, the 
 wh | 
 
 * ‘The subject of the noble earl’s communication was, we under- 
 stand, the improved construction of a diving-boat in France, which — 
 was described to be navigated under water with so much skill and i 
 certainty as to make it easy for them to blow up a first-rate man- — 
 of-war with only fifteen pounds of powder.”—Parl, Hist. see f 
 
 we 
 
- Cuap. VIII] 
 
 basis of the treaty for both contracting parties was 
 either the status quo ante bellum, or the actual state 
 _ of the parties before the war; or the ué¢ possidetis, or 
 the condition of the parties after the war. Hither 
 both gave up everything they had conquered during 
 the war, or both retained whatever they possessed 
 at its conclusion. But our negotiators instead of 
 proceeding distinctly on either of these bases, had 
 mixed them together, and in a manner the most 
 prejudicial to this country: they had applied the 
 status quo principle to England, who was to give 
 up to France all she had taken during the war; 
 and the wti possidetis principle to France, by 
 allowing her to retain all she had acquired. France 
 ought, in reason and justice, to have purchased 
 back her colonies, and those of her allies or depend- 
 ents, Spain and Holland, by continental sacrifices ; 
 but she gave up nothing, for Egypt at the time the 
 treaty was concluded was not hers to give, while 
 England gave up nearly every foot of territory she 
 had obtained, surrendering islands and groups of 
 islands, the acquisition of which had cost her 
 immense treasure and not a little blood. In fact, 
 by the treaty, France was left either in actual 
 possession of, or with a most absolute control 
 over, the greatest or richest part of the continent 
 of Europe: she kept Savoy, Belgium, and the 
 Germanic states on the left bank of the Rhine; she 
 kept, under a fiction of independence, the whole 
 of Upper Italy and the whole of Holland; she 
 kept whatever she had gained. And yet she was 
 to be repossessed of all that she had lost, and, more- 
 over, to be allowed to acquire immense territories, 
 from her submissive and helpless allies: in Asia, 
 she was to have Pondicherry, Cochin, Negapatam, 
 and the Spice Islands; in Africa, the Cape of Good 
 Hope, Goree, and Senegal—for it was idle to talk 
 of the Batavian Republic having or holding any- 
 thing—in the West Indies, Martinique, Ste. Lucie, 
 Guadaloupe, Tobago, Curacoa, and a part, if not 
 the whole, of San Domingo; in America, she was 
 to be repossessed of St. Pierre and Miguelon; and, 
 as new possessions, whence she could press upon 
 both the Anglo-American states and the Spanish- 
 American and Portuguese-American possessions, 
 Louisiana was to be hers by virtue of the secret 
 treaty with Spain, and French Guiana was to 
 be rounded and enlarged by territory torn from 
 Portugal by the treaty of Madrid; and, in addition 
 to this territory in Guiana, extending to the 
 Amazon river, she was to have, in South America, 
 Surinam, Demerara, Berbice, and Hssequibo, In 
 the Mediterranean too, where our naval superiority 
 was most important, we had dispossessed ourselves 
 of Malta, Minorca, and even the island of Elba, 
 which France wanted, merely in order to exclude 
 us from the neighbouring port of Leghorn. We 
 were now, in fact, excluded from all the ports of 
 Italy, and all that inland sea seemed on the point 
 of being converted into a French lake. Lord 
 Grenville then alluded to the great San Domingo 
 armament which had been sent out in the interval 
 between the preliminaries and the definitive treaty, 
 
 rr repens nner ner ernst cs ei atte tL 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 175 
 
 and which had obliged us to keep in the West 
 Indies a much greater force than any we had 
 employed there during the war. The first fruits of 
 this peace, he said, were seen in the necessity of 
 our keeping in the West Indies, at an enormous 
 expense, thirty-five sail of the line. Ministers 
 ought never to have permitted the French arma- 
 ment to sail until the preliminary articles had 
 been converted into a definitive treaty; nor should 
 it have been allowed to sail at all until the 
 First Consul had renounced the presidency of the 
 Cisalpine Republic, which gave him as much 
 power in Italy as he had in France. He could 
 see nothing of the pacific, liberal disposition of the 
 present French government; but could clearly see 
 a fixed design to exclude the commerce of Great 
 Britain from the continent of Europe. He com- 
 plained of the situation in which we had left our 
 old and faithful ally Portugal; and showed that 
 the indemnity mentioned in the treaty for the 
 Prince of Orange was of such a nature that France 
 might give it or withhold it, as she pleased. He 
 exposed the absurdity of placing Malta under the 
 guarantee of powers who could never agree on any 
 one point respecting the island, and of garrisoning 
 it pro tempore with the least steady and _ least 
 reliable troops in Europe. He called the pretended 
 restoration of Malta to the Knights a still greater 
 absurdity ; for how could it be said that such an 
 Order was really in existence, when almost all the 
 funds necessary for its support had been confiscated 
 —confiscated in good part since the preliminaries 
 of this treaty which was to restore them to their 
 independent sovereignty? The expenses of the 
 Order of Malta, principally in fortifications and 
 garrisons, had been, on an average of the last ten 
 years, about 130,0002. sterling per annum. The 
 total.revenue derivable from the island was only 
 about 34,0002, and of this not more than 8000/, 
 came into the coffers of the Knights. Of those 
 ample revenues which in former times had been 
 enjoyed by the Order, the French had confiscated 
 about 58,0007. per annum at the commencement 
 of their revolution, when they suppressed the 
 French Langues, and declared the whole Order to 
 be a thing obsolete, useless, and detestable, like all 
 other institutions that were built upon superstition 
 and monachism. More recently, Spain had been 
 induced to confiscate 27,0002. per annum, and still 
 more recently, the estates and property of the 
 Order had been seized and confiscated in Lombardy 
 and in Piedmont; while it was evident that the 
 rest of the Italian states, beggared by the war and 
 by French exactions, were looking with an eager 
 eye to such lands and houses as belonged to the 
 Order, and were within their own territory and 
 grasp. Though not nominally confiscated, the 
 immense estates of the Knights in Sicily had not 
 for two or three years yielded them a single ducat ; 
 nor, in the present disorganised, bankrupt, fugitive 
 condition of that ancient body, was it very easy to 
 discover where or to whom the money ought to be 
 paid. In short, of all the former income of the 
 
176 
 
 Order there now remained a bare 20,0007, per 
 annum—a sum evidently insufficient to keep up the 
 extensive and magnificent fortifications, or prepare 
 for the defence of the island. The Order of Malta 
 was therefore extinct as a power, and must neces- 
 sarily come under the influence and into the pay 
 of the French, who had degraded it. By the treaty, 
 we had given to France very important settlements 
 in India, without stipulating, as we had done at 
 the last peace, that they should not be fortified. It 
 was true that we had obtained, through the over- 
 throw of Tippoo, a great accession of territory in 
 Mysore and on the Malabar coast, but our right of 
 sovereignty in India was not recognised by the 
 French in the treaty, and by ceding the Cape of 
 Good Hope, we gave them one of the keys to India. 
 The Cape was every way of the first importance 
 to our Indian empire: it facilitated sending over 
 troops, and in the hands of our enemies would 
 always greatly annoy our Indian trade, and 
 make it necessary for us to send strong convoys 
 with our fleets, Only the plea of necessity could 
 justify such sacrifices ; but this ministers disclaimed, 
 boasting of the spirit of the people, and of the 
 resources of the country as quite equal to a con- 
 tinuance of the contest. If the advantages of the 
 peace were not greater than the disadvantages of 
 war, the peace must be a bad one, And where 
 would be our advantages ?—not in commerce, for 
 that would be diminished ; not in economy, for we 
 must keep up, for the mere sake of security, a large 
 naval and military establishment. If any security 
 had been obtained against the renewal of war, he 
 would have rejoiced at it, for we must renew it at 
 a great disadvantage, His lordship concluded with 
 proposing an address to the throne recommending 
 every practicable economy consistent with leaving 
 the country in a state to repel any future danger ; 
 acknowledging that the national faith was pledged 
 to the observance of the treaty, but pointing out 
 the great danger this country was exposed to, in 
 consequence of the sacrifices she had made without 
 any adequate compensation on the part of France ; 
 and, finally, praying his Majesty to endeavour to 
 arrange speedily, by amicable adjustment, the 
 various points which were left unsettled by the 
 definitive treaty of Amiens. His lordship was 
 opposed not merely by the Foxite party, but also 
 by the Pittites, and by several peers who had been 
 but recently lis colleagues in office, or his close 
 personal friends and allies. Lord Pelham moved 
 a counter-address approving of the treaty, and this 
 was carried without a division, although the Duke 
 of Richmond, Earl Camden, the Earl of Caernaryon, 
 and one or two other peers, expressed their entire 
 or partial agreement in the view taken by Lord 
 Grenville.* 
 
 * The Duke of Richmond, however, pledged his good-will to the 
 present Addington administration, and regretted that he could not 
 on this occasion vote with them. Earl Camden said that, although 
 he approved neither the preliminaries nor the definitive treaty, yet, 
 as. the country seemed to pant for peace, and as his Majesty was 
 bound to fulfil his engagements, he should, though very unwill- 
 ingly, vote against his noble friend (Grenville), The Earl of 
 Caernarvon gave his vote to Grenville’s motion, as the only possible 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 After the division, Lord Holland, the nephew 
 
 and political pupil of Fox, moved “ That the omis- — 
 
 sion of various opportunities of negotiating a 
 peace with advantage to this country, and more 
 particularly the rejection of the overtures made 
 by the chief consul in January, 1800, appears to 
 this House to have led to a state of affairs which 
 rendered peace so necessary to the preservation 
 and safety of the empire as to justify the important 
 and painful sacrifices which his majesty has been 
 advised to make for the attainment thereof.” The 
 Duke of Montrose urged in opposition to this 
 motion, that the rejection of Bonaparte’s overtures 
 in January, 1800, should be judged by circum- 
 stances then existing, and not by subsequent events 
 and circumstances. When the First Consul sent 
 his letter to the King, it was to solicit the negoti- 
 ation of a separate treaty with Great Britain, at 
 the very time that he was soliciting our allies 
 Austria and Russia to abandon us and make a 
 separate treaty with the French republic: the 
 whole design was obviously insidious. The ques- 
 tion being then put, Lord Holland’s motion was 
 negatived, only Lords Grenville, Caernaryon, 
 Spencer, Carlisle, the .Duke of Richmond, and 
 eleven other peers voting for it. 
 
 In the House of Commons, on the same day, the 
 13th of May, the counterpart to Lord Grenville’s 
 
 motion was made by Windham, who in a speech 
 
 WINDHAM. : a | 
 
 of three hours, still more bitterly condemned the 
 definitive treaty. The first point he dwelt upon — 
 was Malta. The pretended neutrality of that island 
 would at any time allow the French and their 
 allies to collect eighteen ships of the line in its” 
 ports, while we were restricted to six ships of the 
 line. To talk of the Order and of the different 
 
 Langues or nations composing it, was now idle; 
 its power, its consideration, were gone for ever. 
 The German Knights had already refused to serve — 
 oP 
 corrective of the misconduct of those ministers who had pledged - 
 the country to a peace which provided neither for its honour nor 
 
 for its safety. Pri 
 
 = 
 
Guar. VIIL]J 
 
 in a body so changed and degraded; the Nea- 
 politan soldiers could never be any security for 
 the independence of the island; they would throw 
 open the gates of La Valette and Vittoriosa to 
 the first French force that appeared; the. state 
 of Malta was a virtual surrender, and our position 
 in the Mediterranean would be made untenable, 
 for, with the exception of Gibraltar, at the entrance 
 of that sea, we should not have a single port or 
 place of refuge for our ships. In dwelling upon 
 the disadvantages and perils which must result 
 from giving up the Cape of Good Hope, Windham 
 insisted that our Indian empire was our sheet- 
 anchor, and that whatever was necessary to its 
 preservation was of vital importance. In addi- 
 tion to the annoyances to be expected from the 
 Cape, the enemy had acquired the means of 
 annoying our possessions in the Hast by our resti- 
 tution of Cochin, nominally to the Dutch. Lord 
 Grenville had said that France, by being made 
 mistress of Louisiana, became in reality mistress 
 of Florida also, and that France would possess the 
 key of Mexico, which she might enter whenever 
 she chose. Windham dwelt at greater length on 
 this new French empire on the American con- 
 tinent; and we now know, from a variety of 
 sources which were not open to him and his 
 contemporaries, that Windham took a very cor- 
 rect view of Bonaparte’s vast schemes of colonial 
 aggrandizement, and was guilty of no exaggeration 
 in his representation of the American projects of 
 the First Consul. By the treaty, France had 
 attained her first great object, the navigation of 
 the Amazon, the largest river on the globe, and the 
 Portuguese settlements were left wholly exposed 
 to her power, which would soon, in fact, stretch 
 from Guiana over the whole of South America. 
 And then in North America the cession of Louis- 
 jana would give the French the command of the 
 Mississippi, and of the Gulf of Mexico, which 
 washes the southern shore of the country for about 
 400 miles. “Rivers,” said Windham, “are the 
 vital parts of countries; and, without hyperbole, 
 we may be said to have given away a brace of 
 continents.” In aggravation of this thoughtless 
 prodigality, ministers had abandoned the whole 
 continent of Hurope to France; they had let in 
 a tide which would spread in every direction, 
 endangering our West Indian colonies, and threat- 
 ening destruction to our empire in the East. It 
 was obvious, he said, that France was aiming 
 at a universal empire. He contended that this 
 country was still capable of resisting this project, 
 and that it had hitherto not put forth its strength, 
 reposing supinely in a blind confidence that the 
 torrent could not reach her shores. At the com- 
 mencement of the French revolution, it was 
 pretended that the British constitution was safe, 
 however other nations might melt away; and 
 although the year 1792 had demonstrated that it 
 was susceptible of the rage of Jacobinism, there 
 yet prevailed a strange indifference. He had been 
 
 secretary-at-war, and he would review the manner 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 177 
 
 in which the war had been conducted. With the 
 exception of the expedition to Toulon and the 
 melancholy affair at Quiberon, little had been 
 attempted upon what he conceived to be the 
 peculiar and appropriate principle of the war. 
 He was called to order by Pitt, who objected to 
 some of his observations as improper in one who 
 had formerly possessed his Majesty’s confidence. 
 Windham replied, that he was about to state that 
 he considered the expedition to Quiberon as a 
 measure of his own. Pitt still resisted the dis- 
 closure of any consultations or opinions which 
 must have been expressed in official confidence. 
 Windham resuming, insisted that the country had 
 never been properly made aware why it was 
 at war: people were not taught to see that we 
 were at war because the French government 
 was such as to preclude peace. The same error 
 continued. Whoever considered the causes of 
 the war, must be alarmed at the terms of this 
 peace, with the dangers of which the country 
 was not sufficiently impressed, because it had 
 never been sufficiently alive to the character of 
 the war. There was a party in England who had 
 unceasingly condemned our entering into hostili- 
 ties with the French. From the first, the war 
 had been carried on with an incessant cry for 
 peace ; incessantly the justice of our cause was 
 arraigned, and that of the enemy vindicated ; 
 our most splendid victories had been coldly 
 received, our most brilliant successes had been 
 depreciated. If the war was neither just nor 
 necessary, every shilling spent on it was thrown 
 away; if it was merely a war of experiment, it 
 had cost us too many sacrifices; but if it was a 
 war for the very existence of the country, then 
 our exertions had been too little for either our 
 object or our means, He repeated emphatically, 
 that it was apparent the strength of the country 
 was unimpaired by the exertions it had made. 
 Lord Folkstone, who seconded Windham’s 
 motion, said that the British flag was disgraced by 
 this treaty, as far as it could be by any treaty; that 
 it was a treaty built on Jacobin principles and 
 confirming Jacobin power; that we had aban- 
 doned Portugal to spoliation, and at once injured 
 and insulted the Prince of Orange; that he saw 
 nothing left for old England but dishonour, 
 degradation, and ruin, Lord Hawkesbury, secre- 
 tary for foreign affairs (afterwards Earl of 
 Liverpool), defended the treaty, not only as 
 expedient, but as advantageous and honourable 
 to the country ; and concluded a very long speech 
 by moving a counter-address similar to that which 
 had been moved in the Upper House by Lord 
 Pelham, the substance being to assure his Majesty 
 that the House were fully sensible that he had 
 wisely consulted the interests of his people in 
 forming a definitive treaty; that they relied on 
 his Majesty’s known disposition to adhere with the 
 most scrupulous fidelity to his engagements, but 
 that they entertained a perfect confidence that he 
 would be always prepared to defend, against every 
 L 
 
178 
 
 encroachment, the great sources of the wealth, 
 commerce, and naval power of the empire; and 
 that they were firmly persuaded his Majesty’s 
 faithful subjects would be always ready to support 
 the honour of his crown, and the rights, laws, and 
 liberties of their country, with the same spirit 
 they had manifested during the war which was 
 now happily brought to a conclusion, Pitt, who 
 apparently continued to live in close friendship 
 with Addington, his early friend and the son of 
 his father’s friend, hung back from the debate: 
 except calling Windham to order, and holding 
 some conversation with Grey and Sheridan merely 
 _ on the propriety of adjourning, he did or said 
 - nothing, Dundas, on the contrary, declared that 
 _ he disapproved of a great deal of the treaty; that 
 he had always considered the acquisition of the 
 _ Cape of Good Hope of the utmost importance; 
 that, in his judgment, the Cape and Ceylon formed 
 _ the two great bulwarks of our Indian empire; and 
 that he would have refused his assent to the 
 relinquishment of either of those places if he had 
 continued in administration. With regard to 
 ' Malta, too, he considered it, with its port, one of 
 the finest in the world, an island of the greatest 
 importance. It was not merely for commercial 
 _ purposes that he should wish to see the British 
 ' flag flying at Malta; he wished it to fly there 
 ' in order to give assurance to all the surrounding 
 nations of the protection of British arms in case 
 they should be attacked. And, when to these 
 considerations he added the earnest desire of the 
 Maltese people to remain under the British govern- 
 ment, he must confess that the surrender of the 
 island gave him the deepest concern, Dundas, 
 however, concluded with saying that he could 
 by no means adopt Windham’s address, which 
 appeared to be pointed against the peace itself, 
 and that he would vote for the amendment, At 
 four o’clock in the morning, on the motion of 
 General Gascoyne, the debate was adjourned. 
 
 On the 14th, the House sat again till near four 
 o'clock. Pitt was even more silent than on the 
 preceding day, not, indeed, opening his lips during 
 the whole discussion. Sheridan was “infinitely 
 witty, having been drinking;”* and moved an 
 address which was the counterpart of that which 
 Lord Holland had moved in the Upper House. 
 Fox took no part either in this or in the preceding 
 debate, but Grey, Whitbread, and others of his 
 party gave an unqualified support to the treaty, 
 coupled with a disapprobation of the whole war 
 as unjust in its origin, disgraceful in its conduct, 
 and calamitous in its termination. Upon a 
 division, Windham’s proposed address was rejected 
 by 276 against 20. Sheridan’s amendment was 
 negatived without a division, and Lord Hawkes- 
 
 * Wilberforce, Diary.—The best of his wit was let fly at Pitt’s 
 subordinates who remained in office when thcir chief resigned. 
 Why had not the whole family moved togéther? Was there but 
 one covered wagon to carry away friends and goods? There was 
 a Greek fable of a man who sat so long on his seat (as long, perhaps, 
 as the ex-minister had done on the treasury-bench), that he grew 
 to it; and when Hercules pulled him off, the sitting part of the 
 man was all left behind him! - bey 
 
 RE 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 + 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 bury’s address was then put and carried. The 
 long discussions had not tended to reconcile the 
 country to the treaty, or to encourage the hope 
 that the peace would be durable. It was, however, 
 deemed just and expedient to give the government 
 of Bonaparte a trial; and it was with this view 
 that many members of both Houses*had voted in 
 favour of the treaty, and deprecated all severe 
 strictures on the character and intentions of 
 the First Consul. But their example was only 
 partially followed by the public press; in some 
 of the newspapers, and in many pamphlets, 
 criticisms and censures appeared very distasteful 
 and irritating to Bonaparte, who used to have 
 them regularly translated and read to him in 
 private. 
 
 The remaining business of the session was of 
 little importance. As early as the 10th of February, 
 there was a new election of a Speaker, Sir John 
 Mitford having accepted the office of Lord 
 Chancellor of Ireland. The choice fell upon the 
 Right Honourable Charles Abbot, then chief 
 secretary for Ireland. On the 17th of February, 
 Mr. Addington moved the appointment of a select 
 committee to examine into the civil list, which 
 had again fallen into arrears, and concerning 
 which a message from his Majesty had been 
 presented to the House two days before. Mr, 
 Manners Sutton, solicitor-general to the Prince 
 of Wales, immediately rose, and called the atten- 
 tion of the House to that old vexed question—the 
 arrears said to be due to his royal highness, which 
 the king had received and appropriated during 
 his minority, and which the honourable member 
 maintained to be the undoubted and inalienable 
 right of the prince. Mr. Manners Sutton said that _ 
 he had been ordered by his royal highness to 
 apply to the House; that it was pretty generally 
 known that the duchy of Cornwall belonged to 
 the crown only till the birth of the Prince of 
 Wales, and that it was then separated from it, 
 and vested in the heir-apparent; that the infant 
 prince was on his birth Duke of Cornwall, and 
 entitled to the revenues of the duchy, which 
 were generally allowed to accumulate during his” 
 minority, into a fund from which his establish- 
 ment might be formed upon his coming of age. 
 But in the present instance, these revenues had 
 been applied by the king to the uses of the 
 civil list, for which otherwise resources must 
 have been found by parliament. This was not 
 a question between his Majesty and the Prince 
 of Wales; but between the Prince of Wales and 
 the people :—his royal highness had a claim ¢ 
 right upon the parliament, for the public had 
 benefited by the revenues to which he was 
 entitled. He quoted high legal authority, and 
 particularly Mr. Mansfield, late chief-justice 
 of the Common Pleas, who had declared his | 
 positive conviction that the revenues of the 
 duchy belonged to the Prince of Wales from his 
 birth, and who had earnestly advised his royal 
 highness to pursue the legal means of recovering . 
 
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 Cuap. VIII.] 
 them, [The prince, in fact, had attempted this: 
 a petition of right in his behalf had now been 
 lying six years in the Court of Chancery without 
 a hearing; and Lord Loughborough, the present 
 chancellor, had repeatedly refused to allow the 
 ordinary j/proceedings.]| Mr. Manners Sutton, 
 knowing the genuine and unaffected sentiments 
 of the prince, could venture to say that he would 
 undergo any inconvenience and affliction rather 
 than set up an unjust claim against his royal 
 father, The public had benefited by the revenues 
 during his minority; and therefore the account 
 stood between the prince and the public. He 
 stated, that from 1762, the year of the prince’s 
 birth, to 1783, when he attained his majority, 
 the arrears, with interest, amounted to 900,000/,, 
 and that, 221,000/. having been voted by parlia- 
 ment at different times for his use, there remained 
 due to him a clear balance of 679,0007, No 
 attempt was made to conceal the notorious fact, 
 that the prince was again deeply in debt, and 
 eager through his embarrassments to make the 
 public a debtor to this large amount. His friends 
 in the House seem to have thought this a very 
 proper mode of relieving him; and Fox, though 
 his influence with the prince was diminished, rose 
 after Mr. Manners Sutton, and agreeing with him 
 in almost every word, sincerely hoped that the 
 House would immediately take up the business. 
 It was readily agreed that a committee should 
 be appointed to consider the prince’s claims, On 
 the 29th of March, the subject of the debt on 
 the civil list was brought before both Houses, 
 Strong objections were taken to several items, 
 and particularly to what were termed “ occasional 
 payments” and “secret service money ;” but, in 
 the end, an address was carried in each House, 
 expressing to his majesty their readiness to grant 
 the desired relief for clearing off the debts on 
 the civil list. On the following day, the Commons 
 voted for this object 990,0527. On the 31st, Mr. 
 Manners Sutton moved for a select committee to 
 inquire into the application of the revenues of 
 Cornwall during the minority of the prince; as 
 also respecting the several sums which had been 
 voted by parliament for the discharge of his debts. 
 Sir Ralph Milbank seconded the motion, and 
 expressed the firmest conviction of the justice of 
 the prince's claims. The chancellor of the 
 exchequer argued that, even were the prince’s 
 right admitted in its fullest extent, it by no means 
 followed that the expenses of his maintenance 
 and education should not be defrayed out of that 
 fund, instead of being thrown upon the civil list. 
 He could not believe that Edward III., who first 
 made this grant to his young son, the Black 
 Prince, intended that the whole reyenue of the 
 duchy was to be left to accumulate for the prince, 
 and yet that all the expense of his maintenance 
 was to be defrayed by himself. Some of the 
 highest legal authorities held opinions adverse to 
 the claims of the prince, For himself, he gave 
 no decided opinion upon the question. It was 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 179 
 
 sufficient that it was a doubtful question of law 
 to convince the House it was not their province 
 to determine it. His great objection to the present 
 motion was, that it aimed at deciding the legal 
 right, which he thought the House could not do, 
 and then ordering and examining an account and 
 balance, As he could not approve of the motion, 
 and yet did not wish absolutely to oppose it, he 
 concluded by moving the order of the day. Fox 
 again supported the prince’s claim, insisting on 
 his right to be maintained and educated by his 
 father out of the civil list, and that the same full 
 account ought to be given of the revenues of 
 Cornwall as had been given to the Duke of York, 
 on his coming of age, of the revenues of the 
 bishopric of Osnaburg, in his majesty’s continental 
 dominions, Erskine, speaking as a lawyer, said 
 that there was no legal doubt in the matter; that 
 a litigation between the king and the prince 
 would be very ungraceful ;‘that a committee of 
 the House, with the proper documents before 
 them, could have no doubt upon the subject ; that 
 however small the balance might turn out to be 
 in favour of his royal highness, it would still afford 
 him the pleasure of showing the public that he 
 had not been a burthen to the country. ‘Tierney, 
 concurring with Messrs. Mansfield and Sutton, 
 said that it would be a most ungracious thing for 
 the public, by their representatives, to tell the 
 prince—“ We will not examine whether we owe 
 you money or not ; you may try it at law, and then 
 see whether you can find any redress.” Sheridan 
 was equally warm, If his royal highness should 
 even succeed at law, it was to parliament he must 
 come for payment, Other members of the same 
 party supported the claim of right, which was 
 further opposed by Lord Hawkesbury and the 
 law officers of the crown, Upon a division, 
 Addington’s motion for the order of the day was 
 carried, but by an unusually small majority, the 
 numbers being only 160 against 103. In the 
 course of the debate, the attorney-general, Spencer 
 Perceval, said that, if the Prince of Wales could 
 not maintain the dignity of his rank, the House, 
 no doubt, would willingly listen to an application 
 for relief. 
 
 A few weeks after these debates and the granting 
 of the 990,052/., the House was informed by a royal 
 message that his majesty was anxious to make a 
 provision for their royal highnesses the Dukes of 
 Sussex and Cambridge; and the House voted 
 12,0007, per annum for each of those princes. To 
 avoid a return to this subject when other matters 
 become both complicated and interesting, we may 
 here mention that the Prince of Wales’s embar- 
 rassments were considered by a new parliament 
 soon after the Christmas recess of 1802, The 
 subject being recommended to the attention of the 
 Commons by a message from the king, Addington 
 proposed a grant to his royal highness, for his 
 better support and dignity, of the annual sum, out 
 of the consolidated fund, of 60,000/., for three years 
 and a half, commencing from the 5th of January, 
 
180 
 
 1803, and ending the 5th of July, 1806. Mr. 
 Manners Sutton now stated that, “in order to 
 preserve the harmony which should always subsist 
 between him and his royal father,” the Prince of 
 Wales had abandoned his claim of right on the 
 revenues of the duchy of Cornwall. Colonel 
 Stanley asked whether the king’s message and the 
 prince’s abandonment of his claim were not the 
 result of a compromise, which both the minister 
 and the prinee’s solicitor denied; but Sheridan 
 broadly contradicted them, and little doubt was 
 entertained of there having been a compromise, 
 either tacit or express. The House unanimously 
 voted the money which Addington asked for, 
 Those who conceived that this grant would make 
 an end of the matter were soon undeceived. On 
 the 28th of February, 1803, only a week before the 
 king acquainted parliament that a renewal of war 
 was inevitable, a message was delivered to the 
 House by Mr. Tyrwhitt, his royal highness’s keeper 
 of the privy seal and private secretary, stating 
 that the prince had felt the liveliest sense of affec- 
 tion and gratitude at his majesty’s kind solicitude 
 in his affairs and liberal recommendation of them 
 to the consideration of parliament; and desired to 
 express his deep sense of gratitude for the liberal 
 and generous conduct of the House of Commons 
 towards him, &c.; but that, notwithstanding, he 
 felt bound to declare that he was still exposed to 
 debts unprovided for, but which he was bound in 
 honour to discharge; and that he knew too well 
 from experience that he could not, without the 
 risk of being involved in fresh embarrassments, 
 resume the state and dignity for his return to which 
 the House had expressed themselves so kindly 
 solicitous. The facts were that, though many of 
 the old debts had been paid off, many new ones 
 had been contracted, from which the 60,0007. per 
 annum for three years would not free him. Mr. 
 Calcraft, who afterwards obtained very profitable 
 places under government, immediately gave notice 
 of a motion at an early day on the subject of 
 the Prince of Wales’s affairs; and, on the 4th of 
 _ March, declaring that he had never communi- 
 cated on the subject with the illustrious personage, 
 or any other, save one, and was acting without 
 concert or authority as an individual member of 
 the House, he moved for a select committee “to 
 inquire into the embarrassments of the Prince of 
 Wales, and into the most effectual means of 
 relieving them as soon as possible, in order to 
 enable his royal highness to resume the splendour 
 and dignity attached to his exalted station.” Fox, 
 Sheridan, Tierney, and the rest of that party 
 earnestly supported the motion. Erskine protested 
 against the idea that the prince had anything to do 
 with the present motion ; and declared that he him- 
 self was only anxious that the public should not 
 suppose that the prince had received the bounty 
 of the House, and not acted according to its inten- 
 tions in granting it, namely, by immediately resum- 
 ing his dignity and splendour. Ministers, with equal 
 energy, opposed the motion, which was negatived 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 on a division, but only by 184 against 139. After 
 this, the friends of the Prince of Wales let it be 
 understood that, as the country was likely to be 
 
 again involved in an expensive war, his royal 
 
 highness would not seek to add to the public 
 burthens by demanding more money to pay his 
 debts. 
 
 The unpopular income-tax had all along been 
 considered as a war-tax that was to cease on the 
 return of peace; and on the 18th of March 
 there was a great meeting of the Livery of London 
 to consider the propriety of petitioning for its 
 repeal, <A series of resolutions were unanimously 
 passed enumerating the evils attending its operation 
 upon trade, and its injustice in not distinguishing 
 fluctuating and uncertain incomes and fixed and 
 certain incomes. The resolutions affirmed that 
 the mode of collecting and returning the tax was 
 hostile to the liberties and morals of the people, 
 because it established an inquisition into their 
 private affairs, and tempted them to make false 
 returns—and that it could never be rendered 
 equitable, just, or efficient, A petition was pre- 
 sented to parliament by one of the representa- 
 tives for the city to get rid at once of a tax so 
 oppressive and inquisitorial. On the 5th of April, 
 when Addington brought forward his budget for 
 the year, he announced the intention of govern- 
 ment to abolish the income-tax, and fund the 
 56,000,0007. with the payment of which it was 
 charged. It seemed to be admitted that it was 
 strictly a war-tax ; and it will be recollected that 
 it was only on the 29th of March, a week before 
 this announcement of its repeal, that the news was 
 received of the definitive treaty of peace having 
 been signed, The resolutions upon the budget 
 were agreed to without a division, and with many 
 compliments and felicitations on the repeal of the 
 income-tax. The total sum to be funded (including 
 a new loan of 25,000,000) amounted nearly to 
 98,000,0002., the interest upon which was to be 
 provided for by new taxes of a less objectionable 
 nature, and by some increase in certain existing 
 taxes. 
 
 A new militia act, to consolidate the various 
 militia laws already existing, and augment the 
 
 force to be kept up during the peace, was intro- | 
 They assured parliament | 
 that they sincerely hoped that the same spirit of — 
 conciliation which had induced France te conclude - 
 the peace, would incline her to preserve it; but 
 that from the changes which the late war had | 
 made in the relations of the continental powers, | 
 
 duced by ministers, 
 
 more than our ancient peace establishment was 
 
 now requisite. The immense increase of the power 
 
 of France, and the extent of her present sea-coasts, 
 
 including Belgium and virtually Holland, required | 
 much more extensive preparation for our defence — 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 than was formerly necessary. The constitution of | 
 
 this country did not warrant a large military | 
 force in time of peace: the people were naturally | 
 
 jealous of a great standing army, and had always 
 considered the militia their most constitutional 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 defence, Therefore, government proposed that the 
 militia should permanently remain 60,000 strong. 
 But of this number only 40,000 would be called 
 out in the first instance, the king having the power 
 of calling out the other 20,000 as he should judge 
 necessary. Several objections were taken, not to 
 the calling out of the force, but to the inequality of 
 the burthen, which fell principally on the poor, 
 many of the rich being entirely exempt from it, 
 and all of them being able to exempt themselves 
 by paying for a substitute what to them was a 
 mere trifle; while the poor man, being obliged to 
 serve, was too often forced to leave his family to 
 be supported out of the poor-rates, 
 peer paid no more to raise the militia than the 
 poorest farmer on his estate; the most wealthy 
 merchant paid no more than the porter who 
 carried parcels, These arguments were urged by 
 Lords Fitzwilliam, Caernarvon, Romney, and 
 others; but the bill was carried through both 
 Houses with little difficulty and without any 
 amendment, 
 
 On the 28th of June, parliament was prorogued 
 by the king in person, who congratulated the 
 country on the peace and prosperity it was enjoy- 
 ing. On the next day, the parliament was dis- 
 solyed by proclamation, and writs were issued for 
 a new one. 
 
 English travellers, who had been so long ex- 
 cluded from the continent, were now rushing in 
 shoals to France and Italy. At the beginning of 
 June, there were said to be 6000 British subjects 
 in Paris alone, and the number rapidly increased 
 in the course of the summer and autumn. Among 
 those who hastened to the French capital and to 
 attend the levees of the First Consul after the 
 rising of parliament, were Mr. Fox and his nephew 
 Lord Holland, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Erskine, 
 Lord St. John, General Fitzpatrick, and other 
 members of both Houses, mostly of the opposition 
 party. Apparently with but few exceptions, these 
 individuals, though they dared not as Englishmen 
 openly to approve of the despotism which 
 Bonaparte had established, resigned themselves 
 to admiration at all he had done and was doing, 
 and to a most delusive hope of the durability of 
 the peace, and of the possibility of a close alliance 
 between Napoleon Bonaparte and George III. 
 Fox, who wished to make researches in the 
 archives of the office of foreign affairs and in 
 _ other French repositories of state papers for the 
 correspondence and intrigues of Louis XIV. and 
 his ministers with our unhappy James II., was 
 received by Bonaparte as a friend, applauded for 
 the efforts he had made to terminate the war, 
 and promptly gratified in his wishes, And during 
 his stay at Paris, Fox and his friends consorted 
 with several public or notorious persons, whom 
 he ought in prudence, as a public man with the 
 eyes of his country upon him, to have avoided. 
 Especially he dined with the Cabarus, or Madame 
 Fontenay, or Madame Tallien, who had separated 
 from the last of her two living husbands, and 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 The richest: 
 
 181 
 
 was leading. so free a life as to be in disgrace 
 even at the First Consul’s court, where at least 
 decorum was beginning to be attended to. 
 These and other incidents, some of which were 
 exaggerated in the English newspapers, produced 
 at home an impression very unfavourable to the 
 eloquent rival of Pitt; the deeper, as before he 
 and his friends quitted Paris, all the world was 
 convinced that a new rupture with France was 
 inevitable, and that Bonaparte was destined to 
 be the most persevering and most dangerous 
 enemy that England had ever yet had to contend 
 with. And this impression was such as could not 
 be speedily effaced: Fox felt its evil consequences 
 when, on the death of Pitt, he was called to the 
 helm, only to find himself obliged to pursue the 
 same course which his rival had steered, and to 
 continue a war with the power and the men by 
 whom he had been flattered and received as a 
 friend. 
 
 Since the revolution of the 19th Brumaire, or 
 the 10th of November, 1799, immense changes 
 had taken place in the government and internal 
 state of France. The Directory had left the 
 finances in a wretched condition: forced loans, 
 arbitrarily assessed, had been the chief resource 
 of that rapacious and most corrupt government: 
 these loans had destroyed all credit, and, the 
 money having been spent or appropriated as it 
 was raised, the treasury was left empty when 
 Bonaparte became First Consul. He repealed 
 the odious system, and substituted 25 per cent. 
 additional upon all taxes, Other irregular exac- 
 tions were put an end to, order was introduced, 
 and confidence gradually restored: the merchants 
 and bankers of Paris supplied a loan of 12,000,000 
 of francs, the increased taxes were paid with a 
 regularity formerly unknown, the sales of national 
 and confiscated “domains were resumed, the 
 exchequer soon began to fill, and money was no 
 longer wanting for any of the necessary expenses 
 of the state. The armies serving abroad continued 
 to be mainly supported at the expense of the 
 countries they occupied or invaded; but there 
 Was now made an approach to an organization for 
 their support, and the pay of the men and officers, 
 which had always been left in arrear, was 
 regularly provided for by the minister of war. 
 This important post was given by Bonaparte to 
 General Berthier, an excellent man of business, 
 Guadin, an employé in the royal treasury before 
 the revolution, who had refused to take office 
 under the plundering Directors, was now selected, 
 as a man of ability and probity, to succeed 
 Faypoult, who had proved himself a finance 
 minister well worthy of such masters. Cambacérés, 
 a strange mixture of virtues and vices, but always 
 averse to deeds of violence, cruelty, or disorder, 
 was continued as minister of justice. But at the 
 same time the First Consul retained the cunning, 
 atrocious Jacobin, Fouché, as minister of police, 
 a functionary who rapidly became more powerful 
 and important than all others in the interior of 
 
182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Book X 
 
 France, and more particularly in Paris, The First 
 Consul, by his own confession, feared the fero- 
 cious Jacobins, and conceived that no man could so 
 keep them in check, penetrate into their mysteries, 
 foil their plots, win them over, or lead them 
 artfully to their destruction, as one who had 
 been their chief and leader, The First Consul 
 assumed and freely exercised the royal prerogative 
 of mercy. He was first formally invested with 
 this right by the decree of the 16th Thermidor, 
 AN X, (4th August, 1802). With the reservation of 
 certain principles favourable to his own advance- 
 ment, or too deeply rooted in the hearts of 
 Frenchmen to be touched without danger of 
 another universal commotion, Bonaparte started 
 with a fixed determination to undo nearly all that 
 had been done by the revolutionists, whether 
 Girondists or Jacobins. For the first of these 
 parties, he entertained a sovereign contempt, and 
 against the second, he felt a mortal hatred— 
 the more bitter on account of his previous forced 
 homage to the party, and the degrading recol- 
 lection of his subjection to Jacobin chiefs and 
 commissioners. 
 _ Karly in the consulate, it was understood that 
 Bonaparte was determined not to encourage any of 
 those creeds or systems which had sprung up so 
 rapidly during the revolution. No zeal for Chris- 
 tianity was or could be pretended by the First 
 Consul, or by those who surrounded him and made 
 up his government; but the dogmas of those who 
 had set up the worship of the Goddess of Reason, 
 and the crudities of Robespierre, and his festival to 
 the Etre Supréme, were reprobated as offensive to 
 decency and good taste ; and it was assumed that, 
 as a portion, more or less great, of the French 
 people were still Roman Catholic Christians at 
 heart, indulgence and respect were due to their 
 faith, About 20,000 priests who had been banished 
 or imprisoned were allowed to return, or were set 
 at liberty on taking the oath of fidelity to the 
 consular government as at present established. 
 The churches were re-opened, and Christian wor- 
 ship was performed all over France. The Sabbath 
 was again recognised as a day of rest, the Decades 
 gave way to the old calculation by weeks, and, 
 by degrees, the whole of Romme’s revolutionary 
 calendar fell into disuse. The festival of the 21st 
 of January, in commemoration of the atrocious 
 execution of Louis XVI., was discontinued. The 
 oath of eternal hatred to kings was suppressed as 
 a useless ceremony, now that the republic was 
 firmly established, and calculated to incense nations 
 who still retained royalty, preventing an amicable 
 understanding between them and France. Pri- 
 vately, with the very few persons he admitted into 
 a large share of his confidence—his full confidence 
 he never gave to living being—he did not pretend 
 to conceal that he aspired to the name of royalty, 
 having already more than the substance of it; but 
 he quieted their or his own impatience by declaring 
 that, powerful as he was, it was necessary to pro- 
 ceed with caution, securing one position before he 
 
 advanced to another. He, however, as early as” 
 the 19th of February, 1800, took possession of the 
 royal palace of the Tuileries, telling his colleagues 
 that it was “a good military position,” and more 
 convenient for the seat of government than the 
 Luxembourg, which had been defiled and disgraced 
 by the residence of the Directors, Even before 
 quitting the Luxembourg, where the wife of the 
 First Consul had held a sort of court, the word 
 Madame had begun to be used; but now Monsieur 
 was revived as well as Madame, and a number of 
 terms proscribed by the revolutionists became once 
 more familiar. This first return towards the old 
 French politeness was startling to some susceptible 
 republicans ; but things were soon carried further 
 at the Tuileries by the introduction of such terms 
 as Your Highness (Votre Altesse) and My Lord 
 (Monseigneur). At the same time, however, to do 
 away with the idea that the doctrine of equality 
 was in danger, the First Consul wrote letters to 
 corporals and sergeants, calling them his “ brave 
 comrades,” and commissioned that once ultra- 
 republican painter David, who was supposed to 
 have still an odour of liberty and equality abou 
 him, to place in a conspicuous place in the ei 
 a fine antique bust of Brutus, a fragment of the 
 plunder of Italy. The energetic proclamations to 
 the armies, and other exciting papers, written or 
 dictated by the First Consul, for some short time 
 longer ended with the magical words Vive la 
 République. While splendid reviews took place 
 outside the palace, in the Place du Carrousel, 
 levees, circles, drawing-rooms, and balls were held 
 in rapid rotation in the interior. Masked balls at 
 the opera were resumed; and, aided by his wife, 
 who loved gaiety and dress, the First Consul, well 
 aware of the importance of such matters to the 
 generality of mankind, and most of all to the 
 French, revived a taste for dress, and the old 
 amusements of the monarchy. He favoured these 
 things because they were associated with the ideas 
 of courts and royalty, and diverted the attention of 
 the people. . 
 
 Bonaparte, as every one knew, had prepared the 
 revolution of the 18th Fructidor (8rd of September, 
 1797), which had sent forty-two members of the 
 Council of Five Hundred, and twelve members of 
 the Council of Ancients, to Cayenne and Sinimari, 
 or to prisons on the French coasts; with the design 
 of overthrowing the Directorial government, which 
 could not after that occasion with decency or effect — 
 appeal to the republican constitution. Barras, — 
 Rewbell, and Lareveillére-Lepeaux had achieved — 
 their brief and self-ruinous triumph only by means 
 of the money which he had remitted from Italy, — 
 and the services of his devoted and resolute — 
 lieutenant Augereau; but the conqueror of Italy — 
 had no direct agency in the business, he was then — 
 far from Paris, his name was scarcely mentioned © 
 in the coup détat, and he could afterwards with — 
 good effect declare that it was no work of his, The 
 Directory being overthrown, he was now anxious — 
 to undo in part what had been done then, and to 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 mitigate the hard fate of men whose illegal trans- 
 portation and imprisonment had contributed to 
 work out his purposes. He therefore ordered 
 Fouché to draw up a report on those who had 
 been condemned, without any trial, on the 18th 
 Fructidor ; and Fouché presenting a report such 
 as the First Consul wished, forty of the deported 
 or transported were forthwith authorised to return 
 to France. Besides the members of the two 
 councils, very many journalists, editors, d&c., had 
 been sent to Guiana’; where for the present they 
 were nearly all left, Bonaparte thinking that, could 
 he send all the journalists of Paris to join them, it 
 would be the better for him and for France. That 
 magnificent maker of reports and lies, Barrére, was 
 included in this recall. He wrote a letter justifying 
 his conduct during the revolution ; but the First 
 Consul did not seem disposed to show him any 
 favour. Subsequently, however, his ready pen 
 was thought worth a pension ; and the framer of 
 an interminable series of liberty and equality 
 reports and decrees, was retained to edit a journal, 
 entitled ‘L’Anti-Britannique, and to write pam- 
 phlets in justification of the overthrow both of the 
 old dynasty and of the republic, and in support of 
 the Napoleonic empire. For a time, the recalled 
 forty republicans were kept under the surveillance 
 of Fouché’s vigilant and all-seeing police; but 
 many of them were soon called to fill high places 
 in the government. Of these placemen, those who 
 had been the most fanatic in their republicanism 
 became the most devoted partisans, the loudest- 
 tongued panegyrists, the most submissive slaves of 
 the Consul. These conversions were not calculated 
 to improve Bonaparte’s opinion of mankind. 
 He used to say that, with money and a little 
 gold lace, he could unrepublicanise all these 
 republicans. But still there were in Paris 
 republicans of a lower grade, who retained 
 all the fanaticism of the Reign of Terror, and 
 who were from the beginning dissatisfied with 
 a dictatorship which shut up their clubs, sup- 
 pressed their newspapers, and excluded them from 
 all hope of being great or famous as demagogues, 
 It is rather remarkable that the most ardent of 
 these were not Frenchmen, but Italians and 
 Corsicans.* 
 
 Ceracchi, a sculptor from Rome, Diana, with 
 several other Italian refugees, and Joseph Arena, 
 
 |. a Corsican, and brother of Bartholomew Arena, 
 
 who had been a distinguished member of the 
 Council of Five Hundred, and who had vigorously 
 opposed Bonaparte on the 19th Brumaire, when 
 he went to St. Cloud to dissolve that legislature 
 with bayonets, formed or headed a conspiracy 
 against the life of the First Consul, as the greatest 
 of liberticides. Their plot was discovered ; they 
 were tracked by Fouché’s adroit agents, and were 
 all arrested.+ Shortly after this, on the 24th of 
 
 * In Baboouf’s conspiracy, these warm-blooded Italian republicans 
 Were by far the most energetic and daring. Among them was 
 Buonarotti, a poor Florentine, and a descendant of the great 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 + Bourrienne, who had the best means of knowing the whole 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 183 
 
 December, 1800, an attempt was made on the 
 life of Bonaparte as he was driving in his carriage 
 to the opera-house. As his dread of the Jacobins 
 always exceeded his dislike of the royalists, he 
 declared that he was convinced that the plot was 
 a Jacobin one; but the police soon ascertained, 
 beyond the reach of a doubt, that the intending 
 assassins were certain fanatical royalists connected 
 with the Chouans in Brittany and the Vendée. 
 They were caught in the toils of the police, and 
 speedily tried and executed. Their attempt only 
 increased the popularity and power of the First 
 Consul. At the same. time that they were 
 guillotined, Ceracchi, Arena, and the others con- 
 cerned in the republican plot, having already 
 been tried and found guilty, were brought out 
 of prison and executed also. A few days after, 
 a Senatus ConsuLttum came forth, ordering the 
 immediate transportation to Guiana of 130 known 
 leaders of the old Jacobin party, several of whom 
 had participated in the atrocities of the Reign of 
 Terror. That the First Consul might more easily 
 execute his so repeatedly expressed determination 
 of effectually putting down both Jacobins and 
 Bourbonists, the legislature, or the 300 individuals 
 who enjoyed the name, passed a law empowering 
 the executive, or the First Consul, without 
 previous trial or process of any kind, to banish 
 from Paris, and even from France, whoever should 
 presume, in words or in writing, to express 
 opinions inimical to his government! This law, 
 supported by other laws. and sharp practices, 
 silenced all writers, excepting only such of them 
 as took the pay and wrote the praises of Bonaparte. 
 The First Consul held the liberty of the press 
 in the greatest horror ; when anything was urged 
 in its favour, he seemed to labour under a nervous 
 attack, or to be on the point of falling into a fit. 
 “Great man as he was,” says his secretary, “he 
 was sorely afraid of little paragraphs.” He could 
 never endure any criticism of his conduct, either 
 public or private, or the expression, in matters 
 of politics, or government, or war, of an opinion 
 contrary to his own. Yet, after all, this was but 
 a prolongation of the system which had been 
 made absolute under the republicans and terrorists. 
 Nor was there any novelty in the more terrible 
 law which immediately followed, establishing 
 special criminal courts to try all persons accused 
 of treason against the state; for these courts, 
 infinitely less bloody, if not less arbitrary in their 
 proceedings, were but revivals of the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunals established by the Dantons 
 and Robespierres. The secret police was now 
 re-organised and vastly increased by Fouché, who 
 took into his pay spies and informers from all 
 history of this mad plot, says that the plot itself was a mere 
 shadow 3 but it was deemed advisable to exaggerate the danger to 
 which the First Consul had been exposed. A low fellow named 
 Harrel was the wretch who instigated the republicans to conspire. 
 He was in communication with Bonaparte from the first, and actually 
 received money from Bourrienne to buy arms and bring the plot to 
 a head, Finally, when Bourrienne and Harrel had the whole 
 matter arranged, the First Consul went to the theatre by agree~ 
 
 ment with Harrel, who had the conspirators there ready to be 
 apprehended by the police with the arms in their possession } 
 
184 
 
 classes of Parisian society. In addition to the 
 general police, under the direction of Fouché, on 
 whom Bonaparte could never wholly rely, there 
 was a strong military police, headed by officers 
 of gendarmes and others, who had been trained 
 under the First Consul, who owed to him wealth 
 or high promotion, and regarded him with the 
 same devoted feelings which the Mamelukes of 
 Egypt testified for their beys. To complete the 
 vile system, there was another police establishment 
 under the immediate direction of Bonaparte 
 himself, forming, in fact, part and parcel of his 
 own court or household. With three police corps 
 incessantly at work, with thousands of informers 
 and spies constantly reporting or inventing plots 
 or dangerous conversations, in order to appear to 
 earn the money they were receiving, and prove 
 the necessity of their services, the mind of the 
 First Consul, by nature, or by early habit and 
 education, inclined to suspicion, was rarely left 
 tranquil for a single day, for, when absent from 
 Paris, these spies or their reports followed him, 
 and always obtained his immediate attention. 
 At the same time, the practice of opening letters 
 at the post-office, which had been common in 
 France in all times and under every govern- 
 ment, was carried out with greater activity than 
 ever, This, like the polices, aggravated suspicion 
 and uneasiness, but seldom led to the discovery 
 of any important fact; for, as the practice was 
 notorious, such correspondents as had dangerous 
 secrets to communicate sent their letters by private 
 hands, or wrote them in mercantile or in other 
 forms and phraseologies previously agreed upon 
 with their friends. 
 
 Placed between the Jacobins and the royalists, 
 the First Consul could hardly strike any very great 
 blow at one party, without strengthening the 
 other. He therefore, like the Directory, tried to 
 keep himself up by balancing one party against 
 the other, weakening both by alternately frighten- 
 ing each. As there was no intermediate party 
 deserving the name of a political party, the task 
 of Bonaparte was comparatively an easy one; and 
 as soon as he had neutralised the two great factions 
 by their mutual jealousies and fears, his work was 
 done, his despotic empire was established. Buta 
 despotism was the only form of government now 
 possible in France; the very reasons and causes 
 which led to its establishment rendering absolutely 
 impossible the formation of any free republic or 
 constitutional government. It is idle and unfair 
 to compare men placed in such essentially different 
 circumstances, and at the head of peoples so 
 opposite, as were George Washington and Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte: if the Corsican had possessed all 
 the American’s love of liberty, if Bonaparte had 
 been endowed with all Washington’s republican 
 virtues, he must have failed miserably, and left 
 France a prey to anarchy, if he had seriously 
 attempted either to preserve the republic—or 
 rather to make a republic, for none had ever 
 existed—or to set up a free constitutional throne. 
 
 CT AIO EEE Ne thence ase 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 At the commencement of the consulate, the 
 exiled or fugitive members of the Constituent 
 Assembly were invited to return to France. It 
 was for their own sake, and to please the moderate 
 royalists, that the First Consul recalled them; but 
 it was to please the Jacobins that their return was — 
 subjected to restrictions and exceptions, At first, 
 the invitation to return to France extended only 
 to such of the members of the first legislature as 
 had voted in favour of the abolition of nobility, 
 titles, &c. About the same time, the general lists — 
 of emigrants were closed, and committees were 
 appointed to investigate their claims to the privi- 
 lege of returning and obtaining re-possession of 
 their property. 
 
 In April, 1801, a general amnesty was granted 
 to all emigrants who chose to return to France and 
 take the oath of fidelity to the present government, 
 About 500 individuals were, however, excepted, 
 including the retainers of the Bourbon princes, 
 leaders of armed bodies of royalists, officers in 
 foreign armies employed against their country, and 
 all who were held convicted of treason, The 
 property of the returned emigrants, so far as not 
 sold, or appropriated by the state, was to be re- 
 stored to them. But no laws were fixed to deter- 
 mine and regulate this restitution; and the First 
 Consul distributed the property according as he 
 found the parties disposed to enter his service and 
 identify their interests with his. He was, besides, 
 by no means anxious to put an end to their state 
 of uncertainty or dependence. He rarely gave at 
 once all that he could, or that the amnesty pro- — 
 mised. To some, he restored nothing: to others, 
 who at once devoted themselves to him, he gave 
 more than they or their progenitors had ever — 
 possessed, As a general rule, he doled out the ~ 
 property piecemeal, giving now a house, now — 
 another, now a farm or a wood, as the returned, — 
 repentant emigrant rendered him services or 
 conciliated his good-will. 
 
 Bonaparte calculated that, by fostering Ca 
 tholicism, he should detach ‘the pope from the | 
 coalition ‘of sovereigns, and the priests of France © 
 from the royalists. Also, recognising the import- 
 ance of religion and of a state church as govern- 
 mental agencies, and the fact that the greater 
 portion of those of the French people who had 
 any religion at all were disposed to Catholicism, he 
 was resolved on reorganising a church in France _ 
 which, without being separate from that of Rome, — 
 should recognise himself as its head. It was with — 
 these views that he opened negotiations with the 
 pope. After a long correspondence, and the inter- 
 change of many messages and compliments, Pius” 
 VII. sent Consalvi, the ‘cardinal secretary of state, 
 and Archbishop Spina, to Paris. Bonaparte, not 
 
 deeming it delicate to leave the negotiations in the 
 hands of that stray son of the church, Talleyrand, 
 his present minister for forcign affairs and nego- 
 tiator general, deputed his own brother Joseph to 
 treat with the cardinal, giving him the theological — 
 As a great many — 
 
 assistance of the Abbé Bernier. 
 
Cuar. VIII.) 
 
 of the constitutional clergy had married, Joseph 
 Bonaparte proposed to do away with the celibacy 
 of the clergy; but here Consalvi, though he had 
 come prepared to grant almost every demand of 
 the Consul, quoted the councils and unalterable 
 
 canons of the Romish church, and declared his in- 
 ability and that of the pontiff himself to entertain 
 
 Pivs VII. 
 
 the proposition for a single moment. All that could 
 be done was to secularize and absolve from their 
 vows such priests as had married; and this the 
 cardinal engaged todo. At last, in September, 1801, 
 the Concordat was concluded, the pope making 
 several unprecedented concessions. He sanctioned 
 the sale of church property, and thus brought the 
 believing part of the French, who had hitherto 
 abstained from buying such property, as from a 
 sacrilegious transaction, to become its purchasers. 
 He suppressed many bishoprics; superseded all 
 bishops who refused the oath of fidelity to the 
 government; and he agreed that the First Consul 
 should appoint the bishops, subject only to the ap- 
 probation of the Vatican, which was to bestow upon 
 them the canonical institution. The bishops, in 
 concert and agreement with the government, were 
 to make a new distribution of the parishes of their 
 respective dioceses, and the incumbents appointed 
 by the bishops were to be approved by the civil 
 authorities, The bishops, as well as all clergymen 
 whatsoever, were not only to take the oath of 
 fidelity to the present government, but also were 
 all to swear to reveal any plots which they might hear 
 of against the state, an oath inconsistent with the 
 canonical vow. ‘The total abolition of convents 
 was also confirmed, and various clauses were intro- 
 duced, as if to justify the violence of the revolu- 
 tionary suppression and the seizure of the property 
 of the wealthy monastic orders. As for compen- 
 sation or provision for the dispossessed monks, it 
 was left by the Concordat much as it was before, 
 the state paying or not paying, as circumstances 
 might be, some pensions of the slenderest kind. 
 Upon these and other conditions it was proclaimed 
 on the part of the French government, that the 
 Roman Catholic religion was that of the majority 
 of Frenchmen; that its worship should be free, 
 
 nt nt 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 185 
 
 public, and protected by the authorities, but under 
 such regulations as the civil power should think 
 proper to prescribe; that the active clergy should 
 be directly paid and provided for by the state ; 
 and that the cathedrals and parish churches should 
 be restored to them, 
 
 Although signed by Consalvi, this Concordat 
 met with considerable opposition at the court of 
 Rome. Pius VII. himself had his scruples; but 
 he sanctioned and confirmed the deed. On Haster 
 Sunday, 1802, the Concordat was published at 
 Paris, together with a decree of the consular 
 government, containing regulations upon matters 
 of clerical discipline, which were artfully worded, 
 so as to make them appear part of the text of. 
 the original Concordat. The pope afterwards in 
 vain remonstrated. The Concordat must have 
 this rider: Bonaparte must be absolute in regu- 
 lating the discipline of the ministers of religion, 
 or there should be no religion in France. Regula- 
 tions concerning the discipline of the Protestant 
 congregations in France were issued at the same 
 time; and, that all might be dependent on the 
 government, the Protestant ministers, like the 
 Catholic priests, were to be paid by the state. In 
 no cases were these salaries very high.* The 
 number of curés and parish priests of all kinds 
 was fixed at 8000. To give proper solemnity to the 
 promulgation of the Concordat, the First Consul 
 resolved that it should be made in the cathedral 
 church, and that his court and principal officers, 
 with or against their wills, should attend him 
 thither in high state. The consular court was in 
 eeneral extremely irreligious, and disinclined to 
 do anything which might appear to be an act 
 countenancing religion. However, through tlie 
 management of M. Berthier, the war-minister, 
 they were all taken unawares to Notre Dame, 
 where, it seems to be admitted, the behaviour 
 of these military chiefs and aggrandised children 
 of the revolution was extremely indecorous, 
 The Concordat was inaugurated with great pomp 
 by the Archbishop of Aix.t To complete this 
 farce of a renewal of religion, Bonaparte, after 
 some resistance, went through the forms of 
 hearing mass on Swadays publicly at the Tuileries, 
 in the room adjoining his cabinet. It is said that, 
 the door of this room being thrown open, the First 
 Consul heard the short service—transacting his 
 business, however, in the meantime. 
 
 Fouché, a renegade priest, a distinguished 
 member of “Ia Congrégation de TOratoire” 
 when the revolution began, but who had declared 
 himself an atheist, and had sought to overthrow 
 Robespierre by means of atheism, was now, as 
 
 * The lowness of their salaries, and their oath to reveal what 
 they might hear in confession, made Sheridan say, in the Ilouse of 
 Commons, that Bonaparte had appointed bishops with the salaries 
 of curates, to perform the office of spies. 
 
 + While Bonaparte told his new bishops and curés that he hoped 
 the Concordat would revive religious sentiments in France, and 
 that he thought the Catholic religion was the most likely to 
 endure in the world, he said to Cabanis: ‘* Do you know what this 
 Concordat really is? It is the vaccination of religion; beh 
 years, there will be no more religion in I’rance than small-pox : 
 
186 
 
 minister of police, charged with the duty of 
 settling the new clergy in their sees and livings. 
 He addressed a circular letter to the prefects of 
 departments, commanding them to exercise a 
 sharp surveillance over the priests, and to draw 
 a proper distinction between such as had been 
 allowed to return from their emigration or deport- 
 ation, and such as had had no need of pardon, 
 in order to exclude altogether the priests who 
 had resisted the revolutionary torrent, and refused 
 the serment civique—those, in short, who alone, 
 down to this Concordat, could lay any claim 
 to orthodoxy; but without Fouché’s restrictions, 
 the most conscientious and high-minded of the 
 clergy either remained in exile, or, returning, 
 declined joining the new establishment, Of 
 seventeen bishops and archbishops who were 
 residing in England, only four submitted to the 
 First Consul, Of the prelates residing in France, 
 eight resigned the sees they held previously 
 to the revolution, rather than acknowledge the 
 Concordat and take the oaths to the present 
 government. [In the Concordat itself, Pius had 
 been made to say that, for the good of the church 
 and the sake of union, he confidently expected 
 from the French prelates every kind of sacrifice, 
 even to that of their sees.] Several pamphlets 
 appeared even in Paris, complaining of the wrongs 
 done to the church, of the violence offered to the 
 conscience of true believers, and of the degrading 
 compromise made between Materialism and 
 Catholicism; and in the seminary of St. Sulpice 
 an opposition to some of the clauses of the Con- 
 cordat was got up by the Abbés Emmery and 
 Fournier. To stop all discussion, Bonaparte set 
 Fouché and his police in motion: the pamphlets 
 were seized and burned; severe measures were 
 taken to prevent the printing of such things in 
 future; the Abbé Fournier was seized and thrown 
 into a mad-house; within a month after the pro- 
 mulgation of the Concordat, 150 ecclesiastics were 
 arrested in the single diocese of Paris; and under 
 the least pretext of resistance, bishops, abbés, 
 curés, vicars, were thrown into the Temple, the 
 dungeons of Vincennes, or some other. of the 
 jifty-seven new prisons of Paris. On the other 
 hand, nothing could well exceed the base flattery 
 of the leaders of the clergy who submitted. They 
 called the Corsican general the Envoy of God, &c. ; 
 spontaneously sang Ze Deums for his victories 
 over the independence of nations ; and proclaimed 
 that words could not express the extent of the 
 services he was rendering to Almighty God, and 
 to themselves, These were not things fitted to 
 revive religious sentiments among a_ scofting, 
 incredulous people. All that the Concordat did 
 
 “was to give some liberty of worship to the 
 believing part of the community—a minority 
 which, in 1802, is stated broadly to have been 
 less than one-third of the French nation—and to 
 gratify the peasantry, who were not sufficiently 
 enlightened to discover the true nature of the 
 Whatever result may have 
 
 new establishment. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 been intended, 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 it is believed that there was less — 
 religion in France at the downfall of Bonaparte in — 
 
 1814, than in 1801, when he first meddled with — 
 
 church affairs.* 
 Bonaparte had now a church of his own; but 
 
 he held a nobility, or decorated order, as essen- — 
 tial to the monarchy he was restoring as a 
 church, This order was to originate solely in — 
 
 himself, to date from the date of his power, and 
 
 to be even more dependent upon him than were the — 
 Here, however, it was necessary to — 
 proceed with caution, for, although they had lost — 
 
 new clergy. 
 
 the very notion of liberty, the French still clung 
 to the dogma of equality; and, after all his delays, 
 ruses, and manceuvres, this project encountered 
 a stronger opposition than almost any other. 
 
 Thibaudeau and others in the very council of- 
 
 state dared to argue that the scheme of the Legion 
 of Honour was diametrically opposed to all the 
 principles of the revolution; that, though distinc- 
 tions of rank were indispensable in a monarchy, 
 they were a never-failing source of irritation in 
 a republic; that the immediate and inevitable 
 tendency of this order of knighthood would be 
 to run into a military and hereditary nobility; 
 that the Legion would be an intermediate body, 
 alike contrary to the text of the constitution and 
 to the fundamental principles of the revolution. 
 Bonaparte defied them to show him a republic, 
 ancient or modern, where distinctions among men 
 
 had not prevailed. He had no conception that the — 
 
 passion for liberty and equality was to be lasting — 
 The French people had but one pre- | 
 “Only observe how — 
 they are struck by the ribands and orders of the — 
 This — 
 They were — 
 
 in France. 
 vailing sentiment—honour. 
 
 foreigners the peace has brought among us! 
 reveals their secret predilection.” 
 placed after a revolution, and called upon to 
 reconstruct society. 
 
 had been done ?—Nothing ! 
 begin to create. They had, 
 
 rope of sand. There existed at the same time 
 amongst them several of the old privileged classes, 
 
 who were organised by a unity of principles and © 
 interests, and who would always pursue one definite — 
 
 object. But they, the children of the revolution, 
 were scattered, without union, without any fixed 
 system or lasting bond of connection. “ If,’ said. 
 
 he, “you suppose the republic to be definitely» 
 established, you were never in your lives more — 
 Do you suppose you can. trust the : 
 
 mistaken, 
 people for the preservation of your institutions ? 
 If you do, believe me, you are mistaken, 
 
 they now cry ‘ Vive la République !’ 
 sary, therefore, to give a lasting direction to the — 
 
 impulse of the people, and to prepare instruments — : 
 
 For ten years they had — 
 been talking about making institutions; but what — 
 They must now — 
 indeed, a nation — 
 and a government, but they were united by a — 
 
 The — 
 people would in a short time shout ‘ Vive le Roi!’ — 
 or ‘Vive la Ligue!’ with as much alacrity as _ 
 It is neces- 
 
 * Capefigue, Le Consulat et ’Empire.—Madame de a Con- 
 
 sidérations.—Thibaudeau, Hist. du Consulat, 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 for that purpose.” * Notwithstanding the force of 
 these arguments, the power of the First Consul, 
 and the immense influence of his position, the 
 opposition to the creation of the Legion of Honour 
 was very great. Out of 394 voters in all, the 
 majority in its favour was only 78. The Legion, 
 however, speedily became very popular. The 
 returned noblesse became mightily pleased with 
 the institution ; the most thorough-paced Jacobins, 
 some of the most vehement of the liberty and 
 equality professors, began to covet the ribands 
 and the crosses; and these things were soon worn 
 by many who had been foremost in voting the 
 eternal abolition in France of all orders and dis- 
 tinctions whatsoever. The Legion of Honour was 
 established with great pomp, and proclaimed a 
 law of the state on the 19th of May, 1802, It 
 gradually embraced many thousands of individuals 
 of nearly every character, condition, and profession, 
 not excepting fiddlers and singers, whom the 
 Consul much liked, and poets and rhymesters, 
 whom he sincerely scorned. 
 
 Before passing the Concordat and establishing 
 the Legion of Honour, ten more years had been 
 added to the original ten years for which Bonaparte 
 had been elected First Consul; and before the 
 festival of the Assumption, the 15th of August, the 
 to be St. Napoleon’s day, when the Concordat was 
 inaugurated in Notre Dame with mass and Ze 
 Deum and a royal salvo, he was proclaimed Consul 
 for life. His brother Lucien, who subsequently 
 
 Lucien BONAPARTE. 
 
 felt or pretended a passionate love for liberal 
 institutions and representative governments, con- 
 tributed as much as any single man in promoting 
 Napoleon’s usurpations. But for Lucien and his 
 oratory and civil courage, the revolution of the 19th 
 Brumaire would have run all counter, and, instead 
 of the Council of Five Hundred jumping out of 
 
 * Thibaudeau. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802, 
 
 187 
 
 the back windows of St, Cloud, General Bonaparte 
 might have been sent a prisoner to the Temple, 
 Since then, Lucien had rendered many and import- 
 ant services, some of them public, and some of 
 them very private indeed, and there appeared to be, 
 in his eyes, no effort or sacrifice too great if it had 
 a tendency to seat his brother on an hereditary and 
 absolute throne. In December 1800, Fouché fell 
 upon a pamphlet, entitled ‘A Parallel between 
 
 .Cxsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte,’ which openly 
 
 advocated hereditary monarchy. This brochure 
 was the work of Lucien, written with the view of 
 preparing the public mind for the empire, and had 
 been revised by Bonaparte himself. But Fouché 
 having sent it to the First Consul, intimating that 
 it was producing mischievous effects, and confir- 
 mation of its mischievous tendency having reached 
 Bonaparte from the prefects of various provinces 
 where it had appeared, ‘that arch-dissembler 
 upbraided Fouché for having allowed it to be pub- 
 lished, saying he should have sent its author to the 
 Temple. Fouché pleaded that he had traced it to 
 the Home Office and to Lucien. But not to commit 
 himself, the First Consul, affecting the heroism of 
 Brutus, said, “ No matter for that; your duty, as 
 minister of police, was to arrest Lucien, and send 
 him to the Temple. The fool does nothing but 
 contrive how he may commit me.” The end was, 
 that Lucien, on being rated for having allowed 
 himself to be caught by Fouché, resigned his office 
 of home minister, and became plenipotentiary at 
 the court of Madrid, whence he is said to have 
 returned with great wealth. Other pamphlets, 
 written with the same object, had, however, better 
 success than Lucien’s; and every word and deed 
 of Bonaparte tended to accustom the public mind 
 to the idea of a new hereditary monarchy in his 
 family. Notwithstanding the trick of 1800, Lucien 
 continued the most active, constant, and skilful 
 propagator of that idea. Nor were other warm 
 advocates of it wanting either among _ political 
 persons or the littérateurs whom Lucien—the 
 Meecenas of the new Augustus—collected around 
 him. “Stability and order,’ now constantly in 
 every ear and every page of printed paper, cloaked 
 the proposal to subvert liberty and erect a despot- 
 ism; and the people, weary of political excitements, 
 and longing for tranquillity, at last began to be 
 impressed. But more than Lucien and his littéra- 
 teurs, Talleyrand—a man who, on account of his 
 wonderful ability and dexterity, can never be 
 mentioned save with respect—aided and contri- 
 buted in establishing their system. Not that he 
 had any taste or love for despotism in the abstract, 
 but he saw clearly that nothing was left to his 
 country but a long-continued anarchy, with the 
 worst of despotisms, an ever-changing popular 
 tyranny; the restoration of the Bourbons, with all 
 the horrors of a vindictive counter-revolution, or 
 the single absolute rule of Napoleon Bonaparte ; 
 and, like a wise man whose prudence was never 
 disturbed by enthusiasm, or by passion of any 
 kind, he, of these three evils, chose the least, and 
 
188 
 
 afterwards laboured, as far as prudence and self- 
 preservation permitted, to mitigate the operation 
 of that least evil which he chose. 
 
 When the consulate for life was only in embryo, 
 most flattering counsels, the warmest encourage- 
 ments, poured into the Tuileries from all quarters. 
 At length, when the Senate first acquainted Bona- 
 parte with the vote by which they added ten 
 more years to his consulate, he, nourishing the 
 hope of obtaining more from the people than 
 from the Senate, declared, with feigned humility, 
 “that he would submit to this new sacrifice, if 
 the wish of the people should demand what the 
 Senate had voted.” An extraordinary convocation 
 of the Council of State took place, when a com- 
 munication was made to them of the vote of the 
 Senate and of the First Consul’s reply. The 
 Council proceeded to consider how and on 
 what points the people should be consulted. 
 Thinking it best to strike the iron while it was 
 hot, they very soon decided that the questions to 
 be put should be these: “Shall the First Consul 
 be appointed for life? and shall he have the 
 power of nominating his successor?” The deci- 
 sious on these questions were carried, as it were, 
 by storm. The appointment for life passed the 
 Tribunate and Legislative Body unanimously, but 
 the right of naming a successor only by a small 
 majority. Bonaparte now pretended to condemn 
 this second measure, which had not originated 
 with himself, and as it had been so very far from 
 being carried unanimously, he struck it out 
 altogether, The farce of consulting the people 
 was performed, as on previous occasions.* When 
 the registers, or their abstracts, were all brought 
 to Paris, it was declared that three millions and 
 a half of persons had confirmed, with their sig- 
 natures, the vote of the legislature, On the 2nd 
 of August, 1802, the following decree went forth; 
 “1. The French people name, and the Senate 
 proclaim, Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul for 
 life. 2, A statue of Peace, holding in one hand 
 the laurel of victory, and in the other this decree 
 of the Senate, shall attest to posterity the gratitude 
 of the nation. 3. The Senate will convey to the 
 First Consul the expression of the confidence, 
 love, and admiration of the French people,’— 
 And after a very few days, this new revolution 
 was completed by the issuing of a simple Senatus 
 Consultum, which accommodated the last consular 
 constitution to the present change, by making it 
 still more despotic. To prepare the way for a 
 pure despotism, this Senatus Consultum materially 
 altered the formation of the electoral bodies ; 
 named the electors, like the First Consul, for life; 
 gave the said First Consul the power of adding, 
 
 * Registers were opened in all the communes; the officers and 
 employés of government hurried to sign first, drew others in 
 their vortex, wrote the names of citizens who could not write 
 themselves, occasionally dropping in a name which nobody 
 owned, cr which the owner of it might not have put in such a 
 book, and using, it is said, threats as well as cajolery, It is, 
 however, declared, although it is incredible, that nearly every- 
 where the French in general repaired willingly and gaily to 
 their municipalities. 
 
 ee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 _ — ee ee 
 
 at his will and pleasure, to their number; gaye 
 to the Senate—which was but a registering- 
 office, a hundredfold less free or constitutional 
 than the parlemens of the old dynasty—the right 
 and faculty of changing institutions, of suspending 
 trial by jury whenever it might be deemed expe- 
 dient, of annulling the sentences of the courts of 
 law, of dissolving the Legislative Body and the 
 Tribunate, and, finally, of putting refractory 
 provinces or departments out of the benefits of 
 the constitution—an exclusion which, considering 
 what the constitution was, might have been borne 
 with patience or with indifference; and it farther 
 reduced the Tribunate from 100 to only 50 mem- 
 bers, and enabled the First Consul to drive away 
 every member of it, who, by his opposition or 
 popular eloquence, had ever given him any 
 umbrage. I'rom the very beginning, Bonaparte 
 had cordially hated this talking part of the con- 
 
 stitution, His diatribes against it would fill a 
 book, No Eastern despot could more heartily hate 
 
 public discussion than he did, The only discussions 
 he could tolerate were those which took place in 
 the Council of State, where the doors were closed, 
 and the debaters awed by his presence. Before 
 this revision of the constitution, none were left 
 in the Tribunate but submissive, flattering mem- 
 bers; and still Bonaparte entertained an aversion 
 to them, because they spuose.* While the Tribunate 
 was reduced, the Council of State was greatly 
 reinforced, Such is a brief sketch of this consti- 
 tution of the 16th Thermidor, year X., or the 
 4th of August, 1802. 
 
 As early as the beginning of the year 1800, 
 Bonaparte had directed a commission of the most 
 eminent lawyers in France, under the presidency of 
 Cambacérés, to frame a code of laws. The com- 
 mission consisted of Tronchet (now president of 
 the Court of Cassation), Bigot de Préameneu, Por- 
 talis, and Malleville. Pothier, the juris-consult of 
 Orleans, and a greater lawyer than any of them, 
 had facilitated the undertaking by various learned 
 works, published before the revolution. The projet 
 of the first code was printed as early as the begin- 
 ning of 1801, and was submitted to the different 
 courts of justice in France for their observations 
 and suggestions. These were also printed; and 
 the whole was then laid before the Committee of 
 Legislation of the Council of State, consisting of 
 Boulay, Berlier, Emmery, Portalis, Roederer, Real, 
 
 and Thibaudeau, Both Bonaparte, and his cols 
 
 league in the consulship, Cambacérés, took a very 
 active part in the debates on the clauses of the 
 
 code; and in many instances the imperative will 
 
 of the First Consul, who thought it as easy to 
 make laws for nations as to make regulations for 
 an army, silenced all doubt and opposition. 
 the majority of the committee and of the whole 
 council every word he let fall was caught with 
 avidity, and every decided expression of his will 
 
 é 
 _* “T love my Council,” said Bonaparte, ‘* because there I can 
 discuss matters as in my private family, and obtain as much order 
 
 and promptness of execution as at head-quarters from my staff.” _ 
 
 By 
 
 iscsi 
 
 [ Book xy) 
 
 A 
 if 
 
Guar. VIII] 
 
 was conformed to. During these discussions, the 
 Council of State assembled every day instead of 
 thrice a week; and the sittings, which, on ordinary 
 occasions, lasted only two or three hours, were 
 often prolonged to five or six; and, after those 
 sittings, the First Consul frequently invited some 
 of the members of the committee to dine with 
 him, in order to continue the discussion. The 
 various heads of the code were successively discussed 
 in council, and then laid before the Tribunate, 
 who handed them over to the Legislative Body. 
 Some opposition was encountered, and some alter- 
 ations had to be made; but, by the beginning of 
 1804, the entire code, having passed both the 
 Tribunate and the Legislative Body, was promul- 
 gated as the “Civil Code of Frenchmen” (Code 
 Civil des Francais). A few months after its pro- 
 mulgation, when Bonaparte made himself emperor, 
 he changed the name into that of “Code Napo- 
 léon,” and began making various changes far more 
 important than that of the mere name—changes 
 which never ceased while he was at the head of 
 the government, and which went on with increased 
 rapidity at the restoration of the Bourbons; so 
 that the code of 1804, which was then declared to 
 have the property of fixity or unchangeableness, 
 has been as liable to alteration as most other things 
 in France. Bonaparte himself, as emperor, has 
 been called the great destroyer of the code which 
 bore and still bears his name. In parts of Italy, 
 in the Prussian provinces on the Rhine, in all the 
 countries where his code has been taken as the 
 basis of jurisprudence, capital changes have been 
 made and are still being made in it. In Napoleon’s 
 own time, the laws he himself made or sanctioned 
 were never allowed to stand in the way of his 
 arbitrary power, and from first to last he evinced 
 a violent antipathy to lawyers. In fact, there was 
 no protection or redress whatever against arbitrary 
 acts; for by an article of the consular constitution, 
 which was retained in the impcrial constitution, 
 any suit against the agents of government, without 
 a previous authorization from the Council of State 
 (that is, from the government itself), was forbidden. 
 
 The provincial administration attracted Bona- 
 parte’s attention; and it was reorganised upon 
 one uniform plan, which contained none of that 
 essence which gives life and heart to real municipal 
 institutions. AJ] provincial or local administration 
 was to be made entirely dependent on the central 
 power or executive at Paris. The dangerous parts 
 of this centralisation system were never before 
 carried to such lengths, The chief administrative 
 authority of every department was lodged in the 
 hands of a prefect, who was rarely a native of the 
 department, and who received a large salary, and 
 was removable at the will of Bonaparte, like any 
 other government servant. In all towns having 
 
 more than 5000 inhabitants, Bonaparte, or his. 
 
 executive at Paris, appointed the mayors; but in 
 lesser communes, the mayors, and all the members 
 of the municipality, were named by the prefects. 
 All remains of popular election, and of municipal 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 189 
 
 or communal liberty, the quiet enjoyment of which 
 might gradually have prepared the French people 
 for national liberty, were abrogated as cdious to 
 Bonaparte. If, as some of his admirers assert, he 
 constantly kept in view the eventual establishment 
 of a free government in France, he must haye had 
 strange notions of the means likely to contribute to 
 that great end! 
 
 A system of public instruction was also organised. 
 The task of providing elementary education ‘was 
 thrown upon the communes; but the communes 
 being mostly very poor, and without the municipal 
 spirit, the establishment of primary schools made 
 little progress, and elementary education and the 
 instruction of the labouring classes remained in 
 most parts of France in a languishing and preca- 
 rious condition during the whole of Bonaparte’s 
 reign. Lyceums were established to furnish in- 
 struction in higher literature and in the classics, 
 and in these there were about 4000 pupils main- 
 tained at the public expense, besides private 
 boarders. The discipline was altogether military: 
 much more attention appears to have been paid in 
 these Lyceums to drilling, military manceuvres, and 
 mathematics, than to Latin and the Roman classics. 
 Scientific education was given in special schools, 
 such as the schools of Law and of Medicine, the 
 College of France, &c., and in some of these the 
 professors and teachers were first-rate men, and the 
 practical methods of study excellent. These things 
 contributed directly to the military glory and 
 agerandisement of France, and were suited to the 
 bare, cold utilitarianism of Bonaparte. But specu- 
 lative, philosophical, and political studies were 
 discredited, discouraged, and to a great degree 
 suppressed, Bonaparte sneering at all such studies, 
 or censuring them as idle and dangerous, 
 
 The metaphysicians of the revolution, and the 
 speculators who prepared it, had furnished him 
 with abundant materials for his sarcasms. “ These 
 metaphysicians,” said he, “are the men to whom 
 France owes all her misfortunes. These ideologists 
 know nothing of men, and can never get a practical 
 idea into their heads, I will have none of your 
 ideologists (Je ne veux point Widéologues!”) He 
 wished all the schools to be paid by government, 
 and to be exclusively at his disposal; so that, by 
 possessing the monopoly of education, he could 
 parcel it out to the children of those only who were 
 most blindly devoted to him.* He was jealous of 
 the children of the old noblesse receiving equal 
 instruction with those of his own creatures. To the 
 end of his dominion over France, the advantages 
 of the Lyceums and special schools were almost 
 entirely reserved for “the children of the revolu- 
 tion,” or rather, for that portion of them who were 
 
 * This,” says his secretary, ‘‘ was what the First Consul called 
 the revival of public instruction. I remember that one of his chief 
 arguments was this; ‘ What is it that distinguishes men? Educa- 
 tion—is it not? Well, if the children of the noblesse be admitted 
 
 into these academies, they will be as well educated as the children 
 of the revolution, who compose the strength of my government. 
 Ultimately, they will enter into my regiments as officers, and will 
 naturally come into competition with those whom they regard as 
 the plunderers of their families. 
 
 I do not wish that!’” 
 
= 
 
 190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Book X, 
 
 -4 
 
 army in his placemen. In fact, the First Consul’s 
 government assumed at once most of the charac- — 
 teristics of an ancient despotism. Men were 
 arrested and immured in prison in Paris without 
 knowing of what they were accused; and were 
 not unfrequently removed privately and by night 
 to much more horrible prisons or fortresses in 
 remote parts of France. These nocturnal arrests 
 and removals were called Fouché’s lettres-de- 
 cachet. When a man suddenly and secretly dis- 
 appeared, the Parisians concluded that the devil 
 or the minister of police had got him, 
 
 The peace of Amiens also allowed the First 
 Consul time to devise a vast system of colonisation, 
 He made Spain yield Louisiana, and Portugal a 
 large portion of Guiana, because he hoped to 
 make them keys to the conquest of Canada and 
 Nova Scotia, the Brazils, Mexico, and even Peru; 
 the United States, if not conquered, were to be 
 coerced in their commerce, political proceedings, 
 and alliances. The Spanish portion of St. Domingo 
 had been extorted from the court of Madrid 
 because, from its central position, it would faci- 
 litate the reduction of the Antilles and all the 
 West India Islands. Quite secondary to these 
 notions of conquest were his views of the advan- 
 tages to be derived from opening the great 
 American rivers to the French, and from enjoying 
 the entire monopoly of the products and the 
 trade of the West Indies. Even in the factories 
 and counting-houses we had agreed to restore in 
 the East Indies, he saw pivots on which to rest his 
 lever, Making sure of that great half-way house, 
 the Cape of Good Hope, he aimed at acquiring 
 the great island of Madagascar, the old and much- 
 neglected settlements of the Portuguese on the 
 Mozambique Channel and on the Abyssinian 
 coast at the entrance into the Red Sea, of St. 
 Helena in the Atlantic, and of all the more 
 important of the islands which stud the Indian 
 Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal, 
 which serve as stepping-stones to Hindostan and 
 all the richest regions of the East, By establishing 
 a line of naval stations from the Cape of Good 
 Hope to the island of Ceylon, he hoped to crush 
 the power of Great Britain in India, and to exclude 
 her shipping from all the Eastern seas. Part of 
 this work he considered as done to his hands, for 
 the French had been allowed to retain undisturbed 
 possession of the isles of France and Bourbon: the 
 Dutch held Java, Sumatra, and whole archipela- 
 goes of islands in those Eastern seas; the Spaniards 
 held other groups of islands; and all that belonged 
 to Spaniards or to Dutch he considered as politi- 
 cally belonging to France, and under his direct 
 control, Suffrein, one of the best naval officers 
 of France, had already visited and attentively 
 examined most of these islands and all the British 
 ports in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast; 
 and, almost as soon as the preliminaries of the — 
 peace of Amiens were signed, the First Consul 
 despatched Captain Baudin with two corvettes to 
 visit St Helena, Madagascar, the other African 
 
 sons of his own most devoted officers and servants. 
 The Jacobins had broken to bits the forty gilded 
 fauteuils of the Académie Francaise, had scattered 
 the Academy of Inscriptions and Antiquities, and 
 all the rest of those learned corporate bodies, 
 sequestrating their property where they had any, 
 and stopping the pensions they received from the 
 state. In building up a new monarchy, Bona- 
 parte was determined to restore these things, The 
 National Convention had decreed, and the Direc- 
 tory had established the Jnstitut ; but its constitu- 
 tion savoured too strongly of the revolution and 
 of democracy to please the First Consul, and it 
 neither embraced the Academies of the ancient 
 régime nor gave any protection to the Belles 
 Lettres. To revive the recollections of Louis XIV, 
 and Richelieu, and of Corneille and Racine, who 
 had been the glories of the old Academy, a recon- 
 struction of the too democratic Znstitut was resolved 
 upon. It was arranged that the Jnstitut should 
 preserve its name and be divided into four classes, 
 Bonaparte, who declared that moral philosophy 
 was a vague dream, without any fixed positive 
 ideas; that political philosophy was equally 
 vague, and could only tend to reproduce the school 
 of Abbé Siéyes, and those dangerous constitution- 
 makers; that political economy was the vaguest of 
 all these pretended sciences; and that, as for 
 statistics, they properly belonged to the class of 
 mathematics: with a stroke of the pen suppressed 
 these classes of moral and political sciences,* 
 The class of Science, which was thus strictly con- 
 fined to the physical and the mathematical, he 
 placed in the first rank, giving the second rank to 
 the class of “ Language and Literature,’ which was 
 to continue to form the Académie Frangaise, and 
 to include such of the surviving members of the 
 old body as had conformed to the new order of 
 things. The number of members was, however, to 
 be the same as in Cardinal Richelieu’s institution ; 
 and poets of the revolution, like Chenier, were 
 admitted into the Forty. Considering the state of 
 literature and science at that period, the First 
 Consul did not, indeed, make a wrong estimate of 
 their relative value; the littérateurs of France— 
 the Ducis, St. Pierres, Cheniers, Lemerciers, and 
 Fontanes—could not be compared with her 
 scientific men—as Lagrange, Laplace, Fourcroy, 
 Berthollet, and Cuvier, 
 
 By the end of the year 1802, Bonaparte had 
 concentrated in himself the whole power of the 
 state. He had a class devoted to him in the clergy 
 as re-organised by the Concordat; a military 
 order in the Legion of Honour; an administra- 
 tive body in the Council of State; a decree- 
 making machine in the Legislative Body ; and a 
 constitution-making machine in the Senate. The 
 immense standing army was at his disposal, and, 
 almost unanimously, devoted to him and _ his 
 glory ; and so many places had been created with 
 direct salaries from the state, that he had another 
 
 — 
 
 * Capefigue, L’Empire et le Consulat. 
 
 a 
 
 a =< 
 pear ae © a 
 a 
 
1 7 ; : 
 
 , 
 
 | 
 | 
 ! 
 
 ‘Caden VIIT.] 
 
 islands, India, and the chief Asiatic groups. 
 Ostensibly, this was nothing but a voyage of 
 discovery and of science; but the real object of 
 the expedition was to obtain surveys and infor- 
 mation which might facilitate the execution of 
 the grand scheme of occupation and conquest, 
 and this was afterwards made evident by more 
 than one of the staff of philosophes who published 
 long, pompous accounts of the voyage. 
 
 The expedition to St. Domingo not only formed 
 an essential part of Bonaparte’s colonial system, 
 but also afforded him the opportunities of finding 
 employment in a time of peace for a portion of 
 his immense army, and of relegating many of his 
 discontented officers and soldiers far from France, 
 Papers are said still to exist which show that this 
 expedition was for the First Consul a measure 
 of military police; that in the drafting of the 
 forces it was cunningly arranged that the choice 
 should fall upon the demi-brigades of which 
 he was least sure, and upon the most ardent 
 of the republicans.* The command in chief of 
 this expedition was given to General Leclerc, 
 Bonaparte’s brother-in-law by marriage to his 
 favourite sister Pauline. About 24,000 soldiers 
 were collected on the western coast of France in 
 the autumn of 1801. ‘To transport them to their 
 destination, Bonaparte demanded the services of 
 the Spanish navy; and seven Spanish ships of 
 the line, besides frigates, were put at his disposal. 
 The whole fleet, which sailed on the 14th of 
 December, 1801, consisted of 23 or 24 sail of the 
 line, including some Dutch ships, of 10 or 12 
 frigates, and of a swarm of smaller vessels and 
 transports, 
 
 The negroes and mulattoes of St. Domingo, 
 who had themselyes abolished their slavery by 
 energetic and terrible means, were now settled 
 
 ToussAIntT LOUVERTURE. 
 
 | down under a republic, of -which Toussaint 
 | Louyerture, a black slave of distinguished courage 
 
 7 
 
 * Capefigue, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 191 
 
 and ability, was the real head, Toussaint had 
 fought like a Spartacus—only with better success 
 —for the liberation of his race; but though brave 
 and talented, he had little instruction, and, essen- 
 tially an imitator, could only copy and follow 
 the ideas and systems of the whites. At first, 
 he made a constitution for the negroes of St. 
 Domingo like that which the Directory had made 
 for France; but when the revolution of Brumaire 
 established the consulship, and altered the con- 
 stitution, Toussaint changed his constitution also, 
 proclaiming himself First Consul of Haiti, the 
 Bonaparte of St. Domingo! These close imita- 
 tions hurt the very susceptible pride of the 
 First Consul of France, and made him the more 
 eager for the overthrow of this negro republic, 
 “This comedy of government,’ said he, “must 
 cease! We must not permit military honours 
 to be worn by apes and monkeys!” As for the 
 abolition of negro slavery, the near view of it 
 which Bonaparte had in Egypt and Syria, had 
 not rendered it odious to him; he doubted whether 
 white men could cultivate the plantations in the 
 West Indies ; he knew that the negroes could, but 
 thought that they would work only under compul- 
 sion; and therefore, he considered negro slavery 
 as an indispensable necessity. “I am for the 
 whites,” he said to M, Truguet, a warm abolition- 
 ist, “because Iam awhite man. It is clear those 
 who want the liberty of the blacks, want the 
 slavery of the whites.’ But, as Toussaint Louver- 
 ture was a black, he was, by the same philosophy, 
 likely to prefer blacks to whites; and, as the 
 negroes of St. Domingo had obtained their liberty 
 by fighting for it, it was certain they would fight 
 again rather than return to slavery. Accordingly, 
 General Leclere and his doomed demi-brigades 
 found, on landing in St. Domingo, that every negro 
 on the island was hostile to them, and that they 
 were sent to engage in one of the most difficult and 
 destructive of warfares, in a country where the 
 climate and everything else were against them. 
 Their first successes only led them into a false and 
 dangerous confidence, and made their subsequent 
 failures more terrible to themselves, and more 
 disappointing to those who had sent them. Fort 
 Dauphin was easily captured; Cape Francais was 
 evacuated by the negro Henri Christophe, who, 
 however, before quitting the town, burned the 
 greater part of it, and succeeded in drawing off 
 3000 armed negroes, with whom he joined the 
 black First Consul. With nearly equal ease the 
 French got possession of Port-au-Prince and the 
 chief seaports, and of the principal military posts 
 near the coast. On this they advanced into the 
 interior of the island to encounter the black First 
 Consul and the yellow fever. Various loose actions 
 were fought, in which victory did not invariably 
 declare itself for the whites, and in which the black 
 generals are said to have displayed both skill and 
 courage, At last the negro chief fell into a snare 
 laid by Leclerc to obtain possession of his person. 
 He submitted to Leclerc, relying on promises made 
 
192 
 
 to him, which were presently broken, and he was 
 loaded with chains, and sent a prisoner to France, 
 The immediate consequence of this treachery was 
 that the negroes flew to arms with fresh fury 
 under Henri Christophe and other leaders, fell 
 upon the French when weakened by the endemic 
 fever, scattered them, drove them back towards 
 the coast, and tortured, mutilated, butchered them 
 in heaps wherever they obtained the mastery over 
 them. The French retaliated wherever they were 
 able, and the most atrocious of wars was prolonged 
 through many months. Even in the restored 
 island of Guadaloupe, where but a slight resistance 
 was offered by the blacks and mulattoes, detestable 
 barbarities were committed, and the French com- 
 mander frankly announced his intention of pur- 
 suing and exterminating the remnant of the rebels, 
 In the autumn of 1802, when the I'rench army 
 was reduced to a few hundreds of sickly, wounded, 
 despairing men, and when Leclere himself was 
 dying of yellow fever, Christophe, with the black 
 chiefs Clervaux and Dessalines, invested the town 
 of Cape Frangais.* Leclerc died on the 2nd 
 of November, and was succeeded by General 
 Rochambeau, son of the old marshal of that name, 
 who was enabled through the arrival of reinforce- 
 ments from France—in all about 15,000 men— 
 to drive Christophe and his blacks from Cape 
 Francais, which they were threatening with a 
 regular siege. He then attempted to recover the 
 ground which Leclere had lost; but the troops, 
 fresh from Europe, caught the terrible diseases of 
 the climate; and he was at last compelled to 
 retreat to Cape Frangais, which his now weakened 
 force could not possibly long defend. As by this 
 time the war with England prevented Bonaparte 
 sending out any more ships and troops, Rocham- 
 beau treated with the black chief Dessalines, 
 agreed to deliver up the town to him, and evacuated 
 Cape Frangais on the lst of December, 1803. The 
 whole fleet or convoy, with troops, civilians, and 
 planters, who left the island along with them, was 
 captured by our squadrons; and Rochambeau was 
 brought a prisoner of war to England. Several 
 French generals, who occupied distant towns on 
 the coast, were left behind in St. Domingo: of these, 
 Brunet surrendered to the English; Sarrazin suc- 
 ceeded in escaping to Cuba; Noailles, in attempting 
 to follow Sarrazin, was intercepted by an English 
 sloop of war, and killed in the fierce action which 
 ensued; and Ferrand retired to the town of San 
 Domingo, a place of great strength, and the capital 
 of the old Spanish part of the island, where he 
 maintained himself for nearly five years; but he 
 could never make any progress in conciliating the 
 blacks in the French part, and he could scarcely 
 ship a hogshead of sugar without the certainty of 
 its being captured by the English, In 1808, when 
 
 * Since the arrival of Leclere, large reinforcements had been sent 
 to him; but of 34,000 men in all, 24,000 were already dead, 7000 
 were in the hospitals, so that only about 2500 remained capable of 
 bearing arms. Three generals, Ledoyen, Hardy, and Debelle, and 
 a great number of field-officers who had distinguished themselves 
 
 in the early republican armies, were already in their graves, or 
 were left as food to the land-crabs, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 the Spanish nation rose like one man against 
 Bonaparte, the Spanish governor of Porto-Rico 
 declared war against him, the Spaniards of the 
 island rose upon him, and after a battle in which — 
 he lost the greater part of his very small foree, 
 Ferrand put a pistol to his head and blew out his 
 brains, A more fatal expedition is not to be found 
 in the whole history of this long war: between 
 February, 1802, and December, 1803, from 40,000 
 to 50,000 men perished in the island of St. Domingo; 
 but, assuredly, one of the objects of Bonaparte was 
 obtained—the troublesome, obdurate republicans 
 could trouble him no longer. The treatment which 
 Toussaint Louverture met with in France was at 
 least as atrocious as any part of this horrible 
 history. He was brought to Paris in the beginning 
 of August, 1802, and was sent in the first instance 
 to the Temple, which, as a state prison, was far 
 more crowded than ever the Bastille had been. 
 From this he was conveyed to the castle of Joux, 
 situated in the most desolate, the loftiest, and 
 coldest part of the Jura mountains, where he was 
 immured in a dungeon aw secret. And so perfect 
 was the secrecy observed, that for a long time no 
 research could discover, to the eager curiosity of 
 all Europe, the place where he was confined. Here, 
 in his damp cell, he had a litter of straw for his 
 bed, and was scarcely allowed food enough to 
 support life. The most credible account of his 
 death is, that one morning in the winter of 1803, 
 he was found lying dead and cold on his straw, 
 About the same time that he was first brought to 
 France, Bonaparte published an edict banishing all 
 of the negro race from his European dominions.* 
 A few months after the first sailing of the exiled 
 republican army for St. Domingo, the First Consul 
 despatched Colonel Sebastiani, a Corsican of great 
 address and ability, to Egypt, Syria, and other 
 countries in the Levant; for he still coveted 
 Egypt, and was eager to possess himself of it, of 
 the Isthmus of Suez, and of all the country 
 between the Mediterranean and the shores of the 
 Red Sea, or that stretched along that sea, which 
 he still fancied would facilitate his views on India, 
 This was a capital part of his grand scheme for 
 seizing the islands along the African coast, and in 
 the Arabian and Indian seas, or all the approaches 
 to Hindostan. The longing after Egypt was no 
 new thing in France. Choiseul, during the 
 American war, considered it as a settlement which 
 . . . Lod FT? 
 might serve France in lieu of her Wesv auuia 
 islands, which she was even then losing; and 
 
 f 
 
 * In the time of the Directory, to prove his desire of remaining — 
 in friendship with France, and to give his children the advantages 
 of a European education, Toussaint had sent two of his sons to 
 Paris. His wife and some other members of his family were, after 
 his own seizure, brought over in another ship, and consigned to 
 another state prison. After his death, his family were confined 
 at Brienne-en-Agen, where one of his sons died. ‘The unhappy 
 survivors were not set at liberty until the restoration of the Bour- 
 bons in 1814. His widow died in 1816, in the arms of her sons” 
 Placide and Isaac. His virtues, his genius, and political foresight 
 seem all to have been romantically exaggerated; but, after every 
 deduction, Toussaint Louverture will appear to have been by far the 
 most extraordinary man known to have been born of the unmixed 
 negro race, and in the soul-degrading condition of a slave; and 
 ‘*the deep damnation of his taking-off” must ever remain among 
 the darkest state crimes of Napoleon Bonaparte. i 
 
Cuapr. VIII.] 
 
 went so far as to enter into measures for the 
 acquisition of that country. The expediency of 
 seizing it was pointed out by the celebrated 
 traveller Volney in 1788. Talleyrand was full of 
 the same idea, and had published his opinion that, 
 even if France could keep her West Indian colo- 
 nies from the English, the emancipation of the 
 negroes must, sooner or later, stop the cultivation of 
 sugar, and render those colonies useless; and that, 
 therefore, it behoved an intelligent government to 
 prepare for the inevitable change, by acquiring 
 other countries capable of growing sugar and 
 other colonial produce, and in which the labours 
 of agriculture might be performed without blacks. 
 He pointed directly to Egypt as the country which 
 offered the greatest facilities to occupation, and 
 the greatest advantages to the occupants.* Here, 
 indeed, as in all other projects beyond the ¢erra 
 firma of the continent of Europe, permanent 
 success must depend on the superiority at sea; but, 
 counting on Spain, Holland, and the maritime 
 states of Italy as his own (and ship-building was 
 driven on in all these countries as in France), 
 and relying on the voluntary or forced services 
 of Denmark, Prussia, and perhaps of Sweden, 
 the First Consul hoped—and, at one time, very 
 confidently—that, before the peace of Amiens 
 should be broken, he would have that naval 
 superiority. His envoy Sebastiani was also 
 instructed to study the Turkish empire in Asia 
 Minor, to seek through the Levant for advantages 
 to France and enmities to England; but all this 
 was kept secret, the motive publicly assigned for 
 his journey being the anxiety of Bonaparte at the 
 slowness with which the English troops were 
 evacuating Egypt. 
 
 Sebastiani went first to Tripoli, and thence to 
 Alexandria, to Aboukir, to Cairo, to Acre, and we 
 know not where besides. He was a young man 
 at the time, his Corsican imagination was very 
 lively, and he knew the sort of reports which 
 would best please his countryman and employer. 
 On his return from Egypt, he wrote to the First 
 Consul: “ With only 6000 men, you may restore 
 that country to the French republic! so thoroughly 
 are the English detested there. Your name ‘alone 
 procured me honour and protection everywhere ; 
 and it was in vain that General Stuart, the repre- 
 sentative of his British majesty, endeavoured to 
 excite the Turks to assassinate me.” His report 
 contained sundry other calumnies and gross 
 insults directed against British officers in the 
 Leyant, and against their government at home; 
 and ended with the intimation that the Venetians 
 and Greeks of the Ionian Islands would rise and 
 declare for the French on the first favourable 
 opportunity. As by this time Bonaparte despaired 
 of being able to prolong the peace to the term he 
 had originally wished, in order to be prepared for 
 a@ maritime war, he published on the 30th of 
 January, 1803, the whole of Sebastiani’s report in 
 
 * Essai sur les Avantages 4 retirer de Colonies Nouvelles, par le 
 Citoyen C, M. Talleyrand. si 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 193 
 
 the ‘Moniteur.’ By this step, he disclosed to the 
 world the real objects of his countryman’s mission 
 to the East ; and irritated, insulted, and alarmed 
 other powers besides England. When our govern- 
 ment complained to his ambassador in London, that 
 functionary mentioned the attacks of our news- 
 papers, and Sir Robert Wilson’s recently published 
 account of the English expedition to Egypt, in which 
 Bonaparte was accused of cold-blooded butcheries 
 and poisonings on his retreat from Acre.* But 
 there was a wide difference between the cases: 
 in England, the press was free; in France, it was 
 fettered and manacled, and, to that degree, that 
 scarcely a line of which Bonaparte or his police 
 disapproved could be published in any journal, 
 Sir Robert Wilson’s book was but the work of a 
 private individual; whereas Sebastiani’s offensive 
 report was an official paper, sent as such to the 
 head of the government, and published by Bona- 
 parte himself in the ‘Moniteur” It was said that 
 he had revised it himself, but it was enough in the 
 circumstances that he had published it. It was 
 true that Sir Robert Wilson’s book was dedicated 
 to the Duke of York, and had been presented to 
 the king at a levée by the author; but, in England, 
 neither the dedication nor such presentation could 
 render the sovereign or government responsible 
 for its contents. But it was not so much the 
 attack on our honour and the character of General 
 Sir John Stuart, as the development of ambitious 
 views and fixed intentions, that incensed our 
 government and people at Sebastiani’s published 
 report, the tone of which, too, harmonised perfectly 
 with many overt acts and political aggrandize- 
 ments already accomplished. By deeds as well as 
 by words, the First Consul had proved that those 
 who were disposed to give him a trial were 
 making a very useless and dangerous experiment. 
 The erecting himself President of the Cisalpine 
 republic, between the signing of the preliminaries 
 and exchanging the ratifications of peace, had 
 been overlooked, or not allowed to stand in the 
 way of the treaty. It had, however, been 
 understood at Amiens, and expressly stipulated 
 for by the Emperor of Russia, that Piedmont 
 should be left, with some slight clipping, to the 
 unfortunate King of Sardinia. It was equally 
 understood that France should remain content 
 
 * Sir Robert Wilson had been the first to tell Europe of the 
 fusilade of the Turkish prisoners at Jaffa, and of the drugging with 
 opium the French soldiers who were sick of the plague. Of the 
 massacre there never was the shadow of a doubt (except in the 
 mind of Dr. Clarke, the traveller), the only difference being as to 
 whether 1500 or 2000 and more Turks and Arnauts were fusiladed 
 in cold blood, two days after their surrender, behind the sand-hills 
 of Jaffa. Bonaparte justified this horrible deed by pleading that, 
 in the reduced state of his army, he could not spare men to guard 
 sO many prisoners; and that, as these Turks and Arnauts had 
 .broken the terms granted to them after the battle of El Arish, he 
 could not trust them on their parole, or take their promise not 
 again to serve in this war. ‘To this defence the following good and 
 brief answer has been given: ‘* He could not possibly have recog- 
 nised in every one of these victims an individual who had already 
 given and broken his parole. If he did, still that would not avail 
 him. The men surrendered with arms in their hands. No general 
 has a right to see men abandon the means of defence, and then—after 
 the lapse of two days too !—inflict on them the worst fate that could 
 have befallen them had they held out. The only remaining plea is 
 that of expediency; and it is one upon which many a retail as well 
 
 as wholesale murderer might justify his crime.”—Lockhart, Hist. of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 M 
 
 ee re ene reuse pes itp 
 
194 
 
 with what she had, nor attempt any new incor- 
 porations or annexations. Yet, because the young 
 Emperor Alexander refused to take up that wild 
 scheme of Indian conquest to be made jointly 
 by France and Russia, which had been entertained 
 by his father, and declined concurring in other 
 hostile views against Great Britain and Austria, 
 Bonaparte, after sundry encroachments and 
 stretches of power on the side of the Rhine, and 
 in that puppet-state the Batavian republic, took 
 possession of the island of Hlba in virtue of an 
 agreement with Naples and Tuscany; seized upon 
 the duchy of Parma, on the death of the Duke 
 Ferdinand; and, finally, by a Senatus Consultum, 
 dated September 2nd, 1802, annexed and incor- 
 porated the whole of Piedmont with France. 
 Vittorio Amedeo, the original member of the 
 coalition of sovereigns, had died broken-hearted in 
 1796: his successor, Carlo Emanuele, had been com- 
 pelled by the French, and the republicans among 
 his own subjects, to sign an act of abdication, and 
 to retire with all his family to the rude island of 
 Sardinia in 1798. As soon as the then impassable 
 sea was placed between this sovereign and his 
 oppressors, and he was doubly safe in the midst 
 of the brave Sards, he put forth a simple and 
 touching, yet spirited protest. Shortly after, he 
 voluntarily resigned the crown to his younger 
 brother, Vittorio Emanuele, who was now ruling, 
 not unwisely or unpatriotically, in Sardinia, which 
 was all that was left of the dominions of his 
 House—one of the most ancient of the dynasties 
 of Europe. But, as a very large portion of the 
 Savoyard and Piedmontese nobility, either anxious 
 to escape from the insolent oppressions of the 
 French and the republican party of their own 
 countrymen, or to prove their attachment to their 
 princes, had followed the exiled family into the 
 island, and as industry and civilization were at a 
 very low ebb, balking the bounties of nature and the 
 richness of the soil, the court remained crowded 
 and miserably poor—so poor, for years, that the 
 noblest were obliged to exhibit themselves in 
 patched coats, and the royal family itself must 
 have been reduced to absolute privations if it had 
 not been for grants of money made by England. 
 Nor was it the intention of the French to respect 
 this last asylum (except the grave) of royalty and 
 wretchedness. “Sardinia,” said Bonaparte, “ pro- 
 duces the best bread in the world :—Sardinia is 
 but a continuation of the island of Corsica, and, 
 like Corsica, must, naturally, be ours.” Emissaries 
 and propagandists were thrown into Cagliari to 
 tempt the discontented people with prospects of the 
 advantages and honours of an incorporation with 
 the French republic; and more than once, very 
 nearly succeeded in exciting dangerous insurrec- 
 tions. From Cape Bonifazio to the northern 
 point of Sardinia was but a step: alert Corsicans, 
 happy to gratify their old feuds with their nearest 
 
 neighbours, were constantly traversing the narrow. 
 
 strait, landing on the Sardinian coast, plundering 
 or destroying. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X, 
 The French troops had never been entirely with- 
 
 drawn from Switzerland; and in the autumn of 
 the present year, a fresh army was marched into 
 the cantons. The constitution which had been 
 set up by the Directory, and the dissensions and 
 feuds which French intrigue had promoted, had 
 thrown the whole of that tranquil and once happy 
 country into a most stormy and unhappy condition ; 
 had broken up nearly all respect for old institutions, 
 had set the peasantry and burghers in hostile array 
 against the aristocracy, and then in some parts the 
 peasants against the burghers, and the burghers 
 against the peasants; had destroyed nearly all 
 old connections, and, by the madness of political 
 faction, had uprooted domestic affections and 
 dissolved family ties, frequently setting the nearest 
 relatives in deadly hostility to one another. Many 
 collisions took place, and not a little blood was 
 spilt, Atthe same time, the established provisional 
 government refused to sanction the dismemberment 
 of the Valais, which Bonaparte wanted for his pro- 
 jected military road over the Simplon. In the month 
 of October, the First Consul sent his trusty aide- 
 de-camp Rapp to Bern, to offer to the distracted 
 cantons his mediation for the settlement of all their 
 differences ; and at the same time he ordered 
 General Ney to be at hand to enforce obedience 
 at the head of an army. Thus backed by Ney’s 
 grenadiers and dragoons, Rapp delivered a letter 
 which told the Swiss magnates and legislators that 
 they must submit to whatever terms the self-elected 
 mediator might choose to propose. Napoleon 
 recommended, or rather commanded them to send 
 deputies to Paris, in order that they might agree 
 with him as to particular measures. The demo- 
 cratic party readily accepted the proffered media- 
 tion ; the aristocratic party, despite of Ney and his 
 army, who were marching on Bern, showed con- 
 siderable reluctance ; but they were obliged to send 
 Aloys Reding with other deputies from their own 
 body to Paris, and eventually to submit to the law 
 dictated in the Tuileries. It is true that Bonaparte, 
 who now added “ Mediator of the Helvetic League” 
 to his other titles, displayed more moderation, and 
 at the same time infinitely more political wisdom, 
 in this matter than in any other-of the same sort; 
 but his modus operandi was worse than an insult to 
 Austria, the close neighbour of Switzerland, and to 
 the other powers of Europe, who had each as good 
 a right to mediate as he had: the march of Neys 
 army was a direct and glaring attack on that Swiss 
 independence which he had engaged to respect ; 
 and, besides all this, he forced the federal govern- 
 ment to agree to maintain a body of 16,000 men in 
 his service, as they had formerly done for the ser- 
 vice of the Bourbon kings, and he retained Geneva 
 and the bishopric of Basle, which had been seized 
 by the Directors, at the same time separating from 
 Bern the whole of the Valais, which country 
 was not long after incorporated with France. In 
 his discussions with the Swiss deputies, he gave 
 vent to sundry expressions which must have 
 humbled their national pride as much as they 
 
 € 
 pa 
 
Cuar, VIII. 
 
 irritated the other states and sovereigns of Europe, 
 All Europe,” he said, “expects France to settle the 
 affairs of Switzerland, for it is now acknowledged 
 by Europe that Switzerland, as well as Italy and 
 Holland, is at the disposal of France.’* But 
 neither England nor Austria acknowledged the fact 
 with recognition of the right, and this preten- 
 sion of the First Consul was in itself quite enough 
 to rend the treaty of Amiens, 
 
 Another grand provocative to the rupture was 
 the fierce and systematized hostility of Bonaparte 
 to the commerce of Great Britain, which, instead 
 of being allowed through the return of peace to 
 flow in its old channels, was actually more impeded 
 and hampered in France and in the countries 
 where the French held sway, than it had been 
 during the war. 
 
 While the First Consul was making every month 
 or week some new encroachment, or advancing 
 some new claim; while he was every day depart- 
 ing, if not from the strict letter, from the spirit of 
 the treaty of Amiens, he pretended to bind England 
 to the strict observance of every article in that 
 treaty which was against her, and insisted on the 
 immediate evacuation of Malta, the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and of every place she had agreed to restore. 
 The final rupture came a few months later, but it 
 was evident to the world, before the close of the 
 year 1802, that the treaty of Amiens was an experi- 
 ment which had failed, and that recourse would 
 soon be had once more to the w/tima ratio—cannons, 
 muskets, and bayonets. 
 
 The newly returned imperial parliament assem- 
 bled as early as the 16th of November, when Mr. 
 Abbot was unanimously re-elected Speaker of the 
 House of Commons. The speech from the throne 
 seemed to intimate that the renewal of the war 
 was at least probable, his majesty saying that, not- 
 withstanding his sincere desire for peace, it was 
 impossible for him to lose sight of that system of 
 policy by which the interests of other states were 
 connected with our own welfare, and by which he 
 was obliged not to be indifferent to any material 
 change in the relative condition and strength of 
 the European powers. He strongly recommended 
 the adoption of all those means of security which 
 were best calculated to preserve the blessings of 
 peace. Ministers did not, indeed, admit that there 
 was any present necessity for recurring to arms ; 
 but the general impression was that such a neces- 
 sity could not be far off; and, like Wilberforce, 
 the greatest lovers of peace were chiefly anxious 
 that if we were to go to war, it might appear 
 plainly to have been forced upon us, and not to 
 have been resorted to as a measure of choice, or as 
 the result of political calculation.+ Augmentations 
 both of the navy and of the army were proposed 
 by ministers a few days after the commencement 
 of the session. On the 8th of December, the 
 secretary-at-war, Mr. Charles Yorke, rose to move 
 the army estimates. He said that he considered 
 
 _* Thibaudeau, Le Consulat.—A. Vieuss ist. of land. 
 + Wilberforce, Diary. eux, Hist, of Switzer 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1802. 
 
 195 
 
 that the feelings of the nation at large had been 
 distinctly manifested ; that we should preserve the 
 peace we had made, so long as we could with 
 honour; overlooking insignificant provocations, 
 and also abstaining from aggression and from 
 irritating language, but, at the same time, always 
 ready to repel aggression, and to resent a great 
 national insult. With this feeling of the country 
 he concurred, The French had acquired that 
 dominion over the opposite shores of Belgium 
 and Holland, which it had always been the 
 object of British statesmen to prevent. France 
 was now possessed of all the Netherlands, and 
 was all-powerful in Holland; she was mistress 
 of the whole course of the Lower Rhine, of the 
 Maese, and of the Scheldt. With such an 
 immense increase of sea-coast and of naval 
 resources, our navy alone could not be entirely 
 depended upon for protecting our own long line 
 of coast from the danger of invasion, The mili- 
 tary force of France at the commencement of the 
 present year amounted to about 428,000 men, 
 without counting national guards and the immense 
 bodies of gendarmerie. Under these circum- 
 stances, it was necessary for us also to be in a 
 high state of military preparation. No nation 
 could look for the continuance of peace, if it did 
 not feel a proper confidence in its own means of 
 defence and security. He stated the force of 
 regular troops necessary to be kept up for the 
 ensuing year at 129,000 men. The distribution 
 intended was 60,000 for Great Britain and 
 Ireland, 30,000 for the West India plantations 
 and other colonies, and the rest for the Hast 
 Indies. Including the militia and yeomanry, 
 there would be an actual force for the defence 
 of the United Kingdom of 200,000 men—a force 
 which, he thought, would not tempt any foreign 
 nation to attack us. General Tarleton, and others 
 who had uniformly voted against the late war, 
 voted with alacrity for the resolutions now pro- 
 posed, considering the increase of our forces as 
 absolutely necessary for the security of the 
 country. “ However great are the horrors of 
 war,” said Tarleton, “yet the horrors of seeing 
 Bonaparte’s flag on the Tower of London, or his 
 political principles current in this country, are 
 still more terrifying to me.” Sheridan, who was 
 falling away from the Foxite party, blazed forth 
 most patriotically and eloquently, as well in 
 favour of the ministers as of their measures. 
 Fox vindicated himself from the charge of being 
 the apologist of France, but contended that small 
 peace establishments were better for the defence 
 of the country than large ones. It was our 
 continental connections, not our self-defence, 
 which first gave us the idea of large standing 
 armies; he deprecated the expense of the pro- 
 posed increase of our forces, and concluded by 
 saying that, for his part, he saw nothing improb- 
 able in the supposition that Bonaparte, having 
 acquired great glory for himself in war, should 
 now wish to turn his attention to peace, and to 
 
196 
 
 the internal improvement of his country. Wind- 
 ham warmly declared his conviction that, from 
 the first day of the French revolution to the 
 present time, Mr. Fox had always been the 
 apologist, and often the eulogist, of France; that 
 at this very day he looked upon that revolution 
 with affection, and kept all its enormities out of 
 sight. In the end, the government resolutions 
 were agreed to without a division, The number 
 of men for the navy had been previously fixed 
 at 50,000, 
 
 On the 21st of December, a bill for appointing 
 commissioners to inquire into frauds and abuses 
 in the several naval departments, and for the 
 better conducting the business of these depart- 
 ments in future, having been carried by the 
 government through the Commons, had been 
 brought up to the Lords, when, on the motion 
 for the second reading, the measure was supported 
 by Lord Nelson, who was no orator, and, through 
 other deficiencies, but little qualified to be a 
 legislator. His lordship, in a short speech, 
 pointed out the intolerable difficulties that naval 
 men encountered in getting their prize-money 
 paid to them; but there were other frauds and 
 abuses which robbed the country and injured 
 the health of the seamen, which were very noto- 
 rious, but of which he took no notice. The Lord 
 Chancellor, with a delicate regard for the safety 
 and conscience of the employés of government, 
 hoped that in the bill there would be no departure 
 from that principle of law by which no man 
 is compelled to criminate himself. After an 
 amendment had been agreed to, expressly to 
 protect persons from the necessity of criminating 
 themselves, the bill was passed. Navy commis- 
 sioners were, in consequence, appointed; but 
 most of the expensive and disgraceful abuses 
 continued nevertheless, or were subjected to but 
 slight and insufficient checks. The new func- 
 tionaries owed their appointments to _parlia- 
 mentary interest; and, as in too many other 
 cases, the persons who could best command that 
 interest were the worst qualified for the places. 
 There was less deliberate dishonesty than inca- 
 pacity or unfitness; the commissioners could 
 scarcely be expected to rummage among biscuit- 
 bags and casks of salt-beef and pork; they left 
 these duties to the under-functionaries at Deptford, 
 Woolwich, and elsewhere, who too often enriched 
 themselves by giving the sailors bad provisions, 
 and charging government the price of the best, 
 The way in which the contracts were managed 
 seems to have been no mystery except to the 
 government itself. No other business of import- 
 ance was transacted before the Christmas recess. 
 
 In the month of November, a conspiracy against 
 the king and government was discovered and 
 announced in a manner calculated to create 
 undue suspicion and alarm. It was headed by 
 Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, an Irish gentle- 
 man of family, an old and once distinguished 
 soldier, whose head had been turned by the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. — 
 principles of the French revolution and some | 
 of the wild political societies at home. The | 
 vertigo was first prepared by his disappoint- | 
 ment in the hope of that promotion in his | 
 profession to which he considered himself entitled, 
 and by the refusal or delay of government to 
 liquidate some claims which he made upon it, 
 His intemperate language, close connection with | 
 some of the clubs, and perhaps the revelations | 
 of informers, drew upon him the suspicions of | 
 a ministry armed with the formidable powers | 
 resulting from the suspension of the Habeas — 
 Corpus Act. In the year 1799 or 1800, he had 
 been arrested on a warrant from the secretary 
 of state’s office, and had lain for many months 
 in Cold Bath Fields prison, which had acquired 
 among a portion of the people the odious name 
 of the English Bastille. On the return of peace, 
 or as soon as the Suspension Act was allowed to 
 expire, he had been enlarged without trial, or 
 even public examination. Such treatment was 
 calculated to convert discontent into disaffection, 
 and a mania for a visionary reform into plotting 
 and absolute treason, On the 18th of November, 
 two days after the meeting of parliament, on a 
 warrant issued by Sir Richard Ford, a magis- 
 trate, a strong party of patrols proceeded to a low 
 public-house in Oakley-street, Lambeth, nearly 
 opposite the Asylum, where they found Colonel 
 Despard and thirty-two other individuals of the 
 
 7 J mn 
 - Se ae =<: 
 
 COLONEL DESPARD,. 
 
 i 
 ' x 
 ee 
 . 
 | 
 
 common sort, including a few private soldiers, 
 who were all taken into custody, and on the — 
 following morning examined before the sitting — 
 magistrates at Union Hall. They alleged that, — 
 wien they were surprised, they were met as ae :) 
 club for innocent recreation. The examination 3 
 lasted eight hours. One of them—the informer— ] 
 and another man, were liberated, but the rest were 4 
 committed. In the afternoon, Despard, heavily | 
 ironed, was carried to the Home-offics: where 
 doveral of the cabinet ministers were assembled, 
 After undergoing a long private examination, r 
 was carried back to Newgate very strongly 
 
 ef 
 b F 
 >. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 guarded. On a second examination before the 
 privy council, he was fully committed to Newgate, 
 charged with conspiring to compass the death of 
 the king, and seducing some of his majesty’s 
 guards from their duty. A few days after this, 
 fifteen more persons were arrested and committed 
 to different prisons in the capital, all charged 
 with treason, or misprision of treason. 
 
 A.D. 1803.—On the 7th of February, Colonel 
 Despard was brought to trial at the Surrey Sessions 
 House, Newington, before a special commission, of 
 which the lord chief-justice of the King’s Bench 
 (Lord Ellenborough) was principal. The case was 
 opened by Mr. Abbott (afterwards Lord Tenterden), 
 and then the attorney-general, the Hon. Spencer 
 Perceval, addressed the jury. He stated that in 
 the preceding spring, when a detachment of the 
 guards returned from Chatham, a conspiracy was 
 formed for overturning the government, and a 
 society established for “the extension of liberty,” 
 of which two of the men at the bar, John Francis 
 and John Wood, had been very active members, 
 having frequently attempted to seduce soldiers to 
 join them, and having administered unlawful oaths 
 to those who yielded; that among other soldiers, 
 they had seduced two guardsmen, named Blades 
 and Windsor, giving them at the time copies of the 
 secret oath of the society, that they might make 
 proselytes in their turn; that Windsor soon after, 
 becoming dissatisfied, gave information of the con- 
 spiracy, and showed a copy of the oath to a Mr. 
 Bownas, who is suspected of having been a regular 
 spy for government, who advised him to continue 
 a member of the society, so that he might learn 
 whether any persons of consequence were engaged in 
 it. The attorney-general then produced and read 
 a copy of the oath, copies of which had been found 
 in the possession of several of the prisoners at the 
 bar,* arguing that it would bear only a treasonable 
 construction, He went on to say, that about the 
 middle of last summer, the conspirators, to avoid 
 suspicion, held their meetings at different public- 
 houses in London: that to these meetings, soldiers 
 were invited and treated, and toasts were given, 
 such as, “The Cause of Liberty,” “Extension of 
 Rights,” “France for our Model :” that becoming 
 more audacious, some of them proposed a day for 
 attacking the Tower; and that the great blow was 
 to have been struck on the 16th of November, on 
 which it was thought the king would open parlia- 
 ment in person:+ that on Friday, the 12th, 
 
 * The oath was printed on cards, with a preamble stating the 
 objects of the secret society very briefly :—‘ Constitutional inde- 
 pendence of Great Britain and Ireland! Equalization and extension 
 of rights! An ample provision for the families of those heroes who 
 fall in the contest! A liberal reward to all who exert themselves in 
 the cause of the people! ‘These are the objects for which we unite ; 
 and we swear never to separate until we have obtained them!” 
 The form of the oath was, “In the awful presence of Almighty God, 
 I, A. B., voluntarily declare, that I will exert myself to the utmost 
 to recover those rights which the Supreme Being has conferred upon 
 his creatures: and that neither fear, hope, nor reward shall prevail 
 upon me to divulge the secrets of the society, or to give evidence 
 against a member of this or any other society of a similar kind. So 
 help me God!” 
 
 + Parliament met on the 16th; but, on account of the preliminary 
 business incidental to a new House of Commons, his majesty did 
 not go down to deliver his opening speech until the 23rd. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 197 
 
 Thomas Broughton, one of the prisoners, at a 
 meeting of the society, prevailed upon two of the 
 members to go to the “ Flying Horse” public-house, 
 at Newington, to meet a man who proved to be 
 Colonel Despard; that there they consulted as to 
 the best means of seizing the Tower, and intercept- 
 ing the king; that shooting the king’s horses having 
 been suggested as a means of stopping his coach, 
 and fears expressed that they would be cut down 
 by the life-guards, Despard exclaimed: “ If nobody 
 else will do it, I myself will! Ihave well weighed 
 the matter, and my heart is callous.” The attorney- 
 general then admitted that government was well 
 aware of the proceedings of these people, but would 
 not interfere while danger was at a distance. 
 
 The evidence produced by the crown left little 
 doubt as to the existence of a plot of the wildest 
 and most absurd kind, and, indeed, would have 
 been sufficient to substantiate all the attorney- 
 general’s charges, if it had been throughout of 
 unexceptionable credibility. It was to the effect 
 that the Liberty Extension Society had some- 
 thing like a regular organization with Colonel 
 Despard at its head: that it was divided into 
 companies of ten, cach under a captain, every 
 five companies forming a division under the oldest 
 captain as colonel; and that one of its objects 
 was to raise funds, to send delegates, and distribute 
 cards, and win recruits throughout the country : 
 that Colonel Despard had represented, to his 
 London associates, the larger towns—particularly 
 Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham—as prepared to 
 rise: that their plan was to kill the king as he 
 went to open parliament—it had been debated 
 whether the great gun in the park should not be 
 fired at his majesty’s coach—then to attack the 
 parliament-house, and in turn the Bank and 
 Tower, stopping the country mails, as a signal to 
 the provinces that the revolution was begun; and 
 that the conspirators had arranged for the settling 
 and delivery of commissions in the “national 
 army” previous to the intended rising. Besides 
 three cards bearing the oath, which were found 
 on the floor of the room where the conspirators 
 were apprehended, no papers were produced 
 against them. Several of the witnesses spoke 
 to sayings of Despard to the effect that he was 
 callous of consequences, and that the country was 
 ripe for the revolution, which he had been for 
 two years preparing. Serjeant Best pleaded for 
 Despard, that a person could not be convicted of 
 high treason on evidence only of words spoken, 
 which do not constitute an overt act, and were 
 always liable to serious misinterpretations. The 
 colonel had attended one or two of the meetings, 
 but it had not been proved that he knew they 
 were of a treasonable nature, or that he had 
 attended them with treasonable intentions, The 
 printed card containing the oath of secrecy, and 
 found upon the floor of the tap-room—where it 
 might have been placed by an informer or by 
 the police—could not be used as evidence against 
 Despard; and there was no testimony to show 
 
198 
 
 that the prisoner was, in any shape, connected 
 with those printed cards, except that of one 
 witness, admittedly one of the most infamous 
 men living. This case, being in itself a most 
 improbable one, the more required cogent and most 
 decisive evidence from the lips of credible wit- 
 nesses, He ridiculed the idea of fourteen or fifteen 
 men of the lowest sort, without arms or money, 
 sitting to deliberate how to seize the Tower, and 
 the king, and to revolutionize a great state; and 
 argued that Colonel Despard, a gentleman, a 
 veteran officer, could not have embarked with 
 such men in such wild schemes, unless he had 
 been bereft of his reason. For the rest, he dwelt 
 upon the former high character and the past 
 services of the colonel, to which he produced 
 witnesses to speak. The first was the gallant 
 
 ‘ Nelson, who, in energetic language, bore honour- 
 
 able testimony to the character of Despard: they 
 had been, he said, on the Spanish Main together 
 in 1779; they had been together in the enemy’s 
 trenches, they had slept in the same tent; assur- 
 edly, he was then a loyal man and.a brave officer. 
 General Sir Alured Clarke and Sir E. Nepean 
 declared that they had always considered his 
 loyalty as undoubted as his bravery, and that he 
 had returned from service with the highest testi- 
 monials to his character. Mr. Gurney endeavoured 
 to invalidate the testimony of the witnesses for 
 the prosecution, particularly by exposing the in- 
 famous characters of the two soldiers Windsor 
 and Blades, and the discrepancies in their stories. 
 Despard declined saying anything in his own 
 behalf. The solicitor-general, Mr. Thomas Man- 
 ners Sutton, replied on the part of the crown; 
 Lord Ellenborough summed up the evidence ; the 
 jury, after half an hour’s deliberation, returned 
 a verdict of Guilty, but recommended the prisoner 
 to mercy. 
 
 Two days after, on the 9th of February, twelve 
 of the other prisoners were presented at the same 
 bar. The evidence brought forward was nearly 
 the same as on the preceding trial. The trial 
 lasted all day and all night, and it was past six 
 o'clock on the morning of the 10th ere Lord 
 Ellenborough finished summing up.. The jury 
 returned a verdict of guilty against John Wood, 
 Thomas Broughton, John Francis, William Lander, 
 John Macnamara, and four others of the prisoners, 
 but recommended three of them to mercy. On the 
 2ist of February, Colonel Despard and six others 
 were brought out to a scaffold erected on the top 
 of Horsemonger Lane gaol, in the presence of 
 innumerable spectators. The colonel met death 
 with the greatest firmness, saying, that after 
 having served his country faithfully, honourably, 
 and, he trusted, usefully, for thirty years and 
 upwards, he was brought to suffer upon a scaffold 
 for a crime of which he was entirely innocent ; 
 and solemnly declaring that his majesty’s ministers 
 knew he was not guilty, and only sought his life 
 because he was a friend to truth, liberty, justice, 
 and to the poor and the oppressed. He added 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 some rhapsodical words about the final triumph 4 
 of liberty, justice, and humanity over falsehood, | 
 despotism, delusion, and over everything else hos- | 
 
 tile to the interests of the human race. Some of 
 the populace cheered his last words; a far greater 
 number uttered a dismal reproachful groan as the 
 
 hangman held up the gray-haired, blood-streaming q 
 
 head of the veteran. 
 
 On the 8th of March, a message from his | 
 
 majesty to both Houses of parliament was received 
 
 by the country, and by all Europe, as the signal , 
 
 of the close approach of war. It stated that, 
 as very considerable military preparations were 
 carrying on in the ports of France and Holland, 
 his majesty had judged it expedient to adopt 
 
 additional measures of precaution for the security — 
 
 of his dominions ; that discussions of great import- 
 ance were carrying on between his majesty and 
 
 the French government, the result of which was 
 
 uncertain ; and that he relied with confidence on 
 parliament, to enable him to take such measures 
 as circumstances might require, for supporting 
 the honour of his crown and the essential interests 
 
 of his people. In the debates which took place in — 
 
 the Lords on the proposed address in answer to 
 this message, Lord Hobart (afterwards Earl of 
 
 Buckinghamshire), secretary for the colonies, said — 
 
 that it was the earnest wish of ministers still to 
 be able to prolong peace. THarl Spencer, who 
 had been first lord of the admiralty under the 
 late Pitt administration, said that he had ever 
 been a friend to vigorous measures; that he 
 rejoiced to find ministers were sensible they 
 had long enough conceded and negotiated, and 
 determined to act a manly part; that the only 
 chance of saving the country was by showing 
 that we were ready to recommence hostilities 
 
 rather than suffer the smallest particle of the 
 
 national honour to be tarnished. Lord Grenville, 
 whose tone had never once changed since the 
 signing the preliminaries to the peace of Amiens, 
 said that this was the first instance of sound 
 political wisdom shown by the present ministry ; 
 
 that he now hoped they would act with energy 
 
 and perseverance; that the experience of the last 
 
 eighteen months had proved the renewal of the 
 
 war to be inevitable. The Earl-of Moira spoke 
 
 in the same sense, with still more warmth: he 
 wished ministers would not be afraid of offending — 
 Bonaparte: he had no notion of any longer talking — 
 compliments with this new Hannibal, who had — 
 sworn on the altar of his ambition eternal enmity — 
 The address was carried in the — 
 Lords without a dissenting voice. In the Commons, — 
 
 to England. 
 
 i. Sa 
 
 a 
 ia, 
 
 [Boox ' a 
 
 A 
 ul 
 * 
 
 ee ee a eE— EE 
 
 Addington faintly repeated the hope that the — 
 continuance of peace might yet be found possible, 
 
 asserting that the preparations now recommended 
 
 were for precaution and internal security, and not 
 
 for offensive operations, 
 
 Fox could not venture 
 
 to oppose the motion, but complained of the 
 House being left ignorant of the circumstances — 
 
 which rendered warlike preparations nee 
 
 If, through negligence, rashness, or some Mb 
 - + 
 
a ta 
 Cuar. VIII] 
 
 concerted plans, they should involve the country 
 in a new war, he would pronounce the present 
 administration to be the most fatal and destructive 
 that had ever directed the affairs of Great Britain ! 
 Windham thought that Fox considered too 
 exclusively the evils of war, forgetting those of 
 a bad peace: but he, too, complained of the silence 
 of ministers as to the real grounds of disagreement 
 with France, not sufficiently reflecting that this 
 Silence was necessary, as negotiations were not 
 yet absolutely broken off. Sheridan again emitted 
 flames of patriotism. He trusted that, if war was 
 unavoidable, there were still left spirit enough 
 in British hearts, and resources enough in British 
 wealth, commerce, and enterprise, not only to 
 defend the country, but to avenge the slightest 
 insult to its honour, Here, too, the address was 
 voted unanimously. 
 
 The very day after this debate (on the 10th of 
 March), another message was delivered, expressing 
 his majesty’s intention of embodying and calling 
 out the militia. On the 11th, the House of 
 Commons having resolved itself into a committee 
 of supply, ministers proposed to add 10,000 
 seamen to the 50,000 already voted. In the 
 debates on this subject, the Addington administra- 
 tion was much blamed for having tried the 
 experiment of peace, and several declared it alto- 
 gether incompetent to the carrying on of a 
 vigorous war. The caustic Francis deplored that 
 at such a crisis all the eminent abilities of the 
 country were excluded from its councils and 
 government. Mr. Dent thought that, instead of 
 10,000, 25,000 additional men should be voted for 
 the navy. Fox, still complaining of the want of 
 precise information, expressed his strong approba- 
 tion of the treaty of Amiens, “and principally 
 because it freed us from those detestable and 
 abominable principles upon which the late war had 
 been conducted.” “He hoped that we should never 
 again hear of wars begun for the pretence of the 
 protection of religion and social order—he trusted 
 that such hypocrisy was for ever destroyed, and 
 that no ministry would again attempt to impose 
 upon a generous people by such false pretexts.” 
 He recommended ministers to continue their 
 endeavours at reconciliation with Bonaparte so 
 long as was consistent with honour, and concluded 
 with saying that he would not vote against the 
 proposed increase of the navy. The motion was 
 agreed to without a division, The voice of Pitt 
 had not been heard. The great man continued 
 to absent himself from the House, or to attend 
 rarely, This gave his old political friends the 
 more graceful opportunity of praising him in his 
 absence, and of contrasting his ability with the 
 mediocrity of Addington, whose ministerial days 
 were already numbered. It is said, however, that 
 Addington had grown fond of place and power, 
 that his bland and submissive manners had 
 _ captivated the court ; and it appears quite certain, 
 from the course taken by the Pittites, that 
 Addington was by no means desirous of vacating 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 199 
 
 his seat for Chatham’s son, who was generally 
 believed to have put him in it pro tempore, as 
 persons put seat-keepers in a crowded theatre 
 to secure their places till their return. It was 
 noticed by Wilberforce, in the month of February, 
 that Pitt was “not very friendly to Addington just 
 now.” In the month of April, it was currently 
 reported that there was a negotiation going on 
 between Addington on one side, and Pitt and 
 his relative Lord Grenville on the other, but that, 
 as Addington, strong in court favour, pretended 
 to retain his supreme post, and the king declined 
 telling Pitt that his services were considered 
 essential, it was not likely to come to any 
 conclusion.* 
 
 Some interesting debates took place on the pro- 
 fligacy and proneness to bribery, debauchery, and 
 riot of the electors of Nottingham, a constituency 
 which in all times has gained a pre-eminence of 
 dishonour. For the present, they ended in nothing; 
 but soon after the Haster holidays, a bill was unani- 
 mously carried, which was intended to put down 
 that part of the abuses which consisted in rioting, 
 by allowing the magistrates of the county a con- 
 current jurisdiction in the town of Nottingham 
 with the magistrates of the town. Other warm 
 discussions ensued on the relative excellences or 
 defects of the militia as a defensive force; but they 
 terminated in the passing of a bill which continued 
 the militia in Ireland, as well as in England and 
 in Scotland, but which in Ireland substituted the 
 giving of bounties for the system of ballot, which 
 had been found to work badly in that country. 
 
 The languid attention of very thin Houses (for 
 men could think now earnestly only of the grand 
 question of peace or war) was occupied until the 
 Easter recess by the Clergy Residence bill, the 
 Coroners’ bill, debates on the Pancras workhouse, 
 &c, But on the 6th of May, a fortnight after the 
 reassembling of parliament, Lord Pelham com- 
 municated to the Lords, and Mr. Addington to the 
 Commons, another message from his majesty inti- 
 mating that orders had been given to Lord Whit- 
 worth, our ambassador, to quit Paris immediately, 
 unless he found a certainty of bringing the pending 
 negotiations to a close against a certain period, and 
 that General Andréossi, the French ambassador, had 
 applied for a passport to be ready to quit London 
 as soon as he should be informed of Lord Whit- 
 worth having quitted Paris. Ministers said that 
 there were now grounds for believing that Lord 
 Whitworth was on his journey home, and might 
 soon be expected; and that therefore an adjourn- 
 ment would be advisable for two or three days. 
 Both Houses adjourned till the Monday following. 
 But it was not until the 16th of May, and after 
 
 * Pitt’s friend Wilberforce, writing on the 16th of April, says: 
 ‘‘ There certainly has been a negotiation with Pitt, in which 
 his return to power, and that of some others of his ministry, has 
 been in question;” and a few days later, he notes a visit paid to 
 him by Lord Bathurst, to talk “ about the negotiation between Pitt 
 and Addington.” A little later, Pitt, in a téte-a-téte, gave him the 
 complete history of the Jate negotiation with Addington, convincing 
 him that he (Pitt) had acted upon high and most honourable 
 principles. 
 
poe 
 
 200 
 
 another adjournment, preceded by a flourishing 
 account of the financial state of the country, that 
 all doubt and uncertainty were terminated by 
 another royal message which announced the recall 
 of Lord Whitworth and the departure of Andréossi. 
 In order to give time for producing the necessary 
 papers, the consideration of the king’s message was 
 postponed for two days. But on the 17th, the day 
 after the message was delivered, an Order of 
 Council was published, directing that reprisals 
 be granted against the ships, goods, and subjects 
 of the French republic; and a proclamation was 
 issued for an embargo on all ships in the British 
 ports belonging either to the French and Batavian 
 republics, or to any countries occupied by French 
 arms. On the 18th, copies of the requisite papers 
 —of the letters, memorials, and other state-papers 
 forming the diplomatic correspondence between 
 Great Britain and France since the period of the 
 peace of Amiens—were laid before both Houses, 
 On the same day, the subjects of complaint against 
 France were stated at length in a royal declaration 
 or manifesto. This paper began with contrasting 
 the liberal and friendly conduct displayed towards 
 the subjects of France, in respect to matters of law 
 and commerce, with the severity and injustice 
 practised towards the subjects of England. It laid 
 a proper stress on the circumstance of the French 
 government having sent persons to reside in the 
 British and Irish seaports, in the character of 
 consuls, when no commercial treaty existed, and 
 whose conduct gave reason to suspect purposes of 
 the most dangerous kind. It exposed the grasping 
 spirit of the French government, as displayed 
 since the péace by their keeping a French army in 
 Holland, violating the independence of Switzerland, 
 and annexing to France, Piedmont, Parma and 
 Piacenza, and the Isle of Elba, Next, it noticed 
 the novel principle advanced by Bonaparte, that 
 Great Britain had no right to take an interest in 
 the affairs of the continent, or to interfere with 
 the proceedings of France in any one point which 
 did not form a part of the stipulations in the 
 treaty of Amiens; and adduced arguments to 
 prove the incompatibility of this principle with 
 the spirit of treaties in general and the national 
 law of Europe. With regard to the non-evacua- 
 tion of Malta, which the First Consul set forward 
 as the one great cause of the rupture, it con- 
 tended that the conduct of the governments of 
 France and Spain, in seizing the property and 
 destroying the consideration and the independence 
 of the Knights, had been the cause of the non- 
 execution of that article in the treaty of Amiens 
 which stipulated the evacuation of Malta by 
 the British ; and here it was added—with refer- 
 ence to that noisy report of Sebastiani which 
 Bonaparte had published in his ‘ Moniteur’—that 
 the French government had given public indica- 
 tions of a design to violate those articles of the 
 treaty which stipulated the integrity and independ- 
 ence of the Turkish empire and of the Ionian 
 Islands, and that this alone would justify our 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 = iit A Was Aa Ta a neta Pe ey Se ree ae es Oe 
 
 retaining possession of Malta, unless other securities 
 against his ambitious projects were given by the 
 
 First Consul, who had refused to give anything of — 
 
 the sort. The indignities which had been offered 
 to the British government and nation were then 
 recapitulated, and particular emphasis was given 
 to the words which Bonaparte had used in a 
 public address to the Corps Legislatif, “that Great 
 
 Britain singly cannot contend with the power of — 
 
 France ;” an assertion regarded as an insult and 
 defiance, and contradicted by the events of many 
 wars. The royal paper concluded with declaring, 
 that, notwithstanding all the changes and encroach- 
 ments which had taken place since the peace, his 
 majesty was ready to concur even now in an 
 arrangement by which satisfaction should be given 
 to him for the indignities offered to his crown and 
 people, together with a security against further 
 encroachments on the part of France, 
 
 The declaration of war was received in England 
 with almost universal enthusiasm: the news was 
 welcomed in the city of London with hats in the 
 air, three cheers, and hearty English huzzas, Men 
 felt that the experiment of a peace had failed; 
 
 that an armed truce would be nearly as expensive — 
 as an active war, without its excitement and glory, — 
 
 while it would enable Bonaparte to establish his 
 
 oe . 7 
 dominion over the continent of Europe, and to 
 
 build, with all the resources of the continent, in 
 
 trebly fortified and inaccessible ports, a fleet which — 
 in the course of a few years might dispute with us 
 City corporations, — 
 with other bodies corporate and incorporate, cooled — 
 afterwards; but at the moment, the renewal of — 
 
 the sovereignty of the seas. 
 
 the war was hailed with more joy than had been 
 exhibited at the proclamation of the peace, 
 
 This important subject was not fully taken into — 
 consideration by parliament until Monday the 23rd 
 
 of May, when all the avenues to the houses were 
 
 crowded at a very early hour.* In each House an | 
 address was moved, re-echoing the sentiments of _ 
 Some few — 
 
 the king’s message and declaration. 
 doubts were expressed as to the justice or the 
 
 expediency of commencing hostilities without some | 
 further attempt at negotiation ; but in both Houses — 
 
 the doubters were left in a most feeble minority. 
 An amendment moved in the Upper House by Lord 
 
 King, for expunging those expressions which so — 
 
 warmly attributed to France the guilt of breaking 
 the treaty, was rejected by 142 against 10; and in 
 
 the Commons an amendment moved by Mr, Grey, 
 to assure his majesty of the support of the House 
 
 * On the preceding night, the Foxites had held a meeting to dis- 
 cuss their plans of opposition. Fox, it is said, spoke at this private 
 meeting with great moderation, expressing his anxiety for the pre- 
 servation of peace, but acknowledging the difficulties of the con- 
 juncture. He had to submit to the folly of some of his associates. 
 Sheridan was so drunk that at first he' could not speak intelligibly ; 
 but he afterwards became more articulate, and dwelt upon the 
 danger of throwing the ‘‘ Doctor ”—as Addington was called from 
 the profession of his father—into the arms of Pitt. This idea, which 
 
 is said to have been very prevalent among the partisans of Fox, — 
 
 proves at least that they believed that Addington wanted to retain 
 his place, in despite of the man who had made him.—Letter from 
 F. Horner to Thomas Thomson, Esq., in Memoirs and Correspond- 
 
 ence of Francis Horner, M.P., by his brother, Leonard Horner, s 
 
 Esq., PRS, 
 
 ls 
 a 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 d 
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 ‘4 
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 Se ae a eee 
 
 Cuap. VIII] 
 
 in the war, but to express at the same time a dis- 
 approbation of the conduct of ministers, was nega- 
 tived by 398 against 67. On this occasion, Pitt was 
 in his place, and he rose early in the debate to 
 express a hope that on this great question all 
 parties would be unanimous. His speech produced 
 an immense impression. Fox, in replying to it, 
 said that if Demosthenes himself had been present, 
 he must have admired, and might have envied, 
 Fox himself was quite facetious on what was 
 certainly no laughing matter. At the head of the 
 small minority, he confessed that Bonaparte was 
 very wrong in demanding that we should expel all 
 the French emigrants who had sought an asylum 
 in our country, abridge the liberty of our press, and 
 modify our constitution; but he palliated the 
 insolence of his language in conferring with Lord 
 Whitworth. Bonaparte, he said, had quite as much 
 right to complain of our aggrandizement in India 
 as we of his encroachments in Europe; that his 
 expressed determination to take possession sooner 
 or later of Egypt was not a sufficient cause for our 
 going to war, but that the war was provoked by 
 our retaining Malta and the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 that we were going to war on a sordid principle, 
 which would deprive us of the possibility of obtain- 
 ing any allies. The attorney-general (Spencer 
 Perceval), Windham, and others, strongly objected 
 to the tendency of Fox’s speech. Windham called 
 it not only a fallacious but a wicked speech, and 
 Fox himself a pander to base and illiberal passions ; 
 he contrasted his conduct and that of Pitt, who 
 had, he said, employed his great abilities in kind- 
 ling the flame of patriotism, and in calling forth 
 the energies of the country. 
 
 On the 27th of May, Fox moved an address 
 to advise his majesty to accept the proffered 
 mnediation of the Emperor of Russia. Pitt, who 
 again asserted his wonderful mastery over the 
 House, expressed his perfect approbation of the 
 principles on which the motion was grounded, 
 and of the wish to avert war if it were yet pos- 
 sible; but he hoped that Fox would not persist in 
 his motion, as there appeared no reason to doubt 
 but that the ministry would act in conformity 
 with that wish, and with those general principles, 
 In the end, Fox consented to withdraw his 
 motion, on a declaration from Lord Hawkesbury, 
 secretary for foreign affairs, that the government, 
 though it could not suspend the preparations for 
 pursuing the war, would be ready to accept the 
 mediation of Russia if the First Consul would 
 accept it, and accede to reasonable terms. In 
 each House, censures were moved on the conduct 
 of the Addington administration; but although 
 the enmity or coldness between Addington and 
 Pitt seemed on the increase, and although a very 
 general notion prevailed, both in parliament and 
 in the country, that Addington would make a 
 spiritless and bad war-minister, these motions 
 were rejected by great majorities, 
 
 At war with France, it was impossible to he at 
 peace with Holland, which was now little more 
 
 Lh eeeeee eee eteetreereeeeretrenerneeeeeenmereeeemmeneeneemeeee aa a 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 201 
 
 than a French province, and which still retained 
 maritime resources too great to be despised. On 
 the 17th of June, the king announced by message 
 that he had communicated to the Batavian republic 
 his disposition to respect its neutrality, provided 
 only the French government would respect it, and 
 withdraw its forces from that country; but that 
 this proposition not having been acceded to by 
 France, his majesty had judged it necessary to 
 recall his minister from the Hague, and to give 
 orders for the issuing of letters of marque and 
 reprisals against the Batavian republic. A few 
 weeks after this message, Lord Hawkesbury 
 called the attention of the Commons to another 
 royal message relating to the ex-Stadtholder of 
 Holland, our late ally, the Prince of Orange, who 
 had been despoiled and left without a home, and 
 who had no reliance except on the generosity of 
 this country. His lordship then moved that the 
 sum of 60,0007, and a pension of 16,0002 per 
 annum during the pleasure of his majesty, should 
 be granted to the illustrious House of Orange. 
 The grant passed without opposition. 
 
 On the following day, the 18th of June, another 
 royal message acquainted parliament that, for the 
 security and defence of the country, his majesty 
 thought it necessary that a large additional force 
 should be raised and assembled forthwith. On 
 the 20th, in the Commons, Mr. Yorke, the 
 secretary-at-war, presented the plan of increase, 
 which proposed to levy an army of reserve 
 50,000 strong—the men to be raised by ballot 
 like the English militia, and their services during 
 the war to extend to Great Britain, Ireland, and 
 the Channel Islands. A bill to this effect was 
 carried through both Houses, not without oppo- 
 sition to some of its particulars, but without any 
 division. Subsequently (on the 18th of July), 
 Mr. Yorke moved for leave to bring in a bill 
 enabling his majesty to raise a levy en masse in 
 case of invasion. [At this moment, the opposite 
 coasts of France and Belgium were lined with 
 troops, and the ‘ Moniteur’ and the ‘ Brussels 
 Gazette’ were calculating how many weeks or 
 days it would take Bonaparte to reach London.] 
 This, he contended, was an ancient and _ indis- 
 pensable prerogative of the crown, as was 
 acknowledged in the laws of the Anglo-Saxons, 
 in the assize of Henry II. and _ statute of 
 Henry III.; and the object of the present bill 
 was only to facilitate the exercise of such prero- 
 gative in case of necd. The most insolent of all 
 enemies, who had already subdued the greater 
 part of the continent, was threatening us with 
 invasion and slavery: there never was a time 
 when it was more necessary to assert this ancient 
 and undoubted prerogative. After detailing the 
 different classes under which the population of the 
 country should be enrolled for the purposes of the 
 bill, Mr. Yorke stated that, so lately as the reign 
 of Henry VIII, all persons in England were 
 required to exercise themselves at shooting with 
 the bow. The same principle required that the 
 
202 
 
 Englishmen of the present day should exercise 
 themselves in the use of the rifle, musket, sword, 
 &c, In case of actual invasion, every man must 
 be bound to march; but the volunteers would 
 be required to march only in their own corps. 
 Windham then rising, approved of what was 
 now proposed to be done, but strongly reprobated 
 the past inactivity and blindness of ministers, 
 which had left the country so much worse 
 prepared than it might have been for the 
 commencement of a war. Pitt also spoke in 
 warm approbation of the principle of the measure 
 proposed, but expressed his surprise and concern 
 at its not having been brought forward sooner, 
 Lord Castlereagh, as a member of the present 
 ministry, insisted that the bill had been presented 
 as soon as it was possible and proper. Fox offered 
 his hearty concurrence. Our regular army might 
 be good and great; our navy was the greatest 
 and the best in the world; but both were subject 
 to accidents and chances, whereas the mass of a 
 great people, once instructed in the use of arms, 
 would be a solid and permanent security, which 
 would not depend on the event of one battle, or 
 be rendered inefficacious by any untoward circum- 
 stances. He thought that the best mode would 
 be to try whether a general armament of this 
 nature might not be obtained voluntarily; but 
 he allowed that if compulsion were necessary, it 
 should be resorted to. Addington intimated 
 that there was no want of spirit and alacrity in 
 the people; that upwards of 60,000 volunteers 
 had already offered themselves; and that he con- 
 sidered the measure as singularly adapted to the 
 genius and character of the people. The bill was 
 then read a first and second time, committed pro 
 Jormd, and the report was brought up on the 20th, 
 when Sheridan deprecated any discussion until 
 the third reading. On the 22nd, after the bill 
 had been read a third time, on the question being 
 put that it should pass, Colonel Crauford expressed 
 his doubt whether farther means of defence were 
 not necessary. He thought that the regular army 
 ought to be increased; that the coast from the 
 Yarmouth Roads to the South Foreland ought to 
 be fortified; that defences ought to be thrown up 
 on the different roads leading from the coast to 
 London; that London itself ought to be fortified ; 
 and that all men ought to be armed. He also 
 strongly recommended the immediate appoint- 
 ment of a military council. Ministers replied, 
 that with such a fleet and army as we possessed, 
 it would be disgraceful to think of fortifying 
 London, and that it was quite clear that the 
 enemy were satisfied the preparations the govern- 
 ment had made left them no hope of success, 
 Pitt again took an active part in debate, pro- 
 nouncing a sort of eulogium on the military 
 management of his own government, If the 
 enemy should come—which was very doubtful 
 —our success was certain; but he agreed with 
 Colonel Crauford that, in order that victory 
 should be purchased with a smaller loss of life, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 ne EEE EEEEIEISEININSIEIINSNESINT peemmeeems—— 
 
 some fortifications were very advisable. [All 
 this was a prelude to the costly farce of those 
 Martello towers which Pitt’s restored govern-— 
 ment began to erect soon afterwards.] The levy 
 en masse bill was passed nem. con. On the 25th, 
 it was carried up to the Lords, who adopted 
 it unanimously, one or two of the peers only 
 censuring ministers, as Pitt had done, for not 
 producing it sooner. Three days after this, a 
 message was delivered from his majesty, ac- 
 quainting both Houses that a treasonable and 
 rebellious spirit of insurrection had manifested 
 itself in Ireland, and had been marked by cir- 
 cumstances of peculiar atrocity in the city of 
 Dublin. The corresponding address to the 
 throne was carried at once and unanimously ; 
 and, before another sun rose, two bills, one for 
 trying rebels in Ireland by martial law, the 
 other for suspending anew the Habeas Corpus 
 Act in Ireland, were hurried through all their 
 stages, and passed. In each House, all this was 
 done without any division; but in the Commons 
 there was some animated and angry discussion. 
 
 As early as the 13th of June, in bringing 
 forward the budget, the chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer had intimated his intention of reviving 
 the income tax as a necessary war tax; and on 
 the 5th of July he moved that the House should go 
 into committee upon that subject. The new tax 
 he chose to call a property tax, although in sub- 
 stance it was little more a property tax than the 
 old one, only containing a clause by which, in 
 cases of incomes from land or interest of money, 
 no particular disclosure was to be required. The 
 proportion now demanded was not, however, so 
 large as formerly.* Several. members objected to 
 the misnomer, insisting that it was in reality an 
 income tax, and not a tax upon property ; that it 
 raised an equal sum upon incomes of unequal 
 duration, upon the precarious produce of industry, 
 and upon permanent income; and that it was 
 unjust that a precarious income derived from 
 mental or bodily labour, should pay an equal tax 
 with an income which was permanent and 
 obtained without exertion. Sir Henry Mildmay 
 further observed, that on another point the present 
 bill would have an unequal operation, for it made 
 no exemption whatever in favour of persons 
 having large families, if their incomes exceeded 
 1507. a year; so that, whether a man was single — 
 or had a family of twelve children to support, there — 
 would be no difference in the operation of the tax. 
 The minister desired to know whether an exemp- 
 tion from the house and window tax, in favour of 
 persons with large families, would not go a great 
 way towards the object the honourable baronet so — 
 earnestly desired. On the 18th of July, the bill 
 was debated again in a committee of the whole — 
 House. After a member had warmly denounced — 
 
 * Where the owner of land let it out, he was to pay only one — 
 shilling in the pound, or five per cent.; but where the land was in 
 his own hands, he was to pay one and ninepence in the pound— — 
 
 that is, one shilling as landlord, and ninepence as tenant. 7 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 the inquisitorial means adopted to ascertain the 
 amount of the incomes of tradesmen, Pitt rose to 
 express his disapprobation of several of the details 
 of the measure, and to move an instruction to the 
 committee, that “the like exemptions and abate- 
 ments be extended to those who have income 
 arising from money in the funds, or land, or 
 money at interest, as are or may be allowed to 
 other persons.” Some of the Addington party 
 censured him for taking the minister by surprise. 
 To this Pitt scornfully replied that ministers had 
 been in possession of his sentiments for the last 
 three weeks, He persisted in pressing his motion 
 to a division, but it was rejected by 150 against 50. 
 While this income or property-tax bill was in com- 
 mittee, several important confessions were made, 
 and a few substantial alterations admitted ; and 
 the very day after the rejection of Pitt’s amend- 
 ment, Addington adopted its substance, on the 
 ground that “the exemptions it demanded were 
 expected by a great number of people.” A dimin- 
 ished rate was fixed for landed incomes from 60/. 
 to 1007. a year. A clause for empowering sur- 
 yeyors to examine property in order to estimate its 
 value, was so amended as to do away the power, 
 originally given by the bill, of entering private 
 dwelling-houses. All the clauses relating to the 
 mode of stopping and collecting the tax on 
 dividends payable at the Bank of England, were 
 struck out by the chancellor of the exchequer, who 
 substituted for them other clauses, importing that 
 stockholders’ returns should be made in the same 
 manner as those of other persons; but if, after the 
 expiration of six months, no return should be 
 made, then government should have the power of 
 collecting the tax at the Bank, as at first proposed. 
 A clause was also introduced which not only ex- 
 empted bank-stock already purchased by foreigners 
 from the tax, but also all funded property which 
 might, during the operation of the act, be acquired 
 by persons not subjects of his majesty, and not 
 residing in the British dominions. This clause, 
 although it was well and fairly meant, and pre- 
 vented numerous foreign holders of stock from 
 being scared away from our Bank, led directly to 
 much trickery and subterfuge, by which govern- 
 ment was a loser. Instead of an exemption from 
 the house and window tax, reductions were in- 
 troduced in favour of persons having numerous 
 families, upon incomes from 607, to 400/., for each 
 child above two, or for three or more children, 
 four per cent.; upon incomes from 400/. to 10002., 
 for ditto, three per cent.; upon incomes from 
 1000/. to 5000/,, for ditto, two per cent.; and upon 
 incomes of 50007. and upwards, one per cent. 
 Some abatements were also granted to persons 
 whose incomes ranged between 60/, and 150/. per 
 annum; and the bill was read a third time and 
 passed on the 1st of August. 
 
 Various other new taxes or duties were also 
 imposed. Some of these were extended to Ireland, 
 and the lord-lieutenant of that country was autho- 
 rised to raise 1,000,0007. by loan. ‘The total 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 203 
 
 amount of supplies granted for the year was 
 41,363,1927. Of this great sum, 12,000,000/, was to 
 be raised by annuities, 1,052,000/. by lotteries, 
 above 15,000,0007. by loans or Exchequer bills, 
 and 4,000,000/. was to be taken from the consoli- 
 dated fund. The session was closed on the 12th 
 of August by a speech from the throne, ‘wherein 
 his majesty expressed his reliance that, under the 
 continuance of the Divine protection, the exer- 
 tions of his brave and loyal subjects would prove 
 to the enemy and to the world, that an attempt to 
 subvert the independence or impair the power of 
 this United Kingdom, would terminate in the 
 disgrace and ruin of those by whom it might be 
 made. The king appeared in excellent health and 
 spirits, and was enthusiastically cheered by 
 immense multitudes on his way to and from 
 parliament. 
 
 While parliament was sitting, and when the 
 country was ringing with military preparations, 
 the Prince of Wales repeated a claim which he 
 had often made before, for military promotion. 
 The Duke of York had been for some years captain- 
 general and commander-in-chief of the forces, the 
 Dukes of Kent, Cumberland, and Cambridge were 
 lieutenant-generals ; but their eldest brother, the 
 heir to the throne, was left in the inferior grade of 
 a colonel of dragoons. On the 18th of July, the 
 prince addressed a letter to Addington, stating 
 that, from the official communication to parliament 
 that invasion was the avowed object of the enemy, 
 and from the levy en masse and other extraor- 
 dinary measures of defence agreed upon, the danger 
 was clearly not believed to be dubious or remote; 
 that, animated by the spirit of the nation, he was 
 anxious to undertake the responsibility of a mili- 
 tary command; that though not experienced in 
 actual warfare, he could not regard himself as 
 totally unqualified in military science; that, 
 however, his chief pretensions to promotion were 
 founded on a sense of the advantages of his 
 example in exciting the loyal energies of the 
 nation, and on a knowledge of those expectations 
 which the public had a right to form as to the 
 personal exertions of their princes at a moment 
 like the present. He complained of the little 
 value formerly put upon his offers of service; of 
 some “unknown cause” which had retarded his 
 appointment; and of the obloquy to which he was 
 exposed of being regarded by the country as idle 
 and indifferent to the events which menaced it: he 
 insisted that his claim was strictly constitutional 
 and justified by precedent ; and that to debar him 
 from it in the present situation of Europe would be 
 alike fatal to his own immediate honour and to 
 the future interests of the crown. It appears that 
 Addington left this earnest letter unanswered, for 
 the prince repeated his application in another 
 letter dated the 26th of July; in reply to which, 
 Addington briefly alluded to similar applications 
 which, in obedience to the commands of his royal 
 highness, had been laid before his majesty upon 
 former occasions. The prince then desired the 
 
204 
 
 minister to lay before his majesty his last note of 
 the 26th. This Addington did; but the king only 
 referred to the orders he had before given, adding 
 that, his opinion being fixed, he desired that no 
 further mention should be made to him of the 
 subject. Six days before the prorogation of parlia- 
 ment, the prince addressed a letter to the king 
 himself, repeating with additional earnestness the 
 arguments he had used in his letters to Addington. 
 He reminded his father that no other cause had 
 been or could be assigned for the refusal, except that 
 it was the will of his majesty. The king, in a 
 very succinct answer, referred him to the repeated 
 declarations he had already made of his deter- 
 mination on this subject, and told him that he had 
 flattered himself he should have heard no more 
 about it; adding, “Should the implacable enemy 
 so far succeed as to land, you will have an oppor- 
 tunity of showing your zeal at the head of your 
 regiment.” On the 23rd of August, the prince 
 once more addressed the king, but without pro- 
 ducing any effect on his fixed determination. At 
 the beginning of October, when an extensive pro- 
 motion took place in the army, the prince wrote 
 to his brother the Duke of York, as commander-in- 
 chief, complaining that his standing in the army, 
 according to the ordinary routine of promotion, 
 would have placed him by this time either at the 
 bottom of the list of generals, or at the head of the 
 list of lieutenant-generals; and that to be told that 
 he might display his zeal solely and simply at the 
 head of his regiment was a degrading mockery. 
 The Duke of York replied that he must recall to 
 his rhnemory a conversation he had with the Prince 
 of Wales, upon the same subject, soon after his 
 majesty had placed him at the head of the army; 
 that in the year 1795, on a general promotion 
 taking place, he, at the prince’s instance, had 
 delivered a letter from him to his majesty, urging 
 his pretensions to promotion in the army ; to which 
 his majesty had been then pleased to answer that, 
 before ever he gave the prince the command of the 
 10th light dragoons, he had caused it to be fully 
 explained to him what his sentiments were with 
 ‘respect to a Prince of Wales entering the army, 
 and the public grounds upon which he could never 
 admit of his considering it as a profession, or claim- 
 ing promotion in the service; and that his majesty 
 at the same time had added his positive command 
 and injunctions to him (the duke) never to men- 
 tion that subject again to him, and to decline being 
 the bearer of any application of the same nature, 
 should it be proposed to him. The Prince of Wales 
 wrote again to the commander-in-chief, denying 
 that he had ever entered into any compromise— 
 denying any recollection of the private conversation 
 alluded to—stating that in the first instance he 
 had been merely referred to his majesty’s will and 
 pleasure, and that now he was informed for the 
 first time that when the king had appointed him 
 to the command of the Tenth he had caused it to 
 be fully explained to him what his sentiments were 
 with respect to a Prince of Wales entering into the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 er 
 
 army. He insisted that neither in his majesty’s 
 letter nor in the letters of Mr. Addington was 
 
 there one word or the most distant allusion to the | 
 
 condition mentioned in the duke’s letter; and that, 
 even if he had accepted the command of a regi- 
 ment on such conditions, his acquiescence could 
 have relation only to the ordinary situation of the 
 country, and not to a case so completely out of all 
 contemplation at that time as the probable invasion 
 of this kingdom by a foreign force sufficient to bring 
 its safety into question. Tour other letters passed 
 between the royal brothers, but with no result. 
 On the 23rd of October, when the prince was on 
 the point of starting for Brighton, where the Tenth 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 was quartered, Addington wrote him a short am- — 
 
 biguous note, saying that, in consequence of some 
 intelligence which had reached him, he was im- 
 pelled by a sense of duty to his royal highness and 
 to the public, to express an anxious hope that 
 he might be induced to postpone his journey to 
 Brighton, until he (Addington) should have an 
 opportunity of making further inquiries. On the 
 following day, the prince replied by note that he 
 apprehended that Addington expected some im- 
 mediate attempt from the enemy, adding that his 
 wish to accommodate himself to anything which 
 the minister might represent as material to the 
 public service, would make him desirous to comply 
 with his request ; but that, if there was reason to 
 imagine that invasion would take place directly, 
 he was bound, “by the king’s precise order, and 
 by that honest zeal which was not allowed any 
 
 fitter sphere for its action,’ to hasten instantly to 
 
 his regiment. The prince went down to Brighton 
 
 on the 24th or 25th; and on the 26th of October — 
 there was a grand scene in the capital, which was — 
 
 probably the motive which induced Addington to 
 request his royal highness to remain in town, and 
 
 the motive which induced the prince to hurry — 
 
 down to the coast:—there was a review in Hyde 
 Park of all the volunteer corps of London, 12,500 
 strong. The king was accompanied by the queen 
 and all the other members of the royal family 
 except the heir-apparent. 
 
 Perhaps no single circumstance tended more to 
 exasperate Bonaparte, and hurry on the already 
 inevitable war, than the trial of Peltier with 
 the eloquent pleading of Sir James Mackintosh. 
 Jean Joseph Peltier was a journalist and royalist 
 refugee, living and publishing in London. He 
 was a person in himself neither interesting nor 
 exalted, of little literary merit, and more abusive 
 and calumniatory than eloquent or witty; who, 
 
 at the commencement of the revolution, edited a 
 monarchic paper, and when the Bourbon mon- — 
 
 archy was rent to picces, came to England, and 
 availed himself most actively and extensively of 
 our liberty of the press. He began, after the 
 peace of Amiens, to publish a journal, called 
 ‘l/Ambigu, in which he lashed the First Consul, 
 his court, and government, without mercy, and nob 
 without calumny. In the fourth number of this 
 paper appeared a miserable ode on Bonaparte’s 
 
 A he 
 
 m4 
 
Be a 
 
 a. 
 - : 4 
  . 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 Revolution of the 18th Brumaire, in which he 
 represented Bonaparte as Cesar who had passed 
 the Rubicon, as the tyrant who had left no liberty 
 in France; and pictured the last of the Romans 
 with an avenging poniard in their hands—and 
 then, descending from classicalities, asked the 
 warriors of France whether they were not ashamed 
 of serving a Corsican, wz Corse—and then, return- 
 ing to the classical, recommended the Tarpeian 
 Rock, &c. At the same time, Peltier gave vent to 
 another diatribe in rhyme, called ‘The Prayer of a 
 Dutch Patriot, wherein he spoke of Bonaparte’s 
 making and unmaking of kings, of his making 
 himself Consul for life, &c., praying that the 
 succession might soon be left open by his death, 
 or that he might disappear like Romulus in a 
 mysterious apotheosis. Instead of meeting these 
 rhymes with contempt, Bonaparte was enraged, 
 and pretended that they were provocatives to his 
 assassination and to the overthrow of his govern- 
 ment, and instructed his ambassador at London 
 to demand satisfaction from the British govern- 
 ment, Our secretary for foreign affairs, Lord 
 Hawkesbury, replied that in England the press 
 was free; that its excesses were punishable by 
 law—whose courts were open to all—that the 
 British court and the ministers themselves, often 
 traduced and libelled, had no other resource— 
 that he did not doubt but that an English jury 
 would give the First Consul satisfaction, if he 
 chose to proceed against Peltier by law. The 
 First Consul, who could not or would not conceive 
 that our government had not the same power over 
 newspapers and journalists which he had, inti- 
 mated that nothing less would satisfy him than the 
 suppression of ‘L’Ambigu’ and the deportation of 
 Peltier. He wrote directly to the English premier 
 to urge these demands, and to recommend a change 
 of our laws relating to the press, Addington 
 calmly and respectfully replied that our constitu- 
 tion left to every man the use of his pen, at his 
 own risk and peril if he misused it; that libels, like 
 other offences, were punishable by judge and jury ; 
 that, though at times a libeller might escape pun- 
 ishment, it was difficult to find a remedy without 
 touching that liberty of the press which was part 
 of our system and of our habits, and endeared to 
 the English people; that, foreigner as he was, the 
 First Consul might bring his action, only that such 
 a course would give greater publicity to the libel, 
 and that a better course would be to treat Peltier 
 and his papers with contempt.* Finding it 
 impossible to make our government arbitrarily 
 suppress ‘ L’Ambigu,’ and transport its editor, the 
 First Consul instructed his ambassador at London 
 to urge the institution of proceedings in our courts 
 of law. His eagerness for vengeance on a poor 
 
 * There was assuredly, at this moment (in the summer of 1802), 
 no want of a conciliatory tone on the part of our ministers. Lord 
 Hawkesbury went so far as to say in a note to M. Otto, that it was 
 ‘impossible that his majesty’s government could peruse the articles 
 in question without the greatest displeasure, and without an anxious 
 desire that the person who published them should suffer the punish- 
 ment he so justly deserved.” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 205 
 
 refugee scribbler made him reject Addington’s 
 sensible advice. He would fain have precipi- 
 tated the trial, but he could not change the 
 routine of our lawyers’ terms and sessions. Before 
 the trial came on, all those causes of disagreement 
 with the British government which we have men- 
 tioned had occurred, inclusive of Sebastiani’s 
 Levant mission and insulting report; and the 
 Consul, moreover, had made his ‘ Moniteur’ teem 
 with abuse of the British constitution, government, 
 and people, it being no secret that many of these 
 ‘Moniteur’ articles were either written or dictated 
 by himself, At last, on the 21st of February, 1803 
 —the day on which Colonel Despard and his asso- 
 ciates were executed—the trial came on in the 
 Court of Queen’s Bench, before Lord Chief-Justice 
 Ellenborough and a special jury. The information 
 had been filed by his majesty’s attorney-general 
 ex officio, and stated, “that peace existed between 
 Napoleon Bonaparte and our Lord the King, but 
 that M. J. J. Peltier, intending to destroy the 
 friendship so existing, and to despoil the said 
 Napoleon Bonaparte of his consular dignity, did 
 devise, print, and publish, in the French language, 
 to the tenor following,’ &c. [Here the passages 
 from the paper were inserted, and described as 
 libellous, &c.] The attorney-general conducted 
 the prosecution, and argued that the object of 
 the writer was to excite the subjects of France 
 to rebel against their chief magistrate de facto, 
 and further to excite them to his assassination 
 —that there could be no doubt of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte being the de facto chief magistrate or First 
 Consul of France, as he had been recognised by 
 us in that character, and in that character we had 
 made peace with him, and that therefore such 
 a publication in this friendly country could not 
 escape punishment. It was every way a happy 
 choice by which Peltier selected for his counsel 
 the able and animated Mackintosh, who artfully 
 applied himself to the deep-rooted national feel- 
 ings, prejudices, and common sympathies of the 
 jury, exciting their passionate regard for the 
 liberty of the press, their jealousy and hatred for 
 successful despotism, their pity for the poor 
 outcast, “the weak and defenceless fugitive,” “the 
 voluntary victim of loyalty and conscience.’ At 
 the same time he showed the innoxiousness of 
 Peltier’s attacks, and the, to Englishmen, revolting 
 tyranny exercised in France against the produc- 
 tions of the press. This obscure journal, ‘L’Ambigu,’ 
 appeared under circumstances the least calculated 
 to give disquiet to the First Consul: it could not 
 be much read here, for it was not in the language 
 of the country; it could not be read in France, for 
 Bonaparte prohibited the admission of English 
 newspapers, ‘L’ Ambigu’ was issued for the purpose 
 of amusing and consoling the fellow-sufferers of 
 M. Peltier, by occasional reflections on the factions 
 which divide and agitate the land from which they 
 are exiled. He admitted the principle of the 
 
 attorney-general that no government recognised 
 by our sovereign was to be libelled with impunity ; 
 
206 
 
 that in this respect all governments were on the 
 same footing, whether they were of yesterday or 
 confirmed by a succession of ages. He called that 
 English law-court his client’s last asylum upon 
 earth; the only place in which his prosecutor and 
 he could be upon equal terms; he flattered the 
 jury by saying for his client that the most refresh- 
 ing prospect his eye could rest upon was a just, 
 impartial, and fearless English jury ; and warmed 
 their nationality by reminding them that his client 
 had waived his privilege of having half his jury 
 composed of foreigners, preferring to put himself 
 upon a jury entirely English. He represented this 
 cause as the first of a series of contests with the 
 freedom of the press which Bonaparte was deter- 
 mined to carry on in the only country where the 
 press was free; and he called upon his country- 
 men to pause before the great earthquake swal- 
 lowed up all the liberty that remained among 
 men. Holland, Switzerland, and the imperial 
 towns of Germany, had once participated with us 
 in the benefit of a free press, Holland and 
 Switzerland were now no more, and nearly fifty 
 of the free imperial towns had vanished since the 
 commencement of this prosecution, Every press 
 in Europe, from Palermo to Hamburg, was now 
 enslaved: and here he electrified the court by 
 exclaiming : “One asylum of free discussion is still 
 inviolate! There is still one little spot where man 
 can freely exercise his reason on the most import- 
 ant concerns of society—where he can boldly 
 publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest 
 and most powerful tyrants. The press of England 
 is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution 
 of our forefathers. It is guarded by the arms and 
 hearts of Englishmen ; and I trust I may venture 
 to say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only under 
 the ruins of the British empire. It is an awful 
 consideration. Every other monument of Euro- 
 pean liberty has perished. That ancient fabric, 
 which has been gradually reared by the wisdom 
 and virtue of our forefathers, still stands: it 
 stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire ; but it 
 stands alone, and it stands amidst ruins.’ Again 
 returning to the cherished system of the trial by 
 jury, he mentioned the important struggle of 
 Cromwell with the spirit of English jurors, “That 
 spirit,’ he exclaimed, “is, I trust in God, not 
 extinct ; and, if any modern tyrant were, in the 
 drunkenness of his insolence, to hope to overawe 
 an English jury, I trust, and I believe, that they 
 would tell him—Our ancestors braved the 
 bayonets of Cromwell, we bid defiance to yours !” 
 The attorney-general (Spencer Perceval) replied, 
 that his honourable friend was wrong in attribut- 
 ing the prosecution to the first magistrate of 
 France; that the real prosecutor was the chief 
 magistrate of this country ; that Peltier’s publica- 
 tion was clearly libellous, and had a tendency to 
 provoke assassination, &e, Lord Ellenborough 
 
 summed up at considerable length, and the jury 
 returned a reluctant verdict of Guilty against the 
 But before Peltier could be called up 
 
 defendant. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 for judgment, the war was renewed, and he was 
 let off scathless.* 
 
 The immediate effect of the publication of 
 the report of this trial, and of the speech of 
 Mackintosh, was that the ‘Moniteur’ became more 
 violent and abusive than ever. To have been 
 bearded by a penniless pamphleteer and an advo- 
 cate whose fortune was all to make, was more than 
 the First Consul could bear; and England was 
 the only country in which this could have been 
 done. From that moment, war was declared in 
 his heart—from that moment, the secret counten- 
 ance and encouragement he had given to the Irish 
 refugees and malcontents became an open and bare- 
 faced protection. About the same time, he made 
 or renewed the demand that the British govern- 
 ment should expel from the United Kingdom all 
 royalist emigrants, and oblige the princes of the 
 house of Bourbon to quit the asylum they had 
 chosen, to go and reside at Warsaw, where Louis 
 XVIII., or the Pretender, as he was termed, had 
 taken up his abode, His ambassador at London 
 delivered note after note to Lord Hawkesbury, to 
 convince him that by the alien bill the English 
 government had the power of doing what was 
 demanded, and ought to exercise it, in order to 
 quiet the alarms of the First Consul, who knew that 
 these personages and their adherents were hatch- 
 ing plots in London against his authority and life, 
 To this demand the British government replied by 
 quoting the history of the exile of the last of our 
 Stuart kings, and the conduct of the French 
 government in his regard. Lord Hawkesbury, 
 however, so far gratified the First Consul as to 
 remove some Chouans and other resolute royalists 
 from the island of Guernsey, where they almost 
 touched the French coast, to a town in the interior 
 of England, where they could be kept under some 
 sort of surveillance. His lordship did not demand 
 in return any expulsion of, or surveillance over, 
 the Irish exiles and refugees. 
 
 A word more must be said touching Bonaparte’s 
 so-called consular agents. They were all military 
 men, artillery or engineer officers, or officers who 
 had acquired the art of military surveying, and 
 the faculty of judging at a glance of the strong 
 and the weak points of a country. Also most of 
 the ambassadors who were or had been employed 
 by Bonaparte were not civilians or trained diplo- 
 
 matists, but military men, Andréossi, now ambas- 
 
 sador in London, had no pretension to diplomatic 
 skill, but he was one of the most skilful engineer 
 
 and artillery officers in the French service, had 
 an excellent coup-d’oil for seizing the military 
 
 features of a country, and a facility and rapidity 
 
 * He had in the meantime published the report of the trial, with 
 
 Mackintosh’s defence at full length, as revised by the author. — 
 
 Numerous copies of it were smuggled into the continent, and from 
 one of these, Necker’s famed daughter, Madame de Staél, made a 
 spirited translation into French, which ran throughout Europe. 
 It gave a better reason for the renewal of hostilities than any that 
 our diplomatists put into their protocols and ultimatums; it 
 showed to the civilised world the real stake for which England was 
 
 fighting; it did more mischief to Bonaparte than he would have — 
 
 auiteane from the defeat of an army or from the destruction of a 
 eet. 
 
 [Boox Xi 
 
 7 
 
one ae OSE oe 
 
 Cuap. VIII.) CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 207 
 
 in mapping and planning, as he had already 
 proved in Italy and in Egypt, and of which he 
 afterwards gave further proof in Turkey and in his 
 published work on Constantinople, the Bosphorus, 
 and the passage of the Dardanelles.* The so- 
 called consuls were observed to be very busy in 
 all the seaports, and more particularly in the 
 ports of Ireland, On the 27th of November, 1802, 
 Talleyrand, as minister for foreign affairs, wrote 
 under the dictation of Bonaparte a very significant 
 letter to M. Fauvelet, consul or commercial agent 
 at Dublin, charging him to procure a plan of the 
 port where he resided, specifying its depth and 
 the possibility of ships of the line entering it; 
 and to inform himself of the best wind for ships 
 of war to enter the port, of the greatest depth of 
 water in the roads, and whether transports heavily 
 laden could get close inshore.t It is not to be 
 supposed that these earnest instructions were con- 
 fined to Dublin, or that soundings and surveys 
 were not procured in other ports. It is frankly 
 stated by a recent French writer that engineers 
 took soundings in all our roadsteads, and got access 
 to all our dockyards and arsenals. In addition 
 to such duties, these commercial agents in Ireland 
 were charged with keeping up a good intelligence 
 with the chiefs of the malcontents. Not a few 
 of these agents were also members of Bonaparte’s 
 secret police. Some of them—probably those 
 belonging to the police—were wary and silent, 
 as became their business; but others of them 
 spoke openly of the ease with which Bonaparte 
 and his “Invincibles” might conquer the United 
 Kingdom, At last, the English government did, 
 what it ought to have done at first—it sent all 
 these persons out of the country. 
 
 Bonaparte was clearly resolved on renewing 
 the war with Great Britain. His predominant 
 idea was, that his existence depended on an ex- 
 tension of his conquests. It was vain indeed to 
 look for peace with such a man with such immense 
 means for warfare at his disposal. Even apart 
 from calculation, war was his idol, and greatest 
 source of enjoyment; he was always observed to 
 become moody and sad in a time of peace, whereas 
 in camp or in the field he was always gay and 
 buoyant. If he had wished to prolong the truce of 
 Amiens for a season, it was only because he wished 
 to be the more fully prepared for war, and to be 
 enabled to work out some of his great projects in 
 the interval. As it was, he had derived vast bene- 
 fits from that truce ; and in the end it was broken 
 as much by his own vehement passion, which so 
 frequently outran his discretion and his policy, as 
 by any demonstration made by England, or any 
 
 other single cause. 
 
 On receipt of the speech with which King 
 
 George had opened the session of parliament, the 
 First Consul gave way to a passion which was not 
 moderated by the reception of the debates in both 
 Houses which followed the opening speech, At 
 first, Talleyrand conferred with our ambassador, 
 declaring the astonishment of his master at the 
 king’s message, and at the debates, and asking 
 what was the meaning of those violent attacks of 
 the English press against the government and 
 person of the First Consul? Lord Whitworth 
 went over the old ground as to the distinction 
 between the sayings of the English press and 
 of the French papers. “But at least,’ rejoined 
 Talleyrand, “your government can execute the 
 treaty of Amiens, and evacuate Malta!” Lord 
 Whitworth replied that that evacuation was now 
 connected with other circumstances, and with 
 other clauses of the treaty which had been in- 
 fringed by France.* At another conference a 
 few days after, Lord Whitworth recapitulated all 
 
 Lorp WHIrwoRTH. 
 
 the principles on which the treaty of Amiens 
 was founded, and the right which arose from 
 those principles of interference on the part of 
 Great Britain, for the purpose of obtaining satisfac- 
 tion or compensation for any essential differences 
 which might have arisen in the relative situation 
 of the two countries. He instanced the cases in 
 which the territory or influence of France had 
 been greatly extended subsequently to the treaty 
 of Amiens, and told Talleyrand that, notwith- 
 standing the right of his master to claim some 
 counterpoise for such vast acquisitions, Malta might 
 have been given up agreeably to the treaty before 
 now, if the attention of his majesty’s government 
 had not been roused by the official publication of 
 Colonel Sebastiani’s report—a report of a nature, 
 exclusive of the personal allusions it contained, 
 to excite the utmost jealousy in the minds of his 
 majesty’s ministers, and to demand on their part 
 every measure of precaution. His lordship con- 
 cluded, that it was impossible for his majesty to 
 enter into any further discussion relative to Malta, 
 
 * Bourrienne is our authority, that it was not to diplomatize that 
 Andréossi was sent to England, or that other men of the same class 
 were sent to other countries. During his short stay, Andréossi 
 made several journeys; and some engineer officers attached to 
 his suite, or figuring as private gentlemen travelling for their 
 amusement, ran over a good part of England, F 
 ¢ t Talleyrand’s letter as cited by Capefigue, ‘Le Consulat et * Dispatch from Lord Whitworth to Lord Hawkesbury, dated 
 
 Empire. Paris, January 27, 1803. 
 
 IRE eS US I 
 
» ae am 
 “i “a 
 
 ey 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 208 
 
 unless he received satisfactory explanations as to 
 the First Consul’s views in Egypt, &c. With char- 
 acteristic immovability of countenance, Talleyrand 
 declared that Colonel Sebastiani’s mission to the 
 Rast was “strictly commercial ;” and expatiated on 
 the First Consul’s love of peace, on the low state 
 of the French finances, and the other facts and 
 circumstances which rendered peace so desirable 
 to France, concluding with a desire to know the 
 precise amount of the satisfaction or compensation 
 which the British government would require. 
 Lord Whitworth replied to this last query, that 
 he could not at the moment say by what means 
 the apprehensions of England were to be allayed ; 
 but he could assure him that, in the discussion of 
 those means, we should be animated solely by a 
 sincere desire to be convinced of the truth of his 
 assertions, since on that depended the peace and 
 happiness of Europe.* 
 
 In spite of the advice of his most able minister 
 for foreign affairs, Bonaparte determined to confer 
 personally with the English ambassador; and 
 Talleyrand had scarcely left him ere his lordship 
 was informed that the First Consul wished to 
 converse with him at the Tuileries at nine o'clock 
 that night. Bonaparte, in the course of a rapid, 
 uninterrupted harangue, which lasted two hours, 
 said it was matter of infinite disappointment to 
 him that the treaty of Amiens had been productive 
 only of increasing jealousy and mistrust. No con- 
 sideration on earth should make him acquiesce in 
 our retaining possession of Malta—he would rather 
 see us in possession of the Faubourg St. Antoine! 
 He complained of the abuse of him in the public 
 prints published in London. He complained of 
 our protection of Georges-Cadoudal and others 
 like him, who were permitted to remain in 
 England, handsomely pensioned, and constantly 
 causing commotions and crimes to be committed 
 in France. Why did England pretend to be 
 alarmed about Egypt? He could conquer that 
 country when he chose, but “did not think it 
 worth the risk of a war, in which he might, 
 perhaps, be considered as the aggressor, and by 
 which he should lose more than he could gain, 
 since, sooner or later, Egypt would belong to France, 
 either by the falling to pieces of the Turkish empire, 
 or by some arrangement with the Porte.” As a proof 
 of his desire to remain at peace, he asked what he 
 had to gain by going to war with England? Was 
 it to be supposed that he would risk his life and 
 reputation in such a hazardous attempt as the 
 invasion of England, unless he were forced to it 
 by necessity? There were a hundred chances to 
 one against him in the attempt; but still he was 
 determined upon it, if war should be the conse- 
 quence of the present discussion; and he could 
 find army after army for the enterprise.— Per- 
 ceiving that these menaces did not disturb the 
 equanimity of Lord Whitworth, the First Consul 
 altered his tone. If the British government and 
 
 * Dispatch, dated February 17, 1803. 
 
 he could only agree and act together, what might 
 they not do? Two such countries, by a proper 
 understanding, might govern the world, as their 
 strifes might overturn it. If England could only 
 come to this understanding, there was nothing 
 that he would not do to gratify her. As little 
 moved by his cajolery as by his threats, Whitworth, 
 when allowed to speak, calmly said that the king, 
 his master, had no ambition to acquire more 
 territory, but only to preserve what he had. His 
 lordship went over the same ground as with 
 Talleyrand, and was going to speak of the encroach- 
 ments and accessions of territory ; but Bonaparte 
 rudely interrupted him, The ambassador then 
 dwelt upon the many unfriendly indications on > 
 the part of France which had excited the distrust 
 of Great Britain. Bonaparte having given him 
 to understand that without allies we could never 
 touch him, his lordship replied, that if his Britan- 
 nic majesty was so desirous of peace, it must not 
 be imputed to the difficulty of obtaining allies; 
 and the less so, as those means which it might 
 be necessary to afford such allies, for perhaps 
 inadequate services, would all be concentrated in 
 England, and give a proportionate increase of 
 energy to our own exertions, Here the First 
 Consul put an end to the conference, saying that 
 he should give orders to General Andréossi to 
 enter on the discussion of this business. In his 
 haste, he had given the lie to his minister of 
 foreign affairs. “It must be observed,’ says Lord 
 Whitworth, “that he did not, as M. Talleyrand 
 had done, affect to attribute Colonel Sebastiani’s 
 mission to commercial motives only, but as one 
 rendered necessary, in a military point of view, © 
 by the infraction by us of the treaty of Amiens,” * 
 The orders to Andréossi were explained in an 
 official note which that officer delivered to Lord 
 Hawkesbury on the 10th of March, In this note, 
 no reparations or securities were offered; not so 
 much as an explanation was given; but astonish- 
 ment was expressed at the protracted occupation 
 of the island of Malta by British troops, and explan- 
 ations were demanded and categorical replies to 
 queries put by the First Consul. The day after 
 this note was delivered in London, the king’s 
 message to parliament, stating that military pre- 
 parations were carrying on in the ports of France 
 and Holland, and recommending the adoption of 
 additional measures of precaution for the security 
 of his own dominions, was received at Paris. 
 Talleyrand now had another conference with 
 Lord Whitworth, who assured him that the 
 king’s message was merely precautionary, and 
 not in the least degree intended as a menace; 
 that it was merely a measure of self-defence, 
 founded on the armaments which were carrying 
 on in the ports nearest to England, and on the 
 First Consul’s known determination to augment 
 his army. Talleyrand merely repeated that the 
 armaments fitting out in the French and Dutch 
 
 * Dispatch, dated February 21, 1803. 
 
R 
 td 
 
 Cuap. VII] 
 
 ports were intended for the colonies; that there 
 was no foundation whatever for the alarm felt in 
 England; that the First Consul had no thoughts 
 whatever of attacking his majesty’s dominions, 
 unless forced to do so by a commencement of 
 
 hostilities on our part, such as he should always 
 consider the refusal to evacuate Malta to be; that, 
 
 as we had hitherto hesitated to evacuate that 
 island, he was justified in adopting the measures 
 which might eventually be necessary. Talleyrand 
 then desired leave to go and consult the First 
 Consul. In the evening, the two diplomatisis 
 met again, and had further conversation respect- 
 ing the question between their governments. At 
 parting, Talleyrand put into his lordship’s hands 
 a “note verbale,” telling him that it was not to 
 be considered as anything absolutely official— 
 that it was simply a memorandum to assist his 
 lordship, but such, nevertheless, as he might 
 transmit to his government if he chose. This 
 note verbale was a master-piece of cold, sneering, 
 impudent threatening—the style of it is rather 
 that of Bonaparte than of Talleyrand. Its aver- 
 ments were—l. If his Britannic majesty, in his 
 message to parliament, wished to speak of the 
 expedition preparing at Helvoet-Sluys, all the 
 world knows that it was destined for America: 
 2, If France does not receive satisfactory explan- 
 ations respecting armaments in England, 7 ¢@s 
 natural that the First Consul should march 
 20,000 more men into Holland, as Holland is 
 mentioned in the king’s message: 3. These troops 
 being once in Holland, 7 és natural that an 
 encampment should be formed on the frontiers 
 of Hanover; and, moreover, that additional 
 bodies should join those troops to maintain an 
 offensive and defensive position, &ca: 4. L¢ ¢s 
 natural that the First Consul should order several 
 camps to be formed at Calais, and on different 
 points of the coasts: 5. It is likewise zm the nature 
 of things that the First Consul, who was on the 
 point of evacuating Switzerland, should be under 
 the necessity of continuing a French army in that 
 country: 6. It is also the natural consequence of all 
 this, that the First Consul should send a fresh force 
 into Italy, in order to occupy, in case of necessity, 
 the position of Taranto: 7, England arming, and 
 arming with so much pugnacity, will compel 
 France to put her armies on the war establish- 
 ment. These numbered clauses were followed by 
 three paragraphs, asserting that, though England 
 was the aggressor, every means would be taken by 
 iis government to excite the people by declaring 
 that France meditated an invasion; that the whole 
 British population would be obliged to put them- 
 selyes under arms for their defence, and their 
 export trade would, even before the war began, be in 
 a state of stagnation throughout the whole extent of 
 the countries occupied by French arms; that his 
 majesty’s message was inexplicable, unless he 
 seriously contemplated evading the execution of 
 the treaty of Amiens; and finally, that Europe 
 
 well knew that it was possible to attempt the 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 209 
 
 dismemberment of France, but not to intimidate 
 her.* 
 
 A day or two after this, Lord Whitworth, who 
 had not been there since the private conference 
 with the Consul, went to the Tuilerics. It was 
 Sunday the 13th of March, a day of Jevée, or 
 grande réception (one Sunday in each month being 
 devoted to this purpose). It was against all rule, 
 even in that irregular court, to discuss state 
 matters on such a day; and Lord Whitworth 
 had no notion of entering upon business. But 
 he had scarcely taken his place in the circle, 
 where all the foreign ambassadors were assembled, 
 ere Bonaparte went straight up to him, and 
 addressed him, “ evidently under very considerable 
 agitation,’ and asked him if he had any news 
 from England? Whitworth replied that he had 
 received letters from his government two days ago. 
 Bonaparte instantly rejoined, with increased 
 agitation, “ And so you are determined to go to 
 war?” “No,” his lordship replied ; “we are too 
 sensible of the advantages of peace.” “We have 
 already,” said he, “made war for fifteen years.” 
 Lord Whitworth answered, “ That is already too 
 long.” “But,” rejoined the First Consul, “ you 
 wish to make war for fifteen years longer, and 
 you force me to it.” His lordship said that was 
 very far from his majesty’s intentions. The First 
 Consul then proceeded to Count Markoff and the 
 Chevalier Azara, the Russian and Spanish ambas- 
 sadors, who were standing together at a little 
 distance, and said to them, “The English want 
 war; but if they are the first to draw the sword, I 
 shall be the last to sheathe it. They do not respect 
 treaties: they must henceforward be covered with 
 black crape.” In a few minutes he resumed the 
 conversation with Lord Whitworth.. He began: 
 “Why these armaments? Against whom these 
 precautionary measures? I have not a single 
 vessel of the line in the ports of France. But if 
 you will arm, I will arm also; if you will fight, 
 I will fight also. You may possibly be able to kill 
 France, but never to intimidate her.’ “ We wish,” 
 said Lord Whitworth, “neither the one nor the 
 other. We wish to live on good terms with her.” 
 “Then treaties,’ replied he, “must be respected. 
 Woe to those who do not respect treaties! They will 
 be responsible to-all Europe.” Lord Whitworth, 
 calm and collected, replied not a word ; and the 
 First Consul rushed out of the apartment, repeat- 
 ing his last phrase, “ Woe to those who do not 
 respect treaties! They will be answerable for it 
 to all Europe!” All this passed loud enough 
 to be overheard by two hundred people who were 
 present. The alarmed Josephine followed her 
 husband, and in an instant the hall was cleared 
 of its brillant company. 
 
 Even when informed of the flagrant insult 
 which its ambassador had received, the English 
 government neither recalled Lord Whitworth por 
 broke up the negotiation. In reply to the note 
 
 * Dispatch (with nofe yerbale enclosed), dated Mareh the 12th. 
 N 
 
210 
 
 verbale, Lord Hawkesbury complained that the 
 French government demanded explanations, and 
 would give none itself. He stated that the tenth 
 article, which related to Malta, was but a part, 
 and a dependent part, of the treaty of Amiens ; 
 that it was a principle invariably applied to all 
 other antecedent treaties or conventions, that they 
 were negotiated with reference to the actual state 
 of possession of the different contracting parties, 
 and to the treaties or public engagements by which 
 they were severally bound at the time of their con- 
 clusion ; that if either of the parties, subsequent 
 to the treaty, so aggrandized itself, as to affect 
 the nature of the compact, the other party had 
 the right, according to the law of nations, to 
 demand satisfaction or compensation, &c. Our 
 foreign minister further complained of the object 
 of Sebastiani’s mission, of the very extraordinary 
 publication of that officer’s report, and of the 
 First Consul’s intimation of his designs with 
 respect to the Turkish empire. With respect to 
 the giving up of Malta, and the reconstructing the 
 scattered and beggared Order of the Knights of 
 St. John, he now told the French government 
 that the Emperor of Russia, one of the guarantees 
 of the independence of Malta, had refused to 
 accede to the arrangements except on condition 
 that the new or Maltese Langue should be 
 abolished ; that the court of Berlin was silent 
 on the invitation which had been made to it to 
 become one of the guaranteeing powers; that the 
 abolition of the Spanish priories, the seizure of 
 the property of the knights in Spain, in defiance 
 of the treaty of Amiens, to which the King of 
 Spain was a party, and the declaration of the 
 Portuguese government of their intention to 
 sequestrate the property of the Portuguese priory, 
 as forming a part of the Spanish Langue, unless 
 the court of Madrid restored the Spanish priories,* 
 were circumstances which, without any other 
 special grounds, would warrant> his majesty in 
 suspending the evacuation of Malta. 
 
 When Lord Hawkesbury’s answer was received, 
 Talleyrand persuaded Lord Whitworth that the 
 First Consul was still very averse to proceeding to 
 extremities. A long exchange of letters and notes 
 ensued, and Bonaparte gained—what he much 
 wanted—time. If the British government had 
 declared war on the 11th of March, or the day after 
 the king’s precautionary message, its advantages 
 and the Consul’s embarrassments would have 
 been infinitely greater than they proved to be; 
 and the effect on the public opinion of Europe 
 would have been much the same. While we 
 went on diplomatizing, swarms of French ships 
 
 _* In the month of October, 1802, or about seven months after the 
 signing of the treaty of Amiens, the King of Spain had annexed to 
 the royal domains all the property of the Knights of Malta in his 
 dominions, and, after this spoliation, had declared himself to be 
 Grand Master of the Order in Spain. There appears to be no doubt 
 that these steps were taken at the suggestion or dictation of 
 Bonaparte: but as far as concerned the knights and their means of 
 re-establishing themselves and of keeping possession of Malta, it 
 signified little whether they were dictated by the First Consul, or 
 whether they proceeded from the desperate poverty to which his 
 alliance had reduced the Spanish monarch, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SR 0 ee 
 a ss 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 returned to port, leaves of absence were annulled, — 
 the cavalry was remounted, a new conscription | 
 was put in force, and those prodigious trains of 
 artillery which the French now introduced in 
 every campaign were got into a state of readi- 
 ness. There were other obvious advantages to 
 Bonaparte in this procrastination, and there was 
 one especial benefit which has generally escaped 
 notice :—if war broke out now, he knew he could 
 not garrison and keep Louisiana (where the — 
 entire population were inimical to the French), 
 and that any force sent thither must be intercepted 
 by the English: the Anglo-Americans of the 
 United States were very desirous of having and 
 holding Louisiana themselves; and accordingly, — 
 a bargain of sale and transfer was set on foot 
 between the two governments, Bonaparte offering 
 to sell what he knew he could not keep; nor was 
 it until the 30th of April (just twelve days before 
 the British ambassador quitted Paris) that the 
 bargain was closed by the United States govern- 
 ment giving him 15,000,000 dollars for Louisiana! 
 On the 29th of March, Andréossi presented an 
 official note to Lord Hawkesbury, stating thai, 
 as his Britannic majesty had engaged to restore 
 Malta to the Order, and to intrust it pro tempore 
 to a Neapolitan garrison, it was expected that his 
 majesty would keep his engagement, Lord 
 Hawkesbury replied that the Order could scarcely 
 be said to exist; that the Neapolitan garrison 
 depended on the Order being in a condition to 
 take possession, and after a short time to defend — 
 the island. He, however, remitted to Lord Whit- — 
 worth the heads of an arrangement to be concluded 
 by treaty or convention ; the substance was—l, — 
 That Malta should remain in perpetuity to his — 
 majesty; and that the Knights of St. John should — 
 be indemnified by England for any losses of pro- — 
 perty they might sustain by this arrangement; — 
 2. That Holland and Switzerland should be evacu- | 
 ated by the French troops: 3. That the island of — 
 Elba should be confirmed to France, and the King 
 of Etruria (a Spanish prince and a puppet Bona- — 
 parte had set up in Tuscany) should be acknow- © 
 ledged: 4. That the, Italian and Ligurian republics — 
 should also be acknowledged, provided a satisfac- — 
 tory arrangement were made in Italy for the | 
 expelled King of Sardinia. Bonaparte rejected | 
 these terms as altogether inadmissible. et 
 At this stage of the negotiations a little cireum- | 
 stance occurred which illustrates the way in which — 
 the French treated weak independent states, One 
 Rheinhardt, now residing at Hamburg as Bona- | 
 parte’s chargé d’affaires, drew up, assuredly not | 
 without orders from Paris, a most abusive article, | 
 accusing England of breach of faith, avidity for 
 conquest, sworn enmity to France, of being the 
 aggressor in every war or quarrel, speaking of the | 
 king’s message to parliament as “the effect of | 
 treachery, /unacy, or imbecility ;” giving a new and | 
 much moderated version of the Consul’s outbreak | 
 to Lord Whitworth; and calling upon Europe to | 
 compare the dignity, simplicity, and straightfor- | 
 
 7 
 P| 
 
 7 i 
 
~ Cuap. VIII.] 
 - wardness of the head of the French government 
 with “the tergiversations, the duplicity, the evasion, 
 and the parliamentary messages of the English 
 government,” Of this libel he demanded the 
 insertion in the official Gazette of Hamburg, which 
 having, in the first instance, been refused, he went 
 so far as to demand, in his official capacity, its 
 insertion by express order of the senate of that 
 independent little republic, The senate, after some 
 hesitation, were forced by their fears to grant the 
 order, and the article appeared in their official 
 Gazette, headed, “Inserted by desire,” and dated 
 Paris, March 15.* Lord Hawkesbury, in com- 
 municating these facts, said his majesty was 
 unwilling to believe that the First Consul could 
 have authorized so outrageous an attack upon his 
 majesty personally, and upon his government, and 
 so daring a violation of the independence of a 
 neutral state; but that, unless some satisfaction 
 should be given to his majesty for the indignity 
 which had been offered to him in the face of all 
 Europe by the French minister at Hamburg, 
 it was impossible to continue the negotiations, 
 Talleyrand, who could repeat a lie with all the 
 solemnity due to a truth, assured Lord Whitworth 
 that the English government could not be more 
 surprised than the First Consul had been at seeing 
 such an article inserted in the Hamburg Gazette 
 by authority; that M. Rheinhardt, if his conduct 
 had really been such as was represented, would 
 - doubtless feel the effects of the First Consul’s dis- 
 pleasure. Lord Whitworth replied that, as the 
 insult had been public, it was necessary that the 
 reparation should also be public. Talleyrand 
 rejoined that every satisfaction might be expected. 
 But before any further satisfaction was given, the 
 British government was informed by Mr. Hill, our 
 minister at Copenhagen, that the French minister 
 there had demanded the insertion of Rheinhardt’s 
 offensive article in the papers of Altona; that the 
 Danish magistrates of Altona had answered that 
 they could not possibly admit it without an express 
 order from their own court; that the French 
 minister at Copenhagen had requested orders to 
 that effect, but that as yet he had received no 
 answer. 
 
 In the meanwhile, however, it had been inti- 
 mated by Lord Whitworth that England might be 
 disposed to consent to an arrangement, by which 
 Malta would remain in our possession for a limited 
 number of years, provided that the number of 
 years was not less than ten, and that his Sicilian 
 majesty could be induced to give us the island of 
 Lampedusa for a valuable consideration, Talley- 
 rand, on the 21st of April, spoke as if the Consul 
 might be induced to consent to the proposition ; but 
 on the next day his tone was altogether changed, 
 
 and he dwelt upon the dignity and honour of 
 
 * The facts were communicated in a dispatch from Sir George 
 Rumbold, our resident at Hamburg. 
 “*It was the wish of the senate,” says Sir George, ‘that they 
 might at least be allowed to omit or qualify the most offensive 
 es, but M. Rheinhardt said his orders were positive for the 
 Jull and exact insertion of the whole.” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 211 
 
 Bonaparte, which could not admit of his consent- 
 ing to anything which might carry with it the 
 appearance of yielding to a threat. At the next 
 conference, he said still more decidedly that the 
 First Consul neither could nor would relinquish 
 his claim to the full execution of the treaty of 
 Amiens; spoke of the calamities which must follow 
 the failure of these endeavours to avoid a rupture, 
 and insinuated that Naples and other countries 
 friendly to and connected with Great Britain would 
 be the first victims of the war. Lord Whitworth 
 asked him whether such conduct would add to the 
 glory of the First Consul; or whether it would not. 
 rather tarnish that glory, and ultimately unite 
 against him not only all the nations of Europe, but 
 also every honest man in France. And he could 
 not help adding, that, although no act of hostility 
 had taken place, yet the inveteracy with which our 
 commerce, our industry, and our credit had been 
 attacked in every place to which French influence 
 extended, did, in fact, almost amount to the same 
 thing ; since it went to prove, in addition to the 
 general system of the French Consul, that his 
 object was to pursue, under the mask of peace, the 
 same line of conduct as the preceding revolutionary 
 governments.* On the renewal of the attempt 
 to procrastinate, his lordship declared that his 
 government could be trifled with no longer, and that 
 he must demand his passports in a very few days. 
 As Bonaparte was not yet ready, many of the 
 French ships being still at sea, it was necessary yet 
 longer to detain Lord Whitworth. The attempt 
 to amuse him was for a few days successful; but 
 he was not long to be deceived. However, even 
 after, in his anxiety to end a negotiation protracted 
 on terms so disadvantageous to his country, he had 
 actually demanded his passports, and packed up to 
 depart, the attempt at delay was successfully per- 
 sisted in. On the 2nd of May, late at night, he 
 received a note from Talleyrand, in which he stated 
 categorically, that, as the island of Lampedusa did 
 not belong to France (had France claimed posses- 
 sion of, or domination over, only those places 
 which rightfully belonged to her, there would 
 have been no need of this ultimatum), it was not 
 for the First Consul either to accede to or to 
 refuse the desire testified by his Britannic majesty 
 
 of having that island. That with regard to Malta, 
 
 and its proposed temporary possession, the First 
 Consul could not but previously communicate 
 with the King of Spain and the Batavian republic, 
 contracting parties to the treaty of Amiens, in order 
 to know their opinion; and that, besides, as the 
 stipulations relative to Malta had been guaranteed 
 by the Emperor of Germany, the Emperor of 
 Russia, and the King of Prussia, the First Consul 
 and the other contracting parties to the treaty, 
 before they could agree to any change in the article 
 about Malta, were bound to concert with those 
 guaranteeing powers; that the First Consul would 
 not refuse this concert, but it belonged not to 
 
 * Dispatch, dated April the 25th. 
 
212 
 
 him to propose it, since it was not he that urged 
 any change in the guaranteeing stipulations. That, 
 the evacuation of Holland by the French troops 
 should take place at the instant that ald the stipu- 
 lations of the treaty of Amiens should be executed 
 by England. Not a word was said on reparation 
 or compensation to the King of Sardinia, or on the 
 subject of the evacuation of Switzerland. Lord 
 Whitworth replied that this state of suspense could 
 no longer be borne, that he could see no intention 
 to expedite the negotiation, and that therefore he 
 must repeat his demand for the passports, arly 
 on the 3rd of May, his lordship had everything 
 ready for his departure, excepting only the pass- 
 ports, which at midnight an unofficial individual 
 hinted were not meant to be given without 
 making another attempt. And accordingly at 
 one o'clock in the morning he received a note 
 from Talleyrand, stating that, on the morrow a 
 communication. of the greatest importance was 
 to be made, and proposing that Lord Whitworth 
 should call upon him at the foreign office at half- 
 past four to-morrow afternoon, At the appointed 
 hour, he received, from the hand of Talleyrand a 
 proposition in writing, that the island of Malta 
 should be placed in the hands of Austria, Russia, 
 or Prussia. This his lordship agreed to transmit 
 to London, declaring, however, that he saw so 
 many objections to the plan, that he could give no 
 hope whatever of its being accepted. Lord 
 Hawkesbury’s reply reached Paris on the 9th of 
 May. It stated that the proposition was in every 
 way unsatisfactory ; that wntil the very moment 
 when Whitworth was about to leave Paris, the 
 French government had avoided making any 
 distinct proposition for the settlement of the differ- 
 ences ; and even at that moment, they had limited 
 it to one part only of the subject in discussion ; 
 that, if his majesty could be disposed to waive his 
 demand for a temporary occupation of Malta, the 
 Kmperor of Russia would be the only sovereign to 
 whom, in the present state of Europe, he could 
 consent that the island should be assigned ; but 
 that his majesty, at the same time, “had certain 
 and authentic information that the Emperor of 
 Russia would on no account consent to garrison 
 Malta.” The letter concluded with saying that no 
 satisfaction had been given with respect to Rhein- 
 hardt’s conduct at Hamburg, and that without 
 such . satisfaction—without a public disavowal 
 from Talleyrand—Lord Whitworth must abstain 
 from concluding any arrangement. His lordship 
 instantly went in search of Talleyrand, but the 
 foreign minister managed so cleverly to keep out 
 of his way, that it was noon of the third day 
 thereafter before he obtained a conference. After 
 reading Lord Hawkesbury’s letter, Talleyrand 
 asked whether his lordship was authorised to 
 conclude with him a convention, framed on the 
 basis of his own project, or, indeed, extending that 
 basis, since the first article of it might be the 
 perpetual possession of Malta to England, in return 
 Jor a consideration, Whitworth told him that he 
 
 eee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 most certainly was not authorised to enter into 
 any engagement of such a nature, which would 
 make the negotiation one of exchange and barter, 
 instead of a demand of satisfaction and security. 
 But, argued Talleyrand, was not Malta the satis- 
 faction and security which England required ?—if 
 it were possible to make the draft of a convention, 
 giving England that island in perpetuity, palatable 
 to the First Consul, who never must be considered 
 as yielding to coercion, did his lordship think 
 himself justifiable in refusing to enter into that 
 engagement ?—surely his lordship would not refuse 
 a fair discussion to this counter-project? But Lord 
 Whitworth urged that his instructions bade him 
 avoid everything which could protract the negotia- 
 tion, and he repeatedly urged Talleyrand to explain 
 more clearly the nature of the consideration, or 
 equivalent, which the First Consul intended to ask 
 for Malta, As Talleyrand could not or would not 
 explain himself, the ambassador, on the assurance 
 that some proposal should be given to him in 
 writing, agreed to wait a few hours longer. These 
 hours passed—no proposal came—the next day, 
 the 12th of May, his lordship, by an official note 
 sent in the morning by Mr. Mandeville, demanded 
 his passports, in order that he might quit Paris 
 that evening—at two o’clock in the afternoon the 
 demand was renewed—at five o'clock the pass- 
 ports were received, and with tlie first post-horses 
 
 he had been able to procure, our ambassador 
 
 started for London. He left behind him, in the 
 hands of Mr. Talbot, the secretary of embassy, 
 who was to remain at Paris a few days longer, the 
 
 project of a convention which England would take - 
 
 as the basis of a definitive and amicable arrange- 
 ment. The articles of this project (which had 
 already been shown by Lord Whitworth to Talley- 
 rand, and by Talleyrand to Bonaparte) were 
 simply these: “I, The French government shall 
 engage to make no opposition to the cession of the 
 
 island of Lampedusa to his majesty by the King } 
 II. In consequence of the — 
 
 of the Two Sicilies. 
 present state of the island of Lampedusa, his 
 majesty shall remain in possession of the island of 
 Malta, until such arrangements shall be made by 
 him as may enable his majesty to occupy Lampe- 
 dusa as a naval station; after which period the 
 island of Malta shall be given up to the inhabit- 
 ants, and acknowledged as an independent state. 
 III. The territories of the Batavian republic shall 
 be evacuated by the French forces within two 
 months after the conclusion of a convention, 
 founded on the principles of this project. IV. The 
 
 King of Etruria, and the Italian and Ligurian — 
 
 republics, shall be acknowledged by his majesty. 
 V. Switzerland shall be evacuated by the French 
 forces, WI. A suitable territorial provision shall 
 be assigned to the King of Sardinia, in Italy — 
 SECRET ARTICLE. 
 
 Malta until after the expiration of ten years. 
 
 Articles IV., V., and VI. may be entirely omitted, — 
 
 or must all be inserted.” A report was spread by 
 
 [Book X, : 
 
 His majesty shall not be | 
 required by the French government to evacuate — 
 
Cuapr. VIII.] 
 
 certain people in England that Bonaparte relented 
 when he found that Lord Whitworth was gone, 
 and that he sent his own private secretary after 
 him as far as Breteuil, with a conciliatory letter, to 
 which his lordship returned no answer. There 
 was nothing of the kind: what Bonaparte did 
 after his lordship’s departure was to order that 
 Mr, Talbot should be detained as a prisoner of 
 war. 
 
 Notwithstanding the time which had been gained 
 by Bonaparte, the order of council for granting 
 reprisals and letters of marque, and the proclama- 
 tion for an embargo, which were issued two days 
 after Lord Whitworth’s return, led to the imme- 
 diate detention or capture of about 200 French 
 and Dutch vessels, containing property broadly 
 and perhaps incorrectly estimated at three millions 
 sterling. To retaliate for this customary procedure, 
 the First Consul had recourse to a most novel and 
 unprecedented outrage; by a decree, dated the 
 22nd of May, he ordered that all the English found 
 on the territory of France should be detained 
 prisoners of war, on the pretence that many of 
 them belonged to the militia. Nothing could 
 exceed the harshness with which this order was 
 executed in Paris, where there was still a vast 
 number of travellers, many of them on their way 
 homeward from Italy, Switzerland, and other 
 countries :—whole families were scized together ; 
 in the first instance, the men were sent to the 
 Temple or the Conciergerie, and the women, 
 exposed to every insult, to Tontainebleau: even 
 children and infirm old men were condemned to 
 captivity, although, according to the letter of the 
 decree, only such as were between the ages of 
 eighteen and sixty were to be detained. The 
 character and ancient acknowledged rights of 
 ambassadors were set at nought: Mr. Liston, our 
 ambassador at the Hague; Lord Elgin, who was 
 at Paris on his way to London; and other diplo- 
 matic persons, were made prisoners, and in most 
 eases their letters and papers were seized. These 
 sweeping arrests were extended to Italy and every 
 neighbouring country where the French had an 
 armed force,.or where they could domineer and 
 give the Jaw. As no distinction had been made 
 as to sex, so none was made as to condition, 
 profession, or pursuits, Clergymen, men of letters 
 or science, artists, all were captured, What made 
 this seizure still more odious was the fact, that 
 on the eve of its taking place, Bonaparte made a 
 renegade Englishman, whom he retained in his 
 service to write a newspaper in the English 
 language, insert in the columns of his journal that 
 the English travellers on the continent, in France, 
 Belgium, Holland, or Italy, had nothing to fear; 
 that their persons would be guaranteed under the 
 protection of a government which protected the 
 law of nations even while England was violating 
 it.* About 10,000 British subjects, of nearly 
 every class and condition, remained in Bonaparte’s 
 
 * Capefigue, Le Consulat et Empire. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 213 
 
 clutches, The whole measure excited a simul- 
 taneous and universal burst of indignation and 
 disgust throughout the United Kingdom, Like 
 many other things connected with a state of 
 hostility, the seizure of ships, property, and _per- 
 sons before a formal declaration of war, scarcely 
 admits of justification on abstract principles. But 
 after the lapse of ages and the acquiescence of 
 innumerable treaties, the practice had come to be 
 considered as part and parcel of the European 
 system of warfare, This Bonaparte himself 
 acknowledged, and therefore it was that he took 
 a stand upon the idle and ridiculous principle 
 about the militia, 
 
 Before the English government began to seize 
 the French and Dutch ships, a French army was 
 collected on the frontiers of Holland to pounce 
 upon the comparatively defenceless hereditary 
 dominions of the King of England, and, as soon 
 as the declaration of war was issued, General 
 Mortier advanced into the heart of the Electorate. 
 The Duke of Cambridge, who was residing at 
 Hanover, seeing that resistance was altogether 
 hopeless, and that most of the larger towns were 
 determined to treat with the French general, 
 entered into a negotiation at the end of May, and 
 engaged to surrender the territory upon condition 
 that his army should be permitted to retire 
 unbroken behind the Elbe, with the pledge on their 
 part that they would not again serve in the field 
 against the French during this war, Deputies 
 from the principal towns treated separately with 
 Mortier, and agreed to conditions of surrender and 
 submission on the 8rd of June. ‘The English 
 ministers advised the king not to ratify the treaty 
 which his son had made. Upon this, Morticr, who 
 had entered and taken possession of the city of 
 Hanover on the 5th of June, called upon the 
 Hanoverian army to surrender, or abide the conse- 
 quences of an attack by overwhelming forces 
 behind the Elbe. The Duke of Cambridge had 
 quitted the country, but Count Walmoden, the 
 commander-in-chief of that small but fine army, 
 was compelled to agree to a convention on the 5th 
 of July, and to dismount his cavalry, surrender 
 his arms, and disband and dismiss the whole army. 
 More than 500 picces of artillery, a large quantity 
 of ammunition and timber, and an immense num- 
 ber of horses fit to re-mount Bonaparte’s ill- 
 conditioned cayalry, fell into the hands of Mortier, 
 who, besides, levied military contributions on the 
 country, beginning with a call for greatcoats and 
 other articles of dress for his army. Being in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the rich commercial 
 Hanse Towns of Hamburg and Bremen, he levied 
 considerable sums of money upon them also, with- 
 out the least regard to their independence and 
 neutrality; and other sums very imporiant to the 
 First Consul, whose finances were in an embar- 
 rassed condition, were raised among the Jews and 
 otlier capitalists of those Hanse Towns, by way of 
 loan, What was still worse as regarded England, 
 the French, by their occupation of Hanover, were 
 
214 
 enabled to close the navigation of the rivers Elbe 
 and Weser, and to prevent British merchant 
 vessels from going up either to Hamburg or to 
 Bremen, As the neighbouring German states 
 made no attempt to prevent the conquest or occu- 
 pation of Hanover, a country which, though the 
 hereditary possession of the King of Great Britain, 
 was still an integral part of the German empire, 
 with indefeasible claims to the protection of the 
 whole Germanic League, and as the English were 
 prevented from ascending the rivers, it was deter- 
 mined that neither German nor any other ships 
 should descend them or enter them; and the 
 mouths of the Elbe and the Weser were soon 
 strictly blockaded by British squadrons, With 
 their trade thus completely cut off, with the 
 French armies in their close neighbourhood, per- 
 petually threatening them with military violence 
 and exaction, the two great Hanse Towns were 
 reduced to a deplorable situation. In the extremity 
 of their distress, they called upon the King of 
 Prussia, as guarantee and protector of the neutrality 
 of the north of Germany; but the shuffling and 
 selfish court of Berlin, whose self-seeking was to 
 end in self-destruction, had entered into the views 
 of Bonaparte, in the hope and expectation of 
 annexing Hanover to Prussia; and accordingly 
 that cabinet refused to interfere, thus virtually 
 abandoning not only Hamburg and Bremen, with 
 their industrious and lately thriving dependencies, 
 but all the smaller states of the north of Germany, 
 to the rapacity and lawlessness of the French 
 invaders. 
 
 Nor was it only in the north of Europe that 
 the First Consul had matured his means of 
 attack before the declaration of war. His 
 Sicilian majesty was no party to the treaty of 
 Amiens; the integrity of his dominions, and the 
 withdrawal from them of all French troops 
 whatsoever, were stipulated for in a previous and 
 separate treaty with the French government, and 
 had been paid for, in various ways, at an enor- 
 mous price. But the court of Naples was the 
 old friend and ally of Great Britain; the country 
 was still rich; its ports offered admirable points 
 of departure for expeditions to various countries 
 which Bonaparte coveted; and for these and 
 other special and weighty reasons, inclusive of 
 the plan of excluding British commerce from the 
 continent, he poured his troops once more into 
 the devoted kingdom of Naples, threatening every 
 day the tottering Bourbon throne in the capital. 
 The Emperor of Russia, who had mediated for 
 this Bourbon court, and who was in a way bound 
 to guarantee the treaty which secured the inde- 
 pendence of that country, was called upon in vain 
 for present assistance. 
 
 But it was nearer at home that the conse- 
 quences of Bonaparte’s mancuyres and prepar- 
 ations during the peace were most shamefully 
 exhibited, or most seriously felt by England. As 
 soon as the mask began to fall off, he called to 
 Paris all the fugitive. or disaffected Trish on the 
 
 — LLL LT EE LT Cit i ere ere 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 continent; he re-organised the Trish vrigndal mndier’ 
 the name of the Irish Legion, and matured the — 
 plots for an insurrection in Ireland. One of his 
 most active emissaries was one Quigley or 
 O’Quigley, who had been outlawed in 1798, and 
 who, since that period, had resided in France. 
 This man came over secretly, and perambulated — 
 Kildare, his native county, proselytising and mak- 
 ing converts with cash and whisky. But the real 
 head of the conspiracy was Mr. Robert Emmett, 
 a youth in his twenty-second or twenty-third 
 year, the son of Dr. Emmett, the court or castle 
 physician of Dublin, and brother to that Emmett 
 who had been mercifully let off with banishment 
 for the overt acts of treason he had committed in 
 1798.* This young man, who had gone crazy 
 with a revolutionary and republican enthusiasm, 
 had been so far committed with his elder brother, 
 and with the plots of the United Irishmen, that 
 he went for safety over to the continent, until 
 the expiring of the bill suspending the Habeas — 
 Corpus. During his stay in Paris, he had many — 
 conferences with some of his countrymen who © 
 wore the uniform of the First Consul, and it is 4 
 said, too, that he had been admitted to the secret . 
 consultations of the great Consul himself. As | 
 1 
 
 . 
 
 ee ee 
 
 he spent his money freely, he proselytised with 
 some effect in Dublin, though his proselytes were — 
 not of a very elevated condition: the chief and 
 
 very highest of them were one Dowdall, who, — 
 before the Union, had held some inferior office © 
 about the Irish House of Commons; one Redmond, 
 who called himself a merchant, and who appears — 
 to have been little more than a huckster, and one 
 Allen, a bankrupt woollen manufacturer. While ~ 
 Emmett worked in Dublin and its neighbourhood, 
 there laboured at Belfast, and in other towns of © 
 the north of Ireland, one Thomas Russel, an old 
 half-pay officer in the king’s service, who had — 
 fought against the Americans at Bunker’s Hill, and 
 subsequently turned a weak brain in the attempt 
 to understand and apply the prophecies of the Old 
 Testament and the mysteries of the Apocalypse. — 
 This Russel was a self-deluded, honest enthusiast; — 
 and was also an affectionate, tender-hearted man, 
 who shrunk from acts of vengeance, retaliation, — 
 and massacre, which sundry of the conspirators — 
 contemplated with rapture. Other chiefs of less — 
 name or note were scattered over Ireland; and 
 material assistance was expected from one Dwyer — 
 —a fellow of infinite cunning and activity, who 
 had been “out” in the rebellion of 1798, and who, — 
 at the head of a formidable band, had maintained — 
 himself ever since among the ‘fastnesses of he | 
 Wicklow mountains. Dwyer’s lawless band, and 
 the semi-barbarous Wicklow peasantry, over whom 5 
 he exercised a wide influence, were fully prepared 
 to commit every atrocity. It appears to have ft 
 fully proved that Emmett made overtures to this 
 Dwyer; but it is not quite so certain that the 
 devout Russel corresponded with him. ait) : 
 
 * Ante; pp. 126, 127, 
 
Cuar. VIII. 
 
 who knew that he was strong only among his 
 mountains and bogs, would not engage to quit 
 them, until a successful blow had been struck by 
 others. Although oaths of secrecy were adminis- 
 tered in the most solemn manner by the pro- 
 pagandists, it appears quite certain that, as early 
 as the beginning of February, the king and his 
 cabinet were acquainted with the plot. The 
 inferior agents were not, however, admitted into 
 all the secrets of the plan; and the plan itself 
 was so frequently changed, that when the critical 
 moment came, the lord-lieutenant and the Irish 
 government were taken by surprise. On the 14th 
 of July, the anniversary of the French revolution, 
 these authorities, and all the quiet, respectable, 
 or prosperous citizens of Dublin, conceived some 
 alarm at the bonfires, and the numerous rabble 
 that collected to dance, drink, sing, and roar round 
 them. A day or two after this, further alarm was 
 excited by an explosion of gunpowder in a house 
 hired by Emmett for manufacturing or storing that 
 article, Although the conspirators had the ability 
 or the luck to make the police believe that this 
 accident was not connected with any treasonable 
 design, they felt that concealment would not long 
 be possible. Besides, just at this time the neigh- 
 bouring country was full of wild Irish peasantry, 
 who had come down to crop the hay, and to wait 
 for the other harvest ; and it was upon the inclin- 
 ation of these uncontrollable people to mischief, 
 riot, and plunder, that these patriots, who pretended 
 to be seeking the honour, independence, and happi- 
 ness of old Ireland, mainly and most confidently 
 relied. They therefore determined to strike the 
 great blow, and to begin with seizing the arsenals 
 and the Castle of Dublin. The presumptuous, hair- 
 brained Emmett turned a deaf ear to the secret 
 agents of the French government, who—knowing 
 more of the art of revelution-making than he 
 —wished him not to begin until there was a better 
 prospect of success before him. He impetuously 
 represented that the militia was about to be 
 embodied, that the country would be placed every 
 day in a better posture of defence, that the blow 
 must be struck now or never! Other circum- 
 stances, pointed out the 23rd of July as the 
 best day of all the year for beginning; it fell this 
 year on a Saturday, when the working-people 
 of the capital received their wages, and got drunk, 
 and when the ordinary resort of country-people to 
 the market would, by itself, cover and let pass 
 a somewhat extraordinary meeting ; the 23rd was, 
 moreover, the eve of the festival of St. James, 
 on which, according to an ancient custom, the 
 common people congregated in great multitudes in 
 one of the suburbs, thence to repair to the church 
 of St. James, and strew fresh leaves and flowers 
 on the graves of their relatives and friends. 
 Emmett’s resolution was therefore confirmed, that 
 “the rising” should be on St. James’s eve. Russel, 
 it appears, engaged to attempt a rising at Belfast 
 at the same moment ; Quigley had been so success- 
 ful in Kildare, that all the able-bodied peasantry 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 215 
 
 flocked down towards Dublin, leaving only women 
 and children and the sick and aged at home; but 
 Dwyer, whose peculiar genius might have made 
 him very dangerous to government, still kept aloof. 
 Towards evening on the appointed 23rd of July, 
 the rabble of Dublin and the peasantry began to 
 collect in vast numbers in St. James’s-street and 
 its neighbourhood. The gathering, however, ex- 
 cited little observation until some men of a more 
 respectable appearance came among them, and 
 began to distribute pikes, At this sight, all the 
 respectable inhabitants of the street were panic- 
 stricken, and made haste to bar their doors and 
 close their windows. The Castle was within a 
 mile, and the barracks, containing 2000 or 3000 
 soldiers, were within half a mile of the spot ; but 
 not a soldier, not an officer either civil or military, 
 made his appearance. About dusk, the concerted 
 signal that all was ready was given by some men 
 who were mounted on horseback, and who rode 
 furiously through the principal streets of the 
 capital. A Mr. Clarke, an opulent manufacturer, 
 made a bold attempt to reason with the furious 
 mob, and, finding his efforts ineffectual, he galloped 
 to the Castle, and warned the lord-lieutenant, As 
 he was returning, he was shot by one of his own 
 workmen, and fell desperately, though not mortally 
 wounded. This was the first blood that was shed, 
 but it was soon followed by more. Just as Clarke 
 fell, some of the insurgents fired a small cannon, 
 and sent up a sky-rocket, which was seen from 
 every part of the city and neighbourhood ; and 
 immediately after this signal, Emmett sallied forth 
 from his depét, at the head of his central com- 
 mittee, and, drawing his sword, incited the mob to 
 action. They rushed along the street, as if intend- 
 ing to attack the Castle. Before they got to the 
 end of the street, Colonel Brown, a meritorious 
 officer, who was hastening to his post, was deliber- 
 ately shot dead by a blunderbuss, said to have been 
 fired by “a confidential member of the party.” 
 Disgusted at these cold-blooded murders, at the 
 Savage cries that were raised for vengeance and 
 plunder, at the backwardness of his rabble-rout to 
 press on to the Castle, or to any point where they 
 were likely to meet the soldiery, and at their 
 alacrity in breaking open houses and calling for 
 whisky, Emmett and his staff, after some fruitless 
 attempts to manage and direct the foul hurricane 
 they had raised, disappeared from the scene, stole 
 out of the town, or hid themselves in it, leaving 
 the tempest to rage as it might. Emmett’s mob- — 
 generalship scarcely lasted half an hour. His 
 patriots, as soon as he had quitted them, rushed 
 to the debtors’ prison, and butchered the corporal 
 of the ordinary guard there stationed. The ten or 
 twelve soldiers got within the building, and loaded 
 their muskets; the very debtors called for arms in 
 order that they might assist in resisting the rabble ; 
 and presently the cowards ran away. They 
 had, however, heart enough to shoot a solitary 
 dragoon who was carrying a message, and to attack 
 an outpost, where a few men of the infantry 
 
 Se ae a ee  mmmmmmeraneern meme ser TS 
 
216 
 
 were taken by surprise, surrounded, and massacred, 
 The head of the advancing column never ap- 
 proached the Castle nearer than Francis-street, 
 which is distant about half a mile. Unfortunately, 
 at about ten o’clock at night, Lord Kilwarden, the 
 lord chief-justice of Ireland, who had been attor- 
 ney-general at the time of the last rebellion, and 
 had had to deal rather largely with the vengeance 
 of the law, passed in the rear of the mob, flying in 
 his carriage by another line of streets towards the 
 Castle, accompanied by his daughter and nephew. 
 The ruffians wheeled round, and presently fell 
 upon him, All three were dragged from the coach; 
 the savages spared the lady, but they murdered 
 her aged father and her cousin before her eyes, 
 even fighting with one another for the distinction 
 of thrusting their pikes into the bodies of their 
 defenceless victims.* The bereaved daughter ran 
 on foot and in a state of frenzy to the Castle, and 
 was the first to announce there the bloody tragedy. 
 But by this time some of the troops were under 
 arms and ready to march, When about 150 men, 
 headed by two subaltern officers, reached the top 
 of Francis-street, the disordered rabble, many 
 thousands strong, set up a scream of terror, and 
 all that were sober enough to run ran off at the 
 top of their speed. But many fell, and were made 
 prisoners, and a party of fifty soldiers, who had got 
 into the rear of the flying column, fired upon it as 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 it passed. Two or three other volleys were fired 
 at different points; a good many were wounded, 
 about a dozen were killed outright, and an im-— 
 mense number were taken prisoners, A lane — 
 strewed with pikes pointed out the way to Emmett’s — 
 depot, wherein were found a large quantity of ball-_ 
 cartridges, hand-grenades, gunpowder, more pikes, — 
 some military uniforms, and a proclamation, wet 
 from the press, of persons styling themselves “The 
 provisional government,” and containing a sketch 
 of the constitution they had proposed giving to the 
 Hibernian Republic, A hot pursuit was instantly 
 commenced after these legislators, who showed as 
 much folly or fatuity, when flying for their lives, 
 as in the rest of the business: Emmett and twelve 
 others took the road to the Wicklow mountains, 
 where Dwyer and his banditti were vainly waiting 
 the apparition of the green flag of Erin over the 
 Castle walls. Disguised as French officers, they 
 reached the mountains, but only to find that none 
 would raise a finger for them, or give them food 
 and a hiding-place. Emmett, quitting his com- 
 panions, returned to Dublin, but only to be seized, 
 and committed to the prison which was already 
 crowded by the miserable wretches he had armed. 
 O’ Quigley, and another principal named Stafford, 
 lay hid in the interior of the country, and were 
 not apprehended until after Emmett’s execution, 
 Dowdall and Allen escaped out of the island, but 
 
 Y 
 
 DIErPeE. 
 
 Redmond was arrested at one of the ports as he 
 was about to take his passage for America. In 
 the meanwhile, Russel had utterly failed in his 
 attempts at a rising in the north; and had dis- 
 appeared, after issuing a proclamation, in which he 
 styled himself the General of the Northern District. 
 After the arrest of Emmett, Russel stole into 
 
 * According to some accounts, Emmett did not disappear until 
 these horrible murders were perpetrated. 
 
 Dublin, with the view, it is said, of rescuing his — 
 friend by means of another popular insurrection. | 
 Two or three days after his arrival, he was seized, 
 and sent for trial to that Northern District of 
 which he had intended to be the revolutionary — 
 gencral. Emmett was put upon his trial for 
 high treason on the 19th of September, in Dublin, — 
 He set up no sort of defence; but, when called 
 to receive sentence, delivered a long, flowery, and 
 
: 
 
 Guar. VIII.] 
 
 pathetic speech, endeavouring chiefly to prove 
 that he was entitled to a higher designation than 
 that of an emissary and tool of France; which 
 last he represented to his countrymen as one 
 of the most degrading of characters, Emmett 
 died with much courage or composure, declaring 
 himself a member of the Church of England. 
 Redmond (one of the central committee) and 
 two working-men (one of whom confessed to 
 the murder of Colonel Brown) were tried and 
 executed in the same town. Russel was tried at 
 Carrickfergus on the 20th of October. He gave 
 ample indications of a disordered mind; but he 
 was nevertheless executed at Downpatrick, his 
 prayer for a few days’ reprieve, in order to put 
 the finishing touches to a demonstrative Essay 
 on the near approach of the Millennium, being 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 217 
 
 rejected. Some short time after these execu- 
 tions, O’Quigley and Stafford were apprehended 
 in the county of Galway; but the lives of these 
 two chiefs, and of a host of inferior and untried 
 prisoners, were spared on their making a full 
 disclosure of all the circumstances of their treason. 
 
 Ireland was safe, and England could not be 
 invaded, for her fleets swept the Channel and 
 the French coast in all its extent, blockading the 
 principal ports, and occasionally bombarding a 
 seaport town or two, Ships and gun-boats were 
 gallantly cut out of Havre, St. Vallery, and many 
 other ports and roadsteads; the batteries that 
 protected the town of Dieppe were knocked to 
 pieces; many vessels, both national and mercan- 
 tile, were burnt on the stocks, and the important 
 town of Granville was bombarded and burned 
 
 GRANVILLE. 
 
 under the eyes of Bonaparte’s generals, and 
 almost in his own presence. With nearly six 
 hundred ships of war at sea, England, besides 
 holding the Channel, and defending her own 
 coasts, could dispatch fleets and squadrons to 
 every quarter of the globe, and prosecute exten- 
 sive schemes of conquest. As early as the 22nd 
 of June, the island of St. Lucie was recaptured by 
 Commodore Hood and General Grinfield. The 
 French refused to capitulate; but the British 
 soldiers and sailors stormed the fort of Morne 
 Fortunee, and carried it in half an hour. Hight 
 days after this, the French garrison in Tobago 
 capitulated without provoking a storm or attempt- 
 ing any resistance. On the same day that Tobago 
 
 fell, the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, off 
 
 Newfoundland, were taken by an English man- 
 of-war, In rapid succession, the colonics of 
 Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were reduced. 
 The fate of St. Domingo has been already men- 
 tioned; but it remains to be added, that eight 
 
 thousand Frenchmen, civil and military, and of 
 every class and condition, became -prisoners of 
 war to the British, at or off that island, or on 
 their voyage homeward. The governor of Guada- 
 loupe, who had a strong French garrison and 
 some good defensive works, maintained himself 
 for a while longer, and even dispatched some 
 troops and thirteen armed schooners, to destroy 
 the port and dockyard in English Harbour, 
 Antigua—an attempt which completely failed. 
 
 In the East Indies, war was carried on by land 
 on an immense scale, and with signal success, 
 The power of Mysore had been annihilated; but 
 a new and formidable enemy to the English had 
 started up in the Mahratta confederacy, to which 
 a clever Frenchman was lending the aid of his 
 military knowledge and genius, M. Perron had 
 first come to the country as a petty officer of 
 aship, After a variety of adventures, he became 
 quartermaster-sergeant to a corps containing some 
 Frenchmen in the service of Scindiah, in which 
 
218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Book 3 
 
 he gradually raised himself to the command in 
 chief, the best portion of Scindiah’s forces owing 
 to him its good discipline. A wide territory in 
 the Jumna region was assigned to him by his 
 thankful employer; he displayed much of the 
 pomp and exercised much of the sovereignty of 
 an Oriental potentate; and when, in 1793, that 
 flitting phantom, the Mogul emperor, Shah 
 Alum, became the prisoner of Scindiah, it was 
 to Perron that the custody of his person was 
 confided. His honours, wealth, and authority 
 excited the envy and malice of many of the 
 Mahratta chiefs. His assistance was valuable 
 to Scindiah in 1802, when he made war upon 
 the Peishwa, or Mahratta sovereign of Poonah, 
 and expelled him from his dominions. The 
 Peishwa applied for aid to the English, who 
 had long conceived apprehensions of the turbu- 
 lent spirit, ambition, and power of Scindiah; and 
 on the 31st of December, 1802, a subsidiary treaty 
 was concluded at Bassein. The Nizam of the 
 Deccan joined with the English and the Peishwa, 
 while the Rajah of Berar united his forces to 
 those of Scindiah, The governor-general, Lord 
 Wellesley, had two great objects in view—to 
 restore the Peishwa, and to destroy or dissipate 
 the formidable disciplined forces which Perron 
 had raised, and which contained several other 
 European officers. If the First Consul could have 
 put himself in communication with that adven- 
 turer, and have forwarded him some encourage- 
 ment and support, Perron had abilities, and 
 occupied a position, which might have proved 
 very dangerous to the British power in India, 
 although it does not appear that Perron had 
 either much regard for Bonaparte, or much 
 nationality. It was thought that his leading 
 passion was a love of money; and Lord Wellesley 
 seems to have calculated on that passion, as 
 affording the means of detaching him from his 
 old Indian master, and bringing him into the 
 
 GENERAL LAKE, 
 
 pay of the company. When General Lake took 
 the field with an army of 10,500 men, to co-operate 
 
 with which force 3500 men were assembled near 
 Allahabad, and about 2000 at Mirzapoor, the 
 governor-general, who had instructed him to 
 make every possible effort to destroy and scatter 
 or win over Perron’s brigades, wrote to him, 
 empowering him to conclude any reasonable 
 agreement with M. Perron which would induce 
 him “to deliver up the whole of his military 
 resources and power, together with his territorial 
 possessions and the person of the Mogul, and of 
 the heir-apparent.’* It appears, however, that 
 the correspondence opened in consequence of 
 these instructions, did not produce the expected 
 effect. Perron took the field with 16,000 or 
 17,000 infantry disciplined in the European 
 manner, a large body of irregular infantry, from 
 15,000 to 20,000 Mahratta horse, and a numerous 
 and well-appointed train of artillery. But, in the 
 meantime, the younger brother of the governor- 
 general, now Major-general Wellesley, had made 
 a dash upon Poonah, had balked and driven out 
 the Mahratta troops of Holkar, had saved, by a 
 most rapid and brilliant movement, that capital 
 of the Peishwa from being burned by Holkar’s 
 people, and had reinstated that prince in his domi- 
 nions. The Peishwa re-entered his capital early 
 in the month of May. Holkar, who fled before 
 
 Horkar, 
 
 General Wellesley without fighting, joined Scin- 
 diah and the Rajah of Berar. This confederacy | 
 seemed the more dangerous, as Scindiah possessed | 
 several convenient seaports through which he 
 could receive assistance, if any should be sent him, — 
 from France, and as, conformably to the treaty of © 
 Amiens, the French had then just recovered their — 
 Indian possessions. While General Lake marched 
 towards Delhi, taking by storm as he passed it © 
 the important fortress of Alli Ghur, General — 
 Wellesley kept the chief command of all the British 
 and allied troops serving in the territories of the 
 Peishwa and the Nizam of the Deccan, having full ; 
 powers to direct all the political affairs of the 
 
 * Letter from Lord Wellesley to General Lake, as quoted in Mill’s 
 Hist. Brit. Ind. ; ; 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 British government in those countries.* After 
 some fruitless negotiations with Scindiah, Wellesley 
 marched from Poonah to the north, and, after 
 sustaining a great loss in carriage-cattle, he 
 reached Ahmednughur, a strong place garrisoned 
 by Scindiah’s troops, which he forthwith took 
 by escalade. On the 24th of August, he crossed 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 the Godavery river, and on the 29th of that | 
 
 219 
 
 SSeS TTT Ut ttdnISEtSSSISNSnSS Sans 
 
 month, he entered Aurungabad. On the same 
 day that he crossed the Godavery, Scindiah and 
 the Rajah of Berar, having avoided a corps under 
 Colonel Stevenson, rushed with an immense army 
 of cavalry, and of cavalry alone, into the Nizam’s 
 territory, by the Adjuntee Ghaut or pass, intending 
 to plunder and ravage, to cross the Godavery, 
 and to march upon Hyderabad. Wellesley 
 
 returned to that river, and moved eastward along 
 its northern bank, to intercept the enemy, and 
 place himself between them and the very import- 
 ant city of Hyderabad. Scindiah and the Rajah 
 immediately altered their course, striking away 
 in the direction of Julnapoor; but Colonel 
 Stevenson got there before them with the Nizam’s 
 auxiliary force, and made sure of that town. On 
 the 12th of September, General Wellesley was 
 encamped about twenty miles to the north of the 
 Godavery, Colonel Stevenson being at some 
 distance from him. From the rapidity of their 
 movement, it was no easy matter to come up 
 with the Mahratta cavalry, who were committing 
 terrible depredations; but Stevenson once or 
 twice beat up their camp by making night- 
 marches, About the middle of September, 
 Wellesley received information that Scindiah had 
 been reinforced by sixteen battalions of infantry, 
 commanded by French officers, and a large train 
 of artillery ; and that the whole of his and the 
 Rajah’s forces were now assembled near the 
 banks of the Kaitna. On the 21st, he drew nearer 
 to Colonel Stevenson’s corps, and held a conference 
 with that distinguished officer, in which a general 
 
 * Dispatches of Field-marshal the Duke of Wellington, compiled 
 from authentic documents by Lieutenant-colonel Gurwood. 
 
 Fortress oF ALLI Guur. 
 
 plan of attack was concerted. On the 22nd, 
 Colonel Stevenson took the western route, and 
 Wellesley the eastern, round the hills between 
 Budnapoor and Jaulna. They expected to join 
 forces and attack the enemy early on the morning 
 of the 24th. But on the 23rd, the general received 
 a report that Scindiah and the Rajah of Berar 
 had moved off that morning with their myriads 
 of horse, and that their infantry were about to 
 follow, but were as yet in camp at the distance 
 of about six miles from him. General Wellesley 
 therefore determined to march upon the infantry 
 and engage it at once. He sent a messenger to 
 Colonel Stevenson, who was at the moment about 
 eight miles off on his left, to acquaint him with 
 his intention, and to direct his advance with all 
 possible rapidity ; he then moved forward with 
 the 19th light dragoons and three regiments of 
 native cavalry to reconnoitre. His infantry, 
 consisting of only two British and five sepoy 
 battalions, followed with all their speed. After 
 he had ridden about four miles, Wellesley, from 
 an elevated plain, saw not only the infantry but 
 the whole Mahratta force, consisting of about 
 50,000 men, encamped on the north side of the 
 Kaitna, where the banks of that river were very 
 steep. Their right, consisting of cavalry, extended 
 
220 
 
 to Bokerdon; their left, consisting of infantry, 
 with 90 pieces of artillery, lay near the village of 
 Assaye, which has given its name to the memor- 
 able battle. No thought of retreat was entertained, 
 Wellesley resolved to attack the infantry on its 
 left and rear, and for that purpose he moved his 
 little army to a ford beyond the enemy’s left, 
 leaving the Mysore and other irregular cavalry to 
 watch the Mahratta cavalry, and crossing the 
 river only with his regular horse and infantry. 
 He passed the ford, ascended the steep bank, and 
 formed his men in three lines, two of infantry and 
 the third of horse. This was effected under a brisk 
 cannonade from the enemy’s artillery. Scindiah, 
 or the Kuropcean officer who directed his move- 
 ments, promptly made a corresponding change in 
 his line, giving a new front to his infantry, which 
 was now made to rest its right on the river, and 
 its left upon the village of Assaye and the Juah 
 stream, which flowed in a parallel direction with 
 the Kaitna. Scindiah’s numerous and well-served 
 cannon did terrible execution among Wellesley’s 
 advancing lines. At one moment, such a gap was 
 made by cannon-ball in the English right, that 
 some of the Mahratta cavalry attempted to charge 
 through it; but the British cavalry in the third 
 line came up and drove the Mahrattas back with 
 great slaughter. Finding his artillery of little or 
 no use (the guns could not be brought up for lack 
 of bullocks), General Wellesley gave orders to leave 
 it in the rear, and bade the infantry charge with 
 the bayonet. The Mahratta infantry now gave 
 way, and abandoned their terrible guns. One 
 body of them formed again, and presented a bold 
 front; but Lientenant-colonel Maxwell charged 
 them with the British cavalry, broke and dispersed 
 them, and was killed in the moment of victory. 
 Wellesley’s sepoys having proceeded too far in 
 pursuit, many of Scindiah’s artillerymen, who had 
 thrown themselves down among the carriages of 
 their guns as though they were dead, got to their 
 fect again, and turned their pieces against the 
 rear of the advancing sepoys; and at the same 
 time, the Mahratta cavalry, which had been 
 hovering round throughout the battle, were still 
 near. But Maxwell’s exploit speedily led to the 
 silencing of this straggling artillery-fire, and to 
 the headlong flight “of “Scindiah’s disciplined 
 infantry, who went off and left 90 pieces of 
 cannon, nearly all brass, and of the proper calibres, 
 in the hands of the conqueror. General Wellesley 
 led the 78th British infantry in person against the 
 
 village of Assaye, which was not cleared without 
 a desperate combat. It was near dark night when 
 the firing ceased. The splendid victory cost 
 Gencral Wellesley 22 officers and 386 men killed, 
 and 57 officers and 1526 men wounded—excluding 
 the irregular cavalry, which remained on the other 
 side of “the river, and had not been engaged, the 
 total number of killed and wounded amounted 
 to nearly one-third of his force. The enemy, who 
 fled towards the Adjuntee Ghaut, through which 
 they had poured into the Deccan, left 1200 dead, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and a great number badly wounded on the field 
 of battle. * 
 
 [Book al Ue 
 
 Colonel Stevenson, who had encountered some — 
 unexpected obstacles, arrived at Assaye on the ~ 
 24th, and was immediately dispatched after the — 
 
 flying enemy, whose infantry was as usual left 
 behind and abandoned by the cavalry, While 
 these things were doing in the south, General 
 Lake continued both his advance upon Delhi 
 and his correspondence with Perron, This 
 
 —— F- —_ 
 
 Frenchman now found great difficulty in keeping — 
 
 his army together and in preserving any disci- 
 pline ; a large portion of his cavalry left his camp, 
 and turned their horses heads homewards, 
 declaring their inability to oppose the English; 
 and what was still more fatal, his own French 
 officers began to intrigue and plot against him, 
 After making a_ spiritless demonstration 
 Alli Ghur, 
 with about 15,000 men, on the 29th of August. 
 The town of Coel threw open its gates at Lake’s 
 approach; but the garrison of Alli Ghur, tlhe 
 ordinary residence of Perron, and his principal 
 military depdt, made a desperate resistance. On 
 the 4th of September, storming-parties, headed by 
 Colonel Monson and Major Macleod, carried the 
 place: 2000 of the garrison perished, the rest sur- 
 rendered or fled out of the fort. On the very same 
 
 near — 
 he retreated without fighting, and — 
 
 day, however, five companies of Lake’s sepoys, — 
 
 who had been left with only one gun to occupy a 
 detached position commanding the road through 
 which provisions must be brought up, were obliged 
 to surrender to the enemy. Some days before the 
 capture of Alli Ghur and his depot, Perron wrote 
 
 to Lake, expressing a desire to effect some arrange- — 
 
 ment which might preclude the necessity of any 
 actual contest between the English and the troops 
 lhe commanded; and even previously to this, he 
 had applied for leave to pass through the com- 
 pany’s territories, intending, he said, to quit the 
 service of Scindiah, and return to Europe. These 
 
 applications were followed up by the Frenchman 
 
 sending a confidential agent to the English camp. 
 
 This agent had a long private interview with 
 General Lake, and is generally believed to have 
 returned to his principal with a large sum of 
 money in specie or in drafts upon the treasury at 
 On the 7th of September—three days — 
 
 Calcutta, 
 after the storming of Alli Ghur—Lake received a 
 
 letter from Perron, stating that he had quitted the 
 
 service of Scindiah, and now requested permission 
 to pass with his family, his effects, and the oflicers 
 of his suite, through the company’s dominions to 
 Lucknow. He stated as reasons for his retiring, 
 that he had received intelligence that his suecessor 
 had been appointed, and was already on his way 
 
 to take his command from him; and that the — 
 
 treachery and ingratitude of his European officers 
 had convinced him that further resistance to the 
 British arms was useless, 
 
 The permission de- 
 manded was readily granted by General Lake, | 
 
 : 
 
 * General Wellesley’s own Dispatches and Letters, as printed in . 
 
 Colonel Gurwoca's invaluable work. 
 
 2 
 
 { 
 
—_— 
 
 Pal pe € 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 who, as well as the governor-general, Lord 
 Wellesley, attached great importance to the with- 
 drawing of the very able French adventurer. As 
 Perron began his journey for Lucknow, General 
 Lake, starting from Alli Ghur, resumed his march 
 upon Delhi. On the 11th of September, the English 
 general received intelligence that the army which 
 had belonged to Perron, and which was now com- 
 manded by another Frenchman, had crossed the 
 Jumna from Delhi, under cover of the night, with 
 the intention of fighting a battle for the defence 
 of the ancient capital of the Great Moguls, but 
 which was now the prison of the feeble representa- 
 tive of Timour, Lake, who had only 4500 men, had 
 scarcely encamped in the neighbourhood of Delhi, 
 when he was attacked by the squadrons of Louis 
 Bourquien, who had 19,000 men under his com- 
 mand, and who had taken up an excellent position 
 on a rising ground, with swamps on either flank. 
 By stratagem, Lake managed to draw the French- 
 man from his position, and then, by superior fight- 
 ing, he drove the enemy beyond the river Jumna, 
 leaving behind them 3000 or 4000 of their number 
 killed, wounded, or prisoners, sixty-eight cannon— 
 the whole of their artillery—a great quantity of 
 ammunition, and their military chest. While it 
 lasted, the afiair had been very hot: three or four 
 hundred of Lake’s people were laid low by the 
 grape and chain-shot. 
 Lake encamped opposite to the city of Delhi, which, 
 together with the fort, was evacuated by those 
 who had held the Mogul in thraldom. On the 
 14th of September, Louis Bourquien and four other 
 French officers who had fought in the late action, 
 surrendered as prisoners of war in the British 
 camp; on the 16th, General Lake paid a visit 
 to Shah Alum, who had long before expressed his 
 anxious wish to avail himself of the protection of 
 the British government, and this visit was accom- 
 panied with processions and pomps of an extra- 
 ordinary kind, The Mogul, who was now old and 
 blind, and miserably poor, received General Lake 
 as a deliverer, and gave him—which was about all 
 he could give—a series of sounding Oriental titles. 
 Another of the French adventurers surrendered ; 
 and now no military man of any note or ability, of 
 that nation, remaincd in this part of India. From 
 Delhi, General Lake proceeded to Agra, where he 
 arrived on the 4th of October. The garrison in 
 the fort returned no answer to his summons to 
 surrender ; but some outposts were easily carried, 
 some of the defeated troops deserted to General 
 Lake; and on the 17th, when breaching-batteries 
 began to open their fire, the garrison capitulated. 
 So vast were the resources of Scindiah, that he 
 had been enabled to send seventeen regular dis- 
 ciplined battalions, and from 4000 to 5000 horse, 
 to endeavour to regain possession of Delhi, while 
 General Lake was engaged in the siege of Agra. 
 On the 27th of October, when he had garrisoned 
 and secured his. last conquest, Lake started in 
 search of this new enemy. From the state of the 
 roads, he was obliged to push forward with his 
 
 ‘CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 On the following morning, 
 
 221 
 
 cavalry alone; and on the morning of the Ist of 
 November, he found the enemy well posted, with 
 their right upon a stream, their left on the village 
 of Laswarree, and with their front provided with 
 seventy-two pieces of artillery. He engaged them 
 with his cavalry with uncertain success, but on the 
 appearance of his infantry and artillery, the enemy 
 offered upon certain conditions to surrender their 
 guns and retire. Lake, anxious to stop the effusion 
 of blood, granted the conditions proposed; but, 
 seeing that they hesitated, he gave them one hour 
 to decide whether they would accept the terms or 
 fight him. The hour expired, and then the battle 
 began. On the side of the British, the brunt was 
 borne by the king’s 76th regiment, which, with a 
 battalion and five companies of sepoys, had to 
 sustain a tremendous fire of canister-shot and a 
 massive charge of ‘cavalry. “This handful of 
 heroes,” as Lake called them, though thinned by 
 the enemy’s artillery, stood firm, and repulsed the 
 horse, Then Major Griffiths was sent at the head 
 of the 29th Dragoons to sweep away that numerous 
 cavalry, a duty which he performed completely, 
 though not without losing his own life, being 
 struck by a cannon-ball. Then followed the ter- 
 rible bayonet-charge of the British infantry, the 
 right wing of which was led by Major-general 
 Ware, who was killed by another cannon-shot. 
 For a time, the enemy seemed determined to 
 defend their position to the last, disputing every 
 point inch by inch, and only giving way when 
 the bayonets were at their breast, and their own 
 artillery turned against them. Even when their 
 situation had become altogether desperate, they 
 continued to manifest the same dogged courage: 
 their left wing endeavoured to effect a retreat in 
 good order ; but this attempt was frustrated by a 
 brilliant charge, made by the 27th regiment of 
 Dragoons and a regiment of native cavalry. But 
 presently the mass of the enemy either fled from 
 the field, or cried for quarter, and surrendered ; 
 and all the artillery, all the baggage, and nearly 
 everything belonging to them, fell into the hands 
 of the victors. With the exception of 2000 who 
 surrendered, the whole of their seventeen battalions 
 were destroyed. It was calculated that the dead 
 alone on the field could hardly have been less 
 than 7000. Though some of their cavalry were 
 enabled, by the fleetness of their horses and local 
 knowledge, to escape destruction, the rest, except- 
 ing those who had the good fortune to conceal 
 themselves among the bazaar people, were num- 
 bered with the slain. The English loss amounted 
 to 172 killed and 652 wounded. General Lake, 
 who had personally led the charge of cavalry in 
 the morning, who had afterwards led on the 76th, 
 and who had conducted nearly every operation of 
 the day, had two horses shot under him, and saw 
 his son, who was acting as his aide-de-camp, badly 
 wounded by his side. But the battle of Laswarrce 
 
 most honourably terminated the mission which had 
 been entrusted to this active and gallant officer. 
 Lake had defeated, routed, annihilated that army 
 
222 ; 
 
 of Perron which had caused the governor-general 
 such great and reasonable alarm, and had placed 
 in the hands of the English all the extensive ter- 
 ritory watered by the Jumna; and, between him 
 and General Wellesley, the power of Scindiah and 
 all the most perilous part of the Mahratta con- 
 federacy, was utterly shattered before the end of 
 the year. Scindiah asked for and obtained a truce 
 from Wellesley at the beginning of November; 
 but his ally, the Rajah of Berar, still kept the field ; 
 and when the English commander came up with 
 this rajah in the plains of Argaum, about twenty 
 miles north of the Poorna river, he found Scindiah’s 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Boo; xX. 
 
 cavalry drawn up with him—no uncommon in- 
 stance of the faith with which these Indian chiefs 
 observed truces and treaties. On the 29th of 
 November, Wellesley attacked and defeated the 
 
 whole host, who fled in the greatest disorder, 
 
 leaving 38 cannon and all their ammunition to the 
 
 conquerors; whose cavalry, moreover, pursued 
 
 them by bright moonlight for several miles, taking — 
 many elephants, camels, and much baggage.* 
 
 After the battle of Argaum, General Wellesley 
 determined to lose no time in commencing the 
 siege of Gawil-Ghur, one of the strongest fortresses — 
 in India, situated on a lofty rock, in a range of 
 
 GAWIL-GHUR. 4 
 
 mountains between the sources of the rivers 
 Poorna and Taptee, and consisting of one com- 
 plete inner fort fronting the south, where the rock 
 is steepest, of an outer fort covering the inner one 
 to the north-west and north, and of a third wall 
 covering the approach to the rock from the north 
 by the village of Labada, All the walls were 
 strongly built, and fortified by ramparts and 
 towers, The communications with the fort were 
 through three gates. The ascent to the first gate 
 was very long and steep, and practicable only for 
 men; that to the second was by a road used by 
 the garrison, but it wound round the west side of 
 the fort, and was exposed for a great distance to 
 its fire; the road being at the same time very 
 narrow, so as to render a regular approach 
 impracticable, and the rock being scarped on each 
 side; the road to the third or northern gate was 
 broad, and over ground level with the fort, to 
 which it led directly from the village of Labada; 
 but to get at that village, it was necessary to take 
 a road which ran thirty miles through the moun- 
 tains, and it was obvious that the difficulty and 
 
 labour of moving ordnance and stores to Labada 
 would be very great.+ This last road was, how-— 
 ever, adopted. The management of the siege was 
 entrusted to Colonel Stevenson, General Wellesley 
 
 covering his operations with his own division and ~ 
 with all the cavalry, and intending, if possible, to_ 
 assist by making attacks from the southward and _ 
 westward, while the colonel attacked from the 
 north, It took Stevenson from the 7th of Decem- 
 ber to the 12th to reach Labada; and during those 
 five days the troops in his division went through 
 a series of laborious services, such as nobody with | 
 the army had ever witnessed before, and that too 
 with the utmost cheerfulness as well as perseyer- 
 ance. The heavy ordnance and stores were 
 dragged by hand over mountains, and through — 
 
 ~ "sii 
 
 * From unavoidable circumstances,” says the general, *twedid _ 
 not begin the action till late in the day, and not more than twenty | 
 minutes’ sun remained when I led on the British cavalry to the | 
 charge. But they made up for it by continuing the pursuit | | 
 moonlight; and all the troops were under arms till a very latehour | 
 in the night.”— Private letter to the Hon. H. Wellesley, in Colonel | 
 Gurwood’s Wellington Dispatches. ae & 
 
 + Dispatch from General Wellesley to the governor-general, in | 
 
 Gurwood. ae 
 
Cuap. VITI.] 
 
 ravines, for nearly the whole distance, by roads 
 which it had been previously necessary for the 
 soldiers to make for themselves. By the 12th at 
 night, however, Colonel Stevenson had broken 
 ground, and erected two batteries in front of the 
 north face of the fort of Gawil-Ghur; and on 
 the same night General Wellesley’s division con- 
 structed one battery on the mountain under the 
 southern gate, with the view to breach the wall 
 near that gate, or, at all events, to distract the 
 enemy by drawing their attention to that quarter. 
 The enemy’s garrison was numerous: it consisted 
 of Rajpoots, and of a great body of regular 
 infantry, who had escaped from the battle of 
 Argaum, and who were all well armed with Eng- 
 lish muskets and bayonets; but on the 15th, some 
 breaches being made, and the outer walls carried 
 by storm, the light infantry of the 94th regiment, 
 headed by Captain Campbell, fixed their ladders 
 against the inner fort, in which no breach what- 
 ever had been made, gallantly escaladed the high 
 wall, and opened the gate for the storming-party, 
 who, in a trice, were entire masters of every part 
 of the fortress. Vast numbers of the garrison 
 were killed, particularly at the different gateways; 
 their general or commander, Beny Sing, and his 
 killadar, were found buried, like Tippoo at Seringa- 
 patam, amidst a heap of slain near the gateway; 
 and some of the Rajpoot chiefs, according to the 
 custom of their country, had put their wives and 
 daughters to death before going out to meet their 
 own.* On the 17th of December, or two days 
 after the fall of Gawil-Ghur, the Rajah of Berar 
 signed the conditions of peace which Wellesley 
 dictated, adding to the company the important 
 province of Cuttack, with the district of Balasore, 
 and dismissing all the French or other European 
 officers in his service. Before the rajah ratified 
 the treaty, General Wellesley had made three 
 marches towards Nagpoor, “in order to keep alive 
 the impression under which it was evident that 
 the treaty had been concluded.” As soon as 
 Scindiah found that the rajah had made peace, he 
 began to be alarmed, and to implore to be allowed 
 to negotiate; and on the 30th of December he 
 signed a treaty of peace, by which he yielded to 
 the company all the country between the Jumna 
 and the Ganges, besides numerous forts, territories, 
 rights, and interests; engaging to conform to the 
 treaties which the company had made with the 
 Peishwa, to recognise the right of the Peishwa to 
 the territories which the company had put him in 
 possession of, and, in case of any difference after- 
 wards between him and the Peishwa, to admit the 
 mediation, arbitration, and final decision of the 
 company. Scindiah also agreed to dismiss such 
 European officers as he yet had, and (as the 
 Rajah of Berar had also done) “never to take or 
 retain in his service any Frenchman, or the sub- 
 ject of any other European or American power 
 the government of which may be at war with 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches, and Journal of 
 Major-general Sir Jasper Nicholls, as quoted by Colonel Gurwood. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1803. 
 
 223 
 
 the British government; or any British subject, 
 whether European or native of India, without th 
 consent of the British government.” 
 
 In the course of these campaigns, an immense 
 extent of country had been traversed, separate 
 co-operating corps had been moved with a rare 
 regularity and intelligence, and had, when neces- 
 sary, been brought to a junction with admirable 
 precision as to time and place; the commissariat 
 departments had been managed better than ever 
 they had been before by an English army, whether 
 in Hurope, Asia, or America, since the days of the 
 great Marlborough ; the stafi-officers had surveyed 
 the country with a much improved skill, the army 
 made no blunders through that want of proper 
 intelligence which had so often been felt else- 
 where ; the marches had been more rapid, as well 
 as more certain; and, altogether, there was visible 
 an immense improvement, which few or none will 
 dispute was mainly due to the practice and 
 example of Arthur Wellesley.* 
 
 In the course of this same year, the enterprising 
 governor-general of India had set in motion a 
 third and a fourth army against the Mahratta 
 confederacy, the existence of which, formidable in 
 itself, might have become in the highest degree 
 dangerous, if Bonaparte could have succeeded in 
 throwing any considerable force into Hindostan. 
 As elsewhere, the progress of British arms was 
 favoured by intestine dissensions, disputed succes- 
 sions, and furious jealousies among the Mahratta 
 chiefs, Oolonel Powell, starting from Allahabad, 
 with troops belonging to the Bengal establishment, 
 overran the often-disputed province of Bundelcund, 
 reducing the forts, and establishing the authority 
 of the company. Powell fought one pitched 
 battle near Capsah, in which, as usual, the enemy 
 made good use of their artillery, but were routed 
 with loss. Fort Calpee, on the south-western side 
 of the Jumna, and Gwalior, which commands an 
 important pass, and defends the frontiers of Gohud, 
 were the most important of the fortresses taken. 
 Gwalior, which had once been in our possession, 
 but which had been ceded by treaty to a faithless 
 ally, had ever been considered a military post of 
 the greatest importance: the fort in strength and 
 situation resembled Gawil-Ghur, standing on a very 
 steep hill, which was long and narrow at the top, 
 and dipped almost perpendicularly at the sides. To 
 block up some other passes through which the 
 
 * In a private letter to his brother, the Hon. H. Wellesley (already 
 cited), the great and accomplished soldier said at the time: ‘‘ The 
 operations of this war have afforded numerous instances of improve- 
 ment in our means of communication, of obtaining intelligence, and, 
 above all, of movement. Marches such as I have made in this war 
 were never known or thought of before. In the last eight days of 
 the month of October, I marched above 120 miles, and passed 
 through two Ghauts with heavy guns and all the equipments of the 
 troops, and this without injury to the efficiency of the army; and 
 in the few days previous to this battle (Argaum), when I had deter- 
 mined to go into Berar, I never moved less than between seventeen 
 and twenty miles, and I marched twenty-six miles on the day on 
 which it was fought.” It was in this great field of India, where 
 alone a British officer could now have the handling of great masses 
 of men, that Arthur Wellesley prepared himself for the duties 
 which he had afterwards to perform in Portugal and Spain, and 
 that he laid the groundwork of the lofty and enduring edifice of 
 the fame of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
224 
 
 Mahrattas might make inroads, as soon as Powell 
 had secured his footing in Bundelcund, Lieutenant- 
 colonel Broughton was detached to the eastern 
 provinces of Berar, to seize the fortress of Sum- 
 balpore, to drive out some freebooting bands, and 
 to destroy or scatter the only Mahratta force which 
 was left anywhere in the country between Bundel- 
 cund, Berar, and Cuttack, Cutting a road for his 
 artillery across a deep and extensive forest, and 
 overcoming every obstacle, Broughton executed 
 every part of the task entrusted to him. Colonel 
 Harcourt, with a division of the Madras army 
 which had been stationed in the Northern Circars, 
 marched from Gamjam on the 8th of September to 
 drive the Mahratta chiefs out of Cuttack, a pro- 
 vince which was actually in our possession before 
 the Rajah of Berar formally ceded it by treaty. 
 The Mahrattas on the frontier fled, the Bramins 
 of Juggernaut placed their pagoda and idol under 
 British protection, which in itself was a very 
 important advantage; and, after some delay, 
 occasioned by the rains, Harcourt continued his 
 advance, entered the city of Cuttack, and laid siege 
 to the fort, a place of considerable strength, having 
 only one entrance by a narrow bridge, over a wet 
 ditch of enormous dimensions. But a co-operating 
 force, detached from the Bengal army, and which 
 might be called a sixth army, or corps d’armée, 
 had landed at Ballasore on the 21st of September, 
 and, after getting possession of all the country on 
 the coast, sent forward reinforcements to Cuttack 
 to assist in the siege of the fortress. That place 
 was stormed and taken on the 14th of October, 
 and the fall of the fort left Harcourt undisputed 
 master of the whole of the province. In Har- 
 court’s operations, as in all the rest of this far- 
 extending extraordinary campaign, there was a 
 plan of co-operation and mutual assistance: as 
 soon as he had captured the great fortress of 
 Cuttack, he detached Major Forbes to occupy the 
 defile of Bermuth, which forms the only entrance 
 into the province of Cuttack through the chain of 
 mountains which separated it from the states of 
 the Rajah of Berar. Forbes performed his duty 
 admirably ; several of the neighbouring rajahs flew 
 from the tyranny of the great Rajah of Berar, and 
 threw themselves under the protection of the 
 British ; the pass of Bermuth was secured ; and in 
 a few weeks, Colonel Harcourt and the troops that 
 had conquered Cuttack defiled through it, and 
 co-operated with General Wellesley, distracting 
 the attention of the enemy while he advanced 
 and captured Gawil-Ghur. In all these combined 
 movements of different corps, from such opposite 
 points and over so extensive a range of country, 
 scarcely one error of any consequence appears to 
 have been committed, the different detachments 
 meeting at the very time and place appointed, 
 and whether close together or far asunder, moving 
 like different wheels of one great machine, set in 
 motion by one master power. 
 
 The signal successes of the year 1803 gave to 
 the British empire other advantages besides the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 acquisition of the Mahratta dominions between 
 the Jumna and the Ganges: they secured, by the 
 possession of Delhi, Agra, and Calpee, the mastery 
 and free navigation of the Jumna, with an im- 
 portant tract of country along the right bank of 
 that river; they gave us the greater part of the 
 rich province of Bundelcund, the whole of Cuttack 
 in Orissa, and the most valuable territory in 
 Guzerat, with valuable ports which were before 
 accessible to the enemy—our mortal enemy, France 
 —thereby securing the navigation along that im- 
 mense coast, from the mouths of the Ganges to the 
 mouth of the Indus; and, furthermore, they gaye™ 
 to the company a stronger frontier in the Deccan, 
 and to our allies, the Nizam and the Peishwa, an 
 important accession of strength.* <A hair-splitting 
 writer on India has undervalued the services per- 
 formed by Lake and the two illustrious brothers ; 
 as well as the danger with which we were 
 threatened by French intrigue and the Mahratta 
 confederacy, emboldened by hopes of succours from 
 France; but the British subjects who were living 
 in India, whose lives or property, or both, were at 
 
 Stake, who knew the animus and the means of 
 
 Scindiah and his allies, and who saw all the danger 
 
 from a near point, certainly entertained notions 
 
 very different from those of the not very national 
 
 historian of British India. Some of these ideas. 
 were well and honestly expressed, at the termina- 
 
 tion of the war, in an address presented by the 
 
 British inhabitants of Calcutta to the governor- 
 
 general, Lord Wellesley, The British residing in 
 
 the presidencies of Madras and Bombay were not 
 
 behind those residing in Bengal in expressing their 
 sense of the great danger they had been exposed to, 
 
 and in testifying their gratitude for the services 
 
 which had rescued the whole of our Eastern settle-— 
 ments from a state of jeopardy, and fixed them 
 upon a basis of better and more permanent 
 
 security. . . 
 
 Karly in the spring of the following year (1804), — 
 General Wellesley crossed the Godavery to put 
 down the independent freebooting parties, frag 
 ments of Scindiah’s armies, and gangs of banditti— 
 from nearly all parts of India, who were plunder-— 
 ing and devastating the whole of the Western 
 Deccan. He offered terms to the chiefs of these 
 freebooters, and allowed them five days to dismiss” 
 their troops and come into his camp. But, at the 
 expiration of that time, on the 4th of February, he 
 endeavoured to cut them off by making forced 
 marches over eighty miles of the roughest country, 
 to the spot where they were encamped. His secret 
 was betrayed by some of the natives following his” 
 own army, or he would have taken them by sur- 
 prise in their camp. As they fled, he followed 
 them with the British cavalry in one column, act 
 ing upon the right of their rear, while the Mysore 
 cavalry and the cavalry of the re-established 
 
 * Major Thorn’s Memoir of the War in India.—In all, upwards of 
 1000 pieces of cannon had been captured by Lake, Wellesley, and 
 
 their subordinates, together with ammunition, treasure, and se | 
 
 in: proportion. 
 
 t 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 Peishwa pursued the centre and left. 
 the marauders were greatly his superiors in num- 
 bers, Wellesley followed them with astonishing 
 rapidity from hill to hill, nor ceased his pursuit 
 until he had entirely destroyed or dispersed them, 
 and captured all their artillery, ammunition, 
 baggage, and bazaars.* The fatigue was exces- 
 sive; not a few of Wellesley’s horses and men 
 died of it: he himself describes the marches made 
 as being “terrible ;” and after the lapse of many 
 years, and many other arduous services, he still 
 spoke of this as the most laborious service in which 
 he had ever been engaged.t 
 
 As General Wellesley took little or no part in 
 the war which followed with Holkar and a new 
 but much weaker confederacy than that whose 
 spear had been broken by himself and General 
 Lake, and as this flying campaign beyond the 
 Godavery concluded his important military ser- 
 vices in India, we may briefly allude in this place 
 to his equally important civil services. In the 
 month of July (1804), having, in pursuance of 
 orders from his brother, the governor-general, 
 broken up the army in the Deccan, and returned 
 to Seringapatam, General Wellesley received an 
 address from the native inhabitants, which, in 
 simple, unaffected, sincere, and truthful words, 
 expressed the gratitude of the people of Mysore for 
 the tranquillity and happiness they had enjoyed 
 under his government. The whole of the Mysore 
 had been well administered under his vigilant 
 superintendence; numerous abuses, on the part 
 of the civil as well as the military servants of the 
 company, had been checked; and agriculture and 
 trade had flourished, while the storm of war was 
 raging in other parts of India. Deserted villages 
 were again occupied by industrious and thriving 
 people; and, while there was a security for the great 
 and the wealthy, such as had never been known 
 under Hyder Ali or his son Tippoo, there was 
 also protection and safety for the poorest. He 
 ruthlessly drove from their rank, stations, and 
 employment whoever practised any foul money- 
 getting trick, or assisted in any act of pecula- 
 tion, corruption, or oppression (whatever might 
 be their patronage or connections), During 
 the five years of his government, the country 
 had, in fact, acquired a higher degree of pros- 
 perity than could possibly have been expected 
 in so short a time, and thus had been enabled, 
 in some degree, to repay, by the efficacy of its 
 assistance in the hour of emergency, when 
 Scindiah’s confederacy and Perron’s disciplined 
 army showed their formidable front, the benefits 
 which it had derived from British influence, pro- 
 tection, and power. And yet, during all this 
 time, large sums had been annually appropriated 
 
 * «These numerous and formidable bands of freebooters, who 
 
 were the terror of the country, were daily increasing in numbers, 
 and had already defeated a body of the Soubah’s troops, and had 
 _ taken from them the guns which I have retaken.”—Letter to the 
 Governor-general, in Gurwood’s Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 .t Colonel Gurwood’s Dispatches,— André Vieusscux’s Military 
 
 ' Life of the Duke of Wellington.—Major William Thorn, Memoirs of 
 
 the War in India, 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 J SS 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 Though — 
 
 225 
 
 to the construction or repair of tanks, water- 
 courses, roads, bridges, and other works, which 
 tended to the further improvement and increase 
 of the agriculture, trade, and other resources of 
 the country. The best attestation to the merits 
 of the system is to be found in the fact, that 
 great numbers of strangers from other parts of 
 Hindostan came and settled in Mysore, and 
 materially aided in improving the agriculture and 
 the entire aspect of the country. An admirable 
 police was organised, and a military plan arranged, 
 by which, between standing troops well disci- 
 plined, and a sort of militia, Mysore could at 
 any time, on a few days’ notice, bring 40,000 
 men into the field without confusion, great 
 expense, oppression or violence of any kind; 
 and with such a force, the Mysoreans could not 
 only defend their own territories, but also spare 
 troops to the company for operations far beyond 
 their own frontiers. The Mysore cavalry, which 
 had been serving under Wellesley in the Scindiah 
 campaign and in pursuit of the freebooters, had 
 behaved admirably well. 
 
 In March, 1805, when he was on the point of 
 leaving the East for ever, the native inhabitants 
 of Seringapatam, Hindus and Mussulmans, pre- 
 sented another address to the major-general, 
 expressing again their gratitude for the tranquil- 
 lity, security, and happiness they had enjoyed 
 under his auspicious protection; their respect for 
 his brilliant exploits in the field of battle, and 
 their reverence for his affability and benevolence ; 
 concluding with a prayer to God to grant him 
 health and a safe and pleasant voyage to Europe, 
 but expressing an earnest hope of his speedy return 
 to the country, once more to extend and uphold 
 that protection over them which his extensive 
 knowledge of their customs and manners so well 
 enabled him to afford. 
 
 And in the Deccan and at Poonah, the conduct 
 of this great man was equally productive of 
 important advantages to the natives, as to the 
 company and the British nation. He curbed 
 the vindictive hand of the restored Peishwa, 
 who, like the generality of Indian princes, knew 
 nothing of forgiveness, He interposed in many 
 cases where the Peishwa would have deluged the 
 country with blood, and he saved many chiefs 
 who would otherwise have been put to death or 
 driven out of the country for the aid they had 
 given Scindiah in expelling the Peishwa.* 
 
 For our home-defence, the volunteer associations 
 alone furnished, in the course of the year, 300,000 
 men, who were all well equipped, and who, in the 
 course of a few months more, were well trained 
 in the use of arms. The constant drilling and 
 reviewing of these corps kept up the martial 
 
 * “The war,” he said, in one of his dispatches, *‘ will be eternal 
 if nobody is ever to be forgiven; and I certainly think that the 
 British government cannot intend to make the British troops the 
 instruments of the Peishwa’s revenge.” He also found it neces- 
 sary, More than once, to teach forgiveness or moderation to the 
 civil government at Calcutta. ‘ When,” said he, ‘the power of 
 the company is so great, little dirty passions must not be suffered 
 
 to guide its measures.” — Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. 
 : Oo 
 
 i 
 
226 
 
 spirit, and, at the same time, put down the 
 thought of any necessity for a levy en masse, 
 even if a landing should be effected by Bonaparte 
 —an event which seemed less and less probable, 
 as his own coasts were insulted and blockaded or 
 watched from the mouth of the Scheldt to the 
 mouth of the Garonne, and as our fleets were 
 riding triumphant in every sea. ‘ 
 
 Parliament re-assembled on the 22nd of Novem- 
 ber. The speech from the throne, delivered by 
 the king in person, dwelt upon those successes 
 in the West Indies, to which, perhaps, too much 
 importance was always attached, and upon the 
 easy suppression of the Irish insurrection; allud- 
 ing also to the conclusion of a friendly convention 
 with Sweden, for the purpose of adjusting certain 
 differences about maritime rights, arising out 
 of an article in an old treaty concluded by our 
 Charles II. Scarcely any opposition was offered 
 to the addresses. The Houses occupied them- 
 selves, down to the Christmas holidays, with 
 passing acts to continue in Ireland the suspen- 
 sion of the Habeas Corpus Act and _ the 
 prolongation of martial law, and to grant certain 
 exemptions in favour of the volunteers in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 A.D. 1804.—Parliament had scarcely re-assem- 
 bled after the Christmas recess ere it was known 
 that the king was suffering under an attack of his 
 old malady. On the 14th of February, it was 
 publicly announced, by an official bulletin issued 
 at the palace of St, James's, that his majesty was 
 much indisposed; and a succession of similar 
 notices, notwithstanding the customary obscurity 
 of the language, left little doubt as to the serious 
 nature of the complaint. The intelligence carried 
 grief, not altogether unmixed with dismay, through- 
 out the country, for, to the great bulk of the people, 
 George III. was still the “good old king ;” and 
 from the popular faith in his high English spirit, 
 it was felt that he was in a manner necessary 
 to the defence and safety of the country, which 
 was still threatened with invasion, The dismay 
 was the greater from the very general conviction 
 that the Addington administration was inadequate 
 to the crisis. Perhaps a similar conviction in the 
 king’s own mind had mainly contributed to his 
 present attack. He had hitherto clung to Adding- 
 ton, because, if he threw him off, he must take 
 back Pitt—and Pitt, who had resigned on account 
 of the great Catholic question, and who had ever 
 been so uncompromising, did not seem likely to 
 return without insisting on immediate or gradual 
 and progressive emancipation as a cabinet mea- 
 sure; and this, in the king’s eyes, was an incom- 
 parably greater evil than any that could arise 
 out of the weaknesses or defects of the present 
 administration. But this administration could 
 
 not be kept in office if it lost its parliamentary 
 majorities, and it was losing them fast in both | 
 Houses ; and three distinct oppositions, under Pitt, 
 Fox, and Lord Grenville, though not disposed 
 to try the dangerous experiment of a coalition, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 — [Book x) 
 
 seemed determined to agree in the one point, 
 that Addington must retire. As for Fox, the 
 king’s rooted dislike to him, which had recently 
 been aggravated, was an insuperable bar to his 
 admission into the cabinet; and, besides, Fox 
 was more deeply pledged than Pitt himself to 
 the principle of Catholic emancipation, Lord 
 Grenville too, though disagreeing with Fox on 
 so many other points, fully agreed with him on 
 this last ; and without Fox and Grenville—unless 
 he took back Pitt—there was not a possibility of 
 making any ministry. To these state and religious 
 anxieties were added numerous inquietudes of a 
 domestic nature, and other uneasinesses—in which, 
 however, fear of the French legions on the opposite 
 side of the Channel, most assuredly had no place, 
 No man in Great Britain was more insensible of 
 fear than George III., or looked with a more 
 constant assurance to the triumph of his country- 
 men, if an invading force should, by some unfore- 
 seen chance, be enabled to land, and to the 
 eventual and not distant downfall of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. But his other anxieties were numerous 
 and acute; and perhaps none of them affected him 
 more than the unhappy separation of his eldest 
 son and his niece and daughter-in-law the Princess 
 of Wales, attended as it was with perpetual 
 scandals and public comment. Whatever may 
 have been the causes of it, the king could not 
 but see, nor could the country now avoid seeing, 
 that Pitt had taken some mortal offence at the 
 man who had once been considered as his place- 
 keeper. One ground for ill-will was indeed 
 obvious enough : in the preceding year, Addington 
 had taken by the hand Mr. George Tierney (who 
 had not only quarrelled, but had even fought a 
 duel with Pitt), had formed a close connection 
 with that rising man, had acted as though he 
 intended to pit him as a financier against Pitt, 
 and had brought him into the administration a 
 treasurer of the navy and a privy councillor. 
 
 On the 27th of February, twelve days after the 
 first public notification of the king’s illness, a 
 bulletin appeared announcing that his majest 
 was much better, and seemed to be gradual 
 advancing towards entire recovery. On the 29th, 
 Addington announced that there was “no nece 
 sary suspension of the royal functions.” The 
 bulletins assumed day by day a more decided 
 tone; and on the 14th of March, the lord chan- 
 cellor declared that “the king was in such a state 
 as to warrant the lords commissioners in giving 
 the royal assent to several bills.’ No formal 
 communication’ was made to parliament of his 
 majesty’s recovery, as on the occasion of his first 
 illness, and consequently there were no addresse 
 of congratulation. On the 9th and 10th of May, 
 and again on the 11th of May, the day before’ 
 Pitt's reappointment as premier, his majest 
 showed himself to the inhabitants of the metro- 
 polis, driving through the principal streets © 
 London and Westminster, accompanied by t 
 
=. 
 
 = 
 
 until several months after this that the king 
 resumed his ordinary habits of life, 
 
 It was now reported as certain that Fox and 
 the Grenvilles, after much hesitation, had coalesced. 
 Pitt assured his confidential friends that he was 
 resolved not to hamper himself with engagements, 
 or go into a systematic opposition to Addington ; 
 and, in effect, with neither Fox nor Grenville, 
 whose adherents were called, respectively, the old 
 and new opposition, did Pitt ally himself. He 
 left to others the task of attacking Tierney, who 
 was considered by the old opposition as a sort of 
 renegade; and, when Addington lost his temper, 
 Pitt kept his. But in debate, Chatham’s proud 
 son could not help betraying his contempt for 
 his late protégé; and, as the navy department, 
 to which Tierney belonged, had been guilty of 
 sundry absurdities, he could not do less than 
 attack it, 
 
 The Honourable Charles Yorke, the secretary~ 
 at-war, brought forward, soon after the Christmas 
 recess, a bill for consolidating and explaining all 
 the existing laws respecting the volunteers. Very 
 various opinions were expressed concerning the 
 merits of the volunteer system, and the expediency 
 of depending upon it for the defence of the country. 
 Some thought that the system was good and sufli- 
 cient, and some that it was defective and insufi- 
 cient, Sir William Young, regardless of that rigid 
 sabbatarianism which had been steadily increasing 
 throughout the greater part of the present reign, 
 wished to see the revival of the good old system, by 
 which the flower of the English youth were to be 
 seen on the Sunday exercising themselves in mili- 
 tary evolutions and the use of arms, In the debate 
 on the second reading of Yorke’s bill (on the 27th 
 of February), Sir Robert Lawley said, that for 
 thirteen days the House, in common with the 
 public, had been in possession of the melancholy 
 information that his majesty was confined by 
 a dangerous and doubtful illness ; that no explicit 
 communication had been made to parliament, 
 and that, therefore, he felt it his duty to move an 
 adjournment. Addington insisted that such a 
 proceeding was unnecessary, indecent, unprece- 
 dented, and unwarrantable. Fox thought that 
 the House ought to receive fuller communications, 
 or adjourn. He knew nothing, and the consti- 
 tution knew nothing, of any body of men calling 
 themselves the confidential servants of the king. 
 He knew no distinction superior to that of the 
 privy council, While the sovereign was in health, 
 
 | he consulted more with his ministers than with 
 - any other privy councillors, but when, from illness 
 > or from any other cause, he was unable to dis- 
 ' charge the functions of royalty, then ministers, 
 
 or persons calling themselves confidential servants 
 
 ' of the crown, were no more than ordinary 
 ' privy councillors, 
 
 The House had no informa- 
 tion before it respecting his majesty’s present 
 
 _ state of health, or the probability of his speedy 
 | recovery; but it seemed improbable, from the 
 
 ' published reports, that his majesty would be 
 
 rrp renner serene nr ens scsuein stnpnt 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 227 
 
 soon able to resume his functions, An invasion 
 of the country appeared not improbable, and, in 
 such an event, would not its situation be deplor- 
 able, if the executive power were suspended, and 
 there should be nobody to exercise the regal 
 functions? In the present extreme dangers of 
 the country, and the suspension of the functions of 
 royalty, it would be but a poor consolation to tell 
 the people that ministers acted on their own 
 responsibility, and that if they ruined the country, 
 they might be punished for their errors or their 
 crimes, Addington replied that he was aware 
 ministers subjected themselves to great respon- 
 sibility ; but that he firmly believed the opinion 
 and feelings of the great majority of the House 
 to be against a particular communication, under 
 the present circumstances. He stated, on the 
 authority of the physicians who signed the 
 bulletins, that, on comparing the symptoms of 
 his majesty’s present indisposition with those of 
 his former ones, he had reason to think the present 
 disorder would be but of short duration. In the 
 event of an invasion, his majesty’s sign-manual 
 was not necessary for calling out the volunteers, 
 &c. He could assure the House, however, that if 
 any extraordinary necessity should occur for the 
 exercise of the royal functions, no obstruction now 
 existed. Pitt warmly disapproved of the motion 
 for adjournment. He did not think that a mere 
 apprehension that the personal exercise of the royal 
 authority had been suspended would be sufficient 
 to justify parliament in suspending their legislative 
 functions. He felt the very arduous responsibility 
 which ministers were under, as to the precise time 
 in which they might think proper to make a full 
 communication on the delicate subject. He hoped, 
 however, that they would not allow their feelings 
 of delicacy for his majesty to endanger the safety 
 of the people whose welfare was committed to his 
 charge. He could see no reason why the ordinary 
 business of parliament should be delayed. Wind- 
 ham, on the contrary, warmly supported the motion 
 for adjournment, Ministers, he said, were calling 
 for a greater degree of confidence than any minis- 
 ters—including the wisest, honestest, and best— 
 were ever entitled to! They were insisting that 
 it was their province to judge when parliament 
 ought to interfere. The chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer had differed from his majesty’s medical 
 attendants, and had contradicted their bulletins, 
 Ministers, who were now in such a hurry to drive 
 on this bill about laws for the volunteers, had 
 actually been suspending all public business for 
 a fortnight, on account of his majesty’s health! The 
 chancellor of the exchequer had spoken of the 
 “indecency” of these discussions; it appeared to 
 him éndecené for ministers to insinuate that any 
 measure intended for the benefit of the country 
 and the security of the monarchy could be hurtful 
 to the royal feelings, Addington repeated, that 
 he could confidently assert, upon the authority 
 of the physicians, “that there was no necessary 
 suspension of such royal functions as it might be 
 
228 
 necessary for his majesty to discharge at the 
 present moment.” Sir Robert Lawley ultimately 
 withdrew his motion for adjournment. The 
 Volunteer Laws bill was then read a second time, 
 though not without considerable opposition, which 
 was principally based on the notion that the 
 volunteer force was not, and could not be made, 
 effective. In the course of this debate, Pitt let fly 
 a few shafts at the Admiralty Board. Yorke’s bill 
 occupied a very considerable part of the session, 
 but it was eventually passed by both Houses, and 
 received the royal assent. 
 
 On the 15th of March, Pitt further displayed 
 his hostility by moving for an inquiry into the 
 state of the navy. Though one of our most distin- 
 guished naval officers, Admiral Earl St. Vincent, 
 was first lord of the Admiralty, that board, through 
 mistaken notions of economy and other wrong 
 calculations, had materially injured the efficiency 
 of our fleets, and were thought altogether to have 
 managed the navy in a manner very inferior to 
 that in which it had often been managed when a 
 mere civilian had presided over the board, and 
 especially inferior to the style and spirit in which 
 the business had been conducted in the latter years 
 of the late Pitt administration, when Earl Spencer 
 was first lord. That able and honest veteran, 
 Admiral Sir Charles Middleton, who was nothing 
 of a party man, and other officers of professional 
 celebrity, were of opinion that the exertions of the 
 Navy Board had not been adequate; that our ships 
 were wearing away with unprecedented rapidity 
 from various circumstances, and that no sufficient 
 efforts had been made to bring forward new ships 
 to supply the places of the old ones. Pitt in his 
 speech stated that only twenty-three gun-boats had 
 been built since the month of January, 1803; that 
 the navy altogether was in a condition much 
 inferior to that in which he left it on his going out 
 of office in 1801; and that, although the present 
 ministry must have foreseen the inevitable renewal 
 of war, and were bound to make every possible 
 exertion in augmenting and repairing our national 
 ships, they had been languid and indolent. The 
 naval men sitting in the House offered very oppo- 
 site opinions as to the merits or demerits of 
 Earl St. Vincent’s management. Some members 
 attacked Pitt rather rudely for this his first act of 
 direct opposition to the government: it was proved 
 pretty satisfactorily that, counting sloops and other 
 smaller vessels, block-ships, the flotillas of gun- 
 boats, &c., 1536 vessels had been equipped by the 
 present Admiralty, and were now fit for service, 
 while other ships were building in the king’s 
 yards; and, upon a division, Pitt’s motion was 
 negatived by 201 against 130. But, though lost, 
 the motion did great good; the Admiralty imme- 
 diately beginning to exert themselves with double 
 activity. 
 
 On March the 26th, a message was delivered in 
 the king’s name, acquainting parliament with a 
 voluntary offer made by the officers, non-commis- 
 sioned officers, and privates of several regiments 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 of the militia of Ireland, to serve in Great 
 Britain during the war; and recommending the 
 adoption by parliament of such regulations as 
 might enable his majesty to accept this offer. The 
 proposal was warmly discussed, and encountered 
 in both Houses considerable opposition; but in 
 the end a bill was carried for accepting the services 
 of 10,000 of the Irish militia; and this was followed 
 by another bill consequent upon it, for augmenting 
 the number of the militia of Ireland. On the 
 29th of March the Houses adjourned for the Easter 
 holidays. 
 
 This recess suspended for a short time the rising 
 strife of parties ; but when parliament met again, 
 on the 5th of April, things at once assumed a most 
 hostile aspect. Wilberforce found Pitt disposed to 
 go more decidedly into opposition than he was a 
 few weeks ago. On the 23rd of April, Fox, in 
 pursuance of a notice he had previously given, 
 moved “ That it be referred to a committee of the 
 whole House to revise the several bills for the 
 defence of the country, and to consider of such 
 further measures as may be necessary to make 
 that defence more complete and permanent.” He 
 began by observing that the extraordinary zeal 
 with which all ranks were animated in support 
 of the war was no proof that the people approved 
 either the principles upon which the war had 
 been undertaken, or the manner in which it was 
 conducted. Ever since the declaration of hostili- 
 ties, there had been an incessant cry of immediate 
 invasion, and therefore it was no wonder that 
 the people should be ardent and active. But, 
 
 if it should be attempted to infer from this that — 
 
 the people approved the conduct of ministers, then 
 the inference would be, that whatever administra- 
 
 tion brought the country into the greatest danger — 
 
 would be the most popular, and excite the greatest 
 zeal. Addington resisted the motion. He said, 
 and truly, that ministers had been sanctioned in 
 declaring war by the almost unanimous vote of that 
 
 House; that they had never pledged themselves — 
 for the duration of the peace of Amiens; and — 
 that it was because they thought the ambition — 
 of France might make it necessary to renew the 
 war that they had kept up so large a peace estab- — 
 lishment. He insisted that there was no precedent 
 
 for the House of Commons resolving itself into a_ 
 military committee; and that such a novel step 
 
 would be extremely dangerous, 
 said, had raised for the defence of the country the 
 
 Government, he 
 
 ne 
 
 greatest force that ever was collected in so short 
 
 a time; and he felt confident that, in opposing the 
 
 motion, he should be supported by a large majority 
 of the House. Pitt said that he could not agree 
 with the premier as to the character of the motion 
 now before the House. In his view, it was a 
 motion calculated to unite all those who considered 
 that the measures adopted for the defence of the 
 country were not equal to the crisis, As for pre- 
 cedents, when circumstances are extraordinary 
 and unprecedented, the measures to provide for 
 them must also be extraordinary. He denied 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 that enough had been done for the military 
 condition of the country, which ought to look to 
 something more than a mere defence of its own 
 coasts. It was true we had 184,000 regulars 
 and militia, and 400,000 volunteers; but, when 
 the spirit of the people was so high, and the 
 resources of the country so immense, it formed 
 an additional ground of censure against ministers, 
 that our system of defence was not better than 
 it was. He descended to minute criticisms on the 
 management of the land forces, proving thereby 
 that in his leisure hours at Walmer Castle he had 
 not been an idle or unsuccessful student of military 
 matters. The secretary-at-war (Yorke) and the 
 attorney-general (Spencer Perceval) took up the 
 defence of Addington. Perceval said that it was 
 quite evident that, if the motion should be carried 
 upon the principles advanced by Pitt, ministers 
 ‘must immediately resign, although no direct 
 charge had been made against them. He asserted 
 that there was an extraordinary conspiracy and 
 coalition to turn out the ministry; insinuating 
 that Fox and Pitt were in league, and conjuring 
 Windham by his departed se/f to pause before 
 joining the apologist of the French revolutionists. 
 Let the present ministry be what it might, he was 
 quite sure that the adoption of Fox’s motion would 
 introduce a worse! Windham, who assuredly 
 had no thought of joining any coalition of which 
 Tox was a member, gave the last speaker credit 
 for melodiously singing the funeral dirge of the 
 administration, Fox rebuked Perceval for using 
 personalities in lieu of arguments; and denied 
 that there was any sort of coalition between him 
 and Pitt. Both of them thought that the present 
 ministers were incompetent, and, therefore, they 
 agreed in wishing them turned out; but as to the 
 question of who should be their successors, they 
 left it to be decided by the prerogative of the 
 crown. Upon a division, his motion was rejected; 
 but Addington’s majority had now dwindled down 
 to a bare fifty-two, the numbers being 256 against 
 204, Immediately after this debate, Wilberforce, 
 who hoped yet to see Pitt and Addington recon- 
 ciled, waited on them separately to sound them. 
 He left Pitt with the hope that there was still 
 room for mediation between him and Addington. 
 During his visit to Addington, Lord Chancellor 
 Eldon came in, and said he had lately told Pitt 
 “how much he wished to see him and Addington 
 united—that he could not conceive that any man, 
 in such times as these, had a right to think of 
 anything but the country, and my poor old master 
 there” (pointing to Buckingham House, where 
 the king then was). Wilberforce believed “that, 
 if the king would press Pitt to come into power 
 with Addington, in an office not touching him 
 close, he would accede to it, from his veneration 
 and affection for the king.” “ Otherwise,” he 
 adds, “the consequence will either be, that the 
 king’s head will give way, and the Prince of 
 Wales be established regent, or a coalition ministry 
 will be formed between the Grenvillites and the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 229 
 
 Foxites, which would injure Pitt in the public 
 estimation.” With these views, Wilberforce sought 
 a private conference with Lord Eldon, who in the 
 main concurred with him as to what was best 
 both for the country and for Pitt himself. Both 
 grieved to see the friendship of Pitt and Addington 
 succeeded by hostility ; both were alarmed at the 
 probable consequences of the king’s being com- 
 pelled to receive an administration who had forced 
 themselves against his will into his service, and 
 some of whom he extremely disliked ; both appre- 
 hended that Pitt’s character would suffer greatly 
 from any coalition, and that the scheme would 
 thus produce irreparable mischief. Both were 
 anxious to save the feelings of the king, and to 
 gratify him by retaining Addington in the 
 ministry. . 
 
 In the meantime Addington’s majority in the 
 Commons had grown still thinner, for, on a division 
 upon the Army of Reserve Suspension Bill, Pitt 
 having moved an amendment against ministers, 
 the numbers were 240 against 203. This was on 
 the 25th of April; and, on the same day, Pitt wrote 
 to the king, telling him of the open and decisive 
 part he felt it his duty to take; but assuring him, 
 at the same time, that he would never force Mr. 
 Fox upon him, On the 30th of April, Pitt received 
 an intimation that he would be sent for by his 
 majesty, or negotiated with through the chancellor. 
 Fox was left in the dark as to these proceedings, 
 On that same day, the order of the day having 
 been read in the House of Lords for a motion of 
 which notice had been given by the Marquess of 
 Stafford, and which was the counterpart of the 
 motion which Fox had made and which Pitt had 
 supported in the Commons—that the House should 
 resolve itself into a committee to inquire into the 
 state of the defence of the country—Lord Hawkes- 
 bury rose in considerable agitation, and entreated 
 the marquess to postpone his motion, for reasons 
 of that delicate nature that he could not consistently 
 with his duty now mention them. Everybody 
 understood him to allude to negotiations pending 
 for a new or re-constructed cabinet ; but Fox and 
 his friends were not yet aware of the progress 
 which Pitt had made. The Marquess of Stafford, 
 the warm partisan of Pitt, readily consented to 
 postpone his motion; but Lord Grenville thought 
 that if the reasons hinted at regarded the adminis- 
 tration of the country, the House of Lords ought to 
 have been made acquainted with them ; he would 
 acquiesce in the delay proposed, but thought the 
 House should adjourn to the day to be appointed 
 for the Marquess of Stafford’s motion being brought 
 on, Pitt’s-colleague, Dundas, now in the Upper 
 House as Viscount Melville, urged that no sub- 
 ject connected with the defence of the country 
 should be brought before the House before the 
 marquess’s motion; and Lord Grenville joined 
 him in urging that the marquess’s motion ought 
 to have the priority over any other question con- 
 nected with the defence of the country. Lord 
 Hawkesbury declared that he would enter into no 
 
230 
 
 such engagement; but if the House wished to 
 bring on the discussion now, he was quite ready to 
 meet it; although he must say that this was the 
 first time that ever a request, such as he had made, 
 and accompanied by the solemn declaration he 
 had given, was treated in such a manner in either 
 House of Parliament. In the end, it was agreed 
 that the motion should be postponed. While this 
 was passing in the Lords, Addington was opening 
 his budget for the year in the Commons; and 
 dwelling upon the advantages of the system of 
 finance which he said he had introduced, of raising 
 within the year a great part of the war expenses. 
 When he had done, Fox, who is said to have 
 shown that he knew nothing of what was passing 
 at court, asked whether ministers wished him to 
 postpone a motion of which he had given notice. 
 Addington replied that he certainly wished it; and 
 he added that, in the meantime, ministers would 
 not bring forward any measures likely to provoke 
 considerable difference of opinion. On the 2nd of 
 May, Pitt, through Lord Chancellor Eldon, sub- 
 mitted to the king, by letter, a plan of administra- 
 tion, embracing the chiefs of the great parties ; 
 and in this plan the name of his great rival Fox 
 appears to have been mentioned with that of Lord 
 Grenville. On the morrow, the 3rd of May, the 
 Marquess of Stafford asked Lord Hawkesbury in 
 the House whether the same weighty and delicate 
 reasons still existed for postponing his motion of 
 inquiry. He was answered in the affirmative; 
 upon which Lord Grenville said, that their lord- 
 ships would agree only to a postponement of a few 
 days longer, unless some information were given 
 to the House. On the 7th, Pitt saw the king for 
 the first time. According to Wilberforce, who 
 heard the state of the negotiation from Pitt him- 
 self, the interview had lasted for more than three 
 hours, during which the king “treated him (Pitt) 
 with great cordiality, and even affection, and talked 
 with as much rationality and propriety as at any 
 former period of his life.” At the king’s desire, 
 Pitt drew up a more regular scheme of the sort of 
 administration which he conceived it would be 
 best to form in the present conjuncture ; namely, 
 an administration composed of the leaders of all 
 the several great political parties. Pitt grounded 
 this opinion of a mixed administration on the 
 probability of a long war, and the advantages of 
 a strong government, at home, abroad, and in 
 Treland; and a day or two afterwards he saw his 
 majesty again, and (according to Wilberforce) 
 explained and enforced the same ideas as far as he 
 properly, or decorously, could enforce them. “ The 
 king,” adds the same informant, “ objected a good 
 deal at first to the Grenvilles, but at length gave 
 way very handsomely, but indicated such a decided 
 determination against Fox, that it would have 
 been wrong in Pitt to press it further.” Wilber- 
 force here repeats that Pitt “had most clearly 
 explained from the first, that Fox and Co. were 
 not to consider him bound in any degree, directly 
 or indirectly, to press their admission into office, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 incompatible, of views so divergent, that scarcely 
 
 Boor &. 
 
 and that they were therefore not to shape their 7 
 conduct on any such supposition.” A determina- — 
 tion not to combine with his rival seems certainly — 
 to have been as deep-rooted and unalterable in 
 Pitt’s mind, as was, in the king’s mind, the old 
 aversion and antipathy to Fox. But, on the other 
 hand, Pitt’s relatives, the Grenvilles, stood pledged — 
 to Fox and his friends; and it was Lord Grenville — 
 who had all along been insisting on the very — 
 questionable advantages to be derived from a — 
 heterogeneous cabinet, composed of parties the 
 most opposite, of habits and tempers the most 
 
 two members of such a cabinet, if it could have 
 been formed (and formed it never could have been ~ 
 without a universal sacrifice of character—without — 
 effects such as had followed Fox’s former experi- — 
 ment with Lord North), would have agreed on any — 
 one important point. Such a government must — 
 have been weak, and not strong. When Pitt 
 communicated to Lord Grenville what had passed — 
 with the king, and invited his lordship and friends — 
 to form a principal part of the administration to 
 be established, he received for answer that they 
 would not join him if Fox were excluded. This 
 reply left no doubt in the mind of Pitt that his — 
 new ministry must encounter the united opposition 
 of the Grenville and Foxite parties, and that this — 
 cabinet could only be constructed by bringing in — 
 his own personal friends, and retaining some mem- 
 bers of the Addington administration, several of — 
 whom might indeed be considered as his personal — 
 friends, ] 
 On the 11th of May, the Marquess of Stafford — 
 said, in the Lords, that, as he had been informed 
 that a new administration had been appointed, — 
 which, though not formed on the broad and exten- | 
 sive basis he could have wished, yet included a | 
 right honourable gentleman (Pitt) who had turned | 
 his great mind to the consideration of the best — 
 means of national defence, he should withdraw his 
 motion for inquiry, &c. On the 12th of May, it was — 
 publicly announced that Addington had resigned 
 the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and that | 
 Pitt had been appointed to succeed him. Of the | 
 Addington ministry, Pitt retained the Duke of ~ 
 Portland, president of the council; Lord Eldon, : 
 chancellor; the. Earl of Westmoreland, lord privy — 
 seal; the Earl of Chatham (his own brother), master- | 
 general of the ordnance; and Lord Castlereagh, now | 
 president of the Board of Control. He brought | 
 in with him Lords Melville, Harrowby, and | 
 Camden; Melville taking the ‘post of first lord 
 of the Admiralty, in lien of Earl St. Vincent ; 
 Harrowby that of secretary for foreign affairs, in | 
 lieu of Lord Hawkesbury; and Camden that of | 
 secretary for the colonies, in lieu of Lord Hobs | 
 He made Lord Mulgrave chancellor of the duc 
 of Lancaster, with a seat in the cabinet, instead of | 
 Lord Pelham. But Mr. Canning, the ablest and | 
 most eloquent of all his adherents, was left to # 
 inferior situation of treasurer of the navy, whic 
 had been occupied by Tierney, and which did n 
 
* 
 
 Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 | Treland was left unchanged under the lord-lieu- 
 
 tenancy of Lord Hardwick, excepting only that 
 Mr, Wickham, chief secretary, retired on account 
 of ill health, and was succeeded by Sir Evan 
 Nepean. No changes were made in the law 
 departments of either country. On the whole, 
 a majority of the late cabinet ministers were 
 retained, and formed a majority also of the pre- 
 sent administration. Very few changes were made 
 in the household offices, the most important being 
 the appointment of the Marquess of Hertford to be 
 master of the horse. 
 
 There have been various opinions as to Pitt’s 
 conduct on this occasion, as to the qualities of this 
 administration, and as to whether he might not 
 have formed a better one. According to some, if 
 he had really exerted himself to his utmost in 
 enforcing on the king the idea of composing an 
 administration of the heads of all the several great 
 parties, he might have succeeded ; and he ought 
 not, in case of failure, to have accepted office him- 
 self. Others maintain that the king would have 
 jeoparded the country by keeping Addington at 
 the head of affairs, or by having recourse to some 
 extreme measure rather than agree to the admis- 
 sion of Fox; and that Pitt, the only man that 
 could make or keep together a government of any 
 strength, was bound as a patriot to sacrifice many 
 minor considerations, and to do the best he could 
 by conciliating the prejudices of the sovereign; 
 and they ask, if he had refused, because the king 
 would on no account admit Fox, what sort of 
 cabinet could there have been formed at this 
 moment, when, right or wrong, the vast majority 
 of the country were most decidedly of opinion that 
 William Pitt was the only man equal to the emer- 
 gency? This last was the political faith of the 
 
 great body of the English people, and there is no 
 building up a government against a national faith 
 in a country like England. 
 
 At the time when Pitt returned to office, any 
 interruption, however short, to the activity of the 
 executive might have proved hurtful to the 
 
 _ country; and at the same time, any prolonged 
 
 exciting discussion might have reduced the king 
 to a worse state than that he had so recently been 
 in. Patriotism, therefore, as well as common 
 humanity, might well prevent Pitt from urging 
 any stipulations in favour of the Catholics, or from 
 bargaining with the king for that Catholic eman- 
 cipation, the refusal of which he had assigned as the 
 cause of his resignation in 1801. He could hardly, 
 constituted as parties were, employ or obtain the 
 services of any of the able men who belonged to 
 the Grenville and Fox sections, when their leaders 
 were excluded ; and, after all, the opinion which 
 Canning had expressed in the preceding session of 
 
 * George Rose and Lord Charles Somerset became joint-pay- 
 masters of the forces, instead of Steele and Hiley Addington ; W. 
 Dundas (Melville’s brother), secretary-at-war ; Duke of Montrose, 
 postmaster-general, vice Lord Auckland: W. Huskisson and W. 
 ost Bourne, secretaries to the treasury, vice Vansittart and 
 
 nt. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 give a seat in the cabinet.* The government of 
 
 231 
 
 parliament (no new opinion, but a most ancient 
 thing in practice as well as in theory, and almost 
 admitted as a principle of human nature), that in 
 times of extreme difficulty the powers of govern- 
 ment are best entrusted to one great commanding 
 spirit, carried much weight at the time, and is 
 entitled to some respect now. It was easy to say 
 that this new administration was composed of 
 William and Pit ;* but it is difficult to see how 
 the case could have been otherwise, even if Pitt 
 had not been possessed of that native pride and 
 unbendingness which was so much noticed in 
 his character, and which seems to have made it 
 impossible for him to act with any colleagues who 
 would not be his subordinates. Even by those 
 who, for personal and public reasons, regretted 
 that a more comprehensive administration had 
 not been formed, a preference was warmly 
 expressed for Pitt’s present cabinet over that of 
 Addington.t+ Wilberforce, though not quite pleased, 
 as his mediation between Pitt and Addington had 
 failed, was not sure that the present arrangement 
 was not the very best it was possible to make, for 
 he thought that the Grenvilles were wrong-headed, 
 and too violent, and that they were very wrong 
 indeed in uniting themselves with people to whose 
 political opinions their own were decidedly oppo- 
 site in almost all important particulars. 
 
 On the 18th of May, Pitt took his old seat as 
 chancellor of the exchequer, having been re-elected 
 since his acceptance of office by the university of 
 Cambridge. On the 30th of the same month, 
 Wilberforce moved for the appointment of a 
 committee to consider the propriety of introducing 
 a bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade after a 
 time to be limited. Addington considered that it 
 would be utterly impracticable to carry into execu- 
 tion-any bill founded upon such views as Wilberforce 
 had adopted, and therefore opposed the motion, 
 But both Pitt and Fox voted for Wilberforce ; 
 Pitt declaring that if the question were for imme- 
 diate abolition, it should have his support ; and 
 Fox expressing his surprise that, so many years 
 after resolutions had been passed by the House 
 that the inhuman traffic should be abolished, they 
 should be still arguing whether it were practicable 
 to abolish it or not. All the Irish members pre- 
 sent voted on the same side. The anti-aboli- 
 tionists made no stand in speaking ; and upon a 
 division, Wilberforce’s motion was carried by 75 
 against 49, A bill framed for the abolition was 
 brought into the House, and was read a second 
 time on the 7th of June, after a long discussion. 
 On this occasion, Pitt denied that an immediate 
 emancipation of the negroes was the necessary 
 consequence of abolishing the slave _ trade. 
 Wilberforce’s majority was now much increased, 
 the number voting for the second reading being 
 100 against 42. From this hour he began to 
 
 * Letter from Sir James Mackintosh, who was by this time 
 enjoying in India the situation of Recorder of Bombay, which had 
 been given to him by the Addington administration through the 
 Bh ps ct of Spencer Perceval, Canning, and W. Adam. 
 
232 
 
 believe that the assiduous labour of long years was 
 about to be rewarded—that the great object of his 
 life was about to be accomplished. Through the 
 pressure of other business, and the lateness of the 
 season, the bill, after the motion for its being com- 
 mitted had been carried by 79 against 20, was 
 however postponed to the next session.* 
 
 On the dth of June, Pitt brought forward his 
 plan for the military defence of the country, as 
 well as for gaining such a disposable force as 
 would enable us to interfere with effect, 7m case 
 any favourable opportunity should occur on the 
 continent of Europe. The essential part of his plan 
 was to increase the permanent strength of the 
 regular army. To this end, he proposed limiting 
 the number of the militia to its usual amount of 
 40,000 for England, and 8000 for Scotland; and 
 removing the difficulties which now stood in the 
 way of recruiting for the regular army, by destroy- 
 ing the competition which existed between those 
 who recruited for limited service and those who 
 recruited for general service. He did not dispute 
 the policy of the army of reserve, as a temporary 
 measure, but he wished to preserve the advantages 
 of it as a permanent means of recruiting the army ; 
 and, besides, the disadvantages of the Army of 
 Reserve Act at present were, that its penalties 
 induced such high bounties to be given for substi- 
 tutes, as interfered materially with the increase of 
 the regular army. It was his wish, therefore, to 
 make the ballot for the army of reserve less 
 burdensome on individuals, and to encourage or 
 oblige the parishes to find the number of men 
 assigned as their proportions. If the parishes 
 failed, he wished to impose on them a fixed but 
 moderate fine, which should go into the general 
 recruiting fund. He would propose that the army 
 of reserve should be raised for five years, and not 
 to be called out for foreign service, but yet to 
 serve both as an auxiliary force to the regular 
 army, and as a stock from which that army might 
 be recruited: he wished it to be joined to the 
 regular army in the way of second battalions; and 
 he considered that from so close a connection a 
 considerable number of the reserve might be 
 induced to volunteer for the regular army. He 
 concluded by moving for leave to bring in a bill 
 for the creation of an additional force, &e. After 
 some speaking, but without any division, leave was 
 given, and the bill was brought in and read a first 
 time. It encountered considerable opposition in 
 its later stages (the premier now finding arrayed 
 against him his relative Lord Temple and most of 
 the Grenville party); and the second reading was 
 carried only by a majority of 40, the numbers 
 being 221 against 181; but after some amendments, 
 the third reading was allowed without any division ; 
 
 * In one of the debates, Fox “ gave Pitt a hard knock about his 
 not being in earnest about abolition;” and Wilberforce confesses 
 that he himself ‘‘ never was so dissatisfied with Pitt as at this time.” 
 He tells us, however, that when the case was again argued before 
 the House, Pitt grew more warm in the cause, moved a resolution 
 against hearing over again counsel and evidence for the planters, 
 &c., and carried it without a division. But Addington, he says, 
 continued ‘‘ most vexatious.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ae 
 Be 
 
 [Book X. 
 and the bill became law by the end of the session, 
 though not without considerable opposition in the 
 Lords, which proceeded principally from those 
 members of the Addington administration who 
 had quitted office with him, and from Lord Gren- 
 ville and his party. During the discussions upon 
 it in the Commons, Sheridan, who was furious at 
 the, by him, unexpected construction of the present 
 ministry, panegyrized the virtues and constitution- 
 alism of Addington, whose entering into office, he 
 said, was a sacrifice, and retirement, a triumph. 
 When he found himself opposed by a very formi- 
 dable minority, he had quitted the helm, and he 
 wished the present minister would act in the same 
 manner, now that he found his own majorities still 
 smaller than those of his predecessor. Sheridan was 
 at the same time exceedingly abusive against 
 Pitt’s plan of military defence. Pitt replied: “As 
 to the hint, which had been so kindly given him, 
 to resign, it was not broad enough for him to take 
 it. Even if the present bill were lost, he should 
 not, for that, consider it his duty to resign. His 
 majesty had, undoubtedly, the prerogative of 
 choosing his own servants; and it was now too 
 evident that the wish for another change of min- 
 isters had a great effect in the opposition to the 
 present measure. Yet he was a little surprised at 
 meeting such decided opposition from many with 
 whom he had been in the habit of cordially uniting 
 for such a length of time! He was surprised that 
 a noble lord (Temple) and his friends, who once 
 were so partial to him as to say, ‘that if he were 
 once admitted into administration, their fears for 
 the public safety would be considerably abated,’ 
 should now consider it their duty to withhold their 
 services from the public, on account of the exclu- 
 sion of a gentleman (Fox) with whom they had 
 been so little in the habit of coinciding.’ Mr. T, 
 
 Grenville, who was not in the house when this’ 
 
 passed, had thought it proper to take up the 
 subject on the following day. He was anxious, he 
 said, to vindicate himself, and those with whom he 
 was most closely connected, from the imputation 
 of inconsistency which had been cast upon them 
 by his right honourable relation (Pitt), He and 
 his political friends had never supposed that the 
 accession of any one individual, whatever his 
 abilities, would be sufficient to work out the salva- 
 
 tion of the country. They had thought, and they j 
 
 continued to think, that, in the present critical 
 times, a broad and comprehensive administration 
 ought to have been formed; and, for his part, it 
 was with pain and regret he saw his right honour- 
 
 able relation in the situation he now held. Lord — 
 
 Temple, too, emphatically denied that he had ever 
 used the expression which Pitt had attributed to 
 him. The truth was—as Windham observed— 
 that Temple had used the words, but there are 
 different modes of construction adopted in different 
 cases, 
 who knew that no strong ministry could be made 
 without Pitt, were determined to prove that no 
 strong ministry could be made without them, And 
 
 ~*~ 
 eee 
 
 ~_ he 
 1 
 ] 
 
 oo 
 
 Another truth was, that the Grenvilles, — 
 
Sc ro ee ae re 
 
 OCuap. VIII] 
 
 their opposition being thrown into the common 
 lot, with the passionate resistance of Fox, and the 
 quieter cavillings of Addington, proved in the end 
 too weighty a burthen for the son of Chatham to 
 bear. 
 
 But little other business of any importance was 
 transacted in parliament during the short remain- 
 der of this session. The budget had been discussed 
 before Pitt's reinstatement. The total supplies 
 granted were—for the navy, 12,350,606/7—for the 
 army, 12,993,625/—for the militia and fencible 
 corps, 6,159,1147—for the ordnance, 3,737,091/.— 
 for miscellaneous services, 4,217,295/—for extra 
 miscellaneous services (relating solely to Ireland), 
 2,500,000/—for discharging arrears and debts on 
 the civil list, 591,842/—for an additional yearly 
 sum, out of the consolidated fund, for the better 
 support of his majesty’s household, 60,000/.—or a 
 grand whole of 53,609,574/.! To raise this money, 
 recourse was had to new taxes and duties, to loans 
 and annuities, and to three lotteries, The king 
 was well enough to go down to the House of Lords 
 and prorogue parliament in person on the 3lst of 
 July, The Speaker, in presenting some bills for 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 233 
 
 the royal assent, delivered an address, in which, 
 after mentioning the magnitude of the grants made 
 by the Commons, and their proud satisfaction to 
 see that the permanent debt of the nation was 
 rapidly diminishing, at the same time that the 
 growing prosperity of the country was strengthen- 
 ing and multiplying all its resources, he alluded to 
 the war, hinted at the new continental coalition 
 against France, and expressed a hope of the speedy 
 downfall of the tyranny of Napoleon as the best 
 guarantee for the future welfare and tranquillity 
 of the civilized world. The king’s speech con- 
 tained still plainer allusions to the new coalition, 
 and said that Bonaparte was daily augmenting 
 his vast preparations for invading this country, 
 and that the attempt appeared to have been 
 delayed only with the view of procuring additional 
 means for carrying it into execution. But at the 
 same time the utmost confidence was expressed in 
 the skill, valour, and discipline of the naval and 
 military forces, aided by the voluntary zeal and 
 native courage of the people. 
 
 The invasion, as we know, came to nothing, 
 nor was the continental coalition completed this 
 
 DEMERARA. 
 
 year. But the coasts of France, both on the 
 Mediterranean and on the ocean and its channel, 
 were again insulted and disturbed by British fleets 
 and squadrons, while in the more remote scas, 
 other colonies belonging to her, or to her depend- 
 ency the Batavian Republic, were captured. The 
 important though unhealthy colony of Surinam 
 was taken, at the beginning of May, by the 
 
 forces under Major-general Sir Charles Green and 
 Commodore Hood, which had been collected at 
 Barbadoes for the expedition, some short time 
 after the reduction of Demerara, Essequibo, and 
 the other old Dutch colonies in 1803. Goree, on 
 the coast of Africa, was lost and won again, On 
 
 the 18th of January, a small French force, which 
 was hugging the coast, in order to escape the quick 
 
234 
 
 sight of the English cruisers, compelled Colonel 
 Frazer, and a garrison of twenty-five white men, 
 to capitulate. But on the 7th of March, Captain 
 Dixon, of the ‘Inconstant’ frigate, retook the island, 
 and made the French captors captives. 
 
 ~The French admiral Linois, who had reached 
 Pondicherry, and who had been enabled to escape 
 from that roadstead, finding he could do no good 
 in the Mahratta war, hoped to do some mischief to 
 the English by picking up a few of their stray 
 Indiamen. He had captured several of these ships, 
 and had plundered the English factory at Bencoo- 
 len, when, on the 14th of February, he fell in with 
 a rich fleet of East-Indiamen and country ships 
 that were coming from China, and on the point 
 of entering the Straits of Malacca, As Linois had 
 with him a ship of the line, three frigates, and a 
 brig, and as our merchant-vessels had no men-of- 
 war to convoy them, he made quite sure of an easy 
 swoop and of an immense prize. But, by this time, 
 the company’s ships were generally armed and 
 well officered; and Captain (afterwards, by grace of 
 this action) Sir N. Dance, who was acting as com- 
 modore to the fleet of traders, was both an able and 
 a brave sailor. Accordingly, the merchantmen pre- 
 pared for a fight. For some time they expected the 
 enemy to attack them; but finding him coy, they 
 bravely bore down on and engaged Linois, After a 
 smart action of about half an hour’s duration, the 
 French hauled their wind, and took to flight, pur- 
 sued for about two hours by Dance and his fleet. 
 Considering the immense property at stake, and 
 fearing that a longer pursuit would carry him too 
 far from the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, the 
 gallant commodore then made the signal to tack; 
 which being obeyed, by eight in the evening they 
 all anchored safely in a situation to enter the 
 Strait the next morning. Nothing more was seen 
 of Linois, who, according to his own account, had 
 run away through fear of being surrounded. 
 Dance had only one man killed, and another 
 wounded, and only one of his ships slightly 
 injured; for the fire of the enemy seemed to 
 be but ill directed, his shot either falling short 
 or passing over head. In this case, merit was 
 properly rewarded, and thereby an incentive was 
 given to other seamen not in the national service. 
 The commanders, officers, and crews of the mer- 
 chantmen were liberally rewarded by the Kast 
 India Company; Dance received the honour of 
 knighthood from the king; and among the sums 
 of money voted to him were 5000/. by the Bombay 
 Insurance Company. Other liberal sums were 
 given to him and to the officers and crews by the 
 committee of the “ Patriotic Fund.” * 
 
 * This most useful institution, which in many respects merited 
 its name, and which gave an admirable impulse to sailors in the 
 merchant service, who, in case of wounds and loss of limbs, could 
 not look to government for rewards or pensions, originated at a 
 meeting of the subscribers to Lloyd’s Coffee-house, held on the 20th 
 of July, 1803—Brook Watson, Esq., in the chair. The object of the 
 institution was well, and even eloquently, explained in the second 
 and third resolutions :—II. ‘* That to give more effect and energy 
 to the measures adopted by government for the defence of our 
 liberties, our lives, and property—to add weight to those personal 
 exertions we are all readily disposed to contribute, it behoves us to 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 In the autumn, after various attempts to destroy | 
 the French flotillas in their own harbours had — 
 failed, Admiral Lord Keith was commanded to 
 make an experiment with the absurd and not 
 very honourable invention, the catamaran flotilla. 
 This invention, or reproduction (for the plan was 
 not altogether new), had been submitted to the 
 Addington administration, who had approved of 
 it, and had left it to Pitt and Melville as an official — 
 legacy. Lord St. Vincent, the first lord of the © 
 Admiralty under the Addington administration, 
 appears, however, to have set his face against this 
 inglorious mode of warfare; feeling, as every 
 British officer ought to have felt, that, setting aside 
 the intent, such devices were for the weak, and 
 not for the strong. The parties who ranged them- 
 selves in opposition to Pitt’s reconstructed minis- 
 try had urged on him the experiment.* The 
 appearance of about 150 French gun-boats, prames, 
 and floating-batteries, moored in a double line 
 outside the pier of Boulogne, offered the best of 
 opportunities for trying the effect of these boasted 
 machines. And accordingly, on the morning of 
 the 1st of October, Admiral Lord Keith made his 
 preparations, anchoring near shore with three line- 
 of-battle ships and several frigates, to cover or 
 co-operate in the operations of the bomb-ships, 
 fire-ships, and the catamarans, which last were to 
 do the great work. On the following day, four 
 large fire-ships were towed right among the French 
 gun-boats; they exploded with an awful noise ; 
 but the French were quit for a momentary fear, 
 
 hold out every encouragement to our fellow-subjects who may be 
 in any way instrumental in repelling or annoying our implacable 
 foe, and to prove to them that we are ready to drain both our purses 
 and our veins in the great cause which imperiously calls on us to 
 unite the duties of loyalty and patriotism with the strongest efforts 
 of zealous exertion.—III. That, te animate the efforts of our 
 defenders by sea and land, it is expedient to raise, by the patriotism 
 of the community at large, a suitable fund for their comfort and 
 relief—for the purpose of assuaging their wounds, or palliating, in 
 some degree, the more weighty misfortune of the loss of limbs—of 
 alleviating the distresses of the widow and orphan—of smoothing 
 the brow of sorrow for the fall of their dearest relatives, the props 
 of unhappy indigence or helpless age—and of granting pecuniary 
 rewards, or honourable badges of distinction, for successful exertions 
 of valour or merit.” The large funds that were presently raised 
 were not left idle for want of merit to recompense. The seamen 
 in our privateers and common trading-vessels began, whenever a 
 suitable opportunity offered, to vie with the heroes of the national — 
 navy; and, during the remainder of this long war, the heart and 
 hope of many a brave man was kept up in the hour of danger by — 
 the Patriotic Fund, and by the reflection that, if he were maimed 
 or crippled for life, he would not be left to beg his bread, or, if he 
 were killed, and had a wife and children, they would not be left in 
 utter destitution. . 
 
 * The invention or reproduction consisted of a coffer of about 
 twenty-one feet long and three and a quarter broad, resembling in — 
 outward appearance a log of mahogany, except that its two ex- — 
 tremities were cut into a wedge shape. Inside, it was lined with — 
 lead; outside, it had a coating of canvas payed over with hot pitch. — 
 It was stuffed full of gunpowder (about forty barrels being con- 
 sidered a proper stuffing), and in the midst of the loose powder 
 there was a piece of machinery or clock-work, the mainspring of - 
 which, on the withdrawing of a peg, placed transversely on the lid 
 of the infernal coffer or coffin, would, in from six to ten minutes, © 
 draw or strike the trigger of a lock, and explode the whole. As the 
 weight of the gunpowder, clock-work, &c., would just keep the lid 
 or deck of the coffer even with the water’s edge, it was calculated — 
 that the combustion would take plaee under water, and that the 
 catamaran, by being towed or driven (it had no mast or sail, and 
 the weight of a single powder-monkey would have sunk it too low 
 in the water) right under an enemy’s ship, would cleave to it like ag 
 torpedo or a barnacle, until it blew into the air with every soulon 
 board. In order that the embrace might be the surer and the closer, 
 at one of the wedge-ends there was a line with a sort of grappling- 
 iron at its extremity, kept afloat by pieces of cork, and intended 
 hook itself to the cable of the ship to be destroyed, and swing the _ 
 coffer close alongside.—James, Naval Hist. mi 
 
 _— 
 
 ~~ - 
 
j ery, eta % 
 oe) Ona. VIII.) 
 
 a ie 
 
 the four fire-ships only wounding some half-dozen 
 of men, and blowing up nothing but themselves, 
 The catamarans, of which four or five were 
 
 ‘exploded, would have done still less than the fire- 
 
 ships, if it had not been for an unexpected 
 accident which led to one of them occasioning 
 the loss of a boat, her commander, and thirteen 
 soldiers and sailors. In the whole affair, which 
 lasted from nine o’clock in the evening of the 
 2nd of October till four o'clock in the morning, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 235 
 
 the French had only fourteen killed and seven 
 wounded, and the English had not a single man 
 hurt—so that, but for the gunpowder consumed, 
 the absurdity of the experiment might have 
 ended in a hearty laugh on our side. The Admi- 
 ralty which had ordered the experiment, got the 
 name of the “Catamaran Admiralty ;” although, 
 in strict fairness, the designation ought rather to 
 have been applied to their predecessors, 
 
 In declaring war against France, the British 
 
 BOULOGNE. 
 
 government had included Holland, but had not 
 included Spain, which country, although not 
 actually occupied by French arms, was almost as 
 much under French influence and dictation as 
 was the so-styled Batavian Republic. Intelligence 
 having been received in London that an armament 
 was fitting out in the Spanish port of Ferrol, that 
 a considerable Spanish force was already collected 
 there, and that French troops were expected to 
 join them, the Admiralty immediately dispatched 
 a squadron to cruise off Cadiz, to intercept and 
 capture four Spanish frigates known to be bound 
 to that port from Monte Video, with an immense 
 quantity of specie on board. The commodore of 
 this squadron was Captain Graham Moore, the 
 amiable and gallant brother of General Sir John 
 Moore ; he carried his flag in the ‘Indefatigable,’ 
 44-oun frigate, and was accompanied only by three 
 other lighter frigates. On the 5th of October, the 
 four British frigates discovered, near Cape Santa 
 Maria, the four expected Spanish frigates, which 
 were under the command of Don José Bustamente, 
 and which were carrying all sail to get into Cadiz 
 Bay, now so near at hand. After ineffectually 
 hailing the Spaniards to shorten sail, Captain 
 
 Moore fired a shot across the fore-foot of the 
 foremost frigate, which carried the rear-admiral’s 
 flag, and which then took in sail. A lieutenant 
 was forthwith dispatched by Moore to inform the 
 Spanish commander that his orders were to detain 
 the squadron, and that his wish was to execute 
 those orders without bloodshed. The boat with 
 the lieutenant not returning so soon as was ex- 
 pected, Moore made a signal for her, and fired 
 another shot ahead of Bustamente’s frigate. The 
 lieutenant having at length returned with an un- 
 satisfactory answer, Moore fired a third shot ahead 
 of the ‘Medea,’ and bore down close upon her 
 weather-bow, being followed by his other frigate. 
 As they drew near, the ‘Mercedes’ fired into the 
 ‘Amphion ;’ and a few seconds afterwards, the 
 ‘Medea’ opened her fire upon the ‘ Indefatigable,’ 
 Moore then made the signal for close battle; and 
 it commenced on the English side with uncommon 
 animation. In nine minutes, the ‘ Mercedes’ blew 
 up with a tremendous explosion, close alongside 
 her antagonist the ‘Amphion.” In a minute or 
 two afterwards, ‘La Fama’ struck her colours; but 
 as soon as her antagonist, the ‘Medusa, ceased her 
 fire, she re-hoisted them, and endeavoured to make 
 
236 
 
 off The ‘Medusa’ followed her, firing heavily as 
 she went, and they both fell away to leeward. The 
 ‘Amphion, which had sent her opponent into the 
 air, and the money she carried to the bottom of the 
 Bay of Biscay, now ranged up on the starboard 
 quarter of the ‘Medea;’ and upon this, Don José, 
 who had already sustained for seventeen minutes 
 the terrible broadsides of the ‘Indefatigable,’ hauled 
 down his colours and surrendered. Five minutes 
 after this, the ‘Clara’ struck to the ‘ Lively ;’ and 
 then the ‘Lively, being an admirable sailer, 
 joined in the pursuit of ‘La Fama.’ After a smart 
 but short run, finding that the bow-guns of the 
 ‘Lively’ were reaching her, and that the ‘ Medusa’ 
 was closing upon her, ‘La Fama’ also struck. 
 Out of the Spanish ship that blew up, only the 
 second captain and about forty men were saved ; 
 the ‘Medea’ had two men killed and ten wounded ; 
 the ‘Clara, seven killed and twenty wounded ; 
 ‘La Fama, eleven killed and fifty wounded. The 
 loss on the side of the English did not exceed, 
 altogether, two killed and seven wounded, and 
 but a very trifling damage was sustained in hulls, 
 masts, or rigging. The value of the cargoes 
 captured netted very little short of a million 
 sterling, and this was considered as so much kept 
 from the exchequer of Bonaparte.* Those who 
 concurred in the expediency, doubted the right 
 of detaining these ships; and even those who 
 defended the legality of the act, could not help 
 casting severe censure on the English Admiralty 
 for not having sent—instead of a force very little 
 more than equal to that of the Spaniards—such a 
 formidable force as would have allowed Busta- 
 mente to submit at once without an appeal to 
 arms, and without an impeachment of his honour. 
 The whole transaction could not but produce a 
 moral effect very unfavourable to the government 
 of Great Britain. It created a great stir at 
 Madrid, where a party decidedly hostile to Bona- 
 parte had previously been forming and gathering 
 some strength. On the 27th of November, an 
 order was issued to make reprisals on English 
 property; and on the 12th of December, the King 
 of Spain put forth his formal declaration of war 
 against Great Britain. Thus a new excitement 
 was produced, which tended to make the Spaniards 
 rather indifferent to the state crimes, and acts of 
 injustice and tyranny, which the First Consul and 
 Emperor of the French had accumulated during 
 the present year. 
 
 In spite of the revelations, representations, and 
 arguments of Fouché, Bonaparte continued to 
 entertain a much greater hatred and dread of the 
 
 * A deep domestic tragedy cast an additional cloud over this very 
 questionable proceeding. Captain Alvear had embarked in the 
 * Mercedes,’ carrying with him his wife, four daughters, and five 
 grown-up sons, and a fortune estimated at about 30,000/. sterling, 
 the gradual savings of thirty years’ toil in South America. Not 
 many minutes before the battle began, Alvear and his eldest son 
 went on board the Spanish admiral’s frigate ; and from its deck they 
 Witnessed the awful explosion of the ‘ Mercedes,’ with the destruc- 
 tion not only of their fortune, but of all who were dearest to them. 
 The British government restored to Captain Alvear, out of the 
 proceeds of the three cargoes, the 30,0007. which he had lost, but 
 they could not bid the ocean restore its dead, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Jacobins and republicans than of the Bourbon 
 royalists, 
 of daggers, yet he persisted in believing that it was 
 only the rabid Jacobin faction that would use 
 these daggers against him. He felt there were 
 still some fanatics of the republican party whom 
 he could neither buy nor reach; and now and 
 then, notwithstanding the slavery of the press, a 
 republican article would appear, and produce, in 
 some of the by-places_ of France, an impression 
 and a sympathy which seemed to prove that the 
 spirit of Jacobinism was not altogether extinct. 
 Hence the journals were placed under still greater 
 restrictions; and hence, in September, 1803, a 
 Senatus Consultum had been issued, which forbade 
 any bookseller to publish any work whatever, 
 until he had previously submitted a copy of it 
 to the censors or commission of revision. The 
 nocturnal arrests and mysterious deportations 
 continued to increase all through the year 1803 ; 
 but the Consular Reign of Terror, as it is called, 
 was principally confined to the interval between 
 October of that year and April, 1804, The prisons 
 of Paris were crammed with state or political 
 prisoners; and the practice of employing mouwtons, 
 or spies, committed as prisoners, in order to worm 
 themselves into the confidence of the real captives, 
 was revived, and reinvigorated to a monstrous 
 extent. From time to time a victim was dragged 
 from prison before a military commission sit- 
 ting permanently in Paris, and on the following 
 morning, the ‘Moniteur’ told the people of Paris 
 that such or such an enemy to the country had 
 been found guilty, and fusiladed in the plain of 
 Grenelle. Before the military commission, at the 
 moment when sentence of death was passed upon 
 them, and at the more trying moment when that 
 sentence was to be executed, these victims were 
 urged to confess whatever they might know of 
 plots and conspiracies against the Consular govern- 
 ment, were beset by the agents of the secret police, 
 and tempted with promises of pardon, of honour 
 and reward, to give evidence against their leaders 
 or associates. It was to be expected from the 
 weakness of human nature that some would fabri- 
 cate plots and denounce others, at hazard or the 
 indirect suggestion of the police, in order to escape 
 the gendarmes’ bullets: and this notoriously hap- 
 pened. The system, in short, worked like the 
 torture in judicial proceedings in the old times— 
 an accursed means of extorting confession and 
 evidence, which there is good reason for believing 
 was also and not unfrequently secretly resorted to. 
 The only man in France that Bonaparte feared 
 singly was Moreau, whose military reputation 
 was second only to his own, who was warmly 
 beloved by the soldiers who had served under 
 him, and who had frankly shown his aversion 
 to the system of government of the First Consul. 
 With Moreau once in his clutches, or with means 
 of discrediting him in the eyes of the soldiery 
 and people, he calculated that the throne he 
 was erecting would be firm and safe, His 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Fouché told him that the air was full — 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 secret police well knew these not secret thoughts, 
 and they acted conformably. For a long time, 
 nothing decisive could be vamped up or discovered 
 about the hero of Hohenlinden. But at last the 
 police met with something like success, Three 
 men from Brittany, who had been thrown into 
 the Temple as Chouans, were brought before the 
 military commission and condemned to be fusi- 
 laded. Picot and Lebourgeois died like sturdy, 
 taciturn Breton peasants; but Querelle, the third, 
 who is shrewdly suspected of having been a mouton 
 of the police, desired to confer with M. Réal, one 
 of the managers of the secret police. After the 
 conference, which led to Querelle’s enlargement, 
 Réal reported to the First Consul that Georges- 
 Cadoudal, the Chouan chief, and General Pichegru, 
 who had escaped from Guiana to England, where 
 he had devoted himself to the Bourbon princes, 
 had secretly landed on the western coast of France, 
 had conferred with Moreau, and were both at this 
 very moment concealed in Paris. Forthwith, 
 General Savary was dispatched to the coast of 
 Brittany, to try and draw the Bourbon princes 
 from England into a snare; and Réal and the 
 police were instructed not to seize or interrupt 
 Georges-Cadoudal and Pichegru until they could 
 fully commit Moreau by proofs of his connection 
 with them and with other Bourbon royalists— 
 proofs which would for ever ruin Moreau with the 
 republican party, and provide in him, if expe- 
 dient, another victim for the plain of Grenelle. 
 The Chouan chief and the conqueror of Holland 
 were indeed in Paris, but it was Fouché who had 
 brought them, and had planned the reconciliation 
 of Pichegru and Moreau without the knowledge 
 of Bonaparte or his government, and for reasons 
 of his own. The First Consul had made Fouché 
 a senator, and deprived him of his ;office of 
 minister of police, which office Fouché wanted 
 to regain; and he knew that the best way back 
 to it would be by proving the present managers 
 of the police so dull and blind as to allow a 
 formidable conspiracy to be carried on in Paris 
 without their knowing anything about it. The 
 first proper instrument he found in one Lajolais, 
 an wtrigant of the first-water, who had been 
 a general in the republican armies, had aided 
 Pichegru in 1794 in his intrigues and correspond- 
 ence with the Bourbon princes, and who, in 
 consequence of his close intimacy with that 
 general, had been dismissed the service, suffered a 
 long imprisonment, narrowly escaped the guillo- 
 tine, and was now living ‘unemployed and 
 almost penniless in Paris. He still passed among 
 the Bourbonists as an honest partisan; but 
 Fouché knew him better, gave him money, and 
 sent him to renew his acquaintance with Pichegru, 
 to recommend a reconciliation with Moreau, and 
 to tempt him to France by representing that the 
 Corsican must fall if the conqueror of Holland 
 would but come over and unite heart and hand 
 with the hero of Hohenlinden. Lajolais got to 
 the English shore, reached London,- prevailed 
 
 ee ere ee) 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804, 
 
 237 
 
 on Pichegru and his friends to return privately 
 into France, and then set off to announce their 
 coming, and arrange everything for their reception 
 and destruction. Querelle, who made the dis- 
 closures to Réal, may possibly have been only a 
 faint-hearted Chouan conspirator, but the greater 
 probability is that he was retained by Fouché, 
 “Fouché,” says Bourrienne, “when out of office, 
 spent a great deal more money among the 
 emissaries of the police than the minister of police 
 who was in office”? In an affair of such complex 
 villainy, in a state of society where every mystifi- 
 cation was practised, and all judicial proceedings 
 were under the immediate influence of the First 
 Consul, it may easily be imagined what a degree 
 of obscurity rests on the real nature of the business. 
 
 It appears, however, that Moreau saw Pichegru, — 
 whose treasons to the Republic he had himself 
 denounced, more than once, and that one time 
 at least he saw the Chouan chief, Georges-Cadoudal. 
 But it is very doubtful whether Moreau ever 
 connived at Pichegru’s plans, and whether, on 
 discovering the decided royalist tendency of them, 
 and that Pichegru and the friends he had brought 
 over with him were neither to be turned from 
 their purpose, nor were possessed of means and 
 faculties to work out any purpose, or give weight 
 to any cause whatever, he did not break off all 
 intercourse with them. Bourrienne is our autho- 
 rity that neither did he entertain their sentiments, 
 nor did they meditate any overt acts. That the 
 Chouan chief contemplated the assassination of the 
 First Consul is contradicted by Bourrienne and 
 by all we know of Cadoudal. “All these persons,” 
 says Bourrienne (that is to say, Georges-Cadoudal, 
 the Polignacs, De Riviére, and the other royalists 
 who had come from England), “had come to the 
 continent solely to investigate the actual state of 
 affairs, in order to inform the princes of the House 
 of Bourbon, with certainty, how far they might 
 depend on the foolish hopes constantly held out 
 to them by paltry agents, who were always ready 
 to advance their own interests at the expense of 
 truth, These agents did indeed conspire, but it 
 was against the treasury of London, to which they 
 looked for pay.” If the sincere and enthusiastic 
 royalists, who had put their lives in this peril, 
 found that the disaffection at Paris to the govern- 
 ment of Bonaparte was as great as had been 
 reported, then the Count d’Artois, or the Duke de 
 Berri, was to land on the coast of Brittany, and 
 raise the old white flag, which there at least, and 
 in the neighbouring Vendée, was sure to attract 
 numbers to it. This version of the story is less 
 liable to doubt than that given by the ‘ Moniteur,’ 
 and by the Bonapartist historians or memoir 
 writers, The affair of the infernal machine had, 
 
 however, been traced pretty clearly to some 
 royalists of the lowest grade; and possibly some 
 of the wild Bretons, who had followed their great 
 chief, Georges, to Paris, may have contemplated 
 some coup-de-main on the First Consul without 
 the privacy of their leader, or of those who were 
 
238 
 
 acting with him, Georges-Cadoudal, the Polignacs, 
 and their companions, had been for months in 
 Paris before Querelle made his revelations to 
 Réal; and had done nothing; whereas, if their 
 plan had been that desperate assassination, they 
 might have executed it on the first week or day 
 of their arrival. At last, when Bonaparte had 
 taken Fouché back to his favour, and had found 
 that as much had been made of the conspiracy 
 as could be made of it, and that there was no 
 hope of involving Moreau more deeply in it, 
 the ‘Moniteur’ struck the key-note, by announcing 
 that England was again having recourse to 
 assassination, to infernal machines, and to all 
 those means most calculated to excite horror and 
 indignation in the French people; and that a 
 miserable wretch named Querelle had made 
 revelations of such a nature as clearly pointed out 
 the authors and accomplices in this new conspi- 
 racy against the person and the power of the First 
 Consul. The barriers of Paris were closed, as in 
 the first Reign of Terror, the guard at the Tuileries 
 was doubled, all the streets were patrolled by the 
 numerous and terrible gendarmerie ; proclamations 
 were made of the_-principal conspirators, linking 
 the name of Moreau with those of Georges- 
 Cadoudal, the Polignacs, and the other well-known 
 royalists. Bonaparte dictated, and Murat, now 
 his brother-in-law and military governor of Paris, 
 signed an order of the day, to depopularise Moreau, 
 by explaining more in detail his connection with 
 nobles, royalists, Chouans, and brigands. The 
 superior degree of importance which was attached 
 to the rival general was shown in the circumstance 
 that Moreau was the first to be arrested. This 
 occurred on the 15th of February. The rest were 
 all seized shortly after, and almost at one and the 
 same time. Pichegru and Georges-Cadoudal made 
 a desperate resistance ; but all the others submitted 
 to the police agents and gendarmes without any 
 struggle. In all, about forty so-called conspirators 
 were seized ; but the nets of the police had caught 
 a much greater number than this; for during 
 several days, nearly every man that had anything 
 about him that excited suspicion, was whisked 
 away to prison, just as the suspects had been in 
 Robespierre’s days. Most, even of Georges- 
 Cadoudal’s associates, were men of obscure name 
 and condition ; but there were also a few young 
 men of noble birth, the chief of these being the 
 two brothers, Armand and Jules Polignac, the 
 sons of the Duchess of Polignac, and aides-de- 
 camp of the Count d Artois, and the Marquis 
 Charles de la Riviére, who had served in the 
 Gardes-Francaises before the revolution, and who 
 was now also in the service of the Count d@’ Artois, 
 Pichegru refused to sign his private examina- 
 tion, saying he suspected that by some chemical 
 process the police would obliterate all the writing 
 except his signature, and afterwards fill up the 
 paper with statements which he had never 
 made, This refusal, he added, would not pre- 
 vent him from repeating his answers to their 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 questions in a public court of justice, 
 said he was going into La Vendée when he was 
 seized, The Polignacs and De Riviére declared 
 that they had been deceived with regard to the 
 state of France and the co-operation of Moreau ; 
 that they had become convinced of their error, 
 and were about returning to England, They 
 intimated that they had been deceived and lured 
 to Paris by the very agents of the police who 
 now gave a false character to their proceedings 
 and intentions. It appears that nothing could have 
 been more clear than their ayowal that Moreau 
 had refused to have anything to do either with 
 them or with Pichegru. It is affirmed that the 
 most horrible threats were employed to extort 
 evidence from several menials who had waited 
 upon these gentlemen during their concealment 
 in Paris; and that Picot, the servant of Georges- 
 Cadoudal, was actually put to torture by the 
 thumb-screw. Bouvet de Lozier, a. man of 
 abundant active courage, a member of the ancient 
 noblesse, who had come over from London 
 some short time after Georges and Pichegru, 
 and who was now among the conspirators thrown 
 into the Temple, attempted to hang himself 
 with his cravat, and had nearly succeeded, 
 when a turnkey by chance entered his cell. 
 Being thenceforward watched and beset, as one 
 supposed to know most of the designs of his party, 
 although he denied the intention of assassination, 
 he confessed, some time before the trial, that he 
 had come into France in order to overthrow the 
 Consular government and re-establish the Bour- 
 bons ; and that Pichegru had had some communi- 
 cations with Moreau. 
 
 Monsieur, or Louis XVIII, was out of Bona- 
 parte’s reach, and living under the Emperor of 
 tussia’s protection at Warsaw; his brother, the 
 Count d’Artois, his nephew, the Duke de Berri, 
 and the other princes of his family, were safe in 
 London. But close on the French frontiers was 
 Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, Duke d’Enghien, 
 born at Chantilly, in August, 1772, the son of the 
 Duke of Bourbon, and grandson of the Prince of 
 Condé ; being a lateral branch of the then reign- 
 ing family of France. He had served under his 
 grandfather in the emigrant army that fought in 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Georges — 
 
 the Netherlands and on the Rhine against the — 
 
 Jacobin republicans, and had displayed not only 
 a high and romantic personal courage, but a 
 
 degree of military knowledge and ability which — 
 
 ¥ 
 
 made the royalists consider him a worthy descend- — 
 
 ant of the Condés—the favourite heroes of France — 
 
 until the revolution broke out, At the peace of 
 
 Lunéville, in 1801, the emigrant corps being com- — 
 pletely disbanded, the Duke d’Enghien fixed his — 
 residence at Ettenheim, a chateau on the German ~ 
 
 side of the Rhine, a few miles from that river, 
 and in the territories of the Margrave of Baden. 
 This choice of a residence was influenced by an_ 
 
 attachment between him and the Princess Char- — 
 
 lotte de Rohan, who resided at Ettenheim with 
 
 her near relative the Cardinal de Rohan, whose — 
 
na 
 
 a | 
 
 Guar, VIIL] 
 
 afd 
 
 blacken the fair fame of the last queen of France, 
 and perhaps even to precipitate the revolution. 
 
 | Between love, hunting in the Black Forest, and 
 
 cultivating with his own hands a small flower- 
 garden, he passed his whole time. But, as there 
 was the closest connection between the two 
 Polignacs, De Riviére, and others, and the French 
 princes in England, who could not be reached, 
 Bonaparte decided that D’Enghien, who could be 
 reached, was in the plot also, and that his life 
 must be sacrificed, if not to his security, to his 
 vengeance. By one of those orders that flew like 
 lightning from Paris to all the extremities of 
 France, the officer commanding at Strasbourg was 
 enjoined to send some troops across the Rhine by 
 night, and seize the duke in his chateau; and 
 Caulaincourt, one of Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp, 
 and soon afterwards called Duke of Vicenza, was 
 sent by his master to the Rhine to superintend 
 the operation. Caulaincourt gave the delicate 
 commission to Colonel Ordenner, commandant of 
 the gendarmerie-a-cheval, who, on the night of 
 the 14th of March, crossed the river with some 
 squadrons of gendarmes and other cavalry, entered 
 the territory of Baden, as though it had been a 
 French province, and advancing at the charging 
 pace, soon surrounded the chateau of Ettenheim. 
 The duke, it is said, had been apprised a day 
 or two before (according to Bourrienne, it was 
 Talleyrand who gave the merciful hint) that some 
 design against him was on foot, But he could 
 not believe it; and those who came to kidnap him 
 found that no kind of precaution had been taken 
 against them. When the duke was roused from 
 his midnight slumber by the tramp of their horses’ 
 feet and by the rattling of their arms, he sprang 
 out of bed, and from the window perceived that 
 the chateau was surrounded, and that a detach- 
 ment of French cavalry was watching the neigh- 
 bouring town of Ettenheim, and blocking up the 
 road which led from it to the castle. He never- 
 theless determined with his attendants to fight for 
 his liberty. But when the gendarmes broke the 
 lower door, and seemed to be about to ascend the 
 narrow stairs, the duke’s first gentleman, a Baron 
 Grinstein, threw himself upon him, caught him 
 in his arms, and dragged him into a room which 
 opened upon the head of the staircase, exclaiming 
 that all resistance was vain, and that care must be 
 taken of the precious life of his royal highness.* 
 The French gendarmes having entered the room 
 into which Grinstein had dragged him, and 
 being unable to ascertain which was the duke, 
 seized and bound all who were there, being all, 
 except Baron Grinstein, less than half dressed. 
 The kidnappers, nervously eager to recross the 
 
 * Tt has never, we believe, been ascertained whether the baron 
 acted upon a criminal or upon an honourable and humane motive; 
 but we are inclined to believe that his motive was good, that he 
 saw that the Bourbon prince must perish in such an unequal 
 struggle, and that he could not conceive, if he submitted to cap- 
 tivity, that his enemies would ever proceed to the horrible extremity 
 of taking his life. 
 
 rephrase ener erie rsp ersten COLL ALL A 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 vices or presumptuous follies had contributed to 
 
 239 
 
 Rhine and get back within the strong walls of 
 Strasbourg, instantly marched the whole party 
 out of the chateau and through the town of 
 Kttenheim. At a little distance from Ettenheim, 
 they halted at a mill, where, by an accident, the 
 duke was recognised, Here his valet having 
 brought him linen, clothes, and some money from 
 the chateau, he dressed himself, and the whole 
 party proceeded rapidly to the Rhine. They 
 crossed that river between Cappell and Reinau, 
 and on the opposite bank found carriages waiting 
 for them. On their arrival at Strasbourg, all the 
 prisoners were confined in the citadel. Towards 
 evening on the 18th, Caulaincourt returned, and 
 at the dead of night the wearied duke’s bed was 
 surrounded by gendarmes, who bade him rise and 
 dress himself with all haste, as he was about to go a@ 
 journey, It was the dusk of the evening of the 20th 
 of March when, with doleful sound, the carriage 
 which conveyed him rolled over the drawbridge 
 and through the arched gateway of the gloomy 
 old fortress of Vincennes, At first, no one there 
 knew who he was; but the wife of the command- 
 ant—of the infamous MHarrel, who had _ been 
 promoted for the services he had rendered in the 
 affair of the Ceracchi and Arena plot—was the 
 daughter of the duke’s nurse, and she recognised 
 her royal foster-brother. His name was soon 
 whispered through the gloomy edifice, and, as he 
 complained of hunger and fatigue, all the inmates 
 of it, and even the officers and men of the regiment 
 in garrison there, vied with each other in showing 
 him attentions, This alarmed the principal agents 
 of the crime about to be finished: the regiment 
 was immediately ordered under arms, and marched 
 out to the heights of Belle-Ville, where it bivou- 
 acked for the night; and the castle was left to 
 Savary’s gendarmes, whose hearts, like their com- 
 mander’s, were less sensible of pity, and whose 
 nerves were strong to do whatever the First Consul 
 might command.* The fact has been denied by 
 some of those on whom the eternal infamy rests; 
 but there appears little reason to doubt the positive 
 assertion made by Bourrienne and others, that the 
 duke’s grave was dug within the fortress before 
 he arrived.t 
 
 * Savary is reported to have said: ‘*If the First Consul ordered 
 me to kill my own father, I would kill him.” 
 
 + The following is Harrel’s statement, made to Bourrienne the day 
 after the duke’s execution: ‘*On the evening of the day before 
 yesterday, I was asked whether I had a vacant room to lodge a 
 prisoner in. I replied No—that there was only my room besides 
 the council-chamber. I was commanded to prepare instantly an 
 apartment in which a prisoner could sleep, who was to arrive 
 that evening. I was also desired to dig a pit in the courtyard. I 
 replied that that could not be easily done, as the courtyard was 
 paved. ‘The moat was then fixed upon, and there the pit was dug. 
 The prince arrived at seven o’clock in the evening; he was perish- 
 ing with cold and hunger. He did not appear dispirited. He said 
 he wanted something to eat, and to go to bed afterwards. His 
 apartment not being yet sufficiently aired, I took him into my 
 own, and sent into the village for some refreshments. The prince 
 sat down to table, and invited me to eat with him. He then asked 
 me a number of questions about Vincennes, as what was going on 
 there and other particulars. He told me that he had been brought 
 up in the neighbourhood of the castle, and spoke to me with great 
 freedom and kindness, ‘What do they want with me?’ he said: 
 ‘what do they mean to do with me?’ But these questions betrayed 
 no uneasiness or anxiety. My wife, who was ill, was lying in the 
 same room in an alcoye, closed by a railing. She heard, without 
 being perceived, all our conyersation, and she was exceedingly 
 
240 
 
 When it was reported at Malmaison, where the 
 consular court was residing, that the Duke 
 d’Enghien was safely lodged in the donjon, which 
 is situated about a league east of Paris, it was 
 expected that the First Consul would assemble his 
 council; but he did nothing of the kind, determin- 
 ing that the whole responsibility should rest with 
 himself, and those ever-ready instruments of his 
 will who immediately surrounded him, Josephine 
 was horror-stricken at the intelligence; and, on 
 her knees, implored her husband to stop short in 
 this foul crime, lest all the world should cry shame 
 upon him, and Heaven avenge the deed on him 
 and his. But the ruthless man would not be 
 moved.* Talleyrand, and even Fouché, like many 
 other members of the government, appear to have 
 known nothing of the last act of the tragedy until 
 it was over, An order was written out to Murat, 
 the military governor of Paris. It was to this 
 effect : “The government of the Republic decree as 
 follows: Art. I—The ci-devant Duke d’Enghien, 
 accused of having borne arms against the Republic, 
 and having been and still being in the pay of 
 England, of being engaged in the plots set on foot 
 by that power against the external and internal 
 security of the Republic, shall be delivered over to 
 a military commission, composed of seven members, 
 named by the governor of Paris, who shall as- 
 semble at Vincennes. Art. I1.—The grand judge, 
 minister of war, and general-governor of Paris, are 
 charged with the execution of the present decree.” 
 This order bore two signatures: first, that of Bona- 
 parte, First Consul; and next, that of Maret, then 
 secretary of the council of state, and subsequently 
 Bonaparte’s most favourite diplomatist and Duke 
 of Bassano. Neither the grand judge (Regnier), 
 nor the minister of war (Berthier), though named 
 in Bonaparte’s order as well as Murat, had any- 
 thing to do with the nomination of the commission ; 
 the very choice of the members of which pleads 
 strongly against Murat’s dying declarations of his 
 disapproval of the act. They were for the most 
 part friends of Savary, and their otherwise obscure 
 names will live in a perpetuity of infamy: General 
 Hulin, president, Colonels Bazancourt, Barrois, 
 Guiton, Ravier, and Rabbe, and Captain Nolin, 
 who acted as secretary; to whom was added 
 D’Autancourt, a captain in the army and military 
 judge-advocate. They were all of them notori- 
 ously bad characters, and the president Hulin, 
 commandant of the grenadiers of Bonaparte’s con- 
 sular guard, was known to be ready for any deed 
 
 agitated, for she recognised the prince, whose foster-sister she 
 was, and from whose family she had enjoyed a pension before the 
 revolution. ‘The prince hastened to bed; but, before he could 
 have fallen asleep, the judges sent to request his presence in the 
 council-chamber.” 
 
 * He answered her in his sternest manner: *‘ Woman, mind 
 your own business! These are not things for women to meddle 
 with! Let me alone!” Before this he had said, and in a way 
 which left no doubt of his fixed determination: ‘I will put an end 
 to these conspiracies! If the emigrants will conspire, I will have 
 them shot! Iam told that there are some of them concealed in the 
 house of the Austrian ambassador. I do not believe that; but if I 
 did, I would have Cobentzel shot along with them. The Bourbons 
 must be taught that they are not to sport with my life with 
 impunity.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 that the Consul expected from him. The part 
 which Murat took in the business, however, was 
 nothing to that played by Savary, the head of 
 Bonaparte’s most secret or household police, who 
 had been employed for several weeks in investigat- 
 ing the Georges-Cadoudal and Pichegru conspiracy, 
 with which it was attempted to connect the Duke 
 @’Enghien ; and who had returned a day or two 
 before from the coast, having failed in the attempt 
 to decoy the Count d Artois or the Duke de Berri 
 into France. It was Savary that carried a sealed 
 and private letter from Bonaparte to Murat; that 
 collected at Murat’s house, in the Place Vendome, 
 the officers that were to compose the commission ; 
 that, at twelve o'clock at night, ordered the judge- 
 advocate to attend the governor of Paris (Murat), 
 who immediately gave him orders to proceed to 
 General Hulin, whom he would find at the castle 
 of Vincennes, and from whom he was to take and 
 receive ulterior orders; that sent picked men out 
 of the gendarmerie élite, his own corps, into the 
 castle to be ready to fusilade and bury the duke, 
 even before his mock-trial commenced, The 
 judge-advocate, who was not summoned from his 
 own residence till midnight, could not have 
 reached the chiteau or donjon of Vincennes 
 before one or half-past one in the morning; and 
 yet, as is stated in the body of the instrument 
 itself, the sentence was passed at two o'clock in 
 the morning—a pretty good proof that the trial 
 and sentence had all been arranged beforehand. 
 The sentence had probably been conveyed by 
 Savary to Hulin in the sealed and secret letter.* 
 When the judge-advocate arrived at the castle, 
 Hulin put into his hands a copy of that order 
 which we have quoted, signed by Bonaparte and 
 Maret, and countersigned by Murat, There was 
 no time for him to examine any evidence, if 
 evidence had existed; but none whatever was 
 presented to him, the only thing put into his hand 
 being the indictment, with the First Consul’s order 
 to proceed to judgment forthwith. 
 
 A few minutes after the judge-advocate’s 
 arrival, Hulin ordered the prisoner to be brought 
 in. ‘The duke, worn out with the fatigue of 
 travelling over rough roads two days and nights 
 in a close carriage, was falling into a profound 
 sleep. The judge-advocate himself roused him, 
 and led him to the council-chamber. While 
 the judge-advocate interrogated the prisoner, 
 Savary stood behind the president, with his back 
 turned to the fire. To every question the prince 
 replied in the clearest and most spirited manner. 
 When asked his name, he told itt He related 
 when and how he had been compelled to leave 
 France with his father and grandfather, and when - 
 and where he had fought for the king. When 
 
 * The document which was published was so long, that it could 
 not even have been written out by a quick pen in the time which 
 intervened between the arrival of the judge-advocate and the 
 passing of the sentence. 
 
 + Hulin said afterwards, with atrocious sang-froid: “If the 
 prince had not told us his name, we should have been prettily 
 puzzled to know what to do, as there was not one of us who knew 
 his person, or could identify him.” 
 
) Geape VIII.) 
 
 asked what was his place in the army of Condé, 
 
 he said with pride: “I was always in the van.” 
 He stated that he had been living quietly for two 
 years and a half at Ettenheim ; that he first went 
 there on the invitation of the Cardinal de Rohan, 
 who was ex-bishop of Strasbourg, and still possessed 
 of territories and of spiritual jurisdiction in that 
 part of the country; and that after the death of 
 the cardinal, which happened in the spring of 
 1802, he had officially applied to, and had received 
 from the Elector Margrave of Baden, the sove- 
 reign of the country, permission to continue to 
 reside there. “But,” said he, “the reasons which 
 had determined my residence at Ettenheim no 
 longer subsisting, | was proposing to move farther 
 off, to Fribourg in Brisgau, a much more agreeable 
 town than Ettenheim, where I remained chiefly 
 because the country abounds in game, and the 
 elector had granted me permission to shoot and 
 hunt in his woods; and I am very fond of that 
 sport.” He denied that he had ever been in 
 England, or in the interior of France, since he had 
 fled from it ; but, when asked whether he was not 
 in the pay of England, he replied that he received 
 an annual allowance from that court, and that that 
 was all he had to live upon. When reproached 
 with having fought against his country, he replied 
 that he had fought for his king ; and that, consider- 
 ing his birth and situation, no other line of conduct 
 could have been expected from him. When asked 
 if he knew General Pichegru, and if he had any 
 intercourse or correspondence with him, he 
 answered that to the best of his knowledge he 
 had never seen him; that he had never had 
 any intercourse with him; that he knew, 
 indeed, that Pichegru had wished to sce him; 
 but that he was happy at not having known him, 
 if what they were saying was true about the vile 
 means he intended to employ. He declared that 
 he did not know, and had never seen, General 
 
 Dumouriez, whom, according to some of the 
 numerous and contradictory accounts, Bonaparte 
 believed to have been concealed with him at 
 Kittenheim. To the question, whether since the 
 peace he had not kept up correspondences in the 
 interior of France, he replied, that he had written 
 occasionally to some private friends, who had served 
 with him, and who were still attached to him, 
 about their and his own private concerns ; but that 
 these correspondences were not of the nature 
 which he supposed they alluded to, This interro- 
 gatory was absolutely all the trial. Being called 
 upon to sign the procés-verbal, the duke said, or it 
 was said for him, in that document as published: 
 “Before signing it, I earnestly demand to have a 
 private audience of the First Consul. My name, 
 my rank, my manner of thinking, and the horror 
 of my situation, make me hope that he will not 
 refuse this my demand.” According to some 
 accounts, Hulin said they had nothing to do but to 
 pass sentence; according to others, it was Savary 
 that said there was no use in losing time and 
 
 troubling the Consul; and, according to others, 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 241 
 
 who must be in error, as there was not time to 
 allow the swiftest of messengers to go to and return 
 from Malmaison, the report being sent to Bonaparte 
 to know his further pleasure, the court received for 
 
 _ answer their own letter, marked with the emphatic 
 
 words, “Condemned to death.” But, in fact, this 
 condemnation had been inserted in the first of the 
 two sentences, blanks being left to name the article 
 of law applicable to the case. Having signed the 
 proces-verbal (at least his signature was affixed to 
 the thing they printed), the prince was ordered to 
 withdraw ; and such was his exhaustion, and so 
 little did he expect immediate death, that he 
 calmly lay down again on the bed which Harrel 
 had prepared for him, and fell into a sound sleep. 
 When he was gone, some doubt was expressed by 
 these delicate assassins touching the legality of the 
 first sentence with the blank, which, nevertheless, 
 they had all signed ; and then was produced the 
 second draft of his sentence, which they must 
 have brought with them; if, indeed, it was not 
 concocted and arranged after the duke’s execu- 
 tion, We have President Hulin’s confession that 
 they all signed the first sentence—and that was 
 the sentence (with a blank left for the law) that 
 was carried into execution.* 
 
 The six charges, on which the duke was found 
 guilty “unanimously,’ were these:—l. Having 
 borne arms against the French republic. 2, Having 
 offered his services to the English government, the 
 enemy of the French people. 3. Having received 
 and accredited agents of the said English govern- 
 ment, having procured them means of intelli- 
 gence in France, and having conspired with 
 them against the external and internal safety of 
 the republic. 4. Having placed himself at the 
 head of a large collection of French emigrants and 
 others, formed on the frontiers of France, in the 
 countries of Fribourg and Baden, paid by England. 
 5. Having had communications with the town of 
 Strasbourg, tending to excite insurrection in the 
 neighbouring departments, for the purpose of 
 making a diversion in favour of England. 6. Being 
 one of the favourers and accomplices of the plot 
 carried on by the English against the life of the First 
 Consul, and intending, in the event of the success 
 of such conspiracy, to enter France. And to these 
 six clauses was added, “Thereupon the president 
 put the question as to the punishment to be inflicted, 
 and, the voices being collected as before (beginning 
 with the junior and ending with the president), 
 the special military commission unanimously con- 
 demn Louis-Antoine Bourbon, Duke d’Enghien, to 
 death, for the crimes of espionage, correspondence 
 with the enemies of the republic, and attempts 
 against the external and internal safety of the 
 republic.” Nothing had been said in the interro- 
 
 * Tie says: ‘* We tried many drafts of the sentence: among 
 others, the first one; but, after we had signed it, we doubted 
 whether it was regular, and we therefore made the greffier proceed 
 to prepare a new draft, grounded chiefly on a report of the privy 
 councillor Réal, and the answers of the prince. This second draft 
 was the true one, and ought alone to have been preserved,”-— 
 Explications offertes aux hommes impartiaux. Par M. le Comte 
 Hulin, 
 
 Ms 
 
242 
 
 gatory about any plots carried on by the English 
 for the assassination of the Consul, the only 
 allusion to any attempt on the life of the Consul 
 being an imputation on Pichegru, @ Mrenchman, 
 who denied the charge, and who could never 
 be proved guilty of it. The illegalities in this 
 most iniquitous of trials are too obvious and glaring 
 to call for much remark. The violation of the 
 neutral and friendly territory of Baden was the 
 beginning of the odious irregularities, and in itself 
 vitiated all the proceedings which followed, The 
 decrees of the Convention and Directory against such 
 Frenchmen as bore arms against the Republic, 
 savage as they were, applied only to emigrants 
 taken in France, or in an enemy’s country; and 
 Baden was neither the one nor the other. Again, 
 these laws against the emigrants did not apply to 
 the Bourbon princes, who were a class apart, and 
 were for ever banished from the French territory. 
 By the existing code, the court-martial or military 
 commission was incompetent to try plots under- 
 taken against the republic ; and the whole proceed- 
 ings in the donjon of Vincennes were de plus 
 illegal, as having been carried on in the dead of 
 night, precipitately, with closed doors, without 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 defender or counsel for the prisoner, without 
 witnesses, without documents, 
 
 Hulin subsequently pleaded the only (though a 
 base) argument that could at all avail him, and the 
 seven officers who acted with him, “ Appointed 
 to be judges,’ said he, “we were obliged to act 
 as judges at the risk of being judged ourselves.” 
 We are disposed to give credit to his assertions— 
 especially as they are flatly contradicted only by 
 Savary—that he and his colleagues finished their 
 share in the work of iniquity by writing out and 
 signing the two sentences; that the immediate 
 execution was not authorized by them; and that 
 they were expecting that the four-and-twenty hours 
 prescribed by law would be allowed, when they 
 heard an explosion, a crash of musketry in the 
 moat, which told them that Savary had terminated 
 the affair. Savary himself says it was two hours 
 after the room was cleared that the sentence 
 was known. “The officer who commanded the 
 infantry of my regiment came with deep emotion 
 to tell me that a party was required to execute 
 the sentence—I answered: ‘Givz rt.” The prince 
 was fast asleep when Savary uttered these two 
 dry words, “Give iT,’ the only death-warrant of 
 
 ANIKI 
 
 ST ii 
 i it 
 
 VINCENNES. 
 
 the descendant of so many kings and heroes—and 
 in a sound sleep the execution party found him 
 when they went to his bedside and ordered him 
 to rise and follow. He had so little suspicion 
 of the fate that awaited him, that, on descending 
 the rough staircase leading to the castle-ditch, 
 
 DEATH oF THE DUKE D’ENGHIEN. 
 
 the prince asked whither they were taking him. 
 To this question he received no answer from 
 Savary’s tried and taciturn gendarmes. Harrel, 
 the commandant, walked by the prince holding 
 a lantern. Feeling the cold air which came up 
 the dark staircase, he pressed Harrel’s arm, and 
 
Cuapr. VIII.] 
 
 said: “Are they going to immure me in an 
 oubliette ?” * 
 
 Savary himself tells us that it was not until he 
 was brought down these back-stairs suddenly into 
 the ditch that the prince heard his sentence: but 
 there was no need of the sense of hearing; the sight 
 of the grave, of Savary’s gendarmes, and of the 
 barrels of their muskets gleaming in the dim lurid 
 _ light, must have told the doomed Bourbon that 
 ‘his last moment on earth was come, It is reported 
 that he asked for the attendance of a confessor, and 
 that the brutal reply to the request was, “ Will you 
 die like a priest?” He cut off a lock of his hair, 
 and gaye it, with a miniature and a gold ring, to an 
 officer, imploring him to cause it to be delivered, 
 through the medium of Bonaparte’s wife, to the 
 Princess de Rohan; and then he presented his 
 breast to the soldiers, and exclaiming, “I die for 
 my king and for France,” fell with seven mortal 
 bullets in his body, which was immediately taken 
 up, dressed as it was, and flung earelessly into the 
 ready-made grave, A stone was thrown into the 
 grave near the prince’s head by the man employed 
 to fill it up, and who wished to have some mark 
 whereby to know the body hereafter, The site of 
 the grave into which the yet warm remains of 
 Condé’s grandson, “ uncoffined,” “ unaneled,” were 
 huddled like the carcass of a dog, is marked by a 
 small cross at the bottom of the moat, on the side 
 towards the forest of Vincennes. But the victim 
 lies there no longer. On the 21st of March, 1816, 
 the twelfth anniversary of the murder, a com- 
 mittee appointed by the restored king of France, 
 Louis XVIII., went to Vincennes to search for the 
 body, and move it to a more becoming place of 
 sepulture. The man who had dug the grave and 
 filled it up was still alive, and several persons who 
 had visited it shortly after the event recognised the 
 precise spot. After digging about four feet deep, 
 the boot of the right leg was discovered, then the 
 rest of the body successively, and lastly, the head, 
 with the marking stone which the labourer stated 
 he had thrown in. The remains were placed in a 
 coffin, and deposited, with the usual ceremonies of 
 religion, in the chapel of the castle.+ 
 
 Whatever at the time was the effect produced 
 in Paris by the kidnapping and murder of the 
 Duke d@Enghien, on his personal friends, on the 
 royalists, and on the better-minded of the revo- 
 lutionists, and of the party of the First Consul,t it 
 appears indisputable that the great mass of the 
 nation entertained sentiments very different from 
 those which were afterwards expressed upon the 
 foul catastrophe. The one great dread of the 
 reyolutionary party was a counter-revolution and 
 the restoration of the old dynasty, Before the 
 
 * Oubliette (from the French verb oublier, to forget) was a subter- 
 ranean dungeon, into which the victim was secretly thrown, and 
 then as it were forgotten, There were oubliettes in the donjon of 
 Vincennes; and in the old feudal times there were few castles, 
 either in England or France, without them. 
 
 + Quarterly Review, vol. xvii., Art. Answer to Warden, &c. 
 
 ¢ Fouché himself is said to have called it a thing worse than a 
 crime, a political blunder. His reported words are: ‘C’est pis 
 qu’une crime, c’est une faute!” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 243 
 
 arrest of Pichegru, it was known by many of the 
 revolutionary party that Bonaparte himself had 
 been in correspondence with Monsieur, the late 
 king’s brother, who, in the eyes of the legitimists, 
 and of all the courts of Europe (though few of 
 them could openly express the conviction, for the 
 dread of Bonaparte’s half-million of bayonets), 
 was Louis XVIII., King of France; and a conse- 
 quent dread had arisen that the Corsican soldier 
 of fortune might, at some moment, play the part 
 which General Monk had performed in England, 
 and bring back the Bourbons, From the secrecy in 
 which his examinations were conducted, it was not 
 generally known that Pichegru had threatened to 
 proclaim on his trial this correspondence between 
 Bonaparte and the expatriated Bourbon, and even 
 to produce proofs of it; but the First Consul knew 
 all this, and a great deal more—knew mysteries 
 which accidents might bring to light at an 
 awkward moment; and it is more than presum- 
 able that these considerations had largely contri- 
 buted to the crime which had been perpetrated 
 under his orders. And when the crime was 
 perpetrated, the revolutionists could congratulate 
 themselves that now the hands of Bonaparte were 
 dyed in the blood of the Bourbons even like their 
 own, and that henceforward there was no chance of 
 the First Consul enacting the part of General Monk, 
 According to Thibaudeau, it is altogether incorrect 
 to pretend that the death of the Duke d’Enghien 
 spread a general consternation in Paris, in the 
 provinces and chateaux of France. “The nation 
 was indifferent about it; their instinct told them 
 that a dead Bourbon was an enemy the less.”* 
 It is certain, however, that the kidnapping and 
 murder of the duke excited an indignant feeling 
 in all the rest of Europe, and produced immediate 
 demonstrations unfavourable to Bonaparte in all 
 the courts that were strong enough, or remote 
 enough, to hazard the expression of their opinion. 
 The court of St. Petersburg ordered a public 
 mourning for the death of the unfortunate prince, 
 and remonstrated with his real assassin, the First 
 Consul ; and the Emperor Alexander, as mediator 
 and guarantee of.the continental peace, notified to 
 the states of the Germanic Empire that he con- 
 sidered the violation of the territory of Baden and 
 the seizure of the Duke d’Enghien as an overt 
 attack on the security and independence of that 
 empire. Going farther than this, the young czar 
 sent in a note to the Diet assembled at Ratisbon, 
 complaining of this violation and criminal trans- 
 gression of the law and rights of nations, and 
 reminding the Diet that he had pledged himself, 
 together with the First Consul of France, to pro- 
 tect the rights and insure the tranquillity of the 
 minor states of the Germanic Confederation. The 
 King of Sweden also remonstrated, and sent his 
 note to the Germanic Diet, as a party interested 
 through the possessions which he held in the 
 empire, and as an ancient guarantee of the 
 
 * Hist, du Consulat, 
 
244 
 
 independence of that league. Bonaparte, whose 
 pride could never bear reproach or interference, 
 and who knew or suspected that Russia, some 
 time before this, had listened to English proposals 
 for a new coalition, made Talleyrand write to 
 the Russian ambassador a most insolent and out- 
 rageous note, which was certainly not calculated 
 to remove the evil impression which had been 
 made. A war with Russia, indeed, was almost a 
 certainty before; but the kidnapping and the 
 murder of the Bourbon prince, and the recrimi- 
 nations cast in the teeth of the young czar (who, 
 in the Moniteur and other French publications, 
 was directly accused of being the assassin of 
 his own insane father), hastened the declaration 
 of hostilities, and gave a keener edge to the 
 Russian enmity. 
 
 It has been stated in defence of the First 
 Consul that he was led to believe that the Duke 
 d@Enghien had been repeatedly in Paris in 
 communication with the Cadoudal conspirators. 
 But Savary admits that the Duke d’Enghien never 
 came to Paris at all, and that the personage mis- 
 taken for him turned out eventually to be General 
 Pichegru. Tiyen this mistake could not have 
 existed at the date. M. Dupin has proved that 
 the individuals who reported the visits of the 
 pretended unknown had, on the 12th of February 
 (a good month before the seizure of the duke at 
 Ettenheim), deposed that the mysterious visitor 
 was Pichegru; that the same fact was proved on 
 the 21st of February, twenty-three days before 
 the seizure; and again on the 12th of March, 
 nine days before the prince was murdered at 
 Vincennes,* 
 
 Bonaparte himself is related to have justified his 
 conduct in this affair on various grounds; but the 
 excuses which he made were irreconcilable with 
 one another; and it is useless to either detail or 
 refute them, as, when he was dying at St. Helena, 
 he put, as it were, into his last testament the 
 frankest avowal of the deed. “I caused the Duke 
 d’Enghien to be arrested and judged, because it 
 was necessary to the security, the interest, and the 
 honour of the French people. In the same circum- 
 stances, I would again act in the same manner.” 
 
 Just fifteen days after the execution of the 
 Bourbon prince at Vincennes, General Pichegru— 
 with whom, as with Georges, the Polignacs, and 
 others, the prince ought to have been confronted— 
 was found dead in his cell in the Temple, where 
 he had been lying ever since the 27th of February, 
 subject to the frequent visits and interrogatories 
 of Réal. No threats, no promises, could induce 
 Pichegru to injure any man by his answers, or 
 to effect the great object in view—that of impli- 
 cating General Moreau in the royalist conspiracy, 
 He threatened, on the contrary, to tear to pieces 
 the flimsy web which had been thrown round 
 Moreau; to speak out on his public trial; to 
 unfold the odious means by which he and his 
 
 * Maquart, Réfutation de l’Ecrit_publié par le Duc de Rovigo sur 
 la Catastrophe de M. le Duc d’Enghien, as cited in Quart. Review, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 companions had been entrapped into the conspi- 
 racy by Bonaparte’s police; and to reveal what 
 he knew of the First Consul’s correspondence with 
 the Bourbons. This threat of speaking out in an 
 open court—and it was known that Pichegru 
 could speak in a lofty and energetic manner—gave 
 great alarm to the consular government, Besides, 
 to proceed against two such successful generals 
 
 as Pichegru and Moreau, at one and the same_ 
 
 time, might, perchance, prove too severe a trial 
 of the temper of the army. It was calculated, too, 
 that if Pichegru were but dead, it might be 
 
 PICHEGRU. 
 
 insinuated that it was only his death that removed 
 the proof of Moreau’s complicity. On the 5th of 
 April, Réal had a long secret interview with 
 the general, and, the next morning, Pichegru was 
 found strangled on his bed, with a black cravat 
 tightened round his neck, by means of a stick 
 which acted as a tourniquet, and which was kept 
 in its position by being put behind the ear, and 
 pressed against the pillow by the weight of the 
 head, &c. Six obscure surgeons, named by the 
 
 criminal tribunal, were called in to examine the 
 
 body, and sign a report that Pichegru had com- 
 mitted suicide, 
 
 hours after midnight, he had heard a violent 
 coughing and spitting; a turnkey of the Temple 
 deposed that he had the key of the general’s door 
 all the night in his pocket, so that the door could 
 not have been opened ; but, in spite of surgeons, 
 gendarmes, and turnkeys, and of other pains 
 
 taken, then and afterwards, to prove that Pichegru — 
 had perished by his own hand, the impression was — 
 
 instantly and generally made, and in a manner to 
 
 be lasting, that he had been most foully murdered. — 
 
 It might be that Pichegru had strangled himself, 
 but he seems to have been considered, by all who 
 knew him, as a man very unlikely to have recourse 
 to suicide of any kind, as one, who in his hatred 
 of his persecutors, would have borne any suffering, 
 provided he could but have the opportunity of 
 speaking out on his trial. After calling upon 
 
 Réal, who was still living at the time he wrote, © 
 
 [Book X. — 
 
 — = 
 
 A gendarme @élite deposed that, — 
 being on guard near Pichegru’s cell, about three — 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 to declare what he knew of this transaction, 
 Bourrienne says: “There is evidence, amount- 
 ing almost to demonstration, that Pichegru was 
 strangled in prison, and consequently all idea of 
 suicide must be rejected as inadmissible. Have 
 I positive and substantive proof? I have not; 
 but the concurrence of facts, and the weight of 
 probabilities, do not leave me in possession of the 
 doubts I should wish to entertain on this tragic 
 event.’* There were certain private circum- 
 stances which rendered the death of Pichegru the 
 more striking: the conqueror of Holland and the 
 First Consul, who had obtained their commis- 
 sions as lieutenants of artillery on the same day, 
 had been schoolfellows in the military school of 
 Brienne; and there Pichegru, being the elder of 
 the two, had taught Bonaparte the four first rules 
 of arithmetic, and had been both a friend and 
 tutor to the poor and almost friendless Corsican, 
 And now all their calculations had come to this 
 —strangulation with a black silk handkerchief 
 and a bit of stick, and six feet of dishonoured 
 earth, for Pichegru; and for Bonaparte an imperial 
 throne (he was placing his foot on the first steps 
 of it when his schoolfellow perished), which was 
 designed to be enduring, and for perpetuity in his 
 race, but which lasted only ten stormy years, and 
 then one hundred days ! 
 
 The world was still aghast at the fate of 
 Pichegru, when another and a more _ bloody 
 catastrophe was brought to light from the same 
 state-prison. Captain John Wesley Wright, who, 
 in the preceding autumn, had landed Pichegru and 
 some of his companions, was becalmed on the 
 morning of the 8th of May, close by the mouth 
 of the river Morbihan, on the coast of France, 
 and was carried by the ebb-tide close upon the 
 rocks, Whilst his crew were sweeping with all 
 their strength to get clear of the coast, seventeen 
 armed vessels were rowed out from the Morbihan, 
 consisting of six brigs, six luggers, and five smaller 
 gun-vessels. Wright’s craft was only an 18-gun 
 brig-sloop, and his crew consisted of fifty-one 
 effective men and twenty-four boys; yet he 
 gallantly fought, within grape and hailing distance, 
 the whole French- flotilla for nearly two hours, 
 and did not strike his colours until his ship was 
 a mere wreck—until twelve of his men were 
 wounded and two killed, and himself wounded 
 in the groin. JLaurent-Tourneur, the French 
 commanding officer to whom Wright struck, told 
 him that he had nobly sustained the honour of his 
 
 * Savary says that Réal, on the morning of Pichegru’s death, 
 exclaimed—‘ Though nothing can be more apparent. than that this 
 is suicide, yet it will always be said that, despairing of his convic- 
 tion, we strangled him in prison!”” Asa matter of course, Savary 
 denies that he himself knew anything of the matter, and that 
 Pichegru was murdered at all; but he confesses at the same time, 
 that the belief of assassination was universal, and that a high 
 functionary, his own personal friend, spoke of it years afterwards as 
 an undoubted fact, and named the gendarmes in the Temple as the 
 men by whom the deed had been done.’ Among the foreign diplo- 
 matists resident at Paris, no doubt appears to have been entertained 
 as to the manner of the death. One of them, writing to his court, 
 said: “It is evident that Pichegru has been selected as a victim. 
 The history of the Roman emperors of the Lower Empire presents 
 the picture of this country and government ! ”— Dalberg. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 inn LT =————— 
 
 245 
 
 flag, and the high reputation of his country’s navy ; 
 that the French loved and esteemed the brave, 
 and that he and his crew would be treated with 
 all possible kindness.* But there were very 
 different feelings and intentions entertained at 
 Paris. The First Consul was informed that 
 Wright's vessel had been recognised as the same 
 which had landed Pichegru ; and that Wright had 
 been a lieutenant on board Sir Sidney Smith’s 
 ship the ‘Tigre, and had distinguished himself 
 under Sir Sidney in the defence of Acre. Orders 
 were immediately transmitted to the coast to inter- 
 rogate the captured English crew separately, that is, 
 secretly, and by the police; and, when nothing 
 could be got from the English sailors to throw any 
 light on the Pichegru conspiracy, Captain Wright 
 was brought up to Paris, thrown into the Temple, 
 not as a prisoner of war, but as a state prisoner, 
 and there confined aw secret. What followed 
 could be precisely known only to those familiars 
 who possessed the secrets of that prison-house. 
 Captain Wright was once, and only once, seen in 
 public, after his arrival at the Temple. He was 
 brought into court on the 2nd of June, as a wit- 
 ness on Georges’s trial, when, however, he refused 
 to answer any interrogatories, declaring that, as 
 a prisoner of war, as a British officer, he con- 
 sidered himself amenable only to his own govern- 
 ment. We know not how long after this Wright 
 lived, but it was a considerable time ere it was 
 announced in the Moniteur that he had been 
 found one morning in his cell with his throat cut 
 from ear to ear; and that this was another very 
 clear case of suicide. But, again, a great majority 
 of the world, not certainly excepting that of Paris, 
 concluded it was another clear case of assassina- 
 tion. -And, in fact, the probabilities of Wright’s 
 having destroyed himself were still less than 
 the probabilities in Pichegru’s case. The French 
 general, whose character was blemished and 
 whose fortunes were utterly ruined, had a great 
 deal to depress his spirits; but the English cap- 
 tain once out of the Temple, might have been 
 exchanged by cartel; and once restored to his 
 country, must have obtained honours and promo- 
 tion. Those who knew him well spoke of him as 
 a buoyant, light-hearted, jovial sailor—the least 
 likely man in the world to be easily cast down or 
 driven to a cowardly despair. Whatever may 
 have been the threats employed, it was not prob- 
 able that he should readily believe they would 
 be put into execution against him; and we know 
 that during a part of his captivity he anticipated 
 an ultimate release, and that he employed himself 
 in drawing up a spirited narrative of the circum- 
 stances of the capture of his ship, in order to 
 refute the mendacious accounts given of that affair 
 in the Moniteur.t There is, however, a case in 
 
 ~ 
 
 * James, Nayal History. é 
 
 + After the restoration of the Bourbons, the government of Louis 
 XVIII. restored to Sir Sidney Smith, who was then in Paris, and 
 who always (as we know from his own lips) took the deepest interest 
 in the fate of the gallant officer who had served under him, all 
 Captain Wright’s papers which had been preserved, and among 
 
246 
 
 which we may suppose Wright to have destroyed 
 himself; he may have been so tortured as to have 
 been deprived of his reason, or in the natural dread 
 of a repetition of the torture, he may have raised 
 his hand against his own life. 
 
 Many efforts were made to effect a compromise 
 with Moreau, upon such conditions as would for 
 ever deprive him of the power of being dangerous 
 to the Bonaparte dynasty. Pichegru had been 
 tempted with the perspective of the government 
 of Guiana ; but to Moreau, who was so much more 
 formidable, and, even in his captive state, an object 
 of constant anxiety and alarm, much higher offers 
 were made. Public opinion in Paris, or a portion 
 of that brittle and changeable material, was de- 
 cidedly in his favour; he had numerous partisans 
 among those who still clung to the phantom of 
 the republic; and this, coupled with the embarrass- 
 ment caused to him by his high reputation, was 
 Moreau’s unpardonable crime in the eyes of 
 Bonaparte. He was not treated with the same 
 indecent rigour as the other prisoners; nor 
 would it have been safe so to treat him, for, 
 even in his prison, he received the homage and 
 respect of many of the military, not excepting even 
 those. who were put over him to be his guards 
 and gaolers. But as he persisted in rejecting the 
 tempting overtures that were made to him, it 
 was held necessary to defame him still further, 
 and to confound him, by implication, still more 
 with Pichegru, whose bolder tongue was now 
 silenced for ever, and with Georges-Cadoudal and 
 the other royalists. In an unguarded moment, 
 stung by the Moniteur articles and the pamphlets 
 which were published against him, Moreau wrote 
 & mean and imprudent letter to the First Consul, 
 who forthwith published it, with comments, and 
 striking effect, in the official journal. In this 
 letter, he confessed that he had concealed for some 
 time the discovery he made in 1797 of Pichegru’s 
 correspondence with the Bourbon princes, because 
 he did not like to play the part of a denouncer 
 or informer, and because at that time, Pichegru 
 haying been removed from the command of the 
 army, and peace being established, he could do 
 very little to injure the public cause. But after 
 the events of the 18th Fructidor, feeling that, as 
 a public functionary, he could no longer remain 
 silent, he had communicated to the government of 
 the day all he knew respecting Pichegru’s intrigue, 
 Moreau then went on to allow that during the two 
 last campaigns in Germany, and again since the 
 peace of Lunéville, “distant overtures” had been 
 made to him on the part of the Bourbon princes, 
 but the thing seemed so absurd that he took no 
 notice of the overtures. “I repeat to you, general,” 
 said he, “that, whatever proposition was made to 
 me, I rejected it, and regarded it as the height of 
 madness. When it was represented to me that 
 your absence for the invasion of England would 
 
 them this account of his last action. The spirited, highly national, 
 and characteristic document will be found in vol. xxxv. of the 
 ‘ Naval Chronicle,’ and an extract from it in James’s ‘ Naval History.’ 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ni ‘i 
 
 offer a favourable opportunity for effecting a change 
 in the French government, I invariably answered 
 that the SmnaTE was the authority to which the 
 whole of France would naturally cling in a time 
 of trouble, and that I would be the first to place 
 myself under its orders, [Moreau could not have 
 used words more calculated than these last to 
 exasperate that hatred of the First Consul which 
 chiefly originated in the conviction that Moreau 
 preferred institutions to him, THE MANn.]| To such 
 overtures made to a private individual, who wished 
 to preserve no connection either with the army or 
 with any constituted authority, the only possible 
 answer was a refusal. Betrayal of confidence I 
 disdained. Such a step, always base, becomes 
 doubly odious when the treachery is committed 
 against those to whom we owe gratitude, or with 
 whom we have been bound by old friendship, 
 This, general, is all I have to tell you respecting 
 my relations with Pichegru, and it must convince 
 you that very false and hasty inferences have been 
 drawn from conduct which, though perhaps im- 
 prudent, was far from being criminal.” 
 
 Very different, again, was the treatment and 
 conduct of Georges-Cadoudal; though, even in his 
 case, attempts were at one moment made at com- 
 promise and conciliation. Bonaparte himself con- 
 fessed this fact, expressing a wondrous admiration 
 of the determined character of the Chouan chief. 
 “Georges is a man of the right stamp,” said he; 
 “in my hands, he might have done great things! 
 I made Réal inform him that if he would attach 
 himself to me, I would not only give him a pardon, 
 but a regiment besides, What do I say? I would 
 have made him one of my aides-de-camp, But 
 Georges refused everything. He is a bar of iron, 
 What can I now do with him? He must undergo 
 his fate, for such a man is too dangerous. He 
 must die—it is a necessity of my situation.”* In 
 the Temple, the Chouan chief was loaded with 
 irons, and was visited out of curiosity in his cell 
 as though he had been a wild beast. But it was 
 not manacles and fetters that could bear down 
 the robust frame and the high spirit of the Breton; 
 and Georges kept up the hearts of his companions, 
 Some of these were Bretons like himself, peasants 
 who had been born and bred up with him, 
 who had followed him in many a dangerous 
 expedition against the “ Blues,” who worshipped 
 the white cockade in his hat as they would a 
 religious relic, and who looked up to him with 
 the same feeling with which our Highland clans 
 regarded their chiefs. When they had to go 
 
 from the Temple to the Conciergerie, which con- | 
 
 tinued to be the vestibule to the criminal courts, 
 Georges harangued them in a style admirably 
 adapted to keep them steady and bold, “When 
 you feel your courage failing,” said he, “look at 
 me, and think that I am with you. My fate 
 will be the same as yours: all our fates must 
 be the same, Let that consideration encourage 
 
 * Bourrienne. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 \ 
 ¥ 
 4 
 
 ‘a 
 r 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 and cheer us. 
 
 Let us be kind and indulgent 
 towards one another. Let our common destiny 
 give new force to our affection, Let us not look 
 back on the past; we are only now just as God 
 willed we should be. With our dying breath, let 
 us offer up a prayer that our country may be 
 happy under the paternal sceptre of the restored 
 Bourbons. Let us not forget, my boys, that the 
 prison we are now going to quit is that which 
 Louis XVI. left only to mount the scaffold !” * 
 
 Previous to the trial, a decree of the senate 
 suspended for two years the functions of the jury 
 in cases of attempts against the person of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. This senatus consultum was promul- 
 gated twelve days after the arrest of Moreau. The 
 Suspension applied only to the particular case 
 mentioned, trial by jury remaining for all offences 
 except those against the person of the First Consul. 
 Nor were the conspirators to be tried by the 
 ordinary criminal court. They were to be brought 
 before a special tribunal, where the judges were 
 selected ad hoc by Bonaparte, Regnier, Fouché, 
 and Réal, and where the voice of those judges was 
 to pronounce life or death. The senatus consultum 
 received on the very day after its promulgation an 
 extension or addition, assimilating to Georges and 
 his accomplices whosoever might have given any 
 of them an asylum, and rendering such persons 
 liable to the same capital punishment, without 
 making any distinction in favour of consanguinity, 
 or of any of those natural and sacred ties which 
 arise out of friendship or gratitude, and which are 
 strongest in the hour of adversity. 
 
 The trial began on the 28th of May, a few days 
 after Bonaparte had changed the title of First 
 Consul into that of Emperor. The republican 
 Moreau was arraigned with Georges-Cadoudal and 
 his Chouans, with the two Polignacs, the Marquis 
 de Riviere, Bouvet de Lozier, and the other 
 royalist gentlemen and officers, including, for 
 appearance’ sake, General Lajolais, who had been 
 all along in the pay of the secret police, and 
 who had led Pichegru and all the rest into the 
 snare, The president of the special court was 
 Hémart, who had voted for the death of Louis 
 XVI.; the notorious Thuriot, who had given the 
 Same vote, was one of the leading and the most 
 violent of the judges ; and a third Conventionist, 
 Merlin-de-Douai, who had also voted for the 
 death of Louis, was the imperial attorney-general. 
 Merlin tortured his ingenuity to fasten an appear- 
 ance of guilt on the laurels of Moreau, invoking 
 the vengeance of the law upon him as a traitor to 
 his country, a conspirator in the pay of England, 
 &e. But everything seemed to fail. The general 
 admitted that he had seen Pichegru more than 
 once since that unfortunate man’s return from 
 London; but he solemnly denied having ever 
 had any intercourse with Georges; and upon this 
 latter point the only evidence produced was that 
 of Lajolais and another sham conspirator, who, 
 
 * Capefigue, Le Consulat et L’Empire.—Bourrienne. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 247 
 
 like him, had been employed by the police. 
 Scarcely one of the hundred and thirty-nine 
 witnesses who were heard for the prosecution 
 knew Moreau, except by sight; and he himself 
 declared, on the fourth day of the trial, that there 
 was not an individual among the accused now 
 arraigned with him that he had known or had ever 
 seen before his arrest. Thuriot made the most 
 strenuous efforts to extort false admissions, and to 
 force contradictions ; but he had no success: he 
 could elicit no fact of any consequence to the 
 prejudice of the general—he could elicit nothing 
 beyond what Moreau had confessed in his letter to 
 the Consul, always excepting the depositions of 
 Lajolais and the other paid agent of the police. 
 If Pichegru had been alive, one of the disclosures 
 he would have made would have been that of the 
 real character of Lajolais; and hence, it is pre- 
 sumed, had arisen one of the urgent necessities of 
 getting Pichegru out of the way before the trial. 
 When he was pressed with the charges of having 
 designed to make himself a dictator, and of having 
 accumulated enormous wealth in his different com- 
 mands, Moreau exclaimed: “I dictator! What! 
 make myself dictator at the head of a few parti- 
 sans of the Bourbons! I, a known and steady 
 republican! Point out my partisans! My parti- 
 sans would naturally have been the soldiers of 
 France, of whom in my time I have commanded 
 nine-tenths, and of whom I have saved more than 
 fifty thousand! If I had wanted partisans, those 
 are the men I should have looked to! All my 
 aides-de-camp, all the officers of my acquaintance, 
 have been arrested ; but not a shadow of a suspi- 
 cion could be found against any one of them, and 
 they have all been set at liberty. Why, then, attri- 
 bute to me the madness of aiming to get myself 
 made dictator by the aid of these partisans of the 
 old French princes—of these men who have been 
 fighting for the cause of royalty ever since 1792? 
 You allege that these men, in the short space of 
 four-and-twenty hours, formed the project of 
 raising me to the dictatorship! Can any one 
 be so mad as to believe it?.... My fortune 
 and my pay have been alluded to, I began the 
 world with nothing; I might have had by this 
 time 50,000,000 of francs; I have merely a house 
 and a bit of ground; as to my pay, it is 40,000 
 francs, and surely that sum will not be compared 
 with my services!” The satellites of Bonaparte, 
 and his police above all, began to dread an 
 acquittal for Moreau; and indeed for several 
 days, there was doubt and indecision, all the 
 judges but two looking out for some subterfuge 
 or compromise by which they might gratify the 
 emperor without doing too much violence to their 
 own consciences, or too much injury to their own 
 reputations.* 
 
 As for Georges-Cadoudal, they had all fully 
 determined that he should die, and his behaviour 
 on the trial had no tendency to make the judges 
 
 * “Témoignage @’un Témoin Oculaire,” as cited by Capefigue. 
 
248 
 
 change their mind.* The Marquis de Riviere took 
 pride in repeating that he was aide-de-camp to the 
 Count d’Artois, and a devoted royalist. He said 
 that he was no conspirator; that he had never 
 intended to attack the person of the First Consul ; 
 that his royal highness, his master, had sent him 
 to Paris to examine whether the reports sent to 
 him were true; or whether he was deceived by 
 false agents, “That,” said he, “was my only 
 mission, and I undertook it without hesitation.” 
 Armand de Polignac, the elder of the two brothers, 
 implored that he might die, and that Jules might 
 be saved, in consideration of his youth, if not of 
 his innocence; and Jules de Polignac reversed 
 the prayer, saying that he was a single man, 
 and that his brother Armand had a wife to weep 
 for him. The whole trial occupied ten days, and 
 each day the crowd seemed to increase in the 
 court. On Sunday morning, the 10th of June, 
 sentence of death was passed upon Georges- 
 Cadoudal, Bouvet de Lozier, Lajolais, Armand de 
 Polignac, and sixteen others; while Moreau,t 
 Jules de Polignac, and three others were con- 
 demned to two years’ imprisonment. The rest 
 of the prisoners—twenty-two in number—were 
 acquitted ; but the police seized them on coming 
 out of court, and threw them into prison again 
 by order of Bonaparte. As soon as the decrees 
 of the special tribunal were delivered, Murat 
 hurried to his brother-in-law, and conjured him 
 in the most urgent manner to pardon all the 
 condemned, observing, that such an act of cle- 
 mency would gain popularity for the newly 
 founded empire; that it would be said the 
 Emperor pardoned the attempts against the life 
 of the First Consul; that the pardon would be 
 glorious, and more valuable ‘than any security 
 to be obtained by executions. Other interces- 
 sions were made by Bonaparte’s wife and sisters, 
 by Madame Armand de Polignac, and several of 
 his generals and aides-de-camp. Of those capi- 
 tally condemned, the elder Polignac, De Riviére, 
 De Russillon, De Rochelle, D’Hozier, Bouvet de 
 Lozier, and Lajolais, all the gentlemen of the party, 
 except Georges and Coster-Saint-Victor, were re- 
 prieved. The rest were led to execution on the 
 25th of June, two days after the promulgation 
 
 * He treated the old Conventionists that had voted for the king’s 
 death, and that were now sitting on the bench, with the greatest con- 
 tempt, often calling Thuriot Monsieur Tue-Roi, Mr. Kill-King; and, 
 after pronouncing his name, or being forced to reply to his interro- 
 gatories, he would ask for a small glass of eau-de-vie, in order to wash 
 his mouth. When President Hémart asked him whether he had 
 anything to reply to the witnesses for the prosecution, he answered 
 with a sonorous ‘‘ No!” To other questions he replied: ** Where is 
 the use of all these formalities? You are Blues; I am White. 
 Only certify my identity, and act towards me as the Blues used to 
 do to the Whites in the Vendée and in Brittany: three bullets in the 
 head will be enough, so let us have no more talk about it.” From 
 time to time he turned round to his Chouans and said : ‘Courage, 
 my boys!” And the courage of those primitive royalists appears 
 not to have forsaken them; not one of those rude peasants made 
 any confession, or any attempt to save himself by accusing others, 
 Bouvet de Lozier, who babbled in the Temple after the vain attempt 
 to hang himself, was not a rude peasant, but a fine-bred gentleman. 
 - + Bonaparte said to Bourrienne: ‘It is unnecessary to affirm to 
 you that Moreau never should have perished on a scaffold. Most 
 assuredly I would have pardoned him; but, with the sentence 
 of death hanging over his head, he could no longer have proved 
 dangerous; and his name would have ceased to be a rallying- 
 point for disaffected republicans or imbecile royalists,” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 +a 
 
 [Book X 
 
 of the reprieve of their associates. The courage 
 
 and resignation of the Bretons did not forsake them 
 at the guillotine ; and Georges-Cadoudal, learning 
 that it was rumoured he had received a pardon 
 at the foot of the scaffold, entreated and obtained 
 permission to die the first, in order that his faith- 
 ful followers might have full assurance that he 
 was not going to desert them—that they were all 
 going together to look through the little window 
 of the guillotine into a world where no Bonapartes, 
 or Fouchés, or Lajolais could trouble them more. 
 In a trice, the bold bull-likeshead of the Chouan 
 chief was severed from his robust and life-full 
 body, and lying in the basket awaiting the heads 
 of his followers. As to Moreau, it was proposed 
 to him, and he consented, to exchange his two 
 years of imprisonment for banishment, Savary 
 being the agent employed by Bonaparte and 
 Fouché to conduct this secret negotiation. His 
 house and bit of ground were bought by the govern- 
 ment, and an officer of Savary’s gendarmes Wélite 
 conducted the man universally esteemed the best 
 general next to Bonaparte, through France and 
 Spain to Cadiz, where he embarked with his wife 
 and family for the United States. The other 
 prisoners were detained, some for long and some 
 for shorter periods, in different fortresses, and were 
 afterwards kept under Fouché’s lynx-eyed sur- 
 veillance. Some of them died under the empire 
 and in this restraint; and others survived to 
 figure in the world when the empire was no more, 
 and when Bonaparte was a prisoner in the lonely 
 isle, or dead. 
 
 One of the desired effects of the first announce- 
 ment of the discovery of this Pichegru, Georges- 
 Cadoudal, and Moreau conspiracy, was the arrival 
 of shoals of addresses from the army, the depart- 
 ments, the towns and communes of France, all 
 
 congratulating the First Consul, who had run no- 
 
 danger at all, on the imminent dangers he had 
 escaped; and nearly all recommending greater 
 care of that precious life for the future, with the 
 adoption of the means best calculated to put his 
 person and government beyond the reach of con- 
 spirators. While these things were pouring in, 
 and while the Moniteur was keeping up the alarm, 
 and representing the hard fate of France if another 
 revolution should happen, and if the First Consul 
 
 should be taken from them, Curée, an old Con-_ 
 
 ventionist, rose in the tribunate, and moved to 
 bestow upon Napoleon Bonaparte the title of 
 emperor, with the hereditary succession in his 
 family, even as the succession was hereditary in the 
 other royal lines of Europe. Curée had his lesson 
 
 beforehand ; but he spoke as if on the inspira- 
 
 tion of the moment, and with spontaneous warmth, 
 annouucing that one of the grand objects of the 
 whole revolution was to re-establish royalty in a 
 great man—in a saviour like Napoleon. Although 
 there was not a man among the tribunes but had 
 taken the king-renouncing oath, and had sworn to 
 live with the republic, or die with it, the place 
 immediately resounded with the cries “It is true! 
 
 ZF 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 It is true! We want an hereditary monarch! 
 Long live the Emperor! Let us vote instantly, 
 and proclaim Napoleon Emperor of the French !” 
 OCurée’s motion was supported by Simeon, a lawyer 
 from Aix, who had served the Convention, and who 
 now declared “ that monarchy was the only thing 
 that could put an end to anarchy ; that ten years 
 of misery and turbulence, and four years of hope 
 and improvement, had fully demonstrated the in- 
 conveniences of the government of many and the 
 advantages of the government of one sole man.” 
 From the beginning, it was sure to come to this; 
 but yet it was startling to see the frankness of the 
 avowal, and to hear how pesunsigsucally, these 
 republican tribunes shouted ‘ * Yes, we want the 
 government of one sole man!” ‘This passed on 
 the 3rd of April; and it appears that on this day 
 there was not one single member of the tribunate 
 that had honesty or courage enough to give utter- 
 ance to a dissentient voice. It was, however, 
 deemed decent not to divide on the great question 
 at once, but to fix the 10th of April for its final 
 settlement. On the 6th, the very day on which 
 Pichegru was found strangled, the senate assem- 
 bled, to take into consideration a message from the 
 First Consul, which pointed as clearly to the here- 
 ditary throne as the loadstone points to the pole. 
 The senate named a committee of ten to prepare 
 a report on the message, wishing the tribunate to 
 finish its discussions before they should cry Vive 
 lEmpereur. The senatorial ten were Fouché, 
 Frangois de Neufchateau, Roederer, Lecouteaux- 
 Canteleu, Boissy d’Anglas, Vernier, Vaubois, 
 Fargues, and the two philosophes Laplace and 
 Lacépéde. 
 
 On the appointed 10th of April, the tribunes 
 went on with the motion presented on the 3rd. 
 Curée quoted Roman history to show the necessity 
 of having a sovereign, with an hereditary succes- 
 sion. Four-and-twenty orators, well counted, 
 succeeded one another in the tribune to support 
 Curée’s anti-republican motion, with ready-written 
 speeches which they pulled out of their pockets. 
 One half of them were old Conyentionists and 
 regicides, But one Conventionist and Jacobin, 
 and one member alone of ali the tribunate, raised 
 his voice against the proposition. This minority of 
 one was Carnot, who had equally voted against 
 the consulship for life, and who by these iwo votes 
 condemned himself to want of employment and 
 poverty. His discourse was a poor protét, vain, 
 and without an echo.* Curée’s motion was 
 carried triumphantly, and a committee was 
 named to draw up an address to the senate. 
 This address was carried unanimously on the 
 3rd of May, and was, as a matter of course, 
 adopted unanimously by the senators, who had 
 only been waiting for the paper. The very 
 -next day, the senate felicitated the tribunate on 
 its having made so excellent a use of “ that 
 popular and republican initiative which had been 
 
 * Hist. Parlement. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804, 
 
 249 
 
 delegated to it by the fundamental laws ;” and 
 informed Messieurs the tribunes that the senate 
 as well as themselves wished to raise a new 
 dynasty. And the instant that this was done, the 
 senators voted the answer to the message of the 
 First Consul, which had been drawn up by Fouché 
 and the other members of the Committee of Ten. 
 In this strange document, the senators assumed 
 that the plots of the enemies of France, the 
 internal conspiracies and agitations, rendered 
 indispensable a monarchic hereditary government. 
 It declared that the experience of fifteen years 
 of revolution made men sigh and long for the 
 shelter of a fixed unchangeable throne; and that 
 the love of the French people for the person of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, transmitted to his successors 
 with the immortal glory of his name, would unite 
 for ever the rights of the nation to the power of 
 the prince. A contract was spoken of, but what 
 it was to be the senators did not explain. They 
 mentioned not a word about guarantee or con- 
 stitutional security and limitation, or about the 
 necessity of providing restrictions on successors to 
 the imperial throne who might not be so great 
 and good as Napoleon Bonaparte. The only reser- 
 vation hinted at was one in favour of themselves ; 
 but that was easily overcome by their master. He 
 showed no eager haste for the senatus consultum 
 which was to complete the work of his elevation 
 to the throne. But, in the meanwhile, monarchic 
 addresses, prayers for his immediately ascending 
 that throne, continued to arrive from all parts, and 
 the Moniteur, day after day, published the most 
 striking of them. ‘The corps législatif was not 
 sitting at this moment, but Fontanes, the pet poet 
 and lover of Eliza Bonaparte, collected together 
 all the members of that legislature that chanced 
 to be in Paris, drew up an address for them, 
 stating that their wishes coincided with the wishes 
 of the tribunate and the senate, and then, as 
 president, went up to the ‘Tuileries with the 
 address. Cambacérés, the Second Consul, who 
 had always played the complaisant part, showed 
 himself particularly eager in the council of state, 
 and afterwards in the senate, “to become the 
 exalted subject of him who had been his first 
 colleague in the consulate.” He presided on the 
 18th of May, when the senate proceeded to finish 
 the business by passing an “ Organic Senatus 
 Consultum,” deferring (déférer) the imperial crown 
 in conformity with “ the addresses of the tribunals, 
 the administrative bodies, the municipalities, the 
 army, and the spontaneous cry of all good citizens.” 
 In the explanations prefixed to this organic 
 senatus consultum, and in which the senators durst 
 make no allusion to their private demands, their 
 fruitless attempts at bargaining, there was scarcely 
 one Jacobin or republican dogma left unrefuted, or 
 atleast uncondemned; and, again, the terrible plots 
 and conspiracies “of the English and the emigrants, 
 which had been discovered, » were cited as necessi- 
 tating the immediate establishment of an heredi- 
 tary government. All this left little doubt on the 
 
250 
 
 minds of attentive observers, that the late so-called 
 plots and conspiracies had been gotten up by those 
 who made this‘use of them. The first “ ever-endur- 
 ing political principle” which they set forth was, 
 that great states can be governed only by one man— 
 que les grands états ne comportent que le gouvernement 
 dun seul. The enunciation of this grand principle 
 they followed up by a weak attempt at demonstra- 
 tion. “The second grand principle,’ the senators 
 proceeded, “which is equally of common right in 
 political matters, is this, that power must be 
 hereditary in the family chosen by the nation.” 
 And here, as the principle was not altogether 
 so generally received and digested by the people 
 as the preceding one, a proportionately greater 
 quantity of logic and rhetoric was employed to 
 demonstrate and recommend it. The reasonings 
 are long, tedious, and unprofitable ; but the 
 contrast is not uninstructive between the declara- 
 tions of the revolutionists from 1790 down to 
 1794, and those of the Bonapartists in 1804, If 
 the reader turn back to the debates in the Jacobin 
 Club and in the Convention, he will better feel the 
 full force of the contrast. There the doctrine of 
 hereditary succession in any form was questioned. 
 Now, the hereditary quality of a monarchy was 
 maintained to be essential to the existence of 
 France. “ This,’ said the senators, “is the only 
 barrier against factions and intrigues; it places 
 the supreme magistrate in a sanctuary inaccessible 
 to the thoughts and machinations of the ambitious. 
 This hereditary law offends none of our 
 national maxims; and it is in itself alone a grand 
 principle of conservation and of public tranquil- 
 lity!” At first, they had offered to Bonaparte the 
 faculty of naming his successor to the throne, for 
 Josephine, who had children by her marriage with 
 Vicomte de Beauharnais, had had no child by her 
 second husband: but now it was thought expedient 
 to fix the succession, and to declare the imperial 
 throne hereditary in the family of Bonaparte, and 
 in the male line of the emperor’s direct descend- 
 ants (in case he should yet have a son or sons) ; 
 and, failing these direct descendants, then in his 
 brothers Joseph and Louis, and their male 
 descendants, in the order of primogeniture. But 
 as, at Napoleon's express command, the senators 
 who drew up this organic law had excluded from 
 the succession the second and fourth brothers, 
 Lucien and Jerome, because they had given mortal 
 offence by marrying obscure women without 
 Napoleon’s consent; and as the same law-makers 
 felt, or had been told, that, after all, Napoleon, by 
 Some disagreement with Joseph and Louis, might 
 hereafter choose to exclude them as he had 
 excluded Lucien and Jerome, they put into their 
 organic senatus consultum, that the Emperor 
 Napoleon might adopt as his successor the son 
 or grandson of any one of his brothers, provided 
 he should have no male children himself, and 
 provided the adopted heir should have completed 
 his eighteenth year. 
 It was Second Consul Cambacérés who put this 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 organic senatus consultum to the vote; and, when 
 it was carried by acclamation, it was he headed 
 the senate, who en corps, and escorted by different 
 corps of cavalry, hastened to lay it at the feet 
 of the emperor. And when they arrived at the 
 pleasant country palace, it was Cambacérés that 
 delivered the harangue to the emperor, and that 
 went next to congratulate Josephine as empress. 
 Bonaparte was not entirely satisfied either with the 
 organic laws or with the harangue, which had been 
 hurriedly written by another than Cambacérés ; 
 but he knew the entire devotedness of the Second 
 Consul, and that it was not the senate that could 
 prevent his retouching the senatus consultum, if 
 hereafter he should deem it expedient so to do. 
 He replied to the senators, who for the first time 
 had called him Sire and Your Majesty: “ All that 
 can contribute to the welfare of the country is 
 essentially connected with my happiness. I accept 
 the title which you believe to be conducive to the 
 glory of the nation. J submit to the sanction of the 
 people the law of hereditary succession. I hope that 
 France will never repent the honours she may 
 
 confer on my family. At all events, my spirit will | 
 
 not be with my posterity when they cease to merit 
 the confidence and love of the Great Nation.” As 
 there were to be no more consuls, an imperial 
 mandate was given there upon the spot, at St. 
 Cloud, appointing Cambacérés Arch-chancellor of 
 the Empire, and Lebrun, the Third Consul, Arch- 
 treasurer. This first imperial letter, says Bour- 
 rienne, was “characteristic of Bonaparte’s art in 
 managing transitions ;” it was to the citizen and 
 consul that the emperor addressed himself, and his 
 letter was dated according to the ~wrepublican 
 calendar. That calendar, which was dying fast, 
 and the delusive inscription on the coin, were, 
 indeed, all that now remained of the republic, to 
 erect which so much blood had been spilt and so 
 many crimes committed ! 
 
 On the following day, the 19th of May, the | 
 emperor and empress repaired from St. Cloud to — 
 Paris, to hold a grand levee in the Tuileries, and | 
 to hear the enthusiasms of the army and the loud- | 
 
 tongued plaudits of the Parisians. ‘The assemblage 
 
 is described as more numerous and more brilliant | 
 
 than any that the old palace of the Bourbons had 
 
 yet seen ; the applause of the people as spontaneous, — 
 
 unanimous, extatic. In a few days everything in 
 
 court and capital assumed a new aspect; but it — 
 
 was not until Bonaparte secured the services of 
 
 men of the old court, like the Count de Ségur and | 
 Count Louis de Narbonne, that his court began to — 
 On this — 
 19th of May, or his first court-day at the Tuileries, | 
 he issued a decree naming eighteen of his first | 
 
 assume the proper style and elegance, 
 
 generals Marshals of the French Empire. These 
 generals were Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, 
 Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, 
 
 mann, Lefevre, Perignon, and Serrurier. 
 
 Soult, Brune, | 
 Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessiéres, Keller- — 
 And it © 
 was determined that, when addressed verbally, — 
 they should be called Monsieur le Maréchal, and — 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 when in writing, Monscigneur, or My Lord. At the 
 same time each of the French princes and prin- 
 cesses, that is to say, every brother and sister of 
 Bonaparte, received the title of Imperial Highness, 
 and the grand dignitaries of the empire that of 
 Serene Highness. The organic senatus consultum 
 had nicely regulated the functions of all these 
 personages, and had declared their dignities to be 
 for life. They were all to be addressed as Mon- 
 seigneur, &c. Maret, the secretary of state, was to 
 have the rank of minister; and henceforward every 
 minister, as well as the president of the senate, 
 was to be called Your Excellence. Then came 
 the high household appointments, as Grand Mar- 
 shal of the Palace, Master of the Horse, &ec. d&c. &c. 
 To give all possible solemnity to his accession, 
 Bonaparte ordered that the senate itself should 
 announce his accession to the throne, and proclaim 
 in Paris their organic senatus consultum ; and this 
 was done on Sunday the 20th of May, with infinite: 
 pomp and rejoicing. The first decrees of the new 
 sovereign were headed, “ Napoleon, by the grace of 
 God and the constitution of the republic, Emperor 
 of the French,” &c.; but the name of the republic 
 was shortly afterwards dropped altogether. All 
 the public functionaries in France swore fidelity 
 to the new government—it was their sixth oath 
 since 1791, five having in succession been taken 
 and broken, Fresh addresses poured in, numerous 
 and heavy enough to load a wagon, and all con- 
 ceived in the most extravagant language. The 
 authors of them seemed to exhaust their imagina- 
 tion in carrying flattery and adulation to the 
 highest possible point. It is hardly needful to say 
 a word about the reference to the French people 
 to sanction the law of hereditary succession. Some 
 months after Napoleon was seated on the throne, 
 it was reported to him that above three millions of 
 the registered votes of the people approved of the 
 hereditary succession, and that in all France only 
 between three and four thousand votes were con- 
 trary.* There appears to be little doubt that, at 
 the time, the great majority of the French people 
 cared little or nothing about the hereditary ques- 
 tion, and were glad to have the great soldier and 
 conqueror for their lord and master. 
 
 Monsieur, or the Count de Lille, or Louis XVIIL, 
 from his secure retreat at Warsaw, addressed, not 
 to the French people, but to the sovereigns of 
 Europe, a protest against the usurpation of his 
 throne, Fouché, who was the first to hear of this 
 protest, feared that copies might be multiplied and 
 distributed among the aristocrats and the Bourbon 
 royalists of the Faubourg St. Germain, and lead 
 to some explosions against the emperor's infant 
 government. But Bonaparte treated it with con- 
 tempt, saying: “The Bourbons ought to know by 
 this time that I do not fear them. .. . Did you say 
 that the fools of the Faubourg St. Germain will 
 multiply copies of the protest? Well, they shall 
 read it at their ease. Send it to the Moniteur, 
 
 * This report was presented by the senate on the Ist of December. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804, 
 
 —————_— ae Rg 
 
 251 
 
 Fouché ; send it to the Moniteur, and let it be 
 inserted to-morrow morning.” And, accordingly, 
 the protest appeared in the official newspaper. It 
 would have been well for the fame of this extra- 
 ordinary man, if he could always have treated in 
 the same manner the dark suggestions of his police 
 minister, and if he could always have felt that, so 
 long as he had a sword and the French army with 
 him, he had nothing to fear from the old noblesse 
 or from the Bourbon princes. It would not be 
 easy to prove that Bonaparte was in reality any 
 stronger or more secure on the 29th of June, when 
 he held this conversation with Fouché, than he 
 was on the 21st of March, when the Duke d’Enghien 
 was murdered. 
 
 In the month of July, Bonaparte left Paris to 
 visit the camp at Boulogne, and the so-called Army 
 of England. The alleged object of the journey was 
 the distribution of the crosses of the Legion of 
 Honour to the worthiest soldiers in the camp, but 
 he had other and more serious objects in view: 
 he suspected long before this that a new coalition 
 was in the course of formation; the insults he 
 had offered to the Emperor Alexander were not 
 likely to be borne long by a young and powerful 
 sovereign ; the King of Sweden had maintained a 
 threatening tone ever since the catastrophe of the 
 Duke d’Enghien, and though Sweden was but 
 little formidable in herself, there were very evident 
 grounds for believing that she was supported by 
 Russia; and even the spiritless, shuffling cabinet 
 of Berlin had changed its tone of deference for 
 one almost of defiance, and was increasing its army 
 day by day. Therefore, what Bonaparte proposed 
 to himself in this visit to the coast was to excite 
 more and more the enthusiasm of his own army, 
 to show himself to it, invested with his new impe- 
 rial dignity, under striking, picturesque, and dra- 
 matic circumstances, and to dispose that great and 
 highly disciplined army to a prompt and enthu- 
 siastical obedience of the first signal he might give. 
 And he was received in the camp with an enthu- 
 siasm that fully responded to his wish, <A day of 
 grand parade followed, of sports and spectacles,* 
 
 * Nothing was omitted by the great master that might tend to 
 keep up the enthusiastic feelings of the soldiery. Everything was 
 dramatic, and the stage and the scene were admirably chosen. 
 Painters had been consulted, actors had been consulted, beforehand, 
 and Bonaparte’s early and intimate friend Talma, the John Kemble 
 of France, was believed to possess in perfection the art of represent- 
 ing classical heroes and Roman emperors. ‘* When he reviewed 
 the troops,” says Bourrienne, ‘‘he asked the officers, and often 
 the soldiers, in what battles they had been engaged, and to those 
 who had received serious wounds he gave the cross, Here, I 
 think, I may appropriately mention a singular piece of charla- 
 tanism to which the emperor had recourse, and which powerfully 
 contributed to augment the enthusiasm of his troops. He would 
 say to one of his aides-de-camp: ‘ Ascertain from the colonel of 
 such a regiment whether he has in his corps a man who has served 
 in the campaigns of Italy or the campaigns of Egypt. Ascertain 
 his name, where he was born, the particulars of his family, 
 and what he has doné. Learn his number in the ranks, and 
 to what company he belongs, and furnish me with the informa- 
 tion.’ On the day of the review, Bonaparte, at a single glance, 
 could perceive the man who had been described to him. He would 
 go up to him as if he recognised him, address him by his name, and 
 say: ‘Oh! so youare here! You are a brave fellow—I saw you at 
 Aboukir—how is your old father? What! have you not got the 
 cross? Stay, I will give it you.’ Then the delighted soldiers would 
 say to each other : ‘ You see the emperor knows us all; he knows our 
 families; he knows where we have served.’ What a stimulus = 
 this to soldiers, whom he succeeded in persttading that they woulc 
 all, some time or other, become marshals of the empire - 
 
252 
 
 on which, amidst the plaudits of his soldiery, he 
 distributed the crosses of the Legion of Honour, 
 now impressed with his effigies as emperor, and 
 delivered the form of oath to be taken by the 
 members of the Legion, 
 
 From the camp of Boulogne, Bonaparte proceeded 
 in great state along the coast into Belgium, where 
 he met his empress, Josephine ; and from Belgium 
 he continued his journey along the country bor- 
 dering on the Rhine. In whatever town he stopped, 
 addresses were presented to him. All these orations 
 carried flattery to an extravagant height, but the 
 orator generally believed to have surpassed all his 
 competitors was a M. de la Chaise, prefect of Arras 
 (the birthplace, and long the residence, of the 
 Robespierres), who said; “GoD MADE BONAPARTE, 
 AND THEN RESTED !” 
 
 From Mayence, Bonaparte despatched to Rome 
 his aide-de-camp and general of brigade Caffarelli, 
 to engage the pope to come in person to Paris and 
 crown the new emperor in Notre Dame, where 
 Napoleon, as First Consul, had inaugurated the 
 Concordat, Caffarelli appears to have been chosen 
 for this delicate mission on account of various 
 qualifications : he was of Italian descent ; he spoke 
 the language well, having served for some time in 
 the Piedmontese army of the King of Sardinia ; 
 he had a brother who had been a priest ; and he 
 possessed a great deal of cunning and address, 
 The petty princes whose states bordered on the 
 Rhine, and whose fates were at his disposal, 
 waited upon him, and abjectly prostrated them- 
 selves before him, engaging, when called upon, to 
 join their troops to the victorious and invincible 
 army of their “ Protector.” Bonaparte, in fact, at 
 this time received the congratulations of all the 
 powers of Europe excepting England, Russia, 
 and Sweden; for Prussia was again shuffling, or 
 playing a double game. He returned to St. Cloud 
 in October; and the defenceless old pope, who 
 knew what would be the effect of a refusal, and 
 whose conclave of cardinals could not withstand 
 the arguments of the knowing Caffarelli, arrived 
 at Fontainebleau in November. For some short 
 time the mind of Bonaparte and his court and 
 government seemed to be wholly absorbed by the 
 coronation, Artists were consulted and employed 
 to organise the ceremony; the whole show was 
 carefully arranged for effect, and actually rehearsed 
 in the grand gallery of the Tuileries. Bonaparte 
 determined that Josephine should be crowned 
 with him. But the pope protested that he could 
 not depart from the canons of the church, and 
 anoint, and consecrate, and give the sacrament 
 to a lady who had not been canonically mar- 
 ried, but only civilly, as was the case between 
 Josephine and Bonaparte. This was on the very 
 eve of the coronation. Bonaparte fell into one 
 of his furies; but here the pontiff was not to be 
 
 moved: the marriage must be sanctified by the 
 church, and he- must have the assurance that the 
 benediction of a priest had been given to it, or 
 The 
 
 he would not officiate at the coronation. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X. 
 
 emperor's uncle stepped in as moderator, showing 
 that the pope’s scruple might be removed without 
 any public scene. At midnight, Bonaparte and 
 Josephine, or the emperor and empress, received 
 the nuptial benediction from Cardinal Fesch, none 
 being present except M. Portalis, minister for the 
 department of religion, and Duroc, the grand 
 marshal of the palace. The rest of the Tuileries, or 
 of the world, for that present, knew nothing of the 
 matter ; but the cardinal uncle waited upon the 
 head of the Catholic church to inform him that 
 the marriage had been celebrated according to the 
 canons, and thereupon the pope agreed to crown 
 Josephine.* 
 
 Some wecks before this time, a circular letter 
 had been addressed by the emperor to all such as 
 from their employment or situation were expected 
 to attend in Notre Dame. For weeks before the 
 coronation, every diligence that arrived from the 
 departments brought up the visitors, Paris had 
 never been so crammed as it was on the 2nd of 
 December, 1804, the grand coronation-day. The 
 ceremony itself was a mixture of the old sacre of 
 the kings of the Bourbon line, and of the more 
 ancient coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne, 
 to whom Bonaparte wished to assimilate himself, 
 That the performance might be complete, that 
 none of the rites used in crowning the old king 
 might be wanting, the unbelieving Napoleon took 
 the communion with his wife, who sat by the side 
 of the throne on a simple fauteuil. At the end of 
 the ceremony, the New Testament, or the book of 
 the Evangelists, being presented to the emperor on 
 the throne, he took ‘off his glove, and pronounced 
 his coronation oath, with his hand upon the sacred 
 book, The grand finale was performed by heralds, 
 who, turning towards the four quarters of the hemi- 
 sphere, proclaimed that the “thrice glorious and 
 thrice august Napoleon, Emperor of the French, 
 was crowned and installed.” 
 low Jacobin murmurs were heard, and that the 
 countenances of Augereau and Bernadotte were 
 
 clouded ; but the whispers were drowned in the — 
 
 general ‘acclamations, and in the roar of one 
 hundred and one pieces of artillery. 
 
 The day after the coronation, all the troops in 
 Paris were assembled in the Champ de Mars, which 
 had witnessed so many republican celebrations and 
 
 oath-takings, in order that imperial eagles might be 
 
 It is said that a few — 
 
 4 
 a 
 
 distributed to the regiments, in lieu of the national — 
 flags. Near where the altar of the country and the — 
 
 plaster figure of Liberty had once stood, and in 
 
 front of the military school, where Bonaparte had 
 
 lived for some time an unfricrided poor student—so 
 poor that he could share in none of the luxuries, 
 
 or comforts, or amusements of his fellow-students — 
 
 —a splendid throne was erected; and at a given 
 
 * Capefigue, who states that he received this information from 
 Count Portalis, the son of the Ministre des Cultes, one of the 
 witnesses present at the midnight marriage. 
 
 When, in 1809, Bonaparte divorced Josephine, the defect ot 
 publicity—the secret, nocturnal, and irregular manner in which 
 
 the ceremony was per formed—wi as cited as one of the valid grounds — 
 
 for annulling the marriage! 
 
 we 
 Ow —— 
 
Guar. VIILJ 
 
 signal, all the columns closed and approached that 
 throne ; and then Bonaparte, rising, ordered the 
 eagles to be distributed, saying: “Soldiers! behold 
 your standards, ‘These eagles will always be your 
 rallying-point. They will always be where your 
 emperor may think it necessary for the defence 
 of his throne and his people. Swear to sacrifice 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 253 
 
 your lives in defending them. Swear, by your 
 courage, to keep them constantly in the path of 
 victory. Swear!” The enthusiasm was as great 
 as it had been at the camp of Boulogne. 
 
 There now followed a rapid creation of nobility. 
 Princes, dukes, counts, barons, started up as by a 
 touch of harlequin’s wand, It was so very easy, 
 
 “i jl uli li 
 Nitta \ 
 Pact i 
 
 : 4) 
 4 
 ~ 
 
 4 UES 
 WF" 7 EN 
 
 Uti 
 AS 
 
 SION. 
 
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 ut 
 
 fa 
 
 fs YG D2 ST 
 FEcOe i 
 x a Hi 
 
 A 
 
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 | ee 
 SMM =~ eo 
 
 nm a 
 MULTE) :5 mth 
 ELA Ui 
 
 TM 
 
 CORONATION OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 too, to overcome the scruples of the ex-republicans, 
 Jacobins, and sans-culottes. “You began your 
 revolution,” said the emperor, “in order to over- 
 throw the castes and privileged ranks above you, 
 and in order that you might stand on a footing of 
 equality with the old noblesse. I will give you 
 something better than equality—I will establish 
 inequality in your favour. The Montmorencys, 
 the Trémouilles, and all those ancient families, are 
 now legally nothing in the state but simple 
 bourgeois, for the titles of the ancient régime and 
 the high places at court shall be possessed by 
 men of the meanest names, if it so pleases the 
 emperor |” * 
 
 It was not surprising that Bonaparte should 
 hate the negroes, That imitative race, the blacks 
 of St. Domingo, who had so amusingly parodied 
 the republic and the consulate, now parodied the 
 empire, ‘The negro Dessalines, who, for the pre- 
 sent, had taken the start of Christophe, and had 
 succeeded to the power of Toussaint Louverture, as 
 soon as he heard of Bonaparte’s move, and of the 
 deliberations of the tribunate, corps législatif, and 
 
 * Madame de Staél, Considérations, 
 
 senate at Paris, caused himself to be elected and 
 proclaimed emperor, and, as soon as the lists of the 
 French peerage-batches reached him, this negro 
 emperor began making batches of his own, and 
 copying the imperial court at the Tuileries with 
 all its titles, appendages, and rigorous etiquette. 
 The white emperor was furious at his black 
 imitator ; and the malicious English newspapers, 
 which he still continued to have translated to him, 
 would not let so happy a subject drop very soon, 
 Shortly after his ‘coronation, Bonaparte ad- 
 dressed another letter to George III. personally, 
 under the title of “ Sir, and Brother,” the professed 
 object of which was to prove that France and 
 England ought to be at peace, and that he, the em- 
 peror, was weary of war.* The king of England’s 
 
 * The letter, which was dated the 2nd of January, 1805, was to 
 this effect: ‘Called to the throne of France by Providence, and the 
 suffrages of the senate, the people, and the army, my first senti- 
 ment is a wish for peace. France and England abuse their pros- 
 perity. They may contend for ages; but do their governments 
 well fulfil the most sacred of their duties, and will not so much 
 blood, shed usclessly, and without a view to any end, condemn 
 them in their own consciences? I consider it no disgrace to make 
 the first step. I have, I hope, sufficiently proved to the world that 
 I fear none of the chances of war; it, besides, presents nothing 
 that I need fear: peace is the wish of my heart, but war has never 
 been inconsistent with my glory. I conjure your majesty not to 
 
254 
 
 answer was returned in a diplomatic note, 
 addressed by Lord Mulgrave, our secretary of 
 state for foreign affairs, to Talleyrand, who con- 
 tinued to fill that office in France, generally 
 declaring that there was no object which his 
 Britannic majesty had more at heart than to avail 
 himself of the first opportunity to procure the 
 advantages of a peace founded on bases not 
 incompatible with the permanent security and 
 essential interests of his dominions; but that he 
 was persuaded that this end could only be attained 
 by arrangements which might at the same time 
 provide for the future safety and tranquillity of 
 Europe. These general expressions were followed 
 by something very like a direct intimation of the 
 European coalition, which was forming, notwith- 
 standing Bonaparte’s assurance that the continent 
 would remain tranquil. “His majesty feels it is 
 impossible,” said the letter, “for him to answer 
 more particularly to the overture that has been 
 made him, till he has had time to communicate 
 with the powers on the continent, with whom he 
 is engaged in confidential connections and rela- 
 tions, and particularly the Emperor of Russia, who 
 has given the strongest proofs of the wisdom and 
 elevation of the sentiments with which he is 
 animated, and the lively interest which he takes 
 in the safety and independence of the continent,” 
 Without this intimation, Bonaparte knew well 
 that a storm was gathering in the North, and he 
 was eager to confront it, having greatly miscalcu- 
 lated the military means of the young czar, and 
 the valour and steadiness of the Russian troops; 
 and he had counted confidently on an easy 
 triumph over the Calmuc and Cossack hordes. As 
 Bonaparte could scarcely but know that the King 
 of England was unable, by the constitution of his 
 country, to answer his letter, it seems most probable 
 that, in addressing him, he only desired an oppor- 
 tunity of addressing the sovereign of Great Britain 
 as an equal; to give the French people to believe 
 that he wished for peace—that he was desirous of 
 commencing his empire with pacific negotiations ; 
 and to throw the blame of the continuance of the 
 war on the implacable hatred of England. He 
 
 deny yourself the happiness of giving peace to the world, nor to 
 leave that sweet satisfaction to your children: for certainly there 
 never was a more fortunate opportunity, nor a moment more 
 favourable, to silence all the passions, and listen only to the senti- 
 ments of humanity and reason. This moment once lost, what end 
 can be assigned to a war which all my efforts will not be able to 
 terminate? Your majesty has gained more within ten years, both 
 in territory and riches, than the whole extent of Europe. Your 
 nation is at the highest point of prosperity; what can it hope from 
 war !—To form a coalition with some powers of the continent ?— 
 The continent will remain tranquil: a coalition can only increase 
 the preponderance and continental greatness of France. To renew 
 intestine troubles ?—The times are no longer the same. To destroy 
 our finances ?—Finances founded on a flourishing agriculture can 
 never be destroyed. To take from France her colonies ?—'The 
 colonies are to France only a secondary object; and does not your 
 majesty already possess more than you know how to preserve? If 
 your majesty would but reflect, you must perceive that the war is 
 without an object, without any presumable result to yourself, 
 Alas! what a melancholy prospect to cause two nations to fight 
 merely for the sake of fighting. The world is sufficiently large for 
 our two nations to live in it, and reason is sufficiently powerful to 
 discover means of reconciling everything, when the wish for recon- 
 ciliation exists on both sides. I have, however, fulfilled a sacred 
 duty, and one which is precious to my heart, I trust your majesty 
 will believe in the sincerity of my sentiments, and my wish to give 
 you every proof of it, &c.—Naro.ron.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X, 
 
 submitted Lord Mulgrave’s note, and a copy of his 
 own letter, to the corps législatif; and then pub- 
 lished them both in the Moniteur, with appro- 
 priate comments.* The same official paper, for 
 which Bonaparte frequently wrote or dictated 
 himself, had continued to deal out satire and 
 ridicule on the sovereigns of Russia and Sweden, 
 in retaliation for their remarks and remonstrances 
 on the murder of the Duke dEnghien; the 
 Emperor Alexander, after some angry notes, had 
 suspended nearly all diplomatic intercourse with 
 Paris, and had invited other princes of the House 
 of Bourbon to join Louis XVIII. in his states ; and 
 the King of Sweden had recalled his ambassador 
 from Paris, and in a publie note delivered to the 
 French envoy at Stockholm, he had expressed his 
 surprise at “the indecent and ridiculous insolencies 
 which Monsieur Napoleon Bonaparte had _per- 
 mitted to be inserted in the Moniteur.” Moreover, 
 both Alexander and Gustavus had demanded 
 compensation for the King of Sardinia, the evacua- 
 tion of the kingdom of Naples, and respect to the 
 neutrality of the states of the Germanic body, with 
 the pledge and assurance that such violations of 
 the territory as had taken place in Baden and in 
 other weak states should not be repeated. 
 
 The rights of neutral states and the law of 
 nations had been most flagrantly violated in 
 numerous instances in the summer and autumn 
 of 1804, Ever since the rupture of the peace of 
 Amiens, Bonaparte had been complaining that the 
 British diplomatic agents resident at the different 
 courts and states of Kurope, were only on the con- 
 tinent to create him enemies among his neigh- 
 bours, and to encourage and promote insurrections 
 and conspiracies in the interior of France, with 
 assassination plots directed against his own person. 
 It is quite certain that our diplomatists were not 
 on the continent to make friends for him ; it was 
 a part of their duty, according to the common 
 practice of war, to embarrass by internal commo- 
 tions the enemy that was threatening to invade 
 England. But in performing this duty, or in 
 communicating with the French partisans of the 
 House of Bourbon, none of them ever contem- 
 plated the employing or encouraging of assassins, 
 Two or three of them appear to have com- 
 mitted the folly of admitting to their confidence 
 secret agents who were in the pay of Bonaparte’s 
 police, or who, to gain credit with their employers, 
 gave a false colouring to the confidential informa- 
 tion they obtained. The most notorious and — 
 successful. of these agents was one Mehée de la 
 Touche, a man who had been cradled, and nursed, 
 and nourished in intrigue, and who at the time 
 when Bonaparte was making his Concordat, had 
 been arrested by an order of the Consul’s, as “a 
 bloody Septembrizer ;” and deported, without any 
 trial, to Oleron, whence he escaped to England, 
 where he succeeded very completely in mystifying 
 
 * Lord Mulgrave’s note was dated on the 14th of January, 
 1805. It was submitted to the corps législatif on the 2nd of 
 
 February of that year. 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 some of our ministry. He made them believe 
 that he was the accredited agent of a powerful 
 royalist party in the west of France, who were 
 determined to overthrow the government of Bona- 
 parte, who only wanted a little encouragement 
 and a little money from England. And money 
 he got—it is said in considerable sums—to- 
 gether with confidential letters to various Eng- 
 lish diplomatists resident in Germany, to which 
 country he soon repaired. But as soon as he 
 reached the continent, he intimated to Réal that 
 he had state secrets to sell, and thereupon was 
 taken into the pay of the secret police, continuing 
 (a fact on which he glorified himself) to receive 
 at the same time allowances from the’ British 
 government, He particularly fastened himself 
 upon Mr. Drake, the British resident at Munich, 
 and upon Mr. Spencer Smith, our envoy at Stutt- 
 gard, Both these gentlemen took Mehée for the 
 
 passionate royalist that he described himself to be, - 
 
 and encouraged him to persevere, suggesting some 
 measures which might contribute to the downfall 
 of Bonaparte, but assuredly not assassination, A 
 second spy, a Captain Rosey, was employed to keep 
 a sharp eye upon all the operations of Mehée, and 
 to serve as an additional witness to the proceedings 
 and plans of the English diplomatists. Yet after all, 
 no evidence could be procured which went beyond 
 this—that Mr. Drake and Mr. Spencer Smith were 
 disposed to give encouragement to the disaffected 
 French. Yet with these slight materials, Bonaparte 
 made his grand judge, Regnier, draw up a report, in 
 which Drake and Smith were accused, not merely 
 of encouraging insurrection, but of keeping in their 
 pay brigands and assassins! and he ordered this 
 report to be laid before every foreign legation in 
 Paris, and many of these embassies publicly pro- 
 tested against the undiplomatic conduct of the 
 two English ministers, and expressed in good 
 round terms the indignation of their governments 
 at the odious profanation of the sacred character 
 of ambassadors, Among these indignant protesters 
 were not only the ministers of helpless dependen- 
 cies, but those of the United States of America and 
 of Prussia. The courts of Bavaria and Wirtemberg 
 did more than protest; for, on the demand of 
 Bonaparte, they ordered Drake and Smith to quit 
 their courts immediately. The whole affair was 
 pretty well understood on the continent; but the 
 English opposition seemed to entertain some 
 doubts. Lord Morpeth called the attention of the 
 House of Commons to the subject of Drake’s 
 correspondence, or of some fragments of it which 
 the French government had published, and which 
 his lordship considered as highly dishonourable to 
 England. He called upon ministers to declare 
 whether they had participated in the atrocious 
 crime with which Bonaparte charged our late 
 minister at Munich. Pitt instantly rose and 
 replied with an indignation in which there was 
 sublimity : “This is gross and atrocious calumny ! 
 I thank the noble lord for giving me the opportu- 
 nity to repel, openly and boldly, one of the most 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1804. 
 
 255 
 
 gross and atrocious calumnies ever fabricated in 
 one civilised nation to the prejudice of another, 
 I affirm that no power has been given, no instruc- 
 tion has been sent, by this government to any 
 minister or any individual to act in a manner con- 
 trary to the law of nations. I again affirm, as well 
 in my own name as in that of my colleagues, that 
 we have not authorised any human being to con- 
 duct himself in a manner contrary to the honour 
 of this country or the dictates of humanity !” 
 Bourrienne, who was sent, about this time, to 
 reside at Hamburg, as Bonaparte’s minister or 
 political agent, positively denies that he ever could 
 discover any ground for believing that the British 
 government, or any of its agents, ever gave their 
 countenance to any assassination plotters. Bour- 
 rienne, who knew well Mehée de la Touche, 
 declares that his character, perfectly well known 
 at Paris, discredited whatever report might come 
 from him; that he had good proof of the fact, that 
 all the correspondence of Drake was the result of 
 the most odious intrigues and deceptions ; and that 
 nothing of the kind could have taken place but 
 for the perfidious suggestions of the agents of 
 police, of whom Mehée was one of the most active 
 and most cunning. The narrative of the efforts of 
 the police to entangle Lord Elgin left on record by 
 Sir Walter Scott, forms a luminous commentary 
 on the practices imputed to Drake and Spencer 
 Smith, The Moniteur declared that Mr, Taylor, 
 our minister in Hesse-Cassel, Mr. Elliot at Naples, 
 Mr, Frere at Madrid, and all the rest of our 
 diplomatists on the continent, entertained precisely 
 the same views as Drake and Spencer Smith, and 
 were all establishing the principle, that to assassi- 
 nate a man commanding an army destined to 
 invade England, was a deed good in itself, and 
 perfectly lawful—a doctrine to which it gave a 
 laboured refutation. It called Sir George Rum- 
 bold the worthy associate of Drake and Spencer 
 Smith, and hinted that discoveries had been made 
 among his papers which would enlighten the 
 world as to the dark policy of England; but it 
 should seem that Sir George was seized only 
 because it was easier to seize him than any other 
 of the remaining English diplomatists. Mr. Taylor, 
 at the court of Hesse-Cassel, had been mentioned 
 before, in connection with Drake and Smith: both 
 Bernadotte and Fouché had written to Bourrienne 
 at Hamburg about him ; but no mention had been 
 made of Sir George Rumbold: and the discoveries 
 which the Moniteur hinted at were never pub- 
 lished—a tolerably good proof that nothing 
 capable of a bad version had been discovered, 
 The circumstances of Sir George’s arrest were of 
 that lawless kind which ought to have closed the 
 lips of the French government to any future com- 
 plaint against the irregularities of other govern- 
 ments, At midnight, on the 25th of October, a party 
 of soldiers landed on the Hamburg territory, and 
 surrounded Sir George’s house at Grindel, at about 
 one o'clock in the morning. On his refusing 
 them admission, they broke open the doors, seized 
 
 SIE SLE Sa ce a 
 
256 
 
 the diplomatist, secured his books and papers, and 
 whatever else was portable, and conveyed him 
 across the Elbe to Harburg, and thence to Hanover 
 and Paris, where he was thrown into the Temple. 
 The King of Prussia was induced to remonstrate : 
 and, as Bonaparte was anxious to keep Prussia 
 neutral until he should have broken up the coali- 
 tion that was threatening him, Sir George was 
 liberated, after lying two days and nights in that 
 wretched state-prison, upon giving his parole not 
 to return to Hamburg. At a late hour at night, 
 an agent of the police, who told him that the 
 French government intended to keep his papers, 
 put him into a coach, which took the road to the 
 coast. He did not feel secure until he found 
 himself on the deck of a British man-of-war, to 
 which he was conveyed in a French cutter with a 
 flag of truce. Such were some of the facts which 
 preceded the Emperor Napoleon’s letter to his 
 “brother ’’ George IIT. 
 
 Before this time, Pitt felt his ministerial condi- 
 tion to be one of extreme difficulty. The mingled 
 opposition, including so many of his own family 
 connections, was collecting all its force; and, 
 shrinking from the collision, or hoping to gain 
 strength in the interval, he put off the assembling 
 of parliament as long as he possibly could. <A 
 severe illness deprived him for some time of the 
 services of his colleague, Lord Harrowby ; and he 
 declared that the loss of this assistance would be 
 a great misfortune, but that he must do as well 
 as he could. An attempt was made to conciliate 
 Lord Grenville ; but it failed; his lordship would 
 not abandon Fox and the Talents, or his pre- 
 conceived notion of a comprehensive ministry. 
 Nothing therefore remained for Chatham’s proud 
 son to do, but to make peace with Addington, who 
 had carried With him no inconsiderable reinforce- 
 ment to the mixed opposition. It is said that 
 the king, who retained his warm partiality for 
 Addington, and who was reasonably alarmed at 
 the weakness of Pitt’s majorities at the close of the 
 last session, strongly recommended, and in fact 
 insisted upon, this reconciliation ; and this appears 
 to be proved by expressions used privately and 
 confidentially by Pitt himself. In a letter ad- 
 dressed to Wilberforce, he says: “ You will, I know, 
 be glad, independent of politics, that Addington 
 and I have met as friends; but I hope you will 
 also not be sorry to hear that this event will lead 
 to political re-union.” <A few days after this, he 
 announced to Wilberforce that he and Addington 
 were “at one again.” He added: “I think they 
 are a little hard upon us in finding fault with our 
 making it up again, when we have been friends 
 from our childhood, and our fathers were so before 
 us ; while they say nothing to Grenville for uniting 
 with Fox, though they have been fighting all their 
 lives,” * 
 
 Simultaneously with this reconciliation, and pos- 
 sibly as an essential ingredient to it, Addington 
 
 * Wilberforce, Diary. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 of Sidmouth, and was brought into the cabinet 
 as president of the council, in the room of the 
 Duke of Portland, whose years and infirmities 
 made retirement desirable. At the same time, 
 Lord Mulgrave was appointed secretary of state 
 for the foreign department, in the place of Lord 
 Harrowby; and the Earl of Buckinghamshire took 
 Mulgrave’s post as chancellor of the duchy of 
 Lancaster.* 
 
 A.D, 1805.—Notwithstanding the accession of 
 Lord Sidmouth’s partisans, Pitt felt that his 
 majorities would still be rather feeble ; and there- 
 fore he wished to put aside all questions which 
 might divide his friends. When parliament met, 
 on the 15th of January, the minister appeared to 
 have lost much of his usual confidence ; but this 
 might in part arise from his declining health. 
 The opening speech, delivered by the king in 
 person, displayed no want of energy or of con- 
 fidence. 
 of the navy, the formidable state of the army and 
 militia, the improved discipline of the numerous 
 volunteer force, and the general ardour manifested 
 
 by all classes of the people, which had been sufli- 
 
 cient to deter the French from so presumptuous 
 and desperate an enterprise as the invasion. It 
 stated that tle conduct of the court of Spain, under 
 the predominant influence and control of France, 
 had compelled us to take prompt and decisive 
 measures to guard against the effects of hostility. 
 It declared that our forbearance had been carried 
 to the utmost extent, but that Spain had refused 
 satisfaction, and forced us into a war with her, 
 
 was raised to the peerage as Viscount Sidmouthil 
 
 It dwelt upon the skill and intrepidity — 
 
 contrary to her own true interests, and solely © 
 
 through the unfortunate prevalence of French 
 councils at Madrid. First, it exposed the general 
 conduct of the French government on the conti- 
 nent of Hurope—its violence and outrage—its 
 
 wanton defiance of the rights of neutral territories, | 
 
 of the acknowledged privileges of accredited am- 
 
 bassadors, and of the established principles of the | 
 
 law of nations—and then it mentioned Bonaparte’s | 
 
 recently received letter, and his majesty’s commu- 
 nications with the powers on the continent, and 
 
 especially with the Emperor of Russia, with whom — 
 his majesty was engaged “in confidential inter- | 
 course and connection.” And this was all it was | 
 deemed expedient to say about the coalition, the — 
 
 completion of which had been impeded by sundry 
 circumstances, 
 part of the British government to promise large — 
 subsidies until they should see armies in the field. 
 
 including a backwardness on the — 
 
 No amendment was moved to the address ; but A 
 many unfavourable remarks were made in both | 
 
 Houses. 
 the four Spanish frigates, 
 
 * The negotiations were begun towards the close of the year 18045 
 but were not completed until the beginning of January 1805. Sid- 
 mouth’s patent was dated on the 12th of January, eat 
 before parliament assembled. 
 
 three et 
 
 Fox bitterly condemned the business of — 
 and doubted whether 
 Pitt had improved our system of military defence, 
 or placed the country in a safer position than is. r 
 
— ee 
 py F 
 
 Guar. VIII.] 
 
 in which it stood last year. Nor did he omit to 
 
 remind Pitt that he had done nothing to redeem 
 the pledge which he was understood to have given 
 to the Roman Catholics, On the last point, Pitt 
 replied with great animation. Ifthe measures in 
 favour of the Catholics of Ireland, which Fox was 
 now so loudly calling for, appeared to him so 
 immediately necessary, why had he suffered four 
 years to elapse since the Union, without having 
 ever called for them before? “ What the reasons 
 are,’ continued Pitt, “which have induced me to 
 suffer the Catholic question to remain dormant, I 
 shall, on a future occasion, have an opportunity of 
 stating ; and I flatter myself that the House and 
 the country will give me credit for consistency, 
 when I shall have stated the reasons why I still 
 think that the matter should remain dormant 
 at the present moment.” The opportunity for 
 explanation never arrived. 
 
 On the 28rd of January, the Commons voted 
 120,000 men, including marines, for the service 
 of the navy, for the present year. A few days 
 after this, the secretary-at-war, in moving the 
 army estimates of the year, being 12,395,490/. for 
 312,000 men under the different heads of service, 
 stated that we had in the United Kingdoms alone 
 600,000 men in arms, including the volunteers, of 
 whom 240,000 had been reported as well disci- 
 plined, and fit for immediate service. Mr. Philip 
 Francis, who had moved for an inquiry into the 
 causes of the Mahratta war, and who had attempted 
 to throw discredit on the governor-general of. India, 
 his brother, General Wellesley, and all concerned, 
 complained of so large a force as 20,000 Europeans 
 being kept up in India; but the complaint led to 
 nothing, and in the end, Francis’s motion about 
 the Mahratta war was lost by 105 to 46. On the 
 8th of February, Sir Evan Nepean, principal Irish 
 secretary, moved for, and, after some discussion, 
 obtained leave to bring in a bill to continue the 
 suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in that 
 country. 
 
 In the course of the month of February, some 
 long debates took place in both Houses, on the 
 causes of the rupture with Spain. The opposition 
 laboured to prove that ministers had been negli- 
 gent, inattentive, and disrespectful, and then im- 
 patient, impetuous, and violent towards the court of 
 Madrid (Lord Grenville declared that Mr. Frere, 
 though negotiating to prevent a rupture, had been 
 left eighteen months at Madrid without receiving 
 more than four dispatches from Downing-street, 
 and that these four dispatches were distinguished 
 only by their containing nothing to the point); 
 that they had broken off negotiations when they 
 had as good a chance as at any time since the 
 rupture of the peace of Amiens of keeping Spain 
 at least neutral; that in fine they had rushed into 
 the war unnecessarily, and begun it dishonourably 
 by the attack on the four Spanish frigates. To 
 this ministers and their friends replied that Spain, 
 by her treaties with France, in which she bound 
 
 herself to furnish on demand, and without demur 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 Sd esssessaclcism Sensei A arg ice Ea 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 257 
 
 or inquiry into the justice or policy of the war, a 
 certain aid of ships and men to France, became 
 épso facto a principal in the present war ; that the 
 commutation she had made of assistance in money 
 for assistance in kind did not alter the nature of 
 the case; that, although we chose to connive for a 
 time at the substitution, we were not bound to 
 continue to do so; that that connivance, and the 
 protracted negotiations of which the opposition 
 complained, had proceeded from a very necessary 
 regard to our own circumstances, and to the 
 security of our old friend Portugal. Having no 
 allies in our contest with France, nor at that time 
 any immediate chance of a continental division in 
 our favour, we had at all events to wait till our 
 naval and military establishments should attain 
 their proper height. In that interval, which was 
 necessary to us, great management was required 
 in order to prevent Spain from falling upon 
 Portugal with French assistance. Thus circum- 
 stanced, policy had forbidden ministers to carry 
 on an active correspondence or negotiation, or to 
 put every question to Spain so categorically as to 
 leave no issue but peace or war. Spain, too, had 
 at one time seemed disposed to disentangle herself 
 from her ruinous French connection; and it was 
 proper to leave her an interval of time to see 
 whether she really would break from the yoke of 
 that fatal alliance, which had in the first instance 
 been imposed upon her by force. She had agreed 
 that her armament should cease, and that no 
 English prizes should be condemned and sold in 
 any of her ports; but she had broken both these 
 articles of agreement; and, at a time when there 
 were four French men-of-war at Ferrol, she had 
 rapidly prepared an armament with the intention 
 of joining the French in an attack upon one of our 
 blockading squadrons. It was evident, upon the 
 whole, that Spain fully intended to declare war 
 as soon as her four treasure-ships should arrive at 
 Cadiz—with treasure not so much for herself as 
 for France. Our government had ordered that 
 those four frigates should be intercepted and kept 
 until a peace, or until a satisfactory arrangement 
 could be entered into with Spain. No state, 
 situated as we were, and having the power to 
 prevent it, would have permitted those treasure- 
 ships to go into port. But the seizure of those 
 ships made no part of the case, since there would 
 equally have been war without it; and since it 
 was not even known at Madrid till subsequently 
 to the departure of Mr. Frere the English minister, 
 who had in vain protested against the constant 
 passing and repassing through Spain of French 
 troops, French sailors, French artillerymen, French 
 stores, whose movements were all directed against 
 England, or against her friends, But no good 
 argument could be found to excuse the employ- 
 ment of so small a force as Captain Graham 
 Moore’s. Nor could ministers at that time quote 
 a good precedent to justify a reliance on their 
 assurance, that, if Spain had been capable of manly 
 
 exertion in her own behalf to free herself from 
 Q 
 
258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 French thraldom, England would have lent her 
 every support and assistance. 
 
 There was perfect truth, however, in their 
 description of the present state of Spain; she was 
 indeed under the vassalage and dictation of the 
 ruler of France. Friendly she dared not be, 
 neutral she could not be, and hostile she must be, 
 at the mandate of Bonaparte, and this made it 
 incumbent on the British government to guard 
 against the hostility to which this country must 
 inevitably be exposed from that quarter. Some 
 faint attempts were made to disprove the reported 
 armaments of Spain; but that she had been 
 arming, and that actively, was proved a few 
 months after these debates, when Nelson found the 
 whole of the grand Spanish fleet arrayed against 
 him with the French at Trafalgar. In both Houses 
 the debates ended in motions being carried for an 
 address to his majesty, applauding the wisdom 
 and justice of the government in the transactions 
 with Spain. In the Lords, Earl Spencer moved 
 an amendment, conveying the strongest censure 
 on the whole of these proceedings; but this was 
 negatived by 114 against 36: and the same 
 amendment, moved in the Commons by Mr. Grey, 
 was negatived by 313 against 106. In the course 
 of the debates, the government was defended on 
 various grounds, and very ingeniously by Sir John 
 Nicholl, but the best defence was simply this: 
 through the bargain which the court of Madrid 
 had made with Bonaparte, to send him so much 
 money in lieu of so many men, the dollars and 
 the ingots taken on the high seas by Graham 
 Moore represented so many soldiers on their way 
 to fight for France. 
 
 In opening the budget, Pitt stated that he should 
 require a loan of 20,000,000/. for England, and one 
 of 2,500,0007. for Ireland; together with the 
 imposition of several new war-taxes, and a double 
 duty on salt. Some additions were made to the 
 army grants ; 4,000,000/, were allotted to the militia 
 and fencible corps; nearly 4,500,000/. to the 
 ordnance; 15,000,000/. to the navy; and a very 
 large sum to miscellaneous services. The total 
 amount of the supply voted for the year was 
 55,590,0007, The property or income tax, or “the 
 contribution on the profits arising from property, 
 professions, trades, offices, &c.,” was increased, as 
 were certain duties on legacies, on horses, dc. 
 
 From the commencement of the session, Lord 
 Melville was menaced with the storm which burst 
 over his head in April. In February, several 
 attacks were made in each House of Parliament 
 upon the coalition which had taken place between 
 Addington (Lord Sidmouth) and Pitt. In the 
 Lords, the Earl of Westmoreland defended the 
 proceeding, observing that the allusions to a coali- 
 tion came with a very bad grace from the other 
 side of the House; that political men who differed 
 only on some few points might coalesce or reunite 
 without reproach ; but that it would require great 
 ingenuity to give a satisfactory reason why those 
 men and parties should coalesce who had differed 
 
 upon every topic and upon every principle ever 
 since the commencement of their political exist- 
 ence. Earl Spencer said it would be ridiculous to 
 suppose that, because men had acted on contrary 
 opinions, they should never agree nor act together 
 when they happened to think alike. For his own 
 part, he would be contented to be charged with 
 inconsistency when it should be found that he 
 had abandoned measures which he had once 
 supported. Here Sidmouth rose to speak for 
 himself, If he had abandoned his opinions, he 
 said, on any public measure, the charge of a dere- 
 liction of principle might apply to him; but he 
 was confident that he had abandoned no important 
 opinion or principle ; and that both in office and 
 out of office he had acted conscientiously and, 
 according to the best of his judgment, for the 
 good of his country. While sitting in another 
 House, he had not been unused to the charges of 
 incapacity, inefficacy, and wavering; the most 
 illiberal epithets had been applied to him with 
 more profusion than decency; yet, such as his 
 abilities were, they had always been applied 
 honestly and assiduously to the promotion of the 
 prosperity and security of his country; and to 
 any charge of his having neglected to provide for 
 the defence of the state, he would reply by 
 referring to monumental records of his having, 
 within six months after the recommencement of 
 the war, placed 800,000 men in arms, and in a 
 progressive state of discipline. He was less warmly 
 seconded than he wished by the friends of Pitt, 
 who had so often and so very recently criticised 
 and condemned his entire management of the war 
 department; and this probably contributed to 
 Sidmouth’s decided ill-will against Melville, and 
 to his determination of concurring in measures 
 
 . against that minister, now his official colleague, 
 
 in spite of the representations of Pitt. 
 Pitt earnestly pressed his friend Wilberforce to 
 
 postpone the abolition question, for Addington was — 
 
 decidedly opposed to it, other circumstances of the — 
 moment were unfavourable, and the discussion — 
 of it might split the cabinet, which had so little 
 
 cohesion already. But Wilberforce said he could — 
 not make his holy cause subservient to the interests — 
 of a party, and drove on the measure with an — 
 increase of speed. His bill was read a first time — 
 on the 10th of February ; and the second reading — 
 was fixed for the 28th. After the votes of the © 
 preceding session, he thought he had nothing to — 
 fear in the House of Commons; but on the 28th— ~ 
 “that fatal night,’ as he calls it—his constancy — 
 was tried by one of the many reverses he had to 
 sustain during his twenty years of struggle. All — 
 his usual supporters, with the single exception of — 
 Fox, were silent ; some Scotch members (possibly — 
 influenced by Melville, who knew that Wilberforce 
 
 had no friendship for him) voted against him, 
 
 although last year they had been neutral; the 
 Irish members were absent, or hostile, although 
 
 they had been warm in his favour during the last 
 
 session ; @ good many other members staid away 
 
 a eee 
 
 | 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 : 
 
Cuap. VIII. 
 through forgetfulness or lukewarmness ; and the 
 old defenders of the slave trade brought forward 
 
 cant and hypocrisy against him, consigning him 
 as a citizen of France to the fraternal hug of the 
 Jacobins. Upon a division, Wilberforce and his 
 bill were beaten out of the field by 77 to 70.* 
 
 The commissioners of naval inquiry had not 
 confined their researches to the present day, but 
 had carried them back as far as the year 1785, 
 and farther, when Lord Melville, as Mr. Dundas, 
 occupied the post of treasurer to the navy; and 
 when, be it said, many bad or questionable prac- 
 tices were prevalent, not only in the navy office, 
 but in every other office under government. One 
 of the main objects of these commissioners had 
 been to find some grounds of accusation against 
 Pitt's formidable colleague. Their tenth report 
 was brought under the consideration of the 
 House of Commons on the 6th day of April 
 by Mr. Whitbread, who began by eulogising 
 the integrity and perseverance of the commis- 
 sioners, and by complimenting the late board of 
 Admiralty (almost to a man the political or per- 
 sonal enemies of Melville), by whom the said com- 
 missioners had been appointed. He then referred 
 to the act of which Lord Melville (at that time Mr. 
 Dundas) had been the supporter, in 1785, for better 
 regulating the department of treasurer of the navy, 
 and quoted the order of council by which, when 
 the aforesaid act was passed, the salary of the 
 treasurer was raised from 2000/. to 4000/., in lieu 
 of all profits, fees, or emoluments he might before 
 have derived from the public money left in his 
 hands, Whitbread’s first complaint was that, 
 though this act had been passed in July, it was 
 not until the subsequent month of January that 
 the balances in the treasury, which ought to have 
 been paid at once, were paid into the bank of 
 England. He then proceeded to state three heads 
 of charges against the noble lord:—1. That he 
 had applied the money of the public to other uses 
 than those of the naval department, in express 
 contempt of the act of parliament of 1785; 2, That 
 he had connived at a system of peculation in an 
 individual, for whose conduct he was responsible, 
 and that herein he had been guilty of a high crime 
 and misdemeanour ; 3. That he had himself been 
 a participator in this system of peculation, &c, But 
 on this last head Whitbread confessed that at 
 present he only rested on suspicion, so that he 
 would not now much insist upon it; but if the 
 House would institute a full inquiry, he would 
 | pledge himself to follow it up with moderation on 
 
 * Wilberforce, however, had no doubt of his ultimate success. 
 Shortly after the division, he was addressed by Mr Hatsell, the 
 experienced clerk of the House of Commons: “ Mr. Wilberforce, you 
 ought not to expect to carry a measure of this kind. You havea 
 turn for business, and this is a very creditable employment for you ; 
 put you and I have seen enough of life to know that people are not 
 induced to act upon what affects their interests by any abstract 
 arguments.” ‘Mr, Hatsell,” he replied, “I do expect to carry it; 
 | and what is more, I feel assured I shall carry it speedily. I have 
 ‘| observed the gradual change which has been going on in men’s 
 / minds for some time past; and though the measure may be delayed 
 for a year or two, yet I am convinced that before long it will be 
 accomplished,.”—Life of Wilberforce, by his sons, 
 
 ae ist eo snp nt SES 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 their old charges, varied by the new charge of 
 
 259 
 
 his own part, but with firmness and steadiness for 
 the country. He concluded by reading thirteen 
 resolutions, Pitt observed that there was not a 
 single word in the report of the commissioners 
 which implied that any injury had arisen to the 
 public from the circumstance complained of, or 
 that the delay of so much as a single day had ever 
 occurred in the discharge of any of the demands 
 of the seamen. He thought it was very unfair to 
 endeavour to excite the passions in a case which 
 ought ‘to be examined with the greatest coolness 
 and deliberation, He recommended, and moved, 
 that the report of the commissioners should be 
 referred to a select committee of the House. But 
 afterwards, on some words dropped by Fox, he 
 consented to change the motion into a motion for 
 the previous question, Tierney recommended that 
 the report of the commissioners should be taken as 
 conclusive evidence against Melville, “who had 
 already had as fair a trial as the nature of the 
 case would admit of, and upon whose case no com- 
 mittee of that House could throw any more light.” 
 Canning recommended a cool and patient inquiry 
 by committee. The master of the rolls said that 
 the House itself could not, upon the mere report of 
 the commissioners, convict 2 man without hearing 
 evidence at their bar; and that it did not appear 
 to him that anything like personal corruption was 
 proved against the noble lord in the report. Lord 
 Castlereagh exhorted the House not to be led 
 away by vociferation into a premature and unpre- 
 cedented decision. On the other hand, Fox, Lord 
 Henry Petty, George Ponsonby, and others, 
 expressed their conviction of Melville’s guilt, and 
 recommended speedy punishment. But the speech 
 on this side which made the most impression was 
 that of Wilberforce, who delivered himself roundly 
 against Melville, and called upon the House, as 
 the constitutional guardian of the rights and the 
 money of the people, to pass Whitbread’s reso- 
 lutions, and bring the culprit to justice, The 
 House divided at a late hour, when 216 voted 
 for Whitbread’s resolutions, and 216 against 
 them, The speaker (Abbot), with whom Wilber- 
 force and Bankes had consulted beforehand,* gave 
 the casting vote against Melville. After this 
 division, Pitt proposed making some amendments 
 in the wording of Whitbread’s resolutions, but 
 none of any consequence were admitted. Whit- 
 bread then moved an address to his majesty to 
 remove Lord Melville from his councils and pre- 
 sence for ever; but, on the suggestion of Pitt, it 
 was agreed to postpone the consideration of this 
 motion for two days. At half-past five in the 
 morning, the House adjourned, 
 
 On Wednesday, the 8th of April, as soon as 
 Pitt entered the House, he informed it that Lord 
 Melville had resigned his office (that of the first 
 lord of the Admiralty), Whitbread then moved 
 that his eleventh resolution, charging Melville 
 
 * “Bankes and I were long doubtful what part we should take 
 about Lord Melville, but at length clear, and Abbot, whom we con- 
 sulted, clear also.”— Wilberforce, Diary. 
 
260 
 
 with being privy to, and conniving at, the with- 
 drawing, for his own private interest, sums issued 
 to him as treasurer of the navy, should be read. 
 And, this being agreed to and done, Whitbread 
 again rose, and stated that, though Lord Melville’s 
 resignation had not been unexpected, yet it could 
 not ‘satisfy either him and the House, or the public. 
 This resignation’ ought not to stay proceedings. 
 Lord Melville might be recalled to-morrow, and 
 the nation would have no cause of exultation over 
 him, if parliament did not render it impossible for 
 his majesty ever to call him again to his councils. 
 He thought it but right to tell his majesty, in 
 the most solemn manner, that it was necessary 
 to remove Lord Melville, not merely from the 
 Admiralty, but from every office he held under the 
 crown. He would go further : though he had been 
 told by a right honourable gentleman (Canning) 
 that Lord Melville’s deputy, Mr. Trotter, had been 
 dismissed, he would move immediately after the 
 Easter holidays, that the attorney-general should 
 be directed to proceed both against his lordship 
 and Mr. Trotter, for the recovery of the profits and 
 gains so unjustly taken from the public purse. 
 Whitbread dwelt upon the emoluments which 
 Melville had received, hoping that if any of the 
 grants were revocable, they would be revoked 
 immediately ; and he concluded with moving “an 
 humble address to his majesty, praying that he 
 would be graciously pleased to remove Lord 
 Melville from all offices under the crown during 
 pleasure, and from his councils and presence for 
 ever.” 
 
 Canning again insisted that the case, which, at 
 present, did not amount to more than a bare 
 suspicion, could not warrant the severity proposed 
 by Whitbread ; and he expressed his astonishment 
 at seeing that the friends of Earl St. Vincent, for 
 whom Melville had ever been a champion, and 
 naval officers upon whom he had heaped kindness 
 and patronage, and other men whom he had 
 generously defended from unfounded accusations, 
 should now all be united against his lordship— 
 should now all attempt to hunt him down in 
 his forsaken, defenceless state. Grey, Ponsonby, 
 Windham, and others supported Whitbread. 
 Windham thought it absolutely necessary that a 
 promise or declaration should be given which 
 would render it impossible to restore Lord 
 Melville to office, as his lordship had such a hold 
 upon those in power, and they were so linked and 
 connected together ; and that, if the House valued 
 its own consistency and honour, it was bound to 
 pass the present motion, as a corollary from the 
 resolutions of Monday last. Pitt said that he had 
 no hesitation in stating that all idea of the noble 
 lord’s return to power was completely annihilated, 
 and that nothing need be apprehended on that 
 head, But, in making this frank declaration, he 
 wished it to be understood that it was not to con- 
 tinue in force in case the resolutions of Monday 
 should, on future inquiry, be found to have been 
 premature, and consequently be erased from the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 journals of the House. In any other case, it would 
 be absolutely impossible for any minister ever 
 again to think of recommending the noble lord 
 to a share in his majesty’s councils. After this 
 explanation, he thought it would be but an act 
 of common liberality to the noble lord to drop 
 the present motion. Wilberforce strongly recom- 
 mended Whitbread to withdraw his present 
 motion, which in the end he did, merely moving, 
 that the resolutions voted on the former night 
 should be laid before his majesty: and, this being 
 carried unanimously, he moved that the said 
 resolutions should be laid before his majesty by 
 the whole House. 
 
 Lord Melville, in retiring, had strongly recom- 
 mended Sir Charles Middleton to fill his place, 
 as the man who was most popular with the navy, 
 and most likely to carry out reform, economy, and 
 improvements. It was very generally acknow- 
 ledged that this was honourable to Melville; but 
 it appears to have been as generally apprehended 
 that Pitt would not have the courage to accept his 
 nominee, or give so important a place to one who 
 had so little parliamentary interest, and who stood 
 so perfectly aloof from party as Sir Charles did. 
 But Pitt conferred upon Sir Charles Middleton the 
 honours of the peerage, and appointed him first 
 lord of the Admiralty three days afterwards.* 
 
 After the Easter holidays, the House of Com- 
 mons was occupied and much agitated by a news- 
 paper article, which, in expressing satisfaction at 
 the appointment of Middleton, severely censured 
 the men and the measures that had caused Lord 
 Melville’s retreat. Though most of the newspapers 
 were filled with abuse, not merely of Melville, but 
 of all placemen, there were several publications 
 which hotly espoused the cause of the fallen 
 minister, and as hotly assailed his adversaries ; 
 but the paper selected for notice was the ‘ Oracle, 
 morning paper, printed and published by Peter 
 Stuart, who lived in Fleet Street, but who came 
 from beyond the Tweed.t The article complained 
 of stated that party rancour and popular clamour 
 had deprived the king and country of the great 
 and powerful abilities of Lord Melville ; that in 
 no period of our political history could be found 
 such an instance of the strong effects of prejudice ; 
 and that, with all due respect to the House of 
 Commons, and to town and country meetings, it 
 ought to be declared again and again that Lord 
 Melville had fallen a victim to misplaced confi- 
 
 dence, to prejudice, and to indignation misapplied — 
 
 —that he had been condemned without a trial, 
 
 | 
 
 by intemperate judges and the violence of the — 
 
 times. There were also insinuations that if others 
 
 had been treated with the same rigour, their — 
 
 sons, now taking a part against Lord Melville, 
 
 * Sir Charles Middleton, Bart., admiral of the white, &c., was 
 created Baron Barham on the 27th of April, and first lord of the 
 Ate vice Lord Viscount Melville, on the 30th of the same 
 mont 
 
 + The full title of Stuart’s morning newspaper was, ‘The Daily 
 Advertiser, Oracle, and ‘True Briton.’ ‘This Peter was the brother 
 of Mr. Daniel Stuart, long proprietor of the ‘ Courier,’ in con] uae 
 tion with Mr, Street. 
 
 i 0 Ee ee ea — 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 would fall from a life of splendour to depend- 
 ence on the parish. On its being agreed to 
 call the printer and publisher to the bar, 
 Whitbread inquired of the chancellor of the 
 exchequer whether it was his intention to 
 advise his majesty to expel Lord Melville from 
 the privy council. Pitt replied, that he did not 
 feel himself called upon to make any such 
 recommendation. Whitbread then gave notice, 
 that on Tuesday next he should make a motion 
 for that purpose; and this he followed up by 
 moving to-night for a select committee to take 
 into further consideration the report of the naval 
 commissioners. The chancellor of the exchequer 
 said he rejoiced at the notion of appointing a 
 committee, more especially because, in conse- 
 quence, his own actions would become a subject 
 of inquiry. He wished those actions to speak for 
 themselves; but he could not think it would be 
 proper to refer the whole of the report of the 
 commissioners to a committee, as he understood 
 that a second motion was to be made, directing 
 a prosecution by the attorney-gencral.. If the 
 inquiry was to be prosecuted by a bill of discovery 
 as to the question of participation, it would be 
 highly improper to refer that part to a commit- 
 tee, or to establish two concurrent and collateral 
 investigations. And therefore Pitt moved, by 
 way of amendment, “that a select committee be 
 appointed to consider further of the matter con- 
 tained in the tenth report of the commissioners 
 of naval inquiry, so far only as the same relates 
 to the application of sums granted for navy 
 services to other branches of the public service, as 
 also to the irregularities committed in the mode 
 of drawing the money granted for the service of 
 the navy from the bank, and to any commu- 
 nications that might have been made to the 
 chancellor of the exchequer relative to such 
 irregularity.’ Whitbread, who had at first 
 opposed referring the matter to a select com- 
 mittee, strongly resisted this limitation of the 
 inguiry. Fox was inclined to think that the 
 inquiry should be restricted by the words of 
 Pit’s amendment; and he submitted to Whit- 
 bread whether his second motion for the prose- 
 cution would not be better postponed till after 
 the committee should have made its report, and 
 have ascertained what persons had been con- 
 nected with the delinquent; but, at the same 
 time, Fox cast imputations upon his great rival, 
 which a man so proud as Pitt, and who _ princi- 
 pally prided himself upon his financial regularity 
 and his immaculate purity in money concerns, 
 must have found it hard to bear. He called Pitt 
 the man who had been the protector of the great 
 public delinquent, and who had been minister 
 during the whole time the abuses were carrying 
 on in the treasury of the navy. He was glad that 
 a select committee was to be appointed; but he 
 trusted that the House would take a special care 
 to have proper persons appointed to be of that 
 committee; and he hoped that the committee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 261 
 
 would act with the same ability, integrity, 
 and pertinacity that had been displayed by the 
 naval commissioners who had made the report. 
 Sheridan, who was veering again, took the same 
 line of argument as Fox, and the same pains 
 to implicate or identify the chancellor of the 
 exchequer with Melville. Pitt indignantly dis- 
 claimed every idea of being implicated in any 
 of the charges contained in the naval commis- 
 sioners report. Fox allowed that there was no 
 passage which directly implicated him; but then 
 he urged that there was an article relating to 
 money taken from the treasury of the navy to 
 pay for secret services, which, though it did not 
 mention him by name, might lead certainly to 
 a decision of how far he was involved. It was 
 evident that a very large portion of the opposition 
 were as eager to press the blow on account of 
 Pitt as on account of Melville; and that they 
 confidently expected that the premier would be 
 brought down from his pride of place, and that 
 the ministry would be entirely broken up by this 
 prosecution, Upon a division, Pitt's amend- 
 ment was carried by 229 against 151. A discus- 
 sion then took place as to the best way of 
 selecting the committee. Pitt moved that it 
 should be appointed by ballot; his opponents, 
 that it should be by nomination. On a division, 
 Pitt’s motion was carried by 251 against 120. 
 Some efforts were afterwards made to do away 
 with the appointment by ballot; but they failed. 
 On the following day, the order of the day being 
 read for the attendance of Mr. Peter Stuart, the 
 printer of the ‘Oracle,’ a very vehement debate 
 took place touching the proper manner of dealing 
 with him. The Whigs were for great severity, 
 delivering opinions about the licence of the press 
 which scarcely agreed with the character or cus- 
 tomary professions of their party. On the other 
 hand, the Tories, or adherents of Pitt, invoked 
 the glorious liberty of the press, and ran over all 
 the truisms on the subject. At last Mr. Peter 
 Stuart was called back to the bar, and was asked 
 by the Speaker whether he acknowledged the paper. 
 On his replying in the affirmative, the Speaker 
 said that the paper had been complained of to 
 the House as containing libellous reflections on its 
 character and conduct, “and that he must ask him 
 what he had to say in answer to the charge. 
 Stuart was sorry to have incurred the displeasure 
 of the honourable House, &c.; but, having said 
 these words, he launched out into a eulogium 
 upon Lord Melville, for whom he would “always 
 entertain the highest respect and esteem;” and 
 then entreated that some allowance might be 
 made for that freedom of discussion of public 
 affairs which for a long series of years had been 
 sanctioned by common usage. He was ordered 
 to withdraw; and then Mr. Grey, who had made 
 the original motion, moved that he had been 
 guilty of a high breach of the privileges of the 
 House, which, after some discussion, was put and 
 carried ; but ‘instantly after it was moved from 
 
 ——"! 
 
262 
 
 the opposite side, that Mr. Peter Stuart should be 
 merely called to the bar, reprimanded, and dis- 
 charged, Mr. Grey said that, if the House, after 
 voting that Stuart had been guilty of a high 
 breach of privilege, chose to let him pass with 
 no greater mark of its displeasure, he had no 
 objection. Pitt himself then moved that the 
 said Peter Stuart should be taken into the custody 
 of the sergeant-at-arms. When the printer had 
 _ been three or four days in custody, he sent a 
 petition to the House, which was presented by 
 Sir Henry Mildmay, who moved that the said 
 Peter Stuart should be brought to the bar, and 
 be discharged. But Stuart, whose previous 
 eulogium of Melville, pronounced at the bar, 
 had greatly irritated the opposition, had inserted 
 words in his present petition which indisposed 
 them still further towards him. The petition 
 said: “In any observations which your peti- 
 tioner may have published on the conduct of 
 Lord Melville, he could not but bear in mind 
 that the views of those societies [referring to 
 certain clubs expressly formed to bring both 
 Houses of Parliament into contempt], abetting 
 domestic treason, and assisted by the co-operation 
 of the revolutionary power of France, would, he 
 verily believes, have effected the destruction of 
 the British constitution, had not the wise and 
 efficient measures, brought forward by that 
 administration in which Lord Melville held so 
 conspicuous a situation, been adopted, and this 
 honourable House would not, in that case, perhaps, 
 have been now in existence, either to censure Lord 
 Melville or to pardon your petitioner.” The Foxites 
 characterised the petition as presumptuous and 
 insolent, and Sir Henry Mildmay was entreated 
 by Windham to give up his motion; but upon a 
 division, the motion was carried by 142 against 
 121; and Mr. Peter Stuart having been brought 
 to the bar, and reprimanded by the Speaker, was 
 discharged. 
 
 On the same day Sheridan moved the thanks of 
 the House to the commissioners of the navy for 
 the whole of their conduct in the execution of the 
 arduous duties intrusted to them. Wilberforce 
 expressed his high approbation of the conduct of 
 the commissioners, and thought them fully entitled 
 to the thanks of the House and of the country ; 
 but, as much that the commissioners had done 
 had not yet been examined, and as other reports 
 remained to be made by them, he conceived 
 that the motion was rather too comprehensive. 
 Sheridan therefore withdrew his motion, and re- 
 modelled it, omitting the words “the whole,” and 
 limiting the thanks to the reports which had 
 already been presented by the commissioners ; and 
 in this form the motion was carried. It was then 
 moved that the resolution should be communicated 
 by Mr. Speaker to the said commissioners, and, 
 this being agreed to, the House adjourned. 
 
 _ On the 8rd of May, Mr. Leycester delivered a 
 message to the Lords from the Commons, request- 
 ing their lordships’ permission for Lord Viscount 
 
 ot 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Melville to attend a meeting of the House of Com- 
 mons, to be examined respecting the tenth report 
 
 of the naval commissioners. Their lordships re- 
 plied that they would send an answer by a mes- 
 senger of their own. As soon as Mr. Leycester 
 had retired, Lord Hawkesbury moved that the 
 standing order should be read which imported 
 that no peer of the realm should attend the House 
 of Commons, or any committee thereof, to answer 
 matters of charge or accusation against himself, 
 on pain of being committed to the Tower during 
 the pleasure of the House. The standing order 
 being read, Lord Hawkesbury moved that the 
 message of the Commons should be referred to a 
 committee of privileges, and that the clerk should 
 be ordered to furnish the committee with such 
 precedents as might have occurred. Lord Darnley 
 objected that this was throwing difficulties in the 
 way of public justice. The lord chancellor con- 
 tended for the propriety of upholding the privileges 
 of that House, and trusted that their lordships 
 would not be unmindful of the solemn resolution 
 taken in 1678, which prohibited, under severe 
 penalties, the attendance of any member of that 
 House in the Commons, if matter of accusation 
 against him were in question. Lord Hawkesbury’s 
 motion was agreed to, On the 6th of May, when 
 Whitbread was going to press a motion to that 
 end, Pitt rose and said that the object he had in 
 view was already accomplished ; that he had felt 
 it his duty to advise the erasure of Lord Melville’s 
 name from the list of the privy council; that his 
 majesty had acceded, and that his lordship’s name 
 had been erased accordingly. Pitt added, that he 
 had felt a deep and bitter pang in being compelled 
 to take this course; and the expression, both of 
 his countenance and voice, bespoke the sincerity 
 and depth of his feeling: the whole House was 
 affected. 
 
 It had been previously determined that a com- 
 mission of inquiry should be appointed to examine 
 into the state of the war-office and of the adminis- 
 tration of the army; and on the 16th of May, 
 Pitt named the commissioners, and moved “ that 
 they shall inquire into all the abuses that do exist 
 in the said department.”* The naval commis- 
 sioners had overlooked existing abuses to go back 
 through a series of twenty years in search of © 
 abuses which once had existed. It seemed, there-— 
 fore, but fair that Mr. Giles should move as an — 
 amendment to Pitt’s motion, that the words “or — 
 that have existed” should be inserted. But this 
 gave Mr. G. Rose an admirable opportunity for 
 throwing odium on Fox and his family, and for 
 confirming, as it were, from his place in parliament 
 the insinuations which Peter Stuart had made in 
 his newspaper against defaulters and the sons of 
 defaulters. Rose very ingeniously said, that to 
 adopt Mr. Giles’s amendment would be going too 
 
 *The military commissioners named were Sir C. Stuart, Major- 
 general Oakes, and Colonel Beckwith, for the strictly military 
 details ; Lieutenant-general Drinkwater for the civil economy 5 
 Mr. Cox and Mr. Cumming for the legal part; and, for mercantile 
 judgment, Mr. Peters and Mr. C. Bosanquet. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 far back, as, for example, the sum of half a million 
 of money was left unaccounted for by the late 
 Lord Holland at his death, and had not been 
 recovered until fourteen years afterwards. “Had 
 this sum,” continued Rose, “been laid out at com- 
 pound interest for that length of time, it would 
 have produced another half million—half a million 
 which has been lost to the public—and yet his 
 executors have never seemed to think theniselves 
 accountable for the profits.” Fox rose and solemnly 
 assured the House that he had never received one 
 shilling of those profits, a statement which he was 
 ready to prove, and that he believed his brother, 
 General Fox, could safely say the same: that for 
 his own part, when he found that there was so 
 
 great an arrear, he had declined acting as an. 
 
 executor. But this was no excuse for those who 
 had acted as executors, and who had reserved to 
 the late Lord Holland’s heir fourteen years of 
 compound interest on half a million! After some 
 conversation, Pitt’s original motion, without the 
 retrospective amendment, was carried. But an 
 object had been attained : in discussing the amend- 
 ment, Rose had dealt out a good back-stroke on the 
 hereditary foe of his own patron and friend the 
 chancellor of the exchequer. 
 
 On the 23rd of May, Mr. Sergeant Best moved 
 for a select committee to consider of the eleventh 
 report of the naval commissioners, which went to 
 implicate Pitt more than Melville, affirming that 
 large sums of money had occasionally been raised 
 for the navy by loans, by order of ministers, for 
 alleged secret services, without the consent of that 
 House, and contrary to the established constitution 
 of the country. The chancellor of the exchequer 
 urged that navy bills issued for secret services 
 could be inquired into only by a secret committee ; 
 moved and carried an amendment, excepting from 
 the inquiry the sum of 100,000/.,, which had been 
 
 at a critical moment issued for secret naval ser-- 
 
 vices; and then agreed to Best’s motion. On the 
 next day, Harl Darnley moved, in the Lords, for a 
 select committee to take into consideration the 
 papers on the table respecting the actual state of 
 the navy ; implying that, under Melville’s manage- 
 ment, the ship-building department had been 
 another scene of jobbery and corruption. Lords 
 Holland and Suffolk supported Earl Darnley, and 
 the Duke of Clarence, after speaking in the highest 
 terms of admiration of the naval administration of 
 Earl St. Vincent, gave his hearty assent to the 
 motion, which was, however, rejected by 88 against 
 33. The debate was chiefly noticeable on account 
 of the direct personal animosity displayed by 
 Melville and St. Vincent towards each other. 
 
 The peers having consented, after an examina- 
 tion of precedents, that Lord Melville might, if he 
 chose, present himself in the Commons, on the 11th 
 of June, as Whitbread was about to move for a 
 regular impeachment against Melville, the Speaker 
 announced that he had a letter from his lordship, 
 requesting the permission of the House of Commons 
 to attend and be heard upon the subject of the 
 
 > = ert tnenmmemmerememrmeememmpennsemenememees ee eee SSS 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSAOTIONS :—1805. 
 
 263 
 
 reports of the naval commissioners. The admission 
 being agreed to, his lordship was introduced by the 
 sergeant-at-arms, and conducted to a chair placed 
 for him within the bar. After resting for a few 
 moments, Melville rose and expressed his satisfac- 
 tion at finding that an opportunity was at length 
 given him to defend his character. He read 
 several letters which had passed between the navy 
 commissioners and himself, and in which they 
 absolutely refused to re-examine him, or to make 
 a supplemental report. He was permitted by the 
 House of Lords to attend only under a limita- 
 tion that he should defend himself only on such 
 points as the Commons had not yet passed any 
 accusatory resolutions upon. He declared that he 
 never knew that Mr. Trotter, his paymaster, had 
 drawn any money out of the navy treasury in 
 evasion of the act; that he never knew that Mr. 
 Trotter had invested such money in exchequer or 
 navy bills; that he never knew that he had lent 
 money upon the security of stock ; that he never 
 knew that he had employed any money in the 
 discount of private bills, or in the purchase of 
 bank or India stock. “If,” said he, “such trans- 
 actions existed, they were not, as stated, with my 
 privity and consent, I need not therefore stop to 
 express the indignation I felt when I found that 
 not only that knowledge was imputed to me, but 
 that it was even surmised that Mr. Trotter, in 
 the execution of those transactions, enjoyed the 
 benefit of my confidential knowledge of the secrets 
 of government. Another charge I must notice, 
 and which I had noticed and positively denied 
 
 before the resolutions of the 8th of April, that I 
 
 had ever participated in profits supposed to have 
 been made by Mr. Trotter. I have reason, too, to 
 know, that he, had he been asked, would have 
 wholly denied such a participation. What, indeed, 
 would at once refute any such insinuation is, that 
 every sum advanced to me by Mr. Trotter, has 
 been repaid to the uttermost farthing.’ It appears 
 indeed to have been most clearly proved in the 
 sequel, that he had replaced the entire sums which 
 he had himself temporarily used. He had found 
 Mr. Trotter full of ability and of zeal for the service ; 
 and, upon the death of an old paymaster, he had 
 promoted him to the post. From being constantly 
 near him, Mr, Trotter naturally became the 
 channel through which he transacted a vast deal 
 of public and private business, He knew that Mr. 
 Trotter was closely connected with Mr. Coutts the 
 banker, and that he occasionally lodged money in 
 that bank. “But,” said he, “if it is meant to 
 say that Mr. Trotter had any authority from me 
 to draw sums indiscriminately from the Bank of 
 England for his own use or emolument, I must 
 deny that to such transactions I was ever privy: 
 but, if it is meant that after the money was drawn 
 from the Bank by assignments, under the orders of 
 the competent boards, it was illegal to put it into 
 the hands of Mr. Coutts, I am yet, after all I have 
 heard, to learn that it was a breach of the statute. 
 That an indiscriminate power of drawing from the 
 
264 
 
 Bank was given by me to Mr. Trotter, cannot be 
 alleged by any person who attends to the real 
 import of my evidence, The plain import of my 
 answer to the questions of the commissioners is 
 this—when the money was legally, and in the 
 terms of the act of parliament, drawn from the 
 Bank of England, I permitted Mr, Trotter to 
 lodge such balance of the money assigned as was 
 not called for by the persons entitled to receive it.” 
 This, he contended, there was not one clause of 
 the act to prohibit. “Suppose,” he said, “that the 
 practice had been to open a separate account in 
 the Bank of England for the deposit of such 
 assigned money till called for; nobody, surely, 
 would have contended that in such an arrange- 
 ment the treasurer of the navy would have violated 
 either the spirit or letter of the act; and yet, if 
 no draft could be made except on the general 
 account raised at the Bank in the name of the 
 treasurer, the violation would equally exist in the 
 supposed as in the real case.’ The law of 1785 was 
 not intended to embrace all regulations for the 
 department for the payment of the naval service; 
 but to convert the treasurer’s account from a per- 
 sonal to an official account, and thereby “to obviate 
 an abuse whereby ex-treasurers of the navy had 
 large balances in their hands, and remained great 
 public accountants and debtors many years after they 
 were out of office. He noticed the frequent neces- 
 sity of the payments of the navy pay-office taking 
 place in most minute sums. Would it have been 
 advisable to have drawn checks or drafts upon 
 the Bank of England for 1/. 3s. 0id.? The prac- 
 tice of lodging navy money in Mr. Coutts’s private 
 bank had continued for two years after he was 
 out of office, and it was ultimately altered by Mr. 
 Bathurst, only because he thought the alteration 
 expedient. His lordship therefore thought that, 
 even though there had been a breach, yet there 
 was no high breach of duty. He conceived the 
 advantage to the paymaster, Mr. Trotter, of lodg- 
 ing the sums drawn from the Bank of England 
 with Messrs. Coutts, to arise from an understand- 
 ing between him and the partners of that house, 
 as to the benefit they might respectively derive 
 from the customary use of money while in their 
 hands; and such an arrangement between them 
 could not prevent the paymaster from drawing, 
 at any moment, from Coutts’s house any sum 
 requisite for the discharge of claims to which that 
 deposit money was liable. He had not interposed 
 to prevent the paymaster’s enjoying such emolu- 
 ment, and his regular salary he considered far too 
 small, because he had not conceived it to be in- 
 fringing any act of parliament, nor had he felt that 
 he was incurring either for the public or himself 
 the smallest degree of risk in allowing sums to be 
 lodged in such a private bank as Coutts’s. Yet 
 the practice of lodging money in Coutts’s bank had 
 not arisen in the first instance from any calcula- 
 tion or view to private emolument. Previously to 
 the year 1785, the navy pay-oflice was in the city, 
 in the neighbourhood of the Bank of England; 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 fa. 
 oF 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 and it was only in consequence of its removal to 
 Somerset House, that the suggestion was made to 
 him of the convenience of keeping some money 
 at some banker’s in the neighbourhood. He still 
 thought that both the convenience and the security 
 of the public were gainers by this arrangement. 
 He declared that the real import of his examina- 
 tion before the commissioners had been much 
 misunderstood or purposely and grossly misrepre- 
 sented. He denicd having refused to answer the 
 commissioners’ question whether he had ever de- 
 rived profit from the public money placed under 
 his control as treasurer to the navy. The state 
 of the case was this. In the month of June, 1804, 
 the commissioners, by letter, called upon him to 
 give them an account of certain details which he 
 told them it was literally impossible for him to do: 
 adding, that he should think it his duty to with- 
 hold the information they required with respect 
 to some sums which had been occasionally drawn 
 from the navy office for public but not naval 
 services. He had heard no more from the com- 
 missioners for the space of four months, during 
 which they had become possessed of all Mr. 
 Trotter’s private accounts with the house of Messrs. 
 Coutts. On the 2nd of November, 1804, he 
 received a summons from the commissioners, and 
 underwent an examination by questions obviously 
 prepared with much previous consideration. He 
 then for the first time learned that Mr. Trotter, 
 in the advances he had made to him on the 
 account-current of his affairs, had made them 
 without discriminating whether they were from 
 private funds, or from his public balances, From 
 this knowledge he had been induced to adopt a 
 degree of reserve beyond what the occasion called 
 for. With regard to another of his answers, when 
 asked whether he had ever directed or authorised 
 Mr. Trotter to lay out or apply any of the money 
 issued for carrying on the current service of the 
 navy for his own benefit or advantage, he had 
 replied, that to the best of his recollection he never 
 had. But he ought to have answered simply that — 
 he never had: the other useless words arose out — 
 of a mode of expression customary with him in ~ 
 speaking of past transactions. The charge of — 
 having declined to answer questions to criminate — 
 himself was the more extraordinary, since his — 
 accusers had rested the whole of their charges on 
 what they had been pleased to call his own con- 
 fession. He had most assuredly never made use 
 of the law which protected a man from accusing — 
 himself, for any personal reason, but solely to pro- 
 tect himself from any of those irregularities which — 
 might be supposed to be committed in applying 
 for a time any of the naval money to some other 
 branch of the public service. “Indeed,” said he, — 
 “if I had disclosed any of these transactions, I 
 should have felt myself guilty, not only of a breach — 
 of public duty, but of @ most unwarrantable breach — 
 of private honour.” It had been urged against 
 him that he could have had no other motive for 
 remaining treasurer of the navy, after he became 
 
 Ee 
 
 t 
 . 
 | 
 t 
 ; 
 
 ; 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 secretary of state, except the unlawful gains he 
 made by that first situation. To this he replied, 
 that it was well known to many he never was 
 one hour secretary of state with his own inclina- 
 ion. Under the original institution of the India 
 board, the treasurership of the navy was under- 
 stood to be the appropriate situation of the 
 person who was to take the leading part in the 
 management and control of affairs in India. He 
 explained briefly and satisfactorily the circum- 
 stances under which he occupied the two offices, 
 declaring that he never had any predilection for 
 the office of treasurer of the navy, excepting so 
 far as it was the situation at that time appro- 
 priated to the person at the head of the admin- 
 istration of India—a situation in which he 
 flattered himself he had been of essential service 
 to his country. But besides, while he had been 
 treasurer of the navy, and at the head of the 
 administration of India, he had been, at the 
 same time, the confidential adviser of government 
 in everything relating to the affairs of Scotland. 
 And speaking of his transactions in this capacity, 
 he emitted what was tantamount to a declaration, 
 that he had taken money from the navy pay-office 
 with one hand, and given it with the other hand to 
 be sent into Scotland for secret services.* It has 
 been so stated that there was about 20,0004. 
 which Melville never accounted for, as to leave 
 the impression that he had appropriated this 
 sum. But Melville said, in this speech, that it 
 was only on account of the public and personal 
 inconvenience, and the breach of private honour 
 which his entering into particulars would involve, 
 that he abstained from giving more minute 
 explanations (than that the money was neither 
 used nor meant to be used for any object of per- 
 sonal profit or emolument) touching a sum of 
 10,0002., which had been used on his first coming 
 into the treasurership of the navy, when the 
 restrictive act had not yet been passed, and 
 about a similar amount which had been taken 
 and employed at a later period: and the fair 
 inference to be drawn from these words, and 
 from evidence on his trial, seems to be, that 
 both these sums had been spent in secret services. 
 There was, besides, a sum of 40,000/. advanced 
 out of the navy money to Mr. Pitt, for purposes 
 which had been explained to the committee of 
 the House of Commons by Mr. Pitt himself. 
 “And yet,” said Melville, “if Mr. Pitt had not 
 thought it expedient to divulge the transaction, 
 I should have thought it my duty never to have 
 made such a discovery from any personal consi- 
 deration either of fame or safety; although it is 
 obvious to what an extent of additional suspicion 
 and obloguy I should have been exposed by the 
 
 * A reference to the trial at Edinburgh of Robert Watt (see 
 ante, pp. 69-71), the informer and spy, who had corresponded with 
 Secretary Dundas (Lord Melville), and had had still closer com- 
 munications with his relative, the Lord Advocate, who had given 
 him money, may throw considerable light on this dark subject, 
 and enable us to conceive, that what had been done in one case, 
 
 might have been done in many cases, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 265 
 
 concealment.” When so large an amount was 
 temporarily extracted from the treasury of the 
 navy to be employed on separate and altogether 
 different government service, it was natural to 
 conclude that smaller amounts were occasionally 
 used in the same manner, at the direct order or 
 with the connivance of Pitt, whose integrity was 
 questioned by no one who knew him or the public 
 service. Melville declared that he was himself 
 perfectly well aware of the confidential purposes 
 to which the sum of 40,0007. and the two sums 
 of 10,0007, each were to be applied; but that 
 Mr. Trotter was wholly ignorant of those appro- 
 priations, conjectures concerning which would 
 have only served to mislead and confuse him, 
 Hence, in Trotter’s running account with him, 
 and in the checks on Coutts’s house, many sums 
 might be set down in Melville’s name, and look 
 as though they had gone directly into his pocket. 
 Trotter, who figured in the double capacity of 
 paymaster to the navy and private banker, had, 
 on several occasions, made advances of money 
 to his superior on his private account, receiving 
 regular interest on them. But on the sums 
 advanced by Trotter as paymaster to the govern- 
 ment for services not connected with the navy, 
 no interest had ever been paid; nor would the 
 same sums have yielded any interest had they 
 remained in the Bank of England; nor, under 
 the circumstances of the case, had Melville ever 
 imagined that the public would look for interest. 
 The 2000/, increase of salary to the treasurer of the 
 navy was, as the act of 1785 specified, to be paid 
 out of “the sale of old naval stores”—one of the 
 worst methods that can possibly be conceived of 
 paying a public servant. At times, Melville had 
 considerable arrears due to him, and at times he 
 left sums in the hands of the paymaster, upon 
 which no interest was ever paid by the one party 
 or expected by the other.* 
 
 One point more in this defence seems to demand 
 particular notice. A written release had been 
 passed between Melville and Trotter after the 
 winding-up of their affairs, with a clause binding 
 each of them to cancel or destroy the vouchers 
 of all pecuniary transactions between them; and 
 Trotter, upon being called upon, had produced this 
 release—a precautionary document, which Trotter 
 himself had got drawn up in London while 
 Melville was at Edinburgh, and such as com- 
 monly attends the closing of complicated accounts. 
 Melville was never consulted about, nor had he 
 given instructions concerning this clause, and 
 Mr. Trotter himself had given direct evidence to 
 that effect. “Mr. Spottiswoode, who drew the 
 release, having died within these few months, | 
 am deprived of his evidence; but his partner 
 and his son would probably have heard that 
 
 * “My Trotter,” said his lordship, *‘ received of my private 
 funds and from my salary not less, and probably much more, than 
 20,0007. during the fourteen years he was in the navy-cffice ; 
 the general impression I had of the state of our accounts was 
 such as to make interest upon any balance appear to me of little 
 moment,” 
 
 Wi OR 2 ee 
 
266 
 
 particular instructions had been given, were the 
 case so; and they declared they know nothing of 
 it.’ But, farther, the charge founded on this 
 clause in the release was absurd in itself, as it 
 implied that his lordship and Mr. Trotter, in 
 their anxiety to destroy the evidence of some 
 foul transactions, had put on record their inten- 
 tion to do so in a formal deed, which would 
 reveal the fact to every one who saw it. It had 
 been said that this deed was drawn from a fear 
 of the commissioners; but had there been such 
 a fear, they would have destroyed the documents 
 themselves, instead of entering into a deed open 
 to such objections as this was. As it was, his 
 lordship had not destroyed a single paper 
 referred to in the clause. In similar releases, 
 such a clause was commonly introduced; and, 
 though the parties might not burn their accounts, 
 receipts, vouchers, &c., they were held, in virtue 
 of this clause, no longer to exist de jure, though 
 they might survive de facto. If there were men 
 of business in the House, they ought to have 
 
 known this, and to have ‘treated with contempt 
 the inferences drawn from the existence of this 
 common clause in the release, In concluding his 
 speech, Melville said: “ As to the act of parliament 
 appointing the cominissioners of naval inguiry, no 
 one, I believe, imagined that anything but the abuses 
 én the dock-yards was the object of the appointment. 
 No one thought it was to go far back into past 
 times, and confine itself to the production of 
 charges against me. At the time I was applied 
 to for the release, I was living with my family, 
 and amongst my friends in Scotland; and, perhaps, 
 if I had continued in that secession from public 
 business, no attack would ever have been directed 
 against me.” He hoped he had refrained from 
 any asperity of language. His enemies, however, 
 were much mistaken if they supposed that his 
 spirits were easily to be broken down by any 
 exertion of theirs. But the lashes intended for 
 him had cruelly lacerated the feelings of many 
 valuable friends, and of others more nearly and 
 dearly connected with him. Circumstances, not 
 in his power to control, debarred him from the 
 possibility of disclosing what would be most to 
 his personal interest to disclose; but he would 
 not despair of receiving even in his own time 
 ample justice from his deluded country; he yet 
 expected to be considered hereafter as a man 
 who had, during a long life of public service, 
 exerted his unremitting endeavours to promote 
 the welfare and the essential interest of his 
 country. 
 
 His lordship having bowed and retired, Whit- 
 bread rose; and, after a long speech, moved that 
 Henry Lord Viscount Melville be impeached of 
 high crimes and misdemeanours. Mr. Nathaniel 
 Bond, a member of the privy council, and president 
 of the Board of Trade, suggested that impeach- 
 ment, though the most dignified, was also the most 
 expensive, tedious, and cumbrous mode of pro- 
 ceeding; that a criminal prosecution would answer 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ‘from the obloquy now cast upon it. After a long 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 all the purposes much better; and he therefore — 
 moved that the attorney-general should be directed | 
 to prosecute his lordship, &c. After several mem- 
 bers of the House had spoken as to the form in 
 which the prosecution should be gone about, and 
 in a general way as to the case against Lord 
 Melville, Wilberforce, at a late hour, moved and 
 carried an adjournment till the morrow. When 
 the debate was renewed, Mr, Leycester, a friend 
 and adviser of Lord Melville, explained most of 
 the money-transactions which had passed between 
 his lordship and Mr, Trotter; stated, with refer- — 
 ence to the bond of release, that covenants to give — 
 up vouchers were frequent; and called upon the : 
 House to stop all further proceedings. Then — 
 Wilberforce rose and declared that Lord Melville’s 
 own speech had convinced him that some further : 
 criminal prosecution was necessary before justice 
 could be satisfied. Melville’s misconduct, he said, : 
 had been characterised by its intensity on the one — 
 hand, and by its continuity on the other, He was 
 inclined himself to adopt the amendment of his 
 learned friend (Bond), but those who were agreed 
 as to the substance ought not to differ about the — 
 manner of obtaining it; and he therefore wished 
 the amendment not to be pressed. Wilberforce — 
 was followed by Lord Castlereagh, who gave his 
 decided negative to the original motion, expressed — 
 his astonishment at the course now pursued, and 
 spoke ably in defence of Lord Melville. Mr. Grey 
 declared that he would vote for an impeachment, 
 and, if that should not be carried, for a criminal — 
 prosecution. Mr. Robert Dundas, Lord Melville’s 
 son, complained of the public meetings called 
 together by the friends of those who were pursuing 
 his father, and which must prejudice the minds of 
 those who might afterwards have to try the cause, 
 and, as jurymen, to decide upon it. After offering — 
 various financial explanations, and denying that 
 his father had ever had large sums standing in the — 
 funds, Mr. Dundas asserted that the registry of the 
 release had been made in the Court of Session, and — 
 was therefore of necessity,a very public transaction, — 
 and one which could not have taken place if his — 
 father had been seeking that mystery or conceal-— 
 ment which was imputed to him. Canning thought 
 that, if his lordship was to be tried at all, it ought 
 to be by his peers; but that a civil action would 
 be enough, or more than enough; and he expressed 
 his perfect agreement with the observation made — 
 by Lord Melville, that the time was not far distant | 
 when the unnatural magnitude to which the 
 offence, if such it was, had been swelled would — 
 subside, and his lordship’s character be resctea 
 
 debate, the House divided on Whitbread’s original yy 
 motion, when there appeared 272 against the i 
 impeachment, and 195 for it. They next divided — 
 upon Bond’s amendment, and the criminal prose- | 
 cution by the attorney-general was carried by the — | 
 thin majority of nine, the numbers being 238 
 
 against 229. On the 25th of J une, however, Bond, | | 
 who was to have moved on that day for an instruc- 
 
 4 
 
Cuar. VIIL] 
 
 tion to the attorney-general to commence, with- 
 held his motion; and his learned friend Leycester, 
 deploring that the House should consider any 
 further proceedings necessary, moved that Henry 
 Lord Viscount Melville be impeached, and that all 
 other proceedings by the House be stayed. After 
 some discussion, this motion was agreed to, and the 
 trial by impeachment, against which 272 had voted 
 on the 12th, was carried without a division. A 
 bill was then introduced and carried through the 
 House, to indemnify Mr. Trotter and all others 
 who might give evidence on the trial against any 
 consequences personal to themselves. And on the 
 26th of June, Whitbread, accompanied by a great 
 number of members, impeached Lord Melville, in 
 the name of the Commons of Great Britain, of 
 high crimes and misdemeanours, at the bar of the 
 House of Lords. A bill was brought into the 
 Commons by Whitbread to avoid those differences 
 of opinion which had arisen in the case of Warren 
 Hastings, or to prevent the proceedings in the 
 impeachment of Lord Melville from being affected 
 by any prorogation or dissolution of parliament; 
 and after some slight alteration in the wording, it 
 was carried through all its stages without a divis- 
 ion. Here the proceedings rested for the present, 
 and before any further progress could be made, 
 Pitt, whose health and spirits were evidently 
 affected by them, was laid in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 On the 12th of May, motions founded on a 
 petition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland to be 
 relieved from their remaining civil disabilities, were 
 made, in the House of Lords, by Lord Grenville, 
 and in the Commons, by Fox. The proposition 
 was rejected in the Lords by 178 against 49; in 
 the Commons, by 336 against 124. Many members, 
 not opposed to the granting of further indulgence, 
 professed to think that this was not the moment 
 for pressing the claims. Out of doors, the prevyail- 
 ing sentiment, as Pitt said, was totally against 
 them. 
 
 On the 12th of July, a message from the king 
 was delivered to parliament, stating that the com- 
 munications which had taken place, and were still 
 depending, between his majesty and some of the 
 powers on the continent, had not yet been brought 
 to such a point as to enable his majesty to lay the 
 result of them before the House, or to enter into 
 any further explanation with the French govern- 
 ment, consistently with the sentiments expressed 
 by his majesty at the opening of the session; but 
 that, conceiving it might be of essential importance 
 to have it in his power to avail himself of any 
 favourable conjuncture for giving effect to such a 
 concert with other powers as might afford the 
 best means of resisting the inordinate ambition of 
 France, or might be most likely to lead to a termi- 
 nation of the present contest, on grounds consistent 
 with the permanent safety and interests of his 
 dominions, and the security and independence of 
 Europe, his majesty recommended parliament to 
 consider of making provision for enabling him to 
 take such measures, and enter into such engage- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 267 
 
 ments as the exigencies of affairs might require. 
 A sum, not to exceed three millions and a half, 
 was instantly voted for the purposes stated in the 
 message; and, on the same day, parliament was 
 prorogued by commission. 
 
 Two days before the prorogation, Lord Sidmouth 
 (Addington) and Lord Buckinghamshire resigned, 
 nominally because of a difference of opinion about 
 Lord Melville; but there were certainly many 
 other differences and other causes which made 
 Sidmouth averse to continuing in office under 
 Pitt. Sidmouth, too, may have calculated that the 
 impeachment of Melville might entirely break up 
 the cabinet, and realize the ardent hope of Fox 
 and his friends. Sidmouth was succeeded by 
 Lord Camden, and Lord Buckinghamshire by 
 Lord Harrowby. Lord Castlereagh obtained Earl 
 Camden’s place of secretary of foreign affairs. 
 The adherents of Sidmouth were distinguished 
 neither by their number nor by their ability, but 
 to the mixed opposition, already so numerous, a 
 slight addition of weight might turn the balance 
 against Pitt, whose personal energy, moreover, was 
 evidently on the decline. 
 
 Although it had not been deemed expedient to 
 communicate the fact to parliament, a treaty had 
 been signed as early as the 11th of April, by which 
 the Emperor of Russia and the King of England 
 reciprocally bound themselves to use the most 
 efficacious means for forming a general league of 
 the states of Europe, for the purpose of putting an 
 end to the encroachments of the French govern- 
 ment, and securing the independence of Europe. 
 Sweden and Austria had both entered into the 
 same views. The King of Sweden had signed a 
 separate treaty with the Emperor of Russia, on 
 the 10th of January ; but Austria hung back, and 
 recommended that negotiations should be attempted 
 with Bonaparte before proceeding to hostilities. A 
 Russian envoy was dispatched for France; but he 
 
 ‘stopped for a time at Berlin to sound the intentions 
 
 of the prevaricating cabinet of the King of Prussia, 
 and while he was there, intelligence received 
 at Vienna and Petersburg of Bonaparte’s having 
 annexed Genoa to France, and of his having inti- 
 mated by other proceedings that a state of peace 
 on the continent was not to prevent his aggran- 
 dizing himself still further at the expense of his 
 neighbours, led to the envoy’s immediate recal, 
 and to the determination of Austria to try again 
 the fortune of war. By a treaty signed at Peters- 
 burg, on the 9th of August, Austria became a 
 member of the league with England, Russia, and 
 Sweden. But Prussia continued in the same 
 dubious state; increasing her armies, avoiding 
 any direct engagement, or even explanation, and 
 evidently waiting events, in order to determine 
 which side to take as the most advantageous to 
 herself. Bonaparte had long been holding out the 
 lure of Hanover; and for the possession of those 
 dominions of their old ally and near relative, the 
 King of England, coupled with certain other ad- 
 vantages to be obtained at the expense of the 
 
268 
 
 House of Austria, the court of Berlin, or those who 
 directed its affairs, would have gone hand in hand 
 with the Emperor of the French. 
 
 Without taking into account the incidents of the 
 preceding years, the provocations given by Bona- 
 parte since the opening of the present year were 
 by themselves of a nature generally felt as intoler- 
 able, It seemed as if Hurope must fight or submit ; 
 and the abundant experience of some years had 
 demonstrated what were the effects of submis- 
 sion to France. “It was not without a design,” 
 says the Italian historian, “that so many Italians 
 of note had been invited to Paris to attend, in the 
 name of the Cisalpine Republic, the imperial coro- 
 nation and ceremonies. Melzi, the vice-president ; 
 the councillors of state, Marescalchi, Caprara, 
 Paradisi, Fenaroli, Costabili, Luosi, Guicciardi, 
 together with deputies from the colleges, Wc., 
 obeyed the summons, and remained some con- 
 siderable time in France. They were given to 
 understand that the emperor must be king on the 
 other side of the Alps; that the Italian republic 
 was an anomaly, and that the proceedings at Lyon 
 must be condemned and reversed; and at the 
 sign given by Napoleon, these Italians promptly 
 obeyed.”* Among the deputies were several men 
 illustrious by name, and not obscure in individual 
 character or in talent ; but implicit obedience was 
 imposed by the sense of weakness and helplessness, 
 and it might honestly be confessed that the repub- 
 lican system had not worked very well in Italy— 
 and if they did not submit to Bonaparte, they must 
 submit again to the Austrians. 
 
 On the 17th of March, the emperor being on 
 his throne in the Tuileries, the Italian deputies 
 bent the knee before him, and _ vice-president 
 Melzi addressed him to the effect that it was clearly 
 - impossible that his country should preserve her 
 present form of government; that the republican 
 constitution settled at Lyon was but an accidental 
 circumstance corresponding with other accidents 
 of that time; that common sense and experience 
 showed the necessity of instantly changing that 
 constitution, and erecting a monarchy in Italy ; 
 and that it followed as a natural consequence that 
 the Italian throne could be occupied only by the 
 great Napoleon. When he had done speaking, he 
 presented to the emperor the public act of the 
 Consulta, which prayed the emperor to accept the 
 crown. ‘This act further expressed that the mon- 
 archy should be hereditary; that the style should 
 be Napoleon I. King of Italy; that the two crowns 
 of France and Italy should remain united only on 
 the head of Napoleon, and not on the heads of his 
 descendants and successors in France; that he 
 might, however, appoint his own successor in 
 Italy, provided it were not the same prince that 
 was to fill the imperial throne; and that it was 
 hoped that Napoleon would cross the Alps as soon 
 as he conveniently could to receive the crown, aud 
 settle definitive laws for the kingdom. In reply 
 
 * Carlo Botta. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 to their act and to Melzi’s harangue, Bonaparte, 
 who knew the note that would flatter and cajole 
 them, declared that it had ever been his cherished 
 idea to raise the Italian nation to unity, liberty, 
 and independence; that, even while on the banks 
 of the far-off Nile, as when still covered with the 
 blood and dust of the field of Marengo, he had 
 devoted his thoughts to the best means of re-organ- 
 ising their beautiful country, and making it happy. 
 He accepted the crown which they offered, but 
 would only keep it so long as the interests of Italy 
 required it. After this acceptance, Bonaparte sent 
 Talleyrand over to the senate to declare that the 
 present union of the crown of Italy to that of 
 France was very necessary. And, following close 
 on the heels of his minister for foreign affairs, he 
 appeared in that august assembly himself, and told 
 the senators that his power, or the power of France, 
 was exceeded only by his or its moderation; and 
 then he bade them look at the monstrous usurpa- 
 tions and encroachments of other powers, and 
 judge whether it were not necessary to throw 
 weight into the French scale. They knew, he said, 
 that France had never taken up arms out of a 
 loye of conquest or aggrandizement! The senators 
 applauded ; they abused the republican form of 
 government, and gave dinners and balls to cele- 
 brate the birth of the Italian monarchy. Bona- 
 parte then appointed his step-son and adopted son, 
 Prince Eugene Beauharnais, to be viceroy of Italy, 
 and created vice-president Melzi keeper of the seals 
 for that kingdom, with an enormous salary, The 
 other Italian deputies were not forgotten ; but in 
 
 _— 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 i 
 1 
 a 
 | 
 P 
 =| 
 
 the distribution of honours and places, some few | 
 
 of them fared but indifferently, because they were 
 reported to have expressed a high regard for con- 
 stitutional securities. No time was lost in com- 
 
 pleting this easy work. With a most numerous | 
 
 and gorgeous retinue, Bonaparte traversed France — 
 
 and crossed the Alps; and on Sunday, the 26th of | 
 May, he was crowned with the iron crown of the | 
 
 old Longobard kings in the magnificent cathedral — 
 Being crowned with the iron crown of — 
 
 of Milan. 
 
 the Longobards, Bonaparte instituted an Italian | 
 Order of the “Iron Crown;” and modelled the | 
 
 new kingdom on precisely the same plan as the 
 French empire. 
 person the session of the Italian legislative body. 
 
 He established his military conscription, and — 
 
 On the 7th of June he opened in | 
 
 |. 
 
 raised the army of Italy to 40,000 or 50,000 men, | 
 These Italian troops were of immense service tO | 
 him in the ensuing campaign ; and without them, | 
 Massena must have been crushed on the Adige by a 
 
 the Archduke Charles. 
 
 emperor-king with a deputation 
 
 At an opportune moment, — 
 the Doge of the Republic of Genoa, the descendant | 
 of the noble Durazzi, presented himself to the — 
 of Genoese 
 
 senators and others, and humbly prayed that he | 
 would cure the evils of Genoa by uniting it to the | 
 French empire. On the 9th of June, an Imperial | 
 Decree united the Genoese or Ligurian Republic to- 
 France—and, it said, for ever. But the great | 
 destroyer of republican institutions had not yeb~ 
 
 ‘ 
 
Bo 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 completed his work; and he proceeded to trans- 
 form the ancient republic of Lucca into a new 
 principality, which was given to his sister Eliza, 
 and her husband Baciocchi, to be held as a fief of 
 the French empire. After this, the only republic 
 that was left in Italy was San Marino, with its 
 hill territory not so extensive as a second-rate 
 English parish, with its population of 6000 souls, 
 and its grape-treaders and vintners for presidents 
 and captains. The annexation of Genoa, whose 
 independence and that of the other then existing 
 Italian republics had been solemnly guaranteed by 
 the treaty of Lunéville, together with the inde- 
 pendence of the Swiss republics, which the French 
 ruled over as masters, and the independence of the 
 Batavian republic, which they continued to occupy 
 as conquered territory, Bonaparte himself well 
 knew must hasten the rupture both with Austria 
 and Russia ; but he declared that such a possession 
 was worth the risks of another war. It should 
 appear, however, that he deceived himself, down 
 almost to the moment when she took the field, 
 with the notion that Austria would not so soon 
 measure swords with the victor of Marengo, On 
 his return from Italy, he repaired again to the 
 coast, and gaye a new impulse to the preparations 
 for the invasion of England, and spoke of it 
 publicly as an attempt fully resolved upon, and 
 not to be prevented by any occurrences whatever. 
 The army of England, as it was called, still lay at 
 Boulogne ; the flotillas had been increased, and a 
 junction was making between the French flects and 
 the fleets of Spain. But as Nelson at Trafalgar 
 annihilated the united fleets, without which the 
 invasion was an absolute impracticability, as that 
 battle would have been fought whether there had 
 been a coalition or not; and as the continental 
 war affected on neither side the forces whose 
 battle-field was the wide ocean, it is absurd to say, 
 as some French writers continue to do, that it was 
 the hostile movement of Russia and Austria, 
 brought about by English gold, that saved England 
 from invasion, if not from conquest. It is indeed 
 uncertain whether Bonaparte ever seriously con- 
 templated the enterprise. England was safe 
 through the cannon fired at Trafalgar, though not 
 a gun had been fired on the continent, and 
 though Bonaparte had been left undisturbed to 
 parade his troops on the coast, as he had already 
 done for years. Towards the end of August, 
 Bonaparte returned once more to Boulogne; and 
 the ‘ Moniteur’ announced that this journey was 
 the prelude to the invasion of England. But on 
 the 28th of that month, it was publicly announced 
 that the army of England was to become the army 
 of Germany, that the Emperor Francis had 
 attacked an ally of Napoleon, that the Emperor 
 Alexander was marching, that the continent was 
 in flames, And forthwith the 150,000 men col- 
 lected at Boulogne and along that coast struck 
 their tents, and, forming into five separate corps, 
 marched away with admirable rapidity for the 
 Rhine. At the same time, other troops were set 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 269 
 
 in motion from the interior of France; and 
 marching orders were sent to Bernadotte, who 
 commanded a corps darmée in Hanover, and to 
 Marmont, who commanded another in Holland. 
 No mode of excitement had been neglected : all 
 these immense bodies of troops commenced their 
 long march with joyous and confident feelings. 
 There was at first a great want of ready money; 
 but Bonaparte remedied this deficiency by seizing 
 50,000,000 of francs out of the deposits in the 
 National Bank, which his own laws and codes had 
 decreed to be sacred and unapproachable. This 
 deed, however, which utterly destroyed public 
 credit for a time, created many malcontents, and, 
 in co-operation with other causes of disaffection, 
 it would have led to a revolution at home if 
 Bonaparte had not proved victorious abroad, 
 
 Marshals Soult, Davoust, Ney, Lannes, and 
 Murat led the five great columns which were 
 marching from Boulogne. Bonaparte remained 
 some time longer at Paris; and on the 28rd of 
 September, he prefaced his departure by going in 
 state to the senate, and there delivering an excit- 
 ing speech on the causes of the present war. He 
 then travelled post to Mayence or Mainz, and took 
 the command of the “Grand Army,” a name 
 which was afterwards always applied to the army 
 while he commanded in person. 
 
 After hesitating so long, and thereby occasion- 
 ing delays on the part of the Emperor Alexander, 
 the cabinet of Vienna precipitated measures, and 
 took the field too soon ; for the Russians were still 
 far off when the Austrians commenced operations. 
 By a strange fatality, the Emperor Francis had 
 given the command of his main army to General, 
 now Ficld-marshal, Mack, who had the art or 
 knack still to pass with the Aulic Council as a 
 great military genius, and the best of tacticians 
 and strategists. His shameful discomfiture in the 
 south of Italy, in the year 1799, was attributed 
 solely to the bad, unwarlike qualities of the 
 Neapolitan troops ; with the steady veterans of the 
 Emperor, the sturdy Austrian infantry, the active 
 light troops of Bohemia, and the brilliant cavalry 
 of Hungary, he would do better, nay, must con- 
 quer, and rescue the whole of Germany from the 
 thraldom of the French. Of this confidence he 
 had himself the fullest share; and therefore when 
 he began to move, he moved with almost unpre- 
 cedented rapidity (for an Austrian army), setting 
 at defiance the old national caution and circum- 
 spection, which indeed had been the main causes 
 of many a reycrse, and seeming more anxious 
 for a battle with Bonaparte without them than 
 for the arrival of the Russians, about whom he 
 was accustomed to speak in rather contemptuous 
 language. TFrancis’s best general, his brother, 
 
 the Archduke Charles, was detached with a much 
 smaller army into Upper Italy ; and his brother, 
 the Archduke John, who had also displayed 
 both bravery and ability, was stationed, with 
 still inferior forces, in the passes of the Tyrol, to 
 keep up a communication between the army of 
 
270 
 
 Germany under Mack and the army of Italy under 
 his brother Charles. Anarmy of reserve, called the 
 army of Bohemia, and being about 40,000 strong, 
 lay in the rear of Mack and covered Vienna and 
 the hereditary states; and another corps d’armée, 
 called the army of Gallicia, was disposed so as to 
 meet the Russians on their march and then co- 
 operate with them. The total number of forces to 
 be brought into the field by the allies was estimated 
 by the French at 500,000 men, and might pro- 
 bably amount to 350,000 or 400,000; but a large 
 proportion of the Austrians were raw recruits and 
 levies that not only had never been under fire, but 
 that had not yet mastered the rudiments of the 
 drill-ground ; and they were divided and subdi- 
 vided and scattered over an immense extent of 
 country, with the Alps and other mountains, with 
 the Inn, the Danube, and other rivers, between 
 them. Mack, who was in the van of all, never 
 had under his immediate command more than 
 80,000 men. Bavaria, one of the hereditary ene- 
 mies of the House of Austria, had, as much through 
 selfish calculation and ancient antipathy as through 
 fear of the modern conquerors of Europe, devoted 
 itself to France. Before Mack reached the banks 
 of the Inn, the Emperor Francis dispatched the 
 Prince of Schwartzenberg to Munich to negociate 
 with the Elector Maximilian Joseph, to call upon 
 him as a member of the Germanic league to rise 
 against the oppressors of their common country, 
 and to join the Bavarian army to those that were 
 fighting for the independence of Germany. The 
 elector assured Schwartzenberg that his heart was 
 in the great cause, that he had fully decided in 
 favour of Austria, and that he had only a few con- 
 ditions to propose which, he trusted, the emperor 
 would not refuse. Maximilian Joseph even wrote 
 to the emperor to assure him that he would join 
 the Bavarian troops to the Austrian army ; but 
 _ that he must implore for some little delay and 
 management, as his son was travelling in the south 
 of France, and would be made responsible if he 
 openly joined the coalition. ‘On my knees,” said 
 he, “I implore you to let me remain neutral for a 
 time—it is an afflicted father praying for his son.” 
 He solemnly promised never to join his troops to 
 the army of Bonaparte. But at the same time the 
 elector’s prime minister, Montgelas, who was 
 wholly in the French interest, and who had pro- 
 bably already touched some of the golden napo- 
 leons which had been carried off from the national 
 bank, was holding a very different language with 
 Bonaparte’s ambassador, M. Otto; and the elec- 
 tor himself, not many hours after writing to the 
 Emperor Francis, wrote with his own hand a note 
 to Otto stating that the Austrians had already 
 placed their pontoons on the Inn, and were on the 
 point of entering Bavaria; that, if he openly de- 
 clared that he had concluded a treaty of alliance 
 with France, his army and his country would be 
 lost ; that he wished to keep his word with the 
 Emperor of the French without provoking the 
 wrath of the cabinet of Vienna; that nothing but 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 | a short neutrality could save him; that he was be- 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 wildered and knew not what todo. ‘If the Aus- 
 trian minister,’ said he to M. Otto, ‘*should offer 
 me neutrality on condition that I do not permit 
 my troops to move a step, and that I remain per- 
 fectly quiet, what answer would you advise me to 
 give him? I am ready to sacrifice everything, 
 even my liberty, to prove to the Emperor Napoleon 
 that I wish to fulfilmy engagements. But, if your 
 army does not come soon, all is lost. The enemy 
 (the Austrians) will have time to take up the best 
 positions in Bavaria, and it will cost a great many 
 men and much trouble to dislodge them.” Three 
 days after this, or on the 8th of September, the 
 elector wrote again to the French ambassador. 
 ‘‘ Have pity on me,” said he, “for I am the most 
 unhappy of men..... My situation is more than 
 painful. You know that the Prince of Schwartz- 
 enberg was authorised to treat with me. I had 
 therefore no longer an excuse for not sending some 
 one to Vienna. And yet to break my word, to 
 appear double in the eyes of the Emperor Napoleon, 
 my protector, is what, I hope, will soon carry me 
 to the grave. The Austrians are to enter Ba- 
 varia to-day ; my troops are not yet collected.... 
 I am not sure whether I can quit this place..... 
 This morning I 
 
 him on both my knees. 
 me to do?” Otto’s advice was simply this: that 
 the elector should immediately quit Munich and 
 retire to Wurtzburg, collect his troops on the op- 
 posite frontier of Franconia, and there await the 
 arrival of the grand army of Napoleon; and this 
 advice Maximilian Joseph immediately acted upon. 
 The secret negociations which had long been car- 
 ried on between Munich and Paris were not 
 wholly unknown at Vienna; and the sudden de- 
 parture of the elector and the movement of his 
 troops told a very intelligible story. The Emperor 
 Francis, on the 14th of September, wrote from 
 Hetzendorf a reproachful letter to Maximilian, 
 who had thus failed in what was, or ought to have 
 been, the cause of all Germans: he reminded him — 
 of his promise to join his troops to the Austrian 
 army, and told him that he had been ready and 
 was still willing to grant him all the conditions 
 which he had asked for—to permit even the Ba-— 
 varian troops to serve as a separate corps d’ armée, 
 although he thought it would be more advan- 
 tageous to intermix them with his own army. 
 Was this a moment, when the French were col- 
 lecting on the Rhine, for the princes of Germany 
 to quarrel about trifles? ‘‘ The recent conduct of 
 the French,” said Francis, “in Baden, at Cassel, 
 and Stuttgard, will enable your serene highness to 
 judge whether the neutrality of Bavaria was a 
 thing possible to be obtained, and even whether 
 you, my brother and cousin, would have had it m 
 your power to fulfil your promise never to employ 
 your troops against me.” The emperor further 
 
 > mma 
 
ee 
 
 Guar. VILL] 
 
 told the elector that, if a courier had been dis- 
 patched at the moment that he pledged himself to 
 the Prince of Schwartzenberg, his son might have 
 quitted France before any measures could have 
 been taken against him. But the truth appears to 
 be that the elector had no desire to recal his son, 
 that his son was anxious rather to remain in France 
 than to quit it; and that the matrimonial alliance 
 which soon connected the ancient line of Bavaria 
 with the family of Bonaparte formed a part of 
 the elector’s secret engagements with France, or 
 had at least been verbally agreed upon. Moreover, 
 to induce Maximilian to quit Munich and with- 
 draw his troops, Otto held out the lure of a kingly 
 crown in lieu of an electoral coronet, and the tempt- 
 ing offer of a great increase of territory to be taken 
 from Austria; assuring him at the same time that 
 the occupation of Bavaria by the Austrians would 
 be but a temporary evil or accident, which would 
 soon be remedied by the arrival of the Emperor 
 Napoleon at the head of the grand army. The 
 Emperor Francis conjured Maximilian to retrace 
 his steps while there was yet time, and to send his 
 troops to co-operate with him and the Emperor 
 Alexander, who would both be deeply grieved to 
 find themselves obliged to treat his serene highness 
 otherwise than as a friend, brother, and cousin. 
 To this letter, which certainly betrays no violence 
 of urgency and no harsh conditions, no stipulations 
 but such as the emperor as suzerain of Germany 
 had a right to demand, and as a German to expect, 
 from the elector, Maximilian replied, on the 21st 
 of September, in an evasive and most paltry man- 
 ner. He was anxious to retain the emperor’s 
 friendship, but still more anxious to preserve his 
 own unhappy provinces from the horrors of war ; 
 he owed it to his unfortunate subjects and to him- 
 self not to lavish their blood in a quarrel which 
 did not concern them, and in a war against the 
 French, who had never done the Bavarians any 
 injury ;—this was the original motive of the abso- 
 lute and complete neutrality which he had claimed 
 of the emperor ;—he had withdrawn his troops be- 
 cause they had been threatened with the dishonour 
 of being disarmed by the Austrians, but he would 
 never join them to the French army ;—this was 
 his unalterable resolution, from which no menaces 
 of France should ever drive him. The Bavarian 
 army counted from 18,000 to 20,000 men, well 
 disciplined, well armed and accoutred, the cavalry 
 being particularly excellent. Such a force thrown 
 into either scale was highly important; if arrayed 
 on the side of the French it weakened the Aus- 
 trians to the extent of 36,000 or 40,000 men; 
 it therefore behoved the emperor to make every 
 effort to secure it on his side. Under a mere 
 military point of view the occupation of Bavaria 
 was a serious fault;—the Austrians would have 
 done much better to have remained far behind the 
 Inn, on the Danube, and to have awaited the ar- 
 rival of the Russians on their own territory and in 
 well-chosen positions ;—but, under a political and 
 even under a moral point of view, we can see 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 271 
 
 nothing to blame in the occupation, or in any part 
 of the correspondence and conduct of the court of 
 Vienna. Such an un-German line of conduct as 
 that which had long been pursued by the court of 
 Munich would not have been practicable but for 
 the popular antipathies, the old quarrels, jealousies, 
 and grudges between the Bavarians and their 
 neighbours the subjects of the emperor; and the 
 same inveterate feelings, in full action in so many 
 other parts of Germany, were what kept weak and 
 disjointed the great and ancient confederacy, and 
 offered in so many states sympathy, welcome, and 
 co-operation to Bonaparte. The oppression and 
 insolence of years, the acme of Gallic tyranny, was 
 required to scourge this madness out of Germany, 
 and really to unite that manly people in one com- 
 mon cause. Not only did Prussia remain neutral, 
 but the Elector of Baden, in whose territory the 
 Duke d’Enghien had been kidnapped, and the 
 Elector of Wurtemberg, followed the same line of 
 conduct as his serene highness of Bavaria. If 
 Prussia had fallen upon the French in flank as 
 they were advancing against the Austrians, the 
 consequence must have been fatal to the invaders ; 
 but she professed to be neutral and impartial; the 
 daring violation of her own territery by French 
 troops could not rouse her; and she kept her 
 splendid army of 200,000 men in perfect inactivity. 
 In vain Pitt offered his subsidies, in vain the Em- 
 peror Alexander repaired in person to Berlin; 
 that selfish, paltry cabinet would do nothing, or 
 nothing yet ; and this indecision lasted until the 
 coalition was ruined. 
 
 Not satisfied with the advance he had already 
 made, Mack, that fatal tactitian, left the Inn and 
 the capital of Bavaria far behind him, and, ap- 
 proaching the Rhine and the frontiers of France, 
 took possession of Ulm, Memmingen, and the line 
 of the Iller and the Upper Danube, where he for- 
 tified himself with great care, as if to watch the 
 defiles of the Black Forest, and as if fully per- 
 suaded that the French could take no other route 
 than that, and could attack him only in front. But 
 the front was precisely where Bonaparte never 
 meant to attack: his plan of campaign was to turn 
 Mack’s flank, to cut him off from his own country 
 and resources, then to close the French columns 
 upon him, envelope him, and reduce him to the 
 alternative of surrendering without fighting or of 
 fighting without a chance of success against con- 
 centrated forces far superior in number to his own. 
 And to execute this brilliant conception the seven 
 columns of the grand army marched in separate 
 lines, which all converged towards one point, and 
 each of which was to be followed without any re- 
 gard to the neutrality of intervening states. These 
 combined movements were admirably executed ; 
 but the wide separations of the French forces were 
 such as would have afforded many an opportunity 
 for attacking them singly, and as did afford to 
 Prussia a most tempting opportunity for crushing 
 and annihilating the column which Bernadotte 
 was leading from Hanover, and which was charged 
 
272 
 
 with the most important operation of all—that of 
 picking up the Elector of Bavaria’s troops and 
 acting in union with them on Mack’s rear. Ber- 
 nadotte could not pursue his appointed line of 
 march without traversing Anspach, which belonged 
 to the King of Prussia, and Hesse Cassel and other 
 territories whose neutrality his Prussian majesty 
 had guaranteed; and some of the most important 
 military blunders which Mack committed may be 
 excused by the dull credulity which induced him 
 and the court of Vienna to believe that the French 
 would not dare to set the law of nations at defiance 
 and so grossly insult Prussia; or that, if they 
 should so dare, the provocation would bring the 
 Prussian army into the field to bar the road to 
 Bernadotte and destroy him; and that thus in 
 either case Mack’s right wing would be covered, 
 and the roads on that side which led to his rear 
 and to the Bavarian army be blocked up at their 
 heads to every enemy. But, after so long an ex- 
 perience of the degree of respect which the French 
 paid to the law of nations, and of the extent of the 
 baseness of which the court of Berlin was capable, 
 this fatal credulity, which furnished in a manner 
 the basis of Mack’s strategy, was unaccountable, 
 unpardonable. Bernadotte, obeying his emperor’s 
 instructions to the letter,* and meeting with no 
 obstruction whatever from the Prussians, passed 
 rapidly on his way, effected his junction with the 
 Bavarians, threw himself in Mack’s rear, and, 
 from that moment, the fate of the campaign was 
 decided! But, though Prussia had been so com- 
 placent to the French, she was transported with a 
 zeal for the observances of neutrality when the 
 Russians came upon her territories or those of her 
 
 neighbours ; and, through this zeal and the deli- | 
 
 cate scruples of the czar and his generals, the | 
 | them. 
 
 The plan of the | 
 
 march was lengthened by a detour, and eight or 
 ten precious days were lost. 
 coalition, indeed, encountered everywhere obstacles 
 to its strategetical development, whereas Bona- 
 parte’s plan was everywhere seconded ; that which 
 was an obstacle to his enemies was no obstacle to 
 him ; scruples which made them weak made him 
 strong ; he had trampled under foot the principle 
 of neutrality. 
 
 To confirm and keep Mack in his error, Mu- 
 rat, who had crossed the Rhine at Kehl, ap- 
 proached the Black Forest and manceuvred in 
 the Austrian front. In the meanwhile Soult, who 
 had crossed the Rhine at Spires, directed his march 
 upon Augsburg, on the river Lech, immediately in 
 Mack’s rear and about midway between the fortress 
 of Ulm and the capital of Bavaria; and Davoust, 
 Vandamme, and Marmont, who had entered Ger- 
 many from different points considerably to the 
 northward of Mack’s positions, turned his right 
 wing and gave the hand to Soult at Augsburg. 
 Some of these corps manceuvred over the ground 
 
 * Bonaparte’s instructions to Bernadotte as to Hesse Cassel, or 
 any other neutral territory he might find on his way, were very 
 concise: ** Pass on, by all means; pass, by ruse, force, or good 
 
 will; only pass!” 
 + Capefigue. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 which had been made memorable by the British 
 campaign of Blenheim, and fought victoriously on 
 precisely the same spots where the French had been 
 so thoroughly beaten by our great Marlborough. 
 The very first encounter took place at Donawerth, 
 on the bank of the Danube, where one Austrian 
 regiment most gallantly defended a bridge against 
 the entire column of Vandamme. A second affair 
 took place on the same spot between a division of 
 French dragoons and an Austrian regiment of 
 cuirassiers. But the most important action was 
 fought at Wertingen, between Ulm and Augsburg, 
 where Murat and Lannes with eighty squadrons 
 of horse encountered twelve battalions of Hun- 
 garian grenadiers and four squadrons of Austrian 
 cuirassiers. The combat was long and terrible; 
 the loss of the French in killed and wounded was 
 great ; the grenadiers formed into squares and threw 
 the French cavalry off at the point of the bayonet ; 
 the squares were not to be broken by cavalry 
 
 | charges ; nor would they have been broken at all, 
 
 _ on the 10th of October. 
 _ surprised and captured an entire Austrian division 
 
 but for the timely arrival of some artillery and 
 General Oudinot’s grenadiers, who, when they 
 were wearied by their long exertions, plied them 
 with grape-shot, charged them with the bayonet, 
 and put an end to the combat. Bonaparte, 
 who by this time had joined Soult at Augsburg, 
 where he quietly directed that circumyallation 
 which was to embrace Mack with a circle of fire 
 and steel, made a great deal of the affair of Wer- 
 tingen, and sent crosses of the Legion of Honour 
 to those who had most distinguished themselves in 
 it. Yet the brave Hungarian grenadiers retired 
 in excellent order, and with their faces to the foe. 
 It was only the united imbecility and treachery of 
 their commanders that could rob these superb 
 troops of victory, and dishearten and demoralize 
 If a detachment had been at hand to sup- 
 port them, the French cavalry must have been 
 routed at Wertingen; but the French always had 
 such reinforcements to throw into action at the op- 
 portune moment, and the Austrians, whatever 
 might be the strength of their army, never, or 
 most rarely, had anything of the kind. This was 
 A day or two after, Soult 
 
 at Memmingen; Dupont repelled an attack made 
 upon him by the Archduke Ferdinand; and Ney 
 routed that archduke at Elchingen and at the 
 bridges over the Danube at Guntzburg, taking 
 from the archduke most of his guns and nearly 
 3000 men. If, instead of attacking by divisions, 
 Mack had concentrated all his forces at Ulm, he 
 might, with comparative ease, have burst through 
 the ring which Bonaparte was drawing round him, 
 have re-established his communications with the 
 Archduke John, who was now descending from 
 the Tyrol by forced marches, have thrown himself 
 between the French and Vienna, and have waited 
 there for the arrival of the Russians, who were 
 now in full march for Moravia; or, if unable to 
 maintain himself in front of Vienna, he might have 
 crossed the Danube below that city, and have gone 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 iv 
 
 a 
 
Cuapr. VIII.] 
 
 into Moravia to meet the advancing columns of the 
 Russians; and in this case a battle might have 
 been fought on the plains of Austerlitz, with a very 
 different force, and under far better auspices than 
 subsequently attended the terrible conflict on those 
 plains. But Mack was betrayed by others even 
 more than he was duped by his own egregious 
 folly: Schulmeister, a German spy in the pay of 
 Fouché, was “ the tempting demon” of the Austrian 
 
 staff; he glided through the postern gates of Ulm 
 " more than once during the approach of the I’rench ; 
 and it appears that the lying information he gave 
 to some, and the money he distributed to others, 
 conduced more than anything to Mack’s blindness 
 and final catastrophe. After the affair of Guntz- 
 burg there was scarcely any more fighting, but a 
 system of capitulations was commenced, and de- 
 tached masses of troops surrendered to the French 
 without firing a musket. In every case the men 
 were sent into France as prisoners of war ; but the 
 officers, after being treated with an affectation of 
 kindness, were liberated upon their parole not to 
 serve again during this war. Within twelve days 
 after Bonaparte had crossed the Rhine Mack’s 
 doom was sealed—he was shut up in Ulm, as old 
 Marshal Wurmser had been in Mantua, without a 
 hope or a possibility of being relieved. Ulm, how- 
 ever, was a fortress of some strength, and some- 
 thing might be expected from Mack’s despair: if 
 bread and other provisions were rather scanty, there 
 were 3000 or more horses in the place, and brave 
 men would have done what Mack once talked of do- 
 ing—they would have killed and eaten their horses 
 before they capitulated. Even a siege of short dura- 
 tion would have been fatal to Bonaparte, for the 
 advanced season of the year was unfavourable to 
 such operations, and he would soon have had the 
 Russians upon his rear, and the united armies of 
 the Archdukes Charles and John upon his flank. 
 To take such a place with such an immense 
 garrison in it by storm, must have cost him some 
 thousands of men: the desperate attempt too 
 might have failed ; and then would have followed 
 discouragement and confusion. It might have 
 been that Mack’s very blunder should have served 
 the cause of the coalition better than the best gene- 
 ralship ; but for this chance a hero would have been 
 required, and Mack’s courage appears to have been 
 upon a par with his military genius. Bonaparte 
 certainly expected some desperate conflict, for it 
 was difficult to conceive that such a force, so well 
 placed, would surrender without fighting. He de- 
 livered one of his stirring addresses to the French 
 soldiers, calling upon them to avenge themselves 
 at Ulm for the loss of the plunder of London, of 
 which (so he told them) they would have been in 
 possession before now, if it had not been for this 
 new, and by the French unprovoked, continental 
 war. But when he had dispatched the Count de 
 Segur with a flag of truce to propose terms of 
 capitulation to Mack, or when that alert, sagacious, 
 and quick-sighted envoy had returned to head- 
 
 quarters, every apprehension of a protracted re- 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805, 
 
 273 
 
 sistance, or of a desperate conflict, vanished ; and 
 Bonaparte saw that Ulm and all in it would be his 
 without risking the life of aman, or burning one 
 cartridge more. Mack blabbed and babbled to 
 Segur like an old woman, betraying his imbecility, 
 his timidity, his hopelessness, his total want of the 
 heart and energy of aman. The Frenchman pro- 
 posed that he should capitulate at the end of five 
 days, unless the Russians should appear to relieve 
 him: Mack asked for eight days, telling Segur that 
 he really had provisions for ten days. Bonaparte 
 sent Segur back again, and ordered Marshal Ber- 
 thier to accompany him. Mack admitted both the 
 civilian and the French general into Ulm, without 
 resorting to any of the precautions usual on such 
 occasions. The un-bandaged, quick, and practised 
 eyes of Berthicr saw at a glance that there was no 
 preparation for, or intention of, fighting ; that the 
 commander-in-chief had infected his officers and 
 men with his own dastardliness. Segur now told 
 Mack that the Emperor Napoleon would graciously 
 grant him the eight days he asked him; but that 
 they must date from two days back, or from the 
 time that the French took up positions in front of 
 Ulm. Mack, however, struggled hard for the eight 
 days; and at last an agreement was signed that 
 there should be an armistice until the 26th of Oc- 
 tober at midnight; and that if, during this inter- 
 val, an Austrian or Russian army should appear 
 to raise the blockade, the army at Ulm should 
 have liberty to join it, with arms and baggage: this 
 was late in the evening of the 17th of October ; 
 and the time stipulated would have been in va- 
 rious ways advantageous to the allies, even though 
 no fresh force should arrive. But on the 19th 
 Mack rode out of Ulm, and had a private inter- 
 view with Bonaparte in the ancient abbey of Elchin- 
 gen. All that passed at that interview is not likel 
 to be ever known ; but the result was that Mack 
 consented to a revision of the terms which had 
 been granted on the 17th, and signed a second 
 capitulation, wherein he agreed to evacuate Ulm, 
 and give up his army and everything in the town 
 on the very next day, the 20th of October. In 
 coming out of Bonaparte’s apartment in the abbey, 
 Segur heard Mack say, ‘‘It is cruel to be thus 
 dishonoured before so many brave officers. [ 
 have, however, in my pocket my opinion in writ- 
 ing, and signed, wherein I objected to the scattering 
 of my army: but I never really commanded that 
 army ; the Archduke Ferdinand was there!’ This 
 throwing the blame upon another was character- 
 istic of the man, and a termination quite in keep- 
 ing with the whole affair. 
 
 On the morning of the 20th the Austrians came 
 out of Ulm, and defiled before Bonaparte: the in- 
 fantry then threw down their arms at the back of 
 the ditch ; the cavalry dismounted, and delivered 
 up their arms and their horses to some of the 
 French cavalry who had lost their own horses in 
 the campaign. The poor Austrians, in the act of 
 surrendering their arms, shouted, Long live the 
 Emperor Francis! Mack, who was there, replied 
 
 R 
 
274 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 + 
 
 i 
 
 Z| 
 
 ASS 
 
 \ 
 ANE 
 
 Sev 
 a 
 
 — 
 
 <= * 
 — ——— 
 
 — = 
 
 —— 
 
 Utm.—From an original Sketch by Batty. 
 
 tosome French officers, who addressed him with- 
 out knowing who he was, “ Messieurs, you see 
 before you the unhappy Mack—vous voyez devant 
 vous le malheureux Mack.” Bonaparte, who had 
 been humming an opera air, as was his wont in 
 his moments of extasy and triumph, said to some 
 of the Austrian generals, “* Messieurs, it is very 
 unfortunate for brave men like you to be the victims 
 of a cabinet which dreams but of insensate projects, 
 and makes a traffic of your services to England 
 and Russia. It was iniquitous to think of seizing 
 me by the throat without a declaration of war; but 
 it was betraying you, your country, all civilized 
 Europe, to bring in the barbarous hordes of Rus- 
 sia to meddle in our quarrels. Instead of attack- 
 ing me without motive, your Aulic Council ought 
 to ally itself with me, in order to drive back the 
 Russian army. Thisalliance of your cabinet with 
 Russia is a thing monstrous in history! .. . 
 
 Your master, the emperor, is waging an unjust war 
 with me. I tell you frankly that I do not know 
 why I am fighting, or what they would have of 
 me. My resources are not limited to this single 
 army :—even if they were, this army and I would 
 
 go a long way yet! [But I will appeal to the re- 
 port of your own prisoners, who are going to be 
 marched through France, and who will see what a 
 spirit animates my people, and with what eager- 
 ness they will rush tomy banner. This is but the 
 vanguard of my nation! Ata word 200,000 men 
 will willingly and joyfully rush to join me, and in 
 six weeks they will be good soldiers; whereas your 
 recruits will march only upon compulsion ; and it 
 will require years to make soldiers of them! I 
 will still give a bit of advice to my brother the 
 Emperor of Germany—let him hasten to make 
 peace! This isa moment for him to recollect that 
 all empires have an end! The idea of the ap- 
 
 proaching ruin of his dynasty ought to terrify him, — 
 
 I want nothing on the Continent :—ships, colo- 
 nies, commerce, these are what I want, and these 
 will be as advantageous to you as to me!” 
 
 A very few days after this he received intelli- 
 gence of the annihilation of his fleets at Trafalgar, 
 which happened on the 21st of October, on the 
 very day after Mack’s surrender. It clouded his 
 triumph, and for a time depressed his spirits. He 
 peevishly remarked, “I cannot be everywhere !” 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 | 
 ft 
 
 v 
 ee 
 
 £ 
 
 ¥ 
 
 f 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 But his presence at Trafalgar, in a ship of the 
 line, would have been much more useless than 
 that of Nelson on horseback would have been in 
 this campaign on the Danube. Great sea-battles 
 are not to be won by soldiers, Bonaparte knew 
 next to nothing of sea affairs; and his Admiral 
 Villeneuve, an excellent sailor, and a brave man, 
 had done all that mortal man could do when con- 
 tending with Nelson, Yet he spitefully censured 
 Villeneuve’s conduct, and easily made the French 
 believe that, if he could only have been with the 
 combined fleets, Nelson would have been beaten, 
 and the way opened to the invasion of England, 
 
 Different accounts are given of the number of 
 the troops which Mack delivered up at Ulm. 
 Segur says that Mack told him he had 24,000 
 fighting men, and 8000 sick and wounded ; but 
 Segur adds that on the morning of the 20th the 
 Austrians that surrendered amounted to 33,000. 
 Other accounts give 25,000, 28,000, and 30,000 ; 
 and it appears certain that the number far exceeded 
 20,000. There were, besides, immense trains of 
 artillery, a depdt of arms and military stores, a 
 prodigious quantity of gunpowder, baggage, &e, 
 &c., which all became the easy prey of the con- 
 queror. All the officers were liberated on parole ; 
 but the men and the captured standards were all 
 sent into France, Including the scattered detach- 
 ments which had capitulated on other points, from 
 40,000 to 50,000 Austrians were carried across the 
 Rhine before the campaign was a month old. In 
 dismissing the Austrian officers, who were not na- 
 turally disposed to look with a very friendly eye 
 on the Russians, Bonaparte dwelt again on the evil 
 consequences which must attend the alliance of 
 Austria with George III. and the Emperor Alex- 
 ander ; he again spoke of his own earnest desire to 
 haye peace with the Emperor Francis; and he 
 bade them observe that he was constantly followed 
 by his chief diplomatist and minister for foreign 
 affairs, M. de ‘Talleyrand, who was ready at every 
 moment to open conferences, and arrange the con- 
 ditions of a treaty. These artful addresses made 
 a considerable impression; and the notion was 
 rapidly communicated by these returning officers, 
 that liberal terms would be granted to Austria, and 
 that the wrath of Bonaparte was directed solely 
 against Russia and England.* 
 
 Haying re-instated the Elector Maximilian 
 Joseph in Munich his capital, Bonaparte, in pro- 
 clamations, bulletins, and Moniteur articles, 
 called upon the world to notice his unvarying re- 
 spect for treaties and for the law of nations, his 
 moderation in the hour of victory, his disinterested 
 attachment to his Bayarian ally, on whose account 
 alone he had undertaken this war, At the end of 
 October he quitted Munich to adyance upon 
 Vienna; but his aide-de-eamp, Duroe, brought 
 intelligence from Berlin of a very disquieting 
 nature; and that cabinet now seemed really to 
 threaten to join the coalition, and throw its fine 
 
 * The St. Helena Mémoires—Savary (Duc de Rovigo), Mémoires 
 —Bourrienne—Rapp. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 | 
 
 275 
 
 army on the French left flank and rear. Never- 
 theless he marched forward, having in his rear the 
 fresh division of Augereau, who had advanced from 
 France at the head of an army of reserve, a force 
 altogether unequal to have contended with the 
 Prussian army, if the cabinet of Berlin had given 
 that army fighting orders. Ney manceuvred upon 
 Bonaparte’s right, and was ready to repel any 
 descent which might be made from the Tyrol; and 
 Murat was on his left, watching the motions of an 
 Austrian division under the Archduke Ferdinand, 
 who, indignantly refusing to join in the. capitula- 
 tion of Ulm, had gallantly cut their way into Bo- 
 hemia, and there united themselves with the army 
 of reserye stationed in that kingdom, and with 
 fragments of detachments and of regiments who, 
 like themselves, had escaped from the mortal circle 
 of the French. Full in his front Bonaparte found 
 a mixed army of Russians and Austrians, who_had 
 been pressing forward to relieve Mack, but who 
 now had nothing left to do but to retreat behind 
 Vienna and the Danube into Morayia, where the 
 main army of the Russians was collected with 
 their young emperor at their head. But, though 
 through the great inferiority of their number this 
 retreat was imperative, the allied forces retired 
 fighting ; the presumptuousness of the French van 
 met with several sanguinary checks, and the grand 
 army discovered that the Russian infantry was an 
 enemy far more terrible than any they had recently 
 contended with.* As the French approached 
 Vienna, the Emperor Francis and his family fled 
 from itinto Moravia, leaving strict but scarcely 
 necessary orders to the Viennese not to bring 
 down ruin upon themselves and their city by at- 
 tempting to defend it. It was on the 7th of No- 
 vember that Francis took his departure from his 
 capital; and late on the evening of that day his 
 envoy, Count Giulay, reached Bonaparte’s head- 
 quarters then established at Lintz, on the Danube, 
 and only four or five days’ march from Vienna, to 
 propose an armistice as the prelude to a general 
 negotiation for peace. Although now more seri- 
 ously alarmed than ever at the countenance Prussia 
 was assuming, the conqueror refused to listen to 
 any proposals, unless Venice and the Tyrol were 
 given up to him, and the alliance with Russia and 
 England instantly broken. “ Separate yourselves 
 from the Russians,”’ said he, “ and all will go well. 
 I want nothing better than a good treaty of peace, 
 although I am at the head of 200,000 men. I[ 
 have delivered Bavaria in execution of my engage- 
 ments; and I would now deliver Austria from the 
 Russians, who are occupying your country like 
 conquerors.” Disheartened as was the Austrian 
 cabinet, and anxious as was the emperor to pre~ 
 serve his beloved subjects of his hereditary states 
 
 * Bonaparte was exceedingly incensed at the rashness of his bro- 
 ther-in-law Murat, who, as usual, was in the van, and flourishing 
 away with his cavalry, without due attention to the infantry behind 
 him, or to the other divisions of the army. ‘ That Murat,” said he, 
 ‘¢is rushing on like a blind man! THe will get us into a scrape. He 
 is leaving the columns of Mortier exposed to the enemy. Other 
 
 columns may be crushed. Berthier, give him orders to stop! 
 These Russians are devils.” Mortier was in fact all but sacrificed, 
 
276 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 VIENNA. 
 
 from the woes of war and a military occupation, 
 Count Giulay refused to accept these hard condi- 
 tions: he drove back to his master; and on the 
 following morning the heads of Bonaparte’s co- 
 lumns were all put into motion, and pointed towards 
 Vienna. On the 13th of November the French 
 took undisputed and quiet possession of that proud 
 capital, which had stood in former ages so many 
 sieges, and which had seen the Moslem conquerors 
 twice retreat from before its walls. There had 
 been an abundance of time to allow of the removing 
 of all such things; the grand united army in 
 Moravia was very badly provided; the Russians 
 were in want of almost everything; but the Aus- 
 trian managers of these matters appear to have 
 thought it better to keep their military stores, arms, 
 clothing, and provisions for the use of their enc- 
 mies than to send them to their friends, for the 
 French found in the magazines of Vienna and its 
 suburbs an immense quantity of all these things. 
 Bonaparte gave a part of the spoils to the Elector 
 of Bavaria, whose troops were fighting under his 
 banner, and whose un-German heart was triumph- 
 ing in the calamity and humiliation of Austria. 
 The new Emperor of the French took up his abode 
 in Schonbrunn, the splendid palace of the far-de- 
 scended Emperor Francis; he appointed one of 
 his generals governor of Vienna; and conducted 
 himself in all things like the sovereign of the 
 country. And so spiritless were the burghers of 
 
 Vienna, that they looked on with a quiet and ap- 
 parently not unpleased astonishment ; and lived in 
 a very neighbourly manner with the French 
 officers and troops. Many times the report was 
 confidently spread that peace had been concluded 
 between Napoleon and Francis; and this, con- 
 nected with other occurrences and indications, was 
 likely to damp the spirit and embarrass the coun- 
 cils of the Russians, who had marched so far only 
 to meet a beaten, disheartened, unsteady ally. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the Archduke Charles, after 
 fighting some desperate battles on the Adige, at 
 Caldiero, and other points, had been driven out of 
 
 ARCHDUKE CHARLES, 
 
TO 
 
 Guar. VIII. 
 
 Italy by the superior forces of Marshal Massena ; 
 one of his blundering or traitorous generals had 
 allowed himself to be surrounded, and had then 
 surrendered with 5000 men, and without firing a 
 shot; and, on the Ist of N ovember, the archduke 
 had commenced his retreat through the mountain 
 passes of Carinthia, with the intention of throwing 
 himself into Hungary. He was hard pressed in 
 the rear by Massena; but he kept his army in 
 admirable order, checked and severely punished 
 his pursuers, and reached Laybach, and there 
 waited the arrival of his brother the Archduke 
 John, whom Ney was driving out of the Tyrol. 
 After some hard fighting and rapid and brilliant 
 moyements, the Archduke John formed the 
 junction; but several Austrian detachments which 
 had been left on insulated positions were, com- 
 pelled to surrender, and the whole of the Tyrol 
 or its passes, as well as the whole of Upper Italy, 
 were left to the undisturbed possession of the 
 French. The united armies of the two brothers 
 were rapidly increased by volunteers from the 
 Tyrol, from Croatia, and those other mountainous 
 regions which lie between the head of the Adriatic 
 and the banks of the Danube, and which had so 
 long supplied the Austrian army with the finest 
 light troops in the world.* The two archdukes, 
 moreover, were in communication with Hungary, 
 where a brave and warlike population was flying 
 to arms, On the other side, Massena established 
 himself at Clagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, and 
 there came into direct communication with the 
 erand army in the valley of the Danube. But 
 Massena had been compelled to leave a large 
 portion of his forces behind him to secure Upper 
 Italy, and was not in a state either to annoy the 
 Archdukes Charles and John, or to give any 
 weighty co-operation to Bonaparte. 
 
 The Court of Berlin had dispatched Count 
 Haugwitz to Vienna to confer with Bonaparte ; 
 but they had given him instructions to loiter on the 
 road to wait events, and to do nothing that should 
 commit Prussia, until it was seen more clearly what 
 was likely to be the result of a general battle 
 between the Emperor of the French and the two 
 allied emperors. In their calculation of chances, 
 the shuffling statesmen of Berlin appear to have 
 fancied that crossing the Danube, and penetrating 
 into the heart of Moravia, and into the very midst 
 of Bohemians, Hungarians, and Croatians, all in 
 arms, would be fatal to Bonaparte, and finish this 
 war, and his astonishing career, without any exer- 
 tion or sacrifice on the part of Prussia. Tired of 
 waiting for the tardy Haugwitz, and determined 
 to wait no longer, Bonaparte dashed across the 
 Danube on the 22nd of November, and established 
 the main body of his army on the frontiers of 
 Moravia. He next pushed boldly forward to the 
 very centre of that country, and fixed his head- 
 quarters at Brunn, its little capital. The Emperors 
 Francis and Alexander retreated before him as 
 far as Olmutz, nearly at the opposite extremity 
 ; * Sir Walter Scott, © 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 277 
 
 of Moravia; but this retrograde movement was 
 made only for the sake of forming a readier 
 junction with a fresh Russian division which had 
 entered the province under the command of General 
 Buxhowden. When this junction was effected, the 
 army of the allies amounted to about 80,000 men ; 
 but unhappily most of the Austrian portion of it 
 were either men discouraged and militarily demo- 
 ralized, or raw levies. The slow-moving Haugwitz 
 now presented himself in Bonaparte’s camp with 
 the offer of his master’s mediation, but with the 
 alternative of a declaration of war and the march 
 of the Prussian army if the mediation should be 
 refused. But the cunning Corsican well knew 
 the. miserable vacillations and temporisings of 
 the cabinet of Berlin, and the character of the 
 man he had to deal with—and a character more 
 base and depraved than that of Count Hauegwitz 
 could not easily have been found, even at this base 
 period. He had written before this to Talleyrand : 
 “T know that this mission of M. de Haugwitz has 
 a double face, Peace or war with Prussia will 
 depend on the battle I am going to fight. If I 
 am beaten, Prussia will declare against me, and 
 reveal the treaty which already binds her to 
 England and Russia ;—cela va sans dire; but if I 
 conquer ?—Ah! then we shall see Prussia very 
 humbly at my feet, and M. de Haugwitz will talk 
 of nothing but the pacific intentions of his court! 
 Only keep de Haugwitz at Vienna till the 
 battle is fought.” But, as the count had persisted 
 and ventured, among hostile columns and squa- 
 drons, into Moravia, Bonaparte told him that the 
 best thing he could do was to return forthwith to 
 Vienna and wait. “You see,’ said he, “our out- 
 posts are engaged ; it is a prelude to the battle that 
 Iam about to fight. Say nothing to me at present, 
 Return quietly to Vienna, and wait the events of 
 the war.’ Haugwitz, as Bonaparte said, was no 
 novice: he went back to the Austrian capital, and 
 there amused himself while waiting the result of a 
 general battle. The inevitable consequence and 
 the proper. punishment of this contemptible con- 
 duct of Prussia on the eve of the battle of Auster- 
 litz, at the end of the year 1805, was the disastrous 
 battle of Jena in October, 1806, which reduced 
 the Prussian monarchy to a condition infinitely 
 more deplorable than that of Austria. Talleyrand 
 and his corps diplomatique at Vienna laboured 
 very ingeniously to create doubts and suspicions in 
 the minds of the allies, and to aggravate the anti- 
 pathies which really existed between the Austrians 
 and Russians. ‘Talleyrand’s moé was: “Let us 
 deliver Europe from the barbarians, or let us keep 
 the Russians within the limits of their old terri- 
 tories:” and he held out to Austria the hope of 
 agerandizing her at the expense of that ancient 
 ally of France, the Ottoman empire—of putting 
 Austria in possession of the Turkish provinces of 
 Moldavia and Wallachia, of all the countries on the 
 lower Danube down to the Black Sea, &c. There 
 had always been a strong French party in Vienna, 
 
 _ and these men were enchanted and dazzled by the 
 
278 
 
 fanciful perspective; and nothing was more com- 
 mon in the sa/ons and coteries than to hear praises 
 and laudations of the French conquerors, coupled 
 with sneers and reproaches against the Russian 
 allies. 
 
 On the other hand Bonaparte dispatched 
 Savary to endeavour to cajole the young czar, and, 
 failing in that, to spy out what he could in the 
 condition and disposition of the Russian army, 
 which evidently caused him more serious thoughts 
 than any enemy with whom he had hitherto con- 
 tended. He gave Savary an autograph letter, 
 signed Napoleon, in which he expressed how am- 
 bitious he was of obtaining the friendship of the 
 Emperor Alexander, &c. According to Savary’s 
 own account he made very good use of his eyes in 
 traversing the Russian bivouacs, and was very 
 graciously received by the czar, who told him that 
 he was naturally inclined to follow the same poli- 
 tical system as his father the Emperor Paul; that 
 he had only abandoned that system because France 
 had shaken the equilibrium of Europe; but that 
 now he could on no account abandon his unfor- 
 tunate ally the Emperor Francis. Savary protested 
 that the Emperor Napoleon, his master, was very 
 desirous of peace, was not an implacable enemy to 
 Austria, and that this was demonstrated by the 
 terms he had already offered to the Emperor 
 Francis. Alexander said mildly that these terms 
 were too hard, that such conditions were not to 
 be accepted, that he was sorry the want of modera- 
 tion in Savary’s master would oblige him to order 
 the Russian troops to do their duty. He gave 
 Savary a letter addressed to Bonaparte not as em- 
 peror and king, but as “Chief: of the French 
 Government.” This imperial epistle signified no- 
 thing; but there was a deal of meaning and of 
 use in the information brought back by the execu- 
 tioner of the Duke d’Enghien from the Russian 
 camp, which he never ought to have been allowed 
 to traverse at all. But Savary was even allowed 
 to return thither and to make still better use of his 
 eyes and ears. Nature had made the man fora 
 spy, and habit and long practice had perfected 
 him in the art. This time he was the bearer of a 
 verbal message requesting that the Emperor Alex- 
 ander would consent to a personal interview with 
 the Emperor Napoleon, when all differences might 
 be arranged with so much ease. But Alexander 
 was found to be firmer than ever in his resolution 
 not to separate himself from his unfortunate ally. 
 He refused the interview, but he sent one of his 
 aides-de-camp, the Prince Dolgorouki, to Bona- 
 parte’s head-quarters with. an offer to treat upon 
 the following conditions: the independence of Hol- 
 land, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy ; the evacu- 
 ation of Naples, and indemnity to the Prince of 
 Orange, and the full and entire execution of the 
 treaty of Lunéville—conditions which Bonaparte 
 rejected with scorn and anger. 
 
 As Bonaparte was getting farther and farther 
 from his own frontiers and resources, as warlike 
 populations were beginning to rise en masse all 
 
 At a 
 
 Pa 
 , rs » 
 -, 
 ‘ if 
 
 ‘ 
 a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ; [Boox X, 
 
 round him, as a few weeks would have brought 
 thousands of jagers from Bohemia and Croatia, 
 and thousands of horse from Hungary, it behoved 
 the allied emperors to avoid a general action; and 
 this they probably would have done but for the 
 very significant fact that the Russians, whose com- 
 missariat has ever been the most thievish in the 
 world, were already in a half-famished state. That 
 which would have produced a plenty in the Russian 
 camp had been left in Vienna for the French; 
 Moravia was but a poor and hungry country ;— 
 they must therefore move forward, were it only for 
 rations and quarters. And, quitting their strong 
 positions at Olmutz and their entrenchments, be- 
 hind which the French would not have ventured 
 to attack them, the Russians and their spiritless 
 allies advanced upon Brunn. Bonaparte retreated 
 to the plain of Austerlitz, which he had very at- 
 tentively surveyed several days before, and which 
 he had found to be the best battle-field in those 
 parts. The encounters which had taken place had 
 given the French soldiers a very exalted notion of 
 the Russian infantry. It was no longer possible 
 to tell them that the Russians were a set of undis- 
 ciplined barbarians ; it was better to pique the 
 susceptible French pride: and therefore Bonaparte 
 told his army that ‘they were now going to meet 
 a new enemy who had been brought from the ends 
 of the world by the gold of England ;” that “ this 
 contest was of much importance to the honour of 
 the French infantry; that the question must now 
 finally be settled whether the French infantry were 
 the first, or the second, in Europe.” 
 
 Marshal Kutusoff, who was the real commander- 
 in-chief of the allied army, began his movements 
 for attack on the morning of the 1st of December. 
 The movements were beautifully executed, with 
 order and precision ; but the exercised eye of Bona- 
 parte saw that, in order to execute his plan of turn- 
 ing the right wing of the French, Kutusoff would 
 extend his lines too much; that there were a great 
 many recruits, particularly among the Austrians ; 
 and he is said to have exclaimed, “‘ By to-morrow 
 evening that army is mine!’”? The day was passed 
 in active preparation, in disposing in the most ad- 
 vantageous manner the tremendous trains of artil- 
 lery which the French had dragged with them; 
 and the night, for Bonaparte, was one of intense 
 anxiety. He went from bivouac to bivouac—the 
 night being bitterly cold and stormy—conversing 
 familiarly with his soldiers, and uttering short and 
 easily retained sentences to keep up their courage _ 
 and serve as rallying words. Then, worn out with 
 fatigue, he snatched a half-hour’s sleep by the side of 
 one of the bivouac fires. On the morrow morning— 
 it was the first anniversary of his imperial corona- 
 tion in Notre Dame—he was on horseback long 
 before daylight. Thick fogs and mist hung over 
 the plain and the neighbouring heights on which 
 the allies were encamped: the sun could scarcely 
 break through the vapoury and cold obscurity ; but 
 at last it appeared, red and lurid, like a globe 
 dipped in blood. Then Bonaparte galloped along 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 279 
 
 the line shouting, ‘Soldiers, we must finish this | morable battle. Soldiers! you are the first war- 
 
 campaign with a thunderbolt!’ and the soldiers 
 wayed their caps in the air and shouted, Vive 
 Vempereur! vive le’ jour de sa fete! It was time 
 to be moving and doing, for the artillery of the 
 allies was heard thundering on the French right. 
 To give any details of the general action which 
 immediately ensued would occupy more space than 
 we can spare. The fatal result fully corresponded 
 with Bonaparte’s calculation. Kutusoff’s line, too 
 far extended, was broken through by a concen- 
 trated attack made by Marshals Soult, Lannes, and 
 Murat, with all the French cavalry; the Russian 
 divisions were separated; the Austrian recruits 
 fought without energy or intelligence ; and, after a 
 terrible conflict on the part of the imperial Russian 
 guards, the allied army was routed in detail, and 
 pushed off the field. Its loss was tremendous ; 
 thousands were drowned in the frozen lakes in the 
 rear of their position, the ice, though thick, not 
 being strong enough to bear so great a weight. 
 Entire lines of Russian infantry were mowed down 
 by the numerous French artillery ; but other lines 
 sprung up to supply their places, and the best part 
 of Kutusoff’s army retired in admirable order, be- 
 ing covered by clouds of Cossacks, who, with their 
 irregular charges and their long lances, repeatedly 
 drove back Murat’s regular cavalry. By one or two 
 o’clock in the afternoon the victory of the French 
 was decided ; but it was near midnight ere the Rus- 
 sians entirely left the field ; and then they marched 
 off with such a countenance that the French did not 
 dare to follow them. In the course of the morning, 
 once at least, Soult was in the greatest danger; 
 Kutusoff nearly succeeded in re-uniting his divi- 
 sions; and the fate of Bonaparte seemed to hang 
 by a thread: but a charge made by all the cavalry 
 of his guard, and then a terribly sustained fire of 
 grape-shot on the Russian squares, turned the scale, 
 and allowed him to hum his opera air—“ Ah comme 
 ily viendra !”? The two armies which engaged were 
 nearly equal in number; but the French had a de- 
 cided superiority in artillery, both as to number and 
 quality; and it was on the employment of that 
 arm that they principally relied for their victory. 
 The Russian infantry made a great use of the 
 bayonet: most of the French that were wounded 
 were wounded by that weapon, and in nearly every 
 case those wounds proved mortal. In the lying 
 bulletin and Moniteur, the French loss in killed 
 and wounded was reduced to about 2500 men; but 
 in reality it appears to have exceeded 5000. Such 
 was the battle of Austerlitz, or, as the French 
 soldiers called it, the battle of the Three Emperors. 
 At ten o'clock in the evening the conqueror 
 issued one of his proclamations or addresses to 
 his troops, in which, as usual, truth gave way 
 to rhetoric, and figures were exaggerated ad libi- 
 tum. “Soldiers of the grand army!” said the 
 proclamation, “before this day be plunged into 
 the sea of eternity, your emperor ought to speak 
 _ with you, and express his satisfaction to all those 
 who have the good fortune to fight in this me- 
 
 ESE See 
 
 riors of the world! The memory of this day, 
 and of your exploits, will be eternal. Yes, so 
 long as history and the world shall exist, it will be 
 repeated, after millions of centuries, that, in the 
 plains of Austerlitz, an army bought by the gold 
 of England, a Russian army of 76,000 men, has 
 been destroyed by you. The miserable remains 
 of that army, in which the mercantile spirit of 
 a despicable nation had placed its last hope, 
 are in flight, and are going to announce to the 
 savage inhabitants of the north what French- 
 men can do; to announce to them that you who, 
 after destroying the Austrian army near Ulm, have 
 said at Vienna, That army is no more! will tell 
 them also at Petersburgh, The Emperor Alexander 
 has no longer an army! Soldiers of the grand 
 army ! it isnot yet four months since your emperor 
 said to you at Boulogne, ‘ We are going to march to 
 annihilate a coalition plotted by the gold and in- 
 trigues of England ;’ and now the result is the de- 
 struction of 300,000 men in the campaign of Ulm, 
 and of the forces of two great monarchs, &c. &c.”’ 
 As the French could never have enough of this 
 sort of declamation, another address was issued 
 on the morrow morning. ‘“ Soldiers,’ it said, ‘‘ I 
 am satisfied with you; you have decorated your 
 eagles with an immortal glory! An army of 100,000 
 men, commanded by the Emperors of Russia and 
 Austria, has been, in less than four days, cut to 
 pieces or dispersed ; what escaped from your steel 
 has been drowned in the lakes. Forty flags, the 
 standards of the imperial guard of Russia, 120 
 pieces of cannon, 20 generals, more than 30,000 
 prisoners, are the result of the day for ever me- 
 morable. That boasted Russian infantry, though 
 superior in number, could not stand your shock ; 
 and henceforward you have no rivals to be jealous 
 of. Thus, in two months, this third coalition has 
 been conquered and dissolved.” . . . On the 
 same day, and from the battle field still strewed 
 with the dead, Bonaparte dictated and signed a 
 circular letter to the bishops and priests of France, 
 commanding them to sing Ze Deum for the glori- 
 ous successes he had obtained, and which he de- 
 clared to be a visible proof of the favour and pro- 
 tection of Almighty God. The exaggeration em- 
 ployed was altogether monstrous; but the French 
 soldiers were not the men that would critically ex- 
 amine facts and figures; and it was rolling, roaring 
 bulletins in this style that Fouché wanted to en- 
 chant the Parisians, and keep the French at home 
 quiet. According to General Kutusoff’s official 
 account, his loss in killed and prisoners did not 
 
 exceed 12,000 men; and nothing is more certain 
 
 than that the Russians had retired in perfect order, 
 in solid bronze-like masses, and that the French 
 had shown no inclination to follow them. The co- 
 alition was not destroyed by this battle—the case 
 of the allies could have been hopeless only to 
 cowards. General Benningsen was on his way 
 from the Russian frontier with another corps 
 Warmée ; the Archdukes Charles and John were 
 
280 
 
 sé’near that eight or ten days of forced marches, 
 and by a route where none could stop them, would 
 have brought them with their united forces on the 
 eastern edge of Moravia, and on Bonaparte’s 
 flank: on one side of Moravia, Bohemia had not 
 been touched, and was full of loyalty and spirit ; 
 and on the other side of it the brave Hungarians, 
 who had succoured the Empress Maria ‘Theresa 
 when, in the extremity of her distress—driven from 
 her capital by the generals of Louis XV., and by 
 Frederick the Great of Prussia—she presented 
 herself to them in her widow’s weeds, and with 
 her infant son in her arms, and implored their 
 help, having no help or hope but in God and them, 
 were as ready now as then to swear to die for 
 their sovereign, and as sure to keep their oath. 
 That nation was rude, but heroic ; serious, melan- 
 choly, determined, and eminently patriotic or na- 
 tional. The Hungarians could not, like the burghers 
 of Vienna, and the unimpassioned boors of the 
 duchy of Austria, see without excitement and 
 without agony the march of foreign armies over 
 their native plains and hills. Though coarser in 
 their exterior, they were a people of finer imagina- 
 tion; they were a people of traditions and oral 
 legends, and their legends were filled with the 
 staple commodity of the poetry of all free and 
 spirited nations, the victories obtained by native 
 swords and native ranks over the proud inyaders 
 of their country: and without this finer imagina- 
 tion, without this species of national poetical tem- 
 perament, without traditions and legends wound 
 round the hearts as well as memories of the popular 
 masses, no country is fitted for heroical warfare. 
 By a side-movement the Russians, and what re- 
 mained of the Austrians who had fought at Aus- 
 terlitz, might have got to the Hungarian frontier, 
 might there have awaited the junction of Ben- 
 ningsen, and the two archdukes, and the Hunga- 
 rian levies that were being brought up by good 
 officers ; and that war might have been prolonged, 
 until Bonaparte was ruined, in the great basin 
 which lies between the left bank of the Danube and 
 the Carpathian mountains. But there were traitors 
 as well as cowards round the Emperor Francis ; 
 and by various means he was made to shudder at 
 the horrors which must attend a protracted war- 
 fare in his own countries, and to hope that his con- 
 queror would be magnanimous in the hour of vic- 
 tory, or be induced by the aspect of his own cri- 
 tical situation to grant such terms as he might 
 accept. The Emperor of Russia refused to join 
 in the humiliating measure ; but Francis, the very 
 day after the battle, dispatched Prince John of 
 Lichtenstein, who had all along appertained to the 
 French or peace party, to demand an interview of 
 Bonaparte. ‘ You want a suspension of arms,” 
 said the victor; ‘‘ but before I grant you an armis- 
 tice you must break with the Russians. The Rus- 
 sians must retire. We will then treat separately. 
 
 I will afterwards make a separate peace with the 
 Emperor Alexander, or if not I will beat him 
 again ! 
 
 As for the house of Austria, I must have 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 e- 
 f 
 w 
 
 guarantees that she will not again take up arms 
 against me. It was not I that began this war. 
 But, first of all, no more Russians! no more of 
 your levies en masse in Hungary and Bohemia!” 
 Lichtenstein appears either to have sold himself or 
 to have allowed his own fears and the fortunate 
 soldier’s hurried and passionate rhetoric to over- 
 
 whelm him: in the course of afew hours, and ~ 
 
 seemingly without a struggle, he agreed to give 
 up far more than Bonaparte could have gained in 
 two or in even three of the most successful cam- 
 paigns. Lichtenstein returned to his master loaded 
 with the compliments and eulogiums of his master’s 
 enemy; and on the following day the Emperor 
 Francis had himself a personal imterview in the 
 French camp with Bonaparte, whom he embraced 
 
 Francis, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA. 
 
 and called “ Sir, my brother.” It is added that 
 Francis in a very illogical speech meanly threw 
 the whole blame of the war upon the English, say- 
 ing they were a set of selfish traffickers, who 
 would set the Continent on fire in order to secure 
 to themselves the commerce of the world; but this 
 rests solely upon French authorities, which are 
 scarcely any authority at all, On the 6th of De- 
 cember an armistice was signed by Marshal Ber- 
 thier and the Prince of Lichtenstein, the Austrians 
 engaging to give up Presburg on the frontiers of 
 Hungary, Carinthia, Styria, Carniola, Venice; 
 not to allow the Russians to remain on any part of 
 their territories; to stop the levy en masse in Hun- 
 gary and Bohemia, and not to admit into their ter- 
 ritories any foreign army whatsoever. The last 
 clause seemed to have reference to the Prussians, 
 although the battle of Austerlitz, and still more 
 this wretched armistice, must have removed from 
 Bonaparte’s mind any serious apprehension on that 
 subject. In fact, as soon as might be after the 
 battle, Count Haugwitz, the Prussian envoy, had 
 waited upon him to offer his congratulation on the 
 glorious victory which he had obtained. Bona- 
 parte said with a sneer, that the Prussian compli- 
 ments had been intended for others, but that for- 
 tune had transferred them to him. He had how- 
 ever shown that he felt the insecurity of his own 
 situation—there, isolated in the centre of Moravia, 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 i 
 
Cuar. VIII.) 
 
 and in the midst of an inclement winter—and the 
 ruin which any hostile movement on the part of 
 Prussia might yet bring down upon him ; and, to 
 keep that power quiet, he had promised Haugwitz 
 to cede and assign to it for ever the electorate of 
 Hanover, the lure which had been so often held 
 out before, the prize for which the cabinet of Berlin 
 had been so long sighing and longing. The Em- 
 peror Alexander retired by regular day marches 
 into his own territories: Bonaparte returned to 
 Vienna and the palace of Schénbrunn to complete 
 with Talleyrand the draft of a definitive treaty of 
 peace with Austria. This treaty was signed by 
 the Emperor of Austria at Presburg, whence it 
 takes its name, on the 26th of December. Not 
 less but more than Lichtenstein had agreed to give 
 was extorted from Austria. By this treaty of Pres- 
 burg she ceded, nominally to Napoleon’s kingdom 
 of Italy, not only Venice and the Venetian provinces 
 in Upper Italy, but the Venetian provinces in Is- 
 tria, in Dalmatia, and on the coast of Albania, which 
 she had possessed ever since the treaty of Campo 
 Formio; she ceded to the Elector of Bavaria the 
 whole of the Tyrol, with the bishopric of Passau 
 and other territories; she ceded to Wurtemberg 
 and Baden, those other liege vassals of France, 
 other districts; she recognised the regal titles of 
 the Electors of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, and the 
 grand ducal title of the Elector of Baden,—for the 
 Emperor Napoleon had resolved that the first two 
 should have the rank of kings, and that the Elector 
 of Baden, who had taken the kidnapping and 
 murder of the Duke d’Enghien in such good part, 
 and who, like the other un-German princes, had 
 rendered important services during this campaign, 
 should have the rank of grand duke ; and, in addi- 
 tion to these and other sacrifices, Austria in a 
 secret article agreed to pay to the French a mili- 
 tary contribution of 140,000,000 of francs. The 
 population thus turned over to the conqueror by a 
 few strokes of the pen was estimated at about 
 3,000,000. But there was worse than a loss of 
 population, and a limited surrender of territory : 
 by being made to give up Trieste, which had long 
 been her only sea-port, and all that she had ob- 
 tained by the treaties of Campo Formio and Luné- 
 ville on the Adriatic, Austria entirely shut herself 
 out from the sea, and became an inland power, 
 without the faculty of exporting or importing 
 directly a bale of goods or a cart-load of produce 
 —she became enclavée, cooped in on every side; 
 and on the Adriatic side, where she most wanted 
 freedom and extension, a hostile state, a strip of 
 the kingdom of Italy, which was merely a pro- 
 vince of France, was interposed between her and 
 the sea. The fracture made of the independence 
 of Switzerland and of the Grisons had weakened 
 her frontier on the side of France; and now the 
 disseverance of the Tyrol, the cradle of the impe- 
 rial house, and the oldest of its possessions, com- 
 pleted this ruin of frontier and bulwarks, and gave 
 the French the entire command of the best routes 
 which connect Upper Italy with Germany, But 
 
 a eee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 281 
 
 still more loss of influence and honour !—all the 
 smaller German states of the Rhine were formed 
 by Bonaparte, who put himself at the head of it as 
 ** Protector,” into what was called the Confedera- 
 tion of the Rhine: the old Germanic empire was 
 thus dissolved: the influence of the French was 
 fully established over a great part of Germany ; 
 and very soon after this treaty the Emperor Francis 
 formally renounced his title of Elective Emperor 
 of Germany, and assumed that of Hereditary Em- 
 peror of Austria, &c. The King of Prussia, who 
 had been the only king in Germany until Bonaparte 
 chose to give kingly crowns to his vassals of Ba- 
 varia and Wurtemberg, was recommended by the 
 cabinet who were leading him to his ruin to take 
 the title of Emperor of Prussia, but he did net. 
 Less than three weeks after the signing of the 
 treaty of Presburg, Eugene Beauharnais married 
 Augusta Amelia, daughter of the king of Bavaria: 
 and shortly after Mademoiselle or Princess Ste- 
 phanie Beauharnais, Eugene’s cousin, was given 
 in marriage to the son and heir of the Grand Duke 
 of Baden, who had earnestly solicited the honour 
 of an alliance with the august family of Bonaparte. 
 Another matrimonial alliance was contemplated 
 with the family of the King of Wurtemberg. 
 There was scarcely one of all those petty, long- 
 pedigreed potentates, but would have consented to 
 mix his blood with that of the Corsican soldier of 
 fortune, or of those connected with him: their 
 fears destroyed their pride: and, in order to have 
 and to hold what the conqueror might choose to 
 leave them or give them, they would have thrown 
 their once prized genealogical books into the fire, 
 and have declared the Napoleonic dynasty the most 
 ancient in Europe. 
 
 Other parties connected with the coalition were 
 to blame besides Mack and the Aulic Council; and 
 the government of Pitt, who had made the Conven- 
 tion, had made a very injudicious use of the re- 
 sources of their country. That system of petty 
 expeditions which had so long disgraced England, 
 or which, at the least, had deprived her of the 
 honour she might otherwise have gained, had 
 again been resorted to; and for the present saving 
 of a few millions the necessity had been incurred 
 of a future expenditure of very many millions, If 
 the King of Sweden, whose zeal in the cause was 
 depressed only by his poverty, had been liberally 
 supplied with money, if 25,000 or 30,000 British 
 troops had been sent to the Baltic in the autumn, a 
 great movement might have been effected in the 
 north of Germany, the vacillations of Prussia 
 might have been brought to an end by those best 
 of all arguments, the presence of a great allied 
 army and the exceeding great probability of the 
 French being the losing party, and Prussia would 
 have carried with her into the coalition Saxony, 
 Brunswick, and one or two other minor states ; 
 Bonaparte would have been obliged to divide and 
 subdivide his grand army; he might have been 
 attacked on his left flank and on his rear, and the 
 Hanoverians, and probably the Dutch, whose 
 
Pt Maile sce wh ves 
 
 countries had been left with hardly any French 
 troops in them, would have risen en masse and 
 have overthrown their temporary Gallican govern- 
 ments; for the Hanoverians were heartily attached 
 to their old line of sovereigns, and the Dutch were 
 by this time heartily sick of French domination, 
 and of that system which had led to the almost 
 entire destruction of their foreign trade, the one 
 great source of their wealth, as of their former 
 political greatness. If this course had been pur- 
 sued in “good time, Bernadotte would not have 
 quitted Hanover at all, or if he had done so he 
 must have been compelled to retrace his steps ; and 
 in either case the catastrophe at Ulm, which he so 
 essentially contributed to, would not have taken 
 place. But precious time was lost, money was 
 withheld, and the very small number of native 
 British forces which Pitt’s government thought 
 they might spare for foreign service was divided, 
 and sent to two opposite extremities of Europe ; 
 only 5000 or 6000 British troops were sent to the 
 Baltic, and, counting the king’s German legion and 
 other foreign corps, the entire force which landed 
 in Swedish Pomerania (and not before the month 
 of October), under the command of General Don 
 and Lord Cathcart, fell short of 16,000 men. This 
 force was joined by 12,000 Sw edes, and by about 
 9000 or 10,000 Russians. ‘The supreme com- 
 mand was rather nominally than really intrusted 
 to the King of Sweden, who, after recovering 
 Hanover, was to advance upon Holland. But 
 there could be no advance of this extensive kind 
 without securing, at the very least, the neutrality 
 of Prussia ; and a mixed army of less than 38,000 
 men, and the delays which had occurred, and the 
 differences of opinion which were known to exist 
 among the officers in command of it, were but 
 little calculated to give to Prussia those convic- 
 tions she wanted. Pitt had dispatched Lord Har- 
 rowby to Berlin, and the English generals were 
 disposed to rely upon the effects of his lordship’s 
 diplomacy ; but his Swedish majesty, who better 
 knew the character of that cabinet, and who for- 
 got that he had nota force sufficient to dictate to 
 Prussia with her 200,000 men, wrote some im- 
 patient and rather violent notes to his Prussian 
 majesty. The court of Berlin complained; the 
 English and the Russians too remonstrated: a 
 quarrel was the consequence; and his Swedish 
 majesty, throwing up the command of the allied 
 army, retired with his own forces to Stralsund. 
 After more than three weeks had been spent in 
 waiting the result of the negotiations at Berlin, 
 and in explaining away the words and letters which 
 had given offence to his Swedish majesty, Gus- 
 tavus resumed the command, and the petty allied 
 army began to shake itself ; but it was now beyond 
 the middle of November ; and in the interval 
 Mack had surrendered at Ulm, and Bonaparte 
 had entered Vienna—events which made the 
 Berlin cabinet more vacillatory than before, and 
 more tenacious of the rights of neutrality with 
 regard to the belligerent party that was so evidently 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 o>) 
 ees 
 
 ec 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 succumbing in the present struggle. Teountries had been left with hardly any French | succumbing in the present atragslen Gautam 
 marched into the Electorate of Hanover, and even 
 laid siege to the town of Hameln, where Berna- 
 dotte had left a considerable garrison; but then 
 came the news of the battle of Austerlita ; and 
 thereupon the allies conceived that no alternative 
 was left them but to get back with all speed to 
 their respective countries. The British re-embarked ; 
 
 the Swedes retired again to the shelter of the well 
 fortified Stralsund ; “and the Russians retreated 
 into Mecklenburg, ‘there to await the arrival of 
 their shipping. 
 
 The operations of the 3000 British troops, who 
 were sent to the south of Italy, will be noticed in 
 the following year in connexion with the French 
 conquest and entire occupation of the kingdom of 
 Naples—an event which would have happened 
 about the time it did, whether the allies had or had 
 not induced the Neapolitan court to break its treaty 
 of neutrality with the French, although our sending 
 and landing of troops certainly furnished Bona- 
 parte with good materials and colours for excusing 
 his ambition, and his pre-determined aggrandise- 
 ment. In making himself King of Italy, the con- 
 queror had resolved not to leave the fairest and 
 richest portion of that beautiful country in quiet 
 possession of a branch of the House of Bourbon. 
 
 We gladly escape from these continental dis- 
 asters, and disgraces on shore, to our victories and 
 glories at sea. But for our successes on our own 
 element, woeful indeed must have been the close 
 of this year, 1805! Nelson had been appointed 
 to the command of the Mediterranean fleet in 
 the autumn of the year 1803. He had been 
 blockading the French Toulon fleet, superior in 
 number to his own, from the 21st of January till 
 the 25th of February, ever ready for battle, with- 
 out a bulkhead up, night or day. He was then 
 compelled, by terrible “gales of wind, to run to 
 Sardinia and anchor in the friendly Gulf of Cag- 
 liari. Here, and in the Gulf of Palma, he was 
 detained a considerable time by stress of weather. 
 Afterwards, to tempt the Toulon fleet out to sea, he 
 bore away for the coast of Spain, and ran down as 
 far as Barcelona. He knew that the French fleet 
 had land forces on board ; but he was divided be- 
 tween the surmises of whether these troops were 
 destined for Egypt, or for Ireland, or for the West 
 Indies; and the intelligence he picked up was 
 very contradictory and perplexing. Profiting by 
 Nelson’s absence, Villeneuve put to sea on the 
 
 31st of March, with ten ships of the line, seven 
 frigates, and two brigs, steering from Toulon right 
 across the Mediterranean, as though intending to 
 make the opposite coast of Africa. Nelson, who 
 did not get this intelligence until the 7th of April, 
 bore up for Sicily, watching the channel between 
 Sardinia and the African coast, and the channel 
 between Sardinia and Corsica and the Italian 
 coast, and scattering his frigates and tenders 
 in all directions. Five days after this he received 
 intelligence that Villeneuve and his Toulon fleet 
 had been seen far down the Mediterranean, off 
 
— 
 tet ’ 
 rs! : 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 Cape de Gatte ; and the next notice he got of them 
 was, that they had run through the Straits of Gib- 
 raltar into the Atlantic ocean. Knowing that they 
 might already be halfway to Ireland or to Jamaica, 
 Nelson exclaimed that he was a miserable man,— 
 that his good fortune seemed to have flown from 
 him! To add to his calamity, he could not get a 
 fair wind, nor even a side wind, to go in pursuit 
 of the foe. F oul, dead foul were the breezes 
 which blew; terrible was the tacking and the 
 straining his old sea-worn ships sustained: it was 
 the 30th of April before he gained sight of the 
 tall gray rock of Gibraltar; and then, it being 
 utterly impossible to get through the narrow Straits 
 with the wind and the strong current both in his 
 teeth, he cast anchor on the Barbary coast, and 
 obtained some supplies of provisions, very re- 
 quisite for the long voyage he contemplated, from 
 the Moors at Tetuan. He now thought that 
 Villeneuve must have slipped away for the West 
 Indies; and he vowed he would follow him 
 thither, or, if needful, round the whole globe. On 
 the ‘ith of Maya breeze from the eastward al- 
 lowed him to run through the Straits of Gibraltar, 
 and round the coast to Cadiz. Donald Campbell, 
 an adventurous and sagacious Scotchman, an ad- 
 miral in the Portuguese service, imparted to Nelson 
 his certain knowledge that Villeneuve was gone to 
 the West Indies. The French admiral, on de- 
 scending- the Mediterranean from Toulon, had 
 looked into Carthagena, but, finding that the Span- 
 ish ships there were not ready to join him, and 
 not daring to wait lest Nelson should be upon him, 
 had scudded through the Straits with a fine wind 
 which was then blowing from the north-east. As 
 Villeneuve showed himself in the Atlantic, Ad- 
 miral Sir John Orde, who had been watching 
 in Cadiz with a small squadron, and who was 
 much more of a prize-seeking, money-making than 
 a fighting officer, had retreated, and Admiral 
 Gravina, with six Spanish ships of the line and 
 two French ships of the line, had come out of 
 Cadiz Bay and had joined Villeneuve, who there- 
 upon had sailed away to the westward without 
 a moment’s delay. This combined fleet now 
 counted eighteen sail of the line, six 44-gun 
 frigates, one 26-gun frigate, three corvettes, and a 
 brig. But Nelson resolved to pursue them with 
 his ten ships of the line and three frigates ; nor 
 doubted for one moment that he should be able to 
 stop their career, and prevent their doing any 
 serious mischief to our colonies. All of his ships 
 stood in need of repairs : one of them, the ‘ Superb,’ 
 
 not haying been in a home port since January, 
 1801, was in a very crazy state; and it was only 
 upon the urgent solicitation of its captain, the 
 gallant Keats, that Nelson allowed the ‘Superb’ 
 to accompany him.* One of his most powerful 
 
 * When the British fleet disappeared from the southern coast of 
 France and from the Mediterranean, Bonaparte felt quite certain that 
 it must have gone home to refit, or to put its crews into other ships, 
 **for,”’ said he (and truly), “ Nelson’s ships have need to go into dock, 
 and his squadron may be considered as in a very bad state.’? But 
 i did not reflect upon the extent of daring of such a man 
 
 as Nelson, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 pee: 
 
 288 
 
 ships, the ‘Royal Sovereign,’ Nelson left behind him 
 on the Spanish coast, to give additional protection 
 to the convoy that was carrying the 3000 British 
 troops up the Mediterranean. ‘There were other 
 ships of the line in those seas which he might 
 have added to his pursuing fleet, but he con- 
 
 sidered his ten quite enough, and he expected, on 
 reaching Barbadoes, to be joined by five or six sail 
 of the line. Villeneuve had had more than a 
 month’s start of him. The Spanish ships which 
 came out of Cadiz Bay, like those that came from 
 Toulon, had troops on board: Villeneuve’s orders 
 (or some of them, for he appears to have had 
 many) were to proceed straight to Martinique, 
 
 and, with the 5100 men on board the combined 
 fleet, to capture Sainte Lucie, leave a garrison 
 there, and reinforce the garrisons of Dominique, 
 Martinique, and Guadaloupe, which still remained 
 to the French: he was then to wait about a month 
 among the Antilles, in order to afford Admiral 
 Gantheaume an opportunity of joiing with his 
 twenty-one sail of the line (if he should be able to 
 get out of Brest and cross the Atlantic), and this 
 month or so was to be pleasantly and profitably 
 spent in doing all the mischief he could to the 
 English—* @ faire tout le mal possible d Pen- 
 nem.”? According to one of the series of orders, 
 
 or at least according to one of Bonaparte’s reported 
 schemes, Villeneuve and Gantheaume, having drawn 
 the English fleets in search of them into the West 
 Indies, were to make a sudden start back for Eu- 
 rope and the British Channel, to take on board the 
 army of invasion at Boulogne, and then pounce 
 upon England or upon Ireland. This scheme bore 
 the impression of a landsman’s mind: little or no 
 allowance was made for the uncertainties of wind 
 and weather, tides and currents, but the fleets were 
 to be manceuvred like columns of a land army. 
 
 Owing to an alternation of contrary winds and 
 calms, and the bad sailing qualities of one of the 
 Spanish ships, it was the 12th of May before Vil- 
 leneuve reached Martinique, and he did not enter 
 the harbour of Fort Royal without sustaining, in 
 passing, a smart cannonade from the Diamond 
 rock—a perpendicular rock, lying off Fort Royal 
 bay, which had been taken possession of at the end 
 of 1803 by Capt. Murray Maxwell, who had landed 
 three 24-pounders and two 18- -pounders, and had 
 left on it 120 men and boys with four months’ 
 
 supply of provisions and water. One of the great 
 Spanish ships, getting close under the lee of this 
 rock, sustained some very considerable damage from 
 our guns. Villeneuve lay in Fort Royal bay, doing 
 nothing except quarrelling with his Spanish allies, 
 until the end of May, when he sent out two ships 
 of the line, a frigate, a corvette, a schooner, and 
 eleven gun-boats, to retake the Diamond Rock. 
 
 Capt. James Wilkes Maurice, who commanded the 
 British sloop-of-war’s company on the rock, seeing 
 that it was impossible to defend his lower works 
 against such a formidable force, abandoned them, 
 spiking two of his 24-pounders and retiring to the 
 top of the rock, where he bravely replied to the 
 
284 
 
 fire of the French squadron with one 24-pounder 
 and his two eighteens. This little episode is every 
 way deserving of record. Having sustained a tre- 
 mendous bombardment for three days, having 
 killed and wounded some seventy Frenchmen who 
 landed at the foot of the rock, besides a good many 
 more that were killed and wounded in the ships 
 and boats, having sunk three gun-boats and two 
 row-boats, and having burned nearly his last grain 
 of gunpowder, Maurice threw out a flag of truce, 
 and, on the evening of the 2nd of June, obtained 
 honourable terms of capitulation. Disease had 
 thinned his little garrison, though not considerably, 
 and his people had been so well placed that he lost 
 only two in killed and one wounded during the 
 long bombardment. On the Ist of June, while 
 the Governor-General J.auriston, Villeneuve, the 
 Spanish Admiral Gravina, and other officers, were 
 superintending from the contiguous shore this 
 siege of the Diamond Rock, a French 40-gun frigate 
 arrived, bringing intelligence that two new seventy- 
 fours had also arrived from France as a reinforce- 
 ment to the combined fleet, and were now lying at 
 Guadaloupe. These ships had escaped out of 
 Lorient and Rochefort during the absence of our 
 squadrons in a gale of wind, and had fortunately 
 succceded in avoiding purswit; but, unfortunately 
 for Villeneuve, they brought other orders from 
 Bonaparte which still more perplexed him, and 
 which apparently kept him longer than he had in- 
 tended in the West Indies. On the 4th of June 
 the combined fleet quitted the harbour of Fort 
 Royal aud repaired to Guadaloupe, where it was 
 joined by the two new seventy-fours. Then, with 
 his twenty sail of the line, seven frigates, and two 
 brigs, Villeneuve doubled Antigua, as if with the 
 intention of capturing some of the British islands ; 
 but on the 8th, having received intelligence from 
 an American schooner (throughout the war, 
 the Americans were generally more favourable 
 to the French than the English) that he 
 would find, a little to windward, a homeward- 
 bound British convoy, which had sailed from 
 Antigua on the 7th, Villeneuve started in pursuit, 
 and, before night, overtook fifteen sail of merchant- 
 vessels, under the protection of a small frigate and 
 a 14-gun schooner. Our men-of-war escaped ; 
 but the merchantmen, with their rich cargoes, 
 were all captured. But some of the prisoners in 
 our merchant-vessels told the French admiral that 
 Lord Nelson had arrived in the West Indies in 
 search of him: it may be that, as they had in- 
 vented the fact, so they had exaggerated the num- 
 ber of Nelson’s ships; but, however this may have 
 been, no sooner had the French admiral received 
 the intelligence than he sent four frigates to land 
 some troops which had been withdrawn from Mar- 
 tinique and Guadaloupe, and without leaving the 
 troops which his fleet had carried out he set sail 
 for Europe. He had not even the satisfaction of 
 
 saving the fifteen West Indiamen, which, with 
 their cargoes, were estimated at the value of 
 5,000,000 of francs: the frigate which had charge 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X, 
 
 of them, while sailing in company with four other 
 frigates, came in sight of two British 18-gun ship- 
 sloops, and gave chase; the English captains (R. 
 W. Cribb and Timothy Clinch) hoisted signals 
 and fired guns, as if to a fleet a-head, and the 
 French frigates, dreading that Nelson was there, 
 immediately bore up, and, to prevent the re-capture 
 of their prizes, set fire to them all, and away they 
 burned and blazed—ships, sugars, molasses, rum, 
 coffee, and all.* P 
 In the meanwhile, although his arrival was cer- 
 tainly not known at Antigua on the 8th, Nelson 
 had reached Barbadoes on the 4th of June, the day 
 on which Villeneuve quitted Martinique. Here he 
 found Rear-Admiral Cochrane with only two ships 
 of the line, the other four English ships of the 
 line in those seas being detained by Rear-Admiral 
 Dacres at Jamaica for the defence of that most 
 important island. A false report, circulated per- 
 haps by some American skipper, induced Nelson to 
 believe that the French were making for Tobago 
 and Trinidad; and, taking on board his ships 
 2000 land-troops, he set sail for those islands on 
 the morning of the 5th. On the 7th, having been 
 further duped on the way by an American brig, 
 he passed the Bocas of Trinidad and entered the 
 bay of Paria, ‘‘ hoping and expecting to make the 
 mouths of the Orinoco as famous in the annals of 
 the British navy as those of the Nile.’+ But not 
 a ship was there; and he discovered, to his imex- 
 pressible vexation, that artifice and accidents com- 
 bined had Jed him far to leeward. It took him 
 nearly two days of excessive toil to beat up to 
 Grenada; but Nelson was at that island some time 
 on the 9th, and there he obtained authentic infor- 
 mation of the enemy having passed the island of 
 Domimique on the 6th and having steered away to 
 the northward. Nelson beat across the Caribbean 
 Sea to Antigua, which he reached on the 13th of 
 June, without seeing the enemy or hearing any- 
 thing of him. He rightly concluded that Ville- 
 neuve had started for Europe; and, having thrown 
 the land-troops ashore at Antigua, he instantly 
 started after him. The unimpassioned and ex- 
 cellent historian of our navy says that he did not 
 absolutely go in pursuit of an enemy, whose force 
 he knew to consist of at least eighteen sail of the 
 line, but in the hope, by superior seamanship, to 
 reach the shores of Europe before him; but few 
 Englishmen will doubt that Nelson would have 
 fought this superior force if he had come up with 
 it, or will question the words which his eloquent 
 biographer puts into his mouth when first starting 
 from Europe for the West Indies, in pursuit of the 
 combined fleet: —‘* Take you a Frenchman a-piece,” 
 said he to his captains, ‘‘and leave ‘me the 
 Spaniards : when I haul down my colours I expect 
 you to do the same, and not till then.” We know 
 he counted the Spaniards but for very little. Very 
 possibly, he might not have sought a battle in line 
 with the whole combined fleet; but he would as- 
 
 * James, Naval History. 
 + Southey. 
 
Cuar. VIII.) CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 285 
 eit ES 
 
 suredly have skilfully seized some favourable op- | 
 
 portunity of attacking if he could have reached it, 
 and no thought of his inferiority in number would 
 have induced him to change his course or slacken 
 his sail in pursuit. His intentions are best ex- 
 pressed in his own words, and they fully justify 
 this view of the case, and all that his enthusiastic 
 biographer, Southey, says about 1t. Mr. James, 
 the historian, is sometimes too phlegmatic, and his 
 anxiety for mathematical accuracy now and then 
 leads him into an inaccuracy of sentiment. “I am 
 thankful,” said Nelson, “that the enemy has been 
 driven from the West Indies with so little loss to 
 our country. I had made up my mind to great 
 sacrifices, for I had determined, notwithstanding 
 his vast superiority, to stop his career and to put 
 it out of his power to do any farther mischief. Yet 
 do not imagine I am one of those hot-brained 
 people who fight at immense disadvantage, without 
 any adequate object. My object 1s now partly 
 gained. If we meet them we shall find them not 
 Jess than eighteen, I rather think, twenty sail of 
 the line; and therefore do not be surprised if I 
 should not fall on them immediately. We won’t 
 part without a battle. I think they will be glad 
 to let me alone if I will let them alone, which I 
 will do either till we approach the shores of Europe, 
 or they give me an advantage too tempting to be 
 resisted.”? He took with him one of Cochrane’s 
 ships, so that on his return he had eleven ships of 
 the line; but Villeneuve, who could not venture 
 to leave a vessel behind him, had really twenty 
 ships of the line besides the additional 40-gun 
 frigate. On the 17th of July, after a run of 3227 
 miles, he came in sight of Cape St. Vincent, and 
 he then steered for the Straits of Gibraltar to take 
 in provisions for his fleet. On the 18th he fell im 
 with Vice-Admiral Collingwood with three sail of 
 the line, who was cruising off Cadiz. Collingwood 
 
 /QN 
 
 Lorp Coritinewoop. 
 
 had little intelligence to communicate, except that 
 Sir Robert Calder was on the Spanish coast block- 
 ading Ferrol. But Collingwood was a thinking 
 and most able man in other matters besides those 
 
 of his profession; and he assured Nelson that he 
 had always had an idea that Ireland alone was the 
 object the French had in view, and that he still 
 believed Ireland to be their ultimate destination. 
 There was a considerable force of French and 
 Spanish ships in Ferrol, and some thousands of 
 land-troops were there ready to embark. Colling- 
 wood thought that Villeneuve would now liberate 
 this Ferro] squadron from Calder, make the round 
 of the Bay of Biscay, take up the Rochefort ships 
 and people, and appear off Ushant at the head of 
 the English Channel, perhaps with thirty-four sail 
 of the line, there to be joined by twenty more. At 
 this moment the grand army was not in Germany, 
 but at Boulogne. Collingwood felt convinced that 
 Bonaparte would not have subjected Villeneuve’s 
 fleet to the chance of being destroyed, unless he 
 had some rash attempt at conquest in view. ‘“ The 
 French government,” said he to Nelson,“ never aim 
 at little things while great objects are in view. I 
 have considered the invasion of Ireland as the real 
 mark and butt of all their operations. Their flight 
 to the West Indies was to take off the naval force, 
 which proved the great impediment to their un- 
 dertaking. This summer is big with events: we 
 may all, perhaps, have an active share in them; 
 and 1 sincerely wish your lordship strength of hody 
 to go through it, and to all others your strength of 
 mind.’’* The mind was stronger, the spirit higher 
 than ever; but Nelson’s bodily strength was fast 
 sinking from the effects of his many wounds, his 
 amputations, his severe services ever since his boy- 
 hood, and his wearing anxieties: before he started 
 for the West Indies in pursuit of Villeneuve his 
 health was so bad that the physician of the fleet 
 declared that he must return to England before 
 the hot weather set in. On the 19th of July he 
 brought his fleet to anchor in Gibraltar Bay ; and 
 on the 20th, as he says in his diary, “I went on 
 shore for the first time since June the 16th, 1803, 
 and from having my foot out of the ‘ Victory’ two 
 years wanting ten days.’? But even now he had 
 short time for shore-rest: on the 22nd he stood 
 across to Tetuan to water; on the 24th he was 
 steering for Ceuta and the Straits of Gibraltar ; 
 and on the 26th he was again off Cape §t. Vincent. 
 The only information he had received was that a 
 brig-sloop, on her direct way homeward from the 
 West Indies with his dispatches, had seen, on the 
 19th of June, Villeneuve’s and Gravina’s fleet, in 
 latitude 33° 12” north, longitude 58° west. By 
 the 3rd of August Nelson and his fleet were in lati- 
 tude 39° north, longitude 16° west. By his mar- 
 vellous acuteness Nelson extracted from an acci- 
 dental circumstance and a dirty old log-book,t the 
 
 * Note from Admiral Collingwood to Lord Nelson, July 21st, 1805, 
 in ‘A Selection from the Public and Private Correspondence of Vice- 
 Admiral Lord Collingwood ; interspersed with Memoirs of his Life, 
 by G. L. Newnham Collingwood, Isq., F.R.S. 
 
 + ‘‘He proceeded off Cape St. Vincent, rather cruising for intelli- 
 geuce than knowing whither to betake himself; and here a case oc- 
 curred, that more than any other event in real history resembles those 
 whimsical proofs of sagacity which Voltaire, in his Zadig, has bor- 
 rowed from the Orientals. One of our frigates spoke an American, 
 who, a little to the westward of the Azores, had fallen in with an 
 armed vessel, appearing to be a dismasted privateer, deserted by her 
 
286 
 
 certainty that the combined fleet must have followed | 
 
 a northern course; and on this course he pro- 
 ceeded against northerly winds and in hazy wea- 
 ther. On the 12th of August the ‘ Niobe’ frigate 
 from our Channel-fleet fell in with him; but she 
 brought no intelligence of Villeneuve and the 
 Spaniards. On the 15th Nelson himself joined 
 Admiral Cornwallis off Ushant, and then, for the 
 first time, learned that the enemy he had been 
 looking for, far out to sea, from the 3rd till the 
 12th of August, had been engaged much nearer 
 in-shore by Sir Robert Calder on the 22nd of 
 July, or during the time that Nelson was within 
 the Straits of Gibraltar. Upon this news he set 
 sail for England with the ‘ Victory’ and ‘ Superb,’ 
 sending one ship of the line to Plymouth and 
 leaving all the rest of his fleet to reinforce Admiral 
 Cornwallis and the Channel fleet. On the 18th 
 of August the ‘ Victory’ and ‘Superb ’ cast anchor 
 at Spithead, and Nelson shortly afterwards struck 
 his flag and went on shore, in the same deplorable 
 state of health in which he had been for some 
 months. 
 
 Sir Robert Calder, who had been sent out to in- 
 tercept Villeneuve on his return from the West 
 Indies, had only fifteen sail of the line, two frigates, 
 a lugger, and a cutter. On the sudden clearing 
 up of a fog about the hour of noon on the 22nd of 
 July, at about 39 leagues to the north-west of 
 Cape Finisterre, he discovered Villeneuve and 
 Gravina with their twenty sail of the line, seven 
 frigates, and two brigs, and instantly made the 
 signal for action; and a few minutes afterwards 
 the signal to form the order of sailing in two 
 columns. Villeneuve, or Gravina, or both of them, 
 showed an anxiety to avoid the battle, and pushed 
 onward for Ferrol; but this was impracticable. 
 The action began in earnest at about half-past 
 four: it lasted till half-past nine in the evening, 
 when the smoke and a thick fog rendered all ob- 
 jects indistinct, aud, together with the scattered 
 position of some of his ships, induced Sir Robert 
 to make the night private signal to cease fighting. 
 He had captured an 84 and a 74-gun ship (both 
 Spaniards), and had caused the enemy an addi- 
 tional loss of 500 or 600 men in killed and 
 
 crew, Which had been run on board by another ship and had been set 
 fire to; but the fire had goneout. A log-book and a few seamen’s 
 jackets were foundin the cabin, and these were brought to Nelson. 
 The log-book closed with these words: ‘Two large vessels in the 
 W.N. W.;’ and this led him to conclude that the vessel had been an 
 English privateer cruising offthe Western Islands. But there was in 
 this book a scrap of dirty paper, filled with figures. Nelson, imme- 
 diately upon seeing it, observed, that the figures were written by a 
 Frenchman ; and, after studying this for a while, said, ‘1 can explain 
 the whole. The jackets are of French manufacture, and prove that 
 the privateer was in possession of the enemy. She had been chased 
 and taken by the two ships that were seen in the W.N. W. The 
 prize-master, going on board ina hurry, forgot to take with him his 
 reckoning; there is none in the log-book, and the dirty paper con- 
 tains her work for the number of days since the privateer last left 
 Corvo; with an unaccounted-for run, which I take to have been the 
 chace, in his endeavour to find out her situation by back reckonings. 
 By some mismanagement, I conclude, she was run on board of by one 
 of the enemy’s ships and dismasted. Not liking delay (for I am 
 satisfied that those two ships were the advanced ones of the French 
 squadron), and fancyiug we were close at their heels, they set fire to 
 the vessel and abandoued her in a hurry. If this explanation be eor- 
 rect, L infer from it that they are gone more to the northward; and 
 more to the northward I will look for them’ This course, accord- 
 ingly, he held, but still without success.”—Svuthey, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 wounded. His own loss in men and officers was 
 39 killed and 159 wounded ; but two or three of 
 his ships had suffered rather severely in their 
 masts and rigging. At daybreak, on the 23rd, the 
 hostile fleets were about seventeen miles asunder ; 
 Sir Robert Calder was anxious to Peete his two 
 prizes, aud preserved them; Villeneuve was 
 making demonstrations as though he would renew 
 the combat, which he might have done, but did 
 not. No attempt of the kind was made either on 
 this or on the following day, although during the 
 whole of that time he had the advantage of the 
 wind. On the afternoon of the 24th each fleet 
 pursued its own route, as if the other were not 
 present, or as if no hostility existed between them. 
 If Nelson had been there instead of Calder, and 
 with Calder’s force, more would have been done, 
 and the parting would not have been so peaceful; 
 if it had been his good fortune to have fallen in 
 with Sir Robert, or with one-half of his fleet, it 
 was certainly not into Ferrol that Villeneuve and 
 Gravina would have gone. But still, considering | 
 the disparity of force, the disadvantage of being to 
 leeward in.the action, which left his ships covered 
 and smothered with the smoke of the enemy’s guns 
 as well as with that of their own, Calder had not 
 done amiss, but had gained a victory, though nei- 
 ther a decisive nor a brilliant one. ‘*To have 
 made the action decisive, one way or the other, was 
 exclusively in the powerof M. Villeneuve; but he 
 kept his wind, and the firing ceased, owing prin- 
 cipally, if not wholly, to his having hauled out of 
 gun-shot.”’* Sir Robert Calder might, moreover, 
 have apprehended an attack from the French and 
 Spanish ships which had been so long blockaded 
 in Ferrol, but which were now blockaded no 
 longer; and this force by itself was at least as strong 
 as his own, and he had been expressly ordered 
 by the admiralty to be on his guard in case of a- 
 junction between these Ferrol ships and the fleet 
 of Villeneuve. Five ships of the line, moreover, 
 had actually got out to sea from another port of 
 which the blockade had been temporarily raised, 
 and, from information received before the battle of 
 the 22nd began, Sir Robert Calder had every rea-— 
 son to believe that this force was seeking Ville- 
 neuve. And, in effect, on the 23rd of July, these 
 five fresh French ships of the line came up to the 
 very spot where the battle of the preceding day 
 had been fought, But these and other facts were 
 not known at home at the time; and some of them 
 were not properly understood by landsmen when 
 they were known: the admiralty very injudiciously 
 and not very honourably suppressed an important 
 paragraph in Sir Robert’s official letter; the 
 French official accounts in the Moniteur, dic- 
 tated by Bonaparte himself, laid claim to the vie- 
 tory, and, though this was scarcely a claim to be 
 seriously attended to, as the British had captured 
 two ships of the line and had not lost any vessel, 
 it irritated the public mind, which, moreover, had 
 been accustomed, by Nelson’s wonderful perform- 
 
 * James, 
 
= i 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 287 
 
 ances, to disregard inferiority of numbers and | with Villeneuve’s unpleasant reminiscences of the 
 every thing else, and to expect a decisive victory | late battle, kept the combined fleet asleep on their 
 
 in every encounter. Sir Robert Calder finally 
 thought himself compelled, by evil rumour, to de- 
 mand a court-martial upon his conduct. By that 
 court he was “severely reprimanded” for not 
 having done his utmost to renew the engage- 
 ment on the 23rd and 24th of July; but the sen- 
 tence admitted that his conduct had not been actu- 
 ated either by cowardice or disaffection. An 
 eminent French writer, who has written about 
 military affairs since the time of Bonaparte, thus 
 frankly and correctly states the whole case: ‘* Ad- 
 miral Calder, with inferior forces, encounters the 
 combined French and Spanish fleets ; in pursuing 
 them, he brings on a partial engagement and cap- 
 tures two ships. He is tried and reprimanded 
 because it is supposed that, by renewing the action, 
 he might have obtained a more decisive victory. 
 What would they have done with Calder, in Eng- 
 land, if he had commanded the superior forces, 
 and had lost two ships in avoiding an engagement 
 which must have presented so fine a chance to 
 skill and valour? What would they have done 
 with the captains ?”’* 
 
 As for Villeneuve and his victory, that officer 
 was but teo happy at being allowed to run into 
 Ferrol and Corunna, and’ there land the numer- 
 ous sick he had brought with him from the West 
 Indies, and the wounded who had been hit in 
 the battle. Nor did he get there without leaving 
 exposed, on the Spanish coast, to the chances of 
 capture, three of his ships of the line, that were far 
 too much injured to be able to keep up with him, 
 with such a press of sail as he was carrying. And, 
 
 _when he received positive orders from the mivister 
 of marine to sail from Ferrol towards Brest, where 
 Gantheaume was ready to join him with the Brest 
 fleet, which counted twenty-one ships of the line, 
 he hesitated in his obedience, and, upon learning 
 that Calder had joined Admiral Cornwallis, in- 
 stead of sailing for Brest he ran round the 
 Spanish coast and took refuge in Cadiz. He 
 carried with him twenty-nine sail of the line, leav- 
 ing behind him at Ferrol the ships which had 
 been disabled in the battle of the 22nd, and some 
 other ships that were not quite ready for sea. 
 Admiral Collingwood, who had been blockading 
 Cadiz Bay with only four ships of the line and 
 some frigates, was obliged to retire to the south- 
 ward; but he soon returned, and kept watching 
 that bay and port, in which five-and-thirty sail 
 of the line were now collected. On the 21st 
 of August Collingwood writes to his wife: ‘ To- 
 day we have been looking into Cadiz, where their 
 fleet is now as thick as a wood. I hope I shall 
 have somebody come to me soon, and in the mean- 
 time I must take the best care of myself I can.” 
 In order to conceal the slenderness of his force, 
 Collingwood stationed one of his ships in the offing, 
 which from time to time made signals as if to an 
 English fleet in the distance ; and this little artifice, 
 
 * M. Dupin. 
 
 anchors. No attempt was made to attack or dis- 
 perse the small blockading squadron; and, when 
 Collingwood was reinforced, he established a strict 
 blockade of all the Spanish ports lying between 
 Cape St. Mary on Cadiz Bay, and Algeziras in 
 the Bay of Gibraltar—a measure to which he 
 attributed the ultimate sailing of the combined 
 fleet, as it prevented the carrying in of supplies to 
 it at Cadiz.* His force continued to be far in- 
 ferior in number to that of Villeneuve ; but this 
 only raised Collingwood’s spirits. ‘ A dull su- 
 periority,”’ said he, ‘‘ creates languor; it is a state 
 like this that rouses the spirits, and makes us feel 
 as if the welfare of all England depended upon us 
 alone.” | 
 
 On the 21st of August, the day on which Vil- 
 leneuve got into Cadiz Bay, Admiral Gantheaume, 
 who was expecting him at Brest, stood out of that 
 harbour with twenty-one sail of the line, as if to 
 meet him a little way out at sea. Admiral Corn- 
 wallis, who was watching Gantheaume, had at this 
 moment only fourteen ships of the line with him ; 
 but with this inferior force he moved in to attack, 
 and, after a distant cannonade, Gantheaume, who 
 strained his eyes in vain in looking out to the south 
 for Villeneuve’s fleet, retired to the protection of 
 the land batteries, and at nightfall returned again 
 into Brest harbour. The other movements of our 
 fleets were of little importance—as the French and 
 Spaniards would not move—until Nelson again took 
 the chief command. On quitting the ‘ Victory,’ 
 his old flag-ship, at Spithead, he had hastened to 
 his pleasant villa at Merton, in Surrey, hoping 
 there to recruit his shattered health. He caused 
 all his private stores to be brought up from the 
 ‘ Victory,’ and he seemed to intimate to all his 
 friends that he was determined to go to sea no 
 more. But the nation at large felt, and loudly 
 expressed the opinion, that there could be no long 
 rest for the hero of the Nile until he had achieved 
 one victory more, and that Nelson was the man 
 that must give the coup de grace to the navies of 
 France and Spain. In a day or two he was ob- 
 served to be restless and absent-minded; and not 
 many days had passed ere Captain Blackwood, 
 one of his favourite officers, who was travelling from 
 Portsmouth to London with dispatches, called upon 
 him at Merton, and acquainted him that Villeneuve 
 had brought out the squadron which had been so 
 long preparing at Ferrol, and had run into Cadiz. 
 Although it was only five o’clock in the morning 
 
 * Bonaparte had caused great quantities of biscuit and stores to be 
 collected at Rochefort and at Brest; but, as he had never contemplated 
 the fleet under Villeneuve being turned to the southward and enter- 
 ing Cadiz, which was one very important result of Sir Robert Calder’s 
 action, he had made no provision at that port for the supply of so 
 large a force; and the people of Cadiz, whose trade was ruined by 
 the war, had no zeal in the common cause, and the poverty and 
 general ill humour of the Spaniards offered few resources of the sort 
 wanted. Neutral vessels were indeed employed in transporting the 
 necessary stores from the coast of France to the small ports in the 
 neighbourhood of Cadiz ; but Collingwood’s extension of the blockade 
 stopped the supplies, and left the combined fleets in a state of priva- 
 tion, which at last compelled them to put to sea—to be destroyed 
 
 “} not many leagues from Cadiz, off Cape Trafalgar. 
 
288 
 
 Nelson was up and dressed. The moment he saw 
 the captain he exclaimed, “I am sure you bring 
 me news of the French and Spanish fleets! I 
 think I shall yet have to beat them!” and he after- 
 wards added repeatedly, ‘*‘ Depend on it, Black- 
 wood, I shall yet give M. Villeneuve a drubbing.” 
 But, when Blackwood had left him, he wanted re- 
 solution to declare his intention to Lady Hamilton 
 and his sisters. He even spoke again as if he 
 were determined to stay quietly at home; but the 
 fascinating woman, who was both his good and his 
 evil star, saw his uneasiness and read his real 
 thoughts. She told him that she did not believe 
 the words he was uttering—that she knew he was 
 longing to get at the combined fleets—that he 
 would be miserable if any man but himself did the 
 business ; and that he ought to have them, as the 
 price and reward of his two years’ long watching, 
 and his hard chace. ‘* Nelson,’’ said she, ‘* how- 
 ever we may lament your absence, offer your ser- 
 vices ; they will be accepted, and you will gain a 
 quiet heart by it: you will have a glorious vic- 
 tory, and then you may return here, and be happy !’ 
 He looked at her with tears in his eyes, and ex- 
 claimed, ‘‘ Brave Emma! good Emma !—if there 
 were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons.’’* 
 A. few words on the other side from Lady Hamilton 
 would probably have deprived the country of the 
 services of her greatest hero at one of her greatest 
 crises, and have left Nelson to die a less glorious 
 death, after a few years, or perhaps only a few 
 months, of languor, uneasiness, and suffering. In 
 reaping glory, and in rendering the highest of 
 public services, he had certainly not collected the 
 materials for private happiness; his constitution 
 was broken beyond the reach of medical repair— 
 in every respect it was better to go and die at Tra- 
 falgar in the last rapturous embrace of victory. 
 The government accepted his proffered services 
 most willingly; and Lord Barham, formerly Ad- 
 miral Sir Charles Middleton, and now at the head 
 of the admiralty board, giving him the list of the 
 navy, desired him to choose his own officers. 
 ** Choose yourself, my lord; the same spirit ac- 
 tuates the whole profession; you cannot choose 
 wrong,” was Nelson’s noble reply. Unremitting 
 exertions were made by Lord Barham to equip the 
 additional ships which Nelson chose; but it has 
 not been so generally noticed that, but for a bold 
 innovation made by his lordship’s official prede- 
 cessor, it might be doubted whether the great battle 
 of Trafalgar could have been fought at all. Mr. 
 Snodgrass, the surveyor of the East India Com- 
 pany’s shipping, had invented a method of strength- 
 ening ships by means of diagonal braces, to be 
 placed transversely from the extremities-of the gun- 
 deck beams down to the kelson; and Lord Mel- 
 ville, on comparing the decayed state in which he 
 found a great part of our navy with the condition 
 of the newer ships of France and Spain, whose 
 combined fleets in Europe exceeded any force that 
 we could in any reasonable time be able to bring 
 * Southey, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 against them, determined to vamp up, in the 
 
 z a 
 — 
 
 [Boox x. 
 
 speediest way, or in the way recommended by 
 Mr. Snodgrass, some of our old ships that re- 
 quired large repairs ; and by adding a double out- 
 side planking to the diagonal braces, he had made 
 many an old craft fit to brave again the battle and 
 the breeze, and had set an example which could 
 easily be followed in any emergency.* These 
 temporary expedients—and they were only in- 
 tended by Melville as such—answered the purpose 
 most effectually; and to that ex-minister, now 
 lying under the impeachment of parliament, and 
 the rancorous abuse of a large part of the nation, 
 the country was in part indebted for the crowning 
 glory of Trafalgar. The system of diagonal braces 
 and double plankings interfered with the stowage 
 of the ships’ holds, and has otherwise been found 
 to be liable to serious objections; but after Nelson’s 
 greatest victory we had leisure allowed us to build 
 new ships, and to repair our old ones upon a better 
 principle. 
 
 On the 13th of September the hero quitted 
 Merton for the last time ; early on the morning of 
 the 14th he was at Portsmouth, and walking again 
 the quarter-deck of the ‘ Victory ;’ on the morn- 
 ing of the 15th he sailed, accompanied only by the 
 * Ajax, and ‘ Thunderer,’ and the * Kuryalus’ fri- 
 gate; and, on the 29th of September, his birthday, 
 he arrived off Cadiz. On passing through Ports- 
 mouth, he had received all the pleasure that could 
 be derived from the admiration and transports of 
 the people, many of whom dropped on the knee as 
 he passed, and blessed him ; and on his arrival at 
 Cadiz he was received by the whole fleet with 
 enthusiastic joy : but, fearing that Villeneuve would 
 not venture out to sea if he knew he was there 
 and with reinforcements, he kept out of sight of 
 land, and desired Collingwood to fire no salute, 
 and hoist no colours.t He soon found reason to 
 complain—as he had done on many previous and 
 critical occasions—of the few frigates which the 
 admiralty had attached to the fleet. He always 
 called frigates the eyes of the fleet; and much did 
 he want these sharp eyes now; for on one side 
 there was the strong Spanish squadron to be 
 watched at Carthagena, and on the other there 
 were the Brest fleet, the Rochefort squadron, and 
 the ships left at Ferrol, which all required atten- 
 tion. It was also necessary to keep up communt 
 cations with the British blockading squadrons that 
 were scattered along an immense line of coast. Yet 
 Nelson was left, for some time, with only two or 
 three frigates. At the same time, although he well 
 knew the numerical superiority of the enemy, he 
 obliged Sir Robert Calder, who was going home to 
 stand his trial by court-martial, to take his passage 
 in his own 90-gun ship. While Collingwood kept 
 his old cruising ground, Nelson chose a station 
 some twenty leagues to the west of Cadiz, behind 
 Cape St. Mary. In a letter written to an old 
 
 * Quarterly Review, vol. xii., Article on Sepping’s improvements 
 in Ship-building. 
 
 + Note from Lord Nelson to Lord Collingwood, in Memoirs, &c., 
 by G. L. Newnham Collingwood, Esq. 
 
 ene = =©6©6©6—h;lC«éaC 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 friend in Italy, he said, ‘‘ Here 1 am watching for 
 the French and Spaniards like acat after the mice. 
 If they come out I know I shall catch them. I 
 am sure I shall beat them; but I am also almost 
 sure that I shall be killed in doing it.”* To 
 Collingwood he wrote on the 6th of October :— 
 “ We shall have these fellows out at last, my dear 
 lord. I firmly believe that they have discovered 
 that they cannot be subsisted in Cadiz: their sup- 
 ply from France is completely cut off.” On the 
 9th he wrote again to his second in command, en- 
 closing his plan of attack. ‘* They surely cannot 
 escape us,” said he. ‘* I wish we could only get 
 a fine day. I send you my plan, as far as a man 
 dare venture to guess at the very uncertain position 
 the enemy may be found in: but, my dear friend, 
 it is to place you perfectly at your ease respecting 
 my intentions, and to give full scope to your judg- 
 ment for carrying them into effect. We can, my 
 dear Coll, have no little jealousies: we have only 
 one great object in view—that of annihilating our 
 enemies, and getting a glorious peace for our coun- 
 try. Noman has more confidence in another than 
 I have in you; and no man will render your ser- 
 vices more justice.’ The plan of attack, which 
 agreed in principle with that adopted in the great 
 battle, was a masterpiece of nautical skill, and is 
 engraven on the memory of every true British 
 sailor. The order of sailing was to be the order of 
 battle : the fleet in two lines of sixteen ships each, 
 with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest 
 sailing two-decked ships. The second in com- 
 mand, having the entire direction of his line, was 
 to break through the enemy about the twelfth ship 
 from their rear, or wherever he could fetch, if not 
 able to get so far advanced: Nelson himself would 
 lead through about the enemy’s centre, and the ad- 
 vanced squadron was to cut off three or four a-head 
 of the centre. This plan was to be adapted to the 
 numerical strength of the enemy, and to the number 
 of the English ships that should be able to get 
 into action. ‘‘ The enemy’s flect,”’ said Nelson, 
 “is supposed to consist of forty-six sail of the line ; 
 British forty: if either is less, only a proportionate 
 number of the enemy’s ships are to be cut off. 
 British to be one-fourth superior to the enemy they 
 cut off. Something must be left to chance. 
 Nothing is sure in a sea-fight: shot will carry 
 away the masts and yards of friends as well as of 
 foes; but I look with confidence to a victory before 
 the van of the enemy could succour their rear; and 
 then that the British fleet would, most of them, be 
 
 * This letter, with many other autograph letters of Nelson, was 
 shown to us some years ago by the late well-known Abbé Campbell 
 of Naples, to whom it was addressed a few days before the battle of 
 Trafalgar. It contained a passage which strongly depicted the irrita- 
 bility and domestic unhappiness of the great sailor; but which, on 
 account of the feelings of some surviving members of Nelson’s family, 
 it would not be proper to quote. Campbell, an Irishman by birth, 
 and a priest by profession, though not in manners and habits, had been 
 an old friend of Nelson, and a still older friend of Sir William and 
 Lady Hamilton. His influence at the Neapolitan court, for any 
 years, was great and extraordinary. When it depended on Nelson's 
 petting or not getting supplies for his fleet from Sicily in 1798, whether 
 
 1e should or should not destroy the French at the mouth of the Nile, 
 
 the Abbé joined his intercessions to those of Lady Hamilton, and 
 aided in obtaining the orders which the Neapolitan court sent to 
 Syracuse to victual and water Nelson’s ships, 
 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805, 
 
 289 
 
 ready to receive their twenty sail of the line, or to 
 pursue them should they endeavour to make off. 
 If the van of the enemy tack, the captured ships 
 must run to leeward of the British fleet; if the 
 enemy wear, the British must place themselves 
 between the enemy and the captured, and disabled 
 British, ships ; and should the enemy close I have no 
 fear for the result. Thesecond in command will, 
 in all possible things, direct the movements of his 
 line by keeping them as compact as the nature of 
 the circumstances will admit. Captains are to 
 look to their particular line, as their rallying point ; 
 but, in case siguals cannot be seen clearly or un- 
 derstood, NO CAPTAIN CAN DO VERY WRONG IF HE 
 PLACES HIS SHIT ALONGSIDE THAT OF AN ENEMY.” 
 Gun-shot distance was recommended as the best 
 for beginning at. 
 
 The intended plan of attack had the most cor- 
 dial concurrence of Collingwood, who had long 
 been in the habit of repeating, that, with a great 
 number of ships, to act in one line was a positive 
 disadvantage, both in loss of time and in applica- 
 tion of power.* One of the last orders Nelson gave 
 was that the name and family of every officer, sea- 
 man, and marine in the fleet, who might be killed 
 or wounded in action, should be returned to him, 
 in order to be transmitted, with a proper recom- 
 mendation, to the chairman of the Patriotic Fund. 
 Officers and men, by whom Nelson was universally 
 beloved, were mm the most buoyant and confident 
 spirits. While they lay under Cape St. Mary’s, 
 plays or farces, as sailors play them, were per- 
 formed every evening in most of the ships: and the 
 entertainment always concluded with God save the 
 King, sung in chorus loud enough to shake the 
 oaken ribs of the argosies, and to re-echo among 
 the rocks and cliffs of that Spanish coast. 
 
 On the 19th of October it was a beautiful day, 
 and the commander-in-chief wrote a note to his 
 worthy second—the last note he ever wrote—to 
 give some information, and to ask whether he 
 would not be tempted to leave his ship fora few 
 hours, and pay a visit on board the Victory. But, 
 before Collingwood’s answer could reach Nelson’s 
 ship, the signal was made that the enemy’s fleet 
 was coming out of Cadiz; and at that joyous long- 
 expected sign the whole British force immediately 
 gave chace. As Villeneuve sailed with light winds 
 westerly, Nelson concluded that his destination 
 was the Mediterranean ; and in effect the French 
 admiral, whose orders from Paris were incessantly 
 changed, had been commanded more than a month 
 ago to pass the Straits of Gibraltar, to land the 
 very considerable body of troops he had on board 
 on the Neapolitan coast (in order that they might 
 
 * Besides, to act in one line with a great number of ships was 
 always difficult, and might in many cases be altogether impracticable. 
 Nelson had opened his plan by saying,—‘* Thinking it almost impos- 
 sible to form a fleet of forty sail of the line into a line of battle, in 
 variable winds, thick weather, and other circumstances which must 
 occur, without such a loss of time that the opportunity would pro- 
 bably be lost of bringing the enemy to battle in such a manner as to 
 make the business decisive, I have made up my mind to keep the 
 fleet in that position of sailing (with the exception of the first and 
 second in command), that the order of sailing is to be the order of 
 
 battle, &¢.” 
 : a. 
 
290 
 
 act against the English troops and their Russian 
 allies who had been dis-embarked in that country), 
 to sweep the Mediterranean of all British trading 
 ships and cruisers, and then run into the port of 
 Toulon, from which he had first started on the 
 last day of March. Nelson, making all sail for 
 the Straits’ mouth, was there by day-break on the 
 20th; but the combined fleet was not to be seen, 
 and he was informed by Captain Blackwood, of 
 the fast-sailing ‘ Euryalus’ frigate, that it cer- 
 tainly had’ not yet passed the Straits. Nelson 
 then returned to the northward, greatly fearing 
 that Villeneuve would have returned into Cadiz, 
 for the wind then blew very fresh from the south- 
 west. But a little before sunset Blackwood re- 
 ported that the enemy seemed determined to keep 
 the sea, and to go away to the westward. “ And 
 that,’’ said the admiral in his diary, ‘‘ they shall 
 not do, if it isin the power of Nelson and Bronte 
 to prevent them.” It is said that Villeneuve was 
 still ignorant of Nelson’s being with the fleet— 
 that an American, lately arrived at Cadiz from 
 England, maintained that it was impossible, for 
 he had seen him only a few days before in Lon- 
 don, when there was no rumour of his going again 
 to seas On Monday, the 21st of October, at day- 
 light, when Cape Trafalgar bore east by south 
 about seven leagues, the enemy was discovered six 
 or seven miles to the eastward, the wind being 
 about west and very light, but the swell being long 
 and heavy. It was an anniversary and festival in 
 Nelson’s family, for on that day, in the year 1779, 
 his maternal uncle, Captain Suckling, with three 
 line of battle ships, had beaten off four French 
 sail of the line, and three frigates. Yet that pre- 
 sentiment, and perhaps half-wish, which had for 
 some time haunted his mind, and which had been 
 expressed in various ways, returned upon him as 
 he saw the enemy within reach—he felt as though 
 he were as sure of death as of victory. After 
 making the signal to bear down upon the enemy, 
 he retired to his cabin and wrote a prayer; and, 
 after writing the prayer, he added to it, on the 
 sheets of the same diary, a remarkable appeal to 
 his king and country in favour of Lady Hamilton 
 and his adopted or real daughter, who, both of 
 them, had long had no dependence but on him, 
 and to whom he had almost nothing to leave, his 
 titles and his pensions going to his brother aid his 
 family in legitimate order of descent. About six 
 o’clock in the morning, when Blackwood went on 
 board the ‘ Victory,’ he found him in good spirits, 
 but very calm; not in that exhilaration which he 
 had shown on entering into battle at Aboukir and 
 Copenhagen.* His whole attention was now fixed 
 on Villeneuve, who was wearing to form the line 
 in close order upon the larboard tack ; thereby to 
 bring Cadiz under his lee, and to facilitate, if ne- 
 cessary, his escape into that port. This induced 
 Lord Nelson to steer a trifle more to the northward 
 than he had been doing, and to telegraph Colling- 
 wood,—* I intend to pass through the van of the 
 * Southey. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 enemy’s line to prevent his getting into Cadiz.” 
 
 [Boox xq 
 
 The reversed order of Villeneuve’s line had pro- — 
 
 duced another danger—it had brought the shoals 
 of San Pedro and Trafalgar under the lee of both 
 fleets; and to guard against this danger the 
 ‘Victory’ made the signal for the British fleet to 
 prepare to anchor at the close of day. Nelson told 
 Blackwood that he would not be satisfied unless he 
 
 took twenty of them. He asked whether he did — 
 
 not think there was a signal wanting. Blackwood 
 replied that he thought the whole fleet understood 
 what they were about. But Nelson gave his last 
 signal—‘‘ ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO 
 HIS puTY’’—and, as the telegraphic message was 
 communicated from the mizen top-gallant-mast- 
 head of the ‘ Victory,’ it was greeted with three 
 cheers on board of every ship in the fleet. Owing 
 to the lightness of the breeze, the British fleet, 
 after bearing up, made very slow progress, al- 
 though studding-sails were set. Nelson was lead- 
 ing the weather column. Considering that the 
 * Victory,’ as the van ship of a column, and as bear- 
 ing the flag of the commander-in-chief, would draw 
 upon herself the enemy’s most murderous or most 
 concentrated fire, and thereby doubly endanger the 
 life of him to whom all looked up for victory, some 
 of the principal officers expressed among themselves 
 a wish that his lordship might be persuaded to 
 allow the ‘'Temeraire,’ then close astern, to pass 
 and go ahead. Captain Blackwood undertook the 
 delicate task of expressing this general wish to his 
 lordship, who, smiling significantly at Hardy, the 
 captain of the ‘ Victory,’ said, “Oh! yes, let her 
 go ahead; meaning, if the ‘ Temeraire’ could. 
 But shortly after, when Lieutenant J. Yule, who 
 commanded forwards, observing that one of the 
 ‘Victory’s’ lower studding-sails was improperly 
 set, caused it to be taken in, for the purpose of 
 setting it better, Nelson ran forward, and rated 
 
 the lieutenant severely, for having, as he fancied, 
 
 begun to shorten sail without orders. As every 
 stitch of canvass was kept up, the ‘ Temeraire’ 
 could not pass and lead the van—and the admiral 
 
 certainly never intended that she should. From the 
 
 change in the disposition of sailing, the lee line led 
 by Collingwood was, however, the first to get into 
 action. 
 twenty-seven sail of the line, four frigates, one 
 
 schooner, and one cutter ; the French and Spaniards” 
 
 united, counted thirty-three sail of the line, five 
 frigates, and two brigs. The largest ships on our 
 side were the ‘ Victory,’ the ‘ Royal Sovereign,’ 
 which carried Collingwood’s flag, and the ‘ Bri- 
 tannia,’ which carried the flag of Rear-Admiral | 
 the Earl of Northesk; they mounted 100 guns 
 each: the largest ships on the opposite side were 
 the * Santissima Trinidad’ of 130 guns, the 
 ‘ Principe de Asturias’ of 112 guns, the ‘ Santa 
 Anna,’ of 112 guns, and the ‘ Rayo’ of 100 guns. 
 
 The English had four 98-gun ships, and one 80-gun — 
 
 ship; the enemy had six 80-gun ships: of the 
 
 smaller line of battle ships mounting 64 guns the — 
 English had three and the enemy only one: the — 
 
 , 
 g 
 i 
 ‘es 
 as! 
 ae 
 , 1 
 
 The entire British force consisted of 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 English had sixteen 74’s, the enemy twenty-two. 
 Leaving out of the account the frigates and small 
 craft on both sides, Nelson had but 2148 guns to 
 oppose to Villeneuve’s 2626 guns: his. numerical 
 inferiority in men was much greater: his patched- 
 up ships too were inferior in quality ; but his im- 
 mense superiority lay in the quality of his crews, 
 in the long practised skill and bravery of his 
 officers, in his own ready resources, and in the zeal 
 and enthusiasm with which he had inspired every 
 man and boy in the fleet.* The French admiral 
 had foreseen that Nelson would not confine him- 
 self to forming a line of battle parallel to his, and 
 engaging by a distant cannonade : but that he would 
 endeavour to turn his rear, to pass through his line, 
 to surround and reduce with clusters of his own ships 
 such of the ships of the combined fleet as he might 
 succeed in cutting off : and in this case he had told his 
 
 officers, in astyle and with a theory not unlike those 
 of Nelson, that a captain would do better to trust 
 to his own courage and ardour for glory than to the 
 signals of the commander-in-chief, who, himself 
 engaged and covered with smoke, would perhaps 
 be unable to make signals. But Villeneuve, ad- 
 hering to the ancient rules of naval tactics, persisted 
 in ordering the movements of his fleet to be con- 
 ducted in close line of battle, even while admit- 
 ting that his enemy, in all probability, would adopt 
 an entirely different mode of attack. It appears 
 to have been through accident rather than design 
 that his fleet fell into that crescent form, which 
 has been so often admired, and which, added to 
 other circumstances purely accidental, or resulting 
 from a want of skill, certainly proved more formr- 
 dable to the assailants than would have been the 
 straight and compact line which it had been his 
 intention to form, and for which he had made his 
 signals. ‘*‘ Owing to the lightness of the wind, 
 the partial flaws from off the land, the heavy 
 ground swell, and the incapacity or inexperience of 
 some of the captains, the Franco-Spanish line was 
 very irregularly formed; so much so that, instead 
 of being straight, it was curved or crescent-like ; 
 and, instead of the ships being in line ahead, some 
 were to leeward, others to windward of their pro- 
 per stations. For the most part, indeed, the ships 
 were two, and in a few cases three, deep; thus 
 accidentally presenting more obstacles to the suc- 
 cess of the plan of attack decided upon by the 
 British admiral, than if each French and Spanish 
 ship had been in the wake of her leader.’’+ 
 While gradually approaching the formidable cres- 
 cent, Nelson qressed himself, putting on the same 
 coat which he had commonly worn for weeks, and 
 
 attempting to give to his officers and men a de- 
 gree of confidenca® Which he certainly never possessed himself, had 
 told them some tgime before that there was nothing to alarm them 
 in the sight of he English fleet, that their 74-gun ships bad not 
 500 men each onf- board; that the seamen were harassed by a two 
 ears’ cruise; thg2+ they were not more brave than the French, had 
 infinitely fewer J™Otives to fight well, and possessed less patriotism 
 or love of countr@yY than the French seamen. He had been obliged to 
 confess that they@ Were very skilful at manceuvring; but he had con- 
 ently and mos#* @bsurdly assured his men that in a month’s time 
 they would be pJust as skilful as the English—and that, in fine, 
 everything uni ved to inspire the French with hopes of the most 
 ous succes¢» 22d of a new era for the imperial navy. 
 
 a sue N val History. 
 
 * Villeneuve, i 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 | 
 
 291 
 
 on which the Order of the Bath was embroidered, 
 as was then usual. The captain of the ‘ Victory,’ 
 Hardy, observed to him that he was afraid the 
 badge might be marked by the enemy; to which 
 Nelson replied that “he was aware of that, but that 
 it was too late then to shift a coat.”* Being thus 
 equipped, he visited the different decks of the 
 ‘Victory,’ and addressed the men at their several 
 quarters, cautioning them not to fire a shot without 
 being sure of their object. The French now began 
 to fire single guns to ascertain whether their foes 
 were within range. As soon as Nelson perceived 
 that their shots were reaching him he desired 
 Captains Blackwood and Prowse to repair to their 
 frigates, and on their way to tell all the captains of 
 the line of battle ships that if, by the mode of at- 
 tack he had laid down, they should find it imprac- 
 ticable to get into action immediately, they might 
 adopt whatever other plan they should think best, 
 provided only it led them quickly and closely along- 
 side anenemy. At the same time Nelson’s cus- 
 tomary signal on going into action, ‘‘ Engage the 
 enemy more closely,”’ was fast belayed at the ‘ Vic- 
 tory’s’ main-top-gallant-mast head. As Blackwood 
 was about to step over the side of the ‘ Victory,’ he 
 took his commander-in-chief and friend by the 
 hand, saying, he hoped to return to him soon and 
 find him in possession of twenty prizes. Nelson 
 replied, ‘‘ God bless you, Blackwood ; I shall never 
 see you again.” Not only did Villeneuve not show 
 stars or embroidery on his coat (albeit, he must 
 have known that the British had no soldiers in 
 their tops), but he did not even venture to show 
 his flag. At about the same moment that the 
 firmg with single guns commenced, all the ships of 
 the combined fleet hoisted their ensigns, and all 
 the admirals, with the exception of Villeneuve, the 
 commander-in-chief, hoisted their flags. This not 
 very honourable precaution concealed, for some 
 time, Villeneuve’s real whereabout, and at one mo- 
 ment led Collingwood into the mistake of reporting 
 by signal that the French commander-in-chief was 
 on board one of the frigates in the rear—a prac- 
 tice not uncommon with French admirals. In 
 addition to her ensign every Spanish ship hung out, 
 at the end of her spanker-boom, a large wooden 
 cross. Both divisions of Nelson’s fleet, in addition 
 to the respective flags of the ships, hoisted the 
 white or St. George’s ensign, in order to prevent 
 any confusion from a variety of national flags ; 
 and furthermore, each British ship of the line car- 
 ried a union-jack at her main-top-mast stay and 
 another at her fore-top-gallant stay. 
 
 * This trifling variation from the more striking and better known 
 account given by Southey is derived from a note in the late Dr. Ar- 
 nold’s ‘ Lectures on Modern History.’ Capt. Sir T. Hardy gave this 
 account to Capt. Smyth, and Capt. Smyth communicated it to Dr. 
 Armold. Long before its appearance Mr. James had said that Nelson 
 was dressed in the same threadbare frock uniform-coat which was his 
 constant wear, having for its appendages, sewed amidst the folds of 
 the left breast, the same four weather-tarnished and lack-lustre stars 
 always to be seen there. The difference between Mr. James and Dr. 
 Arnold, or his informant, Capt. Smyth, is merely that between dim 
 stars and worn and dim embroidery ; and both these variations from 
 Southey are of very little consequence, it being quite certain that 
 Nelson disregarded the precaution suggested to him, and that the ees s 
 or the embroidery on his coat attracted the bullet which killed him. 
 
 ct earl eas Pe a ek fn ee 
 
292 
 
 It was about ten minutes past the hour of noon 
 when Collingwood, in the ‘ Royal Sovereign,’ got 
 close astern of the ‘ Santa Anna’ the flag-ship of 
 Vice-Admiral Alava, the Spanish second in com- 
 mand, and fired into her so closely with guns 
 double shotted, and with such precision, as to kill 
 or wound nearly 400 of her crew and to disable 
 fourteen of her 112 guns. This was larboard- 
 broadside work; with her starboard broadside, 
 similarly charged, the ‘ Royal Sovereign’ raked 
 the ‘ Fougueux,’ a French seventy-four. Nelson, 
 who was still at some distance from the horn of 
 the crescent which he meant to attack, on seeing 
 his second thus engaged, cried out in a transport, 
 “* See how that noble fellow, Collingwood, carries his 
 ship into action!” and Collingwood, just as his ship 
 was passing between the two ships of the enemy, 
 about midway in their curved line, called out to his 
 captain,‘ Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be 
 here ??? In a few minutes more Collingwood found 
 his position still more enviable, or at least much 
 hotter; for, having put the ‘ Royal Sovereign ’ close 
 alongside the ‘ SantaAnna,’ so close that the guns 
 were nearly muzzle to muzzle, the ‘ Fougueux’ 
 bore up and raked her astern; the ‘San Leandro,’ 
 a 64, raked her a-head; and the ‘ San Justo,’ a 
 Spanish 74, and the ‘Indomptable,’ a French 80, 
 ranged on her starboard bow and quarter, within 
 less than 300 yards’ distance. Collingwood was, 
 in fact, almost surrounded, and so incessant and 
 thick was the fire maintained by all these assail- 
 ants that the people of the ‘ Royal Sovereign’ fre- 
 quently saw the cannon-shots come in contact with 
 each other in the air. But the French and 
 Spaniards soon found that they were injuring them- 
 selves by this cross-firing, and, seeing that the 
 * Belleisle,’ 74, and some other British ships, were 
 fast approaching to support the gallant Colling- 
 wood, four of them drew off, one by one, leaving 
 the ‘ Royal Sovereign’ to combat alone with her 
 first antagonist, the ‘ SantaAnna.’ Mr. Chalmers, 
 Collingwood’s sailing-master, a worthy man and 
 valuable officer, was hit on the quarter-deck, as he 
 was standing close by the admiral’s side. A great 
 shot almost divided his body; he laid his head 
 upon Collingwood’s shoulder and told him he was 
 slain. The admiral supported him till two sailors 
 carried him below. He could say nothing to his 
 admiral but bless him! but as they carried him 
 down, he said he wished he could but live to read 
 the account of the action in a newspaper. Chal- 
 mers lay in the cockpit among the wounded until 
 the ‘ Santa Anna’ struck ; and, joining in the cheer 
 which they gave her, expired with it on his lips.* 
 For more than a quarter of an hour the ‘ Royal Sove- 
 reign’ was the only British ship in close action ; but 
 then, when Collingwood had taken a position upon 
 the lee-bow of the ‘Santa Anna,’ the ‘Belleisle,’ haul- 
 ing up, fired a broadside into the lee-quarter of that 
 unlucky Spaniard, and then bore away and closely 
 engaged the ‘Indomptable” Villeneuve’s line was 
 now more irregular than ever. Collingwood had 
 
 * Collingwood, letter to his wife. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 made a mighty crash in it. And now Nelson was 
 getting into close action, was trying to bring the 
 muzzles of his guns to grate and rattle against those 
 of the ‘ Santissima Trinidad,’ that huge four-decker 
 which he had encountered before now, and which 
 he was wont to call his old acquaintance. As he 
 approached, the enemy opened their broadsides, 
 aiming chiefly at the rigging of the ‘ Victory,’ in 
 the hope of disabling her before she could close 
 with them. A shot going through one of the * Vic- 
 tory’s’ sails afforded proof that she was well within 
 reach of shot, and thereupon seven or eight French 
 and Spanish ships opened such a fire upon the 
 ‘Victory’ as perhaps had never before been directed 
 ata single ship. The fire must have been much 
 more murderous than it was if the enemy had not 
 aimed rather at the masts and rigging than at the 
 hull and decks. A round shot killed Mr. John 
 Scott, Lord Nelson’s public secretary, as he was 
 standing on the quarter-deck of the ‘ Victory’ 
 conversing with Captain Hardy. A commendable 
 attempt was made to remove the body and conceal 
 the fate of a worthy man for whom Nelson enter- 
 tained a high regard; but the one quick eye of the 
 admiral saw him fall. “Is that poor Scott that ’s 
 gone? poor fellow!’? Nelson had scarcely said 
 the words ere a double-headed shot killed eight 
 marines on the poop and wounded several others. 
 Nelson, careful for every body but himself, or- 
 dered Captain Adair to disperse his marines round 
 about the ship, that they might not suffer so much 
 by being together. A few minutes after, a shot 
 struck the fore-brace bitts on the quarter-deck and 
 passed between Nelson and Hardy, a splinter from 
 the bitts tearing off Hardy’s shoe-buckle and 
 bruising his left foot. Hach looked anxiously at 
 the other, supposing him to be wounded. Nelson 
 then smiled and said, * This is too warm work, 
 Hardy, to last long.” The ‘ Victory’s? mizen- 
 top-mast was shot away ; every studding-sail-boom 
 on the foremast had been shot off close to the yard- 
 arm ; her new foresail had from 80 to 100 yards 
 of it stripped from the spar, and every sail was 
 riddled with shot; the wheel was struck and 
 knocked to pieces, so that they were obliged to 
 steer the ship in the gun-room; twenty officers 
 and men had been killed, and thirty wounded ; 
 the French and Spanish ships a-head closing like 
 a forest, thus leaving a gap of three-quarters of a 
 mile between this part of the combined line and 
 that part which Collingwood had attacked, nine- 
 teen ships of the line being here in a mass and 
 fourteen there. Hitherto the ‘ Victory’ had not 
 returned asingle gun, buta little before one o’clock 
 in the afternoon the men were relieved from this 
 trying state of inaction by the word of command 
 to fire. The enemy had got so closely wedged 
 together that it was found impossible to break 
 through the line without running on board one of 
 the ships. Apparently because it was now dis- 
 covered or suspected that Admiral Villeneuve was 
 on board that ship which lay next to the ‘ San- 
 tissima ‘Trinidad,’ the ‘ Victory’ was instantly 
 
 t 
 
 { 
 
‘of roe er 
 
 Cuapr. VIII.] 
 
 brought close up to the ‘ Bucentaure’ of 80 guns, 
 and then out went Nelson’s terrible 68-pounder car- 
 ronade from the ‘ Victory’s’ forecastle, discharging 
 her usual loading, or one round shot and a keg filled 
 with 500 musket-balls, which were fired right into 
 the cabin-windows of the ‘ Bucentaure.’ And, as 
 the ‘ Victory’ slowly moved a-head, every gun of 
 the remaining fifty upon her larboard broadside, 
 all double, and some of them treble shotted, was 
 discharged deliberately and closely. So close in- 
 deed were the ships, that the ensign of the one 
 trailed over the peak of the other, and, when they 
 rolled, their spars touched. The British crew were 
 nearly suffocated by the dense black smoke that 
 entered the ‘ Victory’s’ port-holes. Before two 
 minutes had passed nearly 400 men were killed or 
 wounded in this French ship, twenty of her guns 
 were dismounted, and she was almost put hors de 
 combat. But the ‘ Neptune,’ a fine French 80- 
 gun ship, managing to open clear of the ‘ Bucen- 
 taure’s’ stern, poured a destructive fire upon the 
 *Victory’s’ bows; and the ‘ Redoutable’ 74 
 raked the same ship with her foremost guns. As 
 the French ‘ Neptune’ receded, and as the ‘ Bu- 
 centaure’ was almost silenced, the‘ Victory’ ran 
 on board the ‘ Redoutable,? which was showing a 
 very bold countenance. The French ship received 
 her with a broadside; then instantly shut most of 
 her lower-deck ports, for fear of being boarded 
 through them, and fired fromthem no more. The 
 ‘Victory’ ran foul of the ‘ Redoutable,’ the sheet an- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 EEE nee 
 
 ST 
 
 293 
 
 chor of the one striking the spare anchor of the 
 other; and the hooks and boom-irons getting inter- 
 mixed or catching in the leash of the sails, held 
 the two ships together. Almost as soon as the two 
 ships got thus hooked together, Nelson’s boat- 
 swain fired the starboard 68-pounder carronade, 
 loaded as the larboard one had been, with one 
 round shot, and the mortal keg of 500 bullets right 
 upon the ‘ Redoutable’s’ decks ; and this cleared the 
 French ship’s gangways. The guns of the middle 
 and lower decks of the ‘ Victory’ continued to be 
 fired occasionally into the ‘ Redoutable,’ who, on 
 her part, fired her main-deck guns, and made a 
 great use of musketry, chiefly from her tops, which 
 were filled by soldiers. And, in addition to these 
 muskets, the ‘ Redoutable’ had in her fore and 
 maintops some brass cohorns which fired langridge 
 shot, and did great execution upon the ‘ Victory’s’ 
 forecastle. While Nelson’s starboard guns bat- 
 tered the sides of the ‘ Redoutable,’ his larboard 
 guns hammered the ‘ Santissima Trinidad,’ which 
 huge leviathan was now exposed, and which was 
 soon in case to return the ‘ Victory’s’ fire. The 
 ‘ Redoutable’ took fire; the flames spread to the 
 ‘ Victory,’ threatening both ships with a flight into 
 the air; but the English sailors put out their own 
 fire, and threw buckets of water into the ‘ Re- 
 doutable’ to help the French to put out theirs. 
 Everything was going as well as his heart could 
 desire, when, at about half-past one o’clock, as 
 Nelson was walking on the larboard side of the 
 
 pele EL 
 Mill ii 
 nih i 
 
 oo 
 
 DEATH OF Newson, 
 
 =_ 
 
 Fe i nee 
 
294 
 
 quarter-deck with Captain Hardy, he was hit by a 
 rifle or musket ball fired from the mizen-top of the 
 ‘ Redoutable,’ which was not more than fifteen yards 
 from the spot: and he fell on his knees, but sup- 
 ported himself for a few seconds with his left hand 
 which touched the deck. Then the strength of his 
 left arm (his only one) failed him, and he fell on 
 his left side, upon the very spot where his secre- 
 tary had fallen dead; and his clothes were be- 
 smeared with poor Scott’s blood. Hardy stooped 
 to him, and expressed a hope that he was not 
 wounded severely. Nelson replied, ** They have 
 done for me at last, Hardy.”—“ I hope not,” said 
 the Captain. “ Yes! my backbone is shot through.” 
 A serjeant of the marines and two sailors, who had 
 come up on seeing the admiral fall, now, by Hardy’s 
 direction, carried their beloved chief down to the 
 cock-pit. As they were carrying him down the 
 ladder he took out his handkerchief and co- 
 vered his face and the’ stars or embroidery on his 
 coat with it, in order that the crew might not be 
 discouraged or afflicted. The cock-pit was crowded 
 with the wounded and the dying, over whose bodies 
 he was carried, to be laid upon a pallet in a mid- 
 shipman’s berth. Upon examination it was found 
 that the ball had entered the left shoulder, through 
 the fore-part of the epaulette, and lodged in the 
 spine, and that the wound was mortal. The sad 
 fact was concealed from all except Captain Hardy, 
 the chaplain, and the surgeons. His sufferings 
 from pain and thirst were very great: he fre- 
 quently called for drink, and to be fanned with 
 paper; saying, “ Fan, fan, drink, drink :” and 
 they gave him what is generally ready in British 
 ships while in action, lemonade, to quench his 
 burning thirst. He kept pushing away a bed- 
 sheet, the only covering upon him, laying bare his 
 slender limbs and emaciated body. He begged 
 Dr. Beatty, the chief surgeon, to attend to others, 
 as his attention to him was useless. As soon as 
 the ‘ Victory’ was somewhat disengaged from the 
 crowd, Captain Hardy sent an officer to inform 
 Collingwood that Nelson was wounded. Colling- 
 wood asked the officer if the wound was dangerous. 
 The officer hesitated ; then said he hoped it was 
 not. ‘* But,”? says Collingwood, “ I saw the fate 
 of my friend in his eye; for his look told what his 
 tongue could not utter.”’* 
 
 Meanwhile the battle was going on well, although 
 the ‘ Victory’ continued to be beset most sorely. 
 Every time a ship struck the crew of the * Victory’ 
 hurraed ; and then joy sparkled in the eye of the 
 dying hero. He was, however, very impatient to 
 see Captain Hardy, and sent for him repeatedly ; 
 but it was more than an hour before the captain 
 could leave the quarter-deck, and go down to the 
 cock-pit. They shook hands affectionately. Hardy 
 was too much overcome by his feelings to be able 
 to speak. But Nelson said, * Well, Hardy, how 
 goes the battle?—how goes the day with us?” 
 Then Hardy spoke, and said, * Very well, my lord; 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 struck; but five of their van have tacked, and 
 shown an intention of bearing down upon the 
 ‘ Victory.? I have therefore called two or three 
 of our fresh ships round us, and have no doubt of 
 giving them a drubbing.’”’—“ I hope, Hardy, that 
 none of our ships have struck.””—“ No, my lord, 
 there is no fear of that!”—‘* Hardy, my dear 
 Hardy, I am a dead man. I am going fast; it 
 will be all over with me soon.”* Hardy returned 
 to the quarter-deck: the ship continued to fire, 
 and to be exposed to the fire of several enemies at 
 once. The concussion of the firing so affected the 
 dying man, that, apostrophising his ship, he mut- 
 tered, “ Oh, ‘ Victory,’ ‘ Victory,’ how you distract 
 my poor brain !” and, after a pause, he said, “ How 
 dear is life to all men!”? The * Victory’ now 
 ceased firing, for she had done her work, and 
 gloriously, and the last of her opponents were pass- 
 ing to windward and trying to escape. In about 
 fifty minutes Captain Hardy descended a second 
 time to the cockpit, and, again taking the hand of 
 his dying friend, congratulated him on having ob- 
 tained a brilliant and complete victory. He could 
 not say how many of the enemy were taken, as it 
 was impossible to see every ship distinctly: but 
 he was certain that fourteen or fifteen at least had 
 surrendered. ‘ That’s well,” murmured Nelson, 
 ‘* that’s well: but I bargained for twenty.’? And 
 then he said, in a stronger voice, ‘* Anchor, Hardy, 
 anchor !’? Hardy hinted that Admiral Colling- 
 wood would now take upon himself the direction 
 of affairs. ‘* Not while I live, Hardy,” said Nel- 
 son, ineffectually endeavouring to raise himself 
 from the bed; ‘*No! do you anchor.” The cap- 
 tain then said, “‘ Shall we make the signal, sir?” 
 ** Yes,”? answered Nelson, “for if I live Ill 
 anchor.’ By which he is supposed to have meant 
 that, in case of his surviving until all resistance 
 was over, he would, if at all practicable, anchor the 
 ships and the prizes, as the surest means of saving ~ 
 them in case of a gale of wind arising. As the 
 captain was leaving him, with big tears in his — 
 eyes, Nelson called him back, and said in a low 
 faint voice, “* Hardy, take care of my dear Lady — 
 Hamilton ; take care of poor Lady Hamilton! Kiss” 
 me, Hardy.” The captain knelt and kissed his 
 cheek; and Nelson said, ‘* Now I am satisfied. 
 Thank God! I haye done my duty.”” Hardy stood — 
 over him in silence: then knelt again and kissed 
 his forehead, The film of death was gathering 
 over the eye of the expiring hero: and he said, © 
 ‘‘ Who is that?” on being told, he added, “ God 
 bless you, Hardy!” and the captain then left 
 him, and for ever. Nelson now said that he 
 wished he had not left the quarter-deck, where he 
 had received his death-wound. Some minutes 
 before this all feeling below the breast was gone; 
 and now death was rapidly approneh ise: He said 
 a few scarcely articulate words to the chaplain; 
 bidding him remember that he left Lady Hamilton 
 and his daughter as a legacy to his country. He 
 
 twelve or fourteen of the enemy’s ships have | then said more distinctly, “Thank God, I have 
 #) 
 
 * Letter from Collingwood to H. R, H. the Duke of Clarence. 
 
 ee 
 
 * Dr. Beatty’s Narrative, 
 
Guar. VIII] CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 295 
 
 and were actually helped up her sides or taken in 
 at her lower ports by the crew of the ‘ Victory.’ 
 The masts of the ‘ Santissima Trinidad’ fell with 
 a terrible crash, and she was taken possession of 
 by a lieutenant who had only a boat’s crew with 
 him. Before this time the ‘ Bucentaure,’ which had 
 never recovered from the effects of Nelson’s terrible 
 68-pounder and first broadside, had hauled down 
 her colours; and, as a captain of English marines 
 took possession of her with a corporal, two privates 
 of his own corps, and two seamen, he had found 
 on board Admiral Villeneuve, who had tendered 
 him his sword as he stepped on the quarter-deck. 
 Before three o’clock ten ships of the line had 
 struck. The *‘ Santa Anna,’ which had sustained 
 the first tremendous broadside of Collingwood’s 
 ship, the ‘ Royal Sovereign,’ hauled down her flag 
 at about half-past two. But the ‘ Royal Sovereign’ 
 herself had been so much injured in her masts 
 and yards by the fire of the ‘ SantaAnna,’ and 
 the fire of the other ships that lay on her bow and 
 quarter, that she was unable to alter her position. 
 Collingwood therefore called up the ‘ Euryalus’ 
 frigate to take the ‘ Royal Sovereign’ in tow, and 
 to receive on board the frigate the Spanish Vice- 
 Admiral Alava and the other officers that belonged 
 to the ‘ Santa Anna.’ Captain Blackwood found 
 that poor Alava, who had behaved heroically 
 in the action, was dangerously, if not mortally, 
 wounded, and could not be moved ; but he brought 
 away the captain of the ship. This officer had 
 already been to the ‘ Royal Sovereign’ to deliver 
 up his sword; on entering he had asked one of 
 the sailors the name of the ship; and, upon being 
 told that it was the ‘ Royal Sovereign,’ he had re- 
 plied in broken English, ‘‘ I think she should be 
 called the * Royal Devil.’?”’* The Rear-Admiral 
 Cisneros had been taken on board the ‘ Santissima 
 Trinidad.” One Spanish 74, the ‘San Agostin,’ 
 was utterly ruined by one broadside from the 
 Leviathan,’ which carried away her mizen-mast, 
 wounded her captain, and killed or wounded 160 
 of her crew. In all these terrible broadsides most 
 of the English guns were double shotted, and some 
 of them were treble shotted. The conflicts which 
 took place yard-arm to yard-arm appear to have 
 been the most destructive to the English, as all the 
 enemy’s ships had musketry in their tops, and 
 most of them also cohorns like the ‘ Redoutable.’ 
 Admiral Gravina, in the ‘ Principe de Asturias,’ a 
 112-gun ship, fell away to leeward of the rear, and 
 made off with four other ships. Five other ships, 
 four French and one Spanish, under Villeneuve’s 
 second, Rear-Admiral Dumanoir, which had taken 
 little or no part in the action, and which, conse- 
 quently, had sustained little or no damage in their 
 masts and sails, while hardly any of the hard- 
 fought English ships had a stick left standing, 
 hauled off to windward ; but, as Dumanoir passed 
 the ‘Royal Sovereign,’ the ‘ Conqueror,’ and the 
 ‘Victory,’ which were lying like logs upon the 
 water, he and the three French ships with him 
 * Collingwood’s Memoirs and Correspondence. 
 
 done my duty!” He was heard to repeat these 
 words several times: and they were the last words 
 he uttered. His previous sufferings had been 
 great; but they were now over, and he expired 
 without a struggle or a groan at about thirty 
 minutes after four, or three hours and a quarter 
 after receiving his wound.* 
 
 Captain Blackwood coming on board the 
 * Victory’ soon after, and learning the death of 
 his patron and friend, carried the whole of 
 the dismal news to Collingwood, together with 
 Nelson’s dying request, that the fleet and prizes 
 should be brought to anchor as quickly as possible. 
 Collingwood was deeply affected, and it was with 
 tears in his eyes that he now first took the com- 
 mand of the whole fleet. During the greater part 
 of the battle almost every captain had acted on his 
 own judgment, and according to circumstances 
 and accidental changes of position, even as Nelson 
 had desired they all should do.} The great in- 
 terest of the combat disappears with Nelson’s dis- 
 appearance from the quarter-@eck of the ‘ Victory,’ 
 which happened about the middle of the action, 
 but not before the defeat of the French and 
 Spaniards was made certain. The ‘ Redoutable,’ 
 from whose top the fatal shot had been fired, made 
 a gallant resistance. As the ‘ Victory’ had the 
 huge * Santissima Trinidad,’ and at times one or 
 two more adversaries to contend with, Captain 
 Eliab Harvey in the ‘ Temeraire’ fell on board 
 the ‘ Redoutable’ on the other side; and during 
 a long interval four or five ships, friends and 
 enemies, formed a compact tier, lying head to 
 head, and stern to stern, with the muzzles of their 
 guns grating against each other. ‘The greatest 
 precaution was necessary to prevent the ships tak- 
 ing fire and being all blown into the air together : 
 and on board the ‘ Victory’ the firemen of each 
 gun stood ready with a bucket of water. The 
 * Redoutable’? struck her.colours about twent 
 minutes after Nelson was carried below. The 
 * Temeraire’ then got loose and went in search of 
 other opponents, and she soon had two or three to 
 her own share, As the British ships came through 
 the gap which had been made in Villeneuve’s 
 line or crescent, as they broke through the forest 
 of masts he had formed on his right, and as 
 they got into close action, the last hope of the 
 Frenchman vanished; several of his ships were 
 attacked larboard and starboard, fore and aft, ex- 
 periencing the fatal effects which the foremost 
 English ships had braved and borne during the 
 earlier stages of the action. Neither Spaniards 
 nor French could bear it; many-of the French, 
 on being engaged muzzle to muzzle, let down their 
 lower deck ports and deserted their guns; the 
 Spaniards on board the ‘ Santissima Trinidad,’ 
 being no longer able to stand the fire of the ‘ Vic- 
 tory, and not knowing whither else to fly to, 
 leaped overboard and swam to her bow and sides, 
 
 * Southey.—Dr. Beatty, Narrative, 
 
 ++ ** Few signals were necessary, and none were made, except to 
 direct close order as the lines bore down.”—Letter JSrom Coiling- 
 wood to W. Marsden, Esq., of the Admiralty, 
 
296 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a 
 
 [Boon X. 
 
 poured their shot not only into those English ships, 
 but also into the Spanish prizes they had made. 
 Both Gravina and Dumanoir escaped from the 
 battle ; but Gravina had been mortally wounded, 
 and Dumanoir and his squadron fell in, in their 
 flight, with Sir Richard Strachan, who was cruis- 
 ing in search of the Rochefort squadron, and were 
 all taken on the 4th of November. Nineteen 
 ships of the line struck at Trafalgar. The 
 * Achille,’ a French 74, after having surrendered, 
 by some mismanagement of her crew took fire 
 and blew up; 200 of her men were saved by 
 English tenders, who picked them out of the water. 
 The total number of prisoners taken, including the 
 land forces on board, amounted to nearly 12,000. 
 The total British loss in the battle was 1587, in- 
 cluding many officers, besides the greatest of all. 
 Captain Duff of the ‘ Mars,’ and Captain Cooke of 
 the ‘ Bellerophon, were among the slain. The 
 French, out of eighteen sail of the line, preserved 
 only nine, and the Spaniards, out of fifteen sail of 
 the line, preserved only six; the moral effect was 
 as great as the physical one; between the two the 
 marine force at the disposal of Bonaparte might 
 be said to be annihilated. 
 
 Nelson’s crowning glory rescued England from 
 all chance of invasion, and left her sovereign of the 
 seas. After the battle of Trafalgar the task of 
 the British navy, which had attained under Nelson 
 to a degree of perfection which it had never ap- 
 proached before, was of the easiest execution: nor 
 could reverse, defeat, or disgrace haye possibly 
 attended our flag in any seas, if our changing 
 boards of admiralty and variable governments had 
 known how to make use of the mighty powers and 
 energies at their disposal, and had discarded on 
 one hand their proneness to jobbery or to political 
 trafficking in promotions, and on the other hand 
 their incidental fits of economy. 
 
 At the end of the battle very few of the English 
 ships were in a condition to carry sail, and four- 
 teen of them, besides having their masts knocked 
 to pieces, were considerably damaged in hull: of 
 the prizes they had taken, eight were wholly 
 dismasted; the rest were partially dismasted, 
 and some of them were almost in a sinking state. 
 In the evening they were all huddled together, 
 and in a most perilous situation, for the shoals of 
 Trafalgar were only a few miles to leeward, and 
 the wind was blowing dead on the shore. When 
 Collingwood made the signal to prepare to anchor, 
 few of the ships had an anchor to let go, their 
 anchors having been shot away, or their cables all 
 ruined. ‘ But,’ adds Collingwood, “ the same 
 good Providence which aided us through such a 
 day preserved us in the night, by the wind shifting 
 a few points and drifting the ships off the land.” 
 Four of the dismasted prizes, however, having good 
 anchors and cables left, anchored off Cape Tra- 
 falgar. But on the morrow a gale came on from 
 the south-west ; the ‘ Redoutable,’ French 74, went 
 down; the ‘ Fougueux,’ another 74, drove on 
 shore; the ‘Bucentaure’ was wrecked on the 
 
 | coast; and the ‘ Algesiras,’ one of the four prizes 
 
 which had anchored, was carried into Cadiz by the 
 crew, who rose upon the English heutenant and 
 prize party, after they had ordered the hatches to 
 be taken off in order that the prisoners might have 
 an opportunity of saving their lives. On the 
 morning of the 23rd, favoured by a north-westerly 
 wind, five of the ships of the line which had 
 escaped came out of Cadiz, with the five French 
 frigates and two brigs which had suffered nothing 
 in the action, with the intention of recovering some 
 of the scattered prizes, or of taking some of the 
 crippled English ships. These uninjured frigates 
 recaptured the ‘Santa Anna’ and the ‘ Neptune,’ 
 and carried both safe into port. But the enemy 
 lost more than they gained by this sortie, for an- 
 other storm arose, and the ‘ Indomptable,’ which 
 had taken on board the crew of the ‘ Bucentaure’ 
 in addition to her own, was wrecked at the head 
 of Cadiz Bay, and of 1100 or 1200 souls not 
 above 100 were saved; a Spanish 74 went on 
 
 ‘shore in the bay near Fort Santa Catalina, and 
 
 then to pieces, but the greater portion of her 
 crew were saved; and a Spanish 100-gun ship 
 rolled away her masts and became a mere hulk, 
 The damage which all these vessels had sustained 
 in the great battle rendered them unfit for sea. 
 Captain Pulteney Malcolm, coming round from 
 Gibraltar with the ‘ Donegal,’ 74, which had not 
 been in the action, captured the 100-gunned 
 Spaniard ; and the ‘ Leviathan’ captured a Spanish 
 74 which had been in the action, and which 
 had struck her colours, though she was now en- 
 deayouring to escape; but both the 100-gun 
 ship and the 74 were in a sinking state, and 
 they both went on shore, not without loss of 
 life to the English prize-parties in possession of 
 them. The bad weather continuing, and Colling- 
 wood apprehending that the French frigates in 
 Cadiz Bay might make another dash at his un- 
 manageable prizes, the huge ‘ Santissima Trinidad’ 
 was cleared, scuttled, and sunk. The ‘ Aigle,’ 
 French 74, drifted into Cadiz Bay and got stranded 
 on the bar off Fort Santa Maria. On the 28th, 
 and not sooner, Collingwood got his fleet and his 
 shattered prizes to anchor on the coast between 
 Cadiz and San Lucar. But even here it was found 
 necessary to burn one French 74 and one Spanish 
 74, and to scuttle a Spanish 80-gun ship; while 
 another French 74, owing, it is said, to the fren- 
 zied behaviour of a portion of the French prisoners 
 on board, who cut the cables, struck upon the 
 shoals, and was lost. On this occasion, as on 
 many others, noble efforts were made by the 
 English sailors to save the lives of their enemies 
 and prisoners. Captain Pulteney Malcolm put 
 out all his boats to rescue the drowning French; 
 but, although many were thus saved, above 200 
 perished. In all fourteen of the prizes were 
 burnt, sunk, or run on shore, and only three Spanish 
 ships of the line and one French were saved and 
 kept as trophies. ‘‘ Our own infirm ships,” says 
 Collingwood, * could scarce keep off the shore ; 
 
Cuar. VITT.] 
 
 the prizes were left to their fate; and, as they were 
 driven very near the port, I ordered them to be 
 destroyed, that there might be no risk of their 
 falling again into the hands of the enemy.” The 
 Spaniards generally had fought bravely in the 
 action ; but the heart of the Spanish people was 
 not in that cause; some humane and politic con- 
 duct of Collingwood, being superadded to the very 
 unfavourable effects produced by Dumanoir’s con- 
 duct, and by various other deeds of their French 
 allies, produced a sudden popular reaction favour- 
 able to the English. “To alleviate,’ says Colling- 
 wood, “the miseries of the wounded as much as 
 was in my power, I sent a flag to the Marquis de 
 la Solano (captain-general of Andalusia) to offer 
 him his wounded, Nothing can exceed the grati- 
 tude expressed by him for this act of humanity : 
 all this part of Spain is in an uproar of praise and 
 thankfulness to the English. Solano sent me a 
 present of a cask of wine, and we have a free in- 
 tercourse with the shore. Judge of the footing we 
 are on when J tell you he offered me his hospitals, 
 and pledged the Spanish honour for the care and 
 cure of our wounded men. Our officers and men 
 who were wrecked in some of the prize-ships were 
 most kindly treated; all the country was on the 
 beach to receive them; the priests and women 
 distributing wine and bread and fruit amongst 
 them. The soldiers turned out of their barracks 
 to make lodging for them; whilst their allies, the 
 French, were left to shift for themselves, with a 
 guard over them to prevent their doing mischief.” * 
 All this tended to obliterate the recollections of 
 the melancholy affair of the four treasure-frigates, 
 and to qualify the Spaniards for that close alliance 
 with the English into which they were so soon 
 driven by Bonaparte ; and enabled Collingwood to 
 exercise a powerful influence over the people of 
 Spain at the commencement of their great rising. 
 Admiral Villeneuve, who acknowledged that the 
 French could no longer think of contending with 
 us at sea, was brought over to England, but was 
 almost immediately liberated on parole, and al- 
 lowed to return to France. Perhaps it would have 
 been better for himself to have been retained a 
 close prisoner; for scarcely had he reached Rennes 
 on his way to Paris, when his name was added to 
 that ambiguous list of suicides which was headed 
 by the names of Pichegru and Wright. There is 
 a very suspicious varicty in the French accounts 
 given of his death: some say he shot himself with 
 a pistol upon receiving information that the go- 
 vernment had prohibited his appearing at Paris ; 
 others say that he fell upon his own sword; others 
 that he poniarded himself; while by still another 
 account, which is reported to have been in after- 
 years Bonaparte’s own account of the matter, he 
 put himself to death in a studied, scientific manner 
 with a curious pin-propelling machine. In the 
 first instance, Napoleon had tried to make light of 
 the battle of Trafalgar, and to varnish over the 
 terrible defeat with bold lies. He caused to be 
 * Letter to J. E. Blackett, Esq., 2nd Nov., 1805. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 297 
 
 inserted in the Moniteur the most mendacious 
 accounts of the movements and operations of the 
 combined fleets of France and Spain, together with 
 allusions to the great exploits his navy was to 
 perform, when that navy no longer existed ; and 
 when he opened the session of the legislative body 
 of Paris, only a few wecks before Villeneuve’s 
 death, he declared with his own mouth that “a 
 tempest had deprived him of some few ships, after 
 a battle imprudently entered into.” This was all 
 he said there; but in other places he had flown 
 out violently against the unfortunate admiral, and 
 had asserted and maintained that Villeneuve had 
 disobeyed his instructions, and that yictory and 
 triumph must have ultimately attended the French 
 flag if that admiral had only adhered to the orders 
 which he had sent him. Now, these orders, as we 
 have stated, were in themselves embarrassing and 
 contradictory—they were orders such, perhaps, as 
 might be expected from a land-officer, ignorant of 
 the sea ;—and, besides, the last order which Ville- 
 neuve received at Cadiz, instead of enjoining him 
 not to sail, was imperative as to his putting to sea 
 immediately; and this, indeed, Villeneuve could 
 not long have avoided doing, as Collingwood’s 
 extended blockade had cut off all his supplies, and 
 as Cadiz and its neighbourhood, denuded, and in 
 no friendly humour, offered him scarcely any 
 resources. If Villeneuve had survived, he could 
 have told his own story, and have convicted 
 Bonaparte both of imprudence in meddling with 
 sea matters, and of gross falsehood afterwards ; 
 and, to save their emperor from this painful expo- 
 sure, many of Fouché’s secret agents would have 
 been quite ready to commit a secret murder, and 
 make it pass off as suicide. In spite, too, of the 
 Moniteur, and of public speeches to the so-called 
 legislature, it was found impossible to conceal for 
 any length of time the real nature and results of 
 the battle of Trafalgar: soldiers and sailors who 
 had been in the action returned home from Spain ; 
 merchants and bankers received full intelligence 
 in private letters; and, as English newspapers 
 continued to be smuggled into France notwith- 
 standing all the efforts made by Bonaparte and 
 Fouché to prevent it, and as many of the Bourbon 
 party in the Faubourg St. Germain took a pleasure 
 in translating such English articles, and in report- 
 ing the substance of them wherever they went, 
 the fearful catastrophe became known in its full 
 extent; thus rendering the emperor the more eager 
 to throw the whole blame upon Villeneuve, and 
 prevent the possibility of that admiral’s replying. 
 Suspicions were excited by the measures taken 
 to prevent Villeneuve’s appearing in Paris; they 
 were confirmed by the contradictory accounts pro- 
 mulgated about the manner of his death; and it 
 appears to have been very generally believed at the 
 time that Villeneuve did not perish by his own 
 hand, Among the Bonapartists, however (and 
 the great majority of the French people were now 
 of this party, even as they had once been Robes- 
 pierrists), the reverses at sea were easily forgotten 
 
298 
 
 in the successes on shore; the dazzling glories of 
 Ulm and Austerlitz filled their eyes and imagina- 
 tions; and the opening of the campaign against 
 Prussia, and the grand and successful battle of 
 Jena, made them forget that there was or ever had 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 A as 4 
 
 [{ Book p ni 
 
 been such a place in the world as Trafalgar Bay. — 
 They indeed henceforward renounced all hope of - 
 invading and conquering England; nay, even of 
 contending with her as a maritime power; but 
 they flattered themselves that they found more than 
 
 FuNreRAt or Lorp NELSON. 
 
 an equivalent in the easy subjugation and plunder 
 of the continent ; and that the continental system, 
 which began to occupy Bonaparte’s mind, as soon 
 as his navy was destroyed, would, by closing all 
 the ports of Europe to English commerce, reduce 
 the proud rival of France to poverty and despair. 
 In Great Britain, the intelligence of the battle 
 of Trafalgar, which came as a seasonable relief to 
 the gloom created by Mack’s surrender at Ulm and 
 Bonaparte’s advance upon Vienna, was received 
 with deep and mingled emotions, of joy for the 
 victory, and grief for the death of the victor. All 
 honours were paid to Nelson’s remains ; there was 
 lying in state in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, 
 there were funeral processions by water and by 
 land of unexampled solemnity and magnificence : 
 but—and we know not why—the body was not 
 interred in the sacred place for which he had a 
 preference, and the name of which had been often 
 on his lips while rushing into action. Instead of 
 being buried in Westminster Abbey, his remains 
 were deposited under the noble dome of St Paul's ; 
 a fitting and glorious resting-place, yet still not 
 that which he had himself in a manner selected. 
 But dying requests to which he attached more 
 importance were disregarded : his brother, a retired 
 country clergyman, who succeeded to his titles, 
 was raised in the British peerage from the rank of 
 a viscount to that of an earl; 6000/. a year, and 
 the sum of 100,000/. for the purchase of an estate, 
 were granted to him by parliament, which further- 
 more voted 10,0007, to each of his sisters; but 
 not one farthing was ever granted either to his 
 
 adopted or real daughter Horatia, or to Lady 
 Hamilton, whose essential services to the country 
 ought to have secured some reward, in spite of the 
 immorality of her connexion with Lord Nelson, 
 
 i jo SS a 
 
 warale 
 
 oe 
 
 NELSON’s SARCOPHAGUS, 
 
 a Ez, . me : 
 
 ee 
 
 In the course of the year, several great advantages 
 were obtained by our arms in the Hast Indies, — 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 299 
 
 i 
 
 ny 
 
 ih 
 
 sae 
 
 Hitt Fortress, INpD1ia. 
 
 Notwithstanding the victories of Generals Lake and 
 Arthur Wellesley in 1802-3, a fresh Mahratta war 
 broke out in 1804. The great chief Holkar, who 
 had remained inactive during the war against 
 Scindiah and the Rajah of Berar, and who had 
 been strengthening himself while they had been 
 rushing to their ruin, suddenly assumed an atti- 
 tude which excited alarm or suspicion. Having 
 refused to enter into an amicable negotiation, 
 General, now Lord Lake, and General Fraser were 
 sent against Holkar. One or two hill-fortresses 
 were stormed, a skirmish or two were fought, and 
 then, on the 13th of November, 1804, Holkar’s 
 infantry and artillery, strongly posted near the 
 fortress of Deeg, in the midst of tanks, topes, 
 and morasses, were entirely defeated by General 
 Fraser, who charged them with the bayonet, under a 
 terrific fire of round, grape, and chain shot. Un- 
 fortunately a cannon bal! took off Fraser’s Jeg, and 
 he died of his wounds a few days after. The num- 
 ber of killed and wounded in his small army 
 amounted to 643; but 87 fine pieces of artillery 
 of European fabric, well mounted on field carriages, 
 and furnished with every requisite apparatus, were 
 captured ; and the best disciplined part, the flower 
 of Holkar’s army, twenty-four disciplined hat- 
 talions, were dispersed. On the 17th of November, 
 Lord Lake, after a rapid and brilliant movement, 
 surprised and thoroughly defeated the whole ca- 
 valry of Holkar, who was himself in the field, and 
 had great difficulty in escaping from it after the 
 battle. The scene of this affair was Furruckabad. 
 The war would have been finished by it but for 
 an alliance which Holkar contracted with the 
 powerful Rajah of Bhurtpore. On the Ist of De- 
 
 cember, 1804, Lord Lake having resolved to re- 
 duce all the forts within the Bhurtpore territory, 
 joined his army to the forces which General Fra- 
 ser had brought into the country, and which were 
 now commanded by Colonel Monson. The fortress 
 of Deeg was garrisoned by the troops of Holkar, 
 in conjunction with the troops of his ally, the Ra- 
 jah of Bhurtpore; it was well furnished with artil- 
 lery before, and since the battle all the pieces 
 which Fraser’s army had not taken had been car- 
 ried within the walls and placed in battery. The 
 British were in possession of the town and all the 
 outworks by the morning of the 24th of December ; 
 and on the morning of Christmas-day, 1804, the 
 Mahrattas evacuated the citadel, flying in a panic, 
 and leaving everything behind them. Deeg was a 
 town of considerable size and importance, and had 
 been considered as almost inaccessible to an enemy 
 during the greater part of the year, from its being 
 nearly surrounded by lakes and marshes. It had 
 been a royal dwelling: it had massy gateways and 
 tall towers surmounted by very heavy artillery. 
 But the importance of this place was far inferior 
 to that of the celebrated maiden fortress of Bhurt- 
 pore, which stood amidst jungles and water at 
 the distance of about thirty English miles from 
 Agra. On the Ist of January, 1805, Lord Lake 
 and Colonel Monson moved from Deeg to this 
 well-defended capital of the rajah; and on the 3rd 
 the British took up their encampment-ground 
 for the prosecution of a siege which has scarcely a 
 parallel in the history of modern India, and which 
 witnessed minings and explosions of unprecedented 
 magnitude. Lake found that report had not ex- 
 aggerated the strength of this place: Bhurtpore 
 
300 
 
 Sy Nicaea isle itt 
 was amazingly strong, both naturally and artifi- 
 
 cially, and its garrison was a numerous and a re- 
 solute army. When breaches were made, several 
 assaults were most successfully repelled by the 
 Indians. In one of these affairs Lake lost nearly 
 300 Europeans and 200 Sepoys: the enemy 
 butchered in cold blood all the wounded who fell 
 in the ditch or beyond the outer wall ; and several of 
 Lake’s best officers were slain. With great alacrity 
 strong stockades were formed behind the breaches. 
 No progress was made until the 18th of January, 
 when Major General Smith arrived at camp with 
 three battalions of Sepoys belonging to the garrison 
 of Agra, and 100 convalescent Europeans, who had 
 performed a march of fifty miles, by a circuitous 
 route, in twenty-four hours ; and when Ishmael 
 Beeg deserted from Holkar and joined the English 
 with 500 native horse. Better advances were then 
 made, and the batteries of the besiegers renewed 
 their fire with greater vigour. By the 21st of 
 January a very wide breach was effected ; but the 
 enemy, fearful that their guns would be dis- 
 mounted, if they were at all exposed, drew them 
 behind their parapets, and kept them in reserve to 
 pour destruction upon the English, whenever they 
 should advance again to storm the place; and, 
 lured by the present of six lacs of rupees, and by 
 the tempting prospect of plunder, Meer Khan, a 
 ereat chieftain, who was then in Bundeleund, 
 marched with all his forces towards Bhurtpore to 
 assist the rajah. On the morning of the 21st, 
 before daybreak, dispositions were made by Lake 
 for trying another storm. Portable bridges had 
 been made for traversing the ditch; but the head 
 of our storming column found that the enemy had 
 dammed up the ditch below the breach, and caused 
 a great body of water that had been kept above it 
 to be poured in, by which means the ditch was 
 widened and deepened almost instantaneously. As 
 the portable bridges were now too short, and as 
 there was eight feet water in the ditch, Colonel 
 MacRae, who commanded the column, ordered an 
 instant retreat, although some of his people had 
 swum across the water and had even mounted the 
 breach. This was another murderous affair, for 
 during the whole time that Colonel MacRae was 
 advancing towards the walls, or hesitating at the 
 brink of the ditch, or retreating across open ground 
 towards Lord Lake’s trenches, the enemy kept up 
 a heavy fire of grape, round shot, and musketry, 
 and nearly six hundred men and eighteen officers 
 fell at different points killed or wounded. And 
 when this was over Meer Khan from Bundelcund 
 appeared in the rear of the besiegers’ encampment 
 with clouds of cavalry, partly his own and partly 
 the well armed and mounted people of Holkar. 
 The British cavalry, however, held these forces in 
 check, and towards night-fa!l the English artillery 
 dispersed them, and killed some fifty of them with 
 the galloper guns. Lake had commenced the 
 campaign with gigantic material, with 200 ele- 
 phants, 2009 camels, and 100,000 bullocks, for 
 carrying grain, equipage, and baggage: he was 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X.. 
 
 already in want of provisions and stores, and a 
 convoy of 12,000 bullocks, loaded with provisions, 
 was anxiously expected. As this convoy was 
 guarded only by a small body of matchlock-men, 
 a regiment of native cavalry and a battalion of a ° 
 European regiment were detached, under the com- 
 mand of Captain Walsh, to meet it on its way and 
 escort it from Mutra to the camp. Walsh joined 
 the convoy without any difficulty; but on the 
 morning of the 23rd of January, when only a few 
 miles from the ‘camp, he was beset and attacked 
 by Meer Khan at the head of 8000 horse. Cap- 
 tain Walsh retreated into a large open village with 
 the greater part of the convoy intact; but some 
 of the bullocks were of necessity abandoned. 
 Though assailed on all sides, his musketry and field- 
 pieces repeatedly beat off the assailants, but, two 
 of his guns getting disabled, the enemy made a 
 desperate push on that point and gained possession 
 of part of the village. Walsh’s guns were heard 
 in the English camp, and forthwith Colonel Need 
 sounded boot and saddle, and, with an English 
 regiment of dragoons and a regiment of native 
 cavalry, galloped towards the spot. ‘The Sepoys in 
 the village, on perceiving the clouds of dust which 
 marked Need’s advance across the plain, set up a 
 loud and joyous shout, and, sallying forth upon 
 Meer Khan’s guns, they carried them at the point 
 of the bayonet just as Need arrived with his two 
 regiments of horse, who then dashed among the 
 Mahrattas, and put them to flight. Six hundred 
 of the Khan’s people were left dead on the field, 
 and he himself escaped with the utmost difficulty, 
 leaving behind him forty flags, all his artillery and 
 tumbrils, his own palanquin, arms, armour, and 
 splendid attire, and flying in the disguise of a com- 
 mon soldier. On the 24th another detachment 
 was sent from the camp for the protection of 
 another and greater convoy coming from Agra, 
 with many thousand bullocks carrying grain, and 
 about 800 hackeries laden with stores, ammunition, 
 18-pound shot for the battering guns, and six lacs 
 of rupees. On the 29th Holkar, the Rajah of 
 Bhurtpore, and Meer Khan, having united for the 
 purpose all the forces they could collect, threatened — 
 an attack on this rich convoy; but Lake had sent 
 out a second detachment to meet the other on the 
 road; and, although the convoy was repeatedly 
 surrounded, it was brought into camp without the 
 loss of a single bullock, for the rajah’s infantry 
 fled on the first appearance of the second English 
 detachment, and the cavalry would not venture 
 near enough for a real attack. A good many of 
 the latter were killed in the jungle by grape-shot 
 and the swords of some of our dragoons. . 
 
 As the number of the enemy within the walls 
 of Bhurtpore was increased rather than diminished, 
 and as the two attempted assaults had cost so great 
 a sacrifice of life, Lake resolved to proceed with 
 more caution. On the 6th of February his army 
 changed ground, and, after clearing the vicinity of 
 the enemy’s cavalry, which still came round about 
 in clouds, he established a strong chain of posts, 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 and then leisurely made his preparations for press- 
 ing the siege. oats, or coracles, made of wicker- 
 work and covered with hides, such as are described 
 by Czesar as used by the ancient Britons, and such 
 as are still seen paddling on the river Wye and 
 other Welsh waters, were constructed to serve as 
 pontoons; and, as an additional means of crossing 
 the broad deep moat, a portable raft was made 
 about 40 feet long and 16 feet broad, which was 
 to be buoyed up by inflated oilskins and casks. 
 But while this was doing in front of Bhurtpore 
 Meer Khan wheeled round with his flying horse, 
 rushed into the Dooab, and invaded the Company’s 
 own territories, being accompanied or followed by 
 clouds of Pindarries, the freebooters and moss- 
 troopers of India, who made war solely for the 
 purpose of plunder. ‘The Rajah of Bhurtpore had 
 calculated that this unexpected invasion would 
 induce Lord Lake to raise the siege; but his lord- 
 ship merely detached Major-General Smith with a 
 part of his cavalry, and with the horse artillery, and 
 continued his operations as before. Smith exe- 
 cuted the duty entrusted to him with spirit and 
 rapidity, and with complete success, crossing and 
 recrossing the Jumna and the Ganges, and plung- 
 ing through other streams which intersected the 
 country, climbing lofty mountains, the off-shoots 
 of the stupendous Himalaya chain, and making 
 marches which were never surpassed by any army. 
 The burning villages and the wasted country 
 showed him the way which Meer Khan had taken. 
 He came up with that chieftain on the afternoon 
 of the Ist of March, near the town of Afzulghur, 
 and routed him with great loss. The khan’s 
 principal officers were killed or captured, and a 
 band of stout, hardy, and brave Patans, the pride 
 of his army, were literally cut to pieces on the field 
 of battle, for they would neither fly nor surrender. 
 Meer Khan went off like the wind, evacuating the 
 Company’s territories, and recrossing the Ganges 
 with a very diminutive force. General Smith, 
 after restoring order to the country, returned to 
 Bhurtpore, the point from which he had started. 
 His chase had lasted him a month, during which 
 he had ridden over 700 miles of the roughest 
 country.* If the energy and activity of our Indian 
 armies had been infused into the armies of Europe 
 that were contending with the French, or if the 
 British government had learned from them the 
 reliance which might be placed on the English 
 
 * Major Thorn, who had accompanied General Smith on these 
 flying marches, says, ‘* Thé detachment after this expedition was 
 somewhat the worse for wear; but, though many of the horses were 
 completely knocked up, the state of the whole was far better than 
 what might have been reasonably expected. It merits remark, that 
 the Bengal cavalry, throughout the campaign, endured trials and 
 hardships almost surpassing conception. Independent of their previ- 
 ous long marches up to Delhi, they had pursued Holkar closely for 
 above 500 miles, till they overtook him and completed his overthrow 
 at the battle of Furruckabad, shortly after which they were called off 
 unexpectedly to the chase of Meer Khan, whom they follewed 
 through all his doublings and windings, over rivers of great magni- 
 tude, and to the mountains of Kemaon, from whence he was forced 
 back, discomfited and abandoned by the hardiest of his followers. In 
 this fatiguing course, the most harassing part which we had to undergo 
 consisted in our nocturnal marches, which, continuing night after night 
 through the whole month, proved exceedingly distressing to man and 
 beast, in depriving them of that natural rest which they sought in 
 vain during the heat of the day."—Memoir of the Far in India, con- 
 ducted by General Lord Lake, &c. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 301 
 
 soldier, and had thrown at once upon one proper 
 part of the European continent a force deserving 
 of the name of an army, the career of Bonaparte 
 might have been checked as early as 1805 or 
 1806. 
 
 During the absence of General Smith Lord 
 Lake had been joined by a division of the Bombay 
 army, under Major-General Jones. This division, 
 consisting only of four battalions of Sepoys, one 
 entire British regiment, and eight companies of 
 another, a troop of Bombay cavalry, 500 native 
 irregular horse, and a few ficld-pieces, had made 
 another dashing and extraordinary march, having 
 traversed the whole of Malwa, and having pene- 
 trated through the very heart of the Mahratta em- 
 pire, including the hereditary dominions of Holkar 
 and Scindiah. Notwithstanding this reinforce- 
 ment, however, Lord Lake found that to take 
 Bhurtpore by storm or by siege was no easy work. 
 When wider breaches were made, and when 
 arrangements were being made for a fresh as- 
 sault, the rajah’s people unexpectedly sallied out 
 in great force, and slew a heap of the besiegers 
 with their long pikes and tulwars: when the 
 assault was made by several storming parties who 
 were to rush simultaneously on different parts of 
 the works, some fatal mistakes were committed, 
 the Sepoys lost heart, and, after being enfiladed 
 right and left by the enemy’s guns, and witnessing . 
 the terrible effects of a mine which was sprung, 
 the attacking columns retreated with a terrible loss, 
 nearly 1000 Europeans and Sepoys being killed or 
 wounded. One of the attacking columns, however, 
 gained possession of eleven of the enemy’s guns, 
 and succeeded in carrying them all off to the camp. 
 But the army was now suffering greatly by the 
 want of supplies of every description; the cannon 
 ball and powder were nearly all speut; and, there- 
 fore, on the very next day Lake ordered a fresh 
 assault, This time he threw the whole of his 
 European force and several battalions of native 
 infantry against those obstinate and fatal walls. 
 Some of the English soldiers were scen driving 
 their bayonets into the wall, one over another, and 
 endeavouring by these steps to reach the top; but 
 they were knocked down by logs of wood, large 
 shot, and other missiles from above. Others at- 
 tempted to get up by the shot-holes which the 
 battering guns had made here and there; but, as 
 only two at the most could advance together in 
 this perilous climbing, those who ventured were 
 easily killed, and when one man fell he brought 
 down with him those who were immediately be- 
 neath. Some few got to the top. Lieutenant 
 Templeton, who headed the storming parties, was 
 killed just as he had planted the colours near the 
 summit; and Major Menzies, who had followed 
 him, and had actually gained the dangerous emin- 
 ence, was slain as he was cheering on his men. 
 And all the while the enemy, who appear to have 
 been aided by some French artillerymen, and by 
 men who had studied the art of war under M. Perron, 
 kept up an incessant fire of grape-shot, and the 
 
302 
 
 people on the walls continually threw down upon | 
 
 the heads of their assailants heavy pieces of timber, 
 great stones, flaming bales of cotton, previously 
 dipped in oil, and pots filled with gunpowder and 
 other combustibles. At last Colonel Monson gave 
 up the case as hopeless, recalled the storming 
 parties, and returned to the trenches. This time 
 the loss in killed and wounded seems to have 
 exceeded 1000: of English officers alone five were 
 killed and twelve wounded. In Lake’s several 
 attempts to carry the fortress of Bhurtpore by 
 storm, 3100 men, and a very great number of 
 officers, had been killed or wounded. His lord- 
 ship now converted his siege into a blockade. 
 His guns, which were nearly all blown at the 
 touch-hole, were withdrawn (there appears to have 
 been a want of artillery and engineering skill and 
 science), detachments were sent off for supplies and 
 for fresh guns, and parts of the army were moved to 
 other positions to block up the roads leading into 
 the town—a difficult undertaking, for the cavalry 
 of the enemy was still very numerous, and Lake’s 
 cavalry was absent with General Smith, who had 
 not yet returned from pursuing Meer Khan. But, 
 when the Rajah of Bhurtpore saw that convoys, 
 with supplies of all kinds from different parts, 
 and battering guns and ammunition from Fut- 
 tyghur and Allyghur were arriving daily in 
 camp; that the old guns which had been blown 
 were repaired and rendered efficient; that he had 
 little or no assistance to expect from his allies, 
 Holkar and Meer Khan; that new batteries were 
 erecting, and that nothing seemed likely to shake 
 the determination or interrupt the perseverance of 
 the British, he lost faith in his lucky star, and 
 sent vakeels to negotiate for a peace. But these 
 negotiations were suspended by the re-appearance 
 of Holkar in great force about eight miles to the 
 westward of Bhurtpore. Fortunately, however, 
 at this moment, the British cavalry, which had 
 been pursuing Meer Khan, arrived at the camp; 
 and after resting a few days it marched silently 
 out by night, headed by Lord Lake himself, who 
 intended to beat up the quarters of Holkar. But 
 the Mahratta got information of this intended 
 visit, and was in full flight before his lordship 
 could reach the spot. Some 200 of the fugitives 
 were overtaken and slain, their camp was de- 
 stroyed, and some elephants, horses, and camels 
 were captured. Still, however, Holkar lingered 
 in the neighbourhood, and was joined by Meer 
 Khan with the fragment of his force, as well as by 
 some bands of Pindarries, who rarely lost many 
 men in action, because they never stayed to fight 
 when they could gallop away. This accession of 
 force seems to have made Holkar careless; for on 
 the 2nd of April he was charged in front and on 
 both his flanks by Lake’s cavalry, and put to the 
 rout with a terrible loss. He fled across the 
 Chumbul river with about 8000 horse, 5000 foot, 
 and 20 or 30 guns, the miserable remains of the 
 ‘great army with which he had opened the cam- 
 paign, threatening to annihilate the British do- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 minion in Hindustan. Some troops that were 
 
 advancing to his succour were beaten and scattered — 
 
 by a British detachment which marched out of 
 Agra. Holkar then fled to join Scindiah, who, 
 notwithstanding the dreadful chastisement he had 
 received at the hands of General Wellesley, and 
 the treaty he had concluded in December, 1803, 
 was contemplating a renewal of the war with the 
 English. But the Rajah of Bhurtpore was in no’ 
 condition to wait the effects of a new confederacy ; 
 and on the 10th of April he repaired in person to 
 Lake’s camp and implored for peace. This was 
 granted by Lord Lake upon the following terms :— 
 1. The fortress of Deeg was to remain in the 
 hands of the English till they should be assured of 
 the rajah’s fidelity, who pledged himself never to 
 have any connexion with the enemies of Great 
 Britain, and never to entertain, without the sanc- 
 tion of the Company, any Europeans in his ser- 
 vice. 2. He was to pay the Company by instal- 
 ments twenty lacs of Furruckabad rupees, and to 
 give up some territories which the Company had 
 formerly annexed to his dominions. 3. As a se- 
 curity for the due execution of these terms, he was 
 to deliver up one of his sons as a hostage, to reside 
 with the British officers at Delhi or Agra. Having 
 received the first instalment of the money, and the 
 hostage required, the British forces broke up from 
 before Bhurtpore, after lying there three months 
 and twenty days. ‘They began their march on the 
 21st of April, Lake going at once in search of 
 Scindiah, who had expected that his lordship’s 
 army would be utterly ruined before Bhurtpore, 
 for the losses which it had sustained in that siege 
 had been reported, with due exaggeration, through- 
 out the whole of the Mahratta territory. Scindiah 
 and Holkar retreated with great precipitation to- 
 wards Ajmeer; and several of the Mahratta chiefs 
 
 came and joined Lord Lake, who found more re- - 
 
 liable reinforcements in the arrivals of some divi- 
 sions of British troops and Sepoys from Bundel- 
 cund and other quarters. At this juncture the 
 Marquess Cornwallis arrived to succeed the Mar- 
 quess Wellesley as governor-general, and began 
 
 his second and brief career in India by pro- — 
 
 nouncing sentence of condemnation on the policy 
 of his active and energetic predecessor. But 
 Cornwallis was now falling into the second child- 
 hood, and his attention had been too exclusively 
 devoted to those who were murmuring about the 
 expenses of a necessary war, and sighing for the 
 easy happy days of peace and of full treasuries at 
 Calcutta. As the rainy monsoon approached, one 
 part of Lake’s army found shelter in the splendid 
 but decayed palaces of the great Akbar at Futteh- 
 poor Sikra; another part quartered itself in the 
 remains of the palaces of the ancient Mogul chiefs 
 in and about Agra and Mutra; and two regiments 
 of British dragoons found comfortable lodgings in 
 the immense mausoleum of the Emperor Akbar, 
 which is situated about seven miles from Agra, 
 tethering their horses in the once splendid garden, 
 and eating and sleeping and pursuing their 
 
 f, i 
 , . 
 = 
 i 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 troopers’ sports among the white marble tombs of | 
 
 Akbar and his family, and of the Mogul Omrahs, 
 those mighty men of old, who, could they have 
 started from the sound sleep of the grave, would 
 haye heard sounds and beheld sights most strange 
 and marvellous to their ears and eyes. The men 
 were rough dragooners, without the slightest pre- 
 tensions to taste, or to reverence for works of art 
 and antiquity; but they had the English feeling of 
 respect for the dead, and they offered no violence 
 to the sanctity of the tombs, and left the marble 
 slabs and the ornamented Saracenic arches, the 
 sculpture and carving, and the mosaic pavements, 
 the cupolas and minarets, in as good a state as 
 they found them. If two regiments of French dra- 
 goons had been quartered half the time in the mau- 
 soleum of Akbar, not a tomb would have been left 
 unopened, nor an Omrah of them all undisturbed ; 
 hideous and obscene farces would have been played 
 with the skulls and rattling bones of the Mogul 
 emperor, and his wives and children. If we are 
 to believe their own writers, intelligence and taste 
 were widely, if not universally, diffused among 
 the French soldiery; but, when those soldiers got 
 possession of some of the splendid Moorish re- 
 mains in Spain, and of the marble-lined Christian 
 abbeys of Alcobaca and Batalha in Portugal, they 
 gave no sign of this taste, but wantonly broke and 
 defaced whatever they could. 
 
 As soon as the weather permitted, the Marquess 
 Cornwallis quitted Calcutta to travel to the upper 
 provinces and there confer with Lord Lake and 
 others on the best means of terminating the war ; 
 but at his advanced age he could ill bear the fatigues 
 of such a journey : he fell sick on the road and died 
 at Gazipoor near Benares, within three months 
 after his return to India. According to his own 
 wish and command, that “‘ where the tree fell, there 
 it should lie,”’ the marquess, who had seen so many 
 vicissitudes in the west and in the east, and who 
 had narrowly escaped death at York-town in 
 America, and a grave on the bank of the Chesa- 
 peake, was buried at Gazipoor, on the banks of 
 the Ganges. The government then devolved pro- 
 visionally upon Sir George Barlow, who was 
 equally anxious for peace, although he differed 
 from Cornwallis as to the best means of obtaining 
 it. Lord Lake, who had had ample experience of 
 
 the faithlessness of all Indian treaties, was of opi- 
 nion that the British possessions in Hindustan 
 would never be secured until Scindiah and Holkar 
 were driven beyond the Indus and the Mahratta 
 power annihilated. Scindiah, who received some 
 information of the pacific disposition manifested 
 at Calcutta, separated his forces from those of 
 Holkar, and entered into negotiations with Licu- 
 tenant-Colonel (afterwards General Sir John) 
 Malcolm, the political agent of the governor-gene- 
 ral in the British camp, Holkar thereupon, de- 
 claring that he had no other estate or property left 
 than what he carried upon the saddle of his horse, 
 spurred away to the banks of the Indus to seek 
 fresh allies and instruments among the chiefs of 
 
 EIS III EEE ee ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1805. 
 
 A 
 
 303 
 
 the Seikhs, giving out that he expected to be 
 joined by the hardy and warlike tribes of Affghan- 
 istan, and by the king of Caubul himself. He 
 had still with him a few pieces of light artillery 
 and some rabble; and in the country to the north- 
 west of Delhi he found many adventurers quite 
 ready to join him. He eluded Major-General 
 Jones and Colonel Ball, who marched from dif- 
 ferent points to intercept him on his line of route. 
 This induced Lord Lake to follow him himself 
 with the cavalry of the British army and some of 
 the best of his infantry, for it was imperative to 
 prevent his calling the Seikhs to arms. Saluting 
 that poor shadow of a grand mogul, the aged and 
 blind Shah Alum, as he passed through Delhi, 
 Lake, in an astonishing short time, got into the 
 country of the Seikhs, driving Holkar before him, 
 and obliging him to cross the Sutledjh. The 
 ameers or chiefs of the Seikhs assured his lordship 
 that their intentions were pacific: and so they were; 
 but so they would not have been if Lake had allowed 
 Holkar any rest or time. Still pressing forward 
 in what had once been the track of the greatest 
 general of the gigantic conqueror Timur or Ta- 
 merlane, Lake crossed the Sutledjh, and, skirting 
 the great sandy desert which stretches from the 
 left bank of the Indus to within 100 miles of 
 Delhi, he plunged into the Punjab, or the country 
 of the five rivers. On his way he was joined by 
 Colonel Burn, who had brought up a detachment 
 from Panniput by an entirely new route, and by 
 one of those admirable marches which so often 
 challenge admiration in these far-extended cam- 
 paigns. And then, still pressing onwards, and 
 pointing the heads of his columns towards the 
 spot where the Macedonian conqueror stayed his 
 advance and turned back from the imauspicious 
 gods of India, Lake reached the banks of the Hy- 
 phasis (now the Beeah or Beas), the boundary of 
 Alexander the Great's conquest, where his Greeks 
 had erected twelve massive altars as a memorial. 
 The British standard waved majestically over those 
 waters, and the British troops eyed themselves in 
 the same clear mirror which had reflected the Ma- 
 cedonian phalanges more than two thousand one 
 hundred years ago. ‘The scenery around was as 
 sublime as the recollections. In the extreme dis- 
 tance, from north to east, towered the snowy ridge 
 of old Imaus (a part of the Himalaya), whose 
 loftiest peak exceeds the highest of the Andes by 
 thousands of feet. The fleecy softness of this most 
 faint and irregular outline rested upon immense 
 masses of nearer mountains; still nearer were 
 rugged eminences and pine-clad hills sloping down 
 to a fine undulating country of hill and dale, co- 
 vered with luxuriant vegetation, enlivened by 
 numerous villages, dotted with temples, pagodas, 
 tombs, and ruins, and bounded by the noble river 
 which flowed immediately before the English army 
 on its way to join the Indus and the ocean. Many 
 thousands of the native inhabitants collected on 
 the opposite bank of the Hyphasis to gaze upon 
 our troops; but, as here, as during the whole 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ial 
 
 = 
 
 HW lin Fe 
 
 Dent. 
 
 march, the strictest discipline had been observed, 
 and no wrongs offered to the people, these asto- 
 nished spectators soon drew nearer, and, mixing 
 with the bazaar of the army, agreed to bring in 
 supplies of fruits, vegetables, and other commo- 
 dities.* 
 
 Holkar at this time lay encamped at a place 
 about midway between Lord Lake’s camp on the 
 Hyphasis and Lahore, the capital of the Seikhs on 
 the Ravee or Hydraotes (another of Alexander’s 
 rivers). In two days and nights of his forced 
 marches Lake could have reached the spot and 
 have annihilated him if he had stayed to fight; 
 and if Holkar had continued his flight, which it is 
 almost certain he would have done, in four days he 
 would have been driven beyond the Hydraotes. 
 But before this Sir George Barlow had concladed 
 a peace with Scindiah, and had sent Lord Lake 
 instructions not only to treat with Holkar, but also 
 to grant him very favourable terms; and the chief 
 of Lahore and of the whole Seikh confederacy, 
 having called a great council, which unanimously 
 agreed to withhold all aid from Holkar, and to 
 interpose as mediators, as the best means of getting 
 rid both of the Mahrattas and of the English, sent, 
 on the 19th of December, a vakeel to the British 
 camp. The negotiations were neither long nor 
 difficult, though they must have been painful to 
 his lordship, for he was bound by his instructions 
 to reinstate Holkar not only in his own dominions, 
 from which he had been driven, and which he had 
 deserved to forfeit, but also to put him in possession 
 
 * Major Thorn, Memoir of the War, &c. 
 
 of territory to which it was believed he never had | 
 any right. In conformity with the new system of 
 policy which had been adopted of abandoning all | 
 connexion with the petty states, and, generally, | 
 with the territories to the westward of the Jumna, — 
 and of making the Jumna the boundary of the 4 
 British possessions, Lord Lake was instructed to — 
 dissolve the defensive alliances which we had con- | 
 tracted with the Rajah of Gypore and other inferior | 
 powers who had rendered essential services to his | 
 lordship, and who looked upon their ruin at the | 
 hand of the Mahrattas as an inevitable conse- 
 quence of their being abandoned by the English. 
 
 Although Holkar sent his own vakeel to the | 
 British camp, and although that negotiator agreed | 
 to the conditions, which were immeasurably more | 
 favourable than he had any right or reason to ex- 
 pect, Holkar withheld the ratification of the treaty, 
 
 F 
 i 
 
 : 
 
 4 
 
 and had recourse to many objections and evasion. ) 
 But Lord Lake told the Mahratta’s vakeel that, if i 
 the papers were not presented duly signed withim | 
 two days, he would cross the Hyphasis and con- | 
 tinue his march against Holkar. And, to give | 
 more effect to this threat, his lordship marched his | 
 army down the left bank of the river to a ford or | 
 passage, and made his preparations for crossing | 
 over. This was on the 5th of January (1806), _ 
 and in the afternoon of the 7th the treaty, pro- 
 perly ratified, was presented to Lord Lake with | 
 great ceremony. a 
 
 Having gratified and in part terrified the Seikhs — 
 (they are said at the sight to have blessed their } 
 
 stars that they had not joined Holkar and gone to | 
 : 
 
Cuar. VIII.) CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 
 war with the English) with a brilliant review on 
 the banks of the Hyphasis, and with showing them 
 some of the effects produced by our horse artillery, 
 Lake struck his tents, and retraced his steps to- 
 wards Delhi.* 
 
 By the treaty with Scindiah, which was concluded 
 and signed on the 23rd of November, the treaty 
 of Surjee Anjengaum made by General Wellesley 
 was generally confirmed ; but with this exception, 
 that the Company explicitly refused to acknowledge 
 the right of Scindiah to any claims upon Gwalior 
 and Gohud, though, from friendly considerations, 
 it was agreed to cede to him Gwalior and certain 
 portions of Gohud. In case of any breach these 
 said territories were to be resumed by the Com- 
 pany. The river Chumbul was to be the boundary 
 line. Scindiah renounced certain jaghires and 
 pensions which had been granted to some of his 
 officers by the preceding treaty, and which amounted 
 to fifteen lacs of rupees annually; but the Com- 
 pany granted to Scindiah personally an annual 
 pension of four lacs, and assigned, within the Bri- 
 tish territories in Hindustan, a jaghire worth two 
 lacs to his wife, and a jaghire worth one lac to his 
 daughter. The Company further engaged not to 
 interfere with any settlement or treaty which Scin- 
 diah might make with his tributary chiefs in 
 Mewar and Marwar, and not to interfere in any 
 respect with the conquests he had made between 
 the rivers Chumbul and Taptee. Scindiah agreed 
 not to entertain any Europeans in his service with- 
 out the consent of the British government, and to 
 dismiss from his service and his councils for ever 
 his turbulent father-in-law Surjee-Row-Gautka, 
 who had offered many insults and injuries to the 
 English, and who was generally believed to have 
 driven his son-in-law into the late hostility. Hol- 
 kar was to be admitted into this treaty, and was 
 to obtain restitution of territory, &c., provided his 
 conduct should be such as to satisfy the English of 
 his amicable intentions towards them and their 
 allies. 
 
 By the treaty with Holkar, which, as we have 
 seen, was not ratified until the 7th of January, 
 1806, that chief renounced all claims upon any 
 territories lying on the northern or English side 
 of the Chumbul, upon Poonah and Bundelcund 
 (a renunciation which greatly affected his interests 
 and his pride), and all claims whatsoever upon 
 the British government and its allies. He bound 
 himself never to admit Surjee-Row-Gautka into 
 his service, and never to molest the territories of 
 the Company or of its allies. But the Company 
 agreed to restore, eighteen months after the conclu- 
 sion of this treaty, Chandore, Galnauh, and other 
 forts and districts south of the Taptee and Goda- 
 
 very, belonging to the Holkar family, provided | 
 
 * Lord Lake quitted his command in India in February, 1807, 
 leaving behind him a high and well-merited reputation, together with 
 most affectionate remembrances. He appears to have had almost 
 every one of the good qualities of a British officer and a gentleman. 
 He died on the 21st of February, 1808, in the sixty-fourth year of 
 his age, and just six months previous to the death of his beloved 
 and affectionate son and gallant companion in arms, Colonel George 
 Lake, who, after sharing in the toils and dangers of his father’s 
 brilliant Indian campaigns, fell in Portugal. 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 ee, 
 
 TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 305 
 
 that chief fulfilled his engagements, and remained 
 in a friendly attitude. He was to be allowed to 
 return immediately from beyond the Hyphasis and 
 the country of the Seikhs into Hindustan, but by a 
 route prescribed to him, by which he would avoid 
 injuring the territory of the Company and its allies.* 
 The negotiation, in its kind, was far from being 
 so good as the war, in its kind; and the new po- 
 licy which was adopted was soon found to be 
 impracticable. If the British had never crossed 
 the Jumna and the Chumbul, and had never 
 formed alliances and connexions in the countries 
 beyond those rivers, there might have been a 
 temporary but very brief chance of success for this 
 new system; but after the campaigns they had 
 made, and the connexions they had formed, there 
 remained not the shadow of a chance; nor could 
 the experiment be tried, or such treaties concluded, 
 without diminution of credit and character—with- 
 out a wound inflicted upon that moral force 
 which must ever be our greatest force in India. 
 With neighbours like the Mahrattas and their al- 
 lies, the predatory Pindarries, there could not be 
 any lasting peace in Hindustan, nor any perma- 
 nent security to the Company’s frontiers. By 
 renouncing our connexions beyond the two rivers, 
 we threw our peaceful allies into the arms of 
 Scindiah and Holkar, or left them exposed to the 
 rapacity, vengeance, and tyranny of those chiefs: 
 we brought the Mahratta confederacy to press di- 
 rectly upon our own territory—we knocked down 
 the out-works and bulwarks to the rich countries 
 which were beginning to thrive and grow happy 
 under our dominion. As Lord Lake, Sir John 
 Malcolm, and every other enlightened man in In- 
 dia (whose eyes were not distracted by the pros- 
 pect of a present saving of money) had clearly 
 foreseen, these treaties, with their concessions and 
 renunciations, gave only a transitory caim to the 
 country. But the campaigns, we repeat, had been 
 conducted in a glorious style; the reports of them 
 in England came opportunely to revive the spirit 
 of the nation—a nation which had little to fear, 
 when it could breed and send forth such men as 
 fought with Nelson at Trafalgar, and marched and 
 fought with Wellesley and Lake in Hindustan. 
 A.D. 1806.—Parliament was appointed to meet 
 on the 2lst of January. Pitt’s government had 
 never been so weak as now, and the uneasiness 
 of the king seemed to threaten another return ef 
 his distressing and incapacitating malady. ‘The 
 health of the premier had been visibly affected be- 
 fore the close of the preceding session. In the 
 autumn he repaired to Bath; but the sanatory 
 effect of those waters, and that genial air, was 
 prevented by the dismal news of the surrender of 
 Ulm, of the battle of Austerlitz, and of Austria’s 
 seceding from the coalition; and these calamities 
 on the Continent appear to have assumed such a 
 * Sir John Malcolm, Sketch of the Political History of India. Sir 
 John was himself the negotiator and agent in all these transactions. 
 
 But grieved would he have been to take the responsibility of a 
 diplomacy which had been imposed upon him by Sir George Barlow, 
 
 and of which, in nearly every particular, he fehl homed 
 
 EEE 
 
306 
 
 ‘magnitude in his eyes as almost to blind him to . 
 
 the gain, glory, and triumph of Trafalgar. He 
 came up to town as the meeting of Parliament 
 approached; but he was too ill to attend to much 
 business, and on the appointed day, when the 
 Houses met, he was lying in a dying state at his 
 country-house at Putney. The royal speech was 
 delivered not by the king in person, but by com- 
 mission. It dwelt upon our great naval successes, 
 and attempted to alleviate regret for the disasters 
 of our continental allies with the assurances the 
 Russian Emperor had given, that he would adhere 
 to his alliance with Great Britain. It mentioned 
 the application to the public service of 1,000,000/. 
 out of the droits of admiralty accruing and belong- 
 ing to the crown, but which his majesty gave up; 
 and it asserted, with rather more point than truth, 
 that nothing had been left undone to sustain the 
 efforts of our allies. It was upon this last point 
 that the opposition determined to make their stand, 
 and amendments were read in both Houses; but 
 they were not moved in consequence of the intelli- 
 gence received from Putney. Two days after the 
 meeting of Parliament, or on the 23rd of January, 
 Pitt expired in the 47th year of his age. On the 
 24th, Mr. Lascelles gave notice that he should, 
 on Monday next, bring forward a motion on a 
 subject which had caused the greatest grief and 
 melancholy throughout the country—the death of 
 the late chancellor of the exchequer—in the con- 
 fident hope that some signal mark of public respect 
 would be shown to the memory of that great man, 
 It is difficult, on this occasion, as on several others, 
 to reconcile the conduct of Fox with his reputation 
 for magnanimity, generosity, and amiability. He 
 rose and suggested that it would be more proper 
 for Mr. Lascelles to postpone his motion until after 
 the discussion of the motion proposed by his noble 
 friend (Lord Henry Petty) for the amendment to 
 the address, which, he said, naturally claimed the 
 precedence ; and he requested that Mr. Lascelles, 
 and those who thought with him, would consider 
 whether the motion which they meant to bring 
 forward might not involve points the discussion of 
 which would more properly belong to the question 
 announced by his noble friend—whether, in fact, 
 the motion for signal marks of public respect 
 might not be of such a nature as many gentlemen 
 could not assent to without a gross violation of 
 their public duty. The Commons generally were 
 more generous: they were averse to the production 
 of the amendment, which was heard of no more ; 
 and, on the 27th of January, Mr. Lascelles moved, 
 “That an humble address be presented to his 
 majesty, that he would be graciously pleased to 
 direct that the remains of the late Right Honour- 
 able William Pitt be interred at the public expense, 
 and that a monument be erected to his memory 
 in the collegiate church of St. Peter, Westminster, 
 ‘with an inscription expressive of the irreparable 
 loss the nation has sustained by the death of so 
 excellent a statesman.” This was opposed, with 
 more or less illiberal heat, by Lord Folkestone, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 Mr, William Smith, the Marquess of Douglas, Mr, 
 
 [Boox 4 
 
 Ponsonby, ox, and others. Hawkins Browne, 
 Sir Robert Buxton, Lord Temple, Ryder, George 
 Rose, Lord Castlereagh, and Wilberforce, warmly 
 supported the motion, variously expressing their 
 astonishment or disgust at the disappointment of 
 their expectations, that, on this solemn occasion, 
 party considerations would have been buried in 
 oblivion, and that the proposed honours to the 
 dead—to the unflinching, honest, disinterested 
 statesman—would have been voted unanimously. 
 Fox and his opposition persevered to the dividing 
 of the House; but the division strongly marked 
 the superior generosity of that assembly, the 
 numbers being, for Mr. Lascelles’s motion, 258; 
 against it, only 89, And, at this moment, few doubts 
 were entertained of Fox’s stepping into the post 
 which Pitt had vacated; and if Pitt had been alive, 
 and in his place, he could, on no question whatever, 
 have commanded more than a very slight majority. 
 Pitt was accordingly interred in Westminster 
 Abbey, where Fox was so very soon to be laid 
 by his side. The funeral was as magnificent as 
 heralds and undertakers, and a numerous attend- 
 ance, could make it. The royal dukes were there; 
 and the Dukes of Montrose and Rutland, the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and eight bishops, three 
 marquesses, a host of lay lords, the Speaker of the 
 House of Commons with about 100 members of 
 the House, the Lord Mayor of London, and a 
 number of other functionaries and dignitaries 
 followed him to the grave, his banner and crest 
 being supported by Wilberforce. 
 But more was required from Parliament than 
 the vote for a tomb in the abbey. Pitt had died 
 pennyless, and had left debts to a large amount. 
 George Rose concluded from the beginning, that 
 the only means of discharging these debts would 
 be through an application to the House of Com- 
 mons. Wilberforce was of a contrary opinion, 
 thinking that the money might be grudgingly 
 paid by the people at large, and create a feeling 
 injurious to Pitts memory. Infinitely to his 
 honour, Wilberforce attempted to raise the required 
 money by subscription, but utterly failed. Hyen 
 those who had owed most to Pitt, regarded the 
 proposal with coldness. Some who had combined 
 a few years before to raise 12,000/. for Pitt, now 
 urged a national grant, from which they desired 
 that their own advances ought to be repaid. A 
 curious circumstance regarding the decease of 
 Pitt has been recorded. No sooner had he 
 breathed his last, than his few lingering friends 
 and attendants hurried from the house to look after 
 their own interests and worldly affairs. This aban- 
 donment was so complete that, on the evening of 
 the day on which he died, a gentleman, not know- 
 ing of the event, and calling to make inquiries, found 
 an open door, a deserted house, and none to answer 
 him, and, walking through the silent apartments to 
 the minister’s chamber, saw the body stretched on 
 the bed in “cold obstruction,” and then retraced 
 his steps with horror and dismay, and quitted the 
 
 | : 
 
 —_— «- 
 
  ) 
 
— 
 
 Onar. VIII] 
 
 house, and that too without seemg any one except a 
 solitary menial who had come up from the kitchen. 
 
 The motion for the grant of 40,000/. was made 
 by Mr. Cartwright on the 3rd of February, and 
 was carried without opposition. In private as in 
 public affairs, Pitt had allowed himself to be 
 cheated and robbed; but never had a minister that 
 ruled the country for twenty long years, or for 
 a half or a fourth of that time, done so little to 
 enrich himself or his family—never had statesman 
 and dispenser of patronage and places been more 
 indifferent to his private interests. Even in that long 
 harangue he delivered against the public funeral,— 
 and which, after all, was more a criticism on the 
 wording of an epitaph, the inscription to be put on 
 a tombstone, than anything else—Fox himself had 
 confessed that no minister was ever more disinter- 
 ested, as far as related to pecuniary matters; that 
 his integrity and moderation in this respect were 
 confirmed by the state of his affairs when he died. 
 “T allow,” said Fox, “that a minister is not to 
 be considered as moderate and disinterested merely 
 because he is poor during his life or at his death ; 
 but when I see a minister who has been in office 
 above twenty years, with the full command of 
 places and public money, without any peculiar ex- 
 travagance and waste, except what might be ex- 
 pected from the carelessness that perhaps neces- 
 sarily arose from the multiplicity of duties to which 
 the attention of a man in such a situation must 
 be directed,—when I see a minister, under such 
 circumstances, using his influence neither to 
 enrich himself nor those with whom he is by 
 family ties more particularly connected,—it is 
 impossible for me not to conclude that this man is 
 disinterested.” ‘The praises which Fox bestowed 
 in the same speech on Pitt’s Sinking Fund are 
 not likely to be re-echoed by posterity: there was 
 much in his home-policy which we can neither ap- 
 plaud nor approve; and in the management of the 
 war and affairs on the continent this son of the 
 great war-minister, Chatham, committed egregious 
 and most lamentable blunders; but the blame was 
 not all his; the difficulties of the times and cir- 
 cumstances were enormous and unprecedented ; 
 and on some yital points he will ever be entitled 
 to the character which Canning gave him, of 
 having been the pilot that weathered the storm. 
 “ Pitt,” says Wilberforce, ‘“ was killed by the enemy 
 as much as Nelson.”* But Melville’s port wine 
 had injured his constitution, and then Melville’s 
 impeachment had given him a shock from which, 
 as we firmly believe, he never recovered. Wilber- 
 force, who had strenuously joined the impeachers, 
 
 *** Poor Pitt, I almost believe died of—a broken heart! For it is 
 only due to him to declare that the love of his country burned in him 
 with as ardent a flame as ever warmed the human bosom; and the 
 accounts from the armies struck a death-blow within. For per- 
 sonal purity, disinterestedness, integrity, and love of his country, 
 I have never known his equal. His strictness in regard to truth was 
 astonishing, considering the situation he had so long filled. The time 
 and circumstances of his death were peculiarly affecting, and they 
 dwelt on the minds of the people in London. .°. . . I really never 
 remember any event producing so much apparent feeling. But 
 London soon returned to its gaiety and giddiness, and all the world 
 
 has been for many days busied about the inheritance, before the 
 late possessor is laid in his grave,”— Wilberforce, Letters. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. , 307 
 a a a aa Ra a maa 
 
 was anxious to disbelieve this fact, and appears to 
 have duped his own conscience into a happy in- 
 credulity ; but evidence meets us on every side to 
 show how deeply affected Pitt’s health and spirits 
 were by the blow. Had there been no impeach- 
 ment of Melville, no coalesced opposition, no in- 
 roads made upon health by that fatal resort to the 
 temporary excitement and inspiration of the bottle, 
 Pitt might well have stood the calamities of Ulm 
 and Austerlitz, particularly as the battle of Trafal- 
 gar had been fought, and as every mail from India 
 was bringing intelligence of a victory, with en- 
 couraging proofs of the capabilities of British 
 troops. 
 
 As the king’s antipathies to Fox were undimi- 
 nished, an attempt was made to patch up the 
 ministry which Pitt had formed, and to place 
 Lord Hawkesbury at the head of it. But Lord 
 Hawkesbury declined this dangerous promo- 
 tion. It was whispered that the king then tried 
 Addington, and that Addington refused, from 
 a sense of the impracticability of forming a go- 
 vernment capable of resisting the coalesced and 
 formidable opposition. It is stated as a certainty 
 that an offer was made to the Marquess Wel- 
 lesley, who had just arrived from India, by the 
 remainder of Pitt’s ministry, and, of course, with 
 the king’s approbation, to take the lead of admi- 
 nistration; and that the marquess immediately 
 and distinctly declined it. Nothing therefore was 
 left but to call in Lord Grenville, and, as Grenville 
 was pledged to the Foxites, or to the principle of 
 a comprehensive ministry with “all the talents” or 
 chiefs of different parties in it, the king was at 
 last compelled to admit Fox also. The following 
 arrangements were finally settled, and were an- 
 nounced to the public on the 4th of February :— 
 Lord Grenville, first lord of the treasury; Fox, 
 secretary of state for foreign affairs; Viscount Sid- 
 mouth (Addington), lord privy seal; Earl Fitz- 
 william, lord president of the council; Lord 
 Howick (Grey), first lord of the admiralty; Earl 
 of Moira, master-general of the ordnance ; Earl 
 Spencer, secretary of state for the home depart- 
 ment; Windham, secretary for the colonies ; Lord 
 Henry Petty, chancellor of the exchequer; Erskine, 
 lord high chancellor; and Sir Gilbert Ellott,who 
 had been created Baron Minto after his return to 
 England from losing Corsica, had the patronage 
 and management of India as president of the 
 board of control. All places were swept clean, 
 and new men put into them. So sweeping a 
 ministerial change had not been witnessed for 
 many years. Among the minor appointments 
 Sheridan obtained that of treasurer of the navy ; 
 and even this place, which gave him no seat in the 
 cabinet, appears to have been grudgingly and re- 
 luctantly bestowed upon him.* Lord Auckland 
 
 * Horner, rather innocently, fancied that this was owing to Sheridan’s 
 sad frailties and irregularities. Onthe 29th of January, before the 
 arrangements were completed, he writes :—‘‘ Sheridan is very little 
 consulted at present; and, it is said, will not have a seat in the 
 cabinet. This is a distressing necessity. His habits of daily intoxi- 
 cation are probably considered as unfitting him for trust. The little 
 that has been confided to him he had been running about to tell; and 
 
 Ie roe Ey 
 
308 
 
 became president of the board of trade, with Earl 
 Temple for vice-president; Earl Temple (who had 
 thus two places) and Lord John Townshend, joint- 
 paymasters of the forces; General Fitzgerald, se- 
 cretary at war, &c.&c. The law appointments 
 were, Pigott to be attorney-general, and Sir Samuel 
 Romilly to be solicitor-general. Law, who had 
 been made lord chief justice of the King’s Bench 
 and created Baron Ellenborough in 1802 by the 
 Addingtonians, was, by rather a startling no- 
 velty, brought into the cabinet. He had been 
 offered the chancellorship, but had very prudently 
 declined it. The Duke of Bedford, whose family, 
 friends, and dependents had formed an important 
 part of the mosaic opposition, became lord-lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland. This ministry was comprehen- 
 sive enough; but, as they were themselves to be 
 the judges of who were “‘all the talents,” it was 
 not likely that they should look for any among the 
 ranks of those who had adhered to Pitt to the last ; 
 and consequently George Canning, the brightest 
 talent of them all, the most powerful auxiliary 
 in debate, one of the most brilliant men the coun- 
 try ever had, was excluded, or chose to exclude 
 himself. From the first this cabinet carried in its 
 construction the seeds of its own dissolution: no 
 one acquainted with public affairs, with the temper 
 of the court, and of parliament and the country, 
 believed that this ‘“‘ motley wear’ would wear 
 long; nor would it, even though Fox, the real but 
 not the nominal head of it, had not been carried 
 so soon to the Abbey. There was jealousy, incom- 
 patibility, and disagreement between Lord Gren- 
 ville and Charles Fox. Philip Francis, the viru- 
 lent antagonist of Warren Hastings, and who was 
 sighing and dying to be Governor-general of India 
 himself, had pretended to discover that the Indian 
 administration of the Marquess Wellesley had 
 been of the most ruinous and nefarious kind; and 
 he had preluded, by various violent speeches in 
 the House of Commons, for the marquess’s im- 
 peachment. Now, Fox wanted to back Francis, 
 and Grenville to silence him. His lordship, at the 
 outset, stipulated with Fox, as a condition of their 
 forming an administration together, that the accu- 
 sation of the Marquess Wellesley should not be 
 made a cabinet measure. ‘To this Fox yielded ; 
 but, having committed himself with Warren 
 Hastings’s evil genius, and having spoken in the 
 Jommons as though he believed in the charges 
 which Francis and a madman named Paull said 
 they were ready to substantiate, he refused to give 
 Grenville a pledge that he would not support the 
 
 since Monday he has been visiting Sidmouth. At a dinner at Lord 
 Cowper’s on Sunday last, where the Prince of Wales was, he got 
 drunk, as usual, and began to speak slightingly of Fox.’’—Journal, in 
 Memoirs and Correspondence. But Sheridan’s inebriety might have 
 been overlooked if this party or jumble of parties could have trusted 
 him and have counted on his liege fidelity, and if the Foxites could 
 have forgiven him his sundry offences against their chief and idol. 
 For the extra-amiable, “ good-natured man” which Fox is represented 
 to have been, and for a party who claimed a character of ultra-libe- 
 rality, benevolence, and philanthropy, these animosities, spites, and 
 vengeances were rather extraordinary. Ina saying this we do not mean 
 to imply that Sheridan ought to have had higher promotion anda 
 seat in the cabinet; we merely intend to state what were the real 
 grounds of his exclusion. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Oo ——— — 
 
 accusation if it were otherwise brought forward. 
 
 There were numerous other grounds of divergency 
 and difference—in foreign policy they differed toto 
 celo—but this alone was enough to prevent har- 
 mony in the cabinet at starting. Windham, again, 
 differed both with Grenville and with Fox on 
 many essential points of home as well as of foreign 
 policy; and Sidmouth differed from them all three. 
 There was wanting, too, that harmony or sympathy 
 with the court, without which no ministry can ex- 
 pect to do much good, or to enjoy any long exist- 
 ence. The king was indisposed towards Lord 
 Grenville, and made insensible to his many and 
 high merits, private as wellas public, by his forcing 
 Fox upon him, by his determined zeal in favour of 
 Catholic emancipation, and by a certain frigidity 
 and haughtiness of manner which reminded him 
 of the days of the supercilious, arbitrary dictation 
 of Chatham. Sidmouth, who was opposed to the 
 Catholic claims, who professed to understand the 
 coronation oath as the king himself understood it, 
 and who had an humble, quiet, meek manner, and 
 a complying disposition, was the only one of the 
 heads of government that enjoyed the confidence of 
 the king; but this confidence was soon extended 
 to Lord Ellenborough, who had been irregularly 
 brought into the cabinet to aid and strengthen Sid- 
 mouth.* To these two the king looked as the 
 guardians of his conscience—as his protectors 
 against innovations in church and state. Sidmouth 
 was scarcely considered as one of “the talents,” 
 but it is doubtful whether a refusal to unite with 
 him would not have induced the king to try seve- 
 ral experiments ere he resigned himself to Fox and 
 Grenville, and, with Sidmouth and his compact 
 party in opposition, “all the talents’? must very 
 soon have fallen from their “ pride of place.”’ Be- 
 sides, too many talents are apt to produce the 
 effects proverbially attributed to too many cooks ; 
 and so many partics—Grenvillites, Foxites, Wind- 
 hamites, Lansdownites, Addingtonians or Sid- 
 mouthites, &c.—brought so many expectations, 
 hopes, and pretensions in their several trains, that 
 it must have been found hard work to gratify them 
 all, or so divide the patronage of government among 
 them, as to prevent their quarrelling and splitting. 
 They had no general political creed; their theo- 
 ries, like their interests, lay wide asunder.} 
 
 * “Lord Sidmouth wished to have one friend introduced into the 
 cabinet with him, and he named Lord Buckinghamshire; he was re- 
 fused, and it was agreed that Lord Ellenborough, as a friend of Sid- 
 mouth, should be introduced into the cabinet.”—Horner. 
 
 “* Fox, I hear, has had an explanation with the king, assuring him 
 that ....... not only friendly to the House of Hanover and him, 
 though not to late ministry; but also that he would not bring on mea- 
 sures Offensive to him—Catholic question, &c. I have been ve 
 anxious about Lord Ellenborough. Fox &c.’s doing. Lord Sidmout 
 would have had Lord Buckinghamshire; but the opposition said they 
 had friends of equal or superior pretensions, who in that case must 
 be brought forward.”—/¥i sles foros, 
 
 + The following pussage was not written by a very friendly pen, yet 
 its general truth is indisputable :— aed 
 
 “* There is no change of principle (as far as we can yet judge) in the 
 new cabinet, or rather, the new cabinet has no general political creed. 
 Lord Grenville, Fox, Lord Lansdowne, and Addington were the four 
 nominal heads of four distinct parties, which must now by some che- 
 mical process be amalgamated : all must forget, if they can, their 
 peculiar habits and opiuions, and unite in the pursuit of a common 
 object. How far this is possible, time will show; to what degree this 
 motley ministry can, by their joint influence, command a majority 
 in the House of Commons; how far they will, as a whole, be assisted 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 —* 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 As secretary for foreign affairs Fox had the 
 management of the most important and the most 
 difficult affairs of government. As he had been 
 declaring for thirteen long years and more that 
 the present war was unnecessary, that its origin 
 Was as iniquitous as its conduct was imbecile, he 
 could hardly do less than make some attempt to 
 bring about a peace. It appears too that he cal- 
 culated somewhat on his personal influence with 
 Bonaparte, and on the pacific professions he had 
 made to him during his visit to Paris. He had 
 scarcely been ten days in office ere a Frenchman 
 calling himself Guillet de la Gevrilliére stole into 
 England without a passport, and by letter re- 
 quested an interview with Fox, stating that he had 
 important communications to make to him. [ox 
 immediately admitted this man to a private au- 
 dience, and to his horror heard him detail a plan 
 for the assassination of the Emperor of the French. 
 This seemed to Fox an excellent opportunity for 
 opening a correspondence with the French govern- 
 ment, and he forthwith wrote to Paris, acquaint- 
 ing that government with the circumstance; and 
 he had the miscreant (who is suspected of having 
 been sent over by Fouché or by Bonaparte him- 
 self) detained in custody, until his designs, if he 
 really entertained them, should be guarded against. 
 Talleyrand immediately acknowledged the receipt 
 of this tmportant communication, with many com- 
 pliments to Fox—as though Pitt or any other 
 English minister would not have entertained an 
 equal horror of assassination. The French minis- 
 ter for foreign affairs had placed Fox’s letter under 
 the eyes of his imperial majesty, who, upon read- 
 ing it, had said, ‘‘ I recognise here the principles 
 of honour and yirtue of Mr. Fox. Thank him in 
 my name, and tell him that, whether the policy of 
 his sovereign cause us to remain yet a long time 
 at war, or whether a quarrel so useless for hu- 
 manity have that speedy termination which both 
 nations ought to desire, I rejoice at the new cha- 
 racter which, by this proceeding, the war has 
 already taken, and which is the presage of what 
 may be expected from a cabinet whose principles 
 I estimate according to those of Mr. Fox, one of 
 the men best formed to feel in all things what is 
 beautiful and what is truly great.” Upon these 
 empty compliments and vague expressions Fox 
 commenced a long correspondence with Talleyrand 
 for the purpose of obtaining—what was not to be 
 obtained from Bonaparte without leaving him the 
 master of the continent, without the sacrifice on 
 our part of all public faith—a peace, a sure and 
 durable peace. In his first letter on this great 
 subject, Fox, who was now a minister and not a 
 leader of opposition, confessed the difficulties which 
 stood in the way of negotiation; that the treaty of 
 
 by the secret influence and power of the crown; whether, if not so 
 seconded, they will be able to appeal some time hence to the people, 
 and dissolve the parliament. All these and many other questions 
 will receive very different answers from different speculators. But 
 ne ee entime . e eet ap that every individual will be ex- 
 
 remely jealous of the patronage of his individual department.”— 
 Letter (dated 6th February, 1806) from George Ellis, ra to Walter 
 Scott, in Lockhart’s Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 309 
 
 Amiens could not now be taken as a basis, and 
 that England could not think of consenting to a 
 short and uncertain truce; and he declared that 
 the British government was determined to keep 
 faith with all its allies on the continent, and to 
 conclude nothing except in concert with the Em- 
 peror of Russia, whose armies were still in the 
 field, and to whom England was bound by the 
 closest ties of alliance. Now Bonaparte was de- 
 termined not to admit the Emperor Alexander as 
 a contracting party, and not to respect any of the 
 treaties existing between England and the conti- 
 nental powers: he wanted to treat with Russia 
 separately, as he had treated with Austria; and as 
 for the minor powers, they must submit to his 
 will, and form, as the majority of them already did, 
 a part of his system. Pitt might have obtained an 
 uncertain peace upon these conditions; but the 
 conditions were too dishonouring and dangerous 
 to be entertained for a moment by Fox, who must 
 have felt at once how much easier it had been to 
 blame and denounce his predecessor for continuing 
 the war, than it was to obtain such a pacification 
 as parliament and the country would agree to. On 
 discovering the determination of the French ca- 
 binet not to admit the Emperor Alexander either 
 as a contracting party or as a mediator, Fox ought 
 to have broken off his correspondence ; for the 
 continuance of it could only dishearten the Russian 
 army, and instil into the Russian cabinet doubts 
 and misgivings as to the honesty and _ steadi- 
 ness of the English cabinet: but Fox continued 
 to write long letters to Talleyrand, to betray an 
 eagerness for entering upon negotiations, which the 
 French, in spite of his declarations that England 
 itself had nothing to fear—that her resources were 
 as abundant as ever,—attributed to a terror of 
 Bonaparte and his genius and power, and to an 
 inward conviction of the inability of England 
 to continue the war much longer. ‘Talleyrand, 
 whose letters savour of the dictation of Bonaparte, 
 limited his correspondence to the expression of the 
 vaguest ideas, avoiding every positive point, every 
 word that might commit him or his court to any 
 fixed line of action, and giving back to Fox, and 
 with interest, his philanthropic apophthegms and 
 generous syllogisms. This correspondence was 
 good as a homily, or as a course of moral philosophy 
 and philanthropy; but as a negotiation, or as a 
 preliminary to a feasible and positive treaty of 
 peace, it was nothing. At last, however, the 
 French cabinet, calculating on the favourable effect 
 which such a demonstration of pacific intentions 
 would produce in Europe, and on the various un- 
 favourable ways in which it would affect England 
 (for the sending of a negotiator would shake her 
 credit on the Continent, and, when the bubble 
 should be burst, Bonaparte would declare that the 
 breaking off the negotiations was solely owing to 
 her rapacity and restless ambition, and uncalled- 
 for interference in the affairs of the Continent), let 
 drop, ina letter to Fox, that, if his Britannic ma- 
 jesty were really desirous of peace, he would send 
 
310 
 
 over a plenipotentiary. Fox, in the first instance, 
 named Lord Yarmouth (the late Marquess of Hert- 
 ford), who had long been living in France (at the 
 English depdt at Verdun), having been one of the 
 ten thousand and more travellers seized and de- 
 tained as prisoners of war, at the rupture of the 
 peace of Amiens. But before Lord Yarmouth 
 could enter upon any discussion the French in- 
 vaded and conquered the kingdom of Naples, and 
 put forth a claim to the possession of its depend- 
 ency the island of Sicily, where a small British 
 army had now been collected to defend our fugi- 
 tive ally the Bourbon king, whose fate it was to 
 become a fugitive each time he entered into our 
 coalitions. His lordship, however, engaged in 
 conference with Talleyrand, Champagny, and 
 Bonaparte’s general, Clarke, it being agreed that 
 for the present the business should be conducted in 
 secrecy, so that neither party should be committed 
 in case the objects of the conferences should not be 
 obtained. But perfect secrecy in such cases is 
 scarcely attainable; and, as the Frenchmen cal- 
 culated on benefiting by the disclosure that a 
 great and wealthy member of the English aristo- 
 cracy was treating with the ministers of Bonaparte, 
 and giving him for the first time his imperial and 
 royal style and titles, the facts were divulged in 
 those quarters where they were likely to make the 
 most impression. Lord Yarmouth arrived at Paris 
 towards the end of May, and by the middle of 
 June the motive of his coming, and of his inter- 
 course with the foreign office, was known not only 
 in that city, but in all the German capitals and to 
 the court of Petersburgh itself. Yarmouth found 
 a stumbling-block at the very threshold of the 
 negotiations, for Talleyrand refused to treat for a 
 general peace jointly with Russia. Moreover, at 
 starting, he demanded from the court of Great 
 Britain the immediate recognition of the Emperor 
 Napoleon and the different branches of his family. 
 On this Lord Yarmouth took occasion to state the 
 solidity which the recognition of England would 
 give to their establishment, and inquired whether 
 the French government would guarantee the in- 
 tegrity of the Ottoman Empire.* At first Talley- 
 rand seemed to attach little importance to Sicily, 
 saying, that that island was in our possession, and 
 that he did not demand it from us; but at the next 
 conference his tone was entirely altered, and he 
 told Yarmouth that the emperor had received re- 
 ports from his brother Joseph (who had been 
 thrust upon the Neapolitan throne), and from the 
 general officers under his orders, stating that 
 Naples could not be held without Sicily, and that 
 the conquest of that island would be an easy 
 operation to the French army collected at Naples 
 and in Calabria. His lordship replied that his in- 
 structions enjoined him not merely not to consent 
 to the seizure of Sicily—the last refuge of our 
 Bourbon ally—but also to demand the immediate 
 restoration of Naples to its lawful owner. ‘Talley- 
 
 * Dispatch from the Earl of Yarmouth to Mr. Secretar 
 dated June the 13th, 1806. Y Fats 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 i. 
 
 rand repeated the unalterable determination of his | 
 
 master never to give up Naples, never to alienate 
 Istria and Dalmatia, or any part of his Italian 
 states ; never to make any provision for the King 
 of Sardinia, who, like his Neapolitan majesty, was 
 driven to his insular possession. But now Talley- 
 rand, who had previously talked of the necessity 
 of keeping for ever from the King of Great Bri- 
 tain his hereditary dominions of Hanover, pro- 
 fessed a readiness to wave that claim and to restore 
 Hanover. He also offered to recognise our right to 
 Malta, and to the Cape of Good Hope, which we had 
 conquered once more—for it was no longer thought 
 worth while to speak of the rights and sovereignty 
 of the Batavian Republic, to which, and not to the 
 French empire, the Cape properly belonged. As 
 Bonaparte had promised Hanover to Prussia, and 
 as a Prussian army was already occupying that 
 country, this offer to restore it to England in- 
 censed the court of Berlin, and is believed to 
 have been in good part the cause of the rash 
 war which followed. This was the one great 
 event which resulted from Fox’s pacifie policy. 
 The Prussian war did no good to the Coalition; 
 but it brought down upon that cabinet the ruin 
 and humiliation they had merited, and it taught a 
 great lesson to selfish, vacillating, and tergiversa- 
 tive governments. The emperor, said Talleyrand 
 repeatedly, by giving up Hanover for the honour 
 of the crown, Malta for the honour of the navy, 
 and the Cape of Good Hope for the honour of 
 British commerce, surely offers his Britannic ma- 
 jesty sufficient inducements to make peace. But 
 Sicily ? But Naples ® But a provision for the King 
 of Sardinia?—Oh! Sicily must be given to 
 Joseph Bonaparte, who must keep Naples; the 
 Bourbon Ferdinand IV. might have in compensa- 
 
 tion a new kingdom created for him out of a part — 
 of Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Albania (Ragusa being, — 
 
 or having been until lately, an independent re- 
 public, and Albania being a province of the 
 Turkish empire, whose independence was to be 
 
 guaranteed!), and as for the King of Sardinia, it — 
 would be time to talk of him and his indemnities — 
 But then Talleyrand held out a bait to | 
 the assumed selfishness of the King of Great — 
 Britain, hinting in his sly, mysterious, inconclu- 
 sive manner, that his majesty might be allowed to — 
 add the Hanse towns and their territories in full 
 sovereignty to his German dominions, Hanover, — 
 
 hereafter. 
 
 &e.* Yes! Bonaparte, through the medium of 
 
 Talleyrand, gave Lord Yarmouth to understand — 
 that the old free commercial republics, Hamburg, 
 
 Lubeck, Bremen, over which he had not even the © 
 questionable right of conquest, should be handed | 
 over to England like dead stock or bales of goods! © | 
 
 A 
 ry 
 
 Such propositions ought to have been met by an 
 indignant rebuke and a cessation of the confer- 
 ences: they proved, as Spencer Perceval after- 
 wards declared in the House of Commons, that no 
 
 negotiations with the present head of the French — 
 government could be entered into without con-— 
 
 ee | 
 * Dispatch of the Earl of Yarmouth, dated July the Ist. — 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 * 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 it ‘ 
 ‘ 
 
 | 
 
 | 
 i 
 4] 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 tamination ; but Fox persevered in the path he 
 had chosen, and his agent Yarmouth continued 
 his intercourse with Talleyrand. But, as Russia 
 became acquainted with the negotiations in pro- 
 gress, she sent M. d’Oubril to Paris to act in her 
 own behalf, and to watch proceedings. 
 
 The arrival of the Russian agent produced pre- 
 cisely that complication and confusion which the 
 French diplomatists most desired: d’Oubril sus- 
 pected Lord Yarmouth, and Lord Yarmouth 
 d’Oubril ; each fancied that the other was seeking 
 exclusively the advantages of his own government, 
 and was going to conclude a separate treaty with 
 France. ‘Talleyrand made frequent allusions to 
 the readiness of Russia to treat separately; and 
 d@’Oubril had not been many days in the French 
 capital before Lord Yarmouth was induced to 
 believe that he had signed a separate treaty of 
 peace; and thereupon his lordship came to a 
 downright quarrel with the Russian agent. Upon 
 this Talleyrand raised his demands and abridged 
 his proffered concessions, But still Fox perse- 
 vered, and, apparently rejoicing at d’Oubril’s con- 
 duct, and his departure for Petersburgh, consider- 
 ing himself hereby released from the necessity of 
 acting in concert with Russia, he determined to 
 send over to Paris a public and openly accredited 
 plenipotentiary to treat for peace. The personage 
 he selected for this mission was Lord Lauderdale. 
 The Scotch earl soon found he could do no more 
 than the English earl had done. lLauderdale’s 
 negotiations lasted from the 9th of August to the 
 6th of October, when they were broken off by a 
 demand for passports. With a miserable waste of 
 words Lauderdale told Talleyrand that Fox was 
 really and sincerely desirous of peace; that “ dur- 
 ing twenty-six years of intimate and uninterrupted 
 connexion with Mr. Fox,” he, as much as any one, 
 had had the ‘‘ opportunity of confidentially learn- 
 ing the sentiments of that celebrated man ;” that, 
 from his knowledge of those sentiments, he was 
 impressed with the strongest conviction that the 
 failure of the negotiations, and the impracticability 
 of obtaining peace upon honourable terms, would 
 give him the greatest pain. It has been surmised 
 that Lauderdale would have been allowed to re- 
 main longer, humiliating his country at Paris ; 
 but by this time Fox was no more, the Emperor 
 Alexander was again in arms, the signal overthrow 
 of Prussia had not yet happened, Bonaparte was in 
 the field with his grand army, there was a chance 
 that he and it, by venturing into the regions of the 
 north, might be destroyed, and the aggressions 
 which he had committed in the east, west, north, and 
 south, since the first overture for negotiation, had 
 been of such a nature as to render it utterly im- 
 possible for any English ministry to continue 
 diplomatising any longer, unless they chose to 
 risk impeachment and the execration of their 
 country. So the Thane returned home, bringing 
 with him a splendid set of Sévres china, the pre- 
 sent of the Emperor of the French, which used to 
 be exhibited to the curious in his lordship’s man- 
 
 311 
 
 sion at Dunbar. It would be as useless, though 
 not quite so costly or dishonourable as the mission 
 itself, to detail Lauderdale’s negotiations. At first 
 the French pretended that they would be content 
 to treat on the wti possidetis principle; but Eng- 
 land had other things to look to besides retaining 
 possession of the promontories and islands which 
 the war had given to her, and which, since Tra- 
 falgar, the French could not hope to take from her ; 
 and, when they had gained the time and the ad- 
 vantages they wished by amusing Fox’s diploma- 
 tists with this tub, they departed from the ute 
 possidetis principle altogether, and declared that 
 they had never assented to it. They insisted that 
 Sicily should be given up to Joseph Bonaparte ; 
 but they made a variation as to the indemnity to 
 be given to Ferdinand [V.—instead of the patched- 
 up kingdom in the savage Albania and the scarcely 
 less wild Dalmatia, his Neapolitan and Sicilian 
 majesty was to have and to hold the three Balearic 
 islands, Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, which were 
 to be torn from Spain, or from the dominion of his 
 Spanish majesty, who was Ferdinand’s own bro- 
 ther; and for these three islands Ferdinand was 
 to renounce for ever the broad and rich dominions, 
 the fairest part of all Europe, which he had inhe- 
 rited.* Except this variation in iniquity, the 
 conditions offered to Lauderdale differed little from 
 those which had been tendered to Yarmouth. The 
 French government did not fail to attribute pub- 
 licly the interruption of these precious negotiations 
 to the death of Fox, or to declare that Bonaparte 
 had “done everything in his power to put a stop 
 to the calamities of war.”? Talleyrand said, in his 
 last note to Lauderdale (which was made public in 
 England, in France, and throughout Europe), that 
 the emperor, his master, would be “ ready to re- 
 place the negotiations on the basis which had been 
 laid in concert with the illustrious minister whom 
 England had lost ;’? who, “‘ having nothing to add 
 to his glory, except the reconciliation of the two 
 nations, had conceived the hope of accomplishing 
 it, but was snatched from the world in the midst 
 of his work.” The truth was, that Fox had laid 
 down no basis, or none on which the French ne- 
 gotiators would meet him; that he himself had 
 declared, over and over again, in his dispatches to 
 Yarmouth and Lauderdale, that peace would be 
 unattainable upon such a basis as the French pro- 
 posed ; that a good many weeks before he died 
 Fox was convinced that the negotiations could 
 come to no good end; and that, whether he had 
 lived or died, the war would have been durable, 
 even as the nature of Bonaparte was unalterable. 
 
 | Whatever might have been his own disposition 
 
 and predilections, Lord Grenville, Lord Spencer, 
 Windham, and others of his official colleagues 
 were not men to truckle to France, while the king 
 and the nation at large were as resolute as ever 
 they had been. But Fox, we believe, deeply felt 
 his responsibility when in office, and had a heart 
 
 * Lord Lauderdale’s dispatches to Mr. Secretary Fox and Earl 
 Spencer. 
 
312 
 
 that could glow with national and patriotic feel- 
 ing: he turned with disgust from the proposition 
 that we should abandon all our allies; and he had 
 constantly, all through his political life, set his 
 face against the selfish, miscalculating, dangerous, 
 and degrading principle, that England, safe in her 
 sea-girt position, ought to look only to herself, and 
 leave the nations of Europe to their fate. After 
 he had commenced these negotiations, he said in 
 the House of Commons—‘ My wish, the first wish 
 of my heart, is peace; but such a peace as shall 
 preserve our connexions and influence on the Con- 
 tinent, as shall not abate one jot of the national 
 honour, and such only!” And this declaration 
 was received with an uncontrollable burst of na- 
 tional feeling, for not only did the whole House 
 cheer tumultuously and enthusiastically, but the 
 visitors in the gallery (who were not wont to talk 
 and roar like the French people in the galleries of 
 the Assembly and Convention) lost their self- 
 command, and either joined in the shouts or mur- 
 mured their approbation. 
 
 We return to the business of Parliament. 
 Many objections were taken to the admission of 
 the Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough into the 
 Cabinet. On the 3rd of March Lord Bristol 
 moved, “That it was highly inexpedient, and 
 tended to weaken the administration of justice, 
 to summon to any committee or assembly of 
 the Privy Council any of the judges of his ma- 
 jesty’s courts of common law.” The motion was 
 supported by ex-Chancellor Eldon and by Lords 
 Boringdon, Mulgrave, and Hawkesbury; it was 
 opposed by Lords St. John, Carlisle, Carnarvon, 
 Sidmouth, Holland, and Grenville; and was nega- 
 tived without a division. A similar resolution was 
 moved on the same day in the Commons by Mr. 
 Spencer Stanhope: it was supported by Canning, 
 Lord Castlereagh, Spencer Perceval, and Wilber- 
 force ; it was opposed by Mr. Bond, Lord Temple, 
 Fox, Lord Henry Petty, and Sheridan ; and the 
 previous question was carried by 222 against 64.* 
 
 * «* At Mr. Fox’s desire, Iattended a meeting at his house of seve- 
 ral membei> of the House of Commons, to consider the question, 
 expected to be brought on in the House on the Monday following, on 
 the subject of Lard Ellenborough having a voice in the Cabinet. That 
 there is nothing illegal or unconstitutional in this seems clear. It is 
 certainly very desirable that a jndge should not take any part in poli- 
 tics; but this is not according io the theory of our constitution, nor 
 consistent with practice in the best times of our history. The chiefs 
 of all the three courts are always privy councillors; and the Cabinet 
 is only a committee of the Privy Council, and, as a Cabinet, is 
 unknown to the constitution. In the reign of Geo. IJ., and in the 
 beginning of the present reigu, when regencies were established 
 by act of Parliament in the event of the king’s dying while his suc- 
 cessor was in his minority, councils were appointed to assist the 
 regents ; and those councils consisted, in each case, of the first officers 
 of the state, such as are commonly cabinet ministers, with the addi- 
 tion in each case of the Acca of Canterbury and the Chief 
 Justice of the King’s Bench; and in both cases it was the chief jus 
 tice for the time being (See the statute 24 Geo. II. c. 24; 5 Geo. III. 
 c. 27). In Queen Anne’s reign lords justices were appointed, in whom 
 the whole executive government was to remain till the successor, if at 
 the time of the queen’s death he were out of the realm, should arrive 
 in the kingdom; and the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench was ap- 
 pointed one of the lords justices (See 4 Anne, c. 8; and 6 Anne, c. 1 
 The first of these acts met with great opposition from the Tories of 
 that time: particular persous were objected to as lords justices, and a 
 protest was entered in the House of Lords; but no objection what- 
 ever was made to the chief justice being of the number,”—Siy 8, 
 Romilly, Diary. 
 
 Very different was the opinion of Horner :—‘‘It is against the 
 constitution, both in its forms and its spirit, that the Chief Jus- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 [ Boox me 
 
 y 
 
 2 
 But few were the questions on which this motley ; 
 ministry could command anything like such majo- | 
 rities. Although they had led the people to ex- — 
 pect a vast deal from them, they had excited no — 
 enthusiasm in their favour, either in Parliament or 
 in the country: their majorities were frequently 
 of the narrowest kind, and several times, in the 
 course of the session, they were left in a minority, 
 Nothing but routine business was let pass without 
 vehement and protracted debate. A wearying, 
 worrying system was adopted; and Lord Castle- 
 reagh, who was generally considered as the great- 
 est speaker against time, took the lead in it, 
 talking of principles hours after they had been 
 decided upon and admitted, and revolving upon 
 his ‘fundamental hinges” until night gave way 
 to morning and the ministerial benches to lassi- 
 tude and despair. And, no doubt greatly to the 
 detriment of Fox’s health, this went on night after 
 night. Sheridan facetiously proposed that the 
 ministerial members, distributed in parties of 
 twenty, should go home to rest, and come back to 
 relieve guard after they had slept and breakfasted. 
 But a good joke could not stop the bad practice : 
 the House frequently sat until five, six, or seven 
 o’clock in the morning. ‘‘ All the talents”? were 
 growing thin and pale. 
 
 On the 3rd of April Windham brought forward 
 his plan for altering the military system, and parti- 
 cularly the mode of recruiting the army, which 
 certainly called imperiously for improvement, as 
 hitherto men had been enlisted for life. Conserip- 
 tion or force, he said, could not be resorted to in | 
 England; the enlistments must be voluntary, and, | 
 to render them prompt and sufficient in num- 
 ber, the term of service must be limited, and 
 the condition of the soldier improved ; the trade of 
 soldier must be brought to a competition with the 
 other trades usually followed by the poorer classes. 
 For this purpose, Windham proposed that the sol- — 
 diers raised in future should be enlisted for a term — 
 of years; that this term should be divided, for the 
 infantry, into three periods of seven years each ; 
 and, for the cavalry and artillery, the first period 
 to be ten years, the second six, and the third five 
 years: that at the end of each of these periods a — 
 man might have a right to claim his discharge, | 
 and that his privileges, pensions, &c. should be | 
 augmented in proportion to the length of his ser- 
 vice. As the first step necessary to introduce this | 
 change, Windham moved for a bill to repeal Pitt’s | 
 Additional Force Bill. Here he encountered the full |} 
 force of opposition, with speeches from Castlereagh © 
 
 OF cn ng Ay Sn. 
 
 \ 
 
 4) 
 
 » 
 
 Og 
 
 tice of England should have a seat in the Cabinet, and it is a 
 violation of those fundamental principles on which the purity and | 
 integrity of judicial administration rest. He may sit to try those | 
 prosecutions which he has concurred in the Cabinet to order; andin | 
 all questions of state-prosecution he is a party for the government,in- | 
 stead of being the bulwark to protect the people against power. | 
 These general reasons are doubly enforced, in the present instance, 2? L 
 the character and manners of the man: in the year 1801 he changed, | 
 at an hour's notice, the opinions and language of his life to become a | 
 court lawyer; and has never felt the dignity of his great station @ 
 restraint upon his temper, from uttering what is to the purpose | 
 the day with the utmost coarseness of factious warfare, I consider 
 his nomination to the Cabinet as a foul stain upon the new system | 
 of government.” —Letter to J, A. Murray, Esq. ‘| | 
 
 a 
 
 if 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 . | 
 almost enough to kill him—or his patience. In 
 
 the first debate on the question, Castlereagh, after 
 describing the flourishing state of the army, navy, 
 and finances, as left by Piti’s late government, 
 created some merriment by declaring that the pre- 
 sent administration might be considered as lying 
 upon a bed of roses. Fox denied that Pitt had 
 left him so pleasant a bed, declaring, at the same 
 time, that we should find it necessary to maintain 
 a very large army, even in time of peace, for he 
 saw no prospect of any peace that would exempt 
 us from the necessity of watchful preparation 
 and powerful establishments. This repealing bill 
 was read the first time on the 17th of April. On 
 the 30th of April, Canning insinuated strongly 
 that the repeal of the Additional Force Bill was 
 urged less from a conviction of its defects than from 
 the desire of throwing a slur upon the memory 
 of his late right honourable friend, whose measure 
 it had been. And Canning moved that the second 
 reading, which had been fixed for that day, should 
 be postponed until that day three weeks, in order 
 that all the new military plans of Windham might 
 be duly considered. But the House divided on the 
 question that the bill be now read, and Canning 
 was defeated by 235 against 119. On the third 
 reading Spencer Perceval suggested some amend- 
 ments, which were adopted by the ministers; and 
 on the 14th of May, the repealing bill passed 
 through the Commons. In the House of Lords it 
 met with great opposition ; but it was finally carried 
 by 97 against 40. Windham’s plan for limited ser- 
 vice was then introduced (on May. the 30th) by way 
 of clause to be inserted in the Annual Mutiny Bill. 
 Windham said that the benefits he expected from 
 limited instead of unlimited service were not con- 
 fined to an increase in the number of recruits: 
 that he looked also to an improvement in the 
 quality and description of the persons who would 
 be induced to become soldiers, and that he trusted 
 that in consequence of this improvement the neces- 
 sity for severity of discipline in the army would be 
 materially diminished. The opposition was again 
 powerful; but the clause was voted and inserted in 
 the Mutiny Bill. A bill for the training of a cer- 
 tain number of persons, not exceeding 200,000, out 
 of those that were liable to be drawn for the mili- 
 tia; a bill to suspend the ballot for the militia in 
 England for two years, with a reserved power to 
 government of recurring to it in order to supply 
 the vacancies of any corps which should be reduced 
 below its quota ; a bill called the Chelsea Hospital 
 Bill, to give a legal security to invalid, disabled, 
 and discharged soldiers for such pensions and 
 allowances as they were entitled to; a bill for aug- 
 menting the pay of infantry officers of the regular 
 army; and a Dill for settling the relative rank of 
 officers of yeomanry, volunteers, militia forces, and 
 troops of the line, completed Windham’s new 
 military system, and were all carried, though not 
 without opposition. An increase was also voted 
 to the pay of serjeants, corporals, and privates of 
 the line, to the Chelsea pensions, and to the pen- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 313 
 
 sions of officers’ widows—three points on which the 
 House was unanimous. On the whole the British 
 army, which began to improve rapidly soon after 
 these enactments—though certainly the improve- 
 ment was not owing solely to them—owes a debt 
 of gratitude to Windham. Similar benefits were 
 voted to the navy. On the motion of Lord Ho- 
 wick, the head of the admiralty, additional pay 
 was allowed to the officers, petty officers, and sea- 
 men, and the Greenwich Hospital allowances to 
 out-pensioners were increased. But there was a 
 most unwise and unpatriotic-looking delay in voting 
 the proper honours and rewards to those who had 
 fought at Trafalgar. The session was considerably 
 advanced before any particular notice was taken of 
 the deceased hero or of his family. Admiral Col- 
 lingwood, who had succeeded to the command of 
 Nelson’s fleet, heard so rarely from the admiralty, 
 that he began to think that he and his fleet were 
 forgotten. Lord Barham, the late head of the admi- 
 ralty, had disappointed expectations in the navy, 
 for he was old and irresolute before he came into 
 office, and when in he would act only in strict con- 
 formity with official precedents. Like many men 
 who pique themselves upon their disinterestedness, 
 he would interest himself for no man; and he 
 wished, even after the most splendid victories, that 
 promotion should go by routine, or in its ancient 
 courses. He declined to promote the officers whom 
 Collingwood recommended for their gallant conduct 
 in the great battle; he allowed a number of spirited 
 men—tried, weather-beaten sailors—to come home 
 in disgust; and he sent, or rather allowed others to 
 send, out fine young gentiemen and lordlings to be 
 promoted over the heads of Nelson’s and Colling- 
 wood’s heroes. But matters were not much mended 
 when the ministry was changed, and when Lord 
 Howick became head of the admiralty in lieu of 
 Lord Barham. On the 27th of April, more than 
 two months after the accession to office of “all the 
 talents,’? we find Collingwood complaining that 
 * the ships are now put into very indifferent hands, 
 at a time when all the exertion of the most skilful 
 is wanted ;”’ and that ‘the report that medals are 
 not to be given is a great disappointment to the 
 fleet ;”’ that his fatigues and anxieties are ex- 
 cessive, and his poverty oppressive. Several times 
 he repeats that he and his services seem to be for- 
 gotten at home. It almost looked as if the present 
 ministry were ashamed of the glorious victory 
 which had been gained. The Duke of Clarence 
 (his late Majesty William IV.) did not share in this 
 apathy or obliviousness: he wrote a warm letter to 
 the veteran, and pleaded, as he had done before, for 
 a series of liberal rewards—for a system which 
 should make zeal, bravery, and ability the great 
 and sole causes of promotion. The king too ordered 
 a letter to be written to the secretary of the admi- 
 ralty, expressing his majesty’s warm admiration 
 and entire approbation of every part of Colling- 
 wood’s conduct. The thanks of parliament had 
 been voted to Collingwood before the dissclution 
 of the Pitt ministry. At last Collingwood was 
 
314 
 
 raised to the peerage, by the title of Baron Col- 
 lingwood; he was granted a pension of 2000/, a- 
 year for his own life, and, in the event of his death, 
 10002, a-year to Lady Collingwood, and 500/, a-year 
 to each of his two daughters.* The thanks of 
 parliament were also voted to Admiral Sir Richard 
 Strachan for capturing Dumanoir’s squadron, which 
 had escaped from Trafalgar ; and to Admiral Sir 
 John Duckworth for advantages he had obtained 
 in the West Indies. Other rewards were bestowed, 
 though with no liberal hand; and the aristocratic 
 or parliamentary influence over promotions was 
 left as before, “all the talents” being neither more 
 nor less anxious to gratify their friends, and retain 
 their parliamentary dependents, than the late 
 ministry had been, 
 
 An attempt was made, early in the session, to 
 criminate Earl St. Vincent for mismanagement 
 and neglect of the navy, while he was in office ; 
 but it came to nothing. 
 
 While parliament was in the giving mood, and 
 within a fortnight after it had raised the income or 
 property tax to 10 per cent., an application was 
 made and agreed to for increasing the allowances 
 of the younger branches of the royal family. The 
 budget for the year was opened by the chancellor 
 of the exchequer, Lord Henry Petty, on the 28th 
 of March. The permanent taxes were stated at 
 32,535,9717. The requisite supplies for the year 
 were put at 48,916,0007, Of this enormous sum, 
 15,281,0007. were to be applied to the navy— 
 18,500,0007. to the army—4,718,000/. to the 
 ordnance, including ordnance sea-service, Among 
 the proposed ways and means were another loan 
 of 18,000,0007., and war-taxes to the amount of 
 19,500,0007. The new chancellor of the exchequer 
 showed himself a good accountant and a clear 
 expositor, but he was unable to substitute any 
 improved financial arrangements. A duty of 40s. 
 a ton was imposed on pig-iron. He also kept up 
 that old petty-tax system, by which a modicum of 
 money was raised at an infinitude of trouble and 
 vexation, and wherein the amount was half eaten 
 up by the expenses of collection, But his lordship’s 
 great financial move was the simple but bold one 
 of raising the income or property tax from 63 to 
 10 per cent., and making it to extend to all pro- 
 perty above 50/. a-year. The pig-iron tax, which 
 he calculated would yield 500,000/. per annum, met 
 with a great opposition ; but this was nothing com- 
 pared to the storm raised by the sudden and high 
 increase of the property tax. Fox owned in the 
 House that he was not a friend to this tax, or to 
 any of its principles, or to its operation; he was 
 
 * Having but a slender patrimony, Collingwood was economical 
 and homely in his habits; and he had brought up his family to be 
 the same. In a letter to his wife he says—‘‘I do not know how 
 you bear your honours, but I have so much business on my hands, 
 from dawn till midnight, that I have hardly time to think of mine, 
 except it be in gratitude to my king, who has so graciously con- 
 ferred them upon me. How shall we be able to support the dignity 
 to which his majesty has been pleased to raise me? Let others 
 plead for pensions! I can be rich without money, by endeavouring 
 to be superior to everything poor. I would have my services to 
 tke’ ouvdes untainted by any interested motive, and old Scott 
 
 gardener) and I can go on in our cabbage-garden without 
 much greater expense than formerly.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. ‘ | 
 
 sensible that the objections to it were just and | 
 innumerable; but his majesty’s ministers were | 
 reluctantly forced to adopt it under the pressure 
 of circumstances, which they had at least the con- | 
 solation to reflect they had no share in producing, — 
 The people out of doors murmured that those who | 
 had been so long declaiming against Pitt’s heavy 
 taxation were heavier tax-masters than that min- | 
 ister. Few of the better informed classes of the | 
 people doubted that the money was wanted; but — 
 they thought it unworthy of “all the talents,” that | 
 they should not be able to find any better or more | 
 novel way of raising the money than that of lump- | 
 ing 3} per cent. on an old and unpopular impost, 
 In spite of their dangerous, demoralising effects, 
 lotteries were continued as a source of revenue 
 to government. Lord Henry Petty, however, 
 introduced sundry improvements in the auditing 
 accounts, in regulating the office of treasurer of the 
 ordnance, the post-office, the excise-office, custom- 
 house, and other public offices, so as to prevent the 
 practice of public officers deriving profit from the 
 public money in their hands, It was stated that 
 not a single account in the army pay-office had 
 been audited since 1782; that the store accounts 
 had been suffered to lie over without examination 
 during the same period; that the navy accounts 
 were greatly in arrear; that none of the accounts 
 of the late war which had ended at the peace of 
 Amiens had been audited; and that those relating | 
 to the expeditions to Holland and Egypt, and to | 
 the subsidies to foreign powers, had not even been 
 touched upon by the auditors. Particular auditors | 
 were appointed ; the general board of auditors was | 
 new modelled and increased; and the expense of 
 the whole establishment was raised by these im- 
 provements from 28,000/, to 42,0007. a-year, it being, 
 however, declared that this additional expense — 
 of 14,0002, per annum would be but temporary, — 
 and that then the expense would be fixed at only — 
 27,0007. a-year. Some slight improvements were | 
 also made under Lord Henry Petty in the acts — 
 regulating commercial intercourse between Great — 
 Britain and Ireland, and a law was passed for — 
 permitting the free interchange of grain of every — 
 kind between the two islands. = 
 
 But the glory of this session, and of this ministry, — 
 is held to be the blow struck at the slave-trade, | 
 By the labours of many years, Wilberforce, Clark- 
 son, and their numerous and influential friends, 
 had at last prepared the majority of the country 
 and of parliament for this measure, which, from the | 
 beginning, had been favoured by the advocacy and ; 
 eloquence of Pitt, who had delivered some of the — 
 best speeches he ever spoke on this subject. It has — 
 been assumed, however, that the late minister was | 
 deficient in real enthusiasm in the cause; and that | 
 he had not made use of all the weight and influence | 
 his position gave him in smoothing the difficulties | 
 and removing the opposition of members of both | 
 Houses who were either interested in the slaye- | 
 trade or impressed with the idea that the country | 
 must suffer by its abolition—that the West India — 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 islands, which had cost and were still costing us 
 so much, could be cultivated only by negro slaves, 
 and would be worth nothing without slaves to 
 cultivate them—that annual importations of negroes 
 were necessary to increase the stock so as to meet 
 the increasing demands for West Indian produce 
 —that the negro would work only upon compul- 
 sion, and that to place him in the condition of a 
 free labourer would be to plunge him back into 
 listless, unproductive barbarity, and the West India 
 islands into one general poverty—that the measure 
 would not be final, but that, when the planters 
 had been prohibited from importing more slaves 
 from Africa, the slaves in the islands would be 
 emancipated, and turned into free labourers, who 
 would never freely work beyond that easy point at 
 which they could procure a bare animal existence 
 for themselves. Perhaps Pitt may have shared in 
 some of these notions; and it was in his nature to 
 be averse to solicitation and even to dictation 
 (where he could dictate), unless upon a great and 
 immediate state interest. But if he had made the 
 slave-trade a cabinet question, he could not have 
 carried it until parliament and the country were 
 prepared for it. This preparation had been slow 
 and gradual; and it appears probable that mea- 
 sures which could not be carried in 1805 under 
 Pitt, were carried in 1806 under Fox, simply 
 because the time was more ripe for them, Yet, 
 even now, the measures carried were far less 
 extensive than is generally imagined ;—they were 
 only instalments and advances towards a total 
 suppression of the slave-trade—some few instal- 
 ments added to those several acts and resolutions 
 which had been passed in favour of the negroes 
 during Pitt’s long administration. 
 
 The course adopted by the present ministry was 
 this:—The attorney-general brought in a bill pro- 
 hibiting under strict penalties the exportation of 
 slaves from the British colonies after the Ist of 
 January, 1807. The object of this bill was to 
 prevent the investment of British capital, or the 
 employment of British shipping and seamen, in 
 the foreign slave-trade. Now Pitt, during his last 
 administration, had caused an order in council 
 to be issued for the prevention of the importation 
 of slaves into the colonies conquered by us during 
 the present war, which was going as far as the 
 power of the crown by itself would allow. After 
 the attorney-general’s bill had been carried through, 
 Wilberforce wanted to follow it up by a general 
 bill for total abolition; but, after meeting Fox at 
 Lord Grenville’s, he reluctantly gave up the idea 
 on his lordship’s decided opinion that there was no 
 chance of carrying the main question this session 
 in the House of Lords, as the bishops were going 
 out of town, &c. It was, however, agreed at this 
 meeting that a general resolution against the slave- 
 trade should be moved both in the Commons and 
 in the Lords, Fox engaging to lead in one House, 
 and Grenville in the other, The surprise of 
 Wilberforce was great, to find the stoppage of the 
 slave-trade come from men on whom he had 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 315 
 
 heretofore placed no dependence. After all, Fox 
 and Grenville could not make it a ministerial 
 question, or even secure the concurrence of the 
 whole cabinet, two of the chief members of which 
 were persevering anti-abolitionists. The majority 
 of the cabinet, however, determined to support the 
 resolution, which would, it was thought, bind 
 parliament to a speedy adoption of the general 
 measure. On the 10th of April, Wilberforce 
 moved an address, calling on the king to use his 
 influence to obtain the co-operation of foreign 
 powers in putting down the slave-trade. This 
 being carried without a division, Fox moved the 
 promised resolution, in these words:—*“ That this 
 House, considering the African slave-trade to be 
 contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and 
 sound policy, will, with all practicable expedition, 
 proceed to take effectual measures for abolishing 
 the said trade, in such manner and at such period 
 as may seem advisable,’ And, upon a division, 
 this was carried by 115 against 14, “Now,” says 
 Wilberforce, “if it please God to spare the health 
 of Fox, and to keep him and Grenville together, I 
 hope we shall next year see the termination of all 
 our labours!” The resolution was sent up to the 
 House of Lords, and a conference was demanded ; 
 after which, on a motion from Lord Grenville, 
 their lordships concurred in the same by a major- 
 ity of 41 to 20, Foreseeing that the slave-dealers, 
 acting on the impression that the days of their 
 trade were numbered, would carry on their traffic 
 with an increase of vigour, Wilberforce conferred 
 with Fox on the necessity of a temporary enact- 
 ment for preventing such an influx in the African 
 market, Fox again gratified him; and, before the 
 close of the session, a bill was passed rapidly 
 through both Houses to prevent the employment 
 of any fresh ships in the African slave-trade, by 
 prohibiting the engaging of any vessel in that 
 trade which had not been actually employed in it 
 before August Ist, 1806, or had not contracted for 
 such employment before June 10th, 1806. The 
 duration of this act was limited to two years, 
 
 If Pitt had not been able to prevent the im- 
 peachment of his friend and colleague when alive 
 and in power, there was but slight chance that 
 that prosecution would be let sleep now that he 
 was gone, and his adversaries in place. The trial 
 commenced in Westminster Hall on the 29th of 
 April before the Lords, the members of the House 
 of Commons being present in a committee of the 
 whole House. The articles of the charge were ten 
 in number, but in substance only three, 1, That, 
 as treasurer of the navy, Lord Melville had applied 
 divers sums of public money to his private use and 
 profit, 2. That he had permitted his paymaster, 
 Trotter, to take large sums of money from the 
 Bank of England, issued to it on account of the 
 treasurer of the navy, and to place it in his own 
 name with his private banker. 3. That he had 
 permitted Trotter to apply the money so abstracted 
 to purposes of private emolument, and had himself 
 derived profit therefrom. 
 
Whitbread, the chief manager,* was not a 
 Burke ; office-books and bankers’ accounts were 
 but indifferent materials for rhetoric; a very large 
 portion of the public, now that the first excitement 
 Was worn away, were weary of the subject ; and of 
 the upper classes the majority, though admitting 
 some carelessness and irregularity, considered 
 Dundas as an ill-used man: nearly all the at- 
 tractions were wanting that crowded Westminster 
 Hall with rank, genius, and fashion at the com- 
 mencement of Warren Hastings’s trial: the attend- 
 ance was thin and flat, and the proceedings were 
 run over pretty much in the manner of an audit- 
 ing of accounts. It was made perfectly clear that 
 Mr. ‘Trotter had made up for the miserable defi- 
 ciency of his salary by deriving profit from the 
 banking-house of Coutts on the deposits; that 
 Melville had made temporary use of some sums of 
 money, but had repaid them all, and with in- 
 terest: but Whitbread’s evidence failed altogether 
 in proving that Melville had ever sought private 
 emolument from the deposits, or had ever ab- 
 stracted any public money with the intention of 
 keeping it for himself. Two questions were put 
 by the Lords to the judges:—1. Whether moneys 
 issued from the Exchequer to the Bank of Eng- 
 land on account of the treasurer of his majesty’s 
 navy, pursuant to the Act 25 Geo. III. c. 31, may 
 be lawfully drawn from the said bank by the per- 
 son duly authorised by the treasurer to draw upon 
 the bank, according to the said act, the drafts 
 of such person being made for the purpose of dis- 
 charging bills actually assigned upon the treasurer 
 before the date of such drafts, but not actually 
 presented for payment before such drawing; and 
 whether such moneys, so drawn from the Bank of 
 England, may be lawfully lodged in the hands of 
 a private banker until the payment of such as- 
 signed bills, and for the purpose of making pay- 
 ment thereof when the payment thereof should be 
 demanded; or whether such act in so drawing 
 such moneys, and lodging and depositing the same 
 as aforesaid, is in the law a crime or offeuce? 
 2. Whether moneys issued from the Exchequer 
 to the Bank of England, on account of the trea- 
 surer of the navy, pursuant to the Act 25 Geo. 
 ITI. c. 31, may be lawfully drawn therefrom by 
 drafts drawn in the name and on the behalf of 
 the said treasurer, in the form prescribed in the 
 said act, for the purpose of such moneys being 
 ultimately applied to naval services, but in the 
 mean time, and until the same should be required 
 tu be so applied, for the purpose of being depo- 
 sited in the hands of a private banker, or other 
 private depositary of such moneys, in the name 
 and under the immediate sole control and dispo- 
 sition of some other person or persons than the said 
 
 * The other managers were Fox, Howick, Sheridan, Lord Henry 
 Petty, Lord Viscount Marsham, Daniel Giles, Viscount Folkestone, 
 Jonathan Raine, Ffrench Laurence, Thomas Creevey, Henry Holland, 
 John Caleraft, Lord Porchester, Lord Archibald Hamilton, C. W. W. 
 Wynne, Joseph Jekyll, Edward Morris, Earl Temple, W. D. Best, 
 Lord Robert Spencer, Sir Arthur Piggott (attorney-general), Sir 
 Samuel Romilly (solicitor-general). 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 | vices. 
 
 [Book X. , 
 
 treasurer himself? To the first of these queries 
 the judges replied that such an act, or the so draw- 
 ing of such moneys in a private bank, was not in 
 the law a crime or offence. To the second ques- 
 tion the reply was, “‘ That, if, by the expression, 
 ‘for the purpose of being deposited in the hands of 
 a private banker,’ is to be understood that such was 
 the object or reason of drawing the money out of the 
 Bank of England, the judges answer, that moneys 
 may not be lawfully so drawn out of the Bank of 
 England, although the moneys be intended to be, 
 and may in fact be, ultimately applied to navy ser- 
 But if, by that expression, it is to be un- 
 derstood that such intermediate deposit in the 
 hands of a private banker is made, bond ide, as 
 the means, or supposed means, of more conve- 
 niently applying the money to navy services, in 
 that case the judges answer that moneys, issued 
 from the Exchequer to the Bank of England on 
 account of the treasurer of the navy, pursuant to 
 the Act of the 25th Geo. III. c. 31, may be 
 lawfully drawn therefrom, by drafts drawn in the 
 name and on behalf of the treasurer, in the form 
 prescribed by the same act, for the purpose of such 
 moneys being ultimately applied to navy services, 
 although in the mean time, and until the same 
 shall be required to be so applied, the money may 
 be deposited in the hands of a private banker, or 
 other private depositary, in the name and under 
 the immediate sole control and disposition of some 
 other person or persons than the treasurer him- 
 self,.”’ 
 
 Their lordships then submitted a third question 
 to the judges—Whether it was lawful for the trea- 
 surer of the navy, before the passing of the Act 
 25 Geo. III. c. 31, and more especially when, by 
 warrant from his majesty, his salary was aug- 
 mented in full satisfaction for all fees and other 
 profits and emoluments, to apply any sum of mo- 
 ney intrusted to him for navy services to any 
 other use whatsoever, public or private, without 
 express authority for so doing; and whether such 
 application of navy money would have been a mis- 
 demeanor, or punishable by information or indict- 
 ment? The judges replied that it was not unlaw- 
 ful, and did not constitute a misdemeanor punish- 
 able by information or indictment. 
 
 There were altogether only sixteen days of trial. 
 Fox, Sheridan, Lord Howick, Lord Henry Petty, 
 and Dr. F. Laurence, though managers, scarcely 
 opened their lips during the proceedings; and, 
 except two long, hard, and dry orations from 
 Whitbread, no speech was delivered on that 
 side. On June the 12th, the sixteenth day of the 
 trial, the Lords voted on the several charges. On 
 the first charge Nor Guitry was pronounced by 
 120 against 15, who said Guitry; on the second | 
 charge the votes for acquittal were 81 against 54; | 
 on the third charge 83 against 52; on the fourth, | 
 135 to 0; on the fifth, 131 against 3; on the | 
 sixth, 88 against 47; on the seventh, 85 against — 
 50; on the eighth, 121 against 14; on the ninth, 
 121 against 14; and on the tenth, 124 against 11, 
 
Cuar, VIII] 
 
 The number of peers that voted was 135.* When 
 the clerk, with the lord chancellor, had cast up the 
 numbers at the woolpack, the chancellor ordered 
 proclamation for silence; which being made, his 
 lordship addressed the House :—‘* My Lords, a ma- 
 jority of the Lords have acquitted Henry Viscount 
 Melville of the high crimes and misdemeanors 
 charged upon him by the impeachment of the 
 Commons, and of all things contained therein,” 
 And then, addressing Melville, the lord chancellor 
 said, “* Henry Viscount Melville, I am to acquaint 
 your lordship that you are acquitted of the articles 
 of impeachment exhibited against you by the 
 Commons for high crimes and misdemeanors, and 
 of all things contained therein.” Melville, who 
 stood while the chancellor spoke, made a low bow 
 when he had finished. Their Jordships adjourned 
 to the chamber of parliament; and, the chancellor 
 haying announced there that the impeachment was 
 dismissed, the whole business, which had cost the 
 country some thousands of pounds, ended. 
 
 Though wounded in his pride, driven from 
 office and from that life of business and active 
 employment which seemed to have become neces- 
 sary to his existence, though deprived of the 
 patronage of Scotland, where for so many years 
 he had exercised an almost sovereign rule, and 
 though exposed to the sharp stings of ingrati- 
 tude and to the taunts and turnings of men whom 
 he had raised from the dust, Melville’s tough 
 frame, which throve under the free living or 
 drinking that hastened the death of his friend Pitt, 
 and his still tougher mind, enabled him to bear up 
 manfully—at least in the eyes of the world; and 
 he was capable of the maguanimity of forgiving, 
 or of suppressing his indignation against, the men 
 who had treated him as a pilferer and cut-purse.t 
 The lovers of literature and of genius will not 
 forget that in the days of his power the patronage 
 of Melville was extended to Walter Scott, when a 
 young man and in need of it.{ Among his lord- 
 
 * Trial of Henry Lord Viscount Melville, &c., taken in short-hand 
 by Joseph and William B. Gurney, and published by order of the 
 House of Peers. 
 
 + We have shown how Wilberforce and his friends behaved and 
 voted on the question of impeachment. With Wilberforce on the 
 other side there would have been no impeachment at all. Melville’s 
 conduct to himself after all this was indeed an instance of the better 
 nature of that remarkable man, and was always mentioned by Wil- 
 berforce with unusual pleasure. He says, ‘‘ We did not meet for a 
 Jong time, and all his connexions most violently abused me. About 
 a year before he died we met in the stone passage which leads from 
 the Horse Guards to the Treasury. We came suddenly upon each 
 other, just in the open part, where the light struck upon our faces, 
 We saw one another, and at first I thought he was passing on, but he 
 stopped and called out, ‘ Ah, Wilberforce, how do you do?’ and gave 
 me a hearty shake by the hand. I would have given a thousand 
 pounds-for that shake. J never saw him afterwards.”—Life. Mel- 
 ville died onthe 28th of May, 1811, shortly after completing his 
 seventy-second year. 
 
 t Ina letter dated March the 3rd, 1806, Scott says, ‘‘I own Lord 
 Meilville’s misfortunes affect me deeply. He, at least his nephew, 
 was my early patron, and gave me countenance and assistance when 
 T had but few friends. Il have seen when the streets of Edinburgh 
 were thought by the inhabitants almost too vulgar for Lord Melville 
 to walk upon; and nowI fear that, with his power and influence 
 gone, his presence would be accounted by many, from whom ne has 
 deserved other thoughts, an embarrassment, if not something worse. 
 All this is very vile—it is one of the occasions when Providence, as 
 it were, industriously turns the tapestry to let us see the ragged ends 
 of the worsted which composes its most beautiful figures.”’— Letter to 
 George Ellis, Esq., in Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott. And the 
 poet did not allow his worldly prudence to stint his gratitude. While 
 so many Scotchmen were looking reverentially to the new ministry, 
 as likely to stand and to be the dispensers of those good things which | 
 
 = = aaa aan name 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 | 
 
 317 
 
 ship’s sources of consolation was this—when in 
 power himself, and with the strength of govern- 
 ment exerted in his behalf, he was put upon his 
 defence; and when out of place, and with his de- 
 cided political adversaries in administration, he 
 was tried and acquitted. The great majority of 
 his peers who acquitted him are scarcely to be ac- 
 cused of partiality, and are not amenable to the 
 charge of corrupt and dishonourable conduct; 
 while it is a known fact that the judges who at- 
 tended the trial were, with the exception of Ellen- 
 borough, the lord chief justice (who voted guilty 
 on five of the charges, and not guilty on the five 
 others), all clearly convinced of his innocence.* 
 
 Melville could give no longer, he wrote a dashing, uncompromising 
 song, which James Ballantyne, his printer, sang at a public dinner 
 given in honour of Melville’s acquittal. In that spontaneous burst 
 of feeling he reminded his country how Melville had acted during the 
 storm created by the French revolution, and by the friends of reform 
 at home, 
 ** When villains and coxcombs, French polities praising, 
 Drove peace from our tables and sleep from our beds.” 
 He called to their minds how, when the Blues (the Scottish volun- 
 teers) were raising, Melville was the first to head them, and 
 ‘*Our hearts they grew bolder 
 When, musket on shoulder, 
 Stepp’d forth our old statesman example to give ; 
 Come, boys, never fear, 
 Drink the Blue grenadier— 
 Here’s to old Harry, and long may he live!” 
 
 * Lord Brougham, Statesmen of the Time of George III. His lord- 
 ship concludes his character of this much-defamed statesman by 
 saying, “ It is very certain that these remarks will give little satisfac- 
 tion to those whose political principles have always kept them apart 
 from, and inimical to, Lord Melville. But to what purpose have men 
 lived for above thirty years after the trial, and survived the object of 
 the charge more than a quarter of a century, if they cannot now, and 
 upon a mere judicial question, permit their judgments to have a free 
 scope—deciding calmly upon events that belong to the history of the 
 past, and involve the reputation of the dead ?” 
 
 Warren Hastings, who survived Melville so many years, was very 
 resentful of the evils he had received from him. The India Bill which 
 succeeded Fox’s most unlucky hit, and which is called Pitt’s India 
 Bill, was universally considered at the time as almost the sole work 
 of Dundas. But Hastings always maintained—and thie facts seem 
 pretty well proved—that all the materials for that bill, and all the in- 
 formation and knowledge necessary to the production of it, were fur- 
 nished by Hastings. Melville never acknowledged the obligation ; 
 and, when Hastiugs’s evil hour came, he was induced, like his supe- 
 rior, Pitt, after a very faint effort in favour of the accused, to join in 
 the cry of his accusers. Though his animosity against Melville was 
 never so great as that which he felt towards Pitt, it was still suffi- 
 ciently violent. As was usual with Hastings, he vented his feelings 
 inrhyme. We know not whether the following lines were written 
 before the event of Melville’s fall and impeachment, or whether they 
 were written after that event, aud on the safe side of prophecy. 
 
 THE JACKDAW AND PEACOCK. 
 
 A jackdaw of ambitious mind, 
 The vainest of the jackdaw kind, 
 By luck, as he conceiv’d it, found 
 A peacock’s feathers on the ground, 
 Which, prompted by a foolish pride, 
 He seiz’d and to his tail applied. 
 
 Despising now his native crew, 
 To join the peacock tribe he flew ; 
 But they, the gross imposture loathing, 
 Peck’d off his surreptitious clothing, 
 And drove him scampering from tlieir sight, 
 Bare to the rump, in rueful plight. 
 
 His ancient friends, with like disdain 
 Spurn’d and repuls’d, he courts in vain; 
 In vain he sues for consolation, 
 Of friends and foes the detestation. 
 But one less cruel than the rest 
 The renegado thus address’d :— 
 ‘« Lo! the pretender’s doom! Be wise, 
 “* Nor aim henceforth by fraud to rise : 
 “« They but debase their proper merit 
 *< Who seek another’s to inherit.”’ 
 
 With vanity no less revolting 
 *Twas thus Dundas observ’d my moulting, 
 Pick’d up my plumes, wherewith array’d 
 In anniversary parade 
 He struts and boasts, as well he may, 
 And hails it as his proudest day; 
 While, of his worthless pomp aware, 
 The Commons and their Speaker stare. 
 But mark, though now he knows no equal, 
 Mark how they’ll serve him in the sequel : 
 Expose him in the face of day, 
 
318 
 
 No impeachment would ever have taken place if | 
 
 Pitt had realized the hopes of the Whigs of 
 coalescing with them, and of forcing Fox upon 
 the king in 1804. But there was, after all, some 
 matter of public consolation in these costly prose- 
 cutions: the impeachment of Hastings had set 
 limits to the exercise of a too arbitrary power in 
 India; the impeachment of Melville taught minis- 
 ters to be more careful of their public accounts at 
 home, and to diminish the temptations put in the 
 way of their subalterns. 
 
 The present ministry, by their new bill, and 
 their debates on the regular army, in which they 
 spoke disparagingly of the yeomanry and volun- 
 teers, had given great offence to a very numerous 
 part of the nation; their financial measures gained 
 them no credit with the country at large; but 
 what drew down upon them the greatest weight of 
 discredit and unpopularity was their conduct with 
 respect to that unhappy woman the Princess of 
 Wales. The uncongenial and in every way inaus- 
 picious marriage of the prince had led to a down- 
 right separation, after little more than a year’s 
 cohabitation and the birth of a daughter. 
 George III. had then and ever since warmly inte- 
 rested himself in favour of his luckless niece and 
 daughter-in-law, and the Pittites or Tories in 
 power had as constantly espoused the same cause. 
 On the other hand the Foxites and Whigs, who 
 regarded Carlton House as a part of their own 
 camp, or as a sort of head-quarters of their party, 
 had with equal warmth espoused the cause of his 
 highness of Wales, undertaking on all necessary 
 occasions to defend his not very defensible conduct 
 from reproach. After many degrading altercations 
 about money matters, and more agonizing disputes 
 (to the mother) about the care and custody of the 
 infant princess, whispers, and then rumours, began 
 to be spread, from Carlton House through the 
 whole Whig circle, that the Princess of Wales was 
 conducting herself in a manner that could not be 
 tolerated without incurring a national disgrace. 
 How the prince was living, and how a noble dame, 
 the wife of a British peer, was occupying the 
 place which was once held by the Fitzherbert, and 
 which ought now to have been occupied by his own 
 wife, were things unfortunately but too well known 
 to the whole world. But the morality in these 
 matters is all one-sided ; and itis perhaps expedient 
 to uphold the principle that the delinquencies of 
 the husband are not to excuse those of the wife. The 
 Princess of Wales complained in a letter to the 
 king that for more than two years, dating from 
 1804, she had been “ beset by spies.” The chief 
 of those spies were a certain Sir John and Lady 
 Douglas, who lived in the neighbourhood of the 
 princess at Blackheath, in terms of the closest in- 
 
 And all his borrow’d plumes betray; 
 Leave not a budget to equip him, 
 Pluck him and peck him, yea and strip him 
 As naked all above the leg 
 As when he wore the phillabeg : 
 Yea, justice soon or late shall reach him, 
 And friends desert and foes impeach him. 
 MS. Poem by Warren Hastings. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Re 
 
 timacy, and in the daily profession of the most 
 devoted friendship. Sir John was one of the 
 equerries of the Duke of Sussex. He reported to 
 the duke his master, and the duke reported to his 
 royal brother, the Prince of Wales. ‘These reports 
 grew big in 1805, for they asserted that the prin- 
 cess had been delivered of an illegitimate child. 
 Whether Sir John and Lady Douglas received their 
 commission in the first instance from the prince 
 himself, or only from some officious friends of the 
 prince, remains open to doubt. The relation in 
 which Sir John stood towards the Duke of Sussex 
 has excited the suspicion that the duke was not a 
 stranger to his and his wife’s doings at Blackheath. 
 On the 11th of November, 1805, the prince sent 
 for Romilly, as a good Whig, and excellent chan- 
 cery lawyer, to consult with him on a subject “ of 
 the most confidential nature, and of the greatest 
 importance.” The prince stated to Romilly very 
 circumstantially, and at great length, facts which 
 had been communicated to him relative to the 
 Princess of Wales, through the intervention (we 
 quote Romilly’s own words) of the Duke of 
 Sussex, by Lady Douglas, the wife of one of the 
 duke’s equerries. The prince then told Romilly 
 that the account was to be put down in writing, 
 and that it should be then sent to him, that he 
 might consider with Lord Thurlow, to whom it 
 was also to be sent, what steps it would be neces- 
 sary to take. A month passed during which 
 Romilly heard nothing more on the subject ; but at 
 the end of that time Colonel Mac Mahon, one of the 
 Prince of Wales’s household, brought him a paper 
 from the prince, containing the narrative of Lady 
 Douglas. Accompanied by Mac Mahon, Romilly 
 waited upon Thurlow on the 15th of December, 
 1805. ‘The burly ex-chancellor had been very ill, 
 and was stillextremely infirm. It seemed, however, 
 to Romilly that he was still in full possession of 
 his faculties, and that he expressed himself * with 
 that coarse energy for which he had long been 
 remarkable.”’ ‘Thurlow said that the first point 
 to be considered was whether her ladyship’s ac- 
 count were true, declaring that for his own part he 
 did not believe it.* Upon the whole his opinion 
 was, that the evidence the prince was in possession 
 
 of would not justify taking any step on his part, — 
 
 and that he had only to wait and see what facts 
 might come to light in future. Thurlow added, 
 
 however, that he thought it would be proper, in | 
 
 the meantime, to employ a person to collect evi- 
 dence respecting the conduct of the princess; and 
 he named one Lowten as a person very fit to be 
 employed for such purposes. At Mac Mahon’s 
 desire Romilly wrote down, for the information of 
 
 * He (Thurlow) said that there was no composition in her (Lady ‘2 
 
 Donglas’s) narrative (that was the expression he used), no conuection 
 in it, no dates: that some parts of it were grossly improbable. He 
 then said, that, when first he knew the princess, he should have 
 thought her incapable of writing or saying any such things as Lady 
 Douglas imputed to her, but that she might he altered; that to be 
 
 sure it wasa strange thing to take a beggar’s child, but a few days old, — 
 
 and adopt it as her own; but that, however, princesses had some- 
 times strange whims which nobody could account for; that in 
 some respects her situation was deserving of great compassion.”— 
 Romilly’s Narrative, in Life by his Sons, 
 
 \ 
 
 [Boox X. — 
 
Cuap. VITI.] 
 
 the prince, what he collected to be Lord Thurlow’s 
 opinions. As it was seen from Thurlow’s manner 
 that he was not disposed to enter fully into the 
 subject, Mac Mahon gave Romilly to understand 
 that the prince would be governed by his (Romilly’s) 
 advice. Romilly, however, wished to decline being 
 the single adviser of the prince in such a matter, 
 and suggested the propriety of consulting Erskine. 
 Lady Douglas’s narrative was accordingly put into 
 Erskine’s hands, and he and Romilly met upon it. 
 But Erskine was shy of committing himself, or 
 entering into the matter ; and therefore Romilly by 
 himself put down in writing what appeared to him 
 to be the principal difficulties to be decided on, 
 and gave his paper to the colonel to be delivered 
 tothe prince. Erskine, however, appointed Lowten, 
 the spy or evidence-collector recommended by 
 Thurlow, to meet him and Romilly; but on the 
 night before the meeting Erskine’s wife died, and, 
 as he could not attend the meeting, Romilly saw 
 Lowten alone, put him in possession of the facts he 
 was acquainted with, and delivered to him Lady 
 Douglas’s statement. Lowten forthwith got into 
 communication, and had personal interviews, with 
 Lord Moira and Colonel Mac Mahon, and he re- 
 ported to Romilly that he understood from them 
 that it was the prince’s wish he should see 
 Lady Douglas. On the very day after this—on 
 the 31st of December, 1805—Romilly saw Lady 
 Douglas, with Sir John Douglas, Lord Moira, and 
 Lowten, at Lowten’s chambers. ‘ Lady Douglas,” 
 he says, ‘‘ answered all questions put to her with 
 readiness, and gave her answers with great cool- 
 ness and self-possession, and in a manner to Im- 
 press one very much with the truth of them.” 
 On the 23rd of January Pitt died; and on the 
 8th of February Romilly received information from 
 Fox that he was appointed solicitor-general. Some 
 time passed, during which it seems that Lowten 
 busied himself in his vocation, and the friends of 
 the prince made a great stir. On the 18th of May, 
 at the prince’s desire, Romilly called again on 
 Lord Thurlow. The evidence which had been 
 discovered since his previous visit was not consi- 
 dered very important. But Thurlow desired him 
 to tell the prince that the information he had re- 
 ceived was too important to remain in his posses- 
 sion without some steps being taken upon it; that 
 he ought to communicate it to Mr. Fox, and con- 
 sider with him what was to be done upon it; and 
 that the information had remained already too long 
 in his royal highness’s possession without being 
 proceeded on. Romilly immediately waited upon 
 the prince, and communicated Thurlow’s message 
 to him}; and it appears to have been upon this that 
 the prince determined to refer the “‘ delicate inves- 
 tigation” (as it was called, on the ducus a non 
 lucendo principle) to high authorities. Five days 
 after his last interview with Thurlow, Romilly saw 
 Lord Grenville on the subject, and his lordship 
 desired him to state the most material facts, from 
 the written declarations which had been put into 
 his (Romilly’s) possession, in order to their being 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 319 
 
 | laid before the king. According to Romilly, Lord 
 
 Grenville seemed to think that the birth of the 
 child would render it impossible to avoid making 
 the matter public, and the subject of a parliament- 
 ary proceeding, On the 24th of May Lord 
 Chancellor Erskine read the papers to the king; 
 and his majesty authorised his lordship and Lords 
 Spencer, Grenville, and Ellenborough to inquire 
 into the subject, and to report to him the result of 
 the examinations they should take. On the 31st 
 Romilly met the lord chancellor and the other three 
 noblemen at Lord Grenville’s; and it was settled 
 that they should proceed the next day upon the ex- 
 amination. They met accordingly; no person 
 being present but Romilly, the four lords, and 
 Sir John and Lady Douglas. Sir John and the 
 lady underwent a very long examination, and that 
 most execrable of all evidence, a heap of anonym- 
 ous letters, was produced, and put into the posses- 
 sion of Romilly. Witnesses were clandestinely 
 brought in, and examined in Lord Grenville’s 
 house, without any intimation given to the prin- 
 cess of what was in agitation against her. On the 
 6th two of the princess’s pages were examined, in 
 the presence of Romilly. On the 7th Romilly at- 
 tended again at Lord Grenville’s house, and re- 
 mained there from between one and two o’clock in 
 the day till half-past eleven at night. ‘“ The whole 
 of our time,” says Romilly himself, ** with a short 
 interval for dinner, was occupied in examining 
 witnesses. The four lords of the council had 
 granted an order to bring before them six of the 
 princess’s most confidential servants from her house 
 at Blackheath, to be examined. The order was 
 executed without any previous intimation being 
 given to the princess, or to any of her servants. 
 The Duke of Kent attended, and stated to the 
 princess that reports very injurious to her reputa- 
 tion had been in circulation ; and that his majesty 
 had therefore ordered an inquiry to be instituted 
 on the subject. The princess said that they were 
 welcome to examine all her servants, if they 
 thought proper. In addition to the servants, Sophia 
 Austin was examined. The result of the examina- 
 tion was such as left a perfect conviction on my 
 mind, and I believe on the minds of the four lords, 
 that the boy in question is the son of Sophia Austin ; 
 that he was born in Brownlow-street hospital on 
 the 11th of July, 1802; and was taken by the 
 princess into her house on the 15th of November 
 in the same year, and has ever since been under her 
 protection. The evidence of all the servants as to 
 the general conduct of the princess was very fa- 
 vourable to her royal highness ; and Lady Douglas’s 
 account was contradicted in many very important 
 particulars.” * The princess now thought proper 
 to make the proceedings public, and to endeavour 
 to excite all the public odium she could against the 
 prince. Romilly says that his royal highness could 
 not have acted otherwise than he had done; that 
 if he was to blame it was for having used too much 
 caution, and for having delayed too long laying 
 * Diary, in Life of Sir Samuel Romilly by his Sons. 
 
320 
 
 before the ministers the important facts which had 
 
 come to his knowledge. But the public at large 
 entertained a very different opinion, and terrible 
 was the odium drawn down upon the prince and 
 upon the present cabinet for proceedings which 
 were considered un-English, irregular, and inqui- 
 sitorial. Perhaps the conviction on the minds of 
 the four noble lords was not so strong as on Ro- 
 milly’s. The examination of witnesses went on at 
 Lord Grenville’s house ; and Romilly attended on 
 the 23rd, the 25th, and the 27th of June, and the 
 Ist of July, producing on the last occasion some 
 letters written by the princess to her husband, and 
 to her daughter the Princess Charlotte, which 
 letters the prince himself had put into his hands, 
 in order to prove by comparison of the hand- 
 writing that the inscriptions upon certain obscene 
 drawings, and the directions upon the envelopes 
 in which the drawings were enclosed, were all of 
 the Princess of Wales’s own handwriting.* On 
 the 12th of July the report of the four noble com- 
 missioners for inquiring into the conduct of the 
 Princess of Wales was finished. It stated the opi- 
 nion of the commissioners, that there was no foun- 
 dation for either of the assertions, that the prin- 
 cess was delivered of a child in 1802, or that she 
 was pregnant in that year; but that the conduct 
 sworn to have been observed by the princess towards 
 Captain Manby was ofa kind that deserved a most 
 Serious consideration. 
 
 At the end of the month of January of the fol- 
 lowing year, 1807, four months after the death of 
 Fox, and about two months before the forced resig- 
 nation of ‘all the talents,’’ the affair of the Princess 
 of Wales was terminated, though not very satis- 
 fuctorily to any party. The king referred the 
 whole matter to the cabinet ; and, by their advice, 
 sent a written message to the princess, stating that 
 he was satisfied there was no foundation for the 
 charges of pregnancy and delivery; but that he 
 saw with serious concern, in the depositions of the 
 witnesses, and even in her royai highness’s own 
 letter to him, written by way of defence, evidence 
 of a deportment unbecoming her station.t Here 
 the matter rested for some time. It created much 
 talk and dissatisfaction.{ It set all the women and 
 nearly all the men in the country against ‘ all the 
 talents.” Six years later, when Romilly and his 
 friends were severely taxed in parliament for 
 their conduct and their complhiances with the 
 Prince of Wales on this memorable occasion, 
 Romilly urged in defence, that the only office he 
 had to discharge at the meetings at Lord Gren- 
 ville’s was to write down the depositions of the 
 witnesses, and read them over to them before they 
 were signed; that for this office he had been 
 selected in preference to any other person, merely 
 because he was already acquainted with the facts, 
 
 * Romilly says that, upon a comparison of the hands, no one of 
 the four lords had any doubt that all the writing was the princess’s. 
 
 + In the message, as originally framed by the ministry, it was, 
 “‘ His majesty sees with concern and disapprebation,” but the king, 
 with his own hand, struck out the word * disapprobation,” and 
 substituted ‘‘ serious concern,”—Romilly, 
 
 + Wilberforce, Diary. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 _ 
 
 [Boor x, 
 
 Oe ee 
 and because it was advisable, in case it should not 
 
 be considered necessary to institute any judicial o1 
 legislative proceedings against the princess, that as 
 much secrecy as possible should be observed ; that 
 he had not any doubt of the authority or legality 
 of the commission; and that he could state from 
 his own observation, that the four noble lords, the 
 commissioners, had conducted the business with 
 all the impartiality of judges acting under the sacred 
 obligations of an oath. In reply to the objection 
 taken to the instrument giving the four commis- 
 sioners their authority, Romilly said that it was 
 impossible to doubt that, on a representation of 
 misconduct in a member of the royal family, in- 
 volving besides a charge of high treason, and pre- 
 senting the danger of a disputed succession, the 
 king’s verbal authority to a number of privy coun- 
 cillors was sufficient. It would, however, have 
 been well for the Whig party (and the party now 
 in place must be taken as whigs) if the delicate 
 investigation had never occurred, and if they had 
 not betrayed a questionable alacrity in concurring 
 with the prince, and traducing his wife—as they 
 did in various ways besides in their proceedings 
 in the secret commission. The case has been cor- 
 rectly assumed as a striking exemplification of the 
 effect of party, and of party interests.* The Tories 
 were now in opposition to the prince and to the 
 Whig ministry, and they bitterly denounced this 
 secret proceeding. The Whigs were, and had long 
 been, bound to the prince—the differences between 
 him and the Foxite part of them, on the subject 
 of the French revolution, had only produced a 
 partial and temporary coolness—they looked to 
 him as the rising sun, under whose benignant rays 
 they would be sure of enjoying a long continuance 
 in office, a compensation for their long exclusion 
 under his father. When the position of the two 
 parties was reversed, when the prince, as regent, 
 had broken with the Whigs, when, as George IV., 
 he seemed determined to continue their exclusion, 
 then, in 1820, the Tories in office brought in the 
 Bill of Pains and Penalties against his wife, and the 
 Whigs took up her cause with a zeal that seemed 
 to know no bounds. 
 
 Mr. Paull, with the assistance of Sir Philip 
 Francis and his friends, was busy preparing the 
 charges against the Indian administration of the 
 Marquess Wellesley, contemplating nothing less 
 than the impeachment of the Marquess, and the 
 ruin of the reputation of his brother, General Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley. If it had depended upon 
 Francis—“ that venomous knight”+—the great 
 soldier would have been excluded from public 
 service, just about the time when his ability and 
 genius, his indomitable fortitude and perseverance, 
 were most needed by his country ; and the Penin- 
 sular war, intrusted to inferior minds, or to gene- 
 
 * Lord Brougham, on the effects of party, in Statesmen of the 
 Time of George III. 
 + The following epigram by Warren Hastings, we believe, has 
 never been printed :— 
 ** A serpent bit Francis, that venomous knight. 
 What then !—’Twas the serpent that died of the bite.” 
 
or} | 
 
 Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 rals wanting in that political weight at home which 
 gaye Sir Arthur Wellesley so many advantages, 
 might have proved but a continuation of our old 
 continental mistakes and miscarriages. Sir Arthur, 
 who was now in the House of Commons, spoke 
 ably in defence of his brother. But on the 4th 
 of July, when a speedy prorogation was expected, 
 Paull declared that he was not ready to go into 
 the charges; that he wanted more papers to sup- 
 port his case ; and it was agreed that this business 
 should stand over till next session. Parliament 
 was prorogued on the 23rd of July. During the 
 last month of this session ill health had wholly 
 prevented the attendance of Fox. It was evident 
 to most of his friends that he was rapidly following 
 Pitt to the grave. 
 
 Our military and naval operations in the course 
 of this year extended to the south of Italy and 
 Sicily, Portugal, the Cape of Good Hope, the East 
 and West Indies, and South America. The petty 
 expedition which had been sent into the Mediter- 
 ranean under General Sir James Craig, being 
 joined by a Russian force, landed at Naples in the 
 month of November, when the French army, under 
 General St. Cyr, which had been occupying a great 
 part of that kingdom, was absent in Upper Italy, 
 co-operating with Marshal Massena. Before St. 
 Cyr took his departure the Neapolitan government 
 promised to remain neutral; but that engagement, 
 like so many others, was contracted under the in- 
 fluence of fear and weakness, and Ferdinand IV., 
 though deploring the smallness of their forces, re- 
 ceived the English and Russians as friends and 
 deliverers. If the allies had been more numerous, 
 and if they had arrived six weeks or two months 
 earlier, they might have set the whole of Lower 
 Italy in a blaze against the French; they might 
 have insured the destruction of St. Cyr’s corps 
 d’ armée, and have prevented every one of the suc- 
 cesses which Massena had obtained over the Arch- 
 duke Charles in Upper Italy. But as things were 
 —with their contemptible numbers and too tardy 
 arrival—the English and Russians could do little 
 but hasten the ruin of Ferdinand IV. As soon as 
 Bonaparte learned the breach of the promised 
 neutrality, or the arrival of the Russians and 
 English (whose landing Ferdinand could not have 
 prevented if he had been ever so much disposed to 
 do it), he issued from Vienna one of his terrible 
 proclamations, declaring that the Bourbon dynasty 
 of Naples had ceased to reign. As the battle of 
 Austerlitz and the peace with Austria had left his 
 armies nothing to do in the north of Italy, he or- 
 dered St. Cyr to retrace his steps to the south with 
 all possible speed, declaring in one of his bulletins 
 that “the march of General St. Cyr upon Naples 
 was for the purpose of punishing the perfidy of the 
 queen, and compelling that criminal woman to 
 descend from the throne.’ Caroline of Austria, 
 Marie Antoinette’s sister, took indeed a more ac- 
 tive share in the business of government than her 
 indolent and thoughtless hushand Ferdinand : she 
 
 detested the French, and was detested by them ; 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 321 
 
 | x 
 and, besides other old grudges, Bonaparte could 
 
 never forgive her for her friendship to Nelson, and 
 the assistance she lent him at Syracuse. But St. 
 Cyr’s forces were only the van of a much more 
 formidable army: Marshal Massena followed close 
 behind with three great columns, and a multitude of 
 generals of name and fame; and behind them all 
 came Joseph Bonaparte, destined by his brother to 
 fill this Bourbon throne. In all, counting the 
 Italian regiments which had been raised in Lom- 
 bardy and Piedmont, more than 60,000 men were 
 in full march for the Neapolitan frontier, behind 
 which lay 3000 British, about 4000 Russians, and 
 a small and disorganised Neapolitan army, which 
 was worth less than nothing. The Russian gene- 
 ral presently informed the Neapolitan court that 
 they had better negotiate with St. Cyr for a re- 
 newal of the neutrality which they had violated, 
 and that, for his own part, he must be gone; and 
 before the foremost French column reached Rome 
 the Russians marched away to the sea-ports of 
 Apulia and embarked for Corfu. Sir James Craig 
 could only follow the example of the Russian gene- 
 ral: he fled rather than retreated from the banks of 
 the Garigliano. His troops got demoralized, and 
 some of them, losing all discipline, abandoned 
 their baggage and their arms, and committed ex- 
 cesses among the country people. It was a dis- 
 graceful flight. Part of this shame may be cast 
 upon the officers in command, but the greater 
 blame will attach to the ministry that could thus 
 send out a petty expedition, and expose the na- 
 tional flag and character to nearly every possible 
 chance of disgrace. Without seeing an enemy, 
 except in the Neapolitan peasantry, whose ven- 
 geance they provoked, Craig’s force was found to 
 be considerably reduced before he could embark 
 and sail away for Sicily. None were left to defend 
 the frontiers or the line of the Garigliano, except 
 Fra Diavolo and a few hundreds of brigands and 
 insurgents. As soon as the debdcle began, old 
 King Ferdinand, thinking most of his personal 
 safety, embarked for Palermo: Queen Caroline 
 remained till the 11th of February, when St. Cyr 
 had crossed the frontiers; but on the evening of 
 that day, not without a risk of being seized by 
 her own subjects of the French faction (and in the 
 capital they were very numerous), she fled with 
 her daughters on board ship, and sailed for Sicily 
 to join her husband. On the application of Fer- 
 dinand IV., Admiral Lord Collingwood had dis- 
 patched a small squadron, under Sir Sidney Smith, 
 to give such aid and assistance as should be prac- 
 ticable. Sir James Craig soon collected his troops 
 in the neighbourhood of Palermo, and for a con- 
 siderable time the court owed its safety entirely to 
 the presence of our petty army and two or three of 
 our ships. On the morning of the 14th of Febru- 
 ary the advanced guard of the French appeared on 
 the heights which overlook Naples. The Lazza- 
 roni would have again fought in the outskirts and 
 in the streets of the town, as they had done in 
 1799 ; but the frightful excesses which they had 
 U 
 
322 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 _ \TiBoox x. 
 
 =—= = —— 
 —— 
 Se 
 
 pe a 
 —— : 
 
 PALERMO, 
 
 committed in the course of that fatal year had 
 created a universal dread of their patriotism. 
 
 The upper and middling classes of citizens had 
 formed themselves into a civic or national guard ; 
 
 artillery and arms were put out of the reach of 
 the Lazzaroni, who had no longer a “ mad Mi- 
 chael ” to head them ; and wherever they showed 
 themselves in any numbers their own armed coun- 
 trymen dispersed them. On the 15th of F ebruary, 
 the garrisons in the city and forts having previously 
 surrendered, Joseph Bonaparte entered Naples, 
 and took up his abode, as king, in the palace 
 from which the Bourbons had so lately fled. Pre- 
 viously to his ignominious flight Ferdinand had 
 dispatched his two sons, the Hereditary Prince 
 Francis and Prince Leopold, into the Abruzzi and 
 into Calabria, to rouse the hardy native population 
 of those mountainous countries. There was no 
 want of loyalty in the peasantry; but more than 
 half of the Neapolitan nobility and proprietors 
 were, at this moment, either indifferent to the 
 cause of the Bourbons, or inclined to favour the 
 cause of the French; the poor people had no arms, 
 ammunition, or other necessaries ; and the royal 
 princes had nothing to give them save compli- 
 ments and white cockades. A little later the 
 French found Calabria the fiercest and most de- 
 structive country they had ever entered; but this 
 was when the population had been driven to de- 
 spair, and after supplies and ammunition had been 
 thrown among them from Sicily. Prince Francis 
 and Prince Leopold united such partisans as they 
 could collect, on the rugged mountainous borders of 
 Calabria ; and General Damas joined them with 
 all that remained in the field of the Neapolitan 
 regular army—-an army most liable, on every ap- 
 proach of danger, to sudden dissolutions. Damas’s 
 force was estimated by the French at 14,000 men: 
 
 it probably did not amount to half that number 
 when it reached the selected point for defence— 
 
 ‘ 
 
 but the question of numbers is irrelevant, for, had 
 it been 30,000 strong, officered as it was, dis- 
 heartened and demoralized as it was, it could have 
 counted for little or nothing against the 10,000 
 veteran French troops which followed close upon 
 its heels, under the command of General Regnier. 
 After some skirmishing at Rotonda and at Campo- 
 tanese—where the peasant partisans fought much 
 better than the regular troops—the greater part of 
 Damas’s army deserted and fled, or threw down 
 their arms, and cried misericordia to the French. 
 Damas and the two princes fled with the remainder 
 right through Calabria, and embarking at Scylla, 
 Reggio, and other ports, passed over to Messina 
 and Palermo. With no other trouble than that of 
 marching, Regnier subdued, or seemed to subdue 
 (for the subjugation was not yet) the whole of 
 Calabria with the exception of the towns and for- 
 tresses of Maratea, Amantea, and Scylla. Having 
 established a government or a ministry, and hay- 
 ing put the capital, and his new government too, 
 under the surveillance of his minister of police, and 
 prime adviser in all things, the Corsican Saliceti, 
 that ex-Jacobin who had been brother commis- 
 sioner with the younger Robespierre, Joseph Bona- 
 parte set out to visit his conquests in Calabria. 
 During his absence a French military commission 
 (the first ever established in this kingdom) tried 
 the Neapolitan general Rodio, who had distin- 
 guished himself by his ardent zeal for the Bourbon 
 king, and who had been taken prisoner at Campo- 
 tanese. Whatever Rodio had done, he had done 
 under the commission of his sovereign, and by the 
 orders of an existing government. Taking these 
 
 facts into consideration, even that worst of courts | 
 acquitted him ; but two vindictive Neapolitans of 
 the French faction represented that Rodio was too 
 dangerous a man to let live; and that enlightened, 
 
 liberal model government which Joseph had es- 
 tablished immediately appointed a second military 
 
 a 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 “commission, which condemned him to death; and, 
 in the brief space of ten hours, the unhappy Rodio 
 was twice tried, acquitted, condemned, liberated, 
 and shot.* But, compared with what followed, 
 this was a mild commencement of that Reign of 
 Terror which ended only with the reign of Joseph 
 Bonaparte at Naples. All tyrannies are bad; the 
 worst of tyrannies is a foreign military despotism ; 
 but even that worst is made more evil when the 
 command of arms and armies is in the hands of a 
 man that is not a soldier, but an effeminate civilian 
 and rank coward. The personal timidity, the dis- 
 solute voluptuousness of Joseph, his habit of seeing 
 only through the eyes of Saliceti, because that 
 Corsican minister of police had the art of con- 
 stantly exciting his unmanly fears, and of per- 
 suading him that he and his police agents alone 
 could guarantee his security, rendered the tyranny 
 of this merchant-clerk-king ten times more de- 
 grading, and infinitely more oppressive, than the 
 grander and more manly despotism of his brother 
 and maker Napoleon ; and made his thirty months’ 
 reign a thirty months’ curse and scourge to the 
 Neapolitan people. It was the reign of Saliceti 
 and his police, rather than the reign of Joseph 
 Bonaparte. Joseph, who only ruled and reigned 
 in the harem he established as soon as he arrived, 
 did not complete his tour in Calabria, for the roads 
 were dangerous, and Frenchmen were shot there. 
 He returned to the capital, dreading to be assassi- 
 nated at every step he took. During his absence 
 the English had gained possession of the rocky 
 island of Capri, which commands the Gulf of Naples, 
 and lies immediately opposite that city at the dis- 
 tance of twenty-five miles;+ and some Sicilians, 
 under the command of the Prince of Canosa, occu- 
 pied Ponza and other islands off the coast. In 
 advancing from Rome, Massena and St. Cyr had 
 not been able to reduce Gaeta, a formidable for- 
 tress on the Neapolitan coast, which happened to 
 be garrisoned by some trustworthy troops, chiefly 
 foreigners, in the pay of the Bourbon king, and 
 commanded by an officer of honour and courage, a 
 Prince William of Hesse Philipstadt. Sir Sidney 
 Smith threw succours into the place, battered the 
 works of the French besiegers, landed English 
 sailors as he had done at Acre, and inflicted several 
 severe blows upon Massena’s forces, at various 
 parts of the coast.{ The siege of Gaeta promised 
 
 * Colletta, Storia di Napoli. 
 
 + This was another of Sir Sidney Smith’s exploits. After threaten- 
 ing to bombard the city of Naples, while the French were illuminat- 
 ing it on account of Joseph Bonaparte being proclaimed King of the 
 Two Sicilies, and only refraining from motives of humanity, and from 
 the consideration that it would be no good gift to restore to our ally, 
 Ferdinand IV., his capital as a heap of ruins, ashes, and bones, he 
 stood across the bay with four ships of the line and two Sicilian 
 mortar-boats, summoned the French commandant to surrender, 
 treated him with an hour’s close fire from both decks of the ‘ Eagle,’ 
 and then landed his marines and a good number of his sailors, who 
 climbed up some almost perpendicular rocks, and drove the French 
 from their best positions. Captain Stannus, commanding the ‘ Athe- 
 nienne’s’ marines, killed the commandant with his own hand; and, 
 thereupon, the garrison beat a parley, and capitulated. This formid- 
 able rock, won hy the gallantry and skill of our navy in 1806, was 
 disgracefully lost through the blundering of our army in 1808. 
 
 { If that amphibious, ambidextrous man, Sir Sidney Smith, had 
 been but allowed anything like adequate means, and the free use of 
 his own judgment, he would have helped to make Gaeta a second 
 Acre to the French. As it was, his assistance was most timely and 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 323 
 
 to be a long affair. When first summoned by the 
 French, the German prince told them that Gaeta 
 was not Ulm, and that he was not General Mack 
 —and the French felt the truth of the assertion. 
 In Calabria General Regnier, after three days’ 
 desperate and bloody fighting, carried the walled 
 town of Maratea, into which a great number of the 
 Bourbon partisans had thrown themselves. The 
 castle capitulated on the next day ; but, as it was 
 pretended that these Bourbonists were not regular 
 troops, but only partisans and insurgents, they 
 were butchered in cold blood: citadel and town 
 were equally sacked, the women were violated, and 
 every possible horror was committed. Leaving 
 Maratea in flames, the French advanced to the 
 siege of Amantea. But their deeds spread far and 
 wide the hotter flames of insurrection. The in- 
 habitants of all the towns and villages on their road 
 fled to the mountains, or hid themselves in the 
 forests ; the peasantry collected on their flanks and 
 on their rear, butchering, murdering, torturing all 
 the French they could surprise or cut off. The 
 country was in a blaze from end to end. To keep 
 up the insurrection the fugitive Bourbon court sent 
 over from Palermo and Messina some money, some 
 arms, some officers, and a great number of parti- 
 sans or irregular troops. Amantea could not be 
 taken by the French, Reggio was re-taken from 
 them, the castle of Scylla, which had surrendered 
 to the French, was invested—Regnier was com- 
 pelled to halt, and then to retreat towards Monte- 
 leone. By this time the British troops in Sicily 
 had been reinforced, and the command of them 
 transferred to Sir John Stuart. On the entreaties 
 of the queen, which were seconded by his personal 
 feelings and his own ardent wishes, Sir John 
 agreed to cross over into Calabria. All the force 
 he could take with him, including artillery, did 
 not amount to 5000 men ;* and of these above a 
 third were Corsicans, Sicilians, and other foreigners 
 in English pay. On the Ist of July Sir John 
 Stuart effected a landing in the gulf of Santa 
 Kufemia, not far from the town of Nicastro, to the 
 northward of Monte-leone, and between that city 
 and Naples. Apprised of this disembarkation, 
 General Regnier made a rapid march, uniting, as 
 he advanced, his detached corps, for the purpose of 
 attacking the English without loss of time, and of 
 
 important. .It contributed to keep 14,000 Frenchmen for three months 
 under those walls and rocks, and to cause them a great loss by mal- 
 aria and casualties. Sir Sidney was indignant at the notion which 
 was subjugating the Continent, and no inconsiderable portion of our 
 English politicians. ‘‘ I had the satisfaction,” he says, ‘‘ of learning, 
 on my arrival, that Gaeta still held out, although as yet without suc- 
 cour, from a mistaken idea, much too prevalent, that the progress of the 
 French armies is irresistible. It was my first care to see that supplies 
 should be safely conveyed to the governor. I had myself the inex- 
 pressible satisfaction of conveying the most essential articles to Gaeta, 
 and of communicating to his serene highness the governor (on tho 
 breach battery, which he never quits) the assurance of farther sup- 
 port to any extent within my power, for the maintenance of that 
 important fortress, already so long preserved by his intrepidity and 
 example. Things wore a new aspect on the arrival of the ammuni- 
 tion; the redoubled fire of the enemy with red-hot shot into the 
 mole (being answered with redoubled vigour) did not prevent the 
 landing of everything we had brought, together with four of the 
 ‘ Excellent’s’ lower-deck guns, to answer this galling fire, which 
 bore directly on the landing-place.” 
 
 * Sir John Stuart in his dispatch states his total number, rank 
 and file, including the royal artillery, at 4795. 
 
324 
 
 driving them into the sea or back to their shipping. 
 He expected to find Stuart encamped on the shore 
 of the bay where he had effected his landing, with 
 his position defended by batteries, and by the 
 flanking fire of the English men-of-war and gun- 
 boats. French writers and others have even re- 
 ported that the battle was fought under these cir- 
 cumstances so very favourable to the English, and 
 that the terrible loss in Regnier’s army was owing 
 to the firing of the ships, and of Stuart’s masked 
 batteries.* This is a lie of the first magnitude. 
 Instead of encamping on the beach, to have the co- 
 operation of shipping, he marched some distance 
 along the beach, and then struck boldly inland to 
 meet Regnier. He had no artillery with him fit 
 to make those murderous masked batteries which 
 have been made to figure upon paper. The ground 
 he had to traverse in his advance was so rough and 
 rugged, was cut by so many fiwmar2, or water- 
 courses, was intersected by so many pantant, or 
 marshes, was bespread by so many macchie, or 
 thickets (chiefly of myrtle, with the wild red gera- 
 nium flowering among them), that Stuart, who had 
 scarcely a horse with him, could have moved none 
 but light field-pieces. All the artillery that Sir 
 John had brought with him from Sicily consisted 
 of ten 4-pounders, four 6-pounders, and two howit- 
 zers; and from this formidable artillery scarcely 
 a shot seems to have been fired except as a signal, 
 or for measuring distances. The battle of Maida 
 was a battle of bayonets. To give it any other 
 character—to represent it as an affair of artillery, 
 and a fortified camp, is to attempt foully to’rob the 
 British infantry of one of the most glorious of their 
 many laurels—is to lie broadly and most impu- 
 dently in the face of the most evident facts. The 
 spot where the death-struggle took place is not in- 
 deed very remote from the sea, for the broadest 
 part of the plain which lies between the mountains 
 and the bay is not five miles broad; but it was so 
 far from the sea, and the nature of the intervening 
 ground was such, that, if our men-of-war or gun- 
 boats had fired, their shot would have been as use- 
 less, and as innocuous to the French, as though 
 they had been fired at the Nore, or in Plymouth 
 
 * Omitting any mention of the ships, General Colletta, the Nea- 
 politan historian, gives all the rest of the battle in this manner, making 
 Sir John Stuart be encamped in a fortified camp on the shore, with 
 awful masked batteries, in the assailing of which by two brilliant 
 charges Regnier sustained his terrific loss. Others may have erred 
 from ignorance, and that too common implicit confidence in the 
 reports of the French, who never yet admitted a defeat without 
 attempting to explain it by treachery, or superiority of force, or 
 the nature of the ground, or some other disadvantageous circum- 
 stance; but General Colletta, who served under the French in Calabria, 
 must knowingly have falsified his account of the battle of Maida—a 
 battle which, as we can affirm from our own knowledge, was wit- 
 nessed from the neighbouring hills by thousands of Calabrians, and 
 which left the deepest and clearest impression on the mind of the 
 country. We were there in July 1816, just ten years after the battle; 
 and then there was scarcely a farmer, labourer, or buffalo-herd living 
 near the plain of Santa Eufemia, but could give a correct account of 
 the position of the two armies and of the principal—the few and very 
 simple—incidents of the engagement. Other evidence of the most 
 convincing kind was to be found on the plain, miles away from the 
 sea-shore, where the conflict had left heaps of dead bodies. The real 
 battle-field, near the edge of the lower hills which shelve down from 
 the lofty Apennine range, was even then marked by skulls and bones, 
 and fragments of brass which had once ornamented the shakos or 
 caps of the French soldiery; for the place is a solitary wild, rarely 
 traversed except by the buffalo-drivers. Colletta was an able man, 
 and a good writer; but he throve well under Joseph Bonaparte and 
 Murat, and was, body, heart, and soul, a French partisan. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 oa 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 Sound. All that Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, who 
 had arrived in the Bay of SantaEKufemia the even- 
 ing before the action, did or could do, was to make 
 such a disposition of ships and gun-boats as would 
 have favoured Sir John Stuart’s retreat. If a re- 
 verse had made that movement necessary, our little 
 army would have fallen back by the same lines on 
 which they had advanced, and, as the latter part of 
 the retreat would thus have been round the shores 
 of the bay, close by the water’s edge, Sir Sidney’s 
 guns might have been brought to bear nearly point- 
 blank upon their pursuers. But the British bay- 
 onet decided that there should be no retreat; and, 
 therefore, neither ship nor gun-boat fired a shot. 
 
 It was on the afternoon of the 3rd of July that 
 Sir John Stuart received intelligence that Regnier 
 had encamped near Maida, about ten miles distant 
 from the place where he had landed; that his 
 force consisted at the moment of about 4000 in- 
 fantry and 300 cavalry, together with four pieces 
 of artillery, and that he expected to be joined 
 within a day or two by 3000 more French troops, 
 who were marching after him in a second division. 
 Stuart therefore determined to advance and fight 
 him before this junction. Leaving four companies 
 of Watteville’s regiment behind him to protect the 
 stores, and occupy a slight work which had been 
 thrown up at the Janding-place, Sir John, on the 
 following morning—the morning of a burning day 
 of July, when the heat of that pestiferous Cala- 
 brian plain resembles the heat of an African glen 
 in the torrid zone—commenced his rapid advance, 
 cheered by the sailors of Smith’s squadron, several 
 of whose officers followed the column on foot or 
 mounted on Calabrian donkeys, eager to be spec- 
 tators of the fight. When Sir John Stuart, after 
 a march across the plain, which drenched his men 
 with perspiration, and turned their red coats almost 
 blue, came in sight of Regnier, he found that that 
 general was encamped below the village of Maida, 
 on the side of a woody hill, sloping into the plain 
 of Santa Eufemia, his flanks being strengthened by 
 a thick impervious underwood, and his front being 
 covered by the Amato, a river broad, deep, and 
 rapid in the rainy season, but perfectly fordable in 
 the summer. Like all such rivers, the Amato had 
 a broad extent of marshy ground on either side of 
 it. As soon as he had struck almost at a right 
 angle from the sea-shore, Sir John’s advance lay 
 across a spacious plain which afforded the French 
 every opportunity of minutely observing his move- 
 ments. He says himself, with proper and honour- 
 able candour, “ Had General Regnier thought 
 proper to remain upon his ground, the difficulties 
 of access to him were such that I could not pos- 
 sibly have made an impression upon him: but 
 quitting this advantage, and crossing the river with 
 his entire force, he carne down to meet us upon the 
 open plain—a measure to which he was no doubt 
 encouraged by a consideration of his cavalry, an 
 arm with which, unfortunately, I was altogether 
 unprovided.” * But Regnier, a vain, self-con- 
 
 * Yet General Colletta and others of the same school, not satisfied 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 fident man, had other strong motives to induce 
 him to quit his vantage-ground; in Egypt he had 
 been opposed corps @ corps to Stuart, and had 
 been well beaten by that general—he was eager to 
 Wipe off that disgrace—and, besides, Lebrun, one 
 of Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp who had just arrived 
 from Paris, was ready to cry out shame if he could 
 see the English before him without falling upon 
 them.* There was, moreover, another strong in- 
 ducement: the presence of the English, and the 
 sight of the white flag of the Bourbon, might 
 spread the flames of insurrection that were already 
 so dangerous ; and, in addition to the Calabrian 
 bands, bring down on his rear fresh enemies from 
 the mountains of Basilicata, Capitanata, the 
 Abruzzi, and other provinces of the kingdom. It 
 was clear, indeed, that the English troops could 
 not long remain where they were without being 
 eaten up by the malaria fevers, which rage in that 
 swampy, boggy part of Calabria to an extent 
 scarcely exceeded in the mortal Maremme of Tus- 
 cany and the Roman States; but still a very short 
 stay might lead to great mischief, and to very long 
 work afterwards. If, however, Regnier’s strongest 
 motive for quitting the heights was a personal feel- 
 ing, there was on the side of Sir John Stuart a 
 feeling of nearly the same nature, and quite as 
 vehement. Sebastiani had accused the English 
 general of having had recourse to assassins; and 
 Regnier himself, who was now coming down from 
 his wooded heights to meet him, had written a 
 book about the campaigns in Egypt, denying every 
 claim of the British to skill or courage, treating 
 them contemptuously, both officers and men, as 
 unworthy of the name of soldiers, and imputing 
 the loss of Egypt solely to the incapacity of Ab- 
 dallah Menou, under whom he (Regnier) had 
 served as second in command. This personal 
 feeling, indeed, was so intense in Sir John Stuart 
 (who in other matters betrayed an over-hot Scot- 
 tish temperament), and it was so generally shared 
 in by the British officers in the field, as also by 
 their men,; that it is rather more than probable 
 
 with their other falsehoods, and the exaggeration of Stuart’s army to 
 6000 or 7000 strony, talk of his having cavalry with him. The only 
 cavalry we ever heard of (and we have had much local and other in- 
 formation concerning this battle) consisted of Sir Sidney Smith's 
 midshipmen and lieutenants mounted on asses. 
 
 * Paul Louis Courier says, in his sly, caustic manner, that this 
 would haye been Lebrun’s ery, although probably he was not really 
 of opiuion that Regnier ought to have quitted his formidable and 
 almost unapproachable position. He says distinctly that Regnier 
 was controlled by the presence of Lebrun; and he clearly and poign- 
 antly exposes certain practices which were now common in the 
 French army. “A silly thing (sotte chose) indeed, for a general who 
 commands, to have on his shoulders an aide-de-camp of the emperor, 
 a fine gentleman of the court, who arrives en poste, dressed by Walter 
 (then the fashionable tailor of Paris), and bringing you in his pocket 
 the genius of his imperial majesty! Regnier had a surveillant put 
 over him, to give an account of what should happen. Had the battle 
 been gained, then it would have been the emperor’s doing, the effect 
 ofthe genius, the invention, the orders received from /a@ haut (from 
 above there). But if the battle be lost, why then it is our fault! 
 The golden troop of courtiers will say, ‘The emperor was not there | 
 What a pity it is that the emperor cannot make one good general |’ ”— 
 Mémoires, Correspondance, et Opuscules Inedits de Paul Louis Courier. 
 
 This very system—this insatiable, illimitable egotism of Bonaparte 
 —proved very fatal tohimin the end. It ought to be remembered as 
 . a means of accounting for many of the false movements, vacillations, 
 and failures of marshals and generals commanding his armies in 
 Spain and Portugal and in other countries where he was not present. 
 
 +The 58th regiment, now with Sir John Stuart at Maida, had 
 served under Abercromby, and, after his death, under Sir John, in 
 
 Egypt. 
 
 EER tr eS 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 825 
 
 that, if Regnier had kept his vantage ground, 
 Stuart would have committed some imprudence or 
 rashness in order to get at him. As it was, when 
 the French came down to the open plain, and 
 battle was joined, the English fought with all the 
 animosity of a direct personal quarrel—with a 
 fury which looked as if every man were fighting 
 a duel to avenge his own wrongs—as if there were 
 a multitudinous series of duels fighting at once, in 
 the first hot blood of personal quarrel, without a 
 moment to cool, and without seconds to prescribe 
 rules and limitations. As Regnier came down in 
 double column his forces were found far more 
 numerous than Stuart had counted upon: he had, 
 in fact, been joined by the troops that had been 
 marching after him in a second division. After 
 some short close firing of the flankers to cover the 
 deployments of the two armies, by nine o’clock in 
 the morning the opposing fronts were hotly en- 
 gaged, ‘‘and the prowess of the rival nations 
 seemed now fairly to be at trial before the world.’’* 
 The battle grew hottest on Stuart’s right; and 
 there, in fact, it was decided. That right was 
 composed of British light infantry, mixed with a 
 few foreigners, and was commanded by Lieut 
 Colonel Kempt and Major Robinson. Directly 
 opposed to it was the favourite French regiment 
 of light infantry, the 1*¢ Légére. Asif by mu- 
 tual agreement, when at the distance of about one 
 hundred yards, the opposed corps fired recipro- 
 cally a few rounds, then suspended their fire, and 
 in close compact order and awful silence ad- 
 vanced towards each other until their bayonets 
 began tocross.t The British commanding officer, 
 perceiving that his men were suffering from 
 the heat, and were embarrassed by the blankets 
 which they carried at their backs, halted the line 
 for a few seconds that they might throw their 
 blankets down. The French, who mistook this 
 pause for the hesitation of fear,{ advanced with a 
 quickened step, and with their wonted cheers :— 
 they were veterans, thoroughly trained, and looking 
 martial and fierce with their moustachios; the 
 English line consisted in good part of young and 
 beardless recruits :—it was the boast of the French, 
 and the boast had grown louder since the encounter 
 with the Russians at Austerlitz, that no troops in 
 Europe would stand their bayonet charge ;—the 
 fact was now to be proved, though not in an equal 
 contest, for, to have an equality, Stuart ought to 
 have had veterans to oppose to veterans. But such 
 men as we had disproved the boast. As soon as 
 they were freed from their incumbrances, they 
 gave one true English hurrah, and rushed on with 
 their bayonets levelled. Some few of the French 
 
 * Sir John Stuart’s dispatch. 
 
 + Id. 
 
 + The information about the halt and the blankets was given to 
 Sir Walter Scott (see Life of Bonaparte) by an officer present. 
 
 A Calabrian, one of the many anxious spectators who viewed the 
 fight from the neighbouring heights, in describing the affair to us, 
 mentioned a short, sudden halt, which he interpreted as the French 
 did at the moment. ‘ We sweated cold,” said he, ‘for we thought 
 the English were going to turn and run; but, Santo Diavolone! in 
 the next instant there was a shout and a rushing onwards, and 
 then it was the French that were running!” 
 
Fe ne rR re ph CTO a 
 
 326 
 
 really staid to cross bayonets (a rare occurrence in 
 war); but these were overthrown or pushed back 
 by the superior physical strength of their adver- 
 saries; and the rest of them became appalled, 
 halted, fell back, and recovered arms. The French 
 officers were now seen running along the line, re- 
 sorting to those extraordinary efforts which French 
 officers are expected to make at every crisis; but 
 * nothing they could do could encourage their men, 
 
 or lead them back to the points of the English. 
 
 bayonets; and as the English advanced upon 
 them the 1*e Légére broke their line, fell into 
 irremediable disorder, and endeavoured to fly back 
 to the hills. But it was too late—they had got too 
 close—they were overtaken by a most dreadful 
 slaughter. Brigadier-General Auckland, whose 
 brigade was immediately on the left of our light 
 infantry, which had so speedily done the work, 
 availed himself of this favourable moment to press 
 forward with the bayonet upon the corps in his 
 front ; and here too the French fled, leaving the 
 plain covered with their dead and ‘wounded—with 
 men who had not got their wounds in fighting, but 
 in flying, for they scarcely stood half a minute 
 after Auckland began to move. Being thus com- 
 pletely discomfited on his left, Regnier, who had 
 been galloping about the field, storming and curs- 
 ing like a madman, began to make a new effort 
 with his right, in the hope of recovering the day. 
 He threw horse and foot on Stuart’s left; but 
 Brigadier-General Cole’s brigade was there with 
 some undaunted British grenadiers, and with some 
 choice infantry of the line; and Regnier’s horse 
 and foot were beaten back. The French, succes- 
 sively repelled from before this front, made an 
 effort to turn its flank; but at this moment Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Ross, who had landed that very 
 morning from Messina, with the British 20th 
 regiment,* and who had marched with breathless 
 speed for the scene of action, came up, took pos- 
 session of a small cover upon the flank, and by a 
 heavy and well-directed fire he instantly and en- 
 tirely disconcerted the attempt of the French 
 horse. And this was the last feeble struggle that 
 Regnier made; and, after it, was nothing but 
 flight, confusion, déba@cle. A Frenchman, a man 
 of genius, the wittiest and one of the best prose 
 writers of modern France, was attached to the ser- 
 vice of the boastful French general at the time, 
 and was too noble a fellow to cover over the defeat 
 with falsehood and invention.t He wrote to his 
 friends that bulletins and Moniteurs might say 
 what they liked; but that the plain truth was, 
 that Regnier had been most thoroughly beaten— 
 had been well thrashed by Stuart—bien rossé. 
 ** This adventure,” says he, in writing toa French 
 artillery officer at Naples, ‘is a very sad one for 
 poor Regnier! The French fought nowhere. All 
 eyes are fixed upon us. With our good troops, 
 and with equal forces, to be defeated in such a few 
 
 * This 20th regiment was included in Sir John Stuart’s enume- 
 ration of his forces. It was a part of the 4795 men, with whom he 
 fought Regnier, and not an addition to that number. 
 
 + Paul Louis Courier, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ; 
 
 [ Boox x 
 
 minutes !—This has not been seen since our Revo- 
 lution.”’* This writer does not state the amount 
 of Regnier’s loss ; but another French officer, who 
 was in Calabria some time after the battle, admits 
 that he left 1500 men dead or wounded on the 
 battle-field. Sir John Stuart, in the dispatch to 
 his government, dated from the camp on the plain 
 of Maida, July the 6th, or two days after the 
 affair, says that above 700 bodies of their dead 
 had been buried upon the ground; that the 
 wounded and prisoners already in his hands 
 (among whom were General Compére, the colonel 
 of a Swiss regiment, anda long list of officers of 
 different ranks) exceeded 1000; and that the pea- 
 santry were hourly bringing in fugitives, who had 
 dispersed in the woods and mountains after the 
 battle. By the official return of the assistant-adju- 
 tant-general, the loss of the British amounted to 
 1 officer, 3 serjeants, 41 rank and file killed; 
 11 officers, 8 serjeants, 2 drummers, 261 rank 
 and file wounded. Sir John declares that no state- 
 ment he had heard of Regnier’s numbers placed 
 them at less than 7000 men, when they began the 
 action. Regnier, we know, positively had entered 
 Calabria with 10,000: a part of the force he first 
 brought with him had been detached to distant 
 points, and some few hundreds had already fallen 
 under the knife of the vindictive, infuriated Cala- 
 brians ; but on the other hand there had been a 
 constant influx of reinforcements, and, upon a com- 
 parison of various French and Italian accounts, it 
 appears quite certain that Regnier descended from 
 his wooded heights with from 6000 to 7000 fight- 
 ing men. These accounts, one and all, make the 
 disparity of force, not by diminishing Regnier’s, 
 but by exaggerating Stuart’s numbers :—they al- 
 low that the French were at least 6000 strong ; but 
 then they affirm that 7000, 8000, 9000 English 
 had landed at Santa Eufemia! An English general, 
 even if inclined so to do, cannot materially falsify 
 his reports, which are always made public, General 
 Stuart was obliged to report precisely to his 
 government, the brigades, regiments, battalions, 
 and men he had with him; he reports his total 
 at 4795. The French generals reported merely to 
 the emperor, and his close and secret war-oflice ; 
 their really official numerical reports were never 
 published at all, and a door was thus left open to every 
 kind of exaggeration or falsehood. The reverse 
 sustained in this instance was, however, so signal 
 and so notorious, that it was found impossible to 
 conceal it in France, or in any part of Europe. 
 [And therefore it was that additional pains were 
 
 * Letter dated Cassano, the 12th of August, 1806, in Alémoires, 
 Correspondance, &c. 
 
 Paul Louis (may his name be honoured for the wit and veracity 
 that was in him }) was not at the battle of Maida—he had been sent 
 down to Tarento for some heavy artillery—but he joined Regnier on 
 his retreat, immediately after the decisive affair—joined him yee 
 pennyless, shoeless, shirtless condition, for poor Paul in his way fel 
 among the Calabrian insurgents, and only saved his life by a kind of 
 miracle. When speaking of equal numbers he was deceived by the 
 reports made by Regnier and his officers actually engaged, that Sir 
 John Stuart had 6000 men; and, as he knew that Regnier had 6000 
 or a little more in action, he balanced the numbers. If Paul Louis 
 had been at the battle of Maida, to count Stuart’s real force, his 
 astonishment would have been the greater. 
 
 A ee ep A 
 
i 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 taken to falsify numbers.] Regnier never stopped 
 until he had put the whole breadth and thickness 
 of the Apennines between him and Stuart: the 
 
 - night after the battle he biyouacked on the heights of 
 
 Marcellinara, but only for two or three hours to col- 
 lect his fuyards ; he then ascended the reverse 
 of the mountains with headlong speed, being 
 threatened on the flanks by the hostile peasantry, 
 and went to encamp under the walls of Catan- 
 zaro, a friendly or French-disposed town on the 
 shores of the Ionian Sea, near the head of the 
 great Gulf of Tarento. The victorious British in- 
 fantry continued the pursuit as long as they were 
 able; but, as the French dispersed in every direc- 
 tion, and they were under the necessity of preserv- 
 ing their order, the trial of speed became very un- 
 equal. ‘This headlong flight left several French 
 divisions and detachments exposed to destruc- 
 tion; and some of the latter were destroyed, or 
 surrendered to the English, in order to escape 
 the certain torture and death that awaited them 
 at the hands of the wild natives. General 
 Verdier, who was occupying Cosenza, an im- 
 portant town, afew miles to the north of Maida, 
 with a French brigade, was driven out of the place 
 by the msurgents, and never found a safe resting- 
 place until he performed a journey of more than 
 a hundred English miles, and reached the town of 
 Matera, near the Gulf of Taranto. Every fort 
 along the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea, with all 
 the French depdts of stores, ammunition, and artil- 
 lery, prepared for the reduction of Calabria, and 
 then for the attack of Sicily, became the prey of Sir 
 John Stuart’s little army: and on the shores of the 
 Ionian Sea, to which the French had retreated, 
 Cotrone, situated between Catanzaro and Matera, 
 was reduced to capitulate by the 78th regiment— 
 a part of Stuart’s force, which was carried round 
 by sea—and a small squadron of ships under the 
 command of Captain William Hoste, who was 
 assisted by some Sicilian gun-boats, and by some 
 of the armed Calabrians. During the bombard- 
 ment or cannonading of the castle, a French diyi- 
 sion advanced from Catanzaro in the hope of suc- 
 couring the place, but the sharp fire of Hoste’s 
 frigate, the ‘ Amphion,’ and of the gun-boats with 
 her, compelled them to retire with some loss. On 
 the following day the French army were discerned 
 in full march to the eastward, on the road leading 
 from Catanzaro to Cotrone. Hoste anchored the 
 *Amphion’ close in shore, opened a brisk fire, 
 completely broke their line of march, and drove 
 them towards the mountains.* Six hundred French 
 prisoners, including some 300 who had survived 
 the wounds they had got at Maida, and forty pieces 
 of heavy ordnance, lately transported by the French 
 to Cotrone, were carried over to Sicily, together 
 with all the stores, magazines, &c. of this last 
 remaining depot in the lower province of Calabria. 
 Regnier was now renewing his retreat—hurrying 
 away, by the shores of the Ionian Sea and the Gulf 
 
 * Memoirs and Letters of Capt. Sir William Hoste, Bart., R.N. 
 K.C.B., K.M.T. Edited by his Widow. ; Bat 
 
 327 
 
 of Tarento, for Cassano in Upper Calabria, whither 
 
 -King Joseph Bonaparte had ordered Marshal Mas- 
 
 sena to march with a fresh army of 6000 or 7000 
 men. Both of these French marches, from op- 
 posite points of the compass, were attended by atro- 
 cities ; but that of Regnier appears to have been 
 the more atrocious of the two: his line of march 
 was marked by burning towns and villages. After 
 being sacked, and made the scene of nearly every 
 enormity, Strongoli, Corigliano, Rossano—recently 
 thriving towns—were set on fire; and every vil- 
 lage and hamlet was reduced to ashes. But the 
 incendiaries, butchers, ravishers (and worse) did 
 not go unscathed: the insurgents hovered round 
 about them, among the rocks, and woods, and 
 thick olive groves and orange groves, availing 
 themselves of every opportunity to take a long 
 shot, or to surprise, seize, torture, and slay; and 
 the column lost 700 men before it quitted that 
 Ionian shore. On the 4th of August Regnier 
 reached Cassano; on the 7th he was joined by 
 Verdier, who retraced his steps from Matera; and 
 on the 11th these two wandering fugitive generals 
 effected a junction, between the towns of Cassano 
 and Castrovillari, with Marshal Massena, who then 
 assumed the supreme command in the Calabrias, 
 assuring King Joseph that in one month he would 
 reduce those two provinces to an entire submission 
 and loyalty tohim. But, though the great marshal 
 —the darling child of victory, as they called him— 
 remained much longer than a month in that wild 
 country, he did not fulfil his promise. Fortresses 
 were recovered, towns were taken and burned ; the 
 more level or open parts of the provinces were 
 kept in subjection; but to subdue the fiery furious 
 mountaineers, or even to secure constantly the high 
 roads which led from the capital, was found to be 
 impracticable. It took Massena’s successors five 
 long years, and it cost the French army, from first 
 to last, 100,000 men to quench the flames of this 
 ardent Calabrian insurrection—and then it was 
 that sort of peace which proceeds from solitude 
 and extermination. 
 
 If, instead of less than 5000 men, Sir John 
 Stuart had had with him 10,000, he might have 
 cleared Upper Calabria, as he did Lower Calabria, 
 of the last Frenchman in it; backed by the Cala- 
 brians alone, he might have hurled Regnier and 
 Verdier, the great Marshal Massena and all, down 
 the precipices of the Syla mountain, or have 
 destroyed them at the edge of the province, in the 
 passes of Campotanese. With 30,000 men he 
 might have swept Naples and the whole of southern 
 Italy clear of the French, and have caused the 
 greatest embarrassment to Bonaparte, who had 
 weakened his army in the north of Italy, in order 
 to collect the greater force for the war with Prus- 
 sia. Almost immediately after the battle of Maida 
 the white flag of the Bourbon was actually raised 
 in nearly every part of the kingdom: the moun- 
 taineers of Basilicata and Capitana, of Principato- 
 Citro and Principato-Ultro, of the wild and lofty 
 pastoral regions of the Molise, flew to arms; a 
 
328 
 
 daring partisan, named Piccioli, raised nearly the 
 whole population of the Abruzzi; and Fra Diavolo, 
 a half brigand half Bourbon partisan, scoured the 
 Terra di Lavoro, and the garden plains that lie 
 behind Naples, penetrating at times almost to the 
 gates of the city. The intrusive King Joseph lost 
 heart completely: in his council of state it was 
 anxiously discussed, whether he ought not to fly to 
 the frontiers of the kingdom, collect there the army 
 of Calabria, and all his other troops save a few gar- 
 risons there, and await the arrival of another army 
 from France. <A part of his illustrious councillors 
 strongly recommended this retreat; and it is said 
 that, but for Saliceti, the capital would have been 
 abandoned, the siege of Gaeta, which still con- 
 tinued, would have been raised, and Joseph would 
 have gone tothe frontiers.* Butit was not the half 
 of the Italian peninsula, but the vaster peninsula 
 which embraces Spain and Portugal, that was 
 destined to be the great battle-field of England. 
 With less than 5000 men Sir John Stuart could 
 not follow up his brilliant success; his little army 
 was reduced by the malaria fevers; he had neither 
 time nor the necessary means to attempt organising 
 and disciplining the very disorderly Calabrians 
 (who, however, in common with the other Neapo- 
 litan insurgents, were by nature quite as docile 
 and-as capable of discipline as the Spaniards were 
 afterwards found to be, or perhaps considerably 
 more so); and, after clearing the lower province of 
 the enemy, and throwing some small garrisons 
 into the Castle of Scylla, and one or two other 
 places he had captured, Sir John embarked the 
 rest of his forces, and returned to Sicily, which 
 the French long continued to threaten with inva- 
 sion. 
 
 It is incorrect, and most unfair, to say that no 
 object was obtained by this expedition. It threw 
 the French in Calabria a good year at the least 
 back in their work; it kept up a popular insur- 
 rection, which cost them enormous sacrifices, and 
 which in its prolongation became one of those 
 drains on the resources of France, and one of those 
 causes of military demoralization, which gradually 
 led to Bonaparte’s ruin; it seized and carried off 
 the stores, artillery, and ammunition which had 
 been collected with great labour, and at an immense 
 expense, for the invasion of Sicily, and which, 
 if not so employed (and the Straits of Messina, 
 though so narrow, were hard to pass, even when 
 our naval force there was so very small), would 
 have served to facilitate the reduction of the Cala- 
 brias ; and it left an uneasiness, a diffidence, and 
 an uncertainty in the minds of the French, lest 
 such an experiment should be repeated on a larger 
 scale cither there or on some other part of the 
 Neapolitan coast, which long obliged them to keep 
 great stationary forces at these extremities of the 
 Italian peninsula, where their ranks were annually 
 thinned to a frightful extent by malaria, and the 
 rifle and knife of the peasantry. It was certainly 
 not at the court of King Joseph that the hattle of 
 
 * Colletta. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 4 4 
 i | 
 7” 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Maida was considered_a vain-glorious affair with- 
 out results. It is true, indeed, that the chief ad- 
 vantage derived from it was the great moral en- 
 couragement, the conviction restored or strengthened 
 in the national faith, that in a hand-to-hand fight 
 the British infantry was as superior to that of France 
 as it had been proved to be in the old times—that, 
 in short, the battle of Maida was chiefly valuable as 
 a corollary to that of Alexandria. But than this 
 few things could be more valuable, few results more 
 desirable ; this moral encouragement was precisely 
 what was wanted, when the bad war-policy of our 
 cabinets had lowered our military reputation, both 
 at home and abroad. The bold bayonet-work was 
 a prelude, and an assurance of success, to the 
 grander bayonet charges which were made a little 
 later against the veteran, choicest troops of Bona- 
 parte at Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes de Onoro, 
 Albuera, and in twenty other fights. ‘There was 
 political wisdom as well as patriotic enthusiasm 
 and eloquence in Windham’s exclamation :—that 
 the military renown of our later days dated from 
 our achievements in Egypt; that the battle of 
 Maida confirmed it; and that the battles of Vi- 
 meiro, Corufia, and Talavera, were worth a whole 
 archipelago of sugar islands! 
 
 With admirable exertions Sir, Sidney Smith 
 collected some more supplies and succours, and 
 sent a second conyoy to the besieged Gaeta. He 
 left ten gun-boats, a Neapolitan frigate, and some 
 other vessels to hammer at the French in their 
 trenches, and to cover, by a flanking fire, the bold 
 and effective sorties the Prince of Hesse Philip- 
 stadt was in the habit of making; he helped his 
 serene highness to land a detachment from the 
 garrison in the rear of some of the enemy’s bat- 
 teries, and then he swept along the coast, from the 
 mouth of the Tiber to the Bay of Naples, and 
 back from the bay to the Tiber, thundering and 
 threatening, distracting the attention of the French, 
 drawing them off to other parts of the coast, and 
 seizing nearly eyery vessel and boat that was car- 
 rying supplies to the besiegers. Everything went 
 well as long as Sir Sidney was there and the braye 
 governor of the fortress was in a state to do his 
 duty; but the presence of the British admiral was 
 required at Palermo,—-where the court thought 
 itself in danger so long as he was absent,—at 
 Messina, at Reggio, along both coasts of the Cala- 
 brias; Prince Hesse Philipstadt received a mortal 
 wound on the ramparts where Sir Sidney had so 
 often stood by his side; the command fell to a 
 Colonel Storz, who had bravery and skill, but in- 
 finitely less authority than the prince; that origin — 
 of all evil in war, acouncil, was created: and then 
 collectively the superior officers of the besieged 
 agreed to do what, perhaps, not one of them would 
 have done singly—to beat a parley, and capitulate. 
 The French agreed to allow the garrison to retire 
 to Sicily, with all the honours of war, but under 
 the engagement not to fight against the French or 
 any of their allies for a year and a day. Above 
 3000 brave men embarked, about 1000 were left 
 
 Se nD 
 
wre 
 * 
 
 ‘i 
 
 ~~ | 
 
 CGairevill.) . 
 
 sick or wounded in the hospitals, to be sent after 
 their comrades as soon as they should be able to 
 bear the voyage, about another thousand deserted 
 and joined the French, and some 800 or 900 had 
 perished during the siege. But the French loss, 
 though disguised in the usual manner, had been 
 dreadful, not less through malaria than by the fire 
 of the fortress, and the desperate sorties of the be- 
 sieged. General Vallongue, one of their most 
 Scientific officers, was mortally wounded by the 
 fragment of a bomb, and died three days after- 
 wards ; General Grigny was rather more fortunate, 
 for his head was knocked clean off his shoulders by 
 a 16-pounder ball; the number of officers killed 
 was, as usual, great; and for months after the fall 
 of Gaeta the hospitals at Capua, Aversa, and at 
 Naples were crowded with the soldiery that had 
 been wounded or attacked by the fever during the 
 siege. Gaeta had been invested six months, and 
 closely besieged by from 12,000 to 14,000 men 
 during three months: it had fired 120,000 balls 
 and bombs. It was on the 20th of July that the 
 tri-color flag and the flag of King Joseph Bona- 
 parte were hoisted on the lofty and ancient tower 
 of Orlando. Massena said that the fall of Gaeta 
 was equivalent to a successful campaign. If ade- 
 quate measures had been taken by the British 
 government, a French army might have been de- 
 tained before those rocks, and towers, and ram- 
 parts for a whole year, to dwindle away and rot, nor 
 would the success of the French have been certain 
 after the longest siege. 
 
 It had been confidently asserted at Paris, and in 
 the councils of Bonaparte, that the soft and pu- 
 sillanimous kingdom in southern Italy would be 
 subdued without any sacrifice; but, between mal- 
 aria and fighting, imprudent and vicious living, 
 and the extermination in detail carried on by the 
 insurgents, and principally by those in Calabria, 
 before the end of this year, of the 60,000 or 
 70,000 men who had escorted Joseph to his 
 throne, one-half were dead, or in the hospitals in 
 hopeless case. And the end was not yet: the 
 losses of 1806 were repeated, and on nearly the 
 same scale, in 180'7-8-9 and-10. 
 
 The Cape of Good Hope, which the Addington 
 administration had given up so prematurely, was 
 recovered in the month of January by Sir David 
 Baird and 5000 land-troops, and Sir Home Pop- 
 ham with a small fleet. The Dutch troops broke 
 and fled before a British charge. They afterwards 
 showed a disposition to defend the interior of the 
 country; but, on General Beresford’s being de- 
 tached against them, they surrendered, upon con- 
 dition that they should be sent back to Holland, 
 and not be considered as prisoners of war. This 
 annexation of the Cape, which ought always to re- 
 main to the power that is predominant at sea and 
 in the East Indies, was a laudable measure and an 
 imperative duty in our government; but so much 
 cannot be said of another conquest and scheme of 
 aggrandisement which was attempted almost im- 
 mediately after. Tempted by very inaccurate 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 329 
 
 | reports of the wealth and weakness of the Spanish 
 
 colonies in the Rio dela Plata, Sir Home Popham, 
 it-is said without the slightest authority from the 
 government at home, ventured to carry his whole 
 naval force to South America, and induced Sir 
 David Baird to allow General Beresford to accom- 
 pany him, with a portion of the land-force who 
 had conquered the Cape. Having touched at St. 
 Helena, where some slight reinforcements were ob- 
 tained, Popham and Beresford arrived at the mouth 
 of La Plata early in June, and on the 24th of that 
 month landed the troops at some distance from 
 Buenos Ayres. The whole force disembarked, in- 
 cluding marines, did not exceed 1600 men. Some 
 Spanish troops, who attempted to dispute their 
 passage, were dispersed by a single volley; and on 
 the 27th of June, favourable terms of capitulation 
 having been granted to the inhabitants, Beresford 
 entered the city without resistance. The property 
 of private individuals was respected ; but a great 
 booty was made of the public money, stores, artil- 
 lery, &c., and of the shipping in the river. Elated 
 with his success, Sir Home Popham sent home a 
 circular manifesto to the merchants and manufac- 
 turers of Great Britain, announcing that he had 
 conquered a land of gold, and had opened a whole 
 continent to the British trade. At the same time 
 upwards of a million of dollars were sent to Lon- 
 don, and the admiral and the general reserved 
 205,000 dollars for the exigencies of the army and 
 navy. The news of the capture of Buenos Ayres 
 was received with transports of joy by our trading 
 community, and by that part of the cabinet and 
 country which clung to the paltry idea of making 
 war for what they called British objects, or exclu- 
 sively national interests. An order of council was 
 gazetted on the 20th of September, declaring that 
 a lawful trade might be carried on to Buenos Ayres 
 and its dependencies. The cabinet, on first learn- 
 ing Sir Home Popham’s wild enterprise, had sent 
 out orders to recall him; but, as these orders did 
 not reach the admiral in time, as the conquest had 
 been made with so much ease, as a million of dol- 
 lars was looked upon as a valuable consideration, 
 and as the popular joy and commercial exultation 
 were so great, ministers now sanctioned the whole 
 scheme, took no pains to dissipate the vulgar er- 
 rors and illusions, and resolved to keep what had 
 been gotten without their will. But, before people 
 at home had finished rejoicing for the conquest, 
 the conquest was no more, and the capturers were 
 captives. As soon as the Spaniards and the co- 
 lonists became generally aware of the smallness of 
 Beresford’s force, they began to concert measures 
 for his expulsion. A popular insurrection was or- 
 ganised in the heart of the city; emissaries were 
 sent to excite the hardy country-people to arms; 
 and, when everything was ripe for action, M. Li- 
 niers, a Frenchman in the Spanish service, crossed 
 the river in a fog on the 4th of August, and landed 
 above Buenos Ayres with more than 1000 fighting 
 men, whom he had brought from Monte Video and 
 Sacramento. Other armed levies joined Liniers, 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BuENos AYREs. 
 
 after having been beaten by Beresford in a sally. 
 The Frenchman now advanced against the city, 
 and on the 10th he summoned the English to 
 surrender: ‘Then within the walls the inhabitants 
 rose upon Beresford, who attempted to retreat to 
 the ships, but was prevented by the bad state of 
 the weather. After a desperate action in the 
 streets and great square of the town, in which 
 they were exposed to a fierce and destructive fire 
 from the windows and balconies, and the house- 
 tops, the English capitulated and laid down their 
 arms. M. Liniers forthwith broke the terms of 
 the capitulation, and not only detained the English 
 prisoners of war, but marched them into the in- 
 terior of the country, where they were subjected to 
 great privations. About 1200 men remained at 
 the mercy of Liniers and the Spaniards—the rest 
 had perished in the rumous street-fighting. Sir 
 Home Popham, who had the good fortune to be 
 on board ship at the time, blockaded the Rio de 
 la Plata. He then proceeded to make an attack 
 on Monte Video, but his ships could not get near 
 enough to batter the walls. In the month of Oc- 
 tober, successive reinforcements having arrived 
 from the Cape of Good Hope and from England 
 (where the cabinet ought to have foreseen Beres- 
 ford’s fate), he landed a body of troops at Maldo- 
 nado, drove the Spaniards from the Isle of Gorriti, 
 and took up good anchoring-ground and quarters 
 on shore to await the arrival of more reinforce- 
 ments, 
 
 The Spanish monarchy in America had before 
 this time shown symptoms of falling to pieces. — 
 That desire of independence which eventually dis- 
 severed those vast colonies from Spain, even as 
 the Anglo-American colonies had been rent from — 
 Great Britain, already displayed itself, gaining 
 strength from the miserable weakness and mis- 
 rule of the court of Madrid. Many imsurrec-_ 
 tions had taken place: in some parts the South — 
 American population, having driven away their 
 Spanish governors, were already virtually in- 
 dependent. Since the alliance between France 
 and Spain, or the entire subjection of the court 
 of Madrid, various proposals had been made to 
 Great Britain to take the colonists by the hand, — 
 to assist them in throwing off the yoke of the 
 mother country, which drained them of their re-— 
 sources, in order to maintain its corrupt, degrading, © 
 anti-national court and government, and to buy 
 with their gold and silver the insecure friendship 
 or temporary forbearance of the Emperor of pe 
 French. The inducements for our interference 
 were strong, and, coupled with the prospect of con- — 
 cluding commercial treaties with the emancipate 
 colonies, and opening in fact the trade of a vast 
 continent, which Spain had so vigilantly and so 
 impolitically closed to the British, and all other 
 flags, the temptations became almost irresistible. 
 Both Addington and Pitt had seriously entertained 
 the project. But the fear of disobliging the court 
 of Petersburgh had determined Pitt not to imter- 
 
 hs ta 
 
 = 
 
 y 
 
OCuap. VIII. ] 
 
 fere at present. Rejected by England, General 
 Miranda,* that enthusiastic adventurer and real 
 founder of the independence of Spanish America, 
 went over to the United States to solicit the co- 
 operation of President Jefferson and his repub- 
 licans. The United States government, which 
 this year, and more than once before, seemed to be 
 on the verge of a war with England, had many 
 differences with Spain, and a very eager desire to 
 break the old Spanish monopoly and throw open 
 the trade of the vast South American continent. 
 Although the Spanish court had been compelled 
 to cede Louisiana to Bonaparte, they were enraged 
 against the republicans of the United States for 
 buying that country from him. Moreover, these 
 Americans had discovered that, by the law of 
 
 * Francisco Miranda was born about the middle of the eighteenth 
 
 century, at the city of Caracas, of which province his grandfather had 
 been governor-general for the King of Spain. From early youth he 
 gave proof of very extraordinary energy aud perseverance, and of a 
 desire for information still more extraordinary in a South American 
 Spaniard. He travelled on foot, at the age of twenty, through a great 
 part of the New Continent. He was afterwards a colonel in the 
 Spanish army, and was intrusted with important matters by the go- 
 vernment of Guatemala. Charles III. of Spain had foreseen the 
 effect likely to be produced among the Spanish colonies by the revolt 
 and by the acknowledged independence of the Anglo-American 
 colonies. During that struggle, in which both France and Spain pro- 
 tected the Anglo-Americans, Miranda, who had some vague notions 
 before about an independence and liberty for the country of his birth, 
 became fully convinced of the propriety and necessity of following 
 the example of the citizens of the United States. He had some pri- 
 vate correspondence with Lafayette, while that Frenchman was serv- 
 ing in America, and also with General Washington, whom he chose 
 for his model. In 1783, after the peace had established the inde- 
 pendence of the United States, he visited those countries. Apparently 
 he had fallen into disgrace, or under suspicion, at Guatemala, for, 
 instead of returning thither, or to his own country, he came over to 
 Europe as a needy adventurer. He travelled on foot through Eng- 
 land, France, and Italy. He also travelled in the same way through 
 Spain, a country for which he ever professed the greatest detestation 
 orcontempt. Even now, it is said, he ventured to speak of the eman- 
 cipation of his country to Pitt and to the Empress Catherine. The 
 ezarina, who loved to collect around her adventurous spirits from all 
 parts of the world, and to whom political intrigue was a necessary 
 aliment, invited him to St. Petersburgh, and offered him employment 
 in herarmy. But Miranda had become a hot republican, and when 
 the French revolution burst out, and had made some progress, he 
 Went to seek a more congenial employment in France. It is said that 
 he was recommended to Pétion by some of those leaders of opposition 
 in the British parliament who took so great an interest in, and built 
 such Utopian hopes upon, the French revolution ; but Miranda, who 
 had travelled in France when the fermentation was commencing (and 
 it commenced almost immediately after the success of the North 
 American experiment), could scarcely have stood in need of such in- 
 troduction. He seems to have been well acquainted with Dumouriez 
 before this second journey to France. He was soon appointed major- 
 general under Dumouriez, and had a share in the very successful 
 campaign against the Prussian invaders. His later services in Bel- 
 gium haye been noticed in our sketch of that war. They were very 
 unsuccessful, and drew down upon him the bitter censure of Du- 
 mouriez. Itis probable, however, that Dumouriez only blamed him 
 in order to turn censure from himself, and that Miranda’s failures 
 were solely attributable to the undisciplined, tumultuary character 
 of the first French levies and volunteers. Miranda attached himself 
 heart and soul to the rash and imbecile Girondist faction. After the 
 fall of that party he was put upon his trial for alleged offences and 
 crimes, both civil and military, before the Revolutionary Tribunal; 
 and had the rare fortune to escape sentence of death. His trial lasted 
 eleven days, aud he seems to have completely disproved all the 
 charges relating to his conduct in Belgium. He was released, seized 
 again, and again set at liberty. But he retained his ardent democratic 
 republicanism, and could not tolerate the dominion of the Directory. 
 The directors seized and condemned him to deportation after their 
 coup @ état of the 18th Fructidor; but he contrived to escape from the 
 gendarmes, and came as a refugee to England. The consular tyranny 
 of Bonaparte pleased him no better than the Directory. He returned, 
 however, to France in 1803; and was presently arrested and sent out 
 of the country by Bonaparte, who aecused him of intriguing against 
 him. Miranda returned once more to England, and thenceforward 
 devoted himself exclusively to his South American schemes. 
 
 There must have been strong objections on the side of George III. 
 to any connexion with a man who had run such a very revolutionary 
 career, and who at one period had been an orator of the Jacobin 
 Club, and the bosom-friend of the men who had brought Louis XVI, 
 to the scaffold; and these objections, we believe, contributed quite 
 as much as any fear of disobliging the court of Petersburgh, to our 
 refusing Miranda any active co-operation or any open countenance, 
 
 CIVIL AND_MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 331 - 
 
 nature, and the physical demarcations of the coun- 
 try, Florida, which the Spaniards had re-conquered 
 from the English in the year 1781, during their 
 war of independence, ought to belong to them, 
 The vicinity of Florida to the Gulf stream might 
 give its possessors a great command over the na- 
 vigation between Europe and the countries lying 
 about the Gulf of Mexico; and, as a present im- 
 mediate advantage, it offered good points for carry- 
 ing on the contraband trade with the Spanish 
 colonists. As the constitution of the United States 
 renounced and reprobated any extension by war 
 and conquest, the only process left to obtain the de- 
 sired end was negotiation, purchase, and barter. As 
 they must not conquer, they must buy. Congress 
 had decided on appropriating 2,000,000 of dollars 
 to the purchase of Florida, and Jeflerson’s agents 
 at Paris were actually negotiating for the conclu- 
 sion of that bargain. The United States sloop of 
 war, the ‘ Hornet,’ had been dispatched to France 
 with full authorities to the American agents or 
 ministers to conclude the bargain, and with bills to 
 pay the amount. ‘These bills or letters of credit 
 were drawn on American funds, placed in Holland 
 to discharge the foreign debt of the United States. 
 Jefferson’s political rivals, and personal enemies 
 (and he had many), gave out that the ‘ Hornet’ 
 carried the 2,000,000 in specie; that the money 
 was meant to bribe Bonaparte to compel Spain to 
 cede Florida to the States; and it was afterwards 
 asserted that 2,000,000 had really been paid to 
 the French government without any consideration. 
 It appears, however, that the ‘ Hornet’ carried 
 only paper, and that the paper was not used, be- 
 cause Spain could not be induced to go into the 
 bargain. But, if the court of Madrid had been 
 less firm, and if the bargain had been concluded at 
 Paris under the auspices of the French ministers, 
 it would be difficult for the admirers of Jefferson’s 
 wise and pacific policy to maintain that Bona- 
 parte would not have pocketed those dollars, even 
 as he had pocketed the dollars paid for Louisiana. 
 Ina running account between the two governments 
 France brought Spain in a debtor; the banks of 
 Holland were under the absolute control of Bona- 
 parte; and he would have kept the two millions on 
 account. Spain could not have prevented this; 
 and the government of the United States, provided 
 only they got Florida, or a good colourable pretext 
 for seizing it, would have cared nothing about the 
 matter. It was not Jefferson and his friends—who 
 were so eager all through this long war to serve 
 the French and thwart the English—that would 
 have quarrelled with Bonaparte. The bargain 
 and sale negotiations were still pending at Paris 
 when General Miranda arrived at New York ; but 
 we ascertain from Jefferson’s own correspondence 
 that he foresaw the strong and obstinate objec- 
 tions which would be raised by the cabinet of 
 Madrid; it therefore would suit the interests of 
 the United States to give countenance to Mi- 
 randa’s bold enterprises, which, by ruining or 
 throwing into confusion nearly the whole of South 
 
332 
 
 America, might induce the weak and appa- 
 rently almost helpless government of Spain 
 to give up Florida. Jefferson was not such a 
 novice in state intrigue as to commit himself 
 openly.* Then, as in later days and in other quar- 
 rels, there were SyMPATHIZERS—men ready to 
 engage and fight in any quarrel where there was a 
 king or an established government on the one side, 
 and an insurgent people clamouring, or pretending 
 to clamour, for liberty on the other. Besides, 
 many of the Yankee skippers, in their clandestine 
 trips across the Mexican Gulf and along the 
 Spanish Main, had been sorely molested by the 
 Spanish guarda-costas ; and not a few of their ves- 
 sels and cargoes had been captured and confiscated. 
 Nothing was therefore so easy as for Miranda to 
 charter a ship and obtain recruits at New York. 
 That he did not obtain more than he did may be 
 attributed to the lowness of the funds he had in 
 hand, and to the national caution of the moneyed 
 New Englanders. With the ‘ Leander,’ a British 
 armed vessel of eighteen guns, and with 300 or 400 
 adventurers of all countries, but chiefly American 
 sympathizers, Miranda sailed to St. Domingo, 
 where he succeeded in chartering two schooners. 
 Quitting the negro empire in the month of April, 
 he proceeded towards the Spanish Main with the 
 daring design of invading Caracas and hoisting 
 the flag of independence in his native province. But 
 he stopped at the island of Aruba to take in water ; 
 and through other delays and his own imprudence, 
 or the treachery of some connected with him, his 
 project became known, and the Spanish governor 
 was allowed time to fit out a 20-gun brig and a 16- 
 gun schooner to meet him. ‘The two flotillas met, 
 at the end of April, near Puerto-Cabello. Miranda 
 was defeated; his two schooners were captured ; 
 but he himself escaped with the ‘ Leander,’ and 
 got to Trinadad, now an English colony. Fifty- 
 seven of his adventurous followers, captured in the 
 schooners, were tried by the Spanish governor as 
 pirates: ten of them were condemned to death, 
 
 * On the lst of December, when President Jefferson sent his opening 
 message to Congress, he alluded to the expedition of Miranda against 
 the territories of Spain, and said he had, by a proclamation and 
 special orders, taken measures for suppressing it.—Professor Tucker, 
 Life of Thomas Jefferson, &c. But this was nine months after Miranda 
 had sailed from the States, with the good ship ‘ Leander,’ and the 
 300 or 400 men he had recruited in New York and the neighbourhood. 
 We know how much such proclamations are worth, even when issued 
 in time. It does not appear that Jefferson’s proclamation was issued 
 at a moment when it could have been of any use. [On the 2rd of 
 May, indeed, Jefferson issued a proclamation, but that contained no 
 mention of Miranda, referring merely to a U. S. American citizen, 
 who appears to have been accidentally killed by a shot fired from the 
 ‘ Leander, and for ever interdicting the entrance of all the harbours 
 and waters of the United States to the said ‘ Leander’ and her con- 
 sorts (appareatly the two schooners), for the said accident, which is 
 called a murder.) In December, 1806, Jefferson may, possibly, have 
 been sincerely anxious to act upon the Miranda proclamation, and 
 to put down any further attempt on the Spanish colonies; and this, 
 because some English man-of-war captains had taken Miranda by the 
 hand, and because the president and his friends were very jealous 
 of English interference (i. e. of the English government) in countries so 
 near their own unsettled and disorderly southern and south-western 
 frontiers. 
 
 In the same session of Congress, President Jefferson suggested 
 the propriety of passing laws for the prevention of private enterprises 
 against the United States. There were, indeed, other weighty reasons 
 for proposing some such laws, for it was during this year that ex- 
 vice president Burr aimed at upsetting the model American consti- 
 tution, and at separating the whole of the western states from the 
 union, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and the rest, with the exception of three boys, were 
 sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in different 
 fortresses. Among the West India Islands it was 
 easy to collect recruits for almost any service. 
 If a buccaneer like Morgan had sprung up, he 
 would have found crowds of men ready to follow 
 him to the Spanish Main. The tempests of war 
 had left so many wrecked and desperate men on 
 those shores ; the rapid change of masters had left 
 many of the West Indians in a state of uncertainty 
 as to which master they should obey, or whose rule 
 would last the longest; and in these islands, a 
 hatred of Spain was an ancient hereditary feeling, 
 the one great tradition of the country. A number 
 of adventurers, from various islands, and speaking 
 various tongues, repaired to Miranda’s standard ; 
 and the commanders of some English ships of war 
 engaged to protect him on his voyage, and to cover 
 his landing. Thus much the English captains 
 were authorised to do by the general instruction 
 in their commissions to do the enemy all the injury 
 in their power ; and Spain was in open war with 
 us, and leagued with our deadliest enemy. As 
 Spain had aided in the many attempts made to 
 invade Ireland, and to back the enterprises of the 
 United Irishmen, it was with a bad grace that she 
 could complain of the English assistance thus lent 
 to Miranda. This chief effected a landing on the 
 2nd of August, at Vela de Coro; and, raising the 
 standard of independence, and issuing proclama- 
 tions, he called upon his countrymen to join him. 
 But, instead of joining, the people fled into the in- 
 terior, acting, apparently, under the conviction that 
 so small a force could not break the Spanish yoke, 
 and that little but mischief was to be expected 
 from such a mixed and ribald crew. Finding that 
 nothing could be done, Miranda re-embarked his 
 forces, and returned to Trinidad. The cause of 
 South American independence then slumbered until 
 1809, when the invasion of Spain by Bonaparte 
 seemed to prostrate the whole remaining strength 
 of the mother country, and to offer to the colonies 
 a favourable opportunity for erecting themselyes 
 into separate sovereign states. Francisco Miranda, 
 whose whole life is like a romance, will re-appear 
 in our pages. About the time of his eclipse, the 
 Negro Emperor Dessalines, whose alliance he had 
 courted, disappeared for ever from this nether 
 world. Since his assumption of the imperial dig- 
 nity, Dessalines had conducted himself in a yery 
 arbitrary tyrannical manner, or, at least, he was 
 accused by his rival, Christophe, ‘‘ the skilful 
 cook,” and by the mulatto chief Pétion (no rela- 
 tion, we believe, to the virtuous mayor of Paris) 
 of a terrible abuse of powers, and of crimes 
 and insolences not to be borne by free negroes. 
 The said Christophe and Pétion headed a con- 
 spiracy against him, attacked him unawares, and 
 cut his throat. Christophe then succeeded to his 
 
 authority. At first the * skilful cook’? renounced 
 the pomps and vanities of a throne, imperial or 
 royal, satisfying himself with the title of chief of 
 the government of Hayti. 
 
 In this capacity he 
 
Guar, VIII.J 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 833 
 
 issued a proclamation, opening to neutral powers | other French ships were superior in size and in 
 
 the ports and commerce of his dominions. Those 
 philanthropists whose benevolence gets warmest 
 when carried beyond the tropics, and is to be mea- 
 sured by degrees of latitude and longitude, or by 
 the scale of the thermometer, were in raptures at 
 this revolution, though it had commenced with a 
 foul and treacherous murder, and were sanguine in 
 their expectations that, if only left to themselves for 
 a few years, the blacks of Hayti or St. Domingo 
 would establish political institutions, and a humane 
 and enlightened system, which should put to shame 
 the systems and governments of the whites. The 
 zealots of republicanism too sympathised with the 
 negro chief, and called him the black Washington. 
 But his self-denial, and abstinence from the tempt- 
 ing dish of royalty, did not last long. Pétion the 
 mulatto, who was jealous of his power, as he him- 
 self had been of that of Dessalines, soon accused 
 him of designs against the liberties of the republic. 
 Christophe, in his turn, accused Pétion of being a 
 Jacobin and anarchist. A bloody war was the 
 consequence. At the end of the struggle Pétion 
 was driven back to Port-au-Prince, where he main- 
 tained himself, and what he called his republic, for 
 nearly eleven years; and Christophe, remaining 
 undisputed master of the greater part of the coun- 
 try, proclaimed himself King of Hayti, under the 
 title of Henry I.; royalty, at the same time, being 
 made hereditary in his family. He was publicly 
 crowned on June the 2nd, 1812; and the cere- 
 monies, all after the French pattern, are said to 
 have been very solemn and imposing. There was 
 a new court, and a new creation of hereditary no- 
 bility—dukes, counts, barons, &c., tout comme a 
 Paris, except the colour—and the Duke of Mar- 
 malade was one of the first dignitaries of the negro 
 kingdom. Thus ended Christophe’s republicanism. 
 The other dream about negro perfectibility, or the 
 rapid advance of the St. Domingo blacks in virtue 
 and civilization, did not end quite so soon. The 
 Emperor of the French made this year one effort 
 more to regain a footing in St. Domingo, or to 
 capture some of the English islands. Asquadron, 
 consisting of five ships of the line, two frigates, and 
 a corvette, stole out of Brest, and on the 20th of 
 January these ships anchored in the road of St. 
 Domingo, and on the next day disembarked the 
 troops that were on board. They were disturbed 
 in this position, on the 6th of February, by the 
 appearance of Admiral Sir John Duckworth, with 
 seven sail of the line and four frigates. The French 
 Admiral Leissegues managed to slip his cables and 
 get out to sea; but the wind did not prove his 
 friend, and he could not escape an action. The 
 French inequality in force was not so great as 
 might appear from merely counting the number of 
 their opponents: they had with them the ‘ Im- 
 perial,’ an immense three-decker, which the French 
 declare to have been the strongest and most beau- 
 tiful ship of the line that had ever been built in any 
 country in the world; which measured 3300 tons, 
 and which mounted 130 guns; and several of the 
 
 weight of metal to any of ours. The ‘ Imperial’ 
 was calculated as nearly a match for any two of 
 Duckworth’s ships; and one of these ships, the 
 English ‘ Agamemnon,’ mounted only 64 guns. 
 But in less than two hours three of the French 
 ships of the line were captured, and the remaining 
 two were driven on shore, where they were after- 
 wards burned. The French displayed less than 
 their usual bravery and judgment: the reminiscences 
 of Trafalgar haunted them. Their loss in killed, 
 wounded, and drowned was terrific. According 
 to the French accounts the ‘Imperial’ alone had 
 500 killed and wounded before she struck on the 
 rocks; and then, as her bottom was stove in, as 
 was also that of the ‘ Dioméde,’ many of the re- 
 maining crews of the two ships perished in a 
 tremendous sea. The loss of the English was 74 
 killed and 264 wounded.* The two French fri- 
 gates and the corvette escaped for the present ; but 
 one of the’ frigates, injured by the storm, and 
 running under jury-masts, was eventually captured 
 by a British sloop-of-war. 
 
 At or nearly at the same time that M. Leis- 
 segues escaped out of Brest, Admiral Willau- 
 mez also got to sea. For some days the two 
 French squadrons sailed together ; but they then 
 separated. After one or two narrow. escapes 
 from falling in with a superior British force, 
 M. Willaumez reached the latitude of the Cape 
 of Good Hope, with the intention of landing stores 
 and troops to assist the Dutch. But, learn- 
 ing that the Cape had already fallen, he picked 
 up an English merchant-vessel, and kept cruising 
 between that extremity of Africa and South Ame- 
 rica, in the hope of picking up more prizes. He 
 met with no luck, and want of provisions sent him, 
 about the middle of April, into Cayenue. From 
 this port Willaumez, with six sail of the line, pro- 
 ceeded to Barbadoes, with the intention of destroy- 
 ing the English shipping in Carlisle Bay; but, 
 not being able to do anything of the kind, he stood 
 away for Martinique, where the French flag still 
 floated. It was known to the commanders of the 
 British squadrons in those seas that Jerome Bona- 
 parte (of whom his brother, the emperor, intended 
 to make a good sailor, but could not +) was on 
 board of one of Willaumez’s ships of the line, the 
 ‘Veétéran.? This added to the eagerness of the 
 search which was being made after the French 
 squadron in various directions. But, by a succes- 
 sion of lucky accidents, Willaumez escaped some 
 time longer. It appears, however, that the French 
 
 * James.—Ann. Regist.—Sir John Duckworth’s Dispatches to the 
 Admiralty. 
 
 + Monsieur, or, as his style now was, Prince Jerome, had been put 
 in the French navy in 1802. On the Ist of November, 1804, without 
 having mastered the rudiments of his profession, he was raised to the 
 rank of a Capitaine de Frégate. He then cruised for a short time in 
 the Mediterranean, and immediately after this appointed himself a 
 Capitaine de Vaisseau, or captain of a ship of the line. His brother, 
 the emperor, was excessively indignant at fhis innovation, which was 
 an attack on his own authority. He annulled the self-appointment, 
 said that Jerome had betrayed unexampled levity, that his conduct 
 was altogether ridiculous; and that, when he should have fought and 
 captured an English line-of-battle ship, he would still not have the 
 right of giving rank in the French navy! There was small chance 
 that Prince Jerome would ever capture an English line-of-battle ship. 
 
_ 834 
 
 admiral had a great deal to do to keep Prince 
 Jerome in order; and that, in looking after that 
 hair-brained coxcomb, he lost a good deal of time 
 and several opportunities of doing mischief to our 
 heavily-laden sugar-ships. The scape-grace had 
 long been sick of the cruise and of the privations 
 of a sea-faring life: he knew or surmised that the 
 English would soon be down upon Willaumez’s 
 squadron, and therefore, on the night of the 
 31st of July, his ship, the ‘ Vétéran,’ contrived 
 to part company, and to lay her courses back 
 for Europe. As soon as day broke on the Ist 
 of August, Willaumez discovered, to his exces- 
 sive vexation, that the ‘ Vét¢éran’ was gone; and, 
 knowing the risk to which the emperor’s brother 
 would be exposed in a single ship of the line, he 
 went cruising about in all directions in search of 
 the fugitive, who was nowhere to be found. In 
 the course of this cruise Willaumez had some hair- 
 breadth escapes from Sir John Borlase Warren, 
 who had reached the West Indies with six ships of 
 the line and a frigate. After beating about for 
 some time longer in the vain hope of capturing or 
 destroying some of our homeward-bound convoys, 
 the French admiral bore away for the coast of 
 Newfoundland, to capture our fishing-vessels and 
 destroy our establishments there. But he had 
 scarcely turned his face towards the north ere he 
 was assailed by a hurricane, which dismasted 
 his five ships and scattered them far asunder. 
 On the 15th of September, Willaumez, alone in 
 the ‘ Foudroyant,’ an 80-gun ship, going under 
 jury-masts, was attacked by the British 44-gun 
 frigate ‘ Anson.’ After fighting gallantly for half 
 an hour, the commander of the frigate, Captain 
 Charles Lydiard, found the French 80-gun ship 
 too heavy for him, and bore off. Willaumez then 
 got safely to anchor in Havanna. Admiral Sir 
 Richard Strachan, who also was hunting for Wil- 
 laumez with seven ships of the line and two fri- 
 gates, saw his fine squadron scattered by the same 
 hurricane which dispersed the French. But on 
 the 14th of September two of Strachan’s 74’s dis- 
 covered the ‘ Impé¢tueux,’ one of Willaumez’s 74’s, 
 near the coast of America, running under jury- 
 masts for that friendly river the Chesapeake. The 
 English pursued, the Frenchman ran ashore. The 
 English manned their boats, took possession of the 
 ‘Imp¢tueux,’ removed the crew as prisoners, and 
 then burned her. This was a breach of neutrality, 
 but the United States’ government found it conye- 
 nient not to make any loud outcry for the present. 
 Two other of Willaumez’s ships of the line got safely 
 into the Chesapeake: one of these was found to be 
 ruined past repair, and was taken to pieces; the 
 other, with the kindly aid of brother Jonathan, was 
 made sea-worthy once more, and was fortunate 
 enough in the end to effect her escape back to 
 France. One of the French frigates was also 
 broken up in America. The ‘ Foudroyant,’ after 
 
 refitting at Havanna, put to sea and managed to 
 reach Brest road. The ‘ Cassard,’ another of the 
 French ships, reached Rochefort. Fortune favours 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 others besides the brave; the good luck of fools 
 is proverbial. When Prince Jerome ran away 
 from his admiral, the chances seemed as ten to 
 one that he would be taken. But, instead of 
 being taken, he took. On the 10th of August, 
 as his fine 74, the ‘ Vétdran,’ was carrying 
 all sail for home, she fell in with a home- 
 ward-bound Quebec convoy, under the protec- 
 tion of an English 22-gun ship, commanded 
 by Captain Robert Howe Bromley; and she 
 captured and burned six of our traders. On the 
 26th of August, when very near the French coast, 
 Jerome was in great jeopardy, for he was chased 
 by a British squadron composed of a British 
 80-gun ship and two 36-gun frigates. But the 
 local experience of his officers, and a bold and un- 
 precedented movement, saved him and the ‘ Vé- 
 téran.’ They were running for Port Orient; but 
 they changed their course, and ran into the small 
 and rock-bound port of Concarneau, which no 
 ship of the line had ever attempted to enter before. 
 Willaumez had lost two ships of the line and a 
 frigate; and he brought back sickly crews, but no 
 prizes. ‘The few prizes he had taken among the 
 West India Islands he had been obliged to destroy. 
 That he or any of those with him got back at all 
 was little short of the miraculous. Prince Jerome 
 brought back shame and ill-fame enough to crush 
 him; but his brother was emperor, and the press 
 and all public opinion in France were in shackles, 
 Napoleon personally might reprove him and 
 despise him; but the French people were not to 
 be permitted to censure or to know the truth. The 
 editor of the ‘ Moniteur’ was commanded to dress 
 up an article in laudation of Prince Jerome’s 
 
 JEROME BONAPARTE, 
 
 cruise, and of the gallant encounter with our 
 Quebec convoy: and a very pretty article the 
 editor made of it ;—the little English 22-gun ship 
 was converted into a big frigate, an English trans- 
 port was turned into another frigate, both frigates 
 were made to fly before the Vétéran, and the num- 
 ber of merchant-vessels captured was raised from 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 six to nine. No inducement, however, could ever 
 prevail upon this naval hero of the imperial family 
 to venture to sea again in a fighting ship. He was 
 raised to the rank of contre-amiral ; but he forth- 
 With quitted the sea to become a general of division, 
 and take the command of some Bavarian cavalry ; 
 and not very long afterwards he quitted both land 
 and sea service to take up the easier calling of a 
 king. 
 
 i cai Linois, who had been so long cruising 
 in the Chinese and Indian seas, and who had suc- 
 ceeded in doing some mischief to our trade since 
 his repulse by our Indiamen* near the Straits of 
 Malacca, at last met his fate this year. In the 
 autumn of 1805 he had made the run of the 
 African coast and had entered St. Simon’s Bay. 
 He had with him only the ‘ Marengo,’ 74, and the 
 * Belle Poule’ frigate; for the rest of his squadron 
 had either been lost or sent homeward with the 
 prizes he had made. He was joined in St. Simon’s 
 Bay by the ‘ Atalante,’ another frigate; but the 
 *Atalante’ perished shortly afterwards on that 
 coast. As his two remaining ships were found 
 very fully manned, it is supposed that he saved 
 the crew of the ‘ Atalante.’ At the end of January 
 he would have gone to the Cape of Good Hope, 
 but an American informed him that a British flag 
 was flying there. As there was no safe resting- 
 place in-shore, so seemed there no safe room at sea, 
 for the Indian Ocean was fast filling with British 
 men-of-war dispatched in search of -him. He 
 therefore determined to make a bold run for Brest, 
 from which port he had departed nearly three 
 years before. But the nearer he got to France the 
 greater was his danger. JBriareus had a hundred 
 arms; but the British navy had now a thousand. 
 Just as he reached the French coast, and as the 
 port of Brest was opening to him, he was stopped 
 by Sir J. Borlase Warren’s ship the ‘ London’ and 
 the ‘ Amazon’ frigate ; and after a close and hard 
 fight the ‘ Marengo’ and the ‘ Belle Poule’ struck 
 their colours and were both taken. Honour to the 
 skilful and persevering French sailor! In the 
 course of his long and adventurous cruise Linois 
 had crossed the equinoctial line twelve times; he 
 had eluded the pursuit of many enemies; and, at 
 last, he had fought a gallant battle. Both he and 
 his son were severely wounded in the battle. Ad- 
 miral Sir E. Pellew, who had been vainly hunting 
 in the Indian Sea for Linois, passed through the 
 Straits of Sunda to Batavia, and burned a Dutch 
 36-gun frigate, six other armed vessels, and about 
 twenty merchantmen, bringing off as prizes two 
 armed vessels and two merchantmen. 
 
 We must continue to pass over in silence the 
 conflicts between detached ships, and all the minor 
 operations of our navy. They extended to the four 
 
 _* The fighting example of these Indiamen, being favoured by the 
 circumstances we have mentioned, was sure to be followed by our 
 traders. In the course of this year, 1806, eleven West Indiamen, 
 that got separated from the great Jamaica fleet, and had no protec- 
 tion save in their own guns, twice beat off a privateer. After this 
 brush they were attacked by three privateers. Our skippers ap- 
 pointed Mac Farlane, the master of one of the West Indiamen, to 
 be their commodore ; and he disposed his forces so well, that after 
 an hour’s warm firing they beat off the three privateers. 
 
 EEE ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 335 
 
 quarters of the globe and to nearly all seas. Two 
 other exploits, however, call for notice. In the 
 month of September Commodore Sir Samuel Hood 
 captured four out of five large frigates that escaped 
 out of Rochefort, and that were destined for the 
 West Indies with troops, stores, arms, ammunition, 
 and provisions on board. Much earlier in the 
 year Captain Lord Cochrane, having received in- 
 formation that two large brig corvettes were lying 
 in the river Gironde, not far from Bordeaux, re- 
 solved to make them his. A little after dark he 
 manned the boats of his frigate and sent them up 
 the river. The two French vessels lay twenty 
 miles above the shoals which prevented the ingress 
 of the frigate; and were protected by two heavy 
 land batteries. The daring sailors in the boats, 
 however, boarded and carried one of the brig cor- 
 vettes, which had the guard, was perfectly well pre- 
 pared for the attack, and had fourteen long 8- 
 pounders and 95 men to meet it. The other brig 
 corvette was higher up the river, and the flood-tide 
 prevented the boats from ascending to her. At 
 day-break this other corvette came down and at- 
 tacked the prize; but after an hour’s firing she was 
 compelled to sheer off; and the excited crowds of 
 armed militia, collected on the river banks, had the 
 mortification of seeing the boats regain their fri- 
 gate with their very pretty prize. The only loss 
 sustained by the English in the adventure consisted 
 of three seamen wounded. This may serve as a 
 slight specimen of the daring operation which our 
 sailors called “ cutting out,” and which was resorted 
 to very frequently during the remainder of the 
 war. While his boats and a good part of his crew 
 were absent, coming down the Gironde with their 
 prize, Cochrane, in his frigate, drove on shore 
 among the breakers two ship corvettes mounting 
 20 guns each, and one brig corvette mounting 16 
 guns. A few days after this Cochrane reconnoi- 
 tring a strong French squadron which lay at 
 anchor in the roads of the Isle of Aix, under cover 
 of tremendous land batteries, braved with his little 
 ‘ Pallas,’ a 12-pounder 32-gun frigate, the attack 
 of a 44-gun frigate and three brig corvettes, which 
 came out to drive him away, but could not make 
 him quit his station. Then, having “ nothing 
 better in view,’’ Lord Cochrane landed some of the 
 crew of the ‘ Pallas,’ and destroyed some signal 
 posts, which were-great tell-tales, and reported all 
 the movements of the British cruisers. One of 
 these signal posts was defended by 100 French 
 militia, who could not hold it or prevent its de- 
 struction. Next he landed and attacked a battery 
 which had three long 36-pounders, and a well co- 
 vered garrison of fiftymen. The long guns were 
 soon spiked, the barrack and magazine were blown 
 up, and the shot and shells were thrown into the 
 sea. And this may serve as a specimen of the in- 
 shore or land service of our seamen, which also 
 became a frequent practice. As so few of their 
 ships would venture to sea, it was necessary for 
 our sailors to go on shore in order to get at the 
 enemy. Taking another peep into Aix Road, 
 
336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Boox } 
 
 Cochrane tempted out again the 44-gun frigate and 
 three corvettes; and this time M. Collet, the cap- 
 tain of the French frigate, seemed determined to 
 bring on a fight. He ran down upon the little 
 ‘ Pallas’ with studding-sails and royals set. Coch- 
 rane waited until he was within point-blank shot, 
 and then opened a fire which brought down the 
 Frenchman’s flying kites, and the main-topsail- 
 yard of one of his brig corvettes into the bargain. 
 He then endeavoured to get to windward of the 
 French frigate, whose smart fire was aided by one 
 of the land batteries. .The ‘ Pallas’ kept replying, 
 except when obliged to tack in order to avoid the 
 shoals. This lasted for nearly two hours, when 
 Cochrane succeeded in gaining the wind of his 
 adversary, and in getting between her and her har- 
 bour. Then after one or two heavy broadsides he 
 ran the little ‘ Pallas’ right on board the ‘ Minerve.’ 
 As the two vessels struck, the guns of the‘ Pallas’ 
 were knocked back into their ports; but they did 
 not break their breeching, and their contents were 
 discharged with terrible effect into the ‘ Minerve’s’ 
 hull. ‘Three pistol-shots were the only sign of life 
 the French frigate give: her decks were deserted 
 by allexcept her captain and a few officers. But 
 in the collision the little ‘ Pallas’ had her fore-top- 
 mast, jib-boom, others of her spars, and much of 
 her rigging carried away, and, what was worst of 
 all, Cochrane lost his bower anchor, by which he 
 had hoped to hook-on his adversary, and carry her 
 by boarding. His lordship, however, would have 
 iried to grasp the ‘ Minerve’ by some other means, 
 and, as her fore-yard was gone, as her sails, which 
 had been flouting the air so proudly, were all in 
 ribands or lying huddled on her deck, and as her 
 rigging was cut to pieces, there was a very pro- 
 mising prospect of his making her his prize; but 
 the French admiral sent out two other frigates, 
 and the saucy ‘ Pallas,’ nearly a wreck herself, bore 
 up for the offing.* 
 
 Having passed under a succession of triumphal 
 arches erected on his road in different German 
 cities and capitals by the un-German princes and 
 grandees and burghers, Bonaparte had reached 
 Paris in the month of January. The Parisians, 
 enchanted with the affair of Ulm and the battle of 
 Austerlitz, and kept up to the hottest point of 
 enthusiasm by bulletins and Moniteur articles, 
 flocked out to meet him on the road, to shout and 
 applaud, and present to him crowns of laurel and 
 verses. Weare told that the scene resembled the 
 triumphant entrances into Rome of Augustus and 
 Trajan. The senate, the legislative body, the 
 tribunate, collected round him in the Tuileries to 
 float him on a sea of compliment and adulation. 
 The tribunate seems to have borne away the palm 
 on this occasion: one of its members, Carion-de- 
 Nisas, who had inaugurated the empire, concluded 
 a florid harangue by proposing that a triumphal 
 column should be erected in one of the public 
 squares; that the victories should be represented 
 upon the column in bold relief, and that a statue of 
 
 * James, Naval Hist.—Lord Cochrane’s Dispatches.—Ann. Regist. 
 
 the emperor in antique costume should be place 
 on the summit; that»medals should be struck, ar 
 public games in the manner of the ancients inst 
 tuted ; and that there should be an eternal holide 
 to celebrate the glory of the army and the immo 
 tality of their Cesar. This was the crigin of th 
 bronze-covered column in the Place Vendédme, c 
 Place des Victoires. All this adulation, howeve: 
 could not save the tribunate, the only talking pai 
 of the imperial constitution, from a sentence of di: 
 solution. This body had been curtailed of i 
 fair proportions long ago, the most obstinate of il 
 members had been weeded out, but still those wh 
 remained would insist on their constitutional rigl 
 to talk and rather publicly debate public questions 
 and now and then some words of liberty or of cor 
 tradiction would issue from the Palais-Royal, a 
 Palais-Egalité, as it was still called, the plac 
 of their meeting. These orators had grow 
 bolder during the absence of their empero 
 in the valley of the Danube and in Moravia, an 
 during the great money-panic ; and their boldnes 
 seems to have given considerable uneasiness t 
 Fouche. On the return of the conqueror, excey 
 when it uttered some panegyric, the tribunat 
 became most loyally mute; and, very soon afte: 
 it got its eternal quietus and dissolution in a 
 imperial decree. There then remained of the im 
 perial and unchangeable constitution, the alway 
 silent corps legislatif and the always obedien 
 senate. The Bank of France was re-organized b 
 the emperor. Severe laws were passed against th 
 importation of any English manufactures. Th 
 republican calendar, which some silly peopl 
 would still persist to use, was declared to be ai 
 abomination and an illegality, and the Christian Gre 
 gorian calendar was ordered to be used in all cir 
 cumstances, public or private. The Pantheon, th 
 scene of so many Pagan farces, was restored to th 
 Christian worship and to its old name of St 
 Geneviéve.* It was decreed that there should b 
 a solemn religious ceremony in that church on th 
 day of the saint-patroness, on the 15th of August 
 on the festival of St. Napoleon (the priests had foun 
 a saint for him in their calendar, and, though 1 
 was but an obscure saint, the éclat of the empero 
 made up for it), on the anniversary of the conclusior 
 of the Concordat, on the anniversary of his corona 
 tion, and on that of the battle of Austerlitz, &c. Th 
 Constituent Assembly had declared the Pantheon t 
 be consecrated by the country to the sepulchre an 
 memory of her great men: Bonaparte decree 
 that this destination should not be altered; but h 
 defined who and what men were to be consideres 
 as great men, and these were the grand dignitarie 
 of the empire, the grand officers of the crown 
 the senators, the grand officers of the legion o 
 honour, &c. These great men were all such a 
 wore his livery and attached themseives to hi 
 triumphal car. But by aspecial decree such citi 
 
 * It was about this time that Bonaparte wrote to Pope Pius VI 
 to request him to annul, by the canons of the church, the marriaf 
 of his brother Jerome with a Protestant. i 
 
aa @” he > 5 
 
 Caar. VIII. ] 
 
 zens as distinguished themselves in the career of 
 arms, or of administration, or of science and letters, 
 and as rendered eminent services to the country, 
 were to have their bodies embalmed and were to 
 enjoy a tomb in Ste. Geneviéve. But, as no ser- 
 vices would be considered eminent except services 
 rendered to the emperor or to his system, it was 
 clear that those who were anxious for the funeral 
 honours must consult his sole will. In the same 
 erand decree that regulated the church of Ste. 
 Genevieve, the abbey of St. Denis, from which the 
 canaille of the revolution had torn the bones and 
 ashes of the old kings, was consecrated to the se- 
 pulture of the emperors ; a chapter composed of 
 ten canons was appointed to do duty in the church 
 and guard the tombs; and the emperor’s chaplain- 
 in-chief was to be head of this chapter of St. 
 Denis; and four chapels were to be erected, three 
 close by the spaces occupied by the tombs of the 
 French kings of the first, second, and third race, 
 and the fourth chapel to stand on the spot des- 
 tined for the tombs of the Emperor Napoleon and 
 the emperors his successors. 
 
 There was a new distribution of honours and 
 titles. And, no longer satisfied with mere titular 
 denominations, and still following, as he fancied, 
 the example of the Emperor Charlemagne, he be- 
 gan to create grand fiefs of the empire, to be held 
 by a sort of feudal tenure. Here broad territories 
 were affixed to the titles. At first these territories 
 were selected exclusively in the countries he had 
 overrun or conquered, and by preference in Italy 
 and the regions at the end or on the opposite side 
 of the Adriatic Sea. About the same time that he 
 gave to his brother Joseph investiture of the king- 
 dom of Naples and Sicily, he threw off six decrees, 
 distributing these imperial fiefs. In the first, after 
 declaring the Venetian states to be united to the 
 kingdom of Italy, he clipped out large tracts of 
 those states and made twelve dukedoms or duchies 
 of them, giving the first, the duchy of Dalmatia, to 
 Marshal Soult, that of Istria to Marshal Bessieres, 
 that of Friuli to his favourite aide-de-camp and 
 grand marshal of the palace Duroc, that of Cadore 
 to Champagny (formerly an officer in the navy, 
 but now one of Bonaparte’s favourite diplomatists), 
 that of Belluno to Marshal Victor, that of Coneg- 
 liano to Marshal Moncey, that of Treviso to Mar- 
 shal Mortier, that of Feltri to General Clarke, that 
 of Bassano to the secretary-minister-of-state Maret, 
 that of Vicenza to the kidnapping Caulaincourt, 
 that of Rovigo to Savary (the executioner of the 
 Duke d’Enghien). In another of these fief-bestow- 
 ing decrees he took two other slices out of the so- 
 called Italian kingdom, and constituted with them 
 the duchy of Massa-Carrara, and the duchy of 
 Parma and Piacenza, which were to be held di- 
 rectly of the imperial French crown. In another 
 of the decrees he conferred the Italian duchy 
 of Guastalla on his sister Pauline, who was al- 
 ready well provided for by her marriage with the 
 great Roman Prince Borghese. But even now 
 dukedoms were made, or principalities conferred, 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 337 
 
 in other countries besides Italy and the Venetian 
 states. One of the decrees named Marshal Murat, 
 the emperor’s brother-in-law, Grand Duke of 
 Cleves and of Berg; granting him the full sove- 
 reignty of those states, with all the mghts and 
 privileges which had been formerly possessed in 
 them by the King of Prussia and the Elector of 
 Bavaria. In another decree that anomalous state 
 Neufchatel, which was, or had been, at one and the 
 same time, a Swiss Canton and a principality of 
 the King of Prussia, as representative of the House 
 of Brandenburg, was granted to Marshal Berthier, 
 in full sovereignty and property.* 
 
 These French soldiers of fortune, who, for the 
 far greater part, had risen from the lowest condi- 
 tion, and had made profession of the most down- 
 right sans-culottism, lost no time in making use of 
 their high titles. Henceforward Murat, the son of 
 the innkeeper and postmaster, never signed his 
 name but as “‘ Joachim, Grand Duke of Berg ;” 
 and Berthier, the son of a poor and obscure officer, 
 signed, “ Alexandre, Prince of Neufchatel ’»—just 
 as the Czar signed, ‘‘ Alexander, Emperor of all 
 the Russias.’’+ 
 
 Soon afterwards the duchy of Parma was con- 
 ferred upon Cambacérés, and that of Piacenza on 
 General Lebrun; Benevento and Pontecorvo, 
 which lie in the heart of the Neapolitan kingdom 
 (but which belonged to the pope, as Avignon in 
 France had once done), were turned into French 
 principalities ; and Benevento was given to foreign- 
 minister Talleyrand, and Pontecorvo to Marshal 
 Bernadotte. Fouché became Duke of Otranto; 
 Marshal Lannes, Duke of Montebello; Marshal 
 Massena, Duke of Rivoli; Marshal Augereau, 
 Duke of Castiglione; &c. &c. When territories 
 could not conveniently be attached to the titles, or 
 when these territories were not considered ade- 
 quate, pensions were drawn from the conquered or 
 tributary countries. Thus the kingdom of Naples, 
 and the so-called kingdom of Italy, were taxed to 
 an enormous amount; while, in Germany, the small 
 and poor country of Hanover alone was made to 
 contribute more than 90,000/. sterling per annum 
 to keep up the state and dignity of these repub- 
 lican parvenus. 
 
 All the members of the Senate, indiscrimi- 
 nately, got the title of “‘ Count.” No satirist, or 
 writer of political romance, could have equalled 
 the farces which followed. Cambacé¢rés, in an- 
 nouncing the emperor’s beneficence and magnani- 
 mity, exclaimed, “ Senators! you are no longer 
 obscure plebeians or simple citizens. The statute 
 which I hold in my hand confers on you the ma- 
 jestic title of Count!” Half of those conscript- 
 fathers had been rabid Jacobins, and had taken 
 oaths innumerable in favour of liberty and equality, 
 and against the accursed distinctions of title and 
 rank and an hereditary aristocracy ; but neverthe- 
 less they made their hall shake with their plau- 
 dits, and they shouted still louder when Camba- 
 
 * Decrees in Moniteur and Hist. Parlément. 
 
 + Capefigue. 
 Vv 
 
338 
 
 cérés told them that all their children would enjoy | 
 
 their titles. 
 
 _ For some time Bonaparte respected the real na- 
 tive territory of France, creating no fiefs there. 
 He indeed created numerous majorats, by which 
 property was strictly entailed upon eldest sons; 
 but he shrunk from attacking the law of succession, 
 or of equal distribution of property, which the re- 
 volution had established, and which the people 
 declared to be sacred. In a few months, however, 
 it was found convenient to annex the duchy of 
 Guastalla to the kingdom of Italy; and then he 
 indemnified his sister the Princess Pauline, on 
 whom he had conferred that territory, by giving 
 her territory in France. And in the same decree 
 he clearly announced his intention of making more 
 majorats, and of creating large hereditary estates 
 to be inherited with titles by eldest sons. The 
 Jacobins and equality men who had survived de- 
 struction grumbled in their garrets and cellars; 
 but they could do nothing but grumble: the ancient 
 noblesse of the Faubourg St. Germain laughed at 
 these new princes, dukes, and counts; but, as it 
 was the new ones and not the old that had money, 
 favour, influence, and patronage, the parvenus 
 could afford to return the laugh. 
 
 Before this time the emperor appears to have 
 determined to put crowns upon the heads of all 
 his brothers except Lucien. It was on the 30th 
 of March that he invested his brother Joseph. On 
 the 5th of June he proclaimed his brother Louis 
 King of Holland, thus transforming by a stroke of 
 the pen the Batavian republic into a kingdom de- 
 pendent on France. In giving Louis his investi- 
 ture he told him that, though he was going to reign 
 over the Dutch, he must never cease to be a 
 
 Louis BONAPARTE. 
 
 Frenchman; that his hereditary dignity of Con- 
 stable of the Empire must constantly remind him 
 
 _ of the duties he owed to the Emperor of the French: 
 —in other words poor Louis was told that he 
 must do whatever his brother should command. 
 Another monarchy was selected for Jerome in 
 Germany; but matters were not yet ripe for that 
 investiture. 
 
 rp eee ernie origin ta 
 
 o 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X 
 
 The Confederation of the Rhine had elected the 
 Emperor Napoleon to be their “ Protector.” By 
 a secret treaty, which was made public about the 
 end of July, the Kings of Bavaria and Wirtem- 
 berg, the Elector Archchancellor of the Germanic 
 empire, the Elector of Baden, the Grand Duke ot 
 Berg and Cleves (Murat), the Prince of Hess« 
 Darmstadt, and ten other petty sovereign princes. 
 separated themselves from the Germanic empire, 
 and united ina distinct confederation, to be guided 
 by its own Diet and under its own primate. This 
 primate was declared to be the elector ex-chan- 
 cellor of the empire; but the Emperor Napoleon 
 was to have the right of naming this primate’s 
 successor. All these German states were to be 
 bound to one another and to France by an alliance 
 offensive and defensive. In case of another coali- 
 tion and continental war, they were all to act to- 
 gether, France engaging to furnish 200,000 men, 
 Bavaria 30,000, Wiirtemberg 12,000, Baden 
 8000, Berg and Cleves 5000, Darmstadt and the 
 other states 4000 each. This arrangement went 
 to array 100,000 German troops on the side of 
 Bonaparte and against the liberty and indepen- 
 dence of Germany. Other states were invited to 
 join the confederation. 
 
 In some particulars the imitation of the Empe- 
 ror Charlemagne was no farce. Bonaparte had 
 now under his hands the whole of the west of 
 Europe. As emperor and king he was absolute 
 master of France and Italy, as mediator he was 
 master of Switzerland, as protector he was master 
 of a considerable part of Germany: Naples and 
 Holland he governed through his two brothers, 
 Spain had been reduced to a passive and abject 
 submission to his will, and had ere this engaged 
 to assist him in subjugating Portugal. Such was 
 his prepotency when Prussia, who had remained 
 neutral when by co-operating with Russia, Austria, 
 aud England she might have crushed him, found 
 herself dragged into a war with him, and almost 
 single-handed to meet him in mortal contest. 
 Notwithstanding the alliance and close connexion 
 with the court of St. James’s, the court of Berlin 
 had not hesitated to take possession of Hanover, 
 in exchange for which it had ceded to Bonaparte 
 Neufchatel, Berg and Cleves, Anspach, and other 
 strips of territory, and to close all the ports in his 
 Prussian majesty’s dominions to British trade and 
 shipping. Prussia remained, to all appearance, 
 contented and complacent until she learned that 
 France had made an offer to Lord Lauderdale 
 to restore Hanover to England, and even to 
 annex to that electorate the Hanse Towns, &e. 
 But the animosity occasioned by this disclosure 
 was much heightened by the tone which Bonaparte 
 and his official Moniteur now assumed. That con- 
 queror thought he had allowed Prussia to make too 
 good a bargain for herself; that he had nothing 
 more to fear from Austria, or even from Russia; 
 that the Confederation of the Rhine would enable 
 him to trample upon a power which had been 
 raised by the fortune of the sword, at a compara- 
 
Onar. VITI.] CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 tively recent date, and of which nearly all the 
 petty potentates of Germany, once equal or su- 
 perior to the House of Brandenburg, were exces- 
 sively and madly jealous. He felt himself hum- 
 bled by the concessions he had been obliged to 
 make to Prussia; and he retained a bitter recol- 
 lection of the uneasiness her undecided line of 
 conduct had several times caused him during his 
 last campaign. He calculated that a great deal 
 might be gained by going to war with her; and he 
 doubted whether, if ever so much disposed to remain 
 at peace with her, she would not take an early op- 
 portunity of appealing to arms. His preponderance 
 in Germany, and the disclosure of his secret treaty 
 with the confederation of the Rhine, he must have 
 felt, were things not to be submitted to by the great 
 power of the north of Germany without a struggle. 
 He knew that there was, and long had been, a 
 strong war, or anti-Gallican, party at Berlin, headed 
 by the Queen of Prussia and Prince Louis, the 
 king’s cousin—a party who had all along deplored 
 the mean, shuffling conduct of their cabinet, and 
 who had long been exerting themselves to displace 
 Count Haugwitz and his colleagues. Hence Bona- 
 parte was induced to give an underhand encourage- 
 ment to the propagation of slanders and invented 
 stories, injurious to the character of her Prussian 
 majesty, and offensive beyond measure to the feel~ 
 ings of the king, her husband, by whom she was 
 tenderly and almost romantically beloved. 
 
 QUEEN OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 This was Bonaparte’s constant practice; this 
 was a species of offence which he committed upon 
 principle. Jupiter-Scapin had studied in the 
 school of Don Basile. When the minister of a 
 foreign power, like Prince John of Lichtenstein or 
 Count Haugwitz, played into his hands, submitted 
 to his will, or allowed himself to be overawed by 
 his rhetoric and his display of force, he extolled 
 him to the skies, and caused articles to be inserted 
 in the Moniteur, representing him as an enlightened 
 statesman and generous friend of humanity: but 
 when he encountered a foreign minister like Lord 
 Whitworth or the Prince Dolgorouki, who main- 
 tained the dignity of his country and sovereign, nor 
 yielded a jot either to his threats or to his cajolery, 
 
 ee aC cee ne 
 
 TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 339 
 
 that man he held up as a knave or fool, as a tool 
 of Pitt, as a slave to the enemies of mankind, or 
 as a driveller who was incapable of distinguishing 
 good from ill, or of comprehending that France 
 was, and must be, the first power in the world, the 
 sole arbitress of Europe. Nor did he stop with 
 ministers and ambassadors, or with men; he ex- 
 tended his abuse to every member of every royal 
 family that was known to have no love for him or 
 his system: and he did not spare the women, 
 His calumnies against the Queen of Prussia were 
 the more atrocious, as they were directed against an 
 interesting and beautiful young woman, exemplary 
 in her private conduct, and high-minded and en-- 
 thusiastically patriotic in her public aspirations. 
 On seeing the effects of the confederation of the 
 Rhine, which almost surrounded her with hostile 
 states, or with neighbours devoted or subjected to 
 France, Prussia had some reason to complain, 
 Bonaparte answered her murmurs by making the 
 Moniteur talk of Prussia as a secondary power, 
 which was assuming a high tone not warranted by 
 its population and extent, or by its actual position. 
 A part of the victorious army which had fought 
 at Austerlitz had been left beyond the Rhine, to 
 preside over the organization of that new confede- 
 racy, or to live at free quarters among the rich 
 trading Hanse Towns, which had lost their trade, 
 and were fast losing all their wealth. According 
 to the treaty of Presburg, all these French corps 
 ought to have evacuated Germany. The King of 
 Prussia recalled his pacific ambassador Luchesini 
 from Paris, and sent thither in his stead a much 
 more determined man, General Knobelsdorff. This 
 general, however, was the bearer of an autograph 
 letter from his Prussian majesty to the emperor, 
 expressing friendly sentiments to him personally, 
 and an anxious desire to remain at peace. His 
 imperial majesty, said the king, well knew his 
 pacific disposition ; all differences between them 
 might be arranged by the evacuation of Germany ; 
 the Confederation of the Rhine certainly gave Na- 
 poleon a too great ascendancy over the German 
 people, and could not but excite the alarm of 
 Prussia as well as of Austria; but still, peace, 
 peace, was the wish of all! Bonaparte, if he did 
 not absolutely refuse to withdraw his troops from 
 beyond the Rhine, certainly left them just where 
 they were, and denied that Prussia or any other 
 power had a right to complain of their presence. 
 It even appears that he reinforced those troops the 
 very moment Prussia began to murmur, or’ the 
 very moment he began to insult her in his Mo- 
 niteur. At the beginning of September he col- 
 lected his great captains around him in Paris— 
 Soult, Augereau, and Bernadotte, who had been 
 serving in Germany, and Murat, who had been 
 residing for a season in his grand duchy of Berg, 
 which he liked so well that he was anxious to 
 extend the limits of his territories, if not to carve 
 out a kingdom for himself in those parts—and he 
 consulted with them as to the best means of com- 
 mencing and conducting a campaign against 
 
540 
 
 Prussia, so as to render it as rapid and decisive as 
 his last campaign against Austria. 
 
 In a note delivered to Talleyrand on the Ist of 
 October, General Knobelsdorff said, and said 
 truly, “ that the king his master saw around his 
 territories none but French soldiers or vassals of 
 France, ready to march at his signal ;’’ and he 
 peremptorily required that the French troops should 
 forthwith evacuate the territory of Germany. To 
 this Bonaparte made answer in the haughtiest tone 
 of defiance, that for Prussia to provoke the enmity 
 of France was as senseless a course as to pretend 
 to withstand the waves of the ocean! . On the 9th 
 of October the King of Prussia, who had put his 
 army in motion, issued a long manifesto from his 
 head-quarters at Erfurt ; he recapitulated the long 
 series of French encroachments, many of which 
 could not have been effected if they had not been 
 connived at by his own base cabinet; and he 
 dwelt upon the ambition of the Emperor of the 
 French, as though he had now for the first time 
 discovered its existence. This was the war-note ; 
 there was no formal declaration of hostilities on 
 either part. But, before this signal was given, Bo- 
 naparte, having quitted Paris on the 25th of Sep- 
 tember, without communicating his designs either 
 to the senate or to the corps léqislatif, was on the 
 Rhine, and quite ready to begin operations. He 
 had, in fact, been in a state of readiness ever since 
 the beginning of August ; for at that time his army 
 of Germany, then under the supreme command of 
 Berthier, was extended from Baden to Dusseldorff, 
 and from Frankfort to Nuremberg—the main-body 
 being in a manner already in position, and only 
 waiting the arrival of the reserve. 
 
 The Emperor of Russia had refused to ratify the 
 disgraceful treaty which his minister d’Oubril had 
 really signed separately at Paris during Lord 
 Lauderdale’s negotiations, and was again in the 
 field, though far away beyond the Vistula. The 
 Prussians have been taxed with the same fault 
 which the Austrians had committed in 1805, in 
 not waiting for the arrival of the Russians in Ger- 
 many. But, by the time it became known at Berlin 
 that the Emperor Alexander had refused to ratify 
 the treaty of peace with France, Bonaparte was 
 fully prepared to commence operations against 
 Prussia, and his cunning negotiator, General Se- 
 bastiani, haying been dispatched to Constantinople, 
 had got up a “ very pretty quarrel ” between the 
 Ottoman Porte and Russia, a quarrel which led to 
 the sultan’s abandoning his former alliances with 
 England and Russia, to the hasty contracting of a 
 new alliance with France, and to an actual war 
 between the Turks and Russians, which commenced 
 in November, and gave occupation to a large part 
 of the czar’sarmy. The cabinet of Berlin has been 
 also censured for not waiting for pecuniary aid and 
 other succours from England; but our cabinet 
 neither before the crisis nor after it showed any 
 great alacrity or liberality ; the succour from Eng- 
 land, like the arrival of armies from Russia, 
 seemed distant and uncertain. On the intelli- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 gence that Prussia had taken possession of Hanover, 
 and had closed her ports to the British flag, 
 Fox had recalled our ambassador from Berlin, an 
 embargo had been laid upon all Prussian vessels 
 in the harbours of Great Britain and Ireland, and 
 the Elbe, the Weser, and the other German rivers 
 had been again declared in a state of blockade. 
 At the first symptom of the political change in 
 the cabinet of Berlin, our government had pro- 
 fessed a great readiness to renew friendly relations ; 
 they had instantly removed the blockade of the 
 ports and rivers, which had caused much incon- 
 venience to Prussia, and the whole of the north of 
 Germany; and they dispatched Lord Morpeth on 
 an embassy to his Prussian Majesty. But Lord 
 Morpeth, who did not quit London until the Ist of 
 October, did not reach the Prussian head-quarters 
 at Weimar until the 12th, when the two hostile 
 armies were almost in presence of each other. The 
 conduct of the Prussian ministers, indeed, appears 
 to have been shuffling and reprehensible in other 
 respects, even then; but his lordship brought 
 neither subsidy nor an army, nor the promise of 
 either from England; and at the time of his lord- 
 ship’s arrival it was no longer possible to avoid 
 a battle, without retreating, and leaving Berlin 
 open to the French. The monstrous folly and 
 the guilt of Prussia had all been committed im the 
 autumn of 1805; and now nothing could haye 
 saved her from the consequences. It was Bona- 
 parte that fixed, and not Prussia that chose, the 
 moment for going to war. No suppression of 
 complaint, scarcely any amount of submission 
 short of putting her fortresses and her armies in 
 his hands, would have prevented Bonaparte’s cam- 
 paign. The intact state of the Prussian forces was 
 constantly in his thoughts; he wanted to break, 
 scatter, and demoralize that fine army—to reduce 
 it to the state in which he had left the Austrian 
 army-—before it could be joined by Russian, Swede, 
 or English. If there was an ardent war-party at 
 Berlin, there was a still hotter and more impatient 
 war-party at Paris, where other soldiers of fortune, 
 besides Murat, were dreaming of possessions or 
 principalities in Germany. Bonaparte, we repeat, 
 was ready for the campaign in August. If Lord 
 Morpeth had arrived in Prussia in the month of 
 August, the French would have begun the campaign 
 then ; and this they would also have done if the Em- 
 peror Alexander had then begun to move towards 
 Germany, or to approach the Vistula. 
 
 The force which Bonaparte brought into the 
 field was numerically superior to the Prussian 
 army ; as he advanced he had in his front and on — 
 both his flanks none but friendly states ; the armies 
 of the Confederation of the Rhine were ready to 
 co-operate with him ; and he had in his rear, behind 
 the Rhine, an immense force in disciplined troops, 
 which might be called a disposable , force, as he 
 had anticipated a whole year’s conscription, or 
 raised in 1806 the levies which by law ought to 
 have been raised in 1807. Prussia, on the other 
 hand, had only one reluctant ally, the Elector of 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 Saxony, who evidently would have behaved now 
 towards Prussia as Prussia had behaved towards 
 the coalition in the preceding autumn, if the Prince 
 of Hohenlohe had not marched into the country at 
 the head of a division of the Prussian army. One 
 or two of the petty states, expecting subsidies from 
 England, which did not arrive, professed a perfect 
 neutrality. Some German poets and _ political 
 writers had counted upon a revival of the old Ger- 
 man feeling, and on a popular impetus which would 
 overthrow the selfish arrangements of cabinets 
 and little potentates; but the moment was not yet 
 come—that pear was not yet ripe. 
 
 In one particular the Prussians followed pretty 
 closely the fatal example of the Austrians in 1805 ; 
 they extended their line of operations far too much, 
 being almost incredibly oblivious of the very simple 
 and never varying tactics of their adversary. On 
 the 6th of October, Bonaparte had collected his 
 columns about Bamberg; and on the 8th (four 
 days before Lord Morpeth’s arrival at Weimar), 
 he commenced a variety of skilful and successful 
 but very simple movements, which ended in his 
 turning the Prussian left, in his gaining possession 
 of most of their magazines, and interposing between 
 their main body and the city of Berlin. 
 
 The French were now posted along the river 
 Saale from Naumburg to Kahla, with their centre 
 at Jena. The Prussians were ranged between 
 Jena and Auerstadt. The road to Dresden, the 
 capital of Saxony, lay as open to the French as the 
 road to Berlin. The Duke of Brunswick, the 
 commander-in-chief of the Prussian army, called 
 in his outposts, which had been imprudently scat- 
 tered in all directions, and concentrated, as much 
 as it was possible, the masses of his left at Auerstadt. 
 The Queen of Prussia, mounted on horseback, rode 
 along the splendid lines, to encourage, by her pre- 
 sence, the 50,000. fighting-men collected on that 
 poit, On the morning of the 14th of October, 
 the vanguard of Marshal Davoust, who commanded 
 the French right, came in contact with the van of 
 the Duke of Brunswick. It was a dense fog; and, 
 though the march of the meeting forces was made 
 sensible to the ear, the eye could distinguish no- 
 thing until the foes were within musket-shot of 
 each other. But the sun dissipated the fog and 
 mists; and then, the Prussian cavalry having upset 
 Dayoust’s vanguard, the Duke of Brunswick’s 
 columns threw themselves upon the French marshal. 
 The Prussian army, as compared with the total of the 
 French army, were inferior in number by nearly a 
 third; but the force which actually attacked Da- 
 voust was superior to his, as Bonaparte had con- 
 centrated the great mass of his forces six leagues 
 off, at Jena, the position which he had chosen for 
 himself, and where he was commanding in person. 
 The consequence was, that Davoust was all but 
 crushed; his cavalry could not stand against 
 Brunswick’s ; and some of his infantry regiments 
 scarcely found time to form in square, before the 
 brilliant Prussian horse were upou them, followed 
 by the well-directed shot of the Prussian light ar- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806, 
 
 a a aaa 
 
 341 
 
 tillery. Before the hour of noon, the field was 
 strewed with killed and wounded, and the Prussians 
 had a decided advantage. Davoust sent an aide- 
 de-camp to request Marshal Bernadotte to come to 
 his support. Bernadotte could not move himself, 
 as he had been stationed in an important position 
 to support his Emperor, who remained at Jena; 
 but he detached the division of General Dupont to 
 assist Davoust. About the hour of noon, when 
 Davoust seemed standing on the brink of ruin, 
 Bonaparte made a terrible attack on the enemy in 
 front of his own position, who were, numerically, 
 much more inferior to his force than his right, 
 under Davoust, was inferior to the force of the 
 Duke of Brunswick. Spurring from Jena with 
 nearly the whole of the cavalry in the French army, 
 Murat charged the Prussian infantry in his front. 
 The old Prussian marshal, Méllendorf, who com- 
 manded there, was badly wounded; his infantry 
 fell into some disorder, and began to retreat upon 
 Weimar. The Saxon contingents, who, in all, 
 amounted to about 20,000 men, did not behave 
 very well: the hearts of their officers were not in 
 the cause; it had been a toss-up whether the men 
 should fight for the French or against them; they 
 disliked the Prussians, and they fought softly, mo/- 
 lement. By this time, Davoust had 8000 or 9000 
 killed, or put hors de combat: he maintained his 
 ground with great tenacity; but it appears that he 
 must have been utterly crushed, if it had not been 
 for the opportune arrival of Dupont’s division. 
 But, in this double battle, the retreat of Marshal 
 Mollendorf seriously committed the safety of all 
 the rest of the Prussian army; and, in a terrible 
 charge made to dislodge Davoust, several Prussian 
 generals had fallen at the heads of their columns, 
 and the old Duke of Brunswick, their commander- 
 in-chief, had been blinded by a wound on the 
 brow, and had received other hurts, which even- 
 tually proved mortal. It was about two o’clock in 
 the afternoon when the King of Prussia received 
 the disastrous intelligence of Mdilendorf’s retreat. 
 
 Kina OF Prussia, 
 
 To re-establish his communications with that mar- 
 
 shal, the king commanded and Jed a magnificent 
 charge, in the confident hope of finishing with 
 
842 
 
 Davoust, and opening his own way to the road to 
 Weimar, which Modllendorf had taken. But a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 fatality attended all his exertions: while hardly © 
 
 one of the French generals was seriously wounded, 
 his own general officers had fallen, and continued 
 to fall, thick about him; his brother, Prince 
 Henry, was dangerously wounded, and obliged to 
 quit the field; (his cousin, the gallant Prince 
 Louis, had been killed in an unequal fight at Saal- 
 feld, two days before this decisive double battle,)— 
 General Schmettau received a ball in the breast ; 
 the king himself had two horses killed under him, 
 and was, for a moment, believed to be killed him- 
 self. Thus the magnificent charge failed; and, 
 before the Prussians could attempt another, Ber- 
 nadotte, gliding between the two battles, got into 
 the Prussian rear, and made several battalions lay 
 down their arms. The fortunate Gascon made this 
 movement, which decided the fate of the day, and 
 of the two battles of Auerstadt and Jena, with 
 18,000 fresh troops, who had been posted on the 
 heights of Apolda, and who had not hitherto been 
 exposed either to the fire of the enemy, or to any 
 fatigue or exertion whatsoever. It appears to be 
 most clearly demonstrated, that Bernadotte could 
 not move, and ought not to have moved, earlier 
 than he did; that if he had quitted his position at 
 Apolda, where his emperor himself had com- 
 manded him to remain, to march in full force to 
 support Davoust, and to get early into action, 
 Bonaparte’s whole plan would have been dislocated, 
 and the main body of his army fighting at Jena 
 would have been thrown into a false and perilous 
 position. Yet Bonaparte, allowing but a stinted 
 share of praise to Davoust, who had kept his 
 ground so manfully against superior numbers, ac- 
 cused Bernadotte of slowness and lukewarmness, 
 and cast ambiguous reproaches upon him for not 
 going earlier into battle,—that is, for not having 
 done what he had expressly commanded him not 
 to do. .The Bonapartists always adopted the 
 prejudices of their emperor, and took his word 
 as law and gospel ; and writers not of that school, 
 nor even of that nation, have strangely shut their 
 eyes to the jealousy and personal antipathy which 
 Bonaparte entertained against Bernadotte, the 
 least complying and the clearest-headed of all 
 his generals. At this moment Bernadotte was 
 more odious to Bonaparte than ever Moreau had 
 been. A system of detraction and calumny had 
 already been adopted against him, and a less firm 
 and less able man must have been ruined by it. 
 General Rapp tells us, that, on the evening after 
 the battle, Bonaparte uttered many spiteful things 
 against Bernadotte, and exclaimed—* That Gascon 
 
 will never do better!” But the Gascon had done 
 
 what was best to do, and what he had been ordered 
 to do. Bernadotte said, very shortly after, to Bour- 
 _rienne—“I know I did my duty. Let the em- 
 peror accuse me if he will, he shall haye his answer. 
 I am a Gascon, it is true, but he is a greater gas- 
 conader than I am.”’ 
 
 The timely movement of Bernadotte, we repeat, 
 
 ———— se eenenenneenenee 
 
 ; 
 
 [Boox X. 
 decided the double victory. It also cut off the 
 retreat of a large part of the Prussian army. The 
 Prussians, not knowing the numerical force of the 
 fresh troops, thus suddenly brought into their rear, 
 lost heart and began surrendering in masses ; 
 they could not effect a proper junction with their 
 countrymen who had been fighting at Jena. Such 
 of them as got on the road and retreated towards 
 Weimar, found Marshal Modllendorf’s columns 
 broken and disordered; the road got blocked up, 
 and there followed a scene of irremediable cou- 
 fusion. ‘There was scarcely a general officer left 
 alive, and in condition to issue orders; and the 
 panic of the men indisposed them to obedience, 
 and destroyed that military instinct which has so 
 often rescued brave and veteran troops. ‘The greater 
 part of the artillery was taken. According to the 
 French accounts, which are rather less exaggerated 
 than usual, 20,000 Prussians were killed or cap- 
 tured in the course of this fatal day ; 300 pieces of 
 artillery, twenty general officers, and 60 standards 
 were taken. On the following day, the 15th of 
 October, old Marshal M6llendorf, who had retired 
 to Erfurt with the remnant of his forces, was com- 
 pelled to surrender. General Kalkreuth, who at- 
 tempted to cross the Hartz mountains, was over- 
 taken and routed. Prince Eugene of Wurtem- 
 berg, commanding an untouched body of 16,000 _ 
 men, who ought to have been brought into action 
 on the 14th, attempted to interpose between the 
 routed divisions of the Prussians and the victorious 
 masses of the French; but he was attacked with 
 superior forces by Bernadotte, and, being com-— 
 pletely beaten, such as remained of his 16,000 
 men added one disorderly torrent more to the 
 many that were flowing northward in the direction 
 of Magdeburg, which the king had appointed as 
 the chief rallying ground. 
 
 The Prussians were now almost as much iso- 
 lated and cut off from their resources, and were — 
 altogether well nigh in as bad a condition as the 
 Austrians at Ulm had been a year ago. Prince ~ 
 Hohenlohe, though badly wounded, did indeed — 
 contrive to assemble 50,000 men behind the strong ¢ 
 walls of Magdeburg ; but these fugitives were mili- _ 
 tarily demoralized, the copious magazines and — 
 stures of the town had been removed to supply the — 
 Duke of Brunswick’s army, hardly anything was — 
 left there, and victorious French columns were — 
 posted between Magdeburg and the other great — 
 depdts. Bonaparte availed himself of his adyan-— 
 tages in writing a most insulting letter to the un- 
 fortunate King of Prussia ; and a few days later, — 
 when the Duke of Brunswick, who had retiréd so 
 badly wounded from the fight at Auerstadt, wrote — 
 to him in a pacificatory tone, and addressed him | 
 as a conqueror capable of generosity and magna- 
 nimity, he replied both with insolence and with 
 barbarity. He told the brave old soldier (the 
 duke was in his 72nd year), that he had made up 
 his mind to destroy his city, to occupy his heredi- 
 tary states, and displace his family for ever ; 
 he indulged in the mean spite of styling the sove- 
 
Cuar. VII. 
 
 reign duke “General Brunswick.” The duke 
 retired into Denmark with the intention of embark- 
 ing for England; but his wounds were inflamed 
 by travelling and vexation of spirit, and he died at 
 Altona before a ship could be got ready for him. 
 His son and successor, considering him as foully 
 murdered, vowed eternal revenge against the 
 French, and kept that vow until he fell in the field 
 
 at Waterloo. 
 On the 18th of October Marshal Davoust, with 
 
 nothing to oppose him in Saxony, took quiet pos- 
 session of the city of Leipsic, and published his 
 emperor's ruthless edict against British merchan- 
 dise and all holders of English property.* The 
 Elector of Saxony, who had so reluctantly joined 
 Prussia, immediately made overtures to Bonaparte 
 for a separate peace, and a beginning was soon 
 made to that close un-German alliance which gave 
 the elector a kingly crown, with a vast accession of 
 
 * This edict ought to have given the irresolute and unpatriotic 
 Saxons clearly to understand the blessings they were to expect from 
 French domination. It appears to have been published on the very 
 day that Davoust entered Leipsic. Seven years after this there wasa 
 memorable anniversary, for it was on the 18th of October, 1813, that 
 the Saxon army turned against him in the field, and that Bonaparte 
 lost the creat battle of Leipsic. 
 
 The edict, after stating that the city of Leipsic was known through- 
 out Europe as the principal depdt of English merchandise, and that 
 in consequence Leipsic was a most dangerous enemy to France, ordered, 
 in the name of the emperor and king—1l. That within four-and-twenty 
 hours every banker, merchant, or manufacturer haviug in his posses- 
 sion any funds, the produce of English manufactures, whether they 
 belonged to a British subject, or the foreign consignee, should declare 
 their amount in a register appointed for that purpose.—2. That, as 
 soon as these returns should be received, domiciliary visits should 
 be made to all, whether they had declared or not, in order to compare 
 the register with the stock in hand, to ascertain its exactness, and 
 punish by military execution any attempt at fraud or concealment. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 343 
 
 territory, chiefly torn from the Prussian monarchy, 
 and which bound Saxony to Bonaparte for seven 
 long eventful years. As Bonaparte traversed the 
 field of Rosbach, where the Prussians under Frede- 
 rick the Great had annihilated a French army, 
 he ordered his soldiers to knock down a small 
 column which commemorated that event. It was 
 on the 25th of October that the main body of the 
 French entered Berlin, and that the new con- 
 queror took possession of the palace of the great 
 Frederick. He named Clarke Duke de Feltri, one 
 of the most pitiless and most rapacious of all his 
 generals, military governor of the capital and neigh- 
 bouring provinces ; he took into his pay the editor 
 of the ‘ Berlin Gazette,’ who spoke of the Emperor 
 King Napoleon as the proper successor to Frederick 
 the Great ; his spies and police indicated to him 
 allsuch families among the nobility and gentry as 
 were his determined enemies, and these families he 
 proscribed, All private letters were intercepted 
 and opened. In one of these letters the Prince of 
 Hatzfeld, who had been among the heads of the 
 patriotic party, communicated to the king, his friend 
 and master, some information respecting the strength 
 and position of the French army. Upon this dis- 
 covery, Bonaparte ordered Davoust to form a mili- 
 tary commission, in order to judge the prince, “ as 
 convicted of treachery and espionage,’’ and to see 
 sentence ‘* pronounced and executed before six 
 o’clock in the evening.” The Prince of Hatzfeld 
 had been acquainted with Duroc, during that gene- 
 ral’s several embassies to Berlin, and Duroc, Rapp, 
 
 BERLIN, 
 
 ee » 
 
344 
 
 and one or two others, implored the conqueror not 
 to commit this useless and dangerous crime. The 
 often repeated story of the princess on her knees 
 before the Emperor of the French, and of his throw- 
 ing the intercepted letter into the fire, thus destroy- 
 ing what he called the only evidence of the guilt 
 of the prince, her husband, appears to be utterly 
 fabulous, and to have been invented for the sake of 
 dramatic effect. The letter was not destroyed, or, 
 if it was destroyed, a copy of it was taken first, for a 
 copy of that letter exists, and, if it is proof of any- 
 thing, it proves that the prince had done nothing but 
 his duty, and that to put him to death for what he 
 had done would have fan a crime of as deep a dye 
 as the murder of the Duke d’Enghien, or the cold- 
 blooded atrocious assassination of Palm, the book- 
 seller.* With this last foul crime Germany and 
 
 * This is one of the darkest stories in the life of Bonaparte. John 
 Philip Palm was a bookseller, residing at Nuremberg, formerly an im- 
 perial city, and now under the immediate protection of Prussia. In the 
 month of August of the present year (1806), Palm was seized in Nurem- 
 berg, by French gendarmes, was torn from his wife and children, was 
 hurtied away to Braunau, tried by a military commission or court- 
 martial, composed of seven French colonels, foran alleged libel on the 
 French emperor, condemned to death, and forthwith executed on the 
 26th day of August. The poor bookseller’s sole offence consisted in 
 having vended a pamphlet containing some severe but just remarks on 
 the fortunate soldier and his policy. Ifhe had been a French subject, 
 a trial by such a court, and such a punishment, would have been mon- 
 strous ; but, as he was no subject of France, Bonaparte had not the sha- 
 dow of a right to seize and try him. Nearly every possible illegality 
 and iniquity was concentrated in the deed. In Braunau, where the 
 bookseller was tried and shot, the laws that obtained were the laws of 
 Austria, for the town was part of the hereditary states of the Emperor 
 Francis, and, by the treaty of Presburg, Bonaparte had solemnly 
 pledged himself to restore it. He had not restored it; he had kept 
 in it a strong French garrison ; but he pretended that this was only a 
 temporary occupation rendered necessary by the proceedings of the 
 Russians in a very different part ofthe world, and over which the court 
 of Vienna conld exercise no control. With the usual dariny contempt 
 for facts and evidence,some of Bonaparte’s apologists have attempted 
 to exculpate him from this foul murder, and to throw the guilt of it 
 upon some of his over-zealous officers. This is the unvarying practice 
 of the apologists; but it will not do. The seizure and murder of the 
 poor German bookseller proceeded from Bonaparte’s deadly spite 
 against all strictures on his character and government, and from his 
 desire to strike terror—fuire peur,—and thus silence the continental 
 press wherever he could reach it, or wherever men trembled at his 
 name, not knowing how far his power might reach, or how soon his 
 sword might glitter over their own heads. The military tribunal 
 which sentenced Palm had been appointed by the direct order of Bona- 
 parte; and it was in conformity with that express order that Palm 
 was pitilessly executed three hours after receiving sentence. Though 
 the only one executed, Palm was not the only German bookseller that 
 was seized, and tried and condemned, by that unlawful and atrocious 
 tribunal at Braunau. The seven colonels of regiments, who had been 
 named by Marshal Berthier, now Alexandre, Prince of Neufchatel, 
 condemned five other booksellers and publishers; and the monstrous 
 judgments passed upon these men were commuted into galley slavery, 
 or a hard imprisonment in chains in different fortresses. 
 
 Bonaparte himself did not at the time affect to deny that these 
 iniquities proceeded from his orders. Immediately after the execution 
 of Palm, there appeared in a paper published at Munich, the capital 
 of his vassal and slave the King of Bavaria, an article, stating that, 
 by order of his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, there had been esta- 
 blished, on the 25th of August, at Braunau, “a French military com- 
 mission, to judge the authors and distributors of seditious libels, which 
 tend to mislead the minds of the inhabitants of the south of Germany, 
 to excite them to insurrection against the French troops, and princi- 
 pally to provoke those troops themselves to disobedience and a forget- 
 fulness of their duty towards their legitimate sovereign ;’’ —that 
 several individuals had been arrested, convicted, and condemned to 
 death ;—that, although six individuals had been condemned to 
 death, conformably with the general laws of war, and the military 
 code of the French empire, one only had been executed ; and this was 
 the bookseller Palm of N uremberg, ‘‘ who for a long time past was 
 known to have distributed writings which had for their object to raise 
 the people against their sovereigns and against the French.” It is 
 said that the capital offence of the German booksellers was their 
 prixting and distributing a spirited pamphlet written by the cele- 
 brated Gentz, whose pen eventually did more evil to Bonaparte than 
 many armies had done him. To impress the desired terror Bonaparte 
 ordered 60,000 copies of the sentence of his military tribunal at Brau- 
 nau to be printed and circulated all over the continent. Some patriots 
 at Berlin subscribed for the publication and distribution of 60,000 
 copies of a touching letter which Palm wrote to his wife and children 
 just before his execution. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Subscriptions were raised for his family 
 
 Bi 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 all Europe were beginning to ring. Palm had been 
 murdered on the 26th of August. It might have 
 proved dangerous to accumulate guilt of this kind 
 in Germany; and it was Bonaparte’s present ob- 
 ject to dupe the divided rulers of that country, to 
 conciliate the populations, and to induce them to 
 follow his banner or to join the confederation of 
 the Rhine. The Prince of Hatzfeld, who was 
 actually seized by Davoust, escaped summary trial 
 and execution, through these interested calculations 
 and the strong representations of Duroc and Rapp. 
 But, if the other story were true, it would not entitle 
 Bonaparte to the praises which have been lavished 
 upon him by some inconsiderate writers. We do 
 not call that man merciful who does not commit 
 murder because he has the power to do it, and a 
 strong temptation to the deed in his own bosom. 
 For there to have been mercy and magnanimity on 
 one side, there ought to have been guilt on the 
 other, and the guilt ought to have been of such a 
 nature as would justify the terrible application of 
 military law. 
 
 Still keeping uppermost in his mind his war 
 against English commerce, Bonaparte dispatched 
 Marshal Mortier to occupy the free trading city of 
 Hamburg, and seize all British goods and property 
 there. Berlin became a sort of lay Vatican, whence 
 the Emperor of the French hurled his thunderbolts 
 at our broad-cloth and calicos. The well known 
 Berlin Decree was issued on the 21st of November. 
 It was simple and concise enough :—The British 
 islands were to be considered as in a state of block- 
 ade by all the continent. All correspondence or 
 trade with England was forbidden under the se- 
 verest penalties. All articles of English manufac- 
 ture or produce of the British colonies were de- 
 clared to be contraband. Property of every kind 
 belonging to British subjects, wherever found, 
 was declared lawful prize. All letters to and from 
 England were to be detained and opened at the 
 post-offices. The last of these ordinances was 
 scarcely worthy of attention, for all sorts of letters 
 had long been detained and opened everywhere. 
 But Germany and a great part of the continent 
 were alarmed at the certain prospect of these severe 
 penalties against trade being enforced everywhere 
 by French troops. 
 
 Before quitting Berlin, Bonaparte visited the 
 tomb of Frederick the Great at Potsdam. Those 
 who wish to read the picturesque and sentimental 
 accounts of this visit may find them in the Bona- 
 partist memoir-writers: the visit ended by his 
 seizing the scarf and sword of the great soldier, 
 which were laid like sacred relics upon his tomb, 
 but which were now packed off for Paris, to wait 
 the day when Bliicher should recover them, force 
 the French to regorge their spoil, and threaten, not 
 only the column of victory and the bridge of Jena, 
 but one half of the city of Paris with destruction. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the ruin of the Prussian army 
 
 when the German people rose against the legions of the conqueror, 
 some of their regiments carried on their banners the bloody figure 
 
 in England, in Russia, and in many parts of Germany. In 1813, | of poor Palm. 
 
Cuap. VILTI.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 345 
 
 ITAMBURG. 
 
 had been nearly completed. Unable to subsist his 
 50,000 men at Magdeburg, the Prince of Hohen- 
 lohe retreated to the river Oder. He intended to 
 throw himself into the strong fortress of Spandau ; 
 but, before he could reach that place, the governor 
 had surrendered on the first summons. ‘These 
 Prussian governors of fortresses surrendered nearly 
 everywhere without firing a shot. The Prince of 
 Hohenlohe now endeavoured to reach the fortress 
 of Stettin; but he was met by Murat in a narrow 
 defile, was beaten, and compelled to choose a new 
 route, where Marshal Lannes hung upon his flank, 
 while Murat pressed upon his rear. After some 
 smart fighting, Hohenlohe was completely sur- 
 rounded near Prenzlow by Murat and Lannes, and, 
 being without provision, forage, or ammunition, he 
 surrendered with nearly 20,000 men. Bliicher, 
 who commanded Hohenlohe’s rear-guard, consist- 
 ing only of 10,000 men, was at some short dis- 
 tance when this fresh disaster occurred. Bliicher 
 was a soldier of the right stamp: instead of capi- 
 tulating, he made a gallant dash and effected his 
 escape. Keeping his littie corps unbroken, and 
 subsisting them as best he could, he traversed the 
 country for some time, sustaining several attacks 
 from far superior forces, and severely chastising, 
 in more than one instance, the overweening pre- 
 sumption of the French. At last, when hemmed 
 in at once by Soult, Murat, Lannes, and Berna- 
 dotte, he threw himself into the town of Lubeck, 
 which had no other defences than an old wall and 
 a wet ditch. To repeated summonses made to him 
 he replied, that he bad not the habit of capitulating, 
 and would never surrender. On the morning of 
 the 6th of November, the corps of Bernadotte, 
 
 Soult, and Murat forced their way into the town 
 by different gates, and then followed one, of the 
 most memorable and most bloody of street-fights. 
 Bliicher charged along the streets at the head of 
 his cavalry; he defended stréet after street, church 
 after church, house after house ; he inflicted a ter- 
 rible loss on his assailants; he prolonged the com- 
 bat till the dusk of the evening, and then, with 
 5000 men, he cut his way out of the town, and 
 retreated to the Danish frontier, which was close 
 at hand. The rest of his forces perished in that 
 terrible street-fighting, or were wounded and made 
 prisoners, or butchered by the French, who con- 
 tinued, not only during that night, but during the 
 two following days, to commit all those atrocities 
 which but too commonly accompany the capture of 
 a town by storm. The law of nations, or the known 
 French inclinations of the cabinet of Copenhagen, 
 prevented Bliicher from violating the Danish ter- 
 ritory, or attempting to escape by crossing the 
 frontier, Pressed and squeezed upon that line by 
 Murat’s host, driven, as it were, into a cul-de-sac, 
 and seeing there was no help or bope for him any- 
 where, he, at last, with tears in his eyes, and (we 
 suspect) with curses on his lips, listened to terms, 
 and on the 7th of November laid down his glorious 
 arms. He was sent to Hamburg as a prisoner on 
 parole, under the survet//ance of Bourrienne, now 
 Bonaparte’s minister at that city. The veteran, 
 however, did not lose heart or hope; he was cheer- 
 ful under his misfortunes, looking confidently for- 
 ward to better times, and to the day when the 
 honour of Prussian arms should be redeemed. 
 He often said to Bourrienne—“I place great 
 reliance on the public spirit of Germany: on the 
 
346 
 
 enthusiasm which prevails in our universities. The 
 chances of war are constantly changing ; and even 
 defeats contribute to nourish sentiments of honour 
 and nationality. You may depend upon it, that, 
 when once a whole nation is determined to shake 
 off a humiliating yoke, it will succeed. ‘There is 
 no doubt but we shall end by having a /and- 
 wehr very different from any militia to which the 
 subdued spirit of the French people will be able 
 to give birth. England will always lend us the 
 support of her navy and her subsidies, and we will 
 renew alliances with Russia and Austria. I can 
 pledge myself to the truth of a fact of which I have 
 certain knowledge, namely, that none of the allied 
 powers engaged in the present war entertain views 
 of territorial aggrandizement. All they unani- 
 mously desire is to put an end to the system of 
 aggrandizement which your emperor has adopted, 
 and which he acts upon with such alarming rapidity. 
 ... Lrely confidently on the future, because I fore- 
 see that fortune will not always favour your emperor. 
 It is impossible but that the time will come when 
 all Europe, humbled by his exactions, and im- 
 patient of his depredations, will rise up against 
 him. The more he enslaves nations, the more ter- 
 rible will be the re-action when they break their 
 chains.”’* 
 
 Except Bliicher and Lestocq, who kept some 
 regiments together, and fought bravely with them, 
 the conduct of the Prussian generals, after the day 
 of the double battle, seems to have been about 
 equally void of spirit and of ability. The way in 
 which some of the fortresses were surrendered ex- 
 poses some of them to very dark suspicions. Span- 
 dau, Stettin, Kustrin, Hameln, Nieuburg, Magde- 
 burg, all surrendered without attempting the least 
 resistance. Some were badly provided, but some 
 had abundance of stores and provisions : in one or 
 two of them the number of troops that surrendered, 
 on the first summons, was greater than the French 
 force that summoned them, and when the con- 
 querors entered these fortresses they found enor- 
 mous quantities of artillery and ammunition, and 
 immense magazines of all sorts. It is true that 
 the grand army of the emperor was reinforced by 
 a Dutch and Belgian army, brought up to the 
 northern provinces of Prussia by Louis Bonaparte, 
 King of Holland; but not even this arrival ought 
 to have convinced the Prussian commanders that 
 the power of their enemy was measureless and 
 irresistible. Sir Sidney Smith was right—it was 
 this craven, superstitious belief that Bonaparte’s 
 armies were not to be withstood, which laid Europe 
 prostrate at the feet of the French. There was, 
 however, in Prussia another source ef weakness : 
 that kingdom, as we have said before, was made 
 up of shreds and patches, of provinces and ter- 
 ritories gained by the sword, and gained at too 
 recent a date to have afforded time for the growth 
 of any amalgamation, or cohesion, or unity of na- 
 tional spirit. The common sufferings and humilia- 
 tions they endured between the years 1806 and 
 
 * Bourrienne, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Oe 
 ‘ 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 1813 created a community of feeling and sympathy, 
 and the one steady, uniform, strong, and, in many 
 respects, wise system of government which has 
 obtained since the battle of Waterloo, together with 
 one national uniform system of education, may haye 
 produced a cohesion and a universal nationality in 
 these dominions of the House of Brandenburg (with 
 the exception of the provinces on the Rhine, which 
 very lately were notoriously disaffected) ; but there 
 was little or nothing of the sort at the disastrous 
 period now under consideration. In what was old 
 Prussia, or the original hereditary portion of the 
 dominions of the House of Brandenburg, there was 
 nationality and enthusiasm enough; but in Silesia, 
 which had suffered so much during the Seven 
 Years’ War, and in the other territories which 
 had been forcibly torn from the House of Austria, 
 or from other neighbours, the mass of the popula- 
 tion appears to have been indifferent, if not half- 
 hostile. Had it been otherwise, Prussia would not 
 have been annihilated, as she was, it one short 
 campaign, and the work of the great Frederick’s 
 whole life would not thus have crumbled to pieces 
 in a few weeks. 
 
 The King of Prussia had fled for refuge into the 
 fortress of Kénigsberg, on the Pregel. Out of the 
 wreck of the army General Lestoeq was enabled to 
 assemble there a few thousand men for the protee- 
 tion of his sovereign. But the main reliance of 
 Frederick- William was on the Emperor Alexan- 
 der, who was now in Poland and advancing towards 
 the Vistula. In Poland, the Russian emperor was 
 standing on unfriendly ground, for the seizure and 
 partitions of that unhappy country had excited, if 
 not the great body of the people, the majority of 
 the nobility and upper classes, to direct hostility or 
 mortal hatred against the three partitioning powers ; 
 the feeling, for evident reasons, being more vehement 
 against Russia than against Prussia and Austria. 
 Bonaparte, who had long had a great number of 
 Poles in his army—fugitives from the army of in-— 
 dependence of Kosciuszko, or men otherwise vic- 
 tims of the last unfortunate Polish war—had often 
 entertained them with prospects and hopes of re- 
 establishing Poland as an independent nation, and 
 of restoring them, and their brothers in exile and 
 poverty, to their native country, their confiscated” 
 property, and their lost places and honours. With 
 these delusive visions he had completely dazzled 
 many of these Poles, and had created in them an 
 enthusiastic attachment to his person and his for- 
 tunes. A good many of them had perished in his 
 service, in the act of aiding to forge for other na- 
 tions the same chains and fetters which bound and 
 galled their own country; but many remained ii 
 his army and about his person, and, as soon as the 
 fortune of war brought them into the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Poland, these men opened a cor- 
 respondence with such of their friends and con- 
 nexions as had remained quietly at home, endeavour- 
 ing to excite them to take up arms against Russia, 
 or to do what in them lay to forward the advance re 
 yond the Vistula of the Emperor of the French, the 
 
 , z 
 
 ¥s 
 
 oa 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 to-be-liberator and restorer of Poland. Some of these 
 Poles, or some other agents of the French, even pene- 
 trated in person into both Russian and Prussian 
 Poland, spreading reports that the bravest and 
 honestest of Polish patriots was coming to raise the 
 standard of national independence—that Kosciuszko 
 was actually at the head-quarters of the emperor 
 and king. This was utterly false ; but a part of it 
 might have been true if the Polish patriot had been 
 an unprincipled adventurer, or had been less awake 
 to the juggling of Bonaparte. Kosciuszko, then 
 living in an honourable and honoured poverty, at 
 an old chateau, near Fontainebleau, had indeed 
 been invited to the French head-quarters, and had 
 been tempted with the most brilliant offers; for 
 Napoleon well knew the confidence which his pre- 
 sence would inspire, and the love and admiration 
 with which he was regarded by the best of his 
 countrymen. But Kosciuszko, who had constantly 
 declined entering his service, as Dombrowski and 
 so many other distinguished Polish officers had 
 done, saw clearly through Bonaparte’s selfish de- 
 signs, was proof to every temptation, and would 
 not quit his retirement. As he was living in France 
 an excuse was needful: he stated that the effects of 
 his numerous wounds, and his general bad health, 
 prevented him from sharing in the fatigues of war. 
 But to his confidential friends the single-minded 
 patriot said, that liberty was not to be expected 
 from the French, who were enslaving all nations: 
 that Bonaparte was a conqueror devoured by ambi- 
 tion, and a thorough despot, whose character and 
 conduct precluded confidence; and that all the 
 conqueror now wanted was to make the Poles serve 
 his present projects. The French, he said, had 
 often talked and written a great deal about the 
 wrongs of Poland, but had never done any thing 
 to redress or relieve them: they had been careless 
 and indifferent at a moment when they might have 
 prevented the last fatal partition; and when he 
 himself was in the field in 1794, fighting against 
 fearful odds, what had the French done but leave 
 him to his fate? As he would not go to the Vis- 
 tula, he was requested to put his name at Paris to 
 a manifesto, and to an exciting proclamation to his 
 countrymen. ‘This he nobly refused to do, saying 
 he would not be an instrument in deceiving the 
 Poles with hopes in which he did not himself par- 
 take. In spite of this refusal Bonaparte ordered 
 the exciting proclamation, giving assurances of 
 liberty and independence to the Poles, to be 
 inserted. in the Moniteur, with the high sanc- 
 tion of Kosciuszko’s name and signature attached 
 to the spurious document. And now—on the 
 Ist of November—as he was preparing to pour 
 his Grand Army into Poland, he made General 
 Dombrowski issue that proclamation, and other 
 addresses, wherein the Polish nation was told 
 that Kosciuszko was speedily coming to fight 
 with them for the liberation of their country, un- 
 der the shield and protection of the Emperor of 
 the French. Few knew the secret, and very few 
 of the Poles had the prudence and foresight of 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 ec er a ca ee ae 
 
 O47 
 
 Kosciuszko, or a fragment of his capability for 
 the inductive process which had convinced him of 
 Bonaparte’s intentions: a great part of the country 
 was electrified by the addresses, and in a tumult 
 of joy at the rapid advance of the victorious French 
 columns. AIl Prussian Poland was in a blaze; the 
 Russians, who had advanced into those pro- 
 vinces with the design of crossing the Vistula and 
 succouring the King of Prussia, found a new 
 enemy upon their hands, a furious insurrection 
 gathering all round them; from nearly all parts 
 of Poland enthusiastic volunteers, men who had 
 fought under Kosciuszko, or who were inspired 
 by the recollections of his exploits, rushed to join 
 General Dombrowski, who as early as the 16th of 
 November had formed at Posen four good Polish 
 regiments,* This miscalculating, blind national 
 enthusiasm was at its height when Bonaparte, 
 after levying enormous contributions at Berlin, 
 advanced and established his head-quarters at 
 Posen. He received deputations and numerous 
 addresses from the credulous patriots, all entreat- 
 ing him to restore their country to its ancient inde- 
 pendence. In his replies, the conqueror adopted 
 that mysterious oracular style which was familiar 
 to him, and which had often been made to pass for 
 supernatural intelligence, or for the voice of des- 
 tiny. Taking especial care to bind himself by no 
 formal promise or engagement, he let drop affec- 
 tionate interjections, and short pointed sentences, 
 which his policy might afterwards interpret in one 
 sense when the Polish patriots had interpreted 
 them in another... One of his bulletins, dated 
 from head-quarters at Posen the Ist of December, 
 and published in the Moniteur on the 12th of that 
 month, was calculated to cool somewhat the rash 
 enthusiasm of the Poles, as it exposed their wishes 
 to drive equally from their territories Russians, 
 Prussians, and Austrians, without manifesting the 
 intentions of the Emperor of the French, and with- 
 out committing him in the slightest degree for the 
 future.+ This bulletin was explained by different 
 men in very different ways: some looked upon it 
 as a thing without any signification at all; others 
 saw in it a diplomatic style employed to veil from 
 the cabinets of Europe the real projects of Napo- 
 leon in Poland, and pretended that the Poles ought 
 to place implicit reliance on the promises of the 
 Emperor of the French, and patiently wait the 
 dénouement of the present war; but the friends of 
 
 * Oginsky; 
 
 + This bulletin was a very fair specimen of Bonaparte’s half oracular, 
 half Ossianic style. It said, among other vapoury things, ‘‘ The love 
 of country, that national sentiment, has not only been preserved in 
 the heart of the Polish people, but it has been strengthened by mis- 
 fortune: their first passion, their strongest desire is to become again 
 anation. The richest amongst them quit their chateaux to come and 
 demand with loud cries the re-establishment of the kingdom, and to 
 offer their sons, their fortunes, their influence. This spectacle is truly 
 touching. Already have they everywhere resumed their ancient cos- 
 tume, their ancient customs. Will the throne of Poland be re-esta- 
 blished? Will this great nation recover its existence and its inde- 
 pendence? From the bottom of the grave will it rise again to a new 
 life? God alone, who holds in his hands the combinations of all events, 
 is the arbiter of this grand political problem; but certainly there 
 never was an event more memorable and more worthy of interest.” 
 
 Thus the passage in the bulletin concluded with an absolute son 
 sens. We can have little respect for the intellect of Polish patriots 
 who could allow themselves to be duped or mystified by such 
 contemptible vagaries. 
 
348 
 
 liberty asked whether they could hope for the 
 restoration of the republic of Poland from a man 
 who had destroyed the liberty of his own country ; 
 and the wisest of the Poles feared that Bonaparte 
 had considered all this Polish enthusiasm merely 
 as a means of obtaining men and subsidies for the 
 execution of his own ambitious projects.* But 
 wisdom and prudence were, and ever had been, 
 rare qualities in Poland: if a few considerate men 
 hung back until the conqueror and arbiter of 
 Europe should declare himself more openly, the 
 vast majority, naturally fond of war and adventure, 
 rushed to the French standards, or began to act as 
 irregular partisan corps against the Russians, 
 whose communications were everywhere menaced. 
 Beningsen, the Russian commander-in-chief, oc- 
 cupied a part of Prussian Poland, and took posses- 
 sion of the city of Warsaw; but on the approach 
 of the French he found himself under the neces- 
 sity of evacuating that capital. Bonaparte entered 
 Warsaw in triumph, in the midst of the acclama- 
 tions of the Poles; and there, on the 11th of De- 
 cember, while the columns of the Grand Army suc- 
 cessively crossed the Vistula, he signed his separate 
 
 and most advantageous peace with the Elector of | 
 
 Saxony. That elector, like the Electors of Bavaria 
 and Wurtemberg, was transformed into a king, 
 and his army, instead of fighting for the inde- 
 pendence of Germany, was joined to the army of 
 the oppressor and marched against the Russians. 
 
 The severity of the climate and the frightful 
 state of the roads in Poland—always bad, but at 
 this season of the year almost impassable—the 
 sleet and the snow, the ice and the cutting winds, 
 did not induce Bonaparte to forego his common 
 practice of dispensing with winter quarters. He 
 knew that the Russians, and the remnant of the 
 Prussian forces in Poland, were much worse pro- 
 vided than his own army ; that the French would 
 find hospitality, lodging, and provisions where 
 their enemies would find nothing but popular 
 hatred and vengeance; and it behoved him to 
 strike a blow while the spirit of his troops and 
 the enthusiasm of the Poles were at their highest 
 point, and to break and scatter the army in 
 front of him before Beningsen should be joined 
 by other divisions from Russia or from the 
 banks of the Danube, or by other fragments of 
 the King of Prussia’s army, which were attempt- 
 ing to concentrate behind the Vistula. 
 
 The Russians retired due north in the direction 
 of the Niemen, as if intending to cross that river 
 and draw their enemy into the wide country be- 
 yond it. But this wise design, which was really 
 entertained, was abandoned, and Beningsen halted 
 at Pultusk, on the little river Narew, at the dis- 
 tance of only a few days’ march from Warsaw. 
 The position was well chosen, with the river on 
 one side, a wood on the other, and an open plain 
 in front. After some skirmishes and affairs of out- 
 posts, a bloody battle was fought on the 26th of 
 December, The Russians were attacked in their 
 
 * Oginsky, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Sar 
 
 . left. 
 
 good position by the divisions of Lannes and 
 Davoust, and by the French guards, the edie of 
 Bonaparte’s army. They gallantly repelled se- 
 veral attacks made on their centre and on their 
 The French then, advancing in condensed 
 masses, endeavoured to turn the Russian right, 
 commanded by Barclay de Tolly, and stationed in 
 the wood. This attack was attended by partial 
 success, for, yielding to an accumulated and su- 
 perior weight of fire, Barclay de Tolly fell back on 
 his reserves, and left the French to take possession 
 of the wood and of a few of his guns. But Bar- 
 clay de Tolly’s retreat was effected with admirable 
 order, and Beningsen had the good generalship 
 to derive advantage from it, and from the im- 
 petuosity of the French: he ordered Barclay to 
 continue his retreat; and by thus throwing back 
 his right wing he enticed the French to pursue 
 their success, until the Russian cavalry, which had 
 covered the manceuvre, suddenly withdrawing, left 
 unmasked 120 guns which began to play on the 
 French advancing columns with tremendous effect. 
 When the artillery had strewed the ground with 
 killed and wounded, the Russian infantry advanced 
 at a steady pace, pushed the enemy before them at 
 the point of the bayonet, and recovered the wood 
 and all the ground which Barclay de Tolly had 
 lost. At this season of the year, and in this 
 northern clime, the days were very short: the 
 approach of night put an end to one of the most 
 terrible combats in which the French had ever 
 found themselves engaged, and in which they are 
 said to have lost nearly 8000 men in killed and 
 wounded. Among the wounded were Marshal 
 Lannes, Duke of Montebello, and five other French 
 generals. The Russian loss was estimated at 
 5000. In the darkness of night the French began 
 their retreat to the Vistula; and they moved off so 
 rapidly that on the next morning the Cossacks 
 could not discover a rear-guard anywhere in the 
 neighbourhood. Bonaparte went into Warsaw 
 with his guards, leaving the rest of his army on 
 the right bank of the river, in Praga, which is but 
 a suburb of Warsaw, and in the villages round 
 about. He had announced by bulletins that the 
 war would be at an end before New- Year’s-Day, 
 but now he found himself condemned to inactivity, 
 and even to winter quarters. He waited the 
 arrival of reinforcements, and the organization of 
 his Polish recruits. The Russian army was again 
 in want of almost everything except guns, muskets, 
 bayonets, ammunition, Cossack spears, courage, 
 loyalty, and resolution: it was as poor and as un- 
 provided as it had been in Moravia the winter 
 before, and the treasury of the czar was in no con- 
 dition to supply the deficiencies. The trade, the 
 produce, the specie of Poland, were almost entirely 
 in the hands of the swarming Jews settled in the 
 country, who had no nationality, who cared not a 
 rush for Polish independence, and who now, as on 
 all former occasions, furnished supplies and sold 
 their services to the highest bidder. Eyen mor 
 than in Germany the services which the Jews coul¢ 
 
Cuap, VIII.] 
 
 render were important and necessary, for, besides 
 having so extensive a command over the resources 
 of the country, they had the means of obtaining the 
 most accurate information of everything that passed 
 in it and beyond its frontiers. The resolute way in 
 which the young czar had torn to pieces d’Oubril’s 
 treaty, and had adhered to the coalition, the firm 
 stand which his armies had made, and were actu- 
 ally making, demanded whatsoever succour and 
 assistance England, his ally, and the real head of 
 the coalition, could afford to give; the prolonga- 
 tion of this war, which had already drawn Bona- 
 parte so far from France, must cost the French 
 enormous sacrifices, and might be expected to ter- 
 minate in some terrible catastrophe, and in the 
 destruction of the conqueror, if not in the country 
 between the Vistula and the Niemen, in the vast 
 plains of New Russia beyond the Niemen. The 
 lengthened struggle would at least have impeded 
 that consolidation of the I'rench system in Ger- 
 many, which left such enormous resources in the 
 hands of the Emperor of the French. Yet, when 
 Alexander applied to the British government for a 
 ‘supply of money, all that he got was a beggarly 
 subsidy of 80,0007, To this untimely parsimony 
 of “ All the Talents”? are mainly attributable the 
 lamentable reverses of the Russians early in the 
 following spring; to this niggardliness Europe 
 may almost be said to owe seven years more 
 of a destructive war, and England an increase 
 of two or three hundreds of millions to her na- 
 tional debt. If Bonaparte had pressed forward 
 into the heart of Russia, as there is every reason, 
 and very nearly positive evidence, to prove that he 
 would have done, the crisis of Moscow, and the 
 events of the campaign of 1812, would have been 
 anticipated by five years: if he had not gone for- 
 ward, he would have been considered as foiled, humi- 
 liated, beaten; his first grand retreat would have 
 destroyed his prestige, Austria would have flown 
 again to arms, nearly the whole of Germany 
 would have risen in his rear, and the French 
 people would have fallen from him now as they 
 did in 1813 and 1814. No one knew these truths 
 so well as himself, and hence his frequent decla- 
 rations to his confidential servants that his throne 
 was built upon victories, that a continuous series 
 of victories was necessary for its support; that he 
 must still go onward, en avant, en avant; that 
 one retrograde step, wn pas en arriére, might 
 ruin all. 
 
 Nearly four months before the battle of Pultusk, 
 the brightest of “ All the Talents” had been removed 
 from office and from life. Soon after the rising 
 of parliament Fox grew worse. His disease was 
 dropsy, which would not yield to the repeated ope- 
 ration of tapping. He removed from town to the 
 Duke of Devonshire’s beautiful villa at Chiswick, 
 intending to make Chiswick House a resting-place, 
 from which, if he gained strength enough, he might 
 proceed to his own pleasant house at St. Ann’s 
 Hill, a spot he dearly loved. He already thought 
 of a private life, and of resigning his office, which 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1806. 
 
 349 
 
 jhe had held little more than half-a year, His 
 
 friends entertained hopes that by abstaining from 
 business he might be restored sufficiently to health 
 to enjoy a quiet life for some years. The foreign 
 dispatches now ceased: to be laid before him. The 
 last political news he received officially was the 
 refusal of the Emperor Alexander to ratify the treaty 
 concluded at Paris by d’Oubril. The very incompe- 
 tent narrator of his last days gives few or no dates, 
 but it appears that Fox’s official responsibility 
 really ceased before parliament rose, and that he is 
 not answerable for any.thing the cabinet did after 
 the month of July. His biographer says, that 
 while he was lying at Chiswick a new ministry was 
 raising its head in the metropolis, of which Gren- 
 ville and Grey were the leaders; that he does not 
 know that Fox’s opinion was ever taken upon the 
 formation of that ministry and its future measures, 
 but that he is fully inclined to think it was not; 
 that as his disorder became more confirmed, and 
 little or no hope existed of his recovery, the cabinet 
 ceased to look to him for advice; and before a 
 second inroad of his disorder they seemed to hold 
 his retreat to Chiswick as a virtual resignation of 
 office. He adds that Lord Grenville never went to 
 Chiswick, and Lord Howick but rarely. The dying 
 orator and statesman was not, however, deserted ; 
 his nephew Lord Holland, his niece Miss Fox, his 
 old and constant friend General Fitzpatrick, hardly 
 ever left him; the Duke of Devonshire was a fre- 
 quent visitor, and the Prince of Wales made fre- 
 quent calls, and is said to have shed more than once 
 affectionate tears by his bed-side. Other friends, of 
 less name, but not less dear to him, waited upon him 
 to the last; but of the various-coloured party-men 
 who composed the present cabinet, or of their depen- 
 dents, but very few appear ever to have performed 
 the very short journey from London to Chiswick. 
 ** Doubtless,” says his biographer, “ his counsels 
 might have led to their loss of office; but, had it 
 been so, they would have lost their situations with 
 infinitely greater credit with the public, and satis- 
 faction to themselves.”” [We presume he means 
 with greater credit and satisfaction than attended 
 their expulsion from office in less than seven months 
 after Fox’s decease.] A few minutes before he died 
 he fixed his eyes on Mrs. Fox and said, “I die 
 happy.” He expired at Chiswick House, on the 
 afternoon of the 13th of September, as the Tower 
 guns were firing for the capture of Buenos Ayres. 
 He was in the 58th year of his age, or eleven years 
 older than Pitt. “ How speedily,” exclaims Wil- 
 berforce, “has he followed his great rival!” His 
 death was considered as equivalent to the death of 
 his party. “TI look upon what has been called Mr. 
 Fox’s party,” says Horner, “as extinguished en- 
 tirely with him; his name alone kept the fragments 
 together, after the party had been long ago broken 
 to pieces.” This fact, however, did not immedi- 
 
 ately appear; the cabinet which Fox had aided in 
 forming retained possession of office, his nephew 
 and pupil Lord Holland was brought into it as 
 lord privy seal, and Fox was succeeded in the 
 
850 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X 
 
 foreign department by his friend Lord Howick, 
 who was more identified with the Foxite policy 
 than almost any other public man. The other 
 ministerial changes were simply these:—Mr. T. 
 Grenville became first lord of the admiralty, in 
 lieu of Lord Howick; Tierney, president of the 
 board of control, in lieu of Grenville; and Sid- 
 mouth, who had held the privy seal, now given to 
 Lord Holland, became president of the council, in 
 lieu of Earl Fitzwilliam, who resigned, Thus Lord 
 Holland was the only new member brought into 
 the cabinet. On the first construction of ‘* All the 
 Talents’? ministry Lord Minto had been made pre- 
 sident of the board of control, but he had vacated 
 that place for the governor-generalship of India, 
 upon which he had probably fixed his heart as early 
 as the time of Hastings’s impeachment, and his 
 own grand oratorical display in the charges against 
 Sir Elijah Impey. Apparently to soothe the dis- 
 appointment of Philip Francis, he was invested 
 with the Order of the Bath. 
 
 As parliament was not sitting there were no 
 angry invidious debates on the merits of Fox, the 
 sort of funeral to which he was entitled, or the 
 wording of his epitaph. The ministry took it upon 
 themselves to give him a public funeral in West- 
 minister Abbey. The body was removed from 
 Chiswick House to a house belonging to the 
 crown, in Stable Yard, Westminster. Here it 
 remained three weeks until all due preparations 
 had been made for the funeral under the direction 
 of Sheridan, who was neither the friend that most 
 mourned his decease, nor the man best fitted to 
 manage such solemn ceremonies. On the 10th of 
 October, the twenty-sixth anniversary of his first 
 election for the city of Westminster, all that re- 
 mained of Fox was carried to the Abbey in great 
 state, and deposited in a tomb immediately adjoin- 
 ing the monument of the Earl of Chatham, and 
 within eighteen inches of the grave of Pitt. 
 
 The mixed cabinet had continued to complain of 
 the coldness or want of confidence of the court. 
 Hoping to gain greater strength in the House of 
 Commons by a new general election, they pro- 
 ceeded to the sudden and unexpected measure of a 
 dissolution of parliament, which had sat but four 
 sessions. This measure gave great dissatisfaction 
 to Wilberforce and to many others—to all, in short, 
 who were taken by surprise or who regretted the ex- 
 penses of fresh elections—and, although some few 
 seats were gained by them, it is thought that the 
 dissolution and re-election did “ All the Talents” 
 rather more harm than good. 
 
 The new parliament assembled on the 19th of 
 December, and was opened not by the king in per- 
 son, but by commission. The royal speech dwelt 
 principally upon the calamitous war in Prussia, 
 and upon the conduct of our government in respect 
 to that power. It said that Prussia had found her- 
 self at length compelled to adopt the resolution 
 of openly resisting the unremitting system of ag- 
 grandizement and conquest; that neither this de- 
 termination nor the succeeding measures had been 
 
 previously concerted with his majesty, nor had 
 even any disposition been shown to offer to our 
 government any adequate satisfaction for those 
 aggressions of Prussia which had placed her and 
 England in a state of mutual hostility; but that 
 nevertheless his majesty had not hesitated to adopt 
 immediately such measures as were best calculated 
 to unite their councils and interests against the 
 common enemy. “ But,’’ continued the speech, 
 “the rapid course of the calamities which ensued 
 opposed insurmountable difficulties to the execution 
 of this purpose.’ Great praises were lavished on 
 the good faith of his majesty’s allies, the King of 
 Sweden and the Emperor of Russia; and it was 
 declared that our alliance with Russia afforded the 
 only remaining hope of safety for the continent 
 of Europe. This confession ought to have been fol- 
 lowed up by the voting of a proper subsidy ; a liberal 
 supply of money might yet have reached Poland 
 in time to turn the scale in favour of the Russians ; 
 but nothing of the sort was proposed, and when 
 the Emperor Alexander made fresh applications he 
 was met with an absolute negative. In the de- 
 bates on the address, Lord Hawkesbury in the 
 Lords, and Mr. Canning in the Commons, took a 
 very active part, and found abundant opportunities 
 for censuring the conduct of the cabinet ever since 
 it had been in office. His lordship complained 
 bitterly of the late and unexpected dissolution of 
 parliament, saying that, since the passing of the 
 Septennial Act, in 1715, there had been no instance 
 of a parliament being dissolved under six sessions, 
 excepting the precedent of 1784, which was un- 
 avoidable. He thought that the failure of Lord 
 Lauderdale’s negotiations for a peace might have 
 something to do with the late dissolution; but 
 that the fair mode would have been not to dissolve 
 parliament, but to have submitted to the existing 
 parliament the whole grounds of the negotiations 
 at Paris. Why had the dissolution been so sudde 
 and so carefully concealed ? Mr. Windham, the last 
 person in the world his lordship could suspect of 
 falsehood or deceit, had told the electors of the 
 county of Norfolk im an address, that, as far as he 
 knew, there was no intention of dissolving parlia- - 
 ment. A proclamation had even appeared fixing | 
 a day for the meeting of the old parliament for the 
 dispatch of business; and yet, notwithstanding | 
 these repeated assurances, a dissolution came on 
 like a thunder-cloud, to the surprise and astonish- 
 ment of the whole kingdom. He would not accuse — 
 ministers of any intention to deceive the country, — 
 but the dissolution had certainly had the effect of 
 surprising it. Lord Hawkesbury admitted that — 
 the terrible disasters of Prussia had arisen entirely 
 from the narrow selfish policy within which she~ 
 had encircled herself. If his Prussian majesty, or 
 those who advised him, had consulted history, they 
 would have seen that those who lend their aid to 
 get others devoured are at last devoured them- — 
 selyes. He approved of the spirited proceedings 
 which the cabinet had adopted towards Prussia in 
 consequence of her aggression in Hanoyer and her 
 
Cuar. VIII.) 
 
 hostility to the commerce of this country. He also 
 approved of the manner in which we had sus= 
 pended our particular quarrel when Prussia was 
 on the point of being involved in a contest with 
 France. But what he could not approve of nor 
 account for was the delay which took place in com- 
 municating with the court of Berlin. It was not 
 until the month of October, when hostilities were 
 on the eve of commencing, that ministers had 
 endeavoured to open a communication with Prussia. 
 Lord Morpeth had then been prevented from ful- 
 filling his important mission, and he had returned 
 home without doing anything. Three weeks after 
 Lord Morpeth’s return ministers had sent out a 
 military mission with Lord Hutchinson at the 
 head of it; but it was doubtful whether this ex- 
 pensive military mission would be able to discover 
 the Prussian head quarters, or even a port to land 
 in, Mr. Canning in the other House dwelt upon 
 these matters at greater length, and with much more 
 eloguence. The opening speech had affirmed that 
 the resources of the country remained unimpaired. 
 A new parliament, said Canning, has been sud- 
 denly assembled, and we are now about to review 
 the transactions of an administration composed of 
 men who lay claim to the reputation of great 
 talents, and who entered upon office not ten months 
 ago with this particular and distinct declaration, 
 that all those who preceded them in office had 
 been in the wrong; that they had ‘clubbed the 
 battalion ;”? that everything required correction and 
 amendment; that nothing was in its place; that 
 our resources were exhausted, our credit destroyed, 
 our faith violated ; that we were unable to maintain 
 our own rank among the nations of Europe, much 
 less to assist others in regaining their rank. Yet 
 what had followed? At the end of ten months 
 these very gentlemen are saying that the resources 
 of the country remain unimpaired—not that they 
 have been retrieved, not that they are re-established, 
 but that they remazn unimpaired ; that is to say 
 that they have never been impaired. It was cer- 
 tainly very satisfactory that there should be even 
 this stale tribute paid to those who had been for- 
 merly loaded with so much censure; but surely it 
 would be too much to expect that any man who 
 had followed the footsteps of Pitt, or who looked 
 upon the name of that minister as connected with 
 the safety and glory of England, could pass this 
 part of his majesty’s speech unnoticed. Canning 
 blamed the ministry for a rapid hostility and a slow 
 reconciliation with Prussia, who, unable to resist 
 the power of France, had encroached upon us in 
 Hanover. He said truly that Bonaparte had made 
 a pretended transfer to Prussia of the hereditary 
 dominions of our king solely to create a war be- 
 tween the two countries, or an animosity which 
 would prevent or delay any reconciliation or coa- 
 lition between England and Prussia. It would have 
 been wise to have overlooked the provocation, or to 
 have leaped over the stumbling-block which the 
 French had thrown in our way; and certainly, 
 when Prussia was assailed, more prompt and more 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—-1806. 
 
 851 
 
 energetic measures ought to have been adopted by 
 ministers, in order to succour her and sustain her 
 in her unequal conflict. In the opening speech 
 there had been at least one unpardonable omission 
 —not a word had been said about the battle of 
 Maida. Canning said that all notice of the war 
 had seemed to have been studiously passed over 
 in that speech, although some debts of gratitude 
 surely remained to be paid, To the records of 
 parliament the future historian would look for 
 his materials. It was cruel to deprive the hero 
 of the honourable reward of his military achieve- 
 ments; it was disgraceful that government should 
 dislike to sprinkle over the gloom of despondence 
 with some of those achievements. It was true, 
 they might say, that those achievements were not 
 of their planning. But this was not a period when 
 party feelings should withhold a glorious incitement 
 to great actions. The gallant and able Sir John 
 Stuart had obtained a brilliant victory on the plains 
 of Maida, overa French army superior in numbers. 
 Why had there been no allusion made to it? Lord 
 Howick replied that it was the intention of Mr. 
 Windham to move very shortly for a vote of thanks 
 to Sir John Stuart and the officers‘who had dis- 
 tinguished themselves in that action; but this in- 
 tention ought not to have excluded all allusion to 
 the subject in the speech from the throne. Un- 
 fortunately for his case, Canning coupled with the 
 battle of Maida the expedition under Sir Home 
 Popham and General Beresford against the Spanish 
 settlement of Buenos Ayres. Upon this point 
 Lord Howick was enabled to meet him with a 
 startling exhibition of Popham’s rashness and dis- 
 obedience of orders. His lordship declared that 
 he was one of those who had advised the imme- 
 diate recall of that expedition; but so also had 
 he been one of the cabinet which had yielded 
 to the popular enthusiasm and folly, and had sent 
 out reinforcements to South America as soon as it 
 was known that the countermanded expedition had 
 succeeded in capturing Buenos Ayres. For the 
 appointment of General Whitelocke, for the mad 
 expeditions, and for the disgraceful reverses in 
 South America in 1807, Howick and his colleagues 
 were also responsible; for the appointment and the 
 expeditions were made under their administration. 
 Canning proposed to substitute an entirely new 
 address for the address before the House; but he 
 did not press the matter to a division; and the 
 original addresses were passed in both Houses 
 without any division. 
 
 On the 22nd of December, Lord Grenville pre- 
 sented to the House of Lords the papers relating 
 to the late negotiations with Bonaparte. On the 
 same day the thanks of both Houses were voted 
 to Major-General Sir John Stuart, to Brigadier- 
 General Lowry Cole, to Brigadier-General W. D. 
 Ackland, to the officers under their command, 
 and to the non-commissioned officers and pri- 
 vate soldiers for their bravery and good conduct. 
 If the French made too much of their victories, 
 we certainly made too little of ours. “All the 
 
B52 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Talents”’ continued to act as though they were 
 ashamed of the glory of our arms; nor did the 
 orators in opposition to them exert any extra 
 spirit, or display any superior eloquence on this 
 occasion. Except Windham, who spoke out like 
 an Englishman, all the cabinet seem to have 
 been as cool as if they had been discussing a beer- 
 bill or a pig-iron duty. In praising the heroes of 
 Maida, Windham said “he praised them with his 
 whole heart: he praised them also with his under- 
 standing.”? Maida, he said, might be put upon a 
 level with Crecy, Poictiers, and Azincourt. It had 
 dissolved a spell: it had been obtained in the face 
 of Europe: it had proved to the world, in a man- 
 ner not to be concealed or disguised, that French 
 troops are inferior to British troops. The events 
 of the late war on the continent had contributed to 
 foster the dangerous belief that the French were 
 invincible; and they had conquered chiefly because 
 it was thought by the armies opposed to them that 
 they must conquer. If England did nothing but 
 destroy this spell, the battle of Maida was worth 
 ten times the exertion and the sacrifices it had cost 
 us. Nothing could be more important to the na- 
 tion than to keep up a high character for military 
 spirit. Without that spirit no nation would long 
 preserve its character and independence. The 
 glory which had been acquired by the battle of 
 Maida was of infinitely greater importance than 
 any immediate benefit which could possibly result 
 from it or from any other action. This it was that 
 would carry the effect of the brilliant exploit 
 beyond the single instance, by restoring the military 
 renown of this country. He who gave real glory 
 to his country gave that which was more valuable 
 to it than any acquisition of territory whatever. 
 Glory was not to be taken away by time or accident. 
 Ships, territories, colonies, might be taken from a 
 country, but the mode of acquiring them could 
 never be forgotten. The acquisitions that were 
 the consequence of the glorious days of Crecy and 
 Poictiers had long since passed into other hands ; 
 but the giory still remained adhering to the British 
 name, and was immortal. It was that fine extract, 
 that pure essence, which endured to all ages ; whilst 
 the residuum, the grosser parts, passed away, and 
 were lost in the course of time! A few such notes 
 on the war-trumpet were wanted to rouse the House 
 and thrill the country. Lord Castlereagh, who ina 
 short time became entitled to a large portion of the 
 merit of introducing a bolder martial policy and a 
 more extensive system of operations, censured 
 ministers for the general torpor which pervaded 
 nearly every branch of the army since their ac- 
 cession to office, and for sending only three regi- 
 ments of the line up the Mediterranean to reinforce 
 Sir John Stuart—three regiments which had ar- 
 rived just in time to see our gallant troops aban- 
 doning the brave and loyal Calabrians, to whom our 
 brave commander had promised every assistance. 
 A.D. 1807.—On the 2nd of January, when par- 
 liament re-assembled after the Christmas recess, 
 Lord Grenville in the Upper House opened the con- 
 
 sideration of the late negotiation with France. His 
 lordship was of opinion that the only proper basis 
 of a peace between the two countries was that of 
 actual possession, or the wéi possidetis principle; 
 but that, though this was the proper basis, it did not 
 follow that negotiation must necessarily exclude the 
 discussion of equivalents, to be given for certain 
 cessions to be agreed on, which was the more ne- 
 cessary when it involved the interests of our allies. 
 These allies he divided into two classes; those to 
 whom we were bound by actual treaty, and those 
 who had a claim upon us through circumstances 
 which had occurred during the war. Of the for- 
 mer class of our allies were Sweden and Portugal; 
 of the latter, Naples and Hanover. With respect 
 to the two first, nothing more was required than 
 to guarantee them their state of actual possession, 
 for they had not yet been invaded by the French, 
 But the King of Naples stood in avery different 
 situation. He had been deprived of all his dominions 
 on the continent ; and his lordship had no hesitation 
 in saying, that he would have consented to Eng- 
 land’s making great sacrifices in order to procure 
 the restoration of the kingdom of Naples to Ferdi- 
 nand IV. But no amount of sacrifice that England 
 could possibly make would have been considered 
 by Bonaparte as an equivalent for the restoration 
 of that kingdom. Sicily still remained in possession 
 of the unfortunate Bourbon king, or rather in pos- 
 session of a brave British army. That army had 
 entered the island with the consent of Ferdinand, 
 who had received them in the full confidence that 
 they would defend it gallantly, and never give it up 
 to the enemy. Yet France had required that we 
 should give up Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte, to be 
 re-annexed to the kingdom of Naples, on the throne 
 of which he was now seated. But would it not 
 have been an indelible disgrace to this country to 
 have given up Sicily for any equivalent or consider- 
 ation whatsoever? It was not ours to give: it was 
 not for us to barter it away for any equivalent with- 
 out the consent of the sovereign. As to Hanover, 
 it was sacrificed to injustice on the part of France, 
 for the express purpose of injuring this country. 
 Would it not therefore be disgraceful not to insist 
 on the restoration of Hanover to its sovereign, from 
 whom it had been taken solely on account of its 
 connexion with this country? Ministers had there- 
 fore insisted upon the restoration of Hanover as an 
 indispensable preliminary. The principle on which 
 they had acted during the whole of Lord Yarmouth’s 
 and Lord Lauderdale’s negotiations was that of 
 good faith to our allies: the principle on which the 
 French government had acted was to effect a sepa- 
 ration between us and our allies: this clearly ap- 
 peared in the negctiation from first to last. His 
 lordship mentioned the Confederation of the Rhine, 
 the formation of which was made public while we 
 were negotiating, as cause sufficient to preclude all 
 hope of peace. These, in every particular, were 
 the sentiments of Fox, so that a just opinion may 
 be formed of the notion that if he had but lived the 
 war would have been ended. Grenville concluded 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 by moving an address to the king to express their 
 lordships’ approbation of the attempts his majesty 
 had made to restore the blessings of peace, and 
 their determination to support him in such mea- 
 sures as might yet be found necessary, either for 
 the restoration of peace, or the vigorous prosecution 
 of the war. A motion to the same effect was made 
 in the Commons by Lord Howick, who had pre- 
 sented copies of the papers relative to the late 
 diplomacy. In both Houses the motion was carried 
 unanimously and cordially ; but in each there were 
 long debates, turning chiefly upon the comparative 
 merits or demerits of the foreign policy of the late 
 and present ministries. In the Upper House, Lord 
 Eldon said, that he could not lament the failure of 
 a pacific adjustment with an enemy whose aggres- 
 sions in a time of peace were quite as dangerous and 
 extreme as his operations in war ; but that he must 
 regret that England had humiliated herself, and 
 that her ambassador Lord Lauderdale had put up 
 with the most base and injurious calumnies. In 
 the Commons Mr. Montagu said that, though Fox 
 had at last exposed the sophistry of Talleyrand in 
 a clear and manly manner, he had at first given 
 that wily politician an advantage over him by his 
 glancings and oglings at peace. He did not like 
 that Fox, in addressing Talleyrand, should have 
 subscribed himself ‘‘ with perfect attachment ;”’ 
 he did not like Fox’s appointing such men as Lord 
 Yarmouth and Lord Lauderdale to conduct the 
 most difficult and most important of negotiations. 
 Lord Yarmouth was wholly unaccustomed to diplo- 
 macy, was a prisoner in France, and had then 
 hopes of freedom only through the medium of 
 peace. As for the other noble lord, from his once 
 close intimacy with the Girondists, who had put 
 their king to death, and from the patience with 
 which he had listened within the walls of the Na- 
 tional Assembly to the projects for the destruction 
 of England, he could not think him a fit person to 
 be charged with the interests and honour of his 
 country! Whitbread alone, in the teeth of all 
 evidence to the contrary, boldly and broadly main- 
 tained that Bonaparte and his ministers were sin- 
 cere in their wishes for peace; that an opportunity 
 had been lost of making peace on honourable and 
 advantageous terms; that the negotiations had 
 been broken off prematurely and unnecessarily ; 
 and that, if Fox had not fallen ill and died, they 
 would have been brought to the happy conclusion 
 of an enduring peace! 
 
 As by the admission of all parties war must now 
 continue, efforts were necessary (and efforts far 
 greater than any that were made in this session of 
 parliament, or by this ministry), to give an increase 
 of power and a proper direction to our military 
 forces. Some additional extra grants were voted 
 to the ordnance department ; but this money ap- 
 pears to have been nearly all spent in martello 
 towers and other absurd home fortifications. 
 Windham, who continued secretary-at-war, in 
 presenting the army estimates, congratulated the 
 
 country on a slight increase of force, with a slight 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 ee Se eee ee ee ee 
 
 353 
 
 decrease of expense. He stated the number of 
 men under arms (including 21,473 foreigners in 
 British pay, 25,000 men employed in India, 
 79,158 in the West Indian plantations, de. 
 &c., and 94,200 embodied militia and fencibles, 
 but excluding the volunteer corps) at the grand 
 total of 334,000. He affirmed that the system 
 of training was going on steadily in all parts 
 of the country; and that, though 11,480 volun- 
 teers had retired, in discontent at the changes 
 made last year, there still remained 363,400 ! Lord 
 Castlereagh, in answering Windham, reduced the 
 first of these high numbers from 334,000 to an 
 effective, actual force of 260,500, and he also 
 made a considerable reduction in the number of 
 volunteers actually armed and regimented. But 
 after every fair deduction there remained an enor- 
 mous force, out of which 40,000 or 50,000 men 
 might have been spared for any great enterprise 
 on the Continent. Since the battle of Trafalgar 
 there was no fear of invasion; a large portion of 
 our militia was by this time all but equal to troops 
 of the line; gnd, not to rank our volunteer corps 
 higher than the French national guards, they were 
 quite equal to put down any disorders at home, and 
 to repel any petty landing, if such a thing should 
 be attempted, which was altogether improbable. 
 If 30,000 or 40,000 native British troops had been 
 carried to the mouth of the Vistula and landed 
 at Dantzic in the preceding autumn, the French 
 would not have captured that most important place, 
 nor would the Russians have been nearly defeated 
 at Hylau, as they were a few days after this display 
 of our forces was made in parliament. There was, 
 too, at this moment a greater facility than there 
 had been of raising first-rate recruits in England; 
 for, although Lord Castlereagh and cthers attempted 
 to prove the contrary, Windham’s new regulations 
 and the limited service were working very well. 
 The improvement in the condition of the common 
 soldier had made an army life more acceptable to 
 the people; a greater number of recruits had been 
 raised at a lower bounty than formerly, and there 
 had been a great diminution of desertion. 
 
 The most liberal supplies were voted. The sum 
 of 11,305,387/. was devoted to the regular army, 
 including pensions, half-pay, the Military College, 
 the military hospitals, &c. The sum of 4,203,327/. 
 was devoted to the militia, fencible corps, volun- 
 teers, &c. The ordnance had 3,321,2162. At first 
 the number of men to be employed for the sea 
 service for the year 1807, including 29,000 marines, 
 was fixed at 120,000 men; but to this number 
 were almost immediately added 7600 sailors and 
 2400 more marines. The total of the money de- 
 voted to the navy for the year was 17,400,337/. 
 
 The commission of military inquiry which had 
 been appointed under the administration of Pitt, 
 and renewed under the present admiaistration, had 
 brought to light abuses of very great magnitude in 
 the barrack department. It appeared that General 
 Delancey, barrack-master-general, had been in the 
 
 habit of drawing, through the medium of Mr. 
 Ww 
 
354 
 
 Greenwood, the army agent, immense sums of the 
 public money long before they were wanted ; and 
 that in a part only of his accounts (there had not 
 been time for examining the whole) overcharges 
 and misstatements had been detected to the amount 
 of 90,000/. Thus much the commission of in- 
 quiry had reported in the preceding session. But 
 they now reported that there was fraudulent league 
 and collusion between General Delancey and Mr. 
 Alexander Davison, banker, and colonel of aregiment 
 of volunteers. Davison, who had been tried in 1804 
 fof bribery at elections, and imprisoned for that 
 offence,* soon after his coming out of prison had 
 been made, by Pitt’s administration, in whose 
 behalf the bribery had been exercised, treasurer of 
 the ordnance, in which capacity he had annually 
 had the handling of from 3,000,000/. to 4,000,000/. 
 of the public money. The commissioners of inquiry 
 stated that, in consequence of a bargain with De- 
 lancey, the barrack-master-general, Davison was to 
 receive a commission of two and a half per cent. 
 for supplying the articles of beds, sheets, blankets, 
 towels, candles, beer, forage, &c.; but that, as to 
 coals, he was to supply them as a merchant; that 
 the said Davison injured the public in a twofold 
 manner—first, by following the example of Delan- 
 cey in drawing immense sums of money before 
 they were expended by him for the public service 
 (they said he had always in hand a million or more 
 of the public money, of the interest of which he 
 deprived the public) ; secondly, in the price of the 
 articles he furnished. The report passed over the 
 beds, sheets, blankets, and the other articles which 
 had been furnished on commission, as the commis- 
 sioners said they had not found any means of 
 detecting the frauds practised in those articles ; 
 but it fastened upon the coals, with respect to 
 which ample means of detection had been found. 
 According to his bargain with Delancey, Davison 
 was to produce certificates that his prices for coals 
 were the fair wholesale prices, and these certificates 
 were to be signed by persons of the most perfect 
 respectability. But it appeared that Delancey had 
 never made any inquiry as to the character of 
 the men who signed Davison’s certificates; and 
 that one of Davison’s chief certificate-signers, a 
 Mr. George Richard Walker, had been a dealer in 
 coals himself, had also been Davison’s agent in 
 supplying candles, had had a direct interest in 
 certifying high prices, and had since then been 
 convicted of forgery and executed, The report 
 went on to state that, being under no check or 
 control, the said Alexander Davison had carried on 
 his tricks in the most daring manner; that in sup- 
 plying coals he had made a gain of 30/. in every 
 100/. by the difference of price and measure alone; 
 that he was bound to make the deliveries in the 
 most favourable seasons, instead of which he had 
 made almost the whole of them in winter, when 
 
 * Alexander Davison, Esq., then described as ** the opulent banker 
 and contractor,” John White Parsons, and Thomas Hopping, gentle- 
 men, were sentenced, in the month of April, 1804, by the Court of 
 
 King’s Bench, for gross bribery and corruption at the late Ilchester 
 election, to twelve months’ confinement in the Marshalsea prison. 
 
 eee ae 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 coals were dearest, though he had always bought - 
 
 > Pa 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 them at the seasons when coals were cheapest ; 
 and that, too, through the most shameful and cul- 
 pable inattention, if not by the connivance, of 
 General Delancey. By this profitable trade in 
 coals, by contracts with government for other ar- 
 ticles, and by his very profitable system of bank- 
 ing, this Davison had been enabled for some years” 
 past to live in a style of high splendour and mag- 
 nificence. He was a buyer of estates, the pur- 
 chaser of the most valuable pictures, the giver of 
 the best dinners and the most gorgeous entertain- 
 ments; he counted the Prince of Wales and other 
 royal personages among his occasional guests; and 
 
 many of the nobility were his frequent inmates. — 
 
 It would have been but an irritating process to 
 compare the sumptuousness of this army con- 
 tractor’s table, and the splendour of his town man- 
 sion and villas, with the sordidness and nakedness 
 of many of the poor soldiers’ barracks! The 
 country paid enough to furnish the soldiery with 
 the very best food, and with nearly every comfort 
 compatible with their condition; but these scoun- 
 drel contractors gorged upon the liberality of the 
 nation. The same accursed practices obtained in 
 the navy; and, though lessened, they were not de- 
 stroyed by the measures which followed the muti- 
 nies of our fleets. 
 Lord Archibald Hamilton had intended to move 
 that the attorney-general should be instructed to 
 proceed by due course of law against Davison ; 
 but, learning that the business was in the hands of 
 the treasury, he dropped his intention, saying, 
 however, that it was not very creditable to the go- 
 vernment to have suffered the matter to remain 
 so long unnoticed. Lord Henry Petty said that 
 the affair was properly put into the hands of the 
 treasury ; that Davison, after long delays, had de- 
 clared his readiness to give such information as to 
 his cash account as he could give; stating, at the 
 same time, that his government account was so 
 mixed with other accounts that it was impossible — 
 he could give a clear view of it. His lordship di 
 not hold himself competent to say whether there — 
 was any evidence on which to found a criminal 
 
 + | 
 
 : 
 
 ‘ 
 
 prosecution ; but, if such evidence should be pro- — 
 
 duced, the attorney and solicitor-generals would — 
 certainly be instructed by the lords of the trea- 
 sury to institute proceedings upon it. The com- 
 
 missioners of inquiry had already, by direction of — 
 
 the treasury, peremptorily called upon Dayison © 
 
 4 
 
 for his cash account, and measures had already — 
 
 been taken for the recovery of the sums due. 
 
 : 
 
 The lawyers were very soon let loose upon the ; 
 prince of contractors; and in the course of the — 
 following year they hunted him down and into a 
 
 prison. Judgment was not given in the Court of 
 King’s Bench until the month of April, 1809. 
 The attorney-general then stated that Davison had 
 paid into the exchequer 18,183/. 13s. 1d., being 
 the amount of the commission which he had re- 
 ceived as agent for government upon the contracts. 
 Justice Grose said that this was by no means 4 
 
ee ee 
 
 Ee eee 
 
 Cuap. VIII] 
 
 sufficient expiation of his offence: he was not 
 merely a debtor to the public in a pecuniary, but 
 also in a moral sense: the precedent of his case 
 would be hurtful to the public, unless marked by 
 the censure of the court; and therefore the court, 
 considering the sum which he had yemitted to 
 government, the imprisonment he had already 
 suffered, and all the circumstances of the case, did 
 order and adjudge that he should be further im- 
 prisoned in his majesty’s gaol of Newgate for 
 twenty-one calendar months. 
 
 In the course of the present session other frauds 
 connected with the barrack department were dis- 
 covered, and properly exposed; but still sufficient 
 checks were not put to their recurrence. As in 
 other departments, the capital fault lay in appoint- 
 ing to the superior offices men of rank and fashion, 
 who, being above their duties, and ignorant of de- 
 tails, trusted to contractors and underlings, who 
 robbed the country and disgraced their principals. 
 There was most rarely, if ever, any connivance be- 
 tween the heads of the departments and the plun- 
 derers ; but there was shameful negligence, and 
 very often a total incompetence, in the chiefs. 
 
 On the 29th of January, Lord Henry Petty, as 
 chancellor of the exchequer, submitted to the House 
 an estimate of the supplies required for the year, 
 and of the ways and means by which he proposed 
 to meet an expenditure calculated at a grand total 
 
 ‘of 45,841,340/.; being 40,527,065/. for Great 
 Britain, and 5,314,275/. for Ireland. He at the 
 same time announced his new plan of finance, an 
 account of which will be given in a subsequent 
 chapter. 
 
 Wilberforce, as we have seen, had placed his 
 main dependence upon Fox, but the death of that 
 minister seems to have given additional zeal to 
 Lord Grenville for the abolition of negro slavery. 
 Shortly before the meeting of Parliament, Gren- 
 ville wrote to Wilberforce, that his idea was to 
 present to the House of Lords, on one of the first 
 days of meeting, a Bill simply abolishing the Trade, 
 and declaring the being engaged in it to be a mis- 
 demeanour punishable at law. His lordship asked 
 Wilberforce whether the subject should be entered 
 upon at the same time in the House of Commons? 
 He rather thought Yes, but wished Wilberforce to 
 decide. Lord Holland confidentially informed the 
 leader of the abolitionists that in a proposed treaty 
 with the United States an international condemna- 
 tion of the slave trade was already contemplated. 
 Mr. Brougham, who had been exceedingly zealous 
 and active in the cause, and who had been, on the 
 accession of “ All the Talents ” ministry, appointed 
 envoy to the court of Lisbon, held out good hopes 
 that Portugal, which with the United States was 
 now the only power that could carry on the slave 
 trade to any extent, might be induced to follow the 
 example of her ally England. Sidmouth and 
 Ellenborough, two members of the cabinet, conti- 
 nued in their anti-abolitionism : the dukes of Cla- 
 rence and of Sussex declared openly against the 
 bill, speaking, as it was understood, the sentiments 
 
 ES aa err a ee Ue ee OE ree 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 355 
 
 of all the royal family. “The Princes,” adds 
 Wilberforce, “are canvassing against us, alas!” 
 Grenville told him that he could not count on more 
 than fifty-six peers, although he had taken great 
 pains, had written letters, &c.* 
 
 As early as the 2nd of January Lord Grenville 
 brought into the House of Lords his Bill for abo- 
 lishing the Slave Trade. Lord Eldon, the ex- 
 chancellor, who must have known by this time that 
 his ex would soon be dropped, wished to know 
 whether the bill was meant to extend to both the 
 West Indies and the coast of Africa, or whether it 
 was the African slave trade only that was to be 
 abolished? Lord Grenville said distinctly that the 
 bill extended to the African trade only. Eldon 
 then remarked that, if their lordships consented to 
 put an end to the trade on the coast of Africa, the 
 application of the same principle would compel 
 them to extend the abolition to the West Indian 
 islands. The bill was read a first time and printed. 
 
 On the 12th of January, in moving that the 5th 
 of February should be appointed for the second 
 reading of the bill, Lord Grenville, in reply to 
 some questions put by Lord Hawkesbury, spoke as 
 if foreign powers would unite with us in our phi- 
 lanthropic design: he declared that during the late 
 negotiations with France communications had taken 
 place on this subject; and he added that commu- 
 nications respecting the slave trade had passed 
 between the plenipotentiaries of this country and 
 the United States of America, and that an agree- 
 ment upon the subject actually formed one of the 
 articles of the treaty which had now been signed 
 by one of those plenipotentiaries. 
 
 Between the first and second reading counsel 
 were heard at the bar of the House of Lords in 
 behalf of the West Indian merchants, the planters 
 of Jamaica and Trinidad, the merchants of Liver- 
 pool, the corporation of Liverpool, and the trustees 
 of the docks of that port, who all foresaw nothing 
 but ruin from the abolition of the African trade. 
 On the appointed day for the second reading Lord 
 Grenville made a memorable speech—repeating in 
 a striking manner nearly all the arguments and 
 appeals to the feelings which had ever been 
 used on this long-debated question. He was 
 warmly supported by the Duke of Gloucester, the 
 
 Earl of Selkirk, Lord King, the Earl of Rosslyn, 
 Lord Northesk, the Bishop of Durham, Lord Hol- 
 land, the Earl of Suffolk, and Lord Moira; and as 
 warmly opposed by the Duke of Clarence, the 
 Earl of Morton, the Earl of Westmoreland, Lords 
 Sidmouth, Eldon, Hawkesbury, and St. Vincent.t 
 Yet it should really seem that the opposition of 
 several of these peers was rather to the time and 
 manner of carrying the abolition into effect than to 
 
 * Wilberforce, Diary and Life. 
 
 + Wilberforce’s jottings in his Diary about this debate are not 
 very complimentary or charitable to some of his opponents :— 
 ‘**Grenville’s famous speech. Duke of Gloucester highly respectable, 
 Moira and Holland very good. Westmoreland out-blackguarding 
 the blackguard. Sidmouth beyond his own precedent in this cause. 
 Lord Selkirk sensible and well-principled. Lord Rosslyn good 
 
 | and sensible. Lord Eldon humiliating. Clarence worse in point 
 
 | of execution than usual.”—Diary, in Life. 
 
356 
 
 the abolition itself. A vast body of the mercan- 
 tile world, and the West Indian planters to a man, 
 had assured them that a fatal effect would be pro- 
 duced by the measure upon the revenues of the 
 country at a moment when every shilling that could 
 possibly be raised was wanted; that there would 
 be a sudden stop or a most rapid decline in the 
 vast resources furnished to the state by the West 
 India islands; that the slaves would rush into insur- 
 rection on learning that the British government 
 and legislature had reprobated the trade and 
 declared it to be unlawful, for, if it were an unlaw- 
 ful deed now to import negroes from Africa, the act 
 must have been equally unjustifiable and detestable 
 when they themselves, or those who bore them, had 
 been purchased on the Guinea coast and conveyed 
 to the West Indies. Lord Sidmouth recommended, 
 as Burke had done long ago, that churches should 
 be built in the plantations for the negroes, and that 
 they should be instructed in the morality and faith 
 of Christians. And his lordship also recommended 
 the institution of marriage as the first step towards 
 civilizing the slaves and improving their condition. 
 With these advantages, and with the blessing of 
 being protected by our laws, he thought the time 
 would arrive for emancipating them entirely. The 
 debate lasted till five o’clock in the morning, 
 when the second reading of the bill was carried 
 by 100 against 36. The Bishops of Durham and 
 London, and many others, shook Wilberforce by 
 the hand, and congratulated him on his triumph. 
 On the third reading in the Lords there was no 
 division, and scarcely any opposition. By a pro- 
 viso, introduced by Lord Grenville himself, all 
 slave-vessels, which should have cleared out of this 
 country for Africa previously to the Ist of May, 
 were to be allowed to complete their cargoes and 
 trade with them to the West Indies till the Ist of 
 January, 1808, at which time all such traffic from 
 Africa was to cease. Thus, after all, a rush was 
 allowed to be made to the slave-market ; and far 
 more terrible than usual must have been the means 
 resorted to by the savage African tribes, and the 
 native slave-dealers, to supply this demand. 
 Having passed the House of Lords, the bill was 
 brought down to the Commons on the 10th of 
 February, when the reading was moved by Lord 
 Howick in an eloquent speech. Wilberforce had 
 counted ‘‘a terrible list of doubters ;” but except 
 Mr. George Hibbert, who complained that parlia- 
 ment was yielding to popular prejudice, enthusiasm, 
 and passion; Captain Herbert, who thought that 
 the abolition of the slave-trade would bring ruin 
 to our finances; and General Gascoyne, who said 
 that every measure that invention or artifice could 
 suggest had been resorted to, in order to keep up 
 the popular excitement, and that the pulpit, the 
 stage, the press, had all laboured to create a pre- 
 judice against the slave-trade, none of the anti- 
 abolitionists spoke, and the first reading passed 
 without a division. Afterwards, counsel was heard 
 at the bar against the abolition as in the other 
 House ; but an absolute negative was put upon the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 See 
 A 
 * 4 
 " 
 é 
 “ic 
 
 [ Boox. X. 
 
 demand that more witnesses should be examined, 
 The question of going into committee was carried 
 at four o’clock in the morning of the 24th of Feb- 
 ruary, by 283 against 16. The House gave Wil- 
 berforce three cheers. * 
 
 It had been considered expedient to omit the 
 penalties in the bill; “but,” says Wilberforce, 
 ‘the division of last night has quite changed the 
 state of things, and it is highly desirable now to 
 put in the penalties.””? Lord Grenville also wrote 
 to him, “ suggesting the expediency of taking ad- 
 vantage of their present strength to render the 
 bill as perfect as possible, and desiring to see the 
 penal clauses prepared.”’ The clauses were rapidly 
 prepared, declaring, according to the original in- 
 tention of Lord Grenville, that to engage in the 
 slave-irade after the time fixed, would be a misde- 
 meanour punishable at law; and they were in- 
 serted, with other amendments. But Wilberforce’s 
 joy was clouded by indications of great changes in 
 the political atmosphere: he saw that Lord Gren- 
 ville and his colleagues were inevitably going out 
 of office, and that their adversaries were as surely 
 coming in—the cup was at his lip, but he appre- 
 hended it yet might be dashed to the ground by 
 the Sidmouths, the Eldons, and the other decided 
 anti-abolitionists. Yet, as far as in them lay, on the 
 one great point (assumed, though perhaps incor- 
 rectly, as the sole cause of the fall of the present mi- 
 nistry), Wilberforce and his friends in parliament 
 had aided the tripping up the heels of the ministers 
 who had gone so heartily along with them in their 
 grand measure. While the last touches were being put 
 to the Abolition Bill, Wilberforce declared that his 
 religious principles, his conscience, would not per- 
 mit him to encourage popery ; and, on the 4th of 
 March, when ministers proposed giving an increased 
 grant to the Roman Catholic College at Maynooth, 
 he voted and spoke against them, and thus fanned 
 the flames of intolerance that were kindling all over 
 the country. This open opposition, however, pro- 
 duced no change in the cabinet as to Wilberforce’s 
 great question. On the 16th of March the Aboli- 
 tion Bill was read the third time in the Commons; 
 and on the 18th it was carried back in its amended 
 state to the Lords. ‘‘ At this time,” says Wilber- 
 force, “it was supposed to be clear that govern- 
 ment was out, or as good as out.”’ This filled him 
 “* with alarm lest the bill should fall through be- 
 tween the two ministries, neither being responsible, 
 and the bill perhaps being thrown out. by the ab- 
 sence of friends, and the attendance of sturdy 
 Africans and West Indians, the princes taking the 
 lead.” He appears to have been sadly tossed be- 
 tween pillar and post, running about between those 
 who were going out and those who were coming 
 
 * When the House rose, John and Henry Thornton, Reginald 
 Heber, Macaulay, Sharpe, and other friends, went over to Wilber- 
 force’s house to offer their enthusiastic congratulations for this result 
 of the efforts and toils of twenty years. It was a triumphant meet- 
 ing. ‘* Well, Henry,” said Wilberforce to Thornton, ‘‘ what shall we 
 abolish next?” ‘*The lottery, I think,” said Thornton. ‘Let us 
 make out the names of these sixteen miscreants; Ihave four of them,” 
 said William Smith. ‘‘ Never mind the miserable sixteen,” said 
 Wilberforce; ‘let us think of our glorious 283 !”’"—Life, by his Sons. 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 357 
 
 in, imploring here, deprecating there. But, to his 
 great joy, he was assured by Spencer Perceval, 
 whose attachment to the cause was above all doubt 
 —as was also the fact that he was about to be 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer—that Lords Eldon 
 and Hawkesbury, as well as Lord Castlereagh, de- 
 clared that now they would lend themselves to any 
 thing needful for giving effect to the measure. 
 Perceval also said that he would write to the Duke 
 of Cumberland, the king’s confidant, on the subject, 
 and take it upon himself to be the leading man in 
 the abolition business. As soon as Wilberforce 
 received these assurances from Perceval (with whom 
 he closely agreed in religious sentiments and the 
 decided opposition to Catholic emancipation), he 
 appears to have cared very little how soon the 
 “Talents”? went out, and their adversaries came 
 in. But the honour of passing his measure was 
 not reserved to the new administration: the Lords 
 assented to the amendments on the 23rd of March, 
 and on the 25th the bill received the royal assent, 
 Lord Chancellor Erskine, and Lords Auckland and 
 Holland being the royal commissioners. It was the 
 last act of the Grenville ministry. The day after Lord 
 Grenville’s bill had passed in the Commons, Lord 
 Percy moved in that House for leave to bring in a 
 bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the West 
 Indies. Lord Henry Petty deprecated any discussion 
 of this subject at the present moment, entreating 
 Lord Percy most earnestly to withdraw his motion, 
 or to concur in the previous question which he 
 should feel it his duty to move. Sir C. Pole was glad 
 the motion had been made, as it would open the eyes 
 of all who were interested in the West India Islands 
 to the dangers which threatened them. If, as Lords 
 Eldon, Sidmouth, and Redesdale had seemed to re- 
 commend, abolition and emancipation had gone 
 hand in hand in the late bill, it would assuredly 
 never have passed either House. It was still neces- 
 sary to quiet apprehensions, which at the time of 
 Lord Percy’s motion might have been raised be- 
 tween the adoption of the amended bill by the 
 Lords and the royal assent. Wilberforce declared 
 that he and those who acted with him were satisfied 
 with having gained an object which was to be ob- 
 tained with safety. The sole point they had in 
 view was the abolition of the slave trade, and not 
 the emancipation of the slaves. The enemies of 
 the abolition had always confounded these two 
 objects ; the friends of the abolition had always 
 distinguished them. After these words from Wil- 
 berforce, Mr. Hibbert said, if there remained a ray 
 of hope that the West India colonies might yet be 
 saved, it must be decidedly shown and clearly un- 
 derstood that the House would not for a moment 
 listen to any proposal for emancipation. But She- 
 ridan expressed a great desire that Lord Percy 
 should persevere, declaring that he had considered 
 the bill just passed as nothing but a prelude to the 
 ultimate measure of emancipation. This appears 
 to have grieved and perplexed Wilberforce; but 
 most of the members were by this time tired of 
 these endless discussions; there was a very thin 
 
 ec 
 
 attendance, and the debate was cut short by the 
 House being counted out, some one looking round 
 and finding that there were only thirty-five mem- 
 bers present. 
 
 It was, as we have intimated, not negro but 
 Catholic emancipation which broke up the cabinet. 
 But we must also renew the expression of our 
 doubt whether that religious question would have 
 been taken up, at the time and in the manner it 
 was, if ministers had not found that the ground 
 was sliding away under their feet, that the aliena- 
 tion of their followers was increasing, and that the 
 popular favour upon which they had counted seemed 
 less attainable than ever. The dissolution and the 
 general election had given them no accession of 
 strength ; they could command no great majority, 
 except on the negro slave question, and even there 
 Wilberforce’s friends and the party called the saints 
 had more influence than ministers, while they were 
 hostile to ministers on almost every other point. 
 The fault may not have been all their own, but 
 ** All the Talents” had certainly disappointed the 
 nation at large; and it will not be easy to find 
 much to admire either in their conduct of the war 
 or management of the finances. That fatal three- 
 and-a-half per cent. clapped on the income and pro- 
 perty tax was very mischievous to them. In other 
 quarters their untimely parsimony towards Russia, 
 and the now fast-coming news of defeats and losses 
 sustained by the forsaken or neglected czar, created 
 a violent ill-feeling against them.. Many, even of 
 those who acknowledged their merits in other re- 
 spects, were of opinion that they had been clamour- 
 ing tco long against the war to be in case to carry on 
 that war with spirit—that they were not the men 
 to fight the ship—and they had proved, to a de- 
 monstration, that they were no more able to make 
 peace than their predecessors had been. 
 
 Both Fox and Grenville, though so deeply 
 pledged to the Catholics, had accepted office with- 
 out making any stipulation that Catholic emanci- 
 pation, or some extensive concession tending to 
 that point, should be made a cabinet question. It 
 is quite certain that George III. would have con- 
 sented to no such stipulation; but the party or 
 parties who knew his unchangeable resolution on 
 this point ought not to have taken office at all if they 
 had been then determined to press the Catholic 
 claims upon him so soon after getting possession of 
 the cabinet. It does not appear that they were at 
 this moment driven forward by any pressure from 
 without, or by any extraordinary appeal or eager 
 impatience on the part of the Insh Catholics. 
 They had acted towards Ireland in a conciliatory 
 and commendable spirit. They had seemed to say 
 to the Irish Catholics, we cannot do you all the 
 good we wish, but we will do you all the good and 
 render you all the justice we can. The person and 
 the government of the viceroy they had appointed 
 had gained the affections and the golden opinions 
 of the Catholics, although, as an inevitable conse- 
 quence in that country, the Duke of Bedford had, 
 in about an equal degree, excited the hatred and 
 
358 
 
 anger of all the Church of England Protestants. 
 The duke and the English cabinet had, from the 
 first, adopted a new set of maxims for the govern- 
 ment of Ireland; they had included Catholics in 
 their distribution of patronage, and they had repressed 
 as much as possible the hostile spirit of the Orange- 
 men.* ‘This high-flying party were indeed at this 
 moment declaring that the patronage of “ All the 
 Talents” was bestowed exclusively upon the Papists ; 
 that the Protestant ascendancy was no more; that 
 the Protestant religion itself was in danger—and 
 these cries found a ready and loud echo in the 
 royal dwellings of Windsor and Buckingham 
 House. Since the rebellion, or repeated essays at 
 rebellion, Ireland had been dragooned or had been 
 governed rather too much by military force. The 
 present administration had abstained from the 
 employment of any violent means, and yet had 
 succeeded in putting down some disturbances which 
 broke out in the autumn of 1806, without pro- 
 claiming martial law, and without in any respect 
 stepping out of the forms of ordinary civil law. 
 Their popularity in Ireland, among the Catholics, 
 was certainly greater or of a more passionate kind 
 than their unpopularity in England; and, in order 
 to retain the benefit of their gentle and friendly 
 system of government, the Irish Catholics, to all 
 appearance, would have consented to waive any 
 claim the prosecution of which was likely to over- 
 throw the cabinet. As for the Papists in England, 
 to say nothing of the smallness of their number, 
 they continued to be in a rapturous state of loyalty, 
 and certainly leaned rather towards the king’s 
 party and the Tories than towards the composite 
 party now in power. The additional grant to the 
 Catholic College at Maynooth was accepted as a 
 boon ; but the spirit excited in the House of Com- 
 mons by that measure must have told ministers 
 that the time had not yet arrived, even there, for 
 any extensive concessions or large surrender of 
 old prejudices. In the debate on that question on 
 the 4th of March, Wilberforce, the organ of a most 
 important party, and one whose words and senti- 
 ments carried the greatest weight throughout what 
 is termed the religious world, had maintained that 
 Popery was the true bane of Ireland ; that it was 
 infatuation to take any steps for its encouragement ; 
 that, after all we could grant the Roman Catholics 
 in Ireland, so much would still remain behind as 
 to prevent their being ever cordially attached to a 
 Protestant government, of which a _ Protestant 
 church formed a part, &c. He had maintained at 
 ail times that the Protestant church, as the only 
 true one, must be kept up; and he hoped that it 
 might gradually convert the papists. In the debate, 
 he rebuked the warm friends of religious liberty. 
 **T am not,”’ said he, ** one of those men who en- 
 tertain the large and liberal views on religious sub- 
 jects, insisted on with so much energy by the 
 honourable gentlemen on the other side; I am not 
 so much like a certain ruler (Bonaparte), of whom 
 it has been so happily said, that he is an honorary 
 * Horner. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (Book X. 
 
 | member of all religions.’ Yet on the very next 
 
 day (the 5th of March), Lord Howick moved for 
 leave to bring in a bill for securing to all his ma. 
 jesty’s subjects the privilege of serving in the arm 
 
 or navy, upon their taking a prescribed oath; and 
 for leaving them, as far as convenience would ad- 
 mit, the free exercise of their respective religions. 
 His lordship frankly stated that what had particu. 
 larly drawn the attention of government to the sub- 
 ject, was the strange anomaly existing in conse- 
 quence of the Irish act of 1793, by which the 
 Roman Catholics in that country were enabled to 
 hold commissions in the army, and to attain to any 
 rank except those of commander-in-chief, master- 
 general of the ordnance, or general on the staff; 
 but, if any of these Catholic officers should be 
 ordered to this country, they would be disqualified 
 by law from remaining in the service. His lord- 
 ship said that the proposed measure would only 
 enable his majesty to appoint Catholics to high 
 military posts if he thought proper; that their 
 appointment must depend on the executive go- 
 vernment, who, of course, would always avoid an 
 
 dangerous use of the authority. The bill, he 
 said, did not hold out any encouragement to the 
 Catholics; it did not establish any institution 
 for their support or increase. But the abolition of 
 restrictions in point of rank in the army and navy 
 would place before the sons of the gentry of Ireland 
 the fair objects of ambition, and open to them that 
 career of glory the pursuit of which was synony- 
 mous with the advancement of the best interests of 
 the empire. Spencer Perceval, who, as well as 
 his friends Sidmouth and Ellenborough, had 
 been closeted with the king several times before 
 Howick made this motion, instantly rose and stig- 
 matized the measure as one of the most dangerous 
 that had ever been submitted to the judgment of 
 the legislature. Yet it was not so much to the 
 individual measure that he objected as to the sys- 
 tem of which it formed a part—a system which 
 was growing every day, and which was threatening 
 the most terrible consequences. to church and state. 
 He looked upon the measure as a step towards 
 abolishing all the religious tests which the wisdom 
 of our ancestors had thought it necessary to inter- 
 pose in defence of our establishment. From the 
 arguments advanced at the present day, a man 
 
 might be almost led to suppose that the one re- 
 
 ligion was as good as the other, and that the Re- 
 
 formation had only been a measure of political 
 
 convenience. The present question, he said, was 
 
 simply this, whether the legislature could give up 
 
 the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, or make a 
 
 stand, and say—we have already done everything 
 
 that toleration requires, and that the Catholics 
 
 have a right to demand. The bill however was 
 
 brought in and read the first time; and that day 
 
 week was fixed for the second reading. But the 
 
 second reading was subsequently postponed from 
 
 the 12th to the 18th of March. It appears from 
 
 the confession of one of their own warm friends 
 
 that, in order to effect a compromise with the king, 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 ministers offered to withdraw the bill altogether, 
 and that his majesty refused any compromise.* 
 On the 17th of March, Lord Howick announced 
 that the same circumstances which had twice in- 
 duced him to move for the postponement of the 
 second reading of the bill still continued to operate : 
 so that the order of the day for the second reading, 
 which stood for to-morrow, would be dropped, to 
 be revived as the House itself should think fit. 
 His lordship said that he was aware that this inti- 
 mation must excite much observation, and that the 
 House and the public would naturally expect some 
 information with regard to the motives of it. But 
 he was not at present authorized to enter into any 
 explanations. 
 
 In the House at least explanations were scarcely 
 needed : the negotiations which had been going 
 on at Buckingham House for several weeks were 
 no secret there. A rumour had got abroad that, 
 in order to induce Spencer Perceval to quit his 
 profitable practice at the bar and take office in the 
 cabinet about to be formed, he had been offered 
 the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster for 
 life. As early as the 19th of February, which was 
 more than a fortnight before Lord Howick made 
 his first motion on the Roman Catholic army and 
 navy service bill, and just one day before the first 
 mention of the proposal to give an additional grant 
 to Maynooth College, Mr. Bankes moved, “ That 
 no office, place, employment, or salary, in any 
 part of his majesty’s dominions, ought hereafter to 
 be granted in reversion.” Lord Howick gave his 
 most cordial support to the motion, and wished the 
 House to go still farther, and adopt a resolution 
 against the granting for life any office not usually 
 so granted. He was followed by Mr. Plumer, 
 who sorely regretted that these measures had not 
 been brought forward forty years ago. “I can- 
 not,” continued Plumer, “ help embracing this 
 opportunity of paying a tribute of applause to the 
 present administration (I say present, upon the 
 supposition that they are still in office), as they 
 have shown every disposition to benefit the coun- 
 try by their judicious measures, and have avoided 
 the practice of former administrations of granting 
 reversions.” Plumer then fell upon Perceval. 
 He had heard that the new government which was 
 forming or to be formed had agreed to give that 
 gentleman the chancellorship of the duchy for life, 
 m order to tempt him to take office. ‘If,’ said 
 he, “men of great talents are not satisfied with 
 the rewards attached to the situations to which his 
 majesty chooses to appoint them, they ought not 
 
 * Horner :—* The only part of the story I could have wished to be 
 otherwise, is the withdrawing the bill, and not resigning at once ; but 
 perhaps it was rendered unavoidable in consequence of that miscon- 
 ception originally about the extent of the measure. And yet, had 
 the king closed with that compromise, they would have remained in 
 power with tarnished honour ; as it ended ina resignation at last, the 
 
 . Appearance of moderation, in yielding to the king, may do them good 
 with the country, which takes these transactions with a coarse judg- 
 ment. Nothing but the impatience of the king’s advisers to get into 
 ee: or his own impatience to get rid of the reformers and abo- 
 
 ttionists, perhaps the Duke of York’s to stop the reformation of bar- 
 rack abuses, could have so blinded a practised artist in cabinet-mak- 
 ing like the king, as to make him overlook the advantage he would 
 have gained by keeping them, with their withdrawn bill, a little 
 while longer in office, to be thrust out on the next opportunity.” . 
 
 ETE, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 359 
 
 to accept of office at all;” and he solemnly pro- 
 tested against the measure of giving a man a 
 situation for life, in order to entice him to occupy 
 another which might be more fleeting and pre- 
 carious. Mr. Johnstone wished that this principle 
 too had been adopted forty years ago, for in that 
 case a family, some of the members of which had 
 been most clamorous in cheering the reflections 
 cast on Perceval, would not be so loaded with 
 wealth, derived from sinecures, as now to be, 
 among them, in the actual receipt of 60,000/. 
 a-year, drawn from the labour of the public. He 
 was, however, glad to see that, however eager the 
 members of that family had been for places and 
 pensions, they were at last changing their tone! 
 Mr. Henry Martin gave notice that he would move 
 in form for an address to prevent any such dis- 
 posal for life of the chancellorship of the duchy, 
 or of any other place which had been usually held 
 during his majesty’s pleasure. And on the 9th 
 of March, eight days before Lord Howick an- 
 nounced that the second reading of the Catholic 
 bill would be dropped, Mr. H. Martin moved an 
 address to his majesty to the effect above-men- 
 tioned. In his speech he showed that, from the 
 year 1660 to the present time, there were only 
 two instances in which the office of chancellor of 
 the duchy of Lancaster had been held for life.” 
 Martin’s motion was very ably seconded by the 
 Honourable J. W. Ward (the late Lord Dudley 
 and Ward), who observed that grants of this de- 
 scription appeared to be unconstitutional, that they 
 had the effect of raising up a race of men to live 
 on the property of the public, and to make them- 
 selves alike independent of the sovereign who 
 might promote them, and of the people by whom 
 the means were supplied, and that they went to 
 deprive the crown both of the power of punishing 
 weak or wicked men and of the power of reward- 
 ing meritorious servants; for there was a limit to 
 resources of this kind, and if the places were 
 given for life, or in reversion to men’s sons and 
 successors, there would be nothing left to reward 
 the remaining or succeeding servants of the crown. 
 Perceval here rose and said that he had not re- 
 ceived any promise of the chancellorship of the 
 duchy for life, and that whether he got that place 
 or not would make no difference in his conduct 
 and intentions, nor would alter in the slightest 
 degree his disposition to serve his majesty. He 
 had spoken to the king, he had requested him not 
 to make the appointment that day; and he put it 
 to the serious consideration of the House whether, 
 in the present state and crisis of the country, it 
 would be proper to throw any difficulties in the 
 way of his majesty in forming a new administra- 
 tion, when his majesty conceived that in so doing he 
 was only labouring to preserve the constitution and 
 
 * The first instance was that of Lord Lechmere, who had for a 
 long time filled the office of attorney-general, and who had been 
 raised to the peerage in a state of comparative poverty. This was 
 in the year 1717. The second instance was of a much more recent 
 date, having occurred during the present reign, and no further 
 back than the year 1782, in the case of Dunning, who was then 
 created Lord Ashburton. 
 
360 
 
 the religion of the country. Having repeated the 
 assurance of his readiness to take office even with- 
 out the chancellorship of the duchy for life, Per- 
 ceval made his bow and quitted the House. Mar- 
 tin’s motion was then supported by Lord Henry 
 Petty, Sharpe, Thornton, Sheridan, and others. 
 Lord Henry Petty, though well aware that Lord 
 Sidmouth had run counter to him and his friends 
 while in the cabinet with them, and had engaged 
 to join the new administration, if not immediately, 
 as soon as his services should be needed, praised 
 Sidmouth’s disinterestedness and good services to 
 the state. ‘‘ That nobleman,”’ he said, * had been 
 offered the very place in question, and for life, a 
 few years ago; that nobleman had rendered very 
 considerable services during his long and merito- 
 rious discharge of his duty as speaker of that 
 House; but he had nobly declined the place, be- 
 cause he would not be the instrument of alienating 
 from the crown the means of rewarding future 
 public services which might be greater than his 
 own.” Martin’s motion was opposed by Mr. Mon- 
 tague, Sturges Bourne, Johnstone, and others. 
 Sturges Bourne spoke of the talents, integrity, and 
 disinterestedness of Perceval, and asked whether 
 the chancellorship in question, which was not 
 worth much more than 2000/. per annum, were 
 too large an equivalent for the income which his 
 friend derived from his profession, a profession 
 which he must now abandon? Johnstone again 
 dealt in comparisons and in bitter recrimination. 
 He blamed all the fallen ministry, but most of all 
 
 the Grenville family, who were now, he said, . 
 
 taking credit to themselves for so much purity and 
 disinterestedness. He asked them how they could 
 reconcile their present pretensions with the in- 
 decency of pressing upon that House, on their 
 first accession to office, and at nine o’clock at 
 night, two successive stages of a bill for enabling 
 Lord Grenville to hold the office of auditor of the 
 exchequer, with its immense emoluments, while 
 the duties of it were to be done by another; and 
 this too at the same time that another noble lord, 
 at the head of the Grenville family, enjoyed the 
 tellership of the exchequer, with its almost incal- 
 culable emoluments? How could they reconcile 
 with their boasted purity the extraordinary increase 
 made in the salary of first lord of the admiralty, 
 enjoyed by another branch of the family, and that 
 not avowed to parliament in an open way, but 
 effected by a secret fund? How could that right 
 honourable gentleman reconcile to his purity the 
 demand of 3000/. for the expenses of further con- 
 tinuing the commission of navy inquiry, and not 
 say a word about the great and needless increase 
 of his own salary? These honourable gentlemen 
 had been boasting a great deal of their economical 
 arrangements; but what had they done for the 
 country? ‘They had indeed appointed commis- 
 sioners of accounts without number; but what 
 had these commissioners done? The army ac- 
 counts appeared to remain as they were: the West 
 India commissioners, who had been so long ap- 
 
 eee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 | pointed at large salaries to examine the state of 
 
 accounts in the colonies, had not vet even sailed 
 on their mission. ‘The Grenvilles writhed, but 
 were silent. Sheridan, in a speech in which there 
 was more buffoonery and bantering than business 
 or argument, took up the defence of the fallen 
 administration, ringing the changes upon economy, 
 economy, economy, in a manner which had the 
 more ludicrous effect from being connected with 
 his known condition and spendthrift habits. The 
 only facts or proofs he mentioned were the re- 
 duction of the staff of the army, the reduction of 
 the department of the commissariat, both of which 
 rather required mending and increasing than di- 
 minishing, and the reforms effected in the barrack 
 department. Sheridan also praised the disinterest- 
 edness of Lord Sidmouth, as Lord Henry Petty 
 had done. Upon a division, Martin’s address was 
 carried by 218 against 115. 
 
 The new ministry was not settled until the 25th 
 of March, nor were all the arrangements completed 
 even then. On that day Lord Howick announced 
 his determination of opposing any motion for a long 
 adjournment, saying that such a motion was evi- 
 dently contemplated by the new advisers of the 
 crown, but could not be allowed without prejudice 
 to the country. On the 26th, Lord Hawkesbury 
 moved in the Lords that the House should adjourn 
 for a fortnight. Lord Grenville then rose and re- 
 lated in detail the circumstances which had led to 
 the change of administration, and stated the prin- 
 ciples upon which he and his friends had brought 
 in the bill for granting relief to the Catholics and 
 other dissenters. He declared that Pitt and Fox 
 had been equally impressed with the justice and 
 necessity of granting greater indulgences to the 
 Catholics of Ireland. On three questions only had 
 those statesmen agreed during the course of their 
 long political lives: 1. The sinking fund. 2. The 
 abolition of the slave-trade. 3. The Catholic ques- 
 tion. If he had erred it was in common with the 
 two greatest statesmen which any country had ever 
 produced. The two first of these questions had 
 been carried, the first as soon as it was proposed, 
 the second after a delay of many years: the third 
 rested upon such grounds of justice and _ policy, 
 that he could not conceive how any one who un- 
 derstood the interests of his country could oppose 
 it. He conceived that 4,000,000 of Catholic sub- 
 jects were to be governed by conciliation and kind- 
 ness, and not by intolerance and exclusion. The 
 king, he said, had known all along the decided 
 opinions of himself and his friends on this par- 
 ticular, although it was true that it had not been 
 their intention to press any great measure except 
 necessity should require it. He knew very well 
 that there were objections to it in a certain quarter, 
 that it would be strongly opposed in parliament, 
 and that there was no chance of success for a con- 
 siderable time to come. Ministers had even taken 
 measures to prevent the revival of the question, and 
 last year they had succeeded. But since then Ire- 
 land had shown some symptoms of that disturbed 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 state which his lordship thought could be best 
 prevented by further concessions. Other circum- 
 stances had also occurred to induce ministers to 
 depart from the determination they had formed not 
 to press the question: the total destruction of 
 Prussia and the increased power of France made 
 it necessary to strengthen this country to the ut- 
 most : it became the duty of ministers to look to 
 two contingencies—peace between France and the 
 continent, and a continuance of the war with Eng- 
 land. What in such a situation would be the best 
 course of policy? Would it not be to augment 
 the force of our own empire, and to diminish what- 
 ever danger might be apprehended from the dis- 
 content of any part of the united kingdom? His 
 lordship proceeded to state that a draught of a dis- 
 patch to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland relating to 
 the communications he was to make to the Catho- 
 lics, was submitted to the king by ministers, and 
 met with his majesty’s approbation. This draught 
 contained the substance of what they meant to 
 propose in parliament. After some objections his 
 majesty gave his consent that the measure should 
 be proposed this session; and then authority was 
 given to the lord-lieutenant to assure the heads of 
 the Irish Catholics that the army and navy would 
 be opened to them, and that the difficulties which 
 stood in the way of their promotion would all be 
 removed on their taking a proposed oath. A second 
 dispatch had been transmitted to Ireland to remove 
 some doubts which rose in the minds of the Ca- 
 tholics, and to confirm the assurance already given. 
 This second dispatch too had been submitted to 
 his majesty, who returned it without any objection 
 or comment. After all this had been done, how- 
 ever, some members of the cabinet, (Sidmouth and 
 Ellenborough, and we believe we must include 
 Lord Chancellor Erskine,) who had all along 
 entertained doubts as to the extent of the measure, 
 at last objected to it in the strongest terms; and 
 then his majesty, conceiving that the measure went 
 much farther than he had intended, expressed to 
 Lord Grenville his decided objection to it. Mi- 
 nisters then endeavoured to modify the bill, so as 
 to reconcile it to his majesty’s wishes, without de- 
 stroying the vital essence of the measure. Failing 
 in this attempt, they determined to drop the bill 
 altogether ; but, at the same time, in vindication 
 of their own character, Lord Grenville and Lord 
 Howick resolved to insert in the proceedings of the 
 cabinet a minute reserving to them,—1. The liberty 
 of delivering their opinions in favour of the Catholic 
 question; 2. The liberty of submitting this ques- 
 tion, or any subject connected with it, from time to 
 time, according to circumstances, to his majesty’s 
 decision. But they were called upon (by the 
 king) not only to withdraw the latter reservation, 
 but to substitute a written obligation never again to 
 bring forward the measure, or to propose anything 
 connected with the Catholic question to his majesty. 
 . A more painful condition,” said Lord Grenville, 
 
 could not have been imposed upon any set of men. 
 What would be the situation of ministers if they 
 
 Ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 361 
 
 were to be bound by their oaths of office to counsel 
 and advise the sovereign in all things to the best of 
 their judgment, and to be fettered at the same time 
 by a written engagement of this nature? Were 
 ministers to withhold their advice when they might 
 deem it necessary for the safety, nay, the very 
 existence of the empire? What would be the effect 
 upon the constitution? Could the constitution 
 exist if such a principle were recognized, as that 
 ministers were acting upon a written pledge of the 
 nature he had stated? Suppose the existence of 
 Ireland at stake, and responsible ministers called 
 upon to account for their conduct, could they 
 justify themselves by saying, ‘Oh! that corner was 
 torn out of the map of the empire committed to 
 our keeping!’ Would not the recognition of such 
 a principle strike at the very root of the constitu- 
 tion, overturn the maxim that the king can do no 
 wrong, but that his ministers can, and re-establish 
 the monstrous principle by which a sovereign was 
 brought as a criminal to the bar of his subjects! 
 Conceiving that any such engagement would be 
 inconsistent with their duty, unconstitutional, and 
 dangerous to the sovereign, he and his friends had 
 refused to give the written obligation demanded , 
 and the very day after making this communication 
 of their sentiments they had received an intimation 
 from his majesty that he must seek for other mi- 
 nisters. Lord Sidmouth rose and said that, on 
 coming into office with Fox, Grenville, &c., he had 
 not compromised his principles, nor departed from 
 his feelings and views on the Catholic question, 
 
 _though he had certainly entertained a hope that 
 
 the question would never again be brought forward. 
 He was, he said, a friend to toleration; he would 
 let the Catholics enjoy the benefits of the act of 
 1793; but on that act he thought a stand should 
 be made against further encroachments. He had 
 ever been of opinion that the grant of power to the 
 Catholics would tend to the destruction of our con- 
 stitution, by infringing upon the church establish- 
 ment.* In the House of Commons explanations 
 similar to those of Lord Grenville were given by 
 Lord Howick. Notwithstanding his lordship’s 
 expressed determination to oppose any long ad- 
 journment, the Commons, as the Upper House had 
 done, agreed to adjourn until the 8th of April 
 without a division. 
 
 ** Ministers,” says Sir Samuel Romilly, who 
 now ceased to be solicitor-general, ‘‘ had deter- 
 mined not to resign, but to be dismissed from their 
 offices.” We learn from the same authority some 
 curious particulars respecting the conduct of 
 Erskine, who appears to have been eager to keep 
 the great seal, though his appearances and de- 
 Cisions in the court had proved the truth of the 
 declaration he is said to have made on becom- 
 ing lord chancellor,—that he knew nothing of 
 
 * “The most remarkable circumstance in the debate was Lord 
 Melville taking a part in it, speaking from between the Duke of 
 Cumberland and Lord Eldon, on the bench appropriated to the 
 ministers, The Duke of Cumberland placed himself at the head of 
 this bench, probably to proclaim to the world that he is the person 
 who has brought about the change of administration,”—Romilly, 
 Diary of Parliamentary Life, in Memoirs by his Sons. 
 
362 
 
 chancery law. On the 18th of March, the day 
 after Lord Howick had announced in the Com- 
 mons that the Cathclic bill would be dropped, 
 Erskine waited upon his majesty to tell him that 
 the recorder’s report was to be made ; and, although 
 it was contrary to all court etiquette to speak on any 
 subject which the king had not first mentioned, 
 he proceeded to demonstrate to his majesty the 
 dangerous consequences of dismissing his present 
 ministers. He said he was sensible that, when he 
 first entered into his majesty’s service, his majesty 
 had a prejudice against him; that he was quite 
 satisfied that that prejudice was now entirely re- 
 moved; and that his majesty did him the justice 
 to believe that he had served him faithfully ; that 
 upon the Catholic measure, which had been the 
 occasion of the present unhappy state of things, he 
 thought both religiously and morally exactly as 
 his majesty himself did ; that, however, after what 
 had passed, it appeared to him that the ministers 
 who had signed the minute of council (Erskine 
 himself had taken good care not to sign it) could 
 not with any consistency retract it; and that to 
 give a pledge not to offer advice to his majesty 
 upon measures which the state of public affairs 
 might render necessary, would be, if not an im- 
 peachable offence, at least an offence which con- 
 stitutionally could not be justified. He added, that 
 he thought it his indispensable duty to represent to 
 the king the situation in which he stood; that he 
 was on the brink of a precipice; that nothing 
 could be more fatal than to persevere in the resolu- 
 tion he had formed of dismissing his ministers; that 
 the day on which that resolution should be an- 
 nounced in Ireland would be a day of jubilee to 
 the Catholics; that they could desire nothing more 
 than to see a ministry, supported by all the talents 
 and weight of property in the country, go out upon 
 such a measure; and that he must venture to tell 
 his majesty that if he proceeded with his resolution 
 he would never know another hour of comfort or 
 tranquillity ! According to Erskine, his majesty 
 listened to all this without once interrupting him ; 
 he (Erskine), however, could observe by his coun- 
 tenance that he was greatly agitated, and when he 
 had concluded, the king said to him, “ You are a 
 very honest man, my lord, and I am very much 
 obliged to you.” Nobody will doubt that if 
 George III. had given his account of this strange 
 conference it would have differed very materially 
 from this account given by Erskine. That vain, 
 flighty man, in imparting these particulars on the 
 19th of March, to Romilly, and to Piggott, the 
 attorney-general, seemed to think that he had made 
 a great impression, and half flattered himself that 
 the king would retract his resolution, and permit 
 the cabinet to remain unaltered, since they had let 
 drop the obnoxious bill. But the fact was that 
 the king saw Lord Howick immediately after the 
 chancellor, and persevered most firmly in his de- 
 termination of forming a new administration. We 
 believe that the “ Talents” generally entertained a 
 mean opinion of the talents of George III., but 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 that prince assuredly had ability enough to form — 
 a proper estimate of the abilities of such a man 
 as Erskine,* and firmness and courage enough to 
 despise his threats, 7“~which we doubt—EHrskine 
 ever had the boldness to make them. 
 
 All the cabinet ministers had attended his ma-— 
 jesty and had delivered up the seals of their office 
 on the 25th of March, except Erskine, who was to 
 retain the great seal till that day week, in order 
 that he might have time to pronounce his decrees 
 in some chancery suits which had been argued 
 before him. Between the 26th and the 31st of 
 March the following appointments were announced : 
 —the Duke of Portland, first lord of the treasury ; 
 Lord Hawkesbury, secretary for the home depart- 
 ment; Canning, secretary for foreign affairs ; Lord 
 Castlereagh, secretary for war and the colonies ; 
 the Earl of Chatham (Pitt’s elder brother) master 
 of the ordnance; Spencer Perceval, chancellor of 
 the exchequer and under-treasurer of the exche- 
 quer ; Earl Camden, lord president of the council ; 
 Ear] Bathurst, president of the board of trade, with 
 George Rose for his vice; and the Earl of West- 
 moreland, keeper of the privy seal. On the Ist of 
 April Lord Eldon was sworn lord high chancellor, 
 and the Duke of Richmond was made lord lieutenant 
 of Ireland. Two days before Lord Erskine parted 
 with the seal he appointed his son-in-law, Edmund 
 Morris, a master in chancery. ‘This was thought 
 a most improper act, as Erskine ought to have con- 
 sidered himself as out of office ever since the 25th 
 of March, the day on which his colleagues re-— 
 signed.t On the 3rd of April Lord Mulgrave was 
 named first lord of the admiralty, and the honour- 
 able Robert Dundas president of the board of 
 control. On the 8th of April Lord Melville was 
 sworn of the privy council. This was the day on 
 which parliament met after the fortnight’s adjourn- 
 ment. ‘The remaining offices were filled up in the 
 course of a few days after this. Among other ap- 
 pointments George Rose became treasurer of the 
 navy in lieu of Sheridan. 
 
 Between the 25th of March and the &th of 
 April the new ministers appear to have done all 
 they could to excite a cry in the country against 
 popery. The Duke of Portland, the nominal 
 head of the cabinet, being chancellor of the uni- 
 versity of Oxford, wrote to it to request a petition 
 to parliament against Catholic concessions: the 
 
 * Romilly, from whom these details are copied, informs us that, 
 
 though Erskine communicated all this to him and Piggott very con- 
 Jidentially, ‘ he afterwards repeated it to almost all his friends, and 
 sometimes in large companies at dinner.”—Diary of Parliamentary 
 Life. 
 + * Morris, though a very clever and a very deserving man, has no 
 knowledge in his profession of that particular kind which is necessary 
 to qualify a man to discharge the duties of a master. This is a 
 matter which will draw reproach on the whole administration; 
 though, in every other department, they have most scrupulously, as 
 I understand, abstained from making any promotions.”—Romiily, 
 Diary of Parliamentary Life. , 
 
 Romilly’s own conduct, at this great party crisis, merits attention. 
 He says, ‘‘I have some satisfaction, now the ministers are out, in 
 reflecting that I have never asked them for a single favour. There 
 was one thing which I very much wished for; and it is such a trifl 
 that I take for granted that if I had asked Lord Moira (the master 
 of the ordnance) for it, it would have been done for me immediately. 
 
 It was only to get my brother’s youngest son into the military | 
 
 academy at Woolwich. However, I did not ask for it; and, to” 
 poor boy’s great disappointment, it is not done.”—Jd. 
 
my ee wl 
 
 Cuar. VIII] 
 
 Duke of Cumberland, chancellor of the university 
 of Dublin, wrote two letters to that university for 
 the same purpose; and in the last of these letters 
 he plainly intimated that it was the wish of the king 
 that this should be done. Harry Erskine, the 
 witty brother of the ex-chancellor, said it was a 
 pity that poor Lord George Gordon did not live 
 in these times, when he would have a chance of 
 being in the cabinet instead of being in Newgate. 
 Spencer Perceval, who had vacated his seat by 
 accepting office, told the electors of Northampton 
 that it was a duty in the people as well as in the 
 sovereign to resist the inroads of popery; that he 
 himself had quitted a lucrative profession and 
 accepted his new office in order to stand by his 
 sovereign at this important crisis. The Society 
 for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, of 
 which, as of nearly every other religious society, 
 Wilberforce was a conspicuous and active member, 
 lent the aid of its publications in keeping up the 
 “No Popery” cry; and ‘‘the pulpit drum-eccle- 
 silastic ’’ played very generally to the same tune. 
 Dirty little boys chalked the walls: the days of 
 Lord George and the London riots seemed really 
 coming back again. 
 
 The king could scarcely have found it necessary 
 to demand from his new ministers the written 
 pledge which he had demanded from his old ones. 
 It was deemed expedient, however, by the opposi- 
 tion, to consider them as being virtually bound by 
 some such understanding ; and accordingly, on the 
 9th of April, the very day after the re-assembling 
 of parliament, Mr. Brand moved in the Commons, 
 “That it is contrary to the first duties of the confi- 
 dential servants of the crown to restrain themselves 
 by any pledge, express or implied, from offering to 
 the king any advice that the course of circum- 
 stances might render necessary for the welfare and 
 security of any part of his majesty’s extensive em- 
 pire.’ This was indeed a constitutional truism— 
 a principle not to be denied without attacking the 
 theory of the constitution itself. But, if the motion 
 had been carried, it would have been followed by 
 other resolutions: ‘‘ That to advise his majesty to 
 dismiss his ministers because they refused to give 
 such a pledge was subversive of the constitution ;” 
 “That the persons who had given such advice, or 
 who had come into office upon any such pledge, 
 expressed or implied, were not deserving of the 
 confidence of the House of Commons ;”’ and, lastly, 
 “ That these resolutions should be carried up to 
 the -king.”? The new cabinet therefore determined 
 to try their strength on Brand’s first motion. The 
 friends of the late administration were very sanguine 
 as to carrying the motion by aconsiderable majority ; 
 but, the Prince of Wales having declared that the 
 motion was of a nature which must affect the king 
 personally, the prince’s friends, including Sheridan, 
 absented themselves ; Lord Sidmouth’s friends 
 voted against his lordship’s late colleagues ; and 
 Perceval and Canning displayed great address in 
 defending the king and in opposing the motion. 
 Perceval declared that his majesty had no advisers 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 363 
 
 in the measures alluded to; that the present pro- 
 ceeding was to arraign the king personally, and to 
 call him to answer personally at the bar of the House. 
 Canning talked of the king’s remarkable good health 
 and promise of long life in a manner which was 
 calculated to have a remarkably strong effect on 
 those waverers and doubters who had always one 
 eye fixed on the king in esse, and one on the king 
 in posse. Canning also declared distinctly that, if 
 Brand’s motion were carried against them, ministers 
 would not go out, but would appeal to the people 
 and dissolve parliament. The king’s pious scruples 
 were repeatedly mentioned—his regard for his co- 
 ronation oath, which, several members said, would 
 have been violated if the bill of the late ministry 
 had passed. Brand’s motion was rejected by 
 258 against 226.* It was past six o’clock in the 
 morning ere the House divided. 
 
 A similar motion was made in the Lords by 
 the Marquess of Stafford, and was defeated, 
 through the same means and agencies, by a com- 
 paratively larger majority. Here Lord Sidmouth 
 spoke and voted against his late colleagues ; and 
 Erskine supported the motion in a canting speech, 
 ridiculous enough to those who knew the man 
 and his motives, but which still went to influence 
 the vulgar out of doors. “ I am one,”’ said his 
 lordship, ‘‘ who really entertams the profoundest 
 reverence for God, religion, and all professors of 
 the Christian Protestant faith. No man whatever 
 can be more religious than Iam. I am sure that 
 I need not except even the worthy and pious pre- 
 lates in whose presence I make this solemn and 
 public declaration. I glory in the opportunity of 
 making it. Would to God that my life could be 
 as pure as my faith! I regard the Romish religion 
 as a gross superstition, the result of the darkness 
 of former ages, but now falling into a visible and 
 wholesome decline. [never thought of encouraging 
 it, but rather wished that znconvenience should be 
 felt, though no injustice suffered, by its professors.” 
 Not less miserable was the way in which this giddy 
 ex-chancellor attempted to defend his late colleagues 
 for having given up the bill, and for having con- 
 tinued in office after so doing. It had been said 
 that the late ministry had introduced that Catholic 
 Army and Navy Bill on a principle of expediency 
 and duty, and yet had kept their places after having 
 been obliged to withdraw it. He admitted that all 
 this was true enough; but then he argued that there 
 was a plain difference between the strongest expe- 
 diency and imperious necessity, and that as there 
 was only the strongest expediency, and not any 
 imperious necessity for carrying through the said 
 bill, his friends, anxious to work out many other 
 good measures, had been quite justified in behaving 
 as they had done. Lord Harrowby said that a 
 mutual confidence between the sovereign and his 
 servants was indispensable to the good conduct of 
 
 * “Our party,” says Romilly, “were so little aware that they 
 should lose the question, and it was so difficult in so full a house to 
 ascertain the numbers, that during the division, while we were 
 
 locked out in the lobby, we supposed ourselves the majority by 
 about twenty.”— Diary. 
 
364 
 
 public business; that when once there was so little 
 confidence on either side, that ministers were in- 
 duced to demand a pledge from the king, or the 
 king to demand a pledge from ministers, there was 
 little other option than either for him to dismiss 
 them, or for them to resign. Lord Barrington 
 considered that the Marquess of Stafford’s motion 
 included an inculpation of the king for the exercise 
 of an undoubted prerogative, and moved that the 
 House do now adjourn; and this was carried by 
 171 against 90. 
 
 A motion made in the Commons by Mr. Little- 
 ton, to express the deepest regret at the late change 
 of administration, was defeated by a vote for pass- 
 ing to the order of the day, the numbers being 244 
 against 198. 
 
 It was understood that a dissolution was to take 
 place, but it was not supposed that it would be 
 before the end of May and the regular close of the 
 session. But an immediate dissolution was decided 
 upon on the 24th of April, although kept a profound 
 secret until the 26th. The object no doubt was to 
 take advantage of the cry of No Popery which had 
 been raised in so many parts of the country, and 
 which was so senseless a cry that it could not but 
 be felt by ministers that, if the dissolution were 
 postponed for only a few weeks, it would wholly 
 have died away. This was the conjecture of 
 Romilly and his friends, and the conduct pursued 
 by ministers proves the fact. On Monday, the 
 27th of April, they prorogued parliament by com- 
 mission, and in so doing they did not affect to dis- 
 guise how necessary it was not to lose a moment in 
 obtaining the benefit of the prevailing excitement. 
 ‘His majesty,” they said, ‘‘1s anxious to recur to 
 the sense of his people, while the events which 
 have recently taken place are yet fresh in their 
 recollection.” They called the late agitation of the 
 Catholic question “an unfortunate and uncalled- 
 for agitation ;” they alluded to the restraint imposed 
 on the king by his coronation oath, and to the king’s 
 conscientious persuasion of the rectitude of the 
 motives upon which he had acted, and upon which 
 he now gave the people the best opportunity of tes- 
 tifying their determination to support him in every 
 exercise of the prerogative of the crown ; and, after 
 saying something more that was very proper to 
 keep up the “ No Popery” feeling and to set so- 
 ciety by the ears, they made the speech conclude 
 with the expression of a recommendation, on the 
 king’s part, to cultivate by all means a spirit of 
 union, harmony, and goodwill among all classes 
 and descriptions of his people! This unlucky 
 parliament had existed only four months and seven 
 days. 
 
 Tremendous and almost unprecedented were the 
 efforts made both by the ins and the outs at the 
 new general election. On both sides immense 
 electioneering purses were made up and emptied 
 in the old way. Wilberforce foresaw a ruinous con- 
 test for any man of ordinary fortune in Yorkshire, 
 where Lord Harewood was going to oppose him; 
 
 but Wilberforce’s friends immediately subscribed | 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 18,000/. and voted that he himself should not be 
 permitted to put down his name to the subscrip- 
 tions opened to support his election. Everywhere 
 the price of boroughs rose to a terrible amount, 
 Tierney offered 10,000/. for two seats and got a re- 
 fusal. The opposition accused the new ministers 
 of buying up, by means of a very large sum ad- 
 vanced by the king out of his privy purse, all 
 the seats that were to be disposed of, and at any 
 prices. Romilly thought himself a lucky man in 
 getting one of the seats for the borough of Hors- 
 ham for 2000/., through the favour and kindness 
 of the Duke of Norfolk.* Their superior com- 
 mand of money, and the prevailing prejudice 
 against Catholic concessions, served the new minis: 
 ters well. This prejudice seemed to have a strong 
 hold in that very variable, and not very enlightened 
 body, the corporation of London. On the 22nd of 
 April that corporation had presented an address to 
 the king, expressing their exceedingly warm grati- 
 tude for the decided support and protection given 
 by his majesty to the Protestant reformed religion, 
 and for the firm and constitutional exercise of his 
 royal prerogative. The Society for promoting 
 Christian Knowledge published, during the general 
 election, a resolution declaratory of its opinion 
 respecting the bill which the displaced ministers 
 had submitted to parliament,} and other religious 
 societies swelled the shout that the church was, or 
 recently had been, in danger. The English Catho- 
 lics, who may have dreaded the. revival of the 
 popular outrages of the year 1780, published an 
 address to their Protestant fellow-subjects, laying 
 before them acts and documents to prove the purity 
 of their principles in respect to their king and 
 country, and calling upon them to judge whether 
 “his majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects maintain 
 a single tenet inconsistent with the purest loyalty, 
 or interfering in the slightest degree with any one 
 duty which an Englishman owes to his God, his 
 king, or his country.” This paper was signed by 
 the Earl of Shrewsbiry, by Lord Petre, by Sir 
 John Throckmorton, and by many other English 
 
 * Romilly, Diary of Parliamentary Life. ‘The ex-solicitor-general 
 adds—* Tierney, who manages this business for the friends of the late 
 administration, assures me that he can hear of no seats to be disposed 
 of, After a parliament which has lived little more than four months, 
 one would naturally suppose that those seats which are regularly sold 
 by.the proprietors of them would be very cheap ; they are, however, 
 in fact, sold now at a higher price than was ever given for them before. 
 . . « 60002. and 5500/. have been given for seats with no stipulation 
 
 as to time, or against the event of a speedy dissolution by the king’s 
 death, or by any change of administration. .. +... A 
 
 Society, complained in a public letter addressed to the Rev. G. Gaskin, 
 secretary of that society, of this invidious publication, which was 
 given to the world as the unanimous resolution of that body. 
 
 ek ee RT 
 
Guar, VITI.] 
 
 Catholics distinguished by antiquity of descent, 
 and by their personal virtues. It produced its 
 effects, no doubt, but we fear only among the more 
 enlightened and more liberal classes, who scarcely 
 stood in need of any such appeal. On the whole, 
 the new ministry gained immensely by the disso- 
 lution and general election. In the new parliament, 
 which met on the 22nd of June, their majorities 
 were found to be large and sure. An amendment 
 to the address on the opening speech, censuring 
 the late dissolution of parliament, was rejected in 
 the Lords by 160 against 67, and in the Commons 
 by 350 against 155. The business which was 
 transacted was of little importance or interest, 
 except as showing on the divisions the great strength 
 which the new administration had gained. The 
 ministry found or thought it necessary to bring in 
 an Irish Insurrection Bill, giving the lord-lieute- 
 nant power to proclaim disturbed counties ; autho- 
 rising magistrates to arrest persons who should 
 be found out of their dwelling between sun-set 
 and sun-rise, and requiring that the persons so 
 arrested should be tried at the quarter sessions. 
 This bill was brought into the Commons, on the 
 9th of July, by General Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 (Duke of Wellington), who had again become 
 secretary to the lord-lieutenant. Grattan, the Irish 
 patriot, declared that the measure was necessary ; 
 that to his knowledge there was still a French 
 party in Ireland. Sheridan divided the House 
 against it on the third reading; but his minority 
 was only 10, including the tellers, against 108. 
 A bill was also carried to oblige all persons in 
 Ireland who had arms to register them, and to 
 authorise magistrates to make domiciliary visits in 
 search of arms. A bill brought in by Whitbread 
 for the education of the poor, by establishing 
 schools in all the parishes in England, was allowed 
 to pass through the Commons on the 6th of 
 August, but, as it was thought, only because it 
 was well known it would be rejected by the Lords. 
 Mr. Bankes, who had brought in a bill to prevent 
 the Crown from granting places by reversion, which 
 was depending in the Lords at the time of the 
 sudden dissolution of the last brief parliament, 
 brought it in again and got it carried through the 
 new House of Commons, without opposition from 
 any quarter. But in the Lords upon the second 
 reading the bill was opposed by Lord Melville and 
 by Lord Arden. Lord Arden was in the actual 
 enjoyment of a very lucrative office, that of registrar 
 of the admiralty court, granted to him while it was 
 in reversion, with a second reversion to his brother 
 Spencer Perceval, now chancellor of the exchequer. 
 Lord Chancellor Eldon joined in the opposition, 
 and Bankes’s bill was thrown out in a very thin 
 House without any division. Bankes, still perse- 
 vering, almost immediately moved that an address 
 should be made to the king not to grant any office 
 in reversion before the end of six weeks after the 
 meeting of next session of parliament, and this was 
 allowed to be carried. This parliament was pro- 
 rogued on the 14th of August: the king’s speech, 
 
 ete i 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 365 
 
 delivered by commission, was hopeful and cheer- 
 ful. 
 
 The military operations of the year had been 
 nearly all devised by the Grenville cabinet. Al- 
 though Sir Home Popham had been brought to 
 a court-martial, and censured for his disobedience, 
 and although the leaders of that cabinet did not 
 entertain a favourable opinion of the bold enter- 
 prises in South America, reinforcements had been 
 forwarded to General Beresford ; and an armament 
 had been sent to the Rio de la Plata, under the 
 command of General Sir 8. Auchmuty, convoyed 
 by Admiral Sir C. Stirling, who superseded Sir 
 H. Popham. On the 18th of January the troops 
 were landed near Monte Video. A sally made by 
 the Spaniards, who were 6000 strong, was repelled 
 with great slaughter; the town was forthwith in- 
 vested; and on the 2nd of February it was taken 
 by storm, with a loss to the English of 560 in 
 killed and wounded. Before intelligence had yet 
 reached England of the re-capture of Buenos Ayres 
 
 by the Spaniards, Brigadier-General Craufurd was 
 sent on a wild expedition for the reduction of the 
 
 vast American province of Chili. Craufurd had 
 only 4200 men, and the naval force which accom- 
 panied him under Admiral Murray was proportion- 
 ally small. The expedition had not been gone long 
 ere the government learned—not that Sir S. 
 Auchmuty had stormed and captured Monte Video, 
 for there was not time for that intelligence to 
 arrive,—but that Buenos Ayres had been lost, and 
 Beresford obliged to capitulate. Instantly orders 
 were sent after General Craufurd to tell him not to 
 conquer Chili, but to go to the Rio de la Plata. 
 These orders overtook Craufurd while he was at 
 the Cape, and in pursuance of them he altered his 
 course and made the best of his way for the neigh- 
 bourhood of Buenos Ayres. Craufurd was a brave 
 and experienced soldier, and so was Auchmuty ; 
 but they were only brigadier-generals, and, as the 
 force gradually collecting in that latitude was 
 getting considerable, it was considered that an 
 officer of higher rank ought to take the general 
 command. Unless they had taken General Mack 
 out of the fortress into which the Emperor of 
 Austria had thrown him, the English government 
 could hardly have made a worse choice. General 
 Whitelocke had attained to high rank in the army 
 with scarcely any service beyond parade duty, and 
 an attendance of palace-guards. He was a hand- 
 some well-spoken man, and, like Mack, had had 
 the knack of making people who were no soldiers 
 themselves believe that he was a great one, and a 
 very consummate general. It was said at the time 
 that he owed his appointment to the present com- 
 mand to the personal favour of George III. ; but it 
 should appear that ministerial and all manner of 
 suffrages were united to procure him this advance- 
 ment. Yet some few years ago, Whitelocke, then 
 
 lieutenant-colonel, had shown, at St. Domingo, 
 symptoms of shyness, which, as many persons 
 thought, ought to have stripped him of his uniform, 
 and subjected him to have his sword broken over 
 
566 
 
 his head. Windham, who, as secretary-at-war, an- 
 nounced the appointment to parliament, said that 
 it had been considered essential to employ a general 
 officer of the highest rank and ability; and that 
 his majesty had been pleased to name Whitelocke. 
 With 1600 more land troops General Whitelocke 
 left England in the month of March, to take the 
 command-in-chief of all the British forces in the 
 Rio de la Plata, and reduce the whole province of 
 Buenos Ayres, at the very least. He arrived near 
 Monte Video towards the end of May. By this time 
 nearly 12,000 excellent British troops were col- 
 lected on the Rio de la Plata—brave, active, and 
 only wanting a proper general to command them. 
 A portion of the population of the country were 
 known to be weary of the Spanish government, 
 and anxious for independence; and a little ma- 
 nagement (particularly if General Miranda had 
 been called to head-quarters) might possibly have 
 induced this party to treat with the English. But 
 Whitelocke was as much of a diplomatist or states- 
 man as he was of a soldier. Like Mack, at Ulm, 
 he appears to have lost his head as soon as he 
 reached the South American shore. He marched 
 and fought when he ought to have been making 
 his preparations and negotiating with the Inde- 
 pendents; and he began to treat when he ought to 
 have continued to fight. At first, he seemed to 
 think that with such an army he could conquer the 
 whole of Spanish America; but in a few days 
 he discovered that it was too difficult an enter- 
 prise to conquer even a single town. On the 28th 
 of June he landed nearly 8000 men about thirty 
 miles to the east of Buenos Ayres. He took about 
 the worst roads which could have been selected, and 
 he separated his little army into different divisions, 
 subjecting them to the risk of being cut off among 
 rivers and bogs, or being decimated in their passage 
 through defiles and thick woods. If the Spaniards 
 had been an active and enterprising enemy, it may 
 be doubted whether this carpet knight would ever 
 have reached the walls of Buenos Ayres. The inun- 
 dating rains which set in periodically at the end of 
 June, or the beginning of July, swelled the rivers, 
 and rendered them almost impassable, and White- 
 locke appears to have obtained no information as 
 to the places where the rivers were fordable, or as 
 to any other particulars connected with the nature 
 of that excessively difficult country. All operations 
 were conducted in the dark, although there were 
 several well-trained staff officers with the expedi- 
 tion. Terrible fatigues—which might for the 
 greater part have been avoided—were undergone 
 by the troops, who must have marched not thirty 
 but eighty or ninety miles through that to them un- 
 known wilderness. The army forded many rivers 
 and many swollen rivulets, and on the fifth day 
 approached the Chiuelo, of great depth, width, 
 and rapidity, which enters the Rio de la Plata at 
 the eastern angle of the city of Buenos Ayres. 
 There was a bridge across the Chiuelo near the 
 town, and over it General Beresford had passed 
 in June, 1806, when he captured the place; but 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 this bridge was now reported to have been de- 
 stroyed by the Spaniards ; and, apparently without 
 any attempt either to ascertain the fact, or to see 
 whether the bridge could not be repaired, White- 
 locke determined to proceed towards the interior, 
 nearer to the river’s source, where, he had been 
 told, there was a good ford. He directed Major- 
 General Gore with the light troops to keep to the 
 northward, and to endeavour to pass at any place 
 between him and the city, where the river might 
 be found fordable, while he himself, with the main 
 body of the army, traced the river to the southward. 
 Major-General Gore, in his march, fell in with an 
 intelligent American, who conducted him to the 
 pass or ford of Chico, only two miles above the 
 bridge, which was said to be destroyed. Gore and 
 his light troops crossed the river without difficulty 
 or interruption, the Spaniards, who were in con- 
 siderable force on the opposite bank, giving way 
 immediately, and flying in all directions. The 
 rifle corps took possession of a strongly fortified 
 position. The light troops were then halted upon 
 some high ground which commanded a full view 
 of the menaced city, Gore intending to wait until 
 the main body should have crossed the river lower 
 down. But Whitelocke, who had calculated, in 
 his total ignorance of the country, that Gore must 
 make a long march to the northward before he 
 could find a ford, was in no hurry to cross the 
 river, and he did not find a ford for himself as 
 soon, or so near, as he had expected. Major- 
 General Gore, tired of waiting, descended from his 
 heights and moved along the road which led to 
 Buenos Ayres; his light troops charged, and took 
 some guns, reached the suburbs that night, dis- 
 persed the enemy, and pursued them to the very 
 entrance of the city. The troops, from this forced 
 and rapid march, were so exhausted that they 
 could not avail themselves of the apparent timidity 
 of the Spaniards, but fell back from the entrance 
 of the city to the post where they had captured the 
 guns, and where they remained on their arms the 
 whole night. It was a night of rain: the soldiers 
 were without cover, blankets, spirits, or provisions 
 —bread they had not tasted for four days. This 
 was on the 3rd of July. It had taken Whitelocke 
 only five or six days to reduce his army to a half- 
 starving condition. On the following morning the 
 Spaniards, seeing that Major-General Gore’s force 
 was so small, and that Whitelocke, with the 
 main body, was still on the opposite bank of the 
 broad river, recovered from the panic into which 
 they had been thrown the preceding evening and 
 night. Gore sent a company to his rear to look 
 out for his commander-in-chief; but this detach- 
 ment found bodies of Spaniards collected on every 
 side, and was obliged to rejoin Gore, who passed 
 many anxious hours looking out for the main body. 
 In the afternoon Whitelocke came up and found 
 Gore rather warmly engaged, with his people 
 nearly famished and overcome by fatigue. Nor 
 was the main body in better condition; they had 
 made a long roundabout. march through a wretched 
 
aes oF Ss 
 
 Onar. VIII.) 
 
 country, now almost entirely inundated, and the 
 men had no blankets, no provisions, no spirits. 
 The Spaniards, who had been engaging Gore, fell 
 back, and halted in front of the town. They were left 
 perfectly undisturbed for the remainder of that day, 
 as Whitelocke thought he saw some appearance of 
 adesire to capitulate on the part of the enemy, 
 and as he entertained hopes of obtaining useful 
 information—which he ought to have obtained be- 
 fore he divided his army, and then committed the 
 whole of it in a situation where it might perish of 
 want. Thus was the 4th of July consumed. But 
 that day and night had been well employed by the 
 Spaniards in preparing for the defence of their 
 town, which, to all appearance, they would have 
 abandoned without fighting, if a spirited concen- 
 trated attack of the entire British force had been 
 made on the evening of the 3rd, when Gore had 
 possession of the suburbs. From the British 
 shipping in the Rio de la Plata Whitelocke could 
 expect no assistance, either in his assault, if he made 
 one, or in his retreat, if after his blunders he should 
 have had recourse to that disgraceful movement. 
 The broad river, or estuary, of La Plata, though deep 
 in the middle, grows so shallow towards the bank on 
 which Buenos Ayres stands, that large vessels are 
 obliged to anchor seven or eight miles from the 
 town. Except flat-bottomed gun-boats, of which 
 there were only five or six attached to the British 
 squadron, no craft that we had could get within 
 cannon-shot. Nor could the fire of these gun- 
 boats have produced any speedy effect, nor was 
 any such effect to be expected even from a bom- 
 bardment on a large scale, with bombs and rockets 
 and all the new inventions; for the houses of 
 Buenos Ayres were of inconsiderable elevation, 
 were flat-roofed, and constructed of soft brick, 
 which a shot penetrates as through a mud wall, 
 doing no injury except to the immediate place it 
 strikes ; and, as no wood was employed in the con- 
 struction of the houses and churches except the 
 incombustible Brazil-wood, and even that but 
 sparingly, it was in vain to hope to set fire to the 
 city. In case of a retreat there were no craft or 
 rafts to carry the troops over the broad shoals and 
 shallows to the shipping, and to march back by 
 the way they had come to the place where they 
 had first been landed was next to an impossibility. 
 The passage of the river and swamps had been 
 found difficult enough in the advance, when com- 
 paratively but little rain had fallen, but the deluges 
 which were now falling were rendering even the 
 rivulets absolutely impassable. As the troops were 
 famishing, and exposed to the inclemency of the 
 season without any shelter and without even the 
 common necessary of blankets, Whitelocke could 
 not remain where he was, and retreat, as we have 
 shown, was next to a physical impossibility. On 
 the morning of the 5th orders were given to make 
 an attack by storm, as the only resource within the 
 power of the general, and as the most prompt 
 means of reducing the town, and thereby providing 
 for the wants of the army. The soldiers formed 
 
 therein tect 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 367 
 
 into their columns of attack with order and spirit, 
 and moved from their ground with the encouraging 
 conviction of a certain victory. They were to as- 
 sail in every quarter at once, and to rush along the 
 streets of Buenos Ayres, which run in straight 
 lines to the river, for the citadel* and the great 
 square—the square of bulls, Plaza de Toros— 
 in the centre of the city. The British soldiers 
 went on like bulls, and kept the ground they 
 gained with all the tenacity of true-bred English 
 bull-dogs. But, while Whitelocke and his columns 
 had been blundering all round about, 15,000 well- 
 armed Spaniards and natives of the province had 
 been collected within the city, nearly 200 pieces 
 of artillery of all calibres had been disposed in 
 good positions, barricades had been raised in the 
 streets, and stones and other missiles collected on 
 the house-tops, which were so many flat terraces 
 with parapets in front. Whitelocke, remaining 
 himself outside of the town and out of harm’s 
 way, with the reserve, an inconsiderable portion 
 of his troops, ordered the commanders of the co- 
 lumns to proceed as far as was practicable, taking 
 possession as far as was tenable; and each column 
 was provided with sledge-hammers, crow-bars, 
 pickaxes, &c., to clear away the barricades and 
 force the houses.f As Whitelocke calculated that 
 success must depend much on velocity of move- 
 ment, that soldiers with loaded arms are prone to 
 stop and make use of them when they can be of 
 no essential service, that the bayonet was, par ea- 
 cellence, the weapon of the British soldier, that 
 the Spaniards wouid never stand a bayonet charge 
 in street or square, but fight from covered situa- 
 tions—from their houses and churches—where 
 musketry in the hands of their assailants could 
 have no other effect than, by prolonging their pas- 
 sage in the street, to expose them to a dreadful 
 loss, he ordered that the men should all attack 
 with unloaded muskets, and that no firing should, 
 on any account, be permitted until all the columns 
 had reached their final point and had formed. 
 Much ridicule has been thrown upon these orders ; 
 but it must be allowed (and it was admitted by the 
 court-martial which tried Whitelocke) that mus- 
 ketry would have been of little use, and might 
 have led to the delay and losses he apprehended :— 
 but, unluckily, bayonets were as useless against 
 brick walls as musket-bullets could have been. 
 For a time all went well. Sir Samuel Auchmuty’s 
 column, overcoming every obstacle, gained the 
 Plaza de Toros, took 32 cannon, an immense 
 quantity of ammunition, and 600 prisoners ; the 5th 
 regiment took possession of the church and convent 
 of Santa Catalina; Colonel Guard took possession 
 of the Residencia, a commanding station; and 
 another post in the enemy’s centre was gallantly 
 carried at the point of the bayonet. But Brigadier- 
 
 * The citadel and all the strongest points were on the banks of 
 the river, and, as the whole breadth of the town lay between the 
 river and the English army, they could be approached only by the 
 straight streets. 
 
 + Our caricaturists represented the English corporals as burglars 
 and housebreakers, carrying, not sledges and pickaxes, but picklocks. 
 
368 
 
 General Lumley, who was storming with two regi- 
 ments, found himself opposed by a heavy and 
 continued fire of musketry from the tops and win- 
 dows of the houses: the doors of the houses were 
 so strongly barricaded that it was almost impos- 
 sible to force them: the streets were intersected 
 by deep ditches, in the inside of which were planted 
 cannon, pouring showers of grape on the advancing 
 column. One of Lumley’s regiments, the 36th, 
 headed by the gallant general, reached its destined 
 point, but the other, the 88th, was so weakened 
 by the terrible fire as to be overpowered and 
 taken. The flank of the 36th being thus left ex- 
 posed, that regiment, together with the 5th, which 
 had taken the church and convent of Santa Cata- 
 lina, retired upon Sir Samuel Auchmuty’s post at 
 the Plaza de Toros, charging and dispersing cn 
 their way 800 of the enemy, and taking two guns. 
 The left division of General Craufurd’s brigade, 
 under Colonel Park, approached the great square, 
 with the intention of possessing itself of the Jesuits’ 
 College: but here the enemy’s fire was most de- 
 structive ; one part of the division threw itself into 
 a house, which was not found to be tenable, and 
 shortly afterwards was obliged to surrender; the 
 other part of the division, after enduring a dread- 
 ful fire, in which Colonel Park was wounded, re- 
 tired upon the right division of the brigade, where 
 Brigade-General Craufurd was commanding in 
 person. With what was left of his brigade, Crau- 
 furd now made a dash at the Dominican convent, 
 and gained possession of that large and strong 
 building. In making a sortie to save a three- 
 pounder, which had been left in the street, Crau- 
 furd lost a great many of his light infantry, and 
 Major Trotter, one of the best of his officers ; 
 the three-pounder was saved: but the Dominican 
 convent was assailed with the greatest fury; the 
 quantity of round shot, grape and musketry, to 
 which they were exposed, obliged Craufurd’s peo- 
 ple to quit the top of the building: the enemy, to 
 the number of 5000 or 6000, brought up heavy 
 cannon to force the wooden gates: the cessation of 
 firing in other quarters induced Craufurd to believe 
 that the other English columns had not been suc- 
 cessful; and at four o’clock in the afternoon, that 
 general surrendered. ‘The result of this day’s 
 action,” says Whitelocke, “left me in possession of 
 the Plaza de Toros, a strong post on the enemy’s 
 right, and the Residencia, another strong post on 
 his left, while I occupied an advanced position 
 towards his centre: but these advantages had cost 
 about 2500 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
 The nature of the fire to which the troops were ex- 
 posed was violent in the extreme. Grape-shot at 
 the corner of the streets, musketry, hand-grenades, 
 bricks and stones from the tops of all the houses : 
 every householder, with his negroes, defended his 
 dwelling, each of which was in itself a fortress ; 
 and it 1s not perhaps too much to say that the 
 whole male population of Buenos Ayres was em- 
 ployed in its defence.’’ * 
 * Gazette. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox x. 
 
 It appears that, during the remainder of the day, 
 and the whole of the succeeding night, Whitelocke 
 remained ignorant of Craufurd’s surrender ; at least 
 he himself or his apologist says that he had pressed 
 forward his dragoons into the town to keep up a 
 communication with Craufurd, but that Craufurd 
 had advanced beyond their reach, and, till the next 
 day, no certain report was received of his operations. 
 Two objects, it is said, had been achieved, and, but 
 for the miscarriage of the third, and the surrender 
 of Craufurd in the Dominican convent, the town 
 must have remained in the possession of the 
 British : for, as the Plaza de Toros commanded the 
 citadel from the left, and as we had posts on their 
 right and opposite their centre, the enemy could 
 not have made any material resistance. After the 
 surrender at the Dominican convent, the guns of 
 Sir Samuel Auchmuty, firing from the Plaza de 
 Toros, might have overawed the populace, but they 
 would also have destroyed the British prisoners ; 
 and the repeated declarations of the enraged mob 
 that they would massacre Craufurd’s brigade and all 
 the British who had surrendered, if the firing were 
 renewed from the Plaza, paralyzed the army of Sir 
 Samuel. We believe it would be difficult in any 
 such circumstances to make British troops use 
 their artillery. 
 
 On the following morning, the 6th of July, 
 Linieres, the clever Frenchman, who was still com- 
 manding the Spanish troops in Buenos Ayres, and 
 who had directed all the preparations made for the 
 defence of the place, addressed a letter to White- 
 locke, offering to give up all the prisoners taken in 
 the late affair, together with the 71st regiment, and 
 the other British soldiers who had been taken with 
 Brigadier-General Beresford in the preceding year, 
 if Whitelocke would desist from any further attack 
 on the town, and withdraw his forces altogether 
 from the Rio de la Plata; insinuating, at the same 
 time, that, from the exasperated state of the popu- 
 lace, he could not answer for the safety of the pri- 
 soners, if the English general persisted in offensive 
 measures. At first, Whitelocke put a bold face on 
 the matter, talking of the advantages he had gained, 
 and of the means he had in his hands of retaliating 
 upon the Spanish prisoners, if the populace should 
 proceed to such bloody extremities, or if Linieres 
 and his troops should forget the usages of war. 
 But he soon altered his tone, and agreed to the 
 terms which Linieres proposed. He says—“ In- 
 fluenced by this consideration (¢. e. the threat used 
 against the English prisoners), which I knew to be 
 founded on fact, and reflecting of how little ad- 
 vantage would be the possession of a country, the 
 inhabitants of which were so absolutely hostile, I 
 resolved to forego the advantages which the bravery 
 of our troops had obtained, and acceded to a treaty 
 which I trust will meet the approbation of his 
 majesty.”* The definitive treaty was signed at 
 the fort of Buenos Ayres on the next day, the 7th 
 of July, by General Whitelocke and Rear-admiral 
 
 * Gazette. 
 
“Teepe pO 
 4) re ‘ 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 Sir George Murray,* and by Linieres and two 
 
 Spanish generals. : 
 Hostilities were to cease on both sides of the 
 
 Rio de Ja Plata; the British were to retain pos- 
 session of the fortress and place of Monte Video, 
 which Sir Samuel Auchmuty had stormed and 
 taken before Whitelocke’s arrival, for the space of 
 two months; but at the end of that time these 
 buildings were to be delivered up to the Spaniards, 
 with all their artillery, &c.; all prisoners whatso- 
 eyer were to be mutually restored ; Whitelocke’s 
 famishing army was to be supplied with provisions, 
 and to be assisted in re-embarking and crossing 
 over to the north side of the Plata river, with its 
 arms, stores, equipage, &c. 
 
 The popular indignation at home was so exces- 
 sive that if Whitelocke had arrived in England in 
 the month of September, with the officer who 
 brought home his dispatches, he would have run 
 some risk of being torn to pieces by the people. 
 He had committed faults enough, but these were 
 all exaggerated, and others were invented for him 
 by ignorance, malevolence, and an uncritical and 
 unexamining fury. We are old enough to remem- 
 ber the rage excited by the report that, before 
 sending his men to be slaughtered in a hopeless 
 street fight he ordered all the flints to be taken 
 from their muskets. The name of Whitelocke was 
 universally adopted as a synonyme for white-feather ; 
 many believed him to be the most perfect com- 
 pound of coward and traitor that had ever been 
 known among Englishmen. It was said to be ow- 
 ing to his favour at court and in other high places 
 that his trial was so long delayed: there might he 
 other grounds for this procrastinating of justice ; 
 but it was not until the 28th of January, 1808, 
 that he was brought before a general court-martial, 
 held at Chelsea Hospital; and even then such 
 
 * Admiral Murray, ina separate despatch, explained the reasons 
 for which he had consented to sign the treaty. He said that, on going 
 ashore, he wus told by Whitelocke that he was of opinion, as well as 
 were the other English generals, that it could answer no good purpose 
 to persist, and that one great object was attained in getting back all 
 the British prisoners who had been taken in South America this war ; 
 that the destroying of the town could not benefitus; that he (White- 
 locke) saw vo prospect whatever of establishing ourselves in this 
 country, as there was not a friend to the English in it; that the in- 
 veteracy of every class of the inhabitants was beyond belief; that 
 those of our men the enemy had taken prisoners were in the power 
 of an enraged mob, &c. ‘‘ Under these circumstances,” added the ad- 
 miral, “ and being persuaded that the people of this country did not 
 wish to be under the British government, I signed the treaty.” It 
 appears that the ‘* All Talents” ministry, who appointed Whitelocke, or 
 submitted to his being appointed to the command, and who meant to 
 achieve the conquest of a vast continent with less than 12,000 men, 
 were so ignoraut of the state of the country and of the feelings of the 
 inhabitants as to believe that if they did not welcome the English as 
 deliverers they would offer at the most but a feeble resistance. 
 Whitelocke, we know, always persisted in saying that he had been 
 misled by his instructions, and by the incorrect information given to 
 him by government. Taking this as truth, it will, however, only 
 Serve as a very incomplete excuse for that general’s conduct in the 
 field. If our cabinet had cordially given the hand to Gencral 
 Miranda, if they had proclaimed independence for the South 
 American colonies, and if they had rallied round our standard the 
 many adventurers or discontented spirits among the Spanish Ameri- 
 cans, the British army might indeed have found friends in abun- 
 dance : but we believe that the strong decided feelings of George III. 
 would have been a bar to any such scheme, if Lord Grenville and 
 his brother ministers had ventured to propose it. But it should 
 seem that no such proposition was ever made on their part—that 
 the scheme was altogether too extensive and too bold for them to 
 entertain. We will not go into the question of the abstract merits 
 of it; but either some such scheme ought to have been adopted and 
 
 promoted by a far greater force than was sent out, or we ought to 
 have left South America alone. 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 369 
 
 numerous adjournments were allowed to take place 
 that the trial was not concluded until the 18th of 
 March. The mass of the nation certainly thought 
 the sentence too mild which condemned him to be 
 cashiered in the most disgraceful manner ; but not 
 a few thought that the ministers under whom he 
 had been employed, and under whose general and 
 insane orders he had acted, ought to have been 
 called to a severe account.* 
 
 In a very opposite direction another armament, 
 dispatched by the Grenville administration, led to 
 no very honourable result. Towards the end of 
 November, 1806, when our diplomatists at the 
 Ottoman Porte had been circumvented by the 
 French, and had failed in their endeavours to pre- 
 vent Sultan Selim from engaging in a war with the 
 czar (an event which acted as a capital diversion 
 in favour of Bonaparte, by obliging the Russians 
 to keep a large army on the Lower Danube), Ad- 
 miral Louis appeared off Tenedos and the coast of 
 Troy with three line-of-battle ships and four fri- 
 gates. It was an ancient rule, recognised in 
 treaties with the Porte, that no ships of war, with 
 their guns on board, were to be allowed to pass 
 either the straits of the Dardanelles or the straits 
 of the Bosporus. Nevertheless Admiral Louis 
 sent through the Dardanelles a ship of the line and 
 a frigate. ‘The Turks, who certainly wished to 
 avoid hostilities with the English, let the two ships 
 pass their tremendous batteries on the straits with- 
 out firmg at them, and allowed them to come to 
 anchor without molestation off Constantinople, near 
 the point where the Bosporus opens into the Pro- 
 pontis or Sea of Marmora. While this single ship of 
 the line (the ‘ Canopus’ of 80 guns) and this single 
 frigate lay thus, with their broadsides towards the 
 Seraglio, or palace of the sultan (a most vain 
 and impotent menace), some attempts at negotiation 
 were renewed on shore; but the active, able, and 
 intriguing Sebastiani was an over-match for our 
 ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot, who had several of 
 the qualities of an old woman, and who was at this 
 
 * The charges he was tried upon were in ‘substance—l. Having in- 
 sisted, in the summons of Buenos Ayres, that civil officers and magis- 
 trates should be prisoners of war, which, it is averred, is contrary to 
 all the customs of war, and had a decided effect in inflaming the 
 civil population to resistance. 2. Exposing the army in the attack 
 upon Buenos Ayres to a destructive charge of musketry from the 
 town, without furnishing that army with any means of defence or 
 attack. 3. Not being present personally in the advance against 
 Buenos Ayres; also not keeping open a communication between the 
 main body of the troops and the detachment under General Craufurd, 
 which compelled that officer to surrender. 4. Surrendering the 
 fortress of Monte Video without necessity, which was capable of mak- 
 ing an effectual resistance against any force which could be brought 
 against it. - 
 
 The plan of attack upon Buenos Ayres adopted by General White- 
 locke was one proposed to him by Lieutenant-General Gore. This 
 was stated by Whitelocke himself in his defence, and Gore admitted 
 that the basis of the plan adopted was not unlike his. 
 
 Generals Craufurd, Auchmuty, Gore, and others, in their evidence, 
 were unanimous in the opinion of Whitelocke’s inconsistent, very un- 
 decided, and wavering conduct, and of his total want of arrangement 
 in not supplying the troops with provisions, &e. General Auchmuty 
 ‘* did not think that any advantage would have resulted from having 
 the arms loaded;” and the court was yeryauxious that it might be 
 distinctly understood that they acquitted Lieutenant-General White- 
 locke of that part of the 2nd charge which related to his not furnish- 
 ing the army with that means of defence. With this exception the 
 court-martial found the general guilty of the whole of these charges, 
 and adjudged, ‘‘ That the said Lieutenant-General Whitelocke be 
 cashiered, and declared totally unfit and unworthy to serve his 
 majesty in any military capacity whatever.” 
 
 x 
 
370 
 time suffering under the depressing influences of 
 .a slow fever; the victories that Bonaparte was then 
 obtaining over the Austrians and Russians gave a 
 great weight to Sebastiani’s diplomacy; the Aus- 
 trian ambassador, whose court was opposed to the 
 pretensions of Russia with respect to Turkey, re- 
 mained neutral and motionless; the Prussian 
 chargé d’affaires followed the instructions and ex- 
 ample of his government, and shuffled and tergi- 
 versated; the ministers of Spain and Holland 
 backed Sebastiani with all their might; the minis- 
 ters of Ferdinand IV. of Naples, and of our other 
 ally the King of Sweden, represented courts too 
 insignificant to allow of their making any favourable 
 impression in the way Arbuthnot wanted ; the diplo- 
 matising came to nothing, and Count Italinsky, the 
 Russian ambassador, who feared that he might be torn 
 to pieces by the Constantinople rabble, or be com- 
 mitted, according to the ancient usage of the Porte, 
 a close prisoner to the Seven Towers, was allowed 
 to embark in one of the English ships, which 
 carried him down the sea of Marmora and through 
 the passage of the Dardanelles into the Mediterra- 
 nean, where the British flag had the undisputed 
 sovereignty of the sea. Mr. Arbuthnot lingered 
 on shore, but scarcely showed himself out of his 
 house, his malady being increased by domestic 
 affliction. Some agents of the Porte announced 
 that a large English fleet was on its way to the 
 Dardanelles and Constantinople, and some months 
 before Italinsky’s departure the divan had been 
 threatened with the bombardment of their ca- 
 pital by a young and hot-headed member of the 
 British legation—a threat which had produced, 
 for the time, the desired effect, but which had 
 certainly contributed to put the Turks on their 
 guard. For a fleet to have effected all that was 
 desired it ought to have come at once, without any 
 threat or announcement. It is true that the Turks 
 were slow and procrastinating, and scarcely to be 
 roused except by the immediate presence of danger ; 
 but the sultan had several alert Frenchmen in his 
 service, and Sebastiani and General Andréossi were 
 both excellent artillery and engineer officers. To 
 the popular fury against the Russians, the most 
 hated enemies of the Turks, there now began to be 
 added a loud outcry against the English. Mr, 
 Arbuthnot thought himself exposed to the double 
 risk of being massacred by the rabble or of being 
 detained as an hostage. His apprehensions were 
 aggravated by the delay of the divan in giving a 
 passport to an English courier, and by the military 
 preparations he saw in progress under the direction 
 of the French officers. He therefore made secret 
 preparations for his own departure, and devised a 
 scheme for carrying off with him the persons 
 attached to his embassy, and the British merchants 
 settled at Constantinople. After disclosing his 
 project to two or three confidential persons, he 
 requested the captain of the English frigate, which 
 
 still remained at anchor near the mouth of the- 
 
 Golden Horn to invite him, his legation, and the 
 merchants to a grand dinner on board. The inyi- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 tations were sent, and on the 29th of January, ’ i 
 
 1801, secretaries, attachés, dragomans, all in their 
 best attire, repaired on board the ‘ Endymion,’ not 
 knowing that there was anything in the wind 
 beyond a good dinner and a few patriotic toasts. 
 When they were all assembled the ambassador 
 communicated his intentions, and told them that 
 they must go away with him as they were, and 
 without holding any communication with the shore, 
 as that might excite the suspicion of the Turks, 
 Some of the dragomans had wives and numerous 
 
 families, some of the English merchants had wives | 
 
 also, and all of them had left on shore, in their 
 warehouses and dwelling-houses, bales of goods 
 and other precious commodities. 
 announcement struck them like athunderbolt; but 
 they were told by his excellency that in all proba- 
 bility the Turks would not murder their wives and 
 children, and that if their goods were plundered or 
 burned the generous British government would 
 pay for them all.* There was a dinner served up 
 in the captain’s cabin, but the appetite of the 
 guests failed them, and their countenances were 
 sad. At eight o’clock in the evening, when it was 
 very dark, the ‘ Endymion’ cut her cables and got 
 under weigh. She nearly struck on the rocks 
 which project a little beyond the Seraglio Point, 
 towards which she was impelled by the strong 
 current of the Bosporus; but the necessary 
 manoeuvres were executed with order and in per- 
 fect silence; the Turkish guards, as usual, were 
 either fast asleep or smoking their chibouks, and, 
 being freed from her momentary danger, the trim 
 frigate, favoured by current and by wind, glided 
 down the Propontis or Sea of Marmora, and was 
 near the inner mouth of the Dardanelles before the 
 divan knew that she was gone, or that Arbuthnot 
 
 had embarked in her.t Close by the entrance of 
 
 the straits was posted the capitan-pasha with a 
 
 ship of the line, five frigates, and a brig; but this | 
 grand admiral neither knew nor suspected what 
 
 passengers she was carrying, and the *‘ Endymion’ 
 
 was allowed to run through the Dardanelles with- | 
 out search or challenge. Off the island of Tenedos | 
 the ‘ Endymion ’ joined Admiral Louis’s squadron. | 
 
 Finding himself now in security, Arbuthnot wrote 
 to Constantinople to explain to the divan the motives 
 of his sudden and unceremonious departure, and to 
 propose the renewal of negotiations. The present 
 
 object of the English minister was merely to gain | 
 time, and to induce the Turks to suspend the pre- | 
 
 parations they were making on both sides of the 
 
 Dardanelles to give the English fleet a hot recep- — 
 tion, if (which they much doubted) it should really 
 risk itself in that narrow and formidable passage. — 
 The Turks fell into the snare, and ordered Feyzi- 
 
 Effendi, a Mussulman of high rank in the court, 
 
 * Before departing, Arbuthnot wrote a note to General Sebastiani ' 
 recommending to his protection the English families and the non- 
 descript families of the dragomans, &c., in the English service. 
 
 Sebastiani claimed the merit of a zealous protection; but we believe 
 that none was needed, and that not even the janissary rabble ever 
 thought of offering any insult to the forsaken women and children. 
 
 + Juchereau de Saint-Denys, Révolutions de Constantinople en — 
 
 1807 et 1808.—Private information, collected on the spot. . 
 
 The sudden oa 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 to open a conference with the British ambassador. 
 Arbuthnot would not venture himself on shore ; 
 but he sent Berto-Pisani, his head dragoman, to 
 the town or village of the Dardanelles, to amuse 
 Feyzi-Effendi. Pisani, who had a double heredi- 
 tary claim to cunning, as a man in whose veins the 
 Genoese and Greek bloods were mixed, did his 
 spiriting with great ability, his task being rendered 
 the more easy by the decided English predilections 
 of the Turkish negotiator, who had all along 
 opposed the policy of the divan in provoking a war 
 with the great naval power. In vain M. de Las- 
 cours, General Sebastiani’s aide-de-camp, who had 
 been sent to the Straits to superintend the prepa- 
 rations, argued and stormed; in vain the other 
 French officers urged the necessity of immediate 
 and extraordinary exertion. Feyzi-Effendi kept 
 negotiating; the capitan-pasha, a true dreamy 
 Turk, said it was not written in the Book of Des- 
 tiny that the English should come; that if they 
 came, there were guns enough to sink them all; 
 that the probability was that all the English would 
 attempt to do would be to blockade the outer 
 mouth of the Straits, as the Russians had several 
 times done in former wars; that such expenses as 
 the French recommended were unnecessary; and 
 that God was great. And there was this excuse 
 for the capitan-pasha—he had little or no money 
 with him, and he could get none from Constanti- 
 nople. ‘The workmen who had been pressed into 
 the service, instead of staying to repair the old 
 batteries and make new ones, fled in all directions 
 like packs of famishing jackals. At last, on the 
 10th of February, Sir John Duckworth, a favourite 
 admiral of the * All Talents’ administration—who 
 had certainly made his victory in the West Indies 
 ereain over rather too much *—arrived off Tenedos 
 with some more ships of the line, and two bomb- 
 vessels. This force, being united to Admiral 
 Louis’s ships, made up not a fleet, but a squadron 
 of eight line-of-battle ships, two frigates, and two 
 bombs. The arrival of this force neither inter- 
 rupted Berto-Pisani’s conferences, nor put more 
 activity into the Turks: Feyzi-Effendi hoped the 
 negotiation would: yet end well, and the capitan- 
 pasha kept smoking his pipe and uttering his 
 Inshallahs! and Mashallahs! The confidence of 
 this grand admiral in his Kismeth, or destiny or 
 happy star, may possibly have been augmented by 
 a terrible disaster which befel the ‘ Ajax,’ one of 
 Sir John Duckworth’s squadron. At nine o’clock 
 on the evening of the 14th of February, just as 
 Captain Blackwood had retired to rest, the officer 
 of the watch ran into the cabin and acquainted 
 him that the ship was on fire. Signals of distress 
 were made and alarm-guns were fired ; but, before 
 
 * Some one said in the National Convention, to that great maker 
 of decrees, reports, and dispatches, Barrére—* Vous faites trop mousser 
 nos victoires ! 
 
 Duckworth had been attached to the Mediterranean fleet of Lord 
 Collingwood, to whom the Admiralty orders had been, in the first 
 instance, transmitted. These orders contained the highest compli- 
 ments to Duckworth. They said, “ As the service pointed out will 
 require much ability and firmness in the officer who is to command 
 it, you are to intrust the execution thereof to Vice-Admiral Sir John 
 . Thomas Duckworth.”—James, Naval Hist—Parliamentary Papers. 
 
 nena a mt ee ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 371 
 
 any succour could approach, the conflagration 
 burst up the main hatchway, dividing the fore from 
 the after part of the ship. Although the moon 
 was shining brightly, lighting up the peaks of 
 Mount Ida and old Olympus, revealing the Trojan 
 plains, and silvering the Scamander, which was 
 winding and flowing through them as in the days 
 of Homer, in ten minutes the smoke became so 
 dense that the officers and men on the upper deck 
 could only distinguish each other by speaking or 
 feeling. In this situation the only boat that could 
 be hoisted out was the jolly-boat. About 380 of the 
 officers, seamen, and marines dropped overboard 
 from the bowsprit or other parts of the rigging, and 
 were picked up by boats of the squadron that were 
 now approaching. Captain Blackwood leaped 
 from the spritsail-yard; all the rest—about 250 
 souls—perished in the flames or in the water. 
 Among the victims were two women, and two of the 
 merchants who had been kidnapped or entrapped 
 on board the ‘ Endymion’ at Constantinople by the 
 too timid British ambassador. The burning ship 
 drifted on the island of Tenedos, struck on the 
 
 rocks, and blew up with an awful explosion which 
 
 was heard all through the winding Dardanelles, 
 and far away in the Archipelago and the Sea of 
 Marmora among the cypress-groves of Sestos and 
 Abydos, the olive-clad hills of Gallipolis, and 
 the clifis of Lemnos and Imbros. The Turks 
 and the French from the heights behind the village 
 of the Dardanelles could not only hear the final 
 roar, but could also see the long-fed flames which 
 preceded it. 
 
 There was then no possibility of threading the 
 narrow passage of the Dardanelles in the teeth of 
 an impetuous current running down incessantly 
 from the northward, without a good breeze from 
 the south or south-west. This favourable wind 
 did not set in until the morning of the 19th of 
 February. Then, at about 7 a.m., the squadron 
 weighed, and Duckworth steered for the entrance 
 of the Dardanelles. In less than an hour the 
 ‘Canopus, his leading ship, arrived abreast the 
 outer castles, one of which stands on the Euro- 
 pean and the other on the Asiatic shore. Both 
 castles opened their fire upon the ‘ Canopus,’ 
 and in succession upon the ships in her wake, 
 which followed in a long line, with considerable 
 intervals of space between each of them. Nei- 
 ther the ‘Canopus’ nor any other ship returned 
 the fire: the squadron moved majestically and 
 silently up the Strait, as though despising the vain 
 loud noise of the Turkish batteries. It was a grand 
 holiday with the Osmanlees—one of the days of 
 their Courban-Beiram—and they were keeping it 
 in their ordinary manner: the cannoncers of the 
 inner batteries, instead of being at their posts, 
 were dispersed in the coffee-houses, smoking their 
 chibouks, listening to itinerant story-teilers, or 
 witnessing the pleasant pranks of Karaguse, the 
 Turkish Punch. Even the two outer castles which 
 had opened the fire had only a part of their artillery- 
 men at their guns. Our squadron was well in the 
 
channel before the capitan-pasha would believe 
 that they seriously meant to pass through. He 
 then tore his beard and ran about like a madman, 
 giving hurried and contradictory or unintelligible 
 orders; and it was the French vice-consul at the 
 Dardanelles, Sebastiani’s aide-de-camp and the 
 other French officers on the spot, rather than the 
 sultan’s grand admiral, that got some of the 
 Turkish cannoneers and soldiers into the upper 
 batteries on the Asiatic side of the channel. On 
 the opposite or European side, where there were 
 no such active and intelligent agents, the greater 
 part of the Turks appear to have continued their 
 heff* and their smoking. Still favoured by the 
 fresh wind from S.S.W., and breasting the foam- 
 ing current, the British squadron went quickly on, 
 presenting a magnificent spectacle. At about half- 
 past nine a.m. the leading ship arrived abreast of 
 the castles and batteries of Kelidil-Bahar and Sul- 
 
 tanie-Kalessi, which stand on the narrowest part of 
 
 the channel, where the coasts of the two continents 
 are scarcely a mile and a quarter asunder. The 
 capitan-pasha had thrown himself into one of these 
 works, and Feyzi-Effendi into another. From either 
 shore a tremendous fire was opened upon the Eng- 
 lish ships, which now for the first time began to 
 reply, with broadsides starboard and larboard, and 
 with a precision of aim which the Turks could 
 neither comprehend nor imitate. In Asia and in 
 Europe the neatly whitewashed bastions and para- 
 pets tottered to their fall: the capitan-pasha could 
 not stand this horse-play, and, pretending that he 
 was going on board his flag-ship, he sneaked out 
 of his battery, and disappeared. The Turkish 
 cannoneers and janissaries soon followed the ex- 
 ample of their chief, threatening to murder the 
 French officers who attempted to keep them to 
 their guns. These Frenchmen were left almost 
 alone on the batteries, to witness the triumphant 
 progress of the British ships, of which not one 
 seemed to have sustained any serious injury from 
 the cross-fire, hot and terrible as it had been while 
 it lasted. The Straits might now be said to be 
 passed; but there was still some work todo. A 
 little above the Castle of Abydos, and stretching 
 on towards Nagar-Bournu, on the Asiatic side, lay 
 a Turkish squadron, consisting of a 64-gun ship, 
 four frigates, four corvettes, two brigs, and two 
 gunboats. One of the brigs cut her cables and 
 made sail for Constantinople, to convey the intelli- 
 gence that the delhi Ingleez,t the mad English, 
 were really coming. This brig ought to have 
 been pursued and taken by the English, if it had 
 only been to stop the news she was carrying; but 
 it appears that Duckworth gave no orders to that 
 effect. It was scarcely to be expected that the 
 capitan-pasha, a landsman, like nearly all Turkish 
 admirals, who had been scared out of a land battery, 
 would adventure his person on board ship in the 
 * Keffis Turkish for joy or joviality. 
 | + A name very commonly applied by the Turks to English sailors, 
 and sometimes to English consuls. It is a superstition of that 
 
 people that madmen enjoy in a peculiar manner the favour and 
 protection of Heaven. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 face of such a superior force: he had gone to a 
 hill-top to curse his Kzsmeth and calm his agitation 
 with a pipe. But the captain who was on board 
 the 64-gun ship had some of the courage and ob- 
 stinacy of a true Turk, and as Duckworth’s van 
 came abreast of him he fired at the British ships, 
 and his fire was followed by that of his frigates and 
 corvettes. Having returned this fire en passant, 
 the ‘ Canopus,’ ‘ Repulse,’ ‘ Royal George,’ and 
 ‘ Windsor Castle’ stood quietly on to an anchorage 
 about three miles above the point, leaving the 
 ‘Pompée,’ ‘ Thunderer,’ ‘Standard,’ and the two 
 frigates to deal with the Turkish flotilla. These 
 three ships of the line and two frigates were led 
 into action by Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, Duck- 
 worth’s second in command, who ought to have 
 had the chief and sole command of the expedition. 
 Sir Sidney ran in and anchored within musket- 
 shot of the Turkish squadron, as well as of a re- 
 doubt on the point which mounted 31 heavy guns, 
 At these close quarters the firing commenced at 
 about half-past tena.m. In considerably less than 
 half an hour the Turkish 64, and all the other 
 vessels, except one frigate, one corvette, and one 
 gunboat, ran ashore on the Asiatic side of the 
 Straits. The corvette and the gunboat were cap- 
 tured: the frigate ran across the channel and 
 forged herself on the rocks on the European side, 
 where she was soon burned by the boats’ crews of 
 the ‘Active’ frigate. While the boats of the 
 ‘ Thunderer’ and the ‘Standard’ boarded and set 
 fire to the Turkish ships which were stranded on 
 the Asiatic side, the ‘Pompée’ threw a few shells 
 and dispersed a considerable body of Asiatic troops, 
 both horse and foot, who had gathered on the hills 
 behind the redoubt ; and the marines of the 
 ‘ Pompée,’ headed by Lieutenant Mark Oates, 
 landed and: captured their green standard. The 
 Turkish frigates now began to explode, the fire 
 reaching their powder-magazines ; and other de- 
 posits of powder, which the careless Asiatics had 
 left exposed near the beach, blew up also. ‘ It was 
 like the Day of Judgment,” said a poor Armenian 
 who was present; ‘‘ the sky seemed on fire, the 
 mountains shook!’ The Turks in the bastion, 
 which had continued to fire with its 31 great guns, 
 fell into a consternation and panic; the reverse or 
 land side of their work, like the reverses of all the 
 batteries along the Straits, was miserably weak and 
 ill-constructed ; and, as they saw a handful of 
 marines and sailors coming to attack them in the 
 rear, the cannoneers threw away their linstocks, 
 the janissaries their arms, and all rushed out of the 
 back of the redoubt, and scampered away for the 
 near hills. In a very few minutes nothing living 
 was to be seen on shore except a few English red- 
 coats and blue-jackets busily employed in spiking 
 the guns of the bastion. At last the Turkish 64 
 went into the air; and at five p.m. Sir Sidney Smith 
 jomed his commander-in-chief. In destroying the | 
 Turkish squadron and bastion he had lost only 4 
 
 killed and 26 wounded. In passing the castles 
 Duckworth had had 6 men killed and 51 wounded, 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 and a part of this loss had arisen from the acci- 
 dental bursting of a mortar on board of one of the 
 bomb-yessels. hus the total loss sustained by the 
 British in doing what the Turks had considered it 
 impossible for mortal men to do, amounted only to 
 10 killed and 77 wounded. 
 
 But sad was the fate which awaited poor Feyzi- 
 Effendi, the dupe of Arbuthnot’s diplomacy and 
 of his own friendly feelings for the English: he 
 was accused of treachery or of imbecility, and his 
 head was soon taken off his shoulders, to be put 
 into the niche over the seraglio gate. The capi- 
 tan-pasha, though far more culpable than Feyzi- 
 Effendi, had friends within the seraglio walls ; 
 and, though he lost his fortune and his place, he 
 saved his head for the present. Even Berto- 
 Pisani, Arbuthnot’s chief dragoman, who had been 
 negligently or barbarously left on shore negotiating 
 when Duckworth weighed anchor from Tenedos 
 and began to force the passage, had a very narrow 
 escape for his life, and suffered a long captivity: 
 he was arrested in the village of the Dardanelles, 
 just as Duckworth’s ships came abreast of it, and 
 it could scarcely have been less than a miracle 
 which saved him from the fury of the Turks: he 
 
 thence to Kutaiah, in the interior of Asia Minor, 
 where he lived in sad plight till the conclusion 
 of peace between England and Turkey. 
 
 Nearly everything depended upon speed ; but 
 Sir John Duckworth, after getting well through 
 the Straits, seemed not to be disposed to make any 
 great haste. That night, though the wind blew 
 as fair as fair could be, he carried very little sail; 
 and on the following day, the 20th, the wind 
 lessened considerably. This circumstance, and 
 the unchangeable nature of the current from the 
 north, caused such delay that it was ten o’clock at 
 night before the squadron could be got to anchor 
 off the Princes’ Islands, which lie at the edge of 
 the Sea of Marmora, under the Asiatic coast, op- 
 posite to Constantinople, and from eight to ten 
 miles distant from that city. The Turkish brig 
 which had escaped from the Dardanelles had ar- 
 rived several hours before this, and had carried 
 dismay into the divan and a panic-terror into the 
 seraglio. The women, the eunuchs, black and 
 white, with all the strange beings that compose a 
 Turkish court and household, ran screaming about 
 the palace, which from its situation was of all 
 the city the part most exposed to bombardment ; 
 the grand vizier and the other ministers saw at 
 first no hope of salvation except in acceding to the 
 demands of the English, in submitting to the 
 conditions offered by the Russians, and in break- 
 ing off all connexion with the French. Sultan 
 Selim even sent Ismael Bey, one of his favourites, 
 to acquaint General Sebastiani with the decision 
 of the divan, and to ask him whether he would 
 not oblige the Turks by quietly taking his de- 
 parture. But Sebastiani, hoping that the degrading 
 terror of the harem and the Porte had not reached 
 the Turks of the town and the suburbs, declared 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807, 
 
 was carried as a prisoner of war to Brnsa, and 
 
 373 
 
 that the arrival of the English fieet gave him uo 
 alarm, that he was under the safeguard of the 
 Porte, and would not quit Constantinople without 
 a positive command from the sultan himself. Se- 
 bastiani’s firmness gave the Turkish ministers time 
 to recover from their first panic ; and Duckworth’s 
 unpardonable indecision allowed the Turks abund- 
 ant time to put their city and harbour in a good 
 state of defence. 
 
 On the 21st, at daybreak, the wind blew fair 
 from the south-east, and everybody on board the 
 squadron, except the admiral and the ambassador, 
 expected that the ships would weigh, proceed to 
 take their station off the town, and be ready to 
 bombard it. But Arbuthnot, according to the 
 instructions from government at home, was to 
 give the word when to begin, and he hesitated 
 about giving the order; and Duckworth would do 
 nothing without it, although circumstances had 
 occurred which rendered this submission to in- 
 structions—which after all were conditional—dan- 
 gerous, preposterous. Instead of moving with his 
 whole squadron, the vice-admiral sent the ‘ Endy- 
 mion’ frigate with the ambassador’s dispatches 
 and his ultimatum, which simply signified that the 
 sultan must deliver up his fleet to the British as 
 a security to be kept till the return of peace, dis- 
 miss Sebastiani, and renounce his French con- 
 nexions. The English admiral added a note of 
 his own, stating, in a bungling, rhodomontade style, 
 that he had it in his power to destroy the capital 
 and all the Turkish vessels, and that the Turkish 
 government must send him an answer upon the 
 instant of the reception and translation of his note. 
 The ‘Endymion’ came to anchor at a spot four 
 miles from Constantinople. Sir John Duckworth 
 said in his dispatches that she could not get 
 nearer on account of the lightness of the wind and 
 the strength of the current ; but the Turks, who 
 by this time had certainly got ready batteries 
 which might have sunk the frigate (and probably 
 no flag of truce would have prevented them firing 
 upon her), attributed her respectful distance to 
 other causes and considerations. The captain of 
 the frigate sent forward a boat, bearing a flag of 
 truce, with the dispatches. The Turks would not 
 permit the officer to land, but they took the 
 dispatches, and returned no answer to them.* 
 This was at about two o’clock in the afternoon. 
 Late in the evening Mr. Arbuthnot addressed a 
 note to the Reis-Effendi, or Turkish minister for 
 
 * Juchereau de Saint-Denys says that the English officers who 
 carried these dispatches landed and were conducted to Ali Effendi, 
 minister of the marine; that the rather brutal reception they met, 
 and the threatening air of the Turkish officers and sailors, with some 
 indiscreet words that were let drop, made them believe that the Turks 
 were going to violate the law of nations—that is, were going to mur- 
 der them; that on being called up to the seraglio they believed that 
 their last hour was come, and, instead of repairing to the green 
 Kiosk, the place named for the conference (and which was very often 
 the place of execution), the English officers and the boat’s crew 
 rowed away, as hard as they could row, towards Duckworth’s 
 squadron, without being stopped by the Turks, and also without 
 having delivered the letters they had brought from the ambassador 
 and the admiral. But we have reason to believe that the letters 
 were delivered and carried across the harbour to the seraglio; that 
 the officers did not quit their boat, but saw Ali Effendi at the 
 arsenal, which lies along the Galata or Christian side of the port, 
 and has quays and piers projecting into the water. 
 
374 
 
 foreign affairs, telling him very solemnly that an 
 answer to the admiral’s note must really be de- 
 livered within half an hour. The sun set, the 
 moon rose over that beautiful group of islands 
 where Duckworth was lying as if spell-bound, and 
 midnight arrived, without the arrival of an an- 
 swer from the Reis-Effendi, or from any other 
 Turk, great or small. Sir John Duckworth then 
 
 wrote and dispatched another threatening note. 
 
 But he knew not how to threaten with effect ; and 
 in this note, which was the very bathos of that sort 
 of the sublime, he said, “‘ As we have discovered 
 by our glasses that the time granted to the Sublime 
 Porte to come to a decision is employed in warping 
 ships of war into places more susceptible of de- 
 fence, and in constructing batteries along the 
 coast, it is the duty of the vice-admiral to lose 
 no time.” “Time! he had already lost a night 
 and a day, and with it an almost certain chance 
 of success! If, instead of going to anchor at 
 Princes’ Islands on the evening of the 20th, he 
 had come-to off the Seraglio Point, a broadside or 
 two and a few shells would, in all probability, have 
 obtained from the panic-stricken Porte whatever 
 he was sent to demand. But Sir John’s delays 
 were not over yet—far from it. The sun rose 
 again from behind the snow-covered ridges of 
 Mount Olympus, and still no answer from the 
 contumacious Turks. Up went the signal ‘ Pre- 
 pare to weigh” to the mast-head of the ‘ Royal 
 George,’ the admiral’s ship. The impatient sailors 
 hailed the glad sign; the breeze was blowing 
 freshly and fairly ; an hour’s sailing or less would 
 have brought the ships within range of the sultan’s 
 palace and the splendid mosques which stand be- 
 hind it; but Duckworth left his preparation flag 
 flying from five o’clock a.m. till noon, and from 
 noon till four o’clock in the afternoon, without 
 giving the other signal to weigh and be gone. He 
 could not blame the wind, for that continued fair 
 from sunrise till four o’clock p.m., an interval 
 quite sufficient to allow him to do his work on the 
 city if it was to be done at all. At four the steady 
 breeze began to slacken; at five p.m. it subsided 
 almost to a dead calm; and then he could not go 
 were he ever so well inclined. Mr. Arbuthnot, 
 who had never been well, was taken so very sick 
 this afternoon, that he was put hors de combat, or 
 out of the paper war, which was the only combat 
 they had been carrying on since passing the Dar- 
 danelles; and from this time forward the diplo- 
 matic correspondence fell entirely to the vice- 
 admiral, who, judging from the papers he wrote 
 on this and on some other occasions, was a mise- 
 rable hand at the pen, with a style altogether 
 unlike an English sailor’s, being prolix, long- 
 winded, verbose, and inconclusive. Thus passed 
 the 22nd of February. Sir John had now been 
 acting two days or more in direct contradiction to 
 the instructions of his commander-in-chief, Lord 
 Collingwood, which said, “At the crisis, should 
 any negotiation be proposed by the Turkish go- 
 vernment, as such proposition will probably be 
 
 LE EA tet A NE LAE ANN nee tare te ten te ta na 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 made to gain time for preparing their resistance 
 or securing their ships, I would recommend that 
 no negotiation should continue more than half an 
 hour; and, in the event of an absolute refusal, 
 you are either to cannonade the town or attack the 
 fleet, wherever it may be, holding it in mind that 
 the getting possession, and next to that the de- 
 struction, of the Turkish fleet is the object of the 
 first consideration.’? This fleet, at the moment of 
 Duckworth’s arrival, lay huddled together in the 
 Golden Horn, in a condition in which they could 
 have offered scarcely any resistance; and at that 
 moment there was not one formidable land-battery 
 in readiness on either side of the harbour to cover 
 or protect them. 
 
 On the morning of the 23rd, while the British 
 seamen were again expecting the signal to weigh, 
 Sir John was in his cabin writing another rig- 
 marole letter to the Turks—the most contemptible 
 epistle, we presume, that had ever yet proceeded 
 from a British admiral.* The Turks, who were 
 now making excellent use of every hour he allowed 
 them, and who were beginning to despise as much 
 as they had feared him, pretended to agree to treat, 
 And thus passed the 23rd. On the 24th Sir John 
 intimated that he had come to the resolution of 
 personally conducting the negotiation, proposing 
 that a Turkish minister should be sent on board 
 the ‘ Royal George,’ or offering himself to go ashore 
 on any one of the Princes’ Islands. The Turks 
 named Kadikeiu, a village on the Asiatic shore, a 
 short distance from Scutari, which may be consi- 
 dered as one of the suburbs of Constantinople, as 
 a very proper place of meeting. Sir John said that 
 Kadikeiu was too far off; and he now discovered 
 that there was no precedent of an admiral and 
 commander-in-chief quitting his squadron. As he 
 would not venture to go on terra firma among the 
 Turks, and as no Turkish minister would venture 
 to go to him, there was no meeting that day; and 
 so, with a little scribbling and much talking, 
 passed the 24th. 
 
 * In this inconceivable epistle Sir John Thomas Duckworth, vice- 
 admiral of the White, after hinting that he expected to be joined by 
 another great naval force, said in the tone of a Captain Bobadil—** } 
 must tell you frankly, I will not consent to lose any more time. 
 
 owe it to my sovereign and to my own honour not to suffer myself to a 
 be duped, and those who are capable of thinking so meanly of others 
 justly become themselves the object of suspicion. You are putting f 
 
 your ships of war in motion; you take every method of inereasi 
 your meuns of defence; but, if the Sublime Porte really wishes to save — 
 its capital from the dreadful calamities which are ready to burst upon 
 it, the thought of which is shocking to our feelings of humanity, y 
 (the Reis-Effendi) will be sent here very early to-morrow morning vith, 
 
 full powers to conclude with me the work of peace, which Mr. Arbuth- — 
 not would by this time have set out to conelude on shore if he had not — 
 T now declare to — 
 
 been prevented by a very serious indisposition. 
 you, for the last time, that no consideration whatever shall indue 
 me to remain at a distance from your capital a single mome 
 
 beyond the period I have now assigned; and you are sufficiently 
 acquainted with the English character, not to be ignorant that, ina — 
 
 ease of unavoidable necessity, we are less disposed to threaten than 
 to execute. But understand me well. Our object is peace 
 amity: this depends on you,” 
 
 Well may the blushing historian of the British Navy exclaim— 
 ** Can it be wondered that the Turkish minister, having the shrew 
 Sebastiani at his elbow, should laugh at all this verbiage, and rS 
 with contempt both the writer and the government of which he 
 was the organ ?”—James, 
 
 [ Book Ge 
 
 On the following day, or per- — 
 haps it was on the 26th, Sir John wanted to send 
 Admiral Louis to Kadikeiu or some other place — 
 to treat with the Turks; but Louis preferred — 
 
 > 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 remaining on board his flag-ship, and had probably 
 concluded before this that negotiation was nonsense, 
 and that Duckworth had lost his senses. The 
 Princes’ Islands lie no more than three or four 
 miles from the Asiatic shore, which was now 
 covered with irregular troops; there were cases 
 upon record, and one striking case which had 
 occurred in Sir John Duckworth’s own time, in 
 which the Turks had made a desperate rush in 
 open boats across an arm of the sea, and taking them 
 by surprise had inflicted a dreadful blow on their 
 enemies ; but, notwithstanding these circumstances, 
 no proper lock-out appears to have been kept, and 
 on the morning of the 27th Sir John discovered to 
 his amaze that a body of Turks had landed fiom 
 the main on the island of Proti, one of the Princes’ 
 Islands, and the nearest to his anchorage ; and that 
 they were actually erecting a battery to fire upon 
 his ships. These adventurous Turks were dis- 
 lodged in the course of the day by some grape-shot 
 fired from the ships, and by the landing of some 
 marines and sailors; but even this petty operation 
 was nearly spoiled by Sir John’s indecision and 
 vacillation, and it cost the lives of two brave officers 
 and of five men, while two officers and seventeen 
 men returned on board wounded ; and, after all, the 
 greater part of the Turks were allowed to escape in 
 their boats even as they had come. It has been 
 said that two most important personages, Sebastiani 
 and the chief Agha of the janissaries, were on the 
 island of Proti, and might have been made pri- 
 soners and carried on board the English squadron ; 
 and that from this double capture great advantages 
 might have been derived. But it is quite certain 
 that neither the French general nor the janissary 
 Agha risked his person in that desperate enter- 
 prise; and that, if they had both been there, and 
 had both been made prisoners, the Porte would not 
 now have complied in any one important particular 
 with the demands of the English.* 
 
 During the 25th and 26th of February there 
 had been a calm or contrary winds; but on the 
 2th the wind blew right into the Golden Horn, 
 and continued so to blow during the whole of the 
 28th. But no one on board the squadron could 
 now rationally expect the fighting signal which at 
 first had been so eagerly desired; and the Turks 
 were now quite ready to meet and repel the attack 
 of a force far superior to that of Sir John. The 
 _, the Turkish officer in command of the party that landed on the 
 island was a janissary from Kadikeiu. He might have been captured 
 with his whole party ; but, owing to the spiritless, imbecile manner in 
 which Sir John ordered his operations, landing first one handful of 
 men and then another mere handful to support the first, the English 
 got worsted before the miserable walls of a,Greek monastery, and 
 were recalled on board by the admiral; and it was not through any 
 fighting or loss they had sustained, but through the apprehension ofan 
 attack in greater force on the following morning, that the janissaries 
 stole away in the night. Sir John’s strange orders to the parties that 
 Janded were ‘‘ that ho risk whatever must be run”—that they were 
 
 not to pursue their abject should it be attended with any hazard.”’ 
 
 Juchereau de Saint-Denys says that the English lost a great many 
 men, and that the Tarks remained masters of the monastery. But 
 the Turks certainly fled in the night, as we have stated. This able 
 Frenchman, who bore an important part in all the military operations 
 carried on at Constantinople, is quite right in saying that the 
 attack on the Turks at Proti “was conducted without prudence 
 
 and without discernment;” and that the spirited advice of Sir 
 
 Sidney Smith was never once followed af; iti 4 
 had got through the Dardanelles, an” Bead aquasran 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 enthusiasm and fury of all classes of Mussulmans 
 kept up the heart of the sultan’s ministers; or 
 rather, perhaps, their first fear of the English 
 squadron was dissipated by the more terrible 
 apprehension of being torn to pieces by the janis- 
 saries and the populace if they quailed before the 
 enemy and yielded to his demands: for it was the 
 unvarying practice of these Turks to avenge the 
 misfortunes of their country on the men who 
 governed it, and to murder or attempt to murder 
 whatsoever minister had done amiss or had incurred 
 their suspicion. This was their one great con- 
 stitutional check: their impeachments were made, 
 not with glowing words, but with fire and the sword. 
 They called for vengeance upon the English, who 
 had attacked them in a time of peace, who had 
 forced the closed avenue to Constantinople, batter- 
 ing the castles and killing the faithful, who had 
 burned a Turkish squadron, and had then come on 
 to dictate the law to their sultan by threatening 
 to burn his capital and palace. Encouraged, 
 enchanted by this national spirit, General Sebas- 
 tiani sought and obtained a private audience of 
 Sultan Selim, the morning after Duckworth’s arri- 
 val at the Princes’ Islands: he offered his own 
 services and the services of several engineer and 
 artillery officers whom Marshal Marmont had oppor- 
 tunely sent from the Adriatic to the Bosporus; 
 he represented that immense advantages might be 
 derived from a close alliance with his master the 
 Emperor Napoleon, who was beating the Russians 
 out of Poland, and who would assuredly conduct 
 his victorious army to St. Petersburg, and there 
 dictate a peace to the czar which should preserve 
 and guarantee the integrity of the Turkish empire, 
 as well in Europe as in Asia. Selim was no hero, 
 but his heart and hope rose at these bright pros- 
 pects. He cleared out his harem, sent all his 
 women with their black and white guardians away 
 to an ancient palace of the Greek emperors situated 
 in the heart of Constantinople; he admitted sol- 
 diers and workmen into the interior of the seraglio, 
 into its most sacred or mysterious recesses; and he 
 allowed them to cut away walls and to plant bat- 
 teries among the cypress trees and on the terraces 
 of the garden. The point and two sides of the 
 triangle on which this palace of the sultan stands, 
 soon bristled with cannon. In the name of the 
 sultan a call was made upon all the faithful to be 
 under arms or to serve in the batteries, and the 
 rayah subjects of the Porte, Greeks, Armenians, 
 Jews, and the rest, were invited or pressed into the 
 service, and employed to drag the cannon, to carry 
 the earth and fascines, the powder and the shot. 
 Counting all the suburbs and the villages on the 
 Bosporus, Constantinople might have at this time 
 a population of 800,000 souls; and out of this 
 number nearly every male that had passed the age 
 of childhood, and had not attained to the blindness 
 or decrepitude of old age, was set in active mo- 
 tion. Every day, too, brought in levies and volun- 
 teers from European Turkey and from the plains 
 and hills of Asia Minor. A number of new bat- 
 
 i rn ce lee pnd, mks os sn Suen sd = eorinesinnnsnme om nnanancnri 
 
376 
 
 teries had been traced by a French officer of engi- 
 neers before our ambassador fled from Constanti- 
 nople, but not one of them was mounted when 
 Duckworth first arrived. In the course of the ten 
 days which our admiral allowed them the Turks 
 mounted and manned all these batteries, with a 
 good many more besides. Exclusive of the mili- 
 tary men by profession, Sebastiani collected about 
 200 Frenchmen, secretaries, and clerks of the 
 embassy, travellers, merchants, brokers, who volun- 
 teered to serve in the batteries, and who all (like 
 nearly every Frenchman of that generation) knew 
 something of the art or practice of war. These 
 Frenchmen, too, gained golden opinions by the 
 liberal distribution of golden napoleons with which 
 they had been furnished. The Spanish ambas- 
 sador, the Marquis de Almédnara (subsequently 
 minister of the interior to Joseph Bonaparte, when 
 Joseph gave up the kingdom of Naples to become 
 king of Spain), was almost as active and energetic 
 as Sebastiani and his Frenchmen: day and night 
 he was in the batteries with his secretaries, attachés, 
 and the rest of his legation ; and he organised a 
 company of cannoneers out of the Spanish sailors 
 that happened to be on board of merchant vessels 
 in the Golden Horn. By the evening of the 22nd 
 from 200 to 300 pieces of artillery were placed in 
 battery ; but by the 26th or 27th 1200 guns of all 
 calibres were mounted and ready. Parapets and 
 other works had risen, as if by magic, on both sides 
 of the port and at the Asiatic suburb of Scutari; 
 and the rock which lies nearly @ fleur de Peau 
 between the Point of Scutari and the Seraglio 
 Point, and which is surmounted by an ancient 
 tower, called by the Turks the Maiden’s Tower, 
 and by the Franks of the country (absurdly enough) 
 the Tower of Leander, had been provided with 
 some immense guns, and with a furnace for red- 
 hot shot. The fleet lying in the Golden Horn 
 consisted of ten or twelve large ships of the line, 
 some frigates, and a multitude of small craft: 
 many of these vessels were going fast to ruin, and 
 they were nearly all dismasted and without their 
 crews on board when the British squadron first 
 arrived ; but while Duckworth was lying at Princes’ 
 Islands seven of these line-of-battle ships were 
 manned, brought out, and moored across the mouth 
 of the harbour and the entrance of the Bosporus, 
 supported by a longer and double line of gunboats. 
 The Turks had also prepared, and in great num- 
 bers, a species of fire-ships. A great dread conti- 
 nued to be entertained of Duckworth’s two bomb 
 ships, for, except the seraglio, the mosques, some 
 of the bazaars, and a very few other public build- 
 ings, all the houses of Constantinople and the 
 suburbs are built of wood; but pumps were placed 
 in all directions, water-carriers were pressed into 
 the service, and detachments of janissaries armed 
 with axes as well as with guns were distributed in 
 the streets and squares to stop the conflagration 
 wherever it should burst out. 
 
 On the morning of the Ist of March the wind 
 blew from the N.E., a fair wind for returning to 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 | the Dardanelles. At eight o’clock the British ships 
 
 got under sail, standing im line of battle. Sir John 
 Duckworth says that, in order to give the Turkish 
 fleet an opportunity to come out and attack him, 
 he stood on and off Constantinople during the day : 
 but this has been properly described as a flourish, 
 for the Turks had been able to get ready for sea 
 only five sail of the line and four frigates. On the 
 approach of night Sir John bore up for the Dar- 
 danelles. On the evening of the 2nd of March he 
 reached the inner mouth of the Straits, and came 
 to anchor, preferring daylight for passing the castles 
 and batteries, although there were no difficulties of 
 navigation, and if he had gone through in the night 
 he must in all probability have escaped the injury 
 which he sustained by broad daylight. Here the 
 admiral got rid of his only trophy by giving up the 
 Turkish corvette, which Sir Sidney Smith had cap- 
 tured, to the prisoners. 
 
 On the morning of the 3rd of March, at half- 
 past seven o’clock, and not earlier (as if he had 
 been anxious not to disturb his enemies in their 
 beds at too early an hour), Duckworth again 
 weighed and bore up under topsails with the wind 
 still fresh at N.E. About eight o’clock the ships 
 began to enter the channel, in much the same order 
 as they had observed in going up. They now had 
 not only the wind, but also the rapid current, in 
 their favour; but upon these increased advantages 
 for passing there was this serious drawback,—while 
 Sir John had been dozing at Proti some new works 
 had been raised; some of the old ones had been 
 considerably improved ; some Turkish engineers, 
 who had been instructed by the French, and 200 
 well-trained cannoneers, had been sent down from 
 the capital; a vast body of troops and of workmen 
 had been collected on the spot ; and, what perhaps 
 was of as much consequence as almost anything 
 else, it was not now a holiday with the Turks. 
 The old castles on either side the Hellespont were 
 
 abundantly garrisoned ; all the cannoneers were at — 
 
 their posts ; and the enormous cannons of the bat- 
 
 teries on the water’s edge, some of which carried — 
 granite balls weighing each 700 or 800 lbs., were — 
 
 not neglected now, as they had been during the 
 upward passage. As they approached the Castle 
 
 of Abydos the English were saluted by a cross fire — 
 
 of shot and shells of the hottest kind; and as they 
 rushed rapidly down they ran the gauntlet between 
 
 the castles and batteries of Europe and Asia, to | 
 which they replied with occasional broadsides, but — 
 without stopping (which was next to an impossi- — 
 bility), and without attempting to moderate the 
 
 rapidity of theirmovement. Luckily for the Eng- 
 lish, those immense guns on the water’s edge took 
 a long time for loading, and could be fired only in 
 one direction. During the two hours that our 
 squadron was passing through the close and most 
 dangerous parts of the Straits, the ‘ Canopus’ had 
 her wheel carried away and her hull much damaged 
 by the stone shot; the ‘ Repulse’ received a stone 
 shot which went through between her poop and 
 quarter-deck, killing ten and wounding ten; the 
 
 [ Book xy 
 
 ve] 
 
 4 
 
eer 
 
 Cuap. VILI.} 
 
 * Royal George’ had several of her lower shrouds 
 cut away, and sustained other damage; a stone 
 shot of 800 lbs. weight struck the main-mast of 
 the ‘ Windsor Castle,’ and cut it more than three- 
 quarters through; and another enormous granite 
 shot of nearly the same weight, discharged from 
 the Castle of Sestos, entered the lower deck of the 
 ‘Standard,’ and caused an explosion which badly 
 wounded a lieutenant and 46 men, Sir Sidney 
 Smith’s ship, the ‘Pompée,’ had the good fortune 
 to escape without being struck by a single shot in 
 hull, masts, rigging, or sails; but the ‘ Thunderer’ 
 was a good deal damaged ; and the ‘ Active’ frigate 
 was perforated by one of the 800 lbs. granite shot.* 
 This was nearly all the damage sustained by the 
 shipping; and the total loss in officers and men 
 did not exceed 29 killed and 140 wounded. A 
 little before noon Sir John Duckworth got to his 
 old anchorage between the island of Tenedos and 
 the Plains of Troy, where he was safe from all 
 molestation. He was immediately joined by the 
 Russian admiral Siniavin, with eight sail of the line. 
 It is said, but the story is somewhat doubtful, that 
 Siniavin requested Sir John to return with him, 
 and renew the attack or the negotiations; and that 
 Sir John declined, saying that where a British 
 squadron had failed no other was likely to succeed. 
 
 Thus ended the famed expedition to the Helles- 
 pont and the Bosporus. It had broken the spell 
 by which the passage of the Dardanelles had been 
 guarded for so many ages; but the result of the 
 whole was little more than a brilliant bravado, 
 followed by a series of wretched and dishonouring 
 blunders. No investigation was instituted into the 
 causes of the failure. On the 16th of May, 1808, 
 Colonel Wood moved in the House of Commons 
 for the log of the ‘ Royal George,’ Sir John’s flag 
 ship, with the view of grounding a charge against 
 that admiral ; but the motion was rejected on the 
 principle that the inquiry appertained more pro- 
 perly to a court-martial. On the 20th of May, 
 after many severe strictures, as well on the prin- 
 ciple as on the management of the whole affair, 
 Mr. M.A. Taylor moved the censure of the House 
 upon the planners of the expedition, the members 
 of the late administration, for not haying made 
 arrangements adequate to the occasion. ‘The mover 
 insisted that Lord Collingwood ought to have been 
 allowed to choose the officer for conducting the 
 
 expedition, and ought not to have had Sir John - 
 
 Duckworth forced upon him by ministers; that 
 disgrace had been brought upon the British arms 
 unnecessarily and stupidly. Mr. Canning, then 
 secretary for foreign affairs, admitted that it was ob- 
 vious the expedition might have done more than it 
 did; and Windham, late secretary-at-war, insisted 
 that the failure of the enterprise could not be attri- 
 
 * The aperture made by this shot was so wide, that the captain, 
 on looking over the side of his frigate to ascertain what damage 
 had been done, saw two of his crew thrusting their heads through 
 the hole at the same moment. The gigantic ball, which lodged on 
 the orlop deck, close to the magazine scuttle, without injuring a 
 man, had passed through the ‘ Active’s’ side only two feet above 
 the water. Had there risen a necessity for hauling to the wind on 
 the opposite tack, the ‘ Active’ must have gone to the bottom. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 ' Arabs and Egyptian Fellahs. 
 
 377 
 
 buted to any misconduct of the late government. 
 But the question was introduced merely as a reta- 
 liation on the party of the late ministers, who had 
 violently assailed the justice and policy of the attack 
 upon Copenhagen by Admiral Gambier and Lord 
 Cathcart, which had been ordered by the new ad- 
 ministration ; and in the strife of parties Sir John’ 
 Duckworth was almost lost sight of. Taylor’s 
 motion was got rid of by Canning’s moving the 
 order of the day; and afterwards a whirlwind of 
 business of the most exciting kind carried the 
 attention of parliament away from the subject ; 
 and Sir John chose rather to submit to the im- 
 putations cast upon him by Canning, Windham, 
 and many others of less name, than to challenge 
 —as he well might have done, and as he seemed 
 in honour bound to do—an investigation into his 
 conduct by a court-martial. 
 
 From Tenedos, where he left the Russian squad- 
 ron under Siniavin to blockade the Dardanelles, 
 Sir John hastened down to the mouths of the Nile, 
 to co-operate in a still more imbecile expedition 
 which had been planned by “ All the Talents.” 
 Ever since the evacuation of Egypt by the British 
 troops that country had been the scene of anarchy 
 and civil war; the Mameluke chiefs, or such of 
 them as survived the destructive battles fought by 
 the French, fighting against Mehemet Ali, the 
 sultan’s pasha and governor, and his Albanian 
 troops, and both parties committing frightful ex- 
 cesses, and plundering and murdering the poor 
 The Grenville ad- 
 ministration seem to have had great faith in sudden 
 national friendships: they thought that the South 
 American Spaniards would renounce their pre- 
 judices and join General Whitelocke ; and they 
 thought that, if some other British general were 
 sent into Egypt, the Mameluke beys, the Arabs, 
 the Fellahs, and all classes except the wild Alba- 
 nian soldiery in the pay of Mehemet Ali and the 
 Porte, would either rush to his standard or joy- 
 fully submit to his authority. With some of the 
 Mamelukes a friendly correspondence had been 
 maintained for some time; but there was slight 
 dependence to be placed upon that capricious, 
 treacherous, and lawless confederacy, and Mehemet 
 Ali had decidedly proved that the Mamelukes were 
 by far the weaker party. There had been a rumour 
 that the sultan had entertained the notion of a 
 treaty, by which Egypt was to be given up to the 
 French as the price of Bonaparte’s assistance 
 against the Russians on the Danube, in the Crimea, 
 and in the other vast regions round the Black Sea, 
 which the czars had successively torn from Turkey ; 
 but the French could neither keep nor so much as 
 take possession of Egypt so long as England main- 
 tamed her superiority at sea. The landing of a 
 British army in Egypt might indeed serve as a 
 present diversion highly favourable to our ally the 
 Emperor Alexander, who, while outnumbered and 
 hard pressed by Bonaparte between the Vistula 
 and the Niemen, was obliged to keep an army of 
 30,000 or 40,000 men on the Danube ; but to 
 
378 
 
 effect this desirable object our ministers ought to 
 have sent 15,000 or 20,000 men, instead of a 
 diminutive force which was not capable of con- 
 tending with Mehemet Ali, and which was crushed 
 and disgraced without so much as the marching of 
 an oda of janissaries from Constantinople, or from 
 any part of European Turkey, or from Asia Minor, 
 or from Syria. 
 
 On the 5th of March from 4000 to 5000 men, 
 taken from our army in Sicily, were embarked at 
 Messina, under the command of Major-General 
 Mackenzie Fraser, who was escorted by a ship of 
 the line, a frigate, and a 16-gun brig-sloop. A 
 storm scattered the transports; but on the 16th, 
 the 74 and fourteen sail of transports anchored a 
 little to the westward of Alexandria. At this time 
 nothing appears to have been known in Egypt of 
 Sir John Duckworth’s failure; and General Fraser 
 believed that squadron had been successful at Con- 
 stantinople. Major Misset, the English resident 
 and consul at Alexandria, came off in a boat, and 
 made a favourable report to the general as to the 
 disposition of the inhabitants. Fraser then sum- 
 moned the town and fortresses. On the morning of 
 the 17th of March, Mehemet’s governor replied 
 that he would defend the place to the last extremity. 
 On the evening of that day, from 600 to 700 troops, 
 5 field-pieces, and about 60 sailors were landed 
 without opposition, and 300 more soldiers were 
 landed on the 18th. On the evening of the 18th, 
 these troops moved forward, and carried the ene- 
 my’s adyanced works, with the trifling loss of seven 
 killed and ten wounded. On the next day the 
 nineteen missing transports reached the anchorage 
 in Aboukir Bay, and on the 20th the remainder of 
 the troops were landed without the slightest oppo- 
 sition, the Castle of Aboukir having been previously 
 secured. Having taken up ground to prevent the 
 arrival of a reinforcement of Albanians, General 
 Fraser on the morning of the 20th sent in, by a 
 friendly Arab that had stolen out of the town and 
 joined him, a manifesto, addressed to the inhabit- 
 ants of Alexandria, warning them of the danger of 
 implicating friends and foes in the event of the 
 English being obliged to take the town by assault, 
 and urging them to force the governor to capitulate. 
 This, added to the arrival of the nineteen transports 
 and the landing of the troops they brought, had the 
 desired effect; Mehemet’s governor immediately 
 sent out a flag of truce, and, m the course of the 
 afternoon, agreed to and signed acapitulation. On 
 the 21st, Fraser took possession of the forts of Caffa- 
 relli and Cretin, and marched into Alexandria. In 
 the old harbour were found two Turkish frigates 
 and one corvette, which remained prizes, but their 
 crews were to be sent to a Turkish port, under 
 condition not to serve against England or her allies 
 till exchanged. In the course of the following day, 
 Sir John Duckworth arrived with his squadron 
 and his bad news. We had taken Alexandria, but 
 the poor soldiers soon found that they had taken it 
 only to starve in it: provisions were scarce, the 
 neighbouring sands supplied nothing, and the open 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 i nner 
 
 4 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 ¢ 
 : 
 
 ' country beyond remained in possession of Mehemet 
 
 Ali’s Albanians, who cut offall supplies. So badly 
 had the transports been supplied, that the men had 
 eaten almost their last biscuit before they landed. — 
 The inhabitants of Alexandria, who ran the risk of 
 being starved as well as the British troops, assured 
 General Fraser that there was no hope of obtaining 
 provisions unless he extended his conquest along 
 the coast, and got possession of Rosetta and Rha- 
 manieh; and upon this assurance, and with the 
 concurrence of Admiral Duckworth, Fraser on the 
 2th of March—only six days after gaining pos- 
 session of Alexandria—detached about 1200 men, 
 under Major-General Wauchope and Brigadier- 
 General Mead, to Rosetta. The troops were al- 
 lowed to march forward in the most confident 
 and blindest manner, for their generals all fancied 
 that the inhabitants of Rosetta were as quiet and 
 friendly as the people of Alexandria. Instead of 
 keeping their posts on some heights which com- 
 mand the town, and instead of taking any precau- 
 tiqns, Wauchope, without any previous examination, 
 rushed with his whole force into the streets of 
 Rosetta, the gates of the town having been ex- 
 pressly left open. The Albanian commandant let 
 them rush on and cram themselves in close columns 
 in those narrow, crooked streets; and then, from 
 every door-way, window, and house-top on either 
 side of the streets, he hailed upon them with musket- 
 shot and carbine and rifle-ball. Almost without 
 seeing the enemy that assailed them, three hundred 
 of the British fell dead or badly wounded. General 
 Wauchope himself was slain; and, before they 
 could extricate themselves from that infernal laby- 
 rinth into which the folly of their commanders had 
 led them, another hundred men and officers fell 
 under the murderous fire of the Albanians. When — 
 our people got out of the town, they formed in — 
 good. order, and so retreated for Alexandria; but — 
 the Albanians, who always fought best under cover 
 and behind walls, and who dreaded an encounter 
 with European troops in the open field, made no — 
 attempt to throw them into disorder by following — 
 them. Thus, instead of provisions, General Fraser — 
 received a list of 400 killed and wounded—a sad — 
 reduction to a force so small as his. At a moment — 
 when absolute famine was threatening the British 
 army, the city of Alexandria, and all their friends, — 
 Sir John Duckworth, leaving the command of the 
 squadron to Rear-Admiral Louis, who died shortly 
 after, quitted that unpleasant coast in the ‘ Royal 
 George,’ and arrived safely in England on the 26th 
 of May. 
 
 It appears, however, that the scarcity of proyi- 
 sions in Alexandria was far from being so great as 
 the people chose to represent it; that, though 
 wheaten bread was rather scarce, there was abun- 
 dance of rice in the magazines ; that supplies were 
 brought in by water ; and that good and abundant 
 provisions might have been obtained without going 
 to Rosetta for them. But the Surbadji, or chief 
 magistrate, who very probably had his mstructions 
 from Mehemet Ali, again represented that the 
 
Cuap. VIII. | 
 
 people would be starved ; and General Fraser there- 
 upon sent 2500 men, under the command of Bri- 
 gadier-General Stewart and Colonel Oswald, to 
 take Rosetta by regular siege. On the 9th of 
 April, Stewart took post on the heights, sum- 
 moned the town, and, receiving an answer of de- 
 fiance, began to form his batteries. ‘The British 
 commander-in-chief attached great importance to 
 a promise he had received from the Mameluke 
 Beys, that they would come down from Upper 
 Egypt and join him. Instead of trusting to his 
 own resources, and driving on the siege with vigour, 
 Brigadier-General Stewart waited for the arrival of 
 the Mameluke cavalry, and Colonel Macleod was 
 sent to seize an important post at the village of El 
 Hammed, for the purpose of facilitating a junction 
 with the expected succour. But day after day 
 passed without bringing any succour or even any 
 intelligence of it, Mehemet Ali had collected a 
 great force at Cairo, which kept the Mamelukes 
 in check, The pasha was also sending rein- 
 forcements to Rhamanieh and Rosetta, and other 
 corps intended to drive Stewart back to Alexandria. 
 On the morning of the 22nd of April, sixty or 
 seventy vessels were seen sailing down the Nile 
 with some of these reinforcements from Cairo; 
 orders were immediately sent to Macleod to retreat 
 from his position to the main body; but these 
 orders were intercepted, and the detachment at El 
 Hammed was completely cut off. On the 23rd of 
 April, the besiegers of Rosetta, who were absurdly 
 scattered over a wide space of ground, with scarcely 
 any entrenchments, were assailed by a vastly su- 
 perior force, and were driven from all their posi- 
 tions. Stewart retreated, fighting all the way to 
 Alexandria; but he lost altogether, in killed, 
 wounded, and missing, from 1000 to 1200 men. 
 It has been suggested that, had this expedition 
 against Egypt been planned by the new ministry, 
 which came into power on the 25th of March, they 
 would have supported it by reinforcements from 
 Messina or from Malta. But they did not approve 
 of the expedition; and their strong disapprobation 
 was not long kept a secret from General Fraser 
 and the officers serving under him. We conceive 
 that, for the honour of our arms, the new ministers 
 were bound to make the best of the blunder com- 
 mitted by their predecessors, and to send out at 
 least such succour as should enable Fraser to with- 
 draw from Egypt without disgrace. But, unhap- 
 pily, party passions, and an eagerness to throw a 
 crushing weight of opprobrium and unpopularity 
 upon their predecessors, seem to have confirmed 
 them in a resolution to do nothing. This was not 
 the first time, nor the last, in which the character 
 of the nation was committed in order that a poli- 
 tical party might be discredited. It was, however, 
 particularly painful that Egypt, which had been 
 the scene of our first bright military exploits during 
 this war, should be so soon made the scene of our 
 miserable discomfiture and failure. It was de- 
 stroying a prestige. 
 
 No Mamelukes arrived; but Mechemet Ali gra- 
 
 [nn meee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 379 
 
 dually collected an immense force of horse and foot 
 between Cairo and Alexandria; and now the in- 
 habitants of that city, and all the Arabs and Fel- 
 lahs in the neighbourhood, showed the steadiness 
 of their friendship for the English by concerting 
 plans for their expulsion, cutting off their supplies, 
 and murdering the men at the outposts. By the 
 end of July, Fraser was in a hopeless condition : 
 on the 22nd of August, on the near approach of 
 some of Mehemet’s columns, he sent out a flag of 
 truce, announcing that, if the pasha would deliver 
 up all the British prisoners taken at Rosetta, El 
 Hammed, and elsewhere, the army under his com- 
 mand should immediately evacuate Egypt. This 
 was readily agreed to; and on the 23rd of Sep- 
 tember what remained of the English army set 
 sail for Sicily. 
 
 Irritated by all these hostile proceedings, the 
 sultan had declared war against England, had 
 seized all British property or merchandize in his 
 dominions, had concluded a close alliance with the 
 French, and had sent an ambassador into Poland to 
 follow in the train of the triumphant Bonaparte, 
 who duped him with fine promises so long as it 
 suited his purpose, and then left Turkey to defend 
 herself as she best might against the Russians. 
 
 While Admiral Siniavin was blockading the 
 Dardanelles, another Russian squadron came down 
 the Black Sea, and blockaded the mouth of the 
 Bosporus. Inthe month of May, a Turkish squa- 
 dron of eight sail of the line, six frigates, some 
 corvettes, and about fifty gun-boats, under the com- 
 mand of a new capitan-pasha, came boldly out of 
 the Dardanelles; but on the 22nd of May, after a 
 running fight of two hours, and after losing three 
 ships, which were stranded through bad seaman- 
 ship, they ran back into the narrow channel, and 
 took shelter above the castles. Onthe 22nd of June 
 the Turks issued forth with ten sail of the line, six 
 frigates, and five smaller vessels, On the Ist of 
 July they were attacked by the Russians, who had 
 ten sail of the line and two frigates. The loose 
 running battle lasted the whole day, and ended in 
 the Turks losing three ships of the line and three 
 frigates. On receiving the news of the treaty of 
 Tilsit, which converted Russia from a friend and 
 ally into an enemy of England, Admiral Siniavin 
 hurried down the Mediterranean ; and, after detach- 
 ing two ships of the line and some smaller vessels 
 to take possession of the island of Corfu, which 
 France had ceded to Russia, he hastened away for the 
 Straits of Gibraltar with the remainder of his force, 
 scarcely hoping to get into the Baltic before open 
 war should be declared between Russia and Eng- 
 land—in which case his capture would be inevitable. 
 Before the second of these naval battles was fought 
 Sultan Selim had ceased to reign, and his chief 
 ministers and advisers had been savagely massacred, 
 as they would have been during Duckworth’s visit 
 if they had yielded to our demands. 
 
 Some slight essays had been made by two of his 
 immediate predecessors, but Selim may be consi- 
 dered as the first great innovator, and as the founder 
 
080 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 of that system of reform, military and civil, which 
 was afterwards carried out and established by Sultan 
 Mahmoud, the father of the Turkish sovereign now 
 reigning. [rom the commencement of his reign 
 Selim laboured to uproot many of the religious and 
 social prejudices which had kept the Turks in a 
 state of barbarism, while all the nations of Europe 
 were rapidly advancing in civilization ; and he had 
 strenuously endeavoured to introduce the sciences 
 and arts of the Christians, together with their mili- 
 tary organization and tactics, which for the last 
 hundred years had invariably given them the ad- 
 vantage in the field over the disorganized and dege- 
 nerate janissary militia, and all the irregular levies 
 and masses of the Osmanlees, who had rarely any 
 other military quality than that of a headlong cou- 
 rage. Several absurd but ancient and cherisbed 
 laws had been abrogated ; the sultan had surrounded 
 himself with Europeans, or with Greeks who had 
 travelled and resided in the most civilized parts of 
 the continent ; he had sent ambassadors to reside in 
 the principal courts, and had encouraged a number 
 of Turkish gentlemen, who never till now used to 
 quit their homes, to travel through the most enlight- 
 ened countries in search of improvement. He had 
 begun to create a regular army, disciplined after 
 the most approved European models, and instructed 
 by French, Italian, and other European officers. 
 Selim’s nizam-gedittes, or troops of the new regu- 
 lation or ordinance, already amounted to some 
 10,000 foot, tolerably well trained ; and in addition 
 to this force he had two or three regiments of 
 cavalry, disciplined and armed in the European 
 
 manner, and a small but good corps of artillerymen, 
 who had learned to manage the excellent light 
 field-pieces which had been presented to the sultan 
 by the French Directory in 1796, when France 
 was courting the friendship of Turkey. Splendid 
 barracks had been built in the suburbs of Constan- 
 tinople, for the accommodation of the nizam-— 
 gedittes, and one of the chief occupations and 
 greatest pleasures of the sultan seemed to be in re- 
 viewing these favourite troops. To provide for the 
 necessary expenses some new taxes of an unprece- | 
 dented kind were imposed, and were levied with 
 some harshness. Certain necessary alterations were — 
 made in the national costume, which from the first 
 gave mortal offence to the great body of the people. 
 Like most reformers, Selim attempted to do too 
 much at once; and, mild, humane, amiable, and — 
 somewhat indolent, he wanted the indomitable cou- 
 rage, the unflinching firmness and ruthlessness, 
 which had enabled Peter the Great to put down 
 the janissaries of the Russian empire, the Strelitz, 
 and which, twenty years after Selim’s death, enabled 
 his cousin Mahmoud to extinguish the Turkish 
 janissaries, and the total spirit of anti-reform, in a 
 sea of blood. Selim would not deceive, betray, and 
 put to death, and therefore he was betrayed, de- 
 throned, and in the end murdered. At a most cri- 
 tical moment death deprived him of an enlightened 
 and friendly mufti, who had favoured and sanc- 
 tioned most of his reforms, and repressed the dis- 
 contents of the oulemas. The successor of this 
 “ pontiff-magistrate”’ was a Turk of the old stamp, 
 a sworn enemy to all innovation, and personally on 
 
 | 
 | 
 : 
 
 — 
 
Cuar, VIII] 
 
 enemy to Selim. He encouraged the discontents 
 which the late mufti had checked, and the mosques 
 and medressds, the temples and colleges of the 
 Osmanlees began to echo the murmurs of popular 
 complaint and disaffection. When this present 
 war broke out, in November, 1806, the janissaries, 
 though sure to be beaten themselves, insisted that 
 the nizam-gedittes should not march to the Danube : 
 and, claiming their ancient right of being in the 
 van of all Turkish armies, some janissary-odas 
 took the field in their own disorderly manner, and 
 the sultan was obliged to separate his disciplined 
 troops, and send a large portion of them into Asia 
 Minor. All the janissaries of the turbulent capita] 
 did not march to fight the yellow-heads; many 
 odas remained behind, dissatistied, disatiected, ready 
 for any mischief; and, bya sort of affihation or 
 freemasonry, nearly every desperate vagabond in 
 Constantinople was connected with some one of 
 these odas, who took up his cause when he felt him- 
 self aggrieved, whether he were in the right or 
 wrong, and fought his battles with the agents and 
 servants of government. - Even the rayah subjects, 
 the Greeks, the Armenians, the Bulgarians, the 
 Bosniacks, the Slavonians,, the very Jews them- 
 selves, could partake of the benefits and protection 
 of these affiliations, by paying for them. This was 
 another of the constitutzonal checks on the arbi- 
 trary absolute power of the sultans, and one to 
 which sufficient attention has not been paid by those 
 who have written on the subject of Turkish des- 
 potism. It will be understood that this checking 
 power very often led to more terrible abuses than 
 any that proceeded from the imperial sovereign 
 power. This system of janissary union and affilia- 
 tion was not confined to Constantinople; it existed 
 in full force in all the great towns, and by its rami- 
 fications it extended over the whole surface of the 
 empire. Everything was ripe for revolt, when, to- 
 wards the end of May, 1807, a quarrel broke out 
 between the disciplined troops and the yamacks- 
 tabidlis, or assistants at batteries. These yamacks, 
 whose name is still a word of terror in the country, 
 were composed of wild Albanians, still wilder 
 Lazes from the neighbourhood of Trebizond, and 
 of other bands of desperate adventurers from Geor- 
 gia and Circassia and the other mountainous re- 
 gions on the Asiatic side of the Black Sea. The 
 sultan mtended (a most insane intention) to subject 
 suddenly these yamacks to the European discipline, 
 and to incorporate them with his nizam-gedittes. 
 Traitors near his person, and high in office, con- 
 cealed the real state of things; and, at the very 
 moment that the yamacks were preparing to fall 
 upon the disciplined troops, he sent Mahmoud- 
 Effendi to the castles and batteries on the Bosporus, 
 with uniforms like those worn by the nizam-ge- 
 dittes, and with positive orders to make the yamacks 
 throw off their old Oriental dresses, and put on the 
 new, half-European, and somewhat shabby costume. 
 Scarcely had his attendants unrolled the first bun- 
 dle of blue jackets and tight pantaloons, ere the 
 yamacks fell upon the poor effendi, to strangle 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 381 
 
 ———— 
 
 him. The nizam-gedittes rallied round the mini- 
 ster of the sultan, and a fierce and bloody combat 
 ensued. In the heat of the fight Mahmoud-Effendi 
 got to his boat, and descended the Bosporus as far 
 as the village of Buyukderé, where he hoped to find 
 refuge in the summer palace of the French ambas- 
 sador. But hot yamacks were there, and were 
 everywhere on both sides of that lovely channel, 
 and the effendi and his secretary were slaughtered 
 the moment they put their feet on shore. Another 
 officer of high rank was murdered on the Asiatic 
 side, and his body thrown ito the sea. After a 
 desperate contest the nizam-gedittes were driven 
 from the castles and batteries on both sides the 
 channel. Such of themas were left alive retreated 
 in good order to their barracks at Constantinople ; 
 other corps might soon have been brought over from 
 Scutari, aud the proper timely employment of these 
 disciplined forces would have destroyed the muti- 
 neers; but his traitors assured the Sultan that it 
 was merely a momentary commotion, that there 
 was no danger; his ministers never did to-day 
 what they could possibly put off till to-morrow ; 
 and Selim himself was averse to energetic measures, 
 which must end in the slaughter of many of his 
 subjects. ‘The moment was lost, the opportunity 
 was thrown away, and there was no possibility of 
 recovering it. Secret emissaries glided through 
 the populous quarters of the capital, telling the 
 janissaries that the time was come for taking their 
 vengeance on the nizam-gedittes ; messengers 
 mounted on swift horses went and came between 
 the head-quarters of the yamacks and Constan- 
 tinople ; the mufti and his principal oulemas 
 secretly distributed gold, and the sheiks and 
 imams preached mysteriously in the mosques, 
 beginning by lamentations, and ending at the 
 proper moment with menaces. The yamacks, after 
 leaving strong guards in all the batteries, united in 
 the beautiful valley which runs from the European 
 side of the Bosporus behind Buyukderd towards 
 the village and forest of Belgrade: and there, in 
 the shade of the magnificent plane-trees, and in 
 concurrence with secret envoys from the janissaries 
 and oulemas, they took a solemn vow to defend 
 unto death the common cause, their religion, their 
 ancient laws and usages; and then elected to be 
 their chief and generalissimo one Cabakchy-Oglou, 
 a fierce, fearless, unlettered Asiatic, to whom they 
 gave the power of punishing with instant death 
 every man among them that should prove a coward 
 or a traitor. Cabakchy-Oglou remained inactive 
 for three days in the valley of Buyukderé, awaiting - 
 his signal to march from the chiefs of the con- 
 spiracy in the capital. The Spanish ambassador, 
 the same Marquis de Alménara who had helped the 
 Turks to man the batteries from which Duckworth 
 had retreated, chanced to be in the village of 
 Buyukderé, and he very easily penetrated the bold 
 and extensive designs of the mutineers. He hur- 
 ried to Constantinople, he ran to the divan, he 
 visited the honest ministers of the sultan, and 
 endeavoured to awaken them to a sense of their 
 
a 
 
 382 
 
 danger; but they met him with Mashallahs! and | 
 
 Inshallahs! and with assurances that they knew 
 very well what to do, that tranquillity would soon 
 be re-established, and that the marquis’s fears and 
 conjectures were all visionary. On the morning of 
 the 29th of May, Cabakchy-Oglou got the word to 
 march ; on the afternoon of that day he was in 
 the heart of Constantinople, and before the sun 
 went down he was joined by the janissaries, by 
 some of the galiongees, or sailors of the fleet; by 
 nearly all the topgees, or cannoneers; and by 
 nearly all the rabble. In the course of the night 
 a general massacre began of the sultan’s ministers 
 (except those who had betrayed him), and of 
 all the friends of reform. ‘The list of proscrip- 
 tionm—and there was one in writing—must have 
 been drawn up by the mufti or some of his 
 oulemas and imams, for Cabakchy-Oglou could 
 neither write nor read. It was read by torchlight 
 in the great square of the Hippodrome ; and thither, 
 as they were successively seized and decapitated, 
 were brought the streaming heads of the victims, 
 and piled in a heap under the ancient Greek obelisk 
 which faces the temple of Santa Sophia and the 
 more magnificent white marble mosque of Sultan 
 Achmet. These summary executions continued all 
 that night, and all the following day, the 30th of 
 May. Not only the ministers, officers, and men in 
 employment, but every Turkish gentleman who had 
 shown a predilection for reform and innovation, 
 and the manners and usages of Christian Europe, 
 or who had distinguished himself by his acquire- 
 ments or love of study, was hunted down by the 
 yamacks and janissaries. It was a fatal thing then 
 to know how to read and write, or to have manu- 
 scripts or books in one’s possession, for, where other 
 evidence was wanting, this was enough to prove to 
 the anti-reformers that the possessor’s faith was 
 heretical and unsound—that he was an enemy to 
 the prophet and the people of the prophet, and a 
 friend to the Ghiaours and their unclean accursed 
 usages—and so off went his head. The bostandji- 
 bachy, one of the principal dignitaries of the empire, 
 and especially odious to the yamacks and janis- 
 saries, had taken refuge in the seraglio, which the 
 Turks in their fiercest insurrections had generally 
 respected as a sacred asylum. ‘The yamacks and 
 janissaries presented themselves at the great gate 
 of the palace called the Sublime Gate, threatening 
 to force it open, and demanding the bostandji- 
 bachy’s head. Selim’s terrified courtiers advised 
 him to give up the victim demanded, as the only 
 - means of preserving the sanctity of the palace and 
 restoring tranquillity. The sultan hesitated, for 
 the man had been a faithful servant and warm 
 friend ; but when the bostandji-bachy threw him- 
 self at his feet, and himself demanded to die in 
 order to save his master and the palace, Selim 
 covered his eyes with both his hands, and muttered 
 words equivalent to the death-sentence ; and in an 
 instant the bostandji-bachy’s head was struck off 
 and thrown over one of the battlements to the 
 yamacks, who picked it up with a transport of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 * A 
 
 [ Book x 
 
 savage joy, and, carrying it to the Hippodrome, 
 laid it at the feet of Cabakchy-Oglou. ‘The sultan 
 sent out a decree and proclamation, abolishing for 
 ever the corps of nizam-gedittes, and promising 
 for the future to be entirely guided by the ancient 
 laws and institutions of the Osmanlees. But this 
 humiliating measure, and the shameful sacrifice of 
 the bostandji-bachy, instead of guaranteeing the 
 sultan’s safety, only increased the audacity of the 
 rebels. The mufti and the oulemas had deter- 
 mined from the first not to trust Selim, or rely on 
 any of his promises. At their prompting, Cabakchy- 
 Oglou, on the morning of the 31st of May, from 
 his seat or throne in the Hippodrome, sent a de- 
 putation of the people to put this comprehensive 
 question to the pontiff-magistrate :—“ If any padi- 
 shah (emperor or sovereign) by his conduct and 
 his regulations combats the religious principles 
 consecrated by the Koran, does he deserve to 
 remain on the throne?’ The mufti feigned to be 
 sorely afflicted; but, not satisfied with a short 
 sonorous negative, he went on to confirm the 
 popular belief that Selim had sinned against the 
 principles of the Koran—had endeavoured to assi- 
 milate the Osmanlees to the infidels, and had merited 
 dethronement. He then retired and penned his 
 
 fetva, or bull, and wrote at the bottom of the paper 
 
 containing the question which the deputation had 
 submitted to him—‘* No: God knows the best.”’ 
 As soon as the feftva and the answer were read in 
 the Hippodrome, the yamacks, the janissaries, and 
 the mob shouted that they would have no more of 
 Selim; that his cousin Mustapha, son of the late 
 Sultan Abdul-Hamid, should be their lawful sove- 
 reign! As Mustapha, who was thus proclaimed, 
 
 was, according to the ancient usage of securing all — 
 
 the princes of the blood, a prisoner in the seraglio, 
 
 at the mercy of the dethroned suitan, and as Selim, — 
 by doing as other padishahs had done before him, — 
 might stop his promotion by cutting off his head, — 
 
 and as it was apprehended he might be driven to — 
 this desperate step if the seraglio were attacked and — 
 
 ‘ 
 
 forced, there was a short and anxious pause in the 
 
 proceedings, which had hitherto run on so smoothly 
 and so rapidly. But the sleek and slippery mufti 
 stepped in at the moment of need: his person was 
 as sacred as the innermost recesses of the seraglio, 
 his life was guaranteed by ancient laws, and he 
 offered to go into the palace, to acquaint Sultan 
 Selim with his destiny, and engage him to resign 
 himself to it, as to the unalterable doom of God 
 and man. He knew the weaknesses of Selim’s 
 character, and the dread he always had of civil 
 war. When he presented himself at the seraglio 
 gate, and intimated—without explaining the object - 
 of -his mission—that he wished to speak with the 
 sultan, Selim ordered that the holy man, the sheik 
 
 ‘islam, or head of the faith, should be instantly 
 
 admitted. He found his sovereign surrounded 
 only by a few timid trembling servants ; and with 
 some little religious cant he told him that he had 
 ceased to reign ; that it was the will of Heaven, and 
 of the janissaries and all the people of Constan- 
 
 P 
 
~ > 
 
 a renee Se 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 Cuap. VIlt.] 
 
 tinople, that his cousin Mustapha should be sultan 
 and master: ‘ All this was written in the Book 
 of Destiny: what can we poor feeble mortals do 
 against the will of Allah?’ Selim, seeing that he 
 had no means of resisting it, calmly submitted to 
 the will of Heaven, as interpreted by the sheik 
 islam, and retired to the humble apartments in 
 the seraglio which he had occupied before he 
 ascended the throne. His cousin Mustapha then 
 came forth into the grand hall of audience, and was 
 saluted as padishah. He was much applauded for 
 not administering the bowstring to the deposed 
 sultan ; but, as we shall see, in the course of a few 
 months Mustapha finished his own career by mur- 
 dering his cousin.* Sebastiani regretted the sudden 
 revolution which had taken place, for Selim had 
 treated him in the most friendly manner, and 
 showed every disposition of steadiness and attach- 
 ment to the alliance with Bonaparte ; but as soon 
 as he was deposed, Sebastiani cultivated a close 
 friendship with Cabakchy-Oglou, the violent and 
 brutal man who had overthrown him, and through 
 Cabakchy’s means the French influence at the 
 Porte remained undiminished. But for this revo- 
 lution, which bewildered and paralysed the pashas 
 commanding on the Danube, the Russian army in 
 that quarter, being spread over a wide extent of 
 territory, and in part occupied by tedious sieges, 
 might have suffered, if not defeat, some very serious 
 losses. 
 
 One little expedition which tock place under 
 the Grenville administration, and which showed 
 that they, as well as their predecessors, had a 
 hankering after petty conquests and unhealthy 
 colonies, was attended with complete success. On 
 the first day of the year Captain Charles Brisbane 
 captured the Dutch island of Curacoa. The en- 
 trance to the harbour, only fifty fathoms wide, 
 was defended by regular fortifications ; the prin- 
 cipal fort, Fort Amsterdam, mounted sixty pieces 
 of cannon in two tiers; and athwart the harbour 
 were ranged a large Dutch frigate, a 20-gun ship 
 corvette, and two large schooners ; while at the 
 bottom of the harbour, and upon a high steep hill, 
 there stood Fort République, which was within 
 grape-shot distance. Yet the gallant Brisbane’s 
 force amounted only to four British frigates. In 
 a short morning’s work, and with no other loss 
 than three killed and fourteen wounded, and of a 
 spritsail-yard shot away from the ‘ Arethusa,’ the 
 Dutch frigate was boarded and carried, the ship- 
 corvette was secured, Fort Amsterdam, two minor 
 forts, the citadel, and the town were stormed, and 
 Fort République, being threatened in the rear by 
 
 * Juchereau de Saint-Denys, Révolutions de Constantinople.— 
 Private information. 
 
 M. Juchereau says that all the details relating to the events which 
 took place in the interior of the seraglio were communicated to him 
 by one of Sultan Selim’s pages, an eye and ear witness. With the 
 persons resident in Constantinople at the time, and with all those 
 who were best acquainted with the circumstances, M. Juchereau’s 
 admirably written book passed as a most correct and authentic 
 account. Except in some slight particulars, the information we 
 ourselves collected on the spot, twenty-one years after the events, 
 closely agrees with Juchereau’s details, 
 
 383 
 
 300 sailors and marines who had climbed up the 
 rocks, was reduced to capitulate. 
 
 The first expedition sent out by the new mi- 
 nistry was attended by some painful circumstances, 
 but with complete success, at least to our arms, 
 The terrible chastisement which the Danes had 
 received at the hands of Lord Nelson had not 
 promoted any friendly feeling towards England. 
 They had professed to remain neutral; but, even 
 more than before that chastisement, they had fa- 
 voured the French. A woful experience had taught 
 England and her allies how little Bonaparte re- 
 spected the neutrality of any country that was 
 weak when it suited his purpose to violate it. ‘The 
 predominant idea of that conqueror now was to 
 enforce what he termed his ‘‘ continental system ;” 
 to carry into effect in every maritime state of Europe 
 his Berlin decree, in conformity with which all 
 ports were to be closed against the British flag 
 and trade. Russia and Prussia, by events which 
 will be explained hereafter when we have finished 
 the narrative of our own military and naval ope- 
 rations, had been compelled to accede ; the Hanse 
 Towns, with all the rivers of the north of Ger- 
 many, Holland, and its outlets, were occupied by 
 French troops ; Sweden could not long offer any 
 valid opposition: but the system would be incom- 
 plete in the north of Europe unless Denmark, who 
 holds the keys of the Baltic in her hand, and 
 whose trade and enterprise and mercantile marine 
 were very considerable, should be, by negotiation 
 and treaty, or by military force, brought into it. 
 It was known to our cabinet that there had been 
 negotiations of a secret nature, and it was equally 
 well known that Bonaparte would not hesitate to 
 employ force if negotiation failed. The north of 
 Germany was swarming with his troops, and with 
 the troops his brother Louis had brought into 
 Hanover from Holland; an entire corps d@armée 
 was lying not many days’ march from that fron- 
 tier of Denmark where the heroic and unfriended 
 Bliicher had been compelled to lay down his arms. 
 There was no army in Denmark at all capable 
 of resisting these French forces: the country was 
 indubitably Bonaparte’s as soon as he might choose 
 to take possession of it, and with the country he 
 would gain a fine fleet and well-stored arsenals 
 and dockyards. If England could have relied on 
 the friendship of Denmark, there was no relying 
 on her weakness; if the court, the cabinet, and 
 the country had been devoted to us, instead of 
 being alienated from us—if, instead of an evident 
 leaning towards France, which had lasted for many 
 years, there had been a high and resolute spirit 
 of patriotism, with the determination to resist 
 foreign interference and dictation, we could not 
 have relied upon the ability of the Danes to oppose 
 the mighty will which had overthrown a great 
 military power like Prussia almost at a single 
 blow, which had for the time subjugated Russia 
 as well as Austria, and which had involved in a 
 vortex all the old principalities and powers of 
 Europe. <A capital part of the case reduced itself 
 
384 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 simply to this—if we did not make sure of the 
 Danish fleet Bonaparte was sure to get it, a little 
 sooner or later. The justification of the conduct 
 adopted by our government may be explained with 
 almost equal brevity :—a man knows that his next 
 or near neighbour has in his possession a huge 
 barrel of gunpowder; he may believe that this 
 neighbour will not set fire to his powder so as to 
 endanger his house and property; but he knows 
 that there is an evil-disposed person living over 
 the way who has a design upon the powder and 
 the intention of blowing up his house with it, and, 
 knowing at the same time that the owner of the 
 powder cannot defend it or keep it out of the way 
 of the evil-disposed person, he demands that it 
 should be put into his hands, which are strong 
 enough to keep it, and which can put it beyond 
 the reach of the evil-disposed party, offering to 
 restore it when the danger shall be passed, or to 
 pay the price of it; and when the weak neigh- 
 hour rejects this proposition he takes the powder 
 by force, to prevent its being seized and employed 
 against his own house and property. One of the 
 greatest writers on the law of nations says—“ I may, 
 without considering whether it is merited or not, 
 take possession of that which belongs to another 
 man, if I have reason to apprehend any evil to 
 myself from his holding it. I cannot make my- 
 self master or proprietor of it, the property having 
 nothing to do with the end which I propose ; but 
 I can keep possession of the thing seized till my 
 safety be sufficiently provided for.’”’* The great 
 law of nature, the instinct and duty of self-pre- 
 servation, would recommend and justify this 
 course ; and, in order to attain success, execution 
 must follow rapidly and suddenly on the con- 
 ception of the plan, for if the person over the way 
 learns the project beforehand, he will seize the 
 gunpowder before the threatened man can secure 
 it:—and thus our government rushed to its object 
 without a declaration of war against Denmark, 
 which would have defeated everything, and have 
 thrown the Danish fleet into the hands of Bona- 
 parte. It was utterly impossible for the Prince 
 Royal of Denmark to keep his ships out of the 
 clutches of our mortal enemy, who intended to 
 avail himself of the subjugation of the continent 
 in making the most strenuous efforts for creating 
 a new French navy, and for bringing into action 
 along with it all the fleets of Europe. Bonaparte 
 had too thoroughly rent the book of the law of 
 nations for any British ministry in its senses to 
 count upon one of its torn pages. The enemies of 
 the conqueror had already suffered too severely 
 from binding themselves by laws which were less 
 than gossamer to him. The uncontrollable rage 
 which he felt and expressed on learning the daring 
 blow which had been struck at Copenhagen clearly 
 evinced his intentions as to Denmark and her fleet, 
 and the bitterness of his disappointment at finding 
 the prize seized before he could clutch it.t But 
 
 * Grotius. 
 + ‘The success of the attack on Copenhagen,” says Fouché, ** was 
 
 there was more than this: the Danish government, 
 which had said nothing against the Berlin decree, 
 although it was an attack on the rights of all neu- 
 tral commercial nations, had raised a terrible cla- 
 mour against the retaliating order of council of 
 January the 7th, 1807, wherein the British go- 
 vernment prohibited the trade of neutrals, with 
 property belonging to an enemy, from any one 
 port to another, both being in the possession 
 of France or of her allies. At the end of the 
 American war, when the armed neutrality or ma- 
 ritime confederacy of the northern powers had 
 been projected, Denmark had put herself in the 
 van; and there was now not only ground for be- 
 lieving that that confederacy against the maritime 
 superiority of Great Britain was to be revived, but 
 our cabinet had also obtained information that the 
 Emperor Alexander had agreed to place himself at 
 the head of it, and the Crown Prince of Denmark 
 to become a party to it. The court of Copenhagen 
 would certainly have given us no previous notice 
 of its intention ; it would have held up the treaty 
 of peace with England as a screen to conceal its 
 hostile preparations, and as soon as the opportune 
 moment came it would, ‘fin a time of profound 
 peace,” have turned its cannon against our heart 
 of hearts. Surely it is time to have done with all 
 this ridiculous verbiage about the attacking Den- 
 mark in a time of profound peace! What minis- 
 ters could not then declare to a loud and passionate 
 opposition, who showed a wonderful alacrity in 
 putting the French construction upon the whole 
 case, and in echoing and re-echoing Bonaparte’s 
 cry about the violation of the law of nations, was 
 revealed ten years after, when the reasons for con- 
 cealment were removed by the death of the per- — 
 sons who had made the discovery :—a secret article 
 of the treaty of Tilsit, which provided for the 
 seizure of the Danish fleet by France and Russia, — 
 was publicly revealed, and an authenticated copy — 
 of it produced in parliament. In 1807 and 1808 — 
 ministers, in reply to all the taunts and challenges — 
 of their political adversaries, could only state that _ 
 they had good grounds for believing that this 
 article existed, and that the seizure of the Danish — 
 fleet only formed a part of an extensive system for 
 uniting the navies of the world against us. When 
 we come to treat of the affairs of Portugal, another 
 neutral, weak, and helpless power, we shall see 
 that the first demand the French ambassador made 
 was that the Portuguese should unite their naval 
 forces to the French, and seize and confiscate all 
 the British property in their dominions. After all 
 this, doubts (which might suit party purposes for 
 the time) ought no longer to be expressed by 
 Englishmen as to the immediate designs of Bona- 
 
 the first thing which.deranged the secret article of the Bogs Tilsit, 
 in virtue of which the navy of Denmark was to be put at disposal 
 of France. Since the catastrophe of Paul 1., I had never seen Napo- 
 
 Teon in such a transport of rage. That which struck him most in 
 this vigorous coup de main was the promptitude and resolution of the 
 English ministry.”— Mémvires de Fuuché, Duc @ Otrante, &c- 
 
 We have some doubt whether these Memoirs were written by the 
 hand of Fouché, but we have none whatever that they were written 
 under his dictation, or upon materials furnished by him. 
 
M0 SS a ee ee 
 
 Cuap. VIII. | 
 
 parte against the fleet and naval stores of the 
 Danes, or as to the extent to which the government 
 of Denmark would have acquiesced in his demands. 
 Early in the summer a powerful expedition was 
 fitted out in our ports, with a secrecy and prompti- 
 tude highly honourable to the new ministry. 
 fleet of twenty-five sail of the line, with up- 
 wards of forty frigates, sloops, bomb-vessels, and 
 gun-brigs, and 377 transports, was prepared and 
 vot ready for sea; and about 27,000 land troops, 
 of which more than one half were Germans in 
 British pay, were embarked. These mighty pre- 
 parations appear to have been commenced and 
 concluded within less than a month from the 
 time at which the cabinet took -its determination. 
 The command of the fleet was intrusted to Admiral 
 Gambier, and the command in chief of the army 
 to Lord Cathcart, who had been previously dis- 
 patched to the shores of the Baltic with some 
 troops to act as auxiliaries to the King of Sweden, 
 whose fate it had been to do very little for the 
 coalition. It was the good fortune of Lord Cath- 
 cart to have under his command Major-General 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose exploits in India had 
 already gained for him a high reputation through- 
 out the British army. On the 26th of July, Gam- 
 bier set sail from Yarmouth Roads—where Nelson 
 had landed after his great battle of the Baltic— 
 with the principal division of the fleet. On the 
 Ist of August, when Gambier was off the entrance 
 of Gothenburg, he detached Commodore Keats with 
 four ships of the line, three frigates, and ten brigs, 
 to the passage of the Great Belt, to cut off any 
 supplies of Danish troops that might attempt to 
 cross from Holstein to Zealand and the capital. 
 Admiral Gambier himself proceeded to the Sound, 
 passed the castles there without molestation or 
 challenge, and got to anchor in Elsinore Roads. 
 By the evening of the 9th of August, all the trans- 
 ports were safely collected round the admiral, and 
 Lord Cathcart had arrived with the troops from 
 Stralsund. The crown prince was with the main 
 body of the Danish army at Kiel, in Holstein. 
 That army was from 20,000 to 30,000 strong, but, 
 from the station which he occupied in the passage 
 of the Great Belt, Commodore Keats kept it com- 
 pletely in check, or at least prevented its crossing 
 over to the island of Zealand for the protection of 
 the capital. Mr. Jackson, who had resided for 
 some years as British envoy in the north of Ger- 
 many, and who was personally acquainted with 
 most of the Danish ministers, was sent over to Kiel 
 to attempt an amicable arrangement with the crown 
 prince, on the basis of his delivering up the Danish 
 fleet to the British admiral, on the solemn assur- 
 ance that it should be restored at a general peace, 
 or at the conclusion of the war between France and 
 England. The answer was an angry and indignant 
 refusal. Jackson returned on board: the prince 
 sent a messenger to Copenhagen with orders to 
 put the city in the best possible state cf defence. 
 It was the evening of the 10th of August when this 
 courier reached Copenhagen, which had been taken 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 385 
 
 | so completely by surprise, that scarcely a gun was 
 
 mounted on the ramparts, and the whole armed 
 force collected in the city or stationed on the whole 
 island, exclusive of sailors, but inclusive of 2000 
 militia and about 3500 citizen volunteers, did not 
 exceed 12,000 or 13,000 men. On the morning 
 of the 11th the crown prince himself quitted Kiel, 
 and embarked to cross over from Holstein to his 
 capital: as he was accompanied only by his staff 
 and attendants, the British ships of war allowed 
 him to pass; and Mr. Jackson was sent after him 
 to attempt again to bring him to a compliance by 
 representing the impracticability of any valid 
 resistance, and by assuring him of the liberality 
 and steadiness of England if he would only contract 
 an alliance offensive and defensive with us. The 
 crown prince, who arrived in his capital about the 
 hour of noon on the 11th, repeated his refusal, and 
 is said to have exclaimed—‘ You offer us your 
 alliance; but we know what it is worth! Your 
 allies, who have been vainly expecting your suc- 
 cours for a whole year, have taught us what is the 
 worth of English friendship!’ If the prince said 
 not the words, he might, with some reason, have 
 said them: the “ All-Talents ” ministry had left 
 our ally the czar unsuccoured for nearly a year. 
 If the Russians had been properly supported by 
 England there would have been no secret article 
 between the czar and the French, there would 
 have been no treaty of Tilsit, and no occasion for 
 these measures in the Baltic, which the said minis- 
 ters, as heads of a clamorous opposition, imputed 
 to the present cabinet as high state crimes. In- 
 stead of treating with Mr. Jackson, the crown 
 prince hurried on the preparations which his 
 people were making for the defence of his capital, 
 and urged them as patriots to defend Copenhagen 
 and its port to the utmost. But the prince did 
 not stay, as he had done at the time of Nelson’s 
 visit, when the strife was more equal, to take a part 
 in the combat: he quitted his capital on the 12th, 
 and, leaving the command of the forces in Copen- 
 hagen to a major-general, he went into Jutland. 
 Contrary winds kept the British fleet stationary in 
 Elsinore Roads until the morning of the 15th, 
 when, at a very early hour, the men-of-war and 
 transports weighed, and worked up to the Bay of 
 Wedbeck, about midway between Elsinore and 
 Copenhagen. Here Admiral Gambier and the 
 bulk of the fleet anchored, while a small squadron 
 proceeded higher up the Sound to make a diver- 
 sion. On the morning of the 16th a part of the 
 land troops were disembarked at Wedbeck, without 
 opposition. The fleet then weighed, and made all 
 sail for Copenhagen. Before quitting Wedbeck 
 Lord Cathcart and Admiral Gambier issued a pro- 
 clamation to the Danes, declaring that the recent 
 treaties of peace and the changes of government and 
 territory had so far increased the influence of France 
 on the continent as to render it impossible for 
 Denmark to preserve its neutrality, if ever so much 
 inclined so to do; that it was necessary for Eng- 
 land to take measures to prevent the arms of a 
 x 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CoreENHAGEN.—From a Print by Harradin. 
 
 neutral power from being turned against her, and 
 that therefore she judged it expedient to demand 
 the temporary deposit of the Danish ships of 
 the line in one of his majesty’s ports; and 
 that, as became the duty he owed to himself 
 and his people, his majesty’s demand was sup- 
 ported by a powerful fleet, and by an army 
 amply supplied with everything necessary for an 
 active and determined enterprise. ‘The proclama- 
 tion did not fail to express friendly sentiments 
 towards the Danish people, and regret for the 
 necessity of the present proceeding. ‘“ We come 
 to your shores,” it said, “not as enemies, but in 
 self-defence, to prevent those who have so long 
 disturbed the peace of Europe from compelling the 
 force of your navy to be employed against us. We 
 ask deposit—we have not looked to capture: so 
 far from it, the most solemn pledge has been offered 
 to your government, and it is hereby renewed, 
 that, if our demand be acceded to, every ship 
 belonging to the Danish navy shall, at the conclu- 
 sion of a general peace, be restored to her, in the 
 same condition and state of equipment as when 
 received under the protection of the British flag. 
 It is in the power of your government, by a word, 
 to sheathe our swords, most reluctantly drawn 
 against you;.. . . but if these offers are rejected, 
 and the machinations of France render you deaf to 
 the voice of reason and the call of friendship, the 
 innocent blood that will be shed, and the horrors 
 of a besieged and bombarded capital, must fall on 
 your own heads and those of your cruel advisers.” 
 The crown prince’s general replied with a counter 
 
 | proclamation or edict ordering the seizure of all 
 
 British vessels and property. On the 17th, the 
 Danish gunboats, taking advantage of a calm, set 
 fire to an English merchant vessel, fired at some 
 of our transports coming from Stralsund, and also 
 attacked with round and grape shot the piquets of — 
 Lord Cathcart’s army. These gunboats were — 
 driven into Copenhagen harbour by our bomb 
 vessels ; and on the evening of the 17th, Admiral 
 Gambier, with sixteen sail of the line, came to 
 anchor in Copenhagen Road, about four miles to 
 the north-east of the Trekroner, or crown battery, 
 which had fired with such terrible effect into Nel- 
 son’s ship. By the 21st the island of Zealand was 
 completely surrounded by the British ships, which — 
 prevented all ingress or egress; on the 22nd j 
 General MacFarlane’s division, having been landed 
 the preceding evening, joined the army and en- — 
 camped in rear of head-quarters ; and in the course 
 of the 23rd Lord Rosslyn, who had landed with ano- — 
 ther division of troops in Kioge Bay, joined the main — 
 army and covered its centre. While the English — 
 army were engaged in securing their positions, in” 
 drawing up their heavy artillery, and in choosing ~ 
 ground for their batteries, the Danish praams ane 
 gunboats, manceuvring in shallow water, where 
 our ships could not approach, made several furious - 
 attacks on the British batteries, and cannonaded — 
 the right of the British line, composed of the © 
 guards, who had taken up their station in the — 
 suburbs of Copenhagen. But the guards, on the — 
 27th, were covered by a good battery; and four — 
 ; 24-pounders, being brought to bear on the Danish : 
 
 et 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807, 
 
 gun-boats, soon drove that division away with con- 
 
 siderable loss. On the 29th Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 marched to Kioge, where some of the Danish troops 
 and militia had taken up a strong intrenched posi- 
 tion with the view of molesting the besiegers in their 
 rear. These Danes were completely defeated and 
 dispersed, Sir Arthur taking upwards of sixty 
 officers and 1100 men, ten or fourteen pieces of 
 cannon, and a quantity of powder and other stores. 
 Though intrenched, the Danes could not stand the 
 charge of the 92nd regiment, which led the attack, 
 and in their flight they threw away their arms and 
 clothing. The Danes in Copenhagen attempted 
 several sorties, but they were each time driven 
 back with loss. In one of these affairs Sir David 
 Baird was twice wounded, but he did not quit the 
 field.* There was some more hot skirmishing 
 with praams, gun-boats, and floating batteries on 
 the 3lst; and one of our armed transports was 
 blown up by a shell thrown from the Trekroner. 
 On the Ist of September it was found necessary to 
 detach Commodore Keats to blockade Stralsund, 
 for that place was already in possession of the 
 French, who might have made some desperate 
 attempt to send across reinforcements to the island 
 of Zealand. So great had been the necessity of 
 rapid and decisive movement—so short the time 
 which would have been necessary for the location of 
 an imposing French force in Copenhagen. On.the 
 evening of the same day—the Ist of September— 
 the army having nearly finished its gun and mortar 
 batteries, the two British commanders-in-chief 
 summoned the Danish major-general to surrender 
 the fleet. The Dane requested time to consult the 
 crown prince his master. Admiral Gambier and 
 Lord Cathcart refused to allow him any such delay ; 
 and on the 2nd all the British land-batteries opened 
 upon the town, and our bomb-vessels began to 
 throw some shells into it. The town, which con- 
 tained many wooden buildings, was set on fire by 
 some of the first shells that were thrown; but the 
 Danes made a good use of their fire-engines, and 
 continued to answer manfully with their shot and 
 shell. It was a terrible night; the city and the 
 space immediately round it looked like a volcano 
 in a state of eruption. The British continued their 
 bombardment without any intermission till eight 
 o’clock on the morning of the 3rd; they suspended 
 their fire till the evening, and then, though they 
 again continued it throughout the night, they fired 
 with less vigour, wishing to avoid inflicting a 
 greater mischief on the poor inhabitants than was 
 necessary; but, on the morning of the 4th, seeing 
 no symptoms of surrender, they renewed the bom- 
 bardment with more fury than ever. Without 
 counting the bomb-vessels afloat, about fifty mortars 
 and howitzers, and twenty 24-pounders, well placed 
 in land batteries, rained shot and shell into the 
 
 * Lord Cathcart’s Journal in Ann. Regist.—Sir Arthur Wellesley’s 
 dispatch to Lord Cathcart in Colonel Gurwood’s Dispatches of Field 
 Marshal the Duke of Wellington, &ce. 
 
 Lord Cathcart gratefully and warmly acknowledged the essential 
 services he had received, both in the field, and diplomatically in 
 negotiating the capitulation, from Major-General Sir A, Wellesley. 
 
 devoted town, which began to burn and blaze in 
 all quarters. A huge timber-yard was set on fire 
 by our red-hot shot; the steeple of the metropo- 
 litan church was ignited and knocked down in a 
 blaze to spread the conflagration ; the fire-engines 
 were all knocked to pieces, and many of the fire- 
 men killed or wounded. On the evening of the 
 5th the Danish governor sent out a flag of truce, 
 and requested an armistice of twenty-four hours to 
 allow him time to treat for a capitulation. Lord 
 Cathcart answered that an armistice must lead to 
 unnecessary delay, and that no capitulation could 
 be granted unless it were accompanied by the sur- 
 render of the whole Danish fleet. The Danish 
 major-general then consented to the surrender of 
 the fleet ; and Major-General Sir Arthur Welles- 
 ley, Lieutenant-Colonel George Murray, deputy- 
 quarter-master-general, and Sir Home Popham, 
 whose disgrace for the South American escapade 
 had only lasted until the downfall of the “ All- 
 Talents” ministry, and who was now acting as 
 captain of the fleet,* were appointed to settle the 
 few and simple remaining conditions of the capi- 
 tulation, By the morning of the 7th of September 
 the articles were signed and ratified. The British 
 were to be put in possession of the citadel, and 
 of all the ships-of-war and their stores; as soon as 
 they should have removed the ships and stores, or 
 within six weeks from the date of the capitulation, 
 or sooner if possihle, they were to deliver up the 
 citadel to the Danes and quit the island of Zealand: 
 no person whatsoever was to be molested, and all 
 property, public or private, with the exception of 
 the ships and vessels of war and the nayal stores 
 belonging to his Danish majesty, was to be re- 
 spected; and everything was promised to be done 
 which might tend to produce union and harmony 
 between the two nations: all prisoners taken on 
 both sides were to be unconditionally restored ; 
 and any English property that might have been 
 sequestrated in consequence of the existing hosti- 
 lities was to be given back to the owners thereof, 
 On the 8th the British troops entered the town and 
 citadel, and the sailors instantly began to get the 
 Danish fleet ready for sea. So great was the rapi- 
 dity with which they worked, and so well were the 
 Danish stores arranged in the warehouses, that in 
 nine days fourteen sail of the line were towed out 
 from the inner harbour to the road, and got ready 
 for sea, although all these ships had only their 
 lower masts in, some of them had scuttle-holes 
 made in their hulls in order to sink them (a mea- 
 sure which the Danes contemplated in their despair), 
 and all of them stood in need of repair, Within — 
 the space of six weeks three more ships-of-the-line, 
 with the frigates and sloops, were got ready, and 
 the arsenal and its store-houses were completely 
 cleared. There were three seventy-fours on the 
 
 * In his dispatches, Admiral Gambier makes a particular acknow- 
 ledgment of the aid he has derived from Sir Home Popham, captain 
 of the fleet, ‘‘ whose prompt resources and complete knowledge of 
 his profession, especially of that branch which is connected with the 
 operations of an army, qualify him in a particular manner for the 
 arduous and various duties with which he has been charged.” 
 
 i es a er 
 
388 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 stocks ; two of them were taken to pieces, and the 
 best of their timbers were embarked; the third 
 ship was destroyed, as were a rotten old 64 and 
 two or three old frigates. This left in the posses- 
 sion of the captors seventeen ships-of-the-line, one 
 60, two 40, six 46, and two 32-gun frigates, fourteen 
 corvettes, sloops, brigs, and schooners, and twenty- 
 five gun-boats. It has been properly said that the 
 benefit to England was not what she had acquired, 
 but what Denmark had lost.* Some of the ships 
 were old and not worth repairing; one of the 
 80-gun ships grounded on a sandbank a little 
 below Copenhagen and was destroyed, and a storm 
 in the Cattegat led to the destruction of all the 
 gun-boats except three. The most valuable part 
 of the seizure consisted of the masts, spars, timber, 
 sails, cordage, and other naval stores. ‘The quan- 
 tity was so immense that, exclusive of the stores 
 that were shipped on board of the British and 
 Danish men of war, ninety transports, measuring 
 more than 20,000 tons, brought away full cargoes. 
 The ordnance brought away is stated at 2041 long 
 guns, 202 carronades, and 222 mortars. The 
 
 prize-money due to the troops alone was estimated | 
 
 at nearly 1,000,000/. 
 
 On the 20th of October the last division of the 
 British army was re-embarked with the utmost 
 tranquillity, and without a single casualty. The 
 total loss sustained in the whole course of the ope- 
 rations on shore and afloat amounted only to 56 
 killed, 179 wounded, and 25 missing. ‘The loss of 
 the Danes, in the bombardment of the town, appears 
 to have been much exaggerated; but probably 
 about 1000 persons (among whom were, unhappily, 
 included women and children, the governor not 
 having availed himself of the opportunity offered 
 him of sending out of the town the women, children, 
 and old mer were either killed or wounded ; 
 above 300 houses were destroyed, and nearly all 
 the rest were more or less injured. On the 21st, 
 in the morning, the British fleet, with its prizes 
 and its transports, sailed from Copenhagen Road 
 in three great divisions; and, at the close of the 
 month, it reached in safety Yarmouth Roads and 
 the Downs.t Bonaparte seems to have been as- 
 tonished that the English did not carry away the 
 hardy Danish sailors as well as their ships. 
 
 Mr. Jackson, before taking his final leave, made 
 some more diplomatic overtures, to which the ex- 
 asperated crown prince would not listen. As soon 
 as the British fleet had passed the Sound, the 
 Danes fitted out a number of small armed vessels, 
 which made very successful depredations on the 
 English merchant-men in the Baltic, who seem to 
 have had neither a proper warning from our admi- 
 ral or government, nor the necessary protection of 
 convoy. A declaration of war followed on the part of 
 the crown prince, who had a formidable French 
 army at his elbow, and an alliance with the Emperor 
 of Russia in perspective. On the 4th of November 
 
 * James. 
 + James—Brenton, Naval Hist.—Dispatches of Admiral Gambier 
 and Lord Cathcart, in Ann. Regist. 
 
 the British government ordered reprisals to be 
 granted against the ships, goods, and subjects of 
 Denmark. But it had not waited so long to invade. 
 and possess itself of Danish territory. On the 4th 
 of September, three days before the governor of 
 Copenhagen finished his capitulation, Vice-Ad- 
 miral T. Macnamara Russell and Captain Lord 
 Falkland captured the small Danish island of He- 
 ligoland in the German Ocean. The place was 
 a perpendicular unproductive rock, with a barren 
 sandy flat at the foot of it: its entire circumference 
 did not exceed three English miles, and it was sub- 
 ject to such rapid waste by the beating and washing 
 of that stormy sea that there appeared a chance of 
 its being some day washed away altogether. But 
 there were circumstances which rendered the bare 
 inhospitable spot of exceeding great value to 
 England at that moment: it was situated off the 
 mouth of the Elbe, and at the distance of only 
 twenty-five miles from the mouths of the Weser 
 and the Eyder; it could scarcely be better placed 
 as a dépdt for British manufactures, colonial pro- 
 duce, and other goods, which could be smuggled 
 up the mouths of the neighbouring rivers and con- 
 veyed into the interior of the Contiuent ; and, at 
 the same time, it afforded a safe asylum in those 
 dangerous waters to the English men-of-war and 
 cruisers, which were now shut out from every port 
 in the North Seas, except those of Sweden, and 
 which were very soon to be excluded from the 
 Swedish ports also. Heligoland, too, served as an — 
 admonitor: it constantly reminded the mariners 
 and coast-dwelling people of those northern regions, 
 that there was an element which did not own the 
 sway of Bonaparte; and the French could hardly 
 look seaward from their conquests in Oldenburg 
 and Hanover without seeing the proud flag of 
 England floating over that near rock. 
 
 In the month of December, the Danish West 
 India islands of St. Thomas, St. John’s, and Santa 
 Croce surrendered, without resistance, to a squad- 
 ron commanded by Sir Alexander Cochrane, and 
 a small military force under General Bowyer. A 
 great many merchant vessels, carrying the Danish 
 flag, were captured. ) 
 
 In the course of this year, our quarrels with the | 
 United States of America became so violent as to 
 threaten a new war with that country ; but we re- 
 serve the narrative of these transactions for the 
 year 1812, when hostilities actually commenced, 
 We have now related all the really important ope- 
 rations of the British fleet and army during the 
 year 1807, and must proceed briefly to recapitulate 
 the operations of the Grand Army, and the other 
 proceedings of Bonaparte, which were mixed up 
 with nearly all our transactions, and had led directly 
 to several of our measures besides our attack upon 
 Copenhagen. 
 
 We left the Emperor of the French comfortably 
 quartered in the city of Warsaw. The Russians, 
 after gaining the terrible battle of Pultusk, retired 
 to Ostrolenka, where they found better winter 
 quarters, and where they were joined by the corps 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 d’armée of Prince Galitzin, who, on a distant point, 
 had defeated a French division on the same day 
 on which the battle of Pultusk was fought. General 
 Beningsen, the Russian commander-in-chief, now 
 found himself at the head of 90,000 men. More 
 Cossacks were spurring onward from the Don and 
 the Wolga; and, though the French attempted to 
 speak contemptuously of these irregular spearmen, 
 it is certain that they suffered great loss from their 
 spears, and oftentimes hunger, from the cunning and 
 rapid attacks the Cossacks made on their convoys 
 of provisions. The critical situation of the King of 
 Prussia, cooped up in Koénigsberg with only a few 
 thousand men, and threatened by the gradual ap- 
 proach of the divisions of Marshals Ney and Ber- 
 nadotte, did not allow Beningsen to take a long re- 
 pose. He resumed offensive operations with great 
 spirit, spreading his Cossacks abroad over the 
 whole country near the Vistula, and making many 
 prisoners. This forced the French from their win- 
 ter quarters into the field—a field covered with 
 snow and ice, and swept by pitiless winds. On 
 the 25th of January, a terrible conflict took place 
 near Mohrungen, and, though they claimed a 
 victory, the French suffered a decided reverse. A 
 diversion was effected in favour of Kénigsberg ; 
 and the brave and faithful Lestocq was enabled 
 to relieve and throw reinforcements into Graudentz, 
 an important town on the Vistula, below Warsaw, 
 which still remained in possession of Prussian 
 troops. It would still have been the policy, and 
 it was the wish, of Beningsen to protract the cam- 
 paign, and wear out the French army, which was 
 daily suffering diminution from the severity of the 
 climate and the spears of the Cossacks; but the 
 thievish and execrable Russian commissariat had 
 again brought that army into a starving condition ; 
 the Poles of the country were all hostile; and the 
 commander-in-chief had not money enough to cope 
 in the Jew market with the golden napoleons. 
 The Russian troops had no resource but to prowl 
 about, and dig in the earth for the corn and pro- 
 visions the Polish peasantry concealed. This labour, 
 added to their military duty, scarcely left them time 
 for any repose, and when the poor fellows lay down 
 to sleep they had no bed but the snow, no shelter 
 but the sky, no covering but rags.* It was better 
 to fight than starve ; it was better to perish under 
 French grape-shot and bayonets than to linger on 
 thus. ‘The army became clamorous for battle, and 
 the able general, against his better judgment, led 
 them into it, or rather allowed them to meet it, on 
 the 8th of February, at Eylau, or more properly 
 Preussisch-Kilau, or Prussian Eylau, in the circle 
 of Konigsberg. Bonaparte had actually on the 
 field 85,000 men, including 16,000 cavalry ; Be- 
 ningsen, who had been obliged to detach some of 
 his troops, had only 75,000 men, counting the 
 Prussian division of Lestocq, of which a part was 
 not in line when the battle began: in artillery the 
 Russians were superior, having 460 guns to oppose 
 to about 380; but in cavalry they were very in- 
 
 * Sir Robert Wilson, Sketch of the Campaigns in Poland in 1806-7. 
 
 REE ERE OL 7 ea a 
 
 CIVIL AND. MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 389 
 
 ferior, and the nature of the country was favourable 
 to charges of horse. There remains to be added 
 another immense advantage on the side of Bona- 
 parte ; besides the army with which he engaged, 
 he had on the Vistula from 30,000 to 40,000 more 
 men, in Silesia 21,000, on the frontiers of Hanover 
 8000, in front of Dantzic, near the mouth of the 
 Vistula, 24,000, and in Pomerania 16,000 men, 
 all elated with victory; whereas Beningsen had 
 hardly any troops near him except the 15,000 
 Russians whom he had been obliged to detach, 
 and about 10,000 or 12,000 Prussians who were 
 protecting their king and queen in Kénigsberg. 
 The French, in their accounts, not satisfied with 
 falsifying the numbers on the field, always put out 
 of sight the numbers in the vicinity—the columns 
 and divisions ready to give support in case of a 
 reverse, and in case of victory to co-operate in 
 making the most of it. Taking the whole field of 
 war, the French had at least 200,000 men, even 
 without counting the army of Saxony, to oppose to 
 120,000 or 130,000 Russians and Prussians. 
 
 The bloody battle of Eylau began at daybreak 
 on the 8th of February. Half-starved, half-naked 
 as they were, the Russian infantry fought heroically, 
 aad their artillery shattered the column of Augereau, 
 and beat back Marshal Soult, who had advanced to 
 the attack preceded by 150 pieces of French artil- 
 lery. A snow storm was raging at the time, and 
 so thick was the snow in the air that the shattered 
 French columns did not perceive that the Cossacks 
 were upon them on one flank, and the whole 
 Russian right on the other, until the Cossack spears 
 almost touched them; and as soon as they made 
 these unwelcome discoveries the French broke and 
 fled towards the town or village of Eylau, in as 
 perfect a confusion and panic as had ever been 
 displayed by veteran troops on a field of battle. 
 French standards and imperial eagles were taken ; 
 Augereau and two generals of division were des- 
 perately wounded; more than 14,000 men and 
 officers were killed, wounded, or captured ; out of 
 16,000 men only about 1600 got into Kylau; 
 Augereau’s corps was in fact destroyed. One of 
 the Russian divisions followed the fugitives into the 
 streets of the town, and nearly captured Bonaparte, 
 who was standing on a mound on which he had 
 placed a small battery. Having rallied the corps 
 of Marshal Soult, which had suffered greatly, but 
 which had not been destroyed like that of Augereau, 
 the French emperor ordered a grand charge to be 
 made by his entire cavalry and imperial guard, 
 supported by Soult’s rallied divisions. It would 
 appear that the movement of the Russian right, 
 and the hot pursuit after Augereau’s fugitives, had 
 disordered Beningsen’s lines: his front line gave 
 way before the shock of 15,000 horse and 25,000 
 foot; his regular cavalry, so inferior in number, 
 was driven back by the enormous squadrons of 
 Murat; and 200 pieces of French artillery poured 
 destruction on the receding corps, and met in the 
 teeth the columns that were closing from either 
 wing to succour and relieve them. But Beningsen 
 
390 
 
 at the head of his staff galloped to the Russian 
 front, pressed the movements of his closing columns, 
 - brought up the reserves to unite with the first line, 
 and then ordered a bayonet charge. Before this 
 bold and unexpected onset Murat in his turn re- 
 ceded, the imperial guards did the same, and 
 Soult’s divisions were again discomfited and shat- 
 tered. With numbers fearfully diminished, the 
 French assailants got back to the ground from 
 which they had started. At the moment when 
 their attack had seemed to be successful, one of 
 their regiments of cuirassiers dashed through an 
 opening in Beningsen’s lines, and penetrated as 
 far as the baggage in his rear; but heavily did 
 they pay for their temerity : they were charged by 
 Platoff, the hettman of the Cossacks; they were 
 enveloped by those hurrahing spearmen, they were 
 unhorsed, pierced through and through, killed and 
 stripped in a trice: only 18 of them ever got back 
 to their own lines ; 530 left their shining armour 
 to be worn in triumph by so many Cossacks. But 
 shortly after the hurried retrograde movement of 
 Murat and Soult, Marshal Davoust, who had been 
 manceuyring since the beginning of the battle to 
 turn Beningsen’s left, got fairly behind the Russian 
 rear, and threw their left wing and a part of their 
 centre into disorder. But the battle of Eylau was 
 a battle of many crises, or of many changes of for- 
 tune: scarcely had Davoust obtained this advantage 
 ere Lestocq arrived with his Prussians, and, rush- 
 ing past the left of the French and the right of the 
 Russians, formed in three columns, and pushed on 
 to meet Dayoust. These Prussian columns, pro- 
 perly commanded by an honest, loyal man, a patriot 
 and a hero, behaved as well as ever Prussian troops 
 had behaved under Frederick the Great : they never 
 halted, they never fired a musket until they were 
 within a few paces of the enemy, and then a mortal 
 volley was succeeded by a close bayonet charge. 
 The French reeled back, an entire regiment and a 
 
 battalion of another were totally destroyed or made | 
 
 prisoners, some Russian guns were recovered, and 
 another of Bonaparte’s eagles was captured. Da- 
 voust tried to maintain himself in a wood, hoping 
 for a respite from the darkness of night, for the 
 sun, which had been scarcely visible the whole day, 
 was now sinking in the west; but Lestocq, being 
 joined by some regular Russian cavalry, and by 
 some pults of Cossacks, dashed into the wood, and 
 in spite of his superiority in numbers, and of a fine 
 speech he is said to have uttered about brave men 
 dying there and cowards living to be carried into 
 the deserts of Siberia, Davoust found himself com- 
 pelled to give ground, to yield all the advantage he 
 had gained, and to fly back to the main body of the 
 > French army, leaving behind him a great number 
 of killed, wounded, and prisoners. It was now 
 dark night ; but the fury of battle did not cease, 
 nor did the chances and changes of the fortune of 
 war, which render this battle of Eylau one of the 
 most interesting in modern history. Marshal Ney, 
 who had followed Lestocq, drove in a Prussian 
 detachment, and carried the village of Schloditten, 
 
 EE, stn ens itt ese = 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X, 
 
 which stands on the road that leads to Kénigsberg, 
 The loud shouting of Ney’s corps announced their 
 success to Bonaparte, and was heard by both armies, 
 As the possession of Schloditten would interrupt 
 his communications with K6nigsberg and endanger 
 the king and queen of Prussia, Beningsen sent a 
 Russian division to storm the village; and at ten 
 o’clock at night Marshal Ney was driven out of the 
 place, and his corps retreated through the deep 
 snow, staining it with their blood. Here ended 
 the fighting: the Russian infantry had stood like 
 stone ramparts, or like walls of brass: the French 
 had utterly failed in all their attacks, and in some 
 of their retreats they had betrayed nearly every 
 symptom of military demoralization ; one of their 
 largest and finest corps (Davoust had 19,000 foot 
 and 700 or 800 horse with him) had been pushed 
 off the field by an inferior number of Prussian 
 bayonets, and from 10,000 to 12,000 French sol- 
 diers had quitted their colours in the evening 
 under pretence of looking after the wounded. The 
 loss on both sides had been tremendous: in the 
 absence of regular authentic returns it has been 
 roughly stated at 50,000 killed and wounded; but 
 it should appear that of this number about 30,000 
 were French. The Grand Army had lost 12 of 
 its eagles, and was certainly in no humour to 
 attempt the recovery of them. If Beningsen could 
 have staid where he was, Bonaparte, who was after 
 all obliged to fall back to the Vistula, must have 
 been under the necessity of making a rapid retreat, 
 and such a retreat has almost invariably had a fatal 
 effect upon French armies. But so wretchedly was 
 Beningsen provided, that he had consumed nearly 
 all his ammunition in the obstinately contested 
 battle, which on various points had endured with- 
 
 | out intermission from six o’clock in the morning 
 
 till ten o’clock at night; his soldiers had eaten up 
 almost their last scrap; and the neighbouring 
 country offered neither bread for the hungry, nor 
 shelter for the wounded. The Russian and Prussian 
 generals, on horseback, and by a midnight bivouac 
 fire, held a council of war. Some of them, and 
 especially Lestocq, recommended staying where 
 they were, pledging their lives that if the Russians 
 would only form and make a slight advance on the 
 morrow the French must of necessity retire; and 
 dwelling upon the moral effect which would be 
 produced in Prussia, in Austria, in every part of 
 Germany, and throughout Europe, by the uncon- 
 cealable retreat of Bonaparte and his Grand Army. 
 But the Russian commander-in-chief, besides being 
 checked and depressed by the serious circumstances 
 already mentioned, seems neither to have suspected 
 the enormous amount of the French loss, nor to 
 have known how long or how short a time it might 
 take the French at Dantzic, or on the lower Vistula, 
 to reinforce their emperor : he felt, too, that in case 
 of his sustaining any reverse, the person of the king 
 of Prussia would be put in imminent peril; an 
 upon all these weighty considerations Beningsen 
 ordered a retreat upon Kénigsberg. But some of 
 the troops did not move till the next morning, 
 
Vy), 
 
 Neen 
 
 Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 when they deliberately traversed the field in front 
 of the French, who offered them not the slightest 
 interruption, being evidently as much astonished as 
 they were overjoyed at their departure. 
 
 The best testimony as to the real effect of the 
 battle of Eylau was borne by Bonaparte himself: 
 four days after the battle he dispatched a courteous 
 thessage to the King of Prussia, proposing a suspen- 
 sion of hostilities, and hinting that, if his majesty 
 would make a separate peace with him, he might 
 be induced to forego all the advantages he had 
 gained by the battles of Auerstadt and Jena, and to 
 restore nearly the whole of his dominions. Frede- 
 rick-William, who was no longer in the hands of 
 the juggling ministers who had formerly disgraced 
 him, and whose tricks and cunning had been the 
 real cause of his present ruin, refused to desert and 
 betray his ally the Emperor Alexander—refused to 
 accede to any peace in which Russia was not in- 
 cluded—refused to agree to the armistice. It was 
 Bonaparte’s invariable principle to follow up hotly 
 and closely every success obtained in the field ; but 
 now he lay motionless at Eylau for eight days, and 
 then, instead of advancing along the open road 
 which leads to Kénigsberg, he began to send off his 
 baggage and stores in the opposite direction; and 
 on the 19th of February he evacuated Eylau, and 
 retreated to his old line on the Vistula, being fol- 
 lowed by clouds of Cossacks, who surprised and 
 took many prisoners, and made a great booty. 
 
 Beningsen now advanced again; crossing the 
 bloody field of Eylau, and gradually occupying all 
 the country evacuated by the enemy. Near the 
 right bank of the Vistula, and along the course of 
 the Narew, there was a desultory war of posts, at- 
 tended with varying success ; but there was no more 
 fighting between the two main armies for more 
 than three months after the battle of Eylau. In 
 this interval, however, Bonaparte strengthened 
 Marshal Lefebvre, who had invested Dantzic, and 
 ordered him to press that siege with the utmost 
 vigour. At the same time he called Vandamme 
 and his 20,000 men out of Silesia, where the das- 
 tardly or treacherous surrender of a variety of fort- 
 resses and Prussian posts had enabled Davoust 
 and Ney with their powerful corps to cross the 
 Vistula, and take part in the battle of Eylau. 
 Still, however, the situation of Bonaparte after his 
 retreat from Eylau was very critical—so critical 
 that due exertion on the part of England for her 
 allies, with a little resolution on the part of Austria, 
 might have made it altogether desperate. The 
 Emperor Alexander, whose troops had everywhere 
 behaved so manfully, was in no want of brave men 
 wherewith to reinforce Beningsen in Poland and 
 Prussia; but he required a supply of muskets, and 
 he was sadly in want of money, without which those 
 forces could not be put in motion. He applied 
 to the British government, on whose assistance he 
 assuredly had the strongest claim: this time he re- 
 quested our government to negotiate for him a loan 
 of six millions sterling, and make him an imme- 
 diate advance on account: it is said that the se- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 391 
 
 curity he offered was not bad; ifhe had offered no 
 security at all, the money ought to have been raised 
 and sent to him (it might have saved many of those 
 millions that were afterwards spent in the war); 
 but the “‘ Talents”? ministry thought fit to decline 
 the transaction, whereby they gave a mortal offence 
 to the czar, and almost paralysed his exertions m 
 the common cause. From this moment Alexander 
 seems to have doubted both the sincerity and gene- 
 rosity of Great Britain, and to have begun, partly 
 in revenge, and partly from natural disposition and 
 the selfish calculation of his Russian advisers and 
 ministers, to consider how he should get out of the 
 coalition with the least possible loss, and derive 
 benefit and aggrandizement from a treaty with 
 Bonaparte. It is easy to expose and exclaim 
 against the selfishness, cunning, and duplicity he 
 afterwards displayed ; but it is not quite so easy to 
 prove that he was not driven to this line of conduct 
 by excessive provocation. In the course of the 
 months of February and March, Alexander made 
 repeated and urgent applications for an English 
 army to co-operate with the Swedish forces in Po- 
 merania. The congelation of the Baltic prevented 
 such an expedition from the end of December till 
 the beginning of April; but by the middle or at 
 furthest the end of Aprila British fleet might have 
 landed an army in Pomerania, or even in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Dantzic. The siege of Dantzic was 
 not brought to its successful close at the end of 
 May, so that there was abundant time to have forced 
 Lefebvre to have raised it, and to have thrown a 
 united British and Swedish army, with a part of 
 the Prussian garrison of Dantzic, in Bonaparte’s 
 rear. Such operations would have led to a general 
 rising in all the north of Germany, where the peo- 
 ple were incensed at the murder of Palm the book- 
 seller, and at numerous acts of tyranny and cruelty, 
 and driven almost to desperation by the enormous 
 military contributions the French were levying in 
 all directions, as well in the states of those they 
 called their friends and allies as in the territories 
 of their enemies. With this encouragement, and 
 with the timely aid of an English subsidy, the Em- 
 peror of Austria would have converted his army of 
 observation on the frontiers of Bohemia into an 
 active army on the Elbe, and that army, reinforced, 
 would have carried Dresden and Leipsic, and have 
 stood as a barrier between the Grand Army of Na- 
 poleon and the Rhine and France.* ‘To the earnest 
 request of Alexander for a British auxiliary force, 
 Lord Howick, then secretary for the foreign depart- 
 ment, replied on the 10th of March, ‘ Doubtless 
 the spring is the most favourable period for military 
 operations, but at the present juncture the allies 
 
 * Napoleon afterwards confessed that he trembled lest 150,000 
 Austrians should appear on the Elbe—that he saw he had placed him- 
 self at the mercy of his enemies—that more than once he bitterly re- 
 gretted having suffered himself to be drawn into those remote and 
 inhospitable regions beyond the Vistula—that the cabinet of Vienna 
 had then even a safer opportunity of re-establishing its preponderance 
 than that which it chose in 1813. He attributed his salvation to the 
 want of resolution in the cabinet of Vienna, and to his own firm 
 countenance. But the irresolution of the Austrians must have 
 vanished if the circumstances to which we have alluded in the text 
 had taken place, and then Bonaparte’s firm countenance would 
 have availed him but little. 
 
a inna ates eneenen en 
 
 392 
 
 must not look for any considerable land force 
 trom Great Britain.” This was poor encourage- 
 ment for the Russians, who had so recently strewed 
 the field of Eylau with 20,000 of their killed and 
 wounded. <A fortnight after the date of Lord 
 Howick’s note, the ministry of which he formed a 
 part was no more. The rival party who succeeded 
 to the management of affairs remitted 500,000/. to 
 the court of Petersburg; but this was not money 
 enough, and the Tory cabinet sent out no troops to 
 the Baltic until it was too late. No excuse can be 
 found for this stinted and insufficient subsidy, and 
 we doubt whether they could be excused for not 
 having got a British armament into the Baltic before 
 the end of May, and therefore before the surrender 
 of Dantzic. Although no preparations had been 
 made by their predecessors, who went out of office 
 on the 25th of March, assuredly, by proper exer- 
 tions, a fleet of transports, a few men-of-war to 
 convoy it, and (as a first division) 25,000 troops, 
 taken from the home army, which was lying round 
 the coasts doing nothing, and without a prospect of 
 having anything to do, might have been got ready 
 and embarked by the 25th of April, when the 
 thawed or thawing ice would have allowed access 
 to any part of the Baltic, except perhaps the Gulf 
 of Finland, where our presence was not wanted. 
 When this same new ministry resolved upon the 
 expedition to Copenhagen—an expedition which 
 would have been unnecessary in August, if Russia 
 had been supported in April or May—a much 
 greater land force and an immense fleet of ships 
 of war were got into a state of readiness in four or 
 five weeks. A glance at home transactions, and 
 the debates and struggles of parties in the British 
 parliament, will reveal the fact that the new mi- 
 nisters—Canning, Castlereagh, Perceval, and all 
 —were thinking rather more of the means of se- 
 curing themselves in power than of the war on the 
 continent, or of enabling Russia to make the most 
 of the vantage-ground which she had gained, or 
 which she might have gained by one strenuous 
 effort more. It is possible, however, that the con- 
 duct of their predecessors may have produced a 
 moral effect most difficult to correct. In unconsti- 
 tutional countries neither the good nor the evil of 
 our constitutional system is ever understood : the 
 Emperor Alexander, at the head of a despotic go- 
 vernment, whose single will was the only law, could 
 not comprehend how entirely the King of England 
 was subjected to the varying will and changing 
 systems of parliamentary majorities and successive 
 cabinets, and he may have attributed to insincerity 
 and treachery what was merely the result of a 
 change or changes of ministers. It is in this 
 way that the continental nations, even in com- 
 plimenting the honour, integrity, and steadiness of 
 the English character, as displayed individually and 
 in private transactions between man and man, have 
 been, and still are, accustomed to hold up the con- 
 duct of the cabinet of St. James’s as fickle, unsteady, 
 frequently treacherous, and always changeful. It 
 is at least probable that some such impression may 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X. 
 
 | Be 
 have sunk deeply into the heart of Alexander, and 
 
 have led him into measures or expressions, or even 
 
 into a correspondence, calculated to excite on the 
 
 other hand the suspicions of our cabinet. On 
 former occasions Russia had proved herself a 
 slippery ally, and the prevailing principles in her 
 diplomacy and general policy had nearly always 
 been cunning and duplicity. Bonaparte subse- 
 quently said of Alexander himself that he was 
 astute and duplex like a Greek of the lower 
 empire ; and we fear, notwithstanding the higher 
 and better qualities of the czar, this stigma must 
 remain upon his name and memory, with only this 
 mitigation, that the character of a native sovereign 
 must be formed by the character of the people over 
 whom he rules, or by the character of that part of 
 them through whom and by whom he governs. 
 
 The positive historical facts of the case are clear 
 enough. The English cabinet sent no troops to 
 the Baltic till the month of July, when the German 
 legion, about 8,000 strong, was landed in the isle 
 of Rugen, near Stralsund. They were so slow in 
 sending 160,000 muskets to Konigsberg that an 
 immense body of Russian militia were unable to 
 march for want of arms—that these muskets did 
 not arrive until the middle of June, when they 
 came just in time to fall into the hands of the 
 French, who took Kénigsberg a few days after the 
 battle of Friedland. The Emperor Alexander sent 
 such inconsiderable reinforcements to Beningsen 
 that that army was never even raised to its original 
 computation of 90,000 men. Austria remained 
 paralysed, and the peoples of the north of Germany, 
 left without encouragement or assistance, conti- 
 nued in the condition of exasperated but passive 
 spectators. The time he wanted was allowed to 
 Bonaparte, who called upon France, upon Italy, 
 upon Holland, upon the confederated states of the 
 Rhine, upon every country where his authority or 
 influence was established, to forward him supplies 
 in men, money, arms, stores, clothing, and provi- 
 sions. Enormous requisitions were made again in 
 Prussia and all the north of Germany: in France _ 
 another conscription was anticipated, and 80,000 
 men, instead of being levied in September, 1808, 
 were ordered to be levied in March, 1807. This 
 was the third anticipated levy which had been 
 demanded since the commencement of the war 
 against the King of Prussia in October 1806! 
 Come weal, come woe, defeat or victory, it was a 
 physical impossibility that France could for many 
 years stand these frightful drains on her population, 
 
 By the month of June Bonaparte had 200,000 
 men on the Vistula, and between that river and the | 
 Niemen. The Prussian General Kalkreuth sur-— 
 rendered in Dantzic, on the 27th of May.* On 
 
 * Dantzie might have held out much longer but for want of gun- 
 powder, although Marshal Mortier had reinforced Lefebvre, who had 
 been so long investing the place. Kalkreuth had abundance of pro- 
 visions, of courage, of cannon (900 pieces became the prey of the 
 French), and of everything except powder. After some misdirected 
 attempts made by the Swedes to throw the precious article into the 
 place, Captain Christopher Strachey, of the British 18-gun ship sloop 
 ‘ Dauntless,’ made a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to supply the 
 
 garrison with 600 barrels of gunpowder! On the 16th of May, taking 
 advantage of a favourable wind, the ‘ Dauntless’ ran up the river 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 a 
 
 393 
 
 the 14th of June the great battle of Friedland took | Scarcely a prisoner was taken except among the 
 
 place. The scene of the combat, on the river 
 Aller, was only a few miles from the field of 
 Eylau; but the Russians fought not with the same 
 spirit. There appears also to have been a want 
 of energy on the side of Bonaparte, who remained 
 in a state of inaction at Eylau, without giving 
 any precise orders as to the operations to be un- 
 dertaken, and seemingly without knowing that 
 Beningsen’s entire force was in his front. Thus 
 the battle, which might have begun much earlier, 
 did not commence, in earnest, until four or 
 five o’clock in the afternoon, and the French 
 emperor did not arrive on the field till later. 
 Again the beginning of the action was highly 
 favourable to the Russians: their imperial guard 
 charged and drove in the division of Ney, and 
 shook the division of Dupont, who had been sent to 
 support Ney; this tremendous charge was followed 
 up by a charge of Russian cavalry; two French 
 regiments lost their eagles ; a number of men and 
 several officers of note were killed or badly 
 wounded ; it was rumoured that Ney himself had 
 fallen ; the French infantry reeled back, attempting 
 to form in square; the Russian horse continued 
 their charge almost up to the muzzle of the guns 
 which Senarmont, Bonaparte’s excellent general 
 of artillery, had placed in battery. But these 
 tremendous batteries decided the fate of the day: 
 the battle of Friedland was nota battle of bayonets, 
 but one of artillery. While Beningsen had scat- 
 tered his guns along his line, Senarmont had col- 
 lected and concentrated upon one point nearly all 
 the French cannon; and as the Russians ap- 
 proached in solid column he assailed them with a 
 tremendous fire of ball and grape-shot. This sort 
 of battle lasted for nearly three hours, and during 
 that time the French artillery discharged more than 
 3000 ball and 500 grape-shot charges. The Rus- 
 sians fell back, and, instead of concentrating their 
 own artillery, they renewed their attempt to storm 
 the terrible battery with infantry and cavalry. At 
 last they were worsted, and as night approached 
 they began to retire behind the Aller, crossing that 
 river by a ford, and carrying with them all their 
 artillery and baggage. It appears that they did 
 not lose so much as a single gun or a single tum- 
 bril. The French say they did not follow them 
 because it was night, and because Murat had been 
 detached towards Kinigsberg; but the nights in 
 the middle of June are not dark in those latitudes, 
 and they had with them the dragoons of Latour- 
 Maubourg and an abundance of other cavalry. It 
 is evident that their own losses in the combat, and 
 the resolute countenance and orderly retreat of the 
 Russians, who were only worsted and not tho- 
 roughly beaten (as reported by bulletins and Moni- 
 teurs), prevented their following across the Aller. 
 
 with studding sails set, firing on the enemy as she stemmed the 
 rapid current; but the wind, from shifting, or from an unexpected 
 bend in the river, became unfavourable; the channel was far too 
 narrow for the ‘ Dauntless’ to work in; the point-blank fire of the 
 enemy was too heavy to be resisted; and Captain Strachey ran his 
 vessel upon the sand-banks within half musket-shot of the French 
 batteries, and surrendered.—James, Naval History. 
 
 badly wounded ; and the field seemed as thickly 
 strewed with the French as with the Russian killed 
 and wounded. Many of the regiments of the 
 Grand Army were reduced to less than one half— 
 whole companies had disappeared to a man. ‘‘ The 
 character which the war had taken ever: since the 
 battle of Eylau,” says a French writer, ‘* was exceed- 
 ingly destructive—everywhere a terrible carnage— 
 nothing to be got without losing torrents of blood! 
 With the Austrians and the Prussians one might, 
 by means of strategy, make whole masses prison- 
 ers; one might finish a campaign by means of 
 decisive marches, which threw into the hands of 
 the Emperor Napoleon the half of an army as cap- 
 tives; but with the Russians there was nothing but 
 to kill and to be killed, to break their ranks down 
 to the last man with cannon ball, and that too 
 without any considerable result! In general, when 
 armies are not barbarous, soldiers do not like to 
 multiply deaths; they desire a victory with as little 
 possible blood and with as much profitable result 
 as is possible; these butcheries end by carrying 
 fear and disgust into the hearts of the most veteran 
 troops.”’* 
 
 Even after the reverse at Friedland, steadiness 
 and fortitude on the part of the czar, with no 
 extraordinary exertions on the part of his allies, 
 would have rendered him certain of victory if 
 Bonaparte had ventured to cross the Niemen and 
 penetrate into Russia; and if that conqueror had 
 not advanced he must have retreated once more 
 behind the Vistula. Sickness had broken out 
 among the over-fatigued French troops; between 
 the sick and the wounded 50,000 men of the Grand 
 Army were in hospitals; the recruits which arrived 
 from France and from other countries were scarcely 
 sufficient to fill up the fearful gaps made by war 
 and disease; these recruits could not be compared 
 to the practised soldiers who had fallen or were 
 lying in the hospitals, and even the wieilles mou- 
 staches, the veterans of the army, were getting 
 thoroughly disgusted with a war that offered 
 nothing but hardship, suffering, and destruction 
 —they were so sick of Poland that they had no 
 wish to try the remoter regions of Russia. It may 
 be doubted whether mutiny and a general revolt 
 would not have followed an order to cross the 
 Niemen, or even the appearance of a disposition to 
 remain Jong in any part of Poland to the north of 
 Praga and Warsaw. Nor could Bonaparte now 
 have well ventured to prolong his absence from 
 France: it was already nearly a year since he had 
 quitted Paris ; he knew that the immense sacrifices 
 made in this war had excited both despondency 
 and criticism, and he felt the danger of allowing 
 the French people to believe that they could be 
 governed without his immediate superintendence. 
 If he had left the Grand Army, his genius would 
 have left it with him. That army could only per- 
 form prodigies when he was with it. In his 
 absence the most boasted of his generals appear to 
 
 * Capefigue, L’Europe pendant le Consulat et l’Empire. 
 
394 
 
 have subsided into mediocrity: his jealousy and 
 his despotism had smothered nearly all the military 
 genius which had been displayed in the days of 
 the republic, although that genius was certainly 
 not of so high a kind as it has been the fashion to 
 represent it. Take away Bonaparte and Soult, and 
 we believe old Beningsen would have been a match 
 for any of his lieutenants and marshals. 
 
 The Russian general slowly retired to Tilsit, on 
 the Niemen, destroying all the bridges, and falling 
 back upon his reserves. He was joined by 15,000 
 or 20,000 infantry, who were followed by a multi- 
 tude of irregular cavalry, chiefly drawn from the 
 Crimea and from Asiatic Russia, and including 
 some hordes of Baskirs and other Manchu Tartars, 
 armed with bows and arrows. But the Emperor 
 Alexander, from the causes already related, had an 
 earnest wish, an impatiency, for peace; and this 
 feeling released the Emperor of the French from 
 what at the least was a hazardous and painful 
 dilemma. Itis never likely to be clearly ascertained 
 which party was the first to make overtures: the 
 Russians insist that the first proposition came 
 from the French; the French that it came from 
 the Russians. What seems certain is that the first 
 open step was taken by Bonaparte in sending 
 Duroc to the Russian head-quarters at Tilsit, 
 where the czar himself now was, to demand an 
 armistice and to propose a personal interview be- 
 tween the two emperors. ‘The suspension of hos- 
 tilities was immediately agreed to; and on the 25th 
 of June Alexander and Napoleon met on a raft in 
 the middle of the Niemen, at a short distance from 
 Tilsit. From that moment the young czar ap- 
 
 EMPEROR ALEXANDER, 
 
 pears to have been dazzled and cajoled by the bril- 
 liant and insinuating Corsican. The King of 
 Prussia, who in losing Kénigsberg, which fell im- 
 mediately after Beningsen’s retreat behind the 
 Aller, had lost his last town, had fled to the 
 Niemen with his fair and broken-hearted queen ; 
 but he was not present at the interview, and he 
 seems to have been almost forgotten by his ally. 
 On the following day, the 26th of June, the two 
 emperors took up their residence in the town of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Tilsit, leaving the King and Queen of Prussia for 
 some days to occupy a humble mill in the suburbs. 
 He had defamed and traduced her before the war 
 began, and now that it was ended Bonaparte be- 
 haved to Louisa Augusta with harshness and with 
 insolence, insulting and stinging her in the very 
 act of pretending gallantry and magnanimity. 
 When she ventured to ask for a trifling addition to 
 the territorial restitution he proposed making to 
 the king her husband, he is said to have brutally 
 told her that she ought to remember that it was he, 
 Napoleon, who offered, and that her majesty had 
 only the task of accepting what he should choose 
 togive. With the Emperor of all the Russias, who 
 was not a dispossessed king, but great and power- 
 ful, with his real power untouched as yet by the 
 war, he was all courtesy and condescension: he 
 rode out with him, he spent the long evenings 
 alone with him, keeping up the talk till the 
 midnight hour; and he lived with him almost as 
 with a brother; but the King of Prussia he 
 shunned as much as he could, and treated him 
 contemptuously when obliged to meet him. 
 
 The negotiations at Tilsit were soon finished.* 
 On the 7th of July was signed the treaty of peace 
 between his majesty the Emperor of the French, 
 King of Italy, &c., and his majesty the Emperor of 
 all the Russias, and on the 9th the separate treaty 
 with Prussia was signed. Frederick William was 
 restored to about one half of his former territories, © 
 as far as the Elbe; but all the principal Prussian 
 fortresses and all the sea-port towns were to remain 
 in the hands of the French till the general peace, or 
 until England should be reduced to submission. 
 The portion of Poland acquired by Prussia in the — 
 partition of 1772 was disunited from that kingdom, 
 and erected into a separate territory, to be called 
 the Great Duchy of Warsaw, but to be held not by 
 a Polish prince, or a republic of Poles, but by the 
 King of Saxony, that faithful ally of Bonaparte ; 
 and it was stipulated that his majesty of Saxony, 
 in order to have a direct communication with his 
 new acquisition, should be allowed an open military 
 road through the Prussian province of Silesia—a 
 sure way of keeping up a perpetual jealousy be- 
 tween the King of Prussia and the King of Saxony 
 and Grand Duke of Warsaw. Prussia was made 
 to renounce for ever all claim to the possession of 
 Dantzic; and that city, with a strip of surrounding 
 territory, was, with a pretty mockery, declared to be 
 free and independent, and under the joint protec- 
 tion of Prussia and Saxony; omy, until the con- 
 clusion of a general peace, Dantzic was to be gar- 
 risoned by the French. As he kept possession of 
 the whole sea-board, it was scarcely necessary to in- 
 
 * Two Prussian ministers (Hardenberg and Lucchesini) have not 
 hesitated to declare in statements given to the world that the prin- 
 cipal motives which induced the Emperor Alexander to conclude 
 the treaty of Tilsit, were the refusal of Lord Howick to guarantee 
 the Russian loan, &c.; the slowness of the new English administra- 
 tion in furnishing the promised supplies of money, arms, and 
 ammunition; and the refusal of Austria to take any part in the 
 contest. It is said, too, that Lord Howick, who, after the catas- 
 trophe of Jena, had earnestly solicited Alexander to fly to the 
 succour of Prussia, gave his refusal in a cold, haughty manner, 
 peculiarly painful to the feelings of the czar. | 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 troduce the clause ; but Bonaparte bound Frederick 
 William to shut all his ports, without any excep- 
 tion, against the trade and navigation of the Eng- 
 lish, to allow no shipment to be made from any 
 Prussian port for the British isles or British colo- 
 nies, nor to admit any ship from England or her 
 colonies into any Prussian port. Bonaparte took 
 every opportunity to declare, that, if Frederick Wil- 
 liam was yet allowed to reign, it was solely owing 
 to his friendship fur Alexander. The czar, as a 
 matter of course, was not called upon to make any 
 territorial sacrifices: on the contrary, he was gra- 
 tified with the cession of a part of Prussian Po- 
 land, which weakened the Grand Duchy of War- 
 saw, and materially strengthened his own frontier. 
 By the secret articles of the treaty, France allowed 
 Russia to take Finland from Sweden, and Russia 
 on her part engaged to close all her ports against 
 British vessels, and to head a new armed neutrality 
 or coalition of the north. Russia, as well as Prussia, 
 ratified all the changes and all the wrongs which 
 Bonaparte had made and committed on the Euro- 
 pean continent, acknowledging the thrones which he 
 had erected, and recognising the confederation of 
 the Rhine and all the other leagues he had formed. 
 Nay, they even did more than this, for they ac- 
 knowledged and recognised a throne which was 
 not yet erected, but which was going to be erected 
 —they recognised that scapegrace, his Imperial 
 Highness Prince Jerome Bonaparte, as King of 
 Westphalia, which kingdom, it was declared, “‘ shall 
 consist of the provinces ceded by the King of Prus- 
 sia on the left bank of the Elbe, and of other states 
 at present in the possession of his majesty the Em- 
 peror Napoleon.” In return, and expressly out of 
 deference to the Emperor Alexander, it was agreed 
 that his relatives or connexions, the Dukes of 
 Saxe-Cobourg, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 
 should be restored to the complete and quiet pos- 
 session of their states; but still, only upon con- 
 dition that their seaports should remain in the 
 possession of French garrisons till a definitive treaty 
 should be signed between France and England. 
 Throughout both treaties the means of giving ef- 
 fect to the Berlin decree, and of totally excluding 
 the commerce of England from the continent, were 
 kept steadily and constantly in view. 
 
 Loud were the lamentations raised by the Polish 
 patriots and dupes, who had kept on dreaming 
 about the reconstruction of their once great nation 
 under a native prince and a free and happy con- 
 stitution. In order not to rouse Austria, the part 
 of Poland she had obtained in the partitions was 
 left to her undisturbed possession; the portion of 
 Russia was increased ; and the portion of Prussia, 
 as we have seen, was handed over to the King of 
 Saxony, Now a mere satrap of Bonaparte. A thing 
 called a constitution was indeed given to the grand 
 duchy of Warsaw ; but it was so framed as to give 
 no umbrage to the despotic governments of Aus- 
 tria and Russia, to excite little or no envy or long- 
 ing in the Poles who remained under the dominion 
 of those two absolute crowns; and, as it was con- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 395 
 
 cocted by Bonaparte himself, it may be conceived 
 that it was a dwarfish unhealthy plant, never likely 
 to grow into a system of free and permanent insti- 
 tutions. The little good this constitution conferred 
 was paid for at a terrible price, and it was soon 
 found that the civil government of the King of 
 Saxony could oppose no limits to the military go- 
 vernment of Bonaparte: the Poles of the grand 
 duchy of Warsaw were oppressed with taxes and 
 imposts, which were really ordered at Paris, or 
 wherever the French emperor’s head-quarters 
 might be; their sons were seized by the con- 
 scription, and hurried away to fight the battles of 
 Bonaparte, and to perish in Portugal and Spain; 
 their landed property was in many instances seized 
 by the fiscal and sold to the highest bidder, in 
 order to pay the excessive taxes; the cld habits 
 and customs of the country, which even the des- 
 potism of Prussia had respected, were rudely and 
 wantonly violated; and, added to all these woes, 
 the Poles of the grand duchy of Warsaw had the 
 dismal certainty that, whenever war should break 
 out again between France and Russia, or between 
 France and Austria, their country would neces- 
 sarily become the theatre of that war. Neverthe- 
 less the Polish officers who were gathering fame 
 (such as it was) by following the French eagles, 
 and who were getting crosses and ribands to tie 
 to their button-holes, and plenty of money to 
 spend, professed great gratitude for the creation 
 of the Warsaw duchy, and believed, or affected to 
 believe, that at some not very distant day Bona- 
 parte would keep all his promises, reconstructing 
 Poland, and making it again the great power of 
 the North. 
 
 The Turks had at least as much reason as the 
 Poles to complain of the treaty of Tilsit: they had 
 been tempted and dragged into the war by the 
 most solemn promises that Moldavia and Wal- 
 lachia, with all their territories on the left bank 
 of the Danube, should be secured to them, and by 
 the fond hope of re-obtaining, through the assist- 
 ance of French arms and French negotiations, the 
 whole of Bessarabia and of the Crimea, of all that 
 the Russians had taken from them since the be- 
 ginning of the reign of Peter the Great; but now 
 all that they got was a temporary suspension of 
 hostilities, with the withdrawal of the Russian 
 troops from the provinces of Moldavia and Wal- 
 lachia, which provinces, however, were not to be 
 occupied by the troops of the sultan till after the 
 exchange of the ratifications of a future definitive 
 treaty of peace between Russia and the Ottoman 
 Porte ; and within fifteen months after the date 
 of the treaty of Tilsit we shall find Bonaparte 
 allowing and encouraging the Emperor Alexander 
 to overrun and keep even Wallachia and Moldavia. 
 He said to Alexander, “I lay no stress on the 
 evacuation of Wallachia and Moldavia by your 
 troops; you may protract it if you wish. It is 
 impossible any longer to endure the presence of 
 the Turks in Europe ; you are at liberty to drive 
 them back into Asia; but observe one thing,—Con- 
 
396 
 
 Stantinople must not fall into the hands of any 
 European power.”” This was said even at Tilsit ; 
 and, although the compacts were not committed to 
 writing—were not inserted even in the most secret 
 clauses of the secret treaty—it is rather more than 
 suspected that Alexander was dazzled and excited 
 by the picture, drawn by Bonaparte, of Kurope as 
 divided into two great empires, the empire of the 
 east to be under the sceptre of the czar, and that 
 of the west to be ruled by Napoleon; that in the 
 intoxication of his vanity Alexander complacently 
 listened to, and for a moment entertained, the pro- 
 ject which was to destroy for ever the independ- 
 ence of all minor states and the power of all go- 
 vernments except those of Petersburg and Paris ; 
 and that in the course of their private conferences 
 by night at Tilsit the French emperor did not 
 hesitate to open to the czar his designs against 
 Spain and Portugal. His account indeed is only 
 to be taken cum grano; but Bonaparte subse- 
 quently declared on several occasions that Alex- 
 ander gave him his word of honour that he would 
 throw no obstacle in the way of his Spanish 
 project. 
 
 When it was far too late, Mr. Canning dis- 
 patched Lord Leveson Gower to reconcile the irri- 
 tated czar, and bring him back to that close alli- 
 ance with England which had been broken by 
 English folly, faction, slowness, and want of timely 
 liberality. Alexander would not even grant an 
 audience to the noble envoy; and his lordship 
 returned to England with the painful convictions 
 that Russia had taken her part, that she had 
 entered very deeply into the projects of France, 
 and that she had agreed to place at the temporary 
 disposal of Bonaparte her own fleet of nineteen or 
 twenty sail of the line, and to allow him to obtain, 
 by fair means or by foul, the fleet of Denmark 
 and the eleven or twelve sail of the line which be- 
 longed to Sweden. When the news of our attack 
 on Copenhagen and our seizure of the Danish fleet 
 reached him, Alexander joined chorus in the out- 
 cry that was raised by France; but, whether it 
 was that he had already recovered from some of 
 his temporary illusions, and from the spell which 
 the Emperor of the West had thrown over him, 
 or whether it was but a proof of habitual Russian 
 duplicity, Alexander is said to have expressed to a 
 distinguished British officer (Sir Robert Wilson) his 
 very great joy at the bold and decisive step which 
 the British government had taken.* 
 
 * Hardenberg, the Prussian minister, says:—‘‘ The capture of the 
 Danish fleet was not the cause, but the pretert, of the rupture of 
 Russia with England. The cabinet of Petersburg was not sorry at so 
 fair an opportunity for getting quit of all restraints upon its meditated 
 hostilities in the north; and, notwithstanding all its loud declama- 
 tions against the Copenhagen expedition, it beheld with more satis- 
 faction the success of England in that quarter than it would have 
 done the junction of the Danish fleet with the navy of the French 
 emperor.’’ General Jomini, the most scientific, and in all other mat- 
 ters one of the best informed, of all Bonaparte’s biographers, has not 
 the shadow of a doubt as to Bonaparte’s intention of gaining pos- 
 session of the fleet of Denmark, in common with the fleets of all 
 Europe. He deliberately lays down and expounds the system which 
 was to be adopted, and the use which was to be made of this vast 
 aggregate naval force. Speaking in the person of Bonaparte, Jomini 
 says, ‘* After Russia joined my alliance, Prussia, as a matter of course, 
 followed her example; Portugal, Sweden, and the pope alone required 
 to be gained over, for we were well aware that Denmark would 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 A a ¥ 
 
 Almost entirely abandoned by England, who 
 had brought down the 8000 men landed in the 
 isle of Rugen, to assist in the Copenhagen enter- 
 prise, and threatened with immediate hostility by 
 her late ally and nearest neighbour, Russia, the 
 poor kingdom of Sweden was left in a most 
 perilous situation. Even after the peace of Tilsit 
 the enthusiastic Swedish monarch kept his ground 
 at Stralsund, and issued spirited addresses to the 
 great Germanic family, calling upon them, in 
 God’s name, to shake off their ignominious bond- 
 age. Marshal Brune was sent against him with a 
 mixed army of Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Bavarians, 
 and other un-German Germans. A terrible battle 
 was fought in Pomerania, about eight miles from 
 Stralsund: the French, or rather their allies, were 
 beaten to pieces; a Dutch regiment was cut up, 
 a Bavarian regiment destroyed by a masked bat- 
 tery; the days of Gustavus Adolphus and of 
 Charles XII. seemed to be returned: but, alas! 
 Brune was reinforced from different nations or 
 countries until his army amounted to 70,000 men, 
 while the King of Sweden, who could no longer 
 draw a man or a musket from his own dominions, 
 and who had now little reason to hope for any 
 proper succour from England, saw his small army 
 dwindle down to eight or ten thousand men. On 
 the 19th of August, seeing that the population of 
 the town was disaffected, or not at all disposed to 
 brave the hazards of a siege, he evacuated Stral- 
 sund, destroying his magazines, spiking his can- 
 non, and smashing their carriages and throwing 
 them into the ditches. Early on the 20th he and 
 his troops were safely landed on the island of 
 Rugen, where various fortifications and field-works 
 were erected. His majesty soon crossed the Baltic 
 to Stockholm. Almost as soon as he was gone the 
 troops he left in Rugen discovered that the island 
 was not tenable; and early in the month of Sep- 
 tember they capitulated to the French general, 
 who obtained easy possession of all the other 
 Baltic islands on the German coast. The crown 
 of Gustavus was by this time in jeopardy: he had 
 been steady and faithful to the coalition into which 
 England had drawn him, and his reward was to 
 be dethronement and the expulsion of his dynasty. 
 
 In the meanwhile Bonaparte, after more than a 
 ten months’ absence, had returned to Paris. He 
 
 hasten to throw herself into our arms. If England refused the me- 
 diation of Russia, all the maritime forces of the continent were to be 
 employed against her, and the continent could muster 180 sail of the 
 line. Ina few years this force could be raised to 250 sail of the line. 
 With the aid of such a fleet, and with my immense flotilla, it was by 
 no means impossible to carry a European army to London. One hun- 
 dred ships of the line employed against the British colonies in the 
 two hemispheres would have drawn away from home a large portion 
 ot the British navy ; and then eighty more ships of the line assembled 
 in the Channel would have sufficed to assure the passage of the flotilla, 
 and avenge the outraged rights of nations. Such was at bottom my 
 plan, which only failed of success from the faults committed by my 
 generals in the Spanish war.’ In the calculation to make ap this 
 180 sail of the line there were several false numbers, and other ships 
 were counted upon, besides those of Denmark, which he never got into 
 his power. The French ships of the line were set down at sixty, the 
 Spanish at forty, the Portuguese at ten, &c. France had not sixty ships 
 of the line left; Spain had certainly not forty that were seaworthy; 
 and both the Spanish and Portuguese fleets escaped his grasp, and 
 rallied under the flag of England. 
 
 Bignon, another of Bonaparte’s well-informed biographers, is 
 equally clear as to his fixed intention of getting possession of the 
 Danish fleet and of the fleets of all Europe. 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 arrived at his capital on the 9th of July. Having | 
 
 stripped the Elector of Hesse-Cassel of his domi- 
 nions, because he had not joined him in the war 
 against Prussia, and having despoiled the Duke 
 of Brunswick of his dominions, because his father 
 had joined Prussia against the French, the con- 
 queror created out of these and other countries and 
 districts, including the greater part of Hanover, 
 the so-called kingdom of Westphalia, whose ex- 
 istence had already been recognised in the treaties 
 of Tilsit, both by Russia and by Prussia; and on 
 the 18th of August he gave investiture to his bro- 
 ther Jerome, who took up his residence at Cassel, 
 and began to establish such a government and 
 court as the world had never before seen. He 
 could now proclaim to his submissive and ap- 
 plauding senate and corps léeqislatif, that France 
 had only four avowed enemies, Sweden, Portugal, 
 Sicily, and England. By an iniquitous compact 
 with Spain, who in every possible way was pre- 
 paring her own utter ruin, he confidently calcu- 
 Jated on obtaining undisturbed possession of Por- 
 tugal. While he was making Europe ring with 
 his maledictions against England for violating the 
 neutrality of Denmark, he was devising schemes 
 and giving positive orders for fallmg upon Portugal 
 in a time of peace. The only justification he at- 
 tempted for this assault on a weak neutral state 
 was that the Prince Regent of Portugal had re- 
 fused to enforce the Berlin decree against Eng- 
 land, and that the court of Lisbon was so entirely 
 devoted to that of St. James’s that to attack Por- 
 tugal was much the same thing as to attack 
 England or one of her colonies. By a treaty 
 concluded at Fontainebleau on the 27th of October 
 between France and Spain, it was agreed—1. That 
 Spain should grant a free passage through her ter- 
 ritory, and supply with provisions, a French army 
 appointed to invade Portugal; and that she should 
 also furnish a body of Spanish troops to co-operate 
 with the said invading French army. 2. That as 
 soon as the conquest should be finished, the pro- 
 vinces which now composed the kingdom of Por- 
 tugal should be divided between the King of 
 Etruria, the King of Spain’s grandson, and Manuel 
 Godoy, the Queen of Spain’s infamous favourite: 
 the province of Intra Douro e Minho, with the 
 city of Oporto, was to be given in full property 
 and sovereignty to the King of Etruria, and to be 
 erected into a kingdom under the name of North- 
 ern Lusitania ; and the sovereignty of the Algarves 
 and Alentejo was to be given to Manuel Godoy, 
 the Prince of the Peace, who was thenceforward 
 to assume the title of Sovereign Prince of the 
 Algarves. These two principalities were to ac- 
 knowledge the King of Spain as their protector. 
 But France was to guard and keep until the period 
 of a general peace the city of Lisbon and the pro- 
 vinces of Tras-os-Montes, Beira, and Estremadura. 
 In consideration of obtaining this new kingdom in 
 Portugal, this miniature kingdom of Northern 
 Lusitania, the Queen of Etruria, acting as reyent for 
 the king, her son, who wasa minor, was to abdicate 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1807. 
 
 397 
 
 and place in the hands of the Emperor Napoleon the 
 districts in Italy which it had pleased the conqueror 
 to erect for a brief space of time into the kingdom 
 of Etruria, for the benefit of that branch of the 
 family of the Spanish Bourbons. The most im- 
 portant part of this treaty was put into execution 
 nine days before the treaty itself was signed at 
 Fontainebleau; for on the 18th of October a 
 French army of 30,000 men, commanded by 
 Junot, had crossed the Bidasoa, and commenced 
 its march through Spain for the Portuguese fron- 
 tier. It was already believed by those who best 
 understood his policy, that this conquest of Portu- 
 gal, in conjunction with Spain, was only a pretext 
 for introducing a French army into the heart of 
 Spain, and for getting possession of an important 
 line of operation ; and, if the folly of the Spanish 
 court had not been co-extensive with its want of 
 principle, it must have foreseen the inevitable con- 
 sequences of the villainous treaty of Fontainebleau. 
 On the approach of the thunder-storm the Portu- 
 guese Prince Regent offered to submit to the will of 
 France, and even proceeded to confiscate all English 
 property and to close his ports to our flag; but 
 Bonaparte proclaimed in his Moniteur that the 
 house of Braganza had ceased to reign in Europe. 
 Junot, with his 30,000 men, and some Spanish 
 auxiliaries, penetrated into Portugal, and entered 
 Lisbon without opposition on the 30th of Novem- 
 ber, the prince regent and his court, and an im- 
 mense number of the Portuguese nobility, having 
 on the preceding day embarked for Brazil in the 
 Portuguese fleet of eight sail of the line, four fri- 
 gates, three corvettes, a schooner, and twenty large 
 armed merchant-ships, crammed with goods and 
 passengers, which for greater security were accom- 
 panied a part of the voyage by a strong British 
 squadron under the command of Admiral Sir Sid- 
 ney Smith, and the rest of the way, as far as Rio 
 Janeiro, by four ships of the line under the com- 
 mand of Captain Graham Moore. In all, about 
 18,000 Portuguese thus abandoned their homes 
 and their country. Before the fleet got well out 
 of the Tagus the French were seen crowning the 
 heights behind Lisbon. Sir Sidney Smith re- 
 turned to blockade the Tagus, in which was now 
 lying in a very helpless and embarrassing situation 
 our late friend Vice-Admiral Siniavin, with the 
 Russian squadron, which had not been able to get 
 into the Baltic in time. Junot, who had formerly 
 been Bonaparte’s ambassador to the court of Lis- 
 bon—haying been sent there to make money, and 
 if possible a party, and to obtain all the informa- 
 tion necessary for the military occupation of the 
 kingdom—immediately disarmed the inhabitants 
 of Lisbon, and began to levy contributions, and to 
 treat the country as a conquest of France. The 
 
 Spanish auxiliaries of the French augmented by 
 their insolence and rapacity the fury of the Portu- 
 guese people, who everywhere cherished the inten- 
 tion of rising upon the invaders, and looked to 
 their old ally, England, whose flag was never out 
 of sight on the coasts, for succour and assistance in 
 
398 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book x. 
 
 . 
 
 money, arms, and troops. And, while Spanish 
 troops were co-operating in this work of spoliation 
 and iniquity in Portugal, the Spanish court and 
 royal family broke furiously out into unnatural 
 quarrels which threatened a civil and family war, 
 and which, by exposing the weakness and profligacy 
 of the government, offered to Bonaparte temptations 
 difficult to be withstood even by a less grasping 
 and more conscientious ruler. 
 
 On the 16th of November, Bonaparte quitted 
 Paris to visit Milan and Venice. He had many 
 objects in this journey to his Italian kingdom ; but 
 he particularly aimed at the completion of his so- 
 called continental system, determining to close 
 every port in Italy to the English flag, and hoping 
 to induce Austria by fear and by negotiation to 
 enter into the league against the commerce of 
 Great Britain. On the 17th of December, being 
 at Milan, he issued his celebrated Milan decree, 
 declaring all merchant vessels, of whatsoever nation, 
 which should submit to the British orders in coun- 
 cil to be lawful prizes to the French. Forthwith a 
 number of merchant vessels belonging to the United 
 States of America were seized and confiscated in 
 the ports of Italy, in the ports of France, and in 
 the other harbours of Europe which the French 
 occupied, upon the ground that they had submitted 
 to the British orders in council, and by so doing 
 had infringed the law of nations, and injured the 
 interests of the whole civilised world. This step 
 might seem to have been calculated to draw imme- 
 diately down upon him a declaration of war from 
 the American republic; but he was tolerably well 
 acquainted with the strong French sympathies and 
 the strong English antipathies of that people, and 
 he hoped from the first to make his Milan decree, 
 and his seizures and confiscations of American pro- 
 perty, the means of driving the United States into 
 a war against England. 
 
 Having summoned the queen-regent of Etruria 
 and her infant son into his presence, he signified to 
 her that she must instantly resign Tuscany, or the 
 kingdom of,» Etruria, for that new kingdom of 
 Northern Lusitania which had been carved out of 
 Portugal by the treaty of Fontainebleau. Although 
 this Spanish princess appears to have foreseen that 
 her son would never get those dominions in Por- 
 tugal, she could offer no resistance, and could ven- 
 ture on no remonstrance against the absolute will 
 of this maker and unmaker of kings. Forthwith 
 Tuscany, with all its ports, was occupied by French 
 troops; and in the month of June following the 
 country was formally annexed, not to the kingdom 
 of Italy, which Bonaparte pretended to be building 
 up with a view to the unity of that fair peninsula, 
 but to the French empire, of which it was made to 
 form three new departments. There now remained 
 in all Italy only the seaports of the Roman states, 
 on the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, open to the 
 British flag; and these he determined to close 
 immediately. French troops were sent to occup 
 Civita Vecchia, and guard the mouth of the Tiber; 
 and on the Adriatic side a strong garrison was 
 
 Sam a eat nO 
 
 thrown into Ancona. The poor pope appealed in 
 vain to the rights of neutrality, to the rights of 
 nations, to the more sacred laws which had sup- 
 ported in former times the heritage of St. Peter. 
 Not satisfied with seizing his cities, fortresses, and 
 harbours, Bonaparte insisted on the pope declaring 
 war against England. Pius VII. replied that he 
 was a sovereign of peace, and that he could not 
 declare war against any Christian power. Bona- 
 parte said that, as the lawful successor of Charle- 
 magne, he was Emperor of the West, King of Italy, 
 and suzerain of the pope; that the English were 
 heretics, and therefore enemies of the holy see ; 
 that the donation of territory made by Charle- 
 magne to the church had been made expressly for 
 the defence of the Holy Church against its enemies ; 
 and that, if the pope did not comply with his wishes, 
 he, as the successor of Charlemagne, and as having 
 both the right and the power so to do, would resume 
 the donation which that Emperor of the West had 
 made. Pius told the conqueror that, although he 
 feared it might prejudice the interests of the Irish 
 and the other Catholic subjects of his Britannic 
 majesty, he would close his ports against the ships 
 and trade of England, if that would satisfy him. 
 No! said Bonaparte, who had made up his mind 
 to seize all the Roman territory, and who merely 
 wanted a pretext, No! you must declare war against 
 the English, you must contract with me an alliance 
 offensive and defensive, my enemies must be your 
 enemies, and my friends, and none other, your 
 friends! Can you presume to resist the Emperor 
 of the West and your suzerain? And before re- 
 crossing the Alps he sent orders to General Miollis, 
 who was commanding the French forces in Tuscany, 
 to get ready to march into the territories of the 
 Church. In the month of February, 1808, Miollis 
 entered Rome, occupied the castle of St. Angelo, 
 took the papal troops under his own command, 
 and began to govern the country as a conqueror, 
 Miollis’s arrival in the Eternal City was preceded 
 by the lying and treacherous declaration that he 
 was going to reinforce King Joseph Bonaparte in 
 Naples, and that his intention was merely to pass 
 through Rome with his 6000 men; and Alquier, 
 the French ambassador, solemnly confirmed the lie 
 of the French general. The poor pope shut him- 
 self up in the Quirinal palace, which the French 
 surrounded with their artillery in order to terrify 
 him into an entire submission. All the cardinals 
 that were natives of the Neapolitan kingdom were 
 called upon, in the name of Joseph Bonaparte, their 
 legitimate sovereign, to quit Rome and the pope 
 within twenty-four hours, and to return to Naples; 
 and all the cardinals that were natives of Upper 
 Italy, or of any of the provinces or states now 
 included in the so-called kingdom of Italy, were 
 called upon in the name of King Napoleon to take 
 their departure in the same manner, and repair to 
 their several homes. These princes of the church 
 were all told that if they did not go willingly they 
 would be forced to go by the French soldiery, and 
 to travel like felons under the escort of gendarmes. 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 More French troops were brought from Tuscany 
 and from Lombardy into the papal states ; and on 
 the 2nd of April, 1808, Bonaparte, by one of his 
 sweeping decrees, annexed the Marches, or Adriatic 
 provinces of the pope, to his kingdom of Italy. 
 The magistrates and ecclesiastics of those provinces, 
 being called upon to take the oath of fidelity to 
 their lawful sovereign, Napoleon, King of Italy, 
 refused almost to a man; and this led to midnight 
 arrests, to sudden transportations to state prisons 
 and fortresses in the Apennines and Alps, and, in 
 the rude regions of Dalmatia, to popular discontents 
 and insurrections, to military tribunals and blood- 
 shed. This was but an ungrateful return for the 
 services and condescension of Pius VII. in the 
 matters of the concordat and coronation: he could 
 scarcely have been worse used if he had refused— 
 as his conscience disposed him to do—to gratify 
 Bonaparte in those essential particulars, for essential 
 the conqueror had considered them at the time. 
 Even though the mouths of Miollis’s cannon were 
 pointed at his dwelling, the pope put forth a solemn 
 and spirited protest, reproaching his oppressor with 
 ingratitude, falsehood, and treachery, and pro- 
 phesying that a dominion founded on such injustice 
 was not calculated to endure.* 
 
 A.D. 1808. The British parliament was opened 
 on January 3lst by commission. The speech de- 
 livered for the king dwelt at great length upon 
 foreign affairs, and mentioned nearly every country 
 in Europe as in a state of hostility to England. 
 Some light was thrown upon the system conceived 
 by Bonaparte for uniting all the navies of Europe 
 against us. It was shown how he had counted 
 upon obtaining the fleet of Portugal, as well as the 
 fleet of Denmark. Regret was expressed that in 
 the case of Denmark we had been compelled to 
 resort to force. ‘The now hostile conduct of Russia 
 was attributed to the military successes and poli- 
 tical machinations of France. Allusion was for the 
 first time made to our serious differences with the 
 United States of America; and the determination 
 was announced of never yielding to pretensions 
 inconsistent with the maritime rights of Great 
 Britain. Parliament was informed that the order 
 in council, with which we had retaliated for Bona- 
 parte’s Berlin decree, must be followed up by other 
 measures of greater rigour, which would require par- 
 liamentary aid to give them full effect. The increased 
 produce of the taxes and duties, in spite of the war 
 and the Berlin and Milan decrees, was dwelt upon 
 as @ proper subject of congratulation. The speech 
 concluded with asserting that the sole object of the 
 war was the attainment of a secure and honourable 
 peace, which could cnly be negotiated upon a foot- 
 ing of perfect equality ; that never was there a war 
 more just and national than the present ; that the 
 eyes of Europe and the world were now fixed upon 
 the British parliament ; that his majesty confidently 
 trusted that they would display, in this crisis of the 
 fate of the country, the characteristic spirit of the 
 British nation, and face unappalled the unnatural 
 
 * Carlo Botta, Storia d’Italia. 
 
 ooo 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 399 
 
 combination which had gathered around us; and 
 that his majesty was firmly persuaded that, under 
 the blessing of Providence, the struggle would 
 ultimately prove successful’ and glorious to Great 
 Britain. In both Houses the addresses were car- 
 ried without a division. 
 
 The opposition lost no time in reprobating the 
 attack on Copenhagen; but we have already said 
 enough on that subject, and need only mention 
 that in ali their motions the anti-ministerial party 
 were out-voted by immense majorities. 
 
 On the 5th of February the chancellor of the 
 exchequer (Spencer Perceval) moved that the 
 orders in council should be referred to the com- 
 mittee of ways and means. The opposition imme- 
 diately declared that we ought not to attempt to 
 retaliate by any such measures; that the orders in 
 council, unjust in themselves, would do us much 
 more mischief than the Berlin and Milan decrees; 
 that those orders were as contrary to justice as to 
 policy ; that they went to violate both the law of 
 nations and the municipal law of England. On 
 the other side it was maintained by ministers that 
 we had a complete right of retaliating upon the 
 enemy his own measures; that, if he declared we 
 should have no trade, we had a right to declare that 
 he should have none; and that, if he proclaimed 
 British manufactures and colonial produce good 
 prize, we had a right to do the same with respect 
 to France. They also insisted that, if neutrals 
 acquiesced in restrictions imposed by one bellige- 
 rent, the other belligerent was warranted in consi- 
 dering such neutrals asa party to those restrictions. 
 This vexed question will occur again, and call for 
 more particular notice in the account of our dif- 
 ferences with the United States, for it agitated par- 
 liament and the country for years, and eventually 
 became one of the great causes of the hostility of 
 the trans-Atlantic republic. Lord Grenville even 
 now declared that these orders in council, that these 
 restrictions put upon the trade of neutrals, would 
 involve us in awar with America; and that France 
 had assured America she would never put her 
 Berlin and Milan decrees in force against American 
 ships. France, said his lordship, without a navy, 
 has not the means of putting in force her own 
 decrees ; it is England that is now lending France 
 the aid of the British navy to give the Berlin and 
 Milan decrees full effect, and thereby, at one and 
 the same time, to annoy and distress British com- 
 merce, and ruin the trade of neutrals. A bill 
 brought in by the chancellor of the exchequer for 
 regulating the orders in council as they affected 
 neutrals was carried through both Houses, and by 
 great majorities, before the end of March. It 
 was followed by a Bill for regulating commercial 
 intercourse with the United States, which was in- 
 tended to give time for making some amicable 
 arrangement with the Americans, continuing in 
 the meanwhile another act without which trade 
 could not have been carried on with England in 
 American vessels. 
 
 In opening the budget for the year, Spencer Per- 
 
400 
 
 ceval stated the amount of the supplies at about 
 43,000,000/. for England and 5,700,000/. for 
 Ireland, and the produce of the war taxes at 
 20,000,000. Among the ways and means were a 
 loan of 8,000,000/., and additional taxes to the 
 amount of more than 300,000/. The events 
 rapidly passing in Spain, the occupation of Portu- 
 gal, the threatened invasion.of Sicily, which was 
 only preserved from the grasp of the French by 
 the presence of British forces, the obligation of 
 succouring the King of Sweden, who had been 
 brought to the brink of ruin by our alliance, all 
 called for an increase to the number of soldiers and 
 sailors. The number of seamen voted for the 
 service of the year was 130,000. In the army 
 the regular infantry establishment, which in 1807 
 had been 109,000, was raised to 132,000. The 
 whole establishment of the army was stated by the 
 secretary-at-war, Lord Castlereagh, at not less than 
 300,000 men. All the corps were represented as 
 being far more complete than they had been when 
 the late ministry quitted office. ‘The militia, too, 
 was nearer to its establishment than it had been 
 last year, notwithstanding that 24,000 men had 
 been drafted from it into the regular army. The 
 volunteer corps were nearly in the same state as last 
 year. The foreign corps in our pay were some- 
 what increased by an addition made to the German 
 legion. On the motion of Lord Castlereagh a bill 
 was introduced for establishing a local militia of 
 200,000 men, to meet and be trained for twenty- 
 eight days every year. The bill was passed into a 
 law, and its principle was extended to Scotland. 
 Lord Castlereagh also moved for the insertion of a 
 clause in the Mutiny Bill, to permit soldiers to enlist 
 for life, and this was carried in spite of the strong 
 opposition of Windham, whose system it seriously 
 affected. Early in the session Mr. Bankes repro- 
 duced his bill for preventing the grant of offices in 
 reversion, or for joint lives with benefit of survivor- 
 ship. It passed the Commons, but was rejected by 
 the Lords. Mr. Bankes then brought forward a 
 new bill, limited to one year’s duration, which was 
 allowed to pass into a law. 
 
 In the course of the session there was a vehement 
 debate on the state of Ireland. The late ministers 
 and their friends attributed the disaffection and the 
 disorder again prevailing in that country to the 
 illiberal coercive policy of the present cabinet ; and 
 went to some scarcely justifiable lengths in the way 
 of sinister prophecy. In debating a different ques- 
 tion Lord Hawkesbury said, that ministers and the 
 country had at least one obligation to the disaffected 
 in Ireland. Ministers had learned that there were 
 secret engagements in the treaty of Tilsit; that the 
 view of the parties was to confederate all the powers 
 of Europe, and particularly to engage or seize on 
 the fleets of Denmark and Portugal—they had 
 heard this from their public ministers then abroad 
 —they had heard it from their faithful ally Portugal 
 —they had also received information of the hostile 
 intentions of Denmark, from a quarter to which 
 they had often been indebted for the first knowledge 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 “a pee eb,’ 
 4 . - 
 
 { Boox re 
 
 ‘of the designs of Bonaparte, 2. e. from, or rather 
 through, the disaffected in Ireland !—they had 
 learned that Ireland was to be attacked from two 
 points, from Lisbon and from Copenhagen; and 
 ‘they had never found the information of these 
 | parties, however they came by it, false. 
 
 | Colonel Stanley presented a petition from certain 
 distressed inhabitants of Great and Little Bolton, 
 in the county of Lancaster, praying that no oppor- 
 tunity for the negotiation of a peace should be let 
 slip. But these honest cotton-spinners declared 
 that their petition did not spring from any dread 
 of the enemy, and that if the ambition of the enemy 
 should lead him to insist upon demands incompa- 
 tible with an honourable peace, the petitioners 
 would, with one heart, suffer much greater privya- 
 
 tions, rather than see the security and honour of 
 their country compromised. The petition was or- 
 dered to lie on the table. Whitbread, after a call 
 for papers and a review of the information they 
 contained, moved three resolutions, condemning the 
 ministry for having refused the mediation of the 
 Emperor of Russia, and that of the Emperor of 
 Austria, and affirming that there was nothing in 
 the present circumstances of the war that ought to 
 preclude his majesty from acceding to or com- 
 mencing a negotiation with the enemy. These 
 resolutions were negatived, by a majority of about 
 three to one. 
 
 The charges against the Indian administration 
 of the Marquess Wellesley were fully disposed of 
 during this session. The marquess’s best defender 
 was Sir John Anstruther, who had occupied for 
 many years a high judicial situation in Bengal. 
 Sir John entered fully into the whole history of his 
 Indian government, showing that the conduct of 
 Lord Wellesley was in perfect conformity to the 
 wishes, intentions, and interests of his employers ; 
 and that the security of Bengal had imperiously 
 demanded the energetic measures and the bold line 
 of policy he had pursued. Sir John Anstruther’s 
 motion, that the noble marquess had been actuated 
 by an ardent zeal for the service of his country, 
 and by an ardent desire to promote the safety, in- 
 terests, and prosperity of the British empire in 
 India, was carried by 189 against 29. Some con- 
 trary resolutions moved by Sir Thomas Turton were 
 negatived by equally large majorities. General Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley, who, in 1806, had ably defended 
 the administration of his brother, with which his 
 own conduct in India was necessarily mixed up, 
 was not in the House during these debates, the 
 most important result of which was that the road 
 was left open to the general’s promotion, and to his 
 employment, under favourable auspices, just at the 
 critical moment in which we were to begin the 
 glorious campaigns in the Spanish peninsula. 
 Everybody knew that the admirable management 
 of the Copenhagen expedition had been mainly 
 owing to Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had had (what 
 few British officers except those who had served in 
 India could possibly have had) the handling and 
 managing of large armies in actual warfare, and on 
 
“Pe oe atic 
 
 Cuap. VIII. | 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 401 
 
 an extensive ficld. In communicating the thanks | hope of resistance to the might and will of Bona- 
 
 of parliament for his services in the Copenhagen 
 expedition, the speaker of the House of Commons 
 neither forgot his Indian exploits, nor failed to point 
 him out, by implication, as the officer best fitted 
 to command in chief a great expedition.* Thus 
 we may be said at least to have gained General 
 Wellesley, when most we wanted hin, by the late 
 change of government. If the “ talents”’ had 
 remained in office, we probably should have had 
 no opportunity of admiring the matured military 
 genius of this greatest of modern captains, as dis- 
 played in Spain and Portugal. It is possible even 
 that an impeachment might have been carried 
 against his brother, and that he himself might have 
 been made participant in that disgrace or ruin. 
 But if this had not happened, and if his merits 
 and popularity with the army had forced him into 
 high employment against the will of an unfriendly 
 ministry, his genius might have been rebuked, and 
 his best schemes defeated by that political unfriend- 
 liness. Besides, any exclusion of his elder brother 
 the marquess from office and power might in many 
 instances have been a check and an injury to the 
 general in the field. 
 
 Parliament was prorogued by commission on 
 the 4th of July. The greater part of the speech 
 delivered by the lord chancellor turned upon the 
 Spanish nation, which had already risen against 
 the tyranny and usurpation of France, and which 
 was therefore no longer to be considered as the 
 enemy, but as the ally of Great Britain. 
 
 The blindness, the imbecility, the mad intestine 
 rage of the Spanish court, end of the factions that 
 directed or distracted its councils, continued down 
 to the last moment, and were the means of allow- 
 ing Bonaparte to secure not only the command of 
 the principal roads of the country, but the posses- 
 sion of some of its best and strongest fortresses, 
 before he threw off the mask, and told the Bourbon 
 dynasty, as he had told the house of Braganza, that 
 it had ceased to reign. After the passage of Junot 
 into Portugal, other French divisions had entered 
 Spain, as friends, and had seized by stratagem St. 
 Sebastian, Pamplona, and Barcelona. These move- 
 ments, which were not justified by the treaty of 
 Fontainebleau, astonished and terrified Godoy ; 
 but that favourite of royalty, who had equal influ- 
 ence over the queen, whose paramour he was, and 
 over the king, whom he dishonoured, had, been for 
 some time engaged in mortal strife with Prince 
 Ferdinand, the heir to the crown, and dreaded much 
 more the vengeance of the prince than the occupa- 
 tion of the country by the French ; and seeing no 
 
 * In February, Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley being in his 
 place in the House, the Speaker having returned the thanks to other 
 general officers, members of the House, for their conduct at Copen- 
 hagen, thus addressed Sir Arthur: ‘“ But I should indeed be want- 
 ing to the full expression of those sentiments which animate this 
 House and the whole country, if I forbore to notice that we are 
 on this day crowning with our thanks one gallant officer, long since 
 known to the gratitude of this House, who has long trodden in the 
 paths of glory, whose genius and valour have already extended our 
 fame and empire, whose sword has been the terror of our distant 
 enemies, and will not now be drawn in vain to defend the seat of 
 empire itself, and the throne of his king.” 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 parte, except through an appeal to the nation at 
 large, with whom Ferdinand was popular and him- 
 self odious to the last degree, and hoping that a 
 ready compliance and submission would secure him 
 the all-potent protection of the conqueror, Godoy 
 
 _ removed the few Spanish troops that were near the 
 
 frontiers, and ordered the commanders of fortresses 
 to open their gates and receive the French as friends 
 and allies. It is said that this minion of fortune 
 was at the same time assured by a secret agent, a 
 Spaniard in the pay of France, that although the 
 interests of the French empire imperiously re- 
 quired the union and incorporation with itself of all 
 the Spanish provinces situated between the Ebro 
 and the Pyrenees, Bonaparte would make’ ample 
 compensation by giving to his most catholic ma- 
 jesty the whole of Portugal, instead of allotting only 
 a part of that kingdom to a branch of his family, 
 as had been agreed upon in the treaty of Fontaine- 
 bleau. 
 
 Manuel Godoy governed and had governed for 
 many years the queen Maria Luiza; and Charles 
 IV., one of the weakest heads that ever wore a 
 crown, was the slave of his wife. The queen, who 
 had found Godoy a young and handsome man, but 
 in the lowly rank of a simple garde du corps, or 
 life-guardsman, had raised him rapidly to the 
 highest rank in the state. The acquaintance began 
 about the year 1784. Before the minion was 
 twenty-four years old he was made a general officer. 
 Soon afterwards he was created a grandee of Spain, 
 and closely allied to the royal family itself by a 
 marriage with a Bourbon princess, a niece of 
 Charles TV. In 1801 he had been appointed ge- 
 neralissimo of all his catholic majesty’s land forces, 
 and in 1806 he had been made lord high admiral : 
 if not by regular rescript, at least by tacit consent, 
 he had been allowed the right of treating of peace 
 and war. He got his title of Prince of the Peace 
 for negotiating that treaty with France which re- 
 moved Spain from the first grand coalition, but 
 only to subject her to the dictation, the spoliation, 
 and tyranny of France. Though his power had 
 been obtained by foul and nationally dishonouring. 
 means, the early part of Godoy’s administration was 
 not unpopular ; and it may almost be doubted whe- 
 ther the Spaniards, who have been in a state of pe- 
 rennial revolution for nearly forty years, without yet 
 approaching the proper object and term, have ever 
 since enjoyed (bad as it was) so steady or so good 
 a government. But Godoy was unequal to a 
 struggle with the unprecedented difficulties of the 
 times which followed the French revolutionary war 
 and the astounding progress of Bonaparte; and as 
 his weakness betrayed itself, the Spaniards began 
 to think of his vices. The ruin which the Bona- 
 partean alliance had brought down upon the navy, 
 and was rapidly bringing down upon the cvlonies of 
 Spain, the constant drain of money, all running 
 into France and leaving the national exchequer in 
 a beggared condition, had gradually provoked cen- 
 sure and discontent, if not disaffection; and the 
 
 Z 
 
402 
 
 flames of this discontent were fanned by the friends 
 of Ferdinand (who was excluded from all power 
 and influence by the fears and jealousy of Godoy), 
 and bya small but busy republican party, who had 
 studied liberal philosophy and politics in the French 
 revolutionary schools, and who had not yet reco- 
 vered from any of their illusions. Some of these 
 Spanish liberals changed afterwards, when they 
 found that the iron hand of Bonaparte was clutch- 
 ing at the throat and heart of Spain; but some of 
 them continued their admiration and allegiance to 
 the conqueror, who, according to their fond theory, 
 was to regenerate Spain, and then leave her to be 
 governed as a separate and independent kingdom, 
 with liberal institutions; and who, by his conduct 
 in other countries, and by his first essays in their 
 own, gave them the consoling proof that he would 
 at the very least overturn the old proud aristocracy, 
 the church, the wealthy monastic bodies, and the 
 odious Inquisition, which had so often interfered 
 with their political and philosophical speculations, 
 and which had for ages prevented all freedom of 
 opinion or discussion, keeping the Spaniards far in 
 the rear of European civilization. These men 
 would have run any risk for the sake of destroying 
 the power of the priests and monks, and when we 
 add that of the Inguisition, a part and parcel of the 
 priestly power, we can scarcely affect to be asto- 
 nished at their rashness. ‘The misfortune then, as 
 since, is that these ultra-liberals of Spain were and 
 are impatient of any delay, unsusceptible of any 
 regard for the opinions and prejudices of other 
 men, incapable of moderation in the hour of suc- 
 cess and triumph, and animated with an intolerance 
 quite equal to that of the Spanish priests or the 
 French philosophes. The ground may now be 
 broken and prepared for better seed, to be matured 
 at some future period ; but, judging from the pre- 
 sent harvest, we should hesitate ere we decided 
 whether the old monkish superstition were not a 
 better thing than the present rampant atheism and 
 sensual materialism. 
 
 It appears that at a very carly stage of the family 
 quarrel application was made to Bonaparte for his 
 intervention, and that the first application of this 
 sort was made by the heir of the crown, Ferdinand, 
 Prince of Asturias, whose wrath against Godoy was 
 carried to the highest pitch by that favourite’s 
 insisting that he ought to marry the younger sister 
 of his (Godoy’s) own wife. There is no doubt 
 that the circumstances were purely accidental which 
 threw Prince Ferdinand on the patriotic side. B 
 a letter addressed to Bonaparte, and dated the 11th 
 of October, 1807 (just sixteen days before the 
 signing of the treaty of Fontainebleau, wherein the 
 conqueror agreed to give Godoy the sovereign 
 principality of Algarves in Portugal), Ferdinand 
 implored the protection of the Emperor of the 
 
 French, and begged the emperor to choose him a’ 
 
 wife out of the Bonapartean family or connections. 
 This triumph was wanting—to have a prince of 
 the Bourbon line soliciting the honour of a family 
 alliance with him !—but it appears that Bonaparte 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox x 
 
 intended to keep in play this miserable heir to the 
 Spanish throne, who had scarcely more intellect or 
 spirit than the present occupier of it; and that 
 therefore he returned no explicit answer to the 
 matrimonial project. There was, however, very 
 little time allowed for taking any decision, or for 
 continuing this juggle. Ferdinand’s mother and 
 Godoy discovered— very probably through the 
 French ambassador himself—that the prince’s 
 friends had frequent secret interviews with dif- 
 ferent members of the French legation in Madrid, 
 and that Ferdinand himself had written to Bona- 
 parte. Upon these discoveries the person of Fer- 
 dinand was secured, and his papers were seized. 
 Among the papers there was found, or there was 
 said to have been found (for few positive assertions 
 can be made in any part of this dark business), a 
 decree in which Ferdinand took the title of King, 
 and appointed, as prime minister, his friend and 
 adviser the Duke del Infantado. The old king 
 then made a loud and absurd appeal to the justice 
 of Napoleon; and, under the dictation of his wife 
 and Godoy, he wrote a long letter to that virtuous 
 and disinterested umpire, complaining bitterly of 
 the prince his son, and charging him with having 
 formed a conspiracy to dethrone him, and attempt 
 the life of the queen, his own mother. This letter 
 was dated on the 29th of October, 1807; and it is 
 said to have inclosed papers that proved Ferdinand’s 
 guilt and the real existence of the plot. On both 
 sides there was too much animosity and fury, and 
 far too many confidants, to allow the possibility of 
 concealment ; but Charles IV., acting under the 
 same dictation of his wife and minister, madly 
 published a decree announcing to Spain and the 
 whole world that unnatural dissensions raged in the 
 royal family, that he had been obliged to put his 
 son under arrest, and to order his advisers and 
 accomplices to be proceeded against by law as 
 conspirators and traitors. The people of Madrid 
 were expecting a repetition of the tragedy of Philip 
 II. and his son and heir Don Carlos; but Ferdi- 
 nand found means of pacifying his father, or his 
 father and his advisers shrunk from the danger 
 and the scandal which must attend any trial; and 
 in the course of a very few days it was agreed that 
 the king should pardon everybody, provided the 
 prince submitted and repented. A secret junta, 
 composed of eleven persons, was instructed, not to 
 examine evidence, not to try the conspirators, but 
 to declare that they were all innocent, and that there 
 had never been any plot at all. The prince sub- 
 mitted and repented, and blubbered like a whipped 
 school-boy; and so, on the 5th of November, 
 there came out another royal decree, announcing to 
 the world that the king and prince were entirely 
 reconciled, and that there was nothing but love and 
 harmony in the august family, But the Spaniards 
 knew better; and knowing that Ferdinand was 
 more than ever the mortal enemy of Godoy, the 
 minister whom they detested, they took the prince 
 into their especial favour, and reposed in that weak 
 and crazy vessel all their hopes for the security of 
 
Cua. VIII] 
 
 government. f 
 
 It was in the midst of these dissensions that 
 Junot, marching as though he were running a race, 
 first traversed the Spanish provinces, and got into 
 Portugal with his 30,000 men. When Junot was 
 followed across the Bidasoa by other French 
 marshals and generals, the family quarrel broke 
 out again more violently than ever, and at a mo- 
 ment, and attended with circumstances, which 
 indisputably prove the dexterity of French manage- 
 ment. Seeing that, in spite of all his endeavours, 
 the treacherous seizure of their fortresses, and the 
 marching of these successive French divisions into 
 their territory, would drive the Spanish people into 
 a universal insurrection, and judging that in the 
 first outbreak the friends of the prince and the 
 nation at large would call for his head, Godoy 
 advised the king to follow the example of the 
 prince regent of Portugal, and withdraw immedi- 
 ately, with such property as he could convey with 
 him, to the colonies in South America. “The terror 
 of Charles IV. and his wife induced them to assent 
 to this proposition. In order to secure the retreat 
 of the royal family to Cadiz, the place of embarka- 
 tion, some troops were hastily collected in Madrid, 
 and in some of the towns between that capital and 
 the Andalusian coast. The terror of the miserable 
 old king was increased at this moment by the 
 reception of a letter from Bonaparte, who pretended 
 deeply to resent the coldness which his catholic 
 majesty had exhibited on the subject of the matri- 
 monial alliance between his son Ferdinand and an 
 imperial princess of France. The unkingly Bout- 
 bon king replied, that he desired nothing so 
 ardently as the instant conclusion of that honour- 
 able and auspicious marriage: but at the same 
 time he redoubled his haste to get him gone, and 
 to place the wide Atlantic between his person and 
 that of his dear friend and ally the Emperor Napo- 
 leon. It has been very reasonably conjectured 
 that this effect was exactly what Bonaparte intended 
 to produce ; for if the king went off to South Ame- 
 rica, his name might be used to curb the party of 
 the Prince of Asturias, and Bonaparte’s chance of 
 influencing the countries where the precious metals 
 are produced, even as he had controlled the mother- 
 country for so many years, would be greatly 
 increased should they fall under the immediate 
 misgovernment of such aking as Charles IV., with 
 such a minister as Godoy.* It is certain that the 
 patriots of Spain, that the people who were on the 
 point of flying to arms against the treacherous 
 invaders of their country, must be sadly divided 
 and embarrassed by having one king resident in 
 America and another king resident in Spain; and 
 that disseverance of the colonies from the mother- 
 country which took place so soon after these events 
 was not as yet foreseen. Before adopting the 
 resolution of flying beyond the Atlantic, Charles 
 and his minister are said to have offered to cede to 
 France the whole of the Spanish part of the 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 a. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808, 
 
 Spain and the establishment of a better order of 
 
 403 
 
 Pyrenees, with all the country lying between those 
 
 mountains and the Ebro. But all that country 
 was already occupied by French troops; and by 
 the 13th of March Murat had arrived at Burgos, 
 to take the command in chief in Spain, with the title 
 of Lieutenant of the Emperor. It was also known 
 that more troops, including a part of the imperial 
 guards, were hastily marching through France 
 towards the Spanish frontiers. The king and 
 Godoy then fixed their departure for the night of 
 the 17th of March. But their intention was now 
 universally known; and the party of the prince, 
 the populace of Madrid, and the very troops which 
 had been collected to escort them to the place of 
 embarkation, vowed that they should not go. The 
 king, the queen, their favourite servants, and 
 nearly all those who were to follow their fortunes 
 to the new world, were collected in the palace of 
 Aranjuez, and were packing up their last parcel, 
 when, on the evening of the 17th, the palace was 
 surrounded by the people and by the soldiery in a 
 state of revolt, while other columns were seen in 
 disorderly march upon the town of Aranjuez. The 
 intentions of the insurgents admitted of no doubt ; 
 and the mob shouted that they would have the head 
 of the traitor Godoy. ‘The favourite, who was not 
 in the palace, but in his own mansion, sought refuge 
 in a garret, and concealed himself under some 
 mattresses. There he lay for the space of thirty-six 
 hours, consumed by heat and thirst, and dreading 
 every moment to be discovered and butchered. 
 The king assured the insurgents that he had no 
 intention of quitting his kingdom and his faithful 
 loving subjects. ‘The people now well knew that 
 he could not go if he tried; but they now wanted 
 more from the unhappy old man than the renun- 
 ciation of his project of flight—they wanted the 
 renunciation of his crown in fayour of his son. 
 On the morning of the 19th, being no longer able 
 to bear his consuming thirst, Godoy quitted his 
 hiding-place, and asked a life-guardsman for a 
 little water. The soldier, instead of administering 
 to his need, went and betrayed him to the insur- 
 gents, who seized him, dragged him out, and made a 
 signal to the friends of Ferdinand, who occupied a 
 house in the town. It should appear that Spanish 
 reformers were less sanguinary in those days than 
 they are at present, for, although some of the mob 
 threw stones at the Prince of the Peace and beat 
 him, they did not put him to death. When the 
 condition he was in became known to the king and 
 queen, they conjured their son to save him—only 
 to save his life, and then take the crown and all he 
 wished. Ferdinand came out and harangued the 
 people ; and upon his promise that Godoy should 
 be brought to trial for his treasons and offences, 
 the mob permitted the fallen favourite to be con- 
 veyed to the prison of Aranjuez. The French 
 ambassador saw the Prince of the Peace conveyed 
 through the streets, walking between two guards- 
 men, who held him on either side by the collar, 
 wounded by a stone in one of his eyes, and covered 
 with blood. This was about ten o’clock in the 
 
404 
 
 morning of the 19th of March: at three o’clock in 
 the afternoon the insurgents gathered again round 
 the palace, calling out for heads and for blood, and 
 accusing the king and queen of the intention of 
 rescuing Godoy from the wrath and justice of the 
 nation by getting him secretly conveyed to Gra- 
 nada. Perhaps this storm was got up only to 
 hasten the formal abdication. Charles sent out to 
 assure the people that he had resigned the crown. 
 The people shouted joyously, and cried ‘* Long live 
 King Ferdinand.”? Ferdinand, too, came forth, and 
 promised, as king, to leave Godoy a victim to the 
 Jaws. In the evening, in the presence of a few gran- 
 dees, Charles IV., gouty and rheumatic, signed the 
 act of abdication, declaring that his habitual in fir- 
 mities no longer permitted him to support the heavy 
 weight of government, that he had need of a milder 
 climate and of a private life; and that after mature 
 deliberation he had freely and spontaneously abdi- 
 cated his crown in favour of his heir and most 
 dearly beloved son the Prince of Asturias. That 
 same evening Ferdinand was proclaimed, and there 
 was a grand kissing of hands in the palace of 
 Aranjuez. His abdication was formally intimated 
 to Bonaparte by a letter written or signed by 
 Charles himself. 
 
 On receiving the news of the revolution which 
 had happened at Aranjuez, Murat, who at this 
 moment cherished the hope of putting the Spanish 
 crown upon his own head, hastened his march upon 
 Madrid; and on the 23rd, only four days after the 
 signing of the abdication, that brilliant and gaudy 
 soldier of fortune entered the capital of Spain at 
 the head of a brigade of imperial guards, followed 
 by a division of French infantry, a brigade of 
 cuirassiers, and a numerous train of artillery. 
 Ferdinand had chosen the same day for entering 
 into Madrid as sovereign ; and although the French 
 ambassador had kept in the background, while 
 other foreign ministers had hastened to offer their 
 congratulations on the accession of the new king, 
 Ferdinand and his friends are said to have had the 
 almost incredible folly of believing that Murat was 
 come to recognise the revolution made at Aranjuez, 
 and to support him on his throne, It is quite cer- 
 tain that Ferdinand’s party in Madrid received 
 Murat as a friend and with joyous acclamations. 
 That marshal of the French empire and grand duke 
 of Berg took up his residence in the magnificent 
 mansion of the Prince of the Peace, and very soon 
 gave great uneasiness to Ferdinand and his friends, 
 by addressing him, not as “your majesty,’ but as 
 “your royal highness,’ and by intimating that he 
 must await the instructions of the emperor his 
 master before he could recognise the abdication of 
 Charles and the accession of Ferdinand. Murat, 
 moreover, put himself in communication with 
 Maria Luiza, who, whatever might be the willing- 
 ness with which her husband ceased to be king, 
 had no inclination to cease to be queen of Spain 
 and the Indies, and whose unnatural hatred of her 
 eldest son was exasperated and doubled by the 
 recent events at Aranjuez. It appears too that 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 eee 
 
 ; q 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 Murat opened some private correspondence with 
 the prisoner Godoy, assuring him that his only 
 hope of salvation lay in the friendship of the 
 French. Charles IV. now wrote to Bonaparte, to 
 throw himself into the arms of that great monarch 
 his ally, to submit entirely to his arbitration, to 
 vow that his abdication was not voluntary, but 
 forced, to express his full confidence in the mag- 
 nanimity and the genius of the great man who had 
 ever proved his friend, and, in fine, to submit to 
 him his own fate, the fate of the queen, and the 
 fate of the Prince of the Peace: and Charles in- 
 closed in this letter, which was written in French, 
 a protest written in Spanish, in which he solemnly 
 declared that the decree of the 19th, by which he 
 abdicated his crown in favour of his son, had been 
 forced upon him by his eagerness to prevent greater 
 evils and the effusion of blood; and that therefore 
 the said decree of the 19th was of no value. He 
 also wrote to his ‘* very dear brother,” the grand 
 duke of Berg, to say that, having spoken with an 
 officer of his (Murat’s) staff, and having been in- 
 formed of all that had happened in Madrid, he 
 begged him to do him the service of letting the 
 emperor know his earnest wish or prayer that he 
 would be pleased to deliver the poor Prince of the 
 Peace, who was only suffering for having been the 
 friend of France, and permit him (the king) and 
 the queen to go with Godoy to some other place 
 which would better agree with his majesty’s health. 
 “ For the present,’ said this degraded Bourbon, 
 ‘“‘ we are going to Badajoz. I hope that before we 
 set out you will give us an answer, if you cannot 
 absolutely see us ; for I have no confidence except in 
 you and in the emperor.” The queen also wrote 
 a letter to Murat, calling him ‘ Sir, my brother,” 
 and repeating in still more earnest language the 
 request made by her husband. Her letter dwelt at 
 greater length upon the cruel fate of Godoy, ‘* the 
 poor Prince of the Peace, who finds himself im- 
 prisoned and wounded for having been our friend 
 and the devoted friend of France.’? She said the 
 poor Prince of the Peace most earnestly desired to 
 see and speak with his imperial highness ; that the 
 king’s health was very delicate, and so was her own, 
 and that therefore she hoped they would be allowed 
 to go to some suitable place with their friend, their 
 only friend, the friend of his imperial highness, 
 the poor Prince of the Peace, to end their days 
 tranquilly. If her majesty could not have the 
 satisfaction of seeing his imperial highness, she must 
 refer him to her daughter the queen of Etruria, 
 who was then living in Madrid, as to her inter- 
 preter and advocate. But she hoped that his im- 
 perial highness would make an effort to see her 
 and the king, although but for an instant, by night, 
 or in any manner that might please him. On the | 
 other hand, Ferdinand and the grandees of his party 
 prostrated themselves in the dirt at the feet of the 
 soldier of fortune, once the innkeeper’s son, but 
 now the representative and vicegerent of the master 
 or arbiter of Europe. They even took the sword 
 of the French king, Francis I., which had been 
 
Cuap. VIII.] © 
 
 preserved as a memorial of his captivity among 
 the Spaniards after the battle of Pavia, inclosed it 
 in a rich casket, and presented it with great cere- 
 mony to his imperial highness of Berg, to be by his 
 honoured hand placed in the hands of the Emperor 
 of the French. The possession of such mementos 
 was always exceedingly gratifying to the Parisians, 
 whose satisfaction was not likely to be damped by 
 the somewhat apocryphal history of this sword.* 
 Whatever served to commemorate their own defeats, 
 or even the triumph of other nations in wars with 
 which France had had nothing to do, was always 
 highly prized, and whenever it was not voluntarily 
 given, it was stolen or taken, like the sword and 
 scarf of Frederick the Great from his tomb at 
 Potsdam. In the eyes of the Spaniards the sword 
 was the real sword of the French monarch, the 
 story about it was an undoubted story, and to give 
 it thus away to the French was to wound the sus- 
 ceptible national pride; but the weak and con- 
 temptible Ferdinand would at this moment have 
 made far more serious sacrifices; he would have 
 chaffered and bartered the independence of his 
 country if he had been allowed so to do, and had 
 but obtained the good-will of Bonaparte and the 
 possession of a dishonoured and insecure throne. 
 The national impulse, the spontaneous movement 
 of the Spanish people—the only thing to be de- 
 pended upon in the struggle which followed—was 
 high, noble, glorious ; but, with a very few excep- 
 tions, there was little that was high in the conduct 
 of the highest classes: a more despicable appear- 
 ance thau that made by king, queen, prince, and 
 grandees of both parties can scarcely be imagined. 
 It was a thing to revive and to give a double force 
 of application to the terrible diatribe of Chatham 
 against the vaunted honour of the old aristocracy of 
 Spain. Four Spanish grandees were sent off by 
 Ferdinand into France, to announce officially and 
 personally to the emperor the abdication of Charles 
 and the accession of the new king. Murat gave 
 his approbation to this mission, and flattered the 
 prince that it would be attended with complete 
 success. But almost in the same breath Murat 
 assured the old queen that his imperial master, 
 who wished nothing but the tranquillity and hap- 
 piness of Spain and the royal family, would never 
 recognise the forced abdication of her husband. 
 Bonaparte, who was now preparing another 
 army to send to Madrid, looked about him for 
 an adroit kidnapper, that should by force or by 
 fraud ‘bring the whole royal family of Spain 
 as prisoners into France. The choice naturally 
 enough fell upon General Savary, who had just 
 returned from an embassy to the Emperor 
 Alexander at Petersburg. This notorious head 
 of gendarmerie and secret police, carrying Bona- 
 parte’s most secret instructions in his pocket or in 
 his memory—for there was much that was never 
 * They showed another sword at Naples, said to have been that 
 worn by Francis I. in the battle of Pavia, and to have been by him 
 delivered to the Marquis del Vasto or del Guasto, one of the Emperor 
 
 Charles V.’s generals, who, like the Marquis of Pescara, distineui 
 himself in the battle of Pavia at the head of Italian omens ct 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 committed to writing—flew from Paris to Madrid. 
 Murat, who loved not the man, suspected that a 
 part of his mission was to act as a spy over his own 
 conduct; and this suspicion appears to have been 
 well-founded. Savary made several secret and very 
 unfavourable reports to his master respecting 
 Murat’s conduct at Madrid. Plunged as they were 
 in ignorance, the Spanish royal family must all 
 have known the Duke d’Enghien’s history—must 
 have known that Savary had been the merciless, 
 remorseless murderer of a prince of their own blood. 
 But this inevitable knowledge neither made them 
 shun the man nor open their eyes to the real 
 intentions of his employer. ‘The first personage to 
 whom Savary addressed himself was Ferdinand, 
 whose party was so much stronger than that of the 
 old king. If he could trepan Ferdinand, it would 
 be easy work to dispose of the rest of the family. 
 Savary began flattering the prince by giving him 
 the title of “your majesty,” which Murat had 
 hitherto refused to do. On his hasty journey from 
 the Spanish frontier to the capital, he had every- 
 where given out that his master the emperor was 
 coming to pay a friendly visit, in the generous inten- 
 tion of acting as mediator and conciliator ; and he 
 mentioned the town of Burgos as the place to which 
 his imperial majesty would extend his journey. He 
 now proposed to Ferdinand that he should quit 
 Madrid, and go and meet his guest at Burgos. “‘ The 
 emperor,” said Savary, “has already set out from 
 Paris ; go and meet him, and hear him salute you 
 as Ferdinand VII., King of Spain and the Indies!” 
 Apparently with very little hesitation, the imbecile 
 Bourbon prince consented to go to Burgos with his 
 kinsman’s murderer Savary, who from that moment 
 never lost sight of him. From the time he quitted 
 Madrid, Ferdinand was to all intents and purposes 
 a prisoner—as complete a prisoner as ever was 
 felon or political offender in the grip of the French 
 police and under the escort of Savary’s gendar- 
 merie. When the party reached Burgos, the illus- 
 trious guest had not, of course, arrived. Great 
 concerns of state must have retarded his journey ; 
 but would not his majesty Ferdinand VII. go a 
 few stages farther towards the frontier, to Miranda 
 for example, or as far as Vittoria?—by so doing 
 he would have the satisfaction of meeting and em- 
 bracing his illustrious guest on the road. The 
 miserable dupe again consented, and without al- 
 lowing himself any repose he went on at headlong 
 speed, Between Madrid and Burgos there had 
 been some chance of escape or of rescue, for there 
 were considerable Spanish forces on foot in that 
 part of the country; but the country between 
 Burgos and Vittoria, and beyond Vittoria on to 
 the frontiers of France, was entirely occupied by 
 French troops, whose different columns had been 
 purposely concentrated, and then spread along the 
 high road. When the party reached Vittoria they 
 Saw no more signs of the arrival of his Imperial 
 Majesty Napoleon than they had seen at Burgos. 
 Savary now said it was clear that the emperor his 
 master must be delayed by some very important 
 
406 
 
 business, and that therefore it was quite natural 
 that King Ferdinand, who had favours to ask from 
 the emperor, while the emperor had none to ask 
 from him, should continue his journey as far as the 
 French frontier, or say as far as Bayonne, which 
 was but a very little way beyond the Bidassoa, 
 But here Ferdinand’s chief advisers, Don Pedro 
 Ceyallos and the canon Escoiquiz, began to scent 
 the plot. By their advice Ferdinand delayed his 
 departure from Vittoria, and sent his next brother,’ 
 Don Carlos, who had accompanied him from 
 Madrid, to meet and welcome the imperial guest. 
 On the 14th of April Ferdinand addressed from 
 Vittoria another letter to Bonaparte, recapitulating 
 the circumstances which had occurred at Aranjuez, 
 and the services which he, since his accession to 
 the throne, had rendered to the grand duke of 
 Berg and the French army at Madrid, repeating 
 his anxious desire for a matrimonial alliance with 
 the august family of the emperor, and begging to 
 know positively whether his imperial majesty would 
 be pleased to receive him as King of Spain, and 
 dissipate the uncertainty and great uncasiness of 
 the Spanish people by an immediate recognition 
 of his accession to the throne. To this letter 
 Bonaparte, who was now approaching Bayonne, 
 replied in a very indirect and artful manner. He 
 did not give Ferdinand the title of king, but ad- 
 dressed him as Prince of Asturias. The prince, in 
 his last letter, had not said a word about Godoy ; 
 but the foremost and longest part of Bonaparte’s 
 answer was occupied by the subject of the unfor- 
 tunate Prince of the Peace. The emperor told 
 Ferdinand that a long while ago he had hoped to 
 induce the king his father to adopt some necessary 
 reforms in his government, and to give some satis- 
 faction to public opinion; that the dismissal of 
 the Prince of the Peace from office had appeared 
 to him necessary for the happiness both of the 
 king and of his subjects; but that the affairs of 
 the north of Europe had retarded his intended 
 journey to Spain, and in the meanwhile the events 
 of Aranjuez had taken place. “I am not the 
 judge,” continued Bonaparte, “of what has hap- 
 pened, or of the conduct of the Prince of the Peace ; 
 but what I know well is, that it is dangerous for 
 kings to accustom their peoples to shed blood and 
 to do themselves justice with their own hands. I 
 pray God that your royal highness may not expe- 
 rience this danger some day! It is not the interest 
 of Spain to injure a prince who has espoused a 
 princess of the blood-royal, and who has for so 
 long a time governed the kingdom. The Prince 
 of the Peace has no longer any friends. Your 
 royal highness will find you have none, if ever 
 you are unfortunate. The people are too apt to 
 take vengeance for the homage they pay to us. 
 How can the Prince of the Peace be brought to 
 trial without implicating the queen and the king 
 your father? Such a trial will nourish hatred and 
 factious passions: the result will be fatal for your 
 crown, Your royal highness has no other rights 
 than such as have been transmitted to you through 
 
 en ar a 
 es 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X, 
 
 your mother. If the trial dishonours your mother, 
 your rights are torn to pieces! You cannot bring 
 the Prince of the Peace to trial. The crimes of 
 which he is accused are lost in the rights of the 
 throne. I have often manifested the desire that 
 the Prince of the Peace should be removed from 
 the management of affairs; the friendship of King 
 Charles has often induced me to be silent and to 
 turn my eyes from the weaknesses of his attach- 
 ment. Miserable men that we are! weakness and 
 error form our device. But all this may be recon- 
 ciled: let the Prince of the Peace be exiled from 
 Spain, and I offer him a refuge in France. As for 
 the abdication of Charles IV., it has taken place 
 at a moment when my armies are covering all 
 Spain, and it might appear to the eyes of Europe 
 and of posterity that I have sent my troops thither 
 only in order to precipitate from the throne my 
 ally and friend. As a neighbouring sovereign, it 
 is permitted me to demand full information before 
 I recognise the abdication of your father. I tell 
 your royal highness, I tell the Spaniards, and the 
 whole world, that if the abdication of King Charles 
 has been voluntary, if it has not been forced by 
 the insurrection and mutiny at Aranjuez, I have 
 no difficulty in admitting and recognising your 
 royal highness as King of Spain.” Bonaparte 
 then referred to the events of last October, when 
 the disputes of the royal family of Spain became 
 so violent that King Charles had accused his son 
 and heir of a design upon his throne. ‘I was 
 most painfully affected,” continued this delicate 
 moralist, “and I thought that I might have contri- 
 buted to the family calamities by some of my 
 insinuations. Your royal highness was very much 
 to blame. When you are king in your turn, you 
 will know how sacred are the rights of thrones! 
 Every advance made towards a foreign sovereign 
 by an hereditary prince is criminal!” This, in 
 other words, was telling Ferdinand that he was a 
 scoundrel for having complained to a foreign power 
 of his own father, and for having brought the 
 Emperor of the French into his family quarrel. 
 After this gentle reproof the child of revolution 
 went on to warn Ferdinand, the far-descended 
 Bourbon, the representative of a long line of abso- 
 lute monarchs, of the danger of relying upon in- 
 surrections or popular emotions. And then Bona- 
 parte launched out into dreadful denunciations of 
 vengeance if the popular emotions of the Spaniards 
 should be turned against him or his troops. ‘A 
 few murders,” said he, ‘‘ may be committed on 
 my isolated soldiers, but the ruin of Spain will be 
 the result. I have already seen with pain that at 
 Madrid the letters of the captain-general of Cata- 
 lonia, complaining of the presence of the French 
 army, are widely circulated, and that everything is 
 done to excite men’s heads.” The strange letter 
 
 concluded with this rigmarole: —‘ Your royal 
 highness now knows all my mind. You see that 
 I am floating between divers ideas which have 
 need to be fixed. You may be certain that in all 
 cases I will behave towards you as I have done 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 towards the king your father. May you believe 
 in my desire to conciliate everything, and to find 
 the opportunity of giving you proofs of my affec- 
 tion and perfect esteem.” 
 
 The miserable Ferdinand would now have re- 
 turned to Madrid, or have fled to some sea-port 
 town, instead of continuing his journey from Vit- 
 toria to Bayonne; but it was too late: he was 
 completely in Savary’s toils, he was surrounded by 
 French columns, marching or stationary; he had 
 not the courage which leads men to desperate en- 
 terprises; and so he quietly submitted to his fate, 
 and went on to Bayonne, where Bonaparte arrived 
 two or three days before him. It was on the 20th 
 of April when Ferdinand traversed the draw-bridge 
 of the fortress of Bayonne. It is said that Bona- 
 parte, on learning his arrival, exclaimed “‘ How! is 
 the fool really come? I could scarcely have thought 
 it possible!” To Don Carlos, whom he had found 
 at Bayonne on reaching that town, the French 
 emperor had behaved with a great show of kind- 
 ness and friendship. ‘ Great care was now taken to 
 prevent any intercourse or correspondence between 
 the two Spanish princes, or the gentlemen who had 
 accompanied them, and their friends in Spain. 
 Ferdinand was invited to dine with the emperor, 
 who must have derived great satisfaction from the 
 discovery of what an arrant fool he had to deal with. 
 Bonaparte indeed seems scarcely to have considered 
 Ferdinand worth an argument or an explanation. 
 Instead of opening himself to the prince, he made 
 his explanations to the canon Escoiquiz, the most 
 able man of the prince’s party. This is not saying 
 very much for the canon’s ability and intellect, for 
 such a set of drivellers had not often formed a party 
 or surrounded a prince ; but Escoiquiz had talents 
 which would have distinguished him anywhere, 
 
 - and a high national Spanish spirit, which was not 
 to be repressed by the haughty tone of the con- 
 queror, or by the near prospect of dungeons and 
 chains. ‘ Canon, how do you explain your insur- 
 rection at Aranjuez?” said Bonaparte, going 
 straight to the point. The priest declared that that 
 insurrection had been caused entirely by the public 
 indignation on learning that the king and queen 
 and Godoy were going to fly to South America. 
 “Well, canon, hut you cannot deny that it was that 
 popular insurrection which forced Charles IV. to 
 abdicate. Charles himself entered his protest on the 
 same day on which he signed his abdication.”? The 
 canon said that King Charles had not protested 
 until two days after his abdication; that then in- 
 deed he had written to his majesty the emperor ; 
 but that he had only done so under the dictation of 
 the queen and Godoy; and Escoiquiz added, that 
 this conduct would surprise no one who knew the 
 excessive moral weakness of the unhappy old king, 
 the mere slave of the queen, who could at any time 
 make him sign whatever she chose, though ever so re- 
 mote from his own ideas and wishes ; that the queen 
 was maddened and blinded by her unnatural rage 
 against her eldest son ; that Ferdinand was beloved 
 by the Spanish people, &c. Bonaparte acknow- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 eee einai eter ae eee 
 
 407 
 
 ledged that the imbecility or excessive weakness of 
 
 Charles IV. was notorious; but he added that this 
 did not justify his sudden deposition ; that the ab- 
 dication at Aranjuez could never pass in the eyes 
 of sensible men as the free and willing act of the 
 old king—and here he drew a comparison between 
 the abdication of the Emperor Charles V. and the 
 act of Aranjuez. Escoiquiz endeavoured to ex- 
 plain; but Bonaparte interrupted him with this 
 significant question: ‘‘Canon, tell me whether I 
 ought to lose sight of the fact that the interests of 
 my house and of my empire demand that the Bour- 
 bons shall no longer reign in Spain??? And here, 
 as his manner was on such occasions, the Emperor 
 of the French and King of Italy gently pulled the 
 Spanish canon by the ear, and then, fixing his eyes 
 on his face, burst out into a long laugh. After this 
 policinellata his imperial majesty said, more seri- 
 ously, ‘f Canon, it is impossible but you see, as I 
 do, that so long as the Bourbons reign in Spain, I 
 shall never be able to have a safe and sincere alli- 
 ance with that country: they will feign to be friends 
 so long as they are not strong enough to do me an 
 injury ; but their mortal hatred will declare itself 
 as soon as they see me embarrassed in some other 
 war in the north of Europe—such a war may break 
 out any day—and then you will see them join Eng- 
 land and my worst enemies!”’ He recalled to the 
 priest’s memory certain demonstrations which had 
 been made by the court of Madrid just before the 
 battle of Jena, and he insisted that if he had lost 
 that battle, instead of gaining it, Spain would have 
 joined the coalition. ‘‘ Never, no never! can I 
 count upon Spain so long as the Bourbons occupy 
 the throne; the forces of your nation have always 
 been considerable, and a man of genius at the head 
 of them might disturb my repose.’? Escoiquiz en- 
 deavoured to show that the emperor would have 
 nothing to fear from Ferdinand ; that the marriage 
 of that prince with one of Bonaparte’s nieces would 
 attach him to the interests and the policy of France. 
 “Canon, you are amusing me with fables, vous me 
 faites-la des contes, chanoine ; you are too well 
 informed not to know that a woman is always too 
 feeble a tie to fix the political conduct of a prince 
 her husband! Who can give me assurance that 
 the wife of Ferdinand will gain an ascendancy over 
 him? Besides, death may any day break that ma- 
 trimonial tie between the house of Spain and my 
 house, and then the old hatred must revive. Allons 
 done, chanoine, vous me presentez-la de veritables 
 chateaux en Espagne! Do you think that if the 
 Bourbons remain on the throne I can be as sure of 
 Spain as I should be ¢f the sceptre were placed in 
 the hands of a prince of my own family ?” To this 
 searching question Escoiquiz replied by saying that 
 the eyes of all Europe were now fixed upon Bay- 
 onne, watching impatiently the result of the jour- 
 ney of King Ferdinand ; that if Bonaparte would 
 act nobly and magnanimously his conduct would 
 be applauded by the world; that his moderation 
 would diminish the jealousy of all the European 
 sovereigns, calm their hatred, and dissipate the 
 
 ee oo 
 
408 
 
 dread of all countries, who were constantly told by 
 England that one by one they would all lose their 
 independence. The canon too presented the reverse 
 of the picture; if Bonaparte showed no magna- 
 nimity or moderation ; if, instead of protecting 
 Ferdinand, he made an attack on the national in- 
 dependence of Spain, and dealt a death-blow at 
 his most faithful ally, England would be furnished 
 with fresh arms wherewith to excite the nations of 
 Europe, and renew the efforts of all the great 
 powers to overthrow the empire and dynasty of Bo- 
 naparte ; the Spanish people would vow an impla- 
 cable, an eternal hatred against him and the French, 
 and a war of extermination would be begun ; every 
 man in Spain would take up his musket, his rifle, 
 his sword, or his knife; and history might tell his 
 imperial majesty how terrible such wars had ever 
 been in the peninsula! The conqueror affected to 
 set these last arguments at defiance. “ Canon,” 
 said he, ‘‘ you are exaggerating difficulties. I have 
 nothing to fear from the only European power 
 that can measure swords with me. The Emperor 
 of Russia, to whom, while at Tilsit, I communi- 
 cated my projects upon Spain, approved of them, 
 and gave me his word of honour that he would 
 ‘not.oppose them in any way. As for the other 
 powers, they will take good care not to move in 
 this affair. In no case can the resistance of the 
 Spaniards be long or formidable. The grandees 
 and the rich, for fear of losing their property, will 
 submit quietly, and will employ all their influence to 
 calm the common people. The clergy and the monks, 
 whom I shall hold responsible for any disorder, 
 will employ also their influence, and you know 
 that their influence is great. The populace, alone, 
 may perhaps rise in a few places; but some severe 
 chastisement will soon call them back to their 
 duty! Believe me, canon, countries where there 
 are a great many monks are easy to subjugate! I 
 know this by experience. This will happen im 
 Spain, particularly when the people shall see that 
 I promise them the integrity and the independence 
 of their monarchy, a more liberal and rational 
 constitution, and the preservation of their religion 
 and usages!”? Escoiquiz said that if he placed a 
 French prince on the throne of Spain, the new 
 dynasty would stand upon a volcano; and that it 
 would take an army of 200,000 Frenchmen to 
 command a country of discontented slaves. The 
 conqueror said that he would carry his project into 
 execution though it should cost him the lives of 
 200,000 men ; and he broke off this strange con- 
 ference, in which he had not made the least attempt 
 to colour over his utterly selfish and unprincipled 
 policy, by telling the canon that he was sorry to 
 see that they could not agree upon their principles, 
 and that he would let him know his irrevocable 
 determination on the morrow. ‘There were two 
 other Spaniards who had accompanied Ferdinand 
 to Bayonne, with whom the French emperor 
 thought fit to confer. Both these Spaniards showed 
 considerable spirit. Cevallos insisted in a high 
 tone upon the national character of his country- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 men, and the feelings they would entertain when 
 they should learn the itentions of Bonaparte. 
 This produced an explosion of rage and abuse from 
 the conqueror; he called Cevallos a traitor for 
 deserting the service of his old master Charles IV. 
 to become a councillor to the son; and he con- 
 
 8 
 
 “ 
 
 cluded with saying, in his most rapid and passion- — 
 
 ate manner, ‘‘I have a system of policy of my own 
 —you ought to adopt more liberal ideas—you ought 
 to be less susceptible on the point of honour—you 
 ought to beware how you sacrifice the interests of 
 Spain to a fantastic loyalty for the Bourbons!” 
 Don Pedro de Labrador was then requested or 
 commanded to negotiate or come to some under- 
 standing with Champagny, who had attended his 
 emperor to Bayonne, and who was now his minister 
 for foreign affairs—Talleyrand, for reasons which 
 
 | will be explained presently, having been dismissed 
 
 and disgraced. But Don Pedro proved as refrac- 
 tory as Escoiquiz and Cevallos: he began by 
 asking Champagny whether King Ferdinand were 
 at liberty; and, if so, why he was not restored te 
 his own country? Champagny replied that Fer- 
 dinand could not be permitted to return to Spain 
 until he came to a proper understanding with the 
 emperor. Cevallos then presented a note, express- 
 ing the terms on which Ferdinand had placed 
 himself in the power of the emperor, and declaring 
 his master’s intention of departing immediately 
 from Bayonne. Cevallos knew very well that his 
 master could not act upon this intention, but he 
 wished to show more clearly to the world that Fer- 
 dinand had been kidnapped and was a state pri- 
 soner. And his note produced good evidence to 
 this effect ; for the guards of honour placed over 
 the two Spanish princes were immediately 
 doubled; some of Savary’s gendarmes d’élite 
 and police spies in plain clothes were appointed 
 to watch them and every movement of the Spa- 
 niards who had come with them; all the outlets 
 from the town were guarded, every passer in 
 or out was stopped and examined, and, as Bay- 
 onne was a fortified town encircled with high walls 
 
 and deep ditches, there was slight chance of escape 
 
 from it. Don Carlos, attempting to pass out of 
 one of the gates, was forcibly stopped by a gen- 
 darme. | 
 
 Ferdinand had gone like a fool to Bayonne to 
 get his father’s abdication and his own accession 
 recognised by the Emperor of the French; but 
 Bonaparte, like a rogue, had entrapped him there 
 
 in order to extort from him a renunciation of the 
 
 crown in favour of his brother Joseph, at present 
 King of Naples. If Ferdinand had complied, the 
 insurrection at Aranjuez and the abdication of 
 Charles IV. would have been declared good and 
 legal acts, in order to vest in Ferdinand the right 
 of disposing of the crown. But as Ferdinand was 
 so perverse and obstinate, it was determined to 
 declare the insurrection at Aranjuez a vile and 
 treasonable affair, to hold that Charles IV. had not 
 voluntarily abdicated, and to bring him to Bayonne 
 
 in order to obtain from him that renunciation in 
 
~Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 favour of Joseph Bonaparte which his son refused 
 to give. It was well known that if they could only 
 get the Prince of the Peace to Bayonne, the old 
 queen would follow him, and bring her husband 
 with her. Murat therefore was instructed to take 
 Godoy out of the prison at Aranjuez into which 
 Ferdinand and the insurgents had thrown him, to 
 furnish him with an escort strong enough to resist 
 the fury of the Spaniards on the road, and to for- 
 ward him with all possible speed into France. 
 Godoy travelled so rapidly that he only took two 
 nights and days to get from the Tagus at Aranjuez 
 to the banks of the Bidassoa. On reaching Bayonne 
 he was received by Bonaparte as a bosom friend ; 
 and immediately afterwards he wrote to the old 
 king and queen to express the great satisfaction 
 the Emperor of the French would have in seeing 
 them at Bayonne, and in arranging the Spanish 
 monarchy so as to place it beyond any danger from 
 the usurpation of the Prince of Asturias. There 
 was no need to write another letter; the queen flew 
 after the poor Prince of the Peace, her dear, her 
 only friend; and on the 30th of April a huge lum- 
 bering carrosse, drawn by eight Biscayan mules, 
 rolled over the drawbridge of Bayonne, and landed 
 that grand-father of stupidity Charles IV., his most 
 unroyal queen, his youngest son Francesco de Paulo, 
 and two or three ignoble grandees of Spain. Two 
 or three other enormous antiquated carriages dis- 
 charged their cargoes of chamberlains and dames 
 (much misnamed) of honour. Godoy welcomed 
 his master and mistress, and gave them assurance 
 that the intentions of Bonaparte in their regard 
 were most friendly and liberal. ‘This assurance 
 was soon repeated by the Emperor of the French 
 himself, who declared that he had been staying at 
 Bayonne only to save and serve their majesties. 
 As was expected from him, Charles now protested 
 vivd voce that his abdication of the 19th of March * 
 had proceeded from violence; and demanded that 
 his son should restore him to the possession of the 
 crown. The reply of Ferdinand, drawn up by Don 
 Pedro Cevallos and canon Escoiquiz, alleged that 
 the resignation had been unquestionably voluntary 
 at the time; and that Charles had made repeated 
 declarations to that effect. It declared, however, 
 that if both father and son were permitted to 
 return to Madrid and summon the Cortes, Ferdi- 
 nand, in their presence, and with their sanction, 
 would renounce the rights vested in him by his 
 father’s abdication. To this the old king replied 
 that he was free enough where he was; that he 
 had come to his great and magnanimous ally, not 
 as a king, but as an unhappy old man whose crown 
 had been taken from him, and whose life had been 
 endangered by the criminal ambition of his own 
 son. Since the days of Philip II., the Cortes, or 
 national representation, had been little more than 
 a shadow and a name: it had never been convoked 
 by Charles IV., or by his father Charles III.; and 
 
 * The date of this act is almost invariably given as the 20th of 
 March; but the decree of abdication was certainly signed and issued 
 at Aranjuez on the 19th; and it was from the 19th of March that 
 Ferdinand always dated his accession to the throne. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 ] 
 
 409 
 
 the old king, or Godoy, who wrote the letter for him, 
 treated with contempt the notion of convoking it 
 now. “ Everything,” said the letter, “ ought to 
 be done by sovereigns for the people; but the 
 people ought not to be allowed to carve for them- 
 selves.’ It affirmed that the Emperor of the French 
 alone could be the saviour of Spain, and that Napo- 
 leon was determined that Ferdinand should never 
 hold the crown of that kingdom. Besides taxing 
 him with a want of filial affection, the note accused 
 Ferdinand of a want of affection for the Emperor 
 Napoleon ; and the last of the two seemed to be 
 treated as a crime of as great a magnitude as the 
 first. ‘To this Ferdinand rejoined, that his present - 
 situation was proof enough of the unbounded con- 
 fidence and good-will he had entertained for the 
 emperor. And he now said that he was ready to 
 restore the crown to his father unconditionally, and 
 without any convocation of the Cortes, provided 
 only that they should both be permitted to quit 
 Bayonne—where no deed would bear the character 
 of free-will—and return to their own country and 
 capital. The old king and queen were transported 
 with fury at this proposition, both knowing that 
 the great body of the nation would not submit to 
 the restoration of Charles, and would never allow 
 the Prince of the Peace to return into Spain—that 
 nothing but French troops and escorts, and the 
 speed with which he had travelled, had saved the 
 favourite from being torn to pieces before he 
 reached the Pyrenees. Godoy would certainly 
 never have consented to hazard his person among 
 his vindictive countrymen; and without Godoy 
 Spain and the whole world was as a blank to 
 Maria Luiza and her infatuated husband. But 
 what was even more than all this, was the deter- 
 mination of their present gaoler, into whose gyves 
 and fetters they had all thrown themselves, that 
 not one of them should ever return. The day after 
 sending this last letter Ferdinand was summoned 
 to the presence of his infuriated parents. He 
 found seated with them Bonaparte, who had ad- 
 vised or ordered the interview, and whose pride 
 was gratified by witnessing one of the most de-~ 
 grading scenes for royalty that royalty ever figured 
 in. At a subsequent period he affected to feel 
 horror and a painful disgust at the recollection of 
 this scene; but at the moment it should appear 
 that his disgust was not of a very painful kind, 
 that he inwardly chuckled over the thorough base- 
 ness of these ultra-royal Bourbon princes, and 
 justified to his own conscience the dark and 
 treacherous steps he had taken, by asking himself 
 whether Spain, or any other country in the world 
 that had ever been ruled by such a despicable race, 
 must not be a gainer by their expulsion, let their 
 successors be who or what they might. The abase- 
 ment of these Bourbons must have served as a 
 pedestal to raise the imperial Corsican many feet 
 higher. The scene which ensued had circumstances 
 which we would not credit if they rested solely 
 upon French authority. In that case we would 
 suspect the malicious exaggeration of the narrators, 
 
410 
 
 and the general disposition of those memoir writers 
 and detailers of state secrets (even when there is 
 no malice) to sacrifice truth for the sake of a more 
 striking effect. But the worst of the circumstances 
 are confirmed in the accounts given by the canon 
 Escoiquiz and Don Pedro Cevallos, Ferdinand’s 
 chief and best councillors, who, in ordinary reason, 
 can scarcely be suspected of inventing words which 
 might tend to throw a doubt on the legitimacy of 
 the birth of the prince to whom they had attached 
 themselves and their fortunes. We know, however, 
 the wondrous vivacity and fury of party feeling and 
 most other passions when once excited in the 
 Spanish heart; we have seen the constant inter- 
 change among all parties of the most atrocious 
 accusations ; and as the canon and the Don hated 
 the queen as intensely as she hated them, the blind- 
 ness of their rage may have prevented their seeing 
 the mischief they were doing to their own cause ; 
 and thus, perhaps, after all, it will not be irrational 
 to receive with some little doubt the worst part of 
 this wholly bad story. 
 
 The king, the queen, the emperor remained 
 seated: Ferdinand was left to stand on his feet 
 before them like a culprit before his judges. 
 Charles overwhelmed his son with downright 
 vulgar abuse, calling him traitor and parricide, and 
 threatening to beat him with his walking-stick. 
 The prince protested that he was no traitor, no 
 parricide, but a dutiful subject and an affectionate 
 son; that the plots imputed to him were all false, 
 and that the abdication at Aranjuez was a volun- 
 tary act. He is also said to have reminded the 
 king and queen that it was he who had saved the 
 life of Godoy when the people would have murdered 
 him. But, compared with the fury of the old 
 queen, that of Charles was as a fresh breeze com- 
 pared to a whirlwind or tornado blast. This royal 
 energuméne (or devil-possessed) foamed at the 
 mouth, lavished the most odious epithets upon 
 him, and called upon the Emperor of the French 
 to order his trial, to send him to the scaffold which 
 his crimes merited. Nor is this all that is related 
 to have passed—and here comes the worst or least 
 credible part of the story, a thing indeed scarcely 
 to be believed without first believing that the 
 woman was absolutely and ravingly mad—Maria 
 Luiza is said to have declared there, in the face 
 
 of her husband, her son, and Bonaparte, that Fer- | 
 
 dinand was a bastard—that though borne by her 
 he had not been begotten by the king her husband! 
 
 Confused and crushed by insults and threats, 
 the weak and irresolute Ferdinand, who appears 
 really to have dreaded being sent either to a scaffold 
 or to some horrible dungeon,* offered to give up 
 all right or claim to the crown; and on the 6th 
 of May, a day or two after the interview with his 
 parents, he signed a formal act, in which he restored 
 the crown to his father, and prayed that his majesty 
 
 * It is said that at this crisis of his terror, Savary waited upon 
 his captive Ferdinand, and told him that, unless he immediately 
 signed the act of renunciation, he would be brought to his trial as 
 a traitor, and that Napoleon would inflexibly execute the sentence 
 pronounced by his irritated father, even though it were perpetual 
 imprisonment or death. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 might live to enjoy it many years. But on the 5th 
 of May, the day before Ferdinand signed this act, 
 his father Charles had assented toa short act which 
 had been prepared a considerable time before the 
 old king’s arrival at Bayonne, by Champagny, or 
 rather by Bonaparte himself, who had dictated 
 what his minister for foreign affairs had merely to 
 write out and get copied upon parchment; and by 
 this laconic act or treaty Charles TV. resigned all 
 claims on Spain and the Indies and all Spanish 
 colonies and territories whatever, to his friend 
 and faithful ally Napoleon, Emperor of the French, 
 King of Italy, &c., and this without any conditions 
 or provisos, excepting only that the crown of Spain 
 should not be held by the same sovereign who 
 wore the crown of France; that the independence 
 and integrity of the kingdom should be respected ; 
 that the Roman Catholic religion should be main- 
 tained as the dominant faith, and no reform or 
 change allowed in it; that no Protestant or 
 reformed religion should be tolerated, and still 
 less the practice of the Mohammedan or Jewish 
 religion ; and that their property should be restored 
 to the Prince of the Peace and all those who had 
 suffered by the revolution of Aranjuez.* The 
 property thus secured or promised to Godoy was 
 of an enormous amount. Just before signing this 
 second abdication, which was intended to be kept 
 secret for some time, Charles named Murat lieute- 
 nant-general of his kingdom, and president of the 
 government; and put his name to a proclamation 
 calling upon all good and loyal Spaniards to serve 
 and obey Murat as they would King Charles him- 
 self; to treat the French soldiers as friends and 
 brothers; to beware of listening to treacherous 
 men, agents of-England, who might plunge them 
 into ruin by seeking to stir them up against the 
 French, &c. [But before this time it was a bro- 
 therhood of Cain and Abel—the Spaniards and 
 French had begun to butcher one another in the 
 streets of Madrid.] After he had signed his abdi- 
 cation in favour of his father, Ferdinand was called 
 upon to sign and ratify the renunciation which his 
 father had made in favour of Bonaparte, and to 
 enter into a separate treaty which should give him 
 and his brothers and his uncle Don Antonio pen- 
 sions and provisions in lieu of their hereditary 
 rights. . Low and un-heroic as was the spirit of 
 the Bourbon prince, he is said to have offered a 
 stout resistance, and only to have yielded at last to 
 
 the worst of tortures and racks—the torture of the © 
 mind and imagination, and to threats more dread- _ 
 
 ful than those which had been formerly employed 
 
 to work upon him. Some resistance there cer- 
 
 tainly must have been, for although his father had 
 finished his second and final abdication on the 5th, 
 Ferdinand did not yield until the 10th of May. 
 He then agreed to take in exchange for the splen- 
 did crown of Spain and the Indies, the palace, 
 park, and farms of Navarre, with the woods there- 
 unto adjacent, the sum of 600,000 francs by way of 
 
 * This act of abdication was signed by Duroe for the emperor, 
 and by Godoy, Prince of the Peace, for King Charles. 
 
 niteentenied 
 
Cudp. VIII. ] 
 
 outfit, and an annual pension of 400,000 francs to be 
 paid out of the treasury of France. It was also agreed 
 that Ferdinand’s brothers, Don Carlos and Don 
 Francisco de Paulo, and his uncle Don Antonio 
 should have incomes and appanages in France, 
 and be allowed to enjoy the revenues of their 
 several commanderies, or landed property belong- 
 ing to the Spanish orders of knighthood, provided 
 they conformed with and adhered to the present 
 treaty.* As these princes, who merit the name of 
 Infants in another sense than the courtly one, were 
 by this time all prisoners in Bayonne, they had 
 nothing to do but to conform, and take such pen- 
 sions and houses as Bonaparte might choose to 
 give them. Charles and Maria Luiza were allowed 
 good prizes in this distribution of lottery tickets : 
 the Chateau of Chambord, with its parks, forests, 
 and farms, was given to them in full property ; the 
 imperial palace of Compiégne, with its parks, 
 forests, &c., was put at the disposition of King 
 Charles, who was to have and to enjoy a civil list 
 equal to 30,000,000 of Spanish reals, to be paid by 
 the imperial treasury in twelve monthly payments ; 
 and in case of his majesty’s death her majesty was 
 to have as a dower 2,000,000 of reals. In the 
 treaty with Charles it was expressly stipulated that 
 all the royal family and Godoy should reside in the 
 interior of France—or, as it was delicately stated, 
 “the emperor engages to give refuge in his states 
 to King Charles, the queen, their family, the 
 Prince of the Peace, and all such of their servants 
 as may choose to follow them, and who will all 
 enjoy in France a rank equivalent to that which 
 they possessed in Spain.”’ As the drivellers were no 
 longer wanted at Bayonne, they were sent away to 
 their places of relegation in the interior of France. 
 Compiégne was far enough away from the Pyre- 
 nees, and had it been ever so near there was 
 nothing to apprehend from Charles or Maria 
 Luiza or Godoy; but the palace of Navarre, though 
 -granted to him by treaty, was not considered a safe 
 enough prison for Ferdinand and the other Infants ; 
 and as the magnanimous emperor had a spite to 
 indulge against his ex-minister for foreign affairs, 
 the princes were all conducted to Valengay in the 
 very heart of France, and there lodged in the 
 splendid palace or mansion of Talleyrand. They 
 all aed most docile and passive prisoners; and 
 during the four or five years that the Spanish 
 people were wading in blood, and throwing away 
 their own lives for the purpose of restoring the 
 Bourbon throne, not one of them attempted to 
 escape to take part in the struggle, or appears in 
 any other way to have given the slightest uneasi- 
 ness to Bonaparte or to his police agents who con- 
 stantly watched them. When an adventurous Ger- 
 man baron in the pay of England reached Valen- 
 cay, after many risks and dangers, Ferdinand 
 refused to fly with him, or to risk anything with a 
 man who had run such extreme risks to liberate 
 him. He smoked his eternal cigar in peace and 
 happiness—at least it may be doubted whether this 
 * This treaty was signed by Duroc and Escoiquiz. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 411 
 
 were not the happiest part of Ferdinand’s whole 
 life. As his timidity and irresolution were so well 
 known, and as great reliance was placed in the 
 passport and espionage system which Bonaparte 
 and Fouché had brought to a terrible point of per- 
 fection, an appearance of liberty was allowed to him 
 and to the other Infants. They were free to 
 range through the park and woods and the neigh- 
 bouring country; but their natural indolence 
 rarely allowed them to go far from Talleyrand’s 
 house and garden, 
 
 By his treaty with Charles IV. the Emperor of 
 the French was to elect and name to the Spanish 
 throne whatsoever prince he should judge proper. 
 We have intimated that his choice fell upon his 
 elder brother. Joseph, who was well satisfied with 
 the beautiful kingdom he had already got in the 
 south of Italy, who probably foresaw that in Spain 
 there would be more fighting than feasting, and 
 who said with perfect truth that the crown of Spain 
 and the Indies was too great a weight for his head, 
 was so little in a hurry to repair to Bayonne that 
 Napoleon found himself obliged to summon him 
 several times, and at last to dispatch one of his most 
 confidential aides-de-camp to put more speed into 
 the indolent and self-indulgent loiterer. At last, 
 however—on the 6th of June—Joseph arrived ; and 
 a so-called junta, or assembly of notables from all 
 parts of Spain, was convoked to mect him at Ba- 
 yonne, to adjust with him a new Spanish constz/u- 
 tion, and to swear fealty to him as their lawful sove- 
 reign. The names of the unnational Spaniards who 
 repaired at the summons of the conqueror to aforeign 
 fortress, to receive aking presented to their country 
 by 200,000 foreign bayonets, will remain on the 
 darkest page of Spanish history ; and their conduct 
 is the less excusable, as by this time the Spanish 
 people were neatly everywhere flying to arms, and 
 manifesting the most determined national spirit 
 that had yet been shown on the continent since the 
 commencement of the war of the French revolution. 
 They had nothing to do but to listen and obey, 
 flatter and swear. ‘To make up a number, some of 
 the servants who had followed the king and queen, 
 or Godoy and the infants, to Bayonne were detained 
 there, and thrust into this junta, which was de- 
 clared to express the free and universal will and 
 wish of the Spaniards to have Joseph Bonaparte for 
 theirking. Such, in reality, was the willand wish 
 of the people, that Don José, unbacked by a French 
 force, could not have shown himself in any city, 
 town, village, or hamlet in all Spain, without being 
 torn to pieces. The thing called a Spanish con- 
 stitution was dictated by Bonaparte himself, and 
 was nothing but a modified copy of that imperial 
 constitution with which he had blessed France, the 
 modifications being all in favour of despotism and 
 absolutism. As the most promising way of conci- 
 liating the Spaniards, the largest concessions were 
 made to their religious bigotry and intolerance : in 
 this constitution it was expressly declared that 
 “the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion is the 
 only religion admitted in Spain ;” and this, in fact, 
 
412 
 
 was the first article in this precious charter. On 
 the 23rd of June King Joseph put his name to a 
 proclamation addressed to his late Neapolitan sub- 
 jects, telling them that Providence, whose designs 
 are unknown, had called him to the throne of Spain 
 and the Indies; that he had found himself under 
 the cruel necessity of quitting a people whom he 
 had so many reasons to love; that He alone who 
 reads the hearts of men could judge of the sincerity 
 of his sentiments, in spite of which he had yielded 
 to other impulses, and had accepted a new king- 
 dom, the government of which was transmitted to 
 him in virtue of the cession made to him of the 
 rights acquired over the crown of Spain by his 
 august brother, &c. He told the Neapolitans of 
 the good he had done them, and of the good he had 
 intended to do them; and in order that they might 
 have no reason to envy the fate of his new subjects, 
 Joseph transmitted them a skeleton constitution, 
 called the ‘‘ Statute of Bayonne,” a good part of 
 which was altogether incomprehensible to the Nea- 
 politans, and the rest a mockery and insult offered 
 to a people whom he had left in beggary and in 
 chains, in a state of slavery far worse than any they 
 had known under their Bourbon kings, and in a 
 state of poverty that was every day increasing. 
 After the Emperor Napoleon had issued a de- 
 cree appointing his ‘‘ dearly beloved brother Joseph 
 Napoleon, king of Naples and Sicily, to the crowns 
 of Spain and the Indies,” the so-called Spanish junta 
 at Bayonne held their twelfth meeting on the 7th 
 of July, the day appointed for the acceptance of 
 the constitution. In the hall where they assembled 
 were erected a magnificent throne and a richly de- 
 corated altar. A Spanish archbishop—the arch- 
 bishop of Burgos—officiated at the altar and said 
 mass ; and Joseph Bonaparte seated himself on the 
 throne, and addressed the “gentlemen deputies,” 
 who had been deputed by nobody, and who repre- 
 sented no part of the Spanish nation. Knowing 
 that the Spanish patriots or insurgents were already 
 calling out for English assistance, and knowing 
 with equal certainty that that assistance would be 
 given, the intrusive king warned the junta against 
 the “eternal enemies of the continent,’’ telling 
 them that England, favoured by the troubles which 
 she was exciting in Spain, would hope to seize all 
 the Spanish colonies ; and that every good Spaniard 
 ought, on this account, to open his eyes, and rally 
 round the new throne. After saying that, if the 
 Spaniards were only disposed to make as many 
 sacrifices as he their king was, Spain would soon 
 be tranquil and happy within, and strong and puis- 
 sant without, he added, ‘* We with confidence take 
 ‘the engagement that it shall be so at the foot of 
 Almighty God, who reads in the hearts of men, 
 who disposes of them at his pleasure, and who 
 never abandons the man that loves his country and 
 fears only his own conscience!”? ‘The new consti- 
 
 tution was then read, the longest part of it consist- | 
 
 ing of the clauses which regulated the succession 
 in the Bonaparte family, and which settled the pro- 
 perty of the crown, the civil list, and the like. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Aw 
 
 . 4 
 Ye 
 ks 
 
 [ Boox x 
 
 Although Joseph Bonaparte piqued himself on his 
 
 literary accomplishments and abilities, his brother 
 Napoleon did not admire the discourse he deli- 
 vered to the junta, and he is said to have touched 
 it up with his own pen, before sending it off to 
 Paris to be printed in the ‘ Moniteur.’ But even 
 as it stands in that repertory of almost fabulous- 
 looking documents, decrees, and acts, itis the most 
 wretched piece of twaddle that had hitherto pro- 
 ceded from these quarters. ‘The genius both of the 
 king-maker and of the made-king appears to have 
 been crushed by the sense of the iniquity and trea- 
 chery which had been committed, by the useless 
 hypocrisy and cant they were practising with a 
 handful of Spaniards, who had either been tre- 
 panned, or were cowards, knayes, or fools, and by 
 the menacing aspect of the Spanish people. After 
 the inaugural speech of Joseph, and the reading of 
 the constitutional act, the president of the junta 
 delivered a short discourse, and then the members of 
 that junta all swore obedience to the king, the con- 
 stitution, and the laws. Murat, who had certainly 
 entertained hopes of getting the kingdom of Spain 
 for himself, and who fancied that he, as a fight- 
 ing man, was more likely to obtain full posses- 
 sion, and keep it, than the timid and effeminate 
 Joseph, who had not the slightest pretension to the 
 character of a soldier, had been called from Madrid 
 to be present at Joseph’s inauguration, which he 
 witnessed with no very friendly eye; but a few 
 days after, or on the 15th of July, the great king- 
 maker appointed ‘* his dearly beloved cousin Joa- 
 chim Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, to the throne 
 of Naples and Sicily, which remains yacant by the 
 accession of Joseph Napoleon to the kingdoms of 
 Spain and the Indies.”* For a time the soldier of 
 fortune continued to regret that he should have the 
 smaller, and the parvenw merchant’s clerk the larger 
 kingdom ; but Murat had afterwards cause to be 
 well satisfied, for, when not called away to serve the 
 emperor, his brother-in-law, in distant foreign wars, 
 he lived joyously and tranquilly enough in Naples 
 his capital ; while Joseph, from the day on which he 
 entered Spain, was exposed to dangers which must 
 have been doubly terrible to a man of his unwar- 
 like temperament, and was condemned to lead a 
 flitting, fugitive, vagabond existence from the sum- 
 mer of 1808 to the summer of 1813, when Lord 
 Wellington drove him across the Pyrenees, and 
 from Madrid his capital, for the last of many times 
 and for ever. Letters from Joseph Bonaparte are 
 still extant in the south of Italy, wherein he declares 
 that from the time when, in reluctant obedience to 
 his brother’s commands, he quitted Naples, he had 
 not known one single happy or tranquil day. No 
 man, and assuredly not Murat, could have subdued 
 
 * This curious document, like the decree appointing Joseph 
 King of Spain, is signed ‘‘ NapoLEon,” and countersigned ** Maret, 
 minister, secretary of State.” 
 
 In Joseph’s case, a fiction of a sanction was obtained from the 
 so-called Spanish junta assembled at Bayonne; but in Murat’s case 
 it was not thought necessary to demand from the poor Neapolitans, 
 or a fragment of that nation, any sanction whatsoever. ‘The Nea- 
 politans, however, had a decided change for the better, in getting 
 Murat in lieu of Joseph. 
 
he oe 
 
 Cuar. VIII.) 
 
 the difficulties with which the usurped throne of | 
 Spain was beset; but of all the men about Napo- 
 leon, Joseph was perhaps the least qualified for even 
 struggling with these difficulties. Even in the city 
 of Naples, where there was little or no danger, where 
 there were scarcely any hostile combinations or 
 dangerous plots, except such as were invented by 
 his infamous police-minister Saliceti, he had lived 
 for a long time in constant dread of assassination, 
 insurrection, revolution; and from these unmanly 
 fears, and from the bondage of the Corsican Jacobin 
 and Conyentionist, he had never béen able wholly 
 to liberate himself. 
 
 Advice had not been wanting to warn Bonaparte 
 of the perilous nature of his Spanish enterprize, 
 and to prevent his rushing into that war which he 
 himself afterwards called “ that wretched war, 
 the cause of my ruin!”” Even Fouché, his police 
 minister, and the man of whom he stood in most, 
 awe, pleaded strongly, but in vain, against the 
 whole enterprize. ‘ As for Portugal,” said Fouche, 
 “let her take her fate—she is little better than an 
 English colony. But the King of Spain has given 
 you no reason to complain ; he has been the hum- 
 blest of your prefects — fleets, troops, sea-ports, 
 money, all the things he has have been at your 
 disposition. You cannot get more from Spain if 
 you take the country from him...... . You 
 ought to be aware that the Spanish people are not 
 mild and phlegmatic like the Germans! [Bona- 
 parte had conceived that it would not be much 
 
 more difficult to make Joseph King of Spain than 
 it had been found to make Jerome King of West- 
 phalia.] The Spaniards are passionately attached 
 to their ancient laws, their ancient government, 
 
 their ancient customs. You will commit an error 
 if you judge of the national character by the spirit- 
 less character of the higher classes. ‘Take heed 
 you do not convert, by an act of aggression, a sub- 
 missive and useful tributary kingdom into a second 
 Vendée!’ The presumptuous conqueror replied 
 that the character of the Spanish government was 
 contemptible, that Charles [V. was imbecile, that 
 Godoy was a scoundrel and unpopular, and that 
 one good volley of French artillery would scatter 
 the common people and the monks who led them 
 on or excited them. He knew at the moment, or 
 at least he afterwards seemed to admit by the vast 
 military preparations he made, and by the great 
 precautions he took, that the fiery peasantry of 
 Spain would not be so easily subdued or scattered ; 
 but his present object was simply to beat down the 
 objection and opposition of Fouché, to whom he 
 also exhibited the dazzling nature of the temptation 
 which lay before him through the vices of the 
 Spanish government, and the footing he was ob- 
 taining in the country by means of the iniquitous 
 treaty of Fontainebleau and the marching of his 
 troops into Portugal. ‘ My stake,” said he, “‘ the 
 stake I play for is immense! [ will continue in 
 my own dynasty the system of Louis XIV. and the 
 Bourbons, and unite Spain for ever to the destinies 
 of France. Remember, the sun never sets on the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 413 
 
 empire of Charles V.!”? And at this moment, no 
 doubt, his heated imagination waved the sceptre of 
 the great Charles over both hemispheres. His 
 crafty police minister ventured to hint that, not- 
 withstanding the courtesies and compliments which 
 had passed at Tilsit, there might be but slight de- 
 pendence upon the friendship or sincerity of the 
 Emperor Alexander; that Russia, on seeing him 
 engaging in a ruinous contest in Spain, might 
 renew her connection with England, and thus 
 place him between two fires. ‘* Bah!” said he, 
 ** you talk like a minister of police, whose habits 
 teach him to doubt that there is such a thing as 
 sincerity in the world!” No man in the world 
 had this doubt more deeply fixed in his heart, or 
 more thoroughly interwoven with his nature, than 
 Bonaparte himself; yet he pretended to assure his 
 police minister that the czar and his Tilsit treaty 
 were entirely to be depended upon. 
 
 Talleyrand, in a style more courtly and _per- 
 suasive than that of the ex-Jacobin and sans-culotte 
 Fouché, endeavoured to turn the wilful man away 
 from his project. The persuasive tone, the exten- 
 sive information, the marvellous political sagacity 
 of this minister, must have prevailed with almost 
 any other sovereign; but they were thrown away 
 upon one whose successes had driven him mad. 
 Bonaparte complained of the pertinacity of Talley- 
 rand; and Talleyrand now began to speak pri- 
 
 _vately of Bonaparte as one who could not be served, 
 
 because he would not listen to any advice that was 
 contrary to a preconceived notion or to a cherished 
 system. In a discussion on the affairs of Spain 
 the Emperor of the French lost all respect for the 
 high-born and able minister who had served him 
 so long and so well, lost all command of his temper, 
 and called Talleyrand “ traitor ”’ to his face. But 
 that imperturbable, impassive face betrayed no more 
 emotion than one of the marble statues in the Tuile- 
 ries garden. ‘Talleyrand looked placidly out upon 
 that garden and its statues from the window above ; 
 but when he went home he shrugged his shoulders 
 and said, “ This is the beginning of the end!” 
 (C'est le commencement de la fin!) On the 9th 
 of August, 1807, just eighteen days before the con- 
 clusion of the treaty of Fontainebleau, which was 
 but a preparatory step to the greater but not more 
 iniquitous Spanish scheme, Talleyrand either volun- 
 tarily resigned or was dismissed from office; and 
 Champagny, who was immeasurably inferior to him 
 in ail qualities except that of passive obedience, 
 was put into his place. From this moment nearly 
 all political wisdom and moderation disappeared 
 from the councils of Bonaparte, who had been far 
 more indebted to Talleyrand than French or any 
 other historians seem inclined to allow. When the 
 Spanish royal family were all kidnapped, Ferdinand 
 and his brothers were, as we have seen, quartered 
 upon Talleyrand, or sent to occupy his palace at 
 Valencay ; and by a sort of practical epigram, he 
 and his opposition to the will of the emperor were 
 held up to the ridicule of those who had often 
 writhed under his gentle-toned but terrible sar- 
 
414 
 
 casms. In his capacity of grand-chamberlain, the 
 ex-minister for foreign affairs did the honours of 
 Bonaparte’s court at Erfurt, when the Emperor of 
 Russia repaired thither to renew the secret con- 
 ferences which had been held at Tilsit. Bonaparte 
 is even reported to have consulted him several times 
 on political affairs, and to have said that they ought 
 never to have quarrelled or parted. But at the 
 beginning of the following year (1809), when Bo- 
 naparte hastily returned from the peninsula, he 
 deprived him of the post of grand-chamberlain, 
 because he continued to denounce the Spanish war, 
 and to predict nothing but ruin from it. And yet, 
 in spite of all these facts, which were at the time 
 notorious and known to every one in Europe that 
 pretended to any knowledge of public affairs, 
 Bonaparte and his memoir-writers afterwards pre- 
 tended to assert that it was Talleyrand who first 
 led the emperor into the scheme of Spanish con- 
 quest; and that the cause for which Talleyrand 
 had been disgracefully driven from office was his 
 propensity to stock-jobbing, and the private use he 
 made of official information ! 
 
 Two months before Murat quitted Madrid, that 
 capital had been the scene of a dreadful commotion. 
 As soon as the people learned that Ferdinand was 
 a prisoner in the hands of the French, they began 
 to murmur, to move, and to look to their knives 
 and daggers. On the 2nd of May, the day fixed 
 for the departure of Charles [V.’s daughter, the ex- 
 queen of Etruria, with her infant son, the only 
 members of the house of Bourbon that remained 
 in Spain (except the Cardinal de Bourbon, arch- 
 bishop of Toledo, who had sent to Bayonne a 
 renunciation of all right or pretension to the suc- 
 cession), the people gathered in great multitudes 
 to witness, or, if possible, to prevent the departure. 
 Surrounded by Murat’s cavalry, the carriages were 
 allowed to drive off; but the princess and her 
 child were seen weeping—a sight which increased 
 the popular emotion—and the assembled, excited 
 multitude gave vent to tears, lamentations, and 
 threats ; and a conflict presently ensued between 
 them and the French. From 400 to 500 French 
 soldiers, who were strolling through the streets in 
 the interior of the city, separately or in small 
 parties, and without auy knowledge of the storm 
 which had commenced near one of the outer gates 
 of the town, fell murdered and mangled under the 
 long, sharp Spanish knife ; even the French sick 
 in the hospital were attacked, for this “ war to the 
 knife,” this Spanish rabies, was rarely mitigated by 
 any mercy. Murat poured troops and artillery 
 into the city, and soon cleared the streets with some 
 charges of cavalry and a few discharges of grape- 
 shot. The number of Spaniards who fell in the 
 streets was not considerable—much less than that 
 of the Frenchmen who had fallen under their 
 knives ; but, less it is said through the orders of 
 Murat, who was not naturally cruel, and whose 
 present aim was conciliation, than through the 
 advice of General Grouchy, and through the un- 
 controllable fury of the French soldiery, many 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X. j 
 
 individuals who had been seized in the streets 
 were condemned to be shot, without so much as 
 a drum-head trial, and in spite of the solemn 
 assurances given by the friends of some of them 
 that they had taken no part in the imsurrection. 
 They were shot by night in parties of tens and 
 dozens at a time. The number of Spaniards who 
 thus perished is variously stated at from 500 to 
 only 120: among the conflicting reports there 
 seems no possibility of getting at the truth; but 
 as these military executions were renewed on the 
 following night and on the night after, and as a 
 good many peasants were seized with the knife and 
 the red hand, it will probably not be over-stating 
 the number of victims to put it at 200.* But 
 even the highest of the number we have mentioned 
 was far inferior to the amount of massacre in which 
 the populace believed: the common people of 
 Madrid and the neighbourhood gave out that some 
 thousands of Spaniards had been murdered in cold 
 blood for no other crime than that of loving their 
 country and their royal family ; and these popular 
 exaggerations, which were rapidly circulated in all 
 directions, seemed to obtain confirmation from an 
 article in the * Moniteur,’ stating that a handful of 
 French had perished, and that thousands (que/ques 
 milliers) of Spaniards had fallen. ‘To diminish 
 his own loss was the unvarying practice of Bona- 
 parte ; and in this instance he multiplied the deaths 
 of his enemies in order to strike terror into the 
 Spanish nation. But the calculation was a bad 
 one: instead of terror it multiplied hatred and 
 revenge, and it made other people besides the 
 Spaniards believe in a massacre much more atro- 
 cious than any that had really taken place. For 
 the present Madrid remained in a sullen tran- 
 quillity, Murat publishing on the 5th of May a 
 proclamation of amnesty. But, though got under 
 there, the flames of insurrection broke out simul- 
 taneously in many towns and villages of New Castile, 
 and spread most rapidly thence to Old Castile, to 
 Navarre, to Andalusia, to Valencia, to Catalonia, to 
 the Biscayan provinces, to every province and dis- 
 trict of Spain, and to almost every town in the 
 kingdom excepting those occupied by strong French 
 garrisons. The conflagration raged still more 
 violently when the Spaniards were informed by 
 successive proclamations that Ferdinand had re- 
 nounced his rights to the Emperor of the French, 
 that the emperor had been pleased to give the 
 crown to his brother, and that Joseph was 
 
 * Colonel Napier, whose eagerness for impartiality aud whose love 
 of contradiction render him in fact partial to the French, says it is 
 certain that, including the peasants shot outside the gates, the whole — 
 number of Spaniards slain did not amount to 120 persons.— History ¥ 
 the War in the Peninsula and in the Suuth of France from the Year 18 
 to the Year 1814. 
 
 But, as is wot unusual with him in his boldest assertions, Colonel 
 Napier gives no authority to back this certainty, or to vouch for the 
 number of the slain. Bonaparte’s government, which so egregiously 
 falsified the numbers in the ‘ Moniteur,’ never gave aiy register of the 
 deaths: there was, apparently, no register kept by the distracted, 
 
 panic-stricken municipality of Madrid, nor does any Spaniard in that | 
 
 city appear to have known what numbers were executed, As the 
 fusillades took place in different parts of the town and suburbs, 
 and were performed by different companies, it is probable and 
 almost certain that not one of the French soldiers knew the total 
 amount of the slain. 
 
Guar. VIII.] 
 
 coming to take possession. In vain the native 
 Spanish ministers, and other authorities whom 
 Bonaparte had appointed to aid his brother in the 
 task of government, issued manifestos to assure 
 the people that they would gain immensely by these 
 political changes, that the French aimed at nothing 
 but the good of their country, that their holy church 
 and their ancient usages would be respected, re- 
 vered; in vain these unnational Spaniards sent out 
 agents to make converts, and get up a party for King 
 Joseph ; their manifestos were spit upon and torn 
 to pieces, their agents wherever they were detected 
 by the people were slaughtered, and they themselves, 
 ministers and high functionaries, or grandees, as 
 they were, could not show their faces outside of 
 the walls of Madrid, unless they were shielded by 
 a body of French troops. After Murat had taken 
 his departure, the management of a large part of 
 the French army fell to men who had little of his 
 soldier-like magnanimity, who encouraged rather 
 than checked the fury of the soldiery, exasperated 
 by the frequent deaths of their comrades, cut off 
 singly or in straggling parties ; and who adopted as 
 a principle that so unfriendly and stubborn a 
 people was to be subjugated only by fire and sword. 
 As in Calabria, cruelty begot cruelty, excess ex- 
 cess: from the beginning of the conflict between 
 the French and Spaniards, to the end of it, it was 
 a war of wild beasts; nor could the British officers 
 ever convince the Spanish peasantry that they 
 ought not to torture and then butcher the treache- 
 rous kidnappers of their king, the unprovoked in- 
 vaders of their country. ‘‘ Letthem restore King 
 Ferdinand and his brother, cease insulting our 
 monks, and violating our nuns, plundering our 
 towns, and burning our villages; let them quit our 
 country and go back to their own, and then we 
 will sheathe our knives and do them no harm ;”’— 
 such was the universal conviction of the peasants, 
 and it was utterly hopeless to talk to them of the 
 usages of civilized warfare. They were not civi- 
 lized; and never was 4 more maddening provoca- 
 tion given to a naturally fierce people than that 
 which was given to the Spaniards by the treache- 
 rous manner in which their country was invaded, 
 and in the ruthless way in which the war was very 
 soon carried on by the French. 
 
 Even before the explosion at Madrid, a popular 
 insurrection had broken out in Toledo, where men 
 once made good sword-blades, and still knew how to 
 use them. When the intrusive King Joseph crossed 
 the frontiers, surrounded by a French and Italian 
 army, he found no Spaniard to welcome him, or say, 
 God bless him. At Vittoria the townspeople seemed 
 disposed to prevent his entrance, and would certainly 
 have fallen upon him but for his artillery and troops. 
 He entered Madrid on the 20th of July; and on 
 the 24th of that month he was proclaimed king. 
 But by this time a local Spanish government was 
 established at Seville, which took to itself the title 
 of *‘ Supreme Junta of Spain and the Indies,”’ re- 
 newed the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand VII., 
 issued a formal declaration of war against the usur- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 ep eee LI ee 
 
 Fi 
 i 
 
 415 
 
 per Joseph, called upon all Spaniards between the 
 ages of sixteen and forty-five to fly to arms, sum- 
 moned some yeteran Spanish troops, at the camp 
 of St. Roque, under the rock of Gibraltar, to march 
 to Seville; and ordered General the Marquis of 
 Solano to attack and seize a French squadron of 
 five sail of the line and a frigate, which had taken 
 refuge in the harbour of Cadiz from the pursuit of 
 the English. Solano hesitated, incurred the fatal 
 suspicion of being a French partisan, and was mur- 
 dered by the people of Cadiz. Nearly at the same 
 time, and on account of the same suspicion, Count 
 de Aguilar was butchered by the people of Seville. 
 Don T. Morla, who succeeded to the Marquis of 
 Solano’s command, seized all the French ships, and 
 made prisoners of all the officers and crews, having 
 refused English assistance. Before receiving the 
 summons of the Seville junta, and even before the 
 formation of that governing body, General Casta- 
 fos, who commanded the army of Andalusia at St. 
 Roque, had adopted the resolution of resisting the 
 French, and applied to English officers for aid and 
 assistance.* 
 
 As early as the 8th of April, General Castafios 
 dispatched a confidential agent to Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, acting governor of Gibraltar, to ac- 
 quaint him with the present state of things at 
 Madrid, and with all the circumstances that 
 preceded and accompanied the revolution of Aran- 
 juez, which had placed Ferdinand on the throne. 
 ‘This Spanish agent represented to Dalrymple that 
 there was an end tothe policy which under Charles 
 IV. and Godoy had made Spain the servant of 
 France and the foe of England; that men of na- 
 tional spirit and political talent were now rallying 
 round the throne of Ferdinand ; that the uation 
 itself had caught the impulse, and was prepar- 
 ing in the most energetic manner to support its 
 new monarch; that Catalonia, Aragon, and Valen- 
 cia had already offered to raise and maintain an 
 army of 150,000 men; that it was not doubted 
 that this example would be universally followed ; 
 and that, in fine, it was believed that should the 
 perfidy of the French, now only suspected, be 
 proved by subsequent acts, the Fyench troops, not- 
 
 *In spite of Spain’s being in a state of war with England, there had 
 been for many months a friendly intercourse maintained between the 
 British garrison and governor of Gibraltar and the Spaniards living 
 at St. Roque and the neighbourhood. This was productive of mutual 
 convenience, was highly agreeable to the Spanish peasantry, who had 
 fruits and vegetables, and other things for sale; it was more than 
 wizked at, it was sanctioned, by General Castanos, between whom and 
 the resident governor of the rock, Sir Hew Dalrymple, a very friendly 
 correspondence had existed. But towards the end of the year 1807, 
 when the French columns began to enter Spain, it was officially noti- 
 fied to Sir Hew that Castafios had received the orders of his govern- 
 ment to stop all manner of communication with Gibraltar ; and, from 
 this date, the fortress had been held in a rigorous state of blockade. 
 Shortly after receiving Castafios’ intimation, Sir Hew Dalrymple was 
 informed by Lord Strangford, the British minister at Lisbon, that it 
 was certainly a part of Bonaparte’s plan of operations to possess him- 
 self of Gibraltar. The necessary preparations were promptly made 
 to meet the danger when it should arrive ; and a body of troops, 
 under the command of General Spencer, that was on its way to Sicily, 
 was stopped and landed on this important rock. Some of the silliest 
 of the Spaniards were elated with the hope of getting possession of 
 Gibraltar through Bonaparte’s means; but it would appear that 
 the vast majority of the Andalusians had no such expectation, and 
 were transported with fury on learning the marching of French 
 columns through Spain, foreseeing, as their imbecile government 
 ought to have done, that there was more in the wind than the 
 mere seizure of Portugal. 
 
416 
 
 withstanding their discipline and numbers, would 
 be overwhelmed by an enraged and formidable 
 population, roused into action by wrongs and 
 insults.* Our foreign secretary, Lord Castle- 
 reagh, with all his usual activity and energy, seems 
 to have been liable to fits of oblivion or negligence. 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple, losing no time, wrote and 
 sent off a dispatch on the 8th of April, requesting 
 to be furnished with, at least, provisional instruc- 
 tions ; but the noble secretary's answer was dated 
 the 25th of May, and was not received till June. 
 In the meanwhile, however, Sir Hew continued 
 an intercourse with Castafos, chiefly through the 
 medium of a native merchant of Gibraltar, named 
 Manuel Viali. As events were precipitated, and 
 as the designs of the French became more fully 
 known, General Castaiios became the more eager for 
 the conclusion of some agreement with the English ; 
 but Sir Hew could not enter into any engagement 
 upon his own responsibility, and merely held out 
 hopes, and hinted at advantages and securities 
 which his government might desire. When the 
 junta of Seville was formed, and when Castafos 
 acknowledged its authority with the hope that all 
 the patriots of Spain would equally submit to it, 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple furnished him with some sup- 
 plies, lent assistance to bring over some Spanish 
 troops from Ceuta, and encouraged the merchants 
 of Gibraltar to open a subscription for the patriots. 
 To their honour, the Gibraltar merchants sub- 
 scribed in a few minutes about 40,000 hard dollars 
 without premium, and on the sole security of the 
 junta of Seville. This seasonable supply enabled 
 Castanos to obey the summons of the junta, and 
 get his troops in marching order; and on the 6th 
 of June the Spanish general, accompanied by 
 Captain Whittingham, an English officer who had 
 passed much of his early life in Spain, set out for 
 Seville to consult with that government as to the 
 measures proper to be pursued in order to prevent 
 the French from crossing the Sierra Morena, or to 
 drive them back if they had crossed. On the 8th 
 of June arrived Lord Castlereagh’s tardy dis- 
 patch, acquainting Sir Hew Dalrymple with the 
 intention of our government to afford the loyal 
 party in Spain the assistance of 10,000 men, which 
 seemed to be the number of British troops that 
 General Castanos immediately required. The 
 secretary, however, cautioned Sir Hew not to risk 
 so small a force inland or far from communication 
 with the English fleet. At the time when Castle- 
 reagh’s dispatch was dated no such measure had 
 taken place, but four days before the dispatch was 
 received at Gibraltar—on the 4th of June, the 
 birth-day of George III.—a proclamation issued 
 from the queen’s palace at Buckingham House, 
 stating that his majesty, having taken into consi- 
 deration the glorious resolution of the Spaniards 
 
 * Memoir written by Gen. Sir Hew Dalrymple, Bart. of his pro- 
 ceedings as connected with the affairs of Spain and the commencement 
 of the Peninsular war. 
 
 + At this early stage, Sir Hew Dalrymple threw out loose 
 suggestions about the propriety of the Spaniards putting us in 
 possession pro tempore of Ceuta and Minorca, hinting, that other- 
 wise the French might take those important places. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 to deliver their country from the tyranny and 
 usurpation of France, and the assurances his 
 majesty had received from several of the provinces 
 of Spain of their friendly disposition towards Eng- 
 land, he was pleased to order that all hostilities 
 against Spain should immediately cease—that the 
 blockade of all the ports of Spain, except such as 
 might be still under the control or in the actual 
 possession of the French, should be forthwith 
 raised—that all ships and vessels belonging to 
 Spain should have free admission into the ports of 
 his majesty’s dominions—that the ships belonging 
 to Spain met at sea by our ships and cruisers 
 should be treated as ships of a friendly state, 
 &c. &c.* On the 9th of June Admiral Lord Col- 
 lingwood, who had been watching Toulon, came 
 down to Gibraltar with two ships of the line, being 
 attracted thither by intelligence he had obtained of 
 the rapid progress of the Spanish insurrection, and 
 by letters he had received from Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple. On the 10th Collingwood went through 
 the straits to Cadiz, to take the command of the 
 whole of the fleet assembled there, and to give such 
 encouragement, and such supplies as he could 
 spare. He carried with him Major Cox, whom 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple had selected to reside as con- 
 fidential agent at Seville. Collingwood, who 
 admired and loved the good parts of the Spanish 
 character, was not blind to its defects; and 
 though he had great hopes that this universal 
 rising would be attended with important results, 
 he very clearly foresaw that numerous and great 
 errors would be committed, and that the struggle 
 would not end quite so soon as men of more 
 hope and less knowledge and experience seemed 
 to imagine.t General Spencer soon followed 
 to Cadiz with 5000 men, but, through sundry 
 jealousies and other circumstances hereafter to be 
 mentioned, these troops were not landed there, nor 
 in any part of the Andalusian coast, but were after- 
 wards disembarked in Portugal, as an important 
 reinforcement to the army which Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley commanded. The very first assistance which 
 the Spaniards received from the English was not 
 therefore of great amount, but it would have been 
 greater but for the jealous tempers of Morla, the 
 governor of Cadiz, and of the ruling majority in 
 the junta of Seville; and, such as it was, General 
 Castanos always expressed his warm gratitude for 
 it to Sir Hew Dalrymple, who, considering the 
 caution and circumspection of his character, the 
 very peculiar situation in which he was placed 
 (Spain being in a state of war with England, and 
 
 * It was not, however, until January, 1809, that the treaty acknow- 
 
 ledging Ferdinand VII. was signed between England and Spain. 
 
 + The gunpowder which was first furnished by the English fleet 
 was immediately fired away by the Spaniards in honour of a saint 
 whose festival they were then celebrating ; and when they requested 
 
 a farther supply, Lord Collingwood informed them that he could 
 
 spare no more, unless they would promise to reserve it for sinners, and 
 not for saints. There were about this time very frequent rumours of 
 defeats sustained by the French, in all parts of Spain; and for one of 
 these imaginary successes the town of Cadiz was illuminated. “I 
 always thought that this victory,” said Lord Collingwood, on observ- 
 ing their preparations, ‘‘ was a doubtful and dark affair; but Z see 
 now that they are going to throw some light upon it.”—Memoirs of 
 Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood, §c. by G. L. Newnham Collingwood. 
 
 {Book X, © 
 
ee 
 
 - Cnap, VIII.) 
 
 there being, if not a possibility of deception on the 
 part of Castafios, an exceedingly great probability 
 that the Spaniards might make a bad use of the 
 money and materials he sent them), and the heavy 
 responsibility he lay under, acting without in- 
 structions from his government, and in the painful 
 state of uncertainty occasioned by Lord Castle- 
 reagh’s long and scarcely excusable silence, must, 
 we conceive, be entitled to great praise for the 
 exertions he made in behalf of the patriots. We 
 know, indeed, that the unanimous and _ passionate 
 feeling of the officers and British merchants at 
 Gibraltar impelled him forward ; but still another 
 man, placed in his situation, might have hesitated 
 ere he took any steps which were not sanctioned 
 dy his government, and which might have drawn 
 down severe censure upon him. It was an irre- 
 gular act, of no trifling amount, to send military 
 stores and money into a country with which the 
 King of Great Britain was actually in a state of 
 hostility. His king’s proclamation did not reach 
 him until a good many days after the reception of 
 the foreign secretary’s very cautious reply to his 
 dispatch or dispatches ; and even in this reply Sir 
 Hew was told not to commit either the faith of his 
 government, or the forces under his command, 
 unnecessarily, or for an inadequate object. Nor 
 was it until the month of June was somewhat 
 advanced that the slow and perplexed junta of 
 Seville, composed of men not much accustomed to 
 public business, and scarcely adequate to the per- 
 formance of the excessively difficult duties they 
 had undertaken, declared themselves at peace with 
 Isngland, and sent four commissioners to London, 
 for the purpose of settling diplomatic relations be- 
 tween their country and ours.* 
 
 When Captain Whittingham joined Castafios, 
 he found that that general had fixed his head- | 
 
 quarters at Utrera, where he had 5000 disciplined 
 troops, and that he had occupied Carmona with 
 3000 more men of the same class; and very 
 shortly after, Castafios incorporated 12,000 men, 
 sclected from the mass of the fine peasantry of 
 Andalusia. He had thus assembled and formed, 
 in a wonderfully short space of time, an army of 
 20,000 men: he had also organised the staff of 
 his army, and, upon the whole, had placed his 
 forces in such a state of equipment as to be fit for 
 offensive operations against the enemy.t It was 
 mainly in consequence of this activity, which 
 Castanos could not have displayed but for the 
 timely assistance of Sir Hew Dalrymple, who had 
 helped him to take his first and most difficult 
 step—in all things c’est le premier pas qui coute— 
 that the French general Dupont was awed—was 
 induced to halt and to remain a considerable time 
 inactive at Cordova, a halt which allowed other 
 Spanish corps to gather round him, and which 
 eventually led to Dupont’s disgraceful capitulation, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 When the war of independence began, the or- | 
 
 ganised Spanish force was roughly estimated at 
 
 * Collingwood, Letter to his Wife, 
 + Sir Hew Dalrymple, Memoirs, 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 dated 15th of June, 1508. 
 
 417 
 
 127,000 men of all arms, but of this number 
 15,000 men were far away, serving and shivering 
 under the banner of Bonaparte, in Holstein and 
 other regions of the Baltic: and nearly 20,000, 
 concentrated in Portugal, were obeying the orders 
 of Junot. Of the 92,000, or thereabouts, that re- 
 mained, not less than 30,000 were mere militia ; 
 but about 11,000 were Swiss infantry, with all the 
 discipline, steadiness, and bravery for which Hel- 
 vetic troops have always been celebrated. Thus 
 the number of native regular troops actually on foot 
 on the soil of Spain did not exceed 51,000 men; 
 and these, for the most part, were but indifferently 
 officered by offshoots of the Spanish aristocracy, 
 who were impatient of fatigue and of subordina- 
 tion, and who, speaking generally, and with due 
 honour to the exceptions, possessed but few essen- 
 tial military qualities. There was another capital 
 deficiency ; in the whole Spanish army there was 
 not a single staff deserving of the name—thcir staffs 
 were sticks. These troops were widely dispersed in 
 different parts of the kingdom; but the largest 
 body among them happily chanced to be on the 
 southern side of the Sierra Morena and in Anda- 
 lusia. In addition to the 30,000 militia, there 
 was a sort of local reserve, called Los Urbanos, or 
 Urban Militia, a most irregular and motley force, 
 but which, though not worth much in the field, 
 could supply the place of better troops in the towns. 
 At the same moment, or in the month of May, the 
 French army, exclusive of the 30,000 men in Por- 
 tugal with Junot, was about 80,000 strong ; but 
 not more than 70,000 were capable of service in 
 the field, the rest being in the hospitals or in the 
 depéts. There were some of Bonaparte’s best men, 
 imperial guards and veteran regiments of the line, 
 but the much larger number was made up of con- 
 scripts, Swiss, Italians, Poles, and even Portuguese, 
 whom Junot had forcibly levied. But at Bayonne, 
 ready to march into Spain at any moment, was an 
 army of reserve, under General Drouet, more than 
 20,000 strong ; and, close in the rear of this army 
 of reserve, other French corps were collected. The 
 Vrench army, too, like the Spanish, was at first 
 scattered over a wide extent of country; and Gene- 
 ral Duhesme, with 12 or 13,000 men, remained fora 
 considerable time on the eastern or Mediterranean 
 coast, with his communications pretty open with 
 the south-east of France, but with his communica- 
 tions with Madrid and the moving columns of the 
 main army completely cut off. Duhesme had, in 
 fact, a campaign, or rather a war, of his own to 
 manage, with his own resources ; and the fierce and 
 hardy Catalans soon made him feel what a terrible 
 war it was. Except with reference to Duhesme’s 
 corps Warmée, Bonaparte’s grand object in the 
 distribution of his troops was to secure Madrid, 
 which he very incorrectly fancied to be another 
 Paris, “ the centre of all interests,” and to secure 
 the great line of communication between Bayonne 
 and the Spanish capital. Murat had weakened the 
 detachments that guarded this great line vf com- 
 
 munication, and had almost isolated the, Errench at 
 A 
 
418 
 
 Madrid; but, at the first blush of insurrection, 
 Marshal Bessiéres was sent back towards Navarre. 
 Bessitres must have received considerable rein- 
 forcements, either from Drouet’s army of Teserve, 
 or from some other corps in France, for in the 
 month of June his army was from 23,000 to 25,000 
 strong. It was called the “ Army of the Western 
 Pyrenees,” as that of Duhesme, at the other extre- 
 mity of that stupendous chain of mountains, was 
 called ‘‘ the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees.” 
 
 It fell to the lot of Marshal Bessiéres to fight the 
 first battle that was fought against the Spanish 
 patriots. On the 14th of June, which was many 
 days before the Emperor Napoleon had finished his 
 arrangements at Bayonne, and just twenty-three 
 days before his brother Joseph, being inaugurated as 
 King of Spain, produced his Spanish constitution, 
 and made the members of the itinerant junta swear 
 eternal fidelity to it and to him, Bessiéres found 
 himself confronted by the old Spanish general 
 Cuesta, who occupied the heights of Medina del 
 Rio Seco, a few leagues from the city of Valladolid. 
 With far more enthusiasm and valour than pru- 
 dence, the fiery Spanish veteran, with his raw 
 levies and a few Walloon regiments, and without 
 any cavalry, risked a general action, and sustained 
 a complete defeat. From 5000 to 6000 Spaniards 
 were left killed or wounded on the field ; 1200 of 
 them were taken prisoners; and Cuesta besides 
 lost 18 guns—nearly all his artillery—and a great 
 store of ammunition. The battle was savagely 
 fought ; and little mercy was shown in the pursuit 
 which followed the defeat, for a report ran through 
 Bessiéres’ army that Cuesta’s Spaniards had 
 brought with them ropes, fetters, and chains 
 wherewith to tie up the French prisoners they 
 should take, like criminals condemned to galley 
 slavery; and, during their march, not a few of 
 the French had fallen under the Spanish knife. 
 Bessiéres, according to the ‘ Moniteur,’ had only 
 50 killed and 300 wounded ; but the probability is 
 that his loss was five or six times as much. His 
 victory tended to open his communication with 
 Junot in Portugal. But the incidents which im- 
 mediately followed tended still more directly to 
 prove the difficulties and costs of this war, and the 
 nature of the struggle which Bonaparte had under- 
 taken against a whole people, divided enough among 
 themselves in other particulars, but now unanimous 
 in their detestation of his treachery and violence, 
 and in their resolution to oppose him. The little 
 open town of Medina del Rio Seco was not taken 
 without a sort of siege; and when Bessiéres’ sol- 
 diers entered the streets they were saluted with a 
 hot fire from the churches and from the windows 
 of nearly all the houses ; and while many of them 
 ended their mortal march there, a great many more 
 were badly wounded by the townspeople, the pea- 
 sants, and the monks, who fired from under cover 
 and with deliberate aim. Shortly after the battle 
 the French marshal tried to tamper with the fidelity 
 of the Spanish generals ; he liberated the prisoners 
 he had taken, he ingeniously attempted to demon- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 strate that the insurrection was utterly hopeless, 
 
 and he offered the viceroyalty of Mexico to Cuesta, 
 
 and promised high military promotion under King ~ 
 
 Joseph to General Blake, a Spaniard of Irish 
 descent, and Cuesta’s second in command. Both 
 these officers refused. to listen to any accommoda- 
 tion: and, keeping his troops together as well as 
 he could, Cuesta retired into Galicia; and before 
 Bessiéres could follow him, or derive any solid 
 benefit from the victory of Medina del Rio Seco, 
 he was suddenly recalled to protect King Joseph, 
 who was always wanting protection, and whose 
 personal safety in Madrid was now committed by 
 the surrender in Andalusia of General Dupont, 
 with his entire corps d’armée. 
 
 Dupont, though formerly a protegé of the mili- 
 tary savant Carnot, appears to have been a vain, 
 inept officer, with rather more than the ordinary 
 dose of overweening self-conceit. After blundering 
 through the rough and crooked passes of the Sierra 
 Morena, where Sancho Panza lost his ass Dapple, 
 and where Don Quixote imitated the penance of 
 Beltenebras; and after remaining inactive at Cor- 
 dova, while Castafios was organising his army, and 
 while all Andalusia was flying to arms in his front 
 and on his flanks—after hesitating whether he 
 should try to advance, as Savary had ordered him 
 to do, in the direction of Seville and Cadiz,or whe- 
 ther he should retrace his painful steps through the 
 defiles of the Sierra Morena, and fall back upon 
 Madrid—he remained for ten days stationary where 
 he was at Cordova, imploring Savary to send him 
 reinforcements ; and through this inactivity, hesi- 
 tation, and timidity, after so much rapidity and 
 rashness in advancing thither without looking 
 before him or on either side of him, Dupont lost 
 his army in a worse manner than that in which the 
 squire of the knight of the woeful countenance lost 
 
 his ass, for Dapple was soon found again, and the 
 
 French divisions were not. Dupont, incited by 
 the local scenery, might have advantageously spent 
 some of his leisure hours at Cordova in reading 
 the immortal work of Cervantes, and from that 
 
 great practical philosopher, Sancho, he might haye 
 
 derived a lesson very applicable to his own present 
 situation. Just as Don Quixote was going to 
 
 throw himself among the wilds of the Sierra — 
 
 Morena, his faithful squire, speaking from the back 
 
 of Dapple (the ass being not yet lost), said—“ Sir, 
 
 retreating is not running away, nor is staying wis- 
 dom, when the danger over-balances the hope, and 
 it is the part of wise men to secure themselves to- 
 
 day for to-morrow, and not to venture all upon one 
 
 throw.” ad 
 
 On the 17th of June, Dupont began to do what 
 he ought to have done on the 7th, or even earlier 
 —he began to retreat towards the lofty brown 
 mountains which he had so unwisely crossed. But 
 by this time the advanced guard of the Spanish 
 army of Andalusia was close in his rear, and armed 
 peasants were gathering round him like clouds. 
 
 [Boox me 
 
 The road he had to follow was already dripping — 
 with French blood; his out-posts and convoys had 
 
 | 
 
Cuap. VIII] 
 
 been overpowered and massacred ; every straggler, 
 every messenger had been intercepted and assassi- 
 nated: his very hospital had been taken, and the 
 sick and wounded, together with the surgeons who 
 attended them, and the detachments that had been 
 left to protect them, had been killed to a man by a 
 ferocious band of patriots from the old Moorish 
 town of Jaen. On the evening of the 18th of June 
 Dupont’s army, disheartened and half famished, 
 reached the town of Andujar, where his hospital 
 had been left. Here he endeavoured to collect 
 provisions, proposing to maintain himself in the 
 town until he should be reinforced by the troops 
 Savary was sending to him. But his enraged 
 troops cried for vengeance on the old Moorish town 
 which had vomited the assassins of the sick and 
 wounded, and, yielding to their cry and possibly to 
 his own impulse, Dupont sent a battalion of infantry 
 and some cavalry, under the command of a fero- 
 cious naval officer (a sea captain, one Baste, who, 
 uot being able to fight or show his face at sea, had 
 betaken himself to the land service, as many other 
 officers of the same class did), to put Jaen and its 
 inhabitants to fire and the sword. Baste and his 
 people stormed the old town, and committed every 
 possible atrocity on women and children, as well 
 as men. After these deeds, which augmented the 
 ferocity of men who were but too fierce before, 
 Baste went back to Andujar, where Dupont conti- 
 nued doing nothing for several days beyond making 
 rather unsuccessful attempts to procure provisions. 
 His foraging and scouring parties wounded and 
 tortured the country-people whom they could seize, 
 in order to force them to discover where they had 
 concealed their corn and their money; and the 
 country-people brought these foraging parties 
 down with ambuscaded muskets and rifles, or 
 stabbed and butchered them with the knife when- 
 ever fortune fayoured them with the opportunity 
 of surprising the marauders. Not a day passed 
 without its horrible, its ghastly tragedies—without 
 a loss more or less serious to Dupont’s provision- 
 collectors ; and the history of one of those days 
 would be pretty nearly the history of the whole of 
 this warfare; for, as it was in Andalusia, so was 
 it in all the other provinces of Spain into which 
 the French penetrated. Dupont’s only hope now 
 lay with the success of General Vedel, who was 
 traversing La Mancha with a division of infantry 
 and a large convoy of provisions. But the country 
 of Don Quixote was separated from Dupont’s 
 head-quarters at Andujar by those terrible Sierra- 
 Morena mountains; and 2000 or 3000 insurgents, 
 who had marched from Granada, occupied the 
 pass of Despefas-Perros, or Dog Rocks, through 
 which Dupont had penetrated into Andalusia, and 
 through which Vedel and his reinforcements and 
 victuals must come, or come not at all, or too late 
 to be of any service to Dupont. Captain Baste 
 was therefore sent to clear the formidable pass ; 
 but, before that land-fighting sea-officer reached 
 the mountains, General Vedel cut his way through 
 the insurgents, reached the town of La Carolina at 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 ene 
 
 419 
 
 the southern mouth of the valley of Despenas- 
 Perros, and, having left a garrison there, was de- 
 scending to Baylen, a town on a stream flowing 
 into the Guadalquivir, and distant only a short 
 march from Andujar. But by this time other 
 insurgents from Granada had come boldly up, and 
 taken possession of the still smoking town of Jaen, 
 and were threatening to throw themselves between 
 Baylen and La Carolina. Vedel, who had made a 
 very hurried march from Despefias-Perros, and 
 who appears to have left his convoy of provisions 
 as well as a garrison behind him at La Carolina, 
 detached General Cassagne against the enterprising 
 Granadians’ These insurgents were beaten with 
 some loss; but Cassagne lost some 200 or 300 
 men in doing it, and returned to Baylen without 
 any provisions, to obtain which had been one 
 object of his expedition. 
 
 The winding Guadalquivir flowed between the 
 French and the main body of Castafos’s army: 
 but the summer heats had rendered the river ford- 
 able in many places, and, although there were far 
 too many fords for him to watch, Dupont and 
 Vedel divided their forces in order to watch some 
 of the fords. On the 13th of July a French bri- 
 gade posted at a ferry, with an outpost on the 
 opposite side of the river, was beaten and driven 
 in by adetachment of Castaiios’s regulars. On the 
 15th, Dupont was further reinforced by a division 
 of infantry and some squadrons of cuirassiers, under 
 the command of General Gobert, who had been 
 marching and counter-marching in an extraordi- 
 nary manner, and not without considerable loss in 
 men and horses. The excessive heat of the wea- 
 ther alone proved very fatal to the French con- 
 scripts. Savary, now the real commander-in-chief 
 and war-minister at Madrid, showed that he had 
 much less genius for the art of war than for the 
 arts of military police and espionage: in regu- 
 lating the movements of the different columns of 
 the French army he committed numerous blunders, 
 and it would even appear that he was incapable 
 of comprehending the written plan of operations 
 which his master had put into his hands. Count- 
 ing Vedel’s corps, and the reinforcements which 
 Gobert had brought, Dupont must now have had 
 from 20,000 to 21,000 men; but above 1000 were 
 laid up in the hospital. Castahos was now lining 
 the opposite bank of the Guadalquivir with 25,000 
 regular foot, 2000 horse, and a heavy train of 
 artillery, and at least 25,000 armed peasants were 
 gathering all round Dupont’s positions, some of 
 these insurgents having artillery with them, and 
 officers appointed by Castanos to direct them. 
 On the evening of the 15th or 16th of July, 
 Castafios himself crowned the heights of Argonilla, 
 right in front of Andujar, while other divisions, 
 having forded the Guadalquivir, slided in between 
 Andujar and Baylen, thus separating Dupont from 
 Vedel. In a desperate conflict near one of the 
 fords General Gobert fell mortally wounded, and 
 his troops were driven back to the town of Baylen. 
 
 * Napier, Hist, of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
420 
 
 Other Spanish divisions came over to the right 
 bank of the Guadalquivir—the army of Dupont 
 was either interlaced or surrounded by Spaniards. 
 To save himself from his coupe gorge, Vedel made 
 a rush backward from Baylen to a Carolina and 
 the mountain pass of Despefias-Perros. Dupont, 
 instead of following Vedel immediately, remained 
 at Andujar until the night of the 18th, when he 
 began to move towards the mountains. His move- 
 ment was not observed by Castafios. At day-break 
 Dupont crossed a mountain torrent with rugged 
 banks ; and, leaving a few battalions on that stream 
 to check Castafios if he should attempt to follow 
 him, he marched on for about two miles, when he 
 came in contact with a large part of the Spanish 
 forces under the command of the Swiss general 
 Reding. He had summoned Vedel to descend 
 from La Carolina in order to meet him and assist 
 him ; but Vedel did not quit La Carolina until 
 five o’clock in the morning, and the battle began 
 between three and four, Dupont being either un- 
 willing or unable to wait for Vedel. The French 
 were much fatigued by their night-march, and, 
 instead of attacking in full force, Dupont kept the 
 best of his men to guard the baggage, which was 
 enormous ; for, apparently, in every town through 
 which he had passed, he had plundered and _pil- 
 laged the churches, the monasteries, and the houses 
 of the richest of the insurgents. His baggage wag- 
 gons had been mixed with his columns, and had 
 seriously impeded his march. If he had aban- 
 doned them now, and had made a dash forward, 
 there is little reason to doubt but that he might 
 have cut his way through Reding’s divisions, which 
 were principally composed of raw levies and 
 wholly undisciplined peasants ;* and, once haying 
 cut his way through and given the hand to Vedel, 
 they might together have regained La Carolina, and 
 thence have escaped with at least a part of their 
 army through the pass of Despefas-Perros : but 
 Dupont would preserve his baggage and ill-gotten 
 spoil, and therefore it was he lost baggage, spoil, and 
 army, with all such honour as he had to lose. The 
 attack made by the worst of his forces, while the 
 best were drawn up round his waggons, was loose 
 and spiritless ; the facility with which their first 
 assailants were beaten back gave courage and con- 
 fidence to the Spaniards, and enabled them to repel 
 a series of attacks and charges, and then to charge 
 the enemy in their turn; at a critical moment 
 some Swiss battalions deserted from Dupont and 
 went over to their countryman Reding, who was 
 commanding the Spaniards ; and, at last, about the 
 hour of noon, and after losing some 2000 men in 
 killed and wounded, Dupont held up the white flag 
 and proposed an armistice. Reding assented, the 
 firing ceased, and both parties began to collect 
 their wounded. Vedel, on descending from La 
 Carolina, distinctly heard the sound of battle; but 
 instead of pressing forward he halted at a village 
 
 * A battalion of 3000 peasants in General Reding’s division fled 
 at the commencement of the battle, and returned no more.— Captain 
 Whittingham’s Correspondence. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 six or seven miles from the battle-field, and re- 
 
 mained there till three o’clock in the afternoon. 
 From the way in which the whole country was 
 covered by fierce Spanish bands, no correct in- 
 formation could be obtained, no reconnaissances 
 could be made; and Vedel apprehended that 
 another strong Spanish column was approaching 
 him. When he resumed his march he moved 
 with great rapidity. Reding had apparently ne- 
 glected the road which led to his rear, and many 
 of his Spaniards were taking their siesta in an 
 olive grove, when his rear was briskly attacked 
 by Vedel, who surprised and took two guns and 
 several hundred prisoners. But presently an aice- 
 de-camp of Dupont brought Vedel information of 
 the armistice which had been agreed to, and an 
 order to cease the attack, In the meantime Cas- 
 tafios, who did not discover Dupont’s march until 
 daylight, had taken possession of Andujar, and 
 had sent the division of La Pena in pursuit of 
 Dupont. La Pena did not reach the torrent which 
 Dupont had crossed at day-break until five o’clock 
 in the afternoon ; and there he met M. Villoutray, 
 an officer of Bonaparte’s own staff, who, together 
 with General Marescot, an engineer officer of high 
 repute, had been sent by the emperor to watch 
 Dupont and report upon his proceedings. M. 
 Villoutray acquainted La Pena with the result of 
 the battle which had been fought in the morning, 
 and with the armistice which had been concluded ; 
 and then, passing through La Pena’s posts, he went 
 to Andujar to request Castaios to consent to the 
 terms which Reding had accepted. On the fol- 
 lowing morning, the 20th of July, General Mare- 
 scot and another general officer arrived at Cas- 
 tafios’s head-quarters with full powers from Dupont 
 to conclude a convention or capitulation. They 
 demanded permission for the whole French army 
 to cross the Sierra-Morena and retire peaceably 
 upon Madrid. But, just at this moment, some 
 letter or letters of Savary were intercepted and 
 brought to the Spanish head-quarters, and other 
 information was obtained which went to prove that, 
 notwithstanding their victory at Rio-Seco, the 
 French on the other side of the Sierra-Morena 
 were in a very critical situation. It has been said 
 that but for this intercepted letter Castanos would 
 have readily granted what Dupont demanded ; but 
 this fact is very questionable, for every day was 
 bringing some reinforcements to Castafios, the battle 
 of Baylen, as it is called, had elevated the spirits 
 of the people, and since that affair numerous armed 
 bands had collected in the pass of Despefas- 
 Perros. The only terms to which Castafios would 
 consent were, that Dupont’s troops should lay 
 down their arms, regorge a part of their spoil, and 
 become prisoners of war on condition of being sent 
 down to the coast to San Lucar and Rota, and 
 there embarked for France; and that Vedel’s 
 division should also surrender, but not as prisoners 
 of war, and be sent to France likewise. Appa- 
 rently without any hesitation, and without any 
 struggle except to be allowed to carry off wit 
 
Cnap. VIII. } 
 
 them a considerable part of their plunder, the | 
 
 French generals accepted these terms, and signed 
 the capitulation. While Marescot was negotiating 
 at Andujar, Vedel and another general officer pro- 
 posed to Dupont to make a joint attack upon Red- 
 ing; but Dupont refused, and ordered Vedel to 
 give up his prisoners and retreat to the town of 
 La Carolina, where he had still a garrison. It is 
 said that Castanos threatened to put Dupont to 
 death if Vedel did not instantly return and lay 
 down his arms conformably with the capitulation ; 
 but we believe it will rather appear upon examina- 
 tion that Vedel returned, not on account of any 
 orders sent to him by Dupont, but because he saw 
 little hope of being able to maintain himself at La 
 Carolina, and still less of being able to force his 
 way through the mountain pass in the rear of that 
 town. Vedel certainly retraced his steps to Baylen, 
 and there, on the 22nd of July, he surrendered 
 with Dupont. On two succeeding days the divi- 
 sions of Dupont and Vedel filed off before the 
 Spanish army, and piled their arms. Their total 
 numbers amounted to 14,600 men, of which 2700 
 were cavalry; but several French detachments, 
 which Dupont had left on the other side of the 
 Sierra-Morena, were seized and brought to Baylen, 
 and these made the number of prisoners amount to 
 between 18,000 and 19,000. From twenty to 
 thirty pieces of cannon were delivered up. General 
 Castanos had a high sense of honour, and an 
 earnest wish to respect the terms of the capitula- 
 tion; but this was altogether out of his power. 
 The irregular, turbulent troops that served under 
 him cared nothing for the ordinary military law 
 and law of nations, and the peasantry and the 
 townspeople, who had been cruelly plundered and 
 ill-treated, determined to recover their property and 
 gratify their revenge. While in possession of 
 Cordova, Dupont’s people had carried off the 
 sacred vases and lamps from the altars, and had 
 done other deeds which the Spaniards could never 
 forgive ; in Baylen, in Andujar, in every town 
 they had occupied or traversed, the French soldiery 
 had left hatred and vengeance behind them, and 
 Jaen, where Captain Baste had so recently com- 
 mitted such enormities, was close to the scene of 
 capitulation and to the line of march which the 
 French must follow to get to the sea-coast ; Du- 
 pont had meanly asked, and Castafios had too 
 liberaily promised, that all the general officers 
 should be allowed to keep one carriage and one 
 waggon, and all the superior officers one carriage, 
 without search, the said general officers having 
 agreed to restore the sacred vases stolen at Cor- 
 dova, and having thrown the blame of that rob- 
 bery on the common men, who, they said, had 
 acted against the orders of their officers ; but when 
 the march to the coast began some of the Spanish 
 people insisted on examining the carriages and 
 Jourgons, and others, not satisfied with an exami- 
 nation and an abstraction of all that was thought 
 to be Spanish property, seized and carried off to 
 their mountains carriages and waggons with every- 
 
 __ 
 
 i eg 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 421 
 
 thing they contained. It could scarcely be other- 
 wise: no inconsiderable portion of the army of 
 Andalusia consisted of smugglers or contraband- 
 istas. On the other hand the French clung with 
 great tenacity to the property, and hence followed 
 unequal savage conflicts, wounds, and death. In 
 vain Castaiios’s officers endeavoured to moderate 
 the popular fury. In the town of Lebrixa eighty 
 French officers were massacred in one day. All 
 along the road the soldiers were exposed to insult 
 and injury. A vast number perished, and when 
 the survivors reached the shores of Cadiz Bay, in- 
 stead of being carried to San Lucar and Rota, and 
 there embarked for France, they were thrown into 
 the Spanish hulks or prison-ships. To the com- 
 plaints and remonstrances of Dupont, Morla, the 
 governor of Cadiz, replied, that neither the capitu- 
 lation signed by Castaiios, nor the approbation of 
 the junta—that not even an express order from 
 his beloved sovereign, Ferdinand VII.— could 
 render possible what was impossible; that he had 
 no ships, nor the means of procuring any, to carry 
 the French soldiers to France ; that, when General 
 Castaiios promised to obtain from the English 
 passports for the passage of Dupont’s army, he 
 only obliged himself to solicit earnestly for those 
 passports from the English, and this he had done 
 without effect. ‘* And,’’ continued Morla, ‘* how 
 can you expect the British nation to permit your 
 army to pass the sea, knowing, as they do, that 
 that army will be employed in waging war against 
 them on some other point, or perhaps on this same 
 point, in Spain?’ Nor did the Spanish governor 
 of Cadiz forget to reply to Dupont’s accusations of 
 bad faith and treachery. ‘ Your excellency,” 
 said he, ‘‘ obliges me to express some truths 
 which must be very bitter to you. What right 
 have you to exact the impossible execution of a 
 capitulation with an army which has entered Spain 
 under the veil of friendship and intimate alliance, 
 which has imprisoned our king and his royai 
 family, sacked his palaces, assassinated and robbed 
 his subjects, destroyed his country, and torn from 
 him his crown? If your excellency does not wish 
 to excite more and more the just indignation of the 
 Spanish people, which I labour so much to re- 
 press, you will cease making these insupportable 
 reclamations, and endeavour by your conduct and 
 resignation to weaken the lively sensation of the 
 horrors which you recently committed at Cordova. 
 What a stimulus for the Spanish populace to know 
 that one of your common soldiers alone was carry- 
 ing off 2180 livres!” 
 
 When the news of the victory first reached Se- 
 ville, the junta and the people were elated beyond 
 measure; and the subsequent accounts of the con- 
 vention with the beaten enemy, who, it was con- 
 sidered, ought to have been made to surrender at 
 discretion, were received with strong marks of 
 disapprobation. Nevertheless, on the Ist of Au- 
 gust, Generals Castafios and Morla were welcomed 
 to Seville with great honour or ceremony, a depu- 
 tation of the junta meeting them outside the gates 
 
 rt a a RE RR 
 
422 
 
 of the city. Castafios owed this reception to the 
 victory he had gained; but Morla, who had not 
 been near the field of battle, was associated in the 
 triumph to prevent jealousy. This last feeling 
 had great dominion over the hearts of most of 
 the Spanish officers; and it was in part through 
 jealousy that Morla not very long afterwards turned 
 traitor to the cause. From the first, Morla main- 
 tained that the convention with Dupont could not 
 be executed and ought to be disregarded. He was 
 known to be the author of rather an able paper, 
 industriously circulated, recommending the break- 
 ing of the convention. Castafios, on the other 
 hand, as a man of honour, and as especially 
 pledged to the fulfilment of engagements which 
 he himself had made, warmly opposed any such 
 measure. The two generals were for some hours 
 closeted with the junta, where the debates are 
 said to have been hot and passionate, as debates 
 always are when they occur among Spaniards and 
 the other nations of the south. ‘‘ At last,”’ says 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple, with whom Captain Whittaker 
 and Major Cox corresponded from Seville, “ the 
 junta, being strongly inclined, if not fully resolved, 
 from the first to break the treaty, sanctioned by 
 the popular clamour which Morla had contributed 
 to excite, and utterly regardless of the public faith 
 and the national character, adopted Morla’s opi- 
 nion, and broke the capitulation.” * We have 
 here a sufficiently strong expression of the feeling 
 of Sir Hew Dalrymple, who, however, was not 
 immediately concerned in the transaction, and who 
 wrote his memoir years after the fact. It has been 
 said that Morla made a vain attempt to involve 
 both Sir Hew Dalrymple and Admiral Lord Col- 
 lingwood in the transaction.t Sir Hew was cer- 
 tainly not involved in the transaction, nor are we 
 disposed to believe that that high-minded and most 
 honourable man, Collingwood, was involved in any 
 dishonour, although he indisputably agreed with 
 Morla that the conditions of the convention were 
 highly injudicious and could not possibly be ex- 
 ecuted, and although he actually informed Morla 
 that he could not permit so great a body of French 
 troops to pass on the sea until he received instruc- 
 tions from England for that purpose. These in- 
 structions to allow so considerable a French army 
 to be conveyed with their arms and equipments to 
 Rochefort were never sent by our government. It 
 is not very clearly defined in all cases how far an 
 allied power is bound to recognise and conform 
 to a convention, or other treaty, contracted with- 
 out its consent or knowledge by its ally; in some 
 cases the recognition has been given, and in others 
 it has been withheld; advantage or convenience 
 seems to have been the rule which has governed 
 assent or dissent; but at this moment, though 
 aiding and assisting the Spanish people in the war 
 against their invaders and the common enemy, 
 Great Britain was not bound to Spain by a treaty 
 
 * Memoir of proceedings as connected with the affairs of Spain 
 
 and the commencement of the Peninsular War, 
 t Napier, Hist. of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 _ [Book Xx 
 of alliance or by any treaty whatsoever. There 
 was not as yet in Spain any fixed governing power 
 with which our government could treat. Every-— 
 thing, as yet, was unsettled, changeable, irregular ; 
 and in this state of our relations it was scarcely to 
 be expected that our government, in a case highly 
 disadvantageous to ourselves, would consider itself 
 bound by the stiff regularities of the ordinary law | 
 of war and nations, or consent to, and carry out, 
 arrangements which had been made by the folly 
 and timidity of Spanish generals. And unless we 
 consented to carry out these arrangements—unless 
 we furnished ships of our own, or fitted out for the 
 purpose Spanish ships—there was not the possi- 
 bility of conveying by sea 18,000 or 19,000 French 
 soldiers and officers. Lord Collingwood’s opinions 
 are clearly and decidedly expressed in his own 
 correspondence, He calls the capitulation of Bay- 
 len an extraordinary arrangement—so extraor- 
 dinary that he cannot divest himself of the idea of 
 a French trick, and that more is meant than yet 
 appears. He says the divisions of Dupont were in 
 circumstances in which they had no resource but 
 an unconditional surrender ; that the French gene- 
 ral knew as well as Castafios that the Spaniards 
 had not the means of sending the army back to 
 France by sea. In a letter to Lord Castlereagh he 
 says: “On application to me for assistance to 
 enable them to perform this service, I have told 
 them that all aid shall be given in fitting out their 
 transport-ships ; but, as the conveying so large a 
 body of troops, with their arms, is a measure which 
 may have in the end such important consequences, 
 I cannot allow them to pass on the sea till I re- 
 ceive instructions from his majesty’s ministers. 
 This objection seems to give satisfaction, as it puts 
 a stop to their going, without any breach of treaty 
 on the part of the Spaniards. I have, moreover, 
 observed that, as they have not the means of send- 
 ing these people to Rochefort, the obligation ceases ; 
 for an engagement to do that which is impossible 
 dissolves itself.” And in a letter to Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple, Collingwood repeats that the Spaniards. 
 have made “an arrangement which they cannot, 
 perform, and which, if they could, would be at-, 
 tended with the worst consequences to Spain ;”. 
 and that, from all the information which he has on. 
 the subject, he considers the capitulation of Baylen 
 “ quite a trick”? of the French, who have ‘ ob- 
 tained by art what they never could have won by 
 the sword.” Inthe same letter he calls the con- 
 vention a departure from the principle on which a 
 war like this should be carried on. ‘* No treaty,” 
 says he, “‘should be made with an invader short of 
 his unconditional surrender. . . . The French 
 probably knew then, what is known to the Spaniards 
 now—that there was no retreat for them upon 
 Madrid. Had Dupont been compelled to sur- 
 render without terms, they could have been et 
 fined in twenty-four hours; and the Spanish army 
 would have been at liberty to pursue their service. 
 What is the case now? ‘They have got the French 
 army, who are entitled to their arms when they 
 
 eae S| 
 4 
 . Wd 
 /_ 
 . MS 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 embark, and the Spanish army must stay to take 
 eare of them. But their embarking is altogether 
 out of the question: one objection is, that they 
 have not ships to put them in; another, that the 
 people will not permit them to embark; and a 
 third, as I have informed the governor (Morla), 
 that I cannot permit so great a body of troops to 
 pass on the sea until I receive instructions.” * 
 Morla’s able and widely circulated paper against 
 the convention may have contributed to the excite- 
 ment of those who could read or hear it read; _ but 
 there can be little doubt that the rage of the 
 Spanish mobs against the French would have been 
 just as great if the paper had never been written. 
 It was with extreme difficulty that the Spanish 
 regulars and officers prevented a general massacre 
 of the prisoners. On the 13th of August, when 
 General Dupont and some of his officers were 
 brought to Port Santa Maria, for the purpose of 
 embarking in one of the Spanish ships of war for 
 their security, the mob attacked them, and took 
 from them their baggage, in which were found 
 church plate, sacred vases, and other valuable 
 plunder.t Now, allsuch plunder (the existence of 
 which the general and his officers had denied) they 
 were bound by the fifteenth article to restore ; and, 
 therefore, we can feel neither much surprise nor 
 much regret at the fact of the marauding, pilfering 
 Dupont getting his head broken by some of the 
 furious mob before he could get on board ship. 
 Our veteran martial historian of the Peninsular 
 Warj{ has so extensive and exclusive a sympathy 
 for his profession, by whomsoever exercised, so 
 much feeling for the sufferings of the military of 
 every nation, if they be but regulars, that he 
 
 seems to have little sympathy or feeling for any - 
 
 other class; and, in narrating the violence and 
 cruelty of the Spanish people, he almost invariably 
 overlooks the provocation and the cruelty on the 
 other side. He has much to say upon the shame- 
 ful breaking of the capitulation and the barbarous 
 treatment of the French prisoners ; but he breathes 
 not a word about Dupont and his officers breaking 
 the articles, and attempting to carry off the church 
 plate, which they had vowed they had not stolen 
 themselves, and which they had promised to 
 restore. We trust we loathe cruelty as much as 
 this gallant historian can loathe it; but it appears 
 tous to be a strange intellectual obliquity to be 
 eternally looking at the excesses of the infuriated 
 invaded people, without ever glancing at the bar- 
 barity of the invaders, and the mad ambition and 
 cold-blooded cruelty of the ruler that threw them 
 into that terrible warfare, with the antecedent de- 
 claration that he would persevere in it though it 
 cost him 200,000 lives! The French would have 
 known none of this Spanish ferocity if they had not 
 gone into Spain to seek it, and provoke it by deeds 
 calculated to render even a gentle people ferocious. 
 Our historian treats the Spanish people as if they 
 
 * Correspondence and Memoir of Vice-Admi i d 
 by G. L. Newnham Collingwood, Esq. Spa aaeeiadain 
 : Napa from Lord Collingwood to Viscount Castlereagh, ibid. 
 
 r. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 423 
 
 had sought this quarrel, as if they were waging 
 war in France, or in some middle territory not their 
 own. The war of a people struggling for their 
 independence, for their native king, for their altars, 
 their hearths, for the honour of their wives_and 
 daughters, for that which supports life, and for all 
 that in their eyes made life desirable, is considered 
 by our military historian as a mere scientific game, 
 which is to be played according to the most ap- 
 proved rules and precedents, where success is to 
 be the reward of military skill or genius, and 
 where the defeated party ought neither to attempt 
 the renewal of the game, nor so much as complain 
 of their bad luck. It is well to have such a book 
 —many of the military details are admirably 
 written, and could have been written only by a 
 good and experienced officer, and an accomplished 
 and nervous writer; but heaven forefend that 
 Napier’s ‘ History of the Peninsular War’ should 
 be our only one, or should ever be taken as deci- 
 sive authority on the moral right and wrong of the 
 great question ! 
 
 We have said that Collingwood received no 
 instructions from his government to let the French 
 prisoners pass to Rochefort—to be thence con- 
 veyed, armed and appointed, to some other point 
 where they might best annoy England or the few 
 allies that were left her—-to be marched into Por- 
 tugal or to be sent back into Spain ;—for, so incon- 
 siderate or so ignorant had been the Spanish 
 generals who signed the capitulation of Baylen that 
 the ordinary clause binding the capitulating troops 
 not to serve against them or against their allies 
 for a fixed period, or for all the rest of the war, was 
 not inserted in the treaty, or alluded to in any of 
 its articles. Towards the end of August or the 
 beginning of September, when Lord Collingwood 
 returned to watch the French fleet in Toulon, he 
 left Rear-Admiral Purvis at Cadiz with a few ships 
 to protect the British trade, and to prevent the 
 French prisoners from being sent away until the 
 instructions of his majesty’s government on that 
 head should be received: and, writing to Lord 
 Castlereagh, he said, “I have reason to believe 
 that allowing them to depart would make this 
 province (Andalusia) very unpopular in Spain, and 
 that my interference to stop them has given uni- 
 versal satisfaction.”?* It is thus very clear that 
 Admiral Lord Collingwood was inyolved with 
 Morla in the convention transaction; but what we 
 must still continue to doubt is, whether he in the 
 slightest degree committed his own honour or the 
 honour of his country, or departed a line’s breadth 
 from his obligations as a belligerent. If there was 
 blame, his government certainly shared it with him, 
 for it emphatically approved and sanctioned all 
 that he had done, and ordered Rear-Admiral Purvis 
 to prevent the departure of Dupont’s and Vedel’s 
 army. After a time Dupont was permitted to re- 
 turn to France with all his general officers except 
 one, who was said to have urged Dupont to fall 
 upon Reding while the capitulation was negotiating, 
 
 * Correspondence and Memoir. 
 
 ern Te 
 
424 
 
 and cut his way through to the mountains. Bitter 
 and pitiable, no doubt, were the sufferings of the 
 French soldiery, cooped up, under a burning sun, 
 in close foul hulks, and badly supplied with the 
 necessaries of life—for the Spaniards, who very 
 often had not provisions to give to their own troops, 
 were not likely to be either very liberal or very 
 punctual in the distribution of rations to their 
 prisoners. T'wo years afterwards, when their 
 countrymen were besieging Cadiz, some of these 
 French prisoners made a desperate attempt to re- 
 gain their liberty: while a gale of wind was blow- 
 ing right upon a Jee shore, they cut the cables of 
 their prison ship, and drifted on the rocks at the 
 head of the bay; some were drowned, but a few 
 hundreds escaped and joined the vesieging army, 
 with a hatred and fury against the Spaniards which 
 blood seemed not sufficient to allay. The rest of 
 the captives were then transported to the rocky 
 barren island of Cabrera, one of the Balearic 
 group, lying about ten miles from the southernmost 
 point of Majorca, uninhabited, and frequented 
 only by fishermen.* It issaid that not very many 
 of them remained alive at the end of the war. 
 But this was only one of the many mighty holo- 
 causts which Bonaparte sacrificed on the altar of 
 Spain. 
 
 The news of the battle of Baylen and of Du- 
 pont’s surrender flew like lightning to the Spanish 
 capital, diffusing a joy and triumph which was not 
 to be repressed by the presence and the oppressions 
 of the French. At first King Joseph and his 
 friends were altogether incredulous, thinking it 
 impossible that French generals and a French 
 army could be beaten and enveloped by Spanish 
 troops and peasants; next, they fancied that, 
 though some trifling reverse might have been sus- 
 tained, the Spaniards must have greatly exagge- 
 rated their victory; and so completely were the 
 means of communication and correspondence cut 
 off, that Joseph was obliged to send two divisions 
 into La Mancha to endeavour to open the com- 
 munication, On their march towards the Sierra 
 Morena these two divisions met the French general 
 Villoutray, who, with a Spanish escort, a division 
 of Castafos’s army, was collecting the French de- 
 tachments that had been left in La Mancha, and 
 that were all to be sent in as prisoners. Villou- 
 
 * Cabrera is about four milvs long and three broad. During the 
 war many more French prisoners, taken in Catalonia and other parts 
 of eastern Spain, were contined there. The place was wretched 
 enough, though in many respects preferable to a walled prison or the 
 hulks. The prisoners were left to themselves, and had the whole 
 range of the island, from which they could not escape. An allowance 
 of bread was sent to them in an armed vessel from Majorca, but at 
 times, in consequence of bad weather, they were in danger of being 
 starved. During several years they received no clothing, and couse- 
 quently were almost naked; they had but one axe and one saw 
 among them all. The Spaniards left them one donkey for their use. 
 There appears to have been no building of any sort on the desolate 
 isle: some lived in dry cisterns or in caves in the rocks, others in rude 
 huts made of loose stones. They, however, made the best of the 
 matter: they formed little gardens; they set up schools in which 
 dancing and music and fencing were not forgotten, aud they even 
 es‘ablished a theatre in a large cistern. But for the occasional scarcity 
 the constant absence of the fairer sex, and .their rather frequent 
 quarrels and duels, they might have whiled away the time pretty 
 well. But at the worst, their condition was not worse than that of 
 
 their countrymen serving and fighting in Spain.—Adventires of a 
 french Sergeant, London, 1826, as cited in Penny Cyclopedia. é 
 
 i 7 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the extent of the calamity: the two divisions 
 hastily retraced their steps to Madrid ; Joseph in- 
 stantly called « council of war, and then and there 
 it was determined to abandon Madrid, to retire be- 
 hind the Ebro, and to establish court and head- 
 quarters in the city of Vitoria, which lay at a con- 
 venient short distance from the French frontier. 
 
 JosBepH BONAPARTE, 
 
 Joseph had not been a fortnight in his new capital 
 when he was thus compelled to fly from it. ‘The 
 resolution was kept secret till the evening, and the 
 intrusive king, trembling for his life, though in the 
 midst of numerous French squadrons, took his 
 departure by night. Several of the Spaniards 
 who had accepted office under him remained be- 
 hind at Madrid, or posted off for Seville to offer 
 
 tray’s position and occupation left no doubt as to : 
 
 their excuses and their services to the junta; such of — 
 
 the Spanish grandees and functionaries as followed 
 him (because they could not stay behind without 
 the certainty of being assassinated by the people) 
 got the names of ‘* Josephinos,” and * Infrance- 
 sados,” and the stigma was quite equivalent to a 
 sentence of outlawry—for, wherever the insur- 
 gents could catch them afterwards, they were 
 treated as men who were put out of the protection 
 of law, and whose destruction by sword or knife 
 was allowable and commendable. The number of 
 this French party—composed entirely of persons 
 of the upper classes—was never considerable, and 
 the steadiness of their attachment was little else 
 than a despair of ever being able to obtain for- 
 giveness from their exasperated countrymen. The 
 retreat from Madrid began on the 1st of August; 
 but General Grouchy remained some few days 
 longer in the city; and the strong corps d’armée 
 of Marshal Bessiéres, posted at Mayorga, covered 
 the movements of Joseph and his court until they 
 reached Burgos, when Bessiéres fell back himself.* 
 On the 3rd of August a dispatch arriyed at Seville, 
 * Napier, Hist. of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
 — 
 
Cuap. VILI.] 
 addressed to General Castafios from Grouchy, as 
 French commandant in Madrid. The French 
 general merely stated that, as the troops under his 
 command were destined for another service, he 
 could wish that General Castanos would detach 
 part of his army to occupy the capital in order to 
 insure its tranquillity, protect the French sick left 
 in the hospitals, and also the French families 
 established in Madrid. Grouchy, however, added 
 that, whatever Castafios’s determination in this re- 
 spect might be, he must request him to send im- 
 mediately a Spanish officer to Madrid to treat of 
 matters which would probably be of advantage 
 to both nations. Castafos forthwith dispatched 
 Moreno, his quartermaster-general, to the capital, 
 which was shortly afterwards evacuated by Grouchy 
 and the remainder of the French. Castafios did 
 not enter Madrid until the 23rd of August.* 
 Among the many important results of the 
 affair of Baylen and the flight of King Joseph, 
 was the raising of the siege of Zaragoza. ‘This 
 ancient capital of the kingdom of Aragon, si- 
 tuated on the right bank of the Ebro, with a 
 suburb on the left bank connected with it by a 
 stone bridge, contained a population estimated at 
 about 60,000. Its immediate neighbourhood was 
 flat, and on one side marshy. A small river, a 
 confluent of the Ebro, runs close to the walls of the 
 town. These walls of themselves were not of much 
 consequence, being old, low, built of brick, and in 
 many places ruinous. They appear to have been con- 
 structed merely to facilitate the levying of the octroi 
 
 * Major Cox’s Correspondence. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 ' 
 i 
 | 
 \ 
 
 425 
 
 duties on the produce and articles brought into the 
 town for sale. Very few guns in a serviceable 
 state were mounted on these walls. There were 
 no fewer than nine gates of the most simple con- 
 struction: and the line between them was in some 
 places preserved by a mud wall, and in others by 
 the remains of an old Moorish wall, which had a 
 slight parapet, but without any platform even for 
 musketry. But the streets of the town were very 
 narrow and crooked ; and the houses, two or three 
 stories high, were strongly constructed, each story 
 being vaulted so as to be almost fire-proof. More- 
 over the numerous convents which were scattered 
 round the town, and in the centre of it, were as 
 strong as castles,and Spanish garrisons never fought 
 so well as when they were intermixed with and 
 headed by monks, ‘The inhabitants of Zaragoza 
 were among the first of the Spaniards that rose to 
 repel the French. On the 25th of May, in answer to 
 a manifesto of Murat, dated on the 20th, they flew 
 to arms, and were joined by the peasantry of the 
 surrounding country, who flocked into the town, 
 shouting, “ Long live Ferdinand the Seventh !” 
 
 | The captain-general of Aragon had betrayed, or was 
 
 suspected of, an inclination to submit to the French, 
 and recognise King Joseph. The people seized 
 him, threw him into prison, killed some of those 
 who were about him, and with one voice gave his 
 high command to Don José Palafox, the youngest 
 of three brothers, of one of the most ancient fami- 
 lies in the country.* As in other towns, a local 
 
 * Palafox had escaped from Bayonne, and on his arrival at Zara- 
 goza he had excited the people by developing the real intentions of 
 
426 
 
 junta was formed. On his sudden accession to the 
 captain-generalship of Aragon, Palafox found that 
 the regular troops quartered in Zaragoza did not 
 exceed 220 men, and that the public treasury did not 
 contain more than a sum about equal to 20/. 16s. 8d. 
 The contiguous provinces of Navarre and Catalonia 
 were occupied by the French; the passes of the 
 Pyrenees leading directly into Aragon were opened ; 
 and Murat and the main body of the French were 
 at Madrid. But neither Palafox nor the junta 
 despaired of success, and in every effort they were 
 nobly seconded by the people, and aided by the 
 clergy and the monastic bodies. The richer orders, 
 who felt that their all was at stake, gave money ; 
 the mendicant orders, the Franciscan, Capuchin, 
 and other friars, who sprung from the lowest classes 
 of the people, and who possessed the greatest in- 
 fluence with the people, spread themselves over the 
 country to animate the peasantry, and bring in 
 recruits to Palafox. That chief, on the 31st of 
 May, put forth a proclamation, in which, after 
 thanking Providence for having preserved in Ara- 
 gon a good quantity of muskets, ammunition, and 
 artillery, and for having inspired the people in all 
 the provinces of Spain with the unanimous resolu- 
 tion to shake off the yoke attempted to be imposed 
 upon them by means the most base and infamous, 
 he formally declared war against the emperor of 
 the French, and held that emperor, all the indivi- 
 duals of his family, and all his generals and officers, 
 personally responsible for the safety of King Fer- 
 dinand VII., and for the safety of his brothers and 
 his uncle. On the 16th of June, General Le- 
 febvre-Desnouettes, after driving in Palafox’s out- 
 posts, began to invest the town with 8000 infantry 
 and 900 horse. These troops were not new levies 
 or conscripts, but veterans who had fought in 
 Germany and in Poland (there were two or three 
 fine Polish regiments among them), and they were 
 abundantly furnished with artillery, Their ap- 
 proach had been so rapid that the people in Zara- 
 goza were but ill prepared to receive them. Some 
 of the French penetrated without difficulty through 
 one of the gates; but the narrowness and crooked- 
 ness of the streets, and the strength of the build- 
 ings, made them pause, and they ran back more 
 hastily than they had run in, The inhabitants, 
 aided by the peasantry, who had thrown them- 
 selves into the threatened town, now worked right 
 vigorously in casting up defences, making barri- 
 cades, cutting loop-holes in the walls of the 
 houses, and making ramparts with sacks and bags 
 filled with sand. Within twenty-four hours the 
 place was put in a condition to withstand an as- 
 sault. General Lefebyre established strong posts 
 in front of the several gates, and waited for rein- 
 forcements, But, before these posts were esta- 
 blished, Palafox and Tio Jorge (uncle or goodman 
 George), one of the popular leaders, had issued out 
 of the town, and had crossed the Ebro with some 
 
 the French. The traitorous or timid captain-general ordered him 
 to quit the city; but this order only led to his own captivity, to 
 the murder of some of his friends, and to the readier breaking out 
 of the insurrection, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 infantry, and two or three squadrons of dragoons, 
 Beyond the Ebro Palafox effected a junction with 
 the Spanish General Versage, and then with 7000 
 
 or 8000 men, mostly volunteers and fresh levies, 
 
 he threw himself in the rear of the French, and 
 rashly attempted to relieve Zaragoza by a battle in 
 the open country. His troops, unable to form any 
 order of battle, were defeated with terrible loss: 
 some of them rallied under Versage, who marched 
 away in search of fresh levies, and the remainder 
 of such as could be collected again followed 
 Palafox, who easily found his way back into Za- 
 ragoza, as Lefebvre had confined his operations to 
 the right bank of the Ebro, leaving unguarded the 
 suburb on the left bank, which was connected with 
 the city by the bridge. By the same road a Spa- 
 nish regiment from Estremadura, some small par- 
 
 ties of artillerymen with some artillery, and 200 or 
 
 300 militia men from Logrono, entered the city. 
 In the last days of June great loss and consterna- 
 tion were occasioned by the accidental blowing up 
 ofa powder magazine in the heart of the city; and 
 the French took by assault Monte Torrero, a hill 
 outside of the town, where 1200 Spaniards were 
 intrenched. Immediately after this success, Le- 
 febyre was joined by so many reinforcements under 
 General Verdier, that he found himself at the head 
 of from 12,000 to 13,000 men, with a very strong 
 battering train. Onthe 2nd of July he made an 
 assault on the strong convent of San José: his 
 first attack failed completely, but a second was 
 attended with success. Some other buildings be- 
 yond the walls of the town were abandoned, and 
 set fire to by the Spaniards. A bridge was con- 
 structed 200 yards above the town, breaching bat- 
 teries were established on both banks of the Ebro, 
 and the suburb and the city were assailed at one 
 and the same time by a destructive fire from can- 
 non, mortars, and howitzers. The sand-bag bat- 
 tery which the Spaniards had thrown up in front 
 of one of their gates was several times destroyed, 
 and as often reconstructed under the fire of the 
 enemy. ‘The women laboured with the men in 
 this perilous work; and here it is said that the 
 fair Augustina, the far-famed maid of Zaragoza, 
 first showed herself on the batteries, and, stepping 
 over the wounded and dead, seized a match and 
 fired a gun at the French, Bonaparte, who was 
 directing all his generals from the distant walls of 
 Bayonne, and who could not conceive that so large 
 a force was necessary for reducing a town without 
 regular fortifications, and almost without regular 
 troops, ordered Lefebvre-Desnouettes to join Mar- 
 
 shal Bessiéres with a part of the forces collected — 
 
 round Zaragoza, General Verdier was left to pro- 
 secute the siege with about 10,000 men. The 
 besieged were partially relieved by bodies of armed 
 peasants, and by some regiments of a more regular 
 description, who collected in the neighbouring 
 country with the intention of surrounding Verdier’s 
 camp, and cutting off all his communications. This 
 forced Verdier to send out frequent detachments. 
 These detachments scoured the country, captured 
 
 ¢ 
 
 [Book X. Mm 
 
 ] 
 
 : 
 1 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 and plundered several small towns, and defeated 
 the Spaniards in more than one encounter; but 
 during their absence the siege went on but lan- 
 guidly, and the French soldiers began to droop 
 under their toils and the heat of the dog-days. But 
 on the other side the Spaniards in the town began 
 to feel the want of provisions, and the equally 
 serious want of ammunition. There was, how- 
 ever, no whisper or thought of surrender; the 
 monks betook themselves to the manufacturing of 
 eunpowder, all the sulphur existing in any shape 
 in the town was put into immediate requisition, the 
 dirt of the streets and other foul materials were 
 carefully washed in order to procure saltpetre, and 
 charcoal was made by burning the stalks of hemp, 
 which in that part of Spain grow to a large size. 
 One desperate effort was made to regain possession 
 of the important post of Monte Torrero, where the 
 French had erected a battery, which kept up a 
 murderous plunging fire on the town; but the 
 sortie failed, and from that time they kept them- 
 selves wholly within their walls. Verdier made 
 
 several assaults on those crumbling walls and mi-~° 
 
 serable gates, but he wasrepulsed in all. He was 
 reinforced at the end of July by some veteran 
 French regiments, which raised the besieging 
 army to 14,000 or 15,000 men. On the 3rd or 
 4th of August the French opened a tremendous 
 battery on the quarter of the city called Santa 
 Kugracia: under the fire the mud wall and the 
 Moorish rampart vanished in dust, the splendid 
 convent of Santa Engracia was rent and enveloped 
 in flames, a broad entrance was made, and the storm 
 columns rushed through it into the very heart of 
 the city, and took possession of some of the strong 
 houses on one side of the Cozo. General Verdier, 
 thinking the town more than half taken, sent a note 
 to Palafox containing merely its date, his name, and 
 the two words “ La capitulation.”? The Spanish 
 commander replied with the like brevity, “‘ Guerra 
 al cuchillo ?’—war to the knife! One side of the 
 Cozo was now occupied by the French, the other 
 by the Spaniards, who, confident in the strength of 
 their houses, were converting every one of them into 
 a garrisoned fortress. Other bands of patriots 
 came down by the streets which opened upon the 
 Cozo, and planted their cannon immediately oppo- 
 site to, and only ata few yards’ distance from, the 
 French artillery. One of the French columns, in 
 looking for a road to the stone bridge over the 
 Ebro which led to the suburb, got entangled in one 
 of the longest, narrowest, and most crooked of the 
 streets, and was there assailed so hotly from win- 
 dows, doorways, and loopholes, and by some Spa- 
 niards who had rushed over the bridge from the 
 suburb, that it got beaten, and fearfully thinned, and 
 driven back to the Cozo. Some other portions of the 
 French soldiery began to plunder the houses from 
 which the Spaniards had been driven, instead of 
 attacking the houses where the Spaniards remained 
 fighting. A convent of which the assailants had ob- 
 tained possession was set on fire, and, while many of 
 them perished in the flames, the position of the rest 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 | capitulation. 
 
 427 
 
 of the army was weakened by the loss and conflagra- 
 tion of that strong edifice. There were many scenes 
 of horror; but the most horrible of all was this: 
 “The public hospital being set on fire, the madmen 
 confined there-issued forth among the combatants, 
 muttering, shouting, singing, and moping, each 
 according to the character of his disorder; while 
 drivelling idiots mixed their unmeaning cries with 
 the shouts of contending soldiers.”’** The Spaniards 
 could not drive Verdier from the opposite side of 
 the Cozo; but they saw that, though one-half of the 
 town was lost, they could very well defend the 
 other half. On the morning of the 5th of August, 
 as the French were preparing to renew their attack, 
 the brave Aragonese, who had consumed an enor- 
 mous quantity of powder on the preceding day, 
 found that their ammunition was beginning to fail ; 
 but Verdier, whose loss had been very severe, sus- 
 pended his attack, as soon as he had carried two or 
 three houses ; and in the dusk of the evening Don 
 Francisco Palafox, brother of the captain-general, 
 found his way into the city, not only with a convoy 
 of provisions and ammunition, but also with a rein- 
 forcement of 2000 or 3000 men, partly Spanish 
 guards and steady Swiss veterans. On the 6th 
 and th of August there was street-fighting of the 
 most murderous kind; the Spaniards endeavouring 
 to regain the streets and the houses they had lost, 
 and the French fighting hard and firing hard to 
 dispossess them of what they retained. On the 
 Sth Palafox called a council of war. Such coun- 
 cils are seldom called except when there is a pre- 
 determination to cease fighting, and ask for a 
 But such was not the intention of 
 the council which met in the heroic Zaragoza. The 
 brave men composing it unanimously resolved 
 that those quarters of the city in which the Arago- 
 nese yet maintained themselves should continue to 
 be defended—that, should the enemy at last prevail, 
 the people should retire by the bridge over the 
 Ebro into the suburb, and, having destroyed the 
 bridge, defend the suburb till they perished. The 
 people of the town, who were incessantly re-echoing 
 Palafox’s war-cry, ‘ Guerra al cuchillo,” welcomed 
 these resolutions with enthusiastic acclamations— 
 and thus the strange war went on, house being 
 defended after house, room after room. It was 
 now a war where stratagetical skill and military 
 discipline were of no use: on those house-tops, at 
 those gateways, doorways, windows, and loopholes, 
 the townspeople and the rude peasantry from the 
 hills were worth as much as the highest disciplined 
 troops in the world, and not a friar or burgher among 
 them but was as good as Verdier, that approved 
 commander. During the whole siege no man more 
 distinguished himself than Father Santiago Sass, 
 the curate of one of the parishes.— The loss of the 
 
 * Napier. 
 
 + Of this bold and indefatigable churchman Southey says: ** He 
 was always to be seen in the streets, sometimes fighting with the most 
 determined bravery against the enemies, not of his country alone but 
 of freedom, and of all virtuous principles, wherever they were to be 
 found; at other times administering the sacrament to the dying, and 
 confirming, with the authority of faith, that hope which gives todeath, 
 
 under such circumstances, the joy, the exultation, the triumph, and 
 the spirit of martyrdom. Palafox reposed the utmost confidence in 
 
 CL CL CE LL tC EE PA fl LICE 
 
428 
 
 French was dreadful, and they were disheartened 
 by a succession of bad news—the surrender of 
 Dupont, the failure of Moncey before Valencia, and 
 the report that the junta of that province had sent 
 6000 men into Aragon, to join the levies there, 
 and co-operate for the relief of the Zaragozans. 
 After maintaining this murderous contest for eleven 
 days and nights—fighting more by night than by 
 ‘day—they ceased attacking, abandoned many of 
 the houses and churches they had stormed and 
 taken, and concentrated in a corner. They had 
 possessed one half of the city, but the space they 
 now occupied was reduced to about one-eighth part. 
 The streets which they abandoned were literally 
 strewed with dead—French and Spaniards in many 
 places lying intermixed or heaped one upon the 
 other. The bodies festered and putrified under 
 the heat of the August sun, and while the combat 
 was raging one of the greatest of Palafox’s difficul- 
 ties was the removing of these sad remains of 
 mortality, from which the Spaniards apprehended 
 a pestilence. The method adopted was to tie ropes 
 to the French prisoners, and push them forward 
 among the dead and dying, and to make them, in 
 the mouth of the French artillery and musquetry, 
 remove the bodies, and bring them away for inter- 
 ment. At sight of their countrymen the French 
 combatants on the other side of the street or square 
 generally suspended their fire; but no Spaniard 
 could appear in the middle of the street, even for 
 this sad office, without the certainty of being either 
 killed or wounded. Although they could not avoid 
 feeling that the struggle was utterly hopeless, and 
 the prolonging of it a wanton waste of life, the 
 French, during the night of the 13th of August, from 
 the angle of the town they yet occupied, kept upa 
 fierce and destructive fire, and blew up the splendid 
 church of Santa Engracia, within whose vaults 
 were piled the bones of Spanish saints, martyrs, 
 and patriots—Christian heroes who had perished 
 in the ancient wars with the Moors. The 
 Spaniards thought that the terrible explosion and 
 cannonade of the night would be followed by ano- 
 ther assault in the morning ; but when the morn- 
 ing came they saw, to their surprise, that the 
 French had evacuated the town, and were in full 
 retreat over the plain, by the road which leads to 
 Pamplona.* Verdier had received orders from 
 
 this brave priest, and selected him whenever anything peculiarly dif 
 ficult or hazardous was to be done. At the head of forty chosen men, 
 he sueceeded in introducing a supply of powder into the town, so 
 essctitially necessary for its defence.’’—History of the Peninsular War. 
 
 * Narrative of the Siege of Zaragoza, by Charles Richard Vaughan, 
 M.B., Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and one of Dr. Radcliffe’s travel- 
 ling Fellows from that University. 
 
 Mr. Vaughan visited Zaragoza a very short time after the siege, and 
 remained there for several weeks, living with Palafox, and taking 
 great pains to inquire into every particular. His warm sympathy for 
 the cavse, his admiration of the bravery and resoluteness of the 
 Spaniards, may have led him into some trifling military inaccuracies ; 
 but better these inaccuracies than a cold rigid military accuracy which 
 excludes all sympathy for the poor Zaragozans, and delights to dwell 
 on the unskilfulness of the patriot leaders, and the superior genius of 
 their cruel invaders and oppressors! One of the principal aims of 
 Colonel Napier appears to be to hold up to contempt Palafox, Tio 
 Jorge, and the other plebeian leaders who acted with the high-born 
 captain-general. He admits, indeed, that both Lefebvre-Desnoucttes 
 and Verdier committed mistakes; but then, as if grieving to cast any 
 censure on French generals who had risen out of the Revolution, and 
 who had been regularly trained and long exercised in the art of war, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 { Boox Xs § 
 
 Joseph Bonaparte to raise the siege, and retire to 
 Logrono, but without any such order the French 
 general must have retreated; his army was fear- 
 fully thinned and demoralized (in the only way in 
 which the French now understood the word) ; the 
 Valencians and Aragonese were approaching ; the 
 spirit of the surviving population of the town was 
 unbroken; and, in a few days, if he had stayed, 
 he must have been surrounded and forced to lay 
 down his arms, as Dupont had done. As soon as 
 the dead were removed, and the ruins sufficiently 
 cleared, Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed with all the 
 usual solemuities in the plaza or square of Zara- 
 goza. Loyalty had not often had so sad a temple, 
 so dismal an altar: all around was shattered by 
 artillery, or blackened by gunpowder, or stained 
 with blood; and of the denizens of the town who 
 would have swelled the shouts of “* Viva Fer- 
 nando,’ one-third at least were in their bloody 
 graves, or were lying maimed and mutilated, or 
 shrieking under the anguish of their wounds. On 
 the 25th of August solemn obsequies were per- 
 formed in the churches for the Spaniards who had 
 fallen, and their funeral oration was pronounced 
 from the pulpit. Such was the first siege of Zara- 
 goza, and shame attend the endeavours of all those 
 who would obscure its glory, and call in question 
 the high moral effect it produced on the Spanish 
 mind, and throughout Europe !* 
 
 About the same time that Lefebvre-Desnouettes 
 had been first sent against Zaragoza, Duhesme, 
 who commanded the French army in Catalonia, 
 was directed to reduce Gerona. The people of 
 Gerona and the Catalans generally were as brave 
 and as steady, and fought as well behind walls, as 
 the Zaragozans and Aragonese. They had, too, 
 this advantage—Gerona had regular fortifications, 
 and was exceedingly strong by nature as well as 
 by art. In an attempt to take the place by storm 
 Duhesme failed, and lost a great number of his 
 men. Another attempt made on the same day was 
 not more successful, although the Neapolitan 
 colonel Ambrosio, and a French engineer, gained 
 for a moment the top of the ramparts. On the 
 day after these reverses the French general tried 
 to negotiate, or to obtain by fraud what he could 
 
 he says that Lefebvre and Verdier, and especially the latter, displayed 
 both vigour and talent. 
 
 * From our preceding note it will be understood that we mean to 
 include in this censure the always able and sometimes eloquent mili- 
 tary historian of the war in the Peninsula. Colonel Napier maintains 
 that Zaragoza owed her safety to accident, and that the desperate 
 resistance of the inhabitants was more the result of chance than of 
 any peculiar virtue or valour. Yet the only accident we can discover 
 was that of the French getting entangled in the long crooked street, 
 while in search of the bridge over the Ebro; and we can see nothin 
 like chance in the mode in which the Zaragozans flew to arms an 
 
 braved their invaders, with an ample knowledge of their power and 
 
 ability, or in the way in which they protracted their defence, rejected 
 the offer to capitulate, and fought for eleven days and nights when the 
 French were in possession of one-half of the city. Few historical facts 
 are better authenticated than the heroism of the maid of Zaragoza ; 
 the mingled piety, charity, and heroism of the Countess Burita, a youn 
 and beautiful woman, who, with other women of all ranks, attend 
 the wounded, and carried water, wine, and provisions to those who 
 defended the gates, not flimching from the duty even in the midst of 
 shot and shells; and the bravery of women and boys during the whole 
 siege. When the dead were gathered together and counted, a large 
 proportion of them were found to be females and boys; yet Colonel 
 Napier snecrs at what he calls the current romantic tales of female 
 heroism, and begs to be allowed to doubt of their truth. 5 
 
_ +. === SSS cme eee 
 
 Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 not gain by force; but there was no traitor to his 
 country in Gerona, and Duhesme was obliged to 
 retreat by forced marches upon Barcelona. This 
 retreat was little else than a running-fight, for the 
 Catalans gathered on their hill-sides and in their 
 mountain passes. Duhesme savagely burned the 
 towns and villages through which he passed, but 
 this only added to the fury of men who had already 
 determined to give no quarter to the French. The 
 insurrection spread through the whole province ; 
 and Admiral Lord Collingwood sent in some 
 succour to the patriots, and, by concluding a treaty 
 with the captain-general of the Balearic Isles, his 
 lordship rendered the Spanish ships and troops in 
 Minorca, Majorca, and Ivica disposable for the 
 service of the Catalans. [orthwith 1300 men 
 were conveyed to reinforce the garrison of Gerona ; 
 and 4000 other Spaniards and a good train of 
 artillery were landed at Tarragona. But the 
 French army of Catalonia being strongly rein- 
 forced by the movable columns of General Reille, 
 who had been watching the passes of the eastern 
 Pyrenees, Duhesme turned back to lay regular 
 siege to Gerona, first detaching Reille with two or 
 three Italian regiments to invest Rosas. Reille 
 was very unfortunate; the whole country rose in 
 his rear, Captain Otway of the ‘ Montague’ landed 
 with some English marines, and thus this French 
 general was compelled to retire from before Rosas 
 with a loss of 200 men. Nor was Duhesme more 
 successful in his siege of Gerona than he had been 
 in his attempt to storm that place: before he could 
 reach it he lost many of his carriages; when he in- 
 vested the place he found it well garrisoned, and, 
 turn his eyes where he would, he could see nothing 
 but armed bands of peasantry and British ships of 
 war, which ran along the coast cutting off all sup- 
 plies by sea, and occasionally firing upon his 
 advancing columns or into his works. In vain 
 Reille came to his assistance, in vain he employed 
 12,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and 25 battering 
 cannon; he could make no impression on the 
 walls of Gerona, or on the stern hearts of its in- 
 habitants; his communications were all cut off, 
 his convoys were seized, his very lines were 
 broken, and after losing many men he broke up 
 the siege and fled for Barcelona, leaving both 
 artillery and stores behind him. He could not 
 retreat by the coasts on account of the English 
 frigates that would have raked his columns, and 
 he could not get through the mountains without 
 another murderous running-fight with the peasants. 
 Chovsing, however, the latter course as the safer of 
 the two, he fled over the high lands which back 
 the coast, destroying his ammunition, and throw- 
 ing what remained of his artillery over the rocks. 
 And before Duhesme could get back to Barcelona, 
 one of the richest and most populous cities in 
 Spain, the real basis of. his operations, that port 
 was blockaded by two British frigates under the 
 cominand of Lord Cochrane, who Janded his 
 marines, drove the French from some of their 
 positions, and blew up their works at Mongat. In 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 429 
 
 several encounters weak French detachments were 
 beaten by the armed peasantry andthe regular 
 troops which had been brought over from the 
 Balearic Isles, and, when the ferocious Duhesme 
 reached Barcelona, he came flying befvre the 
 Spanish general Caldagues, with an army dis- 
 organised and deprived of almost everything that 
 rendered it formidable. : 
 Almost equally unsuccessful and fatal were the 
 operations of Marshal Moncey in Valeneia. As 
 the marshal advanced into the province in the 
 month of June, he found that all the villages were 
 deserted, and that, “ either from fear or hatred, 
 every living person fled before his fovotsteps.” * 
 As he advanced still farther, he saw the rocks 
 covered with armed peasantry, some Spanish 
 regulars and some Swiss troops, and, although he 
 dislodged them and took some of their cannon, 
 ammunition, and baggage, he found other foes 
 hanging on his flanks and on his rear on the 
 morrow. At last, on the 27th of June, he arrived 
 before the strong and ancient walls of the city of 
 Valencia. On the 28th and 29th he fired upon 
 the town with his field-pieces, having no battering 
 tran with him. The Spaniards replied with 
 heavy guns which overpowered his fire. Many of 
 his people were wounded, and among them his 
 general of engineers. He had expected to find a 
 party in the town favourable to the French, but 
 the Valencians had massacred all the French 
 residents, and could expect only a bloody retalia- 
 tion if he should gain an entrance into their city. 
 There was not a man that would communicate 
 with him, all were determined to resist to the last, 
 and their courage was kept up by the visible 
 effect of their own fire, by the trifling effect 
 produced by Moncey’s field-pieces, and by the 
 exhortations and example of a friar who ran 
 through the streets with a cross in one hand and 
 a sword in the other. On the evening of the 29th 
 Marshal Moncey relinquished the attack and began 
 a hasty retreat. He had been promised assistance 
 from the French army in Catalonia, but Duhcsme 
 was not in a condition to send him any aid. The 
 Spanish general Serbelloni, imprudently risking a 
 battle in the open field with badly disciplined 
 troops, sustained a complete defeat. But a detach- 
 ment which Moncey had left in the Cuenca was 
 surprised, beaten, and cut to pieces; and General 
 Frére, who had been sent from Madrid to reinforce 
 Moncey, mistook his road, was embarrassed by 
 orders issued from head-quarters without any 
 accurate knowledge of the state of the country or of 
 the place where he was to seek the marshal, and, 
 after making many useless marches in the heat of 
 summer, he joined Moncey with sickly, wearied, 
 worn-out, disheartened troops. Savary seut his 
 colleague in kidnapping, Caulaincourt, to quell the 
 insurrection in the Cuenga. On the 3rd of July 
 an atrocious butchery was committed, the town of 
 Cuenca was pillaged, and Caulaincourt wrote to his 
 superior, Savary, that he had performed his mis- 
 
 * Napier. 
 
430 
 
 sion, and quenched the flames of insurrection. But 
 the blood which had been shed—the blood of men, 
 women, and children, of aged priests, of monks 
 and friars—instead of quenching these flames, 
 made them rage the higher. Insurgent bands 
 gathered all round Marshal Moncey and Frére, 
 cutting off their stragglers, and killing every 
 Frenchman they could surprise. Moncey, how- 
 ever, after reorganising his forces and preparing 
 artillery, was thinking, or was said to be thinking, 
 of returning to Valencia to make a second attempt 
 on that strong and well-defended city, when he 
 received from Savary a positive order to hasten 
 back to Madrid and protect his gracious majesty 
 King Joseph. These details will be sufficient to 
 convey a notion of the manner in which the war 
 was carried on by the Spaniards so long as they 
 were left to act in the field by themselves. Not- 
 withstanding the affair of Baylen, which raised 
 their self-confidence to a giddy and dangerous 
 elevation, and some other encounters in which, 
 mainly through the advantages of ground and other 
 local circumstances, they had a decided advantage, 
 it was on the whole very clearly demonstrated that 
 there was very little military genius among the 
 Spanish commanders, that a Spanish army could 
 not yet contend in the open field with veteran 
 French troops, and that all the Spaniards fought 
 best when covered by walls and strong stone 
 houses. But by this time British bayonets were 
 glittermg on the shores of the Peninsula, and 
 General Sir Arthur Wellesley was preparing to 
 enter upon a career far greater and more glorious 
 than his Indian one had been. 
 
 As soon as the first popular insurrection at 
 Madrid was known at the frontier town of Badajoz, 
 an anonymous proclamation from that city was 
 circulated on the Portuguese border; and a lieu- 
 tenant of the King of Spain’s Walloon guards was 
 sent on to Lisbon to consult secretly with the 
 Spanish general Caraffa upon the means of with- 
 drawing the Spanish troops which had marched into 
 Portugal with Junot. Caraffa, an Italian by birth, 
 would not declare himself at that time, but he 
 concealed from Junot the object of the lieutenant’s 
 secret mission; and many of the men under his 
 command began to desert. At first these Spa- 
 niards, who had come into Portugal to help the 
 French to subjugate the country, fled in small 
 parties ; but these parties gradually became larger, 
 and at last a whole regiment marched off for Spain 
 in a body in defiance of its colonel. Junot sent 
 a detachment of 600 French to intercept this 
 Spanish regiment; the late allies met as mortal 
 enemies, the Spaniards, with their homes in their 
 eye and heart, proved victorious, and the French 
 detachment lost nearly half of its original number 
 in killed and wounded. The Spaniards were as- 
 sisted by the Portuguese peasantry. Sundry in- 
 genious attempts were made by the French to 
 revive the jealousies and animosities which had so 
 long raged between the two neighbouring nations, 
 but they were attended with no success. Their 
 
 a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 len a alent tec x tee 
 
 [ Book X. | 
 
 ingenuity was defeated by their rapacity and vio- 
 lence, which were sufficient to make the Portuguese 
 forswear for the present all enmities except against 
 the French. Junot plundered remorselessly at 
 Lisbon, and Kellermann and his other generals 
 closely followed his example in other parts of the 
 country. At the same time the common soldiery 
 carried on a trade of their own, and insulted the 
 priests and outraged the women. The great city 
 of Oporto was in possession of the Spanish general 
 Bellesta, who had occupied it by virtue of that 
 infamous secret treaty of Fontainebleau, which was 
 to give to Spain a portion of the subdued and par- 
 titioned kingdom. of Portugal. Junot had placed 
 a French general over the head of Bellesta, to 
 guide him and watch him ; but General Quesnel 
 had only 70 dragoons and a few other Frenchmen 
 with him, and, when news arrived of the turn affairs 
 were taking in all parts of Spain, Bellesta obeyed 
 the voice of his country, put the French and their 
 general under arrest, and convoked the military, 
 judicial, and civil authorities of Oporto. To the 
 Portuguese functionaries the Spanish general ex- 
 pressed a hope that Junot would be seized in 
 Lisbon as Quesnel had been in Oporto, and that 
 the Portuguese would everywhere rise against the 
 French as the Spaniards were doing. ‘The more 
 timid said that they had no means of resisting so 
 terrible an enemy as the French; and that it would 
 be better to wait till they could learn what had 
 happened at Lisbon. But higher feelings pre- 
 vailed ; the resolution was adopted to raise the 
 standard of the house of Braganza at once, and a 
 Portuguese officer went straight from the place of 
 meeting to the fortress of 5. Joam da Foz, at the 
 mouth of the Douro, and bound the garrison by a 
 formal deed and solemn oath to act for their lawful 
 prince against the French. Without delay, Bel- 
 lesta and his Spanish troops marched away for 
 Corufia, taking with them General Quesnel and 
 their other French prisoners. But, almost as soon 
 as the Spaniards had evacuated the city, the Por- 
 tuguese governor declared for the Emperor Napo- 
 leon and the French, and succeeded in putting down 
 the patriotic insurrection. On learning these hur- 
 ried occurrences at Oporto, Junot, by stratagem, 
 succeeded in disarming and seizing about 1200 
 
 Spanish troops that were quartered in the capital, — 
 
 and about 3000 more that were quartered in 
 Mafra and other places. In all about 4500 Spa- 
 niards were made prisoners in ships and hulks— 
 upon the Tagus. 
 dressed proclamations to the Portuguese people, 
 and to the Portuguese army. In the vain hope of 
 attaching that army, he promised regular and in- 
 
 creased pay, promotion, glory, every advantage and — 
 
 every hope that was possessed by the Invincibles 
 of the Grand Army, the favourites of Fortune, and 
 of the Emperor Napoleon. But by this time the 
 French had everywhere rendered themselves odious 
 and suspected. During a religious procession the 
 cry was got up, by combination or by accident, that 
 the English fleet was crossing the bar, and ascending 
 
 a 
 
 Bonaparte’s lieutenant then ad- — 
 
| 
 : 
 | 
 
 | 
 | 
 | 
 | 
 
 Guar. VIII] 
 
 the Tagus to bombard Lisbon: the French troops 
 formed as if expecting some massacre like that of 
 the Sicilian Vespers; the Portuguese fled as if ex- 
 pecting to be immediately massacred by the French. 
 Edicts were issued commanding all persons to 
 deliver up their fire-arms, swords, and other 
 weapons, prohibiting the kindling of bonfires and 
 any use of gunpowder, making parents answer- 
 able for their children, schoolmasters for their boys, 
 masters for their servants, &c.; and every possible 
 exertion was made to place Lisbon and its castles 
 in a state of defence, and to put down insurrection 
 in the neighbouring country. All this served only 
 to hasten the universal rising. Asin Spain, the 
 priests and monks put themselves in the front of 
 the insurrection. At Braga the archbishop un- 
 veiled the royal arms of Braganza, and recited the 
 prohibited prayer for the prince-regent and fugitive 
 royal family. ‘The flags, the arms, the symbols of 
 the displaced dynasty were displayed in one town 
 after another, and the tricolor of the intruders 
 was cast to the earth, and torn to pieces. In the 
 city of Braganza an abbot read aloud the news of 
 the first insurrection at Oporto, and the governor 
 of the province declared openly against the French. 
 Here, as in other towns, there were some timid, 
 calculating men, who wished to remain quiet, and 
 who doubted whether the Portuguese could -ever 
 resist the French army of Junot, and the mighty 
 masses which the Emperor Napoleon might send 
 to back them. The old governor took a party of 
 this class of politicians, who had waited upon him 
 to know the meaning of all this stir, to a window, 
 and showed them the streets swarming with people, 
 who were all excited to the utmost, and shouting, 
 “The royal House of Braganza for ever! down with 
 the French!” ‘*'There,” said he, ** you hear what 
 is the meaning; and you may attempt to quiet 
 that multitude if you dare!” The old governor 
 illuminated his house, which was the signal for a 
 general illumination: he collected all the arms that 
 were in the city, he sent to Chaves for more; he 
 called upon all reduced Portuguese officers to come 
 forward; and he issued orders to all the chief au- 
 thorities under him in the province to proclaim 
 their lawful prince, and enrol the peasantry. A 
 grand mass was celebrated next day in the cathe- 
 dral, and all who were present mounted the national 
 cockade, the clergy wearing it upon the breast.* 
 This national joy was damped by the intelligence 
 received from Lisbon and from Oporto; but in a 
 very few days Oporto became the scene of another 
 insurrection, which was not destined to be put down 
 by the caution or timidity of any Portuguese go- 
 vernor. News was spread there by some of the 
 patriots that a Spanish army was in full march for 
 Portugal, that the French were flying from Spain, 
 that an English fleet was coming with arms and 
 money. The people’ of the town rose to a man, 
 the Portuguese soldiery joined them; the flag of 
 Braganza was again displayed, the arsenal was 
 
 * Southey. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 431 
 
 thrown open, arms and cartridges were distributed 
 to all who applied for them ; the monks rang their 
 bells, the soldiers swore on their swords to fight 
 and die for their country, their religion, and their 
 king; and the Bishop of Oporto came forth from 
 his palace, kissed the national banner, put himself 
 at the head of the insurrection, and led the enthu- 
 siastic multitude to the cathedral, there to implore 
 the divine assistance in their meritorious under- 
 taking. In imitation of the Spaniards, a provisional 
 junta of supreme government was then appointed, 
 and the bishop was placed at the head of it with 
 the title of president-governor. The bishop, by 
 name Antonio de 8. Jos¢ e Castro, forthwith pub- 
 lished a manifesto, declaring that the French go- 
 vernment was abolished and exterminated, and the 
 royal authority restored, to be exercised plena- 
 rily and independently by the provisional junta 
 of Oporto, till the government instituted by his 
 royal highness the prince-regent should be re- 
 established. ‘The junta gave orders to proclaim 
 the prince in all parts of the kingdom, and every- 
 where to uncover and display as heretofore the 
 royal arms of Braganza; and they called upon 
 all constituted authorities to attend to the sum- 
 mons of patriotism, and obey the provisional 
 government. One messenger was instantly dis- 
 patched to the patriotic old) governor of Bra- 
 ganza, and another of a higher rank was sent off to 
 a British brig-of-war which was hovering off the 
 coast, in order to open a direct communication with 
 England, and to solicit protection and succour. 
 Voluntary contributions were liberally made by the 
 citizens of Oporto, and the poor pay of the Portu- 
 guese soldiers was immediately raised. ‘There was 
 much suspicion and some rioting; but, although 
 the number of traitors or of French partizans ap- 
 pears to have been greater in Portugal than it was 
 in Spain, there was much less assassination. ‘Two 
 deputies were soon sent to England, and an alli- 
 ance was concluded with the junta of Galicia, the 
 nearest of the provisional governments in Spain ; 
 Galicia engaging to assist in liberating Portugal, 
 and Portugal engaging to co-operate, after her own 
 deliverance, in expelling the French from every 
 part of Spain. As in the latter country, many 
 juntas began to raise their heads; but they had 
 much less anxiety for a separate dominion: several 
 of them readily submitted to the superiority that 
 was claimed by Oporto, and the authority of the 
 bishop and his junta was soon acknowledged 
 throughout the north of Portugal. The whole of 
 Tras os Montes, and of the province between the 
 Douro and the Minho, declared at once against the 
 French. The insurrection rapidly spread south- 
 ward into Beiraand Algarve. ‘The people and the 
 students of Coimbra enthusiastically joined the 
 national cause, submitting to the junta of Oporto 
 as the legitimate government: the people of 
 Alemtejo followed the example of the people of 
 Algarve, and both were supported by a bedy of 
 Spanish troops which crossed the frontiers at an 
 opportune moment. ‘The town of Evora became 
 
432 
 
 the centre of the insurrection in this quarter. The 
 French general Loison, who had been sent to 
 repress the insurgents in the north, was quickly 
 recalled by the bewildered Junot, and sent into 
 Alemtejo. After a desperate resistance on the part 
 of the inhabitants, Loison forced his way into Evora, 
 and the unhappy town was then given up to in- 
 discriminate massacre, the fury of the French sol- 
 diery being increased by the losses they had sus- 
 tained in their march, and in their attack on the 
 place. General Margaron executed like vengeance 
 at Leyria, an ancient Lusitanian city, situated in a 
 beautiful country about 100 miles from Lisbon. 
 The people of the town and the peasantry who col- 
 lected there had had little time for preparation, 
 when they heard that the French were approach- 
 ing: the town was open on all sides, and they had 
 not a single piece of cannon. The magistrates and 
 the higher orders withdrew secretly during the 
 night which preceded the attack, and fled to the 
 mountains. But the poorer patriots staid and 
 fought. They were butchered in heaps; the open 
 city was entered on all sides, and neither age nor 
 sex was spared; the old and young, the women 
 and children, the babe suckling at the mother’s 
 breast, were slaughtered, in order to strike terror 
 into the hearts of the rest of the insurgents. It 
 was this practice of carrying out Danton’s and 
 Marat’s doctrine, fatre peur, that rendered the 
 wars in Calabria, in Spain, and in Portugal so 
 ruthless and terrible, and that converted the armed 
 population into the most merciless of foes. When 
 the slaughter in the streets had ceased, the French 
 hunted for prisoners in the houses and churches, 
 and fusilladed them in an open space in front of 
 the chapel of S. Bartholomew. And when this 
 was over they plundered the houses, and the 
 churches, and the monasteries, and tore open the 
 very graves ina mad _ search after hidden treasure. 
 Scenes equally atrocious took place at Guarda in 
 the north, and at Bejaand Villavicosa in the south. 
 In these butcheries, however, the French were also 
 losing their own men daily; the peasantry were 
 always hovering about their line of march, cutting 
 off stragglers, and intercepting their communica- 
 tions; and the necessary rapidity of their marches, 
 the heat of the climate, and the scarcity or bad- 
 uess of provisions induced disease and death. 
 Rarely did the peasantry show any mercy to the 
 prisoners they took: the French had treated them 
 like wild beasts, and like savages they acted to- 
 wards the French. After plundering Evora, 
 Elvas, and Portalegre, and shooting several Spa- 
 nish and Portuguese gentlemen, Loison seized 
 some individuals as hostages, and marched away 
 for Abrantes, having received dispatches from 
 Junot, who ordered him to hasten his return to 
 Lisbon by that route, it being now certain that an 
 Iinglish expedition was off the coast. 
 
 The Spanish deputies who had gone to England 
 from the Asturias and Galicia had requested the 
 employment of an auxiliary force, to effect a diver- 
 sion, by landing on some point of the coast of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Portugal, in which kingdom the insurrection — 
 had not then begun. Their native provinces, the 
 mountainous regions of the Asturias and Galicia, ~ 
 were as yet untouched by the French; they 
 formed, or were thought to form, the main strength 
 of the Spanish patriots in the north; and the 
 deputies, for their own immediate use, asked 
 only for arms and money. Some doubts were 
 reasonably entertained by the British government 
 whether the Asturians and Galicians would make 
 the best use of these succours, and whether Spa- 
 nish armies, and irregular tumultuary levies, could 
 drive the French out of the Peninsula, without the 
 assistance of a disciplined English army. In the 
 month of June Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had 
 been promoted to the rank of licutenant-general in 
 April, was appointed to the command of a force, 
 
 | consisting of about 9000 infantry and one regiment 
 _ of light dragoons. This force was intended for the 
 
 Peninsula, but at the time of its departure, and for 
 some time after, it was not decided whether it 
 should be landed in Spain or in Portugal. Much 
 was left to the discretion of Sir Arthur; and never 
 before had our government had so much discretion 
 and wisdom to trust to. The general was promised 
 an additional force of 10,000 men, to follow in a 
 short time. The force actually ready, and collected 
 at Cork, had been assembled by the “ All Talents’ ” 
 ministry, for the purpose of making permanent con- 
 quests in Spanish South America! Onthe 12th of 
 July Sir Arthur sailed with them from the Cove of 
 Cork for the Peninsula. On the 20th of July, hay- 
 ing quitted the fleet containing the troops under his 
 command as soon as it was clear of the-coast of 
 Ireland, Sir Arthur arrived at Corufa, and imme- 
 diately held conferences with the junta of Galicia. 
 He found those Spaniards full of confidence: al- 
 though the battle of Rio Seco had heen lost, and 
 the battle of Baylen not yet won, they asked for 
 nothing but arms and money; they declined the 
 assistance of a British auxiliary force, but they ad- 
 vised General Wellesley to land in Portugal, to 
 rescue that kingdom from the French, and thus 
 open a regular communication between the north 
 and south of Spain. He was assured that in many 
 places detachments of the French had been defeated 
 by the Spanish people, and that whole armies of 
 them would soon be aunihilated. Some money 
 which he brought with him, and gave them, elated 
 the members of the junta still more: he could not 
 see either in them or in the inhabitants of the town 
 any symptom of alarm, or any doubt of their final 
 success. The junta said that they could put any 
 number of men into the field, if they were only 
 amply provided with money and arms, His uit 
 eye saw at a glance that a great deal more was 
 wanting than arms and money; and that the disin- 
 clination to receive the assistance of British troops 
 was founded ina great degree on Spanish pride, and 
 on the objection to give the command of their own 
 troops to British officers, although it was but too 
 apparent that they had few or no capable Spanish 
 officers. It was this objection, this pride, which led 1 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 many subsequent reverses and disgraces in the field, 
 and which rendered the Spanish armies for a long 
 time of little or no avail. The Portuguese showed 
 less pride and more docility, and thereby rapidly 
 became excellent troops in the hands of British 
 officers, and under the command of the great Bri- 
 tish general. Sir Arthur thought that Bonaparte 
 would now carry on his operations by means of 
 large armies, and would make every effort to gain 
 possession of the northern provinces of Spain, which 
 could be done only by the invasion and possession 
 of the Asturias; and that, therefore, our govern- 
 ment ought to direct its attention more particularly 
 to that important point, and endeavour to prevail 
 upon the Asturians to receive a body of our troops. 
 No chance or contingency escaped him : he thought 
 it possible that, if Bonaparte found it impracticable 
 to penetrate by land, he would make some sudden 
 effort to reach the Asturias by sea; and he there- 
 fore recommended the reinforcing of the English 
 squadron on that coast. He suggested also to the 
 junta at Coruia to fit out the Spanish ships at Fer- 
 rol for this service; but they said that it would 
 divert their attention and their means from other 
 more important obiects; and that they would prefer 
 relying for naval defence on Great Britain. He 
 saw all the difficulties of the case in their true light, 
 and at once told our ministers, who were far too 
 sanguine, and who appear to have believed that the 
 Spaniards had far more resources than they pos- 
 sessed, that they must assist al/ the Spanish pro- 
 vinces with money, arms, and ammunition. He 
 referred to the great division of political power 
 caused by the establishment of so many juntas; but 
 he was not quite certain that each of the kingdoms 
 of Spain should not be governed by its own junta, 
 and he was convinced that the general zeal and exer- 
 tions of each were greater at present than they 
 would be if the whole kingdom were under the 
 direction of one body.* The junta strongly recom- 
 mended him not to land at Lisbon, or in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the French army, urging as an objection 
 that he would thereby lose the advantage of the 
 co-operation of the Spanish and Portuguese forces 
 that were collecting at Oporto, and that would 
 not be able to approach Lisbon till they had heard 
 that he had disembarked. They recommended him 
 to effect a landing at Vigo, or at Oporto, and thence 
 carry the allies, whose strength they exaggerated, 
 with him to Lisbon. His own views, and his gene- 
 ral instructions, were in favour of a landing in 
 Portugal ; but he determined not to fix upon the 
 spot until he obtained more accurate information. 
 On the night of the 21st of July he set sail from 
 Coruna, to look after the transports and the fleet 
 that were conveying his army. The fleet joined 
 him the next day at sea, and he then sailed instantly 
 for Oporto, where he arrived on the 24th. By this 
 time Oporto and the neighbourhood was in full in- 
 surrection ; and he found that the warlike bishop 
 had gathered together about 3000 men, full of 
 tes rotted tal Castlereagh, in Colonel Gurwood’s 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 So SR 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 eg A Tac SSSR Sen 
 
 433 
 
 ardour, but badly armed and equipped. He also 
 learned from the bishop that about 5000 Portuguese 
 regular troops were stationed at Coimbra, on the 
 Mondego river, and that there were about 12,000 
 peasants who only wanted arming, clothing, and 
 disciplining. Some of the more regular levies had 
 gotten a thousand muskets from the English fleet, 
 but others of the same class had no fire-arms except 
 fowling-pieces. Of the corps of Spanish infantry, 
 which ought to have been at Oporto, he could hear 
 nothing, except that it had been stopped on the 
 frontier, and that whether it would come at all 
 was doubtful. Having made arrangements with 
 the Bishop of Oporto for a supply of mules and 
 horses, General Wellesley sailed to the south as far 
 as the Tagus, to get fresh and correcter information 
 as to the strength and position of the French troops 
 in and near Lisbon. Nothing was left to hazard, 
 or to that second and third hand information which 
 had so often misled inferior commanders. When 
 he had obtained ample knowledge of the strength 
 and disposition of Junot’s forces, he fixed upon 
 Mondego Bay as his proper landing-place. ‘The 
 small town and fort of Figueira, on the southern 
 bank of the Mondego, had been carried by the Por- 
 tuguese insurgents, and were now occupied by 300 
 marines belonging to the English fleet, and higher 
 up the river at Coimbra were posted the 5000 
 Portuguese regulars. On the 30th of July General 
 Wellesley anchored in the bay, and on the Ist of 
 August the troops were landed near the town of 
 Figueira, according to orders and rules most pre- 
 cisely laid down bythe general. Their spirits were 
 raised by the intelligence they received of Casta- 
 fhos’s victory over Dupont. Thesurf on the whole 
 coast of Portugal is great; the disembarkation 
 presented many difficulties, but, with the exception 
 of a few casualties, the infantry and the handful of 
 cavalry were safely landed. On the 5th of August 
 General Spencer joined from Cadiz, with about 
 4000 men, thus raising the entire force under Sir 
 Arthur’s command to 13,000 foot and 400 or 500 
 cavalry ; but 150 of the 20th light dragoons were 
 dismounted. 
 
 The French forces at this time in Portugal con- 
 sisted of from 16,000 to 18,000 men; but, de- 
 ducting the garrisons of Elvas, Peniche, Setubal, 
 and other places, there remained only about 14,000 
 men for the defence of Lisbon and its approaches. 
 Their communications were cut off from their 
 countrymen in Spain, for, since the surrender of 
 Dupont, the Spanish patriots were masters of 
 Andalusia and Estremadura, and in Old Castile 
 the French corps under Bessiéres had not ad- 
 vanced farther than Benavente, being observed by 
 the Spanish army of Galicia. About the same time 
 the French corps at Madrid were abandoning that 
 capital, and retiring hastily to the Ebro. A clear 
 Stage was therefore left for the contest in Portugal 
 between Wellesley and Junot, whose respective 
 disposable forces were nearly equal, except that the 
 French had the advantage of a considerable body 
 
 of cavalry, an arm in which the English were 
 2B 
 
434 
 
 almost entirely wanting.* On the 9th of August 
 the English began their march southward towards 
 Lisbon. The advanced guard entered the town of 
 Leyria, where it found the Portuguese force of 
 5000 men under General Freire, who had moved 
 from Coimbra, and who had appropriated to the 
 wants of his own people the stores which, by an 
 agreement between the bishop and junta of Oporto, 
 and Sir Arthur, were to remain for the use of the 
 English troops. This was an awkward beginning 
 of the connexion between the two allied armies ; but 
 what followed was rather worse: General Freire 
 demanded that his corps should henceforward be 
 furnished with provisions by the English com- 
 missariat, which had scarcely provisions enough to 
 supply the newly-landed English troops. The 
 preposterous demand of Freire is to be excused 
 only by the poverty of his country, and by the fact 
 that the French had seized and removed nearly 
 everything that could be carried off; but Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley and bis commissariat stand in 
 need of no excuse for refusing to accede to the de- 
 mand of the Portuguese general; they had nothing 
 to spare, and their army must mainly depend for 
 support—at least forthe present, and until cargoes 
 could arrive from Great Britain—on such provi- 
 sions as they had landed, and on such as the 
 country they had come to deliver from the in- 
 vaders could afford to sell for money. Junot had 
 raised his supplies at the point of the bayonet; 
 Wellesley offered hard dollars for his. Freire, 
 however, was so unreasonable as to feel mjured and 
 insulted: he absolutely refused to advance with 
 the ‘English; he remained behind at Leyria; and 
 was with difficulty prevailed upon to allow 1600 
 of his men to join Sir Arthur.t On the 14th the 
 English came in sight of the ancient and magni- 
 ficent abbey of Alcobaca, and entered the town of 
 that name. On the 15th they were at Caldas, fol- 
 lowing the road to Torres Vedras, which runs 
 parallel to the sea-coast, and is nowhere distant 
 from the sea. It was near Rolica, at that time a 
 large and beautiful village, about ten or twelve 
 English miles beyond Caldas, that the first en- 
 gagement between the English and the French 
 took place. : 
 
 Junot, on the first news of the landing of the 
 English, determined to abandon the provinces, to 
 evacuate all the fortresses except Elvas and Al- 
 meida, and to concentrate his forces in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Lisbon. He sent a division of about 
 5000 men, under General Delaborde, towards 
 Leyria, to keep Wellesley in check; and he 
 
 * A. Vieusseux.— Military Life of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 + “ General Freire,” says Sir Arthur, ‘‘ has been apprised of the 
 state of my resources, and yet he perseveres in his plan; and I ac- 
 knowledge that I can attribute it only to his apprehensions, which, 
 however, he has never hinted to me,—that we are not sufficiently 
 strong for the enemy. I am convinced that he can have no personal 
 motive for his conduct,as I have been always on the most cordial good 
 terms with him. I have supplied him with arms, ammunition, and 
 flints, and have done everything in my power for his army ; aud, only 
 on the day before he communicated to me the alteration of his plan 
 for the march of his army, he voluntarily placed himself and his 
 troops under my command.”—TLeitter to Viscount Castlereagh in 
 Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 Before landing in Mondego Bay, Sir Arthur had sent the Portu- 
 guese 5000 muskets. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 _ [Boox XY 
 
 | ordered Loison, who had returned from his bloody. 
 
 expedition into Alemtejo, and had crossed the 
 
 Tagus by the bridge of boats at Abrantes, to push 
 
 forward and join Delaborde at Leyria. But the 
 
 rapid advance of the English obliged Delaborde to 
 fall back before Loison could reach him. On the 
 16th Wellesley’s rifles drove in Delaborde’s piquets 
 
 and took possession of the village of Obidos, 
 situated upon an insulated hill between Caldas and 
 Rolica. Delaborde, however, resolved to make a 
 stand in the favourable position of Roli¢a, expect- 
 ing every moment to see Loison appear on his 
 right. In his front were ravines and precipices, 
 and steep hills overgrown with underwood and 
 briars, and roughened by fragments of rock. But 
 Sir Arthur was informed of Loison’s approach, 
 and therefore hastened to attack Delaborde before 
 he should arrive. Accordingly he formed his 
 army into three columns :—the right, consisting of 
 Portuguese, was to make a demonstration on Dela- 
 borde’s left; the left was sent .to ascend the steep 
 hills on the enemy’s right, and to watch the ap- 
 proach of Loison, who was coming in that quarter ; 
 and the centre, which was the column of attack, 
 marched along the valley and up the ravines to the 
 front of Delaborde’s position. In all three direc- 
 tions the difficulties of the ground were great, but 
 they were greatest to the central or attacking 
 column. In some places the way would not admit 
 more than three or four men abreast; the French 
 had posted an ambush of riflemen among the cop- 
 pices of myrtle and arbutus, and here it was that 
 Colonel Lake, the brave son of a brave father, fell 
 with many of his men of the 29th regiment. When 
 the central column reached the summit of the 
 heights, they were exposed to a fire from the vine- 
 yards, and for some time they could not form a 
 front to return it. But the bayonets of the British 
 grenadiers cleared some ground, and then the 
 column formed and fired, and drove back the 
 French. Delaborde rallied his men, and brought 
 them thrice back to charge, or attempt to charge; 
 
 but each time they were brought to a pause by the 
 sturdy immoveable mass before them ; and, instead 
 of driving the English back down the steep break- 
 neck hills, they fell back themselves to higher 
 ground in the rear. They had been told that the 
 English troops were nought, and that their general, 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley, was but a sepoy-general, 
 who might beat Indian sultans and rajahs, but 
 who was altogether incapable of contending with 
 
 French commanders who had risen out of the 
 
 Revolution, and who had been trained under the 
 
 Emperor Napoleon; but the precision of move- 
 
 ment, the unflinching steadiness, the regularity, 
 
 and the quickness of their firing, undeceived them, 
 
 and showed them the real qualities of British in- 
 
 fantry, while all those who understood anything of 
 
 the business of war saw a high directing mind, 
 
 and felt that the sepoy-general was a great master 
 
 in the art of war. The French officers had made 
 
 good use of the time allowed them since their first 
 arrival in the country in drilling and disciplining 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 their men; but still these French troops were no 
 veterans, and were very far from being the élite 
 of Bonaparte’s armies. On equal ground, and 
 with an equality of artillery (our central column 
 had scarcely been able to get a single 6-pounder 
 up the ravines), they would not have stood one 
 quarter of an hour before the men opposed to 
 them. As matters were, they continued the con- 
 test for nearly two hours, when the apparition of 
 our two other columns on their right and left 
 forced them to make a hasty retreat into the ham- 
 let of Azambugeira. They left above 600 killed 
 and wounded, and three pieces of artillery behind 
 them. ‘The loss of the British was about 480. 
 From Azambugeira Delaborde retreated- in good 
 order to Torres Vedras, where he was joined b 
 
 Loison. On the 18th General Wellesley followed 
 him, and, still keeping near the sea-coast, advanced 
 to Lourinha. On the 19th he moved on to 
 Vimeiro, where he was joined on the 20th by 
 Generals Anstruther and Acland, with two bri- 
 gades just arrived from England. This raised 
 his force to about 17,000 British, besides 1600 
 Portuguese. But Junot, by calling in his garrisons, 
 had now a force numerically equal, or nearly 
 equal, to this ; he retained his superiority in cavalry 
 as also in artillery, and, what was of more conse- 
 quence than all, just at this critical moment Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley was superseded in the chief 
 command by a very inferior personage, Lieutenant- 
 General Sir Harry Burrard, who arrived from 
 England with fresh instructions from the govern- 
 ment, or with different notions and plans of cam- 
 paign of his own. They had put more spirit into 
 the war than the Grey and Grenville administra- 
 tion had done; but the present Tory cabinet had 
 not yet attained to any consistency of system, had 
 not yet cast off old prejudices and influences, and 
 they now went well nigh to mar a war which had 
 been most ably begun, and which, for the first 
 time, offered a fair and promising field on the Con- 
 tinent of Europe to our national Jand forces. Mi- 
 nisters themselyes were sensible of the propitious 
 appearance of affairs in the Peninsula, and were 
 fully determined to increase the army employed in 
 Portugal; but upon these very grounds they also 
 determined to entrust the chief command to some 
 officer higher or more ancient in the service than 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley. This was according to the 
 wheel of routine, which had gone far to grind 
 down all genius and spirit in the superior classes of 
 the officers of the British army. In India, at 
 Copenhagen, even in this incipient Portuguese cam- 
 paign, Wellesley had given proof of superior mili- 
 tary genius; but there were generals in the ser- 
 vice much more ancient than he, and, as if seniority 
 were of more value than ability, his genius must 
 be prostrated before another man’s antiquity. It 
 might have happened that this active, indefatigable 
 man, whose physical powers were, in their kind, 
 as perfect as his intellectual qualities, should have 
 been superseded by a worn-out old man, incapable 
 of bearing the heat of the climate, or of sitting 
 
 SS ES Ea CI vn 0 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 435 
 
 three hours consecutively on horseback. And this, 
 by our unaltered regulations, and the miserable 
 routine seniority system, might, and probably will, 
 happen again, when we are engaged in another 
 war. Until some more loopholes are made through 
 which ability and genius may pass over the heads 
 of mere rotation and antiquity, the superior com- 
 mand of our forces must run deadly chances of 
 being placed in inferior hands. 
 
 As soon as it was resolved at home to raise the 
 British army in the Peninsula to 30,000 men, 
 ministers gave the chief command of the army to 
 Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple, who, as 
 acting governor of Gibraltar, had so promptly 
 aided Castanos and the Spanish army of Anda- 
 lusia; and they appointed Sir Harry Burrard to 
 be Sir Hew’s second in command, leaving Lieu- 
 tenant-General Sir John Moore, who had just re- 
 turned from a fruitless expedition to the Baltic, 
 and who was now on his way to the Peninsula, 
 and Lieutenant-Generals Sir Arthur Wellesley, the 
 Honourable John Hope, Lord Paget, and Mac- 
 kenzie Fraser, to command respective divisions of 
 the army. Wellesley was thus reduced from first 
 to fourth, Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir John 
 Moore were both officers of great merit, and gener- 
 ous, high-minded men; but quite so much could 
 not be said of Sir Harry Burrard; and the very 
 best of the three—Moore—was immeasurably in- 
 ferior to Wellesley. Accidents, and the order in 
 which the new-appointed generals arrived, made a 
 bad scheme worse. Sir Harry Burrard arrived 
 first; on the evening of the 26th he came to 
 Macéira Bay, near Vimeiro. Sir Arthur imme- 
 diately went on board, and reported to Sir Harry 
 the situation of the army, and his own intended 
 plan of operations, which was, to continue march- 
 ing along the coast-road as far as Mafra, thus turn- 
 ing the strong position which Delaborde and 
 Loison had taken at Torres Vedras, and by this 
 means obliging the French either to give battle or 
 retreat to Lisbon under great disadvantages. No 
 plan could have been better; no reinforcements 
 were wanting, the British, without counting either 
 the Portuguese regulars or the insurgent peasantry 
 for anything, being rather superior in number to 
 the French in front of them, and elated by the suc- 
 cess they had obtained at Roliga. There was pro- 
 bably not a man or an officer in the army but was 
 anxious to advance. Sir Harry Burrard, however, 
 thought differently, being of opinion that no farther 
 advance ought to be made till the arrival of the 
 reinforcements under Sir John Moore. But the 
 enemy in the meantime was bringing the question 
 to a speedy issue. Having posted his army in 
 excellent positions in the village of Vimeiro, and 
 on the hills round the village, General Wellesley 
 was retiring to rest, when, at the hour of midnight, 
 a German officer of dragoons galloped into the 
 camp and reported that Junot was coming on to 
 the attack at the head of 20,000 men, and was 
 only one hour’s march distant. Undisturbed by 
 this inflated report, General Wellesley merely sent 
 
 Se 
 
436 
 
 out patroles and warned the piquets to be on the 
 alert. But before day-break he had all his troops 
 under arms. The sun rose, all eyes were directed 
 in the direction of Torres Vedras, which is only 
 nine miles from Vimeiro, with a hilly rugged 
 country between; but no enemy appeared. At 
 about seven o’clock, however, a cloud of dust rose 
 behind the hills nearest to the British positions ; 
 and at eight o’clock some French cavalry were 
 seen crowding the heights to the southward, and 
 sending forward scouts in every direction. This 
 was rapidly followed by the apparition of a mass 
 of French infantry, preceded by other cavalry ; 
 and then, column after column followed in order of 
 battle. Some changes of position were made in 
 the British army with admirable order and 
 celerity. And, at ten o’clock on the morning of 
 the not inglorious 21st of August, the battle began 
 with a hot fire of French artillery. The principal 
 attacks were made upon the British centre and 
 left, with the view, according toa favourite French 
 expression in those times, of driving the English 
 into the sea, which was there rolling close in their 
 rear. The attack was made with great bravery and 
 impetuosity, but it was as gallantly repulsed by 
 the British. But for Wellesley’s deficiency in 
 cavalry the battle would have been finished then, for 
 Colonel Taylor, galloping among the confused, re- 
 treating French, with the very few horsemen he 
 commanded, scattered them with great execution. 
 But Margaron’s formidable squadrons of horse came 
 down upon Taylor, killed him, and cut half of his 
 feeble squadron to pieces. General Kellermann, 
 taking advantage of this check, threw part of his 
 reserve into a pine-wood which flanked the line of 
 retreat, and sent the rest of the reserve to reinforce 
 the divisions that were repeating the attack. But 
 again the assailants were repulsed at all points; 
 General Solignac made a capital mistake, General 
 Brennier was wounded and made prisoner; the 
 British separated the French brigades from each 
 other, and, pressing forward with the bayonet, they 
 broke and scattered the enemy, who retreated im 
 confusion, leaving many prisoners, and fourteen can- 
 non, with ammunition, &c., behind them. ‘The loss 
 of the French in killed and wounded, in the battle of 
 Vimeiro, was estimated at about 1800, that of the 
 British being exactly 720. Only about one-half 
 of the British force was actually engaged. Except 
 the part of the reserve which Kellermann had 
 thrown into the pine-wood, the whole of Junot’s 
 force was brought into action; but Junot’s army, 
 instead of being 20,000 strong as reported by the 
 German officer, was rather less than 15,000. It 
 was only twelve o’clock when the affair was de- 
 cided. The 4th and 8th British brigades had 
 suffered very little; the Portuguese, the 5th and 
 the lst British brigades, had not fired a shot, and 
 the latter was two miles nearer to Torres Vedras 
 than was any part of the French army, and the 
 whole of that army, moreover, was in the greatest 
 confusion, There was abundant time, and an ad- 
 mirable opportunity, to annihilate Junot; but Sir 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X, 
 Harry Burrard had ianded, and had brought with 
 him the depressing nightmare-like influences of 
 senility and irresolution. Sir Harry had been 
 present on the field during part of the engage- 
 ment, but he had declined assuming the com- 
 mand, or any way interfering with Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley’s disposition till the enemy was re- 
 pulsed. But then, when the French were running 
 off, almost in a sawve qui peut disorder, when Major 
 General Ronald Ferguson on the left was close upon 
 them, when General Hill was ready to spring for- 
 ward by a shorter road than the French could take 
 upon Torres Vedras (which must have cut them 
 off from Lisbon, and perhaps have obliged them 
 to lay down their arms), and when General Wel- 
 lesley would have followed up his victory by a 
 general and rapid movement forward, Sir Harry 
 Burrard demurred, thought it unwise to hazard 
 the fortune of the day upon what he considered a 
 perilous throw—thought it advisable not to move 
 any farther, especially on account of the superiority 
 of the French cavalry—thought it best of all to 
 suspend offensive operations, and to wait in the 
 position of Vimeiro until the arrival of Sir John 
 Moore. Accordingly General Ferguson was or- 
 dered to desist from pursuit, General Hill was 
 called in; and the French officers, to their great 
 astonishment, were allowed to rally their men, and 
 make good their retreat to the always admirable 
 position of Torres Vedras.* On the next day, the 
 22nd, Sir Hew Dalrymple arriving in a frigate 
 from Gibraltar, landed in Maceira Bay, and su- 
 perseded Sir Harry Burrard, as Sir Harry had 
 superseded Sir Arthur Wellesley. Thus, owing 
 to the unwise arrangements of our own govern- 
 ment, and to chances which they ought to have 
 foreseen, the army, within twenty-four hours, had 
 successively three commanders-in-chief!+ The time 
 for prosecuting the victory was gone before Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple came ashore; and popular clamour 
 was guilty of great injustice towards Sir Hew both 
 with regard to the battle of Vimeiro and the con- 
 vention which followed it. 
 
 In the course of the 22nd General Kellermann 
 appeared at the British head-quarters, with a flag 
 of truce, to propose in the name of Junot an armis- 
 tice, preparatory to a convention for the entire 
 
 * In a letter addressed to the Duke of York the day after the 
 battle of Vimeiro, Sir Arthur Wellesley says, with rare coolness— 
 «1 think, if General Hill’s brigade and the advanced guard had 
 moved forward, the enemy would have been cut off from Torres 
 Vedras and we should have been at Lisbon before him; if, indeed, 
 any French army had remained in Portugal. But Sir Harry Burrard, 
 who was at this time upon the ground, still thought it advisable not 
 to move from Vimeiro; and the enemy made good their retreat to 
 Torres Vedras. Sir Hew Dalrymple arrived this morning, and has 
 taken the command of the army.” Sir Arthur was much warmer in 
 speaking of the merits of the men and officers who had served under 
 him. He says to the Duke of York—‘‘I cannot say too much in 
 favour of the troops : their gallantry and their discipline were equally 
 conspicuous; and I must add that this is the only action that I have ever 
 been tn, in which everything passed as it was dtrected, and no mistake 
 was made by any of the officers charged with tts conduct.” 
 
 + The Report of the Court of Inquiry afterwards said—‘* Consider- 
 ing the extraordinary circumstances under which two new commane= 
 ing generals arrived from the ocean, and joined the army (the one 
 during, and the other immediately after, a battle, and those succes- 
 sively superseding each other, and both the original commander 
 within the space of twenty-four hours), it is not surprising that the 
 army was not carried forward until the second day after the action. 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 evacuation of Portugal by the French, with their 
 arms and baggage. The terms were discussed 
 between Kellermann and Sir Hew Dalrymple; 
 Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 both being present. In the end the suspension 
 of arms was agreed upon, to terminate at forty- 
 eight hours’ notice ; and Sir Hew directed Gene- 
 ral Wellesley to sign this agreement. The basis 
 of the proposed treaty of evacuation was also 
 settled, but not to be considered as in force with- 
 out the concurrence of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, 
 who had his eye on Siniavin and the Russian ships 
 of the line in the Tagus.* Sir Hew says he was 
 quite determined to conclude no definitive conven- 
 tion to which the British admiral was not a party 
 as well as himself. But he had forgotten the Por- 
 tuguese general Ireire, who now sent an aide-de- 
 camp to ask his commands. Sir Hew says, that 
 there was a Portuguese force somewhere he had 
 probably heard ; that in the forenoon he had seen 
 a Portuguese detachment marching to occupy the 
 post assigned it in the position, but, as neither 
 General Freire nor his army had been mentioned 
 to him during the recent discussions with Keller- 
 mann, or spoken of as having had any share in the 
 battle of the 21st, he was not prepared to find them 
 so near at hand; and that, therefore, he could only 
 desire the aide-de-camp to give his respects to 
 General Freire, and tell him he should be glad of 
 the honour of seeing him next day at Ramalhal, 
 whither he intended to advance his head-quarters. 
 On the 23rd Sir Hew and the army made a for- 
 ward movement, from Vimeiro to Ramalhal, near 
 Torres Vedras, but within the boundary stipulated 
 in the armistice which he had ordered Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley to sign. In the course of this day he 
 was visited by General Friere, who, in very bad 
 humour, entered upon the subject of the proposed 
 treaty with Junot, and upon all the proceedings of 
 the day before, with which he seemed to be much 
 offended ; particularly, as he thought that he him- 
 self, and the government of Portugal (as he called 
 the junta of Oporto), bad been treated with dis- 
 respectiul neglect.t It is true that Freire, who 
 might have done a good deal, had done little or 
 nothing ; it is true that the junta of Oporto was 
 but a provisional and very irregular government, 
 
 * Sir Hew Dalrymple, Memoir of his Proceedings, &c. Sir Hew 
 says :—Lieutenant-Generals Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley assisted in the discussions which took place on this occasion ; 
 aud I need urge no other reason for my assenting to the measure pro- 
 posed than that it was recommended by Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose 
 opinion, as being the most competent judge of the relative situations of the 
 two armies at this point of time, I should have thought it my duty to fullow, 
 even if his judgment had not been so particularly recommended to my 
 attention by the secretary of state. Sir Arthur recommended the meuswe 
 of allowing the French to evacuate Portugal, with their arms and bag- 
 gage,” and that every facility for this purpose should be afforded to 
 them, from the relative state of the armies on the evening of the 22d, 
 considering that the French had then resumed a formidable position 
 (Torres Vedras) between us and Lisbon; that they had the means of 
 retiring from that position to others in front of Lisbon ; and, finally, 
 of crossing the Tagus into Alemtejo, with a view to the occupation 
 in strength of Elvas (a strongly fortified town), and eventually of 
 Almeida (another regular fortress).” And Sir Hew quotes a passage 
 out of a letter from Sir A. Wellesley to Lord Castlereagh, in which 
 Sir A. distinctly says, ‘* As Sir John Moore’s corps had been diverted 
 from the occupation at Santarem, which had been proposed for them, 
 there were no means to prevent, and no increase of numbers could 
 have prevented, the French army from effecting these objects.” 
 
 + Sir Hew Dalrymple, Memoir. 
 
 * CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 437 
 
 whose authority was only partially acknowledged 
 in the country ; but still it appears that the Portu- 
 guese general, if not the junta, ought to have been 
 consulted before the armistice was concluded, and 
 the basis of the proposed treaty of evacuation 
 settled. If any Portuguese had been present at the 
 discussions, they might have looked after their own 
 property, or the property of their countrymen, and 
 have more nicely limited and defined the baggage 
 that the French were to be allowed to carry off with 
 them. Sir Hew Dalrymple assured Freire that no 
 disrespect was meant; and he furnished him with 
 a copy of the armistice, provisional as it was and 
 subject to the British admiral’s approval, in order 
 that he might receive such observations as Freire 
 might think it necessary to make, assuring the 
 Portuguese general that his observations would all 
 be considered during the negotiation of the treaty. 
 Sir Hew, however, declared that he could not con- 
 sider the junta of Oporto as the government of 
 Portugal, and the legitimate representative of its 
 prince ; and this declaration, which he subsequently 
 repeated many times, raised against him the fierce 
 and rather unscrupulous animosity of the Bishop 
 of Oporto.* General Freire refused to take any 
 part in the arrangements made or making with the 
 French, reserving to himself the right or the op- 
 portunity of reprobating the convention when it 
 should be concluded by the British. 
 
 Most unluckily, in sketching the terms of the 
 convention on the 22nd, an article had been heed- 
 lessly admitted which prejudiced the clauses of the 
 final convention, by stipulating that the French 
 army should not “‘in any case”? be considered as 
 prisoners of war; that ‘all the individuals com- 
 posing it should be carried to France with arms 
 and baggage, and their private property of every 
 description, from which nothing should be de- 
 tained !”? This of course would include the church 
 plate and other public and private property which 
 the French had taken at Lisbon, or in the various 
 towns which they had sacked in consequence of 
 the insurrection, and which plate and property they 
 had divided among themselves, and packed up in 
 
 * «Pains were taken by the Bishop of Oporto, his partizans and 
 adherents, to misrepresent and raise a clamour against the convention, 
 not only in Portugal, but in England also. In the former their mis- 
 representations were soon contradicted by the evidence of facts; not 
 so in England; they were there so powerfully seconded by the lan- 
 guage held by ministers, and the measures they pursued, that the 
 erroneous impression thus made upon the public mind was confirmed 
 and perpetuated. . . . . + Both this officer (one Sousa, whom 
 Freire had asked leave to attach to Dalrymple’s head-quarters, while 
 the definitive convention was negotiating) and his genera) (Freire 
 himself) were deaf to my requests that they should state their obser- 
 vations in writing, and in an official shape, when every possible atten- 
 tion would be paid to their representations. When, however, the 
 treaty was ratified, and the question was decided, both these officers 
 began to write, and their correspondence abounded in animadver- 
 sions upon the provisions of an instrument which it was now my 
 duty to abide by. Although the letters of both these officers, a memo- 
 rial from the general, a remonstrance and a protest were directed to 
 me, they were, in fact, addressed to the passions and the prejudices 
 of the people. I was, therefore, aware of the necessity of replying to 
 these vexatious addresses with civility and temper, as it was evident 
 the correspondence would be immediately submitted to the public : 
 but when, in his memorial and protest, General Freire indulged in 
 false and injurious animadversions upon the general character of the 
 british nation and government, [ thought it time to put an end to this 
 sort of correspondence.’ —Jd. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, people continued to be found in England 
 more ready to give credit to the venomous animadversions of Freire 
 than to the plain facts of Sir Hew Dalrymple. 
 
438 
 
 their respective baggages. Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 says, “ Although I signed these conditions, I beg that 
 you will not believe that I entirely approve of the 
 manner in which the instrument is worded.” * He 
 had been ordered to sign by his superior in com- 
 mand 3 but, as the armistice was made subject to the 
 approbation of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, and, as 
 one article of it stipulated that the Russian fleet in 
 the Tagus should enjoy all the advantages of a 
 neutral port—that is to say, that, when the British 
 army or fleet should be in possession of the city and 
 port, the said Russian fleet was not to be troubled 
 during its stay, nor stopped when it should wish to 
 go away, nor pursued when it should be gone, with- 
 out the grace-time, or delay, fixed by maritime law 
 —the British admiral objected to that article, say- 
 ing that he had no objection to join Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple in negotiating with Junot upon all the 
 remaining articles, and that with respect to the 
 Russian fleet he was ready himself to enter into a 
 separate agreement with Admiral Siniavin. As 
 Sir Charles Cotton had thus declined to sanction the 
 Russian article in the basis, Sir Hew, who did not 
 receive Sir Charles’s answer until the 24th at night, 
 concluded the armistice to be at an end, and on the 
 morning of the 25th he sent the quarter-master 
 general, Lieutenant-Colonel George Murray, to Lis- 
 bon, with a letter informing Junot of the British 
 admiral’s decision: but at the same time Colonel 
 Murray was to acquaint Junot that, if he would 
 waive the Russian article, Sir Hew was ready to 
 negotiate on the remaining articles, and to conclude 
 a convention upon the terms specified in a paper 
 of memoranda which Sir Arthur Wellesley had 
 previously drawn up. Colonel Murray was further 
 empowered to prolong the suspension of hostilities 
 for a definite period, should the negotiation be en- 
 tered into by Junot. In the paper of memoranda 
 which Sir Arthur had drawn up, it was said empha- 
 tically and unceremoniously, ‘‘ Some mode must be 
 devised to make the French generals disgorge the 
 church plate which they have stolen.”’ 
 
 Junot endeavoured to gain time; he affected to 
 consider that the cessation of hostilities was to be 
 for an indefinite and unlimited period, and to de- 
 pend upon the continuation of Sir Charles Cotton’s 
 negotiation with Admiral Siniavin; but on the 
 morning of the 27th Sir Hew sent Colonel Murray 
 instructions, which were drawn up by Sir Arthur, 
 to break off the negotiation, and come away at once, 
 if Junot should be found obstinate; and to tell him 
 that the armistice in no case would be prolonged for 
 a more extended period than 24 hours. This, with 
 the arrival of Sir John Moore and his 20,000 men in 
 Maceira Bay,+t startled Junot, who at one moment 
 had thought of defending the position of Torres 
 Vedras, and at another of crossing the Tagus, and 
 " * Letter to Captain Pulteney Malcolm, in Colonel Gurwood’s 
 Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 + Sir John Moore disembarked his troops as fast as the state of 
 the weather and the dangerous surf would allow. Two regiments 
 of infantry, two brigades of artillery, and some German cavalry, 
 landed on the 26th, but the last division did not land until the 29th 
 
 of August; and the disembarkation was not effected without great 
 difficulty and latterly some loss.—Sir Hew Dalrymple, Memoir. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 pc A 
 
 ee SSS SSS 
 
 { Boox x} 
 
 throwing his forces into Elvas. On the morning 
 of the 29th, a draft of the ‘proposed convention, 
 signed by General Kellermann, was brought to Sir 
 Hew’s head-quarters ; and, being laid before a meet- 
 ing of yeneral officers, at which Sir Harry Burrard, 
 Sir John Moore, the Honourable John Hope, 
 Mackenzie Fraser, and Sir Arthur Wellesley were 
 present, it was read article by article, and the ob- 
 jections and proposed alterations were minuted 
 down by Sir Arthur. A copy of these minutes was 
 then sent to Colonel G. Murray for his guidance ; 
 but it would appear, from the complaints which 
 Sir Arthur subsequently raised, that he considered 
 that all the objections and alterations he had made 
 or suggested were not sufficiently attended to, by 
 those who finally concluded and ratified the treaty. 
 On the same day (the 29th of August), at the hour 
 of noon, the term for the suspension of hostilities 
 having expired, Sir Hew moved his head-quarters 
 forward to Torres Vedras, from which the French 
 had withdrawn. On the 30th Junot at last signed 
 the definitive treaty, with the omission of several of 
 the alterations which had been propused ; and in 
 form the convention was ratified by Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple, at ‘Torres Vedras, on the 31st. In his 
 defence Sir Hew says that some of the articles of the 
 treaty which had been objected to by the British 
 were altered, and that some other good alterations 
 were inserted which had not before been suggested 
 (and thus much was afterwards allowed in the re- 
 port of the board of inquiry) ; that, at all events, 
 the season for negotiation was passed; that he 
 therefore immediately convened the lieutenant- 
 generals he could assemble, Sir Harry Burrard, 
 Sir John Moore, Hope, and Mackenzie Fraser— 
 and, in-their presence, and with their approbation, 
 ratified the Dertnitive Convention. Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley was not present at this final ratification, 
 having moved to the left very early in the morning, 
 and being now at Sobral with his division. We 
 have his own words, in various forms, for the as- 
 surance of the fact, that, after the fatal orders of Sir 
 Harry Burrard on the field of Vimeiro (orders with 
 which Dalrymple had re to do, as he was 
 many miles off, at sea in his frigate), he ap- 
 proved of a convention allowing the French to 
 evacuate Portugal ; that he felt that the favourable 
 moment for pushing upon the French had been 
 lost; that, if they could not be brought to evacuate 
 the country by sea, they might either defend them- 
 selves desperately within Lisbon, or cross to Elvas 
 and Almeida, which, being places regularly forti- 
 fied, would have required regular and long sieges, 
 during which the British army could not haye 
 been made available in Spain, where the presence 
 of a part of it was earnestly desired by some of the 
 Spaniards, and whither the British government 
 was very eager that some corps should go as 
 quickly as possible.* It was not against the con- 
 
 %* See Colonel Gurwood’s Wellington Dispatches. ‘*Ido not know,” 
 savs Sir Arthur, writing from Sobral, on the Ist of September, 
 «‘ what Sir Hew Dalrymple proposes to do, or is instructed to do; but 
 
 if I were in his situation, I would have 20,000 men at Madrid in less 
 than a month from this time,”—Letter to Charles Stewart, Esq. ; ibid. 
 
’ 
 
 LL LLL LL LLL CL NC TT TN jst 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 vention itself, but against the monstrous folly 
 which made it necessary, and against some parti- 
 cular clauses of, and omissions in, the definitive 
 treaty, that he was indignant. He wrote to Lord 
 Castlereagh that the treaty had been altered, but 
 not as he thought it ought to have been; that ten 
 days after the battle of Vimeiro the army was not 
 farther advanced than it should and ought to have 
 been on the night of the 21st; that matters were 
 not prospering ; that he felt an earnest desire to 
 quit the army; that he had been too successful 
 with this army ever to serve with it in a subordinate 
 situation. ‘To a more private friend, he declared 
 that he approved of the principal point in the con- 
 vention, the evacuation of Portugal by the French ; 
 and he stated, at great length, his reasons for 
 thinking that the commander-in-chief had done 
 right in allowing them to evacuate that country by 
 sea. “Admitting,” he says, “that the army 
 which will evacuate Lisbon will be immediately 
 carried to the frontiers of Spain, I conceive it better 
 to have that army in that situation, and our army 
 acting in Spain, in co-operation with the Spanish 
 troops, than to have the French troops occupying 
 strong places in Portugal, and our army occupied 
 in the siege or blockade of them.”’* 
 
 Because Sir Hew Dalrymple’s dispatches, en- 
 closing a copy of the treaty, were dated from Cin- 
 tra, between Torres Vedras and Lisbon, the conven- 
 tion unluckily got the name of ‘*The Convention 
 of Cintra,” a name which was long made to figure, 
 ludicrously and infamously, both in prose and verse ; 
 and which induced uninformed people to believe 
 that it was actually negotiated and concluded in 
 that village, and after the British had obtained 
 possession of the formidable position of Torres 
 Vedras, the key to the capital.+ This was making 
 bad worse; the formidable position was obtained 
 through the negotiation ; and the convention was 
 arranged at Lisbon by Colonel G. Murray and Kel- 
 lermann, and was finally ratified at Torres Vedras, 
 about thirteen miles from Cintra, and twenty-five 
 from the capital. The most objectionable article 
 was the fifth, which allowed the French, under the 
 names of property of the army, private property, 
 and baggage, to carry off much of the plunder of 
 Portugal. Junot had no more morality than 
 Dupont: the French officers and soldiery who 
 capitulated in Portugal were not less rapacious or 
 less eager to preserve their spoil than those who 
 had capitulated at Baylen ; if they had been bound 
 by a more rigid article to a restitution of the stolen 
 property, they would have concealed it, even as 
 Dupont and his people had done. Some limits, 
 however, were put to the abuse of the fifth article 
 
 * For the other reasons, which are all of the greatest weight, and 
 which ought to be attentively studied by those who would form a 
 correct notion of this much debated convention, see letter to Charles 
 Stewart, Esq., in Colonel Gurwood’s Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 __| The readers of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold will remember the 
 lines beginning— 
 Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened ! 
 Oh dome displeasing unto British eye ! 
 His lordship, who travelled in Portugal only a year after the event, 
 takes up and repeats the mistake of the Convention of Cintra having 
 been signed in the palace of the Marques Marialva in that place. 
 
 eee 
 
 TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 439 
 
 by the appointing of a commission, with General 
 Beresford at its head, to superintend the execution 
 of the terms of the convention. Through the ex- 
 ertions of General Beresford and his commissioners, 
 the spoils of the Museum and Royal Library were 
 restored, and some of the church plate, nicely 
 packed up as private property, was seized, un- 
 packed, and sent back to the churches. Still, how- 
 ever, the French did not disgorge so much as they 
 ought to have been made to do. With regard to 
 the Russian fleet—a rather important object, as it 
 still counted nine sail of the line and one frigate— 
 it was agreed, in a separate convention between 
 Admiral Sir Charles Cotton and Admiral Siniavin, 
 that it should be placed in deposit in the hands of 
 his Britannic majesty, to be held until six months 
 after the conclusion of peace; and that the Russian 
 admiral, his officers, seamen, and marines, without 
 any condition or stipulation whatever, should be 
 conveyed to Russia at the expense of Great Britain.* 
 
 The forts on the Tagus were taken possession of, 
 on the 2nd of September, by the British troops, 
 and the port of Lisbon was then opened to our 
 shipping. On the 5th, the army had its right at 
 St. Julian, and its left on the heights of Bellas. 
 On the 8th or 9th, a British corps marched into 
 Lisbon, in the midst of popular acclamations and 
 rejoicings, to secure the tranquillity of that city, 
 during the embarkation of the enemy. ‘Transports 
 being collected, the French presently began to 
 embark: and, except their last division, purposely 
 detained by orders from England, they were all 
 sent off before the end of September, and part of 
 the British army was then actually on its route to 
 the Spanish frontier.t Great pains were taken by 
 the vindictive Freire, by Sousa, by the martial and 
 irate Bishop of Oporto, and by their partisans and 
 creatures, to raise a clamour in Portugal against the 
 convention, and to persuade the people that they 
 might have dislodged Junot, have captured and 
 destroyed his whole army, have recaptured all the 
 property of which they had been plundered, and 
 have enriched themselves with all the property the 
 French had brought into the country, if it had not 
 been for Sir Hew Dalrymple and the English : 
 but when the convention became more generally 
 known, and its effects felt, the people of Lisbon 
 and of the country expressed their gratitude and 
 thanks for the benefit attending it.f It was no 
 small benefit to have the country entirely freed 
 from the French. On all the forts of which we 
 took possession the flag of Braganza was im- 
 mediately hoisted; Lisbon was occupied in the 
 name and on the behalf of the Prince Regent of 
 Portugal ; and a council of regency, and a more re- 
 gular provisional government, was established forth- 
 with. As the energetic Bishop of Oporto, who 
 had done so much for the cause, was admitted into 
 the council of regency, and allowed to take a fore- 
 most part in it, his ill-humour was charmed away 
 
 * James’s Naval History. 
 + Report of Board of Inquiry. 
 #Id.; and Colonel Gurwood’s Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 fa ten 
 
440 
 
 | 
 for the present; but great was the trouble caused 
 
 in the sequel by this turbulent and ambitious 
 churchman, and by the crafty, intriguing men that 
 gathered around him. 
 
 Both long and loud was the popular vociferation 
 in England against the whole of the convention, mis- 
 called of Cintra. No measure, indeed, was ever 
 more universally reprobated, or less understood or 
 inquired into. Nor was this a merely popular 
 outcry: soldiers, and statesmen, and secretaries of 
 state, shared in the violence, and both court and 
 cabinet swelled the chorus. At first, all were 
 blamed, and no exception was made in favour of 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley. The government appointed 
 a board of inquiry, consisting of four generals and 
 three lieutenant-generals.* Sir Hew Dalrymple 
 and Sir Harry Burrard were recalled in order to 
 be examined by this board, and Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley, who had already asked and obtained leave 
 to return home, was also examined at his own 
 desire.t The Court of Inquiry assembled in 
 the great hall of Chelsea College on Monday the 
 14th of November, and continued sitting with 
 adjournments until the 27th of December. In the 
 end they agreed upon a report, which exonerated 
 all the generals, which even bestowed praise upon 
 all, but which made little or no distinction be- 
 tween Sir Arthur Wellesley, Sir Harry Burrard, 
 and Sir Hew Dalrymple. The report stated 
 that it appeared that the Convention of Cintra 
 (this blunder continued to be retained when 
 and where there ought to have been no blun- 
 dering), in its progress and conclusion, or at 
 least the principal articles of it, had not been ob- 
 
 * Of this ‘ Board of Inquiry,’ General Sir David Dundas was pre- 
 sident. The other members were—Generals the Earl of Moira, Peter 
 Craig, Francis Lord Heathfield; Lieut.-Generals George Earl of 
 Pembroke, K.G., Sir George Nugent, Bart., Oliver Nicholls. 
 
 + The officers who had served under Sir Arthur in the short Por- 
 tuguese campaign showed, very unequivocally, that they appreciated 
 his merits, aud did not for a single moment confound his reputation 
 with that of the inferior men who had been placed above him. On 
 the 3rd of September, three weeks before he quitted his command, all 
 the general officers who had first landed with him and the troops at 
 the Mondego, wrote him a most flattering letter, acquainting him that 
 they had clubbed together, and had directed a piece of plate, value 
 1000 guineas, to be prepared and presented to him, with an inserip- 
 tion stating that they offered this gift to their leader ‘* in testimony of 
 the high respect and esteem they feel for him as a man, and the un- 
 bounded confidence they place in him as an officer.” 
 
 This praise came from proved and applauded men: the honour was 
 awarded by officers who had already a high reputation, who soon ob- 
 tained a still loftier renown, and whose names will not soon be for- 
 gotten in the military annals of their country: they were—Major- 
 Generals B. Spencer, R. Hill, R. Ferguson; Brigadier-Generals 
 M. Niyhtingall, B. F. Bowes, H. Fane, J. Catlin Craufurd, 
 
 The contribution to that testimonial was afterwards augmented by 
 the subscriptions of Generals Anstruther and Acland, and of all the 
 field-officers of the army who served under the orders of Sir Arthur at 
 the battle of Vimeiro. 
 
 The dispatches and letters written by General Wellesley immediately 
 after the convention, and his own double superseding, are a remarkable 
 proof of his ability, foresight, and turn for business of all kinds, as also 
 of his public spirit, which urged him to give advice, which, although 
 not called for, was assuredly much wanted. He drew up an ad- 
 mirable plan for the future operations of the army: he pointed out 
 to Sir Hew Dalrymple the best means of obtaining provisions, horses 
 for the artillery, everything that the army needed: he showed him 
 the expediency of arming a number of Spaniards who were found at 
 Lisbon, and of sending them back to Spain: he recommended Sir 
 Hew to send proper persons to treat with all the local juntas in Spain, 
 and to obtain accurate information as to the real state and prospect of 
 affairs in that country; the commissariat, the movements of the 
 army, the policy to be adopted, were all dwelt upon with admirable 
 sagacity. An inferior man would have brooded over the wrongs 
 done to him, and would have done nothing after being superseded. 
 
 The reader should attentively peruse the documents in the fourth 
 volume of Colonel Gurwood’s edition of the Wellington Dispatches, 
 from page 112 to page 163, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 jected to by the five distinguished lieutenant-ge- 
 nerals of that army; and that other general officers 
 who had been on that service, and who had been 
 examined by the board, had also concurred in the 
 great advantages that were immediately gained to 
 the country of Portugal, to the British army and 
 navy, and to the general service, by the conclusion 
 of the convention at that time. Sir Harry Bur- 
 rard, and his conduct in stopping the pursuit at 
 Vimeiro (the real and sole cause of all that went 
 wrong afterwards), were treated with rare leniency 
 and delicacy. ‘The commissioners took no notice 
 whatever of the fifth article of the convention which 
 had been so much complained of, no notice of the 
 eleven days’ delay which had been permitted to 
 Junot, no notice of anything for which Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple could be held really and solely respon- 
 sible. ‘They said, in concluding their report— 
 “We most humbly submit our opinion that no 
 further military proceeding is necessary on the 
 subject ; because, however some of us may differ 
 in our sentiments respecting the fitness of the con- 
 vention in the relative situation of the two armies, 
 it is our unanimous declaration that unquestion- 
 able zeal and firmness appear throughout to have 
 been exhibited by Lieutenant-Generals Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley, as well as that the ardour and gal- 
 lantry of the rest of the officers and soldiers on 
 every occasion during this expedition have done 
 honour to the troops, and reflected lustre on your 
 majesty’s arms.” 
 
 But neither the ministry nor the court, neither 
 the parliament nor the people, assented to the very 
 inconclusive award of the board of inquiry. ll, 
 or nearly all, now agreed as to the honour that was 
 due to Sir Arthur Wellesley, and in the opinion 
 that, if Sir Harry Burrard had not interfered 
 with him on the field of Vimeiro, there would 
 have been no convention, but an unconditional 
 surrender on the part of Junot. But there was 
 much less fairness in allotting the dishonour 
 or the blame. We know not to what prejudices 
 or influences in high quarters it was owing that 
 an undue portion of censure and severity fell 
 upon Sir Hew Dalrymple ; we only know the facts 
 that Lord Castlereagh and the king both declared 
 themselves strongly against him, that ministers 
 turned him out as a scapegoat, and that a very se- 
 vere censure was addressed to him in his majesty’s 
 name. Sir Harry Burrard, who was a hundred 
 fold more censurable, immediately resumed the 
 military command of the London district, which 
 he had held before he was sent to Portugal ; but 
 Sir Hew was never permitted to resume the com- 
 mand at Gibraltar, which he had been instructed éo 
 entrust during his absence to another general 
 officer. Noconsideration was allowed for the good 
 he had done to the Spanish cause while command- 
 ing on the Rock, for the ready aid he had given, 
 for the timely assistance he had procured to the 
 Spanish cause—important aid, invaluable assist- 
 anc2, which mainly had enabled General Castaiios 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 441 
 
 to take the field, and environ Dupont at Baylen. | of his office as chief secretary for Ireland, seeming 
 
 Nor were the representations Sir Hew made to 
 Lord Liverpool, when his lordship succeeded to 
 the war department, in the smallest degree attended 
 to. But, after atime, as in other cases, a reluctant 
 half-measure of justice was dealt out to him. In 
 the year 1814, when peace was supposed to be esta- 
 blished, he addressed an earnest letter to Lord 
 Castlereagh, requesting to be set right in the esti- 
 mation of his country, wishing for some public 
 testimony of the royal approbation of his services, 
 and reminding his lordship how successfully he had 
 cherished and promoted the first rising enthusiasm 
 of the Spanish people. An interview followed the 
 letter; and a short time afterwards Lord Castle- 
 reagh took Sir Hew aside at a levee of the Prince 
 Regent, and told him his “ business was settled.”’ 
 ** And in fact,” adds Sir Hew, “ very soon after- 
 wards my name was placed at the head of a list of 
 baronets ; and, asa mark that the honour was con- 
 ferred as a reward for public services, it was espe- 
 cially provided, in the patent, that it was given free 
 from all the usual charges, which became an item 
 in the public accounts laid before parliament. This 
 circumstance gave a value to the honour conferred, 
 in comparison of which the cost, whatever it may 
 have been, sank into utter insignificance.” * 
 
 After the sitting of the court of inquiry, Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley, whose sharp, concise answers 
 before the board showed the clearness of his head 
 and the firmness of his heart, resumed the duties 
 
 * Memoir written by General Sir Hew Dalrymple, Bart. &c.—This 
 narrative was originally written by Sir Hew as a family record: 
 but the publication of Southey's ‘History of the Peninsular War,’ 
 and of the works of Napier and the Marquess of Londonderry, in- 
 duced him to adopt the resolution of printing it, which his last illness 
 alone prevented him from doing. It was published in 1830, by his 
 son, who thereby has done great good to his father’s memory. In the 
 copious Appendix, which contains many Valuable documents, there 
 are two letters, written by distinguished officers on the spot, and both 
 approving of the convention, and of the policy of allowing the French 
 to evacuate Portugal with their arms and baggage. One of these let- 
 ters, dated Almeida, 21st November, 1808, is written by Brigadier 
 General Anstruther, who complains of ‘‘ the extent and violence of the 
 frenzy that has seized John Bull on the subject of the convention for 
 the evacuation of Portugal.’’ The other, dated Madrid, the 18th of 
 October, 1808, is from Lord William Bentinck, who gives the unso- 
 licited offer of his opinion and evidence, out of a sense of justice, and 
 of that duty which exists between man and man; who declares that in 
 the convention he had no concern, and with Dalrymple no friendshtp 
 which might give a bias to his feelings. His lordship goes on to say— 
 “Of the principally obnoxious article, which allows the return of 
 the French to France, my opinion at the time was that it was highly 
 advantageous; it seemed to me that, if this was not granted to them, 
 the French could not avoid defending themselves to the last. A reso- 
 lution to this effect, though it might, ultimately, have ended in their 
 unconditional surrender, would, in the mean time, have occupied our 
 army for a great length of time, and might have exposed it to great dis- 
 tress, from the uncertainty of the communication with the fleet, and from 
 the non-existence of any magazines or preparations for a campaign 
 ashore. An inevitable consequence must have been that the efficacy and 
 numbers of the army fur future operations would have been materially 
 impaired. Believing, also, as was then supposed, that the enemy’s 
 force did not amount to more than 16,000 men, the disadvantage of the 
 distant Junction of this reinforcement to the French army in Spain, 
 bore no comparison, in my judgment, to the advantages of the more 
 immediate union of double the number of highly-disciplined British 
 troops to the newly-reeruited Spanish armies. Such were the reasons, 
 at the time, which made me approve this article. I have since been 
 in Spain, and am better enabled to judge of the value of this reason- 
 ing ; and my decided opinion now is that the speediest union of the 
 largest British army that can be collected with that of Spain is indis- 
 pensable to the welfare of the common cause. The Spanish govern- 
 ment have now pressed, in the strongest manner, the arrival of our 
 army; and, let it be observed, that the necessity that has occasioned 
 these urgent demands, while it has no connexion with the objec- 
 tion to this article of the convention, entirely supports the reason 
 for which it was made. With respect to the other articles, I must 
 with the same truth, declare that 1 do not approve of some of them : 
 but, as they are of minor consequence, and do not seem to be much 
 objected to, 1 need not advert to them.” 
 
 determined to devote himself entirely to home poli- 
 tics andadministration. He went over to Ireland 
 in December; and when parliament assembled in 
 January he returned and took his seat. But most 
 men felt that his proper place would be at the 
 seat of war, and the disastrous occurrences in the 
 Peninsula soon strengthened this conviction. 
 
 There was one advantage derivable from the 
 convention with Junot which has generally escaped 
 notice: his men had witnessed the skilful ma- 
 noeuvres of Wellesley, and the excellent way in 
 which his generals of divisions had brought their 
 corps into action, and had seen and felt how 
 the British infantry fought at Rolica and Vimeiro ; 
 and the information they carried away with them on 
 these points was calculated to depress that buoyant 
 self-confidence which had been the secret and the 
 spring of so many French victories. To these 
 people the Egyptian campaign seemed already a 
 remote tradition; the brilliant affair of Maida, 
 where only a few thousand men were engaged, had 
 taken place in a remote corner of Italy, and Reg- 
 nier and the remnant of that army remained iso- 
 Jated at the end of that peninsula; it was still the 
 universal fashion among the French to speak con- 
 temptuously of the skill of English generals, and 
 to deny nearly every military merit to British land 
 troops; but now, from 17,000 to 18,000 French- 
 men were sent back to France to convey correcter 
 notions on these matters, 
 
 Junot’s force had been found somewhat more 
 considerable than was expected. Fearful, however, 
 had been his losses during the few months he occu- 
 pied Portugal. He had entered that country at the 
 end of November, 1807, with 30,000 men; he 
 had received some, though slight, remforcements ; 
 so that from 12,000 to 13,000 men had perished 
 by fatigue, of disease, in the popular insurrection, 
 or in the field where the English had met them. 
 
 A few days after the battle of Vimeiro dispatches 
 arrived from Lord Castlereagh containing the 
 appointment of Sir John Moore to the chief com- 
 mand of the British troops to be employed in Spain. 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley had strongly expressed the 
 opinion that Moore was better fitted for this com- 
 mand than any of the superior general officers then 
 in the Peninsula. On the 6th of October Sir John 
 Moore received more explicit instructions, the 
 secretary at war informing him that his army of 
 20,000 men was to be employed in the northern 
 provinces of Spain “‘ to co-operate with the Spanish 
 armies in the expulsion of the French from that 
 kingdom.” Lord Castlereagh also intimated that 
 an additional corps of 10,000 men, under Sir 
 David Baird, was about to sail for Corufia. Sir 
 John was directed to send forward his cavalry by 
 land; but it was left to his discretion whether to 
 march the infantry by land also or to transport 
 them by sea to Coruna. Sir John instantly decided 
 against the sea voyage, for the season was far 
 advanced, the coast was dangerous, and he knew 
 that so large an army could not obtain at Coruiia 
 
442 
 
 equipments to enable them to advance into the 
 rough and naked interior of Spain. The delay 
 afterwards experienced by Sir David Baird at 
 Corufia, for want of means to convey the baggage 
 of his corps, proved the propriety of Sir John 
 Moore’s decision. But, even at Lisbon, the diffi- 
 culties of procuring tolerable equipments for 
 20,000 men were very great, and were enhanced 
 by the inexperience of the English commissariats, 
 who, as yet, had every thing to learn. It was found 
 impossible to procure conveyance for a sufficient 
 quantity of provisions and stores, and _ there- 
 fore the baggage was necessarily curtailed to such 
 a degree as excited some discontents in the army. 
 Moreover, the indolence and the ignorance of 
 the Portuguese of the geography of their own 
 country were so great, that no correct information 
 could be obtained about the roads and passages 
 towards the north. Many of the soldiers were 
 newly levied, and, unluckily, few of Sir John 
 Moore’s officers had ever served a regular cam- 
 paign in the field remote from a fleet to supply 
 their wants. Byan inveterate evil practice a mul- 
 titude of women and children had been allowed to 
 join this army. Foreseeing the evil consequences 
 Sir John issued an order stating his desire that, 
 as, in the course of the long march which the 
 army was about to undertake, and where no carts 
 could be allowed, the women would unavoidably 
 be exposed to the greatest hardship and distress, 
 commanding officers should use their endeavours 
 to prevent as many as possible, particularly those 
 having young children, or such as were not stout, 
 or equal to fatigue, from following the army. 
 Unhappily, universal obedience was not paid to 
 this humane injunction by the regimental officers, 
 and numbers of women, some with infants in their 
 arms, surreptitiously accompanied or followed the 
 troops. Orders were issued to the troops to avoid 
 intemperance, to accommodate themselves to the 
 manners and character of the Spaniards—a people 
 sober, grave, and orderly, but warm in their tem- 
 pers, and very susceptible of insult or disrespect ; 
 and it was intimated that upon entering Spain, as 
 a compliment to the nation, the English soldiers 
 should wear the red cockade of Ferdinand VII. in 
 addition to theirown. ‘The scantiness of subsist- 
 ence in a country so exhausted as Portugal ren- 
 dered it necessary that different routes should be 
 taken, and that divisions of the army should follow 
 at intervals. Most of the roads were found in a 
 wretched state; the weather was bad and rainy; 
 the fatigue was immense, for in many places the 
 men had to drag the artillery through muddy ways 
 and deep sloughs. On the 4th of November, Sir 
 John reached Castello Branco, in the midst of a 
 dreary and inhospitable country. All the way 
 between Castello Branco and the frontier the rain 
 fell in torrents and drenched the soldiers, who, 
 however, moved on with good heart. It was on 
 the 11th of November that Sir John Moore crossed 
 the boundary between Portugal and Spain, and 
 arrived with the advanced guard at Ciudad Rod- 
 
 I AR 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 teres A eS 
 
 re 
 
 eh 
 
 Wy 
 oa 
 APE TT! 
 
 rigo, where he was received with salutes of cannon 
 and the acclamations of the people. Notwithstand- 
 ing this gratifying reception Sir John stopped only 
 one night in the town; and next day pursued his 
 march to Salamanca, where he arrived on the 13th 
 of November. ‘Through the lamentable ignorance 
 about the roads and passes, which, we should think, 
 might have been remedied by the timely employ- 
 ment of a few intelligent staff-officers, a great part 
 of the ordnance, consisting of twenty-four pieces, 
 was left far away, guarded by 3000 foot and 1000 
 horse under the command of General Sir John 
 Hope, who had been ordered to take the round- 
 about road by Elvas, which, as the Portuguese 
 authorities affirmed, was the only road by which 
 heavy cannon could be transported. 
 
 In the mean time Sir David Baird, with his 
 10,000 men, had reached the northern coast of 
 Spain. Sir David had anchored at Coruna on the 
 13th of October; but, to his great surprise, the 
 supreme junta of Galicia refused to allow his 
 troops to be landed; and he was informed that the 
 assent of the central government, or junta now 
 sitting at Madrid, must be obtained previously. 
 This unfriendly treatment proceeded from Spanish 
 vain-glory and conceit, and from the prevalent 
 notion that their own troops could drive the French 
 beyond the Pyrenees without the assistance of 
 foreign auxiliaries. It took a deal of beating to 
 beat this conceit out of them. For fourteen long 
 days Sir David Baird’s 10,000 men were kept 
 cooped up in the transports in the harbour of 
 Coruna. At last a courier arrived from the Dons 
 at Madrid, who, after mature deliberation, thought 
 fit to grant leave to the army to land. Baird had 
 been sent on this expedition without specie, and, 
 although, in nominating him to the command, Lord 
 Castlereagh assured Sir John Moore of his personal 
 assistance in everything respecting the public ser- 
 vice, Moore had been supplied with only 25,000/. 
 He was, however, under the necessity of transmit- 
 ting 8,000/. to Baird to enable him to move from 
 Coruna. 
 
 Before Moore began his march from Coimbra, 
 he was assured that the French, weak in numbers 
 and in organization, were lying behind the river 
 Ebro, menaced by superior Spanish armies, that 
 were all elated with success and quite capable of 
 preventing any advance of the enemy. During his 
 march Sir John opened a correspondence with 
 General Lord William Bentinck, who had gone to 
 Madrid, and who clearly perceived the mistaken 
 notions and the sluggish apathy of the central 
 junta. 
 bers of that central government seem to have been 
 averse to the entrance of the British into their 
 country. Lord William strove to remove this 
 objection, to induce them to take better measures, 
 and at least to form magazines and procure wag- 
 gons and stores on the line of march of Sir John 
 Moore; but his lordship might long have striven 
 in vain, but for an incident which occurred :—a 
 guerilla party lurking on the frontiers interrupted 
 
 At this moment the majority of the mem- 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
Guar. VILL] 
 
 a French dispatch to Marechal Jourdan, which 
 contained information that reinforcements, exceed- 
 ing 70,000 men, were about to cross the Pyrenees. 
 The Madrid junta knew not that multitudes of 
 troops had already been poured in through the 
 mountain passes to the country behind the Ebro; 
 but this dispatch dispersed the false hopes they 
 had entertained that the French armies were going 
 to evacuate Spain, and it also aroused them to make 
 some efforts. Nothing, however, could prevail 
 upon the junta to appoint a commander-in-chief, to 
 concentrate their forces, or to adopt any rational 
 plan for meeting the coming storm; they were 
 divided by factions, jealousies, and intrigues, and 
 there was not one commanding intellect among 
 them. Two lines in Dante’s ‘ Hell’ describe with 
 sufficient accuracy the leading passions of these 
 junta-men, whether central or provincial :— 
 
 «© Superbia, invidia, ed avarizia sono 
 Le tre faville ch’ hanno i cori accesi.”* 
 
 They now wanted the English, yet they did 
 actually nothing to facilitate their march. Un- 
 fortunately, our accredited minister at Madrid 
 had not the discrimination, energy, and resolution 
 necessary to deal with such men. Mr. John 
 Hookham Frere seems to have dozed away the 
 greater part of his time at Madrid, and to have left 
 the little that was done to be done by Lord William 
 Bentinck, who, after Frere’s arrival, had no diplo- 
 matic authority whatever, and could only speak 
 and advise as a British officer and ardent friend 
 As in the field of Vimeiro, 
 
 of the Spanish cause. 
 so here there had been a superseding and changing 
 
 just at the critical moment. Mr. Charles Stewart, 
 who had been acting at Madrid as minister or 
 chargé-d’affaires, was alert, active, intelligent, and 
 well acquainted not only with the country but also 
 with the character and habits of the people and 
 the dispositions of the Dons who composed the 
 central junta; but just as Sir John Moore was 
 advancing into Spain, and was standing in need of 
 the most active assistance at Madrid, the arrival of 
 the diplomatist of higher rank put an extinguisher 
 on Mr. Stewart’s intelligence and activity, or ren- 
 dered them of no ayail. Mr. Frere’s accomplish- 
 ments, and acquirements, and moral qualities were 
 many, and ofa high class, but his absent-mindedness 
 and easy indolence showed that nature had not in- 
 tended him for a diplomatist in bustling, difficult, 
 perilous times like the present. He might have 
 been an admirable translator of Cervantes in prose, 
 or of Calderon and Lope de Vega in verse; but 
 he could not understand or correctly translate the 
 insane notions and wild language of these Spanish 
 politicians, and he could not see his way clearly 
 through that maze of factions, or —where each 
 party was blackening all the others, and pre- 
 tending to an exclusive monopoly of wisdom and 
 virtue—make out which was black and which was 
 white, or who merited confidence and who did not. 
 While trying to make up his mind, he left Sir John 
 
 * L’Inferno, canto vi.—Pride, envy, and avarice are the three 
 sparks that have set their souls on fire, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 443 
 
 Moore without the information and frequent advices 
 which that general had a right to expect from 
 him. Before Sir John entered Spain advices 
 from Lord William Bentinck informed him that 
 reinforcements of 10,000 French troops were 
 believed to have arrived. Having applied to know 
 with whom he was to concert his military opera- 
 tions in Spain, Moore was referred by the Madrid 
 junta to General Castafios, who commanded what 
 was then called the army of the centre. Sir John 
 wrote immediately to Castafios to learn his plans. 
 Some time elapsed before he got an answer, and 
 when the answer came, it was short and unsatis- 
 factory ; for the honest Spanish general was already 
 distrusted by the junta, who deprived him of his 
 command shortly after.* The other Spanish armies 
 continued to lie scattered all about, without any 
 plan in common, without combination, without 
 any safe and regular communication with one 
 another. Ifso many boys, fresh from school, or 
 so many old women, had been in command, they 
 could scarcely have made a worse disposition of 
 the national forces. When his coming into Spain 
 had been urged by the junta of Madrid, Moore had 
 been assured that his advance would be covered by 
 a powerful victorious army; but he found that not 
 a Spanish soldier was in his front, and that the 
 enemy, instead of being behind the Ebro, was 
 actually at hand. On the very day after his 
 arrival at Salamanca he got accounts of the defeat 
 of the Conde de Belveder in front of Burgos; and 
 two nights after this news was brought to him that 
 the Spanish General Blake had risked his army 
 and lost it at Espinosa, on the borders of the Astu- 
 rias. Thus two of the armies with which he had 
 been ordered to co-operate were already no more; 
 
 ‘no communication reached him from Castanos; 
 
 none was transmitted him from the Spanish govern- 
 ment at Madrid; and the ingenious author of 
 ‘ Whistlecraft ? seems to have continued his doze on 
 the banks of the Manzanares. Moore, indeed, found 
 at starting that to trust to Spanish armies in the field 
 was to lean against a broken reed.t On the 15th 
 he learned from General Pignatelli, the governor 
 of the province, that the French had taken pos- 
 session of Valladolid, a city only twenty leagues 
 distant from Salamanca, where he had at the time 
 
 * «The junta, jealous of their generals, gave them no power; but 
 kept them at the head of separate armies, each independent of the 
 other. Thus they have prevented any union of action. They took no 
 pains to recruit the armies, or to furnish them with arms and clothing. 
 In short, during the interval that the French were weak, they did 
 nothing either to overpower them before their reinforcements arrived, 
 or to meet them with superior numbers when reinforced I am in 
 no correspondence with any of their generals or armies. I know not 
 their plans, or those of the Spanish government. No channels of 
 information have been opened to me; and, as yet a stranger, I have 
 been able to establish no certain ones for myself. ... Enthusiasm, and 
 an obstinate determination not to submit to the French yoke, may do 
 much. But even in this case the government has been improvident: 
 arms, ammunition, and other means, are wanting. The probability, 
 therefore, is, that the French will succeed; and, if they do, it will be 
 from no talent having sprung up after the first effort, to take advan- 
 tage of the impulse, and of the enthusiasm which then existed.”’— 
 Letter from Sir John Moore to one of his brothers, dated Salamanca, 
 26th November, 1808, in Narrative of the Campaign of the British army 
 in Spain, commanded by his Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir 
 John Moore, K.B., &¢. &¢., authenticated by official papers and 
 original letters; by James Moore, Esq. 
 
 ¢ Colonel Napier. 
 
444 
 
 only three brigades of British troops; the rest 
 being in a long line of march, many not having 
 passed the frontiers of Portugal. The Trench, 
 who were only a small body of flying cavalry, 
 retreated from Valladolid the very next day; but 
 they scoured the country, foraged and plundered 
 unopposed, and spread dismay far around. The 
 enthusiasm of the Spanish people seemed paralysed. 
 Every hour rumours reached Salamanca which 
 made Sir John Moore believe that other corps 
 were beaten and scattered, besides those of the 
 Conde de Belveder and Blake; but no stand 
 could be made at Madrid, and no valid co-operation 
 expected either from the Spanish armies or from 
 the dispirited people. Owing to the strange route 
 which he had been made to take unnecessarily, for 
 the roads by Castello Branco and Ciudad Rodrigo 
 were not worse than the roads by Elvas and the 
 eastern frontier, General Hope, with the orduance 
 and his 4000 men, was now in the neighbourhood 
 of Madrid; while Sir David Baird with his 10,000 
 men, from the difficulties he had met with at 
 Corufa and on the hungry rugged road, had only 
 reached Astorga. And at Astorga Baird was halt- 
 ing, in consequence of erroneous intelligence 
 received from the defeated Spanish General Blake, 
 that superior forces of the enemy were collected on 
 his left flank. But Sir John Moore, naturally 
 most anxious to unite all his forces, called up 
 Baird with all speed, and sent orders to General 
 Hope to turn aside from Madrid and hasten to 
 Salamanea. The inhabitants of that city were 
 panic-stricken or stupified. ‘T’o rouse them froma 
 despairing inertness Moore assembled the local 
 junta, and addressed them in an animated and 
 hopeful style. From the junta he also demanded 
 that every assistance they could possibly give him 
 should be afforded ; that every car, horse, and mule 
 in the country should be instantly placed at his dis- 
 posal, for the transport of magazines and necessaries 
 forthe army. The junta applauded the harangue, 
 for it contained compliments to Spanish gallantry 
 and patriotism ; but, with true Spanish procrasti- 
 nation, they referred the measures to be taken to 
 future consideration, and did next tonothing. This 
 was the more vexatious as, though Sir John had 
 so little money himself, the junta of Galicia had a 
 large sum in hand, for Mr. Frere had brought with 
 him from England to Coruha two millions of 
 dollars for the sole use of the Spaniards in the 
 north.* It is quite evident that the English com- 
 mander-in-chief was soon filled with disgust and 
 despondency ; that he lost whatever hope he had 
 had in the Spaniards; that he was led to under- 
 rate the capabilities of the armed peasantry, seeing 
 that in front of him the French cavalry were over- 
 running the plains and levying contributions, to 
 which the people submitted without resistance ; 
 and that he rather too early came to the conclusion 
 that 100,000 disciplined French troops could not 
 
 * By this time the English government had supplied Spain with 
 200,000 muskets, with ammunition of all kinds in proportion, with 
 clothing, and with sixteen millions of hard dollars!—Napier, Hist. 
 of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (Book X. 
 
 be opposed in the north. “ These provinces,’ he 
 said, “‘are not armed: and, as to enthusiasm, I 
 have seen no marks of it.”* A few days later he 
 wrote, in the private journal he kept, “I see my 
 situation as clearly as any one, and that nothing 
 can be worse ; for I have no Spanish army to give 
 me the least assistance, only the Marques Romana 
 is endeavouring to assemble the fugitives from 
 Blake’s army at Leon. Yet I am determined to 
 form the junction of this army, and to try our for- 
 tune. We have no business here as things are; 
 but, being here, it would never do to abandon the 
 Spaniards without a struggle.” 
 
 Sir Jonn Moore. 
 
 While Moore was thus desponding at Salamanca, 
 Bonaparte in person was crossing the Pyrenees. In 
 the month of September the Emperor of the French 
 had repaired to Erfurt to hold conferences with 
 the Emperor of Russia. The subjects of their 
 conferences were carefully concealed; but it was 
 generally understood that the question of Spain and 
 the fate of Turkey were agitated, without reference 
 to any other principle than that of the advantage 
 and aggrandizement of the two emperors. It 
 should also seem that it was understood between 
 them that Alexander should not interfere in the 
 Spanish question, and that Napoleon should allow 
 him in return to encroach on the trans-Danubian 
 provinces of the sultan; for, shortly after this 
 
 | meeting at Erfurt, Russian troops were again 
 
 poured into Wallachia and Moldavia. The two 
 emperors wrote a joint letter to the King of Eng- 
 land, inviting him to a speedy pacification, but 
 laying down no basis for negotiation, and offering 
 no conditions for our allies. To this doubly im- 
 perial, but really insignificant, epistle, not George 
 III., but Mr. Canning, his secretary for foreign 
 affairs, replied in two spirited notes, one addressed 
 to the Russian, the other to the French minister 
 for foreign affairs. In the note to the Russian, 
 Mr. Canning said that the proposition for peace 
 would be communicated to our ally the King of 
 Sweden (against whom the Czar was now waging 
 
 * Letter to one of his brothers, in Narrative, &c., by James 
 Moore, already cited. 
 
Cuap, VIII] 
 
 a fierce and winning war) and to the existing in- 
 dependent government of Spain, which England 
 was determined to protect—that it was necessary 
 his Britannic majesty should receive an immediate 
 assurance that France acknowledged the existing 
 independent government of Spain as a party in 
 the negotiation—that the lively interest manifested 
 by the Emperor Alexander in former times for the 
 welfare and dignity of the Spanish monarch could 
 not leave a doubt of his imperial majesty’s inten- 
 tions with respect to Spain—and that it could not 
 be conceived that the Emperor Alexander had been 
 induced to sanction, by his concurrence or appro- 
 bation, usurpations, the principles of which were 
 not less unjust than their example was dangerous 
 to all legitimate sovereigns! In his note to Cham- 
 pagny, now Duke of Cadore, and the successor of 
 Talleyrand, Mr. Canning said that the progress of 
 the war had imposed new obligations upon Great 
 Britain, and that Sicily, Portugal, Sweden, and 
 Spain must be admitted to a participation in the 
 negotiations ; that treaties existed with the three 
 first of these powers, which bound them and Great 
 Britain together in peace and war; and that, al- 
 though no formal treaty had yet been executed with 
 Spain, the ties of honour were to the King of Eng- 
 land as strong as the most solemn treaties ; where- 
 fore, it must be understood, that the central junta 
 or provisional government of Spain must be a 
 party to any negotiation in which his majesty 
 wouid engage. ‘To have said less than this of the 
 Spanish nation would have been infamous. The 
 Russian minister replied, that, though the emperor 
 his master might readily admit the claims of the 
 sovereigns, allies of Great Britain, he would never 
 acknowledge the insurgents of Spain as an inde- 
 pendent power ;—that, moreover, the emperor had 
 recognised Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, 
 was united to the Emperor Napoleon for peace 
 and for war, and was resolved not to separate his 
 interests from those of his ally. M. Champagny 
 replied in the same tone, but still more tartly, and 
 wrote some paragraphs about a treaty on the uti 
 posstdetis principle, which were absolute non- 
 sense. It requires an atrabilarious party spirit, 
 and a blindness to the intention of Bonaparte in 
 dictating the joint imperial letter, to designate the 
 tone of Mr. Canning’s note to Champagny as in- 
 sulting. From Erfurt Bonaparte hastened back to 
 Paris, and there told his senate that he and the 
 Emperor of Russia were irrevocably united in the 
 bond of alliance. This was on the 18th of Octo- 
 ber. On the 25th he opened the session of the 
 corps legislatif, and told that soulless body that 
 he was going in person to take charge of the 
 Spanish war, and drive the English out of Portu- 
 gal. He used a style which he had already worn 
 threadbare, but which he could not use too often ;— 
 ““The hideous presence of the English leopards 
 contaminates the continent of Spain and Portugal. 
 I go to place myself at the head of my armies, to 
 crown my brother at Madrid, and to plant the 
 French eagles on the ramparts of Lisbon !”? Two 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 ese 
 
 siaiarteieesaraecmaee ne a Se a 
 
 445 
 
 days after this he set out for the Pyrenees. Troops 
 had been for some time collecting on that frontier ; 
 for, still anticipating his vital resources, Bonaparte 
 had called out two conscriptions, and, placing 
 80,000 of these in garrisons in France, and dis- 
 posing of 80,000 of them as a gigantic corps de 
 reserve, he had hurried off his veteran troops to 
 Spain. ‘The very élite of his immense army was 
 now to engage in this momentous struggle. Before 
 they arrived in the country which was destined to 
 be the grave of most of them, a small army of 
 native Spanish veterans and patriots was wafted 
 to the shores of the Peninsula in English ships. 
 At the time when Spain and her resources were 
 entirely at the disposal of Bonaparte, Manuel Godoy 
 had sent General the Marques de la Romana, 
 with 15,000 men, to serve the French on the shores 
 of the Baltic, or wherever else the conqueror might 
 choose to employ them. These Spanish troops were 
 quartered in Holstein, Sleswig, Jutland, and the 
 islands of Funen, Zealand, and Langeland, when 
 Mr. Mackenzie, an agent employed by the Eng- 
 lish ministers, opened a communication with 
 Romana by means of a Catholic priest. The 
 Spanish general was incensed at the iniquitous pro- 
 ceedings at Bayonne; his soldiers were equally 
 indignant; and all were most heartily sick of their 
 exile in Denmark and those Baltic regions. A 
 plan was ingeniously concerted and most ably ex- 
 ecuted. The marques, with from 9000 to 10,000 
 of his men, after being aided by Admiral Sir R. 
 Keats, got safely on board our Baltic fleet, com- 
 manded by Sir James Saumarez. Touching at 
 England, where the marques received a most en- 
 thusiastic welcome, he proceeded to Santander, 
 and there landed his men, who were equipped from 
 the English stores, and were then sent in divisions 
 to join Blake’s army in Biscay. 
 
 If Joseph Bonaparte’s timidity had not been as 
 excessive as the imbecility of the Spanish generals, 
 and of the Madrid junta who directed their move- 
 ments, the French must have obtained repossession 
 of the capital long before the arrival of his brother : 
 for, while the Spaniards were scattered all about, 
 Joseph had from 50,000 to 60,000 fighting men 
 concentrated behind the Ebro, with 6000 men in 
 moveable columns between him and the Pyrenees, 
 with General Drouet and a strong reserve a little 
 beyond those mountains at Bayonne. But, even as 
 it was, Spanish conceit and rashness led to some 
 fatal reverses before the Emperor of the French 
 arrived with his immense augmentation of force. 
 After waiting uutil the intrusive king had received 
 considerable supplies and reinforcements — after 
 wasting many precious weeks in idleness and in- 
 decision —the Spanish generals foolishly moved 
 forward on different points of the river Ebro, 
 which, in diagonal line, traverses the whole of the 
 Peninsula from the foot of the Asturian mountains 
 and the frontiers of the Biscayan provinces to the 
 Gulf of Ampolla, on the Mediterranean sea, in 
 order to commence offensive operations on the 
 banks of that river or in the country beyond it. 
 
446 
 
 General Blake started on this campaign without 
 magazines, without clothes or shoes for his men, 
 with very little ammunition, without money, 
 and without any plan except that of raising the 
 provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa. The millions 
 of hard dollars which England had sent had, in 
 good part, found their way into the pockets of a 
 set of corrupt and rapacious junta-men: and the 
 other supplies, liberally furnished from the same 
 quarter, had been wasted, scattered, or deposited 
 in places where they remained useless until cap- 
 tured by the French. The army on the right, 
 commanded by Castafos, was scarcely better pro- 
 vided than the army of the left, under Blake; and 
 the army in the centre, in addition to its wants, had 
 the calamity of being commanded by a rash, igno- 
 rant young man, the Conde de Belveder, who was 
 scarcely twenty years old. ‘The three armies were 
 so placed that they could afford no support to each 
 other. The successes they had obtained over 
 Dupent at Baylen had produced a moral drunken- 
 ness that was not yet over. Some of the Spaniards 
 at Coruna told Sir David Baird that the Spanish 
 generals were assuredly going to annihilate the 
 French, and to open the way into the heart of 
 France, whither the English might follow them at 
 their leisure. Castafos had more prudence than 
 the rest of these inept Spanish commanders ; but 
 he had absolutely no authority over them or their 
 movements ; and the cry of the Spanish soldiery 
 was “ Forward! forward!” Some of the columns 
 got beyond the line of the Ebro, and other columns 
 staid behind, or, instead of closing, lengthened 
 their lines; and this wide disseverance was the 
 more dangerous, as the Spaniards had scarcely any 
 cavalry, while the French were well provided with 
 that arm, and with first-rate cavalry officers. On the 
 last day of October, Blake, far in advance on the 
 left, was attacked by Lefebvre, and, after a long 
 and well-contested action, was driven in, but with- 
 out losing colours or prisoners. On account of the 
 mountainous nature of the country, the French 
 could not use their formidable artillery. Blake 
 retreated in good order by Bilbao to Nava; .but 
 the enemy followed him and entered the important 
 town of Bilboa on the Ist of November. On the 
 5th, Blake defeated a French division; but his 
 own divisions had got separated during his ad- 
 vance and during his retreat; his people were 
 exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and cold, for they 
 had passed a fortnight among the rugged moun- 
 tains of Biscay during rainy nights and the most 
 inclement weather, being almost continually in the 
 open air. It is said that there was not a great- 
 coat, nor even a hat, among the men, and that there 
 were very few shoes. Blake therefore retired to 
 Espinosa de los Monteros. Here he intended to 
 rest for some days; but on the 9th his rear-guard 
 was surprised, and he was attacked and defeated 
 with great loss. Spiking his guns, and crossing 
 the river Trueba, Blake then fled back to Reynosa, 
 a strong position, but to secure which no pains 
 had been taken during his rash advance. The 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 Sato COC ee ee ek CA Rg ad ge en 
 
 Pee 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 forlorn hope of collecting his scattered forces there 
 was soon defeated; a fatal blow had been struck 
 on the army of the Conde de Belveder, which had 
 been intended to support Blake; and now three 
 French corps were rapidly closing round Reynosa. 
 No alternative was left to Blake but to fly towards 
 the port of Santander, He, with a few officers and 
 men, reached that port and got safely on board an 
 English ship; but the greater part of his people 
 sought refuge in the mountains of the Asturias ; 
 and his army was so entirely dissipated that 
 scarcely a trace of it could be seen anywhere. 
 Such magazines as were at Reynosa fell into the 
 hands of the French, who sent detachments to 
 Santander and to other ports on that coast, where 
 they obtained a good booty, consisting principally 
 of arms, ammunition, and stores, which had been 
 
 forwarded by the English for men who knew not | 
 
 how to use them. On the 8th of November, be- 
 tween Blake’s fight at Espinosa, and his flight from 
 
 Reynosa, Bonaparte arrived at his brother’s head- - 
 
 quarters in the city of Vitoria, and took the entire 
 direction of the campaign. It did not require his 
 quick and practised eye to discover the monstrous 
 errors which the Spanish generals had committed, 
 or the facility afforded by the position into which 
 affairs had been brought for preventing their junc- 
 tion and beating them separately. He was not well 
 pleased at Marshal Lefebvre for opening the cam- 
 paign before his arrival; but Blake’s army had 
 been beaten, and he confidently expected to hem 
 in the Conde de Belveder, or Castafios, or both, 
 and reduce them to a capitulation, which should 
 obliterate the disgrace of Baylen. With a force 
 more than double that of the enemy before him, 
 Marshal Soult was hurried across the Ebro, in 
 the direction of Burgos. Instead of retreating 
 or attempting to form a junction with Castafios, 
 the Conde de Belveder—whose army consisted only 
 of 13,000 regular troops, and a few thousand 
 armed peasants, and enthusiastic students, volun- 
 teers from Salamanca and Leon—imprudently 
 encamped and waited the attack in an open posi- 
 tion at Gamonal, in front of Burgos. Soult’s vete- 
 rans routed him completely, massacred or took pri- 
 soners between 3000 and 4000 of his men, and seized 
 all his cannon and baggage. The Conde fled to 
 Lerma, five-and-twenty miles from the field of 
 battle, where he wrote a dispatch extolling the in- 
 trepidity of his soldiers. The armies on his right 
 being thus dispersed, Bonaparte aimed his blows 
 at the army of General Castafios and the army of 
 Aragon, that were now both on his left. He sent 
 
 column after column to intercept the communica- 
 
 tion with Madrid, and to get in Castafios’s rear; 
 and he dispatched Marshal Lannes with 30,000 
 men to attack that Spanish general in front. On 
 the approach of the French, Castafios had fallen 
 back from Calahorra, on the banks of the Ebro, 
 to Tudela. There he was joined by the army of 
 Aragon, under the command of Palafox, who had 
 had the good sense to see the expediency of this 
 junction, and who had effected it by a march of 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 extraordinary rapidity. Unitedas they were, the 
 armies of Castafios and Palafox were scarcely 
 equal in number to the forces of Lannes in their 
 front, and Ney and Victor were getting in their rear. 
 We count for little or nothing the irregular bands 
 of peasantry that lengthened and weakened the 
 lines of the two armies. Moreover, the regulars 
 were, for the most part, raw levies, miserably 
 armed. A general of the greatest genius might 
 have trembled at the thought of risking a battle 
 with such troops against veteran masses, strong in 
 cavalry and in artillery, and abundantly provided 
 with the best arms and materials. It would be 
 superfluous to give the details of the battle of 
 Tudela, which was fought on the 23rd of Novem- 
 ber. The Spaniards were quickly thrown into dis- 
 order, put to flight and savagely slaughtered by 
 the French cavalry. These Spanish armies, how- 
 ever, had not the habit of capitulating; fragments 
 went off and saved themselves by fleetness of foot, 
 the rest retreated in tolerably good order to Cala- 
 tayud. It is said that Bonaparte reproached one 
 of his generals for suffering Castahos to escape, 
 having a vindictive desire to hold in captivity 
 the conqueror of Dupont. Plundering the towns 
 through which they passed, and shooting every 
 Spaniard they caught in arms (Bonaparte having 
 given an express and standing order to that effect), 
 some of the French columns marched forward to 
 drive out the central junta and take possession of 
 Madrid. 
 
 Having done nothing when they had time to do 
 it, the central junta now precipitated measures in 
 the most hurried and confused manner, issuing a 
 multitude of orders, some of which were not 
 understood, and very few of which were attended 
 to, partly through the despair which seemed to 
 have fallen upon the Spanish people, and partly 
 through the shortness of time that was allowed 
 them. They ordered the formation of a new 
 militia in all towns; they began to collect provi- 
 sions and to make barricades; they sent some 
 troops to occupy the passes of the Somosierra, the 
 last bulwark between the French and the capital ; 
 and 6000 men were entrenched upon the heights 
 of Sepulveda, overlooking the principal pass. But 
 the French came on rapidly, and the dangerous 
 belief was spread throughout the Spanish forces and 
 the people of Madrid, that their generals and leaders 
 were betraying them. Treachery—foul treachery— 
 there was in the capital ; but it appears to have been 
 confined to the party of Don T. Morla, who had 
 distinguished himself as a patriot in the govern- 
 ment of Cadiz, and who was never suspected until 
 it was too late to prevent the effects of his treason, 
 On the 29th of November Bonaparte had his head 
 quarters at a village upon the outer skirts of Somo- 
 sierra. On the 30th the principal pass was car- 
 ried, the 6000 Spaniards intrenched at Sepulveda 
 flying before a charge of Polish lancers. On the 
 morning of the 2nd of December, Bessiéres, with 
 the French cavairy, came within sight of Madrid, 
 and took possession of the heights; and at noon on 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 447 
 
 the same day, being the anniversary of his corona- 
 tion, the Emperor of the French arrived. The 
 town was immediately summoned; but such was 
 the fury of the people that the French officer 
 employed would have been torn to pieces but for 
 the interference of the Spanish regulars. The day 
 passed without the possibility of opening any com- 
 munication with those who wished to save their 
 houses, their property, and their lives by delivering 
 up the city, In the evening Bonaparte’s infantry 
 and artillery came up; arrangements were made 
 by moonlight for an assault the next morning, and 
 the Marques de Castelar was exhorted, in a letter 
 from Berthier, not to expose Madrid to the horrors 
 ofa storm. ‘“ The night was clear and bright, and 
 in the French camp all was silence and watchful, 
 but a tumultuous noise was heard from every quar- 
 ter of the city, as if some mighty beast was strug- 
 gling and howling in the toils.”* There were 
 only 6000 regular troops, under the command of 
 Castelar, in the town; but there were more than 
 60,000 armed men besides these, consisting of the 
 citizens and populace, and the peasantry who had 
 flocked in from the adjoining country; and, if left 
 to their own impulse and fury, these men would 
 have made a most desperate resistance. They had 
 taken up the pavement, they had barricaded the 
 streets and houses, they had massacred the Mar- 
 ques de Perrales, and other persons suspected of 
 favouring the French, and they were shouting 
 ** War to the knife!” Unfortunately, Madrid had 
 no bulwarks or outworks; the houses, though 
 strong, were not fire-proof; the artillery had been 
 placed in the worst and most exposed situations; 
 and the opulent classes soon declared against the 
 madness of attempting to defend a large and open 
 capital incapable of defence. Nor can such 
 exploits as had been performed at Zaragoza ever 
 be expected from a capital city, let it be fortified 
 as it may. Before daylight the French stormed 
 some houses in the suburbs, dislodged a garrison 
 which had been thrown into the Buen Retiro 
 palace, and began to throw shells into the town. 
 Early in the morning ofthe 3rd they took posses- 
 sion of the immense palace of the Duke of Medina 
 Celi, a key to the city on that side. The city was 
 then summoned for the third time; and in the 
 afternoon Don T. Morla, whose cowardice is sup- 
 posed to have been even greater than his treachery, 
 came out to demand a suspension of arms. Morla 
 was accompanied by another Spanish officer, who 
 was compelled to hear the terrible threats of Bona- 
 parte, mingled with moral declamations and apoph- 
 thegins, the farcical parts of the tragedy. “ Injus- 
 tice and bad faith,” said this precious moralist, 
 “always recoil upon those who are guilty of them !”’ 
 Morla returned into the city and told the authori- 
 ties and the people that Madrid must surrender 
 before six o’clock the next morning, or perish and 
 disappear! There were still thousands who would 
 have staid to have perished under the ruins of the 
 houses—and all would not have perished without 
 
 ’  * Colonel Napier. 
 
448 
 
 loss and delay to the French ; but the central junta 
 had fled already, with indecent haste, towards Bada- 
 joz,and the men in authority that remained confessed 
 that there was nothing left to do but to capitulate. 
 The Marques de Castelar nobly determined not to 
 surrender, and succeeded in withdrawing his 6000 
 regulars and sixteen cannon in safety. During the 
 night, the populace and the peasantry kept firing 
 on the French outposts, and ringing the church 
 and convent bells: but at 8 o’clock on the morn- 
 ing of the 4th of December, Morla came forth with 
 a capitulation, and Madrid surrendered. Such of 
 the Spaniards as remained in arms, and as had not 
 fled out of the town to follow Castelar, were dis- 
 armed, and the city was filled with French troops, 
 who had received the strictest orders not to exas- 
 perate the people by plunder, or by any other excess. 
 Bonaparte fixed his head-quarters at Chamartin, a 
 country house four miles from Madrid; and ina 
 few days the: shops were re-opened, the theatres 
 were frequented as usual, and everything wore the 
 outward appearance of tranquillity. A number of 
 imperial decrees, re-organizing the government, 
 and hurling vengeance at those grandees who had 
 declared that they had acted in Bayonne under 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 compulsion, and who had made head against his 
 brother, were issued from Chamartin, and a pro- 
 clamation was addressed to the Spaniards, in the 
 name of Napoleon. The Spanish people were told 
 that further resistance was useless; that at most 
 they could only protract a destructive war on their 
 own soil; that it had cost the emperor only a few 
 marches to defeat their armies; that he would 
 presently drive the English from the Peninsula ; 
 that to the rights which had been ceded him by 
 the princes of the last dynasty, he had now added 
 the right of conquest, but that his wish was still to 
 be the regenerator of Spain. “ But,” he added, 
 “should you not merit my confidence, I must treat 
 you as a conquered people, and place my brother 
 Joseph upon another throne, I shall then set the 
 crown of Spain upon my own head, and cause it to 
 be respected by the guilty; for God has given me 
 power and inclination to surmount all obstacles !” * 
 Joseph Bonaparte entered Madrid in the tail of 
 the French army; but, though all seemed so quiet 
 and submissive, he dreaded insurrection and assas- 
 sination; and, while his brother went to look after 
 Sir John Moore and the English, he retired, well 
 guarded, to the royal palace at 8. Idefonso, 
 
 ul} 
 — 
 
 —, 
 ——— 
 =< 
 
 PALACE OF SAN ILDEFONSO. 
 
 The situation of the English general was, in the 
 extremest degree, critical. On the 28th of Novem- 
 ber, news reached Sir John Moore at Salamanca, of 
 the unexpected dispersion of all the Spanish armies, 
 and of the rapid advance of Bonaparte with over- 
 whelming forces. It appeared to him that, as 
 
 $$ 
 
 there was no longer an army in the north of 
 
 Spain with which he could combine, and as the 
 
 southern provinces would quickly be invaded, it 
 
 was most advisable to lead back his troops to Lis- 
 
 bon; where they would be enabled to join any 
 * Southey, Hist. of the Peninsular War. 
 
ae 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 Spanish corps which might rise in the south, or to 
 render essential services by being conveyed by sea 
 to Cadiz. Accordingly, Sir John sent orders to Sir 
 David Baird, who had not got much beyond Astorga, 
 to prepare to retreat to Coruna and sail with his 
 division to the Tagus; and he instructed General 
 Hope, who was still far away, to join him if prac- 
 ticable, or to march to Ciudad Rodrigo, near the 
 Portuguese frontier, where they could unite. It is 
 said that this plan met with the full approbation of 
 Hope and Baird. But at this juncture intelligence 
 was brought to Moore from Madrid, that a very 
 fayourable change had taken place in the state of 
 affairs. It was most confidently reported, on the 
 authority of the junta and of Don T. Morla, that 
 San Juan, a Spanish general, had repulsed three 
 attacks of the French at Sepulveda; that Castafos 
 was bringing up the greater part of his force to 
 unite with San Juan; and that Bonaparte was still 
 at Burgos, or a good many marches from Madrid. 
 Of the immense force which the French had now 
 brought to the southward of the Pyrenees and of 
 the Ebro, and of the strong reserves that were 
 ready to follow, Moore apparently received no 
 information. But at the same time a long dispatch 
 from Mr. Frere, dated Aranjuez, November 30th, 
 reached him. The ambassador strongly deprecated 
 a retreat into Portugal; assuring Sir John that the 
 provinces he had seen were the least distinguished 
 of all Spain for a military or patriotic spirit; that 
 the other provinces possessed the most ardent and 
 determined patriotism ; and that, as he believed, 
 every individual in the central junta or government 
 was resolved to perish with the country rather than 
 submit. In the common lamentable ignorance of 
 the amount of the French force, and in the fatal 
 reliance on the rhodomontade reports of Spaniards 
 who were fools or traitors, Mr. Frere recommended 
 Moore to collect a force capable of repulsing the 
 French before they received their reinforcements, 
 telling him that the covering and protecting Madrid 
 was a point of the greatest moment; that the 
 people of the capital were full of resolution, and 
 determined to defend it to extremity, in spite of its 
 unfavourable situation; and that surely this deter- 
 mination ought to be encouraged by some show of 
 support.* Letters also came from Don T. Morla, 
 imploring Sir John to succour Madrid. Two 
 Spanish generals also arrived at Salamanca with a 
 letter from Don Martin Garay, the war minister: 
 both these generals and the minister’s letter spoke 
 in glowing terms of the improved prospect of aflairs, 
 assuring Sir John that the Spanish armies were 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers.—* Mr. Frere had come out to Spain im- 
 pressed with false notions of what was passing in that country, and, 
 tenaciously clinging to the pictures of his imagination, he resented 
 the intrusion of reason, and spurned at facts. ‘The defeat of the 
 Conde de Belveder at Gamonal, a defeat that broke the centre of 
 the Spanish line, uncovered the flank and rear of Castafios’s army, 
 opened a way to Madrid, and rendered the concentration of the 
 British divisions unsafe if not impossible, he curiously called the 
 ‘unlucky affair of the 10th at Burgos.’ After the battle of Tudela 
 he estimated the whole French army on the side of Burgos and 
 Valladolid at eleven thousand men, when they were above one hun- 
 dred thousand; and yet, with information so absurdly defective, he 
 
 was prompt to interfere with, and eager to control, the military com- 
 binations of the General (Sir John Moore), which were founded upon 
 the true and acknowledged principles of the art of war.”—WNapier. 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 Seen hn Fe Pde amd CEE SOLE, a Se ee Oe EE 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 449 
 
 undismayed, were augmenting daily, and were ren- 
 dering the approach of the French to Madrid 
 utterly impracticable. But, before these two gene- 
 rals and this letter came to hand, the French were 
 undisputed masters of the capital; and the army of 
 San Juan existed nowhere except upon paper, for 
 the troops had fled pusillanimously, and had mur- 
 dered—at Talavera—their own general, reputed 
 the best officer in the Spanish service. There is 
 every reason for believing that Don T. Morla’s 
 letter, which was dated on the 2nd of December, 
 the very day that he actually began negotiating 
 terms for surrendering Madrid, was dictated by 
 some of Bonaparte’s people, or was written and 
 sent to serve that conqueror by drawing the English 
 army into a snare. It was utterly impossible that 
 Morla could have been ignorant of the true state of 
 affairs ; and yet he told Sir John Moore that Cas- 
 tafios, with 25,000 men, was falling back on Madrid 
 in the greatest haste, to unite with its garrison; and 
 that 10,000 men from the Somosierra were coming 
 for the same purpose to the city, where nearly 
 40,000 men would join them! 
 
 Great pains were taken to continue the unac- 
 countable delusion into which Mr. Frere had 
 fallen, and to conceal from him the submission of 
 Madrid. There was in that city a Frenchman, 
 named Charmilly, who gave himself out as a 
 royalist emigrant and refugee, and who, in that 
 capacity, and as a mortal enemy to Bonaparte, had 
 offered his services to the central junta. This 
 man was afterwards denounced in the British par- 
 liament as one who had been an organizer of 
 assassination in San Domingo, and a fraudulent 
 bankrupt in London ; and there appears no reason 
 to doubt that he was, and had been, an unprin- 
 cipled adventurer. As soon as he saw that the 
 French were the strongest he stole out of Madrid 
 and joined them. Bonaparte’s skill in these 
 matters was at least as conspicuous as his military 
 genius; and wherever he moved there was a 
 household or camp police composed of men who 
 had been trained by those great masters, Fouché 
 and Savary, and who had been exercised under his 
 own eye. On the 2nd of December, when Don 
 T. Morla first presented himself in the French 
 camp, and evidently before he had written to 
 entrap Sir John Moore, Charmilly had a private 
 interview with that Spanish apostate. Immediately 
 after this conference Charmilly posted after the 
 English ambassador, who was flying with the 
 central junta at, or nearly at, the very moment that 
 Moore was reading his famous Aranjuez dispatch. 
 The Frenchman overtook Mr. Frere at Talavera, 
 and, apparently with little difficulty, convinced 
 that credulous man that the Spanish affairs were 
 prospering ; that Madrid was quite capable of 
 holding out for a long time against the smail army 
 which Bonaparte had brought against it; and, 
 fmally, that nothing was wanting to raise the siege 
 and compel the French to a speedy retreat except 
 the approach of the British. Without a single 
 doubt as to the character and reputation of this 
 
 2c 
 
450 
 
 French adventurer, the facetious and accomplished 
 writer in the * Anti-Jacobin’ unbosomed himself, 
 and made him the depository of secrets which 
 might have committed the safety and honour of 
 every British soldier in Spain. Morla, who had 
 sent the Frenchman to catch Frere, had by this 
 time secured to himself his military rank and his 
 fortune—which last must have been chiefly made 
 by appropriating the money which England had 
 so liberally and so carelessly sent out ;—and very 
 soon afterwards he was rewarded by high employ- 
 ment under King Joseph. The English ambas- 
 sador, with his head full of the mendacious intel- 
 ligence which Charmilly had brought him, sat 
 down and wrote a dispatch to Sir John Moore, 
 commencing by referring to his famous Aranjuez 
 dispatch, in which he had recommended the cover- 
 ing and protecting Madrid; and then referring 
 Sir John to Colonel Charmilly, the bearer of the 
 present letter, for the state in which he had left 
 that city. Mr. Frere could not but confess that he 
 and the central junta were flying for Badajoz, 
 ** from a situation in which they were exposed to 
 be made prisoners ;”” yet he still urged Sir John 
 to succour the capital, offering to take upon himself 
 any degree of responsibility ;—as if the commander- 
 in-chief of an army could shift his responsibility 
 from his own shoulders to those of a fugitive di- 
 plomatist. With this dispatch, and with all Frere’s 
 secrets in his possession, Charmilly sped away for 
 Salamanca; but it was neither our ambassador at 
 Talavera or at Badajoz, nor our general at Sala- 
 manca, that could tell with whom Charmilly com- 
 municated on the road, or what messengers he 
 sent to the French at Madrid. Presenting himself 
 at Sir John Moore’s head-quarters, the Frenchman 
 delivered the dispatch and pressed vehemently to 
 see the general. Sir John, who had no love for 
 Frenchmen of any kind, and a great detestation 
 for all spies and secret agents, reluctantly ad- 
 mitted him to his presence, and closely questioned 
 him upon the intelligence he brought. Charmilly, 
 like one used to the trade, positively asserted that 
 Bonaparte’s army was not considerable ; that no- 
 thing could exceed the patriotic zeal of all ranks of 
 Spaniards at Madrid ; that clouds of people from the 
 country were rushing in to defend that city; that 
 all classes were at work; that the city was already 
 surrounded with batteries; that every street was 
 barricaded, and that Mr. Frere was most desirous 
 that Sir John should instantly advance and raise 
 the siege of Madrid. All this was said just three 
 days after Madrid had surrendered! Sir John 
 listened without uttering a word which could in- 
 dicate his thoughts or the course he meant to 
 pursue. The adventurer saw he was suspected ; 
 but, cunning as he was, he duped himself into the 
 belief that Moore persisted in his original inten- 
 tion of retreating rapidly to Portugal. arly next 
 morning he again appeared at head-quarters, and 
 presented a second letter from Mr, Frere, which 
 -he had suppressed, by that ambassador’s directions, 
 at his first interview. This was strange enough, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book x. ' 
 
 but there was matter in the letter, in this rider to — 
 the dispatch, which was still stranger—for it con- 
 tained a request that, should Sir John continue in 
 his resolution to retreat, “ the bearer might be 
 previously examined before a council of war!” 
 This was nothing less than attempting to wrest the 
 command of the army out of the general’s hands, to 
 appeal from Sir John Moore to the officers serving 
 under him, and to intimate to those officers and the 
 whole army that, in the opinion of the ambassa- 
 dor, Sir John was deficient in zeal, bravery, and 
 ability. A grosser insult was neyer offered to a 
 brave"and high-minded man ; and it was the grosser 
 and the bitterer from the character of the agent 
 who delivered it, Moore instantly ordered Char- 
 milly to quit the cantonments of the British army, 
 Whether the Frenchman repaired to Badajoz to 
 condole with Mr. Frere, or went to Madrid to hold 
 him up to the ridicule he merited, we cannot decide ; 
 but it should appear that he communicated intelli- 
 gence to French head-quarters, which, from the 
 
 mistake he had fallen into, misled Bonaparte, and 
 
 confirmed him in the belief that the British were 
 in full retreat to Lisbon. 
 
 Moore’s nature was generous, his temper beauti- 
 ful: as soon as the odious Frenchman was gone 
 his resentment cooled;* and, calmly weighing 
 Frere’s dispatch and the information which Char- 
 milly had brought, and comparing it with the in- 
 formation contained in the letter of Morla, of 
 whose treachery he was wholly ignorant, and with 
 the details given by the two Spanish generals, 
 who had waited upon him at Salamanca, he 
 was induced to believe that Madrid was really 
 standing a siege, that the Spanish generals were 
 concentrating their scattered forces, that the French 
 army was not very considerable, and that the 
 spirit and energy of the country, of which he had 
 scarcely seen a sign, were at last awaking. On 
 the 5th or 6th of December he was joined by the 
 ordnance from General Hope’s division, and this 
 tended to raise his spirits. On the 6th he wrote 
 to Sir Dayid Baird, who, after destroying some 
 stores, had retreated as far as Villa Franca, to 
 concentrate his troops and return to Astorga. 
 “TI mean,’’ said Moore, ‘ to proceed bridle in 
 hand; for if the bubble bursts we shall have a 
 run for it.’ He also ordered Hope, who was now 
 near at hand, to join him without delay; and he — 
 opened a correspondence with Romana, who had 
 so cleverly brought his Spanish veterans from the 
 Baltic, but the best part of whose forces had been 
 engaged on the Ebro, and beaten and scattered. 
 
 Romana, who had succeeded to Blake’s command, | 
 
 was quartered in the city of Leon; but none except 
 the wildest and falsest intelligence could be a 
 
 * Writing a few hours afterwards to Frere to express his wish 
 that nothing should disturb the harmony which ought to subsist 
 between them, Moore said—‘‘I shall abstain from any remarks 
 upon the two letters from you, delivered to me last night and this 
 morning by Colonel Charmilly, or on the message which accom- 
 panied them. I certainly at first did feel and express much indigna- 
 tion at a person like him being made the channel of a communication 
 of that sort from! you to me. Those feelings are at an end, and I 
 dare say they never will be created towards you again.” 
 
_- Cuar. VIII.) 
 
 tained of the strength of his army. Before flying 
 from Madrid, the central junta had assured Colonel 
 Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) that Romana’s 
 army exceeded 30,000 men. The marques him- 
 self is said to have stated to a British officer that 
 he had 22,000 infantry and 300 cavalry ; yet now, 
 when he was required to act, he wrote a letter to 
 Sir John Moore, acknowledging that he could only 
 assemble 9000 or 10,000 men, and two days after- 
 wards these dwindled to 7000. Such, invariably, 
 was the sort of official intelligence that Moore re- 
 ceived from Spanish generals and ministers: there 
 was never any dependence to be placed in their 
 reports, and it was clear that nothing was to be 
 expected from Romana. Sir John then wrote to 
 Lord Castlereagh, stating that he intended to 
 advance by Valladolid towards Burgos, in con- 
 junction with Sir David Baird, and with or with- 
 out the army of Romana, for the purpose of 
 threatening the communication of the French. 
 The Somosierra and the Guadarrama were both 
 known to be in possession of the enemy, wherefore 
 no direct movement could be made towards Madrid ; 
 but Moore knew that Zaragoza was determined to 
 stand a second siege; he had received from the 
 junta of Toledo a formal assurance of their resolu- 
 tion to bury themselves under the ruins of the 
 town rather than submit; and he was informed 
 that the southern provinces were forwarding crowds 
 of fresh levies. He concluded that Bonaparte 
 would be more anxious to strike a heavy blow 
 against the English than to overrun any particular 
 province; and therefore he resolved to throw him- 
 self upon the communications of the French army, 
 hoping, if fortune were favourable, to inflict a 
 severe loss upon the troops which guarded them 
 before aid could arrive. If Bonaparte, suspending 
 his operations against the south, should detach 
 troops largely, Madrid would thereby be relieved : 
 if he did not detach largely, the British could hold 
 their ground. Moore could not but know that a 
 great general like the Emperor of the French 
 would be most likely to unite his whole army, and 
 fall upon the troops which thus ventured to place 
 themselves on his line of operations ; but, in order to 
 relieve the Spaniards at a critical moment, and to 
 give time for the southern provinces to organize their 
 defences, he was willing to draw the mass of the 
 enemy upon himself.* 
 
 In the meanwhile Sir John had sent forward 
 Colonel Graham to carry a message to Morla, and 
 to endeavour to obtain some correct information of 
 what was passing in Madrid and the country round 
 it. Graham returned to Salamanca on the evening 
 of the 9th, bringing the first intimation of the 
 prompt capitulation of the Spanish capital. He 
 had not been able to penetrate farther than Tala- 
 vera, where he had met two members of the cen- 
 
 .* Colonel Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula.—The 
 historian of the war adds—“ Moore felt that, in doing so, he com- 
 promised the safety of his own army, that he must glide along the 
 edge of a precipice, that he must cross a gulf on a rotten plank ; 
 but he also knew the martial qualities of his soldiers, he had con- 
 fidence in his own genius, and, the occasion being worthy of a great 
 deed, he dared essay it even against Napoleon,” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 451 
 
 tral junta, who assured him that the French were 
 only from 20,000 to 30,000 strong, and had pos- 
 sessed themselves of nothing more than the Retiro 
 palace ; that the people were still in arms; that 
 30,000 men of the Spanish army of the centre 
 were at Guadalaxara; that 14,000 men were at 
 Almaraz; and that Romana, who was anxious to 
 unite with the English, would soon have 30,000 
 fighting men. Mortified as he was to find that the 
 capital had held out only one day, and induced as 
 he was by that fact to doubt of the Spanish spirit, 
 and to place less reliance than ever on the reports 
 and assurances he received, Moore would not forego 
 his resolution to advance; for he calculated that a 
 diversion for the southern provinces might still be 
 effected, and that he was bound to prove that Eng- 
 Jand would not abandon the cause even when the 
 Spaniards themselves seemed to be abandoning it. 
 With a full sense of the perilousness of his enter- 
 prise, and with the conviction that no faith was to be 
 put on reports from the Spanish authorities, Moore 
 engaged some confidential persons to watch and 
 send him timely notice of the movements of the 
 enemy’s columns. On the 11th of December he 
 pushed forward his cavalry towards Toro and Tor- 
 desillas, on the river Douro. He himself left Sala- 
 manca on the 13th. Preparations for a retreat 
 upon Portugal were, however, continued, and Sir 
 David Baird was ordered to form magazines at 
 Benevente, Astorga, and other places, by which 
 arrangements two lines of operation were secured, 
 and a greater freedom of action obtained. The 
 cavalry had not proceeded far, when Brigadier 
 General C. Stewart (afterwards Marquess of Lon- 
 donderry), who was at their head, got notice that 
 the village of Rueda was occupied by a party of 
 French infantry and cavalry. The place was pre- 
 sently surrounded by our dragoons, and almost the 
 whole party, consisting of eighty men, were killed 
 or taken. The prisoners declared that they had no 
 suspicion that the British were advancing—that 
 they believed them to be retreating upon Lisbon. On 
 the evening of the 13th Moore’s head-quarters were 
 at Alaejos. There on the 14th an intercepted dis- 
 patch from Berthier to Soult was brought to him, 
 and its contents induced him to change the direction 
 of his march. The dispatch described Madrid as 
 perfectly tranquil, and the public amusements going 
 forward as in a time of peace. It directed Soult to 
 take possession of Leon, drive the Spaniards into 
 Galicia, and make himself master of Benevente and 
 Zamora ; being assured that no apprehension of the 
 English need be enteitained, as everything con- 
 firmed the belief that they were in full retreat into 
 Portugal. The fourth corps of the French army was 
 said to be already at Talavera, on the route to Bada- 
 joz; and this movement, it was observed, would force 
 the English general to retreat, if, contrary to the 
 emperor’s belief, he had not done so already. The 
 fifth corps was on the march to Zaragoza, and the 
 eighth corps to Burgos. Such was the confidence 
 of the French at Madrid, that Berthier had sent 
 this important dispatch (dated December the 1 0th) 
 
452 
 
 by a single staff officer, who rode post through the 
 country without an escort, and in perfect safety, 
 until his abusive language to the postmaster of Val- 
 destillos created a tumult, in which he lost his life. 
 Captain Waters, who had been sent out by Moore 
 to obtain intelligence, chanced to arrive at Valdes- 
 tillos and to hear of the murder ; he purchased the 
 French dispatch for twenty dollars: neither money 
 nor patriotism had hitherto induced the Spaniards 
 to bring Moore any intelligence.* It was now cer- 
 tain that Burgos would be strongly protected, and 
 that Baird’s line of march would be rendered un- 
 safe if Soult followed Berthier’s instructions and 
 advanced. On the other hand, as the French ap- 
 peared to be ignorant of the British movements, 
 there was some chance of surprising and beating 
 Soult before Bonaparte could come to his succour. 
 Moore therefore ordered Hope to pass the Douro, at 
 Terdesillas, and direct his march upon Villapando ; 
 he removed his head-quarters to Toro, and fixed 
 upon Valderas as the point of junction with Baird’s 
 division, the head of which was now at Benevente. 
 On the 16th, being at Toro, Moore received two 
 letters, one from the fugitive central junta, who by 
 this time had fled from Badajoz to Truxillo, and 
 the other from Mr. Frere, who had accompanied 
 them in their flight, and who was still giving im- 
 plicit faith to their sanguine and extravagant or 
 treacherous reports. [Other persons suspected that 
 several members of the junta were in the French 
 interest; but our ambassador never seems to have 
 suspected any thing, except the zeal, the skill, and 
 firmness of our general.] ‘I'he letter from the junta 
 impudently complained that, when Romana pro- 
 posed to unite 14,000 picked men to the British 
 army, with a view to a forward movement, his offer 
 had been disregarded, and a retreat determined 
 upon, in spite of his remonstrances ; that this re- 
 treat was uncalled for, “as the enemy was never 
 so near his ruin as at that moment,’ &c. The 
 junta still urged Sir John to join Romana, with his 
 14,000 select men, assuring him that 30,000 re- 
 cruits would be added to the ranks in the course 
 of—a month. Mr. Frere’s letter bitterly censured 
 Sir John for having ever thought of a retreat, told 
 him that he had done the utmost possible mischief 
 to the Spanish cause, and that “‘upon a supposed 
 military necessity,” he was inflicting final ruin 
 on our ally, and indelible disgrace on his own 
 country! Now, at this moment, Mr. Frere, safe 
 and far away at Truxillo, knew absolutely nothing 
 about the state of Romana’s army, or the intentions 
 of that general, or the force and movements of the 
 French corps that were gathering round Moore; 
 and he afterwards acknowledged that the Spanish 
 enthusiasm was extinguished, and that a general 
 panic was commencing at the very moment he was 
 writing this offensive epistle. Romana, with a few 
 thousand miserable soldiers, was at this time reti- 
 ring into Galicia, although he was fully aware of 
 the advance which Moore had made, and had en- 
 gaged to supporthim, Thus the only Spanish force 
 
 * Napier, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 on foot in the north was retreating, while the Bri- 
 tish were advancing. On the 18th, Moore carried 
 his head-quarters forward to Castro Nuevo, whence 
 he wrote to Romana, acquainting him with his 
 intention to fall upon Soult, and desiring his co- 
 operation: he also requested that the marques, ac- 
 cording to his own plan which had been presented 
 to the British minister in London, would reserve 
 the Asturias for his own line,-and leave Galicia 
 to the British. Romana halted, and was dis- 
 posed to do his duty with spirit; but his military 
 genius* was as limited as were the means at his com- 
 mand: his soldiers had been defrauded of their pay 
 —of the money sent out by England—hy the profli- 
 gate Asturian authorities, and were hungry, half 
 naked, and ready at every moment to desert. The 
 British continued in full march. On the 20th of De- 
 cember the whole of the forces of Moore, Baird, and 
 Hope were united at and near Mayorga. Nominally 
 thearmy was nearly 35,000 strong; but four regi- 
 ments were still in Portugal, and three regiments had 
 been left at Lugo and Astorga; nearly 1700 men 
 were detached, and about 4000 were in hospital : 
 hence the actual number at present at Mayorga 
 was only about 23,580 men with 60 pieces of 
 artillery. In their advance the cavalry had scoured 
 the country on the side of Valladolid, and had taken 
 a number of prisoners from the French, who could 
 be no longer ignorant of Moore’s movements. At 
 Mayorga information was obtained that about '700 
 French cavalry were lying in the town of Sahagun. 
 To surprise this corps, Lord Paget (late Marquess of 
 Anglesey) marched all night with two regiments of 
 hussars. The surprise failed, but the attack never- 
 theless succeeded; the French were charged and 
 broken, many were sabred, 157 were taken pri- 
 soners, and the rest, whose horses were fresh while 
 the English horses were jaded, escaped by flight. 
 This feat was performed by the 15th, who had only 
 400 men, for the 10th hussars were not in sight 
 when Paget made his brilliant charge. The Eng- 
 lish infantry soon advanced, and Sahagun became 
 head-quarters. Romana remained behind at Man- 
 cilla, writing encouraging letters, yet showing very 
 plainly that no assistance was to be expected from 
 him. The whole British army was, however, on 
 fire for a general battle; and Moore entertained 
 sanguine hopes that he might still have time to 
 strike a decisive blow at Soult, who was at a short 
 distance, posted behind the river Carion, with from 
 16,000 to 18,000 men, and with some other corps 
 not far off in his rear. But, having outmarched their 
 supplies, the English troops were obliged to halt at 
 Sahagun until the 23rd. On that day Romana gave 
 notice that the French were in full march from the 
 side of Madrid; and in the night of the 23rd, when 
 the English troops were actually in march for the 
 Carion, with the intention of forcing the bridge 
 over that river and falling upon Soult, Moore re- 
 ceived certain reports, from his own confidential 
 
 * Lord Wellington said, in 1809, that, though Romana was one 
 of the best of the Spanish generals, he much doubted of his abilit 
 to command an army.—Dispatches. ' 
 
Cuar. VIIL] 
 
 agents, that the whole French army was in move- 
 ment to concentrate, and to crush the British :—the 
 fourth corps had been halted at Talavera, the fifth 
 was at Vitoria, the eighth was fast closing up to 
 reinforce Soult, and Bonaparte in person was 
 marching with his usual rapidity towards the Gua- 
 darrama, having expressed his astonishment at the 
 unexpected boldness of the British movement, and 
 having exclaimed that Moore was the only general 
 now fit to contend with him.* The emperor of 
 the French was aiming at the occupation of Bene- 
 vente, in Moore’s rear. No fewer than 100,000 
 men were hurrying forward by four different routes ; 
 the conquest of the south and every other operation 
 was suspended. It was the mot not only of Bona- 
 parte, but of Soult and all his generals, that, if they 
 could only beat Moore, there was nothing to be 
 feared from any army that existed in Spain. If 
 Soult would have waited to give battle on the banks 
 of the Carion, Moore could have beaten him with 
 ease; but it was suspected (and the case was 
 really so) that Soult had received orders to fall 
 back on the columns that were hastening to his 
 support, and to draw Moore on towards Burgos, 
 which would have allowed time for the converging 
 corps of the French to envelope him. In his one 
 great object Sir John had fully succeeded: he had 
 tempted Bonaparte from Madrid; he had gained 
 good breathing time for the southern provinces ; he 
 had caused the siege of Zaragoza to be delayed ; he 
 had gained for the Spaniards an opportunity of 
 uniting in other provinces ; and more he could not 
 do, without risking the total destruction of his army 
 and the ignominious fate of Dupont. He therefore 
 immediately countermanded the advance of the 
 army, sending the baggage, with the brigades in his 
 rear, back towards Astorga; and, to cover the retreat 
 and to deceive Soult, he remained a whole day with 
 the reserve, and sent forward squadrons of cavalry 
 to skirmish with the French outposts. He apprized 
 Romana of his intentions, and requested him to 
 leave a strong guard at the bridge of Mancilla, 
 which spans the river Esla. The beginning of 
 the retreat was conducted with the most perfect 
 order; and by the 26th the whoie British army 
 was safely behind the Esla. On the same day 
 Bonaparte reached Tordesillas, on the Douro, fully 
 
 expecting to cut off Moore’s retreat; but notwith- 
 
 standing his amazing speed he found he arrived 
 
 * “Sir John Moore had no friendly corps to protect his flanks—no 
 reinforcements to expect. He commanded an army, brilliant in ap- 
 pearance, yet weak in numerical strength; but upon that, and that 
 alone, was dependence to be placed for the successful result of a very 
 bold advance against a superior enemy in his front, a corps nearly as 
 strong as his own upon his right flank, and the whole army of the 
 emperor unoccupied and ready to move against him. In stating that 
 a superior force was in front of the British army, it must not be sup- 
 posed to apply to the corps d’armée of Marshal Soult alone, but to 
 include that of the Duke of Abrantes (Junot), then between Vitoria 
 and Burgos. . . . he march upon the Carion would undoubtedly 
 have compromised the safety of our army. Not only the most pro- 
 bable, but the most to be desired, result of that movement, namely, 
 the defeat of Marshal Soult, would but have added to its dangers 
 and difficulties. _Had Marshal Soult retired when assailed by the 
 British force, it is probable that its general, being yet in ignorance 
 of the rapid movement making against him from Madrid, would 
 have advanced in pursuit, and this must have rendered his situation 
 still more critical. In either case, the time lost could not fail to 
 Occasion the destruction or capture of our army.”—Lieutenant- 
 colonel Leith Hay, Narrative of the Peninsular War. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1808. 
 
 PLIES I Ea SRE ITS Ea SFG SSE SRST STG“ cor eee eee ae Fe ee ee ee 
 
 on en he ere 
 
 453 
 
 twelve hours too late. Before getting across the 
 Esla some squadrons of French horse were hanging 
 on the flanks of the English, and an advanced 
 corps of their cavalry occupied a hill near the road. 
 These last were attacked by the 10th hussars, who 
 put many of them to the sword and took about 100 
 prisoners. During twelve successive days the Eng- 
 lish cavalry had been engaged more or less; they 
 had been so well headed in every affair or skirmish 
 that they had taken upwards of 500 prisoners 
 in all. The river Esla was fordable in many 
 places, there were several bridges which the Spa- 
 niards had neglected to destroy, and little confi- 
 dence could be placed upon Romana’s people, who 
 had undertaken to defend the bridge at Mancilla. 
 Brigadier-general Craufurd blew up one of the 
 bridges at Castro Gonzalo, one half of his men 
 working amidst torrents of rain and snow, and the 
 other half keeping the enemy at bay, for some of 
 the cavalry of the French imperial guard had col- 
 lected on the heights on the opposite bank. Behind 
 Mancilla stood the town of Leon, inclosed with 
 walls and capable of considerable resistance. Leav- 
 ing 3,000 of his men, with four pieces of artillery, 
 to defend or destroy the bridge, Romana undertook 
 to hold Leon with the rest of his forces, and with 
 arabble that had gathered round him. A few 
 French light horse drove the Spaniards from the 
 bridge, captured their guns, and chased them to- 
 wards Leon. By this easy means Soult, whose 
 single corps now exceeded the British army in 
 number, got possession of an important road and 
 advanced rapidly; and then Romana abandoned 
 Leon without firmg a musket, and fled with his 
 dissolving forces to the north. Moore had gained 
 two days’ rest at Benevente, but, as he had not the 
 means of removing them, he was obliged to destroy 
 most of his stores.* On the 29th the mass of the 
 British gained Astorga, the cavalry remaining be- 
 hind at Benevente, with piquets watching the fords 
 of the Esla. General Lefebvre Desnouettes dashed 
 across the river, with 600 horse of the imperial 
 guard. Our piquets retired fighting, and Brigadier- 
 general the Hon. C. Stewart obstinately disputed the 
 ground; but the French kept advancing across the 
 plain, which was then covered with stragglers, bag- 
 gage waggons, and camp followers. Benevente 
 was filled with tumult and confusion; but Lord 
 Paget mounted the 10th hussars at the edge of the 
 town, rallied and collected the piquets and the 3rd 
 German hussars, and made a charge with the whole. 
 In an instant the scene changed ; the French were 
 galloping back towards the river, with the British 
 and Lord Paget close at their heels. Lefebvre 
 Desnouettes was wounded and made prisoner ; 
 
 * ©The army was and had been from the first without sufficient 
 means of transport; the general had no money to procure it, and 
 the ill-will of the Spaniards, and the shuffling conduct of the juntas, 
 added infinitely to their difficulties.”—Wapier, 
 
 Some money had been sent to Moore since his advance, but not 
 enough. He was obliged to contract debts with the Spaniards, 
 who were not fond of giving credit, and who forgot, all along, that 
 Moore was fighting their battle. This credit system had a very 
 pernicious effect not only on Sir John’s campaign, but also on the 
 first campaign of Sir A. Wellesley in Spain. Sir Arthur, however, 
 in the course of 1809, contrived to pay off all these debts. - 
 
454 
 
 other officers were captured; and nearly 200 men 
 were killed, wounded, or taken. The British loss 
 amounted to 50 men. Lord Paget maintained his 
 post till the evening of the 29th, and then took the 
 road to Astorga. On the morning of the 30th, 
 Marshal Bessiéres crossed the Esla with 9000 horse 
 and followed Paget, and on the same day General 
 Franceschi, who had crossed at the bridge of Man- 
 cilla, followed Moore by another road. While he was 
 at Astorga, or before he got there, about 5,000 men 
 of Romana’s flying army (the only troops that 
 ever appeared to co-operate) rushed into the town, 
 and began to appropriate the provisions and stores 
 which had been collected for the use of the British. 
 The Spaniards had encumbered the road with carts 
 and mules, they took possession of the houses, and 
 when the English soldiers went to seek lodgings, 
 quarrels and scuffles ensued. Nor was this the 
 worst consequence of the contact of the two allied 
 forces: the Spaniards were afflicted with the typhus 
 fever, and they communicated it to the English. 
 Sir John had earnestly solicited the marques to 
 leave this road vacant, and to retire into the Astu- 
 rias, where, by lying on the flank or rear of the 
 advancing French army, he might have retarded its 
 progress; but the Spaniard had preferred crossing 
 Moore’s line of march, and by so doing he did the 
 British army far more injury than the pursuing 
 French could do it. From this moment the disci- 
 pline of Moore’s people was seriously affected. - In 
 the terrible disorder which prevailed, the English 
 soldiers helped themselves, as best they could, to 
 provisions, and to spirits and wine. No orders were 
 observed ; and when Moore resumed his retreat he 
 was obliged to leave such of the stores as had not 
 been seized and wasted behind him. Having done 
 all the mischief he could, Romana retired with his 
 cavalry and some guns to the valley of the Minho, 
 leaving his ragged infantry and the rest of his artil- 
 lery to follow their own instinct. Some of these 
 poor Spaniards mixed with the British army, spread- 
 ing still more the vermin and the disease with which 
 they were infected; but the greater part of them 
 either disbanded, or were taken by the French. 
 On the 28th of December Bonaparte had slept at 
 Villapando, only four leagues from Benevente. On 
 the 1st of January he took possession of Astorga, 
 where 70,000 French infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 
 200 pieces of artillery were now united. 
 
 A.D. 1809. From the heights behind Astorga 
 the Emperor of the French could discover the 
 now confused rear of the retreating English 
 army; but he was exceedingly wroth that Moore, 
 by his rapid movements, should have escaped him, 
 and circumstances had arisen in a distant part of 
 the world which prevented his enjoying the satis- 
 faction of pursuing the most cordially hated of all 
 his enemies. Dispatches arrived from Paris and 
 from other places, which left no doubt as to the 
 intention of Austria to take the field against him ; 
 and therefore, on the 2nd, entrusting the pursuit of 
 Moore to Soult, he turned away from Benevente 
 to Valladolid, whence he travelled with almost in- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 oS 
 vs ae 
 
 “(ae 
 je 
 - = 
 
 [ Boox s 
 
 credible speed to his own capital, cursing all the 
 way the efliciency of English policy, alliances, and 
 subsidies, to which solely he attributed the war with 
 which he was now threatened in Germany and 
 Italy.* But even after his emperor’s departure 
 Soult had 60,000 men and 91 guns to put in the 
 track of Moore; and he lost no time im precipi- 
 tating these masses through Galicia. His cavalry 
 was very soon close upon the British rear; and 
 the whole of that army, from excessive privation 
 and suffering, from the murmurs and misconduct 
 of many of the officers, and from the despondency 
 generally induced by such a retreat, was becoming 
 every day more and more demoralized. They had 
 hardly any provisions with them, they could obtain 
 little or nothing, except sour wine, in that famine- 
 stricken country; the roads were wretched, and 
 covered with deep snow; when it did not snow it 
 rained in torrents; the cold on the mountains was 
 intense; and many of the sick, and many of the 
 women and children who had been allowed to fol- 
 low the army in spite of Sir John’s orders, lay 
 down by the road-side and died. Some disgrace- 
 ful occurrences took place at Bembibre, where 
 there were immense wine-cellars; and similar ex- 
 cesses were committed in Villa Franca. Yet, 
 wherever or whenever the French came up to fight, 
 the English formed in good order and beat them 
 off. The French general Colbert was shot through 
 the heart in one of these encounters, and ‘of the six 
 or eight squadrons of horse that accompanied him 
 the greater number were killed on the spot. In 
 front of Lugo another desperate contest took place, 
 which ended in General the Hon. Sir E. Paget’s re- 
 pulsing a greatly superior force. This was on the 5th 
 of January. On the 7th, Sir John Moore announced 
 his intention of halting and offering battle to his pur- 
 suer. ‘‘ It has been well said,” says our military his- 
 torian, ‘‘ that a British army may be gleaned in a 
 retreat, but cannot be reaped; whatever may be 
 their misery, the soldiers will always be found 
 
 clean at review, ready at a fight; and scarcely was — 
 
 this order issued when the line of battle, so atten- 
 uated before, was filled with vigorous men, full of 
 confidence and valour.”*+ Moore’s positions were 
 well chosen, and the country was rugged and moun- 
 tainous. Soult formed in order of battle along a 
 ridge fronting the English; but from the nature 
 of the ground he could not discover Moore’s force, 
 and, taking it merely for a rear-guard, he attacked 
 
 rather feebly, and was defeated with the: loss of | 
 
 400 or 500 men. But the French marshal now 
 called up the division of Laborde; and at day- 
 
 break on the following morning, he confronted | 
 
 the English general, who had about 16,000 foot, 
 1800 horse, and 40 pieces of artillery, with 
 
 17,000 foot, 4000 horse, and 50 pieces of artillery. 
 
 But, even with this superiority of force, Soult pre- 
 
 * It has been suspected that other causes, besides the attitude of 
 the Austrian emperor, contributed to Bonaparte’s hasty de: re 
 from his army in Spain; but on this head we can find nothing but 
 conjecture, and the one great cause assigned in the text appears 
 sufficient to account for his return to Paris. 
 
 ' + Colonel Napier. ‘ : : 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 ferred waiting for the junction of Marshal Ney 
 to giving battle; and the French remained in line 
 all day without firing a shot. It could not be ex- 
 pected that Moore should move to attack Soult, 
 who might be reinforced at every moment, and it 
 would have been madness to wait where he was : 
 therefore Moore decamped in the night, leaving 
 his fires burning to deceive the French, and con- 
 tinued his retreat towards the coast and the port of 
 Corufia. He had only been able to collect at Lugo 
 bread for one day’s consumption ; the weather was 
 worse than ever, and the disorganization of the 
 army became more complete. At last, on the 13th 
 of January, Moore got sight of the sea and of 
 Coruha; but his evil star was still predominant ; 
 a fleet of transports, in which his army could have 
 been quickly embarked in safety, was not there, 
 but detained by contrary winds at Vigo, and there 
 were only a few small vessels in the harbour. He, 
 however, pressed forward to the town and put his 
 wearied troops into quarters. The town of Coruia 
 was weakly fortified, and commanded on one side 
 by some heights. Some general officers thought 
 that even now the campaign must end in a conven- 
 tion. But such thoughts were far from the mind 
 of Moore, who strengthened the weak side of the 
 town, occupied the citadel, put the worst of his sick 
 on board the few vessels in the harbour, and made 
 the best dispositions to fight the French and secure 
 his embarkation by a general action. In the whole 
 campaign he had had most ample reason to com- 
 plain of the inertness and stupidity—or worse—of 
 the Spanish authorities ; and he now found around 
 him abundant materials for increasing this vexa- 
 tion. He had seen Romana’s rabble rout without 
 arms, without ammunition, without clothes; the 
 other Spanish armies he had not seen, because they 
 had made themselves invisible, but from the best 
 information he had received, and from their noto- 
 rious disasters, he could not but conclude that they 
 were in as bad case as the so-called army of the 
 marques; yet here, absurdly exposed on a hill out- 
 side of the town of Corufta, were 4000 barrels of 
 gunpowder, which had been brought from Eng- 
 land many months before, and in the town there 
 was a large magazine of English arms—arms and 
 powder having been uselessly kept in store, while 
 the forces in the field were flying like rags in 
 the wind for want of them. To save this immense 
 stock of ammunition from Soult, Sir John removed 
 as many barrels into the town as he eould, and 
 blew up all the rest. The explosion was so tre- 
 mendous that Corufa was shaken as by an earth- 
 quake. In the evening of the 14th, the transports 
 from Vigo hove in sight; but it was now impos- 
 sible to think of embarking without fighting a battle, 
 or abandoning a great portion of the army asa 
 rear-guard, for Soult was crowning the hills, and 
 his light troops were skirmishing close outside the 
 town. In the course of the night and following morn- 
 ing, the remainder of the sick, the dismounted ca- 
 valry, the best of the horses, and fifty-two pieces of 
 artillery, were safely embarked, Moore retaining on 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 455 
 
 shore only eight English and four Spanish guns 
 for action.* On the morning of the 15th, the 
 French advanced to the height where the great 
 powder-magazine had been blown up; and our 
 rifle corps skirmished with their light troops. In 
 the evening Colonel Mackenzie of the 5th, com- 
 manding the advanced post on the left, made a 
 gallant rush to surprise two of the enemy’s cannon ; 
 but in crossing a field he was shot, and the attack 
 failed. In the course of the day, Sir John had the 
 satisfaction of receiving a letter from Mr. Frere, 
 who was no longer at Truxillo, but much farther 
 away, at Seville. The ambassador informed the 
 general that, upon learning his advance upon the 
 Carion, which was sure to draw upon him the 
 mass of the French forces, he had written to the 
 Duke of Infantado, who was at Cuenca with a 
 Spanish force said to be superior to that which 
 the French had left in Madrid, urging him, in the 
 most pressing manner, to make a forward move- 
 ment upon that capital, which movement might 
 have had the effect of relieving the British army 
 by recalling to Madrid some of the corps that were 
 pressing against it. But Frere did not write this 
 letter until the 2nd of January, when Bonaparte 
 was beyond the Hsla, and close on Moore’s rear with 
 80,000 men, and 200 pieces of artillery ; and when 
 he had written the letter he left it with the junta, 
 who apparently did nothing with it—an omission 
 of the less consequence, as the army of the Duke of 
 Infantado was little more than an army upon paper, 
 and as the Duke neither would nor could have 
 marched upon Madrid. French officers said that 
 a third part of the garrison left in the capital would 
 have been more than sufficient to scatter the force 
 of the Spanish duke, if, at any time, he had ven- 
 tured near enough to be attacked. 
 
 During the night of the 15th of January, Soult, 
 with great difficulty, established a battery of eleven 
 heavy guns on some rocks which closed the left of 
 the line he had selected for battle. This great bat- 
 tery was not above 1200 yards from the right of 
 the British line, and midway the little village of 
 Elvina was held by some of our piquets. On the 
 morning of the 16th the French were apparently 
 quiet; no firing was heard; and Moore completed 
 his preparations for embarking his army. About 
 one o’clock in the afternoon the English general 
 mounted his horse in good spirits, and set off to 
 visit his outposts; he had not proceeded far ere he 
 received a report from General Hope that the 
 enemy’s line were getting under arms. He ex- 
 pressed the highest satisfaction at this intelligence, 
 only regretting that there would not be daylight 
 enough to profit fully from the advantages he an- 
 ticipated ; and, striking spurs into his horse, he 
 galloped to the field. His advanced piquets were 
 already beginning to fire at the enemy’s light 
 
 * Many of the horses had perished on the road, and many more 
 on arriving at Corufia were completely foundered: these last were 
 reluctantly ordered to be shot. 
 
 The ground in front of Corufia, where the battle must be fought, 
 was impracticable for cavalry, and did not allow Sir John to make 
 any great use of artillery. 
 
 et 
 I 
 
456 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Ss 
 4 us 
 
 “iM 
 
 » CoruNNA. 
 
 troops, who were pouring rapidly down on the 
 right wing of the British. Our army was drawn 
 up in the order of battle Moore had planned three 
 days before, when he first arrived at Coruna, and 
 examined the ground: it was 14,500 strong—all 
 foot soldiers, and all full of ardour: cavalry there 
 was none. The force of Soult exceeded 20,000 
 men; and he had some cavalry which, however, 
 was not of much use in the actual battle. The 
 only advantage on the side of the British, except 
 their native spirit, was this—they had exchanged 
 their battered muskets for new English muskets 
 found in deposit at Coruna, and their ammunition 
 was fresh and good. Distributing his lighter guns 
 along the front of his position, and opening a fire 
 from the heavy battery on his left, Soult, at about 
 two o’clock, descended from the hills with three 
 columns covered by clouds of skirmishers. Moore’s 
 piquets were driven back, and the village of Elvina 
 was carried by the first French column, which then 
 made a side movement, and fell upon Moore’s 
 right wing which was formed by Sir David Baird’s 
 division. The French second column advanced 
 against the English centre, and the third attacked 
 the English left which was under the command of 
 Hope, and posted by the village of Palavia 
 Abaxo. The weight of Soult’s guns overmatched 
 the English six-pounders, and his shot swept the 
 position to the centre. But Moore called up Ge- 
 neral the Hon. Sir E. Paget with the whole of his 
 reserve, and sent him to turn the left of the first 
 French column, which was outflanking Baird's right, 
 and menace the great French battery on the hills. 
 General Fraser’s division, which had been left im- 
 mediately before the gates of Corufia, was then 
 ordered up to support Paget. The regiment forming 
 the right of Baird’s division was thrown back, 
 and then Moore opened a heavy fire upon the flank 
 
 of a part of Soult’s first column that were ad- 
 vancing in a valley, and met those that were break- 
 ing through Elvina with a deadly fire in front from 
 the 50th and 42nd regiments. ‘The French were 
 driven back with great loss; they attempted to 
 make a stand in the village, but they were followed 
 by the 50th, and were soon driven beyond Elvina. 
 Being reinforced beyond the village, and, through a 
 mistake committed by the 42nd, being followed 
 only by the 50th, the French renewed the fight, 
 and drove the English regiment, whose command- 
 ing officer was wounded and taken prisoner, back 
 to Elvina.* Sir John Moore rode up to the 42nd 
 with “ Highlanders, remember Egypt!” At 
 these words the 42nd rushed forward, driving the 
 French before them, till they were stopped by a stone 
 wall. In the meanwhile General Paget, with the re- 
 serve, had checked the advance of the French on 
 the British right, and a furious action had ensued 
 on the left, and all along the line in the valley and 
 on the hills; and this action seemed everywhere 
 favourable to the British. Early in the fight Sir 
 David Baird had his arm shattered with grape shot, 
 and was forced to quit the field. The French 
 having brought up reserves, and having made a 
 concentrated attack at Elvina, where Sir John was 
 cheering on his men, the battle raged fiercely, par- 
 ticularly at this last point, which the English 
 
 * The commanding officer of the 50th was Major Charles Napier 
 (the late General Sir Charles, who distinguished himself so highly 
 in India), eldest brother of the military historian of the ‘ Peninsular 
 War.’ He was hurt in the leg, and received five other wounds 
 before he was taken. He owed his life to the humanity of a French 
 drummer, who prevented some savage soldiers from finishing him 
 with their bayonets, or the butt end of their muskets, as he lay 
 helpless on the ground. 
 
 Major Stanhope, who accompanied Major Napier in his advance, 
 received a mortal wound. The honourable major was second son 
 to Earl Stanhope, and nephew to the late Mr. Pitt. As he and 
 Napier were advancing, Moore, who had recommended them both 
 for the military rank they held, was heard to cry out enthusiasti- 
 cally, ‘* Well done, my majors! Well done the 50th!” 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 general was determined to maintain at all 
 hazards. He had sent Captain Hardinge (the 
 late Lord Hardinge) to order up the guards to 
 support the 42nd highlanders, Captain Hardinge 
 had just returned, and was reporting to his general 
 that the guards were coming quickly, when Sir 
 John was struck on the shoulder and left breast by 
 acannon ball. He fell from his horse, and was 
 believed to be dead, but before Hardinge could 
 dismount he had half raised himself, and with a 
 steadfast eye and unchanged countenance, was 
 looking after the 42nd and the other troops en- 
 gaged in his front. He grasped the hand of 
 Hardinge, and, when that gallant and grieving 
 officer said ‘‘ They are advancing,” his countenance 
 lighted up. Colonel Graham now came to the 
 spot, and, from the composure of the general’s fea- 
 tures, imagined that he was not much hurt, until 
 he saw blood welling from his wound. Shocked 
 at the sight, Graham galloped off in search of sur- 
 geons. The hero would not allow himself to be 
 removed to the rear until he saw that his brave 
 highlanders had gained ground far in front. 
 -Hardinge tried in vain to stop the effusion of blood 
 with his sash: then, by the help of some high- 
 landers and some guardsmen, he placed the general 
 upon a blanket. In being lifted his sword got en- 
 tangled, and the hilt pressed against the wound: 
 Hardinge would have unbuckled the belt, and have 
 taken it off; but the dying soldier said, ‘* It is as 
 well as it is. I had rather it should go out of the 
 field with me.’? Hardinge again began to hope, 
 and to say that he hoped, the wound would not 
 prove mortal. ‘* No, Hardinge,” said Moore, “ I 
 feel that to be impossible. You need not go with 
 me; report to General Hope that I am wounded, 
 and carried tothe rear.””* He was then raised 
 from the ground by a highland sergeant and three 
 highland soldiers, who slowly and tenderly con- 
 veyed him towards Corufa. The grieved affec- 
 tionate highlanders had not carried him far when 
 two surgeons came running to his aid. They had 
 been employed in dressing the shattered arm of 
 Baird; who, upon hearing of his disaster, had 
 ordered them to leave him, and hasten to help 
 Moore. But Moore, who was now bleeding fast, 
 said to the surgeons, that they could be of no use 
 to him, that they had better go to the wounded 
 soldiers, to whom they might be useful; and he 
 ordered his bearers to move on. Butas his bearers 
 proceeded, he repeatedly made them halt and turn 
 round in order that he might view the battle, and 
 listen to the firing, the fainter sound of which was 
 now indicating that the French were retiring. A 
 spring waggon, bearing Colonel Wynch, wounded 
 from the battle, came up with the highlanders 
 who were carrying Moore. The colonel asked 
 who was in the blanket ; and, being told it was Sir 
 John Moore, he wished him to be placed in the 
 waggon. The general asked one of his highlanders 
 whether he thought that the waggon would be 
 better than the blanket: the soldier answered, that 
 * Letter written by Captain Hardinge after the battle. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 457 
 
 the blanket would not shake him so much, as he 
 and his comrades would keep the step, and carry 
 him easy. Sir John said he thought so too; and 
 so they proceeded with him to his lodgings in 
 Coruiia, the soldiers shedding tears as they went. 
 
 In the meantime the British army had rapidly 
 gained ground everywhere; the obstinate contest 
 at Elvima had terminated in their favour; Paget 
 and the reserve had completely beaten and driven 
 in their left and had even approached their great 
 battery, and Colonel Nicholls had repulsed and 
 pursued the French right. In fact the whole 
 French line was falling back in confusion, leaving 
 the ground thickly strewed with their killed and 
 wounded. Soult had consumed nearly all the 
 ammunition he had brought with him, and must 
 have been exposed to a still more signal overthrow, 
 for the river Mero in his rear was filled by the 
 rising tide, and there was only one bridge over it 
 by which he could retreat; but General Fraser’s 
 division could not be brought up in time, and the 
 dark night was now coming on. The French, too, 
 though beaten and disordered, were still far more 
 numerous than the British, the ground they occu- 
 pied was exceedingly strong, and it was not known 
 how soon reinforcements might reach them. In 
 these circumstances Sir John Hope, upon whom 
 the command devolved, thought it better to avail 
 himself of the present disorder of Soult, and get his 
 own army on board the transports during the night. 
 And this difficult operation was effected without 
 delay and without confusion. The piquets, light- 
 ing many fires, covered the retreat of the columns, 
 and, being themselves withdrawn at daybreak, were 
 embarked under the protection of General Hill’s 
 brigade, which was posted near the ramparts of the 
 town. These arrangements for embarkation had 
 all been made by Moore, and they were complete 
 and admirable.* 
 
 Before the troops began to embark, their beloved 
 leader was dead. When the surgeons waited upon 
 him in his lodgings they found that his left 
 shoulder was shattered to pieces; that the arm was 
 hanging by a piece of skin; that the ribs over the 
 heart were broken, and the muscles of the breast 
 torn in long strips. His pain was great, and he 
 spoke with difficulty. But, when Colonel Ander- 
 son, who had been for one-and-twenty years his 
 friend and companion in arms, entered the room, 
 he knew him immediately, though it was almost 
 dark, and, squeezing him by the hand, said— 
 ** Anderson, don’t leave me!”” At intervals he said, 
 with difficulty, but calmly and distinctly —‘* Ander- 
 son, you know that I have always wished to die 
 this way!— Anderson, are the French beaten? 
 [This question he put to every one that came in.] 
 I hope the people of England will be satisfied! 1 
 hope my country will do me justice !— Anderson, 
 you will see my friends as soon as you can. Tell 
 them everything; say to my mother—[Here his 
 
 * Colonel Napier, Hist. of the War in the Peninsula.—James C. 
 Moore, Narrative of the Campaign of the British army in Spain, 
 commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, &c., and his 
 Life of his Brother, , 
 
458 
 
 voice quite failed him, and he was, for the first 
 time, excessively agitated.] Hope, Hope!—I 
 have much to say to him, but cannot get it out, 
 Are Colonel Graham and all my aides-de-camp 
 well?” They mercifully concealed from him that 
 Captain Burrard, one of his aides-de-camp, was 
 mortally wounded. When Major Colborne came 
 into the room he spoke most kindly to him, and 
 told Anderson to go to , and tell him 
 that it was his request and expectation that he 
 would promote the major, for he had been long 
 with him, and he knew him to be most worthy of 
 promotion. He then asked Major Colborne if the 
 French were well beaten; and on being told that 
 they were, and on every point, he said, “It is a 
 great satisfaction for me to know we have beaten 
 the French. Remember me to General Paget; he 
 is a fine fellow !—I feel myself so strong that I fear 
 I shall be long dying—It is great uneasiness—It is 
 great pain.” He thanked the surgeons for their 
 trouble. Two of his aides-de-camp, Captains Percy 
 and Stanhope, now came into the room, and, after 
 speaking kindly to both, he asked again if all his 
 aides-de-camp were well. After some interval he 
 said, ‘‘ Stanhope, remember me to your sister.” * 
 He then pressed Colonel Anderson’s hand to his 
 body, and in a few minutes died without a struggle. + 
 
 Colonel Anderson said, he had often heard the 
 general declare that, if he were killed in battle, he 
 should like to be buried where he had fallen. Ge- 
 neral Hope and Colonel Graham acceded to this 
 suggestion, and it was determined that the body 
 should be interred on the ramparts in the old citadel 
 of Corufa. At midnight the mortal remains were 
 carried to the citadel by Colonel Graham, Major 
 Colborne, and the aides-de-camp, and deposited in 
 Colonel Graham’s quarters. A grave was dug by 
 a party of the 9th regiment, the aides-de-camp 
 attending by turns. No coffin could be procured, 
 as the Spaniards never use any; so the body was 
 never undressed, but wrapped up by the officers of 
 his staff in blankets and a military cloak. 
 
 “ No useless coffin enclosed his breast, 
 Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; 
 But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, 
 With his martial cloak around him.” 
 
 Towards eight o’clock on the morning of the 17th 
 some firing was heard in the distance. The simple 
 funeral rites were then hastened, lest a serious attack 
 should be made, which would oblige the officers to 
 quit the body and prevent their paying the last sad 
 duties to their chief. The officers of his own staff 
 bore the body to the grave, which the soldiers had 
 dug on the rampart: the funeral-service was read 
 by the chaplain, and then the earth was thrown in, 
 and the grave closed by the soldiers. 
 
 When the morning dawned, the French, discover- 
 
 ing that the British line had quitted its position, | 
 
 pushed forward some battalions to the heights of 
 Santa Lucia; and, about noon, they got up some 
 
 * Captain Stanhope was younger brother to Major Stanhope, who 
 had fallen at Elvina, being Earl Stanhope’s third son. The sister to 
 whom Moore desired to be remembered, was Lady Hester Stanhope, 
 who afterwards made herself so much noted by her eccentricities. 
 
 + Account written by Colonel Anderson the morning after Moore’s 
 death, in Narrative of the Campaign, &c. by James C. Moore. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. _ 
 cannon to a rising ground near the harbour, and 
 fired at the transports. Several timid masters of 
 transports cut their cables, and four of these vessels 
 ran aground stupidly ; but the troops in the stranded 
 vessels were immediately removed by some men- 
 of-war’s boats, the four transports were burned, 
 and the rest of the fleet got out of the harbour 
 without accident. At two o’clock in the after- 
 noon General Hill’s protecting brigade embarked 
 under the citadel. During that night and the fol- 
 lowing morning General Beresford, who kept 
 possession of the citadel, sent off all the sick and 
 wounded, whose condition admitted of their being 
 removed; and about noon on the 18th this rear- 
 guard got into the boats and reached the fleet in 
 safety. The inhabitants had undertaken to main- 
 tain the town, but it appears that the French made 
 no effort to attack it, or to interrupt the embarka- 
 tiun. The enemy were no doubt kept in awe by 
 the presence of some English line-of-battle ships. 
 When all were on board, the admiral made the 
 signal for sailing, and the transports, under a 
 strong convoy, sailed for England. 
 
 In the battle of Corufia the English lost from 
 800 to 1000 men, the French from 2000 to 3000. 
 When Marshal Soult took possession of Corufia, 
 which he did without any difficulty as soon as the 
 English were gone, he behaved with much huma- 
 nity to the few hopeless wounded and sick who 
 were left behind ; and, in admiration of the quali- 
 ties of the soldier and the man, he ordered a mo- 
 nument to be erected to Sir John Moore. The 
 generous intention was not executed ; but at a later 
 period a monument was erected by the Marques 
 de la Romana and Moore’s own countrymen. 
 
 Toms or Sir Joun Moors. 
 
Cuap. VIII] 
 
 Thus ended the retreat to Corufa and the first 
 campaign (during the present war, for the exploits 
 of Lord Peterborough and General Stanhope in 
 Queen Anne’s time must not be forgotten) of 
 the English in Spain. Some errors had been com- 
 mitted in the advance through inexperience in 
 campaigning, through a want of a sufficient num- 
 ber of well-trained staff and regimental officers, 
 and through too great a reliance on the reports of 
 ignorant Portuguese and Spaniards, who knew 
 next to nothing of their own countries, were but 
 little acquainted with any districts beyond their na- 
 tive ones, which they rarely left, and were altoge- 
 ther incapable of judging what roads were proper 
 or not for the passage of an army with artillery ; 
 but Moore’s misfortunes had chiefly resulted from 
 the misinformation of Mr. Frere, the rapid disso- 
 lution of the Spanish armies that were to co-operate 
 with him, the apathy of the population in the 
 northern provinces, and the panic which then 
 seemed to have seized the Spanish people every- 
 where, the badness of the roads and of the wea- 
 ther, and, though last, very far from least, the 
 ignorance and ineptitude of his commissariat— 
 that department which still wanted an organiza- 
 tion and an intellect, and which Wellington him- 
 self could not organize and render fully effective 
 until after two or three campaigns in the Peninsula. 
 Our greatest captain has said that he could dis- 
 cover only one error in Moore’s campaign—his 
 not sufficiently providing for retreat when he ad- 
 vanced against Soult.* But it should appear 
 that proper preparations for the retreat were or- 
 dered, and that Moore’s orders were rendered 
 fruitless by the mistakes and delays of those 
 intrusted with their execution, by the fatal 
 movement of Romana’s people across his line of 
 march, and by the assault made by those Spa- 
 niards upon the stores and provisions collected 
 at Astorga for the use of the British troops. 
 Poets, reviewers, and soldiers upon paper—poli- 
 ticians, who contend for party-purposes—and 
 ministers, who consider themselves bound to 
 defend their diplomatic agent—may condemn the 
 whole of the campaign; but the Duke of 
 Wellington never blamed Sir John Moore for 
 not crossing the Carion, and for not putting trust 
 in disorderly fugitive Spanish armies. He had 
 had too ample an experience of those armies, 
 which were nearly always fighting when they 
 ought to have been retreating, and flying when 
 they ought to have been fighting. Even as late as 
 the year 1812, when time and experience, and his 
 victories and example, might have been expected 
 to have vastly improved the Spanish armies, we 
 shall find him compelled to raise a siege and make 
 a disastrous retreat by the blunders, the obstin acy, 
 
 * The modest words of the great captain are these :—‘ In Sir John 
 Moore’s campaign, I can see but one error: when he advanced to 
 Sahagun he should have considered it as a movement of retreat, and 
 sent officers to the rear to mark and prepare the halting-places for 
 every brigade. But this opinion I have formed after long experience 
 ee, a ey ph fae at of a Spanish war, which 
 
 rust have been seen to be understood ; i ini 
 formed after the event.” emer. te 80 apinion 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 ee es 
 
 459 
 
 and the want of spirit of these Spanish armies. 
 Moore has been bitterly censured for not relying 
 more on the spirit of the Spanish peasantry; but, 
 as far as he went, he saw no symptoms of this 
 spirit ; and neither insurgent peasants, nor regular 
 Spanish troops provided with artillery, had been 
 able to defend the Somosierra, the Guadarrama, the 
 Sierra Morena, or any one of their truly formidable 
 mountain-passes. Wherever the French had pre- 
 sented themselves, there they had cut their way 
 through and had driven the Spaniards before them 
 like chaff. Until Moore got as far back as As- 
 torga, his flanks were always and completely 
 exposed. From Astorga to Coruna the country 
 had great natural strength, and the road, running 
 over, or along the sides of steep mountains, offered 
 many excellent defensive positions; but there was 
 not one of these positions but might be turned by 
 an enemy so numerous, so active, and intelligent 
 as the French, whose leaders had had great prac- 
 tice in mountain-warfare among Alps, Apennines, 
 and Pyrenees—mountains far more mighty than 
 those which run through the Asturias and Ga- 
 licia. The Marques de la Romana, whose regu- 
 lar army defended nothing, and was capable of 
 nothing, did indeed talk loudly about the capabi- 
 lity of the armed peasantry to destroy any French 
 corps that might be sent, for the purpose of turn- 
 ing Moore’s positions, into the defiles of those 
 mountains. Mountains of nonsense! The French 
 had gone through defiles in Spain far more diffi- 
 cult, and guarded by a more numerous population 
 and by regular Spanish troops. The various 
 roads that led up the mountains to Moore’s flank, 
 or to his rear, have been described as mere paths, 
 practicable only to goatherds and their goats ; but 
 this is poetry rather than fact, and where goat- 
 herds can pass infantry can pass, and where 
 infantry can pass artillery and stores can be 
 dragged up after them. Were these Cordilleras 
 more rugged and lofty than Mount St. Bernard? 
 Were the French soldiers weaker now than they 
 were eight years ago, when they crossed over that 
 Alp without a road, and carried forty pieces of 
 artillery with them? If Moore had stopped any- 
 where between Mayorga and Astorga, he must 
 have been enveloped; if he had staid for any 
 length of time at any of the boasted passes between 
 Astorga and Coruna, his position must infallibly 
 have been turned. Nor had he the means of thus 
 staying for more than a very few days: there were 
 none but temporary magazines nearer than Coruna 
 —there were no carriages of transport—there was 
 nothing to be obtained from the beggared, half- 
 starved inhabitants, who were gazing with about 
 equal indifference at the passage of English and 
 
 of French columns through their own territo- 
 
 ries. Had he .stopped in any of the vaunted 
 defensive positions, the hour, the day of fighting 
 must have been chosen and fixed not by Moore, 
 but by Soult; and the French general would 
 have remained quiet until his position was 
 turned, or until his army was starved away. ‘The 
 
460 
 retreat did not begin an hour too soon, nor 
 Was it too precipitate, when it began. The promp- 
 titude with which Moore checked the advance of 
 his army when the close approach of the converg- 
 ing columns of Bonaparte rendered that measure 
 indispensable, and the accuracy with which he 
 calculated the exact moment when the retreat 
 ought to be commenced, have been admired as 
 signal proofs of his capacity for command. In its 
 advance and its retreat the army had moved over 
 more than 500 English miles, and had been for a 
 long while exposed to an enemy of immensely su- 
 perior force; and yet, after all, including those 
 killed in battle, its loss amounted te no more than 
 4000 men, ora sixth part of the whole, which is 
 not considered as a very high proportion of loss. 
 There was a want of discipline—there were dis- 
 graceful disorders during the retreat; but these 
 chiefly arose from circumstances which Moore 
 could neither foresee nor provide against. ‘The 
 military chest was indeed thrown over the moun- 
 tain-side for want of mules to drag it on; and the 
 Spanish peasants found a pleasanter employment 
 in seeking the hard dollars in the ravines and 
 under the deep snow than they fancied they could 
 find in fighting in the gorges against the French. 
 A few 3-pounders were also abandoned, and a good 
 deal of baggage was thrown into the ravines after 
 the dollars, and for the same reason ;—but nothing 
 was taken by force; and neither Bonaparte nor 
 Soult won a piece of artillery, a standard, or a 
 single military trophy from the retreating British 
 army. 
 
 Terrible however was the disappointment of the 
 English government and people, who had been 
 induced by incorrect reports to expect little short 
 of miracles from the Spanish armies acting in con- 
 junction with the small auxiliary army of Sir John 
 Moore. Grief for his death, admiration for the 
 manner in which he had died, and a national pride 
 at the noble result of the battle of Coruna, sup- 
 pressed the complaints of the more generous, which 
 was the far greater part of the nation; but other 
 men, acting under the circumstances already alluded 
 to, were much less tender of the reputation of the 
 truly gallant and high-minded soldier, and long 
 continued to heap censure and satire over his bloody 
 and fureign grave. Officers, immeasurably his 
 inferiors in the knowledge and practice of the art 
 of war, long delighted to dwell upon the errors he 
 was supposed to have committed, and to show, 
 after the fact, and even after a better knowledge had 
 been obtained of the nature of the country and the 
 people, how easily these errors might have heen 
 uvoided.* 
 
 * Sir Arthur Wellesley was never among these detractors, nor was 
 the Duke of York, the commander-in-chief of the British army, and 
 who, though nota great general himself, was capable of appreciating 
 those who were, and of paying a liberal tribute to merit wherever he saw 
 it. On the Ist of February, a day or two after the arrival of the news 
 of the battle cf Corufia, and of Moore's death, the duke issued general 
 orders from the Horse Guards, holding up the deceased general as an 
 example and model to the British army, and briefly running over the 
 history of his services in the West Indies, in Holland, and in 
 Egypt, where he had obtained the admiration, friendship, and 
 entire confidence of that illustrious officer Sir Ralph Abercromby. 
 
 ‘Sir John Moore,” said these general orders, ‘‘ from his youth 
 
 —— 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 Parliament assembled on the 19th of January. 
 The royal speech, delivered by commission, stated 
 his majesty’s reasons for rejecting the proposals 
 made for a negotiation by Russia and France, 
 and spoke of the perseverance of the Spaniards in 
 the cause of their legitimate monarchy and national 
 independence, which would induce his majesty to 
 support the people of Spain so long as they should 
 prove true to themselves. Satisfaction was ex- 
 pressed at the liberation of Portugal, together with 
 some dissatisfaction at some of the articles of the 
 miscalled Cintra Convention. A continuance of 
 aid and support to the King of Sweden, who was 
 now almost crushed by Russian arms and French 
 intrigues, was strongly recommended ; as was also 
 a speedy augmentation of our regular army. 
 
 The great whig organ in the north had not 
 waited till now to cast discredit upon the war in 
 the Peninsula and our interference in it; to de- 
 clare despondingly that after all we must expect to 
 fight the battle with Bonaparte on our own shores ; 
 that Ireland must be torn from us, and that even the 
 most unsuccessful war which France could carry 
 
 on in this commercial country must be attended 
 with the most dreadful of consequences, ‘The 
 
 same organ or luminary had, at the beginning of 
 the struggle, delivered the discouraging oracle that 
 the Spaniards could not be aided, but must be 
 defeated and for ever subdued by the tremendous 
 power of the French emperor; that it would be 
 madness in the English to think of assisting them, 
 and a wickedness of the worst sort to endeavour to 
 form another coalition against the French ; that 
 army after army would be poured through the 
 Pyrenees until all Spain was one field of blood ; 
 that nothing could resist the vigour and unity of 
 Bonaparte, and the discipline of his veteran sol- 
 diers, &c. &c.* The defeats and errors of the 
 Spaniards, the retreat and death of Moore, and 
 other obvious facts, had prepared many minds for 
 the reception of these dark omens; and a large 
 portion of the parliamentary opposition were dis- 
 posed not only to censure our management of the 
 war in the Peninsula, but also to maintain that no 
 management or skill whatsoever could enable us 
 either to defend Portugal and Spain, or to inflict 
 any blow by land on our invincible foe. All these 
 parliamentary prophecies may be read, by those 
 
 embraced the profession with the feelings and sentiments of a soldier. 
 He felt that a perfect knowledge and an exact performance of the 
 humble but inrportant duties of a subaltern officer are the best 
 foundation for subsequent military fame ; and his ardent mind, while 
 it looked forward to those brilliant achievements for which it was 
 formed, applied itself with energy and exemplary assiduity to the 
 duties of that station. In the school of regimental duty he obtained 
 that correct knowledge of his profession so essential to the proper — 
 direction of the gallant spirit of the soldier ; and he was enabled to 
 establish a characteristic order and regularity of conduct, because the 
 troops found in their leader a striking example of the discipline which 
 he enforced on others. . . . « . Thus Sir John Moore, at an early 
 period, obtained, with general approbation, that conspicuous station 
 in which he gloriously terminated his useful and honourable life. 
 In a military character, obtained amidst the dangers of climate, the 
 privations incident to service, and the sufferings of repeated wounds, 
 it is difficult to select any one point as a preferable subject for praise. 
 It exhibits, however, one feature so particularly characteristic of the 
 man, and so important to the best interests of the service, that the 
 commander-in-chief is pleased to mark it with his peculiar appro- 
 bation. The life of Sir John Moore was spent amongst the troops.” 
 * See Edinburgh Review, vols, ix. xii. xiii, 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
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 MonuMENT TO Sir Joun Moore, 1N St. Pavr’s,—Voted by Parliament, and executed by Bacon, Jun. 
 
 who have the patience to read them, in the debates | 
 of the times. We say times, for they were not 
 only issued now, but continued to be issued for 
 years, and almost down to the eve of the brilliant day 
 when Wellington drove the last French corps down 
 the French side of the Pyrenees. The majority for 
 ministers who entertained better hopes was found, 
 however, to be considerable. Five days before the 
 meeting of Parliament—on the 14th of January, 
 when Moore’s retreat was known, and when Spa- 
 nish affairs bore so gloomy an aspect—Mr. Can- 
 ning signed the treaty of amity and alliance with 
 the Spanish insurgents, binding his country, which 
 was not hitherto bound by any treaty, to support 
 the cause to the utmost of its power; and never 
 to acknowledge any other king of Spain than his 
 Catholic majesty Ferdinand VII., his heirs, or 
 such lawful successor as the Spanish nation itself 
 should acknowledge. This was a species of poli- 
 tical heroism, let the hopes our ministers enter- 
 tained about the new Austrian war be what they 
 might, 
 
 The opposition seem almost to have hoped that 
 the misfortunes in Spain, and the few mistakes in 
 the Portuguese convention, would break up the 
 ministry. A motion made in the Commons, by 
 Lord Henry Petty, for directly censuring the Con- 
 vention in Portugal, and for attributing the whole 
 blame of it to our government, was negatived by 
 208 against 158; and a motion made by Mr. 
 Ponsonby for an inquiry into the conduct of our 
 late campaign in Spain, was rejected by 220 to 
 127. To those who urged that we ought on no 
 
 account to have sent an army into Spain, Lord 
 Castlereagh replied that the Spaniards had chosen 
 the mode of regular warfare, and that it would 
 have ill befitted the character of Great Britain to 
 have shrunk from the contest, and to have said to 
 the Spaniards—We will give you money, we will 
 give you arms and stores, but we will not hazard 
 our blood in your defence! The liberation of Por- 
 tugal was dwelt upon, and Canning, Castlereagh, 
 and others spoke highly of General Wellesley’s 
 abilities, and hopefully of the issue of the con- 
 test. 
 
 The noble secretary-at-war lost no time in urging 
 the necessity of increasing our military force. By 
 two acts greater activity was given to enlistment 
 into the militia, and that force was carried to its 
 full number ; the vacancies left by the bill of last 
 session for allowing the militia soldiers to volunteer 
 into the line were filled up; and from 20,000 to 
 30,000 regular troops, which had been doing garri- 
 son or coast duty, were added to the corps dispo- 
 sable for foreign service. An active system of 
 recruiting for the line was commenced at the same 
 time. Some additions were also made to the navy ; 
 and in this year the number of cruising line-of- 
 battle ships in commission was 127, being the 
 maximum during the war. Above 27,000,000/. 
 were voted for the army and ordnance, and nearly 
 19,000,000/. for the navy. The total amount of sup- 
 plies for the year for Great Britain and Ireland was 
 53,862,000/. Among the ways and means it was 
 necessary to raise a loan of 11,000,000/. The Joan 
 was contracted for at a lower rate of interest than 
 
 LL 
 
462 
 
 money had ever before been borrowed at on the 
 public account : ministers quoted this as proof of 
 public credit and prosperity; the oppositionists 
 maintained that it was owing to the stagnation of 
 foreign trade, the interruption of our commerce 
 with the United States, arising out of the Berlin 
 and Milan decrees and our own orders in council ; 
 or, in other words, that money was lent to govern- 
 ment at a low interest only because capitalists could 
 not now employ it in any other way. 
 Early in the session a subject was introduced 
 which excited extraordinary interest, and which, 
 for months, caused nearly all other public matters to 
 be forgotten by the people. Mr. Wardle, a Welsh 
 gentleman and colonel of militia, who had married 
 a Welsh lady of considerable fortune, who in earlier 
 days had been distinguished by his high Tory zeal, 
 and by the eagerness with which he offered to carry 
 his Welsh militia-men into Ireland to put down the 
 rebels, had lately changed his political creed, and had 
 cultivated a close acquaintance with Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett, Lord Folkestone, and other members of the ex- 
 treme opposition party.* On the 27th of January he 
 affirmed in the House of Commons that everything 
 was wrong and rotten at the Horse-guards; that 
 the Duke of York, the commander-in-chief, suffered 
 himself to be swayed by a low-born mistress, one 
 Mary Anne Clarke, who had been carrying on a 
 traffic in commissions and promotions. In proof 
 he stated that Captain Tonyn had paid Mrs. Clarke 
 500/. and immediately after had been gazetted 
 major; that, for 200/. paid to Mrs. Clarke, an 
 exchange had been allowed between Lieutenant- 
 colonel Brooke of the infantry, and Lieutenant- 
 colonel Knight of the cavalry; that for 1000/. paid 
 to the same lady Major Shaw had been appointed 
 deputy barrack-master at the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 that the duke’s mistress had a regular scale of 
 prices, &c..&c. Not satisfied with blaming the 
 _easiness of temper of the royal commander-in-chief, 
 he insisted that he was a partaker in the benefit and 
 profit arising from these pecuniary transactions. 
 According to Wardle the duke’s mistress had also 
 been enabled to dispose of places both in church 
 and state, and had been courted and bribed by 
 more than one clergyman that longed for bishoprics 
 or some other profitable preferment.| The colonel 
 concluded with moving for the appointment of a 
 committee to investigate the charges. Sir Francis 
 Burdett warmly seconded the motion. Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh rose, but not to oppose the motion, for 
 that, he said, would be contrary to the wishes, and 
 still more so to the interests, of the commander-in- 
 
 * It appears that Mr. Wardle really served in Ireland during the 
 rebellion, as Major in Sir Watkin William Wynne’s Ancient British 
 Light Dragoons. He had been returned to parliament, for the first 
 time, in 1807, for the rotten borough of Oakhampton. He was now 
 living in very splendid style, and spending his wife’s fortune with pro- 
 portionate rapidity. We know from the best source (that is from 
 himself) that he complained in after life of having been made a tool 
 by a party who deserted him as soon as their purposes were served. 
 
 + For the very disgraceful details which go to confirm the accu- 
 sation of ministers and doctors of the Anglican Church courting 
 and bribing the mistress of the Duke of York, we must refer the 
 reader to any of the numerous published accounts of this delicate 
 investigation. A very full and good account of the proceedings, 
 the examination of witnesses, &c., will be found in the Edinburgh 
 Annual Register for the year 1809, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 
 
 Neral, on 
 P= Y 3 
 a 
 
 ad 
 a Ee 
 
 nity was afforded of instituting an effectual inquiry 
 into the grounds of the various calumnies which had 
 of late been so industriously circulated against that 
 illustrious personage. His lordship delivered an 
 eulogium on the generosity and application to busi- 
 ness which the Duke of York had displayed, and on 
 the extreme order and regularity which he had in- 
 troduced into the office of the commander-in-chief. 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley spoke in the same tone, but his 
 words carried more weight with them ; particularly 
 when he dwelt upon the immense improvement of 
 the army since his royal highness’s appointment. 
 Never, he said, was there an army in a better 
 state, as far as depended on the commander-in- 
 chief, than that under his command last summer ; 
 and, if that army had not performed all the service 
 for which it was destined, the blame would have 
 rested with him, and not with the commander-in- 
 chief. Whatever discipline and enthusiasm they 
 felt was the result of the example afforded by the 
 illustrious person at the head of the army. Sir 
 Arthur treated with scorn the notion of the duke’s 
 putting a little money in his own pocket by en- 
 croaching upon the half-pay fund and by trafficking 
 in commissions. The House, he said, would re- 
 collect that this very half-pay fund was first esta- 
 blished by his royal highness, out of the money fur- 
 nished from the produce of commissions, which he 
 might have given away without any sale at all: 
 by the system which the Duke of York had intro- 
 duced an immense saving was effected to the pub- 
 lic, and an immense benefit conferred on the service. 
 The loyal Mr. Yorke, for his part, believed that a 
 conspiracy of the most atrocious and diabolical kind 
 existed against his royal highness, founded on the 
 Jacobinical spirit which appeared at the commence- 
 ment of the French revolution! With better effect 
 this gentleman pointed to the great and undeniable 
 improvement of our military forces. 
 
 York became commander-in-chief? It scarcely 
 
 deserved the name of an army; and it was now _ 
 
 found by experience to be, in proportion to its num- 
 
 ber, the best army in the world! No well-informed E, 
 
 man in the country, no officer in the army, could 
 
 deny that for this improvement we were in good part 
 indebted to the Duke of York, who, by the common A 
 soldiers, was always called “ the soldier’s friend.” _ 
 ‘Mr. Yorke suggested that a select committee, with | 
 
 power to examine on oath, would be preferable to 
 
 a committee of the whole House. Lord Folkestone — 
 and some more of Wardle’s friends were of the same _ 
 opinion, because they thought it, they said, better | 
 calculated for obtaining the ends of justice. Mr. — 
 Wilberforce also preferred a select committee, con- — 
 ceiving that justice would be best obtained by an | 
 
 inquiry private in its progress, but to be public in 
 
 the result; particularly when he reflected on the — 
 
 description of persons likely to be examined at the 
 bar of the honourable House!” * The chancellor of 
 
 * Wilberforce was greatly perplexed by this unpleasant business. 
 He notes in his Diary :—** Wardle’s motion on Duke of York—sad 
 
 : i 
 
 [Boox X. 
 | chief. He was glad, he added, that the opportu- 
 
 What, said 
 he, was the state of the army when the Duke of 
 
 t 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 the exchequer, though almost as decorous a man 
 
 as Wilberforce himself, thought that the House 
 ought not to abandon its inquisitorial functions in 
 this instance, and that the more public the inquiry 
 the better it would be for his royal highness, He 
 could state, on the authority of the Duke of York 
 himself, that that illustrious personage wished, like 
 any other subject, to be put publicly on his trial, 
 and to stand acquitted or convicted upon the case 
 that might be made out. He would stake his repu- 
 tation that the result of the inquiry would remove 
 all suspicion from his royal highness. The chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer finished by moving that the 
 inquiry should be carried on by a committee of the 
 whole House. It was agreed that this should be 
 the course pursued, and that the committee should 
 enter upon its functions on Wednesday next, the 
 Ist of February, During the debate Canning had 
 exclaimed, with great heat, ‘‘ Infamy must attach 
 somewhere! It must attach either to the accused 
 or to the accuser !” a 
 The inquiry occupied the almost undivided time 
 and attention of parliament for seven weeks, and 
 it continued to occupy and excite the minds of the 
 people a great deal longer ; and this too, in times 
 full of important events, at a crisis as interesting 
 and as critical as any that Europe had known. 
 What Wilberforce most dreaded came to pass— 
 Mrs. Clarke, and one or two others of that ‘ de- 
 scription of persons,’’ were examined at the bar of 
 the House; their examinations were reported day 
 by day; the immorality of the women was forgotten 
 in their wit and graceful impudence; and the 
 House smirked and laughed outright when the 
 pious abolitionist thought they ought to have in- 
 wardly groaned. Wilberforce, however, admits 
 that Mrs. Mary Anne did some good, as “ by fas- 
 cinating the House she prevented its degradation 
 by appearing to stifle the inquiry, and take too 
 strong a part with the Duke of York.” “It is 
 curious,” he adds, ‘‘to see how strongly she has 
 won upon people.”* This modern Phryne was 
 the daughter of a working printer or compositer, 
 and the wife of a bricklayer or, builder, whom she 
 had deserted long ago: she had lived under the 
 protection—as it was delicately called—of various 
 gentlemen of superior condition, and was said to 
 have ruined more than one of them by her boundless 
 extravagance. She was remarkable rather for grace 
 than for beauty, and more for her wit than for 
 either: though not old, she was certainly no longer 
 young when she first made the conquest of the Duke 
 of York. Her obeisance at the bar of the House 
 was pronounced a chef d’euvre of theatrical grace ; 
 and, when she spoke, her vivacity and quickness, 
 
 work! No apparent sense in the House of the guilt of adultery, only 
 of the political offence.-——Spoke for any other proceedings than the 
 bar of the House. Major Cartwright writes about parliamentary 
 reform as the only panacea. Alas! ’tis more a moral disease. . . . 
 I wanted greatly to move the examination of the Duke of York’s 
 business from the bar, open gallery, &c. to a committee up-stairs, 
 and some parliamentary inquest on oath. This melancholy busi- 
 ness will do irreparable mischief to public morals, by accustoming 
 the public to hear without emotion of shameless violations of 
 decency. . . . Lord, guide me right in this great business that 
 is now going on.”—Diary, in Life by his Sons, 
 * Diary. . 
 
 ee 
 
 Ne aC a a A a aa a aT aan 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 ee aa a a 
 
 463 
 
 accompanied by the most perfect coolness and self- 
 possession, made the majority of the august legis- 
 lators feel as if they were only listening to an ac- 
 complished actress on the stage. Too many of 
 them had known her aforetime, and occasionally 
 her speaking eye, glancing at the benches, revealed 
 these old intimacies. When the freedom and 
 point, or levity, of her replies were checked with 
 cries of “* Order!’ and with appeals to the dignity 
 of the House, by the chancellor of the exchequer 
 and Mr. Wilberforce, others encouraged her, and 
 even cheered her. On the first day her exami- 
 nation lasted two hours. “House,” says Wil- 
 berforce, ‘* examining Mrs. Clarke for two hours— 
 cross-examining her in the Old Bailey way—she 
 elegantly dressed, consummately impudent, and very 
 clever: she clearly got the better in the tussle ;—a 
 number of particulars let out about her life, mother, 
 children, &c. Colonel Gordon’s evidence would 
 have been sufficient, and I would not have asked 
 one question of Mrs. Clarke.” But the House 
 kept examining Mrs. Clarke for many days; and, 
 every time she went down to it, the House was 
 crowded, as were also the streets through which 
 she passed on her way. She was the greatest of 
 lions or lionesses. Even staid and decorous mem- 
 bers of the opposition in parliament, and strait- 
 laced political reformers out of doors, overlooked 
 the history of her life, and took her to their hearts 
 as a patriotess, whose revelations would do infinite 
 good to society by exposing and degrading a mem- 
 ber of the royal family, who had been the staunch 
 foe of reform or innovation in church and state. 
 Except an occasional blessing on the he-patriot of 
 the party, the virtuous Colonel Wardle, scarcely a 
 
 _name was heard in public for weeks but that of 
 
 Mary Anne Clarke. People lost their hats, bon- 
 nets, shoes, and pocket-handkerchiefs, in running 
 after the carriage that conveyed her through the 
 Park to St. Stephen’s Chapel, or in crowding at 
 the door of the House to get a near view of her 
 face and person. The poets and printers of the 
 Seven Dials, and the street ballad-singers, made a 
 fortune by her.* And still her wit and impudence 
 kept up the lively interest of the House of Com- 
 mons, charming those senators into a pleasant 
 obliviousness about the war, about Portugal and 
 Spain, about Bonaparte, our difficulties at home as 
 well as abroad, and about everything else. A Miss 
 Mary Anne Taylor deposed how the Duke of York 
 used to call Mrs. Clarke “darling,” and allow her 
 to take money for promotions, &c. [After this 
 
 * We still remember some of the lines that were written by one 
 of these St. Giles’s poets, part of a song that was sung in 1809 in 
 every street and lane in London :— 
 
 ‘© You have heard of Mrs. Clarke, 
 Who one night in the dark 
 
 With her husband fell out about bacon ; 
 But the theme of which I sing 
 Is of no such vulgar thing : 
 
 If you think it you are grossly mistaken. 
 
 The Mrs. Clarke that I mean 
 Has of late oft been seen 
 At a house not a mile from the Park ; 
 And, whenever there she goes, 
 You would laugh to see the beaus 
 Push and drive for to see Mrs. Clarke.” 
 
464 
 
 the errand-boys and the chimney-sweeps, playing 
 at toss halfpenny in the streets, never cried out 
 “ Heads or Tails,”’ but “ Duke or Darling.” ] When 
 the attorney-general, with due solemnity, asked Mrs. 
 Clarke who brought her a particular message, she 
 replied—* A particular friend of the duke’s.”— 
 “ Who was he ?” said the attorney-general.—“ Mr. 
 Taylor, the shoe-maker of Bond-street.” (A laugh.) 
 “By whom did you send your desires to the 
 duke ??? — “By my own pen.”’—T mean who 
 carried the letter ?”’—‘‘ The same ambassador.”’— 
 “What ambassador ?”—‘ Why, the ambassador 
 of Morocco.”’* This last sally convulsed the House 
 with laughter, and induced the speaker to threaten 
 Mrs. Clarke with the displeasure of the House— 
 from which, it was too evident, she had nothing to 
 fear. 
 
 That Mrs. Clarke had really distributed com- 
 missions, and among them one to her own brother, 
 and that she had received sums of money for her 
 interest in obtaining promotions and appointments, 
 seemed to be proved beyond all doubt; but that 
 the Duke of York had participated in her gains, 
 or had even had a knowledge of her transactions, 
 were circumstances the proof of which depended 
 chiefly, if not entirely, on the veracity of Mrs. 
 Clarke herself. Her credibility was somewhat 
 
 shaken at the moment, as it became generally | 
 
 known that she was now enjoying under Colonel 
 Wardle, the duke’s public accuser, the same sort of 
 protection which she had enjoyed under the duke ; 
 that, months before thus transferring herself, the 
 duke had quarrelled with her, at least parted from 
 her; and that the avowed motives of the disclosures 
 she made were an anxiety to please her present 
 
 paramour (who appears to have been as credulous . 
 
 in one direction as his royal highness had been in 
 another), and her eagerness to be revenged on the 
 duke, who had neglected to pay her 400/. a year, 
 which, she said, he had promised and engaged to 
 do. A little later the public faith in her disclosures 
 was still farther shaken by sundry little cir- 
 cumstances. She quarrelled with Wardle, and 
 separated from him—the quarrel being all about 
 money. In the month of July, of this same year 1809, 
 and before city and county meetings had quite 
 finished voting thanks to Colonel Wardle “ for his 
 singular intrepidity and integrity in instituting an 
 inquiry into the conduct of his Royal Highness 
 the Duke of York, and for the important and dis- 
 interested services he had thereby rendered to his 
 country,”’ a trial came on in the Court of King’s 
 Bench, the plaintiff being a Mr. Francis Wright, 
 an upholsterer of Rathbone-place, and the de- 
 fendant, Colonel Wardle. The attorney-general, 
 who appeared as counsel for the plaintiff, was scarcely 
 to be expected to spare the lash of his tongue on 
 such an occasion: he stated that Mr. Wright 
 
 * This ambassador of Morocco—or this Mr. Taylor, ladies shoe- 
 maker of Bond Street—had been a very active agent for the Duke 
 of York and his some-while mistress. It was he who bought for 
 the lady, with the Duke’s money, the house and furniture in 
 Gloucester-place, which had belonged to, and had been for years 
 occupied by, the American General Arnold, who had played false to 
 Washington and the American Republic. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 amount of sundry articles of furniture, delivered 
 at Colonel Wardle’s order, for fitting up a house 
 for Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke in Westbourne-place, 
 Chelsea. ‘‘ The colonel,” he said, ‘* had personally 
 given the order for the furniture and the promise 
 to pay for it. The plaintiff would not have trusted 
 Mrs. Clarke, who already owed him 500/. or 600/. ; 
 but she told him at the end of last autumn (that is, 
 after she had quarrelled with the duke, and after 
 Wardle had begun collecting materials for his 
 charges), that she had a friend in her eye 
 who would pay him for the furniture for the 
 new house. Wardle had gone with her to the 
 plaintifi’s shop or warehouse more than once; 
 some time after the furniture had been delivered, 
 Colonel Wardle, being short of ready money, had 
 called again, and had given the plaintiff, in part 
 payment, a bill for 500/. at three months ; but, as 
 the investigation of the charges against the Duke 
 of York was then to be proceeded in, this bill was 
 not signed by Colonel Wardle, but by his wine- 
 merchant, a Mr. Illingworth of Pall Mall, who 
 had taken up the bill as soon as it became due. 
 In the House of Commons the attorney-general, 
 together with the other crown lawyers, had strenu- 
 ously endeavoured to prove that the frail Mary 
 Anne was not a witness to be believed upon her 
 oath ; but now he had another cue, and, as counsel 
 for the upholsterer, he could professionally ask 
 how Colonel Wardle could possibly deny the cre- 
 dibility of Mrs. Clarke? It was true, continued 
 the crown lawyer, that she could not get credit 
 of her upholsterer, yet, as her evidence would be 
 confirmed by the brother of the plaintiff, and she 
 was upon her oath, she was deserving of credit be- 
 fore a jury. Being called in, Mrs. Mary Anne 
 Clarke appeared with her usual gaiety. She 
 stated upon oath that she first became acquainted 
 with Colonel Wardle in consequence of a letter 
 written by or for him to her from the Exchequer 
 coffee-house—that she took her new house in West- 
 bourne-place last September, but did not enter till 
 the 9th of November—that she communicated to 
 the colonel that she had taken it, and held several 
 conversations with him about furnishing it before 
 she applied to Wright the upholsterer, to whom 
 she was already in debt. ‘I did not,’ said the 
 pleasant and plain-speaking lady, whose tones, 
 however, were not now so agreeable to the colonel’s 
 ear as they had been in the House of Commons, 
 when divulging the failings of the duke, “ I did 
 not propose to Mr. Wright to furnish my new 
 house on credit, because I knew it would be in 
 vain. I told him I had a friend in view who 
 would pay him. Colonel Wardle was that friend 
 in view, in consequence of some promises he was 
 holding out tome. I was to give him every in- 
 formation in my power, and to assist him in the 
 invesiigation, in return for which he was to furnish 
 my house. ‘This was to be a part of the requital to 
 me for giving him that assistance.. . . . I had 
 no other means then of paying. I was very much 
 
 (Boox X. 
 | brought his action to recover 1914/. for the — 
 
~s 
 
 Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 distressed at that time. He knew that, and knew 
 of the debt to Wright, because he advised Mr, 
 Wright to bring an action against the person (the 
 Duke of York) who he thought ought to pay it. 
 He promised to Mr. Wright, if he should bring 
 such an action, that he would pay all the costs.” 
 She swore point blank to the colonel’s ordering 
 the furniture, and promising to pay foritall. The 
 colonel, she said, had afterwards gone a great 
 many times to Wright’s in a hackney-coach to 
 look out things for her. Major Dodd, private 
 secretary to the Duke of Kent, went once with 
 Colonel Wardle to the upholsterer’s to choose some 
 carpeting. She had chosen a pattern in West- 
 bourne-place, and a piece had been sent in; but 
 the colonel and the major preferred a pattern they 
 had seen at Wright’s. ‘‘ They wished,” said she, 
 ** to have a scarlet and bronze pattern.”? Nothing 
 could bring scarlet into her face: Lord Hllen- 
 borough was obliged to speak of her living hus- 
 band, and one of the counsel let drop the word 
 ** adulteress,”? at which she only smiled. She 
 swore to the bill given for the colonel by Illing- 
 worth, the wine-merchant, ‘‘ in consequence of the 
 investigation that was going on, or about to be 
 commenced.” ‘* I was rather fearful,” said she, ‘‘ of 
 doing with him alone what Wardle wanted me to 
 do, because he was not much known in parliament. 
 He introduced Major Dodd to me as a gentle- 
 man, a friend of his. I had heard of Major 
 Dodd before. About the end of November we 
 went on a tour for three days to view the Martello 
 Towers. Colonel Wardle, Mr. Glennie, the 
 engineer, and Major Dodd, were of the party. 
 I never went out of town but with Wardle. 
 This time, before I could go out of town, I was 
 obliged to have 50/. of the colonel,” &c. &c. 
 She declared that Wardle’s attorney had called 
 upon her and upon the upholsterer two or three 
 days before the trial to endeavour to stop it, and keep 
 the matter from being made public by referring 
 it to arbitration; and that this attorney had told 
 her that if it came before the court Sergeant Best 
 would cut her up by a severe cross-examination, 
 and Colonel Wardle and his friends would give 
 it out that she had been bribed by ministers. Mr. 
 D. Wright, the upholsterer’s brother, confirmed 
 Mrs. Clarke in every particular as to the credit 
 being given to Colonel Wardle. To save his 
 client’s purse, Sergeant Best, Wardle’s counsel, 
 was obliged to expose his want of intellect, and to 
 assail the credibility of the woman who had been 
 the colonel’s chief witness against the Duke of 
 York. “As for this Mrs. Clarke,” said Best, “she 
 is 4 woman whom nobody ought to believe ; she is 
 the most artful inventor of a fictitious tale that 
 ever appeared.” The jury would surely not invade 
 both Colonel Wardle’s property and honour upon 
 the testimony of a woman who could not be 
 believed in any court of justice ; if he could judge 
 of his client’s feelings by his own, he was quite 
 sure that, if she had made an exhibition like that 
 which she had made to-day before the colonel had 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 eS er cA SS 
 
 465 
 
 happened to make the motion against the Duke of 
 York, he would have attached no credit to her 
 evidence against his royal highness ! 
 
 The jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff 
 with costs, deducting the 5007, which had been 
 paid by the wine-merchant’s bill, and some items 
 which were thought to be improperly charged to 
 him, The affair cost Wardle 20001, and a loss 
 of reputation from which he never could recover. 
 On the very next day he published a thundering 
 letter in the newspapers, declaring before God and 
 his country that the verdict had been obtained by 
 perjury alone; and pledging himself to prove the 
 fact the earliest moment the forms of the law 
 would allow him to do so, by proceeding to a se- 
 cond trial, for which he had made application. 
 But, whether it was that the colonel shrunk from 
 the expense, or that he dreaded any further con- 
 test with so formidable an enemy and so skilful a 
 manoceuvrer as Mrs. Clarke, this second trial never 
 came on. 
 
 Only a part of this edifying history was known 
 in the months of February and March, when the 
 investigation and the debates on the amount of the 
 Duke of York’s culpability were going on in the 
 House of Commons (the upholsterer’s trial not 
 having come on until July); but already enough 
 was known of the character of Mrs. Clarke, of her 
 vindictive unscrupulous temper, and of the relation 
 in which she now stood towards the duke’s accuser, 
 to entitle that prince to more than the benefit of a 
 doubt in those most serious and most dishonouring 
 portions of the charges which were supported solely 
 by her evidence. Upon other grounds it was very 
 clearly proved that the duke, if ever he had known 
 of her pecuniary transactions, had never partici- 
 pated in her gains. His known character was 
 enough to negative any such implication ; he was, 
 in many matters where no mistress was concerned, 
 credulous and confiding, thoughtless about money, 
 and thus quite capable, and of necessity obliged, 
 to run into debt; but of anything worse than this 
 in money transactions he appears to have been 
 altogether incapable.* It was not proved, unless 
 we admit the evidence of Mrs. Clarke, and a single 
 story of her friend, Miss Mary Anne Taylor (whose 
 brother was married to Mrs. Clarke’s sister), that 
 the commander-in-chief ever knew of her getting 
 money by the favours which he dispensed at her 
 intercession ; but that he had yielded to that inter- 
 cession, and had granted a few commissions and 
 promotions and appointments to persons recom- 
 mended by his mistress, was proved and established 
 by ample and good evidence. ‘The whole extent 
 of this distribution of patronage was, however, very 
 
 * During the proceedings in the Commons, an honourable member 
 (Mr. Burton) endeavoured to excuse the Duke of York upon the score 
 of his ignorance of the value of money, saying, that forty years ago 
 one of the preceptors of the princes had told him he never could teach 
 them this, though they were quick enough at Greek and even at arith- 
 metic! Whitbread replied, that in the forty years which had elapsed 
 since this opinion was delivered by the tutor, their royal highnesses 
 hadsurely had ample time to gain information and experience. Other 
 members laughed at Burton’s anecdote ; yet, with reference to more 
 than one of the sons of the careful George III. and the saving Queen 
 Charlotte, it must be admitted that the anecdote had a true point. 
 2D 
 
466 
 
 inconsiderable—was absolutely nothing compared 
 with what had been dispensed in that way, under 
 the same influences and through the same medium, 
 in former times; and, although some of the appoint- 
 ments were bestowed on improper persons (thus 
 Mrs. Clarke’s foot-boy had got a commission in 
 the army as well as her brother), this was certainly 
 not the general rule, and there were two or three 
 cases in which the prevailing mistress, who had 
 her generous qualities too, had successfully exerted 
 herself in behalf of meritorious individuals who did 
 honour to the service, and who, being in distressed 
 circumstances at the time, could not have paid her 
 for the commissions or places she procured them, 
 The defenders of the duke were, for the most 
 part, though not entirely, members of the present 
 administration, and crown lawyers; while on the 
 opposite side were many of the so-called indepen- 
 dent members, who were not habitual opposition- 
 ists, and who assumed on all occasions the merit 
 of voting solely and simply according to the dic- 
 tates of their judgment and conscience. Among 
 these was Wilberforce, the warmth of whose moral 
 and religious feelings seems to have prevented him 
 from carefully examining the question, so as to 
 ascertain on what poits the duke was culpable 
 and on what perfectly innocent. He spoke several 
 times, and at great length on one occasion, when 
 the House grew impatient and hurried him to a 
 conclusion.* _ He took, however, a middle line 
 between the leniency of his friend, Spencer Perce- 
 val, chancellor of the exchequer, and the Spartan 
 severity of Colonel Wardle. His friends told him 
 that his speech made a great moral impression in 
 the country; and that the Duke of Cumberland, 
 the king, and all the royal family were extremely 
 angry at him; and, as Wilberforce, perhaps 
 unknown to himself, loved the breath of popularity, 
 and prided himself in little martyrdoms for con- 
 science sake, he must have been doubly gratified 
 by this information. Testimonials of the highest 
 value, as coming from the most competent judges, 
 continued, however, to be given to the Duke of 
 York’s general management of affairs at the Horse 
 Guards; and it was cogently urged that the 
 numerous improvements which he had introduced 
 into the army, and the point of excellence to which 
 the army had attained since he had been its com- 
 mander-in-chief, ought to cover and wipe away a 
 few petty irregularities and peccadilloes. It might 
 be proved that the duke had his weaknesses, and 
 had, in some instances, yielded to a most artful and 
 fascinating woman; but no one could disprove the 
 
 * Wilberforce said, with some point, that it was not at a time like 
 the present, when all the continental nations were broken down by 
 the armies of France, that this country should have a commander- 
 in-chief liable to be blinded and duped by a woman! ‘‘ Bonaparte 
 succeeded as much by intrigue as by open force, and, if he found 
 that we had a commander-in-chief who was duped by his mistress, it 
 would be easy for him to gain an ascendancy over such a woman, in 
 order to command the most important secrets of the state. Bonaparte 
 could easily bring over such a woman, not only for a sum of money, 
 but by promising to make a duchess or a princess of her! This was 
 a game he had played before now; and the more innocent and the 
 more unsuspecting the Duke of York might be, the greater would 
 be the danger if the enemy could find out anybody that had such 
 influence over him,” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. - 
 
 facts that he had been assiduous in his attention 
 to the business of the army, and that he had — 
 proved himself to be a good man of business. 
 The army had never had a commander-in-chief 
 with whom it was so well satisfied, or to whom it 
 was so much attached :—take common soldiers, 
 as well as officers of every class, and these feelings 
 of satisfaction and attachment would be found in 
 immense majorities. Such were the best argu- 
 ments used in the duke’s defence, and the truths 
 on which they rest remain indisputable. After 
 much consideration on the mode of coming to a 
 decision, three different determinations remained for 
 the choice of the House:—1. The administration 
 proposed to acquit the duke entirely on all the 
 charges :—2. Wardle, Lord Folkestone, Burdett, 
 Whitbread, and their friends proposed that the 
 duke’s knowledge of, and connivance at, the cor- 
 rupt practices which had been proved to exist 
 should be admitted, or held by implication, as 
 substantiated by the evidence, and that the House 
 should suggest to his majesty the propriety of 
 the duke’s immediate removal from office : —3. 
 Mr. Bankes, supported by Wilberforce, Thornton, 
 and all that party, would acquit the duke of all 
 personal corruption ; but, assuming that he could ~ 
 not have been wholly ignorant of some of the, — 
 abuses, they were of opinion that the command of — 
 the army could not with propriety be continued 
 to him. On the 15th of March, or rather on 
 the 16th (for the House sat through the night 
 until six o’clock in the morning), there was a divi- 
 sion on the question whether the mode of pro- 
 ceeding should be by address or by resolution. © 
 Ministers were very anxious to exclude the medium — 
 of address; and the proceeding by resolution was 
 carried by 294 against 199. The House then di- 
 vided upon Wardle’s motion, containing a direct 
 inculpation of the duke, which was negatived by 
 364 against 123, for many who allowed the minor 
 offences would not admit the major. On the 17th 
 of March the chancellor of the exchequer recom- 
 mended the first of the three determinations, 
 moving, ‘“‘ ‘That the House, having examined the — 
 evidence in the investigation on the Duke of York’s 
 conduct, and having found that personal corruption 
 and connivance at corruption have been imputed 
 to him, are of opinion that the imputation is wholly 
 without foundation.” The so-called independent _ 
 members, who took the middletcourse with Bankes 
 and Wilberforce, kept aloof; but Perceval’s motion - 
 was nevertheless carried by 278 against 196. This 
 
 was only a majority of 82; but before dividing 
 
 upon Perceval’s resolution the House had divided 
 
 upon an amendment, moved by Sir T. Turton, 
 which went to charge the duke with having know- 
 
 ledge of all the corruption which had been disclosed, 
 
 and, as upon this point the independent or middle 
 
 party voted with ministers, the said amendment 
 
 had been rejected by a majority of 200 all but one, 
 
 the numbers having been 334 against 135. It 
 
 was now five o’clock on Saturday morning the 19th 
 
 of March, and the House adjourned till Monday 
 
 I ere Pd ee al ty OMe 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 the 21st. On their next meeting the chancellor of 
 the exchequer informed them, that on the Saturday 
 morning, as soon as their decision had been made 
 known to him, the Duke of York had waited upon 
 the king, and tendered his resignation, which had 
 been accepted.* The chancellor of the exchequer 
 added that, having made this communication, he 
 left it to the House without comment—that whether 
 it did not render any further proceeding unneces- 
 sary was for Mr. Bathurst and the House to deter- 
 mine. Mr. Bathurst, still thinking it the duty of 
 the Commons to insert in their journals such a 
 decision as should contain both example and admo- 
 nition, persisted in moving a resolution to this 
 effect, of which he had before given notice. Lord 
 Althorpe, though desirous of recording some con- 
 demnation of the duke’s conduct, differed from 
 Mr. Bathurst, and wished it to be stated in the 
 journal that the duke had resigned. This, his lord- 
 ship said, would bring the whole proceeding to its 
 proper close, and show satisfactorily why it was 
 closed. Removal from office was not, indeed, a 
 constitutional punishment; but it would, in this 
 case, be so far effective as to preclude the possibi- 
 lity of the royal duke being ever re-appointed to a 
 situation which he had proved himself so incompe- 
 tent to fill. He had lost the confidence of the 
 couutry for ever, and must, therefore, abandon all 
 hope of ever returning to that situation. Lord Al- 
 thorpe concluded with moving, that, his royal high- 
 ness having resigned, the House does not now think 
 it necessary to proceed any farther in consideration 
 of the evidence. Perceval replied, that, after the 
 House had negatived the charges, it would be un- 
 just, it would be monstrous, thus to reserve to 
 themselves the right of reviving the proceedings 
 against his royal highness at any future period ; 
 and he moved as an amendment that Lord Al- 
 thorpe’s word “now” should be expunged. This 
 was carried by a majority of 123; the numbers 
 voting being 235 against 112. Mr. Bathurst?s 
 admonitory resolution was then negatived without 
 a division. 
 Thus terminated a discussion which occupied 
 hearly a third of the whole session, to the grievous 
 interruption of public business, and the more grie- 
 vous excitement of the people. The affair, how- 
 ever, was not without its beneficial results. A 
 striking proof was given to the world that, under 
 our constitution, no rank, however elevated, could 
 shelter abuses from detection, or screen those con- 
 cerned in them from the effects of public displea- 
 sure. ‘The king’s second and favourite son, a prince 
 so near the throne himself, had been driven from 
 
 * The Duke of York had said to his father, that, the House of 
 Commons having passed a resolution declaratory of his innocence, 
 he might now approach his majesty and tender his resignation, as 
 he could no longer be suspected of acting from any apprehension 
 of the result of the parliamentary investigation, nor be accused of 
 having shrunk from an inquiry which, painful as it had been, he 
 had met with a patience and firmness which could have arisen only 
 from conscious innocence :—that he must quit with sincere regret 
 a situation in which his majesty’s confidence and partiality had 
 placed him, and the duties of which it had been his anxious study 
 and pride, during fourteen years, to discharge with integrity and 
 fidelity; whether he might be allowed to add, with advantage to 
 the service, his majesty was best able to decide, 
 
 re 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809, 
 
 467 
 
 office by a member of the House of Commons who 
 was unheard of before this transaction, and who 
 possessed neither the influence of character nor ihe 
 influence of talent. It had been proved to the 
 conviction of the country that the Duke of York 
 was so far culpable as to render his resignation 
 proper ; that resignation had taken place in con- 
 sequence, and public opinion had thus obtained a 
 most signal triumph. Where the duke had thus 
 incurred punishment and disgrace individuals of 
 less rank and influence could not expect that 
 their official delinquencies or irregularities should 
 escape; the fate of the prince was an example 
 and admonition not easily to be forgotten. Until 
 the time when there will be no more war, and 
 when: men will no more want commissions in 
 armies, or profitable places under government, it 
 will be in vain to expect perfection in anything, vain 
 to hope that the distributors of patronage will not 
 occasionally yield to favouritism and other influ- 
 ences, besides that great parliamentary influence 
 over appointments which—fatal as it often is—can 
 hardly be destroyed without destroying the consti- 
 tution. [And, were we to destroy the British con- 
 stitution to-morrow by thoroughly democratizing it, 
 we have the melancholy example of the United 
 States of America to convince us that democracy is 
 no protection against such abuses—that there is 
 more jobbing and dirty work in one State of the 
 Union than in all Downing-street and Whitehall.]* 
 But, notwithstanding the occasional interference 
 of friends, wives, sisters, cousins, and other con- 
 nexions, which may possibly be as mischievous 
 though less indecorous than that of a mistress, we 
 believe it is admitted, by all candid and properly 
 informed persons, that since the investigation in 
 1809, patronage at the Horse-guards, as well as in 
 the other offices of government, has been distri- 
 buted with more attention to the public service than 
 at any time preceding that inquiry 
 
 It had been hoped, on the resignation of the 
 Duke of York, that the system of the Admiralty 
 would be adopted at the War-office, and that the 
 office of commander-in-chief would be put in com- 
 mission. ‘This had been the more confidently ex- 
 pected as it would make several places, instead of 
 one, and so far tend to increase the patronage of 
 government. But, to the disappointment of sundry 
 expectants, ministers made no alteration in the 
 existing system, and that worthy but old and pe- 
 dantic and worn-out officer, Lieutenant-General Sir 
 David Dundas, was appointed to succeed his royal 
 highness. ‘The army felt that it had sustained a 
 grievous loss by this change, and before old Sir 
 David had presided six months at the Horse-guards 
 there was a universal clamour against him. 
 
 In the course of the session the chancellor of the 
 exchequer moved for leave to bring in a bill to pre- 
 vent the sale and brokerage of offices. He ob- 
 served, that the practices lately disclosed consisted 
 
 * See for confirmation the extracts from the Correspondence of 
 Lord Sydenham (Poulett Thomson), in the Memoir of his Life 
 published by his Brother. 
 
~ 
 ' 
 By 
 
 468 HISTORY 
 
 not in the sale of offices by those who had the 
 power to give them, but in the arts of those who 
 pretended to possess an influence over such per- 
 sons. His object, therefore, was to make it highly 
 penal to solicit money for procuring government 
 offices, or to circulate advertisements with that 
 view. Leave being given, the bill was brought in, 
 and, before the end of the session, it was passed 
 into a law. 
 
 The commissioners of naval inquiry and revi- 
 sion presented another report, which brought to 
 light many more abuses in that department. The 
 commissioners of military inquiry, who also con- 
 tinued their labours, presented several very signifi- 
 cant reports, showing that large sums of money, 
 and large powers in money-transactions, had often 
 been intrusted to various persons without the ne- 
 cessary securities, checks, and precautions ; that in 
 the West Indies a regular and unchecked system 
 of peculation had been carried on in the most 
 unblushing manner; that the paymasters, the 
 agents of the commissary-general, and others in 
 our West India islands, had been in the habit of 
 committing great frauds, &c. It is to be observed 
 that these denunciations were almost entirely 
 retrospective, referring to transactions which had 
 passed many years ago. ‘The evils appear to have 
 originated principally in the unsystematic, slovenly 
 way of keeping the public accounts. 
 
 It had been for some time reported by the op- 
 position that government had made, and was still 
 making, a regular traffic in Hast India appoint- 
 ments. A select committee of the House of Com- 
 mons was nominated to inquire into the existence 
 of any corrupt practices in regard to the appoint- 
 ment of writers or cadets in the service of the 
 East India Company; and this committee re- 
 ported that it appeared that a very great number 
 of such places had been disposed of in an illegal 
 manner. In the course of the examinations it 
 was discovered that Lord Castlereagh, as president 
 of the board of control, had placed a writership at 
 the disposal of his friend Lord Clancarty, which 
 writership Clancarty was to give to one Mr. 
 Reding, as the price of a seat in Parliament for 
 himself (Clancarty), the said Mr. Reding, a regu- 
 lar dealer in contraband promotions, meaning to 
 sell this writership for 3000 guineas. ‘This ne- 
 gotiation being disclosed to the House, Lord Archi- 
 bald Hamilton, on the 25th of April, moved, that 
 Lord Castlereagh had been guilty of a violation of 
 his duty, of an abuse of his influence and autho- 
 rity as president of the board of control, and also of 
 an attack upon the purity and constitution of par- 
 liament. Lord Castlereagh’s defence was, that 
 when this transaction took place he had no notion 
 that such a person existed as a trafficking broker 
 for places; that Reding had represented to him 
 that a member of the House of Commons, who in- 
 tended to vacate his seat, had a nephew whom he 
 wished to send out to India as a writer, and would 
 favour the election of any friend of his. “I per- 
 ceived,” said his lordship, “no impropriety in the 
 
 OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 case, considering it perfectly fair for one friend to 
 serve another at an election. When I placed the 
 writership at Lord Clancarty’s disposal, I had no 
 other view than to serve my friend, and had no 
 hesitation to give a writership to the son or nephew 
 of any respectable gentleman who could promote 
 that view, particularly as I was myself to deter- 
 mine whether the party recommended for the 
 writership was eligible. In my opinion, no turpi- 
 tude attaches to the transaction.” Lord Castle- 
 reagh then modestly bowed and withdrew from the 
 House.* Lord Binning insisted that there was 
 no corrupt design in the transaction, and moved 
 the order of the day. Mr. Croker supported the 
 motion, saving that in this case there really ex- 
 isted nothing but a parliamentary difficulty; that 
 the thing had become familiar by custom, and 
 could only be considered as a venial offence. The 
 chancellor of the exchequer and Mr. Manners 
 Sutton argued that, as the whole case rested in a 
 mere intention :—as nothing had taken effect—as 
 no bargain had been concluded—as no privilege had 
 been violated,—therefore no further proceeding 
 was necessary. On the other hand, Mr. C. W. 
 Wynne maintained, that, if the negotiation had 
 failed, it was not from any want of inclination in 
 Lord Castlereagh to complete it. He knew, he 
 said, that there were many persons in the House 
 who were disposed to argue that the influence of 
 government over elections was not injurious, and 
 that little disadvantage resulted from the practice 
 of bribery ; but, for himself, he must think, when a 
 case like the present was made out, they were 
 bound in duty to follow the course prescribed by 
 law and by act of parliament, whatever their pri- 
 vate opinions might be. Surely the intention 
 manifested and acknowledged was sufficient to 
 establish the criminality. Sir Francis Burdett 
 and Mr. W. Smith warmly supported Lord Ar- 
 chibald Hamilton. Windham recommended a 
 middle course, saying, that, if the House passed 
 to the order of the day, as proposed by Lord 
 Binning, it might be regarded as an approbation 
 of the principle involved in the proceeding ; and 
 that, on the other hand, before condemning Lord 
 Castlereagh so very violently as Lord Archibald 
 Hamilton proposed to do, they would do well to 
 ask themselves whether they would hesitate, for the 
 purpose of securing an election, to recommend a 
 friend to government. Windham concluded by 
 alluding to the meetings that were holding, and to 
 the loud cry that was prevailing out of doors, for 
 parliamentary reform—for a reform which, he 
 said, must inevitably terminate in revolution. 
 This was calculated to alarm many who were not 
 altogether indisposed to mark with some cen- 
 sure the conduct of Lord Castlereagh. Wilber- 
 
 * Before withdrawing, his Lordship however added:—‘*I had 
 no suspicion of the improper motives from which Mr. Reding was 
 acting. The only conversation Lord Clancarty had with him was 
 for the purpose of learning who was the person disposed to retire 
 from parliament, and, finding that he could not obtain that infor- 
 
 mation, he broke off the business. It is evident, therefore, that 
 the bartering of a writershi t consideration was as 
 
 p for any cdrrup 
 far from Lord Clancarty’s mind as from my own.” y | 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 force,‘ after being ‘long doubtful,” at last de- 
 cided to vote in favour of Castlereagh, thinking 
 it “too severe to turn him out for such an of- 
 fence.’ Some of Wilberforce’s friends, however, 
 took the opposite course. The debate was con- 
 cluded by Canning, who moved, “ That it is the duty 
 of the House to maintain a jealous guard over the 
 purity and independence of parliament; but that, 
 having duly weighed the evidence and all the cir- 
 cumstances of the present case, the House does not 
 think it necessary to come to any criminating reso- 
 lution.” Upon a division Lord Archibald Hamil- 
 ton’s original motion was negatived by 216 against 
 167. The House then divided upon Canning’s 
 motion, which was carried by a majority of 47.* 
 On the 5th of May, Mr. Madox, then a close 
 ally of Sir Francis Burdett, Colonel Wardle, and 
 other hot parliamentary reformers, brought forward 
 in the house charges against Perceval, the chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer, Lord Castlereagh, as 
 secretary-at-war, and the Hon. Henry Wellesley, 
 brother to General Sir Arthur, and late secretary 
 of the treasury, of being guilty of corrupt and cri- 
 minal practices, in order to procure members to be 
 elected into this parliament. Buta few days after- 
 wards, when Madox moved criminating resolutions, 
 he was out-voted by a majority of 225 against 85. 
 In the meantime Mr. Curwen had (on the 4th of 
 May) moved for leave to bring in a bill for “ better 
 securing the independence and purity of parlia- 
 ment, by preventing the procuring or obtaining 
 seats by corrupt practices, and likewise more 
 effectually to prevent bribery.”’ Mr. Curwen 
 made use of some very unfortunate arguments ; 
 but the leave he asked was granted, and his bill, 
 which dwelt in generalities, and which added little 
 to the Grenville Act already existing, was carried 
 by a narrow majority, and became ]aw—but not 
 until it had been subjected to various alterations. 
 Onthe 15th of June, two days after the closing 
 of the discussions upon Curwen’s bill, Sir Francis 
 Burdett made a motion for a sweeping parlia- 
 mentary reform. Nearly all the country gentle- 
 men in the House had left town, and of the mem- 
 bers that remained but few were inclined to enter 
 upon this discussion at the fag end of the session. 
 Sir Francis had intended to make his motion the 
 day before, but there had not been members enough 
 present to make a House; and now, when the 
 House divided, he found only 15 to vote for him, 
 while 74 voted against him. 
 On the 21st of June the session was closed with 
 a speech from the throne, again delivered by com- 
 missioners. This speech dwelt chiefly upon the 
 determined and unconquerable resistance of Spain 
 against the usurpation and tyranny of the French 
 ~* After this, Mr. C. W, Wynne proposed to add to Canning’s reso- 
 lution words to this effect :—‘‘ That the House is confirmed in its opi- 
 nion, that it is unnecessary to proceed further in the case, from the 
 openness which Lord Castlereagh has displayed, and the regret which 
 he has expressed for his conduct.” This was negatived without a 
 division. But Wilberforce admitted the principle into his Diary, say- 
 ing, a few days afterwards, ‘*‘ The Burdettites are trying to stir up 
 a flame about Castlereagh’s not being condemned by the House of 
 
 Commons; but he owned his fault frankly and humbly; so did all 
 his colleagues; and it rested in intention, and never was an act.” 
 
 ‘ov «geile Sin, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 rn 
 
 469 
 
 government, and upon the splendid and important 
 successes which had recently crowned the arms of 
 the Emperor of Austria, under the able and dis- 
 tinguished conduct of his Imperial Highness the 
 Archduke Charles. 
 
 The Austrian war operated as a grand diversion 
 likely to be highly favourable for the Peninsula, 
 as it distracted the attention of Bonaparte, obliged 
 him to withdraw his Imperial Guards from Spain, 
 and prevented his sending reinforcements to that 
 country so quickly as he would otherwise have 
 done. The British government, undismayed by 
 the unfortunate, but not inglorious or discouraging 
 result of Sir John Moore’s campaign, and un- 
 deterred by the orators and writers who represented 
 the attempt as the height of madness, resolved to 
 persevere in sending assistance to the Peninsula, 
 and to enter upon that war on a larger and a bolder 
 scale. Spain, at the moment, did indeed seem 
 prostrate and lost; and even Portugal, from which 
 the French had been completely expelled, was, 
 long before the rising of parliament, re-invaded by 
 an army under Marshal Soult. But, in a memo- 
 
 -randum dated on the 7th of March, Sir Arthur 
 
 Wellesley, who had well examined the country 
 during his short stay in it, delivered his decided 
 opinion that Portugal might be defended, whatever 
 might be the result of the contest in Spain; and 
 that in the meantime the measures adopted for the 
 defence of Portugal would be highly useful to the 
 Spaniards in their contest with the French. His 
 notion was,—that the Portuguese military establish- 
 ments ought, by means of English assistance, to 
 be raised to 40,000 militia and 30,000 regular 
 troops; that the British troops in the country 
 should be raised to 20,000 infantry, and 4000 or 
 5000 cavalry; that the rifle corps should be in- 
 creased ; that other choice infantry should be sent 
 out, together with an additional corps of artillery 
 and more ordnance; that, even if Spain should be 
 conquered, the French would not be able to over- 
 run Portugal with a smaller force than 100,000 
 men; and that, as long as the contest should con- 
 tinue in Spain, the united British and Portuguese 
 force, if it could be put in a state of activity, would 
 be highly useful to the Spaniards, and might 
 eventually decide the contest.* 
 
 * In this remarkable document, short as it is, nearly everything 
 is foreseen and, provided for. Sir Arthur knew how the Spanish 
 juntas had misapplied the money which Great Britain had sent ; 
 and, therefore, he recommends that the English ambassador at 
 Lisbon shall be empowered to give or withhold such sums as he 
 may think necessary for the support of the Portuguese military 
 establishments only. The Spanish juntas, partly through their own 
 ignorance of business, partly through their own corruption, and partly 
 through the difficulty of raising any taxes even in the districts where 
 the French were not, had made a terrible jumble of the revenue. 
 Sir Arthur recommended that the English ambassador at Lisbon should 
 see that the revenues of Portugal, whatever they might be, were in the 
 first instance applied to the military establishments of the country, 
 and that our ambassador should have a complete control over the mea- 
 sures of the Portuguese government. As indispensable parts of his 
 plan, Sir Arthur laid it down that the whole of the army in Portugal, 
 Portuguese as well as British, should be placed under the command of 
 British officers; that the staff of the army, the commissariat in parti- 
 cular, must be British; and that these two departments must be in- 
 creased in proportion to the strength of the whole army about to act 
 in Portugal, to the number of detached posts it would be necessary to 
 occupy, and with a view to the great difficulties of providing and distri- 
 buting supplies in that country. But for the care taken by Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley of the conmissariat, which other commanders in chief had 
 
470 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ~  [Boow X. 
 
 There could now scarcely be a doubt as to the 
 proper person to be appointed to the supreme com- 
 mand of the armies in Portugal. If any such 
 doubt had lingered, it ought to have been dissi- 
 pated by Sir Arthur’s memorandum of the 7th of 
 March, by other suggestions he offered to ministers 
 with rare brevity, clearness, and precision, and by 
 the concurring opinion of the best officers in the 
 British army. Men as well as officers, Portu- 
 guese as well as British, called loudly for his 
 return to the Peninsula. In spite of the very il- 
 liberal and very unwise opposition of Lord Folke- 
 stone, and a few other individuals of that party, votes 
 of thanks to Sir Arthur, and a resolution in appro- 
 bation of the gallant conduct of the non-commis- 
 sioned officers and privates who had fought at 
 Roliga and Vimeiro, were passed by both Houses 
 in the month of February. Towards the end of 
 March, Sir Arthur Wellesley, having previously 
 
 | 
 | 
 | 
 
 resigned his office of secretary for Ireland, as well | 
 as his seat in parliament, and having taken a long 
 farewell of home politics, accepted the chief com- 
 mand of the British forces in the Peninsula. On 
 the 15th of April he set sail from Portsmouth for 
 Lisbon in the ‘ Surveillante’ frigate, which was very 
 nearly Jost in a storm at the back of the Isle of 
 Wight, the night after she quitted Spithead.* The 
 fleet having on board his horses, two regiments of 
 heavy dragoons, and some horses for the artillery, 
 sailed a few days after him; and a regiment of 
 hussars, the 24th foot, and a brigade of light in- 
 fantry, very soon followed. On the 22nd of April 
 he arrived safely at Lisbon, and took the command 
 of the army, which had now been left for some | 
 time in the hands of Sir J. Cradock. Almostas | 
 soon as he arrived, he said he thought that Mar- 
 shal Soult would not remain long in Portugal. 
 
 Soult, after the capitulation of the Spaniards at 
 
 LISBON. 
 
 Corufa, had obtained easy possession of Ferrol, 
 Bilboa, and all the most important places on the 
 northern coast of Spain. Then he had proceeded 
 towards Portugal, and, having entered that country 
 by Braga, he had taken possession of Oporto on 
 the 29th of March, after a spiritless resistance of 
 
 been accustomed woefully to neglect, or to leave to their inferiors— 
 thinking barrels of salt pork and bags of biscuits unworthy the 
 attention of well-bred gentlemen and gallant soldiers; but for the 
 reforms he gradually introduced into our un-systematised com- 
 missariat department, there would have been no such glorious 
 victories as Salamanca, Vitoria, and Toulouse; but the British 
 army would have been wasted away by famine, and driven from the 
 eee with disgrace. 
 or the rest of this memorandum on the defence of Port 
 
 Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. nee 
 
 a eee een aes carpe nee 
 
 only two days. Upon the rapid advance of Soult | 
 Sir J. Cradock had concentrated his forces for the 
 defence of Lisbon. There were other discourag- | 
 ing circumstances: the French had reduced many | 
 towns and districts on the east of the Ebro; Zara- | 
 goza, a second time besieged, was not so valorous | 
 or so fortunate as in 1808, but had been obliged to | 
 surrender at discretion on the 14th of February ;_ | 
 and, what was gloomiest of all, the Spaniards ‘at 
 Madrid, and in many other large cities and dis- 
 tricts, seemed to be quietly resigning themselves | 
 to the dominion of King Joseph, Still, however, | 
 * Note by Colonel Gurwood, in Dispatches. | 
 
Guar. VI]. CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS:—1809, 471 , 
 
 there were some brighter glimpses—some few in- 
 dications of Spanish patriotism and resolution : for 
 no sooner had Soult evacuated Galicia than the 
 people rose in arms, and several places in the 
 Asturias and in the Biscayan provinces had been 
 
 re-taken by the patriots. Moreover, in Portugal, 
 a body of Portuguese regulars had been admirably 
 disciplined in the English manner by General 
 Beresford, to whom the Prince Regent of Portugal 
 had given the chief command of all his troops. 
 Beresford’s Portuguese, being added to the British 
 reinforcements, enabled Sir Arthur to take the 
 field with an army of about 25,000 men. His first 
 business was to dislodge Soult from Oporto; and 
 to this end, and after leaving a division on the 
 Tagus to guard the eastern frontiers against the 
 French division or corps of Victor, stationed in 
 Spanish Estremadura, he quitted Lisbon, on the 
 28th of April, for Coimbra. Having collected his 
 forces at Coimbra, he moved, on the 9th of May, 
 in the direction of Oporto, driving back all the 
 French who had advanced south of the Douro.* 
 By the 11th he occupied the southern bank of 
 that river opposite the town of Oporto. The 
 French had destroyed the bridges and removed the 
 boats to their own side; and Soult was preparing 
 to retire leisurely by the road to Galicia. But 
 Wellesley determined that the Marshal’s retreat 
 should not be quite so comfortable: he sent 
 General Murray with a brigade to pass the Douro, 
 about four miles above Oporto, whilst the brigade 
 of guards was directed to cross the river at the 
 suburb of Villanova, and the main body, under 
 Wellesley’s own eye, was to attempt a passage in 
 the centre, by means of any boats that they could 
 find, just above the town. The Douro at this part 
 is very rapid, and nearly three hundred yards wide. 
 The ground on the left bank, or English side of the 
 river, was protected and commanded by some 
 cannon placed on the height of the Serra convent 
 at Villanova; and there appeared to be'a good 
 position for our troops on the opposite side of the 
 river, till they should be collected in sufficient 
 numbers, The enemy took no notice of the collect- 
 ing of boats by the English, or of the embarkation 
 of our troops, till after the first battalion (the 
 Buffs) were landed, and had taken up their se- 
 lected position, on the opposite bank, under the 
 command of Major-General the Honourable Sir 
 K. Paget. The French then made a most fu~ 
 rious attack, which they continued for about two 
 * We have no room for details of minor engagements; but in this 
 advance there were two affairs of some importance. On the 10th of 
 May, Sir Arthur attempted to surprise the French cavalry which had 
 crossed the Douro; and, although the surprise failed, several advan- 
 tages were gained i in the field, and one piece of cannon was taken, 
 The Portuguese riflemen, and the Portuguese students, who had 
 volunteered into the army, behaved remarkably well. On the 11th 
 of May the French gave him a field-day, His advanced guard, con- 
 sisting only of the first battalion of detachments, two battalions of 
 the Ger man Legion, and Colonel Doyle’s battalion of the 16th Por- 
 tuguese regiment, completely beat a corps of about 4000 infantry. 
 The Portuguese troops again behaved remarkably well. It was 
 already clear that, under good British officers, full reliance might 
 be placed upon them. On their retreat, the French were hotly 
 pursued by two squadrons of dragoons, ‘led by Brigadier-General 
 the Hon. Charles Stewart (the late Marquess of Londonderry), who 
 
 destroyed many, and took some prisoners.— Wellington Dispatches. 
 + Brother to the late Marquess of Anglesey. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 SS 
 
 471 
 
 hours; but the Buffs got possession of an I nie ome few in- | hours; butthe Buffs got possession ofan unGnished | 
 building called the Seminario, from which nothing 
 could dislodge them; and, although cavalry, in- 
 fantry, and artillery, under he comand of Mar- 
 shal Soult himself, were hurled against them, the 
 Buffs most gallantly kept their position, till sup- 
 ported successively by the 48th and 66th regiments, 
 
 belonging to the brigade of Major-General Hill, 
 
 who crossed the river in fine style, by a Portuguese 
 battalion, and afterwards by the first battalion of 
 detachments. General Paget was wounded soon 
 after the French attack commenced, when the com- 
 mand of these troops devolved upon General Hill.* 
 While Hill was maintaining the combat at the 
 Seminario, and giving ample occupation to Soult, 
 
 General Sherbrooke, with the guards (one bee 
 gade) and the 29th regiment, crossed the river 
 lower down, entered into the very town of Oporto, 
 amidst the acclamations of the mhabitants, charged 
 the French through the streets, and presently ap- 
 peared upon Soult’s right flank. In the meantime 
 General Murray had crossed the river at Avintas, 
 
 about four miles higher up, and the head of his 
 column now began to show itself on the French 
 left. Soult instantly ordered a retreat, which was 
 effected in the utmost confusion: he left behind 
 his sick and wounded, and many prisoners, be- 
 sides artillery and ammunition, and retired by 
 Amarante, with the intention of passing through 
 Tras-os-Montes into Spain. 
 
 Thus the fair city of Oporto was left in posses- 
 sion of the British. The passage of the broad 
 and rapid Douro, effected in broad day, with most 
 defective means of transport, and in presence of a 
 French marshal at the head of 10,000 veterans, 
 has been considered one of Wellington’s finest 
 achievements. He had lost only 23 killed and 
 98 wounded. Soult’s loss was very large, and the 
 sick and wounded he left in Oporto amounted to 
 700.¢ On taking possession of Oporto, General 
 Wellesley issued a very necessary proclamation, 
 strictly enjoining the inhabitants to respect the 
 French wounded and prisoners. ‘I call upon 
 the inhabitants of Oporto to be merciful to the 
 wounded and prisoners! By the laws of war they 
 are entitled to my protection, which I am deter- 
 mined to afford them; and it will be worthy of 
 the generosity and bravery of the Portuguese na- 
 tion not to revenge the injuries which have been 
 done to them on these unfortunate persons, who 
 can only be considered as instruments in the hands 
 of the more powerful, who are still in arms against 
 us.” He also wrote iminediately to Marshal Soult 
 to request him to send some French medical 
 officers to take care of their sick and wounded, as 
 he could not spare his own army surgeons, and as 
 he did not wish to trust to the practitioners of the 
 
 * General Paget, who had behaved so nobly under Sir John 
 Moore, lost his right arm at Oporto. 
 
 + “I cannot say too much in favour of the officers and troops. 
 They have marched in four days over eighty miles of most difficult 
 country, have gained many important positions, and have engaged 
 and defeated three different bodies of the cnemy’s troops.”—Sir 
 
 Arthw’s Dispatch to Viscount Castler eagh, in Colonel Gurwood, 
 Wellington Dispatches. 
 
472 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Oporro. 
 
 town of Oporto, who, whatever might be the 
 amount of their humanity, were certainly not dis- 
 tinguished by professional skill. He assured Soult 
 that his medical officers should be returned to him 
 as soon as they had cured the wounded ; and he 
 proposed a cartel or mutual exchange of prisoners. 
 Whatever Sir Arthur could do to diminish the 
 horrors of war was done, and promptly. We 
 firmly believe it to have been in the nature of Soult 
 to respond on his part; but it was impossible for 
 him to subdue or control the ferocity of some of 
 the troops that were serving under him, and that 
 were driven frantic by their reverses and sufferings, 
 and the merciless attacks of the Portuguese pea- 
 santry, which could only be checked by the imme- 
 diate presence of British forces, who could not 
 be everywhere. 
 
 Almost from the first commencement of the 
 Spanish war there had been murmuring and dis- 
 content among the French troops, divisions and 
 jealousies among the superior officers, and intrigues 
 which embraced a very wide field, and which had 
 many ramifications, some of which have never been 
 explained or understood ; while some are known to 
 have originated in secret societies. A few days be- 
 fore gaining possession of Oporto, Sir Arthur Welles- 
 ley had obtained information froma French officer, 
 or -at least an officer in the French service (a Captain 
 .»...+, himself one of the conspirators), that con- 
 
 spiracies existed in Soult’s army. The English | 
 
 general did what he was justified in doing by the 
 law and practice of war, and what no belligerent, 
 
 | 
 | 
 
 having the means, ever neglected to do, On the 
 9th of May, Captain ...... was seized on his 
 return to Oporto, after his last interview with Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley. His papers were likewise 
 seized, among which were found English pass- 
 ports, and the captain could not deny that he had 
 had communications with the English general. It 
 appeared that he had been endeavouring to gain 
 over the French General ......, who, instead of 
 entering’ into his views, revealed the secret to 
 Soult. Captain ......, at the persuasion of the 
 officer of gendarmes who had charge of him, 
 revealed the names of some of his fellow-conspira- 
 tors, and they were seized likewise. Sir Arthur 
 obtained the original orders for their seizure and 
 confinement aw secret. They were all marched 
 away as prisoners after the evacuation of Oporto. | 
 But on the 13th of May, Captain ......, having — 
 fired at the officer of gendarmes who had induced — 
 him to reveal the names of his accomplices, escaped — 
 and came to Sir Arthur in Oporto. He reported — 
 that he had escaped by the advice of a colonel of 
 dragoons, one of the principals of the conspiracy, — 
 who conceived that when he should be gone there — 
 would be no evidence against himself. ‘The con-— 
 spirators had intended nothing less than to seize 
 Soult, and induce the other general officers to lead 
 the army back into France.* This Captain «+++ 
 * It appears that this Captain...... first got into communication 
 with Sir Arthur Wellesley as early as the 25th of April, and at Lisbon, 
 to which city he had gone secretly with Major Douglas, who was serv- 
 
 ing under General Beresford in the Portuguese army. He informed - 
 Sir Arthur that great discontent and dissatisfaction with the measures — 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 gave Sir Arthur very important information con- 
 cerning Soult’s movements and intentions; he 
 showed him a paper very ably drawn up, as he 
 said, by a French officer of high rank, which 
 pointed out the different lines of retreat, and the 
 line which Soult would prefer. He solemnly 
 declared that the conspiracy in the French army 
 still existed, and that, sooner or later, it must burst 
 forth and fall heavily upon the head of the usurper ; 
 and he talked of the war in Spain as being odious 
 to the army and to the whole French nation. Sir 
 Arthur sent him to England and profited by his 
 
 of Bonaparte prevailed throughout the French army, and particularly 
 in the corps of Marshal Soult, which had suffered, and was still suf- 
 fering, extreme distress; that a large portion of the officers of Soult’s 
 army were determined to revolt, and to seize the general, together with 
 such of his principal officers as were supposed to be particularly 
 attached to the interests of Bonaparte, if that army should be so 
 pressed by the British as to oblige Soult to concentrate in situations 
 chosen with a view to defence rather than with a view to the subsistence 
 of the French troops. Captain .... earnestly asked for passports for 
 himself and two other captains of Soult’s army to go to France, where 
 they wished to communicate with three general officers and with other 
 persons dissatisfied with the existing order of things. Sir Arthur com- 
 municated with the British admiral and obtained the passports ena- 
 bling the three French captains to go to France by sea. Sir Arthur, 
 however, pledged himself no further, telling the conspirators that, 
 though he wished them success, the line which he would take must 
 depend upon circumstances. ‘* Your lordship,” said Sir Arthur, 
 writing to Castlereagh, “ will observe that I have not thought it 
 proper to discourage the disposition which appears to prevail among 
 the French officers; at the same time that I have taken care not only 
 not to pledge myself to any particular line of conduct, but that those 
 concerned should understand that I do not consider myself pledged 
 by anything that has passed. The successful revolt of a French army 
 might be attended by the most extensive and important consequences ; 
 whereas their defeat, or what is a more improbable event, their sur- 
 render, would affect only local interests and objects, excepting that 
 either of these events would add to the reputation of his majesty’s 
 arms,’’—Dispatch dated Lisbon, 27th April,in Colonel Gurwood, /Vel- 
 lington Dispatches. 
 
 In a more private communication Sir Arthur assured Castlereagh 
 that he fully believed in the intention of some of the French officers 
 to revolt; that the existence of this intention was confirmed in his 
 mind by the recollection of what had dropped from nearly every indi- 
 vidual of Junot’sarmy with whom he had conversed when in Portugal 
 last year; but that he much doubted whether it would be quite so 
 easy to carry the intention successfully into execution. He added, 
 that he certainly should not count upon or wait for a revolt, but try 
 his own means of subduing Soult. On his advance towards the Douro 
 Sir Arthur saw the French captain again by night, and at a bivouac 
 fire, on the road between Fornos and Martede. He was now informed 
 that there were two parties in Soult’s army: one, determined to seize 
 him at all events: the other, who wished to seize him only in case of 
 his declaring himself King of Portugal—a bold and strange design, of 
 which both Marshalt Soult and his predecessor Junot were at different 
 times suspected. Captain ...... said that, if Soult could only be 
 induced to declare himself king, the whole army of Laborde and 
 Loison would declare against him, and lead the army back into France. 
 Ne proposed to Sir Arthur two plans: one, that the English should 
 endeavour to draw Soult into a snare by persuading some of the people 
 in that part of the country to address him and invite him to declare 
 himself king, and eyen that Sir Arthur himself should write to the 
 marshal to recommend the same measure, as one most likely to pacify 
 Portugal and Spain :—the other plan was, that Sir Arthur, who, as yet, 
 was only at Coimbra, should make his dispositious, and attack Soult 
 forthwith. To the first wild plan the English general replied, that he 
 could have nothing to do with it, as it must deprive him of the confi- 
 dence of the Portuguese. With respect to the attack, he told ‘‘ our 
 friend” that he would make it as soon as he could, but that the time 
 must depend upon circumstances. 
 
 According to a French authority some nobles, burghers, and priests 
 had, during Soult’s residence in Oporto, presented addresses in their 
 own uame and in the name of several Portuguese towns, inviting the 
 marshal to put an end to the troubles of the country by declaring 
 himself king of it under the suzerainty of the Emperor Napoleon; 
 Soult had accepted the invitation, with the proviso of the emperor’s 
 approbation 5 the marshal addressed to his generals of division a 
 printed proclamation drawn up in this sense, which they were requested 
 to put into the order of the day of the army; but the generals refused 
 to do this, and wrote to acquaint Bonaparte, then in Germany, with 
 this curious intrigue. According to the same authority, the officer 
 that communicated with Sir Arthur Wellesley was the Adjutant- 
 Major d’Argenton ; and the ensemble of the great design of the conspi- 
 rators was to make all the French troops in the Peninsula revolt 
 against Bonaparte, bring back General Moreau, place him at the head 
 of all those corps d’armée, and then invade France while Bonaparte 
 should be contending on the Danube with the Archduke Charles, 
 overthrow his throne and his whole system, and erect a republic or a 
 free tonstitutional monarchic government.—Histoire Parlementaire 
 de la Révolution Frangaise. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 473 
 ieee 2 2 eee ee 
 ! 
 
 advice. He wrote to Beresford, who was at Villa 
 Real with his Portuguese corps — ‘‘ Keep Villa 
 Real, if you can do so with safety, and depend 
 upon my being close upon the heels of the French.” 
 When Soult reached Amarante he found that 
 General Loison had abandoned the bridge there. 
 This obliged him to change his route, and, march- 
 ing by Guimaraens and Braga, he intended to make 
 for Salamonde and Montealegre, and thence into 
 Galicia, the part of Spain from which he had 
 advanced in the early spring. But, on the evening 
 of the 16th of May, he was overtaken on the road 
 near Salamonde by Sir Arthur, who cut up his 
 rear-guard and took some prisoners. A good many 
 of the French were killed and wounded, and a 
 great many more of them were lost in crossing a 
 narrow bridge over the Cabado, in the dark and in 
 the hurry of their flight. On our side the Guards 
 only were engaged. ‘‘ We shouldhave had the 
 whole of Soult’s rear-guard,’ says Sir Arthur, 
 “if we had but had half an hour more daylight. 
 . +1 shall follow him to-morrow... .He has lost 
 every thing—cannon, ammunition, baggage, mili- 
 tary-chest, and his retreat is, in ‘€yery respect, even 
 in weather, a pendant for the retreat’to Coruna.”’ 
 Thus speedily was Sir John Moore avenged on 
 the French marshal who had pursued him. Soult, 
 like Moore, had to retire through a mountainous 
 country: he left the road strewed with dead horses 
 and mules, and with the bodies of French soldiers, 
 who were put to death by the peasantry before the 
 advance-guard of the British could come up and 
 save them. The French, by their own conduct, 
 had provoked this merciless retaliation. ‘* Their 
 soldiers,’ says Wellesley, “‘have plundered and 
 murdered the peasantry at their pleasure ; and I have 
 seen many persons hanging in the trees by the 
 sides of the road, executed for no other reason that 
 I could learn, excepting that they have not been 
 friendly to the French invasion and usurpation of 
 the government of their country ; and the route of 
 their column on their retreat could be traced by the 
 smoke of the villages to which they set fire.’’* 
 The same horrible scenes occurred in all the 
 subsequent retrograde movements of the French: 
 the blessed fountains of mercy were dried up 
 in the invaders and in the invaded. With troops 
 that carried with them over the roughest roads ar- 
 tillery, baggage, and full equipments, Sir Arthur 
 could not hope to come up with Soult with an 
 army that had lightened itself by throwing away 
 everything, and that depended for its provisions 
 on plunder. He stopped his pursuit at Montea- 
 legre, a few leagues from the frontier of Spain, 
 across which the French fled in irremediable dis- 
 order—in a state so crippled that they could do no 
 harm, and might have been destroyed by Romana, 
 if that general had had any force at all. But 
 Romana, who ought to have met Soult on the 
 borders of Galicia, was again “ nowhere.” 
 
 Sir Arthur returned by Ruivaes, Braga, and 
 
 __* Dispatch to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Montealegre, 18th May, 
 in Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. 
 
474 
 
 S. Terso to Oporto, where he diligently applied 
 himself to the means of improving the commis- 
 sariat; of fostering a kmdly feeling between the 
 British and Portuguese officers; of remedymg the 
 most crying distresses of the Portuguese people; 
 and of obtaining the most accurate information as 
 to the nature of the country and the state of the 
 roads. It-was while he was at Oporto that he 
 learned that Mr. Frere had been superseded by his 
 own brother the Marquess of Wellesley, whose ap- 
 pointment led, in course of time, to very important 
 results. But by the 26th of May, the greater part 
 of the British troops had crossed the Mondego, 
 and all Sir Arthur’s arrangements were completed 
 for an advance into Spain, where he intended to 
 co-operate with, or at least to receive some aid from, 
 General Cuesta, who commanded the army of Es- 
 tremadura, and who was said to have collected on 
 the Guadiana from 40,000 to 50,000 men. 
 
 The advanced guard of the British army 
 entered Spain by Zarza-la-Mayor on the 2nd 
 of July; and on the &th Sir Arthur’s head- 
 quarters were at Plasencia.* He had not come 
 into Spain quite so strong as he could have 
 wished; but he thought that, counting Craufurd’s 
 brigade, which was shortly expected, he should 
 have nearly 20,000 rank and file of infantry, and 
 about 3000 cavalry. Cuesta crossed the Tagus by 
 the bridge of Almaraz, and effected his junction 
 with Wellesley at Oropesa on the 20th of July ; 
 but the Spanish general was now found to have no 
 more than 30,000 men, and these were, for the 
 most part, discouraged by repeated defeats, and 
 were lank, lean, and hungry besides. Sir Arthur, 
 who now for the first time saw a Spanish army in 
 the field, was but little satisfied with what he saw: 
 there was a defective organization, very little dis- 
 cipline, and a proud and bigoted and jealous spirit, 
 which foreboded no good fellowship with the Eng- 
 lish soldiery, who were, for the far greater part, 
 Protestants, and, as such, heretics in the eyes of the 
 Spaniards. Beyond the quality of courage (and 
 that appears to have had its ebbs and flows), Cuesta 
 had none of the qualities which constitute a general ; 
 he was ignorant, self-willed, and obstinate; and, 
 although Wellesley calls him by no harsher name 
 than that of “the old gentleman,” it is quite evi- 
 dent that he thought him an old fool. The com- 
 mencement of their intercourse was quite laugh- 
 able: the old Spaniard received his ally with great 
 etiquette and ceremony; but he would not con- 
 
 * The general was much vexed by the delays and failures which 
 had impeded his marching. He had expected to arrive in Spain ten 
 or twelve days earlier. He writes on the 27th of June from Abrantes 
 to Lord Castlereagh—“ Just to show you the uncertainty of all com- 
 munications in this country, and probably the deficiencies of owr com- 
 missartat, I shall mention that the money which arrived on the 15th 
 at Lisbon, and was sent off immediately, did not arrive here till late 
 on the 25th, Jt is the same with everything else. On the day I deter- 
 mined to move into Spain, I ordered everything that could be required 
 for the army, and I have not had occasion to add to or alter the ori- 
 ginal order; yet the articles ordered are not yet arrived, notwith- 
 standing that there is a water communication from Lisbon, and officers 
 and others come up in five days. I believe much of this delay and failure 
 is to be attributed to the want of experience of our commissariat ; much 
 to the want of money, and to our discredit in Portugal, on account of 
 our large and long-owed debts; and something to the uncertainty 
 and natural difficulties of all the communications in Portugal.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 descend to speak French with him, and, as Sir Arthur 
 could not then talk Spanish, no conversation took 
 place between them.* All the provisions that 
 could be procured in the country were eaten up by 
 Cuesta’s people. At times, when Cuesta’s camp 
 abounded with provisions and forage, the British 
 camp was so ill supplied that the men were reduced 
 to half rations. ‘‘The French,” Wellesley says, | 
 “can take what they like, and will take it, but we 
 cannot even buy common necessaries.” In vain 
 appeals were made to the Spanish population, to the 
 local authorities, to the juntas; Spanish inertness 
 and prejudice, and, in some instances, a bias to- 
 wards the French (for there was now a French 
 party in some of the towns), all contributed to half 
 starve the English army, which was ready and 
 willing and able to pay liberally for whatever it 
 wanted. There was, too, a notion among the vic- 
 tuallers, farmers, and tradespeople, that all the 
 English were inordinately rich, and that it was 
 proper and commendable to sell them the worst 
 meat and drink at the highest possible prices. 
 Between this Spanish greed, and the roguery of a 
 part of our commissariat—which was not to be 
 cured and made perfect in a day— excessive prices 
 were paid for everything that was supplied to the 
 army which had come into Spain to relieve it from 
 the heavy yoke of France. 
 
 When Wellesley first began his march, to enter 
 the country and gave the hand to Cuesta, the French 
 forces were thus disposed :—Marshal Victor, the 
 nearest to the allied army, was in Estremadura, 
 close to the borders of Portugal, with the /irsé 
 corps, numbering in the muster-rolls 35,000 men ; 
 General Sebastiani commanded the fourth corps, — 
 which was in La Mancha, and which counted about 
 20,000 men under arms; General Dessolles, with 
 a division of reserve, and some of Joseph’s guards 
 (in all, 15,000 men), was at Madrid, taking care 
 of the intrusive king; Kellermann and Bonnet 
 were stationed in Old Castile, and on the borders 
 of Leon and the Asturias, with two divisions that 
 formed together 10,000 men: (all these corps and ~ 
 troops, forming a numerical total of 80,000 men, 
 were considered as being immediately under the 
 command of Joseph, who knew not how to com- 
 mand a troop of horse or a company of foot, but 
 who was aided and assisted by Marshal Jourdan). 
 Soult had collected the second corps in the northern 
 provinces, hoping to be able to retrace his steps 
 into Portugal with 20,000 men ; and immediately 
 dependent upon Soult were Marshal Mortier with 
 the fifth corps, 16,000 strong, and Ney with the 
 stxth corps, which also counted about 16,000 men 
 under arms. Thus, Soult’s force, in all, was about 
 52,000 ; and thus, in advancing into Spain, Sir 
 Arthur, with none to aid him but the “old gentle- 
 man” and his 33,000 Spaniards, might come into 
 collision with 132,000 French, the total of the two 
 armies of King Joseph and Marshal Soult. But, 
 besides all this mighty array, there were 50,000 
 Frenchmen in Aragon and Catalonia, under Suchet 
 
 * Letter from Sir Arthur to Mr. Frere. 
 
Cuap. VIII. | 
 
 and Augereau; and 35,000 more were scattered 
 over the surface of Spain to maintain posts and 
 fortresses, and keep open the various lines of com- 
 munication. The principal fortresses and fortified 
 towns in the hands of the French were—lst, on 
 the northern line, S. Sebastian, Pamplona, Bilbao, 
 Santona, Santander, Burgos, Leon, and Astorga ; 
 2nd, on the central line, Jaca, Zaragoza, Guada- 
 laxara, Toledo, Segovia, and Zamora; 3rd, on the 
 eastern coast, Figueras, Rosas, and Barcelona. 
 But, before General Wellesley entered Spain, Soult 
 found it necessary to withdraw from Galicia; and 
 Ney followed his movement, abandoning Coruna, 
 Ferrol, &c. A disagreement between Soult and 
 Ney (the French marshals and generals in Spain 
 were incessantly quarrelling, and neither Joseph 
 Bonaparte nor Jourdan could prevent them, or 
 bring them to any obedience of the orders ema- 
 nating from Madrid) led to the deliverance of the 
 extensive province of Galicia, where the French 
 never regained a footing. Soult reached Zamora 
 at the beginning of July, or about the same time 
 that the English troops arrived at Zarza-la-Mayor ; 
 and he kept there, or hovered about the eastern 
 frontiers of Portugal. Ney had halted at Astorga. 
 Mortier, when advancing from Zaragoza to Valla- 
 dolid, had received orders from Paris to stop. The 
 Catalans and Aragonese were giving pretty full 
 employment to Augereau and Suchet; Andalusia 
 and Valencia were entirely free of French troops; 
 the first of these two provinces had not yet been 
 touched; the second—the fiercest, perhaps, in all 
 Spain—had driven away its invaders with a terrific 
 slaughter. Some of the French corps d’armeée 
 were suffering severely from privations, and from 
 endemic and other disorders. This was particu- 
 larly the case with the corps of Marshal Victor, 
 who, on the approach of the British, had posted 
 himself in a rather low and swampy country be- 
 tween the Tagus and the Guadiana. 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley detached Sir Robert Wil- 
 son with the Lusitanian Legion, a battalion of 
 Portuguese, Cacadores, and two Spanish battalions, 
 in the direction of Madrid; and, notwithstanding 
 the immensity of the French force which might pos- 
 sibly have been brought upon him, Sir Robert suc- 
 ceeded in getting in Marshal Victor's rear, and in 
 reaching Escalona, on the Alberche, which is only 
 eight leagues distant from the Spanish capital. In 
 this rapid advance, as in several subsequent move- 
 ments, Sir Robert Wilson displayed very remark- 
 able activity and intelligence. He led his light- 
 footed Portuguese across rugged mountains without 
 roads, through labyrinths of forests and wilds, and 
 across many rivers; and, whatever was the nature 
 of his route, he was always true to time. On the 
 22nd of July, the combined armies of Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley and Cuesta attacked Marshal Victor’s 
 outposts at Talavera, and drove them in. The 
 French would have suffered more than they did if 
 old Cuesta had not thought fit to absent himself. 
 On the 23rd the British columns were again formed 
 for the attack of the French position, as Sir Arthur 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 wished to beat Victor before he should be joined 
 by Sebastiani, who had moved from La Mancha; 
 but Cuesta “contrived to lose the whole of the 
 day, owing to the whimsical perverseness of his 
 disposition.”** Thus, although the Spanish troops 
 were under arms, and the British actually put in 
 march, nothing was done on the 23rd; and, at one 
 hour after midnight, Marshal Victor left Talavera 
 to retreat to S. Olalla, and thence towards Torrijos, 
 to form a junction with Sebastiani. Early on the 
 24th, Sir Arthur established his head-quarters ia 
 Talavera. ‘I have not,” he says, “ been able to 
 follow the enemy as I could wish, on account of 
 the great deficiency in the means of transport, and 
 owing to my having found it impossible to procure 
 even one mule or a cart in Spain.”’+ He had 
 already done enough, if advantage had been duly 
 taken of it by the Spaniards, to give Cuesta pos- 
 session of the course of the Tagus, and to open his 
 communication with La Mancha and with General 
 Venegas, who was collecting a respectable corps in 
 the Sierra Morena; and this was all that Sir 
 Arthur had engaged to do. He therefore resolved 
 to enter into no new operation, but rather to halt, 
 and even to return to Portugal, if he should not 
 be supplied as he ought to be. ‘* His Majesty’s 
 troops,’ he adds, “have been engaged in very 
 active operations; the success of which depended 
 no less upon their bravery and exertions than 
 upon the example they should hold out and the 
 countenance they should give to the Spanish troops, 
 and yet they have been in actual want of provi- 
 stons for these last two days. Even if I should 
 have been willing, under such circumstances, to 
 continue my co-operation with General Cuesta, I 
 am unable to do so with any justice to the troops.’’t 
 A great deal too much has been said in praise of 
 Spanish sobriety, frugality, and powers of absti- 
 nence or fasting. No doubt the peasantry, in the 
 genial climate of the south of Spain, will live upon 
 very little rather than work for more; no doubt 
 drunkenness is not the national vice; and, speak- 
 ing very generally (for some of the most ravenous 
 gluttons we ever saw were Spaniards), the people 
 of all the provinces can live upon a slenderer diet 
 than the English; but this is in good part owing 
 to their doing infinitely less work than the English, 
 
 * Sir Arthur Wellesley to Mr. Frere.—In the same letter Sir Arthur 
 says—* I find General Cuesta more and more impracticable every day. 
 It is impossible to do business with him, and very uncertain that any 
 operation will succeed in which he has any concern. ....... He 
 has quarrelled with some of his principal officers; and I understand 
 that all are dissatisfied with him.” 
 
 + Dispatch to Lord Castlereagh, 
 July. 
 
 { Id. Id.—In the same dispatch, Sir Arthur says to Lord Castle- 
 reagh—‘‘I understand that Cuesta has urged the central junta to 
 adopt vigorous measures to have our wants supplied. It is certain 
 that at the present moment the people of this part of Spain are either 
 unable or unwilling to supply them; and in either case, until I am 
 supplied, I do not think it proper, and, indeed, I cannot continue my 
 Operations in Spain. I ought, probably, to have stipulated that 
 1 should be supplied with the necessary means of transport before 
 the army entered Spain; I did require it, and I adopted the mea- 
 sures necessary to procure those means which I conceived would 
 have answered; and, as I could not engage to enter upon any 
 operations in Spain which should not be consistent with the defence 
 ot Portugal, I did not think it proper to make any stipulation for the 
 advantage of the troops, which stipulatioa, after all, did not appear 
 necessary to enable me to procure what I wanted.”—Colonel Gurwood, 
 Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 dated Talavera Reyna, 24th 
 
 ARR PR 0 le a 
 
476 
 
 and with them, just as with other nations, a superior 
 degree of exertion can only be sustained by an in- 
 crease of aliment. Poets and imaginative travellers 
 had really made some people believe that the 
 Spanish soldier could live upon air, with merely a 
 whiff of tobacco, and a bite of garlic at intervals. 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley knew better. ‘ No troops,” 
 he tells his brother the marquess, “ can serve to any 
 good purpose unless they are regularly fed; and it 
 is an error to suppose that a Spaniard, or a man, 
 or animal, of any country, can make an exertion 
 without food. Jn fact, the Spanish troops are 
 more clamorous for their food, and more exhausted 
 of they do not receive it regularly, than our own 
 ircops are.” * 
 
 When Sir Arthur halted the British troops at 
 Talavera, Cuesta seemed all of a sudden to be in- 
 vaded by an irrepressible energy and activity ; and, 
 with remarkable arrogance, he singly dashed for- 
 ward in pursuit of the French. His columns 
 passed the Alberche in rapid succession, as if they 
 were determined to stop at nothing short of the iron 
 harrier of the Pyrenees. Sir Arthur, who could 
 scarcely help foreseeing how all this sudden ardour 
 would end, recommended caution and circumspec- 
 tion to the old gentleman, and sent a part of the 
 British force some ten miles in advance of Tala- 
 vera. The two armies previously acting in concert 
 were now separated, the least effective part being 
 in pursuit of Marshal Victor, and the mass of the 
 British forces remaining perfectly quiet—“ enjoying 
 demi-starvation upon the banks of the Tagus.’’+ 
 Cuesta went blundering through S. Olalla, and 
 rushed on, like a wild bull broke loose from the 
 amphitheatre, to Torrijos. But here he found the 
 rear-guard of the French marshal, who had been 
 joined by General Sebastiani; and the sting of the 
 French tail—Victor’s rear at Torrijos—was quite 
 enough for this disorderly, ill-commanded Spanish 
 army. During the 25th the English heard nothing 
 of it, or of Cuesta, but on the following day the 
 report of artillery in the distance announced its 
 return towards T'alavera—not unaccompanied. Pre- 
 sently Spanish runaways and stragglers passed to 
 the British rear ; and in the course of the afternoon 
 and during the night of the 26th, the distant can- 
 nonade having died away, the greater part of Cues- 
 ta’s army passed to the rear. 
 the 27th other battalions passed close by some of 
 the British who had bivouacked in an olive grove— 
 battalion after battalion forming a continuous line 
 of march in the same direction. From amidst 
 clouds of dust, disorderly chattering assemblages of 
 half-clad, half-armed men became occasionally 
 visible; again, regiments marching in perfect 
 order, cavalry staff officers, bands of musicians, 
 flocks of sheep, droves of bullocks, artillery, cars, 
 carriages, and wagons varied the confused and sin- 
 gular scene.{ All the information that could be 
 obtained by the English officers from these fugi- 
 
 * Letter, dated 8th August, 1809.— Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 { hoe igen Leith Hay, Narrative of the Peninsular War. 
 
 a Le eee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 On the morning of | 
 
 m “a 
 Fs 
 
 Ee 
 
 lial 
 
 3 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 | tives was that they had been overpowered and 
 
 beaten at Torrijos, and that the French, in full 
 force, were following close at their heels. The 
 latter part of this information was not quite correct, 
 for although Victor had been joined by the fourth 
 corps, which Sebastiani had brought up from La 
 Mancha, he deemed it prudent to wait a few hours 
 for the arrival of Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal 
 Jourdan, who were marching towards him with the 
 guards and the garrison of Madrid, and thus leaving 
 that capital exposed to Sir Robert Wilson and his 
 rapid Lusitanians. It ‘was clear, however, to Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley that he would not be allowed a 
 long repose; and therefore he busily employed 
 himself in examining and strengthening his position 
 at Talavera. Great was the need he must have 
 had at this moment of activity, genius, calmness, 
 heroism; for, besides the great army collecting 
 in his front under Victor, his old enemy Soult, by 
 rapidly advancing from Salamanca, was getting in 
 his rear, Marshal Mortier at Valladolid was pre- 
 paring to follow Soult, and Marshal Ney, unknown 
 to the English general, was hurrying from Astorga 
 with the hope of falling upon his left flank. Thus 
 there were more than 50,000 fighting Frenchmen 
 behind the mountains of Plasencia ready to act on 
 the flank and rear of the British, whose front was 
 threatened by at least 50,000 more. Sir Arthur’s 
 force in the field did not exceed 20,000 men; for 
 some of the battalions were still on their march from 
 Lisbon, and did not come up until after the battle 
 of Talavera had been fought. The Portuguese 
 regular troops, under Beresford, had been left to 
 guard the north-east frontier of Portugal, towards 
 Almeida. There was nothing at hand for the im- 
 mediate support of Sir Arthur’s 20,000 British 
 save the army of Cuesta; but these 30,000 men had 
 already proved themselves worth very little in the 
 field. General Venegas indeed had descended with 
 the Spanish army of Andalusia from the Sierra 
 Morena mountains, and had marched through La 
 Mancha upon Madrid with from 20,000 to 25,000 
 men: but the supreme junta had sent Venegas 
 counter-orders which had had the effect of slacken- 
 ing his march. Atlast, however, and, asit turned 
 out, at a most opportune moment, Venegas, a much 
 abler and more honest man than any of the junta 
 Dons that assumed authority over him, did make a 
 brilliant movement, and show himself on the road 
 that leads to Aranjuez and Madrid; and it was 
 his timely approach on that side which induced 
 Joseph, who had now joined Victor, to engage Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley and Cuesta, in order to save his 
 capital. If Joseph had kept the allies in check at 
 Talavera for a few days longer, Soult’s arrival at 
 Plasencia would have obliged the English to retire 
 precipitately into Portugal. But Joseph and his 
 adviser Jourdan, fearing that Venegas from the 
 south, and Sir Robert Wilson from the north, 
 would enter Madrid, and seize the stores, the re- 
 serves, the hospitals, &c., recommended Marshal 
 Victor to wait no longer, but attack the allies in 
 front; for,if Wellesley were once defeated, Madrid 
 
 \ 
 
Cuap, VIII. ] 
 
 could very easily be protected or recovered, and 
 both Venegas and Wilson, it was thought, might 
 be enveloped and reduced to capitulation. The 
 movements in Victor’s army announced to Sir 
 Arthur that a battle was at hand. His greatest 
 difficulty was in overruling the mulish obstinacy 
 of the old gentleman; but, at last, he got Cuesta 
 to consent to occupy the ground he had selected for 
 him, which was on the right near the Tagus, and 
 immediately in front of the town of Talavera. 
 ‘This was a position in which the Spaniards could 
 scarcely be seriously attacked; it afforded in 
 abundance those covers under which they had 
 always been found to fight best; the ground was 
 covered by olive-trees, and much intersected by 
 thick mud walls and ditches ; there was a strong 
 old church with a heavy battery in front of it, and 
 along the whole line were redoubts, walls, banks, 
 and abattis, or parapets, made of felled trees. All 
 the avenues of the town were defended in a similar 
 manner. The British infantry, in whom Sir 
 Arthur placed full reliance, occupied the left of the 
 line, which was quite open in front, but its extreme 
 left rested upon a steep hill, which was the key of 
 the whole position, and on which was posted a 
 division of infantry under the orders of Major- 
 General Hill. The whole line extended in length 
 about two miles. There was some skirmishing 
 and outpost fighting in the dark onthe night of the 
 26th. On the 27th, Victor moved from S. Olalla 
 in full force, crossed the Alberche, and attacked 
 two advanced British brigades, which fell back 
 steadily across the plain into their assigned posi- 
 tions in the line. This was at about two o’clock 
 in the afternoon. As the day declined the French 
 advanced to a general attack ; but it was the dusk 
 of the evening before Victor began by a hot can- 
 nonade upon the British left, and by an attempt 
 with his cavalry to ride over the Spanish infantry. 
 From the care taken to cover their front, the Spa- 
 niards were found to be unapproachable, and the 
 cavalry charge failed completely. Early in the 
 night Victor followed up his cannonade by pushing 
 a strong division along a valley on the left of the 
 height occupied by General Hill. The French 
 gained momentary possession of that key to our 
 position; but Hill almost instantly attacked with 
 the bayonet, regained possession, and drove the 
 enemy down the steeps. Victor repeated the at- 
 tack on this point, on which everything depended, 
 at the dead of night; but Hill was reinforced, Sir 
 Arthur himself rode to the spot, and ordered up 
 some more artillery ; and, after another terrible con- 
 flict in the dark *—a darkness illuminated only by 
 
 * According to Colonel Leith Hay, who was with his regiment on 
 the top of the hill, it was so dark even when the first attack was made 
 that the blaze of musketry alone displayed the forms of the assailants. 
 ** A considerable body of the French were then in possession of the 
 height. Their numbers rapidly increasing, the drums beat the pas de 
 charge; while at intervals voices were heard shouting in the dark, 
 some calling out they were the German Legion, others not to fire. 
 . » « « + Theleading company of the 29th poured in a volley when 
 close to the bayonets of the enemy; the glorious cheer of British 
 infantry accompanied the charge, which succeeded. ‘The rest of 
 our regiment arrived in quick time, and formed a close column, 
 
 which speedily drove everything before it. The enemy was pushed 
 down the hill. . . . . « No-second attempt was for some time 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 ATT 
 
 the flames from the cannon’s mouth and the blaze 
 of musketry—the assailants were again hurled 
 back into the valley, and again left the level ground 
 on the hill-top thickly strewed with dead bodies 
 and wounded men. Repose and a dead silence 
 succeeded ; but this was interrupted about mid- 
 night by a firing towards the town of Talavera, 
 which sounded like the crack of doom. ‘ It was 
 not,” says an ear and eye witness, “‘ the straggling, 
 desultory, yet distinct reports of light trodps, but a 
 roll of musketry: that illuminated the whole extent 
 of the Spanish line. It was one discharge; but of 
 such a nature that I have never heard it equalled. 
 It appeared not to be returned, nor was it repeated. 
 All again became silent. A false alarm had occa- 
 sioned this tremendous volley; but we were too 
 distant to ascertain what had produced the violent 
 eruption, or how many of our allies had thrown 
 away their arms, and fled, after having delivered 
 a fire sufficiently formidable to have shaken the 
 best and bravest troops.’ * But Sir Arthur, who 
 was nearer at hand, and soon on the spot whence 
 that formidable fire had proceeded, had the morti- 
 fication of ascertaining that several thousands of 
 the Spaniards, after discharging their pieces, were 
 flying panic-stricken to the rear, followed by their 
 artillery, and creating the greatest confusion among 
 the baggage retainers and the mules, &c.; and it 
 was with difficulty that he and Cuesta prevented 
 the rest of the Spanish troops from following this 
 pernicious example. We believe it was never cor- 
 rectly ascertained what created this sudden alarm in 
 troops that were so sheltered and covered that they 
 had little to fear: perhaps some cows or goats 
 had passed along their front, or perhaps some of 
 those animals which Sancho Panza loved had 
 come in the darkness to browse among the olive- 
 trees ; but all that is not hypothetical is, that they 
 made one of the loudest reports that had ever 
 scared the night, and then turned to run. Luckily 
 Victor knew nothing of what was passing ; and, 
 after his cavalry had discovered the strength of 
 the Spanish position, he directed all his efforts 
 against the British left. At daylight, on the morn- 
 ing of the 28th, he hurled two more strong divi- 
 sions of infantry against the fatal height; but the 
 Englishmen there had been told that they must 
 maintain that position, and nobly did they maintain 
 it: Hill lost many brave officers and soldiers, and 
 was wounded himself; but he soon had the satis- 
 faction of seeing the two French columns reeling 
 
 made to carry this most important point. The 29th remained in 
 possession of the ground, lying on their arms in the midst of fallen 
 enemies. ‘The furred chaco of a dead French soldier became my 
 pillow for the night.”—Varrative. 
 ‘¢ Darkling they fight, and only know 
 If chance has sped the fatal blow 
 Or by the trodden corse below, 
 Or by the dying groan : 
 Furious they strike without a mark, 
 Save now and then the sulphurous spark 
 Illumes some visage grim and dark, 
 That with the flash is gone!” 
 The Battles of Talavera, a Poem, 1809; 
 —now, we believe, the avowed production of the late Right Hon. 
 John Wilson Croker. 
 * Colonel Leith Hay, Narrative. 
 
478 
 
 from before his British bayonets, and rolling down 
 the steeps. In these attacks on the hill the French 
 lost about 2500 men: entire brigades had been 
 destroyed. 
 
 Another long pause ensued ; but about the hour 
 of noon the French renewed their attack upon the 
 whole of that part of the position occupied by the 
 British army. In consequence of the repeated 
 attempts upon the height on his left, by the valley 
 which ran round the hill, Sir Arthur had placed 
 two brigades of British cavalry in that valley, sup- 
 ported in the rear by a division of Spanish cavalry. 
 The general attack began by the march of several 
 columns of French infantry into that valley, with 
 a view to try the hill once more. These columns 
 were charged by our horse, who prevented the 
 execution of their plan; but the assailants suffered 
 great loss in the fight, the 23rd light dragoons 
 having nearly one-half of their number killed or 
 wounded. While this was going on on the left, 
 heavy columns of the infantry of Sebastiani’s corps 
 twice attacked the British right under General 
 Campbell, but they were each time repulsed by 
 the steady fire of the English, and, when a Spanish 
 regiment of horse came gallantly up and charged 
 them in flank, they retired in disorder, leaving 
 ten guns, and heaps of killed and wounded, behind 
 them. But the principal attack made by Victor 
 was against Sir Arthur Wellesley’s centre, which 
 consisted of the Guards and the German Legion. 
 Mere the French marshal employed nearly every 
 man he could spare. His massy columns came 
 close up to the British line, as if confident in their 
 vastly superior numbers, and as if absolutely deter- 
 mined, at any cost, to crush the centre, and pass 
 over it to exterminate the disjomted remnants of 
 Wellesley’s forces ; but they were most gallantly 
 repulsed by a charge with bayonets by the whole 
 division, and they reeled back in helpless disorder. 
 Unluckily the brigade of Guards on the right, 
 elated by their success, and by the inward and in- 
 timate conviction that it was not Frenchmen that 
 could withstand a charge of British bayonets, 
 advanced too far in pursuit, and so exposed their 
 left flank to the fire of the French batteries: as 
 they began to fall back some of the troops they 
 had been pursuing rallied and turned against 
 them; some supporting columns and French dra- 
 goons advanced; and now the Guards in their 
 turn retired in some disorder. At the same time 
 the German Legion, which was on the left of the 
 Guards, and which had not advanced with them, 
 fell inte some confusion, and, being hard-pressed 
 by the French, the Legion gave way completely. 
 Sir Arthur’s centre was thus broken; but, as soon 
 as he saw from the summit of the steep hill on the 
 left the over-hot charge of the Guards, he foresaw 
 what might happen, and provided for it by in- 
 stantly sending from the hill the 48th regiment, 
 and ordering General Cotton’s light cavalry to 
 advance. And now the brave 48th, led on by 
 Colonel Donellan, came up to fill the gap made in 
 the centre, moving in beautiful order amidst the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 retiring crowds, wheeling back by companies to 
 let the Guards and the Legion pass through the 
 intervals, and then resuming its line and marching 
 against the right of the pursuing columns, who, 
 at one moment, seemed almost mixed with our 
 guardsmen and legionaries. When close on the 
 French flank, the 48th plied them with destructive 
 discharges of musketry, and, closing upon them 
 with a firm and regular pace, completely checked 
 their forward movement. Our centre was pre- 
 sently restored, for the Guards and the German 
 Legion quickly rallied ;. and then Cotton’s brigade 
 of light cavalry, coming up from the rear at a 
 smart trot, the French columns, whose success 
 had been so momentary, began to waver, their 
 general, Lapisse, was mortally wounded, their 
 loss from the fire of the 48th alone was dreadful, 
 and at last they gave way and retired to their own 
 lines, their retreat being protected by their light 
 troops and artillery. No other attempt was made 
 either to break our centre or to carry the murderous 
 hill: there was, in fact, no more fighting. The 
 British, reduced to less than 14,000 men, and ex- 
 hausted by fatigue, were unable to pursue the 
 French, and the Spanish army, which had been 
 scarcely engaged, was incapable of making any 
 evolutions. King Joseph’s Guards and the French 
 reserve had not been engaged during the day, and 
 had Napoleon been there perhaps a last effort might 
 have been tried ; but, as it was, the French, having 
 been repulsed at all points, were evidently but too 
 happy to desist; and thus, at about six o’clock in 
 
 the evening all fighting and firing ceased, each army ~ 
 
 retaining the position that it had occupied in the 
 morning. Out of the 50,000 men which they had 
 
 on the field at the beginning of the battle, the French — 
 had lost 7000 in killed and wounded, an immense — 
 
 number of officers and two generals being among 
 
 Boos x. 
 
 the killed. Out of the less than 20,000 British, — 
 
 857 had been killed and 3913 wounded; 653 — 
 were reported missing; and two general officers, — 
 
 Major-general Mackenzie and Brigadier-general 
 
 Langwerth, were among the slain.* The French — 
 
 also lost a considerable number of men as prisoners, — 
 
 and as they retired they left in the hands of the 
 
 * «« The battle,” says Sir Arthur, ‘‘ was a long and most desperate 
 one. Our loss has been very great; that of the enemy greater. The 
 
 attack was made principally upon the British, who were on the left; 
 and we had about two to one against us; fearful odds! but we main- © 
 
 tained all our positions, and gave the enemy a terrible beating! The 
 
 Spanish troops that were engaged behaved well; but there were very — 
 few of them engaged, as ths attack was made upon us.”—/ellingtin __ 
 He thought that after this experiment the French would __ 
 feel they had nothing to hope, even with double numbers, from a gene- 
 ral action with British troops. The French emperor appears to have — 
 come to the same conclusion, at very nearly the same time. In private 
 
 Dispatches. 
 
 communications, at least, the tone of Bonaparte, in speaking of Bri- 
 tish armies, was very materially altered. In a Jetter, dated the 3\st 
 
 of August, he severely censured the conduct of Victor, Jourdan, and 
 
 - 
 
 all the generals engaged, disapproving not only of the manner in — 
 
 which the battle of Talavera was fought, but of its being fought at all, 
 when there were * only 50,000 French to 30,000 English, who have 
 thus been allowed to brave the whole French army.’’—J. Belmas, 
 
 Chef de Battaillon du Genie, Journaux de Siéges, &c., rediges @apres les 
 
 ordres du Gouvernement sur les documents existant auw Archives de la 
 
 Guerre et au Dépit des Fortifications, Paris, 1836. 
 
 We see that here Bonaparte overrated the number of the British 
 
 troops by more than 10,000. But he counts the Spaniards for nothing. 
 This last opinion he very frequently repeated. In January, 1810, 
 he wrote to his generals—‘‘ There is nothing in Spain dangerous 
 but the English; all the rest is canaille, that can never keep the 
 fiela.”—J. Belmas, Id. ig oa ¥ 
 
nr 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 English 17 pieces of artillery, with tumbrils and 
 ammunition complete. 
 
 The next morning at daybreak the whole French 
 army, who had begun retreating during the night, 
 were on the other side of the Alberche, and taking 
 up a position in the rear of that river, on the heights 
 of Salinas. Except at Albuera, the French never 
 again fought so well throughout the rest of this 
 war; and yet France confessed, in a hurried night- 
 retreat, that she had been beaten and humiliated. 
 
 ‘« Far from the field where late she fought— 
 The tents where late she lay— 
 With rapid step and humbled thought 
 All night she holds her way ; 
 Leaving to Britain’s conquering sons 
 Standards rent and ponderous guns, 
 The trophies of the fray ; 
 The weak, the wounded, and the slain, 
 The triumph of the battle-plain, 
 The glory of the day.’”* 
 
 In the course of the same day, the 29th of July, 
 General Robert Craufurd reached Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley’s camp from Lisbon, with the 43rd, 52nd, 
 and 95th (rifles). The reinforcement altogether 
 amounted to nearly 3000 men. This was the light 
 brigade, which was ever after in advance during 
 the Peninsular campaigns, and which acquired 
 military celebrity for its gallantry and quickness of 
 moyement.t Sir Arthur passed the 29th and 30th 
 in establishing his hospitals in the town of Talavera, 
 and in endeavouring to get provisions for his half- 
 starved men. In this he was assisted neither by 
 the Spanish authorities nor by the Spanish inhabi- 
 tants. This was the more unpardonable as there 
 were at the moment large deposits of grain—more 
 than sufficient to supply both the Spanish and the 
 English army—in Talavera. But the truth was, 
 the Spanish holders of the grain concealed it, and 
 were determined to produce it only fora high price 
 and for ready money. In the state of poverty in 
 which the army of Sir John Moore had _ been left, 
 that general had been obliged to contract some 
 debts at Salamanca, and in various towns in Gali- 
 cia, and to give buenas or promissory notes on his 
 government for the payment of them: the British 
 government had not yet paid these debts, which 
 for Spaniards were rather heavy ; and, as this evil 
 news got spread over other provinces, it destroyed 
 English credit, and increased the tenacity with 
 which Spaniards generally hold what they have.t 
 
 * Battles of Talavera.—General Sarrazin, who, like a good French- 
 man, does not like to confess too much, confesses that ‘* the bloody 
 day (la sanglante journée) of Talavera had spread terror in the 
 French army (avait répandu Veffroi dans Varmée Francaise), and it 
 was admitted that the English fought guite as well as the Russians.” 
 
 + André Vieusseux, Military Life of the Duke of Wellington. The 
 author of this admirable brief and correct compendium served for 
 some time in the Peninsula, with the light brigade. 
 
 + A good many rogues in our commissariat department augmented 
 this evil, by practices not altogether undeserving of the gallows. Long 
 after the battle of Talavera it was customary to pay the muleteers who 
 followed our army, and the proprietors or contractors who furnished 
 mules for transport, with promissory notes payable at Lisbon or at 
 head-quarters ; and for a long while there was no convincing these 
 mulish drivers of mules that the paper was as good as money. Some 
 of them made wrappers for cigars of their bits of paper, went home 
 with their animals, and never returned. Others applied to commis- 
 sariat clerks, and gave them from twenty to fifty per cent., or more, to 
 change their paper into hard dollars or doubloons in hand. Often has 
 anignorant muleteer been known to give a note for 100 dollars for 20 
 dollars cash—and not unfrequently for 10 dollars. When detection 
 was apprehended, our employés did their business through certain 
 moneyed followers of the camp—Jews who had gone over from Lon- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 479 
 
 But the Spaniards of Talavera and that neighbour- 
 hood were not more disposed to open their grain 
 deposits to Cuesta than to Wellesley. ‘‘ They have 
 no magazines,” says Sir Arthur, “ nor have we, 
 nor can we collect any, and there is a scramble for 
 
 everything. . . . I wish that Don Martin 
 
 de Garay, or the gentlemen of the junta, before they 
 blame me for not doing more, or impute to me 
 beforehand the probable consequence of the blun- 
 ders or the indiscretion of others, would either come 
 or send here somebody to satisfy the wants of our 
 half-starved army, which, although they have been 
 engaged for two days, and have defeated twice their 
 numbers, in the service of Spain, have not bread 
 to eat. It is positively a fact that during the last 
 seven days the British army have not received one- 
 third of their provisions ; that at this moment there 
 are nearly 4000 wounded soldiers dying in the 
 hospital in this town from want of common assist- 
 ance and necessaries, which any other country in 
 the world would have given even to its enemies; 
 and that [ can get no assistance of any description 
 from this country. I cannot prevail upon them 
 even to bury the dead carcasses in the neighbour- 
 hood, the stench of which will destroy themselves 
 as well as us.”* At the same time General 
 Beresford, from Almeida,.was crying out, “ Blan- 
 kets! blankets!”’ and for clothes wherewith to 
 
 don, soi-disant amateur campaigners, traders from Gibraltar and 
 Lisbon, and the like, who brought their dollars and doubloons with 
 them. Some of these speculators put a climax to their rascality by 
 sending out plated dollars—silver without and copper within. But 
 where the dollars were good—as in most cases they were—the sacri- 
 fices that the poor Portuguese and Spaniards were obliged to make in 
 order to procure them in exchange for their good paper were enor- 
 mous. Fortunes were known to be made in avery short time in this 
 way, and by other means about equally honourable. We have heard 
 of a Manchester man, who followed the army for a long time, and 
 who was known to the soldiers under the name of ‘* White Stock- 
 ings,” who finished his campaigning by carrying off more profit than 
 a great cotton mill could have rendered in the same period of time. 
 His dealings lay chiefly with the muleteers and with the commissariat 
 of accounts, who paid in paper, and who participated in the gains of 
 turning paper into silver and gold. 
 
 The evil was in good part rectified afterwards by the vigilance of the 
 commander-in-chief, and by the better class of men that were put into 
 all the departments of our commissariat. 
 
 * This Don Martin de Garay was now, as he had been in Sir John 
 Moore’s time, the central junta’s war-minister. He and some of his 
 colleagues had taken it upon themselves to suggest, nay, almost to 
 command, the movements which Sir Arthur Wellesley should make. 
 They would have led him into a trapand a coupe gorge, asthey would 
 have done with Moore. Our unaccountable diplomatist, Mr. Frere, 
 appears to have made himself the medium of conveying some of their 
 complaints or remonstrances to the British General; and it is to Mr, 
 Frere, who was still sojourning with or travelling about in the wake 
 of the wandering junta, that Sir Arthur writes the terrible letter we 
 have quoted in our text. 
 
 ‘“* It is not a difficult matter,’ says Sir Arthur in the same letter, 
 * for a gentleman in the situation of Don Martin de Garay to sit 
 down in his cabinet and write his ideas of the glory which would 
 result from driving the French through the Pyrenees! I believe there 
 is no man in Spain who has risked so much, or who has sacrificed so 
 much, to effect that object as Ihave. But ... . ”’ (then followed 
 the passage we have given in the text). And then Sir Arthur con- 
 cludes with saying, ‘* I positively will not move, nay, more, | will 
 disperse my army, till Iam supplied with provisions and means of 
 transport as I ought to be.’’—Letter to the Right Hon. J. H. Frere, 
 dated Talavera, 3\st July, in Colonel Gurwood, ¥ ellington Dispatches., 
 
 If it had been to General Wellesley that Mr. Frere had sent his 
 French agent, and his monstrous proposition for calling a council of 
 war, it is probable that his friend andagent, Colone/ Charmilly, would 
 have been handed over to the provost marshal. Mr. Frere, whose 
 functions soon ceased altogether—never again to be resumed in any 
 part of the world—must have felt that he had a firmer and a sterner 
 man to deal with now than he had found in Sir John Moore; but the 
 situation of Sir Arthur Wellesley, his loud complaints, and the con- 
 duct of the Spaniards, ought to have induced the diplomatist and 
 his warm friends in England to mitigate the severity of their cen- 
 sures on the conduct of Moore’s campaign and retreat, and to deduct 
 ninety per cent. from the confidence they placed in the Spaniards. 
 
 er rape reattach rete ma snr Gita 
 
480 
 
 cover his Portuguese troops, and for provisions 
 wherewith to feed them. 
 
 On the Ist of August, Joseph Bonaparte, with 
 the fourth or Sebastiani’s corps and the reserve, 
 retreated farther back to Ilescas, on the road be- 
 tween Madrid and Toledo; in order to oppose 
 Venegas and his Andalusian army; and Victor 
 soon afterwards retreated likewise on the road to 
 Madrid, from an exaggerated alarm at the rapid 
 movements of Sir Robert Wilson. But, before 
 even Joseph began his retreat from Salinas, Soult 
 had got into Plasencia, only a few marches in the 
 British rear. There wasa strong pass or defile in the 
 mountains of Plasencia, called the Puerto de Banos 
 —a pass which could not be turned without a long 
 detour, and which might well have been stopped 
 against the enemy’s advance. Sir Arthur had ap- 
 pled to Cuesta for this important service, and 
 Cuesta had engaged to stop the pass; but, instead 
 of sending an adequate force, the old gentleman 
 sent only 600 men, who ran away almost as soon 
 as the head of the first French column showed 
 itself. This foremost French column was nothing 
 less than a part of the corps d’armée of Marshal 
 Mortier, who walked through the defile on the 31st 
 of July. Soult followed with the second corps, 
 and entered Plasencia on the morning of the Ist.of 
 August. Marshal Ney was coming fast round 
 from Salamanca to the same point, so that ina 
 few days or hours 53,000 men would be collected 
 at Plasencia. On entering that town Soult found 
 it deserted by most of its inhabitants, and, though 
 so near to the field of Talavera, he could obtain no 
 information of what had passed, or of what was 
 passing—he could learn nothing of the position or 
 
 numbers of the British and Spanish armies. ‘This | 
 
 ignorance of each other’s movements was a com- 
 mon occurrence in the Spanish war, and is to be 
 accounted for by the nature of the country, the 
 difficulties of communication, the thinness of the 
 population, and the incurious, indolent habits of 
 the people. There were cases where a great battle 
 was fought in one valley, and not known behind 
 the mountains which divided it from another val- 
 ley; and, when more was known of what was 
 passing, it was seldom that any pains were taken 
 to convey information to their friends: the people 
 preferred staying in their homesteads to defend or 
 conceal their property, or taking the field and 
 lying in ambush near the French line of march, in 
 order to cut off stragglers and make booty. On 
 the 2nd of August, however, Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 learned that the enemy had entered Plasencia, 
 but that was all he could learn. Supposing that 
 Soult was alove with his corps, that that corps did 
 not exceed 15,000 men, and that Soult’s intention 
 was to join Victor, he determined to encounter 
 him before he could effect the junction. Accord- 
 ingly, on the 3rd of August, the British army set 
 out for Oropesa, leaving Cuesta at Talavera, where 
 he engaged to protect the hospitals. This last 
 charge was particularly recommended to him by Sir 
 Arthur, who told him that, in case of the Spaniards 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SSS ee 
 being obliged, by any advance of Victor, to abandon 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 Talavera, he might collect carts to move away the 
 British wounded. The old gentleman engaged to 
 do all this; but he kept his engagement about as 
 well as he had done his preceding one, to maintain 
 the defile of Puerto de Banos. The position of the 
 hostile armies was now very singular: they were 
 
 all crowded along the narrow valley of the Tagus, 
 
 from the neighbourhood of Madrid to the frontiers 
 of Portugal. Joseph and Sebastiani were at 
 Illescas, between Madrid and Toledo ; the Spanish 
 general Venegas was on the opposite side of the 
 river, not far from Toledo; Victor was lower down 
 onthe right bank, watching Cuesta, who was at 
 Talavera; Wellesley was still lower down at 
 Oropesa; whilst Soult was on the road from 
 Plasencia to Almaraz ; and Beresford was now said 
 to be moving farther west along the frontiers of 
 Portugal. “ The allies, under Wellesley and Cuesta, 
 held the centre, being only one day’s march asun- 
 der; but their force, when concentrated, was not 
 more than 47,000 men. The French couid not 
 unite under three days, but their combined forces 
 exceeded 90,000 men, of whom 53,000 were under 
 
 Soult; and this singular situation was rendered 
 
 more remarkable by the ignorance in which all 
 parties were as to the strength and movements of 
 their adversaries. Victor and the king, frightened 
 by Wilson’s partisan corps of 4000 men, were 
 preparing to unite at Mostoles, near Madrid ; 
 while Cuesta, equally alarmed at Victor, was re- 
 tiring from Talavera. Sir Arthur Wellesley was 
 supposed by King Joseph to be at the head of 
 25,000 British; and Sir Arthur, calculating on 
 Soult’s weakness, was marchivg with 23,000 
 English and Spanish to engage 53,000 French; 
 
 while Soult, unable to ascertain the exact situation — 
 
 of either friends or enemies, little suspected that 
 the prey was rushing into his jaws. At this 
 moment the fate of the Peninsula hung by a thread, 
 which could not bear the weight for twenty-four 
 hours ; yet fortune so ordained that no irreparable 
 disaster ensued.” # 
 
 On the evening of the 3rd of August Sir Arthur 
 
 Wellesley learned at Oropesa that Soult’s advanced 
 
 posts were at Naval-Moral, and consequently be- 
 tween him and the bridge of Almaraz, on the 
 
 Tagus, thus cutting the line of communication of — 
 
 the English with Portugal. 
 
 About an hour after — 
 
 the reception of this intelligence Sir Arthur got 
 
 letters from Cuesta, informing him that the enemy 
 was moving upon his (Cuesta’s) flank, and had 
 returned to S. Olalla in his front; that Joseph was 
 coming back to join Victor; that Soult must be 
 stronger than General Wellesley supposed, and 
 that therefore, and from the consideration that 
 General Wellesley was not strong enough to check 
 Soult’s corps coming from Plasencia, he (Cuesta) 
 intended to leave Talavera that evening (and to 
 
 =. 
 
 leave in it the English hospitals, excepting such — 
 
 men as could be moved by the means he had 
 already collected) in order to join the British army 
 * Napier, Ilist. of the Peninsular War. 
 
Cuap. VIII. } CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 at Oropesa, and assist it in repelling Soult. The 
 old gentleman’s reasons did not appear to Sir 
 Arthur quite sufficient for giving up so Important 
 a post as Talavera, for exposing the combined 
 armies to an attack in front and rear at one and 
 the same time, and for abandoning his sick and 
 wounded. He wrote one of his short and earnest 
 letters to the wilful old man, imploring him to 
 stay where he was, or to wait at least till next 
 morning, in order to cover the removal of the 
 British hospitals from Talavera: but before this 
 letter could reach him, Cuesta, who evidently feared 
 having his own tail pinched by Victor, had begun 
 his march, and on the next morning the rising 
 sun shone upon his dirty ragged troops marching 
 into Oropesa. This was the 4th of August. About 
 2000 of the British wounded had been brought 
 away from the hospitals, but about 1500 had been 
 left behind.* Cuesta’s retreat must almost imme- 
 diately bring Victor and Joseph upon Sir Arthur, 
 who, by this time, had ascertained by intercepted 
 letters that Soult’s force was much stronger than 
 he had reckoned. The English general was now 
 placed between the mountains and the Tagus, with 
 a French army advancing upon each flank, and 
 with his retreat by the bridge at Almaraz com- 
 pletely cut off; after the experience he had had of 
 Cuesta and the Spanish army, he could not rely 
 upon them in an open field of battle; and he could 
 not, with 17,000 British, fatigued and famishing, 
 hope to fight successively two French armies, each 
 nearly three times stronger than his own. Before 
 this moment of real jeopardy, he had said, in 
 speaking of the Spaniards—“ I cannot bring for- 
 ward such troops, owing to their miserable state of 
 discipline and their want of officers properly 
 qualified. These troops are entirely incapable of 
 performing any manceuvre, however simple. They 
 would get into irretrievable confusion, and the re- 
 sult would probably be the loss of everything.’ + 
 But there was still one—and only one—line of re- 
 treat left open to the British, for, a little below 
 Talavera, the Tagus was crossed by the bridge of 
 Arzobispo ; and by this route, and by this bridge, 
 Sir Arthur determined to retire immediately, before 
 the enemy should have time to intercept him. He 
 calculated that by taking up a line of defence be- 
 yond the Tagus, he might keep open the road by 
 Truxillo to Badajoz; he communicated his deter- 
 mination to Cuesta, who, according to custom, 
 opposed it. That perverse old gentleman wanted, 
 forsooth, to stop and fight the French at Oropesa! 
 Wearied out with his absurdities, Sir Arthur 
 
 * Sir Arthur says, however, that he doubted, whether under any 
 circumstances it would have been possible or consistent with humanity 
 to have attempted to remove any more of them. He adds—‘ From 
 the treatment some of our soldiers who were wounded on the 27th, 
 and who fell into the hands of the enemy, experienced from them, and 
 from the manner in which I have always taken care of their 
 wounded who have fallen into my hands, I expect that these men 
 left at Talavera will be well treated.”— Dispatches. 
 
 + These were precisely the same convictions as were entertained 
 by Sir John Moore when he began his retreat; and yet Mr. Frere 
 entertained at the time, and Southey and others of his friends con- 
 tinued to repeat many years afterwards, that, with the assistance 
 of Spanish generals and Spanish troops, Sir John ought to have 
 driven the French beyond the Pyrences! 
 
 VOL, VI. 
 
 TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 481 
 
 sternly told him that he might do as he liked, but 
 that, for his own part, being responsible for the 
 British army, he should move forthwith ; and ac- 
 cordingly, on that same morning, before Cuesta’s 
 disorderly rear got to Oropesa, the British army 
 filed off towards Arzobispo. It was a blessing 
 that the Spaniards, who generally destroyed what 
 they ought to have left standing, and left standing 
 what they ought to have destroyed, had not blown 
 up the only bridge open to Sir Arthur: the 2000 
 wounded, the artillery, the stores, were all carried 
 safely over the Tagus; before evening the general 
 took upan excellent position behind the right bank 
 of that river; and then the British army was safe.* 
 Mad as he was, Cuesta was not mad enough to 
 stay when Sir Arthur was gone—we can scarcely 
 believe that he would have stayed at Oropesa even 
 if the British general had wanted to remain, or 
 that his daring proposition about giving battle there 
 was anything more than a Spanish fa¢on de parler 
 —he moved to the bridge of Arzobispo, and there 
 halted his troops, who, having little to carry with 
 them, were ready to pass the Tagus at any moment. 
 But so little did Cuesta act in concert with Sir 
 Arthur, that he moved his head-quarters, and 
 suffered three days to elapse without sending him 
 any information of his plans or movements. Find- 
 ing that the French did not make their appear- 
 ance near him, the old Spanish general re- 
 moved on the night of the 7th to Peraleda de 
 Garbin, between Puente del Arzobispo and Al- 
 maraz, leaving two divisions of infantry and 
 some cavalry behind to defend the bridge, which 
 was barricaded, and protected by several bat~ 
 teries. He never thought of examining whether 
 the river might not be fordable. On the 8th 
 Marshal Mortier, who commanded the French 
 corps which led the pursuit, made his appearance 
 near the téte-du-pont, and, while he pretended to 
 be erecting batteries, he sent the Pole Dom- 
 browsky with two good swimmers to sound the 
 Tagus. <A good ford, passable even for infantry, 
 was found, not 200 yards above the bridge and 
 the Spanish batteries. At this moment Marshal 
 Soult himself came up, and determined to effect 
 the passage in the heat of the day, when the 
 Spanish troops might be taking their siesta, or 
 mid-day sleep. And as the marshal calculated 
 so it happened: the Spaniards, relying upon the 
 river, and their batteries and barricades, were 
 nearly all buried in sleep, when the French dashed 
 across the ford, and took their works on the bridge 
 in the rear. Some of the Spanish artillerymen 
 were cut down at their guns, and others were com- 
 pelled to turn their guns upon their own country- 
 
 * In a letter written to Lord Castlereagh, four days after crossing 
 the Tagus, Sir Arthur says, ‘‘ I hope my public dispatches will jus- 
 tify me from all blame, ewcepting that of having trusted the Spanish 
 general in anything. We should have been safe at Talavera, if I 
 could have prevailed upon him to occupy Bafios as it ought to have 
 been; and we should have avoided the disgrace of the loss of the 
 hospital, if he had sent away General Bassecourt on the night of the 
 30th, or on the morning of the 3lst, or if he had maintained his 
 post at Talavera. As it is, I really believe that I have saved the 
 whole of both armies, by retiring to Arzobispo, and taking up the 
 line of the Tagus.” 
 
 2E 
 
482 
 
 men: the works were presently demolished, and 
 then masses of French infantry rushed over the 
 bridge. Some Spanish cavalry that were reposing 
 in a shady place nearly a league from the scene 
 of action mounted at the first alarm, hastened to 
 support their countrymen, and made a brilliant 
 charge. But this was too late: the two Spanish 
 divisions of infantry were in confusion, and pre- 
 sently horse and foot fled towards the mountains, 
 abandoning artillery, baggage, ammunition, every- 
 thing. The French said they cut down 1600 of 
 them in the pursuit.* 
 
 By this time the British army was considerably 
 advanced on its road to Truxillo. On the night 
 of the 5th they halted in a ravine, distant six 
 leagues from the Puente del Arzobispo. On the 
 6th they continued their route, passing over a most 
 mountainous and rugged country, by the steepest 
 and worst of roads, which, in many places, were 
 scarcely roads at all. The Alps of St. Bernard 
 were loftier, yet scarcely more difficult ; but these 
 excellent and excellently commanded English troops 
 carried over their artillery and stores, and thought 
 little of the exploit when it was done.t The light 
 brigade under Craufurd had preceded the army, 
 to watch the passage of the Tagus at Almaraz, 
 where, however, the French did not attempt to 
 pass intime. On the 8th the British head-quar- 
 ters were at Deleytosa, a small healthy village, 
 seated on an eminence, in the direct road to Trux- 
 illo; on the morning of the 9th, Spanish cavalry 
 and infantry again appeared retiring upon the 
 track of Sir Arthur Wellesley. It was all that 
 remained of Cuesta’s army in full retreat. ‘“*‘ We 
 have now,”’ writes Sir Arthur on the 8th, ‘* the 
 whole host of French marshals in Estremadura— 
 Soult, Ney, Mortier, Kellermann, Victor, and 
 Sebastiani, with King Joseph besides, and 5000 
 men from Suchet!..... I have recommended to 
 the junta to set Romana, the Duque del Parque, 
 and the guerillas to work towards Madrid.” ¢ 
 From Deleytosa the forced marches were discon- 
 tinued, for Wellesley had now brought his army 
 into a country where it had nothing to fear from 
 any or all of the French marshals, who were won- 
 dering how he could have escaped them. Making 
 easy marches over a comparatively flat country, 
 the British army crossed the Rio del Monte, near 
 to Jaraicejo, and took up an alignement on its 
 opposite bank. The camp was in a most pic- 
 turesque country, upon some shady hills, with 
 extensive forests of cork, chestnuts, and oak in 
 
 * Southey, Hist. Peninsular War, 
 
 + ‘* At one part of the Sierra, and for a considerable distance, to ° 
 
 drag the artillery up by the usual means became impossible. The 
 infantry were put to the guns, who, with considerable difficulty 
 and exertion, forced them along the mountain road. On this day’s 
 march, for the first time, were heard complaints from the soldiers 
 on the subject of want of food. Toiling over these mountains, 
 dragging the cannon, severely harassed by excessive heat, the men, 
 conversing with each other, talked loudly of the hardships endured; 
 but a soothing and encouraging expression was alone necessary to 
 restore their good humour, even when assailed on the tenderest 
 point.”—Col. Leith Hay, Narrative of the Peninsular War. 
 
 t Dispatch to Viscount Castlereagh from Deleytosa.—In a letter 
 written on the same day to the Rt. Hon. John Villiers, Sir Arthur 
 says, ‘* All is now safe, and I should feel no anxiety on any subject 
 if we had provisions: but we are almost starving.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the rear, and with a broad deep stream in front, 
 The country, too, was productive as well as pic- 
 turesque; supplies of provision and wine, and 
 other comforts, were procured for the almost ex- 
 hausted soldiers; and here they remained, as in a 
 Land of Goshen, in perfect inactivity for some 
 days.* On the 20th and 21st of August the di- 
 visions of the army marched by Truxillo, the 
 birthplace of Pizarro. On the 23rd they traversed 
 the field of Medellin, where old Cuesta (whose 
 army had by this time disappeared again, to go no 
 man knew whither) had fought a battle with Mar- 
 shal Victor, and had sustained a most murderous 
 defeat in the preceding month of March, before 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley’s second arrival in Portugal. 
 The plain still bore numerous marks of having 
 been a field of battle; nor had the five intervening 
 months effaced the evidences of Spanish defeat and 
 slaughter. Fragments of uniforms, caps, bones, 
 dead horses, cartridges, exploded shells, strewed 
 the ground in every direction. 
 
 By the 2nd of September Sir Arthur had his 
 
 / 
 
 head-quarters at Badajoz, close on the frontiers — 
 
 of Portugal; and in a day or two a part of his 
 army was sent across the frontier, and his sick 
 and wounded were conveyed to the strongly forti- 
 fied Portuguese town of Elvas, which now became 
 the general hospital of the army. Of the two 
 corps which had advanced upon Madrid in Joseph 
 Bonaparte’s absence, the Spanish one, under Ge- 
 neral Venegas, was easily defeated at Almonacid, 
 by Sebastiani, who drove it back upon the Sierra 
 
 it had advanced; but the mixed Portuguese and 
 Spanish corps commanded by Sir Robert Wil- 
 son was extricated by that rapid and ingenious 
 officer. Wilson had made a masterly march from 
 
 the neighbourhood of Talavera through the moun- — 
 tains to Bejar, contriving to make the French be- — 
 
 A 
 Morena and the Andalusian frontier, from which — 
 
 a 
 
 ow 
 
 lieve that he had 15,000 or 20,000 men with him; 
 and, when warned by Wellesley to retire, he came 
 back as rapidly as he had advanced. On the 12th — 
 
 of August, eight days after Sir Arthur’s retreat 
 
 from Oropesa, Sir Robert fought a large corps of 
 
 4 
 
 infantry, cavalry, and artillery, for a whole day, | 
 near the Puerto de Bajios, and retired at night, in_ | 
 Although nearly the | 
 whole of Marshal Ney’s corps was upon him, | 
 
 good order, to Colmenar. 
 
 Wilson brought his Portuguese and Spanish corps, P| 
 
 much less diminished than might have been ex 
 pected, in safety and in honour to the Portugu 
 
 * Colonel Leith Hay gives a very amusing picture of the rush the 
 was made by officers as well as soldiers into the town and marke 
 of Truxillo, to purchase meat, vegetables, bread, groceries, &c. 
 appears that our worthy allies the vintners and wine-sellers of Truxill 
 played some tricks which had a very pernicious effect on our sol diers 
 stomachs and bowels. Until assured that everything would be paid 
 for, money in hand, the inhabitants fled, or pretended they had 
 nothing to sell. 
 
 ‘‘ Everything was of course charged enormously, Wine was sold | 
 
 in profusion. The depositories had nearly become emptied ; tee | 
 
 ingenuity made up for the insufficiency of the supply. The Spaniards 
 
 conceiving that their allies were persons who must have wine, and at 
 
 the same time would not be particular as to the quality, diluted 
 mixed the originally poor produce of the grape of Estremadura in 
 such a manner, composing so horrible a description of drink, 
 
 it is only extraordinary more fatal effects were not immediat 
 produced by its deleterious qualities.” 
 
Guar. VIIL] 
 
 —————— Sree 
 
 ss 
 
 frontier, and, by the 7th of September, or six days 
 after the arrival of Sir Arthur at Badajoz, Sir 
 Robert was at Castello Branco, watching the 
 enemy’s motions.* 
 
 In the meanwhile King Joseph, who had no 
 taste for campaigning, and who had a very eager 
 desire to return to the ease and luxuries of Madrid, 
 had recalled Marshal Mortier, who had crossed the 
 Tagus in pursuit of Cuesta; and Marshal Ney, who 
 had suffered considerable loss in the affair with Sir 
 Robert Wilson, had found it impracticable, or had 
 not thought it proper, to ford the Tagus below 
 Almaraz in order to follow the retiring columns of 
 the British army. ‘There was no concert or good- 
 will between Ney and Soult, or in fact between any 
 of these marshals. Soult, after the recall of Mor- 
 tier and the retreat or halt of Ney, had proposed to 
 march with his three corps into Portugal by Coria 
 and Abrantes, in the hope of reaching Lisbon, by 
 the right bank of the Tagus, before the English ; 
 but Ney, Jourdan, and Joseph opposed this bold 
 plan, and soon afterwards a dispatch arrived from 
 their emperor, who dated from the Emperor of 
 Austria’s palace at Schénbrunn after the battle of 
 Wagram, and who forbade further offensive opera- 
 tions till the termination of the Austrian war should 
 enable him to send large reinforcements into Spain. 
 The following brief remarks are worthy of especial 
 notice, and may be recommended to the considera- 
 tion of those who seem not to know how to distin- 
 guish between the different phases and epochs of 
 the genius of Bonaparte, but who continue to give 
 that ecstatic admiration to all his campaigns which 
 is properly due only to his earliest ones :— 
 
 ** Napoleon, since he had assumed the imperial 
 crown, trusted chiefly to his overwhelming masses, 
 which he recruited so cheaply by means of the 
 conscription. The proportion of cavalry in his 
 armies in Spain was beyond all precedent. How 
 different from the adventurous general of the army 
 of Italy, who, with 30,000 men, encountered and 
 defeated three Austrian armies, each stronger than 
 his own, in 1796! But he was now bloated with 
 Success, and war must be with him a sure game. 
 He had already 200,000 men in Spain, and yet he 
 did not think them enough. His generals had 
 adopted the same views: ‘It is large masses only, 
 the strongest that you can form, that will initia 
 Thus wrote Soult to King Joseph before the battle 
 of ‘Talavera. It is worthy of remark, that Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley, writing about the same time, 
 said—* I conceive that the French are dangerous 
 only when in large masses.? Such was the cha- 
 
 * No man was warmer in his praises of Sir Robert Wilson than 
 was his high-minded ecommander-in-chief. In a dispatch, dated the 
 2ist of August, Sir Arthur says :—“ Sir R. Wilson has been very 
 active, intelligent, and useful in the command of the Portuguese 
 and Spanish corps, with which he was detached from this army. 
 Before the battle of the 28th July (Talavera) he had pushed his 
 parties almost to the gates of Madrid, with which city he was in 
 communication, and he would have been in Madrid, if I had not 
 thought it proper to call him in, in expectation of that general 
 action which took place on the 28th of July. He afterwards alarmed 
 the enemy on the right.of his army; and throughout the service 
 has shown himself to be an active and intelligent partisan, well 
 acquainted with the country in which he was acting, and possessing 
 the confidence of the troops which he commanded,” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 483 
 
 racter of the wars of the French empire. And yet, 
 with all his tremendous masses, and a proportionate 
 waste of human life, Napoleon failed in the end.’’* 
 We doubt whether the great secret has ever been 
 so well told in so few words. 
 
 Soult’s army now went into cantonments in 
 Estremadura and Leon, near the borders of Por- 
 tugal; Joseph Bonaparte had got back to Madrid 
 as soon as it had been possible or safe to do so; 
 French moveable columns, not unlike the infernal 
 columns which had formerly traversed the Vendée, 
 now traversed various parts of Spain; the irregular 
 guerilla warfare was carried on in many distant 
 provinces and districts ; some towns on the eastern 
 coast, in Catalonia and Valencia, were taken by the 
 French, while others held out, costing the besiegers 
 an enormous sacrifice of life (Gerona alone, which 
 did not capitulate until January, 1810, when it was 
 reduced by famine, cost the lives of from 15,000 
 to 20,000 French soldiers, and completely disheart- 
 ened and drove away three or four French generals 
 of the highest name); but, from the middle of 
 August till the middle of November, no actions 
 took place in the field, of any importance, either 
 on the part of the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 or on the part of any of the scattered Spanish 
 armies ; nor was the repose of the British forces 
 very materially interrupted until the month of May, 
 1810. 
 
 On the 4th of September, 1809, almost as soon 
 as the news of his remarkable battle reached Eng- 
 land, Sir Arthur was raised to the peerage with the 
 titles of Baron Douro of Wellesley and Viscount 
 Wellington of Talavera. He had now placed his 
 army in cantonments on the line of the Guadiana, 
 to cover Portugal from Soult, who continued to be 
 cantoned in Estremadura and Leon. But, if neither 
 Soult nor any other French force whatever had been 
 threatening the Portuguese frontier, it would have 
 been impossible for Lord Wellington to have tried 
 another advance into Spain ; for no junta, central or 
 provincial, could or would undertake to supply his 
 army with provisions, and it was only by drawing 
 on his magazines in Portugal, which were chiefly 
 filled from England, that he could preserve his 
 troops from starvation ; and added to this impos- 
 sibility there was another—the impossibility of co- 
 operating with undisciplined Spanish armies, and 
 proud, obstinate, ignorant, and incapable Spanish 
 generals. He had tried the last experiment fairly ; 
 it had failed ; and, but for the resources of his own . 
 genius and the admirable qualities of his troops, he 
 must have been utterly ruined in attempting to co- 
 operate with the Spaniards. © The want of vigour 
 and capacity in the members of the so-called central 
 Spanish government, which, after wandering from 
 place to place, had now fixed itself at Seville, was 
 quite as conspicuous as were the deficiencies of the 
 Spanish generals in the field, who, indeed, very 
 generally contrived to throw the blame of their own 
 failures upon the civilians in the junta, In vain 
 the Marquess Wellesley, who was now residing 
 * A, Vieusseux, Military Life of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
484 
 
 with them at Seville, laboured to convince the 
 junta of the fatal consequences which must result 
 from their wretched military system, and to teach 
 them how to render their armies efficient, and the 
 resources of their country available; the Dons all 
 pretended to be wiser than the marquess, or to 
 know more about their own countrymen and coun- 
 try than he could know: the national pride was 
 the rock upon which the designs of the friends and 
 the enemies of the Spaniards were equally wrecked.* 
 And, not satisfied with turning a deaf ear to the 
 marquess’s advice, they insulted him by casting 
 reproaches on his brother. Don Martin de Garay 
 the war minister, together with other members of 
 the central junta, raised as loud an outcry against 
 Wellington’s retreat from Oropesa as they had 
 raised against Sir John Moore’s retreat from the 
 banks of the Carion. ‘This led our ambassador into 
 a very unpleasant correspondence ; but the mar- 
 quess maintained the character of the nation, of the 
 army, and of his brother, with proper dignity and 
 spirit ; and Lord Wellington himself wrote two or 
 three of his closely reasoned and conclusive letters, 
 exposing what the junta had done for him and his 
 army, what sort of assistance and co-operation he 
 had received from the Spanish generals, together 
 
 * The ‘ Dispatches and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley 
 during his lordship’s mission to Spain as ambassador extraordinary to 
 the supreme junta,’ 1809 (edited by Mr. Montgomery Martin), contain 
 a great deal of information respecting the fruitless efforts that were 
 made against Spanish pride, conceit, and stupidity. 
 
 On the 15th of September we find the marquess writing to Mr. 
 Canning that he had vainly applied to the junta for provisions and 
 means of movement to the British army; that he had told them his 
 brother must abstain from all engagement to co-operate with the 
 Spanish troops within the territory of Spain; that, even if the system 
 of supplies could have been corrected, the state of the Spanish army 
 alone must form an irresistible motive for withholding any future co- 
 operation, while the same evils should be left unremedied; that in 
 his opinion any British army, though of 40,000 men, that should 
 attempt to act in Spain under the present circumstances of the country, 
 and of the enemy, would be exposed to the utmost hazard of total de- 
 struction. f 
 
 In the same dispatch the marquess gave it as the decided opinion 
 of his brother, Lord Wellington, that, in the event of a British army 
 acting in Spain, it would be absolutely necessary that the chief command 
 of the Spanish army should be vested in the commander-in-chief of the 
 British forces. The marquess thought that the difficulties of obtain- 
 ing supplies did not all proceed from the poverty and nakedness of 
 the country. In the same dispatch he saysto Mr. Canning, * At 
 present, local difficulties certainly exist in some of the provinces, and 
 many of the districts continue to suffer under the consequences of 
 war, or of formermismanagement. But many provinces abound in the 
 means of subsistence and transport. No system, however, has been 
 established, by which the deficiencies of one district can be supplied 
 from the abundance of another, nor does any regulation exist properly 
 calculated to secure and collect the resources of any province for its 
 separate defence, and still less for any more remote objects of active 
 war. The civil establishments throughout the provinces are not 
 properly formed for the purpose of ascertaining, or bringing into use 
 for the service of the army, either the production of the soil, or the 
 articles of transport and conveyance existing in the several districts. 
 To this want of due regulation and system must be added the corrup- 
 tion, and even the positive disaffection, of many of the civil authorities 
 in the provinces; in many instances, the strongest evidence has ap- 
 peared of positive aversion to the cause of Spain and of the allies, 
 and of treacherous inclination to the interests of France, 
 
 ** The disposition of the people is generally favourable to the great 
 cause in which the nation is engaged, and the mass of the populaticn 
 of Spain certainly appears to contain the foundations on which a good 
 and powerful government might be securely established, and the 
 materials of which an efficient army might be composed. Among the 
 higher and middle classes of society are to be found too many ex- 
 amples of the success of French intrigue. In those classes may be 
 traced a disposition to observe events, and to prepare for accommoda- 
 tion with that party which may ultimately prevail in the existing con- 
 test. Many persons of this description, if not favoured, are not discoun- 
 tenanced by the government. From these circumstances, and from 
 the wantof any regular mode of collecting popular opinion, the public 
 spirit of the people is not properly cultivated, nor directed tothe great 
 objects of the contest. The people also are still subject to many heavy 
 exactions, and the abuses and grievances accumulated by recent 
 mal-administration have not yet been duly remedied or redressed.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 with the degree of reliance that was to be placed 
 upon their word. 
 
 In the autumn, the British troops cantoned in the 
 valley of the Guadiana suffered rather severely 
 from malaria fevers; but it was not yet considered 
 expedient to withdraw them entirely from the ter- 
 ritory of Spain. On the 10th of October his lord- 
 ship, with a few able officers, arrived at Lisbon, 
 and proceeded to reconnoitre and examine mi- 
 nutely the whole country in front of that capital. 
 He had appreciated at the first glance after the 
 battle of Vimeiro the excellences of Torres Vedras 
 as a defensive position, and he had now determined 
 upon the construction of those celebrated lines 
 which enabled him to baffle all the efforts of the 
 French in 1810. As early as the 20th of October 
 he wrote a“ Memorandum”’ for Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Fletcher of the engineers, in which he clearly pointed 
 out the double line of position, the entrenchments 
 and redoubts, the number of men required at each 
 post, &c., and ordered Colonel Fletcher to examine 
 every road, every hill, river, or rivulet in that vici- 
 nity ; to calculate the precise time it would take to 
 erect the works, to break up the bridges in front 
 of them, &c.* Butof this great plan nothing was 
 said, or even whispered, at the time. By the 30th 
 of October Lord Wellington had returned to his 
 head-quarters at Badajoz. By the 2nd or 3rd of 
 November he was at Seville, having proceeded 
 thither to confer with his brother the Marquess Wel- 
 lesley, and, perhaps, to see whether by personal ap- 
 plication he might not be able to set aright some of _ 
 the errors and prejudices of the junta. From 
 Seville he proceeded with Lord Wellesley to Cadiz, 
 “‘ partly to arrange money matters, and partly by 
 curiosity to see the place.’ By the 12th of No- 
 vember he was back at Badajoz, where he received 
 information that orders had been given in all the 
 Spanish villages of that province to prevent the 
 sale of forage and provisions to the British army.t+ 
 And a few days after this last intelligence he was 
 informed that the Spanish army had run headlong 
 into destruction, and had suffered at Ocafa a more 
 tremendous defeat than any they had sustained 
 since the commencement of the war. The com- 
 mand of the army of Andalusia, which had retreated 
 before Sebastiani into the recesses of the Sierra 
 Morena, had been taken from General Venegas to 
 be given to General Areizaga, an inferior man, an 
 inexperienced young officer, but who happened to 
 be in favour with the central junta. Old Cuesta 
 had also retired from the command of the army of — 
 Estremadura, and—incredible as it may seem—a 
 greater blunderer than he, General Eguia, had 
 been found and appointed to succeed him. [Lord 
 Wellington knew something of this Eguia, and as 
 far back as the 14th of September he had set down 
 some of his plans as “ rank nonsense.’’] Early in 
 November the sapient junta, who had chosen two 
 
 ¢ 4 
 * For this extraordinary document, which has been considered as 
 one of the most striking evidences existing of Wellington’s com- — 
 rehensive mind, penetration, and foresight, see Colonel Gurwood, 
 ellington Dispatches, vol. v., from p. 234 to 239. 
 + Dispatches. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 such excellent generals, ordered the army of Anda- 
 lusia, joined by the greater part of the army of 
 Estremadura, to advance suddenly upon Madrid, 
 and this without any previous communication with 
 Lord Wellington at Badajoz, or with the Duque del 
 Parque and the other Spanish commanders in the 
 north of Spain. Young Areizaga wanted to have 
 the whole glory of recovering the Spanish capital : 
 with nearly 50,000 men and 60 pieces of artillery, 
 he descended from the mountains, where the French 
 could not have touched him, and advanced with the 
 confidence of an ignorant boy into the wide plains of 
 La Mancha. It was on the morning of the 19th of 
 November that he encountered in the open fields of 
 Ocaiia the two united corps of Mortier and Sebasti- 
 ani, who adyanced upon him in three columns, threw 
 his cavalry head over heels, and broke the infantry 
 of his right wing ; upon which his left wing retired, 
 or fled, without firing a shot. Then followed a gene- 
 ral débacle, with the loss of fifty-five of their sixty 
 cannon, of the military chest, provisions, baggage, 
 clothing, &c., and with a terrific loss of life, which 
 must have been sustained rather in the flight than 
 in the fight.* The fugitives that were quick or for- 
 tunate to escape rushed like maniacs through the 
 strong pass of Despefas Perros, or fled by other 
 rough roads towards Murcia or Valencia. Many 
 thousands were taken prisoners, so that more than 
 one half of this army—the largest that the junta 
 had hitherto sent into the field—was destroyed or 
 lost. It is said that very cruel usage was adopted 
 to force the prisoners into the French service ; that 
 8000 of them yielded, but took the first opportunity 
 to desert, and join the guerillas in the mountains. 
 The defeat of Areizaga at Ocana drew after it the 
 defeat of the Duque del Parque, who had quitted 
 
 * We could never understand how—or, to speak more plainly, we 
 could never believe that—whole Spanish battalions died immoveable 
 at their posts, in an open plain, in Cuesta’s famous battle of Medellin. 
 The British army, even in later days, when the Spaniards were vastly 
 improved, never saw them capable of quite so much steadiness. At 
 Medellin there was indeed a smashing fire of artillery upon the Spa- 
 nish ranks and columns; but this would hardly account for the sort 
 of destruction which is reported to have taken place. It appears that 
 at Medellin, as at Ocafia, the Spaniards were broken and enveloped 
 atonce, that their retreat was completely cut off, and that, in their 
 despair, they sold their lives dearly. At the time of the battle of 
 Ocafia, when Bonaparte had successfully terminated the Austrian war, 
 and when his brother Joseph was entertaining sanguine hopes of esta- 
 blishing his throne, the system was recommended and adopted of 
 taking as many Spanish prisoners as possible, and of trying afterwards 
 to induce them to enter into the service of the intrusive king; but at 
 the time of the battle of Medellin, when J oseph’s fears were great, a 
 much more sanguinary system prevailed. Marshal Victor, however, 
 wrote to King Joseph after the battle of Medellin: -‘ The loss of the 
 Spaniards was so great that it must be seen to be believed. - I myself 
 have gone over the field of battle to ascertain the facts. All the Spa- 
 nish battalions which General Cuesta had stationed to oppose us, whe- 
 ther in line or in columns, are still lying there in the same order. 
 Every man, officer and soldier, was killed ; I at first stated their loss 
 at 10,000 to 12,000 killed; I now believe it was more. All my staff 
 have seen it as well as myself. But you must not suppose that it was 
 a massacre of prisoners : no, they defended themselves to the last 
 extremity, exclaiming ‘ Vo quarter.’ The sight of the field of battle 
 is really frightful.” Still this may have been, in good part, an attempt 
 to cover the atrocity of the slaughter. Colonel Napier, after mention- 
 ing how Latour Maunbourg with his cavalry swept round the left flank, 
 and then fell on the rear of Cuesta, and how, at the same moment 
 Lasalle and his cavalry galloped in upon the broken bands, says, 
 with a startling brevity, ‘*A horrible carnage ensued, for the 
 French soldiers, while their strength would permit, continued to 
 follow and strike, until three-fifths of the Spanish army wallowed 
 in blood.” —History of the Peninsular War. 
 
 In the battle of Medellin, Cuesta was wounded, and fell from his 
 horse; but he was quickly remounted, and escaped. Another Spa- 
 nish general, Frias, was severely wounded, and taken prisoner. 
 
 Se a a a ae 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 AN INI EE —————————————— a anaanaaennn marianne 
 
 485 
 
 the line of the Tagus to co-operate in the insane 
 plan for recovering Madrid. Del Parque, in the 
 month of October, being well stationed on the 
 heights of Tamames, had defeated General Mar- 
 chand, with a force not much superior in number 
 to that of the French. ‘This rare event too much 
 elated the duque, who, not satisfied with freeimg 
 Salamanca from the French, risked his army several 
 times in the open country ; and, when Areizaga was 
 thought to be advancing victoriously through La 
 Mancha, he pushed forward into the open country 
 of Castile, till Marchand, whom he had defeated, 
 was joined by Kellermann and a fresh division from 
 Valladolid. Even then, ignorant of their real force, 
 he advanced against the enemy. On discover- 
 ing that Kellermann had come up the duque re- 
 treated; but it was too late, and he was overtaken 
 and beaten to pieces by Kellermann, on the 28th of 
 November, at Alba de Tormes, the whole of his 
 cavalry being seized with a sudden panic, and 
 taking to flight before a French sabre or bullet 
 could touch them. The Spanish infantry did better, 
 forming into square and repulsing three successive 
 charges of the French cavalry; but, when del 
 Parque ordered a retreat upon T'amames, the scene 
 of his victory in October, the infantry too began to 
 desert ; and on the following morning the roads 
 were strewed with musquets and knapsacks thrown 
 away by the fugitives, and the duque’s army of 
 20,000 men was dwindled down to a few hundreds. 
 Kellermann reported that he took all the artillery 
 of the right wing, killed 3000 men, and made 200 
 prisoners.* Thus the two armies which consti- 
 tuted the principal regular force of the Spaniards, 
 and which, if they had been kept within the line of 
 the Tagus and posted along the Sierra Morena, 
 might long have protected Andalusia and the pro- 
 vinces of the South from French invasion, had 
 been thrown away on a most foolish errand! Lord 
 Wellington, whose advice and warning had been 
 rejected and despised, was deeply mortified by the 
 events. ‘I lament,’ says he, ‘ that a cause which 
 promised so well a few weeks ago should have 
 been so completely lost by the ignorance, presump- 
 tion, and mismanagement of those to whose direc- 
 tion it was intrusted. I declare that, if they had 
 preserved their two armies, or even one of them, 
 the cause was safe. The French could have sent 
 no reinforcements which could have been of an 
 
 use ; time would have been gained; the state of 
 affairs would have improved daily ; all the chances 
 were in our favour; and in the first moment of 
 weakness, occasioned by any diversion on the con- 
 tinent, or by the growing discontent of the French 
 themselves with the war, the French armies must 
 have been driven out of Spain. But, no! nothing 
 will answer except to fight great battles in plains, 
 in which the defeat of the Spanish armies is as 
 certain as is the commencement of the battle. They 
 will not credit the accounts I have repeatedly given 
 them of the superior number even of the French: 
 they will seek them out, and they find them invari- 
 
 * Southey, Ilistory of the Peninsular War. 
 
486 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ably in all parts in numbers superior to them- 
 selves.’’* 
 
 The defeat of the Duque del Parque left the 
 French at full leisure to direct their operations 
 against the most vulnerable part of Portugal. On 
 the line of the Guadiana, where his army was sta- 
 tioned, or on the side of Alemtejo, Lord Wellington 
 could apprehend no attack, attempts in that quarter 
 having always proved unsuccessful: and, after 
 what Soult had suffered during his advance to, and 
 retreat from, Oporto, it was not at all likely that 
 the French would make a second experiment upon 
 Portugal from the Galician frontier at the opposite 
 extremity of the kmgdom. But an intermediate 
 route from the province of Salamanca by Ciudad 
 Rodrigo was more open and much easier, and 
 would lead the invading columns into the heart of 
 Portugal or about midway between the Galician 
 frontier and the frontier of Alemtejo, cutting off 
 Lisbon from Oporto. The capture of Ciudad 
 Rodrigo would, moreover, cut off the communica- 
 tion between the Spanish government and the 
 northern provinces of Spain, and, besides opening 
 the easiest way into Portugal and bringing on the 
 fall of Almeida, it would inevitably give the French 
 possession of Old Castile; and Lord Wellington 
 obtained certain information that a French council 
 of war had recommended the immediate siege of 
 Ciudad Rodrigo. His lordship’s primary object 
 was, and had all along been, the defence of Por- 
 tugal. It was therefore clear that the line of the 
 Guadiana was no longer the line for him; and he 
 resolved to withdraw his troops from that frontier, 
 to march them to Lisbon and to the right bank of 
 the Tagus, and to extend them from thence towards 
 Oporto and the river Douro. He would thus 
 meet the storm where it was now sure to burst. 
 This plan, promptly conceived—for a few days 
 before, and until the annihilation of the armies of 
 Areizaga and del Parque, it had been unnecessary 
 to think of it—was carried into execution with 
 excellent order, and with all the rapidity that was 
 necessary. Quitting the inhospitable ground of 
 Spain altogether, the mass of the British army 
 moved through Alemtejo in the rainy month of 
 December, crossed the Tagus at Abrantes, and 
 marched on to the Mondego. At the beginning of 
 January, 1810, Lord Wellington fixed his head 
 quarters at Viseu, having his out-posts along the 
 frontiers of Spain towards Ciudad Rodrigo. He 
 had left General Hilland his division at Abrantes ; 
 and General Fane’s brigade of heavy cavalry also 
 remained on the banks of the Tagus. Abrantes, 
 which commands the passage of the Tagus (over 
 which river a bridge of boats had been constructed), 
 
 is situated on the summit of a lofty hill, is natu- 
 rally a strong place, surrounded by an old wall; 
 
 and its defences had been improved by English 
 
 * Dispatches. His lordship adds, ‘*I am only afraid, now, that I 
 shall be too late to save Ciudad Rodrigo, the loss of which will 
 secure to the French Old Castile, and will cut off all communication 
 with the northern provinces, and leave them to their fate. I 
 wonder whether the Spanish officers ever read the history of the 
 American war, or of their own war in the Dutch provinces, or of 
 their own war in Portugal.”’ 
 
 = i Ne At ten, . —a ablated 
 
 engineers. Viseu, at the distance of 134 miles 
 N.N.E. from Lisbon, also stands on elevated 
 ground. In both places the troops, who were now 
 properly supplied with provisions, recovered their 
 health, and got rid of the malaria fevers they had 
 caught in Spain. Parliamentary oppositionists and 
 other persons at home might represent the case as 
 hopeless, the attempt as madness; but assuredly 
 Lord Wellington never for one moment despaired 
 of defending Portugal against whatever French 
 host might be brought against him; and the gallant 
 army under his command fully shared in this con- 
 fidence. After these toilsome marches had all 
 been completed, there was a long repose; but the 
 time, far from being lost, was most advantageously 
 employed in improving the commissariat, the 
 baggage and conveyance department, and other 
 branches and departments (without which the 
 bravery and activity of an army may be thrown 
 away, and the strategetical skill of its commander 
 baulked and defeated), in training and thoroughly 
 disciplining the reinforcements which arrived from 
 England, and in raising the Portuguese regular 
 army to a state of efficiency in numbers, arma- 
 ment, and discipline. In this last part of his 
 many and arduous duties his lordship was most 
 ably seconded by General Beresford, who showed, 
 in the following campaign, what Portuguese troops 
 were worth when trained and commanded by Bri- 
 tish officers. This result, and numerous other 
 advantages, could only be obtained through the 
 superior docility and modesty of the people, and 
 the more rational and submissive temper of their 
 provisional government. The Portuguese had the 
 habit of depending on their old allies the British, 
 and of looking up with respect to their superior 
 wealth, resources, means, and endowments; the 
 Spaniards, and especially the superb Castilians, 
 had only the more ancient habit of considering 
 
 themselves as the first people in the world, and of — 
 
 despising all other nations. Lisbon at this time 
 presented the appearance of the capital of a great 
 
 British colony ; our embassy, our merchants, our 
 
 navy, our troops seemed to hold undisturbed pos- 
 session of the city. The Portuguese soldiers, com- 
 manded and disciplined by English officers, and 
 receiving their pay in English money, looked more 
 like partisans of their powerful ally than the mili- - 
 tary force of the country to which they belonged. 
 Now and then the Bishop of Oporto, president of | 
 the council of regency, showed some insubordina-— 
 tion and gave a little trouble; but, on the whole, — 
 everything was apparently subjected to the control _ 
 
 of England, whose assistance alone could preyent | 
 the French armies from re-obtaining possession of || 
 
 the whole country and satisfying their revenge on 
 the people.* If a similar control, or even an 
 approach to it, could have been obtained in Spain, — 
 
 has been known in modern Europe, 
 
 Dispatches, 
 
 * Colonel Leith Hay, Narrative,—Colonel Gurwood, Wellington — ; 
 
 . 
 
 : 
 
 that unhappy country might have been spared some i 
 years of the most terrible and destructive war that — 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 The declaration of war by Austria against France 
 —which would not have been made at that mo- 
 ment without English encouragement and promises 
 of aid—bound our government to attempt two 
 great diversions (in addition to the war we were 
 carrying on in the Spanish Peninsula, and which 
 gave occupation to 200,000 French) in two very 
 opposite parts of Europe,—in Holland and in the 
 South of Italy. From the beginning of the month 
 of May preparations were made for fitting out one 
 of the greatest armaments that had ever issued 
 from the ports of Great Britain; and by the end 
 of July an army of 40,000 men was collected, and 
 a fleet of thirty-seven sail of the line, two 50-gun 
 ships, three of 44 guns, twenty-three frigates, 
 thirty-one ship and brig sloops, five bomb vessels, 
 twenty-three gun brigs, and about one hundred 
 and twenty sail of hired cutters, tenders, gun- 
 boats, &c.—in all two hundred and forty-five 
 vessels of war—accompanied by about four hun- 
 dred sail of transports, was ready to convey 
 and co-operate with the army. Unfortunately 
 the destination of this mighty armament could 
 not possibly be concealed from the French, or 
 from any other people that knew what was, and 
 had long been, in progress on the Scheldt. Not 
 even Nelson and Trafalgar had made Bonaparte 
 despair of disputing the sovereignty of the seas and 
 invading England. Ever since the spring of 1807 
 formidable naval preparations had been carried on 
 by France in those waters; and, finding that the 
 port of Antwerp was not quite deep enough to float 
 an 80-gun ship, with her guns and stores on board, 
 Bonaparte had forced his brother Louis, the no- 
 minal King of Holland, to cede to France the port 
 of Flushing, which lies at the entrance of the Scheldt, 
 and offers a capacious bason, in which twenty or 
 more sail of the line may lie in perfect safety, and 
 in readiness for sea on all occasions, By the spring 
 of the present year ten 74-gun ships were at 
 anchor near the Calot Sand; nine ships of the line 
 were on the stocks at Antwerp, most of them ready 
 to be launched, and at the same place the keels of 
 nineteen ships of war, large and small, were laid, 
 while on the stocks at Flushing there were one 74 
 and three smaller vessels. Besides these there 
 were, at Flushing, at Antwerp, and in the Texel, 
 several sail of the line actually ready for sea. 
 Counting on his conference with the Emperor 
 Alexander at Erfurt, the Emperor of the French 
 fully expected that nineteen or twenty Russian 
 ships of the line would be put at his disposal; he 
 knew that he could calculate on the hardy seamen 
 of Denmark, and on what little remained of the 
 fleet of that country ; the defeats of the King of 
 Sweden by the French and by the Russians would 
 place the naval resources of the Swedes in his 
 hands ; and altogether be hoped to collect at some 
 opportune moment a fleet of sixty sail of the line 
 on the Dutch coast. Bonaparte, too, was known to 
 have expended nearly 3,000,000. sterling in con- 
 verting Antwerp into a great naval dépét, in mak- 
 ing basins, dock-yards, and arsenals, and fortifica- 
 
 ee = ie 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY: TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 487 
 
 tions to defend them. It was not to be expected 
 that England should allow these preparations to 
 go on without making an attempt to interrupt 
 them; and, as soon as our armament was begun, 
 its destination was but an obvious inference. The 
 very same reasons which account for the impossi- 
 bility of secrecy justify the government in selecting 
 Holland rather than any other country, in which to 
 operate the diversion in favour of Austria ; and this 
 point was, moreover, recommended by the known 
 existence of a very strong party in the United Pro- 
 vinces hostile tothe French. Nor in the present state 
 of the northern powers, with Denmark hostile, with 
 Russia hostile, with Sweden crushed and falling to 
 pieces, with Prussia conquered and her sea-ports and 
 forts in the hands of the French, would it be very 
 easy to discover where our diversion could have 
 been made except in Holland. Small flying forces, 
 like those led by Major Schill and the Duke of 
 Brunswick, were able to maintain themselves for a 
 short season in the north of Germany and the coun- 
 try on the Elbe; but those impoverished regions 
 could not have supported a large British army, and 
 a small one would have been sacrificed. And, even 
 admitting that 30,000 or 40,000 British troops 
 might have been landed on the Elbe,* marched 
 into the interior of Germany, and there supported 
 with the provisions and stores they carried with 
 them, or’ by such as should be sent after them, 
 from England, our government might be excused 
 for not rushing into this bold adventure, since such 
 an army must be only secondary to the great armies 
 of the Emperor of Austria, and, in fact, almost , 
 entirely dependent on Austrian steadiness, ability, 
 and good luck, which were all so very doubtful—to 
 say nothing of that treachery, both in council and 
 in the field, the existence of which seems to be 
 proved by so many fatal reverses in past campaigns, 
 as well as in the present. Before our expedition 
 sailed from the Downs, Bonaparte had fought and 
 won the battle of Wagram, and errors had been 
 committed by the Austrians similar in nature and 
 equal in amount to any that they had committed 
 in former wars. Our appearance on the continent 
 might reasonably be expected to revive the spirit 
 of the Emperor Francis ; and it behoved our go- 
 vernment to make a great effort for the destruction 
 of the docks and arsenals on the Scheldt, and for 
 the capture or destruction of all that they con- 
 tained. The Walcheren expedition, even as it was 
 managed, gave serious alarm to Bonaparte, then 
 far away on the Danube, and it kept on the Dutch 
 coast, and on the N.W. coast of France, some 
 troops which might have been sent to reinforce 
 him in a struggle in which he was, at least once, 
 
 * Some trifling demonstrations were made on the Elbe. Captain 
 Goate, with H. M. sloop the ‘Mosquito,’ and three small gun- 
 vessels, entered that river on the 9th of July, and, landing sailors 
 and marines, took both the town and the battery of Cuxhaven, 
 although the battery was strong, surrounded by a wet ditch, and 
 defended by 500 French troops. Andsubsequently to this an English 
 flotilla with some hundreds of troops on board appeared in the same 
 waters. The force was too small to do any good, as the popular 
 insurrection in the north of Germany was then being crushed; but 
 it appears to have been in these English vessels that the Duke of 
 Brunswick and his brave companions escaped from the continent. 
 
488 
 
 very nearly over-matched and beaten. We appre- 
 hend, however, that no excuse can be found for 
 ministers in their strange selection of commanders 
 for this expedition: the Earl of Chatham, to whom 
 they gave the supreme command of the land forces, 
 had scarcely anything to recommend him except 
 his being an amiable man, and connected with 
 great men ;* and, as for Rear-Admiral Sir Richard 
 John Strachan, it would be committing an injustice 
 to the navy not to say that there were fifty officers, 
 even among those who had the requisites of pro- 
 fessional rank or grade, fitter than he for the com- 
 mand of the fleet. Ifthe government could have 
 got rid of the rank and routine system, and of 
 other causes which often had much to do with these 
 appointments, there was one officer at hand fittest 
 of all for this particular service—Captain Lord 
 Cochrane. Or, by recalling him from the Medi- 
 terranean, they might have employed the ambidex- 
 trous Sir Sidney Smith, who was equal, or very 
 nearly so, to Sir Richard Strachan in rank, and 
 who was quite equal, if not superior, even to Lord 
 Cochrane in in-shore work, or for operations, such 
 as the present, which required the sailor to have 
 ** one foot on land and one on sea.”” But, as if the 
 appointment of inferior commanders were not suffi- 
 cient to mar the business, the government, unin- 
 structed by many examples, neglected to define the 
 authorities of each, thus leaving the sluice-gate 
 open to those differences of opinion and jealousies 
 of authority which had usually broken out between 
 generals and admirals. The objectsof the expedition, 
 as explained in the Earl of Chatham’s instructions, 
 were, “‘ The capture or destruction of the enemy’s 
 ships, either building at Antwerp and Flushing, 
 or afloat in the Scheldt; the destruction of the 
 arsenals and dockyards at Antwerp, Terneuse, and 
 Flushing; the reduction of the iskand of Wal- 
 cheren ; and the rendering, if possible, the Scheldt 
 no longer navigable for ships of war.” Nelson, in 
 1801, had fixed his eye upon the same point, and 
 had considered it as a week’s expedition for a 
 small fleet and 4000 or 5000 land troops; but 
 since that time the works of Bonaparte had ren- 
 dered the enterprise much more difficult. Ministers 
 knew that Great Britain had held possession of the 
 island of Walcheren before now; unfortunately 
 
 * Even according to a not unfriendly organ (which was occasion- 
 ally played by Walter Scott, as well as by Southey) the appointment 
 of the son of the first Earl of Chatham and brother of William Pitt, 
 **excited considerable wonder, for Lord Chatham was aman whose 
 habits of indolence were notoriously inveterate, insomuch that in 
 the height of his brother’s power it had been found necessary to 
 remove him from the office of first lord of the admiralty.”—The 
 sidinburgh Annual Register. 
 
 Ina note to the above passage it is said, ** While he held the situa- 
 tion of first lord of the admiralty he was called the late Lord 
 Chatham, because his hour of rising was usually in the afternoon.” 
 In the text there are a few other sentences which seem to denote the 
 pen of Scott: *‘ Lord Chatham’s manners were agreeable, and in con- 
 versation he displayed talents, which, as they never appeared on 
 other occasions, seem only to have been exerted for conversational 
 purposes, or only equal to them, Mr. Pitt was known to have de- 
 scribed him as a person of useless abilities. He had served on the 
 continent during the Anti-Jacobin war, and was third in command 
 at the disgraceful capitulation of the Helder. At this present time 
 he held the situation of master of the ordnance, and in that capacity 
 possessed a seat in the cabinet. In the course of the expedition, 
 and still more after its conclusion, some inconvenience was found to 
 result from haying thus invested a cabinet minister with command.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 * “rr 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 they had no statistical returns to show at what ex- 
 pense of health and life that occupation had been 
 maintained in the days of William III. and Queen 
 Anne; and they declared afterwards that they 
 never contemplated a permanent, or even a long, 
 possession of the island. The study of statistics, 
 which had scarcely been begun in 1809, was alto- 
 gether unknown a century earlier: there existed 
 no materials in the war-oflice, in the army medical 
 board, or anywhere else in England, whereby to 
 judge of the insalubrity of those islands in the 
 estuary of the Scheldt: nevertheless, there is truth 
 as well as point in the assertions that “ the expe- 
 dition to Walcheren, planned and conducted as it 
 was, was the fruit of statistical ignorance in every 
 one—everywhere from the prime minister to the 
 commander-in-chief, and from him to the surgeon’s 
 mate: and that ignorance, which every Middle- 
 burghian, any Dutchman could have enlightened 
 or dispelled, cost us 10,000 brave men, not a little 
 money, and not a little credit.”’ * 
 
 On the 28th of July the Grand Armada—for 
 such it might be called—set sail from the Downs.t+ 
 In the course of the following day, it was nearly 
 all collected on the Dutch coast ; and then began 
 the differences of opinion, and the discoveries that 
 the fleet was not sufficiently provided with boats 
 for landing the troops, ordnance, &c. The wiser 
 part of the officers were for goiig on to Antwerp at 
 once (Antwerp was not forty-five miles distant), to 
 try a coup de main before the place should be put 
 in a full state of defence ; but the less wise were 
 for beginning with Flushing, and this last opinion 
 prevailed. Flushing, whose importance, as com- 
 pared with Antwerp, was as ten to a thousand, 
 was invested on the Ist or 2nd of August; but so 
 slow were our incapable commanders that nearly 
 a fortnight elapsed before they got their batteries 
 all ready,{ and began their bombardment in earnest. 
 They began to bombard hotly on the 13th; and 
 on the 15th, when two churches, the Stadt-house, 
 and 250 houses had been destroyed, General Mon- 
 net, who commanded the garrison of Flushing, 
 held up the white flag and requested a suspension 
 of hostilities. On the following evening the articles 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, vol. xlix., article on Military Education. 
 
 + The Earl of Chatham was accompanied or followed in part of 
 the expedition by the late Sir William Curtis, biscuit-baker, banker, 
 comtenclits alderman, lord mayor. According’ to a street song of 
 the day, 
 
 **Great Chatham sailed safe from the Downs, 
 With Curtis so loyal and funny; 
 They both came back again safe, 
 But cost John Bull twelve millions of money.” 
 
 There is a note in Dodsley’s Annual Register to this effect : 
 ‘Among the visitors of the fleet was one who attracted much 
 notice by the pomp of his appearance, or what may be called his 
 equipage. This was Sir William Curtis, who was wafted to the 
 Downs in a yacht, either of his own, or hired for the purpose, or 
 borrowed, beautifully painted, adorned with a streamer bearing 
 devices prognosticating victory and glory, and carrying delicate 
 refreshments of all kinds to the military and naval commanders, 
 and the principal officers.” 
 
 _¢ General the Earl of Chatham said he was waiting for Admiral 
 Sir Richard Strachan, and the admiral said he was waiting for the 
 Earl of Chatham. Their positions were described in a well-known 
 quatrain— 
 
 ‘¢The Earl of Chatham, with his sword drawn, 
 Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan; 
 Sir Richard, eager to be at ’em, 
 Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham.” 
 
I 
 
 Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 of capitulation were signed; and the garrison, 
 amounting to about 6000 men, laid down their 
 arms in front of the place, to be conveyed as pri- 
 soners of war to England.* The ships that were 
 afloat had fled at the approach of the English ; 
 those that were on the stocks, or in dock, were 
 secured. With the exception of the peaceable sur- 
 render, on the 17th, of two small islands to the 
 north of the Eastern Scheldt, the reduction of 
 Flushing was the virtual termination of the cam- 
 paign. On the 21st, and not sooner, the /ate Lord 
 Chatham removed his head-quarters from Flush- 
 ing to Veere; and on the 23rd he went to Ter Goes, 
 on the contiguous island of South Beveland, and 
 talked solemnly of going on to Antwerp. But 
 before he could get there he must reduce Lillo and 
 Liefkenshoeck, places strong of old, and of late 
 years made much stronger; and now he learned 
 that each of these two forts mounted 40 pieces of 
 heavy cannon, and had a formidable garrison; that 
 the dykes in the neighbourhood had been cut, and 
 the whole country laid under water; that bars had 
 been drawn across, and all sorts of impediments 
 thrown into the Scheldt to stop the advance of our 
 men of war; that a particularly strong boom-chain 
 had been drawn across the river from Lillo to Lief- 
 kenshoeck ; that arrangements had been made to 
 sink vessels in a narrow part of the channel be- 
 tween those forts and Antwerp; and that batteries 
 a fleur de l'eau had been erected by the French 
 wherever the river was narrowest and most difficult. 
 A great many of these preparations had been made 
 during the fortnight and more that he had been 
 pottering at Flushing. And, while he paused and 
 pondered for nearly another fortnight, Marshal 
 Bernadotte arrived at Antwerp, and from 40,000 to 
 50,000 regular troops, French, Dutch, and Ger- 
 mans, were collected in that neighbourhood, together 
 with hosts of militia both from Belgium and 
 from Holland. Add to all this, that 10,000 of the 
 British troops had been left behind to keep pos- 
 session of the Island of Walcheren ; that 3000 were 
 on the sick list; that nearly all the provisions 
 brought from England were eaten up; that the 
 country we had seized could supply next to no- 
 thing ; and we need not be surprised that a coun- 
 cil of war called together by the Earl of Chatham, 
 on the 27th of August, should be decidedly of 
 opinion “that it was not advisable to undertake 
 further operations.”+ Sir Richard Strachan thought 
 
 * During the siege of Flushing the king’s approbation was signified 
 to Earl Chatham (an especial favourite at court) for the promptitude 
 with which he had commenced, and the vigour with which he had 
 conducted, his operations ! 
 
 In all, Chatham had consumed nearly 10,000 rounds of ammunition. 
 General Monnet was dismissed from the French army with disgrace, 
 for surrendering while he had still 4000 men fit for duty. 
 
 + Of the practicability of doing all that the Earl of Chatham was 
 commissioned to do (had he but had more speed and more skill), a 
 French military writer says— 
 
 i Blankenberg is the point of coast the most convenient for the 
 disembarkation of a body of troops destined for the invasion of Flan- 
 ders. From this spot a paved road runs straight to Antwerp. Its 
 length is 26 leagues; it passes through Bruges and Ghent. These 
 two cities, at this time the capitals of rich and populous departments, 
 which indirect taxation was harassing more than the conseription, 
 would have supplied few recruits ; but, in taking up a position there, 
 the English would give to their plans an air of importance, convert to 
 their use the resources of this fertile country, occasion a momentary 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 489 
 
 that it would, and then thought that it would 
 not, be possible to fulfil that part of the govern- 
 ment instructions which directed him, zf posszble, 
 to render the Scheldt no longer navigable for ships 
 of war; and so did nothing at all. Seriously, the 
 thing was an impracticability, and our ministers 
 must have been dreaming when they thought of it. 
 In spite of the two-third rations, and of the sickness 
 which was spreading, it is possible that our com- 
 manders might have remained some time longer 
 where. they were, doing nothing ; but, as they 
 stopped their offensive operations, the enemy com- 
 menced theirs. On the 30th and 31st of August 
 they opened a fire of guns and mortars from both 
 banks of the river ; and compelled our ships to 
 retire from their advanced position. This, indeed, 
 was of no importance now ; the ships of every de- 
 scription departed altogether from the country as 
 soon as the weather would permit, and by the 4th 
 of September every part of Zealand was evacuated 
 by the English, except the island of Walcheren.* 
 On the 14th of September, Earl Chatham embarked 
 for England with the greater part of the army, 
 leaving Sir Eyre Coote to hold the command of the 
 remainder, and to keep possession of Walcheren, 
 for the purpose of blocking up the Scheldt, stopping 
 the egress of the Batavo-Gallic fleet, and keeping 
 open an inlet for the trade of Great Britain into 
 Holland! Before the Earl of Chatham took his 
 final departure, 8000 men on the sick list denoted 
 either that the climate did not suit the constitu- 
 tion of his British majesty’s subjects, or that 
 there was something peculiarly noxious there 
 this year in the air and season. And he had 
 not been gone long when all the force he had 
 left under Sir Eyre Coote began to disappear 
 with alarming rapidity in the hospitals or in 
 the grave. The disease has been described as 
 nothing but very bad fever and ague, chiefly pro- 
 inquietude and fear, and paralyze the zeal of those Belgians who, 
 from interest, were devotedto France. From the Downs to Blanken- 
 berg is 20 leagues; and the passage could be so managed that the 
 fleet should arrive at the break of day. The disembarkation would 
 be accomplished without striking a blow, and Bruges be immediately 
 occupied. The light detachments would then advance upon Sluis, 
 a dismantled fort, and then, hy Moldegham and Caprike, upon Ghent. 
 A division of 10,000 or 12,000 men should also march upon Courtray, 
 with orders to push forward a party, aud retain a communication 
 with Ghent by the great road of Menin. At length the main body of 
 the army arrives, by forced marches, at the ‘Téte de Flandre and Lief- 
 kenshoeck, both of which it carries in a trices Meanwhile, the Eng- 
 lish fleet appears at the mouth of the Scheldt, and is now able, with 
 some prospect of success, to commence operations in combination with 
 the army. Any one may convince himself, by referring to the map, 
 that this object may be attained, as far as relates to the journey, in 
 seventy-two hours after the disembarkation has been effected at Blan- 
 kenberg.’’—Victoires et Cunquétes. 
 
 * Zealand, it will be remembered, consists of the islands of Wal- 
 cheren, North Beveland, and South Beveland. South Beveland is by 
 far the largest of the three islands; its length being twenty-five miles 
 from east to west, and its main breadth about nine miles. Walcheren, 
 which is separated from the two Bevelands by very narrow channels 
 of the sea, is about thirteen miles from east to west, and nine miles 
 from north to south. The surface of the three islands of Zealand is 
 flat and low, being in many places beneath the level of the sea at high 
 water. As the water percolates through the bank, and accumulates 
 by rain, much care and labour is required to remove it. This is com- 
 monly effected by means of sluices and mills. Inundations occasion- 
 ally occur, and, as the water stagnates, the grounds are frequently left 
 covered with slime and mud. The soil is excessively fertile, and 
 produces corn, abundance of fruit, vegetables and madder. The in- 
 digenous inhabitants of the islands are very liable to endemic fevers 
 during summer and autumn. Theyhave in general a very unhealthy 
 aspect: the skin is sallow, and sometimes it pits on pressure ; the 
 
 muscles are soft, yielding, and inelastic; theabdomen is tu mid, while 
 the limbs are small.—_Henry Marshall, Contributions to Statistics, §c. 
 
490 
 
 duced by the French cutting the dykes and inun- 
 dating the neighbourhood of Flushing in the hot 
 season of the year; but it would appear, from the 
 dreadful mortality on the spot, and from the 
 appearance of many of the patients who survived 
 only to come home and die in English hospitals, 
 that there must have been an admixture of typhus 
 or of some other of the more virulent class of fevers. 
 Malaria fever andague kill but very slowly, even 
 in much hotter climates.* Our army physicians 
 and surgeons appear, at the moment, to have 
 understood little or nothing of the disease or of 
 the causes that produced it, and it is said that the 
 medical board, not having been consulted previ- 
 ously, had made no preparations and had sent out 
 no medicines proper for the case. Some wiseacres 
 took it into their heads that the disease originated 
 in the quality of the water of the island, which the 
 men were obliged to drink; and this opinion had 
 so much weight at home that English water was 
 sent over for the use of the troops, the requisite 
 quantity being calculated at 500 tons per week. 
 When the first importation of Thames water 
 arrived it seemed to be so little wanted that Sir 
 Eyre Coote asked the army physicians what he 
 should do with it, and by their advice he distri- 
 buted it to the fleet. The water in which the 
 soldiers often had to stand and work or march 
 (several thousands of them were, on one occasion, 
 up to their middle in water during the whole night), 
 the want of needful accommodation, and even of 
 common comforts, for the sick, were more apparent 
 causes of disease than the water they took inwardly. 
 As the army had been intended for most active 
 service—for a rush and dash upon Antwerp—it 
 had been encumbered as little as possible with 
 heavy baggage: hence there was a want of covering 
 and bedding for the sick, many of whom were 
 obliged to lie on the floor in their great-coats, and 
 with their knapsacks for pillows. In the Flushing 
 hospitals the roofs had been broken in by the bom- 
 bardment, and the patients lay exposed to the 
 weather. Towards the end of October a hundred 
 English bricklayers were sent over, with English 
 bricks and mortar, tiles and trowels all complete, 
 to mend the hospital roofs (as if such workmen 
 
 * Besides Flushing, the island of Walcheren contains two other 
 towns, Middleburg and Veere, and many villages. Middleburg, the 
 chief place, had then a population of 10,000 or 11,000 souls. Even 
 when the dykes were not broken, and the country not inundated, it 
 was not considered a very salubrious spot; but, it was probably not 
 (to the indigenous) much more unhealthy than Romney Marsh, or 
 the Hundreds of Essex, or the worst parts of the Lincolnshire Fens, 
 A writer who has laudably distinguished himself by his exertions 
 for promoting the medical statistics of the army, and the study of 
 statistics in general, says that the ratio of mortality in Zealand is a 
 little higher than it is in the marshy parts of some of the counties 
 in England, and about the same as in the parish of Spalding, in the 
 lowest part of the fens of Lincolnshire, But it appears that the in- 
 fluence of the climate of Zealand upon strangers must be far more 
 fatal than is that of our worst Lincolnshire fen ; that the old Scotch 
 regiment in the Dutch seryice had been known to bury their whole 
 number at Sluys, in Dutch Flanders, in three years; that, of the 
 French forces employed since the war of the Revolution in those 
 marshy regions, about 33 per cent. had been annually cut off by 
 endemic disease, and that even Dutch troops brought thither from 
 healthier parts of the country had scarcely suffered less than the 
 French.—Henry Marshall, Deputy Inspector-General of Army 
 Hospitals; Contributions to Statistics of the Sickness and Mortality 
 which occurred among the troops employed on the Expedition to the 
 Scheldt in the year 1809. (Edin, Med, and Surg. Journal, No, 133,) 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and such materials could not -have been procured 
 in the country at the end of August, when the 
 disease began to be dreadful); but the repairs 
 proceeded but slowly, and the imported workmen 
 themselves soon increased the number of the sick. 
 In the large town of Middleburg there was better 
 accommodation and abundance of room; but, not 
 to disturb the townspeople, the poor sick soldiers 
 were quartered in cold damp churches, or huddled 
 in barns and warehouses, mostly without windows 
 and a free circulation of air. The Dutch, who 
 sleep between two feather beds, might have been 
 made to spare some bedding; but such a resource 
 seems never to have been thought of by our stul- 
 tified commanders, who left two fever-stricken 
 soldiers to toss and groan in the same bed—where 
 beds there were. If the Earl of Chatham* and 
 his successor Sir Eyre Coote, and the officers 
 serving under them, had studied how to render the 
 fever a pestilence and a plague, they could scarcely 
 have hit upon a better course than the one they 
 followed. When the government became seriously 
 alarmed at ravages almost unexampled in military 
 history, they called upon the principal officers of 
 the army medical department to repair to Walche- 
 ren to examine into the causes of the malady, and 
 report thereon.t To this summons the surgeon- 
 
 * All the blame is not to be imputed to Coote: the same lodging 
 and treatment of the sick obtained before Chatham left for England ; 
 and, by the 8th of September, which was six days before the earl 
 quitted Walcheren, the number of sick amounted $o nearly 11,000! 
 Many of these sick accompanied Chatham home. In the malaria 
 fevers of the south of Europe the patient, in most cases, feels an imme- 
 diate benefit from being conyeyed into a healthier atmosphere. But 
 with this Walcheren fever it was not so; and it is said that General 
 Monnet, the commandant of Flushing, had recommended the French 
 government never to remove the sick, it having been found that a 
 greater number of those who were kept in the island recovered, than 
 of those who were removed from the island. A battalion of our first 
 regiment of foot-guards, 872 strong, returned to England with 359 sick. 
 The battalion was landed at Chatham in September. Many of the 
 men who had returned apparently well were attacked with the fever, 
 so that by the 8th of March, 1810, only 117 of the original strength of 
 the battalion had escaped the disease, and some of these 117 men were 
 attacked with intermittent fever as late as the middle of the month of 
 June, 1810. It appears that of the number of cases in hospitals a large 
 ratio terminated fatally. ‘‘ But,” adds Mr. Marshall, “ long after this 
 date many of the men who had apparently escaped the noxious in- 
 fluence of the climate of Walcheren were attacked and suffered severely 
 from the specific endemic disease..... . It is well known that amon 
 the regiments who had been employed in Walcheren, and who serve 
 afterwards in the peninsula, many of the men were, upon the first ex- 
 posure to cold and fatigue, rendered unfit for duty, so as frequent] 
 not to leave one-third of the strength fit for service. A similar result 
 may frequently, if not generally, be expected in all cases where troops 
 have suffered severely from endemic fever, which commonly leaves 
 less or more of organic disease, by which means recovery and restora- 
 tion to health is often only partial and temporary.” 
 
 + The alarming progress of the Walcheren fever is thus stated :— 
 
 On the 20th of August, the fifth day after the capitulation of Flush- 
 ing, sickness began to show itself among the troops in South Beyeland. 
 The number of sick this day was 1564, 
 
 " August 23, Sickness increased very much within the last twenty-four 
 ours. 
 
 August 26. The sickness continued to increase rapidly. The number 
 of sick amounted to 5000 rank and file. 
 
 August 28. The sickness still increased. Some of the general and 
 many of the other officers were seized with fever. 
 
 August 31. Sickness still increasing ; and, as in every ease the actual 
 numbers brought down for embarkation were much greater than stated 
 in the returns given in to regulate the appropriation of transports, 
 there was a deficiency of tonnage and room; and so the sick were em- 
 barked with the well, and both classes much crowded. The officers of 
 the medical staff suffered very much from the disease. | 
 
 of 5000. 
 
 September 3. The number of sick amounted to 8194. 
 
 September 4. The troops in South Beveland embarked, and that 
 island was completely evacuated. 
 
 September 7, The transports with the troops ordered to England 
 sailed. ‘The sick of the whole army, including those sent to 
 
 England, amounted to upwards of 10,948. 
 | September 10, Sick in Walcheren, 7396. Thus, as only 16,766 
 
 [Book X, 
 
 September 1, The number of sick in South Beveland was upwards — 
 
 = 
 
Cuap. VIII. | 
 
 general of the army. replied, that the question was 
 not surgical but medical, and that consequently the 
 duty ought to fall to the physician-general of the 
 forces: the physician-general of the forces, on his 
 part, represented that he had too much to do at home 
 to be able to go abroad, and that the duty properly 
 and indisputably appertained to the inspector- 
 general of army hospitals: the inspector-general of 
 army hospitals replied, that the duty required was 
 purely medical, and, as such, belonged to the physi- 
 cian-general—but, upon learning that both the phy- 
 sician-general and the surgeon-general had declined 
 going, the inspector-general declared that he was 
 ready to go upon the shortest notice. When this curi- 
 ously dishonourable correspondence was laid before 
 old Sir David Dundas, the present commander-in- 
 chief (who was not without his share of blame in 
 the Walcheren expedition), Sir David and the 
 secretary-at-war, Lord Castlereagh (who had a far 
 greater share of blame with respect to the original 
 enterprise than the commander-in-chief), were 
 both decidedly of opinion that Sir Lucas Pepys, 
 the physician-general, was the most proper person 
 to be employed on this service; and accordingly 
 an order was forthwith issued to Sir Lucas to pro- 
 ceed immediately to Walcheren. Sir Lucas here- 
 upon expressed in writing his great concern at 
 finding that a man of nearly seventy years of age, 
 and with his infirmities, should be thought capable 
 of undertaking such a duty—a duty which he 
 solemnly declared himself incapable of performing. 
 Sir Lucas recommended two other army-physicians 
 to go in his stead, adding that they would see the 
 business well performed, “‘ whereas, if he himself 
 were able to go, it would be merely pro forma, 
 and no possible good could arise from it, because 
 he knew nothing of the investigaiion of camp and 
 contagious diseases.” * But good came out of this 
 evil, honour out of this disgrace. The physician- 
 general and the surgeon-general were both dis- 
 missed, and a new and incomparably better me- 
 dical department was established. 
 
 Some able men on the spot alleviated the suffer- 
 ings of the soldiers; but, in proportion to the 
 numbers left under Sir Eyre Coote’s command, 
 the sickness and mortality continued to be very 
 great. Nevertheless Sir Richard Strachan, who 
 remained there with his fleet—which, strange to 
 say, suffered nothing from the disorder + —dis- 
 suaded ministers from the thought of giving up 
 their precious conquest. It was a post, he said, 
 of great importance as a naval station, and also as 
 a pivot for future military operations on the con- 
 tinent. Indeed, as a demonstration in favour of 
 Austria, it became of great importance, and might 
 probably be equal to the defensive employment 
 of 100,000 of the enemy’s men, for it must keep 
 the Emperor of the French in a constant state of 
 
 rank and file were left behind at Walcheren, nearly one-half of 
 at force aw eh en Hi i aie or in attendance on those 
 at were.—Henry Marshall, Deputy Ins ~Gener Y 
 Hospitals, Contributions to Statistica, ge. “erate ated 
 * Edinburgh Annual Register, 1809. 
 **So local were the causes of disease that vessels stationed only 
 a few yards from the land continued perfectly healthy,”—Jd, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 491 
 
 alarm or uneasiness, being so contiguous to the 
 continent. Sir Richard even drew up a plan of 
 defence—and not a bad one—which was submitted 
 to the admiralty. He considered that, as the de- 
 fence must be principally naval, about 12,000 
 land troops would be enough for duty on the island. 
 On the other hand, Captain Cockburn (late <Ad- 
 miral Sir George), whose skill and judgment were 
 highly prized, was as decidedly of opinion that no 
 permanent possession ought to be contemplated, 
 and that Walcheren would never prove worth the 
 expense of defending it.* But England considered 
 herself bound to retain possession so long as it 
 could be of any use to our unlucky ally, and the 
 Emperor of Austria solicited us to continue our 
 operations in Holland down to the moment, and 
 apparently even past the time, when, beaten again, 
 and again losing all heart, he prostrated himself 
 at his conqueror’s feet, and purchased terms for 
 himself by proposing, or consenting to, the marriage 
 of his daughter with Bonaparte. “Dearly as it cost 
 us, our occupation of Walcheren cost Bonaparte 
 many exertions as well as anxieties, much wear 
 and tear of his troops in marching and counter- 
 marching, and a great deal of money. French 
 writers give a different account, and state that the 
 Belgian militia, and a few thousand conscripts and 
 volunteers from Paris and the French frontiers, 
 were sufficient to keep the English army in check ; 
 but even these forces could not be equipped and 
 brought into the field without a heavy outlay; and 
 it is well known that Bernadotte brought down, 
 and long kept at Antwerp, and in the forts and 
 batteries lower down the Scheldt, many French 
 and German troops that would otherwise have 
 been sent from Hanover and from the Rhine to 
 the Danube. Our ministers, however, at one time 
 really acted as if they intended to keep Walcheren 
 for good and all: they ordered our engineer- 
 officers to continue to improve the fortifications, 
 and some more bricklayers and masons, with large 
 quantities of bricks and lime, were sent out to 
 work upon the parapets and ramparts of Flushing, 
 and to aid in making a chain of batteries and 
 
 —redoubts, to extend from Veere to Rammekins, 
 
 and from Rammekins to Arnemuiden. But at 
 last, on the 13th of November, which was a 
 month all but two days after the Emperor Francis 
 
 * Captain Cockburn could perceive no other advantage in our 
 possession of Walcheren than this; the enemy’s fleet in the West 
 Scheldt could not escape from it without hazarding an engagement 
 with our fleet which would lie in Flushing roads. ‘* But,” he said, 
 **the natural consequence would be, that the enemy’s ships would 
 remain where they were, and where, as it had been proved, we could 
 not get at them. If, on the contrary, Walcheren did not belong to 
 us, and our squadron destined to oppose the Scheldt fleet were kept 
 in the Downs, favourable circumstances might indeed enable the 
 enemy to escape, but it would be at considerable risk;” ‘and I 
 cannot but think,” he added, ‘‘ that a French fleet being at sea is 
 more advantageous to us than the knowledge of its existence in a 
 safe harbour, In the latter case, it is a constant source of anxicty 
 to us; in the former, it is impossible to describe the energy, spirit, 
 and hope with which the chance of its destruction fills every breast, 
 especially of those who have spent many a long and dreary night 
 blockading them. It is also to be remembered that, owing to the 
 confused and hurried manner in which the enemy’s squadrons 
 traverse the seas during the short periods of their escaping our 
 vigilance, the damage they have ever done our trade bas been 
 comparatively very small; but, on the other hand, if any of our 
 squadrons fall in with them, the result always has been, and I trust 
 will ever be, both honourable and advantageous to our country.” 
 
492 
 
 had signed his degrading treaty of peace with 
 the Emperor Napoleon in Vienna, his capital, 
 orders were dispatched to Lieutenant-General 
 Don, who had succeeded Sir Eyre Coote in the 
 cominand, to evacuate Flushing, and take such 
 measures as he might judge most effective for 
 the destruction of the basin and of the naval 
 defences of the island. General Don was to oc- 
 casion as little injury as possible to the inha- 
 bitants; but he was to leave the whole island in 
 such a state as would render its ports and 
 arsenals unserviceable. Yet even now our mi- 
 nisters seemed to entertain some vague notion that 
 Austria would fly to arms and renew the struggle 
 rather than submit to the saddest extremity of 
 humiliation; and Lord Liverpool, who had suc- 
 ceeded Lord Castlereagh as secretary-at-war, in 
 his very orders to Don to destroy the works, told 
 that general that it was now determined to eva- 
 cuate the island of Walcheren, unless some new 
 circumstances should occur in the progress of the 
 operation, which might render expedient an alte- 
 ration in this deciston. When secretaries of 
 state and secretaries-at-war send such orders as 
 these, generals and admirals may be expected to 
 make blunders. General Don was an excellent 
 man, and a sensible and good officer, but Lord 
 Liverpool’s riddle perplexed him in the extreme, 
 and so he destroyed with one hand, and continued 
 building up with the other—for, although the work 
 of destruction was commenced on the 26th of 
 November upon the parapet of the sea lines, at 
 that very time, and for many days afterwards, six 
 or seven hundred labourers were employed in car- 
 rying on the line of redoubt between Veere and 
 Arnemuiden. At length, however, the labour of 
 construction was suspended, and the labour of de- 
 struction prosecuted with more vigour. Possibly 
 the noble secretary-at-war had been informed of 
 the dilemma in which he had placed the general. 
 The piers of the flood-gates of the basin at Flush- 
 ing were blown up with gunpowder; the strong 
 and costly pile-work on the east side was destroyed, 
 that on the west side being left, as it could not be 
 destroyed without risking the destruction of a part 
 of the town; the arsenal and magazines in Bona- 
 parte’s new dockyard were burned ; but very little 
 was done to damage the land fortifications of the 
 place, lest the houses and property of the towns- 
 people should be injured by the explosion. The 
 6000 prisoners who surrendered in Flushing had 
 been shipped off for England longago. The ships 
 on the stocks were destroyed; but one fine new 
 frigate was brought away, as were also the timbers 
 of a seventy-four, which, being put together at 
 Woolwich, produced in 1812 a good ship, which 
 was called the ‘Chatham,’ to preserve, we sup- 
 pose, the memory of that earl’s Walcheren exploits. 
 These things and the fever were about all we 
 
 brought back from an expedition which cost us | enormous sum had been sent into Austria, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 | 
 
 several thousands of lives, and many millions of | 
 
 money.* 
 * The St. Giles songster, or laureat of the expedition, to keep his 
 
 | 
 
 Sa nS eee 
 
 Mcenrar. 
 
 Our diversion on the side of Italy cost no such 
 enormous sacrifices, and yet it too was attended 
 with some advantages to our allies, for it tended to 
 deprive Bonaparte of the services on the Danube 
 of his most brilliant and best cavalry general, his 
 brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, by virtue of 
 Bayonne decrees, now King of Naples. Our 
 movements, moreover, along the whole extent of 
 the Neapolitan coasts obliged Murat to reinforce 
 his army in Calabria, to wear it out with long 
 marches hither and thither, as the danger seemed 
 more imminent on this point or on that, and to keep 
 on the shores of the Mediterranean and Adriatic 
 both French and Italian troops which would other- 
 wise have been employed against the Austrians in 
 Upper Italy, and in the Tyrol or the Illyrian pro- 
 vinces. It is true that with all these stoppages 
 Bonaparte contrived to beat the Emperor Francis, 
 but his work would have been much easier and 
 more speedy if even this our Italian diversion had 
 not been made. It was not for even a wiser mi- 
 nistry than our own to calculate that Austria, after 
 beginning the struggle so energetically, would end 
 it so feebly, and that, after gaining so many suc- 
 cesses, and putting her assailant within an inch of 
 ruin, she would allow herself to be trampled upon, 
 and give up all for lost. 
 
 The crowned dragooner had signalized his ac- 
 cession to the Neapolitan Bourbon throne, or his 
 arrival at Naples, by recovering from the English 
 possession of the isle of Capri. His unwarlike 
 predecessor and brother-in-law, Joseph, after order- 
 ing two attempts, which turned out deplorable fail- 
 ures, contented himself with sitting down quietly, 
 and seeing every day, whether in his palace at 
 
 verse in measure, greatly diminished the amount of the money: 
 instead of 12,000,000/., the Walcheren expedition is said to have 
 cost 20,000,000/., and thus to have imposed on the nation a per 
 petual burden of 1,000,000/. of annual taxes. If one-half of this 
 Bohemia, Hungary, the 
 Tyrol, and Italy, the chances are that the Emperor Francis would not 
 have been crushed; and it is quite certain that, if the other half of 
 the money had been spent on our own navy, we might have built 
 with it ten times as many line-of-battle ships as we could have seiz 
 
 or destroyed by getting into our hands all that were in the Scheldt. 
 
Cuap, VIII.] 
 
 Naples or in his palace at Portici, the white Bour- 
 bon flag of Ferdinand [V.*—the sovereign he had 
 dispossessed,— waving over an island which is 
 not more than twenty-four miles from the city of 
 Naples, and which, with our ships and gun-boats 
 that took shelter under it, very completely blockaded 
 the whole Neapolitan gulf or bay. But this did not 
 suit the bravery and the martial habits of his suc- 
 cessor. Murat collected an imposing force on the 
 beautiful promontory which juts out beyond Sor- 
 reuto, and approaches to within two and a half 
 English miles of the eastern extremity of the island ; 
 and, choosing a moment when our ships-of-war were 
 absent, he carried over a force which might almost 
 be called an army, and with ita frigate, a corvette, 
 and a swarm of gun-boats. The place, which had 
 been gallantly won by a few of our sailors and ma- 
 rines in 1806, was lost by some land forces in the 
 autumn of 1808. The garrison was very weak, 
 consisting of the Corsican Rangers in British pay, 
 and two weak regiments of Maltese fencibles, 
 which, contrary to their own intreaties and the 
 judgment of Governor Sir Alexander Ball, had 
 been turned into one regiment of the line. There 
 was not an English regiment, there was not so 
 much as an English company, on the island: all 
 the British soldiers there amounted to one corporal 
 and eight men of our Royal Artillery. But the 
 Maltese regiment was officered partly by Maltese 
 and partly by English officers, and some of the 
 officers of the Corsican Rangers (besides Lieute- 
 nant-colonel Hudson Lowe, the commanding officer 
 of the regiment and governor of the island) were 
 Englishmen. But the natural strength of the place 
 was great, and the defence, though protracted 
 only for a few days longer than it was, would 
 have allowed the English cruisers time to come 
 up, and sweep away the Neapolitan army. It 
 might have happened that the whole French and 
 Neapolitan force would have been cut off, and cap- 
 tured on the island, or in their attempt to escape 
 from it. It would appear that Murat was not 
 without this apprehension, for, bold and adven- 
 
 turous as he was, he did not venture his own per- | 
 
 son in the expedition, but remained at Capo delle 
 Campanelle, at the extremity of the Sorrentine 
 promontory. As it was, his flotilla was ready to fly 
 at the appearance of almost every sail in the distance, 
 and once or twice they really fled to seek refuge 
 behind the land batteries in the bay of Naples. Capri 
 had got the name of the “little Gibraltar ;”’ but, 
 except in its rocks and precipices, it bore but a 
 slight resemblance to the most celebrated of our 
 fortresses, the fortifications and artificial defences 
 being altogether contemptible. The French gene- 
 ral, Lamarque, who commanded the expedition, 
 attacked in three places at one and the same time. 
 The first party that got on shore suffered con- 
 siderable loss from the fire of the Maltese, who 
 were posted on the heights of Anacapri, which 
 command the island; but they contrived to hold 
 
 * As we had taken possession of Capriin the name of the old King 
 of Naples and Sicily, his flag had been immediately hoisted there. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 493 
 
 their ground. Colonel Hudson Lowe, though 
 having but a small disposable force, and being 
 threatened with another attack on Capri, the lower 
 town, reinforced the Maltese; but the French 
 and Neapolitans had effected their landing and 
 ascended the commanding heights of Anacapri, 
 and had thus overcome the only real difficulty that 
 the position presented. When the moon rose, La- 
 marque’s people, who appear to have been rein- 
 forced, made a rush upon Anacapri, where the 
 Maltese, after seeing their English colonel shot 
 through the head, laid down their arms almost 
 without resistance, or fled to the town of Capri by 
 a flight of 538 steps, which is carried down the face 
 of a precipice in a very curious manner. Other 
 troops then came up from the western end of the 
 island; artillery was brought over the rocks to 
 Anacapri, and turned upon the lower town and its 
 miserable little fort. An effort of no great mag- 
 nitude, the landing of a few hundred English 
 sailors and marines, would of a certainty have 
 thrown the Neapolitan part of the forces into a 
 complete panic; but a flotilla that sailed into the 
 bay from the island of Ponza (where, also, the 
 Sicilian flag was flying) was too weak to make the 
 attempt, and it had no effect in prolonging the de- 
 fence made by the single Corsican regiment and 
 the nine English artillerymen. The siege was, 
 however, prolonged from the 4th till the 18th of 
 October. General Jamarque proposed a sur- 
 render of the garrison by a ‘‘ capitulation” as 
 prisoners of war. This was rejected by Sir Hud- 
 son Lowe, who, although the walls had been 
 breached, would agree to no other terms than that 
 of evacuating the island by a “‘ convention,”’ which 
 should stipulate for a free departure of the whole 
 of the garrison with their arms and baggage, and 
 also for protection to the inhabitants of the island. 
 And to these conditions, highly honourable to the 
 defenders, the French general finally consented. 
 Lamarque apprehended that an English fleet might 
 soon arrive and coop him up in the island, without 
 provisions and without other necessary supplies. 
 The flag of Murat was scarcely hoisted over the 
 little town of Capri ere a strong English squadron, 
 with troops on board, came in sight: but it was 
 now too late.* 
 
 Murat also recovered almost immediately several 
 
 * In this brief account of the loss of Capri we have been assisted 
 by private information and by a local examination. There is abun- 
 dant evidence, official and unofficial, to show what was the real 
 force in British pay which held possession of the island for King Fer- 
 dinand. Yet General Colletta and other historians of his school and 
 party represent the triumph of Murat as if obtained over a most for- 
 midable English garrison—a real English army. They talk of Eng 
 lish troops surrendering in heaps. Not satisfied with gross exaggera- 
 tion, they have recourse to invention and downright lying. They 
 falsify the conditions on which Sir Hudson Lowe agreed to evacuate 
 the place, by saying that he and his garrison bound themselves not 
 to serve against the French or the allies of the French for a year 
 and a day! Within half a year Colonel Lowe was engaged in the 
 capture of the island of Ischia, Poor Murat, with all his bravery 
 and all his great exploits, was absurdly vain, and given to make a 
 great deal of very petty exploits. Medals were struck and great bad 
 pictures were painted to commemorate his conquest of Capri and his 
 triumph over the English at Capri, where he never set his foot, and 
 where there were no English troops to triumph over. Not only the 
 French and Italian, but also all the English accounts we have seen 
 of these affairs are very incorrect. We have repeatedly visited the 
 island, and all its’positions. Capri, or the lower town, is altogether 
 indefensible with Anaoepri in the hands of an enemy. 
 
494 
 
 Tur Rock or Scyrua. 
 
 places in Calabria, and among them the rock, 
 tewn, and castle of Scylla, which, in the course of 
 two years, had changed masters three or four times. 
 
 But it was easier to take old castles and irregu- 
 larly fortified towns than to subdue the fierce spirit 
 of the Calabrian people. Bands of insurgents— 
 all called by the French brigands or banditti—still 
 kept the field, or lurked in the mountains and 
 among the forests. As soon as one redoubtable 
 chief was captured or killed, another sprung to 
 supply his place and avenge his fall. The guerilla 
 warfare in Spain was not more ferocious than this ; 
 the same inhumanity prevailed on both sides. 
 “* When we take the Calabrians we hang and shoot 
 them; when they take us they roast us alive,” 
 says a witty Frenchman, who could laugh in the 
 midst of all these horrors.* But the hanging 
 and shooting was conducted by the French on a 
 frightfully extensive scale, and with scarcely the 
 shadow of a trial, so that very frequently men were 
 executed who had never been in arms at all, or 
 who had long since abandoned the cause of Fer- 
 dinand IV. as hopeless. It was a blind and furious 
 martial law that prevailed; and the executions 
 were conducted solely by the military. Nor did 
 the French spare their tortures: they frequently 
 set fire to houses, huts, and villages, and burned 
 all within them; and, even when they hanged 
 their captives, they would allow no preparation, no 
 friend to soothe them, no priest to assist and console 
 them; and, when the poor wretches were strung 
 up by the necks, they were fired at by their savage 
 
 * Paul Louis Courier, Mémoires, Correspondance, &c. 
 
 executioner, not to shorten their suffering, but out 
 of mere spite or wantonness, for aim was taken, 
 not at a vital part, but at the legs, &c. In 
 every considerable town there was a prison always 
 crowded with Calabrian insurgents or suspects, 
 who were treated with nearly every refinement of 
 barbarity. Fresh captives were continually brought 
 in; but the daily executions made lodging-room for 
 them inthe foul pestilential prisons. Every town 
 had its gallows en permanence (like the guillotine 
 at Paris during the reign of terror), and no gallows 
 was ever seen without two or three or more peasants 
 swinging from it. It was usual to execute the 
 prisoners early in the morning, and to leave 
 them suspended in terrorem until the follow- 
 ing morning, when they were taken down to 
 make room for others. All the dead when 
 
 taken down were thrown into immense pits, 
 
 where they lay stark naked, or in their ragged | 
 
 clothes, one upon the other, a horrible promiscuous 
 heap of human bodies. At times these uncul- 
 tured men showed a high spirit, and bravely re- 
 sented the imputation of being brigands. 
 
 teleon,—** The robbers are yourselves! what busi- 
 ness have you here and with us? I carried my 
 cun and my knife for King Ferdinand, whom may 
 God restore! but I am no robber!’ ‘To these 
 wholesale executions and torturings were added the 
 
 intolerable grievances of the conscription ; young 
 
 men of all classes, from the highest to the lowest, 
 were seized and sent out of their native country 
 to fight for the French, whom they abhorred, in 
 
 One of 
 them said to the French military tribunal at Mon- 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 Upper Italy, in Germany, in Spain, or wherever 
 it might suit Bonaparte to employ them; and, in 
 order to prevent their desertion or escape, these 
 proud and fierce Calabrians were chained together 
 in parties of twenties or fifties and marched through 
 the country under strong escorts of gens d’armes. 
 Nor were the prisons and the gallows reserved 
 solely for the untameable peasantry; many indi- 
 viduals of respectable station in society—women 
 and children, as well as men—were thrown into 
 those most filthy and horrible of gaols, and many 
 of the men of the best name and reputation in those 
 provinces were hanged or shot, or hanged and shot 
 at one and the same time. As in Spain, this 
 system of terrorism only gave a keener edge to 
 revenge and cruelty on the other side.* When 
 Murat endeavoured to introduce a more moderate 
 system he found it impossible to do so, and the 
 mere attempt caused the French and their Neapo- 
 litan partisans to complain loudly that he was 
 favouring the Calabrians to their own cost and 
 prejudice. The Calabrians, on the other hand, 
 considered every attempt at conciliation as a plot 
 to betray them. When the new war in Germany 
 became known, and when intelligence reached the 
 southern extremity of the peninsula, that the 
 Austrians had beaten Eugene Beauharnais in the 
 north of Italy, and had compelled the French to 
 retire behind the Adige, the Calabrians were 
 highly excited, and assumed a tone towards the 
 French which proved they believed that the 
 moment of their deliverance was at hand. This 
 excitement mounted still higher when it was 
 reported that the Austrians had entered Milan, and 
 that the English were fitting out a great armament 
 in Sicily. Anda few days later a climax was put 
 to the Calabrian fury by intelligence that the pope, 
 “ by the authority of God Almighty, and of St. Paul 
 and St. Peter,’ had excommunicated Bonaparte. 
 On the 11th of June Sir John Stuart, the hero 
 of Maida, and now commander-in-chief of our 
 forces in Sicily, embarked with 15,000 British 
 troops. On the 13th his appearance induced the 
 enemy to abandon the greater part of their posts 
 along the shore of Calabria Ulteriore; and the 
 posts and works upon the line opposite to Messina, 
 from which the French had long been threatening 
 Sicily with invasion, were seized and destroyed 
 by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith. Arms and ammu- 
 nition were landed and sent up the’country for the 
 use of the insurgents, who took possession of some 
 of the mountain passes, where they did great mis- 
 chief to Murat’s army, and who recovered several 
 towns in the interior of the country, where they 
 took sanguinary vengeance on the French, and 
 their partisans and abettors. Two smaller expe- 
 ditions, issuing from the port of Messina, landed 
 400 or 500 Sicilian soldiers and Calabrian refu- 
 gees in the Gulf of Gioia, and 2000 or 3000 
 soldiers, regular and irregular, between Reggio 
 
 * Lieutenant P. J. Elmhirst, R.N., Occurrences during a Six 
 Months’ Residence in the Province of Calabria Ulteriore, in the years 
 1809, 1810, &c.—Lettres sur les Calabres, par un Officier Frangais. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 495 
 
 and Palmi. A portion of these forces, assisted by 
 a few of our troops, undertook the siege of Scylla ; 
 the rest carried on a loose guerilla warfare, which 
 cost Murat rather dear. At the same time 
 flotillas of English and Sicilian gun-boats and other 
 armed vessels ran along and scoured all the coasts 
 of Calabria from the promontory of Scylla to the 
 edge of the Gulf of Salerno, and from Reggio to 
 the head of the Gulf of Taranto, operating simul- 
 taneously in the Tyrrhenian and in the Ionian seas, 
 threatening a dozen places in one day, capturing or 
 destroying many of these places, making the French 
 generals hurry now hither now thither, and spread- 
 ing consternation in every town and station on 
 both sea-boards, for, though here to-day, no one 
 could tell where the flotillas might be to-morrow. 
 And, while these two flotillas swept all the coasts 
 of Calabria, Commodore William Hoste scoured 
 the whole coast of Apulia, the richest province of 
 the Neapolitan kingdom, from Otranto to Man- 
 fredonia, capturing every vessel that showed itself 
 at sea, cutting out fleets of corn-ships in the ports 
 and bays, and knocking to pieces or capturing 
 many of the sea-forts which the French had 
 erected, and which the Neapolitan troops and 
 militia could very seldom maintain. 
 
 But in the meanwhile Sir John Stuart, having 
 been joined by some Sicilian forces which em- 
 barked at Palermo, nominally under the command 
 of King Ferdinand’s second son, Don Leopold, 
 Prince of Salerno, had made straight for the bay of 
 Naples, to menace the capital and seize some of the 
 islands in its immediate neighbourhood. On the 
 24th of June the advanced division of the British 
 and Sicilian troops, which contaimed the British 
 troops, anchored off Cape Miseno, close to Baia and 
 Pozzuoli, and, by water, not more than ten or four- 
 teen English miles fromthe city of Naples, which 
 was thrown into a state of excessive alarm, and 
 almost into a state of insurrection. The English 
 general was kept waiting some time by Don Leo- 
 pold, whose presence it was expected would produce 
 a great effect among his father’s old subjects, and 
 when he arrived he was a drag and an impedi- 
 ment in all operations. Though coming to fight 
 for his father’s crown Don Leopold could not live 
 or move without his iced water, his fresh fruit, and 
 his other luxuries ; and part of the fleet was kept 
 stationary while speranaras brought from Sicily 
 the congealed snow of mount Etna, for this very 
 luxurious and unwarlike Bourbon.* Nothing would 
 have been more easy than to bombard Naples and 
 batter it to pieces; nor would it have been a work 
 of great difficulty with 15,000 British troops to 
 have landed and driven Murat out of that city, for 
 he had only some 11,000 or 12,000 regular troops 
 collected there, and of these the greater part were 
 Neapolitans, whose discipline was incomplete, and 
 whose fidelity and courage were both exceedingly 
 doubtful, But to destroy the city under the eye of 
 the son of the old king would have been a parti- 
 
 * Private information received from an English officer who was 
 in the expedition. 
 
496 
 
 cularly revolting act; and, though 15,000 British 
 troops might have taken, they could not have kept 
 Naples in the case of the French beating the Aus- 
 irians in Upper Italy ; and several weeks before the 
 arrival of our armament at Cape Miseno, the Arch- 
 duke John, though not beaten by the French, had 
 been compelled, by the reverses of the Austrian 
 armies in other quarters, to abandon Upper Italy 
 altogether. Besides, Sir John Stuart’s plan was 
 merely to create and keep up an alarm, and “to 
 make such a movement, as, although it should pro- 
 duce no issue of achievement to ourselves, might 
 still operate a diversion in favour of our Austrian 
 allies.””* Anda considerable body of troops, which 
 Murat had recently detached from Naples as a 
 reinforcement to Eugene Beauharnais, as well as 
 almost the whole of a corps of 6000 men which he 
 had sent into the Roman States to complete the 
 seizure of the papal dominions, which his brother- 
 in-law Napoleon had ordered, were precipitately 
 recalled on the first appearance of our armament 
 on the coast. On the 25th of June 2300 men, in- 
 cluding some Sicilian light infantry, a regiment of 
 Corsican rangers, and a detachment of Calabrian 
 Free Corps, were landed under the command of 
 Major-general MacFarlane, in the island of Ischia, 
 distant only four or five miles from Cape Miseno. 
 A chain of batteries, which the French had erected 
 to fortify every accessible part of the shore, was 
 easily turned; and then the batteries were succes- 
 sively abandoned. Two or three hundred prisoners 
 were taken. With the remainder of his very in- 
 sufficient force General Colonna retired into the 
 castle, which is situated on the summit of a steep 
 detached rock. Colonna rejected a summons from 
 MacFarlane; but, on the 30th, when a breaching 
 battery was erected, he surrendered upon terms of 
 capitulation. The small but thickly peopled island 
 of Procida lies between Capri, Cape Miseno, and 
 Ischia, being separated from the latter island by a 
 deep but narrow channel of the sea: it has an old 
 castle, and then had some other batteries and de- 
 fences; but the Neapolitan commandant surren- 
 dered at the first summons, and this event fortu- 
 nately contributed to the almost entire capture or 
 destruction of a large flotilla of about forty heavy 
 gun-boats, which attempted during the night to run 
 from Gaeta to Naples, and expected to find protec- 
 tion, as well as co-operation, from the fortress and 
 artillery of Procida, in its passage through the nar- 
 row strait that separates the island from the main. 
 In the two islands 100 pieces of ordnance of all 
 calibres and about 1500 regular troops were cap- 
 tured. Captain T. Staines, on the morning of the 
 25th, being at the east of Procida, discovered a 
 frigate, a corvette, and’ several gun-boats coming 
 out of Pozzuoli bay, and he drove them back again 
 to the shelter of their land batteries. On the next 
 day Captain Staines took a land battery near Cape 
 Miseno, and then with the ‘ Cyane’ frigate, the ‘ I’s- 
 poir’ corvette, and twenty-three Sicilian gun-boats, 
 
 * Sir John Stuart’s dispatch to Lord Castlereagh. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 “7 
 io 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 stood in to Pozzuoli bay, in the hope of bringing 
 Murat’s frigate, corvette, and gun-boats to action, 
 The ‘ Cyane,” Staines’s own ship, got becalmed so 
 near to the shore that a battery of four 36-pounders 
 opened upon him. He embarked in one of the 
 Sicilian gun-boats, soon silenced the battery, and, 
 landing with a party of men, spiked the guns, de- 
 stroyed the carriages, hove a 10-inch mortar into 
 the sea, and returned to his frigate without a single 
 casualty. On the afternoon of the 27th the Nea- 
 politan commodore came again out from Pozzuoli, 
 not to fight, but to try to run round the point of 
 Posilippo to Naples. Besides his frigate and cor- 
 vette he had now twenty gun-boats; and he was 
 encouraged to hope that his short trip would be 
 fortunate, if not altogether uninterrupted, for 
 Staines’s Sicilian gun-boats were at a considerable 
 distance in the bight of the bay, and his corvette the 
 ‘Espoir’ was becalmed astern. But Staines rushed 
 after him, making the ‘Cyane’ man her sweeps, 
 and thus, pulling the English frigate, rounded the 
 point of Posilippo, and entered into the inner bay 
 of Naples alone, in pursuit of the enemy. At half- 
 past seven in the evening, when the Neapolitan fri- 
 gate the ‘Cerere’ was within three miles of the 
 mole of Naples, the ‘Cyane’ succeeded in getting 
 alongside of her, and Staines commenced the action 
 within half pistol shot distance; the Neapolitan 
 corvette ‘Fama,’ and the twenty gun-boats tacked 
 and took part in the fight, and, as the whole 
 flotilla kept edging in to the shore, the land 
 batteries opened their fire upon the ‘ Cyane,’ 
 which at one time was within gun-shot of the 
 mole-head. The ‘Cerere’ got a reinforcement 
 of fresh men from Naples, but notwithstanding this 
 advantage she hauled down her colours, seeing that 
 the gun-boats and her consort, the ‘Fama,’ were 
 panic-stricken and were using their sweeps to 
 escape into the harbour. But a second reinforce- 
 ment of men was sent off from the mole the next 
 minute, and the ‘ Cerere’ re-hoisted her flag. But 
 by half-past eight the Neapolitans, whose fire had 
 been for some minutes very slack, ceased firing 
 altogether, and uttered shrieks that were heard 
 both on shore and at sea:—their over-crowded 
 decks were literally strewed with killed and 
 wounded. But by this time the gallant Staines 
 had had his left arm knocked out of the socket at 
 the shoulder, and had been wounded in the side; 
 his first lieutenant (James Hall) had been dan- 
 gerously wounded, and his second and only re- 
 maining lieutenant had also received a serious 
 hurt; the frigate that had sustained the fire of so 
 many land and floating batteries was crippled in 
 her masts and rigging, and all her sails were com- 
 pletely riddled by grape and langridge: thus she 
 was neither in a condition to take possession of the 
 silenced Neapolitan frigate nor even to haul off 
 from the land batteries, which kept up an inces- 
 sant fire. But, fortunately, by this time the 
 ‘Espoir’ and some of the Sicilian gun-boats came 
 to her assistance; and, while the ‘Cerere, in @ 
 frightful state, slided round the mole-head into 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 the harbour, the ‘ Cyane’ was towed out of the bay 
 by the Sicilian gun-boats.* , 
 
 Captain Bausan, the native Neapolitan officer 
 who commanded the ‘Cerere,’ was a brave man 
 and good sailor; some of his officers and crew, 
 though unaccustomed to such close and murderous 
 firing, did their duty well and were entitled to 
 praise. ‘They never had the remotest chance of 
 victory ; but the dreadful slaughter which befel the 
 frigate might have been in good part avoided if it 
 had not been for the rashness, folly, and ignorance 
 of Murat. Bonaparte had made his brother-in-law 
 grand admiral of the empire; but, though the best 
 of cavalry officers and most quick-sighted of dra- 
 goons, Murat knew absolutely nothing of naval 
 matters. Since the arrival of Sir John Stuart’s 
 armament he had been galloping along the coast 
 from place to place, issuing a series of orders that 
 were altogether absurd, except in as far as they 
 related to the manning of the land batteries, which 
 were very numerous: it was he that had uselessly 
 ordered the flotilla of gun-boats to come from 
 Gaeta, where it was safe; and it was he that had 
 positively enjoined Bausan to push round from 
 Pozzuoli. On that day he put on his splendid 
 and fantastic uniform of grand admiral; and on 
 horseback, and surrounded by an immense staff of 
 Frenchmen and Italians—all landsmen like him- 
 self—he posted himself on the shore near Poz- 
 zuoli, then at the point of Posilippo, then at the 
 mole-head of Naples, to cheer and encourage the 
 Neapolitan combatants, making signals, gesticula- 
 ting, shouting, and finally tearing his mustachios 
 in-rage and useless spite. And when the ‘ Cerere’ 
 was striking her flag so near to the spot where he 
 stood, it was he that sent off the reinforcements in 
 gun-boats and other craft, crowding and cram- 
 ming them, not with sailors, but with land troops 
 —a mixture of French, Neapolitans, and Swiss,— 
 who were of no use when they got on board, and 
 who served only to confuse and confound Bausan, 
 and swell the number of killed and wounded in 
 the *Cerere.’ From that day King Joachim never 
 again put on his uniform of grand admiral. 
 
 The two islands which Sir John Stuart had 
 
 * Sir John Stuart, Dispatches; James, Naval History; private in- 
 formation collected on the spot ; Colletta, Storia di Napoli. 
 
 General Colletta mystifies, and absolutely falsifies his account of 
 this (on the part of Captain T. Staines and his men) most adventurous 
 and gallant action. With a bold defiance of the hundreds of thou- 
 sands of eyes that saw the affair from the shore, this French partisan 
 represents the Neapolitan frigate and corvette as being assailed: by 
 ten times their own force (dieci contra uno), and speaks as if a whole 
 British fleet had followed the Neapolitan commodore from Pozzuoli 
 into the bay of Naples, and had there fallen upon his single frigate | 
 Perhaps General Colletta was not at Naples at the time, but employed 
 in Calabria. But when he wrote his history tens of thousands of his 
 countrymen were living—and many thousands of them are still living 
 —who saw Staines’s frigate alone pursuing the ‘ Cerere,’ the ‘ Fama’ 
 and the twenty gun-boats round the point of Posilippo, and engage 
 the ‘ Cerere almost yard-arm to yard-arm, getting between her and 
 the land batteries in order to prevent her escaping into the harbour, 
 and braving at the same time the fire of the ‘Fama,’ and that of 
 the gun-boats. The ‘Cyane’s’ consort, the ‘ Espoir,’ did not come 
 up until the Neapolitan frigate had struck her flag once, if not twice, 
 and had entirely ceased firing. Colletta’s misrepresentations could 
 not have been involuntary, and could hardly have proceeded from 
 ignorance of the facts. Seven years after they occurred there was 
 no subject more frequently spoken of by his countrymen who had 
 been spectators of the fight, and who still remained in their 
 astonishment at the daring of Staines, and in horror at the scene 
 
 the ‘ Cerere’ presented when towed into the harbour, 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 ln 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 i EW 
 
 497 
 
 captured with hardly any loss are among the 
 most healthy, and Ischia is the most beautiful and 
 productive, of all the islands that lie close in to 
 the coast of Italy ; they afforded an excellent foot- 
 ing for our troops, who could move thence with 
 facility and promptitude to ulterior objects; while 
 the enemy, collected to observe their movements 
 on the opposite shore of the main and in the un- 
 healthy neighbourhood of Baia, Miniscola, the 
 lake of Patria, and the Pantani, or marshes, must 
 suffer greatly from malaria fevers. But no per- 
 manent occupation had ever been contemplated ; 
 and, as it became evident that no diversion of ours 
 could save Austria from her fate, Sir John Stuart 
 dismantled the castles of Ischia and Procida, de- 
 stroyed the batteries and all the other works, re- 
 imbarked his troops, and returned to Sicily, which 
 was soon after threatened with invasion by Murat, 
 and which, in the absence of the British, might at 
 any time have been over-run and taken by 5000 
 veteran French troops. 
 
 The siege of Scylla had not prospered. The 
 French general Partonneaux advanced in force to 
 the relief of that changeable old fortress; and the 
 English, with their Sicilian and Calabrian allies, 
 retreated» with so much precipitancy that they 
 left their train of artillery, their siege-tools, and 
 most of their stores behind them. JBut the old 
 castle on the rock which stands over the roaring 
 caverns of Scylla and faces the resounding vortexes 
 of Charybdis—neither of them quite so formidable 
 now as in Homer’s days—seemed destined to be- 
 long to no party in this protracted war. Not long 
 after Partonneaux had succeeded in raising the 
 siege, the French garrison abandoned the place in 
 some suddeu panic, leaving behind them not only 
 the artillery and other materials they had captured, 
 but all their own guns and stores, which were 
 seized and secured and carried over to Sicily by a 
 detachment of Sicilian and British troops. Of the 
 Calabrian partisans who had been landed, some 
 were cut off by the French, some returned to Sicily, 
 and others maintained themselves in the mountains, 
 in the forest of Santa Eufemia near Maida, and in 
 other wild and almost inaccessible places, whence 
 they issued forth at opportune moments to carry 
 havoc among the weak detachments of Murat’s 
 army. ‘The service in Calabria became so unpa- 
 latable that all the French officers who were there 
 exerted themselves to the utmost to get removed, 
 and hardly any officers of that nation could be 
 found willing to supply the places of such as were 
 recalled. Many resignations took place; the table 
 of Murat’s war-minister was almost constantly 
 covered with letters from French officers who 
 begged to be employed in the Tyrol, in Germany, 
 tn Spain, anywhere rather than in Calabria, and 
 who frequently put the alternative of an immediate 
 removal or a permission to resign their commis- 
 sions.* The more extensive struggle going on in 
 
 * Paul Louis Courier tells us that, when, simply out of an eager 
 desire.to explore Magna Greecia and the whole of that beautiful coun- 
 try which had once stood so high in civilisation, literature, and art, 
 
 2F 
 
498 
 
 the Spanish peninsula kept the attention of Europe 
 away from the irregular war at the end of the 
 Italian peninsula; but, we repeat, Calabria cost 
 the French enormous sacrifices, and continued, 
 almost to the last day of the war, to be a fatal 
 drain upon the armies and resources of Bonaparte. 
 It was chiefly, we presume, on account of the 
 countenance and open aid and assistance which our 
 government, the generals commanding our forces 
 in Sicily, and the admirals of our fleets gave to 
 the insurgents, and guerilla-like partisans, that the 
 French persisted in styling all those Calabrians 
 and Sicilians brigands, and in treating them as 
 such whenever they fell into their hands. It 
 sounded well to represent the king of Great Britain 
 as the ally of banditti, and his generals, admirals, 
 ambassadors, and envoys as being leagued with 
 robbers and cut-purses. The French, who united 
 in their own minds the extremes of incredulity and 
 of credulity, must have had a very large belief in 
 the credulousness of mankind when they asserted 
 and maintained that the entire population of whole 
 provinces were nothing but brigands. For rob- 
 bery to be a profitable calling there must be some- 
 body to be robbed. Wild as was the country, 
 Calabria had never been a land of brigandism. 
 That system had only obtained in the frontier- 
 provinces of the kingdom—in the Abruzzi and on 
 the edge of the Terra di Lavoro. In those pro- 
 vinces there were high roads, frequented by rich 
 travellers and foreigners; but in Calabria there 
 was nothing of the sort, that region, at the end of 
 the peninsula, forming a sort of Finis Terra, 
 leading to nowhere. There were no bands of 
 robbers either in Calabria Citra or in Calabria 
 Ulteriore when the French first arrived; but the 
 mass of that brave, active, and fierce population 
 flew to arms, and crowned the hill-tops, and 
 blocked up the roads, or lurked by the road-sides, 
 to repel and despoil the invaders of their country, 
 the enemies of their king and church, and—as 
 they conceived—of their God. These men were 
 insurgents, not robbers; their patriotism was as 
 pure and as indisputable as that of the Spanish 
 peasantry, and, cruel and vindictive as they were, 
 they were not more so than the Spaniards. 
 Their leaders, for the most part, however lowly 
 their original condition (and there were French 
 marshals, dukes, and princes who had begun life 
 in a condition quite as obscure as that of any of 
 them), held regular commissions from their old 
 king, Ferdinand IV., who had all the rights of a 
 belligerent, and who by the law of war was justi- 
 fied’ in making every effort for recovering -by the 
 sword dominions which had been taken from him by 
 the sword and by foul treachery. His commission 
 was entitled to as much weight and respect as any 
 of the commissions granted by Bonaparte or by 
 his brother Joseph, or by his brother-in-law 
 Murat ; but, as the French read the law, Ferdi- 
 nand’s commissions were null, his commissioned 
 
 he volunteered to go into Calabria, all the rest of the French officers 
 were petitioning and imploring to be employed somewhere else. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 officers were brigand chiefs and rebels forsooth to 
 
 King Joseph or King Joachim, and, as such, were, 
 whenever captured, hanged. Ifthe unhappy man 
 wore a red coat the execution had an additional 
 grace and gust; and it was proclaimed to the 
 world that an infamous robber and cut-throat, with 
 an English uniform on his back, and with English 
 money in his pocket, had been seized and put to 
 that ignominious death which his lawless life and 
 crimes had merited. It signified nothing to these 
 French reporters that the uniform of King Ferdi- 
 nand’s guards was scarlet like our own; King 
 Ferdinand and his guards were out of sight of 
 Europe, shut up in Sicily, and all the world knew 
 that red was the English colour; and thus it was 
 deemed advantageous to attempt to cast dirt upon 
 it. It is only by subscribing to a new and dan- 
 gerous theory that we can deprive the poor Cala- 
 brians of the honour of a bold and a persevering 
 resistance; and by subscribing to that theory we 
 must equally dishonour the Spaniards, the Portu- 
 guese, the Tyrolese, and, in fact, every people that 
 either in modern or in ancient times have risen in 
 masses against the invaders of their country, and 
 persevered in their resistance after their armies, 
 regular or irregular, had been defeated in the field. 
 By this fatal theory the William Tell of Switzer- 
 land, the Wallace and the Bruce of Scotland, must 
 be taken down from their glorious and time- 
 honoured pedestals to be classed with lawless in- 
 surgents or brigand chiefs. If, as this new theory 
 imports, regular armies are to be considered as the 
 only belligerents, and the inhabitants of a country 
 invaded are to be regarded only as neutrals, and as 
 such excluded from any participation in the 
 struggle,* then all such inspiriting risings as those 
 of the Swiss and the Scots in the olden time, or as 
 those of the Calabrians, the Spaniards, and the 
 Tyrolese in our own days, must have the stamp 
 and opprobrium of illegality put upon them, If, 
 because an overwhelming invading force (fol- 
 lowing upon a series of the most treacherous 
 deeds, which have enabled the invader to penetrate 
 into the heart of the country and to obtain previous 
 possession of most of its strongholds) defeats and 
 scatters a weak and ill if not treacherously com- 
 manded regular army, and establishes a line of 
 posts along a particular river (say the Ebro), the 
 spirited population, the body of the people living — 
 within those lines and knowing that they have been 
 betrayed by the invader, and suspecting that they 
 may have been betrayed by some of the officers 
 of their own army, may not rise and arm and do ~ 
 their best to rescue their country from thraldom, — 
 then is patriotism made a crime and offered up as 
 a sacrifice to professionalities and arbitrary tech- 
 nicalities.t If everything is to be made dependent — 
 upon regular armies, and if the people, of whom 
 the army is but a part and an instrument, are not — 
 
 * Dr Thomas Arnold, Regius Professor of History in the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. Introductory Lectures on Modern History. 
 
 + Colonel Napier advances the opinion we condemn with his 
 usual earnestness and force of language. See many passages 10 
 his History of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 to step forward into the field*gthen a few injudi- 
 cious movements of a general and two or three 
 defeats must decide the fate and independence of 
 a country! And these reasoners seem to forget 
 that the people incapable of rising against an in- 
 vader and oppressor must be a people incapable of 
 furnishing brave soldiers, or materials proper to 
 make that regular army upon which everything 
 dear to the nation must wholly and solely depend. 
 If such convictions had been entertained by the 
 invaded and oppressed peoples of Europe there 
 would have been no loss of 300,000 French regu- 
 lars in Italy and in Spain, there would have been 
 no dismal retreat from Moscow, no glorious réved/ 
 of the great Germanic family; but Bonaparte 
 would have established his universal dominion ; the 
 characteristics of nations, which give variety and 
 interest and beauty to the world, would have been 
 rudely obliterated, and French manners, French 
 morals, and French taste would have been en- 
 throned, in a tyrannical intolerant domination, in 
 all parts of the civilized world. But theorists are 
 weak when they grapple with the real feelings and 
 passions of human nature; no people that are not 
 absolutely degraded will ever subscribe to this new 
 doctrine ; their instinct will revolt at it; they will 
 continue to do as their ancestors have done; they 
 will not place their loyalty, their patriotism, their 
 religion, their homes and hearths, as a deposit in 
 the hands of the regular army they raise and pay, 
 to be risked in a throw of the dice, or to be utterly 
 lost in a few battles ; and it is only inasmuch as 
 the theory may influence future governments, when 
 called upon to estimate the nature and probable 
 results of such national insurrections, that the 
 theory itself calls for any criticism. 
 
 While the French were alarmed, and fully oc- 
 cupied in the south of Italy, Admiral Lord Col- 
 iingwood, who still retained the command in chief 
 of our Mediterranean fleet—wearing out in hard 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 499 
 
 service the last days of an honourable and most 
 valuable life—recommendéd General Sir John 
 Stuart to send an expedition against the islands of 
 Zante, Corfu, and Cephalonia, which lie opposite 
 to the Neapolitan coast, at the mouth of the Adria- 
 tic, and which, partly by force, and partly by an 
 amicable understanding with the Czar Alexander, 
 had been seized. and occupied by the French, who 
 were also looking forward to conquests or occu- 
 pations in the Morea, and in other parts of con- 
 tinental Greece. The general, at first, seemed 
 rather adverse to the plan, doubting whether he 
 could safely spare a sufficient number of troops 
 from Sicily, and being much perplexed by the 
 arguments and entreaties of Queen Caroline, who 
 took upon herself all that share of public business 
 which ought to have been transaéted by her fish- 
 ing, shooting, pleasure-hunting husband, and who 
 strongly deprecated the removal of any English 
 troops from the island of Sicily, unless they were 
 employed against the French in the continental 
 dominions of Ferdinand. Sir John Stuart, however, 
 after a very little hesitation, warmly embraced Lord 
 Collingwood’s project. The expedition was under- 
 taken with such secrecy, that none of the people 
 knew whither they were going; and neither at 
 Sicily, nor even in our own possession, Malta, was 
 there the slightest suspicion of such a thing being 
 in contemplation until the affair was all finished.* 
 The naval part of the expedition was commanded 
 by Captain Spranger of the ‘ Warrior,’ who was 
 accompanied by a sloop of war and transports, and 
 who was joined, near the mouth of the Adriatic, by 
 two ships of the line, some frigates, and smaller 
 vessels: the military part was entrusted to Briga- 
 dier General Oswald, who had under his orders 
 1600 troops, of whom about one half were Corsican 
 rangers, Sicilians, Calabrians, and other foreigners 
 in British pay. There was known to exist in those 
 
 * Lord Collingwood’s Correspondence. 
 
 = i I 
 
 Lee 
 
 aly 
 i qi 
 
 itl 
 
 HA 
 ie ve 
 
500 
 
 Ionian islands, among the Veneto-Greek popula- 
 tion, a very strong party inimical to the French, 
 and to communicate with this party, and rouse it 
 into action, a Signor Foresti and an Ionian Greek 
 count were brought over from Malta, where they 
 had taken refuge from the French and their coun- 
 trymen of that faction. The expedition sailed from 
 Messina on the 23rd of September, and arrived off 
 Cephalonia on the 28th. By the Ist of October 
 all the expected ships and some gun-boats arrived ; 
 on the evening of that day, the whole fleet came to 
 anchor in the Bay of Zante, just out of reach of the 
 nearest batteries ; and at daylight, on the following 
 morning, the troops began to land under cover of 
 the fire of some of our ships and gun-boats, which 
 soon silenced the land batteries. As our troops 
 landed and formed, the French retired from every 
 direction into the castle, which was invested forth- 
 with. A proclamation was issued to the inhabit- 
 ants, many of whom immediately offered to assist 
 in expelling their late masters. The castle being 
 a place of no very great strength, though advan- 
 tageously situated on a commanding elevation, the 
 French commandant thought proper to capitulate ; 
 and before the day was over, he surrendered to the 
 English commanders not only the whole of the 
 island of Zante, but also the islands of Cephalonia, 
 Ithaca, and Cerigo. And thus was the British 
 flag hoisted over Homeric islands, and the narrow 
 kingdom of the cunning Ulysses. The govern- 
 ment of the Septinsular Republic was restored 
 under British protection. Two of the seven islands, 
 however, were left in the occupation of the French ; 
 but one of these—the island of Santa Maura— 
 was reduced in the month of April, 1810, by Gene- 
 ral Oswald and Lieutenant-Colonel Hudson Lowe.* 
 Corfu, the most important island of the whole 
 group, was too strong to be attacked by a small 
 force ; it remained a very useless possession in the 
 hands of the French, who could carry on no trade, 
 and whose communications with France, and even 
 with the near coast of Italy, were almost constantly 
 cut off, until the downfall of Bonaparte ; and it was 
 given up by Louis XVIII. at the peace of Paris 
 in 1814. The seven islands were then more com- 
 pletely restored to their independence, and formed 
 into a state under the protection of the king of 
 Great Britain, represented by a lord high commis- 
 
 * The capture of Santa Maura was attended with some hard fight- 
 ing. It was altogether a brilliant little episode in the war, highly 
 honourable to the British troops, to various foreign corps in our 
 service, and to Oswald, Hudson Lowe, Major Church (since General 
 Church, in the service of Ferdinand, king of Naples, and of Otho, 
 king of Greece), to Majors Clarke and de Bosset, and to captains 
 Eyre and Stevens of the royal navy. The two last named officers 
 were among the most animated in the combat, and were both 
 wounded. It was Colonel Lowe that moved first and took the town. 
 It was Major Church that gallantly carried the first French redoubt, 
 with four companies of the Greek light infantry, a regiment which 
 he had assisted in raising and disciplining at Malta. The French 
 general, Camus, had above 1000 men, and a fortress of considerable 
 strength, with strong field-works connected with it. He was, how- 
 ever, soon driven from his field-works, our Royal Marines breaking 
 through the abattis, and charging into the entrenchments. The 
 French fled at all points, pursued with the bayonet from work to 
 work, and abandoning the camp and cannon of the attacked line. 
 They threw themselves into the fortress; but nine days after, they 
 surrendered, and became prisoners of war. Greeks, Corsicans, 
 Calabrians, all the foreign corps that were employed in the expedi- 
 tion, behaved remarkably well. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Pr aaa a a SAT ISS LSS STS 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 sioner, who residegsat Corfu, and convokes once 
 a year the parliament or legislative assembly. 
 During the war a British military establishment 
 was necessary to preserve the islands from the 
 enemy, and since the peace it has only been the 
 presence of the British forces that has kept 
 the islanders from revolution, invasion, intestine 
 war, and anarchy. 
 
 On January the 5th a treaty of peace was signed 
 between the Ottoman Porte and England, having 
 been negotiated by Mr. Elliot. Sultan Selim, with 
 whom we had gone to war, had been for some 
 months in his grave when this peace was signed, 
 and so had been his cousin Mustapha, who had 
 succeeded to Selim’s authority in the month of 
 May, 1807. Mustapha Bairactar, Pasha of Rud- 
 chuck, animated by affection for the deposed Selim, 
 by jealousy and hatred of the vulgar Cabakchy 
 Oglou and the mufti who had brought about the 
 revolution of 1807, and by the desire to restore ° 
 his master to the throne and carry out his plans 
 for disciplining the Turkish armies, collected a 
 great force on the Danube and marched to Con- 
 stantinople, where he deposed all the new ministers 
 of Sultan Mustapha, putting to death the agha of 
 the janissaries and other enemies of Selim and 
 reform; and on the 28th of July he proclaimed 
 the dethroned Selim as the only true and legitimate 
 sultan, and rushed to the seraglio to liberate him 
 from his prison. The bairactar’s movement was 
 sudden and rapid; but Sultan Mustapha, who had 
 been feasting at one of the imperial kiosks on the 
 Bosporus, got into the seraglio before him, and 
 sent his black eunuchs to strangle his cousin Selim 
 in his cell or chamber. When the foul deed was 
 done, Mustapha retired into his harem, saying, 
 “* Now open the gate, and deliver Sultan Selim to 
 the bairactar, since he demands it!”? The slaves 
 went and threw open the massive inner gate of the 
 seraglio; the terrible bairactar, who had been 
 threatening to force the gate open with artillery, 
 rushed into the court, and there saw the blackened 
 and disfigured corse of his master and benefactor 
 whom he had come to serve and save. The pasha 
 was at first petrified with horror; and then he and 
 his rough soldiers knelt and wept over the body 
 of Selim. The bairactar was at last roused into 
 action by the capitan pasha. ‘* Seize me the 
 murderous Mustapha!” roared the bairactar: 
 ‘* proclaim his younger brother Mahmoud sultan! 
 Cut me off the heads of the vile slaves that have 
 murdered the good Selim!” At the words cour- 
 tiers, pages, and eunuchs mingled with the bai- 
 ractar’s soldiers and ran with them through the 
 numerous and intricate apartments of the seraglio 
 in search of Mustapha and Mahmoud. Sultan 
 Mustapha was easily found and seized, and thrown 
 into the very prison where his frightful black 
 eunuchs had only a few minutes before strangled 
 his cousin Selim. But the young Mahmoud was 
 not found so soon. His brother Mustapha had 
 tried to discover him and put him to death while 
 the bairactar was weeping in the court below, for 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 he well knew the ancient and universal superstition 
 of the Turks, who believed that the empire must 
 fall and finish with the extinction of the reigning 
 dynasty, with the last descendant of the venerable 
 house of Osman, and, as of that race there now 
 existed only Mustapha and Mahmoud, he knew 
 that, if he could but strangle his brother as he had 
 strangled his cousin, both his life and his throne 
 would be safe. But young Mahmoud was saved 
 by some faithful and fond servants, who hastily 
 carried him to a remote and dingy corner of the 
 seraglio, and concealed him under a heap of mats 
 and carpets: and there he was found by some of 
 the bairactar’s people, who hailed him as sultan, 
 and conveyed him to their chief. Before the 
 bairactar’s arrival at the capital, a party acting in 
 concert with him had surprised Cabakchy Oglou 
 in his country house on the Bosporus, and, regard- 
 less of the sanctity of the harem, they had mur- 
 dered that Yamack chief in the midst of his 
 women, and had sent his head as an acceptable 
 present to the bairactar. ‘That terrible pasha of 
 Rudchuck, who by virtue of the revolution he had 
 effected now became grand vizier to _ Mah- 
 moud, began his ministry with bloody deeds of 
 vengeance and retaliation. On the first day of his 
 installation thirty-three heads fell under the sharp 
 yataghans of the executioners, and were exposed to 
 the gaze of the public at the outer gate of the 
 seraglio. These were the assassins of Sultan 
 Selim, or the particular favourites of Sultan Mus- 
 tapha. On account of the elevated dignity of his 
 office,the hideous Nubian head of the Kislar Agha, 
 or chief of the black eunuchs, or governor of the 
 women, was put upon a bright silver dish. These 
 decapitations were followed by drowning and 
 strangling. A number of the women of Mustapha’s 
 harem, who were said to have manifested great 
 joy on learning the death of Selim, were sewn up 
 in sacks, and were thrown into the deep sea, hard 
 by the Maiden’s Tower, where the waters of the 
 Bosporus sweep with a strong current round the 
 Asiatic point of Scutari into the Propontis. All 
 the officers of the Yamacks that could be caught 
 were strangled and then thrown into the Bosporus. 
 About one hundred individuals were sacrificed by 
 the bairactar to the manes of Sultan Selim. As 
 soon as his vengeance was satisfied, or as soon as 
 he had destroyed all those he had dared destroy 
 (for the mufti and the oulemas, who had done 
 greater injury to Selim and his reforms than the 
 rude Yamacks had done, were placed by the sanc- 
 tity of their offices above the reach of his yataghans, 
 sacks, and bow-strings), the new grand vizier 
 started on the work of reform both civil and mili- 
 tary. He had some just and enlightened views 
 which might possibly have tended to prop up a 
 decrepid and tottering empire, which in no way 
 will be able to support itself, by itself, for any 
 great length of time, in Europe ; the heart and 
 head of the young Sultan Mahmoud went with him 
 and his schemes, for, during the period which had 
 intervened between the dethronement of that prince 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 a eT Ep rn ne ee 
 
 501 
 
 in the spring of 1807 and his murder in the sum- 
 mer of 1808, Selim, the most accomplished Turk 
 of the time, had acted as instructor or tutor to his 
 young cousin, a caged prince, a captive like him- 
 self; but the bairactar was hot, impetuous, impa- 
 tient of any delay, furious as a tiger at any remon- 
 strance, and, by attempting to reform too much at 
 once, he ended by reforming nothing, and b 
 
 sacrificing his own life and the lives of hundreds 
 or of thousands of his friends or partisans. The 
 personal habits and vices of the man contributed 
 to his hasty ruin: like nearly all Turkish pashas 
 he had an insatiable appetite for gold; he drank 
 wine copiously, and not in private, as many well- 
 reputed Mussulmans did, but in public, and with 
 indecent bravado; and, whether in his cups or 
 sober, he had the pernicious habit of beating the 
 Turks with sticks. All this enabled the mufti and the 
 oulemas to arm the people against him. On the 14th 
 of November, during the Ramazan, or Mahom- 
 medan Lent, when the Turks fast all day and feast 
 all night, the janissaries, animated by the oulemas, 
 and headed by their new agha, collected in the 
 dusk of the evening, set fire to some houses close 
 to the palace of the grand vizier, and fell furiously 
 upon some of the bairactar’s regular European dis- 
 ciplined troops. The bairactar had been drinking 
 deep of the forbidden wine, and had retired to his 
 harem, where no man dared to disturb him on a 
 trivial occasion. Fires were frequent, and so were 
 quarrels and skirmishes between the regular troops 
 and the irregular and most turbulent janissaries. 
 Thus the grand vizier was not roused to a terrible 
 waking until the conflagration had nearly reached 
 his own abode, and until his palace was entirely 
 surrounded by the janissaries and the mob of the 
 city, who were all shouting death to him, and anti- 
 cipating the pleasure of seeing him burnt alive in 
 his house, or fall at their feet under the strokes of 
 their yataghans in some hopeless attempt to escape 
 from the fire. Yet this last attempt, if boldly and 
 promptly made, might possibly have saved the 
 bairactar even now, for he had many brave and 
 faithful men about him, and the janissaries had a 
 superstitious awe and dread of his own personal 
 courage and prowess: but, instead of making a 
 rush out into the street, at the worst to die like a 
 soldier, the infatuated pasha began to collect his 
 diamonds and his jewels and his sacks of gold, 
 like a miserable miser ; and, when he had got these 
 things together, he fled to a strong tower of his 
 palace, which was not built of wood like the rest, 
 but of solid stone, and there he shut himself up 
 with the best beloved of his wives or concubines, 
 and with a black eunuch. The new capitan-pasha, 
 who had owed his promotion to the bairactar, and 
 Cadi Pasha, who was commanding some of the 
 disciplined troops stationed in the Asiatic suburb 
 of Constantinople, made vigorous efforts to relieve 
 the grand vizier and save the reform system from 
 perishing. They carried the regular troops into 
 the city ; they reinforced the sultan’s guards in the 
 seraglio ; they spread the report that the bairactar 
 
502 
 
 had escaped from the tower; they ordered a tre- 
 mendous fire to be opened upon the insurgents 
 from the battlements of the imperial palace; and 
 they charged the janissaries with the bayonet in 
 the streets; while some of the capitan-pasha’s 
 ships, anchored in the deep port of the Golden 
 Horn, and close in-shore, kept up an incessant 
 cannonade on the palace of the agha of the janis- 
 saries, and upon every group of insurgents who 
 ventured to show themselves near the side of the 
 port. Thus passed the whole of the day of the 
 15th of November, during which the mufti and all 
 the great oulemas fled and concealed themselves, 
 leaving some fanatic dervishes and inferior imams 
 to keep up the courage or the fury of the janissaries 
 and the rest of the populace. On the morning of 
 the 16th, Cadi Pasha, at the head of a disciplined 
 column 4000 strong, and with some artillery, 
 made a sortie from the seraglio, drove the janis- 
 saries before him, took one of their strong barracks 
 near the mosque of Santa Sophia, reached the 
 Hippodrome where Cabakchy Oglou had sat in 
 state to receive the heads of Sultan Selim’s minis- 
 ters and the friends of reform, and broke the 
 beleaguering lines which had been drawn round 
 the vast and still-burning palace of the grand 
 vizier. But the intolerable heat of the flames did 
 not permit him to approach the incombustible 
 stone tower ; and, whether the bairactar had been 
 roasted alive, or had been so fortunate as to escape 
 from flame and steel and bullet, he could not 
 ascertain. From this moment Cadi Pasha began 
 to conduct himself like a stupid, ferocious maniac : 
 he split his column into numerous detachments, 
 which rushed through different quarters of the 
 city, pillaging and murdering, sparing neither age 
 nor sex, and setting fire to the houses. This united 
 all classes of the population in one cause, and filled 
 every heart with unmitigable rage: a fire was 
 opened from every house, and from both sides of 
 the narrow tortuous streets, on his advancing de- 
 tachments ; even women and children got to the 
 house-tops to hurl stones and tiles and sheets of 
 lead at the heads of the regular troops, and to pour 
 boiling oil upon them. The detachments were 
 stopped in their murderous march, and fell back 
 upon the Hippodrome, followed by mingled masses 
 of mob, janissaries, dervishes, and imams. In the 
 captured barracks, by Santa Sophia, Cadi Pasha had 
 left no more than 300 of his regulars. A countless 
 mass of janissaries rushed to the building, deter- 
 mined to recover it. ‘The incalculable advantage 
 of the European discipline was fully displayed ; 
 and, as the regulars could expect no quarter, they 
 fought as vigorously as men could fight. Five 
 times, ten times, twenty times and more, they beat 
 back those tens of thousands of undisciplined, dis- 
 orderly janissaries. At last some of the janissaries, 
 or some of the mob, set fire to those vast and 
 magnificent barracks, which, being mainly con- 
 structed of wood, soon blazed in every part, and 
 threw out flames and sparks, which carried the 
 conflagration to all the buildings in the neighbour- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ea 7) i 
 A At _ ay 
 fas : 
 
 [ Boox bs 
 
 hood, except the ancient and fire-proof temple of 
 Santa Sophia. The 300 regulars kept firing upon 
 the janissaries from the midst of flames and smoke, 
 until the roof and the walls fell in, and buried 
 them to a man in one huge burning grave. But 
 by thjs time a fourth part of the city of Constan- 
 tinople, including the most densely peopled quar- 
 ters, was in a blaze; hundreds of the mhabitants, 
 unable to escape ont of the narrow streets, were 
 burning to death; agonizing shrieks were heard on 
 all sides; and Sultan Mahmoud was gazing on 
 these scenes of the infernal regions from one of the 
 towers of the seraglio. The heart of the young 
 sultan was not so hard then as it was found to be 
 when he had reigned twelve or fifteen years longer. 
 He ordered Cadi Pasha to cease hostilities, and he 
 sent a hatti-shérif, or the most solemn of imperial 
 decrees, to the janissary agha, enjoining him to 
 employ all the means in his power to check that 
 horrible conflagration. Cadi Pasha, with all the 
 men that remained of his column, returned into 
 the seraglio; and the janissary agha, not daring 
 to disobey so solemn an order, attended to the 
 epi which was threatening destruction 
 to every paft of the immense city except the stone 
 mosques, the seraglio, and the stupendous lines of 
 walls which were built by the Greek emperors. 
 But, emboldened by Cadi Pasha’s retreat, and by 
 the cessation of the firing from the seraglio, the 
 mob and some of the janissaries went close up to 
 the gates of that palace, threatening Mahmoud 
 and his ministers, and shouting that Mustapha 
 was their true sultan, and must be restored to 
 the throne. This served as Mustapha’s death- 
 warrant. Hitherto Mahmoud had rejected the 
 advice of all his friends and servants, who told him 
 that the only way to put down this insurrection 
 
 - and preserve himself was to put his brother 
 
 and prisoner to death ; but now he made a sign to 
 Cadi Pasha, who left the presence, attended by the 
 chief executioners, to return presently with the im- 
 telligence that Mustapha was strangled, and that 
 Mahmoud had a charmed life, being now the sole 
 representative of the House of Osman. The news 
 was soon carried throughout the city: it paralysed 
 the janissaries, the mob, the men of the law and 
 gospel, and all men; for the most furious Turk 
 among them would not fight in the teeth of a pro- 
 phecy, or plunge the empire into the abyss by pro- 
 ceeding to extremities against that single life on 
 which the preservation of the name, glory, and 
 very existence, as a nation, of the Osmanlis, was 
 
 believed to depend. The now-ascertained fate of — 
 
 the bairactar also contributed to calm the popular 
 
 rage and make the janissaries put their yataghans _ 
 
 into their girdles. On the evening of the 16th, 
 
 when the flames of the grand vizier’s palace were — 
 extinguished by the absence of any more materials 
 to nourish them, some Turks of the lowest or — 
 
 poorest order approached the stone tower, W 
 remained entire, but all scorched and blackened ; 
 and, after removing the ashes and hot rubbish 
 which blocked up the entrance, they forced open an 
 
Ouap. VIII.) 
 
 iron door and rushed into the tower, in the expec- 
 tation of finding the pasha’s treasures. Their pro- 
 gress was stopped by a second iron door at the 
 head of a narrow staircase, which ran within the 
 thick stone walls; but, upon forcing open this se- 
 cond door, they entered a small dark chamber, and 
 there they found, extended on the floor, the bai- 
 ractar, his favourite wife or slave, and his black 
 eunuch. The three had been asphyxiated, or smo- 
 thered and choked, by the heat and smoke and the 
 vapour from the wood, burnt into charcoal. And 
 close by the side of the dead pasha and vizier 
 they found his bags of gold and his diamonds and 
 jewels. The original discoverers ran away with 
 the treasure-trove ; but they took care to tell some 
 janissaries that they had no longer anything to fear 
 from their terrible enemy—that the bairactar was 
 most assuredly dead. The janissary agha, who 
 believed that his foe had escaped disguised as a 
 woman, and who was agitated by apprehensions 
 that he would soon return at the head of a great 
 army, ran to the stone tower, and rejoiced his eyes 
 and heart by gazing upon the extinct friend of re- 
 form. The janissaries lifted up the body and 
 carried it to the seraglio gate, in order that Cadi 
 Pasha and the regular troops within might behold 
 the fate of the unclean and untrue Mussulman. 
 They then dragged it through the filthy streets to 
 the Hippodrome, impaled it, and left it there for 
 three days to gratify the eyes of the people. The 
 regular troops now declared that they would no 
 longer fight against the janissaries, their brothers 
 and the defenders of their faith. Sultan Mahmoud, 
 who had now nothing to fear, negotiated with the 
 chiefs of the janissaries, who agreed to allow the 
 regulars to quit Constantinople and return to their 
 several homes without molestation.* But the 
 young sultan was compelled to declare that he 
 renounced for ever the reforms and the military 
 institutions of the Christian nations, which had 
 caused so much woe to the faithful. Anathemas 
 were launched against every man that should ven- 
 ture again to speak of such abominable innova- 
 
 * These merciful terms would not have been granted to the capi- 
 tan pasha, to Cadi Pasha, or to several other officers of high rank ; 
 but the sultan contrived to smuggle them out of the seraglio and 
 to get them into a row-boat, with which they escaped down the 
 Propontis. Eventually nearly all of them were murdered. The 
 capitan pasha, after flying to Russia, where he met with a hospitable 
 reception from the Emperor, Alexander, was cajoled by the new 
 grand vizier, who induced him to return to Constantinople, and then 
 caused him to be strangled. Ali Effendi and some others returned 
 to the capital on the faith of a general amnesty, and were immedi- 
 ately seized, and treated like the capitan pasha. Cadi Pasha rana 
 bolder course than any of them, but it equally led him to the fatal 
 bow-string. Though an admirer of the tactics and discipline of the 
 Europeans, he was a true Turk, a sincere Mahomedan ; his pride and 
 his faith would not permit him to demand the hospitality of infidels, 
 and he soon reappeared in Constantinople under the disguising and 
 protecting habit of a dervish. _ Quitting the capital, he went over 
 to Asia with the intention of repairing to Caramania, and there col- 
 lecting and organising an army of bold adventurers, with which to 
 scour Asia Minor and carry on a cruel war against the janissaries. 
 He got as far as the neighbourhood of Kutaya, when he was recog- 
 nised, and where he was seized and strangled in virtue of a 
 circular order from the Porte, which enjoined the agent’s govern- 
 ment to put him to immediate death wherever he might be found. 
 The head of Cadi Pasha was carried to Constantinople, and was 
 exposed for a whole month at the gate of the seraglio. A few of 
 the reformers lay concealed in poverty and obscurity for many years, 
 until Sultan Mahmoud was enabled to carry out his reforms in a 
 
 sea of blood and treachery, when they reappeared in honour and in 
 power in the capital, and aided in destroying the janissaries. 
 
 iad on eR tere rt ree 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 5038 
 
 tions; and the janissaries burned to the ground 
 the magnificent barracks which had been erected 
 for the accommodation of the regulars, in order, as 
 they said, to destroy the last trace of the Nizam- 
 Gedittes. The sleek and demure mufti then put 
 on his green satin robe and his measureless tur- 
 ban, and went with the principal oulemas to con- 
 gratulate his sovereign on this new triumph of 
 religion and the ancient laws. Everything soon 
 returned to its accustomed order: the people built 
 up new combustible wooden houses to supply the 
 places of those which had been consumed ; the 
 janissaries and the oulemas resumed all their an- 
 cient rights, privileges, and influence, and never 
 foresaw, until it was too late, the merciless destugqe- 
 tion which Sultan Mahmoud was gradually agd 
 slowly, but most cunningly and incessantly, pre- 
 paring for them, and which at last overtook them 
 and extinguished the janissaries in 1825.* 
 
 It was against the young and inexperienced Mah- 
 moud, when weakened by the dissolution of his regu- 
 lar disciplined army, when abandoned by France, 
 at war with England, and surrounded by difficulties 
 of all kinds, that the magnanimous ‘Alexander of 
 Russia declared war, being encouraged thereunto by 
 the conferences and treaties of Tilsit and Erfurt. At 
 the beginning of the present year (1809) the Rus- 
 sian negotiators at the Congress of Yassi demanded 
 from the sultan’s ministers, as a preliminary to any 
 peace, the cession of the Turkish provinces on the 
 left bank of the Danube. Upon the indignant. re- 
 fusal of the Turks the congress broke up, and then 
 the czar declared war, upon the sole pretext of the 
 injury done to him and his ally the Emperor of the 
 French by the peace concluded with England by 
 the sultan. The Russians kept their ground in 
 Moldavia and Wallachia, being assisted by the 
 Greeks and the rest of the Christian population of 
 those provinces; but, when they crossed the Da- 
 nube and pushed forward inte Bulgaria, as if with 
 the intention of forcing the passes of the Balkan or 
 Mount Hemus, and advancing upon Constanti- 
 nople, they began to suffer severely from the sword 
 and spear of the Osmanlis, from malaria fevers, 
 and other distempers, and from that want and al- 
 most famine which their corrupt, thievish commis- 
 sariat usually contrived to create. Undisciplined 
 as they were, the Turks had lost little of their 
 dogged courage, and, though generally beaten 
 when they risked a battle in the open field, their 
 flying light cavalry often struck terrible blows. On 
 the 22nd of October, while the Russians under 
 Prince Bagration were investing Silistria, they 
 were suddenly attacked by a Turkish army under 
 the command of the grand vizier, who was aided 
 and guided by a Polish refugee, the brave Gleyzer, 
 who had fought under Kosciuszko for the inde- 
 pendence of his country against the Russians. The 
 fierce battle lasted from morning till night, when 
 the arrival of a fresh corps of Albanians gave the 
 victory to the grand vizier. The Russians with 
 
 _ * Juchereau de Saint-Denis, Révolutions de Constantinople.— 
 Private information collected in the country. 
 
504 
 
 difficulty effected their retreat to an entrenched 
 camp; but a second action took place, and, being 
 again defeated with terrible loss, they withdrew 
 from Bulgaria, re-crossed the Danube, and went 
 into winter-quarters in Moldavia and Wallachia. It 
 is cited as an example of Bonaparte’s habitual du- 
 plicity, and as a proof that, whatever promises he 
 had made at Erfurt to Alexander, he was not de- 
 sirous of seeing the Russian empire aggrandized on 
 the side of European Turkey, that the Turkish 
 artillery in all these actions was well served under 
 the direction of French officers, who acted with the 
 secret permission of their own government. The 
 treaty we had concluded with the sultan led to sun- 
 dry and very extended advantages to British com- 
 merce, which the Emperor of the French had _re- 
 solved to exclude from Europe. The great trading 
 ports of Smyrna and Constantinople were again 
 open to our flag; and through the Gulf of Salo- 
 nica, and the port and town of that name, our 
 manufactures and colonial produce found their way 
 into the heart of the European continent, to the 
 shores of the Baltic sea, into Hungary, Austria, 
 Bohemia, Poland, into the parts of Germany the 
 most entirely subjected to the will of the conqueror ; 
 and, continuing their circuitous and contraband 
 route, many of these bales ultimately got intro- 
 duced into Holland, Belgium, and the north of 
 France itself. 
 
 Our government had not even yet recovered 
 from its delusion about the value of countless su- 
 gar islands and West Indian colonies, nor opened 
 its eyes to the sacrifice of capital and of human 
 life contingent on these conquests and occupations.* 
 
 * Neither the country nor the government was sufficiently enlight- 
 ened upon this important subject until the publication of Alexander 
 M. Tulloch’s ‘Statistical Report on the Sickness, Mortality, and 
 Invaliding among the Troops in the West Indies. Prepared from 
 the Records of the Army Medical Department, and War Office 
 Returns; and presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command 
 of Her Majesty in the Year 1838.’ 
 
 The admirable tables in this report, the inductions made therefrom, 
 and the medical details which accompany them, render the whole 
 subject clear to any capacity ; and convey an amount of information 
 which must have been the means of saving many thousands of British 
 lives, and which cannot be overlooked or neglected by any English 
 ministry, present or future. The honour of opening the way to this 
 invaluable result seems to have been chiefly, if not exclusively, due to 
 Sir James M‘Grigor, the director-general, who, in the year 1816, first 
 established an Historical Record of the Medical Transactions in the 
 British Army; to Henry Marshall, Esq., of Edinburgh (known to the 
 world by other literary and scientific efforts, all tending to better 
 the condition of mankind), formerly a surgeon in the army, and 
 afterwards deputy inspector-general of hospitals ; and to Lieut.-col. 
 (then Lieutenant) A. M. Tulloch, who hada rare talent for statistical 
 investigations and arrangements. Long before the government took 
 up the matter ina seriousand effective manner, Mr. Marshall, assisted 
 in some cases by Col. Tulloch, published at his own expense, or 
 in the pages of the United Service Magazine, statistical papers and 
 essays on the health of our troops in various parts of the world, on 
 enlisting, invaliding, &c. These publications gradually attracted 
 notice, and elicited papers and observations from other quarters. 
 
 At length, in October, 1835, the secretary-at-war (Lord Howick) 
 deemed it requisite that an inquiry should be instituted into the 
 extent and causes of the sickness and mortality among the troops 
 in the West Indies, with the view of founding thereon such measures 
 as might appear likely to diminish the great loss of life annually 
 experienced in those colonies. For this duty Messrs. Henry 
 Marshalland A. M. Tulloch were nominated by the secretary-at-war, 
 on the recommendation of Sir James M‘Grigor. On the first report 
 being submitted to the secretary-at-war, he was so much struck 
 with the value of the document, that he directed the investigation 
 to be extended to all our numerous colonies and foreign stations 
 whatsoever. In consequence of this order, statistical reports of the 
 same kind were drawn up and presented to parliament, in the years 
 1839-40-41, on the sickness, mortality, &c., among our troops serving 
 in the United Kingdom, in Gibraltar, Malta, Corfu, and other places 
 in the Mediterranean ; in Western Africa, St. Helena, the Cupe of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 In 1807 we had taken the Danish West India 
 islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix; in 
 1808 we had captured the French West India 
 islands of Mariegalante and Deseada; and in the 
 course of the present year we took possession of the 
 French West India colonies of Cayenne and Mar- 
 tinique, as well as of a part of Spanish San Do- 
 mingo, of which the French had gained possession. 
 These petty, insecure, and costly conquests were 
 also extended to the African coast, where we took 
 Senegal from the French. 
 
 During the year there were several smart actions 
 at sea besides the brilliant affair in the Bay of 
 Naples. The necessity of conveying supplies to 
 their armies employed on the Spanish coast made 
 the French navy bolder than it had been for some 
 time. All blockading ships are liable to be driven 
 from their stations, and during the whole season 
 ours were frequently removed to go upon other ser- 
 vices, to Sicily, to the coast of Calabria, to Dal- 
 matia, and Istria, and to the conquest of the Ionian 
 islands. Detachments both from the Brest and 
 the Toulon fleets got out to sea to convey fleets of 
 French transports and store-ships. Their object 
 never being to fight, but to make a run to the 
 Spanish coast or to some other appointed place, 
 nearly all the affairs that happened were running 
 fights. On the 22nd of October, Lord Colling- 
 wood, who had been blown away from Toulon to 
 Minorca by a gale of wind, and who had sailed 
 from Minorca to the coast of Catalonia, received 
 intelligence that the enemy had come out and was 
 fast approaching him. ‘This was an event for 
 which he and his officers and crews had been 
 longing for more than three years. ‘ Every soul,” 
 says his lordship, ‘‘ was in raptures: I expected 
 their whole fleet, and that we should have had a 
 dashing business. The next morning, between 
 eight and nine o’clock, they came in sight; but 
 they were few—only one rear-admiral, with three 
 sail of the line, two frigates, some other armed 
 things, and a convoy of about twenty vessels. ‘They 
 were going to supply the French army at Barce- 
 lona with provisions, &c. As soon as they dis- 
 covered us they made off. Night came on and I 
 thought that we had lost them; but, as the fleet 
 separated in different parties, by good luck Ad- 
 miral Martin’s division fell in with them, near 
 their own coast, in the Gulf of Lyons, where he 
 chased them on shore.’? The French rear-admiral 
 (Baudin), giving up his attempt to reach Barcelona, 
 tried to run into the harbour of Cette, near the 
 mouths of the Rhone. Two of his ships of the 
 line, failing in this, ran themselves on shore within 
 
 pistol-shot of each other, at a spot about six miles — 
 
 to the north-east of Cette. The other French ship 
 
 Good Hope, and the Mauritius; in Ceylon, the Tenasserim provinces 
 of India, and the Burmese empire. A special department, under 
 the management of Tulloch, was established in the war-office; the 
 most assiduous attention paid to the returns of the regimental 
 surgeons serving abroad, and which were made in a far more accu- 
 rate, distinct, and scientific manner than in former times; and thus - 
 the government and country were placed in possession of a most 
 valuable and perfectly complete series of army-medical statistical 
 reports, which must have had the effect of preventing the recur- 
 rence of many lamentable errors in our war-office. 
 
 Seer ee a 
 
 fr 
 
 ee a 
 
Cuar. VIII.) 
 
 of the line and a frigate, though closely pressed by 
 two English ships, succeeded in reaching Cette 
 harbour, which scarcely contained water enough to 
 float them. Finding it impossible to save the two 
 stranded line-of-battle ships (a fine new 80-gun 
 ship and a fine new 74), Baudin began dismantling 
 them and landing the crews. This was on the 
 evening of the 25th of October. As it grew dark 
 the English ships tacked with the intention of being 
 close in to the two wrecks on the morning of the 
 26th ; but the wind fell, and they did not regain 
 sight of them until the evening, when they were 
 set on fire by their own crews. At eight P.M. the 
 *Robuste,’ Baudin’s flag-ship, and her consort the 
 74, were blazing fore and aft, and at about ten 
 o'clock at night they blew up with a tremendous 
 explosion, Martin’s squadron then lying nearly be- 
 calmed about seven miles from the spot. One of 
 our frigates had succeeded in capturing five of the 
 French store-ships. The two ships which had run 
 into the shallow harbour of Cette (the one a new 
 74, the other a fine large 40-gun frigate*) were 
 left in great jeopardy. Seven French transports, 
 or store-ships, in charge of an armed store-ship, 
 two armed bombards, and another armed vessel, 
 put into the Bay of Rosas, on the coast of Cata- 
 lonia, and anchored under the protection of the 
 castle of Rosas, of Fort Trinidad, and of other 
 strong land-batteries. Lord Collingwood deter- 
 mined that they should not escape him, and he 
 detached Captains Hallowell, B. W. Taylor, H. 
 Hope, and others, to board them with their ships’ 
 boats, and either cut them out or burn them at 
 their moorings. And this was done on the evening 
 and night of the 3lst of October, in the most gal- 
 lant style, in spite of the boarding-nettings and the 
 other precautions which the French had adopted, 
 and in the teeth of a terrible fire of the castle, Fort 
 Trinidad, and the other batteries, and of repeated 
 volleys of musketry from troops assembled on the 
 beach. M. Baudin had sailed from Toulon on the 
 21st of October, the anniversary of the battle of 
 Trafalgar. It was a long time before any part of 
 the Toulon fleet ventured to sea again.t The 
 directing of these operations and the conquest of 
 the Ionian islands, which was entirely his own 
 project, were the last important services rendered 
 to his country by Admiral Lord Collingwood. This 
 good and great man, this illustrious model for 
 naval commanders, whose life and letters ought to 
 
 had fought at Trafalgar excite grief, astonishment, and anger. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 505 
 
 be found in every cabin and with every ship’s com- 
 pany, had long been in a declining state of health. 
 He had several times entreated the admiralty to 
 relieve him, but the government had constantly 
 entreated him to remain. During nearly three 
 years he had hardly ever set foot onshore. During 
 the whole of his command in the Mediterranean 
 his toil and anxiety were immense, his occupations 
 most various; he was involved in difficult political 
 transactions ; he had to maintain a correspondence 
 with, many foreign princes and ministers on 
 the European side of that sea, and with pashas, 
 deys, and sultans on the African side of it; 
 and the letters and dispatches of this thorough 
 English sailor, who had been at sea from his 
 childhood, are admirable even in point of style. 
 His constant service abroad made him often 
 lament that he was hardly known to his own 
 children. On the 22nd of February, 1810, he 
 wrote to Lord Mulgrave, regretting that he had 
 been under the necessity of writing to the secretary 
 of the admiralty, and requesting their lordships’ 
 permission to return to England. ‘‘ This,” he 
 says, ‘‘ [ have not done until I am past service. [ 
 am at present totally incapable of applying to the 
 duties of my office. My complaint is of a nature 
 to which I apprehend it is difficult to apply a 
 remedy, for 1 have hitherto received no benefit 
 from medical advice. Since November it has been 
 daily increasing, so that I am now almost past 
 walking across my cabin ; and, as it is attributed to 
 my long service in a ship, I have little hope of 
 amendment until I can land.”? Three days after 
 writing this letter he moored in the harbour of 
 Port Mahon, in a state of great suffering and debi- 
 lity. As government after government seemed de- 
 termined not to relieve him, his friends in the fleet 
 had repeatedly urged him to surrender his com- 
 mand, and to seek in England, with his affectionate 
 wife and daughters, that rest and comfort which 
 had long been so necessary to his declining health ; 
 but he had always replied that he thought it his 
 duty not to quit the post which had been assigned 
 to him, until he should be duly relieved by orders 
 from the admiralty—that his life was his country’s 
 in whatever way it might be required of him. Now, 
 however, on the 3rd of March, he surrendered his 
 
 _ command to Rear-Admiral Martin, who had given 
 
 so good an account of M. Baudin’s squadron ; and 
 orders were given for instantly preparing his old 
 ship, the ‘Ville de Paris,’ for the voyage home. 
 There was no time to lose, for his life was ebbing 
 fast away. Two days were spent in unsuccessful 
 attempts to warp the ship out of Port Mahon ; but 
 on the 6th the wind came round to a favourable 
 quarter, and at sunset, the ‘ Ville de Paris’ cleared 
 the harbour, and made sail for England, the sailors 
 wondering whether “good old Col” would live to 
 get there. When he found that he was again at 
 sea, he rallied for a2 moment, and said, “Then I 
 may yet live to meet the French once more.” ‘The 
 next morning there was a considerable swell, and 
 Captain Thomas, on entering his cabin, said that 
 
 CC 
 
506 
 
 he feared that the motion of the vessel disturbed 
 him. “No, Thomas,” replied the veteran, ‘‘ | am 
 now in a state in which nothing in this world can 
 He expired that 
 
 disturb me more—I am dying.” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox neg | 
 evening without a struggle, having attained the age | 
 of fifty-nine years and six months,* The death of 
 
 Nelson was not more honourable, and scarcely 
 more truly glorious, 
 
 wttt” 
 
 a 
 
 —— 
 
 TIT 
 
 ens 
 
 fi 
 
 Long before the sortie from Toulon, great efforts 
 had been made by the French to get their Brest 
 fleet in order, and to expedite squadrons from La 
 Rochelle. In the month of March, nine or ten 
 sail of the line and other vessels—a portion of the 
 Brest fleet—were discovered in Basque Roads, lying 
 between I’Ile d’Aix and the town of Rochelle. Ad- 
 miral Lord Gambier appears to have been the first 
 officer on the station to propose making an attack on 
 these ships by means of fire-ships. In a letter to 
 the admiralty, dated the 11th of March, the admiral 
 says,— The enemy’s ships lie very much exposed 
 to the operation of fire-ships: it is a horrible mode 
 of warfare, and the attempt very hazardous, if not 
 desperate; but we should have plenty of volunteers 
 for the service.’’* The admiralty, however, had 
 anticipated Lord Gambier, and, guided bya report 
 by Captain R. G. Keats, nearly two years ago, 
 that board had ordered a number of fire-ships to 
 be prepared, and had directed Mr. Congreve to get 
 ready to proceed in a transport with a supply of 
 his famous rockets, and of men skilled in the ma- 
 nagement of them. Onthe very day on which the 
 board issued these orders, Lord Gambier’s letter of 
 the 11th of March reached the admiralty, and 
 Captain Lord Cochrane, with his frigate from 
 the Mediterranean, reached Plymouth. About an 
 hour after Cochrane’s frigate had dropped anchor, 
 her captain, by telegraph from the admiralty, was 
 ordered to attend the board, as Lord Cochrane was 
 well acquainted with the Basque Roads and that part 
 of the French coast. Cochrane was decidedly of 
 
 i 
 
 Monument TO Lorp CoLLINGWwoop. 
 
 * Minutes of a court martial onthe Rt. Hon. James Lord Gambier, 
 Admiral of the Blue, &c. 
 
 nina 
 
 a 
 
 YS 
 
 | AANA 
 
 opinion that the attempt by fire-ships would suc- 
 ceed. Lord Mulgrave, the first lord of the admiralty, 
 then asked him if he would undertake to execute 
 the plan? At first Cochrane declined, pleading 
 the jealousy which his sudden appointment might 
 excite in his brother officers serving on that station ; 
 but upon a subsequent interview he yielded to — 
 Lord Mulgrave’s representations. On the 19th of © 
 March, before Cochrane had been consulted, or 
 before he had consented to take the command of — 
 the fire-ships, the admiralty wrote to Lord Gambier 
 acquainting him with their preparations of rockets, 
 fire-ships, &c., and telling him that all these pre-_ 
 parations were making with a view to enable his — 
 lordship to make the attack: but they left it dis- 
 cretional with Lord Gambier to make the attack 
 either conjointly with his line-of-battle ships, fri- 
 gates, and small craft, fire-ships, bombs, rockets; — 
 or separately by any of the above means. On the 
 25th the admiralty addressed another letter to 
 Lord Gambier, acquainting him that they had- 
 thought fit to select Lord Cochrane to conduct the — 
 fire-ships, but under his (Lord G.’s) directions. 
 Cochrane, who took this letter, and who sailed with 
 his frigate forthwith, reached the Basque Roads 
 and presented himself and the admiralty letter 4 
 
 LT te 
 * A Selection from the Public and Private Correspondence of Vice= — 
 Admiral Lord Collingwood : interspersed with Memoirs of his Life, — 
 by G. L. Newnham Collingwood, Esq., F.R.S. if 
 This admirable book, like Southey’s Life of Nelson, and Sir John — 
 Barrow’s Lives of Lord Anson and Lord Howe, ought to be put into — 
 the hands of all young sailors. The admiralty ought to cause cheap , 
 copies of these works to be printed and distributed throughout the — 
 navy. A good progress has been recently made, and is now So 
 in establishing libraries for our non-commissioned officers and — 
 soldiers. We trust that the warrant officers and sailors of the royal 
 navy will neither be forgotten nor left behind. 
 
Cuar. VIIL] 
 
 Gambier on the 3rd of April. As there was a de- 
 lay in the arrival of some of the fire-ships from 
 England, Lord Gambier ordered eight large trans- 
 ports that were with him to be fitted up as explo- 
 sion vessels. Three or four other fire-ships were 
 also equipped on the spot under the immediate in- 
 spection of Lord Cochrane. By the 10th of April 
 thirteen or fourteen of the fire-ships, and the ship 
 with the congreve-rockets and the inventor of 
 those missiles, had joined the fleet. On the 11th, 
 early in the morning, Lord Gambier’s frigates and 
 small vessels moved forward to cover and support 
 the attack; and the ships of the line approached 
 as near as they safely could with proper reference 
 to the rocks and shoals, which would prevent their 
 manceuvring. The attack was not to be made 
 until dark night; but there were probably good 
 reasons for making this demonstration and ap- 
 proach by daylight, for the navigation was difficult. 
 But we can discover no excuse for the ignorance 
 of the whole fleet (not excepting Lord Cochrane, 
 who ought to have discovered the existence of that 
 bar, or who ought at least to have conjectured its 
 existence, seeing that Nelson had encountered the 
 same impediment in his attack on the flotilla at 
 Boulogne, and that such a means of defence had 
 often been employed before, and was of very ancient 
 origin) as to the existence of a strong boom in 
 front of the French ships. These ships were dis- 
 posed in a treble line, in a narrow passage; and 
 _they were protected by some tremendous land bat- 
 teries, mounting long 36-pounders. The boom 
 was no ordinary boom: it was half a mile long, 
 extending along the whole front of the foremost 
 line, or right across the channel which leads from 
 Basque to Aix Road: it was composed of enor- 
 mous cables secured by the heaviest anchors that 
 had yet been made, and floated by buoys. The 
 island of Aix, which in a manner commanded the 
 approach, had 2000 land troops, mostly conscripts, 
 and a number of French gun-boats and other row- 
 boats were collected at Aix and La Rochelle to 
 run in front of or behind the boom. When the 
 hour arrived Lord Cochrane embarked in one of 
 the fire-ships; and at about nine o’clock, in an 
 uncommonly dark night, these explosion vessels 
 moved towards the enemy, propelled by a wind 
 which was favourable, but too fresh to allow of 
 the fire-ships being chained together in divisions 
 of three or four each, as had been intended. Each 
 fire-ship was therefore left to act an independent 
 part. “The commanders of some of them set fire 
 to their fusees a great deal too soon, and they ex- 
 ploded at too great a distance to do any mischief. 
 Two or three others of the fire-ships were stopped 
 by the floating boom, the existence of which it 
 should appear that not one of them suspected ; 
 and, as the foremost of the French ships were 300 
 or 400 feet within the boom, these explosions did 
 them no harm. But the ‘Mediator,’ the largest 
 and most efficient of these combustible craft, com- 
 manded by Captain Woolridge, who best under- 
 stood this sort of service, broke the boom, and 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 507 
 
 thus afforded a clear passage not only to herself 
 but to the other fire-ships behind her. As these 
 floating ‘* machines infernales’ advanced in a 
 blaze, all the French ships, a little sooner or a. 
 little later, cut their cables, and most of them ran 
 ashore. Though two or three of them were 
 grappled, not one of them was blown up by our fire- 
 ships, whose explosions resembled an eruption of 
 Ktna or Hecla. In one single fire-ship 1500 
 barrels of gunpowder were ignited, and confined 
 and crammed on the top of all. this gunpowder 
 were 300 or 400 shells charged with fusees, and 
 3000 or 4000 hand-grenades. Yet the noise and 
 blaze and the panic-terror they raised were in- 
 finitely greater than the destruction they imme- 
 diately caused. When the blaze was over, and 
 
 the darkness of night restored, Lord Cochrane 
 (he had exploded his own fire-ship too, soon) 
 remained at a distance from the rocks and shoals, 
 scarcely knowing what had been done or what 
 was best to do next. The return of day showed 
 seven French ships aground, and little able to 
 make any resistance. He thought they might all 
 be destroyed as they lay, and he signalised Lord 
 Gambier accordingly. But the wind was blowing 
 hard upon the coast, and Gambier, a cautious man, 
 dreading that lee-shore, and those shallow fortress- 
 bound waters, declined sending in any more ves- 
 sels. Perhaps the admiral did not like the way in 
 which Cochrane was making his signals to him, 
 and was calling upon him to do this thing or that 
 as though he (Cochrane) had been commander-in- 
 chief; and it is certain that Cochrane’s most un- 
 expected appointment had created a deal of 
 jealousy among the captains in the fleet. At about 
 six o’clock on the morning of the 12th Cochrane 
 signalised that seven of the enemy’s ships were on 
 shore and might be destroyed. Shortly after, 
 when he could see more clearly, he made signal 
 that all their ships were on shore except two, and 
 might be destroyed by only a part of Lord Gam- 
 bier’s ships. But Lord Gambier made no signal 
 to weigh until three hours later; and then he 
 suspended that signal by making another calling 
 all captains on board his flag-ship. Other delays 
 occurred which Lord Gambier explained to the 
 satisfaction of his friends and of the court of ad- 
 mirals who afterwards examined his conduct, but 
 not to the satisfaction of Lord Cochrane or to that 
 of the generality of the English public. In the 
 
 meanwhile the tide began to rise, and some of the 
 
 French ships, getting afloat, made for the Cha- 
 
 rante river. The end of the affair, the result of 
 various operations which cannot possibly be ex- 
 
 plained without long details for the most part of a 
 
 very technical nature, was, that, entirely through 
 
 the exertions of Cochrane, four of the French ships 
 
 which could not get afloat struck, and were set fire 
 
 to and destroyed; and the rest escaped up the 
 
 Charante, though all very much injured and with 
 
 crews completely disheartened. The French offi- 
 
 cers themselves confessed that this had been a most 
 
 unfortunate affair; that the greater part of their 
 
508 
 
 crews were completely dispirited; that every day 
 they were lamenting their situation and speaking 
 in praise of the enemy; and that this was the 
 greatest injury the English had done. 
 
 Lord Cochrane on his return to England re- 
 ceived the honour of the red riband of the Bath. 
 After, and not before, receiving this distinction he 
 told the first lord of the admiralty, that he should 
 in his place in parliament oppose any vote of thanks 
 to Lord Gambier. Upon hearing this and other 
 and much louder expressions of dissatisfaction, 
 Gambier demanded a court-martial. This court, 
 composed of admirals Sir Roger Curtiss and Wil- 
 liam Young ; vice-admirals Sir John T. Duckworth, 
 Sir Henry E. Stanhope, Billy Douglas, and 
 George Campbell ; rear-admiral John Sutton, and 
 four post captains, gave sentence, that Admiral 
 Lord Gambier had acted with zeal, judgment, abi- 
 lity, and an anxious attention to the welfare of his 
 majesty’s service, and that he was most honour- 
 ably acquitted of all charges. Cochrane’s friends 
 alleged that there were strong prejudices against 
 him and strong partialities for his superior officer : 
 the opposition party, with their newspapers and 
 other organs, warmly espoused the cause of Coch- 
 rane, who, inclined to the party before, now be- 
 came a hot partisan, a radical reformer, and a 
 systematic or constant opponent of the govern- 
 ment.* 
 
 When Bonaparte returned so hastily from the 
 mountains of Galicia to the good city of Paris, in 
 alarm at the demonstrations making by Austria, 
 he set on foot negotiations with the court of Vienna 
 rather in order to gain two or three months’ time 
 for his own military preparations than with the 
 hope or the wish of averting the storm. He fan- 
 cied that the ill success of Sir John Moore would 
 prevent the English government from sending any 
 other army into Spain ;—-of the Spanish armies left 
 to themselves he could entertain no apprehension ; 
 —and, while his marshals were finishing the war in 
 that country, he confidently expected to be able to 
 erush the Emperor Francis, who had no assistance 
 to expect from Russia, or from Prussia, or from 
 any of the German states, or from any of the 
 powers of the North. He would make no con- 
 cession, he would not even enter into expla- 
 nations; and therefore, at the end of March, 
 Francis declared war, and issueda manifesto re- 
 capitulating the various provocations which Austria 
 had endured since the peace of Presburg. Austria 
 had made astonishing exertions to recruit her 
 armies to the number of nearly 300,000 men; 
 but the mass of these troops had not had time 
 to attain to any perfection of discipline, and again 
 the armies were too much divided and subdi- 
 vided, the Emperor Francis aiming not merely 
 at a defensive war and the recovery of the Tyrol, 
 which Bonaparte had given to the king of Bavaria, 
 
 * For the affair of the Basque Roads, the court-martial on Lord | 
 
 Gambicr, &c., the reader may consult the naval histories of Captain 
 Brenton and Mr, James, and the Edinburgh Annual Register for 
 1809, which contains a very full account written, or revised, by 
 Southey. 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 but also at the recovery of Lombardy, and all those 
 rich transalpine states which now constituted the 
 Gallic-Italian kingdom, and at conquests in Poland 
 to be made at the expense of the grand duchy of 
 Warsaw which Bonaparte had set up. While one 
 great army under the Archduke Charles marched 
 towards the river Inn and the fatal fortress of Ulm, 
 another large army under the Archduke John (who 
 intended to co-operate at a favourable moment with 
 his brother Charles through the passes of the 
 Tyrol) was set in motion towards Upper Italy, and 
 a third army under the Archduke Ferdinand was 
 sent into Poland. Each of these three armies 
 began admirably well; but only to end lamentably. 
 On the 9th of April the Archduke Charles crossed 
 the Inn, and presently occupied Bavaria and 
 communicated with the Tyrol, in which latter 
 couutry the brave, loyal, and patriotic inhabitants— 
 chiefly mountaineers and peasants—had risen upon 
 the French and Bavarian troops and had driven 
 them out. On the 10th of April the Archduke 
 John, with his army full of spirit and of hope, de- 
 scended from the Alps into Italy, driving the 
 
 French and Italian troops of the viceroy Eugene 
 
 Beauharnais before him, and steadily advancing 
 to the Tagliamento, capturing all the open towns 
 and laying siege to the fortresses of Osopo and 
 Palmanova. In Poland the Archduke Ferdinand 
 defeated Bonaparte’s satellite, Poniatowski, and 
 marched as a conqueror into the city of Warsaw. 
 In the meanwhile, Bonaparte had collected an 
 
 immense but compact army on the Rhine, consist- 
 
 ing of French, Italians, Poles, Bavarians, Wur- 
 temburgers, Saxons, and of all the contingents of 
 the Rhenish confederation He counted with con- 
 fidence on the rapidity of his movements, and on 
 the very imperfect condition of discipline among 
 the majority of the troops in the ranks of his old 
 opponent the Archduke Charles. ‘‘ Six thousand 
 of our people,” said he, “ ought to attack and beat 
 12,000 or 15,000 of that mob, cette canat/le-la.??* 
 On the 20th of April he defeated the archduke’s 
 advanced guard at Abensberg; on the 23rd he 
 escaladed the walls and took the city of Ratisbon, 
 on which occasion he was slightly wounded in the 
 foot by a spent musket-ball. He then advanced 
 still more rapidly, separating the Austrian divi- 
 sions from one another, and, by one of his most 
 skilful or quickest manceuvres (which the Aus- 
 trians ought to have understood by this time, and 
 so have been provided against), he completely dis- 
 located and broke the Archduke’s line. Risking a 
 battle at Eckmuhl under very disadvantageous cir- 
 cumstances, Charles was thoroughly defeated, lost 
 a great part of his artillery, ammunition, and bag- 
 gage, and is said to have owed his own escape to 
 the speed of his horse. The archduke retired into 
 Bohemia, leaving the road to Vienna open to the 
 French, who entered it in triumph on the morning 
 of the 13th of May, after a mere show of resistance 
 which lasted only three or four days, The garrison, 
 15,000 strong, the court, the nobility, had all fled 
 
 * Bonaparte’s Letter to Marshal Massena, 
 
Cuap, VIII.] 
 
 from the place before it capitulated; but there 
 remained there one princess of the house of Austria, 
 the Archduchess Maria Louisa, whom sickness had 
 retained in the palace of her fathers. [A notion, 
 however, prevailed at the time and afterwards, 
 that the archduchess’s malady was in good part a 
 fiction.] The conqueror caused the archduchess 
 to be treated with all respect and reverence; but 
 at the same time he acted as sovereign and master 
 in her father’s. capital. In conformity with the 
 system which we have ventured to condemn, 
 when recommended and upheld by English writers, 
 but which was certainly well suited to his purposes 
 and modes of making war, he declared not only 
 that no popular insurgents, but also that no militia, 
 had any right to take any part in the hostilities, or 
 to make any effort against the invaders of their 
 country. On the 14th of May he issued a decree 
 commanding the immediate dissolution of the 
 Landwehr, and threatening with the severest punish- 
 ments all such men as should not lay by their arms 
 and return quietly to their homes within a fort- 
 night. 
 
 The Archduke Charles now collected his army 
 on the left bank of the Danube, only a few miles 
 below Vienna. Having constructed some bridges, 
 Bonaparte crossed the river and attacked the arch- 
 duke. The great battle of Aspern, which was begun 
 on the 21st of May, was one of the most memorable 
 that took place in the whole course of these long 
 or often-renewed wars. When night closed on the 
 field of carnage the combat was undecided; but 
 the loss of Bonaparte was far greater than that of 
 the archduke, who had been reinforced by some 
 Austrian and Hungarian veterans, and who dis- 
 played throughout the day both an unflinching 
 courage and excellent generalship. The battle was 
 renewed early on the following day, and was raging 
 with fury on both sides, when Bonaparte was in- 
 formed that the bridges in his rear, which he had 
 constructed to keep up his communications with 
 the right bank of the Danube, had been carried 
 away by a flood. Upon this he ordered a retreat, 
 and withdrew, not without some confusion, into the 
 island of Lobau, in the middle of the Danube, and 
 cut away the bridge which joined the island to the 
 left bank of the river. The loss of the French in 
 killed and wounded was very great: Marshal 
 Lannes, duke of Montebello, finished his earthly 
 career at Aspern; Generals Espagne and Saint- 
 Hilaire were also among the slain; and an immense 
 number of field-officers perished on the field or died 
 of their wounds on the isle.of Lobau. The visible 
 discouragement of the men was good evidence that 
 Aspern had in fact been a defeat to the French. 
 It is true that at this juncture the Emperor Alexan- 
 der had declared war against the Emperor Francis, 
 and had raised his army in Russian Poland to 
 50,000 men; but these Russians seemed to satisfy 
 themselves with merely observing the Austrian 
 army under Archduke John, and. the Polish army 
 (of which the czar was much more apprehensive) 
 under Prince Poniatowski; and they certainly ab- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 509 
 
 stained from taking any active part whatever in 
 this campaign. But, on the other side, while Bo- 
 naparte and the mass of his Grand Army were 
 cooped up and miserably huddled together on an 
 island in the Danube, popular patriotic insurrec- 
 tions of a formidable character were breaking out 
 in his rearj and even in regions contiguous to the 
 Rhine and the frontiers of France: the gallant 
 Major Schill, the best of partisan leaders, had 
 raised the standard of liberty and independence in 
 the North of Germany; the inept Jerome Bona- 
 parte, king of Westphalia, was compelled to fly 
 from his capital; the chivalrous Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, the avenger of his old father, threw himself 
 into Bohemia with his Black Hussars; and one of 
 the princes of Hesse, and other men of ancient and 
 honoured names, followed these examples, and pro- 
 pagated and most bravely fought for the reviving 
 Germanic feeling. All Germany learned for the 
 first time these ten years that Bonaparte had been 
 vanquished and compelled to fall back. The news 
 gave heart and hope to all that were enemies to the 
 French and friends to their own country: the fer- 
 mentation of the Germanic populations became 
 general; and those governments and princes that 
 had attached themselves to the fortunes of the 
 Corsican Emperor of the French must have been 
 broken up and swept out of the country if this 
 true Germanic feeling in the people had been 
 allowed a little more time, and had received pro- 
 per encouragement from bold and decisive opera- 
 tions on the part of the armies of the Emperor of 
 Austria. It was with difficulty that Bonaparte’s 
 submissive ally, the King of Saxony and Grand 
 Duke of Warsaw, could restrain the sympathies of 
 his German subjects; and in Prussia, notwith- 
 standing the fear and awe of the government, the 
 people seemed almost everywhere on tiptoe, in- 
 flamed with the desire of avenging the disgraces 
 of Jena, the humiliations of their king, and the 
 wrongsof their graceful, high-spirited, and broken- 
 hearted queen. Major Schill himself was a subject 
 of his Prussian majesty, and he had marched off 
 from Berlin with his regiment of hussars and a 
 few hundred Prussian infantry,—brave men, who 
 would risk the death of soldiers on the field of 
 battle, or the hanging and fusilading of the French, 
 who chose to consider and to treat them and all 
 such patriot bands as banditti and brigands, rather 
 than witness any longer the slavery of their country 
 and the opprobrium of the whole Teutonic family. 
 The retreat from Bavaria of the Archduke Charles 
 had not damped the spirit of the resolute Tyrolese, 
 who were in arms almost to a man, making a noble 
 stand against another united army of French and 
 Bavarians. At the beginning of June, bands, more 
 or less considerable, issued from the mountains of 
 Bohemia, and penetrated into Saxony, Franconia, 
 Hesse, Hanover, and others of the circles of the 
 old empire, exciting the populations to rise, |aunch- 
 ing proclamations, and gathering many partisans : 
 their cry was, ‘“ Arm to defend your liberties! 
 Arm for the deliverance and the liberties of 
 
510 
 
 De a ee 
 ‘| by 
 
 Europe!” It was hard for French generals to 
 get native German troops (and they had few but 
 German corps under their command) to fight 
 against the German patriots.* The King of 
 Wurtemburg was reduced to almost as sad straits 
 as his brother-in-law Jerome, King of Westphalia. 
 This popular enthusiasm and insurrectfon might 
 not have sufficed in itself to break the iron sceptre 
 of Bonaparte ; but, with a little time and encourage- 
 ment, the partisan bands might have been well 
 organised and disciplined, the regular armies of 
 the confederation of the Rhine and the other 
 veteran German troops that were unwillingly fol- 
 lowing the standard of the Emperor ofthe French 
 would have deserted from him as they did a few 
 years later, and an ocean of blood might have been 
 spared humanity. But, after his exploits on the 
 field of Aspern, a torpor or a stupefaction appears 
 to have fallen upon the Archduke Charles. In part, 
 this might be accounted for by the reverses which 
 _were following the first successes of the Archduke 
 John in Italy, and of the Archduke Ferdimand in 
 Poland ; but there certainly must have been some 
 other cause, or causes, more secret and more power- 
 ful to produce this long inaction. ‘Treachery and 
 treason of the darkest kind have been suspected, 
 not in the Archduke Charles, who was one of the 
 most honourable of men, but in inferior generals, 
 and among the members of the government and the 
 Aulic Council, which always directed the war, 
 whether near or distant, and which never, since the 
 beginning of the French Revolution, had directed 
 it aright. For six whole weeks Bonaparte’s army 
 was allowed to remain undisturbed in the isle of 
 Lobau. During this long interval it was reinforced 
 by the arrival of the corps of Marshal Davoust ; 
 strong redoubts and batteries were raised on the 
 island ; new bridges were prepared ; every possible 
 advantage was taken of the abundant resources 
 offered by the city of Vienna; and Eugene Beau- 
 harnais with the army of Italy, and Marmont with 
 the army of Dalmatia, after the retreat of the Arch- 
 duke John, and by a succession of rapid and bril- 
 liant marches, gave the hand to their emperor and 
 his Grand Army. When all these advantages had 
 been procured, Bonaparte, with a great superiority 
 of force, determined to try his fortune again on the 
 left bank of the Danube. The Archduke Charles 
 had fortified that bank, had erected batteries to 
 prevent the passage of the French from the isle of 
 Lobau, and had thrown up other batteries and re- 
 doubts at Aspern, Essling, and other points: but 
 the Archduke John, who had effected his retreat 
 from Italy into Hungary, was not brought up to 
 the scene of action, nor did the Archduke Ferdi- 
 nand quit Poland and march to the succour of his 
 brother, until it was all too late. The Austrians, 
 too, appear to have conceived that the French 
 
 * The brave Duke of Brunswick said, in one of his proclamations, 
 **Germans! would you shed your blood for foreigners, for French- 
 men? Your brothers, against whom they are making you march, 
 are coming only to break your chains, Rise, Hessians! Rise, 
 Prussians, Brunswickers, Hanoverians! Unite together to wipe 
 
 out the shame of Germany, and to punish her oppressors! ‘The 
 moment of deliverance is af hand!” 
 
 ng 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 could only effect their passage at the identical 
 point where they had made it before, so that all 
 their works were made merely to face the isle of 
 Lobau. On the night of the 4th of July Bona- 
 parte opened a tremendous fire from his batteries 
 on Lobau; and, while the dull Austrians were re- 
 plying to it, the French went silently over to another 
 islet a little lower down the river, established six 
 bridges, and began to glide over to the left bank, 
 By the morning of the 5th Bonaparte and the mass 
 of his army were well established on that bank, 
 and on the flank of all the archduke’s positions, 
 which were thus in a manner rendered useless. It 
 would appear that the Austrian army knew nothin 
 
 of this manceuvre until it was all but completed. 
 The Archduke Charles retired obliquely upon 
 Wagram, a few miles behind Aspern, fighting hard 
 as he went at Enzersdorf, at Essling, and at one or 
 two other points, and removing his artillery from 
 his now useless works. ‘Towards evening Bona- 
 parte attempted to finish the affair by attacking 
 the Austrian centre. He began by a concen- 
 trated murderous fire of artillery, the number 
 of his guns being now increased to a greater 
 disproportion than ever, and nearly every gun 
 being loaded with Eee But the Aus- 
 trian veterans were not to be broken; the 
 centre stood like a wall, replying with a less 
 numerous but well-served artillery; im some 
 charges made on the wings of the archduke’s army 
 and on other parts of his line the French were 
 repulsed with great loss; the Saxons and other 
 German troops commanded by Bernadotte showed 
 symptoms of uneasiness and insubordination—a 
 feather thrown into the scale of the indecision of 
 these Germans would have made them march over 
 to the archduke as they marched over to the grand 
 allied army on the field of Leipsic in the year 
 1813 ;—finally, some of the élite of the native 
 French troops fell into confusion, which was in- 
 creased by the darkness of night. About an hour 
 before midnight the firing of the artillery ceased, 
 
 and Bonaparte was again compelled to confess in- . 
 
 wardly that he had been worsted. When he 
 complained to Bernadotte, with whom he was per- 
 petually quarrelling, of the conduct of the Saxons 
 and of the general ill success of the day, the mar- 
 shal replied, “Sire, we have no longer such troops 
 
 as those we brought from the camp of Boulogne — 
 
 in 1806! The best of the French army had in 
 fact been already sacrificed. On the morrow, 
 
 however—the memorable 6th of July—when the | 
 
 Archduke Charles drew up his army in the form — 
 
 of a crescent on the plain of Wagram, and, re- — 
 suming the offensive, attacked the French with the — 
 
 hope of driving them back into the Danube, the 
 
 Austrians were defeated, but rather by superiority — 
 of number and by the immensity of the enemy’s — 
 
 artillery than by any superiority either in bravery 
 or generalship. The battle of Wagram was—or 
 at least the decisive part of it was—a battle of 
 cannons and howitzers. For some hours victory 
 seemed to sit upon the crest of the brave Austrian 
 
 a oe ee ee, 
 
 a), 
 
Guar. VIII.] 
 
 prince. Bernadotte was driven from his position ; 
 Massena recovered that position, but could not 
 hold it; Eugene Beauharnais with his army of 
 Italy was driven in and almost routed ; columns 
 of Austrians seemed gaining ground in every direc- 
 tion, and at one moment the French left wing was 
 completely turned, and dismay reigned in the 
 éiat-major, or grand staff, of the Grand Army. But 
 Marshal Davoust, with an immense corps com- 
 posed entirely of Frenchmen, made an impression 
 on the left wing of the Austrians ; and at the cri- 
 tical moment Bonaparte, who kept his attention 
 entirely fixed on Davoust, deployed the batteries 
 of his imperial guards, ranging sixty or more 
 pieces of cannon in the first line like infantry, and 
 opening an awful fire on the heads of some ad- 
 vancing columns.* These attacking columns 
 halted; their weak artillery was soon silenced ; 
 Davoust’s corps shouted victory ; and then Bona- 
 parte, saying “The battle is won,” formed his 
 entire centre into column, and with twenty-one 
 battalions of infantry under Macdonald, the two 
 divisions of Eugene Beauharnais, the cuirassiers 
 and the light cavalry of the guard, with the old 
 and the new guard, and the noted grenadiers a 
 cheval, he drove across the plain with his con- 
 densed mass, broke through the archduke’s centre, 
 and reached Wagram. Now, indeed, the battle 
 was gained, but tremendous was the price he had 
 paid for it: three of his generals were killed, 
 twenty-one of his generals were wounded, and ac- 
 cording even to French accounts 6500 men were 
 killed and 15,000 were wounded. ‘The lying bul- 
 letins, which could no longer deceive anybody, 
 stated his total loss at 1500 killed and a few thou- 
 sands wounded; but it now appears from docu- 
 ments found in the French war-office and in other 
 depositories that Bonaparte had altogether about 
 33,000 men put hors de combat in the two battles 
 which he fought near Wagram. The Austrian 
 loss was certainly inferior to this; on the 5th they 
 had a decided advantage; on the 6th they were 
 for a long time victorious; and even when their 
 centre was broken their retreat was effected in good 
 order, and there was no pursuit, the French halt- 
 ing ina state of doubt or exhaustion on the ground 
 they had gained. It isa hot pursuit that swells 
 the number of killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
 They abandoned some of their artillery, but the 
 Austrians carried away with them more prisoners 
 than they had themselves lost. Ym their own 
 official accounts the Austrians estimated their loss 
 in the field at 20,000 killed and wounded, and it 
 appears that their loss in reality did not exceed 
 26,000 or 27,000. Thirteen Austrian generals 
 
 were killed or wounded, and the Archduke Charles 
 himself received a slight hurt in repelling a 
 
 * «The Austrian centre,” cried Bonaparte, ‘* must be battered by 
 artillery like a fortress!” When the horrible struggle seemed going 
 against him he exclaimed to Drouot, the general of his artillery, 
 *¢Drouot, bring up all the batteries of the guard! We must sustain 
 Davoust’s column at any price! Allons, Drouot, throw me ten 
 thousand cannon-balls! Crush me those masses before you!” 
 
 Thus, the less he relied on his troops, the more he relied on his 
 cannon ; and thus hekeptincreasing his artillery out of all proportion. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 511 
 charge. But the most lamentable part of the 
 story seems to be this :—during the two days’ fight 
 the Archduke John, with 10,000 or 12,000 choice 
 troops which he had brought back from Italy, was 
 lying at Presburg on the Hungarian frontier, on 
 the same side of the Danube as his brother Charles 
 and Bonaparte, and only six or seven leagues from 
 them. A good forced march might have brought 
 the Archduke John to the field, at latest on the 
 second and decisive day of the fighting; and it is 
 allowed by most of the French themselves that 
 his appearance, at any moment before Bonaparte’s 
 last tremendous charge, would have thrown the 
 French into irremediable confusion. It is said 
 that pressing orders and earnest entreaties were 
 sent by Charles to his younger brother to hasten 
 his march; but there the Archduke John re- 
 mained, to leave an historical doubt to posterity 
 as to the motives of his conduct or the causes or 
 accidents which delayed his advance. He was as 
 brave as his brother, and unquestionably quite as 
 loyal: we cannot credit the insinuations of the 
 French that he was actuated by a mean jealousy ; 
 but we incline rather to believe that there was 
 treachery as well as stupidity among some of the 
 men who surrounded him; that there was an 
 opposition and conflict between the orders given 
 him by the Aulic Council and the orders sent him 
 by the Archduke Charles, or that the orders were 
 badly given by his brother and badly understood 
 by himself. 
 
 Still, however, the army of the Archduke Charles 
 was neither destroyed nor discouraged and dis- 
 persed ; men and officers were ready to fight again, 
 and the archduke was eager to continue the war. 
 By skirmishing and manceuvring he might have 
 gained time sufficient to allow not only the Arch- 
 duke John but also the Archduke Ferdinand and 
 other generals of separate corps to form their junc- 
 tion with him; the partisan warfare continued in 
 Germany, the Tyrolese were as yet standing as 
 conquerors on their own proud mountains, and the 
 warlike population of Hungary might have fur- 
 nished immediately swarms of squadrons of excel- 
 lent light cavalry, while Bohemia would have 
 
512 
 
 poured forth her yagers or tirailleurs, among the 
 best light infantry and riflemen in the world. 
 Alarming news arrived from Murat at Naples, 
 who was watching the storm then gathering in 
 Sicily and in Calabria; and in the course of a few 
 days the spirit of Bonaparte became disquieted by 
 the storm which had then burst upon Holland,—by 
 the capture of Walcheren, which was a far more 
 serious source of uneasiness than has been gene- 
 rally allowed,—and by the news of the defeat of 
 his brother Joseph and his marshals at Talavera. 
 So far was the Archduke Charles from thinking 
 of a dishonourable, dastardly peace that he was 
 actually fighting the French on the 11th of July, 
 and was even preparing for another general battle, 
 when certain diplomatists drove into his camp 
 and told him that the Emperor Francis had 
 agreed to a truce, and that an armistice had just 
 been concluded at Znaym. This led to the op- 
 probrious peace of Schénbrunn, which was not 
 signed, however, till the 14th of October. During 
 this, to him, most opportune and profitable sus- 
 pension of hostilities, Bonaparte chiefly resided 
 in the imperial palace of Schénbrunn, leading 
 nearly the same course of life to which he was 
 accustomed at the Tuileries, and ruling in Vienna 
 like a lord and master.* From this ancient resi- 
 dence of the house of Hapsburg he issued his 
 decrees to all parts of the continent, and endea- 
 voured also to open a correspondence with some 
 disaffected states or subjects of Francis, in order 
 to terrify him into greater submission and vaster 
 sacrifices even than those which the Austrian 
 cabinet seemed ready to make, and to sow germs 
 of discord, rivalry, and confusion which might 
 keep that empire for ever in a weak and prostrate 
 condition. But, though he had assuredly found 
 on this as on former occasions some traitors that 
 served him for money, he could not find on the 
 whole surface of the Austrian empire any such 
 thing as a body of disaffected or disloyal men, 
 and, now that Italy was gone, he could not dis- 
 cover in the curious composite which made up 
 that empire, in the different kingdoms, in the 
 provinces and adjoints, in many of which the 
 people differed in origin, in language, in habits, 
 and in several instances in religion, a single foyer 
 of discontent and rebellion, or any one class willing 
 to throw themselves under French protection and 
 assert an independence of the house of Hapsburg. 
 Except in their lost Italian provinces the sway of 
 the Austrians had been mild and popular, and the 
 government of Francis II. was, and ever had been, 
 
 * It was at Schonbrunn that Bonaparte narrowly escaped the dagger 
 of an enthusiastic young man, a member of the Tugenbund, or of some 
 other of those secret societies which had now and at a later period so 
 great an effect in exciting the Germanic feeling. Stabbs, the son of 
 a respectable Protestant clergyman of Erfurt, went to a grand review 
 of the imperial guard, and rushed upon the emperor in the midst of 
 his staff. Berthier and Rapp seized him and disarmed him when his 
 knife was but a few inches from Bonaparte’s heart. ‘‘ What injury 
 have I ever done to you?” said the conqueror. ‘To me personally 
 none,” replied the youth ; **but you are the oppressor of my country, 
 the tyrant of the world!” Bonaparte, who had already fusiladed 
 more than twenty burghers of Vienna pour fuire peur, causcd the 
 youth to be shot on the very next morning. The boy, for he was 
 scarcely eighteen years old, died like a hero. 
 
 ‘ 
 
 ern 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (Book X. 
 
 considered as a paternal government. In Hungary, 
 where the people differ as much from Austrians as 
 our .old highland clans differed from the lowland 
 Scotch or from the English, and where a proud 
 and spirited nobility had maintained an oligarchic 
 constitution—where jars occasionally took place 
 between the imperial authorities and the aristo- 
 cracy, and where the great magnates had often 
 been known to defy the Aulic Council, the French 
 fancied that something might be done; but, when 
 Bonaparte addressed an invitation to the Hun- 
 garians to separate themselves from Austria, to 
 form an independent kingdom under a native 
 ruler, and to give to the crown of the Magyars the 
 lustre which once belonged to it, they turned from 
 the invitation with contempt and disgust. These 
 men had no sympathy with the French; their 
 liberties and privileges had been well preserved 
 under the house of Austria, and they knew but 
 too well the fate of democracies, oligarchies, and 
 all other governments that had claimed the pro- 
 tection of Bonaparte. 
 
 A few words must be said on the campaigns in 
 Poland and Italy. The grand duchy of Warsaw 
 did not capitulate with its capital. The Archduke 
 Ferdinand laid siege to Thorn. While a strong 
 garrison detained him there, Poniatowski, having 
 doubled his army, fell upon the Austrians with 
 40,000 men, drove them out of the city of Warsaw, 
 beat the archduke in two battles fought at the end 
 of April and beginning of May, invaded Austrian 
 Poland, penetrated into Gallicia, and forced the 
 archduke to evacuate entirely the territories of the 
 grand duchy of Warsaw by the beginning of July. 
 
 EvGeNE BravunakNals. 
 
 When the Archduke John first descended into 
 Italy to contend with the French viceroy, his pro- 
 gress was favoured by many circumstances: the 
 spirit of the Austrian armies had never been higher 
 than then, and the common people of the country 
 were heartily sick of the French dominion, and 
 irritated, exasperated in the extreme by the harsh, 
 lawless, and, in their eyes, impious conduct of Bon- 
 aparte towards Pius VII., a pontiff whose personal 
 
 a a rere eee t—C 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 virtues, and imposing and touching demeanour, 
 _ greatly increased the reverence felt for the sanctity 
 of his office. A large portion of the Italian nobi- 
 lity were, and a considerable portion of the dour- 
 geoisie had become, free-thinkers—converts and 
 disciples to the doctrines of Voltaire and the French 
 philosophes-——and as such disposed to regard with 
 joy or with indifference any humiliation offered to 
 the tiara, or any blow struck at the Roman priest- 
 hood; but these classes of men were acutely sen- 
 sible to the injuries offered to themselves person- 
 ally, to the enormous stride of taxation which was 
 going part passu with retreating trade and the 
 rapid fall of the value of the rich productions of the 
 country, to the intolerable war contributions, and 
 to the still more intolerable military conscription, 
 which spared no rank or condition of men. And 
 even many of those nobles and citizens of Lom- 
 bardy who had most favoured the French, and who 
 had most profited by Bonaparte’s government, ap- 
 prehended that the end of his system was coming, 
 and that the best thing they could do under present 
 circumstances would be either to remain neutral 
 and indifferent, or to win a reconciliation from 
 their old masters the Austrians by lending them 
 assistance, or by affecting to feel infinite joy at 
 their successes and happy return to a country 
 which they had so long possessed. This was the 
 common logic of self-interest; but there were 
 higher and nobler natures—enthusiastic, generous 
 minds, that had outlived their early dream of liberty 
 and pure republicanism and the union of all Italy, 
 —that were weary and disgusted with these bloody 
 struggles, which, end which way they would, were 
 sure to Jeave the Italians the slaves of a foreign 
 master. As the Archduke John advanced as a 
 conqueror across the rich Lombard plain, all the 
 villages and small towns, and not a few of the 
 larger cities, hailed his approach by shouting 
 “Long live our old good master the Emperor 
 Francis!’ Eugene Beauharnais attempted to stop 
 him near Sacile, and, risking a general action, was 
 completely defeated. But the archduke, instead 
 of vigorously pursuing the viceroy’s beaten and, in 
 good part, demoralised army, marched slowly on 
 and lost many good opportunities on the banks of 
 the Adige. Marshal Macdonald arrived to advise 
 and direct Eugene; and reinforcements began to 
 pour into Lombardy from Tuscany and from parts 
 of Lower Italy. The archduke, however, passed 
 the Piave and the Brenta, the people of Padua re- 
 ceived him as a deliverer, and when he seemed to 
 threaten Venice there was a popular party in that 
 city impatient to rise and jom him. At this mo- 
 ment the victorious Tyrolese insurgents came down 
 the valley of Trent, and showed a bold front within 
 the Italian frontiers and on both banks of the 
 Adige, erecting the double-necked eagle, the 
 standard of Austria, wherever they advanced. But 
 anon came the news of the Archduke Charles’s de- 
 feat at Kckmuhl and his retreat beyond Vienna and 
 the Danube: the brave Tyrolese were obliged to 
 retire to their own country, the passes into which, 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 513 
 
 on the side of Bavaria, were now left open; and 
 the Archduke John was ordered by the Aulic 
 Council to retire from Italy and join the Archduke 
 Charles as quickly as he could. The retreat be- 
 gan; the poor Italians who had committed them- 
 selves were left to the tender mercies of the French ; 
 Beauharnais followed the Archduke John with 
 forces numerically superior ; a bloody battle was 
 fought near Conegliano ; but the archduke, though 
 worsted, continued his retreat in good order, effect- 
 ing the difficult passage of the Tagliamento under 
 the eye of Beauharnais. Macdonald, pursuing too 
 incautiously, was well beaten in one or two affairs 
 in the mountains of Carniola ; but, waiting at Gratz 
 until he was joined by Marmont and the French 
 army of Dalmatia, who with great difficulty and 
 not without terrible loss had fought their way 
 through Croatia and other mountainous regions 
 where the populations were all in arms, Macdonald 
 and Beauharnais descended through the valley of 
 Raab to the banks of the Danube aud the vicinity 
 of Vienna, where they gave the hand to Bonaparte 
 and the Grand Army. Eugene, however, had not 
 been allowed to get through the valley of Raab 
 without some hard fighting. On the 14th of June, 
 the anniversary of the victory of Marengo, Bona- 
 parte’s step-son found himself opposed near the 
 town of Raab by the Archduke John, whose army, 
 even after so long and hurried a retreat and much 
 suffering, and in spite of the discouraging news 
 which reached it from all quarters, formed in ad- 
 mirable order, and fought with so much spirit that 
 twice in the course of the battle the enemy was 
 nearly defeated. The Archduke John and Eugene 
 Beauharnais were young men nearly of the same 
 age; they were at least equal in valour; and, if 
 Macdonald had not been at hand to give his advice, 
 we may doubt whether there would have been any 
 inequality in the military skill displayed by the 
 two young commanders-in-chief. Although de- 
 feated in the end, the archduke retired in such 
 perfect order that Eugene did not venture to attack 
 even his rear-guard. The Austrian prince reached 
 the valley of the Danube, crossed that river, and 
 ascended the left bank as far as Presburg; but 
 then came the slowness, the indecision, the blun- 
 der, or the treachery, or some other mysterious 
 cause, of which we have complained. By the line 
 
 he took the archduke bad only a few miles’ longer 
 
 march than the viceroy. Eugene joined Bona- 
 
 parte several days before the battle of Wagram, 
 
 which was not fought till twenty-two days after the 
 
 battle of Raab; the Archduke John, with the loyal 
 
 population of Hungary on both flanks and on _ his 
 
 rear, appears to have reached Presburg two or 
 
 three days before the decisive, but, for a long time, - 
 doubtful, battle of Wagram—but there he staid. 
 
 After reconsidering every hypothesis, we are the 
 
 more confirmed in the opinion that in this cam- 
 
 paign, as in all the preceding campaigns of the Aus- 
 
 trians, treachery was at work, and that the emperor 
 
 was grossly betrayed. We know that the French 
 
 general Seras attempted to corrupt with money the 
 
 26 
 
514 
 
 commandant of one of the emperor’s fortresses ; 
 we know that this honourable officer scorned the 
 bribe and those who insulted him by offering it, 
 and died fighting gallantly in the breach; but we 
 do not know how often the golden napoleons suc- 
 ceeded in the objects for which in all these wars 
 they were profusely distributed. After this cam- 
 paign, even as after Mack’s campaign of Ulm, 
 numbers of Austrian officers and civil employés 
 were known to start suddenly into opulence and 
 luxury, without any visible source for their in- 
 creased fortunes. 
 
 It was from the palace of Schénbrunn that Bo- 
 naparte aimed his last thunderbolt at the head of 
 the pope. In May, 1808, he had annexed, for ever, 
 the best part of the papal dominions to the mock 
 kingdom of Italy; and his generals and the Roman 
 revolutionary party—about the most savage, atheist- 
 ical, and intolerant of all the reformers of that day 
 —had constituted Pius VII. a prisoner in the Va- 
 tican. All the cardinals that offered the slightest 
 resistance or remonstrance were expelled from 
 Rome. Gabrielli, the cardinal secretary of state, 
 or prime minister, was sent away to his bishopric 
 at Sinigaglia. The pope appointed Cardinal Pacca 
 to fill the place: Miollis, the French general, im- 
 mediately ordered off Pacca to Benevento ; and, 
 upon this cardinal’s refusing obedience, he was 
 seized by French gendarmes and forcibly carried 
 across the Neapolitan frontier. Another cardinal, 
 the decanus of the sacred college, was treated in 
 the same manner. Pius, after again reminding the 
 Emperor of the French of the services he had ren- 
 dered him, and of the long winter journey he had 
 made to crown him in Notre Dame, threatened 
 Bonaparte and his agents with the thunders of the 
 church; but he held his hand. On the 17th of 
 May, 1809, four days after entering Vienna, 
 Bonaparte issued a decree, in which he united the 
 remainder of the Roman States, not to the mock 
 kingdom of Italy, but to the French empire, 
 leaving to the present pope, in case of his quietly 
 submitting, his palaces, which had been robbed 
 already of the treasures of art they contained, and 
 an annual allowance of about 80,000/. sterling. 
 Upon this Pius VII. held his hand no longer. On 
 the 10th of June printed copies of a bull of ex- 
 communication against all the perpetrators and 
 abettors of the invasion of Rome and of the terri- 
 tories of the Holy See were affixed to the gates 
 of the principal churches of the city, and were 
 rapidly distributed by devout people in every part 
 of Italy, and in all ultramontane Catholic countries. 
 Philosophes and unbelieving soldiers sneered at 
 this thunderbolt; but it was a real thunderbolt 
 nevertheless, that scorched and withered some of 
 Bonaparte’s best interests. A few days after it 
 was launched, the armament of Sir John Stuart 
 made its appearance in the Bay of Naples, and the 
 French were getting beaten or bewildered by the 
 Calabrian insurgents. Murat was greatly alarmed ; 
 and it is said that it was he who, without any 
 previous instructions from his brother-in-law and 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 master in the palace of Schénbrunn, concerted 
 with Miollis, who was equally afraid of a popular 
 insurrection at Rome, measures for seizing the old 
 pope and sending him a state prisoner into France, 
 where his predecessor, Pius VI., had died in a 
 miserable captivity. But we know from better 
 authority than that of Las Cases that Murat con- 
 sulted previously with Bonaparte, and that an 
 express order to get the pope out of Italy came 
 from Schénbrunn. Miollis, who was governor and 
 a sort of viceroy in Rome, chose a proper instru- 
 ment for the deed of violence in a rough low-born 
 soldier of fortune, Radet, who had served for many 
 years in the gendarmerie, and who was now one of 
 Bonaparte’s barons, legionaries of honour, and a 
 general of French gendarmes. The pope had shut 
 himself up in his palace on the Quirinal. At mid- 
 night the palace was surrounded ; and between two 
 and three o’clock on the morning of the 6th of July 
 some of Radet’s French gendarmes, and a few 
 Roman reformers who knew the building well, 
 and who would have had no reluctance to cut the 
 old pope’s throat, scaled the walls of the palace, 
 broke open several doors, and, throwing open the 
 great gates, let in their comrades from without. 
 The Swiss guards, whom the pope had collected 
 within the walls of the palace, offered no resistance, 
 having received his own solemn order to that 
 effect. General Baron Radet penetrated to the 
 apartment in which Pius was, and found him in 
 full pontifical dress, surrounded by priestly at- 
 tendants. The leader of gendarmes told the pontiff 
 that he had orders to remove him from Rome, 
 unless he recalled the bull of excommunication, 
 
 and consented to sign an entire abdication of his — 
 
 temporal authority. Pius replied that this he could 
 not do. Radet then told him that he must depart 
 immediately. ‘I then yield to force,” replied the 
 helpless and truly venerable pontiff; and, taking 
 his breviary under his arm, he meekly followed 
 the French general to the gate, where a carriage 
 was found ready, and whence he was instantly 
 driven off under a strong escort of French gen- 
 darmerie. Only Radet went with him in the coach, 
 which flew as rapidly through the country as relays 
 of six horses could make it fly. Not a soul was 
 permitted to accompany him, or to follow him; 
 and it was all in vain that he represented his great 
 physical suffering from this rapid, break-neck, 
 never-resting way of travelling. Radet was in an 
 
 agony of alarm all along the road lest the pope | 
 
 should be recognised. When he was well advanced - 
 on his journey he was transferred to the custody of 
 some other gendarme officer ; and so he was car- 
 ried on from one military post to another, there 
 being no lack of gendarmerie in any part of Italy. 
 When they reached the Riviera di Levante, or 
 eastern coast of Genoa, the French dreaded the 
 mountain passes and the devout peasantry. 
 
 a 
 
 $$ 
 
 They | 
 
 therefore huddled the poor old pope on board a | 
 frail and dirty bark that was bound for Genoa, | 
 and that was creeping along the coast, as all vessels | 
 were then obliged to creep, in order to avoid the | 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 British cruisers. Pius asked whether they intended 
 to drown him. The gendarmes answered No. As 
 soon as they landed him in Genoa, they smuggled 
 him into another carriage, which was driven off at 
 full gallop. They whirled the pontiff over the 
 rough and mountainous road of the Bocchetta, and 
 never made a halt till they came to the fortified 
 town of Alessandria, near the field of Marengo. 
 From Alessandria they carried him with the same 
 speed across the plains of Piedmont, then scorched 
 by the July sun, to Sant’? Ambrogio di Susa, at the 
 foot of the Alps. Completely exhausted by fatigue 
 and suffering, the old pope asked whether Napoleon 
 wanted to have him dead or alive. They answered 
 Certainly alive. ‘* Then,” said Pius, ‘‘Let us rest 
 here this night.” They were forced to consent, 
 for it seemed evident that he would die that night 
 on the lofty, cold Alps, if they continued their 
 journey. On the following day they hurried him 
 over the road of Mount Cenis and through the 
 deep valley of Savoy. From Savoy they turned 
 aside to the old French province of Dauphiny. 
 They imprisoned him for a time in the city of 
 Grenoble; but orders came from Bonaparte to re- 
 move him to the fortress of Savona, in the western 
 Riviera of Genoa. There was a much nearer road 
 from Grenoble: but these Frenchmen were inge- 
 nious tormentors ; and so they carried the pope by 
 Valence, where his predecessor had died, by 
 Avignon, which until the French revolution had 
 belonged to the see of Rome, and by Aix and 
 Nice. Pius VII. was left in his captivity at Sa- 
 vona for nearly three years, when he was removed 
 to Fontainebleau. 
 
 This treatment of the pontiff, although it made 
 a deep impression on the Austrian people, produced 
 no visible effect on the negotiations for peace. 
 Several times, indeed, but not upon spiritual 
 grounds, the Emperor Francis seemed all but de- 
 termined to declare the armistice at an end, and to 
 try again the fortune of the sword. Failing in his 
 endeavours to cajole the Hungarians into a revolu- 
 tion under his auspices, Bonaparte saw that, after 
 all, it would be no such easy matter to dismember 
 the Austrian empire, or (except Italy) to keep per- 
 manent possession of any of the kingdoms or pro- 
 vinees which had been united under the dominion 
 of the Hapsburgs—that old house of Austria which, 
 as he was accustomed to say, was always falling, 
 but never dying! He evidently stood dismayed 
 at its mighty vis inertie. The news, too, of the 
 defeat of so many of his renowned generals at 
 Talavera disturbed his prestige, and induced him 
 to believe that England would not so soon recall 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley from the Spanish peninsula, 
 and that the subjugation of Portugal and Spain 
 would demand a more exclusive attention, and the 
 constant employment of a much greater force than 
 he had anticipated. It is also believed—and upon 
 what appears to be a very reasonable foundation— 
 that he had already decided upon divorcing Jose- 
 phine, and taking to himself a young wife likely to 
 bear children and heirs ; that his pride was inflamed 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 515 
 
 with the notion of allying himself with one of the 
 most ancient, and what was considered generally, 
 although perhaps incorrectly, the proudest sove- 
 reign house in Europe; that during his long 
 residence at Schénbrunn he had made indirect 
 overtures, and had found a certain party among 
 the Vienna noblesse, courtiers, and even ministers, 
 who encouraged his aspiring to the hand of Maria 
 Louisa, the young and fair archduchess, who had 
 been left behind at the capital when all the rest of 
 the family fled from it. Another suggestive of mo- 
 deration may have proceeded from the formidable 
 attitude of the army of the Archduke Charles, who 
 was well known to be as averse to the peace as ever, 
 and who threw up his command as soon as it was 
 concluded. 
 
 Comparatively moderate as were the conditions 
 granted to Austria by the treaty of Schénbrunn, 
 signed on the 14th of October, the Emperor 
 Francis, even without putting into the account the 
 bestowal of his daughter’s hand, or without beliey- 
 ing that a secret promise was extorted from him to 
 consent to that strange and unseemly matrimonial 
 alliance, which must be preceded by a measure ab- 
 horrent to the Catholic church and to all delicate 
 consciences, had many and most painful sacrifices 
 to make.. He was obliged to abandon the faithful 
 Tyrolese, who had flown to arms at his call; and 
 he was compelled to cede Trieste, Carniola, and 
 part of Croatia, Saltzburg, Cracow in Poland, and 
 Western Gallicia, and several other districts, con- 
 taining in all about two millions and a half of po- 
 pulation, In nearly every direction this treaty 
 injured and weakened the frontier of the Austrian 
 empire; while from the rest of Germany, which 
 had hoped so much at the commencement of the 
 war, it brought down distrust, astonishment, and 
 contempt on the cabinet of Vienna. In addition to 
 all this, and to the exhausting task of having had 
 to support for so many months the whole of Bona- 
 parte’s grand army, the Austrians were bound to 
 pay into the French exchequer, as expenses of war, 
 seventy-five millions of francs, or about 3,000,000/. 
 sterling. 
 
 Bonaparte, cheered by the intelligence that the 
 British had entirely evacuated Walcheren, returned 
 triumphantly to Paris; and there, on the 3rd of 
 December, opened the session of the submissive 
 and admiring Corps Législatif, telling them that 
 now, Spain and Portugal only excepted, the conti- 
 nent of Europe was in a happy peace. 
 
 Hard was the fate of the patriot insurgents in 
 the north of Germany: when taken, some of them 
 were fusiladed as traitors and brigands, even like 
 the Calabrians and the Spaniards; while others 
 were thrown into prisons, or forced and tormented 
 until they enlisted and enrolled themselves either 
 in the French army or in those contingent German 
 armies which continued for four years longer to 
 follow the eagles of Bonaparte. The French dis- 
 played no magnanimity, no mercy; and they seem 
 hardly ever to have troubled themselves with the 
 thought that these Germans, whom they treated 
 
516 
 
 as rebels and traitors, had never owed any alle- 
 giance to Napoleon, but were all the subjects of 
 this or that German king or prince, to whom, and 
 to the laws of their own country, alone they were 
 amenable. Yet, while he issued his decrees and 
 commands as to the mode of dealing with these in- 
 surgents, and while French military commissions 
 passed drum-head sentences of death upon these 
 German patriots, the French emperor affected to 
 be injured and insulted by any assertion that the 
 Confederation of the Rhine was not a free confe- 
 deracy of independent sovereign states, or that the 
 other principalities and powers of Germany did 
 not enjoy a perfect independence under his pro- 
 tection. 
 
 Major Schill, that gallant and romantic par- 
 tisan leader, was fortunate enough to die in battle 
 —in a most unequal strife—with his sword in 
 his hand, wet with the blood of one of Bonaparte’s 
 Dutch generals, whom he slew before he fell him- 
 seif. But the French emperor had proclaimed 
 Schill as a “ brigand et homme sans aveu ;”? and, 
 if the hero had been taken alive, some remorseless 
 military tribunal would have treated him as such. 
 The blood of Schill was better inspiration to the 
 young poets of Germany than any water from the 
 Pierian spring: out of the blood of all these heroes 
 the Teutonic liberty arose, as in the olden time the 
 stupendous fabric of the church had been cemented 
 by the blood of saints and martyrs. The Duke 
 of Brunswick, brother of Caroline, our Princess of 
 Wales, performed prodigies with a mere handful 
 of men (Bonaparte called his serene highness a 
 brigand too): he made up for the deficiency of his 
 numbers by the rapidity of his movements, and 
 seemed almost gifted with ubiquity; he perplexed 
 the French generals and corps detached in pursuit 
 of him, making them believe he must have many 
 thousands of men, when, in fact, he had only a few 
 hundreds. It was the Duke of Brunswick, who 
 had come over from England before the commence- 
 ment of this Austrian war, and who had called 
 round his standard some of the old soldiers of his 
 father, that led the best of the bands that issued 
 from Bohemia at the beginning of June, or a few 
 days after the battle of Aspern. His black hus- 
 sars, who wore skulls and cross-bones on their 
 breasts and caps, in memory of the fate of their 
 late aged sovereign and of the avenging vow of his 
 son, their present leader, swore neither to give nor 
 to receive quarter. Their appearance was every- 
 way lugubrious: their red flags were surmounted 
 with black crape; but a more martial and braver 
 set of horsemen never put foot in stirrup or fol- 
 lowed a more fearless chief. From the mountains 
 and forests of Bohemia, where they had been lying 
 for a considerable time in order to recruit their 
 force and collect some free corps to co-operate with 
 them, the Brunswick hussars dashed into Lusatia, 
 and, capturing chateaux and towns, they pushed 
 forward into the heart of Saxony, the king and go- 
 vernment of which country were entirely devoted 
 to French interests. On the evening of the 11th 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 of June, when the French were in apparent jeo- 
 pardy in the Isle of Lobau, the duke and his black 
 hussars rode into Dresden, the capital of Saxony. 
 On the 23rd they were at Leipsic, where the stu- 
 dents of the University showed how they sympa- 
 thised with them and the Teutonic cause. On the 
 14th of July, eight days after the battle of Wa- 
 gram, they returned to Dresden, and re-entered 
 that capital without opposition. ‘The armistice of 
 Znaym was nothing to the Duke of Brunswick : 
 the Emperor of Austria might despair and disho- 
 nour himself and his country, but Brunswick 
 would not. He was now surrounded by enemies, 
 disavowed by Austria as well as by Prussia, and 
 far away from that open sea by which he might 
 escape to England. ‘‘ But I will die rather than 
 surrender to the murderers of my father and usurp- 
 ers and tyrants of my dominions! Soldiers, will 
 you follow me?”? And away went the Bruns- 
 wickers with their chief, rapid and dark, like a 
 stormy midnight wave. They rolled into West- 
 phalia and towards Cassel, the now strangely 
 Frenchified capital of Jerome Bonaparte, whose 
 
 _ ephemeral kingdom included the duke’s hereditary 
 
 states. Masses of men were now gradually en- 
 closing them ; there was the corps d’armée of the 
 Saxon general Thielmann, and the corps of the 
 French generals Gratien and Reubell; but, chang- 
 ing the direction of their march, and throwing 
 themselves into the forests and wilds of the country, 
 with which they were better acquainted than were 
 their pursuers, they reached Halle, the seat of 
 another Teutonic university, where his blood-red 
 
 standard and black crape excited all who had » 
 
 German hearts within them. It appears to have 
 heen some enthusiastic students who told the 
 Brunswickers there was lying at Halberstadt a 
 regiment composed of young Westphalian nobles 
 and renegades, who took pride in wearing the uni- 
 form of Jerome. Quick! boot and saddle! and 
 
 away went the black hussars, gliding through the — 
 
 dark intervening woods. The gilded Westpha- 
 lians, though taken by surprise, must have shown 
 some fight, for the duke had two horses killed 
 under him; but in the end Jerome’s choice regi- 
 ment was sabred or put to flight, and the Bruns- 
 wickers captured all their camp equipage. From 
 Halberstadt the duke, with his daring troopers, 
 rode to the city of Brunswick, and entered that 
 ancient capital of his forefathers. The affectionate 
 and best part of the citizens would have given him 
 a féte, or a good German banquet, but this was no 
 time for feasting or for piping and dancing: the 
 representative of their old dukes and margraves 
 was slill but a poor fugitive, an adventurer en- 
 gaged in the most perilous of adventures ; and he 
 considerately implored the good burghers not to 
 commit themselves, or draw down the vengeance 
 of Jerome and the French, by showing respect and 
 love for him. This advice was scarcely given when 
 the cavalry of the French general Reubell rode up 
 in pursuit. The trumpet of Brunswick sounded 
 the charge, and, shouting Teutonia! Germany! 
 
 OO eRe 
 
Cuap. VIL] 
 
 the black hussars cut their way through their foes ; 
 and then trotted along the road that leads to Ha- 
 nover, cutting down most of the bridges in their 
 rear, and carrying dismay among all the weak 
 garrisons or posts of King Jerome. Their course 
 was now so rapid and so eccentric that their nume- 
 rous pursuers knew not where to seek them ; and, 
 after traversing nearly the whole of Franconia and 
 the electorate of Hanover, they reached the small 
 port of Elsfleth on the left bank of the Weser, 
 where they found some British transports, which 
 conveyed the duke, with twenty-two of his officers 
 and a good many of his men, safely to England. 
 
 But the most doleful story connected with the 
 war of 1809 remains to be told. The Austrian 
 diplomatists had delicately inserted a clause in 
 the treaty of Schénbrunn, importing that the 
 Tyrolese, whose country was to be restored to the 
 King of Bavaria, should lay down their arms and 
 receive from Bonaparte and his Bavarian majesty 
 an amnesty or pardon for all past offences—or, for 
 having bravely and most successfully fought for 
 their country, their homes, their church, and their 
 sovereign. But the Tyrolese, who had gained so 
 many victories among their native mountains and 
 valleys, would not lay down their arms, nor submit 
 to be transferred, like slaves with a plantation, to 
 a detested master; and they persevered in this 
 resolution even when they knew that strong bodies 
 of the French army in Germany, and of Beauhar- 
 nais’s army in Italy, were marching against them. 
 Their recent exploits may have encouraged some 
 hope ; and they had little or no confidence in any 
 amnesty from governments on which they had in- 
 flicted such serious losses, or in forgiveness and 
 oblivion from troops exasperated by defeat and— 
 be it admitted—by the fierce mode in which some 
 of the wild and fanatic mountaineers had carried 
 on the war. 
 
 As soon as the Archdukes Charles and John 
 had begun to move in the spring, the Tyrolese, 
 rising, as we have said, almost to a man, chose for 
 their generalissimo, or chief of chiefs, Andrew 
 Hofer, a man of about forty-two years of age, who 
 was living in his native village in the deep valley 
 of Passeyer, and in the little inn his father had lett 
 him. Hofer, who had been one of the first to 
 resent the injuries inflicted by the French and their 
 allies or servants the Bavarians on the ancient 
 rights, privileges, and usages of his country (which 
 had all been scrupulously respected by the Aus- 
 trian sovereigns), inflamed with his patriotism and 
 excited by his example Speckbacher, who had led 
 rather a Robin Hood kind of life in his youth, but 
 who had now married a woman with some little 
 property and had become overseer of the salt-mines 
 at Hall, as his father had been before him, and 
 Haspinger, a Capuchin friar, and two or three 
 monks, or village priests, who possessed an amaziug 
 influence over that devout and superstitious pea- 
 santry. Andrew Hofer—except some little failing 
 which may be excused by his profession and by the 
 occasional rigidity of the climate in which he lived 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 517 
 
 —was aman of irreproachable morals and of more 
 talent and education than were commonly to be 
 found among his countrymen of the same rank. He 
 was gifted with a ready rustic kind of eloquence, and 
 his well-known strength, bravery, and hardihood, 
 and his commanding personal appearance, all com- 
 bined to make him the chief of an essentially 
 popular insurrection. Having always lived in the 
 solitudes of the Tyrolean mountains, he was ignorant 
 of the vices and temptations of civilization. Gold 
 could not tempt him, nor could promotions and 
 honours. While people of the highest quality in 
 Italy and in Germany, as well as in France, were 
 deluded by the flattering promises or by the bril- 
 liant prospects opened by Napoleon, this poor 
 mountain innkeeper persevered in his innocent 
 mode of life, and saw and appreciated things more 
 correctly. ‘‘In men of this stamp,” says the his- 
 torian of revolutionised Italy, ‘*there are generally 
 two sentiments most deeply rooted—the love of 
 God and the love of their country. Both these 
 qualities shone conspicuously in Andrew Hofer, 
 and for these the Tyrolese had a singular love and 
 veneration for him.”* His attachment to the su- 
 perstitions of the Catholic church, and occasionally 
 to the bottle, only rendered him the dearer to a 
 people who were all superstitious and generally ra- 
 ther fond of wine. It is reported of him that he at 
 times led the peasants to victory with a crucifix 
 and rosary on his breast, a musket or sabre in one 
 hand, and a bottle in the other. It was the reli- 
 gious feeling which gave vehemence and support 
 and durability to the patriotic feeling; and here, 
 as in Spain and in Calabria, the people were in- 
 censed by insults offered to their priests and monks, 
 and by impious hands laid upon their churches and 
 shrines. ‘This,’ says Botta, “was a singular 
 and a terrible warfare. To the rumour of arms 
 was added the continual tolling of all the church 
 bells, with the shouting of the peasants, who ex- 
 claimed incessantly, ‘In the name of God! In 
 the name of the Most Holy Trinity!’ All these 
 noises united, and repeated by the echoes of the 
 Alps, produced a contusion full of novelty, horror, 
 terror, and religion.’’+ But, excited and fierce in 
 combat as they were, the Tyrolese were guilty of 
 no savage and unnecessary cruelty. For this 
 honourable fact we have many authorities, and 
 among them that of a Frenchman, an amiable and 
 accomplished traveller, who says, “They only 
 killed those who resisted. ‘Cut me down those 
 fellows as long as they stand up against you,’ cried 
 Hofer; ‘but once down, give them quarter! Only 
 a coward strikes a man that is on the ground, be- 
 cause he is afraid he should get up again.” This 
 was the Spanish insurrection, with its monks, its 
 peasants, and its guerillas ; but it was the Spanish 
 insurrection without its crimes and its horrors, and 
 
 * Carlo Botta. 
 
 + Three means were resorted to in order to advise the mountaineers 
 of the proper moment of rising in mass; saw-dust was thrown on 
 the rivers Inn and Eisach, which carried the signal along in their 
 rapid course; fires were lit on the tops of mountains and on the 
 ruins of the old castles; and women and children ran from rock to 
 rock, from glen to glen, from cottage to cottage, saying, ‘‘ It is time! 
 
518 
 
 if there was inhumanity on one side, it was cer- 
 tainly not on that of the Tyroleans. They at least 
 did not murder their prisoners after the battle : 
 Hofer, when a conqueror, spared the lives of his 
 opponents, but, when conquered, his own life was 
 not spared.”* When the peasantry first took the 
 field under the command of two or three priests, a 
 friar, an overseer of salt-works, and an innkeeper, 
 the entire population of the country did not much 
 exceed 600,000 souls ; but nearly every able-bodied 
 male took up arms, or co-operated with means of 
 destruction more terrible than martial weapons, 
 and in this last species of warfare the women and 
 the children took their part. Keeping possession 
 of the perpendicular rocks, which rise like walls 
 on either side of their strong passes, they collected 
 there immense stones, fragments of rocks, trunks 
 and arms of trees, dragged them to the very edges 
 
 of the precipices, kept them suspended ‘there in | 
 
 large masses by means of hay-bands and strong 
 ropes, until the enemy was engaged in the narrow 
 gorge and fairly beneath them. Then a guttural 
 voice would be heard crying, “ Hans, is all ready ?” 
 *“Yes!’? was shouted among the rocks; on which 
 the word of command was given, “ In the name of 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, let go your 
 ropes!’ and, at the word, down went the mighty 
 masses, a hundred fathoms deep, upon the heads of 
 some Bavarian or French column. They were 
 admirable marksmen, being accustomed to depend 
 upon their fowling-pieces and rifles for a good part 
 of their subsistence, and to follow the ibex and 
 chamois among the summits and glaciers of the 
 Alps ; but it is said that their rifles scarcely killed 
 * M. F. Mercey, Voyages en Tyrol, &c. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 so many of the invaders of their country as did these 
 tremendous avalanches. . 
 
 The first great blow struck in the field was by 
 Andrew Hofer. He signally defeated the Bavarian 
 troops at the end of April, in the valley of the 
 Eisach, and killed, wounded, or took about 900 
 men. On the same or on the following day, his 
 friend Speckbacher, the salt-mine overseer, drove 
 the Bavarians out of the important town of Hall, 
 and, shortly afterwards, 20,000 bold peasants took 
 Innspruck, the old and picturesque capital of the 
 Tyrol, in spite of the obstinate defence of General 
 Kinkel and Colonel Dittfurt. The Bavarian colonel, 
 when dying of his wounds, asked what distin- 
 guished officer had led them on so well. “No 
 one,” said the Tyrolese; ‘‘ but we fought for our 
 religion, our emperor, and father-land.” In the 
 course of a very few days from 4000 to 5000 dis- 
 ciplined troops, including some French as well as 
 Bavarians, were surrounded on various points, and 
 compelled to surrender to the peasants they had 
 affected to despise. On a smaller scale the French 
 general Bisson underwent the same fate which 
 Dupont had undergone at Baylen. But the suc- 
 cessful Spanish generals had a good many thousand 
 regular disciplined troops, while our poor inn- 
 keeper, overseer, and monk had nothing of that 
 sort. Another army of 3000 or 4000 Bavarians 
 met with no better success, and all the battalions 
 and squadrons that followed these were beaten in 
 succession by the insurgents. In no place and at 
 
 no hour were the French or Bavarian troops safe 
 from attack; for, by night as well as by day, and 
 from every side, the Tyrolese, sallying out from 
 their hiding-places and travelling by strange moun- 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 a.” chose their own time for attack, always 
 attacking unexpectedly, and generally crushing the 
 incautious soldiery. Some weak battalions from 
 the regular army of Francis II., sent to co-operate 
 with Hofer, appear to have done quite as much 
 harm as good; and the Marquis Chasteller, their 
 general, soon beat a retreat. Nor did Colonel 
 Jellacitch, a strategist of some note, perform any 
 much better service ; for, though he had been accus- 
 tomed to mountain warfare, he had not been accus- 
 tomed to carry it on with wholly irregular forces, 
 and he pedantically blundered in trying to make 
 the Tyrolese peasantry act according to line and 
 rule, like an Austrian army.* 
 
 When the retreat of the two archdukes Charles 
 and John, and the capture of Vienna, allowed the 
 Bonapartists to act with more vigour in this quarter, 
 Marshal Lefebvre, Duke of Dantzic, with the 
 Wiirtemburg general Wrede under him, entered 
 the Tyrol, on the German side, by the valley of the 
 Inn, with a strong French and Bavarian corps, and 
 Generals Rusca and Baraguay d’Hilliers entered 
 on the Italian side by Trent and the valley of the 
 Adige, with a portion of Beauharnais’s army of 
 Italy. Lefebvre and Wrede regained temporary pos- 
 session of Innspruck ; but vain were all the efforts 
 they made to penetrate into the Lower Tyrol; and 
 as for Rusca and d’Hilliers, they halted in despair 
 at the mouth of the valley, a little above Trent. 
 The progress of the Bavaro-French, or Gallico- 
 Bavarians, was marked with every circumstance of 
 cruelty and horror. In the neighbourhood of the 
 Isel mountain, or Berg-Isel, Speckbacher and 
 Haspinger had gained one great victory at the end 
 of May: the auspicious spot was chosen for another 
 action, and there, on the 12th of August, the in- 
 vaders were again defeated. Lefebvre retreated 
 across the Inn, Innspruck was recovered, and 
 Hofer entered the city and acted as viceroy.t When 
 
 * Although always ready to arm and march when called upon so 
 to do by the emperor, the Tyrolese had always shown a dislike to 
 regular military service. Before this insurrectionary war, as since 
 their re-annexation to Austria, they had seldom been employed 
 ae as jagers or sharpshooters. As a loose, a light, and what 
 may be called the irregular part of aregular army—where everything 
 depends on activity, keen-sightedness, and quickness in marching 
 and in firing—they are admirable. They prided themselves on their 
 ignorance of those established rules of military mancuvres which 
 they had seen fail so miserably with Mack and other Austrian tac- 
 ticians and strategists. ‘They had an expressive epigram on the 
 subject, which Southey has thus translated, almost verbally :— 
 
 ** You say ’t is luck alone when those 
 Unskilled in tactics beat their foes; 
 But better ’t is without to win 
 Than with those tactics to give in.” 
 
 — Quarterly Review, vol. xvii., Hist. of Hofer and Transactions in 
 the Tyrol. 
 
 + A Saxon officer has left the following record of the campaign of 
 Marshal Lefebvre in the Tyrol. It conveys a striking impression of 
 those artificial avalanches which we have described in our text :— 
 
 “* We had penetrated to Innspruck without great resistance; and, 
 although much was everywhere talked of the Tyrolese stationed upon 
 and round the Brenner, we gave little credit to it, thinking the rebels 
 to have been dispersed by a short cannonade, and already considerin g 
 ourselves as conquerors. Our entrance into the passes of the Brenner 
 was only opposed by small corps, which continued falling back, after 
 an obstinate though short resistance, Among others, I perceived a 
 man, full eighty years of age, posted against the side of a rock and 
 sending death amongst our ranks with every shot. Upon the Ba- 
 varians descending from behind to make him prisoner, he shouted 
 aloud, ‘Hurrah!’ struck the first man to the ground with a ball, seized 
 hold of the second, and with the ejaculation, ‘In God’s name!’ pre- 
 cipitated himself with him into the abyss below. Marching onwards, 
 we heard resound from the summit of a high rock, ‘Stephen! shall I 
 chop it off yet?’ to which a loud ‘Nay’ reverberated from the oppo- 
 site side. This was told to the Duke of Dantzic, who, notwithstand- 
 
 Ie Elo oe eee a ; 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 anaes ace a en lL RR ene eno 
 
 519 
 
 the emperor signed the treaty of Schonbrunn, the 
 Tyrolese were absolute masters of their country 
 from end to end, from side to side. Unhappily 
 the clause in the treaty which we have mentioned 
 was followed by an imperial manifesto, in which 
 Francis II. enjoined the patriots to lay down their 
 arms and submit quietly to the King of Bavaria. 
 Although this manifesto had little or no influence 
 over the majority, some of the chiefs and many of 
 the simple peasants considered that the commands 
 of their Kaiser were entitled to their obedience 
 even in this hateful and extreme case. It appears 
 that Hofer himself, about equally loyal and super- 
 stitious, inclined to this opinion, and to the belief 
 —-since the bloody affair of Wagram and the sub- 
 mission of Francis—that it was the will of Heaven 
 that all opposition to Bonaparte should prove fruit- 
 less. [Europe would have fared better if a dis- 
 couraging conviction, nearly amounting to the 
 belief of this poor innkeeper, had not been pre- 
 valent and predominant among princes and states- 
 men of high degree, pcliticians in parliament and 
 out of parliament, and generals in the field.] At 
 least for a time, Hofer remained irresolute and 
 doubtful. But the sight of the returning French 
 and Bavarian columns, and of the vengeance they 
 were taking on his countrymen, roused him from 
 his inaction. The enraged peasants again cried, 
 “It is time!” and again Hofer, who felt that he 
 must fight or die like a thief—that the mercy pro- 
 mised to all would not be extended to him or to 
 any man like him—once more put himself at their 
 head. He had now to contend with Saxons as 
 well as with French and Bavarians, for that Napo- 
 leonic satellite the King of Saxony and Grand 
 Duke of Warsaw had sent a corps d’armée to co- 
 operate in the detestable work going on in the Tyrol. 
 At the same time, the Emperor Francis, on the 
 one hand, conjured them to submit, and Beauhar- 
 nais, the French viceroy of Italy, on the other, 
 proclaimed that such as continued the war should 
 no longer be treated as soldiers, but as rebeis and 
 brigands. In the vale of the Passeyer, his own 
 native and once happy valley, Hofer gained one 
 signal victory more, killmg, wounding, or taking 
 
 ing, ordered us to advance; at the same time he prudently withdrew 
 from the centre to the rear. The van, consisting of 4000 Bavarians, 
 had just stormed a deep ravine, when we again heard hallooed over 
 our heads, ‘Hans! for the Most Holy Trinity!’ Our terror was 
 completed by the reply that immediately followed: ‘In the name 
 of the Holy Trinity! cut all loose above!’ and ere a minute had 
 elapsed, were thousands of my comrades in arms crushed, buried, 
 and overwhelmed by an incredible heap of broken rocks, stones, and 
 trees, hurled down upon us. All of us were petrified. Every one 
 fied that could; but a shower of balls from the Tyrolese, who now 
 rushed from the surrounding mountains in immense numbers, and 
 among them boys and girls of ten and twelve years of age, killed or 
 wounded a great many of us. It was not till we had got these fatal 
 mountains six leagues behind us, that we were reassembled by the 
 duke, and formed into six columns. Soon after, the Tyrolese 
 appeared, headed by Hofer, the innkeeper. After a short address 
 from him, they gave a general fire, flung their rifles aside, and 
 rushed upon our bayonets with only their clenched fists. Nothing 
 could withstand their impetuosity. They darted at our feet, threw 
 or pulled us down, strangled us, wrenched the arms from our hands, 
 and, like enraged lions, killed all—French, Bavarians, and Saxons 
 —that did not cry for quarter. By doing so, I, with 300 men, was 
 spared and set at liberty. When all lay dead around, and the 
 victory was completed, the Tyrolese, as if moved by one impulse, 
 fell upon their knees, and poured forth the emotions of their hearts 
 in prayer under the canopy of Heaven; a scene so awfully solemn, 
 that it will ever be present to my remembrance. I joined in the 
 devotion, and never in my life did I pray more fervently.” 
 
520 
 
 prisoners upwards of 2000 of the enemy. | Speck- 
 bacher and other chiefs gained several more advan- 
 tages: but the contest was now too unequal ; am- 
 munition began to fail; the French, Bavarians, and 
 Saxons, by getting possession of the towns and 
 larger villages, and by driving in or destroying 
 their flocks and herds, reduced the insurgents to the 
 brink of starvation ; and their councils became con- 
 tradictory, bewildered, and at last timorous. When 
 the game was fairly up ; when some had laid down 
 their arms, and claimed the amnesty ; when some 
 had escaped into Austria; when more had been 
 taken prisoners and mercilessly shot or hanged 
 like robbers ; when the remnant were driven from 
 post to post, from rock to rock, being hunted down 
 like wild beasts, or driven to hide and starve in 
 the depths of the forests, or in caverns in the rocks, 
 on the summits of the eternally snow-clad Alps, 
 Andrew Hofer, taking his wife and children with 
 him, betook himself to his Patmos—a wretched 
 Alpine hut, about four long German miles from his 
 own dwelling, and at times altogether inaccessible 
 from the deep snow which surrounded it. It is 
 said that every facility of escape from his hiding- 
 place was offered by the Austrian government, as 
 well as by the Viceroy Beauharnais, a young man 
 who had not been altogether spoilt by a bad school, 
 but who had generous qualities in him, and no 
 proneness to bloodshed; that both, directly or in- 
 directly, testified their desire to promote him ; but 
 that no persuasion could induce him to think of 
 abandoning his country and family and faithful 
 friends, or even to cut off the long beard which he 
 wore, and by which he could easily be recognised 
 anywhere. Some of those faithful friends secretly 
 carried such provisions to him as were necessary 
 to support life: and thus he lived among rocks 
 and snow, from the end of November, 1809, to the 
 end of January, 1810. A considerable price was 
 now set upon his head; but, though many must 
 have known his hiding-place, none would reveal it, 
 or grow rich by becoming infamous. It has been 
 mentioned to the honour of the simple race, that 
 there was no instance of any Tyrolese being in- 
 duced to turn traitor for a bribe; and that even their 
 women knew how to be silent. But at last, even 
 in the Tyrol, a traitor was found. ‘This villain too 
 was a priest; his name (may it be for ever exe- 
 crated!) was Doney. For the Judas price he 
 revealed the secret, and pointed out the Alpine hut, 
 hid in a crevice, and with a deep cover of snow, 
 in which Hofer, with his family, lay concealed, 
 to some 2000 men who were sent to seize him, or to 
 prevent the possibility of an escape by entirely sur- 
 rounding that mountain. It was dark night when 
 the soldiery first approached. There was a bare 
 possibility, a desperate chance, that Hofer himself, 
 by plunging through the snow and down the, to 
 him, well-known precipices, might escape, but 
 there was none that his wife and children could 
 follow him. He therefore stayed where he was, 
 with his Samson-like beard in his hand, and, when 
 he found that the Philistines were fairly upon him, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X, 
 
 he came forth from the hut, and saying, “ French- 
 men! I am Andrew Hofer! Fire! kill me if you 
 will, but spare my wife and children!’ he quietly 
 submitted to be bound. Chains were then brought 
 the better to secure the strong and long-dreaded 
 man; and he was marched, with his wife, his 
 daughter, and little son of twelve years old, to the 
 town of Botzen, or Bolzano, which lies on the Adige, — 
 above Trent and the Italian frontier. On this 
 hard journey he was taunted by Bonaparte’s sol- 
 diery, but honoured by the tears of his countrymen 
 and countrywomen; and, having a whole heart 
 within him, and a long-tried fortitude, and a hope 
 that looked beyond this world, he bore his cross 
 without a moan. His was the most happy or most 
 serene countenance seen along the road or in the 
 towns and villages where his powerful escort 
 halted. The French general Baraguay d’Hilliers, 
 who was now at Botzen, behaved to the prisoners 
 with much humanity; he gave orders that Hofer 
 should be less rigorously confined, and that a stop 
 should be put to the excesses of the soldiery, who 
 had been plundering and destroying his little pro- 
 perty in the Passeyer valley. Several French offi- 
 cers too commiserated the patriot’s fate, and, by 
 such attentions as they could and durst bestow, 
 made a return for the humanity and kindness with 
 which he had invariably treated his prisoners. 
 Had it depended on d’Hilliers, on these officers, 
 or on Eugene Beauharnais, Hofer had not died; 
 but his fate had been already decided by sterner 
 minds and harder hearts. His wife and children 
 were set at liberty by an express order from 
 some high quarter; but they were not permitted 
 to follow him, and so he kissed them for the 
 last time, and parted from them for eyer. From 
 Botzen he was carried down into Italy, by that 
 rough and rugged descent which passes by 
 
 uella ruina, che nel fianco 
 Di qua da Trento l' Adice percosse, 
 O per tremuoto, 0 per sostegno manco ;* 
 
 and there he was thrown into the fortress of Mantua. 
 If there was any right in the case, he was amen- 
 able not to the laws of France or to the kingdom 
 of Italy, but to the laws of Bavaria; the King of 
 Bavaria, by a forcible transfer, to which Hofer and 
 his countrymen had never consented, and by the 
 prepotency of arms, had been, since the treaty of 
 Presburg, sovereign of the Tyrol; but to Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte or to Eugene Beauharnais An- 
 drew Hofer had never owed any allegiance what- 
 ever. Nevertheless, on his arrival at Mantua one 
 of Bonaparte’s bloody military tribunals or courts- 
 martial was immediately assembled, and the French 
 general Bisson, who had been beaten near Inns- 
 
 eeee eG 
 
 * Dante.—L’ Inferno. Canto xii. 
 ets sh the cliff, which, or by earthquake riven 
 Or wanting prop, on this side Trento fell, 
 Down into Adicé with ruin driven.— 
 The Rev. Ichabod Wright's translation. 
 The Slavini di Marco, as this dismal spot is called, is a vast wild 
 tract in the valley of the Adige, or Adice, between Roveredo and 
 Ala, covered with fragments of enormous rocks, torn or washed 
 from the sides of the mountains. It spreads across the whole 
 valley of Trent, only leaving room for a very narrow road; here 
 and there a few dark pines, looking like funeral yews or cypresses, 
 are scattered on the surface, : 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 pruck by the peasant host, who had signed a 
 capitulation with the magnanimous innkeeper, and 
 who was still inwardly festering with the sting of 
 that disgrace, was chosen president of the court. 
 But all the members of this tribunal at Mantua 
 had not been trained and matured in the school of 
 Savary ; some of them voted for an unlimited and 
 some for a limited confinement in a safe and 
 remote state prison, and two of them had even the 
 courage to vote for a full acquittal. But orders, 
 which none of them could disobey, were transmitted 
 from Paris to Milan, and then by telegraph to 
 Mantua, to finish proceedings and shoot the Ty- 
 rolese within four-and-twenty hours. Although, 
 from what had passed at Botzen with Baraguay 
 d’Hilliers and his officers, and from what he had 
 seen and heard of the tribunal at Mantua, he did 
 not expect death, when his doom was announced 
 to him he received the intelligence with perfect 
 firmness and composure, merely asking for a 
 priest to shrive him. This favour, often denied 
 to others besides the Duke d’ Enghien, who perished 
 in the castle ditch at Vincennes, was granted to 
 Hofer. At the dawn of day, as he was conveyed 
 from his prison to his place of execution— 
 a broad bastion near the Porta Ceresa—he passed 
 by the barracks at the Porta Molina, where a 
 number of Tyrolese patriots (call not such men 
 rabble insurgents and vulgar outlaws!) were 
 closely confined; all therein fell on their faces, 
 put up their prayers for him, and wept aloud. 
 Such of his countrymen as were at large in the 
 fortress gathered on the road by which he was 
 conducted, and threw themselves on the ground 
 and implored his blessing. He blessed them, he 
 implored their forgiveness for the share which he 
 might have had in leading them into their present 
 captivity and trouble, expressing at the same time 
 his assurance that they and his country would one 
 day be restored to the emperor; and as he men- 
 tioned the name of Francis II. he followed it 
 up with a hearty and heart-stirring “ Vevat/” the 
 loudest and the last that he ever uttered. He de- 
 livered to the priest, that attended him even to the 
 place of execution, everything he had :—his money, 
 500 florins in depreciated Austrian notes, was to 
 be distributed among his poor countrymen pri- 
 soners in the fortress; his silver snuff-box and his 
 beautiful rosary were to be given to particular 
 friends; his small silver crucifix he bequeathed 
 to the priest and confessor himself: and, save the 
 clothes he wore, this was all the worldly gear he 
 possessed on quitting the world. On the broad 
 bastion the company of grenadiers formed a square 
 open to the rear, and twelve of the privates and a 
 corporal stepped forward,—Hofer standing erect 
 in the middle. The drummer handed him a 
 white handkerchief to bind his eyes, and reminded 
 him that it was necessary he should bend on one 
 knee. He threw away the handkerchief, and re- 
 fused to kneel: ‘‘ I was used to stand upright be- 
 fore my Creator, and in that posture will I deliver 
 up my spirit to him!’ He then cautioned the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 corporal to take good aim, and gave the word 
 ‘‘ Fire” in a loud and articulate voice. His death, 
 like that of Palm the bookseller, was not instan- 
 taneous, for the grenadiers, at first, performed 
 their office imperfectly; but a merciful, well- 
 aimed shot at last dispatched him, and he fell. 
 And that spot on the broad bastion of Mantua is 
 still visited and held as sacred by his countrymen.* 
 The French, as if to compensate by honours to 
 the dead for the wrongs done to the living, testified 
 their respect for Hofer’s remains by going through 
 all the pomps and ceremonies of a public funeral, 
 His body, instead of being allowed to remain ex- 
 posed some time on the place of execution, as was 
 usual in such cases, was immediately borne by the 
 grenadiers, on a sable bier, to the church of St. 
 Michael. There it was laid out in state, a guard 
 of honour was appointed to watch over it, and all 
 the populace of Mantua and the neighbourhood 
 were admitted to see that the much-dreaded Bar- 
 bone, or ‘ Great Beard,’ was really no more. 
 Speckbacher, the overseer, who was next to 
 Hofer in the estimation of his countrymen, had 
 many and almost miraculous escapes. A thousand 
 ducats were offered for his head; but, although it 
 was known to more than thirty peasants that he 
 was for eight days working with them, disguised 
 as a common labourer, in Rattenberg (an expe- 
 dient which he adopted not simply for the sake of 
 concealment, but also in order to acquire a know- 
 ledge of the defences of that town), no one seemed 
 to notice him until his departure, and then they 
 only spoke of his appearance among them in se- 
 crecy and by means of signs. When at last he 
 reached Vienna, the Austrian government offered 
 him lands in Hungary, and provided for him. To 
 the family of Hofer the emperor, who could 
 scarcely do less, assigned a pension. He also sent 
 asum of money to enable them to go and settle 
 in Austria, which they were invited to do; but the 
 widow preferred returning with her children to her 
 old dwelling in the valley of Passeyer. There, it 
 is said, she was visited by Francis II., when he 
 was returning from Paris and from witnessing the 
 overthrow of Bonaparte, in 1814. A plain and 
 substantial monument was now erected by com- 
 mand of the emperor in honour of Hofer’s me- 
 mory, on alofty part of the Brenner mountain, 
 which overlooks the patriot’s habitation. And in 
 1823 Francis II. ordered that the remains of 
 Hofer should be brought from Mantua to Inns- 
 pruck, and there interred in the cathedral church 
 of the Holy Cross, near to the tomb or mausoleum 
 of the emperor Maximilian I. On the 22nd of 
 February of that year, six of the patriot’s old com- 
 panions in arms entered the metropolitan church of 
 the Tyrol bearing the coffin, upon the lid and pall 
 of which lay the broad-brimmed peasant’s hat and 
 the sword of the hero. 
 * Carlo Botta.—Baron Bertholdy, Account of the War in the Tyrol. 
 —Southey, in Quarterly Review, vol. xvii. (the foundation of this 
 article is laid on two authentic and almost official German works, 
 
 the one published at Berlin in 1816, the other at Leipsic in 1817).— 
 Capefigue, Le Consulat et l’Empire.—M. Mercey.—Aunn. Regist. 
 
522 
 
 The untoward course of events on the Conti- 
 tinent, the disastrous issue of the Austrian war, 
 together with sundry other causes, produced vio- 
 lent dissensions in the British ministry, in a part 
 of which there had never been much harmony. It 
 is a capital defect in the construction of our cabi- 
 nets, which confides the direction of war not to one, 
 but to two ministers, the secretary of state for fo- 
 reign affairs having nearly as much authority over 
 generals in the field as the secretary-at-war. In- 
 deed, the foreign secretary often corresponds di- 
 rectly with admirals of fleets, commodores of 
 squadrons, &c., and has thus often interfered with 
 the Admiralty, and issued orders contradictory to 
 those of that important board. An extension of 
 this principle would have made a sort of Aulic 
 Council of the English cabinet. When there is 
 one master mind and ruling spirit at the head of 
 administration—a mind capable of grasping all 
 the important business of the state, and of imposing 
 its will and its unity of plan and operation upon all 
 the departments—the mischief is obviated; but 
 the Duke of Portland was only nominally the 
 head of the present administration, and more than 
 one of the ministers thought himself equal in all 
 things to any one of his colleagues. There had 
 long been a jealousy and a divergency of opinion 
 between Mr. Canning (the secretary of state for 
 foreign affairs) and Lord Castlereagh (the secre- 
 tary-at-war). What one proposed in the cabinet 
 the other almost invariably condemned, and each 
 was constantly complaining of an invasion of his 
 official authority by the other. On the 21st of 
 September, when the country was resounding with 
 outcries against the Walcheren expedition, the ma- 
 nagement of which was said to be disapproved of 
 by the secretary for foreign affairs, a duel was fought 
 between him and Lord Castlereagh. The parties 
 met on Putney Heath, at an early hour in the 
 morning, Lord Castlereagh being attended by his 
 cousin the Earl of Yarmouth (the late Marquess 
 of Hertford), and Mr. Canning by Mr. Charles 
 Ellis. Their first discharge took no effect. They 
 fired a second time; and Mr. Canning seemed 
 prepared for a third fire, when Lord Castlereagh, 
 who appears to have been cooler at this moment 
 than either of the seconds, said, “I believe the 
 right honourable gentleman is wounded.” His 
 lordship’s last bullet had indeed taken effect; Mr. 
 Canning was wounded below the thigh-bone, and 
 his blood was trickling to the ground. But the 
 wound was not dangerous ; and Lord Castlereagh 
 had had a narrow escape, for a button on the 
 right lappel of his buttoned coat had been shot 
 away. ‘l’he two ministers had sent in their resig- 
 nations before they went to Putney Heath. The 
 Duke of Portland also resigned, and died a few 
 days thereafter. 
 
 The country generally at the time entertained a 
 very different opinion, taking part with Mr. Can- 
 ning, and regretting his retirement; but it would 
 appear, upon a calm reviewal of the whole matter, 
 that some blame attached to both parties, that 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 some blame was due to the premier and to the 
 president of the council, and that the greatest 
 blame of all attached to the system and present 
 construction of the cabinet. Much was known 
 before through paragraphs in newspapers and 
 hints dropped in clubs and _ political circles ;* 
 but now statements and counter-statements of the 
 cause of the quarrel were published by the princi- 
 pals. Lord Castlereagh asserted that a propo- 
 sition had been agitated by Mr. Canning, with- 
 out any communication with him, for his re- 
 moval from the war department; that Mr. 
 Canning, towards the close of the preceding ses- 
 sion of parliament, had urged a decision upon this 
 question, with the alternative of his seceding him- 
 self from the government, and so had procured a 
 positive promise from the Duke of Portland (the 
 execution of which he afterwards considered him- 
 self entitled to enforce), that he, Lord Castlereagh, 
 should be removed; that, notwithstanding this 
 promise obtained from the Duke of Portland, by 
 which his lordship considered that Mr. Canning 
 had pronounced it unfit that he should remain 
 charged with the conduct of the war, and by 
 which his situation as a minister of the crown 
 was made dependent upon his will and pleasure, 
 Mr. Canning had continued to sit in the same ca- 
 binet with him, and to leave him not only in the 
 persuasion that he possessed his confidence and 
 support as a colleague, but also allowed him, in 
 breach of every principle of good faith, both public 
 and private, though thus virtually superseded, to 
 originate and proceed in the execution of a new 
 enterprise (the Walcheren expedition) of the most 
 ardent and important nature, with his apparent 
 concurrence and ostensible approbation. ‘* You 
 were fully aware,”’ added his lordship, in a letter 
 representing these facts, which he had addressed 
 to Canning on the 19th of September, “ that, if my 
 situation in the government had been disclosed to 
 me, I could not have submitted to remain one 
 moment in office, without the entire abandonment 
 of my private honour and public duty. You knew 
 I was deceived, and you continued to deceive me. 
 I am aware it might be said, which I am ready tu 
 acknowledge, that, when you pressed for a decision 
 for my removal, you also pressed for its disclosure ; 
 and that it was resisted by the Duke of Portland 
 and some members of the government, supposed 
 to be my friends. But I never can admit that you 
 have a right to make use of such a plea in justifi- 
 cation of an act affecting my honour, nor that the 
 sentiments of others could justify an acquiescence 
 in such a delusion on your part, who had yourself 
 felt and stated its unfairness. Nor can I admit 
 that the head of any administration, or any sup- 
 * As early as the 14th of June, Walter Scott, who had recently 
 been in London, and in almost daily intercourse with Messrs, Can- 
 ning, G. and C. Ellis, Croker, and other persons who best knew 
 what was passing, writes to his friend Southey—‘* Mr, Canning’s 
 opportunities to serve you will soon be numerous, or they will soon 
 be gone altogether; for he is of a different mould from some of | 
 colleagues, and a decided foe to those half measures which I know 
 you detest as much asI do, It is not his fault that the cause of 
 
 Spain is not at this moment triumphant. This I know, and the time 
 will come when the world will know it too.”—Life, by Lockhart. 
 
 a ee 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 posed friend (whatever may be their motives), can 
 authorise or sanction any man in such a course of 
 long and persevering deception.”* The answer 
 to this first letter of the correspondence (which, of 
 course, was not published till after the duel) was de- 
 livered by pistol-shot on Putney Heath. Ina cooler 
 Statement made after the duel, but published at the 
 Same time with the preceding letter, Lord Castle- 
 reagh affirmed that it was undoubtedly true that 
 Mr. Canning, during the Easter recess, did make a 
 representation in a letter to the Duke of Portland 
 with respect to the war department, founded upon 
 differences between him and Lord Castlereagh ; 
 but that it was not true that this letter was shown 
 to the cabinet, or that the subject was even stated 
 to the cabinet, however i it might have been secretly 
 communicated to some of its members :—that it 
 was also true that a suggestion was made for ap- 
 pointing the Marquess Wellesley to succeed Lord 
 Castlereagh as secretary-at-war :—that it was like- 
 wise undeniable that a decision upon this point 
 was postponed till near the close of the session, 
 when Mr. Canning called upon the Duke of Port- 
 land and enforced the decision by declaring to his 
 grace that he would resign unless Lord Castle- 
 _ reagh was removed and the Marquess Wellesley 
 appointed his successor :—that, the Duke of Port- 
 land having then given Mr. Canning the specific 
 and positive promise he desired, Mr. Canning 
 pressed that it should be immediately acted upon, 
 and that Lord Castlereagh should be made ac- 
 quainted with it :—that Lord Castlereagh, however, 
 was not acquainted with it, and Mr. Canning 
 acquiesced in its being concealed from him :—that 
 undoubtedly Lord Camden was acquainted with 
 the whole transaction ; but that it was not true that 
 his lordship ever undertook to make the disclosure 
 to Lord Castlereagh, that he never did make it, and 
 that Mr. Canning was thoroughly apprised that 
 what had taken place was not made known to Lord 
 Castlereagh :—that, in this state of profound igno- 
 rance, Lord Castlereagh Was permitted, though 
 virtually no longer a minister, and in a state of 
 delusion, to continue to conduct the campaign, and 
 to engage in a new expedition of the most exten- 
 sive, complicated, and important nature, under the 
 full persuasion, not that Mr. Canning had sup- 
 planted him in office and possessed in his pocket 
 a promise for his dismissal, but that he really en- 
 
 * Lord Castlereagh added—‘' For, were I to admit such a prin- 
 ciple, my honour and character would be from that moment in the 
 discretion of persons wholly unauthorised, and known to you to be 
 unauthorised, to act for me in such a case. 
 act and your conduct which deceived me; and it is impossible for 
 me to acquiesce in being placed in a situation by you, which no man 
 
 of honour could knowin ly sub 
 oi bethayed ink; gly submit to, nor ok suffer himself 
 
 ‘*T have no right, 
 publie grounds, 
 or even from the 
 
 upon 
 held, 
 as a condition of your continuing 
 
 But I have a distinct right to ex ect 
 that a _ proposition, Justifiable in itself, shall not be exeoted ey an 
 
 to take your- 
 towards me, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 523 
 
 | joyed Mr. Canning’s sincere, liberal, and bond 
 Jide support as a co-operating and approving col- 
 league :—that, further, Mr. Canning, having thus 
 in his pocket Lord Castlereagh’s dismissal, and 
 having arranged with the Duke of Portland that it 
 should be carried into execution at the termination 
 of the Walcheren expedition, did, on the 3rd of 
 September (the day that the account arrived from 
 Lord Chatham that he could not proceed up the 
 Scheldt to Antwerp), write to the Duke of Port- 
 land, demanding the immediate execution of the 
 promise made to him :—that Mr. Canning never 
 contended for Lord Castlereagh’s removal from the 
 government, but only from the particular office he 
 held and into which he wished to introduce Mar- 
 quess Wellesley :—that it appeared that the de- 
 mand of the fulfilment of the promise led to the 
 immediate resignation of the Duke of Portland, 
 and subsequently to that of Mr. Canning: :—and, 
 finally, that, as soon as the whole of this “unparal- 
 leled conduct was, at this late period, disclosed to 
 Lord Castlereagh, he immediately placed his re- 
 signation in his majesty’s hands, and called upon 
 Mr. Canning for satisfaction. 
 
 In his counter-statement Mr. Canning admitted 
 that so long ago as Easter he had represented to 
 the premier the insufficiency of the government as 
 then constituted ; and had requested permission to 
 resign his office, unless some change should be 
 effected ; and that it was equally true that it was 
 then proposed to Mr. Canning, and accepted by 
 him as the condition of his consenting to retain 
 the seals of the foreign office, that a change should 
 be made in the war department. But Mr. Can- 
 ning denied that the time at which that change 
 was ultimately proposed to be made was of his 
 choice; or that he was a party or consenting to 
 the concealment of that intended change from Lord 
 Castlereagh. Mr. Canning further affirmed, that, 
 as for secrecy and concealment, he had offered to 
 show his correspondence with the Duke of Port- 
 land to one of Lord Castlereagh’s most intimate 
 friends, to be communicated to his lordship when- 
 ever he might think proper; that he had shown 
 that intimate friend the copy of a letter addressed 
 to the Duke of Portland in the month of July, in 
 which he (Mr. C.) requests, “‘in justice to him- 
 self, that it may be remembered, whenever here- 
 after this concealment shall be alleged (as he 
 doubts not that it will) against him as an act of 
 injustice towards Lord Castlereagh, that it did not 
 originate in his suggestion,—that, so far from de- 
 siring it, he conceived, however erroneously, Lord 
 Camden to be the sure channel of communication 
 to Lord Castlereagh,—and_ that up toa very late 
 period he believed such communication to have 
 been actually made ;’’ and that the copy of this 
 letter and of the Duke of Portland’s answer to it 
 ay acknowledging Mr. Canning’s repeated remon- 
 Stances against the concealment,” were still in the 
 possession of Lord Castlereagh’s friend :—that the 
 first communication to Lord Camden was made on 
 the 28th of April, at Mr. C.’s particular desire ; 
 
524 
 
 and that, Lord Camden being the near connection 
 and most confidential friend of Lord Castlereagh, 
 it never occurred to Mr. Canning that his lordship 
 could have kept back such a communication from 
 Lord Castlereagh. As to the period at which the 
 change in the war department was to take place, 
 Canning said he was induced, in the first instance, 
 to consent to its postponement till the rising of 
 parliament, partly by the representations made to 
 him of the inconveniences attending any minis- 
 terial change in the middle of a session, but prin- 
 cipally from a consideration of the particular cir- 
 cumstances under which Lord Castlereagh stood in 
 the House of Commons after Easter; circum- 
 stances which would have given to his lordship’s 
 removal at that period of the session a character 
 which it was certainly no part of Mr. Canning’s 
 wish that it should bear.* Mr. Canning went on 
 to declare that he certainly received the most posi- 
 tive promise that a change in the war department 
 should take place immediately upon the close of 
 the session ; but that, when the session closed, the 
 earnest and repeated entreaties of most of Lord 
 Castlereagh’s friends in the cabinet were employed 
 to prevail upon him (Canning) to consent to the 
 postponement of the arrangement; in compliance 
 with which, at last, and most reluctantly, he did 
 give his consent to its being postponed to the 
 period proposed by Lord Castlereagh’s friends, 
 namely, the termination of the Walcheren expedi- 
 tion then in preparation ; doing so, however, upon 
 the most distinct and solemn assurances that, 
 whatever might be the issue of that expedition, the 
 change should take place at that period; that the 
 seals of the war department should then be offered 
 to Marquess Wellesley (the person for whose acces- 
 sion to the cabinet Mr. Canning was known to be 
 most anxious), and that the interval should be 
 diligently employed by Lord Castlereagh’s friends 
 in preparing Lord Castlereagh’s mind to acquiesce 
 in such an arrangement. He added, that it was 
 matter of astonishment to him, when, on the issue 
 of the expedition, he reminded the Duke of Port- 
 land that the time was now come for his grace to 
 write to Marquess Wellesley, to find that, so far 
 from the interval having been employed by Lord 
 Castlereagh’s friends in preparing his lordship for 
 the change, the same reserve had been continued 
 towards him against which he (Mr. C.) had 
 before so earnestly remonstrated. This counter- 
 statement concluded with saying, 
 formed of this circumstance by the Duke of Port- 
 land, and learning at the same time from his grace 
 that there were other difficulties attending the 
 promised arrangement, of which Mr. Canning had 
 not before been apprised, and that the Duke of 
 Portland had himself come to a determination to 
 retire from office, Mr. Canning instantly, and be- 
 fore any step whatever had been taken towards 
 carrying the promised arrangement into effect, 
 
 * This alludes to the East India writership which Lord Castie- 
 reagh, as president of the board of control, had placed at the disposal 
 of his friend Lord Clancarty, and to the criminatory motion made 
 in the House by Lord Archibald Hamilton. See ante, p, 468, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 “ Being in-, 
 
 withdrew his claim, and requested the Duke of 
 Portland to tender his (Mr. Canning’s) resigna- 
 tion, at the same time with his grace’s, to the 
 king. This was on Wednesday, the 6th of Sep- 
 tember, previously to the levee of that day.” 
 [Thus Mr. Canning tendered his resignation on 
 the third day after the reception of Earl Chatham’s 
 doleful dispatch, and fourteen days before Lord. 
 Castlereagh called him to account.] ‘ All ques- 
 tion,”’ the statement proceeded, “ of the performance 
 of the promise made to Mr. Canning being thus 
 at an end, the reserve which Lord Castlereagh’s 
 friends had hitherto so perseveringly practised 
 towards Lord Castlereagh appears to have been 
 laid aside, and Lord Castlereagh was now made 
 acquainted with the nature of the arrangement 
 which had been intended to have been proposed to 
 him. What may have been the reasons which 
 prevented Lord Castlereagh’s friends from fulfill- 
 ing the assurances given to Mr. Canning, that Lord 
 Castlereagh’s mind should be prepared by their 
 communication for the arrangement intended to be 
 carried into effect, and what the motives for the 
 disclosure to Lord Castlereagh after the arrange- 
 ment had ceased to be in contemplation, it is not 
 for Mr. Canning to explain.” 
 
 The publication of these papers placed Earl 
 Camden, who was president of the council, together 
 with some other friends of Lord Castlereagh who 
 were in the cabinet, in a very awkward position. 
 Lord Camden, to exonerate himself, published a 
 very short paper, wherein he simply declared, 
 “* That it is necessary that it should be understood 
 that, however Mr. Canning might have conceived 
 the communication alluded to to have been made 
 to Lord Camden, it was never stated to Lord Cam- 
 den that the communication was made at the desire 
 of Mr. Canning; and that, so far from Lord 
 Camden having been authorised to make the com- 
 munication to Lord Castlereagh, he was absolutely 
 restricted from so doing :—that, as it may also be 
 inferred that Lord Camden was expected to pre- 
 pare Lord Castlereagh’s mind for the proposed 
 change, it is necessary that it should be understood 
 that Lord Camden never engaged to communicate 
 to Lord Castlereagh any circumstances respecting 
 it before the termination of the expedition.” And 
 here, as far as the principals were concerned, the 
 matter for the present rested.* This was indeed a 
 
 * In the month of November Mr Canning published two more 
 letters, addressed by him to Lord Camden, in which he explained 
 at greater length his own conduct, justifying it, and attributing the 
 conduct of the Duke of Portland, in the reserve practised towards Lord 
 Castlereagh. ‘‘to that gentleness of nature which eminently distin- 
 guished him, and which led him to endeavour to prevent political 
 differences from growing into personal dissensions, and to aim at ex- 
 ecuting whatever arrangements might be expedient for improving 
 or strengthening the administration with the concurrence (if pos- 
 sible) of all its existing members.” These papers run to a great 
 length, and we can only find room for some of the passages in 
 which Mr. Canning defends himself against the.evil impressions 
 which Lord Camden’s published statement seemed calculated to 
 make upon his character, veracity, and-honour. In the second of 
 these letters, Mr. Canning says to Lord Camden— 
 
 “This statement appears to me to have been much misunder- 
 stood. It has been construed as if your Lordship had meant to 
 aver that what you were restricted from doing and what you had 
 not engaged to do were one and the same thing ; whereas your lord- 
 ship’s statement, in point of fact, contains two distinct propositions, 
 and refers to two separate periods of time, 
 
 ‘“‘The period during which your lordship states yourself to have 
 
Cuar, VIII] 
 
 pitiful story, but far more injurious to the reputa- 
 tion of the cabinet as a body than to Mr. Canning 
 as an individual member of it; and Lord Castle- 
 reagh had at least as much reason to complain of 
 his own friends and of the Duke of Portland as of 
 Mr. Canning. There appears, however, to have 
 been no good ground for the entire blame of the 
 Walcheren expedition being thrown upon the 
 secretary-at-war, as it certainly was and long con- 
 tinued to be, by the majority of the public and 
 by nearly all parties. He was only responsible 
 in common with the rest of the cabinet, who con- 
 sented to and approved of that enterprise without 
 a sufficient examination of the nature of the 
 country and of the numerous difficulties with 
 which it must inevitably be attended ; and it was 
 not Lord Castlereagh, but others, that appointed 
 the incompetent Earl of Chatham to the com- 
 mand. 
 
 The ministers that remained in office after these 
 three resignations—with Lord Liverpool, the only 
 remaining secretary of state, who had for some time 
 to perform the duty of the home office, the foreign 
 office, and the war office—were reduced almost to 
 despair, scarcely knowing where to look for a new 
 head and for two new colleagues. Their situation 
 appeared at first so forlorn, that (on the 23rd of 
 September) official letters were addressed to Earl 
 Grey, now the leader of the Foxite Whigs, and to 
 Lord Grenville, informing them that his Majesty 
 had authorised Lord Liverpool and Mr. Perceval 
 to communicate with their lordships for the purpose 
 of forming an extended and combined administra- 
 tion. To this invitation Earl Grey, who was in 
 
 been ‘absolutely restricted’ from making a communication to Lord 
 Castlereagh extends from the 28th of April, on which day the first 
 communication was made by the Duke of Portland to your lord- 
 ship, to the time at which the proposed arrangement for the new dis- 
 tribution ofthe business of the war department was superseded by your 
 lordship’s tender of your resignation. 
 
 “The period during which your lordship states yourself ‘ not to have 
 engaged’ to make a communication to Lord Castlereagh extends from 
 the time of the tender of your Lordship’s resignation to the termination 
 of the expedition to the Scheldt. 
 
 “It ought, however, to be observed, that during the first of these 
 two periods—from the 28th of April to the 12th of July—the nature 
 of the communication to be made to Lord Castlereagh and the nature 
 of the restriction imposed upon your lordship were entirely changed. 
 
 “ Previously to the 8th of June, the communication which your 
 lordship would have had to make to Lord Castlereagh was simply that 
 
 had represented the expediency of a change either in his department 
 or in mine, and that no decision whatever had yet been taken upon 
 this representation. 
 
 ** With respect to this communication, it does not appear that the 
 restriction upon your lordship was absolute and indefinite. —But I 
 knew nothing of its existence. 
 
 *« Subsequently to the 8th of June, the communication to be made to 
 Lord Castlereagh was, that an arrangement was in contemplation for 
 a new distribution of the business of the war department. 
 
 “With respect to this communication, not only was the restriction 
 upon your lordship not indefinitely continued, but your lordship 
 actually received on the 28th of June an injunction to make this com- 
 munication to Lord Castlereagh at a period distinctly specified, viz., 
 the sailing of the expedition. And this injunction was only super- 
 seded by a voluntary act of your lordship’s—your tender of your own 
 resignation on the 12th of July as the basis of another arrangement. 
 
 “During the whole of the period, from the 28th of April to the 
 12th of July, the concealment practised towards Lord Castlereagh 
 was either without my knowledge and contrary to my belief, or it 
 Was against my earnest remonstrances, 
 
 vith was without my knowledge and contrary to my belief up to 
 the week in which parliament rose; and from that time forth it 
 Lis a my nario Br a iti 
 
 t does not appear that Earl Camden ever gave any pri 
 public answer to this public letter. He had aWettenad to tecion 
 at the time of the turmoil, but he remained president of the council 
 when the Duke of Portland, Canning, and Castlerea gh had all 
 thrown up their places, _ 
 
 i 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1809. 
 
 Northumberland, replied at once that he would 
 not enter into any coalition with the ministers now 
 in place. Lord Grenville, who was in Cornwall, 
 replied that he would lose no time in repairing to 
 town, and begged leave to defer all observations till 
 his arrival. The day after his arrival in town he 
 sent an answer conformable to that of Earl Grey.* 
 Great hopes were now entertained by the ad- 
 verse party that the ministry would fall to pieces 
 altogether. It was said, as on some former occa- 
 sions, that high offices and places went a-begging, 
 and that none could be found to accept them. At 
 one moment it was reported that the Hon. R. 
 Dundas, son of Lord Melville, and now president 
 of the board of control, would be put into Castle- 
 reagh’s place in the war-office; but this came to 
 nothing. The only hope of the ministry now 
 rested upon the Marquess Wellesley. Hints were 
 thrown out that the marquess would not join any 
 administration in which Mr. Canning was not in- 
 cluded. But the marquess came home from Spain, 
 being succeeded in his embassy by his brother 
 Henry (late Lord Cowley), and accepted, not the 
 war department, which Canning had destined for 
 him, but the office of foreign affairs, which Can- 
 ning himself had vacated. Karly in December 
 the ministerial arrangements were completed, Mr. 
 Perceval taking the place of the deceased premier 
 the Duke of Portland, thus uniting in himself, as 
 Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington had done before him, 
 the offices of first lord of the treasury and chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer. The loss of the Duke of 
 Portland was little more than that of a name; but 
 the loss of the eloquent pen and the still more elo- 
 quent tongue of Canning—the best debater, and, 
 on the whole, perhaps the greatest orator now in 
 parliament—was a most serious loss; and the se- 
 cession of Mr. Huskisson, who resigned his seat at 
 the treasury, was also felt and regretted. As if 
 his previous domestic employment had particularly 
 qualified him for the war department, the Earl of 
 Liverpool was transferred from the home office to 
 the office which Lord Castlereagh had quitted, 
 becoming secretary of state for the department of 
 war and the colonies, and being succeeded in the 
 home office by the Hon. R. Ryder. Lord Palmer- 
 ston became under secretary-at-war in lieu of Sir 
 James Pulteney. These were all the changes that 
 were made. It was expected that Canning would 
 join his powerful voice to opposition, and the 
 
 * After saying that, under the circumstances there mentioned, he 
 felt satisfied that the communication proposed in Perceval's letter 
 ome not be productive of any public advantage, Earl Grenville 
 added— 
 
 **T trust I need not say that this opinion is neither founded in any 
 sentiment of personal hostility, nor in a desire of unnecessarily pro- 
 longing political differences. 
 
 “To compose, not to inflame, the divisions of theempire has always 
 been my anxious wish, and is now, more than ever, the duty of every 
 loyal subject ; but my accession to the existing administration could, 
 I am confident, in no respect contribute to this object ; nor could it, I 
 think, be considered in any other light than as a dereliction of public 
 principle. 
 
 “This answer, which I must have given to any such proposal if 
 made while the government was yet entire, cannot be varied by the 
 retreat of some of its members. 
 
 ‘My ubjects are not personal: they apply to the principle of the 
 rate itself, and to the circumstances which attended tts appoint. 
 ment. 
 
526 
 
 cabinet was generally considered as but weak and 
 tottering when parliament met. 
 
 a.D. 1810. The session opened on the 23rd of 
 January. The king’s speech was again delivered 
 by commission. It had cost ministers no small 
 pains to draw it up, for there were few subjects 
 for congratulation. The most was made of the 
 very little that had been effected by the Walcheren 
 expedition, the loss of life and the immense cost 
 being passed over in silence. There was but one 
 bright ray to relieve the gloom, and that was Wel- 
 lington’s victory at Talavera, which was correctly 
 termed ‘the glorious victory.”? As for Austria, 
 the speech declared that, although she had under- 
 taken the war without encouragement on the part 
 of his majesty, every effort had been made for her 
 assistance which his majesty deemed consistent 
 with the support of his allies and the interests of 
 his own dominions. Amendments, strongly con- 
 demning the ministerial direction of the whole 
 war, and particularly the Walcheren expedition, 
 were moved in both Houses, but were rejected by 
 144 to 92 in the Lords, and by 263 to 167 in the 
 Commons. Lord Castlereagh warmly defended 
 his own conduct, and not only the share he had in 
 that enterprise, but also the whole of the expedi- 
 tion to the Scheldt as originally planned. It was 
 not his fault if a good plan had been badly ex- 
 ecuted: it was a coup de main against the naval 
 power of the enemy and a diversion in favour of 
 Germany that was intended, and not the capture of 
 Walcheren alone. It was Bonaparte’s practice to 
 slight distant diversions ; but, when he should thus 
 be attacked in a vital point, it was reasonable to 
 expect that it would operate powerfully in favour 
 of our allies. He was not ignorant of the nature 
 of the climate of Walcheren at that season of the 
 year; but it was never intended by government 
 that our army should be locked up there for such 
 a length of time. He had expected that our 
 troops would be employed in a dry healthy country 
 between Walcheren and Bergen-op-Zoom. But 
 even the unhealthiness of Walcheren had never 
 been considered as a bar to our occupancy: we 
 had held that island thirty-one years during the 
 existence of the Barrier Treaty, and we had had it 
 in our possession since then. With the evacua- 
 tion of the island he (Lord Castlereagh) had had 
 nothing whatever to do. Mr. Canning said that 
 he never would have consented to the expedition 
 if he had conceived that nothing greater would 
 have been accomplished. But he had thought 
 that the capture and possession of the naval arsenal 
 at Antwerp—a British object of the first import- 
 ance—would have been the result; and that some 
 support was due to our friends the patriots of 
 Germany. General Tarleton thought that a most 
 peculiar degree of responsibility lay upon Lord 
 Chatham, who was at one and the same time a 
 cabinet minister (master general of the ordnance) 
 and commander-in-chief of the expedition ; and 
 other orators—among whom was Mr. Whitbread, 
 who prognosticated that Lord Wellington would 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 be compelled to evacuate Portugal in the spring, 
 as Chatham had been compelled to evacuate Wal- 
 cheren in the autumn—animadverted very severely 
 on the whole of the conduct of the unlucky general. 
 On the 26th of January, Lord Porchester, in 
 the Commons, moved that the House should resolve 
 itself into a committee to inquire into the conduct 
 and policy of the late expedition to the Scheldt;\ 
 and the motion was carried, against all the exertions 
 of ministers, by a majority of nine, the numbers 
 being 195 against 186. It was impossible for 
 such an inquiry to be properly conducted by a 
 committee of the whole House of Commons ; and 
 there were serious and very obvious objections to a 
 public disclosure of all the projects which had been 
 entertained, and of all the military blunders which 
 had been committed. These objections were of 
 such weight, and ministers were so anxious to con- 
 ceal the national weakness and dishonour from 
 Bonaparte, who regularly had the English news- 
 papers and parliamentary reports translated to him, 
 and who always took most of his notions respecting 
 this country from the exaggerated party speeches 
 of our opposition members, that it was resolved to 
 
 enforce the standing order for the exclusion of 
 
 strangers during the inquiry. But in spite of this 
 precaution our disgrace in the Walcheren affair 
 was blazoned to the world, for minutes of the evi- 
 dence were published notwithstanding the order of 
 the House, and, being carried over to Paris, were 
 inserted at full length in the Moniteur, as consoling 
 proofs of the incapacity of our ministers and mili- 
 tary commanders. Though evidently screened and 
 protected by the court, and defended to the utmost 
 by the ministry, the Earl of Chatham found himself 
 under the necessity of resigning his office of master- 
 general of the ordnance.* After many long and 
 tempestuous debates, the condemnatory resolutions, 
 drawn up as logical consequences from the facts 
 which had been produced in evidence, being moyed 
 by Lord Porchester, were negatived, but only by 
 276 against 227. General Craufurd then made two 
 motions, the first approving the conduct of ministers 
 with regard to the policy of the expedition, and the 
 second approving the retention of Walcheren after 
 it had been found that Antwerp was not to be cap- 
 tured; and the first was carried by 272 against 
 232, and the second by 255 against 232. 
 
 The enforcement of the standing order for the 
 exclusion of strangers not only failed in the object 
 for which it was intended, but led to new troubles 
 and disgraceful scenes. There was at this time a 
 debating society in London, called the “ British 
 Forum,” the president and chief orator of which 
 was one John Gale Jones, a very obscure individual, 
 
 who was suddenly and unexpectedly raised into the — 
 
 dignity of a patriot and a martyr. This manager 
 
 Jones proposed the matter as a proper subject of 
 
 discussion in his Forum, and afterwards placarded 
 the walls with hand-bills stating that, “ after an 
 
 * The Earl of Chatham was succeeded in the ordnance by Lord 
 Mulgrave, who was succeeded in his post of first lord of the admi- 
 ralty by “ Yorke; but these appointments did not take place for 
 some weeks, ; Use 
 
 : 
 
Guar. VITI.] 
 
 interesting discussion, it had been unanimously 
 decided that the enforcement of the standing orders, 
 by shutting out strangers from the gallery of the 
 House of Commons, ought to be censured as an 
 insidious and ill-timed attack upon the liberty of 
 the press, as tending to aggravate the discontents 
 of the people, and to render their representatives 
 Objects of jealous suspicion.” The same placards 
 proposed as a question for the next night’s meeting 
 of the society, “‘ Which was the greater outrage 
 upon public feeling, Mr. Yorke’s enforcement of 
 the standing orders or Mr. Windham’s> recent 
 attack upon the liberty of the press?”* Of all 
 this Mr. Yorke complained in the House, on the 
 19th of February, as a gross violation of the privi- 
 leges of the House. On the 20th, the printer of 
 the hand-bills, being brought to the bar, expressed 
 his contrition, and gave up the name of his author. 
 On the morrow, the president of the Forum himself 
 was brought a prisoner to the bar, and was, by the 
 unanimous vote of the House, committed to New- 
 gate. On the 12th of March, Sir Francis Burdett 
 moved that John Gale Jones should be discharged ; 
 and in so doing he questioned the legality of the 
 commitment, and the privilege and power of par- 
 liament. Several of his party, though hot reformers 
 like himself, fell from his side on this question, 
 and he was outvoted by 153 to 14. A few days 
 after the debate Sir Francis printed his speech in 
 an enlarged form, and with more offensive language 
 than he had used in the House. He published it 
 in Cobbett’s Weekly Register, putting his own name 
 to it, and introducing it with a letter to his con- 
 stituents. ‘The thing was a libel nearly from begin- 
 ning to end—a passionate and dangerous appeal 
 from the authority of parliament to the excited 
 people ;—but the passages which seemed more 
 peculiarly to demand punishment were those in 
 which he denied the right of the House to commit 
 for breach of privilege, and asked whether our 
 liberty should lie at the mercy of the House of Com- 
 mons, which House he characterised as “ a part 
 of our fellow-subjects collected together by means 
 which it is not necessary to describe.”’t+ On the 
 27th of March, Mr. Lethbridge, member for Somer- 
 setshire, brought the matter before the House. 
 Whitbread succeeded in carrying an adjournment 
 till the morrow, and the question was then further 
 adjourned till the 5th of April, when it was carried, 
 by a majority of thirty-eight, that Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett should be committed to the Tower under the 
 warrant of the Speaker, as guilty of a libel on the 
 ' * In the course of the debate upon Mr. Yorke’s motion for enforcing 
 the standing order against strangers in the gallery, Windham had 
 certainly delivered some rather heretical opinions about the liberty 
 of the press. But he appears to have been excited thereto by a great 
 deal of extravagance and rhapsody from Sheridan and others. 
 
 + The language of the letter was intemperate and ad captandum 
 throughout; the illustrations were of that kind most likely to excite 
 such of the common people as had passions stronger than their reason- 
 ing faculties. Scriptural illustration was not spared. ‘‘ One cannot,” 
 said Sir Francis, ‘* with such impressions in one’s mind, help enter- 
 taining a fear that the gentlemen of the House of Commons may be 
 in danger of incurring the sentence of St. Paul upon the insolent 
 and tyrannical high-priest Ananias, who had commanded him to be 
 stricken for opening his mouth in his own defence :—‘ God shall 
 
 smite thee, thou whited wall: For sittest thou to judge me after 
 the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?’” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 527 
 
 House. Sir Francis shut himself up in his man- 
 sion in Piccadilly, barring his doors and windows, 
 and declaring that he would yield only to force. 
 On the 6th, he sent a letter to the Speaker expres- 
 sive of this resolution, of his contempt for the 
 House, and his conviction that the warrant was 
 illegal. An immense mob now gathered near his 
 mansion, shouting “‘ Burdett for ever !”” and compel- 
 ling all passengers, whether on foot or riding in 
 carriages or on horseback, to pull off their hats and 
 join in the cry. The lord privy seal, the Earl of 
 Westmoreland, was assaulted and covered with 
 mud, as were sundry other individuals of less note. 
 The far greater part of these poor fellows intended 
 nothing more serious than that amusement which 
 they call “a lark ;”’ but a few fanatic demagogues 
 glided among them, and harangued them over 
 their beer, and at night they were joined by thieves 
 and pickpockets, by all the rascality of London 
 and Westminster, who hoped to make good booty 
 in that immense crowd. A party began to break 
 windows, an example which other parties were sure 
 to follow. In rapid succession the windows of Mr. 
 Yorke, Lord Chatham, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of 
 Montrose, Lord Westmoreland, Sir John Anstruther, 
 the Marquess Wellesley, Mr. Wellesley Pole, Lord 
 Castlereagh, and many others, were smashed. Wind- 
 ham’s windows escaped, for they could not find his 
 house. But by this time the horse guards were out, 
 and several corps of volunteers were called to quar- 
 ters. The troops scoured the streets, and by two 
 o’clock in the morning the mob dispersed, some with 
 broken heads and some with other men’s watches 
 in their pockets. In the course of the following 
 day the serjeant-at-arms, with the Speaker’s war- 
 rant in his hand, gained admission into Sir Francis’s 
 house; but the baronet put the warrant in his 
 pocket, and his friend Mr. O’Connor led the ser- 
 jeant-at-arms down stairs, and to the door, telling 
 him that out he must go, if not by fair means, then 
 by foul. -Placards of a very inflammable nature, 
 and addressed to the people, were stuck up in 
 several parts of the town, and particularly in the 
 neighbourhood of the Tower. About noon a troop 
 of the life guards and acompany of the foot guards 
 took post before Sir Francis’s house. This did 
 not prevent the mob from pursuing the same 
 courses as on the preceding evening ; and several 
 respectable persons travelling on the outside of 
 stage-coaches through that great western thorough- 
 fare were much injured because they did not suffi- 
 ciently wave their hats or raise their voices. At 
 length the life guards were ordered to clear the 
 street. The rabble fled as usual, but they soon 
 returned, and the commotion assumed so serious 
 an aspect that it was thought proper to read the 
 Riot Act. During this operation Sir Francis from 
 time to time showed himself at the window, and 
 was cheered by the mob. He was visited by Lord 
 Cochrane, Lord Folkstone, Colonel Wardle, Major 
 Cartwright, the Earl of Thanet, Mr. Coke of Nor- 
 folk, Mr. Whitbread, and other political and private 
 friends, nearly all of whom are said to have im- 
 
 EE EEE LES Ce OO Rod 5 ee 
 
528 
 
 plored him to put an end to a farce which might 
 probably end in a tragedy for some, or. to yield 
 obedience to the Speaker’s warrant now that enough 
 had been done to constitute a case for the trial of 
 the right of the House of Commons. But the 
 baronet, who had been carried shoulder-high by 
 the people on several occasions, would not yield to 
 this reasonable advice, and probably there were 
 other friends besides the hot Mr. O’Connor who 
 recommended a very different course. To keep 
 up the commotion, Sir Francis wrote a letter to 
 the sheriffs of Middlesex, complaining that an at- 
 tempt was made to deprive him of his liberty, 
 under the authority of an instrument which he 
 knew to be illegal, and that his house was beset 
 by a military force; avowing his determination 
 never to yield a voluntary obedience, but to resist 
 the execution of such a warrant by all the legal 
 meaus in his power; and calling upon the sheriffs, 
 as the constitutional officers appointed to protect 
 the inhabitants of the bailiwick from violence and 
 oppression, to furnish him with the aid with which 
 the laws had provided them, by calling out either 
 the posse comitatus or such other force as the case 
 and circumstance might require. The govern- 
 ment, wholly unprepared for this sort of resistance, 
 were greatly perplexed ; and the magistrates acted 
 with timid indecision, doubting whether it was or 
 was not lawful to use force in executing the 
 Speaker’s warrant. At last, Mr. Perceval, the 
 premier, advised the serjeant-at-arms to take the 
 opinion of Sir Vicary Gibbs, the attorney-general. 
 Mistakes were committed in the drawing up of the 
 legal case to be laid before him ; and the crown 
 lawyer gave a reply which went rather to increase 
 than diminish the embarrassment and indecision, 
 for he left it doubtful whether, if death should 
 ensue on executing the speaker’s warrant by force, 
 the serjeant-at-arms would not lie open to an in- 
 dictment for murder; as also whether any person 
 in the contest that should think proper to kill the 
 serjeant-at-arms could be held in law guilty of 
 murder.* 
 
 Mr. Matthew Wood, who chanced to be one of 
 the sheriffs this year, professed the same political 
 principles and the same eagerness for parliamentary 
 reform as Sir Francis Burdett ; the alderman was 
 indeed now and long afterwards a sort of satellite 
 to the baronet. After communicating Sir Francis’s 
 letter for the aid of the posse comitatus, &c. to 
 the lord mayor, Sheriff Wood posted off to the 
 Speaker to augment his perplexities by showing 
 him the letter and asking his advice upon it. 
 Abbot, the Speaker, got rid of the unpleasant 
 visitor by telling him that he had done his duty, 
 and that no doubt the sheriffs would know how to 
 
 * The fault might be in the law or in the want of precedent, and 
 not in Sir Vicary Gibbs; but it appeared hard to leave an unlearned 
 serjeant-at-arms to judge for himself when the learned attorney- 
 general would not judge for him; and the amount of Sir Vicary’s 
 answer, as was said by Sir John Anstruther in the debate of Monday, 
 the 9th of April, was just this—‘ Serjeant-at-arms, go and execute 
 your warrant; you shall have all possible aid, both civil and mili- 
 tary; but then we can’t say how far you may lawfully go: never 
 
 mind, however, do your duty, and then no matter whether in the 
 event you are hanged for it or not,” 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 = 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 do theirs. Mr. Sheriff Wood, choosing to consider 
 the letter which he had received as * an intimation 
 of a disturbance, of which, as conservator of the 
 peace, he was bound to take official notice,”? went 
 straight to the beleaguered mansion in Piccadilly. 
 Sir Francis, glad to see so dear a friend or so warm 
 a partisan, requested Mr. Sheriff Wood to pas 
 
 the night in the house in order to protect him by 
 the civil power against tyranny and military force. 
 Wood readily consented, and called in his colleague 
 Mr. Sheriff Atkins, when they jointly addressed a 
 letter to the secretary of state for the home depart- 
 ment, enclosing a copy of Burdett’s letter to them, 
 and requiring his instructions how to act. Mr. 
 Ryder, the new secretary, replied that it was not 
 for him to deliver any opinion upon the baronet’s 
 letter; but that he could have no doubt that the 
 sheriffs would feel it to be their duty to give every 
 assistance which might be required of them in aid 
 of the Speaker’s warrant, rather than think of 
 offering any resistance to it. With the aid of the 
 baronet’s pantry and cellar the night passed off 
 pleasantly enough, and at about three o’clock in 
 the morning the sheriffs shook hands and with- 
 drew, expressing their decided opinion that no 
 attempt would then be made to break into the 
 house. Serious mischief had, however, been done 
 in the course of the preceding evening. Unluckily, 
 it chanced to be a Saturday evening, when the 
 working people were released from their labours 
 and had money in their pockets to buy drink. 
 There were a few hundreds of German cavalry at 
 this time in England waiting to be conveyed to the 
 peninsula—brave but quiet and inoffensive men, 
 who wore the sad mementos of the old Duke of 
 Brunswick, or who had been raised by his gallant 
 son and other expatriated princes to fight against 
 the common enemy. A portion of the public press 
 had represented these few hundred Germans as 
 highly dangerous to the liberties and the constitu- 
 tion of England, and, since these Gale Jones and 
 Burdett turmoils had begun, great pains had been 
 taken to exasperate this feeling, and hand-bills had 
 been distributed filled with inflammatory declama- 
 tions against foreign troops. In the course of the 
 Saturday it had been deemed necessary to call out 
 a few more troops. Among these was a party of 
 English light dragoons, who wore a uniform which 
 was new to the London mob, A cry was set up 
 that these men were German mercenaries employed 
 to cut the throats of the people. The military were 
 hooted and pelted, and, what was much worse and 
 far more rare, several shots were fired at them. 
 The soldiers bore these insults and outrages with a 
 forbearance of which none but disciplined English 
 troops are capable; and, even after one of their 
 comrades had been shot with a ball through the 
 jaw, they were not allowed to load their pistols till 
 the magistrates had once more read the Riot Act, 
 and made fruitless endeavours to repress the 
 tumult, The magistrates, the civil officers, as well 
 as the soldiers and their commanders, were 
 assaulted with mud and stones. At length a few 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 cayalry pistols were drawn from their holsters and 
 discharged in self-defence, and one man in Picca- 
 dilly fell mortally wounded. 
 
 On Sunday morning, at seven o'clock, the ser- 
 jeant-at-arms, attended by a party of police-officers, 
 once more demanded quiet entrance into the house, 
 and, being denied it, he stationed messengers to 
 watch the house, and remained with his deputy in 
 the neighbourhood to apprehend Sir Francis in 
 case he should come out. The morning was very 
 fine and all that part of the town soon became 
 crowded, but far more by the curious than by the 
 mischievous. Many, however, there were de- 
 cidedly bent upon mischief, and while some of 
 these picked the pockets of the unwary, others 
 hissed and groaned or threw stones and filth at the 
 soldiery. Ifthey had been French troops, no power 
 on earth would have prevented a charge and a car- 
 nage; but our men behaved as they had done 
 before.* But they felt, and some of them said, 
 that they would rather be in the hottest of a battle 
 like that of Talavera, than be sitting there like 
 statues to be insulted and injured and covered with 
 filth by a mob of their own countrymen. About 
 one o'clock in the afternoon the two sheriffs waited 
 again upon Sir Francis. Sheriff Wood had still 
 no doubt as to the illegality of the Speaker’s war- 
 rant, or as to the right of continuing to resist it ; 
 but Sheriff Atkins now declared that he thought the 
 warrant must be obeyed, because it directed that the 
 serjeant-at-arms of the House of Commons should 
 call on all mayors, sheriffs, magistrates, &c. to 
 assist in its execution. Sheriff Wood then trudged 
 away to the magistrates who were assembled at the 
 Gloucester Coffee-house, Piccadilly, and, according 
 to his own account, remonstrated with them against 
 ordering the soldiers to act, telling them that if 
 any death ensued he would indict them all for 
 murder. 
 
 The life guards stationed near Burdett’s house 
 continuéd patiently to bear the insults of the mob, 
 presenting, however, their pistols from time to time 
 in the hope of intimidating them. But, at last, the 
 guards made a charge, yet so as to disperse the 
 people without injuring them. The mob opened 
 and fled on all sides; but as soon as the guards 
 returned to their post they rallied, and continued 
 the same annoying warfare as before. But it was 
 now dusk and raining in torrents; and the dark- 
 ness and the rain drove away many thousands. 
 Still the more dangerous part of the mob re- 
 mained ; and these heroes, being driven from the 
 western end of Piccadilly, gathered in force between 
 
 * One of the mob threw a handful of mud right into the face of a 
 dragoon, who merely wiped off the filth, rode up to the fellow, and 
 said, ‘* You rascal! If I had not a sword and pistols I would get off 
 my horse and break every bone in your skin! Don’t do that again.” 
 
 + The magistrates, however, publicly contradicted this, affirming 
 that they never heard Sheriff Wood use any such threatening lan- 
 guage, and that his appearance at the Gloucester Coffee-house and 
 his interference did not in any way prevent them from doing what 
 they conceived to be their duty. 
 
 If Alderman Wood, carrying out his theory, could have paralysed 
 the magistrates, and have prevented their acting in concert with the 
 troops, a good part of the capital would, that night, have been plun- 
 dered and burned, and more lives would have been sacrificed than 
 were lost in the London * No Popery ” riots of 1780. 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 529 
 
 | the east end of Coventry-street and St. James’s 
 
 church. As on the two preceding nights, they 
 had made the inhabitants illuminate their houses ; 
 but at about ten o’clock on this unholy Sabbath 
 night they made all the lights in the windows be 
 put out, and at the same time they broke all the 
 street lamps on either side of the way. Then, in 
 this darkness, they carried away the ladders and 
 scaffolding from a house under repair, and with 
 these materials made a low barricade across Picca- 
 dilly, towards which they endeavoured to allure the 
 cavalry, expecting that they would come on at full 
 gallop in the dark, and so be thrown. But this 
 pretty artifice was discovered, and the barricade 
 ‘was broken down by a party of foot soldiers. To- 
 wards midnight it ramed harder than ever, and, 
 to the infinite relief of the quiet inhabitants, the 
 mob melted away. By Monday morning minis- 
 ters had come to the determination of breaking into 
 the baronet’s house, and carrying the warrant into 
 effect by military means. For this decision 
 Burdett was prepared, and he got up a dramatic 
 scene in which to meet it. He assembled his 
 family and friends in his drawing-room on the first 
 floor, and in the front part of the house, and 
 there sat down to breakfast with Lady Burdett, 
 the Countess of Guildford, three of the Ladies 
 North, Mr. and Mrs. Coutts, his brother Mr. 
 Jones Burdett, peppery Mr. O’Connor, and one 
 or two others. Breakfast being finished, Sir 
 Francis began to hear his son (then an Eton boy) 
 read and construe Magna Charta in the original. 
 The patriot baronet was thus engaged—presenting, 
 as his friends thought, a fine subject for an histo- 
 rical picture—when Mr. O'Connor started up dra- 
 matically on observing a man’s face peering into 
 one of the drawing-room windows. ‘The face be- 
 longed to a constable or peace-officer, who had 
 placed a ladder against the house, and who was 
 now in the act of throwing up the window-sash, 
 in doing which he broke some of the baronet’s 
 panes of glass and cut some of his own fingers. 
 O’Connor rushed to the window. It is said that 
 this Irish Achates intended to hurl the poor 
 peace-officer into the area below; and that Sir 
 Francis stopped him by calling out not to hurt 
 the man. What O’Connor did was to seize the 
 officer by the breast with one hand and to shut the 
 window with the other. Baffled in this attempt to 
 storm through the drawing-room windows, the 
 police made an attack in an humbler quarter ;— 
 descending into the area towards the region of the 
 kitchen and the scullery, they burst open a win- 
 dow, sashes, frame, and all, and entered the house 
 through a servant’s room. At the crash the bold 
 O’Connor ran down stairs to see if all were safe 
 below, and there he found some twenty men with 
 those magical wands, constables’ staves, in their 
 hands. He retreated to the drawing-room, and 
 was quickly followed thither by the constables and 
 by the serjeant-at-arms, who, advancing to the 
 baronet, said, “ Sir Francis, you are my prisoner.” 
 Sir Francis replied by asking the serjeant under 
 2H 
 
530 
 
 what authority he had broken into his house in 
 violation of the laws of the land. The serjeant- 
 at-arms spoke of the Speaker’s warrant; the baro- 
 net spoke of the laws and constitution, and refused 
 to submit. ‘Then, sir,” said the serjeant, “ I 
 must call in assistance and force you to yield.” 
 Upon which the constables laid hold of Sir Francis, 
 Mr. Jones Burdett and Mr. O’Connor stepped up, 
 and each took the baronet under an arm. The 
 constables closed in on all three, and drew them 
 down stairs, Sir Francis protesting all the way, 
 in the king’s name, against this violation of his 
 person and his house, and telling them they were 
 acting at their peril. A coach was ready at the 
 door: Sir Francis got in, with his brother the 
 deputy serjeant-at-arms, and a messenger; the 
 serjeant himself mounted his horse; and then, 
 with a strong escort of cavalry, coach and mounted 
 serjeant went off at a smart pace. To avoid mis- 
 chief they had determined to proceed to the Tower 
 by the roundabout way of the New Road, Mary- 
 lebone, Pentonville, Islington, the City Road, &c. 
 They had got to the top of Albemarle.street, Picca- 
 dilly, when a cry was setup, ‘“‘ They have taken 
 him! They have dragged him out of his house !”’ 
 And at the cry countless multitudes began to 
 scamper off towards the Tower, for the most part by 
 much nearer roads than that which the cavalcade 
 were taking. Ever since Friday placards had been 
 stuck up in the city calling upon all true Britons to 
 protect the patriot. But by this time government 
 had collected such a military force as had rarely 
 been seen in the capital before.* And, while the 
 serjeant-at-arms and the cavalry escorted the pri- 
 soner, two battalions of foot guards marched by 
 the shortest route through the Strand and through 
 the heart of the city (the necessary consent having 
 been previously obtained from the Lord Mayor) 
 and drew up three deep before the Tower gates, to 
 cover the entrance. Shortly after, the prisoner 
 arrived, the dragoons cleared the way, and the 
 coach drove up to the Tower gates, the mob shout- 
 ing ‘‘ Burdett for ever!*? There was also much 
 hooting and much running ; and a good many of 
 the mob fell or were forced into the Tower ditch, 
 but as there was little water, nobody was drowned, 
 and as the mud was soft, no bones were broken. 
 Sir Francis alighted and, when he had been received 
 with the usual ceremonies, the gates were closed. 
 But when the troops began to return towards their 
 barracks in the west, the mob began to pelt them 
 most furiously. Finding themselves threatened 
 from behind palings and iron railings, and em- 
 barrassed in narrow streets, and being able to bear 
 this usage no longer, the soldiers fired, and about 
 eight persons were wounded, two of them mortally. 
 The troops thus made way for themselves through 
 Fenchurch Street, then crossing over London Bridge 
 returned to the Horse Guards by way of Lambeth 
 and Westminster Bridge. The alarm was greater 
 
 * In addition to the volunteers, about 19,000 regulars, horse and 
 foot, were collectedin andround London ; and about15,000 more from 
 different parts of the country, were halted within a day’s march, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 f 
 
 on this than on any of the preceding days: the 
 metropolis was agitated from one end to the other, 
 and many thousands believed that what had ap- 
 peared a trifle at first would end in a formidable 
 rebellion. At night Sir John Anstruther in the 
 Commons complained bitterly of the timid, unde- 
 cided conduct of government, which, he urged, had 
 allowed the storm to gain head, It was not a sub- 
 ject, he said, upon which he could speak very 
 coolly, when he recollected that, owing to a remiss- 
 ness in some quarter or other, the lives of his wife 
 and children had been for a long time endangered, 
 [Many other persons had the same recollections or 
 convictions as Sir John Anstruther.}| He said 
 that it appeared that ministers had not taken any 
 steps to provide against consequences which might 
 easily have been foreseen; but he ended by throw- 
 ing the principal blame upon the attorney-general. 
 Sir Vicary Gibbs attempted to throw the blame 
 from his own shoulders upon those of the serjeant- 
 at-arms, which—even by those friendly to govern- 
 ment—was not considered either very just or very 
 generous. Nor was it in fact very extraordinary 
 that the serjeant-at-arms, checked by the ambigu- 
 ous legal answer of the attorney-general, should 
 have hesitated how to act when the persons of the 
 highest authority to whom he looked for instructions 
 knew not how to advise him. 
 
 On the following evening, when the letter of 
 Sir Francis Burdett was taken into consideration 
 by the House of Commons, several members who 
 had voted against his committal to the Tower cen- 
 sured his conduct in unmeasured terms. The 
 baronet’s offensive letters were now considered but 
 part of a system for bringing the House of Com- 
 mons into contempt ; and it was asserted, even by 
 friendly parties, that, if the House had not taken 
 notice of his first letter, published in Cobbett’s 
 ‘Register,’ they would have been dragged into 
 something else, and have had to meet other and 
 bolder attacks. The House was far mofe con- 
 cerned in this quarrel than were the ministers. 
 [t was the authority of the House that had been 
 insulted and defied. Expulsion from the House 
 was spoken of; but, as this must necessarily lead 
 to a new election in Westminster, to the with- 
 drawal of the military, and to saturnalia of four- 
 
 teen days’ duration, the notion was given up. Mr. 
 
 Davies Giddy (the late Mr. Davies Gilbert) would 
 not now give Sir Francis credit even for rectitude 
 of intention ; Lord Porchester thought no language 
 of reproach could be too strong to apply to his 
 conduct from beginning to end; Sir John Sebright 
 
 said it was the most disgraceful conduct that had — 
 
 ever come under the cognizance of the House, and 
 asked whether it was a love of civil liberty that 
 induced Sir Francis to stir up a tyrannical mob to 
 aid him in the solution of a great constitutional 
 question? And Mr, Lyttleton declared that, though 
 he had lived on terms of friendship with Sir Francis, 
 he now abjured him both as a private and as a 
 political friend. Even Mr. Whitbread, who called 
 Burdett’s letter to the House “a high and flagrant 
 
 € 
 
 [Boor xX. 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 breach of the privileges of parliament,”’ main- 
 tained that the warrant of the speaker was legal, 
 complete, and ought to be omnipotent. The 
 Speaker’s warrant, said Whitbread, if good for any- 
 thing, is good for everything : and it certainly autho- 
 rises the breaking open of doors if it is necessary to 
 its execution that doors should be broken open. 
 But it was chiefly as a parliamentary reformer that 
 Whitbread contended for the preservation of this 
 and of all other privileges of the House. The 
 cause of reform (so he said) was now making rapid 
 progress ;—within the last month very many con- 
 verts had been made to that cause. In what state 
 would the House be placed in the event of a reform, 
 if stript of the power now under discussion? The 
 crown was known to have a great influence in that 
 House, as well as elsewhere (meaning in the Upper 
 House) ; and what must the people expect to be 
 the inclination and aim of that influence in the event 
 of reform? Must they not calculate upon its hos- 
 tility ? and what power could a reformed House 
 of Commons have of counteracting that hostility, 
 if its warrant were not effective? As soon as pos- 
 sible after his committal, Sir Francis Burdett, 
 haying recourse to those legal means which he 
 might have applied to at first, without risking 
 bloodshed and such disgraceful rioting, caused the 
 Speaker to be served with a notice that a bill would 
 be filed against him in the Court of King’s Bench. 
 On the 13th of April the Speaker communicated 
 it to the House, and the letter containing the notice 
 was entered upon the Journals, Mr. Whitbread 
 observing that it might be the ground of great 
 questions to be tried hereafter. On the 16th, Sir 
 Samuel Romilly moved for the discharge of John 
 Gale Jones, whose debating club and placards had 
 produced, or had at least hurried on, the great 
 Burdett explosion. Romilly did not think that 
 Jones had not merited punishment; he only thought 
 that he had been punished enough already by being 
 detained a few days in Newgate. Windham re- 
 minded the House that a meeting of the West- 
 minster electors was announced for the morrow, 
 and that, if the House should liberate Gale Jones, 
 those noisy patriots would be sure to impute it not 
 to their mercy, but to their fears. Romilly was 
 outvoted by 160 against 112; so the president of 
 the Forum was left in durance until the rising of par- 
 liament, which must equally open the doors of New- 
 gate to him and the gates of the Tower to Burdett. 
 
 At the time appointed, the great Westminster 
 meeting was held in Palace Yard, close under the 
 Houses of Parliament. It was numerously, if not 
 well, attended, and there was no want of the pas- 
 sionate ingredients of eloquence on the part of the 
 Westminster orators who spoke; for Sir Francis, 
 besides being “England’s glory,’? was ‘* West- 
 minster’s darling.” They passed a string of reso- 
 lutions, declaring that they most highly approved 
 of Sir Francis’s letter to his constituents ; that they 
 thought his conduct, in calling upon the civil 
 power for the protection of his house against a 
 military force, was dictated by prudence, knowledge 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 of and confidence in the laws of his country ; and 
 that the House of Commons should be called upon 
 to restore to them their beloved representative, and 
 to co-operate immediately with him in his endea- 
 vours to procure a fair representation of the people 
 in parliament. A letter addressed to him in the 
 name of his constituents had been drawn up, and, 
 being now read with general satisfaction, it was 
 resolved that it should be presented to the patriot 
 in the Tower by the high bailiff of Westminster. 
 It was a very peppery epistle. It declared that his 
 constituents felt as a personal wrong the indignity 
 which had been offered to him ; that they, however, 
 were not surprised to find that, when every excuse 
 was made for public delinquents, the utmost rigour 
 was exercised against him who pleaded for the 
 ancient and constitutional rights of the people ; that 
 he, Sir Francis, had nobly stepped forward in de- 
 fence of a fellow-subject (Gale Jones) unjustly 
 imprisoned ; and that the House of Commons had 
 answered his arguments by breaking into his house, 
 seizing his person, &c. They upheld all that had 
 occurred as rendering more than ever necessary a 
 radical reform; and they repeated Sir Francis’s 
 own libel, and quoted his words as to the construc- 
 tion of the present House of Commons, where so 
 many members, said they, “ are collected together by 
 means which it is not necessary for us to describe.” 
 The letter to the baronet ended with saying that the 
 treatment he had met with was but a sad presage 
 of what might be expected by all those that had 
 the courage to stand forward in defence of the 
 people’s rights. The Westminster meeting also 
 voted a petition and remonstrance to the House of 
 Commons, couched in the most disrespectful terms, 
 denying the privilege of the House, and calling for 
 the immediate liberation of Burdett, and a speedy 
 reform of parliament. In the evening this petition 
 and remonstrance was presented by the baronet’s 
 colleague, Captain Lord Cochrane, who, unfor- 
 tunately for himself, if not for his country, had 
 quitted the sea service to become an active mem- 
 ber of reform societies, and a hot and impatient 
 politician. His lordship moved, according to 
 custom, that the petition should lie on the table. 
 The Hon. J. W. Ward (afterwards the Lord Dudley 
 and Ward) opposed the motion, saying, that, if the 
 House received the petition, they would submit to 
 the grossest violation of their dignity. Mr. Curwen 
 suggested the propriety of withdrawing it for the 
 purpose of preparing one of a more decorous kind, 
 if the object of the petitioners really was to pro- 
 mote the cause of reform, to which he, Mr. Curwen, 
 was friendly. Other members thought the lan- 
 guage of this petition highly indecent ; but Whit- 
 bread justified the petition, and not only Canning, 
 but also Perceval, though they condemned the lan- 
 guage, said that some intemperance might be over- 
 looked—that in cases of petitions it was better for 
 the House to err on the side of indulgence than on 
 that of severity ; and the Westminster paper was 
 ordered to lie on the table.* 
 
 * “This,” says Sir Samuel Romilly, “is certainly not the last 
 
5382 
 
 In the meanwhile, the ferment being kept up 
 out of doors by popular meetings, clubs, handbills, 
 pamphlets, and newspapers, a coroner’s inquest in 
 the city had brought in a verdict of wilful murder 
 in the case of a young man who had been shot by 
 the soldiers on their return from the Tower,* and 
 the mob had persevered in insulting the military 
 wherever an opportunity could be found. On the 
 other hand, however, another coroner’s jury had 
 returned a verdict of justifiable homicide in the 
 case of a man who had been shot by the military 
 which had formed the escort of Sir Francis from 
 Piccadilly to the Tower; and a proclamation had 
 been issued by government calling on all justices 
 of the peace, &c. to aid and assist in suppressing 
 all tumultuous meetings, and offering a reward of 
 500/. for the apprehension of any person who had 
 been concerned in firing at or otherwise wounding 
 the military in the discharge of their duty; and 
 this was followed by another proclamation offering 
 a reward of 500/. for the apprehension of the per- 
 son who had fired at Ensign Cowell while on duty 
 onthe night after Burdett was lodged in the Tower. 
 
 Yet Lord Ossulston, one of the Burdettites, 
 rose in the House of Commons on the 18th of 
 April, and asked whether the government did not 
 mean to offer a like reward for the discovery of the 
 unknown lifeguardsman against whom the first 
 verdict of wilful murder had been returned? He 
 was told that under all the circumstances of the 
 case this was not to be expected. Whitbread then 
 moved, without the customary notice, that that 
 verdict should be taken into consideration by the 
 House; and he was supported by Mr. William 
 Smith, who argued that, though the soldiery in 
 general had behaved well, it did not follow that 
 
 affront which. in consequence of the contest in which the ministers 
 have rashly plunged the House, they will have to receive and to 
 record against themselves. These are the first-fruits of this boasted 
 vindication of the rights and dignity of tiie House of Commons.” 
 —Diary of Parliamentary Life, in Memoir by his Sons. 
 
 * It was positively asserted that this thoughtless young man, 
 Thomas Ebrall by name, and another young man who was likewise 
 killed, had each seized the bridle of a lifeguardsman’s horse, which 
 was precisely the act of aggression which of all others justified the 
 soldiers in using their weapons. Nevertheless, the juries in both in- 
 stances brought in verdicts of wilful murder against some lifeguards- 
 man unknown; and, to keep alive horror, indignation, and revenge, 
 a. tombstone was put over the grave of Thomas Ebrall (in Aldgate 
 churchyard) recording his fate and the coroner’s inquest, and giving 
 the following text from the Apocrypha :— 
 
 “Thus saith the Lord God; My right hand shall not spare the 
 sinners, and my sword shall not cease over them that shed innocent 
 blood upon the earth.””—2 Esdras, ch. xv. 
 
 For this there was precedent to be found in the John Wilkes St. 
 George’s Fields riot: see ante, vol. iv. pp. 853-860, 
 
 Where the money was found for the tombstone and funeral, and 
 for other matters far more expensive, it is not difficult to surmise. 
 The parliamentary reformers and the other adversaries of govern- 
 ment seem to have contemplated changing the ministry and effecting 
 higher objects by force of tombstones and exciting epitaphs. ‘There 
 was erected at the back of St. Martin’s Church a monument bearing 
 this inscription :— 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 JoHN Inwiy, Ksq., 
 of Sligo, in Ireland, surgeon to his majesty’s forces, 
 who died on the 22nd day of April, 
 1810, 
 aged 58 years: 
 A victim, like thousands of our gallant countrymen, 
 to the fatal consequences of 
 the unfortunate expedition to the Scheldt, 
 commanded by 
 John, Karl of Chatham. 
 It was noted as something very prophetic or very significant, that 
 on the 14th of April, the fifth day after Burdett’s committal to the 
 Tower, the sword, buckles, and straps fell from the equestrian 
 statue of Charles I, at Charing-Cross ! 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 one of them might not have been guilty of murder. 
 The home secretary (Ryder) affirmed that a strict 
 inquiry had been instituted into the conduct of the 
 populace on the one hand and of the troops on the 
 other; that the inquiry was still proceeding; but, 
 from everything which had yet appeared, the privy 
 council had resolved to advise his majesty not to 
 issue a proclamation upon the subject of the first 
 verdict. The premier asked whether the House 
 ought to take into their own hands the administra- 
 tion of justice while in progress? Were they to 
 be inspectors of coroners’ verdicts and indictments 
 for murder? Were they to put themselves in the 
 situation of grand jurors? Captain Agar, who 
 had been on duty, stated that from ten to twenty 
 shots were fired by the people before he heard one 
 shot fired by the soldiers ; and that, as several shots 
 were fired by the troops at about the same time, 
 it was very likely that the soldier who fired the 
 unfortunate one did not know it himself. Mr. 
 Lascelles observed that, if a lifeguardsman should 
 be sent before a jury at the present moment, it was 
 very probable he would be tried for his life under 
 circumstances very partial and oppressive. Whit- 
 bread’s motion was negatived without a division ; 
 and then the Easter recess gave some relief to the 
 government, and some time for the people to grow 
 cool. 
 
 During the recess, however, popular meetings 
 were held in various places; and the freeholders 
 of Middlesex, or the men who arrogated to them- 
 selves the exclusive right to that designation (in- 
 cluding many who were freeholders neither in 
 Middlesex nor anywhere else), assembled at Hack- 
 ney, and there voted an address of thanks to Sir 
 Francis, and a petition and a remonstrance to the 
 House of Commons. Mr. George Byng presented 
 this petition to the House on the 2nd of May, but 
 his brother member for the county of Middlesex, 
 Mr. Mellish, declared that he could not support so 
 violent and indecorous an appeal. Mr. Perceval 
 said that this was a deliberate insult to the House, 
 an experiment to try how far they would go in 
 forbearance. The discussion was adjourned till 
 the next day, when it gave rise to a hot debate with 
 furious criminations and recriminations. Mr. Bar- 
 ham said it was not a petition, but a protest against 
 the authority of the House; not an application for 
 redress of grievances, but a bold menace. He 
 lamented that there were members of that House 
 who could lend themselves to the clamours of po- 
 pular faction. Such men were little aware of the 
 consequences to which their conduct directly 
 
 tended ; for, if once the factions, of which they 
 
 were but the tools, should succeed in their real 
 object, these very men would be the first victims of 
 the storm which they had helped to raise, and 
 would be swept away like chaff before the wind. 
 Several liberal members spoke against the danger 
 and disgrace of conceding anything to the menaces 
 of the people, or even of receiving such petitions ; 
 but they charged government with having produced 
 all this disrespect and disaffection by opposing 
 
Gale) VIII.) 
 
 parliamentary reform, and by screening such cul- 
 prits as the Duke of York, Lord Castlereagh, &c. 
 To which the ministerial benches retorted, that 
 these very gentlemen, in their eagerness for parlia- 
 mentary innovations which might ruin the consti- 
 tution, and by their inconsiderate and vehement 
 attacks upon persons in authority, had created and 
 nourished. the popular violence. ‘The motion for 
 receiving the Middlesex petition was rejected by 
 139 against 58. ay 
 
 But the very next day a petition in much the 
 same strain was voted by the livery of the city of 
 London. It was presented on the 8th of May; 
 but the motion that it should be received was ne- 
 gatived by 128 against 36. Major Cartwright, a 
 very old champion of reform, and one who devoutly 
 believed that nearly all the ills that flesh is heir to 
 could be cured by a sweeping radical reform-bill, 
 sent in a long memorial in the form of a petition 
 praying for the said reform in parliament, &c. It 
 was presented by Whitbread ; but, as the major 
 called the committal of Sir Francis Burdett an act 
 of flagrant illegality, and as his memorial was por- 
 tentously prolix, it was rejected also, the premier 
 observing that, if such long petitions from an indi- 
 vidual were to be encouraged, the House might 
 expect to have others presented lengthened out into 
 folio volumes! 
 
 But the business was not over yet. The suit 
 which Sir Francis had commenced against the 
 Speaker was followed up by similar law-proceedings 
 against Mr. Colman, the serjeant-at-arms, and Earl 
 Moira, the Constable of the'Tower. On the motion 
 of Mr. Perceval a select committee was appointed 
 to consider of the proceedings to be taken and to 
 examine into precedents. On the llth of May 
 Mr. Davies Giddy brought up the report of this 
 select committee. He said there were but three 
 modes in which the House could proceed :—1. To 
 inhibit the courts of law from proceeding in these 
 actions; but for this course there was no precedent. 
 2. To commit all the persons concerned in bring- 
 ing or promoting such actions ; for the exercise of 
 such a power there were many precedents, but it 
 did not appear expedient to follow them. 3. The 
 only mode remaining, therefore, was to plead to the 
 actions, and let the parties sued show to the court 
 that the acts complained of were done in conse- 
 quence of the privileges of that House. Mr. Da- 
 vies Giddy moved accordingly: 1. That the 
 Speaker and the serjeant-at-arms might be per- 
 mitted to appear and plead to the said actions; 
 and, 2. That the attorney-general should be di- 
 rected to defend them. ‘There were long debates, 
 and there was a second report brought up from the 
 select committee, but the measures recommended 
 by Giddy were ultimately adopted. 
 
 The case of Burdett v. Abbot came on be- 
 fore Lord Ellenborough, in the court of King’s 
 Bench, but not before the Sth of February, 1811 ; 
 and, the cause being postponed, it was not until the 
 17th of May of that year that the attorney-general 
 made his reply in defence of the Speaker. The 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1S810. 
 
 LL LLL LLL LLL LL LLL LTD 
 
 denizens believed, like Bonaparte, that it was a revolution, 
 
 533 
 
 justification set up for the warrant, &c. appeared 
 to the court perfectly satisfactory, and the plaintiff 
 was cast, On the 19th of June of the same year 
 the case of Burdett v. Colman was tried in the 
 same court, when the jury without hesitation found 
 a verdict for the defendant. In the course of this 
 trial it was proved by Burdett’s own witnesses that 
 the serjeant-at-arms had discharged his unpleasant 
 duty with the greatest politeness and civility. 
 Several other witnesses deposed to the riotous dis- 
 position of the mob and to the good conduct of the 
 soldiery, and gave it as their opinion that the ser- 
 jeant-at-arms could not have executed his warrant 
 without a strong military force. The record of the 
 cause Burdett v. Lord Moira (Constable of the 
 Tower) was then called on, and dismissed for want 
 of a jury. 
 
 Since the No Popery riots London had seen no 
 such commotion as this, and since the days of John 
 Wilkes no such idol as Sir Francis Burdett. The 
 French newspapers announced that it was a revo- 
 lution. * 
 
 The prorogation of parliament of necessity pro- 
 duced the liberation of “the martyr of liberty,” 
 who had passed as pleasant a martyrdom in the 
 Tower as heart could desire ; receiving the visits of 
 his friends and the deputations of bodies corporate, 
 and catching the echoes of his fame as it rolled 
 through the country. On the morning of the 21st 
 of June vast multitudes assembled to escort him 
 and carry him in triumph from the Tower to Pic- 
 cadilly ; portions of this multitude were organised 
 in bodies, and had their banners and their bands of 
 music ; there was a car of Liberty, and there were 
 inscriptions and devices of a very stimulating kind. 
 As the troops were ordered to be on the alert, there 
 would have been certain riot and, very probably, 
 bloodshed, if the baronet had returned, as he was 
 expected to do, through the heart of the City aud 
 along the Strand; but he very wisely resolved to 
 take his departure from the Tower privately. The 
 outer gates of that fortress were closed, and the 
 immense mob, not knowing what was passing 
 within, kept waiting hour after hour, lining the edge 
 of the ditch and covering the open space denomi- 
 nated Tower-hill. At last, a soldier on the walls, 
 sending his words through a speaking-trumpet, 
 roared “‘ He is gone by water!” The people 
 would not believe the soldier. A police-officer, or 
 constable, or some civil authority of that kind came 
 out aud solemnly assured them that Sir Francis 
 was gone by water. By water—impossible! By 
 boat up the river, and lose this triumph—it can 
 never be! Thus said the patriots by the ditch and 
 
 * All these things, even to ourselves, read like a dream ; and so, 
 possibly, they may afterwards have done to Sir Francis Burdett. But 
 we are old enough to remember the great consternation which was 
 caused by the riots, and which, as usual, was greater in the country 
 than in the capital. We were living at the time at a considerable 
 but quiet town, on the western road, just 49 miles from Piccadilly 
 or from Hyde Park Corner. Direful was the intelligence which the 
 mail coachmen and guards and the stage coachmen were said to 
 have brought down on the Saturday night! Sir Francis Burdett 
 Was standing a regular siege in his mansion; the people and the 
 
 troops were fighting in Piccadilly ankle-deep in blood! On the 
 Sunday some coaches were delayed; and then not a few of the 
 
534 
 
 on the hill; and their incredulity lasted fill half- 
 past four o’clock in the afternoon, when three great 
 placards were suspended over the Tower-gates with 
 the following solemn inscription: “Sir Francis 
 Burdett left the Tower by water at half-past three.” 
 Yet still the congregated patriots were incredulous. 
 Surely he never would go by water and disappoint 
 his friends, unless he had been compelled so to do! 
 Some said there had been foul play in the Tower ; 
 some, that they had forced him into a boat and 
 were carrying him up to Westminster to be repri- 
 manded by the House of Commons before he got 
 his discharge. Mr. Sheriff Wood and Mr. Sheriff 
 Atkins at last came to the Tower-gate on horseback. 
 At first, these two dignitaries appeared as little able 
 as the rest to account for the non-appearance of the 
 baronet ; but they were allowed to enter the Tower, 
 and in about a quarter of an hour they returned 
 and informed Major Cartwright, and the other 
 reform gentlemen who had been appointed to con- 
 duct the main procession, that verily and truly Sir 
 Francis had gone by water, not by compulsion, but 
 willingly and in a boat accompanied by two friends. 
 With a considerable part of the mob this water 
 business had a very prejudicial effect upon the baro- 
 net’s popularity. John Gale Jones, whose confine- 
 ment also expired with the close of the session, 
 issued from Newgate at four o’clock, and drove in 
 a hackney-coach to Tower-hill to join the procession 
 and, as he thought, to divide with Sir Francis the 
 honours of the triumph. His name was chalked 
 upon the pannels of the coach, and as he went 
 along he stopped from time to time to harangue the 
 people and to complain to them of the hardship 
 of having been turned out of Newgate at two 
 minutes’ notice. 
 
 The supplies voted for the year amounted to 
 52,185,000/., of which the Irish proportion was 
 6,106,000/. The ways and means, which it was 
 calculated would leave a surplus of 141,2001., in- 
 cluded a loan of 8,000,000/., which was nego- 
 tiated on terms even more moderate than those of 
 the preceding year. No new taxes were proposed ; 
 and a very favourable report was made of the 
 commerce and general prosperity of the country. 
 At the same time Mr. Perceval drew a striking 
 picture of the state of commercial affairs in France, 
 and of the effects produced by our Orders in Coun- 
 cil. The Orders in Council had not done all the 
 mischief to the enemy; but Bonaparte’s war sys- 
 tem and the working out of his ‘ Continental 
 system”’ together had contributed to destroy nearly 
 all foreign trade in France and its dependencies. 
 
 Of the money voted, 1,380,000/. was appro- 
 priated to foreign subsidies (988,000/. for Portugal 
 and 400,000/. for Sicily) ; nearly 20,000,000/. was 
 devoted to naval services, and nearly 25,000,000/. 
 to the land forces and ordnance. ; 
 
 The opposition orators continued uttering their 
 doleful predictions. The battle of Wagram, all 
 the last Austrian campaign, and the matrimonial 
 alliance between the Emperor of the French and 
 the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, which was 
 
 nad 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 *. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 completed in the month of March of this year, 
 convinced them all that it was hopeless to think of 
 continuing the war—madness to dream of support- 
 ing any longer either Portugal or Spain, or of in- 
 terfering with the will of the conqueror in any part 
 of Europe. They saw countless and invincible 
 columns pouring into the Peninsula (now that Na- 
 poleon could have nothing else to do) to sweep the 
 weak English army into the sea; they mourned 
 over or sneered at the victory of Talavera, which, 
 they said, was either no victory at all or a very use- 
 less one, since it had been followed by a retreat ; 
 and most of them opposed the vote of thanks, and 
 the pension of 2000/. per annum, moyed by the 
 
 ‘government to Lord Wellington. 
 
 The subject of the slave trade was re-intro- 
 duced in the Commons by Mr. Brougham, and in 
 the Lords by Lord Holland, who severally moved 
 for addresses requesting the king to persevere in 
 his measures to induce other nations to co-operate 
 in the abolition of that trade, and to take such fur- 
 ther steps as might be necessary. Mr. Brougham 
 stated that persons in this country continued to 
 carry on the traffic in a clandestine and fraudulent 
 manner; and the address he proposed prayed that 
 orders for checking such practices might be given to 
 the commanders of his majesty’s ships and to the 
 officers of the customs. Both addresses were voted 
 without opposition; and a resolution moved by 
 Mr. Brougham for taking measures early in the 
 next session to prevent evasions of Wilberforce’s 
 Slave Trade act, was also unanimously agreed to. 
 
 Early in the session Mr. Bankes made a motion 
 for rendering perpetual the act for preventing the 
 grant of offices in reversion; but, though a bill for 
 this purpose passed the Commons, it was thrown out 
 by the Lords on the second reading. 
 
 A motion was made by Lord Melville, the dis- 
 graced friend of the navy, who was now fast ap- 
 proaching his last hour, which was calculated to do 
 an immense deal of good both to the land and sea 
 service, and to put a stop to the flagrant jobbing 
 carried on between private ship-owners and mer- 
 chants, who hired out transports to government, 
 and the transport-board, which had the manage- 
 ment of those concerns. Lord Melville recom- 
 mended that an adequate number of king’s ships 
 should without delay be prepared and held in readi- 
 ness for the accommodation of such troops as it 
 might be found expedient to embark for foreign 
 countries. He showed that a great saving of life 
 would arise out of a more airy and comfortable 
 accommodation given to the troops on board ship; 
 that by employing armed troop-ships, manned by 
 seamen of the royal navy, there would be less 
 danger in the navigation, less risk of the convoy 
 and troops getting scattered, more facility for land- 
 ing and re-embarking, more speed and more cer- 
 tainty in all operations; that it was an essential 
 advantage to have the crews of ships which con- 
 veyed troops subject to naval discipline, and under 
 honourable and experienced officers. Though they 
 had to undergo a sort of examination before the 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 transport board, the commanders of these hired 
 transports were nothing but skippers, and in gene- 
 ral not superior to the masters of colliers or other 
 coasting-vessels (we mean of that day, for it would 
 be injuring the improved skippers of our own day 
 to compare these masters of transports to them). 
 His lordship adduced the evidence of good military 
 officers to show the importance of amending the 
 system of conveying troops by sea, and the almost 
 total impracticability of landing an army in the 
 face of a respectable enemy in transport-boats.* 
 The plan he submitted to parliament was simply 
 this: to fit out, from the ordinary of the navy, a 
 number of armed troop-ships adequate to the ac- 
 commodation of 24,000 soldiers; to keep these 
 vessels, and a few two-decked ships and a certain 
 number of frigates and light-armed vessels, always 
 ready, so that at any given moment a single letter 
 from the admiralty and the war-office might 
 assemble the ships and troops at any rendezvous, 
 and thence send them on their errand with secrecy, 
 speed, and a diminished liability to accidents at 
 sea and accidents on landing. He calculated that 
 such an establishment would require 48,000 tons 
 of shipping, and that, through savings in other par- 
 ticulars, the expense would be less than that which 
 government now incurred in hiring transports, 
 which were not only badly manned and com- 
 manded, but not unfrequently slow sailers, crazy, 
 and scarcely seaworthy. But the ministry were 
 not disposed to listen to this excellent advice. 
 Lord Mulgrave (the first lord of the admiralty) 
 said that it would be far more expensive to convey 
 troops in ships of war than in hired transports. 
 The Earl of Liverpool, the war-secretary, without 
 expressing any opinion upon the project, shook his 
 head and said it was one of great difficulty—it 
 
 * One officer declared that the greatest loss of our troops in landing 
 in Egypt was occasioned by the confusion of the transport-boats, and 
 that, had not the centre and right been carried in men-of-war’s boats, 
 that landing would not have been accomplished in the gallant manner 
 it was. Another officer stated, that, in the re-embarkation of Sir John 
 Moore’s army at Corufia, the men-of-war boats made ten trips while 
 the transport-boats were making one. [We have seen in our account 
 of that embarkation how some of the skippers of the transports cut 
 their cables in their panic at a few cannon balls, and ran their ships 
 on shore, with the troops on board.] ‘The officers,” said Melville, 
 “who superintended that midnight embarkation, endured far more 
 anxiety than they had experienced in the hour of battle, owing to the 
 want of order and discipline among the transports, which was such as 
 to produce the utmost confusion and embarrassment, and to excite, 
 in the minds of those present, the greatest alarm for the fate of the 
 army. These distressing circumstances would not have occurred if, 
 instead of common transports, there had been regular troop-ships, 
 under naval discipline.” His lordship pointed out other advantages 
 to be derived from the keeping in constant readiness a number of 
 large troop-ships, instead of going into the merchants’ market to hire 
 and freight them. If, in the spring of last year, before preparations 
 were begun for the Scheldt expedition, there had existed in this coun- 
 try an establishment of armed troop-ships, adequate to the convey- 
 ance of 10,000 men, a very considerable portion, if not the whole, of 
 the enemy’s fleet in the Scheldt might have been captured or de- 
 stroyed; and, without much difficulty, the basin of Flushing might 
 have been destroyéd also. But his lordship was of opinion that, if 
 we had had such an establishment of floating barracks as that which 
 he was now recommending, neither the evacuation of Walcheren nor 
 the destruction of the basin of Flushing would have been necessary. 
 The prospect of our capturing or destroying the enemy’s ships, which 
 were sure to run up the Scheldt on the news of our approach, was 
 reduced to the single chance of a successful attack upon Antwerp. 
 “If,” said his lordship, “‘ there had been, in the spring of last year 
 such an establishment as I am now contending for, 8000 or 16,000 
 men might have been easily embarked, without ostentation, noise, or 
 parade, and might have proceeded in perfect secrecy to the point of 
 Back, when, a Roni nection yn aus blockading fleet on that 
 
 oast, a successful result wou confiden i 
 eeeoatcions ’ tly believe, have crowned 
 
 a il ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 a a AE I a a a a LT Ta a a a SSR IES 
 
 -lican system. 
 
 535 
 
 required very serious consideration—it could not 
 be decided upon now. And so the previous ques- 
 tion was agreed to without a division. The old 
 transport-service continued to disgrace us, to endan- 
 ger and oft-times sacrifice the lives of our troops, till 
 the end of the war; nor can it be said that the 
 evil is yet altogether reformed, though it must 
 be admitted that the transports hired in recent 
 times, whether sailing vessels or steamers, were 
 in general more conscientiously appointed and 
 managed than most of those employed before 
 1814. 
 
 One measure of essential benefit to the service 
 was brought forward by Mr. George Rose, who 
 continued in office as vice-president of the board of 
 trade and treasurer of the navy. He obtained 
 leave to bring in a bill for the increase of seamen, 
 by establishing naval seminaries on the coasts, 
 where young boys might be properly educated for 
 four or five years. They were to be supplied from 
 those who were parish paupers, of whom the 
 number was counted at 90,000; they would not 
 cost government more than 5/. each, and this 
 supply would keep up asuccession of seamen to 
 the amount of 7000 every year. This would go 
 to diminish the hardship of forcible impressment ; 
 and the extension of such a system might altoge- 
 ther do away with that cruel and anomalous 
 practice. 
 
 A scheme for parliamentary reform, brought 
 forward by Mr. Brand, was rejected by 234 
 against 115. The debate was :chiefly remarkable 
 on account of the strong opinions pronounced 
 against radical reform by the moderate reform 
 party, and on account of some very enthusiastic 
 declarations in favour of the transatlantic repub- 
 Mr. Sturges Bourne said that such 
 a plan as Mr. Brand’s would never satisfy the so- 
 called radicals, who wanted frequent elections and 
 universal suffrage; and he asked whether the 
 working of these things in the United States was 
 calculated to recommend them to our imitation ? 
 Whitbread rejoined, that the grand political cre- 
 ation which had taken place in America, so far 
 from failing in its object, had far exceeded the 
 extent of human hope; that it was the work of 
 one of the greatest and best of men—of George 
 Washington—of that patriot who had communi- 
 cated to the government which he had reared a 
 portion of the purity of his own spotless mind and 
 unsullied life; that the United States had grown 
 at once from the weakness of infancy to the 
 strength of manhood, and had engaged in all the 
 pursuits which lead to greatness and happiness. 
 In this enthusiasm there was falsehood as well as 
 prejudice, or, if not intentional falsehood, then an 
 ignorance of facts: the system of government 
 which obtained in the United States could not be 
 called the government which Washington had 
 reared, for Washington had opposed, as much as 
 he could, the fundamental dogma of universal suf- 
 frage: he had clung, to the last hour of his life, to 
 a more aristocratic form of government; and he 
 
536 
 
 had left upon record, in public as well as private 
 papers, predictions or forebodings of the anarchy 
 and other evils which would result from the too 
 great extension of a direct democratic influence 
 and the use of universal suffrage — predictions 
 which every year had tended to realize. The 
 motions of Mr. Parnell on the subject of Irish 
 tithes, and of Mr. Grattan and Lord Donoughmore 
 on Catholic emancipation, and the important ex- 
 ertions made by Sir Samuel Romilly for the 
 reform of our too sanguinary criminal laws, will be 
 noticed in other chapters. The session of parlia- 
 ment terminated on the 21st of June. The royal 
 speech, which was again delivered by commission, 
 affirmed that Portugal was exerting herself with 
 vigour and energy, and that in Spain, notwith- 
 standing the reverses which had been experienced, 
 the spirit of resistance against France continued 
 unsubdued and unabated. 
 
 At the beginning of the year the aspect of affairs 
 in the Peninsula was far from bright. The battle 
 of Ocafa had left Spain without any considerable 
 organised army in the field; and, although the 
 supreme junta issued an address to the Spanish 
 nation calculated to re-animate patriotism and 
 check despondency, the forced loan which the 
 junta required of half the specie possessed by indi- 
 viduals, with other sacrifices and exertions, was a 
 measure which their influence and reputation were 
 not adequate to carry into effect. The sacrifice 
 demanded from private individuals was indeed too 
 great, and the Spanish people had too little confi- 
 dence in the virtue of their public men. Several of 
 the members of the supreme junta were suspected 
 not only of peculation but of downright treachery 
 —of seizing the money of the people with one 
 hand, and of selling the people and the country to 
 Joseph Bonaparte with the other. In the course 
 of the preceding year, besides the defeats which 
 we have enumerated, the Spaniards had sustained 
 several overthrows. General Reding had been de- 
 feated and killed in the battle of Valls, and Blake, 
 who had succeeded to the command-im-chief of 
 Catalonia, Valencia, and Arragon, having rashly 
 marched to meet Suchet in the open field, had been 
 defeated in two sanguinary affairs near Zaragoza 
 and Belchite, and had lost all his artillery, most 
 of his colours, and the greater part of his men. 
 But the way in which the Spaniards had defended 
 the old walls of Gerona gave better hopes; for, 
 though that place had surrendered on the 10th of 
 December, it had only yielded to famine after a 
 six months’ siege: though rent with three wide 
 breaches, it had constantly repulsed its assailants, 
 and had caused them a terrible loss; nor did 
 those staunch Spaniards think they were starving 
 until they had eaten up all their horses and mules. 
 
 Towards the close of 1809 Marshal Soult had 
 been appointed chief of the staff and principal mili- 
 tary adviser to King Joseph in the place of Jourdan, 
 who was recalled to Paris. It was the fate of all 
 these marshals to be dissatisfied with the service, 
 and to cause great disappointment and dissatisfac- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 5 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 vad : : 
 tion to their emperor, in whose bosom, however, 
 
 these unpleasant feelings continued to be mitigated 
 by the opportunity afforded him of saying, “ I 
 cannot be everywhere,” and of showing to the 
 French people how much their glory and success 
 depended upon him personally. Soult, however, 
 commenced operations with vigour and with a 
 unity of plan. Taking with him King Joseph, 
 who could scarcely have been safe without him, the 
 ablest of the French marshals marched upon the 
 Sierra Morena with the determination of crossing 
 those mountains and subduing Andalusia, together 
 with all that country of the south which had not 
 yet been touched by the French arms. The folly 
 of Areizagas, and the dolorous rout of Ocamia, had 
 left no army to defend the passes; without the 
 least obstruction Soult poured his columns through 
 the ravines of the Sierra, and on the 21st of Janu- 
 ary established his head-quarters at Baylen, the 
 scene of Dupont’s surrender. Soult’s object was 
 to reach the sea-coast with a division of his army 
 and seize the strong city of Cadiz before it could 
 be put in a state of defence, and before the Duque 
 d’ Albuquerque should be able to reach it with the 
 fragments of a Spanish army he was collecting. 
 Moving, therefore, rapidly from Baylen, Soult 
 with one corps advanced upon Seville, sending two 
 other corps in the direction of Malaga and Gra- 
 nada. The supreme junta had announced their 
 intention of retiring from Seville to Cadiz on the 
 first rumour that the French were appreaching the 
 Sierra Morena; and, before Soult had reached 
 Baylen, their authority and political existence was 
 no more. The citizens of Seville, thinking they 
 were abandoned and _ betrayed, rose in tumult and 
 deposed the supreme junta. The members of the 
 junta had then fled to Cadiz, in the hope that there 
 people would still recognise their authority and 
 submit the fate of the country to their guidance; 
 but the citizens of Cadiz rose in an insurrection 
 more fierce than that of the citizens of Seville, and, 
 finding that their very lives were threatened, the 
 members of the junta formally resigned. But 
 before this public act they named a temporary 
 regency, to which they transferred their authority, 
 stipulating that it should be retained only till the 
 Cortes, or representation of the whole nation, could 
 be assembled. 
 
 As usual with them, the fugitive Spanish gene- 
 rals and the wandering junta seem to have taken 
 no thought of what they were leaving behind them, 
 provided only it was not coined money. As the 
 French advanced from town to town, they found 
 and collected large quantities of ordnance and 
 military stores, which had come principally from 
 England, and which any people but the Spaniards 
 would have removed. ‘The citizens of Seville had 
 talked highly about defending their fine old town; 
 but the city was too vast to be converted into a 
 fortress, no preparations had been made, the 
 assistance of British troops had been refused by 
 the late junta, and so Soult entered Seville not 
 only without opposition but in a kind of triumph, 
 
Cuap. VIIT.} 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—15810. 
 
 537 
 
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 SEVILLE. 
 
 For some time the head-quarters and the court of 
 King Joseph were established in Seville.* But 
 Marshal Victor was hurried on to Cadiz to make 
 sure of that most important city. In rapid march- 
 ing even the French troops were not equal to the 
 Spaniards. The Duque d’Albuquerque, though 
 he had a long way to come, and though he was 
 embarrassed by some absurd orders which the 
 supreme junta at Seville had issued before it 
 ceased to exist, got with 8000 or 10,000 men to 
 the Isla or Isle of Leon and the city of Cadiz 
 before Victor, and when that marshal drew near 
 he found the approaches guarded and the fortifica- 
 tions manned. Albuquerque had marched 260 
 English miles in an astonishing short space of 
 time. If he had arrived four-and-twenty hours 
 later than he did, Cadiz must have been lost; andif 
 the duque had followed the absurd or treacherous 
 instructions of the Seville junta, instead of coming 
 to the Isla de Leon, he would have gone towards 
 Cordova to have sustained a certain defeat, with- 
 out the possibility of being of any use. But the 
 danger at Cadiz was not yet over; and Albu- 
 querque himself confessed that, if Victor had 
 ventured to make a spirited attack on his first 
 arrival, he must have succeeded, and that nothing 
 
 * Tt was from Seville that a proclamation, signed some days before 
 by Joseph Bonaparte, was issued to the Spanish people. It affected 
 to consider that the contest had never been dubious and was now de- 
 cided. It called upon the Spaniards to submit to their inevitable 
 destiny ; and it repeated the menace which Napoleon had used, by 
 reminding them that it was the interest of France to preserve the 
 integrity and independence of Spain; but that, if Spain would still 
 remain an enemy, France must seek to weaken, dismember, and 
 destroy her. 
 
 a ee 
 a 
 
 but British assistance could enable the Spaniards 
 to.hold out. Before this close approach of danger 
 offers of English aid and advice, which had been 
 tendered by Lord Wellington in the preceding 
 autumn, and which had been repeated since, had 
 been proudly if not insolently rejected at Cadiz as 
 well as at Seville; but now pride and jealousy 
 gave way to fear, and the Cadiz junta not only 
 consented to receive British troops, but implored. 
 that they might be sent with all speed: nay, more 
 than this, they even consented to receive a Portu- 
 guese regiment for the service at Cadiz, which the 
 Portuguese regency had offered to send at the in- 
 stigation of Lord Wellington.* By the 5th of 
 February, only two days after Albuqverque’s ar- 
 rival at Cadiz, Major-General the Honourable W. 
 Stewart was instructed by orders from Torres 
 Vedras to embark in the ‘lagus with two compa- 
 nies of artillery lately arrived from England, with 
 the 79th and 94th regiments, and the 2nd battalion 
 of the 87th, to proceed instantly to Cadiz, and 
 there to land and co-operate in the defence of the 
 place by every means in his power. And within four 
 days more (though every man seemed required for 
 the defence of Portugal) Wellington embarked the 
 20th Portuguese regiment for the same destination. 
 The arrival of these British and Portuguese troops 
 
 * Our commander-in-chief in Portugal had clearly foreseen all that 
 would happen in Spain; that the Sierra Morena passes would not be 
 defended ; that the French would soon be in possession of Seville, 
 and of the arsenals, magazines, and manufactures of arms which had 
 been established there ; that no Spanish army could give the enemy 
 any opposition ; and that, for the preservation of Cadiz, a prompt 
 
 and strenuous effort must be made by us.—Colonel Gurwood, 
 Wellington Dispatches. 
 
538 
 
 now gave the greatest satisfaction to the junta and 
 people of Cadiz. Other British forces, together 
 with a fragment of the Spanish army which had 
 escaped from the field of Ocafa, were brought 
 down from Gibraltar, and other small corps were 
 brought in from various places; so that it was 
 calculated that there were 18,000 Spanish troops 
 for the defence of Cadiz and the Isla de Leon, 
 besides the volunteers of the town and the British 
 and Portuguese troops. The number of British 
 alone soon amounted to 6000 men; and Lieute- 
 nant-General Graham, one of the bravest and best 
 of our officers, was sent out from England to take 
 the command of them. The new junta—more 
 docile than junta had ever been before—also 
 consented to give the direction of the Spanish fleet 
 to Admiral Purvis, who brought in his own 
 squadron to co-operate in the defence. The Spa- 
 nish ships of the line were twenty in number: 
 some of them were not rigged, many of them were 
 almost falling to pieces for want of repair; but a 
 little patching made them available for floating 
 but fixed batteries, and for other useful purposes ; 
 and the British admiral moored them all across 
 the harbour. Both Soult and Joseph came down 
 to the coast; and, by the 15th of February, the 
 French army, which occupied the neighbouring 
 country from Rota to Chiclana, was estimated at 
 25,000 men. The siege or blockade of Cadiz lasted 
 more than thirty months, or from the 5th of Fe- 
 bruary, 1810, to the 12th of August, 1812, when 
 it was finally raised in consequence of the succes- 
 sive advantages gained by Wellington. In strict- 
 ness of language it could neither be called a siege 
 nor a blockade; for, though they cast peculiar 
 guns and mortars for the purpose, the French were 
 kept at such a distance that they could scarcely 
 throw a shell or shot into the place; and, as for 
 a blockade, they could not so much as cut off all 
 its communications by land, while the communi- 
 cations by sea were kept constantly open by the 
 English fleet, so that all needful supplies of pro- 
 visions, reinforcements, &c. were carried in from 
 England, from the coast of Barbary, from Gibral- 
 tar, and from other places on the Spanish coast. 
 It was rather an observation than a siege or a 
 blockade ; but it gave constant occupation to French 
 forces varying from 25,000 to 15,000 men, and it 
 led to no inconsiderable loss, in detail; for the 
 guerillas, who were fast increasing in numbers and 
 in boldness, paid the French lines many visits, and 
 frequently cut off and cut to pieces their detach- 
 ments and convoys. 
 
 The two other corps d’armée which Soult had 
 sent to the south-eastern coast encountered but few 
 obstacles. Nearly the whole of Andalusia was over- 
 run. Sebastiani entered Granada without resistance, 
 and carried the old Moorish town of Alaha by storm. 
 Between that place and Malaga he had to encoun- 
 ter bands of armed peasants, headed by priests and 
 monks, but he cut his way through them ; and the 
 populous and pleasant town of Malaga threw open 
 its gates. The place pleased the French so much 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 that there they seemed determined to stop; but, as 
 the insurrection spread to the mountains on the 
 borders of Murcia, and as Blake was again col- 
 lecting an army in that quarter, Sebastiani, in the 
 month of April, entered that province, and, after a 
 number of petty actions, obliged the Spaniards to 
 retreat down to the eastern coast and take shelter 
 within the walls of Alicant. But in all the moun- | 
 tains which traverse or hem in the great country of 
 Andalusia the entire population was in arms, 
 causing constant trouble and frequent loss. To 
 subdue this insurrection, and to keep open the 
 communication between the corps of Victor at 
 Cadiz and that of Sebastiani at Malaga, a body of 
 6000 French had been left at Ronda, a romantic 
 old hill town, situated among cork woods, and in 
 the midst of the lofty mountains called the Sierra 
 de Ronda. To surprise these French a detachment 
 of Spanish troops, commanded by General Lacey, 
 moved rapidly from Algeciras, in the Bay of Gib- 
 raltar, into the interior of the country, and, by 
 taking bye roads across mountains and forests, they 
 came so suddenly upon the French at Ronda that 
 they gained a victory without the trouble of fighting 
 for it. The French fled panie-stricken and in the 
 greatest disorder, leaving nearly all their arms and 
 ammunition, which were distributed among the 
 mountaineers. The arrival of fresh forces from 
 Seville, from Cadiz, and from Malaga (from which 
 three places Ronda is about equidistant), com- 
 pelled these hardy insurgents to withdraw to their 
 fastnesses ; but this was only for a season. 
 
 In Catalonia, O’Donnell, the best of the Spanish 
 generals, kept up a more regular system of warfare 
 against the French, being assisted by the nature of 
 the ground, which was interspersed with numerous 
 strong positions, and dotted by a good many for- 
 tresses, and also by the English squadron along the 
 coast, and by the organisation and daring spirit of 
 the Catalonian militia, known by the name of 
 Somatenes and Miguelets. In several of their 
 enterprises, O’Donnell completely foiled Marshals 
 Suchet, Augereau, and Macdonald; and, though 
 often forced to retreat from the more open part of 
 the country, his Catalans kept their ground in the 
 mountains, and continued to inflict terrible losses 
 on the invaders. 
 
 But all eyes were now fixed upon Portugal, and 
 upon the British army there, for it was known that 
 the great effort of the campaign on the part of the 
 French would be made in that direction. The 
 peace with Austria had enabled Bonaparte to send 
 large reinforcements from Germany into Spain. 
 During the winter Junot and Drouet had crossed 
 the Pyrenees with two fresh corps; they were fol- 
 lowed by a part of the imperial guards, and it was . 
 rumoured that the emperor himself was coming. 
 By the beginning of the month of Aprii, Ney, 
 Kellermann, and Loison, with about 60,000 men, 
 were in Old Castile and Leon, threatening the 
 Portuguese frontier in that direction; and, as a 
 prelude, they had besieged and taken Astorga, and 
 had made their preparations for the siege of Ciudad 
 
Cuap. VIII. IO i nll laa ea Sea 
 
 Rodrigo. At the same time General Regnier was 
 on the borders of Spanish Estremadura with about 
 12,000 men, menacing the frontier of Portugal on 
 that side. Bonaparte, in the honeymoon of his 
 marriage with the imperial Austrian, did not come, 
 
 but he sent Marshal Massena, Prince of Essling, 
 to take the command of the army in Old Castile 
 and Leon, which now assumed the name of “ the 
 Army of Portugal.” Massena had obtained the 
 name of the darling child of Victory ; Massena, 
 from his earliest essays as a commander in the 
 Maritime Alps and the Apennines, had been accus- 
 tomed to mountain warfare ; Massena, though with 
 an evident injustice to Soult, was considered the 
 greatest general and strategist next to Bonaparte 
 himself ; 80, assuredly, with superior forces, Mas- 
 sena could not fail in executing his emperor’s com- 
 mission, which was simply this—to drive the Eng- 
 lish leopards and the sepoy general into the sea. 
 
 Massena himself had no doubt as to his success, 
 
 for on quitting Paris he had said that he only re- 
 quired three months to replace the eagles of the 
 emperor-on the walls of Lisbon. He arrived at 
 Valladolid about the middle of May, and assumed 
 the command not only over the corps of Ney, Kel- 
 lermann, and Loison, but also over those of Junot 
 and Drouet. Without counting large detachments 
 and garrisons left in the provinces of Valladolid, 
 
 Santander, and Leon, Massena had thus 90, 000 
 men under arms for the field; but the corps of 
 Drouet, about 18,000 strong , did not take part in 
 the campaign in Portugal until it was somewhat 
 advanced ; and Regnier was left in Estremadura 
 for some time longer with his 10,000 or 12,000 
 men. It was therefore with a force of from 60,000 
 to 62,000 men that Massena first put himself in 
 motion to meet Lord Wellington. His lordship, 
 
 who had been but stintingly reinforced during the 
 winter, and who had been obliged to send troops to 
 Cadiz, had about 24,000 British troops, and from 
 28,000 to 30,000 Portuguese regulars. ‘There was, 
 
 moreover, a considerable Portuguese militia, em- 
 ployed mostly in the garrisons and in the provinces 
 beyond the Douro, in Alemtejo and Algarve—in 
 short, on the wings of his lordship’s regular army. 
 
 But, while Massena could concentrate his whole 
 force for the attack on Portugal north of the Tagus, 
 
 Wellington was obliged to leave part of his force in 
 the provinces south of that river to guard against 
 any sudden movement of Soult’s army of Anda- 
 lusia, which, being more than 60,000 strong, might 
 very possibly be induced to send a strong detach- 
 ment into Alemtejo, where General Hill with 12,000 
 men was already cbserved by Regnier, with a force 
 nearly if not quite equal to his own. Scarcely one- 
 half of Hill’s troops were British. Massena’s army 
 was mostly composed of old soldiers flushed with 
 recent success and in a high state of training. 
 
 Lord Wellington could only confidently rely upon 
 the British part of his forces, for the Portuguese 
 regulars were as yet untried, and the militia was 
 not at all to be trusted in the open field. Great 
 pains had, however, been taken by Marshal Beres- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 Gees ae 
 
 539 
 
 ford with the Portuguese A ,. <..c ime General Regnier was | ford with the Portuguese regulars; many of the | ; many of the 
 officers of those troops were English, and Lord 
 Wellington had brigaded several of the regiments 
 with British regiments, judging rightly that, being 
 mixed with English corps, they would feel a greater 
 confidence in their first trial, and a nobler emula- 
 tion afterwards. These Portuguese regulars glo- 
 riously justified the confidence placed in them. 
 Early in June, Massena commenced operations in 
 earnest by investing Ciudad Rodrigo, which was 
 defended by a Spanish garrison, but which was 
 almost within sight of the British advanced divi- 
 sion posted on the Azava. The Spaniards de- 
 fended themselves bravely till the 10th of July, 
 when, a practicable breach being made, the French 
 entered the place by capitulation. Bonaparte’s 
 Moniteur taunted Wellington for having per- 
 mitted the siege to proceed, in sight of his outposts, 
 without making an attempt to relieve the place ; 
 and the reproach was repeated, not only by many 
 Spaniards, but also by some of Wellington’s own 
 officers. But his lordship knew his business better 
 than to play into the hands of the French by any 
 rash or false movement. He could not risk his 
 small army for the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo ; his 
 object and his paramount duty was to defend Por- 
 tugal, and above all Lisbon. This he had pledged 
 himself to do, and he knew he could doit. He 
 had not promised the Spanish governor that he 
 would attempt to relieve him by risking the safety 
 of Portugal. He had offered, indeed, to unite the 
 whole British army for the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo, 
 by making General Hill’s corps cross the Tagus, if | 
 the Marques dela Romana, who had collected some 
 forces in Estremadura, would undertake to maintain 
 himself there against Regnier; but the marques, in 
 several interviews which he had with his lordship 
 during the siege, declared point blank that he could 
 not maintain himself in Estremadura, or in any 
 way cover that frontier of Portugal, if General Hill 
 should cross the Tagus.* He departed not a hair’s 
 breadth from his plan : he calmly retained his posi- 
 tion on the left bank of the Coa, having his light 
 division advanced a little beyond that river. As 
 the corps of Marshal Ney came thundering on after 
 the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, it came in contact with 
 our light division, which was commanded by Ge- 
 
 * Dispatch to Lord Liverpool, in Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dis- 
 patches.—The French, who were greatly enraged at being detained 
 more than a month before Ciudad Rodrigo, a place hardly to be ranked 
 in the third order of fortresses—a place commanded from many points, 
 and destitute of any bomb- proofs—with their ordinary delicacy accused 
 Lord Wellington, in their Moniteur, of lying and deception, and of 
 having deceived Herraste, the Spanish general, with hopes of relief. 
 His lordship’s calm and dignified reply is contained in the above 
 dispatch to Lord Liverpool. Bonaparte’s generals, moreover, had 
 adopted the principle that every town that had no hope of relief from 
 without was bound to surrender immediately, and not to impede the 
 march of a great army. ‘It is a very convenient doctrine for the 
 French,” says his lordship, ‘‘ that a fortified place which is attacked 
 by them, and has no hope of relief from an army in the field, ought to 
 surrender without making any defence; but the contrary doctrine is 
 the only one by which they can be effectually opposed. The inha- 
 bitants of every town in a state of siege must suffer considetably, but 
 their remaining in it during the period of siege is a matter of choice, 
 and in the case of Ciudad Rodrigo, in particular, was not a matter of 
 necessity; and it would be quite a new principle in war, and a most 
 advantageous one for the French, that every town threatened with a 
 siege, of which the inhabitants might feel the inconvenience, and for 
 
 which there could be no hope of relief by an army in the field, ought 
 to surrender without making any defence.” 
 
540 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SS REG ALTE AA et ta EA a tt Et 
 
 CiupaD Roprico, 
 
 neral Craufurd, a very brave and an able man, but 
 somewhat hot-headed and self-willed. Instead of 
 falling in quietly and easily, as he had been ordered 
 to do, Craufurd, eager for fame, halted repeatedly, 
 and disputed the ground against a much superior 
 force: he finished by effecting his retreat in a 
 masterly manner by a bridge across the Coa, by 
 repulsing the French in their attempt to follow him, 
 and by costing Ney 1000 men in killed and wounded. 
 But Craufurd himself suffered considerable loss, 
 and Wellington could ill bear any useless reduction 
 of his small British force. This fighting, however, 
 gave Massena a specimen of the resistance he was 
 likely to encounter in his march to Lisbon, and it 
 delayed for a day or two some of the enemy’s 
 operations.* 
 
 Massena, upon crossing the frontiers of Portugal 
 after the reduction of Ciudad Rodrigo, issued a 
 fiaming proclamation to the Portuguese, abusing 
 the English as the cause of all mischief and discord, 
 and attributing the presence of Wellington’s army 
 in Portugal to “ the insatiable ambition of Eng- 
 
 ] -?? sf 66 : “ 
 land ;”’ as if “ the presence of French armies in 
 
 * The enemy afterwards made three efforts to storm the bridve over 
 the Coa, in all of which they were repulsed by Craufurd and his light 
 division.—Vellington Dispatches. 
 
 ‘* There can be no doubt that in this skirmish the British troops 
 fully supported their character for gallantry and coolness; but it was 
 to be regretted that the action had taken place atall. It was not our 
 wisdom to waste our strength in partial encounters, particularly when 
 these must be followed by aretrograde movement. . ... Yet was 
 Craufurd an officer of singular ability and bravery, and ccrtainly one 
 of the best of thearmy, as all his proceedings showed. But I doubtif 
 he was strictly within his orders ; and certainly considerable dissatis- 
 
 faction was felt at head-quarters when the report of the affair came 
 in.”—Marquess of Londonderry, Memoir of the Peninsular War. 
 
 Spain and Portugal bore evidence of the total want 
 of ambition on the part of France.”* The pro- 
 clamation ended by recommending the Portuguese 
 people to remain perfectly quiet, and receive the 
 French soldiers as friends, in which case they 
 should find protection for their persons and pro- 
 perty. But the conduct of Massena’s army had 
 already been vindictive, unprincipled, monstrous. 
 Lord Wellington issued a counter-proclamation, in 
 which he said, “* The time which has elapsed 
 during which the enemy have remained upon the 
 frontiers of Portugal has fortunately afforded the 
 Portuguese nation experience of what they are to 
 expect from the French. The people had remained 
 in some villages, trusting to the enemy’s promises, 
 and vainly believing that, by treating the enemies 
 of their country in’a friendly manner, they should 
 conciliate their forbearance ; that their properties 
 would be respected, that their women would be 
 saved from violation, and that their lives would be 
 spared. Vain hopes! The people of these devoted 
 villages have suffered every evil which a cruel 
 enemy could inflict. Their property has been 
 plundered, their houses and furniture have been 
 burnt, their women have been ravished, and the 
 unfortunate inhabitants, whose age or sex did net 
 tempt the brutal violence of the soldiers, have fallen 
 the victims of the imprudent confidence they re- 
 posed in promises which were only made to be 
 violated. The Portuguese now see that they have 
 no remedy for the evil with which they are threat- 
 * A, Vieusscux, Military Life of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 Recpmnlclany ton paver ceo aan pete ena men er re en fa a 
 
Cuar, VIII.) 
 
 se EEEEEEEEEEEEDEE 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 541 
 
 : | 
 ened but determined resistance. Resistance, and | Tagus to take post at Atalaya, from whence he 
 
 the determination to render the enemy’s advance 
 into their country as difficult as possible, by re- 
 moving out of his way everything that 1s valuable, 
 or that can contribute to his existence, or frustrate 
 his progress, are the only and certain remedies for 
 the evils with which they are threatened. The 
 army under my command will protect as large a 
 proportion of the country as will be in their power ; 
 but it is obvious that the people can save themselves 
 only by resistance to the enemy, and their pro- 
 perties only by removing them. ‘The duty, how- 
 ever, which I owe to his royal highness the Prince 
 Regent, and to the Portuguese nation, will oblige 
 me to use the power and authority in my hands 
 to force the weak and the indolent to make an 
 exertion to save themselves from the danger which 
 awaits them, and to save their country; and I 
 hereby declare that all the magistrates or persons 
 in authority who remain in the towns or villages 
 after receiving orders from any of the military 
 officers to retire from them, and all persons of 
 whatever description who hold any communication 
 with the enemy, and aid and assist them in any 
 manner, will be considered traitors to the state, 
 and shall be tried and punished accordingly.” * 
 Marshal Massena found he could not move 
 quite so rapidly as he had calculated on doing. 
 He had given himself only three months to 
 achieve the conquest of Portugal and drive Lord 
 Wellington into the sea; but he passed nearly 
 one whole month in inactivity on the line of 
 the Coa. In the interval General Regnier quitted 
 Spanish Estremadura, crossed the agus with 
 his whole corps, and established himself at Coria 
 and Plasencia; and General Hill, making a 
 corresponding movement, had also crossed the 
 
 _ * Proclamation to the people of Portugal, dated 4th August, 1810, 
 in Gurwood’s Wellington Dispatches : new edition, 1838, 
 
 could either be joined to Lord Wellington’s 
 army or could be thrown again in front of Gene- 
 ral Regnier.* At last, on the 15th of August, 
 the French broke ground before Almeida. This 
 ancient but strongly fortified city, situated in the 
 province of Beira, between the rivers Coa and 
 Turones, at the distance of less than 30 miles 
 from Ciudad Rodrigo, was defended by a good 
 Portuguese garrison, commanded by an English 
 officer, Colonel Cox, who was prepared for a de- 
 termined resistance. Lord Wellington brought 
 his army nearer, so as to be able to strike a blow 
 if the enemy should afford an opportunity, and at all 
 events to oblige Massena to keep his corps in a 
 more collected state during the siege, which would 
 render his operations the more difficult on account 
 of the want of subsistence. The French opened 
 their fire on the 26th of August, and on the night 
 of the 27th, in consequence of the accidental ex- 
 plosion of a magazine which contained nearly all 
 the ammunition, and by which a large part of the 
 town and defences were destroyed, the governor 
 was obliged to capitulate. Some treachery was 
 suspected ; but it appears more probable that the 
 awful explosion arose from one of those accidents 
 which no one can foresee, and to which all military 
 actions are more or less lable. ‘There was, how- 
 ever, a good deal of treachery afterwards; the 
 Portuguese major commanding the artillery, who 
 was the person employed by Cox to settle the capi- 
 tulation, went out and informed the French of the 
 exact state in which the explosion had left Al- 
 
 * Dispatches. ‘‘ General Hill had for some time been altering his 
 quarters, in conformity to the changeabie habits of the enemy. 
 Wherever General Regnier appeared, the British general was in his 
 front. ‘This became a measure, with reference to the invasion of the 
 country, of positive importance ; although it was ultimately proved 
 that no idea of entering the Portuguese territory on more than one 
 line was ever contemplatgd by the French generals.’—Colonel Leith 
 Hay, Narrative of the Peninsular Var. 
 
 0 
 ras 
 
 ys ws 
 a: 
 
 ALMEIDA, 
 
542 
 
 meida, and never returned! Massena made the 
 traitor a colonel! Moreover, the whole of the 24th 
 Portuguese regiment, with the exception of its major 
 and of its English officers, went at once into the 
 French service!* Lord Wellington was greatly 
 disappointed, for he reckoned on the place detain- 
 ing Massena till the rainy season set in. Heseemed, 
 however, provided for everything; and, strange to 
 say, his famed opponent let nearly three weeks 
 elapse after the reduction of Almeida before he 
 seriously moved forward. This strange delay nearly 
 brought on the rainy season, which the English ge- 
 neral wanted, as the swelling rivers and streams, 
 and the increasing badness of the roads, must 
 greatly retard the march of the French columns.t 
 Lord Wellington fell back with the main body 
 of his army to the valley of the Mondego, and fixed 
 his head-quarters at Gouvea. No French corps 
 advanced to supply the place of Regnier in Estre- 
 madura, so that the English, having all their ene- 
 mies concentrating in their front, or along the 
 frontier between the Douro and the Tagus, had 
 nothing to fear from any other quarter. On the 
 15th of September the great French army began 
 its march down the valley of the Mondego, by the 
 right bank of the river, in the direction of Coim- 
 bra, through Viseu. Here the vaunted Massena 
 seems to have committed another mistake. ‘‘ There 
 are certainly,’ said Wellington, “ many bad 
 roads in Portugal, but the enemy has taken de- 
 cidedly the worst in the whole kingdom.” His 
 lordship, who had retired by the left bank of the 
 Mondego, and by a better road, now crossed the 
 river, and took up a strong position in front of 
 Coimbra. He had already called up from Atalaya 
 and the south the corps of Hill and Leith, and 
 those generals were marching rapidly to the Mon- 
 dego and to the position appointed for them on 
 “‘orim Busaco’s iron ridge.”? Some troops were 
 left on the left bank of the river to secure the 
 high road to Lisbon on that side; but, with this 
 exception, Lord Wellington’s whole army, as well 
 Portuguese as English, were collected, by the 24th, 
 upon the Sierra de Busaco, a lofty mountain-ridge 
 extending from the Mondego to the northward. 
 Altogether the ridge extended nearly eight miles, 
 forming the segment of a circle, whose extreme 
 points embraced the enemy’s position. The faces 
 
 * ‘Tt is said,” says Wellington, “that their object is to have an 
 opportunity of deserting from it, which is well enough for the private 
 soldiers, but is highly disgraceful to the character of the officers.’’— 
 Dispatches. 
 
 + It would appear that, while Wellington was prepared for every- 
 thing, Massena was prepared for nothing. The French had under- 
 taken the last siege necessary to be undertaken before advancing upon 
 Lisbon, and treachery or a most fortunate accident had thrown Al- 
 meida into the power of Massena a month before he had any right to 
 expect that advantage. ‘ But,” says a military writer, ‘what is the 
 utility of fortunate accident, in a military point of view, unless imme- 
 diate advantage can be taken? It has always appeared to me the 
 most brilliant feature in this campaign of Lord Wellington, and one 
 presenting a remarkable contrast in the maturity of arrangement of 
 two distinguished men :—a very formidable army threatened the 
 country which the British general was destined to defend : it reduced 
 one fortress and laid siege to another, where, contrary to all human 
 calculation, accident occasioned the fall. The consequence was, that 
 Lord Wellington being prepared for all contingencies, the premature 
 reduction of Almeida did not essentially annoy him, while his 
 antagonist was unprepared promptly to follow up the advantage 
 naturally arising from the circumstance.”— Colonel Leith Hay. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 of the mountain towards the French were very steep, 
 and, in some places, quite precipitous. The sierra 
 
 was traversed by three roads leading to Coimbra; 
 
 but good care was taken to defend these and several 
 
 gorges and defiles, which, though not regular 
 
 roads, at times afforded passage to shepherds and 
 
 their flocks, and smugglers with their mules. ‘To 
 
 convey some idea of the great extent of the posi-— 
 tion at Busaco, it has been stated that after 50,000 
 men had been placed upon it, a space of nearly 
 two miles intervened from the left of General 
 Leith’s corps to the right of the third division, 
 which stood next in line. At the loftiest summit of 
 the ragged mountain, about two miles from its 
 northern extremity, there was a lonely convent of 
 Carmelites, and there Lord Wellington fixed his 
 head-quarters. The 26th of September was a 
 beautiful day, with bright sunshine. From the 
 heights of Busaco, which command a very ex- 
 tensive prospect over the low country to the east- 
 ward, all the movements of Massena’s army of 
 Portugal were distinctly visible, at first by the aid 
 of glasses, and then to the naked eye: it was im- 
 possible to conceal them from the observation of 
 our troops stationed all along the sierra; nor did 
 the enemy seem to aim at any concealment. One 
 of the animated spectators on the height says— 
 ** Rising grounds were covered with troops, can- 
 non, or equipages: the widely extended country 
 seemed to contain a host moving forward, or gra- 
 dually condensing into numerous masses, checked 
 in their progress by the grand natural barrier on 
 which we were placed, at the base of which it 
 became necessary to pause. In imposing appear- 
 ances as to numerical strength, I have never seen 
 anything comparable to that of the enemy’s army 
 from Busaco: it was not alone an army encamped 
 before us, but a multitude—cavalry, infantry, artil- 
 lery, cars of the country, horses, tribes of mules 
 with their attendants, suttlers, followers of every 
 description, formed the moving scene upon which 
 Lord Wellington and his army looked down.”* 
 The evening of the 26th closed upon the allies 
 finally arranged in position on Busaco; and, after 
 dark, the whole country at the foot of the moun- 
 tains, and far away in their front, was illuminated 
 by the fires of the French army. As early as two 
 o’clock in the morning of the 27th, our silent and 
 motionless army could distinctly hear the stir of 
 preparation in the French camp. In the grey of 
 the morning those immense columns were seen in 
 motion, with our piquets and some of our light 
 troops retiring before them. It is said that Mar- 
 shal Ney, on arriving at the base of the Sierra de 
 Busaco, had been strongly impressed with an 
 opinion of the unattackable nature of the ground 
 which Wellington had chosen, but that Massena, ~ 
 scorning Ney’s advice, determined, after recon- 
 noitring, to try the strength of Busaco. Massena 
 had hoped to cross the sierra and penetrate to 
 Coimbra before Wellington could collect an army 
 strong enough to, oppose his march; and even 
 
 * Colonel Leith Hay. 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 CoImBRA. 
 
 now, though he saw clearly enough that the English 
 general was determined to risk the experiment of 
 a battle, he deceived himself as to the amount of 
 his forces; for some corps of* the allies were con- 
 cealed by the nature of the ground, and a Portu- 
 guese reserve and some English regiments had 
 been halted out of sight on the reverse of the 
 sierra or on the face of the hill which slopes down 
 towards Coimbra. Besides, Massena saw that a 
 part of Wellington’s front line was composed of 
 Portuguese troops, that entire Portuguese regi- 
 ments were mixed with the British; and he, 
 and all the French under him, despised the Por- 
 tuguese troops as much as they did the Spanish, 
 not knowing the almost magical effects which had 
 been produced in the course of a very few months 
 by General Beresford’s drilling and training, and 
 little calculating on the noble emulation which the 
 allies and fellow-combatants of the unflinching 
 British infantry were about to display.* At about 
 
 * It would appear, however, that the Emperor of the French had 
 not been taught sufficient caution by Wellington’s victory over fearful 
 odds at Talavera, and that Massena was urged on to fight by his 
 impatient master. In an intercepted letter to Massena, Bonaparte 
 was found reminding that marshal of his great superiority of force, of 
 his 12,000 cavalry, and of his immense train of artillery. ‘‘ It would 
 be ridiculous,” he said, ‘ to suppose that 25,000 English can balance 
 60,000 French, if the latter do not trifle, but fall on boldly, and after 
 having well observed where the blow may be struck.” Bonaparte 
 counted the Portuguese troops for nothing, or put them on the same 
 level as the Spaniards ; but Massena, and other marshals too, to their 
 ' great cost. very soon discovered the mistake. For the intercepted letter 
 
 see Colonel Napier’s History of the Peninsular War. “The discipline 
 of the Portuguese army,” observes a British officer, ‘* was daily im- 
 
 roving. The uncommon exertions of Marshal Beresford, and the 
 
 ritish officers under him, were rewarded by the praises of all who 
 ‘witnessed the miraculous change in the appearance, movement, and 
 general conduct of the soldiers committed to their charge. The old, 
 incorrigible, indolent, and useless Portuguese officers were placed on 
 the retired list, and their commissions were given to young men, full 
 of zeal, willing to learn, and able to discharge the active duties 
 required of them.”—Lecollections of the Peninsula, 
 
 a ee Ce 
 
 six o'clock in the morning:of the 27th, as the mist 
 and the grey clouds were rolling away, the French 
 made two desperate simultaneous attacks in great 
 force, the one on the right and the other on 
 the left of Wellington’s position, on the highest 
 part of the sierra. The column which attacked 
 our right was preceded by a cloud of tirailleurs, 
 which out-numbered the light infantry of Ge- 
 neral Picton, and forced them to retire: some 
 of the tirailleurs gained possession of the highest 
 rocks, and appeared to their comrades below to 
 have got upon the flank of Wellington’s right: 
 the attacking column followed rapidly and reso- 
 lutely ; a good part of it reached the top of the 
 ridge, and was in the act of deploying when it was 
 attacked in the most gallant manner by a part of 
 Picton’s division, consisting of the 88th regiment, 
 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, 
 the 45th under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 the Hon. R. Meade, and the 8th Portuguese regi- 
 ment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Douglas, the whole being directed by Major-General 
 Picton. These three regiments advanced with the 
 bayonet, and drove the enemy’s division from the ad- 
 vantageous ground which they had gained. The Por- 
 tuguese, charging in line with the British, emulated 
 their prowess, and met with the best encouragement 
 that could possibly attend such a first essay ; for 
 the whole work was done in a very few minutes, 
 and the enemy were bayoneted on the ridge, or 
 broken and hurled down the steep, to a dense mass 
 which Massena had collected there to support and 
 follow up their attack, but which now moved not 
 forward, but backward. Another French division, 
 attacking still farther to the right, without being 
 
544 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (Boox X. 
 
 aware that Lord Wellington’s lines extended so 
 far, or that General Leith’s corps was there, was 
 brought to a halt by the unexpected appearance of 
 the head of a British column before it could reach 
 the plateau or the summit of the hill, and was 
 attacked in a trice by Colonel Barnes’s brigade of 
 General Leith’s corps, composed of the royals, the 
 9th, and the 38th regiments. The 9th, commanded 
 by Colonel Cameron, being the leading battalion 
 of our column, when about a hundred yards dis- 
 tant from the French, wheeled suddenly into line, 
 and fired a volley, the effect of which was terrific 
 and decisive. The ground was covered with dead 
 and dying, not new levies or mercenaries, or half- 
 hearted contingents from foreign dependent states, 
 but men who belonged to the éite of the French 
 army. This destructive fire being followed up by 
 an immediate charge, this division gave way and 
 broke, and rushed or rolled down the hill side as 
 their comrades had done. On the same space of 
 ground seldom has been seen such a destruction as 
 overtook this French division. Both these divisions 
 which made the attack upon our right belonged to 
 the corps of General Regnier, who had witnessed 
 on the plains of Maida what British bayonets could 
 do, and who seemed destined to be particularly 
 unfortunate whenever he met our troopa. The 
 attack on Wellington’s left was made with General 
 Loison’s division of Marshal Ney’s corps and with 
 one brigade of the division of Marchand; this attack- 
 ing column being supported, as the other had been, 
 by a mass of troops formed at the base of the 
 sierra, and prepared to move forward at a moment’s 
 notice. It was not a whit more fortunate than 
 General Regnier’s farce, and it scarcely fought so 
 well. It was confronted exclusively by the British 
 light division under General Craufurd and General 
 Pack’s brigade of Portuguese. One division of 
 infantry alone made any progress to the top of the 
 hill, and, being immediately charged with bayonets 
 by General Craufurd with the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th 
 British, and the Srd Portuguese Cacadores, it was 
 broken and driven down with immense loss. Gene- 
 ral Coleman’s brigade of Portuguese, which had 
 been kept in reserve, was moved up to the right of 
 Craufurd’s division, and made a brilliant and suc- 
 cessful charge upon some French, who had not 
 reached so elevated a spot, but who were trying to 
 gain the ridge. These men too were driven down 
 with terrible destruction. Some of the Portuguese, 
 charging into a thick mass, got so wedged in 
 among the French that they had not room to use 
 their bayonets; so, imitating the example which 
 had been set by English soldiers, they turned up 
 the butt ends of their muskets and plied them 
 with such vigour as soon to clear the way. The 
 little artillery that was used in the action was 
 nearly all Portuguese, and it was exceedingly well 
 served. For some time the troops at the base 
 of the sierra kept within a short distance, as if 
 intending to renew the attack; but Massena 
 had had enough of that iron ridge, and the rest 
 of the day passed in loose skirmishes between 
 
 the light troops of the two armies, the British and 
 Portuguese descending the hills to meet their foes, 
 In the words of Lord Wellington himself, who in 
 these matters measured every word he said or wrote, 
 the loss sustained by the enemy in his attacks on the 
 heights was enormous ; 2000 were left killed upon 
 the field of battle (killed chiefly by the bayonet), 
 and from 3000 to 4000 were wounded. Three 
 generals of division were among the wounded ; one 
 general was killed ; one general was taken prisoner, 
 together with a few hundred men and officers, 
 The loss of the allied army did not exceed 
 1300, of which number 578 were Portuguese 
 —a very convincing proof that the men whom 
 Lord Beresford had trained had gone well into 
 action. ‘* This movement,” says Wellington, “has 
 brought the Portuguese levies into action with the 
 enemy for the first time in an advantageous situa- 
 tion, and they have proved that the trouble which 
 has been taken with them has not been thrown 
 away, and that they are worthy of contending in the 
 same ranks with British troops in this interesting 
 cause, which they afford the best hopes of saving.’’* 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches.—Southey, in Edin- 
 burgh Annual Register, and Hist. of the Peninsular War.—Colonel 
 Leith Hay, Narrative.—Major Moyle Sherer, Military Memoirs of the 
 Duke of Wellington.—H. B. Robinson, Memoirs of Lieutenant-General 
 Sir Thomas Picton.—This last named work, though it contains some 
 nonsense, and some ridiculous half-concealed attempts to elevate Pic- 
 ton by the depression of the Duke of Wellington, gives some interest- 
 ing anecdotes, and some very characteristic letters written on the spur 
 of the moment by that very brave, but somewhat too hot-headed, Welsh- 
 man, Picton, A few days after the battle, in writing to his friend Colonel 
 Pleydel, General Picton says—** Our army is healthy, well equipped 
 in every respect, and regularly supplied with provisions.” This denotes 
 an improvement in our commissariat- And in the dispatch of 
 the commander-in-chief, from which we have last quoted in our text, 
 there is an admission of the same kind. Through this improvement, 
 and the skilful way in which their strength had been husbanded for 
 irying and critical moments, the troops had been enabled to do their 
 very best in the battle of Busaco. ‘* Throughout the contest on the 
 sierra,” says his lordship, ‘and in all the previous marches, and those 
 we have since made, the whole army have conducted themselves in 
 the most regular manner. Accordingly all the operations have been 
 carried on with ease; the soldiers have suffered no privations, have 
 undergone no unnecessary fatigue, there has been no loss of stores, 
 and the army is in the highest spirits.’”” Lord Wellington acknow- 
 ledges his particular obligations to the adjutant and quarter-master- 
 gencralss but the excellent result must have been in good part owing 
 to those fundamental improvements in the commissariat department, 
 the necessity of which he had been so long urging on government. 
 
 Before the campaign of this year began, some excellent regulations 
 with regard to this service were issued from the War-office. They fixed 
 the gradations of rank as follows — 
 
 . Commissary-General. 
 
 . Deputy-Commissary-Geueral. 
 
 . Assistant-Commissary-General. 
 
 . Deputy- Assistant-Commissary-General. 
 . Clerk. 
 
 They ordered that no clerk should be eligible to promotion until 
 he had served at least one year; that no deputy-assistant commis- 
 sary-general shouJd be eligible unless he had had at least four years’ 
 service as deputy, or five years dating from his first entering as a 
 clerk; that uo assistant-commissary-general should be promoted 
 unless he had had five years’ service in that grade, or ten years’ ser- 
 vice counting from the time he became a clerk; and that no deputy 
 commissary-general should be promoted to the highest grade of all 
 until he had served three years as depnty. Thus a commissary-gene- 
 ral would have, in minimo, an experience of at least ..13 years. 
 
 A deputy-commissary-general...........0- 2.010 
 
 An assistant-commissary-general ,...-..+eee06 5 
 
 A deputy-assistaut-commissary-general....... 1 
 Government Gazette, 19th March, 1810. 
 
 In this way, service, experience, and good conduct were made the 
 essentials, and an end was put to rapid, indiscriminate, and, in many 
 cases, shameful promotions. An evil practice had long obtained of 
 crowding the commissariat department with a set of boys ; but an end 
 was put to this also by the present regulations. Altogether this was 
 a great step in the right direction. Some abuses lingered, and pet- 
 fection was not to be obtained without time and practice; but we 
 believe it is admitted that from the spring of 1810 the British eommis- 
 sariat began to improve rapidly. The commander-in-chief repeatedly 
 expresses his warm approbation of the activity, zeal, ability, and 
 general merit of Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Kennedy, who wes at 
 this time commissary-general to his army. 
 
 OP Wo 
 
 gp tg ae ae 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 Another object which Lord Wellington had in 
 view, in fighting the battle of Busaco, was to give 
 time to the people of the country in his rear to com- 
 ply with the proclamation he had issued, and to 
 remove out of the way of the enemy with their 
 goods and provisions. It was especially important 
 to gain this time for the inhabitants of Coimbra, a 
 populous and wealthy town, which Massena would 
 have entered on the 26th but for the force united 
 on the Sierrade Busaco. Unfortunately the pro- 
 clamation, and the specific orders given, were in 
 many instances ill obeyed. This rendered _neces- 
 sary a recourse to compulsive measures, the British 
 general being determined that his proclamation 
 should not be a dead letter, and feeling that the 
 present sufferings, however great, of a portion of 
 the community were not to be put in comparison 
 with the future welfare and triumph of the whole 
 Portuguese nation. If an absolute want of forage 
 and provisions should fall upon the French, toge- 
 ther with a want of lodging and accommodation, 
 at the very time that the rainy season was begin- 
 ning, their progress must be impeded, their losses 
 augmented, and their stay in the country much 
 shortened. With the intention of providing, by 
 means of English stores, provisions, and money, 
 for the emigrating population behind the lines he 
 had chosen near Lisbon, Wellington would have 
 left all the country as bare to Massena as were the 
 summits of the sierras or jagged mountains. He 
 knew that, on starting from Almeida, the French 
 marshal had given his people bread and biscuit for 
 fifteen days, ordering every man to carry his own 
 stock; but he also knew that the impatient French 
 soldiers, wearied by this great additional weight, 
 had thrown the greater portion away, preferring to 
 trust to chance and plunder, to the cattle they were 
 driving with them, and to the vegetables they 
 might pick up. And, since Massena had begun 
 his march, his soldiers had received meat only, 
 and that was growing very scarce. 
 
 On the 28th, the day after the battle, Massena 
 moved a large body of infantry and cavalry from 
 the left of his centre to the rear, and Wellington 
 saw his cavalry marching over the mountains by 
 another road towards Oporto. This road, by the 
 pass of Boyalva to the north of Busaco, completely 
 turned the position of the allies on that iron ridge: 
 the pass had been open before, and Massena might 
 have taken it, but that presumptuous man had 
 preferred risking that engagement which had 
 ended in such terrible loss. The British general 
 now directed Colonel Trant to occupy that pass 
 with his Portuguese division; but a Portuguese 
 general commanding in the north had previously 
 ordered the division to march elsewhere; and, un- 
 luckily, when Trant took it upon himself to obey 
 his lordship’s orders rather than those of the gene- 
 ral, he lost his way in seeking a short road, and 
 arrived too late to arrest the march of the French, 
 who descended into the plains that lie open to the 
 sea-coast, and seized on the road leading from 
 Oporto to Coimbra in the rear of the British. But 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 ee eee ee eee es 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 545 
 
 Massena had only made the march which Wel- 
 lington expected he would make. The British 
 general had no intention of remaining where he 
 was : his place of strength, his chosen, inexpugnable 
 position, in which Portugal was to be saved, was 
 not in the Sierrade Busaco or on the Mondego, but 
 much nearer Lisbon, and thither a good road re- 
 mained open to him. By the 29th the whole 
 allied army was already in the low country, between 
 the Sierra de Busaco and the sea; and on the 30th 
 it was collected on the left bank of the Mondego, 
 and began its retreat towards the Tagus and the 
 capital. On the Ist of October the British rear- 
 guard, after some skirmishing with an advanced 
 guard of the French, evacuated Coimbra, accom- 
 panied by all the remaining inhabitants, who 
 ought to have removed three or four days (at least) 
 before, and who now ran away with whatever 
 movables they could carry, with the sick, the 
 aged, and the children thrown on carts, mules, and 
 asses, not knowing whither they were going, and 
 incumbering the road to the British rear; while 
 the French were pressing close upon them, and 
 even hovering on the flank. ‘It was a piteous 
 sight, and one which those who saw it can never 
 forget,” adds an officer who had fought at Busaco, 
 and who was now in the rear of our retreating 
 army.* It was like the uprooting and sweeping 
 away of the population of whole provinces, with 
 their flocks and their herds, their household goods 
 and gods, and everything that was theirs: it was a 
 scene such as Europe might have presented at the 
 first irruption of the Huns: it was a scene to make 
 good men curse the restless ambition which had 
 led to it and made it necessary. ‘I feel,”’ says 
 another eye-witness, “that no powers of descrip- 
 tion can convey to the mind of any reader the 
 afflicting scenes, the cheerless desolation, we daily 
 witnessed on our march from the Mondego to the 
 lines. Wherever we moved, the mandate which 
 enjoined the wretched inhabitants to forsake their 
 homes, and to remove or destroy their little property, 
 had gone before us. The villages were deserted ; 
 the churches, retreats so often (yet so vainly) con- 
 fided in, were empty; the mountain cottages stood 
 open and untenanted; the mills in the valley, but 
 yesterday so busy, were motionless and silent! 
 
 The flanks of our line of march from this 
 place, (Thomar) were literally covered with the 
 flying population of the country. In Portugal there 
 are, at no time, many facilities for travelling, and 
 these few the exigencies of the army had very 
 greatly diminished. Rich, indeed, were those in 
 good fortune, as in possession, who still retained a 
 cabriolet, and mules for its service. Those who 
 had bullock-cars, asses, or any mode of transport- 
 ing their families and property, looked contented 
 and grateful; for respectable men and delicate 
 women, of the second class, might on every side 
 be seen walking slowly and painfully on foot, en- 
 cumbered by heavy burdens of clothes, bedding, 
 
 * A, Vieusseux. 
 21 
 
546 
 
 and food.” *—‘* The column of march of the 
 allies,’ says another officer, “presented an extra- 
 ordinary scene, the varieties of which it is impos- 
 sible minutely to describe ; but, when it is explained 
 that the route was absolutely and continuously co- 
 vered during its whole extent, some idea may be 
 formed as to its unusual aspect. It was not alone 
 troops of all arms, attended by the incumbrances 
 and followers of an army; it was not peasantry, 
 removing with their families; it was not the 
 higher orders of society, travelling conformably to 
 their rank; it was not the furniture, grain, cattle 
 of an extensive line of country, passing from one 
 station to another,—but it was all these combined, 
 pressing forward in one varied, confused, appa- 
 rently interminable mass.”+ It is to be remarked, 
 however, that, great as might have been the suffer- 
 ings of this forced emigration, the people must have 
 suffered infinitely more if they had remained in 
 their homes during the French advance and the 
 infernal retreat which followed it. And better had 
 it been for the general cause in the Peninsula if 
 Lord Wellington’s proclamation had been in all 
 instances more strictly obeyed. His lordship had 
 given a good deal of time for preparation, having 
 issued his proclamation as far back as the 4th of 
 August, or nearly two months before he commenced 
 his retreat from Coimbra: in advancing from that 
 city, in crossing the Mondego and taking up his 
 position on the barrier of Busaco, his only inten- 
 tions were to gain time, to try the Portuguese le- 
 vies, and to show the enemy what stuff the allied 
 army was made of: he never thought of remaining 
 more than a few days at that advanced position, 
 which could not defend Lisbon; and the Portu- 
 guese inhabitants in his rear were repeatedly 
 warned to remove with their substance. When 
 the French entered the forsaken city of Coimbra, 
 they discovered ample stores of provisions; but, 
 fortunately for the allies, and fatally to themselves, 
 the soldiery pillaged and wasted these stores instead 
 of husbanding them for the future necessities of the 
 army.{ 
 
 When the intelligence of these movements reached 
 England, that party which had always represented 
 the glorious struggle as hopeless said that Welling- 
 ton had gained another victory only to commence 
 another retreat; that it was one of the wildest 
 flights of human presumption to think of defending 
 a country like Portugal, against the vast and vic- 
 
 * Recollections of the Peninsula.—‘‘ The French army found the 
 city of Coimbra, as it had previously done Vizeu, perfectly deserted ; 
 the houses closed against them; the inhabitants wandering over the 
 face of the country, or crowding the roads leading to Lisbon. This 
 emigration, produced in great measure by the instructions of Lord 
 Wellington, was of incalculable inconvenience to an invading army, 
 moving without magazines, consequently depending for subsistence 
 on the countries through which it advanced. Instead of beholding a 
 large population, subjected to intimidation and reluctant discovery 
 of the stores in their possession, the bare walls of the houses alone 
 remained ; while the depositaries of grain, or provisions of any descrip- 
 tion, fell but unfrequently and accidentally into its power.’—Leith 
 
 ay. 
 + coldnel Leith Hay, Narrative. 
 { On moving from Coimbra, Massena left 5000 sick and wounded 
 in that city. Three days after his departure, Colonel Trant, with a 
 part of his rapid Portuguese division, entered the town and captured 
 the whole of the French hospitals, together with some marines of 
 the Imperial Guard, who had been left there to protect the sick. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 torious armies of Bonaparte, with 25,000 British 
 troops and 30,000 native soldiers ; that the predic- 
 tions of Napoleon, verified everywhere else, must 
 be realised in this particular case,—that the British, 
 or such of them as should escape the ignominy of a 
 capitulation, must be driven back to their ships, 
 leaving nothing to England, after all the sacrifices 
 of money and of life she had made, but humiliation | 
 and disgrace, and an increase of debility which 
 must render her so much the less able to contend 
 with the enemy for her own existence as a nation. 
 But no such raven croaked over the tent of the 
 great commander. The plan of defence which he 
 had formed and matured was still unbroken and 
 entire, and so were his own hopes. He was never 
 so confident as he was a day or two after he began 
 his retreat from Coimbra. Writing to the admiral 
 in the Tagus, he says, ‘‘ I have very little doubt of 
 being able to hold this country against the force 
 which has now attacked it. There will be a breeze 
 near Lisbon, but I know that we shall have the 
 best of it.’ And writing to his brother Henry, 
 then ambassador in Spain, he says, “ We shall 
 make our retreat to the positions in front of Lis- 
 bon without much difficulty, or any loss. My 
 opinion 2s, that the French are in a scrape. They 
 are not a sufficient army for their purpose, parti- 
 cularly since their late loss and that the Portuguese 
 army have behaved so well; and they will find 
 their retreat from this country a most difficult and 
 dangerous operation.” * In fact, both the British 
 and Portuguese effected their retreat with the 
 greatest ease and regularity; General Hill, with 
 his division on the right, moved by Thomar and 
 Santarem ; the centre of the army moving by Leiria 
 and Rio Mayor, and the left by Alcobaca and Obidos. 
 Massena followed in one immense column by the 
 centre or Rio Mayor road, his advanced guard oc- 
 casionally skirmishing with our gallant light divi- 
 sion. On the 7th of October the French van caught 
 sight of the chain of hills, behind which, at the 
 distance of twenty-four miles, lay the city of Lisbon. 
 And now up, Lines of Torres Vedras, and show the 
 lion in the middle path! + 
 
 But those lines were already up; and every thing 
 was prepared to keep the French at bay, 
 
 ‘* As famish’d wolves survey a guarded fold.’’ t 
 
 We have mentioned the first conception of this 
 grand defensive scheme, which had more or less 
 occupied the mind of Wellington ever since the 
 campaign of 1808. It had been indispensable to 
 conceal the great project, and to mystify the French 
 as to its existence; and this had been done with 
 astonishing address. Even when most actively 
 engaged in directing the construction of the works, 
 Wellington had the art to make not only the enemy, 
 but also the people of the country, believe that he 
 intended nothing serious there; and it is said that, 
 in order to keep up the illusion, he sometimes spoke 
 of the plan, even to officers of his own army and 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 + “‘ But in the middle path a lion lay!” Ee 
 ore Sir Valter Scott, Vision of Don Roderick. 
 
 de (as m3 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 about his own person, as a thing which had flitted 
 through his head, but which had been abandoned. 
 And, even when Massena received better informa- 
 tion, he remained in the belief that the works 
 thrown up were little more than field-works, which 
 might easily be turned or overpowered by his own 
 batteries, and that so extensive a line was not de- 
 fensible by such a force as the British general 
 commanded, but must have several weak points, 
 at some one or two of which, a concentrated, sus- 
 
 tained attack, costing perhaps a few thousands in | 
 
 killed and wounded, must eventually succeed. For 
 a complete notion of the lines of Torres Vedras the 
 reader must consult military and scientific books, 
 and Wellington’s own dispatches. We can only 
 offer an outline sketch. 
 
 The peninsula or promontory, at whose south- 
 eastern extremity Lisbon is situated, is crossed, 
 rather obliquely, bytwosierras, or chains of moun- 
 tains, which extend, with various altitudes and 
 various degrees of steepness, but with partial inter- 
 ruptions or openings, from the shore of the Atlantic 
 to the right bank of the Tagus. Thesetwo sierras 
 run nearly parallel with each other, at a distance 
 of from six to eight miles; the point of the line 
 nearest to Lisbon being close to the Tagus, between 
 Via Longa and Quintilla. Through the passes in 
 these sierras, and the low ground bordering the 
 Tagus, four roads, from the interior of the country,, 
 lead to the capital. The hand of nature had marked 
 out these two lines of defence, and British science 
 and engineering had been employed for a whole 
 year in strengthening them, and in blocking up 
 the openings which seemed the most accessible. 
 Here redoubts were erected; here the whole face 
 of a mountain was scarped and hewn into the ap- 
 pearance of the facet of some Titanic fortress ; 
 here the threads of mountain rivulets (which would 
 be something more than rivulets at the end of 
 October and in November) were collected and 
 brought together into one bed; and here rivers, 
 tributaries of the great Tagus, were dammed up, 
 or were provided with dams which could be used, 
 and with floodgates which could be shut, so as 
 to inundate the country at the foot of the hills on 
 the approach of the invader. The line of defence 
 was everywhere double, while in some parts there 
 was a treble range of batteries and redoubts. The 
 first line, which was twenty-nine English miles in 
 length, began at Alhendra on the Tagus, crossed 
 the valley of Aruda (rather a weak point), and 
 passed along the skirts of Monte Agraca, where 
 there was a large and strong redoubt : it then ran 
 across the valley of Zibreira, skirted the deep ra- 
 vine of Ruda, to the heights of Torres Vedras, and 
 thence followed the course of the little river Zi- 
 zandre to its mouth on the Atlantic. "The second 
 or inner line, at a distance varying from six to 
 eight, and in some points to ten miles, extended 
 from Quintilla on the Tagus, by Bucellas, Monte 
 Chique, and Mafra, to the mouth of the little river 
 S. Lourenco on the sea-coast, a distance of about 
 twenty-four miles. This was by far the stronger 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810, 
 
 547 
 
 line of the two, both by nature and by art, and, if 
 the first line were forced by any enemy, the retreat 
 of the army upon the second was secure at all 
 times.* Both these lines were secured by breast- 
 works, abattis, and stone walls with banquettes and 
 scarps. Not an opening nor interstice, through 
 which a mountain goat could pass, but was blocked 
 up or guarded. Down the hollows in which the 
 roads ran were pointed the black muzzles of nu- 
 merous guns, projecting from batteries which could 
 maintain a fire in front and a crossing fire from the 
 flanks. And, to provide for every occurrence, to 
 make sure of a safe and easy passage to our ships 
 of war in the Tagus, there was in the rear of the 
 second line a shorter, closer line, to protect the 
 embarkation ofour troops. This innermost line of 
 all was strong enough to check even a brave enemy 
 had there been no other lines before it; it rested 
 at one extremity on a tremendous redoubt, and at 
 the other on the broad ditch and lofty walls of the 
 castle of S. Julian. About 100 redoubts or forts, 
 containing altogether more than 600 pieces of ar- 
 tillery, were scattered along these lines. 
 
 In fortifying such lines as these of Torres Vedras, 
 for the support of a large army in the field, the 
 ordinary practice is to construct batteries and other 
 points d’apput, which shall present as imposing a 
 front as may be to the attacking force, but shall be 
 open and defenceless in the rear, and thus useless 
 if once turned. But in the present instance the 
 redoubts thrown up were not of this ordinary na- 
 ture ; they were not so much field-works as regular 
 castles, many of which were capable of containing 
 several hundreds of men, while there was one that 
 required a garrison of 3000. Equally strong in 
 the rear, flanks, and front, these castle-like redoubts 
 were built as if each had been intended to stand a 
 siege of six weeks at the most moderate computa- 
 tion; and they were so placed that they were all, 
 to a certain extent at least, independent of those 
 near them, and well sheltered from the fire of their 
 neighbours, if those neighbours should fall into the 
 hands of the enemy. Supposing the front line to 
 be forced, the forts were still there to interrupt 
 the enemy’s communications and cut off their sup- 
 plies; and our retiring columns had only to march 
 a few miles to the rear, in order to assume ground 
 even more defensible than that which they had 
 abandoned.t It was erroneously supposed by 
 some that the regular army, in the event of an 
 attack, would occupy these redoubts, and be wholly 
 engaged and shut up in the works. Nothing was 
 
 * It is said that the front line, on which the allied army was placed, 
 and on which it had a complete triumph, was at first intended rather 
 as a line of isolated posts, or as a sort of outwork to retard the ad- 
 vance of the French and cool their impetuosity, than as the permanent 
 position; but that, through the long delay of Massena in opening 
 the campaign in Portugal, and in advancing from Almeida, time 
 had been given to the English engineers to render this first line so 
 formidable as to induce Lord Wellington to make his stand upon it. 
 
 The highest praise was due, and was given to these engineer 
 officers, whose labours were directed at first by Colonel Fletcher, 
 and afterwards by Captain J. T. Jones, both of the Royal Engineers. 
 
 t+ Dispatches.—A. Vieusseux, Military Life of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington.—Colonel Leith Hay, Narrative.—Major Sherer, Memoirs 
 of the Life of the Duke of Wellington.—Southey, in Edinburgh 
 Annual Register, and Hist. of Peninsular War. ‘ 
 
 + Marquess of Londonderry, Memoir of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
548 
 
 farther from Lord Wellington’s mind: his design 
 was to garrison these strong posts with his artillery, 
 and the militia and least disciplined regiments of 
 the Portuguese, whilst he kept the whole of the 
 British army and the élite of the Portuguese free 
 and unencumbered, to be employed as circumstances 
 might require. By this arrangement he secured 
 to himself the double advantage of a movable 
 army and a fortified place. While the immovable 
 part of the force, the artillery, the militia, &c., 
 held the castle-like redoubts, the whole allied re- 
 gular army, numerous, brilliant in equipment, high 
 in spirit, confident in their great commander, 
 would move, free as the wind, in every direction, 
 to cover the summits of mountains, to descend into 
 valleys, or to rush against any luckless French 
 column that, with diminished numbers, might 
 perchance force a passage through the batteries 
 and redoubts, and the almost impenetrable ob- 
 stacles of this grand position. 
 
 Within the foremost of these lines Lord Wel- 
 lington and the allied army entered on the 8th of 
 October, leaving the French van behind them in 
 the plain. As soon as the army arrived, and each 
 division took up its assigned quarters, the defences, 
 which were strong enough before, were made still 
 stronger, as if the great leader were determined to 
 take a bond of fate. The powerful British fleet in 
 the Tagus and a flotilla of gun-boats were made to 
 flank the whole of the right of the position; a fine 
 body of English marines occupied the line of em- 
 barkation, and Portuguese militia and artillery 
 manned the castle of S. Julian and the forts on 
 the Tagus, and, in conjunction with the respectable 
 armed citizens who had formed volunteer corps, 
 garrisoned Lisbon, into which our ships of war 
 and transports threw everything that was needful. 
 Telegraphs were erected along the two lines, to 
 communicate information from one extremity of the 
 lines to the other and to every part of the position ; 
 and these signal-stations were properly put in charge 
 of experienced seamen from the fleet. To complete 
 the barriers, pallisades, platforms, and planked 
 bridges leading into the works, 50,000 trees were 
 placed at the disposal of the engineer department. 
 There was no lack of hands to do the necessary 
 work; 3000 artillerymen and officers of the coun- 
 try were on the spot; 7000 Portuguese peasantry 
 were employed as labourers; and the British engi- 
 neers, artillerymen, and artificers (the latter recently 
 imported or increased in numbers), were aided by 
 our foot soldiers, who found great excitement and 
 amusement in the occupation. From Torres Vedras 
 to Lisbon the whole country was as busy as bees 
 in the honey season ;— it was covered, or constantly 
 traversed, like an anthill in an autumnal evening. 
 Every day, every hour, the whole position, and 
 particularly the first line, was gaining strength 
 from all this unremitting labour. The roads lead- 
 ing up to the position were destroyed ; and, as 
 Wellington had gained the inestimable advantage 
 of bringing the French down as the rainy season 
 was setting in, they found an inundated country 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 | and a swamp to give them damp welcome.* Within 
 
 the front line there was made a good broad road to 
 afford easy passage to our troops to every part of 
 that line; and other roads, between the first and 
 the second line, and between the second and the 
 line of embarkation, were either repaired or made, 
 to facilitate communication, to admit the passage 
 of artillery, or to shorten the distance by which the 
 troops had to move for the purposes of concentra- 
 tion or resistance. And again, in case of an almost 
 impossible reverse, all the roads and stone bridges 
 between the outer line and the line of embarkation 
 were undermined. A finer field for manoeuvring 
 than that which lay behind the ridge of Torres Vedras 
 could scarcely be desired or conceived.t 
 
 The French van halted at Sobral for three or 
 four days, waiting for the arrival of the main body 
 and rear, whose march was impeded by the tre- 
 mendous rains. This interval was employed by 
 the allies in the manner above narrated. When 
 Massena came up on the 11th he appears to have 
 been taken by surprise at the sight of Wellington’s 
 lines ; and he employed some days in reconnoitring 
 them from one extremity to the other. He made 
 some demonstrations in order to make the British 
 divisions show out their force. On the 14th there 
 was a little fighting between the town of Sobral 
 and the lines, in which the French were defeated 
 by the English bayonet. They also showed them- 
 selves in some force near Villa Franca on the 
 right of the line and close to the Tagus; and 
 here the French general St. Croix was killed 
 by the fire of the English gun-boats, After this 
 no demonstration of any consequence was made. 
 Not a single attempt was ever made to assail any 
 of the works, or to penetrate the outer line in any 
 part of its long range, ‘Those scarped rocks, and 
 those eminences bristling with cannon, smote the 
 heart of Massena with despair ; and, by this time, 
 Wellington had united behind that foremost line a 
 force numerically equal to his own. Some rein- 
 forcements had arrived from England and from 
 Gibraltar, and the Marques de la Romana had 
 been induced to come from Estremadura and join 
 the allies with a Spanish division 5000 strong. 
 Though, perhaps, indifferent in other respects, 
 these Spaniards might be depended upon behind 
 stone walls and parapets. Lord Wellington 
 counted his British troops, infantry, cavalry, and 
 artillery, at 29,000, and the whole of the re- 
 gular force of which he could dispose at 58,615. 
 He estimated that Massena had had not less than 
 70,000 men at the battle of Busaco, but that he 
 
 * The weather kept fine until the very day on which Wellington 
 arrived at Torres Vedras. In a dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool, dated 
 13th October, he says, ‘‘On the 8th the rain commenced which usually 
 falls at this season of the year in Portugal, and has continued with 
 great violence ever since. This has probably increased the enemy’s 
 difficulties, and delayed his progress.’ 
 
 + *‘ I cannot proceed further without desiring to draw the attention 
 of my brother soldiers in a particular manner, not only to the subject 
 (Torres Vedras) of which Iam now speaking, but to the whole plan 
 of this campaign, because I am sure that a British army uever took 
 part in one better adapted to instruct it in the art of manoeuvring on a 
 great scale, nor, consequently, so well calculated to make efficient 
 officers of those who shared init, or are disposed to take the trouble 
 of studying it as it deserves.” —Marguess of Londonderry. 
 
 Fa” Veo 
 Wee 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 had already lost by war, by disease, and want 
 about 15,000! But 6000 or 7000 of the French 
 army that remained were cavalry, an arm in which 
 the English general continued to be very deficient. 
 Renouncing for the present all hopes of planting 
 the eagles on the towers of Lisbon, Massena put 
 the 2nd and 8th corps partly into the villages and 
 partly in bivouacs in front of the right and centre 
 of the British position, leaving the 6th corps at 
 Otta in his rear. He established his depdt and 
 hospitals in the town of Santarem, and endeavoured 
 to form magazines there. For this last purpose he 
 sent movable columns to scour the country in 
 search of provisions, for he had brought nothing of 
 the sort with him. All this part of the country 
 had been pretty well stripped by the inhabitants, 
 who had either retired to the mountains or within 
 the lines of Torres Vedras; but the French plun- 
 dered or destroyed what was left, so that for many 
 leagues in Massena’s rear the country was reduced 
 to a desert. Nor was this all the woe in that quar- 
 ter: Colonel Trant, who had carried off the French 
 sick and wounded from Coimbra, was joined by 
 the Portuguese militia under Sir Robert Wilson 
 and Colonel Millar, and all these forces glided in 
 between the army of Massena and the Spanish 
 frontier, cutting off all his communications, and 
 doing other mischief. Trant and Wilson even 
 came down to attack or menace the strong French 
 rear at Otta, obliging Massena to move back a 
 whole division from his front to keep them in 
 check. ‘Towards the end of October, when the 
 privations and the sickness of his army were on the 
 increase, he threw 2000 men across the Zezere to 
 re-open a communication with Spain by way of 
 Castello Branco; and he sent General Foy with a 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 549 
 
 strong escort to find or fight his way as best he 
 could to Ciudad Rodrigo, whence the general was 
 to repair with all speed to Paris, to acquaint the 
 emperor with the real situation of affairs in Por- 
 tugal.- On the 15th of November Massena began 
 a retrograde movement, for the purpose of with- 
 drawing his army from the low wet grounds in 
 front of Torres Vedras and placing it in canton- 
 ments for the winter. He established the 2nd or 
 Regnier’s corps in and near Santarem in a very 
 strong position ; the 8th corps he put into Pernes, 
 the 6th corps farther back into Thomar, and he 
 fixed his head-quarters at Torres Novas. These 
 positions were not to be assailed with impunity ; 
 but before the French could reach them they were 
 molested by the British light division and cavalry, 
 who took some prisoners. Lord Wellington, 
 leaving part of the allied army in the lines, moved 
 forward the remainder towards the Rio Mayor, 
 which separated him from the French position at 
 Santarem ; and, having placed Hill’s division on 
 the bank of the Tagus opposite to Santarem, his 
 lordship fixed his head-quarters at Cartaxo. If his 
 proclamation had been properly obeyed, Massena 
 must have been starved out of the country before 
 the beginning of December. But the Portuguese 
 inhabitants between the Tagus and the Zezere had 
 remained in fancied security, and the French 
 found considerable supplies in Santarem, Pernes, 
 Torres Novas, Golegao, and other towns. Thus 
 provisions were obtained, by the usual’ processes of 
 force and intimidation, at least for a part of the 
 winter. And, what was worse for the allies, a 
 number of boats had been carelessly or treacher- 
 ously left at Santarem, to enable the French to 
 cross.the Tagus whenever they liked, and to act on 
 
 CasTELLo Branco. 
 
550 
 
 the flanks of Wellington’s army.* The Portu- | 
 guese regency were far from possessing that au- 
 thority which an executive government ought to 
 possess; and in activity and ability they seem to 
 have been still more deficient. The business of 
 government requires an apprenticeship as well as 
 all others; these new untried men were very 
 greedy for the popularity which they hoped would 
 prolong their power; and, as Lord Wellington 
 observed, they would not aid in any measure, how- 
 ever beneficial to the real interests of the country, 
 which might be unpopular with the mob of 
 Lisbon.+ Instead of strenuously enforcing the 
 proclamation, they had agreed with the unwilling 
 inhabitants in many parts of the country that the 
 measures it prescribed were very distressing, and 
 ruinous and unnecessary; and they had endea- 
 voured to throw all the odium of the proclamation 
 upon his lordship. When Massena’s movable 
 columns began to ravage the countries east of the 
 mountains and between the mountains of the 
 Tagus and Zezere, the people felt the folly of the 
 regency and their own lamentable error; but then 
 it was too late. It has been said by one of his 
 companions in arms, that it is not going too far to 
 affirm that a British commander has seldom, if 
 ever, stood in a predicament more harassing and 
 more unsatisfactory than that occupied by Lord 
 Wellington during this campaign of 1810; and 
 that probably not a single individual in the British 
 service could have carried himself through the 
 difficulties arising out of it, except the man who 
 Struggled with and overcame them. { The Bishop 
 (now patriarch) of Oporto and Principal Souza, 
 who had given so much trouble to Sir Hew Dal- 
 rymple during his brief command, and who had 
 now voices potential in the regency (the patriarch 
 being president), had been carrying on an irritating 
 correspondence all through the summer, pretending 
 to know better than the able British general how 
 to manage the war, and constantly interfering with 
 his authority, although, by a decree of the prince 
 regent of Portugal sent over from Brazil, his 
 lordship had been appointed commander-in-chief 
 and marshal-general of the Portuguese army.§ 
 “They give me more trouble in writing letters 
 upon their nonsense,” says his lordship, “ and make 
 
 * His lordship had been repeatedly annoyed by similar acts of re- 
 missness or treachery; butat this provocation he spoke out. He threw 
 the principal blame where it was merited—upon the Portuguese re- 
 gency. To Mr. Charles Stuart (afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay), 
 who was residing at Lisbon as our ambassador to that shuffling pro 
 tempore government, he poured out his complaints and reproaches, 
 well knowing that Stuart would not mince matters with the gentlemen 
 of the regency. ‘‘ If,” wrote his lordship, ‘* the French can feed in the 
 country, they will stay till they will be reinforced... .., The 
 French could not have staid if the provisions had been removed , , . 
 All our military arrangements are useless if they can find subsistence 
 ou the ground which they oceapy . . - . -Thenthe boats are left at 
 Santarem in order to give the enemy an opportunity of acting upon 
 our flanks. They could not have staid a week if the provisions had 
 been carried off . . . . For aught I know to the contrary, they may 
 be able to maintain their position till the whole Freneh army is 
 brought to their assistance. It is heart-breaking to contemplate the 
 chance of failure from such obstinacy and folly," —Dispatches. 
 
 + Letter to Charles Stuart, Esq. in Dispatches. 
 
 t Marquess of Londonderry. 
 
 3 Lord Wellington had also been appointed a member of the 
 regency in Portugal, in conjunction with Mr. Charles Stuart, our 
 
 minister at Lisbon; but this last appointment did not take place 
 till the month of August. 
 
 phere eho phan 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a ht re rr 
 
 | 7 
 = 
 i. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 me lose more time than can be conceived. I am 
 responsible, and they are not, for the success of our 
 operations.” The fact was that the regency, after 
 the appointment of Principal Souza to be a member 
 
 of it, conceived that the war could be maintained upon 
 
 the Portuguese frontier, where Massena might be 
 kept at bay, contrary to the opinion of Wellington 
 and every military officer in the country; and, in- 
 stead of giving positive orders preparatory to the 
 retreat of the allied army to Torres Vedras, they 
 wasted much valuable time in discussing with’ his 
 lordship the expediency of adopting another plan 
 of defence—a plan which must have driven their 
 sapient excellencies out of Lisbon, and have left 
 that capital open to Massena. After the sudden 
 fall of their fortress of Almeida, the regency be- 
 trayed such a degree of ill-humour as made it seem 
 as if they believed that that fortress alone could 
 have stopped the French, and that Lord Wellington 
 had set fire to the powder-magazine, which blew 
 its works into the air. On the 7th of September, 
 or twenty days before he fought the battle of 
 Busaco, Wellington wrote in firm and indignant 
 language to the British minister at Lisbon, desiring 
 him to put an end at once to these miserable in- 
 trigues by informing the members of the regency 
 that he would not stay in the country, and that he 
 would advise the British government to withdraw 
 their assistance, if they interfered in any manner 
 with the operations of his army, or with the ap- 
 pointments Marshal Beresford might choose to 
 make for his own staff. He bade Mr. Stuart re- 
 mind those gentlemen of the original arrangement 
 and agreement which gave to himself and Beresford 
 the exclusive management of the two armies, and 
 to warn them once more of the dangers which must 
 result from the regency’s refusing or delaying to 
 adopt the civil and political arrangements recom- 
 mended by him, and corresponding with the mili- 
 tary operations he was carrying on. His lordship 
 drew a comparison between this ignorant and im- 
 patient regency and the central junta of Spain, 
 which had hurried army after army into battle, 
 only to be beaten and sacrificed. He spoke of the 
 Portuguese militia as only fit for the kind of ser- 
 vice on which he was employing it; he declared 
 that as yet it was only a part of the regular Por- 
 tuguese army which could be trusted in the field 
 against French veterans, and that he was the best 
 judge of the qualities and capabilities of the troops 
 under his command, But the fighting patriarch — 
 and his sword-bearer, Souza, would neither confess | 
 their own ignorance, nor renounce their own plans ; 
 and when the retreat from the Mondego commenced 
 they wrote and talked more wordy nonsense. On 
 the 6th of October, when the allied forces were 
 close upon the inexpugnable lines, the creation of 
 which saved Lisbon, Wellington again addressed 
 the British minister, who had the night of sitting 
 in the council of regency. ‘‘ You will do me the 
 fayour,”’ said his lordship, “ to inform the regency, 
 and above all, the Principal Souza, that, his British 
 majesty and the prince regent having intrusted me 
 
Cuapr. VIIT.] 
 
 with the command of their armies, and likewise 
 with the conduct of the military operations, I will 
 not suffer them, or anybody else, to interfere with 
 them; that I know best where to station my troops, 
 and where to make a stand against the enemy; and 
 I shall not alter a system formed upon mature con- 
 sideration upon any suggestion of theirs. I am 
 responsible for what I do, and they are not. I re- 
 commend them to look to the measures for which 
 they are responsible, and which I long ago re- 
 commended to them, viz., to provide for the tran- 
 quillity of Lisbon, and for the food of the army, and 
 of the people, while the troops shall be engaged 
 with the enemy. As for Principal Souza, I beg 
 you to tell him, from me, that I have had no satis- 
 faction in transacting the business of this country 
 since he has been a member of the government ; 
 that, being embarked in a course of military opera- 
 tions, of which I hope to see the successful termi- 
 nation, I shall continue to carry them on to their 
 end; but that no power upon earth shall induce 
 me to remain in the Peninsula, for one moment, 
 after I shall have obtained his majesty’s leave to 
 resign my charge, if Principal Souza is to remain 
 either a member of the government, or to continue 
 at Lisbon. Either he must quit the country or J 
 shall; and, if I'should be obliged to go, I will take 
 care that the world, in Portugal at least, and the 
 prince regent, shall be made acquainted with my 
 reasons.*., .... I have but little doubt of 
 success; but, as I have fought a sufficient number 
 of battles to discover that the result of any one is 
 not certain, even under the best arrangements, I 
 am anxious that the government should adopt pre- 
 paratory arrangements to take out of the enemy’s 
 way those persons and their families who would 
 suffer if they were to fall into his hands.” Souza 
 was not only a presumptuous, meddling, headstrong 
 blockhead, but a corrupt and rapacious man. On 
 the 30th of November, from his head-quarters at 
 Cartaxo, Wellington addressed a frank, manly letter 
 to the prince regent of Portugal, on the other side 
 of the Atlantic, showing the imperious necessity of 
 turning Principal Souza out of the government. 
 The Council of Regency at Lisbon consented to 
 dismiss or suspend the obnoxious Principal; but 
 he would submit neither to suspension nor dis- 
 missal. He appealed to the distant prince regent, 
 and, until his answer should arrive, betook himself 
 to the getting up of a regular anti-English party, 
 which greatly injured the confidence which the 
 
 * <* All I ask from the Portuguese regency,’ said Wellington, ‘* is 
 tranquillity in the town of Lisbon, and provisions for their own troops.” 
 It appears that the regency did not send sufficient provisions; that the 
 English commissariat were obliged ‘to furnish the Portuguese troops 
 and militia ; and that, instead of maintaining tranquillity in the town 
 of Lisbon, some of the members of that government excited disturb- 
 ances. ‘* From the letter of the 3rd instant, which I have received 
 from Dom Miguel Forjaz,’’ adds his lordship, ‘* I had hoped that the 
 government were satisfied with what I had done and intended to do; 
 and that, instead of endeavouring to render all further defence fruitless, 
 by disturbing the minds of the populace at Lisbon, they would have 
 done their duty by adopting measures to secure the tranquillity Of the 
 town. But I suppose that, like other weak individuals, they add dupli- 
 city to their weakness ; and that their expressions of approbation, and 
 even gratitude, were intended to convey censure.” His lordship desired 
 Mr. Stuart to communicate the whole of this stinging letter to the 
 Portuguese regency, and then transmit it to the British government. 
 
 ~ e neeeeeLe 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 551 
 
 government reposed in the British-army and its 
 great leader. 
 
 At the same time the Portuguese troops and 
 militia left in the lines of Torres Vedras were so 
 badly supplied by their government that the re- 
 gular soldiers began to desert, and the militiamen 
 to run to their homes, whole regiments at once, in 
 order to escape starvation. Thus starving their 
 own troops, it was hardly to be expected that the re- 
 gency would provide for Romana and his Spaniards. 
 Wellington, who could not see them perish, was 
 obliged to provide out of his own stores for these 
 5000 famishing men, as also for another equally 
 hungry and naked Spanish corps of 1200 men, 
 which had now been brought into Portugal by Don 
 Carlos de Espafa. Such were a few of the diffi- 
 culties which surrounded the British general. He 
 had, however, saved the capital, and reduced the 
 enemy to inactivity. All the north of Portugal was 
 free from the French, as was also the whole of the 
 kingdom south of the Tagus. The fine rich coun- 
 try round Lisbon was untouched. The opulent 
 city of Oporto was as safe as Lisbon; Coimbra, 
 Abrantes, all the large towns were in the possession _ 
 of the allies, as were also all the fortresses of the 
 country, with the single exception of Almeida. 
 Massena was absolutely master of nothing except 
 of the ground .on which the divisions of his army 
 stood: he was hemmed in between the northern 
 bank of the Tagus, the Rio Mayor, and the Estrella 
 mountains, having Wellington in his front, the Por- 
 tuguese militia in his rear, and his communications 
 with Spain and France intercepted.* “It is im- 
 possible,” said Lord Wellington, early in Novem- 
 ber, ‘* to describe the pecuniary and other distresses 
 of the French armies in the Peninsula. All the 
 troops are months in arrears of pay; they are, in 
 general, very badly clothed; they want horses, 
 carriages, and equipments of every description ; 
 their troops subsist solely upon plunder, whether 
 acquired individually, or more regularly by the way 
 of requisition and contribution: they receive no 
 money, or scarcely any, from France; and they 
 realise but little from their pecuniary contributions 
 in Spain. Indeed, I have lately discovered that 
 the expense of the pay and the hospitals alone of 
 the French army in the Peninsula amounts to 
 more than the sum stated in the financial exposé 
 as the whole expense of the entire French army.”’+ 
 At the end of the campaign the British army was 
 in a finer condition than ever it had been in; its 
 discipline was greatly improved, and so was its 
 
 * These communications must have been very completely inter- 
 cepted, for Massena wrote only two dispatches to Paris, and they 
 were both seized and carried to Lord Wellington. Later, a Portuguese 
 traitor, a Captain Mascarenhas, who had taken service under the 
 French, and had become aide-de-camp to Junot, was intercepted and 
 seized as he was travelling towards the frontier of Spain, disguised as 
 a Spanish peasant. The dispatches found about his person were 
 carried not to Lord Wellington, but to the regency at Lisbon. They 
 were said to contain an earnest request from Massena that the 
 Emperor Napoleon would be graciously pleased to reinforce his 
 army of Portugal with 40,000 men! 
 
 This Mascarenhas was hanged by the regency, but not until 
 nearly a year after his capture. 
 
 {+ Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, in Dispatches.—This last dis- 
 
 covery will show the faith to be put in the annual Compte rendu, or 
 financial exposé, presented by Bonaparte and his ministers. 
 
552 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ai 
 + 
 f 
 
 . 
 
 [Boox X. — 
 
 health, the effective strength in proportion to its | No attempt could be made to manceuyre upon the 
 
 total numbers being remarkably high. There was, 
 in fact, no sickness in the army of any importance ; 
 above half of those returned as sick were con- 
 valescent, and were only waiting in the salubrious 
 atmosphere of Belem to gain strength to bear the 
 fatigues of marching and of their duty in the field.* 
 
 The rash and the uninformed, or the unfriendly, 
 in England as well as in Portugal, asked why, 
 under such circumstances, Lord Wellington did 
 not attack Massena and annihilate his army in a 
 grand battle? There were several reasons why his 
 lordship should not make any such rash attempt. 
 The allied army under his command was the only 
 organised body existing anywhere in the Peninsula 
 which could keep the field against the enemy, and, 
 should it be shattered, Spain, as well as Portugal, 
 would remain a rase campagne to the French. He 
 had only 30,000 British troops, and in the open field 
 he could depend only upon about 20,000 of the re- 
 gular Portuguese. Massena, after every loss and 
 deduction, had still 55,000 veteran troops, and the 
 positions which the folly of the regency and of the 
 people had allowed him to take up and maintain 
 on the heights of Santarem, Pernes, Torres Novas, 
 &c., were almost as strong as those which Welling- 
 ton would have left close behind him at Torres 
 Vedras. He knew the difficulty and the enormous 
 expense of recruiting the English part of his forces ; 
 and he had some reason to apprehend that, in the 
 event of any signal disaster, the British govern- 
 ment might be forced to withdraw the army alto- 
 gether from the Peninsula. The ministry was in 
 a very insecure unfixed state, weakened by the 
 retirement of Canning and Castlereagh, by the un- 
 fortunate result of the Walcheren expedition, and, 
 in some degree, by the Burdett riots: the king 
 was now in that state which must render the ap- 
 pointment of the Prince of Wales as regent inevi- 
 table and lasting, and the Whig party had expect- 
 ations of returning to office and power. Wellington 
 had not received from home all the support that 
 he and the cause deserved; but from a new Whig 
 ministry he would have still less to expect. Any 
 great reverse would have made him lose the con- 
 fidence of the Portuguese troops, who, no more 
 than the great body of people, partook in any of 
 the unfriendly feelings entertained towards him 
 by Souza and the patriarch. If he had not en- 
 joyed more confidence from the soldiery and the 
 people than from the council of regency, the 
 cause must have been lost. Any considerable 
 defeat or loss would discourage the new Portuguese 
 regiments that were in training, and lead to deser- 
 tion: he could not trust the newer levies, and it 
 was incumbent on him to be very careful of the 
 better part of that native army. Immense advan- 
 tages, too, must arise from keeping all his army in 
 its present high state of health, and this could 
 hardly be done by keeping it in the field through 
 that terrible rainy season and the coming winter. 
 
 * Dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool, dated Cartaxo, 21st 
 November, 1810, 
 
 enemy’s flank or rear; first, because the enemy 
 showed they were indifferent about their flanks or 
 rear, or (since they had found provisions) their 
 communications ; and, secondly, because the in- 
 evitable consequence of attempting such a ma- 
 noeuvre would be to open some one or other of the 
 roads to Lisbon and to our shipping, of which 
 Massena would be sure to take immediate advan- 
 tage. ‘Therefore,”’ said his lordship, “we must 
 carry their strong positions in front and by main 
 force, and consequently with loss; and, in the 
 course of the operations, I must draw my army 
 out of their cantonments ; 1 must expose the troops 
 and horses to the inclemencies of the weather at 
 this season of the year, aud must look to all the 
 consequences of that measure in increased sickness 
 of the men and in loss of efficiency and condition 
 in horses. . . . . « We should still stand alone 
 in the Peninsula as an army; and, if I should suc- 
 ceed in forcing Massena’s positions, it would be- 
 come a question whether I should be able to main- 
 tain my own, in case the enemy should march 
 another army into this country... .. . But 
 every day’s delay, at this season of the year, nar- 
 rows our line of defence, and consequently 
 strengthens it; and when the winter shall have set 
 in, no number, however formidable, can venture to 
 attack it; and the increase of the enemy’s number 
 at that period will only add to their distress, and 
 increase the difficulties of their retreat.”’** From the 
 middle of November the weather continued to be 
 miserably bad ; all the cross-roads were impassable 
 for artillery and very difficult for infantry, and the 
 rivulets were all swollen. This greatly distressed 
 the French, who were obliged to scour the country 
 in search of provisions; but, by spreading and 
 deepening the inundations in front of ‘Torres 
 Vedras, it greatly strengthened that position. 
 Wellington was more determined than ever to make 
 no movement by which he should incur the risk of 
 involving the army in a general action on ground 
 less advantageous than that which he had fixed 
 upon. ‘The enemy,” he said, “can be relieved 
 from the difficulties of their situation only by the 
 occurrence of some misfortune to the allied army ; 
 and I should forward their views by placing the 
 fate of the campaign on the result of a general 
 action, on ground chosen by them instead of on 
 that selected by me.’’+ 
 
 The Spaniards had got together their cortes at 
 Cadiz ; but no immediate benefit had appeared to — 
 result from the convocation of that national as- 
 sembly. To Wellington the cortes appeared to be 
 suffering under the national disease in as great a 
 degree as the other authorities; that is, it appeared 
 that they were boasting of the strength and power 
 of the Spanish nation, till they seriously convinced 
 themselves they were in no danger, and then sitting 
 
 * Dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool, November 3rd. 
 
 + Dispatch to Earl of Liverpool, lst of December. All the dis- 
 patches written at this period should be attentively perused by those 
 
 who would arrive at a clear notion of the great commander's pru- 
 dence, foresight, and genius. 
 
Cuap. VIITI.} 
 
 down quietly and indulging their national in- 
 dolence.* They had brought no army into the 
 field, they were depending for the very safety of 
 Cadiz, the seat of their government, upon the 
 British regiments we had sent thither ; and, though 
 ten months had passed since the appearance of 
 Marshal Victor, they had neglected to prepare 
 some of the works necessary for their defence, not- 
 withstanding the remonstrances of General Graham 
 and the British officers serving under him.t 
 
 It was on the 24th of September that the cortes 
 commenced their proceedings with religious so- 
 lemnities. The five individuals who had com- 
 posed the supreme council of regency, to whom the 
 central junta had remitted their authority in the 
 month of February, resigned. The members of 
 the cortes now assembled declared themselves 
 legally constituted as a general and extraordinary 
 cortes, wherein the national sovereignty resided. 
 They acknowledged, proclaimed, and swore anew 
 that Ferdinand VII. of Bourbon was their only 
 lawful king; and declared null and void the cession 
 of the crown which he was said to have made in 
 favour of Napoleon Bonaparte, not only because of 
 the violence and treachery which accompanied that 
 illegal transaction, but principally because the con- 
 sent of the nation was wanting. They authorised 
 the five members of the council of regency to con- 
 tinue to exercise the executive power till they, the 
 cortes, should appoint a government which they 
 might deem more convenient. But they required 
 the five members of the regency to acknowledge the 
 national sovereignty of the cortes, and swear obe- 
 dience to such laws and decrees as the cortes should 
 think fit to promulgate; and they drew up a very 
 stringent oath to be taken immediately by the said 
 members of the regency. It was between ten and 
 eleven at night when this decree was passed, and 
 when the members of the regency were summoned 
 to attend. Four of the regents entered the hall 
 of the cortes about midnight and took the oath. 
 But the fifth—the Bishop of Orense—did not 
 come. ‘The lateness of the hour and the infirm 
 state of his health were assigned as the causes of 
 his absence; but it was soon known that the prelate 
 was withheld by stronger motives. He was not 
 prepared to acknowledge the sovereignty of the 
 people—an alarming doctrine to all churchmen— 
 or to swear implicit obedience to a body which was 
 as yet very incomplete, and to laws which were not 
 yet made; and from this hour the Bishop of Orense 
 ceased to act as one of the regency. On the fol- 
 lowing day, the 25th of September, the cortes 
 decreed, as a consequence of their former decree of 
 sovereignty, that the style in which the cortes was 
 
 * Letter to the Right Hon. Henry Welles] 
 Cadiz, dated 2nd December. Perera am baseadon at 
 sj 
 
 t Id. Tam afraid,” says Wellington, “that the Spaniards will 
 bring us all to shame yet. It is scandalous that in the third vear of 
 their war, and after having been more than a year in a state of tran- 
 quillity, and having sustained no loss of importance since the battle of 
 Ocafia, they should now be depending upon us for the safety of Cadiz !’’ 
 At this juncture he was obliged to order General Graham to retain at 
 Cadiz the British troops that Sir John Stuart was sending down from 
 Sicily to reinforce his own army in Portugal. His lordship even spoke 
 of sending some more troops from Portugal to Cadiz. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 ! 
 
 553 
 
 to be addressed should be that of majesty. High- 
 ness was to be the style of’ the executive power. 
 They ordered, also, that the commanders-in-chief 
 of armies, the captains-general of provinces, the 
 archbishops and bishops, the tribunals, provincial 
 juntas, and all other authorities, civil, military, and 
 ecclesiastic, should take the oath of obedience to 
 the cortes, in the same form as the regency.* By 
 another edict they ordered that their installation 
 should be officially made known through all the 
 Spanish dominions, and everywhere celebrated with 
 Te Deums and salvos of artillery ; and that prayers 
 should be offered up during three days, imploring 
 the Divine blessing upon their councils. On the 
 26th they declared the regency to be responsible 
 to the nation; but they had hardly decreed the 
 separation of the executive and the leyislative func- 
 tions before they confounded them in their own 
 practice. Several of the deputies of the cortes— 
 the founders of the Spanish republican sect which 
 has since exercised a great influence over the fate 
 of that still unsettled and wretched country—had 
 studied their politics and their general philosophy 
 in the French school, and were supposed to be 
 sufficiently inclined to follow the footsteps, both in 
 matters of state and church policy, of the rash, 
 incapable, and pedantic Girondists, who had ruined 
 all the healthy hopes ever presented by the French 
 revolution. ‘These men had imbibed early preju- 
 dices against England and her constitution ; and 
 these prejudices did not wholly give way to the 
 hatred of Bonaparte and of the present system of 
 France. For the time this weak minority of repub- 
 licans and materialists produced no great moral or 
 political effect; but, contrary to the advice of the 
 learned and wise Jovellanos, who had attentively 
 studied the English constitution, the qualification 
 of property in the deputies or members had been 
 dispensed with, and the cortes, instead of sitting in 
 two Houses like the British parliament, or voting 
 as three separate states of nobility, clergy, and 
 commons, like the ancient cortes of Spain, was 
 all jumbled together in one single chamber, and 
 voted altogether in one body, like the constituent 
 assembly of France; and from this one capital 
 blunder, which the Spaniards took as a precedent, 
 and to which they clung with mad tenacity, in the 
 revolution of 1820, have mainly proceeded that 
 over-extension of democratic principle and power, 
 and that anarchy, to which now there seems to he 
 no end except in the reconstruction of the old abso- 
 lute government, or in a military despotism. The 
 leberales were not bold enough to promulgate the 
 doctrine of religious liberty. The cortes, even 
 as Joseph Bonaparte had done in his Statutes of 
 
 * The oath ran thus— 
 
 “Do you swear to preserve the Holy Catholic Apostolic Romish 
 religion in these realms, without admitting any other? Do you swear 
 to preserve the Spanish nation in its integrity, and to omit no means 
 for delivering it from its unjust oppressors? Do you swear to preserve 
 to our beloved sovereign Ferdinand VII. all his dominions, and, in 
 his failure, to his legitimate successors; and to make every possible 
 exertion for releasing him from captivity, and placing him upon 
 the throne? Do you swear to discharge faithfully and lawfully 
 the trust which the nation reposes in you, observing the laws of 
 Spain, but changing, modifying, and varying such as require to be 
 altered for the general good?” 
 
554 
 
 Bayonne, declared the Roman Catholic the religion 
 of Spain to the exclusion of all others. They voted 
 the liberty of the press (and frantic was the abuse 
 soon made of it), but from this freedom the great 
 subject of religion was excluded.* They passed a 
 sort of law corresponding to our Habeas Corpus 
 Act; but they showed that they themselves, as a 
 governing power, would not be bound by its con- 
 ditions. The four regents who had taken the oaths 
 found, in less than a month, that the cortes, who 
 held them responsible, interfered with all their 
 measures, and that they could not in this manner 
 carry on the government. ‘They requested to be 
 allowed to resign. Their resignation was accepted ; 
 but they were ordered to give in an account of their 
 administration within two months, with a view to 
 their impeachment and trial; and soon after the 
 passing of this decree, the cortes, in a secret sitting, 
 came to the resolution of ordering the members of 
 the regency to retire from Cadiz, ‘and fix their 
 abodes in certain remote towns that were named to 
 them. This was nothing less than the relegation 
 process, the arbitrary measure of the old court.+ 
 These displaced members of the regency, in their 
 first season of power, had behaved in much the 
 same harsh and arbitrary manner towards the fallen 
 members of the central junta; and thus every 
 triumphant party in Spain trampled upon its de- 
 feated rival, losing sight of law or justice, and of 
 the healing and holy influences of moderation. The 
 cortes appointed a new regency, consisting of Gene- 
 ral Blake, Don Pedro Agar, a captain in the navy 
 and director-general of the academies of the Royal 
 Marine, and Don Gabriel Ciscar, governor of 
 Carthagena. Blake and Ciscar being absent on 
 their military duties, the Marques del Palacio, 
 and Don Jose Maria Puig were appointed to act 
 in their places till they should arrive. The 
 marques entertained the same scruples as the 
 Bishop of Orense. When asked by the cortes if he 
 swore to obey their decrees, laws, and constitutions, 
 he replied, Yes, but without prejudice to the many 
 oaths of fidelity which he had taken to Ferdinand 
 VII. Being called upon to explain this very na- 
 tural and honourable restriction, the marques said 
 that he was ready to take the oath in the form pre- 
 scribed, provided those deputies who were versed 
 in theological points would assure him that he 
 might do it without injury to his conscience; that 
 he was quite ready to acknowledge the sovereignty 
 of the nation assembled in its cortes, and that what 
 he meant was more and more to insure the purport 
 of the oath itself, conformably to those which he 
 
 * The 6th article of the Decree, regulating the Liberty of the Press 
 declared that all writings upon matters of religion should remain 
 subject to the previous censure of the ecclesiastic ordinances, accord- 
 ing to the decree of the Council of Trent. Mexia proposed that the 
 liberty should be extended to religious works, but he was not support- 
 ed; even Torrero,who had been one of the most strenuous advocates for 
 political freedom of the press, opposed the extension of the principle. 
 Those who published upon religious subjects without the licence of 
 the ordinary were declared subject to an arbitrary mulct, besides the 
 punishment which the opinions of the work itself might call for. 
 
 + ‘The conduct of the cortes, in respect to the late regency, is 
 shocking; and I much fear, from all that I see and hear, that, 
 unless I can defeat the enemy, and hold my ground in this country, 
 the whole game in Spain is at an end.”—Lord Wellington to the 
 Rt. Hon. Henry Wellesley ; Cartaxo, 81st December, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 | had taken to Ferdinand. The cortes in a fury 
 
 ordered the marques into custody; and he was 
 forthwith thrown info a cold damp room, unfur- 
 nished and bare. After this arbitrary arrest, the 
 cortes spent three days in debating what should be 
 done with this conscientious nobleman, and who 
 should be temporary regent instead of him. At 
 last they agreed that he should remain a prisoner 
 upon parole in the Isle of Leon; that he should be 
 deprived of his post of captain-general of Aragon ; 
 and that the Marques del Castelbar should supply 
 his place in the council of regency. Self-denying 
 ordinances were passed as extravagant as those 
 that were carried by acclamation in the French 
 assembly, the members of cortes binding them- 
 selves, during the exercise of their functions, and 
 for a year afterwards, not to solicit or accept for 
 themselves, or for any other person whomsoever, any 
 pension, favour, reward, honour, or distinction, from 
 the executive power which now existed, or from any 
 other government which might hereafter be ap- 
 pointed; and a rigorous law was passed to punish 
 the deputy who solicited any place or employment 
 for a kinsman within the fourth degree. With 
 rather more wisdom, they decreed that a King of 
 Spain could not marry, or alienate his property, 
 or abdicate his throne, without the consent of the 
 nation in cortes assembled: for at this time, 
 according to official French accounts, Ferdinand 
 was still hoping to be adopted by marriage into 
 the family of Bonaparte. It was also reported that 
 the emperor, seeing the hopelessness of crushing 
 the Spaniards by force, was going to remove his 
 brother Joseph and to restore Ferdinand to the 
 throne, but so hampered and enthralled as to be a 
 mere tool or puppet. In the same view, they de- 
 creed that all acts and treaties made by a king of 
 Spain in a state of captivity should be null and 
 void. They passed stupendous acts for the levying 
 of new armies, and for their subsistence and equip- 
 ment; but they could not carry these magnificent 
 schemes into execution, and they scorned to attend 
 to details and to minor operations which they might 
 have effected. Even after they had been assembled 
 for more than four months, Lord Wellington as- 
 sured his government that the cortes had done 
 nothing to raise, discipline, pay, or support an 
 army; that the distresses of the Spanish forces 
 were worse even than those of the Portuguese ; 
 that the army of the poor Marques de la Romana 
 had not a shilling, excepting what he gave them, 
 nor a magazine, nor any one thing to keep them 
 together or enable them to act as a military body. 
 Nearly all round the Bay of Cadiz, under the eyes — 
 of the cortes, French detachments were allowed to 
 carry on operations without any interruption. This 
 was also the case on a part of the Mediterranean 
 coast, and particularly at Malaga, where the enemy 
 had collected a number of privateers and gun-boats. 
 As the Spaniards would do nothing, the Governor 
 of Gibraltar risked a detachment in the direction 
 of Malaga ; but unfortunately he gave the conduct 
 of it to a very incompetent officer, Lord Blayney. 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 This Hibernian peer contrived to run his neck into 
 a noose, to mistake a strong party of French cavalry 
 for Spaniards, and to be made prisoner with about 
 200 of his men. Major Grant and some 30 or 40 
 men were killed in the affair of Fiangerolla; but 
 Lord Blayney, who appears to have felt very little 
 grief or shame at his disaster, was carried into 
 France, and to the English dépdt at Verdun, where 
 he wrote, or collected the materials for, a book 
 upon the excellence of French wines and French 
 cooks.* 
 
 In other quarters of the world our military ope- 
 rations for the year were of some importance. 
 Lord Minto, now Governor-general of India, sent 
 a force of about 1700 Europeans and 2600 sepoys 
 to reduce the Isle of Bourbon and the Isle of France 
 in the Indian Ocean, which, to the great annoyance 
 of our Kast India trade, had been left in the hands 
 of the French. The whole expedition was put under 
 the management of Lieutenant-colonel Keating, 
 who, with a fleet of ships of war and transports, 
 arrived early in July off the island of Bourbon. 
 Dispositions were made for an attack on St. Denis, 
 the principal town; but the garrison offered to 
 capitulate; and in two or three days the town of 
 St. Paul and the whole island quietly submitted. 
 But the reduction of the larger island—the Mau- 
 ritius, or Isle of France—was a work of much 
 greater difficulty, and was not effected by Lord 
 Minto’s armament without further assistance. A 
 body of troops, partly drawn from the Cape of Good 
 Hope, commanded by Major-general John Aber- 
 crombie, and a fleet under Admiral Bertie, reached 
 this great island in the month of November. On 
 the 29th the troops effected a landing on a very 
 difficult coast. The French skirmished until our 
 artillery was landed, and preparations were made 
 to attack the forts; but then—on the 3rd of De- 
 cember—they capitulated upon terms dictated to 
 them. The garrison was to be sent to France; 
 but the whole of the island, with a vast quantity of 
 stores and produce, 5 large frigates and some 
 smaller ships of war, 28 merchantmen, and 2 cap- 
 tured English East Indiamen, was surrendered. 
 This island, by far the most valuable of the remain- 
 ing French possessions to the eastward of the Cape 
 of Good Hope, became a permanent British pos- 
 session. Some frigates were afterwards dispatched 
 to destroy the French factories and batteries on 
 the coast of Madagascar, and to root them out 
 from some other posts on those seas where they 
 chiefly subsisted by privateering. By the opening 
 of the year 1811 there was not left to France a 
 ship on the Indian Ocean, or a strip of land in 
 either of the Indies. Guadaloupe, the last island 
 that remained to them in the West Indies, had sur- 
 rendered as early as the month of February, 1810, 
 to a combined force under General Sir G. Beckworth 
 and Admiral Sir A. Cochrane. This island was 
 one of the least unhealthy in that part of the world, 
 
 * Narrative of a forced Journey through Spain and France, as a 
 Prisoner of War, in the years 1810 to 1814, by Major-general Lord 
 Blayney. 2 vols. 8vo.; London, 1815. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 555 
 
 and might, with proper attention, have been pre- 
 served without any great sacrifice of our troops.* 
 
 The Dutch lost in the beginning of the year their 
 ancient East India settlement of Amboyna, with its 
 dependent islands ; and in the course of the sum- 
 mer they lost the whole island of Banda, the prin- 
 cipal of the Spice Islands, which, together with its 
 dependencies, was reduced by Captain Cole of the 
 * Carolina’ frigate. 
 
 Early in the year Murat, or King Joachim, 
 whose army had been reinforced, and who had 
 succeeded, not in subduing, but in dispersing, the 
 Calabrian insurgents after the retreat of Sir John 
 Stuart from Ischia, united a great force at Scylla, 
 Reggio, and on the hills which overlook the narrow 
 straits of Messina, threatening Sicily with invasion. 
 For four months the English troops in Messina 
 were kept on the alert and amused by the animated 
 spectacle presented by Murat’s camp, whose pa- 
 rades and festivities were occasionally interrupted 
 by the English and Sicilian gun-boat flotillas. On 
 the 18th of September the French king of the Nea- 
 politans embarked the principal body of his army 
 in a long range of boats at Scylla and the Punta 
 del Pizzo, to distract the attention of Sir John 
 Stuart from Messina, by menacing the British left 
 wing which was stationed at and beyond Faro point ; 
 and, while these demonstrations were making, Ge- 
 neral Cavaignac, embarking at Reggio with 3500 
 men, pushed boldly across the Strait to fall upon 
 the British right. Our cruisers were absent, and 
 the flotilla was not at its post. General Cavaignac 
 effected a landing, at a spot about seven miles to 
 the south of Messina, and threw forward a division 
 which got possession of the heights behind the shore. 
 He had great hopes of winning over the Corsican 
 rangers that were in our service, and he brought 
 over a fine embroidered standard,~-inscribed as a 
 gift from King Joachim to these brave Corsicans, 
 the subjects of France; and he had two battalions 
 of native Corsicans with him, whose presence was 
 expected to induce the rangers to desert and join 
 them. The rest of the invading force was com- 
 posed almost entirely of Neapolitans. As soon as 
 Sir John Stuart was aware of this landing he began 
 to reinforce his right; but before the arrival of © 
 these reinforcements Colonel G. Campbell had re- 
 pulsed the enemy with the greatest facility, taking 
 800 men, a whole battalion of Corsicans, a French 
 colonel and head of staff, a lieutenant-colonel, an 
 aide-de-camp of the commander of this division, 
 and 40 inferior officers. The whole of the troops 
 that had advanced to the heights were either cap- 
 tured at once by Campbell’s people, or were seized 
 soon after or cut to pieces by the Sicilian peasantry. 
 The rest in the retreat to their boats suffered se- 
 verely, both from musquetry and from a fire of fort 
 guns. One of their boats was sunk, and the sol- 
 diers in another deserted to the English or to their 
 old king Ferdinand IV. They must all have run 
 away like sheep, for the only injury sustained by 
 
 * Major A. Tulloch, Statistical Report on the Sickness, Mortality, 
 and Invaliding among the Troops in the West Indies. 
 
= 
 
 Colonel Campbell was three men slightly wounded. 
 Murat kept his camp behind Reggio and Scylla for 
 nearly two years longer, but he did not again at- 
 tempt the experiment of landing in Sicily.* 
 
 In Paris ‘all went merry as a marriage bell.” 
 On his return from Vienna, at the close of the pre- 
 ceding year, Bonaparte caused it to be intimated 
 to Josephine that she must prepare to give up 
 
 *Sir John Stuart, Dispatches in Gazette——Before this attempt 
 another smart frigate action had been fought in the bay of Naples. On 
 the Istof May, Captain Jahleel Brenton, of the ‘ Spartan’ frigate, and 
 Captain Ayscough, of the ‘Success’ frigate, chased a squadron of 
 Murat, consisting of one frigate of 42 guns, one corvette of 28 guns, 
 one brig of 8 guns, and one cutter of 10. The Neapolitans succeeded 
 in getting into harbour, behiad the mole of Naples and good land 
 batteries, which had been made stronger since the unpleasant visit 
 paid there the year before by Captain T. Staines. Captain Brenton, 
 our senior officer, knowing that they would never leave’ this place of 
 refuge whilst two British frigates were in the bay, directed Captain 
 Ayscough to sail away to the back of the island of Capri. At day- 
 light on the morning of the 3d of May, the ‘Success’ being out of 
 sight, and the * Spartan’ all alone and very near shore, the Neapolitan 
 squadron, reinforced by eight gun-boats, carrying long 24-pounders, 
 stole from behind the mole-head, and stood towards her ina close line. 
 Captain Brenton retired, in order to entice the squadron farther out to 
 sea. The poor Neapolitans set up a shout and hoisted all sail, for 
 they thought he was running away from them. Long before their 
 guns were in range they blazed away at the English frigate. The 
 ‘Spartan’ was as silent as a coffin until the Neapolitan frigate was 
 within pistol-shot ; but then with one broadside she strewed the decks 
 of the ‘ Cerere’ with a sad harvest, killing and wounding so many 
 that it quite passed their comprehension. Captain Brenton ran along 
 their line, and cut off their cutter and gun-boats from the body of the 
 squadron. The ‘Cerere’ wore, and endeavoured to renew her junc- 
 tion, but was prevented by the ‘ Spartan,’ who touk her station on her 
 weather-beam. Aclose and hot contest ensued, the ‘Cerere’ being 
 aided by ‘ La Fama’ corvette. But, though they fought, the Neapoli- 
 tans kept their eyes upon the shore; and light and variable winds 
 carried them and their foe into the bay of Pozzuoli, and near to the 
 castle and sea-batteries of Baia. The affair ended in Captain Bren- 
 ton’s capturing and carrying off the brig, and in leaving the frigate and 
 the corvette much crippled under the batteries. He had lost 10 killed 
 and 19 wounded. Nearly all this mischief was done by the gun- 
 boats. Captain Brenton himself received a grape-shot in the hip, and 
 was obliged to be carried below before the action was over. The 
 carnage on board the ‘ Cerere’ was very great, particularly amongst 
 some Swiss troops, who were drawn in ranks from the cat-head to 
 the taffrail in readiness for boarding. The corvette, the brig, and the 
 cutter also suffered greatly in killed and wounded, for the ‘Spartan’ 
 had fired into all of them from a very short distance, and in very 
 smooth water. Captain Brenton’s number of guns was 46, of his men 
 258; the enemy had 96 guns, and, counting the Swiss troops, in all 
 1400 men. As soon as she had repaired her damages, or as soon as 
 the wind served, the ‘Spartan’ with her prize in tow came round 
 into the inner hay of Naples, and stood in triumph directly across, and 
 within four miles of the harbourand the mole-head, If the wind had 
 been us fresh a few hours before he would have captured the frigate 
 or the corvette.—Captain Brenton, Dispatch, in Gazette. 
 
 There were many brilliant little enterprises carried on along these 
 shores, in the way of boat and cutting-out parties. In more than one 
 of these Captain George Ross Sartorius, then lieutenant of the ‘ Suc- 
 cess’ frigate, distinguished himself. 
 
 In one of our naval adventures we sustained a severe check and a 
 very serious loss. Inthe month of August, after the reduction of the 
 Isle of Bourbon, but before the conquest of the Isle of France, four of 
 our frigates made rather an inconsiderate dash into Grand Port, the 
 eh oe harbour of the Isle of France, wherein lay two of our cap- 
 tured East Indiamen, which have been mentioned above, four French 
 frigates, a corvette, and a brig, aided and protected by heavy land bat- 
 teries. Access to the port was very difficult. Two of our frigates ran 
 aground upon shoals, not known to the pilots, and were abandoned 
 and burned by their crews. Our third frigate, the ‘ Nereide,’ Captain 
 Nesbit Willoughby, fought the enemy alone for more thau five hours, 
 and drove the whole of the enemy’s ships on shore ina heap. But 
 Captain Willoughby, who, before this time, had been much battered 
 about, and had received more desperate wounds than any living man 
 in the service, was awfully mangled, and had his left eye torn out of 
 the socket by a splinter; his first lieutenant lay mortally and his se- 
 cond dangerously wounded, and nearly every man of the crew was 
 either killed or wounded: the ‘ Nereide’s’ quarter-deck guns were 
 nearly all dismounted, several of her main-deck guns were dismounted 
 also, the hull of the ship was shattered, she was striking the ground 
 astern, and the frigate which remained afloat, the ‘Iphigenia,’ could 
 not vet to her assistance. Including marines and some artillery of the 
 Madras establishment, the ‘ Nereide’ had on board 281 men : of this 
 number about 95 were killed and 135 wounded. In this condition 
 Captain Willoughby struck to the enemy. By this and some former 
 exploits on these islands he contributed to the conquest of this very 
 important colony. The ‘Iphigenia,’ closely blockaded, was taken 
 soon afterwards. Thus we lost, in a single enterprize, four frigates ; 
 but, through the noble behaviour of Willoughby, and his officers and 
 crew, the defeat was more glorious than many a victory, and the loss 
 of ships was scarcely considered a misfortune.—James, Naval Hist. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 — 
 
 the claims of a wife upon his imperial majesty, 
 and to see a younger and more fitting bride put in 
 her place. It is said that Fouché, the police 
 minister, was the first man employed on this deli- 
 cate task, and that Josephine treated the renegade 
 priest and jacobin as he merited, attributing to 
 him and other sans cu/otte revolutionists like him, 
 the crime of first putting it in her husband’s head 
 to divorce her and marry an imperial princess. It 
 appears, however, doubtful whether Fouché or 
 Savary or any chief of that department had any- 
 thing to do in this business of preparation, and 
 whether it was not Bonaparte himself who first 
 opened the subject to his wife. As soon as he 
 arrived from Vienna, Josephine was observed to be 
 very pensive and sad. It is said by one who knew 
 the truth, if he chose to tell it, that it was on 
 Thursday, the 30th of November, just after dinner, 
 that the emperor, being alone with Josephine, 
 announced the whole of his plan, and was much 
 affected at her grief, saying to the courtier who 
 entered (and who narrates the story), that three 
 days before this Josephie ought to have known 
 from her own daughter Hortense (the wife of Louis 
 Bonaparte, King of Holland) the cruel necessity 
 of state which condemned him to separate from 
 her, and look for an heir to his throne. According 
 to this account, Bonaparte was affected even to 
 tears, and Josephine’s fainting was more than half 
 feigned. But we rather suspect the emperor’s 
 prefect of the palace of partiality for his master.* 
 It is pretty clear, however, that the widow of the 
 Beauharnais was a vain, frivolous woman, incapable 
 of any very profound emotions, and much more 
 likely to be affected by the loss of state and 
 dignity than by any other consideration. When 
 her husband and the prefect of the palace were 
 carrying her by the shoulders and legs down stairs 
 to her private apartment, seemingly in convul- 
 sions and senseless, the prefect says that his sword 
 got between his own legs and nearly tripped him 
 up; that to save himself from falling, he pressed 
 his burden rather closely (he being at the lady’s 
 head, and the emperor at her heels), and that there- 
 upon she whispered in his ear, ‘* You squeeze me 
 too hard.” + He adds, that the emperor was too 
 much agitated to observe this side-play, and that, 
 as soon as they had laid her upon a sofa in her 
 boudoir, he sent for Corvisart, the physician, 
 Queen Hortense, Cambac¢érés, and Fouché. On 
 the 15th of December, a fortnight after this scene, 
 at nine o’clock in the evening, there was a grand 
 
 consultation—consewl de famil/e—in the palace of 
 
 * M. de Bausset, Mémoires Anecdotiques sur l’interienr du Palais. 
 
 + ‘*Napoléon prit lui-méme les deux jambes de Joséphine pour 
 m’aider & descendre avec plus de ménagement.......-.. Mais dans le 
 moment ot je _m’embarrassai ‘dans mon épée au milieu du petit esca- 
 lier, je fus oblige de la serrer davantage pour éviter une chute qui 
 aurait été funeste aux acteurs de cette douloureuse scene, parceque nos 
 positions n’étaient pas la suite d’un arrangement calculé 4 loisir. Je 
 tenais I'Imperatrice dans mes bras, qui entouraient sa taille ; son dos 
 était appuye sur ma poitrine, et sa téte était penchée sur mon épaule 
 droite. Lorsqu’elle sentit les efforts que je faisais pour m’empécher 
 de tomber, elle me dit tout bas: ‘ Vous me serrez trop fort.’ Je vis 
 alors que je n’avaisrien & craindre pour sa santé, et qu’elle n’ayait 
 pas perdu connaissance un seul instant.” De Bausset. Thanks, O 
 Pretect of the Imperial Palace, for this truly theatrical scene. : 
 
Cuar, VIIL] 
 
 the Tuileries to settle all about the divorce. It was 
 arranged, and so stated, that the divorce was for 
 the good of the empire, &c., and by the mutual 
 consent of Napoleon and Josephine. ‘The emperor, 
 the now to be ex-empress, the emperor’s mother, 
 his brothers Jerome and Louis, his sisters Caroline 
 and Pauline, his brother-in-law Murat, Josephine’s 
 son and daughter Eugene and Hortense, Jerome’s 
 wife, the Wiirtemberger princess, the wife of Jo- 
 seph Bonaparte, in short, all the members of the 
 Bonaparte family, except Elise (Madame Bacci- 
 cchi), Lucien, who was in disgrace, and Joseph, 
 who was in Spain, were assembled ; and Camba- 
 egrés, arch-chancellor of the empire, Duke of Par- 
 ma, &c., and Regnauld de Saint-Jean-d’Angély, 
 minister of state for the imperial family, attended to 
 take the depositions, and to draw up the legal act. 
 Napoleon said a few short words about the necessity 
 of providing a lineal successor, and his great grief 
 in parting with so good a wife. Josephine repeated 
 what had been set down for her, about her being 
 a fond and devoted wife, but ready to make any 
 sacrifice for the happiness of France, even to the 
 annulling of her marriage with the hero who had 
 raised France to her present glory and greatness. 
 Cambacérés, who had been bred to the law, drew 
 up a nice proces-verbal of this divorce by mutual 
 consent; and Regnauld de Saint-Jean-d’Angély, 
 who had been a little provincial advocate before 
 the Revolution, and who, in the art of penmanship, 
 bore a striking resemblance to Barrére, penned an 
 act which ran as smoothly as an academical dis- 
 course or a senatorial address. All the members 
 of the family put their signatures to this act. There 
 was nothing but signatures of kings and queens 
 and princesses and grand-duchesses, all spring- 
 ing from the once poor Corsican dame Letitia 
 Bonaparte, born Ramolini, who signed tout court 
 or succinctly Mapame, in imitation of the for- 
 mulas of the ancient monarchy of the Bour- 
 bons.* Regnauld de Saint-Jean-d’Angély (who 
 had fearfully lengthened and aristocratised his 
 name) was charged with the delicate duty of pre- 
 senting this act to the senate, and to propose a 
 senatus consultum in conformity. His harangue 
 dwelt upon the sacrifices the emperor was making, 
 &c. Strange to say, it was seconded by Josephine’s 
 own son Eugene Beauharnais, the viceroy of Italy, 
 who never before had taken a seat in that assem- 
 bly, but who was forced by his step-father to appear 
 there, and praise him for putting away his own 
 mother.f ‘Princes and senators,’’ said Eugene, 
 “T feel myself under the obligation of declaring 
 the sentiments of my family in the circumstances 
 in which we are. My mother, my sister, and I 
 owe everything to the emperor! He has been to 
 us a true father; and he will always find in us de- 
 voted children and submissive subjects. It is of 
 
 * Capefigue, Le Consulat et l’Empire. 
 
 + Three short years after this, when the Bonapartean dynasties 
 were all going to pieces, and when Murat thought he had reason to 
 complain both of the Viceroy of Italy and of the Emperor of France, 
 he bitterly reminded Eugene Beauharnais of this performance, on 
 the occasion of his mother’s divorce.—Letter from Murat to 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, in Colletta, Storia di Napoli. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 557 
 
 importance to the happiness of France that the 
 founder of this the fourth dynasty should grow old 
 in the midst of a family of direct descendants, who 
 will be a guarantee to all men, and a pledge of 
 the glory of the country. When my mother was 
 crowned before the whole nation by the hands of 
 her august spouse, she contracted the obligation of 
 sacrificing all her affections to the interests of 
 France: she has fulfilled with courage, nobleness, 
 and dignity this first of duties! Her soul has often 
 been tenderly moved at seeing the painful struggles 
 in the heart of a man accustomed to master and 
 command fortune, and to march with a firm step 
 to the accomplishment of all his great designs. 
 The tears which this resolution has cost the em- 
 peror suffice for the glory of my mother. In the 
 situation in which she is going to be placed, she 
 will not be insensible to the happiness resulting to 
 us all from her sacrifice: we shall have her wishes 
 and prayers, and it will be with a self-satisfaction 
 mingled with pride that she will see the happiness 
 which her sacrifices have produced for her country 
 and for her emperor.’? The princes and senators 
 applauded, as they were bound to do, and voted 
 the senatus consultum, which left to Josephine 
 her title of Empress-Queen, an annual revenue of 
 2,000,000 of francs, and the royal domain of Na- 
 varre ; and when they had done all this, and had 
 heard another speech from the lawyer of the long 
 name, they agreed to a report, and to an extrava- 
 gant address, to express their gratitude to the im- 
 mortal Napoleon for the steps he had taken; to 
 tell the so-called “child and champion of demo- 
 cracy’’ that thirteen French sovereigns before him 
 had been obliged by their love for their country 
 to divorce their wives; that out of these thirteen 
 divorcing French monarchs there were four of the 
 greatest and most beloved that the French had ever 
 known—Charlemagne, Philip Augustus, Louis 
 XII., and Henri 1V.—and to predict that Napo- 
 leon, greater than all these, would live to see chil- 
 dren and grand-children of his own, who would 
 perpetuate his empire, and the happiness and glory 
 of France.* The august senate also voted an ad- 
 dress to the Empress Josephine, thanking her for 
 those great sacrifices which history would keep in 
 eternal memory ; assuring her that her heroic self- 
 devotion was worthy of being associated with the 
 immortal glory of the Emperor ; and that the French 
 people, who had always revered her virtues and 
 beneficence, would eternally admire her sublime 
 conduct, and render her the homage of their grati- 
 tude, reverence, and love. Thus far was smooth 
 and easy work;+ but the catholic religion repudi- 
 ated such divorces as these, and Bonaparte had 
 pretended to re-establish the catholic church, and to 
 submit, and to force others to submit, to its dogmas. 
 No dispensation could now be expected from the 
 
 * The report of the senate was drawn up by senator Lacépéde, 
 the celebrated naturalist, author of ‘ Histoire Naturelle des 
 Quadrupédes ovipares et des Serpents,’ &c. &c. 
 
 + The Conseil de Famille was held and the Divorce Act was 
 drawn up on the night of the 15th of December: the Senatus 
 
 Consultum was passed on the 16th; and all that business was 
 finished in less than twenty-four hours, 
 
558 
 
 despoiled, imprisoned Pope, nor could any pontiff | 
 
 have decently sanctioned such a breach of the 
 canons of the Roman church. In the eyes of that 
 church marriage was a sacrament; and the union 
 by the civil process, by appearing before a notary 
 and a justice of the peace, as first introduced in the 
 days of anarchy and atheism, was no marriage at 
 all, but a sinful contract between man and woman. 
 Without the assurance that Bonaparte and Jose- 
 phine had been married by a priest, and according 
 to the forms of the catholic church, Pius VIT. would 
 never have consented to perform his part in the 
 grand ceremonial of the coronation in Notre Dame. 
 The difficulty had been got over by a private mid- 
 night ceremony, performed by the Emperor’s ma- 
 ternal uncle, Cardinal Fesch ;* but now, to get rid of 
 a greater difficulty, it was declared that there had 
 never been any religious ceremony, and conse- 
 quently that there was no tie to break, except the 
 fragile and unholy one of the civil contract. If we 
 are not surprised that this should satisfy French 
 consciences, or be held to be satisfactory by the 
 servants and partisans of Bonaparte, we must still 
 feel astonished at its satisfying the consciences of 
 the Emperor of Austria, his daughter, and the 
 rest of that family, who were generally considered, 
 though not bigots, good, believing, and devout ca- 
 tholics. But the truth appears to be that the con- 
 science of the court of Vienna was entirely overlaid 
 by its fears and its worldly hopes. Josephine set 
 out for Navarre ; and Marshal Berthier was ap- 
 pointed to conduct, or rather to conclude, the matri- 
 monial negotiations at Vienna. While Berthier 
 was performing these offices, news arrived of the 
 base and bloody execution of Andrew Hofer, who 
 had perished in his prime, for his patriotism, and 
 his enthusiastic attachment to the Emperor of Aus- 
 tria, who was now bestowing the hand of his own 
 daughter on Bonaparte! There might be even at 
 Vienna, and among its great personages, some who 
 thought that everything done by Bonaparte was 
 well done, and that the death of Hofer was a com- 
 mendable act of energy; but we believe there was 
 not a man who doubted the fact that the telegraph 
 order which overruled the judgment of the court- 
 martial at Mantua proceeded from Bonaparte him- 
 self. Marshal Berthier, however, affected to lament 
 “this unlucky accident,” and said, with disgusting 
 hypocrisy, that such a transaction would be matter 
 of serious concern to his master the Emperor, and 
 never would have been permitted if his majesty 
 had been aware of it. On the 11th of March, 1810, 
 Berthier, acting as proxy for Bonaparte, received in 
 the palace of Schénbrunn the hand of the Arch- 
 duchess Maria Louisa, the fairest of the descen- 
 dants of the Empress Maria Theresa, and at that 
 time little more than eighteen years of age.t The 
 mob of Vienna, usually so docile and submissive, 
 appear to have had more nationality than the court, 
 
 * See ante, p. 252. 
 
 } The Archduchess Maria Louisa, the first child of the Emperor 
 Francis by his second marriage with Maria Theresa, daughter of 
 
 Ferdinand 1V., King of the Two Sicilies, was born on the 12th of 
 December, 1791. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 and to have felt more deeply the dishonour of this 
 forced alliance, and the danger to which the young 
 princess was going to be exposed by her union with 
 so turbulent and restless a man, and her residence 
 in France, among a people who had so barbarously 
 tortured and guillotined her own aunt, Marie An- 
 toinette, who had once left Vienna as fair and as 
 innocent as her niece now was, but far happier. 
 
 |’-When Maria Louisa drove away from the home of 
 
 her fathers, attended by Berthier, Madame Murat, 
 the widow of Lannes, and the other French people 
 appointed by Bonaparte, some of the populace 
 cried aloud that she was sacrificed to political in- 
 terests and intrigues; that the Emperor Francis 
 ought never to have consented to the sacrifice of 
 his own child; that better, far better, would it 
 have been to continue the war than submit to such 
 a humiliation! At one moment a serious riot was 
 apprehended ; but the police and the troops, with 
 the rest of the Austrian machinery, interfered ; 
 some of the poor orators were arrested, and the rest 
 of the crowd dispersed. We have described how 
 profoundly etiquette and parade were studied by 
 the vulgar court of the Tuileries on the occasion of 
 the coronation of Napoleon and Josephine. As 
 much or more study was now given to the mode of 
 receiving in France, and conducting through that 
 country, the young imperial bride. In his forced 
 philosophical retirement at St. Helena, Bonaparte 
 affected to talk with contempt of all distinctions 
 of blood and race, and of all court etiquette and 
 ceremonies whatsoever; but so long as he was 
 emperor, and so long as his family were kings 
 and queens and grand-duchesses, he and all of them 
 bestowed the utmost attention upon these several 
 matters, and there certainly never was in modern 
 Europe a more rigid and frigid etiquette than that 
 which was observed at Paris, under this child and 
 champion of democracy and equality, and in Na- 
 ples under his sister Caroline, the wife of the 
 crowned dragoon Murat, who himself loved not the 
 regimen, but who was obliged to submit to it. In 
 the present instance it was ordered that none of the 
 forms and ceremonies should be omitted which had 
 been practised under the old sovereigns on similar 
 occasions. But from the restrictions of etiquette, 
 and from every other restriction or rule whatso- 
 ever, Napoleon held himself personally exempt: 
 all the world was to be slavishly bound by them, 
 save and except only the great man that was above 
 them all; and this made that iron etiquette, dis- 
 gusting in other respects (as very frequently it was 
 from the want of all grace and dignity in the ill-bred — 
 performers), so much the more disgusting and humi- 
 hating. Under Louis XIV. the court etiquette was 
 rigid enough, but that monarch himself submitted 
 to its restrictions. After issuing the most elaborate 
 instructions, and the most formal and severe orders, 
 about the reception of his bride, Bonaparte himself 
 received her not as a sovereign would receive the 
 daughter of an emperor, not even as a gentleman 
 would receive a young bride, his equal in rank, for- 
 tune, and education, but as an unmannerly trooper 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 would receive a grisette, who was not coming to be 
 his wife, but to be his mistress, and the follower of 
 his camp for a season. After passing a night together 
 in the old country palace of Compiégne, Napoleon 
 and Maria Louisa came to St. Cloud, on the 1st of 
 April, to be married ecclesiastically.* It was every 
 way a mockery to have that ceremony at ai, but it 
 was regulated and ordered that the religious part of 
 the performance should give precedence to the civil 
 and lay part. Arch-chancellor Cambacérés, who 
 had been a Jacobin, a Conventionist, a member of 
 the bloody committee of Salut Public, who had voted 
 on the trial of Louis XVI., and on the more hor- 
 rible trial of Marie Antoinette, read to the niece of 
 that murdered queen the civil Act of the marriage ! 
 This Act, in sixteen long pages, still exists in the 
 French Chamber of Peers. Then followed the reli- 
 gious part of the celebration, which was declared 
 by the Parisian critics who saw it to be a downright 
 failure, and a very poor spectacle. The salaried 
 clergy of Bonaparte seemed almost ashamed of the 
 scene, and of the part they were taking in what was 
 neither more nor less than an act of bigamy; very 
 few of the cardinals or the prelates would attend it. 
 It is said that there were only two cardinals present, 
 and that the Corsican Emperor, fixing his eyes on 
 the vacant space which ought to have been filled by 
 those princes of the church, muttered spitefully, 
 “The fools! the fools! they brave and insult me 
 still !” 
 
 This marriage was scarcely more popular in 
 France than it was in Austria. There was a great 
 party that still loathed the name of hereditary 
 monarchy, and that thought it monstrous that a 
 child of the revolution should ally himself with the 
 old established “ corporation of tyrants ;” the men 
 of the revolution saw in Maria Louisa another 
 Marie Antoinette; the ex-conventionists could not 
 forget that the same blood flowed in her veins, nor 
 could they believe but that she must inherit the 
 resentments or be eager to avenge the wrongs done 
 to her aunt ; the people regarded her with a super- 
 stitious fear, it being an old popular belief in 
 France that Austrian marriages were always un- 
 lucky, that the princesses of Austria had always 
 brought misfortune upon France. A very sinister 
 accident confirmed the popular superstition. In 
 May, 1770, a grand exhibition of fireworks, &c. 
 was given at Paris to commemorate the marriage 
 of Louis and Marie Antoinette: through some 
 carelessness or mismanagement several hundred 
 persons lost their lives; and this incident was 
 perpetually referred to, when the revolutionary 
 movements began. In July, 1810, Prince 
 Schwartzenberg, the Austrian ambassador at Paris, 
 gave a grand ball and féte, in commemoration of 
 the marriage of Napoleon and Maria Louisa, who 
 were both present at it; a fire broke out in the 
 
 * For a striking, and, as we believe, a perfectly true account of 
 the first meeting of Bonaparte with Maria Louisa, on a rainy day 
 and on the muddy high road between Soissons and Compiégne, and 
 of what passed in the chateau of Compiégne, see Capefigue, Le Con- 
 sulat et Empire. From more private sources of information we 
 know that the most revolting part of those details is perfectly true. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 559 
 
 ball-room ; the hostess, the Princess Schwartzen- 
 berg, a young and handsome woman, lost her life, 
 reveral other persons were killed, and a great 
 many more were seriously injured, Others saw in 
 the young bride a foreigner and an enemy, who 
 would assuredly betray both the emperor and\*he 
 country.* After the fact and its consequences, the 
 French universally admitted that the marriage was 
 a capital fault. ‘* Napoleon,”’ says the best of their 
 republican historians, ‘‘ quitted his position and 
 part as a parvenu and revolutionary monarch, who 
 had been acting in Kurope against the ancient 
 courts as the republic had acted against the ancient 
 governments; he placed himself ina bad situation 
 with respect to Austria, which he ought to have 
 crushed after his victory of Wagram, or to have 
 re-established in her possessions after his marriage 
 with the archduchess. Solid alliances repose only 
 upon real interests, and Napoleon could deprive 
 the cabinet of Vienna neither of the will nor the 
 power to fight him again. This marriage changed 
 also the character of his empire, and separated it 
 still more from the popular feelings and interests ; 
 for he now sought after the old French families to 
 decorate his court, and he did all that he could in 
 order to mix and unite together the ancient noblesse 
 and his new noblesse, even as he had mixed royal 
 dynasties.’’ It has been fancied that Eugene Beau- 
 harnais, Joseph, Louis, and Jerome Bonaparte, 
 Murat, and half of the marshals of the empire, were, 
 for selfish reasons, dissatisfied with the divorce from 
 Josephine, and themarriage with a young bride likely 
 to bring Bonaparte children. Eugene was his son 
 by adoption, and had hoped some day to obtain for 
 himself and his own lineal descendants the kingdom 
 of Italy ; in the so-called constitution of the em- 
 pire all Bonaparte’s brothers (with the exception 
 of Lucien) were placed, with their children, in 
 regular order of succession to the empire; Murat’s 
 children were the emperor’s nephews and nieces, 
 and therefore not remote ; and, as for those adven- 
 turers and fortunate soldiers, the marshals, who 
 had all seen how their present master had obtained 
 a throne, and made an empire, and carved out 
 kingdoms, they were supposed to dream of events 
 and partitions such as occurred on the death of 
 Alexander the Great. 
 
 A few weeks after the marriage, Bonaparte, who 
 had made the same journey with Josephine shortly 
 after his coronation, set out with Maria Louisa to 
 
 * Histoire Parlementaire, vol. xxxix. 
 
 The writer adds that these fears were not confined to a few men, 
 but that it was a general and public opinion, as can be testified by 
 those who lived in France at that epoch. 
 
 + Mignet, Hist. de la Révolution. A certain number of the old 
 noblesse, attracted by the character and dignity of the new empress, 
 moved by their poverty, and following the example of the witty and 
 loose-principled Count Louis de Narbonne (formerly the idol of 
 Madame de Staél), now joined the court and put on Bonaparte’s 
 livery as chamberlains, dames d’atours, &c. The Faubourg St. Ger- 
 main was somewhat thinned of its frondeurs; the Mortemarts, the 
 Montmorencis, the Brignolles, the Perigords, the Contades, the 
 Saint-Aulaires, and others of ancient name who had in part composed 
 the court of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, re-appeared in the 
 Tuileries as the salaried courtiers and household of the em peror and 
 empress. But, except their ancient names, these individuals had 
 little to boast of; they had lost all political weight or character, 
 and, though they might improve the manners of the court, they 
 could not bring to Bonaparte the slightest accession of strength. 
 
 i ee i 
 
560 
 
 visit the northern provinces of France, Belgium, 
 and Holland. While at Flushing he decided that 
 the islands of Walcheren, South Beveland, North 
 Beveland, Schouwen, Duiveland, Tholen, &c. 
 should be for ever annexed to the French empire, 
 and formed into a new department under the name 
 of ** Department of the Mouths of the Scheldt.” 
 He then returned by Brussels, Lille, Dunkerque, 
 Dieppe, and Rouen to Paris, where he arrived on 
 the lst of June. In the preceding autumn some 
 negotiations had been set on foot by a Frenchman, 
 a private individual, for a general cartel or ex- 
 change of prisoners between Engiand and France ; 
 but through the disproportionate demands of the 
 French government these negotiations had ended 
 in nothing. During Bonaparte’s absence in Hol- 
 land, Fouché, his Duke of Otranto and minister of 
 police, had taken it upon himself to open an in- 
 direct private correspondence with Sir Francis 
 Baring, in the view of obtaining a peace with 
 Great Britain. He sent Ouvrard, a banker, stock- 
 jobber, and contractor of Paris, to Amsterdam, 
 and there Ouvrard was said to have put himself 
 in communication with Sir Francis Baring, who, 
 at that time, had the principal hand in our govern- 
 ment loans. Fouche proposed as the basis of ne- 
 gotiations, the undisturbed empire of the continent 
 of Europe to France, without colonies and without 
 a navy ; and to England the undisturbed empire 
 of the seas, with all the colonies in the Eastern and 
 Western hemispheres. Nothing is more certain 
 than that no English cabinet could ever have en- 
 tertained such a proposition; but it is said by the 
 French that Fouché never doubted of success, but 
 hoped to be able very soon to present to his master 
 the basis of a treaty which could not be refused. 
 It was thought that this police-minister and terrible 
 ex-Jacobin believed he should thus secure a solid 
 favour, and cause the new court to forget the part 
 he had taken in the worst acts aud crimes of the 
 revolution. But Ouvrard, it is said, betrayed his 
 employer, and Bonaparte was incensed at Fouche’s 
 presuming to take the initiative in such a grand 
 matter as a negotiation with England. On his 
 return to Paris he dismissed Fouché from his all- 
 important office, and seized Ouvrard’s papers ; but 
 in order to dissemble with the public, or perplex 
 them as to the motives of the Duke of Otranto’s 
 sudden removal, he named that renegade priest 
 governor of Rome. Savary, now: Duke of Rovigo, 
 was installed in the ministry of police on the 3rd 
 of June. But a few days afterwards the nomina- 
 tion of the governorship of Rome was revoked, and 
 Fouché was told that he must quit Paris and retire 
 to and live quietly in his country-house. Many 
 other causes are, however, stated for Fouché’s 
 sudden disgrace. Murat afterwards said, and with 
 much apparent truth, that it was the constant prac- 
 tice of his brother-in-law to sacrifice to his sus- 
 picions, one after the other, all the men who had 
 been most faithful to him and had done him most 
 service; that thus Talleyrand was made to give 
 place to Champagny, and Fouche to Savary. Be- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 sides, the young empress and the newly constituted 
 
 imperial court could scarcely see without horror a 
 man whose dark history was so universally known 
 as that of Fouché. The police-minister, moreover, 
 had, within the two preceding years, had various 
 altercations with his emperor, both as to home and 
 as to foreign policy or war; and in his gloomier 
 moments this minister of police had been heard to 
 mutter that Bonaparte was strangling the reyolu- 
 tionary principles which had given France the 
 spirit and strength to work such miracles, and that 
 he was producing a crossed and bastardised system 
 which could not possibly last. Through some 
 sympathy or some calculation Fouché had also of 
 late testified a high regard for the repudiated 
 Josephine. All this was enough to account for 
 his removal without any reference to Ouvrard’s 
 proceedings at Amsterdam, or to another incident 
 which is confidently stated as a fact in a French 
 work unusually accurate.* This work asserts that 
 he was dismissed and replaced by Savary for having 
 secretly informed Lucien Bonaparte, who was then 
 residing in Italy, that his brother the emperor in- 
 tended to arrest him—in consequence of which 
 information Lucien fled with his family from the 
 Continent, and eventually came over to England. 
 The emperor, who had now annexed such a large 
 part of Holland to France, had long been carrying 
 on angry discussions with his brother Louis, the 
 nominal king of that country. He had told Louis, 
 in the act of naming him to that new throne, that 
 he must remain a Frenchman, and devoted to the 
 interests of the French empire; but Louis, the 
 most amiable, the mildest and the best of his 
 family, conceived an affection for the people he 
 was sent to govern ; he felt really anxious for the 
 welfare and prosperity of his Dutch subjects, who 
 were almost entirely dependent upon commerce, 
 and therefore he never enforced very strictly the 
 Continental system against English commerce. 
 Furious and dreadful were the rebukes he had 
 received from his imperious brother, who told him 
 that he had become a mere Dutchman, that he 
 was sacrificing the interests of France, that he was 
 opposing the ruin of Great Britain, that grand 
 desideratum without which his empire could have 
 no stability, and that, in short, he was forgetting 
 who had made him a king and for what he had 
 been made a king. On the other hand, the Dutch, 
 already impoverished and in good part ruined by 
 the loss of their rich colonies and shipping, and by 
 the stoppage of trade, implored Louis to relax still 
 more the Continental system, and permit or wink 
 at a greater importation of British merchandise — 
 and a more free commercial intercourse with other 
 parts of the world. Louis was not made to struggle 
 with such trying difficulties ; he was too weak to 
 resist Napoleon’s will, but he was too conscientious 
 to submit to it. About the time that his brother 
 returned from Vienna, Louis repaired to Paris to 
 attempt to moderate and conciliate; but he was 
 met only by fresh reproaches and taunts of ingra- 
 
 * Biographie Moderne, ou Galerie Hiztorique. 
 
Cuap. VIII. oe ee CIVIL AND 
 
 titude. Thereupon he declared that, unless a peace | 
 were concluded with Great Britain,* or some im- 
 portant modification of the Continental system 
 allowed in Holland, he would no longer wear that 
 crown, which he found he could not wear without 
 being a means of completing the ruin of a good, 
 interesting, and industrious people. It was in 
 order to make himself sure of the navigation 
 of the Scheldt, which Louis and the Dutch 
 wished to remain free, that the emperor had 
 annexed the Zealand Islands to France in the 
 month of April. After this annexation there was, 
 in fact, no kingdom of Holland, and it could not 
 therefore have cost Louis much to resign his 
 crown. But when Louis returned into Holland 
 he found a strong party sincerely attached to him, 
 who recommended a bold countenance and a firm 
 resistance. He was closely followed by the French 
 general Oudinot, who took possession of Utrecht 
 on the 29th of June, and demanded entrance into 
 the once great trading city of Amsterdam. At 
 first there was some talk of laying the whole 
 country under water, and of fighting for its inde- 
 pendence ; but Louis and his Dutch ministers and 
 generals soon felt the struggle to be hopeless. 
 Louis next thought of emigrating with his family 
 to the eastern colony of Batavia, which still re- 
 mained in possession of the Dutch, but which, 
 together with the whole of the island ‘of Java, was 
 taken from them, or from the French, in the sum- 
 mer of 1811. At last, Louis came to the deter- 
 mination of resigning his crown in favour of his 
 infant son Napoleon Louis. On the Ist of July 
 he signed an act of abdication and a proclamation 
 to the Dutch people; on the third he put these 
 documents into the hands of his ministers, re- 
 questing that they might be laid before the Dutch 
 legislative body, and then he fled with his children 
 into Bohemia to seek an asylum in the dominions 
 of the Emperor of Austria. To all this audacity 
 Napoleon replied by a decree, dated July 9th, the 
 first article of which was—‘ Holland is re- ~united 
 to France!” Oudinot took possession of Amster- 
 dam, which: was now declared to be the third city 
 of the empire; in a few months the French ad- 
 ministration was fully established, and the whole 
 country was divided into departments of the em- 
 pire. Bonaparte’s ministers thought it an easy 
 task to justify these measures in the eyes of the 
 French; and for the rest of the world ‘they cared 
 nothing. One minister, in his report, said : ‘‘ Hol- 
 land is in reality a continuation of France; it may 
 be defined as being formed out of the alluvia of 
 the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, which are 
 the great arteries of our empire.” Talleyrand” S 
 successor, in his report, said: “ Holland is nothing 
 but an emanation of the French empire. In order 
 to possess the Rhine fully, your imperial majesty 
 ’ ® Tt is said that Louis had been attempting to open separate nego- 
 tiations with the British cabinet before this time, and that afterwar ds 
 —at the very moment of the Fouché-Ouvrard maneuvre—he had sent 
 or had consented to the sending over of an Amsterdam merchant to 
 London toconfer with the Marquess Wellesley, or withsome fr iends of 
 
 our minister for foreign affairs, and that this last step made Napolcon 
 view in a more serious light the conduct of his police-minister. 
 
 VOL. YI. 
 
 D MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 561 
 
 DE a alauht “unless a peace | must extend your. your territory to the Zuyder Zee!” 
 This minister for foreign affairs said also that the 
 Continental blockade had existed everywhere 
 except in Holland; that the Dutch under King 
 Louis had been constantly receiving English mer- 
 chandise, and that twice France had been com- 
 pelled to close her custom-houses and prohibit all 
 trade with the Dutch for fear of seeing the city of 
 Paris itself inundated with English goods!* But 
 Bonaparte was not satisfied with the line of the 
 Zuayder Zee as recommended by his ministers; he 
 determined to make his empire reach still farther, 
 and before the year ended—by a senatus consultum 
 dated the 13th of December, 1810—Friesland, 
 Oldenburg, Bremen, all the line of coast to Hate 
 burg, with all the country between Hamburg and 
 Lubeck, were annexed to the French empire like 
 Holland. Ten additional departments were thus 
 constituted, and the last blow was struck at the 
 independence of those ancient trading republics, the 
 Hanse towns. ‘* Bonaparte’s passsion for territorial 
 aggrandisement,” says his old schoolfellow, Bour- 
 rienne, “‘ knew no bounds, and the turn of the 
 Hanse towns had now arrived. By taking posses- 
 sion of those towns and territories he merely ac- 
 complished a design which he had formed long 
 previously.”” The plan, however, was concealed 
 with the usual art until the last moment. Bour- 
 rienne, who had been residing three or four years 
 at Hamburg as Bonaparte’s political agent to the 
 Hanse towns, received no official information of 
 the dark design. On the 8th of December he 
 received a letter from Champagny stating in flat- 
 tering terms that he must have obtained, from his 
 long residence, information respecting Hamburg 
 and the north of Germany which would be very 
 useful to the public interest, and that the emperor 
 wished to see him immediately at Paris, in order 
 to consult with him upon various matters relating 
 to Hamburg. Bourrienne, who had known the 
 great emperor, the insatiable devourer of states and 
 kingdoms, when he had scarcely a shirt to his 
 back or a sous in his pocket, began his journey on 
 the 9th, and on reaching Mayence he met the 
 French courier, who was proceeding to Hamburg 
 to announce the union of the Hanse towns with 
 the French empire! ‘‘I confess,’ adds the mor- 
 tified diplomatist, ‘‘ that, notwithstanding the ex- 
 perience I had acquired of Bonaparte’s duplicity, 
 or rather of the infinite multiplicity of his artifices, 
 he completely took me by surprise on this occa- 
 sion.’’+ 
 
 The French empire now in reality extended 
 from the frontiers of Denmark to the frontiers of 
 Naples, while Naples itself was only a dependency 
 and an appanage in the hands of Murat and Caro- 
 line Bonaparte. This vast empire consisted of 
 130 departments, and contained 42,000,000 of 
 people. Besides this, Napoleon held under his 
 sway the kingdom of Italy with 5,000,000 or 
 
 * Rapports de M. le Comte Montalivet, miniatre de l’intéricur, et 
 de M. Cuampagny, ministre des relations cxtérieures. 
 + Bourrienne, Mémoires. 9 
 J 
 
 cae AA 
 
562 
 
 6,000,000 of inhabitants, and Bologna and Rome, 
 the other legations, and the marches of Ancona, 
 which had been torn from the pope; the Illyrian 
 
 provinces, including Dalmatia, Carniola, a part of 
 
 Croatia, &c.; Jerome’s kingdom of Westphalia, 
 and Murat’s grand duchy of Berg, belonged much 
 more to him who had given them than to those who 
 had received them ; and the troops and resources 
 of the princes of the confederation of the Rhine, of 
 the king of Wurtemberg, the king of Bavaria, the 
 king of Saxony, were at his disposal or under his 
 control. He had also under his protectzon the 
 Helvetic Confederation, or all the once free re- 
 publics and cantons of Switzerland ; and this con- 
 federation, like that of the Rhine, was bound to 
 furnish him with troops and to follow his policy. 
 Prussia, humbled and dismembered, lay at his 
 mercy. In all it was calculated that he gave the 
 law to more than 80,000,000 of people. So great 
 a part of Europe had certainly never been subject 
 to the will of one man since the fall of the 
 Roman empire. The fact seemed incredible ; but, 
 nevertheless, so it was: the Emperor Francis was 
 his father-in-law, and Austria was his submis- 
 sive ally. Russia was keeping up a friendly inter- 
 course with him; Denmark, if not so devoted to 
 his interests as she had been, retained her old 
 animosity against Great Britain; and in Sweden, 
 by a succession of court revolutions and state in- 
 trigues, Marshal Bernadotte had been elected 
 crown prince, and, with the throne in succession, 
 was already exercising all the authority of a king, 
 and a great deal more than any native Swedish 
 monarch had been possessed of since the days of 
 Charles XII. To brave this mighty power and to 
 continue the war, which, with the intermission of 
 a few months, had already lasted eighteen years, 
 England had no other allies than Portugal, Spain, 
 Sicily, and Sardinia. Spain seemed bleeding to 
 death, deaf to the councils which would have 
 stanched her wounds and renovated her strength ; 
 Sicily was only kept from the grasp of the enemy 
 by the presence of a British army, paid and sup- 
 plied by the British government, and the court of 
 Ferdinand [V. must have been starved out of that 
 island but for our subsidies. The king of Sardinia 
 was also living on English money, and was constantly 
 requiring the protection of English ships, without 
 being able to furnish a single regiment or anything 
 else except good wishes to his ally. Our best ally 
 was Portugal, for she furnished men that were 
 becoming excellent troops; but England was 
 obliged to pay for those troops as well as for her 
 own army, which was fighting for the liberation of 
 the country. The close of the year 1810 was con- 
 sidered as the period of Bonaparte’s greatest power 
 and splendour, as the apogee of his lucky and bright 
 star. Yet those who looked more attentively saw 
 that mists and clouds were gathering on all sides ; 
 _ that he had built up his tower too high, too hastily, 
 and with materials too incohesive, to stand. Those 
 who knew the strong personal antipathies which 
 existed between Bernadotte and Napoleon, and 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ~~ “"4 he ‘ a | “ora 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 the frequent and violent quarrels which were 
 breaking out between Napoleon and Murat, saw 
 already that the existence of a French-born king 
 in Sweden would not add to the power of France 
 in the north, and that events might arise which 
 would detach Naples in the south. A little sooner 
 or later Russia was sure to resent the usurpations 
 of France in the north of Germany and on the 
 Baltic ; and the family alliance with Austria, con- 
 tracted by force, a record of disgrace, a thing 
 which did violence to all national feeling, must 
 some day be found as weak as a gossamer, as 
 worthless as dicers’ oaths. But what most encou- 
 raged the hopes of those who longed and sighed 
 for the subversion of the Bonapartean system, was 
 the certainty derived from the knowledge of the 
 character and temper of Bonaparte himself and of 
 the French people, that attempts would soon he 
 made to give a still greater elevation to the already 
 tottering tower ; that aggressions would be made 
 upon the great and adroit power of the North, 
 whose strength was unbroken and whose arms 
 were undisgraced, and that these aggressions must 
 ultimately produce not merely a coalition of kings, 
 as former leagues of that sort had been, but a 
 coalition of peoples, arising and a union of nations. 
 When the downfall and the day of reckoning ar- 
 rived, the Emperor of the West and his subjects 
 exchanged accusations and reproaches, the French 
 saying that Bonaparte would never rest, and Bona- 
 parte saying that with such a people and with such 
 an immense army it was impossible to rest. Be- 
 tween the two, and in the nature of the system, 
 the impossibility certainly existed. The system 
 itself was like a drunken man who can keep his 
 feet so long as he runs, but who falls when he 
 attempts to stop. 
 
 Events had occurred in England from which 
 greater political changes were expected than ever 
 resulted from them. By the non-attendance of 
 George III. at the opening and closing of the ses- 
 sion of parliament, and by other indications, it had 
 long been suspected that the king was suffering 
 under his old distressing malady. In the autumn 
 of the preceding year, 1809, when his majesty en- 
 tered upon the fiftieth year of his reign, it was 
 determined to celebrate the anniversary as a Grand 
 National Jubilee. The government, under Mr. 
 Perceval, took the lead, but the call was eagerly and 
 unanimously responded to by the municipalities of 
 the kingdom, and by other public bodies and 
 societies ; and the great mass of the population 
 hailed the 25th of October with every possible 
 demonstration of loyalty, attachment, and respect, 
 It was truly a national festival, and a gay and 
 beautiful one, for that October month was more 
 than usually fine and bright. The jubilee was ob- 
 served as a holiday in every city, town, village, and 
 hamlet; there was illumination and joy throughout 
 the land; but the joy did not reach the interior of 
 the old monarch’s palace, for grief was there, and 
 sickness, and the apprehension of death, and of 
 what was worse than death. The king’s mind had 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 been over-wrought and over-excited by the Austrian 
 war, which had then finished so disastrously, and 
 by the Walcheren expedition, which was then ter- 
 minating in such failure, and, as it was thought, in 
 such disgrace. The nomination of the Karl of 
 Chatham to that command had been completely a 
 court nomination; and George III. is said to have 
 reproached himself now for yielding to his own and 
 the queen’s partialities in favour of an amiable man 
 who had proved himself to be unfit for the com- 
 mand, ‘To an eye predisposed to despondence the 
 whole aspect of affairs abroad was gloomy enough. 
 Other causes of distress and agitation of a more pri- 
 vate and domestic nature existed at the time of the 
 jubilee, or were superadded shortly afterwards 
 (materials of which the spirit of faction caught 
 hold, and turned to atrocious uses); but the grief 
 of griefs in the bosom of the old king was the de- 
 clining health of his youngest child, his darling 
 daughter, the Princess Amelia, who had long been 
 in a very precarious state. ‘The king himself had 
 long been suffering under a disorder of the eyes, 
 and was now well-nigh blind. In the summer of 
 1810, the Princess Amelia was removed to Wind- 
 sor, in a state of great suffering. Her fond father 
 visited her every day. When she felt that her end 
 was approaching, the princess ordered a ring to be 
 made, enclosing a lock of her hair, with her name 
 on the imside, and the words ‘‘ Remember me 
 when I am gone.” The mournful token was made 
 and delivered. The next day when the king came 
 to her bedside, and, darkling, held out his hand to 
 her, the princess put the ring on his finger silently. 
 He felt the ring, he understood all that it imported, 
 he controlled his agony; but, when he had quitted 
 that chamber of death, his intellect was found to 
 be quite overset. This was on the 20th or 21st of 
 October, 1810. The Princess Amelia lingered till 
 the 2nd of November; but, though she missed her 
 father’s daily visit, she knew not the sad condition 
 into which her fatal present had thrown him. On 
 the 25th of October, the anniversary of the king’s 
 accession to the throne, it was publicly announced 
 that his majesty was again attacked by the mental 
 malady under which he had before laboured. Par- 
 liament had stood prorogued, pro formd, tll the 
 Ist of November, without any intention of its meet- 
 ing then for the dispatch of business. An order of 
 council had been prepared, directing that it should 
 be further prorogued, and authorizing the chancel- 
 lor to issue a commission, under the great seal, for 
 this further prorogation ; but the state of the king, 
 and his mability to sign the commission, prevented 
 the completion of this order, and both Houses 
 therefore met on the Ist of November, under these 
 singular circumstances, not being summoned for 
 the dispatch of business, and being left to form a 
 course of proceeding for themselves, without having 
 any precedent to guide them. The physicians 
 confidently stated their expectations that his ma- 
 jesty would soon recover; and ministers upon this 
 ground moved an adjournment for a fortnight, 
 which was agreed to, in thin Houses, without a 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1810. 
 
 563 
 
 dissentient voice. At the fortmight’s end the 
 physicians remained in the same opinion; one 
 of them declared that he perceived the same 
 symptoms which had convinced him two-and- 
 twenty years before that the king was recovering. 
 A second adjournment for a fortnight was moved 
 by ministers, Lord Grenville said he should pre- 
 fer a shorter adjournment, to be followed by other 
 adjournments, from time to time, if the state of the 
 king should render it necessary; adding, however, 
 that he would rather err on the side of forbearance, 
 delicacy, and delay, than on that of precipitation, 
 and that therefore, and for the sake of unanimity, 
 he would assent to the ministerial motion. Earl 
 Grey assented also, but he expressed serious doubts 
 of the propriety of the proceeding ; and he bade 
 the peers reflect that, as there could not be the 
 same prospect of a full and entire recovery as in 
 1788, they were bound not to shut their eyes to the 
 calculation of probability, and the actual state and 
 condition of the country. In the Commons the 
 opposition were much less decorous. Whitbread, 
 Sir Francis Burdett, Tierney, Lord Archibald Ha- 
 milton, and others, said that they had no evidence 
 before them, except the zpse drxit of the chancellor 
 of the exchequer; that the constitution was sus- 
 pended ; that the public business could not go on 
 without the king, or the real executive government ; 
 that the country would fall into a state of anarchy, and 
 was already in a state of great danger. Mr. Fuller, 
 one of the Sussex members—“ honest Jack Fuller”’ 
 —asked where was this danger? since the enemy 
 could not get a ship to sea, nor could their troops 
 beat Lord Wellington in the Peninsula. The ad- 
 journment was carried by 343 against 58. After 
 the second fortnight had elapsed, ministers laid be- 
 fore parliament a report of the privy council, con- 
 taining the examination of the king’s physicians, 
 who all still declared their conviction that it was 
 probable that his majesty would recover.* In the 
 Lords the Earl of Liverpool then moved for the 
 delay of another fortnight. Earl Spencer, in oppo- 
 sition to this, moved that a select committee should 
 be appomted to examine the physicians; and he 
 was strongly supported by Lord Holland, Lord 
 Grenville, and others. Lord Grenville said that 
 the proposal for further adjournment was dero- 
 gatory to the dignity of parliament, hostile to 
 the best interests of the crown, repugnant to 
 every principle of the constitution; that the 
 House was not yet in possession of any fact 
 which they could constitutionally recognize ; that, 
 as for the report of the privy council, it signified 
 nothing, since it must have been convened without 
 the sanction, the summons, or even knowledge of 
 the king, who alone was entitled to summon it; 
 
 _ that if such courses as these were allowed to be pur- 
 
 sued, the monarchy would become not a republic, 
 but the most odious and detestable form of aristo- 
 cracy. On a division, Lord Spencer’s amend- 
 
 * ¢*Our beloved old king, the physicians declare, is recovering, 
 and theyjhave scarcely a doubt of his being even speedily well, if his 
 restoration be not retarded by some of the circumstances which if 
 he were not a king he would not experience.”— Wilberforce, Diary. 
 
564 
 
 ment was negatived by 88 against 56; two of the 
 king’s sons, the Dukes of York and Cambridge, 
 voting with the ministry, and two, the Dukes of 
 Clarence and Sussex, with the opposition. In the 
 House of Commons the debate was again much 
 more violent. Whitbread spoke of the king’s reco- 
 very as an impossibility, and of his blindness as an 
 absolute disqualification. Several members re- 
 peated the arguments, and almost the very words, 
 which the Whigs had used in 1788, in calling for 
 the immediate appointment of the Prince of Wales 
 as regent; but it was noticeable that Sheridan, and 
 some other members of that party, who had been so 
 hotly impatient then, were cold and cautious now. 
 They showed no alacrity, because they entertained 
 no hope. The great champion for the instant regency 
 was General Montague Matthew, who said that, as 
 the third estate was wanting, and as the House 
 could have no confidence in the assertions of minis- 
 ters, he would vote not only against the adjourn- 
 ment, but for the immediate appointment of the 
 Prince of Wales as regent, with full regal power. 
 That excellent prince, he said, had the voice of his 
 country, which well knew that no one existed so 
 able and likely to reconcile all jars, especially in 
 Ireland, which looked to him with confidence to 
 heal the injuries she had received from the mal- 
 administration of the faction which was now ruling. 
 It was a source of happiness to him, and to the 
 country, to know that they had so wise and expe- 
 rienced a prince to supply the defect that had 
 arisen. He therefore recommended the House to 
 withdraw the power as speedily as possible from 
 ministers, and appoint the Prince of Wales to the 
 regency for which he was destined by the Almighty ! 
 Mr. Yorke, the present head of the admiralty, 
 spoke as if a change of ministers and of measures 
 must follow the nomination of the regent. “If,” 
 said he, “there are inconveniences in our present 
 proceedings, there are also inconveniences on the 
 other side. What if the regent were to be advised 
 to change the whole system of our foreign policy, 
 to withdraw our army from the peninsula, and refuse 
 all further support to Spain and Portugal? Such a 
 case was possible, and would that be no inconye- 
 nience?”? Mr. Ponsonby moved for a committee 
 to examine the king’s physicians; but this was 
 negatived by 230 against 137, and the House once 
 more adjourned for a fortnight. On the 15th of 
 December, when parliament met again, ministers 
 said that, though a considerable degree of amend- 
 ment had taken place, and the same confident ex- 
 pectations of his majesty’s ultimate recovery were 
 still entertained by his physicians, yet the immediate 
 state of his health was not such as could warrant 
 them to propose another adjournment.* With the 
 concurrence of ministers committees were therefore 
 appointed in both Houses to examine the physi- 
 cians. On the 17th the committees made their 
 
 * “December 9. The king getting better, but with occasional 
 relapses. Perceval said on Thursday, that he was as well then as 
 when Thurlow declared him well, and sealed the commission in 
 
 1789. Ibelieve it. I remember that it was then said in private 
 that the king was not quite well.”— Wilberforce, Diary, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 reports, which were ordered to be printed.* Ac- 
 cording to the reports the physicians re-affirmed 
 their hopes of a recovery. But Mr. Perceval moved 
 that on Thursday next, the 20th instant, the House 
 should resolve itself into a committee to take into 
 consideration the state of the nation; his intention, 
 he said, being to submit then to the committee three 
 preliminary resolutions similar to those which had 
 been moved and carried by Mr. Pitt in 1788. On 
 the 20th, the House being in committee, the chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer presented his three resolu- 
 tions, which were precisely the same as those which 
 Pitt had laid down, in opposition to the scheme of 
 Fox and his friends.t The first resolution, setting 
 forth the king’s present incapacity, was agreed to; 
 the second, declaring the competency of the two 
 Houses of Parliament to supply the deficiency of 
 the executive power, was carried, with the single 
 dissentient voice of Sir Francis Burdett, who said 
 it was perfectly impossible for him to concur in any 
 resolution which called such a parliament as the 
 present, “‘the Lords spiritual and temporal and 
 Commons of the United Kingdom, lawfully, fully, 
 and freely representing all the estates of the people 
 of this realm.” The third resolution, which pro- 
 posed to proceed to the appointment of the regent 
 by bill, was opposed by Mr. Ponsonby, who moved 
 an amendment to the effect that the proceeding 
 should not be by bill, but by address. [In other 
 words, Mr. Ponsonby would have proceeded as the 
 Irish parliament had done in 1788, and have called 
 upon the Prince of Wales by address to assume the 
 regency as his hereditary and indisputable right ; 
 which was the doctrine held by Fox and all the 
 whigs of that day.]} The amendment was rejected, 
 and the original resolution carried by 269 against 
 157. The same three resolutions were carried in 
 the House of Lords by 100 agaist 74. All the 
 royal dukes voted in the minority, and joined with 
 many other peers in a strong protest against the li- 
 mitations put upon the power of the regent. Pre- 
 viously to this protest the royal dukes had had re- 
 course to the singular measure of protesting against 
 the intended restrictions in a letter addressed to Mr. 
 Perceval.§ On both sides there was a total want 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly, however, says, in speaking of the report of 
 the committee of the Commons, ‘‘ The whole of the evidence which 
 the physicians gave does not, however, appear in the report. Several 
 of the questions and answers were expunged by the committee before 
 they made their report. Some of the most important facts so suppressed 
 are, that the cause of the king's insanity in 1801 was the resigna- 
 tion of Mr. Pitt; and the cause of his insanity in 1804, the publica- 
 tion of the correspondence between the Prince of Wales and the Duke 
 of York.”—Diary of Parliamentary Life, in Memoir by his Sons. 
 
 t For Pitt’s resolutions, and Fox’s scheme of regency, with the 
 debates thereon, see vol. v. p. 699, 
 
 + See vol. v. pp. 696 to 714, 
 
 4 The protest was in these words: 
 
 ‘* Wednesday night, 12 o’clock, December 19th. 
 
 *¢Sir—The Prince of Wales having assembled the whole of the 
 male branches of the royal family, and having communicated to us 
 the plan intended to be proposed by his majesty’s confidential servants 
 to the Lords and Commons for the establishment of a restricted 
 regency, should the continuance of his majesty’s ever-to-be-deplored 
 illness render it necessary; we feel ita duty we owe to his majesty, 
 to our country, and to ourselves, to enter our solemn protest against 
 measures we consider as perfectly unconstitutional, as they are 
 contrary to, and subversive of, the principles which seated our 
 family upon the throne of this realm.” 
 
 To this protest of the royal dukes, which met with almost universal 
 disapprobation, as being an attempt on their part to form themselves 
 into a college of princes, Perceval had replied, for himself and his | 
 
Cuar. VIIT.] 
 
 of novelty in the arguments used ; and perhaps, after 
 the numerous and elaborate debates of 1788-9, it 
 was not easy for either party to hit either upon new 
 arguments or new illustrations. It was, however, 
 to be remarked that the question of the Prince 
 of Wales’s right to the regency which had been 
 s0 vehemently supported by Fox, was scarcely 
 urged at all by any member of the present op- 
 position; and it did not behove ministers to agi- 
 tate that question, the right having been so de- 
 cidedly negatived in 1788. Sir Francis Burdett 
 and some others complained of the restrictions 
 put upon the exercise of the prerogative in the 
 hands of the regent; but they did not maintain 
 
 that, by the mere fact of the incapacity of the king,. 
 
 the Prince of Wales, or heir to the throne, became 
 regent without any vote or authority of parliament. 
 Sir Francis said that Pitt’s regency bill of 1788 
 was an act passed by a powerful faction against 
 his royal highness the Prince of Wales; that it 
 was an act which never should have had his sanc- 
 tion; an act which put the prince into leading- 
 strings, threw him back into the stage of infancy, 
 and made him a sort of constructive lunatic. He 
 supposed that the same course was now to be pur- 
 sued by a part of the same faction which had 
 heaped indignity after indignity upon his royal 
 highness! It was also noticeable that the Radical 
 reformers and the remnant of the Foxite, or, as 
 Burke called them, the new Whig party, were far 
 more eager for increasing the powers of the regent 
 than was any other section or party in the House. 
 On the 30th of December, Mr. Perceval proposed 
 the same limitations and restrictions on the powers 
 of the regent as were passed in 1788. They were 
 contained in five resolutions. The first was carried 
 in a full House by a majority of only 24. The 
 resolution restricting for a time the prerogative of the 
 regent respecting the granting of peerages was car- 
 ried by a majority of only 16. The third resolution, 
 limiting the power of granting offices in reversion, 
 salaries, pensions, &c., was carried by a majority 
 of only 19. The fourth resolution, for securing 
 the king’s private property, was agreed to without 
 a division ; and the fifth, relating to the care of his 
 majesty’s person, was postponed till the next day. 
 A.D. 1811. There was no time for keeping 
 Christmas holidays. On the Ist of January, an 
 amendment to the fifth resolution, tending to dimi- 
 nish to a trifling amount the expenses of the king’s 
 household, and to curtail the authority of the queen 
 colleagues in administration,— That, deeply as they lamented that 
 the measure which they had thought themselves bound to propose 
 should appear to their royal highnesses to deserve a character so di- 
 rectly contrary to that which it had been their anxious endeavour 
 should belong to it, they must still, however, have the consolation of 
 reflecting, that the principles upon which they had acted obtained the 
 express and concurrent support of the two Houses of parliament in 
 the years 1788 and 1789; that those Houses of parliament had the high 
 satisfaction of receiving, by the command of his Majesty, after his ma- 
 jesty’s recovery, his warmest acknowledgments for the additional proofs 
 they had given of their affectionate attachment to his person, and of 
 their zealous concern for the honour and interests of his crown, and 
 the security and good government of his dominions ; and that the 
 uninterrupted confidence which his majesty was pleased to repose, for 
 a long series of years, in the persons who proposed the measures which 
 were grounded on those principles, entitled his majesty’s servants, 
 
 in their judgment, still farther to conclude that those principles 
 and measures had the sanction of his royal approbation.” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 ‘ 
 
 565 
 
 over that household, was carried against ministers 
 by 226 against 213, Lord Castlereagh speaking in 
 favour of it. On the next day Perceval divided the 
 House upon an amendment of his own, which went 
 to restore the fifth resolution to its original state, 
 but he was outvoted by three voices—217 to 214. 
 When these five resolutions were communicated to 
 the House of Lords, the Earl of Liverpool strongly 
 objected to the fifth as it now stood altered. All 
 he asked was, that the disposition of the household 
 should be allowed to remain for twelve months with 
 the queen. He was willing to agree that none of 
 the great officers should be removed by the queen 
 during that time: in this way her majesty would 
 be placed out of the reach of the imputation of 
 making any improper use of her influence. But, 
 after some discussion, Lord Liverpool’s motion was 
 negatived by 100 against 97; and so the fifth clause 
 was agreed to as it came up from the Commons. 
 Lord Lansdowne and Lord Grenville thought it 
 hard, unjust, and illiberal, that the regent should 
 be restricted from granting peerages to any persons 
 except such as might perform some signal military 
 or naval exploit ; and an amendment moved by Lord 
 Lansdowne, for allowing the regent to bestow the 
 peerage upon deserving civilians, lawyers, &c., was 
 carried by a majority of three (105 to 102), and 
 was accordingly introduced into the second resolu- 
 tion. The third and fourth resolutions, as sent up 
 by the Commons, were agreed to without a division. 
 The Commons readily agreed to the alteration made 
 in the second resolution, which was the only altera- 
 tion the Lords did make. By the act founded 
 upon these resolutions, it was provided that the 
 restrictions upon the royal authority as exercised 
 by the regent should continue till the Ist of Fe- 
 bruary, 1812, if parliament should be then as- 
 sembled, and should have been sitting for six 
 weeks previously ; otherwise, till the expiration of 
 six weeks from the assembling of parliament after 
 that day. 
 
 A deputation from both Houses waited on the 
 prince-regent and the queen, to acquaint them with 
 the resolutions which had been passed. ‘The queen, 
 who was in a manner entrusted with the sole charge 
 of her unhappy husband, promised her most earnest 
 attention to the anxious and momentous charge, 
 and spoke as if she were satisfied with the confi- 
 dence reposed in her, and with all the arrange- 
 ments made by parliament. But the Prince of 
 Wales plainly told the deputation, that, though he 
 did not hesitate to accept the office proposed to him, 
 he could not but consider that its powers were to 
 be exercised under too many restrictions and limi- 
 tations. On the 11th of January the answers of 
 the Prince of Wales and the queen were reported 
 to parliament. Then Lord Liverpool, in the Lords, 
 moved a resolution for putting the great seal to a 
 commission for opening the parliament under the 
 regent. Earl Grey, who had absented himself 
 during all the previous important proceedings, 
 protested against them in very strong language, 
 uccusing ministers of flagrant usurpation, and of 
 
 a ET 
 
566 
 
 grossly violating the constitution. ‘The ministers’ 
 resolution passed the Lords by 51 against 33. It 
 was afterwards agreed to by the Commons; and 
 then the Houses adjourned until the 15th of Ja- 
 nuary, when the session was to be opened for the 
 dispatch of business under the regency by the 
 commission thus appointed. 
 
 The most extensive changes were pretty gene- 
 rally expected to ensue immediately, the restoration 
 of the Whigs to power being considered as a neces- 
 sary consequence of the prince’s old friendships or 
 connexions with that party. It was reported most 
 confidently on the 14th of January that the prince 
 intended to make a sweep as soon as possible; and 
 Wilberforce observes in his ‘ Diary’ that he could 
 not see how the prince could do otherwise. In the 
 Whig clubs and political circles a list of the new 
 ministry was circulated : but this list was certainly 
 not drawn up by the heads of the party, who alone 
 knew the real state of the case; and the list itself 
 seems to have varied considerably in the course 
 of a very few days. At first Lord Grenville was 
 unhesitatingly set down as premier and first lord 
 of the treasury: but there were difficulties in the 
 way of this arrangement (difficulties which will be 
 presently alluded to); and then, without regard to 
 that other obstacle or serious doubt whether Gren- 
 ville would accept a secondary post under Grey, 
 it was as confidently given out that Earl Grey would 
 be premier. Grenville according to this version 
 was to be secretary for foreign affairs; Lord Hol- 
 land, first lord of the Admiralty; the Marquess of 
 Lansdowne, formerly Lord Henry Petty, and chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer to the All Talents adminis- 
 tration, was to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland, in 
 which country he had large estates; Mr. Ponsonby, 
 who for some time had been considered as the 
 leader of the Whig opposition in the Commons, 
 was to be one of the secretaries of state; and 
 Whitbread was to be the third, although no one 
 who knew the two men could believe that Grenville 
 and Whitbread could long agree, for on the vital 
 questions of war and peace and foreign policy, as 
 on every other important point but one, they dif- 
 fered in toto. Lord Erskine was to be, not chan- 
 cellor, as he had been in the All Talents ministry, 
 but speaker of the House of Lords ; and the great 
 seal was to be put in commission. Piggott and 
 Romilly were to have their former offices of attor- 
 ney and solicitor general. Even the minor places 
 were all provided for. Mr. Brougham was to be 
 secretary of the admiralty, in lieu of Mr. John 
 Wilson Croker; and Mr. Francis Horner, a new 
 luminary of the party, and their great financial 
 theorist, was to be secretary of the treasury. 
 All this, however, was but the rumour of a day ; 
 other lists were made out by the quidnuncs; and 
 by the end of a week the best informed began to 
 doubt whether either Grenville or Grey would be 
 premier—whether there would or could be any 
 Whig ministry at all. With some this doubt ex- 
 tended far into the future; but with others the 
 hope obtained that, though the Whig party should 
 
 —_———. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 t . 4 4 
 not get into power just now, their accession to 
 
 office could not be delayed very long, and that the 
 most the prince-regent would consent or submit to 
 would be the temporary exclusion of his friends. 
 This hope was cherished in some, though not, as 
 we believe, in the heads of the party, who must 
 have known the formidable difficulties that existed, 
 by a correspondence which took place at the begin- 
 ning of February between the Prince of Wales and 
 Mr. Perceval, in which the prince declared “ that 
 the irresistible impulse of filial duty and affection 
 to his beloved and afflicted father,” and his dread 
 that any act of the regent might interfere with the 
 progress of his recovery, alone induced him to re- 
 tain the present cabinet. His royal highness also 
 complained indirectly of the restrictions which the 
 minister had thought fit to put upon the powers of 
 the regency.* Mr. Perceval, in his reply, defended 
 the line of conduct which he and his colleagues had 
 pursued ; and, as in other matters of a personal 
 nature the premier on former occasions had opposed 
 the wishes of the prince, and had never (not even 
 now, when he was confirmed in his high office) 
 betrayed any symptoms of a timid, a submissive, 
 or compromising spirit, it was judged by those who 
 pretended to be good judges of human nature, that 
 he must be excessively odious to the regent, and 
 that this odium must render his long continuing 
 in office impossible. They neglected to observe 
 that, though Perceval’s steady and decided conduct 
 might have given offence to the prince, it had gained 
 for him many friends both in parliament and in 
 the country, and had warmed the attachment and 
 zeal of the disciples, friends, and admirers of Pitt, 
 who indisputably continued to form by far the 
 strongest party in the nation—a party which in fact 
 could be overthrown or committed only by a com- 
 promise and a coalition with their political adver- 
 saries. ‘This last was an event not likely to occur; 
 for, if the Pittites, or Tories, had been disposed to 
 try the always dangerous experiment (which they 
 were determined not to try, and which, being con- 
 scious of their own unaided superiority of strength, 
 they felt that there was no necessity for them to 
 * The prince’s letter was to this effect :— 
 ** Carlton-house, Feb. 4, 181]. 
 
 ** The Prince of Wales considers the moment to be arrived which 
 calls for his decision with respect to the persons to be employed by 
 
 him in the administration of the executive government of the country, 
 
 according to the powers vested in him by the bill passed by the two 
 Houses of parliament, and now on the point of receiving the sanction 
 of the great seal. 
 
 ** The prince feels it incumbent upon him, at this precise juncture, 
 to communicate to Mr. Perceval his intention not to remove from their 
 stations those whom he finds there as his majesty’s official servants. 
 At the same time the prince owes it to the truth and sincerity of cha- 
 racter which he trusts will appear in every action of his life, in what-- 
 ever situation placed, explicitly to declare that the irresistible impulse 
 of filial duty and affection to his beloved and afflicted father leads him 
 to dread that any act of the regent might, in the smallest degree, have the 
 effect of interfering with the progress of his sovereign’s recovery. 
 
 ** This consideration alone dictates the decision now communicated 
 to Mr. Perceval. 
 
 ‘‘ Having thus performed an act of indispensable duty, from a just r 
 
 sense of what is due to his own consistency and honour, the oe 
 has only to add, that, among the many blessings to be derived from 
 his majesty’s restoration to health, and to the personal exercise of his 
 royal functions, it will not, in the prince’s estimation, be the least, 
 that that most fortunate event will at once rescue him from asituation 
 
 of unexampled embarrassment, and put anend to a state of affairs — 
 ill calculated, he fears, to sustain theinterests of the United Kingd ; 
 in this awful and perilous crisis, and most difficult to be reconciled — 
 to the genuine principles of the British constitution.” 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 try), they would have encountered a capital impe- 
 diment at least from Earl Grey, if not from the 
 entire Whig phalanx, who had not yet recovered 
 from the sad and dishonouring effects of Fox’s 
 coalition with Lord North. Even those not friendly 
 to him acknowledged the ability, spirit, integrity, 
 and imperturbable calmness and good humour 
 which Perceval had displayed through all the con- 
 duct of this most difficult and trying business. It 
 was said that the regent might be offended at the 
 minister, but that he could not but feel an increase 
 of respect for the man. ‘The reasons assigned by 
 the prince, in his letter to Perceval, for continuing 
 the government as he found it established were no 
 doubt strong and true motives, although they cer- 
 tainly were not a// the motives by which his royal 
 highness was actuated. One of the king’s physi- 
 cians represented to the prince the likelihood of 
 his majesty’s recovery; told him that his father fre- 
 quently made the most anxious inquiries about him ; 
 and, affirming that a change of ministers would, 
 in all probability, as soon as it was communicated 
 fo the king, produce such an exacerbation as might 
 put an end to his life, he very strongly impressed 
 upon his royal highness the refiection that he might 
 come to be considered as guilty of parricide. The 
 queen, too, wrote a letter to her son, saying that 
 the king had been informed of all that had 
 passed during his illness, and was in the highest 
 degree gratified by the manner in which the prince 
 had conducted himself.* All this has been set 
 down by the Whigs as a mere intrigue, carried 
 on with great art, in order to determine the regent 
 not to make any ministerial change; but, as it is 
 not easy to set limits to the uncertainties of the 
 medical science in its most difficult department, 
 or to the fond hopes of an affectionate wife, the 
 conversation and the letter may very well be ac- 
 counted for without believing in any intrigue 
 whatever; and the physician and the queen may, 
 in perfect truth and sincerity—as they understood 
 the matter—have addressed the regent in the 
 manner they did; nor could the prince have en- 
 tertained any doubt of the effect which would be 
 produced upon his father by any entire and sudden 
 change in the administration, nor can the physician 
 be accused of much exaggeration in affirming that 
 the appointment of a Grey or a Grenville cabinet 
 would have been a death-blow to the poor blind 
 old king, who had, and who for some months con- 
 tinued to have, lucid intervals, during which he 
 eagerly inquired into the condition of the govern- 
 meut, and into the state and progress of the war, 
 of the final result of which he had never, in his 
 better days, doubted, provided only the disciples 
 of Fox, who had all along declared the war to be 
 unnecessary and unjust, were not forced upon him 
 as ministers and counsellors. It is but a perverse 
 ingenuity to get up or imagine intrigues and artful 
 manceuvres to account for what may be explained 
 upon very simple and very obvious grounds. A 
 great deal too much importance has been attri- 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 EAR eet. ee ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 567 
 
 buted to the conduct at this crisis of that effete and 
 discredited man Sheridan, and to what is called 
 an intriguing manoeuvre which he practised. The 
 prince, who, at one moment, had gone the length 
 of refusing to receive Mr. Perceval at Carlton 
 House, and who had requested Lords Grey and 
 Grenville to make a draft of the answer which he 
 should deliver to the addresses of the Lords and 
 Commons, was not well satisfied with the paper 
 they sent him, and handed it over to Sheridan to 
 make some alterations in it. This said draft was 
 not the production of ministers, or even of men 
 who were agreed as to a ministry to be formed, 
 and the places they were to occupy; Grey and 
 Grenville had been consulted as private individuals ; 
 it was premature and irregular in them to seek to 
 identify the regent with themselves and their views, 
 as they did in the draft they presented; and the 
 prince had the indisputable right of submitting 
 their paper to correction, or of rejecting it alto- 
 gether—which last course would have been the 
 best. Sheridan, who was always ready to’ do what- 
 soever the prince might ask from him,—Sheridan, 
 who had long considered himself a disappointed, 
 ill-used man, deprived by the aristocratic pride and 
 the selfishness of the great Whig families of the 
 rewards to which his services and his eloquence 
 entitled him—who had little to hope from Earl 
 Grey, and a good deal to fear from Earl Grenville, 
 whom he had lampooned on various occasions— 
 undertook his present task with alacrity, and ma- 
 terially altered the Grey and Grenville paper. It 
 would appear, however, that the alterations were 
 precisely conformable to the directions of the 
 prince, that others beside Sheridan were employed, 
 and that the Earl of Moira was not a stranger to 
 any part of the business, a sufficiently strong proof 
 that, in the estimation of that high-minded noble- 
 man, there was nothing tricky nor dishonourable 
 in the transaction. If the prince had adopted, 
 without alteration, the Grey and Grenville paper, 
 which sounded like their own opposition speeches, 
 the regency would have commenced with a quarrel 
 with both Houses of parliament. His royal high- 
 ness sent back their draft in its corrected or altered 
 form to Lords Grey and Grenville, apparently 
 without anticipating any angry remonstrance on 
 their part; but those two noblemen, in a joint 
 letter to the prince, expressed in strong terms their 
 dissatisfaction, telling his royal highness that, as 
 he had not deemed it proper to follow their advice, 
 but had submitted their humble endeavours in his 
 service to the judgment of another person, they 
 must decline taking any further part’ in the in- 
 tended arrangements. ‘The regent showed : this 
 peremptory letter to Sheridan, who is said to have 
 represented to the prince the miserable state of 
 tutelage in which he must expect to be kept by 
 men who began their lectures and their stately dic- 
 tation to him even before they were his ministers.* 
 But, weeks before this, it was rumoured that 
 Lords Grey and Grenville could not accord, that 
 * T, Moore, Life of Sheridan. 
 
LOT AI STS LT BOE EN A CT NANPA ES ste atane tone 
 
 568 
 
 differences and even dissensions prevailed in the 
 Whig party, or in that coalition of parties which 
 had occupied the opposition benches; and certain 
 facts and circumstances, now known to the whole 
 nation, produced no small degree of indisposition 
 to Lord Grenville, together with the pretty general 
 conviction that his lordship could not take office as 
 
 first lord of the treasury, and that he had never seri- 
 
 ously aimed at doing so. Lord Grenville had held 
 for many years the very profitable patent place for 
 life of auditor of the exchequer; on assuming the 
 premiership in the All Talents administration, 
 being fully determined not to sacrifice his certain 
 income as auditor to his very uncertain salary, 
 power, and patronage as minister, his lordship’s 
 friends brought in a bill to allow him to_ hold 
 both places, arguing that there was no incon- 
 sistency or incompatibility in this double tenure, 
 that the auditorship of the exchequer was never 
 intended as a check on the treasury, that the first 
 lord of the treasury might very constitutionally, 
 safely, and appropriately continue to be auditor of 
 the exchequer, &c., the auditorship being little 
 else than a dependency and registry of the trea- 
 sury. This bill was almost the first measure: the 
 Talents entered upon, and it was generally con- 
 sidered to have been carried through parliament 
 with a greedy impatience and indecent haste. 
 Nor was Lord Grenville the only member of his 
 family that had been eager and successful in ob- 
 taining a disproportionate share of the public 
 money and of the good things in the gift of govern- 
 ment. Until driven from office his lordship had 
 continued to exercise the double functions of 
 first lord of the treasury and auditor of the ex- 
 chequer, his party being ready at any moment to 
 demonstrate that there was not the slightest im- 
 propriety or inconvenience in his so doing. But, 
 when Perceval, then first lord of the treasury, was 
 embarrassed by the king’s malady, and by the 
 difficulties and delays attendant on the settling of 
 the regency, Grenville, as auditor of the exchequer, 
 gave a version of the duties of that office altogether 
 different from the one which had been formerly 
 given by his friends, claiming for that office a 
 high degree of authority, and independence, and 
 responsibility, and holding that constitutionally the 
 auditor of the exchequer was intended as a check 
 on the first lord of the treasury: all of which was 
 true, and expressed on the title of the office, but 
 was quite as true in 1807 as now. At the trying 
 and critical moment, when nothing was settled, 
 when there was neither a king nor a regent, issues 
 of money for the army and navy became indispen- 
 sable. Money had been appropriated by parlia- 
 ment for these services; but it was required by 
 law that the issues should be by orders under the 
 great seal, the privy seal, or the sign manual, or 
 by express authority of an act of parliament. 
 Mr. Perceval conceived that, under all the existing 
 circumstances, it would be best to put the privy 
 seal to the orders for the issues; which could not 
 be long delayed without exposing both army and 
 
 -, aed 
 4+ 
 ~—S 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 navy to serious inconvenience, if not to danger 
 and to mutiny. The keeper of the privy seal, Lord 
 Westmoreland, was quite willing to take this re- 
 sponsibility upon himself; but it was found that 
 the signature of the clerk of the privy seal was 
 likewise necessary ; and Mr. Larpent, who filled 
 that office, refused to sign, pleading scruples of 
 conscience on account of his oath of office. Upon 
 this Mr. Perceval issued an order from the trea- 
 sury for the exchequer, holding that it was better 
 for the responsible ministers of the crown to risk 
 the censure, or wait for a bill of indemnity from 
 parliament, than to allow the public service to 
 suffer. But, when these treasury warrants were 
 carried to Lord Grenville, in his capacity as auditor 
 of the exchequer, he required time “ to consider 
 the nature and extent of the duties which this new 
 and unexpected course of proceeding imposed upon 
 him ;”’ and requested to know from Mr. Perceval 
 when it was absolutely necessary that the money 
 should be issued. His lordship was informed, 
 ‘that, according to the usual course of supplying 
 the weekly issues to the navy and army, it would 
 be necessary that sums should be issued for both 
 services, beyond the amount of the existing credit 
 at the exchequer, either on the morrow, or the next 
 day at farthest ; but, if an actual issue could be 
 made within six days, no serious inconvenience 
 was apprehended.”” The noble auditor of the ex- 
 chequer then demanded that the legal opinions of 
 the attorney and solicitor generals should be taken. 
 These law officers pronounced that they “ did not 
 think the warrant of the lords commissioners of 
 the treasury was in law a sufficient authority im- 
 perative upon the auditor, nor, consequently, a 
 legal sanction for his proceeding to obey the same ; 
 nor that any discretion was left to him by the law 
 on this occasion, for the exercise of which he 
 would not be responsible.’ In communicating 
 this opinion to Lord Grenville, Mr. Perceval and 
 the lords commissioners of the treasury informed 
 him “that their sense of the mischief to the public 
 service which would arise if any delay should take 
 place appeared to render it indispensable that the 
 warrants should be forthwith complied with, and 
 that they were consequently ready to take upon 
 themselves the responsibility of any act which 
 might be essential for that purpose.” Lord Gren- 
 ville, who, as first lord of the treasury, had been 
 his own auditor of the exchequer, now declared 
 that Perceval’s responsibility would not relieve 
 him from his, and that his conscientious scruples 
 as auditor were insurmountable, ‘ If,” said his 
 lordship, “ I could be satisfied of the propriety of 
 my doing what is required, there is no personal 
 responsibility which I would not readily incur for 
 the public interests; but I cannot persuade myself 
 that I could obey these warrants without a breach 
 of my official duty on that point which is above 
 all others peculiarly obligatory on the person placed 
 in the situation of auditor of the exchequer; nor 
 without a high and criminal violation both of a 
 positive statute, and also of the essential principles 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 of our monarchical and parliamentary constitution. 
 I am told,’’ he continued, “‘ that I must act on 
 my own discretion, for the exercise of which I 
 must alone be responsible. This responsibility, if 
 it legally attaches upon me, I cannot transfer to 
 any other persons, and least of all to your lord- 
 ships, whatever willingness you have expressed to 
 take it upon yourselves. My attempting to do so 
 would itself be criminal; tending to confound the 
 official relations in which I have the honour to 
 stand towards your lordships, and to annul those 
 checks which the law has established for insuring 
 the faithful discharge of our respective duties, and 
 thereby the security of the public treasure. [Where 
 was this check when Grenville was first lord of 
 the treasury and auditor of the exchequer ?| But 
 I beg leave humbly to submit that the law has in 
 truth invested me with no discretion on this sub- 
 ject. ‘The exigencies of the public service, which 
 your lordships have condescended to detail to me 
 in these your warrants, are matters of state, of 
 which, as auditor of the exchequer, I have no 
 knowledge, and can take no cognizance.” After 
 repeating that he was compelled to decline, “* but 
 with all due respect,” a compliance with the re- 
 quisition contained in the warrants, Grenville re- 
 commended that the difficulty should be submitted 
 to the consideration of both Houses of parliament, 
 whose right and duty it was to provide the means 
 of removing it, and to whose pleasure he would 
 entirely submit. Upon this—on the 3rd of January 
 —Perceval laid the whole correspondence before 
 parliament, saying that, but for the difficulty which 
 had been unexpectedly started, he certainly should 
 not have thought it expedient to bring the subject 
 under their immediate notice; that he had, how- 
 ever, always anticipated it as his duty to submit it 
 to their consideration, not for the purpose of ob- 
 taming a vote of indemnity beforehand, but, after 
 haying incurred the responsibility, for the purpose 
 of calling on the House to determine whether 
 or not ministers had acted justifiably in ordering 
 the issues of money for the services for which that 
 very money had been appointed by the House. 
 He moved a resolution, that the lords of the trea- 
 sury should issue their warrants for the. immediate 
 payment of such sums as were necessary, and that 
 the auditor and officers of the exchequer should 
 obey those warrants. The resolution passed, after a 
 long debate, without a division, and was afterwards 
 agreed toby the Lords. Thus the money was issued 
 to the army and navy, and an end was put to Lord 
 Grenyille’s scruples and contumacy ; but the public 
 discussion, by reviving the memory of what had 
 passed on the occasion of the accession of his lord- 
 ship to office on the death of Mr. Pitt, inflicted a 
 most serious injury on the Grenville party, which 
 never had enjoyed much popularity. After such 
 public and recent discussion, the most bronze- 
 faced politician might shrink from attempting 
 again to unite and hold the two offices of auditor 
 and first lord of the treasury; and after all that 
 had passed there would have been considerable 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 awkwardness even in his continuing to hold his 
 well-paid patent place along with any other office 
 in the cabinet to which the premiership might have 
 been attached. Now, without the borough influ- 
 ence of Lord Grenville, and of his family and con- 
 nexions, Earl Grey and the rest of the Whigs, 
 even should they be backed by the entire favour 
 and support of Carlton House, could not hope to 
 maintain themselves in office for a week. It was 
 exceedingly doubtful whether, with all the Gren- 
 ville influence, and with a conformity of interests, 
 sentiments, and views (which certainly did not 
 exist among them), the Whigs could have secured 
 so much asa minimum parliamentary majority. 
 To give them a chance it would have been neces- 
 sary to dissolve parliament and throw the whole 
 court influence into the general election. But 
 there was not time to try this experiment: too 
 much time had been already consumed, and public 
 business too seriously obstructed, to allow of a 
 delay of many weeks. Indeed even the shorter 
 space of time which would have been required for 
 the members of the House of Commons who might 
 have taken office to obtain their re-election to 
 their seats was, in itself, a very serious objection 
 to any ministerial change at this moment of crisis. 
 Upon all these, and upon other considerations, the 
 Prince of Wales’s Whig partialities, even suppos- 
 ing them to have been decided and strong, might — 
 very naturally have given way. But there is little 
 to show that these partialities or predilections were 
 very strong at this time. It was true that the 
 prince, acting as all heirs apparent to the throne 
 since the accession of the House of Brunswick had 
 acted, had courted or coqueted with the opposition ; 
 that in his young days he had worn the blue and 
 buff; that he had lived in great intimacy and 
 familiarity with some of the men of wit and 
 humour (and they were decidedly men of pleasure 
 also), who chanced to be Whigs and opposition 
 leaders ; that the successive governments of the 
 king his father had thwarted many of his wishes 
 and refused not a few of his demands, and that on 
 all such occasions the parliamentary opposition had 
 stood forward with more or less warmth as his 
 champions and eulogists: but at the very first 
 really vital difference which occurred (that upon 
 the French Revolution), the prince had openly 
 separated himself from the opposition, and, both 
 publicly and privately, in the House of Lords as 
 well as in Carlton House, had strongly declared 
 against the opinions entertained or professed by 
 Mr. Fox and his friends; and it had long been 
 matter of notoriety that not the king himself was 
 more resolutely bent upon continuing the war 
 with France than was the Prince of Wales. On 
 this last point all the royal dukes, with the 
 doubtful exception of one, agreed with the prince, 
 and entertained the same conviction as the king 
 their father, that peace was never to be purchased 
 with dishonourable and dangerous submission to 
 terms dictated by Bonaparte. Now, Lord Grey 
 
 and his adherents who considered themselves the 
 
570 
 
 truest representatives of the Foxites, and who had 
 never ceased proclaiming the war to be unnecessary 
 and unjust, were understood to be determined to 
 signalise their return to power by opening negotia- 
 tions with the Emperor of the French; and Lord 
 Grenville and his friends, though they had not 
 committed themselves so thoroughly to a negotia- 
 tion and a peace upon any terms, were believed to 
 cherish the notion that England ought to cease 
 altogether from interfering in the affairs of the 
 continent, and from succouring the Portuguese 
 and Spaniards in a hopeless struggle with the 
 French, and limit all her exertions to a defensive 
 war for the protection of her own coasts and her 
 own colonies. There was thus, on the question of 
 war or peace, a considerable difference between 
 Grey and Grenville. 
 parties which had formed the opposition, and 
 which was now aspiring to the government, there 
 existed other and more extreme divergencies of 
 opinion. Lord Holland, though the nephew and 
 pupil of Fox, whom he closely resembled in many 
 particulars, was very far from agreeing either with 
 Grey or Grenville ; for he had travelled in Spain, 
 had resided for a considerable time in that country, 
 had acquired its language and an acquaintance with 
 its literature, and was enthusiastic in the cause of 
 Spanish independence, and very sanguine as to 
 the final success of the national resistance of the 
 Spaniards. With these feelings, Lord Holland, as 
 minister, would have acted with additional vigour 
 in aid of Spain and Portugal, and in this policy 
 he would have been followed ceriainly by Lord 
 Moira, and probably by Mr. Ponsonby. No go- 
 vernment could have stood with these irreconcileable 
 differences among its chiefs and members ; but, on 
 other subjects, and particularly on that of par- 
 liamentary reform, there was an equal want of 
 unanimity in opinion and principle; and it may 
 safely be said that these coalesced parties fully 
 agreed in nothing except in taking a liberal view 
 of the Catholic claims and the great question of 
 religious freedom—a question upon which they 
 could not have commanded a majority, the people 
 of Great Britain being not yet prepared for such 
 principles. Indisputably, the Prince of Wales 
 had entertained a very friendly regard for Fox, 
 but his affection for any other men of that party, 
 or rather of those parties, may be safely reduced 
 to avery small matter; he disliked the tone and 
 manners of Grenville, and he did not much like 
 those of Grey, and his family traditions bore testi- 
 mony to the arinoyances and vexations which his 
 father had suffered from a haughty and imperious 
 minister. The prince retained Sheridan in his 
 society, and admitted him into part, at least, of 
 his confidence; but Sheridan was now scarcely to 
 be considered as a Whig, or as a member of any 
 one of the coalesced parties, considering himself as 
 aggrieved by Grenville and by Grey, and being 
 ready, at any moment, to comply with the wishes 
 of the prince; and, besides, Sheridan had been too 
 ready and unscrupulous in the services which he 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 But among the mixture of ’ 
 
 had rendered or proffered, and had too entirely lost 
 himself in public opinion, either to have any claim 
 on the regent’s esteem, or any capability of doing 
 him any further public service. Lord Moira, in- 
 deed, was both liked and respected by the prince ; 
 but it was said that, although this nobleman had 
 been a steady Whig, and a warm opponent of Per- 
 ceval as of Pitt, he waited upon the prince, then 
 in a state of painful indecision, and declared that 
 his affection for his royal highness, and his anxiety 
 for the welfare and honour of the country, that his 
 loyalty and patriotism obliged him to say that a 
 calm reviewal of all the circumstances and difficul- 
 ties of the times had convinced him that a stable 
 Whig ministry could not be constituted out of the 
 discordant materials of the opposition, and that 
 there would be great danger in making the at- 
 tempt. 
 
 Whatever may have been the number or the 
 relative weight of the motives which induced the 
 regent to retain his father’s ministry, his decision 
 was certainly acceptable to the great majority of 
 the nation.* The recollections of All the Talents 
 administration were a strong bar to the pretensions 
 of the living men who had formed it ; and it was 
 worse than idle for them to talk again (as they had 
 recently been doing) of the incalculable advantages 
 to be derived from the union and blending of great 
 names, great reputations, great and varied abilities, 
 &c. The Burdettites and Radical reformers said 
 that it was as well to retain Perceval and Liverpool 
 as to supersede them by Grey and Grenville; that 
 a ministry formed by these two joint opposition 
 lords would, in reality, have excluded almost all 
 the people’s friends—that from those lords the 
 people could have expected nothing. 
 
 The ceremony of installing the prince regent 
 was performed in Carlton-house on Wednesday the 
 6th of February, the prince swearing to be faithful 
 and to bear true allegiance to his majesty King 
 George III.; to execute truly and faithfully the 
 office of regent of the United Kingdom, according 
 to the act of parliament ; to administer, according 
 to law, the power and authority vested in him by 
 the said act; and in all things, to the utmost of his 
 power and ability, to consult and maintain the 
 safety, honour, and dignity of his majesty, and the 
 welfare of his people. The lord president of the 
 council then presented the declaration against 
 popery, which was repeated audibly and then sub- 
 scribed by the prince, as the oaths had been. The 
 privy councillors signed as witnesses; and these 
 instruments were then delivered to the keeper of | 
 the records. The prince then delivered to the | 
 president of the council a certificate of his having 
 
 * As late as the Ist and 2nd of February, Wilberforce makes these 
 curious entries in his Diary :—‘‘ No one knows what the prince means 
 to do, whether to change his ministers or not... . .. Lord Bathurst 
 believes they are all to go out; but Perry, the editor of the Morning 
 Chronicle, told Stephen that the Prince of Wales has examined the | 
 physician at Carlton-house as to the state of the king’shealth, andhas 
 determined against changing his ministers. Otherwise, it had been 
 decided that Lord Grenville was to be first lord of the treasury, in 
 spite of his late letter to Perceval... ... I am assured that, before 
 the prince determined upon keeping the present ministers, he sent to 
 Mrs. Fitzherbert and Lady H., and that they both advised it.” 
 
 ‘ jas 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 received the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; and 
 this certificate also was countersigned and handed 
 over to the keeper of the records. 
 
 On the 12th of February—six days after the in- 
 stallation of the regent—the session of parliament 
 was regularly opened, not by the prince in person, 
 but by commission. The commissioners were the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, 
 the Duke of Montrose, Earl Camden, and the Earl 
 of Westmoreland. The speech they delivered in 
 the name of the regent dwelt upon the success of 
 our armies in the Indian seas, and the repulse of 
 the French and Neapolitans in the attack on Sicily ; 
 upon failures that the French had met with in Por- 
 tugal and at Cadiz; and it expressed the hope that 
 parliament would enable the regent to continue the 
 most effectual assistance to the brave nations of the 
 Peninsula. It was again declared that the best 
 interests of the British empire must be affected by 
 the issue of the contest of these two nations, and 
 that England could not and ought not to think of 
 abandoning their cause. No speech from the throne 
 since the beginning of the war had been more war- 
 like. In the debates on the address, Lord Grenville 
 explicitly declared his conviction that it was impos- 
 sible to expect success in such a war—that, in a 
 contest so unequal, the money and resources of this 
 country must be expended with certain loss. The 
 address, however, was carried in both Houses with- 
 out a division, and with far less opposition and 
 oratory than might have been expected. 
 
 On the 21st of February, Perceval informed the 
 House that he had been preparing a plan for the 
 establishment of the regent’s household, which 
 would have required an additional allowance of 
 12,000/. to 15,000/. a-year, but that his royal 
 highness had determined not to add to the burthens 
 of the people, by accepting any addition to his pub- 
 lic state. It was stated, however, by one of the 
 prince’s legal friends or advisers, that, in case the 
 king should not recover, and the regency should 
 become permanent, this question would be open 
 anew to his royal highness’s consideration.* 
 
 Soon after his installation it was reported that the 
 Regent intended to restore the Duke of York to 
 the office of Commander in Chief of the Forces. 
 The Perceval administration had zealously defended 
 the duke during the investigation, and the opposi- 
 tion, or all that portion of it which had supported 
 Colonel Wardle, had not conciliated the Prince of 
 Wales by the zeal they had displayed in accusing 
 
 * The regent, shortly after his installation, gave a splendid féte at 
 Carlton-house. Nothing so gay, or so grand, or so gorgeous, had ever 
 been seen in an English palace; but the féte was generally disap- 
 proved of by the public as unseasonable. A few weeks after this an 
 incident occurred, which Francis Horner describes in a manner that 
 does credit to his good feeling :—* There was a very affecting proof of 
 the king’s melancholy state given last week at the Concert of Ancient 
 Music: it was the Duke of Cambridge’s night, who announced to the 
 directors that the king himself had made the selection. This consisted 
 of all the finest passages to be found in Handel descriptive of madness 
 and blindness; particalarly those in the opera of ‘Samson :’ there was 
 one also upon madness from love, and the lamentation of Jeplitha 
 upon the loss of his daughter ; and it closed with ‘God save the King,’ 
 to make sure the application of all that went before. It was a very 
 melancholy as well as singular instance of sensibility, that in the in- 
 tervals of reason he should dwell upon the worst circumstances of his 
 
 situation, and have a sort of indulgence in soliciting the public sym- 
 pathy.”—Letter to his Father, in Memoirs and Correspondence. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :-—I1811. 
 
 571 
 
 and decrying his brother. Old Sir David Dundas, 
 who had succeeded within so short a space of time 
 in disgusting or indisposing the whole army, had 
 applied early in the winter for leave to retire from 
 the arduous office; stating that ill health obliged 
 him so to do, and that he had already served his 
 country in different military capacities for half a 
 century. ‘This application had been repeated so 
 frequently and so earnestly that it was indispen- 
 sable to name some one to succeed Sir David. The 
 universal voice of the army said, Re-appoint the 
 Duke of York ; thus seconding or even anticipating 
 the wishes of the Regent. The trials in which Mrs. 
 Clarke had been engaged, and the sad exhibition 
 which Colonel Wardle and his friends had made 
 since the delicate imvestigation, had gone far to 
 neutralize the popular prejudice and outcry against 
 the duke, and Perceval and his colleagues saw little 
 or no difficulty in complying with the earnest 
 wishes of the regent. Accordingly, on the 25th 
 of May, the Duke of York’s re-appointment was 
 gazetted, and without any outcry. Even the oppo- 
 sition newspapers were nearly all silent on the sub- 
 ject. The re-appointment did not, however, pass 
 without some animadversion in parliament. Lord 
 Milton moved in the Commons that it had been 
 highly improper and indecorous in the advisers of 
 the regent to recommend the re-appointment. He 
 was supported by Lord Althorpe, Mr. Wynn, Mr. 
 W. Elhot, Whitbread, and others: but various 
 members retracted the unfavourable opinions they 
 had delivered against the duke during the investi- 
 gation ; declaring that the circumstances which had 
 come to light concerning the evidence and the 
 character of the witnesses, and the conduct of the 
 accusers, caused them to regret the votes which they 
 had then given: some said that the country was 
 ready to acknowledge that the re-appointment of 
 the duke was a great public benefit; that no mea- 
 sure could be more consonant with the feelings of 
 the army; that the army, which would have been 
 degraded and injured by the corrupt practices 
 which had been imputed to him, if such practices 
 had really existed, was, of all parts of the nation, 
 the most highly pleased at the duke’s return to 
 power; and upon a division Lord Milton’s motion 
 was negatived by an immense majority — 296 
 against 47. The duke signalized his return to the 
 war-office by establishing regimental schools on 
 the Bell system. The supplies voted for the year 
 amounted to 56,021,869/. Out of this sum 
 20,276,144/. were appropriated to the navy, 
 21,269,940/. to the army, 5,012,378/. to the ord- 
 nance, 2,100,000/. to subsidies, &c. for Portugal, 
 and 400,000/. as a subsidy to Sicily. 
 
 More through our differences with America, and 
 the interruption of our trade with the United States, 
 than through Bonaparte’s continental system, a con- 
 siderable commercial depression was felt at this cri- 
 tical moment, together with a derangement in the 
 money market, in a great measure occasioned by 
 the necessity of constantly sending specie—parti- 
 cularly gold—to the continent, and by the import- 
 
572 
 
 ant circumstance that the price of gold had risen 
 all over the continent, partly owing to the almost 
 total suspension of the supplies of gold from South 
 America (where by this time nearly all the Spanish 
 colonies were in a state of revolt and anarchy), and 
 partly through other potent causes.“ A certain 
 school of politicians and economists, taking up the 
 abstract principle that a gold and silver currency 
 (with gold only for a legal tender in all sums beyond 
 a certain low amount) was far preferable to a paper 
 currency ; that guineas were better things than bank 
 notes; and, forgetting that there was hardly any 
 gold in the country, that silver was becoming scarce, 
 that there was no immediate prospect of an influx 
 of the precious metals, and that the fate of the coun- 
 try mainly depended upon the credit of its paper 
 money, thought this a proper moment for raising a 
 cry in favour of a speedy return to cash payments. 
 Mr. Francis Horner, who had chosen the bullion 
 question as his cheval de bataille, and who seems 
 to have got into parliament chiefly for the purpose 
 of riding it, had obtained during the preceding year 
 the appointment of a committee to inquire into the 
 reason of the high price of gold bullion, and the 
 state of the circulating medium, and of the exchanges 
 between Great Britain and foreign parts. On the 
 6th of May, Mr. Horner presented the report of 
 the Bullion Committee, in the drawing up of which 
 he had the principal hand. He prefaced it with 
 an elaborate exposition of his own theory and views. 
 The report stated ‘‘ that there was an excess in the 
 paper circulation, of which the most unequivocal 
 symptom was the very high price of bullion, and 
 next to that the low state of the continental ex- 
 changes; that the cause of this excess (of bank 
 notes) was to be found in the suspension of cash 
 payments, there being no adequate provision against 
 such an excess except in the convertibility of paper 
 into specie; and that the unfavourable state of the 
 exchanges originated in the same cause, and was 
 further increased by the anti-commercial measures 
 of the enemy.” ‘The report added “that the com- 
 
 * Bonaparte never took the field with the Grand Army without 
 carrying an immense military chest with him, and th's chest, from 
 obvious motives of convenience, was always filled and replenished 
 with gold. On starting on a campaign the French officers, and even 
 those of the soldiers who had money, were all eager to convert it into 
 gold; some of which was carried about the person in a belt or girdle, 
 while some was left secreted athome. In France, all cautious persons, 
 apprehending fresh revolutions and changes of fortune and distrust- 
 ing the imperial bank, accumulated all the gold specie they could, to 
 conceal it and keep it for the evil hour, Nearly all over the conti- 
 nent of Europe the insecurity of property, and the dread of forced contri- 
 butions and of less regular plunder, had induced the habit of hoarding 
 and hiding; and gold was sought after and bought up at a constantly 
 increasing price, to be buried in the earth or concealed in secret re- 
 cesses. in this matter, as in others, Europe was returning to her 
 ancient barbarism, or to the condition of the despotic nations of the 
 East, where so large a portion of the precious metals is constantly with- 
 drawn from circulation and kept hidden. In 1812 and 1813 asmuchas 
 six Spanish dollars could be obtained inany part of the Mediterranean 
 fer an English guinea. With such a temptation to send gold abroad, 
 it was not likely that English traders and speculators should be pre- 
 vented by the inexecutable laws for prohibiting the exportation of gold 
 and for keeping the guineas down to their standard value, from send- 
 ing gold abroad to the best market. Even in England, Scotland, 
 and Ireland the practice of hoarding specie, during the whole of this 
 revolutionary war, was far from being uncommon. Again, every 
 English officer, traveller, or merchant that went abroad endeavoured 
 to carry with him some gold, as a corps de reserve, in case of capture 
 by the enemy, or of other accident. ‘I'hrough all these causes united, 
 a guinea, half-guinea, or seven-shilling piece had become a rare 
 sight in Great Britain, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 { Book X. 
 
 mittee could see no sufficient remedy for the present, 
 or security for the future, except the repeal of the 
 Suspension Act: this they thought could not safely 
 be done at an earlier period than two years from the 
 time of their report; but they recommended that 
 early provision should be made by parliament for this 
 purpose.” Four long nights were spent upon the dis- 
 cussionof this report. Mr. Horner, who had thought 
 that his theory must carry conviction to all candid 
 minds, was astonished to find that the majority of 
 the House was blind to its merit, and that many even 
 of his own friends and party differed widely from 
 him, not merely as to the expediency of attempting 
 an impracticable change at a crisis like the present, 
 but as to the soundness of several of his fundamen- 
 tal principles. His opponents insisted that there 
 had been no depreciation of the paper currency, but 
 that gold had risen in value ; that a one pound bank 
 note would still purchase twenty shillings’ worth 
 of any commodity except minted gold; that the 
 people neither refused, nor thought of refusing, bank 
 notes great or small; and that it ill became the le- 
 gislature to throw a discredit upon bank paper, or 
 to shake that confidence without which it would be 
 impossible to continue the momentous struggle in 
 which we were engaged. [Many of those who 
 voted with Mr. Horner, or advocated his doctrine 
 out of doors, there can be no doubt, clung to his 
 theory precisely because they saw that its adoption 
 must force the government into a peace with 
 France.] Imagining that some persons, who might 
 agree with him in his general principles, would yet 
 differ from him in the practical conclusion, Mr. 
 Horner divided his resolutions. ‘The theoretical 
 ones were rejected by 151 against 75: the practi- 
 cal conclusion, or the resolution which would have 
 restored cash payments at the end of two years, was 
 thrown out by the still greater majority of 180 against 
 45. After this Mr. Vansittart, who had been 
 assisted by George Rose and others, moved a series 
 of resolutions, declaring that bank notes were not 
 depreciated ; that the political and commercial re- 
 lations of the country with foreign powers were 
 sufficient to account for the unfavourable state of 
 the foreign exchanges, and the high price of bullion ; 
 that it was highly important that the restriction on 
 cash payments should be removed whenever it was 
 compatible with the public interest; but that to fix 
 a definite period earlier than that of six months after 
 the conclusion of peace (which period was already 
 fixed) would be highly inexpedient and dangerous : 
 and after a discussion of three nights more these 
 resolutions were all passed bya very large majority. 
 But the bullionists would not let the matter rest 
 here. Lord King, who prided himself on his 
 descent from the family which produced the philo- 
 sopher and metaphysician Locke, gave notice to his 
 tenants, in a circular letter, which was printed and 
 widely circulated throughout the country, that he 
 would no longer receive bank notes at par, but 
 that his rents must henceforward be paid either in 
 English guineas, or in an equivalent weight of Por- 
 tuguese gold coin, or in bank notes amounting to a 
 
Cuap, VIII.) 
 
 sum sufficient to purchase such an equivalent 
 weight of gold. It was thought at the time, hy those 
 who were not partakers in his lordship’s political 
 antipathies, that Lord King had no worse motive 
 than the design of enforcing his own opinion as a 
 bullionist, and, perhaps, of annoying the existing 
 ministers, whom he reproached more especially as 
 enemies to religious freedom, and the claims of the 
 catholics and dissenters of all classes ; but that, if 
 his aim had been to bring about national bank- 
 ruptey, dishonour, and subjugation, he could not 
 have taken more effectual means to attain that ob- 
 ject. It was said that, perhaps, no individual whose 
 intentions were not treasonable had ever before 
 committed so mischievous an act. His example 
 was followed by some other landlords, whose mo- 
 tives were generally believed to be much less disin- 
 terested than his lordship’s. The farmers and 
 tenants of all classes were thrown into consterna- 
 tion, for guineas were not procurable, and the new 
 demand of the landlords would have imposed an 
 increase on their rents of from 25 to 30 per cent. 
 Fortunately the parliament was still sitting. The 
 very eccentric Earl Stanhope, who had figured so 
 conspicuously at the beginning of the French revo- 
 lution, as a convert to and a propagandist of French 
 principles, had never ceased voting with the oppo- 
 sition and opposing all ministries; but he had his 
 crotchets, and a pet theory of his own about cur- 
 rency, and he was thus induced to stand forward, 
 and boldly combat the practice or proposition by 
 which Lord King intended to enforce his opposite 
 theory. On the 27th of June, when the govern- 
 ment seemed strangely blind to the doom which 
 threatened them and the country, Stanhope gave 
 the alarm, and brought in a bill for preventing the 
 current gold coin from being paid for a greater 
 value than twenty-one shillings, or Bauk of Eng- 
 land notes from being received for any smaller 
 sum than they were issued for; and for staying 
 proceedings upon any distress by tender of such 
 notes. “The bank,” said he, “is one of the 
 bottom planks of the ship of England, and woe be 
 to us if we permit it to be bored through!”’ On the 
 second reading of Stanhope’s bill Lord King de- 
 fended his letter to his tenants, and his intention of 
 proceeding thereon. Lord Holland maintained that 
 he was perfectly justifiable, as he was only dealing 
 fairly for the interests of his own family, and acting 
 according to the laws of the land.* Lords Lauder- 
 dale and Grenville opposed Earl Stanhope’s bill, 
 and bitterly censured ministers for countenancing 
 it. Grenville spoke of the French revolution, and 
 of the Jacobin club, in a way to revive the recollec- 
 tions of some of Stanhope’s past extravagancies, 
 eulogizing at the same time the character of Lord 
 King, his public spirit, his extensive information, 
 his almost unequalled acquaintance with the subject 
 under discussion, his private virtues, his temper, 
 and benevolence. The second reading of the bill 
 
 * Lord King himself had said in the House, “I saw no course 
 left but to give up my property, or hold it at such valucas the bank, 
 in its good pleasure, might put upon it; or to avail myself of the 
 means which the law yet affords me for its preservation.” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 573 
 
 was, however, carried by 62 against 36. Lords 
 Grenville, Grey, Holland, Lansdowne, Lauderdale, 
 Kssex, Jersey, and Cowper entered their protest 
 against it, as *‘ manifestly tending to the compulsory 
 circulation of a paper currency: a measure neces- 
 sarily productive of the most fatal calamities.”* 
 Ministers thought it expedient to alter the bill, and 
 such was the extent of their amendments that only 
 about five lines of the original bill were left unal- 
 tered. The purport and the effect of the bill re- 
 mained, however, in the main:—it declared that 
 bank notes should be taken only at their professed 
 value, and it deprived the landlord of his summary 
 remedy by distress, wherever tender of payment 
 had been made in bank notes. On the third read- 
 ing of the thus amended bill, Lord King said that 
 this law would create additional mischiefs and in- 
 conveniencies ; that landlords would now refuse to 
 grant leases; that the bill could not effect the ob- 
 ject which it professed to have in view, or retard 
 depreciation of bank notes, &c. Lord Chancellor 
 Eldon insisted that the claim which Lord King had 
 set forth in his letter to his tenants was oppressive 
 and unjust, and that the bill was necessary to pre- 
 vent such a grievous oppression. ‘‘'The Restriction 
 Act of 1797,” said Eldon, ‘interfered so far with 
 individual contracts, as to say that a debtor should 
 not be arrested, if he tendered his debt in bank 
 notes ; the justice of that enactment has never been 
 disputed, and is it now to be said, that a tenant shall 
 have his goods or stock seized, because he cannot 
 pay in gold whichis not to be procured? . . . . 
 Let us suppose a young professional man, struggling 
 with the world, who has a rent to pay of 90/. per 
 annum, and who has 3000/. in the bank, in the 
 3 percents. His lordship demands his rent in gold, 
 but the bank refuses to pay the tenant his dividend in 
 gold. Would not the tenant have a right to say, 
 ‘Asa public creditor, I am refused any other pay- 
 ment than in bank notes; but here is a legislator 
 —one of those by whose act of parliament I am 
 thus refused to be paid except in bank notes—in- 
 sisting upon my paying him his rent in gold, which 
 I cannot procure; and because I cannot procure it 
 my goods are to be distrained ?? Would not this 
 be a grievous oppression? Surely so long as it 
 should be expedient to continue the Cash Suspen- 
 sion Act of 1797, this present bill must become a 
 part of it: for otherwise there would be no equality 
 in the situation of different contracting parties, nor 
 would equal justice be dealt out to those who had 
 an equal claim to it; as there could be no justice 
 in leaving the tenant, who had tendered bank notes, 
 exposed to be distrained upon by his landlord, 
 whilst the debtor in other cases, who had tendered 
 bank notes, was exempted from arrest.”+ Lord 
 Grenville, who had been himself in power, under 
 
 * Lord Holland added to his protest, that ‘he made it also, be- 
 cause, in his judgment, the repeal of the Cash Suspension Act was 
 the only means which could cure the inconvenience already felt, and 
 avert the yet greater calamities which were impending, from the 
 present state of the circulation of the country.” 
 
 + Lord Eldon also said, ‘¢I am peculiarly situated with respect to 
 this question, having the official care of twenty-five millions of the 
 property of His Majesty’s subjects, and without the means of enforc- 
 ing the payment of any part of that sum except in bank notes,” 
 
574 
 
 his relative Pitt, when the original Suspension Act 
 was passed, declared that he had then considered 
 it as anecessary, but only temporary, measure ; and, 
 though the necessity was greater now than it had 
 ever been, he renewed his hostility to the present 
 bill. It was however passed, on the 8th of July, 
 by 43 against 16. In the Commons the bill was 
 opposed at every stage by Sir Francis Burdett, Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, Mr. Brougham, Mr. Peter Moore, 
 and others; but it was eventually carried through 
 that House by majorities of about four to one. The 
 bullionist landlords were by this time perfectly well 
 convinced that they must take payment from their 
 tenants in bank notes at par, or get no rent at all ; 
 the credit of the bank was not injured; and things 
 went on as before, all cool and rational men be- 
 lieving that it would be soon enough to talk of the 
 resumption of cash payments when the country 
 should get specie to make them, or when the war 
 should be well finished. But on the continent the 
 report of the Bullion Committee, the letter of Lord 
 King to his tenants, and the discussions thereon in 
 parliament and in the public prints, made impres- 
 sions which were thought to be, and which pro- 
 bably for a time were, very injurious to the credit 
 and the prestige of England. Warned by two or 
 three of the most enlightened or the most honest of 
 his advisers, struck by an appearance of discontent 
 even in France, besieged by importunities and re- 
 presentations from Naples, Leghorn, Genoa, Hol- 
 land, the Hanse towns, and the whole of the north 
 of Germany, which all agreed in representing that 
 they were sinking fast into poverty, and that his 
 continental system was doing far more hurt to the 
 continent than to Great Britain; and being at the 
 same time startled at the altered and almost mena- 
 cing tone of his late friend and admirer the Empe- 
 ror Alexander, who was compelled by the interests 
 of his nobility and landholders, whose superabund- 
 ant produce could be sold to advantage only in the 
 English markets, to set his face against the Berlin 
 and Milan decrees ; the Emperor Napoleon had se- 
 riously thought of abandoning, or at the least relax- 
 ing, his unhappy system. But now he took fresh 
 heart ; and, taking our parliamentary reports and 
 debates as good evidence to the facts, he thought 
 that England was only two fingers’ breadth from 
 her ruin—@ deux doigts de sa perte—that she had 
 suffered far more than the continent, and that ano- 
 ther year or two’s perseverance must witness her 
 bankruptcy and the triumph of his system, when it 
 would be an easy and simple operation to invade 
 her shores, march an invincible French army into 
 London, change the selfish and anti-social consti- 
 tution of-the country, and declare that the dynasty 
 of Brunswick had ceased to reign. Long before 
 this the members of the parliamentary opposition, 
 and the opposition newspapers, had assured the 
 world that Great Britain was altogether incapable 
 of continuing a struggle which was draining all her 
 resources—that Great Britain was exhausted and 
 ' impoverished, and that every effort she made 
 against the power and the will of France only hur- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a 
 ‘ ‘ 
 
 [Book X. 
 ried on her final ruin; but it might be said, as it 
 had been said, that this was but the voice of a fac- 
 tion, and the hackneyed argument of their paid 
 journalists. But here was a voice of another kind ; 
 here a committee of the House of Commons, com- 
 posed of men of name and reputation, and some of 
 whom had recently belonged to the ministry, had 
 declared in a report to parliament and to the whole 
 country that the paper currency was depreciated, 
 was becoming every day more and more like the 
 assignats of the French revolutionists, and that the 
 only remedy that could be proposed was the imprac- 
 ticable, impossible resumption of cash payments ; 
 here a noble lord, who was lately prime minister, 
 supports the principles laid down in the report of 
 the committee; here another noble lord tells his 
 tenants that he will not take depreciated bank notes 
 as payment for rent, and repudiates the paper cur- 
 rency, and finds other peers ready to back him, 
 and support the argument that a national bank- 
 ruptcy is imminent and inevitable: these men have 
 a large stake in the country ; these men must know 
 better than we the real state and prospects of their 
 country. Ad/ons, then! let us persevere a little 
 longer ; let us burn all British merchandise wher- 
 
 ever found; let us punish as traitors all those who __ 
 
 attempt to introduce British goods into any part of 
 the continent ; and, for the triumph of this great 
 system, which is now working its effects, let 
 us brave and despise the remonstrances and the 
 enmity even of the Czar Alexander! The perfi- 
 dious Albion has built upon a foundation of credit 
 which has crumbled under her: she has trusted to 
 paper, and presently it will be as easy to rend her 
 in pieces as to tear up one of her flimsy bank notes. 
 At the same moment Bonaparte certainly found 
 another encouragement to persevere, in the rage and 
 hostility of the United States against Great Britain. 
 In his metaphorical way he talked of the leopards of 
 England being chased from the seas by the eagle of 
 France and the stripes and stars of America. Yet, 
 after all, the bullionists may be said, without per- 
 haps intending it, to have done a fatal injury to the 
 Emperor of the French: for, through them, and the 
 discussions they provoked, he was encouraged to 
 persevere, and even to attempt to coerce the czar, 
 and hence followed the Russian campaign, and the 
 disastrous retreat from Moscow. 
 
 The debates on Catholic emancipation—a subject 
 which was again agitating Ireland in the most vio- 
 lent manner—will be noticed in our Chapter on the 
 history of Religion. : 
 
 Parliament was prorogued by commission on the 
 
 24th of July. The speech expressed the regent’s — 
 
 warm approbation of the wisdom and firmness 
 which the two Houses had manifested in enabling 
 him to continue the exertions of the country in the 
 cause of our allies, and to prosecute the war with 
 increased activity and vigour. 
 
 Acting at their own discretion, and on their own 
 responsibility, our ministers had sent out reinforce- 
 ments and other succours to Lord Wellington, at 
 the moment when nothing was settled, and when it 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 seemed doubtful whether they might not be dis- 
 placed in four-and-twenty hours by their opponents, 
 who had certainly induced people to believe that 
 their first important proceeding would be the recal 
 of our army from the Peninsula. In many parti- 
 culars Perceval was not to be considered as a good 
 war minister, and his cabinet was censurable for 
 delay and indecision, and a proneness to adopt half 
 measures ; but their manly conduct at this critical 
 moment entitles them to the admiration and grati- 
 tude of those who believe that it would have been 
 disgraceful and ruinous to abandon the Spaniards 
 and Portuguese, and that the only chance, not only 
 for the continent of Europe, but also for England 
 herself, lay in the prosecution of the war. If the 
 contest in the Peninsula, which was draining the 
 life-blood of France, had been given up at the be- 
 ginning of 1811, there would have been no Russian 
 war in 1812; the Emperor Alexander would have 
 temporized, and would have endeavoured to avert 
 hostilities by complying with the will of Napoleon. 
 
 Lord Wellington’s difficulties, with respect to the 
 wilful Portuguese regency, and the provincial and 
 other constituted authorities acting under it, had 
 increased rather than diminished. The prince 
 regent, who knew little at Rio Janeiro of what was 
 passing at Lisbon, and who had never been distin- 
 guished by perspicacity or political wisdom, seemed 
 inclined to take the part of Principal Souza, with 
 whom his lordship had declared he could not act, 
 and, at the same time, to drive from the Lisbon 
 regency the only man in it with whom Wellington 
 had reason to be satisfied. The ill humour and 
 pique of these incompetent statesmen were betrayed 
 in a variety of petty annoying acts, which would 
 scarcely be credible if not related by the British 
 general himself. Wherever they could they thwarted 
 Lord Wellington, and insulted the troops he com- 
 manded, though these troops and this general were 
 the only real defences of the country, and though the 
 British government was sending millions of money 
 to the Portuguese. If, during the inclement wea- 
 ther, the English soldiers cut down a few trees to 
 convert into fuel to cook their meat, or to warm and 
 cheer them in their dreary bivouacs, the regency, 
 who had engaged to furnish the army with these 
 and other comforts and indispensable materials, but 
 who actually furnished nothing, raised a clamour 
 almost as loud and fierce as that which proceeded 
 from the poor peasants when the French army 
 swept through the country, ravaging and ravishing, 
 plundering or burning, or otherwise wantonly de- 
 stroying, whatever lay in their way; and, when 
 Wellington was advancing from his winter can- 
 tonments to drive Massena back into Spain, these 
 gentlemen of the Portuguese regency pestered the 
 English general with complaints about the soldiers 
 having cut some firewood in the prince regent’s 
 park, in Salvaterra, and about some olive-trees 
 having been cut down, several months before, 
 on the estate of a Portuguese, at Bucellas—the 
 said olive-trees having in fact been used in the 
 making of abattis for those lines of Torres Vedras 
 
 ae 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 575 
 
 which had saved Lisbon from invasion and plun- 
 der, and the members of the regency from captivity 
 or a flight across the Atlantic.* At the begin- 
 ning of the year his lordship saw good grounds for 
 believing that that very perverse and troublesome 
 man the Patriarch of Oporto was assisting Souza 
 in getting up an anti-English party, not only in 
 Lisbon and Oporto, but also in other towns of the 
 kingdom, which had been preserved solely by Eng- 
 lish armies and English money from French con- 
 quest and devastation; and on the 5th of January 
 he expressed to our ambassador at Lisbon his de- 
 cided opinion that there was a regular plot on foot 
 against the English, and that at the head of it were 
 the patriarch and Souza, who wanted to be able to 
 show that they protested against the pretensions 
 of his lordship and Marshal Beresford to command 
 the Portuguese army. His lordship thought also 
 that the continued absence of Souza and the patri- 
 arch from the councils was a consequence or rather 
 a branch of this plot: These two men, who counted 
 upon popular support, withdrew the very day the 
 regency agreed to re-model and increase the taxes, 
 and to introduce various economical reforms into 
 the various departments of government, by dis- 
 charging some of those swarms of employés who 
 were living in absolute idleness in Lisbon, by cur- 
 tailing the salaries of others, &c., in order to em- 
 ploy the money thus saved in the defence of the 
 country. But the capital ground of quarrel and 
 hatred was the appropriation of the English subsi- 
 dies, the regency claiming the entire control and 
 distribution of that money, and Lord Wellington 
 insisting that it should be under the control of the 
 English ambassador, who should see that it was 
 strictly applied to the purposes for which parlia- 
 ment had voted it, namely, to pay and support the 
 Portuguese army of 30,000 men. The subsidy this 
 year was raised from one to two millions; and an 
 additional sum of 130,000/. per annum was granted 
 to make up a certain amount of additional pay to 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches; two dispatches to 
 Charles Stuart, Esq., dated 16th March. 
 
 In one of these letters to our ambassador, who was almost as much 
 embarrassed by the regency at Lisbon as our general was in his ope- 
 rations in the field, Wellington says, with his characteristic calmness, 
 ‘* In respect to the charge of cutting barren wood in the royal park for 
 firewood, I have to reply, that I suppose his royal highness does not 
 propose that his Majesty’s troops shall want firewood in Portugal. It 
 is reasovable that his royal highness, as well as other proprietors, 
 should be paid for the wood cut upon his demesnes; but either the 
 troops must be allowed to cut firewood, paying for the same, wherever 
 the defence of his royal highness’s dominions renders it necessary 
 that they should be stationed, or they must be removed to the places 
 where they can cut firewood, by which his royal highness’s interests 
 must suffer. I cannot avoid adverting to the disposition manifested 
 by the Portuguese government to complain of the conduct of the 
 British troops, certainly, in this instance, without foundation. Acts of 
 misconduct, and even outrage, I admit, have been committed, but 
 never with impunity in any iustance in which the complaint could be 
 substantiated ; but I have not yet been able to obtain the punishment of 
 any individual of this country, be his crimes what they may. If the Bri- 
 tish soldiers have committed, as all soldiers will commit, acts of mis- 
 conduct, they have at least fought bravely for the country. They 
 have besides recently shown commiseration for the misfortunes of 
 the people of this country, and actually fed the poor inhabitants of all 
 the towns in which they were cantoned on the Rio Mayor river. Yet I 
 have not heard that the Portuguese government have expressed their 
 approbation of this conduct, very unusual in people of this class and 
 description: nor do I find that their bravery in the field, their 
 humanity, or their generosity, can induce those whom they are 
 serving to look with indulgence at their failings, or to draw a veil 
 over the faults of the few, in consideration of the military and other 
 virtues of the army.” 
 
576 
 
 all the officers of the Portuguese army : yet through 
 misapplication of funds, and through other proceed - 
 ings inthe highest degree discreditable to the re- 
 gency, whole brigades of Portuguese continued to 
 be left very frequently without bread, while the 
 troops who were brigaded with the English, and who 
 ought to have been supplied by their own govern- 
 ment (by means of the money which our govern- 
 ment sent them), were left to be fed by the English 
 commissariat. It was impossible for the English 
 to see these last brave and faithful companions in 
 arms perish with hunger by their side, and so long 
 as the English fed them the regency seemed deter- 
 mined to take no heed. ‘* I do not believe,” says 
 Wellington, a few months later, ‘‘ that there is any 
 peculation amongst the heads of the government, 
 but there is a gross misapplication of funds. The 
 junta de viveres (board for regulating provisions) 
 and the junta of the arsenal are connected, possi- 
 bly in trade, but certainly by friendship or ac- 
 quaintance, with all the merchants and dealers of 
 Lisbon, and those who could best afford to wait 
 for their money are and have been invariably paid 
 regularly ; while the dealers in the country and the 
 officers and troops wait, and the former are never 
 paid. . . [ have not leisure to read long papers, 
 which are called documents, but which contain not 
 one syllable of truth. I have no money to give to 
 the Portuguese government, and I believe it was 
 never intended by our government that they should 
 have the increased subsidy, till they shall make the 
 necessary alterations in their military system to 
 render it efficient.”’* At the same time the co-ope- 
 ration or the diversion which was to be made by the 
 Spaniards proved any thing rather than effectual. 
 In the course of two months the Spaniards lost, with- 
 out sufiicient cause, three strongly fortified cities, 
 together with various towns and posts of less con- 
 sequence; and in the same period Marshal Soult, 
 whose army of Andalusia did not then exceed 
 30,000 men, took or destroyed above 22,000 Spanish 
 troops.t Nor did failure and disgrace produce any 
 modesty or humility : the Spanish generals, with the 
 single and very honourable exception of Castafios, 
 appear to have occupied themselves in criticising 
 the military conduct of Lord Wellington, instead 
 of improving their own, or in making rhodo- 
 montades worthy of so many Sacripanti, or in in- 
 triguing against one another: to improve the dis- 
 cipline of their troops, to study themselves the art 
 of war, or any one of the arts connected with it, 
 seemed to be held as an occupation unworthy of a 
 Spanish Don. 
 
 During the months of January and February, 
 the armies of Lord Wellington and Massena in 
 Portugal remained in the same respective posi- 
 tions; the low lands being flooded, so as to 
 render field operations almost impossible, and 
 the English general being determined to husband 
 the health and strength of his men and horses. 
 The French marshal was reinforced by the ninth 
 
 * Dispatches; Letters to Charles Stuart, Esq., written in May, 
 +Id.; Letter to the Earl of Liverpool. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 corps d’armée, under General Drouet, who entered 
 Portugal by the valley of the Mondego, bringing 
 with him a large conyoy of provisions. About the 
 same time Soult received direct orders from Bona- 
 parte to act in concert with Massena by attacking 
 Portugal south of the Tagus; and anew French 
 army was formed in the north of Spain, consist- 
 ing of about 70,000 men, and placed under Mar- 
 shal Bessitres, who was ordered to support and 
 furnish all necessary assistance to the army of 
 Portugal. ‘*‘ Make a bridge across the Tagus, and 
 let Massena and Soult form a junction: in the 
 mean time keep the English in check, and make 
 them lose men every day by engagements of 
 advanced guards: their army is small, and they 
 cannot afford to lose many men; besides, people 
 in London are much alarmed about their army in 
 Portugal ; and when the season becomes fayour- 
 able let the main operations be carried on on the 
 south bank of the Tagus.” Thus privately and 
 confidentially wrote the Emperor of the French to 
 his marshals, as if he had yet to learn that Lord 
 Wellington would not waste away his army in 
 affairs of advanced guards, or in any useless skir- 
 mishes or operations whatever, and that, with his 
 good generalship and with such men, the small 
 British army was equal to the duties of a very 
 large one. All the remmforcements which Perceval 
 and Lord Liverpool had determined to send at their 
 own peril did not exceed 7000 men, and these did 
 not arrive until the beginning of March. 
 
 Leaving a large force to maintain the blockade 
 of Cadiz, and other forces under Sebastiani to 
 keep the ground which had been won on the side 
 of Granada and Murcia, Soult moved with 20,000 
 men towards the southern frontier of Portugal ; 
 but, before crossing that frontier, he deemed it in- 
 dispensable to reduce Badajoz, which otherwise 
 would have been left in his rear with a consider- 
 able Spanish garrison. Soult, who began to move 
 nearly two months before Lord Wellington re- 
 ceived his reinforcements, captured the fortress of 
 Olivenga on the 22nd of January, marched for- 
 ward for Badajoz, defeated a Spanish army under 
 
 General Mendizabal on the 19th of February, and — 
 
 then, without further hindrance, sat down to be- 
 siege Badajoz. Massena’s army had so eaten up 
 the country that he could not remain where he 
 was. His troops too were sadly demoralised (in 
 the military sense of the word); above 10,000 of 
 them were sick ; and, counting what remained of 
 the convoy which Drouet had brought, there were 
 no more provisions than would serve during a 
 
 quick retreat to the frontiers of Spain. Massena 
 
 therefore moved his sick and baggage by degrees 
 to the rear, and, after demonstrations made in other 
 directions, all the divisions of his army filed off in 
 the direction of Pombal. Santarem was evacuated 
 in the night of the 5th of March, and was the next 
 morning entered by the English. But Massena 
 
 had got a good start, and his army was not over- _ 
 taken till the 10th, when it was concentrated 
 There was 
 
 on a table-land in front of Pombal. 
 
 ‘, 
 . 
 
a  , 
 
 Cuap. VITII.] 
 
 some skirmishing with our foremost light division ; 
 but the French, having gained time for their bag- 
 gage to file off, retreated on the 11th through the 
 town of Pombal. They were closely followed. On 
 the next day, the 12th of March, the English ad- 
 vance found Ney with Massena’s rear-guard posted 
 on a high table-land in front of the village of Re- 
 dinha.* The French—some of the choicest troops 
 in the service of Bonaparte—were greatly favoured 
 by the nature of the ground, which, besides being 
 steep in front, was flanked by some woods, which 
 prevented the English from discovering the real 
 amount and disposition of the force. As Ney 
 seemed disposed to makea stand, Lord Wellington 
 attacked the wooded heights upon his right flank 
 with a brigade of the light division, headed by Sir 
 William Erskine, and ordered Picton to ascend 
 the heights upon his left flank; and, when both 
 Erskine and Picton had completely succeeded in 
 their movements, as Ney continued to keep his 
 ground, his lordship formed a great mass of troops 
 in line, and pushed on to the attack in front. The 
 French now made one general discharge of mus- 
 ketry, which hid them in smoke, and thus veiled 
 they fell back in full retreat through the village of 
 Redinha, and joined, that evening, their main body 
 at Condeixa, whence there branch off two roads, 
 one leading to Coimbra, and another ascending the 
 valley of the Mondego. Massena had sent Mont- 
 brun to secure the bridge of Coimbra, intending 
 to seize that city, and, if possible, Oporto also, 
 and there wait until he should be joined by rein- 
 forcements from Spain. But Lord Wellington 
 had foreseen his plans, and had ordered Colonels 
 Robert Wilson and Trant with the Portuguese 
 militia to protect Oporto, and to abandon the line 
 of the Mondego, which river was fordable in many 
 places, and to retire across the Douro. This 
 Wilson and Trant did, taking care to remove all 
 the boats and rafts to their own side of the river. 
 Coimbra thus seemed abandoned to the French 
 retreating army; but before quitting that place 
 Trant destroyed one arch of the bridge, placed 
 guards at the fords, and a small force in the town, 
 calculating that if Coimbra could but parry a coup 
 de main, Massena, with Wellington close at his 
 heels, would not venture to stay long on the left 
 bank of the Mondego. Montbrun appeared in the 
 suburb of Santa Clara and made an attempt to 
 force the bridge of Coimbra, but he was repulsed 
 by grape-shot, and believing that the Portuguese 
 militia had been reinforced by some English troops 
 sent by sea, he gave up the attempt in despair. 
 Upon this failure Massena changed his plan, and 
 
 * * “The whole country,” says Lord Wellington, ‘affords many 
 advantageous positions to a retreating army, of which the enemy 
 have shown that they know how to avail themselves. They are 
 retreating from the country, as they entered it, in one solid mass, 
 covering their rear On every march by the operations of either one 
 or two corps @armée, in the strong positions which the country af- 
 fords; which corps @armée are closely supported by the main body. 
 Before they quitted their position they destroyed a part of their 
 cannon and ammunition, and they have since blown up whatever 
 their horses were unable to draw away. They have no provisions 
 excepting what they plunder on the spot, or, having plundered, what 
 the soldiers carry on their backs, and live cattle.” — Dispatches ; 
 Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, dated Villa-Seca, 14th March. ‘ 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 577 
 
 began to retreat along the left bank, by the rough 
 road which leads to Ponte de Murcella. Thus 
 was Coimbra as well as Oporto preserved. From 
 this moment the retreat of the French was hurried 
 and disastrous: their left was all but turned by 
 Picton’s division, which crossed the mountains of 
 Anciao by a path which in other days would have 
 been considered impassable; their stragglers were 
 cut off by the vindictive peasantry ; their rear was 
 often arrested and sometimes thrown into confusion 
 by the British advance. They augmented the 
 already boundless fury of the Portuguese by the 
 merciless measures they adopted. In order to stop 
 the British artillery and train, Ney, who was still 
 in the rear, set fire to several towns and villages ; 
 but our light division, pressing forward through 
 flames and smoke, or avoiding the conflagration by 
 quitting the road and crossing fields and groves, 
 pressed hard upon the retreating enemy, and pene- 
 trated between their columns. On a hill near Casal 
 Nova, Ney attempted once more to check the pur- 
 suit ; but he was driven from that position to another 
 by Picton and Cole’s divisions, and was then beaten 
 from hill to hill, until he came close to the 
 strong defile of Miranda do Corvo, where the main 
 body of the French army was already posted. 
 Massena, apprehending that the two British divi- 
 sions were getting behind that strong defile,* set 
 fire to the town of Miranda by night, and passed 
 the river Ceira, an affluent of the Mondego. 
 ** They destroyed at this place a great number of 
 carriages, and burned or otherwise destroyed the 
 ammunition which they had carried ; they likewise 
 burned much of their baggage; and the road 
 throughout the march from Miranda was strewed 
 with the carcases of men and animals, and with 
 destroyed carriages and baggage.” + But Ney re- 
 mained behind on the left bank of the Ceira, to 
 gain time for the main army to file off; and, with 
 his usual ability, he took up a strong position in 
 front of the village of Fons de Arronce. Here, on 
 the afternoon of the 15th of March, he was most 
 vigorously attacked by Pack’s brigade, Picton’s 
 division, a regiment of hussars, the 16th dragoons, 
 and some horse artillery. Ney’s people soon gave 
 ground and fell into a panic: many of them were 
 drowned in attempting to discover some fords, and 
 many were trampled to death on a bridge: in all 
 500 Frenchmen were lost, and our troops took 
 much baggage and some ammunition. Lord Wel- 
 lington’s attack had been delayed by a dense fog ; 
 and it was dark night before the French were dri- 
 ven from their last position. Ney succeeded in 
 blowing up the bridge by which he had crossed 
 over ; and, leaving a small guard on the bank of 
 the river, he retreated in the track of Massena. 
 The pursuit of the British was stopped by various 
 
 * Massena’s fear was not unfounded. Wellington had as good as 
 turned his formidable position. His lordship says: ** Major-general 
 Cole had joined Major-general Nightingall at Espinhal, and this 
 movement, by which the Deixa was passed, and which gave us the 
 power of turning the strong position of Miranda do Corvo, induced 
 the enemy to abandon it in the night.”—Dispatches ; Letter to the 
 Larl of Liverpool, dated 16th March. 
 
 t+ Id., id, 
 
 2K 
 
578 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 causes: the Ceira was not fordable, the troops had | 
 
 undergone great fatigue for several days, and there 
 was a great want of supplies. Some of the Portu- 
 guese who had just joined the main body of the 
 allied army were starving; for the Portuguese re- 
 gency, in spite of the urgent representations of 
 Wellington and Beresford, had neglected to pro- 
 vide the means for carrying provisions forward 
 along with the army. Nothing could be got from 
 the country where they were acting, for that coun- 
 try had been already ravaged and exhausted by the 
 enemy.* The night of the 15th, and the whole 
 day and night of the 16th, were Jost to the pursuit ; 
 but on the 17th, having received some supplies, 
 and having constructed a trestle bridge, the British 
 crossed the Ceira, the guard which Ney had left 
 there having withdrawn during the night. Wel- 
 lington was mortified, and Massena proportionately 
 encouraged, by the intelligence that Badajoz had 
 made a dastardly or treacherous surrender to Mar- 
 shal Soult. Yet neither did the French general 
 cease from fiying, nor did the English general 
 cease from pursuing him. Massena, after destroy- 
 ing the bridge of Murcella, attempted to make a 
 stand on some high ground behind the river Alva, 
 another affluent of the Mondego, which was then 
 swollen by the spring rains. Wellington threw for- 
 ward three divisions, which traversed mountains 
 by goat-paths, and menaced Massena’s flank and 
 line of retreat, and thus compelled him to with- 
 draw hastily, by Moita, towards Celorico. Lord 
 Wellington crossed the Alva, and collected his 
 army near Moita on the 19th; thus compelling 
 Massena to destroy more of his baggage and ammu- 
 nition, and to forsake the foraging parties which he 
 had sent out. Of these parties above 800 men were 
 intercepted and made prisoners. They were famish- 
 ing when taken, and their captors had little food to 
 give them. This want of provisions, and the want 
 of draught mules, obliged the main body of the 
 allied army to halt at Moita for several days, to 
 wait the arrival of the provisions which were now 
 coming round by sea from Lisbon to the Mondego. 
 Wellington’s light division and cavalry, however, 
 continued to follow the enemy, who reached Celo- 
 rico on the’ 21st of March, and re-opened their 
 communications with the garrison they had left at 
 Almeida, and with the Spanish frontier near Ciudad 
 Rodrigo. At Celorico the headlong retreat of the 
 French and the hot pursuit of the allies may pro- 
 perly be said to have terminated. The whole re- 
 treat had occupied about a fortnight, and had been 
 
 * “Tt is literally true,” says Lord Wellington, ‘‘ that General Pack’s 
 brigade, and Colonel Ashworth’s, had nothing to eat for four days, 
 although constantly marching or engaged with the enemy.”’—ZId., id. 
 
 At the same time the mules of the artillery were unable to draw the 
 guns for any length of time through want of food; the baggage mules 
 of the army were nearly all dead of famine, and the drivers had neither 
 been paid nor fed. Many of the Portuguese in Pack’s brigade had 
 dropped out of their ranks through hunger and exhaustion: three of 
 them were known to have died of actual famine in one day; and it 
 was supposed that most of those who had lingered behind must perish. 
 “It is still,” said his lordship, “a favourite notion with some members 
 of this government, that the Portuguese troops can do with very little 
 orno food!..... This is the state of the army at the commencement 
 of the campaign ; and [see clearly that, unless this government change 
 its system, no remedy will be applied, and the whole burden of de- 
 fending this country will fall upon Great Britain.”—Jd.; Letter to 
 Charles Stuart, Esq. 
 
 attended by an amount of misery, horror, and crime 
 rarely surpassed—by devastation to the country, 
 by destruction to the country people, but by a still 
 more terrible destruction to Massena’s troops. It 
 was altogether a more terrific affair than the retreat 
 of 1809, for Marshal Soult had exerted himself in 
 checking the ferocity of the French soldiery, while 
 Massena, himself ferocious and ruthless, had not 
 merely left the demoralised troops to follow their 
 own eyil instincts, but had also expressly ordered 
 many of their worst deeds. A vast deal of the 
 mischief committed was wilful and unnecessary. 
 It was by express orders from Massena’s head- 
 quarters that the town of Leiria and the abbey of 
 Alcobaca, the richest and most beautiful ecclesias- 
 tical edifice in Portugal, and one of the rarest and 
 most beautiful in the world, were given to the 
 flames.* ‘* But every horror that could make war 
 hideous attended this dreadful march. Distress, 
 conflagration, death in all modes! from wounds, 
 from fatigue, from water, from the flames, from 
 starvation! On every side unlimited violence, 
 unlimited vengeance!” + Lord Wellington him- 
 self bore testimony, in his official dispatches, to 
 the brutality of the French. “ Their conduct 
 throughout this retreat,’? said he, ‘ has been 
 marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never 
 surpassed. Even in the towns of Torres Novas, 
 Thomar, and Pernes, in which the head-quarters 
 of some of their corps had been for four months, 
 and in which the inhabitants had been invited, by 
 promises of good treatment, to remain, they were 
 plundered, and many of their houses destroyed, on 
 the night the enemy withdrew from their position ; 
 and they have since burned every town and village 
 through which they have passed....... There is 
 not an inhabitant of the country, of any class or 
 description, who has had any dealing or commu- 
 nication with the French army, who has not had 
 reason to repent of it. This is the mode in which 
 the promises have been performed, and the assur- 
 ances have been fulfilled which were held out in 
 the proclamation of the French commander-in- 
 chief, who told the inhabitants of Portugal that he 
 was not come to make war upon them, but, with a 
 powerful army of 110,000 men, to drive the Eng- 
 lish into the sea. It is to be hoped that the example 
 of what has occurred in this country will teach the 
 people of this and of other nations what value they 
 ought to place on such promises and assurances ; 
 and show them that there is no security for life, 
 or for anything which makes life valuable, excepting 
 in decided resistance to the enemy.”’ t : 
 On the 25th of March Massena abandoned Ce- 
 
 lorico, but retained the strong position of Guarda, 
 fondly expecting that Soult, after capturing Badajoz, 
 
 * For a description of this truly regal monastery and of the magni- 
 ficent monks who inhabited it, of the exquisitely beautiful country in 
 which it stood, of its earliest Norman cloisters, uf its endless corridors, 
 of its panels of jasper and porphyry, its paintings, antique tombs, a’ 
 fountains—all as they were in the year 1794, before the storm of these 
 French wars burst over Portugal—we refer the reader to Recollections 
 of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaga and Batatha, by the 
 Author of ‘ Vathek,’ London, 1835. 
 
 + Napier, Hist. of War in the Peninsula. 
 ¢ Dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool. 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 would advance through Portugal, and dreading the 
 responsibility of abandoning that country altogether 
 without orders from his emperor. A quarrel broke 
 out between Massena and Ney: the French gar- 
 rison left in Almeida was cut off from communica- 
 tion and threatened with destruction by the British 
 and Portuguese; and Ney, after vainly urging an 
 immediate march upon Almeida, threw up his 
 command in disgust and went to Salamanca. On 
 the 29th of March Wellington appeared in force, 
 and moved his columns up the steep hill of Guarda, 
 and manceuvred the French out of that formidable 
 position. Massena went off towards Sabugal with- 
 out firing a shot, but with his rear-guard in ad- 
 mirable order. On the 2nd of April the British 
 army came up with the French, who were then 
 posted on the right bank of the Coa. The next 
 day there was some hard fighting, which ended, 
 after several vicissitudes, in the enemy’s being 
 driven from the bank of the Coa. This was 
 called the combat of Sabugal. Our light division 
 lost about 200 men; but the French suffered far 
 more severely, and were obliged to abandon more 
 of their baggage. Finding that Soult could not 
 come, and that he could not maintain himself even 
 on the extreme frontier of Portugal any longer, 
 Massena retired by Alfayates, Aldea da Ponte, and 
 Aldea Velha, and on the 6th of April crossed the 
 Agueda into Spain.* 
 
 Thus terminated the third French invasion of 
 Portugal. Their total loss had been immense: in- 
 eluding the sick and wounded, Lord Wellington cal- 
 culated it at not lessthan 45,000 men.t Massena, 
 
 * The toil which Lord Wellington underwent in following up this 
 retreat of Massena was immense, having been necessarily increased 
 by the strange conduct of some of his general officers, who had chosen 
 a very unseemly moment to plead important private business and to 
 return home. This conduct was resented and criticized as it deserved. 
 
 **T assure you,’’ wrote his lordship, “ that the departure of the 
 general officers from the army was as much against my inclination as 
 their arrival in England was injurious to the public interests. I did 
 everything in my power to prevail upon them not to go, but in vain; 
 and I acknowledge that it has given me satisfaction to find that they 
 have been roughly handled in the newspapers. The consequence of 
 the absence of some of them has been, that in the late operations I 
 have been obliged to be general of cavalry, general of the advanced 
 guard, and the leader of two or three columns, sometimes on the 
 same day. 
 
 **T have requested Colonel Torrens (then secretary to the com- 
 mander-in-chief the Duke of York) not to allow any general officer to 
 come out m future who is not willing to declare that he has no private 
 business to recall him to Eugland, and that he will remain with the 
 army as long as it shall stay in the Peninsula.’’—Private Letter to the 
 
 Earl of Liverpool, dated 23rd March. 
 
 + A great part of this loss was from the Portuguese peasantry, who 
 killed every straggler whom they could lay their hands upon before 
 the heads of the British columns came up. A writer of ability and 
 unquestionable veracity, then a young officer serving with our light 
 division, aman of humanity and sensibility, whose heart had not been 
 hardened by witnessing many horrors in other countries besides Por- 
 
 tugal, has drawn a fearful picture of the scenes he saw with his own 
 
 eyes during Massena’s retreat :— 
 
 *« The Portuguese peasants killed those who fell behind from sick- 
 ness, as well as those who straggled for the purpose of marauding or 
 seeking for food; they killed the wounded who were left behind for 
 want of means of transport, as well as those who dropped down from 
 weakness and fatigue; they killed them with their knives, or dashed 
 out their brains with stones, or with the long knobbed sticks which 
 the Portugnese aie 2 carry on their shoulders. The appearance 
 of the British advance (for the British army always protected the pri- 
 soners) made the Portuguese leave their work of death at times un- 
 finished, and they left their victims, whom they generally left stark 
 naked, to die in the fields right and left of our line of march. The 
 writer of this article, then a very young man, speaks from recollec- 
 tion. It was on the 10th of March, on the road from Payalva to 
 Pombal, that he saw the first dismal traces of the disastrous defeat of 
 the French: bodies of dead soldiers, carts broken down on the road, 
 eareases of horses and mules: and from that time till he arrived at 
 Celorico, on the 29th of March, there was hardly a day on which he 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 579 
 
 however, still counted 40,000 men when beyond the 
 Spanish frontier, besides the garrison left in Almeida. 
 Having placed his army in cantonments between 
 the Coa and the Agueda, and given his instruc- 
 tions for the blockade of Almeida, Lord Welling- 
 ton set out for the south to see the state of affairs 
 on the Guadiana and the country near Badajoz. 
 When his lordship first began to follow the retreat- 
 ing army of Massena, he had written to the Spanish 
 governor of Badajoz beseeching him to make a 
 good stand, and promising him speedy assist- 
 ance. But unfortunately General Menacho, the 
 governor, was killed by a cannon ball; and the 
 command of the garrison devolved upon General 
 Imaz, a man unworthy of the trust. On the 
 morning of the 9th of March, Wellington—who 
 was then at Thomar, and who had caused it to be 
 announced by signal and otherwise that Massena 
 was retreating, and that he had made all the 
 arrangements necessary for detaching a strong 
 relieving force—received accounts of a most favour- 
 able nature from Badajoz, which induced him to 
 believe not only that the place was in no danger, 
 but that it was in fact untouched ; that its fire 
 was superior to that of the besiegers; that it was 
 in no want of provisions or ammunition; that it 
 had sustained no loss except that of General Me- 
 nacho, and that General Imaz was a worthy suc- 
 cessor to the deceased governor, and enjoyed the 
 full confidence of the Spaniards; in short, that 
 Badajoz, even unaided, was both able and likely 
 to hold out for a whole month, which delay must 
 have proved very disastrous to Marshal Soult. On 
 that very day—the 9th—the French made a breach 
 in the place about eighteen feet wide, but which 
 was by no means practicable: also on the same 
 day Governor Imaz acknowledged by signal the 
 receipt of the message which Wellington sent him ; 
 and on the very next day, the 10th of March, he 
 held up the white flag and suspended hostilities. 
 And on the 11th Badajoz was surrendered, the 
 garrison becoming prisoners of war, but having 
 idly bargained to be allowed to march out with the 
 honours of war, honours which they had basely 
 
 did not see numbers of dead bodies scattered about the fields right 
 and left of the road, generally naked, most of whom had no mark of 
 wounds from fire-arms, and had either died of disease, of which many 
 of them bore evidence, or had been finished by the peasantry. One 
 day he remembers counting them, and in a few hours of the march he 
 reckoned between 100 and 200, till he felt too sick to reckon any 
 more. . . . .Some of the poor creatures seemed to have crawled or 
 to have been dragged out of the road to die behind the loose stone 
 walls with which the fields are enclosed ; and on looking over the 
 stone walls into the fields, they were seen lying in clusters of three or 
 four, or more, in all sorts of positions. A few were still breathing. 
 It was a horrid sight. He also remembers once or twice seeing Por- 
 tuguese villagers, men and women, insulting and kicking the bodies 
 of dead Frenchmen on the road, when they were properly reproyed 
 and driven away by a British non-commissioned officer. A Portu- 
 guese farmer in the Estrella showed him the uniforms of four or five 
 Frenchmen whom he had surprised singly and killed in his neigh- 
 bourhood during the winter. It was chiefly in the mountains of the 
 Estrella that the work of destruction had been carried on during the 
 winter of 1810-11. The French marauding parties went hunting for 
 provisions in those sequestered valleys, and when they fell upon a 
 hamlet or farm-house they showed no mercy to the inmates. Some- 
 times in the mountains they pounced upon several families huddled 
 together in a cave, with a provision of Indian corn or pulse to last 
 them for the winter. The males were soon dispatched, the females 
 spared for a time, but notin mercy. It happened, however, at times 
 that these marauding parties were small, and were overpowered 
 by the peasantry, who then gave no quarter.”—A, Vieusseur, 
 Military Life of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
580 
 
 forfeited, and which no capitulation or compact 
 and no earthly power could restore to them after 
 their despicable conduct. Nine thousand Spa- 
 niards surrendered to a besieging army which did 
 not at that moment exceed 9600 infantry and 
 2000 cavalry! The place was still strong, and 
 there was still an abundance of ammunition and 
 artillery. Cowardice and imbecility were not 
 deemed sufficient to account for the conduct of 
 Imaz. The British general had urged him to 
 keep secret the intelligence of Massena’s retreat, 
 lest by means of deserters it should reach the 
 enemy, whom his lordship was in hopes of finding 
 engaged in the siege; yet Imaz published the 
 intelligence as soon as he received it, stating 
 moreover that he did not believe it, that it was 
 incredible that Massena should be flying before 
 Wellington, and, going still farther than this, he 
 communicated the news to the French general.* 
 The indignation and astonishment of Lord Wel- 
 lington were great. Marshal Beresford, who com- 
 manded the allied troops in the Alemtejo in the 
 absence of General Hill, who had gone home on 
 leave, was daily expecting reinforcements from our 
 main army, and had prepared for a rapid march 
 which must have forced the French to raise the 
 siege. After the unexpected fall of Badajoz (at 
 was as unexpected to the besiegers as it was to the 
 English), Soult put his troops in motion to cross 
 the Guadiana and the southern frontier of Portugal ; 
 but intelligence reached him from Andalusia which 
 induced him to give up the command to Mortier, 
 and to repair with all haste to Seville. And, while 
 Soult had been engaged in Estremadura, General 
 Graham + (late the veteran and venerable Lord 
 Lynedoch) had issued from Cadiz with the greater 
 part of the British and Portuguese garrison, and 
 had embarked with the intention of landing on 
 the Andalusian coast and of throwing himself 
 upon the rear of the French blockading army, 
 which was reduced by the draughts which Soult had 
 made upon it to some 16,000 men. The British 
 and Portuguese, about 4000 strong, got to sea on 
 the 21st of February. Graham had intended to 
 land somewhere between Cape ‘Trafalgar and 
 Cape de Plata on the Atlantic, or at the old and 
 still essentially Moorish town Tarifa, on the straits 
 of Gibraltar ; but, finding it impracticable to effect 
 a landing either from the ocean or in the straits, 
 he went farther off, passed through the narrow 
 straits altogether, and, entering the bay of Gibraltar, 
 landed at Algeciras, which town, with its Moorish 
 aqueduct, faces the impregnable rock. From Alge- 
 ciras Graham had to go back by land to Tarifa. 
 The road between these two old towns, running 
 over mountains and along the edge of precipices, 
 
 ‘A ee Wellington’s Dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool, dated 16th 
 arcn. 
 
 + General Graham had good claim to both epithets veteran and 
 venerable even at this time. In 1811 he was in the sixty-first year 
 of his age, Yet in the battle of Barrosa, and in the dreadful marches 
 which preceded it, he displayed all the activity, all the spirit, of 
 youth, and underwent every hazard and fatigue. In crossing the lake 
 of Junda he dismounted from his horse to guide and encourage the 
 foot soldiers, and traversed the whole of the inundated causeway on 
 foot, with the water to his waist, and at times almost to his chin. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X. 
 
 is about -as bad as any in Europe—difficult in the 
 winter season even to the traveller who has no 
 other incumbrance. than a light portmanteau. 
 As it was impassable for wheeled carriages of 
 any description, Graham sent his artillery stores 
 and provisions back to Tarifa by sea; and they 
 were conveyed in boats, and safely landed by our 
 seamen in spite of wind and weather. A Spanish 
 force 7000 strong, under the command of General 
 Lapefla, came into the straits to co-operate with 
 the English and Portuguese; and after being thrice 
 driven back the Spaniards reached Tarifa, and dis- 
 embarked on the 27th of February. General 
 Graham consented to yield the superior command 
 to Lapefia, and to serve under him during this ex- 
 pedition. But, with one or two exceptions, it. had 
 never yet been found possible for a British com- 
 mander and British troops to agree with a Spa- 
 nish general and Spanish troops: differences of 
 opinion arose immediately, misunderstanding of 
 intentions followed, and these evil influences ap- 
 pear to have increased during the march from 
 Tarifa to the neighbourhood of the French posi- 
 tions. The road continued to be execrably bad: 
 after the mountains (high offshoots from the Sierra 
 de Ronda) had been crossed, the army had to 
 traverse a spacious plain, which, in many parts, 
 may be compared to the Pontine marshes, for it is 
 intersected with innumerable streams running in 
 all directions ; it has an immense mere (called the 
 lake of Junda), a lake at this time of the year, 
 but in summer, for the greater part, a muddy, 
 slimy, pestiferous bog, across which a highroad 
 runs over an artificial causeway. In this plain, 
 at Veger, about midway between Tarifa and the 
 bay of Cadiz, the French had an outpost of in- 
 fantry and cavalry ; and a little further on, on the 
 road to Medina Sidonia, they had a small fort. 
 Lapeia intended to surprise both these posts; but 
 his measures were so ill taken that there was no 
 surprise at all. The posts were, however, carried 
 by fighting, and at the fort the French lost sixty 
 or seventy men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 
 and abandoned their two cannons and all their — 
 stores. At this point Lapefia was joined by 1600 
 
 men from the so-called army of St. Roques. The 
 whole allied force now amounted to 11,200 foot 
 and 800 horse ; but, instead of being kept united, 
 it was divided into three or four columns, which 
 pursued different lines of road, or marched at con- 
 siderable distances from each other. They had 
 twenty-four pieces of artillery; but this good train 
 was divided like the rest of the force. Victor, who 
 was in command of the French army in front of 
 Cadiz, was alarmed at the approach of the enemy — 
 on his rear; but this approach was far from being 
 so rapid as it might have been, even after making 
 every allowance for the difficulties of the road; 
 and the French general appears to have had timely 
 notice of the whole plan, and of every movement 
 of the allies. He reinforced General Cassagne, who 
 occupied the town of Medina Sidonia, and he took | 
 post himself with ten battalions, between Medina | 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 Sidonia and Chiclana. As Victor made this move- 
 ment, the Spanish camp-marshal, de Zayas, quitted 
 the Isle of Leon, threw a body of troops over the 
 Santi Petri, and menaced the extreme left of the 
 French lines; and, although vigorously attacked 
 by the French general Villatte, de Zayas kept 
 his ground manfully, repulsing his assailants with 
 loss. Upon this Victor marched back towards 
 Chiclana, and ordered Cassagne to join him ; for 
 he now expected nothing less than that the allied 
 army, united and led on by Lapefa, would make a 
 concentrated and vigorous attack on the left of his 
 positions, break through his lines, give the hand 
 to de Zayas, receive supplies and further reinforce- 
 ments from the Isle of Leon and from the city of 
 Cadiz, and thus compel the French to raise their 
 siege, or blockade, for good andall. But an excess 
 of caution made Lapeiia slower even than he had 
 been before ; much time was lost in crossing the 
 lake of Junda by the narrow wretched causeway, 
 which was then three or four, and in some places 
 more, feet under water; the allied army was not 
 concentrated ; and, when General Graham reached 
 the heights of Barrosa, he found them abandoned 
 by a Spanish division which ought to have held 
 them, and in possession of Marshal Victor, who 
 Was covering them with 8000 men and a formi- 
 dable artillery. It was imperatively necessary to 
 recover these heights, for if they remained in the 
 hands of the French there could have been neither 
 an advance nor a safe retreat, but the allied forces 
 must have been involved inone common ruin. Gra- 
 ham therefore boldly marched up the slopes of Bar- 
 rosa, in the teeth of a terrible fire of artillery and 
 musketry, and, with 4000 British and Portuguese, 
 joined battle on the narrow ridge of the hill with 
 double the number of veteran French troops. The 
 combat was fierce and bloody, but not of long 
 duration : the hill top and the hill sides were swept 
 by the British bayonets; an imperial eagle (the 
 first which the English had taken) was captured 
 from one of the most famed regiments in Bona- 
 partes army. The French, after being driven 
 down the heights, were pursued across a valley; 
 the reserve which they had formed beyond that 
 valley was broken and completly routed; the 
 French general Ruffin (whose proper name would 
 have been Ruffian) was wounded and taken, 
 General Bellegarde was killed, General Rousseau 
 was mortally wounded, and in less than an hour 
 and a half Victor was in full retreat. The victory 
 had been dearly bought; out of Graham’s 4000 
 men, 1243 were killed or wounded. But the 
 French loss, including 440 that were taken pri- 
 soners, Was estimated at more than 3000. During 
 this terrible and heroic struggle, Lapefia was lying 
 three or four miles off, and was sustaining a not 
 very formidable attack from General Villatte ; the 
 cavalry was engaged at a distance, or was ma- 
 neeuvring in another direction; thus the British 
 received no support from the Spaniards during the 
 unequal combat, and at its glorious termination 
 the want of horse prevented Graham from giving 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 581 
 
 a pursuit which must have proved very destructive 
 to the French.* But, except the honour gained to 
 our arms, no important result followed the battle 
 of Barrosa, which was fought on the 5th of March. 
 Lapena would undertake nothing against the re- 
 treating disheartened French; and Graham, in 
 disgust, marched to the bridge which de Zayas 
 had thrown over the Santi Petri, and retired into 
 the Isle of Jeon. Lapefa now professed a great 
 eagerness for action, but he declared that he could 
 do nothing unless Graham should quit the Isla 
 and join him, and he remained in his camp doing 
 nothing at all. In this interval Admiral Keats 
 landed some of his British seamen and marines, 
 and these brisk fellows stormed two French re- 
 doubts, and dismantled all the sea-defences and 
 batteries on the bay of Cadiz, from Rota to Santa 
 Maria, except Catalina, which was found too strong 
 to be carried by a coup de main by only two or 
 three hundred men. At last Victor, who, after his 
 defeat at Barrosa, had fully expected to be obliged 
 to raise the blockade of Cadiz, or to find all his 
 works destroyed or rendered useless, returned to 
 his old lines ; and thereupon Lapefa crossed over 
 to the Isle of Leon, destroyed the temporary bridge 
 which de Zayas had erected, and left the French, 
 without hindrance or molestation, to re-establish 
 the blockade. But, when Soult so hastily quitted 
 Badajoz and the banks of the Guadiana, he saw 
 little prospect of such a termination to the expedi- 
 tion of Graham and Lapefia: from Seville he 
 
 ‘ordered Sebastiani, who had turned a deaf ear to 
 
 the entreaties of Victor, to reinforce the blockading 
 army ; and he called upon the French government 
 at Madrid, and upon Marshal Bessiéres in the 
 North, to strengthen, at one and the same time, the 
 forces in Andalusia and in Spanish Estremadura, 
 and the army of Portugal under Massena, who 
 had now retreated as far as Salamanca. Mortier, 
 to whom Soult had left the command of the corps 
 d’armée in Estremadura, advanced from Badajoz, 
 crossed the southern frontier of Portugal, and laid 
 siege to Campo Mayor, an old weak place garri- 
 
 * Lord Wellington thus expressed his opinion of the battle of Bar- 
 rosa, in a warm, friendly letter addressed to General Graham on the 
 25th of March :—‘‘ I beg to congratulate you and the brave troops 
 under your command on the signal victory which you gained on the 
 Sth instant. I have no doubt whatever that their success would have 
 had the effect of raising the siege of Cadiz, if the Spanish corps had 
 made any effort to assist them; and I am equally certain, from your 
 account of the ground, that if you had not decided with the utmost 
 promptitude to attack the enemy, and if your attack had not been a 
 most vigorous one, the whole allied army would have been lost. You 
 have to regret that such a victory should not have been followed by 
 all the consequences which might reasonably be expected from it; 
 but you may console yourself with the reflection that you did your 
 utmost, and, at all events, saved the allied armies; and that the 
 failure in the extent of henefit to be derived from your exertions is to 
 be altributed to those who would have derived most advantage from 
 them. The conduct of the Spaniards throughout this expedition is 
 precisely the same as I have ever observed it to be. They march the 
 troops night and day, without provisions or rest, and abusing every- 
 body who proposes a moment's delay to afford either to the famished 
 and fatigued soldiers. ‘They reach the enemy in such a state as to be 
 unable to make any exertion or to execute any plan, even if any plan 
 had been formed; and then, when the moment of action arrives, they 
 
 - are totally incapable of movement, and they stand by to see their 
 
 allies destroyed, and afterwards abuse them because they do not con- 
 tinue, unsupported, exertions to which human nature is not equal. 1 
 concur in the propriety of your withdrawing to the Isla on the 6th, as 
 much as I admire the promptitude and determination of your attack 
 of the 5th; and I most sincerely congratulate you and the brave 
 troops under your command on your success.”—Colonel Gurwood, 
 Wellington Dispatches. 
 
— 
 
 582 
 
 soned by only a few hundred men. But the com- 
 mandant, a Portuguese officer of artillery, made a 
 
 _ better stand in this weak place than the Spaniard 
 
 Imaz had made within the strong defences of 
 Badajoz: he defended himself bravely for eleven 
 days, until his few serviceable guns were dis- 
 mounted and a wide practicable breach made in 
 the walls; and even then he demanded and ob- 
 tained from Mortier four and twenty hours more 
 to wait for succour, for the true-hearted Portuguese 
 knew that Marshal Beresford was coming fast down 
 to that frontier, and that every day, every hour 
 gained, was of importance. Rapidly as he was 
 moving, Beresford could not arrive in time to pre- 
 vent the surrender of Campo Mayor; but Mortier 
 had scarcely established himself in that place, 
 when Beresford, having received the reinforcements 
 which Wellington sent him from the north, ap- 
 peared in the neighbourhood at the head of 22,000 
 men; and at this unwelcome appearance the 
 French (on the 25th of March) hastily evacuated 
 Campo Mayor and retreated to Badajoz, pursued 
 all the way by the British cavalry. Beresford’s 
 orders from Wellington were to invest Badajoz 
 before the French could provision it, and repair 
 and improve its works. His lordship had repeat- 
 edly represented to the authorities on either side of 
 the frontier—to the Spaniards as well as the Por- 
 tuguese—the necessity of collecting boats or mate- 
 rials wherewith to construct a movable temporary 
 bridge across the Guadiana ; but these representa- 
 tions had met with the usual attention, and on this 
 account the safety of the whole allied army was 
 repeatedly put in jeopardy. After Mortier and 
 our cavalry in pursuit of him had crossed, the 
 river suddenly rose from three to four feet, thus 
 rendering the fords impassable, and the construc- 
 tion of a trestle bridge more difficult. The neigh- 
 bouring country too was so bare of timber, that 
 none but small spars could be procured. With 
 almost incredible pains Marshal Beresford did, 
 however, construct a sort of bridge, partly made of 
 boats aud block-tin pontoons, and partly of trestles ; 
 and on the 5th of April, in the afternoon, the troops 
 began to cross over, a very few men at atime. So 
 slow was this operation, and so precarious the 
 bridge, that it took the army more than three days 
 to get over; fur, although there was not an hour’s 
 intermission, it was not until midnight on the Sth 
 that Beresford collected all his troops on the 
 opposite bank. If the French had kept their 
 ground or had returned from Badajoz, the opera- 
 tion must have been altogether impracticable, and 
 a part of the allied army must have been captured 
 or destroyed; but the invaders seemed to have lost 
 all spirit and confidence, and just at this moment 
 Mortier withdrew from the contest, and gave up 
 the command to Latour Maubourg. Between the 
 9th and the 15th of April the British recovered the 
 fortress of Olivenca, and two or three important 
 positions on the Valverde river. It was expected 
 that the enemy would have made an attempt either 
 to cover or to relieve Olivenca; but they merely 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 gathered at Albuera, and then retired from that 
 ground at the first approach of the British army. 
 It was on the 20th of April that Lord Wellington 
 arrived from the northern frontier at Beresford’s 
 head-quarters: he lost no time in reconnoitring 
 Badajoz, and he ordered immediate operations 
 against that place, which must be taken quickly or 
 not at all. The loss of Badajoz (that shameful 
 loss!) had been a most unexpected and very severe — 
 blow to his lordship, and he considered its recap- 
 ture as essential to his future operations ; for so 
 long as the French held that fortress the southern 
 frontier of Portugal lay open to them; and his 
 lordship, besides, had formed the plan of advancing 
 boldly into the heart of Spain, so as to force the 
 French to abandon at least Andalusia. He knew 
 the uncertainty and the danger of the siege, but for 
 so important an object something must be risked. 
 While making the necessary preparations for the 
 siege of Badajoz, which he would have directed in 
 person, if it had been possible, Wellington was re- 
 called to the north by the intelligence he received 
 of Massena’s movements. Something, though not 
 much, had been expected from the Spaniards, who 
 had a regular army—or what they called such— — 
 in Gallicia and Leon, and numerous bands of 
 guerillas in the country behind Salamanca and in 
 other parts of the north-western provinces of their 
 kingdom ; and these forces might have been com- 
 petent to interrupt the arrival of Massena’s rein- 
 forcement and supplies, and to cause him some loss, 
 if not some serious delay on his march from Sala- 
 manca back to Ciudad Rodrigo and the northern 
 frontier of Portugal. But the Spanish forces did 
 nothing, or nothing that was of any avail; and the 
 defeated French marshal, having been allowed to 
 recruit and do what he chose at Salamanca, was 
 now in full and undisturbed march for the ground 
 he had quitted on the Coa, holding it as important 
 to relieve the French garrison left in Almeida as 
 Wellington and Beresford held it to recover Ba- 
 dajoz. ‘The British commander-in-chief was back 
 again on the Coa by the 28th of April, making the 
 best dispositions to prevent the relief of Almeida, 
 and to drive Massena back once more. 
 
 On the 2nd of May the French marshal, having 
 been joined by some fresh cavalry sent to him by 
 Bessiéres, moved from Ciudad Rodrigo, crossed 
 the Agueda, and entered Portugal with 40,000 
 foot, 5000 horse, and 30 pieces of artillery. He 
 had declared to Bessi¢res that it would be a shame 
 and disgrace to allow Almeida to surrender to the 
 English in the presence of two marshals of the 
 empire. Lord Wellington, fully aware of the in- 
 tention of relieving Almeida at all hazards, deter- 
 mined to fight another battle rather than give up 
 the blockade of that place. The reinforcements 
 sent down to the south to Marshal Beresford had 
 so weakened our main army, that his lordship had 
 only 32,000 foot and 1200 horse to oppose to 
 Massena. The country, too, near Almeida was in 
 good part very favourable to the operations of 
 cavalry, in which arm Wellington was most defi- 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 cient. Moreover, in order to maintain the blockade 
 and prevent all access to or egress from the Por- 
 tuguese fortress, his lordship was obliged to leave 
 a mass of troops under Almeida, and to extend his 
 lines for seven long miles, from the river Turones 
 to the river Das Casas (two affluents of the 
 Agueda), having his left on Fort Concepcion, his 
 centre opposite the village of Almeida, and his 
 right at the village of Fuentes de Onoro. ‘This 
 extended position was on a low and open table- 
 land, between the two parallel streams, the Turones 
 and Das Casas: the river Coa, which had been 
 crossed, flowed in the rear, and there was only 
 one bridge whereby to cross it in case of a retreat 
 —the bridge of Castello Bom. The ground was 
 openest on the side of Fuentes de Onoro, which 
 village soon merited its name— the Fountains of 
 Honour,”’—and there Massena resolved to attack in 
 great force, hoping to gain the village, turn Lord 
 Wellington’s right, push it upon its centre, and 
 then drive the whole of that army back upon the 
 Coa and the one narrow and perilous bridge. 
 Towards evening, on the 3rd of May, the French 
 left, under cover of a hot cannonade from a ridge 
 which commanded the village, made a resolute 
 assault upon Fuentes de Onoro. They carried the 
 lower part of the village, and drove the English to 
 the upper part, where the defence was, for a time, 
 confined to a few strong houses and a chapel that 
 stood upon a rock. But Wellington, at the oppor- 
 tune moment, sent down a fresh brigade, and the 
 confident assailants were driven back at the point 
 of the bayonet. Massena fed his column of attack 
 with more and more reinforcements, and the 
 struggle in the narrow streets of the village was 
 tremendous. Repeatedly bayonets were crossed 
 (that very rare occurrence in war), the French 
 and English being occasionally intermixed. But 
 no French troops ever yet stood such a contest ; 
 and the assailants were soon driven out of the 
 lower part of the village and across the Das Casas 
 river. Completely foiled in this effort Massena 
 passed all the following day in reconnoitring and in 
 making plans of attack, which were all foreseen by 
 Wellington and provided for. In the course of 
 that day Marshal Bessiéres, who had joined Mas- 
 sena with a body of Bonaparte’s imperial guards, 
 reconnoitred also, declaring to his impatient and 
 irritated colleague, that great caution and circum- 
 spection would be necessary against a commander 
 so skilful and troops so steady as those now before 
 them, On the morrow, the 5th of May, as early 
 as three o’clock, the French columns were in 
 motion, and at about six Massena made a grand 
 attack on the British right with the greater part of 
 his army, including the entire mass of his cavalry. 
 In executing some necessary movements upon the 
 open ground the British light division suffered 
 rather severely from the charge of the French horse, 
 led on by Montbrun, and there was one terribly 
 critical moment; but General Craufurd got his 
 division into squares, Montbrun drew his bridle- 
 rein, and the French horse wheeled round on the 
 
 CIVIL: AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 re 
 
 5838 
 
 plain and retired from the compact masses and the 
 
 murderous fire of the British infantry ; and, though 
 Massena commenced a heavy cannonade which 
 did great execution, twelve British guns were plied 
 with such vigour that his fire soon slackened. 
 After this the French marshals were foiled in 
 everything they attempted; no feint, no move- 
 ment or manceuvre whatsoever, produced any visible 
 effect. All the troops which Wellington considered 
 it necessary to withdraw from his extreme right 
 and centre to concentrate on his right, the object of 
 Massena’s grand attack, were withdrawn and con- 
 centrated, a new front was formed, and it was so 
 deeply lined with troops as to strike Massena’s heart 
 with despair. The village of Fuentes de Onoro, again 
 attacked with excessive fury and obstinacy, was 
 again defended as stoutly as it had been on the 3rd. 
 Again there seemed different shiftings and changes 
 of fortune: early in the contest that noble High- 
 lander, Colonel Cameron, was mortally wounded, 
 and three brave regiments were driven from the 
 lower parts of the village by an attacking column 
 of tremendous strength: at one time the very 
 chapel on the rock above the upper part of the yil- 
 lage was abandoned ; but Colonel Mackinnon came 
 up with his brigade ;—‘* Wild from the plaided 
 ranks the yell was given ;’—the Highlanders 
 rushed on to take vengeance for the fall of Cameron, 
 and the entire village was recovered and cleared of 
 all the French, save their dead and their badly 
 wounded. ‘The battle was prolonged in and round 
 the village till the fall of evening, when the French 
 again crossed the stream and retired the distance 
 of a cannon shot from itsbank. ‘Their generals 
 had committed various military blunders, but on 
 the British side there does not appear to have been 
 a single mistake. Our total loss was 235 killed, 
 1234 wounded, and 317 missing or prisoners. 
 The loss of the French was much greater: 400 of 
 their dead were counted in the village of Fuentes 
 de Onoro alone, strewing the streets or piled upon 
 one another ; many prisoners were taken, and in- 
 tercepted letters showed that as many as 2000 or 
 3000, or by some accounts 4000, had been wounded 
 either in the attacks on the village on the 3rd or in 
 this more general affair of the 5th. The battle of 
 Fuentes de Onoro was of importance in the eyes of 
 the world and to the military fame of our country, 
 by being a regular pitched battle, fought by the 
 British in a position (forced upon Wellington, 
 unless he left Almeida open to Massena) of no 
 particular strength, and, indeed, weak at one point, 
 and with avery inferior force. A good part of the 
 disciplined Portuguese were away in the south 
 with Beresford, so that the great majority of the 
 troops engaged were British. The British 5th 
 and 6th divisions were posted on the left to protect 
 the blockade, and, being observed all the time by 
 an entire French corps, they could take no part 
 in the engagement. There were only four Bri- 
 tish divisions of infantry, one Portuguese brigade, 
 and about 1000 horse actually engaged against 
 three French corps of infantry and nearly 5000 
 
584 
 
 cavalry; for Montbrun, expecting to decide the 
 battle by that one coup, charged with all his squa- 
 drons and with almost every horse he had.* Mas- 
 ‘sena fought the battle for the purpose of relieving 
 Almeida, but he failed completely, and, a few days 
 after, that place was evacuated by the French gar- 
 rison, who blew up some of the works, fled by 
 night, and, getting across the Agueda, joined their 
 main army, though not without the loss of 400 
 men, the third part of their entire force, and the 
 joss of their artillery, ammunition, baggage, and 
 everything they possessed except the ragged clothes 
 on their backs, their side-arms, and muskets. 
 Many prisoners also were brought in, and, but for 
 some negligence on the part of our blockading divi- 
 sions, scarcely a man of that garrison could have 
 escaped.+ Bonaparte, before this, had become 
 convinced that Massena was not the man to drive 
 Wellington out of Portugal, and he had sent Mar- 
 shal Marmont to supersede him. The order by 
 which the former favourite of fortune was ordered 
 to give up the command to a much younger and 
 less celebrated officer was harsh, ungenerous, un- 
 feeling ; but Massena had but slight claims to the 
 sympathy of any one, and this measure was what was 
 meted by Bonaparte to nearly all his unsuccessful 
 generals. The ex-commander-in-chief of the army 
 of Portugal was allowed to take with him to France 
 only his son and one aide-de-camp.{ Nearly at 
 the same time Marshal Ney, General Junot, and 
 Loison repaired to Paris, whither King Joseph had 
 gone before them. These generals all left behind 
 them evil names, and carried with them jealousies 
 and fierce recriminations of one another, loud accu- 
 sations of Joseph’s ministers and advisers, softer 
 complaints against the government of Paris and 
 even the emperor himself, and the common deter- 
 mination to excuse, every man of them, his own 
 conduct, by imputing misconduct to others. La 
 guerre @ Espagne, a word of ill omen before their 
 return, tooka more sinister sound and significa- 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches.—Napier, Hist. of War 
 in the Peninsula,—Major Sherer, Memoirs of the Duke of Welling- 
 ton.—A. Vieusseux, Military Life of Wellington. 
 
 A few days after the battle, in a letter addressed to Mr. Perceval, 
 the premier, thanking him for his attention to his recommendation in 
 favour of his friends the Portuguese, “‘ who really deserved the gene- 
 rosity of the people of England,’’ Lord Wellington again mentions 
 the humanity and generosity of his common English soldiery. ‘‘ My 
 soldiers,” says his lordship, ‘‘ have continued to show them every 
 kindness in their power, as well as to the Spaniards. The village of 
 Fuentes de Onoro having been the field of battle the other day, and 
 not being much improved by this circumstance, they immediately 
 and voluntarily subscribed to raise a sum of mouey, to be given to the 
 poor inhabitants as a compensation for the damage which their pro- 
 perties had sustained in the contest.” 
 
 + Lord Wellington was exceedingly annoyed at this negligence or 
 oversight, and he did not fail to express his sentiments to some of the 
 commanding officers, who ought to have been better prepared for 
 the sortie of the French, who had no alternative but to make a 
 desperate attempt to fly by night, or surrender. 
 
 + On his homeward journey through Spain, Massena narrowly 
 escaped falling into the avenging hands of Mina and the fierce 
 guerillas led by that famous chief. 
 
 In Navarre, Mina, the most active and able of the guerilla leaders 
 (with the exception perhaps of Porlier), defeated, on the 22nd of 
 May, at the Puerto de Arlaban, near Vitoria, 1200 men, who were: 
 escorting a convoy of prisoners and treasure to France. Massena, 
 whose baggage was captured, was to have travelled with this 
 escort, but, disliking the manner of the march, he had remained 
 in Vitoria, to wait a better opportunity, and so escaped. These 
 guerilla bands were almost always merciless: after the fight, they 
 murdered in cold blood six Spanish ladies who, in defiance of 
 patriotism, had attached themselves to French officers.— Colonel 
 Napier, Hist. of War in the Peninsula. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Be a 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 tion before Massena, Ney, and the very rash and 
 talkative Junot had been a week in the French 
 capital. Marmont had been ordered to take the 
 command of the army of Portugal with a firm 
 hand; but this marshal, finding that he could do 
 nothing more than continue the retreat which 
 Massena had begun after the battle of Fuentes de 
 Onoro, retired to Salamanca, and put the disheart- 
 ened, half-naked, and half-starving army into can- 
 tonments. 
 
 As there was nothing more to apprehend on the 
 northern frontier Lord Wellington returned once 
 more to the south. But before he could arrive on 
 the Guadiana great events had taken place, and a 
 battle had been fought far more bloody than that in 
 which he had triumphed on the Coa. <A few days 
 after the 25th of April, the day on which his 
 lordship had left him in order to go and meet 
 Massena, Beresford had quitted his quarters on 
 the Valverde and advanced against Badajoz. La- 
 tour Maubourg called in all his detachments and 
 outposts; and by the 4th of May Badajoz was 
 invested. But Soult was now marching back from 
 Seville to relieve and then reinforce the garrison of 
 that important place. The departure from Madrid 
 of Joseph Bonaparte had left disposable a consi- 
 derable French force, which that intrusive king 
 had considered necessary for the protection of his 
 own person and flitting ephemeral government ; 
 some troops, too, had been drawn from the corps 
 of General Sebastiani, so that the best or most 
 skilful of the French marshals was bringing a great 
 accession of strength to the army which he had 
 been compelled to leave two months before by the 
 movements of General Graham. In the same in- 
 terval, however, communications had been opened 
 between Wellington and Beresford and some of 
 the Spanish generals, and a Spanish army had 
 gradually collected in Estremadura to co-operate 
 with Beresford in pressing the siege of Badajoz, 
 clearing that country of the French, and opening 
 the road into Andalusia and the rear of Victor’s 
 blockading army. General Castatios had readily 
 and cheerfully agreed to serve under Beresford, 
 and to leave the entire command of the allies to 
 that marshal ; but it was understood that Blake 
 and one or two other Spanish generals had none of 
 Castafios’s modesty, and that they looked with a 
 jealous eye upon the British officers; and, what 
 was still more discouraging, it was known and 
 seen that hardly any improvement in discipline 
 had been introduced among these Spanish troops. 
 If Marshal Beresford had been properly supplied 
 with the matériel and means of pushing the siege 
 vigorously, he might—as the French had then had 
 but little time for preparation—have possibly 
 breached and taken Badajoz before Soult could get 
 near it; but Beresford had hardly anything that 
 was needful except courage and good-will; he 
 had hardly any intrenching tools; his train of 
 artillery was contemptible, his cannon-ball did not 
 fit te breaching-guns which had been furnished 
 to him, the howitzers were too small for his shells, 
 
 4 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 skilful artillery or engineer officer. The soil was 
 hard and rocky, and Beresford’s peopie, besides 
 being insufficient in number, were but little accus- 
 tomed to trenching, mining, and the other opera- 
 tions of sieges. In these particulars the whole 
 British army was defective, for it had not at the 
 time a single corps of sappers and miners. [If the 
 government had thought of sending out from 
 England a few hundred of the men called naviga- 
 lors, with their proper tools, this work would have 
 been done in perfection and with a rapidity which 
 
 no soldiers, or sappers and miners, or labourers of ' 
 
 any other class or country could have equalled.] 
 Very little progress had been made in the siege, 
 but the allies had lost, through sorties of the enemy 
 and their rash pursuits of them, from 400 to 500 
 men, when Beresford received intelligence that 
 Soult was rapidly advancing upon Badajoz. This 
 was on the night of the 12th of May; and on the 
 following morning Beresford, far too weak to attend 
 to two objects at once, raised the siege and pre- 
 pared to fight Soult in a pitched battle and on an 
 open field. 
 
 Having removed their artillery, stores, &c., 
 the allies took post on the memorable ridge of 
 Albuera: they were between 7000 and 8000 
 British infantry, several of the Portuguese brigades 
 which Beresford had so admirably disciplined, and 
 the Spanish corps of Blake and Castafos, and 
 about 2000 cavalry ; in all about 27,000 men: but 
 the Spaniards, who formed above 10,000 of this 
 total, had scarcely been disciplined at all, and were 
 but little to be depended upon. Another Spanish 
 brigade, under Don Carlos d’Espagna, arrived at 
 Albuera on the 14th; and on the evening of the 
 15th, after a day of heavy rain, Soult came up 
 with about 19,000 chosen infantry, about 4000 
 cavalry, and 50 guns. As at I'uentes de Onoro, 
 the ground was very favourable for cavalry. The 
 French marshal immediately reconnoitred Beres- 
 ford’s position, and determined upon an attack in 
 force on the right flank of the allies, which was 
 occupied by Blake’s Spanish corps, the British 
 occupying the centre. At eight o’clock in the 
 morning of the 16th of May the French troops 
 were seen in motion, dense masses of infantry and 
 clouds of cavalry rolling towards Blake’s position, 
 while two heavy columns of infantry and some 
 horse, marching out of a wood, pointed towards 
 the front of the allied position as if to attack the 
 bridge and the unroofed, ruined village of Albuera. 
 Other demonstrations were made, as though Soult 
 intended to attack the British centre in front; but 
 Beresford saw that this was but a feint, and he 
 immediately sent orders to Blake to change his 
 front so as to face the French marching upon his 
 right. Blake refused, saying that the real attack 
 of Soult was against the centre by the bridge of 
 Albuera. The truth appears to have been that 
 
 Blake knew very well that, if he attempted, with 
 his undisciplined rabble, to change front or to 
 make any other movement in the presence of an 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 and it would scem that he had with him no very | 
 
 585 
 
 active and highly disciplined enemy, they would 
 fall into irremediable confusion, and either throw 
 down their arms or fly—to be pursued and cut to 
 pieces. But, when the attempt to manceuvre had 
 become infinitely more difficult than it was when 
 Blake got his orders from Beresford, that pre- 
 sumptuous self-willed man (his pride was greatly 
 increased since his election by the Cortes to be 
 one of the members of the Regency), when the 
 French were actually appearing on the table-land 
 on his right, and getting ready to enfilade nearly 
 the whole position of the allies, consented to change 
 his front, and thereupon his Spaniards gave way 
 in disorder, leaving, for a moment, the British 
 centre entirely exposed, and too truly telling the 
 English soldiers what little assistance was to be 
 expected from such allies. Beresford now ordered 
 the brigades of the 2nd British division to advance 
 to the right and check the assailants. The first of 
 these brigades (General Colborne’s), while in the 
 act of deploying, under a heavy fire of French 
 artillery from the ridges of the hill which Blake 
 and his Spaniards ought to have held, was attacked 
 in flank and rear by the French cavalry and the 
 fierce Polish lancers, who committed a dreadful 
 havoc. . Wherever these Poles had served the 
 French—whether in Italy, Egypt, Germany, Spain, 
 or Portugal,—they had distinguished themselves, 
 even in armies not remarkable for humanity, by 
 their savage ferocity as much as by their bravery 
 and their skill or address as light cavalry. On 
 the present, as on other occasions, these lancers, 
 with their blood-red flags shaking under the heads 
 of their spears, rode madly over the field to spear 
 the wounded and to finish them where they feil. 
 The tremendous slaughter made upon Colborne’s 
 brigade would, however, have been still greater if 
 these Poles had not thus lost their time in gratify- 
 ing their unsoldierlike appetite for blood and death ; 
 or if, instead of scattering themselves over the 
 field, they had kept together with the French dra- 
 goons, and pursued their first advantage, which 
 had been chiefly owing to surprise. Two British 
 regiments were almost annihilated; but the 3lst 
 regiment, the left of Colborne’s brigade of three 
 regiments, escaped the charge, and, under nearly 
 every possible disadvantage, it manfully kept its 
 ground under Major L’Kstrange.* Houghton’s 
 brigade, the next of the two brigades, which 
 Beresford had ordered forward to recover posses- 
 sion of the ridge on his right, reached the summit 
 soon after, and maintained a most desperate struggle 
 against an immensely superior force and against 
 all arms—artillery, infantry, cavalry, both light 
 and heavy. When we shall see a well-authenti- 
 cated instance of the troops of any other nation 
 gaining and keeping such a position against such 
 
 * In liberally recommending to the Duke of York for promotion 
 a number of officers who had distinguished themselves at Albuera, 
 Lord Wellington says : ‘‘ But there is one officer, Major L’Estrange, 
 of the 31st, whom I must recommend in the strongest manner for 
 promotion in some way or other. After the other parts of the 
 same brigade were swept off by the cavalry, this little battalion 
 alone held its ground against all the colonnes en masse.”’— Colonel 
 Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. 
 
a ate 
 a2 
 
 . 4 4 
 
 En. 
 
 [Book X. 
 charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop 
 
 586 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 fearful odds, then we may qualify or waver in 
 
 our national faith, that the British infantry is 
 the best in the world. Houghton’s men, how- 
 ever, fell fast, and his ammunition began to fail, 
 Beresford began to think of a retreat, which would 
 have been ruinous, when the gallant Colonel 
 Hardinge (the late Lord Hardinge) suggested that 
 General Cole’s division should be hurled against 
 the French. An order to this effect was instantly 
 given, and Cole, with the fourth division, which 
 consisted only of the English fusileer brigade and 
 of one Portuguese brigade, promptly advanced to 
 drive the French from all the heights. It was this 
 British fusileer brigade that restored the fight and 
 saved the allied army. While the Portuguese bri- 
 gade under General Harvey moved round the 
 shoulder of the hill on the right, and some troops 
 under Abercrombie moved round on the left, Cole 
 himself led the matchless fusileers straight up the 
 fatal hill, which was now completely crowned by 
 the French masses and their artillery. Two or 
 three flags of regiments and six British guns were 
 already in the enemy’s possession, and the whole of 
 Soult’s reserve was coming forward en masse to 
 reinforce his columns on the ridge, from which 
 Houghton’s thinned brigade seemed on the point 
 of being swept at last. On the ridge and on the 
 slopes the ground was heaped with dead, and the 
 Polish lancers were riding furiously about the cap- 
 tured English guns on the hill top. But General 
 Cole, at the head of his fusileers, moved steadily 
 onward and upward, dispersed those savage lancers, 
 recovered our six guns, and appeared on the sum- 
 mit of the hill and on the right of Houghton’s 
 brigade, just as Abercrombie took post on its left. 
 The military historian of these exciting events has 
 given a perfect picture of the scene which ensued. 
 His description has often been quoted; but it 
 would savour of presumption to attempt to give 
 another :—‘‘ Such a gallant line, issuing from the 
 midst of the smoke, and rapidly separating itself 
 from the confused and broken multitude, startled the 
 enemy’s heavy masses, which were increasing and 
 pressing onwards as to an assured victory: they 
 wavered, hesitated, and then, vomiting forth a 
 storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their 
 front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all 
 their artillery whistled through the British ranks. 
 Sir Wiliam Myers was killed ; Cole, and the three 
 colonels, Ellis, Blakeney, and Hawkshawe, fell 
 wounded, and the fusileer battalions, struck by the 
 iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking 
 ships. Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed 
 on their terrible enemies, and then was seen with 
 what a strength and majesty the British soldier 
 fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, 
 animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest 
 veterans, extricating themselves from the crowded 
 columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the 
 mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did 
 the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely arising, fire 
 indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the 
 horsemen, hovering on the flank, threatened to 
 
 that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of un- 
 disciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weak- 
 ened the stability of their order; their flashing 
 eyes were bent on the dark columns in their 
 front; their measured tread shook the ground ; 
 their dreadful volleys swept away the head of 
 every formation; their deafening shouts over- 
 powered the dissonant cries that broke from all — 
 parts of the tumultuous crowd, as foot by foot, and 
 with a horrid carnage, it was driven by the in- 
 cessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge 
 of the hill, In vain did the French reserves, join- 
 ing with the struggling multitudes, endeavour to 
 sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the 
 irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, giy- 
 ing way like a loosened cliff, went headlong down 
 the ascent. The rain flowed after in streams dis- 
 coloured with blood, and 1500 unwounded men, 
 the remnant of 6000 unconquerable British soldiers, — 
 stood triumphant on the fatal hill.” * 
 
 The day was now won, and, Beresford ordering 
 the Portuguese and Spaniards to advance, the 
 French retreated in dismay and confusion across 
 the Albuera river. At three o’clock in the after- 
 noon the firing, which had begun hotly at about 
 nine o’clock in the morning, ceased. ‘The allies 
 had lost in killed and wounded about 7000 men, 
 of whom more than two-thirds were British. The 
 French lost, or were computed to have lost, not 
 less than 9000 men, including two generals killed 
 and three generals wounded. If censure was 
 showered upon the head of Marshal Beresford for 
 his management of this battle, and for his fighting 
 it at all, it was certainly not by his considerate and 
 generous-minded commander-in-chief. Welling- 
 ton praised Beresford for having raised the siege 
 of Badajoz without the loss of ordnance or stores 
 of any description, and for having collected the 
 troops under his command and formed his junction 
 with Blake and Castafos skilfully and promptly ; 
 and he did not hesitate to call the battle of Albuera 
 a signal victory gained by Beresford and his Bri- 
 tish officers and soldiers in the most gallant man- 
 ner. He joined to his admiration of it his cordial 
 concurrence in the favourable reports made by 
 Beresford of the good conduct of all. 
 tributed the great sacrifices which the battle had 
 cost us, and the unmolested condition of the French 
 after they had crossed the river, to the right cause 
 — it was owing to the Spaniards, who could not 
 be moved.” ‘ I should,” says his lordship, “‘ feel 
 no anxiety about the result of any of our opera- 
 tions, if the Spaniards were as well disciplined as _ 
 the soldiers of that nation are brave, and if they 
 were at all movable; but this is, I fear, beyond — 
 hope! All our losses have been caused by this 
 defect. At Talavera the enemy would have been 
 destroyed, if we could have moved the Spaniards: 
 
 * Colonel Napier, Hist. of War in the Peninsula, ‘‘It was | 
 
 observed that our dead, particularly the 57th regiment, were 
 lying as they had fought, in ranks, and that every wound was in 
 front.”—Marshal Beresford’s Dispatch to Lord Wellington, dated 
 Albuera, 18th May. . alee 
 
 He at- | 
 
teat) ay? 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 at Albuera the natural thing would have been to 
 support the Spaniards on the right with the Spa- 
 niards who were next to them; but any movement 
 of that body would have created inextricable con- 
 fusion ; and it was necessary to support the right 
 solely with British, and thus the great loss fell 
 upon our troops. In the same way, I suspect, the 
 difficulty and danger of moving the Spanish troops 
 was the cause that General Lapefa did not support 
 General Graham at Barrosa.” * | 
 On the evening of the 15th, the day which had 
 witnessed one of the most murderous conflicts of 
 modern times, considering the number of troops 
 engaged, Beresford improved his position; his 
 freshest troops were placed in the first line, and 
 some hundreds of spears and flags, taken from the 
 Polish lancers, who had paid dearly for their bar- 
 barity, were planted in defiance along the crest of 
 the hill.t On the morrow, the 16th of May, the 
 two armies remained in their respective positions, 
 and Beresford waited in anxiety for another attack, 
 with hardly British soldiers enough to furnish his 
 piquets and to take care of his thousands of 
 wounded. If Soult, who is said to have acknow- 
 ledged that in the whole course of his long service 
 he had never seen so desperate a battle, had not 
 seen that the French army was lopped and maimed 
 and spiritless, he would assuredly have renewed 
 the attack this morning before Beresford could be 
 reinforced by any British troops. But the morn- 
 ing passed, and the afternoon, and the evening, 
 and the night, without any movement on the side 
 of Soult; and on the 17th, Kemmis’s brigade of 
 1500 English came up and joined Beresford on 
 the ridge of Albuera, and then, late at night, 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches, 
 ; Southey, Hist. of the Peninsular War, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 587 
 
 Soult began to move off his wounded under cover 
 of the wood, and to prepare for his retreat upon 
 Seville, which he commenced on the morning of 
 the 18th, leaving behind him 800 soldiers severely 
 wounded to the generosity and humanity of the 
 English. The French marshal had no doubt 
 heard of the approach of Lord Wellington from 
 the north. On the very next day, the 19th, -his 
 lordship arrived at Albuera with two fresh divi- 
 sions, and gave directions to resume the siege of 
 Badajoz. Through our deficiency in cavalry Soult’s 
 retreat was not so much molested as it might 
 otherwise have been ; but, nevertheless, he lost 
 some hundreds of men, and our weak horse de- 
 feated his strong rear-guard of cavalry at Usagne, 
 and killed, wounded, or took about 150 of them. 
 Soult had almost stripped Andalusia of troops, yet, 
 instead of having accomplished the haughty boasts 
 with which he had harangued his men on be- 
 ginning his march from Seville, he now returned 
 thither with a curtailed army and a diminished 
 reputation.* 
 
 Trenches were opened before Badajoz, and on 
 the 5th of June, a breach being made in Fort St. 
 Cristoval, the assault was given. Through va- 
 rious wants and deficiencies + this failed com- 
 pletely, nor did another attempt, which was made 
 on the 9th, prove more successful. Altogether 
 our storming parties lost in killed and wounded 
 
 * Marshal Beresford, Dispatch to Lord Wellington. 
 
 + ‘‘ The poverty of the means at Lord Wellington’s disposal for 
 carrying on this siege was a subject of much merriment to the soldiers 
 employed. General Picton remarked that ‘ Lord Wellington sued 
 Badajoz in forma pauperis ;’ and he was answered that, ‘ instead of 
 breaching, the operations appeared more like beseeching, Badajoz.’ 
 In fact, everything was wanting to bring the siege fo a rapid termi- 
 nation. The means were deficient for the reduction of the place in 
 any time; but to do so with expedition appeared, with such a force, 
 
 to be impossible.’"—H. B. Robinson, Memoirs of Licut.-Gen. Sir 
 Thomas Picton. 
 
 BavDAJoz. 
 
 a ca 
 
588 
 
 more than 400 of our very best men. On the 
 10th Lord Wellington received certain intelligence 
 that Marmont, the successor of Massena, was 
 marching from Salamanca to the south to join 
 Marshal Soult, with the whole of the so-called 
 army of Portugal, and that Drouet’s corps was 
 marching from Toledo, and would probably join 
 Soult that very day. His lordship therefore fell 
 back, and took up a position near Campo Mayor 
 along the frontiers of Portugal. Although the 
 French brought together from 60,000 to 70,000 
 foot and 8000 horse, and although Wellington, 
 counting Portuguese and some Spaniards, had not 
 more than 56,000, of which only 3500 were horse, 
 the two French marshals would not venture to 
 attack him on these heights; they merely made 
 reconnaissances which were of.no use, and feints 
 and demonstrations which never deceived their 
 quick-sighted opponent ; and, about the middle of 
 July, Marmont, perceiving that his army of Por- 
 tugal was not destined to force its way into Portu- 
 gal by that frontier, and that its presence was 
 required in other quarters, separated from Soult, 
 recrossed the Tagus at Almaraz, where he had 
 crossed it on his advance, and marched back to 
 Salamanca. This rendered indispensable a cor- 
 responding movement to the northward on the part 
 of Wellington; and his lordship, leaving General 
 Hill (now returned from England) with one Bri- 
 tish division and the Portuguese in the Alemtejo, 
 and giving up for the present the siege of Badajoz, 
 crossed the Tagus with the rest of his army, 
 marched to his old line of the Agueda, and esta- 
 blished his head-quarters at Fuente Guinaldo. 
 Here he was at no great distance from Ciudad 
 Rodrigo, and, aiming at the recovery of that for- 
 tress, he caused it to be watched and surrounded. 
 Towards the end of September, Marmont having 
 dissipated a storm which had seemed brewing in 
 the north of Spain, and having received large 
 reinforcements from France, moved forward upon 
 the Agueda, and by his superiority of numbers, 
 and especially of cavalry, obliged Wellington, after 
 a partial engagement at El Bodon, to withdraw 
 his army, which he did in beautiful order to his 
 old position on the Coa, whither Marmont did not 
 choose to follow him.* 
 
 Shortly after these movements in the north 
 General Hill obtained some signal successes in the 
 south. Soult had gone back again to Seville and 
 to Cadiz, to have an eye upon the blockade of the 
 latter city, which seemed as though it would never 
 end. The French general, Girard, was left near 
 the Guadiana, in Spanish Estremadura, at Ar- 
 royo Molinos, in the neighbourhood of Caceres ; 
 and here, on the 28th of October, he was surprised, 
 surrounded, and completely routed by Hill, who 
 took 1500 men and several officers of rank pri- 
 soners, together with the whole of his artillery, 
 ammunition, stores, and baggage, with a loss to 
 himself too trifling to be mentioned. General Hill 
 then advanced to Merida, where he placed his 
 
 * A. Vieusseux, Military Life of the Duke of Wellington, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 bj 
 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 troops in cantonments. Thus the whole of that 
 part of Estremadura was delivered from the enemy, 
 who had no good footing anywhere in the province 
 except within the walls of Badajoz. 
 
 No other attempt was made by the French upon 
 or near to the Portuguese frontiers during the 
 remainder of the year 1811. Lord Wellington, in 
 the course of this year, besides having firmly es- 
 tablished his complete possession of Portugal, had, 
 by his operations within the Spanish frontiers, 
 given employment to two French armies, and pre- 
 vented the French from acting with vigour either 
 against Gallicia in the north or against Cadiz in 
 the south. He had more than redeemed his pledge 
 and promise that he would be able to retain pos- 
 session of Portugal, and to make it a point d@apput 
 for future operations against the French in Spain. 
 His confidence was neither greater nor less now 
 than it had been two years ago, or when he first 
 announced (to the scorn and laughter of certain 
 politicians at home) that with a moderate-sized 
 British army and the Portuguese troops and militia 
 he could defend and maintain that kingdom: he 
 never lost sight of the varying chances and disas- 
 trous accidents which attend all military plans and 
 operations, and it was never in the power of good 
 fortune to elate him over-much. His wondrous 
 equanimity had as much to do with his final 
 successes as his military genius and sagacity. His 
 chief apprehension this year was that the impatient 
 English public would expect him to do too much 
 at once, and that the perplexed government might 
 be induced to give up the struggle in the Peninsula 
 altogether. In the month of March, when he 
 scarcely knew whether the regent had determined 
 to retain for good his father’s administration, or 
 whether the powers of the state would not be in- 
 trusted to men decided upon discontinuing our efforts 
 on the Continent, and when he was following Mas- 
 sena’s track of retreat and devastation in the midst 
 of burning towns and villages, he wrote to the 
 secretary of state for the war-department : “I shall 
 be sorry if government should think themselves 
 under the necessity of withdrawing from this 
 country on account of the expense of the contest. 
 I’rom what I have seen of the objects of the French 
 government, and the sacrifices they make to ac- 
 complish them, I have no doubt that, if the British 
 army were, for any reason, to withdraw from the 
 Peninsula, and the French government were re- 
 lieved from the pressure of military operations on 
 the Continent, they would incur all risks to land 
 an army in his majesty’s dominions. 
 deed, would commence an expensive contest ; then 
 would his majesty’s sulyects discover what are the 
 miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God, 
 they have hitherto had no knowledge; and_ the 
 cultivation, the beauty, and prosperity of the 
 country, and the virtue and happiness of its inha- 
 bitants, would be destroyed, whatever might be the 
 
 result of the military operations.’* His lordship 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches; Letter to Lord 
 Liverpool, dated 23rd March. ; 
 In the same dispatch Wellington adds, ‘God forbid that I should 
 
 Then, in- 
 
Cuap, VIII.] 
 
 was making the Peninsula the battle-field and 
 bulwark of Great Britain; the withdrawing of his 
 army would have led to despair and submission on 
 the part of the Spaniards, and toa re-conquest and 
 almost an extermination of the Portuguese; it 
 would haye changed the temper of the Emperor 
 Alexander, and have cast a damp over the popular 
 spirit of all the nations of Europe ; and, if we had 
 not maintained our army in the Peninsula—where 
 it was acquiring, in the most active service, an 
 unrivalled degree of perfection.—we must have 
 doubled or trebled our army at home, which could 
 not have found so good a school in mere coast and 
 garrison duty. 
 
 With all the encouragement the British could 
 give them, the Spaniards, left to themselves in the 
 eastern provinces of their kingdom, seemed fast 
 succumbing to the French. ‘They had lost one 
 important fortress after another, and not being yet 
 cured of their mania for fighting pitched battles 
 under the most unpromising circumstances, they 
 had been repeatedly beaten in the field. Suchet, 
 who had assumed the command in Catalonia, 
 which several generals of reputation had given up 
 in disgust or despair, was a man of great skill and 
 determination and still greater cruelty. After a 
 siege which lasted three months and which cost 
 the besiegers a great loss, Suchet took Tarragona 
 by storm on the 28th of June, and perpetrated 
 a most atrocious butchery. His soldiery rushed 
 through the breach and through the streets of the 
 bravely defended town, shouting, “‘ Grace aux mili- 
 taires, mort aux paysans /” and, as the place had 
 been mainly defended not by regular troops, or by 
 combatants with uniforms on their backs, but by 
 burghers, the common townspeople, and the pea- 
 santry of the neighbourhood, nearly every head 
 within those walls was devoted to destruction ; and 
 the massacre, once begun, went on indiscrimi- 
 nately, without regard to military or non-military, 
 age or sex. The total amount of the slaughter has 
 been stated at 6000 ; and every enormity of which 
 human nature is capable was practised in that 
 hapless city. Attempts have been made, and that, 
 too, in quarters where they ought not to have been 
 expected, to palliate these infernal excesses and 
 the general ferocity which Suchet exercised during 
 his command in Catalonia; but the damning 
 evidence on the other side is too great and positive 
 to allow of any doubt on the subject. 
 
 The Spanish regent- general, Blake, whose forces 
 had been so ineffective in Estremadura, at Albuera, 
 marched an army into the province of Valencia, 
 and on the 25th of October encountered Suchet in 
 the open field. Being thoroughly beaten Blake 
 shut himself up in the city of Valencia with the 
 whole of his army, the only Spanish army now on 
 
 be a witness, much less an actor, in the scene; and I only hope that 
 the king’s government will consider well what I have above stated to 
 your lordship, and will ascertain as nearly as it is in their power the 
 actual expense of employing a certain number of men in this country 
 beyond that of employing them at home or elsewhere ; and will keep 
 up their force here on such a footing as will at all events secure their 
 possession, if it does not enable their commander to take advantage 
 of events and assume the offensive.” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 589 
 
 foot ; and, being besieged there, he, in the beginning 
 of January, 1812, capitulated with 16,000 soldiers, 
 23 general officers, and between 300 and 400 guns! 
 Wellington, who had thrown away his arguments 
 on Spanish pride and obstinacy, said there was no 
 man who knew the state of affairs in that province, 
 and had read Suchet’s own account of his action 
 with Blake in October, who did not believe that if 
 Blake had not fought that action the city of 
 Valencia would have been safe.* Between Blake’s 
 stupid battle and disgraceful capitulation Suchet 
 reduced Murviedro and other fortresses, and esta- 
 blished the French authority in Valencia as well as 
 in Catalonia. 
 
 In the course ‘of the year the arms of England 
 
 ‘found occupation in many other parts of the world. 
 
 In the month of March the unfortunate and humi- 
 liated King of Sweden issued a proclamation, sig- 
 nifying that on account of ill health he found it 
 necessary to withdraw from public affairs, and to 
 transfer the whole royal authority to Bernadotte, 
 the crown prince whom the nation had elected. 
 This fortunate, politic, and adroit Gascon—a man 
 of very different temperament and powers to the 
 pacific and timid Louis Bonaparte, and placed in 
 a country stronger and more remote from France 
 than Holland—no sooner found himself the real 
 sovereign of Sweden than he determined to adopt 
 Swedish interests, and to act not as a French mar- 
 shal and prince of the Napoleonic empire, but asa 
 Swede. At a very early period he entered into 
 some secret negotiations with Russia, his nearest 
 and most formidable neighbour, made indirect over- 
 tures to the court of St. James’s, and relaxed in 
 his dominions the severity of the Continental sys- 
 tem, which Bonaparte had engaged him to carry 
 out rigorously. The gentle and prudent conduct 
 of Sir J. Saumarez, the admiral of our Baltic fleet, 
 encouraged Bernadotte in this line of conduct. 
 During the summer our admiral entered into a 
 negotiation with the Swedish government concern- 
 ing some detained ships with colonial produce ; 
 and in this correspondence it was made apparent 
 that there was a mutual desire of being upon ami- 
 cable'terms. Sir J. Saumarez now permitted the 
 coasting vessels of the country to pass unmolested, 
 and to renew the trade in the Baltic, the suspension 
 of which had caused great distress ; and, going still 
 farther than this, our admiral, when danger was to 
 be apprehended, gave the Swedish merchantmen 
 convoy and protection. Thus Sweden, though she 
 had declared war against Great Britain, remained 
 de facto in a state of truce. The moment was not 
 
 yet come for Bernadotte to declare war against his 
 
 late master; but the interests of the country, the 
 wise policy he had adopted, and his personal hatred 
 of Bonaparte were sufficient pledges of his future 
 intentions. 
 
 While this born-Frenchman, this soldier of for- 
 tune, aggrandized by the Revolution, this close 
 connexion of the Bonaparte family (for Bernadotte 
 
 * Lord Wellington, Memorandum of operations in 1811, as given 
 in Colonel Gurwood’s Dispatches. 
 
 I 
 
590 
 
 had married the sister of Joseph’s wife), was thus 
 amicably disposed towards Great Britain, the ruler 
 of Denmark, a prince of the old legitimate stock, a 
 nephew of George IIT. of England, continued firm 
 in his enmity, or more subservient than ever to the 
 will of France. He enforced the Continental sys- 
 tem wherever he could; he sent a great proportion 
 of his Danish sailors to enter Bonaparte’s service, 
 and the remainder of his seamen were chiefly 
 employed in privateers and gun-boats against the 
 British trade. A political miscalculation had, no 
 doubt, more effect upon him than his antipathy to 
 England: he thought that everything must yield to 
 the Man of Destiny, and that only those nations and 
 governments could be safe which conciliated his 
 good-will. In the month of March he suddenly 
 sent a Danish flotilla with 3000 or 4000 troops on 
 board to recover the small island of Anholt, in the 
 Kattegat, between the shores of Jutland in Den- 
 mark and Helmstad in Sweden, of which the English 
 had obtained possession. Our garrison consisted of 
 no more than 350 men ; but the Danish command- 
 ers conducted their operations so badly that they 
 lost a great many men in fruitless attempts upon 
 the works, and when they re-embarked in despair 
 they left behind them, for want of a sufficient num- 
 ber of boats, some 300 or 400 men who had no 
 provisions, and who were obliged to surrender as 
 prisoners of war. 
 
 In the East Indies, the capital of the Dutch East 
 India settlements, Batavia, together with the entire 
 island of Java on which it is situated, was reduced 
 in the month of August by a British and Sepoy 
 army sent over from Madras. The small island of 
 Madura also submitted, and thus not a vestige was 
 left of the once extensive and splendid Eastern domi- 
 nion of the Dutch—now Gallo-Batavians. 
 
 In the West Indies, from which Dutch, Danes, 
 and French had been completely driven, the British 
 governors of islands and commanders of troops and 
 squadrons found work to do in suppressing conspi- 
 racies and insurrections, and in checking the very 
 revolutionary spirit which was constantly emanating 
 from the free, independent, and very turbulent 
 negroes of San Domingo, not without encourage- 
 ment from certain Creoles of partly French extrac- 
 tion. In Martinique the free people of colour 
 joined the negroes in a plot for setting fire to the 
 town of St. Pierre, massacring all the whites, and 
 making a black republic after the manner of San 
 Domingo; but their plot was discovered in time, 
 and, when they began to move, the military and the 
 militia (old French planters and settlers as well as 
 
 English settlers) were fully prepared to receive 
 
 them. About 500 slaves, led on by five black chiefs, 
 were defeated outside of St. Pierre, and were dis- 
 persed with great loss. Many were taken prison- 
 ers, and fifteen of them were hanged. 
 
 Although it was only by occasional surprises 
 that the British navy could perform any achieve- 
 ments, there were several brilliant frigate fights 
 and in-shore operations. In the narrow and 
 dangerous Adriatic sea, Captain William Hoste, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 q q 
 a 
 
 oa 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 | the pupil of Nelson, and one who bade fair, should 
 
 opportunity serve, to emulate the fame of that hero, 
 obtained, on the 13th of March, off the island 
 of Lissa, on the Dalmatian coast, with four Eng- 
 lish frigates, a complete and most brillant victory 
 over five French frigates and six smaller vessels 
 with 500 land troops on board.* Another de- 
 sperate action was fought by Captain Schomberg, 
 near Foul Point, Madagascar. The French, un- 
 willing to leave us in undisturbed possession of 
 the Indian seas, had collected three frigates and 
 some land troops on the African coast, in the 
 Mozambique channel, and recovered possession of 
 Tamatava. Schomberg, who had three frigates 
 and a sloop, but who lost the service of one of his 
 frigates by damage done to her masts at the be- 
 ginning of the action, captured the French com- 
 modore’s frigate, made another strike, recovered 
 Tamatava, and captured all the vessels in the port, 
 including a 44-gun frigate which had escaped 
 from the action. A glance at our naval history, 
 or at the dispatches and reports printed in the 
 Gazette, will show that 1811 was not an idle year 
 on the seas, and that, counting the conflict which 
 was now beginning with the United States of 
 America, our fleets and squadrons were engaged in 
 all the four quarters of the globe. 
 
 In the interior of France, nearly everything, 
 according to outward appearance, still favoured 
 the Corsican emperor. On the 20th of March the 
 Empress Maria Louisa was safely delivered of a 
 son, who forthwith received the names and titles 
 of Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph, Prince of the 
 French Empire, and Kine or Rome.t Congratu- 
 latory addresses were poured in from all the de- 
 partments, and all the principal cities of France, 
 from Belgium, Holland, the Hanse towns, the 
 Confederated States of the Rhine, and from Italy, 
 albeit in the last country the ominous title of King 
 of Rome, bestowed on the heir of the French 
 empire, irritated those blind and obstinate political 
 dreamers who continued to believe in Bonaparte’s 
 promise to separate Italy from France, and to 
 unite her as one great and independent country. 
 On the 16th of June Napoleon opened the session 
 of that constitutional mockery, the Corps Législatif, 
 telling those legislators, who could do nothing but 
 record his will and echo his words, that his son 
 would answer the expectations of France, and bear 
 to their children the sentiments which his father 
 
 i 
 
 * James, Naval History.—Memoirs and Letters of Sir William 
 Tloste, edited by his Widow. { 
 
 + When Lord Wellington and the British army were watching the 
 miserable retreat of Massena in Spain, they heard a feu de joie of 101 
 guns. This was the royal salute firing for the birth of the King of 
 Rome. 4 ; 
 
 “The child was baptized by Cardinal Maury, who was now in 
 high favour, and had just been named Archbishop of Paris. On this 
 occasion all forms and processes ot flattery were exhausted. All the 
 corps de V état, the senate, the council of state, let themselves be pre-_ 
 sented to the King of Rome, then a few days old ; they addressed to ee 
 discourses to which his nurse or governess replied; then they defiled 
 before his cradle making their reverences, People in Paris amused 
 themselves much with this scene. The birth: of this infant was 
 comed with real enthusiasm only by those whose fortunes dcpendell 
 on the empire of Bonaparte; these men saw in it the conservation of 
 the imperial dynasty, and a guarantee to themselves for the future. 
 Nevertheless the child brought with him at his birth the germs of the 
 malady which caused hisdeath. But the world was kept ignorant of 
 this.” —Hist, Parlementaire. ra 
 
 +e 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 now bore to them; that the French people must 
 never forget that their happiness and glory were 
 dependant on the prosperity of the throne which 
 he had raised, consolidated, and aggrandized by 
 them and for them; that he desired that this 
 should be properly understood by every French- 
 man, and that, happen what might, or in whatever 
 position Providence and his will should place them, 
 the love of France was their first duty. In this ses- 
 sion several new members or deputies made their 
 first triste appearance. These were Dutchmen 
 from Holland and the other United Provinces, 
 Germans from the Hanse Towns, Swiss from the 
 Valais (now formally incorporated with France), 
 and Italians from the confiscated states of the 
 Church. They had all been named by the French 
 senate, without any election by the people they 
 were sent to represent, and by whom they were 
 reported to be fairly and freely chosen. ‘‘ Alas !” 
 says a French writer, “we still kept playing 
 farces! but how could we hope to deceive anybody 
 by such fictions and lies as these?” It was pom- 
 pously reported that France had been augmented 
 by sixteen new departments, containing altogether 
 5,000,000 of population, yielding 100,000,000 
 of francs of revenue, and adding 300 leagues of 
 coast. After ministers had presented a budget as 
 fictitious and deceptive as all the rest, and after 
 these hollow shadows of legislators had voted ad- 
 dresses and whatever else was demanded or ex- 
 pected from them (sanctioning, as they had done 
 before, the forestalling of the annual conscription, 
 and the execution of severe laws against such as 
 were shy of the murderous Spanish war, and endea- 
 voured to escape this forced enlistment), the short 
 session was closed on the 25th of July by the 
 Comte de Ségur, counsellor of state. Ségur, in 
 his closing discourse, repeated that France had 
 800,000 men under arms, and that 350,000 of these 
 troops were in Spain or on the frontiers, ready to 
 act in that country. But in this number the 
 count certainly counted a great many more men 
 than were really effective, while he or his master 
 overlooked the exhaustion, discontent, and down- 
 right disaffection which was caused by the merci- 
 less conscription. Already, in many of the dis- 
 tricts of France, young men and men in the prime 
 and vigour of life had almost disappeared, leaving, 
 to supply their places, only aged and infirm men, 
 children, or beardless boys; and already the prac- 
 tice had become common of seizing mere boys, 
 draughting them into regiments, and sending them 
 across the Pyrenees to perish of fatigue which they 
 had not strength to bear. The great question of 
 the church was another source of distraction and 
 uneasiness. It was found infinitely more difficult 
 to subdue and control the Roman Catholic clergy 
 than to kidnap or imprison the helpless old pope ; 
 and all the devout Catholics in Italy, in southern 
 Germany, and even in France, looked with more 
 reverence and obedience to the dungeon of Pius 
 VII. than to the throne of Napoleon. Even his 
 own maternal uncle, Cardinal Fesch, fell from his 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1811. 
 
 591 
 
 side in this holy war, and took part with the pope 
 or with the canons of the church. Bishoprics 
 were falling vacant ; the pope refused to institute 
 successors, and none but the most discredited of 
 the churchmen would fill the vacant sees without 
 the papal institution. In a moment of wrath 
 Bonaparte spoke of making a schism in the church, 
 saying that he knew he could divide France and 
 turn half or more of it into a protestant or some 
 other community. “‘ Sire,” said Comte Louis de 
 Narbonne, who had not lost his wit and causti- 
 city in becoming one of Bonaparte’s chamberlains, 
 “TJ am afraid there is not enough religion in all 
 France to stand a division!” There was, however, 
 religion and belief in the south of France, in the 
 Vendée, in many other remote departments, and it 
 certainly lingered: still in some corners of all the 
 great towns, not excepting Paris itself, that great 
 Temple of Reason; and such religion as there was 
 was an unmodified fanatic Catholicism. Putting 
 out of the account that scarcely visible minority 
 the Huguenots, or Calvinists, all the Frenchmen 
 who were not bigoted Catholics were atheists, or 
 deists, or materialists, in whose eyes every religious 
 faith was about equally despicable. It was by con- 
 ciliating the Catholics that Bonaparte had tran- 
 quillised the interior of France; and he knew full 
 well that the zealots would relight the flames of 
 civil war and brave his power, great as it was, rather 
 than submit now to receive uncanonical bishops 
 and unordained curés. In the month of June, 
 while his submissive Corps Légis/atif was sitting, 
 Bonaparte assembled what he called a French Na- 
 tional Ecclesiastical Council. More than a hundred 
 prelates and dignitaries of the church assembled 
 in the palace of the Archbishop of Paris (Maury), 
 and thence proceeded in solemn procession to the 
 church of Notre Dame, to invoke the celestial spi- 
 rit to preside over their deliberations. After high 
 mass a sermon was preached, and this was followed 
 by the reading of the decree which convoked the 
 council, and of the profession of faith adopted by 
 the Council of Trent. This over, Cardinal Fesch, 
 who had officiated, and who had been named pre- 
 sident, repeated the oath prescribed for bishops, &c., 
 by the bull of Pius LV., which began with these 
 words: ‘‘ I promise and vow a true obedience to 
 the Roman pontiff,” &c. All the archbishops and 
 bishops repeated the oath after him. Three days 
 after this—on the 20th of June—this council pro- 
 ceeded to organize itself and to deliberate, Bona- 
 parte’s minister of worships, ministre des cultes, 
 being present, to issue, in case of need, the tem- 
 poral bulls of his master. This lay minister, in 
 fact, opened the deliberations himself by reading 
 an imperial decree, which was but badly received 
 by the churchmen. Cardinal Fesch, as president, 
 read an imperial message, by which the council 
 was called upon to decide on the means of settling 
 canonical institutions. Forthwith a committee was 
 appointed to examine this great question and re- 
 port upon it. The members of tlis committee, 
 after various communications with the emperor, 
 
592 
 
 adopted a report which he himself had dictated.* 
 The majority of the council was not, however, so 
 docile : when the committee presented their report, 
 and the draught of a decree in conformity with it, 
 the council voted that the said decree could be of 
 no avail until sanctioned by the pope. This was 
 on the 10th of July. Immediately an imperial de- 
 cree came forth dissolving the council, and orders 
 were issued for arresting the bishops of Tournay, 
 Troyes, and Ghent, who had been very energetic 
 in their opposition to the will of the real kid- 
 napper and gaoler of the pontiff. These three 
 prelates were shut up in the castle of Vincennes, 
 and they only obtained their liberty by resigning 
 their sees. Bonaparte then ordered his minister of 
 worships to call together not a council but a com- 
 mission or a congregation of bishops; but, notwith- 
 standing the timidity or time-serving of a certain 
 number of prelates, nothing could be settled, and 
 the helpless old pontiff, who had been brought 
 from Savona to Fontainebleau, continued from his 
 prison to defy all the threats, violence, and pre- 
 potency of the master or dictator of Europe, and 
 his excommunication against all such churchmen 
 as should submit to the will of the lay monarch, 
 and thereby break the canons of the church, was 
 left unrevoked. The tyrant in the Tuileries was 
 checked and humbled by the captive of Fontaine- 
 bleau ; and great were his apprehensions lest some 
 attempt might be made by the faithful to carry off 
 Pius. These thoughts caused Bonaparte much dis- 
 quietude, as well while he was meditating his 
 Russian war, as when he was absent on that 
 disastrous campaign. If the pope had been carried 
 across the Alps, at a time when nearly every 
 French soldier in Italy, and a great part of the 
 native Italian armies, were drawn out of that 
 country to perish beyond the Vistula, the whole of 
 that peninsula would have been convulsed. 
 
 We have incidentally alluded to some of the 
 causes which rendered the continuance of the 
 friendship between France and Russia, or between 
 Napoleon and Alexander, an impossibility. Other 
 causes of rupture existed; nor, excepting the 
 youthful admiration of Alexander for the military 
 genius and success of the great soldier of fortune, 
 would it be easy to discover any good ground for 
 sympathy or good-fellowship. On both sides there 
 was a proneness to trickery and duplicity, the 
 Russian cabinet being quite equal to Corsicans 
 and Frenchmen in a contest of this kind. After 
 promising, or at least inducing the czar to believe 
 that he promised, to leave the sultan to his fate, or 
 not to interfere for the preservation of the Turkish 
 dominions in Europe, Bonaparte had encouraged 
 and assisted the Turks, who continued their war, 
 and, though often beaten, cost the Russians enor- 
 mous sacrifices. By creating the Grand Duchy 
 of Warsaw, by uniting to it Western Gallicia and 
 
 * It is said that Bonaparte resorted to one of his scaramouch tricks 
 —that he duped the members of the council’s committee by presenting 
 to them a letter (though not signed) from the pope, which seemed to 
 recommend compliance. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (Boox X. | 
 
 | Cracow, and (when it suited his purpose) by talk- 
 
 ing oracularly of the possibility of re-construct- 
 ing the old and once vast Polish nondescript (it 
 can neither be called a monarchy nor a repub- 
 lic), Bonaparte gave occasion to great distrust 
 and uneasiness ; for such a reconstruction of Po- 
 land must interpose a barrier between Russia and 
 the civilised nations of Western Europe, and tend 
 to throw her back to her original condition of an \ 
 Eastern power, with free communications only with 
 semi-barbarous countries. Even if placed in the 
 condition of a truly independent state, strong enough 
 to support herself by herself, and exempt trom any 
 foreign dictation, whether from France or from 
 any other power, Poland, from the whole nature 
 of things, and from what had passed in her wars 
 and partitions, could never be the friend or the 
 quiet neighbour of Russia; but the idea of Polish 
 national independence, and of her freedom from 
 French control, was not to be entertained by any 
 rational man for a single moment. Europe was 
 too full of proofs of what. Bonaparte meant by the 
 independence of the nations or states he protected 
 or created. If he had re-united all the territories, 
 from the shores of the Black Sea to the shores of 
 the Baltic, which once belonged to her, still Poland 
 would have been and could have been only a de- 
 pendence of France, with a submissive king and 
 government, who must have received their orders 
 and instructions from Paris. Such a reconstruc- 
 tion was impracticable; but, take the Duchy of 
 Warsaw as Bonaparte had constituted it, take the 
 submissive character and habits of the King of 
 Saxony, on whom he had conferred this Grand 
 Duchy, take the decided French predilections of 
 the largest or most stirring part of the Poles, their 
 rancorous hate of the Russians, their readiness to 
 serve in any war wherein Bonaparte might choose 
 to employ them, and the rapture with which they 
 hailed every prospect of an opportunity to serve 
 under him against their hereditary foes, and no 
 surprise need be felt at the fact that this ephemeral 
 state was, as long as it existed, a sharp thorn in 
 the side of Russia. The Grand Duchy of Warsaw 
 was little else than a vast garrison for Bonaparte, 
 or a vanguard to his prodigious armies ; or, if it 
 were more than this, it was a centre of intrigues 
 and machinations all hostile to Russia. Bonaparte 
 too had given no slight offence to the czar by dis- 
 possessing his near family connexion the Duke of 
 Oldenburg of his territory, contrary to the treaty 
 of Tilsit. But, perhaps, the cause which contri- 
 buted most of all to the quarrel, or which most 
 hastened on the open rupture, was the Continental 
 System, to which Russia could not submit without 
 ruin, and to which Alexander could not have at- 
 tempted to adhere without incurring the risk of 
 some of those summary proceedings wherewith the 
 Russians had been accustomed to remedy the mis- 
 chievous polity of their sovereigns. The nobility 
 and great landholders of the country soon dis- 
 covered the unchangeable truth that nations can- 
 not sell unless they buy; that this excluding con- 
 
Cuar. VIII. } 
 
 tinental system, which prohibited the purchase of | | 
 | mad project, to represent the undecided state of the 
 
 British manufactures, colonial produce, &c., shut 
 them out from the best market they had for their 
 own produce, and prevented their exporting by sca 
 what they grew on their own vast estates. The 
 complaints of his powerful subjects had induced 
 Alexander to issue, on the 31st of December, 1810, 
 a ukase, by which colonial and other goods were 
 allowed to be introduced into the ports of Russia, 
 unless they clearly appeared to be the property of 
 subjects of Great Britain. Such a restriction was 
 futile, and was, as a matter of course, intended by 
 the government of Alexandcr to be so: It was 
 evaded with the greatest ease, and the trade with 
 England might almost be said to be re-opened once 
 more. The conduct of Bernadotte, as crown prince, 
 or de facto king, of Sweden, coincided very per- 
 fectly with this Russian system, and aggravated 
 the choler of Bonaparte. Complaints uttered by 
 the I'rench ambassador at St. Petersburgh were 
 soon followed by arrogant and most insolent me- 
 naces. Some of the Parisian /dilérateurs in the 
 pay of Bonaparte, who had formerly been em- 
 ployed in writing eulogiums of the just and mag- 
 nanimous Emperor Alexander, were now set to 
 work to traduce him, his whole family, his court, 
 his country, and his people; and, between the 
 autumn and winter of 1811 and the spring of 
 1812, as many and as atrocious calumnies were 
 produccd against the czar as had been issued 
 against the unfortunate Queen of Prussia just be- 
 fore the opening of the Prussian war of 1806. 
 Besides indulging his spite and malice, Bonaparte 
 considered this as a very proper way of preparing 
 the minds of the French people for a tremendous 
 contest. A pretended history of the Russian em- 
 pire—a revolting libel from the first page to the 
 last—was published in Paris, and widely circu- 
 lated under the secret auspices of the police. In 
 this once well known book nearly every vice and 
 crime which Suetonius attributes to the Roman 
 emperors were attributed to the Russian czars ; 
 and Alexander himself was charged, not merely 
 with being privy and consentient to, but an actor 
 in, the murder of his own father, the crazed Paul. 
 As the French press continued to be in shackles, 
 as nothing was allowed to be printed and pub- 
 lished of which Bonaparte and his police did not 
 approve, the Russian Emperor was justified in 
 holding the Emperor of the French responsible for 
 these outrages. They were proof, and more than 
 proof, enough that Bonaparte had fully made up 
 his mind to undertake a Russian war; and some 
 considerable time before the close of the year 1811 
 most men in France clearly saw that the most 
 gigantic preparations were making for an unprece- 
 dented campaign. 
 
 Bonaparte had driven from his presence Talley- 
 rand and every other able and acute statesman, to- 
 gether with almost every man that presumed to en- 
 tertain or express opinions opposite to his own ; yet 
 still it is said that a few sensible counsellors, men 
 attached to his interest as it involved their own, 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 593 
 ventured gently to remonstrate against his present 
 
 warfare in Spain, the frightful drain made upon 
 the population of France, as well as upon that of 
 Italy and other dependent states, by that warfare, 
 the sullen aspect of all the north of Germany, the 
 spirit displayed particularly by the students in the 
 German universities, the progress making by 
 patriotic political societies in nearly all parts of 
 Germany, the doubtful attitude assumed by Berna- 
 dotte, the imsecure nature of the tie which bound 
 Austria to him, and the wonderful and sudden in- 
 fluence which might yet be exercised on the conti- 
 nent of Europe by English subsidies. But the 
 Man of Destiny frowned down these prudent advi- 
 sers, or silenced their remonstrances with trenchant 
 argument or vapid declamation. We look in vain 
 for any new encouragement which he could have 
 found anywhere except in the predicted bankruptcy 
 of England and the now manifested intention of the 
 United States of America to brave the maritime 
 power of Britain, and rush ito a war against 
 the country to which they owed their origin, their 
 language, and every high quality which distin- 
 guished them as a people. He considered that this 
 American war must inevitably act as a capital 
 diversion in his favour; and he hastened to nego- 
 tiate an intimate alliance between the United States 
 and France—between the model republic of modern 
 times and the destroyer of republics old and new ; 
 between a people who had laid it down as a 
 fundamental principle of their constitution and 
 government that conquest by force of arms was 
 unjustifiable and inadmissible, and a people and a 
 man who had been conquering or overrunning not 
 only their neighbours, but nearly all the countries 
 of Europe for eighteen years. 
 
 A.D. 1812. The parliamentary session was opened 
 on January the 7th, with the speech of the prince 
 regent, delivered by commission. The speech 
 dwelt upon the favourable military events of the 
 past year, and upon the circumstances which en- 
 couraged hope and perseverance. It applauded the 
 consummate talents of Lord Wellington, the perse- 
 vering bravery of the Spanish people, and the 
 extension of the guerilla system of warfare. With 
 reference to the subsisting differences between 
 Great Britain and America it was stated that the 
 discussions had not been brought to an amicable 
 close; but that no measure of conciliation should 
 be left untried, which might be found consistent 
 with the honour of the empire, and the commercial 
 and maritime interests of the country. The ad- 
 dresses were carried in both Houses without a divi- 
 sion, but not without debate and censure. In the 
 Lords, Grenville and Grey pronounced a sweeping 
 condemnation on all the measures of government at 
 all connected with the war or foreign policy, making 
 new predictions of calamities which must follow any 
 rupture with our brethren beyond the Atlantic. In 
 the other House Sir Francis Burdett declared that 
 Englishmen for the last eighteen years, nay, ever 
 
 since the war of the American revolution, had been 
 2.1 
 
594 
 
 daily losing their liberty; that a detestation of 
 French liberty had first produced the present war ; 
 that nothing had been done for the Spanish people ; 
 that, even if the cause of Spain should be honestly 
 undertaken by the British government, it had now 
 become perfectly hopeless ; that the victories won by 
 our armies were altogether barren, &c.: and then 
 came the baronet’s prescription of parliamentary 
 reform. 
 
 The regent’s speech had intimated that no change 
 had taken place in the indisposition of the king. 
 On the 16th of January, the House of Commons 
 having resolved itself into a committee to consider 
 the question of the king’s household, Mr. Perceval, 
 the premier, laid before it the measures proposed to 
 be adopted. He stated that, according to the opi- 
 nions of his physicians, the expectation of his 
 majesty’s recovery was diminished ; and as, accord- 
 ing to the regency bill, the restrictions of which 
 were limited to one year, the entire sovereign au- 
 thority must soon devolve on the prince regent, and 
 with it the civil list, he called attention to the ar- 
 rangements which it might be proper to make for 
 the royal household. Several objections were taken 
 to the ministerial plan; but, in the end, the two 
 following resolutions were carried—“ 1. That, for 
 making provision for the due arrangement of his 
 majesty’s household, and for the exercise of the 
 royal authority during the continuance of his ma- 
 jesty’s indisposition, and for the purpose of enabling 
 the queen to meet the increased expenses to which, 
 in consequence of such indisposition, her majesty 
 may be exposed, there be granted, out of the conso- 
 lidated fund of Great Britain, the additional yearly 
 sum of '70,000/. 2. That it is expedient that pro- 
 vision be made for defraying the expenses incident 
 to the assumption of the personal exercise of the 
 royal authority by his royal highness the prince 
 regent, in the name andon the behalf of his ma- 
 jesty.” 
 
 The bills framed upon these resolutions, though 
 they underwent some discussion, encountered no 
 very strenuous opposition. Some members urged 
 that any such addition to the queen’s income was 
 unnecessary ; and that the proposed grant to cover 
 the expenses of the regent, being meant to apply 
 retrospectively, did away with the merit of the 
 prince’s having declined burthening the country 
 with any additional charge when he first took the 
 reins of government into his hands. Upon this 
 last point, however, that very important part of the 
 Whig opposition who had been accustomed to call 
 themselves, or to be considered, the Prince of 
 Wales’s friends, were quite silent. It was made 
 apparent that there was again a deficiency in the 
 civil list; and, while this was to be made up, it 
 was represented that two courts and households 
 must be maintained, the one for the queen, who 
 would keep together the servants to whom the king 
 was most attached, and one for the regent, who 
 was bound to support the splendour of the throne. 
 Virtually the civil list, chargeable with the addi- 
 tional 70,000/. to the queen, was vested in the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 vine 
 a 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 regent, who was allowed also to retain his revenue 
 as Prince of Wales.* 
 
 The bill for prohibiting the grant of offices in 
 reversion being about to expire, Mr. Bankes intro- 
 duced a new bill in order to render the measure 
 permanent. On the second reading of this bill, on 
 the Ith of February, Perceval, without giving any 
 previous notice of his intention, opposed it, although _ 
 on former occasions the bill had passed the Com- 
 mons almost without objection; and it was re- 
 jected in a thin House by a majority of two. After 
 this defeat Mr. Bankes proposed a bill for the same 
 purpose, but limited to two years. This met with 
 no opposition in the Commons ; and it was carried 
 through the Lords after the rejection of an amend- 
 ment proposed by Earl Grosvenor for continuing 
 its operation to the year 1840. Early in the session 
 notice had been taken of an appointment conferred 
 upon the regent’s confidential servant, Colonel 
 Mac Mahon. ‘The place was that of paymaster of 
 widows’ pensions, which had been long held by 
 General Fox, the brother of the deceased states- 
 man Charles Fox, but which had long been consi- 
 dered as a mere sinecure. The reports of two 
 committees of the House of Commons, one as far 
 back as the year 1783, and the other as recent as 
 the year 1808, recommended the abolition of the 
 office, as well as that of a deputy-paymaster, as 
 being unnecessary, the holder of the one having very 
 little to do, the holder of the other nothing at all. 
 Upon the death of General Fox,t it had been re- 
 commended to ministers to do away with the office 
 the general had so long held. But, during the 
 recess of parliament, ministers, to gratify the prince, 
 had conferred the paymastership upon Colonel Mac 
 Mahon, with the intimation that the colonel was to 
 hold it subject to any future arrangement by parlia- 
 ment. But the foes to sinecures now represented 
 that the place had not been granted to General Fox 
 for life any more than to Colonel Mac Mahon ; yet, 
 that on turning to the report of the committee of 
 1783, it would be seen that no reason had been 
 given for not immediately abolishing the office, 
 save that it was then held by General Fox. And 
 they argued that, if ministers had acted consistently 
 with that recommendation, they would certainly 
 have abolished the place at the general’s death, 
 instead of making a new grant of it to the colonel, 
 in whose behalf it might also be pleaded that it 
 would be hard to deprive him of what had been 
 given to him and enjoyed by him. ‘This, they said, 
 was throwing discredit upon the prince regent, and 
 insulting parliament. On the other side, ministers 
 
 * Shortly after-this settlement the regent, by letter to both Houses, fh 
 recommended a separate provision for his sisters the princesses; an 
 Perceval, on the 23rd of March, proposed that to each of the four- 
 princesses should be granted 9000/. a-year, exclusive of the 40000. 
 a-year from the civil list, which last sum, being yevent teed , 
 sure, could not be relied upon with certainty. The minister further 
 proposed that at the death of one of the princesses the allowance to 
 each of the surviving sisters should be raised to 10,0007. per annum, 
 that the same should continue when there should be two survivor 
 only, and that the sole survivor should receive 12,000/. per pai a 
 A bill granting 36,000/. per annum for these purposes was AITLe! 
 without any difficulty. Le 
 
 + General Fox had not died until the 18th of July, 1811, when th ; 
 preceding session of parliament was within a few days of its pro-- 
 rogation. a ' 
 
 —_—— 
 
 a 
 roe 
 
 . 
 
: ; 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 CHAP. VIL] 
 
 a 
 praised the character and talent of Mac Mahon ; 
 
 said that his case was that of a person whose ser- 
 vices merited public remuneration ; that the power 
 of giving pensions instead of sinecures had not yet 
 been granted to the regent, and that, under these 
 circumstances, the quas¢ sinecure having become 
 vacant, it had been given to as worthy an individual 
 as the government could have selected. The House, 
 however, of the motion of Mr. Bankes, refused by 
 115 against 112 to vote the money to pay the 
 salary of the office. This was equivalent to a vote 
 for the abolition of the said office. Mac Mahon 
 was remunerated by the post of private secretary 
 to the regent: This produced a fresh storm from 
 the opposition benches, whose occupants had now 
 become thoroughly convinced that there was no 
 hope nor chance of the regent’s changing the ad- 
 ministration, and who were thereby led to change 
 the policy in which they had persevered so many 
 years, of lauding the prince and defending his 
 conduct on all occasions. Mr. Wynne immediately 
 called the attention of parliament and of the coun- 
 try to the novel and extraordinary appointment, 
 of which the representatives of the people knew 
 nothing more than what they learned from the 
 Gazette. He declared that no regent or king 
 had any right to keep a private secretary ; that 
 the only proper secretaries were the secretaries of 
 state; that the secretary of state for the home de- 
 partment was the sovereign’s private secretary ; 
 that William III. had no private secretary, nor 
 George I., nor George II., nor even George III., 
 until after his majesty’s deprivation of sight, when 
 Colonel Taylor was employed in that capacity. 
 He asked whether it was proper to have a private 
 secretary to read to the regent the communications 
 of his ministers; and he raised other difficulties in 
 the way of the new appointment. Ministers repre- 
 sented the immense increase of public business, and 
 maintained that the appointment of a private secre- 
 tary was neither unlawful nor inexpedient, unless 
 the House were prepared to make the regent one 
 of the greatest slaves in his own dominions. The 
 motion for an inquiry was rejected by 176 to 100; 
 but it was thought expedient to adopt the sug- 
 gestion of Wilberforce, that the private secretary’s 
 salary (2000/. per annum) should be left to be paid 
 out of the regent’s privy purse. 
 
 Unfortunately for the opposition, some of their 
 leaders got entangled in the economy web of Mr. 
 Bankes, and in the labyrinth of the anti-sinecure 
 and reforming propositions of the party. The 
 stormy discussions about Mac Mahon’s affair were 
 scarcely finished, when Bankes brought in a bill 
 for utterly abolishing many sinecure places; and 
 ministers, who opposed the bill, were left in a mi- 
 nority.* ‘Three days after this, on the 7th of May, 
 Mr. Creevey rose to recommend great savings instead 
 of small ones, and called the serious attention of the 
 House to the tellerships of the exchequer, now and 
 for a very long series of years held by the Marquess 
 
 ta voted for the third reading of Bankes’s bill, 184; against 
 it, . 
 
 595 
 
 of Buckingham and Lord Camden, each of whom 
 was in the receipt of more than 1000/. for every 1002. 
 that Mac Mahon would have received as paymaster 
 of widows’ pensions.* These tellerships were as 
 ancient as the exchequer itself, and, like other offices 
 bestowed by the crown, they conferred upon the 
 holders a vested right, with which, it was held, 
 parliament could not interfere. The emoluments 
 arose out of certain fees charged on the issue of 
 the public moneys, and they increased, of course, 
 with the increase of the public expenditure. Thus 
 every year of this war, which added to the taxation 
 of the country, swelled the emoluments of the two 
 noblemen, who, in the last year, were said to have 
 divided between them the enormous sum of 54,000/. 
 A poundage on all sums issued for the army, navy, 
 ordnance, &c., and a fee of 24 per cent. on pen- 
 sions and annuities, were charged by the tellers.+ 
 Parliament, however, had upon several occasions 
 interfered to a certain extent with these emoluments 
 of the tellers. Thus, quite recently, the annuities 
 conferred on the four princesses had been exempted 
 from the fee of 24 per cent., and indeed from any 
 deduction whatever to the tellers. The subsidies 
 granted to foreign powers had always in practice 
 been exempted; and, although the tellers had for- 
 merly claimed 5s. per cent. on all sums issued for 
 the extraordinary expenses of the army, parliament 
 on one occasion, when the sum of 100,0002. had 
 been granted under this head, stepped in, and re- 
 duced the fee to 3s. 9d. per cent. Upon these 
 grounds Mr. Creevey founded a series of resolu- 
 tions, the last of which declared: ‘‘ That it is the 
 duty of parliament, in the present unparalleled state 
 of national expenditure and public calamity, to 
 exercise its rights still farther over the fees now 
 paid out of the public money at the exchequer, so 
 as to confine the profits of the two tellers to some 
 fixed and settled sum of money, more conformable 
 in amount to the usual grants of public money for 
 public services, &c.” In their dread of further 
 inroads upon vested rights, and out of other 
 motives apparently unconnected with any particu- 
 lar affection or regard for the two noble tellers, 
 ministers opposed both the original motion, and an 
 amendment proposed by Mr. Brand for appointing 
 a committee to inquire into precedents ; and—what 
 seemed stranger—the greater part of the opposition 
 joined the ministers, both Ponsonby and Tierney 
 not only voting but speaking at length on the same 
 side as Perceval. ‘Thus the original motion was 
 lost without a division, and Brand’s motion was 
 rejected by 148 against 40. A distinguished mem- 
 ber of the opposition, who had voted with the mi- 
 nority, says: ‘‘ On this occasion Ponsonby, Tierney, 
 
 * The place which General Fox had held so many years, and which 
 Mac Mahon had held only a few months, was calculated as worth 
 27001. per annum; but it is doubted whether it afforded 2000/. The 
 pe i ei of the exchequer had risen to 26,000/. or 27,000/. per annuin 
 each . 
 
 + From a report of the Commissioners of Public Accounts in 1782, 
 it appeared that the profits of this office, which in time of peace had 
 not hitherto amounted to more than 2700/. per annum to each of the 
 tellers, had risen to 7000. per aunum for each, in consequence of the 
 expenses incurred during the American war. From the report of 
 
 another committee, made in 1808, it appeared that the emoluments 
 of the tellers amounted at that time to 23,0007. per annum each. 
 
| 
 
 ee pera nS arp nares aocneeaee — ieaed = 
 
 596 
 
 and the greatest part of the opposition, joined the 
 ministers. Lord Grenville, indeed, had said that 
 he considered the motion as aimed personally at 
 himself, his family, and his friends ; and therefore 
 most of the firm adherents to the opposition party 
 voted accordingly, or staid away. In the minority, 
 however, were Whitbread, General Fergusson, 
 Lord Tavistock, Lord Archibald Hamilton, and 
 Brougham.”’* What between his own auditor- 
 ship, and these tellerships, the exchequer was or 
 ought to have been rather fatal to Lord Grenville’s 
 patriotism or popularity. One of these tellers, the 
 Marquess of Buckingham, was the Mr. George 
 Grenville, the prime minister of former times, and 
 the uncle of Lord Grenville. The Grenvillites 
 asked whether the opposition would destroy the 
 Whig aristocracy, and the weight of their argu- 
 ments or of their influence may be judged of by 
 the conduct of that opposition at this critical 
 moment. Ministers, and those who spoke with 
 them against any interference with the vested rights 
 of the two tellers, said that, although their office was 
 certainly obnoxious on account of its enormous 
 profits, it could not continue very long; that one 
 of the holders was above sixty years old, and the 
 other nearly of the same age, so that parliament 
 would, at no very distant period, be enabled to 
 regulate or abolish the office without injustice to 
 individuals. In November of this year the two 
 noble tellers, in a conjoint letter to the chancellor 
 of the exchequer, intimated their intention of con- 
 tributing to the public service a third of their 
 salary and fees from the 5th of January next to the 
 end of the war. The Marquess of Buckingham 
 died on the 11th of February of the following year. 
 Lord Camden, late the Marquess Camden, in 
 1814 voluntarily resigned all the extraordinary 
 emoluments of his office, amounting to about 
 90004. a year, reserving to himself only the salary 
 of 27001. 
 
 Before the session closed, an attack was made by 
 the opposition upon another patent place, the emolu- 
 ments of which seemed disproportionate to the duties 
 and services of the office. In the session of 1810 Mr. 
 Perceval himself had brought into parliament a 
 bill to regulate the office of Registrar of the Admi- 
 ralty and Prize Courts. This most lucrative office, 
 while his father was first lord of the admiralty, had 
 been granted in reversion to his elder brother Lord 
 Arden (who now enjoyed it), and after Lord Arden’s 
 death to Mr. Perceval himself. The regulations 
 proposed in Perceval’s bill were not to take place 
 at present, and no reductions of emolument were to 
 be made till after the expiration of the existing 
 present and reversionary interests, or until after 
 the death of Lord Arden and Perceval; and it is 
 said, that no regulations would have been proposed 
 at all, if the subject had not been forced upon the 
 premier by the reports of the finance committee. 
 The bill declared that the registrar should be enti- 
 tled to only one third part of the fees of his office ; 
 and that the remaining two-thirds should go to the 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly, Diary of Parliamentary Life, in Memoirs, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 consolidated fund. Sir Samuel Romilly objected 
 that, where the fees of an office relating to the 
 administration of justice were too large, the proper 
 course to be taken was to diminish the fees fur the 
 benefit of the suitors, and not, as was here proposed, 
 to continue the abuse and let the public in to share 
 the spoils. The bill was, however, carried as Per- 
 ceval had framed it. But now, in June 1812, 
 another bill for regulating the office of Registrar of 
 the Admiralty and Prize Courts was brought in by 
 Mr. Henry Martin. It was opposed by all the 
 crown lawyers. Sir Samuel Romilly supported the 
 bill, the main principle of which was to prevent 
 the registrar from making profit for his own use of 
 the suitors’? money deposited in his hands, and to 
 establish regulations similar to those adopted in the 
 Court of Chancery when the office of accountant- 
 general was created. Sir Samuel said he could 
 have no doubt that an officer of a court intrusted 
 with the suitors’ money could not legally make 
 interest of it for his own benefit; that one of the 
 articles of impeachment against Lord Chancellor 
 Macclesfield was, that he had encouraged the mas- 
 ters in Chancery to make profit of, and traffic with, 
 the suitors’ money; and that if the House rejected 
 this bill they would themselves be guilty of the 
 same crime of which they had formerly accused 
 Lord Macclesfield—they would permit and encou- 
 rage the registrar to employ and traffic with the 
 money of the suitors. The bill, however, was 
 rejected, in a thin house, by a majority of 38, the 
 numbers being 65 against 27. It was made to 
 appear that Lord Arden, the registrar, whose fees 
 averaged about 12,000/. a-year, had made 7000/. 
 a-year more by interest and profits of suitors’ 
 money, and that he had sometimes above 200,000/. 
 of such money employed at interest.* These public 
 revelations injured the effect of the praise for disin- 
 terestedness which had been given to the late 
 premier. 
 
 The Marquess Wellesley, who was dissatisfied 
 with some of his colleagues, and who was supposed 
 to have contracted some engagements with the op- 
 position, signified his intention of resigning almost 
 as soon as parliament had met. He was induced, 
 however, to remain in office till the expiration of 
 the year to which the restrictions on the regent were 
 limited. But when, on the 18th of February, that 
 period arrived, and the regent still seemed deter- 
 mined to retain the ministers his father had left im. 
 power, the marquess declared that, though upon cer- 
 tain principles he would be ready to comply with 
 the regent’s wishes and serve with Mr. Perceval, 
 he could never serve under him. His resignation 
 was accepted on the 19th of February, and there- 
 upon Lord Castlereagh returned to office, and suc- 
 ceeded the marquess as secretary for foreign affairs. 
 Six days before the Marquess Wellesley’s resigna- 
 tion, the regent wrote a letter, which was purposely 
 made public, to his brother the Duke of York. — 
 The regent began with alluding to the fast approach- | 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly, Diary of his Parliamentary Life, in 
 Memoirs and Correspondence edited by his sons. 
 
 gp ns a 
 
 ae K 
 
Cuap. VIIL.] 
 
 ing expiration of the restrictions ; he stated again 
 that motives of filial affection had induced him to 
 continue his father’s ministers ; he adverted to the 
 success of his first year’s administration, and ex- 
 pressed a hope that a new era was arriving. After 
 saying that he had “‘ no predilections to indulge,”’ 
 the prince concluded with these words: “ Having 
 made this communication of my sentiments, I can- 
 not conclude without expressing the gratification I 
 should feel, if some of those persons with whom the 
 early habits of my public life were formed would 
 strengthen my hands, and constitute a part of my 
 government. With such support, and aided by a 
 vigorous and united administration, formed on the 
 most liberal basis, I shall look with additional con- 
 fidence to a prosperous issue of the most arduous 
 contest in which Great Britain was ever engaged. 
 You are authorized to communicate these senti- 
 ments to Lord Grey, who, I have no doubt, will 
 make them known to Lord Grenville.” 
 
 The Duke of York, who had certainly no politi- 
 cal partiality for either of the two lords, and who 
 was strongly opposed to them on the great Catholic 
 question, did what he was desired to do, and showed 
 the regent’s letter to Grey and Grenville, who flatly 
 refused to join the Perceval administration. The 
 prince’s letter, and that of Lords Grenville and 
 Grey to the Duke of York, were published in all the 
 newspapers in the kingdom. From this moment 
 (with the exception of a moment or two of party 
 hope and expectation) the Whigs began to revile 
 the Prince of Wales whom they had so long flat- 
 tered and applauded, and to applaud the Princess 
 of Wales whom they had so long reviled, or treated 
 with contempt or indifference. On the other side, 
 the Tories seemed to renounce all their old sympa- 
 thies for the princess, and to be determined to drive 
 that unhappy, ill-advised, and imprudent lady, not 
 only from court and the society of her daughter, 
 but also from the country. The old charge of there 
 being something behind the throne stronger than 
 the throne itself, and subversive of the constitution, 
 was revived, and was pressed with as much vigour, 
 or with as loud an outcry, as ever it had been in 
 the early part of the reign of George III.; and the 
 charge as regarded the regent was made the more 
 odious by the introduction of the name of a lady. 
 Even Karl Grey declared in the House of Lords 
 that the ministry depended for its existence upon 
 
 “an unseen influence which lurked behind the throne 
 —a power alien to the constitution, but become 
 uuvhappily too familiar to the country—a disastrous 
 and disgusting influence which consolidated abuses 
 into a system, and which prevented either public 
 complaint or honest advice from reaching the royal 
 ear—an influence which it was the duty of parlia- 
 ment to brand with signal reprobation. Within the 
 doors of parliament it was hinted, and out of doors 
 it was openly proclaimed through the opposition 
 journals and other channels, that Lord Castlereagh 
 owed his restoration to office to a certain lady and 
 the auspices of the Hertford family. 
 
 On the 19th of March Lord Boringdon in the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 : his motives. 
 
 597 
 
 House of Lords moved for an address to the prince 
 regent, beseeching him to form an administration, 
 so composed as to unite the confidence and good 
 will of all classes of his majesty’s subjects. This 
 was asking the regent to do what had never been 
 possible, and what was rendered more than ever 
 impossible by the present state of parties: but Lord 
 Boringdon only meant that the regent should form 
 a Grey and Grenville administration. We have 
 noticed in our account of the transactions of the 
 preceding year some of the causes and obstacles 
 which rendered even this measure an impractica- 
 bility and a dangerous experiment; and certainly 
 all the causes which kept those two noble lords from 
 taking office either with or under Perceval and 
 Lord Liverpool were not fully stated at this mo- 
 ment, when it was asserted that their refusal pro- 
 ceeded from Perceval’s decided hostility to the 
 Catholic claims, from a difference of opinion as to 
 the matters which were involving us in a war with 
 the United States, from a most decided difference 
 of opinion on the subject of bank notes and bullion, 
 and from a great diversity of opinion on the expen- 
 sive war carrying on in the Peninsula. Lord Bor- 
 ingdon’s irregular if not unconstitutional motion was 
 got rid of by an amendment, proposed by Lord 
 Grimstone, which was carried by more than two to 
 one, the numbers being 165 against 72. Every 
 division was about equally unfavourable to the 
 coalesced parties in opposition, and the administra- 
 tion seemed to be gaining strength rather than 
 losing it, when the premier died by the act of a 
 madman. 
 
 On Monday, the 11th of May, about five o’clock 
 in the afternoon, as Mr. Perceval was entering the 
 lobby of the House of Commons, a man, bearing 
 the outward appearance of a gentleman, shot at 
 hin with a pistol: the ball entered his left breast 
 and pierced his heart: he staggered, fell to the 
 ground, and expired in less than ten minutes. At 
 first there was a terrible consternation, and a half 
 belief in the existence of some political plot to 
 destroy a2 ministry which had so unexpectedly re- 
 tained office, and disappointed so many hopes. 
 But the assassin did not attempt to escape; he 
 went calmly to the fire-place, laid down his pistol 
 on the bench beside him, and acknowledged to 
 every one that he was the person who had done 
 the deed, saying that it was perfectly justifiable, 
 and that no man save himself had ever known of 
 his intention. And indeed it appeared immediately 
 that no other person had been concerned with him, 
 and that there was no mixture of political feeling in 
 The name of the man was Belling- 
 ham, his condition that of a decayed merchant and 
 unprosperous Liverpool broker. In a commercial 
 
 j visit to Russia some considerable time ago he had 
 
 undergone serious losses, which he attributed to 
 violence and injustice ; he had repeatedly addressed 
 Lord G. Leveson Gower, who had been our ambas- 
 sador at Petersburg; and he had presented memo- 
 rials to the treasury, soliciting a compensation for 
 losses which, not having been incurred in the 
 
598 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 4 
 
 course of any public service, were considered as 
 affording him no title to compensation. Perceval 
 had refused, as was his duty, to listen to these ap- 
 plications ; ‘‘ but he could hardly have accompanied 
 his refusal with any harshness, for few men had 
 ever less harshness in their nature than he had; 
 and yet this seems to have been all that had pro- 
 voked this most savage act.”* The murder was 
 committed on the Monday ; on the Friday following 
 (it being session time) Bellingham was brought to 
 trial at the Old Bailey, and convicted of the mur- 
 der ; and on the Monday morning of the next week, 
 before nine o’clock, the murderer was hanged, and 
 his body in the hands of the surgeons for dissection, 
 his heart, it was said, still beating faintly. Thus 
 the whole of this dismal tragedy was enacted within 
 one short week. At the bar of the Old Bailey, as 
 in the lobby of the House of Commons, in the 
 secretary of state’s office, and in prison, Bellingham 
 was perfectly cool and collected, and the court and 
 jury, who do not appear to have thought of that 
 species of madness which wears, in all its stages, 
 ‘a reasoning show,” could not believe that he was 
 insane—a plea which he himself rejected with 
 scorn, and controverted both with ingenuity and 
 eloquence, even as other madmen had done before 
 him, and others have done since. He urged that 
 he had suffered neglects and wrongs from govern- 
 ment which justified what he had done; and he 
 startled Lord G. Leveson Gower, who was present 
 as a witness, by declaring that, if the opportunity 
 had offered, he would have preferred shooting him 
 to shooting Mr. Perceval. His counsel, however, 
 applied to the court to put off his trial, in order to 
 allow time to bring up witnesses from Liverpool, 
 where he had resided, and where his family now 
 were, to prove that he was insane. But, as he had 
 been living for the last four months in London, and 
 as it was held that, if he had been disordered in his 
 intellect, he must during that period have given 
 proof of it, the chief justice (Mansfield) and the 
 rest of the court rejected the application for delay. 
 This, we believe, would not happen in our day, 
 when medical jurisprudence is supposed to be more 
 studied and better understood, and when the pre- 
 ference for rapid trial and summary punishment is 
 much (and some say too much) abated. But a 
 learned lawyer of the day, who took a deep interest 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly, Diary of Parliamentary Life. Romilly, after 
 stating the absence of all political motive in the assassin, adds, ‘‘ Among 
 the multitude, however, whom the news of so strange and sudden a 
 catastrophe had soon collected in the streets, and about the avenues of 
 the House, the most savage expressions of joy and exultation were 
 heard; accompanied with regret that others, and particularly the at- 
 torney-general (Sir Vicary Gibbs), had not shared the same fate.” 
 Romilly was induced to think that the English character must have 
 undergone some unaccountable and portentous change. But we can- 
 not believe that the national character was much committed. The 
 savage cries must have proceeded from the veriest rabble of Westmin- 
 ster. We remember well walking through the populous streets and 
 suburbs of the capital on that afternoon and evening, and seeing the 
 mixed feelings of horror and pity expressed on alinost every counte- 
 nance. There may possibly have been among the hooting rabble some 
 few individuals above the common condition, whose heads had been 
 turned by inflammatory party harangues, and scurrilous party news- 
 papers, which, if addressed to a more excitable and more sanguinary 
 people, would have induced some men not merely to qpplaug the deed 
 when it was done, but to have themselves undertaken the assassination 
 of the minister, as a foe to the people, a betrayer of his country, and 
 the meanest and most hypocritical slave that had ever served an 
 immoral, deprayed, and tyrannical prince, 
 
 a ee sealable soar mehensinrpenemns wataenessesinneaenon | AiMenpepnhipe sachdblapis 
 
 + en es hh Sree a t= ee 
 
 in the whole maiter, says that, though no person 
 could have heard what the conduct and demeanour 
 of Bellingham had been since he committed the 
 crime, or could have read his defence, without being 
 satisfied that he was mad, yet “it was a species 
 of madness which, probably, for the security of 
 mankind, ought not to exempt a man from being 
 answerable for his actions.”” Such was the opinion 
 of Romilly, who did, and was actually at this mo- 
 ment doing, more than any man to diminish the 
 amount of capital punishments, and clear the statute 
 book of its sanguinary laws. He goes on to say, 
 “There certainly has been no acting in that calm- 
 ness and steadiness of opinion uniformly manifested 
 by him, that what he has done was perfectly justifi- 
 able, and that he has set an example which will be 
 highly useful to mankind. The application, how- 
 ever, to put off the trial was surely very reasonable, 
 and it might well have been postponed, though but 
 for a few days. It was not possible that a letter, 
 giving information of his crime and his apprehen- 
 sion, could have reached Liverpool, where his fa- 
 mily and all his friends resided, and an answer to 
 it have been received by the day of his trial.’”* 
 
 The public character of Perceval was much un- 
 derrated, and his private character little understood. 
 As a minister he had shown courage at a moment 
 when courage was most wanted, and when timidity 
 and hesitation must have brought on the most ruin- 
 ous and degrading effects. His private character 
 seems to have been not only without a blemish, but 
 rich in some of the high and generous virtues; 
 and, with qualities like these, his public character 
 could not possibly be—what faction represented it 
 —unmanly, vile, treacherous, and every way base. 
 Though bitterly assailed for his steady opposition 
 to the claims of the Roman Catholics, he was so 
 from an honest conviction that the granting of 
 what was termed emancipation would be succeeded 
 by some new and equally stormy agitation for the 
 repeal of the union; and, if his alleged bigotry 
 and intolerance be candidly examined, it would be 
 found to shrink into a very small compass. His 
 disinterestedness seemed to be proved by the poverty 
 in which he died. Romilly, who had known him 
 well, and had associated most intimately with him, 
 was not prevented by a divergency in polities, 
 and by opinions and theories strongly opposite, 
 
 from paying a gencrous tribute to the merit of the 
 
 man.t 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly, Diary. We have been assured by persons 
 well acquainted with Liverpool, and with Bellingham’s family, that 
 positive proofs could have been procured in that city, of the wretched 
 man’s madness, and of the taint of insanity having existed in his pro- 
 genitors. We have also been assured that a son of Bellingham (who 
 
 with the rest of his family changed his name), after being brought up — 
 
 to the’medical profession, without betraying any worse symptoms than 
 those of an occasional eccentricity, became decidedly insane as he ap- 
 proached his father’s time of life, and is now, or recently was, living 
 under restraint. j 
 Sir James Mackintosh, who had just returned from India, and who 
 had received a very friendly communication from Perceval the very 
 day on which he was shot, describes Bellingham as “a bankrupt 
 ship-broker in Liverpool, who had formerly been confined for lunacy 
 in Russia.” —Private Diary, in Life by his Son. 3 
 + “As a private man I had a very great regard for Perceval. We 
 went the same circuit together, and for many years I lived with him 
 ina very delightful intimacy. Wo man could be more generous, more 
 friendly, or more kind than he was. No maneverin private life had a 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 On the 13th of May, two days after the assas- 
 sination, a message was delivered by Lord Castle- 
 reagh from the regent, who requested to be enabled 
 to grant 50,000/. for the children, and an annuity 
 of 20001. for the widow of Perceval for life. This 
 was immediately and unanimously voted, Sir 
 Francis Burdett and his friends quitting the 
 House rather than vote for or against the motion. 
 Wilberforce and some of the best friends of the 
 deceased minister thought that this was liberality 
 enough; but shortly after another pension was 
 moved for Perceval’s eldest son, and a monument 
 in Westminster Abbey was proposed for the de- 
 ceased. This disturbed the unanimity, and pro- 
 voked some angry discussions; but both propo- 
 sitions were carried by a great majority. 
 
 Again some men’s hopes were elated, and it was 
 pretty generally believed that the death of Perceval 
 must bring about an entire change of administra- 
 tion. Lord Liverpool, upon whom nearly the 
 whole weight of government fell, was instructed 
 by the regent, not to make new overtures to Lords 
 Grey and Grenville, but to attempt to reinforce 
 the cabinet by bringing back the two former 
 members of it, whose loss had been severely felt. 
 Liverpool accordingly applied to Mr. Canning and 
 to the Marquess Wellesley, who both declined his 
 overtures, alleging the continued difference of opi- 
 nion upon the Catholic claims, and upon the scale 
 on which the war in the Peninsula ought to be 
 carried on, Many members of both Houses, though 
 hitherto friendly to the existing government, re- 
 gretted the failure of this negotiation. In the 
 Commons Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterwards Lord 
 Wharncliffe), who had supported Mr. Pitt’s, and 
 afterwards Perceyal’s, administration uniformly, 
 rose on the 21st of May, and moved, pursuant to a 
 notice given the day before, that the House should 
 address the regent, praying that he would take 
 such measures as would enable him, under the 
 present circumstances of the country, to form a 
 strong and efficient administration. Rather unex- 
 pectedly this motion was carried against ministers 
 by a majority of four (174 against 170). Some 
 parliamentary manceuvres were resorted to, to cover 
 this defeat ; but they promised no success, and but 
 little honour ;* and on the very next day all the 
 ministers tendered their resignations to the regent. 
 
 nicer sense of honour. Never was there, I believ ’ i 
 husband or a more tender parent.”—Diary. renarey cet 
 
 Wilberforce, who had more points of agreement and sympathy with 
 the late minister, but who yet disapproved of much of his policy, 
 says—‘* Perceval had the sweetest of all possible tempers, and was 
 one of the most conscientious men I ever knew ; the most instinctively 
 obedient to the dictates of conscience, the least disposed to give pain 
 to others, the most charitable and truly kind and generous creature I 
 ever knew.”’—Private Diary. 
 
 * Lord Yarmouth, George Rose, Bragge Bathurst, and some more 
 friends of ministers, happened to be out of the House at the time of 
 the division (which we should say was clearly hurried on), and came 
 in the moment the doors were unlocked. On seeing this ‘accession of 
 strength, Charles Yorke and Lord Castlereagh endeavoured to defeat 
 the address, by opposing the motion that it should be carried up by 
 such members as were privy councillors. On this division the minis- 
 ters had a majority of tivo (1%6 to 174). * But they were soon 
 ashamed of this kind of victory; or, I believe, some other friends of 
 ours had come into the House, and they saw that ultimately the 
 Should be beaten, and they therefore consented to a motion that the 
 address should be carried up by the mover 
 Wortley and Lord Milton.”—Sir Samuel Romilly, Diary. 
 
 and seconder, Stuart - 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 599 
 
 A week passed, and no administration was formed. 
 
 Lord Wellesley and Lord Moira saw the prince 
 several times, but nothing was settled, or seemed 
 likely to be settled, on the 30th of May. And, 
 although the address of the Commons was pre- 
 sented to the regent the day after it was voted, 
 and although the prince said, in answer to it, that 
 he would take it into his immediate consideration, 
 it was not till Monday the lst of June that he 
 gave authority to any one to submit to him the 
 plan of a new ministry. The interval had been 
 spent in audiences given to Moira, Wellesley, 
 Eldon, the lord chancellor, and to other members 
 of the present or late administration. Though 
 willing, and now even anxious, to get back Wel- 
 lesley and Canning, it was evident that the regent 
 had not the least wish to try the experiment of a 
 Whig cabinet. On the ist of June he authorised 
 Wellesley to form an administration; but on the 
 3rd of June that nobleman announced in the 
 House of Lords that he had resigned the com- 
 mission with which he had been honoured into the 
 regent’s hands, without having been able to effect 
 the object of it. It was understood that the Mar- 
 quess Wellesley had been authorised to make the 
 same sort of overtures to Lords Grey and Gren- 
 ville which had been made to them by the Duke 
 of York in virtue of the regent’s letter; but that 
 the proposition now to be made by Wellesley, 
 under the prince’s commands, was more explicit ; 
 namely, that the marquess himself should be first 
 lord of the treasury, that the prince should name 
 four members of the cabinet, that four more should 
 be named by the marquess, and four by Lords 
 Grenville and Grey; or, if, upon farther consider- 
 ation, it should be thought expedient that the 
 cabinet should consist of thirteen members, then 
 that five out of the thirteen should be named by 
 Grenville and Grey. The members to be named 
 by the prince were the Marquess Wellesley, Lord 
 Moira, Lord Erskine, and Mr. Canning. What- 
 ever was the precise proposition, it is certain that 
 Lords Grenville and Grey rejected it. After the 
 failure of the marquess a similar commission to 
 form an administration was given to Lord Moira. 
 It should appear that this old Whig nobleman 
 had employed some propositions or arguments of 
 more avail with the two great Whig leaders than 
 those which had been offered by Lord Wellesley, 
 for Lords Grenville and Grey entertained the pro- 
 ject of forming a part of a mixed ministry, until 
 they questioned Moira about the household ap- 
 pointments, and received the assurance that ne 
 sweeping changes in that respect could be sub- 
 mitted to by the regent. Though it had not been 
 always or invariably so, Lords Grenville and Grey 
 could show something like an established prece- 
 dent for the practice that the household of the sove- 
 reign was dependent on the ministry, was named 
 by ministers, and was changed when ministers 
 were changed. And it was now upon this ground 
 that the two noble lords placed their refusal to 
 accept office. But, unless Grey or Grenville was 
 
 a a oer 
 
600 
 
 to have been premier, and unless there was to 
 have been not a patched-up but an entirely new 
 cabinet—which never was intended—they could 
 scarcely with propriety have claimed the night of 
 dismissing the regent’s household and of placing 
 comparative strangers about his person. Lord 
 Moira warmly resented their pretension as unne- 
 cessary and presumptuous, and recommended the 
 prince not to yield—nay, not to permit the dis- 
 missal of a single member of his household. And 
 other men, less attached to the prince than was 
 Moira, considered it harsh, illiberal, and unwise 
 in Grey and Grenville to attempt or to pretend to 
 attempt to coerce the regent on this delicate point. 
 The time is not come for telling or even under- 
 standing the secret court history of the day, which 
 is said to have exercised a commanding influence 
 on all these arrangements and essays and experi- 
 ments ; and we question whether it will ever be a 
 profitable or elevating subject of study and con- 
 templation. Those who have attempted to give 
 explanations have done little more than explain 
 their own party feelings, and have, in the end, lost 
 themselves iu a labyrinth of contradictions.* On 
 the 7th of June, after several parliamentary dis- 
 
 cussions on the failure of Lord Moira, and after’ 
 
 various explanations in which Sheridan made a 
 lamentable appearance, Mr. Stuart Wortley (Lord 
 Wharncliffe) pronounced some severe strictures on 
 the conduct of Lords Grenville and Grey, in putting 
 an end to the treaty with them merely on account 
 of a difference concerning the household; and he 
 moved for an address to the regent, expressing the 
 regret of the House that their expectations had not 
 been realised, and entreating his royal highness 
 to form without delay such an administration as 
 might be entitled to the support of parliament 
 and the confidence of the nation. In the course 
 of this debate still more ample explanations were 
 given; and Mr. Canning made several curious 
 statements concerning the last negotiation and the 
 causes of its failure, being authorised so to do, and 
 being fully informed upon all points, by Lord Moira 
 himself. Mr. Stuart Wortley’s motion was nega- 
 tived without a division. 
 
 Nothing therefore was left—and perhaps nothing 
 
 * The Whig opinion, after the failure of the negotiation, was that 
 there had been a depth of intrigue on the part of the court which it 
 was impossible to fathom; that, although the result had probably 
 been an unfortunate one for the country, because an administration 
 with Grenville and Grey included in it might perhaps have brought 
 about successfully some very desirable changes, both in our foreigu 
 and internal policy, yet at the same time the public voice would have 
 seconded them so reluctantly in those measures, and would have been 
 so much upon the catch to disappoint them, wherever any difficulty 
 occurred, that neither Grey nor Grenville—without either court favour 
 or a popular cry—could have kept their ground:—that there was a 
 previous determination on the part of the prince that Lords Grey and 
 Grenville should not be in power; that the conduct of Lord Chan- 
 cellor Eldon, who had been repeatedly closeted with the Duke of 
 Cumberland, proved all along, and beyond the reach of a doubt, that 
 he never thought either of resigning the seals or of witnessing the 
 dismissal of any of his friends or colleagues ; that things would have 
 been much worse if Lords Grey and Grenville had not been deterred 
 from taking office by the obstacles which were purposely thrown in 
 their way; that they would have been suffered to remain in the 
 ministry but a very short time; that some pretext would have been 
 anxiously watched for, and eagerly seized, to turn them out with loss 
 of character; or anew cry against popery would have been raised, 
 and they would have been made the victims of that.—’rancis Horner, 
 Correspondence.— Romilly, Diary of Parliamentary Life. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 better was desired, not merely in the court, but 
 also in the country (taking the sense of the latter 
 as represented by a great majority),—but for the 
 regent to go on with the old ministers, and to fill 
 the post of premier with one of that body. The 
 warmest of the Whigs were compelled to confess 
 that general opinion was at present decidedly 
 against their party. On the 8th of June the Earl 
 of Liverpool acquainted the House of Lords that 
 the prince regent had been pleased to appoint him 
 first lord of the treasury, and to authorise him to 
 arrange and complete the cabinet. ‘Thus Liver- 
 pool became premier in lieu of Perceval. Earl 
 Bathurst succeeded Liverpool in the double and 
 onerous offices of secretary for the colonies and 
 secretary at war: Lord Sidmouth (Addington), 
 who had been so long out of office, and who had 
 once figured as premier, was brought back as se- 
 cretary for the home department. The Earl of 
 Harrowby became president of the council in lieu 
 of Earl Camden (who, however, remained in the 
 cabinet, without office, and was elevated to the 
 rank of marquess); Mr. N. Vansittart became 
 chancellor of the exchequer; Lord Melville (the 
 son and successor of the old lord who had held 
 that office so long, and on the whole so much to 
 the benefit of the navy) succeeded Mr. C. Yorke 
 as first lord of the admiralty; the Earl of Buck- 
 inghamshire took Lord Melville’s place of pre- 
 sident of the board of control; Lord Castlereagh 
 remained secretary for foreign affairs; Earl Mul- 
 grave master-general of the ordnance; and Lord 
 Eldon lord high chancellor. In the non-cabinet 
 appointments and in the law appointments there 
 were several changes: George Rose, that steady 
 and tenacious placeman, made room for Mr. F. 
 Robinson as treasurer for the navy and vice-presi- 
 dent of the board of trade; Castlereagh’s friend 
 Lord Clancarty became president of the board of 
 trade ; Sir Vicary Gibbs, who had had the felicity 
 of irritating or displeasing all parties, was suc- 
 ceeded as attorney-general by Sir Thomas Plumer, 
 whose previous post of solicitor-general was filled 
 by Sir William Garrow. Inthe ministry of Ire- 
 land the Duke of Richmond continued lord-lieu- 
 tenant, and Lord Manners lord high chancellor; 
 but the chief secretaryship, which had been held 
 by Mr. W. Wellesley Pole, was now conferred 
 upon Mr. Robert Peel. Some of these changes 
 and arrangements were not completed until some 
 time later; but this was the construction of the 
 Liverpool cabinet in the month of September, when 
 parliament was dissolved.* 
 
 On the 17th of June Mr. Vansittart, the new 
 chancellor of the exchequer, brought forward the 
 budget, not as his own work or plan, but as that 
 of his lamented predecessor. The plan intimated 
 the design and the determination of giving more 
 
 * On the’ 18th of June Lord Wellington, then at Salamanca, and 
 ignorant and perplexed about the ministerial arrangements, writes 
 to a private friend :—*‘* Affairs appear to be in a strange state in Eng- 
 land; however, I trust that at last some government will be fo . 
 I always detested home politics, and late oceurrences have not 
 given me a relish for them,”—Letter to General Sir A. Campbell, in 
 Gurwood Dispaiches. 
 
Cuap. VIII. } 
 
 vigour to the war. In the preceding year the 
 supplies proposed and voted amounted to 
 56,021,869/.; but now the total proposed and 
 yoted was 62,376,348/. A number of petty new 
 taxes were imposed, and two more enormous loans 
 were raised. 
 
 On June the 27th the regent sent a message to 
 each House of Parliament, acquainting them that 
 he had ordered copies to be laid before them of 
 the information received relative to serious riots in 
 the cotton-manufacturing districts of Lancashire 
 and part of Cheshire, the clothing districts of 
 Yorkshire, &c., confiding in their wisdom to adopt 
 the proper measures for restoring tranquillity. 
 These papers were referred to a committee of se- 
 crecy ineach House; and the result was the intro- 
 duction by Lord Castlereagh of a severe bill for 
 the preservation of the public peace in the dis- 
 turbed districts, where much machinery and other 
 property had been destroyed, where many lives 
 had been threatened and a few sacrificed; and 
 where secret societies of men, bound together by 
 oath, were seizing and concealing arms, and train- 
 ing themselves in the use of them, and in military 
 evolutions. Some members denied the extent of 
 the danger, and questioned the policy of this coer- 
 cive bill; but it was carried through both Houses 
 by large majorities: its duration was however 
 limited to March 25th, 1813. The debates on 
 the Catholic question will be noticed elsewhere. 
 On the 30th of July the parliament was prorogued 
 by commission ; and on the 20th of September it 
 was unexpectedly dissolved. 
 
 We turn tothe conflict of arms, which was more 
 extensive, more terrible, and more decisive than in 
 any preceding year. Greatas were the British inte- 
 rests involved in that quarrel, and strange as is 
 the history of the new American war, it was a 
 mere episode in a grand epic, a bye-scene in a 
 busy drama. We shall not therefore depart from 
 the usual order of our narrative, but proceed to the 
 great events passing in the Peninsula. 
 
 Lord Wellington, who had found necessary rest 
 and tolerably good quarters for his fatigued troops, 
 put himself in motion as soon as it was time to 
 move. He had not been idle during his stay on 
 the Coa—there might be rest for the army, but 
 there was none for him. During the latter months 
 of 1811 he had been preparing with all possible 
 silence and secrecy the means of re-capturing 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, the possession of which still 
 served the French as a basis of operations on one 
 of the frontiers of Portugal. Under the appear- 
 ance of repairing and fortifying Almeida, which 
 the French had damaged much less than they in- 
 tended, he collected there a battering-train and 
 abundant stores. A good portable bridge on 
 trestles was also constructed in the same place ; 
 and, still bestowing that attention on the provision- 
 ing of his army, without which all armies must 
 be useless or lose their morality and discipline, he 
 effected the formation of a commissariat waggon- 
 train, with several hundred strong but light wag- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 a nt a 
 
 601 
 
 gons made for the purpose, in order to supersede 
 
 the heavy, clumsy, screeching, barbarous carts of 
 the Portuguese which had been hitherto used, but 
 which would have proved altogether insufficient 
 without the services of a large body of Spanish 
 mules and muleteers which followed all the move- 
 ments of the divisions of the British army.* By 
 the exertions of our engineer officers the river 
 Douro was rendered navigable for boats as far as 
 the confluence of the Agueda, which was forty 
 miles higher than boats had ever before ascended. 
 AJl this and a great deal more had been done with 
 so little bustle and show, that Marshal Marmont 
 never guessed the intention to fall upon Ciudad 
 Rodrigo in the midst of winter. ‘That general 
 had placed his “‘army of Portugal’? in extensive 
 cantonments about Plasencia and Talavera, and 
 in his pleasant confidence he had detached part of 
 it to the eastward towards La Mancha, and sent 
 two divisions to the north to occupy the Asturias 
 and disperse the guerillas, On the 6th of January 
 Wellington suddenly moved his head-quarters for- 
 ward to Gallegos, and on the 8th part of his army 
 crossed the Agueda and invested Ciudad Rodrigo 
 without encountering any obstacle. An external 
 redoubt called the great Teson was stormed by a 
 party of the light division that very evening, and 
 the first parallel was rapidly established. There 
 were two convents situated outside of the walls, 
 but strong in themselves, and fortified by the 
 French with their usual skill: one of these, Santa 
 Cruz, was taken by surprise on the night of the 
 13th; the other, San Francisco, was carried by 
 assault on the 14th. The second parallel was then 
 completed and fresh batteries were established. 
 By the 19th two practicable breaches were made, 
 and that very evening orders were given to storm 
 the place. There was no time to lose, for it was 
 known that Marmont was now hastening forward 
 to the relief. But for this circumstance Ciudad 
 Rodrigo might have been reduced with very little 
 loss to the besiegers. As it was, and though the 
 place was carried and the garrison surrendered in 
 less than half an hour from the time the assault 
 commenced, the British suffered a very severe loss. 
 General Mackinnon and many of his brigade were 
 blown up by the accidental explosion of a powder- 
 magazine on the ramparts ; General Craufurd, the 
 gallant commander of the light division, was mor- 
 tally wounded; General Vandeleur and Colonel 
 Colborne were also wounded, as well as Major 
 George Napier, who led one of the storming par- 
 ties, and who belonged toa brave and intelligent 
 family, who were always forward in the hour of 
 danger, and generally unfortunate in getting 
 wounded. ‘The total loss of the British and Por- 
 tuguese amounted to about 1000 killed and 
 wounded. The loss of the garrison was about the 
 same, besides 1700 prisoners. A large battering- 
 train and a vast quantity of ammunition and stores 
 were found within Ciudad Rodrigo. Marmont, 
 
 * A. Vieusseux. For a sketch of a Portuguese cart, with its rude 
 solid wheels, see View of Almeida, ante, p. 541. 
 
602 
 
 who was still a good way off when the place was 
 stormed and taken, said that there was something 
 quite incomprehensible in the matter. The Spanish 
 Cortes, who had frequently criticised his military 
 conduct, and censured delays and measures which 
 they could not comprehend, now unanimously 
 passed a vote of thanks to Lord Wellington, and 
 conferred on him the title of Duke of Ciudad 
 Rodrigo. In England his lordship got a step in 
 the peerage (he was made Earl of Wellington), 
 and an annuity of 2000/. annexed to the title, and 
 thanks were voted by parliament to him and his 
 brave army. 
 
 Having recovered Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington 
 resolved to attempt to recover Badajoz also before 
 the French should be in force to oppose him. 
 Here again the greatest secrecy and caution were 
 required. The artillery for the siege of Badajoz 
 was embarked at Lisbon for a fictitious destination, 
 then trans-shipped at sea into small craft, in which 
 it was conveyed up the Setubal river to Alcacer do 
 Sol, whence it was carried by land across the 
 Alemtejo to the banks of the Guadiana. Stores 
 were collected with the same caution. When all 
 was ready, his lordship, leaving one division of his 
 army on the Agueda, marched with the rest from 
 the northern to the southern frontier of Portugal. 
 On the 16th of March, after a rapid and orderly 
 march, the army crossed the Guadiana, and 
 Badajoz was immediately invested. On the 25th 
 the Picurina, an advanced work separated from 
 the body of the place by the small river Ribillas, 
 was taken by storm, and on the 26th two breach- 
 ing batteries opened on the town. Again expedi- 
 tion and the resolution to achieve a great object, 
 though with important sacrifices, were needful ; 
 for Marshal Soult was collecting all his disposable 
 forces at Seville in order to march to the relief of 
 Badajoz; and Marshal Marmont, in the hope 
 of effecting a diversion, had entered Portugal, and 
 was ravaging the country east of the Estrella. 
 The weather, for the most part, was very bad, the 
 battering-train and the besieging-tools were not 
 very good, and the number of troops actually 
 engaged on the siege was but small, as it was 
 necessary to advance several divisions to Llerena 
 and Merida to cover the besiegers. What the 
 energy of man could do with defective means and 
 within a short space of time, was done: on the 6th 
 of April three breaches were reported to be prac- 
 ticable, and Wellington gave his orders for storm- 
 ing the place at ten o’clock that night; but, when 
 the storming parties passed the glacis under a 
 murderous fire, descended into the ditch, and 
 ascended the breaches, they found that their work 
 was but to begin. The French were generally 
 ingenious in extemporizing defences and modes of 
 annoyance ; but General Philippon, the governor 
 of Badajoz, seems to have surpassed all that had 
 hitherto been done in this way. Strong planks 
 and beams studded with iron spikes like harrows, 
 and chevaux-de-frise formed of sword-blades and 
 broken bayonets, effectually stopped the way; the | 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ramparts behind the breaches and by the sides of 
 them, and the tall stone houses which overlooked 
 them, were occupied by French light infantry, 
 who poured their volleys upon the narrow strips of 
 ground or of ruins upon which the assailants were 
 crowded and made to pause ; shells, hand-grenades, 
 burning compositions, and missiles of every sort 
 were hurled down upon their heads! The loss 
 was becoming so dreadful,—for one storming party 
 followed another till after twelve o’clock at night,— 
 that Lord Wellington ordered the fourth and light 
 divisions to retire to the ground on which they had 
 been first assembled for the attack, finding that 
 success was not to be attained at that point, and 
 learning that General Picton had carried and esta- 
 blished himself in the castle. Soon after the last 
 piece of good news General Walker’s brigade suc- 
 ceeded in entering the town by escalade in an 
 opposite direction. The other divisions now formed 
 again for the attack of the breaches; and, these 
 being no longer defended by the distracted French, 
 who saw the castle and a good part of the city in 
 possession of the red-coats, the beams and planks 
 were cleared away, our storming parties poured in, 
 and soon the last attempt at resistance ceased. 
 General Philippon, with a few hundred men, 
 escaped across the Guadiana, and threw himself 
 into Fort St. Cristoval, where he surrendered on 
 the following morning. ‘The loss of the allies had 
 been dreadful : including the Portuguese, 72 officers 
 and 963 men were killed, and 306 officers and 
 3480 men wounded.* Covered as they were, the 
 French lost from 1200 to 1500 men during the 
 siege and in the assault; the rest of the garrison, 
 which Philippon reported to Lord Wellington to 
 have consisted of 5000 men when the siege com- 
 menced, surrendered to the British, and gave up 
 from 3000 to 4000 prisoners, Spaniards, Portu- 
 guese, and English, who had been collected in 
 Badajoz as a safe depdt. Though our troops 
 spared the conquered foe, or very soon moderated 
 that vindictive fury which generally accompanies 
 assaults and storms, and which never had been 
 provoked by greater loss or crueller sufferings— 
 thousands of men were writhing or shrieking with 
 agony in the deadly breaches or in the ditches 
 below—they made a rush to the wine-cellars, and, 
 
 * In writing to Colonel Torrens, the day after this dearly bought 
 triumph, Lord Wellington says:—‘* Our loss has indeed been very 
 great; but I send you a letter to Lord Liverpool which accounts for 
 it. The truth is that, equipped as we are, the British army are n0¢ 
 capable of carrying on a long siege.” 
 
 This letter to the Earl of Liverpool has not been found; but, from 
 documents in the Ordnance office and from other sources, it appears 
 that it recommended the immediate formation of a corps of sappers 
 and miners; the want of such an establishment with the army being 
 the chief cause of the great loss in our sieges.—Wote by Colonel Gw- 
 wood in Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 Colonel Napier has warmly and ably vindicated Lord Wellington's 
 sieges, showing the relation those operations had with other transac- 
 tions, and with numerous and distant considerations :—“ Many of 
 Lord Wellington’s proceedings,’’ he observes, ‘* might be called rash, 
 and others timid and slow, if taken separately; yet, when viewed 
 as parts of a great plan for delivering the whole Peninsula, they will 
 be found discreet or daring, as the circumstances warranted: mor 1s 
 there any portion of his campaigns that requires this wide- con- 
 sideration more than his early sieges, which, being instituted contrar 
 to the rules of art, and unsuccessful—or, when successful, aitende: 
 with a mournful slaughter—have given occasion for questioning his 
 
 great military qualities, which were, however, then most gnally 
 displayed.” —History of the War in the Peninsula. 
 
 ance ea el oe hl ss ccc cecilia sani est esas sche a a 
 
 > 
 
| 
 
 Cuap. VIIL] 
 
 in the darkness and confusion of the night and of 
 drunkenness, they disgraced themselves by com- 
 mitting many outrages and some atrocities. It 
 was not until daybreak on the 7th of April that 
 Wellington was completely master of Badajoz. 
 On the 8th Soult had collected his army at Villa- 
 franca, between Llerena and Merida; but, hearing 
 of the fall of the place he had intended to relieve, 
 he began, on the morning of the 9th, long before 
 daylight, to retreat once more to Seville. Again 
 the French were warmly pursued by the British 
 cavalry, who cut up Soult’s rear-guard at Villa 
 Garcia.* 
 
 At another place, where the French were, not 
 the besieged, but the besiegers, they suffered dis- 
 comfiture and loss, if not shame. Since General 
 Graham’s expedition with Lapefta, which had ter- 
 minated unprofitably, but for the British not 
 ingloriously, at Barrosa, some attention had been 
 paid to garrisoning Tarifa, the old town on the 
 straits of Gibraltar, where Lapena had with so 
 much difficulty effected his landing. Marshal 
 Victor, who still commanded the army which was 
 so fruitlessly blockading or watching Cadiz, not 
 wishing for another affair like that of Barrosa, and 
 apprehending that another expedition might pass 
 through Tarifa to fall upon his far-extending lines, 
 determined to reduce that place, and to superintend 
 the important operation in person. In the last 
 days of the year 1811, Tarifa was invested by 
 about 5000 men, whose operations were covered 
 by another strong corps posted at Vejer. The 
 place was garrisoned by about 1800 men, under 
 the command of Colonel Skerrett, a distinguished 
 British officer. It appears that about 1000 of the 
 men were British, the rest being Spaniards. There 
 was an old Moorish castle and a weak crumbling 
 wall also originally built by the Moors, who began 
 their conquest of Spain at this point; but conti- 
 guous to Tarifa there is a small island, without 
 which the town is (in a military sense) entirely 
 useless; and the French were not supposed to 
 have the means of gaining possession of this isle. 
 The Spanish general Ballasteros had collected 
 some troops in the neighbouring mountains with 
 the object of interrupting Victor’s siege; and 
 General Hill, who crossed the Guadiana some 
 months before the siege of Badajoz was com- 
 menced, was advancing into Spanish Estremadura 
 with the intention of diverting the enemy’s atten- 
 tion both from General Ballasteros and from 
 Tarifa. It therefore behoved Victor to make all 
 speed ; and, hoping to carry the place by a vigorous 
 effort, and apparently not reflecting upon the mili- 
 tary importance of the small island to which 
 Colonel Skerrett could retire, and from which he 
 could batter the town to pieces, he brought up his 
 heavy artillery, opened a tremendous fire upon the 
 place, and almost immediately effected a breach. 
 On the last day of the year 1811, the French 
 attempted to carry this breach by storm; but, 
 numerous and bold as they were, they were beaten 
 
 * Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 603 
 
 off by the gallant troops within. From that day 
 till the evening of the 4th of January, the French 
 kept up a continual fire: the walls were knocked 
 to pieces, the little town was laid completely open ; 
 but they would not venture to try another assault ; 
 and on the night of the 4th of January they with- 
 drew hastily, humbled and disordered, leaving 
 behind them seven pieces of cannon, two heavy 
 howitzers, and all the carriages and stores collected 
 for the siege. The hurry was chiefly owing to 
 the dismay caused by General Hill’s rapid and 
 daring movements in Estremadura, and almost 
 upon the frontiers of Andalusia.* 
 
 As soon as he obtained possession of Badajoz 
 (on the 7th of April), Lord Weilington endea- 
 voured to put the place into a good state of defence, 
 greatly fearing that, if anything were left for the 
 Spaniards to do, both Badajoz and Ciudad Rod- 
 rigo, “‘ through the habits of indolence and delay 
 in this nation,” would be lost again before the 
 summer was over.f But his lordship had short 
 time to hestow upon these cares, for Marmont was 
 making himself strong in the north, and was block- 
 ading both the Spanish fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo 
 and the partially ruined fortress of Almeida. 
 Leaving General Hill in the south, his lordship, 
 on the 13th of April, moved the main body of his 
 army back to the north. Upon this Marmont 
 gave up his two blockades, collected his troops 
 within the Spanish frontier, and retreated to Sala- 
 manca. By a happy combination of rapidity, 
 daring, and skill, General Hili attacked, and carried, 
 by a brilliant coup de main, the strong forts which 
 the French had erected at Almaraz on the Tagus 
 to protect a bridge of boats which secured the com- 
 munications between their armies of the north and 
 south. By this operation Marmont was cut off 
 from Soult and Soult from Marmont. On the 13th 
 of June Lord Wellington, after the most wearying 
 exertions and many mortifying delays, proceeding 
 from causes which need no explanation, completed 
 his preparations for an advance into Spain, and 
 broke up from his cantonments between the Coa 
 and the Agueda with about 40,000 men, leaving 
 General Hill on the Tagus near Almaraz with about 
 12,000 more. General Ballasteros had engaged 
 
 * Colonel Skerrett was deservedly applauded for his gallant defence 
 of the old town, one of the most Moresque in all Spain, and the one 
 in which we saw more remains of the manners and customs of the 
 Moors than in any other town in Andalusia that we visited. 
 
 From the accounts which he had received of that place, it appeared 
 to Lord Wellington quite impossible to defend it, and that the utmost 
 that Skerrett could do would be to hold the island. 
 
 Before Tarifa was invested, several brilliant affairs took place be- 
 tween the piquets of the British and Spanish infantry and the French 
 piquets; and Colonel Skerrett, in co-operation with the Spanish 
 troops, made a dashing sortie from Tarifa, in order to oblige the 
 enemy to show their force ; and on this occasion the French sustained 
 considerable loss. 
 
 + Dispatches.—His lordship had left money to carry on the works 
 at Ciudad Rodrigo, yet on the 28th of April, 1812, we find him com- 
 plaining that very little had been done since he was there last—that 
 a great deal of valuable time had been thrown away entirely! He 
 says—** I have sent Alava over to the place to point out to the prin- 
 cipal officers how much their indolence and their indulgence of the 
 indolence of their men affect the cause; and I have told them that I 
 should give no assistance in English soldiers to work, unless the 
 demand for such assistance should be founded on an acknowledg- 
 ment that the Spanish officers have not authority over their men to 
 induce them to perform works for their own defence! But the 
 indolence and apathy of their nature is terrible. Yet they boast of 
 their activity and energy.” 
 
 LSC CC EC EE EN Sa 
 
604 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 (Boox X. 
 
 to co-operate with Hill or to keep up a diversion in 
 his favour in Andalusia; but, when Wellington 
 began his march, he feared that Ballasteros had been 
 already beaten; and from intercepted dispatches 
 his lordship divined that King Joseph had ordered 
 Soult to send a great force to the Tagus, there to 
 join other troops belonging to the army of the 
 centre. As his lordship advanced into Spain he 
 received reports that Marmont had been, or speedily 
 was to be, reinforced by the division of Bonnet, 
 6270 strong. Even without any such accession in 
 strength Marmont had a decided superiority in 
 numbers, particularly in artillery and cavalry, for 
 his infantry was counted at 44,000, his artillery 
 at more than 3000, and his cavalry at 4000: and, 
 what to his lordship was a more serious considera- 
 tion than a numerical inferiority, was the indisput- 
 able fact that his own cavalry was deficient in tried, 
 prudent, and skilful officers, and altogether, as an 
 arm, vastly inferior to his infantry. Another se- 
 rious consideration was, that one of his lordship’s 
 columns consisted entirely of Spaniards. On the 
 16th of June Wellington and the whole allied 
 army arrived upon the Val Musa rivulet, about six 
 miles from Salamanca. The enemy showed some 
 cavalry and a small body of infantry in front of 
 the town of Salamanca, and manifested a design 
 to hold the heights on the south side of the Tormes. 
 But their cavalry was immediately driven in by 
 ours, and Marmont evacuated Salamanca in the 
 night, leaving a garrison of about 800 men in some 
 forts constructed on the ruins of the colleges and 
 convents which commanded the bridge that crosses 
 the river ‘Tormes. But that river was fordable in 
 several places above and below the bridge; and 
 therefore on the following morning, the 17th of 
 June, the allies forded the river, got into the rear 
 of the French forts, and entered the town, to the 
 indescribable joy of the inhabitants. “ They have 
 now,”’ writes Lord Wellington, ‘been suffering 
 for more than three years; during which time the 
 French, among other acts of violence and oppres- 
 sion, have destroyed thirteen of twenty-five con- 
 vents, and twenty-two of twenty-five colleges, 
 which existed in this celebrated seat of learning.’’* 
 The forts were immediately invested by the division 
 of General Clinton, and, when they had been accu- 
 rately reconnoitred, it was found necessary to break 
 eround before them. This was done in the night 
 of the 17th. 
 
 Marmont retired by the road leading to Toro, 
 as if intending to collect his army on the Duero, 
 between Toro and Zamora. Wellington followed 
 him as far as St. Cristoval, a few miles beyond 
 Salamanca, where he took up a good position. 
 The forts by the bridge and within Salamanca 
 were found even stronger than had been antici- 
 pated, and Major General Bowes and 120 men 
 fell in an attempt to carry them by escalade. On 
 the 20th Marmont returned upon his steps, and, 
 arriving in front of the position of St. Cristoval, 
 made a demonstration with his cavalry, which 
 * Dispatch to the Earl of Liverpcol, dated Salamanca, 18th June. 
 
 | ended in a mere skirmish. 
 
 The French marshal 
 remained in Wellington’s front all that mght and 
 all the next day, and on the following night esta- 
 blished a post on the British right flank, the pos- 
 session of which would have deprived Wellington 
 of an advantage which might eventually be of im- 
 portance. Accordingly, on the next morning, the 
 22nd, that French post was attacked by the hero 
 of Barrosa, General Sir Thomas Graham, who 
 drove them from the ground immediately with 
 some loss. ‘Our troops conducted themselves 
 remarkably well in this affair, which took place in 
 the view of every man of both armies.”* Mar- 
 mont retired during that night ; and on the follow- 
 ing evening the French posted themselves with 
 their right on some heights, their centre at Aldea 
 Rubia, and their left on the Tormes. ‘The object 
 of the enemy in these movements being to endea- 
 vour to communicate with the garrisons in the forts 
 at Salamanca, by the left bank of the Tormes, 
 Wellington changed his front, and extended his 
 troops so as to cover Salamanca completely, retain- 
 ing the power of crossing and re-crossing the 
 ‘Tormes, and of concentrating his army at any 
 point at a short notice. More than once Marmont 
 made a false movement, and exposed his army to 
 attack; but, for the present, his prudent adversary 
 did not think it advisable to avail himself of his 
 opportunities or risk a general action. very 
 effort that Marmont could make for the purpose 
 of relieving the forts was completely baffled ; 
 those forts had all surrendered or been taken by 
 the 27th; and thereupon the marshal retreated 
 once more, and in the beginning of July took up a 
 strong position on the northern bank of the Duero. 
 Wellington followed him, and took up a line on 
 the southern bank of that river, the British and 
 Portuguese facing the French. Marmont, who is 
 taxed with being rather too fond of displaying his 
 skill in directing the movements of large masses 
 of men, changed front repeatedly, marched and 
 counter-marched, and perplexed his own people 
 more than his able adversary by numerous and 
 complicated manoeuvres. In the interval the 
 French marshal was reinforced by Bonnet’s divi- 
 sion, which had marched from the Asturias, but 
 not without loss, having been harassed in the 
 mountains by the guerrillas. On the 11th of July 
 Marmont threw two divisions across the Duero at 
 Toro, when Wellington moved his army to the 
 left to concentrate it on the Guarefia, an affluent 
 of the Duero. On the same night the two French 
 divisions re-crossed the Duero where they had 
 crossed it in the morning; and then Marmont 
 ascended the northern bank of the river with his 
 whole army to Tordesillas. Here he again crossed 
 over to the southern bank of the Duero, and thence, 
 making a forced march, assembled at Nava del 
 Rey on the 17th. On the 18th he attempted 
 cut off Wellington’s right; but his troops were re~ 
 pulsed by the charges of the British and Hano- 
 verian cavalry, and the smart advance of the 
 
 * Wellington, Dispatch. 
 
 a 
 
ye eh aye 
 
 Guar, VIII.) 
 
 British and Portuguese infantry. By his ma- 
 neeuvres, however, Marmont had now succeeded 
 in re-establishing his communications with King 
 Joseph and the army of the centre, which was ad- 
 vancing from Madrid to jom him. The two 
 armies of Marmont and Wellington were now in 
 line on the opposite banks of the Guarena. But 
 on the 20th the French marshal crossed that 
 stream on Wellington’s right, and advanced to- 
 wards the Tormes, calculating upon cutting off his 
 antagonist’s communications with Salamanca and 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, which would materially distress 
 the allies. But Wellington’s columns were in 
 motion as soon as Marmont’s, and during part of 
 that day’s march the two hostile armies moved to- 
 wards the Tormes in parallel lines, and within 
 half-cannon-shot of each other, and in the finest 
 order imaginable.* Occasionally there was an in- 
 terchange of cannon-balls, and at every moment 
 each army was ready to form in order of battle. 
 Wellington’s determinations were to recross the 
 Tormes if Marmont should cross it; to cover 
 Salamanca as long as he could; not to give up 
 his communication with Ciudad Rodrigo; and, 
 above all, not to fight an action unless under very 
 advantageous circumstances, or unless it should 
 become absolutely necessary. He saw there was 
 nothing to be got or to be hoped for by advancing 
 into Castile. ‘The wheat harvest had not yet been 
 reaped ; and, even if he had had (what he had not) 
 an abundant supply of money, he could not have 
 procured anything from the country; for he could 
 not follow the example of the French, who were 
 laying waste whole districts in order to procure a 
 scanty subsistence of unripe wheat. To the British 
 general the keeping open of communications was 
 almost everything, while to the French general, 
 who had not to look to legitimate or regular sup- 
 plies, it was almost nothing. Both Soult and 
 
 * This striking spectacle has been described»by several British offi- 
 cers who were eye-witnesses :—- 
 
 A sight more glorious and more solemn war does not o!ten present. 
 Ninety thousand combatants marched side by side, as it were, without 
 collision, each host admiring the array of its opponent, all eyes eager 
 in their gaze, and all ears attent for the signal sound of battle.’’— 
 Major M. Sherer, Military Memvirs of the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 **When the two armies were thus put in motion, they were within 
 cannon-shot of each other, the French occupying higher ground than 
 the allies; but the space between them was lower than either of the 
 routes, and nothing intervened to obstruct a view of the columns of 
 enemies that thus continued to pursue their course without the least 
 obstacle to prevent their cominy into instantaneous contact; for the 
 slightest divergement from either line of march towards the other 
 would have brought them within musketry distance. I have always 
 considered this day's march as a very extraordinary scene, only to 
 have occurred from the generals opposed commanding highly dis- 
 ciplined armies, each at the same time pursuing an ebject from which 
 he was not for an instant to be abstracted by minor circumstances : 
 the French marshal pressing forward to arrive first on the Tormes, 
 Lord Wellington following his motions, and steadily adhering to the 
 defensive, until substantial reasons appeared to demand the adoption 
 ofa more decided conduct. ...... There were occasional slight skir- 
 mishes, brought on by the routes approaching each other, or by the 
 anxiety of French and allied stragglers to obtain right of pillage in 
 the unfortunate villages which lay in the intermediate space between 
 the two armies: otherwise, no spectator would have imagined that 
 the two immense moving columns that filled the whole country, and 
 seemed interminable—being lost to the eve in dust and distance— 
 comprised two armies animated with earnest desires for the destruc- 
 tion of each other, but who, although possessed of numerous artillery 
 and cavalry, were persevering on their way, as if by mutual consent 
 refraining from serious hostility, until arrived at the arena destined 
 for the great trial, to which either was now advancing with confidence 
 and without interruption.”—Colonel Leith Hay, Narrative of the 
 Peninsular War. 
 
 eae acer ee eee eee ceca ee a ne ann 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 605 
 
 Massena had contrived to live in Portugal when 
 all their communications had been cut off; and 
 now Marmont, for a certain time, could do as 
 much in Spain. Even now he had been sur- 
 rounded for the last six weeks, and scarcely even 
 a letter had reached him. ‘ But,” says Lord 
 Wellington, “‘the system of organised rapine and 
 plunder, and the extraordinary discipline so long 
 established in the French army, enable it to sub- 
 sist at the expense of the total ruin of the country 
 in which it has been placed; and I am not certain 
 that Marshal Marmont has not now at his com- 
 mand a greater quantity of provisions and supplies 
 of every description than we have.”* By ad- 
 vancing even the short distance which he had 
 advanced into Spain, his lordship had compelled 
 Marmont to abandon the Asturias by calling to his 
 aid Bonnet and every French soldier that was 
 there; he had afforded encouragement to the 
 Spaniards and an opportunity of recruiting fresh 
 armies; he had diverted the attention of the 
 French from several remaining provinces of the 
 kingdom, and had compelled them to leave Madrid 
 in avery weak state. On commencing his ad- 
 vance he was justified in calculating upon a chance 
 of out-manceuvring the French marshal, whose 
 conduct had not been calculated to impress him 
 with any very high notion of his military genius 
 or capacity; and any brilliant success on his part 
 was almost sure to compel Soult to raise the 
 blockade of Cadiz, if not to evacuate the whole of 
 Andalusia. 
 
 On the 21st of July both Marmont and Wel- 
 lington crossed the Tormes, the allied army passing 
 by the bridge of Salamanca, the French by the 
 fords higher up the river. The British general 
 placed his troops in a position the left of which 
 rested on the southern bank of the river and the 
 right on one of two steep hills which from their 
 similarity and contiguity are called Dos Arapiles. 
 The Trench marshal nearly faced him, stretching 
 his left towards the roads leading to Ciudad Rod- 
 rigo. Both armies were still very near Salamanca.t+ 
 
 In the course of the night Lord Wellington 
 received certain intelligence that General Clausel 
 had arrived at Pollos on the 20th with the cavalry 
 and horse artillery of the Army of the North; and 
 his lordship was quite certain that these troops 
 could join Marmont on the 22nd or 23rd at latest. 
 There was therefore no time to he lost; and his 
 lordship determined that, if circumstances should 
 not permit him to attack Marmont on the morrow 
 
 * Dispatch to Earl Bathurst (the new secretary-at-war) dated near 
 Salamanca, 21st July. 
 
 + The river ‘Tormes was not crossed before darkness had closed in ; 
 and our troops had scarcely reached their bivouaes ere a tremendous 
 thunderstorm commenced. The rain fell in torrents, the most vivid 
 flashinys of lightning were succeeded by instantaneous peals of thun- 
 der ;—a more violent crash of the elements had seldom been witnessed. 
 General Le Marchant’s brigade of cavalry had halted; the men, dis- 
 mounted, were either seated or lying on the ground, holding their 
 horses, which, alarmed by the thunder, snorted and started with such 
 violence, that many of them broke loose and galloped across the coun- 
 try in all directions. ‘This dispersion, and the frightened horses 
 passing without riders in a state of wildness, added to the awful 
 
 effect of the tempest; nor was the situation in which we were 
 
 otherwise placed one of great brightness.”—Colonel Leith Hay, 
 Narrative of the Peninsular War. 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SALAMANCA, 
 
 (the 22nd), he would move towards Ciudad Rod- 
 rigo without further loss of time, as the great differ- 
 ence in the numbers of cavalry might make a 
 march of manceuvre, such as he had been making 
 for the last four or five days, very difficult, and its 
 result doubtful.* Marmont was favoured by some 
 woods, which partially concealed his movements ; 
 on the morning of the 22nd some sharp skirmishing 
 took place, and the French succeeded in gaining 
 possession of the more distant Arapiles, by which 
 they would have it in their power to annoy and, 
 perhaps, turn the right of the British, and thus cut 
 them off from Ciudad Rodrigo. This rendered it 
 necessary for Wellington to extend his right en 
 potence to the heights behind the village of Ara- 
 piles, and to occupy that village with light infantry. 
 After a variety of evolutions and movements on the 
 part of Marmont, which seemed to denote that he 
 had scarcely formed a plan, and which lasted from 
 an early hour in the morning till two o’clock in the 
 afternoon; he opened a very heavy cannonade. This 
 artillery-firing did the allies very little damage, but 
 under cover of it Marmont extended his left, and 
 moved forward his troops, apparently with an 
 intention to embrace, by the position of his troops, 
 and by his fire, the post on that of the two Arapiles 
 which the allies possessed, and from thence to attack 
 and break Wellington’s line, or, at all events, to 
 render difficult any movement of the allies to their 
 right. “ But,” adds Lord Wellington, “‘ the exten- 
 sion of his line to his left, and its advance upon our 
 right, notwithstanding that his troops still occupied 
 * Dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated July 24th. 
 
 very strong ground, and his position was well 
 defended by cannon, gave me an opportunity of 
 attacking him, for which I had long been anxious.””* ~ 
 His lordship immediately strengthened his right — 
 and made an impetuous attack. This masterly — 
 movement, which in reality decided the battle, has — 
 been praised, and that almost unanimously, by — 
 French military writers. _Marmont’s extended left — 
 was soon turned and beaten on the heights, and his — 
 front, being attacked, gave way, and was driven from — 
 one height to another. Marshal Marmont, being — 
 severely wounded by a shell, gave up the com- 
 mand to General Bonnet. Wherever the French 
 attempted to make a stand they were charged with 
 the bayonet. Bonnet being wounded, the command — 
 devolved upon Clausel, who had arrived on the | 
 field of battle, and who now withdrew the troops | 
 with great skill and formed them into a new posi- | 
 tion nearly at right angles with their original one. | 
 His cavalry was numerous, his artillery very re 
 midable. But Lord Wellington directed a fresh | 
 attack, and our 6th division, ascending to Clausels | 
 position under a sweeping fire of artillery and | 
 musketry, gained the level ground, and _ the 
 charged with the bayonet; and, our 4th divisio 
 coming up at the opportune moment to aid 
 6th, the French abandoned the ground in g 
 confusion, and fled through the woods towards 
 Tormes. They were closely pursued by the Ista 
 Light divisions, by General W. Anson’s brigade 
 the 4th division, and by some squadrons of cava 
 under General Sir Stapleton Cotton; but it 
 %* Dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated July. 24th. 
 
~ Cuar. VITI.)] 
 
 now dark night, and many of the French escaped 
 under the cover of darkness who must otherwise 
 have been taken. The pursuit was renewed the 
 next morning at break of day and by the same 
 troops, only strengthened by some brigades of 
 cavalry which had joined during the night. The 
 cavalry came up with the French rear of cavalry 
 and infantry near La Serna, and, after a gallant 
 charge made by two brigades of dragoons, the 
 French cavalry fled, abandoning the infantry to 
 their fate; and the whole body of infantry, consist- 
 ing of three battalions, were made prisoners. During 
 their flight on the 23rd the enemy were joined by 
 the cavalry and artillery of the Army of the North, 
 which, through Wellington’s prompt decision, had 
 arrived too late to be of much use. On the night 
 of the 23rd Clausel’s head-quarters were at Flores 
 de Avila, not less than ten leagues from the field 
 of battle. Headlong as was this flight, they were, 
 however, followed very closely the whole way from 
 Salamanca to Valladolid. The loss of the French 
 in this remarkable battle was very severe: 3 gene- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 607 
 
 rals were killed, 4 wounded; 1 general, 6 field 
 officers, 130 officers of inferior rank, and nearly 
 7000 men were taken prisoners ; their total loss in 
 killed and wounded could not be ascertained, but 
 there was no disguising the fact that they left two 
 of their eagles and six colours in possession of the 
 British. hey also abandoned 20 pieces of artil- 
 lery, several ammunition waggons, &c. The field 
 of battle was very thick with dead. The allies 
 alone had 694 killed and 4270 wounded, out of 
 which number 2714 were British, 1552 Portu- 
 guese, and all the rest—that is to say—four— 
 Spaniards. The proportion of officers was very 
 great; General Le Marchant was killed, and Gene- 
 rals Beresford, Leith, Cole, Spry, and Cotton were 
 wounded.* 
 
 Hfaving crossed the Duero, Lord Wellingto’ 
 reached Valladolid the eighth day after the batt’ , 
 or on the 30th of July, Clausel clearing out of that 
 city on his lordship’s approach and continuing his 
 retreat towards Burgos, with almost incredible 
 speed. 
 
 VALLADOLID.—View by Laborde. 
 
 The British general entered Valladolid amidst 
 the rejoicings of the people, and there captured 17 
 pieces of artillery, considerable stores, and 800 sick 
 and wounded French, left behind by Clausel in 
 his haste. The priests would have made proces- 
 sions and have sung Te Deum, as had been done 
 at Salamanca after the battle, but Wellington had 
 no time to spare. King Joseph, with all the troops 
 he could muster at Madrid and pick up on his road 
 (in all he had about 20,000 men), had marched 
 from the Escurial on the 21st of July, the day 
 before the battle of Salamanca, to join Marmont. 
 On arriving at Arevalo Joseph, to his great asto- 
 nishment and consternation, heard of Marmont’s 
 
 defeat; and thereupon he changed his route, 
 marching off by the right to Segovia to attempt a 
 diversion in favour of Clausel and the retreating 
 army. Lord Wellington, therefore, quitted Valla- 
 dolid the day after he arrived at it, recrossed the 
 Duero, and marched against King Joseph, leaving 
 
 * Wellington Dispatches; Dispatch to Earl Bathurst, before cited. 
 
 General Sir Stapleton Cotton was neither wounded in action nor 
 even by the enemy: in the darkness of the night he was unfortunately 
 fired upon by one of our own sentries. In a later dispatch to the 
 secretary-at-war (dated July 2¢th) Wellington says, “ It is difficult to 
 judge of the exact loss of the French; but it is said to be, in all, 
 between 17,000 and 20,000 men. They all agree, that, if we had had 
 an hour more of daylight, the whole army would have been in our 
 hands. General. Clausel, who is wounded, now commands the army. 
 The only apprehension I have is, that, when the army of Portugal 
 and the army of the king shall have joined, they will be too strong for 
 usin cavalry. Iam convinced that their infantry will make no stand,” 
 
- 
 
 608 
 
 a force on the Duero to watch Clausel, whose 
 army was clearly rendered incapable of speedily 
 resuming an offensive attitude. His lordship’s 
 movements were again retarded by want of sup- 
 plies ;* but by great exertions some provisions were 
 brought up, and on the 6th of August he was enabled 
 to point the heads of his columns towards Madrid, 
 to bar his way to which city there was nothing 
 except Joseph Bonaparte and his weakened army 
 of the centre. Joseph, after falling back upon 
 St. Ildefonso, continued his retreat towards the 
 capital, On the 9th Lord Wellington had his head- 
 quarters at St. Ildefonso ; and on the two following 
 days his victorious troops, defiling by the passes 
 of Guadarama and Naval Serrada, crossed the 
 mountains, and descended into the plain on which 
 Madrid is situated. Joseph Bonaparte did little 
 more than flit through that city ; followed by the 
 French intruders of all classes and by their Spanish 
 partisans, he was now flying to the left bank of 
 the Tagus, to rally his army between Aranjuez and 
 Toledo. 
 
 On the 12th of August Lord Wellington entered 
 Madrid and was received with enthusiastic accla- 
 mations. He rode instantly through the town to 
 reconnoitre the defences of the Retiro palace, where 
 Joseph had left a garrison. On the evening of the 
 13th the outermost fortification of a triple line of 
 defence was forced; on the morning of the 14th 
 arrangements were completed for attacking the 
 second lines, and the French commandant surren- 
 dered. The troops found in the Retiro were made 
 prisoners of war, and an arsenal containing 20,000 
 stand of arms, 180 pieces of ordnance, and mili- 
 tary stores of every description, rewarded the victors. 
 
 Don Carlos de Espana, who had long accom- 
 panied Wellington in his marches, battles, or 
 sieges, was appointed Governor of Madrid, and the 
 new constitution which the Cortes had made at 
 Cadiz was proclaimed with great exultation and 
 ceremony. The entire population of Madrid poured 
 into the streets and squares; laurels and flowers 
 were scattered about with profusion ; tapestry and 
 carpets were hung from the balconies ; and, wher- 
 ever the British general appeared, green boughs and 
 flowers and shawls were strewn before his horse’s 
 feet, and the air was rent with shouts of ‘* Long 
 live the Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo! Long live Wel- 
 lington!” ‘To a deputation of the new council of 
 government who waited upon him a few days after- 
 wards with a congratulatory address, his lordship 
 replied—* The events of war are in the hands of 
 Providence.” + 
 
 * Between the battle of Salamanca and his lordship's arrival at Val- 
 ladolid, he stated, in a pressing letter to the noble secretary-at-war, that 
 he was in want of almost everything. After requesting that more 
 medical assistance might be sent out as soon as possible, he says,— 
 *¢T likewise request your lordship not to forget horses for the cavalry 
 and the artillery—and money. We are absolutely bankrupt. The 
 troops are now five months in arrears, instead of being one month in 
 advance. The staff have not been paid since February ; the muleteers 
 not since June, 18113 and we are in debt in all parts of the country. 
 I am obliged to take the money seut to me by my brother for the Spani- 
 ards, in order to give a fortnight’s pay to my own troops, who are 
 really suffering for want of moncy.”— Letter to Earl Bathurst, dated 
 July 28th. 
 
 + Major Sherer. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 In consequence of this bold movement upon 
 Madrid, Marshal Soult raised the blockade of Cadiz, 
 destroying the works which the French had con- 
 structed with an enormous expenditure of money 
 and labour, and, abandoning the whole of western 
 Andalusia, he concentrated his forces in Granada. 
 But the French abandoned these famed lines with 
 so much haste, that they could not destroy the half 
 of their stores and other materted ; 30 gun-boats 
 and some hundreds of pieces of ordnance, includ- 
 ing some cannon of portentous length which had 
 been cast expressly for the siege of Cadiz, fell into 
 the hands of the Spaniards, and were found to be, 
 in good part, but little injured.* Soult’s retreat 
 was very disastrous: his rear guard was attacked 
 by an allied force of English and Spanish, who 
 issued from Cadiz, drove it from San Lucar, and 
 took Seville by assault, although eight battalions 
 had been left to maintain that city. Our portion 
 of the assailing force consisted only of a British 
 regiment under Colonel Skerrett, the hero of Tarifa. 
 In his march to Granada by Carmona Soult suffered 
 further loss from excessive heat, fatigue, scarcity, 
 and the occasional attacks of armed bands of pea- 
 santry, General Hill, in the meanwhile, had 
 advanced from the Guadiana to the Tagus, con- 
 necting his operations with those of Lord Welling- 
 ton. On Hill’s approach Joseph Bonaparte aban- 
 doned the line of the Tagus: and fell back from 
 Toledo to Almanza in Murcia, to keep himself in 
 communication with Soult in Granada and Suchet 
 on the borders of Valencia and Catalonia. By the 
 close of August Hill occupied Toledo, Ypez, and 
 Aranjuez, thus covering the right of the allied main 
 army, and guarding all the roads which led from 
 the south to Madrid. 
 
 The situation of Lord Wellington in the Spanish 
 capital was, however, very critical. A very impor- 
 tant part of the grand scheme for the year which 
 he had proposed to ministers (who had agreed 
 thereto), and which he had arranged with his usual 
 nice attention to details, had been very imperfectly 
 executed. He had been promised that an Anglo- 
 Sicilian expedition should be sent from Sicily early 
 in the summer to the eastern coast of Spain, and in 
 sufficient force to clear that coast, if not the whole 
 of Catalonia, Valencia, and Murcia. Much less 
 than this would have compelled the French to with- 
 draw altogether to the Ebro. But, after the plan 
 had been settled and agreed to, there arose various 
 misunderstandings and differences of opinion. Lord 
 William Bentinck, now our commander-in-chief 
 in Sicily, would have preferred employing the 
 Anglo-Sicilian expedition on the neighbouring coast 
 of Italy, which had been left weak by the depar- 
 ture of Murat for the Russian campaign, and he 
 could not be brought to expect any successful result 
 from the operations of this army from Sicily on the 
 eastern coast of Spam. ‘This last opinion appears 
 to have been infused into the Anglo-Sicilian forces ; 
 
 *In the summer of 1815 some of these fine, long French guns 
 
 were lying on the sands at the edge of Cadiz bay. ‘The lazy 
 Spaniards had left them there to honeycomb and spoil. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 609 
 
 LARA? be 
 
 Ce, 
 
 ~ 
 
 zy ies 
 
 =" 
 “yl 
 
 “SLB NN 
 We 
 
 MADRID. 
 
 and when an army starts upon an expedition with- 
 out hope of success it is pretty sure to fail. Lord 
 William Bentinck, moreover, was very busy in 
 making a constitution for Sicily, for which the 
 Sicilians were scarcely more fit than the Cor- 
 sicans had been for the constitution framed for them 
 by Sir Gilbert Elliot. Wellington expressed his 
 regret that his lordship should have changed his 
 opinion after the measure had been proposed to 
 government, and frankly told him what he expected 
 from a discouraged army. “ If,”’ said he, ‘‘ I did 
 not hope that General Maitland (the officer who had 
 been appointed to the command) and the staff and 
 other officers of the Sicilian army would alter their 
 opinion upon a nearer view of what they have to 
 accomplish, and its effect upon the whole of this 
 contest, I should despair of any success from per- 
 sons coming on a service holding such opinions.” 
 He knew rather more than Lord William knew of 
 what could be done in Spain by a proper Anglo- 
 Sicilian force adequately commanded and supplied, 
 and he told his lordship that he was quite certain 
 that such an armament could succeed in driving the 
 French out of Tarragona, and in opening through 
 that city a communication between the British fleet 
 and the Spanish army in the east—which in itself 
 would be a service of the highest importance ; that 
 he was likewise quite certain that it could take 
 the city of Valencia, and thereby give to the 
 Spaniards and deprive the French of an important 
 resource ; that the war would revive again in the 
 province of Valencia, and that if matters were well 
 FOOT Vis. 
 
 arranged in that quarter the enemy would never 
 regain possession of the city of Valencia. “ But,” 
 added Wellington, “if I should be mistaken in my 
 expectation of success in these operations, I cannot 
 be mistaken in their effect upon my own. I have 
 lately beaten Marshal Marmont in a general action, 
 and have pursued him beyond the Duero. The 
 king is at Segovia with a corps of 12,000 or 15,000 
 men, and my object is to prevent him and Marmont 
 from joining. But either the French must lose all 
 their communications with their troops m the north 
 of Spain, or they must oblige me to withdraw 
 towards the frontiers of Portugal. They cannot 
 effect this last object without bringing against me 
 Suchet’s army, or the army of Soult, or both. I 
 cannot but think it very important that the atten- 
 tion of Suchet should be diverted from his supposed 
 operations against me by the operations of the Sici- 
 lian army, which will go to such important objects 
 as Tarragona and Valencia. I should think Suchet 
 would be diverted from me by the operations of the 
 Sicilian army, if they are in time, because I find 
 that Sir Home Popham, with a few hundred marines 
 and the guerillas of the north, has succeeded in 
 preventing General Caffarelli from detaching any- 
 thing to Marmont’s assistance, excepting cavalry, 
 notwithstanding the positive order of the king; 
 and that he had obeyed those orders so far as to 
 order troops to march to Marmont, which, upon 
 hearing of Popham’s operations, he countermanded. 
 Then, if Suchet’s attention should not be diverted 
 
 ‘from me, and the French should become too strong 
 
 2m 
 
610 | 
 
 for me in Old Castile, I shall at least have the satis- 
 faction of reflecting, while I am retiring, that Gene- 
 ral Maitland’s progress will be unopposed, and that 
 we shall take Tarragona and Valencia.’”* 
 
 Lord Wellington had certainly counted, with as 
 much confidence as he ever allowed himself to place 
 upon arrangements not wholly under his own con- 
 trol, upon this promised co-operation on the eastern 
 coast. The most urgent solicitations for aid had 
 also been sent to the British government from this 
 part of Spain, and none of the Spanish people had 
 proved themselves more valiant in the field and 
 more deserving of assistance than the brave, alert, 
 and persevering Catalonians, who, from the begin- 
 ning of this war of independence, had been left to 
 struggle for themselves, with no other help than 
 occasional and stinted supplies of arms and money, 
 and the assistance of a few British ships of war. 
 An earlier and more strenuous aid might have pre- 
 vented the fall of all or most of the fortresses on 
 that coast. 
 
 When Wellington wrote his earnest letter to 
 Lord William Bentinck, explaining all that an 
 Anglo-Sicilian expedition might do, an expedition of 
 that kind was not only on its way but within sight 
 of the eastern coast of Spain, But, most unhap- 
 pily, the force sent down from Sicily was alto- 
 gether inadequate to the object in view: it con- 
 sisted of only 6000 men, a considerable part of 
 whom were ill-disciplined Sicilians and such other 
 foreigners as could be enlisted in the Medi- 
 terranean; there was no cavalry; the quantity 
 of ordnance was miserably small, and there were 
 neither proper siege implements nor men skilled 
 in the use of them. General Maitland, who led 
 the expedition, could scarcely be called a com- 
 mander-in-chief, for Lord William Bentinck for- 
 bade him to risk the loss of his division lest Sicily 
 itself should be in danger (of which there was not 
 the remotest chance, as the south of Italy and 
 nearly the whole of that peninsula had been almost 
 stripped of troops for the’exigencies of the Russian 
 war), and, toavoid mischief from the winter season 
 —such, we suppose, as the loss on the coast of 
 transports and means of returning to Sicily — Mait- 
 land was further instructed by Bentinck to quit 
 the Spanish coast early in the autumn. ‘The slo- 
 venly, inefficient state of our transport service might 
 reasonably excite apprehensions. The last legacy 
 of Harry Dundas (Lord Melville) te his country had 
 not been turned to any very good account; for, 
 though a few men-of-war had been converted into 
 troop-ships, with proper officers, and proper disci- 
 pline on board, the conveyance of troops, stores, &c. 
 was still left to the vessels hired out to government 
 by merchants and private speculators mainly, and 
 the transport board, which ought to have vigilantly 
 superintended these matters, was as indolent and 
 short-sighted, and (through its inferior agents) as 
 corrupt and prone to jobbing as ever; and through 
 these causes, and this disgraceful condition of the 
 transport service, the lives of our troops and the 
 
 * Letter to Lord William Bentinck, in Dispatches. 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 costly materials of war continued to be exposed to 
 frequent peril.* 
 
 Towards the end of July, some days before Lord 
 Wellington commenced his march from Valladolid 
 to the Spanish capital, General Maitland and his 
 Anglo-Sicilians arrived at Port Mahon in Minorca, 
 exciting the hopes of the Spaniards and the fears of 
 the French. In the neighbouring island of Majorca 
 a so-called Spanish division had been formed; and 
 it was now determined that this force should be 
 joined to General Maitland’s. But such a rabble 
 had scarcely been seen in modern days as this 
 Majorcan division: it was composed of deserters or 
 prisoners taken from the French, of criminals who 
 had been transported from Catalonia and Valencia, 
 of invalids discharged from the hospitals, of runa- 
 gates who had fled from their colours, and being 
 caught afterwards had been chained or bound and 
 shipped off for the islands. About 4500 of these 
 fellows were reported to be in a state of efficient 
 discipline, and were clothed and armed at our 
 expense, and embarked to accompany Maitland’s 
 motley force of 6000 men, From Port Mahon 
 Maitland proceeded to the coast of Catalonia; and 
 on the Ist of August the fleet anchored in the Bay 
 of Blanes near the town of Tosa, where the French 
 had a strong redoubt. On that and the following 
 day demonstrations of landing were made; but 
 Maitland, after some conferences with the Spanish 
 officers and others, deemed it would be rash to land 
 
 * “T left Palermo on board a large transport, that was conveying a 
 detachment of British troops to Messina. We proceeded well enough 
 with a fair wind and a smooth sea, but on the third evening a contrary 
 breeze obliged us to anchor under the Faro point. At midnight a vio- 
 lent gale caused the vessel to drive, and before sail could be got upon 
 her we were close upon Scylla, and the French batteries were blazing 
 awayatus. For three days and nights we were knocking aboutat the 
 mercy of the winds and waves in the Gulf of St. Euphemia; at times 
 so close to the shore, that we expected the next heave of the sea would 
 dash us on the rocks. Women and children were screaming, passen- 
 gers lamenting and taking leave of each other, abandoning all hope 
 of safety. The crew, too small for the vessel at any time, worn out 
 with three days and nights of incessant toil, refused to work, and lay 
 down upon deck, saying that they might as well visit his infernal] 
 majesty’s abode to-night as to-morrow morning. Unfortunately, they 
 were most of them drafted from a man-of-war for the purpose of con- 
 veying the vessel round, and, without an officer, were quite beyond 
 control. When all hope was lost a sudden shift of wind saved us, and 
 enabled us to reach Messina in the course of the next day. This was 
 a good lesson for the future, never to trust myself at sea on board a 
 large vessel, with little ballast, sent off in a‘ hurry on what was termed 
 a mere coasting voyage. So light was she that a very moderate breeze 
 placed her on her beam-ends, and this was the cause of all our disas- 
 ters: as I learned afterwards that, could we have safely carried suffi- 
 cient sail, we might have entered Messina at first without difficulty, 
 instead of coming to anchor. This is only one instance of the —_ 
 in which our transport service is conducted. Vessels are permitted to 
 remain in harbour for long periods, and, when their seryices are 
 required at a moment, it is found that they have not people on board 
 to navigate them, although their owners are pocketing, monthly, the 
 full and exorbitant pay for vessels well found and provided in evay 
 respect : thus is John Bull duped of his money, and not only that, but 
 the lives of the troops and safety of the stores are recklessly risked — 
 on board vessels actually unfit for sea. Iam told that it is not 
 
 iii 
 
 = 
 
 ee ee 
 
 { 
 
 common for one ship’s crew to serve for eight or ten vessels, at the ” 
 monthly muster by the agent, or, if he happens to be strict and de- _ 
 
 sirous of performing his duty to the government, the captains have 
 the trouble and expense of providing crews for the occasion that are 
 
 dismissed immediately the inspection is over, The grand point with 
 
 the transport gentry is to keep well with the agent by performing 
 various little services, such as employing their carpenters in making 
 
 *” 
 
 pt 
 Ay 
 { 
 his furniture, or fitting up his house, presenting him with a be) 
 ve 
 
 that may have taken his fancy, &c. &c. This of course cannot be 
 considered as bribery, but mere marks of their esteem.” 
 One of our agents for transports was presented with a very hand- 
 some yacht of considerable burthen, and was imprudent enough to — 
 invite the head of the government to attend the launch, and to 
 request him to name the vessel. ; 
 (Sir Thomas Maitland), with a sarcastic smile and a significant look — 
 at the craft, said—* Why, Mr. —., I think we cannot do better — 
 than call her the ‘ Plunder,’”—J£S, Journal of a Friend, 
 
 i 
 
 > 
 
 The chief, a keen old Scotchman | 
 
 i 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 in a province where Suchet might soon collect 
 22,000 well disciplined infantry and several 
 squadrons of good cavalry; and that to attempt 
 the siege of Tarragona, or of any other consider- 
 able place, with the means he had would be mad- 
 ness. Admiral Sir Edward Pellew strongly urged 
 a descent, and Captain Codrington, who had long 
 been commanding a squadron off that coast, insisted 
 that Maitland was deceived by false information, 
 that the Spaniards who had communicated with him 
 from shore were traitors. A council of war, how- 
 ever, agreed with Maitland, and that general, after 
 two or three changes of plans or purpose, deter- 
 mined to run down the coast to Alicante in Valen- 
 cia, an important city, the safety of which was 
 endangered in consequence of a defeat which the 
 Spanish general J. O’ Donnel had recently sustained 
 in its neighbourhood, in a rash attempt to drive the 
 van-guard of Suchet’s army back upon the Xucar,* 
 The hearts of the Catalonian patriots died within 
 them as they saw the British fleet quitting their 
 shores. The weather was bad, the winds were con- 
 trary, and there was some of the usual confusion 
 in the transport service; but on the evening of the 
 9th of August the fleet anchored in the capacious 
 and safe Bay of Alicante, and on the following day 
 the troops were landed. Suchet now withdrew his 
 van-guard, which was within sight of Alicante, to 
 the Xucar, where he constructed a bridge of boats 
 and a téte du pont. Maitland, with his Anglo- 
 Sicilians and his Majorcan division, occupied the 
 country from which the enemy retired; but in less 
 than a week he received intelligence that Suchet 
 had been joined by King Joseph with a part of the 
 army of the Centre, and that Soult was in rapid 
 march with his army of Andalusia to join the king 
 and Suchet; and thereupon he found it necessary 
 to evacuate all the country he had recovered, and 
 to fall back to Alicante. Within that town and 
 some works in front of it the Anglo-Sicilian expe- 
 dition was cooped up, without the chance of effect- 
 ing any powerful diversion in favour of Wellington. 
 
 There were other potent reasons which rendered 
 his lordship’s prolonged occupation of the open 
 capital impossible. Though he was in the centre 
 of Spain, there existed no Spanish force upon which 
 he could depend for field operations, The army of 
 Galicia under Santocildes, which was now considered 
 the most effective of the Spanish corps, after taking 
 Astorga and advancing towards Zamora, had been 
 beaten and driven back by Clauscel, with the rem- 
 nant of Marmont’s army of Portugal; Ballasteros, 
 who had kept together a force in Andalusia, haught- 
 ily refused to be directed by Lord Wellington ; 
 O’Donnel’s defeated army was flying through 
 Murcia without equipments, and without disci- 
 
 line, and, on the whole surface of Spain, there was 
 nothing that, by any strainmg of language, could 
 be called an army, or, at least, a disciplined army, 
 in the field. Bands of guerrillas there were, but 
 
 *In this wretched affair, O’Donnel is said to have lost more 
 -than 4000 men, and to have seen the fugitives of his army throw 
 away 10,000 muskets in their flight. If he had not risked this 
 battle, Alicante would have been in no danger. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 611 
 
 some of these seemed almost as ready to plunder 
 friends as foes—to fall upon English convoys as 
 upon French.* Lord Wellington, on his first 
 arrival at Madrid, had been hailed with Vivas 
 and expressions of good will, but no active exertions 
 were made in the common cause; and the Vivas 
 grew fainter as the Madrilenos reflected on the possi- 
 bility of the French returning, and the good will 
 grew cool when they were called upon to furnish sup- 
 plies and assistance to the allied army. As in every 
 other city of Spain, and as in every place on the 
 Continent where we set foot, it was believed that 
 the English were made of gold, and that wherever 
 they came they must bring not only arms and 
 ammunition, stores, clothing, and food for the 
 armies of the country as well as for their own, but 
 also an inexhaustible fund of gold and silver to 
 scatter among the natives: and now whenever 
 money was asked for from the Spaniards they appear 
 to have thought that the predictions of Bonaparte 
 and of our own opposition were verified, and that 
 England was becoming bankrupt. But, apart from 
 this unfavourable conviction which went to injure 
 our credit, very few of these Castilians had any 
 money to give or lend. Four years of French mili- 
 tary occupation and forced military contribution 
 never left full coffers anywhere. ‘The British com- 
 mander-in-chief could not realize at Madrid, by 
 drafts upon the British treasury, a sum of money 
 adequate to the most pressing wants of his army.t+ 
 It was therefore in vain to think of remaining at 
 Madrid, where, if the allied army had not first been 
 starved, three or four French armies, a total of more 
 than 100,000 men, must have closed round it and 
 cut off all retreat, The alternative left to Welling- 
 ton was either to move to the north against Clausel, 
 or to move to the south against Soult. He deter- 
 mined on the first of these movements, hoping that, 
 although Clausel had now received large reinforce- 
 ments, he should be able to give him some such 
 lesson as he had given to him and Marmont at 
 Salamanca—the doleful remembrances of which 
 battle were known to have taken all their con- 
 fidence out of the French infantry. Leaving two 
 divisions under Hill near Madrid, his lordship 
 marched with the remainder on the Ist of Sep- 
 tember back to Valladolid, which he re-entered 
 on the 7th. Continuing his march towards Burgos 
 he fell in with the Spanish army of Galicia, which 
 was found to be less than 10,000 men, undis- 
 ciplined, ragged, and deficient in equipments. 
 On the 19th of September the allied army en- 
 tered Burgos, the French falling back to Bri- 
 viesca, but leaving 2000 men, under General 
 Dubreton, in the castle of Burgos. The posses- 
 sion of that fort was necessary for the security 
 of the allied army in its present advanced and 
 insecure position, and Wellington directed it to be 
 
 * It is related that on the first day of Maitland’s march from Ali- 
 cante towards the Xucar a convoy with six days’ supply was attacked 
 by an armed banditti called a guerrilla, and that the convoy was plun- 
 dered or dispersed and lost.—Colonel Napier, Hist. of War i the 
 Peninsula. 
 
 + Wellington Dispatches. 
 
612 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 BurGos.—From Swinbourn’s Picturesque Tour in Spain. 
 
 invested forthwith, though he was ill furnished with 
 siege artillery, and well knew that the castle, strong 
 by its natural position, had been fortified by the 
 French with great care. A horn-work on a hill which 
 commanded some of the works of the castle was 
 carried by assault. The fort itself was battered, but 
 with little effect. Sapping was then resorted to, with 
 such bad sappers and miners as his lordship had. 
 On the 29th, a breach having been effected in the 
 outer wall by the explosion of a mine, an attempt 
 was made to storm it, but failed. On the 4th of 
 October, another breach having been effected by 
 the same process of mining and exploding, another 
 storm was attempted: this succeeded, but still the 
 besiegers were only established within the exterior 
 line of the works of the castle. In two bold sorties 
 the French materially injured the works of the 
 allies, and thus threw them back in their operations. 
 But what most retarded these operations was a want 
 of ammunition. At last, on the 18th of October, 
 a breach was made by mining in the second line, 
 and orders were given to storm again. ‘The assault 
 was gallantly made and maintained by a detach- 
 ment of our German Legion and a detachment of 
 the Guards; but the French brought such a fire to 
 bear upon them from the third line and from the 
 body of the castle, and attacked them with numbers 
 so superior, before they could be supported, that the 
 assailants were compelled to retire with considerable 
 loss. Dubreton had made a brave stand, but no 
 bravery or skill could have saved the castle in the 
 
 face of so bold and so persevering an enemy, But, | 
 
 as Wellington was preparing to renew his assault, 
 the French Army of the North advanced to raise 
 the siege; and at the same moment he learned 
 from General Hill that the armies of the South and 
 Centre, or those of Soult and King Joseph, being 
 united, mustered 70,000 strong, and were ad- 
 vancing from Valencia towards the Tagus, and that 
 General Ballasteros had not assumed a position in 
 La Mancha which the Spanish government, at his 
 lordship’s suggestion, had ordered him to take 
 up, in order to retard the enemy’s movements 
 towards the Tagus.* ‘The British commander was 
 therefore under the painful necessity of abandoning 
 the siege of the castle of Burgos, and of effecting: 
 a retrograde movement in order to draw near to 
 Hill, who at the approach of Soult retired slowly 
 towards Salamanca. On the 21st of October the 
 siege was raised, and the allied army retired in good 
 order to Palencia, where it was jomed by a fresh 
 brigade from England under Lord Dalhousie, who 
 had landed at Corufta and marched through the 
 northern provinces. The French army from the ~ 
 north, by this time under the command of Souham, 
 
 was now close upon the allies, and repeatedly 
 
 attacked and harassed their rear-guard until they 
 
 reached the Duero at Tudela, when Souham halted, © 
 waiting to be joined by Soult from the south. 
 
 Wellington halted not, but, crossing the Duero on 
 
 the 29th of October, continued his retreat to the 
 
 * Ballasteros behaved in this shameless mauner out of spite and 
 
 jealousy, or because the Spanish regency and cortes had offered Lord 
 
 Wellington the chief command of the Spanish armies.—Déspatch to 
 Earl Bathurst. 
 
Cua. VITI.] 
 
 Tormes, being joined, on his way thither, on the 
 3rd of November by Hill. After getting across 
 the Duero and effecting his junction with Hili, his 
 lordship congratulated himself on his success. 
 *“* L assure you,” he wrote to the secretary-at-war, 
 “that, considering the numbers of the enemy 
 (among whom is Caffarelli’s infantry, as well as 
 his cavalry), and considering the state of the 
 Spanish troops, the great proportion of foreign 
 troops in the divisions which I have with me, and 
 their general weakness, and the weakness of our 
 cavalry, I think I have escaped from the worst 
 military situation I was ever in.” * By the 8th of 
 November his lordship had taken up his old posi- 
 tion on the heights of San Cristoval, in front of 
 Salamanca. On the 10th Souham and Soult joined 
 their forces, which were now estimated at ‘75,000 
 foot and 12,000 cavalry, while Wellington’s army, 
 counting Spaniards and all, did not exceed 48,000 
 foot and 5000 cavalry. The two French generals 
 now adyanced; and, on the 14th, finding nearly 
 all the fords of the river practicable, they crossed 
 the Tormes in force some three leagues above 
 Salamanca. Lord Wellington immediately broke 
 up from San Cristoval and ordered his troops to- 
 wards the two Arapiles ; and as soon as he had 
 ascertained the direction of the enemy’s march 
 from the fords, he moved with the second division 
 of infantry, and all the cavalry he could collect, 
 to attack them, leaving Hill, with some divisions, 
 to protect this movement, and posting the third 
 division in reserve on the Arapiles, to secure 
 the possession of those important positions, the 
 stronger of which had been held by the French 
 in the battle of Salamanca. The enemy, however, 
 were already too strong and too strongly posted 
 to be attacked, so that his lordship confined him- 
 self to a smart cannonade of their cavalry, under 
 cover of which he reconnoitred their position. In 
 the evening he withdrew all his troops to the 
 heights of the Arapiles. In the course of that 
 night and the following morning,t having seen 
 that Soult and Souham were determined not to 
 attack him on the ground he had chosen, the field 
 of his former victory, he moved the greatest 
 part of the troops through Salamanca, detaching 
 General Sir Edward Paget, with a division of in- 
 fantry, to secure the passage of a stream and watch 
 the movements of the enemy, who were expected 
 to make an immediate attempt to cut off his lord- 
 ship’s communications either with Salamanca or 
 
 * Dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated Rueda, 31st October. 
 
 + ‘‘ Ou the 15th, at day-light, the whole of our army was in order 
 of battle; our division was posted behind the Arapiles, and every one 
 anticipated a fierce and general engagement. The French had 90,000 
 men, and nearly 200 pieces of artillery. . . . . Soult, however, had 
 no intention of fighting ; he declined the challenge, manceuvred on 
 our right, and, threatening our communication with Portugal, com- 
 
 elled us to retreat, It is evident that Lord Wellington, who, from 
 the 8th to the 15th, kept all his forces concentrated on the Tormes, 
 anxiously desired and expected a general engagement. Indeed, it 
 has been said, and is probable, that on the morning of the 15th, could 
 he have supposed that Soult would refuse fighting, he would him- 
 self have been the assailant, and would have marched boldly on 
 the heights of Mozarbes. It was not until ten o’clock in the fore- 
 noon that the retreat was ordered, which, had it been the original 
 intention of his lordship, would, no doubt, have been entered upon 
 six hours earlier.”—Recollections of the Peninsula, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 i 
 
 with Ciudad Rodrigo. On the morning of the 
 15th Wellington found the French still fortifying 
 the position they had taken up the preceding day 
 on crossing the Tormes—so cautious had their 
 defeats and reverses rendered them ; but they were 
 also moving masses of cavalry and some infantry to 
 their left, as if with the intention of cutting off the 
 allies from Ciudad Rodrigo. Wellington there- 
 upon determined to move rapidly upon Ciudad 
 Rodrigo; and, putting the allied army i march in 
 three columns, and crossing the Zurguen, which 
 Sir Edward Paget had guarded, and then turning 
 and passing the enemy’s left flank, he encamped 
 that night on the Valmuza. On the following day, 
 the 16th, the French followed his lordship’s move- 
 ment with immense masses of cavalry, and a con- 
 siderable body of infantry; but they did not at- 
 tempt to press upon his rear. On the 17th they 
 took advantage of the ground to cannonade our 
 light division, which formed the rear-guard, and 
 which was now commanded by General Alten, on 
 its passage over the river, and caused it some loss. 
 In the course of the same day Sir Edward Paget, 
 who had ridden to the rear to discover the cause 
 of some delay in the march, was surprised, when 
 on the top of a hill, with a spy-glass in his hand, 
 and was taken prisoner by some Italian cavalry 
 which had followed Joseph Bonaparte from Naples.* 
 On the 1Sth the French kept at a cautious dis- 
 tance, and Lord Wellington, without let or hin- 
 drance, established his head-quarters at Ciudad 
 Rodrigo. Soult, in fact, after he had crossed the 
 Tormes, made no serious movement, being called 
 upon by Joseph to send some troops into Old 
 Castile. On the 19th part of the allied army 
 crossed the Agueda; all the rest crossed on the 
 20th. The main body of the British and Portu- 
 vuese were then distributed in their old canton- 
 ments within the frontier of Portugal, between the 
 Agueda and the Coa; aud Hill’s corps moved into 
 Spanish Estremadura, into cantonments near Coria, 
 and towards the ‘Tagus. 
 
 During the retreat from Burgos the allies had 
 suffered severely from fatigue and privation ;_ for 
 the greater part of the time the rain fell in torrents, 
 and the weather was worse than Lord Wellington 
 had ever seen it; the roads were knee-deep with 
 mud, the rivers and swollen rivulets breast-deep ; 
 hardly anything im the shape of provisions could 
 be obtained from that hungry, desolated country ; 
 a great part of the army had neither bread nor 
 biscuit, the only sustenance being a scanty ration 
 of lean tough beef, which the men were obliged to 
 eat half raw, from the difficulty of lighting fires in 
 
 * We well knew the Italian officer who had the principal share in 
 this capture. It was Don Mare-Antonio Colonna, son of the Prince 
 of Stigliano, a branch of the most ancient and noble family of the 
 Colonna, long setiled in the kingdom of Naples. He discovered, with 
 his glass,an English general officer on the top of a hill, and, galloping 
 to the spot, surrounded the base of the hill. He used to give a graphic 
 and touching account of the behaviour of the stately and gallant 
 veteran, who had already lost an arm, and was very short-sighted. 
 Sir Edward, upon tirst seeing the dragoons, put spurs to his horse, 
 and would have galloped down the hill, but Colonna cried out that 
 it was surrounded, that escape was impossible, that the attempt 
 
 might lead to destruction; and, as he closed upon him with several 
 troopers, Sir Edward presented his sword and surrendered, 
 
 LR 
 
— 
 
 614 
 
 their wet bivouacs, and from the scarcity of fuel.* 
 Such had been the cleanliness of Spanish quarters, 
 that nearly all our tender-skinned men were bring- 
 ing back cutaneous disorders, and all the rest were 
 eaten up by vermin even as though they had passed 
 through one of Pharaoh’s plagues. The poorest 
 and dullest follower of the camp was sensible of 
 the ill-conduct of the Spanish generals’ and other 
 atithorities, and none could be blind to the care 
 with which the Spanish people concealed their pro- 
 visions, or to the greediness with which they over- 
 charged every morsel of food or drop of wine they 
 supplied to the troops who were fighting for them. 
 On leaving Salamanca some of our retreating sol- 
 diers had been savagely murdered by Spaniards of 
 that town. Many of our men, vowing that their 
 friends were worse than their foes, beat the Spanish 
 peasants and plundered their abodes wherever the 
 opportunity offered; and other and worse irregu- 
 larities were committed. Lord Wellington, how- 
 ever, had no hesitation in attributing these evils 
 chiefly to the inattention and inexperience of the 
 officers of the regiments; and, a few days after he 
 had taken up his quarters behind the Agueda, he 
 issued a severe admonitory letter to officers com- 
 manding divisions and brigades. He herein de- 
 clared that in the late campaign the discipline of 
 his army had become relaxed to a greater degree 
 than he had witnessed in any army with which he 
 had ever served, or of which he had ever read. t 
 This was exaggerating the fact and being over 
 severe, and it was so felt—and very deeply too— 
 by the whole army; but the severity of the censure 
 (which passed over the common soldiers to fall 
 upon their officers) was evidently calculated to 
 produce a beneficial impression upon many of the 
 
 * The English soldier, moreover, has no genius for cooking, and 
 the prescribed mess arrangements of our troops were very bad. The 
 French soldiers, on the other hand, cultivated the science of cookery, 
 for which their nation has so decided a genius, and their cooking ar- 
 rangements were infinitely better than ours. Lord Wellington dwelt 
 upon this difference with some naiveté in the circular letter he ad- 
 dressed to commanding officers after the retreat. ‘‘ In regard to the 
 food of the soldier,” said his lordship, ‘‘ I have frequently observed 
 and lamented in the late campaign the facility and celerity with which 
 the French soldiers cook in comparison with those of our army.”’ 
 And, after this observation, he read the. commanding officers a good 
 lesson about a division of labour, in cutting and bringing in wood, in 
 fetching water, in preparing the meat to be cooked, &e. &c. Thus, 
 like a truly great man, he continued to attend to every detail, consi- 
 dering nothing too little for his attention which contributed to the well- 
 being and efficiency of his army. 
 
 We fear, however, that, through the total want of the culinary genius, 
 our soldiers still require almost everything to be done for them and to 
 their hands, or almost to have their victuals, ready cooked, put into 
 their mouths. 
 
 One little reform, if it has not been adopted, might be found easy. 
 The French soldiers mess by twos and threes, and use small pots or 
 kettles, which are light to carry and easy to make boil: these kettles 
 were all made of copper. The English, at that time, messed by tens, 
 and used large heavy camp kettles made of iron, and which required 
 a large fire. 
 
 + See circular letter in Dispatches, dated Freneda, 28th November. 
 —In this eireular the commander-in-chief said that the army had suf- 
 fered no privation which eould justify the least irregularity, or account 
 
 ‘for the losses which had been-sustained. An officer serving in General 
 
 Hill’s division says: *‘ lam convinced that his lordship was never 
 made acquainted with the extent of our privations........ Neither 
 were the irregularities, though great, by any means general: there 
 were corps, and many corps, who maintained their discipline, and 
 whose casualties were comparatively trifling and most satisfactorily 
 accounted for.”— Recollections of the Peninsula. 
 
 Another officer, who acted as aide-de-camp to General Hill during 
 this retreat, says that our troops, in Sir John Moore’s retreat 
 through Galicia to Coruiia, were never so long without a supply 
 of provisions as were some corps of Lord Wellington’s army on the 
 present occasion; but he also says that the marches in the present 
 case were never of an unreasonable length.—Colonel Leith Hay. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 “ fine gentlemen” of the army, who still consi- 
 dered such details as soldiers’ fuel, flesh-pots, and 
 dinner-hours unworthy the attention of such high- 
 bred gallants: and, when the commanding officers, 
 the colonels and majors of regiments, and captains 
 of companies, neglected these duties, they were 
 pretty sure to be neglected by the subalterns, and 
 to be very indifferently performed by the non-com- 
 missioned officers. 
 
 Apparently, one of the very first men that raised 
 an indecent outcry against Wellington for not keep- 
 ing Madrid, and for not taking the castle of Burgos, 
 was Ballasteros, whose conduct had made the re- 
 treat from the latter place so indispensable, and 
 whose pride and jealousy had gone far to commit 
 the whole of his lordship’s army. Fortunately the 
 Spanish government took the command of its army 
 from that arrogant blockhead, and gave it to Ge- 
 neral Virues; yet Ballasteros was described by 
 Wellington as the only man among the Spaniards 
 who ever did anything! Many people in England, 
 particularly of the opposition party, echoed the 
 outcry of the Spanish general, sat in judgment on 
 the campaign, and, not satisfied with representing. 
 it as a ruinous and a disgraceful failure in Spain, 
 derived from it the opportunity of repeating the 
 old prediction that Wellington must be driven out of 
 Portugal. His lordship’s own brief and manly words 
 are the best defence or explanation of his conduct. 
 * T am much afraid,”’ said he, “ from what I see 
 in the newspapers, that the public will be much 
 disappointed at the result of the campaign, notwith- 
 standing that it is, in fact, the most successful 
 campaign in all its circumstances, and has pro- 
 duced for the common cause more important results, 
 than any campaign in which the British army has 
 been engaged for the last century. We have taken 
 by siege Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, 
 and the Retiro has surrendered. In the meantime 
 the allies have taken Astorga, Consuegra, and Gua- 
 dalaxara, besides other places. In the ten months 
 elapsed since January this army has sent to Eng- 
 land little short of 20,000 prisoners ; and they have 
 taken and destroyed, or have themselves retained 
 the use of, the enemy’s arsenals in Ciudad Rodrigo, 
 Badajoz, Salamanca, Valladolid, Madrid, Astorga, 
 Seville, the lines before Cadiz, &c. ; and, upon the 
 whole, we have taken and destroyed, or we now 
 possess, little short of 3000 pieces of cannon. The 
 siege of Cadiz has been raised, and all the country 
 south of the Tagus has been cleared of the enemy. 
 We should have retained still greater advantages, 
 I think, and should have remained in possession of — 
 Castile and Madrid during the winter, if I could 
 have taken Burgos, as I ought, early in October, 
 or if Ballasteros had moved upon Alcaraz, as he 
 was ordered, instead of intriguing for his own 
 agerandizement.........I see that a disposition 
 already exists to blame the government for the 
 failure of the siege of Burgos. The government 
 
 had nothing to say to the siege. Jt was entirelj 
 my own act. In regard to means, there were ample 
 means both at Madrid and Santander for the siege 
 
Onap. VIIT.] 
 
 of the strongest fortress. That which was wanting 
 at both places was means of transporting ordnance 
 and artillery stores to the place where it was desir- 
 able to use them. The people of England, so happy 
 as they are in every respect, so rich in resources of 
 every description, having the use of such excellent 
 roads, &c., will not readily believe that important 
 results here frequently depend upon fifty or sixty 
 mules more or less, or a few bundles of straw to 
 feed them ; but the fact is so, notwithstanding their 
 incredulity. I could not find means of moving even 
 one gun from Madrid.......... As for the two 
 heavy guns which endeavoured to send, [ 
 was obliged to send our own cattle to draw them ; 
 and we felt great inconvenience from the want of 
 those cattle in the subsequent movements of the 
 army.’* As for the security of Portugal his 
 lordship could be under no apprehension. With 
 Badajoz in the hands of the allies, with Hill be- 
 yond the Guadiana in Spanish Estremadura, and 
 with no French force in Andalusia, or anywhere 
 in the south, to march against him, the southern 
 frontier of Portugal was safe. With regard to the 
 northern frontier where his lordship and the main 
 army were stationed, although letters were inter- 
 cepted from Joseph which ordered Soult to make 
 Portugal the seat of the war, it was clear to a de- 
 monstration that that marshal would not again 
 approach the line of the Agueda, or re-enter a 
 country where he, his predecessors and successors, 
 had met with nothing but calamity and loss. The 
 strong place of Ciudad Rodrigo being in our pos- 
 session, and Almeida being re-established, it was 
 no easy matter for the enemy to penetrate by that 
 great entrance into Portugal: his lordship there- 
 fore concluded that for the present Soult, notwith- 
 standing his vast numerical superiority, would 
 canton his army in Old Castile, and in the higher 
 valley of the Tagus, there to wait for the arrival 
 of fresh reinforcements and means from France: 
 —and this was what the French marshal did. “ I 
 believe,” said his lordship, ‘* that the enemy re- 
 quire repose as much, if not more than we do; 
 and that their immense numbers are rather em- 
 barrassing to them in acountry already exhausted. 
 I believe that I have underrated 
 rather than overrated their force. They say them- 
 selves, at Salamanca, that they have 90,000 in- 
 fantry and 14,000 cavalry ; and their demand for 
 provisions from the country is 140,000 rations 
 daily! I think they must have 90,000 men alto- 
 gether, including from 10,000 to 12,000 cavalry. 
 
 » «+ + Having abandoned Madrid, and having 
 given up all their communications with the north, 
 solely with a view to collect a still larger force 
 against me, there is no diversion which would at 
 present answer to effect an alteration in our rela- 
 tive numbers, even if I could depend upon the 
 Spaniards to do anything. But I am quite in de- 
 
 e e e . 
 
 November. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 spair about them.’ + There was therefore a 
 * Dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool, dated Ciudad Rodrigo, 23rd 
 
 + Letter to the Earl of Liverpool. Wellington also mentioned an- 
 other important cireumstance—the situation of his army. “It has 
 
 615 
 
 pause in the war in this quarter, which lasted not 
 only through the remainder of the winter, but 
 through the spring of 1813. The main army of 
 the British and Portuguese being thus condemned 
 to a long itiactivity, it was not to be expected that 
 the Spaniards would be very active. They did 
 nothing except by their guerrillas, who harassed 
 Clausel in the north. In the south-east, and on 
 the east coast, where Suchet’s army had been 
 greatly reduced by the drafts made upon it, little 
 enterprise was shown, and nothing of any import- 
 ance was done. The Anglo-Sicilian army—in 
 which there were not 2000 British soldiers*—re- 
 mained shut up at Alicante. Wellington took it 
 upon himself to order General Maitland to remain 
 on the eastern coast, notwithstanding Lord William 
 Bentinck’s instructions, till he should receive the 
 further orders of the secretary of state. The com- 
 mander-in-chief in the Peninsula also transmitted 
 to Maitland excellent instructions and orders. On 
 the 20th of September, while engaged and per- 
 plexed with the siege of the castle of Burgos, he 
 instructed him how to maintain his post at Ali- 
 cante, how to keep open his communication with 
 the sea and British shipping in an easy and cer- 
 tain manner ; and ordered bim not to think of em- 
 barking till the last extremity. He invited Mait- 
 land to place confidence in the gallantry and dis- 
 cipline of the British troops under his command, 
 telling him that he (Wellington) had tried them 
 frequently, and that they had never failed him.t 
 But Maitland knew not how to bring out these 
 fine qualities of the English soldier; he had not 
 the habitude of a separate command. The good 
 part of his little army was almost buried or con- 
 cealed by the bad, his own health gave way com- 
 pletely under chagrin, and those incessant annoy- 
 ances which every British officer serving with the 
 Spaniards was doomed to undergo, and which he 
 had not philosophy to bear. But for the deter- 
 mined conduct of Wellington, he would have acted 
 in conformity with Lord W. Bentinck’s orders, 
 and have returned to Sicily with his whole force 
 at the beginning of October. Not being able to 
 do this, Maitland resigned early in that month, 
 and soon afterwards General W. Clinton came 
 down from Sicily and took the command. Clinton 
 would have introduced more activity and enter- 
 prise, but he was checked by the jealousy and ill- 
 will of the Spanish governor of Alicante, who 
 treated the English as though they were enemies, 
 and, so far from giving Clinton possession of the 
 citadel and the seaward batteries of Alicante, which 
 were necessary to secure his communication with 
 our shipping, and—in case of a reverse—his re- 
 treat and re-embarkation (which Clinton, as well 
 
 been actively employed since the beginning of last January, and re- 
 quires rest. The horses of the cavalry and artillery in particular re- 
 quire both that, and good food and care during the winter; and the 
 discipline of the infantry requires to be attended to, as is usual in all 
 armies after so long a campaign, aud one of so much activity.” 
 
 * About 3000 British and German troops left Sicily with General 
 Maitland ; but we believe that about one-half of this number were 
 Germans. 
 
 + Letter to Lieut.-General F. Maitland, in Dispatches. 
 
616 
 
 as Maitland, was commanded to make sure of), 
 he would not suffer the British to hold even a gate 
 of the town. In the meanwhile Suchet diligently 
 strengthened his fortified camp on the Xucar, en- 
 trenched all the passes in his front, dismantled the 
 extensive walls of the city of Valencia, against 
 which Wellington had recommended a movement, 
 and established a good citadel there. On the 2nd 
 of December General Campbell arrived from Sicily 
 with 4000 men, and took the command, thus 
 making the fourth general in chief in the same 
 number of months !—for, in the short interval be- 
 tween the resignation of Maitland and the arrival 
 of Clinton, the chief command at Alicante had 
 been held by General Mackenzie. On acquaint- 
 ing himself with Suchet’s formidable position, and 
 with other discouraging circumstances, General 
 Campbell declared that it would not be prudent 
 to attempt anything until the arrival of Lord 
 William Bentinck, who was reported to be coming 
 from Sicily with still more considerable reinforce- 
 ments; but his lordship never arrived until the 
 3rd of July, 1813. As the Spanish government 
 made no provision for the subsistence of their 
 motley Majorcan division, and as Campbell could 
 no longer give it rations, it broke up and went 
 marauding into the interior of the country. At 
 the same time many of the Sicilians and Italians 
 whom Bentinck had sent under Maitland deserted, 
 some to join Suchet, who had a considerable num- 
 ber of Neapolitans with him, some to wander along 
 the coast in the desperate hope of finding means to 
 return to their own country. Thus Campbell and 
 his people ate almonds and raisins, and drank 
 Alicante wine, in bodily, if not in mental, repose. 
 The whole matter had been badly managed from 
 the beginning; but still, it is not to be denied that 
 this landing on the eastern coast of Spain was at- 
 tended with some beneficial effects : it long occupied 
 the whole attention of Suchet, prevented his de- 
 taching more troops to Madrid and the united 
 armies under Soult, and perplexed the attention 
 and acted as a drain upon the resources of Bona- 
 parte’s government.* 
 
 While the Anglo-Sicilian army was thus em- 
 ployed in Spain, many curious events had occurred 
 in the island of Sicily, where Lord William Ben- 
 tinck finished and set up the constitution which 
 he bad so much at heart. A short retrospect is 
 necessary. Eyer since the first landing of our 
 troops in 1806 to protect the otherwise defenceless 
 island from the French, there had been abundant 
 causes of complaint against the thoughtless, ex- 
 travagant, and profligate court of King Ferdinand, 
 and every English general who had held the com- 
 mand had found himself compelled to waste a great 
 portion of his time in making remonstrances to 
 Ferdinand’s government, which met them with 
 quibbles, and in writing representations and com- 
 plaints to his own government, who, out of a too 
 delicate regard to the sovereign rights and inde- 
 pendence of their old ally, took no proceedings upon 
 
 * Colonel Napier. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 them, or did no more than write an occasional 
 letter of good advice to that Neapolitano-Sicilian 
 government. The expenses Great Britain had in- 
 curred were enormous. From the year 1806 till 
 now we had maintained at our own expense a 
 British army varying from 10,000 to 20,000 men ; 
 and we had been paying to the court an annual 
 subsidy of 300,000/. or 400,000/. This money, 
 according to a treaty signed at Palermo, ought all 
 to have been appropriated to the use of the Sicilian 
 marine and land forces; yet the Sicilian army had 
 remained as badly paid, as badly disciplined, as 
 badly fed, as ineflicient as before ; and the marine, 
 upon which so much depended, had not been raised 
 to any better state.* The common people were 
 docile and well disposed; the mariners and the 
 fishermen of the coast would have made good 
 active sailors, and have managed many flotillas of 
 gun-boats ; the peasantry could have been converted 
 into good soldiers; but under such a system, 
 robbed by their own court, robbed by their own 
 officers, oppressed by their barons—some of the 
 worst parts of the feudal system still surviving in 
 Sicily—and ground to the dust by the most mon- 
 strous and absurd monopolies and systems of 
 taxation, the poor Sicilians were almost powerless 
 and useless even for the defence of their own 
 country. King Ferdinand, though not devoid of 
 a rude natural wit and sagacity and of good coin- 
 mon sense, was, and had all his life been, so prone 
 to indolence and frivolous amusements as to be 
 almost a nullity. Provided he could fish and 
 shoot all the day long, he cared nothing for the 
 affairs of state, and was as happy at Palermo, in 
 his curtailed dominions, as ever he had been at 
 Naples. As had been the case ever since their 
 marriage, he left the cares of government to his 
 wife, with a Carolina, pensact tu.t Carolina of 
 Austria, the sister of the hapless wife of Louis XVI. 
 of France, the friend and almost the idolatress of 
 Lord Nelson, had been in the early part of her 
 life and reign an amiable, kind-hearted, generous 
 princess, fund of amusement and of admiration, 
 but spirited and high-minded when the occasion 
 demanded. But the woes of her sister had made 
 almost as sudden a change on her heart as they 
 had made on Marie Antoinette’s hair. She be- 
 came suspicious, gloomy, savagely vindictive: the 
 Neapolitan blood that was shed on the scaffold 
 after the overthrow of the rickety ‘‘ Republica 
 Partenopea,” and the return of herself and family 
 * While we were keeping our own army, and paying 400,000/, 
 a-year to the Sicilian court, that court taxed the wine and other sup- 
 plies for the British army, made us pay 50 or 60 per cent. upon the ~ 
 bread which the English soldiers ate, and actually raised a revenue 
 of nearly 100,000/. per annum upon the British army. = 
 Other facts occurred which would stagyer our belief if we were not 
 well acquainted with the unblushing conduct of that Neapolitano- 
 Sicilian, or Siculo- Neapolitan government. When Sir John Stuart, 
 in his expedition of 1809, was at the island of Ischia, in the Gulf of 
 Naples, having several thousand Sicilians with him who received no 
 provisions from their own government, he ordered the English com- 
 missariat to supply them with rations. The poor Sicilians came in a 
 short time aud begged Sir John to stop this allowance, because their 
 own government, on account of the rations which were thus furnished 
 at our expense, deducted out of their pay a much greater sum than 
 the soldiers could afford, and more than the rations were worth. 
 
 + “Carolina, do you think about it.? This was old Ferdinand’s: 
 constant expression, 
 
Cuap. VIII.]} 
 
 from Sicily in 1799-1800, was shed to gratify her 
 vengeance, and not to satisfy Ferdinand, who 
 would have forgotten and forgiven; and it was 
 through her that Nelson put an ineffaceable stain 
 upon his glory by allowing the Neapolitan admiral 
 Caraccioli to be tried in a most irregular manner 
 by court-martial on board his own ship, and to be 
 sent to be hanged at the yard-arm of a Neapolitan 
 frigate lying alongside.* Her own subsequent 
 misfortunes and flights, the reverses of the House 
 of Austria and of all her connexions, the appa- 
 rently resistless conquests of the people who had 
 murdered her sister, the very humiliating straits 
 and difficulties to which she was frequently re- 
 duced, and the advance of age, had not contri- 
 buted toimprove her temper. In Sicily she treated 
 every one that suggested the necessity of a reform 
 in the government as a Jacobin and traitor. 
 Capital executions could not well be indulged in, 
 under the protection of an English army com- 
 manded by humane and honourable men, who 
 themselves felt and frequently represented the ne- 
 cessity of reform; but many were the individuals 
 whom she persecuted to their ruin; and in the 
 year 1811 the prisons and fortresses of the island 
 were found to be crammed with state prisoners— 
 with persons for the most part arrested merely 
 because they were suspects in the eyes of the queen 
 and of the party who nourished her suspicions and 
 passion for vengeance, and led her to her own ruin 
 as fast as evil counsellors could do it. Wounded 
 in her pride at the slightest interference, she began 
 to complain that the king her husband was not 
 master of his own island, that the English encou- 
 raged his disaffected subjects, and filled the heads 
 of the Sicilian people with dangerous ideas of 
 change and innovation. It was noticed that these 
 inimical feelings towards her allies and protectors 
 became stronger after the marriage of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte with her niece, and that some French 
 ladies and gentlemen in her service—emigrant 
 royalists and others who had lived upon her bounty 
 and had followed her to Sicily—were at the same 
 time elated with hope. Our officers in command, 
 and even our diplomatists, had the honourable 
 English backwardness and awkwardness in the 
 practices of secret police and the arts of detecting 
 conspiracies; and it should appear that our army was 
 actually surrounded by plots before anything was 
 discovered, and that we were the last to know that 
 by means of these French people and others Queen 
 Carolina was actually carrying on a correspondence 
 with Bonaparte. The queen’s hatred and abhor- 
 rence of France in its Jacobin state was much 
 mitigated in its present monarchical and imperial 
 state; she knew that the Man of Destiny from 
 Corsica had been the deadliest enemy of the Jaco- 
 bins and republicans of all classes, and had crushed 
 under his iron heel the men and parties that had 
 led her sister to the block: and this man was now 
 by marriage her nephew. It appears that Bona- 
 parte amused and deluded Carolina with hopes of 
 * See Southey, Life of Nelson; and Vincenzo Cuoco. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 617 
 
 — 
 
 restoring her husband to his continental domi- 
 nions, or of carving him out a kingdom elsewhere, 
 as he had proposed doing to Lord Wentworth and 
 Lord Lauderdale in the negotiation which preceded 
 the rupture of the peace of Amiens; that at one 
 time he gaye a verbal promise that Ferdinand 
 should have Naples back upon condition of his 
 maintaining the French laws which had been esta- 
 blished there, holding his crown as the confederated 
 princes of Germany held theirs, and driving the 
 English out of Sicily by force or by fraud, or by 
 any means that might be found most feasible. 
 Such a project could be entertained only by a per- 
 son far gone in madness; any sane person must 
 have seen that the Emperor of the French, who 
 would bind himself to nothing and set down 
 nothing in writing, and who, when he had bound 
 himself in the most solemn and explicit manner, 
 had never cared for his engagements when it was 
 profitable to break them, was aiming at nothing 
 else than the expulsion of the British army, which 
 would enable him or his lieutenant, Murat, to seize 
 the island, or than the fomenting of distrusts, jea- 
 lousies, and finally an open quarrel between the 
 Sicilians and the English, which might lead to the 
 same result: yet it is proved beyond a doubt that 
 Carolina was for a time deluded, and that there 
 existed a plot for delivering over the British army 
 to destruction. 
 
 In the summer of 1811 Lord William Bentinck 
 arrived at Palermo in the double capacity of envoy 
 extraordinary and commander-in-chief of our 
 forces. His lordship came with a pretty ample 
 knowledge of the temper of the court and the 
 wretched condition of the country, and such in- 
 formation as he yet wanied was furnished him by 
 some of the Sicilian nobility. Several stormy 
 scenes took place between Lord William and the 
 queen. She said the English government had 
 sent her a hard-hearted German corporal, who 
 would not listen to reason ; she insisted that she or 
 the king her husband had the right to govern as 
 they thought fit, and to arrest and imprison without 
 trial as many of the Sicilians as they suspected ; 
 and, pomting to her guards, her Sicilian troops, 
 and her bands of Calabrians, she vowed she would 
 resist force by force if the English attempted to 
 use any. Lord William Bentinck immediately 
 returned to England to demand still fuller powers, 
 and to press upon government the necessity of 
 taking vigorous and effectual measures. General 
 I’. Maitland (the same whom we have seen em- 
 ployed on the coast of Spain), being left with the 
 command of the forces at this critical moment, 
 informed the English army, in general orders, that 
 Lord William’s sudden departure was in conse- 
 quence of the most urgent political motives, which 
 highly concerned the honour of Great Britain and 
 the safety and prosperity of Sicily. In the same 
 orders Maitland stated that four persons who had 
 been imprisoned for holding correspondence with 
 the enemy in Calabria were now set at liberty, not 
 because there wanted sufficient proof against them, 
 
618 
 
 but because the general would not condemn to 
 death, immediately after having assumed the com- 
 mand of the British army, four men who were 
 arrested by his predecessor, whose departure had 
 prevented the pending sentence. The orders, how- 
 ever, added that this act of clemency would not 
 be renewed at any other time, General Maitland 
 being resolved “ to use his utmost means to put 
 an end to the system of espionage and treachery 
 which has been for so long a time, and in a 
 manner so notarious, practised by persons of evil 
 intentions, equally enemies of the Sicilian people 
 and the British;. . . . to watch attentivély persons 
 of this description, and from this time forward to 
 bring before a council of war those, whoever they 
 may be, who shall be thus found holding commu- 
 nication with the enemy, and thus placing in 
 danger the British army and this island ;”—‘“‘ and 
 immediately,”’ it was added, ‘ the sentence of that 
 council of war shall be executed.” All this made 
 it sufficiently clear that the English general now 
 believed in the existence of an extensive conspiracy. 
 The fact is, an active correspondence had long been 
 carrying on between certain of Ferdinand’s officers 
 and others residing in Messina, and Manhes, the 
 French general who commanded Murat’s army in 
 Calabria. Most, if not all, of the active agents in 
 this plot were not Sicilians but Neapolitans, who 
 hated the Sicilians, and were anxious to return to 
 their own country with promotion in Murat’s 
 army or with other employments, or with pensions, 
 for the important service in hand. A fortunate 
 accident and the loquacity of a Messinese boatman, 
 who had been employed in carrying packets by 
 night across the Faro or narrow strait which sepa- 
 rates the island from the continent, put an acute 
 Sicilian on the track, and this Sicilian revealed all 
 he knew and suspected to his friends the English. 
 It is said that he produced evidence to show that 
 the conspirators, as a beginning, had engaged to 
 put Manhes in possession of the Sicilian flotilla of 
 gun-boats which lay at Messina, the Torre del 
 Faro, and other parts of the coast; to assist the 
 French to cross the straits when no British vessels 
 of war should be near, &c. It was the Sicilian and 
 not the English genius that suggested the very 
 cunning and dramatic counterplot which followed 
 these discoveries; and the counterplot could not be 
 completed until a Frenchman was found to play a 
 part in it. The men who came over from Reggio 
 in Calabria, which is almost opposite to Messina, 
 or from the rock of Scylla or other points, as con- 
 venience served, to deliver the letters of General 
 Manhes to the conspirators, were bought over ; 
 and instead of taking the Frenchman’s letters to 
 their addresses, delivered them to officers in our 
 service. A fac-simile was made of every letter 
 thus brought, and forwarded to the conspirators, 
 the original letter being detained as undeniable 
 evidence whenever the time for producing it should 
 arrive. Manhes, though long accustomed to this 
 sort of work—nearly the whole of his military 
 government in Calabria depending on a system of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ee er 
 
 er | 
 fe 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 plots and counterplots, espionage, and secret police 
 —did not proceed, in this particular matter, with 
 much skill or caution. After writing sundry epis- 
 tles without a cypher, he at last wrote to Colonel 
 Costantino de’ Filippis, a Neapolitan officer at 
 Messina, that, as there were many points upon 
 which he still wished to communicate, and which 
 could not be explained in a letter, he had deter-) 
 mined to send over one of his own aides-de-camp 
 (a young Frenchman), with whom Colonel de’ 
 Filippis might freely conclude all the arrange- 
 ments ; and, in order to put the Neapolitan colonel 
 upon his guard, he enclosed the stgnalement, or 
 a complete description of his aide-de-camp’s person 
 and features. It now became necessary for the 
 English general to find some one who should per- 
 sonate this French aide-de-camp. This was not 
 very easy : it was in vain to look among the British 
 and Sicilian officers for a man that could speak 
 French so as to pass for a Frenchman; and, be- 
 sides, it was very doubtful whether any British 
 officer would undertake the necessary but not very 
 honourable work, and it was not every Sicilian 
 officer in our service that could be implicitly 
 trusted. It was, moreover, indispensable that this 
 spy or counterplotter should be a person of address, 
 ability, courage, and confidence, and alsoa stranger 
 in Messina, and that he should bear some resem- 
 blance in stature and countenance to the French 
 aide-de-camp whom Manhes had described. At 
 length such a man was found in one of the foreign 
 regiments in our service. Monsieur A——de , 
 a subaltern in the — regiment, which was doing 
 garrison duty at Malta, though educated from his 
 childhood in England, was a Frenchman by birth, 
 the son of a French emigrant of a good family. 
 Having readily undertaken to personate the French 
 aide-de-camp now anxiously expected by the con- 
 spirators, he was immediately brought to Messina 
 in disguise, kept concealed till his mustachios had 
 grown to the pattern of his prototype’s, and till he 
 received the instruction necessary to enable him to 
 go through the difficult part which he had to act. 
 He was then secretly carried cut to sea, and was 
 landed by night from a small boat on an open part 
 of the shore, as if from the Calabrian coast, wear- 
 ing the disguise of a sailor’s dress, which Manhes 
 had said his aide-de-camp would wear. He was 
 furnished with such credentials as the intercepted 
 materials in General Maitland’s hands enabled him 
 to provide, and he had the watchwords which had 
 been agreed upon between Manhes and de’ Filippis. 
 Monsieur A de was led blindfolded into 
 the conspirator’s den, in the very heart of Messina. 
 This den was the lodging of Colonel de’ Filippis, 
 and here the adroit and strong-nerved French- 
 man gained a complete knowledge of everything, 
 with a list of all the persons in Sicily upon whom 
 Manhes might count. There was matter to try his 
 nerves and his wits: he was in imminent danger 
 of being discovered by a Sicilian who had been 
 his brother officer, but who had been turned out 
 of the regiment for misconduct; and some of 
 
 : pa: 
 
 4 
 
Cuap. VIII] 
 
 ‘Lees oe 
 
 the Neapolitan conspirators were personally ac- 
 quainted with Manhes’s real aide-de-camp. But 
 with great art and firmness, and an unchanging 
 countenance, he refused to see the Sicilian and the 
 others who were clamorous for admission, alleging 
 the positive orders of his general to be introduced 
 only to a small and select number—to men whose 
 courage and honour could be depended upon. He 
 was led away again, promising the speedy landing 
 and assistance of French and Neapolitan troops, 
 and hearing the muttered exultations of the con~ 
 spirators, who expected to have the English army 
 
 in the trap. He departed, as he had arrived, in dis- 
 
 guise and by night, embarked in an open boat, 
 put out to the mid strait as if making for Reggio, 
 then, tacking for another point of the Sicilian coast, 
 landed again, and proceeded with a strong‘escort to 
 the office of the British adjutant-general in Messina. 
 Before daylight the next morning the chief con- 
 spirators, or the principal agents in the conspiracy 
 —for there were higher names than theirs con- 
 cerned in the plot—were seized and safely lodged 
 in the citadel. They were fifteen in number, aud 
 among them was the Sicilian or Neapolitan town- 
 major of Messina, whose office it was ‘supposed 
 would have afforded great facilities for getting’ the 
 enemy into the town and completing a bloody plot. 
 These arrests were made on the 2nd of December, 
 1811; and a few days after (Lord William Ben- 
 tinck having arrived from England in this interval 
 with the full powers he had demanded) they were 
 brought to their trial before a court-martial com- 
 posed partly of British and partly of native Sicilian 
 officers. They were all condemned to death, and 
 the nefariousness of their designs seemed to leave 
 little hope of mercy; yet only one of them was 
 executed, the rest being transported to the solitary 
 islands of Ponza, Ventotene, and Favignano, or 
 sentenced to various periods ofimprisonment. As 
 soon as the trial was over, the president of the 
 court-martial, before the eyes of the court, burned 
 the list of the conspirators which Monsieur A 
 de had obtained, and which comprised a 
 much greater number of names than fifteen. Dur- 
 ing the trial, evidence came out of the participa- 
 tion of Queen Carolina in the plot; it was sup- 
 pressed from prudential motives ; but we have been 
 since assured by more than one person who knew 
 all the facts, and who either sat upon the court- 
 martial or saw the letters and the whole body of 
 proof, that this evidence was clear against the in- 
 fatuated and vindictive queen.* 
 
 * For many of these particulars we are indebted to private informa- 
 tion obtained in Sicily, at Naples, and at home. Carlo Botta gives 
 a very garbled account, and Colletta does not deign to notice the sub- 
 ject. The only rational account given in any foreign work is in ‘ De 
 la Sicile et de ses Rapports avec ’ Angleterre a l’ Epoque de la Constitu- 
 tion de 1812, par un Membre des aifférens Parlements de la Sicile,’ 8vo. 
 Paris, 1827. And this account is short and imperfect. Though the 
 publication is anonymous, the author is well known. He says (meaning 
 the queen), ‘‘ An illustrious personage was said to be implicated.” He 
 also says, ‘‘ Only one of the conspirators was executed.” Some French 
 writers would make it appear that a holocaust of human lives was 
 sacrificed to British fears and vengeance, and that the court-martial was 
 composed solely of English officers. This Sicilian writer distinctly 
 states that the court consisted of Sicilian as well as English officers ; 
 and his whole account shows a remarkable leaning towards mercy. 
 
 Manhes, whose name in Calabria is still synonymous with “‘ butcher ” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 619 
 
 Several bold political speculators and unscrupu- 
 lous correctors of abuses and removers of difficulties, 
 who would have created more than they removed 
 (a class of persons in which England has at no 
 time been wanting), had recommended over and 
 over again, and long before this time, that Great 
 Britain should take possession of the whole island 
 and sovereignty of Sicily as her own, and put old 
 Ferdinand on the shelf, providing for him and his 
 court with a moderate pension, instead of allowing 
 them to waste our annual subsidy of 400,000/. and 
 the revenue of the island in extravagance and dis- 
 sipation, or turn all the surplus of that money in 
 counteracting our good policy and plotting against 
 us. One of their arguments was founded on truth: 
 it was perfectly true that the great body of the 
 Sicilians would have preferred being subjects to 
 King George to being subjects to King Ferdinand ; 
 but where would have been our truth, where our 
 honour, where the moral force we exercised upon 
 the nations of Europe, where the countenance and 
 confidence with which we set ourselves against 
 Bonaparte’s assaults on the liberty and indepen- 
 dence of nations and his treachery against weak 
 allies, if we, following the line of conduct recom- 
 mended by these English politicians, had turned 
 against a helpless king, who, more than once, had 
 been hurried by us into a state of war with France, 
 and if we had usurped dominions—the sad rem- 
 nant of all that was left of the once rich and 
 flourishing kingdom of the Two Sicilies—into 
 which we had been invited as friends and protec- 
 tors, and where such fortresses as existed had been 
 put into our hands, with entire confidence on the 
 part of Ferdinand that we would guard and protect 
 him,—that, even if we should not succeed in re- 
 storing him to Naples, we would at least leave 
 him to die in peace in Sicily and preserve that 
 island for his children? Nearly four years before 
 any conspiracy or plotting with the French was 
 discovered, or any suspicion had been cast upon 
 Queen Carolina, the odious recommendation at 
 which we have hinted had been published in 
 English books and pamphlets, and eulogised in 
 certain English reviews and newspapers ; but the 
 case was in reality not much altered by the dis- 
 coveries which had been made: although in his 
 indolence he chose to leave so much of the royal 
 authority to be exercised by the queen, Ferdinand, 
 who knew nothing of the plots which had been in 
 progress, who prided himself on being the stanch 
 —Manhes, who deluged those two great provinces with blood and then 
 boasted that he had tranquillised them, on finding how dexterously 
 his plots in Sicily had been counterplotted, attempted a diabolical 
 reyenge. Four ruffians who were known to have come over from 
 Calabria were well watched by the Messina police, and were at last 
 surprised in bed. But they were dressed and armed, and they made 
 a desperate resistance. One was killed on the spot, two were severely 
 wounded, the fourth escaped, but he was pursued and soon taken. 
 They were conyicted as spies, and two of them, being condemned, con- 
 fessed, as persons whose death was certain and who could hope for 
 
 pardon only in the other world, that they had been sent from Calabria 
 by Manhes to assassinate an officer in the British army. This declar- 
 
 ation was voluntary, and made in the presence of several English 
 general officers, one of the men repeating, as he said, the very words 
 spoken by the French general upon giving his instructions. Another 
 of these ruffians had been engaged to waylay and murder the courier 
 coming from Palermo, in the hope of getting Lord William Bentinck’s 
 first dispatches after his arriva] from England, 
 
620 
 
 friend of the English, and who was incessantly 
 repeating that his only hope was in them, his only 
 chance of recovering the dominions he had lost in 
 the downfall of Bonaparte, was not, by any law of 
 nations, answerable for the conduct of his wife, or 
 punishable, for her insane doings, while every 
 public act of government went in his name, as well 
 as every treaty of alliance; nor, even if Ferdinand 
 had been as guilty or as mad as Carolina, could 
 the British government sit in judgment upon him 
 or award to themselves the forfeiture of a kingdom 
 which belonged to him and his successors, nor 
 could any abdication, renunciation, or surrender be 
 valid without the free consent of the prince royal 
 and the other princes of his family both in the 
 direct and collateral branches. Colour it as we 
 would, any seizure that we might make must pass 
 in the eyes of Europe, and of the whole civilised 
 world, as an act inferior in infamy and treachery 
 only to that by which Bonaparte got his first 
 footing in Spain and kidnapped Ferdinand’s bro- 
 ther and nephews. Dear was the price we paid 
 for keeping Sicily out of the clutches of the French ; 
 enormous were the abuses we were compelled to 
 witness, and excessive the provocations we re- 
 ceived, during our sojourn there; but better all this, 
 and ten times over, than the guilt and opprobrium 
 we should have contracted by seizing upon the 
 island as our own ! 
 
 But, after all that had come to light in the course 
 of the summer and autumn of 1811, and on the 
 trial of the Messina conspirators, Lord William 
 Bentinck and the government of Mr. Perceval, 
 which had given him such full powers, thought it 
 expedient and imperative to take some measures 
 which should curb the queen and prevent future 
 mischief. The first grand blow was struck by 
 suspending payment of the 400,000/. subsidy. 
 The next important step was taken by the Duke 
 of Orleans, the late Louis Philippe, King of the 
 French, ‘This prince, whose life and adventures 
 would form a volume far more extraordinary than 
 those of Bonaparte himself, after a long residence 
 in England, where he had declared himself to be 
 in heart an Englishman, had come out to Sicily 
 two or three years before this period, and had 
 married the princess Maria Amalia, second daughter 
 of Queen Carolina. As well as Prince Leopold, 
 that queen’s second son (he who was sighing and 
 dying for iced water, when he went with Sir John 
 Stuart, in 1809, to recover possession of his father’s 
 continental dominions), the Duke of Orleans had 
 put himself forward as a proper regent for the 
 Spaniards during the captivity of his loving cousin 
 Ferdinand. Boih these Bourbon princes had even 
 gone to the coast of Spain to recommend them- 
 selves personally to the Cortes and people, but their 
 pretensions had been completely thwarted, not 
 without some interference or recommendation of 
 the British government to. that effect. Prince 
 Leopold was an easy good-natured young man, but 
 more indoleat and careless than his father, and 
 without any of his father’s shrewdness: it will be 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 understood that these objections did not apply to 
 the Duke of Orleans, but others of a very different 
 and very serious nature. It was dreaded, in fact, 
 that if Orleans were once made regent of Spain 
 he would end by making himself king of that 
 country. In the recent intrigues and proceedings 
 in Sicily the duke is said to have acted so very 
 cautiously, as to have been suspected by both 
 parties, and to have been feared alike by Lord 
 William Bentinck and by the queen. At the 
 decisive moment, however, when the subsidy had 
 been stopped, the clever son of poor Philippe 
 Egalité sided with the English, and joined Ben- 
 tinck in urging Don Francesco, the hereditary 
 prince, to step forward. Don Francesco, though 
 more studious and better informed, was not worth 
 much more than Don Leopold, being very inactive, 
 fat, and infirm, and of a very ungainly appearance. 
 The hereditary prince, however, did come forward 
 in this dilemma—no money from England, or no 
 farther authority in the hands of the queen. It 
 appears that the prince’s conduct was secretly 
 sanctioned by the king, his father, who saw the 
 ruin into which his wife’s violence was precipitat- 
 ing him, and who now did just what he repeated in 
 1820, when his revolted army and the carbonari 
 of Naples called upon him to accept a constitution 
 like that which the Spaniards had then framed—he 
 
 ‘made a temporary resignation of the kingly func- 
 
 tions, and appointed his beloved son and legitimate 
 successor, Don Francesco, his vicar-general of this 
 his kingdom of Sicily, yielding and transferring to 
 him, with the ample title of ALrER Kao, the exer- 
 cise of all the rights, prerogatives, pre-eminencies, 
 and powers, which could have been exercised by 
 himself. A formal and solemn act to this effect 
 was published on January the 16th, 1812.* Thus 
 all power was supposed to be taken from the queen 
 and her evil advisers, one of the worst of whom 
 appears to have been a French emigrant named 
 St. Clair. It had been a hard fight, but at last the 
 English lord had prevailed over the imperial and 
 imperious daughter of Maria Theresa. The pa- 
 triotic barons and other state prisoners were forth- 
 with liberated, and returned to Palermo amidst the 
 acclamations of their countrymen, and loud ex- 
 pressions of gratitude to the English, their real 
 liberators. The command of the Sicilian troops, 
 whom we had so long paid for, was given to Lord 
 William Bentinck, and measures were taken for 
 rendering the British and Sicilian forces available 
 to the common cause, and for reforming the abuses 
 under which the country groaned. But the evil 
 genius of Queen Carolina seemed to brood over all 
 these transactions like a fatality: the first use made 
 of the disposable troops was the ill-managed 
 Anglo-Sicilian expedition to the eastern coast of 
 * Ferdinand was, and continued to be, even down to the night of 
 his sudden death, in 1824, one of the heartiest, robustest men in his 
 dominions; but in the preamble to this act he spoke of ‘ being 
 obliged through bodily indisposition, and from the advice of the phy- 
 sicians, to breathe the air of the country, and to withdraw himself 
 from all serious application.” Serious application! He had been fitty- 
 
 three years a king, and had never been known to apply seriously to 
 business for a single hour at a time. 
 
Cuar, VIII] 
 
 Spain ; and the system of civil reform and improve- 
 ment for the long misgoverned island was run up 
 inconsiderately, and without any proper foundation. 
 Lord William Bentinck, with most of his English 
 and several of his Sicilian advisers, deemed that 
 the proper remedy for all evils would be the 
 making a constitution as nearly as possible like 
 that of England, which had not been made, but 
 which had grown as it were of itself through six 
 centuries of time. Like Naples, Sicily had once 
 had a sort of aristocratic constitution or feudal 
 compact, whereby the power of the crown was cir- 
 cumscribed, the rights of the barons were gua- 
 ranteed, and the amount of subsidies required by 
 the sovereign was left to be voted by the barons, 
 lay and spiritual, who themselves arranged the 
 quota which each was to pay, or which every town 
 or commune was to furnish. But the only real 
 guarantee lay in the sword and spear of the feudal 
 aristocracy, and, in proportion as the military power 
 of the barons decayed, this feudal constitution de- 
 eayed also; and, as there was not a rapid rise and 
 increase of the wealth and power of the commons, 
 as in England, as no tiers état was created, there 
 was no body of the people to grasp a portion of 
 the power which the barons forfeited, and which 
 was thus all absorbed by the crown. This was the 
 case in France, and in nearly all the countries in 
 Europe, and thus it was that a strong oligarchy 
 was almost everywhere followed by absolute mo- 
 narchy and the despotism of one. In Sicily, in- 
 deed, the feudal rights and immunities, which 
 pressed heavily on the people, had been less affected 
 than in Naples, even as that kingdom was when 
 the French took possession of it, but their political 
 power was almost extinct, and the aristocracy 
 rarely met as a deliberative body, and never, cor- 
 rectly speaking, as a legislature. Of late years the 
 Sicilian nobles had indeed met in what was by 
 courtesy called a parlamento, or parliament ; but 
 this body, in reality, possessed little more political 
 power or influence than the Sedzdz of Naples, under 
 the tyrannical, oppressive, extortionate government 
 of the Spanish viceroys, when the two kingdoms, 
 to their incalculable detriment, were provinces of 
 Spain, and when the nobility and gentry were 
 never called together except to vote and apportion 
 subsidies, the amount of which was fixed before- 
 hand by the court of Madrid or by the resident 
 viceroy. Unluckily, in laying down sword and 
 spear, the Sicilian barons had not taken up books ; 
 with a very few exceptions (we believe they might 
 be counted on the fingers of one hand), they were 
 wofully illiterate and ignorant. Natural good 
 parts and shrewdness they had—for the compli- 
 ment which the witty Marchese di Caraccioli paid 
 to Naples, his own country, may, with at least 
 equal justice, be applied to Sicily—‘ Fools are not 
 born under these skies ;” and they had also a sort 
 of unreasoning patriotism or instinctive leve of 
 country, with spirit and courage, when once ex- 
 cited. But the great majority of them were prone 
 to intrigue and cabal, fierce in their jealousies 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 621 
 
 against one another, extravagant, in debt, and con- 
 sequently ever greedy for money, and not over- 
 scrupulous as to the means of obtaining it. Of 
 civilization they knew little, except its vices: 
 Palermo, side by side with the greatest dissipation, 
 luxury, and splendour, exhibited some of the worst 
 features of semi-barbarism. Through this prevail- 
 ing extravagance it was almost as difficult to find 
 a nobleman out of debt, as to find a well-informed 
 nobleman: the revenues of a few, but only a very 
 few, families were enormous, but it was precisely 
 these families that were deepest im debt. Many 
 other families had nothing else left to boast of but 
 ancient names or titles, and little to live upon be- 
 yond what they might obtain from the court; and 
 not a few were novi homines, who not only had 
 little or nothing to support their rank, but actually 
 no hereditary or any other legitimate right to the 
 titles they bore. [he number of these éeto/att may 
 be conceived when it is understood that every man 
 who would have figured in England as a squire, or 
 a country gentleman, was in Sicily a baron, count, 
 marquis, duke, or prince.* It was, therefore, 1m- 
 possible to chouse a peerage merely by titles, and 
 equally impossible to make a selection without 
 creating jealousies and rabid animosities. 
 Resolving to follow the British constitution as 
 nearly as he thought it possible, Lord William 
 Bentinck, hoping to secure authority to the king 
 and liberty to the people, separated the legislative, 
 executive, and judicial powers; vesting the first 
 in a parliament of two houses composed of Lords 
 and Commons, the second in the king and his 
 responsible ministers, the last in irremovable, in- 
 dependent judges. His constitution set due limits 
 to the royal prerogative, by not permitting the 
 sovereign to take cognizance of bills in progress, 
 or to interfere in any way either with the freedom 
 of debate, or the freedom of election for the Com- 
 mons. The peerage, as with us, was to be here- 
 ditary ; and, in order to render it respectable, titles 
 were to be revised and made inalienable and 
 strictly hereditary ; and no person was to be ele- 
 vated to the peerage that was not already in pos- 
 session of a fief to which a title had belonged, and 
 of an annual income of 6000 ozcie, or about 
 3000/. sterling at the least. With respect to the 
 commons the qualifications of members for coun- 
 ties or districts (into twenty-three of which Sicily 
 was divided) were fixed at 300 oncte per annum ; 
 and of members for towns at half that sum; an 
 exception being made in favour of professors of 
 universities, whose learning was to be accepted in 
 lieu of property. The elective franchise or privi- 
 lege of voting was limited to such as possessed 
 property to the annual amount of 18 oncie, or 
 9/. sterling ; but some exceptions were made in 
 favour of such as were in life possession of a public 
 office or were masters of guilds or corporations. 
 
 * This abuse of titles of honour, the immunity of usurping them, 
 and the facility with which they were given, had been encoursged 
 by the Spanish government in order to weaken and discredit the 
 old aristocracy. ‘There was one Spanish viceroy of N aples that was 
 said to have given three hundred titles in three months! 
 
622 
 
 Unless it were considered that the fewer the num- 
 ber of members of either house the better (and 
 this, perhaps, would not have been an unreason- 
 able principle, at least at the beginning of the 
 experiment), all these qualifications should appear 
 to haye been fixed rather too high. There were 
 scarcely a dozen nobles who, together with the 
 other requisites, possessed a clear unincumbered 
 income of 3000/., and few, very few, were the 
 commons or the untitled that possessed 150/. per 
 annum. Unfortunately, too, the majority of the 
 most ancient and noble families who had been 
 part, or peers, under the Norman, Angevin, and 
 Aragonese dynasties, were sunk into poverty. But 
 the pride of these men remained, and so to a very 
 considerable degree did the popular reverence for 
 ancient names and lineages; and these feelings 
 could not but be outraged by the distinctions, with 
 regard to money, which were adopted in this con- 
 stitution, and by seeing comparatively new men 
 placed over the heads of the old, on account of the 
 accidental possession of a larger revenue. The right 
 of originating every tax was, after the modern prac- 
 tice in England, left to the Commons ; but this 
 was very distasteful to the nobles, who had been 
 accustomed to vote the subsidies and who hitherto 
 enjoyed an exemption from many taxes. Perhaps 
 one little incident will perfectly explain what 
 was to be expected from this Sicilian House of 
 Peers. They were, as we have said, nearly all 
 in debt; they had acquired some vague idea of 
 the law which exempts a British member of 
 either House of parliament from personal arrest ; 
 but, not quite understanding this arrangement, 
 or thinking it might be improved, almost the 
 first thing they did, when they assembled as a 
 branch of the legislature, was to propose a law that 
 no Sicilian peer should in any way be pursued for 
 his debts!* But the least promising circumstance 
 of all was the total ignorance and indifference of 
 the great body of the Sicilian people as to this or 
 any other form of government. At first—like 
 their neighbours the Neapolitans a few years later— 
 they thought that Costetuztone meant “‘no taxes 
 and cheaper bread,” and that it must therefore be 
 a fine thing ; but, when they found that they must 
 pay taxes as before, their feeling for it was rather 
 worse than indifference. Such, however, as it 
 was, or such as the unpromising circumstances of 
 the country were, this Sicilian constitution was 
 drawn up and sworn to in the course of 1812, and 
 it came into operation early in 1813. 
 
 It is a sad dilemma:—if people are left to 
 groan and degenerate under a despotism and in a 
 state of ignorance, they can hardly fit themselves 
 for the condition of free subjects ; and, if they are 
 suddenly, by adventitious circumstances and an 
 extraneous force, raised to the condition of free- 
 men, without enlightenment, without experience, 
 they are sure to abuse and eventually to lose the 
 
 * This, however, was no more than the claim formerly maintained 
 by both Houses of our own legislature, and not entirely abandoned 
 till some years after the accession of George III. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 advantages which they had not obtained for them- 
 selves, but which had been conferred upon them. 
 A wise and generous tutorage on the part of Eng- 
 land, and a determination to support the experi- 
 ment by those who had the power to support it, 
 and a series of years of trial and experience, might, 
 with so clever a people, have removed all difficul- 
 ties, and have established a system truly beneficial 
 to the beautiful country. But our tutorage and 
 support were withdrawn within little more than 
 two years ; no adequate security was taken, or pro- 
 bably could have been taken, against the despotic 
 inclinations of the Bourbon princes, and as soon 
 as we had restored them to their continental domi- 
 nions, and had withdrawn our army from Sicily 
 (King Ferdinand having resumed the sovereign 
 authority, which he had only delegated for a time 
 to his son Francesco), Lord William Bentinck’s 
 Sicilian constitution was put down and extin- 
 guished for ever by a decree published in the court 
 newspaper—a decree which wanted not only the 
 graces of rhetoric, but the common proprieties of 
 grammar.* 
 
 Queen Carolina could not cease from troubling 
 and be at rest. The whole plan of this constitution 
 was odious to her: it revived in her darkened 
 mind the maddening recollections of the French 
 revolution and the fate of her sister, and she was 
 constantly muttering to herself that she felt the 
 edge of the guillotine-knife over her own neck. 
 The king, after making over his authority to the 
 hereditary prince, retired to a delightful country- 
 house a few miles from Palermo, and amused 
 himself as before with shooting, fishing, and plant- 
 ing trees. ‘The queen would have remained in the 
 capital, but, being detected in fresh intrigues, and 
 having more than once nearly succeeded in ex- 
 citing a popular commotion against the English 
 and their adherents, she was requested to retire to 
 Castel-Vetrano, an old hill-town in the interior of 
 the island. 
 came more dangerous here than she had been in 
 Palermo, collecting around her lawless or fanatic 
 bands, raising a cry against English heresy—a ery 
 not without danger among so superstitious a people, 
 —and still corresponding, or being shrewdly sus- 
 pected of corresponding, with the French and 
 others in Calabria and at Naples. At last it was 
 determined to send her out of the island altogether 
 and convey her to Vienna. There was no difli- 
 culty in obtaining the concurrence of the old king 
 or his son the prince regent, or vicar-general ; but 
 long and arduous was the task to induce her to go 
 quietly.t Finally, however, in the beginning of 
 
 * Giornale delle Due Sicilie. 
 
 + After many other persons had failed, this difficult and delicate 
 task was undertaken, at Lord William Bentinck’s earnest request, by 
 the late General Sir Robert Mac Farlane, who was for a considerable 
 time second in command in Sicily. It was not very willingly that the 
 general went upon the mission, which must inevitably be attended 
 with painful scenes and circumstances ; but he had enjoyed more than 
 any British officer then on the island the friendship both of the kin 
 and queen, and it was thought that he was the only person that h 
 a chance of succeeding in the business. 
 
 On approaching the place of Carolina’s retirement or relegation 
 
 the general left his escort of dragoons behind him at a village, a’ 
 proceeded to Castel-Vetrano, attended only by an aide-de-camp and 
 
 [Book X, 
 
 But, instead of being quiet, she be- 
 
 say 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 the summer of 1813, the queen with her favourite 
 son Don Leopold and a small retinue embarked on 
 board an English man-of-war, and left Sicily for 
 ever. To reach Vienna was no easy matter, and, 
 by a direct route, an impossibility. At first she 
 
 an orderly. The old feudal castle which the queen occupied stood 
 behind the town on the top of a steep hill, partially covered with trees 
 and dense thickets of myrtle. As they rode up the spur of the hill, 
 the aide-de-camp cried out, ‘‘ General, see! There have been bivouac 
 fires here! There are certainly troops hereabout.’”’ The general 
 looked, and saw right and left of the rough road or path ashes and 
 smouldering embers in several separate heaps—a pretty sure indica- 
 tion that some persons had been bivouacking among the trees. The 
 sight was unpleasant, and that which presently followed was more so. 
 About a dozen ruffianly-looking fellows, whose numbers soon increased 
 to two or three score, showed their high sugar-loaf hats, their grim 
 countenances, and their long-barrelled muskets across the narrow road 
 and above the hedges on either side of it; and two or three of them 
 eyen levelled their muskets, with terrible oaths that the English had 
 no business there, and that they should not get at the queen. It was 
 easy for a practised eye to discover that these men were a mixture of 
 Sicilian and Calabrian partizans, fellows capable of any daring ex- 
 tremity when excited by loyalty or by fanaticism. It required pre- 
 sence of mind, address, and good arguments to pacify them and win 
 a way throughthem; but in this the general and his aide-de-camp 
 succeeded, chiefly through telling them that they were Queen Caro- 
 lina’s friends and were carrying an order for money to her. The 
 general found fresh obstacles at the gates of the castle, but the queen 
 upon hearing his name ordered that he should be admitted... The old 
 castle was half in ruins, the servants within seemed half-starved, 
 everything wore the appearance of poverty, misery, and dejection. 
 But the proud daughter of Maria Theresa rallied her spirits and re- 
 ceived her English visitor with state and dignity. She asked him what 
 brought him to that barbarous place—said it could hardly be to offer 
 any new outrage, as in that case the British government would have 
 chosen a different and less honourable agent. When the general cau- 
 tiously and reluctantly opened his commission she flew into a towering 
 fury, and spoke loud and rapidly until her breath and strength were 
 exhausted. She accused Lord William Bentinck of provoking an 
 unnatural family war, of setting up the son against the father, of 
 driving the wife from the husband, of usurping the sovereignty of 
 Sicily, of treating the king like a child, and herself like a common 
 criminal. “ Is it for this,” said she, “ that I have escaped the Jacobin 
 guillotine, and plots, conspiracies, and treasons at Naples? Is it for 
 this that I helped your Nelson to conquer at the Nile? Is it for this 
 that I brought your army into this island? General! Is this your 
 English good faith? Lst-ce que c’est cela votre loyauté Anglaise 2” 
 
 When the storm had spent itself in its own fury, and when the 
 general with all possible delicacy made use of arguments to show that 
 she would now be much happier among her own family at Viennathan 
 she could hope to be in Sicily; that nothing but mischief could come 
 of her attempting to stay, she rushed out of the room, screaming rather 
 than saying, “I will never go! Never! I am queen here!’ The 
 general then addressed himself to some of the few courtiers and dames 
 of honour who had followed her to this Patmos, and particularly 
 to the Neapolitan Principessa di...... » who had adhered to her in all 
 her changes of fortune, and who was devotedly attached to her without 
 partaking in any of her insane notions. He told them, with much less 
 ceremony than he had told her majesty, that the queen must go,—that 
 the king aud her son, the hereditary prince, both wished it,—that 
 there was in all parties au anxious desire to show respect to her ma- 
 jesty, but that nothing could change their resolution, and that any 
 attempt at resistance could occasion only a scandalous scene, with the 
 loss, perhaps, of a few lives. But the argument of the most weight 
 was this: General Mac Farlane assured them that, if her majesty 
 would but consent to go quietly, there was ready for her a good supply 
 of hard Spanish dollars, which would enable her to pay, in part, her 
 private debts and the arrears of her household, and that more money 
 would be furnished as soon as her majesty embarked. The poor 
 courtiers, who had scarcely seen a dollar for months, and who had 
 searcely bread to eat, were soothed and charmed by this perspective, 
 and the Principessa di...... felt the cogency of the other arguments. 
 They withdrew to make their representations and prayers to Carolina. 
 In the evening the queen saw the general again; and then, with a 
 solemn protest that she yielded only to force and her desire to avoid 
 bloodshed, she consented to quit the island. But in settling the 
 arrangements for her departure she started other difficulties, and de- 
 clared more than once, in an agony of passion, that she would not be 
 transported thus from the dominions of her husband,—that, if Lord 
 William Bentinck would remove her, he must first kill her and her few 
 but brave defenders. All this, however, was but the last flash of the 
 thunder-cloud. Before the general left her, his temper, and kind- 
 ness, and respect, the representations of all those about her, and her 
 own conviction that resistance was indeed hopeless, induced her to 
 give both a verbal and written consent to depart immediately, or as 
 soon as a British man-of-war should be ready to receive her with her 
 son Leopold and suite. The Sicilian and Calabrian partizans who 
 mounted her red cockade, and the old motto of ‘ Viva la Santa Fede,” 
 ‘toi like children upon being told that the queen was going to leave 
 
 lem. 
 
 Carolina’s agitated life was closed by an uneasy death. To the 
 Principessa di ..... +» who was with her in her last’ days at Vienna, 
 and continued her attendance to her last moment, she said that she 
 Was troubled by visions of the past and by loud voices speaking to 
 her in her sleep; that she heard, all night long, many angry voices 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 623 
 
 proceeded to Sardinia, where she found a court 
 poorer, but honester, than the one she had had at 
 Palermo. From Sardinia she proceeded to Zante, 
 and then an English frigate conveyed her, her son, 
 and suite to Constantinople, whence they travelled, 
 in a very roundabout, fatiguing way, to the capital 
 of the Austrian empire. Carolina died at Vienna 
 in September, 1814, when the husband of her 
 niece was an exile in the island of Elba, but 
 several months before the restoration of her hus- 
 band and family to Naples. 
 
 In the course of the year 1812 one of the seas 
 which bathe the coasts of the Italian peninsula 
 witnessed a remarkable naval combat, and one very 
 honourable to the native courage of Italian seamen. 
 Great efforts had been made by Bonaparte and his 
 Italian government to render Venice an important 
 naval depdt. Many small vessels of war had been 
 built there by Venetian workmen, and on the 6th 
 of September, 1810, a fine 74-gun ship, the 
 ‘Rivoli, was*launched at the arsenal of Mala- 
 mocca, about five miles from the city of Venice. 
 A picked crew, mostly Italians and Dalmatians, 
 and several Venetian officers of tried skill and 
 courage, were put on board this ship, but the cap- 
 tain was a Frenchman. ‘The ‘ Rivoli’ put to sea 
 for the first time in February, 1812, but it was 
 only to fall into the hands of the English. On 
 the 21st, only two or three days after leaving port, 
 she was descried by Captain John Talbot, of the 
 ‘ Victorious, 74, who was accompanied by the 
 18-gun brig ‘ Weazle,’ Captain J. W. Andrew. 
 The § Rivoli’ on her side was accompanied by two 
 16-gun brigs, one 8-gun brig, and two gun-boats, 
 and the French commodore was carrying sail and 
 steering in line of battle for the port of Pola in 
 Istria. The ‘ Victorious? and the‘ Weazle’ were 
 presently under all sail in chase, and soon began to 
 gain upon the enemy’s squadron. It was, however, 
 between the night and morning of the 22nd before 
 the action began. The ‘ Weazle’ overtook one of 
 the 16-gun brigs, and engaged her within half- 
 pistol-shot distance for about twenty minutes. Then 
 the second of the 16-gun brigs closed upon the 
 ‘Weazle;’ but, Captain Andrew continuing his close 
 and well-directed fire upon the first brig, she took 
 fire and blew up. ‘The ‘ Weazle’ immediately put 
 out boats to save the lives of her brave foes, but, 
 owing to the darkness, she succeeded in saying 
 only three men, and those three sadly wounded and 
 bruised. After this catastrophe the two other brigs 
 made off, and soon disappeared. As day broke, 
 however, the ‘ Weazle,’ having repaired her much- 
 damaged rigging, and given pursuit, regained sight 
 of the two brigs, and renewed the chase, aiding 
 herself with sweeps on account of the lightness of 
 the breeze, In the meanwhile, the ‘ Victorious,’ 74, 
 arriving within half-pistol-shot, had opened her 
 
 calling upon her to follow; and that, even by daylight, she saw many 
 hands beckoning through the curtains of her bed, while invisible 
 voices whispered ‘‘ Hist ! hist! Carolina, hist !” 
 
 Within fifty days after receiving intelligence of her death, the king 
 her husband satisfied his own conscience and the conscience of a 
 mistress (the widow of a Sicilian nobleman) by going through the 
 ceremony and compromise of what is called a left-handed marriage, 
 
 rg ee rr rg ree menee preertetnra intst 
 
624 
 
 starboard guns upon the ‘ Rivoli,’ who returned 
 the fire from her larboard broadside, but kept her 
 sail up and stood away for shore, making for the 
 Gulf of Trieste. But Talbot kept close to his foe, 
 and a furious engagement ensued between the two 
 line-of-battle ships, interrupted only when the fog 
 or the smoke, for a few minutes at a time, hid 
 them from each other’s view. arly in the action 
 Captain Talbot received a contusion from a splinter, 
 which nearly deprived him of his sight. The 
 command of the ship devolved upon Lieutenant 
 Thomas Ladd Peake, who emulated the conduct 
 and bravery of his wounded chief. After three 
 hours’ close fighting, the ‘ Rivoli’ had become un- 
 manageable, and could make use of only two quarter- 
 deck guns. Licutenant Peake, by signal, now 
 recalled the ‘ Weazle’ from her pursuit of the two 
 brigs, in order to have her assistance, in case either 
 of the 74s should get aground, for the ‘ Victorious’ 
 herself was in a disabled state, and both ships were 
 getting into shallow water, and close to the shore. 
 The ‘ Weazle’ coming up stood across the bows 
 of the ‘ Rivoli” poured in her broadside when 
 within musket-shot distance, weared or tacked as 
 necessary, and twice repeated this fire; the ‘ Vic- 
 torious’ all the while maintaining her camnonade. 
 About half an hour after the ‘ Weazle’ had come 
 up, the ‘Victorious’ shot away the ‘ Rivoli’s’ 
 mizen-mast; and in another quarter of an hour 
 the ‘ Rivoli’ fired a lee gun, and hailed the ‘ Vic- 
 torious’ that she had struck. It was long since 
 any ship under French colours had fought so well ; 
 the battle between the two 74s had lasted nearly 
 four hours and a half, and all the time at the 
 closest quarters : out of a crew of about 850 men 
 the ‘ Rivoli’? lost 400 in killed and wounded, in- 
 cluding her second captain and nearly all her 
 officers; in addition to her mizen-mast being shot 
 away, her fore and main masts were so badly 
 wounded that they fell over her sides a few days 
 after the action, and her hull was dreadfully shat- 
 tered. The ‘ Victorious’ counted 27 killed and 
 99 wounded; her rigging was cut to pieces, her 
 gaff and spanker-boom shot away, her three top- 
 masts and main-mast badly wounded, her boats 
 all destroyed, except a small punt, and her hull 
 struck in several places. The httle ‘ Weazle’ had 
 the extraordinary good fortune not to have a man 
 hurt.* 
 
 In this same sea (the narrow and difficult Adri- 
 atic), and in the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian seas, 
 there were many gallant in-shore affairs, attacks 
 upon convoys, gun-boats, French batteries, &c. ; 
 and Lissa, the scene of Captain Hoste’s exploit in 
 1811, witnessed another severe action between 
 
 three English frigates, and three Trench frigates, 
 
 that were accompanied by other craft, the result 
 being the capture of a French 44-gun frigate and 
 of a 26-gun vessel, fitted out as a store ship. Nor 
 were there wanting affairs of light squadrons and 
 single ships in other parts of the world, on the 
 French and Spanish coasts in the Mediterranean, 
 
 * James, Naval Ilist.—Captain Talbot’s Dispatch, in Gazette. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 on the coast of Norway in the Northern Ocean, 
 and—in another hemisphere—on the coasts both 
 of North and South America, and among the 
 islands which stud the Gulf of Mexico and the 
 Caribbean Seas ; and all the while incessant opera- 
 tions were carrying on by fleets and squadrons in 
 the East Indies and among the great islands of the 
 Indian Ocean. Everywhere victory was steady to 
 our flag, save only in our new contest with the. 
 United States of America, in which, through a 
 deplorable mismanagement of means, some dirt 
 was thrown upon our national standard. ‘To this 
 American war we must now direct our attention. 
 The struggle which terminated in 1783 naturally 
 left considerable irritation in the American mind, 
 and hence it was that, when England entered on her 
 contest with the French republic, the people of the 
 new states were in gencral disposed to take part 
 against us. The Federal or more conservative 
 party, indeed, headed by Washington and Adams, 
 was anxious for peace with Ingland, and for a 
 strict and dignified neutrality; but the Democratic 
 party, at the head of which were Jefferson and 
 Madison, and which strongly sympathised with 
 the French, had the greatest influence over the 
 American people. It was with no small difficulty 
 that the Fcderalists restrained their countrymen 
 from entering into war with Great Britain in 1793. 
 As it was, M, Genet, ambassador from the French 
 to America, was enabled, by the force of popular 
 sympathy, to carry on a system of privateering 
 from American ports against English shipping, to 
 the manifest breach of the laws of America itself. 
 Nor was President Washington able effectually to 
 control such movements. An English merchant- 
 man being taken by a French frigate, carried up 
 to Philadelphia, and there fitted out as a privateer, 
 under the name of ‘Le Petit Democrat; was 
 allowed to set sail on her predatory career, not- 
 withstanding all that the executive could do to the 
 contrary. Genet also encouraged what would now 
 be called “ fillibustering” movements against the 
 adjacent Spanish settlements of Florida and 
 Louisiana. ‘lhronghout all these proceedings, the 
 French democratic ambassador was continually 
 insulting the American government by appeals to 
 the mob, being well aware that there lay the final 
 resort in all such controversies in America, What 
 made the whole matter the more discreditable, 
 while insults from France and her representative 
 were borne with meekness, the simply defensive 
 measure of England, for arresting supplies of grain 
 carried from America to I'rance, was cried out — 
 against as a monstrous violation of the law of 
 nations. There was a disposition to take the worst 
 view of everything done by England, and the best 
 of everything done by France. The proceedings — 
 of the former power to reclaim her deserted sailors” 
 from American vessels, proved a fertile theme for 
 the railings of the democratic party, and nothing 
 but great temper and forbearance on the part of 
 Mr. Pitt could have prevented hostilities from 
 arising in consequence, After all, through the 
 
Guar, VIII] 
 
 moderation of Washington’s envoy, Mr. Jay, a 
 commercial treaty was concluded between Britain 
 and America in November, 1794, containing some 
 liberal concessions from the former to the latter 
 regarding commerce and navigation, and _ this, 
 notwithstanding some stormy objections from the 
 democratic party in America, was ratified in the 
 ensuing year. 
 
 After many intervenient heart-burnings, a new 
 and serious difficulty arose between America and 
 England in 1807, in consequence of the Berlin 
 decree of Bonaparte, interdicting all neutrals 
 from commercial intercourse with Great Britain. 
 Jefferson was now for the second time president. 
 America, under her French sympathies, made no 
 remonstrance against Napoleon’s decree, although 
 it was undoubtedly a most flagrant violation of 
 their neutral rights; but when Britain, in self- 
 defence against that decree, issued her orders in 
 council, the United States took occasion to feel 
 seriously aggrieved. A convention agreed upon 
 between their two envoys, Monroe and Pinckney, 
 on the 3lst of December, 1806, was repudiated by 
 Jefferson. The two envoys pressed new preten- 
 sions in a very high tone. These were met by 
 Mr. Canning with a tone equally high: he insisted 
 that England had the indisputable right to retaliate 
 upon the French decree; that America, by sub- 
 mitting to the Berlin decree, was pursuing a course 
 which could not be allowed, and that the British 
 government must continue to impress British 
 seamen found on board American vessels, unless 
 the American government could give security 
 against practices that were intolerable at all times, 
 and doubly so at a moment like the present. 
 Affairs were in this state when news reached 
 London of a conflict which had taken place in 
 the American seas. On the 23rd of June, 1807, 
 the British 50-gun ship ‘Leopard’ met off the 
 capes of Virginia the -large American frigate 
 ‘Chesapeake,’ which, though classed as a frigate, 
 was at least equal in force to the ‘ Leopard’ 
 Knowing that there were several English deserters 
 on board the ‘Chesapeake? whom he had vainly 
 endeavoured to recover by other and amicable 
 means, the captain of the ‘ Leopard’ insisted upon 
 the right of search, as the only process by which 
 the men could be brought back. After some 
 equivocating answers, and an assurance that he 
 ‘ knew nothing of the English deserters, the 
 American captain refused to be searched, and 
 made some visible preparations for resistance, 
 Hereupon the ‘ Leopard’ fired a single shot across 
 the bow of the ‘Chesapeake.’ This was followed 
 by a second single shot. No effect being produced, 
 and the ‘ Chesapeake’ preparing to return the fire, 
 the ‘Leopard’ gave her a broadside, and after a 
 short pause, renewed her fire. The ‘ Chesapeake’ 
 returned a few straggling shot, not one of which 
 hit her opponent ; and in less than a quarter of 
 an hour, just as the ‘ Leopard’ had poured in her 
 third broadside, the heavy American hauled do-vn 
 
 her colours, and her captain sent his fifth lieu- 
 VOL. ‘VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 625 
 
 tenant on board the ‘Leopard,’ with a verbal 
 message, signifying that he considered the ‘ Chesa- 
 peake’ to be the ‘Leopard’s’ prize. When some 
 of the officers, petty officers, and men of the 
 ‘Leopard’ went on board the ‘ Chesapeake,’ they 
 could find only one of the five deserters of whom 
 they were more especially in quest. This fellow 
 was dragged out of the ‘Chesapeake’s’ coal-hole, 
 and on being brought to the quarter-deck, swore 
 that he was a native American, and that he had 
 never belonged to any English man-of-war. Un- 
 fortunately for him, he was well known to the 
 ‘ Leopard’s’ purser, who had drafted him into the 
 ‘ Halifax’ British ship of the line, and who was 
 now on the quarter-deck of the ‘Chesapeake’ to 
 identify him. About fifteen other British subjects 
 were mustered on that quarter-deck, but only the 
 man found in the coal-hole, and three other 
 deserters, were taken out of the ‘ Chesapeake.’ 
 [These four seamen were tried shortly afterwards 
 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Jenkin Ratford, the coal- 
 hole man, was hanged at the fore-yard arm of 
 the ship from which he had deserted; the other 
 three were sentenced to receive 500 lashes each, 
 but were eventually pardoned.| The fire of the 
 ‘Leopard’ had killed three seamen, and had 
 wounded the captain, one midshipman, and sixteen 
 sailors and marines of the ‘Chesapeake’ The 
 American captain or commodore again offered to 
 deliver up the frigate as a prize. The English 
 captain replied, that, having fulfilled his instruc- 
 tions, he had nothing more to do but to proceed 
 and join his squadron, He then tendered assist- 
 ance, which was refused, and, deploring the 
 extremity to which he had been compelled to 
 resort, he pursued his course, and left the 
 ‘Chesapeake’ to choose hers. 
 
 On the 2nd of July, almost as soon as the intel- 
 ligence of what had happened reached him in the 
 new city of Washington, which for some time had 
 been the seat of the central government, and with- 
 out waiting for any explanation or commencing 
 any correspondence, the president put forth a pro- 
 clamation, interdicting all British ships of war from 
 entering any of the ports of the United States— 
 ports which then contained, and hospitably enter- 
 tained, various French ships of war which had 
 there taken refuge from English pursuit. In this 
 proclamation, he called the attack of the ‘ Leopard’ 
 an enormity committed without provocation or 
 justifiable cause, for the purpose of taking by 
 force, from a ship of war of the United States, a 
 part of her crew, who had been previously ascer- 
 tained to be natives of the States. Such, indeed, 
 was the usual strain of American invective when- 
 ever the British were the accused. Not so when 
 the French offended. In the summer of this very 
 same year (1807), the United States sloop of war 
 ‘Hornet? while lying in the French port of 
 POrient, was forcibly boarded by a French officer 
 and a party of men, who seized and carried off 
 five Frenchmen, naturalized citizens of the United 
 
 States, and who had been several years in the 
 2N 
 
626 
 
 American naval service; but not a murmur was 
 heard on this subject.* 
 
 The account of the attack on the ‘ Chesapeake’ 
 reached London on the 26th of July. On the 2nd 
 of August, before any demand for redress had been 
 made by the American envoys in London, Mr. 
 Canning caused to be conveyed to them a disavowal 
 of the right to search ships in the national service 
 of any country for deserters, together with a pro- 
 mise of suitable reparation for the unauthorised 
 act of the ‘Leopard.’ On the 6th, Mr. Monroe 
 transmitted to his government Mr. Canning’s note; 
 but on the same or the following day, American 
 newspapers reached Downing-street; and these 
 papers contained, with appropriate comments, 
 President Jefferson’s interdictory proclamation. 
 These journals, or others which soon followed 
 in their track, brought intelligence of the spirit 
 with which many of the sea-coast-dwelling Ameri- 
 cans had hailed the proclamation, and had acted 
 up to it. No insult, no outrage had been spared 
 to the British flag; on the shores of the Chesa- 
 peake, more especially, everything that was British 
 had been treated with indignity; a war had been 
 made upon the water-casks of our departing ships 
 of war, as if to prevent their carrying away with 
 them that necessary element, and rifle-shots had 
 been fired at some of our men-of-war boats. 
 Moreover, to all this succeeded fresh instructions 
 from Jefferson and Madison to their envoys in 
 London, who consequently assumed a tone more 
 than ever hostile. Still persevering in moderation, 
 the British government issued a proclamation, 
 recalling and prohibiting seamen from serving 
 foreign princes and states, but declaring that the 
 claim to seize deserters from the national ships of 
 other powers would not again be brought forward, 
 though the right of taking such deserters from 
 merchantmen must be retained. They also recalled 
 Vice-Admiral Berkeley, who had given the order 
 to search the ‘Chesapeake;’ and they liberated 
 and sent back to America two men who had been 
 taken as deserters, but who had been proved to be 
 natives of the United States. It was difficult to go 
 farther, and Jefferson must have been aware of 
 how far our government had gone, when he pro- 
 posed to Congress to lay an embargo on all 
 vessels of the United States, and to command 
 the trading ships of all other nations whatsoever 
 to quit the American harbours as soon as the 
 act should be notified to them, with or without 
 their cargoes. The subject was discussed in both 
 Houses in secret session, or, as we say, with closed 
 doors. The proposition was warmly opposed by 
 the federalists, and by some others, who foresaw 
 that such a suspension of all trade or intercourse 
 with foreign nations would be more injurious to 
 their country than to England, against whom the 
 measure was directed; but the resolution was, 
 nevertheless, adopted by very large majorities, 
 Thus matters remained from the month of 
 
 .* Boston newspaper, as cited in James’s Naval History. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 December, 1807, to the declaration of war in 
 1812, an interval which the American government 
 employed in adding to the number of its gigantic 
 frigates, and which the commercial classes spent 
 in a hopeless struggle against bankruptcy and ruin. 
 Attempts were not wanting on our part to come to a 
 friendly accommodation. In 1808, Mr, (afterwards 
 Sir George) Rose proceeded as our envoy to Wash- 
 ington, for the avowed purpose of restoring a good 
 understanding; but Jefferson demanded the revo- 
 cation of our orders in council as a preliminary, 
 with the entire exemption of ships bearing the flag 
 of the United States from any search, or from any 
 question as to the goods they carried. Our envoy 
 returned home, and the embargo was continued, 
 notwithstanding the loud complaints of the 
 north-eastern States of the Union, who were again 
 muttering threats of breaking the federal compact, 
 and setting themselves up as an independent separ- 
 ate republic. In 1809, Jefferson was succeeded as 
 president by Madison. The embargo had, by this 
 time, become so oppressive to a large part of the 
 American community, that the new president, 
 though well inclined to persevere in the system 
 of his predecessor, was compelled to yield some- 
 what to the popular outcry, He peremptorily 
 refused to take any steps against Bonaparte, who 
 had confirmed and extended his Berlin decree 
 by the issue of his Milan decree, a still more 
 unscrupulous attack on the law of nations and 
 the proper rights of neutrals; but he got an act 
 passed by the legislature, which repealed the 
 universal embargo, and substituted a prohibition 
 of intercourse with France and England, with 
 the proviso that, if either of these nations should 
 cease to violate the neutral commerce of the 
 United States, the suspended trade with such 
 state might be renewed; and after this he signed 
 a treaty with Mr. Erskine, which professed to 
 be for the restoration of amity and commerce 
 
 between the States and Great Britain. This time 1 
 
 it was the British government that refused to 
 ratify, alleging that Mr. Erskine had misunder- 
 
 stood his instructions and exceeded his powers, | 
 No treaty, in fact, could subsist while America | 
 
 sy 
 
 [Book X. 1 
 
 oe 
 
 A NID I NE . < 7 
 avers oe, a ae attend wie se ai hee 
 
 ay Eee 
 
 put England in the same category with France, | 
 
 and kept up her incessant clamour ‘against our — 
 orders in council, without doing anything to oppose | 
 the Berlin and Milan decrees, which had given | 
 birth to our orders. It would appear also that | 
 Erskine was over-reached, and was no match for | 
 the Americans in their own field of diplomacy. | 
 Without waiting for the ratification, without which | 
 —as Jefferson himself had so recently proved by | 
 
 his own conduct—the treaty was null, a great 
 
 number of impatient American merchantmen set | 
 sail for the British ports, and for other places, | 
 
 | 
 
 Our government, however, provided that no loss — 
 
 ase. 
 
 aA, Ss —- 
 
 " 
 
 should accrue to such vessels as had proceeded | 
 to England in reliance upon the treaty, and that — 
 none should be stopped until after a certain inter- — 
 val. In the same year, 1809 (in the month of — 
 
 April), the British government made a modifi- | 
 
 al 
 r. 
 
 | 
 
 | . aA 
 
| 
 : 
 
 Cua. VIIl.] 
 
 cation in the orders in council expressly to favour 
 America, by opening to her trade the German 
 Ocean, the Baltic, the foreign possessions of the 
 Dutch, and part of Italy. In the following year, 
 Mr. Jackson, who had been sent out to Washing- 
 ton, on the recall of Mr, Erskine, to explain his 
 mistakes and to renew the negotiation, discovered 
 very strong symptoms of a determination, on the 
 part of President Madison, to brave a war with 
 England, As if for the express purpose of throwing 
 invincible obstacles in the way to any adjustment, 
 the American government now, jor the jirst time, 
 complained of our order of blockade of May 1806, 
 as a violation of neutral rights, an infringement of 
 the law of nations, and as a provocation which 
 justified the Berlin decree; and, also for the first 
 time, after four years of busy negotiation, Madison 
 put forward a new doctrine about blockades, to 
 which England could not have submitted without 
 infinite mischief to herself. The American minis- 
 ter accused Jackson of stubbornness, intemperance 
 of language, and ill-will to the republic; and 
 Jackson retorted the charges. The stubbornness 
 of our envoy appears to have consisted in a strict 
 adherence to his letters of instruction, and in a 
 firm determination not to commit the honour and 
 interests of his country. Madison instructed the 
 American minister in London to demand the 
 immediate recall of Jackson, as an unfriendly, 
 impracticable man. Our government recalled its 
 envoy, but took good care not to express any dis- 
 pleasure at his conduct or bearing in Washington. 
 The Congress had passed an act, providing that, if 
 either Great Britain or France should modify its 
 edicts, so as that they should cease to violate the 
 neutral commerce of the United States, and if 
 the other nation should not, within three months 
 thereafter, do the same, the restriction of inter- 
 course should cease with regard to the first nation, 
 but remain in force with regard to the second. 
 This signified that Madison had been induced to 
 believe that Bonaparte, though preserving the 
 rigour of his edicts against all other neutral 
 nations, and against’ England, would relax the 
 severity of the Berlin and Milan decrees in favour 
 of the United States exclusively. Backed by the 
 Act of Congress, Madison, in November 1810, 
 issued a proclamation, importing that the two 
 French edicts had actually been revoked, and 
 that, therefore, from that time forward the 
 American restrictions upon trade were abrogated 
 with respect to France; and, on the same day, 
 Gallatin, his secretary of the treasury, sent letters 
 to the different collectors of the customs to 
 announce the abolition of the restrictions with 
 regard to France, but to declare that these restric- 
 tions would all be revived in full force with regard 
 to Great Britain, within three months, unless she 
 revoked her orders in council. By a subsequent 
 letter, Gallatin intimated that all British goods 
 arriving subsequently to the 2nd of February, 
 1811, would be seized and forfeited, 
 
 By his Milan decree Bonaparte declared the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 627 
 
 ships of all neutrals which allowed themselves to 
 be searched by the English—or, which, to use his 
 language, submitted to the tyranny of Britain—to 
 be, by the fact, denationalized. This meant that 
 every American or other neutral vessel that 
 submitted to our search should forfeit all the rights 
 of its flag, and be treated as an enemy, and seized 
 and confiscated by the French or the allies of 
 France, wherever found. Nor did the decree 
 remain a dead letter: scores of American vessels 
 were seized in France, in Holland, in the German 
 ports on the Baltic, and in other dependencies or 
 conquests of the French empire. In Italy they 
 were seized by the French viceroy, Bonaparte’s 
 son-in-law, Beauharnais, and by his brother-in- 
 law, Murat, King of Naples. And be it also 
 remembered that, even after the United States 
 had gratified Napoleon, by waging hostilities 
 against England, France herself did not give 
 indemnities for the American ships and property 
 she had seized, and the closing of that long account 
 was only obtained from King Louis Philippe, 
 through the friendly mediation of the British 
 government. The propositions and proclamations 
 of Jefferson and Madison were little more than a 
 repetition of Bonaparte’s principles and of the 
 very words of his decrees; for, in order to have 
 them in the trap where he wanted them, he had 
 said that his measures against neutrals should 
 cease to have any effect with respect to any nation 
 that should have the firmness to compel the 
 English government to respect its flag. The 
 Americans could not commit themselves to one 
 single part of the principles maintained by Bona- 
 parte in his Berlin and Milan decrees without 
 committing themselves to the counterpart and 
 consequences. Now, it was his principle that those 
 who did not resist an injury offered them by either 
 of the belligerents were no longer to be considered 
 as neutrals; that by their acquiescence they made 
 themselves parties to the cause of the enemy, and 
 thereby rendered themselves liable to be treated 
 in the same way as if they had actually declared 
 war against the nation to whose interests they 
 stood opposed. Thus, by the theory they embraced, 
 and by the conduct they had pursued, the 
 Americans had put themselves in an attitude of 
 hostility which would have justified a declaration 
 of war on the part of the English. But the 
 English, having enemies enough upon their hands, 
 wished for no war with them. In March, 1811, 
 Pinckney, the American minister, was recalled 
 from London, in a manner that was almost equi- 
 valent to a declaration of war by the United 
 States. And from this moment the Americans 
 acted as if the French edicts against neutrals had 
 been entirely revoked, for they threw open their 
 ports for ships bearing the French flag, and kept 
 them shut against our flag. In the month of May 
 of this same year (1811) open acts of hostility 
 took place upon the seas, The British frigate 
 ‘Guerriére? Captain Samuel John Pechell, took 
 some British sailors out of American vessels, and 
 
628 
 
 by the mistake so easily made, took some two or 
 three men who were natives or citizens of the 
 States. Upon discovering his error, Captain 
 Pechell returned all these Americans, except one 
 man who voluntarily entered our service. J orth- 
 with orders came down to the coast from Washing- 
 ton to Commodore Rodgers to protect the coasts 
 and commerce of the States, and to put to sea 
 immediately in pursuit of the British frigate (the 
 ‘Guerriére’), for her having captured and retained 
 an American citizen. Confident in his superiority 
 over the ‘Guerriére, Commodore Rodgers, with 
 officers on board who had come from Washington 
 with letters from President Madison, sailed from 
 the Chesapeake on the 12th of May, with his 
 frigate ‘ President, which was all in fighting order, 
 and a match for a ship of the line. On the 13th 
 the American commodore was led to believe that 
 he was getting near to Captain Pechell’s frigate; 
 and thereupon he got an extra quantity of shot 
 and wads upon the deck and cleared the ‘ Presi- 
 dent’ for action. The information was, however, 
 incorrect; and instead of falling in with the 
 ‘Guerriére’ frigate, the ‘ President, on the 16th of 
 May, fell in with a still more unequal antagonist— 
 the British ship-sloop ‘ Little Belt, Captain Arthur 
 Batt Bingham. The ‘Little Belt’ mounted 18 
 carronades, thirty-two-pounders, and 2 nines; she 
 was a low flushed vessel, and her entire crew, 
 counting boys, was 121. The ‘President’ was 
 larger than an English 74; she carried 56 guns of 
 high calibre, for 30 of them were long twenty-four- 
 pounders, and 24 of them were forty-two-pounder 
 carronades ; her crew amounted to more than 600, 
 of whom 300 were said to be British seamen! At 
 first the ‘ Little Belt’ hauled up in chase to dis- 
 cover what the big ship was. At about half-past 
 one in the afternoon the ‘Little Belt’ was within 
 ten miles of the ‘ President,’ who then hoisted her 
 ensign and commodore’s pendant, and edged away, 
 as if to meet the ‘ Little Belt. Our sloop-of-war, 
 at the same time, showed her number, and after- 
 wards the customary signal, calling upon the 
 stranger, if a British ship-of-war, to show hers, 
 As Commodore Rodgers did not answer the signal, 
 Captain Bingham concluded that the ‘ President’ 
 was showing her true ensign, that she was an 
 American frigate, and consequently a neutral ; 
 and thereupon he hoisted his colours, wore, and 
 resumed his course. Upon this Commodore 
 Rodgers crowded sail in chase, being, as he after- 
 wards said, desirous of speaking the sloop-of- 
 war, and of ascertaining what she was. Captain 
 Bingham now made the private signal, and, finding 
 it unanswered, he felt assured that the stranger, 
 notwithstanding her chasing, must be an Ameri- 
 can; and, therefore, he hauled down both ensign 
 and signal, and continued his course. At half-past 
 six in the evening the ‘President’ got near to 
 the ‘Little Belt’ who shortened sail, re-hoisted 
 colours, and hove to, Captain Bingham wishing 
 to remove all remaining doubts on either side, 
 before it grew dark. But, to avoid being taken 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 by surprise, Bingham double-shotted the ‘Little 
 Belt’ guns, and got all clear for action. The 
 ‘President’ approaching as if she intended to take 
 a raking position, the ‘ Little Belt’ wore three 
 times. At eight o’clock in the evening the two 
 ships were not above ninety yards apart, the 
 ‘ Little Belt’ being upon the starboard tack. And 
 now Captain Bingham hailed the ‘ President’ in 
 the usual manner. The ‘President’ returned no 
 answer, but kept advancing, as if intending to rake 
 the ‘Little Belt, by passing astern of her, The 
 ‘Little Belt’ wore a fourth time, and came to on 
 the larboard tack. The ‘ President’ also hove 
 to, and the ships lay within eighty yards of each 
 other. Captain Bingham, standing forward on a 
 gun, hailed, “Ship a-hoy!” The meutral frigate 
 merely repeated, “ Ship a-hoy.” “ What ship is 
 that?” cried Bingham, through his speaking- 
 trumpet. “ What ship is that?” repeated Com- 
 modore Rodgers, And at this instant a gun was 
 fired from the ‘President, and was presently 
 answered by the ‘ Little Belt” A furious though 
 most unequal engagement ensued, and lasted for 
 nearly half an hour, when the ‘ Little Belt, owing 
 to the loss of her after-sail and the damaged state 
 of her rigging, fell off, so that no gun could bear, 
 As she ceased her firing the ‘ President’ ceased 
 hers. Shortly after this, Commodore Rodgers 
 hailed, and learned—as he alleged, for the first 
 time—that the vessel he had been fighting with was 
 a British ship. He then put the question whether 
 his antagonist had struck? Captain Bingham 
 answered with a right good English “No!” Our 
 poor sloop-of-war lay almost a wreck upon the 
 waters: her rigging was cut to pieces, not a brace 
 or a bowline left; her masts and yards were 
 badly wounded; her gaff was shot away; her 
 upper works were riddled; her hull was much 
 battered, and shots were entering her side between 
 wind and water. Nothing but the lowness of her 
 hull in the water, and the close distance at which 
 she had fought, could have prevented her from 
 being sunk by the enormously heavy broadside 
 of the ‘President. Out of her small crew 
 Bingham’s sloop had eleven killed and twenty-one 
 wounded. During the night the ‘ President’ lay 
 to repairing her trifling damages, and waiting for 
 daylight in order to have a clear and satisfactory 
 view of the effects of her powers. The ‘ Little 
 
 Belt’ also lay to, getting fresh spars upon deck, | 
 
 and patching up her rigging. As soon as it was 
 
 daylight (on the 17th of May) the American ship — 
 
 bore up, and to all appearance seemed ready to 
 
 renew the action. At eight a.m. she passed within 
 hail of the ‘ Little Belt,’ and Commodore Rodgers 
 
 cried out, “Ship a-hoy ! I’ll senda boat on board, if | 
 
 you please, sir.” Bingham replied, “Very well, sir.” 
 
 The boat went under the command of Rodgers’s 
 
 first lieutenant, who bore a message from the com- — 
 
 modore to the English captain. He professed to | 
 
 lament much the “unfortunate affair,” and 
 
 declared that, if he had known that the ‘Little | 
 Belt’s’ force was so inferior to the ‘President’s, | 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 he would not have fired into her. On being asked 
 why he had fired at all, the American licutenant 
 replied, that the ‘ Little Belt’ had fired first. This 
 was denied by Captain Bingham, and by all on 
 board the sloop. The lieutenant then, in the 
 name of his commodore, offered assistance—nay, 
 the ‘Little Belt’ might be allowed to go into a 
 port of the United States to repair and refit. 
 Captain Bingham declined these offers; the boat 
 returned, the ‘President’ made sail to the west- 
 ward, and the ‘Little Belt,’ as soon as she could 
 do so, kept her own original course to the 
 northward.* 
 
 It followed, as a matter of course, that, when 
 President Madison and his government were 
 applied to for explanations, they disavowed any 
 hostile orders, declared that their intention was 
 only “to protect the coast and commerce of the 
 United States,” and repeated the assertion of their 
 commodore, that a vessel not one-fourth equal to 
 her in point of force had provoked, sought, and 
 actually commenced an action with the ‘ President.’ 
 They commended Rodgers for all that he had 
 done. On the other side, the captain, officers, and 
 crew of the ‘ Little Belt’ received the applause of 
 every generous mind (some in America not ex- 
 cepted), for the spirit they had manifested ; and, 
 on the 7th of February, 1812, Captain Bingham 
 was promoted to post rank. 
 
 The English government had sent out a new 
 envoy to Washington on the hopeless task of 
 attempting a friendly negotiation. This new 
 envoy and minister plenipotentiary was Mr. A. 
 Foster, who had been secretary of embassy to Mr. 
 Merry, in the years 1804—5-6, who knew the United 
 States well, and who had many friends among 
 their natives. Besides these advantages—as they 
 were considered in the eyes of those who appointed 
 him—Mr. Foster had a mild and conciliating tem- 
 per, a good deal of diplomatic experience and 
 address, and manners that were calculated to 
 please and charm civilized men, But Mr. Foster’s 
 friends were all of the federal party, and that 
 party was now decidedly in the background. Mr. 
 Foster was therefore unable to do anything for his 
 country in America. 
 
 In every stage of these American troubles the 
 opposition party in parliament, and the liberal 
 newspapers, had so far taken side with the Ameri- 
 cans as to attribute the entire blame, or all the 
 original causes of disagreement, to the folly, imbe- 
 cility, or wickedness of our own government, And 
 many who did not go to this extreme length, and 
 who considered the quarrel with a more immediate 
 reference to the purse and the commercial pros- 
 perity of the country, had maintained all along 
 that, in spite of the Berlin and Milan decrees, in 
 spite of the glaring subserviency of America to 
 France, in spite of the consideration, that, if we 
 gave to the flag of the United States all that it 
 claimed, that flag must render the most vital ser- 
 
 * James, Naval History.—Bingham’s Report, and Court-martial 
 evidence, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 629 
 
 vices to our numerous enemies, and at the same 
 time monopolize to itself the trade of nearly all 
 Europe, we ought to revoke our orders in council, 
 and yield every contested point in them, forasmuch 
 as the said orders in council were, particularly 
 since America had closed her ports against us, 
 and had stopped all intercourse of trade with us, 
 far more mischievous to Great Britain than to 
 the United States. Nearly all the political econo- 
 mists were of this opinion, and they were seconded 
 and supported by our manufacturers, who could 
 ill bear the interruption of their great export trade 
 to America. From some of these quarters repeated 
 intimations had been sent across the Atlantic, that, 
 if the Americans would but keep aloof from any 
 engagements with France, the orders in council 
 would either be revoked, as regarded them, or very 
 much modified. A committee was actually ap- 
 pointed by the House of Commons to examine the 
 effects of the orders in council on the commercial 
 interests of the nation, and this committee con- 
 tinued its inquiries during all the agitation which 
 followed the assassination of Mr. Perceval. On 
 the 16th of June (1812), Mr. Brougham (now Lord 
 Brougham), the most eloquent of the advocates for 
 the revocation of the orders, after minutely stating 
 the facts brought out by the committee’s inquiries, 
 moved an address to the prince regent, beseeching 
 him to recall or suspend the orders in council, and 
 to adopt such other measures as might tend to 
 conciliate neutral powers, without sacrificing the 
 rights and dignity of his majesty’s crown, Lord 
 Castlereagh, now secretary of state for foreign 
 affairs, deprecated the attempt to bring so import- 
 ant a question to a hasty decision, and stated that 
 it was the intention of government to make a con- 
 ciliatory proposition to the United States. After 
 some demur Mr. Brougham withdrew his motion 
 on the intimation that this definitive proposition 
 was already decided upon in the cabinet, and 
 would appear in the very next Gazette. And, 
 accordingly, on the 23rd of June (1812), there 
 appeared a declaration from the prince regent in 
 council, absolutely revoking the orders in council 
 so far as they regarded America. It had not been 
 until the 20th of May that Mr. Russell, the Ameri- 
 can chargé d’affaires, transmitted to Lord Castle- 
 reagh “a copy of a certain instrument, then for 
 the jirst time communicated to this court, purporting 
 to be a decree passed by the government of France 
 on the 28th day of April, 1811, by which the 
 decrees of Berlin and Milan are declared to be 
 definitively no longer in force in regard to Ameri- 
 can vessels.” This long concealed document, which 
 was dated from the Palace of St. Cloud, stated that 
 it was on account of the law passed by the con- 
 gress of the United States on the 2nd of March, 
 1811, which ordered the execution of the provi- 
 sions of the Act of Non-Intercourse with Great 
 Britain, and on account of the resistance to the 
 arbitrary pretensions of our orders in council, and 
 the refusal of the Americans to adhere to a system 
 invading the independence of neutral powers, and 
 
 —. —— 
 
630 
 
 of their flag, that the Emperor Napoleon had 
 revoked his decrees with regard to them. The 
 prince regent’s revocation contained a proviso, 
 that the present order should be of no effect unless 
 the United States revoked their Non-Intercourse 
 Act. It has been usual to say that the revocation 
 came too late; that, if our government had con- 
 ceded it only a few weeks or a very few months 
 earlier, there would have been no war with 
 America. But the truth is, Madison and his party 
 had nicely calculated on which side lay the greater 
 amount of profit to be obtained, or whether the 
 United States would gain more by going to war 
 with England than by putting herself in a state of 
 hostility against Bonaparte and his edicts. In 
 April, 1811, when (according to French authorities) 
 Madison’s envoy at Paris got the St. Cloud revoca- 
 tion and other assurances from Bonaparte, the 
 great storm gathering in the north, and which was 
 destined to accelerate that conqueror’s ruin, was 
 not yet discernible to the eyes of American states- 
 men; when it became visible to them it was 
 rather too late to retract, if Madison and his 
 party had been inclined so to do; but it would 
 appear that there was no such inclination, and 
 that the president and the whole party felt in- 
 wardly convinced that the Man of Destiny would 
 prevail over Russia as he had done over Prussia 
 and Austria, and the more surely from Prussia and 
 Austria being now his allies and assistants, and 
 sending, like nearly every country in Europe, their 
 troops to fight under the conqueror’s orders. ‘The 
 Americans had cultivated the friendship of Russia ; 
 but they believed that Alexander would be crushed 
 as the Emperor Francis had been, and that Bona- 
 parte would soon date his decrees from Petersburgh 
 as he had done from Vienna and Berlin.* It was 
 believed, too, that the subjugation of Russia would 
 leave Bonaparte without one powerful enemy on 
 the Continent of Europe, and therefore lead to his 
 employing all his means and energies against 
 England. Great encouragement was also found in 
 our temporary commercial panic, in the ill-timed 
 report of our Bullion Committee, and in the par- 
 liamentary debates and the newspaper strictures 
 to which it gave rise. Jefferson, for one, believed 
 that the credit of the Bank of England was gone 
 for ever, that the nation was bankrupt: and Jeffer- 
 son, though no longer president, was still the oracle 
 and tutelary genius of the anti-English and war 
 party. 
 
 The moderation of England had allowed the 
 American government to choose its own time. On 
 the 14th of April, at a secret sitting of Congress, 
 an embargo was laid on all ships and vessels of 
 
 * Sir Augustus Foster noted the democratic incongruity, that, of 
 all the foreign legations at Washington, the one which seemed to be 
 on the best terms with the Americans was the Russian ;—‘ for, 
 strange to say, they have always had a leaning of affection to the 
 most absolute of all governments, and have been publicly as well as 
 individually assiduous in courting the good graces of the autocrat.” 
 At a later ‘period Sir Augustus mentions the surprise of the late 
 Emperor Nicholas, at seeing the American envoy, the celebrated 
 republican John Randolph, of Roanoke, drop on his knees to present 
 his ronan tele, Sir Augustus had the anecdote from the emperor’s 
 own lips. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 the United States, during the space of ninety days. 
 This was intended to lessen the number of trading 
 American vessels that would be at the mercy of 
 England when war was formally declared, and at 
 the same time to secure for their leviathan frigates, 
 their privateers, and their other fighting ships, 
 
 good and numerous crews. As there had been but 
 little trade ever since their Suspension of Inter- 
 course Act, as grass had already begun to grow on 
 the deserted wharves of New York and Phila- 
 delphia, it was easy to obtain vessels and men for 
 what they hoped might prove the profitable trade 
 of privateering ; and by getting the start, by 
 taking England by surprise, they were pretty sure 
 to make a good harvest in the American seas and 
 among our West India islands, By the end of 
 May most of the fastest sailing ships, brigs, and 
 schooners of their merchant service were fitted, or 
 were fitting out, as privateers; and many lay 
 ready to sail the moment that war should be 
 declared. They had not to wait long.* 
 
 The moderate party, which was now joined by 
 a few of the anti-federalists or Jefferson men, made 
 several efforts to avert or retard the breach ; and 
 by so doing they exposed themselves to charges of 
 treachery and treason in the newspapers, and to 
 the risk of being torn to pieces, or tarred and 
 feathered by the mob, or cuffed and kicked within 
 the hall of Congress by their furious opponents. 
 On the 29th of May the matter was brought to a 
 decision, by the rejection of a resolution, “That 
 under the present circumstances it is inexpedient 
 to resort to a war with Great Britain”—which 
 resolution was negatived in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives by 62 against 37. On the 4th of June, 
 Madison laid before the two Houses copies of the 
 correspondence which had passed between his 
 government and Mr. Foster, the English envoy at 
 Washington, intimating that from that corres- 
 pondence it would appear that Great Britain was 
 determined neither to revoke her orders in council, 
 nor to concede any important point. Stormy and 
 terrible were the debates which followed; loud 
 were the boastings of one party, and dismal the 
 predictions of the other, On the 18th of June, 
 two days after Mr. Brougham’s friendly oration in 
 the House of Commons, they came to their reso- 
 lution and declaration. 
 
 It was to the effect that — 
 the United States and Great Britain were, and had — 
 
 for a long time past, been in an actual state of — 
 
 war. 
 House of Representatives by 79 against 49. The 
 
 supporters of war were chiefly from the western — 
 
 This determination was carried in the © 
 
 ry 
 
 ‘ 
 
 and southern states to Pennsylvania inclusive ; the — 
 
 advocates for peace were chiefly from the eastern | 
 The ominous note of dis- | 
 
 and northern states. 
 severance was again heard, the eastern and 
 northern states complaining that their interests 
 were sacrificed to the passions and the interests of 
 
 2 
 
 their neighbours. When the news reached Boston, — 
 
 that city, though the cradle of the American revo- — 
 
 * James, Naval History. 
 
Cuar. VITI.] CIVIL AND MILITARY 
 
 lution, put on mourning, and muffled its church 
 bells. The same tokens of distress and grief were 
 displayed in other towns of the east and north ; 
 but at Baltimore, where, as in other ports of the 
 southern states, swarms of privateers were all 
 ready to pounce upon the British West India trade, 
 the exulting and furious mob perpetrated cruel 
 atrocities upon some of the opposers of the war. 
 
 In those states where men were free to express 
 their pacific sentiments, and their English pre- 
 dilections, many a remonstrance was made, 
 and now, as at a later period, the war was set 
 down as impolitic, unjust, iniquitous, and the 
 central government was reminded of the weakness 
 of the ties which bound the east and the north to 
 it, and to the states of the west and south. These 
 men said that, if war could be justified against 
 Great Britain, it could only be on the ground 
 assumed by the president and his government that 
 the French decrees had been actually repealed, if 
 not as far back as November 1810, at least as far 
 back as April 1811; that the indiscriminate plunder 
 and destruction of American commerce, the cap- 
 ture of American ships by the cruisers of France, 
 and their condemnation by her courts and by the 
 emperor in person, together with his repeated and 
 solemn declarations that the Berlin and Milan 
 decrees were still in force, and constituted the 
 fundamental laws of his empire, at a period long 
 subsequent to the pretended repeal, furnished a 
 conclusive answer to this question. That this 
 important question, moreover, was now definitely 
 answered from another quarter; that the American 
 people had now learned with astonishment the 
 depth of their degradation—had learned that the 
 French emperor, as if to show to the world that 
 he held the Americans and their government in 
 utter contempt, had reserved till May, 1812, 
 the official declaration of the fact that these 
 decrees were repealed in April, 1811; and then, 
 not in consequence of his sense of their injustice, 
 but because the American government had 
 complied with his conditions and proposals by 
 shutting her ports and putting herself in a con- 
 dition of hostility towards England ; and that the 
 _ emperor had since added that this decree of repeal 
 was, when first drawn up, communicated to the 
 American minister at Paris, as well as to his own 
 minister at Washington, to be made known to the 
 president and government. That, as the previous 
 pledge of Great Britain had given the fullest assur- 
 ance that she would repeal her orders in council 
 as soon as the French decrees should cease to exist, 
 and as her subsequent conduct left no doubt that 
 she would have been faithful to her promise, they 
 (the American remonstrants) could never too much 
 deplore the long neglect to make known to Great 
 Britain this repeal, whether such neglect were 
 attributable to the French government or to their 
 own. These remonstrants drew a striking picture 
 of Bonaparte’s despotism in France, and his unpro- 
 voked invasions, his conquests and oppressions, in 
 other countries. Admitting that England might 
 
 TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 631 
 
 have been guilty of many faults, they contended 
 that she was still the most free and best governed 
 country in Europe, the only champion of the inde- 
 pendence of the other European nations; and they 
 asked whether it became the free and independent 
 republic of the United States to court the friend- 
 ship of Bonaparte by rushing into a war with 
 Hngland? If war was to be the portion of these 
 United States, still they must regret that such a 
 moment and such an occasion should have been 
 chosen for the experiment ;—“ that, while the 
 oppressed nations of Europe are making a mag- 
 nanimous and glorious effort against the common 
 enemy of all free states, we alone, the descendants 
 of the pilgrims, sworn foes to civil and religious 
 slavery, should voluntarily co-operate with the 
 oppressor to bind other nations in chains; that 
 while diverting the forces of Great Britain from 
 the mighty conflict, we should endanger the 
 defenceless territories of others.” They called 
 attention to the notorious and exasperating fact 
 that Bonaparte had neither restored the American 
 ships and cargoes he had seized, nor had so much 
 as promised any indemnity for them. They said 
 that, if this rash war was undertaken to appease 
 the resentment or secure the favour of France, 
 deep and humiliating must be the disappointment ; 
 for, although the emperor was “lavish in his pro- 
 fessions of love for the American people,” although 
 he applauded their ready self-devotion, and declared 
 “that their commerce and their prosperity were 
 within the scope of his policy,’ yet no reparation 
 had been made or offered for the many outrages, 
 indignities, and insults he had inflicted on their 
 government, nor for the unnumbered millions of 
 which he had plundered their citizens.* 
 
 The aspect of Canada was very tempting. We 
 had few regular troops there; hardly any prepar- 
 ations had been made to meet the coming invasion, 
 though it had been foreseen for some months ; our 
 frontier forts and posts were in a poor condition ; 
 our dependence was almost solely upon the militia 
 of the country ; and the statesmen of Washington 
 and other men hoped that the French Canadians 
 would be enchanted by the warbling of the repub- 
 lican voice, and join the invaders rather than fight 
 against them, As far back as November, 1811— 
 that is to say, nearly eight months before their 
 declaration of war—the central government had 
 ordered that a force of 10,000 men should be 
 collected at Boston. It was no doubt intended 
 that the destination of this force should be 
 kept secret, but the American government could 
 never stop the babbling of American news- 
 papers. Besides this force, which was to be kept 
 in readiness to march at a moment’s notice, 
 could have no other object than the invasion of 
 Canada, Other measures, and particularly the 
 sudden enrolment of 50,000 volunteers by the 
 
 * They also dwelt upon the internal danger sure to result from 
 any close connexion with the French, whose interference in the 
 affairs of a foreign country had always ended in intestine dissen- 
 sions and usurpation. 
 
632 
 
 government of the United States, confirmed the 
 opinion. But our own government was oppressed 
 by the weight of more serious business ; our local 
 government in Canada had fallen to the lot of 
 some incompetent men; and both were induced 
 to believe that the United States in the end would 
 shrink from a war which must commit their prin- 
 ciples, their interests, and their safety, and—as it 
 was believed—lead to hostilities between states 
 and states, and finally to the dissolution of the 
 federal union. If we look to the tremendous 
 struggle going on in Spain, where the war 
 depended almost solely upon English arms and 
 English money, and in Russia, where English 
 counsel, countenance, and support were required, 
 and then to the war of independence which burst 
 out in Germany, and to the immensity of means 
 required, and the incessant attention demanded 
 from the English government to keep alive the 
 flame that was spreading throughout Europe, we 
 shall comprehend that our ministers were entitled 
 to some excuse for their neglect of American 
 affairs ; yet still they will remain amenable to the 
 charge of having been guilty of the folly of too 
 much despising the new enemy arrayed against 
 them at this most busy and most critical moment. 
 Early in the year 1812, months before the hos- 
 tile declaration, and while Madison was constantly 
 assuring our envoy that he wished to continue 
 amicable negotiations, the van of the invading 
 army assembled near the Detroit frontier. It was 
 2500 strong, was well provided with artillery, and 
 was under the command of Hull, who passed with 
 the Americans for a great general and strategist. 
 To defend the far-extending frontiers of Upper and 
 Lower Canada, and to do garrison duty in the in- 
 terior of those extensive provinces, we had only, of 
 regular force, about 4000 men, and some of these 
 were invalids. The Canadian militia then incor- 
 porated in the two provinces amounted to about 
 the same number. Sir George Prevost, the com- 
 mander-in-chief of these forces, was, if not an old 
 woman, assuredly no general. But fortunately we 
 had in the Upper province an officer of energy and 
 ability, the gallant and still lamented Major-general 
 Brock. This officer, knowing of the gathering of 
 Hull’s force on the Detroit frontier, and seeing 
 that war was certain, sent discretionary orders to a 
 British officer in charge of Fort St. Joseph to act 
 either offensively or otherwise against the enemy 
 at Michilimachimac, as he should find advisable ; 
 and that officer, on the 17th of July, a month all 
 but a day after the declaration of war at Washing- 
 ton, captured the American place, with its garrison 
 of sixty men and seven pieces of ordnance. This 
 was the first operation of the war, and was attended 
 with very important consequences: it gave confi- 
 dence to the Indian natives, who had long and 
 almost incessantly been engaged in a cruel war 
 with the people of the United States, and who now 
 joined the British heart and hand; it opened a 
 ready communication with many of their scattered 
 nations or tribes, and it paved the way to the sub- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 sequent disasters, and the humiliating catastrophe 
 of the renowned Hull. 
 
 In the meanwhile Hull and his 2500 republicans 
 crossed the Detroit frontier, being preceded by a 
 boastful proclamation, in which he spoke of success 
 as certain, and in which he invited and incited the 
 oppressed citizens of Canada to throw off their 
 allegiance to a king and become citizens of the 
 republic. Hull’s first serious disappointment was 
 to find that his proclamation was laughed at; that 
 the French or French-descended Canadians despised 
 his invitation as much as the British settlers 
 despised it; and that, in short, the loyalty of the 
 Canadians in general was as indisputable as their 
 activity and bravery. Hull took possession of the 
 British village of Sandwich, but made no attempt 
 upon the British garrison of Amherstburgh. As 
 soon as Major-general Brock learned the entrance 
 of the Americans into Canada, he sent Colonel 
 Procter to assume the command at Amherstburgh. 
 Procter’s operations were so prompt and judicious 
 that Hull beat a retreat, recrossing the strait, and 
 encamping under the walls of Fort Detroit. Procter, 
 following him, advanced to Sandwich, and raised 
 batteries on the British side. Brave Brock came 
 up with reinforcements ; and Hull, reduced to 
 extremities before his appearance, hedged up in a 
 corner, with his retreat and supplies alike cut off, 
 capitulated on the 10th of August, with 2500 men 
 and 33 pieces of artillery. The fort of Detroit, its 
 ordnance, stores, and a fine American vessel in the 
 harbour, became the prizes of the conquerors. By 
 the same capitulation the whole of the Michigan 
 territory, which separated the Indian country from 
 Canada, was ceded to the British, whose frontier it 
 vastly improved. Leaving Colonel Procter on the 
 Detroit frontier, Major-general Brock moved off 
 like the wind to sweep the Niagara frontier of its 
 republican posts and forts. But, when he was sure 
 of his object, Brock was paralysed by learning that 
 his incompetent commander-in-chief, Lieutenant- 
 general Sir George Prevost, had concluded an 
 armistice with the American General Dearborn, — 
 which provided that neither party should act offen- 
 sively until the government at Washington should 
 ratify or annul the truce. If this unsoldierly knight 
 had wished to serve the Americans, he could not 
 have adopted a more fitting measure. As_ his 
 armistice did not prohibit them from transporting 
 ordnance, stores, and provisions to their menaced 
 Niagara frontier, all these things were brought up 
 in great quantities and with great haste; and 
 when they had well fortified that frontier, and had 
 assembled an army of 6300 men upon it—and, of 
 course, not until then—President Madison refused 
 to ratify the armistice, And, while this was doing, 
 Sir George did so little for Brock that he was left 
 to meet this new invasion with only 1200 regulars 
 and militia. Being free to choose where they 
 should cross the Niagara, the republicans chose to 
 pass opposite the village of Queenston on that 
 strait; and at daylight on the 18th of October 
 3000 of them began to effect a landing on the 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 Canadian shore. The only enemy they had to 
 encounter was a British detachment of 300 men 
 posted in the village; but long and obstinately 
 did this gallant little band contest their passage. 
 During the struggle, Brock arrived unattended 
 from Fort St. George, to meet the death of a hero, 
 He fell in the act of cheering on his gallant little 
 band to a charge. Our 300 then retreated, and 
 General Wadsworth, with 1600 of his republicans, 
 established himself on the heights behind the 
 village of Queenston. But short was his triumph; 
 at three in the afternoon he was attacked by 560 
 British regulars, and between 400 and 500 Cana- 
 dian militia, who broke his line through and 
 through, put his 1600 men completely to rout, and 
 captured, after a very brief contest, 900 men and 
 the republican general himself. Many of those who 
 escaped from the field were drowned in attempting 
 to swim back to their own shore ; 400 remained on 
 the field killed or wounded; the whole corps which 
 had crossed the Niagara was, in fact, annihilated. 
 The loss on the side of the. British and Canadians 
 in killed and wounded did not exceed 100, Such 
 was the result of Madison’s first Canadian cam- 
 paign; such the first success of his project to 
 make, in his own phrase, “territorial reprisal for 
 oceanic outrages.” 
 
 Tis success on the ocean, where success could 
 scarcely have been hoped for, was somewhat more 
 consoling. His ships, like his armies of invasion, 
 were in the slips, and ready to go at a word or 
 at a signal, Although New York is 240 miles 
 from Washington, Commodore Rodgers received 
 his instructions early enough to get from the har- 
 bour of New York on the morning of the 21st of 
 June, the declaration of war having been issued on 
 the afternoon of the 18th. Besides his enormous 
 double-banked frigate (a frigate only by name), 
 Rodgers took with him another ship of the same 
 sort called the ‘ United States, a 36-gun frigate, a 
 sloop-of-war, and a brig-sloop. His first object 
 was to get possession of a fleet of about a hundred 
 sail of our homeward-bound West Indiamen, which 
 knew nothing of the war, and were fecbly protected 
 by one English frigate and a brig-sloop. Off the 
 Nantucket shoal Rodgers fell in, not with our 
 sugar-ships, but with our tight frigate the ‘ Belvi- 
 dera, Captain Richard Byron, who had_ been 
 warned a day or two before by a New York pilot- 
 boat that war was declared or was on the point 
 of being declared. Rodgers came up first in his 
 own leviathan the ‘ President,’ which was, or ought 
 to have been, a match for an English 74. Captain 
 Byron’s frigate was an ordinary 36-gun frigate. 
 Before the battle began two other frigates of the 
 American squadron were in sight. Yet the ‘ Bel- 
 videra’ fought the big ‘ President’ for two hours, 
 at times in a running fight, at other times at rather 
 close quarters, firing upwards of 300 round shot 
 from her two cabin eighteen-pounders alone, and 
 causing more mischief than she received. Com- 
 modore Rodgers, who got severely wounded in the 
 leg by the bursting of a twenty-four-pounder, which 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 633 
 
 also wounded fifteen of his crew, fought shyly 
 towards the close, yawed about, and so gave time 
 for the ‘Congress’ frigate to come up. At about 
 half-past six in the evening the ‘ Congress,’ which 
 carried 50 guns and a picked crew of 440 men, 
 with scarcely a boy among them, opened a fire 
 upon the ‘ Belvidera, but the distance was too 
 great for even her long guns to take effect, and 
 she presently desisted. Captain Byron, by light- 
 ening his frigate, by cutting away three of her 
 anchors, by starting fourteen tons of her water, 
 and by throwing overboard some of her boats—by 
 repairing her injured sails and rigging with ad- 
 mirable alacrity, and by exerting all his good sea- 
 manship—gained way on the American squadron, 
 out-mancuvred them all, and finally escaped. 
 And, what was of still more importance, the ‘ Bel- 
 videra,’ by giving Rodgers a fifteen hours’ dance, 
 and by leading him far away to the northward, 
 destroyed his chance of getting at our hundred 
 sail of West Indiamen. ‘The republican commo- 
 dore did not get so much as a spoonful of that 
 sugar to sweeten the cup of his disappointment.* 
 He got nothing but some floating cocoa-nut shells, 
 orange-peels, and refuse of that sort.t On the 
 30th of July he steered for Madeira, and thence 
 for the Azores, looking in vain for some good 
 prize. He was so fortunate as to escape falling in 
 with any of our ships of the line; and this luck 
 attended him to the last, although he ran many 
 narrow chances, and was almost constantly in a 
 state of flight and trepidation, as his own letters 
 and the log-book of the ‘ President’ will prove. 
 But, to increase his present vexation, the scurvy 
 broke out among his crews, Having captured six 
 or seven small merchantmen and recovered one 
 American vessel, he returned homeward. His 
 squadron gave chase to a single British frigate, 
 but could not catch her; and he arrived at Boston 
 without one national trophy. Such was the result 
 of what has been humorously called Commodore 
 Rodgers’s “ maiden cruize.”£ 
 
 More British ships of the line and the largest 
 of our frigates, with full crews and the best ap- 
 pointments, ought to have been sent to the Ameri- 
 can stations, to increase the chance of capturing 
 or sinking the American leviathans that were 
 afloat under the fictitious name of frigates, but our 
 Admiralty did not take these necessary steps, and 
 left our frigates exposed to very unequal contests. 
 While Rodgers was looking for our West India 
 fleet, the ‘Querriére’ frigate, Captain James 
 Richard Dacres, escorted another fleet of our mer- 
 chantmen on their way home, and having done this 
 duty, she was returning alone to Halifax to obtain 
 that refit which could no longer be postponed with 
 any safety, for her bowsprit was badly sprung, her 
 mainmast had been struck by lightning and was 
 
 * James, Naval History. 
 We Cis letter of Commodore Rodgers, as quoted by James, Naval 
 
 tJ Pee Rodgers anchored at Boston on the 29th of August, just 
 six days after the safe arrival in the Downs of the ‘ Thalia’ frigate, 
 
 which, through the admirable conduct of the ‘ Belvidera,’ had been 
 enabled to convoy safely home our hundred West Indiamen. 
 
634 
 
 in a tottering state, her hull, from age and long 
 service, was scarcely seaworthy, and, not to 
 enumerate other defects, her gunners’ stores were 
 deficient, and what remained of her powder had 
 lost its strength from damp and long keeping. 
 “Tn fact,” adds the correct and excellent historian 
 of our navy, “such was the state of general decay 
 in which the ‘ Guerriére’ at this time was, that, 
 had the frigate gone into Portsmouth or Plymouth, 
 she would, in all probability, have been disarmed 
 and broken up.”* It was in this state that, on the 
 19th of August, the ‘Guerriére’ encountered the 
 heavy United States frigate ‘ Constitution,’ Captain 
 Hull, which was seventeen days only from port, in 
 the most perfect condition, with her stores ample, 
 her powder fresh, her full complement of 476 picked 
 men, and with almost everything that could give 
 superiority over the crippled and long cruizing 
 English frigate. In height, in length, the ‘ Consti- 
 tution’ far exceeded her opponent, and the weight 
 of her broadside was one-half heavier than that of 
 the ‘Guerriére” Moreover, the ‘Constitution’ filled 
 her tops with riflemen, expert marksmen who had 
 been drawn from the sportsmen of the country 
 and from the backwoodsmen, whose supplies of 
 animal food in good part depended upon the 
 chase of the deer and wild buffalo, and whose 
 rifles were seldom out of their hands. All the 
 American war-ships had men of this kind.t 
 Captain Dacres, however, waited for his antagonist, 
 nothing daunted by her superiority, or by the 
 lamentable state of his own ship and stores. He 
 had only 244 men and 19 boys on board. The 
 battle began at about five o'clock. Through the 
 badness of her powder, the ‘Guerriére’s’ shot fell 
 short, while those of the ‘Constitution’ reached 
 their mark. After availing himself for some time 
 of his apparent advantage at long-shot distance, 
 Captain Hull came to closer quarters. At about 
 six o'clock, a twenty-four pound shot carried 
 away the ‘Guerriére’s’ mizzen-mast by the board. 
 The mast fell over the starboard quarter, made a 
 large hole in the counter, and caused the ship to 
 bring up in the wind. ‘The ‘Constitution’ was 
 now enabled to take up an excellent position 
 on the ‘Guerriére’s’ larboard bow; and the 
 wild riflemen in the tops began their murderous 
 fire upon the British frigate. This was accom- 
 panied by a sweeping fire of great guns, to which 
 the ‘Guerriére’ could reply with only her bow 
 guns. In a quarter of an hour the two ships 
 fell on board each other, The Americans now 
 attempted to board; but the sea was rough, and 
 the motion of the two ships unfavourable to their 
 purpose; and their ardour was moreover cooled 
 by some well-directed shots from our marines 
 (unluckily, these brave fellows had only their 
 common muskets), which brought down the first 
 
 * James, 
 
 } To collect these expert marksmen, officers were sent among the 
 backwoodsmen of the West; and to embody them and give them 
 some necessary drilling, a marine barrack (for the fellows were 
 called marines) was established near Washington city. From this 
 depét, the American ships were regularly supplied.—James. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 lieutenant of American marines that was leading 
 the boarding-party with his riflemen, passed 
 through the body of the first lieutenant of the 
 ship who was at the head of the boarding sailors, 
 and brought down the sailing-master. Giving up 
 his intention of boarding, Hull made his riflemen 
 continue their unerring fire from the tops. Cap- 
 tain Dacres was severely wounded by a rifle-ball 
 while in the act of cheering his men; but, though 
 suffering excessive pain, he would not quit the 
 deck. At nearly the same moment, his sailing- 
 master and the master’s mate were wounded by 
 those fierce backwoodsmen, who endeavoured to 
 pick out the officers. In a few minutes after falling 
 aboard, the two ships got clear, the ‘ Constitution’ 
 showing no farther disposition to grapple with or 
 lash her adversary, an operation which she might 
 easily have performed, as the ‘Guerriére’s’ bow- 
 sprit had got entangled in her rigging. Notwith- 
 standing his fire-eaters in his tops, and his two 
 men to one, Hull preferred availing himself of the 
 immense advantages that were in his favour in 
 a cannonading to a hand to hand fight and the 
 experiment of boarding. As the two ships fell 
 asunder, the ‘ Guerriére’ came to a little, and 
 brought a few of her foremost guns to bear. Some 
 of her wads set fire to the ‘ Constitution’s’ cabin ; 
 but the fire was put out before it reached the 
 powder. At this moment the ‘Querriére’s’ bow- 
 sprit, “striking the taffrail of the ‘ Constitution, 
 slackened the fore-stay of the ‘Guerriére,’ and, the 
 fore-shrouds on the larboard or weather-side being 
 mostly shot away, the mast fell over the starboard 
 side, crossing the main stay: the sudden jerk 
 carried the mainmast along with it, leaving the 
 ‘ Guerriére’ a defenceless wreck, rolling her main- 
 deck guns in the water.” At about half-past six, 
 
 the ‘Guerriére,’ just after this accumulation of — 
 
 disasters, began clearing away the wreck of her 
 masts, in order to be ready to renew the action; 
 but, just as she had cleared away the wreck, her 
 spritsail-yard, upon which she had set a sail to try 
 and get before the wind, was carried away, and 
 the ‘Constitution’ ranged a-head. The English 
 frigate now lay an unmanageable hulk in the 
 
 trough of the sea, rolling her main-deck guns — 
 But her guns did worse than roll © 
 
 under water, 
 
 under water, many of them breaking loose, owing . 
 to the rotten state of the breechings and of the — 
 
 timber-heads. The 
 
 ‘Constitution’ now took a 
 
 position within pistol-shot; and, it being hopeless — 
 to contend any longer, the ‘Guerriére’ fired a lee | 
 gun, and hauled down the Union Jack from the — 
 
 stump of the mainmast. 
 
 struck. 
 
 It was within a quarter — 
 of seven o'clock when the gallant young Dacres | 
 He had fought the big * Constitution’ — 
 
 under almost every possible disadvantage for — 
 
 nearly three hours. 
 were fifteen killed and sixty-three wounded; in 
 
 In the English ship there — 
 
 | 
 i 
 
 the American, according to Hull’s report, there — 
 were only seven killed and seven wounded, The — 
 Americans were very desirous of carrying the — 
 ‘Guerriére’ into port as a trophy, and as @ ~ 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 substantial proof of their vengeance, for the 
 ‘Guerriére’ when commanded by Captain Pechell, 
 had been a chief cause of the quarrel which arose 
 about English deserters, which quarrel had led to 
 the severe castigation of the ‘Chesapeake’ by the 
 ‘Leopard ;’ but the poor ‘Guerriére’ was so rotten 
 and so shattered in her hull, that by daylight of 
 the morning after the action she was found to be 
 sinking. Having removed the prisoners on board, 
 Hull gave orders to set her on fire; and at half- 
 past three in the afternoon, the old frigate blew 
 up. Although they returned to port without 
 their trophy, Captain Hull and his officers and 
 men were honoured with the thanks of the 
 government, and were presented with 50,000 
 dollars as a reward for their exploit. 
 
 On the 25th of October, the ‘ Macedonian’ 
 frigate, Captain Carden, attacked the American 
 frigate ‘United States? Commodore Decatur. 
 Here the disparity of force was equally great: 
 the English frigate was shorter and lower, and 
 pierced for fewer guns, and her guns were of 
 lighter calibre; her crew consisted of 262 men 
 and 35 boys, the latter being scarcely worth ship- 
 room; the American, in addition to her fifty-five 
 guns, mounted a brass howitzer in each of her 
 tops, and her crew amounted to 477 men and one 
 boy. Yet the ‘Macedonian’ fought the ‘ United 
 States’ for two hours, and did not strike until she 
 was a complete wreck, with upwards of a hundred 
 shots in her hull, and with her decks strewed with 
 thirty-six killed and sixty-five wounded. 
 
 On the 29th of December, the ‘Java’ frigate, 
 Captain Lambert, who had been convoying some 
 - outward-bound Indiamen, attacked the big ‘Con- 
 stitution, which was now commanded not by Hull, 
 but by Commodore Bainbridge. Again the vast 
 disparity of force led to the defeat, but not to the 
 disgrace, of the British flag. The ‘Java’ fought 
 the ‘ Constitution’ for nearly five hours, gave her a 
 tremendous battering both in the hull and masts, 
 and killed and wounded many of her men, in spite 
 of her great height and the amazing strength of 
 her bulwarks. When the battle had lasted more 
 than two hours, Captain Lambert fell mortally 
 wounded by a musket-ball or a rifle-shot from the 
 ‘Constitution’s’ maintop; and the command then 
 devolved upon Lieutenant H. Ducie Chads, who 
 had been severely wounded ever since the com- 
 mencement of the action, but who had persisted 
 in remaining upon deck. When scarcely a stick 
 was left standing, when the ship was encumbered 
 with wrecks of spars and rigging, and when almost 
 every discharge set her on fire, the crew of the 
 ‘ Java’ lost no heart; and seeing the ‘ Constitution’ 
 running from them, in order to resort to her “long- 
 shot tactics,’ and fancying that she was going off 
 altogether, they cheered her to come back, as they 
 could not give chase. The ‘Java,’ like the 
 ‘Guerriére, was so thoroughly battered before she 
 surrendered, that the American commodore set 
 her on fire, as Captain Hull had set fire to the 
 *Guerriére,’ The British 18-gun brig-sloop ‘ Frolic, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 635 
 
 Captain Thomas Whinyates, which had been five 
 years in the West Indies, and had a weak and very 
 sickly crew, which had suffered severely in her 
 masts and rigging in a storm the night before, 
 attacked the United States 18-gun ship-sloop 
 ‘Wasp’ five days only from the Delaware. In 
 less than ten minutes after the action had com- 
 menced, and chiefly through the injuries she had 
 sustained in the storm, which made it impossible 
 for her to carry sail so as to tack, the British sloop 
 lay an unmanageable hulk upon the water, exposed 
 to the whole raking fire of her antagonist, without 
 being able to return it with anything more than 
 one of her bow-guns. The American, who had 
 thirty-three minutes’ firing almost entirely to him- 
 self, kept on pouring broadside after broadside, in 
 order still further to thin the crew on the ‘ Frolic’s’ 
 deck, and so make boarding easy, or in the hope 
 that the ‘Frolic’ would strike and save him the 
 trouble and the risk of boarding. But, let him 
 blaze away as he would, the ‘Frolic’ would not 
 haul down her colours, although the whole range 
 of her deck was swept, and her captain was so 
 severely wounded that he could not stand without 
 support. No resistance could be offered to the 
 numerous boarders ; except the man at the wheel, 
 the captain, and the second lieutenant, who was 
 as badly wounded as the captain, and holding on 
 for support, there was hardly any body left upon 
 deck alive, all the rest being wounded, or in 
 attendance upon the wounded below, Another of 
 her lieutenants and her master were mortally 
 wounded ; 15 seamen and marines were killed, 
 and 43 seamen and marines were wounded. In 
 her wrecked and logged state, the ‘Frolic, in 
 fact, had lost nearly half of her crew from the 
 murderous and unanswered fire of the American 
 guns. Here there was a less apparent disparity 
 than in the frigate actions, but still there was a 
 real and great disparity of force, even without 
 taking into account the injuries the ‘Frolic’ had 
 sustained from the storm, or the sickliness of her 
 crew. The ‘Frolic’ had only 92 men, the ‘ Wasp’ 
 had 138; the ‘Frolic’ measured 384 tons, the 
 ‘Wasp’ measured 434 tons. The victor was not 
 permitted to carry his trophy into port, for the 
 British 74 ‘ Poictiers’ hove in sight in the course 
 of a few hours after the battle, recaptured the 
 ‘Frolic’ and captured the ‘ Wasp.’ 
 
 We showed at the close of the year 1811 the 
 temper and policy of Bernadotte as Crown Prince 
 of Sweden, the disposition of the Russian cabinet, 
 and the fixed determination of Bonaparte to attack 
 the Emperor Alexander in his own vast and remote 
 dominions, because that sovereign would not ruin 
 his country by enforcing the Berlin and Milan 
 decrees, and, perhaps still more, because Bonaparte 
 could no longer bear to hear the power of the Czar 
 compared with his own. He treated Bernadotte 
 like a revolted subject and traitor ; he summoned 
 Sweden as a vassal, to enforce his decrees against 
 the British trade; he seized and confiscated fifty 
 Swedish merchantmen ; and, lastly, in January, 
 
636 
 
 most brutal of his generals, to take possession of 
 Swedish Pomerania and the Isle of Rugen. This 
 aggression induced Bernadotte, who had been cor- 
 responding with Russia before, to sign a treaty of 
 alliance with the Emperor Alexander. The treaty 
 was signed in March, 1812; and in an interview 
 which took place between the Gascon and the Czar 
 their plan of resistance was settled. Though war 
 was not declared, Bonaparte was pouring troops 
 into Prussia, Pomerania, and the Duchy of War- 
 saw. The frontiers of this Polish duchy touched 
 the limits of Alexander’s dominions, and the Poles, 
 inflamed by their old animosities against the Rus- 
 sians, and not yet disabused of the confidence they 
 had put in the French, were ready to arm and act, 
 and were still dreaming about the re-construction 
 of their ancient nondescript, and about their re- 
 storation, by Bonaparte, to a national independence. 
 The Emperor Alexander, therefore, reinforced his 
 armies and awaited the attack. 
 
 The astute Fouché once more interposed between 
 Bonaparte and his ruin. He presented a memo- 
 rial full of facts, arguments, and even eloquence ; 
 but, together with other advice from better quarters, 
 it was thrown away upon the pride and conceit of 
 the Man of Destiny, who seemed now but a fore- 
 doomed man. “I regulate my conduct chiefly by 
 the opinion of my army! With 800,000 men I can 
 oblige all Europe to do my bidding. I will destroy 
 all English influence in Russia, and then Spain 
 must fall. My destiny is not yet accomplished ; 
 my present situation is but the outline of a picture 
 which I must fill up. I must make one nation out 
 of all the European states, and Paris must be the 
 capital of the world’ There must be all over 
 Europe but one code, one court of appeal, one cur- 
 rency, one system of weights and measures; I will 
 destroy all Russian influence as well as all English 
 influence in Europe. Two battles will do the busi- 
 ness; the Emperor Alexander will come to me on 
 his knees, and Russia shall be disarmed! Spain 
 costs me very dear; without that I should have 
 been master of the world by this time; but when I 
 shall become such by finishing with Russia, my son 
 will have nothing to do but quietly to retain my 
 place.” * Such was the rhapsody which this strange 
 being returned to his friendly remonstrants and 
 advisers. ‘Though his head was clear, both head 
 and heart were possessed by a sort of monomania ; 
 and, just before the campaign and during its pro- 
 gress, as well as after its fatal termination, he 
 betrayed symptoms of an alienation of mind, and 
 of a disordered state of stomach and of general 
 health. 
 
 Before quitting Paris, Bonaparte directed Maret, 
 now Duke of Bassano and minister for foreign 
 affairs, to write a letter to Lord Castlereagh pro- 
 posing negotiations with England, on the basis of 
 the uti possidetts. He now professed to be willing 
 to grant nearly everything that he had refused during 
 the negotiations which preceded the rupture of the 
 
 * Fouché.—Abbé de Pradt. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 the Bourbon Ferdinand IV., and Portugal to remain 
 under the House of Braganza; but he still insisted 
 that Spain should be secured to his brother Joseph. 
 At such a moment no statesman could be blind to 
 the motives which dictated this proposition for peace 
 with England, and none but a traitor or an idiot 
 could have entertained the proposition. It was 
 quite enough for Lord Castlereagh to reply, as he 
 did, that our engagements with the Spanish Cortes, 
 acting in the name of Ferdinand VII., rendered our 
 acknowledging Joseph impossible. 
 
 Early in May Bonaparte grossly insulted the 
 Russian minister at Paris, and sent him his pass- 
 ports. On the 9th of May the Emperor of the 
 French, with his young Austrian empress, set ofl 
 for Dresden. Obedient to his summons, the kings 
 of his own making, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, 
 Westphalia, and other tributary princes, met him 
 in the fair Saxon capital. ‘hither also repaired 
 the Emperor of Austria, with his empress; and the 
 King of Prussia, who could not bring his queen, 
 for she had been slain by the evil tongue and evil 
 doings of Bonaparte and his agents. His Prussian 
 majesty had been already obliged to sign a treaty 
 which placed 20,000 men of his diminished army 
 at the disposal of Bonaparte. ‘The Emperor of 
 Austria now engaged to furnish 30,000 men to act 
 against Russian Poland. After brilliant festivals, 
 and balls and plays, wherein Talma played to a 
 parterre or pit of kings, Bonaparte quitted Dresden 
 and his wife, and posted to Thorn, where he ar- 
 rived on the 2nd of June. His immense army was 
 already assembled in Poland, chiefly between the 
 Vistula and the Niemen. Europe had never seen 
 such a condensed host : there were 270,000 French, 
 80,000 Germans of the Confederation of the Rhine, 
 30,000 Poles, 20,000 Italians, Lombards, Tuscans, 
 Venetians, Romans, Neapolitans, and 20,000 Prus- 
 sians! On the 24th and 25th of June this immense 
 army, in three large masses, crossed the Niemen, 
 then the boundary of the Russian empire, and en- 
 tered Lithuania, without meeting with any opposi- 
 tion. The Russian army, under Barclay de Tolli, 
 120,000 strong, evacuated Wilna, the capital of the 
 province, as the French approached, retiring slowly 
 and in good order towards the river Dwina. 
 Another Russian army under Prince Bagration, 
 80,000 strong, was stationed near the Dnieper. 
 On the 28th of June Bonaparte entered Wilna, 
 where he remained until the 16th of July, more 
 and more confident that the Russians would not 
 dare to face him in the field, and that the obstruc- 
 tions of nature must yield to his iron will and the 
 confidence and energy of his army.* 
 
 * While at Wilna, Bonaparte received a deputation of Polish pa- 
 triots from the diet of the duchy of Warsaw, who entreated him to 
 proclaim the union and independence of Poland. His answers were 
 cold, cautious, or enigmatical. He told them that he had guaranteed 
 to his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, the part of Poland which 
 he actually possessed; and that for the rest they must depend upon 
 an inscrutable Providence and their own efforts. The effect of this 
 
 answer, and of the marauding, ruffianly conduct of his army in Poland, 
 and in Lithuania, which had once been a part of Poland, he and that 
 army felt to their cost when they had to fly through those regious 
 | from the icy hammer of winter and the sharp spear of the Cossacks. 
 
 tee 
 
 7. 2c rE l Wy 
 1812, he sent Davoust, one of the roughest and | Peace of Amiens—to allow Sicily to remain under 
 
Cua. VIII] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 637 
 
 In the meanwhile the native country of Kos- 
 ciuszko was treated as the country of an enemy. 
 So enormous a force required supplies commen- 
 surate ; and, as the armies had always been accus- 
 tomed to live at large, according to Bonaparte’s 
 theory and practice that every war should support 
 itself, the French commissariat was very defective, 
 and the French government averse to making any 
 great outlay for provisions. Those which had been 
 ordered to be collected in Wilna and other places 
 came on but slowly, and the markets of Lithuania, 
 an impoverished country, were but thinly supplied. 
 The Russians, who from the first had determined 
 to retire into the heart of their own country, and to 
 draw the invaders after them, had removed all 
 their stores into the interior. The French and 
 Germans, and we believe we must add the Poles 
 and the very Lithuanians who were following the 
 tricolor flag, went about the country marauding and 
 plundering, feeding their horses on the green corn, 
 violating the women, and killing those who resented 
 such treatment. The preceding year, 1811, had 
 been a year of misery and affliction to Lithuania, 
 for the harvest had been a very bad one: the pre- 
 sent year promised a sure augmentation of wretch- 
 edness, for, like locusts, these hordes of men de- 
 stroyed far more than they consumed, wasting the 
 unripe corn, and the only hope for the future. The 
 richest and most fertile of countries could hardly 
 have supported for any length of time such enor- 
 mous masses of wasteful men; but Lithuania was 
 at all times thinly peopled and miserably poor, 
 and the Russian provinces beyond it were mostly 
 im the same condition. It was madness to think of 
 carrying on war in such regions as it had been 
 carried on in fat Belgium, in fertile Italy, and in 
 the well-peopled and well-cultivated parts of Ger- 
 many. His long and unavoidable stay at Wilna, 
 which brought him almost a month nearer to the 
 winter, must have been very fatal to Bonaparte’s 
 operations, even if they had not been extravagant 
 and all but hopeless from the first. Many symp- 
 toms of discouragement were already visible, and 
 some of these were derived from accidents and from 
 the elements. We have seen, even in the fury of 
 the French revolution and of the French atheism, 
 that certain superstitions clung to the unbelieving 
 hearts of the French. This continued. As Bona- 
 parte first reached the bank of the Niemen, in the 
 darkness of night his horse stumbled and threw 
 him on the sand. Some voice instantly said, 
 “* This is a bad augury! A Roman would give up 
 the enterprise.” When that frontier river was 
 crossed, and. when the grand army began to pene- 
 trate into the sombre pine forests of Lithuania, 
 their ears were struck by the solemn sounds of 
 distant thunder, which, for a time, were mistaken 
 fur the distant firing of artillery: the summer sky 
 was overcast, till the day, in those forests, looked 
 like night ; and then the thunder rolled nearer and 
 nearer, and the forked lightning burst over their 
 heads. The hearts of the men were awe-stricken, 
 and many were heard to say that this too was a 
 
 re re 
 
 bad omen. The thunder and lightning were fol- 
 lowed by torrents of rain and by gales of wind ; 
 and the insupportable heat of the atmosphere was 
 suddenly changed into a distressing cold. As early 
 as this the horses of the army had begun to perish ; 
 and a great deal of baggage and camp equipage 
 had been abandoned in the sands of Lithuania, 
 between the Niemen and Wilna. At last enormous 
 droves of cattle—looking when on the march like 
 armies themselves—were collected for the use of 
 the endless host, were driven forward by Polish 
 peasants under the escort of Polish lancers, to be 
 killed and eaten day by day; and the grand army 
 quitted Wilna, followed by a train of baggage 
 waggons, provision waggons, and other vehicles, 
 which seemed to form still another army. But 
 20,000 men were left behind in badly provided 
 and insecure hospitals; and more than 100,000 
 men took with them diseases which required the 
 application of remedies not safely used in cold 
 climates and at the wintry season by soldiers, or 
 by any class of persons constantly exposed to the 
 inclemency of the atmosphere. Demoralised and 
 diseased, a very large part of this army of invasion 
 merited as much, at starting, the name of “ une 
 race gangrénée,” as it did when retreating, discom- 
 fited and scattered by the angry breath of Heaven, 
 and perishing on the interminable snow-covered 
 plains of Russia.* In their march through Lithu- 
 ania rather more than less than 100,000 men 
 dropped off from the ranks through death or sick- 
 ness, through desertion, or through the surprises 
 and captures made by the Cossacks, who had al- 
 ready taken the field: the rain fell in torrents; 
 the roads were execrable; the horses continued to 
 perish ; the cattle died off or were wasted to mere 
 skin and bone. According to a high authority in 
 such matters,t the Russian general, Barclay de 
 Tolli, was a chief quite capable of conducting this 
 defensive war successfully ; and it appears that 
 de Tolli did not mean to fight at all until Bona- 
 parte should be surrounded by a vast desolation of 
 show and wilderness, and that the battles which 
 the Russians fought between their frontiers and 
 Moscow were all against de Tolli’s opinion. In 
 these engagements, however, the Russian infantry 
 more than maintained their old reputation for 
 steadiness and hardihood ; and, all the while that 
 they were retreating, no attempt to disorder them 
 succeeded, and no actual attack made by the French 
 van—though the impetuous Murat charged with it 
 —could make any serious impression.{ The two 
 
 * An eloquent Protestant clergyman of Geneva, in a thanksgiving 
 sermon in the year 1815 for the deliverance of his country from the 
 French, and for the re-union of Geneva to the Swiss Confederacy, 
 described this Grand Army of Bonaparte as “‘ une race gangrénée, qui 
 n'était plus bonne qu’a mourtr !”’ 
 
 + General Moreau. This exile—once the rival of Bonaparte—while 
 residing in the United States of America, strongly expressed these Opi- 
 nions to our able and amiable diplomatist, Sir Augustus Foster. 
 
 T ‘* Whenever attacked,” said an officer on Murat’s staff, “ the 
 Russians formed into squares, solid or hollow. We could sometimes 
 knock off a little angle of those squares, but entamer those squares we 
 never could. Murat pursued too rapidly to allow of any heavy artil- 
 lery keeping pace with him ; and our light pieces (when we had any), 
 and our charges with sabre, lance, or bayonet, and our fusilading, 
 were all thrown away upon those dark immovable masses.’’— Private 
 information from a distinguished Italian officer who served on Murat’s 
 staf’, and who was scarcely from his stde during the whole campaign, 
 
638 
 
 armies marched almost day and night: every morn- 
 ing the Russian rear-guard seemed to have escaped 
 from Murat; every evening Murat was again close 
 up with it; and nearly every evening he attacked 
 it; but the bold and crowned dragooner always 
 found the Russians well posted, to all appearance 
 fresh and well fed, while his own immense host of 
 eavalry had very often to fight upon empty sto- 
 machs.* Neither men nor horses could stand the 
 long continuance of this work: many died, or fell 
 sick or lame, and became useless upon the road; 
 some were killed or wounded in every attempt 
 upon the Russian squares; the loiterers and the 
 disabled were carried away prisoners, or were dis- 
 patched to another world by the flying Cossack 
 pulks, or by the armed Russian peasantry and 
 townspeople: and all this fatigue, all these losses 
 were uncompensated by any exciting or brilliant 
 achievement. Dearly as he loved “ the rapture of 
 the fight,’ Murat grew heartily sick of this war, 
 and wished himself back in his sunny city of 
 Naples long before he reached the bleak and dreary 
 town of Smolensk. 
 
 After partial engagements at Mohiloff and Wi- 
 tepsk, Barclay de Tolli continued his retreat upon 
 Smolensk. Some of the French generals would 
 have paused; but their chief determined to follow 
 the Russians. He observed that forward marches 
 alone could keep such a vast army together; that 
 to halt or retire would be the signal of dissolution : 
 ‘*'We must therefore advance upon Moscow, and 
 strike a blow in order to obtain peace, or winter 
 quarters and supplies.” Leaving a body of reserve 
 in Lithuania, and the strong corps of Marshal 
 Macdonald on the Dwina towards Riga, Bonaparte 
 crossed the Dnieper on the 15th of August, the 
 anniversary of his féte, or the day of St. Napoleon 
 —the saint whom he had forced into the Roman 
 calendar, and had made the greatest of all saints. 
 And while the army was crossing the river—the 
 ancient Borysthenes, from which, in the decline of 
 the Roman empire, the barbarians had marched to 
 the walls of Constantinople—France and all her 
 dependencies were re-echoing with the salutes fired 
 in honour of the great day or of the great man. 
 Murat and a part of his cavalry were the first to 
 gain footing on the opposite bank, which was par- 
 tially covered by Cossacks, supported by a beauti- 
 ful Russian givision, formed en baiaillons carrés, 
 or in the usual impenetrable squares. Murat now 
 hoped to get a handful of laurel, for the Russian 
 division seemed to have the intention of keeping 
 its ground, or of making an attempt to drive the 
 French horse back into the river. Nearly the 
 whole of the grand army was present on the oppo- 
 site bank as spectator, for it had been concentrated 
 previously to the passage of the river. Murat 
 hurraed and charged, and hurraed and charged 
 again and again; but he could not entamer the 
 division without that French artillery for which he 
 had disdained to wait: and he lost in a useless 
 display of bravery a considerable number of men, 
 
 * Général Comte de Ségur. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and had once more to gnash his teeth at the 
 
 steadiness and order and the inexpugnability with 
 which that solid and staunch infantry withdrew 
 towards Smolensk. On this, as on nearly every 
 other occasion, the Russians were enabled to retire 
 peaceably upon their main body. Maurat’s impe- 
 tuosity was much censured by the French army, 
 and by Bonaparte himself. ‘They now had entered 
 Russia Proper with about 180,000 men. The day 
 after crossing the Dnieper—on the 16th of August 
 —Bonaparte found Barclay de Tolli waiting for 
 him under the walls of Smolensk. But the Rus- 
 sian general only intended to keep the French in 
 check while the inhabitants were carrying off or 
 destroying provisions and all those things which 
 the enemy most wanted; and after a little hard 
 fighting de Tolli evacuated Smolensk, and con- 
 tinued his retreat upon Moscow. The Russian 
 rear-guard set fire to the town before they quitted 
 it, and the place became a horrid black ruin, inca- 
 pable of giving shelter to foe or friend. The sight 
 of these flames, and of the universal conflagration 
 that gathered round the invading army as it ad- 
 vanced into Russia Proper—for, either by the inha- 
 bitants or by the soldiery and the Cossacks, nearly 
 every town, village, and hamlet was set on fire, and 
 then deserted—was calculated to demonstrate the 
 nature of the resistance, and the hopelessness of 
 the invasion ; but Bonaparte obstinately kept his 
 eyes shut, and rushed onwards to his doom. On 
 the 7th of September he fought the bloody battle 
 of Borodino, and gained a victory, but at the cost 
 of nearly one-fourth of his army, or of that part of 
 it which was advancing with him. On neither 
 side were the wounded counted ; but 10,000 French 
 and 15,000 Russians lay dead on that bloody field. 
 He took scarcely any prisoners or guns; and his 
 loss was much more serious to him than was that 
 of the Russians to them. Whole French battalions 
 had been annihilated almost to a man.* There 
 was no flight, no confusion, no loss of heart, or of 
 a noble military countenance ; the Russians con- 
 tinued their retreat the day after the battle, in the 
 greatest order, though the French were treading on 
 their rear. On the 14th of September they tra- 
 
 versed the city of Moscow, which most of the inha- 
 
 bitants had already evacuated: and on the same 
 day the French entered into that desolate capital. 
 No Russians were seen in Moscow, except convicts 
 and men of the poorest and most desperate class. 
 That very evening a fire broke out in the town, 
 but it was extinguished during the night. On the 
 next day, the 15th of September, Napoleon took 
 
 up his quarters in the Kremlin, the ancient palace 
 
 of the Czars; and pompous bulletins were issued 
 and dated from that spot. On the following night 
 
 the fire broke out again, and Moscow was in flames 
 
 in a dozen quarters at once, and at points opposite 
 to and altogether unconnected with each other. 
 The high winds of autumn fanned the flames and 
 
 * The Russians had good positions and some formidable redoubts, 
 but in number they were certainly not superior to the French. When 
 the battle commenced each army had on the field about 120,000 men. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 gradually spread them all over the city. Nothing 
 could now stop or check the conflagration. On 
 the third day of its raging Bonaparte abandoned 
 the Kremlin, where he had run great risk of being 
 blown into the air, as an immense quantity of am- 
 munition had been collected in that palace, and as 
 sparks and fragments of burning matter were flying 
 all about. On the 19th the rage of the fire abated, 
 after haying destroyed 7682 houses, or about four- 
 fifths of the city. Lodging might still have been 
 found for the troops, although fires did continue to 
 break out as if by involuntary combustion ; but 
 there was no obtaining proper supplies of provi- 
 sions ; and the French were obliged to live chiefly 
 on the flesh of their horses, which was salted down. 
 If he had begun a retreat at once, Bonaparte might 
 yet have saved a very large portion, if not the mass, 
 of his immense army ; but he remained among the 
 ruins of Moscow for five weeks, inert and appa- 
 rently stupified, talking oracular nonsense which 
 could no longer impose upon any rational mind, 
 and sending people to negotiate with Alexander, 
 whose object it was to gain time—who now wanted 
 no other negotiators, and scarcely any other gene- 
 rals, than snow, frost, and famine. At last, on the 
 19th of October, when the severity of winter had 
 already set in, the Grande Armée began its retreat. 
 Their leader knew not which way to lead it so as 
 to have the best chance of obtaining provision and 
 shelter. He attempted to retire by Kaluga, but the 
 terrible reception which the Russians gave him at 
 Malo Yaroslavitz compelled him to take the road 
 by Smolensk, by which he had advanced, and thus 
 to retreat through a country that was now as bare 
 asa desert. Every one is familiar with the astound- 
 ing loss of life, and the sufferings and horrors that 
 ensued. ‘The starving, diseased, disorganised, and 
 mutinous columns were followed by the Hettman 
 Platoff and his avenging Cossacks; and the Rus- 
 sian grand army was never far distant. The French 
 had left Moscow 120,000 strong, but by the time 
 they reached Viazma on the Wop they were re- 
 duced to 60,000 fighting men. On the 6th of 
 November they were overtaken by the Russian 
 winter with all its terrors. They now died like 
 rotten sheep. The survivors at last reached Smo- 
 lensk, to which place some stores and provisions 
 had been brought up for them. On the 14th of 
 November Bonaparte left Smolensk with about 
 40,000 men able to carry arms. His rear divi- 
 sions had now to sustain almost daily attacks from 
 the Russians and Cossacks ; but the frost and the 
 snow, the nipping blasts of night which swept over 
 those vast open, treeless, houseless plains, killed 
 more than sword and spear, and bullets and cannon- 
 balls. When he arrived at Oresa, in Lithuania, 
 Bonaparte had only 12,000 men with arms in their 
 hands ; and his 40,000 horses had dwindled down 
 to 3000. But, on approaching the river Berezina, 
 he was joined by a corps of reserve of nearly 50,000 
 men. One-half of the army thus reinforced was lost 
 in effecting the passage of the Berezina ; and after 
 that terrible passage there was scarcely the sem- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1812. 
 
 639 
 
 blance of an army, scarcely a remnant of discipline 
 or of courage to be found anywhere. On the 3rd 
 of December Bonaparte arrived at Malodeczno, 
 whence he issued his famous Twenty- Ninth bulletin, 
 which agitated or astounded the whole of Europe. 
 Fiction and invention could no longer be available ; 
 the extent of his disaster could not possibly be con- 
 cealed; and this time—for the first time and the 
 last—he told the whole truth, frankly confessing 
 that except the Guards he had no longer an army ! 
 Two days after this—on the 5th of December—he 
 took leave of some of his generals, and stole away 
 from the wretched remains of his troops to com- 
 mence a rapid flight towards France. He travelled 
 in a sledge, accompanied by Caulaincourt, and was 
 so fortunate as to escape the Cossacks. On the 
 10th of December, at a late hour, he arrived at 
 Warsaw, where he might be considered safe. 
 During his very short stay in that city, his con- 
 versation proclaimed either that his intellect was 
 partially alienated, or that he was the most wretched, 
 heartless, and contemptible despot that had ever 
 trifled with the destinies of mankind. The Abbé 
 de Pradt, then his resident minister at Warsaw, 
 found him at the posting-house warming himself 
 by a smoking wood fire. “ Ha! Monsieur l’Abbé,” 
 said he, ‘* from the sublime to the ridiculous is but 
 astep! There is but a step from the sublime to 
 the ridiculous!” And he kept striding up and 
 down the smoky room, rubbing his hands, and re- 
 peating this mot, which Thomas Paine had emitted 
 before the name of Napoleon Bonaparte had been 
 heard in the world, and the idea of which had 
 been enunciated, with slight variation of expression, 
 many times and centuries before the days of Paine. 
 He reached Paris on the 18th of December, at 
 night.* As he stood in the luxurious and splendid 
 apartment of the Tuileries, warming himself before 
 a blazing fire, he said, “ Gentlemen, it is much 
 pleasanter here than at Moscow !”?+ The loss of 
 the French and their auxiliaries, in the whole of 
 the Russian campaign and retreat, is estimated at 
 125,000 slain in fight; 132,000 dead of fatigue, 
 disease, hunger, and cold ; and 193,000 prisoners, 
 including 3000 officers and 48 generals. They had 
 left behind them 900 pieces of cannon, and 25,000 
 waggons, Cassoons, &c. 
 
 Ever since the opening of the Russian cam- 
 paign the eyes of Europe had been turned with 
 intense anxiety to the regions beyond the Vistula 
 and the Niemen. The countries that were groan- 
 Be * He had travelled all the way incognito, and with amazing rapidity. 
 
 e arrived at Paris twenty-four hours after the publication in the 
 ‘ Moniteur’ of the famed Twenty-Niuth bulletin which had been writ- 
 in at Malodeczno. His arrival was unexpected : even the Empress 
 
 aria Louisa was ignorant of his coming; and all were taken by 
 tof Ona WRG Wow bisneelf u eyait nnd an Toggle hb dasa, 4 
 Pooh and truth, ‘‘ The great eridh of Madina . if we ace cnnee 
 annals true,’ was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his waut of all 
 community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more offensive to 
 
 human vanity than the active oraelty of more trembling and suspi- 
 cious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well 
 
 as individuals ; and the single expression which he is said to have used 
 on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, 
 rubbing his hands over a fire, ‘ This is pleasanter than Moscow,’ would 
 probably alienate more favour from his cause than the destruction 
 and reverses which led to the remark.”—Lord Byron, note to 
 Canto IIT. of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 
 
640 
 
 ing under French oppression anticipated, from the 
 success or failure of this Sesostris-like expedition, 
 enfranchisement and a restored nationality, or a 
 confirmed slavery. At first every bulletin an- 
 nounced a victory or an unopposed advance, and 
 every courier brought intelligence which seemed 
 to unthinking minds to demonstrate that Russia 
 was incapable of contending with Bonaparte, who 
 led in his train the armies and the princes of 
 nearly all Europe. Others, who better knew the 
 capabilities of the country for prolonging a de- 
 fensive war, doubted whether the Emperor Alex- 
 ander would prove true to himself, and whether, 
 after his army had been repeatedly defeated, and 
 after the ancient capital of his empire had fallen 
 into the power of his enemy, he would not be in- 
 duced to negotiate, and in the end to submit. If 
 others entertained as much anxiety as England— 
 and many countries must have been far more 
 anxious—none could render Russia so much coun- 
 tenance and assistance as England could, and did. 
 The unprofitable war with the Turks was still im 
 progress when Bonaparte determined to invade 
 the dominions of the Czar. At the opportune mo- 
 ment England stepped in as a mediatrix, and 
 Mr. Stratford Canning, then a young diplomatist,* 
 speedily, and with great ability, negotiated a treaty 
 between Sultan Mahmoud and the Emperor Alex- 
 ander, which enabled Russia to withdraw from the 
 Danube an army of from 30,000 to 40,000 men, 
 and to bring that army to the Berezina, upon the 
 flank of Bonaparte’s flying and disorganised forces. 
 It was not the fault of Mr. Stratford Canning that 
 the conquered conqueror was allowed to escape 
 across that freezing Russian river: if the obtuse 
 
 Russian admiral who commanded that liberated’ 
 
 army of the Danube had not loitered on his way, 
 and had not made mistakes as to his lines of march, 
 neither Bonaparte nor a single man belonging to 
 the Grand Army, which had penetrated to Mos- 
 cow, would have effected the passage of the Bere- 
 zina. These preliminaries of peace between Russia 
 and Turkey were ratified at Bucharest as early as 
 the 28th of May. But two months before this a 
 treaty of alliance had been signed at Petersburgh 
 between Sweden and Russia, Bernadotte being 
 encouraged thereto by the assurances he had re- 
 ceived from the British cabinet. And in the month 
 of July a treaty of peace and amity between Great 
 Britain and Sweden was ratified ; and in the month 
 of August, when Bonaparte was penetrating into 
 the heart of the Russian empire, with victory 
 in his van, a treaty of peace and union was rati- 
 fied at Petersburgh between Great Britain and 
 Russia, which renewed all their ancient relations 
 of friendship and commerce. The Russian fleet, 
 which would have been frozen up and rendered 
 almost helpless if left in its own ports, was sent to 
 winter in Kngland—a measure which was indeed 
 a token of mutual confidence, as well as of the 
 sense of present danger on the part of Russia.t 
 
 * Now Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, ambassador to Turkey. 
 + Dr. John Aikin, Annals of the Reign of Kiag George III. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 It was chiefly English money or English credit 
 which set the army of the Danube in motion, and 
 which put the other armies and commissariats of 
 Alexander in a better condition than had been 
 usual with them. It was the undiminished and 
 unstained English credit at Petersburgh, Stock- 
 holm, and at every trading town on the Baltic 
 Sea—it was the undoubting faith in British bills 
 of exchange and in our home-vituperated bank- 
 notes—that enabled Russia to put on her panoply 
 of war, and that contributed, almost as much as 
 the angry elements, to the destruction of the in- 
 vading hosts. A French officer who accompanied 
 General Lauriston to the Russian head-quarters 
 once said to us, “* We had been led to believe that 
 your credit was gone, that England was bankrupt ; 
 but, when I found everywhere that your bills of ex- 
 change and bank-notes were received and passed as 
 if they had been gold, I trembled for the result of 
 our daring enterprise !” English aid, both privately 
 and publicly, was promptly given to the Russians 
 who had suffered in the war. We are old enough 
 to have a distinct recollection of the generous sym- 
 pathy and enthusiasm with which a large subscrip- 
 tion was raised in the city of London for the pur- 
 pose of rebuilding the city of Moscow. 
 
 Parliament, with a newly elected House of Com- 
 mons, assembled on the 24th of November. Its 
 most noticeable measures previous to the Christ- 
 mas recess were a grant of 100,000/. to the Mar- 
 quess of Wellington, and a grant of 200,000/. for 
 the relief of the sufferers in Russia. 
 
 A. D. 1813. After some stormy debates in the 
 Commons on the American war, in which the 
 opposition not only blamed the ministry for the 
 negligent manner in which the maritime part of 
 the conflict had been conducted, but also charged 
 them with having been the aggressors, and with 
 having provoked an unnecessary and fatal contest, 
 Lord Castlereagh, on the 18th of February, moved 
 an address to the prince regent, expressing entire 
 approbation of the resistance proposed by his royal 
 highness to the unjustifiable claims of the Ame- 
 rican government, a full conviction of the justice 
 of the war on our part, and the assurance of a cor- 
 dial support from that House. The opposition 
 renewed their censures, but they were too weak to 
 try a division : the address was agreed to, nem. con., 
 as was another in the House of Lords to the same 
 effect. 
 
 The budget was introduced on the 31st of March. 
 The requisite supplies of the year were stated at 
 more than 72,000,000/., out of which England and 
 Scotland were to furnish more than 68,500,000/. 
 This was a larger amount than had been voted in 
 any preceding year; but the American war pro- 
 mised to be expensive, and it was generally felt 
 that at this decisive moment we ought to put forth 
 all our strength, in order to finish the contest in 
 Spain, to prolong our aid to Russia, and to give 
 encouragement and assistance to the other nations 
 of the Continent that should rise and throw off 
 their chains. All the estimates were yoted by im- 
 
 Se 
 
Cuap. VIII net eum HANSA O TONG hee get RAY 
 
 mense majorities. Among the ways and means 
 were war taxes to the amount of 21,000,000/., a 
 fresh loan to the same amount, and a vote of credit 
 ‘for 6,000,000/. On all poimts the ministerial 
 majorities were stronger than they had been for 
 many years. The Russian campaign, and the 
 annihilation of Bonaparte’s immense army, had 
 made many converts in the country, and the con- 
 duct of the American republic had inflamed the 
 feelings of nationality. At an early stage of the 
 war Lord Liverpool had predicted that the day 
 might come when an English army should march 
 into Paris, and biyouac in the Bois de Boulogne 
 and on the heights of Montmartre. Though little 
 given to the indulgence of fancy, his lordship had 
 Jong been laughed at for this prediction; but now 
 the fulfilment of it seemed no longer impossible, or 
 even improbable; and before the year closed Wel- 
 lington descended from the Pyrenees, and his Bri- 
 tish army got a firm footing on the soil of France. 
 Our great general had not been deceived in any 
 of the sanguine hopes he had derived from the 
 Russian war. On his side the year 1813 was a 
 year of victories and of the most splendid achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 The Russian catastrophe not only prevented 
 Bonaparte from reinforcing his marshals in Spain, 
 but it also obliged him to Senatl the best of them, and 
 the only one among them whose generalship had 
 cost Lord Wellington any very serious thoughts. 
 This, of course, was Marshal Soult, who, early in 
 the year, was removed from the Peninsula to oppose 
 the Russians, then about to advance through Ger- 
 many to the banks of the Rhine. Soult, However: 
 took only 20,000 men with him, ‘itis leaving 
 about 70,000 men to oppose Wellington, besides 
 the army of Suchet in the eastern provinces. The 
 Army of Portugal, as it continued to be called, was 
 now placed under the command of General Reille, 
 who had his head-quarters at Valladolid; the Army 
 of the Centre, under Drouet, was distributed round 
 Madrid; and the Army of the South had its head- 
 quarters at Toledo. All these forces were nomi- 
 nally under the command of King Joseph ; but, as 
 Joseph was no soldier, and never could learn to be 
 one, he was assisted by Marshal Jourdan, who 
 could only have earned his great reputation of 
 former days by having been opposed to incompe- 
 tent or unfaithful generals. Generals Clausel and 
 Foy commanded separate divisions in Aragon and 
 Biscay. Before the campaign began, Andalusia 
 and Hstremadura in the south, and Galicia and 
 Asturias in the north, were entirely free from the 
 French. 
 
 Doing at last what they ought to have done at 
 first, the Spanish provisional government, with the 
 consent and approbation of the Cortes, made Lord 
 Wellington the commander-in-chief of the Spanish 
 armies, and took some measures to improve the 
 discipline and effectiveness of their troops. In the 
 main, however, these things remained but as a 
 good intention, for the regency had hardly any 
 money except what they received from England, 
 
 Vor. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 641 
 
 the insurrections and wars of independence in Fh Ativan means | the insurrections and’ ware of iddependence i the | 
 South American colonies stopping at the fountain- 
 head the supplies which Spain had been accus- 
 tomed to receive from that quarter; and the pride, 
 ignorance, and indocility of the Spanish command- 
 ing officers, and the slothfulness and indiscipline 
 of the Spanish troops, were evils not to be reme- 
 died of a sudden, or in the course of one trying 
 campaign. And therefore the only army upon 
 which Wellington could rely for field operations 
 consisted of about 63,000 British and Portuguese 
 infantry, and about 6000 cavalry. His lordship 
 commenced active operations about the middle of 
 May, making the allied army enter Spain in three 
 separate bodies; the left under Sir Thomas Gra- 
 ham, the hero of Barrosa, the right under the 
 indefatigable Hill, and the centre under his own 
 immediate command. The combined movements 
 of these three divisions were so well managed that 
 the French were taken by surprise. On the 1st of 
 June they were in full retreat before Graham ; and, 
 Graham being joined by Wellington, these two 
 divisions pushed forward for Valladolid. On the 
 3rd of June Hill effected his junction, and the 
 allied army was also joined by the Spanish army 
 of Galicia, and by a Spanish force from the South. 
 As Lord Wellington advanced, Joseph Bonaparte 
 fled from Madrid, for the last of many times. He 
 was followed by his court and retainers, who 
 hastily packed up what they could carry with 
 them. ‘The French army retired to Burgos, where 
 they had strengthened the works of the castle. 
 But on the 12th of June, Wellington being near 
 at hand, the French abandoned Burgos, blew up 
 the fortifitations of the castle, and retreated to the 
 Ebro. This line, so much nearer to their own 
 frontiers, they thought they could defend ; and they 
 threw a strong garrison into the fortress of Pan- 
 corvo, a little in radvance of the river. T hey were 
 much mistaken. Avoiding the fortress, and every- 
 thing which rendered the passage of the Ebro 
 dange srous or difficult, and finding out a new road 
 through a rugged country, Lord Wellington com- 
 pletely turned the French position on the Ebro, 
 and drove them back upon Vittoria, after an en- 
 gagement at Osma. By the 20th of June the whole 
 of the allied army was euevend the Ebro and con- 
 centrated near Vittoria.* On the 19th the enemy, 
 commanded by Joseph Bonaparte, having Marshal 
 Jourdan as his major- general and director, had 
 taken up a strong position in front of Vittoria, 
 their left resting upon the heights which terminate 
 at La Puebla de Arganzon, and extending from 
 thence across the valley of the Zadorra, in front of 
 the village of Arinez, the right of then centre oc- 
 cupying a height which commanded the valley to 
 * The left of the army crossed the Ebro on the 14th of June, by the 
 bridges of San Martin aud Rocamunde, and the remainder on the 15th, 
 hy those bridges and that of Puente-Arenas. On the 16th they con- 
 tinued their march towards Vittoria. On the 16th and 17th the enemy 
 were rather active ; but the rear brigade of a division was cut off by 
 Major-General Charles Alten, who took 300 prisoners, killed and 
 wounded many, and dispersed the rest of the brigade in the moun- 
 tains. There was some more smart fighting ; and between the 12th 
 
 and the 19th of June the Marquess of Wellington had 153 men 
 wounded, and 27 killed.—Colone! Gurwyod, A ac Dispatches. 
 
 20 
 
 SnEnenennenneee 
 $$$ 
 
642 
 
 the Zadorra, and their right being stationed near 
 the town of Vittoria, being destined to defend the 
 passages of the river Zadorra, in the neighbour- 
 hood: they had a reserve in rear of their left, at 
 the village of Gomecha. By this disposition the 
 French covered the three great roads from Madrid, 
 Bilbao, and Logrofo, which unite at Vittoria. 
 Though few on either side may have thought of 
 them, there were traditions and reminiscences 
 attached to the spot: on the ridges which the 
 French army occupied, or in the country within 
 sight of them, our Edward the Black Prince had 
 fought and won the great battle of Najara, defeat- 
 ing the French army of Bertram du Guesclin. 
 The nature of the country through which the allied 
 army had passed since it had reached the Ebro 
 had necessarily extended its columns; and Wel- 
 lington halted on the 20th, in order to close them 
 up. He also moved his left to the ground where 
 it was most likely it would be required, and care- 
 fully reconnoitred King Joseph’s or Marshal Jour- 
 dan’s positions, with a view to the attack to be 
 made on the following morning, if the French 
 should still remain in them. The enemy kept 
 their ground, and early on the morning of the 
 2ist of June the glorious battle of Vittoria was 
 begun. 
 
 The operations of the day commenced by 
 General Sir Rowland Hill obtaining possession of 
 the heights of La Puebla, on which the enemy’s 
 left rested. At the moment of Hill’s attack Jour- 
 dan reinforced his troops stationed on those heights, 
 and, after the heights. had been carried by the 
 allies, he made repeated and desperate efforts to 
 recover them ; but all was in vain, and Hill’s bat- 
 talions, among whom was a Spanish brigade under 
 General Morillo, kept possession of those important 
 heights throughout the battle. The contest here 
 was, however, very severe, and the loss sustained 
 considerable : General Morillo was wounded, but 
 remained on the field; Lieutenant-Colonel the 
 Hon. H. Cadogan was mortally wounded, but, 
 though he knew that he was dying, he had himself 
 earried to a place whence he could see all the 
 operations.* Under cover of the possession of 
 
 * «« General Morillo had led his attack with his accustomed gallantry, 
 and although twice wounded declined quitting the field, but requested 
 reinforcements. Sir Rowland Hill ordered Colonel Cadogan, with 
 part of the brigade under his temporary command, to ascend and 
 secure the success of the attack. Thus assailed, the enemy, alarmed 
 for the safety of that flank, detached troops from the centre of his line, 
 who meeting the British and Spanish force, now established on the 
 very summit of La Puebla heights, a warm and severely contested 
 action took place. Pressing forward at the head of his brigade, 
 Colonel Cadogan was mortally wounded bya musket-bail. In a hope- 
 less state as to the possibility of recovery, no attempt was made to 
 earry him from the field, where, enthusiastic to the last, he requested 
 removal to a situation from whence he could gaze on the triumphant 
 progress of companions with whom he had so frequently participated 
 in victory. His fall was deeply regretted, ... The evening 
 previous to the battle, when informed that it would certainly take 
 place, his exultation was unbounded: going into action as the com- 
 mender of that noble brigade appeared the climax of his wishes and 
 the forerunner of distinction: before the conflict terminated he was 
 numbered with the dead.” —Colonel Leith Hay, Narrative of the Penin- 
 sular War. 
 
 Lord Wellington was deeply affected by the death of the truly 
 noble and brave Cadogan, and by the thought of the deep affliction 
 which his loss must cause to his surviving friends and connections. 
 These feelings are always expressed on similar occasions by his lord- 
 ship in short but affecting sentences. His sympathy extended to every 
 good and brave officer, whatever might be his rank or name. He 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 { 
 
 { Boox Xi / 
 
 these well-defended heights, Sir Rowland Hill, 
 with all the rest of his division, successively passed 
 the Zadorra, at La Puebla, and the defile formed 
 by the heights and the river Zadorra, and attacked 
 and gained possession of the village of Subijana de 
 Alava, which also stood on a height. Here, too, 
 the French made desperate efforts to recover pos- 
 session; but they were not more successful than 
 they had been at La Puebla. Jourdan now ordered 
 the French left to fall back for the defence of the 
 city of Vittoria. In the meanwhile the rest of the 
 allied army had come, or was fast coming, into 
 action, moving on in two other separate columns 
 of attack. The difficult nature of the country 
 prevented the communication between these two 
 columns, and between either of them and Hill’s 
 column, which formed our right. For some time 
 Wellington was left in an anxious state of uncer- 
 tainty, not knowing whether Hill had succeeded, or 
 whether the column under the command of the 
 Earl of Dalhousie had arrived at the station ap- 
 pointed for it. But everything went well, and as 
 he had ordered: the combined movements were all 
 executed with rare precision, both as to place and 
 time. The fourth and light divisions, under 
 General Cole, and forming part of our middle 
 column, crossed the Zadorra by the bridges of 
 Nanclaras and Tras-Puentes, immediately after Sir 
 Rowland Hill had got possession of Subijana de 
 Alava, and, almost as soon as these had crossed, the 
 Earl of Dalhousie’s column arrived at Mendoza; 
 and the third division, under Sir Thomas Picton, 
 crossed at a bridge higher up, being immediately 
 followed by the seventh division, led on by Dal- 
 housie in person. As the allied divisions passed 
 the river the scene exhibited to those on the 
 heights was one of the most animating ever beheld 
 by soldiers. ‘‘ The whole country,” says one who 
 was both an actor and a spectator, ‘* seemed to be 
 filled with troops; the sun shone bright; not a 
 cloud obscured the brilliant and glowing atmos-— 
 phere. From right to left, as far as the eye could 
 
 reach, scarcely the most diminutive space inter- 
 
 vened between bodies of troops, either already 
 
 engaged or rapidly advancing into action ; artillery 
 
 and musketry were heard in one continued, unin- 
 
 terrupted volume of sound, and, although the great 
 
 force of French cannon had not yet opened upon 
 the assailants, the fire had already become exceed- 
 
 ingly violent.”* These four united divisions, now 
 
 forming the centre of the allied army, were des- 
 
 tined to attack the height which commanded the 
 
 valley of the Zadorra,. and on which the right of 
 
 the French centre was placed, while Sir Rowland 
 Hill should move forward from Subijana de Alava 
 
 to attack the left. But Jourdan, having weakened 
 
 his line to strengthen his detachments on the hills, 
 
 could bestow it even upon failure and misfortune when he thought 
 that the failure had proceeded only from error of jadgment. It was, in 
 the highest degree, needful for such a man, so placed, to conceal his 
 emotions, and to have his feelings under control; but nothing can be 
 more incorrect than to charge Wellington with insensibility of hear 
 or a stoical indifference to the loss of friends and brother-soldiers a 
 the other inevitable woes of war! The best corrective of this fallacy 
 is the careful perusal of the duke’s own dispatches. 
 * Colonel Leith Hay, Narrative. 
 
Ouar. VII] 
 
 abandoned his position in the valley of the Zadorra 
 as soon as he saw Wellington’s disposition to 
 attack it, and commenced his retreat in good order 
 towards Vittoria. Before retreating the French 
 had met the heads of our advancing columns with 
 a destructive fire; but General Picton’s division— 
 the always fighting third—having come 1n contact 
 with a strong body of the enemy, had driven it 
 back, and had taken its guns. 
 
 As Jourdan fell back upon Vittoria, closing up 
 his long lines, which had been far too much ex- 
 tended, our troops continued to advance in ad- 
 mirable order, notwithstanding the difficulty of 
 the ground. In the meantime, while this was 
 passing in front, General Sir Thomas Graham, 
 moving along the road from Bilbao with our left, 
 had attacked the French right, which was posted 
 on the heights beyond the Zadorra, above the 
 village of Abechuco, and had dislodged it from 
 thence, and then, ascending the right bank of the 
 Zadorra towards the Bayonne road, he carried the 
 village of Gamarra Mayor ; and at nearly the same 
 time the Spanish division of Longa carried the 
 village of Gamarra Menor, which is on the right 
 bank of the river opposite the Bayonne road, which 
 runs along the left bank, the heights of which were 
 occupied by two divisions of French infantry in 
 reserve. In the execution of these services Gra- 
 ham’s divisions, including Spanish as well as Por- 
 tuguese troops, were closely and desperately 
 engaged ; and all behaved admirably, some Por- 
 tuguese Cacadores particularly distinguishing 
 themselves. The enemy had a division of infantry 
 advanced on the great road from Vittoria to Bilbao 
 in order to keep open the line of retreat to the 
 latter city ; and the right of this division rested on 
 some strong heights which cover the village of 
 Gamarra Mayor. Both Gamarra Mayor and 
 Abechuco were strongly occupied as tétes de ponts, 
 and could not be carried without great difficulty. 
 It was Major-General Robertson’s brigade of the 
 fifth division that most gallantly stormed and car- 
 ried Gamarra Mayor, advancing in columns of 
 battalions, under a very heavy fire of artillery and 
 musketry, and without firmg a shot. Robertson’s 
 brigade was, however, assisted by two guns of 
 Major Lawson’s brigade of artillery. At this vil- 
 lage the enemy suffered severely and lost three 
 more pieces of cannon. The village of Abechuco 
 had been carried by Colonel Halkett’s brigade, 
 supported by General Bradford’s brigade of Portu- 
 guese infantry, and covered by a strong battery, 
 consisting of horse and foot artillery. During the 
 attack at Abechuco the French had made the 
 greatest efforts to repossess themselves of the village 
 of Gamarra Mayor; but they had been gallantly 
 repulsed by the fifth division, under the command 
 - of Major-General Oswald.* 
 
 When the French had been driven from all their 
 positions, and their main body had been driven 
 through the town of Vittoria, the whole of the 
 allied army co-operated in the pursuit, which was 
 ~* Col. Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 643 
 
 continued by all till after it was dark. The move- 
 ments of the troops under Sir Thomas Graham, 
 and their possession of Gamarra and Abechuco and 
 of the Bayonne road, intercepted the enemy’s 
 
 retreat by that high road to France. They were, 
 therefore, obliged to turn to the road leading to Pam- 
 plona; and they were unable to hold any position 
 beyond Vittoria for a sufficient length of time to 
 allow their baggage, stores, and artillery to be 
 drawn off. The whole, therefore, of the artillery 
 which had not already been taken by Lord Wel- 
 lington’s troops in their successive attacks of posi- 
 
 tions, together with all their ammunition and bag- 
 
 gage, and nearly everything else they had, was 
 captured close to Vittoria. ‘I have reason to be- 
 lieve,” wrote his Lordship, “that the enemy car- 
 ried off with them one gun and one howitzer only.” 
 As darkness set in, the French colamns mixed and 
 dispersed, running off in all directions. The in- 
 truder Joseph had a very narrow escape ;* his 
 travelling-carriage, his papers, were taken, and 
 several of his attendants were captured or cut down, 
 or shot in their flight by the revengeful Spaniards. 
 To the French it was an irremediable, a fatal de- 
 feat—it was the most complete defeat they ever 
 experienced in Spain; and few battles anywhere 
 have been more decisive. The immense quantity 
 of artillery introduced by Bonaparte into his armies 
 had made it imperative on Wellington to increase 
 the number of his own guns; and never previously 
 had so large a body of British artillery been engaged 
 as at Vittoria. The French army rallied at no 
 point of its line; nor was there the slightest effort 
 made by them, after passing the city of Vit- 
 toria, to check the rapid pursuit of the allies. 
 To escape with nothing but life, and the clothes 
 on their backs, seemed to have become their 
 sole object. Their artillery-drivers cut their traces, 
 left their guns on the uneven rough ground, and 
 galloped off with their horses.t The amount of 
 spoil gathered by the pursuers was immense, and 
 of the most varied description, resembling in many 
 particulars the spoils of an Oriental rather than 
 those of a European army. Joseph Bonaparte 
 —who had been nicknamed by the sober Spaniards 
 “ King of the Cooks,’ ‘ Little Joseph of the 
 bottles ”—was a self-indulging, luxurious, sensual, 
 voluptuous man; and wherever he went he carried 
 with him all his luxuries and means of enjoyment. 
 His splendid sideboard of plate, his larder, and his 
 cellar, or its choicest contents, fell into the hands 
 of the conquerors: his fine wardrobe, some of 
 his women, and some of his plunder—including 
 splendid pictures by the old Spanish masters—were 
 taken also. Many of the French officers had fol- 
 lowed Joseph’s example as far as their means al- 
 lowed ; and thus the finest wines and the choicest 
 
 * The 10th Hussars entered Vittoria at the moment that Joseph 
 was hastening out of it in his carriage. One squadron of the tenth, 
 under Captain Wyndham, gave Vette? and fired into the carriage ; 
 aud Joseph had barely time to throw himself on a horse and gallop 
 off under the protection of a body of dragoons. The carriage was 
 taken, and in it the most splendid of his trinkets, and some of the 
 most precious articles he had abstracted from the palaces and 
 churches of Spain. 
 
 + Colonel Leith Hay. 
 
644 
 
 viands were picked up in profusion. . “ The wives 
 and mistresses of the officers had gathered together 
 in one house, where they were safe, and from whence 
 they were sent in their own carriages with a flag of 
 truce to Pamplona. Poodles, parrots, and monkeys 
 were among the prisoners. Seldom has such a 
 scene of confusion been witnessed as that which the 
 roads leading from the field of battle presented ; 
 broken-down waggons stocked with claret and 
 champagne, others laden with eatables dressed and 
 undressed, casks of brandy, apparel of every kind, 
 barrels of: money, books, papers, sheep, cattle, 
 horses, and mules, abandoned in the flight. The 
 baggage was presently rifled, and the followers of 
 the camp attired themselves in the gala-dresses of 
 the flying enemy. Portuguese boys figured about 
 in the dress-coats of French general officers ; and 
 they who happened to draw a woman’s wardrobe 
 in the lottery converted silks, satins, and embroi- 
 dered muslins into scarfs and sashes for their 
 masquerade triumph. Some of the more fortunate 
 soldiers got possession of the army chest, and 
 loaded themselves with money. . . . ~- . 
 The camp of every division was like a fair ; 
 benches were laid from waggon to waggon, and 
 there the soldiers held an auction through the 
 night, and disposed of such plunder as had fallen 
 to their share, to any one who would purchase it.”’* 
 ‘* The soldiers of the army,” said Lord Welling- 
 ton, “* have got among them about a million ster- 
 ling in money, with the exception of about 100,000 
 dollars which were got for the military chest.’’+ 
 Among the innumerable trophies of the field was 
 the baton or marshal’s staff of Jourdan. Lord 
 Wellington sent it to the prince-regent, who gave 
 him in return the baton of a field-marshal of Great 
 Britain. Of arms and materials of war there were 
 taken 151 pieces of brass ordnance, 415 caissons, 
 more than 14,000 round of ammunition, nearly 
 2,000,000 of musket-ball cartridges, 40,668 lbs. 
 of gunpowder, 56 forage-waggons, and 44 forge- 
 waggons.{ When the battle began the numerical 
 strength of the two armies was about equal. But 
 on the side of the allies the Spaniards, though they 
 behaved better than they had hitherto done, were 
 not to be compared with the French soldiery. The 
 French had in many actions made greater slaughter 
 of a Spanish army, but they had never in any one 
 instance reduced an army, even of raw volunteers, 
 to such a state of total wreck.§ They saved them- 
 selves from destruction or from captivity by aban- 
 doning the whole matérie! of the army, and by 
 running like amob. Only about 1000 of them 
 were taken, for, lightened of their usual burthens, 
 
 * Southey. 
 
 t Dispatches. ‘ Even dollars became an article of sale, for they 
 were too heavy to be carried inany great numbers: eight were offered 
 for a guinea—English guineas, which had been struck for the pay- 
 ment of the troops in Portugal, and made current there by a decree 
 of the regency, being the gold currency. ‘The people of Vittoria had 
 their share in the spoils, and some of them indemnified themselves 
 thus for what they had suffered in their property by the enemy’s ex- 
 actions. The city sustained no injury, though the French were driven 
 through it, and though great part of the battle might be seen from 
 every window.” —Southey, Hist. of Peninsular JVar. 
 
 t Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 § Southey. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ‘(Boox X. 
 
 they ran with wonderful alacrity ; the country was 
 too much intersected with canals and ditches for 
 our cavalry to act.with effect in pursuit; and our 
 infantry, who moved in military order, could not 
 be expected to keep up with a rout of fugitives. 
 Moreover—as Wellington deeply regretted —the 
 spoils of the field occupied and detained his troops ; 
 and the money, the wine, and the other luxuries 
 they obtained induced some degree of sluggishness. 
 This has happened in all similar cases. And there 
 still remains to be added that the troops in their 
 long march from the Portuguese frontier had worn 
 out their shoes, and were in good part barefooted ; 
 while, owing to the slowness with which his sup- 
 plies had been sent up, Wellington had no new 
 shoes to give them. ‘The French acknowledged 
 a loss, in killed and wounded, of 8000 men; but 
 their loss was unquestionably much greater. The 
 total loss of the allies was 740 killed and 4174 
 wounded.* Lord Wellington was liberal and 
 even enthusiastic in his praise of all engaged—of 
 officers and men. He particularly acknowledged 
 his obligations to Generals Graham and Hill, 
 General Morillo, and General the Hon. W. Stewart, 
 Generals the Earl of Dalhousie, Sir Thomas Picton, 
 Sir Lowry Cole ; to his quartermaster-general, Sir 
 George Murray, who had again given the greatest 
 assistance; to Lord Aylmer, the deputy-adjutant- 
 general ; and to many others, including Sir Richard 
 Fletcher and the oflicers of the royal engineers. 
 All the more scientific parts of the army had in- 
 deed been vastly improved since the time when 
 Wellington first took the command of our forces 
 in the Peninsula ; and the department of the quar- 
 termaster-general, upon which so much depends, 
 and the service of the engineers, had been brought 
 from a very defective to an all but perfect condi- 
 tion, by Sir George Murray, Aylmer, Fletcher, and 
 other able and painstaking men. Wellington also 
 mentioned in his dispatch that his serene highness 
 the Hereditary Prince of Orange (late King of 
 Holland) was in the field as his aide-de-camp, and 
 conducted himself with his usual gallantry and 
 intelligence. . 
 
 The news of this decisive battle of Vittoria gave 
 strength, spirit, and union to the allied armies act- 
 ing against Bonaparte in Germany, dissipated the 
 last misgivings and indecisions of Austria, broke 
 up the congress assembled at Prague, in Bohemia, 
 which before would have treated with the French, 
 and have left them in possession of many of their 
 conquests ; and it gave to the voice of the British 
 government and its envoys a vast increase of con- 
 sideration and influence. Without this battle of 
 Vittoria and its glorious results in June, there would 
 have been no battle of Leipzig in October. ; 
 
 King Joseph hardly once looked back until he 
 had reached the strong walls of Pamplona, in 
 Navarre, among lofty mountains, the offshoots of 
 the Pyrenean chain. The garrison, which had 
 
 \ 
 * Out of this number the British had 501 killed, the Portuguese 150, 
 
 the Spaniards only 89; while in wounded the British had 2807, the 
 
 Portuguese 899, and the Spaniards 464.— Wellington Dispatches. 
 
Cnap. VIII.) 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 645 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 " 
 
 ad 
 iy 
 
 PAMPLONA. 
 
 been reinforced and well supplied, and which had 
 orders to husband its provisions and stores, in case 
 of a siege or blockade (and a blockade or sicge 
 seemed now inevitable), admitted the runagate king 
 or pretender, but would not open the gates to the 
 flying, disorganised soldiers, who had lost all signs 
 of discipline, and who were starving. The fugitives 
 from Vittoria attempted to force an entrance over 
 the walls of Pamplona; they attacked their coun- 
 trymen in garrison as if they had been mortal foes, 
 or English, or Spaniards ; but they were repulsed 
 by a fire of musketry. After this they continued 
 their flight across the Pyrenees towards France ; 
 but, meeting with some supplies, they rallied in 
 the fastnesses of those mountains, and waited there 
 for reinforcements. General Clausel, who was 
 coming up fast from Logrofio with about 15,000 
 men, and would have been on the field of Vittoria 
 if Wellington had lost any time or had delayed his 
 attack, upon learning the issue of that battle, 
 turned hastily back to Zaragoza, and fled rather 
 than retreated thence, by Jaca and the central 
 Pyrenees into France, losing all his artillery and 
 most of his baggage on the road. General Foy, 
 who was with another French corps d’armée at 
 Bilbao when the great battle was fought, fell back 
 rapidly upon French territory and the fortress of 
 Bayonne, being warmly pursued by General Graham. 
 A French garrison was left at San Sebastian, which 
 place, as well as Pamplona, was very soon invested 
 by the allies. Except on the eastern coast, where 
 Suchet kept his ground with about 40,000 men, 
 there was not a spot in all Spain where the French 
 could move or show themselves. 
 
 Having established the blockade of Pamplona, 
 and directed Graham to invest San Sebastian, 
 Lord Wellington advanced with the main body of 
 
 his army to occupy the passes of the Pyrenees, 
 from Roncesvalles, so famed in war and poetry, 
 to Irun, at the mouth of the Bidasoa. His lord- 
 ship’s movements were rapid, and would have been 
 much more so if it had not been for Spanish pro- 
 crastination and poverty, and for his want of proper 
 ammunition and magazines.* By the 25th of June 
 he was near Pamplona, directing the Spaniards 
 how they ought to proceed with the blockade; on 
 the 28th he was at Caseda, on the river Aragon, 
 where he was compelled to remain some days. In 
 spite of his recent triumph, he found the Spanish 
 people and government still torpid—still waiting 
 for everything to be done for them by others, and 
 by the outlay of English money. The conscript 
 fathers at Cadiz, preluding to what has taken place 
 in more recent days, had begun a hot war against 
 the wealthy clergy and monastic orders; and so 
 
 * Through some mismanagement, our convoying ships on the coasts 
 of the Peninsula had been diminished. What our government did 
 with this withdrawn force we can scarcely discover, unless they sent 
 the frigates—where our old frigates ought never to have been sent—to 
 the shores and waters of the United States, to run the risk of encoun- 
 tering President Madison’s leviathans. Many of our transports and 
 store-ships were taken by French frigates and privateers on the coast 
 of Portugal. Ina dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated the 24th of June, 
 Lord Wellington alludes to his embarrassments, and says, ** Ammu- 
 nition required for the army hus lately been delayed at Lisbon for 
 want of convoy; and it is not yet arrived at Santander, and I am 
 obliged to use the French ammunition, of a smaller calibre than our 
 muskets, to make good our expenditure in the late action. The army 
 cannot remain in this part of the country without magazines, notwith- 
 standing its successes; and these magazines must be brought by sea, 
 or they must be purchased with ready money. For the jirst time, I 
 believe, it has happened to any British army that its communication by sea 
 ts insecure. Certainly we have not money to purchase in the country 
 all we want. The increase of the naval force on the Lisbon station is 
 likewise necessary, because our money must be transported from Lis- 
 bon by sea once a fortnight. We are too far from Lisbon to transport 
 it by land; and the expense would be enormous.”—Cvlonel Gurwood, 
 Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 From the beginning of this war down to its termination, the march- 
 ing, manceuvring, and fighting parts of the business were what gave 
 the commander-in-chief the least trouble ; but he was obliged to attend 
 to everything himself, and through the. negligence or mistakes of 
 others he was often left in very embarrassing and critical predicas 
 ments. 
 
646 
 
 absorbed were they by these hostilities, that they 
 seemed to have forgotten that there existed such 
 ‘men as Wellington and Bonaparte. In writing to 
 his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley, his lordship 
 complained bitterly of these things. “The people 
 of the country,” said he, “ never think of what 
 passes. ..+..- The people think of nothing but 
 getting rid of the French, and avoiding to contri- 
 bute anything towards the support of any army. 
 And, if they can accomplish these two objects, they 
 do not care much about others. If the government 
 or the Cortes cared about the opinion of their ally, 
 or about carrying on this war, I should acquiesce 
 in their measures; but it is heart-breaking to see 
 that they care about neither the one nor the other, 
 and that there is no tie over them. All they appear 
 to care about is the war against the clergy; and it 
 appears as if the measures for carrying on the war 
 against the enemy were incompatible with those for 
 the prosecution of the more favourite hostilities 
 against the priests.” * 
 
 On the 27th of June Lord Wellington had 
 marched with a detachment from the neighbour- 
 hood of Pamplona, to endeavour to cut off the 
 retreat of Clausel; but that general had fled so 
 rapidly, that he arrived at Tudela de Ebro before 
 the English could reach him, and his lordship had 
 then returned and resumed his march towards the 
 Pyrenees frontier, to superintend the operations of 
 the whole allied army. His pursuit had, however, 
 prevented Clausel from marching off to the east to 
 join Suchet. On the 1st of July his lordship was 
 at Huarte; and here he was again obliged to halt 
 for two or three days, by want of magazines of 
 provisions and military stores, and money. In 
 the meanwhile the Spanish general O’Donnel re- 
 duced the castle of Pancorbo, on the great line of 
 communication between Vittoria and Burgos, and 
 took the garrison of 700 French prisoners. From 
 Huarte his lordship moved to Ostiz, and began to 
 divide and dispose his troops so as to secure the 
 passes of the Pyrenees and keep open those roads 
 into France. This was no easy operation, for the 
 mountain range to be guarded was not less than 
 sixty English miles in length, the practicable passes 
 were not two or three, but six or eight, and there 
 were other rough roads or paths across the Pyrenees, 
 and running between or turning the greater passes, 
 which might be traversed by an enemy so light 
 and active and so accustomed to mountain warfare 
 as the French. Lord Wellington estimated all the 
 passes, good and bad, at not less than seventy. It 
 should seem as if the government at home fancied 
 that he might defend the Pyrenees as he had done 
 the heights of Torres Vedras, without allowing the 
 French to penetrate anywhere ; but he showed them 
 
 * Letter dated Caseda, 29th July, in Colonel Gurwood, Wellington 
 Dispatches. 
 
 Even at this moment, this quick and far-sighted man, whose sagacity 
 was hardly ever at fault either in polities or in war, discovered and 
 explained not only his own present embarrassments caused by the mad 
 reformers of Spain, but also the future confusion and anarchy which 
 must result from them. The result we see at the present day, and we 
 have been witnessing it for many years, which have been for Spain 
 
 years of blood, crime, horror! Nor is there even now any clear 
 prospect of a tranquil settlement. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 Jr nnn nnn nnn nee Ue an aD InISS SSS nen enenennnRENRenENRn) 
 
 [Boor X. | 
 
 beforehand that this was impossible.* A change 
 was now indeed about to take place in the charac- 
 ter of the contest. It had already been proved that 
 in a rase campagne, or in any situation approach- 
 ing to an open country, the veterans of France were 
 not a match for the British infantry ; but now the 
 allied army was to defend a series of mountain 
 defiles, ina country where neither cavalry nor artil- 
 lery could be employed; our troops were about to 
 enter into a struggle for which they were unpre- 
 pared by any former experience ; while the system 
 of mountain warfare was one for which the light- 
 ness and activity of the French troops peculiarly 
 fitted them, and in which they had hitherto been 
 considered unrivalled.+ 
 
 Some portions of the allied army went right 
 through the mountain passes in pursuit of the 
 French; and upon the th of July the last divi- 
 sions of the army of Joseph Bonaparte, after being 
 driven from the very defensible valley of San Este- 
 van, descended the reverse of the Pyrenees and 
 entered France. Lord Wellington then became 
 master of the passes of San Estevan, Donna Maria, 
 Maya, and the renowned Roncesvalles; and his — 
 sentinels looked down from the rugged frontier of 
 Spain upon the level and fertile plains of France, 
 which lay in sunshine at their feet as if inviting 
 their approach. Thus, in five-and-forty days from 
 the opening of this memorable campaign, Welling- 
 ton had conducted the allied army from the frontiers 
 of Portugal to the confines of France; he had 
 marched 400 miles, had gained one of the com- 
 pletest of victories, had driven the French through 
 a country abounding in strong positions, had put 
 the intrusive king to a flight which was to know of 
 no return, had liberated Spain from everything but 
 the evil consequences of Spanish folly, impatience, 
 vanity, and presumption; and he now stood as a 
 conqueror upon the skirts of France.{ We have 
 seen the way in which Bonaparte treated his fail- 
 ing or unfortunate generals. Marshal Jourdan, a © 
 soldier of the early Revolution, who had acquired — 
 fame when Bonaparte was little more than a school- — 
 boy, was now rated as an old-fashioned pedant, as — 
 a follower of worn-out and exploded systems of © 
 warfare—as if Massena, and Marmont, and Ney, — 
 and any of the men of the new school, had been — 
 more successful in their struggles with Wellington. 
 Soult, the best of them all, had repeatedly and — 
 notoriously failed ; but it was Soult that was now — 
 chosen to succeed Jourdan, and to head back the ~ 
 torrent of war which now threatened “ the holy | 
 territory of France.” Bonaparte felt the need of 
 Soult’s services in Germany’; but, seriously alarmed — 
 for the safety of his own southern frontiers, he sent 
 away that marshal from the Grand Army with very — 
 extraordinary powers, with a sort of Alter Ego cha-— 
 racter, and with the title of ‘* Lieutenant of the — 
 Emperor.” Soult was to take the entire command — 
 of the defeated troops, to re-equip them, to gather 
 
 * Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, dated Lezaca, 25th July, in 
 Dispatches. i 
 + Captain Hamilton, Annals of the Peninsular Campaigns. { 
 + Major M, Sherer, Military Memoirs of the Duke of Wellington, — 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 formidable reinforcements, to lead his masses 
 speedily against Wellington, to clear the French 
 frontier and the passes of the Pyrenees, and to 
 relieve Pamplona and San Sebastian, and to drive 
 the allied army behind the Ebro. And all this 
 Soult undertook to do—or he thought it expedient 
 to tell the army that he had undertaken it, and 
 that his hopes were good. He flew through Ger- 
 many and through France, giving his urgent and 
 imperative orders, and collecting all manner of 
 disposable forces; and on the 13th of July he 
 reached the southern frontier and took the com- 
 mand of the disorganised fragments of Jourdan’s 
 army. Soult forthwith issued one of those pro- 
 clamations or addresses which are necessary with 
 French troops, and which had often been supposed 
 to operate wonders. It was boastful, and flattering 
 to the vanity of the soldiery, who were told that 
 the present lamentable situation of affairs was im- 
 putable to others,- not to them; and that theirs 
 would be the merit of repairing all that had been 
 done amiss. ‘° I have borne testimony to the em- 
 peror,” said Soult, ‘‘ of your bravery and zeal : 
 his instructions are that you must drive the enemy 
 from these heights, which enable them to look 
 proudly down on our fertile valleys, and then chase 
 them beyond the Ebro. It is on the Spanish soil 
 that your tents must next be pitched, and your 
 resources drawn. Let the account of our successes 
 be dated from Vittoria, and let the féte-day of his 
 imperial majesty be celebrated in that city!’’* 
 
 *® Soult paid some very tardy compliments to the British troops and 
 their great commander ; but he denied to Wellington any originality 
 of military genius, and he told the French soldiers that it was only 
 from them that the English had at last learned how to fight. ‘‘ The 
 dispositions and arrangements of their general,’”’ said Soult, ‘‘ have 
 been skilful, prompt, and consecutive, while the valour and steadiness 
 of his troops have been great. But do not forget that it is from you 
 that they have learned these lessons, and that it is to you they are 
 indebted for their present military experience.” 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1818. 
 
 647 
 
 When that auspicious day arrived, the 15th of 
 August, Marshal Soult and his army, instead of 
 being at Vittoria, were on the wrong side of the 
 Pyrenees, after having been repeatedly beaten and 
 scattered ; and the allied army, instead of having 
 been driven beyond the Ebro, was on the Bidasoa, 
 with a firm footing in France. 
 
 Having given the most minute instructions for 
 rendering safe and effectual the blockade of Pam- 
 plona, a very strong fortress, wherein were shut 
 up some 4000 French troops, who had more than 
 200 cannon in battery, Wellington quitted the 
 upper passes of the Pyrenees, and went down to 
 the shores of the Atlantic, to superintend the siege 
 of San Sebastian, with some faint hope of carrying 
 that formidable place before Soult should put him- 
 self in motion. But his lordship’s means for press= 
 ing a siege were, as they ever had been, exceed- 
 ingly defective, and both the fortress and the 
 garrison were found to be even stronger than he 
 had expected. On the 14th of July batteries were 
 opened against the convent of San Bartolomeo and 
 other outworks. Leaving Sir Thomas Graham to 
 conduct the siege according to a plan which his 
 lordship had drawn up, the commander-in-chief 
 returned to the main body of his army. On the 
 17th of July the convent and a redoubt were car- 
 ried by assault ; but on the 25th, one of our storm- 
 
 ‘ing parties was repulsed and hurled back, with the 
 
 loss of 500 killed and wounded, and 100 taken. 
 Upon this disastrous intelligence Wellington gal- 
 loped back to the coast; and, finding that even 
 the ammunition was almost exhausted, he gave his 
 orders to suspend the operations of the siege for a 
 time, and to blockade the place and guard the sea- 
 ward pass, so as to prevent the arrival of any 
 succour from France. The night of this very day, 
 
 SAN SEBASTIAN, 
 
648 
 
 as he was riding back to his head-quarters, now 
 established at Lezaca, Wellington received the re- 
 ports that the great army of Soult, from 70,000 to 
 80,000 strong, was in rapid motion; that the 
 French had overpowered his troops in two of the 
 mountain-passes on the right of the allied army, 
 had penetrated with overwhelming numbers into 
 the valleys of the Pyrenees, and were pressing 
 onwards for Pamplona. ‘ Well!” said the general 
 to the officer who thus reported, “‘ we must do 
 the best we can to stop them!’ And stop them 
 he did, after a whole week of brilliant manceuvres, 
 rapid movements, and almost constant fighting. 
 Soult, with admirable diligence and ability, had 
 re-organised his army, in nine divisions of in- 
 fantry, two of dragoons, and one of light cavalry. 
 He had been strongly reinforced, other reinforce- 
 ments were forming in his rear on the Garonne, 
 and he had been well supplied with artillery, arms, 
 ammunition, and stores. On the evening of the 
 24th of July he had suddenly collected between 
 30,000 and 40,000 men on the French side of the 
 Pyrenees, at St. Jean Pied de Port, near the open- 
 ing of the pass of Roncesvalles. At the same time 
 another column of attack, 13,000 strong, was as- 
 sembled at Espelette, near the pass of Maya. His 
 plan was to attack at one and the same time the 
 pass of Roncesvalles and the pass of Maya, the 
 roads from which converge on Pamplona. And, 
 accordingly, under cover of some feints and ma- 
 noeuvres, principally made by some thousands of 
 national guards, attached to his regular army, 
 which distracted the attention of the allies towards 
 other roads or paths, the French rushed into those 
 two passes early on the morning of the 25th, Soult 
 leading in person the greater column. IJn_ both 
 of the passes, and on the heights above them, there 
 was desperate fighting. They fought on the moun- 
 tain tops, which could scarcely have witnessed any 
 other combat than that of the Pyrenean eagles— 
 they fought among jagged rocks and over profound 
 abysses—they fought amidst clouds and mists, for 
 those mountain tops were 5000 feet above the level 
 of the plains of France, and the rains, which had 
 fallen in torrents during several preceding days, 
 were evaporating in the morning and noon-day sun, 
 were steaming heavenward, and clothing the loftiest 
 peaks with fantastic wreaths. The British dis- 
 puted nearly every foot of ground, only yielding 
 at last to the immeasurable superiority of num- 
 bers, and then retreating in admirable order to 
 good positions. In the Maya pass alone, where 
 a handful of men opposed for a long time an im- 
 mense and condensed French column, and where 
 General Stewart never had more than 4000 or 
 59000 men to bring into action against the 13,000 
 fighting men of General d’Erlon, the allies lost 
 1600 men in killed and wounded: of this num- 
 ber 1400 were British troops. All here had fought 
 heroically ; but the 92nd regiment suffered most 
 in the unequal contest. The advancing enemy 
 was stopped by the mass of its dead and dying; it 
 never gave way until two-thirds of its men, who 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 were principally natives of Ireland, had fallen to 
 the ground, and even then it railied on the se- 
 condary position. These dauntless Irishmen would 
 indeed have graced Thermopyle.* D’Erlon had 
 purchased his very imperfect advantage at a dear 
 price: the number of his killed and wounded 
 could not be ascertained, but it was estimated 
 roundly at 1800 men. And, what was of equal 
 importance, was the fact that, after the bloody 
 lesson they had received in the Maya pass—after 
 seeing how a diminutive number of British troops 
 could stand, even when taken by surprise in an 
 isolated position—his men became uncommonly 
 shy of fighting. Marshal Soult’s great plan was 
 deranged by the protracted stay of this corps on 
 the Col de Maya, and several ingenious theories 
 have been spun to account for d’Erlon’s long 
 delay; but it appears to us that this delay was 
 chiefly, if not wholly, attributable to the discou- 
 ragement of his troops. In the Roncesvalles pass, 
 General Cole, with 10,000 or 11,000 bayonets, 
 long opposed the 30,000 bayonets of Soult, and 
 when he gave way it was only by a slow and 
 orderly retreat, and to a position where the French 
 did not dare to attack him. Cole lost about 380 
 men in killed and wounded, and Soult himself 
 acknowledged a loss of 400 men. The French 
 marshal had not gained ten miles of advance, and 
 from the two passes which he had forced the dis- 
 tance to Pamplona was not less than twenty-two 
 miles, with strong defensive positions, and intrepid 
 and increasing enemies between. Upon these con- 
 siderations, and on account of the immovableness 
 and torpidity of d’Exlon’s corps, Soult must indeed 
 have felt that this day’s operations were unsatis- 
 factory.t After the two passes had been forced, 
 Picton, with the third and fourth divisions, retired 
 leisurely and in beautiful order before Soult; and 
 on the 27th took up a position, in battle-order, to 
 cover the large Spanish division that was block- 
 ading Pamplona, the first great object of Soult’s 
 advance. At the same time Sir Rowland Hill fell 
 back and took post at Irurita. Sir George Mur- 
 ray, the quartermaster-general, at the critical mo- 
 ment, had taken: upon himself some heavy respon- 
 sibility ; and his movements and arrangements were 
 approved and applauded by Wellington, who on 
 
 - 
 
 this day joined the main body of the army on the 
 
 field.{ The commander-in-chief was received with 
 
 ; ee Napier, Hist. of War in the Peninsula. 
 “~ Id. 
 
 t The latter part of Lord Wellington's journey from San Sebastian 
 had been a complete race. Very early on the morning of the 27th he 
 descended the valley of Lanz, without being able to learn anything 
 of the movements of General Picton, who, as was not unusual with 
 him, had acted precipitately and in contradiction to the spirit of his 
 instructions. In a state of painful uncertainty, and at great hazard 
 of being intercepted and taken prisonery his lordship reached Ostiz, a 
 few miles from Sorauren (both of which places were in a very short 
 
 time possessed by the fast-advancing French). At Ostiz he found — 
 
 General Long, with a brigade of light cavalry ; and here he learned — 
 that Picton, having abandoned the heights which he ought to have — 
 
 held, was moving on Huarte. He left Sir George Murray, his able 
 quartermaster-general, at Ostiz, with instructions to stop all the allied 
 troops that were coming down the valley of Lanz. ‘Then, at racing 
 speed, Wellington made for Sorauren. 
 saw Clausel’s divisions on the crest of the contiguous mountain, and 
 
 concluded that the allied troops in the valley of Lanz must be inter 
 
 cepted if they came down. Therefore he wrote, on the parapet of the 
 bridge.of Sorauren, fresh instructions to the quartermaster-general, 
 
 As he entered that village he — 
 
Cuar, VIII] 
 
 enthusiastic cheers by the soldiers, who thus inti- 
 mated the little doubt they had of being able to 
 drive Soult back across the Pyrenees. ‘There was 
 the same enthusiasm everywhere. On his way to 
 the main body, as he had ridden past the several 
 corps, which were all instantly put in motion, with 
 his own clear orders for their guidance, he was 
 loudly cheered by all the men. The disposable 
 forces of the allies were now concentrated to the 
 right ; but their numbers were much reduced by 
 the blockades of Pamplona and San Sebastian. 
 Soult formed his army on the ridge of a mountain, 
 right opposite to the allies; and on the evening 
 of the 27th he moved down and made a partial 
 attack on Wellington’s fourth division. The French 
 were foiled and beaten—repulsed even at some 
 points by the Spanish infantry, which they had so 
 long despised. It was made evident that the 
 French veterans who had been engaged in Spain 
 against the British had lost much of their vivacity 
 and confidence, and that a party of Soult’s rein- 
 forcements consisted of conscripts and new leyies, 
 who were hardly equal to a contest with such of 
 the Spanish regiments as had submitted to any 
 degree of discipline. On the other side, the novel 
 sight of the French flying from their levelled 
 bayonets gave the Spaniards great encouragement. 
 But, unluckily, Spanish valour continued to the 
 last to be subject to hot and cold fits; and, through 
 the bad qualities of the great majority of their 
 officers, their discipline could never be perfected. 
 On the following day—the 28th of July, and the 
 fourth anniversary of the battle of Talavera— 
 Soult renewed his attack, and this time in full 
 force. JT irst he fell upon our left, and then he fell 
 on the centre of the British position, which was 
 drawn up on the hills. .Nearly the whole brunt of 
 this attack of an army was borne by a single divi- 
 sion—by our fourth division, under Sir Lowry 
 Cole, who repulsed the French with the bayonet. 
 In one single instance the French succeeded 
 in overpowering a Portuguese battalion, on the 
 right of General Ross’s brigade. This obliged 
 Ross to retire, and thereupon the enemy esta- 
 blished themselves for a moment in the line of the 
 allies. But Wellington directed the 27th and 
 48th regiments to charge them, and the French 
 were presently driver down the hill at the 
 
 pointing out a safe route by the right, which would bring those allied 
 troops into the rear of General Cole's position. Lord Fitzroy Somer- 
 set, the only stafl-officer who had been sufliciently well mounted to 
 keep up with Wellington’s thorough-bred English chestnut, galloped 
 with these orders out of Sorauren by one road, the French light 
 cavalry dashed into the village by another, and the English general 
 rode alone up the opposite mountain to reach his troops. ‘* One of 
 Campbell's Portuguese battalions first descried him, apd raised a ery 
 of joy, and the shrill clamour caught up by the next regiments 
 swelled as it ran along the line into that stern and appalling shout 
 which the British soldier is wont to give upon the edge of battie, and 
 which no enemy ever heard unmoved. Lord Wellington suddenly 
 stopped in a conspicuous place ; he desired that both armies should 
 know he was there, and a double Spy who was present pointed out 
 Soult, then so near that his features could be plainly distinguished. 
 The English general, it is said, fixed his eyes attentively upon this 
 formidable man, and, speaking as if to himself, said, « Yonder is a 
 great commander, but he is a cautious une, and will delay his attack to 
 ascertain the cause of these cheers; that will give time Sor the sixth 
 division to arrive, and I shall beat him’ And certain itis that the French 
 
 general made no serious attack that day.’’—Colunel Napier, Hist. of the 
 War in the Peninsula, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 649 
 
 bayonet’s point, and with a frightful loss. Soon 
 after the fighting ceased: the French had had 
 more than enough of it. The next day, the 29th, 
 the two armies remained inactive, Soult evidently 
 doubting of his power to break through the allies 
 to relieve Pamplona. He resolved, however, to 
 make one effort more before carrying his tamed 
 eagles back to France ; and, giving up all thoughts 
 of forcing Wellington’s centre, he moved off a 
 large body on his right with the purpose of turn- 
 ing the British left, by a sudden, heavy, concen- 
 trated attack on Sir Rowland Hill.- If this attack 
 should succeed entirely, he might be enabled to 
 relieve, by a continued movement to his right, not 
 Pamplona, but San Sebastian; or, if it succeeded 
 but partially, it would open to the French a better 
 line of retreat than any they now possessed, and 
 put him in communication with his strong reserve 
 on the Bidasoa under the command of General 
 Villatte. On the 30th Soult, by manceuvring on 
 the left flank of Hill’s corps, obliged that general 
 to retreat from one height to another range about 
 a mile in the rear; but, when the French attacked 
 Hill on that second height, they were repulsed 
 with loss. They repeated their assault upon 
 Hill’s front; but Hill was reinforced by troops 
 that marched rapidly from the British centre to the 
 left, and the French brigade was driven down the 
 slopes by the death-dealing bayonets. Every 
 effurt of the French ended in the same disaster ; 
 and while Soult was vainly throwing his columns 
 against Hill, Wellington attacked the French 
 corps in his own front. These corps had been 
 weakened in order to strengthen their right 
 and dislodge Hill, but they occupied a very strong 
 position between the valley of the Lanz and the 
 valley of the Arga; they were in possession of 
 the strong village of Ostiz, they were protected by 
 rocks and woods, and their ground was lofty, and, 
 to a timid eye, impregnable. But Picton was sent 
 to turn the left of this position by the road of 
 Roncesvalles, and Lord Dalhousie, with the 7th 
 division, was sent across other mountains to turn 
 the right. Our soldiers scrambled over the steep 
 and rugged heights like the goats that were native 
 to them. Picton and Dalhousie turned the two 
 flanks and attacked with the greatest spirit, driving 
 the French out of Ostiz; and, as soon as these 
 flank movements had taken effect, Sir Lowry Cole 
 attacked the enemy right in front with two British 
 and two Portuguese battalions. ‘The French soon 
 gave way, and fied precipitately. They were pur- 
 sued by Lord Wellington as far as Olague; and 
 here at sunset a halt was called, this part of our 
 army being in the rear of the great French right 
 which had been engaging Sir Rowland Hill, and 
 which had been so well beaten by him. Foiled at 
 all points, every part of the French army began to 
 retreat under cover of darkness; and they kept 
 marching throughout the night. Soult tried no 
 more. At one time his foremost division had been 
 vithin two short leagues of Pamplona, but he had 
 not been able to do the least thing for that im- 
 
650 
 
 portant fortress, the blockaded French garrison of 
 which heard for several successive days the not 
 distant firing, telling them of the desperate efforts 
 made by their countrymen to relieve them, and the 
 resolute determination of the allies that they should 
 not be relieved. On the morning of the 31st 
 Soult’s scattered and dismayed forces were in full 
 retreat into France, followed by the allies, who 
 succeeded in taking many prisoners and much 
 baggage. These various combats are called “the 
 battles of the Pyrenees.”* The fighting had been 
 of the hardest kind. In a private letter written 
 just after the events Wellington said, ** I never saw 
 such fighting as we have had here. It began on 
 the 25th of July, and, excepting the 29th, when 
 not a shot was fired, we had it every day till the 
 2nd of August. The battle of the 28th was fair 
 bludgeon work. The 4th division was principally 
 engaged, and the loss of the enemy was immense. 
 Our loss has likewise been very severe, but not of 
 a nature to cripple us.’+ The entire loss of the 
 allies, including the casualties of the pursuit, 
 amounted to about 6200 men. “I hope,” says 
 Wellington, ‘that Soult will not feel any inclina- 
 tion to renew his expedition. The French army 
 must have suffered considerably. Between the 
 25th of last month and 2nd of this, they were en- 
 gaged seriously not less than ten times; on many 
 occasions in attacking very strong positions, in 
 others beat from them or pursued. I understand 
 that their officers say they have lost 15,000 men. 
 I thought so; but, as they say so, I now think 
 more. I believe we have about 4000 prisoners. 
 It is strange enough that our diminution of strength 
 up to the 31st did not exceed 1500 men, although 
 I believe our casualties are 6000.’’f 
 
 But if all Wellington’s orders had been properly 
 obeyed by the officers in command of detached 
 corps, if some of the Spaniards had been where 
 they ought to have been, and if many events which 
 ought to have been in the English general’s favour 
 had not turned out unfortunately, Marshal Soult 
 must have surrendered at discretion, and scarcely 
 a soldier of his army could have got through the 
 mountain passes into France. General Hill over- 
 took Soult’s rear-guard in the pass of Donna 
 Maria, took many prisoners, and then joined Lord 
 Wellington on the heights above the pass. Soult 
 was in adeep narrow valley, but, not being pursued, 
 he halted in San Estevan. Three British divisions 
 and one of Spaniards were behind the mountains 
 which overlook that town, and the Spaniards that 
 Sir Thomas Graham had detached from the siege 
 of San Sebastian were marching to block up the 
 exits from the valley. Wellington thought he had 
 Soult in a trap: he gave strict orders to prevent 
 the lighting of fires, the straggling of soldiers, and 
 
 * Or they are severally called the combat of Roncesvalles, the com- 
 bats of Maya and Linzoain, the first battle of Sorauren, the second 
 battle of Sorauren, and the combat of Donna Maria, the last having 
 been fought on the 3lst, in pursuing Soult through that pass. 
 
 + Letter to Lord William Bentinck, dated Lezaca, 5th of August, 
 in Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches, 
 ~ $ Letter to Sir Thomas Graham, id, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 | everything that might betray to the French the 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 secret that the divisions of a great army were 
 gathering round them, and he concealed himself 
 behind some rocks whence he could clearly observe 
 every movement of the enemy. ‘Three drunken or 
 marauding English soldiers destroyed the combina- 
 tion and saved Marshal Soult from a most terrible 
 and inevitable disaster: these worthless fellows 
 strolled down the valley, were surprised by four 
 French gendarmes, and were carried to Soult in 
 San Estevan. Shortly afterwards Soult’s drums 
 beat to arms, and the French columns began to 
 move out of the town towards the French mouth of 
 the pass. This was on the 31st of July. The 
 way was steep and very narrow, the multitude was 
 creat, and the baggage and the wounded men, borne 
 on their comrades’ shoulders, formed such a long 
 line of procession, that Soult’s rear was still near 
 San Estevan on the morning of the Ist of August ; 
 and scarcely had they marched a league from that 
 town when they were assailed by a terrible fire 
 from the skirmishers of our fourth division and 
 some Spaniards who covered the heights on the 
 right side of the deep valley. The French could 
 scarcely reply to this hot fire; their troops and 
 baggage got mixed, many of the men fled up the 
 hills on the opposite side, and Soult, who rode to 
 the spot, could hardly prevent a general flight and 
 dispersion. As it was, many prisoners and much 
 baggage were taken by the allies at everystep. As 
 the French advanced, the valley narrowed to a 
 mere cleft in the rocks, and they had to cross a 
 mountain torrent by a crazy narrow bridge. The 
 Spanish generals Longa and Barcefas ought, in 
 accordance with their instructions, to have been 
 with their whole divisions at the head of this chasm 
 and on the bridge; but there was nothing there 
 but a single battalion of Spanish Cacadores, who 
 were not capable of sustaining the French charge 
 headed by General d’Erlon. Thus Soult got out 
 of that coupe-gorge. But his perils and his 
 losses were not yet over, for the whole of Reilles’s 
 division had yet to pass, and our hard-fighting, 
 
 hard-marching light division was now close at — 
 hand. As the shades of evening were deepening — 
 
 in that deep chasm, the head of our light division, 
 
 after marching for nineteen consecutive hours over — 
 
 forty miles of rough mountain-roads,* reached the — 
 
 edge of a precipice near the bridge of Yanzi, and 
 
 saw below them, within pistol-shot, Reilles’s divi- — 
 
 sion rushing along that horrid defile. A crash of 
 
 musketry and rifles first told the French of the — 
 
 presence of their foes. 
 
 wedged in a narrow road with inaccessible rocks 
 on one side and the river on the other—and at the 
 
 same moment other light troops were coming up — 
 
 * The day 
 
 A river flowed between | 
 them and the English; but the French were — 
 
 — Aaa 
 
 had been exceedingly sultry, the fatigue immense. — 
 
 Many men of the light division fell and died convulsed and frothing — 
 
 at the mouth. Others, whose strength and spirit had never before 
 been quelled, leaned on their muskets and confessed that they were 
 
 done. The whole column was in a state of exhaustion when its — 
 
 head reached the precipice.—Captain Cooke, Memoir's.—Colon 
 Napier, Hist, of Penin. War. 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 the pass from San Estevan to take Reilles’s people 
 in the rear. A British officer, an eye-witness, has 
 thus described the terrible scene which ensued : 
 * Confusion impossible to describe followed; the 
 French wounded were thrown down in the rush 
 and trampled upon; the cavalry drew their swords 
 and endeavoured to charge up the pass; but the 
 infantry beat them back, and several, horses and 
 all, were precipitated into the river; some fired 
 vertically at us, the wounded called out for quarter, 
 while others pomted to them, supported as they 
 were on branches of trees on which were suspended 
 gteat-coats clotted with gore, and blood-stained 
 sheets taken from different habitations to aid the 
 sufferers.”* Brave British soldiers could not fire 
 at such piteous objects as these; they satisfied 
 themselves with keeping possession of the bridge 
 and with charging or firing at those who had still 
 muskets and bayonets or sabres in their hands, and 
 who were trying to force the passage. The evening 
 was rapidly succeeded by dark night, and then, 
 finding out a side path and climbing over rocks 
 and mountains, the greater part of Reilles’s forces 
 escaped and joined Soult at Echalar. But they 
 left behind them all their baggage and a great 
 many more prisoners. Yet Lord Wellington was 
 greatly and justly discontented with the result of 
 this day’s operations. Marshal Soult, who ought 
 to have been his prisoner, rallied his shattered and 
 disheartened divisions as best he could during the 
 night, bringing his right wing at the rock of Ivan- 
 telly to communicate with the left of Villatte’s 
 reserve, which was found in position on the French 
 side of the Pyrenees. On the following morning, 
 the 2nd of August, Lord Wellington, who had 
 come up towards this point with his fourth, seventh, 
 and light divisions, fell upon General Clausel, who 
 was commanding Soult’s rear-guard, and who was 
 in possession of an exceedingly strong position 
 near the town of Echalar. General Barnes, with 
 his single brigade, about 1500 strong, was the 
 first to arrive at the foot of that hill, and, without 
 waiting for the other divisions, Barnes rushed up 
 the steep height under a tremendous fire of mus- 
 ketry and artillery, charged Clausel’s 6000 men, 
 and drove them from their position. Clausel’s 
 men were the same which had failed in the attack 
 near Sorauren on the 28th, who had been thoroughly 
 beaten on the 30th, and who had suffered so se- 
 verely the day before this action at Echalar in 
 getting from San Estevan. It was not in the na- 
 ture of Frenchmen to stand such a succession of 
 reverses and calamities: their spirit was evapo- 
 rating like the late rains, and time, and effusion 
 of new blood—an intermixture with other men, 
 who still in their ignorance believed that. the 
 English were no soldiers and Wellington was no 
 general, was necessary to re-invigorate them. On 
 the same day, the 2nd of August, the French were 
 dislodged from Ivantelly, a lofty mountain, and 
 here, notwithstanding their position and their 
 numbers, the work was done by Colonel Andrew 
 * Capfain Cooke, Memoirs. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 651 
 
 Barnard with five companies of his riflemen, sup- 
 ported by four companies of the 43rd.* 
 
 Soult now drew closer to his reserves behind the 
 Bidasoa, put some of his disorganised corps behind 
 the line of his reserve, and called for reinforce- 
 ments, and collected all the detachments and na- 
 tional guards that he could. Wellington had, on 
 the Ist of August, directed Sir Thomas Graham 
 to collect all his forces, to advance from San 
 Sebastian, and bring up pontoons for crossing the 
 Bidasoa; but very weighty considerations induced 
 him to abandon this design of following Soult into 
 France; and, therefore, after nine days of inces- 
 sant motion, and ten serious actions, the two 
 armies rested quiet in their respective positions.+ 
 The English flag again waved triumphantly in the 
 pass of Roncesvalles, where it had been seen cen- 
 turies ago with Edward the Black Prince, and in 
 the pass of Maya, and in all the chief defiles; the 
 British troops again looked down upon the plains 
 of France, they had a firm footing on the skirts of 
 that kingdom, and the foraging parties of the 
 Spaniards often penetrated for miles beyond the 
 frontier. The young Prince of Orange, who had 
 now followed Wellington for two years, and who 
 had a horse killed under him in one of the recent 
 engagements, was the bearer of his lordship’s dis- 
 patches to the British government. 
 
 In the interval of repose on the frontier, efforts 
 were, however, made by the French to relieve San 
 Sebastian, and these were met by an increase of 
 activity and determination on the side of the allies 
 to reduce that place and compel the 4000 French 
 at Pamplona to capitulate. On the 19th of August 
 —and not earlier—transports arrived from England 
 with a good and sufficient supply of heavy guns 
 and mortars, and with one company of royal sap- 
 pers and miners—a species of force whose forma- 
 tion had been so long and so absurdly neglected 
 by our government and by those who had pre- 
 sided over our war-department (a department too 
 generally intrusted to orators or parliamentary 
 debaters rather than to soldiers).{ Admiral Sir 
 
 * In the course of the day Lord Wellington, who was still grieving 
 that Soult should have escaped him, was nearly taken prisoner him- 
 self. He was standing near the hill of Echalar examining his maps, 
 with only half a company of the 43rd as an escort. The French, 
 close at hand, sent a detachment to cut the party off; and such was 
 the nature of the ground that these Frenchmen would have fallen un- 
 awares upon his lordship if Serjeant Blood, a young, intelligent, and 
 active man who had been set to watch in front, had not rushed down 
 the precipitous recks where he was posted and given the general no- 
 tice. As it was, the French arrived in time to send a volley of shot 
 after his lordship as he galloped away.—Colonel Napier. 
 
 d. 
 
 ¢ On the 11th of February, 1812, Wellington had written to the 
 Earl of Liverpool—‘* While on the subject of the artillery, I would 
 beg to suggest to your lordship the expediency of addiug to the en- 
 gineer’s establishment a corps of sappers and miners, It is inconceiv- 
 able with what disadvantages we undertake anything like a siege 
 for want of assistance of this description. There is no French corps 
 darmée which has not a battalion of sappers and a company of miners. 
 But we are obliged to depend for assistance of this description upon 
 the regiments of the line; and, although the men are brave and will- 
 ing, they want the knowledge and training which are necessary. 
 Many casualties among them consequently occur, and much valualile 
 time is lost at the most critical period of the siege.” — Wellington Disp. 
 
 Apparently, Lord Wellington had recourse to some Frenchmen or 
 to some foreigners in the French service, who either had deserted or 
 had been taken prisoners, for, on the 14th of February, 1812, or three 
 days after writing the above letter to the Earl of Liverpool, we find 
 him writing to one of his own generals in Portugal, to send him, in 
 charge of a steady non-commissioned officer, ——, the Ser- 
 
 Pe rn an ee 
 
652 
 
 George Collier landed both men and guns from 
 his squadron to assist the besiegers ; and great was 
 the assistance derived from our active and intrepid 
 sailors. After some intervening operations and 
 two sallies made by the besieged, who were re- 
 pulsed with the bayonet, on the 30th the breaches 
 appeared practicable, and Wellington decided that 
 the assault should be made on the 31st. On the 
 morning of the 30th the French were seen in force 
 at Vera, on theright of the Bidasoa, and near the 
 opening of the along-shore road which leads to 
 San Sebastian. The main strength of the covering 
 army now consisted of 8000 Spaniards, posted on 
 the heights of San Marcial, on the left of the 
 Bidasoa. On the morning of the 31st, while the 
 besiegers were waiting for the fall of the tide to 
 commence storming, Soult put his relieving 
 columns in motion: two divisions of the French 
 forded the Bidasoa in front of the Spaniards, and 
 ascended the strong heights with a great show of 
 valour and confidence. The Spaniards let this 
 column come on until it nearly reached the sum- 
 mit of San Marcial; but then they gave a shout 
 and charged with the bayonet. The French in- 
 stantly broke, fled down the hill, and continued 
 their flight across the river and beyond it; and so 
 panic-stricken and confused were they that many 
 missed the fords and were drowned. In the after- 
 noon the French laid down a pontoon bridge, 
 passed over in greater numbers (it is said that 
 about 15,000 crossed the Bidasuva), and made a 
 general attack on the heights of San Marcial; but 
 the Spaniards there were now supported by some 
 divisions of the allied army on their flank and 
 rear, and Lord Wellington came up from San 
 Sebastian and rode along the Spanish line just 
 as the French were coming on to this attack. 
 The Spaniards received him with loud and 
 joyous vivas, and then, full of confidence and 
 enthusiasm, they rushed upon the French with 
 fixed bayonets and again repulsed them and drove 
 them down the slopes with terrible loss. The 
 French continued to run for their lives, but wildly 
 and without any attention to the voices of their 
 officers, and the Spaniards pursued them with the 
 bayonet in their reins. Some rushed into the deep 
 water and were drowned; such numbers got 
 wedged upon the pontoon bridge, that it was 
 broken, swamped, and sank with most of those 
 upon it. These rare Spaniards met with the 
 praise they deserved, the British general saying in 
 his dispatch that their conduct was equal to that 
 of any troops he had ever seen engaged. During 
 this attempt to force the direct road to San Sebas- 
 tian, another corps of the French endeavoured to 
 pass by another road to the left; but here they 
 were met by a Portuguese brigade, by the brigade 
 
 geant-Major des Sapeurs and Adjutant des Travaur, and —-, 
 a French miner, And, in a note to this last letter. Colonel Gurwood 
 says that these men were afterwards employed in the new establish- 
 ment forming called sappers and miners. Th. formation of this esta- 
 
 blishmenut must have been very slow, and the inattention of the home 
 government must have been great, if more than eighteen months after 
 this time only one company of sappers and miners could be sent 
 out to San Sebastian. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ~ * [Boox X. 
 
 of General Inglis, and by our light division, who 
 drove them back across the DBidasoa with loss and 
 in a panic. This day’s work cost Soult two gene- 
 rals of division killed, and about 2000 men in 
 killed, wounded, and drowned. It was Soult’s 
 last effort for the relief of San Sebastian. But 
 the same day witnessed a terrible loss of life 
 among the besieging army. At eleven o’clock in 
 the forenoon the assault took place, the operations 
 being directed by Sir Thomas Graham in person, 
 and the storm being led by the brigade of General 
 Robinson, in the midst of an awful storm of thun- 
 der, lightning, and rain. The work would have 
 been comparatively easier, or probably there would 
 not have been any necessity to storm the town at 
 all, if the besiegers had thrown shells into the 
 town; but this, out of regard to the safety of the 
 inhabitants and their property, and the lives and 
 property of a number of Spaniards who were 
 crowded in the place, Wellington positively refused 
 to do; and he issued the strictest orders that not 
 a shell should be thrown into the town. Nobly 
 supported by a detachment of Portuguese under 
 Major Snodgrass, the British got entire possession 
 of the town, drove the French from their numerous 
 intrenchments in the streets, took 700 prisoners, 
 and made the rest fly up to the castle, which stands 
 upon a rock above the town and above the sea 
 near the end of the promontory. But 2000 brave 
 fellows fell in this assault, or rather series of as- 
 saults, and of murderous  street-fighting: Sir 
 Richard Fletcher, the commanding engineer—an 
 admirable oflicer, and one of the best of men—was 
 shot through the heart; Generals Robinson, Leith, 
 anil Oswald were wounded ; and a disproportionate 
 number of officers were sacrificed, for the French, 
 firing from rests and behind cover, picked them 
 out. ‘Through the accidental falling of a saucisson 
 the great French mine, in the chamber of which 
 there were 1200 lbs. of gunpowder, could not be 
 fired. If this mine had been exploded, our first 
 storming brigade must have been annihilated, and 
 a large part of the town buried in ruins. If Wel- 
 lington had respected the security of the inha- 
 bitants, no such thought was bestowed by the 
 French general, who resorted to all the most de- 
 structive and fatal, and—to the town and the 
 people in it—most perilous modes of defence. By 
 the explosions of his infernal machines of. ali 
 kinds the town was set on fire in various places 
 and at one and the same time; and upon his re- 
 treat to the castle he kept firing down the streets, 
 killing more of the inhabitants than of the suol- 
 diery, knocking their houses to pieces, and pre- — 
 venting them from attending to the conflagration. 
 But, let the whole truth be told, and Jet it stand 
 as a shame and a warning. Many of the troops, 
 both British and Portuguese, who had behaved 
 like heroes in the assault, behaved like beasts when 
 it was over, bursting into the wine-cellars and 
 getting drunk, and plundering the houses of the 
 town instead of obeying their officers and per- 
 severing in their efforts to extinguish the flames 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 and stop a conflagration which was threatening to 
 leave San Sebastian a heap of smoking ruins, and 
 even to consume these brutalised menin the stupor 
 or madness of their drunkenness. These disgrace- 
 ful excesses lasted through the night of the 31st of 
 August and through the next day; nor was it until 
 the 2nd of September that order was restored.* 
 We would not plead the excuse that similar horrors 
 had almost invariably been perpetrated whenever 
 a town had been taken by storm, and that the 
 French had in almost every instance of the kind 
 carried these horrors to an excess, and exhibited a 
 depravity far beyond what was witnessed here ; 
 but we would leave the guilt and the blame where 
 they are due, and indignantly resent the charges of 
 ruthlessness and barbarity brought by the gentle 
 and merciful French against our noble commander- 
 in-chief, and against men of nature’s highest nobi- 
 lity like Graham, and Robinson, and Oswald, and 
 the rest ; charges which have been taken upon trust 
 and which have been repeated not only by French 
 but also by Spanish and even by some English 
 writers. [Nor would we leave the British and Por- 
 tuguese soldiers chargeable with a guilt they never 
 incurred.| The charges are, that Wellington ordered 
 shells to be fired into the town, and that the town 
 was purposely set on fire by the British. Even at 
 the time some Spanish newspapers, the organs of 
 that anti-Anglican party who had caused and were 
 still causing Wellington so much embarrassment, 
 and who had repeatedly put in jeopardy the cause 
 for which he was fighting in the Peninsula, insi- 
 nuated or said openly that he had done all this, 
 and that he had cared nothing for the excesses 
 committed by the British and Portuguese soldicry. 
 These men had lied in their throats before, and 
 they have lied loudly since, but they never carried 
 their power of lying farther than now! The town 
 had been set on fire by the French modes of de- 
 fending themselves ; and, because Wellington and 
 his generals would not set it on fire by throwing 
 shells, 2000 brave men had been sacrificed. No 
 effort was spared by our commanding officers or 
 by our regimental officers to stop the excesses of 
 the troops. Wellington was absent when the town 
 was assaulted and carried ;—he was encouraging 
 the Spaniards on the heights of San Marcial, was 
 seeing them drive the French into the Bidasoa, or 
 was busied in sending his orders from post to 
 post, from pass to pass, and, having quitted San 
 Sebastian on the evening of the 30th or morning 
 of the 3lst of August, he did not return from 
 Lezaca on the frontier until the 2nd of September ; 
 but Graham—a man as gentle and humane as he 
 was brave—and the other officers in command 
 
 * When a place is taken by assault, by a civilised and merciful 
 enemy, it is usual to relieve or remove the infuriated storming parties 
 and supply their place with other and cooler troops as soon as pos- 
 sible. At least as early as the morning of the Ist of September an 
 end would haye been put to the excesses of the British and Portu- 
 guese who had stormed, and who had witnessed the destruction of so 
 many hundreds of their countrymen and comrades, if it had beeu 
 possible to relieve them; but this possibility did not exist, for the 
 other columns were on the frontiers, fighting hard at San Marcial 
 and elsewhere, or guarding the mountain passes against Soult. In 
 fact, on the 3lst of August, the day San Sebastian was stormed, the 
 whole of the left of the army was attacked by the French. 
 
 CIVIL AND. MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—18138. 
 
 653 
 
 acted up both to the letter and spirit of Welling- 
 ton’s instructions, and before Wellington reached 
 the town every excess had ceased. The town was 
 set on fire by the French in six different places 
 before the assault commenced. Wellington’s best 
 defence was in his own manly, plain, and indig- 
 nant language. The good fame of Sir Thomas 
 Graham was as dear to him as his own. In writing 
 to his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley, who was still 
 residing at Cadiz as British ambassador, the com- 
 mander-in-chief says, ‘* You will more readily 
 conceive, than I can describe, the feelings of indig- 
 nation with which I proceed to justify the general, 
 and other officers of that army, from the charge 
 that they designed to plunder and burn the town 
 of San Sebastian. I need not assure you that 
 this charge is most positively untrue. Lvery- 
 thing was done that was in my power to suggest 
 to save the town. Several persons urged me 
 in the strongest manner to allow it to be bom- 
 barded, as the most certain mode of forcing the 
 enemy to give it up. This I positively would 
 not allow, for the same reasons as I did not allow 
 Ciudad Rodrigo or Badajoz to be bombarded...... 
 Neither is it true that the town was set on fire by 
 the English and Portuguese troops. To set fire to 
 the town was part of the enemy’s defence. Lt was 
 set on fire by the enemy on the 22nd of July, 
 before the first attempt was made to take it by 
 storm ; and it is a fact that the fire was so violent 
 on the 24th of July, that the storm which was to 
 have taken place on that day was necessarily de- 
 ferred till the 25th, and, as is well known, failed. 
 I was at the siege of San Sebastian on the 30th of 
 August, and I aver that the town was then on fire. 
 It must have been set on fire by the enemy, as | 
 repeat that our batteries, by positive orders, threw 
 no shells into the town; and I saw the town on fire 
 on the morning of the 3lst of August, before the 
 (second) storm took place. It is well known that 
 the enemy had prepared for a serious resistance, 
 not only on the ramparts, but in the streets of the 
 town ; that traverses were established in the strcets 
 formed of combustibles, with the intention of set- 
 ting fire to and exploding them during the contest 
 with the assailants. It is equally known that there 
 was a most severe contest in the strects of the 
 town between the assailants and the garrison ; that 
 many of these traverses were exploded, by which 
 many lives on both sides were lost ; and it is a fact 
 that these explosions set fire to many of the houses. 
 ee eee... In truth, the fire in the town was 
 the greatest evil that could befall the assailants, 
 who did everything in their power to get the better 
 of it; and it is a fact that, owing to the difficulty 
 and danger of communicating through the fire with 
 our advanced posts in the town, it had very nearly, 
 become necessary at one time to withdraw those 
 posts entirely. In regard to the plunder of the 
 town by the soldiers, | am the last man who will 
 deny it, because I know that it is true. It has 
 fallen to my lot to take many towns by storm ; and 
 I am concerned to add that I never saw or heard 
 
654 
 
 of one so taken, by any troops, that it was not 
 plundered.*......+.- Ifit had not been for 
 the fire, which certainly augmented the confusion, 
 and afforded greater facilities for irregularities, and 
 if by far the greatest proportion of the officers and 
 non-commissioned officers, particularly of the prin- 
 cipal officers who stormed the breach, had not been 
 killed or wounded in the performance of their 
 duty in the service of Spain (to the number of 170 
 out of 250), I believe that the plunder would have 
 been in a great measure, though not entirely, pre- 
 vented.’ + And there are some circumstances that 
 at least extenuate the conduct of the allied troops 
 in the captured town. From the city of Vittoria 
 onward, in all the country between the Ebro and 
 the Pyrenees—a country of which the French had 
 so long held an almost undisturbed possession—the 
 allies had, in a variety of painful ways, been made 
 sensible of the existence of a numerous and active 
 French party, and of the prevalence of a most 
 hostile feeling, not only to the English and to the 
 Portuguese, but also to the Andalusians and the 
 Spaniards from other provinces who were now 
 marching under the orders of Wellington. The 
 divided states of Italy never nourished greater 
 jealousies or more rancorous antipathies to one an- 
 other than did the inhabitants of the great Spanish 
 provinces, or of the old kingdoms which had been 
 eradually brought together under one sceptre, 
 without any moral or physical amalgamation ; and 
 the feuds of the fifteenth century between English 
 and Scotch were gentleness and affection compared 
 with the hatred that raged between Spaniards and 
 Portuguese in the nineteenth century. A poet who, 
 after the event, corrected in plain prose the dis- 
 proved vaticinations of his verse, has said that 
 Lord Wellington had done wonders, had perhaps 
 changed the character of a nation, and reconciled 
 rival superstitions ;{ but it was beyond the power 
 of Wellington either to root out the mutual animo- 
 sities of the Spaniards and Portuguese, or even to 
 make the Spaniards of Guipuzcoa, or Biscay, or 
 Navarre, cease to hate the Spaniards of Castile, or 
 
 * “Tt is,” added his lordship, ‘* one of the evil consequences at- 
 tending the necessity of storming a town, which every officer laments, 
 not only on account of the evil thereby inflicted on the unfortunate 
 inhabitants, but on account of the injury it does to discipline, and the risk 
 which is incurred of the loss of all the advantages of victory, at the very 
 moment they are gained. It is hard that I and my general officers are 
 to be so treated as we have been by the ‘ Xefe Politico’ and other 
 unrestrained libellers, because an unavoidable evil has occurred in 
 the accomplishment of a great service, and in the acquirement ofa 
 great advantage. The fault does not lie with us; it is with those who 
 lost the fort, and obliged us at great risk and loss to regain it for the 
 Spanish nation by storm.” [At the beginning of this war the place had 
 been given up to the French in a dastardly or treacherous manner by a 
 Spanish garrison. Nor was this the first time that the strength of San 
 Sebastian had been valueless in Spanish hands: in 1794 the French re- 
 publicans, after beating the Spaniards at Fuentarabia and all along that 
 Jrontier, reduced the place in a few days, and without any siege-artillery.] 
 “* Notwithstanding that.I am convinced that it is impossible to prevent 
 a town in such a situation from being plundered, I can prove that 
 upon this occasion particular pains were taken to prevent it. I gave 
 most positive orders upon the subject.”—Letter to the Right Hon. Sir H. 
 Wellesley, dated Lezaca, 9th October, in Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 + Id. id. “* Indeed,’ subjoins his lordship, *‘ one of the subjects of 
 complaint, that sentries were placed on every house, shows the desire 
 at least of the officers to preserve order. These sentries must have been 
 placed by order; and, unless it is supposed, as charged, that the officers 
 intended that the town should be plundered and burned, and placed 
 the sentries to secure that object, it must be admitied that their inten- 
 tion in placing these sentries was good.”’ 
 
 + Lord Byron, notes to Canto I. of Childe Harold. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Leon, or La Mancha, or Andalusia. No other man 
 than himself could so long have kept Portuguese 
 and Spaniards in one army without some great and 
 bloody catastrophe. It might be as much owing 
 to these mad antipathies as to any sympathies or 
 partizanship for the French that the inhabitants of 
 San Sebastian aided and assisted the besieged ; but 
 it is an indisputable fact that they both assisted the 
 French and fired upon the British and Portuguese 
 besiegers! This was but a bad return for the mercy 
 and magnanimity of Wellington and Graham, in 
 sparing the town from bombardment, and in pre- 
 ferring to that measure the certain loss of many 
 hundreds of men! After such a provocation, the 
 marvel is, not that the storming parties broke open 
 the wine-cellars of the inhabitants and plundered 
 their houses, but that they did not cut their throats. 
 Yet there was no massacre either of townspeople or 
 of French prisoners, though the latter must have 
 been taken with the “ red hand.” If some few of 
 the inhabitants were killed or injured by fire-arms 
 and bayonets, this was done by accident during the 
 contest in the streets with the enemy, and not by 
 design. As to the fact that the lives were saved of 
 700 French, taken in the very heat and fury of the 
 storming, we have, though in a most disgraceful 
 shape, the confirmation of these complaining Spa- 
 niards themselves, for they asserted, in the body of 
 their complaints, that the allies had been over-kind 
 to the enemy. ‘“ In regard to the charge of kind- 
 ness to the enemy,” said Wellington, “Iam afraid 
 it is but too well founded; and that, till it is posi- 
 tively ordered by authority, in return for the ordon- 
 nance of the French government, that all enemies’ 
 troops in a place taken by storm shall be put to 
 death, it will be difficult to prevail upon British 
 officers and soldiers to treat an enemy, when their 
 prisoners, otherwise than well.” But this bloody 
 ordonnance, which had been recently issued by 
 Bonaparte, was of itself calculated to madden any 
 soldiery, and more particularly men who had taken 
 a place by storm after such a frightful loss; and 
 therefore the safety of the 700 French and the 
 kindness shown to them are wonderful proofs of a 
 generosity of nature and aversion to blood; and as 
 such ought to stand as a set-off against the drunken- 
 ness and the pillage.* It also rests upon the 
 highest authority, and upon the careful examina- 
 tion and evidence of General Robinson, who led the 
 storming brigade, of General Hay, who commanded 
 in the town immediately after the storm, and of 
 other British officers commanding regiments, that 
 
 * The French showed no such consideration or mercy for their Bri- 
 tish and Portuguese prisoners, of whom a good number had been taken — 
 in the unsuccessful assault of the 25th of July. After he had been 
 driven from the town into the castle, Rey, the French general, kept the 
 prisoners in the open yard of the castle-magazine ** sans blindages,” 
 and many of them were killed and wounded by the fire of their own 
 countrymen directed against that building. Rey also made the pri- 
 soners work under fire. We give these facts on no questionable or 
 weak authority. Lord Wellington, in writing to Sir Thomas Graham 
 on the 5th of September, four days before Rey capitulated and sur- 
 rendered the castle, says, “ I do not know that I have ever heard of 
 such conduct, and the pretension founded upon it, viz. that we should 
 not direct our fire against the place, is too ridiculous. I request 
 you to send in to General Rey a protest against his keeping his pri- 
 soners in the yard of this magazine, ‘ sans blindages,’ and likewise 
 
 | against his making them work under fire.” See Dispatches. 
 
Cuar. VIL] 
 
 both troops and officers did at first do everything 
 in their power to stop the progress of the fire, 
 which was set to the town by the enemy ; and that 
 many lost their lives in the attempt, owing to the 
 fire of musketry kept up upon the roofs of the houses 
 by the enemy in the castle.* ; 
 
 We have dwelt the longer upon this subject, 
 because Spanish writers, both now and recently, 
 have, with barefaced impudence, revived the ex- 
 ploded and disproved calumnies against our great 
 captain and against the character of the British 
 army and nation. | 
 
 The ease with which the castle was taken from 
 the French after the town had been carried showed 
 how much the allies had sacrificed by not driving 
 them out of the town by bombardment weeks 
 before. The town was stormed on the 3lst of 
 August. On the 1st of September some near bat- 
 teries were opened upon the castle from the town, 
 and shortly afterwards a bombardment was com- 
 menced, for it would have been carrying humanity 
 to absurdity to treat the fortress with the same 
 gentleness as the town. On the 3rd Rey proposed 
 to surrender upon terms which were inadmissible. 
 On the 8th, when the castle was flying off in frag- 
 ments from the fire of our batteries, Rey beat the 
 chamade and surrendered. On the morning of 
 the 9th the garrison marched out with the honours 
 of war and laid down their arms. They still 
 amounted to more than 1800 men and officers, but 
 500 of them were sick or wounded. Thus 2500 
 men in all were taken, but the allies in the course 
 of the siege had lost nearly 4000 in killed and 
 wounded. 
 
 On the 3lst of October the 4000 French in 
 Pamplona, having lost all hope of relief, sur- 
 rendered prisoners of war to Lord Wellington’s 
 tried and steady friend Don Carlos de Espana, who 
 had latterly commanded the blockading forces. 
 There was nothing now in the rear of the allies to 
 cause them any apprehension or to intercept their 
 communications with the interior of Spain. But 
 before the reduction of Pamplona—though not 
 before that event had been rendered inevitable— 
 Wellington called down part of his troops from ‘the 
 bleak mountain-tops and from the gloomy narrow 
 passes, where, to their infinite discomfort, they had 
 been encamped or hutted for more than two months, 
 and led them a march or two forward upon French 
 ground. The men, recently gloomy, looked as if 
 they were going to a fair or a feast, as they trod 
 down from the Pyrenees, and through the defiles 
 of Roncesvalles, and the other passes which their 
 
 valour had won, but which had given them but a 
 
 hungry, wet, and cold reception. Early in October 
 Lord Wellington moved his left across the Bidasoa 
 and took possession of the French hills of La 
 Rhune. Soult offered only avery slight resistance, 
 for his army had not recovered its spirit, the rein- 
 | forcements he wanted were beginning to be still 
 more wanted by his master in Germany, and he 
 
 * Lord Wellington’s second letter to Sir Henry Wellesley on this 
 
 subject. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 655 
 
 had already decided upon a retrograde movement, 
 and had fixed upon the river Nivelle for his line 
 of defence. On the 10th of November the rest of 
 the allied army were called down from their cold 
 and cheerless positions in the highlands of the 
 Pyrenees ; and Lord Wellington having made his 
 preparations to march in full force into France, all 
 the troops soon began to descend into the valleys 
 on the French side. Before taking this decisive 
 step, Wellington issued an order of the day to all 
 the troops of the various nations that followed his 
 victorious standard. He told “the officers and 
 soldiers to remember that their nations were at 
 war with France solely because the ruler of the 
 French would not allow them to be at peace, and 
 wanted to force them to submit to his yoke.”—He 
 told them “ not to forget that the worst of the evils 
 suffered by the enemy in his profligate invasion of 
 Spain and Portugal had been occasioned by the 
 irregularities of his soldiers and their cruelties 
 towards the unfortunate and peaceful inhabitants 
 of the country ;’—and that “‘to avenge this con- 
 duct on the peaceful inhabitants of France would 
 be unmanly and unworthy of the allied nations.” 
 This proclamation was read over and over again in 
 English, in Portuguese, and in Spanish ; and his 
 lordship made it the special duty of all officers to 
 enforce these salutary orders. Nor was the pro- 
 clamation ever left to remain as an idle piece of 
 rhetoric ; his lordship took imcessant care to carry 
 it into operation; he enforced the orders most 
 strictly, and, whenever he found any part of his 
 troops attempting to plunder the French peasantry, 
 he not only punished by sharp and summary mili- 
 tary law those who were caught in the fact, but he 
 placed the whole regiment or brigade to which 
 they belonged under arms to prevent further 
 offence. It was difficult to convince the vindictive 
 Spaniards and Portuguese, who had so long seen 
 their own country plundered, and ransacked, and 
 wasted by fire and sword, that they ought not to 
 retaliate upon the French, who had attacked them 
 without the shadow of a provocation. Discipline, 
 however, works miracles, and the Portuguese 
 troops, on the whole, behaved well in this as in 
 other particulars. But the undisciplined part of 
 the Spaniards, who had been a thorn in Welling- 
 ton’s side, a beam in his eye, and a perpetual 
 source of anxiety or vexation ever since he set his 
 foot on the soil of the Peninsula, could not be 
 restrained in their revengeful and marauding pro- 
 pensities. Some excuse for them was, that their 
 government had provided them neither with pay 
 nor provisions, neither with clothes nor shoes. To 
 the Spanish general Freyre Wellington said: 
 ** Where I command I declare that no one shall 
 be allowed to plunder. If plunder must be had, 
 then another must have the command. You have 
 large armies in Spain, and, if it is wished to plun- 
 der the French peasantry, you may then enter 
 France; but then the Spanish government must 
 remove me from the command of their armies. . . 
 It is a matter of indifference to me whether I] 
 
656 
 command a large or a small army, but, whether 
 large or small, they must obey me, and, above all, 
 must not plunder.” At last he took the measure 
 of moving back most of the Spanish troops within 
 the Spanish frontiers.* 
 
 The peasantry dwelling near that frontier, and, 
 indeed, the great body of the rural population of 
 the whole of the south of France, between the 
 Garonne and the Pyrenees, between the Rhone 
 and the maritime Alps, and from the Mediter- 
 ranean shore to the coasts on the Atlantic Ocean, 
 were devout catholics and Bourbonists at heart ; 
 they had been borne down after some long and 
 sanguinary struggles by the Jacobins who over- 
 threw both altar and throne, but neither the pro- 
 pagandists of that sect nor the propagandists of the 
 various sects, including the Bonapartean, which 
 had flourished in France since the downfall of 
 Robespierre, had been able to convert them to the 
 modern philosophism, or to uproot their regard for 
 the old dynasty. Jor some time the expression of 
 their sentiments was subdued by the presence of 
 Soult’s army, and by that other army of impe- 
 rialists which was made up of police-agents, public 
 and secret, preféts and sous-preféts, intendants 
 and sous-intendants, with their several staffs of 
 commissaries and clerks, justices, tax-gatherers, 
 commissaries-at-war, douaniers, and those other 
 swarms of employ¢és who all owed their ap- 
 pointments to the central Paris government, and 
 who were all by interest, if not in principle, de- 
 voted Bonapartists. But as Soult retired, and as 
 many of this host sought refuge behind the rear 
 of his army, the peasantry began to give sundry 
 signs of good feeling towards Lord Wellington and 
 his army, as also to calculate upon the proba- 
 bility and the means of their taking vengeance 
 upon their own countrymen, of the revolutionary 
 parties, for the wrongs they had suffered, and for 
 the blood of their relatives and friends which had 
 been shed, during the Reign of Terror and since. 
 The military conscription, the excess to which it 
 had been carried, and the prodigious sacrifice of 
 life to which it had led and was still leading, gave 
 more vigour and keenness to the devotional and 
 loyal feeling: the peasantry saw no end to these 
 evils, no cessation to the processes by which their 
 sons were torn from them to fight for the usurper 
 they detested, and to be made food for cannon— 
 chair & canon.T 
 
 * Colonel Gurwood, Wellingtov Dispatches.—General Sir Thomas 
 Picton was a Welshman more peppery than Fluellin, and appears 
 always to have been in a passion at somebody or something; but 
 much cooler officers than he re-echoed the sentiments he expressed as 
 to the value of Spanish troops as co-belligerents in France. In 
 writing toa friend in England, after the allied army had been for 
 some time in the French territories, Picton says with his usual energy 
 of expression: ‘* The Spaniards, instead of being of any service to us 
 in our operations, are a perfect dead-weight, and do nothing but run 
 away and plunder. We should do much better without these vaponr- 
 ing poltroon rascals, whose irregular conduct indisposes every one 
 towards us. The inhabitants of the country appear remarkably well- 
 disposed, and I believe wish us success from their hearts as the only 
 probable means of bringing about what they all most ardently sigh 
 for—peace.”—Letter to Mr. Marryat in H. B. Robinson’s Memoirs of 
 Picton. 
 
 + Chair &@ canon, flesh or meat for cannon, was the epithet com- 
 monly applied to young conscripts towards the end of this war, not 
 merely in the unwilling south (where Bonaparte was wont to say 
 that there were no Frenchmen), but throughout France. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 7 
 ? 
 . 
 
 ; 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 If Wellington had not prevented the allies from 
 marauding, and plundering, and maltreating the 
 peasantry, self-defence and the common instincts 
 of nature might have interfered with their pas- 
 sionate wish for the restoration of the Bourbons, 
 and have turned them from friends or passive 
 spectators into dangerous, deadly enemies. But 
 the admirable discipline maintained, the care be- 
 stowed to see that their property and persons were 
 protected, and that they were fairly paid for what- 
 ever they provided, soon removed nearly all fears 
 and jealousies ; and they came flocking to the Eng- 
 lish camp, with their poultry and vegetables, and 
 oil and wine, as to a peaceful and friendly market. 
 Many—men, women, and children—followed our 
 army, and wished it success ; and their wishes were 
 still more loudly and enthusiastically expressed 
 when they saw a prince of the house of Bourbon 
 come and join Lord Wellington, and march with 
 the Drapeau Blanc with the English advancing 
 columns, to the true Bourbon tune of * Veve Henri 
 Quatre !”’ 
 
 Soult now occupied a very strong position on the 
 Nivelle, which had been carefully prepared for hiin 
 befurehand : his right rested upon St. Jean de Luz, 
 his left wpon Ainhoe. On the 10th of November, 
 Hill, issuing from the valley of the Baztan with the 
 Bnitish right, attacked the French left on the heights 
 of Ainhoe, beat it, and drove it towards Cambo, on 
 the river Nive; while the centre of the allies, con- 
 sisting of English and Spaniards, under Marshal 
 Beresford and General Baron Alten, carried the 
 works behind Sarre, and drove the remainder of 
 the French behind the Nivelle. On the same day 
 the allies crossed the Nivelle at St. Pé in the rear 
 of the enemy, who upon this hastily abandoned 
 their ground and works on the left of the Nivelle, 
 and in the course of the night withdrew to their 
 entrenched camp in front of Bayonne. Before 
 engaging in the defiles of the Pyrenees, or entering 
 upon those desperate enterprises, which had cost 
 him so dearly, for relieving Pamplona and San Se- 
 bastian, Soult had marked out this entrenched camp, 
 and given orders for its formation: it was partially 
 completed before he withdrew from the line of the 
 Nivelle ; trenches were now digging, and redoubts 
 were raising their heads, all bristling with a tre- 
 mendous artillery, in part drawn from the great 
 dépdt of Bayonne. Here the French certainly 
 thought that they should be allowed some repose. 
 Lord Wellington’s head-quarters were established 
 at St. Jean de Luz, on the right bank of the 
 Nivelle ; the allies went into cantonments between 
 the sea and the river Nive, where their extreme 
 right rested on Cambo. The enemy guarded the 
 right bank of the Nive from Bayonne to St. Jean 
 Pied de Port. But Lord Wellington, beimg 
 straitened for room and supplies for his army, 
 determined to cross the Nive and occupy the coun- 
 try between that river and the Adour. On the 9th 
 of December, General Hill forded the Nive above 
 Cambo, while the sixth division crossed at Ustariz, 
 and the French were dislodged from their position 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 at Ville Franque.- In the night all their posts were 
 withdrawn to Bayonne, and on the 10th the British 
 right rested on the Adour. On that same day 
 Marshal Soult resumed the offensive, issued from 
 Bayonne, and attacked the British left, which co- 
 vered St. Jean de Luz and the considerable dépst 
 of stores which had been formed there for the use 
 of the allies. Sir John Hope commanded the left ; 
 and he met Soult’s spirited attack with perfect 
 steadiness. The French, being superior in number, 
 came on with great speed and fury: twice they 
 succeeded in driving in the fifth division of .the 
 allies, and twice they were repulsed again, the first 
 time by the ninth British and a Portuguese batta- 
 lion, the second time by a brigade of the English 
 guards. Night put an end to the desperate com- 
 bat; and during that dark December night Soult 
 withdrew most of his forces from the position in 
 front of the British left, and made them glide off 
 towards the British centre, in order to attack our 
 light division with overwhelming numbers. But 
 Sir John Hope, knowing or suspecting his design, 
 moved part of his troops to their right to support 
 the light division ; and, on the morning of the 1ith, 
 the French discovered that their movement had 
 been anticipated, and their chance lost of crushing 
 the light division. Soult instantly made another 
 change in his movements: Sir John Hope had 
 been weakened by lending strength and support to 
 the light division, and therefore the French marshal 
 directed several columns to try another attack on 
 our left. The necessary movement was performed 
 with great rapidity, it was favoured by the nature 
 of the intervening ground, and this time at least 
 Sir John Hope was taken by surprise. The British 
 roops and their allies were occupied in receiving 
 jeir rations, and their fatigue-parties were em- 
 ~oyed in cutting wood for the cooks’ fires, when 
 \ En avant! En avant !’? (Forwards! Forwards!) 
 a, lother French shouts were heard from the front, 
 be, 1g answered by the corresponding cry of “ To 
 el 3! To arms!” among the British. ‘The heads 
 of the French columns were close at hand, and the 
 allies had barely time to run to their arms and 
 ranks: yet the attack was gallantly withstood, and 
 at the close of the day Soult’ had not gained the 
 slightest advantage.* In these several affairs the 
 excellent military conduct and romantic bravery 
 of Sir John Hope excited the admiration of the 
 whole army. In the commander-in-chief this warm 
 admiration was mingled with friendly apprehen- 
 sions. On the 15th of December he said, ‘‘ I have 
 long entertained the highest opinion of Sir John 
 Hope, in common, I believe, with the whole world, 
 but every day’s experience convinces me more of 
 his worth. We shall lose him, however, if he con- 
 tinues to expose himself in fire as he did in the 
 
 * Captain Batty, Account of the Proceedings of the Lett Wing of 
 the Allied Army.— The French had come on with the more confidence, 
 from the notion that their surprise had created a panic. ‘‘ Our soldiers, 
 who had gone in front of our lines at Barouilles to cut wood, ran back 
 in all haste to get themselves armed and accontred. The French, 
 seeing a number of men running to the rear, imagined that the allies 
 were seized with A panic, and set up loud cheers of ‘ En avant! En 
 avant!’ Ina few moments, however, the who.e left wing was formed 
 
 in perfect order.”-—Id. td. 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 657 
 
 last three days: indeed his escape then was won- 
 
 derful. His hat and coat were shot through in 
 many places, besides the wound in his leg. He 
 places himself among the sharpshooters, without, 
 as they do, sheltering himself from the enemy’s 
 fire. This will not answer; and I hope that his 
 friends will give him a hint on the subject.”* 
 
 The situation occupied by Soult gave him almost 
 every facility for masking his movements, and con- 
 centrating the whole of his force upon any point of 
 the allied position which he might choose to select 
 for attack. His entrenched camp round Bayonne 
 formed the centre of a circle, within which he might 
 make any alteration in the disposition of his army 
 without being checked or even observed by Lord 
 Wellington. Finding that all his efforts to force 
 the left wing of the allies were unavailing, and 
 fancying that his repeated attacks in that quarter 
 must have induced Lord Wellington to weaken 
 greatly his right, he determined to move in that 
 direction ; and on the night of the 12th of Decem- 
 ber he concentrated his main-force for an attack 
 on the British right. Soult was slow in appre- 
 ciating the promptitude and genius of his opponent, 
 yet he ought, indeed, to have learned by this time to 
 entertain a higher opinion of Wellington than to 
 venture a movement which could be successful only 
 through that general’s neglect or want of skill. 
 The British commander had foreseen precisely 
 what the famed French marshal would do, and 
 had provided for it with his ordinary decision, and 
 with the rapidity which a thoroughly disciplined 
 army, well in hand, enables a general to use. In 
 expectation of this attack, his lordship had re- 
 quested Beresford to reinforce Hill, whose corps 
 was more particularly menaced, with the sixth 
 division, which crossed the river Nive at daylight ; 
 and he further reinforced Hill by the fourth divi- 
 sion and two brigades of the third. But it was 
 found on trial that, without these reinforcements, 
 Hill could have withstood the attack. Having 
 passed large forces through Bayonne and the en- 
 trenched camp during the night, Soult, moving 
 along the high road from Bayonne, with 30,000 
 men, fell upon Hill’s position, then held by 13,000 
 men, on the morning of the 13th. At first the massy 
 columns of the French centre seemed to be gaining 
 some ground; but they were soon fiercely repulsed. 
 Soult then essayed an attack on Hill’s right; and 
 there, too, the semblance of a first success was fol- 
 lowed by a repulse, defeat, and loss. ‘‘ Hill,” said 
 Wellington, “* the day is all yourown!” Soult, in 
 despair, drew off his remaining troops and retired 
 into his entrenched camp. Nothing of importance 
 occurred during the few remaining days of the year 
 1813, for the allied army had need of rest and of 
 reinforcements ; and it went into winter-quarters 
 for five or six weeks—if so comfortable a name as 
 ‘ winter-quarters’ can be given to the positions and 
 lodgings the troops occupied. The allies had lost 
 between the 9th and the 13th of December alone 
 
 * Dispatches, letter to Colonel Torrens. 
 + II. B. Robinson, Memoirs of Picton. 
 
 2P 
 
658 
 
 650 in killed, 3907 in wounded, and 504 in miss- 
 ing ; and in the combats which had preceded their 
 passing the Nive their loss had been very consider- 
 able. But Soult’s loss had been far more terrible ; 
 Wellington roughly estimated it at three times that 
 of the allies. During all these late operations the 
 troops had had to struggle against the worst weather 
 and the worst roads. “I never,’ said the British 
 general, ‘‘ saw such weather, such roads, or such 
 a country!”? The total number of the wounded 
 and the sick, and of men actually worn out by in- 
 cessant fatigue and exposure to wet and cold, was 
 large in the allied camps; and not only were the 
 Spaniards and the Portuguese, but the British 
 troops also, miserably supplied with comforts and 
 clothing. Many of our men had no great-coats, 
 thousands of them had no shoes! ‘There were 
 shoes and great-coats, and comforts of other kinds, 
 in the magazines at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and 
 other places; but through gross mismanagement 
 they were not sent in time to the places where they 
 were wanted ; and where brave men were dying for 
 the want of them. Everything that a general com- 
 manding in the field could do, and far more than 
 ever British general did before, was done by Lord 
 Wellington ; but there were certain capital defects 
 in our regulations at home, in our transport-service, 
 and in other departments, which he could not re- 
 medy :—and to all this must, in fairness, be added, 
 the immense drain which was making or had re- 
 cently been made on our military stores, clothing, 
 &c. by the Dutch, the Hanoverians, and other in- 
 surgent patriots inGermany. Stern Picton sighed 
 for 20,000 more British troops, with which he 
 doubted not that Wellington might now march 
 into the heart of France; but no reinforcement 
 was sent. 
 
 While the grand allied army under Wellington 
 had been gathering all these laurels, the badly- 
 organised expedition which had been sent from 
 Sicily and from the Balearic islands to the coast 
 of Spain, and which had been under the command 
 of so many generals in a short space of time, had 
 done nothing to reflect honour on British arms. 
 But this fault lay more with the British govern- 
 ment, and the Spanish commanders and function- 
 aries, and the bad composition of most of the 
 auxiliarics or mercenaries which Lord William 
 Bentinck had sent down from Sicily, than with the 
 British generals who, one after the other, had the 
 misfortune to command such troops and to serve 
 under such disadvantageous and perplexing cir- 
 cumstances. There was failure—perhaps there 
 was disgrace: but this great consideration is ever 
 to be borne in mind—but for the presence of this 
 allied force on the eastern coast and in Catalonia, 
 Suchet, the most successful of all the French 
 generals in the Peninsula, might have started from 
 Valencia, have traversed the breadth of Spain, and 
 either have joined Jourdan and King Joseph with 
 30,000 fighting men before the disastrous and 
 decisive battle of Vittoria, or have joined Soult 
 when he had forced his way back into Spain 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 through the Pyrenean passes, and was hammering 
 at the allies in order to force his way onward to 
 Pamplona. It was not Mina with his guerrillas, 
 it was not any disposable force the Spaniards had 
 on foot, that could have prevented Suchet’s move- 
 ments anywhere between Valencia and Navarre. 
 After the command of the allied forces in the east 
 had been tossed from hand to hand like a shuttle- 
 cock, it was given to Major-General Sir John 
 Murray, who was considered an officer of spirit 
 and of considerable ability. Murray found that 
 the morale of this heterogeneous corps d’armée 
 was exceedingly bad, and that fierce jealousies and 
 quarrels were raging between the British and 
 Spanish soldiery, and between the latter and the 
 Sicilian and Calabrian corps in our pay. Being, 
 however, ashamed of the long inaction at Alicante, 
 Sir John Murray, early in March of the present 
 year (more than two months before Lord Weiling- 
 ton commenced his brilliant advance from his Por- 
 tuguese cantonments), moved into the mountainous 
 district of Castalla, drove Suchet’s outposts before 
 him, and placed his own advanced posts about 
 Biar. By a corresponding movement the Spanish 
 general, Elio, acting in the open country on Mur- 
 ray’s left, got to Yecla and Villena, leaving an 
 open gap between these two places. In April, 
 Suchet took the field in force: on the 11th his 
 general, Harispe, surprised the Spaniards at Yecla, 
 beat them soundly, and killed or took 1500 of 
 them. Other French divisions had entered the 
 gap which Elio had left open to them, and so, on 
 the very next day, an entire Spanish regiment, cut 
 off and shut up in the castle of Villena without the 
 proper means of defence, beat the chamade and 
 surrendered. On this same day, the 12th of April, 
 Suchet marched against the advanced post which 
 Sir John Murray had established in the pass of 
 Biar, drove it in, and captured two mountain guns. 
 Then, rushing through the pass, but with only 
 three divisions of infantry and two brigades of 
 cavalry, Suchet, on the 13th, attacked Sir John 
 Murray, who had chosen and occupied an excellent 
 position in the mountainous country of Castalla. 
 The French reached the upper slope of the moun- 
 tain; but a close steady volley from the British 
 2th, and a bayonet-charge by the same regiment, 
 drove them down again with considerable loss. 
 Some of the Spaniards behaved well, and sup- 
 ported this charge of the 27th, which so disheart- 
 ened Suchet that he made no second attempt, but 
 retreated immediately through the pass of Biar, — 
 and thence by the road by which he had advanced. 
 This was the first opportunity Suchet had had of 
 seeing what could be done by the muskets and 
 bayonets of a single British regiment. Just at this 
 moment, owing to some absurd apprehensions on 
 the part of Lord William Bentinck and our mi- 
 nisters at home, that Murat might invade Sicily 
 with part of the Neapolitan army, and place that 
 island in jeopardy, 2000 British troops were with- 
 drawn and sent back to Sicily.* *If Sir John 
 
 # These apprehensions were indeed absurd, and for more reasons 
 
Guar. VIII.] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1818. 
 
 659 
 
 Murray was far too weak before, this draft and | defence, and they had improved the inner works, 
 
 deduction must have made him, if not helpless, 
 incapable of any further field operations in this 
 part of Spain. Urged by the Spaniards, who 
 made promises which they never kept, and anxious 
 to get Suchet farther from his own line of opera- 
 tions, and out of the fertile and spiritless province 
 of Valencia, Lord Wellington, in May, as he was 
 beginning to move from the frontiers of Portugal, 
 instructed Sir John Murray to embark his forces 
 at Alicante, to convey them to the coast of Cata- 
 lonia, and there to possess himself, if possible, of 
 Tarragona, or some other maritime fortress, and 
 then co-operate with the Catalan armies or in- 
 surgents. Doubting, however, the superiority of 
 the French forces, and wishing, in any case, to 
 make Sir John Murray’s movements advantageous 
 to the allies, Wellington instructed Sir John, in 
 the event of Suchet’s coming upon him in force 
 before he should have captured a stronghold in 
 Catalonia, to re-embark his forces with all possible 
 expedition, return to Valencia, and there fall upon 
 the French line on the Xucar, before Suchet, 
 whose troops must have a long and fatiguing land- 
 march, should have time to reinforce those lines.* 
 In case of these last movements being made, a 
 Spanish force, under the command of the Duque 
 del Parque, was to approach the Xucar, and co- 
 operate with Sir John Murray in his attack on the 
 French lines. Sailing from Alicante on the 31st 
 of May, Murray came to anchor off Tarragona on 
 the evening of the 2nd of June. The troops were 
 landed the next morning, and by the afternoon of 
 the 3rd Tarragona was invested. The French 
 yarrison did not exceed 700 men; but they had 
 abandoned and destroyed the extensive outer works, 
 which would have demanded a great force for their 
 
 than one. Early in the year, when Murat was quarrelling violently 
 with his imperial and most imperious brother-in-law, and was re- 
 fusing to join him in the German war, overtures for a separate accom- 
 modation with England were made to Lord William Bentinck by or 
 on the part of Murat. A certain Ricardo Jones, an Englishman by 
 birth, but who had resided for so long aseries of years at Naples as to 
 be rather more of a Neapolitan than Englishman, was secretly sent 
 fo a rendezvous appointed by Lord William (the island of Ponza), to 
 propose the conditions on which Murat would declare for the allies 
 and against Bonaparte. These secret conferences, indeed, did not, for 
 the present, lead to any arrangement; but before the 2000 British 
 troops withdrawn from the eastern coast of Spain reached Sicily, it 
 had become evident that Bonaparte must be beaten by the allies in 
 Saxouy; and hence, and from other affronts received (because he 
 could not do with a weak and defective cavalry what he had done in 
 former days with the veterans who had perished in Russia), Murat 
 was again devising how he might best make terms with his neigh- 
 bours the English in Sicily, and be admitted a member of the great 
 European confederacy. And this moment the Calabrians and the 
 inhabitants of other provinces were deserting their homes and flying 
 over to Sicily to escape the French tyranny, to breathe the air of 
 liberty under the old Bourbons, and to implore them and the Eng- 
 lish to undertake an expedition. Au infernal act of treachery 
 had provoked this emigration. General Jannelli, a worthy associate 
 of Manhes, fearing to proceed openly against a Calabrian named 
 Capobianco, the chief of a vendita or lodge of Carbonari, captain of 
 the Urban militia, and a young man possessing property, courage, 
 and great popularity among his countrymen, invited him toa public 
 dinner, received him with smiles, drank to him at table, and then, 
 when the dinner was over, threw his gensdarmes upon him, and had 
 him brought before one of Manhes’s military tribunals, which instantly 
 condemned him to death.— Generale Pietro Colietta, Storia di Napoli. 
 —Private information collected in the country, and from some persons 
 who were engaged in these transactions. 
 
 * “© You teil me,”’ said Lord Wellington to Murray, ‘* that the line 
 of the Xucar, which covers Valencia, is too strong to force ; turn it 
 then by, the ocean, assail the rear of the enemy, and he will weakea 
 his strong line to protect his communication; or he will give you an 
 
 opportunity to establish a new line of operations behind him.”— 
 Dispatches. 
 
 | 
 
 within the narrower compass of which their whole 
 force was concentrated. Instead of attacking the 
 place at once, Sir John fell upon Fort Balaguer, 
 at some distance, which commanded the only road 
 that leads from Tortosa (where the French had 
 another garrison) to Tarragona. This fort was 
 reduced, and the 80 Frenchmen who defended it 
 were made prisoners. On the 6th, Murray opened 
 two batteries upon Tarragona; on the 7th he 
 opened a third battery; on the 8th there was a 
 practicable breach, but he did not storm, waiting 
 till another breach should be made in the body of 
 the place, which was not assailed, by two heavy 
 batteries, before the lith, and by this time a 
 French relieving army, composed entirely of ye- 
 terans, was almost upon him. Suchet, as Lord 
 Wellington anticipated, had quitted Valencia as 
 soon as he learned that Murray was going from Ali- 
 cante; he had weakened his lines on the Xucar, in 
 order to carry a great force with him into Catalonia. 
 He reached Tortosa on the 9th; but, finding that 
 Fort Balaguer had surrendered, and that his direct 
 road was thus cut off, he left his artillery at Tortosa, 
 and with a division of infantry struck across the 
 mountains, to reach Tarragona by a circuitous 
 route. At the same time General Maurice Mathieu 
 was advancing rapidly along the coast from Bar- 
 celona with a French division and artillery. But 
 it should appear that all communication between 
 Suchet and Maurice Mathieu was interrupted ; that 
 neither of them knew the force or intention of the 
 other, or what the other was doing; that both 
 these French generals wavered and began move- 
 ments of retreat; that Suchet, not aware of the 
 advance of Mathieu, feared to engage Murray 
 without artillery; that Mathieu thought it unsafe 
 to advance alone; and that, at one moment, Su- 
 chet, Mathieu, and Murray were all running from 
 one another. Double spies, who took pay from 
 both parties, told Murray that the French were 
 coming from the east and from the west, and that 
 the forces of Suchet and Maurice Mathieu when 
 united would exceed 20,000 men. Upon this 
 Murray, against the advice and violent remon- 
 strances of Admiral Hallowell, determined to 
 abandon the siege of Tarragona and to seek safety 
 in an immediate embarkation. The general would 
 consent to no delay; he preferred leaving his ar- 
 tillery behind him to staying to face the French ;— 
 and he embarked his forces with such unsoldierly 
 haste that he actually left behind him nineteen 
 pieces of artillery in the trenches. On the 13th, 
 and again on the 14th, he threw his infantry on 
 shore to protect the embarkation of some field- 
 pieces, and in the hope of cutting off a body of the 
 enemy which had now approached Fort Balaguer. 
 But no offensive blow could be struck, and the 
 movements excited the derision of the French. 
 On the 17th Lord William Bentinck arrived from 
 Sicily and took the chief command of this luck- 
 less army. Fort Balaguer was destroyed; and 
 then, in conformity with Lord Wellington’s in- 
 
660 
 
 structions, Bentinck led the disheartened forces 
 back to Alicante, to act with the Duque del Parque 
 upon the Xucar. A Spanish corps under General 
 Copons, which had been led into danger by Sir 
 John Murray, who requested its co-operation, was 
 left in a perilous predicament by Murray’s pre- 
 cipitate retreat, of which, it is said, he had given 
 General Copons no notice whatever. ‘This Spanish 
 corps, however, escaped into the mountains. At 
 the close of the war Sir John was tried, in Eng- 
 land, by court-martial. He was acquitted of all 
 intentional disobedience of orders, but found guilty 
 of abandoning artillery and stores which he might 
 have carried off. His conduct was attributed to 
 an error in judgment, and his sentence was merely 
 that he should be admonished; and this sentence, 
 gentle as it was, was never inflicted.* 
 
 On reaching Alicante Lord William Bentinck 
 immediately advanced and joined del Parque, who 
 was true to his appointment, but who had not been 
 able to bring with him so great a Spanish force as 
 had been expected. But laurels grew nowhere for 
 this army; there was no longer any necessity for 
 fighting on the Xucar, as, in consequence of the 
 creat battle of Vittoria, the French withdrew their 
 posts, and cleared out of Valencia early in July. 
 Suchet drew his troops into Catalonia, leaving, 
 however, strong garrisons in Muryiedro, Denia, 
 Peniscola, and other places, some to the south, and 
 some to the north of the Ebro. Bentinck followed 
 the retiring French, crossed the Ebro by flying 
 bridges, and invested Tarragona on the 30th of 
 July. But before ground was broken Suchet ad- 
 vanced to the relief with more than 20,000 men. 
 Lord William Bentinck, who, at first, had been 
 deceived into the belief that he might trust to the 
 Spanish troeps, was convinced by this time that 
 such confidence would be misplaced and dan- 
 gerous ; and, considering that his other forces were 
 not sufficiently strong to contend with Suchet’s 
 veteran army, he fell back upon Cambils. Upon 
 this Suchet relieved and removed the French gar- 
 rison, destroyed the works, together with a part of 
 the town of Tarragona, and retreated behind the 
 Llobregat. This was in the middle of August. 
 The allies now entered the desolate city, and made 
 the convenient port of Tarragona the rendezvous 
 of the British fleet. Early in September Ben- 
 tinck advanced to Villa Franca, and pushed for- 
 ward to Ordal a mixed corps of British, Sicilians, 
 Calabrians, and: Spaniards. On the night of the 
 12th and 13th the French surprised and defeated 
 this advanced corps, took their four guns, killed, 
 wounded, or captured about 1000 men, and drove 
 the rest in confusion back upon Lord William 
 Bentinck’s main body. On the following day 
 Suchet, in force, drove the whole of the hetero- 
 geneous allied army from Villa Franca. The 
 French marshal then retired again to the line of 
 the Llobregat. Shortly after these operations 
 Lord William Bentinck returned to his political 
 
 * Colonel Napicr.—Major M. Sherer.—Wellington Dispatches,— 
 Letters of Lord W, Bentinck, General W, Clinton, &c. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 and diplomatic duties in Sicily. He was succeeded 
 in the command by General W. Clinton, who 
 found this allied army of the east in and near 
 Tarragona, doing nothing and incapable of doing 
 much ; and Clinton, like every one of his prede- 
 cessors, soon became very desirous of quitting the 
 command of it. But Lord Wellington, whose ex- 
 pectations from this quarter had always been very 
 moderate, and who was satisfied that Clinton 
 would do the most that could be done, requested 
 him to remain, and wait the successful progress of 
 the war on the side of the Pyrenees. Clinton re- 
 paired the defences of Tarragona, and towards the 
 end of September he advanced to Villa Franca, 
 making a display of force which imposed upon the 
 French and made them believe that he was far 
 stronger than he really was. Once Suchet at- 
 tempted to surprise him; but he failed completely. 
 In the month of December, upon intelligence that 
 some German battalions near Bayonne had de- 
 serted from Soult to Wellington, and still more in 
 consequence of the universal rising of the people 
 in Germany against Bonaparte, Suchet was obliged 
 to disarm all his German regiments, and to send 
 them, well guarded, into France. At the same 
 time some of Suchet’s Italian battalions were re- 
 called to Italy to assist in stopping the Austrians 
 in the passes of the Alps, and some of his best 
 French soldiers were drafted off to fill the fright- 
 ful gaps which had been made in Bonaparte’s 
 imperial guards on the field of Leipzig and in 
 other battles in Germany. Still, however, after 
 every deduction, Suchet retained in Catalonia a 
 force in every way superior to that of the allies 
 under Clinton and the Spanish generals who had 
 engaged to co-operate with him, but who, for the 
 most part, preferred the pursuit of little plans of 
 their own. When Clinton proposed to invest 
 Barcelona the Spaniards refused to assist him; 
 and the year closed without any exploit. 
 
 In other quarters nearly every day of this year 
 had been a day of crisis. On his return to Paris, 
 on the night of the 18th of December, 1812, Bona- 
 parte found that conspiracies had broken out even 
 in his capital during his absence in Russia; that 
 in many parts of France the people had testified 
 great joy at the several times falsely reported news 
 of his death ; that discontent or absolute disaffection 
 had shown itself in different directions, and among 
 various Classes; and that some of his marshals and 
 generals were not exempted from the suspicions of 
 his secret police. The senate and the corps légis- 
 latif, however, seemed as submissive as ever ; and 
 with the aid of their votes, tongues, and pens he 
 proceeded to recruit his wasted army by fresh 
 conscriptions, and to restore his finances by fresh 
 and unprecedented taxes. To the few who yen- 
 tured to murmur he said that he had been beaten 
 only by the elements and by unforeseen accidents ; 
 that the hundreds of thousands that were at rest 
 under the snows of Russia had acquired as much 
 glory for the country as the always successful 
 armies of former days; that, if he did not now 
 
_ 
 
 Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 meet the Russians on the northern frontiers of 
 Germany, the sacred frontiers of France would be 
 invaded by Russians, Prussians, Austriaus, and 
 the armies of all Europe; that he had not forgotten 
 his craft, and would still beat the enemy at a dis- 
 tance if he were properly supported ; and, finally, 
 that he could do better without the French than 
 the French could do without him. The new con- 
 scriptions were enforced with the utmost rigour ; 
 the militia or national guards were drafted into the 
 skeleton battalions of the regular army; some of 
 the guards and other troops were, as we have seen, 
 immediately regalled from Spain; the sailors of 
 the useless French fleets were regimented and sent 
 to serve on land—no possible means were neglected 
 to swell the military force, and to enable the foiled 
 conqueror of nearly all Europe to retrieve his for- 
 tunes by one tremendous and decisive campaign. 
 And to such an amount were his forces swollen 
 that, in the year 1813, Bonaparte had (counting 
 all his troops, in all quarters, and of all services) 
 from 700,000 to 800,000 men under arms. Out 
 of this number he collected in Germany, early in 
 the spring, an army of 350,000. But not even 
 the French, with all their alacrity and proneness 
 for the military profession, can be turned into good 
 soldiers in a few months. This army could not 
 be compared to that which had perished in Russia 
 and in Poland; the veteran regiments lost their 
 character through the large intermixture of con- 
 scripts and militia, and many of the new bat- 
 talions were not much better than any common 
 untried militia corps. The cavalry, which requires 
 a long and careful training, was very defective: 
 the pride of the French cavalry, which Murat, the 
 most brilliant of cavalry generals, had so often led 
 to victory, was no more, and, what was next in 
 consequence to this arm, Murat now refused to 
 quit Naples to take the command of it. After 
 many jealousies and quarrels the rupture between 
 the two brothers-in-law was completed by the late 
 Russian disasters: Bonaparte vilified the military 
 conduct of Murat during the retreat from Moscow, 
 and, forgetting how speedily he himself had aban- 
 doned the wreck of that army, he accused Murat 
 of having quitted the army too soon and in a das- 
 tardly manner. He treated the hero of a hundred 
 battles, whose head and body were seamed with 
 wounds, as a poltroon ; and he contrasted his con- 
 duct during the flight from Moscow with that of 
 Eugene Beauharnais, the viceroy of Italy, who 
 had, indeed, conducted himself admirably on that 
 fatal retreat. The crowned son of the innkeeper, 
 who had carved out his own fortune with his sabre, 
 always considered the son of the guillotined Mar- 
 quis de Beauharnais as a courtly young man who 
 had owed his fortunes to his mother Josephine, and 
 to his own suppleness and submissiveness of be- 
 haviour. As an Italian potentate Murat had long 
 been jealous of his neighbour the viceroy of 
 Italy ; but to compare that viceroy with him as a 
 soldier was to inflict an insult which his Majesty 
 of Naples could not bear. Some furious corre- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 661 
 
 spondence between the emperor and his brother- 
 in-law * was succeeded, on the part of Murat, by 
 overtures for a friendly correspondence with the 
 English in Sicily, which was soon afterwards com- 
 menced by Murat, who hoped that, by a timely 
 defection from the Emperor of the French and a 
 treaty with the allied powers of Europe, he might 
 secure to himself and his descendants the Neapo- 
 litan throne. ‘The absence of his person and 
 prestige would have been felt on the plains of 
 Saxony. But Murat’s wife, Carolina Bonaparte 
 (who most of all the family resembled her brother 
 Napoleon), made use of her great influence over 
 the weak and undecided mind of her husband ; 
 and Marshal Ney, police-minister Fouche, and 
 other Frenchmen wrote argumentative and flatter- 
 ing letters to prove that the fate of King Joachim 
 was inseparably linked with that of the Emperor 
 Napoleon, and to declare that the whole French 
 army desired to see him among them, while the 
 French cavalry were impatiently demanding their 
 old heroic leader. Yielding to all these and other 
 influences Murat went into Germany ; but it was 
 with a doubting head and an unwilling heart. 
 There was also a visible shyness among many of 
 the veteran officers, and more particularly among 
 such as had gained titles, decorations, great estates, 
 and abundance of money. Many of these were 
 getting on the verge of old age, and all wished to 
 enjoy the fruits of their labours and dangers. One 
 of this class had exclaimed, with a coarse oath, as 
 far back as the campaign of 1809, which saw 
 Marshal Lannes and many other officers of the 
 highest rank numbered with the slain—“ This 
 little rascal will never stop until he gets us all 
 killed—all!’’t Bernadotte gave to the Emperor 
 
 * Bonaparte. in the fury of his passion, wrote a letter to his sister 
 Carolina, in which he told her in plain terms that her husband, 
 Murat, was an ungrateful scoundrel, a liar, traitor, and (in politics) 
 a fool; said that he was unworthy of his close family-connexion with 
 him, the emperor, &c. To this Murat replied with equal passion, “‘ The 
 wound on my honour is inflicted, and it is not in the power of your 
 majesty to heal it. You have insulted an old companion in arms, 
 faithful to you in your dangers, not a small means of your victories, 
 a supporter of your greatness, and the reviver of your wandering con- 
 rage on the 18th Brumaire. Your majesty says that, when one has the 
 honour to belong to your illustrious family, one ought to do nothing 
 to hazard its interests or obscure itssplendour. And J, sire, tell you 
 in reply, that your family received from me quite as much honour as 
 it gave in uniting me in matrimony with Carolina, A thousand 
 times, thongh a king, I sigh after the days when, as a plain officer, I 
 had superiors, but no master. Having become a king, but finding 
 myself in this supreme rank tyrannised over by your majesty aud 
 domineered over in my own family, I have felt more than ever the 
 need of independence, the thirst of liberty. Thus you afflict, thus you 
 sacrifice to your suspicion the men most faithful to you and the men 
 who have best served you in the stupendous road of your fortune ; 
 thus Fouché has been immolated by Savary, Talleyrand sacrificed to 
 Champagny, Champigny himself to Bassano (Maret), and Murat to 
 Beauharnais—to Beauharnais, who has with you the merit of mute 
 obedience, and that other merit (more gratifying to you because more 
 servile) of having cheerfully announced to the senate of France your 
 repudiation of his own mother. I can no longer deny to my people 
 some restoration of commerce, some remedy for the terrible evils in- 
 flicted on them by the maritime war. From what I have said of your 
 majesty and of myself, it results that our mutual old confidence and 
 faith are gone. Your majesty will do what you most like, but what- 
 ever may be your wrongs towards me, I am still your brother and faith- 
 ful brother-in-law—Joachim.’’-- Generale P. Colletta, Sturta dt Napoli. 
 
 We know, upon other authority, that a letter quite as pungent was 
 written and sent; but, from what we know of poor Murat’s literary 
 acquirements (he could never spell either French or Italian, or speak 
 even his own language with tolerable grammatical correctness ), We 
 much doubt whether he could have written this letter himself. It 
 was said to be perfectly well known in a certain cirele at Naples who 
 it was that composed the stinging epistle fur him. 
 
 + Bourrienne, 
 
— 
 
 662 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 of Russia a list of disaffected French officers, and | actually governed by his own child, and to the 
 
 this list included the names of Massena, Augereau, 
 and several other marshals. 
 
 On the 23rd of March the corps légis/attf de- 
 clared to their emperor in a most flattering address 
 that all that they and the French nation had done 
 or could do for him was too little ; they thanked him 
 for the sacrifices which he had called upon them 
 to make for the preservation of his dynasty ; and 
 they promised him an unlimited assistance—uwne 
 assistance sans bornes. Bonaparte in his reply 
 told the president and messieurs les députés that 
 the French had entirely justified the opinion he 
 had always had of them; that he had been called 
 by Providence and the will of the nation to con- 
 stitute the great French empire; that his march 
 had been gradual, uniform, analogous to the spirit 
 of events and the interests of his people; that in 
 a few years more his great work would be com- 
 pleted and consolidated ; that all his designs, all 
 his enterprises, had but one object, the prosperity 
 of the French empire, which he wished to remove 
 for ever from English law or dictation ; that the 
 world must be astonished at the rapidity and tran- 
 quillity with which his recent and immense losses 
 had been filled up, and would judge thereby of 
 what efforts the French would be capable if the 
 necessity should ever occur of their defending their 
 own territory or the independence of his crown; 
 that he was soon going to put himself at the head 
 of his troops and confound his enemies ; and that 
 in no negotiation and in no case whatsoever would 
 he permit the integrity of the French empire to be 
 put in question, or listen to any proposition for 
 surrendering any of the conquests which France 
 had made. He concluded with promising them a 
 grand show and solemnity. ‘‘ As soon,” said he, 
 “fas the cares of war will allow us a moment of 
 repose, we will call you back to this capital, toge- 
 ther with the notables of our empire, to be present 
 at the coronation of the empress, our well-beloved 
 spouse, and of the hereditary prince, the King of 
 Rome, our very dear son. The thought of this 
 grand solemnity, at once religious and political, 
 moves my heart! .I will hasten the epoch in order 
 to satisfy the desires of France.” 
 
 Bonaparte had ever been jealous of any extensive 
 delegated authority: he had not appointed any re- 
 gency in 1812 on starting for the hazardous Russian 
 campaign ; but the recent conspiracy of General 
 Malet, together with some other embarrassing cir- 
 cumstances, and the artful plan of pleasing and 
 flattering his party among the Austrians, now de- 
 termined him to organise a government in Paris 
 which might supply his personal absence ; and to 
 appoint his wife, Maria Louisa, regent. Upon 
 his demand, the senate, on the 2nd of February, 
 issued its consultum; and on the 30th of March 
 Bonaparte conferred the regency on the Emperor 
 of Austria’s daughter. This certainly gratified 
 and duped many of the French. Could it be ex- 
 pected that the Emperor Francis would join the 
 enemies of his son-in-law, or assail a country 
 
 throne of which his own innocert grandchild was 
 heir? 
 
 On the 15th of April Bonaparte quitted for the 
 last time his favourite palace of St. Cloud. On 
 the evening of the 16th he was at Mayence, where 
 
 he inspected the troops and had an interview with | 
 
 several of the German princes of the Confederation 
 of the Rhine. By the 25th he was at Erfurt, 
 where, in 1807, he had dazzled and fascinated the 
 young Czar, and had conferred with him on the 
 mighty project of dividing Europe into two em- 
 pires, with Alexander on the throng of the one and 
 Napoleon on the throne of the other. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander had lost little time in 
 putting his armies in the track of the fugitive 
 enemy. He took the field himself in the very 
 midst of that horrible winter, and flew in sledges 
 over the snow from Petersburgh to Wilna, where, 
 on the 22nd of December, 1812, his now concen- 
 trated army and his hordes of Cossacks saluted 
 him with the most enthusiastic hurrahs. From 
 Wilna the Russian army advanced in two grand 
 divisions, the one taking the direct road by War- 
 saw, the other taking the road by Kénigsberg and 
 the northern provinces of Prussia. The majority 
 of the Poles now received Alexander as a deliverer; 
 the Prussians, with so many wrongs to avenge 
 upon the French, welcomed the Russians with 
 transports of joy; and such was the national en- 
 thusiasm and the rage against Bonaparte that no 
 attempts of the Prussian king and government 
 could possibly have prevented or delayed the junc- 
 tion of the Prussian with the Russian troops. 
 General Yorck, who commanded the 20,000 Prus- 
 sians who had been sent to serve as a contingent 
 force in the invasion of Russia, had behaved with 
 rare sincerity and moderation. He was serving 
 against his will and against the will of his sove- 
 reign, he was serving against the dearest interests 
 of his country ; and, when the retreat from Mos- 
 cow became a débicle, he was so placed, in the 
 line of retreat, that if he had only moved his corps 
 the French loss must have been still more fright- 
 fully increased, while if he had turned his arms 
 against them, and had fallen upon them in their 
 confusion—as many of his officers and nearly all 
 his men wished him to do—not one out of every 
 ten of the French fugitives that afterwards rallied 
 and made head in Germany would have escaped. 
 But Yorck remained true and steady to the treaty 
 which bound his master to the French, until the 
 moment when his sovereign revoked his orders, 
 aud declared that treaty to be broken by Bona- 
 parte. ‘The French still occupied Dantzic, Glogau, 
 Stettin, and other Prussian fortresses on the Oder; 
 they had 30,000 men near Posen, and a strong 
 garrison in Berlin. Frederick William was in @ 
 manner besieged in his own capital, and most of 
 
 his troops were scattered in the midst of French | 
 
 cantonments and formidable French garfisons. 
 Notwithstanding, on the 22nd of January his 
 Prussian majesty suddenly quitted Potsdam and 
 
 [Boox X. — 
 
Cuap. VIII] 
 
 repaired to Breslau, where he could give the hand 
 to the advancing Russians, and correspond 
 directly, or confer personally, with the Emperor 
 Alexander. Even before his departure became 
 known the Prussian students and the secret poli- 
 tical societies had begun to preach a national cru- 
 sade against the French, and to animate the great 
 body of the people as well as the troops with their 
 own patriotic enthusiasm. It was clear that the 
 battle of Jena and the fate of the loved and 
 mourned Queen of Prussia would soon be avenged. 
 
 After an interview with the Czar, Frederick 
 William sent to Bonaparte to propose an armis- 
 tice, the conditions of which should be that the 
 French should evacuate Dantzic and all the Prus- 
 sian fortresses they occupied on the Oder, and 
 retire behind the Elbe into Saxony, in return for 
 which the Emperor Alexander would stop the 
 march of his victorious armies and remain behind 
 the Vistula. But this proposition was indignantly 
 rejected by the Emperor of the French, who had 
 learned nothing from misfortune, and who would 
 not see his own increasing weakness. On the 
 28th of February, or as soon as he learned the re- 
 jection of his proposition by France, Frederick 
 William concluded a treaty of alliance offensive 
 and defensive with Russia. This treaty, being 
 ratified at Kalisch, became the basis of the Szxth 
 Coalition against France. By the treaty Prussia 
 engaged to furnish 80,000 men, without counting 
 her levées en masse ; and Russia promised 150,000 
 men. Austria was invited to join the league, 
 which as yet proposed little more than the libe- 
 rating of all Germany; but the court of Vienna, 
 though it increased its armies, and collected an 
 imposing force in Bohemia, close to the frontiers 
 of Saxony, professed a desire to remain neutral. 
 It was, however, known to the French that Prince 
 Metternich was again corresponding in a very 
 friendly manner with the English government. 
 They had taken the surest if not the honestest 
 method for acquiring this information—they had 
 stopped one of Metternich’s couriers and opened 
 his letters. Even after this Austria offered her 
 mediation ; but Bonaparte would hear of no cession 
 of territory on his part either in Germany or in 
 Italy; and, as for Spain, although he had nothing 
 left there save Suchet’s diminished corps d’armée, 
 he still insisted that his brother Joseph should 
 be king. 
 
 The Russians now blockaded Dantzic, and ad- 
 vanced from the Vistula to the Oder, where they 
 were joined by the Prussian general Bulow and his 
 veterans. Eugene Beauharnais fled before the 
 allies ; and he was sorely molested on his retreat 
 by the Prussian insurgents and pulks of Cossacks. 
 On the 4th of March, Berlin was evacuated by the 
 French; even Dresden was evacuated on the 27th 
 of March; and, after having reinforced some of the 
 French garrisons left in the countries from which 
 he had fled, Beauharnais rallied behind the Elbe 
 with about 40,000 men. But every day brought 
 some fresh proof of the detestation in which the 
 
 RR ee 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS -—1813. 
 
 663 
 
 French were held throughout Germany—brought 
 some unquestionable evidence that the fire was at 
 last kindled in the great Teutonic heart. Fifty, 
 a hundred insurrections broke out simultaneously ; 
 and day and night the cold March air was filled 
 and warmed by the patriotic songs of the German 
 students, who had thrown away their pens and 
 books for swords and muskets, and who were call- 
 ing upon all classes—upon every man or youth of 
 the Germanic breed—to follow their example, and 
 aid in expelling the oppressors and demoralisers of 
 their country. Kérner’s ‘Men and Cowards,’ 
 and ‘ Song of the Sword,’ wrought more miracles 
 than the ‘ Marseillese Hymn.’ Germany had slept 
 and dreamed for an unseasonably long time, but 
 her wakening was sublime and full of hope. Ten 
 thousand Cossacks under Tettenborn, aided by the 
 insurgents, swept clear of the French the whole of 
 Pomerania and Mecklenburg, and then inundated 
 the country on the Lower Elbe. This carried the 
 flames of insurrection into other states and populous 
 cities. On the 12th of March the French autho- 
 rities fled from the insurgent citizens of Hamburg, 
 who had been reduced to a state of despair, and 
 almost of beggary, by the finishing hand of that 
 greatest of plunderers and freebooters, Marshal 
 Davoust. Denmark, the old ally and servant of 
 France, was isolated, and in consequence adopted 
 a system of armed neutrality—in which she was not 
 Wise enough to persevere. Beauharnais repulsed 
 the Russian division of Wittgenstein, dispersed, on 
 the 5th of April, a corps of observation established 
 at Magdeburg, threatened the road to Berlin, and 
 stopped for some days the advance of the allied 
 van. After this check, however, the allies ad- 
 vanced and occupied Leipzig. Beauharnais had 
 been rapidly reinforced by troops from all parts of 
 France and from Italy ; and now, on the 25th of 
 April, when his stepfather arrived from Paris, the 
 line of the Elbe was defended by a force far su- 
 perior (numerically) to any that the Emperor 
 Alexander and Frederick William had near to 
 it. The natural march of Russia lies eastward ; 
 in advancing from her western frontier her move- 
 ments have always been, and must long continue 
 to be, somewhat slow and uncertain. As soon as 
 he reached his army Bonaparte determined to re- 
 sume the offensive, hoping to strike a grand blow 
 before the allies should have time to collect their 
 forces in one great head, and by a single battle to 
 recover Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin. Some of the 
 Russian generals, in command of divisions which 
 had been too widely scattered, were taken by sur- 
 prise; other commanders, both Prussian and Rus- 
 sian, were too far in the rear to know of the rapid 
 approach of Bonaparte, who, on the 2nd of May, 
 fought and won—but not without immense sacri- 
 fices—the battle of Lutzen. On the 21st he at- 
 tacked the Russians and Prussians again, and 
 obliged them te retire from the well contested field 
 of Bautzen. But in both these affairs Bonaparte 
 had been on the very verge of a defeat: the two 
 victories led to no decisive result ; the allies retired 
 
 ee ee 
 
664 
 
 in good order, losing few prisoners and no guns. 
 Bonaparte bitterly complained of this ; but his ge- 
 nerals observed to one another that these were no 
 longer the days or the troops of Marengo, Auster- 
 litz, or Jena, when one battle decided the fate of a 
 war. On the Ist of May, in a bloody combat which 
 preceded the general action at Lutzen, Marshal 
 Bessiéres was slain ; many old companions in arms 
 perished both at Lutzen and at Bautzen; and two 
 days after the latter battle, in another engagement 
 with the retreating allies, Bonaparte’s favourite 
 aide-de-camp, General Duroc, was laid low, being 
 struck and frightfully mangled by a cannon-ball. 
 This time, at least, the feelings of humanity over- 
 powered the stern Manof Destiny. Duroc was his 
 old and most faithful companion—Duroc was one 
 of the few men who were personally attached to 
 Bonaparte, without regard to loss or profit, or good 
 or evil fortune, and one of the few to whom Bona- 
 parte was personally and sincerely and affection- 
 ately attached. It was a superstition too, both at 
 the French court and with the I'rench army (where 
 such notions were anything rather than uncommon), 
 that there was a sympathy or mysterious connexion 
 between the fate of Duroc and the fortunes of his 
 master. The dying man was carried from the field 
 where he fell to the house of a clergyman near the 
 spot. Napoleon went to see him, and was deeply 
 affected. Nor did he speedily recover the command 
 of himself: to the aides-de-camp and other officers 
 who came pressing round him for instructions, he 
 said, with a hollow voice, ‘* Put off everything till 
 to-morrow!’ It was the only instance in which 
 he refused or neglected to attend to the military 
 reports brought to him.* 
 
 On the 14th of June, Great Britain made herself 
 a party to the coalition, or to the treaty concluded 
 between Russia and Prussia.t Some English offi- 
 cers of the highest rank repaired to Germany and 
 to the head-quarters of the allies, and abundant 
 assistance was promised, The best present aid we 
 could give was to find full employment for the large 
 body of veterans still left in Spain. This was un- 
 derstood by the allies; but Lord Wellington sur- 
 passed all the expectations they had formed of him, 
 high as those expectations indubitably were. 
 
 The allies withdrew both from Leipzig and from 
 Dresden ; and Bonaparte entered the fair capital 
 of Saxony. He now consented to an armistice, 
 which was to extend from the 5th of June to the 
 22nd of July. Austria still professed goodwill, 
 
 * A. Vieusseux, Life of Bonaparte. 
 
 + On July the 8th a convention, known by the name of the Conven- 
 tion of Peterswalden, took place between Great Britain and Russia. 
 On September the 9th a triple treaty of alliance between Russia, Aus- 
 tria, and Prussia was ratified at Toplitz ; and on the 3rd of October a 
 preliminary treaty of alliance between Great Britain and Austria was 
 signed at the same place. 
 
 The court of Denmark could not yet free itself from its French toils; 
 and on the 10th of July, when the French had gained the battles of 
 Latzen and Bautzen, when the star of Bonaparte seemed again to pre- 
 vail, ani while the congress of plenipotentiaries were assembled at 
 Prague, a reciprocal treaty of alliance and guarantee between France 
 and Denmark was ratified at Copenhagen. It could not but happen 
 that the Danes should be made to pay afterwards for this conduct of 
 their government. But there was more than this:—on the 3rd of Sep- 
 tember, when Bernadotte and his Swedes, far away from their own 
 
 frontiers, were advancing with the allies ints the heart of Germany, 
 Denmark declared war against Sweden ! 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 and an anxious wish to mediate; and Metternich 
 himself hurried to Dresden, to proffer his good 
 offices, and to act with the whole weight and au- 
 thority of the cabinet of Vienna. He proposed 
 that the French should entirely evacuate Germany, 
 und that the Rhine should be the boundary of the 
 French empire in that direction. The successive 
 revolutionary governments of France, and Bona- 
 parte himself, had repeatedly declared that the 
 Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the seas, were 
 the natural boundaries of France; Metternich did 
 not ask him to give back Savoy in the Alps, or 
 his vast conquests and annexations beyond the 
 Alps; the only point he insisted upon being the 
 renunciation of everything beyond the Rhine. 
 This would have left France far too powerful, and 
 in fact more powerful than she had been with 
 her extended German frontier; but Bonaparte ar- 
 rogantly and resolutely refused either to give up 
 the ground he had occupied beyond the Rhine, or 
 to abandon the Confederacy of the Rhine, which was 
 nothing more than a French combination against 
 the independence and security of Austria, Prussia, 
 and all Germany. He had annexed the country 
 as far as Hamburg and Liibeck to the French em- 
 pire ; he had made new French departments of it ; 
 and he declared it to be a fundamental law of the 
 French empire, and his own fixed and unalterable 
 principle, that such annexations of territory should 
 never be rescinded; that what once had become 
 French must for ever remain French. To Metter- 
 nich’s remonstrances he replied with indecent rage. 
 He evidently thought to terrify this minister as he 
 had terrified or bewildered Cobentzel, the Austrian 
 diplomatist, after his first splendid victories ; but 
 the times and the men were very different; and 
 nearly every fact and circumstance at all connected 
 with the case induces the belief that Metternich 
 not only despised his wrath, but equally enjoyed 
 the presumption and the obstinacy which made 
 him neglect his last hope of salvation. True to 
 his old practice, when Bonaparte found that inso- 
 lence and bullying would not do, he tried the 
 effects of cajolery and temptation. He would not 
 think of offering or promising to give back to 
 Austria her large and rich possessions in Upper 
 Italy ; but he tempted her with the promise of 
 Dalmatia and all the poor and rugged Illyrian pro- 
 vinces, hinting that they might be extended, both 
 inland and along the sea coasts, at the expense of 
 Austria’s ancient foe, the Ottoman empire. The 
 offer was mean to the extremity of meanness; but 
 what we know of the auzmus of Vienna statesmen 
 or politicians forces us to entertain some doubt as 
 to the effects which would have been produced if, 
 in addition to the Illyrian provinces, he had offered 
 to give up Lombardy and Venice to Austria. 
 Spurning the contemptible bait, Metternich replied 
 that things had come to that pass that Austria 
 could no longer remain neutral; she must either 
 be with France or against France; that Germany 
 had been long enough tormeuted by these wars, 
 and it was time she should be left to rest and to 
 
Cuap, VIII.] 
 
 national independence. Such, however, was the 
 awe in which some of the advisers of the European 
 sovereigns still stood of the mighty means and 
 military genius of the ruler of the French, that 
 conferences for a peace were resumed at Prague, 
 in Bohemia, Bonaparte engaging to prolong the 
 armistice till the 10th of August; nor was the 
 unmanly and now irrational diffidence fully dissi- 
 pated until the news of Wellington’s great achieve- 
 ment at Vittoria was carried through Europe and 
 across the mountains of Bohemia. The diplomatists 
 of the allied powers then sounded a higher note ; 
 the armistice expired on the 10th of August, and 
 Austria joined the allies. 
 
 Months before the declaration of Austria the 
 English government had sent very important aids 
 into the north of Germany ; it called upon his ma- 
 jesty’s old and not unattached subjects the Hano- 
 verians to rouse themselves into action and join 
 the common cause; it furnished with a liberal hand 
 money, arms, ammunition, stores, clothing, &c., 
 not only to the Hanoverians, but to the Prussians, 
 and also to the Swedes, who were about to commence 
 operations from the southern shores of the Baltic. 
 Lord Castlereagh’s brother, Sir Charles Stewart 
 (late Marquess of Londonderry), was dispatched 
 to the seat of war, charged, on the part of his sove- 
 reign, with all the correspondence relating to the 
 Prussian, Swedish, and Hanoverian armies. Sir 
 Charles assuredly performed the difficult duties of 
 his mission with great firmness and ability, and it 
 now seems to be generally acknowledged that it 
 was chiefly he who kept Bernadotte, the Crown 
 Prince of Sweden, true and steady to the coalition. 
 Sir Charles had especial letters of authorisation to 
 Bernadotte ; during the natural doubts and vacil- 
 lations of that extraordinary Frenchman, that soldier 
 of fortune and enthroned man of the revolution, he 
 hardly ever quitted him; and it was considered 
 that to Sir Charles Stewart, in a great measure, 
 was owing the presence of Bernadotte and his 
 brave Swedish army on the decisive field of 
 Leipzig. The Hanoverians flew to the arms which 
 were offered to them by England with enthusiasm ; 
 Brigadier-general Lyon was appointed to command 
 them and the troops of the Hanseatic towns. A 
 regency was formed; and shortly afterwards the 
 Duke of Cambridge repaired to the country. In 
 addition to our immense supplies of military stores, 
 our government allotted 2,000,000/. sterling to 
 sustain the operations of Bernadotte and his Swedish 
 army, and 2,000,000/. more was given as a direct 
 aid to Russia and Prussia. At the same time 
 500,000/. was granted to Russia, in order that 
 she might give equipment and efficiency to her flect. 
 Upon these largesses Russia undertook to raise her 
 force in the field to 200,000 men, and Prussia to 
 raise hers to 100,000. Even now, but for English 
 money and English credit, and the promptitude of 
 our manufactories in producing arms and all the 
 materials of war, the allies would have failed in 
 their campaign. 
 
 A series of battles was fought about Dresden 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 i Ee EEE 
 
 665 
 
 on the 24th, 25th, and 27th of August, between 
 the Austrians and Prussians on one side and the 
 French and their German and other auxiliaries on 
 the other. Bonaparte was decidedly successful, 
 and on one occasion at least the Austrian generals 
 were guilty of some of their old absurdities in 
 dividing their forces, or they pursued that line of 
 conduct which still leaves a doubt in many minds 
 wheiher they were traitors or only incurable fools. | 
 But, in rashly pursuing the allies mto the moun- 
 tains of Bohemia, Vandamme, with a corps of 
 30,000 men, was cut off and surrounded, and was 
 finally made prisoner at Culm, with about 8000 of 
 his men. Oudinot was beaten at Gross Beeren by 
 the Swedes and Prussians commanded by Berna- 
 dotte. Ney, who was senf to replace Oudinot, 
 only succeeded to his misfortunes, being soundly 
 beaten in the battle of Dennewitz, which was 
 fought on the 6th of September, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Berlin. The Prussian Bliicher, too, was 
 now taking vengeance for all he had suffered in 
 and after the campaign of Jena. On the Katz- 
 bach, in Silesia, he routed the French opposed to 
 him, and dislocated Bonaparte’s base of operations, 
 Of all the allied generals Bliicher was the most 
 active, energetic, and daring. It was now he ob- 
 tained from the army the name of * Marshal For- 
 wards ;”? for he was ever forward, and almost 
 always fighting. As a consequence, he was some- 
 times exposed to checks and losses; but on nearly 
 every occasion the hero could say that his misfor- 
 tunes arose not so much from his going too fast, 
 as from the rest of the allies going too slow. The 
 month of September passed in desultory warfare, 
 attended with very long marches and counter~ 
 marches, which the young French conscripts had 
 not stamina to support. Bonaparte’s armies lost 
 both strength and ground on every side; and his 
 German allies and auxiliaries began to forsake 
 him. Even where princes and governments would 
 have kept their un-German and ruinous compacts 
 with him, they were mostly prevented by the de- 
 termined spirit of their subjects, who had learned 
 to sing Kdérner’s ‘ Song of the Sword,’ and who 
 had caught the Teutonic flame. The King of 
 Bavaria made a separate peace with Austria; the 
 King of Saxony and ex-Grand-Duke of Warsaw 
 was more steady, but his Saxon troops, like the 
 rest of the German auxiliaries, began to desert 
 from the French. At last, after a painful struggle 
 between pride and necessity, Bonaparte turned his 
 back to the allies, and began his retreat upon 
 Leipzig with a dispirited army. He was closely 
 followed by Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and 
 Swedes. At Leipzig he determined to make a 
 final stand. ‘‘ Give me but one victory,” said he, 
 “and Germany may yet be saved!” He fought 
 two bloody battles at Leipzig, but neither of them 
 was a victory for him. On the 16th of October 
 the first battle took place: it was fought gallantly 
 on both sides, but the allies had now a great supe- 
 riority in numbers, and the French were repulsed 
 and driven close upon the ramparts of the city. 
 
666 
 
 On the 18th the second battle was fought: the 
 French divisions soon lost ground, 10,000 Saxons 
 raised the patriotic shout for Germany, left them 
 in a body, and went over to the allies. After this 
 nothing remained but flight; and even for flight 
 it was too late an hour. Bonaparte made his dis- 
 positions to effect his retreat towards the Rhine ; 
 but, while his army was filing out of Leipzig, on 
 - the morning of the 19th, by a long narrow bridge, 
 or rather a succession of bridges, the allies, after a 
 desperate struggle with the French rear, burst into 
 the town, and, the bridge being blown up to pre- 
 vent the allies from pursuing those who had 
 already passed over it, 25,000 Frenchmen, caught 
 in the town as in a,trap, were compelled to lay 
 down their arms and surrender as prisoners of war. 
 The retreat from Leipzig was almost as disastrous 
 as the retreat from Moscow. The French army 
 was completely disorganised. Bonaparte was, 
 however, able to fight his way at Hanau, through 
 the Bavarians, his late allies, who now attempted 
 to oppose his passage back to France, and to keep 
 him at bay until the Russians and Prussians should 
 have time to come up and fall upon his flanks and 
 rear. The affair of Hanau took place on the 30th 
 of October ; and, if the Bavarians had been some- 
 what stronger and more active, the war must have 
 ended here with the destruction or capture of the 
 Emperor of the French. On the 1st of November 
 Bonaparte was at Francfort, and, in a vain attempt 
 to keep up an illusion in France, he wrote to his 
 empress-queen and regent, saying that he sent 
 her twenty colours taken by his armies in the bat- 
 tles of Hanau, Leipzig, &c. “It is an homage,” 
 said he, “which I love to render you. I desire 
 that you may see in it a mark of my great satis- 
 faction with your conduct during the regency which 
 I have confided to you.” But he could find no 
 rest at Francfort or at any other place on German 
 soil. At last he reached the Rhine, and passed 
 over the 70,000 or 80,000 men, who were all that 
 remained to him out of the army of 350,000 with 
 which he had opened the campaign in the month 
 of May. Having placed this fragment of the 
 Grand Army on the left bank of the Rhine, he set 
 out for Paris, where he arrived late on the evening 
 of the 9th of November. 
 
 Although there had been sundry jealousies, sus- 
 picions, disagreements, and collisions of policy, 
 interests, and projects, the allies had visibly im- 
 proved upon their former coalitions, and had con- 
 ducted this campaign with more unanimity and 
 spirit than had yet been witnessed. The course 
 of the war was marked with many singular and 
 striking incidents. General Moreau, the hated 
 rival of Bonaparte, who had been so long living in 
 an uncomfortable exile in the United States of 
 America, was invited by the allied sovereigns to 
 join their armies, and to assist, with his military 
 genius and experience, in overthrowing the tyrant 
 of his country and the oppressor of Europe. Mo- 
 reau’s ardent republicanism had been much cooled 
 by time and experience, and by what he had seen 
 
 - 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 of the working of that system of government in 
 America; his wife had continued to be a pas- 
 sionate Bourbon royalist, and she is said to have 
 lost none of her great influence over the mind of 
 her husband—a weak mind in all matters uncon- 
 nected with his profession. Moreau arrived from 
 New York at the seat of war in the month of 
 August, as hostilities after the armistice were re- 
 commencing, and adopted the title of aide-de-camp 
 to the Emperor Alexander. His career in his 
 new capacity was very short: in the battle near 
 Dresden, fought on the 27th of August, while in 
 earnest conversation with the Emperor of Russia 
 on the progress of operations, he was struck by a 
 French cannon-ball, which, passing through the 
 body of his horse, carried away beth his legs. 
 
 During the surgical operations which followed he 
 
 smoked his cigar and displayed the greatest cool- 
 ness and fortitude. Three days after the battle he 
 wrote a laconic and very characteristic letter to 
 his wife, in which were these well-known words : 
 “Ce coquin de Bonaparte est toujours heureux 
 —That rogue Bonaparte is always lucky.” <A 
 French officer attached to his person and his for- 
 tunes finished the letter, and assured Madame 
 Moreau that the doctor had just told him that, if 
 all went on as it was now going, the general would 
 be able, within five weeks, to travel in a carriage ; 
 but poor Moreau died the very next day (on the 
 Ist of September). 
 
 On the 26th of August, the day before Moreau 
 lost his legs at Dresden, there perished on the 
 Lower Elbe one who had done far more than he 
 for the allied cause. Theodor Kérner, the young, 
 gallant, and spiritual patriot and poet, the Tyrteeus 
 of this German war, fell with his ¢arabine in his 
 hand, in the midst of a band of German students. 
 His comrades removed his body and buried it 
 under a tree; and for a mark and present monu- 
 ment they cut his name upon the bark of the tree. 
 But the little pool of blood became a well-spring 
 of patriotism; his death was envied even more 
 than it was regretted by his enthusiastic young 
 countrymen; and his war-songs and his invoca- 
 tions of liberty and independence became conse- 
 crated in the popular mind. 
 
 About 80,000 men whom Bonaparte had left 
 behind him in Magdeburg, Stettin, Dantzic, and 
 other Prussian fortresses, all surrendered to the 
 allies, a little sooner or a little later. Dantzic 
 held out the longest; but even that strong garri- 
 son capitulated on the 24th of December. During 
 
 their precipitate and most disorderly retreat, the | — 
 
 French, nearly every time they were attacked in 
 any force, surrendered by regiments or by whole 
 divisions at a time. ‘Their military morale— 
 except among the Imperial Guards and some few 
 veteran regiments whose force had not been 
 wasted in the Russian campaign—was either com- 
 
 pletely gone, or had never been acquired. Bo- — 
 
 naparte, at the high tide of his triumphs, had 
 never seen even the worst-commanded of the 
 
 Austrian armies reduced to such a plight! At — 
 
 _—_————_. 
 
 be 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 almost every step the light troops of the allies and 
 the keen Cossacks captured prisoners, guns, stores, 
 and other aitiratl. More than once Bonaparte 
 himself narrowly escaped falling into the hands of 
 the bearded spearmen from the Don and Volga. 
 In one day 50 more pieces of artillery were dis- 
 covered and captured ; and others were buried in 
 the earth by the men who could no longer drag 
 them on or defend them. As they went on they 
 blew up their caissons, making the mountains 
 of old Germany re-echo as with the successive 
 explosions of volcanoes. Of the corps d’armée of 
 Marshal Marmont, composed of the best French 
 troops, only 3000 remained on the 28th of 
 October. Colonel Sir Hudson Lowe, who had 
 come into Germany to assist General Sir Charles 
 Stewart, and who rendered good service to the 
 allies, accompanied ‘‘ Marshal Forwards” in his 
 hot pursuit of the French, and transmitted to Sir 
 Charles some brief but striking accounts of the 
 destruction and misery he saw on his way. The 
 sufferings of the French were indeed extreme. 
 * For an extent of nearly fifty English miles, from 
 Eisenach to Fulda, carcasses of dead and dying 
 horses, without number ; dead bodies of men, who 
 had either been killed, or perished through hunger, 
 sickness, or fatigue, lying on the roads or in the 
 ditches ; parties of prisoners or stragglers, brought 
 in by the Cossacks ; blown up or destroyed ammu- 
 nition or baggage-waggons, in such numbers as 
 absolutely to obstruct the road, sufficiently attested 
 the sufferings of the enemy; whilst pillaged and 
 burning towns and villages marked at the same 
 time the ferocity with which he conducted himself. 
 -+-s+.+ Ihe dead and dying were frequently 
 mixed together, lying in groups of six or eight, by 
 half-extinguished fires on the road-side.’’* 
 
 The enormous losses of this campaign, being 
 superadded to the wholesale destruction of the 
 Russian retreat, and to the vast sacrifices of life 
 which the route at Vittoria and Soult’s battles with 
 Wellington in Spainand among the Pyrenees had 
 cost the French people, and the rapid approach of 
 the grand allied army on one frontier, while Wel- 
 lington was threatening them on the other frontier, 
 now caused a very general discontent, and gave 
 encouragement to that disaffection which had begun 
 to manifest itself in so many quarters at the be- 
 ginning of this disastrous year. So long as victory 
 and conquest followed the standard of their em- 
 peror, so long as the national vanity was elated, 
 and the expense of the war supported by the coun- 
 tries into which it was carried, the great body of 
 the nation could, with a wonderful facility, recon- 
 cile themselves to the tremendous loss of lives and 
 of limbs; but defeat, reverse, disgrace quickened 
 their domestic feelings, made them ask for their 
 brothers and their children, and rendered, for the 
 first time since the Revolution, the war odious in 
 their sight. They had previously borne nearly 
 twenty years of almost incessant war, and every 
 year, every separate campaign, however glorious or 
 
 * Marquess of Londonderry, Narrative. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—18138. 
 
 667 
 
 successful, had witnessed the immolation of im- 
 mense numbers ; and all this they had borne with 
 a light heart and with very little murmuring— 
 Nos enfans sont morts sur les champs de la vic- 
 toire et pour la gloire de la France ;—but one 
 single year of disaster had changed their tone, and 
 now it was, Nos moyens, nos fréres, nos enfans 
 sont sacrifiés d ?ambition d’un tyran. The sud- 
 denness of the change is, in itself, a full proof of 
 its cause and origin. At first the senate renewed 
 their professions of entire devotion to the person 
 and dynasty of the emperor, and affected to treat 
 his recent disasters as reparable, and as attributable 
 to anything rather than to Napoleon the Great. 
 On Sunday the 14th of November, five days after 
 his return to Paris, the august senators waited 
 upon him in the palace of the Tuileries, with an 
 address of felicitation or congratulation. The se- 
 nator who delivered the address (it was Lacé- 
 pede, the naturalist) spoke not of the 200,000 
 men who had been killed, maimed, or made 
 prisoners in Germany, but only of the great dan- 
 ger to which the person of the emperor had 
 been exposed. “Sire,” said the president, ‘ the 
 efforts of the enemies of France have been seconded 
 In vain by the defection of your allies, and by 
 unexampled treasons, by extraordinary events, and 
 by sad accidents; your majesty has surmounted 
 all; you have fought for peace!” An anathema 
 on the allies for refusing peace to the Emperor of 
 the French on his own extravagant terms, at Dres- 
 den or at Prague, was succeeded by the assurance 
 that all the peoples of the Continent stood in 
 greater need of peace than the unconquerable 
 French; that if the enemies of France would not 
 listen to the cry of more than 150,000,000 of 
 souls, and consent to treat for peace, or, if the 
 allies should seek to impose disadvantageous con- 
 ditions upon France, then their false hopes would 
 all be destroyed, then the French people would 
 show, by their self-devotion and their sacrifices, 
 that no nation ever better knew its duties towards 
 their country, their honour, and their sovereign ! 
 From all that was said in this senatorial and con- 
 gratulatory address it might be fancied that the 
 allies were not upon the frontier, and that their 
 emperor had returned not conquered, but a con- 
 queror. But the senators had become little more 
 than court lacqueys; the farce they played was 
 laughed at, and it could not be repeated outside of 
 the walls of the palace. The legislative body—as 
 a body—had for a length of time been almost as 
 servile as the senate; but there were some fiery 
 and impatient spirits in it, who remembered the 
 days of the republic, and who were emboldened 
 by the fallen fortunes of its destroyer, and by the 
 popular discontent, to despise the imperial decree 
 which made them a dumb legislature, and to 
 shake the tribune once more with their ominous 
 voices. After so long a silence, their speech was 
 startling :—-new Mirabeaus seemed rising from the 
 grave. They appointed a committee to draw up 
 a report on the state of the nation; Raynouard, 
 
668 
 
 Laing, Gallois, and two other members who had a 
 character for independence, were of the committee, 
 The report which they laid before the legislative 
 body, on the 28th of December, expressed a desire 
 for peace consistent with the honour and welfare 
 of France, and a wish to know what steps the 
 emperor had taken to attain so desirable an object ; 
 and it ended by saying, “*‘ While the government 
 will take the most effective measures for the safety 
 of the country, his majesty should be entreated to 
 maintain and enforce the entire and constant ex- 
 ecution of the laws which ensure to the French 
 citizens the rights of liberty, property, and se- 
 curity, and to the nation the free exercise of its 
 political rights.’ The legislative body, by a large 
 majority, ordered the report to be printed. This 
 was a language which Napoleon had not been 
 used to. He immediately ordered the doors of 
 the hall of the legislative body to be closed and 
 guarded by soldiers, and the copies of the report to 
 be seized at the printer’s. On the 31st an impe- 
 rial decree adjourned this bold-speaking legislature. 
 On the following day there was, as usual, a grand 
 court levee, and among those who repaired to the 
 Tuileries in their embroidered coats to wish the 
 emperor “a happy new year” was a deputation or 
 a group of members of the corps législatif. Bo- 
 naparte addressed these members in a most violent 
 and coarse speech, not unaccompanied with me- 
 nacing gestures. ‘‘ Messieurs,” cried he, as soon 
 as they approached him, “you might have done a 
 great deal of good, and you have done nothing but 
 mischief! Eleven-twelfths of you are good men, 
 the rest are factious! What do you hope for by 
 putting yourselves in opposition to me? Do you 
 hope to seize the power of the state? What are 
 your means? Are you the representatives of the 
 people? No! I am the representative of the 
 people! Four times have I been called to power 
 by the nation, and four times have I had for me 
 the votes of five millions of French citizens! I 
 have a just title, and you have none! You are 
 nothing but the deputies of the departments of the 
 empire! I alone am the representative of the 
 nation! What could you have done in the present 
 circumstances, when the thing to be done is to re- 
 pulse our invading enemies? Could you have 
 commanded armies ? Would you have had strength 
 enough to bear the weight of the factions? The 
 
 would have crushed you, and you would have been 
 annihilated by the Faubourg St. Antoine and the 
 Faubourg St. Marceau! Would you have been 
 more powerful than the Constituent Assembly and 
 the National Convention ? Where are those states- 
 men now? What has become of the Guadets and 
 the Vergniauds? They are all dead, and your 
 fate would soon have been the same as theirs. 
 How have you dared to vote such an address? 
 In a moment when the enemy (Wellington) has 
 broken through one of our frontiers, can you seek 
 to separate yourselves from me? Do you not 
 
 know that it is against me alone that the allies are 
 waging war? 
 
 But they know that if I fall the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Book X, 
 
 French nation will be helpless. ...... Your com- 
 mittee has acted in the spirit of the Girondists, 
 Your M. Lainé is a conspirator, an agent of 
 England, with which country he is in correspond- 
 ence by means of the advocate Deséze ;—the rest 
 of you are factious! I will keep my eye on M. 
 
 Laing; he is a rogue. ....... Although I have 
 received from nature a strong and proud character, 
 
 I felt the want of consolation. I have sacrificed 
 
 my passions, my ambition, my pride, for the good 
 
 of France! I expected some gratitude, some 
 
 sacrifices, some consolation from you; and you 
 
 vote me this scandalous committee report. You 
 
 have coupled an atrocious irony with reproaches. 
 
 How can you reproach me with my misfortunes ? 
 
 I have supported them with firmness and honour, 
 
 because I have a strong and proud character, and 
 
 if I had not had that pride of soul, I should not 
 
 now be seated on the first throne of the universe! | 
 ....++ My throne is in the nation, and I cannot 
 
 be separated from it without a fatal injury—for 
 
 the nation has more need of me than I have of the 
 
 nation!’? After much more passionate declama- 
 
 tion of the same sort, he said, addressing himself 
 
 rather to the rest of that crowded audience than to 
 
 the corps legislatif, ‘But in three months we 
 
 shall have peace; our enemies will be driven from 
 
 our territories, or I shall be dead! We have 
 
 more resources than you imagine. Our enemies 
 
 have not conquered us, and they never shall con- 
 
 quer us; they will be driven back faster than they 
 
 came.” He then dismissed the deputies, telling 
 
 them to go back to their departments, and there 
 
 tell the people that their emperor was sincerely 
 
 desirous of peace, and that a peace without dis- 
 
 honour would be secured by victory within three 
 
 months. 
 
 Although some men had reappeared in their 
 secret sessions, who both felt that the imperial 
 throne was not worth three months’ purchase and 
 who now wished its overthrow,* the senators in- 
 curred no such reproaches. ‘They voted and de- 
 creed whatever, was bidden. They had already 
 passed a decree for a new conscription of 300,000 
 
 * Talleyrand, who had been so grievously insulted, had not only 
 been invited back to the senate, but had been named a member of 
 its special committee; and in this capacity he had with his usual 
 adroitness put forward the absolute necessity of an immediate peace, 
 and that too upon conditions which it was well known the Emperor 
 of the French would not assent to. From the moment he arrived at 
 Paris all eves and thoughts were fixed upon him. ‘f Qu’en dit M. Tal- 
 leyrand? or, What does M. Talleyrand say about matters?’ wasthe 
 question of everybody; but it was a question which the cautious, 
 astute statesman was in no hurry to answer. When all countenances 
 were twitched and convulsed with excitement and passions of various 
 kinds, he preserved the Dead Sea calm of his own; and when all 
 tongues were wagging from morning till night, and from night till 
 morning, he was more ticiturn than he had ever been. Nothing 
 could take him off his guard, nothing excite him: he met men of all 
 parties, and stood their eager scrutiny and sharp interrogatories with- 
 out betraying his own deep, fixed thoughts, and without committing 
 himself in any way. A few bons-mots was all that could be got out 
 of him. It was, we believe, at this period that he met the very in- 
 quisitive M. de , who squinted frightfully, or, as the French 
 idiom expresses it, saw crookedly (voyait de travers). ‘‘ Well, how 
 do you think things are going on now?” said the querist. “ Tout 
 comme vous voyez, Monsieur,” replied Talleyrand. But all this while 
 Talleyrand’s wit and geuius were planning the foundatious of a 
 peace, with or without Bonaparte, and the restoration of the Bourbou 
 dynasty, if there should remain no alternative but that, or the chances 
 of a prolonged war, or of the dismemberment of France, or a return 
 of a Reign of Terror, with its Jacobin Clubs and its guillotines, 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 men, including all those who had escaped the 
 conscriptions of former years; and they had nearly 
 doubled the taxes. But the people were worn out 
 by the tremendous sacrifices they had already 
 made, particularly since the Russian catastrophe: 
 their newly found repugnance to the horrors of 
 war continued, even to the evaporation of their 
 patriotism; and, although Wellington and the 
 English had a firm footing within their southern 
 frontier, and although Russians, Prussians, and 
 Austrians were rushing towards, or had fairly 
 crossed, their other frontiers, they made it impos- 
 sible in many departments to raise either the men 
 or the money required : and in some quarters, where 
 the Bourbon royalism and the spirit of Catholicism 
 were still strong, the people threatened insurrec- 
 tion. The Vendée was on tiptoe, and waited but 
 for the signal; the populace of Avignon, of Mar- 
 seilles, and of other cities and towns in Provence 
 were athirst for blood and vengeance,—were little 
 less ferocious than had been the Jacobin bands of 
 Jourdan Coupe-Téte, when they perambulated 
 that country in 1793 to butcher every man or 
 woman that preferred the Catholic church to the 
 Temple of Reason, and the dethroned king to the 
 best of republics. All parties and factions had 
 been and were alike fierce and vindictive. It was 
 in the unchanged nature of Frenchmen that they 
 should be so. The twenty years which had rolled 
 away since the Jacobin atrocities had not carried 
 away with them the passionate desire of retaliation ; 
 they had carried many of the sufferers to their 
 graves, but the children of those sufferers sur- 
 vived ; they saw in many instances the destroyers 
 of their parents possessed of the little family pro- 
 perty, and self-interest, filial affection, and a deep- 
 rooted religious fanaticism all urged on these men 
 of the South to acts of vengeance and violence. 
 Some of their worst deeds were not committed 
 now, but at a later period, after the final overthrow 
 of Bonaparte at Waterloo; but enough was now 
 done to mark the fierce character of the people, 
 and to show that in them or from them the falling 
 emperor could have no hope. ‘Those excited men 
 of the South would even have hailed with joy the 
 ‘project of dissevering for ever their provinces from 
 the rest of France. 
 
 Bonaparte had said before this that, rather than 
 give up Holland, he would sink it under the sea. 
 But by this time nearly the whole of that country 
 was freed from his intolerable dominion. Several 
 previous attempts had. been made ; and at the be- 
 ginning of the present year, when all the conse- 
 quences of the Russian campaign were known, an 
 extensive insurrection had been planned at Am- 
 sterdam in favour of the long expelled Prince of 
 Orange. Theconfederates had opened some secret 
 communications with England, and were confident 
 of support from that quarter. But the violence of 
 the French in enforcing the conscription in the 
 Dutch provinces, in order to increase the army 
 with which Bonaparte was to meet the allies in 
 Germany, drove the people into premature insur- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 669 
 
 rection, and disjointed the good plan which had 
 been framed. At the Hague, Rotterdam, Oud- 
 Beverland, and other places, the mob, without any 
 previous concert, rose upon their oppressors, de- 
 stroyed the parish-registers necessary for the 
 enrolment or conscription lists, took the town of 
 Leyden, and hoisted there the flag of their old 
 stadtholder, amidst enthusiastic and incessant 
 shouts of ‘* Orange Boven!’? This spontaneous 
 and premature popular insurrection was quenched 
 in blood. But when news arrived of Bonaparte’s 
 defeat at Leipzig, and of his ruinous retreat thence, 
 the Amsterdam confederates, and other bands of 
 patriots, resumed their labours. At first they pro- 
 ceeded with great caution and secrecy; but on 
 the 15th of November, when a portion of the grand 
 allied army was close upon their frontiers, the 
 people of Amsterdam rose in a body, hoisted the 
 Orange colours, and proclaimed the sovereignty of 
 that House. The French authorities thought 
 proper to quit the city; and on the next day a 
 proclamation was issued, in which twenty-four 
 Dutchmen were called upon by name to assume 
 the temporary administration of affairs. On the 
 evening of the 16th the confederates at the Hague 
 received intelligence of all that had been done at 
 Amsterdam, and a corresponding demonstration 
 was made forthwith in that city. The confederates 
 appointed the zealous Orangist Count Styrum 
 governor of the Hague in the name of the Prince 
 of Orange; and the new governor issued a procla- 
 mation in the name of his prince announcing the 
 happy change. So completely had the country 
 been drained of its native troops and resources 
 during the three years and a half that it had been 
 annexed to France, that Count Styrum and the 
 confederates could scarcely muster 1000 Dutch 
 soldiers; and they had no arms, ammunition, ac- 
 coutrements, military stores, artillery, or horses. 
 Of money, as a matter of course, there was none 
 left: the exigencies of Bonaparte had demanded 
 immense supplies, and the French functionaries 
 had carried away with them every stiver that was 
 left. The proceedings of the patriots were the 
 more courageous, a3 the French were in possession 
 of all the fortresses and strong places of the coun- 
 try, and as General Molitor had a French corps 
 4000 strong in Utrecht, only twelve leagues from 
 the Hague. But, though chilled by some tardiness 
 and reservation on the part of Russia, Prussia, and 
 Austria, the confederates relied upon prompt aid 
 from England; and their hopes were not disap- 
 pointed. They sent deputies over to London to 
 tell the Prince of Orange that his nineteen years 
 of exile were over, and to invite him back to as- 
 sume the government. Favoured by wind and 
 weather, this deputation reached the British capital 
 —where they excited a fresh joy and exultation— 
 on the 21st of November. By the 25th the Prince 
 of Orange had embarked in a British man-of- war ; 
 and he proceeded to his native country with the 
 assurances of the British government that every 
 necessary aid should be given to him, whether in 
 
670 
 
 troops or arms, money or military stores. The 
 prince entered the city of Amsterdam on the Ist 
 of December, in the midst of popular rejoicings ; 
 and he forthwith assumed the title, not of Stadt- 
 holder, but of Sovereign Prince of the United 
 Netherlands. The present aid sent to him by the 
 allies amounted to some 300 Cossacks; but a 
 more valid support soon arrived from England and 
 from other quarters, and then the French were 
 easily driven out of the open country and all the 
 weaker fortresses. In their reverses the French 
 ~ committed many shameful outrages. Some of 
 them fled into Belgium; but others threw them- 
 selves within the formidable walls of Bergen-op- 
 Zoom. Measures were promptly adopted for the 
 formation of a Dutch army, and within the short 
 space of four months 25,000 men were raised, 
 armed, and equipped. 
 
 Before this time the Danish government had 
 been made to rue its bad policy in concluding the 
 last treaty with the French, and in declaring war 
 against the Swedes, which was tantamount to a 
 declaration of hostilities against the whole Ku- 
 ropean alliance. From the north of Germany 
 Bernadotte found leisure to march against the 
 Danish frontier ; and he took with him a force far 
 superior to any that the royal Dane could show in 
 the field. The Swedes presently overran Holstein, 
 surrounded the Danish army, and reduced its 
 commander to sue for an armistice. The armis- 
 tice was granted, but only upon the hard conditions 
 that the Swedes should continue to occupy Hol- 
 stein and part of Sleswig, and be free to reduce 
 some remaining fortresses within those limits. 
 
 It had been hoped that the patriotism of the 
 Swiss, who had been robbed by the French of 
 Geneva, the canton of Vaud, and the great Alpine 
 pass of Mont Simplon, and who had suffered other 
 and more intolerable evils (though, because they 
 were stronger and braver than their neighbours, 
 the Swiss had suffered much less than other people 
 from the Gallic domination), would have induced 
 them to anticipate the conduct or follow the ex- 
 ample of the Dutch. But after the battle of 
 Leipzig, and as part of the allied armies was 
 coming within sight of the Rhine and of their 
 frontier, an extraordinary diet was summoned to 
 deliberate on the best means of keeping the flames 
 of war out of their country. This diet, which met 
 in November, ordered some Swiss militia to guard 
 or watch the frontiers on the Rhine, and at the 
 same time issued a proclamation asserting the ab- 
 solute neutrality of the nineteen cantons. This 
 proclamation was communicated to Bonaparte and 
 to the allied sovereigns, with the expressed hope 
 or wish that both the belligerent parties would 
 respect the neutrality, and not seek to pass troops 
 through any part of the Swiss territories. This 
 would have covered France on her eastern and 
 most vulnerable frontier, and would have shut out 
 the allies from some of the best of their combined 
 movements of invasion. The Emperor of the 
 French, who had never respected such neutrality, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox x. ma 
 seems to have deluded himself with the hope either 
 that the allied sovereigns would be more scru- 
 pulous than he, or that, if they attempted to pass 
 through Switzerland, the march of their forces 
 would be opposed, and the Swiss, with their tradi- 
 tional, hereditary antipathy to Austria, would join 
 the French. But, if such were really his hopes, 
 he was sadly deceived. The allied sovereigns 
 were determined not to be stopped by the procla- 
 mation of the diet; they offered indeed to gua- 
 rantee the neutrality of the cantons; but they 
 insisted on their troops crossing through part of 
 the Swiss territory in order to enter France in the 
 most advantageous manner. They urged that the 
 conflict in which they were engaged was no ordi- 
 nary war for separate interests and aggrandize- 
 ments, but a rising of Europe in arms to free 
 herself from the intolerable ambition of one man, 
 who would not allow other nations to remain at 
 peace or to be masters of their own territories. 
 They admitted that the Swiss, of all the peoples of 
 Europe, had perhaps the least reason to be dissatis- 
 fied with Napoleon ; it was upon this consideration 
 they were not called upon to take up arms against 
 him; but, on the other hand, it must be expected 
 and demanded from them that they should not 
 oppose the allies who were advancing in their own 
 defence to obtain peace by force of arms and upon 
 the soil of France, since peace could not be gained 
 from Napoleon in any other way. On the 19th 
 of December a conference took place at the ad- 
 vanced posts of the allies, now not far from Basle ; 
 and Count Bubna, the Austrian commander, told 
 the Swiss deputies that his troops would assuredly 
 enter the Swiss territory on the following day, and 
 proceed to France by the shortest road, adding that 
 
 it now depended on the Swiss whether they would | 
 
 oppose them and be treated as enemies, or allow 
 them to pass and be considered as friends. In the 
 latter case Bubna engaged that the greatest regard 
 should be paid to Swiss property of every kind, 
 and that the soldiers of the allies should maintain 
 the strictest discipline. The Swiss authorities im- 
 mediately entered into a convention with the Aus- 
 trian generals, by which the march of the allies 
 was to be regulated. At the same time Count 
 Capo d’Istria, as envoy from the Emperor Alex- 
 ander, and M. Lebzeltern, as envoy from the Em- 
 peror Francis, reached Ziirich, where the Swiss 
 diet was sitting, and delivered a note from their 
 sovereigns, which proved the death-note of Bona- 
 parte’s Swiss mediatorship. “The Act of Me- 
 diation,’’ said the two emperors, “‘ having been the 
 work of a foreign influence, inimical to the rest of 
 Europe, is incompatible with the principles of the 
 great European confederation, and the allied 
 powers, without pretending to interfere in the in- 
 ternal affairs of Switzerland, cannot any longer 
 allow that country to remain under the tutelage of 
 the French empire.”” The true Swiss pride had 
 long been wounded by this imposed state of tute- 
 lage: instantly nine of the old cantons, with Zii- 
 rich at their head, named deputies, who, on the 29th 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 of December, declared that the Bonapartean act of 
 
 mediation was dissolved, and then addressed an 
 invitation to all the other cantons, old or new, 
 acknowledging their independence, and the inte- 
 srity of their respective territories, as at present 
 constituted, and urging them to send deputies with- 
 out delay to meet them at Ziirich, and to concert 
 and establish with them a new federal pact for 
 the whole of Switzerland. Except by Berne, Frey- 
 burg, and Solure, who wanted to get back the 
 territories which had been dependent upon them, 
 and who demanded that the old federal pact of the 
 thirteen cantons should be re-established as it 
 existed before the French revolution and the inter- 
 ference of Bonaparte, all the cantons accepted the 
 invitation, and sent their deputies to Ziirich.* 
 ‘Thus the eastern as well as the southern and 
 northern frontiers of France were left open to the 
 allies; and beyond the Alps and the Apennines 
 the irritated Murat was ready to raise his standard 
 of defection, with a plan of campaign concerted to 
 deprive his brother-in-law of the whole of Italy 
 and its resources. At the close of the year 1813 
 little was left to Bonaparte except what the French 
 call un beau désespoir. 
 
 Our imperial parliament, assembling much 
 earlier than usual, met and discussed this great 
 crisis of the civilised world, some time before the 
 Emperor of the French addressed his refractory 
 Corps Législatif. On the 4th of November the 
 session was opened by the prince regent in person. 
 After a brief allusion to the king’s continued. in- 
 disposition, the speech from the throne, which was 
 unusually long, and which had been composed 
 with very unusual care, passed to the subject of 
 the great and splendid successes with which his 
 majesty’s arms and those of his allies had been 
 blessed in the course of the present year. It no- 
 ticed the now prosperous state of British commerce, 
 which no effort of the enemy had been able to 
 erush. It then dwelt upon the decided conviction 
 which now happily prevailed throughout so large 
 a portion of Europe, that the war in which the 
 allied powers were engaged against the ruler of 
 France was a war of necessity, and that his views 
 of universal dominion could be defeated only by 
 combined and determined resistance. The grand 
 rising of the Germanic people was hailed as one of 
 the happiest and most promising of events ; and it 
 was safely predicted that public spirit and national 
 enthusiasm would triumph there, as they had done 
 in Portugal and in Spain, which had set the example 
 to the oppressed nations of the continent. The 
 speech then proceeded to unfold, in general terms, 
 the views of policy entertained at this juncture by 
 the British government and its allies, and to urge 
 the necessity of our continuing our vast efforts 
 until the struggle should be over, and the oppor- 
 tunity offered of restoring the blessings of peace. 
 After attributing the long and far-extended war 
 
 * A. Vieusseux, Hist. of Switzerland, from the inruption of the 
 Barbarians to the present time. London, 1840.—State papers, mani- 
 festoes, &c. issued during 1813-14. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1813. 
 
 671 
 
 to the insatiable ambition of the ruler of France, 
 the prince regent said, “ Still, no disposition to 
 require from France sacrifices of any description 
 inconsistent with her honour, or just pretensions as 
 a nation, will ever be on my part, or on that of 
 his majesty’s allies, an obstacle to peace.” 
 
 The speech was received with universal assent 
 and joy; the voice of opposition was charmed into 
 silence, or into open and hearty concurrence; so 
 much unanimity had not been seen in parliament 
 for a very long time; in both houses the addresses 
 were carried without the slightest opposition. 
 Statesmen who had Jong been in the shade, and 
 who had so often and so violently differed with 
 the present and the preceding ministry, especially 
 as to the conduct of the war and the management 
 or mismanagement of our foreign alliances, now 
 came forward to offer their enthusiastic congratula- 
 tions, to recommend, by their own high personal 
 examples, the spirit of unanimity, and to support 
 the government in its demands for the great 
 finishing effort to be made by the country. Lord 
 Grenville quitted his beautiful retreat at Dropmore, 
 and his then matchless plantation of cedars and 
 pines, and appeared in London busy among the 
 busiest, and in the House of Lords all radiant 
 with joy. His consanguinity seemed to entitle 
 him to share in some of the triumph which would 
 have been awarded to William Pitt, if Pitt had 
 lived to see these days of exultation and glory, 
 Lord Grenville’s speech was one of the most elo- 
 quent and most statesmanlike of all that were de- 
 livered in parliament at this crisis. He correctly 
 ascribed the long successful career of the French 
 to that uniform system of separation and disunion 
 by which they dissevered and alienated those con- 
 tinental powers, which, had they rightly under- 
 stood their mutual interests, would have been allied 
 and fastened together twenty years ago by one 
 common and indissoluble bond for the defence of 
 their freedom and independence. ‘The Marquess 
 Wellesley was equally warm in his congratula- 
 tions on the events which had changed the destinies 
 of Europe. ‘ Nothing,” said the marquess, 
 “‘ can be now more true than the last words which 
 that great statesman Mr. Pitt delivered in public 
 —‘ England has saved herself by her firmness, 
 and has saved other nations by her example!” 
 The premier, Lord Liverpool, though little given 
 to oratorical displays, or to any other display, deli- 
 vered a speech full of glowing passages, and of 
 gratitude for the past and of hope for the future. 
 The lamentable failures and disjunctions of former 
 coalitions were known to the whole world; he 
 need not dwell upon them. ‘But why did the 
 present coalition differ from the preceding ones? 
 What was this new life which gave so irresistible 
 an impulse to the present confederacy? It was 
 the feeling of national independence, that noble 
 sentiment which impels all men to stand before 
 the liberties of their country! This feeling, which 
 first arose among the nations of the Peninsula, had 
 given the war a new character. There had heen 
 
672 
 
 before wars of kings and of governments, but none 
 like this war, between nations, between peoples! 
 And all our principles of policy and prudence must 
 have been belied if the issue of the present confede- 
 racy had not been very different from that of any 
 of the former coalitions.” 
 
 In the House of Commons even Mr. Whitbread, 
 who had so often called upon the government to 
 renounce its war policy, joined his voice in ap- 
 plause and thanksgiving, and declared that never 
 did a more favourable opportunity present itself for 
 us to exert our whole strength. He particularly 
 recommended that an immediate and effectual as- 
 sistance should be sent to the brave Dutch. But in 
 this house the most eloquent speech was delivered 
 by Mr. Charles Grant, jun. (now Lord Glenelg), 
 who praised Lord Wellington particularly for 
 this—that by an undaunted and intrepid spint, 
 the sure proof of a genius conscious of its resources, 
 he had been enabled to defy the public opinion as 
 to the invincibility of the French. Wellington 
 had never sunk under the weight of the enormous 
 fame which had been made to surround Massena, 
 Marmont, Jourdan, Soult, and the other great 
 French marshals, and he had successively foiled 
 or vanquished them all. Mr. Grant drew a 
 vivid picture of the grand allied armies as now ex- 
 isting, and as now advancing, with victory perched 
 on every banner—of nobles, and kings, and princes, 
 the royalty and the aristocracy of Europe, fighting 
 in the ranks; of crowds of accomplished captains, 
 of men full of patriotism and heart, instead of 
 armies heartless in the cause, generals corrupt 
 or incapable, sovereigns and princes blind alike 
 to their fame and to their true interests! Lord 
 Castlereagh, with a not unbecoming national pride, 
 detailed some of the exertions which England had 
 made in the course of the present year. When 
 the grand campaign of the allies began in the 
 North, every party was poor, and needed immedi- 
 ate supplies of money; the great arsenals and 
 storchouses of Europe were still in the hands or 
 under the control of the enemy, the military 
 magazines of Prussia were his, the magazines of 
 Russia had been nearly exhausted by the immense 
 demands of the preceding year, and thus arms, 
 ammunition, &c., were as much wanted as money. 
 The British government had lost no time in supply- 
 ing these wants ; and in several cases ministers had 
 taken the whole responsibility upon themselves, and 
 had made large disbursements without the previous 
 vote of parliament. Independently of the glorious 
 services of our own army in the Peninsula, inde- 
 pendently of the direct aid that had been given 
 to Spain and Portugal, indirect aid had been 
 afforded to the Spanish and Portuguese armies to 
 a great extent. It frequently occurred that they 
 were in utter want of military stores and equip- 
 ments; and in many instances the necessities of 
 those armies had been supplied from our own 
 commissariat. The aid which had been granted 
 to Spain alone during the last year, in money, 
 stores, &c., amounted to about 2,000,000/. sterling. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a rn reer i re 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 During the last two years, Portugal had received 
 in the same way 2,000,000/. For Sicily, 400,000/. 
 had been voted; for Sweden, who had well 
 earned the money, 1,000,000/. There had been 
 paid in subsidies to the great allied powers nearly 
 4,000,000/. Russia had received 2,000,000/., 
 which had enabled her to join the common cause 
 with so immense an army; and the aid given to 
 Prussia had enabled her to double the amount of 
 the force for which she originally pledged herself, 
 or to throw into the field 200,000 men. Austria, 
 upon taking the field, had been accommodated 
 with bills of credit of 1,000,000/. sterling, together 
 with 100,000 stand of arms and a large quantity 
 of military stores. In the mere article of small- 
 arms, in addition to the great expenditure and 
 waste of our own army, we had, in the course of 
 the year, sent 500,000 muskets to Spain and 
 Portugal, and 400,000 to other parts of the conti- 
 nent, as subsidiary aid. Wherever a government 
 or a people had stepped honestly forward, and had 
 asked for assistance, it had been promptly given by 
 England. This promptitude, and this display of 
 our prodigious resources, which, after so many 
 years of war, were found to be greatest, most 
 matured, and best systematised when they were 
 most needed, had encouraged the friends and 
 dismayed the enemies of Britain. It was not to 
 be supposed that the war even now could be 
 terminated without further exertions on the part of 
 England; nor would his lordship calculate that 
 the expenditure of the next year would fall below 
 the standard of this year. In round numbers he 
 estimated the sum necessary for military expenses 
 on the continent for the year 1814 at 10,000,000/., 
 namely, 4,000,000/. for the Peninsula, and 
 6,000,000/. for Germany, &c. During the year, 
 the entire British force under arms, in all parts of 
 the world, exceeded 230,000 men; yet, notwith- 
 standing our heavy losses in the Peninsula and 
 among the Pyrenees, the sacrifice of human life 
 was but a small per centage on the whole. Lord 
 Castlereagh now intimated, in very general terms, 
 that perhaps it would be expedient to employ fur a 
 short time from 15,000 to 20,000 British troops 
 in Holland. To meet this contingency, and other 
 exigencies of the service which might arise, he 
 did not recommend any actual increase of our 
 armed forces, but merely proposed a bill to allow a 
 number of men from the militia regiments, in no 
 case exceeding three-fourths of any regiment, to 
 volunteer into the line on payment of an additional 
 bounty to each man. These militiamen were to 
 be accompanied by their own officers, to whom 
 encouragement was to be given for their volunteer- 
 ing, in military rank, pay, half-pay, pensions, &c. 
 It had, indeed, been for some time past chiefly 
 from our regular militia that our line had been 
 fed and reinforced ; and some of the best materials 
 of Lord Wellington’s army had been volunteers 
 from our well trained and steady militia regiments. 
 Lord Castlereagh’s proposal was assented to almost 
 by acclamation. In exposing the fatal consequences 
 
 a ET ER 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 of any inconclusive transitory peace with Bona- 
 parte, Lord Castlereagh exhibited the unprece- 
 dented amount of French prisoners who were now 
 in the hands of England and her allies, and who 
 would be liberated and restored to the enemy by 
 the conclusion of any peace. This now obstructed 
 force might of itself be sufficient to prevent the 
 tranquillity of Europe. The mass of prison- 
 ers—sailors and soldiers—in England alone, 
 was immense; and it was principally through the 
 necessity of guarding these dangerous, ingenious, 
 and often turbulent captives that our government 
 was obliged to take care not to reduce the militia 
 too much. 
 
 It was resolved at the same time not to decrease, 
 but rather to increase, the naval forces of Great 
 Britain; and that 140,000 seamen and 31,000 
 marines should be employed for the ensuing year. 
 They had turned their attention rather tardily to 
 that quarter ; they had been obliged to send a very 
 large fleet into the Baltic, and to scatter their ships 
 in almost every sea, and in all the four quarters of 
 the globe; but now ministers had adopted schemes 
 for sweeping the American flag from the ocean. 
 There were some faint attempts at opposition, some 
 niggardly strictures on the expenses we were in- 
 curring, and on the greatness of the sums paid to 
 the allied governments or spent in the Peninsula; 
 but these murmurs found no echo in the country, 
 which was excited by victory and comforted by 
 the conviction that the fall of the greatest enemy it 
 had ever known was now close at hand. Those who 
 lived in London, or in its neighbourhood, in the 
 years 1812 and 1813, can never wholly forget the 
 popular enthusiasm which prevailed, as month by 
 month, and, at last, week by week, some tidings of a 
 fresh victory obtained by Wellington, or Kutusoff, 
 Wittgenstien, Bulow, Bliicher, or Schwartzenberg, 
 reached the metropolis—can never forget the 
 scenes presented at the illuminations and rejoic- 
 ings for the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, and 
 the Pyrenees. The hearty English shouts and 
 hurrahs of that million of voices still ring in our 
 ears; we still see the captured glittering French 
 eagles as they were displayed to the public gaze 
 in Downing Street; and, although forty long 
 years have passed since then, our heart can still 
 beat and thrill at the sight, even as it then did 
 under a boyish breast; and cold and un-English 
 is the heart that, with the same recollections, has 
 not the same feelings. 
 
 The parliament had been assembled early, with 
 a view to a long prorogation. It was, on many 
 accounts, not advisable that a popular assembly 
 should continue publicly debating the great ques- 
 tion of war and peace during the last critical stages 
 
 of the war ; but what was of still more importance. 
 
 was, that ministers should be relieved, for a short 
 
 season, from their parliamentary attendance and 
 
 toils, and be so enabled to devote an exclusive at- 
 
 tention to the last act or the last scenes of Bona- 
 
 parte. The great business in hand was to terminate 
 
 the war; there would be time to deal with other 
 VOL, VI. . 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 673 
 
 nn SS ———— 
 
 business afterwards, when men’s minds would be 
 less agitated. The Commons had yoted all the 
 supplies and subsidies proposed, and they had 
 already dispatched all the most pressing questions 
 relating to home affairs. The state both of public 
 and private business appeared to admit of an un- 
 usually long adjournment, without any inconveni- 
 ence or risk to any interests ; and, besides, a recent 
 act gave the crown power, in case either of proro- 
 gation or adjournment, to re-assemble at any time 
 both Houses, within the space of fourteen days. 
 Upon the 26th of December Lord Castlereagh 
 moved the adjournment of the House till the 1st 
 of March, 1814; and a similar motion was made 
 by ministers in the House of Lords. In both 
 places some strong objections were taken. It was 
 said that the adjournment was for much too long a 
 period, and that the proposition ought to be rejected 
 with indignation; that ministers, after obtaining 
 from the generosity of parliament all that they 
 asked for, wished to gag its mouth and prevent its 
 deliberations ; that before the Ist of March arrived 
 the condition of Europe might be wholly changed ; 
 that England was now standing foremost in these 
 mighty scenes of war and negotiation, yet the mi- 
 nisters of the crown wanted to act the whole of the 
 grand drama without the assistance of parliament. 
 The ministerial motion was, however, carried in 
 both Houses without a division ; and thus the go- 
 vernment was enabled to devote its whole attention 
 to the arduous task in hand. 
 
 A.D. 1814. The last act of the drama was 
 played off with wonderful rapidity. We shall ad- . 
 here to the course we have lately followed, and 
 give precedence to the operations in which Lord 
 Wellington and the British army were immedi- 
 ately engaged, for these events appertain most to 
 English history. The operations of this compara- 
 tively small army had lost none of their import- 
 ance and not an atom of their glory, by being 
 brought into comparison with the mightier masses 
 of the allies gathered on the Rhine and the borders 
 of Switzerland. Wellington and his army, more- 
 over, were at the beginning of the year farther 
 advanced on the soil of ‘France than any of the 
 allies. Instead of sending reinforcements, which 
 they might very well have done after the passing 
 of Lord Castlereagh’s militia volunteering bill, our 
 covernment thought it proper to recall some of 
 Wellington’s battalions, with some of his best offi- 
 cers. Thus, atthe close of 1813 they had recalled 
 Sir Thomas Graham in order to send him into 
 Holland, to take the command of the British forces 
 gradually collecting there. They appear to have 
 contemplated a still greater reduction of the noble 
 little army which had revived all the lustre of our 
 military fame, and given to it a new illustration ; 
 but, if they ever seriously entertained this unwise 
 project, they yielded to the remonstrances, or rather 
 to the plain, straightforward, unceremonious state- 
 ment of facts made to them by our great captain. 
 It was necessary to the character of his army that 
 Wellington should remind ministers of what it had 
 
 ———— eee” 
 
674 
 
 done; and this he did in his usual frank manner: 
 “By having kept in the field, in the Peninsula,” 
 said his lordship, ‘ about 30,000 men, the British 
 government have now for five years given employ- 
 ment to at least 200,000 French troops of the best 
 Napoleon had, as it is r?diculous to suppose that 
 either the Spaniards or Portuguese could have 
 resisted for a moment, if the British force had been 
 withdrawn. The armies now employed against 
 us in France cannot be less than 100,000 men, 
 indeed more, including garrisons ; and I see in the 
 French newspapers that orders have been given 
 for the formation at Bordeaux of an army of re- 
 serve of 100,000 men. Is there any man weak 
 enough to suppose that one-third of the number 
 first mentioned would be employed against the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese if we were withdrawn ? 
 They would, if it was still an object to Bonaparte 
 to conquer the Peninsula; and he would succeed 
 in his object. But it is much more likely that 
 he would make peace with the powers of the Pen- 
 insula, and then have it in his power to turn 
 against the grand allied armies the 200,000 men, 
 of which 100,000 men are such troops as those 
 allied armies have not yet had to deal with.’* 
 His lordship not only took nothing and allowed 
 nothing to be taken from the French people among 
 whom his army was cantoned, but he also dis- 
 bursed considerable sums for maintaining a police 
 in the country, which must otherwise have been 
 exposed to lawless excesses and to a temporary 
 anarchy, as the Bonapartean authorities had all 
 fied, and no French civil authorities had succeeded 
 them. 
 
 Bonaparte hoped that by dictating a treaty to 
 the weak-minded Ferdinand, he might bring to his 
 assistance in the threatened interior of France the 
 whole of Suchet’s army, with all the French gar- 
 risons remaining in Valencia and Catalonia; that 
 by restoring the old dynasty he might induce the 
 belief that he gave up for ever all thoughts of the 
 Peninsula, or—failing in this—that he should have 
 the advantage of seeing the sudden return of the 
 Bourbon prince followed by a fierce social war be- 
 tween the Royalists, the clergy, and the monks on the 
 one hand, and the Cortes and the Liberales on the 
 other. Fully aware of the advantages to be derived 
 from suddenness and secrecy, Bonaparte sent to the 
 weak and spiritless captive of Valengay one M. 
 de Laforest, who had formerly been ambassador at 
 Madrid, but who now travelled under the feigned 
 name of M. Dubois. This emissary reached Va- 
 lengay and concluded his negotiations before the 
 English or the Spanish Cortes knew anything 
 of the matter. There was, however, some demur 
 on the part of the poor Bourbon prisoner of state. 
 Laforest, in the name of his master, demanded 
 that Ferdinand should concert means for getting 
 the English entirely out of the Peninsula. Fer- 
 dinand felt that this would be no very easy or 
 grateful task: he represented that he could make 
 
 * Dispatches; Letter to Earl Bathurst, dated St. Jean-de-Luz, 
 December 21st, 1813. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ™_* ee “Sa 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 no treaty, that he could take no measures, with- 
 out the consent of the Spanish regency; that he 
 was ignorant of the real state of his own country, 
 as during the five years and a half he had been 
 kept in France he knew nothing more of the state 
 of affairs than what he read in the French news- 
 papers. Laforest said that those newspapers had 
 exhibited the true state of things; but it was 
 scarcely possible that Ferdinand should be so dull 
 as to believe him. The secret ambassador em- 
 ployed the arguments which Bonaparte put into 
 his mouth; and, absurd and monstrous as they 
 were, these arguments were certainly calculated to 
 work deeply into the mind of a despotic prince 
 who could have no notion of any form of govern- 
 ment except absolute monarchy. Laforest told 
 him of the daring and democratic tendencies of the 
 Cortes, who had been enabled, by the assistance of 
 British arms, to assemble and keep together. 
 Great Britain, he said, bemg almost a republic 
 herself, and being eager to swallow up the Spanish 
 commerce and colonies, had encouraged Jacobin- 
 ism and anarchy in Spain, in order to destroy 
 both the monarchy and the nobility, and erect a 
 weak dependent republic. This state of things 
 could not but be distressing to France, the near 
 neighbour of Spain, and therefore it was that the 
 Emperor Napoleon was so anxious to prevent it, by 
 restoring Ferdinand, and concluding a previous 
 treaty of amity and alliance with him. At last the 
 captive prince consented that one of the Spanish 
 noblemen in France should negotiate a treaty with 
 M. Laforest. The Duque de San Carlos was 
 immediately dispatched by Bonaparte to Valengay ; 
 and on the 11th of December (1813) a treaty was 
 concluded and signed. It stated that the Emperor 
 of the French recognised Ferdinand VII. and his 
 successors as kings of Spain and of the Indies; 
 that the Emperor of the French recognised the 
 integrity of the Spanish territory as it existed before 
 the war, and would deliver up to the Spaniards 
 such provinces and fortified places as the French 
 still occupied in Spain ; that Ferdinand VII. obliged 
 himself to maintain the integrity of his territory 
 &c., and to make the English evacuate all provinces 
 and places in or belonging to Spain immediately ; 
 that the two contracting powers bound themselves 
 to maintain their maritime rights against England, 
 
 &c.; that all Spaniards who had adhered to King 
 Joseph should re-enter upon the honours, rights, — 
 
 and privileges which they had enjoyed under him, 
 
 and upon all the property of which they might 
 have been deprived by the Cortes, and that all 
 
 prisoners on both sides should be immediately 
 
 sent home. [This last clause, if it could have been — 
 
 executed, would have given to Bonaparte, at the 
 critical moment, many thousands of veteran troops, 
 
 whereas he had few or none of that description of — 
 
 force to give back to Spain.J* Ferdinand now 
 
 : 
 : 
 | 
 | 
 : 
 
 addressed a letter to the Spanish regency, this — 
 
 * Ferdinand also bound himself to pay annually to his father, 
 Charles IV., the sum of 30,000,000 reals ; and in case of his father’s 
 death, an annuity of 2,000,000 reals to the ex-queen, his mother. 
 
bi) 03 elie 
 
 Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 being the first communication which he had know- 
 ingly been permitted to hold with his own country 
 since his entrapment at Bayonne. Of the Cortes, 
 the representatives of the nation, he took no notice ; 
 and it was evidently his wish, and the counsel of 
 his brother Don Carlos, his uncle Don Antonio, 
 and the other Spaniards who surrounded him, that 
 the Cortes should cease to exist. Some rational 
 doubts may be entertained as to some subsequent 
 parts of these mysterious transactions, for they are 
 told on one hand by partisans of Ferdinand, who 
 wish to save the character and enhance the pa- 
 triotism and political penetration of their king, 
 and they are related on the other hand by dis- 
 appointed, enraged Liberales, who maintain that 
 their prince, or king, was a drivelling idiot, capa- 
 ble of trick and cunning, but incapable of patriot- 
 ism or any other magnanimous feeling. According 
 to one party, he knew, through Madame de Talley- 
 rand and the light of his own reason, that the 
 downfall of Bonaparte was a certainty ; and, even 
 without this consoling knowledge, he would have 
 preferred remaining in his captivity and exposed 
 to the old fate of dethroned and imprisoned kings 
 (with which, they say, he was more than once 
 menaced), to returning to the Spanish throne with 
 dishonour to himself, or danger or dishonour to 
 the Spanish nation. According to the other ex- 
 treme party, he still believed in the irresistible 
 destiny of Bonaparte; he would even now have 
 consented to a matrimonial alliance with the Bona- 
 parte family; and he cared not to what dishonour 
 he sunk himself and his country, provided he could 
 only return to reign, to re-establish the Inquisition, 
 and to take a bloody vengeance on the men who 
 had revived the ancient and free institutions of 
 Spain. But the story, as told by Ferdinand’s 
 apologists, is sufficiently base. The Duque de 
 San Carlos, who had negotiated the treaty, was 
 made the bearer of it, and of Ferdinand’s royal 
 letter to the Regency. And the Duque was 
 secretly instructed by the king to inquire into 
 the spirit of the Regency and Cortes, and if he 
 should find them devout, loyal men (and not 
 tainted with infidelity and Jacobinism), he was 
 then to let the Regency know—but in the greatest 
 secrecy—that his royal intention really was that 
 the treaty should be ratified, if it could be done 
 without injury to the good faith which Spain 
 owed to her allies, and without injury to the public 
 weal. Should the Regency be of opinion that the 
 treaty might be ratified upon an understanding 
 with England temporarily, and until his return to 
 Spain should be effected, upon the supposition that 
 he (without whose free approbation it could not be 
 complete) would not ratify it when at liberty, but 
 declare it to have been constrained and null, then 
 and in that case he wished the Regency so to 
 ratify it, because the French could not reasonably 
 reproach him, if, having acquired information con- 
 cerning the real state of Spain, which had been 
 withheld from him in his captivity, he should re- 
 fuse to confirm the treaty. But, continued these 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 675 
 
 Jesuitical instructions, which were meant to dupe 
 the Spanish Liberales as well as Bonaparte, if the 
 Duque de San Carlos should, upon his diligent and 
 secret inquiry, find out that the Regency and the 
 Cortes were really infected with infidelity and 
 Jacobinism, then he was to reserve his explana- 
 tions, and simply demand from them the ratifica- 
 tion of the said treaty; for, if such were the 
 principles of the governing party in Spain, the 
 sooner the king returned to curb it the better, and 
 the ratification of the treaty by them would not 
 prevent his majesty from continuing the war 
 against the French, if the interest and good faith 
 of the Spanish nation should require it. But this 
 last reserved intention of King Ferdinand was to 
 be kept profoundly secret, close in the deepest 
 recesses of the Duque de San Carlos’s Spanish 
 heart, lest through any babbling or treachery it 
 should be made known to the French government. 
 
 The duque travelled from Valencay under a 
 feigned name, as M. de Laforest had travelled to 
 that place, Ferdinand being apparently quite as 
 anxious as Bonaparte that his mission should not 
 be suspected by the English. The duque took the 
 eastern road, entered Spain by Catalonia, and, with 
 the treaty of Valengay and the royal letter in his 
 pocket, he arrived secretly at Suchet’s head-quar- 
 ters, on his way to Madrid. It is said that this 
 arrival had the immediate effect of paralyzing the 
 Spanish corps d’armée of General Copons, who 
 had promised to co-operate actively with General 
 Clinton, but who was now fully informed by some 
 of Suchet’s people, or by the Duque de San Carlos 
 himself, that amicable arrangements had been en- 
 tered into, which would render equally unnecessary 
 the presence of Clinton’s and Wellington’s armies, 
 and any further campaigning or fighting on the 
 part of any of the Spanish generals. It is added, 
 that, but for the promptitude with which the 
 Cortes quashed the worse than. duplex treaty, 
 General Copons, regardless of the safety of 
 Clinton and his army, would have concluded a 
 separate armistice with Marshal Suchet. The 
 Spanish regency was now a nullity, as the 
 Cortes, with their one chamber or house, had made 
 themselves an executive as well as legislative body, 
 and had monopolised all the powers of government. 
 When San Carlos made the treaty known, he found 
 that the Cortes were not so very anxious for the 
 return of their sovereign, and that they would not 
 ratify the treaty either with or without the mental 
 reservation which Ferdinand recommended. On 
 the 8th of January the regency, at the bidding of 
 the Cortes, replied to his most Catholic majesty, 
 that they were happy to hear of his good health and 
 noble sentiments ; that they and the Spanish peo- 
 ple were very faithful, loyal, and affectionate ; that 
 they would continue to make the greatest sacrifices 
 to see him placed upon the throne of love and jus- 
 tice which they had prepared for him; but that 
 for the present they must content themselves with 
 declaring that he was the beloved and desired of 
 the whole nation. And then followed their abso- 
 
lute rejection of the treaty. It was their duty, 
 they said, to put him in possession of a decree 
 passed by the Cortes on the Ist of January, 1811. 
 And this decree, which they enclosed in their an- 
 swer to Ferdinand, was that by which the Cortes 
 enacted that no treaty concluded by the king dur- 
 ing his restraint and captivity could be recognised 
 by Spain. Bonaparte, who was now as eager to 
 withdraw the remnant of his troops from Spain as 
 ever he had been to send his armies thither, re- 
 leased Generals Palafox and Zayas from the donjon 
 of Vincennes, and sent them to Valengay, to per- 
 suade Ferdinand to exert himself in order to pro- 
 cure an immediate armistice between Suchet and 
 the Spanish generals. Don Pedro de Macanaz 
 had arrived before, and the canon Escoiquiz soon 
 followed Palafox and Zayas: the canon had appa- 
 rently the same mission as the two generals, and, 
 as a churchman, he might be eager for the re- 
 storation of his king, as the most probable means 
 of putting an end to the war which the Cortes were 
 madly waging against church property and eccle- 
 siastical dignitaries. M. de Laforest, who conti- 
 nued at Valencay, now proposed to the assembled 
 Spaniards, that they should all exert themselves in 
 working out the wishes of King Ferdinand and of 
 the Emperor Napoleon for a general suspension of 
 hostilities, ‘‘ humanity requiring that all useless 
 expenditure of blood should be avoided.” Mar- 
 shal Suchet had been appointed by the emperor 
 his commissioner for executing the evacuation of 
 the Spanish fortresses and territory ; Suchet had 
 full powers to treat for an armistice, and it there- 
 fore depended solely upon the Spanish govern- 
 ment to expedite this business and put an end 
 to the horrors of war, which had so long desolated 
 their country. ‘The generous emperor, too, was 
 quite ready to release all his Spanish prisoners ; 
 the generals and officers should travel post, the 
 common soldiers should be marched to the frontier, 
 and be delivered up as fast as they arrived. Could 
 Spaniards who loved their king and country hesi- 
 tate? Macanaz and Escoiquiz assented to all that 
 the French diplomatists said, and Palafox under- 
 took to go into Spain and there endeavour to ac- 
 complish his wishes. ‘This was before the Duque 
 de San Carlos had reached Madrid, or before any 
 intelligence had been received from him.  Ferdi- 
 nand therefore gave Palafox a duplicate of the 
 duque’s commission, in case any accident might 
 have befallen that incognito envoy upon the road ; 
 and also a letter, in which he, the king, expressed 
 his belief that the regency would have ratified the 
 treaty before Palafox’s arrival at Madrid. But 
 at the same time Ferdinand gave Palafox secret 
 instructions to see the English ambassador at Ma- 
 drid, and tell him, in the king’s name, that the 
 treaty was a hoax. Palafox arrived safely at the 
 Spanish capital, but his journey was useless. On 
 the 28th of January the regency, or rather the 
 Cortes, replied that they must refer his majesty to 
 their former letter and to the decree therein con- 
 tained ; that an ambassador extraordinary and ple- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 nipotentiary had now been named on his majesty’s 
 behalf, to attend a congress (the congress of Cha- 
 tillon), in which the allied powers were about to 
 give peace to Europe; that in that congress the 
 Spanish treaty would be concluded; that it would 
 soon be ratified, not by the regency, but by his 
 majesty himself in his royal palace of Madrid, &c. 
 
 Lord Wellington had been vexed by these — 
 transactions ; but he had not been taken by sur- 
 prise. He had clearly foreseen that Bonaparte 
 would adopt some measures of the sort in order to 
 get back Suchet’s army, and to excite disturbances 
 in Spain. He had obtained information respecting 
 the mysterious journey of the Duque de San Car- 
 los, of the treaty of which he was the bearer, and 
 of the papers connected with it: he knew perfectly 
 well of Palafox’s expedition ; and he expected that 
 Bonaparte would make a second effort, and meet 
 the wishes of the Cortes by withdrawing his troops 
 from Spain without exacting any conditions. But 
 he was indignant at the conduct of General Copons 
 in concealing what he knew of the Duque de San 
 Carlos’ arrival and the nature of his mission, and 
 in making no report to him. His lordship knew 
 better than any man that the irreconcilable preten- 
 sions of the Liberales and royalists must sooner 
 or later plunge Spain into an anarchy; but he 
 hoped to have done with the war before this great 
 storm could break out in his rear. 
 
 As soon as his lordship could get his supplies, 
 and could put his army in motion, he commenced 
 a series of operations intended to drive Marshal 
 Soult, not only from his entrenched camp under 
 the walls of Bayonne, but also from all the country 
 on the left of the Adour. Early in February, in 
 spite of the badness of the weather and the roads, 
 he, by a succession of brilliant movements and 
 partial engagements, drove Soult before him, 
 making him abandon the Bidasoa altogether, quit 
 his entrenched camp and cross the Gave d’Ol¢ron, 
 an afiluent of the Adour. On the 27th of February 
 he fell upon the marshal’s army concentrated at 
 Orthez, routed it, and pursued it to the banks of 
 the Adour. In this battle of Orthez the allies had 
 277 killed and about 2000 wounded or missing ; 
 but the French loss was very great in the battle, 
 and still greater in the retreat, for the fresh con- 
 scripts deserted in masses, throwing away their 
 arms, and flying like a rabble. On the Ist of 
 March Wellington’s head-quarters were at St. 
 Sever, beyond the Adour. Through the victory of 
 Orthez and this rapid advance, the French garrison 
 in Bayonne was left to its own resources, and the 
 high road to the important city of Bordeaux—a 
 city teeming with royalists and counter-reyolu- 
 tionists—was thrown open to the allies. Sir John 
 Hope, with a division of the army, immediately 
 invested Bayonne; and Marshal Beresford was 
 detached with two divisions to occupy Bordeaux. 
 On the arrival of Beresford the mayor and most 
 of the inhabitants of Bordeaux, of their own 
 accord, proclaimed Louis XVIII. As the allied 
 powers had not yet pledged themselves to support 
 
Cua. VIII] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 677 
 
 R aw 
 "My e. aw 
 Nae arta 
 
 eal 
 
 “3 7 — 
 GRE tel ewe 
 
 BAYONNE. 
 
 the Bourbon cause, or not to treat with Bonaparte 
 as the ruler of France, Lord Wellington had most 
 particularly and emphatically instructed Beresford 
 not to originate nor encourage any rising of the 
 Bourbon party ; on no account to encourage hopes 
 which might be disappointed, or to excite insur- 
 rectionary movements which might be put down 
 and avenged with blood, if the allied sovereigns 
 should eventually negotiate a peace with the pre- 
 sent ruler, and leave Bonaparte on the throne of 
 France. In all directions the same delicate regard 
 was paid to the future safety of the French roy- 
 alists, nor was any encouragement given to them 
 as an active counter-revolutionary party until 
 Bonaparte had abdicated the throne and taken his 
 departure to the island of Elba. A general insur- 
 rection of the south would have facilitated the 
 work in hand, and would have given great satisfac- 
 tion to the Bourbon princes and their agents, who 
 for some time past had constantly surrounded and 
 importuned the British general, and who had not 
 unfrequently complained that he was injuring their 
 cause by throwing cold water upon the loyal 
 enthusiasm of the French; but it suited not the 
 political morality of Wellington to commit the lives 
 and fortunes of these royalists before he knew that 
 they would not be abandoned by the allies. And 
 yet, while Wellington was pursuing this line of con- 
 duct, and while the headlong French royalists were 
 blaming him for not protecting them from the 
 consequences of their own rash conduct, Marshal 
 Soult and General Count Gazan issued a turgid 
 and insulting proclamation, accusing the British 
 commander of fomenting revolt and civil war in 
 France ; of seeking to obtain, by means of intestine 
 factions, those advantages which he could not gain 
 by the sword. And this, too, was said when the 
 
 sword of Wellington had cut his way from the 
 
 frontiers of Portugal far into the interior of France, 
 unaided, unsupported, but thwarted or impeded by 
 an infinitude of causes which would have broken 
 the heart or have turned the brain of almost any 
 other commander. This disgraceful proclamation, 
 which could still deceive thousands of Frenchmen 
 remote from the scene of action, did, indeed, go to 
 prove the justness of a remark which his lordship 
 had made long ago, when the system was in its 
 perfection—that it was impossible for people in 
 France to know the truth, the whole system of 
 Bonaparte’s government being based on trickery 
 and deception. 
 
 On the 18th of March Lord Wellington ad- 
 vanced his victorious army to Vic Bigorre, and 
 Soult retreated to some good positions at Tarbes. 
 It was thought that the French marshal would 
 stand and fight a general battle here, but he did 
 not, continuing, on the 20th, his retreat towards 
 Toulouse, where he arrived on the 24th. The 
 main object of Soult’s movements was to facilitate 
 a junction with Marshal Suchet, who, through the 
 imbecility of King Ferdinand and the want of 
 activity and daring in Copons and the other Spa- 
 nish generals in the east, had been allowed to 
 withdraw 14,000 men from Catalonia, in addition 
 to another force, of from 8000 to 10,000, which 
 he had previously detached into France. Seeing 
 that nothing could be gained by keeping him, 
 while there was a chance of gaining much by re- 
 leasing him, Bonaparte ordered Ferdinand to be 
 let loose from his pleasant prison bower at Valen- 
 cay, and whisked across the Pyrenees. The cap- 
 tive king reached Perpignan on the 22nd of 
 March, and there agreed with Suchet to allow 
 him to withdraw, not only the forces he had in the 
 field, but also the garrisons he had in the fortresses 
 of Catalonia, which garrisons were all blockaded 
 
 eR 
 
678 
 
 by Spanish troops, and very near the capitulating 
 point. But the Cortes had previously resolved 
 that these garrisons should not be allowed to return 
 to France with their arms; and they referred the 
 question of the king’s unwise agreement with 
 Suchet to Lord Wellington, who declared, in the 
 strongest manner, that the said garrisons in Cata- 
 lonia, or any other French force whatsoever, 
 ought to be allowed no capitulation, except on the 
 condition of their being prisoners of war. From 
 15,000 to 18,000 Frenchmen were shut up in 
 these garrisons; they were not conscripts, but, for 
 the most part, veteran troops, with a spirit as yet 
 unbroken by any decisive defeat ; and, if Suchet 
 could have united his whole force and have 
 brought it to join Soult on the Garonne, the 
 enemy must have been too strong for Wellington, 
 whose forces were much weakened by the blockade 
 of Bayonne and the occupation of Bordeaux. 
 Suchet, however, had already detached 10,000 
 men into France, and he was allowed to move off 
 with ‘the 14,000 disposable men he had in the 
 field. From the defiles of Catalonia, where he 
 ought to have been crushed or reduced to the plight 
 of Dupont at Baylen, Marshal Suchet marched 
 across the broad isthmus which joins France to 
 the Pyrenees and to Spain; but it was the begin- 
 ning of April before he reached Narbonne, and 
 then he halted. He had still a very long march 
 to perform before he could join Soult. And, as 
 part of the Austrian army, which had poured into 
 France through Switzerland, had reached Lyons, 
 and had established its outposts considerably to 
 the south of that great city, he may have had some 
 apprehension that they would interpose in force 
 between him and Toulouse. Besides, it is evident 
 that he had never had any great desire to place 
 himself under Soult’s orders, or to unite the un- 
 broken veterans he had saved to the broken and 
 disorderly army which could stand nowhere. 
 
 Soult, as we have seen, arrived at Toulouse on 
 the 24th of March; on the 27th Wellington was 
 close to him, in front of Toulouse; but the broad, 
 deep, and rapid river Garomne flowed between them, 
 the best passages were defended by French artil- 
 lery, and the English pontoons and other means of 
 carrying over troops, cannon, and stores, were very 
 defective. It was therefore the 9th of April before 
 Wellington got the allied army to the right bank 
 of the Garonne. On the 10th was fought the 
 bloody battle of Toulouse. This has been held to 
 have been a useless display of heroism, and unneces- 
 sary waste of human life; but the British general 
 knew not the events and causes which had rendered 
 the combat unnecessary; and in fighting he had 
 one grand object in view, which was to beat and 
 scatter the army of Soult before it could be joined 
 by Suchet, and to prevent that union of the two 
 marshals which might have revived the hopes of 
 the abdicating emperor, and have brought him 
 down to the South to try another throw of the dice. 
 If this had happened, and if the Austrians had not 
 moved forward from Lyons with much more ra- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 t's Bae eS Le 
 t 4p Ne 
 
 ~ 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 pidity than they usually employed, the weakened 
 army of Wellington would have been exposed at 
 least to the chances of a defeat, and of a long and 
 disastrous retreat. Soult now occupied anozher 
 entrenched camp of a very formidable description, 
 on the eastern side of the city of Toulouse, on a 
 range of heights between the river Ers and the 
 great canal of Languedoc. He had redoubts and 
 entrenchments, and tremendous tétes de pont both 
 on the river and on the canal, which must both be 
 crossed by the allies. Although Bonaparte had 
 made very large drafts upon Soult’s army of the 
 South to strengthen his own army in Champagne, 
 the marshal had pretty nearly an equality of num- 
 bers, while in artillery he had a great superiority. 
 According to the best calculation which has been 
 made, Soult had not less than 42,000 men, while 
 Wellington had, in British, Germans, and Portu- 
 guese about 30,000, and in Spaniards about 15,000. 
 Nearly the whole position was bristling with Soult’s 
 guns; and many of these were so placed in battery 
 on the summits of hills that they could make a ° 
 plunging fire into the ascending attacking columns. 
 Moreover, there were many strongly built houses, 
 which had been fortified and crammed with d7raz/- 
 leurs: and there were scattered villages, strong 
 stone walls separating the vineyards and orchards, 
 and a multiplicity of streamlets, and of trenches 
 cut for the purposes of irrigation. © All the roads, 
 too, were detestable, some of them knee-deep with 
 mud or soft slippery clay, which was far more dis- 
 advantageous to those who had to march consider- 
 able distances to get to the attack than to those 
 who were fixed and stationary, and who had te © 
 meet the attack behind prepared and fortified lines.* 
 Most fortunately the 18th hussars,-under the im- 
 mediate command of Colonel Vivian, had attacked 
 and defeated a superior body of French cavalry, 
 had driven them through the village of Croix 
 d’Orade, had taken about 100 prisoners, and had 
 given the allies possession of an important bridge 
 over the Ers. As day dawned on the morning of 
 the 10th of April (it was Easter Sunday, the 
 holiest of all Sabbaths, a day of peace and recon- 
 ciliation, and the church-bells of the distant vil- 
 lages were calling the devout peasantry to matins 
 and early mass) the columns of the allies began to 
 move to their various points of attack, and to one 
 of the fiercest and deadliest scenes that war can 
 present. . Marshal Beresford moved first with the 
 4th and 6th divisions, who crossed the Ers by the 
 bridge of Croix d’Orade, gained after some hard 
 fighting possession of the village of Montblanc, 
 and then attacked and carried some heights on 
 Soult’s right, and the redoubt which had been in-— 
 tended to cover and protect that flank: but the 
 French were still in possession of four other re-— 
 doubts, and of the entrenchments and fortified 
 houses, from which they could not be dislodged 
 without artillery—and to drag heavy guns up those — 
 
 * It had rained pitilessly for many days; and the rain, besides 
 making the bad roads worse, had swelled the river Garonne, hac 
 delayed the passage of the allied army, and had given Soult the more 
 time te complete his defences. 
 
Cuapr. VIII. ] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—i814. 
 
 679 
 
 IN 
 4 
 
 a 3 ‘ ! 
 j yey fey iin \ 
 WH 
 
 il 
 
 TOULOUSE. 
 
 steeps and along those execrable roads was work 
 that must require great time, and the exertions of 
 men as well as horses. Nearly at the same moment 
 that Beresford fell upon Soult’s right, Wellington 
 threw forward the Spanish division of General 
 Freyre to fall upon Soult’s left. At first these Spa- 
 niards were repulsed, and, being panic-stricken by 
 the destructive fire of the French redoubts, and 
 then being charged by French bayonets, they stag- 
 gered, wavered, and began a flight down the hills, 
 which might have been attended with very fatal 
 consequences ; but one Spanish regiment, the Tira- 
 dores de Cantabria, got well under the French 
 entrenchments, stood as firm as a rock, and then 
 the British light division, coming up at the charging 
 pace, rallied the Spaniards who had given ground, 
 and advanced with them to the attack with an irre- 
 sistible fury, and with a contempt of wounds and 
 death. General Mendizabal, who was in the field 
 as a volunteer, General Espeleta, several chiefs of 
 corps, and officers of the staff were wounded, and 
 the men were mowed down by whole ranks at a 
 time; but there they stood on the brow of that 
 bloody hill until Wellington was enabled to rem- 
 force them, and until Beresford had made sure of 
 the victory by breaking, crushing, and turning the 
 French right. Beresford had been obliged by 
 the badness of the roads to leave his artillery in the 
 village of Montblanc ; and, notwithstanding all the 
 exertions that were made, some time elapsed before 
 the guns could be brought up. During this trying 
 interval Beresford’s two divisions were exposed to 
 the hottest fire of Soult’s batteries; but the men 
 sheltered themselves as best they could behind 
 the redoubt they had captured. As soon as his 
 
 artillery arrived (it was about the hour of noon), 
 Beresford continued his movement along the 
 ridge, and carried, with the single brigade of Ge- 
 neral Pack, the two principal redoubts, and all 
 the fortified houses in the enemy’s centre. The 
 enemy made a desperate effort from the side of the 
 canal of Languedoc to regain those redoubts, but 
 they were repulsed by the British bayonets with 
 considerable loss ; General Taupin, who had led 
 them on, was slain; and, Beresford’s sixth division 
 continuing its movement along the ridge of the 
 heights, and the Spanish troops making a corre- 
 sponding movement upon the front, the French 
 were soon driven from the two redoubts and the 
 entrenchments they had on their left; and the 
 whole range of heights, which Soult and his en- 
 gineer officers had taken such pains to fortify, 
 
 _remained in the undisturbed possession of the allies 
 
 and of Marshal Beresford. The ground not ad- 
 mitting of the operations of our cavalry, they had 
 no opportunity of charging the retiring foe, whe 
 withdrew with some confusion across the canal of 
 Languedoc into the town of Toulouse, which Soult 
 at one time thought of defending. Victory could 
 not be gained upon such ground, and in the teeth 
 of so many strong works, without great loss: 600 
 of the allies lay dead on the field, about 4000 were 
 wounded ; Colonel Coghlan of the 61st was killed 
 in the attack on the heights, General Pack was 
 wounded, Colonel Douglas of the 8th Portuguese 
 regiment lost his leg, and many brave officers were 
 maimed and disabled. There is the usual difficulty 
 in striking the balance of loss: Soult confessed to 
 3200 in killed and wounded ; and, as his people 
 had fought in good part under cover, and had not 
 
ee 
 
 —~ - . nite 2 
 
 680 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Book X. 
 
 contended long after they had lost their redoubts, 
 fortified houses, and entrenchments, it is probable 
 that his army suffered somewhat less than the allies. 
 Our loss fell the heaviest on Marshal Beresford’s 
 sixth division ; for, although his fourth division had 
 been exposed on their march along the French front 
 to a galling fire, they were not so much engaged as 
 the sixth. Other divisions of the army were not 
 engaged at all. But Picton, with his fighting third 
 division, got his Welsh head heated, and committed 
 an act of imprudence, engaging in earnest where 
 he had been ordered only to make a feint, and 
 storming a tremendous téle de pont which he had 
 been ordered to observe. In the repulse sustained 
 at this point a good many of the fighting men were 
 Jaid low, Major-General Brisbane was wounded, 
 and Colonel Forbes of the 45th was killed. Before 
 the hour of Ave Maria the allies were established 
 on three sides of Toulouse, and the French were 
 driven by Sir Rowland Hill from their exterior 
 works in the suburb on the left of the Garonne 
 within the ancient walls of the town.* 
 
 On the night of the 11th Soult evacuated Toulouse 
 by the only road which was yet open to him, and 
 retired by Castelnaudary to Carcassonne. He left 
 behind him in the town 1600 wounded men, three 
 generals (Harispe, Baurot, and St. Hilaire), various 
 pieces of artillery, large quantities of ammunition, 
 and stores of all descriptions. All these were taken by 
 the allies. On the 12th Wellington entered Tou- 
 louse, to the infinite joy of the inhabitants, who 
 were thus relieved from the dread of a siege. His 
 lordship found the white flag of the Bourbons fly- 
 ing, and all the authorities and a large proportion 
 of the inhabitants wearing white cockades and 
 scarfs. The mayor had quitted the town with 
 Soult’s army, but his adjoint, with a numerous 
 deputation, presented an address to his lordship, 
 requesting him to receive the key of the good and 
 loyal city, in the name of ‘ Our dear King,”’ Louis 
 XVIII., who had become the dearer through 
 twenty years of cruel suffering ; and also to accept 
 on his own account the boundless gratitude which 
 the people of Toulouse felt for his lordship’s grand, 
 generous, and (in history) unparalleled conduct. 
 Lord Wellington told them, as he had told the 
 people of Bordeaux, that the only wish of the 
 government he served was, and ever had been, a 
 peace founded upon justice, and the independence 
 of Europe; that he had every reason to believe 
 that ambassadors of the allied powers were still 
 engaged in negotiating such a peace, “ if it were 
 possible to obtain it from the actual government 
 of France ;” that he saw that the city of Tou- 
 louse, like a great many other towns of France, 
 contained persons who were anxious to throw 
 off the yoke and to assist in the restoration of the 
 House of Bourbon, but that they must judge 
 for themselves whether, after the information he 
 had given them, it would be prudent for them to 
 declare against the existing government. If they 
 should declare in favour of the Bourbons it would 
 
 * Wellington Dispatches. 
 
 be his duty to treat them as allies so long as the 
 war lasted; but he must remind them that, if the 
 allics should make peace with Napoleon, it would 
 not be in his power after such peace to give them 
 any more assistance or protection. But the people 
 of Toulouse had already committed themselves by 
 hoisting the white flag, and they were now knock- 
 ing the statue of Napoleon from its base and pulling 
 down and destroying the eagles and other emblems 
 of the imperial government; and in the afternoon 
 of that day the English Colonel Cooke and the 
 French Colonel St. Simon arrived from Paris, with 
 the news that the allies had entered the I’rench 
 capital, that a provisional government had been 
 established in the name of Louis X VIII., and that 
 Bonaparte had abdicated at Fontainebleau as far 
 back as the 4th of April, or six days before the 
 battle of Toulouse was fought. From Lord Wel- 
 lington’s head-quarters Colonels Cooke and St. 
 Simon proceeded to those of Marshal Soult. They 
 had a good ride for it, as Soult’s army had gone off 
 at such speed that they had marched twenty-two 
 miles in the first night. They were furnished with 
 intelligence and with documents of the most un- 
 doubted authenticity, but the French marshal said 
 he could not think himself justified in submitting 
 to the provisional government, as he had received 
 no orders or information from the Emperor Napo- 
 leon. All that Soult would do was to propose an 
 armistice. In a polite and delicate letter, written 
 on the 14th, Lord Wellington excused himself 
 from accepting the armistice, unless the marshal 
 should previously acknowledge the provisional 
 government of France. It seemed still imperative 
 to prevent the junction of Soult and Suchet, whose 
 two armies might become the noyaw of a civil war 
 in France in favour of Napoleon’s pretensions for 
 his’son the King of Rome, or in favour of Napo- 
 leon himself. That daring, desperate man had not 
 yet quitted France; his act of abdication might not 
 be very binding upon one who had never been 
 bound by any act or treaty ; he was not a prisoner, 
 but still surrounded by many of his devoted guards ; 
 by the route traced out for him to go to the island 
 of Elba, he must traverse the southern provinces 
 and approach Suchet’s army—and might he not 
 join it? Thus the same reasons which induced the 
 British general to give battle at Toulouse still 
 continued, and were, perhaps, strengthened by the 
 
 information he now possessed on the real state 
 
 of affairs; and therefore it was that he refused 
 
 the armistice and made his preparations for pur- — 
 On the 16th and 17th the allied — 
 
 suing Soult. 
 army marched towards Castelnaudary and Car- 
 cassonne. 
 
 and in the course of the 17th General Gazan came 
 down from Soult’s head-quarters to inform his 
 lordship that the marshal had at length acknow- 
 ledged the provisional government. 
 
 presented a letter from Soult himself, who stated 
 
 | that he had received orders from Marshal Berthier — 
 
 On the 16th Lord Wellington dis- | 
 patched another officer, who had been sent from — 
 Paris, to Marshal Soult with fuller information ; 
 
 Gazan also 
 
Cuar. VIII 
 
 to stop all hostilities and conclude a friendly con- 
 yention with Lord Wellington. This convention 
 was settled and signed on the 18th, and a line of 
 demarcation was drawn between the two armies. 
 The head-quarters of Wellington remained at 
 Toulouse. On the next day, Marshal Suchet 
 concluded a like convention. On the 21st, Lord 
 Wellington, by general orders, congratulated his 
 gallant army on the near prospect of the termina- 
 tion of their toils and dangers, and thanked them 
 “for their uniform discipline and gallantry in the 
 field, and for their conciliating conduct towards the 
 inhabitants of the country.” 
 
 On the 14th of April, four days after Soult’s 
 defeat at Toulouse, and when the allies were in 
 possession of that city, and the French were flying 
 from it, General Thouvenot, who commanded in 
 Bayonne—who had once been aide-de-camp and 
 chief of the staff to Dumouriez, but who had become 
 one of the most resolute and fiercest of all the Bona- 
 partists—chose to make a desperate sortie upon the 
 unprepared allies, who had received the intelligence 
 from Paris, and who believed that the beleaguered 
 French, who for some time had been very inactive, 
 had the same information, and would feel the inu- 
 tility and barbarity of shedding more blood for a 
 cause that was now lost. The real state of affairs 
 at Paris had been communicated to Thouvenot by 
 General Sir John Hope the day before, and, judg- 
 ing of other men by his own generous nature, Hope 
 evidently could not conceive that the French gene- 
 ral could be capable of what must now be consi- 
 dered a base surprise, a savage spite, and a wilful 
 shedding of blood. As the works of the siege had 
 not commenced, there were neither guns nor stores 
 upon the ground to tempt the sortie. The invest- 
 ing forces were quiet in their positions and canton- 
 ments, and many of them were buried in sleep, 
 and dreaming of a sneedy return to their own 
 countries, when the French, long before it was 
 daylight, sallied from the citadel of Bayonne in 
 ereat strength, rushed upon the village of St. [ti- 
 enne, and upon the allied pickets in the centre, and 
 gained some momentary advantages, bayoneting 
 the surprised men, killing Major-General Hay, 
 and wounding Major-General Stopford. Sir John 
 Hope, ever foremost when there was danger, 
 mounted his horse, and galloped up in the dark 
 to direct the advance of more troops to the support 
 of the pickets. He was presently surrounded, his 
 horse was shot under him and fell, he received two 
 very severe wounds, and before he could extricate 
 himself from under his horse he was made pri- 
 soner. For some time the opponents could only 
 distinguish each other’s ranks by the flashing of 
 the muskets. The fighting was very severe; but 
 it was terminated by British bayonet charges ; the 
 French were driven back, the little ground which 
 had been lost was all recovered, and by seven 
 o'clock our pickets were re-posted on their ori- 
 ginal points. But between killed and wounded 
 and taken the allies had lost 800 men,* It was, 
 
 * Among the killed, besides General Hay, there were Colonel Sir 
 Ii. Sullivan and Captain Crofton of the Guards. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 SS Sn LL a a e a SIE IE TTS 
 
 68] 
 
 under the circumstances, scarcely a consolation to 
 know that the French had suffered at the least as 
 severely.* This was the last affair of the war: 
 but the battle of Toulouse was the last real batile, 
 and the winding-up of Wellington’s war-doings 
 with Soult. It was, as we have shewn, a remark- 
 able combat ; but the most remarkable part of the 
 story yet remains to be told—the French claimed, 
 and to this day most pertinaciously and loudly 
 claim, the victory! It has been well said—*“ Did 
 Marshal Soult fight this battle to retain possession 
 of the heights which he had fortified, and which 
 
 commanded the town? If so, he lost them. Did 
 he fight to keep possession of Toulouse? If so, he 
 
 lost that.’+ We have Marshal Soult’s own words 
 for the fact that he did intend to keep possession 
 of the heights, to fight a battle for them, and to 
 keep possession of ‘Toulouse, cost him what it 
 might ; and we have also his own words for the 
 other fact, that after he had fought the battle, he 
 found that he had lost the heights, that he could 
 not keep the town, and that nothing was left him 
 but a quick retreat. Ifa quick retreat, and the 
 loss of 1600 prisoners, of three general officers, and 
 of cannon and stores, are good proofs of victory, 
 Soult’s victory of Toulouse may remain unques- 
 tioned ; but not otherwise. 
 
 We now turn to the military operations in other 
 parts of France. Of his old army the Emperor of 
 the French had upon the Rhine no more than 
 70,000 or 80,000 men to oppose to the allies, who 
 advanced upon that frontier with 160,000 men, 
 and who had numerous reinforcements coming on 
 in rapid advance through Germany. The new 
 conscription remained very unproductive, and such 
 of the conscripts as were brought in, being for the 
 most part beardless boys, were of small present 
 value in war. From Italy not a man nor a 
 musket could be drawn, for Murat had joined the 
 allies, and, with the Austrians, was overpowering 
 Kugene Beauharnais. No assistance was to be 
 expected from any other part of Europe: since the 
 overthrow of the Danes by Bernadotte, Bonaparte 
 had ceased to have an ally. Some of his counsel- 
 lors and advisers—some of the ex-Jacobins—spoke 
 
 * General Thouvenot’s conduct was throughout discreditable. 
 The capture of Sir John Hope, and the knowledge that he was very 
 severely, if not mortally, wounded, carried affliction to the bosom of 
 every man who had been serving under him. Major-General C, 
 Colville, who succeeded to the command, sent a flag of truce to 
 request that Hope’s friend, Colonel Macdonald, might be admitted 
 into the fortress to see him, and carry him assistance, Thouvenot 
 refused the request. Afterwards, General Colville had sone hope 
 that Captain Wedderburn and some other friends with assistance 
 might be admitted, though only upon the condition of their not 
 returning. We believe that these hopes were not realised until the 
 moment when Thouvenot found himself compelled to submit to 
 the provisional government, and to act in conformity with Soult’s 
 convention, It was the embarrassing destiny of Louis XVIII. to 
 be obliged to honour and reward some very bad men who had 
 sprung from the Revolution, or who had struggled desperately 
 to keep Bonaparte upon the throne. Thus, on the 27th of June 
 following, the restored Bourbon king was made to confer the cross 
 of St. Louis upon Thouvenot, and to confirm him in his command 
 at Bayonne. In this case, as in thousands of other cases, the royal 
 favour was rather worse than thrown away. As soon as Bonaparte 
 returned from Elba, Thouvenot broke his oath of allegiance to 
 Louis, and declared for the emperor. ‘Yet in ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred French books relating to the history of the war, we 
 find Thouvenot applauded to the skies as a brave and honourable 
 man and true patriot, the climax of whose fame was his bloody and 
 useless sally from Bayonne! 
 
 ¢ Lord Burghersh. 
 
682 
 
 of the marvellous things which had been done by 
 the population in 1792-3, when France was in- 
 vaded by the Prussians, and recommended levies 
 en masse. But he felt the difference which existed 
 both in the spirit of the French people, and in 
 the spirit and number of the allies (things alto- 
 gether different now from what they were in the 
 earlier days of the Revolution). He had always 
 spoken contemptuously of popular risings, and 
 had always adhered to the opinion that no insur- 
 gents, no levies in mass, could stand against 
 regular armies, if those armies were not com- 
 manded by absolute fools or traitors. And his 
 utterly despotic and military form of government 
 had gone far to diminish the capability of the popu- 
 lation in this respect, and to break the springs of the 
 national character. The people too, from the habit 
 of long possession, had ceased to dread that the fruits 
 of the Revolution would be torn from them ; they no 
 longer thought that the restoration of the Bourbons 
 of necessity implied the restoration of church pro- 
 perty and the property of the aristocracy—a dread 
 which made a large part of the population rush to 
 arms in 1792. Besides Bonaparte detested any 
 direct appeal to the democracy, and had even 
 declared that such appeals must renew the Reign 
 of Terror and all the atrocities of Jacobinism. 
 His brothers and other friends have claimed for 
 him the merit of preferring to lose his throne to 
 the giving of any countenance to or the deriving 
 any assistance from that fierce and obscene 
 faction ; but the truth is, that he knew that, if he 
 encouraged the Jacobins to-day, they would de- 
 stroy his throne and his system to-morrow; and, 
 although he denied their efficacy as a defensive 
 army against the disciplined legions of the invaders, 
 he did not question their capability of effecting an 
 internal revolution. Their principles still extended 
 far and wide: they had been kept down only by a 
 thoroughly organised tyranny served by an im- 
 mense military force which no longer existed. 
 It was not out of regard to France or to humanity, 
 but out of regard to self, including therein his 
 system, which was part of himself, that Bonaparte 
 spurned the idea of appealing to the people for a 
 levy en masse or an alliance with the Jacobins, which 
 two things meant nearly one and the same thing. 
 ** On this occasion,”’ says a recent French writer, 
 “‘ the imperial court showed a distrust which was 
 not felt by the old dynasties: it was by exciting 
 their peoples to insurrection that the allied sove- 
 reigns had destroyed our armies ; and it was only by 
 following their example that we could now hope to 
 resist them. But Napoleon had an extreme re- 
 pugnance against all means of this sort; the only 
 prince that was the elect of the people, was also 
 the only one at this moment that feared to trust 
 the people. It was not until the departments of 
 the east were invaded by Schwartzenberg that the 
 ‘Moniteur’ coldly announced that the people en 
 masse were Called to arms. And thus this mea- 
 sure had no results whatever.” * 
 
 * Editors of ‘ Histoire Parlementaire.’ 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a a 
 é ) 
 % 
 
 Even that old militia, the Garde Nationale, 
 was an object of suspicion, particularly in Paris. ° 
 Its ranks might easily have been filled to a very 
 large amount ; but Bonaparte dreaded that it would 
 then assume a democratic form and revolutionary 
 spirit ; that the men of the faubourgs St. Antoine 
 and St. Marceau, with all those classes or orders of 
 men who had made it so terrible in the days of 
 Marat and Robespierre, would become a part of the 
 
 [ Book x 
 
 organization, and give to it their own sans-culottic - 
 
 character. It was not until the 8th of January 
 that the desperate Emperor could be induced to 
 think of re-organising and increasing the national 
 guard of Paris; and even then the great precau- 
 tions he took in order to exclude the faubourg 
 men and all the poorer classes had the effect of 
 keeping down the numbers, and of giving to the 
 corps the appearance of an anti-popular or dis- 
 tinct and privileged body. According to the 
 imperial desire, it was to be 30,000 strong, or 
 more; but the men were to be chosen only among 
 such as were believed to be the friends of order, 
 which meant the friends of the established govern- 
 ment. And provisorily this national guard was 
 composed only of 10,000 or 12,000 men, selected 
 for the most part from among the employés of 
 government, the officers and servants of ministers, 
 the court tradespeople, the public notaries, and, 
 in short, from among all those classes who directly 
 or indirectly depended upon the existing govern- 
 ment. The emperor himself took the first command 
 of this civic corps: the second command he gave 
 toold Marshal Moncey, who was too old, dull, and 
 submissive to give him any cause of umbrage; 
 and, that all sans-culottic tendencies might be 
 checked, he appointed to the command of the 
 several regiments or legions into which the corps 
 was divided a set of men who belonged to the old 
 aristocracy of France, but who had returned from 
 exile to enter his service, and to depend upon 
 him for their bread. Among these commanding 
 officers there was a Count de Montesquieu, cham- 
 berlain to the emperor ; a Count de Montmorency, 
 equerry ; a Brancas, a Biron, and other men with 
 court employments, and with names the most aris- 
 tocratic and the most dissonant to the ears of the 
 faubourgs. In the days of the Jacobin ascen- 
 dency and the republican enthusiasm the national 
 guards named their own officers, choosing daring 
 men of their own condition and stamp; but now 
 all were appointed by the emperor. None of the 
 
 materials of the corps were the same ; but it was not — 
 
 to be expected that, composed even as the present 
 corps was, those seigneurs of the old régime could 
 have the same sympathy with the men that was 
 
 possessed in the liberty-and-equality days by 
 
 Usher Maillard, Mademoiselle Theroigne, Brewer 
 Santerre, Henriot, and other sans-culottic com- 
 mandants of the old force. If such a garde na- 
 tionale as this could not be formidable to the 
 imperial throne and established order of things, 
 neither could it be formidable to the invaders of 
 France. Moreover, such was the want of arms, or 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 such the want of confidence even in this selected 
 corps, that very few muskets were distributed to the 
 men. Some of them received carbines without ba- 
 yonets, some mustered fowling-pieces of their own ; 
 but the far greater part of the men of the twelve 
 legions, even when called out to be reviewed in 
 the Champ de Mars, were armed only with swords 
 and pikes. This continued to be the case until 
 the middle of March, when the victorious allies 
 were getting close to Paris ; and, if they procured, 
 by various means, an abundance of muskets and 
 ammunition then, it was rather in spite of than in 
 consequence of Bonaparte’s orders. 
 
 The repeated declaration of the allies that they 
 were not waging war against the French people, 
 but solely against the ruler of France, had also a 
 great effect in many quarters. Most men began 
 to hope that, by submitting to the chastisement or 
 even to the expulsion of Bonaparte, they might be 
 allowed quietly to preserve and enjoy the good 
 things they had got either from him or from the 
 Revolution ; and those who had gotten most were 
 most disposed to indulge in this hope. Even his 
 hosts of employés had calculated before now on 
 the probability of their keeping their places under 
 some other master. Among the old soldiers, whose 
 trade was war, and who were fitted for no other 
 occupation, among his Imperial Guards in particu- 
 lar, and among the young students in the military 
 colleges, who had had their imaginations inflamed 
 by the triumphs that were now past, and who had 
 been taught to look to the profession of arms and 
 the chances of war as the surest means of obtain- 
 ing fame, rank, and riches—there was an abundant 
 and glowing enthusiasm for Bonaparte; but at 
 this moment it would have been difficult to find 
 the same feeling anywhere else. ‘‘ There was,” 
 says the republican historian Mignet, ‘ neither 
 that despair nor that impulse of liberty which carry 
 people to stern resistance ; the war was no longer 
 considered as national, and the emperor had put 
 all the public interest in himself alone, and all his 
 means of defence in mechanical troops.”* Some- 
 thing might have been expected from the natural 
 instinct of patriotism, and more from the military 
 spirit and national pride of the French; but these 
 sentiments were not strong enough to make the 
 people insutge as one body against the invaders, 
 especially as they had not been provided with arms 
 and the other means necessary to render an insur- 
 rection available. Just before quitting Paris Bona- 
 parte ordered the formation of twelve regiments of 
 tiravtleurs, to be composed of volunteers, by the 
 enrolment of men of all ages, from twenty to sixty. 
 These regiments were to enjoy the honour of being 
 attached to the young Imperial Guard; but the 
 time allowed was short, the volunteering zeal was 
 slow, and the twelve regiments were never com- 
 pleted. On the 23rd of January the emperor re- 
 ceived in the palace of the Tuileries the oaths of 
 fidelity of the officers of the new Parisian Garde 
 Nationale, “JI am about to depart,” said he; “I 
 
 * Hist. de la Révolution Frangaise. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 685 
 
 am going to fight the enemy, and must leave to 
 you all that is dearest to me—the empress and my 
 son !’? On the same day he again conferred the 
 regency on Maria Louisa. Poor Joseph, the fugi- 
 tive ex-king of Spain, was named lieutenant of the 
 emperor in Paris. As far as warlike matters were 
 concerned, one of Napoleon’s old grey coats, or one 
 of his old cocked hats, would have had more influ- 
 ence than poor Joseph. On the 25th of January 
 the emperor quitted Paris to put himself at the 
 head of his army, which was now collecting in 
 Champagne, in the plains of which the two armies 
 of Schwartzenberg and Blticher were on the point 
 of effecting their junction, It is not easy to esti- 
 mate the actual force which Bonaparte headed at 
 the end of January and the beginning of February. 
 From the ingenious way in which Frerch writers 
 arrange their narratives, and suppress details about 
 junctions and reinforcements, it is made to appear 
 that Bonaparte contested the interior of France, 
 and defended the approaches to his capital for 
 two months, with only the 70,000 or 80,000 men 
 whom he withdrew from the Rhine. But this is 
 ridiculous. Soult’s army alone must have sup- 
 plied 40,000 or 50,000 men; other troops (and 
 some of them veterans) were drawn from other 
 quarters ; some of the fugitives from Holland ral- 
 lied in Belgium, and followed the imperial eagle ; 
 several garrisons were reduced, and, apparently, 
 very nearly the entire garrison of Paris (at all 
 times a strong one) was removed to the scene of 
 action, the city being left to the national guards. 
 We would not reduce such military fame as Bona- 
 parte acquired in this remarkable campaign ; but 
 we would remove his exploits from exaggeration 
 and fable, and bring them within the limits of 
 credibility and fact. After deducting from the 
 preposterously exaggerated French estimates of the 
 numbers of the invaders, and after adding a great 
 many thousands of men to their estimate of the 
 force which Bonaparte opposed to the allies, the 
 facts will still remain that their force, though far 
 more scattered, was numerically far superior to 
 his, and that the defence he made was brilliant, 
 and even marvellous. The genius of the man 
 seemed to revive in his despair. Some of the best 
 tacticlans have considered this campaign as that 
 in which he made the most remarkable displays of 
 his military combinations and fertility of resources, 
 and accuracy and rapidity of movement; and, 
 in its character as a defensive war, the campaign 
 of 1814 will probably be estimated by military 
 historians as equal, or perhaps superior, to those 
 offensive wars in Italy which had been the founda- 
 tion of all his fame and of all his power. Now, 
 too, he displayed, as he had done then, the greatest 
 intrepidity or fearlessness, exposing his person in 
 nearly every affair, in the hottest fire, and in the 
 closest and most terrible parts of the fight. 
 
 Long before they approached the Rhine (on the 
 9th of November, 1813) the ministers of the allied 
 powers, then apparently acting under Austrian in- 
 fluence, put forth a diplomatic note declaring that 
 
pple sete 5 woe a zl 
 
 684 
 
 the coalized sovereigns were unanimously agreed as 
 to the weight and consequence which France, as a 
 nation, ought to hold in Europe, and were ready 
 to leave her in possession of what she called her 
 natural limits—the lines of the Rhine, the Aips, 
 and the Pyrenees. And nearly a month after this 
 (on the lst of December, 1813), when Bonaparte 
 had ordered a new levy of 300,000 conscripts, the 
 allied powers issued at Francfort a declaration or 
 manifesto, repeating their offers of peace, upon con- 
 dition that the French should remain quiet and 
 satisfied with those natural limits, which were 
 wider and enclosed more territory than had ever 
 been possessed by any of the kings of France. 
 Caulaincourt, who in 1805 had played so important 
 a part in the seizure of the Duc d’Enghien, who 
 was now Duke of Vicenza, and who had succeeded 
 Maret, Duke of Bassano, as Bonaparte’s minister 
 for foreign affairs, was sent to the head-quarters of 
 the allies, but without any conditions upon which 
 they could treat. The chief object of Caulaincourt’s 
 mission was, in fact, to sow jealousies and dissen- 
 sions among the members of the coalition; and an 
 attentive examination of the complicated history of 
 the times will prove that he was not altogether un- 
 successful, although his success fell far short of his 
 master’s expectations. ‘‘Only detach Austria,”’ 
 said Bonaparte, ‘and all will yet be saved.” Con- 
 sequently it was to the Austrian minister that Cau- 
 laincourt principally addressed himself. He offered 
 to Metternich, as the price of an armistice, some of 
 the chief fortresses in Italy, and some of the fort- 
 resses which the French still held in Germany. 
 But the Austrian minister would not listen to the 
 proposition; and all the allied armies continued 
 their advance. The sovereigns, however, agreed 
 that a congress should be held at Chatillon-sur- 
 Seine, where the representatives of Bonaparte might 
 treat with their ambassadors, and settle, if possible, 
 the firm basis of a peace. Though they now spoke 
 somewhat less distinctly, they seemed still to offer 
 “those natural limits,” which France ought never 
 to be allowed to possess. On the 5th of February, 
 this congress commenced its deliberations at the 
 place appointed. Russia was represented by the 
 Count Rasomowski; Prussia, by the Baron 
 Humboldt; Austria, by Count Stadion; England, 
 by Lord Castlereagh; and France, by Caulain- 
 court.* These plenipotentaries continued to assem- 
 ble and hold long and repeated conferences until the 
 middle of March; the demands of the allies and 
 the concessions of Bonaparte fluctuated according 
 to the various turns and events of the campaign; 
 but during the whole of this period military opera- 
 tions were never for one moment suspended. At 
 first the demands of Caulaincourt were very high ; 
 as his master lost ground in the field, his tone was 
 lowered ; but never, until the very last moment, 
 when Bonaparte was absolutely vanquished, and 
 when a vast portion of the French nation was 
 
 * Lord Castlereagh was assisted by his brother, General Sir 
 
 Charles Stewart (the late Marquess of Londonderry), and by Lords | 
 Aberdeen and Cathcart. . 2 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 declaring for the Bourbons, did Caulaincourt offer 
 such concessions as would have reduced France.-to 
 her proper dimensions. 
 
 Without alluding to the army of Lord Welling- 
 ton, which had held its ground in the south for 
 months, the northern and eastern frontiers of 
 France were broken through weeks before Bona- 
 parte quitted Paris to take the field. Towards the 
 end of December, Prince Schwartzenberg crossed 
 the Rhine near Basle, and, traversing Switzerland 
 with all the gentleness he had promised, invaded 
 Alsace; other Austrians followed, crossing the 
 Rhine near Basle and Schaffhausen ; and some of 
 the allies marched through Soleure, Bern, and 
 Vaud to Geneva, and thence by the valley of the 
 Rhone towards the great French city of Lyons. The 
 Russian army of General Wittgenstein crossed the 
 Rhine near Rastadt on the night of the Ist of Janu- 
 ary, and spread its pulks of Cossacks far into 
 France. Bliicher, defeating Marshals Marmont 
 and Victor, threw his Prussians and the troops of 
 the late Confederation of the Rhine across that 
 river, at three different points lower down the 
 river, between Coblentz and Manheim. The French 
 abandoned an entrenched camp and nearly all their 
 fortresses on the left bank of the Rhine without a 
 struggle; but, as most of these troops were kept 
 together by marshals and officers of reputation, they 
 must either have joimed Bonaparte’s army or have 
 assisted him by joining those detached corps which 
 were scattered over a wide surface of country to 
 distract the attention of the allies or to secure com- 
 munications. By the middle of January one-third 
 of France was invaded. Ata distance from the 
 grand army under Bonaparte we trace three dis- 
 tinct armies; that of Marshal Soult, who was to 
 keep Wellington in check; that of Marshal Au- 
 gereau, who was to defend the line of the Rhone, 
 and, if possible, to cover the city of Lyons; and 
 that of General Maison, who was to find employ- 
 ment in Belgium to the forces under Bernadotte. 
 Except the forces of Soult, it is not easy tu say what 
 was the strength of those separate armies. It ap- 
 pears that at one moment Augereau alone had 
 18,000 or 20,000 men in the neighbourhood of 
 Lyons. 
 
 Bonaparte’s first great object in taking the field 
 was to throw himself between the armies of 
 Schwartzenberg and Bliicher, to prevent their june- 
 tion and defeat one of them before the other could 
 get to his assistance. This was his old and unvaried 
 plan of operation, and his rapidity and the nature of 
 the country now rendered it, for a short time, rather 
 successful. The great river valleys (the Marne and - 
 Seine) through which the foremost columns of the 
 allies were advancing into the heart of France, were 
 separated by a broad tract of country, hilly in many 
 places, and tolerably well furnished with military 
 roads branching off right and left, and leading to 
 either valley. On the 27th of January he gave the 
 allies the first serious check they had received, by 
 surprising and defeating a vanguard at St. Dizier. 
 On the 29th he fell upon Bliicher, near Brienne, 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 The military college of Brienne, where Bonaparte 
 had received his education, was close in sight, and 
 was occupied by “ Marshal Forwards ” as his head- 
 quarters. The battle, which commenced at a little 
 after three in the afternoon, lasted till midnight, the 
 latter part of it being carried on within the burning 
 town of Brienne, which the French had bombarded 
 in order to drive out the Prussians. That night 
 Bonaparte, from the chateau of Brienne, penned 
 one of his bulletins in the old style, and sent it off 
 to Paris. He said that he had beaten Bliicher, 
 which was true; but he added that he had taken 
 15,000 prisoners and 40 pieces of cannon, and 
 this was false; for he had scarcely captured 100 
 prisoners, and he had not taken a single gun. On 
 the following day, about the hour of noon, the 
 battle was renewed, by Bonaparte attacking 
 Bliicher, who had retreated to La Rothiére, at the 
 distance of only three or four miles from Brienne. 
 Bliicher gave way, and retreated three or four 
 miles farther; but in the meanwhile General 
 Yorck, with a Prussian division, got in Bonaparte’s 
 rear, and retook St. Dizier, where the French had 
 been successful on the 27th; the Russian general 
 Wittgenstein, supported by the Bavarian Wrede, 
 defeated and drove in the cavalry destined to cover 
 Bonaparte’s movements, and the Prince Royal of 
 Wurtemberg, with a part of Schwartzenberg’s 
 army, was in full march to join Bliicher. Sud- 
 denly, instead of continuing his retreat, Blicher 
 resumed the offensive, and columns, not only of 
 Austrians, but of Russians, Prussians, and Bava- 
 rians, were scen approaching. Bonaparte had the 
 river Auve behind him, and only one narrow 
 bridge by which to cross it: in such circumsiances, 
 and in presence of an enterprising enemy, he 
 apprehended fatal consequences from a retreat, and 
 preferred risking a general action, with a force 
 decidedly inferior to that of the allies. The French 
 centre was still at La Rothitre, and the name of 
 that village has been given to the battle, which 
 began on the morning of the Ist of February, 
 and lasted nearly twelve hours, but terminated 
 in the defeat of the French. The sudden and 
 scarcely accountable inaction of the Austrians, 
 just at the critical moment, left open the only road 
 by which Bonaparte could retreat. Crossing the 
 Auve, abandoning Brienne, and leaving sixty 
 pieces of cannon behind him, he retired towards 
 Troyes, the old capital of Champagne, where he 
 was joined by his old imperial guard. His rein- 
 forcements scarcely did more than make up the 
 great numbers he had lost in the battles of Bri- 
 enne and La Rothitre; and, in spite of all his 
 exertions, Schwartzenberg had effected his junction 
 with Bliicher. If these two chiefs had kept toge- 
 ther, and had advanced straight upon Paris, the 
 
 war would have been terminated in a fortnight; . 
 
 but they separated almost as soon as they joined, 
 Schwartzenberg advancing upon Troyes, and Blii- 
 cher taking his road on La Fére-Champenovise, 
 thus to threaten Paris by two several routes. On 
 the 5th of February Yorck made himself master 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 685 
 
 of the town of Chalons-sur-Marne, and manceuvred 
 on Bonaparte’s flank, while other corps of the 
 allies cleared nearly the whole of the plains ot 
 Champagne, whereon the French had boasted that 
 they would give to the barbarians of the north 
 some such signal defeat as their ancestors had 
 given in those very regions to Attila and his hordes. 
 These operations made it impossible for Bona- 
 parte to maintain himself at Troyes; and on the 
 6th of February he abandoned that city, and went 
 in pursuit of Bliicher. On the 7th the van of 
 Schwartzenberg’s army entered Troyes, where the 
 inhabitants hoisted the white flag, and shouted 
 *« Long live Louis XVIII.” By moving off by a 
 lateral road, and by marching with admirable 
 rapidity, the French emperor overtook a part of 
 Bliicher’s army on the 10th, near Champaubert, 
 attacked it in flank, defeated it, and took about 
 2000 prisoners. On the 11th Bonaparte was still 
 more successful at Montmirail ; but, while he was 
 maltreating Bliicher, Schwartzenberg, pressing on- 
 ward by the line of march he had chosen, kept 
 slowly but steadily advancing upon the French 
 capital; nor did he stop, as Bonaparte expected he 
 would do, upon learning the reverses of the Prus- 
 sians. Nothing in the broad valley of the Seine 
 could oppose a valid resistance to Schwartzenberg’s 
 columns: Sens was taken, and Nogent, and Monte- 
 reau, and Pont-sur-Seine, where Bonaparte’s 
 mother had a magnificent villa. Leaving Bliicher, 
 Bonaparte now posted after Schwartzenberg. On 
 the 17th he came up with Schwartzenberg, in the 
 valley of the Seine, near Nangis, and gained some 
 trifling advantages over him. The French em- 
 peror, having been joined by Victor and Oudi- 
 not, was now at the head of 80,000 men, all 
 in one compact body, while Schwartzenberg’s 
 forces, according to the incurable habit of 
 Austrian generals, were marching in disjointed 
 bodies, with long intervals between. The effect of 
 their numerical superiority was thus lost; and on 
 the 18th, when Bonaparte with his 80,000 men 
 attacked the Prince Royal of Wurtemberg, whom 
 Schwartzenberg had left with only 20,000 men to 
 defend the important post of Montereau, the French 
 gained a victory. This last affair made a good 
 many people cry Vive Napoleon who had been just 
 shaping their mouths to cry Vive Lows XVII. ; 
 and it had a great effect in re-animating the spirit 
 of the French soldiery. It became the cry of the 
 camp, ‘‘ One more affair like this of Montereau, 
 and the invaders must retire beyond the Rhine.” 
 But, in sober truth, this affair was little more than 
 a bloody skirmish. Bonaparte had succeeded by 
 bringing a quadruple force against one portion of 
 Schwartzenberg’s army; and he was still sur- 
 rounded by forces far superior to his own. Schwartz- 
 enberg, however, thought it expedient to re-unite 
 his army to that of Bliicher, from which it ought 
 never to have been disunited. Moving by a shorter 
 road, or at a quicker pace, Bonaparte fell upon 
 Bliicher before Schwartzenberg could join him, 
 and on the 22nd of February gave him another 
 
686 
 
 serious check. On the 24th the French attacked 
 Schwartzenberg separately, and obliged him to 
 retreat beyond Troyes. Bonaparte re-entered that 
 ancient city, and issued a terrible proclamation 
 against those who had cried Vive Louis XVIII, 
 or who had worn the cross of St. Louis or the white 
 cockade, or who had assisted the allies in any way. 
 “ Every Frenchman,” said the proclamation, “ that 
 has worn the signs or the decorations of the ancient 
 régime is declared a traitor, and as such shall be 
 judged by a military commission, and condemned 
 to death. His property shall be confiscated to the 
 state.” One active royalist, the Chevalier de Goualt, 
 was seized, tried, and executed within two hours ; 
 and died with the shout of Vive le Roi / But 
 again the emperor found that he could not main- 
 tain himself in Troyes. No sooner was Bliicher 
 freed from his presence, than he drove the French 
 under Marshal Macdonald before him, and con- 
 tinued his advance upon Paris. There was a great 
 deal more of this see-saw work, which would 
 scarcely be intelligible without minute and very 
 long details; and there were not fewer than ten 
 more battles and affairs fought on various points ; 
 but the result of the whole was that, in spite of his 
 own promptitude and skill, and the many blunders 
 of his adversaries, Bonaparte was over-matched by 
 the odds against him, and was compelled to leave 
 the road to Paris open to the allies. By a bold 
 movement, intended to alarm them for their com- 
 munications, he placed himself in the rear of the 
 whole allied army, and was there joined by some 
 considerable reinforcements ; but the allies pressed 
 on to his capital all the same, and their advance 
 was now favoured not only by the indifference or 
 the inertness of the population, but also by the 
 encouragement and advice given by many French 
 royalists. Marshal Marmont, who had glided be- 
 tween the army of Schwartzenberg and the capital, 
 and who had collected about 20,000 regular troops, 
 made a faint attempt to defend the heights in front 
 of Paris; but he was driven back under the walls 
 of that city. In vain did Joseph Bonaparte issue 
 stirring proclamations—the great mass of the 
 people of Paris were now not to be stirred by any- 
 thing. Such enthusiasm as there was was left 
 almost entirely to the military students of the 
 Polytechnic school, who mounted batteries upon 
 Montmartre, and displayed abundant courage. But 
 on the 30th of March Schwartzenberg’s army took 
 possession of the whole line of defence which pro- 
 tected Paris on the north-eastern side. The em- 
 press-regent had fled from Paris to Blois some time 
 before; and on the afternoon of this day Joseph, 
 the emperor’s lieutenant and commander-in-chief 
 of the national guard, was nowhere to be found : 
 he had been accustomed to rapid flights in Spain, 
 and he had fled after the empress-regent. Marshals 
 Mortier and Marmont now asked for an armistice, 
 and this led to the immediate capitulation of Paris. 
 On the 31st the Emperor Alexander and the King 
 of Prussia, who had been with Schwartzenberg’s 
 army ever since the battle of La Rothiére, entered 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 the capital of France amidst the acclamations of 
 the Parisians, and a wondrous waving of white 
 handkerchiefs, and a shouting of Vivent les Alles ! 
 Vivent les Bourbons! The French writers, who 
 consider these demonstrations as very dishonour- 
 able to the national character, pretend to assert that 
 the cries were raised only by the perverse aris- 
 tocracy of the Faubourg St.. Germain, and that 
 the white handkerchiefs, emblematic of the Bour- 
 bon flag, were waved only by some antiquated 
 chevaliers de St. Louis and other old women of 
 that description ; but those who heard the sounds 
 and saw the sight declare that so loud a shouting 
 could not have been raised by a few hundreds of 
 voices; that the white handkerchiefs were dis- 
 played in every street and from the windows of 
 almost every house; and that women of the 
 poorer class were making a little fortune by sell- 
 ing white ribands to cut up into cockades, even 
 as in the days of Camille Desmoulins great profits 
 had been made in the Palais Royal by vending 
 ribands, red, white, and blue, to make the tri- 
 color and true republican cockade. That night, 
 as on the preceding night, when the wounded 
 French filled the streets, the theatres of Paris were 
 all open, and were about as full as usual: but this, 
 say the French writers, was entirely owing to the 
 order and management of the police, who wanted 
 to keep the desperate citizens quiet, and to prevent 
 any further useless waste of life and limbs. Bona- 
 parte now came flying back to the relief of the 
 capital ; but he came too late: Paris was already in 
 the undisturbed possession of the allies; and, since 
 the courage of the military youth had been extin- 
 guished on Montmartre, not a sword had leaped 
 from its scabbard for him or for his dynasty. At 
 Fontainebleau he met the columns of the garrison 
 which had evacuated Paris. He affected great 
 astonishment, and greater indignation against 
 Marshal Marmont; but no man in his senses 
 thought that Marmont, with his diminutive force, 
 and with no popular support, could have done more 
 than he had done. Several of his old generals now 
 told him the unpalatable truth that he ought to 
 abdicate, as the conferences at Chatillon had been 
 broken up, and as the allied sovereigns declared 
 that they would no longer treat with him. He 
 hurried into the gloomy old palace of Fontainebleau, 
 which not long since had been the prison of the 
 pope, and shut himself up with his maddening 
 reflections. 
 
 Meanwhile the counter-revolution went on in — ; 
 
 Paris, and in other towns in France, at the charging 
 
 ace. 
 while he was contending against the allies in Cham- 
 pagne and in the valleys of the Seine and Marne. 
 On the 21st of February the Comte d’ Artois, who 
 had been the first of the royal family to emigrate, 
 arrived at Vesoul with the rear-guard of the grand 
 allied army, and issued a proclamation, telling the 
 French people that the day of their deliverance was 
 at hand; that the brother of their king had arrived 
 among them ; that there should be no more tyranny, 
 
 Many preparations had been made for it 
 
Cuap. VIII] 
 
 no more war, no more conscriptions ; and this pro- 
 clamation, being sent to Paris, had been printed at 
 a private press, and pretty widely distributed. On 
 the 12th of March the Duke of Angouléme had 
 entered Bordeaux—the first city which openly 
 declared for the Bourbons—and had been received 
 with transports of joy. On entering Paris the 
 Emperor Alexander went straight to the mansion of 
 M. de Talleyrand, and there, for the present, took 
 up his abode. On the next day the King of 
 Prussia, Prince Schwartzenberg, Prince Lichten- 
 stein, Count Pozzo di Borgo, and some other gene- 
 rals and diplomatists of the allies assembled in 
 Talleyrand’s house and opened conferences with 
 him and the Emperor Alexander. There could no 
 longer be any doubt as to the proper answer to be 
 given to the question which had been so incessantly 
 asked throughout Paris in the months of December 
 and January—Qu’en pense M. de Talleyrand? 
 Talleyrand now thought that it was the end of the 
 end. He readily agreed with the allied sovereigns 
 that it would be insanity to treat with Bonaparte, 
 and that the best assurance of peace for Europe and 
 the greatest blessing for France would be the im- 
 mediate restoration of the Bourbons, with a mild 
 and limited form of government. Many French- 
 men of rank or celebrity, who had been invited to 
 the meeting, as the Duke Dalberg, the Abbé de 
 Pradt, the Abbé Louis, General Buernonville, &c., 
 assented to the opinions of Talleyrand. On the 
 next day, the lst of April, a proclamation in the 
 name of the Emperor Alexander, and a proclama- 
 tion from the municipality of Paris, were posted side 
 by side, on the walls of the city. The imperial 
 scroll emphatically declared that the allied sove- 
 reigns, though ready to grant the most favourable 
 conditions of peace to the Bourbons, would no 
 longer negotiate with Napoleon Bonaparte or with 
 any member of his family. The paper of the mu- 
 nicipality, which was duly signed by all the mem- 
 bers of the general council, declared that the free 
 expression of opinion had too long been kept down 
 by tyranny and military force, but that now the 
 magistrates of the people would be traitors if they 
 did not give utterance to the voice of their con- 
 science and proclaim to the French nation that all 
 the evils which oppressed them were attributable 
 to one single man. It concluded with the solemn 
 declaration that they, the municipals, abjured for 
 ever all obedience to the wsurper in order to return 
 to their legitimate masters. On the same day, the 
 Ist of April, the senators assembled under the pre- 
 sidency of M. de Talleyrand, and proceeded, with 
 a rapidity equalling that of some of their emperor’s 
 late marches, to pronounce and decree that Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte, in consequence of sundry arbitrary 
 acts and violations of the Constitution, and by his 
 refusing to treat with the allies upon honourable 
 conditions, had forfeited the throne and the right 
 of inheritance established in his family ; and that 
 the people and the army of France were freed from 
 their oaths of allegiance to him. A provisional 
 government was then formed, consisting of Talley- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 687 
 
 rand, Dalberg, Buernonville, and some others.* On 
 the invitation of the provisional government all the 
 members of the Corps Législatif who chanced to 
 be in Paris assembled in their House or Chamber 
 on the 3rd of April, assented to the decree of the 
 senate, and, “ considering that Napoleon Bonaparte 
 had violated the constitutional pact,’’ and “ adher- 
 ing to the act of the senate,” they recognised and 
 declared “the déchéance of the said Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, and the members of his family.” This 
 done, the members went in a body to present the 
 homages (/es hommages) of the Corps Legislatif to 
 the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. 
 On the same day the High Court of Cassation sent 
 in their act of adhesion to the provisional govern- 
 ment, and in the course of the following day nearly 
 all the civil authorities and corporate bodies fol- 
 lowed the example. On the 4th of April, Mar- 
 shal Marmont, being freed from his oath to the 
 emperor, accepted the invitation of the provisional 
 government and engaged to place the troops which 
 remained to him (about 10,000 or 12,000 men) 
 ‘under the flag of the good French cause.” But 
 most of Marmont’s troops either deserted imme- 
 diately, or ran to join their emperor at Fontaine- 
 bleau. Before taking his decisive step Marmont 
 had bargained with Prince Schwartzenberg that 
 the life and liberty of his late master should be 
 guaranteed by the allies, and that his future resi- 
 dence, in some safe but circumscribed country, 
 should be fixed by the allied sovereigns; and 
 he had sent copies of his correspondence with 
 Schwartzenberg and the provisional government 
 to Bonaparte, on the night of the 3rd. Early on 
 the morning of the 4th, before Marmont had given 
 any orders to his troops, Marshals Ney, Berthier, 
 Lefebvre, Oudinot, Macdonald, and Bertrand 
 waited upon Bonaparte. Ney, who was deputed 
 to speak for them all, recommended an immediate 
 abdication. Maret and Caulaincourt were present, 
 and could not deny that this step was no longer 
 a matter of choice. ‘‘Is this the advice of the 
 generals ?”’ said the fallen emperor. ‘* Yes, Sire,”’ 
 replied Ney. ‘Is it the wish of the army ?”— 
 ‘“<Yes, Sire,”? was Ney’s answer. Bonaparte im- 
 mediately retired and signed an act of abdication. 
 But, as in this act there was a reservation in favour 
 of the rights of his son and of the empress, all the 
 marshals and ministers present were convinced that 
 it would not do. Marshals Ney and Macdonald, 
 however, agreed to accompany Caulaincourt to 
 Paris with this act. They there met the answer 
 they expected—the coalized powers could not accept 
 the conditions introduced in that act, being already 
 officially engaged not to treat with any member of 
 the family of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Emperor 
 Alexander put forward the proposition about the 
 island of Elba, with the retention of the imperial 
 title, alarge annual allowance from France, &c. It 
 was Marshal Ney that transmitted this proposition 
 to Fontainebleau, with the recommendation that it 
 should immediately be accepted. Bonaparte ap- 
 * Hist, Parlement. 
 
688 
 
 peared willing to accept what was offered; but he 
 delayed signing an unconditional act, in order to 
 gain time. He was not without hope of working 
 upon the feelings of his father-in-law, the Emperor 
 Francis; he had not yet received any answer to 
 various applications he had made to that sovereign ; 
 the forces which Suchet had withdrawn from Spain 
 were still intact; Soult’s final catastrophe at Tou- 
 louse had not yet happened; the British troops 
 had met with a bloody check at Bergen-op-Zoom ; 
 Bernadotte had shown some shyness in advancing 
 against his native country; Carnot was holding 
 out stoutly in Antwerp; the war was not wholly 
 finished either in Holland or in Belgium; and in 
 Italy Eugene Beauharnais, though worsted, was 
 not yet crushed ;—something might yet turn up, 
 and desperate men grasp at desperate hopes. 
 But the Emperor of Austria remained inflexible ; 
 every courier that reached Fontainebleau brought 
 bad intelligence, both as to the troops in the field 
 and as to the temper of the inhabitants, who, in 
 many parts of France, seemed to be settling down 
 quietly under the Bourbon government; the allies 
 became impatient; Alexander, who was playing 
 the magnanimous part, intimated that a longer de- 
 lay might lead to harsher terms, and at last, on 
 the 11th of April, Bonaparte signed a second 
 act, in which he “ renounced unconditionally, for 
 himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and 
 Italy.” The Emperor Alexander’s proposition 
 that he should retain the title of Emperor, with the 
 sovereignty of the island of Elba and a revenue of 
 6,000,000 francs, to be paid by France, was then 
 agreed to by the Emperor of Austria and the King 
 of Prussia. The bargain was concluded without 
 the very necessary assent or signature of the provi- 
 sional government of France, or of Louis XVIII., 
 whose restoration had now been fully settled. 
 England herself was no party to the treaty; but 
 she afterwards gave her consent to it. It is said 
 that, during his stay at Fontainebleau, Bonaparte 
 had repeatedly talked of suicide, and that the 
 night after signing the unconditional act of abdica- 
 tion he attempted to poison himself with opium. 
 The last fact, at least, seems to be very doubtful ; 
 but it is worth observing that it is most seriously 
 insisted upon by some of those who most admired 
 the man and his deeds. It was now expected that 
 he would quit at once the scene of his humiliation, 
 and hasten to Elba; but he lingered in that old 
 French palace nine days longer. During this in- 
 terval he received, with other black news, the 
 intelligence not only that Soult had been beaten 
 by Wellington, but that both Soult and Suchet, 
 like the rest of his marshals, had sent in their ad- 
 hesion to the provisional government. Finally, on 
 the morning of the 20th of April, the dethroned 
 emperor took an affectionate leave of his old guard, 
 or of all that remained of it, and of such of his 
 generals as had remained at Fontainebleau, and 
 then began his journey towards the south of France, 
 accompanied by a very strong escort of French 
 troops, and attended by four commissioners ap- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 pointed by Russia, Prussia, Austria, and England, 
 As soon as he got into the regions of the south he 
 found that his strong escort and the presence of 
 the allied commissioners were very necessary to the 
 preservation of his life. At Avignon, and in several 
 other towns of Provence, he was exposed to popular 
 outrages and menaces, which had the humiliating 
 effect of making him disguise himself in a foreign 
 uniform. At Orgon the people hanged him in 
 effigy. At last he arrived at Fréjus, the very port 
 
 that received him on his return from Egypt and 
 
 his lucky escape from the English cruisers fourteen 
 years ago. Here he shut himself up in a solitary 
 apartment, which he traversed with impatient steps, 
 sometimes pausing to watch, from a window over- 
 looking the sea, the arrival of the vessel which was 
 to convey him from France, as it then seemed (but 
 not, as we believe, to him), for ever. A French 
 frigate and a brig had come round from Toulon ; 
 but he preferred embarking on board an English 
 man-of-war to sailing in the French frigate under 
 the Bourbon flag. The ‘ Undaunted,’ Captain 
 Usher, was placed at the disposal of the British 
 commissioner Sir Niel Campbell; and in this ship 
 Bonaparte embarked at eleven o’clock at night, on 
 the 28th of April, under a salute of twenty-one 
 guns. ‘* Farewell to Cesar and his fortune!” 
 exclaimed the Russian commissioner Schuwaloff. 
 This Russian, and Count Truchses Waldberg, the 
 Prussian commissioner, returned to Paris; but 
 General Baron Kohler, the Austrian envoy, and 
 Sir Niel Campbell, accompanied Bonaparte on his 
 voyage, and afterwards remained on the island 
 with him. During the voyage he recovered his 
 spirits, and was very talkative. He speke dis- 
 paragingly of the troops and of nearly all the 
 generals of Austria, Russia, and Prussia; but he 
 paid a high compliment to the fortitude, bravery, 
 energy, and activity of ‘* Marshal Forwards.” 
 ‘“ That old devil, Bliicher,” he said, “‘ gave me 
 most trouble. He was always ready to fight again. 
 If I beat him in the evening, there he was again 
 next morning! IfI routed him in the morning, 
 he rallied and fought again before night!” He 
 insisted that the English, availing themselves of 
 their own strength and of the weakness of the 
 restored Bourbons, would pursue a very selfish 
 policy, and extort from Louis XVIII. some com- 
 mercial treaty and other concessions disadvanta- 
 geous to France and ruinous to her commerce and 
 manufactures. ‘* These Bourbonists,” said he, 
 “are poor devils..... I mean to say they are 
 Grands Seigneurs! They are very glad to get 
 back to their forfeited estates, and to draw their 
 rents; but, if the French people see that, they 
 will become discontented, and the Bourbons will 
 be turned off in six months.” 
 
 It was on the 4th of May that the ‘ Undaunted’ 
 arrived off Porto-Ferrajo, the humble capital of 
 his miniature empire. But Bonaparte did not 
 land until the following morning, when he was re- 
 ceived with as much state and parade as the poor 
 island authorities could manage. On surveying 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 his new dominions from the summit of one of the 
 highest hills, whence the sea was visible all round 
 him, it is said that he shook his head with affected 
 solemnity, and exclaimed, in a bantering tone, 
 “ Bh! Il faut avouer que mon tle est bien pe- 
 tite!”? But, besides the little island and the 
 surrounding sea, the fair coast of Tuscany, whence 
 his race had originally sprung, was distinctly 
 visible, and separated only by a narrow channel, 
 with two rocky islets between, as if for stepping- 
 stones to some mighty giant to pass from the con- 
 tinent to the isle, or from the isle to the continent. 
 And, standing on the heights of Elba as the sun 
 goes down, the greyish-blue hills of Italy appear 
 so near, that one might almost fancy he could 
 throw his cap upon them. Italy, and more parti- 
 cularly the nearest part of it, abounded with parti- 
 sans, or with people who, on the whole, had 
 received more good than evil from Bonaparte. If 
 the allies had taken the map of the world, and had 
 carefully studied it for the purpose of finding a 
 place where the most dangerous of men should 
 have the most opportunities of corresponding with 
 his friends both in France and Italy, and should 
 haye the best means and facilities for attempting 
 new mischief, they could not have found a place so 
 suitable as the island of Elba. 
 
 On the 9th of April, eleven days before Bona- 
 parte quitted Fontainebleau, Maria Louisa, with 
 her son, quitted Blois to place herself under the 
 protection of her father, the Emperor of Austria. 
 About the same time the provisional government 
 and the senate drew up and published the sketch 
 of a constitution, which was to be accepted by 
 Louis XVIII. They declared that the French 
 
 people freely (/ébrement) called to the throne of, 
 
 France Louis XVIII., brother to the last king, 
 Louis XVI., and after him the other members of 
 the house of Bourbon, &c. The first signature to 
 this document was that of Talleyrand ; but it was 
 
 4+? followed by those of a good many of the most de- 
 
 termined partisans of Bonaparte, who had cared 
 little for a constitution so long as he was emperor. 
 It should appear that the great constitution-maker 
 Siéyes was not consulted: his name is not on the 
 list ; but he had previously written a letter to de- 
 clare his adhesion to the déchéance of Napoleon. 
 On the afternoon of the 11th of April, the day on 
 which the emperor signed his unconditional act of 
 abdication at Fontainebleau, Louis’s brother, the 
 Count d’Artois, arrived in the neighbourhood of 
 Paris. On the 12th they gave him a grand re- 
 ception in the capital. Talleyrand delivered the 
 address of welcome. The prince replied, ‘‘ Nothing 
 is changed in France ; there is only one Frenchman 
 more come among you.’’ The sincere enthusiasm, 
 however, was chiefly confined to the Count d’Ar- 
 tois’s own retinue and the denizens of the aristo- 
 cratic faubourg of St. Germain; the lower order of 
 people seemed to be moved by curiosity and asto- 
 nishment rather than any other feeling ; and it was 
 not without a painful surprise that some of the 
 
 French, who wished well to the prince and to the 
 VOL. V1. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 689 
 
 cause of his ancient race, saw the procession closed 
 by a squadron of grim Cossacks. The Duke of 
 Angouléme came on fiom Bordeaux, where he had 
 met with a truly enthusiastic reception ; and, quit- 
 ting his rural retirement in England, the amiable 
 and pacific Louis XVIII. prepared to embark for 
 the continent. He was conducted into London by 
 the prince regent, and by many thousands of ap- 
 plauding Englishmen. On the 24th of April he 
 embarked at Dover in a royal yacht, commanded 
 for the occasion by the Duke of Clarence. The 
 authorities, and even the people of Calais, gave him 
 what seemed to be a cordial welcome ; and they 
 afterwards cut the form of the sole of his foot in 
 the stone at the pier-head upon which it was said 
 he had first stepped on landing in his beloved and 
 loving France: but all this was hollower than the 
 cavity they cut in the stone; and the wits of Calais 
 and other parts of France were soon seen laughing 
 over the foot-mark, and wondering what business 
 a king of France could have with so big a foot. 
 On May the 3d, two days before Bonaparte made 
 his solemn entry into Porto-Ferrajo, poor Louis, 
 who had been happier with his books and chosen 
 friends in his [English country-house, made his 
 solemn entrance into Paris. ‘The scene is said to 
 have passed off in perfect order and decorum. On 
 the preceding day he had published a declaration 
 respecting the future constitution of France, in 
 which he fully recognised the rights of the country 
 to a free form of government, and signified his ap- 
 probation of the basis of the constitution as framed 
 by the senate and the provisional government ; but 
 in which he intimated, with perfect reason and 
 justice, that many of tlie articles contained in that 
 very hasty sketch of a constitution bore the appear- 
 ance of precipitation, and could not, in their exist- 
 ing form, and under present circumstances, become 
 the law of the state. Hence arose the interminable 
 and bitter quarrel about ‘/a Charte octroyée par le 
 rot,’ and ‘la charte exigée et faite par la nation 
 Frangatse.’ 
 
 As new actors came upon the scene, many old 
 ones departed from it, some to go into retirement 
 or exile, and some to go into the grave. Among 
 those who went the last way was Josephine, Bona- 
 parte’s first wife, who had certainly done much to 
 aid him in his first rise. She died on Sunday the 
 26th of May, in her house of Malmaison. 
 
 On the 30th of May the allied powers of Great 
 Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia signed at 
 Paris a treaty of peace and amity with France, as 
 represented by her restored monarch. The treaty 
 secured to France the integrity of its boundaries as 
 they existed on January 1, 1792; and it even granted 
 (in order to improve and strengthen these boun- 
 daries) certain augmentations of territory on the 
 side of Germany, on the side of Belgium, and on 
 the side of Italy. ‘The contracting parties agrecd 
 that an increase of territory should be given to 
 Holland ; that the lesser German states should be 
 independent, and united by a Germanic federal 
 
 league ; that Switzerland should continue to enjoy 
 2R 
 
690 
 
 its independence under the government it had 
 chosen; and that Italy (beyond the limits of the 
 Austrian dominion, which was to be restored) 
 should be composed of sovereign independent 
 states. Of the two great stumbling-blocks, the 
 Cape and Malta, which had been thrown in the 
 way of previous negotiations with England, the 
 Cape of Good Hope had been secured to the British 
 crown by a separate treaty with Holland; and by 
 this present treaty of Paris the island of Malta and 
 its dependencies were admitted as belonging of right 
 to Great Britain. But on her part Great Britain bar- 
 gained and agreed to give back to France all the 
 colonies, factories, &c., possessed by her in 1792, 
 with the exception of Tobago, St. Lucie, and the 
 Isle of France; and at the same time she bound 
 herself to restore several islands and colonies to 
 Spain, who was incapable of keeping them. Pon- 
 dicherry was of course given back (to become, if 
 time and accidents should serve, a foyer of intrigue, 
 insurrection, and war); and France was to enjoy 
 all the facilities of commerce with our Indian em- 
 pire which the British government granted to the 
 most favoured nations, only binding herself on her 
 part not to erect any fortifications in the establish- 
 ments restored to her in that country. Her former 
 rights of fishery on the bank of Newfoundland, 
 &c., were all to be restored as they were by 
 the peace of 1783. Portugal, our ally, was to give 
 up to France all that she held of French Guiana, 
 &c. The materials in the naval arsenals, and 
 the ships of war surrendered by France by the 
 convention signed with the allies in April, were to 
 be divided between France and the countries in 
 which such arsenals, ports, &c., were situated. As 
 the best test they could offer of their moderation, 
 as the best proof they could give of the sincerity of 
 their repeated declarations that they meant no ill 
 to France, that they waged war not against the 
 French people but only against Bonaparte, the 
 allied powers agreed that their armies should eva- 
 cuate the French territories, and that the French 
 prisoners of war should all be restored as soon as 
 possible. And by the beginning of June France 
 was completely evacuated by the foreign armies, 
 and left to manage her own affairs. As far as 
 regarded France, the arrangements of this treaty 
 of Paris were considered as final; but there re- 
 mained to be made other settlements of the most 
 extensive and complicated kind ; the greater part 
 of Europe required re-organization, and her past 
 misfortunes and bitter sufferings demanded some 
 preconcerted defences and guarantees for the future : 
 and it was therefore agreed, in a special article of 
 the treaty of Paris, that all the powers engaged in 
 the late war should send plenipotentiaries to a con- 
 gress to be holden at Vienna, for the object of com- 
 pleting the pacific dispositions of the present treaty, 
 and of preventing, as far as human policy could, the 
 recurrence of war and devastation. 
 
 When the allied sovereigns fancied they had 
 completed their work at Paris, the Emperor of 
 
 Russia with his sister, and the King of Prussia j 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 wh RU ae ee 
 a shin | 
 ¥ e > iv) 
 : a 
 
 with his two sons, came over to visit the prince 
 regent in London. They were accompanied and 
 followed by uncountable counts, barons, dukes, 
 princes, marshals, and generals, out of whom the 
 English populace instinctively selected for their 
 heartiest welcome brave old Bliicher and Platoff 
 the Hettman of the Cossacks. Their reception by 
 prince and people was as honourable and flattering 
 as it well could be, and such continuous shows and 
 spectacles and feasts were given as London had 
 never before witnessed. 
 
 A few words must suffice for the inferior and 
 dependent operations of arms, and for the re- 
 establishment of the old governments of the con- 
 tinent. First for Holland and Belgium :—Ber- 
 nadotte, with a mixed army of Swedes and. Ger- 
 mans, reached Cologne in Germany, and pushed 
 forward some troops into Holland, to reduce some 
 of the strong fortresses which the French still held, 
 and to co-operate with the weak English force 
 under Sir Thomas Graham. Several of these 
 places surrendered upon summons; but, on the 7th 
 of March, Graham, in attempting to carry by es- 
 calade and storm the formidable works of Bergen- 
 op-Zoom, was repulsed with a lamentable lass. 
 The French game was, however, up in that coun- 
 try; and the corps of General Winzingerode soon 
 pushed forward into Belgium as far as the field of 
 Waterloo. There was nothing in that country that 
 could long oppose the allies; and the citizens of 
 Brussels and the Belgian people generally seemed 
 to testify a gladness for any change which should 
 disconnect them from France, and put an end to 
 the conscription. In the mean time the restored 
 Prince of Orange, who now assumed the royal 
 
 »title, offered a new constitution to the Dutch nation, 
 which was accepted at Amsterdam on the 28th of 
 March, in an assembly of representatives, by a 
 majority of 458 votes against 25. On May the 
 Qnd, the States General of the United Provinces 
 met at the Hague, and took the oaths to the new 
 constitution. When Belgium was entirely freed 
 from French troops, the country was left under 
 
 the military government of the Austrian General — 
 
 Vincent; and at first it was imagined that the 
 Emperor Francis would reclaim these old here- 
 ditary dominions of his house. But Austria had 
 had quite enough of these distant and disconnected 
 and generally discontented subjects; and had re- 
 solved to give up all Belgium rather than inyolve 
 herself in fresh troubles by asserting her old soye- 
 reignty. 
 far too weak to resist their neighbours the French ; 
 and therefore it was conceived by the allies that 
 
 the best thing that could be done for Europe and 
 for Belgium itself would be to unite that country 
 
 to Holland, under the mild and constitutional go- 
 vernment of the house of Orange. 
 could have been perfected, a strong barrier would 
 have been raised against France, and two peoples 
 would have been made one, whose interests, in 
 many respects, coincided (the Dutch having ship- 
 ping and colonies, having very little agriculture, 
 
 The Belgians, if left to themselves, were — 
 
 If this union 
 
 j 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
Cuapr. VITIT.] 
 
 and being a very trading nation,—the Belgians 
 having no shipping, no sea-ports, no colonies, but 
 being a manufacturing people with a flourishing 
 agriculture and a rich soil, and having scarcely any 
 outlet either for their manufactures or for their 
 produce); but, unhappily, the two peoples were 
 different in religion, different in character and 
 manners, and widely and almost hostilely separated 
 by inveterate prejudices and antipathies. But it 
 is much easier to blame the allies for what they 
 did than to suggest anything better that they could 
 have done. The Belgian people, correctly speak- 
 ing, had never had a nationality; such turbulent 
 independence as they had once possessed had been 
 effete and effaced for many ages ; and their country 
 was, and still remains, in spite of guarantees and 
 family alliances, open to French ambition, as being 
 weak and helpless. Inthe beginning of August Bel- 
 gium was evacuated by the Prussian and Russian 
 troops, whose places were supplied by English troops, 
 or by Germans in English pay. In the month of 
 August the Sovereign of the Netherlands made his 
 arrangements with the Prince Regent of England, 
 resigning all the rights of the Dutch to the Cape of 
 Good Hope, but getting back Demerara, Essequibo, 
 Berbice, the immense island of Java, the rich 
 island of Sumatra, and nearly every one of the 
 colonies and settlements we had taken from them, 
 whether in the West or East Indies, except the 
 settlements in Ceylon. 
 
 The magnanimity which was shown to France 
 was not extended to her weak ally Denmark. The 
 conduct of that court nearly all through the war 
 had been calculated to leave hostile feelings in the 
 mind of England and of other powers. Denmark 
 was to be punished for her obstinate adherence to 
 Bonaparte, and Sweden was to be rewarded for the 
 exertions she had made in the common cause at 
 the critical moment. To bring the Frenchman 
 Bernadotte into the field and to keep him there, 
 the allies had promised to annex Norway to his do- 
 minions. The fortunate Gascon had himself pretty 
 well secured the fulfilment of this promise by con- 
 quering a good part of Denmark in the autumn of 
 1813, and by imposing his own convention. The 
 Norwegians, who had not been consulted, preferred 
 retaining their old connexion with Denmark, or 
 rather, they rallied round Christian Frederick, the 
 Hereditary Prince of Denmark, who aimed at a se- 
 parate sovereignty, and proclaimed their entire 
 national independence. They sent an envoy to 
 London, to endeavour to procure the countenance 
 of our government; but the envoy was told that 
 our engagements with the allies would not ad- 
 mit of any measures in favour of the independ- 
 ence of Norway ; and shortly afterwards our Gazette 
 informed them that the necessary means had been 
 ordered for blockading the ports of Norway, unless 
 that country submitted. The King of Denmark, 
 having no power to oppose the will of the allies, 
 and evidently no satisfaction at the proceedings of 
 Prince Christian Frederick, disavowed the latter, 
 and strongly condemned them in a letter to the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 691 
 
 Norwegian patriots. Bernadotte, on the other 
 hand, solemnly promised the people of Norway the 
 full enjoyment of their very popular municipal 
 institutions, and of a free representative constitu- 
 tion, with the right of taxing themselves, &c. The 
 Norwegian patriots, however, flew to arms, and 
 put their old crown on the head of Prince Chris- 
 tian. This brought across their fiords, and among 
 their mountains, Bernadotte and a veteran Swedish 
 army accustomed to conquest. ‘The struggle was 
 very short, and not at all sanguinary; the Nor- 
 wegians were not all of one mind, but of many 
 minds ; there was a considerable party for the 
 Swedes, and a still greater party who felt that they 
 had not the means of contending against them, and 
 who thought that Bernadotte’s offers, which he re- 
 peated while fighting, were good and liberal, and 
 would leave them a better government than they 
 had enjoyed during their annexation to Denmark. 
 And thus, when their inexperienced little army 
 had been defeated in some petty actions, and had 
 got itself surrounded by the Swedes, Prince Chris- 
 tian resigned the crown which he had worn about 
 two months, and the Norwegian notables, on the 
 14th of August, signed a convention with Berna- 
 dotte, who therein agreed to accept the very free 
 and very democratic constitution which had been 
 framed by the Diet of Norway, and to bury in ob- 
 livion the resistance which had been made to him. 
 At a general diet of the nation, a great majority 
 voted (on the 20th of October) for the union of 
 Norway with Sweden, with the proviso and con- 
 dition that their constitution should be punctually 
 observed. 
 
 As some continental gratification to the royal 
 family of England, Hanover, their ancient home, 
 was somewhat enlarged, and raised to the titular 
 dignity of a kingdom under the rule of his Bri- 
 tannic Majesty; but with the Salic bar to the 
 succession when it should fall to a female. To 
 this country too a form of a constitution was given 
 —not a model, perhaps, of perfection, but not 
 altogether unsuited to the condition of the people. 
 
 In Italy Murat had striven hard to keep his 
 crown on his head, as his brother soldier of fortune 
 was keeping his. He also hoped to extend his 
 dominions, by procuring the annexation of terri- 
 tories incomparably richer and far more sub- 
 missive than Norway; but he had neither the 
 steadiness and wisdom of the Gascon, nor was 
 backed like Bernadotte by a warlike people. 
 Almost immediately after his return from Leip- 
 zig, he sent over with a flag of truce a young 
 Neapolitan nobleman, the Marchese di ; 
 to confer with Lord William Bentinck in Sicily. 
 Awaiting more ample instructions from his govern- 
 ment, Lord William agreed to an armistice, with 
 a limited renewal of commercial intercourse; and, 
 to the infinite joy of the Neapolitan people, several 
 English merchantmen, laden with colonial produce 
 and British manufactures, put into the port of 
 Naples and discharged their cargoes. At the same 
 time, Murat secretly sent another most confidential 
 
692 
 
 agent to Vienna to conciliate that court, and to 
 propose a truce in Italy, which might enable the 
 Austrians to cross the Alps and fall upon Eugene 
 Beauharnais in Lombardy. The offer was tempt- 
 ing, for the recovery of Lombardy and Venice was 
 ever the object nearest the heart of the Emperor 
 Francis, his government, and army. As early as 
 the end of December, 1813, Count Neiperg (whose 
 fortune it afterwards was to become the husband 
 of Bonaparte’s widow, Maria Louisa) arrived at 
 Naples, with powers from the Emperor of Austria 
 to conclude a treaty and league with Murat. And 
 on the 11th of January, 1814, the Duca di Gallo, 
 Murat’s Neapolitan minister for foreign affairs (and 
 the old diplomatist who had negotiated for Austria, 
 with Bonaparte, the sad treaty of Campo Formio), 
 concluded a treaty, by which the Emperor Francis 
 recognized the sovereignty of King Joachim in 
 the states he actually possessed (states which had 
 belonged to the husband of the emperor’s own 
 sister, Caroline of Austria), and King Joachim 
 recognised all the ancient rights of the emperor to 
 Lombardy and the other states in Upper Italy. 
 The active part of this strange, precipitate agree- 
 ment was this: —The emperor was to throw 70,000 
 men into Italy, Murat was to advance to the Po 
 and to the Adige with 30,000 Neapolitans ; and 
 the two armies in conjunction were to reduce 
 Mantua and all the strong fortresses in Upper 
 Italy, and drive Beauharnais and the last of his 
 Frenchmen beyond the Alps. By a secret clause 
 in the treaty, Murat was to be rewarded by a good 
 slice cut out of the States of the Church.—Having 
 once made up his mind, Murat knew no rest until he 
 began the work. ‘Two divisions of his Neapolitan 
 army were hurried forward to take possession of 
 Rome and Ancona; but the French General Miollis 
 kept possession of the castle of Sant’ Angelo, in 
 Rome, in the name of the Emperor Napoleon, and 
 General Barbou did the same with the fortress of 
 Ancona; and neither general would give credit to 
 Murat’s assurances that he was only playing a 
 part to dupe the Austrians and serve the common 
 cause of Frenchmen. That king, with a crown 
 that tottered the more he tried to fix it, came up 
 with greater forces; but he shrunk from firing the 
 first shots at his own countrymen, and, leaving a 
 division to blockade Barbou, and some troops in 
 Rome to watch Miollis, he continued his journey 
 towards Bologna. His sincerity at the moment, 
 or his intention to abide by the Austrian treaty, 
 seems to be proved by the fact that all the 
 French generals, and very nearly all the French 
 officers in his service (many of them old com- 
 panions and close friends), deserted from him 
 and went and joined Beauharnais. But no other 
 proof was required than the insults he had re- 
 ceived from Bonaparte, and his inward convic- 
 tion that the doom of his brother-in-law was 
 sealed. He vacillated most miserably afterwards ; 
 and even now he showed that his weak head was 
 incapable of getting through the dilemma into 
 which the course of events, not less than his 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ‘mingled with English. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 own impatience, had thrust it; but, in the 
 beginning of 1814, Murat was as seriously bent 
 upon wreaking his vengeance on the Viceroy 
 Eugene, and as surely calculated on preserving and 
 aggrandising his dominions by co-operating with 
 Austria, as a man of his impressible and vacillat- 
 ing turn of mind and bewildered intellect could be 
 bent upon anything. Barbou soon surrendered in 
 Ancona through want of provisions; Miollis eva- 
 cuated the Roman citadel for the same cogent 
 reason ; and some other French garrisons capitu- 
 Jated upon condition of being allowed to return into 
 France with the honours of war. Florence, Leg- 
 horn, and Ferrara were occupied by Neapolitan 
 troops. At this moment, or rather a day or two 
 before the entrance of Murat’s division into Leg- 
 horn, Lord William Bentinck, who was going 
 from Sicily with his Anglo-Sicilian army to drive 
 the French out of Genoa, lay-to off the port of 
 Leghorn, landed some troops in the suburbs, and 
 treated that town with a short and very useless 
 cannonade, which wounded an old woman and 
 made a few dents in the walls. Lord William, 
 the ally of Austria, was almost the ally of Murat, 
 but his Neapolitan majesty was agitated and 
 alarmed at the appearance of this Anglo-Sicilian 
 armament, and he sent orders to his general to put 
 Leghorn in a state of defence, to keep a good look 
 out against any surprise, and to repel force by 
 force if Bentinck should use any. His anxiety 
 became the greater as, owing to contrary winds 
 or some other circumstances, our men-of-war and 
 transports continued to lie for two or three days in 
 Leghorn roads. It was a strange alliance! Murat 
 suspected and feared Bentinck, both Bentinck and 
 the Austrian generals suspected, if they did not fear, 
 Murat, and it was not with unmixed satisfaction 
 that the Austrians saw Bentinck’s armament wel- 
 comed on that Italian coast by the mass of the 
 people. Yet they were all to co-operate and to 
 act upon a combined plan of movements. Mar- 
 shal Bellegarde, who had found little or nothing to 
 oppose his passage, was now on the Mincio with 
 45,000 Austrians, Murat was on the Po with 
 22,000: Neapolitans, and with General Nugent’s 
 Austrian corps of 8000 serving under him, while 
 on Murat’s left, and on the other side of the Apen- 
 nines, Lord William Bentinck, having landed his 
 troops, was on the mountains of Sarzana, , near 
 Genoa, with from 8000 to 10,000 men—about as 
 motley an army as ever had been seen, composed of 
 Sicilians, Calabrians, Italian free corps, and Ita- 
 lian insurgents, Greeks, Albanians, and Croats, 
 To oppose to these three 
 several armies Eugene Beauharnais had in the 
 plains of Lombardy a mixed army of French and 
 Italians, from 50,000 to 60,000 strong, and several 
 fortresses of the first order. His spirit rose and 
 fell according to the varying nature of the intelli- 
 gence he received of Bonaparte’s defensive cam- 
 paign in the interior of France; but he was steady 
 to the cause, and made the best use of his good 
 news, and after the victories obtained over the 
 
Cuar. VILI.] 
 
 allies at Nangis and Montereav he issued mag- 
 niloquent proclamations to the Italian people, to 
 show them that their fate must still depend on 
 Napoleon. On the other side Marshal Bellegarde 
 was calling upon the Lombards to return to their 
 allegiance to their ancient, kind, and forgiving 
 sovereign the Emperor Francis; Lord William 
 Bentinck, with a zeal that was not justified by the 
 circumstances of the case or by the orders of his 
 government, was proclaiming nothing less than the 
 Independence of Italy ; and Murat was wondering 
 how these conflicting proclamations would operate 
 upon the Italians and upon his own interests. The 
 embarrassment of all parties, but most of all that 
 of Murat, was increased by a notable incident, 
 which created more excitement among the pea- 
 santry and the popular masses throughout Italy than 
 ten thousand proclamations of independence, or any 
 other kind of proclamation or manifesto could have 
 done. Having nothing to hope from his further 
 detention, Bonaparte, on the 22nd of January, sent 
 an order to Fontainebleau that the Pope should 
 leave that place the next day and return to Italy. 
 Pius VII. set off accompanied by an escort, and 
 was taken by slow journeys back to his native 
 country, where he was received by all the populace 
 and by the devout Catholics of all classes with rap- 
 turous joy. Murat, who had occupied Rome and 
 Ancona, and other parts of the papal states, and 
 who calculated upon keeping some of that territory, 
 was thrown into consternation by the news of this 
 arrival and enthusiastic reception, which was not 
 communicated to him officially, but which he 
 gleaned merely from the loud-sounding popular 
 voice. At first he thought of stopping the old 
 pontiff on his journey; but he shrunk from the 
 danger of this experiment, and felt that it was not 
 his arms that could shut out from the Eternal City 
 that feeble and aged priest, who was carried for- 
 ward by the irresistible opinions of the Italian peo- 
 ple. On arriving at a bridge on the river Nura, 
 in the state of Parma, Pius, surrounded and fol- 
 lowed by a countless multitude, met the advanced 
 posts of the Neapolitan army, and saw the greater 
 part of those soldiers quit their ranks, fall down on 
 their knees before him, and implore his passing 
 blessing. Murat had instructed his general Caras- 
 cosa to wait upon his holiness, to offer him all re- 
 spect and reverence, but at the same time to attempt 
 to persuade him to remain for the present at 
 Parma or Piacenza. But the old pontiff would not 
 be moved from his fixed purpose. He said he was 
 going onward, not to the city of Rome, but to the 
 little town of Cesena, his birth-place; and thither 
 he would go with God’s blessing, though he went 
 on foot. Carascosa wrote to his master, who was 
 then at Bologna, to tell him that the poor old pope 
 was more formidable than an army, and to implore 
 him not to think of offering any resistance, but to 
 yield to public opinion. Murat’s Neapolitan mi- 
 nisters also advised him to take advantage of the 
 religious enthusiasm, and to declare at once for 
 the pope and the people. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 Such a course might 
 ‘4 
 
 693 
 
 have been attended with consequences very favour- 
 able to Murat, but, as a beginning, it was neces- 
 sary that the pontiff should take Murat into his 
 favour and confidence, and agree with him as to 
 the measures to be adopted; and this Pius never 
 for one moment thought of doing. The pope saw 
 Murat at Bologna, and conferred for some time 
 with him, but he entered into no arrangement 
 either verbally or in writing; he asked nothing but 
 to be allowed to continue his journey to his native 
 town, and by the route—along the ancient Aumilian 
 road—which he had chosen. The king of the 
 armed host would fain have made him take ano- 
 ther road, through Tuscany, but he durst not en- 
 force this wish; and the pontiff travelled along 
 the road made by the consuls of old Rome, es- 
 corted from town to town by thousands of the peo- 
 ple. Thus he reached Cesena, where he remained 
 until the allies had finished their work in France 
 and Bonaparte had taken up his residence in Elba. 
 
 The news of the temporary reverses of the allies 
 which reached Beauharnais reached Murat also, 
 and very evidently shook his infirm purpose. He 
 was, however, called forward to the field by Ben- 
 tinck and Bellegarde, and the Tranco-Italic army 
 of the viceroy threw him into a rage and hastened 
 his advance, by crossing the Po and falling upon 
 Nugent and Carascosa, and capturing some Nea- 
 politan troops. Nothing that followed deserves 
 the name of a battle; but there were some sharp 
 skirmishes under the walls of Reggio, at Borgo- 
 forte, at the bridge of Sacca, at Sandonnino, and 
 two or three other places in the Lombard country 
 about the Po, the Mincio, and the Taro; and in 
 these combats the Neapolitans, sometimes by them- 
 selves, and sometimes in conjunction with the 
 Austrians, beat the Italian and French troops .of 
 Beauharnais. In the affair at Reggio the Neapo- 
 litans displayed considerable alacrity and bravery ; 
 but, unhappily, the blood they shed was Italian 
 blood, like their own, the viceroy’s troops opposed 
 to them there being nearly all natives of Upper 
 Italy. Murat was seen to grieve at his very suc- 
 cesses; and he could hardly be brought to look 
 upon the field when Beauharnais put forward in 
 battle order native French troops commanded by 
 old French generals, who had been in earlier life 
 his friends and his own brother-officers. Murat had 
 at once too much heart and too little head to steer 
 through the dilemma in which he was; he was 
 doubly incapacitated for going through with the 
 part which his old comrade Bernadotte had played 
 so successfully. Eugene Beauharnais was beaten 
 and in full retreat, and the Austrians were threat- 
 ening Milan, and the Neapolitans were pressing 
 forward upon Piacenza, when, on the 15th of 
 April, Marshal Bellegarde announced to Murat 
 that the allies had captured Paris, that the French 
 government had been wholly changed, and that the 
 Viceroy Eugene had agreed with the Austrians for 
 a suspension of hostilities in Italy. On the same 
 day a French officer, a friend, who had been sent 
 into France by Murat to obtain an accurate know- 
 
694 
 
 ledge of what was passing there, returned to his 
 employer, who then had his head-quarters close to 
 Piacenza. The dismal news this Frenchman 
 brought might prove that Murat had been so far 
 right in his calculation as to have chosen the 
 stronger party, and to have declared against his 
 brother-in-law at the very nick of time; yet the 
 fearful catastrophe gave him sorrow and not joy; 
 he turned deadly pale, and was for a time quife un- 
 manned. He quitted his army, returned to Firen- 
 zuola, and thence to Bologna again. 
 
 Before this news arrived it was evident that 
 Beauharnais could not maintain himself, and that 
 the dominion of the French beyond the Alps was 
 at anend. ‘The viceroy had no money and hardly 
 any resources, for Italy had been drained by his 
 stepfather : the peasantry of Lombardy were wel- 
 coming back the Austrians; popular insurrections 
 were breaking out én both sides; and the liberal 
 party among the nobility and citizens (not wholly 
 uninfluenced by Bentinck’s flags and proclama- 
 tions) were aspiring to independence and a con- 
 stitution. When Bonaparte’s abdication became 
 known, everywhere these movements increased in 
 rapidity and boldness. The government of the 
 viceroy and the entire French system in Lombardy 
 were broken up in aday. The people of Milan, 
 reinforced by the people of Pavia and other towns, 
 and by the peasantry of the neighbourhood, rose in 
 a mass, broke the statue of Napoleon, tore down all 
 the eagles, and murdered in the streets his chief 
 minister Prina, who had been a harsh taskmaster, 
 and inexorable in enforcing the conscription and 
 the heayy taxation. The nobles and citizens of 
 the liberal party then named a provisional govern- 
 ment, to act, not in the name of the Emperor of 
 Austria, the old sovereign of the country, but in 
 the name of the free and independent Lombard 
 Nation; and this rapidly improvised government, 
 composed chiefly of enthusiastic, inexperienced, 
 and inexpert men, drew up the plan of a constitu- 
 tion, as if it had been a sonnet or a madrigal, dis- 
 patched ambassadors with it to the allied sove- 
 reigns, and sent the first copy of it to Lord William 
 Bentinck, who was considered as its sponsor. 
 Eugene Beauharnais, whose own life was threatened 
 by some of the insurgents, hastened to conclude a 
 convention with Bellegarde: the French troops in 
 his service were allowed to return to France; his 
 Italian troops were to remain quiet in the country 
 they occupied until the grand alliance should give 
 further orders; and upon this, without returning 
 to Milan, Beauharnais travelled through the passes 
 of the Tyrol, and repaired to Munich to seek (and 
 he found it) an hospitable and a tranquil asylum 
 with his father-in-law the King of Bavaria. 
 
 Lord William Bentinck, having landed his 
 troops in the Gulf of Spezzia, began to move 
 rapidly forward upon Genoa on the 7th of April. 
 On the banners of his Italian legion were inscribed, 
 in large letters of gold, or in rich silk embroidery, 
 the magical words “‘ [NDIPENDENZA DELL’ [Ta- 
 
 LIA,” an inscription which produced a great ex- 
 
 so eae a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 TY Sera 
 eh 
 ih 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 citement among some of the higher classes of the 
 Italians, but which conveyed no meaning to the 
 poor Genoese mariners and peasantry. He had 
 expected to find a weak garrison; but, while his 
 armament had been loitering on the coast, Beau- 
 harnais and the French commander in Piedmont 
 had thrown 4000 or 5000 men across the Apen- 
 nines to strengthen Genoa and cover the approaches 
 to it. The country between La Spezzia and the 
 city of Genoa is very rough and difficult: a bold 
 range of mountains slope precipitously to the 
 Mediterranean; the road runs partly along a nar- 
 row ledge over the sea, and partly across the 
 mountains, or through deep, steep, and wooded 
 defiles. But Beauharnais’s people made but a 
 feeble resistance, yielding pass after pass, and post 
 after post, till they were driven close under the 
 walls of Genoa, where they took up a very strong 
 position, having their left covered by the strong 
 forts of Richelieu and Tecla, and their right by 
 the village of San Martino and the sea, and having 
 in their front a country thickly covered with villas 
 and hamlets, communicating with each other by 
 narrow lanes enclosed by stone walls. In this 
 position they were attacked at daybreak on the 
 17th of April. Bentinck’s Italian legion, aided 
 by his Calabrians and Greeks, carried the two forts 
 on the enemy’s left in good style: the attack on 
 their right was made by the mixed division of 
 Major-General Montresor and the English division 
 of Lieutenant-General Mac Farlane. The French 
 officers knew what had passed at Paris; the 
 struggle, never very hot, did not last long,* and 
 the retreat into the town was precipitate. By the 
 hour of noon Bentinck’s forces had taken up a 
 position close to the most assailable part of the 
 city; and Sir Edward Pellew’s squadron anchored 
 in the roads. On the nest day, the 18th, a capi- 
 tulation was signed, by which the French were 
 allowed to evacuate Genoa. Lord William Ben- 
 tinck, who had certainly held out the prospect of 
 the restoration of the old republic, allowed some 
 of the Genoese aristocracy and notables to establish 
 a provisional government according to the ancient 
 plan. All this and much more Lord William did 
 inconsiderately, and on his own liberal impulse ; 
 but it was afterwards imputed to him and to the 
 British government as deliberate treachery, as well 
 by others as by some of the Genoese citizens who 
 could ill urge any such complaint, since, if it had 
 been meant for deception, they had never been — 
 deceived, or, at least, had never done anything to — 
 obtain a claim upon Bentinck’s conditional pro- — 
 mises. The banners announcing the independence 
 of Italy, and the intimation about the restoration — 
 of the separate independence of their own republic, 
 had not weaned them from their French predilec- 
 tions, or had not roused them to a single exertion — 
 in favour of the allies. When Beauharnais’s forces 
 were beaten, they were glad to open their gates to” 
 
 * Only one of Bentinck’s officers was seriously wounded. This was 
 the brother of the officer who had played among the conspirators at — 
 Messina the part of General Manhes’s aide-de-camp. He lost his leg. 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 his lordship ; but it was out of no affection to the 
 cause, nor owing to any expectations which he 
 had held out to them, but solely to save their city 
 from bombardment.* A few days after the de- 
 parture of the Viceroy Beauharnais, Marshal Belle- 
 garde advanced with a part of the Austrian army 
 to Milan, displaced the independent provisional 
 government, which had no hold on the affections or 
 passions of the people, and proclaimed the restora- 
 tion of the legitimate sovereignty of the Emperor 
 Francis; and, except among the nobility (and 
 they were much divided in opinion and in feeling, 
 while many of them were passive or indifferent), ex- 
 cept among the body of advocates, professors, men 
 of letters, and a few of a superior class of merchants, 
 not only the Milanese, but also the people of the 
 rest of Lombardy, applauded all that Bellegarde 
 did. The Austrian general, Count Bubna, then 
 marched into Turin, the capital of Piedmont, and 
 declared the intention of the allies to restore that 
 country and Savoy to the King of Sardinia; and, 
 on the 20th of May, his Sardinian majesty entered 
 Turin, and established his government on the old 
 basis. Not one member of the Continental coali- 
 tions had adhered more steadily and faithfully to 
 his engagements, or had suffered more severely 
 from them. The allies had resolved that he should 
 now receive some reward, and that the territories 
 of the Genoese republic, which jomed Piedmont, 
 and which shut that fine and productive country 
 from the sea, should be united te his dominions. 
 As soon as he was informed of the proceedings 
 which Lord William Bentinck had taken, or had 
 permitted, at Genoa, Lord Castlereagh wrote to 
 express his regret, and to state that the separate 
 existence of Genoa could not be preserved, it being 
 the resolution of the allies that Genoa should make 
 part of the dominions of the King of Sardinia. 
 Few, very few, of the Genoese complained of this 
 at the time; and, in the course of a very few 
 years, the last murmur of discontent had almost 
 died away, the Genoese people having found that 
 
 * The poor Liberals and Constitutionalists of Milan had, perhaps, 
 more reason to complain of the illusory uature of Bentinck’s bright 
 flags and bright hopes than the Genoese ; though it should appear that, 
 even if Bentinck had never held out any hope at all, and had never 
 put Indipendenza dell’ Italia on his banners, their own enthusiasm 
 would equally have committed and duped them. They certainly were 
 not left long in a state of error as to the intention of the allied powers 
 and the nothingness of Lord William’s vapouring. Shortly after en- 
 tering Genoa, General Mac Farlane crossed the Apennines, and went 
 on to Milan. A deputation from the provisional government and the 
 Milanese patriots waited upon him. Inthe number were several in- 
 teresting men: there were Count Gonfaloniere (who, since then, has 
 Jain so long in a horrible Austrian state prison), the late Ugo Foscolo, 
 the poet, Hellenist, and critic, the late Cavalier Giuseppe Pecchio (so 
 well known and so much respected in England, where he ended his 
 life, as his friend, Ugo Foscolo, had done a few years before him), 
 and other individuals distinguished by their rank, wit, and attain- 
 ments. The general could not receive them in a public capacity, and 
 told them so. They asked him for his opinion as a private English 
 
 entlemaa, and begged him to state frankly whether he thought that 
 it would enter into the views of the British government to countenance 
 the motto on Lord Bentinck’s standards, or to give support to the in- 
 dependenee of Lombardy? The general frankly told them that he 
 thought nothing of the kind; that he believed that it had long been 
 determined in the allied councils that Austria should be restored to 
 her old rights of dominion in Upper Italy; that without this contract 
 Austria would not have taken the field against Bonaparte ; and that, 
 however much Englishmen might desire to see Italy united, free, and 
 independent, the British government could certainly never oppose (as 
 erearet could have prevented) the arrangements which had been 
 made, 
 
 Tota 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1814. 
 
 695 
 
 they, as well as the Piedmontese, were gainers by 
 the incorporation. It would have been well for 
 the future prospects of Italy if the King of Sar- 
 dinia had gotten more, and the Emperor of Aus- 
 tria had gotten less. In addition to his old pos- 
 sessions in Lombardy, Francis laid his hand upon 
 Venice, which had only been his for a short period, 
 and by virtue of a foul treaty with France, and 
 upon other cities and states which had never been 
 his at all, as Brescia, Cremona, Guastalla, Parma, 
 Piacenza, &c. 
 
 Murat, agitated by doubt and dread, suspecting 
 his new ally Austria, and knowing that he was 
 suspected by her, distrusting most of his Neapolitan 
 generals, and alarmed at the Carbonari, who were 
 crying for a constitution, and at the plots and 
 movements of the royalists, who were calling for 
 the restoration of King Ferdinand, returned rather 
 hastily to Naples, withdrawing his garrison from 
 the Castle of St. Angelo at Rome, but reinforcing 
 his garrison at Ancona, and leaving some of his 
 troops beyond the frontiers of the States of the 
 Church. On the 24th of May the pope made his 
 solemn entrance into Rome, and restored the old 
 ecclesiastical government. The popular joy was 
 extatic. 
 
 Few of these restored governments were good, 
 but that of Spain was the worst of them all, though 
 probably not worse than the regimen of the Spa- 
 nish Cortes and Liberales would have been, if cir- 
 cumstances and the temper of the army and people 
 had allowed them to continue in possession of their 
 power. Between them and the royalists and reli- 
 gious bigots it was a question of force, and the 
 bigots and the royalists proved the stronger. On 
 entering Spain towards the end of March, Ferdi- 
 nand took up his quarters within the strong walls 
 of Gerona, where the Liberales could not touch 
 him. But it was evident by this time that few of 
 the Spanish generals would obey the orders of the 
 Cortes, and that the great body of the army looked 
 to the king as having the sole right of command 
 over them. The peasantry and the mass of the 
 people, whether in towns or in the country, re- 
 ceived him with transports of joy. He was joined 
 by General Elio, one of the most devoted of all 
 the royalists, and one who had great influence with 
 the army. By the advice of Elio, who apparently 
 feared Mina and one or two other guerrilla chiefs 
 who had professed more reverence for the Cortes 
 than for the king, he deviated from the route 
 by which he was expected to advance on his way 
 from Gerona. For some time he made no stay 
 except in walled towns. He went to Zaragoza, 
 and from Zaragoza to the fortified city of Valencia. 
 Here he remained a considerable time, and hither 
 most of the Spanish grandees and many of the 
 archbishops and bishops flocked to welcome him, 
 and to conjure him to overset the Cortes and the 
 constitution, which threatened alike the throne, the 
 church, and the nobility. General Elio had already 
 promised the assistance of 40,000 Spanish soldiers 
 devoted to their king and their church; other 
 
696 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 . . | . . 
 assurances were given, and the one general wish | day he took his departure from Valencia for 
 
 and demand of these nobles and priests, and of’ 
 
 generals, soldiers, and citizens, was that he should 
 proclaim himself absolute king, as his father had 
 been before him, re-establish the inquisition, and 
 crush the Cortes and the Liberales altogether. It 
 was but by following the sense of his nation, which 
 he saw manifested in the strongest manner, that 
 Ferdinand determined to do what he did. If he 
 had pursued a contrary course, many of the royalist 
 party would even then have set up his brother 
 Don Carlos; for it was not merely the passion 
 of loyalty and the enthusiasm of religion that 
 animated many of these Spaniards; they had seen 
 in their conflicts with the Cortes that their rank, 
 their consideration, their property, their very lives 
 would be committed if the Liberales should pre- 
 vail, and they had not been Spaniards if they had 
 not thirsted for revenge for the evils or insults 
 they had already suffered at the hands of the con- 
 stitution-makers. The Cortes wrote to Valencia 
 to entreat his majesty to proceed to Madrid, and 
 complete the happiness of Spain by swearing to 
 the constitution. At the same time they made a 
 very empty show of supporting that constitution 
 and their own authority by force of arms; and 
 proceeded to regulate the royal household in an 
 indiscreet and insulting manner, and as if their 
 own little household gods were not tumbling about 
 their ears. But seventy members seceded at 
 once, and sent a deputation to present a memorial 
 to the king, in which they solemnly protested 
 against the measures of the Cortes as having been 
 carried by force and intimidation, and professed for 
 themselves and for their constituents a boundless 
 loyalty and attachment to their ancient laws and 
 institutions. At last, on the 4th of May, after the 
 king and the infantas had heard Ze Deum in the 
 cathedral of Valencia, in the midst of 20,000 burn- 
 ing wax tapers, and in presence of a miraculous 
 chalice, a royal declaration came forth, in which it 
 was stated, in the name of Ferdinand, that the 
 Cortes had never been legally convoked, that they 
 had excluded the states of the nobility and clergy, 
 that they had despoiled him of the sovereignty, at- 
 tributing it nominally to the nation, for the pur- 
 pose of appropriating it tothemselves ; and finally, 
 that it was his Majesty’s intention not only not to 
 swear to the constitution they had made, but to 
 pronounce that constitution null and void. A com- 
 parison—and by no means an irrelevant one—was 
 drawn between the constitution manufactured by 
 the Cortes and the constitution of 1791, manufac- 
 tured by the French legislative assembly. Ferdi- 
 nand, however, declared that he abhorred and de- 
 tested despotism, and that, as soon as circumstances 
 would permit, or as soon as order and the good 
 usages in which the Spanish nation had lived 
 should be restored, he would consult with the pro- 
 curadores of Spain and of the Indies in a Cortes 
 legitimately assembled. And this last declaration 
 was considered by some as equivalent to a promise 
 of giving a free constitution to Spain. On the next 
 
 Madrid. He travelled slowly and by short stages ; 
 the concourse of people was so great that the road 
 from Valencia was lined with them; their joy and 
 their shouts were everywhere the same. On the 
 night of the 11th of May General Eguia, as fierce 
 a royalist as Elio, seized all the liberal members of 
 the Cortes that he could find in Madrid and threw 
 them into prison. The whole body fell helpless, 
 unresisting, and unlamented by the people. On 
 the 12th of May Ferdinand entered his capital, and 
 was received with demonstrations of popular joy 
 and enthusiasm, inferior in degree only to what’ 
 had been displayed by the Italian peasantry and 
 the populace at Rome on the arrival of the pope. 
 Except by the knife and stiletto and in private re- 
 venge, blood was not shed now; but scaffolds were 
 soon erected in more than one city of Spain. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington (he had received this 
 rank from the Prince Regent) hastened to Madrid 
 as soon as his numerous occupations would allow 
 him, in order to mediate between the infuriated 
 parties, and to bestow some good advice on the re- 
 stored king and government. He arrived at the 
 Spanish capital on the 24th of May. He was very 
 well received by the king and his ministers, but 
 he confessed his fear that he had done very little 
 good by coming. He found that nothing could be 
 more popular than the king and his measures, as 
 far as they had gone tothe overthrow of the Cortes 
 constitution ; and that, though some thought it an 
 unnecessary and impolitic measure, the arrest of 
 the Liberales was liked by the people atlarge. The 
 duke, as wellas his brother the British ambassador, 
 Sir Henry Wellesley, who had waited upon Fer- 
 dinand at Valencia, and General Whittingham, 
 who had escorted him from Zaragoza, strongly 
 recommended, not that Ferdinand should swear 
 to the wild, democratic, and impracticable consti- 
 tution established, but that he should hasten to 
 frame and recognise one better suited to the coun- 
 try, to the habits and opinions of the Spanish 
 people, and to the laws and customs of the Spanish 
 monarchy. Tothe Duke of San Carlos and others, 
 Wellington urged the necessity of the king govern- 
 ing on liberal principles:—but in writing to Lord 
 Castlereagh he said, ‘* The fact is, that there are 
 no public men in this country who are acquainted 
 either with the interests or the wishes of the coun- 
 try ; and they are so slow in their motions, that it 
 is impossible to do anything with them.” * 
 
 On the 11th of June the Duke of Wellington 
 was again with his army, which, with the excep- 
 tion of some divisions previously embarked for the | 
 purpose of carrying war into the interior of the | 
 United States of America, was collected at Bor- 
 deaux, in order to evacuate France according to 
 the treaty of Paris. On the 14th of June he 
 issued his farewell general orders to those gallant 
 troops, congratulating them upon the recent events 
 which had restored peace to their country and to 
 the world, and upon the great share whick the 
 
 * Dispatches. 
 
Cuar. VIII.] 
 
 British army had in producing these events, and 
 on the high character with which the army would 
 quit France. He declared that, though separated 
 from them, he should never cease to feel the warmest 
 interest in their welfare and honour; and that he 
 would be at all times happy to be of service to those 
 to whose conduct, discipline, and gallantry their 
 country stood so much indebted. His Grace ar- 
 rived in London on the 23rd of June, to meet with 
 an enthusiastic and grateful reception which has 
 never been surpassed. Parliament was sitting, 
 having re-assembled, according to a second proro- 
 gation, on the 21st of March. On the 28th of 
 June, his Grace’s various patents in the peerage, 
 as baron, viscount, earl, marquess, duke, were read 
 in the House of Lords by the clerks; and the 
 duke then for the first time took the oaths and his 
 seat. Lord Chancellor Eldon then rose; and, 
 pursuant to their lordships’ previous order, gave 
 the thanks of that House to Field-Marshal the Duke 
 of Wellington for his eminent and unremitting ser- 
 vice to his Majesty and to the public. On the Ist 
 of July his Grace attended in the House of Com- 
 mons, and he received the thanks of that House, 
 through the Speaker, Abbot. The sum of 500,000/. 
 was afterwards voted to be laid out in the purchase 
 of an estate for his Grace, to be a lasting token of 
 the national gratitude. 
 
 The legislative measures of this short parlia- 
 mentary session are of little historical importance. 
 The budget of the year was laid before the House 
 of Commons on the 13th of June. The whole 
 amount of supplies exceeded 75,600,000/. The 
 session was closed on the 30th of July by the 
 Prince Regent in person. ‘The autumnal session 
 presented no matter of great interest. It was 
 opened on the 8th of November by the speech from 
 the throne, which was again delivered by the 
 Regent in person; and on the 2nd of December 
 the Houses adjourned till the 9th of February next. 
 In the month of August the Duke of Wellington 
 proceeded to Paris as ambassador of Great Britain 
 to Louis XVIII. 
 
 A.D. 1815.—The great Congress of Vienna began 
 to assemble at the opening of the year; and in the 
 month of January the Duke of Wellington re- 
 paired thither. Our parliament re-assembled in 
 February. The opposition, which had already ex- 
 pressed a strong and indignant disapprobation of 
 the forcible transfer of Norway from Denmark to 
 Sweden, now censured with equal severity the 
 annexation of the worthless old republic of Genoa 
 to the dominions of the King of Sardinia. With 
 less questionable reason, and with a generous 
 English feeling which did them honour, they took 
 up the case of two Spanish refugees of the liberal 
 party who had taken refuge in Gibraltar, and had 
 there, in an unprecedented and monstrous manner, 
 been delivered up to the authorities of the King of 
 Spain -by our temporary deputy governor, General 
 Smith. Parliament had got over these matters, 
 and was discussing subjects of home policy, regu- 
 lating the reduction of the militia, &c., as if all 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 697 
 
 fears of war were over, when England and Europe 
 were startled, as at a thunder-clap, by the intelli- 
 gence that Bonaparte had escaped from his narrow 
 insular empire to repossess himself of his old 
 French empire. On the 6th of April, a messag- 
 from the Prince Regent was delivered to eacr 
 House, communicating the information that events 
 which had recently occurred in France—events 
 which threatened consequences highly dangerous 
 to the tranquillity and independence of Europe— 
 had induced his royal highness to give directions 
 for the immediate augmentation of our land and 
 sea forces, and to lose no time in communicating 
 with our allies for the purpose of forming such a 
 concert as might effectually provide for the ge- 
 neral and permanent security of Europe. On the 
 following day the Earl of Liverpool rose in the 
 Lords to move a corresponding address to the 
 Regent. His lordship affirmed that our negocia- 
 tor at Paris, Lord Castlereagh, had expressed a 
 strong disapprobation of the treaty concluded by 
 the allied sovereigns with Bonaparte, but that, the 
 representations of those sovereigns having at length 
 convinced him of its necessity or expediency, he 
 (Lord C.) had consented to accede to it in part, 
 namely, as far as concerned the possession of the 
 Isle of Elba by Bonaparte, and the sovereignty 
 of the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza conferred 
 on his wife Maria-Louisa. On the same day, in 
 the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh, who 
 had been personally engaged in many of the pre- 
 vious transactions, explained how it was that the 
 disturber of Europe had escaped. It had never, 
 he said, been the intention of the allied powers, 
 who accepted his unconditional act of abdication, 
 to consider or to treat Bonaparte as a prisoner, or to 
 exercise a system of police or espionage with respect 
 tohim. They relied on the treaty of Fontainebleau, 
 and upon the apparent determination of the French 
 people to have done with him for ever, and to 
 adhere to Louis XVIII. Bonaparte was invested 
 with the sovereignty of the island of Elba; a cer- 
 tain number of troops had been allowed to collect 
 round him, as the island had been and might again 
 be exposed to the descents of the Barbary corsairs ; 
 and he had had a sort of naval equipment under 
 his flag, which the British officer on that station 
 had no power of visiting. This was also the case 
 with the naval officer of Louis XVIII. Colonel 
 Campbell, who had been one of Bonaparte’s con- 
 ductors to Elba, had indeed been suffered to remain 
 between that island and Leghorn ; but his visits 
 had latterly been discouraged by Bonaparte ; and 
 a sort of English vice-consul, who resided on the 
 island, was put under the surveillance of two gen- 
 darmes at the time Bonaparte was making his 
 preparations to invade France. Mr. Whitbread 
 vehemently opposed a renewal of war by England, 
 or what he termed ‘‘ commencing a new crusade 
 for the purpose of determining who should fill the 
 throne of France.” He even recommended that 
 
 we should renew with Bonaparte the treaty which 
 had been concluded with Louis XVIII. 
 
 Only 32 
 
698 
 
 members voted with him, while 220 voted against 
 him. The ministerial address to the Regent was 
 carried in both Houses without any division upon 
 ¥t; and the nation at large felt as strongly as par- 
 biament that nothing was left for England to do 
 out to draw the sword again, and never sheath it 
 until Bonaparte should be consigned to some safer 
 place than Elba. The parliament continued sitting 
 till the battle of Waterloo falsified the sinister pro- 
 phecies of those who had voted against the new 
 war, because it would be as long as the last. Sub- 
 sidies, or aids in money given under other names, 
 were voted to a large amount, and the budget of 
 the year was raised to very nearly 90,000,000. 
 The astounding news of the flight from Elba 
 was announced to the diplomatists of Europe sitting 
 in congress at Vienna by Talleyrand. ‘There was 
 no hesitation there as to what was to be done. 
 The representatives of the allied sovereigns imme- 
 diately agreed to join their forces again, in order 
 to frustrate Bonaparte’s attempt, and to maintain 
 entire the treaty of Paris. On the 13th of March 
 the ministers of the eight powers * assembled at 
 Vienna, including the ministers of the King of 
 France, signed a paper, by which they declared 
 Napoleon Bonaparte an outlaw, a violator of 
 treaties, and a disturber of the peace of the world, 
 and delivered him over to public vengeance (vin- 
 dicte publique). The Duke of Wellington, who 
 was immediately called upon by the Emperor of 
 Austria, by the Emperor of Russia (who was also 
 at Vienna), and by the plenipotentiaries and gene- 
 rals of all nations there assembled, to assist in 
 drawing up a grand plan of military operations, 
 announced to his government that all that had 
 occurred in France since Bonaparte’s return had 
 augmented ‘‘ the eagerness of the different powers 
 to put forth the general strength for the common 
 protection.” + At the same time his grace an- 
 nounced that it would be quite impossible for these 
 allied powers to make an effort adequate to the 
 occasion unless they should obtain the aid of 
 English money. With proper assistance, and with 
 an efficient British force co-operating with the 
 allies, he was quite confident that the contest 
 would be “a very short one, and decidedly suc- 
 cessful.” ‘* Nothing,” he said, “‘ could be done 
 with a small force; the war would linger on and 
 end to our disadvantage. Motives of economy, 
 then, should induce the British government to 
 tuke measures to bring the largest possible force 
 into action at the earliest period of time.” It was 
 upon this wise calculation that Lord Liverpool's 
 government made its prodigious financial effort ; 
 and that it agreed to furnish all the British troops 
 it could spare, and to pay for other troops that 
 should make up the force supplied by Great Bri- 
 tain to 125,000 men. Austria agreed to furnish 
 300,000 men, Russia 225,000, Prussia 236,000, 
 
 * The eight powers were Austria, Spain, France, Great Britain» 
 Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden. The ministers for Great Bri- 
 tain were the Duke of Wellington, Lords Catheart and Clancarty, and 
 Sir Charles Stewart. Those for France were Talleyrand, the Duc de 
 Dalberg, M. Latour du Pin, and the Count Alexis de Noailles, 
 
 { Dispatches. - 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 the various states of Germany 150,000, and Hol- 
 land afterwards agreed to furnish 50,000. On the 
 23rd of March, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great 
 Britain concluded the treaty of Vienna, confirming 
 the principles of the Treaty of Chaumont, which 
 they had agreed to on the 1st of March, 1814, 
 after the breaking up of the congress at Chatillon, 
 and by which they bound themselves to make no 
 separate peace, and to conclude neither cessation 
 of hostilities nor any convention whatever except — 
 by general consent. On the morning of the 29th 
 of March, four days after signing this treaty, the 
 Duke of Wellington left Vienna, in order to exa- 
 mine the military state of affairs in Belgium, which 
 country, as of old, was quite sure to be the first 
 battle-field. He arrived at Brussels on the night 
 of the 4th of April; and, rapidly as he had tre- 
 velled, he had found time to observe the condition 
 and spirit of several bodies of the allied armies, 
 A strong Prussian corps, which had been left at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, was ‘‘ very content ” at the pros- 
 pect of another brush with Bonaparte. As early 
 as the 5th of April the Duke announced that, after 
 having placed 13,400 men in the fortresses of 
 Belgium, he could assemble 23,000 men of good 
 English and Hanoverian troops, 20,000 Dutch 
 and Belgian troops, and about 60 pieces of artil- 
 lery; but, as it was understood that Bonaparte, 
 who had not arrived at Paris until the 20th of 
 March, would not commence his attack until he 
 had collected his whole force, every exertion was 
 made to raise this allied force in Belgium to an 
 equality with his in the shortest space of time pos- 
 sible; and the incredible labour of correspondence 
 to quicken the preparations and the march of 
 Dutchmen, Prussians, Hanoverians, Austrians, and 
 armies of nearly all the nations of Europe, in- 
 cluding some of the slowest, fell principally upon 
 Wellington. 
 
 The essential points of the famous escapade from 
 Elba are soon told. If Bonaparte had ever gone 
 thither with the intention of stopping, he had 
 changed his mind in a very short time. He had 
 not been one month in the island ere he com- 
 menced a secret but most active correspondence 
 with his friends both in France and Italy. ‘This 
 correspondence became still more active as his 
 friends and agents reported to him the return of 
 the French prisoners of war from Russia, Poland, 
 Prussia, Saxony, England, Spain, &c., and related 
 that the temper of these veterans was unchanged, 
 that their devotion to glory and to their emperor — 
 was as great as ever. Several of these returned 
 prisoners, men as well as officers, passed over from — 
 time to time to Elba, to offer their services to enter 
 his guard, and to speak of the attachment of their 
 comrades to their old chief, and of their contempt 
 for the Bourbon king, who could not mount a 
 horse, and who was a great discourager of the 
 military profession, as he wanted nothing but 
 peace. ‘To these men the camp had, indeed, be- 
 come a home; and they could not but regret the 
 leader who had so long led them from victory to 
 
Cuar. VIII. ] 
 
 victory, affording them free quarters, with the inci- 
 dental privileges of plunder, a constant change of 
 scenery and excitement, and pleasant cantonments in 
 the finest cities of Europe.* It was in their nature 
 to forget easily both the comrades who had pe- 
 rished and their own occasional hard sufferings ; 
 and the national confidence and the pride of many 
 victories made them cherish the belief that, ifthey had 
 been in France in 1814, Napoleon would not have 
 been beaten by all the odds against him. They 
 also gave implicit credit to the assertion that the 
 emperor had been betrayed by some of his mar- 
 shals, and embraced the corollary, that, with less 
 wealthy and pampered and more faithful generals, 
 he was likely to succeed ina new trial. This, too, 
 opened the brilliant and tempting perspective of a 
 new cast of promotions, orders, titles, &c. And 
 what was there to get or to hope for from Louis 
 XVIII.? Besides these selfish considerations, there 
 were certainly higher motives of action: many of 
 these men were enthusiastically attached to the 
 military glory of their old master, and were eager 
 above all things to wipe off the disgrace of defeat 
 from their country. In the vain hope of keeping 
 matters quiet by making as few changes as possi- 
 ble, Louis XVIII. had retained in his service 
 nearly all the men that Bonaparte had left in em- 
 ployment, and many of the subordinate agents of 
 the police, post-office, and other departments were 
 in Napoleon’s interest. It was the same with most 
 of the municipal authorities, at least in the centre 
 and in the north of France. Even in the standing 
 army few of Bonaparte’s officers had been changed, 
 and men like Ney and Davoust were left at the 
 head of these forces. Although Louis XVIII. 
 had abilities, information, liberal views, and ex- 
 cellent intentions, the emigrants and other royalists 
 who surrounded him, and the civil government 
 which their importunities had forced upon him, 
 were at once imbecile and extravagant, weak (as 
 they had no hoid on the people), and yet revenge- 
 ful; and, after the departure of Talleyrand for 
 Vienna, nearly everything went wrong, and, though 
 no acts of tyranny were committed, many petty 
 spites were indulged in. Moreover, the weak go- 
 vernment of King Louis, surrounded from the first 
 moment of its existence by treachery and by: plots, 
 had no instruments wherewith to operate; the po- 
 lice, from which it expected information, was in 
 the interest of Bonaparte; the officers and people 
 who managed the telegraphs were in the interest 
 of Bonaparte; the magistrates upon whom it de- 
 pended for the suppression of cabal and sedition 
 were (at least in a great part of France) in the in- 
 terest of Bonaparte; the troops upon which it 
 counted for the suppression of insurrection were 
 almost toa man devoted to Bonaparte; and, when 
 the government could no longer be kept ignorant 
 that something was preparing, the police protested 
 that it was but a bagatelle, a mere fit of impatience 
 and uneasiness which would soon pass ‘off under 
 gentle treatment. It is said that long before the 
 * A. Vieusseux.—Fleury de Chaboulon, Mémoires. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 699 
 
 close of the year 1814, the znetiated named the 
 month and almost the very day on which the em- 
 peror would return. Some of the old republican 
 party, including men who had conspired against 
 him, now joined the Bonapartists, and invited Na- 
 poleon to retura. The brothers, sisters, and other 
 relatives of Bonaparte, all rich, and one of them 
 (Murat) still powerful, promoted the widely spread 
 plot, for they all felt that by his fall they had 
 either been reduced to obscurity or left without any 
 prop to their adventitious greatness. Murat’s 
 wife was incessantly telling him that Austria would 
 never abide by her treaty with him, that all the 
 members of the grand alliance were determined to 
 restore King Ferdinand, that, unless the throne of 
 Napoleon could be re-established, his throne of 
 Naples must fall, and leave him and her and her 
 children, not only without a kingdom, but without 
 a home; and at the proper moment, when the 
 weak mind of Murat was oscillating like the pen- 
 dulum of a clock, Napoleon himself wrote to tell 
 him that the lion was not dead, but only sleeping! 
 Murat prepared for the réveidler. Except the car- 
 dinal-uncle Fesch, Louis Bonaparte, the ex-king of 
 Holland, and Eugene Beauharnais, the ex-viceroy 
 of Italy, every living member or connexion of the 
 Bonaparte family appears to have been actively 
 engaged. Madame Hortense, sister of Beauhar- 
 nais, wife of Louis, and ex-queen of Holland, was 
 very busy, and, as she had been allowed to remain 
 in Paris, she had many means of being useful, 
 and her house became a principal rendezvous 
 of the party. She sent messages and secret agents 
 to her brother in Bavaria; but Eugene would not 
 be moved, and he remained quiet with his wife and 
 father-in-law in Munich. Lucien Bonaparte, 
 though he had incurred so much disgrace, though 
 he had been obliged to seek a refuge.in England, 
 was very eager for his brother’s restoration, and, as 
 a professed liberal and constitutionalist, he under- 
 took to manage the liberal and constitutional parties. 
 
 It was on the 26th of February, 1815, that 
 Napoleon embarked with a body of about 1000 
 men, composed of some of his old guards who had 
 followed him to Elba, of some Italians and Elbese, 
 some Corsicans and others, comprising about 200 
 dragoons and about 100 Polish lancers, with 
 saddles, but without horses. On the Ist of March 
 he landed at Cannes, a short distance from Frejus. 
 The Provencals neither welcomed him nor attempted 
 to oppose him. There were no king’s troops in 
 the neighbourhood. He hurried through Provence, 
 into Dauphiny, “the cradle of the Revolution ;” 
 and there the people began to flock round his 
 standard. Still no troops joined him, and he felt 
 uneasy. On the 5th of March he issued two ex- 
 citing proclamations, one to the French people, and 
 the other to the army. It was in the latter that 
 he said that his soldiers had not been beaten, and 
 that he and they had only been betrayed; that in 
 his exile he had heard the complaining voice of his 
 army, and that he had arrived once more among 
 them to renew their glory, and to put down foreign 
 
700 
 
 interference. After reminding them of the vic- 
 tories of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, &c., and bidding 
 them come and range themselves under the banner 
 of their old chief, he said, ‘* Victory shall march 
 at the charging step. The eagle shall fly from 
 steeple to steeple, till she perches on the tower of 
 Notre Dame!’ This proclamation produced an 
 immense effect. As he approached Grenoble, he 
 met for the first time some regular troops. They 
 were a battalion of infantry, which had been sent 
 forward from that city to stop his march; but a 
 short parley on the road ended in their joining 
 him. Just outside the walls of Grenoble, the 7th 
 regiment of the line, commanded by M. Charles 
 de Labédoyére, an officer of noble birth, and one 
 who had been promoted by Louis XVIII., but 
 who had recently set out from Paris with the de- 
 termination to break his oath to that king, set up 
 a joyous shout, rushed from their ranks to hug 
 and kiss their old comrades, who had come from 
 Elba, crying *‘ Vive ’Empereur!”’ and joined him. 
 General Marchand, who commanded the strong 
 garrison within the walls, shut the gates, and 
 would fain have done his duty ; but his men joined 
 in the cry of “ Vive !Empereur,” and, when Bona- 
 parte blew open one of the gates with a howitzer, 
 all the soldiers did what the 7th regiment had 
 done just before them. Next morning the civil 
 authorities of Grenoble renewed their allegiance. 
 Bonaparte had now an enthusiastic veteran army 
 of nearly 7000 men. With this force he descended 
 the mountains of Dauphiny, and appeared within 
 sight of Jiyons on the 10th of March. The king’s 
 brother, the Count d’Artois, was in that city, and 
 was ably and honestly assisted by Marshal Mac- 
 donald, who could not throw his oaths to the wind ; 
 but the troops and the populace at Lyons followed 
 the example at Grenoble, the prince and the con- 
 scientious marshal were obliged to fly for their 
 lives, and Bonaparte entered that second city of 
 France in triumph. The rest of the march to 
 Paris was a triumphant one. All along the road 
 the emperor was joined by soldiers, in detach- 
 ments, battalions, or entire divisions, who tore the 
 white cockade fron their caps, trampled upon it, 
 and mounted the tricolor. The Bourbons were 
 abandoned by the whole army; yet still, except in 
 Grenoble and in Lyons, the people gave few or no 
 signs of enthusiasm: many fled out of the way, 
 and the majority of those that remained on the 
 line of march seemed to be bewildered, and to 
 be wondering what would come next. Louis 
 XVIII. was now waited upon by Marshal Ney, 
 whom he had favoured and honoured, but who 
 apparently apprehended that the command of the 
 troops that still remained under the white flag 
 would be given to Macdonald, or to Marmont, 
 or to some other marshal equally averse to per- 
 jury and treason. Ney, with a profusion of pro- 
 testations, volunteered to take the command, to 
 intercept the invader; and, on getting what he 
 wished, and on kissing the king’s hand at parting, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 parte to Paris in an iron cage.* “ Adieu, mar- 
 shal; I trust to your honour and fidelity,” was the 
 reply of the confiding and duped Louis. The 
 marshal went to Lons-le-Saulnier, and joined the 
 emperor with his entire force! Nothing now re- 
 mained to Louis but some battalions under Mar- 
 shal Macdonald, who posted himself at Melun, 
 between Paris and Fontainebleau. On the 19th 
 of March, Bonaparte slept in the old palace of 
 Fontainebleau, where he had signed his act of ab- 
 dication in the preceding month of April. The 
 next morning he resumed his easy march for the 
 capital. Instead of disputing his passage, Mac- 
 donald’s people trampled on their white flags and 
 cockades, shouted ‘‘ Vive l’Empereur,” kissed, 
 hugged, and joined. Macdonald, with a few offi- 
 cers, escaped to Paris. He found the Tuileries 
 deserted: Louis XVIII. had fled at midnight for 
 the fortified town of Lille, near the Belgian fron- 
 tier, and most of his ministers and courtiers had 
 fled many hours before. The Royalists wept and 
 tore their hair, but they were helpless; the mass 
 of the population of Paris seemed totally imdif- 
 ferent ; there was no armed force within the city 
 upon which any dependence could be placed. 
 About twelve hours after the king’s departure, or 
 at noon of the 20th, a great troop of half-pay 
 officers, with their swords drawn, with two pieces 
 of cannon, and a detachment of cuirassiers, reached 
 the Place de Carrousel, shouting “Vive |’Em- 
 pereur!’? and demanding to mount guard at the 
 palace with the national guards. There was no — 
 resisting this demand, and, in the gardens of the 
 Tuileries, in the courts, and at the gates of the 
 palace, national guards, wearing the white cockade, 
 were mixed with these half-pay desperados wear- 
 ing the tricolor cockade. Shortly after this, there 
 arrived at the Tuileries, from all quarters of Paris, 
 new personages, ex-ministers of Bonaparte, coun- 
 cillors of state, chamberlains in their imperial 
 court costume, comptrollers of the household, court 
 valets in their old livery, cooks, and butlers, who 
 resumed their services as tranquilly as they could 
 have done if Bonaparte had only been absent on a 
 short journey or campaign, and as if his court and 
 household had been kept in a state of readiness for 
 his return. Ladies appertaining to the imperial 
 court now began to arrive, and to fill the salons 
 of the palace; and the very ushers and pages were 
 already at the doors of the several apartments, to 
 maintain the strict imperial etiquette. At half- 
 past nine, on the night of the 20th—a foggy and 
 rainy night—a tremendous noise announced the 
 arrival of the emperor, a troop of lancers galloped 
 through the principal gate, a low mud-covered 
 carriage stopped, Bonaparte in his grey great-coat 
 stepped out, a number of generals and officers took 
 him on their shoulders, and carried him up to the 
 state apartments, while the soldiery and a part of the 
 mob rent the air with cries of “* Vive l’Empereur!””*f 
 
 * Ney admitted on his trial that he had said these words. 
 + Quarante-Huit Heures de Garde au Chateau des Tuileries pendant 
 es journées des 19 et 20 Mars 1815. Par un Grenadier de la Garde 
 
 Be 1 
 he swore that within a week he would bring Bona- | Nationale. 
 
Cuapr. VIII. ] 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Thus far all had seemed to go well, but the 
 triumph was soon damped by sundry little circum- 
 stances. It was impossible not to see that, with 
 the exception of some of those faubourg mobs, 
 which he hated and feared, the people of Paris 
 were silent, lukewarm, cautious, or averse. Then 
 came brother Lucien with his tail of constitution- 
 alists and liberals, including Carnot and Fouche, 
 protesting that the promises and pledges he had 
 given must be kept, that the French people must 
 have more liberty than they had enjoyed under 
 the empire or under the restoration, that France 
 could no longer do without a free constitution, 
 and, finally, that the liberals would do nothing 
 for him unless he granted a new constitution. 
 Bonaparte said that there would be time for 
 making a good constitution hereafter, when he 
 should have dissolved by victories the European 
 confederacy against him ; that now every thought 
 ought to be given to the means of raising money 
 and troops, the casting of artillery, the manufac- 
 turing of arms, ammunition, &c., in order to put 
 him in condition to scatter the armies of the allies. 
 But the liberals stuck to their point; the consti- 
 tution must come first, their exertions in his 
 cause afterwards: and, accordingly, though sorely 
 against his will, Bonaparte proclaimed a sort of 
 constitution, under the very unpromising title of 
 “« Acte Additionnel aux Constitutions de ? Em- 
 pire.’ ‘The liberals, who had expected to be 
 allowed to make the constitution themselves, were 
 grievously offended; and those among them who 
 were sincere in their constitutionalism declared this 
 Acte Additione/ a poor defective thing, although it 
 was known that Carnot, and that great and unwea- 
 ried maker of constitutions, the Abbé Sityes, had 
 been consulted by the emperor in its confection. 
 Substantially the Acle was much the same as the 
 charte which Louis XVIII. had given (oclroyée) 
 
 From the Seine, below the bridges, 
 
 in 1814.* Onthe 4th of June, three days after 
 Bonaparte, his great officers of state, marshals, 
 generals, &c., had taken their oaths to this consti- 
 tution at a grand celebration, called a Chump de 
 Mai, but held in the Champ de Mars, and in 
 the month of June, the two new Chambers opened 
 
 their session. The Chamber of Peers, appointed 
 by the emperor himself, and composed princi- 
 pally of men who owed their rank and fortune to 
 him, at first seemed disposed to be as submissive 
 as the Senate had formerly been. The Chamber 
 of Representatives showed at once a very different 
 disposition, raising the voice of criticism and 
 censure which the man of the people had never 
 been able to bear. Their session was a very 
 short one; and the first serious business the two 
 Houses or Chambers did was to pronounce the 
 dethronement of Bonaparte. Before that crisis 
 arrived, he bitterly reproached his brother Lucien 
 and others, for advising and forcing him to give 
 this constitution, and to call these Chambers to- 
 gether. After eleven weeks’ sojourn in the capi- 
 tal, matters stood with him much as they did 
 when he arrived; he could count confidently on 
 the devotion and bravery of his old army, but 
 he could not hope that the rest of France would 
 do much for him. His distress, or doubts, were 
 increased by the dismal news which came how]l- 
 ing to him from beyond the Alps. Murat, in- 
 stead of waiting for his mot d’ordre, had thrown 
 off the mask as soon as he learned the departure 
 from Elba, had rushed towards Upper Italy like a 
 madman, had been beaten by the Austrians, aban- 
 
 * There were to be an hereditary Chamber of Peers appointed by 
 the Emperor, and a Chamber of Representatives elected, not by the 
 citizens directly, but by the electoral colleges of France. The Re- 
 presentative Chamber was to be renewed by election every five years, 
 and was to possess the exclusive right of voting taxes, &c. Ministers 
 were to be responsible, and judges irremovable. Pioperty was 
 
 declared inviolable, and all subjects were to have the right of 
 petitioning. 
 
702 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a . 
 > ae 
 Bek be 
 
 ax i] 
 & 
 
 doned by his own army, and put to an ignominious 
 flight from his kingdom of Naples, many weeks 
 before Bonaparte was ready to commence opera- 
 tions on the frontiers of Belgium. Bonaparte 
 afterwards declared that the blind precipitation of 
 Murat in 1815 did more mischief to his cause than 
 Murat’s defection in 1814 had done. But this was 
 not true. 
 
 On the night of the 11th of June, just a week 
 after the opening of the two Chambers, Bonaparte 
 quitted Paris to open the campaign. His coun- 
 tenance, which had long been clouded, brightened 
 as he sprung into his travelling carriage, and as he 
 said, or as he is teported to have said, “Je vais 
 me mésurer avee ce Viliainton” (I am going to 
 measure myself with this Wellington). He had 
 assembled an army of about 125,000 men, chiefly 
 veteran troops, of whom 25,000 were cavalry, 
 and 350 pieces of artillery, With this force he 
 advanced to the Belgian frontier on the 14th of 
 June, and on the very next day the stern conflict 
 began. 
 
 In the meantime, the Duke of Wellington had 
 raised his force in the field to about 76,000 men, 
 of whom not near one-half were British. Knowing 
 that his adversary would bring with him a tre- 
 mendous artillery, Wellington had applied for 150 
 British pieces; but so miserably had he been sup- 
 plied by our government, and by those who kept 
 the keys at Woolwich, where there were guns 
 enough to cannonade the world, that, when he 
 united all his English pieces with those of the 
 Dutch and German under him, he found he had 
 only some 84 pieces. ‘The duke’s head quarters 
 were at Brussels, the capital of the country, which 
 it was Bonaparte’s first great object to gain, and 
 
 the possession of which would have given the 
 French immense advantages, moral and political, 
 as well as military. On the duke’s left lay Mar- 
 shal Bliicher with the Prussian army, estimated 
 (after the junction of Bulow’s corps) at about 
 80,000 men. The old marshal was well sup- 
 plied with artillery, his government having sent 
 him 200 cannon; but unluckily his artillerymen 
 were not very good, and he had to complain of the 
 manner in which his guns were served when the 
 French fell upon him. Bliicher’s head-quarters 
 were at Namur. The two armies were, of neces- 
 sity, spread over a wide extent of country. The 
 Duke of Wellington’s had to preserve its commu- 
 nications with England, Holland, and Germany; 
 to be near enough to connect readily with the 
 Prussian army, and to protect Brussels. Bliicher’s 
 army had to preserve its communications with the 
 couiitry in his rear atid on his left, through which 
 the reinforcements of the grand allied armies were 
 to advance; he had to give the hand to Welling- 
 ton, and at the same time he had to watch a long 
 extent of frontier; and on that north-east frontier 
 of France there were many strong fortresses, which 
 enabled Bonaparte to mask his movements, and to 
 attack wherever he chose, without letting his attack 
 be foreseen by his enemy. In front of the ex- 
 tended lines of the British, and their immediate 
 allies, the Hanoverians, Brunswickers, &c., there 
 were, besides country bye-roads, no fewer than four 
 great roads (paved roads, proper for the passage 
 of artillery, and for all military purposes); and it 
 was because there were all these roads leading 
 from the French departments of the north, and 
 the fortresses on the French frontier, and because 
 the Duke of Wellington could not possibly tell or 
 
 BavsseLs.—From near Port d’Anderlecht. 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 foresee by which of these roads the French might 
 choose to advance, that part of his forces were 
 widely spread, in order to watch them all, while 
 the remainder of his army was kept in hand, in 
 order to be thrown upon whatever point the attack 
 should be made against. These men were every 
 way better in and round Brussels than they would 
 have been if bivouacked and cantoned on the high 
 roads; and the artillery was also better there, for 
 of this arm Wellington had not to spare ;—it was 
 needful that he should have it all on the field of 
 battle, and, embracing all the possible lines by 
 which the French might attack, the British general 
 had, where it stood, the best means of moving it 
 rapidly to any one of them. If the guns had been 
 collected on one point, and the enemy had attacked 
 at another, the guns could not have been so easily 
 moved. If, as some commanders might have 
 done, he had kept his troops marching and coun- 
 termarching from point to point, he would very 
 uselessly have wasted the strength and spirit of 
 the troops before the day of battle arrived. Con- 
 centration of force is the finest of all things in 
 war, in its proper place; and several of the con- 
 tinental armies, and especially the Austrian, had 
 been, and continue to be, deservedly censured for 
 their practice of extension in line, and separation 
 of parts. But there are cases in which the idea of 
 concentration is an absurdity; and certain English 
 writers, destitute of military study, and incapable 
 of comprehending the simplest principles of the 
 military art, have taken up the old criticism against 
 the Austrian generals, and have applied it to a case 
 to which it is utterly inapplicable. If, as he had 
 once hoped, the Duke of Wellington had been 
 enabled to commence operations by acting on the 
 offensive, then he would have attacked Bonaparte 
 on the French frontier in one or two condensed 
 masses; and then Bonaparte, not knowing where 
 the attack would be made, must have had his army 
 stretched out in lines along that frontier, having 
 merely reserved to himself (as Wellington did) 
 the best plan and the best means of concentration 
 when and where the attack should be made. But 
 the duke had not received from England the acces- 
 sion of strength which he had calculated upon; 
 the grand army of Prince Schwartzenberg was still 
 somewhere in Germany; and, with none but 
 Bliicher to co-operate with him, and with forces 
 which, if united, would not have exceeded by 
 30,000 men the army which Bonaparte had ac- 
 tually in the field, it would, indeed, have been rash 
 to attack a frontier covered with numerous and 
 well garrisoned fortresses, or to invade France, 
 where an army of reserve was collecting to support 
 the army on the frontier. We trust that these few 
 words will enable the reader to understand the 
 absurd charge, that the Duke of Wellington was 
 not only out-manceuvred and out-generaled, but 
 actually taken by surprise—an ignorant piece of 
 babble which has been recently and very ably ex- 
 posed, but which every patriotic and well-informed 
 writer ought to continue to hold up to scorn and 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815, 
 
 _ derision, until the fallacy is utterly exploded, or 
 
 703 
 
 left only in French books, where the truth in such 
 matters is never to be expected.” 
 
 It was on the 15th of June that Bonaparte 
 crossed the Sambre, and advanced upon Charleroi. 
 At sunset, on the preceding evening, all had been 
 quiet upon the frontier, and nothing had been ob- 
 served at the Prussian outposts. As the foremost 
 of the French columns had been put in motion as 
 early as two or three o’clock in the morning, they 
 fell suddenly upon these outposts just as day was 
 dawning. The outposts fell back, and then a 
 report was sent to the Duke of Wellington, who 
 gave his orders for holding his troops in readiness 
 to march. But it was not as yet sufficiently clear 
 that Bonaparte intended the attack upon Charleroi 
 to be a serious one, and that he really intended to 
 open his road to Brussels by the valley of the 
 Sambre. The duke, therefore, waited until correct 
 intelligence from various quarters proved, beyond 
 the reach of a doubt, that the advance upon Char- 
 leroi was the real attack. It was useless to move, 
 and he had determined all along not to move, until 
 he got this certain and full assurance; and the 
 information could not be obtained before the event 
 happened, that is, before the first French columns, 
 advancing by the valley of the Sambre, were 
 swelled to a great army—an operation which re- 
 quires rather more time than is taken in the writ- 
 ing of a critical or rhapsodical sentence for a book.+ 
 Now that it was time to put his army in motion, 
 Weilington put it in motion to his left. The 
 orders for this memorable march were not decided 
 upon in a scene of merriment and festivity, and at 
 midnight, but in the duke’s hotel, and at about five 
 o'clock in the afternoon. ‘These orders must have 
 reached most of the corps by eight, and probably 
 all of the corps by ten o’clock at night. Itis quite 
 true that the duke did go to a ball that evening, 
 and that many of his officers went as well as he, 
 because their business of the day was done, and 
 because their presence was not required for such 
 details as packing up of baggage, &c. The duke’s 
 being at the ball was a proof of his equanimity 
 at the most critical moment of his whole life. 
 The Duchess of Richmond’s ball was a gay one, 
 and Wellington and his officers present at it were 
 as cheerful as any part of that gay company. 
 About midnight the general officers were quietly 
 warned, and quietly disappeared from the ball- 
 room ; and among them the brave Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, who was still avenging the hard fate of his 
 father. Shortly after, the younger officers were 
 summoned from the dance, but without any bustle. 
 By this time the troops were mustering, and before 
 
 * See an admirable memorandum on the battle of Waterloo, by 
 Sir Francis Head, in ‘ Quarterly Review,’ No. exliii.; and a very 
 able article on the life of Blicher, and the operations of Waterloo, 
 in the same publication, No. cxl. 
 
 + The certain and deciding information was brought to Brussels by 
 the Prince of Orange, who had so often ‘gone the pace”? for the 
 British general in the Peninsula. It was about three o’clock in the 
 afternoon, and the prince found the duke at dinner at his hotel, 
 about a hundred yards from his quarters in the park, which he had 
 taken care not to quit during the morning, or even during the preced- 
 ing day. The Prince of Orange was soon followed by the Prussian 
 general Mufflin, who brought accounts of the French onset, &c. 
 
704 
 
 the sun of the 16th of June rose, “‘ all were march- 
 ing to the field of honour, and many to an early 
 grave.” * Before they moved there had been 
 some hard fighting. In the course of the 
 15th, Bonaparte had established his head quar- 
 ters at Charleroi, and Bliicher had concen- 
 trated the Prussian army upon Sombref, occu- 
 pying the villages of St. Amand and Ligny, in 
 front of that position; and Marshal Ney, con- 
 tinuing his march along the road which leads from 
 Charleroi to Brussels, had attacked on the evening 
 of the 15th, with his advanced guard, a brigade 
 of the army of the Netherlands, under the Prince 
 of Weimar, and had forced it back to a farm- 
 house on the road, called Quatre Bras, from the 
 local circumstance that the road from Charleroi to 
 Brussels and the road from Nivelles to Namur 
 intersect each other, and form, as it were, four 
 arms or branches at that point. But the Prince of 
 Orange had immediately reinforced Weimat’s bri- 
 gade, and had kept the farm-house as if it had 
 been a fortress. This was the work of the 15th. 
 The time which would allow Ney to bring up his 
 main body, would also allow Wellington to bring 
 up his, or, at least, a sufficient part of it to check- 
 mate the French marshal. But, early on the 
 morning of the 16th, the Prince of Orange pushed 
 back Ney’s advanced guard, and recovered some 
 of the ground between Quatre Bras and Charleroi 
 which had been lost on the evening of the 15th. 
 At about half-past two in the day, General Picton 
 came up to Quatre Bras with the 5th division, and 
 he was soon followed by the Duke of Brunswick’s 
 corps and the Nassau troops. Some hours before 
 this, the Duke of Wellington had ridden across 
 the country to confer with Bliicher, at Bry, about 
 five miles from Quatre Bras. At that time Ney 
 was not in strength in front of Quatre Bras, nor 
 was Bonaparte in strength in the immediate front 
 of the Prussians at Ligny. But the French, having 
 all the adyantages which are inseparable from 
 offensive movements, massed their columns of attack 
 quickly in Bliicher’s front; and, at the same time, 
 
 Ney gathered his strength near Quatre Bras. The 
 game to be played was now opened. Bonaparte 
 
 was to crush the Prussian marshal, while Ney 
 drove back the English duke. As the Prussian 
 corps of General Bulow had not joined, Bliicher 
 was attacked by a force numerically superior to 
 his own; and after making a most desperate resist- 
 ance, particularly in the villages of St. Amand 
 
 * Major M. Sherer.—This gallant officer, who seems to be in 
 general very correct, follows the widely spread error (which Lord 
 Byron has in a manner consecrated in verse), that the duke’s marching 
 orders were decided upon at the Duchess of Richmond's ball. We 
 know that many persons present at that ball believed this to be the 
 case ; but the contrary is proved by the writer in the ‘ Quarterly 
 Review,’ who has evidently had official sources of information, and 
 whose account we have followed. ‘The old story is, moreover, at 
 variance with the duke’s memorandum for the deputy quarter-master 
 general, of the 15th of June.—Quart. Rev. No. Aela pny Gurwood, 
 Wellington Dispatches. We also gather, from the latter valuable 
 repertory, that the duke’s stay at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball 
 must have been but short; for at half-past nine in the evening we 
 find him writing to the Duke of Berri, and at ten to the Duke. of 
 Feltre (General Ciarke), who had remained steady to the Bourbons. 
 {n the earlier part of the same day, the duke had written a letter to 
 General Sir Henry Clinton, and a very long letter, in French, and on 
 the always difficult subject of strategy, to the Emperor Alexander. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and Ligny, and after displaying the greatest per- 
 sonal bravery, he was compelled to quit his posi- 
 tion at Sombref. With a frightful loss, but still 
 with perfect order, the Prussians retired in the 
 course of the night upon Wavre. The French, 
 who had suffered severely, did not pursue. But, 
 in point of fact, there could be no pursuit, as the 
 French did not know for some hours that there 
 was any retreat: the Prussians had not ceased 
 fighting until it was dark night. At daylight, on 
 the following morning, it was easy to see that they 
 were gone; but it was nct until the hour of noon* 
 that Bonaparte ascertained what route Bliicher had 
 taken, and ordered Grouchy to pursue him with 
 32,000 men. In the meantime, Ney had failed in 
 his attacks upon Wellington at Quatre Bras. Ata 
 little after three o’clock on the afternoon of the 
 16th, the French marshal, who had concentrated 
 nearly 40,000 men, commenced his attack with 
 two heavy columns of infantry, a large body of 
 cavalry, and a numerous and weil served artillery. 
 At that moment there were not more than 19,000 
 of the allies at Quatre Bras, and of these only 
 4500 were British infantry. These last forces, and 
 the Brunswickers, were, however, not to be breken 
 by any charge or by any mode of attack; and 
 Ney, after repeated efforts, was repulsed. The 
 third division, under General Alten, now came 
 up, and joined Picton’s unflinching fifth. Ney 
 made another grand attack upon the left, but he 
 was again met by impenetrable, immovable squares 
 of infantry, and was again repulsed. Ney then 
 tried the right of the position of Quatre Bras, and 
 advancing under cover of a little wood, and attack- 
 ing in great force, and with wonderful impetuosity, 
 he cowed some of the worst of Wellingtun’s con- 
 tingents that were posted on that right; but, just 
 as the Belgians were giving way, General Cooke 
 came up, and joined battle with some of the Eng- 
 lish guards, and the French were once more re- 
 pelled. They gathered thickly in the little wood 
 near the farm-house; but now the Duke of Wel- 
 lington sent General Maitland and his brigade to 
 clear that wood, and it was presently cleared, and 
 the French were seen retreating in great confusion. 
 The conflict had been tremendous, the loss on both 
 sides very great; but the British commander had 
 completely repulsed Ney’s very superior force, and 
 had succeeded in his preseut great object, which 
 was to prevent Ney from turning Bliicher’s right, 
 and thus throwing himself between the Prussians 
 and the British. The two great battles fought on 
 
 this day were only preludes to the greater massacre | 
 at Waterloo; yet at Ligny Bliicher had lost, in — 
 
 killed and wounded, from 11,000 to 12,000 men, 
 and Wellington had lost at Quatre Bras 2,380 in 
 wounded, and 350 in killed.t 
 
 * « The enemy made no effort t> pursue Marshal Bliicher. On 
 the contrary, a patrole which I sent to Sombref in the morning (of 
 the 17th), found all quiet; and the enemy’s videttes fell back as the 
 patrole advanced.” —/WVellington’s Dispatch to Ear! Bathurst. ’ 
 
 + The Duke of Wellington’s returns in Dispatches.—This loss in 
 killed and wounded was made up entirely of British and Hano- 
 verians. 
 
 The result of the two battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras was what 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 On the following morning, the 17th, the Duke | 
 of Wellington made a retrograde movement upon 
 Waterloo, corresponding to the movement of Mar- | 
 shal Bliicher upon Wavre, and in accordance with 
 the plan and combinations which had been pre- 
 viously agreed upon by him and the Prussian 
 marshal. He retired leisurely by Genappe to the 
 excellent ground which he had chosen, and which 
 many days before he had most attentively examined. 
 Perhaps the field of Waterloo had an additional 
 recommendation to the attention of Wellington, 
 as it had once been selected by the great Duke of 
 Marlborough as a battle-field, and as Marlborough 
 had been prevented from gaining a great victory 
 there wholly and solely by the stupid obstinacy of 
 the Dutch field-commissioners. Although the re- 
 tiring from Quatre Bras was made in the middle 
 of the day, the French did not attempt to molest 
 the march, except by following with a large body 
 of cavalry, which was brought up from the right, 
 or from the part of the army which had been 
 engaged the day before against the Prussians at 
 Ligny. A body of lancers charged the rear of the 
 English cavalry, and were charged in their turn 
 gallantly, though ineffectually, by our 7th hussars, 
 who céuld make no impression on the front of 
 their column, in the defile of Genappe; but, 
 when these lancers, elated with success, debouched 
 ‘on a wider space, in front of Genappe, the Earl 
 of Uxbridge (Paget) charged them with the first 
 regiment of Life Guards, and fairly rode over them. 
 There appears to have been no more fighting on 
 the road. Marshal Ney was waiting to be joined 
 by all the forces of Napoleon which had fought 
 Bliicher at Ligny, except the 32,000 men under 
 Grouchy, which had been ordered by the emperor 
 to follow the Prussians, and on no account to quit 
 them. ‘This junction took place in the course of the 
 day and night of the 17th. Deducting Grouchy’s 
 32,000 men, and about 10,000 for the killed and 
 wounded on the 16th at St. Amand and Ligny, 
 and making a liberal allowance for stragglers and 
 loiterers, patroles, &c., Bonaparte must thus have 
 collected in front of Waterloo about 78,000 men. 
 The night of the 17th, durmg which Wellington’s 
 men lay upon the wet earth, or among the drip- 
 ping corn-fields, was a dreary night, with heavy 
 rain, thunder, and lightning, and violent gusts of 
 wind. They longed for the morrow. It came at 
 last ; but Sunday, the 18th of June, was but a dull 
 day (meteorologically) ; for, though the rain ceased, 
 and the natural thunder gave place to a thunder 
 
 is stated in our text, but lies of the first magnitude were thought 
 necessary to keep Bonaparte’s cause up and alive in Paris; and 
 Marshal Soult, in a dispatch to Marshal Davoust, now war minister, 
 did not seruple to announce that the Emperor Napoleon had beaten 
 both Wellimgton and Blicher, and had completely separated their 
 two armies—had separated them beyond the hope of ever uniting 
 again in his front. ‘‘ We)lington and Bliicher,” wrote Soult, “ saved 
 themselves with difficulty. The effect was theatrical: in an instant 
 the firing ceased, and the enemy was routed in all directions.” It 
 was announced that the Emperor Napoleon would enter Brussels on 
 the 17th! Another dispatch, published in the Moniteur said, 
 ““The noble lord must have been confounded! Prisoners are taken 
 by bands; they do not know what has become of their commanders 3 
 the route is complete on this side; and"we hope to hear no more of 
 the Prussians for some time, even if they should ever be able to rally. 
 As for the English, we shall now see what will become of them! The 
 emperor is there !” 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 Se 
 
 705 
 
 of artillery almost as loud, and far more continuous, 
 the sky was overcast with clouds, through which 
 the sun rarely broke. The position which the duke 
 had taken up was in front of the village of Water- 
 loo, and crossed the high roads from Charleroi and 
 Nivelles; it had its right thrown back to a ravine 
 near Merke-Braine, which was occupied, and its left 
 extended to a height above the hamlet of Ter la 
 Haye, which was likewise occupied ; and in front 
 of the right centre, and near the Nivelles road, the 
 troops occupied the house and gardens of Hougou- 
 mont, which covered the return of that flank ; and 
 in front of the left centre they occupied the farm of 
 La Haye Sainte.* ‘* By our left,”’ continues the 
 Duke of Wellington, ‘“‘ we communicated with 
 Marshal Prince Bliicher at Wavre, through Ohain ; 
 and the marshal had promised me that, in case we 
 should be attacked, he would support me with one 
 or more corps, as might be necessary.’’+ In the 
 rear of the British centre was the farm of Mont St. 
 Jean, and a little farther behind the village of that 
 name. [The French often call the battle of 
 Waterloo the ‘“* Massacre of Mont St. Jean.’’] 
 Wellington’s force united in this position was 
 72.720 men. Of this number, including the 
 King’s German Legion, who merited to be classed 
 with English troops, 36,273 were British, 7447 
 were Hanoverians in British pay, and partly com- 
 manded by British officers, 8000 were Bruns- 
 wickers, and 21,000 were Belgian and Nassau 
 troops, mostly of an inferior quality. Many of 
 the troops, British as well as foreign, had never 
 been under fire before this campaign ; some of 
 them were little better than raw recruits; the prime 
 of the British army of the Peninsula had been de- 
 tached to North America, and had not yet returned ; 
 and the beggarly government of Lisbon, though at 
 one time it had promised large aid, had not been 
 able to send so much as a battalion of those Por- 
 tuguese troops which had become under Wellington 
 very nearly as good as our own; and the British 
 government, though disappointed in their expecta- 
 tions of contingents and auxiliaries from Germany, 
 had not thought proper to advance the small sub- 
 sidy of 200,000/., which the duke calculated would 
 be enough to bring him a good Portuguese force. 
 The enemy’s troops were veteraus, almost to a man ; 
 and there were at least 100,000 soldiers of the same 
 quality behind them in France. Bonaparte had 
 collected his 78,000 men on a range of heights in 
 front of the British position, and not above a mile 
 from it: his right was in advance of Planchenois, 
 his line crossed the Charleroi road at the farm of 
 La Belle Alliance, his left rested on the Genappe 
 road. Behind the French the ground rose consi- 
 derably, and was skirted by thick woods: in the 
 rear of the British and their allies the old forest of 
 Soignies ‘* waved above them her green leaves.” 
 Early in the morning, when Bonaparte mounted 
 his horse to survey Wellington’s position, he could 
 see comparatively but few troops. This induced 
 him to fancy.that the British general, with whom 
 
 * Dispatch to Earl Bathurst. + Id. 
 2s 
 
706 
 
 the strife, and had beaten a retreat. General Foy, 
 who had served a long while in Spain, and who 
 knew by experience rather more of the British 
 general than his master knew, 1s sald to have 
 replied, ‘‘ Wellington never shows his troops ; but, 
 if he is yonder, I must warn your majesty that the 
 English infantry, in close fighting, is the very devil 
 (que Vinfanterie Anglaise en duel est le diable !) 
 
 When that infantry began to work, Bonaparte ex- 
 claimed to some officers near him, “ I could never 
 have believed that the English had such fine troops !” 
 Yet this was but a confession of wilful ignorance, 
 for, although he had not himself seen them in battle 
 since the days of pigtails and powdered heads, 
 starch and stupidity, or since the siege of Toulon, 
 he ought by this time to have learned what British 
 troops were from the reports of his marshals, 
 generals, and soldiers, who had measured them- 
 selves with them and Wellington in the Peninsula. 
 Soult—for that honourable man was among the mar- 
 shals who had broken their oaths to Louis XVIII., 
 and taken the new ones to Napoleon—was and had 
 been for some weeks constantly at his elbow; but 
 Soult was also of the class of those honourable men 
 who could resort to any fiction or subterfuge rather 
 than confess the honest truth that they had been 
 beaten. Soult, however, is said to have added his 
 warning to that of Foy, or to have told his master 
 that his victory would not be an easy one. But, 
 whatever were the warnings, it seems quite certain 
 that Bonaparte began the battle with a confident 
 assurance of success; for he knew his own supe- 
 riority in artillery and in numbers to Wellington, 
 and he had run into the mistake (the greatest mis- 
 take committed by any one party during this brief 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 he had come to measure himself, was eager to avoid | war) of believing that Marshal Bliicher, 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 dispirited 
 by the loss he had suffered at Ligny, would con- 
 tinue his retreat in order to avoid Grouchy, and 
 would not rally anywhere near enough to support 
 Wellington, or to renew his communications with 
 him. 
 
 Soon after ten o’clock on this Sabbath morn a 
 great stir was observed along the French lines, and 
 particularly near the farm of Rossome, where Bona- 
 parte then stood with his famous Old Guard. 
 Columns of infantry were seen forming; the ca- 
 valry were moving about; the parks of artillery 
 were brought forward with great noise and shout- 
 ing. And presently a furious attack was made 
 upon the post at Hougoumont, on the right of Wel- 
 lington’s centre. Hougoumont, with its farm-house 
 and garden, was occupied by a detachment from 
 General Byng’s brigade of Guards, who maintained 
 the post throughout the day notwithstanding the 
 desperate and repeated efforts of large bodies of the 
 enemy to obtain possession. This first attack upon 
 the right of Wellington’s centre was accompanied 
 by a very heavy cannonade upon his whole line. 
 This cannonade was kept up nearly throughout the 
 day, being intended to support the repeated attacks 
 of cavalry and infantry, occasionally mixed and 
 occasionally separate, which were made along the 
 whole line of the allies, from right to left, from left 
 to right. Wellington had not half the number of 
 guns which Bonaparte brought forward ; but such 
 guns as he had were admirably served; and the 
 advanced batteries of our centre, firing case-shot, 
 committed a fearful havoc upon the French columns 
 which successively attacked Hougoumont and the 
 brave detachment of Guards there stationed. The 
 incessant roar of cannon on both sides, for so many 
 
 Kegred 
 
 os 
 
 ial /e7—iane 
 hE whe 
 IN eae = 
 
 CuAreau or Hoveoumonr. 
 
Cuap. VIIT.] 
 
 hours, gave to the combat a peculiar and awful 
 character. There was no manceuvring either on 
 the part of Bonaparte or on the part of Wellington : 
 the object of the British general was to maintain 
 his positions till the arrival of some Prussian corps 
 should enable him to quit them and crush his 
 enemy; the object of his adversary was to drive 
 him from those positions, and to crush him before 
 Bliicher should be able to send a single battalion 
 to his support. And to this end Bonaparte kept 
 repeating his attacks with heavy columns of in- 
 fantry, with a numerous and brilliant cavalry, and 
 with his immense artillery. From each attempt 
 his columns returned shattered and thinned ; bat 
 fresh columns were formed and hurled against the 
 same or some other part of Wellington’s line. The 
 repulses were numerous, the glimpses of success 
 brief and few. In one of their attacks the French 
 carried the farm-house of La Haye Sainte, as a 
 detachment of the light battalion of the German 
 Legion which occupied it had expended all their 
 ammunition, and the enemy occupied the only 
 communication there was with them. But before 
 they yielded that farm-house those brave Germans 
 were, to a man, either killed or wounded; and, as 
 the French gave them no quarter, they all died. 
 Bonaparte then ordered his cavalry to charge the 
 British infantry in squadrons and in masses—to 
 charge home—to charge again and again—and to 
 find out some way through those ringing muskets 
 and those hedges of glittering bayonets! But this 
 was work beyond the power even of his steel-clad 
 éeuirassiers or of his long-armed Polish lancers : 
 our infantry formed in squares, and the best of 
 those horsemen bit the dust. At times the French 
 cavalry were seen walking their horses about our 
 infrangible squares as if they had been of the same 
 army. Some of their regiments gave proof not only 
 of great bravery, but also of rare perseverance. 
 All their efforts, however, were unavailing ; and 
 their perseverance, and the dogged determination 
 of Bonaparte in throwing them forward so repeat- 
 edly to do what they were clearly incapable of 
 doing, ended in their almost total destruction. 
 Their coup de grace was hastened by a magnificent 
 charge of British cavalry. This force had hitherto 
 been very little more than a spectator of the fight : 
 it had suffered somewhat from the incessant French 
 cannonade, but all the horses that were not wounded 
 were fresh and vigorous—and there were horses 
 there of the true high English breed, and riders on 
 them whom no continental cavalry could hope to 
 stand against. At the proper moment the Duke 
 of Wellington called up Lord E. Somerset’s brigade 
 of heavy cavalry, consisting of the Life Guards, the 
 Royal Horse Guards, and the 1st Dragoon Guards, 
 and directed them to charge the already crippled 
 and disheartened cavalry of Bonaparte. These 
 splendid regiments absolutely rode down and rode 
 over their comparatively feeble opponents ; horses 
 and men fell at their shock ; the cuirassiers, whose 
 breastplates had glittered in so many battles and 
 victories, disappeared from the world as a corps, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 T07 
 
 and became a thing that had been—they were com- 
 pletely cut up. When Lord E. Somerset’s brigade 
 
 returned from their charge, they brought with them 
 
 about 2000 prisoners and an imperial eagle. After 
 this almost total destruction of his cavalry, and 
 after the frightful reduction of his columns of in- 
 fantry, Bonaparte was, if not as good as beaten, 
 at the least put mto a condition from which Wel- 
 lington could have had nothing to apprehend, even 
 though no Prussians had come up. Except the 
 Guards, every part of the French army had been 
 engaged, repulsed, and frightfully thinned. Nota 
 point of the British position had been carried— 
 not a single square had been broken; and, though 
 our loss in killed and wounded had been great, some 
 of the Duke’s troops had not yet been engaged at ail, 
 and all were full of heart and of confidence in their 
 great leader.* Such was the state of the battle at 
 about seven o’clock in the evening, when General 
 Bulow’s Prussian corps, advancing by Frischer- 
 mont upon Planchenois and La Belle Alliance, 
 began to engage upon the French right. And now 
 was the crisis. Bonaparte called forward his Guard, 
 which he had kept in reserve, to make a last des- 
 perate effort on the British left centre, near the 
 farm of La Haye Sainte. He led it forward in 
 person to the foot of the allied position ; but there 
 he turned aside, and took shelter behind some 
 swelling ground: the Guard moved onward and 
 left him there. He ought to have gone on with it, 
 and to have died with it; but he neither headed it 
 nor followed it; nor did he during any part of this 
 day expose his person freely in the mélée of battle, 
 as he had done in the spring of 1814 in the battles, 
 of Craonne, Arcis-sur-Aube, and in other affairs, 
 Marshal Ney went on with that great forlorn hope, 
 and, unluckily for himself, was not killed. The 
 Guard advanced in two massy columns, leaving 
 four battalions of the Old Guard in reserve, or 
 near to the spot where Bonaparte sat on his horse 
 rigid and fixed like a statue. They moved reso- 
 lutely on, with supported arms, under a destructive 
 fire from the British position. They were met by 
 
 ‘General Maitland’s brigade of English Guards, and 
 
 General Adams’s brigade, which were rapidly 
 moved from the right, and over the brow of the 
 position by the Duke of Weilington in person, 
 who formed them four deep, and flanked their line 
 by artillery. When within fifty yards from this 
 British line, the French Guards attempted to de- 
 ploy ; but the close fire upon them was too terrible ; 
 
 * General Clausewitz may be taken as a competent and as an unpre- 
 judiced authority. If he had prejudices, they were not likely to be in 
 favour of Wellington and against Bliicher. Clausewitz was chief of 
 the staff to the third corps of the Prussian army. He knocks on the 
 head the nonsense that has been circulated by incorrect and incom- 
 petent writers about Wellington’s having exhausted his reserves in 
 the action. He enumerates the tenth British brigade, the whole divi- 
 sion of Chassé, and the cavalry of Collaert, as having been little or not 
 at all engaged—and to these he might have added iwo entire brigades 
 of light cavalry. 
 
 General Clausewitz also expresses a positive opinion, that, even had 
 the whole of Grouchy’s force come up at Waterloo (which it could not 
 do, and which it was prevented from doing by Bonaparte’s lamentable 
 mistake about Bliicher, and by the positive orders he had himself 
 given to Grouchy) the Duke of Wellington would have had nothing 
 to fear pending Bliicher’s arrival.—General Clausewitt2, as cited in 
 Quarterly Review, No. CXL., Art. Life of Bliicher, $e. 
 
708 
 
 their flanks were enveloped by some of our Guards ; 
 they got mixed together in a confused mass ; in that 
 
 mass they were slaughtered ; they were broken ; 
 
 they gave way down the slope of the hill in irre- 
 trievable confusion. There was no more fighting; 
 that Grand Army of Bonaparte—the last of all, 
 and the most desperate of all—never again stood 
 nor attempted to rally anywhere: all the rest of the 
 work was headlong, unresisted pursuit, slaughter 
 of fugitives who had entirely lost their military 
 formation, and capture of prisoners, artillery, and 
 spoils. The army was destroyed, as an army, 
 before the pursuit began ; its organization was lost 
 with the defeat of the Guard: if it had not been 
 so, the pursuit by the Prussians could not possibly 
 have been such easy duty—there could not have 
 been so perfect a débacle. As the broken Imperial 
 Guard, or all that remained of it, reeled away from 
 the British«position, and as Bonaparte, after having 
 cried, in the accents of agony and despair, “ They 
 are mixed! they are mixed!” was spurring to the 
 rear, as the blaze of Bulow’s cannon on the right 
 of the French became visible, and as Marshal 
 Bliicher joined in person with a corps of his army 
 to the left of the British line, by Ohain, Wellington 
 moved forward his whole line of infantry, supported 
 by the cavalry and artillery, headed it himself, and 
 swept away all before him. ‘‘ This attack,” he 
 says, ‘ succeeded in every point: the enemy was 
 forced from his positions on the heights, and fled 
 in the utmost confusion, leaving behind him, as far 
 as I could judge, 150 pieces of cannon, with their 
 ammunition, which all fell into our hands.” In 
 the meanwhile the Prussians had got into a bloody 
 struggle, principally at the village of Planchenois. 
 This village had been stormed and re-taken three 
 several times; the French had nowhere fought 
 more desperately, and, before they were completely 
 driven out, the Prussians sustained a terrible loss 
 in killed and wounded. At a farm-house, called 
 “ Maison Rouge,” or “ Maison du Roi,” at a short 
 distance behind the farm of La Belle Alliance, the 
 Duke of Wellington and Marshal Bliicher met. 
 The old Prussian, in the manner of his country, 
 embraced and hugged his victorious partner. Here 
 Wellington gave orders for the halt and bivouac 
 of his own fatigued troops, and handed over the 
 task of further pursuit to the Prussians. Bliicher 
 swore he would follow up the French with his last 
 horse and his last man. He started off immediately 
 with two Prussian corps, who, as they took their 
 departure, received three cheers from the English 
 army. ‘‘ The Guard dies, but does not surrender !” 
 was a self-flattering fiction which the French after- 
 wards recorded in prose and in rhyme, in pictures 
 and all manner of ways; but these flying Guards 
 really surrendered in heaps; and one of the first 
 hauls Bliicher made was the capture of sixty pieces 
 of cannon belonging to the said Imperial Guard. 
 These guns were taken so near to the field of battle 
 as the village of Genappe, and with them were 
 captured carriages, baggage, &c. belonging to Bo- 
 naparte himself. The moon had risen, and in 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 broad moonlight the Prussians kept up the chase. 
 The French, when they could not run fast enough 
 along the paved causeway, slipped off it on either 
 side, and ran across fields, and into woods, where 
 many were found afterwards, dead or grievously 
 wounded. The wounded, several days after the 
 battle, continued to be picked up in these places 
 and to be carried into Brussels, where they were 
 humanely attended by British surgeons. The high 
 road, says General Gneisenau, resembled the sea- 
 shore after some great shipwreck; it was covered 
 with cannon, caissons, carriages, baggage, arms, 
 and wreck of every kind. In some of the villages 
 along the high road the fugitives attempted to rest 
 for a time, and now and then—infantry of the line, 
 Imperial Guards, Polish lancers, cuirassiers, artil- 
 lerymen, dragoons, all mixed together—they even 
 made a show of maintaining their ground; but 
 the beat of the Prussian drum, or the sound of the 
 Prussian trumpet, threw them into fresh panics, 
 and away they went, or, staying, suffered them- 
 selves to be knocked down in heaps like cattle. 
 At one place 800 of them were dispatched. The 
 loss of the enemy in this flight was even beyond 
 that on their retreat from Leipzig; and they did 
 not cease flying until they had passed all their 
 frontier fortresses. ‘They then dispersed all over 
 the country, selling their arms and horses, and 
 running to their homes. In the retreat, and in the 
 three battles they had fought within three days, 
 the French lost in killed and wounded more than 
 30,000 men ; but, what was of still more import- 
 ance, their spirit was beaten out of them, and that 
 army was indeed too thoroughly broken up ever to 
 joi again. 
 
 In the meanwhile the British and their allies, 
 by the same broad moonlight, were counting their 
 dead and picking up their wounded, or rather they 
 were making a beginning; for those sad occupa- 
 tions occupied not only that night, but the whole 
 of the following morning. The loss had been 
 immense, and in some corps almost unprecedented. 
 The British and Hanoverians alone had 2432 
 killed and 9528 wounded in the battle of Waterloo. 
 These numbers being added to the losses sustained 
 at Quatre Bras on the 16th, make a total of near 
 15,000 men put hors de combat, in an army of 
 about 36,000 men! If we deduct some 4000 or 
 5000 men of this army who were not actually en- 
 gaged in either of the two battles, we shall find 
 that one-half of this army was killed or wounded. 
 The loss in officers was quite proportionate to the 
 loss in men; more than 600 ofiicers, British and 
 Hanoverians, were killed or wounded at Waterloo — 
 alone. General Picton, who had _ been badly | 
 wounded at Quatre Bras, and who had concealed _ 
 his hurts, was shot through the brain early in the 
 battle of Waterloo, as he was leading his division 
 to a bayonet charge. General Sir William Pon- 
 sonby, who commanded that brigade of heavy 
 cavalry which did such execution upon the French, 
 was killed by a Polish lancer: his relative, Sir 
 Frederick Ponsonby, was shot through the body 
 
Cuapr. VIII. ] 
 
 by a Frenchman, was ridden over by the charging 
 cavalry, and was speared, as he lay bleeding and 
 helpless on the ground, by a savage Polish lancer ; 
 but he miraculously recovered, and lived to charm 
 all those who knew him for many years after. 
 Colonel de Lancey, Wellington’s excellent quarter- 
 master-general, was killed by a cannon-shot in the 
 middle of the action. The Earl of Uxbridge, 
 General Cooke, General Halkett, General Barnes, 
 General Baron Alten, Lieutenant-Colonel Lord 
 Fitzroy Somerset, and the Prince of Orange, were 
 all among the wounded, and most of them were 
 severely wounded, Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. 
 Sir Alexander Gordon died of his wounds soon 
 after the battle. The gallant Duke of Brunswick 
 had perished on the 16th at Quatre Bras, fighting 
 at the head of his Black Hussars. The officers of 
 several foreign nations, who came to volunteer 
 their services to the Duke at this crisis, were not 
 respected by the balls and bullets: the Austrian 
 General Vincent was wounded; and Count Pozzo 
 di Borgo, who was then both a general and a 
 diplomatist to the Emperor Alexander, received a 
 contusion.” Of Wellington’s staff there was 
 hardly an officer but was hit. At one moment he 
 had no officer near him to carry an immediate 
 order, except a young Piedmontese gentleman of 
 the family of di Salis. ‘* Were you ever in a 
 battle before ?”’ said the Duke.—“ No, Sir,” replied 
 the young officer. ‘‘ Then,” said the Duke, “ you 
 are a lucky man; for you will never see such an- 
 other.”’ + 
 
 The war was finished. A few words must com- 
 prise all we can say about the movements of 
 Grouchy, which have been so absurdly misrepre- 
 sented and falsified. When Bliicher withdrew 
 from Ligny, Bonaparte drew not only the incor- 
 rect conclusion that he would continue his retreat 
 like one who acknowledged himself to be beaten, 
 but also the equally incorrect conclusion that he 
 must retreat by Namur, by which means he must 
 lose his communication with Wellington. But 
 Bliicher was neither beaten nor dispirited ; and, 
 instead of going to Namur, he went to Wavre, even 
 as preconcerted with the British commander. 
 Bonaparte likewise expected that Grouchy and his 
 32,000 men would accelerate Bliicher’s retreat, 
 would throw the Prussians into confusion, and 
 effectually prevent their thinking about their Eng- 
 lish allies. The orders given to Grouchy were 
 imperative; they left nothing to the discretion of 
 that general ; he was to follow Bliicher, to get on 
 his skirt, and stick to it; if Blticher should rad/y, 
 he was to fight him: the emperor himself would 
 give an account of Lord Wellington. The whole 
 of this plan was founded upon ignorance and pre- 
 sumption; but Grouchy was not to blame. This 
 general was not ordered to move until after the 
 hour of noon of the 17th. On the morning of the 
 18th, as the battle was beginning at Waterloo, he 
 came in sight, not of Blitcher’s whole army, but 
 
 * Dispatch to Earl Bathurst. 
 7 Quarterly Review, No. ex). 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 rr TRAE 
 
 709 
 
 of the third corps of that army, consisting of 
 16,000 men; and this single corps, admirably 
 commanded by General Thielman, and well posted 
 on the banks of the little river Dyle, defended the 
 passage of that river at Wavre, and gave Grouchy 
 and his 32,000 men full employment for several 
 hours, and thus enabled Bliicher to move off to his 
 right, in order to keep his appointment with Wel- 
 lington. The Prussian Thielman is entitled to as 
 much fame as any single general officer that fought 
 on this memorable day. Grouchy, indeed, éffected 
 the passage of the Dyle towards evening—not at 
 Wavre, but at Limales—but it was now too late 
 for his purpose ; he could no longer have a chance 
 of dividing the Prussian army, or of forcing Bli- 
 cher to concentrate his force and abandon his great 
 ally. Bliicher, in fact, was already giving the 
 hand to Wellington at Waterloo; he had thrown 
 himself between Grouchy and Bonaparte ; so that, 
 even if he should crush or dislodge Thielman, 
 Grouchy could have no possible means of joining 
 his emperor. [From the ground where he stood 
 to the French positions at Waterloo was a march 
 of thirteen or fourteen good English miles; it was 
 already twilight, and his troops were fatigued, so 
 that the distance alone must have prevented his 
 joining his master in time to be of any use, even if 
 Bulow and Bliicher had not stood between.] But 
 Thielman was neither crushed nor dislodged during 
 the whole of the 18th: he kept his position during 
 the night, protecting both the flank and rear of the 
 Prussian army, guarding one road which led upon 
 Brussels, and finding Grouchy full employment; 
 and with his unequal numbers he continued the 
 struggle for some hours on the 19th, when the 
 French grand army was no more. Nor was it 
 until Vandamme had turned Thielman’s right 
 flank, that that sturdy and worthy follower of Bli- 
 cher abandoned Wavre, and began an orderly 
 retreat on Louvain. He knew he had nothing 
 more to do at Wavre; he knew that nothing was 
 left to Grouchy and his corps but a precipitate 
 retreat, for he had received from the field of 
 Waterloo a very satisfactory account of all that 
 had been done there on the 18th. The news 
 reached Grouchy a little later, and then that 
 marshal fell rapidly back upon the frontier of 
 France, conducting his retreat in a manner which 
 did honour to him as a general. 
 
 The first man that carried to Paris the news of 
 his irretrievable disaster was Bonaparte himself, 
 Leaving his brother Jerome on the frontier to try 
 and rally some of the remains of the army, he flew 
 to the capital, where he arrived during the night 
 of the 20th, to find that his chamber of representa- 
 tives was now far more hostile to him than the 
 corps vegislatif had been on his flight from Leip- 
 zig. ‘To Caulaincourt he said that the army was, 
 indeed, lost ; that it had performed prodigies, when 
 a sudden panic seized it and ruined all; that Ney 
 had conducted himself like a madman, throwing 
 away all the cavalry; that there was nothing more 
 to be done! When he recovered a little more 
 
 ed 
 
710 
 
 composure, his first thoughts were how he could 
 break up the constitution he had sworn to on the 
 Ist of June; how he could get rid of the two 
 Chambers, and seize the absolute and undivided 
 power of a dictator. ‘The Chambers, anticipating 
 his blows, declared their session permanent, and 
 demanded his abdication. Lafayette, who had 
 been once more brought upon the scene by cir- 
 cumstances which he had not helped to make, and 
 over which he had no more control than the maker 
 of an almanac has over the tempest which blows, 
 or the sun which rises and sets, made an oration 
 in the style of 1791, applauded the civism and 
 patriotism of the national guards of Paris, and 
 induced the representatives to declare that any 
 attempt to dissolve them should be high treason. 
 Lucien Bonaparte appeared before the House, and 
 harangued and pleaded for Napoleon; but there 
 was no army now, as on the 18th Brumaire, to 
 second Lucien’s eloquence, and make the members 
 jump out of the windows, as at St. Cloud; and so 
 Lucien made no impression on the assembly. The 
 House of Peers lagged a little behind ; but not for 
 long. 
 
 The peers, though all Bonapartists, con- 
 curred with the representatives in the fact that it 
 was only one man that stood between France and 
 peace; but many of them would have substituted 
 Napoleon II. for Napoleon I., or would have de- 
 clared the son of Maria Louisa Emperor of the 
 French, with his mother for regent. Lucien, 
 Charles Labédoyére, Count Flahault, Marshal 
 Davoust, and Carnot strongly supported this pro- 
 ject in the House. Davoust, as war minister, read 
 a report of the military resources of the country, 
 and Carnot, following him, endeavoured to prove 
 that the report was a true one, and that France 
 was still able to defend itself against the armies of 
 Wellington and Bliicher, which were already on 
 their panic-stricken frontier, and against all the 
 armies of Europe. But here Ney, who had just 
 arrived, full of rage and despair, interrupted Car- 
 not, and gave the lie direct both to that ci-devant 
 Jacobin republican and to Marshal Davoust, ex- 
 claiming, “ That is false! That is false! You 
 are deceiving the peers and the people! Welling- 
 ton is coming! Bliicher is not beaten! There is 
 nothing left but the corps of Marshal Grouchy ! 
 In six or seven days the enemy will be here!” 
 The peers were all aghast. At this moment Joseph 
 and Lucien Bonaparte, Labédoyére, Flahault, and 
 others entered the House in full dress, and with 
 plumed hats on their giddy heads: they came 
 from the Tuileries; they came to announce the 
 voluntary abdication of Napoleon I., and to pro- 
 claim Napoleon IJ.; and they shouted, “ The 
 emperor is politically dead! Long live Napoleon 
 the Second!” But Ney’s stern truths still filled 
 the House, and prevented the echoes which might 
 have followed this proclamation of the little King 
 of Rome. Most of these peers, whose patents were 
 not a month old, shook their heads, and said it 
 could not be: some referred to the declaration of 
 the allied sovereigns, that they would never treat 
 
 — nem nt li nest tna 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ( 
 
 Ste At StS or mS 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 with a member of the Bonaparte family ; and some 
 directly opposed the proposition. Upon this, 
 Charles Labédoyére fell into a transport of fury, 
 and threatened them all with destruction. In 
 reward for his treason at Grenoble, Bonaparte had 
 promoted this young colonel to the rank of lieute- - 
 nant-general, and had made him a peer. La- 
 bédoyére had, therefore, not only much to lose, but 
 much to fear from the return of the Bourbons. 
 The peers cried shame, and called him to order ; 
 but nothing could stop him. ‘ Napoleon,” he 
 cried, “ has abdicated, but only on condition of his 
 son succeeding him!” He said that, if the 
 Chambers would not acknowledge the son, then 
 the father ought to keep the sword in his hand, 
 surrounded by the soldiers ; and he proposed—in 
 the language as well as in the spirit of the Reign 
 of Terror—that every Frenchman who quitted the 
 standard of Napoleon should be declared infamous, 
 that his house should be razed to the ground, and 
 that not only he but his family also should be pro- 
 scribed. ‘* Then we shall have no more traitors 
 to the emperor!’”’ So said Labédoyére in 1815. 
 “* Cut me off a hundred thousand more heads of 
 aristocrats, proscribe all the rest, and burn their 
 houses to the ground, and we shall have no more 
 traitors to the republic !”’. So said Marat in 1792. 
 After uttering these gentle propositions, Labédoyére 
 rushed out of the Chamber of Peers and returned 
 to his master to recommend him to crush the two 
 chambers with a military force, seize the most ob- 
 noxious and most active members, summon all the 
 soldiery round him and retire towards the Loire, 
 to try another struggle in central France. Lucien, 
 too, had advised his brother to dissolve the cham- 
 bers; and Carnot and others joined Lucien in 
 remonstrating against his abdication, and in repre- 
 senting that the cession in favour of his son must 
 remain a nullity. But Napoleon signed the act 
 of abdication, in favour of his son Napoleon IT., on 
 the 22nd of June; and he determined to abide by 
 it, or at the least to give up a hopeless struggle. 
 He knew better than his poetizing brother the real 
 state of affairs ; he knew that the Chamber of Re- 
 presentatives could not be dissolved like the Council 
 of Five Hundred ; he knew that the great majority 
 of the peers would now make common cause with — 
 the representatives, and that the two chambers — 
 united would be far too strong for him. He had — 
 a much livelier sense than Lucien could have of — 
 the field of Waterloo, and, though he should collect | 
 another army, he knew that the armies of all Eu- 
 rope were marching against him ; that, while Wel- | 
 lington and Bliicher were on the north-eastern fron- | 
 tier, the Austrian general Frimont was marching |_ 
 through Switzerland and Savoy to attack on that | 
 frontier, that Prince Schwartzenberg was nowready | 
 to pour enormous forces across the Rhine, and that — 
 the Emperor Alexander was not far off with 200,000 — 
 Russians. The allies could have put 800,000 men 7 
 into France before the end of the month of July! — 
 After his abdication Bonaparte retired to Malmai-— 
 son, where his wife Josephine had died. 
 
 s 
 \ 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 The Chamber of Peers set up a provisional 
 
 government, consisting of Caulaincourt, Quenett, 
 renier, Carnot, and Fouché—a most strange 
 jumble of men and principles. Fouch¢, who had 
 ten times more craft, cunning, and ability than all 
 his four colleagues put together, had seen clearly, 
 ever since the battle of Waterloo, that the restora- 
 tion of the Bourbons was an inevitable necessity ; 
 and he shaped his course accordingly, not at all 
 despairing of enjoying as much pre-eminence under 
 Louis XVIII. as he had ever enjoyed under Napo- 
 leon. Minister of police, minister of the interior, or 
 minister for foreign affairs, Fouché was ready for 
 anything. He at once got himself named presi- 
 dent of this commission of government, and took 
 the entire direction upon himself, treating Carnot 
 like an obstinate old fool, and the rest of them as 
 nobodies. This strange provisional government, 
 which assumed to itself all the powers of France, 
 must have been more hateful and humiliating to 
 the fallen emperor than all the rest of his disgraces ; 
 yet still he lingered at Malmaison for nearly a whole 
 week, and until the advance of Wellington and 
 Bliicher rendered his further stay impossible. 
 
 The British and Prussian armies met with hardly 
 any the feeblest resistance on their march upon 
 Paris. On the Ist of July, Wellington took up a 
 position a few short miles from the capital, with 
 his right upon the heights of Richebourg, with his 
 left upon the Forest of Bondy. Bliicher crossed the 
 Seine at St. Germain as Wellington advanced ; and 
 on the 2nd of July the right of the Prussian army 
 was at Plessis-Piyuet, its left at St. Cloud, and its 
 reserve at Versailles. Two days before this, while 
 the Duke of Wellington was at Etrées, five com- 
 missioners were sent to him from Paris by the 
 provisional government to negotiate a suspension 
 of hostilities. These negotiators began with assert- 
 ing that Bonaparte’s abdication had virtually put 
 an end to the war. The duke told them that it 
 was impossible for him to consider the whole trans- 
 action of the abdication in any other light than as 
 a trick ; and that he could not stop his operations 
 with a view to any benefit likely to result from 
 such an arrangement to the object the allies had 
 in view in the war. Fouchd’s commissioners then 
 said that they had every reason to believe that 
 Napoleon had quitted Paris ; and, in case he had 
 not, they proposed various schemes “zn order to 
 get rid of him.” One of their schemes was to 
 seize him and send him to England ; another, to 
 hand him over to his father-in-law the Emperor of 
 Austria. To this Wellington replied that he had 
 no authority to settle such schemes; that he was 
 quite ceriain that, if Napoleon was sent to Eng- 
 land, the prince regent would keep him to be 
 disposed of by the allies by common accord, and 
 that he had no reason to doubt that the Emperor 
 of Austria would do the same. He further told 
 these French commissioners that, if they really 
 intended to dispose of Bonaparte in that way, they 
 had much better send him at once to Marshal 
 Bliicher or to the English head-quarters. The 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 711 
 
 Frenchmen then said that it was probable he was 
 gone to Rochefort to embark for America, or that 
 he would go as soon as he should hear of the near 
 approach of the allied armies, and before they 
 could send to Paris; and they asked the duke 
 whether in that case he, would stop his operations. 
 The duke told them that Paris contained other 
 dangerous men; that besides Napoleon there were 
 his adherents, the declared enemies of the allies, 
 and that before he could stop his operations he 
 must see some steps taken to re-establish a govern- 
 ment in France which should afford the allies some 
 chance of lasting peace. They then begged to know 
 what would satisfy the allies upon this point. The 
 duke told them he had no authority even from his 
 own government, and much less from the allies, to 
 discuss this subject; that all he could do was to 
 give them his private opinion, and that this opinion 
 was that the return and re-establishment of Louis 
 XVIII. was a sine qué non. He added that he 
 wished, as a private individual, that the French 
 themselves would recall the king, as it would not 
 then appear that the measure had been forced upon 
 them by the allied armies. In the same private 
 capacity, he expressed his conviction that Louis 
 XVIII. would consent to the responsibility of mi- 
 nisters, and to other constitutional and administra- 
 tive reforms which the French people desired. 
 While the duke was talking, he received Louis 
 XVIII.’s proclamation, dated Cambray, the 28th 
 of June, countersigned by Talleyrand. He handed 
 the paper immediately to the French commissioners, 
 pointing out to them the king’s promise to make the 
 very alterations in his administration which they 
 had proposed. The commissioners took objection 
 to certain paragraphs in the proclamation, wherein 
 Louis announced the intention of punishing some 
 of those concerned in the plot which had brought 
 back Bonaparte, &c. Although not named as yet, 
 the commissioners, the provisional government, and 
 all France must have understood that Marshal 
 Ney and Labddoyére were included in this traitorous 
 category ; and that the government of Louis XVIII. 
 reserved to itself the right of bringing them to con- 
 dign punishment. The commissioners saw the 
 royal proclamation four days before the capitulation 
 of Paris. To their remarks on the avenging para- 
 graph the Duke of Wellington had nothing to 
 say ; and they themselves really appear to have 
 said or thought very little about it. We call at- 
 tention to the paragraph only in order to prove 
 that the provisional government and Marshal Da- 
 voust perfectly well knew the intention of Louis 
 XVIII. with regard to Ney, Labédoyere, and 
 others, three or four days before they concluded 
 the convention of Paris with Wellington and Bli- 
 cher, a convention in which the case of those trai- 
 tors was not provided for in any way. Before he 
 left them the commissioners asked categorically 
 whether the appointment of a regency to conduct 
 the affairs of the French government in the name 
 of Napoleon II. would be likely to satisfy the 
 allies, and stop his grace’s advance upon Paris ? 
 
 __ °° eee anna phe mn 
 
712 
 
 or whether the allies would be satisfied if some 
 other prince of a royal House were called to the 
 French throne? [It is well known that a certain 
 party already, and, indeed, long before this crisis, 
 entertained the notion of giving the crown to the 
 Duke of Orleans, late Louis Philippe.] To the 
 first of these queries Wellington answered ‘‘ Cer- 
 tainly not :” to the second he said that it was im- 
 possible for him to answer such loose questions. * 
 On the following day, the 30th of June, those com- 
 missioners returned to the Duke’s head-quarters 
 to assure him, in positive terms, that Bonaparte 
 was really gone; and to demand upon that ground 
 alone an immediate armistice. Wellington said 
 he was not unwilling to agree to an armistice upon 
 the following conditions:—1. That he and Mar- 
 shal Blticher should halt in their present advanced 
 positions, and not advance nearer to Paris; 2. That 
 all the French troops should retire from Paris to 
 the country behind the Loire; 3. That Paris 
 should be held by the national guards of the town, 
 until the king should order otherwise. The com- 
 missioners said that the provisional government 
 could not or would not send away the forces be- 
 yond the Loire ; upon which the Duke told them 
 that he would not consent to suspend hostilities as 
 long as a soldier of that army remained in Paris. 
 “In fact,” writes his grace to the British govern- 
 ment, “if they were to restore the king, and his 
 majesty were to return to Paris, the troops remain- 
 ing there, his majesty would be entirely in the 
 hands of the assemblies and of the army, who can- 
 not be considered in any other light than as the 
 creatures and instruments of Napoleon.” + This 
 army in and round Paris, counting shattered and 
 disorganised corps, fugitives from Waterloo, and 
 all, was estimated by the provisional government 
 at 40,000 men. It probably amounted to 30,000 ; 
 and, obeying the impulses of Labédoyére and other 
 desperate officers, it had declared for Napoleon IT. 
 Louis X VIII., who had been obliged to quit Lille, 
 his first place of refuge, und to repair to the city 
 of Ghent, in the rear of the allied armies, now 
 followed the Duke of Wellington’s recommendation, 
 and came on towards Paris. On the Ist of July 
 Marshal Davoust wrote to the British commander- 
 in-chief on the subject of the armistice ; but the 
 marshal did not yet adopt the terms without which 
 Wellington had determined not to suspend his 
 movements for a single hour. He and Bliicher 
 had, therefore, advanced, as we have seen, almost 
 to the suburbs of the French capital. In taking 
 up his positions on the left bank of the Seine, on 
 the 2nd of July, the army of Napoleon IT. offered 
 some resistance to old Bliicher; and there was 
 even some hard fighting on the heights of St. 
 Cloud and Meudon, and in the village of Issy ; but 
 the country people remained neutral, and the 
 Prussian corps of General Ziethen surmounted 
 every obstacle. On the 3rd of July, at three 
 
 * See the Duke of Wellington's long Dispatch to Earl Bathurst, 
 dated the 2nd of July. 
 + Id. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 o’clock in the morning, the French renewed the 
 attack, and attempted to recover the village of 
 Issy; but they were repulsed with considerable 
 loss. No attempt was made to check the ap- 
 proaches or molest the positions of the British. 
 The provisional government and Marshal Davoust 
 now yielded to necessity, and to the terms which 
 the Duke of Wellington had proposed to their 
 commissioners three days before, with this im- 
 portant addition, that the city of Paris, the heights 
 of Montmartre, and all its other defences, were to 
 be put quietly in the possession of the British and 
 Prussian armies. They saw that Paris was now 
 open to the allies on its vulnerable side, that a 
 communication was established between the two 
 allied armies on opposite sides of the Seine, by a 
 bridge which Wellington had established at Argen- 
 teuil; and that a British corps was likewise moving 
 upon the left of the Seime towards the bridge of 
 Neuilly; and, therefore, they sent out a flag of 
 truce, desiring that the firing might cease on both 
 sides of the Seine, and that negotiations might be 
 opened at the palace of St. Cloud, “ for a miktary 
 convention between the armies, under which the 
 French army should evacuate Paris.” * Officers 
 accordingly met on both sides at St. Cloud ; and 
 on that night the mi/itary convention was con- 
 cluded by three French officers, one English officer, 
 and one Prussian officer ; and on the following day 
 it was approved by the Duke of Wellington, by 
 Marshal Bliicher, and by Davoust, who acted on 
 the part and in the name of the French army, and 
 the ratifications were exchanged. On the same 
 day, and almost before his signature to the deed 
 was dry, the Duke wrote to his government, “ This 
 convention decides all the military questions at this 
 moment existing here, and touches nothing poli- 
 tical.” + The French troops, as by this agreement 
 bound, had all evacuated Paris by the 6th, and 
 had begun their march towards the Loire. La- 
 bedoyére is said to have gone with them, or to 
 have followed them beyond the Loire. But Mar- 
 shal Ney fled from Paris in disguise on the 6th, 
 with a passport, given to him by Fouche, under a 
 feigned name. ‘his is proof enough that Ney did 
 not consider himself included in the convention or 
 capitulation. When he so fied, he knew, in com- 
 mon with all Paris, the articles of that capitulation ; 
 he knew that there was not one of them which 
 could in any way shield him against the govern- 
 ment of Louis XVIII.; he knew what the Duke 
 of Wellington had said to the commissioners on | 
 the 30th, when he handed them the copy of the | 
 king’s proclamation, which so clearly announced the 
 intention of punishing some of the Bonapartist 
 plotters; he knew that the provisional government 
 had introduced no article, clause, or paragraph, to 
 
 * Dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated the 4th of July. The reader 
 should remember the date of this dispatch, and the definition of the 
 convention here given by the Duke of Wellington. The dispatch 
 fully shows that the Duke of Wellington did at no time consider 
 the convention or capitulation of Paris as touching anything 
 political, or as preventing Louis XVIII. from bringing Marshal 
 we va” and others to trial. 
 
 7 id. 
 
Cuap, VITI.] 
 
 shield him and others in his predicament; he 
 knew that the Duke of Wellington could never 
 have agreed to negotiate upon such a subject ; and 
 therefore it was that he, alike conscious of his 
 guilt and of his danger, fled in an ignominious 
 manner from Paris the day before the allied ar- 
 mies took possession of that city. At the mo- 
 ment he fled, Louis XVIII., whom he had be- 
 trayed, with the addition of so many exasperating 
 circumstances, was at St. Denis, only eight miles 
 from Paris. 
 
 On the 7th of July the British and Prussian 
 armies took possession of Paris, without any out- 
 ward or visible sign of that beau désesporr with 
 which they had been so often menaced. The Eng- 
 lish established themselves in the Bois de Boulogne, 
 where they formed an encampment: the Prussians 
 occupied some of the churches, and bivouacked at 
 the head of the streets and along the quays on the 
 Seine. They were thus brought into immediate 
 contact with two objects which roused their 
 nationality and inflamed their ire, which had not 
 been cooled since their fighting at Ligny and 
 Wavyre, or since their re-entrance into France. 
 These obnoxious objects were Bonaparte’s bronzed 
 column of victory in the Place Venddme, which 
 recorded the defeats of the Prussians as well as 
 other nations, and the bridge of Jena, which had 
 been named after the great battle whereby Napo- 
 leon had broken up the Prussian monarchy for a 
 time, and had broken the heart of the fair Prussian 
 queen for ever. There was not a heart beating 
 under a Prussian breast that had more nationality, 
 or that felt these things more acutely, than Blii- 
 cher, whose body, too, had been scarred with 
 wounds in that disastrous campaign. He, there- 
 fore, thought it no sin, and no questionable act, to 
 pull down the column of a man who had destroyed 
 the pillar which commemorated the great Prussian 
 victory of Rosbach, and who had plundered the 
 tomb of Irederick the Great, or to blow into the 
 air the bridge of Jena. His people were actually 
 at work upon the bridge with the insufferable 
 name, when the Duke of Wellington interfered. 
 The British commander-in-chief gently represented 
 that the destruction of the bridge would be highly 
 disagreeable to Louis XVIII., as well as to the 
 French people ; that it was not a military measure, 
 but one likely to attach to the character of their 
 joint operations, and to be of military importance ; 
 that.the bridge, as a monument, must not be de- 
 stroyed, as such destruction was inconsistent with 
 the promise given to the French commissioners 
 during the late negotiation at St. Cloud, namely, 
 that the public monuments, museums, &c., should 
 be reserved for the decision of the allied sovereigns ; 
 and, finally, that the French government were 
 quite willing to change the name of the bridge, 
 which was the only offensive part of it.* ‘* Mar- 
 
 * «¢ All that ask,” added the Duke, “‘ is, that the execution of the 
 orders given for the destruction of the bridge may be suspended till 
 the sovereigns shall arrive here, when, if it should be agreed by com- 
 
 mon accord that the bridge ought to be destroyed, I shall have no 
 objection.” —Lerter to Marshal Prince Blicher, dated Paris, 9th July. 
 
 ate etree tnsnartnenen at 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 1 
 
 eee 
 
 713 
 
 shal Forwards,” moreover, could see no harm. in 
 >) 
 
 levying a military contribution of 100,000,000 
 francs upon the city of Paris; for had uot Bona- 
 parte and the French done worse than this in 
 Berlin? and how had the French recompensed the 
 allies for their forbearance and generosity last year 
 when Paris was in their power? Upon this point 
 also the Duke of Wellington interposed; and, after 
 some grumbling, the rough old Prussian consented 
 that the bridge of Jena should stand, and that no 
 military contribution should be imposed upon the 
 Parisians. 
 
 On the 8th of July, Louis XVIII. re-entered 
 Paris, escorted by the national guard. On the 
 preceding day Fouché told his colleagues of the 
 provisional government that they must resign their 
 functions, and that the two Chambers ought to 
 dissolve themselves or adjourn, as the capital was 
 in the hands of the English and Prussians, and 
 their deliberations were no longer free. Caulain- 
 court, Carnot, Grenier, and Quenett, could say 
 little to this, and could offer no opposition (it 
 appears, indeed, that both Caulaincourt and Carnot 
 were packing up their portmanteaus to be gone ; 
 for the one had kidnapped the Duc d’Enghien, 
 and the other had voted for the death of Louis 
 XVI.) ; and the Chamber of Peers, thinned by the 
 flight or retreat of fierce Labédoyére and so many 
 other hot Bonapartists, had, in fact, already 
 reached its dissolution. The Chamber of Repre- 
 sentatives refused to consider their mission as 
 terminated, and voted, upon the message which 
 Fouché sent them, that they were sitting in the 
 name of the French people, and would continue to 
 sit till separated by force. On the day the king 
 entered the city, General Desolles, commander of 
 the national guard, shut up both Chambers, and 
 put his seal on the doors. Louis XVIII. quietly 
 resumed the government. In reward for the ser- 
 vices he had rendered, and in expectation of further 
 assistance from his master craft, Fouché was re- 
 stored to his old post of minister of police. Fresh 
 assurances were given that the restored king had 
 no wish to be other than a constitutional sove- 
 reign; and preparations were at once made for 
 giving to the French, if not the most perfect of 
 constitutions, a vast deal more liberty than they 
 had ever enjoyed, either before the revolution of 
 1789, or since. 
 
 Bonaparte had arrived at Rochefort on the 3rd. 
 News was rapidly conveyed to him from Paris of 
 everything that passed; and in the course of a few 
 days he had some communications with officers 
 who were retiring with the troops beyond the 
 Loire. It is said that at one moment he thought 
 of joining those troops; but it is exceedingly. 
 doubtful whether he ever seriously entertained so 
 desperate a project, and equally doubtful whether 
 he would have been allowed by General Becker 
 The name of the bridge was changed, but only to be changed again a 
 few years later. Ever sinc# the revolution of 1830 it has gone by no 
 other name than that of Pent de Jena. The Parisians seem to have 
 
 considered this resturation of a word as one of the substantial 
 benefits of the three glorious days of July, 1830. 
 
714 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 my 
 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 + 
 
 and his escort to fly beyond the Loire, there to 
 light the flames of civil war, as well as those of 
 foreign war. He soon saw that the country was 
 tranquilly submitting to the Bourbons, and that 
 the sea, covered with English squadrons and 
 cruisers, offered him no chance of escape to Ame- 
 rica. The ‘ Bellerophon’ ship-of-the-line, Captain 
 Maitland, and some of our frigates were in the 
 roads. ‘There were two or three small armed 
 French vessels in port; but their officers told him 
 that they could neither fight nor escape from the 
 English ships. He then bargained with a Danish 
 merchant-vessel, and devised how he might con- 
 ceal himself in the hold of that craft; but the 
 honest Danish skipper—who might have taken his 
 money, have led him alongside one of our cruisers, 
 and have safely abided the consequences—told him 
 that concealment would be impossible if the Eng- 
 lish searchers boarded; and this hopeless project 
 was given up. He then talked of making a still 
 more desperate essay—of attempting to cross the 
 Atlantic in a chasse-marée, or small coasting- 
 vessel; but this, too, was given up, on the repre- 
 sentation of the sailors. ‘That such dangerous 
 projects were ever entertained for a moment is, 
 by itself, proof enough of the worth of the assertion 
 that Bonaparte voluntarily sought the shelter of 
 the British flag, not merely in the hope, but in the 
 confident expectation that he should be allowed to 
 reside in England, free as any English subject, 
 and under the protection of our laws. He went 
 on board the English ship because he could go no- 
 where else, and because he could not have safely 
 staid many hours longer where he was; he went 
 on board the English ship because every other plan 
 and hope had failed him. On the 10th of July he 
 sent off Las Cases and his evil satellite Savary 
 with a flag of truce to the ‘ Bellerophon.’ Loaded 
 with the blood of the Duc d’Enghien, Savary 
 dreaded more than any of them the being arrested 
 and delivered up to the Bourbons. He and his 
 companion began their negotiation with a falsehood 
 (or with what was a falsehood as far as any Eng- 
 lish officer or authority of any kind was concerned), 
 by stating that the Emperor Napoleon had been 
 promised a safe-conduct for America. Captain 
 Maitland told them that he knew nothing of any 
 such promise; that his orders were to make every 
 effort to prevent the escape of Bonaparte ; and that 
 he could not allow any neutral or other vessel to 
 pass without his search. The captain of the 
 * Bellerophon ’ added that, as @ private individual, 
 he had no reason to doubt but that Bonaparte 
 would be well treated in England if he chose to 
 proceed there in his ship; but that he could not 
 
 pledge himself as to the intentions of the British 
 
 government. On the 14th of July, when the 
 causes and apprehensions which urged their de- 
 parture from Rochefort were becoming more and 
 more pressing, Savary and Las Cases returned 
 again to the ‘ Bellerophon,’ carrying with them a 
 letter, dated the 13th, and addressed by Bonaparte 
 to the Prince Regent, and claiming, “like The- 
 
 mistocles,’? the protection of the British people.* 
 Captain Maitland had thought it proper to call on 
 board his ship two other British captams (Sartorius 
 and Gambier), and these officers were present with 
 him in this conference with the two Frenchmen, 
 one of whom (Savary) was too well known to the . 
 world to be trusted, and the character of the other 
 was then not known at all to the English part of 
 the world. Maitland distinctly told them that his 
 instructions forbade him to let Bonaparte escape, 
 “but that, if Napoleon chose to proceed to Eng- 
 land, he would take him there on board the 
 * Bellerophon,’ without, however, entering into 
 any promise as to the reception he might meet with 
 there, as he was in total ignorance of the inten- 
 tions of the British government as to his future 
 disposal.’ These are Maitland’s own words, and 
 a more honourable and truthful man never trod a 
 quarter-deck: they were confirmed by Captains 
 Sartorius and Gambier, who heard every word that 
 was said, They heard Maitland repeat that he 
 could not, and that he did not, give any pledge. At 
 the request of the Frenchmen, Maitland consented 
 to dispatch a fast-sailing vessel to England, with 
 General Gourgaud, who was to be the bearer of 
 Bonaparte’s letter to the Prince Regent; but he 
 repeated ‘ that he was not authorised to stipulate 
 as to the reception of Bonaparte in England, where 
 he must consider himself at the disposal of the 
 Prince Regent.”? Savary and Las Cases returned 
 to Rochefort, saying that the emperor would come 
 on board the * Bellerophon :’ Maitland made pre- 
 parations to receive him. On the following day, 
 the 15th, Bonaparte, with his suite, came off. The 
 fallen emperor was received respectfully, but with- 
 out any salute or royal honours. As he stepped 
 on board the ‘ Bellerophon,’ he said to Captain 
 Maitland, “ Sir, I come to claim the protection of 
 your prince and your laws.” On the 23rd he saw, 
 for the last time, the coast of France. On the 24th 
 the ‘ Bellerophon’ entered Torbay. ‘The French 
 expected, or rather they pretended to have ex- 
 pected, to be allowed to land immediately, and to 
 go with their emperor to London, or whithersoever 
 they might choose; but Captain Maitland was 
 instantly advised that he must permit no commu- 
 nication of any kind between his ship and the 
 shore. On the 26th the ship was ordered round to — 
 Plymouth Sound. There she was constantly sur- — 
 rounded by fleets, by shoals of boats crowded with 
 the curious. Frequently, as Bonaparte showed — 
 himself, these good people huzzaed, not to insult ~ 
 him, but to cheer him. This magnanimity cost | 
 nothing ; and it is what the English people are by | 
 nature and habit disposed to show to a vanquished | 
 enemy. But the British government could not — 
 
 } 
 } 
 
 * The well-known letter was to this effect :— f 
 Your Royal Highness, Rochefort, July 13th, 1815. | 
 Exposed to factions which divide my country, and to the enmity | 
 of the greatest powers of Europe, I have terminated my politic ; 
 career; and I come, like Themistocles, to seat myself on the hearths 
 of the British people. I place myself under the protection of their — 
 laws, which [protection] I demand of your Royal Highness, as the 
 most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my 
 enemies. 
 NAPoLEON, 
 
Guar. VIII] 
 
 afford to be quite so magnanimous, and it had 
 engagements and duties to fulfil towards the whole 
 world. The Prince Regent returned no answer to 
 the letter, which appears to us to have made at 
 least one half of that step which separates the ridi- 
 culous from the sublime, and to have contained 
 both meanness and falsehood, the falsehood being 
 that his proceeding was voluntary in coming on 
 board the ‘ Bellerophon,’ and all his sacrifices of 
 power, pomp, and state, spontaneous. Gourgaud, 
 the bearer of the letter, and a most petulant and 
 insolent man, was the first to begin the outcry 
 about broken faith, free will, &c., and to implicate 
 the unimpeachable honour of Captain Maitland, 
 by asserting that that gallant officer had cajoled 
 the emperor, and entrapped him on board his ship 
 by promises which he knew would not be kept! 
 Some members of the opposition in either House 
 of parliament appear to have done, with respect to 
 Gourgaud, what Captain Maitland had never done 
 with respect to Bonaparte, or the envoys he had em- 
 ployed at Rochefort ; that is, they appear to have in- 
 duced this very rash and ill informed French soldier 
 to believe that neither the laws nor the people of 
 England would allow his emperor to be deprived, 
 in any degree, of his personal liberty. Deception 
 was not intended ; but it had been the fate of these 
 noble lords and honourable gentlemen to deceive 
 themselves in all matters relating to the French 
 revolution, and to Napoleon Bonaparte ; and these 
 self-deceptions prevailed to the last, being accom- 
 panied now by a revival of admiration and sym- 
 pathy, which neither the man nor the circumstances 
 justified. Not merely the allied sovereigns, but all 
 the peoples of Europe, were assuredly, by this time, 
 convinced that the freedom of Bonaparte was in- 
 compatible with the peace of the world; and that 
 the proper way of disposing of his person, was to 
 place him, not in a Mediterranean island, close 
 to the European continent, but in some remote 
 island of the ocean, from which escape should be 
 made altogether impracticable. England, the mis- 
 tress of the seas, or the only power capable of 
 retaining an effective naval police, possessed such 
 an island in St. Helena, and, though safe and 
 remote, and seated between the tropics, the island 
 was picturesque, fertile, every way pleasant, and 
 very salubrious. It had been in our possession 
 ever since the time of Charles II. It was the best 
 of our half-way houses, or resting-places, in the 
 voyage to and from the East Indies, and its salu- 
 brity had been tested during nearly a century and 
 a half, by a great many thousands of English sub- 
 jects.“ Here he might, indeed, enjoy many of the 
 comforts of life, without much risk or danger of 
 
 * For some very striking proofs of the healthiness of the climate 
 of St. Helena, see Major Tulloch’s ‘ Statistical Reports to Parliament 
 on the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding among the Troops in 
 _ Western Africa, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, &c.’ 1840. 
 Major Tulloch shows, from the returns transmitted to the Army Me- 
 dical Department, that the annual mortality among our troops during 
 Bonaparte’s residence on the island was under 2 per cent., even in- 
 cluding the invalid establishment, which consisted of about 100 sol- 
 diers advanced in life; and that therefore the mortality of the 
 effeciive part of the force did not probably exceed the ratio in the 
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 715 
 
 his again returning to France. To say nothing 
 of the various revolutionary parties who preceded 
 him in the exercise of sovereign authority, he him- 
 self had sent Frenchmen, state-prisoners, unfor- 
 tunate revolutionists, to die and rot in the pesti- 
 lential climate of French Guiana. But the allies 
 had more consideration for his health and life; 
 and it was because St. Helena was as salubrious as 
 it was safe, that the British government agreed 
 that he should be kept there. On the 31st of July 
 Sir H. Bunbury, under secretary of state, and 
 Lord Keith, admiral of the Channel fleet, went on 
 board the ‘ Bellerophon,’ and announced the final 
 resolution which the British government, in con- 
 junction with its allies, had adopted:—1. That 
 General Bonaparte should be removed forthwith 
 to St. Helena, where he was to reside under the 
 joint inspection of commissioners of the allied 
 powers, that island being the situation in which, 
 more than any other at their command, security 
 against escape, and the indulgence of personal 
 liberty, exercise, health, &c., might be reconciled. 
 2. That, with the exception of Savary and Lalle- 
 mand, he might take with him any three officers 
 he chose, as also his surgeon, and twelve other 
 followers. or domestics. The rumour that St. 
 Helena was to be his destination, had reached 
 Bonaparte some days before, and was said to have 
 given him a fit of illness; but the paper was in 
 English, and he told the under secretary that he 
 did not understand the English language. Sir 
 Henry then read the paper to him in French. He 
 seemed to listen with perfect calmness and pati- 
 ence ; and, when he began his reply, he spoke with 
 great moderation of voice, gesture, and manner. He, 
 however, protested against the whole of the plan 
 announced to him, and he ended with what ap- 
 pears to have been meant to pass for a threat of 
 following up the protest, and of foiling the whole 
 plan by an act of suicide. He said he looked upon 
 St. Helena as death ; he would be content to live 
 in England as a private individual, under any 
 surveitlance, under any restrictions whatsoever ; 
 he had not been taken by the English, he had yo- 
 Juntarily placed himself in their hands. He need 
 not have left France; he had left it on the faith 
 of our laws, in confidence in our honour; and 
 great and crying would be the dishonour to the 
 Prince Regent, and to the whole nation, if he 
 should be either sent to St. Helena or be confined 
 in a fortress in England: besides, this would be 
 violating in his person our own laws and the 
 law of nations. But to St. Helena he would 
 not go; he would dite first! He would never 
 quit the ‘Bellerophon’ alive! Admiral Lord 
 Keith could only reply, that he came to commu- 
 nicate the intentions of his government, and not 
 to discuss them. The captive, however, con- 
 tinued to discuss, and to have recourse to bare- 
 faced falsehoods. Although he had shown the 
 greatest dread of all the allied sovereigns, the 
 greatest eagerness to escape from the clutches of 
 Prussians, Austrians, and Russians, who were all 
 
 _— et ret tant et tre ei 
 
716 
 
 concentrating their immense force, their 800,000 
 men, in the heart of France before he quitted Roche- 
 fort; and although he perfectly well knew that the 
 British government took no step without the con- 
 currence of those allies; he pretended that all 
 the severity originated with Hngland, and that he 
 would have found better treatment from any one 
 of those sovereigns. He said he might have taken 
 refuge with the Emperor of Austria, who had given 
 him his daughter, or with the Emperor of Russia, 
 who was his personal friend, though, to be sure, 
 they had quarrelled latterly! The Emperor of Aus- 
 tria would now have given him a lodging, as a 
 state-prisoner, in the dismal fortress of Olmutz or 
 Spielberg; the Emperor of Russia would have 
 consigned him to safe keeping in the inclement 
 deserts of Siberia! The magnanimity of Alex- 
 ander would never have been allowed to stand 
 between Bonaparte and the vengeance of the Rus- 
 sian nation! The Emperor Francis never made 
 any high pretensions to magnanimity, and the fact 
 of having been obliged to sacrifice his own daughter 
 to pacify the mortal foe at that time in possession 
 of his capital, and to induce him to give back 
 some of the conquests he had made, was not proper 
 to foster any high hope of favour and indulgence 
 from that quarter. Bonaparte, like all his tibe, 
 generally contradicted himself. On a subsequent 
 occasion, when some one endeavoured to reconcile 
 him to St. Helena, by describing its real cli- 
 mate, and by showing that it was far better as a 
 residence than any fortress in England, or than 
 any fortress or state-prison in Germany or Russia, 
 he exclaimed, ‘* Russia! Ah! God keep me from 
 that!’ As for the Prussians, old Bliicher was 
 reported to have said and sworn, that if he caught 
 Bonaparte he would hang him at the head of his 
 columns! ‘‘ Marshal Forwards” may not have 
 said the words, and he would hardly have carried 
 such a threat into execution; but the Bonapartists 
 believed not only that he had said it, but that he 
 was capable of doing it, and, very probably, if 
 some of Bliicher’s soldiers who had fought at Jena, 
 or had witnessed the more recent slaughter at 
 Ligny, had caught the flying emperor anywhere 
 on his journey between Waterloo and Paris, or 
 between Paris and Rochefort, they would have 
 fusiladed him without waiting for superior orders. 
 While Lord Keith and Sir H. Bunbury were with 
 the principal in the after-cabin of the ‘ Bellerophon,’ 
 there was a party in the fore-cabin that made no 
 attempt at dignity, or calmness, or moderation. 
 This group consisted of Savary, Bertrand, Mon- 
 tholon, their wives, &c., persons variously aflected 
 by the dread of being given up to the Bourbon 
 government, by their dread of St. Helena and a 
 long sea voyage, by their attachment to European 
 society and their attachment to their old master, 
 the last being a feeling which existed strongly in 
 the hearts of two or three of them. General Ber- 
 trand and a poor Polish officer are said, however, 
 to have been the only two individuals, above the 
 rank of domestics, who would not have preferred 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 staying behind to going to St. Helena; and, though 
 the devotion of these two may have been very con- 
 spicuous, they were both liable to other motives of 
 action. The poor Pole, whose confession might 
 have been repeated by many thousands of his 
 countrymen, honestly confessed that if he did not 
 follow Bonaparte to St. Helena he must starve, 
 as he had no money, no profession except that of 
 arms, no friends, not even a country! Bertrand, 
 on the other hand, had committed himself with 
 Louis XVIII. and the Bourbon government almost 
 as deeply as Ney; and that government subse- 
 quently condemned him to death par contumace. 
 But Madame Bertrand, a fine Parisian _ lady, 
 thought that through her great connexions in that 
 capital some arrangements might be made which 
 would leave her husband in possession of rank, 
 employment, aud property ; thought that life was a 
 dreary thing anywhere out of Paris, and that out 
 of France it was altogether insupportable; and 
 she made use of all her influence to induce Ber- 
 trand to quit his master. When other arguments 
 had failed, this interesting lady (on the evening of 
 the 3lst of July) made a grand tragical scene in 
 Bonaparte’s cabin, and was going to throw herself 
 overboard from the quarter-gallery window; but 
 she chose her moment so well, that both her hus- 
 band and Montholon were close at hand to stop her. 
 Bonaparte smiled at the notion of madame’s’ 
 having really intended to drown herself; yet he 
 and his male followers played their share of the 
 suicidal farce, he repeating, aloud and publicly, that 
 he would not leave the ‘ Bellerophon’ alive, and 
 they hinting that he would assuredly escape from 
 Inglish tyranny by self-destruction. Lallemand 
 went even further than this, declaring that, rather 
 than see the emperor removed from the ‘ Belle- 
 rophon,’ to be sent in another ship to St. Helena, 
 he would himself become his executioner, and 
 blow out his brains! ‘To this fanfaronade Admiral 
 Lord Keith is said to have replied, very calmly, 
 that General Lallemand would indubitably be 
 hanged if he did anything of the sort! 
 
 Counting servants and Bertrand’s and Montho- 
 lon’s children, in all about fifty individuals had 
 come on board the ‘ Bellerophon’ with Bonaparte, or 
 had followed him thither before the ship sailed from 
 Rochefort. He refused to select out of this number 
 his future companions and attendants. Savary, who 
 appears to have been completely unmanned by his 
 dread of being given up to the I'rench government 
 to answer for his atrocicus deeds at the donjon 
 of Vincennes, would fain have followed his master 
 
 even to St. Helena; but it was wisely resolved | 
 
 that such an adept in plots and stratagems, and all 
 the arts of gendarmerie and police, should not be 
 allowed to go. This interdict was extended to 
 General Lallemand; but, considering them as too 
 contemptible to be dangerous, Gourgaud and M. 
 Las Cases were permitted to join Bertrand and 
 Montholon, who persisted in their determination 
 of accompanying the emperor, without putting 
 
 _ him to the pain or humiliation of making a selec- 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 tion. Madame Bertrand, though vain and frivo- 
 lous, would not leave her husband and children ; 
 but she now did her best to prevent the removal 
 of Bonaparte, by telling the officers of the ‘ Belle- 
 rophon’ that he would certainly commit suicide if 
 they attempted to force him to quit the ship. On 
 the morning of the 3rd of August, Sir Francis 
 Burdett, who was among those individuals that 
 took a very strange interest in Bonaparte’s fate, 
 called upon Sir Samuel Romilly in London, and 
 told him that, if moving for a writ of habeas corpus 
 would procure him his liberty, or in any way be 
 useful to him, he would stand forward and do it. 
 Romilly told Sir Francis that he thought that 
 Bonaparte could not possibly derive any benefit 
 from such a proceeding. On the 4th of August, 
 the ‘ Bellerophon’ put to sea to meet the ‘ Nor- 
 thumberland,’ the flag-ship of Sir George Cock- 
 burn, which was destined for the St. Helena 
 voyage. On this day Bonaparte signed a written 
 protest, which was little more than a repetition of 
 his verbal one to Admiral Lord Keith and Sir H. 
 Bunbury.* He renewed his declarations, that he 
 had come freely on board the ‘ Bellerophon,’ having 
 at that time power to act otherwise; that he was 
 the voluntary guest and not the prisoner of Eng- 
 land ; that he had embarked at the instigation of 
 Captain Maitland; that he had come in good 
 faith to seek the protection of the laws of England ; 
 that, if the British government, in giving its orders 
 to the captain of the ‘ Bellerophon’ to receive him, 
 had intended only to lay a snare for him, then it 
 had forfeited its honour and stained its flag ; that, 
 if this act of treachery should be consummated, it 
 would be in vain for the English to speak of their 
 good faith, their laws, or their liberty, for the 
 British faith would find itself lost in the hospitality 
 of the ‘ Bellerophon,’ &c. He appealed to history, 
 and put his own fictions into her mouth. History, 
 he said, would say that “an enemy, who for twenty 
 years had waged war with the English people, 
 came freely in his misfortunes to seek an asylum 
 under their laws. What more striking proof could 
 he give of his esteem and confidence? But how 
 had they answered in England to such magnani- 
 mity? They pretended to stretch out an_hos- 
 pitable hand to this enemy, and, when he had 
 delivered himself up to them in good faith, they 
 had immolated him!’ 
 
 If the scene and circumstances, and his own 
 duties, could have permitted, Captain Maitland 
 would not have sat down one single hour under 
 these foul aspersions. But, even as it was, Bona- 
 parte found it necessary to declare to him before 
 leaving his ship, that he “had certainly made no 
 conditions on coming on board the ‘ Bellerophon,’ 
 that he had only claimed hospitality, and that he 
 had no reason to complain of the captain’s conduct, 
 
 * Tt began, “TI protest solemnly here, in the face of heaven and of 
 men, against the violation of my most sacred rights, in disposing by 
 force of my person and my liberty.” At this time, as it was remarked, 
 his sacred rights rested upon this basis—in England he was a public 
 enemy, in France a rebel, and in all Europe a proscribed and pro- 
 claimed traitor | 
 
 at als SEIS Ea ao a Te POP a a Me ae ee 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 717 
 
 which had been that of a man of honour.” But 
 this declaration, which was altogether inconsistent 
 with the protest, was suppressed by the French in 
 their subsequent accounts of these transactions ; 
 and the glaring falsehoods and the monstrous 
 absurdities of the protest were, and still continue 
 to be, repeated like gospel truths. Captain Mait- 
 land published a straight-forward, manly, and con- 
 vincing statement of the whole transaction; but 
 historians of the Bonapartist school do not read 
 such documents. After signing his written pro- 
 test (on the 4th of August), Napoleon shut him- 
 self up in his cabin, and would scarcely see any 
 even of his own companions for the rest of that 
 day. The honest first-lieutenant of the ‘ Bellero- 
 phon’ says, “‘ We were now all in full expectation 
 of some tragical event. The general conjecture 
 was that he would end himself by poison. It was 
 believed: that he had in his possession a large 
 quantity of laudanum. Madame Bertrand even 
 hinted that ere morning we should find him a 
 corpse. Next day he still remained shut up in his 
 cabin. Bertrand occasionally waited upon him, 
 imploring him to name his future companions. 
 He constantly refused, declaring that his resolu- 
 tion was formed, and he should abide by it. Ma- 
 dame Bertrand said to me, ‘If promise you you 
 will never get the emperor to St. Helena; he is 
 aman, and what he says he will perform.’ She 
 afterwards, the same evening, declared to one of 
 the ship’s officers, that she really believed the 
 emperor had now swallowed poison. The cur- 
 tain, therefore, must soon drop.”* But the curtain 
 did not drop so soon, although, as the lieutenant 
 says, “the bubble burst.” On Monday the 7th 
 of August, Bonaparte, unpoisoned, and apparently 
 in good health, went quietly from the ‘ Bellero- 
 phon’ to the ‘ Northumberland.’ He was accom- 
 panied by Bertrand, Montholon, Gourgaud, and 
 Las Cases, Mesdames Bertrand and Montholon, 
 their four children, and twelve domestics. His 
 own surgeon refused to go with him; but he had 
 taken a liking to O’Meara, an Irish naval surgeon, 
 whom he had found on board the ‘ Bellerophon,’ 
 and who, at his request, was transferred to the 
 * Northumberland.’ Savary and Lallemand, who 
 were detained, were both in an agony of alarm, for 
 they had seen Louis X VIII.’s proclamation of the 
 24th of July, which threatened them both with a 
 trial for high treason, and they had taken it into 
 their heads that the British ministers intended to 
 deliver them up to the Bourbon government. 
 Savary, whose fears, like his guilt, were greater 
 than those of his comrade, had written to Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, as early as the Ist of August, to 
 implore his legal assistance ; to declare that he had 
 come voluntarily on board the ‘ Bellerophon’ with 
 the Emperor Napoleon, after having been assured 
 beforehand of the inviolability of his person, and 
 after having received positive promises of protection 
 
 * Extract of a journal kept on board His Majesty’s ship ‘ Bellero- 
 phon,’ from July 15 to August 7, the period during which Napoleon 
 Bonaparte was on board that ship, by Lieut. J. Bowerbank, R.N. 
 
718 
 
 on the part of the English laws, which were above the 
 power of ministers; that it was in this confidence 
 that he and his companions had embarked in the 
 ‘ Bellerophon,’ the captain of which ship had de- 
 clared that he was authorised by his government to 
 receive them; that he and they had always consider- 
 ed themselves safe under the protection of the Eng- 
 lish laws, &c.; and, finally, that he would defend 
 himself with arms in his hands against any force 
 that should attempt to remove him from the ‘ Belle- 
 rophon,’ unless it were to land him in England 
 and place him under the protection of an Eng- 
 lish magistrate. And Savary ingeniously asked 
 Romilly to tell him how the case would be consi- 
 dered by English law, if, in defending himself, 
 he should be so unfortunate as to kill somebody. 
 Savary also wrote to Lord Melville, the first lord 
 of the Admiralty, and to Admiral Lord Keith. But 
 a better man than he wrote to Lord Melville ; this 
 was Captain Maitland, who was induced for a 
 moment to believe that his government really in- 
 tended to deliver up this notorious and dishonoured 
 offender, and Lallemand as well; and, as he had 
 seen them proscribed in the French papers, he had 
 no doubt but that to deliver them up would be to 
 consign them to certain death. With all the ear- 
 nestness of a man pleading for his honour, and 
 who would have died rather than see that honour 
 tarnished, Maitland told Lord Melville that pro- 
 tection was certainly granted these two men, with 
 the sanction of his name. ‘’Tis true,” said he, 
 “no conditions were stipulated for; but I acted in 
 the full confidence that their dives would be held 
 sacred, or they never should have put foot in the 
 ship I command, without being made acquainted 
 that it was for the purpose of delivering them over 
 to the laws of their country.” The English minis- 
 ters had never entertained any such design; but it 
 was quite natural that a man like Savary should 
 suspect them of it. The only determination of 
 ministers in regard to him and Lallemand was 
 that they should not go to St. Helena with Bona- 
 parte, and that they should not remain in England. 
 Romilly, though acting with the opposition, wrote 
 to Savary to inform him that he had stated his 
 case to the Lord Chancellor, as being the only 
 step which he thought he could take usefully for 
 him; and he told him, too, that if, in resisting 
 force to remove him from the ‘ Bellerophon,’ any 
 person should be killed, he thought that he 
 (Savary) would be deemed guilty of murder by 
 our tribunals. Savary and Lallemand were ab- 
 sorbed by their selfish fears, when the ‘ Northum- 
 berland’ parted company with the ‘ Bellerophon’ 
 and shaped her course for the selected island. 
 
 It lies not within our scope to detail the more 
 than five stormy years which followed in St. He- 
 lena; but a few observations cannot be suppressed. 
 It was deemed by our government necessary to send 
 out as governor of the island an officer of experi- 
 
 ence, ability, and great firmness—a man who 
 
 could neither be duped nor intimidated, but who 
 would persevere in his duty through good and eyil 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 report, and at any risk—his important and diffi- 
 cult duty being to put down French intrigues and 
 correspondence, and to prevent the escape of 
 Bonaparte, who was allowed the range of a con- 
 siderable portion of that island. The officer se- 
 lected was Sir Hudson Lowe, who had all the 
 qualities required in a very eminent degree, He 
 had served with distinction in various countries 
 in the Mediterranean; he had since rendered im- 
 portant services in the grand campaign of the allies 
 in 1813-14; he was well acquainted with foreign 
 languages and foreign manners; his employment 
 in Sicily and elsewhere had necessarily given him 
 some experience in secret manceuvres, plots, and 
 conspiracies, and had sharpened that department 
 of the intellect which is ordinarily very obtuse in 
 the minds of English soldiers; he was a good ad- 
 ministrator, and also a very good penman; and 
 no Englishman that knew him doubted either his 
 acuteness or his unflinching firmness, his huma- 
 nity or his honour. A more difficult task, or one 
 more likely to be attended with a far-spreading 
 abuse and obloquy, never fell to the lot of man; but 
 he knew his duty and the consequences which 
 might result from the slightest breach of his 
 orders, and he executed those orders, which left 
 very little to his discretion, with a rare punctuality. 
 Sir Hudson Lowe arrived at St. Helena in July, 
 1816, or about ten months after Bonaparte. The 
 French picked a quarrel with him immediately, 
 and heaped abuse and foul nicknames upon him. 
 But this was no more than they had done with 
 that brave and honourable sailor Sir George Cock- 
 burn; and the chief ground of quarrel was the 
 same in both cases—the refusal of the British officer 
 to disobey the instructions of his government by 
 treating Bonaparte as an emperor, and by always 
 addressing him as “ Your imperial majesty.’ It 
 is said that in the very first interview Bonaparte ad- 
 dressed the new governor in these insulting words: 
 “ Monsieur, vous avez commande des brigands !”* 
 But the insolence of the principal was courtesy 
 and compliment compared with the daily and 
 hourly abuse of the satellites and dependents. In- 
 deed, we know that Sir Hudson was of opinion 
 that, if he and the sole object which caused his 
 being there had been left to themselves, everything 
 would have gone off with decency and quietness; 
 and that he was accustomed to say even as much 
 as this, that Bonaparte was neither an unreason- 
 able nor unpleasant person to deal with, but that 
 the Las Cases, the Montholons, the Bertrands, and 
 the women were the most pestilent and provoking 
 
 set of babblers, tale-inventors, and quarrel-makers 
 
 that ever it fell to the lot of man to encounter. 
 They were incessantly on the look-out for griey- 
 
 ances, and nothing was too trivial for them to take — 
 
 up; they identified themselves with what could 
 
 now only be the hollow, unsubstautial word-gran- | 
 deur of their master; and each time that Sir | 
 Hudson Lowe styled him General Bonaparte they 
 
 * Sir, you have commanded brigands.” Sir Hudson Lowe had 
 commanded the Corsican Rangers in the British service. 
 
 > te eh TP 
 . “tae ‘7 
 - 
 L 
 & 
 « 
 ‘ 
 
 ao 
 
nt Coes 
 
 >: 
 
 — Cnap. VIII] 
 
 resented it as a personal wrong. They called him 
 in return by almost every foul name that is to be 
 found in the French or in the Italian vocabulary : 
 spy, police-agent, inquisitor, gaoler, and far worse ! 
 They denied that he had ever, been a soldier (he 
 had been a good and brave one), and they alluded 
 to his services at Capri, at Ischia, in Sicily, and 
 on the Calabrian coast, as those of a robber and 
 incendiary, as those of a secret emissary, breaking 
 all the laws of nations, leaguing himself with in- 
 famous chiefs of banditti, exciting the /awfu/ and 
 peaceful subjects of King Joseph Bonaparte and 
 King Joachim Murat to insurrection, civil war, 
 &c. This was a constant theme with all the 
 French at St. Helena. We trust that we have 
 shown the real nature of the war in Calabria, 
 wherein the French left no atrocity uncommitted, 
 and that the reader will perfectly well understand 
 the injustice, the monstrous absurdities of the 
 charges thus thrown in the face of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe. The same rules which not only justified 
 but made honourable the support England gave to 
 the insurgent Portuguese and Spaniards were ap- 
 plicable to the assistance and co-operation lent to 
 the insurgents of Calabria: many Englishmen, 
 civilians as well as military, of the highest cha- 
 racter, of unimpeachable honour and (some of 
 them) of a romantic generosity of temper, had far 
 more to do with the insurgents of Calabria and of 
 other parts of Southern Italy (the French call 
 them all drzgands, but we must continue to call 
 them patriots) than ever Sir Hudson Lowe had 
 to do with them; and, if he was to be held up to 
 infamy for having done his duty and obeyed the 
 orders of his government in this particular, a far 
 greater share of reproach and shame must rest 
 upon Sir John Stuart, the hero of Maida, General 
 Fox, Lord William Bentinck, Admiral Sir Sidney 
 Smith, and other officers of the highest ranks. 
 Such charges were the more monstrous from the 
 character of the men who made them, and from 
 the past conduct of the chief they served. Savary 
 could not go to St. Helena; but we find even that 
 type of espionage and secret police rating Sir 
 Hudson as a foul spy and police-agent !—We find 
 the man who had entirely directed and presided 
 over the bloody murder of the Duke d’Enghien 
 joining in the accusations that the English govern- 
 ment sent Bonaparte to St. Helena because the 
 island was unhealthy, and selected Sir Hudson 
 Lowe to be his keeper because he possessed the 
 execrable art of making him die by inches—“ luz 
 faire mourir & coup deépingle.”’ Their own narra- 
 tives, the accounts and letters written by these 
 Frenchmen, will best show the incessant insults and 
 provocations they offered to the governor of the 
 island. It was not m human nature to bear all 
 this without showing some resentment; and the 
 governor had duties imposed upon him which 
 could not possibly be executed in a manner agree- 
 able to the feelings of Bonaparte; but never did 
 Sir Hudson Lowe resort to any unnecessary vigi- 
 lance or severity, or needlessly insult bis captive, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 719 
 
 or even any one of his noisy and contemptible 
 attendants, who never ceased calumniating him, 
 his government, and his country. The firmness 
 and decision of Sir Hudson’s character were 
 marked in his countenance; his brow was often 
 clouded by the cares and duties of his important, 
 responsible, and most difficult office; but he was 
 an English officer, an English gentleman, an 
 affectionate husband and father, a kind friend, and 
 a humane man to enemies as well as friends. He 
 may, indeed, have “‘ looked very like a person who 
 would not let his prisoner escape 2f he could help 
 it.’* And there is no doubt that it was this very 
 look which induced Bonaparte to call him ‘ Cain,” 
 and to insult him at their first meeting, any more 
 than there is a doubt that from his first landing on 
 the island, almost down to the day of his death, 
 Bonaparte had some latent hope of making his 
 escape, and encouraged his followers in an infinite 
 variety of plots and contrivances to work out that 
 end. What would the British government have 
 said, or what would the world have thought, if Sir 
 Hudson Lowe, allowing himself to be duped, had 
 permitted this escape? But why did not Lord 
 Liverpool’s administration come honestly forward 
 to the rescue of their governor’s assailed character? 
 Why did they not take the responsibility of the vigi- 
 lance, firmness, or severity of their governor 
 upon themselves, and frankly declare that what- 
 ever Sir Hudson Lowe did was done by their 
 orders, and in the one and very intelligible inten- 
 tion of preventing the escape? But the British 
 government, though it subsequently promoted and 
 employed the man who had ably fulfilled a most 
 invidious and most difficult office,t left him to en- 
 
 * Trifles from my Portfolio; or Recollections of Scenes* and small 
 Adventures during Twenty-nine Years’ Military Service, by a Staff 
 Surgeon. This staff surgeon, Dr. Henry, was long attached to the 66th 
 regiment, and he was at St. Helena from the month of August, 1817, 
 until some time after the death of Bonaparte. In justice to the 
 character of Sir Hudson Lowe, every word that Dr. Henry says about 
 him, and his treatment of his captive, ought to be attentively read. 
 The book was printed at Quebec in 1839, but copious extracts have 
 been given in the ‘ Quarterly Review,’ No. cxxxiv., March, 1841. 
 
 At first, the doctor, a facetious jovial Irishman, disliked Sir 
 Hudson’s countenance and manners, and was predisposed against 
 him; but he never for a moment considered the governor capable of 
 a dishonourable or inhuman action, and as he knew him better his 
 prejudice as to externals vanished. He says, “If, therefore, notwith- 
 standing this prepossession, my testimony should incline to the other 
 side, I can truly state that the change took place from the weight of 
 evidence, and in consequence of what came under my own observation in 
 St. Helena. Poor man, he has since that time enconntered a storm 
 of obloquy and reproach, enough to bow any person to the earth. 
 Yet I firmly believe that the talent he exerted in unravelling the intri- 
 cate plotting constantly going on, at Longwood, and the firmness in tearing 
 it to pieces, with the tncreasing vigilance he displayed in the discharge 
 of his arduous duties, made him more enemies than any hastiness of 
 temper, uncourteousness uf demeanour, and severity in his measures, of 
 which the world believed him guilty.” 
 
 + After Bonaparte’s death, the same government which had ap- 
 pointed him to St. Helena appointed Sir Hudson to be chief of a 
 colony far more important—sent him out as governor of Ceylon. 
 This, indeed, could leave no doubt, in any dispassionate mind, that 
 his administration at St. Helena had fully satisfied his own goyern- 
 ment; and it was to his own government alone that he, their servant, 
 strictly owed an account of his conduct. But, considering the 
 amazing rapidity with which the calumnies were printed, and spread 
 ali over the world, and the matchless audacity with which they con- 
 tinue to be repeated and propagated, something more seems necessary 
 to clear up the character of a deserving officer, and the character of 
 the British government which employed him (in which, moreover, 
 the character of the nation itself is involved), and to place the whole 
 history of Bonaparte’s relegation at St, Helena in its proper light. 
 We know, through very direct sources, that Sir Hudson, for many 
 years, contemplated publishing the numerous and unanswerable 
 documents which he possessed, and that he has left these documents, 
 and a great many other papers, behind him. It isto be hoped that 
 
720 
 
 counter that storm of obloquy and reproach which 
 was, indeed, enough to bow any person to the 
 earth. In some respects the home opposition 
 party, who did almost as much to raise and spread 
 this storm as was done by the Bonapartists them- 
 selves, behaved with more fairness than the minis- 
 try. The late Lord and Lady Holland, who more 
 than continued Mr. Fox’s sympathy with the 
 French revolution and his admiration for Bona- 
 parte, and who both publicly and privately set 
 themselves up as champions or protectors of the 
 fallen emperor against the tyrannical and cruel 
 governor of St. Helena, afterwards confessed their 
 errors by courting the acquaintance of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe, by inviting him to Holland House, and by 
 declaring there and elsewhere that they and a part 
 of the world had been much deceived, for that, in 
 very truth, Sir Hudson Lowe was a strictly honour- 
 able and very humane man. This amende honor- 
 able came somewhat of the latest, and now the 
 only tribunal that can affect the late governor of 
 St. Helena is one more awful, and less liable to 
 error, than any earthly court. Sir Hudson Lowe 
 died while we were considering this question and 
 preparing these brief passages. We leave them 
 as they are, with the honest conviction that our 
 view of the case is the right one, and not without 
 the hope that it may tend to remove the prejudice, 
 misrepresentation, or ignorance upon which too 
 many of the accounts of his conduct are founded. 
 Bonaparte was, of course, a state prisoner. It 
 was not possible to leave him at St. Helena as he 
 had been left at Elba; and, after his infraction of 
 the treaty of Fontainebleau, he could have no rea- 
 sonable pretension to be treated now as he had 
 been treated before that act, and its dreadful con- 
 sequences. ‘To a mind like his, any species of 
 captivity or confinement must have been insup- 
 portable, but never was state-imprisonment in- 
 flicted in a milder form. The house that was 
 built for him at Longwood, in the best part of the 
 island, and in a cool atmosphere—for the spot was 
 about 2000 feet above the level of the sea—was 
 spacious, commodious, luxurious. He had, for 
 his immediate personal accommodation, a suite of 
 rooms, consisting of a drawing-room, a dining- 
 room, a library, a billiard-room, a small study, a 
 bed-room, and a bath-room. A large sum of 
 money was spent in enlarging and improving this 
 residence, and every wish for having it still further 
 enlarged or improved was promptly attended to. 
 The sum of 12,000/. per annum was allowed for 
 his domestic expenditure, and the governor of the 
 
 the motives which obstructed and delayed his publishing will not 
 have any weight with those who inherit his MSS., and who are most 
 interested in his good fame. He himself never abandoned the inten- 
 tion of doing this justice to his own character, for he was both 
 speaking about it, and writing about it. when he was suddenly seized 
 with his last short and fatal illness. It will be easy to understand 
 some of the weighty considerations which long induced Sir Hudson 
 to put off a work, which ought to have been done by the government. 
 But can there now exist any reason for not publishing the original in- 
 structions which Sir Hudson received from Lord Liverpool’s cabinet, 
 and the full aad minute correspondence he afterwards carried on 
 from St. Helena with Lord Bathurst, the secretary of state for the 
 colonies, and under whose orders he more immediately acted? These 
 documents alone would set the matter at rest for ever. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boor X. | 
 
 island was authorized to draw on the treasury for 
 more money, if this allowance should not suffice. 
 He was allowed a space measuring eight, and 
 afterwards twelve, miles in circumference round 
 Longwood, through which he might ride or walk 
 at his pleasure; but beyond those limits he was 
 to be accompanied by a British officer. He had 
 saddle horses and carriage horses, and more 
 than one good vehicle. At first he rode about a 
 good deal, finding everywhere civility and respect ; 
 but he soon complained of being watched at a 
 distance by soldiers; he refused to extend his 
 rides because an English officer must attend 
 him; and, finally, he shut himself up in the 
 house and garden, and represented that Sir Hud- 
 son Lowe was killing him. But it should appear 
 by this time, and from causes very different from 
 those assigned by himself and his attendants, in 
 order to excite odium against Sir Hudson Lowe 
 and the British government, that exercise had 
 become disagreeable and painful to him, and 
 that he was dying of the hereditary disease 
 which he had imported with him, and upon which 
 the finest climate in the world could haye exer- 
 cised no healing influence. As far back as 
 the year 1802, the symptoms of this hereditary 
 disorder were observed by his then constant com- 
 panion, Bourrienne; and in his consular days he 
 had been repeatedly heard lamenting that he 
 should grow fat, and expressing the presentiment 
 that he should die of the disorder which had 
 proved fatal to his father. Some of the worst 
 symptoms of the disease had shown themselves in 
 an entire derangement of the stomach and diges- 
 tive organs during the Russian campaign, and 
 afterwards at the time of the battle of Leipzig. 
 Every medical assistance that the surgeons of our 
 forces, and a well-supplied, British garrison, could 
 afford was offered, and even pressed upon him; 
 but he would take no medicine, and it is, at the 
 least, doubtful whether any medicine or any human 
 skill could have delayed the catastrophe. As a 
 climax to their atrocious falsehoods, some of his 
 satellites reported that he dreaded to take drugs 
 from English hands, lest he should be poisoned ! 
 And this, too, in the face of the notorious fact, 
 that he, like many other men, had always enter- 
 tained an antipathy and dread to doctors and 
 medicines. In 1819, Dr. Antommarchi, of the 
 university of Pisa, was allowed to go to St. Helena 
 as physician to Bonaparte; and two Catholic 
 clergymen went out from Italy to act as his chap- 
 Jains. ‘Towards the end of 1820 he grew worse, 
 and remained in a weak state until the following | 
 April, when the disease assumed an alarming 
 character. He then consented to be attended by 
 Dr. Arnott. “‘ From the first,” says another Bri- 
 tish medical officer who was on the island, “* Na- 
 poleon appeared to be aware of the nature of his 
 malady ; referring it to disease of the stomach, of 
 which his father died, and with which his sister, 
 the Princess Borghese, was threatened. Arnott 
 assured me at the time, that his patient would 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 often put his hand on the pit of his stomach, and 
 exclaim, ‘Ah! mon pylore! mon pylore !’”* 
 He lingered till six o’clock in the evening of the 
 6th of May (1821). On the day after his death, 
 the body, according to his own request, was opened 
 by Dr. Antommarchi, in the presence of Dr. Short, 
 Dr. Arnott, Dr. Henry, and several other British 
 staff and medical officers. Dr. Henry, who wrote 
 the report of this post mortem examination, at the 
 request of Dr. Short, fully confirms elsewhere the 
 facts that death had been caused, not by disease 
 of the liver, but by a schirrus in the pylorus. He 
 says, “The diseased state of the stomach was 
 palpably and demonstrably the cause of death; 
 and how Napoleon could have existed for any time 
 with such an organ was wonderful, for there was 
 not an inch of it sound. Antommarchi was about 
 to put his name to the bulletin, with the English 
 medical gentlemen, when he was called aside by 
 Bertrand and Montholon, and after this conference 
 he declined signing. ‘The reason was, no doubt, 
 that such proceeding on his part would contradict 
 the diagnosis of Mr. O’Meara.” This last-named 
 individual, who obtained an unfortunate notoriety 
 by making himself ?’homme de Vempereur (the 
 emperor’s man), by joining in the rancorous abuse 
 against Sir Hudson Lowe, and by vilifying the 
 British government, in whose pay he was and 
 long had been, had immediately chimed in with 
 Bertrand, Montholon, Las Cases, and the rest, 
 and had aided them in publishing to the world 
 that the seat of Bonaparte’s disorder was in the 
 liver, that the disorder was aggravated, if not 
 originally created, by the climate of St. Helena, 
 &c. There, in presence of the inanimate body, 
 and when the curtain had, indeed, dropped for 
 ever, it might have been expected, even from these 
 men, that they would cease playing their farce. 
 But they had no intention of so doing; they were 
 incapable of the solemn feeling which ought to 
 have been inspired by that sad scene; they were 
 determined not to confess that they had been 
 guilty of misrepresentation and wilful falsehood, 
 but to persevere in their imposture, in order to 
 keep alive the hatred of all their party to England, 
 and, if possible, to make the whole world believe 
 the reports which they had’ propagated, and which 
 O’Meara had sanctioned. They wanted to show 
 that the report was only signed by Englishmen, 
 and that, therefore, it was entitled to no credit! 
 They thoroughly well knew the nature of the 
 complaint; they had heard and had seen how their 
 master defined the seat of his disorder, and they 
 had now before their eyes the frightful ulcer which 
 occupied his stomach; but all this signified no- 
 thing to them, as the world at large could not tell 
 what they had known, or heard, or seen! These 
 men were, indeed, contemptible pigmies as com- 
 pared with Bonaparte; but even he, a few days 
 before his death, had done a deed as despicable 
 and base as any that they could do. If any ex- 
 cuse can be found for it, it must be this—he was 
 
 ‘* Dr. Henry. 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 721 
 
 delirious at the time, and they put the notion into 
 his head. The last will and testament of Napo- 
 leon, which is now at Doctors’? Commons, contains 
 this codicil :—‘* 24th April, 1821.—Item. I be- 
 queath ten thousand francs to the subaltern officer, 
 Cantillon, who has undergone a trial upon the 
 charge of having endeavoured to assassinate Lord 
 Wellington, of which he was pronounced inno- 
 cent. Cantillon had as much right to assassinate 
 that oligarchist as the latter had to send me to 
 perish on the rock of St. Helena.” This was 
 saying, as plainly as any words could express it, 
 that he, the dying Bonaparte, believed Cantillon to 
 have been guilty of an atrocious attempt, and that 
 it was for that very deed that he left him a legacy. 
 For ourselves, we not only believe that this ruffian 
 was as guilty of firing a pistol at the head of the 
 Duke of Wellington as Fieschi was of letting off 
 his infernal machine at Louis Philippe, but also 
 that the Parisian jury who acquitted him were 
 even more thoroughly convinced than we are of 
 his guilt.* The feelings displayed by Sir Hudson 
 Lowe at this crisis were highly honourable to 
 him. Though afflicted by the violent illness of a 
 child of his own, he went to Longwood early in 
 the morning of the 5th of May, staid there the 
 whole day, and did not return until all was 
 over. He was then deeply affected. One of his 
 officers observed, that the deceased was the most 
 formidable enemy England had ever had. Sir 
 Hudson stopped him, and other remarks which 
 might have followed from other quarters, by 
 saying, ‘* Well, gentlemen, he was England’s 
 greatest enemy, and mine too; but I forgive him 
 everything. On the death of a great man, we 
 should only feel deep concern and regret.” + 
 
 The faults committed, or allowed to be committed, 
 by the Bourbons at the Restoration of 1814 did 
 not include any over-severity, or cruelty, or blood- 
 shed ; and, if we consider the wrongs which the 
 family had suffered, or the execrable barbarities 
 which had been practised upon some members of 
 that unfortunate family, including the Duchess of 
 Angouléme, who had survived them, and who now 
 returned to Paris, it must be confessed that the 
 abstinence from vengeance was altogether astonish- 
 ing. Many of the members of the National Con- 
 vention, who, in defiance of all law, had voted the 
 deaths of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and the 
 Princess Elizabeth, were living in France, and were 
 
 * A very numerous party in Paris thought that to murder the Duke 
 of Wellington would be no crime, but a laudable and glorious act of 
 patriotism. This low ruffian, Marie Andre Cantillon, became very 
 popular. At the time, and long afterwards, the subject of the duke’s 
 escape from being murdered was treated very merrily in prose and 
 verse. We forget the precise words and the jingle of the rhyme, 
 but we remember the sense of an epigrammatic qnatrain on Can- 
 tillon’s unlucky failure. It was this—poor Cantillon mistook the 
 English general for a grand homme (which means either a great or a 
 tall man), and so, aiming too high, missed him ! 
 
 + Dr. Henry. The doctor, who had been summoned in the middle 
 of the preceding night to attend the governor’s youngest child, whose 
 
 | illness was sudden and alarming, remained in the house with his 
 
 little patient, and there saw and heard all that he reports of Sir 
 Hudson’s behaviour. He says, ‘‘ Iu bare justice to an ill used man, 
 Ican testify that, notwithstanding the bitter passages between the 
 great departed and himself, the governor spoke of him in a respect- 
 ful, feeling, and every way proper manner.”—Recollections of @ 
 Staff Surgeon, §c. am 
 
722 
 
 left to live there undisturbed. Many notorious 
 scoundrels who had played the part of gaolers and 
 tormentors in the Temple were permitted to live 
 in Paris: not one was brought to the scaffold, not 
 one was transported, hardly one was exiled. All 
 who had acquired titles, honours, estates, and by 
 whatsoever means, were allowed to retain them 
 without inquiry or question. It was the first time 
 that a revolution, or a counter-revolution, had hap- 
 pened in France without being followed by torrents 
 of blood. The conspiracy, the return from Elba, 
 the flight from the Tuileries, the campaign of 
 Waterloo seemed but an evil return for so much 
 moderation. It is reported that the Emperor of 
 Austria, on learning the return from Elba and the 
 triumphant march upon Paris, said to the Emperor 
 of Russia, who had always recommended modera- 
 tion and magnanimity, ‘ Well, Sire, now you see 
 what has happened from protecting your Jacobins 
 at Paris!” It was not to be expected from human 
 nature, and, perhaps, at that time, not one man in 
 a thousand thought it consistent with good policy, 
 that the second restoration, or the counter-revolu- 
 tion of 1815 should be so bloodless and so gentle 
 as that of 1814. Many of the treasons which had 
 been committed had been attended with such ex- 
 asperating circumstances ! Saints might bear them, 
 but they were not to be borne by princes and men 
 liable to human passions! To the stormier of these 
 passions few princes or men were less liable than 
 was Louis X VIII.; but, having been so grossly be- 
 trayed by the Bonapartists and the men of the 
 revolution whom he had trusted, he felt that he 
 could trust them no more, and that he must of 
 necessity employ and have near his person none 
 but royalists and decided Bourbonists; and this 
 party, composed of returned emigrants, of men 
 who had lost in the Revolution nearly everything 
 but their ancient names, who had suffered the ex- 
 tremities of humiliation, and of whom many had 
 undergone even the extremities of privation in 
 foreign lands, was indisposed to a repetition of the 
 experiment which had been tried with such signal 
 ill-success the preceding year, and inclined to look 
 upon this second restoration as a harvest of com- 
 pensation on one side and of vengeance on the 
 other. They were men, they were Frenchmen ; 
 and no French party or faction, when once let 
 loose, had ever yet been either merciful or mode- 
 rate. Yet even now, through the personal cha- 
 racter of Louis XVIII., and through other influ- 
 ences, conspicuous among which were the recom- 
 mendations of Talleyrand and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, the vengeance taken was almost miracu- 
 lously moderate. In order to render their resist- 
 ance the more desperate, Labédoyére and others had 
 talked among the Bonapartists of an interminable 
 list of proscriptions, of the guillotine en perma- 
 nence, as in the Reign of Terror! Yet when the 
 avenging royal ordinance was published (on the 
 24th of July) it was found to contain only fifty- 
 seven names; and of these only nineteen were 
 threatened with capital punishment or trial before 
 
 I ES PR A en i i i 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a i 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 a military tribunal. The first name on the black 
 list was that of Ney; the second was that of Labé- 
 doyére. In the lighter part of the list were the 
 names of Soult, Carnot, Vandamme, &c. ; they 
 were merely ordered to quit Paris within three days, 
 and retire into the interior of France, to places to 
 be indicated to them, where they were to remain 
 under inspection until the chambers should decide 
 which of them ought either to depart the king- 
 dom or be delivered up to legal prosecution. It 
 was explained that such of these individuals as 
 should be condemned to exile should be allowed 
 to sell their property in France, and freely carry 
 the proceeds with them. Labédoyére and Ney 
 were the only two that suffered death. For Gene- 
 ral Mallet’s conspiracy alone the government of 
 Bonaparte had, in 1812, put to death that more 
 than half-insane general, two other general officers 
 (Lahorie and Guidal), and eleven other officers of 
 various grades. Fourteen military men, who had all 
 fought and bled for the republic or for Bonaparte, 
 were all pitilessly fusiladed in the plain of Grenelle, 
 for an insurrection which had lasted only five hours, 
 and which had been put down with the greatest 
 ease! These sanguinary acts were performed under 
 the direction of Savary, Cambacdrés, Real, and 
 other Bonapartists of that quality; and the party 
 generally, who afterwards made heaven and earth 
 ring with their lamentations for the deaths of Labé- 
 doyére and Ney, applauded what was done, as the 
 quick and energetic action of a strong government 
 (une forte administration).* 
 
 Both money and passports had been sent to 
 Labedoyére, but, instead of quitting the country, 
 which it appears he might easily have done, he 
 remained with the army behind the Loire as long 
 as he could, and he then came back to Paris, in 
 disguise, and with projects which perhaps have 
 
 * These summary proceedings were accompanied by many hor- 
 rible, and by some disgusting, circumstances. They ought not to be 
 forgotten, but preserved and remembered as fair specimens of worse 
 proceedings, and as proof of the propriety with which the fallen and 
 effete Bonapartists could fill Europe with their clamours about the 
 deaths of Ney and Labédoyére. Mallet, who was more than half 
 crazed, had rendered important services to Bonaparte and to Marshal 
 Massena in Italy. He had been dismissed the service on suspicion of 
 republicanism, had afterwards been seized by Bonaparte’s secret 
 police, and, without any trial, had been detained for several years 
 either in a state-prison, or in a Maison de Santé, under the strictest sur- 
 veillance. His accomplices, Generals Lahorie and Guidal, had under- 
 gone the same fate, and were only liberated from their long impri- 
 sonment in La Force, at Paris, by the momentary success of the con- 
 spiracy. General Lahorie, once the bosom friend of Moreau and of 
 Carnot, had favoured and patronized Savary at a time when Bona- 
 parte could do nothing for him, and had obtained promotion for this 
 heartless villain, who directed the military tribunal, and who would 
 not hear of mercy. Lahorie’s body was literally covered with wounds — 
 and scars, received in the great campaigns of the republic. Others 
 
 bore the same marks. The plot, the overthrow of it, the seizure, — 
 
 trial, and execution of the conspirators, were all comprised within 
 the narrow space of twenty-four hours. Bonaparte’s courts-martial, — 
 or military tribunals, never allowed either mercy or delay. Some of — 
 the members of the present court were sharply handled by Mallet, 
 who well knew that his death, at least, was inevitable, and who had 
 made up his mind to die. The president of the court, General — 
 Dejean, asked him who were his accomplices? ‘‘ All France, and 
 you yourself, Dejean, would have been my accomplices, if I had 
 been successful,” replied Mallet. Soulier, one of his actual accom- — 
 plices, an old chef de bataillon, who had been battered in many cam- 
 paignus, but who still clung to life, exclaimed several times before _ 
 that bloody tribunal, “Gentlemen, have mercy! have pity upon us! 
 We are all old officers, riddled with balls! and we are all fathers of - 
 families!” The slaughter on the plain of Grenelle was frightful. 
 Though pierced by several bullets, Mallet was found alive when the 
 firing had ceased; and so the soldiers finished their work by thrusting 
 their bayonets into him, 
 
 i. 
 
Cuar. VIII] 
 
 not yet been fully explained. At a moment when 
 the emigrants and the royalists of all classes were 
 dreading some fresh conspiracy, and were calling 
 upon Louis XVIII. and his government for vigo- 
 rous measures, Labédoyére was arrested in the capi- 
 tal, and, in conformity with the ordinance of the 
 24th July, was handed over to a conseil de guerre, 
 or court-martial. This court willingly and readily 
 tried him, without once referring to the convention 
 or capitulation of Paris, which if good for Ney was 
 good for Labédoyére ; and, as the facts of the case 
 were all capable of being proved by hundreds and 
 thousands of witnesses, as the prisoner himself 
 confessed them all, and had no extenuating cir- 
 cumstances to plead except that other and more 
 powerful officers were more guilty than he, and 
 that nearly the whole army was in the conspiracy, 
 the court condemned him to be shot as a traitor ; 
 and he was shot on the evening of the 19th of Au- 
 gust, the order for his execution being signed by 
 Marshal Gouvion de St. Cyr. 
 
 Marshal Ney had fled in disguise, and with a 
 passport bearing a false name, on the 6th of July, 
 two days after the ratification of the convention or 
 capitulation of Paris, and one day before the troops 
 of the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Bliicher 
 entered that city. He had nothing to fear either 
 from the British or from the Prussian general ; 
 but Louis XVIII. and his exasperated court were 
 then close to Paris, and Ney evidently fled because 
 he feared their vengeance and felt convinced that 
 Wellington and Bliicher had no right to interfere, 
 even if disposed so to do, and that the convention 
 of Paris gave him (Ney) no pretection, and no 
 claim whatever upon any of the parties who had 
 signed the said convention. If such had not been 
 his convictions could Ney have condescended to fly 
 like a felon ? Would he have resorted to measures 
 which would have gone far to deprive him of his 
 claim upon the convention if such a claim had in 
 reality existed? And could he have taken these 
 steps without the advice of knowing, expert men— 
 of members of the provisional government who had 
 concluded the convention, and who well knew that 
 the case of Marshal Ney was not provided for in 
 that agreement, and that the Duke of Wellington, 
 in showing Louis XVIII.’s declaration, that he re- 
 served to himself the right of bringing some of the 
 chief conspirators and traitors to condign punish- 
 ment, had told the five commissioners of the provi- 
 sional government that he (the duke) had nothing to 
 say on that head, meaning that his silence should 
 be taken for the confession that he had no right, 
 power, or faculty whatsoever to interfere with the 
 determination of Louis XVIII., or to stay pro- 
 ceedings either against Ney or against any other 
 man in the same predicament. Now, as the pecu- 
 liarly aggravating circumstances of Ney’s treason 
 were known to all Paris, there was nobody in that 
 capital but felt that the vengeance of the laws 
 would be especially directed against him; and to 
 all who knew what had passed between the Duke 
 
 of Wellington and the five commissioners on the 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 723 
 
 29th of June, six days before the convention was 
 ratified, and nine days before the allies entered 
 Paris, the duke’s silence upon the avenging clause 
 in the royal declaration must have been considered 
 as a warning to men like Ney and Labédoyére to 
 get out of the way and to quit France as speedily 
 as might be. We have seen, upon the evidence 
 of the Duke of Wellington’s circumstantial dis- 
 patch to his own government, that the five commis- | 
 sioners sent out to his grace by the provisional 
 government at Paris, over which the heartless and 
 astucious Fouch¢ presided, appear to have said or 
 to have thought very little about the matter, that is, 
 about the clause in Louis XVIII.’s declaration 
 which threatened the chief conspirators, &c. As 
 soon as the capitulation of Paris was signed Ney 
 obtained the false passport from Fouchd. He 
 did not take his departure immediately ; but he 
 was urged so to do by all his friends, and by all 
 who disliked bloodshed and military executions. 
 Talleyrand urged him to fly, and when he did fly, 
 on the 6th of July, Fouché advised him to get into 
 Switzerland as quickly as possible ; and it appears 
 to have been Talleyrand who facilitated his retreat 
 to that country by inducing Count Bubna, who 
 commanded the Austrian army which stretched 
 along the frontiers of Switzerland and along the 
 valley of the Rhone, as far as the city of Lyons, 
 to countersign Ney’s fictitious passport. Both 
 Talleyrand and Fouch¢ may, indeed, have been 
 anxious to get Marshal Ney out of the coun- 
 try, from motives very distinct from those of 
 humanity and compassion ; but these motives will 
 by no means prove that they believed Ney to be 
 protected by the convention of Paris. 
 
 Why Ney after his flight from Paris did not get 
 beyond the frontiers is still open to discussion and 
 to doubt. Many ardent royalists were in search of 
 him, and at last a volunteer of this class, one M. 
 Locard, who was prefect of police of the depart- 
 ment, but who had received no commission from 
 the Bourbon government, discovered and seized 
 the marshal in an obscure auberge, or public-house, 
 in the Cantal, the southernmost and wildest part 
 of old Auvergne, and one of the very wildest and 
 most mountainous regions in France—a region of 
 extinct volcanoes. He was immediately brought 
 up to Paris, and there examined secretly by Louis 
 XVIII.’s prefect of police, according to the 
 unchanged and unchangeable French fashion. He 
 is reported to have spoken as if his vision and 
 brain were still affected by the powder and smoke 
 of Waterloo—to have exclaimed, ‘‘ Ah! that fatal 
 day (meaning the 13th of March, the day of his de- 
 fection)! I lost my head! I was dragged into it, and 
 could not help it.”” The Bourbon ministry deliberated 
 several days whether Ney should be tried by the 
 Chamber of Peers or by a2 court-martial ; but at last 
 they decided that, as his name had been struck out 
 of the list of peers since his flight and since the or- 
 donnance of the 24th of July, he should be tried by a 
 consetl de guerre (court-martial). Marshal Moncey, 
 who was named president of this court, as the oldest 
 
124 
 
 of the marshals, refused either to preside or to be 
 present at the trial; upon which Marshal Jourdan, 
 the vanquished at Vittoria, was named president, 
 and Marshals Massena, Augereau, Mortier, and 
 Generals Gazan, Claparéde, and Villatte, and the 
 Mareschal-de-camp Grundler were appointed to 
 be members of the court-martial. But Ney’s ad- 
 vocates and defenders insisted that this tribunal, 
 that this court-martial, was incompetent to try 
 their client at all, and that Ney, having been a 
 peer at the time of his defection and alleged trea- 
 son, could be tried only by the Chamber of 
 Peers. The marshals were but too glad to be 
 relieved from the odium of the trial and from all 
 responsibility, and it was decided by the majority 
 that the court was not competent to proceed with 
 the trial. This was on the 9th of November. 
 On the 11th the Duke of Richelieu, president of 
 the council and minister for foreign affairs, pre- 
 sented to the Chamber of Peers the act of accusa- 
 tion and the royal ordonnance (signed by all the 
 ministers now in office) ordering them to try Ney 
 for high treason, &c. The Chamber of Peers, 
 without demur, proceeded immediately with the 
 trial, and on the 6th of December, by a majority of 
 138 against 22, returned a verdict of Guitty— 
 Dearu: and of the very small minority not one 
 voted for a verdict of Not Guilty ; seventeen of 
 the peers recommending transportation (/a deporta- 
 tion) instead of the capital punishment, and five 
 of them declining to vote at all. Madame Ney 
 waited upon the Duke of Wellington to quote the 
 convention to him, and to demand his interference 
 —not as a favour, but as a right—to prove to him 
 that he was bound in honour, and by his own act, 
 to protect her husband. She says, that the duke 
 replied that he had nothing to do with the govern- 
 ment of the King of France, and that it was not 
 in his power to stop its justice: and, if Wellington 
 said so, he said. what was perfectly true. The 
 government of Louis XVIII. had been entirely 
 changed in the month of September, and Talley- 
 rand, with whom Wellington had at times con- 
 sulted on internal French affairs, as being the only 
 wise statesman in the country, and the most mo- 
 derate, was no longer in office and was no longer 
 consulted by the king. It was Talleyrand and the 
 Duke of Wellington who had stopped many con- 
 templated measures of severity, and who had greatly 
 reduced the list of proscription. Madame Ney 
 applied also to the ambassadors of other nations 
 resident in Paris, but without any effect. Ney 
 himself wrote to the Duke of Wellington, but in 
 the same sense in which his wife had spoken to 
 his grace. Madame Ney then made matters still 
 more hopeless by publishing a defective and incor- 
 rect account of the conversation which she had 
 had with the duke. In consequence of this pub- 
 lication, which set forward in the eyes of the whole 
 world the twelfth article of the convention of Paris 
 as binding the British and Prussian commanders- 
 in-chief to protect Ney, the Duke of Wellington 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 \ 
 
 [Boor D+, 
 
 which was communicated to the ministers of the 
 allied powers, and afterwards published. We can 
 only refer to this convincing document, which 
 French historians of the present schools will never 
 quote, as setting the question of the plea set up for 
 
 Ney, under the convention, at rest for ever, in so . 
 
 far, at least, as regards the discussion of it by rea- 
 soning and facts, and not by passion and mere de- 
 clamation and invective. 
 
 The sentence on the marshal was pronounced 
 at half-past eleven o’clock of the night of the 6th 
 of December. At midnight, a council was held 
 at the Tuileries. The Duke of Richelieu, who 
 may be considered as the real chief of this cabinet, 
 had said, ‘‘ Who dares to take any interest in the 
 fate of Ney?’ Some of Richelieu’s colleagues, 
 however, are said to have ventured to recommend 
 a reprieve, and transportation to America, but 
 timidly and doubtingly. It is added that this 
 proposition was made to the king himself about 
 an hour after midnight, and that his Majesty 
 would not listen to it for one moment. It was 
 resolved to hasten the execution, as the govern- 
 ment had been induced to suspect that there was 
 a desperate plot on foot for releasing the marshal, 
 and for making an émeute, or insurrection, in the 
 faubourgs. Ney, however, was not conducted to 
 his place of execution by the light of a lantern, 
 as the Duc d’Enghien had been. The sun was 
 getting high in the heavens, it was nine o’clock in 
 the morning, when Ney was brought out of his 
 prison, to be conducted to the spot selected for 
 his execution—the broad, open, and public gardens 
 of the Luxembourg Palace, towards the Observa- 
 tory. He was carried in a hackney-coach through 
 the populous streets and quays of Paris, but there 
 was no commotion, no beau désespoir. The fau- 
 bourg people cared little about “the bravest of 
 the brave ;”” the Bonapartists, and the other men 
 who sympathised with him, were kept in awe by 
 the foreign troops, and by the French troops that 
 wore the white cockade; and the execution of 
 Marshal Ney passed off as quietly as that of Palm 
 at Nuremberg, as that of Hofer at Mantua, or as 
 any other state-execution had done, when Bona- 
 parte’s army gave the law, and suppressed the 
 expression of public feeling by the display of their 
 strength. At the Luxembourg Ney found a small 
 detachment of gendarmerie and two platoons of 
 veterans waiting for him. He was shot by one of 
 these veteran platoons ; he fell pierced with twelve 
 bullets, three of them in the head, and he died 
 instantly, and without a struggle. 
 funds, which had been fluctuating, rose as soon as 
 it was known that he was dead. He left behind 
 him, in France, many men who had done more to 
 
 The public — 
 
 6 
 
 merit death ; but this will not prove that his treason 
 
 had been unjustly punished. 
 
 A third execution would have been added if the — 
 
 condemned prisoner had not escaped. This was 
 
 Lavalette, Bonaparte’s director-general of the Post- 
 
 office, and the husband of a near relation of Bona- 
 
 drew up a memorandum on the 19th of November,  parte’s first wife. His professional knowledge and 
 
 a pe 
 
Cuap. VIII. Cuar, VULJ CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS:—1815. 725 
 
 experience had given him the means Sgeterience had given him the means of being very | more, of his gaolers accepted a good bribe, and _ being very 
 useful during the progress of the Elba conspiracy. 
 Upon the return of his master from Elba, he 
 resumed his important office (trebly important in 
 a country where all the posting-horses were placed 
 under the control of the postmaster, and where 
 the system of opening letters, and stopping such 
 as might be objectionable, was carried to the 
 utmost perfection). He was also made one of 
 Bonaparte’s new peers. Early in the morning of 
 the 20th of March, many hours before Bonaparte 
 arrived at the Tuileries from Fontainebleau, and 
 scarcely two hours after Louis XVIII. had fled 
 for Lille, Lavalette, whose subalterns and employes 
 had nearly all been left in their places by the 
 Bourbons, took possession of the general ‘post- 
 office in Paris, laid his hands upon all the letters 
 and upon all the money there, and addressed a 
 circular letter to the directors or postmasters in all 
 parts of France, assuring them that the emperor 
 Napoleon would be at Paris within two hours, 
 that the capital was in the greatest enthusiasm, 
 and that, let the Bourbonists do what they would, 
 
 there was no fear of any civil war in France. 
 With his ample means, Lavalette soon spread 
 copies of this letter far and near, and thus con- 
 tributed very essentially to the temporary success 
 of the conspiracy. After the king’s return, his 
 name was set down in the list of proscription. 
 
 He was arrested some time after in Paris. His 
 case was handed over to the common court of 
 assize (Cour d’Assises), and on the 22nd of No- 
 vember he was found guilty by a jury, and was 
 condemned to death. The wife of the condemned, 
 
 aided by Marshal Marmont, one of Lavalette’s Ab 
 companions in arms, obtained access to the king, 
 
 threw herself on her knees, and implored him to 
 exercise the prerogative of mercy. The king spoke 
 kindly and compassionately to her, but gave no pro- 
 mise, thus leaving it to be understood that justice 
 must take its course. Other efforts were equally un- 
 availing. As irl the cases of Labédoyére and Ney, 
 the French attributed the severity of the king to the 
 interference of his niece, the Duchess of Angou- 
 léme; but the charge is absurd. The whole court, 
 the whole ministry, both the Houses or Chambers 
 now sitting, were clamouring for rigour and for 
 examples 5 but the French people could never see 
 the sad haggard face of the daughter of Louis XVI. 
 
 and Marie-Antoinette, without thinking of the 
 Temple and the guillotine, and of all the unspeak- 
 able horrors and woes which they had made. her 
 suffer in her childhood aud youth, and they could 
 never drive from their own vindictive hearts and 
 heads the notion that she lived and breathed only for 
 revenge and retaliation. Madame Lavalette was 
 an affectionate and devoted wife, and her husband 
 had many personal friends, and, in private life, 
 some good and endearing qualities. The prisoner 
 was not guarded so carefully as state-prisoners had 
 been under the republic. and under Bonaparte. 
 Numerous friends visited him daily, and a very 
 simple plan was laid for his escape. One, if not 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 725 
 
 more, of his gaolers accepted a good bribe, and 
 promised to be blind. Madame went to pay her 
 last visit on the 21st of December, for he was to 
 be executed on the next day. In the cell the couple 
 exchanged clothes; and, though Lavalette was 
 a short stout man, and hie wife a very tall and thin 
 woman, the travestied soldier and postmaster-general 
 was allowed to descend the long staircase of the 
 Conciergerie, to pass the several wickets, and to 
 get fairly out of the prison without check or ques- 
 tion, But his danger was not yet over. Without 
 obtaining a passport, and other assistance, it was 
 impossible for him to escape out of France. The 
 giving of passports and the management of police 
 no longer lay with Fouché¢, but ‘with a devoted 
 Bourbonist. On the 2nd of January, 1816, when 
 the gendarmerie, when the dexterous and expert 
 myrmidons of the police were hunting after him, 
 and beating Paris like a bush, when» every outlet 
 from the city was sharply watched, and when 
 orders had gone all over France to stop and seize 
 him, Lavalette applied to Mr. Michael Bruce, a pri- 
 vate gentleman residing in Paris, who chimed in with 
 the most violent of the opposition party in England, 
 and who, in common with a good many of his 
 countrymen resident in the same place, had made 
 himself conspicuous by violent. censures of the 
 proceedings of the allies and the Bourbon govern- 
 ment, and by an exceedingly warm sympathy for 
 the Bonapartists, whom they now repens as 
 unfortunate champions for liberty! By means 
 of an anonymous letter, conveyed by a steady 
 friend, Bruce was informed that Lavalette was still 
 in hiding in Paris, that he was in dread of being 
 discovered every hour, and that nobody but a 
 generous Englishman like Bruce could save him. 
 Bruce immediately communicated with his friend 
 and brother in politics Major-General Sir Robert 
 Wilson, who readily agreed to assist in effecting 
 the escape of the unhappy Frenchman. It is to 
 be stated that Sir Robert Wilson was not, at this 
 time, in active service. Bruce and Wilson then 
 associated in their project Captain Hely Hutchin- 
 son, who was in active service, and quartered with 
 his regiment in Paris, and whose political antipa- 
 thies and sympathies were the same as those of 
 Bruce and Wilson. Passports were procured from 
 the British ambassador, Sir Charles Stuart, at the 
 request and upon the responsibility of Sir R. 
 Wilson, for a fictitious general and colonel, who 
 were about to travel to Belgium. Lavalette’s 
 measure was procured, and a tailor was employed 
 
 -to make an English general’s undress uniform, — 
 according to that measure. A good brown wig 
 was purchased to disguise the fugitive by covering 
 his grey hair; and, with the aid of Elliston, an 
 English subaltern officer, Bruce, Wilson, and 
 Hutchinson provided everything that could best 
 contribute to get Lavalette safely beyond the 
 French frontiers. With all the necessary precau- 
 tions, Lavalette was smuggled by night from his 
 hiding-place to Hutchinson’s lodgings. On the 
 next morning Sir Robert Wilson called at the door 
 
aS LN anne i te fr nnn 
 
 726 
 
 with his own cabriolet, and took up the Anglicised 
 Frenchman and drove off. Captain Hutchinson 
 mounted his horse and rode by the side of the 
 cabriolet, talking good loud English with Wilson. 
 In this manner they got through Paris, and passed 
 the barrier of Clichy with little or no observation. 
 At one or two villages on the road they were 
 alarmed by some gendarmes, who seemed to hover 
 about them. Farther on they passed other gen- 
 darmes, who had copies of a hand-bill containing 
 the description of Lavalette’s person and features, 
 which had been dispersed throughout France; but 
 Hutchinson speaking good French, and having 
 a ready wit about him, gave answers which satis- 
 fied these police-soldiers. As they were approach- 
 ing the town of Compiégne, Sir Robert Wilson 
 observed that some of Lavalette’s grey hairs were 
 straggling from under his juvenile wig; and Sir 
 Robert, taking a pair of scissors, adroitly clipped 
 off these tell-tales. In Compiégne they sought 
 out retired quarters, where they waited till Elliston 
 arrived with Sir Robert Wilson’s travelling car- 
 riage. When post-horses were procured (we be- 
 lieve there was not one of the postmasters that 
 would have stopped Lavalette if he had known 
 him ever so well), the late postmaster-general and 
 Sir Robert continued their journey to the near 
 frontier. They crossed it safely, after passing 
 through Cambray and Valenciennes, which were 
 garrisoned by British troops, and they reached 
 Mons, in Belgium, where all Lavalette’s danger 
 might be considered as over. Sir Robert Wilson 
 then posted back to Paris, the whole of the expe- 
 dition having occupied only sixty hours. Sus- 
 picion, however, fell upon the English knight; 
 and the Bourbon postmaster-general resorting, at 
 the orders of his government, to those questionable 
 measures which Lavalette had so often employed 
 when he held that office, stopped and opened 
 letters, paying a particular attention to such as 
 were addressed to the leaders of the English op- 
 position. In this way a letter was procured, and 
 handed over to the police, written by Sir Robert 
 Wilson to Earl Grey, and containing a full and 
 exact narrative of the whole transaction. Imme- 
 diately after this evidence was obtained, the police 
 arrested Sir Robert, Mr. Bruce, and Captain 
 Hutchinson, and ransacked their private papers 
 in the hope of finding more evidence against 
 them. At first each of the three prisoners re- 
 sisted every attempt which had for its object to 
 lead him to confess the fact, or criminate himself 
 or his friends (and, contrary to the English prac- 
 tice, all preliminary examinations in France were, 
 and still are, directed mainly to this one object) ; 
 but Sir Robert Wilson afterwards asserted on his 
 trial, that this was done only to compel the French 
 government to confess the seizure of his letter to 
 Earl Grey. Being conveyed to the prison of La 
 Force, they demanded to be released upon bail. 
 This was replied to by an ordonnance of the 
 council, which said that there was no ground for 
 the present for determining upon the said demand. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The three prisoners then drew up a memorial, 
 in which an appeal against the ordonnance was 
 maintained, on the legal argument that the title 
 of their accusation indicated only correctional and 
 not criminal penalties, and, therefore, did not ex- 
 clude bail. Of this memorial no notice was taken. 
 They then made an application for the communica- 
 tion to their council of the papers connected with 
 their trial, and this was refused, ‘‘in conformity with 
 the law of France.” They were then transferred 
 to the Conciergerie, the prison from which Lava- 
 lette had escaped, and from which Lavalette’s wife 
 had been allowed to take her departure without 
 hindrance or molestation, as soon as the trick 
 was explained. She was not arraigned with 
 those who had completed the work which she 
 had helped to begin, nor was she ever mo- 
 lested afterwards. ‘The Bourbon government 
 had its vices, its faults, its imbecilities ; but 
 it respected the religion and the law which justi- 
 fies a wife in doing almost anything by the order 
 of, or for the sake of, her husband, and they were 
 clearly incapable of using that rigour against a 
 female in her situation, or in situations similar to 
 hers, which had been employed very frequently 
 under the republic, and which, under a mitigated 
 and less sanguinary form, had not been wholly un- 
 known under the Consulate and Empire. If Ma- 
 dame Lavalette had been found in her husband’s 
 
 cell and dress in the time of the committee of: 
 
 Salut Public, of which Carnot was a member, she 
 would have been sent to the guillotine in his stead ; 
 if she had been so found under Bonaparte, she 
 would have been subjected to the mental torture of 
 his police, and to a long detention. Under the 
 present altered state of affairs it is French phrase- 
 making and mere bombast to describe Madame 
 Lavalette’s short, easy, and well-prepared perform- 
 ance as the miraculous invention and execution of 
 conjugal love, as the most touching, most heroic, 
 most sublime instance upon record of what a wo- 
 man can do for the object of her affections. The 
 history of every country that has a history will 
 furnish instances where women have done ten 
 times more and have incurred a hundred times 
 more danger for fathers, brothers, husbands, or 
 lovers ; and the bloody records of the French revo- 
 lution offer abundant instances of delicate women 
 braving the utmost extremities of fatigue and dan- 
 
 ger for the slightest and most desperate chance of | 
 
 saving those they loved. These women acted with 
 the guillotine and its corvées before their eyes, and 
 in most cases with the fore-knowledge that, whether 
 
 they succeeded or failed in their mission, their own 
 
 death was inevitable. Here the strength of affection 
 
 was put to the strongest test; here a sublimity of — 
 
 love, heroism, and self-devotion was required ; but 
 
 there was not an avocat, there was not a friend, in 
 Paris but could have told Madame Lavalette that 
 the greatest risk she ran was that of a short im- 
 prisonment. But the high-souled dames and 
 demoiselles who so braved Samson and his axe 
 were Bourbonists—aristocrats (of the old and not 
 
 * 
 
Cuap. VIII. ] 
 
 of the new class). According to the writers of the 
 Bonapartist school, all virtue and heroism began 
 with the Empire, or, at the earliest, with the Con- 
 sulate, and no sympathy or pity was due except 
 to the friends and partisans of Napoleon; and 
 (partly, perhaps, because the number of victims 
 was so very small) they dwelt with untiring inven- 
 tion and rhetoric upon each particular case, filling 
 the world with rhapsodies and false notions, which 
 it is high time the world should be disabused of. 
 But, though Madame Lavalette was not arraigned 
 along with Sir Robert Wilson and his two friends, 
 
 the turnkey, the under-turnkey, and some other 
 subordinate agents of a class scarcely more honour- 
 able, were arraigned with them. They were tried 
 by the same court of assize which had tried La- 
 valette. They were brought to the bar on the 
 22nd of April, 1816, Sir Robert Wilson appearing 
 in grand uniform, with seven or eight orders of dif- 
 ferent European sovereigns, and Hutchinson wear- 
 ing the uniform of his military rank. The court 
 was crowded to excess by Bonapartists or liberals 
 (the two terms being now confounded), and the 
 number and temper of the auditory seem to have 
 excited our three countrymen, who were all of an 
 excitable temperament, to certain displays of elo- 
 quence which were neither called for, nor in good 
 taste. They demanded that, as in England a 
 foreigner accused of any crime is entitled to be 
 tried by a jury composed half of Englishmen and 
 half of foreigners, a similar privilege might be 
 extended to them in France. The court replied 
 that this was contrary to French law, or that there 
 was no precedent for it. But the Englishmen had 
 nothing to fear either from the severity of a French 
 jury or from the severity of the French judges ; 
 and it might have happened that six English jury- 
 men would have been found in Paris who would 
 have been very unfavourably impressed by some of 
 the speeches made by the prisoners to a French 
 audience. There was now abundant evidence, even 
 without Sir Robert Wilson’s intercepted letter to 
 Earl Grey, to prove all the facts of the case, and 
 each of the prisoners now frankly confessed all 
 that had been done. Mr. Bruce, to whom Lava- 
 lette had applied in the first instance, said, “ I 
 could not repulse a man who had put his life into 
 my hands.” ‘The whole defence ought to have 
 begun and ended here. This was a sentiment 
 which would have been re-echoed by every true 
 Englishman, whatever might be his politics; and 
 there could have been but few British officers in 
 France but would have infringed the strict line of 
 their duty to save Lavalette if he had thrown him- 
 self into their power, and have stated that they 
 alone could save him from certain death. But 
 both Bruce and Wilson went on to declaim against 
 the restored Bourbon government and against t their 
 own government; and the louder they grew upon 
 these particulars the more visible and the more ' 
 audible became the approbation and admiration of 
 that crowded audience. After Sir Robert’s finish- 
 ing speech “‘ some violence was done to the respect 
 
 Ss Se ES a Nine a ool ce oe a ee ae 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 727 
 
 due to the majesty of justice; which means, in 
 
 plain English, that the Frenchmen clapped their 
 hands and shouted and cheered. The preux cheva- 
 liers, not satisfied with having saved Lavalette and 
 with justifying that generous deed, took upon them- 
 selves—there, in a foreign country and in a foreign 
 court of justice, crammed with the inveterate ene- 
 mies of their country—to declare and protest— 
 against the word, and the convincing, unanswerable 
 exposition, of the Duke of Wellin gton, whose honour 
 was as pure as that of any one of them, and whose 
 intellect and judgment were worth more than those, 
 not of three but three score such men—that the 
 national faith of England had been shamefully vio- 
 lated both in the prosecution of Marshal Ney and 
 in that of Lavalette, inasmuch as they were both 
 sheltered by the 12th article of the Convention of 
 Paris! The serious charge, that the prisoners had 
 been engaged in a plot, directed generally against 
 the political system of Europe, and particularly 
 with the object of changing the French goyern- 
 ment, and exciting the French people to take up 
 arms, was struck out before the indictment came 
 into this court. Upon the minor offence, that they 
 had effected the escape of a prisoner condemned 
 by the laws of his country, the jury reluctantly, and 
 after a deliberation of two hours, returned a verdict 
 of guilty. The president of the court, after a very 
 gentle address, read the article in the Code Napo- 
 leon, in which the punishment prescribed for such 
 offences was imprisonment for a term not exceed- 
 ing two years, nor less than three months; and 
 then without hesitation he pronounced sentence for 
 the shortest allowable term. The turnkey, or con- 
 cierge, Eberlé, was condemned to two years’ im- 
 prisonment, and then to ten years of police surveil- 
 lance: all the rest were acquitted. The trouble 
 and anxiety which it had cost the three English- 
 men to smuggle Lavalette out of France formed no 
 trifling sacrifice: they passed three months in pri- 
 son before they were brought to trial; and two of 
 them had exposed themselves to much more severe 
 consequences—to be cashiered out of the British 
 army; and yet, after all these sacrifices, and not- 
 withstanding their very acceptable protest about the 
 Convention of Paris, French historians, though con- 
 tinuing to exag gerate the heroic sacrifices made by 
 Lavalette’s wife, are beginning to omit all mention 
 or even allusion to the names of Mr. Michael 
 Bruce, General Sir Robert Wilson, and Captain 
 Hely Hutchinson. The conduct of the Prince 
 Regent, or of the British government, which had 
 been grossly insulted, was “mild and generous even 
 tomagnanimity. As ‘both Wilson and Hutchinson 
 were British officers of some distinction, it was 
 impossible for the regent, in the relation in 
 which he stood towards the King of France, to 
 omit taking notice of an adventure which had sub- 
 jected them to the penal sentence of a French 
 court. Accordingly, through the usual channel 
 of the Horse Guards, the regent expressed to the 
 two officers the opinion he entertained of their con- 
 duct. They were told, that, while he must condemn 
 
 os 
 
728 
 
 their rashness in interfering with the internal 
 affairs of France, and reprove them for a departure 
 from the propriety of their character as British offi- 
 cers, his royal highness nevertheless felt the extra- 
 ordinary situation in which they had been placed, 
 and forebore inflicting upon them any punishment 
 beyond what this expression of his censure might 
 convey. 
 
 The design had been well known to them long 
 before; but it was on the evening of the 4th of 
 March, that a confidential messenger brought to 
 Carolina Bonaparte aud her husband, King Joa- 
 chim of Naples, the news that the emperor had 
 quitted Elba on the 26th of February, and was 
 sailing for France. By the 22nd of March, Murat 
 and his whole army were in motion. Knowing, 
 by the experience of last year, the immense moral 
 force of the tiara, Murat assured the pope that no 
 mischief, no disrespect was intended to him ; but, 
 as the noisy Neapolitan army entered the States of 
 the Church, the pope and his cardinals, his guest 
 Charles IV. of Spain, and other personages, fled 
 to Genoa, and left Rome sad, silent, and deserted. 
 The Emperor of Austria was thoroughly acquainted 
 with many facts and circumstances which ren- 
 dered Murat’s army a rope of sand; but, at the 
 same time, the court of Vienna, suspecting Murat’s 
 intentions, having palpable proofs of the corre- 
 spondence he had been carrying on with Elba, 
 and being determined to make security doubly 
 sure, had sent General Frimont into Lombardy 
 with large reinforcements, and had resolved not to 
 withdraw a single battalion from Italy for the war 
 or the military occupation in France, until Murat 
 should declare himself, and thereupon receive his 
 quietus. All the passes of the Alps and Mantua, 
 and all the formidable fortresses in Upper Italy, 
 had now been nearly twelve months in the hands 
 of the Austrians. As the Neapolitans advanced, 
 the country people carried their persons and their 
 property as far out of their way as they conve- 
 niently could: the vision of a levée en masse, or 
 of an active and enthusiastic army of insurgents 
 following the banners of Murat and of “ L’Inn1- 
 PENDENZA DELL’ Ira.ta,’’ vanished into thin air. 
 But in front was Frimont’s army, 50,000 strong, 
 and in the most perfect state of discipline and 
 obedience. After some trifling affairs of positions, 
 the Neapolitans sustained a severe check at Oc- 
 chiobello, on the Po, and they can hardly be said 
 to have fought again in earnest. While Murat 
 was in the heat of this combat, trying to animate 
 his people with his own courage, which was as 
 brilliant as ever, and which was the only quality 
 in him that had ever been brilliant, he received a 
 letter from Lord William Bentinck, telling him 
 that, according to the engagements of the European 
 coalition, and on account of the sudden war into 
 which he (Murat) had entered against Austria, 
 without motive and without warning, his lordship 
 must hold the armistice previously existing be- 
 tween Naples and England to be violated and 
 broken; and that, consequently, England would 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SS 
 
 7" 
 
 4 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 now assist Austria both with land and sea forces, 
 This blow alone was quite sufficient to shatter the 
 whole of that scheme which Bonaparte pretended 
 might have saved him if it had only been pro- 
 perly managed ; for so universal had become the 
 spirit of disaffection in the kingdom of Naples, 
 that the arrival at that part of the coast of a small 
 Anglo-Sicilian armamént would have instantly 
 led to a truly popular and fierce insurrection, and 
 to wholesale desertion from Murat’s wavering 
 troops. Upon receiving Lord Bentinck’s ominous 
 note, though he looked and spoke as if he had 
 been taken by surprise, Murat saw the imminent 
 danger with which his throne and family at 
 Naples were menaced ; and a few hours after he 
 quitted the main body of his army, and retraced 
 his steps as far as Bologna. There he called a coun- 
 cil of war, one half of the members of which were 
 now actually plotting, directly or indirectly, against 
 him. It was decided that, as the people of Italy 
 would not be liberated, and as the Austrians were 
 so much stronger than they ought to have been 
 (they were again being joined by reinforcements), 
 the only thing to be done was to retire upon 
 the frontiers of their own kingdom. ‘The retreat 
 was commenced forthwith. Frimont followed it 
 with unusual speed, and the Austrians were soon 
 close upon the rear of the bewildered macaroni- 
 eaters, who were followed at the same time by the 
 hootings and curses of the townspeople and yil- 
 lagers, whose substance they had consumed with- 
 out paying for it, for the military chest had not 
 been filled as had been expected, but was now a 
 perfect vacuum. Poor Murat, on the 29th of 
 April, when the mountains of the Abruzzi and 
 the other high lands which form the frontiers of 
 Naples were full in sight, issued a proclamation 
 to encourage his sore-footed and faint-hearted 
 soldiers, and to tell them that, though the move- 
 ments they had lately been making looked like a 
 retreat, they were in reality no such thing, but 
 only strategetical movements, which he had con- 
 templated and arranged from the beginning! Be- 
 tween the Ist and 4th of May, there was some 
 sharp skirmishing (we can scarcely call the affairs 
 battles) at Macerata and Tolentino, in the Roman 
 states; but, though the Neapolitans claimed some 
 advantages, Murat found that he must retreat still 
 farther, and cross the frontiers, instead of holding 
 his ground in advance of them ; for, while he had 
 been attending to two of the great entrances into 
 Naples, one Austrian division had with great ease 
 forced a third entrance, being welcomed by the 
 
 people, who declared for King Ferdinand; and 
 
 another division was rapidly advancing by a fourth 
 pass, and by the high posting-road which runs 
 from Rome to the city of Naples; while other 
 Austrian corps were gathering close on the flanks 
 of Murat, and threatening to glide between him 
 and the frontier. He moved quickly, but so did 
 the Austrian general; and Neapolitans and Aus- 
 trians crossed the frontier, and entered the kingdom 
 at very nearly the same moment, and almost pell- 
 
 = 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 mell together. Murat’s army of reserve had been 
 almost entirely collected in the Abruzzi, and in 
 the fortified camp of Mignano; and within that 
 frontier line there were several strong fortresses, 
 many walled towns, and many difficult mountain 
 passes, but the troops could stand nowhere. The 
 people were all in a state of insurrection, the for- 
 tresses capitulated upon summons, and the walled 
 towns opened their gates to the Austrians, and 
 hoisted the Bourbon flag. Some of his generals 
 told him that the best way to drive back the in- 
 vaders was to make and proclaim immediately a 
 constitution. He took the sapient counsel ; a con- 
 stitution, pretty closely resembling the first charie 
 of Louis XVIII., was hastily drawn up on the 
 12th of May among the mountains of the Abruzzi; 
 and, being dispatched to Madame Murat, who was 
 acting as regent during her husband’s absence in 
 the field, it was published in the capital on the 
 18th. It produced much less sensation than the 
 placard of the day, which announced the opera 
 and ballet that were to be performed that evening 
 in the Theatre San Carlo. In the meanwhile, the 
 Neapolitan soldiers who had returned from the 
 Po, finding themselves among their own moun- 
 tains or near to their own homes, deserted from 
 the standard of their French king in shoals, told 
 everybody they met that 100,000 Austrians, at 
 the very least, had entered the kingdom, and that 
 their legitimate true-born Neapolitan king was 
 coming back. Prince Leopold, the second son 
 of King Ferdinand, was with the Austrian division 
 that was advancing by the direct road from Rome. 
 General Manhes, who had behaved like a butcher 
 in Calabria, now behaved like a coward and idiot, 
 abandoning positions and making ridiculous move- 
 ments by which Murat’s right flank and rear were 
 equally endangered. Thanks to Austrian slowness 
 and caution, Murat got out of the mountainous 
 regions of the Abruzzi; but it was only to learn 
 that four or five entire provinces had hoisted the 
 Bourbon flag, and that an English squadron was 
 threatening to bombard the capital, unless his re- 
 gent wife delivered over all his vessels of war, naval 
 stores, &c., to be held by the English until the con- 
 clusion of the war. Bonaparte’s mother, his uncle 
 Cardinal Fesch, and his sister Pauline, who had all 
 been living at Naples, had fled for France by sea, 
 and his children had been sent for security to the 
 formidable fortress of Gaeta. While Murat was 
 devising how to make a stand on the river Ga- 
 rigliano, or on the river Volturno, the division 
 of his army, posted in the fortified camp of Mig- 
 nano, fell mto a panic by night, set up the Neapo- 
 litan shout of “ Fuyimmo ! which means rather 
 more than the French “ Sawve qui peut,’’? mistook 
 friends for foes, fired upon one another in the 
 dark, fled from that excellent position, left all 
 their artillery and baggage behind them, and ran 
 through some regiments posted in their rear, 
 screaming, “ We are betrayed! You are be- 
 trayed! We are all betrayed!’ This was the 
 last act of the cainpaign which Murat had com- 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 729 
 
 menced with the intention of revolutionizing all 
 Italy, and then of crossing the Alps with a vast 
 Italian army to fall upon the rear of Schwartzen- 
 berg’s army in France! He advised his generals 
 to make the best convention and bargain for them- 
 selves they could with the Austrians (few of them 
 needed the advice, for they had taken thought for 
 themselves beforehand), and, quitting this rem- 
 nant of his army, he travelled zncognito to Naples, 
 entered the city in the dusk of the evening, drove 
 into the palace, and announced that fortune had be- 
 trayed him, that all was lost. He found that his 
 wife had already concluded an agreement with Com- 
 modore Campbell, she consenting to give up the 
 Neapolitan ships of war, &c., and he engaging to 
 give her and her family, her private property and 
 attendants, an asylum on board his ships, and 
 afterwards a passage in an English man-of-war to 
 whatsoever port in the Mediterranean she might 
 choose to repair to. When Carolina Bonaparte 
 made this compact with the British commodore, 
 she was hourly threatened with a fierce insurrec- 
 tion of all the Lazzaroni, rabble, and revengeful 
 royalists of the city; and this danger became much 
 greater a day or two after, when her husband had 
 again left her, and when she found herself under 
 the hard necessity of imploring Campbell to land 
 300 English sailors and marines to assist in 
 guarding the palace. It is to be mentioned to 
 her honour, that throughout this crisis, which 
 lasted several days, she displayed great courage 
 and presence of mind. 
 
 On the 20th of May the Neapolitan generals 
 concluded a convention with the Austrians at Casa 
 Lanza, a farm house only three miles from Capua 
 and only nineteen from Naples: they agreed to give 
 up the fortress of Capua on the 21st, and the city 
 of Naples with its castles, &c. on the 23rd: the Aus- 
 trians agreed, in the names of the Emperor Francis 
 and King Ferdinand, that they and all the Neapo- 
 litan officers that took the oath of allegiance to the 
 restored Bourbon should retain their military rank, 
 their pay, pensions, honours, titles, estates, &c., 
 &c. On the evening of the day on which this con- 
 vention was signed Murat fled from Naples to the 
 solitary coast between Baize and Minternum, and 
 thence, in a fisherman’s boat, crossed over to the 
 island of Ischia. Two Neapolitan noblemen, who 
 had held high rank in his army, and who were 
 exceedingly attached to him, would not abandon 
 him in his present forlorn state; but except these 
 two high-minded men he had few followers. On 
 the next day his wife, protected by English sailors 
 and marines, embarked in the British man-of-war ; 
 and on the 23rd of May the Austrians and the 
 Bourbon prince Leopold entered Naples in tri- 
 umph. A few days after Commodore Campbell 
 sailed down to Gaeta, took Murat’s four children 
 on board, and then carried them, with their mo- 
 ther and their rather numerous attendants, to the 
 Emperor of Austria’s Adriatic port of Trieste. 
 From the island of Ischia Murat and his thin and 
 despondent retinue went in a small coasting-vessel 
 
 Sie ct eeu ROR ieesesenmes=sse reece se a a ae eS eR ESE 
 
730 
 to the coast of France, and on the 28th or 29th of 
 May they entered the port of Frejus, where Bona- 
 parte had landed on his return from Elba. Here 
 doubts and misgivings, which had been scorned 
 before, overcame Murat, and, not daring to proceed 
 to Paris and face Bonaparte without announce- 
 ment or preparation, he went and hid himself with 
 his friends on the rocky coast near Toulon, and 
 wrote a pathetic and supplicatory letter to Fouche, 
 offering his services in France. Fouche presented 
 this sad letter to Bonaparte, who, after reading it, 
 refused to send his unhappy brother-in-law a pass- 
 port, to write one word of comfort to him, to take 
 any the slightest notice of him or of his hard fate. 
 Murat and his friends lay concealed where they 
 were for nearly a month, or until the intelligence 
 of Wellington and Bliicher’s memorable victory 
 reached them. At the news the royalists of Toulon, 
 Marseilles, Nismes, and nearly all the towns in 
 that part of France, commenced a bloody retalia- 
 tion upon the republicans and Bonapartists. Some 
 of his attendants quitted him, but Murat with his 
 faithful friends sought another hiding-place. He 
 now wrote again to Fouché, beseeching him to 
 procure and send him a passport for England. 
 Fouché returned no answer. A warm personal 
 friend, a busy active man, who had once been, for 
 a very brief season, an officer on Murat’s staff at 
 Naples, learned the sad plight in which that fugi- 
 tive now was, and spontaneously made himself his 
 agent at Paris, and his advocate in pleading with 
 the allies. But this agent required time, and it was 
 impossible for Murat to stay much longer in France, 
 for the royalists had discovered that the once terri- 
 ble dragooner was hiding in the country, and their 
 suspicions and fears exaggerated his little band to 
 the magnitude of an army. ‘The fugitives were 
 more than once in danger of starving. In his 
 despair Murat wrote a piteous letter to Louis 
 XVIITI., and enclosed it to the silent Fouché. 
 After many adventures almost as romantic as those 
 of Charles Stuart the Pretender, Murat and his 
 diminished suite got over to the island of Corsica, 
 and claimed the hospitality of some old officers 
 there. He was assured that he might remain with 
 perfect safety in the island till his representations 
 to the allies should produce their effect or procure 
 him permission to go and join his wife and children 
 at Trieste. A few weeks—even a few days—before, 
 this assurance would have filled him with joy and 
 contentment ; but now his unfixed, disorganized 
 _ mind had taken another turn. A set of despera- 
 does, chiefly Corsicans and Italian refugees, ga- 
 thered round him in the country near Ajaccio, the 
 birth-place of the Bonapartes, and hinted that he 
 might take a start from Corsica, as his brother-in- 
 law had done from Elba, and that with vigour and 
 resolution, and his indomitable courage, his king- 
 dom of Naples might be recovered! The two Nea- 
 politan noblemen who had followed him in his 
 desperate fortunes, and who were both of them 
 military men, implored him with tears in their 
 
 eyes, to give up so hopeless an enterprise—to sail | 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 of becoming dangerous. 
 
 across the Mediterranean to Tunis, where the 
 Moors cared nothing for the passports, and whence 
 he might easily procure a passage to Malta—or to 
 wait patiently among the Corsicans of Ajaccio un- 
 til some letters should be received from Paris—to 
 
 do anything rather than run into the jaws of — 
 
 death. And, when they saw that his brain was 
 turned, and that he considered them as deficient 
 in courage (and not till then), the two brave and 
 faithful Neapolitans took their leave of him, look- 
 ing after the means of securing their own safety, 
 and leaving him among his vulgar ruffians, more 
 than one of whom they suspected of being a traitor 
 who hoped to gain advantages by delivering up 
 Murat to the vengeance of King Ferdinand. About 
 the middle of September it was known at Genoa 
 and Leghorn that the ex-king of Naples had col- 
 lected from 150 to 200 armed men. The day of 
 departure was fixed, when an incident occurred 
 which ought to have changed Murat’s wild deter- 
 mination, for it gave him the full assurance of pro- 
 tection and security, and of that re-union with his 
 family for which he had been so eager a short time 
 before. Though Fouchd had been silent, he had 
 not been altogether idle in his cause; and it had 
 not been difficult for his own agent in Paris to 
 ascertain that the allied sovereigns, including 
 Louis XVIII., were not desirous of proceeding to 
 any harsh extremities, or unwilling to grant per- 
 mission to Murat to reside, as a private gentleman, 
 with his wife and family. The allies well knew by 
 this time that he was wholly destitute of the means 
 This agent arrived in 
 Corsica and presented to Murat a pass and letter 
 from the Emperor of Austria. The Emperor pro- 
 mised him a safe and honourable asylum in the 
 Austrian dominions, where his family then were ; 
 suggested that, as his wife had assumed the title of 
 Countess of Lipano, he should take the style of 
 Count Lipano, and left it to his free choice to live 
 in any city, country district, or villa in Bohemia, 
 Moravia, or Upper Austria; and nothing was re- 
 quired from him but his word of honour that he 
 would not quit the Austrian dominions without the 
 emperor’s consent, and that he would live there 
 
 like a private individual, obedient to the laws of — 
 
 the Austrian empire. But so intense was Murat’s 
 insanity that he spurned at these generous condi- 
 tions. The agent, an Englishman by birth and 
 
 education, though the son of an Italian father, had | 
 
 been instructed not to deliver the passport to 
 Murat if he should find him engaged in any war- 
 
 like enterprise. The passport was only to be given — 
 
 conditionally, Yet the said agent, though he saw | 
 the armed band, and the barks engaged and all | 
 ready to convey it to the Neapolitan kingdom, and | 
 though he heard from Murat’s own lips the full — 
 
 extent of his mad project for attacking King Fer- 
 
 dinand, a sovereign under the protection of the 
 
 r 
 
 allies, and more especially under the protection of © 
 
 the Emperor of Austria, whose army was still at 
 And Murat, — 
 
 Naples, gave Murat the passport. 
 resorting to trickery and finesse, professed to accept 
 
 Se a 
 
Cuar. VIII. 
 
 the asylum offered him by the allies, though he 
 declined proceeding to Trieste in an English fri- 
 gate, as it was proposed he should do. He wrote 
 from Ajaccio an official letter to the allied sove- 
 reigns to this effect. His obvious intention was 
 to blind the allies as to his real projects, and to 
 use the passport if he should be hailed by a British 
 eruizer on his voyage between Corsica and the 
 Neapolitan coast. On the night of the 28th of 
 September he embarked his embryo army, which 
 had dwindled away rather than increased, in five or 
 six small vessels. It is said, but not proved, that 
 he intended to land near the city of Salerno, where 
 2000 or 3000 Neapolitan troops of his old army 
 were stationed. A tempest, which appears to have 
 blown only for the boats engaged in this preposte- 
 rous’ imitation of the voyage from Elba, is said to 
 have dispersed the armada; but there are very 
 good grounds for believing that the dispersion was 
 voluntary, that the Corsicans and other vagabonds, 
 upon cool reflection, thought that there would be a 
 much greater chance of getting bullets through 
 their heads than of getting money into their purses 
 by following Murat, and that they bore away for 
 Tunis, appropriating everything that was in the 
 boats, and intending to sell the arms and ammuni- 
 tion upon which Murat had spent almost his last 
 ducat to the Moors and corsairs. On the 8th of 
 October, a holiday, two barks were seen off the 
 western coast of Calabria. These were all that 
 Murat had been able to keep together, and they bore 
 him and his fortunes. He could not have come toa 
 
 worse place, for, of all the people in the kingdom the | 
 
 Calabrians were the fiercest, and had the most rea- 
 
 son to abhor the French. Yet the maniac landed | 
 
 there at the little town of Pizzo, with his army of 
 twenty-eight men, he waving a fantastic flag and 
 shouting *“* I am Joachim, your king! It is your 
 duty to obey me!” and they crying ‘‘ Long live 
 King Joachim!” The people on the spot seemed 
 to think it was all a dream: they neither joined 
 him nor fell upon him. He marched upon a road 
 leadmg to the populous city of Monteleone, the 
 capital of the province; but he had not marched 
 many hundred yards before he had a hell-cry at 
 his heels. This proceeded from the people of 
 Pizzo, who were led on by a ferocious old Bour- 
 bon partizan, and who presently poured a smart 
 fire of musketry and rifles upon the intruders, 
 killmg two on the spot, and wounding several 
 others. Murat now turned and fled towards his 
 boat ; but when he reached the beach both the 
 boats were gone, or going. The admiral of that 
 precious armada was one Barbara, a Maltese, who 
 was said to have been a pirate among the Algerines 
 and Tunisines, and of whom, in former days, Murat 
 had made a capitaine de frégaie, a chevalier, and 
 baron. ‘This honourable individual, who had only 
 just begun to move his bark, was within ‘sight and 
 within hearing. Murat gesticulated, and with a 
 loud voice called upon Barbara to put back and 
 take him on board! But Barbara had heard the 
 firing and the savage yells of the Calabrians— 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1i815. 
 
 731 
 
 Barbara now saw them gathering on the beach— 
 and Barbara, besides having an eye to his own 
 safety, had conceived an affection for some valu- 
 able property which had been left in the boat ; 
 and so, knight and baron as he was, he kept his 
 course. Murat was presently surrounded, knocked 
 down, wounded by ball and dagger, gashed in the 
 head and face, lacerated, tortured. After seizing 
 the rich jewels he wore in his hat and on his breast, 
 and tearing away his pockets, they would have torn 
 out his heart if the old Bourbon partisan had not 
 told them that it was proper to leave to their law- 
 ful king the gratification of finishing the usurper. 
 Even the women threw themselves upon the hand- 
 some person of this “ first cavalry officer of Eu- 
 rope,” tearing away his hair by handfuls, his 
 whiskers and moustachios by the roots, grinning 
 and spitting in his face, and shrieking over him 
 like furies. To this complexion had his madness 
 brought him at last. It was a fearful and a revolt- 
 ing scene !—Covered with blood and dirt, they car- 
 ried him into the confined and filthy castle of Pizzo. 
 The Emperor of Austria’s passport was found about 
 his person. The manuscript of a proclamation, 
 corrected in his own handwriting, and intended to 
 be printed and distributed, was also discovered ; 
 and it contained a clause threatening with death all 
 such Neapolitan officers, ministers, and employés 
 of King Ferdinand, as did not immediately quit 
 their functions and submit to his (King Joachim’s) 
 authority, with death as rebels and traitors. The 
 intelligence of his landing and capture was con- 
 veyed to King Ferdinand at Naples by telegraph 
 and by rapid couriers; and, by telegraph, Ferdi- 
 nand’s faithful general Nunziante, who commanded 
 in Calabria, was ordered to proceed immediately to 
 Pizzo, and there institute a military tribunal to try 
 or to condemn Murat, by one of his own laws, as a 
 disturber of the public tranquillity. Other and 
 more precise instructions were carried into Cala- 
 bria by the Prince of Canosa, a sort of Bourbonist 
 Saliceti, and the most violent and revengeful man in 
 Ferdinand’s service. The work was soon finished. 
 General Nunziante had never been in Murat’s ser- 
 vice, having followed Ferdinand to Sicily ; but three 
 out of the seven officers appointed to pass sentence 
 of death upon him had been in his service, and had 
 receiyed from him liberal advancement, gifts, and 
 honours, When advised that he was to be shot in 
 a court-yard of the castle, he said to Captain Stratti, 
 “In the tragedy of the death of the Duc d’Enghien, 
 which King Ferdinand is now avenging with an- 
 other tragedy, I took no part, and this I swear by 
 the Eternal God before whose judgment I must 
 now appear!” He wrote a moving letter to his 
 wife and children. He was attended by a priest ; 
 he took the sacrament, professed that he was a be- 
 liever of the doctrines of the Catholic church, and, 
 at the request of the priest, wrote on a sheet of paper, 
 “T declare that I die as a good Christian.—J. N.” 
 When in the court-yard he refused to be blind- 
 folded: he stood up firmly, and with a firm voice 
 said:to his executioners, ‘* Soldiers, save my face! 
 
732 
 
 Aim at my heart!” The soldiers fired, and he fell 
 dead. It was the 13th of October, 1815. He was 
 in his 45th year.* 
 
 Terrible reports had been spread by the Bona- 
 partists as to the intentions of Russia, Austria, and 
 Prussia towards their unhappy and betrayed coun- 
 try. At one time it was confidently reported that 
 the Congress of Vienna, which continued sitting, 
 had determined to disannex from France not only 
 the whole of Alsace, but also the whole of Lorraine 
 and of Franche Compté. At length the Congress 
 of Vienna settled the conditions: treaties and con- 
 ventions were signed at Paris by Louis XVIII. on 
 the 20th of November. The allies took no territory 
 from France, and made none but the most trifling 
 alterations in her frontier lines. But, in order to 
 retain a powerful hold upon France during a season 
 of probation, they determined to keep temporary 
 possession of seventeen of the frontier fortresses 
 for a term not exceeding five years, and which cir- 
 cumstances might reduce to three years, and to 
 maintain in these fortresses and in other parts of 
 the kingdom an army of allied troops not greater 
 than 150,000 men, to be paid and supported by 
 France. The allied sovereigns also exacted pay- 
 ment at least for some of the enormous expenses 
 they had incurred ; but they limited their demand 
 to the narrow period of the Hundred Days, and 
 fixed the total sum, to be divided among all of them, 
 at 700,000,000 of francs. Nor was France to pay 
 this very limited contribution at once, or even at 
 short intervals, but in easy instalments. One grand 
 national restitution was, however, insisted upen, 
 and happily carried into execution some time be- 
 fore the signing of the treaties and conventions in 
 November. The M/wsée Napoléon, or the Museum 
 of the Louvre, had been crammed with the plunder 
 of all the states of Italy, of Belgium, Germany, 
 Spain, and Portugal. This plunder, commenced 
 under the republic, was continued and systematised 
 under Bonaparte: wherever there were master- 
 pieces of art, fine pictures, fine statues, rare manu- 
 scripts, or other objects of antiquity, the finest and 
 rarest were seized and carried to Paris, “ the 
 Temple of Taste,” “ the Centre of the Universe.” 
 The most glorious of all these works of art had 
 been taken from the weakest and most defenceless 
 states. While the allied armies were undisputed 
 masters of Paris in 1814, the salutary word, restitu- 
 tion, had never once been uttered; but now every 
 precious article of that accumulated plunder was to 
 be restored to those from whom it had been taken. 
 By no other right than that of conquest, or the 
 right of the strong over the weak, had they been 
 obtained ; and, if conquest had given right of pos- 
 session, surely conquest gave to the allies the less 
 selfish right of restitution. England had nothing 
 to claim for herself, for the French commissioners 
 
 * Colletta, Storia di Napoli.—Private information collected in the 
 country and on the very spot. We were at Pizzo in the month of 
 July, 1816, just nine months and a few days after the execution of 
 
 Old King Ferdinand changed the name of the town into ‘ I] Fede- 
 
 lissimo,”’ or The Most Faithful ; and granted it an exemption from the 
 salt duties for ten years. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 of taste, who followed in the wake of invading and 
 conquering armies, had not been enabled to visit 
 our museums and collections ; nor had Russia any- 
 thing to claim in this way, as she had lost nothing, 
 and had not very much io lose except at St. Peters- 
 burgh ; but they supported the claims of those 
 whose losses had been great—they were champions 
 of the generous principle that every state, whether 
 weak or powerful, should at this great settling get 
 back its own. Lord Castlereagh called it a great 
 moral lesson for the French; and it was so, if the 
 French had been disposed to benefit by it. 
 
 Other sums of money were subsequently exacted 
 from France, but the burthen of supporting the 
 150,000 men was reduced to the lowest limit. 
 As a new French army was organized, upon which 
 Louis X VIII. considered that he might rely, 30,000 
 of the allies, or one-fifth of the whole army, were 
 withdrawn in the year 1817, although only two 
 years had yet elapsed; and it was determined that 
 the whole of that occupying army should be with- 
 drawn as soon as three years were completed. At 
 the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, which assembled 
 in the month of September, 1818, and at which 
 the Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the 
 King of Prussia, attended in person, the sove- 
 reigns of England and France being represented 
 by the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh, 
 and by the Duc de Richelieu, great doubts were © 
 expressed by some parties whether France could 
 be safely left to herself, and whether it would not 
 be better to keep possession of some of the com- 
 manding frontier fortresses for the two years 
 longer; but these doubts were overruled, and it was 
 decided that not a single fortress should be kept, 
 and that not a man of the army of occupation 
 should be left in France, beyond the 20th of No- 
 vember, when the term of three years expired. 
 This decision was adopted on the 2nd of October, 
 and was announced at Paris on the 5th, and a 
 convention for the entire evacuation of France 
 was signed at Paris on the 9th. But the French 
 were made to pay some indemnities for the spolia- 
 tions inflicted on their neighbours during the revo- 
 lution, and indemnities to some states for the ex- 
 penses of the war. ‘These conjoint amounts made 
 up another 700,000,000 of francs, or 28,000,000/. 
 sterling, or thereabouts; and there were some 
 other items which may have carried the whole 
 sum to be paid by France, by instalments, for 
 the bloody freak of the Hundred Days, to about 
 60,000,000/. sterling. England, satisfied with the 
 discharge of the private claims of her subjects 
 upon the French government, gave up her public 
 share of the indemnities, which amounted only to 
 some 4,000,000/. or 5,000,0002., to the King of 
 Holland and the Netherlands, to assist him in 
 restoring and repairing that great barrier of for- 
 tresses, which had been devised by our own great 
 Dutch-born king, William III., to check the power 
 of France on that side, and which had been first 
 neglected, and then abandoned, by that light- 
 headed, volatile reformer and innoyator, the Em- 
 
 rere er Le ec a Se LS 
 
Cur. VIII] 
 
 peror Joseph II, who had, in so many ways, 
 played into the hands of the enemies of the House 
 of Austria, and rendered easy the progress of the 
 French revolutionists. 
 
 In the course of the year 1815, before any sums 
 could be procured from the government of Louis 
 XVIIL, the British government was obliged to 
 send still more money to the allied sovereigns, 
 whose then enormous armies must otherwise have 
 lived at large on the French people, or on the 
 peoples through whom the retiring portions of them 
 had to march; and it was the grant (we believe in 
 some cases it was idly called loan) of 4,000,0007. 
 or 5,000,0002. of English money that smoothed 
 many difficulties, and forwarded the homeward 
 march of 650,000 men. 
 
 During the same most eventful of years, the 
 sovereignty of Great Britain was extended over 
 the whole of the island of Ceylon; and a period 
 was put to that miserable episode, the American 
 war. 
 
 On the sea, the Americans had for a time been 
 uniformly successful, no less to their own surprise 
 than to the consternation of England, whose invin- 
 cibility in naval warfare had become a universally 
 received article of faith, The mortifying fact, 
 however, was easily explicable, without supposing 
 that the British seamen had lost the native aptitude 
 and courage which had hitherto characterised 
 them, or that in the American seamen they had 
 met with anything more than men of the same 
 race, who, if equally trained and equipped, would 
 naturally equal them, and, if better trained and 
 equipped, would beat them. Now, the encounters 
 in this contest were all duels, and, until the en- 
 counter between the ‘ Chesapeake’ and ‘ Shannon, 
 June, 1813, the American vessel had in every 
 case been superior in force—in most cases very 
 decidedly so. This is substantially admitted by 
 the historian of the American navy, Cooper. The 
 only case in which he maintains that the forces 
 were “nearly equal” was that of the British brig 
 ‘Frolic’ and the American sloop ‘ Wasp’ (see 
 page 635). But while allowing that the Americans 
 had generally, when victorious, greater force in 
 their favour, he contends that the disparity in 
 the execution done was much greater than can be 
 accounted for in this way, and proves that there 
 was a marked superiority in efficiency on the 
 side of the Americans; and candid judges now 
 agree, we believe, that in some points the 
 American naval service at that time excelled the 
 British. Particular attention had been paid to the 
 building of the American ships, so that in sailing 
 qualities they decidedly outstript the British men- 
 of-war. In the practice of gunnery also, especially 
 at long-range, the superiority of the Americans 
 could hardly be doubted. Long-continued success 
 had doubtless produced its usual effects, and 
 begotten in the English a false security that had 
 led them to neglect the needful training and 
 preparation, or, at all events, to rest contented 
 with the old arrangements, while the enemy had 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 733 
 
 been striving to improve upon them. In addition 
 to these disadvantages, the British vessels were 
 worse manned than those of their antagonists, both 
 in point of numbers and of quality. The immense 
 number of ships-of-war which Britain had then to 
 keep afloat in all parts of the world, made it next 
 to impossible to send out many of them otherwise 
 than undermanned, and with undisciplined crews, 
 The Americans, whose navy was much less in pro- 
 portion to their mercantile marine, had a greater 
 choice of seamen; while at the same time they 
 procured numbers of disciplined British sailors, 
 whom the harshness of the service and poorer pay 
 of their own country drove to desertion, When 
 at length the eyes of the English statesmen and 
 naval commanders were opened to this painful 
 state of things, vigorous efforts were made to put 
 the vessels sent against the Americans more nearly 
 on a footing with their antagonists. The fruits of 
 these efforts soon began to appear; and in every 
 action which followed, where there was anything 
 like an equality of force, the Americans were 
 beaten without much difficulty. The most memor- 
 able of these frigate-fights was that which was 
 fought on the Ist of June, 1813, between the 
 ‘Shannon’ and the ‘Chesapeake. It lasted fifteen 
 minutes, only eleven of which were spent in firing, 
 and it was terminated by the English boarding 
 and capturing the American ship. All the cir- 
 cumstances are known to every Englishman. It 
 was a battle upon challenge, sent into Boston har- 
 bour by the captain of the ‘Shannon,’ the gallant 
 Broke ;* it was a battle where the ships were 
 
 * Captain Broke’s letter conveying the challenge, it would 
 appear, had not reached Captain Lawrence when he stood out on 
 seeing the ‘Shannon’ approach Boston as if offering the combat. 
 bh oes the letter from the ‘ British and Foreign Review’ (July, 
 1843), 
 
 “ His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Shannon, 
 off Boston, June 1813. 
 
 *Srr—As the ‘Chesapeake’ appears now ready for sea, I 
 request you will do me the favour to meet the ‘Shannon’ with 
 her, ship to ship, to try the fortune of our respective flags. To an 
 officer of your character it requires some apology for proceeding to 
 further particulars. Be assured, sir, that it is not from any doubt 
 I can entertain of your wishing to close with my proposals, but 
 merely to provide an answer to any objection which might be 
 made, and very reasonably, upon the chance of our receiving 
 unfair support. After the diligent attention which we had paid to 
 Commodore Rogers, the pains I took to detach all force but the 
 ‘Shannon’ and ‘Tenedos’ to such a distance that they could not 
 possibly join in any action fought in sight of the capes, and the 
 various verbal messages which had been sent into Boston to that 
 effect, we were much disappointed to find the commodore had 
 eluded us by sailing on the first chance after the prevailing easterly 
 winds had obliged us to keep an offing from the coast. He perhaps 
 wished for some strong assurance of a fair meeting. Iam, there- 
 fore, induced to address you more particularly, and to assure you 
 that when I write I pledge my honour to perform to the utmost of 
 my power. The ‘Shannon’ mounts twenty-four guns on her 
 broadside, and one light boat-gun ; 18-pounders on her main-deck, 
 and 82-pound carronades on her quarter-deck and forecastle, and is 
 manned with a complement of 500 men and boys (a large proportion 
 of the latter), besides thirty seamen, boys, and passengers who 
 were taken out of recaptured vessels lately. I am thus minute, 
 because a report has prevailed in some of the Boston papers that 
 we had 150 men additional lent us from ‘La Hogue,’ which really 
 was never the case. ‘La Hogue’ is now gone to Halifax for pro- 
 visions, and I will send all other ships beyond the power of inter- 
 fering with us, and I will mect you wherever it is most agreeable 
 to you; from six to eight leagues east of Cape Cod lighthouse; from 
 eight to ten leagues east of Cape Anne lighthouse, or Cashe’s 
 ledge in latitude 43 degrees north, at any bearings and distance you 
 please to fix off the south breakers of Nantucket, or the shoals of 
 St George’s Bank. If you will favour me with any plan. of signals 
 or telegraph, I will warn you (if sailing under this promise) should 
 any of my friends be too nigh or anywhere in sight, until I can 
 detach them out of the way; or I would sail with you under a flag 
 
734 
 
 equally matched, or rather where there was a slight 
 superiority of force on the side of the Americans; 
 it was a battle fought within sight of the American 
 shore, close into Boston, where several armed 
 American ships were lying, and where a public 
 feast was preparing to honour the triumph of the 
 officers and crew of the ‘Chesapeake;’ it was a 
 battle wherein the Americans had every incentive 
 to exertion, and they did their best. A sea-prophet 
 had said or sung, eight months before the encounter 
 took place— 
 
 «¢ And, as the war they did provoke, 
 We’ll pay them with our cannon; 
 The first to do it will be Broxg, 
 In the gallant ship, the SHANNON.” 
 
 But, although the forte of the ‘Shannon’ lay in 
 her admirable gunnery (Captain Broke had sedu- 
 lously trained his people to the use of their guns, 
 and spent his own money to make up for the 
 niggardliness of the government, and supply his 
 men with plenty of ammunition to practise with), 
 it was not by the fire of her guns, but by board- 
 ing, that the ‘Shannon’ beat the ‘Chesapeake,’ 
 and led her away in triumph before the eyes of all 
 her friends ashore. . It should appear, however, 
 from American writers, and from the report of the 
 American court of inquiry, that if a black bugle- 
 man had not deserted his quarters, and had not 
 been too frightened to be able to blow his horn to 
 call the men to their quarters, the boarders would 
 certainly have been repelled ! * 
 
 The issue was again favourable to the British in 
 the action between the British brig ‘Pelican,’ and 
 the American brig ‘ Argus, which took place on 
 the 14th of August, in the Irish Channel; the 
 American colours were hauled down after a brisk 
 
 of truce to any place you think safest from our cruisers, hauling it 
 down when fair to begin hostilities. You must, sir, be aware that 
 my proposals are highly advantageous to you, as you cannot pro- 
 ceed to sea singly without imminent risk of being crushed by the 
 superior force of the numerous British squadrons which are now 
 abroad, when all your efforts in case of a rencontre would, however 
 gallant, be perfectly hopeless. I entreat you, sir, not to imagine 
 that I am urged by mere personal vanity to the wish of meeting 
 the ‘Chesapeake,’ or that I depend only on your personal ambition 
 for your acceding to this invitation: we have both nobler motives. 
 You will feel it as a compliment if I say the result of our meeting 
 may be the most grateful service I can render to my country; and 
 I doubt not that you, equally confident of success, will feel con- 
 vinced that it is only by repeated triumphs in even combats that 
 your little navy can now hope to console your country for the loss 
 of that trade it can no longer protect. Favour me with a speedy 
 reply. We are short of provisions and water, and cannot stay long 
 here.—I have the honour to be, your obedient humble servant, 
 “Pp, V. Broke, Captain of H.M.S, ‘ Shannon.’ 
 
 *“"N.B. For the general service of watching your coast, it is 
 requisite for me to keep another ship in company to support me 
 with her guns and boats when employed near the land, particularly 
 to aid each other if either ship in chase should get on shore. You 
 must be aware that I cannot, consistently with my duty, waive so 
 great an advantage for this general service by detaching my consort 
 without any assurance on your pait of meeting me directly, and 
 that you will neither seek nor admit aid from any other of your 
 armed vessels, if I detach mine expressly for the sake of meeting 
 you. Should any special order restrain you from thus answering 
 a personal challenge, you may yet oblige me by keeping my pro- 
 posal a secret, and appointing any place you like to meet us (within 
 300 miles of Boston, in a given number of days after you sail), as, 
 unless you agree to an interview, I may be busied on other service, 
 and perhaps be at a distance from Boston when you go to sea. 
 Choose your terms, but let us meet. 
 
 ** To the Commander of the United States Frigate ‘ Chesapeake. ” 
 
 (Endorsement on the Envelope.) 
 
 _“ We have thirteen American prisoners on board, which I will 
 give you for as many British sailors, if you will send them out; 
 otherwise, being privateers’ men, they must be detained.” 
 
 * James, Naval Hist. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 fight of three-quarters of an hour, The ‘ Pelican’ 
 was about a fourth larger than her antagonist, and 
 had some advantage in the weight of metal; the 
 ‘ Arcus,’ on the other hand, had a greater number 
 of guns and a larger crew. The preponderance of 
 force on the side of the British was thus not so. 
 decided but that the Americans thought it neces- 
 sary to attribute their defeat to other and accidental 
 circumstances. As a set-off, the British brig 
 ‘Boxer, of 14 guns, was captured on the 4th 
 of September by the American brig ‘ Enterprise, 
 of 16 guns, The American accounts admit that 
 the ‘Enterprise’ had a superior armament by 
 two guns, and that ‘she probably had also a few 
 more men than the “Boxer.”’ According to 
 British accounts, the crew of the ‘Boxer’ was 
 little more than half that of her antagonist, This 
 success, which was the first that had fallen to the 
 share of the American navy since the loss of the 
 ‘Chesapeake,’ helped to restore the confidence of 
 the nation, which had been greatly shaken by that 
 event. 
 
 In the beginning of 1814, the Americans had 
 to sustain the loss of one of their large frigates, 
 Captain David Porter, in the American 32-gun 
 frigate ‘Essex, rounded Cape Horn, entered the 
 Pacific Ocean, and, cruising along the coasts of Chili 
 and Peru, and among the Gallipago Islands, cap- 
 tured twelve British whale-ships. For a good many 
 months, Porter had it all his own way, as there 
 was no British armed vessel on that coast. But 
 on the 8th of February, 1814, while he was lying 
 in a harbour in the Bay of Valparaiso, the ‘Pheebe, 
 36-gun British frigate, Captain J. Hillyar, appeared, 
 accompanied by the 18-gun sloop ‘ Cherub,’ Captain 
 T. Tudor Tucker. The combat being clearly un- 
 equal, the American captain endeavoured, on the 
 28th of March, to make his escape from the block- 
 ade in which he had now for some weeks been 
 kept. But, in rounding the point at the west 
 end of the bay, a heavy squall struck his frigate, 
 and carried away her main-top-mast. There was 
 nothing now left for him but to strike or fight 
 against odds, the ‘Pheebe’ frigate being more than 
 a match for the ‘ Essex, without the sloop of war. 
 As became him, he chose to fight first, and he 
 fought his ship well, and then hauled down his 
 numerous flags, and was taken possession of by — 
 the English. There was little fame gained by the 
 victors in this unequal contest; nor was there any 
 honour lost by the vanquished and the captured. | 
 Nearly at the same time an American 18-gun | 
 ship-sloop, commanded by Joseph Bainbridge, fell - 
 in with the British 18-pounder 36-gun frigate — 
 ‘Orpheus,’ Captain Hugh Pigot, and was chased — 
 and captured without an action. A few months 
 after this rather tame surrender of Bainbridge, — 
 Captain William Manners of the British 18-gun — 
 sloop ‘Reindeer’—a _ fir-built vessel, weak and 
 rotten with age, and mounting only 24-pounders— — 
 fought Captain Johnston Blakeley of the Ameri- 
 can ship-sloop ‘ Wasp’—which nearly doubled the 
 ‘Reindeer’ in the weight of her broadside, and in — 
 
CuapP. Vill] 
 
 the number of her crew—until he as well as his 
 vessel was knocked to pieces, The calves of Captain 
 Manners’s legs were partly shot away early in the 
 action, A grape or canister shot passed through 
 both his thighs: he fell on his knees, but quickly 
 sprang up, and resolutely refused to quit the deck. 
 At this time, owing to her crippled state, his vessel 
 fell with her bow against the larboard quarter of 
 the ‘Wasp, in whose tops was the usual propor- 
 tion of musketry and rifles, Seeing the dreadful 
 slaughter which this firing from the tops was caus- 
 ing among his crew, Manners, maimed, lamed, lacer- 
 ated, and bleeding as he was, shouted: “ Follow 
 me, my boys!—we must board!” With this object 
 he was climbing into the rigging, when two balls 
 from the ‘ Wasp’s’ main-top penetrated his skull. 
 Placing one hand on his forehead, and convul- 
 sively brandishing his sword with the other, he 
 uttered the words: “Oh God!” and dropped from 
 the rigging, dead on his own deck. After they had 
 lost their gallant young captain, nearly the whole 
 of their officers, and more than half of their mess- 
 mates, the crew of the ‘ Reindeer’ allowed the 
 Americans to board and plant the stars and stripes 
 over the union-jack.* 
 
 The capture of the ‘President, which had had 
 so many narrow escapes, was the last naval con- 
 test, and took place some weeks after the signature 
 in Europe of a peace between Great Britain and 
 the United States, but before the news of that event 
 had reached America. The ‘President, with other 
 ships-of-war, had long been blockaded in Sandy 
 Hook, near New York, by a British ship of the 
 line and three frigates. It was Commodore Decatur 
 that commanded the ‘President’ now. On the 
 night of the 14th of January, 1815, Decatur, avail- 
 ing himself of a very favourable wind, and of a 
 temporary absence of all the blockading ships, got 
 out to sea. Next morning, he was descried and 
 pursued by the ‘Majestic’ 56-gun ship, and by the 
 ‘Endymion’ 40-gun frigate. The ‘ President’ beat 
 the ‘ Majestic’ in sailing ; but on the following day, 
 the 15th, the ‘Endymion, Captain Henry Hope, 
 came up with her and brought her to action. They 
 kept up a running fight, at pretty close quarters, 
 from five o’clock in the afternoon until eight in 
 the evening. At one time, Commodore Decatur, 
 finding his own ship outstript in sailing, endea- 
 voured to lay the ‘Hndymion’ aboard, hoping to 
 capture her, and then escape in his prize, leaving 
 his own disabled ship to the enemy. But the 
 ‘Endymion,’ which was much inferior in force to the 
 ‘President,’ skilfully managed to keep away and 
 avoid such an unequal contest. The two frigates, 
 therefore, continued to run before the wind, keep- 
 ing up a heavy cannonade, until the ‘Endymion’s’ 
 sails having been cut to ribbons, she fell astern. 
 But the ‘Pomone’ coming up, gave the American a 
 broadside, and as the other uncrippled British 
 vessels were fast closing in, the ‘ President’ surren- 
 dered, She had lost, according to the official reports, 
 
 * James. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 735 
 
 twenty-four men killed and fifty-six wounded; 
 the British accounts give the number killed as 
 thirty-five, and the wounded as seventy. The 
 ‘Endymion’ had only eleven killed and fourteen 
 wounded; which the Americans account for from 
 their fire having been chiefly aimed at the rigging 
 and spars, with a view to cripple her. Nearly 
 half the crew of the ‘President, it is said, were 
 found to be British seamen who had fought under 
 English colours. 
 
 By land, the Americans continued to show how 
 much their hearts were set upon annexing Canada 
 to their dominions. In spite of the defeats, losses, 
 surrenders, and disgraces of the year 1812, they 
 renewed their attempt in 1813. By a sudden 
 movement by water, York, on Lake Ontario in 
 Upper Canada, was taken by General Dearborn, 
 who was supported by an American freshwater 
 flotilla under Commodore Chauncey. General 
 Sheaffe, who had about 700 men, British regulars 
 and Canadian militia, and a few Red Indians, drew 
 off his regulars, and left the rest to capitulate with- 
 in the town, wherein considerable public stores 
 were lost. The great lakes now became the most 
 active scene of warfare—of an amphibious sort of 
 wariare, for the same men often fought one day on 
 water and the next day on land, now in extempor- 
 ized fir-flotillas, and now in forts or in positions 
 on the banks of those lakes. This had been fore- 
 seen, and ought to have been provided for, as nearly 
 everything depended on the establishment of a 
 naval superiority on the lakes. The defence of 
 Canada, and the important co-operation of the 
 Indians, depended, in a very great measure, upon 
 our having the superiority on these lakes; but our 
 government had neglected the means necessary to 
 gain and keep such superiority, and General Sir 
 George Prevost possessed not those resources of 
 genius, and invention, and energy, which might 
 have made up for the negligence of the home 
 government; and hence it happened that the 
 Americans obtained several triumphs over the 
 British flag in those fresh-water seas, and were 
 enabled more than once to carry fire and sword 
 into our provinces, Our squadron on Lake Ontario 
 had been left miserably weak, and the efforts to 
 increase its strength were not proportionate to 
 those made by the Americans. In 1813, when 
 the first action of any consequence took place on 
 that lake, Sir James Yeo was indeed strong enough 
 to defeat Commodore Chauncey, and to capture 
 two schooners of the American squadron or flotilla ; 
 but the Americans avoided a general action until 
 some new vessels they had laid down should be 
 completed. 
 
 The Americans, after embarking the captured 
 stores of the town of York, sailed for Niagara, and 
 concentrated 6000 infantry, 250 cavalry, and a good 
 train of artillery upon that point. Their flotilla 
 had the water all to itself, and under its destruc- 
 tive fire, General Dearborn made good his landing 
 on the Canadian shore near Fort George. Our 
 troops and the Canadian militia, outnumbered as 
 
 I ce ea er ns i 
 
736 
 
 four or five to one, were compelled to give way, 
 after making a gallant stand and suffering a heavy 
 loss. General Vincent, our commander in that 
 quarter, retired up the strait, collected the small 
 garrisons of Fort Hrie and other posts, mustered 
 about 1600 bayonets in all, and gained a good 
 position at Burlington Bay, fifty miles from Fort 
 George, in spite of the efforts of the enemy to 
 intercept him. On the evening of the 4th of June 
 (1813), Vincent saw the Americans approaching 
 his position by the lake-shore. On the following 
 morning, intending to attack Vincent in this posi- 
 tion with 3500 men and 9 pieces of artillery, they 
 encamped within five or six miles, Lieutenant 
 Colonel Harvey, the British deputy-adjutant gene- 
 ral, reconnoitred this republican camp, and then 
 proposed to surprise it by night. General Vincent 
 agreed; and, at the dead of night, the halves of two 
 British regiments, mustering precisely 704 men, 
 rushed with fixed bayonets into the American 
 camp, headed by Colonel Harvey. The surprise 
 was complete; the enemy fled in every direc- 
 tion, leaving two general officers, 100 prisoners, 
 and four field-pieces behind them. The British 
 retired to their own position with whatever they 
 could carry off. <As the light of day returned the 
 Americans returned to their camp; but it was only 
 to destroy stores, provisions, &c, They then made 
 a precipitate retreat of eleven miles, never stopping 
 until they were joined by strong reinforcements. 
 
 In the meanwhile, an attack upon Sackett’s 
 Harbour, the chief naval establishment of the 
 Americans on Lake Ontario, had been agreed 
 upon ; and a squadron under Sir James Yeo sailed 
 from Kingston, having on board 750 troops, com- 
 manded by Sir George Prevost in person. ‘The 
 troops effected a landing, May 29, and at first 
 drove everything before them; but the fugitives, 
 who were chiefly militia, taking refuge in the loop- 
 holed block-houses that commanded the isthmus 
 along which the British were advancing, opened a 
 galling fire ; and the advance being also disputed 
 by a body of regulars, Sir George Prevost thought 
 it prudent to order a retreat; and the troops reluct- 
 antly returned to their boats. The vessels had failed 
 to render any assistance in the attack, owing to 
 adverse winds. The conduct of Sir George Prevost 
 
 yas loudly blamed, both by the public and by his 
 brother officers, as well for wavering and loss of 
 time in planning and making the attack, as for 
 faint-heartedness in ordering retreat. Yet it is 
 doubtful if the handful of troops left, having no 
 support from the ships, could have held the place 
 against the vastly superior numbers of the enemy, 
 even supposing them to have been successful in 
 getting possession of it. In the first moment of 
 alarm, the Americans had set fire to their new 
 frigate, their naval barracks and arsenal, and 
 destroyed a gun-brig and all the stores that had 
 so recently been captured at York. On the retreat 
 of the British, they rushed back to stop the con- 
 flagration : they were too late to save the stores 
 which had been brought from York, the navy 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 barracks, or the brig; but the frigate on the stocks, 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 being built of green wood, would not easily burn, 
 and was found but little injured. If the destruc- 
 tion at Sackett’s Harbour had been completed, we 
 should have deprived the Americans of every 
 prospect of obtaining the ascendency on the lake. 
 
 Sir James Yeo, after carrying Sir George Prevost 
 
 and his troops back to Kingston, proceeded to the 
 head of the lake with reinforcements for General 
 Vincent. As soon as he approached, the American 
 army, which had never recovered from the effects 
 of Colonel Harvey’s night-attack, fled along the 
 lake-shore until they reached Fort George, where 
 their general, Dearborn, evacuating all the Cana- 
 dian bank of the Niagara, shut himself up in a 
 
 strong entrenched camp with about 5000 men. 
 
 Something was expected from the energy and 
 enterprise of General Vincent, but Major-general 
 Rottenburg, who had been appointed governor of 
 Upper Canada, assumed the command as Vincent’s 
 superior officer ; and during the months of July, 
 August, and September (1813), nothing was done 
 by the British in this quarter. 
 
 Before attacking the Niagara frontier, the repub- 
 licaus had commenced offensive operations on the 
 Detroit frontier and on Lake Erie. By the end of 
 January, they had overrun the Michigan territory, 
 and had advanced one wing of this army towards 
 the village of Frenchtown, twenty-six miles from 
 Detroit. This American wing was about 1200 
 strong, and was commanded by Brigadier-general 
 Winchester, an old officer who had gained distine- 
 tion in their war of independence. There was 
 nothing in its front but Colonel Procter, whose 
 force was inferior, and of the most motley descrip- 
 tion. Sir George Prevost, as commander-in-chief, 
 had strictly commanded Procter not to undertake 
 offensive operations ; but old Winchester’s too bold 
 advance gave Procter an opportunity which he was 
 determined not to lose. With less than 500 regu- 
 lar troops, militia, and provincial sailors, with four 
 light guns and a band of 500 or 600 Red Indians, 
 Colonel Procter gallantly advanced against Win- 
 chester and his Americans, surprised them by 
 night in their quarters at Frenchtown, captured 
 or destroyed one-half of them who tried to fly into 
 
 the woods, and reduced the others to surrender — 
 
 upon promise of quarter. So complete was this 
 discomfiture at Frenchtown, that not above thirty 
 of the Americans effected their escape. Old 
 General Winchester was captured by “ Round 
 Head,” the chief of the Indians, who dressed him-_ 
 self in the uniform and hat of his prisoner, and 
 then surrendered him to Colonel Procter. An 
 American colonel and about 500 men were taken, — 
 General Harrison, who commanded the rest of 
 
 this army of invasion, was so dismayed at wie 
 chester’s disaster that, though still powerful im — 
 
 numbers, he abandoned his intention of advancing — 
 into Canada, and began to fortify himself near the 
 rapids of the Miami river, which falls into Lake 
 Erie. The victory and the spoil obtained at 
 Frenchtown brought down many warlike tribes of 
 
 ; 
 . 
 ‘ 
 
 1 
 
| 
 | 
 
 a a 
 
 Cnap, VIII.) 
 
 Indians, from the river Wabash, and even from 
 the distant Mississippi, to join the English and 
 Canadians. About the middle of April, Procter, 
 now allowed to act on the offensive, and knowing 
 that his adversary Harrison was expecting large 
 reinforcements, embarked his entire force on board 
 the flotilla on Lake Erie, made for the mouth of 
 the Miami, ascended that river, and landed troops, 
 stores, and ordnance on the 28th of April, within 
 two miles of Fort Meigs, the key of General 
 Harrison’s fortified camp. Procter had with him 
 some heavy ordnance, 520 regulars, and 460 
 militia; the Indian warriors co-operating with 
 him were about 1200.  Harrison’s force, well 
 covered in his fortified camp, considerably ex- 
 ceeded that of Procter, who now erected batteries, 
 and hegan to cannonade him from the opposite 
 bank of the Miami. The Americans responded to 
 this fire with eighteen pieces of heavy ordnance, 
 mounted in Fort Meigs. The English fired some red- 
 hot shot, but Harrison’s block-houses, &c., would 
 not take fire and burn, the wood being so very 
 green. On the 5th of May, General Harrison’s long- 
 expected reinforcements made a rapid and sudden 
 descent down the river in boats. They were 1300 
 strong, and under the command of General Clay. 
 As the boats drew near, Harrison made a sortie 
 to aid the disembarkation. For a moment, the 
 English batteries were in the hands of the enemy, 
 together with some prisoners ; but Procter, after 
 pouring in one or two volleys of musketry, point 
 blank, ordered a bayonet-charge ; and this charge 
 not only repulsed those who had got into our 
 batteries, but threw the whole of General Clay’s 
 force into confusion, and headlong flight. The 
 Indian warriors fell upon the fugitives ; 550 were 
 made prisoners ; and the killed and wounded were 
 estimated at as many more. After this brilliant 
 affair, the Indians returned to the Detroit frontier 
 with their prisoners, their wounded, and their 
 booty; the Canadian militiamen went home to 
 attend to their farms; and Sir George Prevost had 
 provided no regular force to support Procter’s 
 operations. That brave officer was, therefore, 
 obliged to rest satisfied with what he had done, 
 to abandon the notion of forcing Harrison to 
 capitulate in his fortified camp, and to follow the 
 Indians and the militiamen to Detroit. 
 
 The Americans now abandoned all intention of 
 advancing against that frontier, until they could 
 obtain a naval superiority on Lake Erie. Sir 
 James Yeo had detached Captain Barclay, of the 
 Royal Navy, to assume the command on that lake. 
 Barclay was an officer of heroic courage, and of 
 distinguished ability ; but the means put at his 
 disposal were of the worst or most limited kind. 
 He had been allowed to bring with him from the 
 Ontario squadron only twenty-five regular sailors. 
 Captain Barclay earnestly and repeatedly stated to 
 Sir George Prevost the wants of his little squadron 
 in men, stores, and guns; and General Procter, 
 who had given so good an account of Winchester 
 and Clay, and whose operations were now linked 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 Ns ee eee ee eee ae 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 737 
 
 with, and mainly dependent upon, those of Captain 
 Barclay, made the same representations to the 
 commander-in-chief, not neglecting to urge, at the 
 same time, the pressing wants of his own little 
 army. But Sir George Prevost, who had shewn 
 so little alacrity in taking, told these brave men 
 that the ordnance and naval stores they required 
 must be taken from the enemy, whose resources 
 must become theirs! But to take, one must have 
 the power; to fight, one must have men proper 
 for the service, On the 13th of July, Procter wrote 
 to Prevost to tell him that “even 100 seamen 
 pushed on immediately would, in all probability, 
 secure the superiority on this lake ;” that he was 
 already weakened on shore by his efforts to enable 
 Captain Barclay to appear on the lake ; that, if he 
 did not receive 100 seamen, he should be under 
 the necessity of sending still more soldiers on 
 board the vessels. On the 18th of August, Procter 
 wrote again, telling the commander-in-chief that 
 Captain Barclay had not received one seaman, and 
 that the Americans were appearing on that part 
 of Lake Erie in very superior force. Still, a new 
 fir-built vessel, called the ‘ Detroit,’ had been impro- 
 vised, had been launched on the lake; “if we had 
 but seamen, a few hours would place this district 
 in security.” “I entreat your excellency,” added 
 Procter, “ to send me the means of continuing this 
 contest!” Instead of sending seamen, Sir George 
 Prevost sent a letter, which, to say the least of it, 
 was ungenerous and ill-considered ; as it could not 
 fail to incite high-spirited officers to sacrifice the 
 lives of brave men in a most unequal and hopeless 
 contest. He wrote to Procter: “Although your 
 situation may be one of difficulty, you cannot fail 
 of honourably surmounting it, notwithstanding the 
 numerical superiority of the enemy’s force, which 
 I cannot but consider as overbalanced by the 
 excellent description of your troops and seamen, 
 valorous and well disciplined. The experience 
 obtained by Sir James Yeo’s conduct towards a 
 fleet infinitely superior to the one under his com- 
 mand, will satisfy Captain Barclay that he has only 
 to dare, and the enemy is discomfited.” This 
 sounded very like a taunt; and Barclay, to whom 
 it was addressed, was a man of the Nelson stamp, 
 and one who had lost a limb under that hero! 
 General Procter said, in reply: “ Your excellency 
 speaks of seamen valorous and well disciplined. 
 Except, I believe, the ¢wenty-siz whom Captain 
 Barclay brought with him, there are none of that 
 description on this lake. On board of his 
 Majesty’s squadron there are scarcely enough 
 hands (and those of a miserable description) to 
 work the vessels, some of which cannot be used 
 for want of men, even such as we have...... 
 Seamen should be pushed on here even by dozens.” 
 At last Sir George Prevost did push on /orty 
 seamen, intimating his expectation that, as soon as 
 this great reinforcement should arrive, Captain 
 Barclay would “make his appearance on the lake, 
 to meet the enemy.” But Barclay had now no 
 option left him. On the 9th of Beptani ter, the 
 2u0 
 
738 
 
 last barrel of flour was consumed, and there was 
 no alternative between his clearing the lake- 
 communication and the starvation of our troops. 
 On the very next day, the 10th of September, the 
 most desperate of these lake-actions was fought. 
 Captain Barclay had the ‘Detroit, which was 
 rigged as a bark, and mounted 18 guns; another 
 three-masted craft of 18 guns, a brig of 10 guns, 
 a schooner of 14, and two gun-boats, carrying the 
 first three guns, and the second one gun, These 
 guns were not proper ship-guns, nor was there any 
 uniformity of calibre: they had been stripped 
 from the forts on the Detroit frontier, One of the 
 three-masted vessels, and the brig, had each guns 
 of four different calibres on the same deck, from 
 twenty-four to two pounders. For want of proper 
 implements, the men were obliged to discharge 
 these strange ship-guns by snapping pistols over 
 the touch-hole. The crews of the whole flotilla 
 consisted of 61 British seamen, 85 Canadians, and 
 210 soldiers of two different regiments—total, 356. 
 The American commodore, Perry, had two large 
 brigs and eight schooners heavily armed. The 
 American squadron mounted altogether but 54 
 guns; but they were properly supplied with 
 implements of gunnery, their guns were of better 
 quality or of better assorted calibres, and, owing 
 to the large proportion of their shifting and pivot 
 pieces, they could present in broadside exactly the 
 same number of guns as the British ; while their 
 aggregate weight of broadside was fully double 
 that of their assailants. To complete his advan- 
 tages, Commodore Perry had picked crews to all 
 his vessels, particularly on board the ‘ Lawrence, 
 his flag-ship, and her sister brig ; and his total of 
 men amounted, at the very least, to 580. It is not 
 astonishing that the English flotilla was beaten ; 
 but it is astonishing that it should have been able 
 to maintain the desperate contest for three long 
 hours. The ‘ Detroit, Barclay’s ship, selected the 
 ‘Lawrence,’ Perry’s brig, knocked it almost to 
 pieces, drove Perry out of her, and compelled her 
 to surrender ; but Barclay’s solitary boat had been 
 cut up, and he could not take possession, and, as 
 soon as the said American brig had dropped out 
 of gun-shot, she re-hoisted her colours. The day 
 was not lost until the first and second in command 
 of every one of the English vessels had been killed 
 or dangerously wounded. The heroic Barclay had 
 lost one arm serving under Nelson, and now the 
 other arm was mutilated before he quitted his 
 deck. Ofthe ten experienced British seamen on 
 board the ‘ Detroit,’ eight were killed or wounded. 
 When every hope of success or of escape was gone, 
 the second lieutenant of the ‘ Detroit’ (the first 
 lying mortally wounded) ordered the colours to be 
 struck. Two other English vessels struck about 
 the same time ; the rest of the flotilla were over- 
 taken and captured in their retreat. The total 
 loss on board the British vessels in killed and 
 wounded was 135. The American loss in killed 
 and wounded was 123, out of which number 22 
 were killed and 61 wounded on board the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ‘Lawrence’ alone. This catastrophe rendered — 
 inevitable the rapid retreat of General Procter 
 
 and the Indian chiefs that were acting with him. 
 
 They therefore began to dismantle the forts and 
 
 to abandon all the positions on the Detroit, thus 
 
 leaving the Michigan territory again im the pos- — 
 session of the Americans. But they could no — 
 longer retreat without fighting. General Harrison 
 
 passed over between 5000 and 6000 men, and — 
 interposed between Procter and the country to © 
 which he was directing his steps. The Indian — 
 allies had dwindled from 3000 to 500, and Procter’s — 
 regular force consisted of about 500 effectives. The — 
 Americans gained what they do not hesitate to — 
 call a splendid victory. They killed the famed 
 
 Indian chief Tecumthé, and cut up his skin into — 
 razor-strops.* Great execution was done.upon 
 the followers of this chief, in retaliation for their 
 
 spirited performances on the Miami river. The 
 
 rest of the Indians fled far away; and the chiefs — 
 who were coming to join the English halted and — 
 fell back, Once more the republican hopes ran — 
 high. They considered Upper Canada as almost 
 conquered by the defeat of Procter; and their 
 conviction was shared by Sir George Prevost, if 
 we may judge by the orders he issued—orders — 
 which had the effect of disheartening the Cana- , 
 dians. Three American armies were put in motion — 
 for different parts of the Canada frontier in the — 
 month of October. While Harrison proceeded — 
 along Lake Erie with his 5000 or 6000, General — 
 Wilkinson, taking his departure from Sackett’s — 
 Harbour, crossed Lake Ontario with nearly 10,000 
 men, and effected a landing near Kingston; and 
 a third force under General Hampton marched 
 upon Montreal. General Rottenburg had left his 
 command on the Niagara to General Vincent, and — 
 had moved with reinforcements towards Kingston, | 
 Vincent, destroying great quantities of provisions 
 and stores, retreated to Burlington, where he was _ 
 joined by the remainder of Procter’s troops; and | 
 no sooner had Sir George Prevost heard of Har- | 
 rison’s success, than he dispatched orders from | 
 Montreal to Gener al Vincent to evacuate the whole 
 of Upper Canada as low down as Kingston. If | 
 these orders had been obeyed, Upper Canz . 
 would have been lost, the troops of Vincent 3 
 Procter would have been lost, with ond dit 
 ammunition, and stores ; and Kingston also m 
 have been lost, with its fortress, ships, and arse 
 for the place contained provisions for only set 
 days, and the dépdét of provisions at York wo 
 have been lost before Kingston. But fortun 
 there were several officers of rank in Gene 
 Vincent’s army who took upon themselves — 
 responsibility of disobeying the orders of the 
 mander-in-chief, and who showed to Ge 
 Vincent what must be the fatal consequence 
 obeying them. Vincent was persuaded to be 
 obedient; and the recovery of the Niagara fre 
 was the result. The American armies were far 
 
 — 
 
 de 
 
 * Mr. Clay of Virginia is said to have boasted of possessing st 
 razor-strop. 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 from being equally efficient with their navy. Hach 
 of the three corps above mentioned was completely 
 and disgracefully routed by vastly inferior num- 
 bers. By the middle of December, both Upper 
 and Lower Canada were entirely freed from the 
 presence of the invaders. Some of them, before 
 they fled back to their own country, committed 
 sundry atrocities, which were soon afterwards 
 avenged at Washington and elsewhere. They 
 burned towns and villages to the ground, under 
 the plea of protecting their own frontier, by 
 depriving the enemy of places of shelter during 
 winter, Thus they gave to the flames the pleasant 
 town of Newark, near Fort George; and, while a 
 deep snow was on the ground, above 400 women 
 and children were driven half naked from their 
 homes. Newark contained 150 houses—every 
 house was burned to the earth except one! But 
 they could not keep their own frontier free from 
 invasion. Colonel Murray, with less than 500 
 men, crossed the water, attacked their fort of 
 Niagara, carried it by escalade, with a trifling loss, 
 killed or took prisoners the whole garrison, and 
 captured a large quantity of arms and stores. The 
 American general, Hull, came hastily up to the 
 town of Buffalo to check the further progress of 
 the British; but, being attacked on the 30th of 
 December by a thousand regulars and militia, and 
 300 or 400 Indians, he was entirely routed, Hull’s 
 retreat across the snow was lighted by the flames 
 which the British and Canadians kindled in the 
 town of Buffalo and in the village of Blackrock, in 
 retaliation for the burning of Newark. All that 
 part of their frontier was laid open and bare. Such 
 armies as Hull’s never rally: he had 2000 men 
 when he came to Buffalo; but after the battle, he 
 could hardly collect 200, 
 
 While the Americans were struggling on the 
 great lakes and on the outskirts of Canada, our 
 blockading squadrons from the ocean sent light 
 vessels far up several of their rivers, to seize or 
 destroy the repositories of stores on the banks. 
 In this manner, the rivers at the head of the 
 Chesapeake were all threaded in the course of the 
 year 1813. There was one enterprise of a more 
 important character. The Americans had collected 
 a considerable body of troops in a sort of fortified 
 camp at Hampton, in Virginia. At the end of 
 June, Sir 8. Beckwith proceeded with a body of 
 troops on board Admiral Cockburn’s light squad- 
 ron, landed at a convenient point, turned the flank 
 of the Americans unobserved, fell upon them by 
 surprise and with vigour, drove them out of their 
 camp, and captured all their batteries. In the 
 month of July, the storm fell upon the coast of 
 North Carolina, where Cockburn’s squadron cap- 
 tured the islands, towns, and ports of Portsmouth 
 and Ooracoke, and did other mischief. These 
 
 operations, to which nearly every part of the 
 American coast on the Atlantic was exposed, 
 increased the impatience of the inhabitants for 
 reconciliation and peace, and greatly embarrassed 
 and weakened President Madison’s government. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 Before the end of the year 1813, some of the states 
 declared in a very unequivocal manner, that 
 Madison was ruining the country by persevering 
 in a war which he had commenced without any 
 necessity, and that, rather than be denied any 
 longer the advantages of a peace with England, 
 they would sacrifice their advantages as members 
 of the federal republic. 
 
 In the year 1814, the Americans once more 
 made great preparations on the lakes for the 
 conquest of Canada, with but little result; the 
 Canadians were more than ever loyal and on the 
 alert, and reinforcements to the regular army 
 arrived from Europe. The republican general, 
 Wilkinson, after making some attempts, found 
 himself under the necessity of retreating to 
 Sackett’s Harbour. Being closely followed, he 
 burned some of his block-houses and barracks, 
 and the Canadians and the English burned the 
 rest, and captured and carried off a great quantity 
 of provisions and stores, Wilkinson subsequently 
 made an attack on a British outpost commanded 
 by Major Hancock; but he was repulsed in a 
 smart skirmish; and here, in the month of 
 March, ended his offensive operations. In the 
 month of April, a force under General Drummond 
 embarked in Sir James Yeo’s flotilla, crossed Lake 
 Ontario, and stormed and carried the American 
 frontier fort of Oswego. The garrison fled into 
 the woods after fighting for only ten minutes, 
 The fort was destroyed, the barracks were burned; 
 and the English troops were re-embarked. In 
 May, an attempt made to destroy some naval 
 stores which the Americans were transporting 
 to Sackett’s Harbour, for the equipment of the 
 flotilla there, was repulsed with Joss. At the 
 beginning of July, a force under General Ripley 
 took the field, crossed the Niagara in force, 
 obliged the garrison of Fort Erie to capitulate, 
 and advanced into Canada. As he approached 
 the British lines of Chippawa, General Riall, with 
 a very inferior force, consisting partly of militia- 
 men and Red Indians, made a sortie. A smart 
 action followed, in which both parties sustained 
 considerable loss, but in which the advantage 
 clearly remained with the Americans. Riall 
 retreated to a better position near Fort Niagara. 
 General Drummond, with part of Wellington’s 
 veterans, who had been embarked at Bordeaux 
 after the battle of Toulouse and Marshal Soult’s 
 submission to the provisional government of Louis 
 XVIII., now came up and reinforced Riall. The 
 American general, Brown, who had succeeded Rip- 
 ley, counting on his superiority of numbers, which 
 was still great, risked a pitched battle in an open 
 
 field. At first, he gained a temporary advantage, 
 
 during which General Riall was wounded and 
 taken prisoner; but when Drummond and the 
 veterans of the Peninsular war came fairly into 
 action, the battle was restored, and the desperate 
 struggle was continued till night produced a partial 
 cessation. The Americans confessed themselves 
 beaten by retreating at midnight. This battle was 
 
SY 
 
 740 
 
 fought on the 25th of July, 1814, close to the 
 mighty cataract of the Niagara—so close that the 
 dash and roar of the water were heard amidst the 
 firing of twenty-four pieces of ordnance and 8000 
 muskets. The Americans engaged were estimated 
 at 5000; the number of the British and Canadians 
 did not exceed 3000. The Red Indians, our allies, 
 ran away early in the battle. Our loss reached 
 nearly 900 in killed and wounded ; the enemy lost 
 considerably more, They retreated precipitately 
 to Chippawa, and from thence to Fort Hrie, aban- 
 doning a camp they had fortified, and destroying 
 their stores. On the 15th of August, Drummond 
 was repulsed with great Joss in a rather rash 
 attempt to carry Fort Erie by storm. 
 
 On that same day, ruin was approaching the city 
 of Washington, the capital of all the United States, 
 the seat of the central government, and the meet- 
 ing-place of Congress. Admiral Sir Alexander 
 Cochrane, having on board the land-troops of 
 Major-general Ross, another hero of the Peninsula, 
 entered the Patuxent river. At the proper point 
 the troops were landed, and began to ascend the 
 bank of the river on their way towards Washington ; 
 Admiral Cockburn, with a flotilla of launches, 
 armed boats, and small-craft, proceeding up the 
 river on their flank. The American flotilla of 
 Commodore Barney had sought refuge in the 
 Patuxent; and as the British boats opened the 
 reach above Pig Point, they perceived Barney’s 
 flag flying in the headmost vessel, a large sloop, 
 and the rest of his flotilla extending in a long line 
 astern of this sloop. It was thought that Barney 
 intended to dispute the passage of the river by 
 fighting ; but as Cockburn got near, he discovered 
 that some of the American vessels were on fire. 
 The English admiral called a timeous halt: the 
 American craft burned fiercely, and blew up in 
 succession. Sixteen were totally destroyed; the 
 seventeenth fell into the hands of the English little 
 injured, together with about thirteen merchant 
 schooners. On the 24th of August, Major-general 
 Ross and his troops reached Bladensberg, a village 
 within five miles of Washington. Here, on the 
 right bank of the Potomac, and along a chain 
 of commanding heights, 8000 or 9000 Americans 
 were posted, to cover and defend their capital. To 
 get at the position, the British had to cross the 
 Potomac by a single bridge, which the Americans 
 guarded with artillery ; but the bridge was carried 
 in a trice by a light brigade, and then the rest of 
 the troops passed over, deployed, and attacked the 
 right and left of the enemy at one and the same 
 moment. The whole affair did not occupy half an 
 hour, and did not engage more than one British 
 division, about 1600 strong. It was the old story: 
 unpractised troops and an undisciplined militia 
 could not stand in position against veteran regulars, 
 The Americans broke and fled, very few of them 
 waiting to be either killed or wounded. That 
 evening the British were in Washington, where 
 they immediately began the work of destruction, 
 which was the main purpose of the expedition. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Senate-house and House of Representatives, the 
 treasury, the war-office, the arsenal, the dockyard, 
 the ropewalk, were committed to the flames, and 
 the great bridge across the Potomac and other 
 public works were blown up and destroyed. A 
 frigate ready to be launched, and a sloop of war, 
 were consumed in the dockyard. In this destruc- 
 tion General Ross was following imperative orders ; 
 and it cannot but be deeply regretted that those 
 orders should have extended to the pacific and 
 ornamental buildings, which the usages of war 
 have almost uniformly spared. This barbarous 
 outrage only added greater intensity to the bitter 
 feclings of hostility towards England already pre- 
 valent in America, and gave Englishmen cause to 
 blush for the reputation of their government. But 
 while public edifices were thus demolished, private 
 property was strictly respected, and the residents 
 treated with civility. This the Americans them- 
 selves admit. For some exceptional cases that 
 occurred, the excuse was pleaded of some acts of 
 the Americans in the war in Canada, and of a 
 special provocation that had excited the men 
 on taking possession of the place. On his first 
 approach, General Ross did not allow any of his 
 troops to enter the city. He halted his foremost 
 brigade upon a plain in the immediate vicinity, 
 and sent in a flag of truce with terms, All that 
 he demanded was, that the war-stores, &c., which 
 could not be defended, should be delivered up to 
 him, and that a contribution should be paid as a 
 ransom for some other property. ‘To see that 
 all was properly conducted, General Ross himself 
 accompanied the party bearing the flag of truce. 
 The party, it is said, had scarcely entered the 
 street, with the flag of truce at their head, when 
 they were fired upon from the windows of one of 
 the houses, and General Ross’s horse was killed 
 under him. After this breach of the laws of war 
 and the law of nations, it is not very astonishing 
 that the incensed troops should set fire to the 
 house from which the shots were fired (after hay- 
 ing put to the sword all whom they had found in 
 it), or that other acts of vengeance should have 
 been perpetrated. After all, however, very little 
 private property was destroyed, or even touched. 
 On the following night, the 25th of August, a 
 leisurely retreat was commenced ; and the British 
 troops, having met with no molestation on their 
 return, were re-eembarked on the 30th. The town 
 of Alexandria, lower on the Potomac river than 
 
 The president’s palace, the Capitol, containing the 
 
 Washington city, was attacked on the 27th of — 
 
 August by Captain Gordon of the ‘Seahorse, — 
 Fort Washington, built — 
 to protect the river at that point, was abandoned | _ 
 by its defenders after a very short bombardment. — 
 The town council of Alexandria agreed to deliver — 
 
 attended by other vessels, 
 
 up all public property, and Gordon agreed to 
 
 respect all private property. All the naval and 
 
 ordnance stores, all the shipping and their furni- 
 ture were surrendered; and the captors leaded 
 
 their own ships with spoil, and stowing away the 
 
 eats 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 stores, &c., in twenty-one vessels which were found 
 in the harbour, passed down the river, very little 
 injured by the batteries, and got safely out to the 
 Chesapeake. On the 12th of September, a very 
 imprudent and unsuccessful attack was made on 
 the strongly fortified city of Baltimore, which cost 
 the life of General Ross, and the lives of a good 
 number of his men; though here again a great 
 force of Americans that attempted to defend the 
 approaches of the town—within which there was 
 a still larger force—was defeated and routed by a 
 very inferior force of British regulars, and lost in 
 killed and wounded some 600 or 800 men, This 
 desultory but destructive system of warfare was 
 acutely felt by the Americans. It allowed them 
 no repose—it threatened every part of the coast 
 at once—none could tell where the next blow 
 would be struck. In the month of July, Colonel 
 Pilkington, sailing from Halifax, took all the 
 islands in the bay of Pasmaquoddy; and in 
 another expedition, undertaken in September, the 
 British sailed up the Penobscott river, took the 
 fort of Castine, landed in a cove within three 
 miles of the town of Hampden, defeated double 
 their number, drove the Americans from a strong 
 position, and compelled them to burn the ‘ John 
 Adams, a fine frigate, which had run up the river 
 for protection. They also captured the town of 
 Bangor, and another fortified post, and reduced 
 the whole district of Maine, from Pasmaquoddy 
 Bay to the Penobscott river. 
 
 Sir George Prevost, having now a large dispos- 
 able force, including some of the finest regiments 
 that had been trained under the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, thought he could repay the Americans for 
 their troublesome visits in Canada, by invading 
 their most flourishing state of New York. Before 
 moving, he ought to have made sure of the supe- 
 riority on the waters of Lake Champlain. Nothing 
 could better have contributed to this end, than 
 the capture or destruction of the naval and other 
 dépots at Sackett’s Harbour ; and this would have 
 given him the mastery on Lake Ontario, which 
 was an object almost as important as any that he 
 could reasonably propose to himself in his more 
 distant expedition. He had wasted some of the 
 most valuable of the summer months in a camp 
 at Chambly, while Sir James Yeo was blockading 
 Sackett’s Harbour—a doubtful sort of blockade, 
 since the American commodore was already 
 stronger than Sir James, and was only waiting 
 to be made still stronger by the shipwrights and 
 riggers hard at work in Sackett’s Harbour—but 
 though Sir George had ample means of attack, and 
 a few days’ march would have brought him before 
 the defences of that important arsenal, he made 
 no efiort whatever against it. When the veteran 
 troops from Bordeaux landed, every man in the 
 army or in tlie provinces of Canada expected that 
 he would fall on. But no! there he continued 
 to lie at Chambly, doing nothing. The American 
 government felt, though our commander-in-chief 
 would not, that all other objects on the frontier 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 741 
 
 were insignificant in comparison with Sackett’s 
 Harbour; and they sent General Izzard, who 
 now commanded on the Champlain frontier, with 
 between 3000 and 4000 regular troops to take post 
 within it and in its vicinity. This movement of 
 General Izzard left nothing near the frontier of 
 Lower Canada but some 1500 men, the very refuse 
 of his army. From such refuse nothing was to 
 be feared ; the local Canadian militia would have 
 been far more than a match for them. Sir George 
 Prevost could not, therefore, plead that his inac- 
 tivity in his camp at Chambly was owing to any 
 apprehension of an attack on the frontier of Lower 
 Canada. During the whole month of August, the 
 Peninsular troops, ready to march anywhere, and 
 fit for any work, were detained in the camp. At 
 last the note of preparation was heard ; and now 
 all eyes were directed towards Sackett’s Harbour. 
 But, says a local writer of the day, “by a strange 
 perversity of intellect, Sir George Prevost again 
 shunned that place as a pestilence ;”* and Platts- 
 burg, on Lake Champlain, was found to be the 
 object of the expedition! The force was composed 
 of a regiment of light cavalry, a numerous train 
 of artillery, and three brigades of the best infantry 
 in the British service or in the world, led by 
 Major-generals Brisbane, Robinson, and Power, 
 and amounting in all to 11,000 men. On the 38rd 
 of September, these troops began their march, 
 which was so managed by Sir George Prevost, 
 that, though the distance was only twenty-five 
 miles along the lake-shore, four days were con- 
 sumed in performing it. On the evening of the 
 6th, the army arrived on the left bank of the little 
 river Saranac, on the opposite bank of which stood 
 the village of Plattsburg, and on a ridge above it 
 the American defences, consisting of some stockades, 
 three unfinished redoubts, and two, block-houses, 
 armed in all with from fifteen to twenty pieces of 
 ordnance. The American flotilla of Lake Champlain 
 lay at anchor in Platisburg Bay. It was at first 
 confidently expected, and then eagerly proposed to 
 the commander-in-chief, that an assault should be 
 made that very evening. The British troops were 
 fresh, having made but a very short march ; the 
 American troops were that refuse of General 
 Izzard’s army of which we have spoken, and 
 some 3000 militamen hastily assembled. The 
 defences were altogether very incomplete: the 
 American flotilla, as a flotilla, could have done 
 nothing, either to defend the works or impede 
 the attack. But Sir George Prevost would under- 
 take nothing until the British flotilla should arrive, 
 which, however, was in a yet worse condition than 
 that of Captain Barclay had been on Lake Erie. 
 It was only on the 3rd of September, the same day 
 on which the British army crossed the American 
 frontier, and a little more than a week after the 
 launch of the principal ship, that Captain Downie, 
 detached by Sir James Yeo from the Ontario 
 
 * The Letters of Veritas; containing a succinct narrative of the 
 military administration of Sir George Prevost, during his command 
 in the Canadas, &c. Montreal. 
 
742 
 
 squadron, arrived to take the command on Lake 
 Champlain. The assemblage of a crew for the 
 new ship had only commenced after she was 
 launched, by draughts of seamen from our ships 
 of war and transports at Quebec; and it was the 
 9th of September before the last detachment 
 reached Captain Downie. On that day, 270 men 
 had, at length, been collected from fourteen 
 different king’s vessels, and from _ transports 
 besides, with marines, some soldiers from an 
 infantry regiment, and some of the royal and 
 marine artillery. When captains of the navy are 
 called upon to draught. men out of their ships, 
 they seldom send their best sailors: the men sent 
 to Lake Champlain are said to have been of a very 
 inferior character. Captain Downie had no pre- 
 vious acquaintance with any of them, and he only 
 knew one of his officers. The new vessel, in which 
 Downie carried his flag, was in so unfinished a 
 state, that while she was going into action two 
 days afterwards, the joiners were at work on her 
 magazines, her powder lying alongside in a boat, 
 and the carpenters still fixing ring-bolts, &c., for 
 the guns. Sir George Prevost knew the condition 
 of Captain Downie’s ship, yet he repeatedly urged 
 him to make instant co-operation with the army, 
 which, he said, had been long waiting his arrival 
 before Plattsburg, in order to assault the enemy’s 
 works simultaneously with a naval attack upon 
 their squadron. To a letter of innuendo and taunt, 
 poor Downie replied that he needed no urging to 
 do his duty ; that he would be up with the army 
 with the first breeze. It was then announced by 
 Sir George, that as soon as Downie attacked the 
 American ships, our troops should attack the forts ; 
 and that the scaling of the guns of our squadron, 
 in doubling the head of Plattsburg Bay, should be 
 the signal for the advance of the columns of attack. 
 Our squadron consisted of Captain Downie’s un- 
 finished ship of 36 guns, of a brig of 16 guns, of 
 two sloops of 11 guns each, and of ten gun-boats 
 manned with Canadian militia. The American 
 squadron, commanded by Commodore M‘Donough, 
 counted three vessels of 26, 20, and 18 guns, one of 
 7 guns, and ten gun-boats. In the number of guns, 
 there was little difference, but in weight of metal 
 the Americans were as three to two; and they 
 had another inestimable advantage. Since the 
 war on the sea-board had been carried on in 
 earnest, and since the blockade of the ports and 
 rivers and outlets had been made more effective, 
 there was less need of seamen in that direction, 
 and this had induced the American government 
 to send a good many of the very best of that class 
 of men to the lakes, Thus Commodore M‘Donough 
 had nearly 900 prime seamen, besides a detach- 
 ment of soldiers, to oppose Downie’s less than 600 
 men of all descriptions, 
 the 11th of September, Captain Downie came 
 boldly up with his squadron and announced to the 
 army the preconcerted signal of the scaling of his 
 guns. The firing was heard by every man in that 
 
 army ; but instead of being ordered to attack, they 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Early on the morning of 
 
 were directed to breakfast before they moved! 
 Not a platoon had been permitted to form when 
 our ships rounded the promontory, stood into the 
 bay, and attacked the Americans. Captain Downie 
 told his crew that the troops would presently 
 
 storm the works on shore, and his people began | 
 
 the action with much gallantry. The gallant 
 Downie was killed about ten minutes after the 
 battle began, but his ship was courageously fought 
 for two hours longer under almost every disadvan- 
 tageous and discouraging circumstance; the army 
 all the while not stirring a foot. On entering the 
 bay, our large ship had both her anchors shot away, 
 so that she could not be brought to her intended 
 station; one of our two sloops ran aground, and 
 was compelled to surrender without doing any 
 service ; and the gun-boats, manned with the 
 Canadian militiamen, on observing that no attack 
 was made by land, shamefully fled at the very 
 moment when their assistance in winding the large 
 ship, so as to bring her undamaged broadside to 
 bear, might have turned the fate of the day. After 
 a determined struggle of two hours and twenty 
 minutes, the ship, the brig, and one sloop, which 
 in fact had maintained the battle against the 
 whole of the American squadron, were successively 
 reduced to strike their colours.* The attack by 
 land was never seriously made. Once, indeed, Sir 
 George Prevost gave the order to advance, but he 
 gave it only to recall it again, just as our light 
 troops were getting close in upon the American 
 works. The flotilla being defeated, Sir George 
 said that there was nothing now to be done; that 
 to gain possession of Plattsburg would cost more 
 than the place was worth! and that consequently 
 the army must retreat. The utmost indignation 
 and disgust was excited in the army by this order. 
 Several officers, habituated to victory in the Spanish 
 Peninsula, broke their swords, declaring that they 
 would never serve again ; and 800 veterans deserted 
 from the camp. The retreat commenced on the very 
 night of that disgraceful 11th of September, with 
 the abandonment of immense quantities of stores, 
 ammunition, and provisions. The whole loss of 
 the army in killed and wounded from the time it 
 quitted the camp at Chambly until it returned 
 there, did not exceed 200 men; but 800 had fled 
 
 [Boor X. | 
 
 to the enemy, and the mischief done in the way of |. 
 
 military demoralisation and discouragement by | 
 
 such events, it would be impossible to calculate. 
 
 The murmurs were so loud both in the army | 
 and throughout the province, that Sir George | 
 Prevost had to resign, and was to have been tried __ 
 by a court-martial, but his death prevented besws BY 
 
 investigation being entered upon. fl 
 On the 17th of September, of this same year, 
 
 1814, the Americans in Fort Erie, being joined by | 
 volunteers from their militia, made an attack in ; 
 force upon the entrenched ‘position of General — 
 After doing great damage to the 
 
 de Watteville. 
 
 * James’s Naval Hist.—Quart. Rev. No. LIV.—Official Account | — 
 
 by Captain Pring, who commanded the British brig in the option ai . 
 
 Ann. Regist. 
 
1 jeer 
 
 Cuapr. VIII] 
 
 British works, they were repulsed with consider- 
 able slaughter on both sides; and before long they 
 evacuated Fort Erie, demolished its works, and 
 retreated to their own shores. This entire evacua- 
 tion of the Canadian shore of the Niagara termi- 
 nated all operations in the upper province. In 
 abandoning the Michigan territory, we had kept 
 possession of the important key-post of Michili- 
 mackinac. In the summer of 1814 the Ameri- 
 cans made a great effort to recover this post, but 
 failed. It is scarcely necessary to mention the 
 paltry skirmishes and inroads which took place on 
 the frontier of the lower province during the 
 winter. In 1815 the news of peace arrived before 
 the season of the year which allows of extensive 
 military operations in those frost-bound countries, 
 It has been calculated that in three years of war- 
 fare, the attempts to carry out the grand plan of 
 President Madison, or to effect the subjugation 
 of the Canadas, were attended with the loss to the 
 republic, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of 
 nearly 50,000 men, besides an enormous expendi- 
 ture of treasure and stores and warlike resources,.* 
 In the course of 1813, when the republican gene- 
 rals Harrison, Hampton, and Wilkinson were all 
 in motion, co-operating in one great object, the 
 frontiers of Canada were pressed upon by 30,000 
 men. Yet, when the conditions of the treaty of 
 Ghent demanded restitution of all acquisitions 
 which had been made by either party on the 
 ' frontiers, the Americans had nothing but the 
 defenceless shore of the Detroit to give in exchange 
 for their fortress of Niagara and their key posses- 
 sion of Michilimackinac. And let it not be for- 
 gotten that during two years of the war Great 
 Britain had only a very small regular force and 
 the militia of the country, wherewith to defend a 
 very long, winding, and, for the most part, very 
 accessible frontier, 
 
 In the last great land-action of the American 
 war, although there was no lack of courage on the 
 part of the British, there was an almost incredible 
 amount of imprudence and miscalculation. Not 
 Satisfied with ruining the trade of New Orleans, 
 and all the towns upon the river Mississippi, by 
 blockading that river, our commanders determined 
 to ascend the river and atiack the city of New 
 Orleans, This town, upon the eastern bank of 
 the Mississippi, is about 110 miles from the sea; 
 it is built upon a narrow neck of land, confined 
 on one side by the river, and on the other by 
 almost impassable morasses; and, though in itself 
 unfortified, it is not easy to conceive a place 
 capable of presenting greater obstacles to an in- 
 
 vader, The assailants could not possibly reach the: 
 
 town by water, and the march by land across the 
 swampy country was difficult in the extreme. 
 Our ill-fated expedition went as far up the Mis- 
 sissippi as it could, and then landed. On the 
 23rd of December, 1814, part of our troops were 
 repulsed with loss by an American force. But 
 
 * Campaigns in the Canadas. Quart. Rey. No. LIV. 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 743 
 
 this was only a check, and on Christmas-day, 
 General Sir Edward Pakenham, the chief in 
 command, took up a position within six miles 
 of New Orleans. Between the British army and 
 that city the American main body was drawn 
 up, being strongly posted behind a deep canal, 
 with their right covered by the Mississippi, and 
 with their left resting on a thick wood. They 
 had a corps of observation thrown considerably 
 forward, composed of 500 or 600 mounted rifle- 
 men, who hovered along Pakenham’s front, and 
 watched his every motion; and other bodies of 
 riflemen, some mounted and some on foot, lurked 
 in almost every thicket and every sugar-planta- 
 tion, firing with a sure aim at all stragglers, har- 
 assing the English pickets, killing and wounding 
 the sentinels, and preventing the main body from 
 obtaining any sound and refreshing sleep. On 
 the 26th of December, there was some hard 
 fighting; but the attempt of the British to turn 
 the flank of the Americans was unsuccessful, and 
 the defenders brought into play a very numerous 
 and very well-served artillery, firing grape-shot, 
 red-hot shot, &c., and doing great execution upon 
 the heads of the English columns of attack. At 
 the end of the day, Sir Edward Pakenham took 
 up a position two or three miles nearer to the 
 enemy. His near approach and the course of the 
 fighting, had convinced him that the only prac- 
 ticable mode of assault was to treat the formidable 
 field-works which the republicans had thrown up, 
 as one would treat a regular fortification—erect 
 breaching-batteries against them, and try to silence 
 their guns. Three days were employed in landing 
 heavy cannon, bringing up ammunition, and 
 making such preparations as were necessary. . 
 Having procured the matériel, one-half of the 
 English army was ordered out on the night of 
 the 31st of December, to throw up a chain of 
 works: the men halted about 300 yards from the 
 enemy’s line; and here the greater part of them, 
 laying down their muskets, applied themselves 
 vigorously to their task, while the rest stood 
 armed and prepared for their defence in‘case the 
 Americans should sally. The night was dark, 
 the English maintained a profound silence, and 
 the Americans kept a bad watch, for it was the 
 last night of the year, and conviviality abounded 
 in the republican camp. In this manner, six 
 batteries were completed long before the dawn of 
 New-Year’s Day, and 30 pieces of heavy cannon 
 were mounted on them. There had not been 
 much digging and trenching. Every storehouse 
 and barn in the country was filled with hogsheads 
 and barrels of sugar and molasses, and these bar- 
 rels and hogsheads were used instead of earth. 
 Rolling the hogsheads towards the front, the 
 English soldiers placed them upright to form the 
 parapets of the batteries. We had the sugar and 
 molasses, the republicans had the cotton bags and 
 the unpressed cotton bales, and hogsheads and 
 barrels besides, The morning of the Ist of 
 January, 1815, was a very dark, foggy morning 
 
744 
 
 in those swamps and bogs of New Orleans. The 
 day was considerably advanced before the 
 Americans could distinctly discover how near 
 the British had approached to their lines. As 
 the mist cleared away, our batteries opened a 
 tremendous fire. ‘The first effect of this unex- 
 pected firing was to produce visible disorder 
 among the enemy’s troops; but by degrees their 
 formidable artillery began to answer the British 
 salute with great rapidity and precision. They 
 landed a number of guns from a flotilla; they 
 took every gun from every vessel in the harbour ; 
 they increased their artillery to a great amount, 
 and they brought a heavy flank-fire as well as a 
 front-fire to bear upon Pakenham’s 30 cannon in 
 battery. The hogsheads and casks were knocked 
 to pieces, the sugar and molasses thrown all about, 
 a good many of our artillerymen were killed and 
 wounded, and some of our guns were knocked 
 over. Moreover, towards eyening, our ammunition 
 began to fail, and the incessant fire which had 
 been kept up for many hours, began to slacken 
 on our side, The English were obliged to retire, 
 leaving their heavy guns to their fate; but as no 
 attempt was made by the Americans to secure 
 them, working-parties sent out after dark removed 
 such of them as were worth removing. Nothing 
 could tempt the enemy to make a sally or try 
 their fortune in an open ficld. They knew their 
 strength and their weakness, and they wisely 
 kept behind their river, and canals, and bogs, 
 and their breastworks of cotton bales, trusting to 
 their superiority in artillery, and to their skill as 
 riflemen. The fatigue undergone by the whole 
 British army, from the general down to the 
 meanest sentinel, was immense. For two whole 
 nights and days, not a man had closed an eye in 
 sleep. A new plan of operations was invented, 
 which was considered worthy of the good Penin- 
 sular school in which Sir Edward Pakenham had 
 studied his profession. It was determined to 
 divide the army, to send part across the river, 
 who should seize the enemy’s guns in battery 
 there, and turn them on themselves, while the 
 remainder should make a general assault along 
 the whole entrenchment; but before this plan 
 could be put into execution, it was necessary to 
 cut a canal across the entire neck of land on 
 which our army stood, to admit of boats being 
 brought up for conveying the troops across the 
 river. This was a Roman work, and it was 
 executed with a spirit worthy of the legions of 
 Cesar. The men laboured by turns day and 
 night, one party relieving another after a stated 
 number of hours, in such order as never to let 
 the labour entirely cease: there was no repining, 
 and at last, by unremitted exertions, they finished 
 their canal on the 6th of January. The unex- 
 pected arrival of Major-general Lambert, with 
 the 7th and 48rd, two splendid battalions, mus- 
 tering together 1600 effective men, raised the 
 spirits of the besiegers. There also came up 
 marines from the fleet, and a body of sailors 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 ready to do or attempt anything. These 
 additions raised Pakenham’s force to about 8000 
 men. The number of armed Americans, of all 
 classes, was estimated at 20,000; and every day 
 brought them some reinforcement from the 
 neighbouring country. Boats were ordered up 
 to the newly-cut canal for the transport of 1400 
 men; and in these boats Colonel Thornton, with 
 the 85th regiment, the marines, and a party of 
 sailors, was to cross the river, and carry the ter- 
 rible flanking-battery, which mounted 18 or 20 
 cannon. Thornton was to move in the darkness 
 of night, and in silence; he was to land at some 
 distance from the American battery, to rush upon 
 it and seize it by surprise in the dark, but not to 
 begin his fire from it until he should see a certain 
 rocket in the air, which would be the signal that 
 Pakenham was commencing a general attack 
 along the American lines, This was the whole 
 of Pakenham’s bold plan. It was deranged by 
 various circumstances. The boats could not 
 arrive at the appointed time; the soil through 
 which the canal had been dug in so great a 
 hurry being soft, parts of the bank gave way, 
 choking up the channel, and preventing the 
 heaviest of the boats from getting forward; these 
 heavy boats again blocked up the passage, so that 
 none of those which were behind could proceed, 
 and thus, instead of a flotilla for the accommo- 
 
 dation of 1400 men, all that could reach their 
 
 destination were a number of boats barely suf- 
 ficient to contain 350 men. And so much time 
 had been consumed in getting these few boats 
 into the river, that the dawn of day was begin- 
 ning to appear before Colonel Thornton could 
 get across. He made good his landing, and formed 
 on the beach without opposition and alarm; but 
 day had already broken, and Pakenham’s signal- 
 rocket was seen in the air, while he and his 350 
 men were yet three miles from the battery, which 
 ought to have been taken three hours ago, This 
 was fatal to the plan; but blunders and negli- 
 gences occurred in the main army also. Besides 
 their canal and their bales of cotton, the Ameri- 
 cans had along their great line certain fixed, per- 
 manent ramparts. To mount these, and for laying 
 down across the canal, Sir Edward Pakenham 
 had ordered his attacking columns to be provided 
 with ladders and fascines. But the order had 
 been neglected; there was not a single ladder or 
 fascine upon the field when the assault began, 
 nor were any brought up until it was too late. 
 The guns in the battery which Colonel Thornton 
 
 was to take, remained as Pakenham had seen 
 
 them the preceding day: his signal-rocket went 
 up, but no fire was opened upon the enemy from 
 that battery. The assault along the lines was, 
 however, commenced under a tremendous fire of 
 American artillery, which mowed down Paken- 
 ham’s men very fast. On the left, a detachment 
 of the 2lst, under Colonel Rennie, stormed a 
 3-gun battery, and took it, this battery being in 
 advance of the canal or ditch. On the right, a 
 
 % 
 
Cuap. VIII.) 
 
 column, composed of the 21st and 4th, supported 
 by the 98rd, crossed the ditch without fascines or 
 ladders; but to scale the parapet without ladders 
 was scarcely possible. Some of the men tried it 
 by mounting upon one another’s shoulders; and 
 in this way a few actually entered the works ; 
 but they were not supported in time, and were 
 soon laid low by a concentrated crash of mus- 
 ketry. Right and left, the columns of attack 
 were compelled to give way; and as they ran 
 back, the fire of the American artillery grew 
 hotter and hotter, and some of the battalions 
 betrayed symptoms of disorder and _ panic. 
 Pakenham, leading on a fresh column of attack 
 in person, received a slight wound in the knee 
 from a musket-ball, which killed his horse under 
 him. Mounting another horse, he again headed 
 the troops; and he was seen, with his hat off, 
 encouraging them on the crest of the glacis, 
 when a second ball struck him, and he fell dead 
 into the arms of his aide-de-camp. Generals 
 Keane and Gibbs rode through the ranks, and 
 
 endeavoured to encourage the assailants, till they | 
 
 were both carried off the field wounded, Gibbs 
 mortally. Other officers were brought down by 
 the keen American marksmen, who fired under 
 cover, and with their rifles in rest. All was now 
 confusion and dismay. Without leaders, without 
 knowing what was to be done, almost without so 
 much as a single subaltern officer left standing, 
 the troops halted and opened, then began to retire, 
 and finally the retreat became a disorderly flight. 
 The strong reserve, however, closed up to cover 
 the retreat, and give time for rallying; and so 
 cautious were the Americans, that they would 
 attempt no pursuit. They remained behind their 
 strong lines, and merely plied their artillery. 
 Thornton and his 350 men beyond the river did 
 nobly, though it was too late, They drove the 
 Americans, consisting in part of a corps of Ken- 
 tuckians, from their positions; they drove three 
 times their own number out of the battery ; 
 they took possession of their tents and of their 
 eighteen pieces of cannon. The Americans, 
 expecting no attack on this side of the river, had 
 been taken by surprise, even though it was broad 
 daylight ; and the British soldiers, marines, and 
 sailors had fought with the greater spirit from 
 believing that Pakenham’s attack (announced by 
 the signal rocket) was succeeding. But, before 
 they could turn the captured guns upon the 
 enemy, Colonel Thornton Jearned the true state 
 of the case from the messenger who brought him 
 an order to retreat immediately, recross the river, 
 and join the main body of the army.* As Thornton 
 retreated, the Kentuckians and their comrades 
 began to return to their batteries; but, notwith- 
 standing their great superiority of numbers, they 
 gaye no pursuit; and thus under cover of some 
 
 * The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New 
 Orleans, in the years 1814-1815, by the author of The Subaltern. 
 Fourth edition, corrected and revised. London, 1836.—Dispatches 
 of Generals Lambert and Keane, 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—1815. 
 
 745 
 
 smoke which they raised by setting fire to a house, 
 the English got back to their boats, and crossed the 
 river without molestation, carrying with them a 
 good part of the American artillery which they 
 had captured, and, among other pieces, a brass 
 howitzer, on which was inscribed: “Taken at the 
 surrender of York Town, 1781,” In the advance 
 and attack three men were killed and about forty 
 were wounded, Colonel Thornton being among the 
 latter ; and this was all that the daring movement 
 cost us. As soon as the whole army was reunited 
 and order was restored to the broken regiments, 
 a fiag of truce was dispatched by General Lam- 
 bert, upon whom the command devolved, with 
 proposals for a suspension of hostilities to collect 
 and bury the dead. The Americans readily agreed 
 to a truce of two days. On the right and on the 
 left of the Amevican lines, where the assaults had 
 been made, the dead lay thick together, showing 
 how close they had come to the works, how firmly 
 they had stood, how well the American artillery 
 had been served, and with what good aim their 
 muskets and rifles had been fired. In some spots, 
 the men lay as if they had been mowed down in 
 ranks. Nowhere was there an American to be 
 seen among the dead, for the Americans had all 
 fought under cover, scarcely ever showing more 
 than their caps and heads as they fired their 
 muskets and rifles over the parapets. It was their 
 boast that in Pakenham’s attack their loss 
 amounted to only eight men killed and fourteen 
 wounded. General Lambert wisely abandoned 
 the notion of making another attempt. But 
 before he could begin a retreat, it was found 
 necessary to make a road across a_trouble- 
 some morass some miles in extent. This work 
 occupied nine days, during which the British 
 army remained in position within cannon-shot 
 distance of the American lines; and, although 
 the fame of their success brought more and more 
 volunteers to swell the force behind those lines, 
 no sally was made, nothing was attempted beyond 
 firing of long shots with their big guns, The 
 only attempt they made on the British was by 
 throwing printed papers into the camp holding out 
 inducements to the soldiers to desert; and it is 
 hardly to be wondered at that, under the circum- 
 stances, these temptations succeeded with con- 
 siderable numbers. When General Lambert began 
 to move off—which was not until the 18th of 
 January, when the whole of the wounded, the 
 baggage and stores, the civil officers, commissaries, 
 &c., were well advanced on their way to the 
 English fleet-—nothing was abandoned except ten 
 pieces of heavy artillery which had been mounted 
 in front of the bivouac, and which were old ships’ 
 guns of little value and extremely cumbersome— 
 and these guns were rendered perfectly unservice- 
 able before they were left. And such was the 
 skill with which the whole retreat was managed, 
 and such the shyness of the Americans to quit 
 their works, or attempt any pursuit, that the 
 whole of the army got safely back to the ships 
 
746 
 
 lying in the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouth of the 
 Mississippi. It was every way a useless and 
 lamentable expedition (peace had been concluded 
 in Europe before it commenced), and it cost us 
 nearly 2000 men and officers in killed, wounded, 
 and prisoners. General Jackson, afterwards Presi- 
 dent of the United States, was considered as com- 
 mander-in-chief in New Orleans; and it was on 
 this occasion that his admiring countrymen 
 bestowed upon him the high appellation of 
 * Conqueror of the Conquerors of Bonaparte.” * 
 
 The last action of the war was the capture of 
 Fort Mobile, in the new Alabama territory of the 
 United States, by General Lambert, who had so 
 ably conducted the retreat from New Orleans, and 
 by Admiral Sir A. Cochrane. The troops were 
 landed as early as the 7th of February, and by 
 the 11th the place was ours, the garrison surren- 
 dering as prisoners of war. Fort Mobile com- 
 manded the principal seaport of the territory 
 (which has since grown into a state), and afforded 
 a good naval and military position, and an excel- 
 lent basis for further operations on the Mississippi, 
 the Bay of Mexico, the rivers Mobile, Alabama, 
 &e. 
 
 During the progress of the war, the British 
 government had made several overtures, direct as 
 well as indirect, for a reconciliation, and every 
 royal speech at the opening of Parliament had 
 expressed, with a determination to yield or commit 
 none of our maritime rights, regret for the quarrel, 
 or a wish that it might not be lasting. At first 
 the overtures were met as a confession of fear and 
 weakness—as an avowal that we were sinking 
 under the weight imposed upon us by a war with 
 France in the Old World, and with the republic 
 of the United States in the New World; and, 
 when their ship-of-the-line-like frigates had made 
 old British frigates strike, it was fancied that 
 our spell was broken, that the trident was falling 
 from our hands. Bonaparte’s grand disaster in 
 Russia, which was well known all over the United 
 States early in the year 1813, damped, but did not 
 destroy the hopes of the war-party ; for they could 
 not conceive that so gigantic a power as that of 
 the Emperor of the French could be destroyed at 
 one blow. They hoped that the Man of Destiny 
 would prevail against all the embattled crowned 
 despots of Europe in the plains of Germany in 1813. 
 This hope was shattered by the battle of Leipzig. 
 But in the beginning of 1814, when Bonaparte was 
 fighting on the soil of France—when the armies 
 of the allies were engaging, far from their own 
 frontiers, in the very heart of the most warlike 
 nation of Europe, they trusted that the star of 
 Napoleon would shine forth again more luminous 
 than ever. It was needful for them to cling to this 
 hope ; for the most ardent lover of this war with 
 England, well knew that it could not be continued 
 without ruin to the United States, if* England 
 should be relieved from the great and exhausting 
 
 * General Lambert, Dispatch.—Major Mitchell of the Royal 
 Artillery, official return of the ordnance taken from the enemy, &c, 
 
 i 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 French war, and be enabled to direct her whole 
 attention to this little episode in America. But 
 Bonaparte was beaten inside of France, as he had 
 been beaten outside of France; and the 1814 hope ~ 
 was finished by the capture of Paris and the 
 abdication of Fontainebleau, Then, and not until | 
 then, President Madison and his party utterly 
 despaired of the policy they had adopted, and 
 became really eager for peace. Before this time, 
 however, it had been sufficiently demonstrated 
 that the conquest and annexation of Canada— 
 incontestably the main object for which Madison 
 had provoked this war—was not to be achieved by 
 such troops and military resources as the central 
 government could command. Moreover, the oppo- 
 sition of the north-eastern states of the Union to a 
 line of policy which they had never supported, and 
 to a war which was threatening to make bank- 
 rupts of them all, compelled the pupil of Jefferson 
 to pretend a wish to treat with England, even at 
 the end of 1813. On the 7th of January, 1814, 
 he communicated to Congress copies of a corre- 
 spondence between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. 
 Munroe. From these letters, it appeared that 
 Lord Castlereagh had proposed the appointment 
 of plenipotentiaries to treat respecting terms of 
 peace either at London or at Gottenburg, and that 
 the American diplomatist, preserving his proper 
 dignity, had acceded to his lordship’s proposition, 
 being authorized so to do by the president, who 
 had made choice of Gottenburg for the scene of 
 the negotiations. The anti-war and anti-French 
 party bitterly assailed the president for not assent- 
 ing to a like amicable proposition made on the 
 part of England long before: they accused him 
 even now of a design to protract the negotiations, 
 and they told him that this delay would not be 
 borne by the impatient and ruined people of the 
 eastern states. Besides repeating the threat of 
 breaking up the federal union, the people of these 
 eastern states began to declare that they would 
 contribute no money, no men, no stores to the 
 armies set on foot by the central government; | 
 that they would keep their own militia at home |} 
 for their own defence ; that perhaps they might be | 
 driven, by their necessities, to seek a separate | 
 reconciliation with Great Britain, &c. In the | 
 state of Massachusetts these threats were cgi | 
 expressed by Governor Strong before the legisla- | 
 ture of that state ; and President Madison felt hima 
 self obliged in some degree to yield to the storm. 
 
 The negotiations for peace, which had been 
 removed by mutual consent from Gottenburg to— 
 Ghent, commenced in earnest in August, 1814. In — 
 the month of October, the president laid before | 
 congress an account of the proceedings at Ghent. | 
 He made it appear that the British government | 
 had advanced certain demands, respecting the ! 
 integrity of the territory of the Red Indians, the | 
 military possession of the lakes, and the settlement — {y ' : 
 of the boundaries, which the American plenipoten- | 
 tiaries had not hesitated to reject as wholly | 
 inadmissible. The congress by a large mae 
 
 ) 
 ££ 
 
 } a 4 
 a r a 
 > <i 
 
Cuap. VIII.] 
 
 confirmed this rejection; and measures were 
 determined on for purely defensive preparations 
 if the continuance of the war should be found 
 inevitable. But it was a season of triumph and 
 magnanimity in Hurope :—the Emperor of Russia, 
 whose mediation the Americans had secured, was 
 very magnanimous, Lord Castlereagh was very 
 magnanimous, aud the people of England cared 
 more, at that moment, for a completeness of peace, 
 than for any prospective advantages to be derived 
 from continuing the contest. The restoration of 
 peace in Europe, with the overthrow of the founder 
 of the, continental system, of the new navigation 
 code, and of the new system of international law, 
 had indeed removed for the present many of the 
 causes of differences between England and the 
 United States. For example, we had no longer 
 any present necessity to insist on our right of 
 search, or on our right of excluding neutral vessels 
 from the blockaded ports of an enemy. Accord- 
 ingly, the plenipotentiaries at Ghent agreed to 
 waive every question at issue between us, and to 
 
 CIVIL AND MILITARY TRANSACTIONS :—i815. 
 
 [47 
 
 take no notice whatever of the circumstances 
 which had occasioned the war. On the 24th of 
 December, 1814, they concluded and signed a 
 treaty of peace and amity which was ratified by 
 both governments. The longest of the articles of 
 the treaty related to the disputes respecting bound- 
 aries, yet still they left those disputes to be settled 
 and determined by commissioners of the two 
 nations, who were to meet and discuss the questions 
 hereafter, Each nation engaged to put an end to 
 all hostilities that might be subsisting between 
 them and the Indian tribes, and to restore to those . 
 tribes all the possessions and privileges which 
 belonged to them previously to the war. Both 
 parties likewise covenanted to continue their efforts 
 for the entire abolition of the slave-trade. All the 
 northern and eastern states of the Union were 
 thrown into transports of joy by this peace; and 
 the Englishman who carried out the ratification of 
 the treaty was carried by the citizens and people 
 through the streets of New York in triumph and 
 jubilee. 
 
 ALGIERS, 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DIS TORY OPA LPG Om 
 
 F the EstablishedChurch, 
 regarded by itself, the 
 history, whether exter- 
 nal or interna], is marked 
 by few important events 
 during the closing years 
 of the eighteenth cen- 
 pod tury. The Church was 
 =) ‘2, disquieted by scarcely 
 o, )\**- any contention among 
 ‘its own members; and 
 the circumstances described in a former chapter 
 continued to operate in consolidating and fixing 
 the new form into which it had subsided as a 
 political institution, with a more undisturbed action 
 than ever.* Nevertheless, it had still to sustain 
 some occasional alarm, and even a few actual 
 collisions, in the process of adjusting the positions 
 and rights of the various dissenting religious 
 communities, 
 
 We have already seen+ that the legislature in 
 1779 relieved the dissenters from some of the dis- 
 abilitics pressing on them, especially those affecting 
 preachers and schoolmasters ; although the measure 
 was somewhat mutilated in deference to the preju- 
 dices of the Church party. No attempt was made 
 by the dissenters to obtain any further relief till 
 after the lapse of several years; but at last they 
 resolved to make application to parliament for the 
 repeal of two statutes commonly called the Corpor- 
 ation and Test Acts. These statutes (13th of Charles 
 IIL., c. 1; and 25th of Charles IT., c. 2) made the 
 taking of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, 
 according to the rites of the Church of England, 
 a necessary qualification for eligibility to any 
 municipal office, or for holding any office of trust or 
 profit under the crown, whether civil or military, 
 Slight modifications of these restrictions were made 
 in later years; but still the English dissenters had 
 the mortification of seeing themselves placed in a 
 worse position than those of Ireland, who had 
 been relieved from the sacramental test by an act 
 passed by the Irish parliament in 1779. Under these 
 circumstances, Mr. Beaufoy, member-for Yarmouth, 
 brought the subject before the notice of the English 
 House of Commons on the 28th of March, 1787; 
 moving that the House should immediately resolve 
 
 * Pictorial History of England, v. pp. 406-415. + Ibid., 414. 
 
 LLL LO LLL LLL A CS ON ELI te ae eth IT 
 
 itself into a committee to consider the Test and 
 Corporation Acts. He claimed sympathy for the 
 members of the Church of Scotland ; and for such 
 members of the Church of England—large in 
 number, and steadily increasing—as looked upon 
 the prostitution of the most solemn ordinance of 
 their faith to the purposes of a civil test as little 
 less than a sacrilegious abuse ; but he came forward 
 more especially as the champion of the English 
 dissenters. He expressly disclaimed, for them 
 and himself, any intention to attack the privileges 
 or revenues of the Established Church; their 
 desire being, not an enlargement of their ecclesias- 
 tical privileges, but a restoration of their civil 
 rights. In the course of his speech, the advocate 
 of the dissenters (who was himself a churchman, 
 and adduced that fact as a proof that he did not 
 propose anything with a view to damage the 
 establishment) went over, with no small oratorical 
 display, the history of the first enactment of the 
 two statutes which he desired to repeal, the 
 grievances which they occasioned, and the various 
 attempts which had been made to blunt or turn 
 aside the edge of their disqualifying clauses, in 
 so far as the Protestant dissenters were concerned, 
 He contended that the Indemnity Act, passed 
 annually to lessen the severity of the Test and 
 Corporation Acts, left the principle of those statutes 
 just as objectionable as before. His motion was 
 seconded in a short speech by Sir Henry Hoghton, © 
 the author of the bill relieving dissenting clergy- 
 men from subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 passed in 1779.* Lord North, in leading the 
 opposition, urged: “ We are told that other countries 
 have no Test Acts, and that their established 
 churches are not endangered for the want thereof. 
 France has Protestants at the head of her army. 
 and her finances, and Prussia employs Catholics in 
 her service ; but it must be considered that these 
 are arbitrary governments—that the king alone in — 
 those countries is to be served, and can at pleasure 
 revoke or advance whom he pleases, The king of 
 England, being a limited monarch, can do no such 
 thing: he is bound by those restricting laws as 
 much as his subjects.” North was logical in this 
 part of his argument; but the old bigotry crept 
 out when he proceeded to defend the obnoxious 
 
 * Pictorial History of England, v. p. 414. 
 
Cuapr. IX.] 
 
 statutes as the corner-stones of the constitution. 
 “ King James,” said he, “when he wished to gain 
 the Prince and Princess of Orange to his views, 
 desired to have their opinion on the propriety of 
 repealing the Test and Corporation Acts. The 
 auswer of the Prince of Orange was, that he agreed 
 to the removal of the Corporation Act, but not of 
 the Test Act ; and he declared it to be the practice 
 of Holland to confine all civil employments to 
 those who professed the principles of the States, 
 but that the army could not be so restrained on 
 account of the want of troops.” Here it is obvious 
 that Lord North failed to show that a practice in 
 Holland m the seventeenth century was necessarily 
 applicable to England in the eighteenth. The 
 speeches of Lord Beauchamp, Mr. William Smith, 
 and Sir James Johnstone in favour of the motion, 
 shed no new light on the matter. Mr. Pitt opposed 
 it, but with no great ardour. He professed to 
 argue the question on grounds of expediency—such 
 as the desirableness of not unnecessarily offend- 
 ing the prejudices or arousing the fears of the 
 members of the Established Church; and the 
 danger the Church might suffer from the free 
 admission to office of some of the more objection- 
 able dissenters, who maintained that all such 
 establishments were improper. It is noteworthy 
 that Mr. Fox, liberal as he was, went only half- 
 way with the dissenters on this occasion; he 
 avowed that he would join Pitt if the latter had 
 gone no further than to propose that there should 
 be some test for shutting out from office such 
 dissenters as denied the propriety or necessity of 
 established churches altogether; he only com- 
 plained that the minister had afterwards carried 
 out his argument so as to apply to all dissenters 
 indiscriminately. Beaufoy had argued that the 
 Jaw which declared that every man who accepted 
 a commission in the army, or was appointed to a 
 civil office, should take the sacrament of the Lord’s 
 Supper, compelled a clergyman to administer this 
 sacrament to every person who should demand it 
 upon any ground; and he and Fox showed the 
 absurd contradictions involved in such a state 
 of things. Nevertheless, in the existing bias of 
 public opinion on the subject, it is hardly to be 
 wondered at that Mr. Beaufoy’s motion was rejected 
 by 176 against 98. 
 
 For the next two years the question was allowed 
 to sleep; but it was again brought before the 
 same parliament, by the same advocate, on the 8th 
 of May 1789. The principal novelty in Beaufoy’s 
 present speech was a detailed statement of the 
 disabilities inflicted upon dissenters by the obnox- 
 ious statutes, “No office under the crown, though 
 your sovereign may invite you to his service ; no 
 commission in the army, though the enemy may 
 be marching to the capital; no share in the 
 management of any of the commercial companies 
 in the kingdom, though your whole fortune may 
 be vested in the stocks—shall be yours; from the 
 direction of the Bank of England, from the direc- 
 tion of the India Company, from that of the Russia, 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 the Turkey, the South Sea Companies—you are 
 entirely debarred. For, if you should accept any 
 share in the management of these companies, or 
 any office under the crown, or any military employ- 
 ment, you are within the penalties of the statutes. 
 In the first place, you forfeit to the informer the 
 sum of 500/.; if you cannot pay that sum without 
 delay, the penalty is imprisonment ; if you cannot 
 pay it at all—as may be the case with many 
 a brave officer who has offended against the law by 
 fighting the battles of his country—the penalty is 
 imprisonment for life. In the next place, you are 
 incapable of suing for any debt. Does any one 
 owe you money? Have you intrusted him with 
 your own fortune? It is in his power to cancel 
 the debt by annulling your means of recovering it ; 
 and for this act of dishonesty, of consummate 
 fraud, of treachery in the extreme, the parliament 
 assigns him a reward of 5002, to be bequeathed 
 from the wreck of your fortune. In the next place, 
 the law denies you its protection: for wrongs, for 
 insults, for injuries, however atrocious, you shall 
 have no redress. .... In the next place, you 
 are incapable of receiving any legacy. .... In 
 the last place, you are incapable of being guardian 
 to any child, even to your own.” This plain state- 
 ment told on the Commons; especially when 
 supported by the argument of Windham—that, 
 even supposing the dissenters to be hostile to the 
 Established Church, the repeal of the Corporation 
 and Test Acts, while it removed an_ irritating 
 stigma, could give them no more real power than 
 they already possessed. The speech of Beaufoy 
 contained arguments which show either that he did 
 not well know the dissenters, or that they were 
 more moderate and humble in their views at that 
 time than in later days. He maintained that the 
 good-will of the dissenters to the revenues of the 
 Church was insured, and would still be equally 
 insured if the Corporation and ‘Test Acts were 
 repealed ; that the dissenters, generally speaking, 
 belonged not to the landed interest, by whom the 
 burden of tithes was chiefly borne, but to the 
 commercial interest ; that the voluntary subscrip- 
 tions of the dissenters for the maintenance of their 
 own ministers were too light to be felt as a burden, 
 and in their destination and use were constantly 
 regarded as a privilege; and that the several 
 denominations of dissenters were not more hostile 
 to the Established Church than to each other. At - 
 the conclusion of the debate, the division showed 
 that the opponents had decreased, rather than that 
 the supporters of the repeal had increased: the 
 measure being defeated by 122 against 102. 
 
 A few days after this decision of the Commons, 
 an unsuccessful attempt was made in the Lords by 
 Earl Stanhope to rid the statute-book of some old 
 laws, which he considered to press with unneces- 
 sary severity in religious matters. This ingenious 
 but most eccentric peer, little fitted to be the steady 
 champion of a great question, elected himself to 
 this office on the 18th of May, when he proposed 
 “a Bill for relieving members of the Church of 
 
750 
 
 England from sundry penalties and disabilities to 
 which, by the laws now in force, they may be 
 liable, and for extending freedom in matters of 
 religion to all persons (Papists only excepted), and 
 for other purposes therein mentioned.” ‘The orator 
 
 Eart STANHOPE. 
 
 may have been unequal to his task; but the 
 intolerances were certainly such as needed reform, 
 and such as excite our wonder when displayed 
 before the eye in print. In the first place, there 
 were the laws concerning going to church, passed 
 chiefly in the reigns of Elizabeth and James L., but 
 in some instances much later. These laws inflicted 
 fine, imprisonment, and even forfeiture of estates, 
 on those who failed in church-going. Not only 
 was the master of a household called to this duty ; 
 but “every person should pay 10/4 per month for 
 every servant, for every visitor, and for the servant 
 of every visitor, in his or her house, who did not 
 go to church.” One of the clauses in the act Ist 
 Eliz. c. 2, declares in the clearest terms, without 
 exception or qualification, that a// persons must 
 repair to their parish churches, “then and there to 
 abide orderly and soberly during the time of the 
 Common Prayer, preaching, or other service of 
 God then to be used and ministered, not only upon 
 Sundays, but upon all the other days ordained and 
 used to be kept as holidays ”—on penalty of twelve 
 pence for each lapse in this duty. Dr. Burn viewed 
 tthe statute as being so positive, that he said: “He 
 who misses either morning or evening prayer, or 
 goes before the whole service is over, is as much 
 within the statute as he who is wholly absent.” * 
 In the second place, there were the laws about 
 fasting: forbidding the eating of meat on “fish- 
 days,” under penalty of fine and imprisonment. 
 Some of the old acts based the restriction on 
 ecclesiastical grounds ; while others declared that 
 it was for the benefit of fishermen, seamen, and 
 ' shipwrights, that the eating of fish on certain days 
 was ordered. Llizabeth, who was quite a pope 
 in her own way, declared—or the act 5 Hliz. c. 5 
 
 * Ecclesiastical Law, iii, p. 129. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 declared for her—that the object of the act was | 
 politic and commercial; and that punishment 
 would befall all those who should preach, teach, or 
 write “that any eating of fish, or forbearing of 
 flesh, mentioned in this statute, is of any necessity 
 for the saving of the soul of man, or that it is the 
 service of God, otherwise than as other politic laws 
 are and be.” Thirdly, there were the laws of 
 rites and excommunication; relating to the power of 
 the archbishop and bishops, or their law-courts, 
 over persons adjudged of heresy or schism. A 
 person excommunicated by these authorities could 
 not buy, or sell, or “hold commerce and communi- 
 cation with the faithful,” or bring an action at law, 
 or defend himself effectively against an action— 
 in short, he was little other than an outlaw, by 
 virtue of unrepealed clauses in. many of the old 
 statutes. Fourthly, there was the act 30 Car. II. 
 c.1; which declared that any member of either 
 House of Parliament who should go to court 
 without having made the Declaration against 
 Transubstantiation and the Invocation of Saints, 
 should be disabled from holding any office, and 
 should be subject to various punishments and 
 deprivations—in effect be deemed little other than 
 an outlaw. Lord Stanhope startled many of his 
 hearers by declaring that they were subject to this 
 stringent statute at the very moment he addressed 
 them, peers and orthodox churchmen though they 
 might be. “Many members of the House of 
 Commons,” he remarked, in reference to the unre- | 
 pealed statute of 30 Car. II. concerning the Declar- ~ 
 ation against Transubstantiation and Invocation, 
 “a majority of the House of Lords, and perhaps 
 the whole bench of bishops, are liable to these 
 absurd penalties at this moment; and any person 
 who has incurred these penalties is in an awkward 
 situation, because the act makes it an incurable 
 recusancy, unless cured in the very next term after 
 such person has been at court. So that, by this 
 law, a very singular circumstance has perhaps 
 taken place, and the whole bench of Protestant 
 bishops may perhaps at this moment be Popish 
 recusants convict.” He added, half in jest and | 
 half in earnest, that if the right reverend and | 
 learned prelates would not support his bill, he felt | 
 assured he could, by means of this absurd law, | 
 clear the House of them, and carry the bill through | 
 in their absence ; for they could not even vote by | 
 proxy. oI 
 These and several other half-forgotten statutes — 
 were brought forward by the earl with a view to — 
 their repeal. He made some observations on the — 
 canons of the Church promulgated in 1603—one of — 
 which related to the excommunication of persons — 
 who denied the apostolical character of the Church — 
 of England ; another, to a similar punishment for | 
 those who should dispute any of the Thirty-nine — 
 Articles; a third, to the treatment of excom- 
 municated persons; a fourth, to the forbidding | 
 of ministers to “cast out devils” by prayer te | ‘ 
 fasting; a fifth, to the duty incumbent on a church- 
 warden of reporting to a minister on the character — 
 
 } 
 | 
 | 
 
 | 
 | 
 
| Cap. IX.] 
 
 and conduct of his parishioners. There had been a 
 doubt among judges and lawyers whether these 
 canons had ever received such formal acceptance 
 as to render them valid; and Harl Stanhope, 
 dssuming the negative on this question, did not 
 seck to remove that which he deemed inert. To 
 win favour from some of those who were likely to 
 oppose his measure, he threw a little intolerance 
 into it. He proposed that nothing in the act should 
 extend to giving relief to Papists, whose “ various 
 abominable, execrable, and dangerous principles 
 made them unsafe citizens of the state.’ When 
 the debate on the second reading took place, on the 
 9th of June, the spiritual peers opposed the earl in 
 great force, as was to have been expected. The 
 Archbishop of Canterbury admitted that many of 
 the church-statutes and canons needed reform ; 
 but he opposed the measure on the ground of the 
 vagueness of some clauses and the danger of 
 others. He asserted, by implication, that none 
 but orthodox persons have any right to discuss 
 religious reforms. “If the atheist were to be 
 allowed to defend his atheism by argument, I see 
 no reason why the thief might not be permitted 
 to reason in behalf of theft, the burglar of 
 burglary, the seducer of seduction, the mur- 
 derer of murder, and the traitor of treason”—an 
 argument that ignores the important difference 
 between maiters of opinion and matters of fact or 
 action. Dr. Warren, Bishop of Bangor, defended 
 the propriety and wisdom of the law obliging all 
 persons to frequent some place of public worship 
 on Sundays: on the principle, which he said could 
 be proved in various ways, that it was the indis.- 
 pensable duty of every man to worship God in the 
 church. Dr. Horsley, Bishop of St. David’s, insisted 
 upon the deliberation and caution with which any 
 repeal of a whole branch of laws ought to be 
 prosecuted. “My objection to the bill upon the 
 table is, that I can discover nothing in it of this 
 discretion : it drives furiously and precipitately at 
 its object, beating dowh every barrier which the 
 wisdom of our ancestors had opposed against vice 
 and irreligion, and tearing up the very foundations 
 of our ecclesiastical constitution. My lords, if this 
 bill should pass into a law, no established religion 
 will be left.’ He defended the shilling fine on 
 the church-absentees in the following curious way: 
 “This fine is too small to be oppressive upon the 
 poorest of the people. Suppose that the common 
 day-labourer be absent from church every Sunday 
 in the year, and that the fine be levied for every 
 offence ; my lords, the amount of it in the whole 
 year, even upon the supposition that it may be 
 levied twice on each Sunday, is much less than the 
 offender would probably squander in the same 
 time in riotous pleasures, to the great injury of 
 his family, if he were released from the restraint 
 of this law.” He proceeded to contend that 
 all needful exceptions might easily be made for 
 persons who were unable to attend regularly at 
 church ; and he wound up by contesting against 
 the doctrine that the right of conscience is para- 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 751 
 
 mount to the law. “The jurisdiction of conscience 
 is over the actions of the individual as they relate 
 to God, without reference to society ; conscience 
 judges of what is sinful or not sinful in our 
 actions. The jurisdiction of the magistrate is 
 
 BisHor Honrstey. 
 
 over the actions of men as they respect society ; 
 he is the judge of what harm may or may not 
 result to society from our actions; and this harm 
 he has a right to restrain and to punish, in 
 whatever actions he descries it, in defiance even 
 of the plea of conscience.” When the bishops had 
 pointed out their various objections to the bill, 
 the earl rose to reply. He declared broadly that 
 he was determined to persevere with measures 
 of ecclesiastical reform against all opposition ; 
 that if the right reverend bench would not suffer 
 him to remove their rubbish by cartfuls, he would 
 endeavour to carry it off in wheelbarrows; and 
 that if he failed in this, he would take it away 
 a little at a time with a shovel. His lordship 
 over-estimated his power, even measured by the 
 shovel; for his motion was negatived without a 
 division. 
 
 Harl Stanhope had not yet shot off all the 
 arrows from his bow. Very soon afterwards, he 
 brought forward another bill “To repeal an Act 
 of the 27th of Henry VII,” to prevent vexatious 
 suits relative to prosecutions for tithes from the 
 Quakers. The debate on this bill occurred on 
 the 3rd of July. Quakers had usually been 
 punished by a seizure of their goods for non-pay- 
 ment of tithes; but many of the clergy had 
 recently appealed to an older statute, enabling 
 them to imprison the body as well as seize the 
 goods. Harl Stanhope adverted to a case in which 
 a Quaker of considerable property had been incar- 
 cerated in the common jail of Worcester for 
 refusing to pay a sum of five shillings, and who 
 still remained there after a detention of two 
 months; and to another case in which six 
 Quakers, refusing to pay fourpence each for 
 Haster offerings, had been subjected to such law- 
 expenses in the spiritual courts as swelled the 
 
752 
 
 two shillings into 300/.! “As by their religion 
 they can never pay, some of them have been 
 excommunicated ; the consequence of which is, 
 that they cannot act as executors, that they cannot 
 sue in any court to recover any debt due to them; 
 and, in forty days after excommunication, they 
 are liable to be sent to prison, there to remain till 
 death shall deliver them from a jail, where they may 
 be dying for years, and perish by inches.’ Some 
 of the Quakers, his lordship added, were so highly 
 respected at Coventry, that their neighbours who 
 were not Quakers had raised money by subscrip- 
 tion to stop all further proceedings against them ; 
 but this interference, he contended, would have 
 fatal effects upon the whole body of Quakers for 
 the future, insomuch as it would only serve to 
 whet the avarice of the proctors of the spiritual 
 court. If the earl had skilfully brought forward 
 a temperate motion, this harsh conduct against 
 the Quakers might possibly have led the peers 
 to agree to a modification in the law; but his 
 bill proposed to declare “that no suit should 
 hereafter be brought or be maintainable in any 
 ecclesiastical court for the recovery of any tithes, 
 dues, or other spiritual profits ;” and, moreover, 
 he offended the peers by his boastful tone and 
 manner. Lord Thurlow having given him a some- 
 what scowling look from the woolsack, Earl 
 Stanhope exclaimed: “On another occasion, I 
 shall teach the noble and learned lord law, as I 
 have this day taught the bench of bishops reli- 
 gion.” Lord Kenyon opposed the bill, chiefly on 
 the ground, that to leave the right of the clergy to 
 recover their tithes in the hands of a justice of the 
 peace was an arrangement not to be borne—far 
 worse, he contended, than would be the abolition 
 of tithes altogether. Lord Abingdon opposed the 
 measure as being likely to give rise to a continu- 
 ous aggression on the church and state. He 
 implored Earl Stanhope, who had been a fellow 
 college-student of his, not to persist in pointing 
 out, as he was doing, to the numerous incendiaries 
 in the country, how to throw all things into 
 anarchy and confusion. In the end, the bill was 
 negatived without a division. 
 
 The actual state both of religious liberty and of 
 religious opinion, at the time now under notice, 
 was usefully illustrated by these discussions on 
 Earl Stanhope’s motions; and a further illustration 
 was afforded in 1790, when the repeal of the Test 
 and Corporation Acts was again proposed. Mr. 
 Fox introduced the debate on the 2nd of June. 
 Unfortunately for his success, Fox and his party, 
 and the dissenters as a body, had expressed unmis- 
 takably their sympathy with the French revolu- 
 tion; and although he dwelt as forcibly as he could 
 upon the loyalty of the dissenters in past times, 
 the zeal with which they had stood forward in 
 support of revolutionary ideas across the Channel, 
 acted disadvantageously against them in the House 
 of Commons. He endeavoured to remove the 
 unfavourable impression by urging: “ Innovations 
 are said to be dangerous at all times, but particu- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 uu REE eeneeenenenneeeeeen ae 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 larly so now, from the situation of affairs in 
 France. But the hopes of the dissenters are not 
 founded upon the most distant reference to the 
 transactions which have taken place in that 
 kingdom. Their application to the House on 
 the present subject was made three years ago, 
 when the most sagacious among them could not 
 form anything like a conjecture of what has 
 since happened in that country.” He did not 
 shrink, however, from avowing his belief that the 
 example of France taught a lesson favourable to 
 his object, seeing that “the church there is now 
 suffering for its former intolerance.” He next 
 referred to recent publications by Dr. Priestley 
 and Dr. Price, contending that they were not 
 inconsistent with true loyalty, however distaste- 
 ful to the Tories and high churchmen. Mr, 
 Pitt opposed the measure at great length. He 
 endeavoured to turn to account a recent proceed- 
 ing of the dissenters, who had published certain 
 resolutions, signed by a Mr. Jeffries, directing 
 their friends to vote at elections for such can- 
 didates only as should, by their conduct on this 
 question, prove themselves to be friends to civil 
 and religious liberty: this, Pitt argued, was 
 attempting to impose a test upon the members of 
 that House, at the very moment they were seeking 
 relief from a test themselves. Listless and luke- 
 warm, when the measure was discussed before, 
 Pitt had now become a strong anti-reformer, and 
 insisted on the maintenance of the Test and Cor- 
 poration Acts, as indispensable securities for the 
 existing constitution in church and state. Burke 
 made a singular speech. He confessed that he 
 had not until now been able to make up his mind 
 concerning these statutes, and therefore had 
 neither voted nor spoken on the subject in former 
 years ; and that even now, there was only a slight 
 preponderance of bias in his mind against Fox’s 
 motion. Speaking disapprovingly of an attack 
 Pitt had made on Fox, he reminded the minister 
 that his own father, the great Harl of Chatham, 
 had once exclaimed: “ We have a Calvinistic 
 creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy ” 
 —a more sarcastic hit at the church than any 
 Fox had made. Burke frankly avowed that, ten 
 
 years earlier, he would have been inclined to 
 
 support Fox’s motion; but the example of the 
 French revolutionists, filling his mind with horror, 
 had convinced him that the English Church ought 
 
 not now to be tampered with, however much he | 
 
 might object to the existing tests. He quoted from 
 
 the proceedings of certain bodies of dissenters, and — 4 
 from the publications of Dr. Priestley, Mr. Palmer, | 
 Mr. Robinson, and others, to support his assertion | 
 
 that the dissenters held views inimical to the safety 
 
 of the Established Church, and to the loyalty due me 
 
 to the throne. He confessed, at the same time, 
 his disapproval of the existing test, and should 
 
 be glad to propose the substitution of another, — 
 the draft of which he had in his pocket, if the | 
 
 House would grant him a committee to examine 
 
 into the conduct of the dissenters, and the 
 
Guar. IX.] 
 
 doctrines respecting the Established Church which 
 they had recently avowed; if the statements he 
 had made as to that conduct and those doctrines 
 should upon investigation turn out to be un- 
 founded, he would hold himself bound to vote 
 for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. 
 Mr. Fox, in reply to Burke, expressed his grief 
 and astonishment that his friend should have so 
 widely departed from the principles they once 
 held in common. He remarked with cutting 
 sarcasm that “Though he was indebted to his 
 right honourable friend for the greatest share of 
 the political knowledge he possessed ; though his 
 political education had been formed under him, 
 and his principles governed by his instructions ; 
 yet, mystified as he had been by his (Burke's) 
 speech of that evening, he had nevertheless 
 received this consolation from it—that every prin- 
 ciple which he had laid down had been avowed 
 by his right honourable friend in the course of his 
 speech.” The course of the debate showed that 
 Burke’s views were more largely shared by the 
 House than those of Fox ; member after member 
 rose, not so much to defend the Corporation and 
 Test Acts as to deprecate any large changes while 
 the public mind was agitated by French affairs ; 
 they regarded the movement as a part of the 
 warfare about to be waged against whatever their 
 patriotism or their prejudices held dearest and 
 most sacred—as a prelude to other attacks, which 
 ‘would be less easily repelled if this should suc- 
 ceed. These considerations, swaying the minds of 
 moderate members, led to a very decided rejection 
 of Fox’s motion: the numbers being yeas 105, 
 noes 294. 
 
 No further attempt was made during a long 
 course of years to disturb the operation, in Lngland, 
 of the Corporation and Test Acts; but the Scotch 
 made a separate claim to relief from these tram- 
 mels. When the new parliament met in November, 
 1790, the General Assembly of Scotland petitioned 
 on that subject ; and on the 10th of May, 1791, Sir 
 Gilbert Elliot moved the appointment of a com- 
 mittee of inquiry. He contended that whatever 
 might be urged for the relief of English dissenters 
 from the obligations of those statutes, could fairly 
 be extended so as to include the Scotch Church 
 also. It was admitted, however, in the course of 
 the debate, that the Scotch did not care much 
 about the matter; a period of eighty-five years 
 had elapsed since the Union, during which there 
 had always existed a doubt whether those acts did 
 really apply to natives of Scotland: even the 
 General Assembly had only decided by a majority 
 of one to make a movement in the matter. Sir 
 Gilbert Elliot based his argument on the ground 
 that the terms of Union between the two countries 
 did not justify the extension to Scots of the oper- 
 ations of those acts ; and in this he was supported 
 by Fox, Pulteney, Anstruther, Sir Adam Fergusson, 
 and Colonel Macleod. Fox contended that, whether 
 or not the obligation extended to Scotchmen, it did 
 not apply to Scotland: it was only in force on 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815, 
 
 753 
 
 English soil; and then he exposed its absurdity, 
 “If a man to the north of the Tweed accepted 
 an imperial office, he was not to communicate with 
 the church by law established there; but if he 
 accepted office on the other side of the Tweed, he 
 was required to do so. under heavy pains and 
 penalties. There was no law to prevent the king 
 from residing in Scotland. Suppose he were to do 
 so, he might appoint all his officers of state without 
 any one of them being obliged to qualify according 
 to the Test Act, and let in all the imaginary 
 dangers to church and state against which it was 
 held up as the impregnable barrier. A person 
 receiving his majesty’s orders to raise a regiment 
 in Scotland, might there appoint all his officers 
 without any test; but the moment they came 
 into England they must take the test within a 
 time limited, or incur the penalty of outlawry.” 
 The motion met with a powerful resistance 
 from Henry Dundas, Secretary-at-war, who con- 
 tended that his countrymen had all along known, 
 and tacitly admitted, that whenever they crossed 
 the border from Scotland into England, they 
 came within the operation of the Corporation 
 and Test Acts; and that it would be unfair for 
 them to claim an exemption now. Pitt asserted 
 still more strongly than Dundas that the Scotch 
 at the Union virtually agreed to be bound, 
 when in England, by the terms of the statutes 
 in question; and he also contended that the 
 grievance, at anyrate, was wholly imaginary; 
 since the members of the Church of Scotland had 
 no objection to hold sacramental communication 
 with the Church of England—the objections being 
 mostly from dissenters from both churches. In 
 this assertion Pitt certainly went beyond the truth; 
 for the two churches did decidedly disapprove, 
 each of the other’s practice, in relation to the 
 communion. The House took less interest in this 
 debate than in the former; for the numbers were 
 yeas 62, noes 149, 
 
 _ The relations ‘between the Roman Catholics and 
 the Protestants at this time assumed a somewhat 
 peculiar form, by the establishment of a body 
 calling themselves Protesting Roman Catholics. 
 The word Papist having become very odious in 
 England, many Roman Catholics sought to show 
 that they might be good members of their church, 
 and yet not enslaved to papistical, or what in 
 more recent days would be called wltramontane 
 dogmas. They declared their non-adherence to 
 the doctrines, assumed to be held by the Church 
 of Rome, that princes excommunicated by the 
 pope might be justifiably deposed or murdered 
 by their subjects; that no faith was to be kept 
 with heretics; and that ecclesiastical absolution 
 had the power to dissolve obligation. Mr. Mitford, 
 afterwards Lord Redesdale, brought in a bill, 
 on the 2lst of February, 1791, “to relieve, upon 
 conditions and under restrictions, persons called 
 Protesting Catholic Dissenters, from certain penal- 
 ties and disabilities to which Papists, or persons 
 professing the popish religion; are by law subject.” 
 
 2v 
 
In opening his subject, he drew attention to the 
 fact that no less than seventy pages of ‘ Burn’s 
 Ecclesiastical Law’ were occupied with an enumer- 
 ation of the penal statutes in force against Roman 
 Catholics. The object of the bill was to lessen 
 the number, and soften the severity, of these 
 restrictions, Nine years before this date, namely, 
 in 1782, the Irish parliament had passed two acts 
 which, on condition of their taking a new oath, 
 relieved the Catholics of that country from many 
 disabilities under which they groaned. The 
 restrictions removed, few compared with the total 
 number, suffice to show what must have been the 
 social position of Irish Catholics in those days, 
 They were obliged to testify when and how 
 often they heard mass; they were forbidden to 
 own horses of the value of 5/.; they were com- 
 pelled, if chosen as watchmen, to provide Protest- 
 ant watchmen in their stead; they were forbidden 
 to inhabit Limerick or Galway; they were not 
 allowed to keep schools; they could not be legal 
 guardians to their own children—these were only 
 a small number, which may serve as samples 
 of the rest. The acts of 1782, above adverted to 
 (21 and 22 Geo, III. c. 24 and c. 32), gave relief 
 on many of these points to those Roman Catholics 
 who were willing to take an oath to abjure the 
 opinions that it is lawful to murder any person on 
 pretence of his being a heretic—that no faith is to 
 be kept with heretics—that princes, when excom- 
 municated, may be deposed or murdered; and 
 who would make an affirmation touching the non- 
 possession, by the pope or any other foreign power, 
 of any temporal or civil jurisdiction within this 
 realm. These two statutes had been passed in 
 Ireland through the combined influence of enthu- 
 siasm on the one side and fear on the other; but 
 a third reform measure, for permitting marriages 
 between Protestants and Catholics, was thrown out. 
 When Mr. Mitford brought forward his bill in the 
 English House of Commons, in the year now 
 under notice, he adverted to the changes already 
 made in Ireland, and claimed something analogous 
 for the Catholics of the dominant country. His 
 bill repealed or modified numerous repressive 
 statutes, dated from the time of Elizabeth to that 
 of William and Mary: having for its object to 
 improve in many ways the social position of those 
 English Catholics who were willing to take the 
 proposed non-papistical oath. The House discussed 
 the bill in committee on the Ist of March (in 
 conformity with a standing order to the effect that 
 all bills affecting religious matters must be dis- 
 cussed in a committee of the whole House before 
 being read a first time). Mitford stated that he 
 was in favour of a larger measure; but that he 
 had yielded much, in the hope of securing the rest, 
 Fox contended with great vehemence that the 
 Catholics demanded and deserved a more extensive 
 scheme of emancipation. Burke, who spoke at 
 considerable length, allowed that the doctrines 
 asserted by his right honourable friend, though he 
 could not subscribe to all of them, did the highest 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ‘than to attempt curing them all at once. 
 showed himself disposed to accept not only the 
 
 honour to his head and heart. But for himself, he 
 held that the way to obtain any desired end was 
 to accept a little of what was wanted when more 
 was not attainable; and also that the surest mode 
 of remedying grievances was to proceed with 
 moderation, and do away a little at a time, rather 
 Pitt 
 
 proposed measure of reform, but even something 
 more, in justice to all Catholics whether papistical 
 or not. “It is certainly my wish that either in 
 this bill or in some other which might be brought 
 in during the present session, many of the statutes 
 to which the right honourable gentleman opposite 
 has alluded should be repealed; and amongst 
 them, all those harsh and severe laws which 
 certainly ought not to stand on the statute-book, 
 and which it would be shameful to enforce against 
 the Roman Catholics or any other description of 
 dissenters, for the offences there alleged as punish- 
 able in so extraordinary a manner. It would 
 be proper to repeal those statutes if the present 
 bill, or any measure of the kind, passed ; because, 
 in that case, if relief of the nature proposed was 
 granted to one description of Roman Catholics, and 
 the statutes to which I have alluded were suffered 
 to remain unrepealed, it would have something 
 like the effect of re-enacting them; as it would 
 appear that the legislature, apprised as it had 
 been of their existence, thought that the other 
 description of Roman Catholics merited to have 
 such disgraceful statutes remain in force against 
 them.” There being a general opinion that the 
 subject was ripe for legislation, the committee 
 permitted the bill to be brought in. During 
 the progress of the measure through the Com- 
 mons, an important clause was withdrawn, not 
 because the leading members disapproved of it, 
 but because Pitt thought it would endanger the 
 reception of the bill in the Upper House; it 
 
 was to the effect that any Roman Catholic who 
 
 took the oath might present to church livings, 
 Fox argued, in defence of this clause, that it 
 
 would place the Church of England in no greater — 
 
 danger than that in which the Church of Scotland 
 was placed by the right of the king (himself 
 bound to be a member of the English Church) 
 to present to livings in it. 
 discussed on the second reading in the House of 
 Lords, Bishop Horsley condemned the terms of 
 
 the proposed oath as favouring one portion of the 
 Roman Catholics at the expense of the rest. Many 
 
 Catholics, mid-way between the ultra-papists and 
 
 the so-called Protesting Catholics, were ready to 
 
 swear allegiance to the king, to abjure the 
 Pretender, and to renounce both the pope’s civil: 
 authority and every other obnoxious doctrine 
 specified in the oath; but they objected to the 
 epithets “ impious, unchristian, and damnable,” 
 applied to doctrines which, however unbelieved 
 now, were fully accepted in earlier ages of the 
 church, A self-appointed Catholic committee had 
 
 OO eT 
 
 When the bill was | 
 
 framed the oath, to win the assent of parliament; 
 
Cuap. IX.] _ 
 
 but they had so framed it as to irritate the majority 
 of their co-religionists. “Three of the four Roman 
 Catholic bishops,” said he, “who call themselves 
 the apostolical vicars for the four districts of this 
 country, have promulgated an encyclical letter, in 
 which they reprobate the oath as it stands in the 
 present bill; and they go further—they advance 
 this principle, that a conscientious Catholic ought 
 not to take any oath declaratory of any opinion 
 upon doctrinal points till it has received the 
 approbation of his ecclesiastical superiors. The 
 gentlemen of the Catholic committee exclaim 
 against this as an extravagant stretch of authority.” 
 Seeing that the bill would please only a small 
 number of Catholics, and would offend the rest 
 more than if nothing was attempted ; seeing, more- 
 over, that it would be almost impossible to frame 
 an oath palatable to all parties—the bishop pro- 
 posed the withdrawal of the bill. The general 
 opinion of the House, however, was in its favour; 
 scarcely any peer directly opposed it, while many 
 contended for its usefulness. When the House 
 went into committee on the 3rd of June, Bishop 
 Horsley proposed, instead of the much-canvassed 
 oath, the substitution of that contained in the 
 Irish acts of 1782; this was agreed to with a 
 slight modification; and, thus amended, the bill 
 was passed into a law without further opposition, 
 The act, however, still allowed the doors of the 
 Houses of Lords and Commons, and the chief 
 offices of government, to remain shut against the 
 Roman Catholics; Catholic schoolmasters were 
 still prevented from receiving the children of 
 Protestant parents ; and from keeping any schools 
 whatever in Oxford or Cambridge. 
 
 The session of 1792 was distinguished by the 
 passing of a bill for the relief of “the pastors, 
 ministers, and lay persons of the Episcopal com- 
 munion in Scotland.” Ever since the Revolution 
 of 1688, the Scottish Episcopalians had been 
 regarded by the law as a body hostile to the 
 established government, and had themselves in 
 general maintained an attitude of alienation 
 from the new order of things. A leniency towards 
 the members of that church was shown in an 
 act passed in 1712; but the conduct of the clergy 
 during the rebellion of 1745—especially that they 
 did not, “in express words, during the exercise of 
 divine service, pray for his majesty and the royal 
 family ”—led to the passing of an act in 1746, 
 which pressed severely on their religious and civil 
 liberties. The Scottish Episcopalian ministers 
 were, by this statute, compelled to register their 
 meeting-houses ; to take an oath to the king; to 
 produce certificates of having taken the oath; to 
 pray for his majesty and the royal family by name, 
 at all their meetings for divine service; and to 
 obtain letters of orders from some bishop of the 
 Church of England or of Ireland. The terms of 
 the statute, literally interpreted, struck at the 
 very existence of the Scottish Episcopalians as 
 an independent religious body. When the Pre- 
 tender died in 1788, they gave up their old 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 755 
 
 Jacobite predilections; and most of them pro- 
 ceeded to pray for King George, Under these cir- 
 cumstances a measure of relief was introduced in 
 the House of Lords by the Earl of Elgin. The 
 principal point during the debate on the second 
 reading, on the 2nd of May, was the merit or 
 demerit of the old law which required a Scottish 
 Episcopal clergyman to obtain orders from some 
 bishop of the English or Irish Church, Chancellor 
 Thurlow contended that some such provision was 
 necessary, as a test that the doctrines taught were 
 consistent with Christianity ; but he was admirably 
 answered by Viscount Stormont and Bishop 
 Horsley, The bishop, in a large and liberal spirit, 
 said: “The credit of Episcopacy will never be 
 advanced by the scheme of supplying the Episco- 
 palian congregations in Scotland with pastors of 
 our ordination ; and for this reason—that it would 
 be an imperfect, crippled Episcopacy that would 
 be thus upheld in Scotland. When. a clergyman 
 ordained by one of us settles as a pastor of a con- 
 gregation in Scotland, he is out of the reach of our 
 authority ; we have no authority there; we can 
 have no authority there; the legislature can give 
 us no authority there. The.attempt to introduce 
 anything of an authorised Episcopacy in Scotland 
 would be a direct infringement of the Union. My 
 lords, as to the notion that clergymen. should be 
 originally ordained by us to the ministry in Scot- 
 land, the thing would be contrary to all rule and 
 order. No bishop who knows what he does, 
 ordains without a title; and a title must be a 
 nomination to something certain in the diocese of 
 the bishop that ordains. My lords, an appoint- 
 ment to an Episcopal congregation in Scotland is 
 no more a title to me, to any bishop of the English 
 bench, or any bishop of the Irish bench, than an 
 appointment to a church in Mesopotamia.” The 
 arguments of Viscount Stormont tended towards 
 the same end: “ If Episcopalian pastors were men 
 of conscience, they could not submit to a second 
 ordination ; and if they did, how would they stand 
 in the eyes of their congregations? The latter 
 would have to say: ‘ You have passed upon us for 
 twenty or thirty years for what you are not; you 
 have preached to us, and we have listened to you; 
 but we now at last find that before this time you 
 never were duly qualified” And, even if the 
 Episcopalian pastors were to apply to a bishop of 
 England or Ireland, where would they get a title ?” 
 The measure, which passed both Houses without 
 any further discussion, speedily produced a con- 
 siderable addition—especially among the higher 
 classes of society—to the numbers of the Scottish 
 Episcopalians, 
 
 Another attempt was made in the same session 
 to lessen the severity of the laws in religious 
 matters ; especially the act 9 and 10 Will. c. 32, 
 levelled against the Unitarians, Four Unitarians 
 had been burnt to death for their doctrines before 
 1641; and although direct persecution had long 
 ceased, the members of that body were still treated 
 with great opprobrium and-contempt. Dr. South 
 
756 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 had professed to trace their pedigree from wretch 
 to wretch, back to Satan himself; Dr. Horsley had 
 contended that even their moral good was sin; and 
 Dr. Halifax had stated that Priestley in avowing 
 his opinions had completed his crimes, Mr. Fox, 
 on the 11th of May, brought these intolerances 
 under the notice of the House, and asked for the 
 removal of statutes that countenanced such injus- 
 tice. The bill which he proposed to bring in 
 affected these laws against Unitarians, laws against 
 Catholics, and the marriage laws. Burke, now no 
 longer his friend and associate, either politically 
 or personally, opposed Fox in all points. He 
 scouted the idea of governing a nation on abstract 
 principles, howeyer beautiful they might appear 
 on paper. “A statesman differs from a professor 
 in a university: the latter has only the general 
 view of society ; the former has a number of cir- 
 cumstances to combine with those general ideas, 
 and to take into his consideration, Circumstances 
 are infinite, are infinitely combined, are variable 
 and transient; he who does not take them into 
 consideration is, not erroneous, but stark mad— 
 ‘dat operam ut cum ratione insaniat’—he is 
 metaphysically mad. A statesman, never losing 
 sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances ; 
 and, judging contrary to the exigencies of the 
 moment, he may ruin his country for ever.” Burke 
 intended his logic to apply in this way—that while 
 freedom of religious opinion is a sound principle, 
 it does not necessarily follow that the open expres- 
 sion of those opinions can always with safety be 
 allowed. He declared he had much suspicion of 
 these Unitarians, believing that they were in 
 reality only a political faction; that the main 
 purpose of their association, and of their eager 
 proselytising, was to collect a multitude sufficient 
 by force and violence to overturn the Established 
 Church; that their designs against the church 
 were concurrent with a design to subvert the 
 state ; that the model on which they desired to 
 reconstruct the political edifice in this country 
 was the new revolutionary French model. Once 
 launched upon this topic, Burke could not 
 stop himself; he proceeded to inveigh’ against 
 the French Revolution and all that pertained 
 to it; and finally warned the House not to 
 listen to any applications in favour of the Uni- 
 tarians, lest they should have a covert meaning. 
 After the measure had been supported by Mr. W. 
 Smith, Mr. Adam, and Lord North, and opposed 
 by Mr. Mitford and Mr. Pitt, Fox rose to reply to 
 Burke. The motion, he said, certainly had nothing 
 to do with France, which it was the fashion with 
 some honourable gentlemen to drag into every 
 debate. “His opinions of the French Revolution 
 were precisely the same now as they had always 
 been. He considered that event highly advan- 
 tageous to this country and to the world in gene- 
 ral; and the right honourable gentleman knew his 
 disposition too well to suppose that any temporary 
 or accidental defeat that the French might suffer 
 in their struggle for liberty would stagger his 
 
 or 
 
 i” 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 mind with regard to their success in the result,” 
 Burke having, as he often did, quoted from Paine’s 
 ‘Age of Reason, to show the pernicious nature of 
 revolutionary principles, Fox taunted him with 
 having, in his own ‘ Reflections on the French 
 Revolution, libelled every free constitution in the 
 world. The debate having thus assumed a fierce 
 political tone, the division became unfavourable 
 to Fox: his motion being negatived by 142 
 against 63. 
 
 The next session of parliament was honourably 
 distinguished by the extension to the Roman 
 Catholics of Scotland of the same measure of relief 
 which had already been granted to those of Ireland 
 and of England, The bill by which this was 
 accomplished was introduced into the House of 
 Commons on the 23rd of April, 1793, by Mr. Robert 
 Dundas, Lord Advocate. He adverted to an oath, 
 which could not conscientiously be taken by a 
 Scotch Catholic, and yet which, if untaken, sub- 
 jected the nonjuror to forfeit his estate to his 
 nearest Protestant relation. The following instance 
 was quoted in point: “ A Roman Catholic gentle-, 
 man, as respectable and amiable in character as 
 any man in this or any other kingdom, was 
 possessed of an estate of 1000/. a year, which had 
 been in his family for at least a century and a 
 half. This gentleman, loved and respected by all 
 who knew him, was now on the point of being 
 stripped of his property by a relation, who could 
 have no other shadow of claim to it than that 
 which he might derive from this penal law, which 
 he was endeavouring rigidly to enforce. In the 
 courts as much delay as possible was thrown in 
 his way; but it was to be feared that he must 
 succeed at last, and reduce to beggary a gentleman 
 in every respect a most meritorious subject.” So 
 strongly did the injustice of such laws press on the 
 sense of the legislature and of the nation generally, 
 that the oath for the Scotch Catholics was modified 
 by a new statute (33 Geo, III. c. 4). 
 
 Sheridan was less successful in an endeavour, 
 in 1794, to obtain the removal of other disabilities 
 under which Roman Catholic subjects of the crown 
 
 still laboured. The “Emigrant Corps Bill,” passed — 
 
 a few weeks earlier, authorised the English 
 government to grant commissions to French 
 officers willing to serve the allies in the conti- 
 
 nental war; and Sheridan, on that occasion, con- | 
 
 tended that as most of these French officers would 
 
 probably be Roman Catholics, it would place | 
 
 them in a better position than Catholic gentlemen 
 born in the British dominions. The bill having 
 
 passed into a law, Sheridan determined to bring — 
 
 in a measure for removing this anomaly. He 
 observed that, by an act passed in the preceding 
 year in the Irish parliament, Roman Catholies 
 
 were permitted to serve in the army in Ireland as 
 “ Now,” he 
 continued, “supposing that any of these officers — 
 
 officers under the rank of the staff. 
 
 should be ordered upon duty to England, can any- 
 thing be more absurd and preposterous than that 
 those men should be subject to heavy penalties for 
 
 , ee SC ey oe _ 
 
Cuap. 1X.] 
 
 bearing the king’s commission, which they do in 
 strict conformity with the laws of their own 
 country ?” Unfortunately, Sheridan’s bill was not 
 so framed as to meet with the support of the 
 dissenters ; and the ministers quietly disposed of 
 it by moving the previous question. This was the 
 last attempt made during a long series of years, 
 to abrogate any part of what remained of the 
 disabilities affecting Roman Catholics. 
 
 The more strictly religious or evangelical body 
 of Christians began about this time to be very 
 active in reference to Sunday legislation. In March, 
 1794, Mr. Mainwaring brought forward a Sunday 
 bill, which dropped out of sight almost immediately. 
 In 1795, another bill was introduced, the main 
 provisions of which were to add imprisonment to 
 penalties for any violation of the Sabbath. Mr. 
 Elliot, in supporting the bill, urged that the observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath was rapidly declining. “ In 
 the present year, the building of great edifices was 
 carried on openly, and in defiance of decency, 
 on a Sunday. Another circumstance which was 
 very offensive in the eye of decorum was, the 
 great number of public wagons which travelled 
 the road on a Sunday.” ‘There were, however, 
 several points in the bill, which its opponents 
 contrived to: place in an absurd light. “ Under 
 pretence,” said Mr. Courtney, “of enforcing a 
 stricter observance of the Lord’s Day by the 
 middling and lower classes of people, it gave 
 license to another numerous set of men to break in 
 upon that observance in a manner which they 
 were restricted from by the act of Charles II. In 
 pursuance of that act, and by the common law, no 
 bailiff or sherifi’s officer could execute any writ, 
 process, or execution on a Sunday. By this act, 
 however, they were empowered to execute all such 
 processes for offences committed on that day.” Mr. 
 Michael Angelo Taylor pointed out that, by the 
 bill, “if any person were to have his hair dressed, 
 or took a boat, or rode out the next Sunday after 
 the passing of the bill, he might be punished at 
 any period of his life.’ Although supported in 
 some of its provisions by the ministers, the Dill 
 was rejected. 
 
 This same year, 1795, was marked by one of the 
 strangest subjects ever brought before the notice of 
 parliament for legislation. One, Richard Brothers, 
 who had been a lieutenant in the navy, took up 
 the profession of a prophet in 1792; and made 
 himself known in that capacity by addressing 
 letters to the king, the ministers, and the speaker 
 of the House of Commons: announcing that by 
 the command of God he should appear at the 
 parliament house five days afterwards, to intimate 
 to the members that the time was come for 
 the fulfilment of the seventh chapter of Daniel, 
 and to warn them to look after their own safety. 
 Accordingly, on the 17th of May, he presented 
 himself at the door of the House of Commons, 
 where he was rejected in a manner very 
 humbling to his prophetic dignity. Thereupon 
 he poured forth a flood of letters in print, fore- 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 757 
 
 telling disaster to all kinds of great personages; 
 and amongst other things he announced that 
 King George of England would ere long be 
 obliged to resign his crown to the prophet, 
 Richard Brothers. The government were weak 
 enough to charge this poor lunatic with high 
 treason, which was afterwards changed to a more 
 consistent inquiry into the state of his mind. He 
 had many adherents ; among others, Mr. Halhed, a 
 member of the House of Commons, and author of 
 the ‘Code of Gentoo Laws.’ On the 30th of March, 
 1795, Mr. Halhed brought the subject of Brothers’s 
 imprisonment before the notice of the House. He 
 contended that Mr. Brothers was a man of unex- 
 ceptionable character, incapable of doing or saying 
 aught unbefitting a loyal subject. Many persons 
 of quality and fortune showed by the countenance 
 they gave Mr. Brothers, that they were of the same 
 opinion. The advocate proceeded to observe that 
 the prophecy about King George was unworthy of 
 notice, because it involved impossibilities. By 
 degrees, however, it came out that Halhed himself 
 was smitten with something like prophetic madness. 
 He asserted that nearly all the prophecies made by 
 Brothers had come true; that all the pamphlets 
 written against him had been miserable failures ; 
 that Brothers ought, even now, to be admitted to 
 the bar of the House, to declare to them anything 
 he might have it in command from God to say; 
 and he wound up by announcing, “I have taken 
 the liberty to bring with me a complete copy of 
 Mr. Brothers’s works, which I have had-bound for 
 my own use, and in which I have inserted, with 
 my own hands, a very great number of notes, 
 elucidations, and similar passages from the Scrip- 
 tures. ... I beg leave to observe, that if my 
 motion for laying the book on your table be 
 granted, I shall then move that it be printed for 
 the use of the members.” The House, startled by 
 this extravagance, of course took no further notice 
 of the matter. But Halhed was not to be thus 
 baffled. On the 21st of April, he demanded that 
 the prophet should receive substantial redress for 
 the incarceration and other indignities to which 
 he had been subjected; he declared that Brothers 
 had no more idea of high treason than he 
 (Halhed) had; he contended that the prophet’s 
 books exhibited as little insanity as treason; and 
 he implored the members to read those books, 
 instead of persecuting the author of them. Halhed 
 first disposed of the treasonable charge. Brothers’s 
 manifesto respecting the king had been in this 
 form: “The Lord God commands me to say to 
 you, George the Third, King of England, that, 
 immediately on my being revealed in London to 
 the Hebrews as their prince, and to all nations as 
 their governor, your crown must be delivered up 
 to me, that all your power and authority may 
 cease.” Now Halhed contended that as all this 
 involved impossibilities, there could be no treason. 
 “ What has Mr. Brothers said? He has said that 
 he shall be revealed to the people of London by a 
 sign similar to that of Moses—namely, turning a 
 
common hazel-stick into a serpent, and reconvert- 
 ing it into a rod—a fact full as impossible to all 
 human comprehension as my flying from St. Paul’s 
 to Westminster Abbey ; and that he shall then be 
 visibly accompanied by an angel in the form of 
 fire; after which the king must do so and s0. 
 The whole, therefore, depends on the previous 
 performance of a fact which, certainly, no one 
 member of administration deems within the verge 
 of possibility.” It was a disordered brain, not 
 a bad heart, that was concerned in the matter. 
 As before, no one supported Halhed; and his 
 motion accordingly fell to the ground. Halhed 
 shortly retired from the uncongenial atmosphere 
 of the House of Commons ; but he and his master, 
 Brothers, worked ardently at their prophecies for 
 many years. Brothers announced that London 
 would be swallowed up by an earthquake; and 
 he also predicted that the Jews would be restored 
 to’ the promised land, with himself as their king 
 and leader. Many believed about the earthquake ; 
 and many showed their belief in the Jewish 
 restoration by selling all they possessed, with the 
 view of going to settle in the Holy Land as a 
 prospective flourishing kingdom; but when the 
 assigned dates passed without the fulfilment of 
 either prophecy, Brothers sank rapidly in popular 
 fame. This remarkable episode may suffice as a 
 sample of the religious delusion and fanaticism of 
 the period, always an important part of the history 
 of religion. The London earthquake, whether 
 predicted by crack-brained enthusiasts, or by 
 crafty knaves, has been a favourite catastrophe 
 among the English prophets of modern times; and 
 nothing seems to answer better—unless if be a 
 world-destroying comet—in producing the sort of 
 excitement profitable to the foretellers. 
 
 Advancing now to the year 1796, we find that 
 the religious history of the period received an 
 illustration connected with the social position of 
 the Quakers. That singular body did not object 
 strongly to the seizure of their goods for the 
 payment of tithes, according to the act 7 & 8 
 Will. III. ; but they complained bitterly of their 
 liability to action and imprisonment if the amount 
 of tithes exceeded 10/.; and after the presentation 
 of a petition from them, praying for relief, Mr. 
 Serjeant Adair, on the 26th of April, moved for 
 leave to bring in a bill, declaring that distraint 
 of goods should apply whether the amount of 
 tithe were over or under that limit; and also 
 declaring, that the solemn affirmation of a Quaker 
 should be evidence in criminal cases, in the same 
 way as it already was in civil cases. Wilberforce, 
 Pitt, and Sir William Dolben, all spoke favourably 
 of the bill; and leave was given to introduce it. 
 When discussed in committee on the 10th of May, 
 Mr. Francis objected to some of the provisions, on 
 the ground that the scruples of conscience, on 
 which the measure professed to be founded, “did 
 not proceed from the individuals themselves, but 
 from the operation of a higher power, which, at 
 the yearly meeting, prescribed rules and orders in 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the manner of a government, and excommunicated 
 the persons who did not obey them.” The measure 
 was passed in the Commons, but thrown out in 
 
 the Lords. It was, nevertheless, the first subject 
 brought forward in the new parliament, which 
 assembled in October of the same year. A bill, 
 proposed as before by Mr. Serjeant Adair, and 
 seconded by Mr. Abbott (afterwards Speaker), was 
 read a first and second time before the end of the 
 year. Adair, in bringing it again forward, said: 
 “The Quakers did not object to the payment of 
 tithes, provided they were not made active in their 
 obedience to the law by which tithes were claimed 
 of them; but their scruples of conscience led them 
 to think it a breach of the divine law for them to 
 be active in their obedience to a civil institution 
 which they considered as repugnant to divine 
 authority; and as our law now stood, the process 
 might be such as to compel them to be thus 
 active against their conscience; they, therefore, 
 were subject to perpetual imprisonment when an 
 attachment was issued against their persons for 
 the non-payment of tithes.” Although the first 
 and second reading were agreed to, yet, when 
 the order of the day for going into committee 
 was read, on the 24th of February, 1797, a formid- 
 able attack on the measure was made by Sir 
 William Scott (afterwards Lord Stowel). As for 
 the actual sufferings of the Quakers from the 
 existing law, he maintained that they were of 
 the most insignificant amount; there had been 
 very few prosecutions against them for tithes, 
 either in the ecclesiastical courts or in the Court 
 of Exchequer. Mr. Burton corroborated this 
 latter statement by saying: “In the last twenty- 
 two years only three suits against Quakers, and 
 since the time of Queen Anne only seven suits, 
 had gone so far as a hearing ;” and he hinted that 
 certain Quakers who had been imprisoned at 
 York might easily have obtained their liberty, “if 
 they had not chosen, perhaps for the purposes of 
 this bill, and probably with sufficient recompense 
 from their brethren, to remain there under the 
 character of martyrs.” Some of the opposition to 
 the Quakers was of a ridiculous character. Mr. 
 Fraser, for instance, said: “The Quakers were a 
 body who evinced the utmost obstinacy and 
 inveteracy in opposition to the laws. They never 
 went to law, but had a mode of deciding their own 
 disputes without any application to courts of 
 justice’—thus charging as a fault that which, in 
 
 a country where justice is slow and costly, is rather 
 
 a mark of sound common sense. 
 
 that he had at first been favourable to the bill, — 
 
 but that his sentiments had undergone a change | 
 
 during the discussion. 
 
 The Sabbath-observance party made another | 
 attempt, in 1799, to increase the stringency of legis-— 
 
 lation for Sunday usages. Lord Belgrave, on the 
 
 27th of May, obtained leave to bring in a bill — 
 
 { 
 
 de} * 
 
 The bill lost | | 
 favour as it advanced, and was finally thrown out. | 
 Sir John Scott, the attorney-general (brother to 
 Sir William, and afterwards Lord Eldon), stated — 
 
 Z 
 
Cuap. [X.] 
 
 “for suppressing the sale and circulation of news- 
 papers on the Lord’s Day.” Sunday newspapers 
 had been introduced in 1780; but the ‘Observer,’ 
 several years afterwards, was the first to com- 
 mand a large sale; and another advertised, called 
 the ‘ Volunteer, had excited the alarm of serious 
 people. The penalty for selling a newspaper on 
 a Sunday was already 5s.; Lord Belgrave pro- 
 posed to increase it to 40s. for each copy, or to 
 201, for the whole of one day’s issue; besides 
 which, he proposed to make the circulation of 
 such newspapers a breach of the peace, subjecting 
 the offender to committal by any magistrate, 
 peace-officer, or churchwarden. It came out, in 
 the course of the debate, that the editors of the 
 Sunday newspapers sought to recommend them 
 to their readers by giving a religious tone to the 
 leading articles. Lord Belgrave found fault with 
 this: “It had been pleaded, in extenuation, that 
 the Sunday papers contained sermons, &c.; but 
 so far from this being a recommendation, he 
 considered if as an evil, inasmuch as it induced 
 people to neglect going to church;” and Mr. 
 Windham observed, on the same side: “ Addison, 
 in the ‘ Spectator,’ selected in his Saturday papers 
 subjects of morality and religion; so did the 
 editors in their Sunday papers; but he could not 
 give the latter credit for their motives: this he 
 considered as a mere selfish plan of theirs, 
 introduced till such time as they found their 
 papers were tolerated and better established.” 
 The bill, nevertheless, was rejected on the second 
 reading, by 40 against 26. 
 
 The year 1800 was marked by an extremely 
 interesting course of debates concerning the exist- 
 ence of monastic and conventual institutions in 
 England. On the 22nd of May, Sir Henry Mildmay 
 drew attention to the spread of such institutions, 
 consequent on the residence in this country of so 
 large a number of emigrants from France. He 
 admitted that these unfortunate persons had gener- 
 ally justified the protection they had received by 
 their peaceful demeanour and unobtrusive grati- 
 tude ; nevertheless, it was impossible to overlook 
 the effect of this immigration in encouraging 
 the establishment of monasteries and nunneries, 
 so many of the exiles being Roman Catholics. 
 He adduced instances of the admission of new 
 members that had come under his own notice at 
 Winchester and elsewhere; and he argued that 
 unless the system were checked, parliament might 
 in time find that, by voting money for the subsist- 
 ence of the emigrants, it had made itself a party 
 to the revival of what seemed to Protestants the 
 most unnatural part of the Romish faith. He 
 stated also that Roman Catholic schools had been 
 established in connection with those monasteries 
 and nunneries, and that proselytising had been 
 attempted among the Protestant children in the 
 neighbourhood. To meet these impending evils, he 
 moved two resolutions :—1, “That it is the opinion 
 of this committee, that the temporary residence in 
 this kingdom of certain monastic societies should 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 759 
 
 be permitted, subject to the provisions of an act 
 passed in the 81st of his present majesty (the 
 Roman Catholic relief act of 1791); and that the 
 admission of any new members into such societies 
 should be prohibited; and that the names and 
 numbers of the persons belonging thereto should 
 be annually returned to the Court of Quarter 
 Sessions of the county in which they reside. 
 2. That all persons undertaking the public educa- 
 tion of youth in the Romish faith should also 
 return annually to the court a list containing the 
 names and number of their pupils, together with 
 the names and places of abode of their respective 
 parents; and that a power be given to magis- 
 trates appointed by the Quarter Sessions to 
 inspect such institutions at pleasure.” <A _ bill 
 founded on these resolutions being brought in 
 on the Sth of June, a discussion followed, 
 during which Mr. Windham objected to the tone 
 adopted in speaking of monastic establishments, 
 “He could not see why monks were to be con- 
 sidered worse than the gentlemen of that house 
 who lived on their estates without labour. Might 
 not a society of ancient ladies be as usefully 
 employed in a convent as if they were distributed 
 in parties at different card-tables?.... As to 
 the alarm about converts, he could only say that 
 the church must increase its diligence, if it had 
 relaxed it. The divines of the Established Church 
 should feed their flocks with spiritual food, and 
 thus enable them to withstand the poison of delu- 
 sion. Instead of this, they are too fond of raising 
 the cry that the church is in danger. If prose- 
 lytism exists, it is a disgrace only to the clergyman 
 in whose parish it takes place. What, if they do 
 their duty, can members of the Church of England 
 fear? They meet their antagonists on more than 
 equal terms.” Windham, noble and generous in 
 his nature, though not a profound thinker, was 
 permitted to say things in the Commons which 
 would have given offence from other men; and 
 his ,observations on this subject told upon the 
 house. Sir Henry Mildmay, in combating Wind- 
 ham’s views, insisted that the conduct of the 
 monastic bodies required to be closely watched. 
 “Can it be expected,” he asked, “that we are to 
 sit still, and tamely see the constitution of this 
 country undermined by a set of men whom we 
 have received here from motives of compassion, 
 and to take no steps to prevent it?” Mr. (after- 
 wards Sir Benjamin) Hobhouse opposed the 
 measure in a speech useful for the information 
 it gave. In regard to the foreign monastic estab- 
 lishments that had been transferred to this country, 
 and the schools or seminaries connected with 
 them, he said: “The societies of English ladies 
 who were bound by religious vows abroad, and 
 who have resided in this country since 1794, 
 consisted of seventeen in number, and contained, 
 in the whole, rather more than 200 persons, includ- 
 ing a few French or Flemish servants. Those 
 
 ladies were, for the most part, sprung from some 
 of the most respectable families in the kingdom. 
 
760 
 
 The societies of foreign ladies were four in number, 
 and consisted of about fifty individuals. Of male 
 societies there were only four, three of which were 
 entirely composed of English from Douay and 
 Bornhem. With respect to the French emigrant 
 clergy, probably not 500, out of the 5000 now in 
 England, belonged to any religious order.” He 
 proceeded to state that the numbers belonging to 
 monastic institutions in England had diminished 
 rather than increased since 1794; that as the 
 revolutionists had taken their houses and moy- 
 ables, and as the Emperor of Austria had meanly 
 seized their funds lodged in the Bank of Vienna, 
 the poor emigrants were utterly dependent on 
 English bounty ; that some of them had opened 
 schools, to eke out a scanty subsistence ; and that, 
 as a rule, no attempt was made at those schools to 
 inveigle Protestant children for the sake of pro- 
 selytism. Sheridan, in a vehement opposition to 
 the bill, spoke of a rumour among the alarmists 
 that the emigrant clergy had converted 2000 
 housemaids in one county alone; but he sarcas- 
 tically observed that as the emigrants spoke little 
 English, and the housemaids no French, it is 
 difficult to imagine how the conversion was 
 managed. “Nothing,” he urged, in relation to 
 the tenor of the proposed measure, “could be 
 more inauspicious than such a bill at this time, 
 when we were on the point of a union with a 
 country (Ireland) three-fourths of whose inhabit- 
 ants were Catholics. This bill is not worthy of 
 being, as it were, the legacy of the last English 
 parliament to its successors. It is hurtful to the 
 feelings of the Catholics, incompatible with our 
 professions of liberality, not countenanced by the 
 spirit of our constitution, and possibly introductory 
 of great public mischief as well as private vexa- 
 tion.” After a few speeches from Scott, Erskine, 
 Percival, and others, the bill passed through the 
 House of Commons. In the Lords, the first and 
 second reading passed without opposition ; but on 
 the motion for committing it, Bishop Horsley, now 
 transferred to the see of Rochester, attacked the 
 bill with considerable power and ingenuity. “The 
 measure is unnecessary,’ he contended, “as a 
 means of security against the dangers it foresees, 
 not because the apprehension is altogether ground- 
 less, but because the security is already provided by 
 the existing laws ; and in regard to the new power 
 which it would give to the crown, it is perfectly 
 unconstitutional.’ He proceeded to argue that the 
 existing laws made no distinction, in effect, between 
 English and foreign Catholics; that the proposed 
 measure would not really be a safeguard against 
 any serious evils; that the monks and nuns among 
 the emigrants in England were few in number, 
 and mostly English by birth; that most of them 
 had qualified themselves to be teachers of youth, 
 according to the statute of the 3lst Geo. III. ; that 
 the spread of monastic institutions need not be 
 feared, because the law already declared the for- 
 feiture to the crown of any estates or moneys given 
 or bequeathed to such establishments; and, as he 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 pointedly observed, “there is little danger that 
 any monastic society, without funds of any sort for 
 its subsistence, will be of long duration.” The 
 bishop proceeded to express his belief that the 
 Catholic authorities would not encourage a system 
 of proselytising, knowing it to be an illegal pro- 
 cedure that would bring the Catholic emigrants 
 into trouble. In reference to the Catholic schools, 
 he said; “My lords, I for my part am well pleased 
 that the Roman Catholics of this country are at 
 last furnished with the means of education for 
 their sons and daughters within the kingdom. It 
 was a cruel and a weak policy to compel the 
 Roman Catholics to send their children abroad 
 for that liberal education which they could. not 
 receive at home; and I believe your lordships 
 will agree with me that a Roman Catholic educa- 
 tion at home is a much better thing than a Roman 
 Catholic education in a foreign country. For this 
 reason, I rejoice at the institution of respectable 
 Roman Catholic schools in different parts of the 
 kingdom.” Concerning the monasteries and nun- 
 neries in England, Horsley stated that the former 
 comprised Benedictines at Acton-Burnell, Bene- 
 dictines at Vernon Hall, Franciscans at North- 
 allerton, Dominicans at Carshalton, Trappists at 
 Wareham, and Carthusians near Wardour Castle ; 
 and that the total number of monks and friars in 
 all these houses was only 36. The nuns, 360 in 
 number, were distributed in twenty-two convents. 
 Four houses of French nuns were mentioned by 
 name—the Bernardine Dames, from the Abbey 
 Desprez at Douay, settled at Pentonville; the 
 ladies of the order of St. Francis de Sales, settled 
 near Little Chelsea; the Benedictine Dames of 
 Montargis, at Bodney Hall in Norfolk; and the 
 Hospitalieres of Cambray, near Ilford in Essex. 
 In relation to these nuns the good bishop said: 
 “My lords, if any ten or twenty or a larger number 
 of these ladies should choose to take a great house, 
 where they may live together as they have been 
 used to do all their lives, and lead their lives 
 according to their old habits—getting up in the 
 morning and retiring at night at stated hours, 
 dining upon fish on some days of the week, upon 
 eggs on others—I protest I can discover no crime, 
 no harm, no danger in all this; and I cannot 
 imagine why we should be anxious to prevent it.” 
 Bishop Horsley’s speech produced so great an 
 effect that, notwithstanding a few arguments on 
 
 the other side by Lord Chancellor Loughborough | 
 and the Bishop of Winchester, the House of Lords — 
 overruled the decision of the Commons, by rejecting — 
 
 the bill without a division. 
 
 The passage from the eighteenth to the nine- | 
 teenth century was conveniently marked, so far as | 
 concerns religious matters, by the union between — 
 Great Britain and Ireland; and many, if not | 
 most, of the acts of legislation thenceforth became 
 
 Imperial instead of simply British. One of the 
 earliest questions brought before the united parlia- 
 
 ment was the eligibility of persons in holy orders | 
 
 to sit in the House of Commons. 
 
 The celebrated — 
 
Cuap. IX. ] 
 
 Rey. John Horne Tooke was chosen member for 
 Old Sarum, on the nomination of Lord Camelford ; 
 he took the oaths and his seat on the 2nd of 
 February, 1801; but Earl Temple immediately 
 gave notice of a motion affecting that proceeding. 
 A curious complication of party interests arose in 
 connection with this subject. Horne Tooke, long 
 distinguished as an ardent reformer, both in 
 politics and in philolegy, did not scruple to enter 
 the House of Commons as the nominee of a 
 peer, and to sit as a representative without a 
 constituency. This done, he began to show symp- 
 toms of purchasing ministerial countenance, by 
 aiding the government in some of their measures, 
 and by protesting that he had never been a reck- 
 less reformer. “ I am supposed,’ he remarked on 
 the 2nd of March, “to be a great friend to innova- 
 tions of every kind; I have been represented as 
 an innovator, but I do not deserve that title. .... 
 I look to what is established, and approve of 
 it; not because it is the best, but because it is 
 established.’ On the other hand, Earl Temple, 
 formerly a steady adherent of Pitt, had passed 
 over to the Whig camp on the formation of the 
 Addington ministry. On these two grounds, 
 Tooke looked forward to a diminution of Tory 
 hostility against him. On the 10th of March, 
 Temple moved for calling witnesses to the bar to 
 prove the fact of Tooke’s ordination ; and this was 
 indeed easily proved, for he had been ordained 
 so far back as 1760, and had officiated for thirteen 
 years as a clergyman at New Brentford; although 
 it was equally true that he had been much more 
 of a political agitator than a pastor during the 
 greater part of his life. The committee of inquiry 
 reported that only one case of the kind, that of 
 the Rey. Edward Rushworth, could be found 
 under any date subsequent to 1641. On the 4th 
 of May, consequent: on the proceedings of the 
 committee, Earl Temple moved that “a new writ 
 should be issued for the election of a burgess to 
 serve for the borough of Old Sarum, in room of 
 the Rev. John Horne Tooke, who, being at the 
 time of his election in priest's orders, was, and is, 
 incapable of sitting in this House.’ During a 
 long speech, Temple argued the question in various 
 points of view ; but the pith of his argument was 
 contained in these words: “I may be told that 
 other clergy have actually sat in this House. The 
 fact may be so, yet it does not alter my case. It 
 is a very old and a very true law-adage, that no 
 blot is a blot until it is hit. Peers, minors, aliens, 
 clearly ineligible, may have sat, and may at this 
 moment be sitting, in this House..... All I 
 contend for is, that, in every instance, without one 
 solitary exception, where the House has noticed 
 a priest within its walls, the individual so noticed 
 has been expelled, and the principle laid down of 
 the ineligibility of the clergy.’ The opposition to 
 Temple’s motion was led by Mr. Addington, the 
 prime minister; who sought far and wide for 
 arguments to support his view, as if he had been 
 determined at any odds to uphold the clerical 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 761 
 
 legislator. He professed that, while he would 
 not have objected to the resolution if it had only 
 stated a principle, he could not agree to that part 
 of it which decided upon the special case. As one 
 ground of opposition against the resolution, he 
 contended that there is no real distinction between 
 the state of a deacon and that of a priest; and, 
 as a committee had decided that a deacon was 
 eligible, another committee might possibly find 
 Mr. Tooke’s return good, if he should be again 
 elected for Old Sarum, which he might very 
 possibly be in the face of such a resolution as it 
 was now proposed to pass. As a second ground, 
 he urged that some concession was due to the 
 clergy, seeing that previous to the year 1664 they 
 had been wont to tax themselves ; whereas they 
 had then given up that power, and had been ever 
 since taxed by parliament along with the laity. 
 And, as a third reason, he insisted on the provi- 
 sions of Mr, Grenville’s bill, which directed that 
 every case of a disputed election ought to be left 
 to the decision of a committee, the House not to 
 interfere except when circumstances made it 
 absolutely necessary. All these things considered, 
 therefore, he concluded to move the previous ques- 
 tion—a mode of shelving the difficulty without 
 legislatively deciding it. Horne Tooke then rose, 
 and defended himself in a long rambling speech, 
 touching on many matters which had little to do 
 with the question. He began by sketching the 
 chief events of his life. He had been engaged, 
 he said, in many important struggles. “I fought 
 with the enemies of law, of liberty, and of truth. 
 It was of importance for me to succeed; but my 
 failure was not of more consequence to myself 
 than to the rest of mankind. The subjects of 
 dispute were common as the elements air and 
 water.” One of the incidents adduced by him was 
 the denial of his claim to the degree of master 
 of arts, in the university where he had studied 
 the appointed number of years: the refusal, as he 
 asserted, being consequent on his notoriety as a 
 patriot. “The next struggle of this kind I had 
 was when I offered myself as a candidate to be 
 called to the bar. I then followed the advice of 
 the first lawyer, perhaps, that this country ever 
 produced ; I mean the late Lord Ashburton. I 
 was not foolish enough to give up a situation 
 which I then held, the profits of which were 
 sufficient for my moderate desires, I had been a 
 member of an inn of court from 1756, and I 
 thought myself not unqualified to exercise the 
 profession of the law. I might then have bettered 
 my situation ; but I would not, upon speculation, 
 give up what I securely enjoyed. It was well 
 that I did not. A noble marquis, whose name I 
 shall not mention, but who is now a member of 
 this House, interfered; and, his influence being 
 great, my application was rejected. Why was I 
 thus refused? Was there any law against me? 
 None! Some precedent, then? None. Some 
 arguments offered to prove my incapacity? Not 
 one, I was rejected, and the first that was ever 
 
762 
 
 rejected on similar grounds.” The event here 
 commented on had occurred in 1779, six years 
 after he had resigned his living in the church, 
 Tooke proceeded in a desultory and egotistical 
 way, relating anecdotes and sounding his own 
 praises—now criticising the authors of the report, 
 for their ignorance of Anglo-Saxon orthography ; 
 now narrating satirically an anecdote of a poor 
 girl who, applying for admission to the Magdalen 
 Hospital, was answered that she must first go 
 and qualify herself; now gravely declaring that, 
 although he had no personal anxiety to preserve 
 his seat, he felt bound to do‘his best to defend it 
 as a duty he owed to his constituents—to wit, the 
 seven domestics or obedient dependents of Lord 
 Camelford ; now asserting that, if he had been a 
 notorious infidel instead of a clergyman, he would 
 have been as competent to sit as any member 
 present ; and now quoting the case of Dr. Walker, 
 the brave defender of Londonderry at the time of 
 the Revolution of 1688, who was not deemed a 
 worse soldier because he was a clergyman. He 
 concluded by saying: “Though I wish earnestly 
 to be out of the House, I feel it my duty to strive 
 to continue in it as long as I can; and I am 
 prepared to meet opposition in whatever way it 
 may present itself.” In the course of the debate 
 that followed, Temple’s motion was warmly 
 opposed by Fox, who boldly maintained that 
 clergymen neither were, nor ought to be, dis- 
 qualified from sitting; and he ended his speech 
 by declaring that he did not see a scintilla of 
 reason or of law to support the present proceeding. 
 Erskine and Grey spoke on the same side; Sir 
 William Scott and Mr. Wynn supported Temple’s 
 motion ; while the attorney-general and the solici- 
 tor-general (Sir Edward Law and the Honourable 
 Spencer Perceval) voted for evading the question 
 by Addington’s amendment. This amendment was 
 carried, on a division, by 94 against 53. Thus the 
 reverend member for Sarum retained his seat, 
 whether consistently or not with his professed 
 humility. The ministers felt, however, that the 
 main question ought not to remain longer doubt- 
 ful. Two days after the vote, the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer brought in a bill “To remove 
 doubts respecting the eligibility of persons in holy 
 orders to sit in the House of Commons.” This bill 
 was opposed vehemently by Sir Francis Burdett, 
 and less energetically in the Upper House by Lords 
 Thurlow and Holland; but it received a curious 
 kind of support from Horne Tooke himself, who, 
 though shielded by a special clause relating to 
 _ “members elected before the passing of the act,” 
 
 professed to deem it wholesome that such an act 
 should pass. This transaction is not important in 
 reference to the character of the individual imme- 
 diately concerned, for Horne Tooke displayed much 
 vanity and inconsistency ; but it has both a par- 
 liamentary and an ecclesiastical value, in having 
 
 led to a statute (41 Geo. III. c. 63), by which 
 _ clergymen have ever since been excluded from the 
 British House of Commons. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 During this year (1801), parliament was engaged 
 
 in the discussion of many questions concerning the — 
 
 rights, duties, and stations of the clergy—questions 
 naturally arising in a country where the church 
 is connected by so peculiar a tie with the state as 
 in England. An old statute was in existence (21 
 Hen. VIII.), entitled, “Spiritual persons abridged 
 from having pluralities of livings, and from taking 
 of farms, &c. ;” this had fallen into abeyance ; but 
 certain common informers, as a means of extor- 
 tion, had dragged it into light, thereby spreading 
 much uneasiness among the clergy. The attention 
 of many members of parliament having been 
 called to the matter, a bill was brought in by Mr. 
 Dickinson, on the 9th of June, 1801, for repealing 
 the old act; it passed the Commons, but was 
 checked in the Lords by the close of the session. 
 On the 7th of April, 1802, the matter was again 
 brought forward by Sir William Scott, who made 
 a speech full of information touching the actual 
 condition of the clergy. The old statute of Henry 
 was shown to be particularly severe on that body. 
 It imposed a penalty, recoverable by a common 
 informer, upon any clergyman absent one month 
 from his parsonage ; it forbade any clergyman to 
 take a house, except in a city, market-town, or 
 borough; it prohibited a vicar from taking a lease 
 of his parsonage, or any clergyman whatever from 
 taking a lease of land, or buying or selling even 
 so much as a cow—the penalties in all cases 
 being very heavy. Sir William Scott contended 
 that the condition of clergymen was such as to 
 entitle them to more lenient treatment. In the 
 time of Queen Anne, the returns made to the 
 Exchequer showed that there were then in 
 England no fewer than 5597 livings under the 
 value of 50/7. per annum.* Some were of the 
 value of not more than 20s. or 40s. On the whole, 
 of about 11,700 livings in England and Wales, 
 about one-half were under an average of 237/, 
 a year. Even after the first-fruits and tenths 
 had been granted by Queen Anne for the aug- 
 mentation of small livings, and after the bounty 
 of many benefactors, the incomes of the clergy 
 remained exceedingly low during the whole of 
 
 the eighteenth century.t In 1802, it was caleu- 
 
 %* 984 between 402. and 502. 
 1049 " 301. u 402. 
 1126 ” 201. ” 302. 
 1467 ” 102. v 201. 
 1071 not exceeding 101. 
 
 t+ The state of manners and the average incomes had certainly 
 improved since the times denoted by Lord Macaulay; but his picture 
 of the ‘* Young Levite,” applicable to the close of the seventeenth 
 
 and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, is valuable asa 
 test of that which underwent only a slight amount of cure during ; 
 
 the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges. “In the mansions 
 of men of liberal sentiments and cultivated understandings, the 
 chaplain was doubtless treated with urbanity and kindness. His 
 
 conversation, his literary assistance, his spiritual advice, were 
 
 considered as an ample return for his food, his lodging, and his 
 
 stipend. But this was not the general feeling of the country 4 
 The coarse and ignorant squire who thought thatit — 
 belonged to his dignity to have grace said every day at his table — 
 
 gentlemen. 
 
 by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile 
 
 dignity with economy. A Young Levite—such was the phrase ~ 
 then in use—might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten 
 pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional 
 functions—might not only be the most patient of butts and of 
 listeners—might not only be always ready in fine weather for 
 
 [Book X. 
 
7 tail 
 
 Cuap. IX.] 
 
 lated that there were 6000 livings which did not 
 exceed an average of 85/. per annum; and even 
 of these, a very large proportion were still under 
 the value of 307 More than one-third of the 
 parishes were without parsonage-houses; and 
 even of the favoured two-thirds, many of the 
 houses were totally unfit for the residence of 
 clergymen’s families. Some of the patrons of 
 livings, so low as 45s. per annum, would not 
 accept augmentation from Queen Anne’s bounty, 
 for fear of its bringing them under the bishop’s 
 jurisdiction. Of all the livings in England and 
 Wales, the patronage of about 1100 belonged to 
 the crown, of 2000 to colleges and lay incor- 
 porations, of 2500 to bishops and ecclesiastical 
 bodies, and of the remainder (about as many as 
 all the former combined) to lay individuals. 
 These facts concerning the state of the clergy 
 being considered, Sir William Scott urged the 
 expediency of repealing the old statute of Henry, 
 and legislating anew. In the bill proposed by 
 him, increased power was to be given to the 
 bishops ; and this brought great opposition against 
 it. On the 31st of May, when the House was 
 about to go into committee on the Dill, Mr. 
 Simeon attacked the measure as tending to place 
 an unconstitutional power in the hands of the 
 episcopacy. Various difficulties arose, in that 
 and following years, in devising a remedy that 
 would meet the evils without alarming the con- 
 stitutional prejudices of the House of Commons. 
 In short, it was not until a date two years later 
 than that which limits the extent of the pre- 
 sent Book, that any effective or comprehensive 
 statute was passed on the subject: the clergy 
 remained, until 1817, under the influence of 
 many of the old laws that cramped both their 
 movements and their incomes. Without entering 
 into details here, we may briefly notice the chief 
 
 bowls, and in rainy weather for shovelboard, but might also save 
 the expense of a gardener, or of agroom. Sometimes the reverend 
 man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach- 
 horses. He cast up the farrier’s bills. He waiked ten miles with 
 a message or a parcel. He was permitted to dine with the family; 
 but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare. 
 He might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots; but, 
 as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their appearance, he 
 quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return 
 thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been 
 excluded. Perhaps, after some years of service, he was presented 
 to a living sufficient to support him; but he often found it neces- 
 sary to purchase his preferment by a species of simony, which 
 furnished an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry to three or four 
 generations of scoffers. With his cure he was expected to take a 
 wife. The wife had ordinarily been in the patron’s service; and it 
 was well if she was not suspected of standing too high in the 
 patron’s favour. Indeed, the nature of the matrimonial con- 
 nections which the clergymen of that age were in the habit of 
 forming, is the most certain indication of the place which the 
 order held in the social system..... Not one living in fifty 
 enabled the incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. As 
 children multiplied and grew, the household of the priest became 
 more and more beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plainly 
 in the thatch of his parsonage and in his single cassock. Often it 
 was only by toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading 
 dung-carts, that he could obtain daily bread; nor did his utmost 
 exertions always prevent the bailiffs from taking his Concordance 
 and his inkstand in execution. It was a white day on which he was 
 admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the 
 servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up 
 like the children of the neighbouring peasantry : his boys followed 
 the plough; and his girls went out to service,’—Hist. of England, 
 i 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 763 
 
 provisions of the statute 57 Geo. ITT. c. 99, on these 
 matters: The determination of the salaries of 
 curates was left to the bishops, who were to be 
 guided by a scale framed with reference both to 
 the value and the population of the benefice. The 
 bishop was empowered to settle any dispute 
 between an incumbent and his curate concerning 
 salary. The bishop, with the sanction of the 
 archbishop, was empowered to decide on questions 
 of residence and non-residence of clergy. The 
 kinds of clerical exemption from the obliga- 
 tion to reside on their cures were left generally 
 by the act the same as before, except that 
 the age under which university students were 
 exempted was contracted from forty to thirty 
 years, The space of time which a clergyman 
 was legally bound to reside upon his cure was 
 nine months in the year. The act repealed the 
 old prohibition against farming by the clergy: 
 substituting a regulation restraining all beneficed 
 or dignified clergymen, and all curates or lecturers, 
 from taking to farm more than eighty acres 
 without the written consent of the bishop, which, 
 moreover, could only be granted for a term not 
 exceeding seven years. All clerical persons were 
 prohibited from carrying on any trade, or buying 
 or selling for lucre, upon pain of forfeiting the 
 value of the goods so bought or sold; and the 
 contracts entered into by them in any such trade 
 or dealing were made utterly void. 
 
 The discussions in both Houses of Parliament 
 on ecclesiastical matters, connected with the sub- 
 ject narrated in the last paragraph, brought to 
 light many facts illustrating the condition of the 
 clergy; but the actual legislation between 1802 
 and 1815 was small in amount. In 1804, the 
 provision made for the clergy in the city of 
 London came under discussion in the course of 
 the debates on a bill for increasing the amount 
 of certain livings there. These stipends, in many 
 instances, remained as they had been since 1666, 
 and were now quite inadequate to the reasonable 
 claims of the clergy. Bishop Porteus, on the 19th 
 of July, in a speech on the third reading of 
 the bill, stated that of 50 livings in the city, none 
 exceeded 2007, and many were as low as 100/. 
 The act that was passed in consequence of this 
 debate raised the stipends to sums varying from 
 2007, to 3667. per annum. In 1805 another new 
 statute enabled the universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridge to purchase the advowsons of livings ; 
 this they had been prevented from doing by the 
 provisions of a statute 9 Geo. II.; but as it was 
 now found that the number of livings in the gift of 
 the universities did not exceed one-half the number 
 of members in holy orders, parliament consented 
 that the church power of the great seats of learn- 
 ing should be increased in the way proposed. 
 Four years afterwards—namely, in 1809—a. pecun- 
 iary gift was made to the clergy out of the national 
 revenues, in the form of a contribution of 100,000/7. 
 to Queen Anne’s bounty. In proposing this grant, 
 Mr. Perceval stated that it would take forty years 
 
764 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 for the first-fruits and tenths, made over by Queen 
 Anne for that purpose, to raise all the poor livings 
 even to the moderate value of 50/7. per annum; 
 and therefore he urged it as a wise generosity on 
 the part of the nation to expedite this process. 
 The grant was made ; but as indications appeared 
 of an intention on the part of the government to 
 repeat or renew the grant annually, some oppo- 
 sition was manifested to it in parliament. Lord 
 Harrowby stated, in support of this measure, that 
 the poor livings were not, as generally supposed, 
 confined to “remote villages, where we wished 
 certainly to give the clergyman a better income, 
 because it was not fitting that he should receive 
 less than a day-labourer; but where his poverty 
 was out of sight, and did not affect the interests 
 of any considerable portion of the community.” 
 It was found, however, that in many populous 
 districts the livings were almost equally inade- 
 quate.* It came out in the course of the debate, 
 that pluralities were more frequent among the 
 better than the poorer livings: indeed, this was 
 natural ; for the incumbent of a large living was 
 much more likely, from his situation and con- 
 nections, to procure a second, than the incumbent 
 of a small one. The condition of the curates was 
 extremely hard. “The present practice,’ said 
 Lord Harrowby, “according to which the non- 
 resident incumbents of livings of 50/7, 602, or 
 70, a year put into their own pockets a portion of 
 this wretched pittance, and left much less than the 
 wages of a day-labourer for the subsistence of 
 their curates, appeared to him far from creditable 
 to the parties concerned, and calculated to degrade 
 the character of the church. Many instances 
 came within his own knowledge in which parishes 
 were served for 20/. or even 10/. per annum ; and 
 in which, of course, all they knew of their clergy- 
 man was the sound of his voice in the reading- 
 desk or pulpit once a week, fortnight, or month.” 
 
 The great question of tithes did not receive any 
 definite settlement or wholesome reform until 
 «a much later date; but many discussions arose 
 concerning it in the early years of the century. 
 The relation of tithes to farm-rents was a fertile 
 subject of complaint. Anciently, suits for tithes 
 were instituted in the ecclesiastical courts, subject 
 in certain cases to the decision of a jury in the 
 Court of King’s Bench. In the reign of James L, 
 this produced a disagreement between the courts ; 
 and the matter was brought by appeal, first before 
 the twelve judges, and then before the king in 
 council; by both of which tribunals it was deter- 
 mined that here, as in all other cases, the subject 
 was entitled to have all matters of fact decided by 
 a jury. James himself heard the question solemnly 
 argued for three days by the archbishops, bishops, 
 
 * Of the whole number of livings under 150]. per annum, there 
 
 were ~ with a population of 500 to 1000 each, 
 " u 1000 to 2000 a» 
 Be ’ ” 2000 to 3000 ow 
 35 ” ” 3000 to 4000 # 
 17 ” o 4000 to 5000 
 lu v r 5000 to 6000 =»; 
 
 and some much more. 
 
 and ecclesiastical lawyers on the one side, and by 
 certain of the judges on the other. After this 
 decision had been acted on for about half a cen- 
 tury, an intermediate plan was started—to apply 
 to a court of equity, instead of to a court of law, 
 or an ecclesiastical court ; the Court of Exchequer 
 became accustomed to adjudicate on tithe questions 
 without a jury. ‘This was ultimately felt as a 
 grievance; but it remained unredressed during 
 the remainder of the period now under considera- 
 tion. During the various debates on this subject, 
 one honourable member said: “I am afraid it has 
 occurred too often, that the tithe-gatherer has of 
 late entered the garden of the poor cottager, and 
 demanded the tithe of his half-dozen gooseberry 
 bushes, and perhaps a solitary apple-tree.” An- 
 other pointed out that no statute of limitation 
 existed against the claims of the church ; conse- 
 quently no length of possession, not even an 
 uninterrupted enjoyment for centuries, barred her 
 right to tithes; nothing less than complete proof of 
 the origin of the exemption claimed by the land- 
 owner was of any avail against the demand, and 
 this even while against the crown a possession of 
 sixty years was now a bar. About a hundred 
 suits for tithes were instituted in the Courts of 
 Exchequer and Chancery during the last five years 
 of the present period; mostly the result of the 
 uncertainty occasioned by the non-admission of 
 prescription and enjoyment as a ground of title in 
 regard to this description of property. During the 
 time that these suits were going on, the churches 
 of the clergymen by whom they had been raised 
 were in many instances nearly deserted : to such 
 lengths had hostilities been carried between pastor 
 and flock. 
 
 In connection with these church matters, it may 
 be remarked that considerable change took place 
 in the public mind concerning religion ; indicated 
 by a willingness to contribute out of the national 
 revenues towards the wellbeing of the clergy, 
 There was also a change of character in the clerical 
 body itself: a cause or an effect—or perhaps a 
 mutual action and reaction—of the improved 
 tone in public feeling. Whether alarmed by the 
 rapid growth of dissent, or struck with any other 
 
 unaccustomed apprehensions as to the security of — 
 
 their position, or merely impressed by something 
 in the general aspect of the times, and sharing the 
 common thoughtfulness and earnestness that had 
 succeeded an age of universal unbelief and 
 
 indifference—the clergy cast off much of the care- — 
 
 lessness and secularity of the last century, and 
 awoke to a new sort of existence. The schemes 
 for diffusing religion and education were marked 
 proofs of this change of feeling. The most distinet 
 evidence, perhaps, of this increased zeal and ac- 
 tivity is afforded by the progress during this period 
 
 of the several great schemes for the diffusion of | 
 
 religion by other means than the ordinary services — 
 
 a 
 
 ey 
 
 -—a ~~. 
 
 of the church: schemes which were either exclu-— : 
 
 sively or to a great extent supported and managed ~ 
 by the clergy and other members of the establish- 
 
 — ie 
 
Cuap. IX.] 
 
 ment. The Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge, consisting entirely of members of the 
 Established Church, had been founded so long ago 
 as 1699; and had been in action, printing and 
 distributing copies of the Scriptures (principally 
 in the Welsh and Manx languages), and maintain- 
 ing a few missionaries in foreign parts, throughout 
 the eighteenth century ; but its progress was slow 
 and languid, and its operations very limited.* 
 Another body was the Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel in foreign parts, which was 
 incorporated in 1701. There were also the Church 
 Missionary Society (originally called the Society 
 for Missions to Africa and the East), founded in 
 1804; the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
 founded in the same year; the National School 
 Society (1811); the Prayer Book and Homily 
 Society (1812); and some others. Besides the 
 formation of these societies, there was a spread of 
 what is called evangelicalism in the church, which 
 had its birth in the puritanism produced by the 
 Reformation. It was a tendency to appeal to the 
 
 text of the Bible for authority on all great subjects, 
 without much regard to the decrees of churches or 
 the claims of a priesthood; in the seventeenth 
 century, it overturned both church and throne ; in 
 
 AQ 
 
 Porrevs, BrsHor or Lonxpon. 
 
 the eighteenth, it was held in disfavour by all in 
 authority ; but when the clergy became alarmed 
 by the spread of Methodism, and when more 
 vitality and spirituality in the church became 
 absolutely necessary to prevent secession from its 
 pale, the clergy began to throw more evangelical 
 sentiment into their preaching and writing. At 
 the beginning of the present century, the English 
 clergy were generally characterised by a more 
 laborious performance of their duties, both 
 expressly prescribed and popularly expected, than 
 their predecessors had been for some generations. 
 Another improvement was in the selection of 
 better persons to fill benefices and bishoprics: 
 
 * The number of subscribers to this society, and the sum annu- 
 ally subscribed, during the course of about sixty years, varied as 
 foilows: 1761, 600 subscribers, 3000/.; 1765, 700 subscribers, 
 
 5000/.; 1799, 2000 subscribers, 10,000/.; 1809, 3560 subscribers, 
 16,000/.; 1819, 14,000 subscribers, 56,000/. - 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION —1785-1815. 
 
 765 
 
 better not in erudition or eloquence, but in piety 
 of feeling and propriety of life. This was the 
 
 ‘i Ni 
 
 \) Th 
 
 SSQAQO 
 
 Watson, Brsuop oF LLANDAFF. 
 
 case in reference to almost all the ecclesiastical 
 appointments in the gift of the crown ; the bishop- 
 rics in particular were now usually bestowed with 
 a less exclusive reference than formerly to political 
 connection and influence. Some degree of profes- 
 sional eminence, at least, was made the ground of 
 selection in a greater proportion of instances than 
 formerly. The bishops whose appointments took 
 place towards the close of the last century or the 
 beginning of the present, and whose names are 
 at all known in the present day in connection with 
 learning or talent, are grouped together in a note,* 
 Not more than two or three of these names can be 
 placed in a high class of intellectual or literary 
 merit; the generality of them are remembered 
 only as cultivators in rather a small way of 
 criticism and the belles lettres, grammarians and 
 commentators, pamphleteers and political speech- 
 makers. 
 
 To convey within a limited space a clear notion 
 of the condition of the people in reference to 
 religious matters, during the first few years of the 
 present century, it will be necessary to glance next 
 at various nationalities and classes connected only 
 in an indirect way with the Church of England, 
 or else altogether antagonistic to that church. 
 And to effect this, we shall treat in succession of 
 the Church of Ireland—the Church of Scotland— 
 the Protestant dissenters—the Roman Catholics— 
 and the adherents of the notorious Joanna 
 Southcott. 
 
 The condition of the Established Church in 
 Ireland, since the Union no longer a sister church 
 merely, but a branch or integral part of that 
 
 * Hurd—Lichfield and Coventry, 1774; Worcester, 1781. 
 Douglas—-Carlisle, 1787; Salisbury, 1791. Beilby Porteus—Chester, 
 1776 ; London, 1787. Watson—Llandaff, 1782. Percy—Dromore, 
 1782. O’Beirne—Ossory, 1796; Meath, 1798. Horsley—St. 
 David’s, 1788; Rochester, 1793; St. Asaph, 1802. Tomline— 
 Lincoln, 1787. Huntingford—Gloucester, 1802; Hereford, 1815. 
 Burgess—St. David’s, 1803. Many of these were translated to 
 other bishoprics in later years, 
 
766 
 
 established in England, was brought under the 
 notice of parliament by various motions in the 
 course of the years 1807 and 1808. On the 
 20th of April, 1807, Mr. Wickham moved in the 
 Commons the appointment of a select committee 
 to consider the subject of the building, rebuilding, 
 and keeping in repair the churches and glebe- 
 houses of Ireland, and the purchase of glebe- 
 houses and glebe-lands. Two acts had been 
 passed in 1803—one for a loan to the Irish Church 
 from the Board of First-Fruits, and one for an 
 advance of 50,0002. by the lord lieutenant; but 
 both had proved inoperative, owing to the difficulty 
 of providing security for the moneys so lent. The 
 church, therefore, looked to the great parliament 
 of the (now) united kingdom for aid. The Irish 
 parishes, on account of their large size, were on an 
 average no less than five times as populous as 
 those of England ; nothing but a large population 
 would have supplied stipend sufficient to support a 
 clergyman ; and indeed it was this fact that had 
 led to the consolidation of many parishes into a 
 smaller number. This power had, however, been 
 abused ; parishes had occasionally been consoli- 
 dated by favouritism, in order to enrich the 
 presentee ; and hence there were a few livings 
 as high as 1000/7, 20007, and even 30007. per 
 annum. It was now complained that in such 
 instances the parishes were grossly neglected ; the 
 incumbent took his large income, and cared 
 nothing for his flock. “No place of religious 
 worship was provided within the reach of the 
 inhabitants ; nor could such parishioners obtain 
 baptism for their children, or the other rites of the 
 church ; and the consequence was that the Protest- 
 ant inhabitants in such places had disappeared.” 
 The government refused to support Mr. Wickham’s 
 motion for a committee: contending that the 
 statutes of 1808, if duly attended to, would cer- 
 tainly improve the position of the Irish Church. 
 Reforms, however, were felt to be urgently neces- 
 sary; and in 1808 the government brought in 
 a bill, and succeeded in passing an act, “For 
 enforcing the residence of spiritual persons on their 
 benefices in Ireland.” Sir John Newport, in the 
 same session, attempted to pass a measure for the 
 better management of first-fruits in Ireland, which 
 he thought might yield a clear surplus of 20,0007. 
 or 30,0007. per annum, applicable to church-build- 
 ing and glebe-building. He stated that in one 
 diocese alone there were no fewer than ten 
 parishes without either church or glebe-house. 
 Sir John was foiled by the government in this 
 matter; as was Mr. Parnell on a motion for a select 
 committee to inquire into the collection of tithes 
 in Ireland. In 1811, nothing particular occurred 
 in relation to these matters; but the year 1812 was 
 marked by an instructive debate on a motion of 
 Mr. Parnell for inquiry into the Irish Church. It 
 was contended that tithes in Ireland ought not to 
 be judged by the same standard as in England. 
 Nine-tenths of the population did not belong to 
 the establishment; and moreover the practice of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 enforcing the payment of tithes was comparatively 
 
 ‘a recent novelty. The clergy had never been able 
 
 to enforce the exaction of tithes on many articles 
 which were tithable according to the ecclesiastical 
 law ; in some parishes, no tithes had ever been 
 claimed on hay ; in others, on potatoes ; in others, 
 on flax. Tithe-proctors and tithe-farmers collected 
 the impost from the poorer holders of land in a way » 
 often very grievous and oppressive ; when a com- 
 position was agreed to, the practice was to give 
 promissory-notes, payable in a year ; and as these 
 notes could not always be paid when they became 
 due, the humbler farmers were placed wholly at 
 the mercy of the tithe-proctors. On account, 
 therefore, of Ireland being almost wholly Catholic ; 
 of the irregularity in assessing tithe ; of the diver- 
 sity of practice in enforcing it ; and of the severity 
 of pressure on the poorer classes—Mr. Parnell 
 proposed to substitute some other equivalent for 
 Irish tithe. It was argued, however, in opposition 
 to this view, that any plan of commutation was 
 rendered nearly impracticable by the circumstance 
 that it must proceed upon the principle that the 
 clergy had an absolute estate equal to one-tenth of 
 the growing tillage of the country ; and that the 
 fair application of that principle would certainly, 
 under any arrangement, make the occupier of the 
 soil pay very much more to the tithe-owner than 
 he did at present. After all, it was admitted that 
 the amount of tithe really paid in Ireland was 
 only small. Mr. Parnell’s motion was rejected. 
 Nevertheless, between 1801 and 1815, parliament 
 voted sums amounting in the aggregate to nearly 
 500,0002, for the erection of churches and the 
 purchase of glebe-lands in Ireland. 
 
 Turning now from the Irish to the Scottish 
 Church, it will be seen that the latter was not 
 marked by any important movements during this 
 period. The two parties, popularly called the 
 Moderates and the Highflyers, continued to pursue 
 their contests in the General Assembly and the 
 other judicatories: the former for the most part in 
 alliance with the Tory or ministerial party in the 
 state; the latter, with the Whig or opposition; 
 and the two comprehending between them nearly 
 every man in the church. Dr. Robertson was 
 succeeded as leader of the Moderates by Dr. Hill of 
 St. Andrews—a man who had that rare gift of 
 serene and luminous oratory, at once dignified 
 and persuasive, by which real business is best 
 expounded and advanced, and in which educated 
 minds are most fitly addressed. On the opposite 
 side, the chief direction of affairs was in the hands 
 of Dr. John Erskine, one of the-ministers of the 
 High Church at Edinburgh. When he died, in 
 1803, he was succeeded by the Rev. Sir Henry 
 Moncrieff Wellwood, an Edinburgh minister of 
 great independence of spirit and elevation of © 
 character, Under these leaders on either side, the 
 Moderates still maintained their ascendency in | 
 power, the Highflyers their popular minority ; and 
 it was not till after the lapse of many years that — 
 the latter became a majority in the General — 
 
wn Y 
 
 Cuar. IX.] 
 
 Assembly. Early in the century, nevertheless, 
 the reformers, though still in a minority, began to 
 
 Dr. Joun ERSKINE. 
 
 display great activity in the patronage question, 
 destined at a later period to bring about a rupture 
 in the Scottish Church. They began, cautiously and 
 gradually, to claim for the people of every parish 
 an absolute and discretionary right of placing a 
 negative or veto upon any presentation to the 
 cure by the legal lay patron: a claim which, if 
 admitted, would of course annihilate lay patronage 
 at once. Patronage had been in use in the 
 Scottish Church down to the latest period before 
 the Restoration of which there is any record of 
 the proceedings of General Assemblies; the 
 ministers generally regarded it as a grievance, but 
 they showed a willingness to quiet their consciences 
 if the patronage were in some way transferred 
 to themselves. “ The truth is,” says Sir Henry 
 Moncrieff Wellwood, a writer whose sympathies 
 were rather with a free church than a patronage 
 church, and whose testimony on this subject is all 
 the more valuable on that. account, “that neither 
 the crown nor the subject patrons were frequently 
 in a condition to resist them (the ministers of the 
 Scottish Church). The presbyteries were, in a 
 great measure, allowed to nominate the candidates 
 for vacant parishes, not only when they sent lists 
 . to the crown, but in other cases; the candidates 
 named by them were proposed to the kirk-sessions, 
 who, in each case, from several in the nomination, 
 were allowed to elect one, who was then proposed 
 to the congregation. By the Directory for the 
 election of ministers of 1649, if a majority of the 
 congregation dissented, they were to give their 
 reasons, of which the presbytery were to judge.” * 
 It appears, from Sir Henry’s subsequent account, 
 that the clergy had really the chief influence in 
 the ultimate decision, as well as in the selection of 
 the candidates. Under the act of 1690, the nomi- 
 nation was given to heritors and elders instead of 
 to the presbytery ; the person nominated was then 
 
 * Life of Dr. John Erskine, by the Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff 
 Wellwood. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 767 
 
 proposed to the congregation, who might approve 
 or disapprove, for reasons shown and substan- 
 tiated ; but as the presbytery and (on appeal) the 
 superior courts had the right of deciding whether 
 the reasons for disapproval were really “substan- 
 tiated,” the people had virtually very little control 
 over the choice of their own ministers. “ There 
 does not appear,” says Sir Henry, “ during the whole 
 interval from 1690 to 1712, the least vestige of a 
 doctrine, so much contended for at a later period, 
 which asserted a divine right in the people, indi- 
 vidually or collectively, to elect the parish minis- 
 ters.” From 1725 to 1732 the proceedings of the 
 Assembly began to assume a different character ; 
 an active party began to contend for popular 
 election of ministers by the heads of families as 
 well as by heritors and elders, in opposition both 
 to the law of patronage and to the practice estab- 
 lished under the act of 1690. In 1732, a popular 
 minister preached a sermon at Stirling on the 
 4th of June, in which he declared that “ those 
 professed Presbyterians who thrust men upon 
 congregations, without and contrary to the free 
 choice their great King had allowed them, were 
 guilty of an attempt to jostle Christ out of his 
 government, and to take it on their own shoulders,” 
 This became the war-cry of a party which gradu- 
 ally strengthened during the remainder of the 
 century. In the earlier part of the present cen- 
 tury, the spirit of the times, which was calling out 
 in all directions for the extension of popular power, 
 was not without effect on this subject of Seottish 
 Church patronage; a society at Edinburgh was 
 established for the purchase of patronages or 
 advowsons, with a view to their being eventually 
 placed in the hands of the parishioners; and 
 although the operations of this body were not 
 very brilliant, yet both among laity and clergy 
 some attention to the subject was reawakened. 
 There gradually arose three varieties of feeling 
 on the matter—a desire to adhere to the law of 
 patronage as it stood; a desire to transfer this 
 power to the clergy, represented in presbytery ; 
 and a desire to give the power of selection more 
 immediately to the parishioners themselves. A 
 change of policy was formed also by other circum- 
 stances. Many stanch liberals in the Scottish 
 Church, towards the end of the last century, were 
 nevertheless supporters of patronage, and could 
 not, in after years, with any decency abrogate 
 their former principles. But they died off, and 
 were succeeded by another generation not so 
 pledged or committed; many of whom, on the 
 contrary, fresh from their college debating-clubs, 
 had come into the church courts with no other 
 notions either of the practice or the principles of 
 ecclesiastical polity, or polity of any kind, than 
 what they had been naturally impressed with by 
 the general innovating and democratic spirit of 
 the age. It was left to the reign of William IV. 
 to witness the effects of these discussions and 
 divergent feelings, by the passing of a Veto Act by 
 the General Assembly, which brought that body 
 
768 
 
 into collision with the law and the parliament 
 on the subject of patronage ; and to the reign of 
 Victoria to witness the momentous disruption of 
 the entire Scottish Church in relation to this 
 question. 
 
 Apart from the patronage difficulty, the Scottish 
 clergy received aid through the liberality of par- 
 liament, in the same spirit as had marked the 
 line of conduct towards the churches of England 
 and Ireland. In 1810, an act was passed for aug- 
 menting parochial stipends in certain cases in 
 Scotland, An annual sum, not to exceed 10,0002, 
 was allotted for raising all livings to the value 
 of 1507. a year, exclusive of manse or parsonage- 
 house and glebe; and a further sum of 2000/. to 
 raise to 200/. the incomes of certain clergymen not 
 legally entitled to glebes or manses. In making 
 the assessment required by the act, it was found 
 that of 943 livings, the entire number in the estab- 
 lishment, 208 were under the value of 1507. each ; 
 and to this number the augmentation was applied. 
 The assessment having been made dependent on 
 the price of corn at the time, it happened to be 
 rather unfavourable to the clergy, who in the 
 average of subsequent years failed to receive the 
 full sum of 1502. ; still this did not affect the fair 
 and liberal spirit in which the enactment had been 
 passed by parliament. 
 
 Directing attention next to the Protestant dis- 
 senters, the period under notice will be found to 
 have been marked by no successful endeavours to 
 remove the disabilities under which those persons 
 lay ; although many debates arose in connection 
 with the subject. A question arose who were 
 “dissenting ministers” in the eye of the law ; and 
 this question led to much acrimonious discussion. 
 The Toleration Act, of William and Mary, gave 
 certain exemptions to such persons; and an act of 
 19 Geo. III. substituted, in lieu of subscription to 
 certain of the Thirty-nine Articles, a declaration 
 of Protestant Christianity and belief in the Scrip- 
 tures. Both acts were intended to apply simply to 
 dissenting preachers or teachers. Lord Sidmouth, 
 on the 29th of April, 1811, declaimed against the 
 mode in which this privilege was used or abused. 
 “Any person,’ he averred, “however depraved, 
 however ignorant and illiterate, whether descend- 
 ing from a chimney or a pillory, if he appeared at 
 the quarter-session and claimed to take the oath 
 of allegiance to his sovereign and that against 
 popery, and made the necessary declaration pro- 
 vided by the 19th of Geo. IIL, was entitled to and 
 could demand a certificate, although there was no 
 proof of his fitness to preach, or of his having any 
 congregation requiring his ministerial services.” 
 There was oratorical exaggeration in this state- 
 ment, although the basis was sound; and the 
 question arose, whether the legislature had in- 
 tended so wide an interpretation of its wishes. 
 From the largeness or vagueness of the terms em- 
 ployed in the two acts, it might be fairly inferred 
 that, loose or liberal as this practical interpreta- 
 tion of them might be thought, it scarcely went 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boor X. 
 
 beyond the intentions of the legislature, which 
 pretty evidently were that, provided security were 
 given that the privilege would not be abused to 
 the public preaching of sedition or absolute infi- 
 delity, no obstruction should be placed in the way 
 of any person who chose to take upon himself the 
 function and character of a dissenting minister 
 or religious teacher. Lord Sidmouth, however, 
 thought otherwise. Some of the immunities, he 
 observed, granted by the two acts threw a burden 
 upon the rest of the community. Down to 1802, 
 for instance, one of those immunities had been an 
 exemption from military service; and still persons 
 licensed under the two acts as dissenting preachers 
 enjoyed an exemption from serving on juries and 
 from other civil duties which were imposed upon 
 the generality of their fellow-men, The acts, he 
 also mentioned, had been differently understood in 
 different counties; in Devon, Buckingham, and 
 Norfolk the certificate or licence continued to be 
 granted or refused at the discretion of the magis- 
 trates. To limit the persons, therefore, and to 
 define the rights, he brought in a bill to restrict 
 the licence or privilege to persons who were duly 
 registered and appointed ministers of defined 
 dissenting congregations, or should be recom- 
 mended by at least six householders belonging to 
 some such recognised congregation. This bill gave 
 rise to a vehement opposition. The dissenters rose 
 in arms against it, and strengthened the power of 
 Lords Stanhope, Grey, Holland, Lauderdale, Moira, 
 Rosslyn, Erskine, Lansdowne, and other peers 
 who formed a phalanx against it. Many hundred 
 hostile petitions were presented, some signed by 
 several thousand persons each. Lord Sidmouth, 
 in defending the bill on the second reading, 
 adduced various arguments in support of it; 
 among which was an allegation that the dissenting 
 preachers were too often men utterly unfitted for 
 such duties. As an illustration, he adduced the 
 instance of a person who applied to the magistrates 
 of Stafford for a licence. “ One of the magistrates 
 inquired if he could sign his name: his reply was, 
 he had not come there to write. The magistrate 
 told him, if he would read the act he would find 
 what was required, and he asked him to read 
 aloud: to this the applicant replied, he did not 
 come there to read. He was then interrogated 
 if he could write. His reply was: No; he was not 
 ashamed to own it. Could he read? No. The 
 magistrate observed how improper it was for him 
 to claim a certificate of licence, who could not read 
 the Bible, the doctrines of which he was obliged to 
 preach..... To this the other, with unblushing. 
 
 countenance, replied that the magistrate knew — 
 
 nothing of inspiration.” This anecdote was treated 
 by the opposition as an exaggerated exceptional 
 case, not worthy of being adduced in argument. 
 The government opposed the bill, not because they 
 disapproved of it, but because they saw no reason 
 for proceeding with it against the wish of the 
 dissenters. 
 the government, admitting the good intentions 
 
 Lord Liverpool, as the mouthpiece of 
 
Cuap. IX. ] 
 
 with which his noble friend had moved in the 
 matter, and only lamenting that the real object 
 and tendency of the bill had been so much mis- 
 conceived, and that so much agitation and alarm 
 had prevailed respecting it since it had been 
 brought before the House, suggested the expediency, 
 under the circumstances, of its being withdrawn. 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury stated that, for his 
 own part, he thought the measure a good one, but 
 of much more importance to the dissenters than to 
 the Established Church; and therefore, “as the 
 dissenters who at first approved of the bill, now 
 appeared to differ from it, he considered it to 
 be unwise and impolitic to press it against their 
 inclination or consent.” Earl Grey, in answer 
 to what had been said about persons obtaining 
 exemptions from the militia improperly by taking 
 out licences to preach, observed that this was 
 impossible, as by an act passed in 1802 no person 
 was entitled to be so exempted unless he was the 
 minister of a separate congregation. “ Nor was 
 that alone sufficient. The party applying was 
 restricted from following any trade, that of a 
 schoolmaster excepted. These regulations were 
 most minutely adhered to both in the general and 
 local militia ; and, much as he objected to the bill, 
 he would be content to withdraw his opposition 
 if the noble viscount could show him a single 
 instance since the act of 1802 where exemption 
 had been obtained improperly by a dissenter.” 
 In accordance with the general wish, the measure 
 was withdrawn. From information given in the 
 course of the debate, it appears that during half 
 a century, the number of persons licensed as 
 dissenting preachers had varied from about 60 to 
 160 annually. 
 
 On the 2nd of June, 1812, Lord Stanhope brought 
 in a bill “ For the relief of certain members of the 
 Church of England and others from the operation 
 of certain unjust penalties and disabilities.” It 
 was a renewal, with minor alterations, of the bill 
 brought in by the same peer in 1789. Quoting 
 an odd anecdote to show the difficulty as well as 
 absurdity of attempting to enforce uniformity in 
 religious practice, he adverted to “ the chapel clock 
 with four faces in Vere Street near Cavendish 
 Square, to which, on passing one day, he looked 
 up to see the hour, and observed on one of the 
 faces it was five o’clock; but, having an angular 
 view, he saw that the second face pointed at a 
 quarter past five: thinking this very odd, he 
 looked at the third face, and found that to point at 
 half-past five; this was odder still: he looked at 
 the fourth face, and this was three-quarters past 
 five.’ The noble, lord appeared to; forget that 
 this was nothing more than a proof that the 
 Vere Street clock was a bad one, or in bad con- 
 dition, Another argument made use of by him, 
 against the doctrine of uniformity, was, that the 
 variations between the Book of Common Prayer 
 as printed at Oxford and as printed at Cambridge 
 were no less than 4000 in number. The eccentric 
 ear], however, could not bring the House to recog- 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 769 
 
 nise the importance of his measure; and he was 
 beaten by 31 to 10. Nevertheless, the government 
 wished it to be understood that they were alive to 
 the necessity of making some real reforms in the 
 relations between the dissenters and the church ; 
 and accordingly, on the 10th of the same month, 
 Lord Castlereagh brought a bill into the Commons 
 “to repeal certain acts, and amend other acts, 
 relating to religious worship and assemblies, and 
 persons teaching or preaching therein.” This bill 
 settled the question as to the right of dissenters 
 to be licensed as religious teachers ; it repealed an 
 old statute by which penalties were imposed upon 
 Quakers and others who should refuse to take 
 oaths ; it repealed also certain oppressive statutes 
 called the Five Mile Act and the Conventicle Act, 
 passed in the reign of Charles IJ.; and it simply 
 enacted that dissenting places of worship should 
 be registered in the bishop’s or archdeacon’s court 
 —that they must not be locked, bolted, or barred 
 during the time of divine service—and that the 
 preachers or teachers must be licensed according 
 to the act 19 Geo. III. ¢. 44. During the passage 
 of this bill through the Commons, Mr. William 
 Smith, the chief leader of the dissenting interest 
 in that House, expressed the gratification he felt 
 at the evidence thus afforded of the increasing 
 liberality of the times. “He thought that the 
 present bill would remove the practical evils 
 which the dissenters had to complain of—although 
 it did not recognise the great principle which they 
 maintained, that the civil magistrate had no right 
 to interfere in matters of religious opinion, and 
 that every man was to profess or promulgate any 
 religious opinions, provided he did not disturb the 
 public peace.’ Earl Stanhope, seldom in harmony 
 with any other statesmen long together, found 
 means to jeer at this Mr. Smith, and turn into 
 ridicule a proposition he had made concerning 
 the licensing of dissenting preachers. “One Mr. 
 William Smith has lately been dabbling in these 
 matters, but not with much success. He proposes 
 a completely new system, according to which, 
 licences are to be granted not only to a man to 
 preach, but old women are not even allowed to 
 say their prayers without it; people are not to be 
 allowed to exercise their natural rights without 
 permission from Mr. William Smith.” During 
 the debate in the Commons on the government 
 bill, Mr. Vansittart claimed some credit for the 
 government in having proposed liberal measures 
 towards the church and towards the dissenters 
 just at the same time; the bill before the House 
 illustrated the one; while in reference to the 
 church, the legislature “had not. been deterred 
 by the difficulties of a period of such extraordinary 
 exertion and expense from providing for the wants 
 of the parochial clergy by grants of unexampled 
 munificence ; besides the discharge of the land- 
 tax on small livings to the value of at least 
 200,0002., and which commenced in 1806, direct 
 grants had been made for their augmentation, 
 
 amounting, in the last four years, to no less than 
 2Ww 
 
770 
 
 400,0007.” Of course the dissenters were not 
 much enamoured with this mode of being liberal 
 with the public moneys to which they as well as 
 churchmen had contributed; but still Lord Castle- 
 reagh’s bill was just and liberal towards them as 
 far as it went, and they were rejoiced to see it 
 pass into a law (52 Geo. III. c. 155). The next 
 year, 1813, was marked by the passing of an act 
 (53 Geo. III. c. 160) for the relief of Unitarians. 
 It repealed an old statute of William and Mary, 
 by which the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity 
 was punishable, for the first offence, by incapacity 
 to hold any office or place of trust; and, for the 
 second, by incapacity to bring any action, or to 
 be guardian, executor, or legatee, or purchaser of 
 lands, together with imprisonment for three years 
 without bail. These harsh restrictions were now 
 removed by a measure brought in originally by 
 Mr, William Smith, and approved by the govern- 
 ment. Mr. Justice Coleridge, in commenting on 
 this statute, said: “It would seem now, therefore, 
 that the temporal courts have no jurisdiction 
 directly in cases of heresy, but they may still have 
 to determine collaterally what falls within that 
 description ; as, in a guare impedit, if the bishop 
 pleads that he refused the clerk for heresy, it is 
 said that he must set forth the particular point ; 
 for the court, having cognizance of the original 
 cause, must, by consequence, have a power as to 
 all collateral and incidental matters which are 
 necessary for its determination, though in them- 
 selves they belong to another jurisdiction.” * 
 During the period now under notice, the dis- 
 senters produced few men of literary eminence. 
 The most celebrated were two Baptist ministers 
 —Robert Hall of Leicester, distinguished for his 
 
 Rev. Ropert HALL. 
 
 flowing and finished eloquence; and John Foster 
 of Bristol, author of the well-known ‘Essays on 
 -the Formation of Character,’ marked by great 
 originality of thought and force of style. The 
 names of Rowland Hill, William Huntingdon, 
 
 * Coleridge’s Blackstone, 4 com. 50. note. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 S 
 a 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 Matthew Wilks, John Clayton, William Collier, — 
 Theophilus Lindsey, Thomas Belsham, é&c., are 
 remembered as those of men once popular as 
 Methodist, Independent, or Unitarian preachers 
 and controversialists, but not eminent for theo- 
 logical learning. 
 
 The Roman Catholics, as noticed in an earlier 
 part of the present chapter, had some of their | 
 shackles removed towards the close of the 
 eighteenth century; but many oppressive laws 
 still remained, which became subjects of animated 
 parliamentary discussion after the union of 
 Ireland with England. Indeed the question of 
 Catholic emancipation, as it was called, was so 
 often brought before parliament, that a full treat- 
 ment of the subject would occupy unwonted space 
 in the present work: a notice of the more salient 
 points is all that can be given. 
 
 The Irish Catholics had been favourably dis- 
 posed towards the Union, because Mr. Pitt had 
 treated them with comparative liberality, and 
 because the Irish parliament had refused to admit 
 them to its privileges; and it was an understood 
 thing that the minister would propose certain 
 measures in their favour. In January, 1799, the — 
 cordiality of the Roman Catholics towards Pitt 
 was remarkably shown. A meeting of Catholic 
 prelates was held in Dublin to deliberate on a 
 proposal from government of an independent pro- 
 vision for the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, 
 under certain regulations not incompatible with 
 their doctrines, discipline, or just influence. All 
 the prelates present, including four archbishops, 
 assented to these two propositions: “That a 
 provision, through government, for the Roman 
 Catholic clergy of Ireland, competent and secured, 
 ought to be thankfully accepted ; and that, in the 
 appointment of the prelates of the Roman Catholic 
 religion to the vacant sees within the kingdom, 
 such interference of government as may enable it 
 to be satisfied of the loyalty of the person Sppolntetg 
 is just, and ought to be agreed to.” 
 
 It soon appeared, however, that George IIT. was 
 unfavourable to changes in this direction; in 
 consequence of which Mr. Pitt resigned a few days 
 after the meeting of the first imperial parliament 
 in January, 1801. The subject was kept in abey- 
 ance for four years; but early in 1805 petitions 
 from the Roman Catholics of Ireland were read in 
 both Houses, and gave rise to lengthened debates, 
 On the 10th of May, Lord Grenville, in moving _ 
 that one of the petitions should be taken into co con- | 
 sideration, said: “ By the arguments of those who 
 supported the Union, by the course of reasoning 
 in-doors and out of doors, hopes were raised that 4 
 the subject of Catholic emancipation would 
 more favourably considered here than it was eve 
 likely to be in the parliament of Ireland. Those 
 who wished well to the Union, could not so far 
 betray their trust as not to state that one of the © 
 recommendations of the measure was that it did — 
 seem to afford the only practicable mode of pre- — 
 venting the renewal of the disputes which had pro- — 
 
Cuap. [X.] 
 
 duced such calamities in Ireland.” Lord Hawkes- 
 bury, leading the opposition on the part of the 
 government, said that he and his colleagues had 
 done all they could to postpone this question to a 
 less critical time; but failing in this, they must 
 meet the motion by a direct opposition, The 
 debate extended to two nights, and was remark- 
 able for the number of hours it endured, and the 
 number of peers who spoke. Lords Spencer, 
 Holland, Suffolk, Oxford, Hutchinson, Ormonde, 
 Albemarle, Norfolk, Moira, Darnley, King, and 
 Longford, spoke in favour of the motion ; while 
 the speakers against it included the Duke of Cum- 
 berland, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, the Bishops of Durham and §&t. 
 Asaph, and Lords Sidmouth, Mulgrave, Camden, 
 Redesdale, Limerick, Buckinghamshire, Carleton, 
 Boringdon, Harrowby, Westmoreland, Ellen- 
 borough, Auckland, and Bolton. Lord Auckland, 
 who was in office with Pitt when the union with 
 Ireland was decided on, declared emphatically that 
 no such concession as Catholic emancipation had 
 been treated as a condition or consequence of the 
 Union, “I do not hesitate to declare that, if the 
 concessions now proposed were in the contempla- 
 tion of those with whom I acted at the time, their 
 views were sedulously concealed from me, and 
 from others of their associates. It is indeed true 
 that, soon after the Union, there was, apparently, 
 a sudden change in the opinions of some leading 
 persons respecting the subject now in discussion. 
 I do not impute any blame to that change, or 
 doubt its sincerity, though I must deplore it. 
 That change has given an irreparable shock to the 
 confidence of public men in each other ; and to it 
 perhaps are owing many of the distractions and 
 difficulties under which the empire has since 
 laboured.” After nearly twenty hours of eager 
 debating, the peers rejected the motion by 178 
 against 49. Mr. Fox introduced the same subject 
 into the Commons, by proposing the consideration 
 of the Catholic petitions. Dr. Duigenan, member 
 for Armagh, opposed the motion on the 13th of 
 May in so furious a speech, that Grattan, who 
 followed him in the debate, described it as consist- 
 ing of four parts—invective against the religion 
 of the Catholics; invective against the present 
 generation ; invective against the past ; and invec- 
 tive against the future. “ Here,’ said Grattan, 
 “the limits of creation interposed, and stopped 
 the learned member!” The eminent Irish orator, 
 who on this occasion spoke for the first time in the 
 imperial parliament, impressed all by a brilliant 
 speech. As in the other House, the debate lasted 
 throughout two evenings and nights, Mr. Pitt’s 
 part was a difficult one; he had to resist the 
 motion, and yet remain consistent with his former 
 opinions. He professed to yield, simply because 
 other persons were against the motion. “ Seeing 
 
 what are the opinions of the times,. what is the 
 situation of men’s minds, and the sentiments of all 
 descriptions and classes, of the other branch of the 
 legislature, and even the prevailing opinion of this 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 771 
 
 House—lI feel that I should act contrary to a sense 
 of my duty, and even inconsistently with the 
 original grounds upon which I thought the mea- 
 sure ought to be brought forward, if I counte- 
 nanced it under the present circumstances, or if I 
 hesitated in giving my decided negative to the 
 House going into committee.” The opponents of 
 the motion, thus strengthened, were overwhelming, 
 and rejected it by 336 against 124. 
 
 The death of Pitt in 1806, and the formation of 
 the Fox and Grenville administration, revived the 
 hopes of the Catholics; but Fox, in reply to a 
 question on the 11th of March, damped their 
 expectations. “If any gentleman were to ask my 
 advice as to the propriety of bringing forward the 
 Catholic claims at present, I should recommend 
 him to take into consideration the prospect of 
 success, and the greater probability of succeeding 
 this year or the next ; at the same time to bear in 
 mind the issue of last year’s discussion.” This 
 reply, and the neutrality of Fox on the subject 
 during his short premiership, led to many sarcastic 
 allusions to the difference between a man in office 
 and out, In 1807, when the death of Fox placed 
 Grenville at the head of the government, Lord 
 
 ‘Hawick, the new secretary for foreign affairs, 
 
 brought in a bill—not for Catholic emancipation 
 —but simply to enable Catholics to hold the 
 higher commissions in the army and navy. This 
 bill, slight as it was, nevertheless overthrew the 
 ministers who brought it forward; for the king not 
 only forbade them to proceed with it, but required 
 them to sign an engagement that they would 
 propose no further concessions to the Roman 
 Catholics: refusing to give this promise, they 
 resigned. 
 
 From this time, Catholic emancipation was 
 discussed in parliament almost every year. In 
 1808 the concession was refused, as before, in both 
 Houses. During the debates in the Commons, 
 Grattan attracted great attention by his reference 
 to a veto. He stated that he was authorised to 
 make this proposition: “That in the future nomi- 
 nation of Catholic bishops, his majesty may inter- 
 fere and exercise his royal privilege, by putting a 
 negative upon such nomination; that is, in other 
 words, to say, that no Catholic bishop shall be 
 appointed without the entire approbation of his 
 majesty.” Grattan was, as he conceived, authorised 
 to say this. An accredited agent of the Irish 
 Catholic hierarchy had arrived in London, and, 
 after an interview with several liberal peers and 
 members, had placed in Grattan’s hands the 
 following statement: “The Catholic prelates of 
 Ireland are willing to give a direct negative power. 
 to his majesty’s government, with respect to the 
 nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such 
 manner that, when they have among themselves 
 resolved who is the fittest person for the vacant 
 see, they will transmit his name to his majesty’s 
 ministers; and, if the latter shall object to that 
 name, they will transmit another and another, 
 until a name is presented to which no objection is 
 
772 
 
 made ; and (which is never likely to be the case) 
 should the pope refuse to give those essentially 
 necessary spiritual powers, of which he is the 
 depositary, to the person so presented by the 
 Catholic bishops, and so approved of by the 
 government, they will continue to present other 
 names, till one occurs which is agreeable to both 
 parties—namely, the crown and the apostolic 
 see,’ This curious attempt at liberalism, however, 
 was abortive. When the proposal became known, 
 by the publication of Grattan’s speech in the news- 
 papers, it excited great dissatisfaction among the 
 Catholic clergy. Hence the Irish Catholics became 
 divided into two parties—the upper classes, who 
 would have assented to the veto; and the lower 
 classes, who joined the priests in opposing it. 
 This divergence weakened the hands of the par- 
 liamentary advocates of Catholic emancipation. 
 Nothing effective was done in the subject in 1809, 
 In 1810 the old debates were renewed, and with 
 the old result: the consideration of the Catholic 
 petitions being rejected in the Lords by 154 against 
 68, and in the Commons by 213 against 109. In 
 the next following year, 1811, the numbers were 
 121 to 62 in the Upper House, and 146 to 83 in the 
 Lower—exhibiting a lessening of hostility to the 
 concessions. 
 
 The discussions concerning Catholic emancipa- 
 tion were in some measure affected by certain 
 proceedings in Ireland. A powerful body of peers 
 and commoners, called the Catholic Committee, 
 undertook to manage all the proceedings relating 
 to emancipation. While engaged simply in pre- 
 paring petitions, the Committee excited little notice 
 in England; but when in 1810 they began to hold 
 regular debating meetings, and to make violent 
 speeches on political subjects in general, the 
 government thought it well to watch them, without 
 any direct interference. At length, however, in 
 1811, the Committee recommended a system of 
 organisation that would have drawn delegates to 
 Dublin from every county in Ireland, swelling the 
 comunittee to such magnitude as would render it a 
 Catholic convention, and would give it irresistible 
 weight as an exponent of Irish Catholic feeling. A 
 circular letter was sent by the Committee to the 
 Catholics in every county of Ireland ; asserting the 
 imperative necessity of an increase in the numbers 
 on the Committee; advising the appointment of 
 managers of the petition which the Committee had 
 been intrusted to prepare, each manager to be 
 connected with a particular part of the country ; 
 suggesting that ten managers should be appointed 
 for each county; claiming that the Committee 
 -should become the representative of the collective 
 wisdom of the Catholic body ; and expressing their 
 desire clearly to understand the wants, and to 
 ascertain as a means of fulfilling the wishes, of the 
 whole Catholic community in Ireland. <A leading 
 member of the body at this time was the afterwards 
 famous Daniel O’Connell. The lord-lieutenant, 
 deeming such a scheme dangerous, ordered, by a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 circular dated the 13th of February, all sheriffs | to the Catholics; nevertheless the governmen | 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 and magistrates of Irish counties to arrest per-— 
 sons actively engaged in forming this “unlawful 
 
 assembly,” as it was styled. This step, justified 
 
 by the terms of a statute passed by the Irish 
 
 parliament in 1793, called the Convention Act, 
 led to many debates and divisions in the Lords 
 
 and the Commons; but as the government sup- 
 
 ported the lord-lieutenant, and as the Houses | 
 supported the government, the Catholic party 
 
 could make no progress with their objections. 
 
 While the combat of tongues was going on at 
 
 Westminster, the contest in Ireland became more 
 
 active and serious. The Irish Catholics were 
 
 determined they would hold their convention ; 
 
 the government was determined they should not ; 
 
 and the police authorities were called in. On the 
 
 9th of July, five persons were arrested for attend- 
 
 ing an aggregate meeting of the Committee in 
 
 Dublin; on the 30th, others were arrested for 
 
 having attended a meeting for the election of 
 
 delegates ; on the 19th of October, three hundred 
 
 members of the Committee having assembled at 
 
 the theatre in Fishamble Street, the police appeared 
 
 to disperse them; on the 23rd of December a simi- 
 
 lar scene was presented, and the members then — 
 retired to a tavern, where they passed resolutions 
 
 very hostile to the government; and on the 28th 
 
 of February following, an aggregate meeting of the 
 
 Committee resulted in a petition to the Prince 
 
 Regent against the grievances complained. 
 
 It resulted from all these circumstances that the 
 debates on Catholic emancipation in 1812 were 
 more than usually excited. Motions were made in 
 both Houses, immediately after the meeting of 
 parliament on the 7th of January, to take into 
 consideration the whole state of Irish affairs ; this 
 was opposed by the ministers, and rejected by the 
 Houses; but it led to two remarkable speeches 
 from the Marquis Wellesley and Mr, Canning, 
 both of whom, although opposing the immediate 
 motion, argued strongly for the expediency of 
 conceding the claims of the Catholics. When the 
 emancipation question was formally brought for- 
 ward on the 28rd of April, Canning explained the 
 course which his judgment and conscience had all 
 along dictated to him on this matter. He declared 
 that so long as the king retained his faculties, and 
 held his immovable repugnance to any concession 
 to the Catholics, a loyal subject would yield so 
 far as to hold his opinions in abeyance, however | 
 favourable he might be to those claims; but the 
 king being now in a state of mental aberration, — 
 and the Prince Regent being virtually sovereign — 
 for a time, he (Mr. Canning) conceived that the | 
 same delicacy was no longer required. “I take | 
 no shame to myself,” he said, “for having on other | 
 occasions resisted the inquiry which I now recom- — 
 mend. I did so on a view—a just one, I think: — 
 I am sure an honest well-intentioned one—of | 
 public duty.” Many other statesmen had been | 
 actuated in the same way as Canning; and, as a | 
 consequence, the division became more favourable | 
 
Cuap. IX. ] 
 
 refused inquiry, and were supported by both 
 Houses in the refusal—in the Lords, by 174 against 
 102 ; in the Commons, by 300 against 215. <A few 
 days after these decisions—namely, on the 11th of 
 May, Mr. Perceval was murdered ; and the death 
 of this minister loosened the compact by which 
 the resistance to the Catholics had been kept up. 
 On the 22nd of June, Mr. Canning moved that the 
 Commons would entertain a motion in the next 
 session on the subject of the Catholic claims ; and 
 on that same day news arrived in London con- 
 cerning the violent proceedings of the Catholic 
 Committee in Dublin, the members of which had 
 demanded, in fierce and fiery speeches, full and 
 unqualified emancipation, without conceding the 
 veto or any other condition. Canning, without 
 approving these speeches, quoted them as evidence 
 of the state of Irish feeling. The members of the 
 newly formed cabinet were divided in opinion: 
 some supported Canning; while others declared 
 that any concessions to which they could agree 
 would fall very far short of the expectations of the 
 Catholics, and would on that account be scarcely 
 worth announcing. The change of feeling in the 
 Commons, nevertheless, was very marked; for 
 Canning’s motion—pledging the House to inquiry 
 in the next session—was carried by 235 against 
 106. In the other House the change was nearly 
 as remarkable ; for when on the Ist of July the 
 Marquis Wellesley brought on the Irish question, 
 the division gave him 74 votes present and 51 
 proxies; while the opposition, led by the lord 
 chancellor, polled 74 present and 52 proxies—the 
 liberals being defeated by only one proxy. 
 
 A dissolution and a re-election towards the close 
 of 1812 rendered null the pledge that, according to 
 Canning’s intention, would have bound parlia- 
 ment. Nevertheless the subject was not allowed to 
 sleep. On the 25th of February, 1813, Mr. Grattan, 
 in the new parliament, moved that the House 
 should immediately resolve itself into a cominittee 
 for the object specified in Canning’s resolution. 
 He expressed a belief that all due security might 
 easily be obtained for the loyalty of the Catholics, 
 if their rightful claims were conceded ; and Mr, 
 Plunkett, after agreeing that such security was 
 needed, joined Grattan in the opinion that no 
 difficulty need occur on this head. “On the best 
 consideration I have been able to give the subject, 
 and on the fullest communication I have been 
 enabled to obtain on it, I am satisfied that such 
 security may be afforded without interfering in any 
 degree with the essentials of their religion ; and, if 
 so, the mere circumstance of its being required is a 
 sufficient reason for conceding it.... What this 
 security may be, provided it shall be effectual, 
 ought, as I conceive, to be left to the option of the 
 Catholic body. I am little solicitous about the 
 form, so that the substance is attained. As a veto 
 has been objected to, let it not be required ; but let 
 the security be afforded either by domestic nomina- 
 tion of the clergy, or in any shape or form which 
 shall exclude the practical effect of foreign inter- 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 773 
 
 ference. Let them be liberally provided for by 
 the state, let them be natives of the country and 
 educated in the country, and let the full and 
 plenary exercise of spiritual authority by the pope, 
 which forms an essential part of their religious 
 discipline, remain in all its force; leave to their 
 choice the mode of reconciling these principles, and 
 stand not upon the manner, if the thing is done.” 
 Throughout the debate there was a general agree- 
 ment, even among the warmest advocates of 
 concession, that the nation ought to receive some 
 guarantees against papal interference, exerted : 
 through the medium of the Catholic clergy. After 
 debating the question, throughout four evenings, 
 and making speeches that filled 330 columns of the 
 ‘Parliamentary Debates,’ the Commons agreed, by 
 264 against 224, that the subject should be entered 
 upon, Accordingly on the 9th of March the House 
 went into committee; and on the 30th of April, 
 Grattan brought in an Emancipation Bill, which 
 was read a first time, and ordered to be printed. 
 The chief safeguards in the bill were—that the old 
 oaths and declarations touching allegiance, abjura- 
 tion, supremacy, transubstantiation, and invocation 
 of saints should be superseded by a new oath and 
 declaration; that certain specified offices in the 
 state, the ecclesiastical, and the educational institu- 
 tions of the country, should be excepted from those 
 thrown open to Roman Catholics; and that no 
 foreigner should act as a Roman Catholic bishop 
 in this country unless born of. British or Irish 
 parents. Grattan hoped that he had so framed his 
 
 | bill as to conciliate both parties; but in this he was 
 
 grievously disappointed, for objections met him 
 on all sides. Sir John Coxe Hippesley, hitherto a 
 strenuous advocate of emancipation, moved as an 
 amendment to the bill that a select committee 
 should be appointed to examine and report on the 
 state of the laws affecting the Catholics, on the 
 number of their clergy, on their intercourse with 
 the see of Rome, and on the regulations of foreign 
 states respecting the nomination and collation of 
 clergy of that persuasion, and the terms on which 
 they were permitted to hold such intercourse. 
 Although he had been a recognised agent in 
 parliament for the English Catholics, so little 
 disposed was Sir John to place unchecked power 
 in the hands of the papal priesthood, that he said, 
 “as to the simple repeal of the existing disabilities, 
 simple would be the vote of that House in agreeing 
 to it.” On the other hand, the Catholic hierarchy 
 received the restrictive clauses and the new oath 
 and declaration with much dissatisfaction ; Dr. 
 Troy and Dr. Milner, two of the most eminent 
 of this body, published their opposition in unmis- 
 takable terms, and carried many of the Catholic 
 laity with them. Mr. Abbott and other opponents 
 of the bill pointed triumphantly to these varied 
 evidences of dislike, and contended that as three 
 distinct parties appeared to be hostile, Mr. Grattan 
 had better withdraw his measure. Nevertheless 
 the House assented to the resolution by 245 against 
 203. On the 24th of May, in committee, Mr. 
 
 —— 
 
174 
 
 Abbott* moved a clause to prevent Roman Catholics 
 from sitting in either House of parliament; and 
 as this was carried by 251 against 247, Grattan felt 
 that the pith was taken out of his bill: he 
 withdrew it. The Catholics showed some diver- 
 gence of feeling on this subject. In Ireland, the 
 Catholic bishops addressed their clergy and laity in 
 terms violently abusive of the restrictive clauses in 
 the lately defeated bill: characterising those restric- 
 tions as “utterly incompatible with the discipline 
 of the Roman Catholic Church, and with the free 
 exercise of our religion;” whereas the English 
 Catholics passed a resolution expressive of their 
 gratitude to the framers and supporters of the late 
 bill. The session did not pass away, however, 
 without one small instalment in the direction of 
 religious liberty: seeing that an enactment was 
 made, securing to Irish Catholics while resident in 
 Great Britain the same immunities as had been 
 granted to them by the Irish act of 1793. 
 
 The violence of the priest-party in Ireland 
 checked the progress of the emancipation question. 
 The formation of Ribbon societies on the Catholic 
 side led to the establishment of Orange societies on 
 the other, and fierce contention was the result. So 
 many were the disturbances in the spring and 
 summer of 1814, and so evident was the determina- 
 tion of the Irish Catholics not to agree to any 
 restrictive clauses against their clergy, that Grattan 
 announced his intention to postpone for another 
 year any further movement in the Catholic 
 question. The proceedings of the Catholic Board 
 at Dublin having become very audacious, the lord- 
 lieutenant proclaimed it an illegal body, and 
 forbade its further meeting under severe penalties. 
 The year 1815 showed how little chance existed of 
 an immediate settlement of this agitated subject. 
 Ireland was in a more disturbed state than ever, 
 and additional powers were put into the hands 
 of the executive by the renewal of the Insurrec- 
 tion Act and other legislative measures. The 
 Irish Catholics, with Mr. O’Connell as their most 
 vigorous leader, held an aggregate mecting in 
 January, at which they formed themselves into a 
 new body, afterwards famous as the Catholic 
 Association, Mr. Grattan having again declined 
 to renew his motion in the Commons, Mr, Parnell 
 took his place, but with poor success, for the 
 division was 228 to 147 against him. The most 
 effective speech in the debate of May the 30th was 
 from -Grattan himself, wlio said: “Unless the 
 Catholic body pursue a conciliatory line of conduct 
 —unless they come to this House, not with a silent 
 and implied, but with a declared attachment to the 
 vital principles of the constitution—they will never 
 succeed. I have told them before, and I now 
 repeat it, that, unless they adopt a spirit of concilia- 
 tion, they will never succeed, I will say further, 
 that conciliation is not only necessary to their 
 interest, but essential to their duty both to the 
 
 * Abbott’s speech on this occasion gave origin to Moore’s well- 
 known lines— 
 
 ‘There was a little man, and he had a little soul,” &e, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 state and to one another.” Such words, from an 
 undoubted friend to Catholic emancipation, con- 
 veyed a severe reproof to those who were heed- 
 lessly thwarting his endeavours to raise them in 
 social and political influence. 
 
 It will thus be seen that, down to the close 
 of the period embraced within the present Book, a 
 few concessions had been made to the Catholics 
 of the United Kingdom; but that any larger 
 measure of emancipation was frustrated, almost as 
 much by the violence of the Catholic party as by 
 the prejudices of the ultra-Protestants. 
 
 The disgraceful delusion connected with Joanna 
 Southcott is the only other matter relating to 
 religion that calls for notice here; it requires atten- 
 tion as affording mournful evidence of ignorance 
 and fanaticism among a nation claiming a high 
 rank in the scale of intelligence. This woman, the 
 daughter of a small Devonshire farmer, was born 
 in 1750, and spent the first forty-two years of her 
 life. as little heard of by the world as any other 
 person of the same humble condition. She was 
 religious in feeling, and was in the habit of praying 
 or appealing to the Deity in some very direct way, 
 for assistance in times of trouble or difficulty ; 
 and there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of her 
 belief that her prayers were frequently answered 
 —a belief much dwelt upon by the Wesleyan 
 Methodists, to which body she belonged. Her 
 subsequent career is more intelligibly interpreted 
 on the supposition of insanity, than on that of 
 knavery or imposture. In the year 1792 she 
 called on Mr. Pomeroy of Exeter, a Methodist 
 preacher whose ministrations she attended, with a 
 quantity of sealed-up packets, which she told him 
 contained her “ prophecies,” and desired him to keep 
 till a time she named, when they were to be opened, 
 and would prove the truth of her claims to inspira- 
 tion, Mr. Pomeroy at first believed her, but then 
 became frightened at what looked to him like 
 devil’s work, and committed the papers to the 
 flames—a proceeding that brought him into much 
 trouble afterwards. Joanna soon found believers, 
 although her “documents” were no longer in 
 existence ; three clergymen of the Church of 
 England, William Sharp, the eminent engraver, 
 and numerous ministers and lay persons among 
 the Methodists, firmly believed that she was a 
 prophetess. She promulgated a new religion, @ 
 sort of supplement to Christianity. She declared 
 herself to be the bride of the spirit, the promised 
 seed that was to bruise the serpent’s head, the 
 woman described in the twelfth chapter of the 
 Revelations, who was to be clothed with the sun, 
 
 and to have the moon under her feet, and upon 
 
 her head a crown of twelve stars. From this 
 time she poured out her ravings upon the world 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 in a long series of pamphlets, dictated to such 
 
 of her devoted adherents as could write, among 
 whom appear the names of Anne Underwood and 
 Jane Townley. Her great desire was to be noticed, 
 to be attacked, to be combated; she abused 
 the bishops because they would not abuse, or 
 
Cuap. IX.] . 
 
 even notice, her new religion. One never-failing 
 resource to her was to attack poor Mr. Pomeroy for 
 haying burned her prophecies. “Day after day, 
 long letters are despatched to him, sometimes 
 from Joanna herself, sometimes from her brother, 
 sometimes from one of her four-and-twenty elders, 
 filled with exhortation, invective, texts of Scripture, 
 and denunciations of the law in this world and 
 the devil in the next; and these letters the 
 prophetess prints.’* While on the one hand 
 hurling at Pomeroy the epithets Arch-apostate, 
 Jehoiakim, Judas Iscariot, Lucifer, and issuing 
 shoals of letters against any of her adherents who 
 fell away from her, Joanna gradually increased 
 the sphere of her influence. Besides writing her 
 letters and tracts, she took up the manufacture 
 of what she called seals, being papers signed 
 with her name and sealed with red wax, 
 which were given to her disciples, or those 
 who were to inherit the millennium she came 
 to announce. This sealing she kept on as long 
 as she lived, until she had “sealed” about fourteen 
 thousand persons. The great event of her crazy 
 career, however, took place in the year 1814, when, 
 in her sixty-fifth year, she suddenly announced 
 herself to be pregnant—and connected the astound- 
 ing phenomenon with the woman in the Revelations 
 who “cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be 
 delivered,” and who “brought forth a man child, 
 who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” 
 The news threw her followers into a state of the 
 » greatest excitement. One of them, a lady of 
 fortune, immediately bespoke a cradle for the 
 coming baby, made of the most expensive and 
 magnificent materials, which was exhibited for 
 some days at the warehouse of the manufacturer, 
 in Aldersgate Street, and which crowds went to 
 see. Other persons sent her a store of all other 
 necessaries for the interesting occasion.t The 
 mania spread even to the medical profession ; 
 for Dr. John Reece, a London physician, went 
 to visit Joanna, and published a four-shilling 
 pamphlet to prove that she was really pregnant. 
 This testimony set her adherents almost frantic 
 with exultation; and even a portion of the 
 hitherto incredulous public began to have their 
 misgivings, and not to know very well what to 
 think of the matter. Dr. Reece, who visited her 
 several times between August and December, 
 seems really to have shared the belief of the 
 
 * Letters from England, by Don M. A. Espriella (written by the 
 late Dr. Southey). 
 
 + In her will (for Joanna contrived to make her inspiration very 
 profitable) she gave a list of the presents which had been made in 
 the prospect of her giving birth to a child; and it was directed that 
 all these articles should be restored to the donors, in the event of 
 the child not being forthcoming. ‘Every possible want and accom- 
 modation seems to have been anticipated with scrupulous attention. 
 There are cradles, robes, mantles, bows, caps, and napkins out 
 of number, several articles of plate, money from six guineas to a 
 sama ‘three nutmegs,’? and ‘a pin” ”—Annual Register, 
 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION :—1785-1815. 
 
 775 
 
 poor deluded woman herself that she would 
 speedily be delivered. On the 19th of November 
 a Scene occurred in the presence of the doctor, 
 which lends some support to the belief that she 
 might have recovered from her hallucination, 
 had not her fanatical disciples striven with eager 
 expostulations to quench the rising light. Lying 
 on her bed, and addressing six or seven persons 
 who surrounded her, she said: “My friends, some 
 of you have known me nearly twenty-five years, 
 and all of you not less than twenty. When you 
 have heard me speak of my prophecies, you have 
 Sometimes heard me say that I doubted my 
 inspiration. But, at the same time, you would 
 never let me despair. When I have been alone, it 
 has often appeared delusion ; but when the com- 
 munications were made to me, I did not in the 
 least doubt. Feeling, as I now do, that my dissolu- 
 tion is drawing near, and that a day or two may 
 terminate my life, it all appears delusion.” She 
 shed tears; whereupon one of her adherents, a 
 Mr. Howe, said to her: “Mother, your feelings are 
 human, We know that you are a favoured woman 
 of God, and that you will produce the promised 
 child; and whatever you may say to the contrary 
 will not diminish our faith.” The woman died on 
 the 29th of December, after having been ten weeks 
 confined to her bed. According to her own direc- 
 tions, her dead body was kept warm for four days, 
 in the hope that the child might still make its 
 appearance. It was afterwards dissected by Dr. 
 Reece, who then frankly admitted that there 
 had been no pregnancy in the case. Neither the 
 death nor the dissection of the prophetess, however, 
 sufficed to extinguish the faith of the great body of 
 believers. They continued to look confidently for 
 her reappearance. One county after another took 
 up the delusion, until there were “ Southcottians,” as 
 a distinct religious sect, all over England. On one 
 occasion a procession of these fanatics took place 
 in the city of London, with stars, cockades, ribbons, 
 flags, and trumpets, and leaders who shouted out 
 that “Shiloh, the Prince of Peace, is come again to 
 the earth,” followed by the ravings of a woman: 
 
 “Wo! wo! to the inhabitants of the earth, because 
 
 of the coming of the Shiloh.” The Southcottians 
 were pelted with mud by a rabble, and forced 
 to flee; but this did not prevent the spread of 
 the delusion among many ignorant persons—who 
 believed either that Joanna would come to life 
 again, or that a son would in some mysterious 
 way be born from her dead body.* 
 
 * In 1854 the Registrar-general of Births, Marriages, and Deaths 
 prepared a Statistical Report on the Religious Denominations of 
 England and Wales, as ascertained by the census of 1851. Among 
 the ‘*miscellaneous’”’ sects, few in members and small in importance, 
 he found that the Southcottians must be included—persons who 
 still believed that, for the accomplishment of Joanna’s predictions, 
 she would shortly reappear, restored to life. ‘It seems,” he says, 
 “that there are still in England four congregations of persons 
 entertaining this belief.” 
 
CH ASP Tek 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS. 
 
 | HE enormous amount of 
 legislation during the 
 closing years of the 
 eighteenth and the earlier 
 years of the nineteenth cen- 
 turies, almost equalling that 
 
 " 
 
 By in the whole _ preceding 
 KX period of the British mon- 
 i archy, renders necessary 
 
 ies} some clear system of classifica- 
 ? tion in the treatment of the 
 present chapter. It will be found convenient to 
 adopt a four fold grouping, as follows: I. Con- 
 STITUTIONAL LEGISLATION. II. LEGISLATION 
 RELATING TO REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY. 
 
 III. CRIMINAL oR PENAL LEGISLATION. IV. 
 FINANCIAL LEGISLATION. 
 I. CONSTITUTIONAL LEGISLATION—It is ex- 
 
 tremely difficult in jurisprudence, as in physical 
 science, to make classifications that shall not 
 trench upon or run into each other. Thus, 
 there are many subjects which might with 
 almost equal propriety be placed under Constitu- 
 tional or Criminal Legislation. Nevertheless, a 
 separation sufficient for the present purpose may 
 be made, by placing under one heading such 
 legislation as concerns the sovereign power itself, 
 and the extent and distribution of the various 
 duties lodged in the respective branches of that 
 power. 
 
 During the impeachment of Warren Hastings, 
 as narrated in an earlier part of the present Book, 
 a question arose whether the impeachment did not 
 abate by a dissolution of parliament—that is, 
 whether the dissolution did or did not put an end 
 to the legal proceedings. So far as concerned 
 Hastings himself, the decision was of minor 
 importance ; nevertheless, it involved a question of 
 parliamentary power worthy of strict and definite 
 settlement. During the trial, the majority of the 
 eminent lawyers in the House of Commons con- 
 tended that the dissolution of parliament did abate 
 the impeachment; whereas in the Upper House the 
 majority lay the other way; Lords Loughborough, 
 Camden, and Mansfield voting against the abate- 
 ment, It may be worth while, therefore, in order 
 to comprehend the grounds whereon the decision 
 was founded, to go back to an earlier stage of 
 parliamentary history. 
 
 Soon after the Conquest, the Commune Concilium, 
 or Aula Regis, contained within itself all the powers 
 which are now distributed among the various 
 courts of law and equity, the two Houses of 
 parliament, the privy council, and the cabinet 
 council: exercising the legislative, judicial, and 
 administrative functions of the whole. In process 
 of time, as the laws became complicated and volu- 
 minous, a portion of the judicial functions was 
 transferred to the common law judges, leaving a 
 residuum to the king and his council. In cases 
 where the common law did not provide a remedy, 
 the resort was to the king in council. Then, aiter 
 a time, another portion of the judicial functions was 
 separated from the great council, and lodged in the 
 chancellor, leaving another residuwm, part of which 
 is now exercised by the privy council, and part by 
 the House of Lords in its judicial capacity.* In 
 the reign of Edward I., when the office of great 
 justiciary was abolished, the barons or peers 
 continued to hold a certain supreme jurisdiction, 
 which had formerly belonged, not to the justiciar, 
 but to themselves as jurors in the king’s court ; 
 and when the feudal barons merged into the peers 
 of the realm, they formed, and form to this day, 
 the supreme and final court of English law, judging 
 in the last resort for the whole kingdom, It is 
 worthy of notice that, while the ancient Commune 
 Concilium thus abandoned its functions one by one 
 to the law courts, the equity courts, the privy 
 council, and the House of Lords, the House of 
 Commons never exercised by itself strictly judicial 
 functions, except in cases where its own members 
 were specially concerned; which may be partly 
 accounted for by the fact that the Commons were 
 not constituent members of the great national 
 council until that council had lost somewhat of its 
 primary character as a court of justice, Lord 
 Chief Justice Hale has shown from ancient records _ 
 that errors of inferior courts were examined on 
 appeal to two distinct courts—one, seldom used, 
 being the plenwm parliamentum, consisting of King, 
 Lords, and Commons; and the other of more — 
 general adoption, being the House of Lords alone.t 
 To some extent, therefore, the Commons took part 
 in judicial proceedings, though rarely, and only in 
 
 * Mr. Justice Story’s ‘Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence,’ 
 i. 42. Blackstone’s Commentaries, i. 229, and iii. 57. 
 + Jurisdiction of Lords’ House of Parliament, ch, 22. 
 
Cuap. X. ] 
 
 the earlier periods of our parliamentary history. 
 After citing legal cases in point, Hale came to the 
 following conclusion respecting the power of the 
 Lower House in this capacity:—“ Although in 
 ancient times there were petitions, and possibly 
 some writs of error, which did interest the 
 Commons in point of judicature, or at least consent 
 or dis-assent to the judgment ; yet these two things 
 are to be noted—1. That, even in the ancientest 
 times whereof we have any memorials of record, 
 as the times of Edward I, Edward II. and 
 Edward IIL, the petitions and writs of error in the 
 House of Lords were more frequent, and more 
 frequently there determined than in pleno parlia- 
 mento, 2. That from the beginning of Richard IT. 
 down to this day there are very few if any petitions 
 or writs of error brought before both Houses or 
 determined by them, but only in the House of 
 Lords.”* Blackstone spoke unfavourably of the 
 judicial powers of the House of Commons; on the 
 plea that the representatives of the people cannot 
 properly judge of crimes committed by powerful 
 men against the state or nation, because their con- 
 stituents are the parties injured, and can therefore 
 onlyimpeach, Buta fallacy seems to lurk through 
 this reasoning; because it would imply that the 
 peers are not equally injured by the acts of a 
 state criminal. Nevertheless, it is quite true that 
 the peers may be supposed to possess more of 
 the qualities of the judicial character than the 
 Commons, from their position: as being less likely 
 to be influenced by popular passions; and having 
 among them several men who have been accus- 
 tomed by their profession to the performance of 
 judicial duties. 
 
 When, therefore, it became subject of debate 
 whether the impeachment of Hastings would 
 depend on the continuance of the House of 
 Commons in session, all the above facts in par- 
 liamentary history came under notice. Lord 
 
 Lorp Trvriow. 
 
 Chancellor Thurlow argued that the impeach- 
 ment had abated, because one of the parties to 
 
 * Jurisdiction of Lords’ House of Parliament, ch. 23. 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 
 
 717 
 
 the prosecution, namely, the House of Commons, 
 had become extinct. If it were alleged that the 
 whole people of England were the real prosecu- 
 tors, he thought that this allegation might be 
 combated in two ways—that the House of Com- 
 mons did not actually represent the people; and 
 that the Lords knew nothing about the people 
 as an acting body in the state. “The acts of 
 the House of Commons cannot be regarded as 
 the acts of the people of England, because the 
 House of Commons does not actually represent 
 the people of England; it represents them no 
 more than virtually. The next thing is, that 
 your lordships House of Parliament knows 
 nothing about the people as an acting body 
 in the state; you know only the House of 
 Commons, the acts of which are not the acts 
 of the people. The people, therefore, are not 
 parties to an impeachment.” It was decided 
 against Thurlow, however: on the ground that 
 the high court of parliament exists at al/ times, 
 whether actually in session or not; and that the 
 commons, like the peers, have their authority 
 inherent in their order, although it might be in 
 abeyance during the recess between sessions of 
 parliament. “The peers, who were the judges, 
 had their authority inherent in their order, and 
 independent of the actual sitting of parliament; 
 and the prosecutors were not merely the members 
 of the House of Commons, but all the commons 
 of England, who, though they might be deprived 
 of their organ by a dissolution, did not thereby 
 lose their right of acting, and might resume the 
 exercise of that right as soon as they were fur- 
 nished with a new organ by the assembling of a 
 new parliament.” Mr. Justice Coleridge, in his 
 edition of Blackstone, while expressing some 
 doubt of the constitutional basis on which this 
 decision rested, nevertheless thought that “the 
 right of impeachment would have lost half its 
 value, if a contrary determination had been 
 come to.”* . 
 
 It was on the above-mentioned grounds decided 
 that the impeachment of Warren Hastings did 
 not abate by a dissolution of parliament, 
 
 In 1790 an act was passed affecting the office of 
 Speaker of the House of Commons. A sum was 
 directed to be issued by the Exchequer which, 
 together with the fees and allowance of 5/. per 
 day, then payable on account of the office of 
 Speaker, might amount to the clear yearly sum 
 of 60007. It was at the same time stipulated 
 that the Speaker should not hold, in his own 
 name or in the name of any person in trust for 
 him, any office or place of trust under the crown 
 during pleasure. 
 
 The next subject of magnitude connected with 
 constitutional legislation had reference to Ireland, 
 being the Act of Union between Great Britain and 
 that country. Mr. Stephen’s abstract will convey 
 a clear idea of the chief provisions of this most 
 
 * Blackstone’s Commentaries, Coleridge’s edition, iv. 261, note 3. 
 
778 | 
 
 important statute (89 & 40 Geo, III. c. 67), passed 
 just before the close of the eighteenth century : 
 
 “1, That the kingdoms of Great Britain and 
 Ireland shall, on the Ist day of January, 1801, 
 and for ever after, be united into one kingdom, 
 by the name of the United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland. 
 
 “9. That the succession to the imperial crown 
 shall continue in the same manner as that to the 
 crown of Great Britain and Ireland stood before 
 united. 
 
 “3, That there shall be one parliament, styled 
 the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland. 
 
 “4, That the lords spiritual of Ireland, by 
 rotation of sessions, and twenty-eight lords tem- 
 poral of Ireland, elected for life by the peers of 
 Ireland, shall sit in the House of Lords; and one 
 hundred commoners* shall be the number to sit 
 in the House of Commons on the part of Ireland ; 
 that a peer of Ireland not elected one of the 
 twenty-eight may sit in the House of Commons, 
 but, while so sitting, shall not be entitled to 
 privilege of peerage, or to be elected one of the 
 twenty-eight, or to vote at such election; and 
 that all the lords spiritual and temporal of Ireland 
 (except those temporal peers who may be mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons) shall have all 
 privilege of peerage as fully as those of Great 
 Britain—the right of sitting in the House of 
 Lords (with its attendant privileges) only 
 excepted. 
 
 “5, That the churches of England and Ireland 
 shall be united into one Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, to be called the United Church of England 
 and Ireland; that the doctrine, worship, and 
 discipline shall be the same, and that the continu- 
 ance of the United Church as the Established 
 Church of England and Ireland shall be deemed an 
 essential and fundamental part of the Union; and 
 that in like manner the Church of Scotland shall 
 remain the same as established by the acts of Union 
 of England and Scotland. 
 
 “6, That the subjects of Great’ Britain and 
 Ireland shall be entitled to the same privileges, 
 with regard to trade and navigation, and also 
 in respect of all treaties with foreign powers. 
 
 “7. That the future expenditure of the United 
 Kingdom shall be defrayed in such proportion 
 as parliament shall from time to time deem 
 reasonable, according to certain rules prescribed 
 for that purpose in the Act, 
 
 “8, That all thelaws and courts of each kingdom 
 shall remain the same as already established, 
 subject to such alterations by the united parliament 
 as circumstances may require; but that all writs of 
 error and appeal which might then have been 
 decided in the House of Lords of either kingdom, 
 shall be decided by the House of Lords of the 
 United Kingdom.”t 
 
 In such a small compass lay the chief pro- 
 
 * Five more were added by the Reform Act of 1832. 
 + Commentaries on the Laws of England, i. 94. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 visions of a statute destined to exert immense 
 
 influence over the fortunes of Ireland—by giving 
 that country an interest in everything affecting 
 Great Britain ; and by winning for Ireland, in her 
 times of trial, an amount of sympathy which would 
 not have been shown so long as each country 
 
 maintained its own independent legislature. Since | 
 
 the Union, all acts of parliament extend to Ireland, 
 unless that portion of the United Kingdom be 
 expressly excepted, or the intention to except it 
 be otherwise plainly shown. 
 
 Many important discussions took place from 
 time to time on the correlated questions—Who are 
 the persons fitted to be elected members of parlia- 
 ment? Who are the persons fitted to elect them ? 
 To understand the bearing of these questions, it 
 will be necessary to trace the course of procedure 
 from earlier times. 
 
 It was originally necessary that the parliamen- 
 tary representative should come from the body 
 of the persons represented, In 1774 a committee, 
 reporting upon the early usages, said: “The first 
 act of parliament which requires an attentive and 
 particular consideration was an act passed in the 
 first year of Henry V. This law has been decided 
 not necessary to be observed, and constant usage 
 has long prevailed against it. Three acts of Henry 
 VI. proceeding upon the same principle with the 
 above-mentioned statute, fell under the same obser- 
 vation. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this 
 committee that so much of these statutes as relates 
 to the residence of persons to be elected members to 
 serve in parliament, or of the persons by whom 
 they are to be chosen, are not in use, or ought to be 
 repealed.” Consequent on the recommendation of 
 the committee, an act was passed (14 Geo, III. c. 
 58) for repealing the statutes of Henry V. and 
 Henry VI.; and thenceforward it was no longer — 
 deemed necessary that a parliamentary represen- 
 tative should belong to the body represented. 
 
 The disqualifications for sitting in parliament 
 then became limited to two kinds, concerning 
 which it may be desirable to trace the course of 
 legislation. 
 
 1. Personal Disability—Soon after the Revolu- 
 tion, the system was introduced of excluding from 
 parliament all persons who held paid employments 
 under the crown, By the Act of Union with 
 Treland, and by the statute of 1801, exact rules are 
 laid down to determine the non-eligibility of persons 
 to sit in the imperial parliament of the United 
 Kingdom, so far as concerns their birthright as — 
 natives of Great Britain or of Ireland. Those © 
 disabled on any ground from sitting in the former j 
 British or the Irish parliaments, are declared — 
 equally disabled from seats in the imperial parlia- 
 ment; no persons disabled by British statutes shall 
 by this act be admissible for Ireland, nor e contra ; 
 and persons holding certain places in Ireland, of | 
 which an enumeration is given, are disallowed " 
 from sitting in any future parliament of the United — 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Priestly functions are one source of personal | 
 
Cuap. X.] 
 
 disability. The eligibility of the clergy was gene- 
 rally and strongly denied; but the case of John 
 Horne Tooke (narrated in the last chapter) having 
 revived the discussion, the act 41 Geo. III. c, 63 
 was passed to settle the question. By this it is 
 enacted, “That no person ordained a priest or 
 deacon, or being a minister of the Church of 
 Scotland, shall be capable of being elected, and, if 
 elected, such election shall be void; or, if being 
 elected, he shall afterwards be ordained or become 
 a minister of the Church of Scotland, his seat shall 
 immediately become vacant.’ Nothing has since 
 occurred to disturb the operation of this law. 
 
 Another source of personal disability applies 
 to aliens. By a statute of Geo, I., no bill for natu- 
 ralising a foreigner can be received, unless it 
 contain.a clause preventing the person to be natu- 
 ralised from becoming a member of parliament or 
 of the privy council. The usual practice now is, 
 when any distinguished foreigner is to be natural- 
 ised, first to pass an act for the repeal of these 
 statutes in his favour, and then to pass an act 
 of naturalisation without the exception.* 
 
 Bribery and treating at elections are sources 
 of disability. By the principle of the constitution, 
 bribery is not only an infringement of parliamen- 
 tary privilege and statute law, but a high misde- 
 meanour and breach of the common law. Hence 
 the House of Commons has always professed to 
 regard it as a gross offence, notwithstanding the 
 - great number of offenders at every general election. 
 In the reigns of Charles II. and his successors, this 
 species of corruption became very prevalent; 
 motions were made and resolutions passed, in 1669, 
 1677, 1680, and 1689, intended to abate this. evil; 
 but little of an effective nature was accomplished. 
 At length the House, in 1696, passed the act 7 Will. 
 3, c. 4, now generally known as the Treating Act. 
 Since that date, treating and bribery have been 
 regarded as distinct electioneering offences, The 
 substance of this statute is, that no candidate at an 
 election can be permitted to offer a voter, in 
 exchange for his vote, any “money, meat, drink, 
 provision, present, reward, or entertainment:” 
 on pain of forfeiture of his seat if elected. Up 
 to the time here named, corruption at elec- 
 tions had chiefly been carried on by giving 
 meat and drink; and it was not until after 
 such proceedings had been declared illegal by 
 this act that bribery by money existed to any great 
 extent. There are no traces of any prosecution for 
 money-bribery at elections till after the legislature 
 inflicted particular penalties on it by the statute 
 2 Geo. II. c. 24, although it was always regarded 
 constitutionally as a crime. By this act, every 
 candidate found guilty of bribery at an election, by 
 himself or his agents, is subject to a penalty of 5007. 
 for each offence. The bribed voter is disqualified 
 from ever voting again. In 1809 an act was passed 
 (49 Geo. III. c. 118) for making this bribery law 
 more stringent, by causing it to apply to indirect 
 
 * Rogers, Law and Practice of Elections, 47. 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 
 
 779 
 
 agents who managed to evade the provisions. This 
 new act, as Mr Rogers shows,* distinctly provides, 
 not only that if a person gives or promises any 
 money or office, but if he knows of and consents to 
 the giving or the promising, if returned, his return 
 is void; if not returned, he forfeits 500/.; and in 
 either case the party receiving forfeits 500/. ; and if 
 the party conferring any place within section 3 
 hold office under his majesty the penalty is 10007. 
 This act was aimed at the abuse of official 
 patronage. It is worthy of observation that if 
 “knowledge of and consent to” an act done by 
 others are sufficient to make a candidate liable for 
 all the consequences, it is not necessary that a 
 party should direct an act to be done, that is, be 
 the moving party in doing it, or ratify it when 
 done; if he knows of its being done, and sanctions 
 it by his silence and non-intervention, and reaps 
 the benefit of it afterwards, it seems that it would 
 be a “knowing of and consenting to” within the 
 statute. Since the passing of that statute, the cases 
 of proved bribery have usually fallen under one or 
 other of the following heads :—Money, or tickets 
 for money or food, given previous to an election ; 
 money given after, there being no _ previous 
 promise ; offer of a bribe by a candidate which is 
 not accepted; payments for travelling expenses 
 and loss of time, or for admission of freemen ; and 
 wagers touching the issue of the election. 
 
 2. Want of Qualification in Estate or Property.— 
 The personal disabilities having thus been shown 
 to relate chiefly to clergymen, aliens, and persons 
 guilty of treating or bribing, it remains to notice 
 the property disabilities, 
 
 A qualification by estate in land was first 
 required in England by the statute 9 Anne ce, 5, 
 which provided that no person should be eligible 
 for any county in England or Wales unless he had 
 an estate freehold or copyhold, for his own life, or 
 for some greater estate in law or equity in lands, 
 tenements, &c., to the amount of 6007, per annum ; 
 and for every other place, to the amount of 
 3007. After various minor changes, the Act of 
 Union rendered it sufficient if the estate be in 
 Ireland. No property qualification was required 
 for a seat for a Scottish county or burgh.t The 
 property qualification has on many individual 
 occasions been evaded, in a way difficult to be 
 brought home to the offenders. . 
 
 II, LEGISLATION RELATING TO REAL AND PER- 
 SONAL PRoperty.—A very important act was 
 passed in 1799 (39 and 40 Geo, IIT. c. 98), commonly 
 called the Thellusson Act, by which certain limits 
 were prescribed to the accumulation of property. 
 It related to the period during which, and the 
 mode in which, estates may be held in trust for 
 others. There was previously a power in the 
 owner of an estate to suspend not only the 
 ownership of the inheritance for a limited time, 
 
 * Law and Practice of Elections and Election Committees, 249. 
 
 + It was not until a much later date, 1839, that the qualification 
 was so far altered as to render personal as well as real property, or 
 any combination of the two, available: provided the net annual 
 values were respectively 6007, and 300/, 
 
780 
 
 but also the right to the intermediate enjoyment, 
 so as to accumulate the income and add it to the 
 principal, and thus aggrandise the remote issue 
 of the family at the expense of one, two, or even 
 three generations. Mr. Thellusson, a man of great 
 wealth, availing himself of this power, directed by 
 his will that all his sons and grandsons should be 
 cut off from the enjoyment of his estates, in order 
 that the income might accumulate for the benefit 
 of the fourth generation. The property consisted 
 of a landed estate of about 4000/7. a year, and 
 personal estate of about 500,000/. ; and it was calcu- 
 lated that, according to the tables of the average 
 duration of life, this property would accumulate to 
 the almost incredible value of 19,000,000/. by 
 the time all his sons and grandsons were dead. 
 This strange will gave rise to Chancery suits, 
 brought by the widow, the sons, the daughters, and 
 the husbands of the daughters, to invalidate its 
 provisions, Lord Chancellor Loughborough, by a 
 judgment given in 1799, declared the will valid ; 
 whereupon appeal was made to the House of Lords, 
 but the judgment of the chancellor was unani- 
 mously confirmed. The Thellusson family failed to 
 shake the will, which was declared to be within 
 the letter of the law; but as it was certainly 
 contrary to the spirit and intention of the law, the 
 statute above mentioned was passed. The power of 
 suspending or postponing the enjoyment of an estate 
 is by this statute limited in various ways, so that it 
 shall not be for any longer term than the life of the 
 devisor, or the term of twenty-one years after 
 his decease, or during the minority of any person 
 living, or in “ventre sa mere,” at the time of 
 the death of the devisor, &c. The act does not at 
 all affect the old rule respecting the property 
 itself, but merely limits the extent to which the 
 income of that property may be accumulated. 
 The principal clause enacts, “That no person or 
 persons shall, after the passing of this act, by any 
 deed or deeds, surrender or surrenders, will, codicil, 
 or otherwise howsoever, settle or dispose of any 
 real or personal property, so and in such manner 
 that the rents, issues, profits, or produce thereof, 
 shall be wholly or partially accumulated, for any 
 longer term than the life or lives of any such 
 grantor or grantors, settler or settlers; or the 
 term of twenty-one years from the death of 
 any such grantor, settler, devisor, or testator ; or 
 during the minority or respective minorities of 
 any person or persons who shall be living at the 
 time of the death of such grantor, devisor, or 
 testator; or during the minority or respective 
 minorities only of any person or persons who, 
 under the uses or trusts of the deed, surrender, 
 will, or other assurances, directing such accumula- 
 tions, would, for the time being, if of full age, 
 be entitled unto the rents, issues, and profits, or 
 the interest, dividends, or annual produce so 
 directed to be accumulated. And in every case 
 where any accumulation shall be directed other- 
 wise than as aforesaid, such direction shall be 
 null and void, and the rents, issues, profits, and 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X.. 
 
 produce of such property so directed to be accu- 
 mulated, shall, so long as the same shall be 
 directed contrary to the provisions of this act, go 
 to and be received by such person or persons as 
 would have been entitled thereto if such accumu- 
 lation had not been directed.” 
 
 Passing over certain minor statutes—such as 
 one in 1785 for facilitating the sale of the effects 
 of crown debtors; and another, under date 1799, 
 for the relief of persons entitled to entailed estates 
 to be purchased—we come to the subject of the 
 law of insurance. Numerous acts of parliament 
 existed, passed in the reigns of Elizabeth, Charles 
 II., George II., and George III, relating to the 
 trial of causes on policies ; and it became evident 
 that the courts of law had some difficulty in 
 preventing insurance from degenerating into a 
 species of gambling. Hence a statute was passed 
 in 1785, directing that no policy of insurance on 
 ships or goods should be made without inserting 
 the names of the persons really interested therein, 
 or the names of their accredited agents. This was 
 rendered still more stringent by an act of 1788; 
 intended to insure that the insurance should be 
 effected for bond-jide purposes. 
 
 Among other new statutes passed during the 
 closing years of ‘the century, affecting in various 
 ways the laws of property, the following may be 
 rapidly glanced at as the principal :—In 1787 a 
 new law gave a copyright of two months to the pro- 
 prietor of any original design or pattern for print- 
 ing linen, cotton, calico, or muslin: the name of the 
 proprietor being printed at each end of every piece. 
 In 1794 the term for this copyright was extended to 
 three months. In 1789 an act was passed, supplemen- 
 tary to two others in the same reign, for imposing 
 stamp duties on legacies and similar property; and 
 in 1796 a further statute extended these provisions, 
 by directing that all legacies or similar bequests, of 
 207, and upwards, should pay duties to the crown 
 at the rates of 2, 3, 4, or 6 per cent., according 
 to the degree of relationship between the donor 
 and the receiver—a legacy to a husband or wife 
 being alone exempted. In 1796 a new law regu- 
 lated the mode in which the property of bankr ‘upts 
 and lunatics in the public funds should’ be 
 managed, In the next following year a statute was 
 passed to remedy a hardship which had crept into 
 the stamp laws; it was found that if an instrument 
 were unstamped or improperly stamped, the defect 
 could only be rectified by the payment of the 
 accumulated penalties inflicted by the several acts 
 imposing stamp duties ; and even a stamp exceed- 
 ing the standard was in many cases equally fatal 
 under the rigorous eye of the law: the new act 
 gave greater “commercial facilities in this matter, 
 without relaxing the bonds necessary for security. 
 In 1798 a law was passed for regulating the 
 administration of assets, in cases where the 
 executor to whom probate had been granted was 
 out of the realm; for the collecting of outstanding 
 debts ; for the transfer of stock belonging to the 
 estate of the deceased ; and for the management of 
 
‘Cuar. X.] 
 
 the estate where the sole executor is an infant. 
 In the same year a new act of parliament gave 
 encouragement to the art of the sculptor and 
 modeller, by vesting, for fourteen years, in the 
 original proprietor, the sole right and property of 
 
 the human figure, or any statue of the human 
 figure, or the head or any part of any animal; 
 persons making copies of any model or cast without 
 the written consent of the proprietor may be 
 prosecuted for damages, by a special action on the 
 case, except such persons as shall purchase the 
 same of the original proprietor. In 1799 a new 
 act enabled courts of equity to compel a transfer of 
 stock in suits, with less cumbrous Jegal machinery 
 than was before necessary. 
 
 Passing on to the nineteenth century, we find 
 the law of enclosure assuming a position of import- 
 ance. Anciently, the unenclosed or waste land 
 within the compass of a manor belonged in 
 general to the lord of the manor; but the tenants 
 had a right of common upon this waste. Here it 
 may be well to bear in mind that hereditaments 
 —whatever may be inherited—are of two kinds, 
 corporeal and incorporeal; and that the right of 
 common applies to the latter only.’ Blackstone 
 defines this right as “a profit which a man has in 
 the land of another ; as to feed his beasts, to catch 
 fish, to dig turf, to cut wood, or the like; and 
 hence common is chiefly of four parts—common 
 of pasture, of piscary, of turbary, and of estovers.” * 
 The right of common which most frequently 
 occurs is common of pasture, varying in degree 
 according to certain peculiarities in each estate. 
 Thus, one kind is a right belonging to every 
 tenant of a manor to depasture his cattle, which 
 are either beasts of the plough or such as manure 
 the ground, upon the lord’s waste; another kind 
 is a right which is annexed to land by grant from 
 the owner of the other land in which it is to be 
 exercised, or by title of prescription, implying a 
 forgotten grant, and is generally measured by the 
 number of animals which the land whereto it is 
 annexed can maintain by its produce during the 
 winter, or season during which they are excluded 
 from the benefit of the common; while a third 
 kind is a right entirely distinct and separate from 
 any property in the land, and may be vested in 
 one who is not a tenant of the manor. Without 
 special acts of parliament, the tenants of the 
 
 waste lands; and if matters remained thus, wastes 
 would exist fur ever; but enclosure acts afford the 
 means for bringing wastes into cultivation. Statutes 
 of Henry III. and Edward I. opened the way for 
 these improvements; and acts of 1757, 1759, and 
 1773, made further regulations in the matter; 
 but the General Enclosure Act of 1801 formed 
 the groundwork for all particular enclosure acts 
 subsequently passed. By this statute, commis- 
 sioners under enclosure acts are to take a parti- 
 
 * 2 Comm. 82. 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 
 
 making models or casts of any bust, or any part of 
 
 manor have rightful claims to the common of 
 
 cular oath, and are not to purchase lands within 
 the parishes where they act for a definite period ; 
 claimants of common right are to specify their 
 distinct claims in writing ; allotments are made to 
 the commoners in lieu of rights of common; and 
 the allotments become formally recognised in the 
 courts of law. 
 
 The mass of legislation indirectly affecting pro- 
 perty, during the first fifteen years of the present 
 century, was very great. There were two new 
 acts of parliament relating to the property of 
 lunatics, directing how leases and loans, sales and 
 mortgages, on such property should be managed. 
 There were five acts concerning charities, in 
 relation to abuses of trusts; registering charitable 
 donations ; appointing commissioners of charities ; 
 and facilitating. legal and equity proceedings in 
 cases affecting charity estates. There were scarcely 
 less than forty new statutes having a bearing on 
 trade, navigation, ship-owners, mariners, fisheries, 
 and other commercial matters ; implying a great 
 amount of national activity in this direction. One 
 act (1812) regulated the management of property, 
 in stocks or annuities, belonging to infant suitors 
 in courts of equity. Other acts (1803, 1808, 1810, 
 1815) relieved mercantile men from a good deal 
 of difficulty in relation to stamp laws, wholly 
 occasioned by the clumsy construction and _ ter- 
 minology of preceding statutes. The last-named 
 
 statute, the General Stamp Act of 1815 (55 Geo. III. 
 
 c. 184), remained for many years the standard law 
 on the subject; containing as it did important 
 provisions relating to bankers, bankers’ drafts, bills 
 
 of exchange, promissory notes, probate duties, &c., 
 
 which are arranged under their appropriate heads 
 
 in the schedule annexed to the act. 
 
 The law of libel underwent some curious inquiry 
 early in the century, connected with the copyright 
 of the works containing the libels. In 1805, a 
 
 book appeared under the title of ‘My Pocket Book, 
 
 or Hints for a Ryghte Merrie and Conceited Tour, 
 
 in quarto, to be called The Stranger in Ireland in 
 
 1805, by a Knight Errant.’ Sir John Carr brought 
 an action for libel, on the ground that this work 
 “contained a certain false, scandalous, malicious, 
 and defamatory print of the said Sir John, in the 
 form of a man of ludicrous and ridiculous appear- 
 ance.’ Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough made 
 such a summing up as led the jury to nonsuit the 
 plaintiff. The writer of the libel had, it appeared, 
 criticised some of Sir John Carr’s writings so 
 keenly as to damage the sale of them. “ We really 
 must not cramp observations upon authors and 
 their works. They should be liable to criticism, to 
 exposure, and even to ridicule, if their composi- 
 tions be ridiculous ; otherwise the first who writes 
 a book on any subject will maintain a monopoly 
 of sentiment and opinion respecting it. This would 
 tend to the perpetuating of error..... Every 
 man who publishes a book commits himself to the 
 judgment of the public, and any one may comment 
 on his performance. If the commentator does not 
 step aside from the work, or introduce fiction for 
 
782 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 person, in his passage to and from parliament at 
 the opening of the session, and also the continued 
 attempts of wicked and evil-disposed persons to 
 disturb the tranquillity of his majesty’s kingdom, 
 particularly by the multitude of seditious pamph- 
 lets and speeches daily printed, published, and 
 dispersed, with unremitted industry, and with 
 transcendent boldness, in contempt of his majesty’s 
 royal person and dignity, and tending to the over- 
 throw of the laws, government, and happy con- 
 stitution of these realms”—an act was passed in 
 1796 (enacted for the life of George III., but made 
 perpetual by another act in 1817), adjudging the 
 penalty of death for any one who should compass 
 the death or wounding of the king, levy civil war 
 against him, endeavour to coerce him or the legis- 
 lature, invite foreign invasion, or spread disaffec- 
 tion by seditious writings and speeches. Mr. Justice 
 Coleridge remarks that perhaps all the offences 
 enumerated in this statute were already charge- 
 able as overt acts of compassing the death of the 
 king; but this makes them substantive treasons.* 
 One of these repressive statutes contains a’reference 
 to a peculiar mode of keeping up agitation in the 
 public mind on political subjects: “ Whereas 
 certain houses, rooms, or places within the cities 
 of London and Westminster, and in the neighbour- 
 hood thereof, and in other places, have of late been 
 frequently used for the purpose of delivering 
 lectures and discourses on and concerning sup- 
 posed public grievances, and matters relating to 
 the laws, constitution, government, and policy of 
 these kingdoms, and treating on and debating 
 concerning the same ; and under pretence thereof, 
 lectures or discourses have been delivered, and 
 debates held, tending to stir up hatred and con- 
 tempt of his majesty’s royal person, and of the 
 government and constitution of this realm as by 
 law established.” These words occur in the act 36 
 Geo. III. c, 8, and are followed by a clause giving 
 magisterial control over all lecturing, debating, and 
 reading-rooms. In later years, political agitators 
 were very prone to make use of the facilities 
 offered by such places. 
 
 Rioting, and proclamations relating to its sup- 
 pression, frequently engaged the attention of a 
 government much alarmed by the contagion of 
 French émeutes. Riot acts were by no means new 
 to the English law; they had been passed in the 
 reigns of Henry IV., Edward VL., Mary, Elizabeth, 
 George I., and George III., each act specifying the 
 kind of assemblage that should be deemed riotous. 
 No such statute, however, was in force from the 
 accession of James I. to the death of Anne—a 
 period of more than a century, marked by the 
 memorable events of the Commonwealth and the 
 Restoration. It might be a curious and not 
 unimportant speculation to inquire what effect this | 
 suspension of the riot laws may have had on those 
 events, Guizot has especially particularised, as 
 one of the elements of political advancement before 
 
 the purpose of condemnation, he exercises a fair 
 and legitimate right. The critic does a great service 
 
 Ul 
 
 % 
 ag’ 
 we 
 
 Lorp ELLENBOROUGH. 
 
 to the public who writes down any vapid or use- 
 less publication, such as ought never to have 
 appeared; he checks the dissemination of bad 
 taste, and prevents people from wasting their time 
 and money upon trash. I speak of fair and candid 
 criticism, and this every one has a right to publish, 
 although the author may suffer a loss from it. 
 Such a loss the law does not consider as an injury, 
 because it is a loss which the party ought to sustain. 
 It is, in short, the loss of fame and profit to which 
 he was never entitled. Nothing can be conceived 
 more threatening to the liberty of the press than 
 the species of action before the court. We ought to 
 resist an attempt against fair and liberal criticism 
 at the threshold.” The lord chief-justice was care- 
 ful to point out that any reflection on personal 
 character, any attack on the writer of a book 
 irrelevant to the book itself, would place the 
 question on a wholly different basis, entitling the 
 aggrieved party to reparation at the hands of a 
 jury. 
 
 III. Criminat oR PENAL LEGISLATION.— 
 Immense was the activity of this period in all 
 that touched the criminal or penal legislation. The 
 names of Jeremy Bentham, Fox, Erskine, Burke, 
 and Romilly, are associated with many important 
 proceedings, either in individual trials or in 
 attempts at reform in the law. 
 
 The effect of the French Revolution in England 
 is very discernible in the number and character of 
 the acts relating to political offences. In 1795, 
 1797, 1799, and 1800, statutes were passed for sup- 
 pressing seditious and treasonable practices; for 
 preventing seditious meetings and assemblies; for 
 checking the administering of unlawful oaths ; for 
 insuring the safety of his majesty’s person ; for 
 regulating trials for high treason; and for many 
 similar objects. By a statute passed in 1790, the 
 punishment of burning women for high or petty 
 treason was abolished, and hanging by the neck 
 substituted in its stead. In consideration of “the 
 daring outrages offered to his majesty’s most sacred 
 
 * Coleridge’s Blackstone, 82, note (6). 
 
Cuar, Pe: | 
 
 the other nations of the earth that were peculiar 
 to the people of England, the right of assembling, 
 and of being armed: one of the most precious 
 heirlooms that had come down to them from 
 their free, warlike, but barbarous ancestors. If 
 the riot acts passed before the time of Charles I. 
 had been in force in his reign, there is a fair pro- 
 bability that they would have thrown difficulties, 
 to say the least, in the way of the party of the 
 king, at the commencement of their career. After 
 things got so far as they had done when Oliver 
 Cromwell began to drill and preach to his Iron- 
 sides, such statutes would, it is true, have been 
 little regarded; but they might have somewhat 
 retarded the progress of things to that point. 
 
 The riot acts of the eighteenth century form a 
 series, each being linked to the others. The 
 statute of 1715, passed soon after the accession of 
 George I., was the first that treated fully on this 
 subject. It enacted, that if twelve or more per- 
 sons should assemble for the disturbance of the 
 peace, and should not disperse within one hour 
 after being commanded so to do, by a county or 
 borough magistrate, they would be deemed guilty 
 of felony. The magistrate, going as close to them 
 as safety would permit, was ordered to read to 
 them a proclamation to this effect : “ Our Sovereign 
 Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all 
 persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse 
 themselves, and peaceably to depart to their 
 habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the 
 pains contained in the act made in the first year 
 of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous 
 assemblies—God Save the King.” If any one 
 prevented the reading of the proclamation, or 
 remained in the assembly after that prevention 
 had been made manifest, or began to demolish 
 buildings whether the proclamation was read or not 
 —he was deemed a felon without benefit of clergy. 
 Comyns points out a curious gradation in the 
 unlawfulness of certain assemblies: A s Zot is where 
 three or more persons do an unlawful act with 
 violence; or do even a lawful act, such as abating 
 a nuisance, in a violent and tumultuous manner; 
 a rout is where three or more assemble for an 
 unlawful design, and move in it, but do not 
 execute it; an wnlawful assembly is when three or 
 more assemble to do an unlawful act, but do 
 nothing.* There was also a difference depending 
 on the number of persons; seeing that an offence 
 committed by twelve persons or more entailed 
 capital punishment; while the punishment was 
 only fine and imprisonment if the number was 
 between three and eleven. By an older statute, 
 all persons, “except women, clergymen, persons 
 decrepit, and infants under fifteen,” were bound on 
 summons to assist the magistrate in quelling a 
 riot; and no one so employed was to be held 
 responsible for the death of any of the rioters 
 during the suppression. Notwithstanding all the 
 - particularity of the law, however, lawyers and 
 
 * Comyns’ Digest ; ‘ Forcible Entry.’ 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 
 
 783 
 
 judges frequently found some difficulty in deter- 
 mining what was an unlawful assembly ; it was 
 generally left to the magistrates to determine, and 
 their determination was too often biassed by their 
 own political predilections. Some thought that 
 there must be an evident intention to do an 
 unlawful act, to render an assembly unlawful ; 
 whereas others, more smitten with despotic views, 
 insisted that any meeting ought to be deemed 
 unlawful calculated “to raise fears and jealousies 
 among the king’s subjects.” 
 
 With the period of the French Revolution, as 
 already stated, the fear of riotous assemblies 
 became very marked. Taking the Riot Act of 
 1715 as a basis, numerous statutes were framed to 
 increase the stringency of the laws in this matter. 
 In 1797 an act was passed relating to unlawful 
 oaths ; and in 1799 another act declared that all 
 societies should be deemed unlawful, the members 
 of which took any oath forbidden by the former 
 act, or any oath or test not authorised by law. 
 This second act required that the names of all 
 members of societies should be openly registered ; 
 and it also enjoined all printers, type-founders, 
 and press-makers, to obtain a registered licence for 
 carrying on their respective trades. The statute 
 itself assigns a reason for such remarkable 
 stringency ; it states that “ Many societies, estab- 
 lished of late years for treasonable and seditious 
 purposes, and especially the societies of United 
 Englishmen, United Scotsmen, United Irishmen, 
 and United Britons, and the society called the 
 London Corresponding Society, and other corre- 
 sponding societies, have at various times caused to 
 be published, in great quantities, divers printed 
 papers of an irreligious, treasonable, and seditious 
 nature, tending to revile our holy religion, and 
 to bring the profession and worship thereof into 
 contempt among the ignorant, and also to excite 
 hatred and contempt of his majesty’s royal person, 
 government, and laws, and of the happy constitu- 
 tion of these realms as by law established, and 
 utterly to eradicate all principles of religion and 
 morality ; and such societies have dispersed such 
 printed papers among the lower classes of the 
 community, either gratis, or at very low prices, 
 and. with an activity and profusion beyond all 
 former example.” On these grounds it was 
 deemed well to watch both the meetings and the 
 printers. The name and abode of the printers 
 were to be printed on every paper or book ; and 
 printers were enjoined to keep a copy of every 
 paper they printed, and to write thereon their 
 names and addresses. An exception to this rule 
 was made in relation to engravings, address cards 
 and bills, and auctioneers’ catalogues; and the 
 laws affecting newspapers were left untouched by 
 it. So far as regards the names of persons at 
 meetings, and the oaths taken, special exemption 
 was made in favour of Freemasons and Quakers. 
 One of the statutes of 1797 made it a crime punish- 
 able with death to attempt to seduce the king’s 
 soldiers or sailors from their allegiance, or to incite 
 
784 
 
 them to mutiny. Another act of the same session 
 sought to grapple with the secret oaths taken by 
 members of associations. Oaths to engage in a 
 mutinous conspiracy ; oaths not to inform against 
 a confederate ; oaths not to reveal an unlawful 
 combination—were all forbidden as felonious. 
 Oaths taken by workmen combining to obtain a 
 rise in wages, were made illegal by a separate 
 statute. Whenever violent turmoils arose in the 
 prosecution of any particular trade, the legislature 
 was not slow in passing statutes that would render 
 the riot act applicable thereto—now against those 
 who destroyed stocking-frames; now against tur- 
 bulent persons among the shipping population ; 
 now against those who sought to check the 
 transfer of corn from place to place; and now 
 against miners and colliers who interfered with 
 the orderly working of the pits. There was, in 
 fact, a tendency to apply the strong hand of the 
 law, instead of a rational political economy—a 
 science very little understood either by employers 
 or the employed. 
 
 The early years of the nineteenth century were 
 not distinguished by so much legislation relating 
 to treason and riots as the closing period of the 
 preceding century. There was sufficient reason 
 for this, in the altered state of public feeling ; men 
 had been cured of their love for the French 
 Revolution, and had thrown their patriotism into 
 the great war being waged with the despot who 
 controlled for a time the destinies of Europe. One 
 statute, of 1812, arose out of the escape of many 
 prisoners of war, aided by persons bribed to that 
 end: it made felonious any such attempts, whether 
 the prisoners were confined within stone walls, 
 or were out on parole. Connected in some 
 degree with this, though passed a few years later, 
 was an act making it a misdemeanour, punishable 
 by fine or imprisonment, for any subject of the 
 king to enter into the service of any foreign prince 
 “as an officer, soldier, sailor, or in any warlike 
 capacity whatsoever, or even to go abroad with that 
 intent,’ without a special licence or a general 
 proclamation; and it was rendered equally 
 punishable to attempt to enlist the king’s subjects 
 for such purposes, or to take them on board a 
 British ship. An act of 1814 (54 Geo. III. ¢, 146) 
 marked an improved tone of public feeling in 
 reference to punishments, which had previously in 
 many cases been severe beyond all reasonable 
 need. It is difficult to be credited that, until that 
 year, and at a time when civilisation had made 
 so many advances, such a law as the following 
 actually remained upon the statute book :—Any 
 person found guilty of an aggravated case of high 
 treason, was to be drawn on a hurdle to the place 
 of execution, and there hanged by the neck, but not 
 till he was dead ; he was to be taken down again, 
 and while yet alive, his bowels were to be taken 
 out and burnt before his eyes; his- head was then 
 to be cut off, his body to be divided into four 
 quarters, and his head and quarters “were to be 
 at the king’s disposal.” That such a barbarous 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Christian England, is indeed marvellous, 
 
 From treasons and rioting, we proceed to the 
 course of legislation affecting forgery, which became 
 important just in proportion as the increasing 
 
 commerce and wealth of the country rendered the 
 
 integrity of printed or written documents more and 
 more urgent. The earlier statutes against forgery 
 related principally to forged deeds and other legal 
 documents; but after the national debt and the 
 public funds had risen into magnitude, attention 
 was more immediately directed to powers of trans- 
 ferring stock, receipts, notes, bills, bonds, and 
 warrants for money, as documents more liable 
 to forgery. The establishment of the Bank of 
 England and of the banking system likewise pro- 
 duced statutes against the forging of the notes or 
 bills of the Bank of England (1773 and 1801), and 
 against the forgery of the notes and bills of 
 exchange of persons carrying on the business of 
 bankers (1801). Besides statutes professedly and 
 exclusively dealing with forgery, there has at 
 various times been so much legislation affecting 
 this subject indirectly, that Mr. Hammond, under 
 the heading ‘Forgery’ in his ‘Criminal Code,’ 
 enumerates more than four hundred statutes that 
 contain provisions against this offence. 
 
 During the early half of the last century, changes 
 were made from time to time in secondary punish- 
 ments, substituting transportation or hard labour 
 for the old punishments of burning in the hand or 
 public whipping. By an act passed in 1779, certain 
 penitentiary houses were to be erected, in which 
 prisoners were to be confined at hard labour. 
 These houses were never erected, so far as the 
 operation of the act was concerned. In 1792, 
 a proposal made to Mr. Pitt by Mr. Jeremy 
 Bentham, and framed on his panopticon plan of 
 
 JEREMY BENTHAM, 
 
 arrangement, was embraced with enthusiasm by 
 Pitt and his colleagues ; and in 1794 an act was 
 passed for carrying the plan into effect. Some 
 secret influence, supposed to have been that of the 
 king himself, frustrated this scheme ; the panopti- 
 con was never built; but instead of it, a peniten- 
 
 statute was not wiped away until the year 1814, in 
 
 a} 
 
Cuap. X.] 
 
 tiary was erected at Millbank, costly and unhealthy 
 in a most reprehensible degree. Bentham naturally 
 felt aggrieved at the abandonment of his plan; 
 insomuch that the act for establishing the Millbank 
 Penitentiary, passed in 1812, contained a clause 
 empowering the lords of the treasury to make a 
 compensation to him for the abandonment. It is 
 much to be regretted that Mr. Bentham’s plan did 
 not receive, at least, a fair trial ; he had selected a 
 dry and healthy situation at Battersea Rise ; and 
 his plan was far more economical than the one 
 adopted in lieu of it. In reference to secondary 
 punishments, it may be remarked that the punish- 
 ment of publicly whipping females was not aban- 
 doned until the close of the reign of George III.; 
 and that it remained to his successor to abolish 
 the whipping of females altogether. An amelior- 
 ation of the law, or at least a lessening of punish- 
 ment, was effected by a statute passed in 1799; an 
 act of Henry VIII. had forbidden, to persons guilty 
 of offences committed on the high seas, the benefit 
 of clergy ; but now it was recited that all offences 
 whatsoever, committed on the high seas, are made 
 liable to the same punishments as if committed on 
 shore, and are to be tried in the same manner; 
 persons tried for murder or manslaughter, and 
 found guilty of manslaughter only, are declared 
 to be entitled to benefit of clergy, and subject to 
 the same punishment as if they had committed 
 such manslaughter on land. 
 
 In a preceding chapter * we entered somewhat 
 fully into the consideration of the question as to the 
 right of juries to include in their verdict the point 
 of law as well as of fact, especially in relation to 
 cases of libel. The general practice for a number of 
 years had been to consider the question of crimin- 
 ality, in cases of libel, as a question of pure Jaw for 
 the determination of the judge. In the chapter 
 above adverted to,+ there is an account of a cele- 
 brated trial which had much to do with the settle- 
 ment of this disputed point: it was the cause of the 
 King v. the Dean of St. Asaph, for publishing the 
 ‘Dialogue between a Gentleman and a Farmer, 
 written by Sir William Jones; it was tried in 
 1784, and was marked by a speech from Erskine 
 which Fox repeatedly declared to be the finest 
 argument in the English language. The law on 
 that occasion was declared by the court to be that, 
 on the trial of an indictment for libel, the only 
 questions for the consideration of the jury are the 
 fact of publishing and the truth of the innuendoes ; 
 and that whether the subject-matter be or be not 
 a libel is a question of law for the consideration 
 of the court. The verdict of the jury, after the 
 exchange of a few angry words between Mr. 
 Justice Buller and Mr. Erskine, was to the effect 
 that the dean was guilty of publishing; but 
 whether it was a libel or not they did not find. 
 From the detailed reports of the trial, it appears 
 that the jury intended to return a general verdict 
 of acquittal, out of which they were partly mysti- 
 
 * Pictorial History of England, v. p. 424, 
 + Ibid., p. 427. 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 785 
 
 ( 
 
 PE cilia Ss eck el OR a ago 
 fied, partly browbeaten, by the special pleading 
 
 and authority of the judge, who from the outset 
 
 Hon. THOMAS ERSKINE, 
 
 displayed a wish to insure a verdict that would 
 establish the libel both as a fact and a crime. Mr. 
 Erskine, it will be remembered, applied in the 
 following term for a rule for a new trial, on the 
 ground of a misdirection of the judge, who had 
 told the jury that the matter for them to decide 
 was, whether the defendant was guilty of the fact 
 or not. When the rule came on to be argued, and 
 when Erskine made the speech so much admired 
 by Fox, the judges were bound up by precedent; 
 they answered the speech by a reference to their 
 own practice, and that of their immediate pre- 
 decessors: affirming that juries can determine 
 matters of fact only, and not matters of daw, in 
 cases of libel. This decision gave much dissatis- 
 faction out of court. Erskine had objected even 
 to the use of the words “ guilty of publishing,” in 
 the verdict : contending that it was not necessarily 
 “ouilt” at all. The ‘ Dialogue’ itself contained 
 repeated allusions to G, F, K, and P; and it was 
 well understood by all readers that these initials 
 were meant to apply to Gentleman, Farmer, King, 
 and Parliament; the judges laid it down as law 
 that these innuendoes constituted a libel ; whereas 
 Erskine and the popular party contended that the 
 jury ought to be allowed to determine whether 
 such innuendoes were libellous or not. As they led 
 to the passing of a new act of parliament a few 
 years afterwards, we may give, in condensed form, 
 a few of Erskine’s arguments, in addition to those 
 mentioned in the former chapter. He grounded 
 his motion for a new trial on five propositions : 
 1. That when a bill of indictment is found, or an 
 information filed, charging any crime or mis- 
 demeanour. known to the law of England, and 
 the party accused puts himself upon the country 
 by pleading the general issue, “not guilty,’ the 
 jury are charged with his deliverance, not specially 
 from mere facts, but generally from the crime. 2. 
 That no act which the law in its general theory 
 holds to be criminal constitutes in itself a crime, 
 
 abstracted from the mischievous intention of the 
 ye 
 
786 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 actor; and that the intention, even when it 
 becomes a simple inference of reason from a fact 
 established, may and ought to be collected by the 
 jury themselves, with the judge’s assistance. 3. 
 That an indictment for a libel, even where the 
 slander of an individual is the object of it, forms 
 no exception to the jurisdiction or duties of juries, 
 or the practice of judges in other criminal cases, 
 4, That a seditious libel contains no question of 
 law. 5. That in all cases where the mischievous 
 intention cannot be collected by simple inference 
 from the fact charged, the intention becomes then 
 a pure unmixed question of fact, for the considera- 
 tion of the jury.* Lord Mansfield, in delivering 
 the judgment of the court in this famous case, 
 asserted that, from the Revolution down to that 
 time, nearly a hundred years, the direction of 
 every judge to the juries, as far as.could be traced, 
 had been consonant with the doctrine of Mr. 
 Justice Buller, viz. that the matter for the jury 
 to decide was simply, whether the defendant was 
 guilty of the fact or no; and that no counsel had 
 complained of it by appeal or otherwise.+ 
 
 This case of the Dean of St. Asaph was import- 
 ant, not so much for its own sake, as for the 
 legislation to which it gave rise. In 1791 Mr, Fox 
 brought in a bill to settle this disputed matter ; 
 and in 1792 a law was passed in conformity there- 
 with (82 Geo. III. c. 60), By this new statute the 
 jury, on the trial of an indictment for libel, might 
 give a general verdict upon the whole matter put 
 in issue, and not be required by the court to 
 find the defendant guilty merely on the proof of 
 the publication, and of the sense ascribed to the 
 paper in the indictment. Another section pro- 
 vided that the court should give their opinion and 
 directions to the jury on the matter in issue, as 
 in other criminal cases ; a third provided that the 
 jury might, as in other criminal cases, find a special 
 verdict ; and a fourth provided that the defendant 
 might move in arrest of judgment, as before the 
 passing of the act. Mr. Justice Coleridge after- 
 wards remarked : “ The advocates of the bill, both 
 in and out of parliament, uniformly contended 
 that it was to prevent and not to produce an 
 anomaly in the criminal law, and that their sole 
 object was to give the jury the same power, and no 
 other, in a trial for libel as in a trial for murder. 
 This should be always borne in mind, and so long 
 as it is, the bill will be productive of great 
 benefit.” { But he hinted that the bill was very 
 
 * 21 State Trials, 966, 967. 
 
 + Lord Mansfield is accused of having, on this occasion, made a 
 singular misquotation, utterly subverting the meaning of the passage 
 quoted. In adverting to a celebrated trial for libel in the ‘ Crafts- 
 man,’ during the time of Sir Robert Walpole, he mentioned a verse 
 of a ballad written concerning it by Mr. Pulteney: 
 
 ** For Sir Philip well knows that his innuendoes 
 No longer will serve him, in verse or in prose; 
 For twelve honest men have decided the cause, 
 Who are judges of facts, though not judges of laws.” 
 
 In a note to the ‘Speeches of the Honourable Thomas Erskine,’ 
 it is stated, on the evidence of a pamphlet printed in 1754, that the 
 last line of the verse really ran thus :— 
 “© Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws !”. 
 $ Coleridge’s Blackstone, iv. 153, note (16). 
 
 easily to be misconstrued, and that juries might 
 deem themselves invested with extraordinary 
 powers in cases of libel. 
 
 Among other measures of criminal legislation 
 in the first fifteen years of the present century 
 were the following. By a statute passed in 1812, 
 all the offences against the revenue laws, which, 
 by the statutes then in force were felony without 
 benefit of clergy, were made felony with benefit of 
 clergy, except certain offences enumerated by the 
 act. Shortly afterwards (56 Geo. III. ¢. 138), in 
 “An Act to abolish the punishment of the pillory,” 
 that ancient terror of evil-doers was almost 
 wholly removed ; it being enacted that “ from and 
 after the passing of this act, judgment shall not 
 be given and awarded against any person or 
 persons convicted of any offence, that such person 
 or persons do stand in or upon the pillory,’ with 
 certain stated exceptions, relating principally to 
 persons found guilty of taking false oaths, wilful 
 perjury, or suborning other persons to the same 
 offences, The punishments of fine or imprison- 
 ment, or both combined, were substituted for the 
 pillory, in all cases not excepted by the act. 
 
 A question came under discussion, which, though 
 belonging in principle to real property, was closely 
 connected with the criminal legislation of the 
 period. It related to personal servitude, the pro- 
 perty of one man in the sinews of another. 
 
 Formerly, by the English law, both villeins regard- j 
 
 ant and villeins in gross were considered as real 
 property. Consequently all the incidents of real 
 
 property attached to them, in a way striking to — 
 
 our modern ideas. There is a work of great 
 authority in old law, called, ‘A Profitable Booke 
 of Master John Perkins, Fellow of the Inner 
 Temple, treating of the Laws of England : London, 
 1593 ;’ containing a declaration of law which, 
 stripped of its legal phraseology, amounts to this— 
 that if a man be possessed of a villein, that pos- 
 session passes to his daughter-in-law, on the deaths 
 of father and son. This was connected with the 
 system of dower, which, in English law, is an 
 estate for life, which the law gives to the wife 
 after the decease of her husband, in the third part 
 
 of the lands and tenements of which the husband 
 was seized, in deed or in law, at any time during — 
 
 the marriage. Villeins were in the old times 
 goods and chattels, and are supposed to have been 
 included in some of the provisions laid down in 
 the marriage service of the Liturgy. As there 
 may be “waste” in houses, gardens, parks, fish- 
 ponds, timber, &c.; so might there formerly be 
 waste in villeins. 
 in the old books are curious, as to what acts might 
 
 (FCS 
 
 Some of the distinctions taken | 
 
 and what might not amount to legal waste in | 
 regard to villeins : “If tenant in dower of a manor 
 
 to which villeins are regardant manumits 
 
 villeins, this is not any waste, because it is not | 
 
 any manumission but against herself; for he im — 
 
 reversion may seize them after her death. But if i 
 
 she had beat the villeins, or constrained them to 
 
 do other services which they did not before, by | 
 
 : me *. 
 Pe?) t 
 7 ny: 
 
 — 
 
ee i a it a I RE a el a sr alba OES, i ST 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815, 
 
 Cuap. X. | 
 
 which they go out of the seigniory, it is waste.” * 
 We here see a time when men were considered as 
 a species of property by the laws of England. But, 
 though as regards general law that time has long 
 passed away, according to certain local laws a 
 similar state of things existed till very recently in 
 some of the dependencies of the British empire, 
 governed by the English laws. Down to the 
 beginning of the present century, there were 
 British statutes recognising a local state of slavery 
 in certain British colonies—recognising, too, a 
 trade in slaves. It was not until 1807 (47 Geo. 
 III. c. 36) that the slave trade was abolished, as 
 far as regarded British participation in it; although 
 there had been, two years earlier, an order in 
 council prohibiting the slave trade in the con- 
 quered colonies. This statute was rendered more 
 effective by another passed in 1811 (51 Geo, III. 
 ¢. 23), by which carrying on the slave trade, or 
 being in any way engaged therein, is declared 
 felony. It was left to later men to pass the 
 act of 1819, for establishing a register of colonial 
 slaves, and for prohibiting all sales, mortgages, and 
 charges of slaves, made within the United King- 
 dom, unless the registry of the slaves be com- 
 pleted ; the act of 1824, which consolidated all 
 the laws in force concerning slaves; the act of 
 1834, which abolished slavery for ever throughout 
 all parts of the British dominions, after a certain 
 probation and apprenticeship; and the act, of 
 1837, which terminated the apprenticeship, and 
 inaugurated absolute freedom. 
 
 The quarantine laws received a definite settle- 
 ment by two acts passed in 1805 and 1806. “ Many 
 offences described in these statutes,’ says Mr. 
 Justice Coleridge, “are punished by pecuniary 
 penalties and imprisonment; but it is felony, 
 without benefit of clergy, for any master know- 
 ingly to omit disclosing that he has touched at 
 any infected place, or has any infected person on 
 board, or wilfully to omit, under such circum- 
 stances, the hoisting the yellow flag; it is also a 
 capital offence for persons liable to perform 
 quarantine to refuse to repair to the appointed 
 place for performing it, or to escape from it; and 
 for any officer of quarantine knowingly to permit 
 any person, ship, or goods to depart or be con- 
 veyed from such place without permission of his 
 majesty, or to give a false certificate of the due 
 performance of quarantine. Persons unaffected 
 who once enter a lazaret are laid under the same 
 restrictions, and exposed to the same punishments, 
 as those performing quarantine there. It is alsoa 
 capital offence to convey clandestinely, or conceal 
 for such purpose, any letters or goods from a ship 
 in quarantine. By the common law, it is a 
 nuisance to expose persons infected with con- 
 ‘tagious disorders in streets or places of public 
 resort; and, therefore, though it is not unlawful 
 to inoculate with the small-pox, yet it must be 
 done under such guards, and the patients after- 
 
 * Cited in Viner’s Abridgment, from two statutes of Henry VI. 
 
 787 
 
 wards so managed, as not to endanger the public 
 
 health by the communication of the disease.” * 
 The present period is distinguished by the 
 
 humane exertions of Sir Samuel Romilly and 
 
 SNS ~ 
 SS: 
 
 NS : 
 NS 
 S 
 
 Sm S, Romitty. 
 
 others to soften the severity of the English penal 
 code. That code needed amendment in two 
 opposite directions ; for it allowed certain heavy 
 offences to escape with a very slight punishment ; 
 while it punished other offences, comparatively 
 light, with disproportioned and inhuman severity. 
 In 1808, Sir Samuel Romilly introduced a bill, the 
 provisions of which became embodied in the act 
 48 Geo. III. c. 129, for repealing an old Elizabethan 
 statute, by which the punishment of death was 
 inflicted for the offence of privately stealing from 
 the person. By this new statute it was enacted, 
 that if theft from the person were so perpetrated 
 as to fall short of robbery with violence or threats, 
 the punishment might vary from imprisonment 
 with hard labour to transportation, according to 
 the discretion of the judge as to the degree of guilt, 
 In 1810, Romilly made a further attempt in the 
 same direction; he proposed to repeal three old 
 statutes, which made the private stealing in a shop 
 goods of the value of five shillings, or in a dwell- 
 ing-house property of the value of forty shillings, 
 or on board a vessel in a navigable river property 
 of the same amount—capital felonies. Three bills 
 for effecting these reforms. were lost, during their 
 attempted progress through parliament; but the 
 seed was not lost: the laws in question were 
 greatly ameliorated some years after Romilly’s 
 death. In 1811, he procured a new act abolishing 
 the punishment of death for stealing from bleach- 
 grounds. In the next year he succeeded in 
 obtaining a repeal of the act of Elizabeth, which 
 made it capital in soldiers and mariners to be 
 found wandering about the realm without a pass. 
 Lord Ellenborough was the most resolute opponent 
 of the law reforms suggested by Romilly ; and his 
 opposition was often successful in resisting the 
 changes proposed, 
 
 * Coleridge’s Blackstone, 162, note (1). 
 
 N 
 
788 
 
 A paragraph may suffice for noticing a few 
 other instances of legislation at this period, affect- 
 ing the criminal code, The statute of 1803, com- 
 monly known as Lord Ellenborough’s Act, declared 
 attempts to murder, by certain defined means, 
 capital felonies. The catalogue of “attempts” is a 
 formidable one. If any one shoots at another; or 
 points or levels a firearm at him ; or attempts to 
 discharge the same at him; or stabs or cuis him, 
 with a view to murder, rob, maim, disable, dis- 
 figure, or harm; or shoots or stabs with an 
 intention of frustrating the capture and detention 
 of an offender against the laws; or administers 
 noxious drugs to a woman to cause miscarriage— 
 it shall be deemed a crime punishable with death, 
 It is also made a capital felony maliciously to set 
 fire to any building, with a view to the injury of 
 any other persons, There is one, and only one, 
 saving clause in this severe statute—to the effect 
 that if the attempt at shooting or stabbing be 
 made under such circumstances as that, if death 
 had ensued, the same would not in law have 
 amounted to murder, then the party charged shall 
 be acquitted. A statute in the same year, repeal- 
 ing an old act of George I., made it a capital felony 
 wilfully to cast away, burn, or otherwise destroy 
 any ship, with an intent to injure the owners or 
 the insurers of the ship and its contents. In 1812, 
 a new statute made it capital felony maliciously to 
 set fire to any buildings, engines, or machines used 
 in the carrying on of any trade or manufacture, or 
 in which any goods or merchandise are deposited. 
 This act arose out of the riots prevailing at that 
 period in the manufacturing districts, where the 
 introduction of machinery was violently disputed 
 by the workmen, 
 
 A technical question of law, but one of some 
 importance, was settled by an act passed in 1793. 
 When does a statute begin to come in force? 
 Formerly, acts of parliament were considered to 
 have passed, and their operation to have com- 
 menced, on the first day of the session in which 
 they were passed ; but in the year above named it 
 was decided that all acts, private as well as public, 
 commence their operation (except where another 
 period of commencement is provided) from the 
 day on which they receive the royal assent, which 
 day is directed to be endorsed on every act imme- 
 diately after the title, and to be considered as part 
 of the act. Hence arises a curious difference. Ifa 
 statute be adverted to, that was passed previously 
 to the date of this reforming act of 1793, it must 
 be described as of the year in which the session 
 began, even although it was in fact passed in a 
 subsequent year of the reign, the session having 
 extended into that subsequent year; but statutes 
 passed sénce the above date, being referred to the 
 day of the royal assent as the period of their 
 commencement, will be correctly described as of 
 the year when they received the royal assent, 
 though the session in which they passed extended 
 into that year from another. This matter, indiffer- 
 ent as it may appear, is of large import in the 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 eyes of judges and counsel; since an incorrect 
 description of a statute might vitiate a plea. 
 
 Before passing to the subject of financial legis- 
 lation—a study requiring the abilities of statesmen 
 and political economists rather than those of 
 judges and lawyers—it may be well to glance at 
 the chief characteristics of the leading members 
 of the bar and the bench during the early years 
 of the present century. 
 
 The most prominent lawyer, both for learning 
 and station, was Lord Chancellor Eldon. Lord 
 
 i} fh) iff ] 
 if 
 
 Lorp Erpon. 
 
 Brougham thus sketches Eldon’s professional 
 qualifications : “He had all the natural qualities 
 and all the acquired accomplishments which go 
 to form the greatest legal character. To extra- 
 ordinary acuteness and quickness of apprehension 
 he added a degree of patient industry which no 
 labour could weary, a love of investigation which 
 no harshness in the most uninteresting subject 
 could repulse. His ingenuity was nimble in a 
 singular degree, and it was inexhaustible ; subtlety 
 was at all times the most distinguishing feature 
 of his understanding; and after all other men’s 
 resources had been spent, he would at once dis- 
 cover matters which, though often too refined for 
 use, yet seemed so natural to the ground which 
 his predecessors had laboured and left apparently 
 bare, that no one would deem them exotic and 
 far-fetched, or even forced. When, with such 
 powers of apprehending and of inventing, he 
 possessed a memory almost unparalleled, and alike 
 capable of storing up and readily producing both 
 the most general principles and the most minute 
 details, it is needless to add that he became one 
 of the most thoroughly learned lawyers who ever 
 appeared in Westminster Hall, if not the most 
 learned ; for when it is recollected that the science 
 has been more than doubled in bulk, and in 
 variety of subjects has been increased fourfold, 
 since the time of Lord Coke, it is hardly possible 
 to question his superiority to the great light of 
 English jurisprudence, the only man in our legal 
 history with whom this comparison can be insti- 
 tuted.” * In comparing Eldon with his prede- 
 
 * Tlistorical Sketches of Statesmen who flourished in the Time 
 of George III. 
 
Cuap. X. ] 
 
 cessors, it is thought by many that Lord Hardwicke 
 was his equal in learning, and his superior in 
 general power of mind ; while, owing to various 
 circumstances, Hardwicke’s judgments form a far 
 larger proportion of that body of jurisprudence 
 which receives the name of eguwéty, than those of 
 Lord Eldon. The slowness of Lord Eldon in 
 coming to a decision, which became notorious to 
 a proverb, has been palliated by Lord Brougham, 
 who alleges that he only delayed in giving his 
 attention to the case, and had, in truth, no sooner 
 done so than he made up his mind; after which, 
 it was only his painstaking way of stating the 
 difficulties on both sides, that gave him an appear- 
 ance of indecision. But, however the matter stood 
 in these respects, there can be no doubt that the 
 delays of Eldon much diminished his usefulness 
 on the bench. 
 
 Lord Stowell (formerly Sir William Scott), 
 brother to Lord Eldon, was another great light 
 of the legal profession. In his own peculiar 
 department, he surpassed all others in fame. 
 “There has seldom if ever appeared,’ says Lord 
 Brougham, “in the profession of the law, any one 
 so peculiarly endowed with all the learning and 
 capacity which can accomplish, as well as all the 
 graces which can embellish, the judicial character, 
 as this eminent person. Confining himself to the 
 comparatively narrow and sequestered walks of 
 the consistorial tribunals, he had early been 
 withdrawn from the contentions of the forum. 
 .... I®f the retired and almost solitary habits 
 of the comparatively secluded walk in which he 
 moved had given him little relish for the strenuous 
 and vehement warfare of rapid argumentation 
 and the logic of unprepared debate; his vast 
 superiority was apparent when, as from an emin- 
 ence, he was called to survey the whole field of 
 dispute, and to marshal the variegated facts, 
 disentangle the intricate mazes, and array the 
 conflicting reasons which were calculated to dis- 
 tract or suspend men’s judgment. If ever the 
 praise of being luminous could be justly bestowed 
 upon human compositions, it was upon his judg- 
 ments; and it was the approbation constantly, 
 and, as it were, peculiarly appropriated to those 
 wonderful exhibitions of judicial capacity. It 
 would be easy, but it would be endless, to enu- 
 merate the causes in which his great powers—of 
 legal investigation, of accurate reasoning, and of 
 lucid statement—were displayed to the admiration, 
 not only of the profession, but of the less learned 
 reader of his judgments. They who deal with 
 such causes as occupied the attention of this great 
 judge have this advantage—that the subjects are 
 of a nature connecting them with general prin- 
 ciples, and the matter at stake is most frequently 
 of considerable importance, not seldom of the 
 greatest interest. The masses of property of which 
 the consistorial courts have to dispose are often 
 very great; the matrimonial rights on which 
 they have to decide are of an interest not to be 
 measured by money at all; but the questions 
 
 CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS:—1785-1815. 789 
 
 which arise in administering the law of nations 
 comprehend within their scope the highest 
 national rights, involve the existence of peace 
 itself, define the duties of neutrality, and set 
 limits to the prerogatives of war.’* It is these 
 qualities which render the judgments of Lord 
 Stowell, and those which he gave when Sir 
 William Scott, a text-book for general readers as 
 well as for the legal profession. One famous 
 judgment of his, in Dalrymple v. Dalrymple, where 
 the question for his determination was the state 
 of the Scottish law upon the fundamental point 
 of what constitutes a marriage, has become a 
 standard authority even among: Scottish lawyers 
 themselves. 
 
 Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls, during 
 part of Lord Eldon’s career, was a profound 
 reasoner and an eminent judge. With little dis- 
 tinction and a very moderate share of practice at 
 the bar for many years, his public character rested 
 entirely upon the success of his parliamentary 
 exertions, until he was raised to the bench. Asa 
 parliamentary speaker, he was logical to severity ; 
 he was a reasoner throughout, employing neither 
 point in his diction, illustration in his topics, nor 
 fancy in the accompaniments, His language was 
 choice, clear, concise; but it left behind it only a 
 memory of the things said, not of the words used 
 in the saying. He was easily listened to; but was 
 most difficult to answer, on account of the close- 
 ness in his chains of reasoning. Lord Brougham 
 has given a vigorous picture of the Rolls Court, 
 when Grant presided in it as Master: “ After a 
 long and silent hearing—a hearing of all that 
 could be urged by the counsel of every party— 
 unbroken by a single word, and when the spectator 
 of Sir William Grant—for he was not heard— 
 might suppose that his mind had been absent 
 from a scene in which he took no apparent share, 
 the debate was closed—the advocates’ hour was 
 passed—the parties were in silent expectation of 
 the event—the hall no longer resounded with any 
 voice—it seemed as if the affair of the day, for the 
 present, was over, and the court was to adjourn or 
 to call for another cause. No! the judge’s time 
 had now arrived, and another artist was to fill the 
 scene. The great magistrate began to pronounce 
 his judgment, and every eye and every ear was at 
 length fixed upon the bench, Forth came a strain 
 of clear unbroken fluency, disposing alike, in most 
 luminous order, of all the facts and of all the 
 arguments in the cause, reducing into clear and 
 simple arrangement the most entangled masses 
 of broken and conflicting statement; weighing 
 each matter, and disposing of each in succession ; 
 settling one doubt by a parenthetical remark ; 
 passing over another difficulty by a reason only 
 more decisive that it was condensed; and giving 
 out the whole impression of the case in every 
 material view, upon the judge’s mind, with 
 argument enough to show why he so thought, and 
 
 * Statesmen,’ &¢., Second Series, p. 68 
 
790 
 
 to prove him right, and without so much reasoning 
 as to make you forget that it was a judgment you 
 were hearing, by overstepping the bounds which 
 distinguish a judgment from a speech.” Sir 
 William Grant was a man of simple habits, 
 marked somewhat by taciturnity and reserve, 
 The Rolls Court sat in the evening from six till 
 ten; and he dined after the court rose. He cared 
 little for domestic display ; for he lived in two or 
 three chambers on the ground-floor of the Rolls 
 House, and never interested himself in handsomer 
 rooms at his disposal up-stairs. With all his plain- 
 ness, however, there was one personal indulgence 
 to which he was addicted; his servant was wont 
 at bedtime to place on his master’s table two 
 bottles of wine, which were always found empty 
 in the morning. 
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly distinguished himself by his 
 exertions to procure improvements in the law. 
 Those who have smarted under the influence of 
 Chancery abuses, remembering his great influence 
 with the bench, have often expressed regret that 
 he did not apply his powers to the correction 
 of those abuses, with which his practice in that 
 court had rendered him perfectly familiar; but 
 although he did not do this (probably suspecting 
 the immense difficulty of such a task), he threw 
 his whole heart into the advocacy of reforms in 
 the severe legislation against the poor, the destitute, 
 the uninformed, and the misled. He sometimes 
 attempted reforms useful to persons in a higher 
 station in life ; such as by his introduction of a bill 
 (then lost, but passed into a law afterwards) for 
 making freehold estates assets for the payment 
 of simple contract debts. Sir Samuel was by some 
 of his brother-lawyers accused of prejudice in 
 the retention of opinions, and of harshness in his 
 demeanour towards his juniors at the bar; but 
 these defects, even if properly ascribed to him, 
 weigh little against the merits of a man at once 
 amiable and learned. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough, Lord Chief Justice of the 
 Court of King’s Bench, was the most eminent com- 
 mon-law judge of the period. As Mr. Law, he had 
 distinguished himself as leading counsel for Warren 
 Hastings during his famous trial; and soon after- 
 wards became leader of the northern circuit. In 
 Westminster Hall he had more than one superior 
 at the bar, especially Erskine. When he became 
 a judge, his qualities gradually made themselves 
 apparent, and he maintained a high rank during 
 a period of eighteen years. Lord Brougham bears 
 testimony to the impression produced by Ellen- 
 borough on his brother-judges, whenever he bent 
 his mind fully upon a subject. There were draw- 
 backs in his character, however: he was hasty of 
 temper; he was contemptuous of weaker men ; he 
 had an overweening reliance on himself; he had 
 not enough of the judicial qualities of patience and 
 passiveness ; he was apt to overlook suggestions, if 
 feebly urged. ‘“‘ He despatched business with great 
 celerity,” says Lord Brougham, “and for the most 
 part with success. But causes were not sifted 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 before him with that closeness of scrutiny, and — | 
 
 parties were not suffered to bring forward all they 
 had to state with that fulness and freedom, which 
 alone can prevent misdecision and insure the due 
 administration of justice. There was a common 
 saying in his time, which contrasts the Court of 
 Chancery under Lord Eldon with the King’s 
 Bench under Lord Ellenborough, ‘ the two sides of 
 Westminster Hall,’ as the equity and law depart- 
 ments are technically called: the one was said 
 to hear everything and decide nothing, the other 
 to decide everything and hear nothing.”"* The 
 authority here quoted, noticing the hastiness of 
 Ellenborough’s decisions, and comparing him with 
 another eminent judge, says: “There can be no 
 manner of doubt, I apprehend, that, taking into 
 account the defect now mentioned, Lord Tenterden 
 was, upon the whole, a better judge than his abler 
 and more vigorous predecessor ; but it is also clear 
 that he did not as vigorously despatch the business 
 of the sittings before him.” 
 
 IV. Frnanciat Lraisuation.—The history of 
 the national finances during this period is marked 
 by many very important operations on the part 
 of the legislature and the government. 
 
 The commencement of Mr. Pitt’s administration, 
 in a time of peace, was signalised by a revision 
 and readjustment of some of the old taxes, and 
 by the imposition of many others. As soon as he 
 found himself in possession of real power as well 
 as place, by his commanding majority in the 
 House of Commons, he began the session of 1784 
 with extensive schemes of financial reform. On 
 the 2ist of June, the House being in committee 
 on the laws regarding smuggling, Pitt brought 
 forward his famous plan for what was called the 
 Commutation Tax, replacing a part of the duty on 
 tea by a tax upon windows, The article of tea he 
 described as the staple of smuggling, more exten- 
 sively so than any other commodity. At this time 
 all the tea sold by the Hast India Company was 
 no more than 5,500,000 Ibs. annually, whereas 
 
 the quantity consumed within the kingdom was ~ 
 
 estimated at 13,000,000 Ibs——leaving more than 
 one half unaccounted for by any other mode than 
 that of smuggling. The duties to which the 
 article was subject more than doubled its cost to 
 the fair dealer: they amounted to 119 per cent. 
 upon its price at the Company’s sales, producing 
 
 a revenue to the government of nearly 800,000/. 
 As a means of checking the smuggling, Pitt pro- 
 
 posed to lower the duty from 119 to 124 per cent., 
 
 which would render the smuggler’s trade too little | 
 
 profitable to be worth attention. Some opposition 
 was made to this measure, but Pitt succeeded in 
 
 carrying it; and it had all the success that he 
 
 intended, for the legal imports of tea were at once 
 almost trebled. He did not and could not foresee 
 
 that the war with the French revolutionists would — 
 drive him to an increase of the tea-duties time after — 
 time; but his legislation had the useful effect of © 
 
 * ‘Statesmen,’ &c. Third series, p 203. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
Cuap. X. | CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 791 
 
 directing the trade into a legitimate channel, from 
 which it never again deviated to anything like 
 the same extent as before; and it induced him to 
 try a similar plan with wine, tobacco, and other 
 commodities, to which high duties had attracted 
 the pernicious attention of the smuggler. As he 
 lost 600,0007. of revenue by the change on the tea- 
 duty, Pitt made up the deficiency by a tax upon 
 windows. All this was so far well; but the next 
 line of policy was one which met with less appro- 
 bation from the country at large; it was the 
 imposition of new taxes on many commodities 
 formerly exempt, and the increase of duty on 
 others. Candles, bricks, tiles, hats, horses, linens 
 and cottons, dyed and bleached goods, ribands, 
 gauzes, paper, hackney-coaches, gold and silver 
 plate, lead for exportation, raw and thrown silk 
 imported, letter-postage, beer-licences, licences for 
 dealing in various exciseable articles, licences for 
 shooting, domestic servants, salt, retail shops, post- 
 horses, gloves, pawnbrokers’ licences, coachmakers, 
 dogs, wheeled carriages, bachelors, attorneys—all 
 came under the clutches of the tax-gatherer, some 
 in 1784, and the rest in 1785. Mr. Pitt, in his 
 budget speech of the last-named year, lamented 
 the necessity that pressed upon him of imposing 
 these additional burthens on the country. “The 
 accumulated burthens,” he said, “that had for a 
 series of years been heaped upon the people, made 
 them, no doubt, hope and expect that the era of 
 peace would be a time of retrenchment and a 
 day of ease. Hard, therefore, was the task of a 
 minister whose duty, from his situation, led him 
 to the necessity of still adding, even under these 
 circumstances, to those taxes and to those burthens. 
 He had therefore to hope for the indulgence of the 
 committee. After taxes the most palatable, after 
 taxes the most popular, and when the resources of 
 each had been drained to the utmost, the means 
 by which money was to be raised could not meet 
 with that general agreeable reception which other- 
 wise might be expected. Some, indeed, still existed, 
 which possibly might be called productive ; but 
 the means, in his opinion, though in one degree 
 palatable, yet in another were pernicious; they 
 disguised the poison at the very time they adminis- 
 tered the supposed remedy; and by disguising, 
 aggravated to a certainty the burthens of the 
 people.” 
 
 In his endeavours to conciliate the House and 
 the country, Mr. Pitt expressed a belief that he 
 was laying the foundations of a system that would 
 ultimately pay off the national debt. He anti- 
 cipated an annual surplus of nearly two millions 
 sterling, to accrue from the natural effects of 
 increased trade and prosperity in augmenting the 
 revenue. ‘The original sinking fund, established 
 by Sir Robert Walpole, had remained in nominal 
 existence ever since 1717, but had not for some 
 years exerted any effect, real or apparent, in the 
 reduction of the debt. During the first twenty 
 years of George III., a sum varying from two to 
 three millions had annually been provided, pro- 
 
 fessedly for this purpose; but these sums had 
 nearly all been absorbed by the urgent demands 
 of the public service. No more than 8,500,000/. 
 was paid off by means of the sinking fund, during 
 a period of fifty-three years, from 1733 to 1786. 
 “On the whole,” observes Dr. Hamilton, “this fund 
 did little in time of peace, and nothing in time of 
 war, to the discharge of the national debt. The 
 purpose of its inviolable application was aban- 
 doned, and the hopes entertained of its powerful 
 efficacy entirely disappointed. At this time the 
 nation had no other free revenue except the land 
 and malt taxes, granted annually; and, as the 
 land-tax during peace was then granted at a low 
 rate, the produce was inadequate to the expense of 
 a peace establishment even on the most moderate 
 scale. This gave occasion to the encroachments on 
 the sinking fund. Had the land-tax been always 
 continued at four shillings in the pound, it would 
 have gone far to keep the sinking fund, during 
 peace, inviolate.’ * In March, 1786, Pitt brought 
 forward his new plan for a sinking fund. He had 
 selected it from among three prepared for him by 
 Dr. Price;+ it passed through parliament with 
 very little opposition, and became the act 26 Geo, 
 III. c. 31, “For vesting certain sums in commis- 
 sioners, at the end of every quarter of a year, to be 
 by them applied to the reduction of the national 
 debt.” The principles of this measure may be thus 
 briefly described : ‘The various branches of revenue 
 then existing were united under the name of the 
 Consolidated Fund; from this fund one million ster- 
 ling was to be annually placed in the hands of the 
 commissioners for the redemption of the national 
 debt; this redemption was to be effected by pur- 
 chasing capital in such stocks as they should judge 
 expedient at the market prices; the fund was to 
 be augmented by the interest of the debt redeemed, 
 and by annuities lapsed by the failure of lives, or 
 by the expiry of the terms for which they were 
 granted ; life annuities unclaimed for three years 
 were to be considered as expired, and added to 
 the sinking fund; and, lastly, when the fund 
 should amount to four millions, the interest of the 
 redeemed debt, and annuities fallen in, were no 
 longer to be applied to it, but were to remain at 
 the disposal of parliament. The commissioners 
 appointed by the act, all ex officio, were the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, the Accomp- 
 tant-general of the Court of Chancery, and the 
 governor and deputy-governor of the Bank of 
 England. Six years afterwards another act was 
 passed (32 Geo. IIT. c. 55) applicable to the sinking 
 fund; it enacted that every future loan should 
 carry with it the means of its own liquidation in 
 about forty-five years, by one per cent. of its 
 amount being set apart for that purpose, and the 
 dividends on the capital thus redeemed being 
 added to the fund. At the same time a grant 
 of 400,0002. was made in aid of the old sinking 
 
 * Inquiry Concerning the National Debt. J 
 + Morgan’s Review of the Writings of Dr. Price. 
 
 Se eee 
 
792 
 
 fund, exclusively appropriated to paying off the 
 old debt. 
 
 ’ In 1787 Pitt effected the consolidation of the 
 customs and excise duties. These duties, imposed 
 at different times, and upon all sorts of principles, 
 had grown to such a mass of intricacy and confu- 
 sion, that merchants and other individuals, finding 
 it impossible to obtain a knowledge of the 
 amount or even the number of the duties they had 
 to pay, were obliged to leave it entirely to those 
 clerks of the custom-house or excise-office who, 
 by constant practice, had acquired a dexterity in 
 it, to determine the amount of the duties payable.* 
 By the new act, however, all the existing duties 
 and drawbacks were at once repealed, and others 
 imposed, each of which was stated in one distitet 
 sum, and apportioned upon the value or quantity 
 of the article. Mr. Burke warmly thanked the 
 minister for “having in so masterly and intelligible 
 a manner brought forth a plan of consolidation of 
 duties which promised ease and accommodation to 
 the merchants; and all those concerned in the trade 
 and commerce of the country, and advantage and 
 increase to the revenue.” 
 
 In the nine years of Pitt’s administration that 
 preceded the commencement of the great war 
 with France (1784 to 1792 inclusive), the revenue 
 raised by taxation had gradually increased from 
 13,000,0007. to 17,400,0002., with a land-tax uni- 
 formly at the rate of 4s. in the pound. The 
 naticnal debt had diminished from 250 to 244 
 millions sterling ; and the annual interest payable 
 thereon from about 9,450,000/. to 9,300,000/.— 
 showing how little, even during a time of peace, 
 had been accomplished by the much-vaunted 
 sinking fund. The new taxes, although nearly 
 failing in this direction, nevertheless supplied a 
 full exchequer for the current demands of the 
 
 state. In 1783 the expenditure exceeded the 
 income by a million sterling; whereas in 1793 
 
 the income was two millions in excess of the 
 expenditure. About this period the entire national 
 expenditure, exclusive of the interest on the 
 national debt, scarcely exceeded 4,000,0007, annu- 
 ally. 
 
 With the commencement of war the minister’s 
 financial troubles began. Every successive budget 
 after 1793 brought its load of additional taxes ; 
 scarcely an article in common use was left free 
 from the tax-gatherer, and the amount of duty 
 on many of the items was frequently augmented. 
 The sum raised by taxes in 1793 was about 
 17,500,0002.; it increased in amount every year, 
 until, in 1803, it reached 35,500,0002. But this 
 represented only a part of the money expended 
 for public purposes ; loans were contracted to an 
 enormous amount—insomuch that, between the 
 breaking out of the war and the peace of smiens 
 in 1802, the national debt was increased from 
 244.000,0002, to 520,000,0002.; and the interest 
 thereon from 9,300,000/. to 18,600,0002t Besides 
 
 * Macpherson, Annals of Commerce. 
 7 As the stock created by these loans was issued at a discount, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 this, England’s august ally, the Emperor of Germany, 
 left her to pay the interest on loans for more than 
 six’ millions sterling, raised entirely on his behalf. 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Pitt’s confidence grew almost 
 as fast as the debt. Armed with his sinking 
 fund, he talked as if he believed he had gotten 
 possession of Aladdin’s lamp, and could work 
 miracles. In 1799, he confidently told the House 
 of Commons that he could carry on the war for 
 eight years longer without any new increase of the 
 national debt. He then entered upon a detail of 
 calculations which went to show that the whole 
 of the national debt might be extinguished in the 
 space of thirty-three years of peace; that, sup- 
 posing the war to continue even so long, it could 
 be carried on without the creation of new debt; 
 and that, in case the war should soon be termin- 
 ated, and that an interval of ten years should 
 happen between the conclusion of one and the 
 commencement of another war, in that period of 
 peace the sinking fund would discharge seventy 
 millions of debt, and enable the country to enter 
 into another war with superior means. Not only 
 did the sanguine finance minister say and appar- 
 ently believe all this, but the great majority of 
 the nation believed it also. He departed, however, 
 from his own plan of making every loan provide 
 its own sinking fund; insomuch that the last eighty- 
 seven millions of loan, before the peace, were with- 
 out this provision. He also coupled the land-tax 
 with a permission to the land-owners to redeem it 
 by purchasing in the three per cents, as much as 
 would yield an equivalent dividend ; but it does 
 not appear that any one benefited by this arrange- 
 ment; for while the state was relieved from the 
 payment of the interest on a portion of the 
 debt, it sustained an equivalent annual loss by 
 the extinction of a corresponding portion of the 
 land-tax. 
 
 Mr. Pitt’s boldest financial measure was that 
 of the 26th of February, 1797, for suspending cash- 
 payments at the Bank of England. This was a vir- 
 tual substitution of a fictitious for a real currency; 
 and yet it was nothing more than a carrying 
 out on a larger scale of a principle already fully 
 admitted in practice. If the moneyed public who 
 had lent four hundred millions sterling to the state 
 were contented to depend on the good faith and 
 stability of the government, why might not the 
 holders of the paper-money at the Bank, which 
 
 4 
 
 was probably not a twentieth part of that amount, | 
 
 the amount of stock greatly exceeded the actual money advanced — 
 
 to the government. The two items, and the annual interest 
 
 payable for the loans, presented the following figures in the — 
 
 successive years ; 
 
 Loans. Stock created. Interest. 
 1793, . . «. . £4,500,000 £6,250,000 £190,810 — 
 eS: a vs e 4 11,000,000 13,750,000 509,787 
 1795, . »« «©  « 86,000,000 50,095,000 1,781,087 
 Lj 8G, «Aen hi fish ae 25,500,000 30,918,668 1,364,785 
 1707, 4s e ° - 14,500,000 28,275,000 933,963 
 1798,.  . + + 20,000,000 39,624,250 1,248,818 5 
 1799 cae ° A +» 15,000,000 27,125,000 825,955 
 1800, . . ; 4 20,500,000 32,185,000 980,033 
 180], . . ~ « 28,000,000 49,210,000 1,498,444 
 
 The permanent debt was also augmented by the funding of 
 exchequer and navy bills to the amount of 29,500,000, during these 
 years. } 
 
 + 
 
CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT, AND LAWS :—1785-1815. 793- 
 
 Cuap. X.] 
 
 be satisfied and sufficiently safe with the same 
 security? The change produced a gradual revolu- 
 tion in prices and in the value of money, and 
 some disturbance of commercial transactions ; but 
 the suspension remained in force during the long 
 period of twenty-one years. Many statesmen 
 urged, and still urge, that England would not have 
 been able to carry on the gigantic war against 
 Napoleon without this suspension of cash-pay- 
 ments, 
 
 The financial transactions of England, from the 
 recommencement of the war in 1803 to the final 
 pacification of Europe in 1815, far transcended 
 everything else of the kind known in the history 
 of the world. Never before, in any country, 
 were such stupendous pecuniary means supplied 
 by a nation or wielded by a government. 
 Hardly any new taxes were raised during this 
 period, for in truth almost everything was taxed 
 already; but the rate or percentage of the several 
 taxes underwent frequent augmentation—the only 
 species of financial chemistry by which more 
 money could be distilled out of the public. The 
 income-tax was an exception to this: it was a 
 novelty in many ways. - It first appeared in 1798 
 as a war-tax of 10 per cent. on all incomes above 
 2002, and of a lower rate upon all from that 
 amount down to 60/. This was repealed in 1802, 
 and replaced by various additional duties on beer, 
 malt, hops, ships, and assessed property. In 1803, 
 when the war recommenced, the income-tax was 
 re-imposed at lower rates, and under the new 
 name of a property-tax ; and in 1806 it was raised 
 to its former amount. Every year witnessed the 
 imposition of new taxes, in addition to those 
 existing in the preceding year; insomuch that 
 while the entire produce of taxation paid into the 
 exchequer in 1801 was about 34 millions sterling, 
 that of 1815 reached more than 72 millions. After 
 the year just named, the war being ended, the 
 taxation naturally lessened; in round numbers, 
 the sums raised in the five years 1816-20 were 
 62, 52, 54, 53, and 54 millions sterling respectively. 
 Thus far, however, the contributions in the shape 
 of taxes only have been mentioned ; those in the 
 form of loans have still to be taken into account. 
 Year by year did the national debt increase, the 
 sums paid off by the operation of the sinking fund 
 being mere trifles compared with the amount of 
 new loans contracted. From the recommence- 
 ment. to the end of the war, 1803 to 1815, the 
 amount raised by loans and exchequer bills never 
 fell below ten millions in a year, and on one 
 occasion rose to forty-siz millions,* 
 
 * FZaving in a former note tabulated the amount of loans in each 
 year from 1793 to 1801, we here carry on the series to the last year 
 of the great war : 
 
 Loans. Stock created. Interest. 
 1802, . ° . £25,000,000 £32,990,625 £951,562 
 1803, . . Fy 12,000,000 19,200,000 621,355 
 1804, . e i 14,500,000 26,390,000 800,673 
 185, e . ; 24,000,000 39,060,000 1,267,918 
 1806, ~ 2 «~~: 20,000,000 33,200,000 ~—-1, 007,288 
 1807, e ° ° 15,700,000 23,794,825 752,039 
 1808, e : . 10,500,000 12,408,375 500,553 
 re ks 14,600,000 17,520,000 684,188 
 1810, »  « «18,400,000 18,810,250 570,701 
 
 During all these astounding financial operations, 
 there was an additional sum raised every year to 
 pay off a portion of the national debt. This 
 curious process of borrowing with the one hand 
 in order to pay with the other, was, in the vain 
 hope of making it profitable, more than once 
 subjected to modifications. The two sinking funds 
 noticed in a recent paragraph, established by Pitt 
 in 1786 and 1792, were, in 1802, united for the 
 discharge of the debt then existing, with a pro- 
 vision that future loans should lay the basis of 
 their own sinking fund; but the process became 
 little other than a mockery; for the commissioners 
 actually borrowed the money with which they 
 paid off portions of the debt—thereby merely 
 substituting a new government stock for a portion 
 of an older one. In 1807, Lord Henry Petty, as 
 chancellor of the exchequer, propounded a new 
 financial scheme, from which he augured import- 
 ant results. It was based upon the principle that 
 any loan might be extinguished in fourteen years 
 by setting aside, for that purpose, an annual sum 
 equal to the tenth part of the amount of the loan ; 
 the half of the sum so allotted, or 5 per cent. 
 upom the amount of the loan, would suffice to 
 discharge the interest and the cost of management; 
 while the other 5 per cent. would form a sinking 
 fund to pay off the principal. The state was to lay 
 aside, out of the war-taxes, this 10 per cent. on the 
 loans; but it seems inconceivable how the finance 
 minister could fail to see that it mattered not from 
 what particular fund this 10 per cent. was raised, 
 whether from the war-taxes or from other taxes, or 
 from the loan itself; it would in any case equally 
 form a deduction from the revenue of the year. 
 It was intended that the extinction of the succes- 
 sive loans, and the payment of the interest upon 
 them, should be effected by mortgaging successive 
 portions of the annual revenue; but whether the 
 transactions were called loans, taxes, or mortgages, 
 they could not create something out of nothing, 
 any more than a gain could accrue from putting 
 money into the right pocket and taking as much 
 out of the left. Dr. Hamilton, in his ‘ Inquiry 
 Concerning the National Debt,’ contended not only 
 that this plan would fail in its desired effects, but 
 that it would cause an actual Joss to the state, on 
 account of many of the items in this complicated 
 financial structure bearing compound instead of 
 simple interest. The project was thrown over- 
 board with the ministry which had introduced it ; 
 and no further change was attempted till 1813, 
 when Mr. Vansittart, the new chancellor of the 
 exchequer, brought forward a plan for remedying 
 certain defects in the sinking-fund system. A 
 sinking fund of 1 per cent. was founded for 
 
 1811, £16,981,800 £21,966,319 £834,758 
 1812, : 22,500,000 39,600,000 —-1,199,997 
 as 27,000,000 45,900,000 —- 1,506,380 
 1814, ae 46,000,000 70,977,330 2,294,602 
 1815, rvs 36,000,000 66,240,000 2,043,072 
 
 Besides the above enormous sums in direct loans, exchequer bills 
 were funded fourteen times during this period, to the aggregate 
 amount of 82,000,000/., creating new stock to the amount of 
 94,000, 0002., and entailing an annual interest of 5,000,000/7. 
 
a portion of the national debt, amounting to 
 87,000,0002., not before provided with that append- 
 age; a sinking fund of the same amount was 
 established for 26,000,000/. of exchequer bills ; the 
 funds in the hands of the national debt commis- 
 sioners received a new direction, and were made 
 available for the interest and the sinking fund of 
 the probable (as they were then regarded) loans 
 during the four years beginning with 1813. There 
 were numerous prospective arrangements of an 
 exceedingly complicated character—all likely to be 
 overturned if the loans should be unexpectedly 
 high. Much discussion took place at the time, 
 whether some of the provisions in the scheme 
 were consistent with faith to the public creditors, 
 and whether any real advantage would result 
 from the scheme as a whole. Every year there 
 was much parade about a sinking fund and an 
 extinction of the national debt; but nevertheless 
 the nation found itself involved in greater burthens 
 than ever, and men began to regard this sinking 
 fund as a phantom eluding their grasp. 
 
 It was not until Dr. Hamilton produced his 
 important work,* in the same year in which 
 Vansittart broached his new scheme, that states- 
 men and financiers became gradually aware that 
 a sinking fund, after all, rests on a fallacious basis, 
 Among other propositions laid down by Hamilton 
 was the following—“ That whenever a nation does 
 not tax to the amount of its expenditure, an 
 increase of debt, to a higher amount than the sum 
 paid in taxes, is inevitable ; and, in the comparison 
 of different systems, those which impose the 
 lightest taxes must always bring on an increase 
 of debt in a still higher degree.” Another prin- 
 ciple or law laid down by him was that “The 
 excess of revenue above expenditure is the only 
 real sinking fund by which the public debt can be 
 discharged ; that the increase of the revenue, or 
 the diminution of expense, is the only resource by 
 which this sinking fund can be enlarged, and its 
 operations rendered more effectual; and that all 
 Schemes for discharging the national debt, by 
 sinking funds operating at compound interest, or 
 in any other manner, unless so far as they are 
 founded upon this principle, are illusory.” He 
 further showed the correctness of the following 
 three propositions :—“ That when a sinking fund 
 is kept up connected with an increasing debt, as 
 in every loan the contractors have a profit at 
 the expense of the public, the state, besides the 
 expenses of management, sustains a loss equal to 
 the bonus attending the additional loans; that a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 formly followed of increasing the nominal capital — 
 
 of the debt in the case of each loan by a larger 
 sum than that actually borrowed. Dr. Hamilton’s 
 statements and expositions, now almost universally 
 assented to, came upon the public of 1813 with 
 surprise ; they produced a wide and deep im- 
 pression, notwithstanding the opposing prejudices 
 and habits of thinking in which all parties had 
 equally concurred, and which had been the growth 
 of acentury. A few years more elapsed, however, 
 before the new views penetrated the thicker air 
 of parliamentary use and wont; and it was not 
 until 1819, that the House of Commons passed a 
 resolution recognising the principle that it is only 
 by a surplus of income over expenditure that the 
 national debt can ever be paid off. 
 
 Comparing three dates, which, for convenience, 
 may be considered to mark the beginning, the 
 middle, and the end of the great French war, the 
 unredeemed debt of the British nation presented 
 the following astounding sums. At the commence- 
 ment of the war in 1793, the debt amounted to 
 about 228,000,0002, entailing an annual charge, for 
 interest, terminable annuities, sinking fund, and 
 management, of 9,000,0007. At the recommence- 
 ment of the war in 1803, the national debt, funded 
 and unfunded, reached 520,000,000/.,, involving an 
 annual charge of 19,000,0007. At the termination 
 of the war in 1815, the liabilities of the nation, 
 funded and unfunded, had attained the unprece- 
 dented amount of 758,000,0007.; requiring, for 
 interest and other charges, a sum of 29,000,000/. 
 During this period, the government paid to the 
 Bank of England, for managing the financial 
 details of the debt and the dividends, a commission 
 varying from 5627. down to 300/, per million of 
 nominal capital. 
 
 The relation which Ireland bore to Great 
 Britain, in connection with these financial matters, 
 was as follows: By the articles of the Union, the 
 
 existing debts of the two countries were to con- | 
 
 tinue as separate charges on the revenues of each. 
 
 Any future expenses for the special service of | 
 
 either country were to be charged on the revenue 
 of that country; but the general expenses for 
 army, navy, and government, were to be borne 
 in the ratio of 15-17ths by Great Britain, and 
 2-17ths by Ireland. It followed from this arrange- 
 
 ment that each country had its own exchequer. | 
 At the end of 1816, -when the Irish national debt — 
 amounted to 84,000,000/, and when her net — 
 revenue was only 4,500,000/, the system under- — 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 went a total alteration ; the revenues of the two | 
 
 countries were consolidated, and applied to the | 
 service of the United Kingdom as a whole; | 
 insomuch that there arose one national debt, one | 
 
 interest account, one sinking fund, instead of | 
 
 duplications of these entries. Ireland became | — 
 more than ever a constituent of the United | 
 Kingdom, merging her independence, and losing | 
 her isolation. is © 
 
 further loss is incurred by borrowing money 
 during war, when the price of stock is low, to be 
 repaid during peace, when the price is high; and 
 that there is also at least a considerable risk of 
 loss in the practice which has been almost uni- 
 
 Mi 
 
 * An Inquiry Concerning the Rise and Progress, the Redemption 
 and Present State, and the Management of the National Debt of 
 Great Britain.and Ireland. 
 
 a ee 
 —_— FF 
 
 - i, r 
 
 “oi 
 
 ~ Dy / 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NATIONAL 
 
 7») Ki now enter upon the 
 7 examination of one 
 AX of the most wonderful 
 series of phenomena 
 exhibited in the history 
 yy of nations—the advance of 
 ' Great Britain and Ireland in 
 commerce and industry during 
 j/ the thirty years intervening 
 * between 1785 and 1815, The 
 beginning of this period marked the change 
 from a disastrous war to a welcome peace, and 
 the commencement of great economical advance- 
 ment and prosperity in England and in many 
 other countries. The usual effect of the temporary 
 check given to speculation and industry by the 
 pressure of war—as if that impediment acted like 
 a dam thrown across a river, only accumulating a 
 force of water which never could otherwise have 
 been obtained ; or like the curb applied to a high- 
 mettled steed; or like the iron grip of winter, 
 controlling the earth, and renovating those powers 
 of vegetation which it seems for the moment to 
 destroy—was now everywhere felt. Enterprise 
 awoke from its lethargy like a giant refreshed by 
 sleep ; capital, long kept stationary. and inactive, 
 not only returned with a new spirit to its old 
 channels, but found for itself many new vents, 
 which it might have been long enough in dis- 
 covering if its customary flow had suffered no 
 interruption, and some of which were probably 
 created by the general break-up of established 
 relations wrought by the American war. 
 
 On account of the complexity and importance 
 of the transactions, it will be desirable to adopt a 
 more systematic classification than was deemed 
 necessary in the corresponding chapiers of previous 
 Books. The primary division will be into two 
 groups: I. TRADE AND CommeERcE; and II. Arts 
 AND MANUFACTURES—sufficiently marked to be 
 kept distinct throughout; while each of those 
 divisions will have a classification of its own. 
 
 I. TRADE AND CoMMERCE. 
 
 This part of the subject will be most con- 
 veniently treated by tracing the course of events 
 year by year; because the various modifications 
 produced in foreign and home trade by com- 
 mercial treaties, by the lapse of many English 
 
 INDUSTRY. 
 
 colonies into an American republic, by the exten- 
 sion of trading privileges awarded to the East 
 India Company, by changes in the currency and 
 the bank-note systems, by the imposition or 
 removal of prohibitory duties, by new inventions 
 or discoveries, &c.—will be brought most fittingly 
 into juxtaposition with the state of affairs at the 
 date of their occurrence. So far as regards general 
 summaries or reviews, they will most naturally 
 find a place by considering these thirty years as 
 thrown into three periods—1786 to 1792, years of 
 peace ; 1793 to 1802, years of war, terminated by 
 the Peace of Amiens; 1803 to 1815, years of war 
 after this brief peace. 
 
 first Period: a.D. 1786-1792. Imports and 
 exports, ships and shipments, customs’ duties, 
 treaties of commerce, free American trade, navi- 
 gation laws, colonial trade, fisheries, the Hast 
 India Company’s trade, the African slave trade, 
 and postal revenue—will come under notice in 
 successive years of this period. 
 
 1786.—The separation of the American colonies 
 from England in 1783, with a view to the forma- 
 tion of an independent republic, naturally threw 
 the trade of both countries into new channels; 
 but it was not until after the lapse of some years 
 that the effect of these changes became very 
 marked. Foreign trade, the index of the general 
 state of our commercial and industrial activity, 
 is itself measured by the official register of exports 
 and imports; and such a register must be our 
 authority in this as in preceding Books; but two 
 precautions must be taken in instituting compari- 
 sons between different periods—that until 1798 
 the values registered were official, not real or 
 actual ; and that until the Union in 1801, Ireland 
 appeared in these trade accounts as if a foreign 
 country. 
 
 Comparing 1782, the last year of the American 
 war, with 1786, we find that the oficial value of 
 the imports into Great Britain had risen—in 
 round numbers—from 10,300,000/. in the former 
 year to 15,800,000/. in the latter; an augmentation 
 of fifty per cent. The exports presented an 
 amount of 13,000,0001. in the one year, and 
 16,300,0007. in the other; a rise of twenty-five per 
 cent. It is probable that these ratios would 
 present a still greater increase, if the real as well 
 as the official values could be known. Regarded 
 
796 
 
 in another light, the tonnage of shipping engaged 
 in trade, the advance presents itself no less 
 favourably ; for while in 1782, the ships presented 
 a register of about 770,000 tons entered inwards, 
 and 850,000 tons cleared outwards ; in 1786 these 
 numbers had risen to 1,260,000 and 1,240,000 tons, 
 respectively.* A third mode of comparison may 
 be instituted, in the number and tonnage of all 
 the vessels, not entering or leaving, but belonging to, 
 all the ports of Great Britain: in 1782 these 
 numbered 7936, with a register of 620,000 tons ; 
 whereas, in 1786, the ships were 10,382, of 930,000 
 tons. Of the customs’ duties, we shall find it more 
 convenient to postpone a notice until the date 
 1787 comes under consideration ; but it may here 
 be remarked that in the years 1782 to 1786 the 
 expansion of our foreigu commerce went on 
 steadily, without check, whether judged by the 
 indications of exports, imports, ships, or e1stoms’ 
 duties, 
 
 Throwing into the form of a foot-note}+ a 
 tabulation of the amounts, to an approximate 
 degree of accuracy, of the trading with each of 
 the principal countries of the world in 1785, we 
 will here string togcther a few general remarks 
 concerning that trade. This date is selected 
 because, being the closing year of the preceding 
 period, it will form a standard for comparisons 
 hereafter to be made. It is instructive to com- 
 pare the headings here adopted, derived from 
 official sources, with those put forth by the Board 
 of Trade sixty years afterwards. Ireland is 
 mentioned, just as if it were a foreign country; 
 the Isle of Man has a separate entry to itself, and 
 so have the Channel Islands; China has no 
 recognition, apart from the East Indies; Austria 
 is not named, it being included under Germany ; 
 
 * In these quantities, and in others that will frequently occur, 
 round numbers will suffice for the present object—not only because 
 they are near enough to the truth to convey an idea of the progress 
 of the nation, but because detailed statistics are often at variance. 
 Macpherson, Anderson, and Chalmers rarely agree in their figures 
 relating to the commerce and trade of the last century; and even 
 Jater and better-informed writers, such as M‘Culloch and Porter, 
 often differ in fractional quantities. 
 
 + Trade between Great Britain and the chief foreign countries 
 in the year 1785: 
 
 Countrics, Imports. Exports. 
 
 Treland, : A 2 ; - £2,010,000 £2,170,000 
 Isle of Man, ; . . 4 8,000 32,000 
 Channel Islands, . . ° 48,000 94,000 
 East Indies, «c., ‘ : : 2,700,000 1,150,000 
 British America, : : : 210,000 630,000 
 British West Indies, y 4,340,000 1,200,000 
 Foreign » ” . “ 61,000 650 
 United States, . F 890,000 2,310,000 
 France, . 210,000 600,000 
 Russia, 4 1,610,000 230,000 
 Germany, : ‘ : &60,000 1,400,000 
 Prussia and Poland, 5 480,000 98,000 
 Denmark and Norway, - ” 120,000 320,000 
 Sweden, 200,000 65,000 
 Holiand, am igs 470,000 1,510,000 
 Flanders, . ; : ‘ 130,000 920,000 
 Portugal, . 5 ; 430,000 840,000 
 Spain, = : 4 > 700,000 790,000 
 Italy, 4 €9:),000 510,000 
 Venice, - 69,000 20,000 
 Canaries, A - F - 4,500 17,000 
 Gibraltar and Straits, ; ‘ 2,600 390,000 
 Turkey and Kgypt, . F 150,000 82,000 
 inh x bi , - it $i 49,000 £90,000 
 
 Pet an Nae is so 76,000 913 
 New Holland and South Whale-fishery, 8,500 2,400 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ie: 
 
 Poland is named, but is included with Prussia, 
 probably because the Baltic ports accommodated 
 the two countries in a similar way; Norway is 
 coupled with Denmark, not with Sweden; Italy 
 includes all the peninsula, and the country north 
 of it as far as the Alps, except Venice, then a 
 republic ; the Straits and Gibraltar have an entry, 
 without mention of ownership; Africa is thrown 
 in as one huge but not very important lump; 
 while the remote northern and southern regions 
 are scarcely named except for their connection 
 with the whale-fishery. The sums and quantities 
 are also worthy of attention. We see that the 
 United States, even at that early period after the 
 war, had become an important purchaser of 
 British produce and manufactures; that the 
 sales to Ireland nearly balanced the purchases 
 from that country; that our sales to Hastern and 
 Central Europe fell far short of our purchases 
 from thence; and that the region destined to form 
 the great Australasian colonies of Britain figured at 
 the petty sum of 10,9007. for exports and imports 
 combined, We mark also how small was the trade 
 between England and France. At that period 
 the custom-house returns were drawn up wholly. 
 distinct for England and for Scotland, rendering 
 necessary very great caution in instituting com- 
 parisons between 1785 and recent years, when the 
 words “Great Britain” more frequently appear in 
 official documents: it is in the latter form that the 
 entries have been computed in our note, The 
 compilers of statistical tables have, in addition to 
 the difficulties already mentioned, to contend 
 against the awkward fact that the tables of ship- 
 ping and shipments, towards the close of the last 
 century, were connected with quite a different 
 distribution of countries from the tables of imports 
 and exports, thus needing a very wary process of 
 grouping and counter-grouping. For this reason, 
 if for no other, we avoid minute quantities and 
 fractional figures, 
 
 1787.—This year was distinguished by a treaty 
 of commerce between Great Britain and France, 
 so important as to deserve detailed notice ; since 
 it shows what were the trading relations destined 
 to be so rudely interrupted by war a few years 
 afterwards. . 
 
 The treaty here in question, though signed at 
 Versailles in September, 1786, was not finally 
 ratified until the following year. On the 8th of 
 March, 1787, both Houses of parliament addressed 
 the crown, thanking his majesty for this additional 
 proof of his constant attention to the welfare and 
 happiness of his subjects; and soon afterwards an 
 act was passed (27 Geo. III. c. 18), to carry the 
 provisions of the treaty into effect, 
 
 “i 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 { 
 
 This treaty, — 
 
 commonly named after Mr, William Eden (after- — 
 
 wards Lord Auckland), by whom it was negotiated, | 
 
 was founded on principles more liberal than had 
 ever before been recognised between England and 
 France. 
 the two sovercigns of their desire to establish “a 
 system of cominerce on the basis of reciprocity 
 
 It commenced with a joint declaration of — 
 
 aa ik 
 
Cuar. XI.] 
 
 and mutual convenience, which, by discontinuing 
 the prohibitions and prohibitory duties which 
 have existed for almost a century between the two 
 nations, might procure the most solid advantages 
 on both sides to the national productions and 
 industry, and put an end to contraband trade, no 
 less injurious to the public revenue than to that 
 lawful commerce which is alone entitled to protec- 
 tion.’ The clauses, taken one by one, breathed a 
 friendliness of spirit surprising between two 
 nations placed so long in antagonism as England 
 and France had been. The first announced “a 
 reciprocal and entirely perfect liberty of navi- 
 gation and commerce between the subjects of each 
 party, in all and every the kingdoms, states, 
 provinces, and territorics subject to their majesties 
 in Europe, for all and singular kinds of goods in 
 those places.” The next declared, in the case of 
 rupture between the two countrics, that the 
 cessation of friendly commerce should not occur 
 until the respective ambassadors had taken their 
 departure; that the subjects of either country 
 should be allowed to reside peaceably in the 
 other; and that such subjects, if suspected, 
 should have twelve months’ time allowed to 
 wind up their affairs before leaving. The third 
 clause bound both parties to discourage pri- 
 vateering. If such an-arrangement as this, it 
 may be here remarked, had subsisted between 
 the two countries during the peace that suc- 
 ceeded the Seven Years’ War, the private adven- 
 turers who flocked from France to assist the 
 Americans at the commencement of their rebellion 
 could not have been permitted by their govern- 
 ment to gratify their peculiar sympathies in that 
 manner; and the insertion of the article in the 
 treaty may be regarded as a renunciation by the 
 French court of the policy before pursued. One 
 clause gave permission to the subjects of either 
 state to live and travel in the dominions of the 
 other; while another gave similar permission in 
 regard to ships visiting ports, and merchants estab- 
 lishing warehouses, subject to no other conditions 
 than payment of the recognised dues. In matters 
 of religion it was provided that “the subjects of the 
 two crowns shall enjoy perfect liberty ; they shall 
 not be compelled to attend divine service, whether 
 in churches or elsewhere ; but, on the contrary, 
 they shall be permitted, without any molesta- 
 tion, to perform the exercises of their religion 
 privately in their own houses, and in their own 
 way. Liberty shall not be refused to bury 
 the subjects of either kingdom who die in the 
 territories of the other, in convenient places to 
 be appointed for that purpose ; nor shall the fune- 
 rals or sepulchres of the deceased be in anywise 
 disturbed.” The tariff, or list of duties, of course 
 
 occupied an important place in such a treaty. 
 French wines imported direct from France into 
 Great Britain were to pay the same duties as 
 those payable by the wines of Portugal ; the duties 
 on French vinegar, brandy, and olive-oil were 
 reduced; beer, hardware, cutlery, cabinet-ware, 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1787. 797 
 
 turnery, iron, steel, copper, brass, cottons, woollens, 
 silks, linens, cambrics, saddlery, gauzes, millinery, 
 porcelain, earthenware, glass—all had their duties 
 defined, and generally on the principle that each 
 country should be treated by the other as among 
 “the most favoured nations.” It was further stip- 
 ulated that “the duties above specified are not to 
 be altered but by mutual consent; and the mer- 
 chandises not above specified shall pay, in the 
 dominions of the two sovereigns, the import and 
 export duties payable in each of the said dominions 
 by the most favoured European nations at the time 
 the present treaty bears date; and the ships belong- 
 ing to the subjects of the said dominions shall also 
 respectively enjoy therein all the privileges and 
 advantages which are granted to those of the most 
 favoured European nations. Nothing could well 
 be more liberal than the spirit and letter of this 
 treaty ; and it is much to be regretted that stern 
 war should so soon have intervened between the 
 intention and the practice of the two nations. The 
 treaty was to last, without revision or alteration, 
 for twelve years. 
 
 The trade between the two countries at that time 
 was, it must be admitted, very small, considering 
 their proximity and commercial importance. In 
 1783, four years before the treaty, the exports from 
 England to France had amounted in official value 
 to 98,1662.; and the imports from France into 
 England to 87,1192. In the treaty year, 1787, the 
 exports had risen to 986,906/, and the imports 
 to 577,0122. The year 1783 was the first after the 
 cessation of hostilities ; trade had only just recom- 
 menced; and from that time a steady advance 
 was made every year. The commercial treaty 
 doubled the imports and exports within twelve 
 months of its coming into action. 
 
 The year 1787 was also marked by the conso- 
 lidation of the customs, briefly noticed in a preced- 
 ing chapter of this Book. The customs’ duties 
 failed at that time to furnish a true index.to the 
 progress of our foreign trade. In 1784 the duty 
 called petty custom, and other additional duties 
 levied upon the goods of aliens, and also a duty of 
 1 per cent. on all trade in the Mediterranean Sea, 
 beyond Malaga, were repealed by statute, on the 
 ground that “by the alteration of the trade now 
 carried on between this kingdom and _ foreign 
 states, they in some cases become an unnecessary 
 burden upon commerce, without producing any 
 real advantage to the public revenue.” In 1786 
 the wine-duties were altered, and placed under 
 new regulations. The net amount of customs 
 paid into the exchequer increased from 2,900,0001. 
 in 1782 to 3,700,000/. in 1787; it was much higher 
 in 1785 and 1786, but the increase was due to 
 the payment of certain sums by the East India 
 Company properly payable in the two preceding 
 years. It is to be remembered that the system 
 of drawbacks, or the remission of duties upon the 
 re-exportation of many commodities, in great part 
 destroys the utility of the customs’ revenue as 
 an index to the fluctuations of our foreign trade, 
 
798 
 
 which may expand or contract considerably in 
 several of its departments without much affecting 
 the revenue: to make the customs a true measure 
 of the trade, the gross receipts ought to be given, 
 with the addition of the drawbacks, and also of the 
 bounties. 
 
 1788.—A momentous influence could not fail to 
 be exerted on the commerce of the new continent, 
 by the separation of so many British colonies from 
 the mother country, and the formation of an inde- 
 pendent republic; and this influence assumed a 
 definite form by virtue of an important com- 
 mercial arrangement in 1788. 
 
 Although a successful revolt had broken the 
 political tie that had so long bound those settle- 
 ments to England, it could not destroy the natural 
 bond that attached a young community, almost 
 exclusively occupied in agriculture, to a country 
 that was at once the greatest in manufacturing 
 industry and in maritime empire in the world. 
 Great Britain was still, as formerly, by far the 
 most convenient market for the people of the 
 United States ; and they, no longer our dependent 
 colonists, were yet as much as ever our most 
 valued customers. In the general feeling that 
 such was the case, no time was lost by the British 
 parliament, after the termination of the war 
 with America, in placing the commerce of the two 
 countries on a proper footing. In 1783 an act 
 was passed, repealing all the prohibitory restrictions 
 imposed during the war. In the same year 
 another statute declared that no manifest or certi- 
 ficate should be required from any American vessels 
 entering or clearing British ports. A royal pro- 
 clamation about the same time announced that 
 unmanufactured produce from the United States 
 would be admitted at the same duties, and with 
 the same drawbacks and bounties, as from the 
 British-American possessions. These facilities, 
 and the reaction after war, led to so wildly 
 eager a trading spirit among English merchants 
 and manufacturers, that they quite glutted the 
 American market ; insomuch that, by the year 
 1787, it was found that the excessive shipments of 
 four years were offered for sale at prices lower than 
 their cost in Europe—manifestly a great injury to 
 the fair importers and manufacturers. Many of 
 these surplus British goods were carried from 
 America to the West Indies, and sold even there 
 below the European price. Numerous speculators 
 were ruined; while some of the agents, converting 
 the goods into money at any prices obtainable, 
 escaped into the interior, and there became land- 
 jobbers. 
 
 A controversy of some importance arose, as to 
 the extent of the commercial rights which it would 
 be advisable to grant permanently to the United 
 States ; the main point in dispute being whether 
 the Navigation Act should be enforced in regard 
 to them as to other foreign states, and should 
 exclude their vessels from our West India Islands. 
 The West Indians advocated the free admission of 
 United States ships; the English and Irish growers 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and manufacturers resisted that concession: both 
 parties being actuated by a keen sense of their 
 own interests. The West Indians asserted “ that 
 the planters had been very scantily supplied with 
 provisions and lumber during the war; that a 
 considerable part of their supply was derived from 
 intercepted cargoes which were destined for the 
 foreign islands, a resource which the peace put an 
 end to, as it did also to the supplies from Florida, 
 which was now yielded to Spain; that they had 
 been compelled by necessity to convert their land 
 into provision-grounds, and to draw. off their 
 slaves from their proper plantation employments 
 to cultivate provisions and cut lumber ; and that 
 the provisions and lumber procured either by 
 importation, capture, or their own labour, were 
 obtained at such an enormous expense, that 
 nothing but the hopes of soon seeing a change for 
 the better could support them under it.”* It was 
 also asserted that the sugar and the rum, which 
 before the war had been largely sold on the 
 American continent, would be diverted from their 
 legitimate channel if the desired freedom of inter- 
 course were not granted. So much for the lumber 
 imported, and the sugar and rum exported: but 
 the West Indians did not end their case there ; 
 they sought to show that the American states 
 lately become independent were the only ones 
 that could command a surplus of corn for export 
 to the islands: Nova Scotia being not able even to 
 grow enough for itself; and Canada being subject 
 to very fluctuating harvests. These arguments 
 were urged so pertinaciously, and by persons 
 possessing so much influence in parliament, that 
 the ministers were about to concede the point; 
 when their intention was suddenly checked by 
 the appearance of two pamphlets,+ maintaining a 
 line of argument in the adverse direction. In 
 both these pamphlets, it was contended that the 
 Navigation Act ought to be maintained, as the 
 palladium of our naval power; that the privilege 
 asked for the United States ships would be incon- 
 sistent with those laws; that England, Ireland, 
 and the colonies yet remaining, could easily sup- 
 ply all the lumber and provisions required by the 
 West India Islands; and that England could 
 afford, by fair trade, to disregard certain threats 
 
 [Book X. ? 
 
 thrown out by the Americans that they would — | 
 
 refuse to admit English goods. Adopting a 
 medium course between the two plans recom- 
 mended to them, the government issued a pro- 
 clamation on the 2nd of July, 1783, permitting 
 
 British subjects to carry in British vessels all — 
 
 kinds of naval stores, lumber, live-stock, corn, 
 flour, and bread, from the United States to the 
 West Indies ; and also to export rum, sugar, 
 molasses, chocolate, nuts, coffee, 
 
 ginger, and 
 
 pimento from the Islands to the States, ‘under | 
 
 * Macpherson, Annals. 
 
 + Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Law and Com- j 
 
 mercial Policy arising from American Independence,’ by Mr 
 
 George Chalmers; and ‘ Observations on the Commerce of ea ; 
 
 American States,’ by Lord Sheffield. 
 
Crap. XI.] 
 
 the same duties and regulations as if the com- 
 modities were cleared out for a British possession. 
 As in many similar cases, an attempt to please 
 both parties pleased neither ; the planters declared 
 they should be ruined unless free intercourse was 
 maintained with the States; while the States 
 regarded it as an insult that only British vessels, 
 not American, should be engaged in this trade. 
 On the 26th of December another order in council 
 relaxed this restriction, so far as to allow the West 
 Indies to import masts, yards, bowsprits, indigo, 
 turpentine, tar, pitch, and unmanufactured com- 
 modities, from the United States, by natives and 
 in ships of either country. By another order, 
 United States tobacco was allowed to be imported 
 into certain British ports. The cautious policy of 
 the British government, in all that concerned an 
 extension of trading privileges, led to much angry 
 discussion and legislation in some of the States of 
 the Union, during 1784 and the three following 
 years; while England continued stern, bending 
 only a little, and very unwillingly, the States 
 displayed somewhat of swagger and boast, in their 
 threats of retaliatory prohibitions. At length, in 
 1788, matters put on a more favourable appear- 
 ance. An act was passed, permitting the import- 
 ation into the West Indies, in British vessels, of 
 tobacco, pitch, tar, turpentine, hemp, flax, masts, 
 yards, bowspri ts, lumber, horses, live- stock, bread, 
 flour, peas, beans, potatoes, rice, oats, wheat, barley, 
 and other grain, the produce of the United States ; 
 and the exportation to the United States from the 
 West Indies of any goods or produce which might 
 be lawfully exported to any foreign country in 
 Europe, and also of sugar, molasses, coffee, pimento, 
 cocoa, and ginger. The jealousies and animosities 
 now gradually subsided, and gave way to a much 
 more healthy state of feeling between the two 
 countries. Within a few months of the passing 
 of this act, Harl Cornwallis, governor-general of 
 India, gave orders that American vessels should 
 be treated at the Company’s settlements in all 
 respects as the most favoured foreigners ; and the 
 ‘ Chesapeake,’ the first United States vessel that 
 showed her flag in the Ganges, was by a special act 
 of courtesy exempted from the government customs 
 usually imposed on all foreign vessels. 
 
 It may be interesting here to record the amount 
 of trade transacted between England and her West 
 India colonies at that period. The entire imports, 
 brought in British ships to the exclusion of all 
 others, amounted in value to about 1,800,000/. ; of 
 these, nearly 1,500,0002. were British or Irish 
 goods, the remainder being ‘brought from other 
 countries. The entire exports were very much 
 larger, reaching the value of 5,400,0007. Of course 
 the majority of this consisted of colonial produce 
 sent to England. The largest items were 2,000,000 
 ewts. of sugar, 90,000 cwts. of cotton, 30,000 cwts. 
 of coffee, 6000 cwts. of pimento, and 2,000,000 
 gallons of rum. ‘The only other countries to 
 which the exports were sent were Ireland, British 
 America, the United States, the foreign West 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—178 
 
 799 
 
 Indies, and Africa. Of the various colonies, 
 Jamaica naturally took the lead, owing to its size 
 and importance ; its exports reached the sum of 
 2,200,0002.; next to it in rank were Grenada, 
 Antigua, Barbadoes, and St. Christopher’s, each 
 of which exhibited a sum not differing far from 
 600,000/. ; Dominica, St. Vincent’s, and the rest, 
 stood for much smaller amounts. 
 
 The connection between the West India trade 
 and the important subject of slavery will receive 
 a little illustration under the date 1791. 
 
 1789.—The fisheries of Great Britain and her 
 colonies have always been regarded as an import- 
 ant feature in the commerce of the country, 
 deserving the attention of the legislature and the 
 government. Whether this attention has been 
 wisely bestowed in the form of protection and 
 bounties, is quite another question. The encour- 
 agement to the herring, pilchard, and cod fisheries 
 have already been adverted to in a former Book ;* 
 and the same system prevailed in the period now 
 under consideration, In 1785, parliament passed 
 an act raising the bounty on the exportation of 
 salted pilchards caught during the succeeding 
 twelve months, with the view of reviving a trade 
 that had considerably declined; and this was 
 followed by many similar statutes in subsequent 
 years. But even when the fishery was abundant, 
 the export trade languished, on account of the 
 high price of salt, six bushels of which were 
 required for every hogshead of fish. The export 
 of pilchards, which had amounted twenty years 
 previously to 30,000 hogsheads annually, had 
 fallen to 12,000 or 138,000; and it was to bring 
 back the former flourishing state that the govern- 
 ment interfered. In the best years, the trade 
 employed 3000 Cornish fishermen, and 4900 or 
 5000 persons on shore; the fish were exported 
 chiefly to the Mediterranean, where the Italian 
 states, especially the Venetians, bought them 
 readily, in exchange for salt, staves, and other 
 commodities required at the fishing-stations. 
 
 The herring-fishery is more important than any 
 other in this country. The Yarmouth fishermen 
 suffered severely by the increase of the taxes on 
 salt; they employed 200 vessels in 1760, whereas 
 by 1782 the number had fallen to 60, so seriously 
 did they feel the pressure of the high price of the 
 salt necessary for curing the herrings. The annual 
 capture fell from nearly 50,000 barrels annually 
 to less than half that quantity. In Scotland, the 
 herring-fishery was of no account until about the 
 year 1750; but after that date, encouraged by the 
 bounty on exportation, the fishermen extended 
 their operations year after year ; until, by the year 
 1776, there were nearly 300 vessels employ ed in 
 the fisher y, the produce being about 50,000 barrels. 
 The bounty paid varied from 30s. to 50s. per ton. 
 Macpherson, speaking of the trade as it existed in 
 1777, said—* Campbelltown, the chief rendezvous 
 of the fishery, was raised by it, from having only 
 
 * See Pictorial History of England, vol. v., pp. 453-463. 
 
 ‘ 
 
800 
 
 4 small vessels and 3000 to 4000 inhabitants in 
 the year 1750, to the possession of 62 stout vessels, 
 carrying 750 men, and a population of above 7000 
 inhabitants, in 1777. But that increase is a small 
 object, in point of national utility, when compared 
 with the increase of seamen produced by the 
 bounty ; it being calculated that two-thirds of the 
 seamen who man the shipping of the Clyde, 
 besides a considerable proportion of those in the 
 vessels belonging to Liverpool, Bristol, and even 
 London, and great numbers in the navy, have 
 been bred in that fishery.” * This idea, of the 
 service rendered by the fisheries in supplying 
 hardy men for the navy, was a favourite one ever 
 since the days of Elizabeth. The American war, 
 by raising the cost of salt, barrels, naval stores, 
 and seamen’s wages, told seriously upon the 
 Scotch herring-trade, bringing down the curing 
 from 50,000 barrels to 14,000; the trade revived 
 afterwards; but it could not be other than 
 fluctuating, as all trades must be that depend 
 upon the artificial stimulus of a bounty. The 
 Irish herring-fishery was carried on with more 
 spirit and success than those of Yarmouth or 
 Scotland, during the American war. Large 
 importations of herrings had long been made to 
 Treland from the east country or the coasts of 
 the Baltic, to be thence re-exported to the West 
 Indies, where they formed the principal food of 
 the negroes ; but the quantity imported decreased 
 as the quantity exported increased, showing that 
 the fishery at home must have steadily advanced, 
 Macpherson pointed out reasons why the herring- 
 fishery was likely to be more prosperous in 
 Ireland than in Scotland; the arrival of the 
 herrings on the coast was regular and certain, and 
 the fish swam close to the shore; and as the 
 fishing was bound by less restriction than in 
 Scotland, the fishermen could catch a greater 
 quantity in a given space of time, and could run 
 their cargoes much earlier to market. In 1781, 
 there were 260 herring-vessels fishing in Lough 
 Swilly alone ; and the number gradually increased 
 on various parts of the Irish coast. A famous 
 fishery took place in 1784, when the shoals were 
 so immense that the fishermen generally loaded 
 their boats with a single haul of the net; each 
 boat cleared 54/. in three months of the summer 
 fishing, although the fish were sold at sixpence 
 per thousand; millions of herrings were boiled 
 down for oil, and millions more were thrown 
 away. In 1785, an act of parliament was passed 
 regulating the herring-fisheries ; removing certain 
 restrictions that had existed, and facilitating the 
 supply of salt to the curers ; other acts passed in 
 1786 and 1787 affected various details of the trade. 
 In 1789, the year now under consideration, there 
 were only 16 herring-vessels fishing on the bounty 
 system in England, the free trade having 
 gradually extended ; whereas the Scotch fishery 
 was mainly maintained by the bounty system ; 
 
 * Annals of Commerce, iii. 634. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a 
 
 this may possibly have been due to the fact that 
 the Yarmouth men began to strike out boldly 
 into deep waters, where the herrings were finer, 
 and their chances of a market widened. 
 
 Of the foreign fisheries in which the British had 
 an interest, that of cod at Newfoundland had long 
 been of considerable importance. In 1784 the 
 British vessels engaged in that fishery were 236, 
 and the number increased to nearly 400 by the 
 year 1789; in addition to this latter number, there 
 were more than 2000 vessels and boats, British and 
 colonial, engaged in various subsidiary ways in the 
 trade. In one of the best years, the island exported 
 800,000 quintals of cod, mostly to Southern Europe; 
 together with small quantities of other fish, and of 
 fish-oil, and 30,000 seal-skins—furnishing about 
 520 cargoes for ships. 
 
 The whale-fishery attracted attention in other 
 directions. The northern or Greenland fishery 
 fluctuated very much, on account not only of the 
 uncertainty in meeting with whales, but also of 
 variations in the bounty by which the whalers 
 were tempted. In the year 1789 there were 161 
 vessels fitted out for Greenland from Great 
 Britain; whereas in the preceding eight years 
 the number had sometimes been as high as 250, 
 sometimes as low as 39. An act was passed in 
 this year to encourage the fishery—the bounty 
 varying from 30s. to 40s. per ton—but the result 
 showed that the branch of enterprise which it was 
 thus attempted to foster was really of too uncertain 
 and precarious a nature to sustain itself without 
 the artificial prop of the bounty system. A new 
 whale-fishery, that had lately sprung up in the 
 south, began about this time to attract increased 
 attention. The American whalers, when they 
 found their prey scarce on the Greenland coast, 
 began their search farther south, and at length 
 reached the regions of the spermaceti whale in 
 the South Seas; English ship-owners afterwards 
 embarked in the trade, encouraged thereto by 
 the superior quality of the oil and spermaceti. 
 Bounties were established for this trade, by acts 
 passed in 1786, 1788, and 1789. The vessels engaged 
 in this department of the whale-fishery in some 
 years reached 60 or 70 in number, and were all 
 English ; whereas Scotland retained a fair share 
 in the Greenland trade. 
 
 1790.—It is necessary now to say a few words 
 concerning the East India trade, as one component 
 in the commercial operations of Great Britain. By 
 an act passed in 1784, the political constitution and 
 
 government of the Hast India Company were 
 placed on a new footing ; and another statute in — 
 
 the same year, the Commutation Act adverted to 
 in the last chapter, wrought a great change in the 
 tea-trade, the chief item in the Company’s com- 
 merce, In the nine years from 1771 to 1779, the 
 tea brought to England by the Company averaged 
 
 about 5,600,000 lbs. yearly ; while ships belonging _ 
 to persons unconnected with the Company brought - 
 Out of this 
 total quantity of something less than 19,000,000 — 
 
 i 
 
 a yearly average of 13,000,000 Ibs. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 * 
 
CHapP. XI] 
 
 lbs., the home consumption was more than twice as 
 much as that in all the countries of the continent 
 —except perhaps Russia, which imported a little 
 overland at an enormous price. As no East India 
 trade unconnected with the Company was recog- 
 nised by the law, the amount of smuggling must 
 have been enormous. When the duty was reduced 
 by the Commutation Act from 120 to 12} per cent., 
 the encouragement to smuggling greatly declined ; 
 the Company’s sales were at once trebled or 
 quadrupled, insomuch that it rose by 1790 to 
 nearly 17,000,000 Ibs. The demand for British 
 goods, and especially woollens, became every year 
 greater in China—a natural result of the increased 
 sale of tea; the amounts doubled between 1784 
 and 1790, leading to the shipment of a smaller 
 and smaller quantity of silver to pay for the tea. 
 The entire value of the Company’s imports from 
 the east rose from three millions sterling in 1783 
 to five millions in 1790. During this interval a 
 rapid progress was also made in what was called 
 the private trade, carried on by the commanders 
 and officers of the Company’s ships, and by their 
 servants and the free merchants residing by their 
 permission in India, who were allowed to export 
 and import goods on their own account in what- 
 ever spare room was left in the ships after the 
 cargoes belonging to the Company had been taken 
 on board. This trade was of course small com- 
 pared with that of the Company, but it added a 
 respectable figure to the sum-total. The entire 
 East India and China trade, corporate and private, 
 in 1790, amounted to about 1,500,000/. exports, in 
 25 ships, and 6,000,000/. imports. The increase of 
 the trade demanding the employment of a larger 
 capital, an act was passed in 1786 empowering the 
 Company to add 800,000/. to its stock: this stock, 
 being subscribed for at 155 per cent., produced 
 1,240,0002. ; and another augmentation of 1,000,000/., 
 raised by another statute passed in 1789, produced 
 1,740,0007., the subscription being at the rate of 
 174 per cent. The Company’s stock was now 
 5,000,0007,, on which a regular dividend of 8 per 
 cent, was paid. 
 
 From the Hast Indies we may turn to the 
 West Indies, the trade and industry of which were 
 rendered peculiar by the existence of slavery. 
 After the close of the American war, many cir- 
 cumstances combined to direct public attention 
 towards this degrading institution. London was 
 perambulated by swarms of American negroes, 
 whom the events of the war had emancipated, and 
 who begged in the streets for employment or for 
 bread. This custom having become a nuisance, 
 seven hundred of these destitute blacks were 
 shipped off to Sierra Leone in 1787; some 
 deserted, others died on the passage, and only 
 about four hundred reached the African coast. 
 In the following year, the Board of Trade was 
 directed to inquire into the state of that part of 
 Africa whence the slaves were brought by the 
 kidnappers, the manner of obtaining them, their 
 transportation and sale, and the effects of this trade 
 MOL. Vis 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1791. 
 
 801 
 
 upon the colonies and the general commerce of the 
 kingdom. In the Report prepared by the Board, 
 many interesting particulars were given of the 
 slave-trade, Between 1760 and 1790, the number of 
 English ships engaged in this atrocious traffic had 
 been as low as thirty, and as high as two hundred ; 
 Liverpool and Bristol being the two ports to which 
 they chiefly belonged. During the American war 
 the trade declined, but it rose again from and after 
 the year 1783. The market value of the wretched 
 beings who constituted the cargoes rose in the 
 highest year to about 900,0007, The slave-ships 
 of course proceeded with the burthens from the 
 African coasts to the West Indies, and then 
 returned to England laden with the produce of the 
 islands, Towards the close of the seventeenth 
 century, a slave, worth 3/7. on the African coast, 
 sold for 157. in the West Indies; whereas by the 
 close of the eighteenth, these numbers had risen 
 two or three fold—and even more in regard of the 
 price on the African coast. A small number of 
 British ships were engaged in honest commerce 
 with Africa, quite apart from the slave-trade : 
 importing red-wood, ivory, gum-arabic, bees-wax, 
 ebony, ostrich-feathers, &c., in exchange for British 
 manufactures. As to the actual number of these 
 unfortunates shipped from their native country, 
 means were wanting for verifying the entries 
 applicable to the Portuguese and other foreign 
 colonies; but it was known that in 1790 no less 
 than 22,000 slaves were sent to the British West 
 India Islands, of which a few thousands were 
 re-exported to other islands. It was supposed 
 that the slaves carried off from the African shores 
 by Portuguese, French, Danish, and Dutch ships 
 almost equalled in number those shipped by 
 British dealers. 
 
 1791.—The post-office revenue was one among 
 many indications of the advancing prosperity of 
 the country just before the great outbreak with 
 France. Macpherson, in his ‘Annals of Com- 
 merce,’ gave a table, exhibiting the gross and net 
 revenue of this establishment during several years 
 commencing with 1783; to which was added a 
 sketch of the history of the post-office from its 
 foundation, It appears that in 1652 the whole 
 postal revenues for the three kingdoms were 
 farmed for 10,0007. per annum; at this time there 
 were only two rates of postage—twopence for 
 eighty miles distance or less, and threepence for a 
 greater distance. The net revenue gradually rose 
 to about 60,0007. per annum in Queen Anne’s reign. 
 About the time of her death the postage-rates were 
 augmented 50 per cent. ; which rise, together with 
 the increasing commerce of the country, increased 
 the net revenue to 100,000, by the year 1722. In 
 the next sixty years, this revenue was not increased 
 by much more than 60,000, In 1784—by a restric- 
 tion on the privilege of franking, a raising of the 
 postage-rates, a diminution of expenses, and an 
 adoption of Mr. Palmer’s mail-coach improve- 
 ments*—the postal revenue was placed on a basis 
 
 * See Pictorial History of England, vol. v. p. 466. 
 2x 
 
802 
 of prospective advancement ; insomuch that by 
 the year 1791 the net profit was about 340,000/,, 
 out of a gross revenue of 580,000/. 
 
 1792.—We now approach a year marked with 
 inportance in relation to commerce, as being the 
 last year for a long period during which England 
 was to be at peace. In a former page, a tabular 
 statement was given, in a note, of the amount of 
 trade between England and foreign countries in 
 the year 1785; and it may be useful now, by 
 means of a similar table, to see what advance was 
 made during seven years of peace.* Glancing 
 down these columns, it will be apparent that the 
 exports to various countries had largely increased 
 during the intervening period, especially those 
 to the Hast Indies, the West Indies, the United 
 States, British America, France, Germany, and 
 Africa. The Australian regions, with the southern 
 whale-fishery, still continued almost absolutely un- 
 represented, so far as concerned any exports from 
 Great Britain. Taken collectively, the exports had 
 increased in the seven years from 16,000,0002. to 
 25,000,0002. annually: the imports from 16,000,000/. 
 to 20,000,0007.— showing that our aggregate 
 national sales to other nations had risen more 
 rapidly than our purchases from them. For some 
 purposes it may be instructive to compare 1782, 
 the last year of the American war, with 1792, the 
 last year before the French war, in reference to 
 merchandise, to shipping, and to customs’ receipts,t 
 Almost all these elements of public prosperity 
 were doubled in the course of this interval, some 
 more than doubled. Lamentable in many ways 
 was the approaching outbreak with France; for the 
 trade between England and that country had been 
 gradually increasing, bringing as its accompani- 
 ment a good deal of social intercourse between the 
 
 * Trade between Great Britain and the chicf foreign countries, 
 in the year 1792: 
 
 Countries. Imports. Exports, 
 Ireland, . A - £2,620,000 #2,870,000 
 Isle of Man, ‘ ° 5 . 7,000 88,000 
 Channel Islands, 59,000 92,000 
 East Indies, &c., . 2,700,000 2,400,000 
 British America, 260,000 1,120,000 
 British West Indies, . 4,130,000 2,780,000 
 Foreign West Indies, 280,000 110,000 
 United States, 1,940,000 4,270,000 
 France, . 720,000 1,230,000 
 Russia, - » ° 1,710,000 800,000 
 Germany, A 650,000 2,140,000 
 Prussia and Poland, . x 600,000 170,000 
 Denmark and Norw: ay, . A 190,000 320,000 
 Sweden, , ; . 840,000 120,000 
 Holland, . 4 A ° 800,000 1,520,000 
 Flanders, A i 130,000 1,030,000 
 Portugal, P 4 < - 1,000,000 750,000 
 Spain, . : . ‘ * - 900,000 800,000 
 Italy, ° : : . 1,000,000 950,000 
 Venice, ° . ‘ 65,000 17,000 
 Canaries, 10,000 17,000 
 Gibraltar and Str aits, 13,000 200,000 
 Turkey and Egypt, : 290,000 270,000 
 Africa, . : ° : 2 83,000 1,370,000 
 Greenland, &c., é 64,000 700 
 New Holland, &c., 114 12,000 
 
 1782, 1792, 
 
 + Exports from Great Britain, £13,000,000 £25,000,000 
 Imports into Great Britain, . 10,340,000 20,000,000 
 Tonnage entered inwards, . 777,000 1,890,000 
 
 ” cleared outwards, 850,000 1,740,000 
 British registered vessels, . 7,936 12,77 
 Tonnage of do., . . 615, 000 1,349,000 
 Customs’ receipts, net, 2,860, 000. 4,027,000 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 two nations. Our exports to France, i in the eight 
 years from 1784 to 1792, were nearly trebled, and 
 our imports quintupled. The commercial treaty, 
 coming into operation in 1787, had the effect of 
 doubling the exports and imports in one single 
 year. After 1789, the convulsed and uncertain state 
 of things in France tended, no doubt, to check the 
 further development of trade; but still it main- 
 tained itself at the height to which it had grown ; 
 for, although there was a falling off in the exporis 
 in 1790, they recovered their former amount in the 
 course of the next two years. So far as concerns 
 shipping, it may here be mentioned that the vessels 
 of the royal navy, which amounted to about 
 300,000 tons when George III. ascended the throne 
 in 1760, and which declined to 276,000 tons in 
 1774, rose to 433,000 in 1792; in this last-named 
 
 -year it consisted of 7 first-rates, 21 second-rates, 
 
 112 third-rates, 21 fourth-rates, 103 fifth-rates, 42 
 sixth-rates, and 192 sloops, &c., making a total of 
 498 vessels of all kinds.* 
 
 George Chalmers, in his ‘ Historical View of the 
 Domestic Economy of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 gave among other things an account of bank- 
 ruptcies, as one of the indications of commercial 
 activity, fortunate or unfortunate. A sudden 
 increase in the number of these calamities, at the 
 close of 1792, attracted much attention to the 
 subject. At the beginning of the century, the 
 bankruptcies generally averaged about 40 annu- 
 ally ; during the reigns of Anne and George I. the 
 average rose to 200; and though it rose much 
 higher about the time when George II. came to 
 the crown, it sank again to an average of 200. It 
 was about the year 1772 that the number began to 
 increase notably, insomuch that the average rose 
 to 500 in a year. In 1792, the year now under 
 notice, the bankruptcies were not numerous until 
 November, when suddenly 105 took place—by far 
 the largest number ever known in one month. 
 Chalmers remarked on the curious fact that wars 
 and rebellions did not denote the years when 
 bankruptcies were most frequent; it was in 
 years of peace, when merchants departed from 
 moderate trade, and rushed into reckless specula- 
 tion, that these commercial disasters more generally 
 displayed themselves. 
 
 Second Period: a.D. 1793-1802. 
 war and discord marked the period upon which 
 we now enter—France being in collision with 
 almost all the continental nations of Europe ; 
 England supplying men and money in the vain 
 attempt to crush the ambition of that revolu- 
 
 tionised country; and commerce sharing in the | 
 
 convulsions that severed the friendly ties betweei 
 nations. 
 
 1793.—It was in January, 1793, that Bgland 
 
 4 
 q %, 
 ~; 
 
 and France declared war against each other; and — 
 the same month involved the British merchants 
 in anxious responsibilities and heavy losses 
 
 eut of the rapidly increasing banka ‘The 
 
 * Chalmers, Historical View, 215-219. 
 
 Scenes of | 
 
 4 
 7 
 4 
 7 
 
 [ Book x / 
 
 oa 
 
 i 
 | 
 | 
 
 ( 
 
 os 
 
 rs it 
 
Cuar. XI.] 
 previous month of November, as just stated, 
 exhibited 105 of these commercial failures; in 
 December the number fell to 47; but with the 
 opening of the year 1793 the ruin spread with 
 fearful rapidity. There were 77 bankruptcies in 
 January, 87 in February, 105 in March, 188 in 
 April, 209 in May, 158 in June, 108 in July—1086 
 in the nine months, November to July. The 
 number declined during the remaining months 
 of 1793; yet did that year exhibit a total of 1304, 
 Many of the houses that came down during this 
 commercial storm were of old standing and great 
 eminence ; and their liabilities were of an amount 
 proportioned to the extent of their business and 
 - the confidence in their probity, One great failure 
 for nearly a million sterling, of the firm of Lane, 
 Son, and Fraser, on account of the Bank refusing 
 the bills of the firm on February the 19th, drove 
 public suspicion up to alarm ; and every merchant 
 and banker who was concerned in the circulation 
 of negotiable paper met with unusual obstructions 
 in his daily business. Another failure for nearly 
 a million, on the 18th of March, magnified alarm 
 into panic; and then the bankruptcies thickened 
 on all sides. Chalmers attributed these calamities, 
 not to the war or to apprehensions concerning it, 
 but to the great and reckless operations of the 
 country banks, which within a few years had 
 risen in almost every market town. Out of 279 of 
 those establishments, no fewer than 204 issued what 
 were called optional notes, which the Bank reserved 
 to itself the option of paying either in London or 
 in the country ; and of this class, 71 stopped pay- 
 ment in the single year 1793. Chalmers thus 
 accounted for these disasters :—“ Their notes came 
 oftener, and in greater numbers, to London, than 
 were welcome in the shops of London. These 
 notes became discredited, not only in proportion 
 as the supply was greater than the demand for 
 them, but as the banks were distant and unknown. 
 The projects and arts by which those notes were 
 pushed into the circle of trade were regarded with 
 a very evil eye by those who, in their manage- 
 ment, saw great imprudence in many, and a little 
 fraudulence in some.” The bankruptcies in the 
 spring of 1793 appear to have been mostly among 
 country bankers and home-traders—not foreign 
 merchants ; and hence the opinion that the war 
 was not the chief cause of these failures, 
 
 So grave was the state of affairs, that the attention 
 of the government and the parliament was attracted 
 specially towards it, On the 22nd of April, Mr. 
 Pitt called together a number of gentlemen at his 
 house, to consult on a proposal he had to make, 
 A meeting was held at the Mansion House on 
 the following day, to consider this proposal more 
 fully; and the meeting accepted it. The plan, 
 embodying a parliamentary advance of exchequer 
 bills to parties possessed of real capital, had been 
 suggested to Pitt by Sir John Sinclair; the failures 
 had begun with houses not possessed of suflicient 
 capital to warrant their issue of paper-money ; but 
 the consequences had extended to other firms, 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1793. 
 
 803 
 
 possessed of sufficient capital, but not able to 
 render it suddenly available ; while those who had 
 cash to spare would not lend it in the critical state 
 of trade at that period. <A bill was introduced into 
 parliament for carrying out Pitt’s scheme; and in 
 the committee which examined this scheme, many 
 striking facts were brought forward, showing how 
 many solvent firms had been compelled to stop 
 payment. It was known that several mercantile 
 houses, possessed of goods sufficient to defray all 
 their liabilities five or six times over, were plunged 
 into embarrassment because they could neither sell 
 their goods nor borrow upon them at that juncture. 
 The distress was severely felt in Scotland ; every 
 one possessing money grasped it tightly, and was 
 equally unwilling to purchase goods or to discount 
 bills. The committee unanimously approved the 
 minister’s proposal, of lending money to such sol- 
 vent firms as could give the necessary security ; and 
 recommended that the sum of 5,000,000/. should 
 be appropriated to this purpose. In debate on the 
 bill, Fox and Grey urged many objections to it, as 
 being a very anomalous course, the consequences 
 of which could not well be predicted; they con- 
 demned the unconstitutional influence and control 
 which the plan would enable the government to 
 exercise over the commerce of the country; they 
 contended that, if the proposed advances of money 
 to parties in difficulty really were expedient, they 
 ought to be left to be made by the Bank, whose 
 proper business it was to lend money to all who 
 could offer it sufficient security. Nevertheless Fox 
 admitted that, in the critical state of affairs, “he 
 wanted nerve to give the plan his decided opposi- 
 tion ;” and the bill went through all its stages, 
 Pitt stated that, from the nature of the transaction, 
 the Bank had declined interfering, because the 
 security to be given was not of such a kind as the 
 Bank had been accustomed to receive. By the 
 provisions of the act, the advances, which were to 
 bear interest at the rate of 24d. per day on 100/, 
 and were to be in sums of not less than 40002, 
 were to be made on security approved by certain 
 commissioners appointed for that purpose, or on 
 the deposit of goods of double the value of the 
 sums advanced, to be placed in safe keeping in 
 London, Bristol, Hull, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edin- 
 burgh, or Leith. It is admitted on all hands that 
 the effect of this measure was immediate and 
 powerful. “The very first intimation of the inten- 
 tion of the legislature to support the merchants 
 operated all over the country like a charm, and in 
 a great degree superseded the necessity of the 
 relief by an almost instantaneous restoration of 
 mutual confidence.’* 332 persons or firms applied 
 for advances, of which 45 withdrew their appli- 
 cations, 49 were rejected as being unsatisfactory, 
 and the remaining 238 receiving the advances 
 applied for—advances scarcely reaching 4,000,000/, 
 even in the total applications, and finally brought 
 down to 2,200,0002.; averaging about 9000/. per 
 
 * Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, 
 
804 
 
 applicant assisted. It was unquestionably a scheme 
 creditable to the sagacity of Sir John Sinclair, who 
 suggested it; every farthing was repaid, together 
 with more than sufficient interest to pay the cost 
 of management ; only two out of the 238 persons 
 became bankrupt; and the panic in the money- 
 market subsided very rapidly. 
 
 The year 1793 was also marked by the renewal 
 of the East India Company’s charter for twenty- 
 one years. ‘The legislature adopted a theory or 
 doctrine that the net revenue of the Company 
 would steadily yield 1,200,0007. per annum; and 
 directed that of this sum 500,000/. a year should 
 be set aside for reducing the Company’s debt in 
 India to 2,000,000/.; while 500,000. more was to 
 be paid into the treasury—a douceur, in fact, paid 
 by the Company to the nation, in return for the 
 privileges granted by the nation to the Company. 
 But the anticipations were never realised; the 
 surplus never came; and there was only one pay- 
 ment of half a million into the public coffers. The 
 Charter Act of this year made provision for par- 
 tially opening the India trade to private indivi- 
 duals, but under close restrictions as to places, 
 ships, and commodities ; all this private trade was 
 to be in Company’s ships; the Company were to 
 set apart 3000 tons of shipping for this purpose 
 every year; and the owners of goods were to pay 
 for the freight of these ships at the rates of 5/. per 
 ton outward, and 15/. per ton homeward, in time of 
 peace ; the rates in time of war being subject to 
 special arrangement. 
 
 1794.—When the spasmodic operations of 1793 
 had had time to subside, observant men began to 
 agree that the suffering, like a powerful but well 
 directed course of medical treatment, had produced 
 good results in the end. A Glasgow merchant, 
 quoted by Chalmers, said: “The late stagnation 
 has been exceedingly useful to our trade. For 
 previous thereto, the sales were so rapid, the 
 returns so quick, and money so abundant, that 
 much business was established upon little better 
 than mere paper circulation, or speculation alone. 
 The wages of our labourers, too, had got to such a 
 height, that we must in all probability have been 
 gradually undermined in foreign markets by foreign 
 manufacturers.” It might, perhaps, have been 
 more correct to say that the storm which cleared 
 the atmosphere was needed for that purpose—not, 
 that the destruction it wrought was a good thing 
 in itself, . 
 
 Concerning the foreign trade of the kingdom 
 soon after the commencement of the war, it 
 appears that the imports and exports, which fell 
 suddenly from 1792 to 17938, rallied again in 1794, 
 and rose to a greater height than ever; and the 
 experience of the next two years bore out the con- 
 clusion that our national trade progressed steadily 
 in each year except that in which war had been 
 declared. This progress, however, from some cause 
 not very obvious, was not shown in the tables of 
 shipping entering or leaving our ports with cargoes; 
 neither in 1793 nor in 1794 were the entrances 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 and clearances so numerous as in 1792. In the 
 customs’ returns, too, the figures were somewhat 
 smaller for the two years of war than for the 
 preceding year of peace. ‘These discrepancies 
 show, in this and many other instances, that 
 entire reliance must not be placed on statistical 
 tabulation. The effect of the commencement of 
 hostilities was of course to extinguish nearly the 
 whole of the large and growing trade with France, 
 which had been fostered by the commercial treaty 
 of 1786. The treaty itself was at an end; and to 
 the natural difficulties interposed by the war were 
 added positive prohibitions by each power against 
 the exportation of almost every species of goods 
 which the other would receive, and against the 
 importation of nearly everything which the other 
 would allow to leave its dominions, This portion 
 of our national trade, accordingly, was speedily 
 reduced to a very small matter. The imports 
 from France, 718,0001. in 1792, were reduced to 
 1677, in 1794; and the exports from 1,229,000/. to 
 34,0007, These were the official figures; but the 
 real amount of trade was much higher; for 
 throughout the war considerable quantities of 
 British manufactured goods found their way into 
 France, in defiance of the prohibitory laws of both 
 nations, 
 
 The fortunes and fluctuations of war affected 
 British trade with continental nations in various 
 degrees, according as the power of France ex- 
 panded or contracted. The Netherlands had 
 been overrun by France, and wrested from the 
 possession of the House of Austria, before the war 
 with England began ; yet for some years our trade 
 with the Flemings continued to make a large 
 figure in the annual official accounts. Up to the 
 year 1794 the Netherlands appear to have been 
 still regarded by the English government as part 
 of the dominions of her ally, the Emperor of Ger- 
 many; and the customary amount of the exports 
 and imports was only reduced by the French occu- 
 pation of the country, and perhaps also by its 
 unsettled state under its new masters. It was not 
 until after this date that the trade with the 
 Netherlands, being prohibited and declared illegal, 
 disappeared completely from the inspector-general’s 
 returns. 
 
 1795.—In this year the effect produced on trade 
 by the continental war became more apparent. 
 Holland was conquered by the French in the 
 early part of 1795; consequently France and 
 England alike prohibited trade between the latter 
 country and Holland. The result was presented 
 in very marked form—in a fall of our exports to | 
 Holland from 1,517,000/. in 1792 to 110,0002.in 1795; | 
 and of our imports from 800,000/. to 120,0007, In 
 the course of this year, France concluded a treaty — 
 of peace and alliance with Prussia; a similar treaty 
 with Spain, which latter kingdom soon afterwards 
 declared war against England ; and other treaties 
 with Tuscany and Hesse-Cassel, which, though 
 they did not drag England into war with those — 
 states, at least lessened the power of the coalition — 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 against France. Within a few months afterwards, 
 though not actually in the year now under notice, 
 France succeeded in negotiating treaties also 
 with the King of Sardinia, the Duke of Parma, 
 the Duke of Modena, the King of Naples, and 
 numerous petty princes both in Italy and in 
 Germany. “The French government,” says 
 Macpherson, “in their treaties with all those 
 powers, stipulated for the most favourable terms 
 
 for the commerce of France ; and they expressly. 
 
 insisted on an exclusion of British vessels from 
 their ports as the condition of their pacification 
 with some of them. As they rightly considered 
 the British commerce as the feeder and support 
 of the war, they took possession of the port of 
 Leghorn, the capital station of the British trade in 
 the Mediterranean Sea, and seized all the British 
 property found in it. The ports of all the con- 
 tinent of Europe were now shut against the 
 admission of British merchandise, by authority 
 of their sovereigns, except the British port of 
 Gibraltar, those of Turkey, Portugal, and Germany, 
 and the three northern powers.’”* 
 
 To some extent, a counterbalance accrued to 
 England, in the conquest or acquisition of territory 
 the trade of which she could command. In 1793 
 the French island of Tobago in the West Indies, 
 and the French settlements at Pondicherry and 
 other places in the East Indies, were captured, In 
 the next following year the conquests included 
 Martinique, St. Lucie, and Guadaloupe in the 
 French West Indies; while the sovereignty for a 
 temporary period, if not the conquest, of Corsica 
 was obtained. In 1795 the captures were not 
 from the French, but from her Dutch allies, at 
 Malacca, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope, 
 followed soon afterwards by those of Amboyna and 
 Demerara. These changes ought to be kept in 
 mind, in reviewing the progress of our foreign 
 trade during the first few years after the com- 
 mencement of the war. 
 
 1796.—This, the last year before the suspension 
 of cash-payments by the Bank, affords a convenient 
 resting-point, to show, by a tabulated note similar 
 to those already given, how the commerce of the 
 country stood in comparison with that of 1785 and 
 1792.t It had naturally fallen since the last- 
 
 * Annals of Commerce, iv. 381. 
 + Trade between Great Britain and the chief foreign countries, 
 in the year 1796: 
 
 Countries, Imports. Exports. 
 Treland, . e £2,760,000 £2,900,000 
 Isle of Man, 30,000 86,00: 
 Channel Islands, 230,000 200,000 
 East Indies, &c., 3,370,000 2,360,000 
 British America, - 270,000 1,020,000 
 British West Indies, . 4,540,000 3,950,000 
 Foreign West Indies, 360,000 100,000 
 United States... .. . 2,080,000 6,050,000 
 France, A a 15,000 8,00 
 Russia, 2,110,000 770,000 
 Germany, - 2,080,000 8,170,000 
 Prussia and Polan a, 1,300,000 300,000 
 Denmark and Norway, . 240,000 510,000 
 Sweden, : - 850,000 120,000 
 Holland, . . e . ° 310,000 520,000 
 ¥F landers, F P A r ‘ 7,000 65,000 
 Portugal, 680,000 880,000 
 Spain, . ‘ : ° ° . 810,000 550,000 
 Italy, . ° ° P ° 300, 000 750,000 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1796. 
 
 805 
 
 named year, in respect of France, Holland, and 
 the Netherlands, from causes just explained. It 
 suffered some diminution in Italy, Spain, Portugal, 
 Turkey, and Africa—not to any great amount, 
 however, except in the imports from Italy and the 
 exports to Africa. There was a little falling-off in 
 the trade of the mother-country with British 
 America, Gibraltar, and the Isle of Man. But all 
 these drawbacks were much more than counter- 
 balanced by the increase of trade with the United 
 States, Russia, Germany, Prussia and Poland, 
 Denmark and Norway, Sweden, Venice, the 
 Canaries, the Foreign West Indies, the British West 
 Indies, the East Indies, Ireland, and the Channel 
 Islands. In some of these instances, the increase 
 was partly the consequence of the stoppage or 
 diminution of the trade with other countries; 
 while in the remaining cases a freer intercourse 
 than formerly had been promoted, or sought to 
 be promoted, by special arrangements or treaties 
 of commerce. 
 
 Two of the treaties just adverted to, of con- 
 siderable importance, may here conveniently be 
 noticed, because the discussions concerning them 
 occupied much attention in the year 1796; viz., 
 those with Russia and with the United States. 
 A commercial treaty between England and Russia, 
 signed in 1766, had been allowed to expire, but 
 had been renewed for six years in 1793. Contrary 
 to its stipulations, however, the Russian govern- 
 ment, by imperial ukase, very speedily placed a 
 prohibition on the import into Russia of numerous 
 metallic and textile manufactures, on the ground 
 that such imports would damage the home manu- 
 factures in the czarina’s dominions. “The conse- 
 quence of these edicts,’ says Macpherson, “ was 
 that many of the Russian merchants were reduced 
 to bankruptcy, or obliged to return the goods they 
 had purchased, instead of making the stipulated 
 payment to the importers, who in vain applied 
 to the czarina to restore the duties they had paid 
 for the right of selling the goods in her dominions; 
 so that prodigiously heavy losses fell upon the 
 British merchants, the very best customers of 
 Russia, and upon the British manufacturers, who 
 had put goods suitable for the Russian market 
 in hand, in a dependence on receiving the 
 customary orders for them.” It is difficult to 
 conceive what motive could have influenced 
 Catherine in this instance; she could not intend 
 to depress the British manufactures in favour of 
 those of France, for she had already cut off all 
 communication with that country; and if she 
 proposed by the prohibition of such goods to 
 encourage the home manufacture, the measure 
 was at least premature. The total trade between 
 
 England and Russia steadily increased ; never- 
 Countries. Imports. Exports, 
 Venice, ° ° : : - £75,000 £26,000 
 Canaries, . 16,000 17,000 - 
 Gibraltar and Straits, 29,000 150,000 
 Turkey and Egypt, 150,000 160,000 
 Africa, <xthian st... 120;000 610,000 
 Greenland, &c., : oh AS 110,000 360 
 New Holland, S&C. > « : . 19,000 
 
 a a a a SO ee 
 
—e 
 
 806 
 
 theless, repeated complaints were made of the 
 unfairness and illiberality of the ukase; and an 
 agreement was made in 1796 for a new treaty of 
 commerce, which was finally concluded early in 
 the following year. 
 
 The United States treaty, next to be noticed, 
 arose out of the continued jealousy of the Ameri- 
 cans at the cautious colonial policy of England. 
 In 1793 the French made use of American neu- 
 trality te insure the safe transit of produce from 
 their own West Indian colonies to France. This 
 led to the issuing of a British order in council, 
 authorising the seizure and detention of all vessels 
 carrying either produce of the French colonies, 
 or supplies for the use of those colonies. So 
 effective was this order, that no less than 600 
 American vessels were seized or detained in 
 British ports in the five months ending with 
 March, 1794. This spread great alarm among the 
 merchants engaged in trade with the United 
 States, many of whom feared a rupture between 
 the two countries as a consequence. Negotiation, 
 however, was happily resorted to instead of arms. 
 Mr. Jay was sent as envoy extraordinary from 
 Washington to London, and through his repre- 
 sentations the obnoxious order in council was 
 recalled. In the negotiations which followed, the 
 United States were very unwilling to admit the 
 smallest superiority on the part of Great Britain, 
 and displayed much sensitiveness in discussing 
 the successive clauses of the proposed commercial 
 treaty. Although the treaty was signed in London 
 in 1794 by Lord Grenville and Mr. Jay, the 
 ratifications were not exchanged until 1795, nor 
 the measure fully accepted by Congress until 1796. 
 The principal features in this treaty were the 
 following :—The river Mississippi was thrown 
 open to the subjects of both governments, who 
 might equally use all the landing-places on its 
 east side. The boundary-line between the British 
 and the United States territories was to be defined 
 by a joint survey and amicable negotiation. <A 
 reciprocal and perfect liberty of navigation and 
 commerce being mutually agreed upon, American 
 as well as British ships were to be allowed to 
 engage in the trade between the United States 
 and the British West India Islands: the same 
 duties being levied by each government upon the 
 ships of the one country as upon those of the other 
 engaged in this trade, A restriction was agreed 
 upon to this extent: that British West India 
 sugar, molasses, coffee, cocoa, or cotton, should not 
 be conveyed by American vessels to any country 
 but the United States. The same rule was to be 
 adopted in reference to any produce brought by 
 American ships from the British Hast Indies. No 
 higher duties were to be charged in the ports of 
 either country upon vessels belonging to the other 
 than were paid by the like vessels or merchandise 
 of other nations. If a vessel were detained on 
 suspicion of containing enemy’s or contraband 
 goods, only the illegal portion of the cargo was 
 to be condemned and made prize of. Both govern- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 4 
 be) 
 a 
 
 i 
 
 ments bound themselves to prevent their subjects 
 from assisting an enemy of either state during the 
 war, by enlisting, commissioning, or privateering, 
 on pain of punishment for piracy. In case of a 
 rupture between the two countries, the subjects 
 of the one residing in the dominions of the 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 other were to have the privilege of remaining and — 
 
 continuing their trade so long as they committed 
 no offence against the laws; and, even if their 
 conduct should induce the government to order 
 them to depart from the country, they were to be 
 allowed twelve months to remove their families 
 and effects. Each country agreed to give up to 
 justice all fugitives charged with murder or forgery 
 committed within the jurisdiction of the other. 
 Among many other clauses, one was couched in 
 these words—“ Neither the debts due from indi- 
 viduals of the one nation to individuals of the 
 other, nor shares nor moneys which they may 
 have in the public funds or in the public or 
 private banks, shall ever, in any event of war or 
 national differences, be sequestered or confiscated : 
 it being unjust and impolitic that debts and 
 engagements, contracted and made by individuals 
 having confidence in each other, should ever be” 
 destroyed or impaired by national authority, on 
 account of national differences and discontents.” The 
 United States merchants were not very well satis- 
 fied with the arrangements about the West Indian 
 trade, for they wanted liberty to cross the Atlantic 
 with produce from those islands to France; while 
 the States generally regretted that nothing was 
 said in the treaty concerning the vexed question of 
 the impressment of American seamen by British 
 men of war. 
 
 1797.—This year was rendered memorable by 
 the suspension of cash-payments at the Bank—a 
 measure that would have been perilous in any 
 country where national honour and commercial 
 credit stood on a less firm basis than in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The proceeding has already been adverted — 
 
 to, in the historical chapter of this Book; but its — 
 
 financial operation needs to be traced here more 
 closely. 
 
 The first indication of pressing necessity was 
 given early in 1795, when pending loans to govern- 
 ment for twenty-four millions sterling rendered the 
 
 Bank directors uneasy as to the prospect before — 
 
 them. They came to the determination to limit to 
 
 500,000. the sum to be advanced at any one time — 
 
 upon treasury bills. 
 
 urgently in need of money, pressed their applica- | 
 tions more and more upon the Bank, soliciting — 
 
 advances on the security of the growing surplus } 
 of the consolidated fund. Pitt continued to borrow, — 
 promising to repay at an early date; the Bank 
 
 continued to lend, while protesting against the — 
 increase of the outstanding loan. In October, the — 
 
 directors explained the cause of their uneasiness. 
 
 The government, however, — 
 
 ’ 
 
 They mentioned the drain of bullion and specie to | 
 provide loans and subsidies to foreign princes; | 
 they pointed out that the demand for gold was | 
 not likely soon to diminish ; and they said: “In , . 
 
 ay 
 
 <0 VJ 
 ily r c 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 cia ta teens cence as i a 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1798-9. 
 
 807 
 
 SS LA ici asa tit: 
 
 addition to the above causes, it may be proper to 
 state that large sums are likely soon to be called for 
 by the claimants of the cargoes and freights of the 
 neutral ships taken and about to be reimbursed ; 
 many of whom, as the directors are credibly 
 informed, are instructed by their owners and pro- 
 prietors to take back their returns in specie or 
 bullion. The present price of gold being from 
 4l, 3s. to 4/, 4s. per ounce, and our guineas being to 
 be purchased at 3/. 17s. 103d., clearly demonstrates 
 the grounds of our fears.” Thus matters went on 
 until the commencement of 1796, the drain of 
 Specie continuing, and the Bank advances upon 
 Treasury bills having accumulated to 2,670,000/. 
 The directors then positively refused to advance 
 further; yet the minister, urging and soliciting 
 them with an importunity that would put up with 
 no denial, continued throughout the year to make 
 the Bank coffers available for immediate need, 
 promising to repay as largely and quickly as the 
 tax-payers enabled him todo. By the beginning 
 of 1797 the total sum thus owing had reached 
 7,500,000/., consisting of advances on the security 
 of the malt and land taxes, advances on treasury 
 and exchequer bills, and overdue interest. This 
 heavy credit to the government, and a continuous 
 call for specie by the country bankers, threatened 
 to empty the Bank coffers altogether. There 
 seemed to have grown up an uneasy state of feel- 
 ing in men’s minds, leading them to turn their 
 paper securities into gold. The cash and bullion 
 in the Bank, nearly 9,000,000/. at the beginning of 
 1794, had fallen to 1,272,000/. by the beginning of 
 1797. Mr. Pitt now shared the alarm of the Bank 
 directors ; he requested the king to hold a privy 
 council even on a Sunday, a course quite opposed 
 to the monarch’s usual habits. After an interview 
 with the Bank directors, and a warm discussion 
 among themselves, the leading ministers—Pitt, 
 Chatham, Loughborough, Portland, Cornwallis, 
 Spencer, Liverpool, and Grenville—drew up a 
 minute explanatory of the reasons why it was 
 justifiable that the Bank of England should cease 
 to make cash-payments until the opinion of parlia- 
 ment could be obtained on that subject. Thus 
 armed, the directors, on Monday morning the 
 27th of February, 1797, published the ministerial 
 minute, and announced the cessation of cash-pay- 
 ments ; but they declared at the same time that 
 the affairs of the Bank were in a perfectly safe 
 and honest condition, needing only a little rest to 
 resume the former system of operations. Thus, in 
 one single night the public found their money 
 converted into leaves of paper, intrinsically of no 
 more value than pieces of blank tissue; for, in 
 
 spite of the words “I promise to pay,” the notes | 
 
 could no longer be exchanged for gold at the Bank 
 of England; they could only be exchanged for 
 other notes. 
 
 This bold proceeding did not produce so much 
 calamity as many financiers anticipated. The 
 heart of the nation was sound; the war was 
 regarded as a just war; the confidence in the king 
 
 and the minister was great; and the wish of all 
 parties was to strengthen the confidence in the 
 honour of the state. The principal merchants 
 and bankers of London immediately assembled at 
 the Mansion House, under the presidency of the 
 Lord Mayor, and resolved unanimously that they 
 would readily receive bank-notes in all payments 
 made to them, and would use their utmost 
 endeavour to make all their own payments in the 
 same manner. This resolution was signed in a 
 few days by more than three thousand merchants, 
 bankers, and others engaged in trade. On the 
 following day a similar paper was signed and 
 published by the lords of the privy council; 
 “and in a few days,” says Macpherson, “all trans- 
 actions of every kind went on as if nothing had 
 happened ; and people in general did not perceive, 
 at least not immediately, that there was any differ- 
 ence between bank-notes not convertible into 
 money of solid gold and silver, and that money 
 itself.” An act of parliament (87 Geo. IIT. ¢. 45) 
 was speedily obtained, authorising the Bank 
 directors to organise their arrangements on the 
 new system ; bank-notes for one and two pounds 
 were at once engraved and issued, and became the 
 almost universal medium for paying small trades- 
 men’s debts. The bank also imported Spanish 
 dollars, stamped a small king’s head upon them, 
 and then made them current at 4s, 9d. each—a 
 curious example of legalised cheating; for the dol- 
 lars had cost several pence less than they were thus 
 issued at. Messrs. Boulton and Watt were at the 
 same time employed in making a new coinage of 
 penny and twopenny pieces, to facilitate the pay- 
 ment of small sums, It is supposed that the 
 quantity of gold coin-in the country at the time. 
 of the suspension was about 22,000,000/.; of this 
 8,000,0002. remained, chiefly hoarded by timid 
 individuals; and the remaining 14,000,000Z, was set 
 free to augment the quantity of gold in the foreign 
 market, 
 
 It has continued for sixty years to be a debated 
 question, how far this suspension of cash-payments 
 in 1797 affected prices. The prevailing opinion is, 
 that the quantity of gold, coined and uncoined, in 
 all foreign countries, was not much less than a 
 hundred times as great as the 14,000,000/. thus set 
 free in England; and that therefore the value of 
 money, or the equivalent prices of commodities, 
 could hardly have been affected to a much larger 
 extent than one per cent. During many years the 
 Bank paper scarcely underwent any depreciation, 
 the one-pound note being easily exchangeable for 
 twenty shillings worth of commodities. It is true 
 that there was a gradual rise of prices in England 
 some time after the suspension, affecting most of 
 the articles of primary necessity ; but Mr. Tooke * 
 has traced this, not to the inconvertibility of Bank 
 paper, but to two or three very deficient harvests. 
 
 1798-9.—In these two years England pursued her 
 surprising course, subsidising and making loans to 
 
 * History of Prices, i, 176-254. 
 
808 
 
 foreign states, maintaining large armies and fleets, 
 forcing the money circulation into a paper channel 
 instead of a golden channel, and yet upholding her 
 honour and credit in all commercial relations, 
 After a temporary rise, prices fell at the close of 
 1798 to the same level as they had occupied in 
 1793; but a bad harvest in 1799 sent them up 
 again, and caused much distress in subsequent 
 years. Our empire underwent a little enlargement 
 —by the conquest of Trinidad from the Spaniards 
 in 1797, of Mysore from Tippoo Saib in 1799, and 
 of Surinam from the Dutch in the same year ; and 
 it may as well be here mentioned that the next 
 following year witnessed the conquest of Goree, 
 Malta, and Curacao. 
 
 1800,—This year, the last of the century, will 
 afford a convenient opportunity for comparing the 
 statistics of trade with those of former years, to 
 show how far and in what directions the commerce 
 of the country had increased. Three tabular notes 
 have been given in former pages, exhibiting the 
 general features of English trade with foreign 
 countries in the years 1785, 1792, and 1796; and 
 we now add another for the: year 1800.* The most 
 noticeable fact in this new table is the prodigious 
 increase in the exports to Germany and Holland, 
 those items being no less than seven millions 
 sterling in advance of those for 1796. Taking all 
 collectively, the exports had risen in the four years 
 from 31 to 43 millions, and the imports from 23 
 to 31 millions. The increase in the entire foreign 
 trade was thus no less than 36 per cent.—a pheno- 
 menon very remarkable in time of war. From 
 Ireland the imports were chiefly raw produce, 
 together with 32,000,000 yards of linen. Guernsey 
 was a kind of storehouse for merchandise imported 
 from foreign countries and lodged there, in order 
 to save the advance of the duties until the goods 
 were wanted ; therefore the imports thence con- 
 sisted chiefly of foreign goods. The exports to the 
 whale-fishing stations consisted chiefly in ships’ 
 stores. One curious item of exports to Africa was 
 
 * Trade between Great Britain and the chief foreign countries 
 in the year 1800: 
 
 Countries, Imports. Exports, 
 Ireland, : 5 . : £2,321),000 £3,740,000 
 Isle of Man, A 5 : j 37,000 54,000 
 Channel Islands, ° ° ° 240,000 210,000 
 Kast Indies, &c., : r 4,940,000 2,840,000 
 British America, 5 . 390,000 980,000 
 British West Indies, 5,810,000 3,420,000 
 Foreign » 1» 3,030,000 1,080,000 
 United States, . 2,360,000 6,890,000 
 France, 110,000 1,330,000 
 Russia, ; 2 3 . 2,380,000 1,030,000 
 Germany, . 3 ‘ ‘ 2,350,000 12,660,000 
 Prussia and Poland, a 1,730,000 840,000 
 Denmark and Norway, - ; 240,000 540,000 
 MSS ae le os 310,000 80,000 
 H la iS a a ‘ 970,000 3,210,000 
 Flanders, : : i‘. i 35,000 810,000 
 Portugal, ° ’ . : ; 930,000 1,200,000 
 Spain, ° * : . ° 660,000 3,400 
 Ttaly,~. 5 ° - : s 360,000 70,000 
 Venice, . > > F » 54,000 18,000 
 Canaries, . rs . 49,000 none, 
 Gibraltar and Str Sts; A 3 36,000 295,000 
 Turkey and EF; BTU» ° ‘ ° 200,000 170,000 
 Africa, ‘ . . Fs 100,000 1,100,000 
 Greenland, &e., ata - ° ; 130,000 760 
 New Holland, &C., 6 A ° 90,000 26,000 
 
 ‘HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 80,000 guns. Among the imports from Portugal 
 were Officially entered 20,000 tuns of wine, nearly 
 2,000,000 Ibs. of cotton, and 33 million oranges and 
 lemons; among those from Germany were the 
 curious items of 2400 lbs. of human hair, 3000 tons 
 of rags, and 3200 wooden clocks ; and among those 
 from Prussia and Poland were 2000 barrels of 
 spruce-beer, a beverage not much known in Eng- 
 land in later years. To Italy, England exported 
 not only her own manufactured goods, but also 
 spiceries, drugs, dyes, and other tropical produce 
 from her colonies ; and in reference to this portion 
 of the trade Macpherson exclaimed: “What would 
 the merchants of Italy in the middle ages have 
 said to any person who would have ventured to 
 predict that a country which they knew good for 
 nothing but feeding sheep and cattle, and furnish- 
 ing wool, hides, lead, and tin, should ever supply 
 them with Oriental produce and manufactures, 
 and many other comforts and luxuries of life!” 
 Macpherson states, and the statement seems well 
 founded, that, in reference to the enormous trade 
 with Germany, much of it “was for account of the 
 nations involved in the war.” This war, so far 
 from diminishing our foreign trade, did not even 
 check its expansion; nay, the rate of expansion 
 itself increased, It may be doubted if our trade 
 would have been so great as it was, in this year 
 1800, had the country been at peace for the whole 
 of the preceding seventeen years, instead of having 
 been engaged for nearly the latter half of that 
 time in the most general and most costly war it 
 had ever waged. In truth, after the recovery of 
 our commercial system from the momentary shock 
 occasioned by the commencement of hostilities with 
 France, the new state of things proved, upon the 
 whole, highly favourable to the extension of our 
 trade. Difficulties were interposed in the way of 
 our direct intercourse with some parts of the conti- 
 nent; but even to most of these interdicted quarters 
 our manufactures still found their way in large 
 quantities by circuitous routes ; and we soon made 
 ourselves so completely masters of the great high- 
 way of nations—the ocean—that our ships tra- 
 versed it in all directions almost as freely as they 
 had ever done in time of peace ; while the flags of 
 our rivals scarcely dared anywhere to show them- 
 selves. Our acquisitions of territory also, in the 
 West Indies and elsewhere, opened to us several — 
 new and important markets. The extension of — 
 our trade was, of course, the extension likewise of 
 our manufactures, by which it was in great part 
 fed and sustained. And herein, it must also be 
 remembered, other countries, which experienced — 
 its actual ravages, were rendered by the war more — 
 dependent than ever upon England, the only con- 
 siderable seat of industry in Europe which it left 
 unviolated and undisturbed. : 
 A change effected towards the close of the cen- | 
 tury is deserving of note. Until that time, the ofi- 
 cial values of commodities imported or exported 
 were given in government accounts—that is, the — 
 values calculated according to the same unvarying— 
 an 
 
 ——— 
 
Cuap. XI] 
 
 rate or price for a certain quantity of each. The 
 sumis so obtained serve very well to indicate the com- 
 parative quantities of goods sent out of the country 
 and brought into it at different times; but this 
 method of calculation disregards altogether both 
 differences of quality and fluctuations of price in 
 whatever way arising, thus affording no view 
 of the real value of the exports and imports in 
 any particular year. ‘The customs’ department 
 had great difficulty in introducing the novel plan 
 of giving the reaJ as well as, or instead of, the 
 oficial values ; but all commercial men as well as 
 statesmen agreed that such a change was necessary 
 to render the official tables trustworthy and useful. 
 To show how widely different the official values 
 were from the estimated true values, it will suffice 
 to state that the total foreign trade, in exports and 
 imports, of Great Britain, for the two years 1799 
 and 1800, estimated in official value at 130 millions 
 sterling, was considered to amount to 210 millions 
 in real value—a difference of about 80 millions, 
 due to various disturbing causes in the long period 
 since the official values had been fixed. 
 
 1801.—The rise in the prices of provisions, and 
 of European produce generally, which had com- 
 menced in 1799 with the unfavourable prospects 
 of the harvest of that year, was at last checked, 
 and made to give place to an opposite state of 
 things, by at least a moderately abundant harvest 
 in 1801. The king’s speech at the opening of 
 parliament, in October, warmly expressed the 
 comfort and gratification the royal mind derived 
 from the relief which the bounty of Providence 
 had in this way afforded to the people; and, “in 
 contemplating the situation of the country,” his 
 majesty added, “at this important juncture, it is 
 impossible for me to refrain from expressing the 
 deep sense I entertain of the temper and fortitude 
 which have been manifested by all descriptions of 
 my faithful subjects, under the various and compli- 
 cated difficulties with which they had to contend.” 
 The severe pressure upon subsistence had driven 
 the starving population, in some parts of the 
 country, into acts of rioting and outrages upon 
 property ; but the excesses were in small proportion 
 to the protracted privations and sufferings of the 
 people. The greatest elevation of prices was 
 reached in March, 1801; a marked change began 
 to take place after that month in the aspect of 
 affairs, both in the influence of seasons and the 
 state of politics. “The winter had been less 
 rigorous than the two preceding. The seed-time, 
 both for wheat and spring corn, had been favour- 
 able, and an increased breadth of cultivation was 
 in progress. The spring of 1801 was genial, and 
 the crops were forward and flourishing. The 
 
 death of the Emperor Paul of Russia, and the’ 
 
 peace with Denmark which followed the battle of 
 Copenhagen, had reopened the navigation of the 
 Baltic to British shipping, thus removing the 
 obstruction which had been apprehended to sup- 
 plies from thence; and the bounty, therefore, with 
 the high prices, insured a large importation of 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1801-2. 
 
 809 
 
 corn, Under these improved prospects of future 
 supply, the markets gave way rapidly.”* The 
 importations of grain in 1801 were greater than 
 ever before known in one year, and the effect was 
 to reduce the prices nearly one-half. 
 
 1802.—This, the one and only year of peace that 
 intervened in the long period between 1793 and 
 1815, affords a convenient opportunity for summing 
 up the commercial activity of the British nation, 
 in relation to a few of its more important items. 
 The preliminaries of peace with France were 
 signed on the Ist of October 1801, too late to affect 
 the commerce of that year very materially ; but 
 the results appeared in renewed confidence and 
 activity in 1802. 
 
 The imports and exports for the first two years 
 of the present century (adhering still to official 
 rather than real values, to facilitate comparison 
 with former years) presented the following round 
 numbers, The imports were about 32 and 30 
 millions sterling, respectively; and the exports 
 about 35 and 38 millions, The trade had not yet 
 had time to adjust itself into new channels, and 
 the result was displayed in an excess of only about 
 one million sterling in the total exports and 
 imports in 1802 over those of the preceding year. 
 The improved harvests, and the importations 
 from abroad, had such an effect on the price of 
 the chief necessary of life, that the price of wheat 
 fell from 130s, per quarter, in June 1801, to 57s. 
 per quarter in December 1802. 
 
 As one among the indications of trade, bank- 
 ruptcies deserve a passing glance. The disasters 
 of 1793 have already been adverted to. After 
 that year the number of bankruptcies indicated 
 slight changes in the activity of commerce, but 
 none of that sudden expansion which denotes 
 undue speculation. Deplorable as bankruptcies 
 may often be in their results, and warnings as 
 they ought to be against reckless dealings, they 
 are nevertheless indications of trading activity ; 
 for a very poor or stagnant country has no bank- 
 rupts, simply because no one can or will trust 
 another to a large extent. Between the years 
 1794 and 1801, the bankrupts gazetted varied from 
 519 to 893, the highest number being in 1801. So 
 slight an increase took place after 1797, that even 
 the licence accorded to the Bank in that year 
 to issue inconvertible paper gave no undue or 
 dangerous impulse to speculation—a point on 
 which apprehension had been expressed in many 
 quarters. 
 
 The mercantile marine, at the beginning of the 
 century, comprised about 18,000 vessels of all 
 sizes, measuring 2,000,000 tons, and navigated by 
 140,000 hands ; 12,000 of these vessels belonged to 
 England and Wales, and the other 6000 to Scotland, 
 Ireland, and the minor British islands. About a 
 thousand new vessels per year were built and 
 registered. Sixteen thousand cargoes of various 
 kinds were brought in a year to British ports from 
 
 * Tooke, History of Prices, i. 237. 
 
810 
 
 those of foreign countries; and about the same 
 number left British for foreign ports—more than 
 two-thirds of the whole being carried in British 
 ships. 
 
 The Post-office extended its operations rapidly. 
 In 1793, the gross revenue was about 650,0001., 
 leaving a net profit of 400,000/. ; whereas by 1801 
 it had risen to 1,150,0007. of gross revenue, and 
 750,0002. of net—nearly four times as much as 
 the net revenue when Mr. Palmer introduced his 
 improvements in 1784. The privileges of franking 
 were restricted in 1795, and an augmentation of 
 postage-rates made in 1797; but the greater por- 
 tion of the increase in revenue was due to the 
 legitimate spread of correspondence. 
 
 The affairs of the Bank of England naturally 
 turned upon the great measure of 1797. The 
 amount or value of bank-notes and post-bills in 
 circulation at any one time for a long period was 
 generally under 7,000,000/. ; it rose to 12,000,0007. 
 in 1791; then fell during the early years of the 
 war; then rose again after the suspension of cash- 
 payments ; and finally reached 15,000,0002 in 1801, 
 In 1800, the Bank charter was renewed—the com- 
 mencement to be in 1806, and the termination in 
 1834; in return for this charter, the Bank lent 
 the government 3,000,000/. without interest, for 
 many years. 
 
 Concerning the East. India Company, it was 
 mentioned in a former paragraph that the charter 
 was renewed in 1793, for a period of twenty-one 
 years; and that provision was made in the 
 charter for partially opening the India trade to 
 merchants who might be willing to freight the 
 Company’s own ships for carrying the cargoes. 
 It was found, by the experience of the next few 
 years, that scarcely any goods were sent out to 
 India by the manufacturers of Great Britain under 
 this provision. “But the merchants residing in 
 India,” says Macpherson, “as soon as they under- 
 stood that a legalised extension of their trade was 
 in contemplation by the legislature, and with- 
 out waiting to know the regulations of it, built a 
 considerable number of ships, which they proposed 
 to employ in the trade between India and Eng- 
 land; though Lord Cornwallis, then governor- 
 general, and Sir John Shore, his successor, both 
 informed them that there could not be employ- 
 ment for those ships in the way they expected.’ * 
 There happened, however, to be an opening for 
 them in another way. In 1795 the government 
 wanted the use of some of the Company’s finest 
 ships, and the Company wanted many additional 
 ships to bring over vast quantities of rice to 
 England during a scarcity in corn; there was thus 
 work for nearly thirty of these India-built free 
 ships, which were freighted by the Company at 
 162, to 202. per ton of cargo. When this emergency 
 was over, the India merchants naturally wished 
 to maintain their ships in the trade, while the 
 Company as naturally wished their own vessels to 
 
 * History of the European Commerce with India, p. 232, 
 
 i Ss pa lie 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 be profitably employed; a struggle ensued ; and in 
 the end the Company was forced to make various 
 concessions beyond the provisions of its charter. 
 The trade between England and India increased 
 in the following ratios: The imports were about 
 5,700,0002. in 17938, and increased to 9,200,000/. in 
 1801 ; while the exports increased from 1,300,000/. 
 in 1793 to 2,500,0002, in 1801. The trade was thus 
 nearly doubled in eight years; a considerable 
 portion of the increase being in private trade, not 
 controlled by the Company. 
 
 Third Period: A.D. 1808-1815.—This, the last 
 of the three periods which it has been deemed 
 convenient to adopt, was marked by the tremen- 
 dous continental wars described in the historical 
 portion of the present Book. How far those wars, 
 and the industry of the British nation, affected 
 our commerce and trade, a few details under the 
 heading of each year will suffice to show. 
 
 1803.—The immediate renewal of the war with 
 France was almost certain from the commence- 
 ment of this year. On the 8th of March a portent- 
 ous royal message was sent to parliament; and on 
 the 18th of May war was formally declared. 
 Willingly as the nation responded to this warlike 
 appeal, the disturbance of ordinary trade thereby 
 was very marked, The exports in 1803 fell short 
 of those of 1802 by no less a sum than ten 
 millions sterling; the British shipping employed 
 in trade was lessened 170,000 tons; and the foreign 
 shipping introduced was raised 110,000 tons, It 
 is worthy of remark that in every war Great 
 Britain has employed many foreign ships, as troop- 
 ships or in other services, which have been imme- 
 diately discharged on the return of peace. The 
 entire mercantile marine in this year consisted of 
 about 21,000 vessels, averaging almost exactly 100 
 tons per vessel. 
 
 1804.—This year was distinguished by so low 
 a price of corn, that while the working-classes felt 
 the advantage in the cheapness of bread, the 
 farmers cried out in distress. Wheat fell to 50s. 
 per quarter. “This fall and low range of prices,” 
 
 says Mr. Tooke, “is the more observable, because {| 
 
 the cost of production had been considerably — 
 increased. The wages of labour had risen greatly 
 in consequence of a recurrence of periods of great 
 dearth ; and all the implements of husbandry had 
 experienced a very great advance in price. The 
 rate of interest, too, was much higher, in conse- 
 
 quence of the absorption by the government | 
 
 expenditure of a large part of the savings of | 
 individuals. Moreover some, although perhaps | 
 an inconsiderable proportion, of the progressive 
 taxation attached to agricultural production; and | 
 while the cost in labour, in capital, and taxation | 
 applicable to native production was thus raised, | 
 the cost of a foreign supply, of which we were — 
 then supposed to stand habitually in need, was 
 also raised by the increased charges of freight and | 
 insurance incidental to the state of war.”* A | — 
 
 * History of Prices, i, 256, 
 
Cuar. XI.] 
 
 committee of the House of Commons, appointed 
 in consequence of the complaints of the farmers, 
 partly accounted for the fall of prices in the 
 following way :—“The price of corn from 1791 
 to the harvest of 1803 has been very irregular ; 
 but, upon an average, increased in a great degree 
 by the years of scarcity, has in general yielded a 
 fair profit to the grower. The casual high prices, 
 however, have had the effect of stimulating 
 industry, and bringing into cultivation large tracts 
 of waste land, which, combined with the last two 
 productive seasons, and other causes, have occa- 
 sioned such a depression in the value of grain as 
 it is feared will greatly tend to the discouragement 
 of agriculture, unless maintained by the support 
 of parliament.” The increased breadth of arable 
 land was in some degree shown by the enclosure 
 bills, which suddenly rose from eighty in 1801 to 
 a hundred and twenty-two in 1802. Parliament 
 passed an act for the benefit of the agriculturists, 
 imposing a duty of 24s. 3d. on foreign wheat 
 whenever the home-price was under 63s., and 
 other duties at other prices; but this law never 
 came into operation; for, owing to blight and 
 mildew, the harvest of 1804 was deficient, and 
 prices rose up to the end of the year—wheat, 86s. ; 
 barley, 44s. ; and oats, 27s. 
 
 1805.—The prospect of the harvest this year 
 was for some time so unfavourable, that the 
 average price of wheat rose in August to 98s.; 
 but the crops turning out better than had been 
 expected, the price fell to 78s. Nevertheless, the 
 scarcity in 1804 had been such that the effect 
 remained visible many years in the price of corn. 
 This high price led the working-classes to demand 
 higher wages for their labour, many of which 
 demands were conceded by the manufacturers 
 in fear of strikes as a probable consequence of 
 refusal. There was an aspect of flourishing pros- 
 perity in the country generally, although some 
 persons felt the burden of paying high prices, 
 others the pressure of paying high wages. Foreign 
 trade steadily advanced. The official value of the 
 imports rose one million sterling above those of 
 the preceding year. Ireland, by the Act of Union, 
 had become part of the United Kingdom; and 
 her produce and manufactures were combined 
 with those of Great Britain in the accounts of 
 quantities exported. The real or declared values 
 of the British and Irish produce and manufactures 
 exported this year have been set down by Mr. 
 Porter at about 36,000,000/—thus thrown into 
 groups: to continental Europe, 13,600,000/.; to 
 the United States, 11,000,0007.; to the rest of 
 America, 7,800,000. ; to Asia, 2,900,0007.; and to 
 Africa, 700,000/, 
 
 1806.—It was towards the close of this year that 
 Bonaparte issued from the newly captured city of 
 Berlin his famous decree declaring the whole of the 
 British Islands in a state of blockade—a proof at 
 once of the audacity of the man and of his irritation 
 at the power and activity of England. It was in 
 vain. The paper blockade, a contradiction and 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1805-6-7. 
 
 811 
 
 absurdity in its terms, whatever mischief it might 
 have been qualified to operate in course of time, 
 could have had no effect upon the foreign trade of 
 this country in 1806, The imports were slightly 
 diminished, but this falling off was more than 
 compensated by an increase in exports; conti- 
 nental Europe took less, but America more, than 
 in the preceding year. The slight falling off in 
 the imports was attributable to the interruption, 
 since the early part of the year, of intercourse 
 with the Prussian dominions. The interruption 
 affected the price of corn considerably. In March, 
 under the imperious orders of the conqueror, the 
 humiliated Prussian government issued a pro- 
 clamation, prohibiting the entrance of British ships 
 into any Prussian port or river; and the corn- 
 dealers being thus thrown into apprehension con- 
 cerning supplies from the Baltic, the price went up 
 from 74s. to 84s. The harvest, however, proving 
 to be equal to the average of years, the price 
 gradually fell back nearly to its former amount. 
 1807.—Invalid, however, as the Berlin blockade- 
 manifesto was according to the recognised law of 
 nations—which, to constitute a good blockade, 
 demands as an essential element the presence of 
 an armed naval force sufficient to maintain it—the 
 attempt to enforce it was for some time really 
 made by Bonaparte. In the first three or four 
 months after its promulgation, many vessels of 
 neutral powers were seized for infringing it, and 
 brought into the ports of France to be condemned, 
 Almost the only neutral power that could have 
 offered an effectual opposition was the United 
 States; but there were two reasons why that 
 opposition did not appear. In the first place, the 
 United States had never shown much disposition 
 to resist France, possibly remembering that that 
 nation had indirectly assisted them in achieving 
 their freedom as a people. In the second place, it 
 was understood that Bonaparte had, though not 
 in official form, given them an assurance that the 
 Berlin decree would not be enforced against their 
 vessels, This sort of one-sided neutrality the United 
 States appear to have been not unwilling to adopt, 
 as a profitable arrangement; not only leaving 
 them to pursue undisturbed the trade that fairly 
 belonged to them, but clearing the seas of all their 
 rivals, and throwing into their hands a monopoly 
 of the carrying trade between Britain and the 
 other countries of Europe. There is a probability, 
 if not a certainty, that England might have 
 submitted quietly to this Napoleonic insult with- 
 out any great loss of commercial profit ; for, in 
 the condition to which the world was reduced, 
 with so many of the old channels of commerce 
 shut against her, this outlet for her produce and 
 manufactures through the vessels of the United 
 States might have been advantageous to her 
 industrial classes, The affront, however, was not 
 to be put up with by a nation holding command 
 of the seas. On the 7th of January in this year, 
 the British government issued an order in council, 
 directing the seizure of all neutral vessels trading 
 
from one hostile port in Europe to another with 
 property belonging to an enemy. This order 
 being found susceptible of evasion, it was followed 
 by others in November, by which the whole of the 
 countries in alliance with France were declared in 
 a state of blockade, and all vessels made liable to 
 capture which should attempt to trade with those 
 parts of the world. Decrees and orders in council 
 were shot forth by each of the two great countries 
 against the other: each declared that any ship, of 
 any nation, should be seized if any part of the cargo 
 belonged to the other; and the British govern- 
 ment went so far as to proclaim to the world that 
 no neutral vessels would be allowed to trade with 
 France, or with any other hostile country, unless 
 they first touched at some British port, and after 
 paying customs’ dues there, obtained permission 
 to pursue their voyage under regulations strictly 
 laid down. Such an autocratic demand was never 
 made by England before; it was avowedly sug- 
 gested by the necessity for curbing the unscrupulous 
 tactics of the French ruler. What with the decrees 
 of one country and the orders in council of the 
 other, the neutral trade was for a time almost 
 annihilated ; for the captains of neutral vessels could 
 not obey the French decrees without disobeying 
 the British orders in council, or vice versd. Bona- 
 parte, enraged at the refusal of England to be 
 crushed by him, now sought to heap another 
 heavy load upon her; he issued his Milan decree 
 on the 17th of December, extending his so-called 
 blockade to the British dominions in all parts of 
 the world. The United States government, too, in 
 view of the critical state of maritime affairs, laid 
 an embargo on all their own vessels for a time, 
 prohibiting trade either with the English or the 
 French dominions, If the theories or professed 
 intentions of these several decrees, orders, and 
 proclamations could have been carried out fully, 
 there would hardly have been a merchant vessel 
 visible on any ocean or sea, But commerce often 
 overrides the rule of princes. British trade with 
 foreign countries reached an amount nearly equak 
 to that of the preceding year; the chief falling off 
 was in the continental trade, due to the closing of 
 the passage of the Sound by Denmark after our 
 bombardment of Copenhagen in the autumn: an 
 act which was also followed on the part of Russia 
 by an embargo on British shipping. 
 
 1808.—The effects of the extraordinary proceed- 
 ings of 1807 were shown, not so much in the 
 falling off of trade, as in the rise of prices. The 
 harvest of that year was a little below the average; 
 and as the continental ports seemed to be almost 
 wholly closed against us, anxiety supervened, 
 followed by an increased dearness of corn. A 
 rainy spring and a cold summer brought a worse 
 crop in 1808 than that of 1807, and this increased 
 the upward tendency of the market. In Novem- 
 ber of the earlier of these two years the price of 
 wheat had been only 66s.; in November of the 
 second year it was 92s. The price of corn affected 
 that of almost all other commodities ; for, besides 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 {Book X. 
 
 in many instances a short actual supply, there 
 was a prospect of scarcity in almost every article of 
 European produce required as raw materials for 
 our manufactures or naval stores. The reality of 
 short supply caused rise of price ; and the prospect 
 of further rise gave birth to speculation ; hence one 
 of the remarkable commercial features of 1808 was 
 the eagerness of moneyed men to buy commodities, 
 with an expectation of selling at a large profit 
 some weeks or months afterwards, The rise in 
 prices was great.* The only article which appears 
 to have become cheaper was butcher’s meat, the 
 decline in which was probably connected with 
 the prices of grain and other agricultural produce, 
 which made grazing unprofitable. Sugar and 
 coffee experienced a rise due to a speculative 
 rather than to a bond fide demand, South America, - 
 about that time, was opened to the enterprise of 
 our merchants; and this enterprise, under the 
 various incitements of an exceptional period, dis- 
 played itself in many ludicrous ways: men stayed 
 not to inquire whether the goods sent were needed 
 py the half-civilised natives of a hot country. “We 
 are informed by Mr. Mawe, an intelligent traveller 
 resident at Rio Janeiro at the period in question, 
 that more Manchester goods were sent out in the 
 course of a few weeks than had been consumed 
 in the twenty years preceding; that the quantity 
 of English goods of all sorts poured into the city 
 was so very great, that warehouses could not be’ 
 provided sufficient to contain them ; and that the 
 most valuable merchandise was actually exposed 
 for weeks on the beach to the weather and to 
 every sort of depredation. Elegant services of cut 
 glass and china were offered to persons whose 
 most splendid drinking-vessels consisted of a horn 
 or the shell of a cocoa-nut; tools were sent out 
 having a hammer on the one side and a hatchet 
 on the other, as if the inhabitants had nothing 
 more to do than to break the first stone they met 
 with and then cut the gold and diamonds from 
 it; and some speculators actually went so far as 
 to send out skates to Rio Janeiro!” + 
 
 1809.—The peace between Russia and Sweden, 
 arising from the cession of Finland to the former 
 by the latter, had the effect of closing the Swedish 
 ports against England. Our commerce was also 
 narrowed by the policy of the United States 
 government, who, either for prudence or in anger, 
 prohibited all commercial intercourse with Eng- 
 land or with France. This double exclusion 
 
 * The following comparison of prices in a few principal items 
 will illustrate this rise : 
 
 1807, 1808. 
 
 Hemp, . ; 4 . 582. per ton. 1182, 
 Flax, ; ; : 687. on 1427. 
 Meme! timber, »., 1703:1- o Biogas 340s. 
 Baltic linseed, . ; 43s. » quarter. 150s. 
 Russian tallow, . oP OOss newt. 112s. 
 Leon wool, q 6s. 9d. w \b. 24s. 
 Seville wool, 4 pass nou l6s. 
 Piedmont silk, thrown, 40s. oon 104s 
 China silk, raw, , 20s. eae) 40s. 
 Bengal silk, raw, . = wis. won” 65s. 
 Georgia cotton, : 10d. "on 27d. 
 Virginia tobacco, . A) 26. ow 20d. 
 
 + M‘Culloch, Principles of Political Economy. 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 became sensibly felt during the course of the year 
 1809, for it created anxiety concerning the supply 
 of corn, and as a wet autumn damaged the crops, 
 the price of wheat rose in December to 102s, 
 During the preceding year, the prices of general 
 zommodities were very high in England, very low 
 on the continent; hence the temptations to trade 
 were irresistible; and merchants on both sides 
 contrived to elude or evade continental decrees 
 and British orders in council, not altogether 
 without the quiet sanction of the governments 
 themselves. It consequently happened that 
 the importations of cotton, silk, tallow, hemp, 
 flax, linseed, sugar, coffee, &c., were vastly larger 
 in 1809 than in 1808; and this produced so great 
 a fall in prices, that many of the importers, 
 after paying all charges, had nothing left to 
 restore the capital sunk. All undue speculation 
 became thereby checked ; in the preceding year 
 Waterloo and Vauxhall bridges were planned, and 
 numerous joint-stock companies formed for canals, 
 insurance, breweries, distilleries, vinegar factories, 
 spirit marts, &c.; but now men had neither the 
 money nor the heart for such things. Compared 
 in total results, the official value of the imports 
 rose from about 27 millions sterling in 1808 to 
 32 millions in 1809; and the exports from 30 to 
 46 millions. 
 
 1810.—The damaged and deficient crop of the 
 preceding year was followed, in 1810, by a cold 
 and ungenial spring, and all the appearances of 
 another unfavourable harvest: hence a further 
 rise in the price of wheat to 116s—but the crop 
 turning out better than had been expected, the 
 price fell to 97s——ruining many dealers who 
 had not calculated on a downward market. 
 Other merchants, who had _ speculated on 
 profitable returns from South America, now 
 found out their mistake; and those who had 
 traded on borrowed capital fell at once into bank- 
 ruptcy. The general fall of prices and destruc- 
 tion of credit excited dismay throughout the 
 country. About the middle of the year 1810, 
 bankruptcies began to occur with great frequency. 
 A West India wool-dealer failed for an enormous 
 amount, which brought down his bankers, bring- 
 ing in their train numerous country banks and a 
 large number of merchants and manufacturers ; 
 five Manchester firms stopped payment in the 
 city at once, with liabilities collectively of 
 2,000,0002. In November alone there were 273 
 bankruptcies ; besides stoppages and compositions, 
 not noticed in the Gazette, to a vastly greater 
 amount. Distrust existed everywhere, for no one 
 felt any assurance that his neighbour would 
 remain solvent even fora day. Raw commodities 
 were accumulated at the ports, manufactured 
 goods at the great towns; for merchants were 
 either afraid to buy, or unable to pay for purchases 
 if made, except by paper which no one would 
 discount save on terms that would eat away all 
 the profit. The enormous and wholly unprece- 
 dented number of 2314 bankruptcies were officially 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1810-11. 
 
 813 
 
 recorded during the year, of which 26 were bank- 
 ing firms. Not only in England, but on the conti- 
 nent and in the United States, did commercial 
 disasters prevail: the war, the Berlin and Milan 
 decrees, the British orders in council, the American 
 embargo, the Non-intercourse Act, the deficient 
 harvest of 1809, the over-exportations to South 
 America, the over-importations from the West 
 Indies—all contributing to the result, whatever 
 may have been the share due to each. Trade was 
 further disturbed by the proceedings of the Bullion 
 Committee, appointed in February to inquire into 
 the causes of the high price of bullion. During 
 the whole of the spring and summer, the evidence 
 obtained by the committee gradually found its way 
 to the public. The conclusions arrived at by the 
 committee were chiefly these three—That the cir- 
 culating medium ought to be brought back, with as 
 much speed as was compatible with a wise and 
 necessary caution, to the original principle of cash- 
 payments at the option of the holder of Bank- 
 paper ; that no sufficient remedy for the present, 
 or security for the future, could be pointed out 
 except the repeal of the law which suspended the 
 cash-payments of the Bank of England ; but that, 
 although arrangements to that end ought to be 
 determined on, the restrictions on cash-payments 
 could not safely be removed at an earlier period 
 than two years. This report unsettled all trade 
 calculations, for it declared the currency system 
 to be in an unsound state, while it left to an 
 undefined future the time and mode of cure. 
 1811.—There were one or two facts that slightly 
 softened the effect of the commercial calamities of 
 1810; the restoration of commerce with the United 
 States, to which country goods to the official value 
 of 15 millions sterling were exported in the course 
 of the year; and the gradual fall in the price of 
 corn to a healthy medium by the middle of 1811, 
 thereby enabling the working-classes to obtain 
 bread at a less exorbitant charge than before. 
 This latter advantage, however, was of limited 
 duration, for a deficient crop in 1811 sent up the 
 price to 106s, On the other hand, a new trouble 
 arose to disturb commerce. The United States 
 government, in removing their embargo, made it 
 a condition that the British orders in council 
 should be recalled by a certain day ; this pledge 
 not having been fulfilled, the congress, in February, 
 1811, passed an act prohibiting all importation 
 into the United States of British produce or manu- 
 factures. With other countries the foreign trade 
 was gradually increasing, and the prospects bright- 
 ening. The South American trade became more 
 healthy ; the expulsion of the French from 
 Portugal opened that country to our merchants ; 
 and the West Indies took readily large quantities 
 of British goods for sale to the Spanish settlements. 
 The strange fluctuations of the period led to the 
 parliamentary discussion of two important sub- 
 jects: the embarrassments of the mercantile com- 
 munity, and the report of the Bullion Committee. 
 In April, a proposition was made in parliament 
 
814 
 
 that the state, as in 1798, might advantageously 
 assist merchants by advances on the security of 
 their merchandise ; the proposition being agreed 
 to, an act was passed authorising a grant of 
 6,000,0007. by commissioners. Only one-third of 
 this was applied for; and Mr. Tooke has argued 
 strongly that the loan had little to do with the 
 gradual revival of confidence during the year, attri- 
 buted by him to the natural reaction after a 
 collapse which was itself a consequence of previous 
 recklessness in trade.* In relation to the Bullion 
 Committee, Mr. Horner moved on the 6th of May 
 a series of sixteen resolutions, embodying the views 
 of that committee. The malady into which the 
 currency was asserted to have fallen may be thus 
 described in a few words—That the suspension 
 of cash-payments had induced the Bank of 
 England and other banks to issue too much paper- 
 money; that this over-issue had reduced the paper- 
 pound to much less value in the open market than 
 the cash-pound ; and that this depreciation of the 
 legal tender had thrown the foreign exchanges 
 greatly against England. The cure for the malady 
 was to be “to alter the time to which the suspen- 
 sion of cash-payments was to continue, from six 
 months after the conclusion of a peace, to that 
 of two years from the present time.” The debate 
 on this subject was long and warmly contested. 
 The first proposition was rejected by 151 to 75, and 
 the second by 180 to 45. The government, opposed 
 altogether to the plan, then moved a series of 
 counter-resolutions—declaring that the Bank-note 
 had all along nearly maintained its proper value; 
 that the unfavourable state of the foreign ex- 
 changes was not necessarily caused by the suspen- 
 sion of cash-payments; that the price of bullion 
 had often varied irrespective of the amount of 
 paper-money ; that the fluctuations in foreign 
 trade were occasioned by impediments arising out 
 of the war, rather than by currency proceedings ; 
 that it would certainly be desirable to revert to 
 cash-payments as soon as the political and com- 
 mercial relations of the country should render it 
 safe so to do; but that it would be highly inex- 
 pedient and dangerous to fix a time for the adop- 
 tion of this step, during the continuance of a serious 
 and costly war. The House of Commons, prefer- 
 ring Mr. Vansittart’s resolutions to those of Mr, 
 Horner, voted in accordance therewith, thus dis- 
 countenancing the views of the bullionists. So 
 many had been the depressing causes, and so slow 
 the operation of the remedies, that the foreign 
 trade of 1811 fell to a lower ebb than in any 
 previous year of the century. The imports were 
 in official value only 27 millions sterling, and the 
 exports 29 millions ; the veal value of the British 
 and Irish produce and manufactures exported was 
 supposed to be about 32 millions. 
 
 1812,—A terrible year was 1812 to the working- 
 classes, those at least who, as in England, regarded 
 bread asa necessary of daily food. Agricultural pro- 
 
 * History of Prices, i. 317. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 duce, under the prospect that the stock in hand was 
 deficient, and the apprehensions excited by a cold 
 and wet summer, continued to advance in price; un- 
 til in August average wheat was 155s. ; barley, 78s. ; 
 and oats, 56s.: fine samples went up to 180s. for 
 wheat, and 84s. for oats. The price of butchers’ 
 meat also rose to an unusual height. Prices fell 
 in the autumn, but still the December average was 
 120s. for wheat. Farmers made large profits and 
 large fortunes in those days; and, incited by the 
 hope that such golden times would long continue, 
 they leased and bought additional land on high 
 terms; they supposed that average crops would con- 
 tinue as they had lately been; they believed that the 
 difficulty, almost impossibility, of importing corn 
 would continue ; and they saw no reason to doubt 
 that a virtual monopoly would enable them to 
 maintain high prices. Landowners took advantage 
 of this state of things ; they raised the farm-rents, 
 in many cases, to thrice the amount they had 
 reached twenty years before. These were the 
 main reasons why the landed gentry and the 
 farmers were for many years the warmest sup- 
 porters of the war. High prices were accom- 
 panied by high wages in many, though not all, 
 branches of personal service, especially those of 
 clerks and agricultural labourers; but workmen 
 in factories, according to Mr. Tooke, did not share 
 in this advantage ; considerable numbers of them 
 had no advance of wages, or, if they had, the 
 advance had been more than compensated by 
 reduced hours of work. A curious reaction took 
 place in relation to wool, silk, cotton, tallow, hemp, 
 flax, linseed, and other important articles of 
 foreign produce ; the merchants lost so greatly by 
 the compulsory selling of these commodities at low 
 prices in 1810 and 1811, that they imported very 
 little in 1812, and this deficient supply drove up 
 prices nearly to a level with those of 1808 and 1809. 
 It thus became a problem of considerable difficulty 
 in political economy whether the people, as a whole, 
 were better or worse under high prices or low. 
 Politically speaking, the foreign trade of this year 
 was improved by the renewal of friendly relations 
 with Russia, Sweden, and Spain, consequent on 
 the decline of French influence in those three 
 countries ; while an unfavourable effect was pro- 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 duced by the United States’ declaration of war | 
 
 on the 18th of June. In the sum-total, the year’s 
 imports scarcely exceeded those of 1811; but the 
 
 exports exhibited an improvement to the extent 4 
 
 of ten millions sterling. 
 
 1813.—The fall in the’ prices of agricultural 4 
 produce, which had begun after the autumn of — 
 
 1812, continued slowly but steadily till the next 
 summer, when an abundant harvest had a very 
 sensible effect. Wheat, 155s. in August 1812, was 
 
 112s, in August 1813, and only 75s, in December 
 The farmers cried out that | 
 
 of the same year. 
 they were ruined; but the reaction was due to 
 natural causes, and had to be borne. 
 opening of continental ports, resulting from the 
 decline of Napoleon’s influence, naturally increased 
 
 The gradual | 
 
 eiey ee ibaa race ee 
 
Cuap, XI.] 
 the foreign trade of England, and as naturally 
 brought about an adjustment of prices. After 
 Russia, Sweden, and Spain had shaken off the 
 French yoke, Prussia, Germany, Holland, and 
 Austria cautiously followed in the same track, and 
 England found herself in amity with all those 
 countries, to the great advantage of her trade. 
 The continued hostility of Denmark, it is true, 
 and the war with the United States, kept freights 
 and marine insurances at a high rate, and rendered 
 the fall in prices very gradual; still a fall was 
 natural and inevitable under the altered circum- 
 stances of Europe. But while this lowering of 
 prices of imported articles took place, there was 
 a rise in the price of commodities exported, 
 especially colonial and transatlantic produce. The 
 brightening prospects on the continent gave rise 
 to a speculative demand for produce not grown 
 there, especially for that of the West Indies; this 
 demand increased throughout 1813, bringing with 
 it a rise of prices; until the markets were at 
 length glutted, and prices fell again. 
 
 1814.—A cold and wet season produced a 
 deficient crop of corn; but the surplus from 
 1813, and a large importation from abroad, 
 prevented the price of wheat from rising above 
 78s., the December average being as low as 70s. 
 Butchers’ meat, however, continued very high. 
 It was in this year that the speculations in trop- 
 ical produce for sale on the continent, mentioned 
 in the last paragraph, reached their height, and 
 an extravagant range of prices was the conse- 
 quence.* A great advance in like manner took 
 place in various English productions in demand 
 abroad, such as alum, lead,and tin, and also in many 
 descriptions of manufactures; which had at last 
 the effect of considerably elevating wages in those 
 departments of industry. But a natural reaction 
 followed. “The shippers found to their cost, 
 when it was too late, that the effective demand 
 on the continent for colonial produce and British 
 manufactures had been greatly overrated ; for, 
 whatever might be the desire of the foreign 
 customers to possess articles so long out of their 
 reach, they were limited in their means of pur- 
 chase; and, accordingly, the bulk of the commo- 
 dities exported brought very inadequate returns.” + 
 Some of the shippers made matters worse by 
 receiving returns in goods, which, when brought 
 to England, could not be sold for more than 30 or 
 40 per cent. of their cost. The consequence was, 
 that numerous bankruptcies took place before the 
 close of the year. Many of the traders thus ruined 
 
 * A few items will illustrate this rise in prices: 
 1811. 
 Jamaica coffee, . 54s. to 73s, 
 St. Domingo coffee, 36s. to 42s, 
 Sugar, average, ‘ e SOS 
 
 1814. 
 118s. to 142s, 
 116s. to 126s, 
 
 97s. 
 110s, to 134s, 
 
 Sugar, white, 30s. to 46s, 
 
 Georgia cotton, . 7d. to 9d. 28d. to 30d. 
 Cochineal, . ‘ ° 30s. 50s, 
 
 Indigo, . . ° e 98. 14s. 
 
 Black pepper, . ° 7d. 20d. 
 
 Virginia tobacco, 2d. to 7d. 1s. 10d. to 5s. 6d. 
 Logwood, t. 222. 
 
 + Tooke, ii. 8. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1814-15. 
 
 815 
 
 were persons who, carried away by the mania of 
 the time, had gone out of their proper line of 
 business to speculate in exports. Shopkeepers in 
 Hull, Leith, and other seaports, as well as London, 
 when their deranged accounts came to be exam- 
 ined, were found to have been dealing largely in 
 sugar and coffee, instead of confining their opera- 
 tions to the legitimate range of their own trades. 
 There certainly were temptations to indulge in 
 this foreign trade ; for the discomfiture of Napoleon 
 in the spring of the year had opened all the ports 
 of Hurope to English shipping. American trade 
 remained a nullity throughout the year; for peace 
 was not restored between the two countries until 
 the last week in December. The trade accounts 
 for the year showed that the official value of the 
 imports in 1814 was about 34 millions sterling; 
 and that of the exports 54 millions—the last- 
 named item exhibiting an enormous increase on 
 
 ‘previous years, being actually double the amount 
 
 for 1811. It affords an instructive clue to the 
 speculations of the year in an exceptional kind 
 of trade, that of the 54 millions of exports, no 
 less than 20 millions were foreign and colonial 
 produce, bought in*the hope of selling again at 
 a handsome profit on the continent; this portion 
 of the exports was thrice as large as in 1811. It 
 is supposed that the rea/ value of the British and 
 Irish produce and manufactures exported was 
 about 45 millions, of which rather mere than 
 half went to the continent of Europe. 
 
 1815.—Whatever hopes may have been enter- 
 tained of a steady revival of peaceful commerce, 
 were doomed to be checked in the spring of this 
 year by the escape of Napoleon from Elba, and 
 the renewal of the great continental struggle. 
 The war prevented the price of corn from falling 
 in the spring and summer below the point reached 
 in 1814; while an abundant harvest prevented 
 any very considerable rise; but in the second 
 half of the year the latter influence predominated 
 to such a degree that wheat fell to 56s—lower 
 than at any period since 1804, The aggregate of 
 our foreign commerce was still greater in 1815 
 than in the preceding year; but it was marked 
 by this peculiarity, that the imports were less- 
 ened and the exports increased, the former by 
 1 million sterling, and the latter by 4 millions. 
 Our sales of British and Trish commodities were 
 greater, of foreign and colonial commodities 
 less, than in 1814. This difference was due to 
 two causes: the falling off in the speculative 
 shipments to the continent, mostly consisting of 
 colonial produce ; and the reopening of the trade 
 with the United States, our exports to which 
 country consisted chiefly of British manufactures, 
 The value of peace between England and the 
 United States was strikingly shown, in the export 
 of goods to the value of 13 millions sterling in 
 1815, against an almost total absence of exports 
 in the two preceding years, 
 
 Having thus rapidly traced the course of com- 
 
816 
 
 merce year by year, we may conclude this portion 
 of the chapter by a few general observations on 
 corn-laivs, bankruptcies, the East India Company’s 
 trade, the suspension and resumption of cash-pay- 
 ments, and the coinage, in connection with this 
 period. 
 
 The original policy of our legislation on the 
 subject of corn appears to have been prohibitory 
 of exportation, whatever might be the state of the 
 market. It was not until the year 1394 that 
 exportation was first permitted without an 
 express licence from the crown. In 1463, impor- 
 tation was, for the first time, forbidden whenever 
 prices should fall below a certain point. In 1670, 
 it was enacted that so long as the price of the 
 quarter of wheat should be under 53s, 4d., there 
 should be full liberty of exportation and no right 
 of importation. In 1689, a further encouragement 
 was given to exportation by allowing a bounty 
 upon every quarter of grain exported so long as 
 prices at home were under a certain amount. In 
 1699, the export of corn was entirely relieved 
 from custom-house duty. After several temporary 
 suspensions, in dear years, of the restrictions on 
 importation, an act was passed in 1773 making 
 the following regulations—that wheat might be 
 imported at a merely nominal duty of 6d. when- 
 ever the home-price was 48s.; that 44s. should 
 be the limit at which the liberty of exportation 
 should cease ; and that 44s, should also mark the 
 limit of price. at which bounty should be granted 
 on exportation. In 1791, another act raised by a 
 few shillings the price limits in each of the 
 above instances. The act of 1804, noticed in the 
 paragraph under that date, never actually came 
 into operation, on account of the very high 
 average prices during the subsequent ten years. 
 Nevertheless, in the apprehension of prices falling 
 on the return of peace, the landowners and 
 farmers sought in 1814 to obtain a new act to 
 restrict importation, by naming a high price below 
 which foreign corn should not be admitted at 
 all. With a double motive of self-interest, they 
 demanded freedom to export their own corn 
 whenever and wherever they pleased, and power 
 to prevent the import of foreign corn unless the 
 price should rise to 86s. The landed interest was 
 strong enough to obtain an act for the first of these 
 two objects, but not for the second. In 1815 the 
 attempt was renewed, and gave rise to a keen 
 struggle; the farmers conquered, although they 
 had to yield to a little abatement in the minimum 
 price at which importation for home consumption 
 was to be permitted. This minimum was 80s. for 
 wheat, 26s. for oats, 40s. for barley, 53s. for rye and 
 pulse ; an exception was made in favour of British 
 American corn, which might be imported when 
 wheat was at 67s., oats at 22s., barley at 33s., rye 
 and pulse at 44s, This law continued to regulate 
 the corn-trade for many years, So far as concerns 
 Great Britain and Ireland, the free sale and 
 transit of corn from the one country to the other 
 was insured by an act passed in 1806. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Bankruptcies marked the close of the long and 
 tremendous series of wars in which England had 
 been engaged: bankruptcies occasioned in great 
 measure by a continuous fall in prices. The fall 
 began early in 1814, and continued during that 
 and the two following years, The shipping interest, 
 too, became depressed immediately on the cessa- 
 tion of war, owing to the call for employment as 
 government transports having nearly come to an 
 end. Everything became cheapened, an advantage 
 to small purchasers, but a disaster to speculators who 
 had invested their capital in various enterprises 
 when prices were high. “There was a very 
 considerable depression in the prices of nearly all 
 productions, and in the value of all fixed property, 
 entailing a convergence of losses and failures 
 among the agricultural, commercial, manufactur- 
 ing, mining, shipping, and building interests, 
 which marked that period as one of most exten- 
 sive suffering and distress, Of that great and 
 memorable fall of prices, the principal part, 
 beyond that which was the effect of the seasons, 
 and a recoil from the extravagant speculations in 
 exportable commodities, is clearly attributable to 
 the transition from war to peace: not from war, 
 as having caused extra demand, but as having 
 obstructed supply and increased the cost of produc- 
 tion ; nor to peace, as having been attended with 
 diminished consumption, but as having extended 
 the sources of supply, and reduced the cost of 
 production.” * The bankruptcies were very numer- 
 ous ; they had been 1612 in the year 1814; but 
 they rose to 2254 in 1815, and to 2731 in 1816, 
 These failures led the merchants to observe great 
 forbearance and prudence in their exports, which 
 gradually brought trade round again to a healthy 
 state. 
 
 The East India Company’s commercial opera- 
 tions gradually extended as their territories became 
 enlarged. The Company acquired, by conquest or 
 negotiation, the Nizam’s portion of Mysore in 1800, 
 the Carnatic, Rohilcund, and the Doab in 1801, 
 Bundelcund in 1802, Cuttack and Balasore in 1803, 
 Delhi in 1804, part of Gujerat in 1805, and a few 
 minor territories between that year and 1815, 
 when a portion of the Nepaul dominions was 
 obtained. Between 1800 and 1810 the Company — 
 sent out from 39 to 55 trading-ships annually; and — 
 the quantity of merchandise exported in these | 
 ships presented a general average annual value of 
 about 2,000,000, The imports were four or five — 
 times as large, comprising tea and the rich produce — 
 of the East. Under the operation of the act of — 
 parliament which permitted private merchants to 
 trade with India provided they employed the — 
 Company’s ships, this portion of the traffic under- — 
 went an increase rather more rapid than that 
 of the Company’s own trade. By the renewal 
 of the Company’s charter in 1813, for twenty years, | 
 the trade to India was thrown open, while that to | 
 China was specially reserved to the Company. 
 
 * Tooke, ii. 12, 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 From the date of this renewal, private trade 
 increased at a greater rate; while the Company’s 
 own exports to the Hast fell off—the Company 
 looking rather to an internal revenue in India 
 than to profit from export trade. 
 
 The suspension of cash-payments by the Bank of 
 England survived the period to which this chapter 
 is limited. Bullionists asserted from time to time 
 that it was ruining the country; but the successive 
 ministries contended that fluctuations in prices 
 and commercial disasters were produced by 
 causes apart from this. Mr. Tooke, in later years, 
 examined this question at great length. Prices 
 sometimes rose, sometimes fell, while the Bank 
 was extending its issues ; and, moreover, one class 
 of commodities frequently rose in price at a time 
 when others were falling; so that the theory of 
 high prices being caused by excessive issues fell to 
 the ground. The low prices were in nearly all 
 cases the effect of abundance, the high prices of 
 scarcity—of abundance and scarcity, either real or 
 apprehended ; and the abundance or the scarcity 
 was occasioned, not by the issues of paper-money 
 by the Bank, but by the variations of the seasons 
 and the other circumstances affecting production, 
 and by the greater or less success of the measures 
 that were taken on the one hand to prevent, on the 
 other to carry on and extend, commercial inter- 
 course. When more paper-money was issued than 
 the commerce of the country required, the Bank 
 
 directors discovered the fact by two signs or, 
 
 symptoms—a tendency to undue speculation on 
 the part of the public, and a depreciation in the 
 value of the paper as compared with bullion or 
 coin: the fact being thus discovered, a contraction 
 of the issues gradually produced a remedy. At one 
 time, during the war, in 1814, the Bank-notes were 
 at 25 per cent. discount ; that is, an ounce of gold, 
 the Mint-price of which was 3/. 17s. 103d., could 
 not be purchased for less than 5/2. 4s. in Bank- 
 notes ; but it by no means follows that this was 
 wholly due to an over-issue of paper; for there 
 may have been an extraordinary demand for gold, 
 which would raise the market-price of that metal 
 above the Mint-price under any state of the 
 currency. The Bank-notes in circulation shortly 
 before the suspension of cash-payments in 1797 
 was about 10,000,000/. ; they increased at the rate 
 of about one million per annum, until they reached 
 15,000,0007, in 1801; thence they rose gradually 
 to 21,000,0007. in 1806; and attained the high 
 amount of 28,000,000/. in 1815. The quantity of 
 country notes was also considerably augmented ; 
 but the total increase in the paper-currency was 
 probably very little greater than was fairly 
 demanded by the nearly complete withdrawal 
 of gold from circulation, by the growth of the 
 population, and by the extension of commercial 
 transactions, The bullion in the Bank coffers 
 varied from 2,000,000/. to 8,000,000/. during the 
 first fifteen years of the century. 
 
 Although the resumption of cash-payments by 
 the Bank did not take place till after an act passed 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 es 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY:—1785-1815. 
 I A SE a eR La IE REESE LP) 
 
 817 
 
 in 1819, it may be convenient to notice here the 
 preparations made for that important financial pro- 
 ceeding, in so far as regards the coinage. It has 
 been mentioned in a former paragraph that, in and 
 about the year 1797, the guineas disappeared, being 
 bought up for melting on account of their market 
 value exceeding their Mint or currency value; and 
 that the Bank stamped a king’s head on Spanish 
 dollars, which were then issued at 4s. 9d. The 
 directors next issued new dollars at 5s., and after- 
 wards 3s. and ls. 6d. tokens. This was a special 
 coinage by the Bank, permitted under exceptional 
 circumstances. The regular Mint coins, issued by 
 the government, were in a deplorable state; many 
 of them were very old, and all reduced to such a 
 worn, shapeless, undefinable condition, that their 
 market value as mere pieces of gold or silver was 
 much below their Mint value. As a consequence, 
 when new shillings and sixpences were issued, 
 they were eagerly sought by dealers, and con- 
 signed to the melting-pot, leaving nothing but a 
 profit to the melters and a loss to the state. During 
 the war, the government had not time or inclination , 
 to attend to this matter; but within a few months 
 after the battle of Waterloo, a series of reforms 
 were introduced. Gold was made the legal stand- 
 ard coin of the realm, instead of silver ; a pound 
 troy weight of silver was to be coined into 66 
 shillings, instead of 62 shillings as heretofore, as a 
 means of keeping the new shillings out of the 
 melter’s pot; gold was to be thenceforward coined, 
 not into guineas, half-guineas, and seven-shilling 
 pieces, but into sovereigns and half-sovereigns,; all 
 the old silver was to be called in and replaced by 
 new ; and this transfer, as well as the substitution 
 of the sovereigns for the guineas, was to take place 
 in the summer of 1817. Scarcely any silver was 
 coined at the Mint for many years before 1816; 
 but in that and the three following years 6,000,0002. 
 of silver was converted into coin. In relation to 
 gold, the circumstances were different; large quan- 
 tities of this metal had been coined in various 
 years between 1790 and 1811, to the aggregate 
 amount of 24,000,0007. The last coinage of guineas 
 was in 1813; and the first coinage of sovereigns 
 in 1817. 
 
 II. Arts AND MANUFACTURES, | 
 
 The history of the useful arts in England during 
 the reign of George III., cannot be contemplated 
 without a sentiment of wonder. At the com- 
 mencement of the reign every department of 
 national industry, with but few and trifling excep- 
 tions, was either at a very low ebb, or was 
 cramped by the imperfection of its machinery and 
 processes, and, in some cases, also by the effect of 
 injudicious legislation. As the reign advanced, 
 almost every important desideratum was _ suc- 
 cessively supplied, and almost every obstacle to 
 the full development of the commercial and manu- 
 facturing greatness of Britain was in turn grappled 
 with and overcome by the daring energy of her 
 
 2Z 
 
818 
 
 engineers, the discoveries of her chemists and 
 physicists, the inexhaustible ingenuity of her 
 mechanics and artisans, and the persevering 
 industry and enterprise of her manufacturers, 
 Brindley and Smeaton, Whitworth and Telford, 
 were the most prominent among those who 
 established a new and invaluable system of inter- 
 communication, which laid open the resources of 
 the country, gave to its inland towns the advant- 
 ages of water-carriage, and brought the immense 
 deposits of hoarded power in her coal-mines into 
 close connection with the various seats of manu- 
 facturing industry; while Watt supplied, in the 
 improved steam-engine, a moving power at once 
 cheap and manageable, independent of local cir- 
 cumstances, and almost boundless in its energy. 
 The extended application of coal relieved the iron 
 manufacture from a difficulty which checked its 
 progress, and which could only have increased in 
 magnitude had not such a remedy been at hand; 
 and the consequent cheapness of iron favoured, 
 in a most important degree, the application of 
 ‘machinery to other departments of industry. At 
 the same time a commercial revolution of unparal- 
 leled importance was wrought in the manufacture 
 of cotton: a revolution which included material 
 changes also in the manufactures of wool, linen, 
 and silk. 
 
 So much of these advancements as were made 
 between 1760 and 1785 have already been treated ;* 
 and in now entering upon the history of the 
 period from the latter date to 1815, it will be 
 expedient to throw the great branches of industry 
 into certain groups, considering each group as a 
 whole before proceeding to the others. 
 
 Agriculture: stock - rearing— Agriculture, the 
 first, greatest, and most important of all arts, 
 cannot, from-its very nature, be subject to sudden 
 revolutions, as other arts. Indeed it is often 
 conducted for ages with scarcely any variation. 
 At the commencement of the present period, the 
 termination of the American war left the nation 
 free to adopt such improvements in the arts as 
 experience and commerce might suggest; and 
 agriculture received a share of this attention. To 
 engage extensively in agricultural pursuits was at 
 this time regarded as one of the most patriotic 
 duties to which persons of rank and wealth could 
 devote their energies. Their example and influ- 
 ence were not without effect; and the number was 
 constantly increasing of those who endeavoured 
 to augment the capabilities of the soil by availing 
 themselves of scientific discoveries and useful 
 inventions. New processes of cultivation were 
 tried, and every branch of rural economy was 
 investigated, with the view of ascertaining if any- 
 thing in it could be amended. The improvement 
 of live-stock, especially cattle and sheep, which 
 Bakewell had carried to so high a point in the 
 preceding period, was as zealously pursued by 
 many other breeders; and the success which 
 
 * Pictorial History of England, y, 442-498. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 attended their efforts is one of the most striking 
 examples of agricultural improvement now to 
 be noticed. Mr. Culley, who was himself a great 
 improver of live-stock, and who wrote a useful 
 treatise on the subject in 1809, was in a position 
 to show that the improved grazing had really 
 added largely to the national wealth, besides 
 immediately benefiting those who had adopted 
 it. Before these changes and improvements, he 
 tells us, there were oxen which were “more like 
 an ill-made black horse than an ox or a cow;” 
 and the flesh, which did not in his opinion deserve 
 to be called beef, was “as black and coarse- 
 grained as horseflesh.” Such animals could 
 scarcely be fattened for the butcher, seeing that 
 nearly all the food they consumed went to the 
 production of offal. As to sheep, they required 
 three or four years to be brought into a marketable 
 state. Under the improved breeding and rearing, 
 however, sheep were made fit for the butcher 
 in two years; thirty per cent. was saved both in 
 them and in bullocks, besides the increased ratio 
 of meat as compared with bone, and besides the 
 greatly superior quality of the meat. Other 
 departments of rural economy were already in a 
 state requiring only favourable circumstances to 
 bring into more general practice the improvements 
 which had already been introduced. 
 
 The successive attempts of the legislature te 
 control the price of corn by regulating the privi- 
 leges of importing and exporting, have already 
 been noticed; but in reference to the actual 
 breadth of land under crops, it may be here 
 mentioned that, owing to the high prices induced 
 by short crops, farmers were tempted to enclose 
 no less than 1,200,000 acres in the ten years from 
 1770 to 1779; while, in consequence of a more 
 frequent occurrence of good harvests, the enclosures 
 were relatively less extensive to the end of the 
 century, the number of acres enclosed from 1780 
 to 1800 being about 1,300,000. England soon 
 ceased to be a corn-exporting country; and the 
 
 farmers became more anxious to check importa- — 
 
 tion than to claim a bounty on exportation ; they 
 tasted the sweets of high prices, and were quite 
 willing that the taste should continue. In 1795, 
 when the price of wheat was 135s. per quarter, 
 and in 1800, when the crop was estimated to be 
 one-third deficient, the government sought for 
 means—some of them rather strange in charac- 
 
 ter—to allay an evil that was becoming alarming, — 
 
 Importation was encouraged by enormous boun-— 
 
 ties; and in 1795, neutral: vessels, laden with — 
 
 corn, were seized, and compelled to sell their 
 cargoes to government agents. In 1800, bread was 
 not allowed to be sold by bakers until twenty-four 
 hours after it was baked, in order that it might 
 be more economical in use; distillers and starch- 
 manufacturers were prohibited from using grain 
 in their works, on the plea that bread was of 
 
 more urgent necessity than spirits or starch ; sub- — 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 Sabet aration om simone Ptr a 
 
 oe 
 
 ee 
 
 << 
 
 ScSeides laseteech- dade eal ee ees 
 
 —— O_O 
 
 _—_—- se 
 
 stitutes for wheaten bread were recommended; | 
 the Board of Agriculture, at the invitation of the | 
 
Cuap. XI] 
 
 government, made experiments on eighty different 
 kinds of bread ; and through the influence of the 
 Board, the cultivation of the potato was greatly 
 extended, In that year, 1800, Lord Hawkesbury 
 estimated the quantity of wheat grown in England 
 at 6,800,000 quarters, which, he said, was insuffi- 
 cient for the consumption of the country, and 
 required, on an average, an importation equal to 
 one-twentieth of the consumption. The high 
 prices of those two years attracted much additional 
 capital to agriculture, Arthur Young estimated 
 that, in 1795, a sum of twenty millions sterling, 
 above the yearly average of the preceding 
 twelve years, found its way into the pockets of 
 the farmers. In 1800 and the following year, 
 the high prices led to a renewal of the same 
 process; and as rents had not yet been gener- 
 ally raised, the farmers again made large 
 profits. It is probable that the alternation of 
 high and low prices, in the then existing state 
 of agriculture, may have had greater efficacy in 
 stimulating its powers than a uniform high price 
 would have had; for at one period a high rate 
 of profit invited a fructifying stream of capital to 
 this branch of industry ; while at another period, 
 low prices stimulated industry, and led to the 
 abolition of slovenly and expensive practices. 
 
 The useful services of the Board of Agriculture 
 at this time cannot be fully understood without 
 noticing the clumsy machines and processes adopted 
 by the old school of farmers. The instrument 
 most generally defective was the plough, Middle- 
 ton, in his Middlesex ‘Survey, says: “In May, 
 1796, I saw, in one day, two teams with six horses 
 in each, and three men to attend each team— 
 namely, one to hold the plough, and two to drive 
 the horses, ploughing, with a wide furrow, about 
 three-quarters of an acre per day..... I have 
 seen a barley-soil receive the last ploughing, 
 _ previous to sowing turnips, with a team of five 
 horses, and two men to attend them; and at the 
 same time a team of six horses in length, with 
 three men attending, were giving the first ploughing 
 to a fallow.” In the ‘Farmers’ Magazine’ for July, 
 1800, there is “a letter from a Scots farmer during 
 a tour through England,” in which the Hertford- 
 shire plough is described:—“Our old Scottish 
 plough is but a child in comparison with this 
 giant. Five horses are usually employed in the 
 draught, and yet, strange to tell, the furrow we 
 saw did not exceed four inches in deepness. I 
 have’ seen land ploughed full deeper with one 
 horse.” In the Northumberland ‘Survey,’ under 
 date 1800, the author has some remarks on the 
 strength of that prejudice which “continues the 
 use of five horses, and heavy, clumsy, unwieldy 
 wheel-ploughs, where a single swing-plough, and 
 two horses yoked double, and driven by the holder, 
 would do the same quantity of work equally well, 
 and at one-third the expense.” Such being the 
 coarse, wasteful methods and implements em- 
 ployed, Sir John Sinclair and Arthur Young 
 sought to do for the farmers what Bakewell and 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 819 
 
 Culley had done for the graziers—teach them how 
 to manage their business efficiently and profitably, 
 Sir John founded the Board of Agriculture in 
 1793, and Arthur Young acted as its secretary. 
 Young had commenced his ‘ Annals of Agriculture’ 
 in 1784, and continued, through its pages, to 
 diffuse information concerning the defects and 
 improvements in husbandry. One of the first 
 proceedings of the Board, under the management 
 of these two able and useful men, was to institute 
 a survey of all the English counties on a uniform 
 plan: bringing out, for the information of the class 
 most interested in adopting them, descriptions of 
 the novel, economical, or expeditious practices of 
 the farmers in different districts, The ‘Surveys, 
 each as a single pamphlet or book, were first 
 printed for circulation among a small number of 
 persons, and then fully published under the autho- 
 rity of the Board, with notes and observations. 
 The government assisted in this work by small 
 annual grants. The ‘Surveys,’ very unequally 
 executed as they were, undoubtedly advanced the 
 main object held in view, The Board of Agricul- 
 ture rendered other valuable services; it assisted 
 the government with suggestions and partial 
 remedies during seasons of scarcity; it collected 
 information, and made reports to the ministers, on 
 the state of the crops; it was ready to communi- 
 cate at all times its collected statistics of agriculture 
 to the government ; it encouraged experiments in 
 husbandry by prizes; and the influence which it 
 possessed over the provincial agricultural societies 
 excited and combined the efforts of all in one 
 direction. There were two great agricultural 
 Jétes held annually at that period—the “sheep- 
 shearing” at Holkham, under Mr. Coke, and a 
 similar meeting at Woburn, under the Duke of 
 Bedford—which brought together hundreds of 
 influential agriculturists from all parts of the 
 kingdom; and these meetings were not a little 
 serviceable in stimulating the national taste in 
 favour of agriculture. The predilections of George 
 III. for the occupation of a gentleman-farmer 
 were not without useful result in the same direc- 
 tion; he has the credit, through a somewhat 
 obstinate preference of oxen over horses for 
 ploughing, of haying instituted or incited experi- 
 ments in this important husbandry-process, which 
 experiments demonstrated that a horse is more 
 profitably employed than an ox at plough, 
 
 To understand the great advance made in agri- 
 culture about the end of the last and the beginning 
 of the present centuries, we must pay attention— 
 not only to the causes already mentioned—but to 
 the incentive afforded by the increased population 
 and the increased wealth of the country. There 
 were more people to eat bread, and more means 
 to pay for the bread to be eaten. The increase of 
 population in the last twenty years of the century 
 was about a million and a half; and a larger 
 proportion of this additional number than in any 
 former period consisted of non-agricultural con- 
 sumers. Our rising and thriving manufactures, 
 
 : See eS 
 
820 
 
 especially that of cotton, were rapidly creating 
 masses of profitable consumers of agricultural pro- 
 duce, Canals, which were comparatively unknown 
 at the close of the American war, were increasing in 
 number, and—extended to the remoter parts of the 
 country—were the means of bringing its produce 
 into the richest markets ; and thus it happened that 
 every part of the country was immediately enriched. 
 Agriculture was particularly benefited by the in- 
 creased demand for animal food in the manu- 
 facturing towns and villages; live-stock increased 
 in value, to feed which the most improved prac- 
 tices in modern husbandry were adopted; green 
 crops, clover, artificial grasses, turnips, potatoes, 
 and other roots were substituted for fallows; the 
 land was subjected to a greater variety and a 
 better rotation of crops; and under a less ex- 
 hausting system of cultivation there was a greater 
 abundance of manure, so that the land was kept 
 in a higher state of fertility, and yielded annually 
 a larger return, than before. 
 
 Passing from the last to the present century, 
 we find that the progress of agriculture consisted 
 chiefly in the furtherance of plans and improve- 
 ments already commenced, but at a rate of 
 advance truly astonishing. Attracted by the high 
 prices of every description of agricultural produce, 
 capital was freely expended in bringing land into 
 cultivation, and in developing the fertility of that 
 already under the plough. At first it was the 
 tenants rather than the landlords who reaped the 
 advantages attending the rise in the prices of 
 agricultural produce; but after the turn of the 
 century, rents rose rapidly, augmenting the in- 
 comes of the landed gentry. Extensive districts, 
 which afforded sustenance only to rabbits, geese, 
 or cottagers’ sheep and cows, gradually began to 
 exhibit the rich exuberance of superior cultivation. 
 Many of the practices of isolated districts which 
 had become pre-eminent for their superior hus- 
 bandry, were brought into operation over a wider 
 surface. The wolds and clays were fertilised 
 by chalk; marling rendered the barren sands 
 fruitful ; by the admixture of clay, the fens and 
 peats became productive ; and lime corrected the 
 arid soil of the moorlands. Experiments were 
 made on the efficacy of manures and composts ; 
 draining was more extensively practised; the 
 improvement of live-stock was zealously pursued ; 
 root-crops and artificial grasses were more exten- 
 sively cultivated, and new varieties of each were 
 introduced. There was, it is true, nothing abso- 
 lutely new in these practices; but they became 
 general, instead of being limited to isolated spots. 
 The working farmer, stimulated by the examples 
 around him, betook himself to processes which 
 called forth a greater degree of intelligence than 
 the old routine course which he formerly pursued 
 without much thought as to its practical object. The 
 old and clumsy implements of his calling were dis- 
 carded, because the course of improvement in which 
 he had made a beginning required others of a 
 better construction, and because some were wanted 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 adapted to entirely new purposes. It was this 
 more general departure from the spirit of routine, 
 in every department of rural economy, which more 
 particularly marked the present period ; the really 
 scientific agriculture, to some extent started in 
 1810 by the publication of Sir Humphry Davy’s 
 ‘Agricultural Chemistry, hardly made progress 
 until a much later date. 
 
 Comparing the system of husbandry during the 
 first fifteen years of the present century with that 
 of the last fifteen years of the preceding century, 
 it will be found that the chief difference lay in the 
 kind of soil mostly brought under cultivation. In 
 the old days the clay-lands produced the bulk of 
 the food of this country ; whereas the tendency in 
 modern times has been towards the light arable 
 soils. The improvement of these soils, and the 
 secret of their productiveness, are to be attributed 
 to the introduction of root-crops and artificial 
 grasses as food for cattle, which leads to a more 
 perfect tillage, and to a progressive enrichment of 
 the soil. The old grass-lands, on which our ances- 
 tors depended for a supply of animal food, could 
 onlv fatten a limited quantity of stock; and, as 
 there was little hay for winter-keep, they were 
 under the necessity of making large provision of 
 salt-meat for winter consumption. The turnip- 
 husbandry, as it is called, has been the means of 
 rendering fresh meat attainable all the year round, 
 to an extent vastly important to the working- 
 classes. This new husbandry itself underwent 
 changes, full of instruction. As the common turnip 
 cannot be preserved later than February, the 
 Swedish turnip was introduced as a substitute, on 
 account of its being available to the grazier until 
 the end of March. Then, mangold-wurzel was 
 introduced, as a root available later in the spring 
 than the Swedish turnip; and, lastly, artificial 
 grasses were provided for the months when root- 
 crops could not be had. All these root and green 
 crops—which are the mainstay of modern agricul- 
 tural improvement, and enable the farmer both to 
 grow corn and to feed stock—are the produce of 
 light soils; and hence such soils have gradually 
 been brought into fertility. On the light soils the 
 harvest is earlier than on the clays; the operations 
 of husbandry are not nearly so dependent on the 
 weather ; and the expenses of cultivation are not 
 nearly so great. As a consequence of these remark- 
 able changes, the clay-lands went somewhat into 
 disfavour, These clay-lands are generally wet; 
 wet lands do not suit root and green crops for 
 cattle ; 
 
 enables the farmer to fatten cattle as well as grow 
 corn, to supply the butcher as well as the baker. — 
 
 Roads: Bridges—Advancing from the agricul- : 
 
 tural to the mechanical arts, no one can avoid 
 being struck with the wonderful energy displayed, 
 
 and the success attained, in the means of inter- — 
 communication—that priceless aid to all commer- — 
 
 cial and social advancement. Chalmers states that 
 
 ae ac ee ee ree Se 
 
 and thus extensive draining becomes — 
 necessary before the old favourite corn-lands can — 
 become adapted for the turnip-husbandry which — 
 
 4 
 
 : 
 
Cuar. XI. ] 
 
 the number of acts of parliament relating to roads 
 and bridges, in the eight years preceding the great 
 French war, amounted to 302; and that in the 
 next period of equal length, 1793 to 1800, the 
 number was 341, During those sixteen years there 
 were 196 acts for canals and harbours, and 201 for 
 paving and similar purposes—making altogether 
 more than one thousand statutes intended to aid in 
 the means of communication from place to place, 
 either for great lines of travel or for local traffic. 
 With such facts before our eyes, we may well join 
 with Chalmers in admiration at the augmented 
 energy of spirit in domestic improvement, espe- 
 cially in those years when the country was 
 burthened with a costly war. “The world will 
 contemplate this enterprise with wonder. Millions 
 and tens of millions have been raised from the 
 people, for carrying on an interesting war; yet 
 they have found money, as they had skill and 
 industry, to improve this 
 
 * Island of bliss amid the subject seas.’ 
 
 Great Britain, as it has been more improved 
 during every war, is worth more, at the conclusion 
 of it, than when hostilities began ; and this happy 
 isle, where the foot of the foe never treads, if it 
 were brought to the hammer, would sell for more 
 than it would have fetched at any former period, 
 in proportion to its additional improvements.” * 
 Roads being placed first on the list as means of 
 travel, it is worthy of note that even the principal 
 roads in England were in a wretched state during 
 the earlier years of the reign of George III. - Of 
 this fact numerous proofst were given in a former 
 volume; and it is further observable that the 
 principles of road-making did not advance at a 
 rate at all proportionate to the extension of turn- 
 pike roads. Nevertheless, considerable improve- 
 ment was wrought during the concluding years of 
 the century. Without a great amelioration in the 
 roads, it would have been impracticable to substi- 
 tute mail-coaches for messengers on horseback, 
 and to insure speed and regularity in transit— 
 both of which objects were attained. It was in 
 the year 1784, as narrated in the chapter just cited, 
 that the first mail-coach upon Mr. Palmer's plan 
 travelled from London to Bristol ; and—notwith- 
 standing the existence of opposition which now 
 appears almost incredible, and which checked the 
 progress of the plans introduced for accelerating 
 the speed of the mails, as well as those for improv- 
 ing the internal management of the Post-office— 
 Mr. Palmer was able to report to a parliamentary 
 committee in 1797, that down to that time three 
 hundred and eighty towns, which had previously 
 had but three posts a week, and forty which had 
 had no post at all, were supplied with daily posts ; 
 and that the mails were conveyed upon many 
 of the cross-roads in one-third or even one-fourth 
 of the time required before the adoption of his 
 improvements. Some of the roads which Arthur 
 
 * Domestic Economy of Great Britain. 
 + Vol. v., p. 470. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 821 
 
 Young had so vehemently condemned, were des- 
 cribed in 1792 by Adam Walker as being in a 
 vastly improved state. Walker states that, down 
 to the middle of the century, a causeway of round 
 pebbles, about two feet wide, was all that man 
 or beast could travel upon through Cheshire or 
 Lancashire ; that as trade increased, and turn- 
 pikes became more general, the ruts were filled up . 
 with pebbles and cinders; but that, even with 
 such repair, the roads were not rendered passable 
 in winter for coaches or chaises. At last, indict- 
 ments and lawsuits produced a reform. The best 
 kinds of road had “a broad pavement, which 
 would suffer two carriages to pass each other ; this 
 was thought the ultimate perfection that a country 
 without gravel could go to; and the narrow pave- 
 ment became covered with grass. In this state 
 the roads have continued many years, to the great 
 profit of the coachmaker and the cure of indi- 
 gestion; but now, both the broad and narrow 
 pavements are pulling up, the pebbles breaking 
 into smaller pieces, and their interstices filling 
 up with sand. So far as this method has pro- 
 ceeded, the roads are become as good as in any 
 part of England ; and, no doubt, the utility will 
 soon become general, enforced by so spirited and 
 liberal a people as inhabit these counties.’"* An 
 intelligent Frenchman, M. Faujas Saint-Fond, who 
 visited England about that time, passed frequent 
 encomiums on the roads, incited to comparison 
 by the roads of his own country. Speaking of 
 a journey from London to Stilton, he says: “ No- 
 thing can surpass the beauty and convenience of 
 the road during these sixty-three miles; it re- 
 sembles the avenue of a magnificent garden.”+ It 
 is probable, however, that Saint-Fond travelled 
 only along the great high roads, and knew little 
 concerning the minor routes. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these improvements, road- 
 making was little understood in England at the 
 beginning of the present century. Numerous acts 
 had been passed for the construction and improve- 
 ment of turnpike roads; and small portions of 
 road, in the hands of intelligent surveyors, were 
 excellent; but nothing like a good system of 
 engineering was generally adopted. The defective 
 management by turnpike trusts was one cause 
 of this. With but few exceptions, even the princi- 
 pal roads were laid out on the natural surface 
 of the ground, without regard to the enormous loss 
 of power incurred in passing over the numerous 
 undulations of such a road. Their course, instead 
 of being straight, or laid out in gentle sweeps, was 
 often dictated by the arbitrary divisions of the 
 adjoining lands, thereby unnecessarily increasing 
 the length of the road and filling it with incon- 
 venient angles. Instead of being uniform in width, 
 they were in some places inconveniently narrow, 
 in others wastefully broad. No sufficient care was 
 exercised to remove such trees and hedges as might 
 intercept the free action of the sun and wind, so 
 
 * Tour from London to the Lakes, in 1791. | 
 + Trave's in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides. 
 
822 
 
 essential to the preservation of a road in good 
 order; nor were adequate pains taken to experi- 
 ment upon and procure the best materials for 
 repairing the surface. In addition to this, many 
 of the carriages used were, in consequence of 
 absurd legislation respecting the form and width 
 of tire of wheels, the width of carriages, and 
 - various other points, adapted rather for cutting up 
 the surface of a road, and grinding the stones to 
 powder, than for easy draught and swift passage. 
 Such being the defective system on which roads 
 were constructed, there was ample room for the 
 labours of Thomas Telford and John Loudon 
 MacAdam—two road-engineers whose services 
 now call for notice. 
 
 Mr. Telford’s improvements in this department 
 of civil engineering began in Scotland. The value 
 of good roads had been rendered very evident in 
 that country by the effects of the military roads 
 
 Tuomas Tretrorp. 
 
 formed through the Highlands after the rebellion 
 of 1715, and greatly extended after that of 1745. 
 These roads reached eight hundred miles in 
 length, and were carried over rivers and ravines 
 by a thousand bridges. Excellent as they were, 
 however, compared with the mere sheep-tracks 
 that preceded them, they were not constructed 
 on the principles that would adapt them to general 
 commercial traflic, especially when that traffic 
 was extended by the spread of manufactures and 
 foreign trade. Under these circumstances, Telford 
 was employed by the lords of the treasury to 
 survey portions of Scotland; and consequent on 
 his report, presented in 1802, a comprehensive 
 plan was drawn up. <A Board of “Commissioners 
 of Highland Roads and Bridges” was formed, and 
 Telford was appointed engineer. Not only did the 
 commissioners accomplish what had been planned 
 in the Highlands, but they extended their opera- 
 tions into the lowlands—improving the road from 
 Glasgow to Carlisle, and those in Lanarkshire, 
 and forming or enlarging harbours at Peterhead, 
 Banff, Fraserburgh, Fortrose, Cullen, and Kirk- 
 wall, Throughout a quarter of a century did this 
 road-making continue ; until, from Caithness in 
 
 eee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 .the north to Dumfries in the south, from Aberdeen 
 
 | 
 
 3 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 in the east to Argyle in the west, Scotland was 
 provided with more than a thousand miles of 
 admirable roads: those in the more strictly moun- 
 
 tainous districts being carefully adapted to the 
 
 peculiarities of their situation, and being every- 
 where laid out with moderate inclinations, not- 
 withstanding the ruggedness of the country. More 
 than twelve hundred bridges were built, some over 
 broad rivers, some over narrow but rapid torrents. 
 The expense of these roads was defrayed in equal 
 portions by parliamentary grants and by local con- 
 tributions ; and the effect of their construction was 
 to raise the inhabitants of the neighbouring dis- 
 tricts in an extraordinary degree in the scale of 
 civilisation, by exciting industry and intercourse 
 with other parts of the country. Before Telford 
 commenced those great works, no public coach or 
 other regular vehicle of conveyance existed in the 
 Highlands. Attempts had, it is true, been made 
 to establish two routes of conveyance, from Inver- 
 ness to Aberdeen and to Perth; but these failed, 
 owing to the wretchedness of the roads and the 
 little disposition of the people to travel. It was 
 not until 1806 that the first really Highland coach, 
 from Perth to Inverness, was permanently estab- 
 lished. Telford introduced the system of road- 
 making called metalling, the main feature of which 
 is the laying of a surface of broken stone upon a 
 rough but carefully laid substratum of large stones. 
 The success of the plan was so clearly manifested 
 on the road from Carlisle to Glasgow, that Telford 
 adopted it on a large scale, at a later period, on 
 the magnificent mail-coach road from London to 
 Holyhead, constructed at the expense of the 
 government, . 
 
 Mr. MacAdam, the other great road-improver 
 mentioned above, was a magistrate and commis- 
 sioner of roads in Scotland from 1783 to 1798; but, 
 removing in the latter year to Bristol, he directed 
 his especial attention to roads. As surveyor of the 
 turnpike roads in the Bristol district he wrought 
 wonders, and attracted the attention of magistrates 
 and road trustees to his system. This system—now 
 brought into popular language by the technical 
 verb macadamise—consists in breaking the stones 
 of which the surface of the road consists into very 
 small pieces, which naturally become of an angular 
 form: the stones being quite freed from dirt before 
 being used. Engineers have professionally dis- 
 
 cussed at much length the relative merits of these — 
 roads and the metalled roads of Telford ; but there — 
 
 can be no doubt that Mr. MacAdam, and the sons 
 
 who succeeded him, conferred vast benefit on the | 
 
 country by the many thousand miles of road made 
 or improved on their system. 
 
 From returns made to parliament in various — 
 years, it appears probable that, by the year 1815, — 
 
 the length of paved streets and turnpike roads in 
 
 England and Wales had reached an aggregate of — 
 
 18,000 miles, and other public highways 90,000 
 miles, making a total of about 108,000 miles of 
 route for commercial travel. The turnpike roads 
 
 5 eee —— 
 
 fntiin Donen nee ea 
 5 _ — 
 0 OL, EE 
 
 Ppt te, Nene 
 
 ee oe 
 
 sn eo aon 9 ie 
 =a 
 
 Vm be 
 — ieee 
 
 ee ee 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 of Scotland were about 3300 miles ; but the minor 
 roads, and all the roads of Ireland, were left 
 unrecorded in the official returns. 
 
 Bridges, such important links between roads, 
 naturally engaged the attention of engineers as 
 road-making advanced. In the metropolis, Lon- 
 don, Westminster, and Blackfriars Bridges were 
 the only three which crossed the Thames at the 
 close of the last century; but the wants of the 
 public, and the hopes of speculators, led to the 
 planning of several others early in the present 
 century, An act of parliament was passed in 
 1809 for a bridge from the Strand to Lambeth ; 
 the first stone was laid in 1811; and the works, 
 under Mr. John Rennie, were continued with 
 
 JOHN RENNIE. 
 
 ~ 
 
 small interruption for six years. It was the great- 
 est triumph in bridge-building ever achieved in 
 this country, and had few parallels in the world. 
 The bridge was constructed of granite; it had a 
 road-way 70 feet in width ; it crossed a water-way 
 of 1080 feet by nine elliptical arches of 120 feet 
 Span ; it had approaches of great length built on 
 land-arches ; insomuch that its whole extent, per- 
 fectly level from end to end, was 2456 feet, The 
 great victory of Waterloo having occurred during 
 the progress of this work, the proposed name was 
 changed from Strand Bridge to Waterloo Bridge. 
 The united testimony of engineers and men of 
 taste pronounced this bridge a triumph of beauty 
 and grandeur, in its broad and level roadway, its 
 light and elegant balustrade, and the airy sweep of 
 its arches. Canova pronounced if the finest bridge 
 in Europe; and Dupin said: “The traveller, at 
 this sight, will imagine that some great prince 
 sought to signalise the end of his reign by many 
 years of labour, and to immortalise the glory of 
 his actions by this imposing structure. But if 
 tradition tell him that six years sufficed to begin 
 and complete the work—if he learn that a mere 
 company of merchants built this mass, worthy of 
 Sesostris and the Ceesars—he will the more admire 
 the nation where stich enterprises could be the 
 fruit of the efforts of a few merchants and private 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 823 
 
 individuals.” * The first extensive bridge built near 
 London with iron arches was commenced in 1811, 
 and finished in 1816, at a cost of 300,0007, It had 
 stone piers, nine iron arches of 78 feet span, and a 
 roadway 36 feet in width. The first proposed 
 name for this structure was altered from Regent 
 Bridge to Vauxhall Bridge. A far more difficult 
 and striking application of iron to bridge-building 
 was that of Southwark Bridge, sanctioned by 
 parliament in 1811, commenced by John Rennie 
 in 1814, and opened for traffic in 1819. As an 
 iron bridge, it has rarely, if ever, been equalled in 
 the world. The famous bridge at Sunderland 
 has only one arch instead of three, and even that 
 one is of less span than the centre arch of South- 
 wark Bridge ; the piers, too, were very difficult of 
 construction in that particular part of the Thames. 
 The shareholders, however, like those in the 
 Waterloo Bridge Company, have had to mourn 
 that which the public admired ; there has been 
 scarcely any return for the 800,0007, expended 
 upon Southwark Bridge. 
 
 The beautiful principle of suspension-bridges first 
 received its full development during the period now 
 under notice. The origin of such structures was 
 of much earlier date, but not their scientific demon- 
 stration. In 1801 Rennie made a design for a 
 bridge across the Menai Strait, from the mainland 
 of Wales to the island of Anglesea ; the scheme fell 
 to nothing, Some years afterwards, Telford pre- 
 pared two plans, one for a bridge of three cast-iron 
 arches, and another of a single cast-iron arch, Still 
 nothing came of it. In the meanwhile, the same 
 engineer had drawn out the plans for a bridge 
 of suspended chains, over the Mersey at Runcorn 
 Gap; it was never executed; but it suggested 
 the beautiful Menai suspension-bridge, which this 
 engineer had the satisfaction of beginning and 
 finishing—carrying a suspended roadway at a 
 height of 100 feet above the water, with a span, or 
 unsupported opening, quite unparalleled in any 
 former specimen of bridge-building, of 560 feet.+ 
 At and about the close of this period many sus- 
 pension-bridges of subordinate character were 
 constructed—including one across Gala Water in 
 Scotland, one across the Tweed at King’s Meadows, 
 one across the same river near Kelso, and one 
 across the Thames at Hammersmith. Many 
 novelties of construction were introduced by 
 Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown, which, as 
 at Kelso, enabled him to construct suspension- 
 bridges much more expeditiously and cheaply 
 than had before been possible, 
 
 * * Commercial Power of Great Britain,’ vol. ii. Dupin would 
 have regretted, however, could he have foreseen that the enor- 
 mous cost of Waterloo Bridge (considerably more than a million 
 Sterling), and the necessity of borrowing money at high interest, 
 quite paralysed the company. During the period of about forty 
 years from the opening of the bridge in 1817 till 1858, the shares 
 have been nearly valueless. Moderate tolls for passengers and 
 vehicles cannot pay for such a structure. 
 
 + Although nearly superseded, for traffic purposes, by a vast but 
 unsightly railway tubular bridge, Telford’s Menai suspension- 
 bridge still remains (1858) almost matchless for its beauty among 
 the bridges of this country—beauty rendered still more evident 
 by vicinity to the tubular bridge, 
 
824 
 
 Tramroads: railways—Magnificent inventions of 
 modern times in connection with railways began 
 in attempts to improve the means of transit for 
 mining produce to the seaports. So far back as 
 1602, a Mr, Beaumont, of the Newcastle district, 
 laid down planks or bars of wood for the wheels of 
 coal-trucks to roll upon; and when it was found 
 that this contrivance greatly lessened the amount 
 of friction, the plan was adopted by other coal- 
 owners. Roger North, describing the Tyne col- 
 lieries as they were in 1676, said: “ Another 
 remarkable thing is their way-leaves; for when 
 men have pieces of ground between the colliery 
 and the river, they sell the leave to lead coals 
 over the ground, and so dear that the owner of a 
 rood of ground will receive 20/7. per annum for 
 this leave. The manner of the carriage is, by 
 laying rails of timber from the colliery down to 
 the river exactly straight and parallel, and bulky 
 carts are made with four rowlets fitting these rails, 
 whereby the carriage is so easy that one horse 
 will draw some four or five chaldrons of coal.” * 
 Arthur Young, writing just a century later, 
 said: “The coal-wagon roads, from the pits to the 
 water, are great works, carried over all sorts of 
 inequalities of ground, so far as the distance of nine 
 or ten miles. The tracks of the wheels are marked 
 with pieces of wood let into the road for the 
 wheels of the wagons to run on, by which means 
 one horse is enabled to draw, and that with ease, 
 fifty or sixty bushels of coals.’ No great advance, 
 therefore, had been made in a century ; but when 
 iron became used instead of wood, and when Mr. 
 Jessop, in 1789, put flanges on the wheels instead 
 of on the rails, a great improvement resulted. 
 
 The earliest of what may be distinguished as 
 public railways, constructed by joint-stock com- 
 panies for traffic in general merchandise, was 
 that known as the Surrey Iron Railway, from 
 Croydon to the Thames at Wandsworth; the act 
 was obtained in 1801, but this line was not 
 opened till 1805+ Several of the canal acts 
 passed during the last twenty years of the pre- 
 ceding century contained provisions for the con- 
 struction of short railways, either to connect 
 mines, lime-kilns, quarries, or manufactories with 
 the canals, or as inclined planes to connect two 
 portions of canal, in lieu of a series of locks ; and 
 other useful railways were made by and for 
 private commercial firms. In 1801 Lord Penrhyn 
 constructed a railway from his slate-quarries near 
 Bangor to Port Penrhyn: rendered remarkable 
 by the rails being rounded instead of flat at the 
 top, and by the wheels of the slate-wagons being 
 grooved at the tire to fit upon these rounded rails. 
 The experience of this railway was very valuable 
 to engineers elsewhere ; the saving of labour was 
 such, that ten horses were able to perform upon it 
 as much work as four hundred on the common 
 
 * Life of the Lord Keeper Guildford. 4 
 
 + The Croydon and Wimbledon Railway, opened for passenger- 
 traffic in 1856, is in great part an enlargement of the original 
 Surrey Railway. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 road previously used. Connected with the wooden 
 railways adverted to in the last paragraph, the 
 collieries of Northumberland and Durham at that 
 time were provided with staiths or projecting 
 platforms over the margin of the river Tyne, with 
 tramways on the staiths, and facilities for the 
 vessels to come under for the reception of cargoes ; 
 by these means, coals were shipped at a much 
 smaller expense than before. Saint-Fond, who 
 was struck with this improvement, said: “ The 
 great economy produced by these ingenious con- 
 trivances, which saye the expense of employing 
 a multitude of men and horses, enables the English 
 to sell the coal which they export in such abun- 
 dance to all our [the French] ports, on the ocean 
 and the Mediterranean, at a lower price than it can 
 be afforded from our own mines, in all cases where 
 we have to bring it more than three or four miles 
 by land.” The following is well worthy of note, 
 as illustrating the importance of quick and easy 
 transit to the wellbeing of a country: ‘ Marseille 
 affords an example in point. This town, which 
 consumes an immense quantity of fuel in its great 
 soap-manufactories, is within four or five leagues of 
 a great number of coal-mines. This coal is indeed 
 of an indifferent quality, but it is nevertheless 
 employed with advantage in the furnaces of soap- 
 works. Would any one believe that the excellent 
 coal of England, which lasts double the time, and 
 gives double the heat, when sold duty free in the 
 port of Marseille, is cheaper than the former ! 
 Such instances as this ought doubtless to give us 
 very important lessons.” 
 
 If, for the sake of convenience, we confine the 
 name tramroads* to those constructed by private 
 persons, and adapted only for mineral traffic, and 
 that of railways to those suited for passenger as 
 well as goods and mineral traffic, and requiring 
 an act of parliament to sanction each—then the 
 period now under notice can hardly be said to 
 belong to the era of railways—George Stephenson 
 had not yet been called upon to construct his iron 
 ways from Stockton to Darlington, and from 
 Liverpool to Manchester. Nevertheless, beginnings 
 were made, destined to produce wonderful results 
 in after-years. Between 1800 and 1815 there were 
 only about a dozen acts of parliament obtained for 
 railways, and even some of these were not carried 
 into effect. Their entire length was considerably 
 under two hundred miles; they differed little from 
 private undertakings ; they were almost limited to 
 mineral traffic, and the traction was by horses, 
 The wooden rails of the tramways, connected with 
 
 the collieries of Newcastle and the ironworks of — 
 Wales, were everywhere replaced by iron, and 
 
 numerous improvements were introduced; the 
 rails were supported by stone blocks; the tram- 
 
 * This word had a singular origin. In 1800, Mr. Outram intro- 
 duced the plan of resting the iron rails on blocks of stone instead 
 of on the bare ground. Modern engineers have found that timber- 
 sleepers are better than stone blocks; but at the date just named 
 the invention was considered valuable; and all railways thus 
 constructed were familiarly called Outram roads, very soon curtailed 
 into tram-roads. 
 
 PPP DOLE GE RE EE OO LET IE ST EEE yo RE, a 
 
 = 
 
Cuar. XI. ] 
 
 plates were replaced by edge-rails ; and wrought- 
 iron rails, produced by drawing red-hot bars 
 between grooved rollers, were substituted for those 
 of cast iron previously used. 
 
 The great and extraordinary development of 
 railways had yet to come. It had yet to be 
 determined whether the power of steam could 
 be adopted instead of horse-power, to draw the 
 vehicles on railways. Colliery engineers thought 
 of this plan in connection with tramroads; but 
 they were preceded by others who conceived that 
 ordinary coach-roads might possibly be traversed 
 by locomotives, vehicles possessing a source of 
 power and motion within themselves. Robison, 
 when a student at Glasgow in 1758, suggested to 
 James Watt the possibility of applying the steam- 
 engine to the propulsion of carriages, by causing 
 a crank to communicate motion from a piston to 
 the wheels. In 1770 a Frenchman named Cugnot 
 constructed at Paris a large steam-carriage, which 
 was tried on the common roads, and which 
 appears to have frightened the public as being 
 too powerful to be safely managed. Watt described 
 locomotives which he had planned, but never 
 actually constructed any. Mr. Murdoch, a Cornish 
 engineer, in or about 1782, made an ingenious model 
 of a self-impelled carriage; it was a miniature 
 production, moving on three wheels, and worked 
 by steam raised by the heat of a spirit-lamp. A 
 story is told that, wishing to test his little loco- 
 motive, he repaired to the road or path leading 
 to the church of Redruth, about a mile from the 
 town. “The road was rather narrow, and was 
 bounded on either side by high hedges. It wasa 
 dark night, and Murdoch set out alone to try 
 his experiment. Having lit his lamp, the water 
 shortly began to boil, and off started the engine, 
 with the inventor after it. He soon heard distant 
 shouts of despair. It was too dark to perceive 
 objecis; but he shortly found, on following up 
 the machine, that the cries for assistance proceeded 
 from the worthy pastor of the parish, who, going 
 towards the town on business, was met in this 
 
 lonely road by the hissing and fiery little monster, - 
 
 which he subsequently declared he had taken 
 to be the Evil One.”* ‘There is no proof that 
 Murdoch carried his project further. In 1786 
 a model was exhibited by Mr. Symington, at 
 Edinburgh, of a steam-carriage intended for use 
 upon common roads; and in 1787 he worked a 
 steam-carriage on the Wanlockhead road near 
 Lanark. In 1802, Messrs, Trevithick and Vivian 
 patented a new carriage for use in the London 
 streets. They drove it through Cornwall to 
 Plymouth, for shipment to London ; and Coleridge 
 tells a story of the agony and fright of a toll-keeper 
 who, resembling in this the Redruth parson, 
 believed the machine to be a personification of 
 the devil. The generally defective state of the 
 roads, however, prevented this and all similar 
 contrivances from being successful, <A long period 
 
 * Smiles, Life of George Stephenson, 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1875-1815. 
 
 825 
 
 of inaction occurred: indeed no contrivance, for 
 propelling a carriage on the common roads by 
 steam-power with even moderate success, was 
 introduced until after the period to which this 
 chapter relates. It was then too late; engineers 
 had ascertained that railways are far better than 
 any kind of ordinary roads to afford smooth and 
 easy transit for wheel-carriages ; and the idea of 
 street or road locomotives gradually fell out of 
 favour. 
 
 Trevithick and Vivian, wisely considering that 
 their locomotive had not had a fair trial on 
 common roads, resolved to test it on a railway, 
 with a different adaption of the wheels and other 
 moving parts. They tried it on a tramroad at 
 Merthyr Tydvil in 1804, where, according to 
 Stuart, “it travelled at the rate of five miles an 
 hour, and drew as many carriages as contained 
 ten tons of iron, for a distance of nine miles, 
 without requiring any water to be introduced 
 into the boiler from the period of its starting 
 until it had reached the end of its journey.”* 
 Unfortunately, there then sprang up a belief in 
 men’s minds that such a locomotive could not 
 travel on an ascent; that the wheels would not 
 “bite” on the rails, but would slip while they 
 rotated, making no onward advance. If any one 
 had had the forethought to test this theory, by 
 constructing a piece of inclined railway for the 
 purpose, much vexation, contention, expense, and 
 loss of time would have been saved; instead 
 of this, engineers sought for a cure for the 
 evil, without having ascertained that the evil 
 really existed. The history of this branch of 
 mechanical science, for several years after the 
 
 trial at Merthyr Tydvil, presents little else than 
 
 schemes for obtaining progressive motion by 
 means of racks and cog-wheels, cogs and chains, 
 mechanical legs to imitate the action of those of 
 horses, and other contrivances—all intended to 
 aid the locomotive in doing that which it is well 
 calculated to effect without such assistance, viz., 
 draw a heavy load up an easy incline. <A con- 
 trivance patented by Mr. Blenkinsop in 1811, for 
 obtaining progressive motion by means of racks 
 laid along the iron rails, into which cog-wheels 
 attached to the engine might work, attracted 
 much attention at the time, and was blazoned 
 forth as a great invention. But this and all 
 similar contrivances were laid aside when George 
 
 Stephenson, many years later, triumphantly 
 showed the power of the locomotive. This extra- 
 ordinary man was worthy of his age, The son of 
 
 a humble collier, he himself worked in the pits 
 while a boy ; and deemed it a great rise when, at 
 the age of 17, he was appointed “plugman” to 
 an engine-shaft at the Water Row Colliery near 
 Newcastle. This was in 1798, His duty con- 
 sisted in watching the engine, and plugging the 
 tube when the level of water in the pit varied, 
 “He devoted himself so assiduously and success- 
 
 * History of the Steam-engine, 
 
826 
 
 fully to the study of the engine and its gearing— 
 taking the machine to pieces in his leisure hours, 
 for the purpose of cleansing and mastering its 
 several parts—that he very soon acquired a 
 thorough practical knowledge of its construction 
 and mode of working; and thus he very rarely 
 needed to call to his aid the engineer of the colliery. 
 His engine became a sort of pet with him, and he 
 was never wearied of watching and inspecting it 
 with devoted attention”’* In his evening hours, 
 in his cottage by the side of the tramroad, he 
 made machines for perpetual motion, like many 
 ingenious men before him; but, unlike them, he 
 abandoned the chimera as soon as he perceived 
 that the notion rests upon a fallacy. He then 
 became a clock-doctor, mending all the clocks in 
 the neighbourhood. At length, in 1813, after 
 watching the proceedings of a Mr. Wylam in the 
 attempt to produce an efficient locomotive, he 
 drew out plans for something of his own; and, 
 being aided financially by Lord Ravensworth, a 
 colliery owner, he produced the ‘ Blucher’ 
 locomotive, which, on the 25th of July 1814, drew 
 eight loaded carriages on a railway at the rate of 
 four miles an hour. This was the beginning of 
 the railway system in the proper sense of the term, 
 and of the fame of two remarkable men, father and 
 son, George and Robert Stephenson. 
 
 Even before this signal success, there were not 
 wanting men who made a shrewd guess at what 
 the self-moving steam-engine might one day 
 become. The author of a pamphlet called the 
 ‘ Fingerpost’ was well laughed at when he asked 
 the sceptical opponent of railway-travelling “to 
 indulge his imagination with an excursion some 
 twenty or thirty years forward in the’ regions 
 of time; when the dark, unsightly, shapeless 
 machine, that now offends him even in idea, 
 shall be metamorphosed into one of exquisite 
 symmetry and beauty, glittering with all the 
 pomp and circumstance the pride of wealth knows 
 so well how to bestow.” Opinions may even now 
 differ whether the locomotive exhibits “ exquisite 
 symmetry and beauty ;” but the ‘Fingerpost’ was 
 quite right as to the general bearings of the great 
 revolution in travel then about to commence. 
 
 Canals: Aqueducts: Tunnels—From land-con- 
 veyance, we pass to the consideration of the great 
 advance made in the construction of canals and 
 the improvements of inland navigation. The 
 important benefits arising from Brindley’s achieve- 
 ments in canal-work+ had become so manifest, 
 that the concluding years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury brought forth many new schemes of a similar 
 kind, In the two years 1793 and 1794 alone, no 
 fewer than thirty-six acts of parliament were 
 obtained for canals, besides eleven others for 
 improvements in river-navigation: these under- 
 takings involved the expenditure of 5,300,0001. 
 The effects, as these and other works were suc- 
 cessively brought to completion, were vastly 
 
 _ * Smiles, Life of George Stephenson. 
 + Pictorial History of England, v. pp. 472, 473. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 important to the commercial activity of the king- 
 dom. By lines of canal connecting the rivers 
 Thames, Trent, Severn, and Mersey, the great 
 ports of London, Hull, Bristol, and Liverpool were 
 rendered accessible not only to each other, but also 
 
 to numerous other towns in the interior. In Scot- 
 
 land the completion of the Forth and Clyde Canal 
 opened a water-passage across the country, con- 
 necting the inland districts with the ocean on 
 either side, and conferring vast benefits on com- 
 merce. The proprietors of this canal had struggled 
 against formidable difficulties ; the Company was 
 incorporated so early. as 1768, and commenced 
 operations soon afterwards ; but when the capital 
 was expended, and no more could be obtained, the 
 works were abandoned in an unfinished state. 
 At length the government came forward with 
 pecuniary assistance in 1784, and the canal was 
 finished in 1791, when a merchant-vessel from 
 Dundee to Liverpool sailed through it. This 
 canal, 35 miles in length, had thirty-nine locks, 
 by which it was enabled to effect an ascent of 
 156 feet to the summit level; in one place it 
 crossed the river Kelvin by a lofty aqueduct. 
 
 One of the most valuable canals of this period 
 was the Berkeley, between Gloucester and the 
 river Severn. But a far more surprising work 
 in an engineering point of view was the Ellesmere 
 Canal, consisting of a series of navigations ex- 
 tending collectively to more than a hundred miles, 
 and connecting the three rivers Severn, Dee, and 
 Mersey ; it passed over a country so uneven as to 
 require the construction of works of surprising 
 magnitude. The aqueducts over the valleys of the 
 Dee and the Chirk, planned and constructed by 
 Telford, exhibited many novelties of construction : 
 the beds being formed of flanged cast-iron plates, 
 instead of a lining of clay and sand on a support 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 of masonry. The Chirk viaduct consisted of ten — ‘ : 
 
 arches of forty feet span, bearing a water-way at 
 a height of seventy feet above the river beneath : 
 while the Dee viaduct, at Pont-y-Cysylte, consisted 
 of a great trough of cast-iron plates, raised on a 
 series of eighteen stone piers more than a hundred 
 and twenty feet in height: the trough, in this 
 latter instance, was a thousand feet long, and was 
 connected at one end with an enormous embank- 
 
 ment fifteen hundred feet long. These extensive — 
 works employed Telford from 1795 to 1805—— 
 
 showing that the sum of money appropriated each 
 year could not have been very large, seeing that 
 the entire cost of both aqueducts was under 
 70,0000. 
 
 sion and contraction of the metal would be fatal 
 
 to such an employment, but experience dissipated | 
 this fear. He subsequently introduced cast iron | 
 
 for framing the lock-gates of canals; and con- 
 
 The novelty introduced by this engineer, | 
 of using iron for aqueducts, proved to be very | 
 valuable ; it was feared by many that the expan- — 
 
 structed a very fine cast-iron bridge over the Severn | 
 
 at Buildwas. 
 If the carrying of artificial water-channels over 
 
 deep valleys required much engineering skill, no — 
 
Cuar. XI.] 
 
 less boldness was called for in piercing tunnels 
 through lofty hills. Brindley astonished other 
 engineers by his adoption of this plan; but when 
 they became accustomed to it, they constructed 
 canal tunnels far exceeding in magnitude any 
 known in his day. Mr, Whitworth constructed, 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 et 
 
 827 
 
 and opened for traffic in 1789, the Sapperton 
 Tunnel, by which the Thames and Severn Canal 
 was carried two miles and a half through a hill, 
 at a depth of 250 feet below the summit, with 
 width enough for the passage of boats of seventy 
 tons burthen. In 1800 the Society of Arts awarded 
 
 ee ee 
 
 ip a ie 
 
 TTT se 
 
 Pont-y-CysYzre. 
 
 a gold medal to the Duke of Bridgewater, for the { notion was abandoned, but it suggested the won- 
 
 great example he had shown by the construction 
 of his colliery tunnels in Lancashire ;* and from 
 a description published at that time, we learn how 
 complete the duke’s system had become by the 
 close of the century. In the neighbourhood of 
 Worsley and Bolton there were eighteen miles of 
 tunnel, all ten feet wide by eight or nine high ; 
 and in many places there were subterraneous 
 inclined planes, provided with railways, along 
 which the canal-boats ascended and descended 
 from one level of canal to another: the descent 
 of a filled boat being exactly counterbalanced by 
 the ascent of an empty boat, through a connecting 
 rope and pulleys. The Duke of Bridgewater has 
 the credit of having devised this scheme himself. 
 In another part of England, between the Donning- 
 ton Wood Canal and the river Severn, canal-boats 
 were raised to a higher level by an inclined plane 
 instead of a lock; but in this instance a steam- 
 engine supplied the moving power. One great 
 scheme for underground engineering, put forth 
 in 1799, was the construction of a tunnel under 
 the Thames from Gravesend to Tilbury; the 
 
 * Pictorial History of Engiand, v. p. 473. 
 
 derful though commercially unsuccessful Thames 
 Tunnel, due to the genius of Brunel at a later date. 
 
 Taking the dividing-point between the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries, it may be interesting to 
 know that down to that date about 150 acts of 
 parliament had been obtained for making, altering, 
 and amending canals in Great Britain, authorising 
 an expenditure of 12,000,000/, and relating to a 
 length of about 2600 miles of inland navigation. 
 Some of these canals rose to a height of success 
 quite sufficient to incite speculators to the planning 
 of new schemes in districts where the prospect 
 of remuneration was very slight; and thus it 
 happened that while the 1407, shares of the 
 Wednesbury Canal rose to a market-price of 11701, 
 and the 100/. shares of the Birmingham Canal to 
 the price of 1000/—other canals barely paid their 
 working expenses. 
 
 During the first fifteen years of the present cen- 
 tury, the mileage of new canals constructed was 
 relatively small—not for want of will or of capital 
 —but simply because the country had become ~ 
 intersected with a network of inland navigation 
 in all directions, and very little more was required. 
 The quantity newly constructed was about 420 
 
 EE reece eee ene Oe RU EEEEEIREEIAED 
 
828 
 
 miles. When that was completed, engineers were 
 able to assert that no place south of Durham, 
 throughout the whole of England, was more than 
 fifteen miles distant from water-communication. 
 Every considerable town, by the end of this period, 
 possessed uninterrupted communication with the 
 principal markets for its manufactured goods, and 
 with the sources whence its raw materials for 
 manufacture, and the supplies of food and other 
 necessaries for its population, were chiefly derived. 
 A desire for railways afterwards sprang up, not 
 because there were no channels of communication, 
 but because canals were too slow for convenient 
 passenger-traffic, and in some cases too dear for 
 goods-traffic. Down to the beginning of the present 
 century, the canals had been mostly confined to 
 the level districts ; but the merchants of Hull and 
 Liverpool had long desired a means of communi- 
 cation for goods, and the manufacturers of cotton 
 in Lancashire and of woollens in Yorkshire equally 
 desired easy access to the agricultural counties 
 where they could sell their cloth and buy their 
 corn. Here, however, the engineers had to 
 encounter the “backbone of England,” that ele- 
 vation which becomes so marked at the south 
 and south-west of Yorkshire; search where 
 they might, they could not canal across this 
 ridge without a series of ascents by locks, then 
 piercing by a tunnel, and then descending by 
 another series of locks. Notwithstanding these 
 difficulties, three great lines of canal were con- 
 structed—the Rochdale, rising to an elevation of 
 600 feet, and having width and depth sufficient to 
 receive vessels from the tideways of the Humber 
 and the Mersey ; the Huddersfield, less capacious, 
 but still more remarkable for its ascent and 
 its summit tunnel; and the Leeds and Liver- 
 pool, the longest route of the three, but less 
 encumbered by locks and tunnels. ‘Two other 
 important canals, but in the south of England, 
 were the Grand Junction, aiding with its branches 
 to connect the metropolis with the manufacturing 
 districts; and the Kennet and Avon, completing 
 a water-communication from the metropolis to 
 Bath and Bristol. 
 
 Scotland, by the aid of the government, com- 
 menced a great work of inland navigation during 
 this period, in the construction of the Caledonian 
 Canal. A board of commissioners was appointed 
 especially to superintend the work, with Telford 
 as engineer. Across Scotland from north-east to 
 south-west, extends a remarkable depression called 
 the Great Glen, occupied in part by a series of 
 small lakes. Telford’s plan consisted in con- 
 necting these lakes by an artificial channel 
 wide and deep enough for a ship-canal, to extend 
 right across the country from coast to coast, and 
 thus obviate the necessity of voyaging round the 
 dangerous north coast of Scotland. It was a 
 stupendous work ; the navigable channel was made 
 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep throughout, with 
 locks 180 feet long by 40 feet wide. This remark- 
 able work, however, has not rendered any great 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 service to Scotland; it passes through a thinly 
 inhabited region, with few valuable minerals, and 
 few manufactures ; its success was interfered with, 
 too, by canals further south, of which the Forth 
 and Clyde has already been mentioned, and among 
 which we must now include the Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow. In reference to Ireland, Mr. Nimmo, 
 the eminent engineer, giving evidence before the 
 House of Commons many years afterwards, stated 
 that the inland navigations of that country were 
 “chiefly remarkable for being undertaken, not to 
 facilitate any existing trade, but chiefly to pro- 
 mote agriculture in the fertile districts of the 
 interior, to create a trade where none had pre- 
 viously existed, and to furnish employment for 
 the poor. ‘The success in this way has been 
 wonderful ; and though the adventurers have not 
 yet been repaid, and perhaps never will be, the 
 benefit to the public and landed property of the 
 kingdom has been great and manifest. The 
 nation has been saved the payment of a bounty of 
 100,000/. per annum for bringing corn to Dublin ; 
 
 for in place of this being the case, that city has 
 
 now become one of the first corn-ports of Europe.* 
 Steam-engine : Steam-navigation.—The inventions 
 of James Watt having been described in a previous 
 
 —N 
 
 —$—NV_ 
 —— SN 
 —— 
 aS 
 
 ASSAY 
 “A SEES 
 <4 
 
 il 
 
 James Warr, 
 
 volume,t it is only necessary in this place to notice 
 a few facts concerning the development of the 
 system which he commenced. Watt, like other 
 men, found moral difficulties less easy to overcome 
 than physical, Although he obtained, in 1775, an 
 extension of his patent for twenty-five years, he 
 was incessantly exposed to annoyance, either from 
 litigious persons who disputed his rightful claims, 
 
 or from machinists and manufacturers, who ayailed — 
 
 themselves of his inventions without paying him 
 for them. A long array of eminent men—Herschel, 
 Deluc, Ramsden, Robison, Rennie, Murdoch, Roy, 
 Mylne, and others—defended Watt, and _ bore 
 
 evidence in courts of justice to the originality of — 
 
 * In Ireland, as in England, the canals are now (1858) rapidly 
 passing into the hands of the railway companies, at a fixed rental— 
 either to be converted into railways, or to be used for heavy 
 mineral and goods traffic, as a means of relieving the rails. 
 
 + Vol. v., pp. 474-478. 
 
Crap. XI.] 
 
 his inventions ; nevertheless, obscurer men, influ- 
 enced by self-interest, disputed all they could, and 
 eyaded that which they could not dispute. Mild 
 and amiable as he was, seven years of litigation 
 occasioned Watt such deep vexation, that he some- 
 times expressed himself in terms which indicate 
 his sense of the injustice done to him. “ We have 
 been so beset with plagiaries,’ he observes, in a 
 letter to Dr. Black quoted by Arago, “that, if I 
 had not a very good memory of my doing it, their 
 impudent assertions would lead me to doubt 
 whether I was the author of ary improvement 
 in the steam-engine; and the ill-will of those 
 we have most essentially served, whether such 
 improvements have not been highly prejudicial 
 to the commonwealth.” When the opposition 
 on the plea of want of originality or merit was 
 completely silenced, a fresh attack was made on 
 the rights of the patentees, under pretence that 
 Watt’s written description of his invention, given 
 at the time of obtaining his first patent, was 
 imperfect. Watt did not pretend to be the inventor 
 of the steam-engine, but of certain improvements 
 in its construction—of which the principal were the 
 closing of the cylinder, so as to prevent the influx 
 of cold air; and the adoption of a separate vessel 
 for condensing the steam, so that the cylinder 
 might not be cooled by that operation. He did 
 not, in his patents, overrate his rightful claims ; 
 but his opponents chose to seek for loopholes 
 where none existed. Amid all his harassing 
 conflicts, however, Watt realised a fortune, and 
 retired in 1800, leaving the Soho works to his 
 son and the son of his friend and _ partner, 
 Matthew. Boulton. 
 
 In its practical application, the steam-engine 
 was first extensively employed in manufactures 
 in the cotton-spinning trade about 1790. Down 
 to the close of the century, however, and to the 
 expiry of Watt's patent, the steam-engines mostly 
 employed were those on Savary and Newcomen’s 
 principles, Stuart estimates that, in 1800, there 
 was not more than 600 horse-power of Watt’s 
 engines employed in London, 450 in Manchester, 
 300 at Leeds, and a small amount elsewhere ; but 
 within five years after that date, the number of 
 Watt’s engines in London was doubled; and so 
 far was the termination of the patent rights from 
 checking the operations at the Soho factory, that 
 more engines were made there than before, The 
 trade then went on at a stupendous rate, until at 
 length steam-power became applied to almost 
 eyery species of textile, metallic, and mineral 
 manufactures. 
 
 Notwithstanding the previous completion of 
 those grand features of the modern steam-engine 
 by which it was rendered available as a prime 
 mover of machinery, many important improve- 
 ments were introduced during the period now 
 under. notice, tending to increase its efficiency, to 
 adapt it to new purposes, and to lessen the con- 
 sumption of fuel required to produce a given 
 effect. No more striking illustration could be 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 829 
 
 adduced of the progress effected in the latter 
 branch of improvement than that afforded by the 
 progressive increase of duty, or amount of work 
 done by the consumption of a given amount of 
 fuel, of the steam-engines engaged in draining the 
 Cornish mines. The Cornish engineers were 
 impelled, more than those engaged in the north 
 of England, to study economy in the working of 
 their engines, owing to the expense of transporting 
 coal to that county, and to the increasing depths 
 of the copper and tin mines. The augmentation 
 of power in proportion to the consumption of fuel 
 was less the result of any one grand improvement, 
 than of the combination of a great number of 
 minor ameliorations in the details of working, 
 attributable to the successful application of know- 
 ledge derived from practical experience. Besides 
 this improvement, there was an important advance 
 made in the introduction of Azgh-pressure steam- 
 engines, in which the steam is heated to a higher 
 degree, and raised to greater elasticity, than in 
 those on the low-pressure system. There is here 
 no condensation to produce a partial vacuum in the 
 cylinder; but the mechanical effect is produced 
 solely by the preponderance of the steam-pressure 
 over that of the atmosphere. The advantages 
 consist in the comparative simplicity, lightness, 
 and compactness—qualities which render it pecu- 
 liarly applicable to locomotive purposes, and in 
 cases where saving of space is important. Watt 
 distrusted the high-pressure system, partly on 
 account of the danger from bursting; but Trevi- 
 thick and Vivian, in their endeavours to produce 
 a steam-engine adapted for locomotive purposes, 
 made such improvements as rendered the high- 
 pressure engine a valuable addition to the avail- 
 able machinery of the country. When Watt’s 
 patent expired, throwing open his inventions to 
 public use, many schemes were brought forward 
 in which some features of his machine were 
 combined with others belonging more particu- 
 larly to high-pressure engines. Such was especially 
 the case in a steam-engine introduced in 1804 by 
 Arthur Woolfe. 
 
 One of the greatest applications of steam-power 
 to useful purposes—steam-navigation—had its 
 birth in the period to which this chapter relates : 
 a system destined to link together distant nations 
 in an extraordinary degree. Like most great 
 inventions, this had a small beginning, or rather 
 a series of small beginnings: so many inventors 
 contributed, that it is not easy to apportion among 
 them the honour equitably due. 
 
 It appears that in the year 1786, Mr. Patrick 
 Miller, a banker of Edinburgh, who had a country- 
 house at Dalswinton in Nithsdale, after speculating 
 on the possibility of navigating a vessel by some 
 more certain mechanical means than oars or sails, 
 constructed a small triple vessel at Leith, having 
 rotatory paddles in the two interspaces, driven by 
 a crank wrought by four men. Mr. Taylor, a 
 preceptor to one of Miller’s sons, observing how 
 great a muscular force was required to work 
 
830 
 
 the crank, suggested that the steam-engine might 
 possibly be available for this purpose. Miller, 
 struck with the idea, resolved to test it; and 
 Taylor, at his request, engaged the services of 
 William Symington, an ingenious mechanic of 
 Edinburgh who had patented an improvement in 
 the steam-engine, George Watt, a brassfounder in 
 the same city, was employed to make a small 
 engine with four-inch brass cylinders. A boat was 
 built, something like two boats laid side by side, 
 about twenty-five feet long; the boat and the 
 engine were taken to Dalswinton, and there fitted 
 and launched on a small lake near the house. On 
 the 14th of October 1788, this little vessel made 
 its first voyage—the first steam-voyage of which 
 there is any unquestioned evidence. It is true 
 that Jonathan Hulls, in 1736, had contemplated 
 some such a contrivance; that the Abbé Arnal 
 and the Marquis de Jouffroy had made some 
 experiments to the same end in France in 1781; 
 that in 1783 Mr. Fitch began a little steam-boat 
 in America; and that soon afterwards Rumsey 
 endeavoured to alter and adapt Fitch’s plan ; but 
 the united labours of Miller, Taylor, and Syming- 
 ton produced the first steamer which was felt to 
 be fitted for automatic propulsion. In 1789 
 Miller caused a double-vessel, sixty feet long, to be 
 sent to Carron, and there fitted up, under Syming- 
 ton’s care, with a steam-engine of eighteen-inch 
 cylinders; and on Christmas-day, in the same 
 year, this vessel was propelled by steam on the 
 Forth and Clyde Canal, at the rate of seven miles 
 an hour. Miller applying his thoughts and his 
 fortune to other objects, and Taylor being neither 
 a mechanician nor a man of capital, both with- 
 drew from the project after this ; but Symington, 
 practically engaged in such matters, took out a 
 patent for the construction of steam-boats in 1801. 
 In 1803, he fitted up a steamer for the Forth and 
 Clyde Canal Company; it was called the ‘ Char- 
 lotte Dundas, and towed two vessels very success- 
 fully ; but the agitation of the water washed down 
 the banks to such a damaging extent, that the 
 Company at once abandoned this new mode of 
 propulsion. 
 
 So far as concerns any immediate results, the 
 remarkable labours of these three men fell to the 
 ground; but there were two other inventors, 
 Henry Bell and Robert Fulton, who were watch- 
 ing the proceedings, and who did not allow the 
 enterprise to remain fruitless, Henry Bell, first a 
 mason, and then an engineer of humble grade at 
 Glasgow, had been one of the witnesses at Carron, 
 in 1789, of Symington’s arrangements for Millev’s 
 second steamer, Fourteen years afterwards, when 
 Symington’s inventions and plans appear to have 
 come to an end, Bell thought over what he had 
 seen in those days, and conversed on the matter 
 with Robert Fulton. This Fulton, born in 
 America of Scottish parents, was originally a 
 painter, then a draughtsman engaged in sketching 
 machinery; but being a man of great ingenuity 
 and energy of mind, he turned his attention to 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox x, 
 
 mechanical inventions, He had thought of steam 
 as a motive- power in 1793; and became asso- 
 ciated some years afterwards with Livingston, a 
 countryman of his, in an attempt to work a patent 
 for such an object—but without success. It was 
 in 1803, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde 
 Canal, that Bell and Fulton stood together con- 
 templating the poor deserted little steamer ‘ Char- 
 lotte Dundas,’ which had lain in that spot ten 
 years; and Bell at the same time communicated to 
 Fulton drawings of the machinery that had been 
 employed, which drawings he had obtained from 
 Miller or Symington, or both. From that year 
 Bell and Fulton worked independently each in his 
 own country, and apparently without much com- 
 munication. It now remains to shew how much 
 those two men effected. 
 
 Bell, very illiterate, but full of ingenuity, con- 
 ceived the idea of establishing regular pleasure- 
 boats from Glasgow to Helensburgh, a watering- 
 place on the Clyde opposite Greenock; and at that 
 time the place of his residence; he owned a hotel 
 at Helensburgh, to which he wished to attract 
 Glasgow visitors. He made several models of 
 steam-boats; and having selected one, caused a 
 steamer to be built by Messrs. Wood of Port- 
 Glasgow. This little vessel, called the ‘Comet, 
 was 25 tons burthen, 40 feet keel, 10 feet 6 inches 
 beam, and fitted with a steam-engine and paddles, 
 In January 1808 this ‘ Comet’—unquestionably 
 the first river-steamer seen in the old world, built 
 and intended for passenger-traffic—began its plying 
 on the Clyde; she bore up bravely against the 
 tides and streams, but not against the opposition 
 of coach-owners and fly-boat drivers. Bell lost — 
 money, and his little vessel was beaten off, He 
 then employed it as a jaunting-boat along the 
 coasts of Britain and Ireland, to display the advan- 
 tage of steam-navigation over sailing. Many years 
 afterwards the ‘Comet’ was wrecked, and another 
 vessel owned by Bell burned ; he fell into poverty, 
 and was assisted by a small pension from the 
 trustees of the Clyde Navigation. Long after his 
 death, a small obelisk to his memory was erected 
 on the north bank of the Clyde; but it was still 
 longer ere his name occupied a proper place among 
 those who had benefited mankind by applying the 
 steam-engine to the purposes of navigation. 
 
 Meanwhile Robert Fulton had been oireotiea 
 much more than was possible to Henry Bell. 
 Being in Paris with Livingston in 1803, he experi- — 
 mented on a new steam-boat, which, but for a 
 slight accident, promised well ; he then visited — 
 Scotland and conversed with Bell ; and having 
 stored his mind with a number of useful facts, 
 he ordered a steam-engine from Boulton and wa 
 and caused it to be sent over to America, where 
 he renewed his study of steam-navigation with — 
 admirable energy. He commenced building a new . 
 steam-boat at New York in 1806; it was launched | 
 in 1807, named the ‘Clermont, fitted with the | 
 Soho engines, and started on its career. Fulton | 
 ‘Clermont’ preceded Bell’s ‘Comet’ in the ili) 
 
 | 
 
 | 
 
 é | 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 of time, and excelled it in efficiency. It made 
 a yoyage from New York to Albany, along 145 
 
 Rospert Furton, 
 
 miles of the river Hudson, at the rate of five miles 
 an hour; the column of flame and sparks, occa- 
 sioned by the use of dry pine-wood for fuel, escap- 
 ing from the funnel, frightened the inhabitants 
 of the villages on either bank, many of whom 
 had never seen a steam-engine—they saw only a 
 monster moving on the waters in defiance of wind 
 and tide. The crews of the sailing-vessels who 
 passed the ‘ Clermont’ on the first night, “ when it 
 came so near that the noise of the machinery 
 and paddles were heard, in some instances shrank 
 beneath their decks from the terrific sight ; others 
 left their vessels to go on shore; while others 
 again prostrated themselves, and besought Provi- 
 dence to protect them from the approach of the 
 horrible monster which was marching on the 
 tides, and lighting its path by the fires which it 
 vomited.” * 
 
 The die was now cast. The Scottish inventors 
 had shown that a paddle-wheel steamer can work 
 by its automatic action on lake, canal, and river ; 
 and Fulton had shown that a long voyage can 
 safely be made on a broad river by similar means. 
 All that remained was to follow in the same course, 
 improving wherever and whenever improvement 
 suggested itself.t 
 
 Although Henry Bell was not so fortunate as to 
 reap profit from his ‘Comet, his enterprise sug- 
 gested profitable plans to others. In March 1812 
 an engineer named Thompson, who had assisted 
 Bell in his labours, began to construct the 
 ‘ Hlizabeth,’ a steamer which proved far more 
 
 * Colden’s Life of Fulton. 
 
 + From the beginning of the century down to the present time 
 (1858) there has been much controversy touching the relative 
 merits of the inventors named in the text. Miller, Taylor, 
 Symington, Bell, Livingston, and Fulton, have all had their advo- 
 cates, some of whom have dealt harshly with the claims of all but 
 their favourite heroes. It is evident, however, that there was no 
 one inventor of steam-nayigation. Taylor would appear to have 
 effected least of the six, but it would be difficult to say who effected 
 most. The Americans, of course, award the palm of merit to 
 Fulton. In Britain, it has often been felt that the Scottish 
 inventors have not yet had due national recognition of their 
 services, : 
 
 a eT TA 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 831 
 
 efficient than the ‘Comet. So rapidly did the 
 system extend, that Mr. Robertson Buchanan, a 
 Scottish engineer who wrote on the propulsion of 
 vessels by steam, thus spoke of Clyde-steaming as 
 it existed about the close of the present period: 
 “ The number of passengers which now go in these 
 boats may seem incredible to those who have not 
 witnessed it. Travelling by land has not only 
 been in a great measure superseded, but the com- 
 munication very greatly increased, owing to the 
 cheapness and facility of the conveyance. Before 
 the introduction of steam-boats, the whole number 
 of passengers in the common passage-boats did 
 not, it is supposed, even in summer, exceed fifty up 
 and fifty down, and those generally of the lower 
 classes of people. The number that then went 
 daily by coaches has been estimated at twenty-four 
 persons up and the same number down. But now, 
 in fine weather, it is no uncommon thing for five 
 or six hundred passengers to go and come in the 
 same day. One of these boats has been known to 
 carry 247 at one time.” 
 
 Nor was any considerable time allowed to 
 elapse before other rivers were ploughed by the 
 steam-engine. As early as 1811, an engineer 
 named Dawson constructed a small steam-vessel 
 in Ireland; and in 1813 he placed the first steamer 
 on the Thames, with a route from London 
 to Gravesend; but the boat thus employed, not 
 being profitable on the Thames, was removed to 
 the Spanish coast, where it plied between Seville 
 and San Lucar. Another boat, the ‘ Margery, 
 built at Port Glasgow, was transferred to the 
 Thames, and afterwards plied on the Seine near 
 Paris. Four or five steamers were employed upon 
 the Thames in 1815, one plying as far as Margate. 
 
 One of the most remarkable achievements in 
 steam-navigation at that early period was a bold 
 and perilous voyage made by Mr. Dodd, a man 
 full of ability, but unsuccessful in his attempts 
 to better his condition thereby. Having served in 
 the royal navy, and being in London in 1815, an 
 application was made to him to navigate a steamer 
 from the Qlyde to the Thames—an enterprise in 
 steaming far beyond anything that had been up 
 to that time attempted. There had been launched 
 at. Glasgow, two years before, a small steamer of 
 seventy tons burthen, called the ‘ Argyle,’ with 
 seventy-nine feet keel, sixteen feet beam, engines 
 of fourteen horse-power, paddle-wheels of nine 
 feet diameter, two cabins, a funnel that served 
 also as a mast, and a projecting gallery upon 
 which the cabin-windows looked out—altogether 
 a vessel of very superior build for those days. 
 After running for more than a year on the Clyde, 
 the ‘Argyle’ was purchased by a London com- 
 pany to ply on the Margate route; and it was 
 to bring this steamer from Glasgow to London that 
 Dodd’s services were required. He appears to 
 have been known as an ingenious man as well 
 as a naval officer, for it was he who planned the 
 original Thames tunnel from Gravesend to Tilbury ; 
 indeed he was a sailor, engineer, and architect all 
 
832 
 
 in one—just the person to attempt schemes out of 
 
 the common order. All arrangements being made, 
 Dodd steamed forth from Glasgow about the 
 middle of May, the ‘ Argyle’—now changed in 
 name to the ‘ Thames ’—being manned by himself, 
 a mate, an engineer, four seamen, and a cabin- 
 boy. The weather was stormy, the sea ran high 
 in the strait which separates Scotland from 
 Ireland, and the voyage was full of danger ; the 
 steamer was nearly cast on a lee-shore near Port- 
 patrick, and did not reach Dublin till the 24th. 
 Here the vessel became an object of great interest 
 and curiosity ; and among those who went to see 
 it was Mr. Weld, afterwards secretary to the 
 Royal Society; he resolved, with his wife, to 
 accompany Dodd in the remainder of the voyage 
 to London ; and it is to his pen that we owe an 
 account of the trip. The necessary preparations 
 were much more than, forty years afterwards, 
 would have been made for a voyage to America. 
 On May the 28th they started, reached Wexford 
 on the next day, steamed off again on the 30th, 
 and reached Milford Haven after a series of perils 
 and disasters. Dodd had here the pride of show- 
 ing what steam could effect against sails. As they 
 were steaming up the harbour they met the govern- 
 ment mail-packet proceeding from Milford Haven 
 to Waterford, with all sails spread ; they had passed 
 her about a quarter of a mile, when Dodd deter- 
 mined to send some letters by her to Ireland ; 
 the ‘Thames’ was immediately put about, and 
 in a few minutes was alongside the packet-ship, 
 and steamed completely round her. Late on the 
 evening of the 3lst they started again; they 
 stopped at St. Ives, then at Hayle, then doubled 
 the Land’s End amid terrible hazards, and came to 
 anchor in Plymouth harbour on the 6th of June. 
 At every point where they approached the coast, 
 the smoke issuing from the funnel led the specta- 
 tors to believe that the ship was on fire, while 
 many were sorely perplexed to divine how she 
 was propelled. “All the rocks commanding St, 
 Ives,” Mr. Weld states, “were covered with spec- 
 tators ; and when we entered the harbour, the 
 aspect of our vessel appeared to occasion as much 
 surprise amongst the inhabitants as the ships of 
 Captain Cook produced among the islanders of the 
 South Sea. This was no novelty to us; for wher- 
 ever we had coasted along, we were the object 
 of equal astonishment.’ At Plymouth, and again 
 at Portsmouth, the naval authorities examined the 
 stranger vessel with intense curiosity, and a few 
 among them pondered on the possibility of such a 
 moving power being one day available for war- 
 ships. On one day, at Portsmouth, four admirals 
 and eighteen post-captains visited the steamer in a 
 body. The voyagers reached Margate on the 11th 
 of June, and London on the 12th. It was found 
 that the little steamer had consumed a ton of coals 
 for every hundred miles of distance. Thus ended 
 
 the first steam-voyage made in the open sea, 
 except a short trip along the sea-board of America 
 made by Stevens. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 chapter relates, that Mr. David Napier of Glasgow 
 made those great improvements which rendered 
 steaming in the open sea not only practicable, but 
 highly profitable and convenient. His steam-routes 
 between Greenock and Belfast, Holyhead and Dublin, 
 and Liverpool and Dublin, were the forerunners 
 
 It was not until after the period to which this — 
 
 of the great enterprises which resulted in ocean- — 
 
 steaming to America, to India, and to Australia, 
 Collieries: Gas-lighting: Mining—The progress 
 of English coal-mining was closely connected 
 with the development of new pits, and—as has 
 already been implied—the means of locomotion 
 from the pits to the places of consumption. Few 
 things appear to have struck the French traveller 
 Saint-Fond more than the activity of the English 
 in raising and distributing the produce of their 
 collierics ; he endeavoured to rouse his country- 
 men to a just sense of the benefits which they 
 might derive from their own deposits of mineral 
 fuel, even though its general use should put the 
 “fashionables of Paris, like those of London, to 
 the trouble of changing their linen twice a day.” 
 The collieries of the Newcastle district had already 
 in his day become the source of an extensive and 
 profitable foreign commerce; and hundreds of 
 coal-ships had become available as_ privateers 
 during war. Macpherson gives, on the authority 
 of published letters addressed to Pitt, a summary 
 of the persons employed in the collieries of the 
 Tyne district, and in the trade connected with 
 them ; from which it appears that, in 1792, the 
 pit-men, tram-men, staith-men, coal-boatmen or 
 keel-men, crews of colliery-ships, coal-factors and 
 merchants, clerks and agents, lighter-men, and 
 others who derived a living from employment in 
 the coal-trade, were nearly 22,000 in number. 
 The numbers on the Wear were at the same time 
 estimated at 15,000 ; in Cumberland and in Scot- 
 land, 6000—making 43,000 persons altogether. 
 These do not include the families of the persons 
 employed. The capital invested in the Tyne 
 coal-trade alone was roughly estimated at three 
 millions sterling. The quantity of coal sent to 
 London rose from 750,000 chaldrons in 1786 to 
 900,000 chaldrons in 1800. Saint-Fond makes 
 some remarks on the methods adopted for con- 
 verting to a profitable use the coal-dust which 
 accumulated in immense quantities at the pits— 
 even after kilns and forges had been supplied. — 
 The pulverised coal was employed by taking 
 advantage of its agglutinating properties, and 
 converting it into coke, which was then used for 
 chamber-fires as well as in the manufacture of 
 iron. <A patent for coke-making was granted to 
 
 the Earl of Dundonald in 1785; and large estab- — 
 lishments for working the patent were opened at — 
 It was not only — 
 coke that was thus made, but coal-tar produced: — 
 
 Bradley, Tipton, and Dudley. 
 
 the coal-owners gave the coal, and the patentees — 
 
 gave their labour: the one was repaid by receiving — 
 all the coke made, and the other by receiving all 
 
 the tar distilled. 
 
 : 
 
 F 
 
 * 
 
 . 
 ‘ 
 ] 
 | 
 
 ¥ 
 
 . 
 f 
 1 
 d 
 } 
 : 
 
 ‘ 
 ) 
 
Cuar. XI. ] 
 
 Advancing to the nineteenth century, we find 
 colliery operations to have been marked by many 
 improvements, especially in the lighting and 
 ventilating of mines. Dr. Ure states that before 
 the steam-engine was applied to the drainage of 
 collieries and to the extraction of the coal, the 
 excavations were of such limited extent, that 
 when the inflammable air accumulated, it was 
 usual to fire it every morning. When the shafts, 
 galleries, and adits became more extensive, there 
 was gradually introduced the improved system of 
 sending a current of air down a vertical shaft, 
 forcing it through every gallery from end to end, 
 and affording it an outlet up another vertical shaft: 
 the air thus carrying with it any deleterious or 
 explosive gases met with in its course through 
 the mines. Mr. Buddle, about 1807, introduced a 
 further improvement, by so dividing the current 
 of air into two parts, that one should afford fresh 
 ventilation to the miners in the clean workings, 
 while the other traversed the foul workings and 
 carried off the dangerous gases. No system of 
 ventilation, however, could carry off these gases 
 so completely as to obviate danger from lighted 
 lamps or candles: hence, as the miners require 
 artificial light to work with, there arose a question 
 how to make the light innocuous. Public sym- 
 pathy had often been directed towards the sufferers 
 by colliery explosions; but it was not until after 
 a terrible calamity at the Felling Colliery, near 
 Newcastle, in 1812, that engineers and scientific 
 men sought in earnest for a remedy. Sir Hum- 
 phry Davy, in a course of scientific experiment, 
 observed these two facts—that explosive gases 
 require a heat greater than that of red-hot iron 
 to inflame them ; and that they cannot be ignited 
 through metallic tubes or apertures of very small 
 diameter. Extending his researches, he found 
 that cold or unignited gas could pass through fine 
 wire-gauze, whereas the same gas when inflamed 
 could not so pass. Armed with this knowledge, 
 he produced a simple, cheap, and easily managed 
 lamp, the flame of which was surrounded by a 
 cylindrical cage of wire-gauze, accurately closed in 
 at top and bottom, so as to prevent the admission 
 of air excepting through its meshes or interstices. 
 Provided with this apparatus, the miner was 
 enabled fearlessly to enter workings of the most 
 dangerous character; while the ignition of such 
 inflammable gas as might happen to pass through 
 the wire-gauze into the cage of the lamp gave him 
 an accurate knowledge of the extent to which 
 the air was impregnated with fire-damp, and 
 warned him when it was prudent to retire. But 
 great as was this improvement, it did not pre- 
 vent awful disasters: the colliery accidents were 
 lessened in number, not wholly prevented. The 
 wire-gauze was not found quite safe when the 
 fire-damp was driven against it in a brisk current; 
 but a far more serious cause of mischief was due 
 to the unwillingness of the miners to use the 
 Davy lamp, because it required more care, and 
 because it emitted less light than an open candle. 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 835 
 
 This capital invention, the result of highly 
 scientific inquiries, was marked by an episode at 
 once pleasant and painful. George Stephenson 
 produced a safety-lamp at the same time as Davy, 
 highly creditable to his sagacious ingenuity, but 
 productive of a long series of disputes between 
 the two inventors and their respective friends. In 
 August, 1815, a committee of coal-owners at 
 Sunderland invited Davy to apply his great powers 
 to the discovery of some kind of lamp which, 
 while giving sufficient light to the pitmen, might 
 be safe from explosion: he did so; he devised his 
 truly scientific lamp, slightly described it to a 
 friend in October, and published a full description 
 in November. Stephenson, knowing nothing of 
 Davy or his labours, had long been speculating on 
 the mischief of fire-damp. He was wont, to the 
 great terror of the pit-men, to experiment on the 
 “blowers,” or currents of impure air; holding 
 lighted candles at various distances, to ascertain 
 the effects of the gas on the flame and the flame 
 on the gas. On the 2ist of October he first used 
 a new lamp which he had contrived; on the 4th 
 of November, a second ; and on the 30th, a third— 
 embodying, especially in the last instance, some 
 such principle as that of Davy’s. The “ Davy” 
 and the “ Geordy,” as the two lamps became soon 
 called by the miners, both depended on the 
 peculiar action of small apertures upon flame; 
 but Sir Humphry and his friends indignantly 
 denied the rights of Stephenson as an inventor ; 
 they implied, if not openly asserted, that the great 
 chemist alone had discovered the principle and 
 invented the apparatus, and that the humble 
 colliery engineer was only a borrower. The 
 sterling character of Stephenson, however, and the 
 collected facts of the case,* render this plagiarism 
 improbable; Stephenson began and finished his 
 experiments without any knowledge of Davy’s 
 proceedings. 
 
 It is to the cheapness and abundance of our coal 
 that we owe the invaluable system of gas-lighting 
 introduced during the period now under notice, 
 Small jets from coal-gas were doubtless pro- 
 duced much earlier ; but it is supposed that coal- 
 gas was first applied practically to the lighting of 
 buildings in 1792, by Mr. William Murdoch, the 
 Cornish engineer already mentioned. Ten years 
 afterwards Mr. Murdoch lighted with gas Messrs, 
 Boulton and Watt’s establishment at Soho, at a 
 féte in commemoration of the peace. In the year 
 1804 the art became practised as a regular system, 
 by the substitution of gas for oil in the lighting of 
 some of the Manchester cotton-factories. About 
 the same time an enterprising German, named 
 Winsor, endeavoured to attract public attention to 
 the advantages of the new light for illuminating 
 the streets of London ; he lighted Pall Mall with 
 gas, formed a company, raised a fund upon shares, 
 and spent all his own money as well as the com- 
 pany’s without profitable result, The experience, 
 
 * Smiles, Life of George ae 
 
834 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 however, was not lost; another gas-company, 
 under efficient management, was chartered in 
 1813; and from that year the great system of 
 gas-lighting extended with rapidity—first to the 
 various districts of London, then to provincial 
 towns, and then to foreign states—such of them, 
 at least, as could procure coal at a sufficiently low 
 price. 
 
 Considerable improvements in the operation of 
 mining, and in the machinery employed for 
 extracting, dressing, and preparing mineral pro- 
 ducts for use, were made in the earlier years of 
 the present century. In coal-mines, besides the 
 advancements already noticed, there was a most 
 profitable change introduced by supporting the 
 roofs of the workings with timber pillars, instead 
 of leaving more than half the coal untouched to 
 prevent the passages from falling in. 
 
 Connected with copper-mining in Cornwall, 
 scarcely any improvement had been wrought 
 throughout the eighteenth century, except in the 
 use of the steam-engine: each miner dug or 
 dressed the ore as his father had been wont to do 
 before him. Several distinct benefits, however, 
 afterwards arose one by one, as the ingenuity 
 of practical men became applied to the subject. 
 By the adoption of steam-power, much manual 
 labour was saved, depths and distances before 
 unattainable were reached, and the working 
 operations were cheapened; by improved ven- 
 tilation, men were enabled to work eight hours 
 per day in the mines, instead of six as before; 
 by increased mechanical power, the mine-owners 
 were enabled to work many veins in the same 
 mine at one time, instead of confining their 
 operations to two or three; by extending the 
 working operations, many mines rose from 500 to 
 1500 tons of ore per month as an average produce, 
 without any additional expenses for draining or 
 for management. Originally, the mine-owners 
 imported coal into Cornwall, and smelted the 
 copper ore on the spot; but the cost of this was 
 so high, that a cheaper system became desirable ; 
 there consequently arose the plan, ever since 
 adopted, of sending from Swansea and other ports 
 in South Wales just sufficient coal to supply the 
 general wants of Cornwall, and bringing back the 
 copper ore from Cornwall to Swansea to be 
 smelted. Under this improved arrangement, the 
 smelters are not merely the agents or servants of 
 the mine-owners ; they buy the ore absolutely, at 
 periodical sales in several Cornish towns, and then 
 sell the purified metal to copper-merchants and 
 manufacturers after the smelting processes have 
 been completed. 
 
 Mr, Arthur Aikin, in 1797, published a very 
 full account of the Parys copper-mines near 
 Amlwch in North Wales ; from which it appears 
 that the poorer ores were smelted at Amlwch, 
 while those of richer quality were sent to furnaces 
 belonging to the same company at Swansea and 
 near Liverpool. There were 1200 miners at the 
 works, who produced from 20,000 to 40,000 tons 
 
 annually, Among the adjuncts to the copper- 
 works was a manufactory for producing sulphur 
 from the impurities of the copper ore ; and vitriol 
 and alum were also made. Aikin spoke highly of 
 the Amlwch people. “The favourable opinion 
 which I was led to entertain of them, on first visit- 
 ing the town last year, is confirmed by what I 
 have observed at present. Not a single instance 
 have I known of drunkenness, not one quarrel 
 have I witnessed during two very crowded market- 
 days, and one of them a day of unusual indulgence, 
 that I passed at this place; and I believe no jail 
 or bridewell or house of confinement exists in the 
 town or neighbourhood. Most of the miners are 
 Methodists ; and to the prevalence of this religious 
 sect is chiefly to be attributed the good order that 
 is so conspicuous.’’ * 
 
 The Cornish mines produced ore yielding about 
 5000 tons of pure copper annually ; and the pro- 
 duce in other parts of the kingdom was such that 
 England, after supplying all home wants, had 
 much to sell to the foreigner. In 1799 there were 
 sixty copper-mines in Cornwall, many of them 
 newly established ; and others in Devonshire were 
 growing into importance. The copper and brass 
 goods imported were worth above half a million 
 sterling. The price of refined copper varied in 
 different years from 80/, to 120/. per ton, according 
 to the relation between supply and demand ; in 
 dear years, the Birmingham metal-workers were 
 very importunate to obtain a restriction on the 
 exportation of copper; while in cheap years, the 
 copper trade cried out for facilities of export 
 —an old struggle, observable in all our great 
 manufactures at all times. 
 
 Considerable changes took place in the British 
 tin-trade towards the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, at which time the produce of the mines was 
 gradually increasing. An increase in the supply, 
 and an importation of Banca tin, brought down 
 the price greatly ; and the Cornish mine-owners 
 began to complain ; but a revival took place about 
 1790, consequent on an engagement of the East 
 India Company to purchase a quantity of British 
 tin annually, for export to India and China. 
 This proved very profitable, and Cornwall hailed 
 
 a omen 
 SE 
 
 the novelty with enthusiasm ; the price of refined || 
 
 tin rose from 58s. to 72s. per cwt. 
 tin in 1791 produced 200,0002. The East India 
 Company raised their offer gradually from 60s. to 
 75s. per cwt. As the most accessible portions of 
 ore were those first operated upon by the miners, 
 it became necessary, in order to meet the con- 
 
 tinued and increasing demand for tin, to go deeper | 
 
 The Cornish — } 
 
 era's re : 
 
 and deeper, and often to work mines under | 
 circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger; _ 
 sometimes in situations where nothing but the — 
 gigantic power of the steam-engine could prevent | 
 the works from being overwhelmed by the influx | 
 of water from springs or from the sea. The Wherry — 
 
 tin-mine, sunk in the sea itself near Penzance, was 
 
 * Journal of a Tour through North Wales and Part of Shropshire. 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 a striking instance of a struggle against difficulties. 
 In round numbers, from 1785 to 1800, the British 
 tin-mines yielded above 3000 tons annually, at an 
 average price of 70s. per cwt., or 702. per ton. 
 When the nineteenth century arrived, bringing 
 with it a short but welcome peace between 
 two tremendous wars, the tin-trade, like other 
 trades, underwent fluctuation ; but there were alter- 
 nations both in supply and demand that affected 
 price irrespective of the influence of war, The 
 Hast India Company’s contract was an important 
 one for Cornwall; but by the year 1809, owing to 
 the increasing demands in the home-market, the 
 price rose so materially that the producers of tin 
 refused any longer to supply the Company at that 
 price, Even when the Company’s payment rose 
 to 80s., it was not so attractive to the merchants 
 as the home price. The average produce of the 
 tin-mines of Cornwall, during the first fifteen years 
 of the century, was about 2600 tons annually, of 
 which about one-half was exported. The high 
 price of British tin reached its maximum about 
 the year 1814; after which a change was effected 
 by the extension of the rich workings at Banca, 
 which not only robbed Cornwall of the China 
 market, but.established a formidable competition 
 in the markets of the world generally. 
 
 LIron-mining: Ironworks. —We now come to 
 that mineral which, next to coal, is the most 
 valuable in our country: indeed it is doubtful 
 whether even this exception can justly be made. 
 The smelting of iron ores, and the production of 
 pig-iron and cast iron, by means of pit-coal, was 
 an improvement brought into extensive exercise 
 before the year 1785, as shewn in a former chap- 
 ter;* but the use of the same fuel for converting 
 pig-iron into bar-iron was an object not accom- 
 plished on an important scale until somewhat 
 later ; and even the former improvement required 
 much time to become general. In 1740, wood- 
 charcoal alone was used in the ironworks; and 
 there were then 59 blast-furnaces in Great Britain, 
 producing an average of about 300 tons of iron per 
 annum each. In 1788 there remained only 24 of 
 these ; but they produced 550 tons each, owing to 
 the use of cylinder blowing-machines instead of 
 hand-worked bellows. The great change, however, 
 was in the establishment of 53 blast-furnaces in 
 which pit-coal was used instead of charcoal, and 
 in each of which more than 900 tons of iron were 
 produced annually. These figures suffice to show 
 how important was the advancement. Soon after 
 this date, the charcoal furnaces went almost wholly 
 out of use. In 1796 there were 121 pit-coal blast- 
 furnaces ; in 1802 they had risen to 168, with a 
 produce of more than 1000 tons each ; in 1806 the 
 number was 227; while in 1815 it was not less 
 than 350, producing more than as many thousand 
 tons of iron in a year. 
 
 While the pit-coal and the blowing-machines 
 had been producing a revolution in the production 
 
 * See vol. v., p. 480. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 EN es nN Oa RSENS Seo ee 
 
 835 
 
 of rough or pig iron, equal advance had been 
 made in the manufacture of fine or bar iron, by 
 the introduction of machinery which, in too many 
 instances, failed to enrich the ingenious inventors, 
 About the year 1785, Great Britain required 
 80,000 tons of bar iron annually for her various 
 manufactures ; but as only 30,000 tons were made 
 at home, a large importation was necessary from 
 Sweden and Russia, which kept the price very 
 high. Hence attempts were made to increase the 
 home produce. At first charcoal was alone used in 
 the refining-furnaces ; then charcoal mixed with 
 coke; then coke alone—but still the cost of 
 manufacture remained considerable, Macpherson, 
 in noticing the efforts of Mr. Cort, about 1785, to 
 compete with the Swedish bar iron, stated that 
 “in consequence of the scarcity and high price of 
 labour, some English proprietors of ironworks 
 about this time transferred their capital from 
 England to Russia, where they erected extensive 
 works for rolling and slitting iron, and for tinning 
 sheet-iron.” Mr. Cort, and other inventors who re- 
 mained in England, turned their attention to the 
 best.modes of applying pit-coal to the refining as 
 well as the smelting of iron. One method con- 
 sisted in exposing cast iron on the hearth of a 
 reverberatory furnace to the flame of pit-coal ; 
 but this was improved upon by causing the opera- 
 tion of the reverberatory furnace, which is called 
 puddling, to be preceded by a kind of refining 
 with coke, to prepare the iron for becoming mal- 
 leable. Mr. Cort, who was an iron-master in 
 Dean Forest, introduced numerous improvements, 
 among which was the substitution of drawing- 
 rollers or cylinders for hammers, in the lengthen- 
 ing and thinning of bars. He secured a patent, 
 but through a series of misfortunes—especially the 
 dishonesty of an officer of the government—ruin 
 overtook him, and he died a poor man.* When 
 the refining hearth and the drawing-rollers became 
 properly understood by the great iron-masters, they 
 were speedily employed with great profit; large 
 fortunes were made in South Wales; and specu- 
 lators rushed into the business who had no aptitude 
 for trade. The consequences were as might have 
 been anticipated—ironworks multiplied rapidly, 
 the quantity produced exceeded the consumption, 
 competition reduced the price below the expense 
 of manufacturing, and many of the adventurers 
 were ruined. 
 
 Of the vast extent of the operations at the prin- 
 cipal British ironworks some idea may be formed 
 from the statement of Lord Sheftfield, intended 
 to show what ruinous effects a proposed tax on 
 coal would have wrought to the iron manufacture, 
 that one company in Shropshire consumed 500 
 
 * It was not until seventy years after Mr. Cort’s invention of the 
 use of: pit-coal for smelting and of rollers for preparing bar iron 
 that the public became fully aware of the value of his services. 
 His were above all others, perhaps, the capital inventions in the 
 trade; they enriched the country by millions sterling, but did not 
 enrich him or his descendants. Attention was drawn to this 
 matter in 1857, in the hope that the government on the one hand, 
 and the iron-manufacturers on the other, would recognise the 
 debt morally due. 
 
836 
 
 tons of coal daily, and that many of the manu- 
 facturers intended to throw up their works if the 
 tax had been imposed.* The Carron Ironworks 
 were in 1792 the greatest in Europe; they em- 
 ployed 1000 hands; they consumed 136 tons of 
 coal daily ; and they comprised five blast-furnaces, 
 sixteen air-furnaces, and three cupola-furnaces. 
 The government were for many years large pur- 
 chasers of iron, in the forms of cannon, mortars, 
 carronades, shot, and shells, In 1788, English 
 manufacturers supplied steam-engines and iron 
 pipes for a series of water-works for Paris, Iron 
 bridges and iron boats, and cast-iron culinary 
 vessels, tinned on the interior, were among the 
 new applications of this invaluable metal. 
 
 As concerned Ireland, the diminution of wood 
 for charcoal, and the undeveloped state of the 
 coal-deposits, kept the iron manufacture at a very 
 low ebb. In France, the manufacture was making 
 a little progress; but in the United States the 
 germs of a great iron trade were perceptible. 
 
 The manufacture of iron into useful articles, 
 and its conversion into steel for numerous pur- 
 poses, were among the wonderful exhibitions of 
 British industry. The introduction of cas¢ steel 
 was due to Mr. Huntsman of Sheffield, in 1770; 
 or rather, the production of cast steel at a cost 
 sufficiently low to render it commercially profit- 
 able. The superior qualities of this material soon 
 led to its extensive substitution for bar or shear 
 steel in the manufacture of cutting instruments 
 and similar articles; and Sheffield became the 
 greatest emporium in the world for such produc- 
 tions. Formerly indebted to Styria for the steel 
 used in its manufactures, Sheffield began to supply 
 its own steel to the Austrian forges, The sword- 
 manufacture, conducted for some years in Cumber- 
 land, and then in London, fell to such a low ebb that, 
 about 1783, it was publicly stated that “an English 
 officer would not trust his life to the hazard of the 
 probable failure of his English sword-blade ;” 
 as a consequence, German swords were imported. 
 Birmingham took up the question, and offered to 
 make as good swords as any from Germany. The 
 Kast India Company, in 1786, ordered 10,000 
 swords, half in Germany and half in England. 
 An apparatus contrived by Boulton and Watt was 
 employed to test all the swords: a test which 
 showed that the Birmingham blades were as 
 much superior to the German as the latter were 
 to those formerly made in various parts of England. 
 From that year, Birmingham became a great 
 centre of the sword-trade. Hiven German officers 
 applied for swords made by Mr. Gill of this town. 
 Locks were another important article of manu- 
 facture in iron and steel. From causes not very 
 easy of elucidation, Wolverhampton took the lead, 
 before either Sheffield or Birmingham, in this 
 department of trade: a precedence which it has 
 held ever since. Dr. Plot, in his ‘ Natural History 
 of Staffordshire, records the fame of Wolverhamp- 
 
 : ‘ Slee on the Manufactures, Trade, and Present State of 
 reland, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 ton for locks even so far back as 1686. He speaks 
 of suits of door-locks, of which one key would 
 only open one lock, but a master-key opened all ; 
 of puzzle-locks, that might be opened in a thousand 
 different ways, by the owner who knew a parti- 
 cular cipher or clue; and of the construction. of 
 some of the locks and keys being so beautiful that 
 “it is not reasonable to think they were ever 
 exceeded, unless by Tubal Cain”—an exception 
 that perhaps might well have been omitted. 
 Ingenious as the older locks were, they were com- 
 pletely eclipsed, in point of security, by the cele- 
 brated lock patented about the year 1784 by Mr. 
 Joseph Bramah. So remarkably was the principle 
 of permutation adopted, that in one of Bramah’s 
 locks with twelve tumblers or moyable pieces, the 
 tumblers admitted of so many arrangements that 
 Jive hundred million changes in the key would be 
 necessary to open them all: affording, according 
 to the theory of the lock-makers, this enormous 
 ratio of security to the person who alone was 
 cognizant of the actual arrangement at any one 
 moment, 
 
 It was about the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury that Mr. Mushet of Glasgow obtained a patent 
 for the fusion of malleable iron in such a manner 
 as to produce cast steel; the process was simple 
 and expeditious, and produced a metal so easily 
 fusible as to be capable of casting in moulds, 
 and subsequently finished by filing and polishing. 
 Hence the rise of a large and important depart- 
 ment in Sheffield manufactures, in the production 
 of stoves, grates, kitchen utensils, &c. This was 
 speedily followed by Mr, Lucas’s invention of a 
 method of so refining and rendering malleable 
 pieces or articles of castiron, as to combine in 
 them many of the properties of common iron and 
 of steel: this metal was neither so tough nor so 
 strong as hammered or rolled iron, neither so hard 
 nor so brilliant as steel; but ‘it facilitated the 
 production of many useful articles—bridle-bits, 
 stirrups, knives, forks, snuffers, &c.—at less than 
 half the expense at which they could otherwise 
 have been made. The cutlery trade, centered 
 almost entirely in Sheffield, was dependent on the 
 adoption of every available improvement in the 
 conversion of iron into steel, The trade was 
 marked by a singular change in its commercial 
 features early in the present century. Formerly, 
 a master cutler supplied workshops, materials, 
 tools, and machinery, and paid his artisans by 
 piece-work, according to the quantity done; but 
 in seasons of depression the master was timid in 
 giving out work, and his operatives fell into great 
 poverty. There then arose a class of speculators — 
 called factors, who took advantage of the fluctua- 
 tions of the market to purchase large quantities of 
 goods at a depreciated price, and who, by their 
 enterprising spirit, soon obtained considerable 
 influence in the foreign markets, and conducted 
 their dealings on so extended a scale as to throw 
 tradesmen of the old school into the background. 
 There was a deterioration, however, in another 
 
Cuar. XI.] 
 
 direction ; the operatives, pressed by reduced 
 prices and want of work, betook themselves to the 
 factors, who first advanced money to enable them 
 to procure the necessary tools, then supplied mate- 
 rials, and then paid an exceedingly low rate for 
 the work done: hence arose an over-production of 
 cheap and worthless wares. Had it not been for the 
 maintenance of a standard of excellence in other 
 directions, the productions of Sheffield would have 
 assumed a trashy character through the operation of 
 this factor system, although the system itself unques- 
 tionably led to a great energy and extension of the 
 trade. The year 1814 was marked by a healthy 
 change in the corporate relations of the Sheffield 
 cutlers. Exclusive privileges had been granted to 
 the cutlers of Hallamshire in 1624, rendering them 
 a very close corporation ; but now the trade was 
 thrown open to all—“a liberal and judicious mea- 
 sure which has been of great service to the town, 
 by inducing men of talent and enterprise, from all 
 parts of the country, to settle in it, where their 
 competition and industry have had the best 
 effects,” * 
 
 Metalline Manufactures—A rapid glance may 
 now be taken at the progress made by English 
 manufacturers in the fabrication of various import- 
 ant articles in copper, brass, tin, gun-metal, lead, 
 pewter, &c.: each being taken as the type or 
 representative of a class. 
 
 The copper raised at Amlwch was manufactured 
 on a large scale by the same company at Holywell, 
 where the metal was received in solid blocks, 
 remelted and cast into plates, cut into strips by 
 shears worked by a water-wheel, extended and 
 smoothed by rolling, hardened, heated to redness, 
 suddenly cooled in water, rolled out and polished 
 again, and finally wrought into an infinity of use- 
 ful forms. Copper-vessels, copper-wire, copper- 
 sheathing for ships, copper-bolts, plates, ornaments 
 for the African market—all were manufactured. 
 Tin was not largely used by itself in manufac- 
 tures ; but it became very important in the pro- 
 duction of tinned ware or tin-plate: a material 
 contributing in a notable degree to the comfort 
 and wholesomeness of the vessels used in domestic 
 culinary operations, one of the characteristics of 
 English household neatness. 
 
 Zinc is a metal, the manufacture of which may 
 be said to have commenced in England within the 
 period now under notice ; for though previously of 
 considerable importance as a constituent of brass, 
 zinc was not manufactured into wire or domestic 
 utensils until about the year 1805. Its want of 
 malleability was a bar to its employment alone. 
 A patent by Messrs. Hobson and Sylvester, how- 
 ever, afforded the means of overcoming this 
 difficulty ; and thence commenced a career of 
 usefulness, in the application of this metal to 
 sheathing, roofing, lining of pipes and cisterns, 
 vessels, chimney-pots, troughs, &c. 
 
 Lead, as has been noticed in former Books, was 
 
 * M‘Culloch, Statistical Account of the British Empire. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 837 
 
 raised in Britain from very early times, and manu- 
 factured into many useful forms, No very marked 
 improvements were introduced in the smelting 
 during the period now under notice; but still there 
 were interesting processes introduced. Saint-Fond 
 adverting to a lead-work at Tyndrun in Scotland, 
 takes occasion to remark that the English were 
 very chary of communicating facts to a stranger. 
 “Tt is not so in France;” he adds, “there the 
 managers of the most interesting establishments 
 are, in general, very complaisant, and frankly com- 
 municate to a stranger all the information he can 
 desire”—an assertion, however, that must be taken 
 with some qualification. One novelty in the lead 
 manufacture was a mode of making shot, intro- 
 duced by Mr. Watts at Bristol in 1782: this con- 
 sisted in mixing a little arsenic with the lead, and 
 allowing the molten metal to fall from a great 
 height as a shower of globular drops into water: 
 the drops solidified as they fell, and speedily 
 cooled in the water. It was estimated by Mr. 
 Stevenson in 1815 that the produce of British lead- 
 mines varied from 12,000 to 15,000 tons annually ; 
 the price underwent successive reductions, on 
 account of the English dealers being driven out 
 of many of the foreign markets by the competition 
 of some very rich and newly opened lead-veins in 
 Spain. 
 
 Copper, tin, zinc, and lead exhibit as many im- 
 portant commercial relations in their compound as 
 in their simple states. Brass, bronze, gun-metal, 
 bell-metal, and pewter are examples of these combi- 
 nations, a few among a multitude. Birmingham 
 continued to be, what it was many ages ago, the 
 chief centre of the mixed metal trades; and at 
 the period now under notice foreigners as well as 
 English statesmen were often struck with the asto- 
 nishing variety of the trade—especially if small 
 steel ornaments, and gold and silver for external 
 decoration, be included. A few examples may 
 here be adduced. 
 
 Guns as well as swords became a staple of 
 Birmingham manufacture. Early in the last cen- 
 tury, most of the muskets for the English army 
 were bought in Holland, and paid for at a high 
 price. William the Third having been heard to 
 express his regret that his newly adopted country 
 did not appear to possess facilities for this 
 manufacture, Sir Richard Newdegate, one of the 
 members for Warwickshire, resolved to sound 
 his constituents on the subject. So well did he 
 succeed, that Birmingham soon began to supply 
 the royal army, and placed the manufacture on 
 a basis not easily to be shaken, William Hutton, 
 writing in his quaint way in 1781, spoke of the 
 gun-trade as a very profitable one; “and thus the 
 same instrument which is death to one man is 
 genteel life to another.” In 1787 Birmingham 
 was said to employ four thousand persons in 
 making guns for the African market alone; but 
 this looks like an over-statement. An important 
 improvement was introduced in 1811 by Mr. 
 Bradley, due—as many useful inventions have 
 
 i 
 
838 
 
 been due—to a strike among the workmen for 
 higher wages. The barrels of muskets are made of 
 strips of iron called skelps, forced round into the 
 form of a cylinder; the skelps, unequal in thick- 
 ness, were made by hand-forging, a labour paid for 
 highly ; but as the workmen, knowing that much 
 skill was required in the process, thought they 
 might dictate their own terms, some contrivance 
 was sought for by the masters to relieve themselves 
 from this bondage. Mr. Bradley supplied the 
 means, by showing how the skelps might be 
 wrought by rolling instead of forging. Some time 
 afterwards an analogous improvement was made 
 in the mode of bending the skelps into barrels 
 or cylinders ; and these two important inventions 
 became generally adopted. So vast was the manu- 
 facture of muskets at Birmingham, that between 
 1804 and 1818 no less than 5,000,000 were made. 
 Two-thirds of the whole quantity required by the 
 British government from the peace of Amiens 
 to the battle of Waterloo were obtained from this 
 one town. During the hottest period of the war, 
 Birmingham supplied these arms at the rate of a 
 musket a minute, and obtained 36s. each for them. 
 There was a little trade-duplicity, however, mixed 
 up with the manufacture of the choicest kinds 
 of firearms, such as fowling-pieces. The best guns 
 were still made in London, and commanded high 
 prices; whereupon a few of the Birmingham 
 manufacturers, willing to reap a profit by crooked 
 means, stamped the word “ London” on their guns. 
 The metropolitan makers resisting this practice, 
 instituted a parliamentary inquiry in 1813, fiercely 
 contested on both sides. The Birmingham men 
 asserted that they made various pieces and portions 
 of the London guns, and had therefore a right 
 to draw to themselves any advantage accruing 
 from the use of the stamp “London.” Ultimately 
 a system was adopted by which Birmingham guns 
 were honestly acknowledged as such, and tested 
 at a proof-house erected in that town. 
 
 The buckle-trade, towards the close of the last 
 century, was one of the most remarkable carried 
 on in Birmingham. At one time, when a new 
 mode of plating had given a fresh impetus to the 
 fashion of wearing shoe-buckles, no less than 4000 
 persons were employed in the manufacture in 
 Birmingham and its vicinity; and Mr. Luckcock 
 computes that there were then made and sold 
 2,500,000 pairs annually, at an average price of 
 2s. 6d. per pair.* Change of taste produced great 
 commotion in this trade, as is usual in employ- 
 ments subject to the influence of fluctuations in 
 fashion. In 1791 the buckle-makers petitioned 
 the Prince of Wales for sympathy, asserting that 
 shoe-strings had nearly ruined their trade; he 
 promised to wear buckles himself, and to order his 
 household to do the same; but not even a prince’s 
 favour could control the tyranny of fashion : shoe- 
 buckles became nearly extinct, and the makers 
 turned their attention to other departments of trade, 
 
 * Guest’s edition of Hutton’s Birmingham. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 
 Buttons constituted a distinct department of © 
 Birmingham manufacture ; and so important was — 
 
 the trade regarded that, in 1796, an act of parlia- 
 ment was passed, at the solicitation of the prin- 
 cipal firms, prescribing the quantity of gold that 
 should be used to cover or plate each kind of button, 
 as a protection against dishonest traders who made 
 cheap buttons insufficiently gilt—such being the 
 notions entertained in those days of the power of 
 the legislature to regulate trade. No town in the 
 world, perhaps, ever felt the influence of fashion 
 more directly than Birmingham; and in none has 
 it been more desirable that the workman should en- 
 deavour, by adapting the hand and eye to different 
 kinds of work, to bend to changes of fashion which 
 will not bend to him. At many periods in the 
 history of the town, a new taste has given rise to 
 so extraordinary a demand for small trinkets, that 
 nothing but an elasticity of resources could meet it; 
 while the decline of that taste, or a diversion of 
 the market, equally demanded this elastic quality. 
 Two instances of this in the button-trade have 
 been recorded. In the year 1814 no less than one 
 thousand persons were employed in making cheap, 
 showy white metal-buttons, cut by an engine; a 
 workman carried the art abroad, and Birmingham 
 lost the market. 
 
 Another production, the metal- — 
 
 drilled shank-button, of which three millions were — 
 made in a week, was lost to Birmingham in a 
 
 similar way. 
 
 The metal manufactures of Birmingham, in |_ 
 
 almost every department, had risen to great 
 importance. Saint-Fond, one of the few foreigners 
 who have written impartially and intelligently on 
 English industry, dwelt in great admiration on all 
 that he saw in this town in his days, especially of 
 
 “that varied and extensive hardware manufacture | 
 
 which employs to so much advantage more than 
 
 thirty thousand hands, and compels all Europe and | 
 
 a part of the new world to supply themselves with 
 
 these articles here, where everything is made in © | 
 
 greater perfection, with more economy, and in 
 greater abundance than in any other country.’”’* 
 Birmingham trinkets, made of cheap metal covered 
 with a thin layer of gold or silver, were technically 
 regarded as being distinct from ¢oys, which were 
 made of steel; and these latter were again distin- 
 guished into “light” and “heavy ”—the light com- 
 prising buckles and other small ornaments ; while 
 the heavy consisted of an innumerable series of | 
 useful tools and implements, “from a joiner’s ham-— 
 mer to a shoemaker’s tack;” articles never now 
 called toys. Burke seems to have misunderstood 
 the technical meaning of the word toys, when he 
 designated Birmingham “the toy-shop of Europe.” 
 
 The art of coining, although almost universally | | 
 
 practised among civilised nations, remained in a 
 
 singularly imperfect state until the ingenuity at 
 
 the proprietors of the Soho Works was directed 
 to its improvement; but it was raised by Boulton — 
 to a state of perfection which left very little for 
 
 * Travels, &c., p. 341. 
 
 j 
 
— Cuar. X17] 
 
 others to accomplish. The first coining-mill 
 impelled by the power of steam was erected at 
 Soho about 1788. The boundless energy attainable 
 by the use of the steam-engine, and the extreme 
 accuracy of the coining machinery, not only 
 rendered it easy to strike the coins with greater 
 precision than before, but also reduced the cost of 
 the operation. A still more important advantage 
 consisted in the insuperable difficulties placed in 
 the way of the forger by the greater perfection 
 with which the genuine coins were struck—an 
 advantage which, as tending to diminish crime, 
 led the enthusiastic Dr. Darwin to say, that “if a 
 civic crown was given in Rome for preserving 
 the life of one citizen, Mr. Boulton should be 
 covered with garlands of oak.” * At the close of 
 the century, the Soho works contained eight 
 stamping-machines, which together could stamp 
 40,000 coins in an hour; and. other machines 
 which with equal rapidity performed the pre- 
 liminary and finishing processes of coining. Mr. 
 Boulton executed large commissions for the British 
 and other governments; and he may be said, 
 besides these coining operations, to have given 
 the first impulse to stamped-metal manufactures 
 —in recent years so wonderful a department of 
 Birmingham industry. 
 
 Clocks and watches gradually gave rise to an 
 important branch of metal manufactures in 
 England. After the inventions of Harrison, 
 noticed in a former Book,t+ the making of chron- 
 ometers greatly extended in England; and many 
 makers of eminence arose, including Mudge, 
 Arnold, and Earnshaw. Mr. Mudge was awarded 
 a parliamentary grant of 3000/, in 1793, for his 
 improvements in chronometers. The high price 
 of these delicate instruments, varying from a 
 hundred to a hundred and fifty guineas, limited 
 the manufacture to such specimens as were 
 required for scientific and nautical purposes; but 
 the watch-manufacture became much more im- 
 portant, on account of the large numbers made 
 and worn, ‘The trade was very flourishing down 
 to 1797, when Mr. Pitt, wanting money from any 
 or every source, imposed a duty on gold and silver 
 watch-cases, and a tax on watch-wearers and 
 clock-users. The trade cried out grievously ; they 
 stated that untaxed foreign watch-cases would 
 drive taxed English cases out of the market; and 
 that the tax on clock and watch buyers would be 
 a discouragement to purchases. These complaints 
 were not ill founded. The number of watch-cases 
 stamped at Goldsmiths’ Hall in a year fell from 
 90,000 to 40,000. So general was the grumbling, 
 and so little the money obtained by Pitt from 
 this source, that the obnoxious duties were soon 
 removed. Macpherson expressed an opinion that 
 all the watches and chronometers made in London 
 reached an annual value of about one million 
 sterling, The clock manufacture was diffused 
 rather more among provincial towns; but it was 
 
 * Botanic Garden. + Vol. v., p. 497. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 839 
 
 in like manner large, and great quantities of 
 English clocks were exported, 
 
 Taking the metalline manufactures of England 
 as a whole, Mr. Stevenson, in a valuable article on 
 English statistics in the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopeedia,’ 
 estimated that all the articles made of iron in 
 1815 were worth 10,000,000/7, and employed 
 200,000 persons in their fabrication ; of brass and 
 copper, 3,000,000/., and 50,000 persons ; of steel and 
 plated goods, 4,000,0007,, and 70,000 persons. He 
 set down 2,000,000/. to the account of Birmingham, 
 and 1,200,000. to Sheffield, as the value of the 
 manufactures in metal produced in those two 
 towns. 
 
 Salt: Pottery: Glass.—Selecting from among a 
 large group of manufactures relating to mineral 
 and chemical products, we will say a few words 
 concerning salt, pottery, and glass, as objects of 
 British industry at the close of the last and the 
 beginning of the present centuries. 
 
 No country in the world, perhaps, is better 
 supplied with brine-springs, and beds of rock-salt, 
 than England, Salt has been made from such 
 springs in Cheshire and Worcestershire since very 
 early days; but the purifying of rock-salt was 
 only introduced in the seventeenth century. It 
 was not till the beginning of the present century, 
 however, that English salt, by improvements in 
 the manufacture, became equal in quality to 
 foreign; but when that point was attained, the 
 trade rapidly increased. Between 1796 and 1806, 
 there were on an average 190,000 tons of salt 
 carried down the river Weaver for shipment at 
 Liverpool, Nevertheless, it was only after the 
 war that the home consumption became really 
 large, on account of the enormous duty imposed, 
 In 1798 this duty was 5s. per bushel; but it was 
 afterwards raised to 15s.—/forty times the cost of 
 the salt, 
 
 The manufacture of pottery and _ porcelain, 
 brought to so high a pitch of excellence by the 
 elder Wedgwood,* continued to progress during 
 the period to which the present chapter relates, 
 Instigated by the Society of Arts, the Chelsea 
 potters began to try their skill in making crucibles 
 and other chemical vessels, which had hitherto 
 been imported from the continent, Until that 
 time, Cornwall was supplied with melting-pots 
 for assaying tin ores only from one small place in 
 Germany ; but the high price, and the interruption 
 of supply during war, were urgent inducements 
 to the English potters to try their skill; and so 
 well did they succeed, that the production of all 
 such articles became henceforth a department of 
 the home-trade. In the finer kinds of ware, such as 
 porcelain, England well stood her ground ; British 
 porcelain attained such superior elegance that it 
 was shipped for America, where it competed with 
 that of China, The exportation of home-produc- 
 tions in this trade was often discouraged and 
 checked by the East India Company, who had 
 
 * Pictorial History of England, v. pp. 485, 486. 
 
840 
 
 a pecuniary interest in importing porcelain from 
 China. France and other countries tried, but 
 never with full success, to rival the useful earthen- 
 ware introduced by Wedgwood, and saleable in 
 England at low prices. These low prices were 
 further reduced by numerous improvements in the 
 manipulative processes; until at length Stafford- 
 shire may be said to have commanded the markets 
 of the world for goods of this class. 
 
 The glass manufacture extended more slowly in 
 England than that of porcelain and earthenware, 
 owing in part to the excise duties. In 1785 the 
 St. Helen’s Plate-glass Company, in a petition to 
 parliament, stated that although they had sunk 
 a capital of 100,0002,, their works were not remun- 
 erative, owing to the repressive influence of the 
 duty, which was imposed even upon waste or refuse 
 glass. In 1787 an act was passed to render this 
 tax a little more easy, and to check the import 
 of French glass by a protective duty. After this, 
 the English manufacture increased; and great 
 admiration was expressed in 1806 at the produc- 
 tion of sheets of plate-glass measuring sixty or 
 seventy superficial feet. The manufacture of 
 window-glass and of cut flint-glass had also by 
 that time become extensive. The French had the 
 materials and the skill to maintain an equality 
 in the glass manufacture ; but the wood used in 
 that country at that time for fuel being regarded 
 with solicitude, and the government hesitated to 
 foster a manufacture which would make alarming 
 inroads on the forests, especially as England was 
 able and willing to supply at a reasonable rate, 
 Saint-Fond, commending the simplicity of a glass- 
 factory at Newcastle, drew a comparison between 
 the English and French systems, showing the 
 greater tendency of the latter nation to architec- 
 tural display :—“ It is a taste for pomp and gran- 
 deur which almost always ruins the manufactures 
 of France, and prevents those new ones which we 
 want from being established ; men are afraid to 
 involve themselves in ruinous expenses for mere 
 warehouses and workshops. It must be acknow- 
 ledged that the English and Dutch are much more 
 prudent, and exhibit examples in this way which 
 we ought to imitate. Architecture is a pest in 
 establishments of this kind.” * 
 
 Cotton Manufactures—A manufacturing system, 
 in many respects the most wonderful that the 
 world has ever seen, grew out of the invention of 
 the spinning-jenny soon after the accession of 
 George III., and attained great importance in 
 twenty years.t Arkwright’s patent expired in 
 or about the year 1785; and immediately numer- 
 ous men of capital built factories and obtained 
 machinery for carrying on the manufacture on 
 a large scale. The produce was immense, and 
 the reduction in price very striking. Before that 
 period, a cotton gown was too costly for the 
 wife of a man of small means, who had there- 
 fore to confine herself to woollen and coarse 
 
 * Travels, i. 136. 
 + Pictorial History of England, v. pp. 488-492. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ee 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 linen garments ; but now cottons became cheaper 
 
 than linens, and a revolution in female dress 
 occurred. Printed calicoes and white muslins 
 for women, cotton waistcoatings and cotton 
 stockings for men, superseded many materials 
 of greater cost. Macpherson, writing in 1806, 
 described the change as something wonderful. 
 “Women of all ranks, from the highest to the 
 lowest, are clothed in British manufactures of 
 cotton, from the muslin cap on the crown of the 
 head to the cotton stocking on the sole of the foot. 
 The ingenuity of the calico-printers has kept 
 pace with that of the weavers and others concerned 
 in the preceding stages of the manufacture, and 
 produced patterns of printed goods which for 
 elegance of drawing exceed everything that ever 
 was imported, and for durability of colour gener- 
 ally stand the washing so well as to appear fresh 
 and new every time they are washed.” 
 
 In many of the villages around Manchester, 
 about the time when Arkwright was introducing 
 his various improvements, the farmers and cot- 
 tagers made a living partly by farming, partly 
 by the hand-wheel for spinning, and partly by 
 the loom for weaving—all branches of the family 
 assisting at these employments, according to the 
 season of the year and the skill of the individuals. 
 Much time and labour being lost in bringing the 
 materials and in taking away the finished pro- 
 duce, very slender incomes were earned, and cotton 
 goods could not be sold in the market at anything 
 like a reasonable price. As time advanced, and 
 machinery became invented, mills were built, 
 cotton was spun upon jennies and carded upon 
 carding - engines: improvements that greatly 
 lowered prices by expediting the processes, The 
 country people gave up spinning cotton in their 
 cottages, and attended only to farming and weay- 
 ing. Another series of years elapsed; during 
 which the fly-shuttle was introduced to expedite 
 weaving, mule-spinning was invented for fine 
 yarns, and numerous new textile fabrics intro- 
 duced. So prodigious was the demand for Lan- 
 cashire cotton goods about the end of the century, 
 that the country people could not weave fast 
 enough, “The old loom-shops being insufficient, 
 every lumber-room, even old barns, cart-houses, and 
 out-buildings of every description were repaired, 
 windows broken through the old blank walls, 
 and all fitted up for loom-shops, This source of 
 making room being exhausted, new weavers’ 
 cottages, with loom-shops, rose up in every direc- 
 tion; all immediately filled.”* The cottagers 
 became better off than ever; the artisans in other 
 trades shared the good results of the increased 
 supply of money ; and the farmers looked to these 
 
 cotton-weavers as among their best customers. | 
 The period from 1788 to 1803 appears to have been 
 the golden age for hand-loom cotton-weavers in — 
 
 England; it was useless for the machine-spinners to 
 prepare yarn faster than the weavers could convert 
 
 * Radcliffe, ‘Origin of the New System of Manufacture, com- 
 monly called Power-loom Weaving.’ ' 
 
 he 
 
Cuap. XI.] 
 
 it into calicoes or muslins; and therefore, as the 
 spinning increased in amount more rapidly than 
 the weavers in number, the weaving was paid for 
 at a high rate. Mr. Walker, whose tour in the 
 manufacturing districts appeared about 1791, dwelt 
 with admiration on the evidences of prosperity 
 visible in and all around Manchester, and poured 
 out his enthusiasm in the words: “These are thy 
 blessings, O Commerce; these are thy rewards, O 
 Industry !” 
 
 Chiefly owing to the introduction of the cotton 
 manufacture, the population of Lancashire in- 
 creased from 297,400 in 1750 to 672,565 in 1801. 
 Manchester, at the last-mentioned date, had 
 doubled in size, and more than doubled in popula- 
 tion, in thirty years. In 1788 there were 143 
 cotton-mills in Great Britain, of which 63 were in 
 Lancashire and Derbyshire alone. On these mills, 
 and the spinning-machines contained in them, at 
 least a million sterling had been expended. Lan- 
 cashire became the great centre of the manufac- 
 ture ; but the original establishments of Messrs. 
 Arkwright and Stratt at Belper, Cromford, and 
 
 JEDEDIAN STRUTT. 
 
 Milford, all in Derbyshire, were planted in those 
 small towns in consequence of the facilities for 
 water-power there found. Work-people had to be 
 carried from afar to houses built for them at these 
 spots. When, however, the application of Watt’s 
 steam-engines to cotton-spinning became discussed, 
 it was found cheaper to carry steam-power to the 
 people than to convey the people to water-power : 
 and thenceforward a district well supplied with 
 cheap coal became the chief seat of the manufac- 
 ture. The first steam-engine for working the 
 spinning-machinery of a cotton-mill is believed to 
 have been erected at Papplewick in 1785; the 
 second at Warrington in 1787; and three others 
 in the same year at Nottingham, Manchester 
 adopted the system in 1789, Glasgow in 1792; 
 and then the steam-engines began to supersede the 
 water-wheels in all the mills. Mr. Peel, the 
 grandfather of the eminent statesman, originally in 
 a humble station, laid the foundation for so large 
 an establishment, and such great wealth, that his 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 841 
 
 son, the first Sir Robert, in the names of himself 
 and his partner, Mr. Yates, contributed the sum of 
 10,0002. towards the voluntary contribution raised 
 in 1798. Sir Robert is said to have at one time 
 employed 15,000 persons in various parts of Eng- 
 land, in the different departments of spinning, 
 weaving, bleaching, dyeing, and printing cotton. 
 
 Mr. David Dale’s cotton-works at New Lanark, 
 which attracted much attention on account of the 
 system on which they were conducted, were built 
 about the year 1786. They comprised four mills, 
 stocked with spinning- machinery, worked by 
 water-power. By the year 1793, Mr. Dale em- 
 ployed 1700 persons, of whom nearly half were 
 children under 13 years of age. He built a village, 
 school-houses, and all that could tend to the well- 
 being of his operatives; and laid the founda- 
 tion for what might have been, if duly carried 
 out by others, a wise and kind organisation of 
 factory labour. The Peels and Strutts, and other 
 manufacturers possessing large means and wide 
 sympathies, were in like manner fully desirous 
 that the employment of children in factories, if 
 adopted at all, should be conducted on some prin- 
 ciple conducive to moral and physical wellbeing ; 
 but men of another stamp took up the advantages 
 without the moral responsibilities ; and thought- 
 ful men had soon oe¢casion to doubt whether 
 factory-labour were better or worse than driving a 
 plough or loading a dung-cart. The parish officers 
 in various towns, glad to get their workhouses 
 cleared by any easy means, eagerly received offers 
 from Manchester to send their young inmates to 
 the mills; and the young workhouse hands, having 
 no masters and no friends but the mill-owners, 
 were too often treated as mere slaves. It was not 
 easy for the law to detect abuses in this matter ; 
 for the mill-owners, fearful that any of their trade- 
 secrets should be borrowed or stolen by foreigners, 
 sternly refused all admission of strangers or visitors 
 into their mills, 
 
 The vast increase in the cotton manufactures 
 during the closing years of the century was shown, 
 among other tests, by the quantity of raw cotton 
 imported. Between 1771 and 1775 this quantity 
 was somewhat less than 5,000,000 Ibs. annually ; 
 ten years later, the average was 12,000,000 Ibs. ; 
 in 1785 it was 18,000,000 Ibs. ; 32,000,000 in 1789 ; 
 and 56,000,000 in 1800—in other words, it in- 
 creased tenfold in a quarter of a century. Very 
 little of this cotton was re-exported in a raw state ; 
 and therefore the above figures represent nearly 
 the quantities actually wrought up into cotton 
 goods at home. The manufacture became every 
 year more and more in excess of the quantity 
 actually needed for home demand, notwithstanding 
 the enormous increase in the use of cotton dresses ; 
 and hence it arose that the exportation of cottons 
 became an important feature in foreign trade. 
 These exports in 1765 were not much above 
 200,0002., and even in 1785 only 800,000/. ; but by 
 1800, they had reached 5,000,000. The supply of 
 raw cotton mainly came, in the first instance, from 
 
842 
 
 the Mediterranean and the Levant; then from 
 the West Indies and South America; then from 
 Guiana and Brazil; and it was not till 1784 that 
 the first- bag of cotton from the United States 
 reached England. In 1787, two-thirds of the 
 quantity imported were the growth of the various 
 West India Islands. At the close of the century, 
 the United States cotton was gradually gaining an 
 ascendency in the market. It is instructive to 
 learn, that of 23,000,000 Ibs. of cotton worked up 
 in England in 1787, just one half was woven into 
 calicoes and muslins, one quarter into fustians, and 
 the remaining quarter into mixed goods, hosiery, 
 and candle-wicks—the candle-wicks alone requiring 
 as much cotton as the entire quantity imported 
 into England at the beginning of the century. 
 When the nineteenth century commenced, the 
 importations of cotton increased year after year— 
 showing that it was not merely a temporary exal- 
 tation which the trade had received. The average 
 yearly importation between 1801 and 1811 was 40 
 per cent. higher than that for the preceding ten 
 years ; and the decennial period 1811 to 1821 pre- 
 sented an average further increase of more than 
 90 per cent.—a multiplicate ratio that soon raised 
 the imports to hundreds of millions of pounds 
 annually. 
 
 The machinery employed in preparing, spinning, 
 and weaving the cotton underwent incessant im- 
 provements: each year effecting something towards 
 the expediting of the processes, the economising of 
 labour, or the rise in excellence of the fabrics pro- 
 duced. The spinning-jenny was an advance on 
 the old spinning-wheel, as that was an advance on 
 the ancient distaff and spindle ; but these in turn 
 gave way to the throstle-machine for coarse yarns, 
 and the mule-machine for fine yarns, both by 
 degrees rendered nearly automatic. So striking 
 were the results thus produced, that cotton-yarn, 
 of the same quality which brought 38s. per Ib. in 
 1786, was rendered saleable at a good profit in 
 1801 for 9s. Such, indeed, was the number and 
 variety of the improvements introduced into every 
 part of the manufacture of cotton goods, that Mr, 
 Kennedy, under the date 1815, stated that one 
 person could, with the spinning-machinery then 
 in use, produce as much yarn in a given time as 
 two hundred persons could have done fifty years 
 before.* 
 
 Cotton was still woven by the hand-loom long 
 after the adoption of machinery in almost every 
 other department of the manufacture. The history 
 of mechanical invention records the attempt of one 
 man to work a loom by a winch and connected 
 apparatus, and of another by the application of 
 water-power ; but nothing effective was accom- 
 plished until 1784, when Dr. Cartwright of Man- 
 chester turned his attention to the subject. Hearing, 
 from the conversation of manufacturers, that the 
 progress of machine-spinning was likely to be 
 retarded by the slowness of hand-weaving, he tried 
 
 * Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of 
 Manchester. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 his skill in making a machine which would throw 
 the shuttle and work the reed by alternate move- 
 ments, the workman only keeping the apparatus 
 going like a hand-organ. He patented his inven- 
 tion in 1785, but it was too heavy and rough for 
 useful service. Nothing daunted, he invented 
 another, which was secured by patent in 1787. A 
 Manchester firm took a licence from Cartwright 
 
 Dr. CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 for working 500 of these looms in a mill erected 
 for the purpose ; but the mill was soon afterwards 
 burned, supposed to be by a conspiracy among the 
 hand-loom weavers. Three other inventors, Bell, 
 Miller, and Dolignon, applied their skill about the 
 same time to the same purpose, with some mechan- 
 ical success, but with no immediate commercial 
 advantages, One of the early difficulties in using 
 these weaving-machines was the necessity for 
 stopping the action to attend to the dressing or 
 sizing of the yarn. In 1803, however, William 
 Radcliffe of Stockport invented a peculiar mode of 
 dressing the warp-yarn before placing it in the 
 loom. In the same year Mr. Horrocks, likewise 
 of Stockport, constructed a loom that might be 
 worked by steam, and that, being lightly but 
 strongly constructed of iron, worked with more 
 facility than any before invented. Still the 
 power-loom made slow progress. According to 
 Mr. Baines there were only 2400 power-looms 
 and 100 dressing-machines at work in 1813: the 
 great and wonderful advance was made after this 
 period. : 
 Various new materials for dress were gradually 
 introduced, arising out of the numerous improve- 
 ments in the cotton manufacture. 
 Marseillese quilting, an imitation of a manufacture 
 
 before unknown in England. Another was muslin, : 
 
 which, when imported from India or from Switzer- 
 land, was too costly to be purchased by any save 
 
 the rich, but which, when home-spun and woven, — 
 
 became a favourite material among the middle- 
 classes. It was the invention of the spinning-mule, 
 
 adapted for the spinning of fine yarn, that rendered 
 
 the production of British muslin possible. Glasgow 
 and Paisley, as well as the Lancashire towns, made 
 
 { Boox x. 
 
 One was the [ 
 
 | 
 
Cuapr. X1.] 
 
 themselves famous by their productions of this 
 class. Cotton-lace or bobbin-net was another of 
 the products due to the employment of machinery 
 in the manufacture. First there was a mode of 
 making such lace by the stocking-frame, invented 
 at Nottingham in 1777; then the point-net 
 machine, invented a few years later; then another 
 called the warp-machine; and then, in 1799, the 
 bobbin-net machine, which was the germ of all 
 the exquisite contrivances introduced in later years 
 by Mr. Heathcote and other inventors, 
 
 Scotland and Ireland both made progress in the 
 cotton manufacture, especially the former country. 
 In 1796, it was estimated that 25,000 persons, 
 mostly children, were employed in the Scottish cot- 
 ton spinning-mills, 40,000 in cotton-weaving, 13,000 
 women employed in winding warp and weft, and 
 100,000 young women and girls engaged in tam- 
 bouring muslins. Scotland fully shared with 
 Lancashire in the advances made in the subse- 
 quent period of twenty years. In Ireland, Lord 
 Sheffield estimated that 30,000 persons were 
 engaged in the cotton manufacture in 1785; this 
 number gradually increased ; but that country, a 
 centre of the flax or linen trade, never rose to an 
 equality with Scotland in that of cotton. 
 
 The finance minister frequently cast a longing 
 eye on cotton and cotton fabrics as possible 
 sources of revenue. In 1784, many small duties 
 on cotton and mixed goods, bleached as well as 
 printed, had accumulated to rather a heavy 
 amount ; besides which, bleachers were obliged to 
 pay for licences. These burdens created great 
 alarm in the cotton districts; and Mr. Pitt was 
 besieged by deputations and memorials from 
 spinners, weavers, bleachers, dyers, printers, and 
 dealers. Overwhelmed by the influence brought 
 to bear against him, Pitt very reluctantly 
 reduced the duties in 1785: a proceeding cele- 
 brated in Lancashire by an amount of jubilee and 
 rejoicing rarely equalled in that sober county. 
 “ When Mr. Thomas Walker and Mr, Richardson, 
 who had been especially active in the application 
 to government, returned from London, they were 
 honoured by a triumphal entrance into Manchester, 
 being met by a procession which extended 
 nearly from that town to Stockport (about seven 
 miles), and which is celebrated as one of the most 
 joyous and splendid processions ever seen in Lan- 
 cashire.”* Partial duties were afterwards reim- 
 posed ; but in 1787 they were again reduced to a 
 simple duty of 31d. per yard on printed or dyed 
 cottons retained for home-consumption. An en- 
 couragement to foreign trade was given by a 
 drawback of the whole of this duty when the 
 goods were for exportation. There were occasion- 
 ally bounties granted on the export of such goods, 
 coupled with the imposition of heavy duties on 
 foreign cottons when imported—two modes of 
 protecting trade much in vogue in those days, 
 A struggle was maintained for a long time between 
 
 * Baines, 279. 
 
 ae senate ‘ , = . -: \ 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. ; 
 
 843 
 
 Lancashire and the East India Company; the 
 former wished to encourage the export of British 
 woven cotton goods, and to discourage the import 
 of India cottons ;. whereas the Company advocated 
 a policy directly the reverse of this—each obviously 
 guided by self-interest; but each assuring the 
 minister that pure patriotism was the only motive. 
 Mr. Pitt, pressed by rival applicants, looked how 
 the national revenue might best be served, and 
 perceived also that it was more important to have 
 friends among the Lancashire manufacturers than 
 to conciliate the Hast India Company; he therefore 
 imposed moderate excise-duties on certain kinds 
 of British cotton goods, and somewhat heavy 
 customs-duties on the importation of India 
 cottons. 
 
 A. little, but only a little, was done during this 
 period to protect the young persons and children 
 employed in cotton-mills. Peel, Strutt, and other 
 large manufacturers, used their young hands 
 kindly ; in many other cases it was not so; and 
 statutes were passed in 1802 and 1816 to give 
 the executive some controlling influence in this 
 matter. 
 
 Bleaching: Dyeing: Calico-printing. — During 
 this important period in the history of our manu- 
 factures, a change was effected in the system of 
 bleaching, by the application of chemical science : 
 so great, indeed, was this change, as to amount to 
 a revolution. Down to the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, the operation of bleaching was wont to 
 occupy six or eight months; it consisted in alter- 
 nately steeping the cloth in alkaline leys, washing 
 it clean, and spreading it upon grass for several 
 weeks at a time. Even this slow method was but 
 imperfectly understood in England; the linens 
 were often sent from England and Scotland to be 
 bleached in Holland and Flanders. The first great 
 improvement was introduced by Dr. Home of 
 Edinburgh, who employed dilute sulphuric acid in 
 a particular part of the process. But the great 
 achievement was the employment of chlorine, the 
 bleaching properties of which were discovered in 
 Sweden by Scheele in 1774, systematically devel- 
 oped in France by Berthollet in 1785, introduced 
 by James Watt into Scotland in 1786, and perma- 
 nently established in Lancashire about the same 
 time by Henry. By this new method, bleaching 
 was as well performed in a few hours, and in the 
 space of a hundred yards square, as on the old 
 process would have occupied weeks of exposure 
 upon a hundred acres of land, It became not only 
 possible, but was a recognised commercial under- 
 taking, to bleach a thousand pieces of calico in two 
 days, and ship them off from Liverpool on the 
 third day after being sent to the bleach-works in 
 the heart of Lancashire. Mr, Tennant of Glasgow 
 made another great advance in this branch of 
 industry, in 1799, by producing chloride of lime 
 cheaply, possessing all the bleaching qualities 
 without the noxious odour of chlorine. It may 
 safely be averred that the enormous quantities of 
 cotton goods manufactured could scarcely have been 
 
— 
 
 844 
 
 bleached at all without the aid of these or similar 
 chemical improvements. 
 
 The dyeing of cottons and other woven goods 
 occupied much attention towards the close of the 
 last century: the Society of Arts offering prizes 
 for improvements in the materials and processes. 
 Madder being an indispensable drug for red dyes, 
 and the growers and dealers in this article believ- 
 ing that England must necessarily be dependent 
 on Holland for a supply, the price was arbitrarily 
 raised to a height that alarmed English dyers. 
 A course of experiment was hence encouraged 
 by the Society, which ended in proving this 
 fact—that although Holland was better fitted than 
 England to grow madder, the latter country 
 could maintain the culture profitably whenever the 
 market-price became high. This fact, when fully 
 known in Holland, tended to keep the price down 
 to a healthy limit. The imitation of Turkey red 
 was so successfully managed at some of the English 
 and Scotch dye-works, that the production of red 
 cotton handkerchiefs became a very extensive 
 department of manufacture; more than fifteen 
 hundred.looms were employed on that one article 
 alone in Glasgow, within five years after the 
 introduction of the dye—that is, in 1790, 
 
 The old method of calico-printing was retained 
 for the larger proportion of the work done. This 
 was by means of engraved blocks of sycamore, 
 which were wetted with the colour, and then 
 applied to every part of the piece of calico or 
 muslin in turn; one colour only was printed at 
 once, and when others were necessary to complete 
 the pattern, the operation was repeated with dif- 
 ferent blocks. Such a routine of processes being 
 necessarily very slow, inventors sought for means 
 to expedite it for cheap goods. Engraved copper- 
 plates increased the beauty but not the celerity. 
 At length a method, invented by a Scotchman 
 named Bell, was introduced at Preston by Messrs. 
 Livesey and Hargreaves in 1785. It consisted in 
 the employment of copper cylinders, each equal in 
 length to the width of the cloth to be printed, and 
 each engraved with the device to be printed in one 
 colour: there being as many cylinders as colours. 
 The cylinders were mounted in apparatus by 
 which they could be charged with colour while 
 rotating; and the cloth was made to travel onward, 
 passing in contact with all the cylinders in turn. 
 In increase of speed, the new method bore to the old 
 some such relation as that borne by the spinning- 
 jenny to the old spinning-wheel, or by the modern 
 printing-machine to the old printing-press. So 
 manifest was the advantage, that cylinder-printing 
 became gradually adopted for all save the more 
 costly and delicate fabrics. 
 
 In 1787 an act was passed to encourage the art 
 of calico-printing by granting to the proprietors of 
 original patterns or designs a copyright in them 
 for a certain time; and this copyright was extended 
 by other acts in 1789 and 1794. In the year 1800, 
 about 40 million yards of woven goods were 
 printed in Great Britain. In 1815 there were 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 nearly 150 million yards of calico alone printed, 
 
 besides muslins, linens, and stuffs of various kinds. 
 Flax, Woollen, Silk, and Hosiery Manufactures. 
 —The introduction of automatic machinery into 
 almost every branch of the cotton manufacture 
 naturally Jed to experiments for the purpose of 
 obtaining similar advantages in the production of 
 other textile fabrics. The mechanical difficulties 
 attending the spinning of flax by machinery were 
 not, however, speedily overcome. Saint-Fond 
 mentions the linen manufacture of Perth as one 
 which was conducted with much skill and success: 
 each piece being examined by a kind of microscope 
 to test its quality. He also notices an extraordi- 
 nary loom for weaving very large bed-sheets in 
 one piece. The quantity of linen stamped for sale 
 in Scotland rose from 17 million yards in 1785 to 
 24 millions in 1800; and the value from 800,000/, 
 to 1,000,0007._ This was exclusive of the quantity 
 made in families for domestic use, which must 
 have amounted to several millions of yards 
 annually, The quantities made in England and 
 Ireland at that time were not known; but Lord 
 Sheffield remarked that, a few years before, linen- 
 yarn was sent from the British dominions to be 
 woven in Holland. “It was common to send 
 cloth to be bleached there ; and it is not long since 
 the better sort of people in this island wore Dutch 
 holland for shirts. This is now at an end; yet 
 the value of foreign linens, exclusive of Irish, 
 imported into England, exceeds that of any other 
 foreign manufacture.’* The foreign linens im- 
 ported about that time amounted to somewhat 
 over 1,000,0007, annually, Until flax-spinning by 
 machinery was introduced, England was certainly 
 behind some other countries in the linen and flax 
 manufactures. It was just about the beginning of 
 the present century that the change began to be 
 made; until then, nearly all the flax-yarn was 
 spun by women at their own humble abodes. The 
 progress was slow; for down to 1814 the yarn 
 spun in the few flax-mills was sold to weavers, or 
 to dealers who acted as middlemen between the 
 Spinners and weavers. Soon after that date, 
 the machine-spinners became manufacturers of 
 linen also; and when the power-loom was ren- 
 dered applicable to this branch of industry, the 
 linen trade spread with great rapidity, especially 
 in Yorkshire and in Scotland. 
 The woollen manufacture, always more impor- 
 tant in this country than that of flax, was affected 
 by remarkable circumstances during the period 
 now under notice. In the first place, a deterior- 
 
 ation in British wool appeared. Its pre-eminence | — 
 
 no longer existed, as tested by the market-price, 
 which became much higher for Spanish than for 
 English wool. 
 woollen manufacturers, had been passed for pre- 
 venting the exportation of wool; and many 
 observant persons traced the evil to this source— 
 seeing that the graziers now found it more to their 
 
 * Observations, &c., p. 60. 
 
 Statutes, intended to benefit the — 
 
 * 
 
 a 
 
Cuap. XI] 
 
 interest to increase the weight of the carcass than 
 to improve or maintain the quality of the fleece. 
 The Shetland wool was so very much finer than 
 any produced in South Britain, that stockings 
 made from it sold at the extravagant price of 
 two or three guineas per pair. The mischief of 
 protective legislation was displayed in a more 
 absurd way in reference to wool than to almost 
 any other article of commerce. The wool-growers 
 asked for a prohibition of foreign wool, and for per- 
 mission to freely export British wool ; the woollen- 
 manufacturers, on the other hand, demanded free 
 admission for all foreign wool, with an embargo 
 on the export of English wool—on the plea that it 
 was not right to sell our raw produce to foreign 
 spinners and weavers. The Midland peers and 
 squires fought in parliament on the one side; the 
 Yorkshire peers and squires on the other—each 
 upholding the interests that told best on his rent- 
 roll. Peers, squires, manufacturers, and graziers, 
 were all equally positive, equally selfish ; and the 
 decisions of the finance minister were, not accord- 
 ing to justice, but according to the relative strength 
 of the parties at any particular time. The legisla- 
 tion was thus often of a miserable kind. One law 
 enacted that the operation of sheep-shearing should 
 not be carried on at any place within five miles 
 of the sea, excepting under the superintendence 
 of a revenue-officer; this was a manufacturer’s 
 manceuyre, to prevent the export of wool by 
 smuggling. In most of these contests, the manu- 
 facturers had the advantage over the sheep- 
 farmers ; the importation of foreign wool, and the 
 non-exportation of British wool, being the prevail- 
 ing elements of the system. The introduction of 
 Spanish wool increased, and the excellence of the 
 quality was such, that the Society of Arts and 
 the Highland Society encouraged all attempts to 
 introduce the Spanish or merino sheep into this 
 country. The king himself had a large flock of 
 such sheep; but many years elapsed before any 
 visible improvement appeared in. the quality of 
 English wool. 
 
 In the mechanical processes of the woollen 
 manufacture, Dr, Cartwright patented machines 
 in 1790 and 1792 for combing wool, by which one 
 man and five or six children were enabled to do 
 as much work as thirty men could do in the old 
 way. Mr. Toplis invented, in 1794, a mode of 
 applying water-power to the combing-engines. The 
 hand-combers of course opposed these novelties, 
 but they were obliged to yield—as all handicrafts- 
 men must, to a progress which is in its nature 
 irresistible. Cartwright long failed to reap any 
 advantage from his invention ; for those manufac- 
 turers who could not resist him in the light of day, 
 robbed him by adopting his plans in secret. 
 Towards the close of the century, the woollen 
 goods made in Wales comprised webs, flannels, 
 stockings, socks, gloves, and wigs. Almost every 
 small farmer wove cloth, using up all kinds of 
 wool indiscriminately, just as the market served. 
 The strong cloth was made about Dolgelly and 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 845 
 
 Machynlleth; the small cloth in Denbighshire. 
 There were no factories for cloth, the manufacture 
 being purely a domestic one. Flannels were to a 
 small extent made in factories, but chiefly on the 
 domestic system, within a district of twenty miles’ 
 radius round Welshpool. Shropshire was also a 
 seat of the flannel manufacture, and boasted of a 
 few mills worked by water-power. At one time 
 there was an expectation that the woollen and 
 flannel trade of Wales would grow to great magni- 
 tude as the factory system extended; but from 
 various circumstances this expectation was not 
 realised. The industry of the principality remained 
 notable in amount, but was quite eclipsed by the 
 astonishing advance in Yorkshire. In 1785, the 
 quantity of broad. and narrow woollen cloths, 
 milled at the fulling-mills of that county, amounted 
 to somewhat over 8,000,000 yards; whereas in 
 1800 the quantity was more than 15,000,000; and 
 in the first fifteen years of the present century, 
 the increase was still more rapid. According to 
 evidence collected by a committee of the House 
 of Commons, it was estimated that in 1799 the 
 Yorkshire manufacturers produced woollen cloths 
 to the value of 4,800,0002.,, kerseys and other goods 
 to the value of 1,600,0007., and stuffs and worsteds 
 1,500,0007.—making nearly 8,000,000/. in all. The 
 wool sheared in the kingdom at that time was 
 estimated at 600,000 packs, worth 112. per pack. 
 The introduction of machinery had so greatly 
 abridged labour in the various processes preceding 
 weaving, that ten persons could perform as much 
 work in 1800 as four hundred and sixty in 1785. 
 Some of the witnesses estimated the capital sunk 
 in the manufacture at 6,000,000/., and the persons 
 employed at 3,000,000; but Macpherson thinks 
 these numbers too high. The manufacture was 
 very flourishing during the greater part of the 
 French war ; seeing that the demand for woollen 
 cloth for large armies of men kept the manufacturers 
 constantly employed. 
 
 Protective legislation, notwithstanding all the 
 recent advances, continued to be the favourite 
 theory of the woollen manufacturers, Even during 
 some years of the present century there were 
 many regulations prohibiting the employment of 
 new machinery, and restricting the number of 
 looms to be used in any one place. But in 1806 
 these old restrictive acts were repealed ; and the 
 introduction of improved machinery into almost 
 every branch of the manufacture soon followed. In 
 relation to the raw material, the import of foreign 
 wool was free of duty until 1802; but an impost 
 of 5s. 3d. per cwt. was imposed in that year. 
 Nearly all the foreign wool imported was brought 
 from Spain, until after the war, when German 
 wool was gradually introduced. 
 
 In the silk manufacture, the raw material, had, 
 ever since the introduction of this branch of 
 industry into England, been purchased from 
 foreign countries, especially Italy ; where the pre- 
 paratory or ‘throwing’ process was also con- 
 ducted on nearly half of the quantity. It was felt 
 
846 
 
 that if India could supply us with part of our 
 demand, we should have a sort of national interest 
 in the culture as well as in the manufacture ; 
 
 and the East India Company took up the matter, 
 The Bengal silk being very poor, and inefliciently 
 prepared, the Company sent out improved machin- 
 ery, and persons to manage it and to teach the 
 natives. The progress made was slow; for although 
 the quantity sent to England incr eased, the Com- 
 pany for many years suffered a loss on each year’s 
 transactions. Just at the time when a favourable 
 turn was taking, and when the Bengalees were 
 extending their mulberry plantations and improv- 
 ing their processes of filature, it happened that the 
 astonishing increase of the British cotton-manufac- 
 ture, occasioning a lessening in the demand for 
 silk, proved disastrous at once to silk-growers, 
 dealers, and manufacturers. More than 18,000 
 silk-workers in Spitalfields were out of employ 
 in 1793; and the country throwing-mills were 
 either closed or placed upon short time. The Hast 
 India Company, having a great quantity of Bengal 
 silk upon their hands, almost unsaleable, resolved 
 to try to convert it into organzine (silk thread 
 suitable for the warp of woven goods, until then 
 almost wholly brought from Italy: the English 
 throwsters producing little else than ¢ram for the 
 weft threads). The result, though not extensively 
 beneficial, was good so far as it went; since it 
 rendered silk-manufacturers somewhat less exclu- 
 sively dependent on Italy. This branch of industry 
 never took root in England as in France: on the 
 one hand, we could not grow our own silk; on the 
 other hand, our cotton manufactures extended so 
 prodigiously that this material became almost a 
 national characteristic in costume. The silk 
 spinners and weavers, in a spirit of timid selfish- 
 ness, were incessantly asking the legislature for 
 protection. At one time, the manufacturers suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining a law for heavy duties, almost 
 prohibitive, on the import of tram or of woven 
 silks ; while at another the working-men obtained 
 the ‘Spitalfields Act, for the short-sighted purpose 
 of insuring a compulsory rate of wages from their 
 employers, and an equally compulsory employ- 
 ment of themselves to the exclusion of strangers. 
 Under the withering influence of such narrow 
 legislation, every germ of improvement was 
 checked ; and Spitalfields remained behind the 
 age in the requirements of the silk manufacture ; 
 for as the manufacturer was obliged, by the 
 Spitalfields Act, to pay as much for work done by 
 the best machinery as if done by hand, he had no 
 inducement to travel out of the old track. Spital- 
 fields permanently suffered; but Manchester, 
 Macclesfield, Norwich, Paisley, and other towns 
 profited by this ill-omened statute, which drove 
 much of the trade from London to those towns, 
 where its provisions did not apply. The Spital- 
 fields Act has ever since served as a valuable 
 beacon, to warn those who indulge in the fal- 
 lacious supposition that the legislature can usefully 
 determine the rate of wages, Much activity was 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 displayed at Paisley in the manufacture of silk 
 gauzes, and at Dublin in that of poplins and 
 tabinets. Norwich, also, towards the close of the 
 last century, gained high fame for the skill of its 
 manufacturers in producing shawls, silk counter- 
 panes, and dress-trains almost vieing with the 
 fabrics of India in fineness and beauty. 
 
 The stocking manufacture is one of the many 
 branches of industry which experienced great 
 change and extension through the introduction of 
 Arkwright’s cotton-machinery. Thread-stockings, 
 formerly in great demand, became neglected when 
 cotton-yarn was brought to a moderate price. 
 The counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester 
 were the chief seats of this new manufacture : 
 the town of Nottingham taking the lead before all 
 others. The domestic system was at once adopted 
 —that is, the manufacturer gave out yarn to the 
 workmen, receiving back the finished work weight 
 for weight. Notwithstanding the vast extensions 
 in trade and mechanical appliances, the hosiery 
 manufacture has ever since remained in principle 
 nearly the same: there have never at any time 
 been many stocking-mills, where steam-worked 
 machinery supersedes the eye and the hand of the 
 workman ; but the constant belief that some such 
 system may in any year be adopted, has had the 
 tendency to keep down the wages or earnings of 
 the framework-knitters (stocking-makers) to a very 
 low point. A rough estimate was made that 
 there were about 20,000 stocking-frames in Great 
 Britain in 1785, and 30,000 in 1812; the increase 
 was not specially great, but was marked by the 
 fact that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the 
 additional number consisted of frames for cotton 
 stockings, gloves, and other hosiery goods, The 
 bobbin-net trade, allied to that of hosiery by some 
 of the peculiarities in its mechanical details, 
 received a great impetus through the patented 
 inventions of Mr. Heathcoat in 1809; the opposi- 
 tion of hand-workers gave rise to much turmoil and 
 excitement ; but the manufacture settled down to 
 one in which Nottingham takes precedence of all 
 the world. 
 
 Miscellaneous Manufactures.—To notice all the 
 branches of productive industry is neither neces- 
 sary nor possible. A few others will suffice, in 
 addition to those which have already passed 
 rapidly under review, as illustrating the very 
 general influence of the spirit of improvement 
 observable in national industry during the second 
 half of the reign of George III. 
 
 Although the leather manufacture is a brasil 
 of industry in which, until recently, fewer changes 
 were made than in almost any other of equal 
 importance ; yet foreign writers—such as Saint- 
 Fond and Brissot—were wont to speak of the 
 high qualities of English leather. 
 wealth of English tanners allowed them, by 
 
 postponing the return of their capital, to keep the | 
 
 hides in the tan-liquor for a longer time than was 
 possible to the poorer tanners of the continent: 
 hence a superior quality imparted to the leather. 
 
 PP POM ee 
 
 ae ee 
 
 The greater — 
 
 Mot eb 
 
 eee 
 
 SE EMT LP STE MEE ee ee ee en 
 
 = 
 
Cuar. XI] 
 
 Bermondsey, at the close of the last century, was 
 what it has ever since been, the head-quarters of 
 the leather manufacture near the metropolis. 
 
 Much attention was devoted to the rope manu- 
 facture during the period now under review: the 
 enormous demand for war-shipping having offered 
 every incitement to ingenuity in this direction. 
 The object of many patents taken out in 1785 and 
 subsequent years was to substitute machinery in 
 lieu of manual labour in various departments of 
 the manufacture; while others bore relation to such 
 an arrangement of the several parts of a rope that 
 every yarn and strand of which it consisted might 
 bear its due proportion of strain. This last im- 
 provement was specially attained by an admirable 
 contrivance patented by Captain Huddart in 1793. 
 
 Chemical manufactures gradually arose as a 
 natural result of the establishment of chemistry 
 as a regular science; and this advancement was 
 connected in a marked way with the period now 
 under discussion. A German, Dr. Swediaur, 
 founded at Prestonpans an extensive work for the 
 manufacture of sea-salt, by artificial evaporation 
 of sea-water in large iron caldrons, Sulphuric 
 acid was largely manufactured at the same place ; 
 but this department of chemical industry after- 
 wards settled at Glasgow and other large towns. 
 The great quantity of coal in Northumberland and 
 Durham led to the establishment of a manufactory 
 at Newecastle-upon-Tyne for obtaining copperas 
 from the pyritous substances found in or with the 
 coal, Mr. Turner took out a patent in 1792 for 
 the preparation of a yellow colour for painting, 
 from British materials, in substitution of foreign 
 pigments ; and so highly was this invention valued, 
 that he obtained a renewal of his patent for a 
 term of years, : ; 
 
 A considerable impulse was given during this 
 period to the sugar manufacture of the West 
 Indies by the introduction of new kinds of sugar- 
 cane from islands in the Pacific, far more pro- 
 ductive than those before cultivated. The French 
 took the lead in this novelty, but the English soon 
 followed ; and about the beginning of the present 
 century the new cane superseded the old in most 
 of the plantations. The production of sugar from 
 the juice of the sugar-maple, already well known 
 as a chemical possibility, began about the same 
 time to be regarded in a commercial light. During 
 the American war, the New Englanders became 
 maple-sugar makers because they could not obtain 
 cane-sugar from the West Indies; and, thus 
 instructed, many of them continued the practice 
 after the peace, deeming it a useful mode of filling 
 up the intervals of time in farm-labour. Some, 
 too, conscientiously averse to slavery, encouraged 
 the new system as a mode of discountenancing 
 slave-grown sugar. Between 1790 and 1800, the 
 maple-sugar manufacture became established in 
 the central states, and steadily grew in extent. 
 In England, however, this change had not much 
 effect ; slave-grown West India sugar continued 
 to be the staple of the market. 
 
 NATIONAL INDUSTRY :—1785-1815. 
 
 847 
 
 The paper manufacture, so important in con- 
 nection with the diffusion of books and news- 
 papers, made signal progress. In early times, 
 England manufactured no paper but the coarsest, 
 brownest qualities, the better sorts being brought 
 from France, Holland, and Italy. The war with 
 France towards the close of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and the expulsion of skilled artisans from 
 that country by the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, tended to draw the attention of English 
 paper-makers to the possibility and desirability of 
 improving their products, White and blue paper 
 began to be made, not equal to the French, but 
 still of fair quality. Throughout the eighteenth 
 century this branch of industry steadily advanced. 
 In 1785 the writing-papers were fully equal to 
 those of France, and the total manufacture of all 
 kinds reached a value of 800,000. Linen rags 
 being very scarce, paper for crayon drawings was 
 made from silk rags. Instead of importing copper- 
 plate paper from France, as had long been the 
 custom, the home-manufacture of this commodity 
 had become of sufficient excellence. Marbled 
 and embossed papers were also among those 
 which underwent improvement. As a question of 
 economy, the Society of Arts recommended the 
 regeneration of old paper—that is, the discharging 
 of the ink from written or printed paper, the 
 conversion into pulp, and the manufacture of new 
 paper from this pulp ; but experience soon showed, 
 as it has often since showed, that such paper is of 
 very inferior quality. The important art of making 
 paper by machinery was commenced in 1799 by 
 Louis Robert, at EHssonne; and during the early 
 years of the present century, M. Fourdrinier, amid 
 difficulties of varied and formidable character, 
 succeeded in establishing paper-making machinery 
 in England, greatly to the advantage both of 
 literature and of commerce, 
 
 Printing continued to be effected by the hand- 
 worked press down to a date when the require- 
 ments of newspapers rendered some more 
 expeditious process imperatively necessary. Stereo- 
 type-printing had been invented by Ged early 
 in the eighteenth century, but had fallen out of 
 view as an impracticable or undesirable method. 
 About the year 1780, however, it was re-invented 
 by Mr. Tilloch; and in conjunction with Mr. 
 Foulis of Glasgow, he produced many volumes by 
 stereotype-printing. Towards the close of the 
 century, many of the French assignats were 
 printed by this method, to render them more 
 dificult of imitation. In 1787 an edition of 
 Anderson’s ‘History of Commerce, in four quarto 
 volumes, was printed with types bearing whole 
 words or syllables, instead of single letters—a 
 system called “logography ;” but, notwithstanding 
 the apparent saving in time, this system failed to 
 establish itself on a permanent basis. Logography 
 failed, but stereotyping became an important 
 element in the printing art, Earl Stanhope, who 
 devoted his erratic but ingenious mind with great 
 success to the improvement of printing, invented 
 
 ee 
 
and arranged a set of apparatus for stereotyping, 
 at his seat at Chevening in Kent; and after 
 having brought it to a certain stage of complete- 
 ness, he communicated the results of his experi- 
 ence to the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, 
 Stereotype works were first issued from those two 
 seats of learning in 1807 and 1809, respectively ; 
 and from that time the art of stereotyping was not 
 allowed to die. 
 
 Still more important were the successive 
 improvements in the mode of taking impressions 
 from the inked types—or in printing, properly so 
 called. Earl Stanhope introduced an admirable 
 press early in the present century, greatly superior 
 to the old wooden press in power, compactness, 
 and convenience ; so excellent was it, indeed, in 
 principle, that it has ever since held a distin- 
 guished place among printing apparatus; the 
 name of the inventor being appropriately given 
 to it. A few years before this, Mr. Nicholson had 
 obtained a patent for a method of printing from 
 cylinders, the continuous action of which would 
 be more effectively rapid than the alternating 
 action of the printing-press. This patent was 
 never worked with profit ; and it was not till 1811 
 that M. Konig, a native of Saxony, in conjunction 
 with Messrs. Bensley, Woodfall, and Taylor, gave 
 practical proof of what could _be effected by 
 cylinder-printing. They produced by this method 
 3000 printed sheets of the ‘ Annual Register, 
 Further improvements being made in the mechan- 
 ical details, the ‘Times’ newspaper was printed 
 by steam-worked cylinders on the 29th of Novem- 
 ber 1814; and from that day a new era dawned 
 
 ais ACK 
 Sil am {a 
 
 Cylinder Printing-machine. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ELEY 
 
 SS 
 
 Ret = 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 on literature, so far as concerned an increase in 
 the number of printed sheets and a diminution 
 in price, 
 tution of the Stanhope and other iron presses for 
 the old wooden press; the conquest over diffi- 
 culties in the establishment of steam-printing by 
 cylinders ; the invention of lithography for the 
 reproduction of works of art at a cheap price; 
 and the increase in numbers printed by the sub- 
 stitution of steel-plates for copper-plates—all 
 belonged to the contributions which industry 
 conferred on literature and art during this period. 
 
 With one more paragraph, we conclude this 
 chapter. Taking the year 1800 as the middle 
 of the period 1785-1815, and taking as our 
 authority a paper by Sir Frederic Eden, quoted 
 by Macpherson in his ‘ History of Commerce,’ it 
 appears that the amount of existing property of 
 all kinds in Great Britain and Ireland had become 
 truly enormous. Eden estimated that the property 
 susceptible of being insured from fire, or insurable 
 property, amounted in value to no less than 
 600,000,000/.—independently of coal, alum, various 
 minerals, boats, arsenals, offices, and public build- 
 ings; all of which, for various reasons, were 
 excluded from the account. He found that we 
 possessed shipping to the value of 20,000,0002, and 
 machinery to that of 40,000,0007. He estimated 
 that, besides exporting large quantities, the 
 inhabitants of the British Islands purchased and 
 used, in that year, agricultural produce to the value 
 of 52, 000,0002., and manufactured come Mee to 
 the value of 76, 000,0002, 
 
 The process of stereotyping ; the substi- 
 
 EE ee 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE FINE ARTS. 
 
 FIRST SECTION:—1785-1801, 
 
 ‘HERE is a somewhat 
 remarkable fact in the 
 history of this period— 
 namely, that if we were 
 to continue our notices of 
 \ the poets of the last cen- 
 tury in strict chronological 
 order, the first name we 
 should have to mention 
 would be that of-a writer 
 who more properly belongs 
 our own day, and to the 
 
 to what may be called 
 very latest era of our poetry. Crabbe, whose Tales 
 of the Hall, the noblest production of his powerful 
 and original genius, appeared in 1819, and who 
 died so recently as 1832, published his first poem, 
 The Library, in 1781; some extracts from it are 
 
 given in the Annual Register for that year. But 
 Crabbe’s literary career is divided into two parts 
 by a chasm or interval during which he published 
 nothing, of nearly twenty years; and he can only 
 be fully and fairly appreciated under the next 
 period. 
 
 One remark, however, touching this writer may 
 be made here: his first manner was evidently 
 caught from Churchill more than from any other 
 of his predecessors. And this was also the case 
 with his contemporary Cowper, the writer who 
 throws the greatest illustration upon this age of 
 our Iinglish poetry. William Cowper, born in 
 1731, twenty-three years before Crabbe (we pass 
 over his anonymous contributions to his friend the 
 Rey. Mr. Newton’s collection of The Olney Hymns, 
 published in 1776), gave to the world the first 
 volume of his poems, containing those entitled 
 Table-Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth, Expos- 
 tulation, Hope, Charity, Conversation, and Retire- 
 ment, in 1782 ; his famous History of John Gilpin 
 appeared the following year, without his name, in 
 a publication called ‘The Repository ;’ his second 
 volume, containing The Task, Tirocinium, and 
 some shorter pieces, was published in 1785; his 
 translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey in 1791; 
 and his death took place on the 25th of April, 
 1800. Cowper’s first volume attracted little atten- 
 tion: yet surely there were both a force and a 
 freshness of manner in the new aspirant that 
 
 Von. VI. 
 
 might have been expected to draw some obser- 
 vation. Smoother versification we had had in 
 
 great abundance; more pomp and splendour of 
 rhetorical declamation, perhaps, as in Johnson’s 
 paraphrases from Juvenal; more warmth and 
 glow of imagination, as in Goldsmith’s two poems, 
 if they are to be considered as coming into the 
 competition. But, on the whole, verse of such 
 bone and muscle had proceeded from no recent 
 writer—not excepting Churchill, whose poetry had 
 little else than its coarse strength to recommend 
 it, and whose hasty and careless workmanship 
 Cowper, while he had to a certain degree been his 
 imitator, had learned with his artistical feeling 
 infinitely to surpass. 
 
 As the death of Samuel Johnson closes one era 
 of our literature, so the appearance of Cowper 
 as a poet opens another. Notwithstanding his 
 obligations both to Churchill and Pope, a main 
 characteristic of Cowper’s poetry is its originality. 
 Compared with almost any one of his predecessors, 
 he was what we may call a natural poet. He 
 broke through conventional forms and usages in 
 his mode of writing more daringly than any Eng- 
 lish poet before him had done, at least since the 
 genius of Pope had bound in its spell the phrase- 
 ology and rhythm of our poetry, His opinions 
 were not more his own than his manner of 
 
 ral 
 oD 
 
850 
 
 expressing them. His principles of diction and 
 yersification were announced, in part, in the poem 
 with which he introduced himself to the public, 
 his Table-Talk, in which, having intimated his 
 contempt for the “ creamy smoothness” of modern 
 fashionable verse, where sentiment was so often 
 * sacrificed to sound, 
 And truth cut short to make a period round,” 
 he exclaims, 
 
 “* Give me the line that ploughs its stately course 
 
 Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force; 
 
 ‘hat, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart, 
 
 Quite unindebted to the tricks of art,” 
 But, although he despised the “ tricks” of art, 
 Cowper, like every great poet, was also a great 
 artist ; and, with all its in that day almost unex- 
 ampled simplicity and naturalness, his style is the 
 very reverse of a slovenly or irregular one. If his 
 verse be not so highly polished as that of Pope— 
 who, he complains, has 
 
 ‘¢ Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
 And every warbler has his tune by heart ”— 
 
 it is in its own way nearly as “ well disciplined, 
 complete, compact,” as he has described Pope’s to 
 be. With all his avowed admiration of Churchill, 
 he was far from being what he has called that 
 writer— 
 
 * Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force.” 
 
 On the contrary, he has in more than one passage 
 descanted on “ the pangs of a poetic birth”—on 
 
 ** the shifts and turns, 
 
 The expedients and inventions multiform, 
 
 To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms, 
 
 Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win”— 
 and the other labours to be undergone by whoever 
 would attain to excellence in the work of com- 
 position, Not, however, that, with all this elabo- 
 ration, he was a slow writer. Slowness is the 
 consequence of indifference, of a writer not being 
 excited by his subject—not having his heart in his 
 work, but going through it as a mere task; let 
 him be thoroughly in earnest, fully possessed of 
 his subject and possessed by it, and, though the 
 pains he takes to find apt and effective expression 
 for his thoughts may tax his whole energies like 
 wrestling with a strong man, he will not write 
 slowly. He is in a state of active combustion— 
 consuming away, it may be, but never pausing. 
 Cowper is said to have composed the six thousand 
 verses, or thereby, contained in his first volume in 
 about three months. 
 
 Not creative imagination, nor deep melody, nor 
 even, in general, much of fancy or grace or tender- 
 ness, is to be met with in the poetry of Cowper ; 
 but yet it is not without both high and various 
 excellence. Its main charm, and that which is 
 never wanting, is its earnestness, This is a quality 
 which gives it a power over many minds not at all 
 alive to the poetical ; but it is also the source of 
 some of its strongest attractions for those that are, 
 Hence its truth, both of landscape-painting and of 
 the description of character and states of mind; 
 hence its skilful expression of such emotions and 
 
 A de el Lae ee 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 passions as it allows itself to deal with ; hence the 
 force and fervour of its denunciatory eloquence, 
 giving to some passages as fine an inspiration of 
 the moral sublime as is perhaps any where to be 
 found in didactic poetry. Hence, we may say, 
 even the directness, simplicity, and manliness of 
 Cowper’s diction—all that is best in the form, as 
 well as in the spirit, of his verse. It was this 
 quality, or temper of mind, in short, that princi- 
 pally made him an original poet; and, if not the 
 founder of a new school, the pioneer of a new 
 era of English poetry. Instead of repeating the 
 unmeaning conventionalities and faded affectations 
 of his predecessors, it led him to turn to the actual 
 nature within him and around him, and there to 
 learn both the truths he should utter and the words 
 in which he should utter-them, 
 
 After Cowper had found, or been found out by, 
 his proper audience, the qualities in his poetry 
 that at first had most repelled ordinary readers 
 rather aided its success. In particular, its theo- 
 logical tone and spirit made it acceptable in 
 quarters to which poetry of any kind had rarely 
 penetrated, and where it may perhaps be affirmed 
 that it keeps its ground chiefly perforce of this its 
 most prosaic peculiarity; although, at the same 
 time, it is probable that the vigorous verse’ to 
 which his system of theology and morals has been 
 married by Cowper, has not been without effect in 
 diffusing, not only a more indulgent toleration, 
 but a truer feeling and love for poetry throughout 
 what is called the religious world. Nor is it to be 
 denied that the source of Cowper’s own most 
 potent inspiration is his theological creed. The 
 most popular of his poems, and also perhaps the 
 
 one of greatest pretension, is his Task: it abounds 
 
 in that delineation of domestic and everyday 
 life which interests every body, in descriptions 
 of incidents and natural appearances with which 
 all are familiar, in the expression of sentiments 
 and convictions to which most hearts readily 
 respond: it is a poem, therefore, in which the 
 
 [Boox X. | 
 
 oS ae ST 
 
 a eet 
 a _ 
 
 greatest number of readers find the greatest num- |} 
 ber of things to attract and attach them. Besides, | 
 
 both in the form and in the matter, it has less of | 
 
 what is felt to be strange and sometimes repulsive 
 by the generality: the verse flows, for the most 
 part, smoothly enough, if not with much variety of 
 
 music ; the diction is, as usual with Cowper, clear, — 
 
 manly, and expressive, but at the same time, from 
 being looser and more diffuse, seldomer harsh or 
 
 difficult than it is in some of his other composi- — 
 tions; above all, the doctrinal strain is pitched 
 upon a lower key, and, without any essential point | 
 
 being given up, both morality and religion cer- | 
 
 tainly assume a countenance and voice considerably 
 
 less rueful and vindictive. But although The Task | 
 
 has much occasional elevation and eloquence, and 
 
 some sunny passages, it perhaps nowhere rises to — 
 
 the passionate force and vehemence to which 
 Cowper had been carried by a more burning zeal 
 in some of his earlier poems, 
 example, to the fine declamation in that entitled 
 
 4 
 
 We would refer, for M 
 
Cuap, XII.] 
 
 Table-Talk, on the divine vengeance which a 
 nation draws down upon itself by vice: 
 
 ** All are his instruments; each form of war, 
 What burns at home, or threatens from afar, 
 Nature in arms, her elements at strife, 
 The storms that overset the joys of life, 
 Are but his rods to scourge a guilty land, 
 And waste it at the bidding of his hand. 
 He gives the word, and Mutiny soon roars 
 In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores; 
 The standards of all nations are unfurled ; 
 She has one foe, and that one foe the world: 
 And, if he doom that people with a frown, 
 And mark them with a seal of wrath pressed down, 
 Obduracy takes place; callous and tough, 
 The reprobated race grows judgment-proof 
 Earth shakes beneath them, and heav’n roars above; 
 But nothing scares them from the course they love. 
 * * 
 
 They trust in navies, and their navies fail— 
 
 God’s curse can cast away ten thousand sail ! 
 
 They trust in armies, and their courage dies; 
 
 In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies; 
 
 But all they trust in withers, as it must, 
 
 When He commands, in whom they place no trust. 
 
 Vengeance at last pours down,” &c. 
 But, even when it expresses itself in quite other 
 forms, the fervour which inspires these earlier 
 poems occasionally produces something more bril- 
 liant or more graceful than is any where to be 
 found in The Task; as, for instance, in the 
 comparison between Voltaire and the Cottager, in 
 that called ‘Truth, and the exqnisite version, so 
 high-wrought and yet so severely simple, of the 
 meeting of the two Disciples with their Master on 
 the road to Emmaus in that entitled ‘ Conversa- 
 tion,’ For one thing, Cowper’s poetry, not organ- 
 toned or informed with any very rich or original 
 music, any more than soaringly imaginative or 
 gorgeously decorated, is of a style that requires the 
 sustaining aid of rhyme: in blank verse it is apt 
 to overflow in pools and shallows, And this is one 
 among other reasons why, after all, some of his 
 short poems, which are nearly all in rhyme, are 
 perhaps what he has done best. His John Gilpin, 
 universally known and universally enjoyed by his 
 countrymen, young and old, educated and unedu- 
 cated, and perhaps the only English poem of which 
 this can be said, of course at once suggests itself as 
 standing alone in the collection of what he has left 
 us for whimsical conception and vigour of comic 
 humour ; but there is a quieter exercise of the 
 same talent, or at least of a kindred sense of the 
 ludicrous and sly power of giving it expression, in 
 others of his shorter pieces. For tenderness and 
 pathos, again, nothing else that he has written, 
 and not much that is elsewhere to be found of the 
 same kind in English poetry, can be compared 
 with his Lines on his Mother’s Picture. This, 
 indeed, is no doubt, as a whole, his finest poem— 
 at once springing from the deepest and purest 
 fount of passion, and happy in shaping itself into 
 richer and sweeter music than he has reached in 
 any other. It shows what his real originality, and 
 the natural spirit of art that was in him, might 
 have done under a better training and more 
 favourable circumstances of personal situation, or 
 perhaps in another age, Generally, indeed, it may 
 be said of Cowper, that the more he was left to 
 himself, or trusted to his own taste and feelings, in 
 writing, the better he wrote. In so far as regards 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 851 
 
 the form of composition, the principal charm of 
 what he has done best is a natural elegance, which 
 is most perfect in what he has apparently written 
 with the least labour, or at any rate with the least 
 thought of rules or models, His Letters to his 
 friends, not written for publication at all, but 
 thrown off in the carelessness of his hours of leisure 
 and relaxation, have given him as high a place 
 among the prose elassics of his country as he holds 
 among our poets, His least successful performances 
 are his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, 
 throughout which he was straining to imitate a 
 style not only unlike his own, but, unfortunately, 
 quite as unlike that of his original—for these ver- 
 sions of the most natural of all poetry, the Homeric, 
 are, strangely enough, attempted in the manner of 
 the most artificial of all poets, Milton, 
 
 Neither, however, did this age of our literature 
 want its artificial poetry. In fact, the expiration 
 or abolition of that manner among us was brought 
 about, not more by the example of a fresh and 
 natural style given by Cowper, than by the exhibi- 
 tion of the opposite style, pushed to its extreme, 
 given by his contemporary Darwin. Our great 
 poets of this era cannot be accused of hurrying 
 into print at an immature age. Dr. Erasmus 
 Darwin, born in 1721, after having risen to dis- 
 tinguished reputation as a physician, published the 
 Second Part of his Botanic Garden, under the title 
 of The Loves of the Plants, in 1789; and the First 
 Part, entitled The Economy of Vegetation, two 
 years after. He died in 1802, The Botanic Garden, 
 hard, brilliant, sonorous, may be called a poem 
 cast in metal—a sort of Pandemonium palace of 
 rhyme, not unlike that raised long ago in another 
 region : 
 
 “where pilasters round 
 
 Were set, and Doric pillars, overlaid 
 
 With golden architrave; nor did there want 
 
 Cornice, or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven : 
 
 The roof was fretted gold.” 
 The poem, however, did not rise exactly “like an 
 exhalation.” “The verse,’ writes its author's 
 sprightly biographer, Miss Anna Seward, “ cor- 
 rected, polished, and modulated with the most 
 sedulous attention ; the notes involving such great 
 diversity of matter relating to natural history; and 
 the composition going forward in the short recesses 
 of professional attendance, but chiefly in his chaise, 
 as he travelled from one place to another; the 
 Botanic Garden could not be the work of one, two, 
 or three years ; it was gen from its primal lines to 
 its first publication.’ If this account may be 
 depended on, the Doctor’s supplies of inspiration 
 must have been vouchsafed to him at the rather 
 penurious rate of little more than a line a day. At 
 least, therefore, it cannot be said of him, as it was 
 said of his more fluent predecessor in both gifts of 
 
 Apollo, Sir Richard Blackmore, that he wrote “ to 
 
 the rumbling of his chariot wheels.’ The verse, 
 nevertheless, does in another way smack of the 
 travelling-chaise, and of “the short recesses of pro- 
 fessional attendance.” Nothing is done in passion 
 and power; but all by filing, and scraping, and 
 
 ee 
 
852 
 
 rubbing, and other painstaking. Every line is as 
 elaborately polished and sharpened as a lancet; 
 
 i 
 
 LEG, 
 
 f € 
 
 \\ RX ip 
 ED 
 / 
 
 Y Wiig 
 
 and the most effective paragraphs have the air of a 
 lot of those bright little instruments arranged in 
 rows, with their blades out, for sale. You feel as 
 if so thick an array of points and edges demanded 
 careful handling, and that your fingers are scarcely 
 safe in coming near them. Darwin’s theory of 
 poetry evidently was, that it was all a mechanical 
 affair—only a higher kind of pin-making. His 
 own poetry, however, with all its defects, is far 
 from being merely mechanical. The Botanic 
 Garden is not a poem which any man of ordinary 
 intelligence could have produced by sheer care and 
 industry, or the faculty of writing which could be 
 acquired by serving an apprenticeship to the trade 
 of poetry. Vicious as it is in manner, it is even 
 there of an imposing and original character ; and 
 a true poetic fire lives under all its affectations, 
 and often blazes up through them. There is not 
 much, indeed, of pure soul or high imagination in 
 Darwin; he seldom rises above the visible and 
 material ; but he has at least a poet’s eye for the 
 perception of that, and a poet’s fancy for its embel- 
 lishment and exaltation. No writer has surpassed 
 him in the luminous representation of visible 
 objects in verse; his descriptions have the distinct- 
 ness of drawings by the pencil, with the advantage 
 of conveying, by their harmonious words, many 
 things that no pencil can paint. His images, though 
 they are for the most part tricks of language rather 
 than the transformations or new embodiments of 
 impassioned thought, have often at least an Ovidian 
 glitter and prettiness, or are striking from their 
 mere ingenuity and novelty—as when he addresses 
 the stars as “flowers of the sky,” or apostrophises 
 the glowworm as “Star of the earth, and diamond 
 of the night.” These two instances, indeed, thus 
 brought into juxtaposition, may serve to exem- 
 plify the principle upon which he constructs 
 such decorations: it is, we see, an economical 
 principle ; for, in truth, the one of these figures 
 is little more than the other reyersed, or inverted. 
 Still both are happy and effective enough conceits 
 —and one of them is applied and carricd out so as 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 to make it more than a mere momentary light 
 flashing from the verse, The passage is not without 
 a tone of grandeur and true pathos ; 
 
 * Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime, 
 Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time; 
 Near and more near your beamy cars approach, 
 And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach ; 
 Flowers of the Sky! ye too to age must yield, 
 Frail as your silken sisters of the field! 
 Star after star from heayen’s high arch shall rush, 
 Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush, 
 Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, 
 And death and night and chaos mingle all! 
 —Till o’er the wreck, emerging from the storm, 
 Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form, 
 Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, 
 And soars and shines, another and the same.” 
 
 There is also a fine moral inspiration, as well as 
 the usual rhetorical brilliancy, in the following 
 lines : 
 “ Hail, adamantine Steel! magnetic Lord! 
 King of the prow, the ploughshare, and the sword! 
 True to the pole, by thee the pilot guides 
 His steady helm amid the struggling tides, 
 
 Braves with broad sail the immeasurable sea, 
 Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but thee!” 
 
 Here, to be sure, we have another variation of the 
 same thought according to which the stars have 
 elsewhere been presented shining on earth as glow- 
 worms and blooming in the sky as flowers; and 
 this may be considered to show some poverty of 
 invention in the poet, or an undue partiality for 
 the stars; but this last metaphor, making a star of 
 the mysterious loadstone, in the dark night and on 
 the immeasurable sea—a guiding, and, as it were, 
 living, though lustreless star—is more uncommon 
 and surprising, and evinces more imagination, 
 than the other figures. Bursts such as these, 
 however, are of rare occurrence in the poem. Its 
 sounding declamation is for the most part addressed 
 rather to the ear than to either the imagination 
 or the fancy. But the mortal disease inherent in 
 Darwin’s poetry is, that it is essentially unspiritual. 
 It has no divine soul: it has not even a heart of 
 humanity beating in it. Its very life is galvanic 
 and artificial. Matter only is what it concerns 
 itself about ; not to spiritualize the material, which 
 is the proper business and end of poetry, but to 
 materialize the spiritual is its constant tendency 
 and effort. It believes only in the world of sense; 
 and even of that it selects for its subject the lowest 
 departments. Not man and his emotions, but ani- 
 mals, vegetables, minerals, mechanical inventions 
 and processes, are what it delights to deal with, 
 But these things are mostly, by doom of nature, 
 incapable of being turned into high poetry. They 
 belong to the domain of the understanding, or the 
 bodily senses and powers, not either to that of the 
 imagination or that of the heart. Dr. Darwin 
 himself probably came to suspect that there were 
 some subjects of which poetry could make nothing, 
 some regions of mental speculation in which she 
 could only make herself ridiculous, when he saw 
 how grotesquely, and at the same time how exactly 
 in many respects, the style and manner of his 
 ‘Loves of the Plants’ were reflected in the ‘ Loves 
 of the Triangles,’ 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 q 
 
 = 
 
 i 
 
 ————— 
 
Cuar. XII] 
 
 It must be regarded as a real misfortune for Dr. 
 Darwin’s fame, though a ludicrous one, that he 
 should have had such a biographer and com- 
 mentator upon his works as Miss Anna Seward. 
 Anna has herself a claim upon our notice as one of 
 the poetical lights of this age. Besides various 
 contributions to magazines, she emitted separately 
 and with her name, in the last twenty years of 
 the century, a succession of elegies, monodies, 
 odes, sonnets, poetical epistles, adieus, &c., about 
 Captain Cook, Major André, Lady Miller of Bath- 
 easton, and other persons and things, which were 
 generally read in their day, and were, after her 
 death, in 1809, at the age of sixty-two, collected 
 and republished in three octavo volumes, under 
 the care of Walter Scott, who had formed her 
 acquaintance in the early part of his career, and 
 upon whom she had imposed the honour of being 
 her literary executor. 
 
 Her poetry, with much more sentimentality and 
 much less sense and substance, belongs to the 
 same school with Darwin’s. Hers is the feeble 
 commonplace of the same laboured, tortuous, and 
 essentially unnatural and untrue style out of 
 which he, with his more powerful and original 
 genius, has evolved for himself a distinctive form 
 or dialect. This style has subsisted among us, 
 in one variation or another, and with more or 
 less of temporary acceptance, in every era of our 
 poetry. It is mimicked by Pope, in his ‘Song 
 by a Person of Quality, written in the year 
 1733 ;’ itis the Euphuism of the Hlizabethan age, 
 gently ridiculed by Shakspeare, in his Love’s 
 
 Labour’s Lost, though then made brilliant and. 
 
 imposing by the wit and true poetic genius of 
 Lilly ; it is the same thing that is travestied by 
 Chaucer in his Rime of Sir Thopas. Perhaps, 
 however, it had in no former time made so much 
 din, or risen to such apparent ascendency, as at 
 the date of which we are now speaking, the last 
 years of the eighteenth century. Nor had it ever 
 before assumed a shape or character at once so 
 extravagant and so hollow of all real worth or 
 power. The first impulse seems to have been 
 caught from Italy, the foreign country whose 
 literature has in every age exercised, for good or 
 for evil, the greatest influence upon our own, The 
 writers of what is called the Della Cruscan school 
 had their predecessors and progenitors in Lady 
 Miller and her friends, whose ‘ Poetical Amuse- 
 ments at a Villa near Bath, as they were called 
 when printed, were given to the world between 
 1770 and 1780, Lady Miller, when she set up 
 her Parnassus and Wedgwood-ware vase _ at 
 Batheaston, had just returned from a tour in Italy 
 with her husband, of which she published an 
 account, in three volumes of ‘ Letters, in 1776. 
 Miss Seward was one of the contributors to this 
 Batheaston poetry. It does not seem, however, to 
 have attracted much notice beyond the circle in 
 which the writers and their patroness moved ; at 
 most it was regarded as belonging rather to 
 the provincial than to either the national or the 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 858 
 ERE EE aa EERIE a aE NER RUNGE DEE ANIDOD PAT5 017 
 
 metropolitan literature of the time. In the Della 
 Cruscan school the thing came to a head. “In 
 1785,” as the matter is recorded in the Introduction 
 to the Baviad and Meviad, “a few English of 
 both sexes, whom chance had jumbled together 
 at Florence, took a fancy to while away their time 
 in scribbling high-flown panegyrics on themselves; 
 and complimentary canzonettas on two or three 
 Italians, who understood too little of the language — 
 in which they were written to be disgusted with 
 them.” Among them were Mrs. Piozzi, the 
 widow of Johnson’s friend Thrale, now the wife 
 of her daughter's music-master; Mr. Bertie 
 Greathead, a man of property and good family ; 
 Mr. Robert Merry, who specially took to himself 
 the designation of Della Crusca; Mr. William 
 Parsons, another English gentleman of fortune, 
 dc. These people first printed a volume of their 
 rhymes under the title of the Florence Miscellany. 
 Afterwards they and a number of other persons, 
 their admirers and imitators, began to publish 
 their lucubrations in England, chiefly in two new 
 daily newspapers, called The World and The 
 Oracle ; from which they were soon collected, and 
 recommended with vast laudation to the public 
 attention, in a volume entitled The Album, by 
 Bell the printer. “While the epidemic malady 
 was spreading from fool to fool,’ continues Gif- 
 ford, “ Della Crusca came over, and immediately 
 announced himself by a sonnet to Love. Anna 
 Matilda wrote an incomparable piece of nonsense 
 in praise of it ; and the two ‘great luminaries of 
 the age, as Mr. Bell calls them, fell desperately 
 in love with each other. From that period not a 
 day passed without an amatory epistle, fraught 
 with lightning and thunder, et quicquid habent 
 telorum armamentaria ceeli, The fever turned to 
 a frenzy: Laura Maria, Carlos, Orlando, Adelaide, 
 and a thousand other nameless names caught the 
 infection ; and from one end of the kingdom to the 
 other, all was nonsense and Della Crusca,” After 
 this had gone on for some time, Gifford took up his 
 pen, and, in 1794, produced his ‘ Baviad,. which, 
 in 1796, was followed by its continuation, the 
 ‘Meeviad, It is only in these two poems that the 
 memory of most of the unhappy Della Cruscan 
 songsters has been preserved—an immortality 
 which may be compared with that conferred by 
 the Newgate Calendar. We may transfer to our 
 historic: page the principal names, in addition 
 to those already mentioned, that figure in these 
 celebrated satires—adding a few particulars as to 
 some of them, gleaned from other sources, A few 
 of the writers, we may remark, that got bespattered 
 in the course of Gifford’s somewhat energetic 
 horse-play, have survived and recovered from his 
 corrosive mud and any connexion they may have 
 had with the Della Cruscan folly :—such as the 
 dramatists O'Keefe, Morton, Reynolds, and Hol- 
 croft; the younger Colman, who had already, in 
 1795, produced his Sylvester Daggerwood, besides 
 other dramatic pieces; Mrs, Cowley, the clever 
 authoress of the Belle’s Stratagem; and no less 
 
854 
 
 a person than the prince of biographers, James 
 Boswell, of whose Johnsonianism, however, people 
 in general as yet discerned only the ludicrous 
 excess; not to speak of such rather more than 
 respectable rhymers as Edward Jerningham, the 
 author of numerous plays and poems; Miles Peter 
 Andrews, famous for his prologues and epilogues, 
 which were occasionally lively as well as rattling ; 
 and perhaps we ought also to add, in a proper 
 spirit of gallantry, the somewhat too famous Mrs, 
 Robinson, who, with all her levity, intellectual as 
 well as moral, was not without some literary 
 talent and poetical feeling. Mrs. Piozzi, too, of 
 course, though not the wisest of women, must 
 be held to have been by no means ali ignorance 
 and pretension. But the general herd of the 
 Della Cruscans may be safely set down as having 
 been mere blatant blockheads. Of some of the 
 fictitious signatures quoted by Gifford we find no 
 interpretation: such as Arno, Cesario, Julia, Wc. 
 Others of the names he mentions are real names. 
 Topham, for instance, is Mr. Edward Topham, the 
 proprietor of The World; ‘monosoph Este,’ as 
 he calls him, is the Rev. Charles Este, principal 
 editor of that paper; Weston is Joseph Weston, 
 a small magazine critic of the day. ‘Two of the 
 minor offenders, to whom he deals a lash or two 
 in passing, are James Cobbe, a now forgotten 
 farce-writer ; and Frederick Pilon, who was, we 
 believe, a player by profession. The more 
 conspicuous names, besides Merry and Greathead, 
 are Mit Yenda or Mot Yenda, stated to be the 
 anagram of a Mr. Timothy or Thomas Adney, of 
 whom we know nothing; Edwin, which stands 
 for a Mr, Thomas Vaughan—the same person, we 
 suppose, who wrote a farce called The Hotel, and 
 one or two other things of the same sort, about 
 twenty years before this time; and especially 
 Tony or Anthony Pasquin, the nom de guerre of a 
 John Williams, the author of loads both of verse 
 and prose. If we may judge by a collection of 
 the ‘Poems, as they are called, of this Williams, 
 or Pasquin, published, in two volumes, in 1789— 
 a second edition, with a long list of subscribers, 
 sparkling with titled names—Gifford’s representa- 
 tion of the emptiness, feebleness, and sounding 
 stupidity of the Della Cruscans is no exaggeration 
 at all, Nothing, certainly, was ever printed on 
 decent paper more worthless and utterly des- 
 picable in every way than this poetry of the great 
 Anthony Pasquin, who, in quite a lofty and 
 patronising style, dedicates one of his volumes 
 - to Mr. Pitt, and the other in part to Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, in part to Warren Hastings (so econo- 
 mically does he distribute the precious honour); 
 —who has all these three distinguished persons 
 among his subscribers, in company with most of 
 the rank and eminence of the time ;—and whom 
 his friends and admirers, West Dudley Digges, 
 W. Whitby of Cambridge, Thomas Bellamy, 
 Frederick Pilon, William Upton, and J. Butler— 
 all, he tells us, “of high estimation in the world 
 of literature”’—in a series of introductory odes 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and other rhyming laudations, extol, as another 
 Martial and Juvenal combined—the reformer 
 of the age—the scourge of folly—animating the 
 just criticism of Persius with a brighter fire than 
 Churchill’s—“at once the Pride and Terror of 
 the Land”—a Dryden come to life again—the 
 greatest wit since Butler—a giant, magnanimous 
 and proud, fit only to contend with giants. 
 
 Of course, the Della Oruscan poetry could not 
 deceive the higher order of cultivated minds ; but 
 even in what is called the literary world there are 
 always numbers of persons easily imposed upon as 
 to such matters, and at the same time favourably 
 placed for imposing upon others; poetical anti- 
 quaries, editors, and commentators, for example, 
 who, naturally enough, take themselves, and are 
 taken by the multitude, to be the best judges of 
 the article which it seems to be in a manner 
 their trade to deal in, but who, in truth, for the 
 most part, do not know good poetry from bad, or 
 from no poetry at all. 
 which about this very time some of the most 
 laborious of the Shakspearian commentators, and 
 
 other literati of high name, were taken in by | 
 
 the miserable forgeries of Ireland. No wonder, 
 then, that Tony Pasquin too had his literary as 
 well as fashionable admirers. No doubt his chief 
 
 acceptance, and that of the other Della Cruscan { 
 
 warblers, male and female, was with what is (or 
 rather was, for the phrase in that sense is now 
 gone out) called the town—in other words, the 
 mere populace of the reading world, whose voice 
 is not, and cannot. be, more potential for any 
 enduring effect than that of any other mob; yet 
 the discreditable infatuation—the parallel of that 
 of Queen Titania for Bottom the weaver, with his 
 ass’s head— 
 **T pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: ; 
 Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note”— 
 
 might have lasted considerably longer, and even 
 spread farther than it did, had it not been checked 
 by Gifford’s vigorous exposure and castigation. 
 
 He himself intimates, in ,the Preface to the | 
 
 Meeviad, that he had been charged with breaking 
 butterflies upon a wheel ;, but “many a man,” he 
 
 adds, “who now affects to pity me for wasting my | 
 strength upon unresisting imbecility, would, not | 
 long since, have heard their poems with applause, | 
 
 and their praises with delight.” On the other 
 hand, their great patron, Bell, the printer, accused 
 
 him of “bespattering nearly all the poetical | 
 “ But, on the whole,” he {| 
 
 eminence of the day.” 
 says, “the clamour against me was not loud; and 
 
 was lost by insensible degrees in the applause of | 
 Thus | _ 
 supported, the good effects of the satire (gloriose | 
 
 such as I was truly ambitious to please. 
 
 loquor) were not long in manifesting themselves, 
 Della Crusca appeared no more in the Oracle, 
 
 and if any of his followers ventured to treat the | 
 town with a soft sonnet, it was not, as before, | 
 
 introduced by a pompous preface. Pope and 
 
 Milton resumed their superiority ; and Este and | 
 his coadjutors silently acquiesced in the growing | 
 
 wibbaen uals 
 
 4 
 
 [Book X. . | 
 
 Witness the manner in ~ 
 
 ry 
 
 —————E_ = 4 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 opinion of their incompetency, and showed some 
 sense of shame.” 
 
 Of the forgeries of William Henry Ireland it is 
 only necessary to record that, after the pretended 
 old parchments had been exhibited for some 
 months in Norfolk-street, where they were beheld 
 and perused with vast reverence and admiration 
 by sundry eminent scholars and critics, their con- 
 tents were printed in December, 1795, in a mag- 
 nificent two-guinea folio, published by subscription 
 among the believers, with the title of ‘ Miscella- 
 neous Papers and Legal Instruments, under the 
 hand and seal of William Shakspeare, including 
 the Tragedy of King Lear, and a small fragment 
 of Hamlet, from the original MSS.;’ that the 
 professed editor was Samuel Ireland, the father 
 of the fabricator; that the tragedy of ‘Kynge 
 Vorrtygerne, an additional piece of manufacture 
 from the same workshop, was brought out at 
 Drury Lane in March following; that Malone’s 
 conclusive ‘ Inquiry into the Authenticity’ of the 
 papers appeared just in time to herald that 
 performance; that young Ireland himself the same 
 year acknowledged the imposition (at the same 
 time acquitting his father of all share in it) in his 
 ‘Authentic Account of the Shakspeare Manu- 
 scripts’ (afterwards extended in his ‘Confessions 
 relative to the Shakspeare Forgery,’ published in 
 1805) ; and that, notwithstanding all this, George 
 Chalmers came out, in 1797, with ‘An Apology for 
 the Believers,’ which he followed up with another 
 thick octavo, entitled ‘A Supplemental Apology,’ 
 two years after. Malone’s exposure, founded 
 entirely on evidence external to the merits of the 
 poetry thus impudently attributed to Shakspeare, 
 was, as we have said, demonstrative enough ; but 
 it ought not to have been required: the wretched 
 rubbish should have been its own _ suflicient 
 refutation. Vortigern, indeed, was damned, after 
 Malone had sounded his catcall; but that persons 
 occupying such positions in the literary world as 
 Pye, the poet laureate, Boswell, John Pinkerton, 
 George Chalmers, Dr. Parr, &c., should have 
 mistaken, as they did, the poetry of Ireland for 
 that of Shakspeare, could only have happened in 
 a time in which there was very little true feeling 
 generally diffused, even among persons to whom 
 the public naturally looked up for guidance in 
 such matters, either of Shakspeare or of poetry. 
 The Shakspeare papers were a very proper and 
 natural sequel to the Della Cruscan poetry. 
 
 Contemporaneously with Gifford’s Baviad and 
 Meviad appeared another remarkable satirical 
 poem, The Pursuits of Literature, now known to 
 have been written by the late Thomas James 
 Mathias, the author of many other pieces both in 
 verse and prose (among the rest, of a number of 
 poetical compositions in Italian, published in the 
 latter part of his life), although, we believe, it never 
 was publicly acknowledged by him. The poem, 
 which consists in all of only between 1500 and 
 1600 lines, spread over a volume of 450 pages, 
 takes a general survey both of the literature and 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 855 
 
 — 
 
 politics of its day ; but the interest of the work lies 
 
 chiefly in the prose prefaces and notes, the quantity 
 of which amounts to about ten times that of the 
 verse, And, in truth, the prose is in every way 
 the cleverest and most meritorious part of the per- 
 formance. Mathias’s gift of song was not of a high 
 order; his poetry is of the same school with 
 Gifford’s, but the verse of the Pursuits of Literature 
 has neither the terseness and pungency nor the 
 occasional dignity and elegance which make that 
 of the Baviad and Meeviad so successful an echo of 
 Pope—the common master of both writers. The 
 notes, however, though splenetic, and informed by 
 a spirit of uncompromising partisanship, are written 
 with a sharp pen, as well as in a scholarly style, 
 and, in addition to much Greek and Latin learning, 
 contain a good deal of curious disquisition and 
 anecdote. Most of the literary and political notor- 
 ieties, great and small, of that day, are noticed by 
 the author—himself not excepted ; and it is inter- 
 esting and amusing to look back from this distance, 
 and to remark how time has dealt with the several 
 names introduced, and what final judgments she 
 has passed on his likings and dislikings. 
 
 This may be said to have been especially the 
 age of literary and political satire in England. 
 Most of it, however, was in a lighter style than the 
 ‘Pursuits of Literature’ or the ‘ Baviad and 
 Meeviad.’ These poems were the energetic invec- _ 
 tives of Juvenal and Persius after the more airy 
 ridicule of Horace. Perhaps the liveliest and 
 happiest of all the quick succession of similar jeux 
 @esprit that appeared from the first unsettlement 
 of the power and supremacy of Lord North to the 
 termination of the war of parties by the firm 
 establishment of the premiership of Pitt, was 
 Richard Tickell’s ‘ Anticipation, published a few 
 days before the meeting of parliament in Noy- 
 ember, 1778. It was an anticipation of the king’s 
 speech and the coming debates on it in the two 
 Houses ; and so much to the life was each noble 
 lord and honourable member hit off, that, it is 
 said, they one after another, to the infinite amuse- 
 ment of their hearers, fell in their actual orations 
 into the forms of expression and modes of argu- 
 ment and illustration that had been assigned to 
 them, only drifting the faster and the further in 
 that direction the more they strove to take another 
 course. Poor Tickell, the grandson of Addison’s 
 friend, Thomas Tickell, after making the town 
 merry by other sportive effusions both in prose 
 and verse, put an end to his own life by throwing 
 himself from his bedroom-window at Hampton 
 Court Palace in November, 1793. The ‘ Heroic 
 Epistle to Sir William Chambers, with its ‘ Heroic 
 Postscript, and the ‘Odes’ to Dr. Shebbeare, to 
 Sir Fletcher Norton, &c., which appeared in 1782 
 under the name of Malcolm MacGregor, of ~ 
 Knightsbridge, Esq., and are now known to have 
 been the productions of the poet Mason, have been 
 noticed in the preceding Book. A fortunate sub- 
 ject did as much perhaps for the first and most 
 famous of these pieces as any remarkable merit 
 
856 
 
 there was in its execution; indeed, the verses 
 would have needed to be golden indeed to give any 
 extraordinary value to so short a performance, 
 The ‘ Heroic Epistle’ is only an affair of 146 lines, 
 with a few slight prose notes. But, although Sir 
 William’s oriental principles of gardening afforded 
 matter for solemn ridicule which it was impossible 
 for him to fail in turning to some account, Mason 
 had more spite than wit, and his wordy, laboured 
 verse is for the most part rather insolent than 
 caustic. The next political satire that made much 
 noise at the time, and is still remembered, was the 
 famous ‘ Rolliad,’ which appeared in a series of 
 papers in the latter part of 1784 and beginning of 
 1785, immediately after the great struggle between 
 Pitt and the Coalition. The ‘ Rolliad’—so named 
 after Lord Rolle, then Colonel John Rolle, one of 
 the members for Devonshire, and a stanch adher- 
 ent to the party of Pitt and the court—was a volley 
 of prose and verse from the side of the defeated 
 Coalition. One of the persons principally con- 
 cerned in it is understood to have been the eminent 
 civilian, Dr, French Laurence, Burke’s friend ; 
 another is believed to have been the late George 
 Ellis, the editor of the Specimens of the Early 
 English Poets, &c. Its tone and manner are 
 jocular; but it is easy to see that the writers were 
 at heart not a little angry, and that they were bent 
 on doing mischief. The satire is daringly personal, 
 and not unfrequently coarse, going to a much 
 greater length in both ways than our present 
 manners would allow. The vindictive spirit out 
 of which it comes, too, is shown both by the 
 pertinacity with which the more eminent victims 
 are again and again attacked, and by the eagerness 
 with which the smaller game also are hunted down 
 and torn to pieces. Nobody escapes, from the new 
 premier down to the most nameless among his 
 retainers. Yet all this is done, as we have said, 
 with much gaiety and laughter ; and the epigrams 
 are often as brilliant as they are stinging and exas- 
 perating. The ‘ Rolliad’ was followed, after a few 
 months, by the ‘Probationary Odes for the Laureate- 
 ship,’ published after the election of Thomas 
 Warton to that office on the vacancy occasioned 
 by the death of William Whitehead. The Odes, 
 which are supposed to be recited by their respective 
 authors before the Lord Chamberlain, assisted by 
 his friend Mr, Delpini, of the Haymarket Theatre, 
 whom his lordship had sent for to serve as a guide 
 to his inexperience in such matters, are assigned to 
 Sir Cecil Wray, a not very literary M.P., the estab- 
 lished butt of the Whig wits of those days (‘the 
 words by Sir Cecil Wray, Bart., the spelling by 
 Mr. Grojan, attorney-at-law,’ is the title); to Lord 
 Mulgrave, a member of the new administration, 
 and the author of a ‘ Voyage to the North Pole, as 
 well as of various fugitive pieces in not the soberest 
 verse ; to Sir Joseph Mawbey, another ministerial 
 M.P., who appears to have dealt, not in poetry, but 
 in pigs; to Sir Richard Hill, the methodistical 
 baronet, brother of Rowland, the well-known 
 preacher, and said to be given to the same kind of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 pious jocularity in his speeches with which 
 Rowland used to enliven his sermons; to James 
 Macpherson, the translator or author of Ossian, 
 who was also at this time a member of the House 
 of Commons (sitting as one of the represent- 
 atives of the Nabob of Arcot); to Sir Nathaniel 
 Wraxall, already famous for having run over all 
 the countries of the world and learned nothing 
 but their names; to Sir Gregory Page Turner, 
 another loyal baronet and M.P.; to Harry 
 Dundas (in Scotch); to Viscount Mountnorris 
 (in Hibernian English); to the Lord Chancellor 
 Thurlow ; and to the Rev. Dr. Prettyman (Pitt's 
 tutor, afterwards Bishop of Winchester), the prose 
 notes to whose irregular strains, “except those 
 wherein Latin is concerned,” are stated to be 
 by John Robinson, Esq.—the notorious “Jack 
 Robinson,’ in popular repute the well-rewarded 
 and unscrupulous doer of all work for all adminis- 
 trations, The ‘ Probationary Odes’ no doubt pro- 
 ceeded from. the same manufactory as the ‘Rolliad ; 
 and they are at least equally spirited and successful, 
 Indeed, the humour, we should say, is richer as 
 well as brighter and freer in its flow, an effect 
 owing partly perhaps to the form of the compo- 
 sition, which is not so solemn and rigid, but some- 
 what also, probably, to the writers being in a 
 kindlier mood, and less disposed to give pain to 
 the objects of their satire. The muse of the 
 ‘Rolliad’ and the ‘Probationary Odes’ was, as far 
 as is known, heard no more; but another mocking 
 spirit, not to be so soon silenced, was already in 
 the air, and beginning to “syllable men’s names” 
 in a very peculiar accent, at once singularly comic 
 and biting. Dr. John Wolcot, formerly a preacher 
 to a congregation of negroes in Jamaica, now 
 settled in London as a physician, made his first 
 appearance as Peter Pindar in his ‘Lyric Odes 
 (fifteen in number) to the Royal Academicians for 
 1782. The original style and manner of these 
 compositions, coarse and careless enough, but full 
 of drollery and pungency, seems to have taken the 
 public fancy at once, Some attention also their 
 author would have had a right to, had it been 
 merely for the soundness of some of his remarks, 
 and his evident knowledge of his subject; for 
 Wolcot, who when practising medicine at Truro 
 had discovered and encouraged the genius of John 
 Opie, then a working carpenter in that neighbour- 
 hood, had a true as well as cultivated feeling for 
 art. But, although the truth or good sense of his 
 criticism may have done something at first to bring 
 him into notice, it was to attractions of another 
 
 sort that he owed his popularity. He confined | 
 
 himself to his friends the Academicians, to whom 
 he addressed another set of odes in 1783, and a 
 
 third set in 1785, till the latter year, when he came — 
 
 out with the first canto of his ‘Lousiad,’ the earliest 
 of his lampoons expressly or entirely dedicated to 
 the higher game which henceforward engaged his 
 chief attention. The king, naturally falling in his 
 way as the founder and patron of the Academy, 
 had from the first come in for a side-blow now and 
 
Cuap. XII.] LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 then; but from this date their majesties became 
 the main butts of his ridicule, and it was only 
 when no fresh scandal or lie suited for his purpose 
 was afloat about the doings at St. James’s or Kew 
 that he wasted his time on anything else. Such a 
 thorn in the side of the royal family did he make 
 himself, that a negotiation, it is said, was at one 
 time entered into to purchase his silence. There 
 can be no doubt, indeed, that his daring and inces- 
 sant derision proved materially injurious to the 
 popularity of the king and queen. Their unscru- 
 pulous assailant took all sorts of advantages, fair 
 and unfair, and his ludicrous delineations are cer- 
 tainly no materials for history ; but as a caricatu- 
 rist in rhyme he must be placed very high. His 
 manner, as we have observed, is quite original and 
 his own, however much it may have been imitated 
 since by others. His mere wit is not very pointed; 
 but nobody tells a story better, or brings out the 
 farce of a scene with more breadth and effect. 
 Much of what he has left is hastily executed and 
 worth very little; some of his attempts were not 
 suited to the nature of his powers; much of what 
 made people laugh heartily in his own day has lost 
 its interest with the topics to which it relates; but 
 it may safely be predicted that some of his comic 
 tales, and other things which he has done best, and 
 which have least of a mere temporary reference, 
 will live in the language and retain their popu- 
 larity. Wolcot lived till 1819; but, although he 
 continued to write and publish till within a 
 few years of his death (producing, among other 
 things, a tragedy, the Fall of Portugal, which 
 appeared without his name in 1808), all his most 
 memorable effusions belong to the first eighteen or 
 twenty years of his authorship. His proper suc- 
 cessor, who may be regarded in the main as his 
 imitator or disciple, was George Colman the 
 Younger (as he persisted in calling himself so long 
 as he lived) ; but it has not been generally noticed 
 that from Wolcot, Byron also has evidently caught 
 part of the inspiration of his Don Juan—not of its 
 golden poetry, of course, but of the fluent drollery 
 and quaintness of its less elevated passages. Even 
 there it is Wolcot refined and heightened ; but still 
 the spirit and manner are essentially the same. 
 Compare, for instance, the harangue of Julia to her 
 husband and his intruding myrmidons, in the first 
 canto of Don Juan, with the Petition of the Cooks 
 in the second canto of the Lousiad. 
 
 Of a number of other poetical writers, or verse- 
 makers of the present period, very little need be 
 said. The celebrated Sir William Jones—the 
 Admirable Crichton of his day—published the 
 first of his poems, consisting mostly of translations 
 from the Asiatic languages, in 1772, in his twenty- 
 sixth year; and he afterwards produced, from 
 time to time, other similar translations, and also 
 some original compositions in verse. He died, 
 in the midst of a career. of intellectual conquest 
 which promised to embrace the whole compass of 
 human learning, in 1794. The poetry of Sir 
 William Jones is very sonorous and imposing; 
 
 857 
 
 and in his happiest efforts there is not wanting 
 nobleness of thought, or glow of passion, as well as 
 pomp of words. He cannot, however, be called 
 a poet of an original genius; any peculiarity of 
 inspiration that may seem to distinguish some of 
 his compositions is for the most part only the 
 orientalism of the subject, and of the figures and 
 images, He is a brilliant translator and imitator 
 rather than a poet in any higher sense. We 
 cannot say even so much for some other verse- 
 writers of this age, once of great note. Henry 
 James Pye, who died poet laureate and a police 
 magistrate in 1813—having succeeded to the 
 former office in 1790 on the death of Thomas 
 Warton—had in his time discharged upon the 
 unresisting public torrents of ‘ Progress of Refine- 
 ment,’ ‘Shooting, a Poem,’ ‘Amusement, a Poetical 
 Hssay,’ ‘ Alfred, ‘Faringdom Hill” ‘The Aristo- 
 erat,’ ‘The Democrat, and other ditch-water of 
 the sort, which the thirsty earth has long since 
 drunk up. Not less unweariedly productive was 
 Hayley, the friend and biographer of Cowper, with 
 his ‘Triumphs of Temper,’ ‘Triumphs of Music, 
 poetical epistles, elegies, odes, rhyming essays, 
 plays, &c., which had accumulated to a mass of 
 six octavo volumes so early as 1785, and to which 
 much more forgotten verse was afterwards added 
 —besides his Lives of Cowper and Milton, a prose 
 three-volume ‘ Essay on Old Maids, a novel of 
 similar extent, &c. &e. William Hayley lived till 
 1820, With his prose-poetry may be classed the 
 several wooden didactic and other poems of the 
 late learned Richard Payne Knight—‘ The Land- 
 scape,’ published in 1794; ‘The Progress of Civil 
 Society, in 1796; ‘The Romance of Alfred” many 
 years after, Mr. Knight died in 1824. Here may 
 be also properly enumerated Cumberland’s worth- 
 less epics of ‘Calvary, ‘Richard the First,’ ‘The 
 Exodiad’ (the two latter, written in conjunction 
 with Sir James Bland Burges, and the last not 
 published till some years after the close of the 
 present period), Cumberland’s comedies have 
 been noticed in the last Book. Another popular 
 poet, and voluminous writer, both in verse and 
 prose, of this age was Samuel Jackson Pratt— 
 originally a strolling player, next an itinerant 
 lecturer, finally a Bath bookseller—who, after 
 beginning his literary career as a writer of novels 
 under the designation of Courtney Melmoth, Esq., 
 perpetrated certain long poems, in a style of 
 singularly mawkish sentimentality and empty 
 affectation—‘ Sympathy,’ ‘ Humanity,’ and sundry 
 others, with which humanity has long ceased to 
 sympathise. Pratt, however, was quite the rage for 
 a time—though his existence had been generally 
 forgotten for a good many years before its earthly 
 close in 1814. Here, too, may be mentioned the 
 Rey. Percival Stockdale, whose first poetical effu- 
 sion, ‘Churchill Defended, dates so far back as 
 1765, and who continued scribbling and publishing 
 down nearly to his death, in 1811, but all whose 
 literary labours have passed into utter oblivion, 
 except only his memoirs of his own life, published 
 
858 
 
 in two octavo volumes in 1809, which is a work 
 that the world will not willingly let die, and to 
 have written which is, of itself, not to have lived 
 in vain. Poor Stockdale’s pleasant delusion was 
 merely, that, being one of the smallest men of his 
 time or of any time, he imagined himself to be 
 one of the greatest—and his autobiography is his 
 exposition and defence of this faith, written with 
 an intense serenity of conviction which the most 
 confirmed believers in anything else whatever 
 might envy. 
 
 Mrs, Charlotte Smith, better known as a novelist, 
 made her first appearance as an author, at the age 
 of twenty-five, by the publication, at Chichester, 
 in 1784, of a series of ‘ Elegiac Sonnets,’ in which 
 there was at least considerable poetic promise. 
 Miss Brooke, daughter of Henry Brooke, the 
 author of ‘The Fool of Quality,’ published in 1790 
 her ‘ Reliques of Irish Poetry translated into 
 English Verse, which is chiefly deserving of notice 
 as having called some attention to a neglected and 
 interesting department of ancient national litera- 
 ture. Hannah More had produced her two 
 ballads, or ‘ Poetical Tales,’ as she called them, of 
 ‘Sir Eldred of the Bower,’ and the ‘ Bleeding 
 Rock,’ and several more poems, as well as sundry 
 tragedies and other dramatic pieces, before the 
 commencement of the present period; and she 
 maintained her reputation as a correct, sensible, 
 and highly moral writer of verse by her ‘ Florio’ 
 and ‘The Bas Bleu, published in 1786; and her 
 poem entitled ‘Slavery,’ which appeared in a 
 quarto volume, two years later. Joanna Baillie 
 assumed at once her much more eminent place as 
 a poetess, by the first volume of her Plays Illus- 
 trative of the Passions, which was given to the 
 world in 1798. The late William Sotheby, besides 
 a volume of poems published in 1794, added to 
 our literature, in 1798, his elegant version of 
 Wieland’s ‘ Oberon, the work by which his name 
 is most likely to be preserved, although he con- 
 tinued to write verse down almost to his death 
 in 1833, But perhaps the two most important 
 poetical publications which have not been noticed, 
 at least in their effects, if not in themselves, were 
 the ‘ Fourteen Sonnets’ by the Rev. Lisle Bowles, 
 printed at Bath in 1789; and the ‘Tales of 
 Wonder, by Matthew Gregory Lewis (already of 
 literary notoriety as the author of the novel of ‘The 
 Monk, published in 1795), which came out in two 
 volumes, in 1801, Mr. Bowles, whose later works 
 have amply sustained his reputation as a true 
 poet, has the glory of having by his first verses 
 given an impulse and an inspiration to the genius 
 of Coleridge, who in his Biographia Literaria has 
 related how the spirit of poetry that was in him 
 was awakened into activity by “these sonnets. 
 Lewis, again, and his Tales of Wonder, gave in 
 like manner example and excitement to Scott, 
 who had indeed already published his first rhymes, 
 partly translated, partly original, in 1796, and also 
 his prose version of Goethe’s Goetz of Berlichingen, 
 in 1799, but had not yet given any promise of 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 what he was destined to become. Coleridge 
 published his forgotten drama of The Fall of 
 Robespierre, in 1794, and a volume of poems in 
 1796; Wordsworth, his epistle in verse entitled 
 ‘An Evening Walk,’ and also his ‘ Descriptive 
 Sketches during a Tour in the Alps,’ in 1793, and 
 the first edition of his ‘ Lyrical Ballads,’ in 1798 ; 
 Southey, his Joan of Arc, in 1796, and a volume 
 of poems in 1797; but these writers all neverthe- 
 less belong properly to our next period, in which 
 their principal works were produced, as well as 
 Scott and Crabbe, and Thomas Moore, whose first 
 publication, his Odes of Anacreon, appeared in 
 1800; Thomas Campbell, whose Pleasures of Hope 
 first appeared in 1799; Walter Savage Landor, 
 whose first published poetry dates so far back as 
 1795; and Samuel Rogers, whose first poetry 
 came out in 1786, and his Pleasures of Memory in 
 1792, 
 
 In October or November of the same -year 
 1786, in which Rogers first made his name 
 known to English readers by ‘An Ode to Super- 
 stition, with other Poems,’ printed at London, 
 in the fashionable quarto size of the day, the 
 press of the obscure country town of Kilmarnock, 
 in Scotland, gave to the world, in an octavo 
 volume, the first edition of the ‘ Poems, chiefly in 
 the Scottish Dialect, of Robert Burns. A second 
 edition was printed at Edinburgh early in the fol- 
 lowing year. Burns, born on the 25th of January, 
 1759, had composed most of the pieces contained 
 in this publication in the two years preceding its 
 appearance: his life—an April day of sunshine 
 and storm—closed on the 2ist- of July, 1796; and 
 in his last nine or ten years he may have about 
 doubled the original quantity of his printed poetry. 
 He was not quite thirty-seven and a half years old 
 when he died—about a year and three months 
 older than Byron. Burns is the greatest peasant 
 poet that has ever appeared; but his poetry is so 
 remarkable in itself that the circumstances in 
 which it was produced hardly add anything to our 
 admiration. It is a poetry of very limited compass 
 —not ascending towards any “highest heaven of 
 invention,” nor even having much variety of 
 modulation, but yet in its few notes as true and 
 melodious a voice of passion as was ever heard, It. 
 is all light and fire. Considering how little the 
 dialect in which he wrote had been trained to the 
 purposes of literature, what Burns has done with 
 it is miraculous. Nothing in Horace, in the way 
 of curious felicity of phrase, excels what we find 
 in the compositions of this Ayrshire ploughman. | 
 The words are almost always so apt and full of | 
 life, at once so natural and expressive, and so 
 graceful and musical in their animated simplicity, 
 that, were the matter ever so trivial, they would of 
 
 themselves turn it into poetry. And the same | : 
 
 native artistic feeling manifests itself in everything 
 else. One characteristic that belongs to whatever 
 Burns has written is, that of its kind or in its own 
 way, it is a perfect production. It is perfect in 
 the same sense in which every production of nature 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 is perfect, the humblest weed as well as the 
 proudest flower ; and in which, indeed, every true 
 thing whatever is perfect, viewed in reference to 
 its species and purpose. His poetry is, throughout, 
 real emotion melodiously uttered. As such, it is as 
 genuine poetry as was ever written or sung. Not, 
 however, although its chief and best inspiration 
 is passion rather than imagination, that any poetry 
 ever was further from being a mere Molian warble 
 addressing itself principally to the nerves. Burns’s 
 
 / 
 f 
 \ 
 j 
 A VG, 
 th/ 
 wi) 
 / 
 LG t, 
 MA yt 
 “jy 
 , 
 
 head was as strong as his heart; his natural saga- 
 city, logical faculty, and judgment were of the first 
 order; no man, of poetical or prosaic tempera- 
 ment, ever had a more substantial intellectual 
 character, And the character of his poetry is like 
 that of the mind and the nature out of which it 
 sprung—instinct with passion, but not less so with 
 power of thought—full of light, as we have said, as 
 well as of fire. More of matter and meaning, in 
 short, in any sense in which the terms may be 
 understood, is in no verses than there is in his, 
 Hence the popularity of the poetry of Burns with 
 all classes of his countrymen—a popularity more 
 universal, probably, than any other writer ever 
 gained, at least so immediately ; for his name, we 
 apprehend, had become a household word among 
 all classes in every part of Scotland, even in his 
 own lifetime. It has happened, however, from this 
 cause that he is not, perhaps, in general estimated 
 by the best of his productions, Nobody, of course, 
 capable of appreciating any of the characteristic 
 qualities of Burns’s poetry will ever think of 
 quoting even the best of the few verses he has 
 written in English, as evidence of his poetic genius, 
 In these he is Samson shorn of his hair and 
 become as any other man. But even such poems 
 as his ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night,’ and his tale of 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 ‘Tam o’ Shanter, convey no adequate conception 
 of what is brightest and highest in his poetry. The 
 former is a true and touching description in a 
 quiet and subdued manner, suitable to the subject, 
 but not adapted to bring out much of his illumi- 
 nating fancy and fusing power of passion: the 
 other is a rapid, animated, and most effective piece 
 of narrative, with some vigorous comedy, and also 
 some scene-painting in a broad, dashing style, but 
 exhibiting hardly more of the peculiar humour of 
 Burns than of his pathos. His Lines to a Mountain 
 Daisy, his Lines to a Mouse, his Address to the 
 Deil, his Death and Dr. Hornbook, his Holy Fair, 
 and many of his more irreverent effusions, are of a 
 far rarer merit—much richer in true poetic sun- 
 shine and beauty, as well as of a much more 
 distinctive and original inspiration. His Songs, to 
 be sure, have taken all hearts—and they are the 
 very flame-breath of his own. No truer poetry is 
 any where to be found than these songs of Burns’s, 
 Yet they do not resemble the exquisite lyrical 
 snatches with which Shakspeare, and also Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher, have sprinkled some of their 
 dramas—enlivening the busy scene and progress 
 of the action as the progress of the wayfarer is 
 enlivened by the voices of birds and the sight and 
 scent of wild-flowers that have sprung up by the 
 wayside. The songs of Burns belong rather to 
 the same class with the lyrics of Sappho, and the 
 more impassioned among those of Horace, which 
 are equally utterances of real emotion, expressions 
 of some feeling or aspiration of the poet himself 
 which thus sought and found vent. They are 
 rivulets of melodious fancy poured from the fount 
 of his own heart—his actual mood of mind at the 
 time, whether of sorrow or joy, made vocal and 
 musical, And indeed, in all that he has written 
 best, Burns may be said to have given us himself 
 —the passion or sentiment which swayed or pos- 
 sessed him at the moment—almost as much as in 
 his songs. In him the poet was the same as the 
 man. He could describe with admirable fidelity 
 and force, incidents, scenes, manners, characters, or 
 whatever else, which had fallen within his expe- 
 rience or observation; but he had little proper 
 dramatic imagination, or power of going out of 
 himself into other natures, and, as it were, losing 
 his personality in the creations of his fancy. His 
 blood was too hot, his pulse beat too tumultuously, 
 for that; at least he was during his short life too 
 much the sport both of his own passions and of 
 many other stormy influences to acquire such 
 power of intellectual self-command and self-sup- 
 pression. What he might have attained to if a 
 longer earthly existence had been granted to him 
 —or a less tempestuous one—who shall say ? 
 
 This was an age of popular song in England as 
 well as in Scotland: while Burns was in the last 
 years of his life enriching Thomson’s ‘ Collection 
 of Original Scottish Airs’ and Johnson’s ‘ Musical 
 Museum’ with words for the old airs of his country 
 that have become a part of the being of every 
 Scotsman, Charles Dibdin, like another Tyrtzus, 
 
860 
 
 was putting new patriotism into every English 
 heart by his inspiriting strains—some of the best 
 of which Tyrteeus never matched ; but he will fall 
 more properly to be noticed when we come to 
 speak of what was done in Music during the 
 present period. 
 
 In prose literature, although there was book- 
 making enough, not much that has proved enduring 
 was done in England during the last decade and 
 a half of the eighteenth century, at least if we 
 except a few works produced by one or two of the 
 great writers of the preceding period who have 
 been already noticed—such, for instance, as the 
 last three volumes of Gibbon’s History, published 
 in 1788, and Burke’s Reflections and other writings, 
 chiefly on the subject of the French Revolution, 
 which appeared between 1790 and his death in 
 1797. . We may also mention here the publication 
 in 1798, in five volumes 4to, of the first collected 
 edition of the Works of Horace Walpole, compris- 
 ing, along with other novelties, a volume of his 
 always lively and entertaining and often brilliant 
 Letters, the portion of his writings upon which his 
 fame is probably destined chiefly to rest. His 
 Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of 
 George II., in two quarto volumes, were not given 
 to the world till 1822. 
 
 In the Drama, with activity enough among a 
 crowd of writers, very little was produced in this 
 period that retains its place in our literature. Mrs 
 Inchbald, Thomas Holcroft, Thomas Morton, John 
 O’ Keefe, Charles Dibdin and George Colman the 
 Younger (already mentioned), Fraucis Reynolds, 
 and Joseph George Holman were the principal 
 writers who supplied the theatres with new pieces ; 
 and Holcroft’s Road to Ruin (1792), Morton’s 
 Speed the Plough (1798), Mrs. Inchbald’s Wives 
 as they Were and Maids as they Are (1797), and 
 Colman’s Sylvester Daggerwood, originally entitled 
 New Hay at the Old Market (1795), are all of 
 more or less merit, and retain some popularity. 
 No great comedy, however, belongs to this time. 
 The tragedies produced were such as Madame 
 D’Arblay’s Edwy and Elgiva, brought out at 
 Drury Lane in 1795, but. never printed; Arthur 
 Murphy’s Arminius (1798); Godwin’s Antonio 
 (1801), &e. 
 
 In the department of fictitious narrative there 
 was more to boast of. William Godwin, already 
 distinguished by his Inquiry concerning Political 
 Justice, made a great sensation in 1794 by his 
 novel of ‘Things as they Are, or the Adventures 
 of Caleb Williams,’ a performance still standing 
 almost alone in our literature of that description 
 for earnest impassioned verisimilitude; and in 1799 
 the same writer achieved perhaps a still greater 
 triumph by a different application of the same 
 kind of power, in his St. Leon, in which even the 
 supernatural and impossible is invested with the 
 strongest likeness to truth and reality. The Evelina 
 of Miss Frances Burney (afterwards Madame 
 D’Arblay) appeared in 1777; her Cecilia in 1782 ; 
 her Camilla in 1796. Mrs. Radcliffe (originally 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Miss Ann Ward) produced within this period her 
 Romance of the Forest and her Mysteries of 
 Udolpho ; Mrs. Charlotte Smith (originally Miss 
 Turner) her Romance of Real Life, and several 
 other novels, all of superior merit; Dr. John Moore 
 his Zeluco, his Edward, and his Mordaunt; Mrs, 
 Inchbald her Simple Story (in 1791).. Mrs Opie 
 (originally Miss Alderson) had also published 
 her first work, her deeply pathetic tale of The 
 Father and Daughter, in 1801; and Miss Edgeworth 
 had commenced her brilliant career of fiction by 
 her Belinda in 1801, and her Castle Rackrent in 
 1802, 
 
 In History, if we except the conclusion of 
 Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, no work that has any 
 pretensions to be accounted classical appeared 
 during this short period, ‘The first edition of 
 Mitford’s History of Greece was published in 
 1784; another ‘ History of Ancient Greece, in 
 two volumes quarto, by Dr. John Gillies, who 
 afterwards succeeded Dr. Robertson as Royal 
 Historiographer for Scotland, appeared in 1786; 
 John Pinkerton published his Dissertation on the 
 Scythians or Goths in 1787, his Inquiry into the 
 Ilistory of Scotland preceding the reign of 
 Malcolm III. (forming an introduction to Lord 
 Hailes’s Annals) in 1789, and his History of 
 Scotland from the Accession of the House of 
 Stuart to that of Mary (filling up the interval 
 between Hailes and Robertson) in 1797: all 
 works of research and ingenuity, but of no merit 
 as pieces of composition. The Rev. John 
 Whitaker, who had previously made himself 
 known by his ‘ History of Manchester,’ and his 
 ‘Genuine History of the Britons Asserted,’ pub- 
 lished his ‘Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated’ in 
 1787 ; and many minutiz of the national anti- 
 quities were illustrated, in the Archzeologia or in 
 separate publications, by Gough, the editor of 
 Camden’s Britannia, Dr. Samuel Pegge, and other 
 patient and laborious inquirers. In Biography, 
 historical and literary, besides Boswell’s great 
 work, ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson,’ which first 
 appeared, in two quarto volumes, in 1790, there 
 was Mr. Roscoe’s elegant ‘Life of Lorenzo de 
 Medici, published in 1795, The same writer's 
 ‘Life and Pontificate of Leo X.’ did not appear 
 till 1805, 
 
 Of Criticism and Commentatorship of all kinds 
 there was abundance. At least a brilliant begin- 
 ning was made in the study of the literature of 
 India and other Eastern countries by a few adven- 
 turous inquirers, led by Sir William Jones, whose 
 French version of the Life of Nadir Shah from — 
 the Persian appeared in 1770; his Persian Gram- 
 mar in 1771; his Six Books of Commentaries, in 
 Latin, on the Persian Poetry, in 1774; his trans- 
 lation of the Moallakat from the Arabic in 1783; 
 his translation of the Sanscrit drama of Sacontala | 
 in 1790; his translation of the Ordinances of 
 Menu in 1794; and his various disquisitions on 
 the languages, learning, and history of the Oriental 
 nations, printed in the Asiatic Researches, in the 
 
Cuap. XII. ] 
 
 early volumes of that publication, begun in 1788. 
 Jones also, besides his poetry already mentioned, 
 and his Essay on the Law of Bailments, and one 
 or two other professional tracts, had in 1779 
 published a translation of the Speeches of Isaeus, 
 from the Greek. Other translations from the 
 ancient languages, published during this period, 
 were that of Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry, by 
 Pye (afterwards poet laureate), in 1788, that of the 
 same work by the Rev. Thomas Twining in 1789, 
 that of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics by Dr. 
 Gillies in 1797, and that of the works of Tacitus 
 by Arthur Murphy in 1793. The immediately 
 preceding period had been illustrated by the 
 learned and ingenious philological speculations of 
 Harris and Monboddo: it was not, indeed, till 
 the year 1792 that the sixth and last volume of 
 Monboddo’s ‘Origin and Progress of Language’ 
 ‘saw the light ; meanwhile, the first part of what 
 has proved a much more influential work, Horne 
 Tooke’s celebrated ‘Diversions of Purley,’ ap- 
 peared in 1786 in an octavo volume, afterwards 
 expanded into a quarto, to which a second was 
 added in 1805. In Latin scholarship, the most 
 remarkable production of this period was perhaps 
 the edition of the work of the Scottish writer 
 William Bellenden, or Bellendenus, entitled De 
 Statu, which appeared anonymously in 1787, with 
 a long and eloquent Latin preface, loud in its 
 advocacy of the Whig politics and laudation of 
 the Whig leaders of the day, now known to be 
 the composition of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Parr, who 
 had already some years before announced himself 
 in a sermon published under the name of Phileleu- 
 therus Norfolciencis, and was for nearly forty years 
 after this date to continue to make considerable 
 noise in the literary world as theologian, critic, 
 Philopatris Varvicencis, &c. Parr was assisted in 
 the preparation of his edition of Bellendenus by 
 his friend Henry Homer, who published some good 
 editions of Horace, Cesar, and other Latin authors, 
 but died at an early age in 1791. Another reve- 
 rend politician and classical scholar of this day 
 was Gilbert Wakefield, who, being a dissenter, 
 carried his liberalism both in politics and in 
 divinity considerably further than Dr. Parr, and 
 was, from his twenticth year till his death in 1801, 
 at the age of forty-five, one of the most restless 
 of writers upon all sorts of subjects. Wakefield 
 published an edition of Virgil’s Georgics in 1788 ; 
 his Silva Critica (a miscellany of Latin notes 
 upon the Sacred Scriptures and other ancient 
 writings) in 1789; and a complete translation of 
 the New Testament in 1792; but his reputation 
 as a scholar, whatever it may be, rests principally 
 upon his work of greatest pretension, his collated 
 and annotated edition of. Lucretius, published in 
 1796 and 1797. He also gave to the world 
 editions of several Greek tragedies ‘of Bion and 
 Moschus, of Horace and of Virgil; and among 
 his numerous original works are an unfinished 
 Inquiry into the Opinions of the Fathers concern- 
 ing the Person of Christ, an Answer to Paine’s 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 861 
 
 Age of Reason, a reply to (Watson) the Bishop 
 of Llandaff’s Address to the People of Great 
 Britain (for the publication of which, in 1798, he 
 was brought to trial by the government, and being 
 convicted of a seditious libel, was imprisoned for 
 two years in Dorchester gaol), and his Memoirs of 
 his Own Life, published in 1795. His Corre- 
 spondence with Charles Fox was printed after his 
 death. The excellent edition of Aristotle’s Treatise 
 on Poetry, which had been prepared by Thomas 
 Tyrwhitt, the admirable editor of Chaucer, before 
 his death in 1786, was brought out at Oxford, 
 from the Clarendon press, in 1794. In 1795 his 
 edition of the Hecuba of Euripides, which was 
 followed by the Orestes, Phcenisse, and Medea, 
 crowned the reputation of Richard Porson, who 
 had already given proof of his unrivalled acuteness 
 in his Letters to Archdeacon Travis on the 
 subject of the controverted passage about the 
 three witnesses in the First Epistle of John, pub- 
 lished in 1790, and who, in the union of extensive 
 and exact knowledge of the Greek language, 
 probably never had a superior among modern 
 scholars, Porson, upon whom the mantle of the 
 great Bentley seemed to have descended, and who 
 might perhaps have left a name as illustrious as 
 his, if unfortunate habits of life had not wasted as 
 well as probably shortened his days, died at the 
 age of forty-nine in 1808. Other active labourers 
 during this period in the department of classical 
 scholarship were Dr. Thomas Randolph, who died 
 Bishop of London in 1813; Dr. Thomas Burgess, 
 the late Bishop of Salisbury ; and the late Bishop 
 of Peterborough, Dr. Herbert Marsh, whose 
 varied acquirements and literary performances 
 embraced politics, theology, and German and 
 Oriental learning, as well as Greek and Latin. 
 This with the preceding period formed, moreover, 
 the great age of commentatorship upon Shak- 
 speare, and also upon some other portions of our 
 old poetry. Dr. Johnson’s first edition of Shak- 
 speare, in eight volumes, appeared in 1765; 
 George Steevens’s edition of the Twenty Old 
 Quartos, in four volumes, in 1766; Edward 
 Capell’s edition of all the plays, in ten volumes, 
 in 1768, but his Notes, in three volumes quarto, 
 not till 1783, two years after the author’s death ; 
 Sir Thomas Hanmer’s in six quartos, in 1771; 
 that by Johnson and Steevens, in ten octavos, in 
 1773; their second edition in 1778; the Supple- 
 ment to that edition by Edmund Malone, in two 
 volumes, in 1780; Isaac Reed's first edition 
 (sometimes called the third edition of Johnson 
 aud Steevens) in 1786; Malone’s first edition, 
 in ten volumes, in 1790; Isaac Reed’s second 
 edition, in twenty-one volumes, in 1803; Malone’s 
 second, in sixteen volumes, in 1816. We have 
 already mentioned the two volumes on Ireland's 
 forgeries (to the second of which, it may be here 
 stated, an ‘Appendix’ was added in 1800), 
 published by George Chalmers, the laborious 
 author of many other works, generally written in 
 the most fantastic style, on finance, economical 
 
862 
 
 science, and the politics of the day, as well as 
 of various historical and antiquarian compilations, 
 the most important of which, his Life of Mary 
 Queen of Scots, and his Caledonia (unfinished), 
 were published in the next period. Following, 
 also, in the path struck out by Warton and Percy, 
 John Pinkerton, Joseph Ritson, David Macpherson, 
 George Ellis, and others investigated, with more 
 or less learning and acuteness, the history of our 
 early poetry, or edited different portions of it, 
 
 In Moral Speculation, political, philosophical, 
 and theological, among the principal names 
 belonging to this period of our literature are, 
 besides Burke (our remarks upon whom have 
 been made in the preceding Book), Paine, 
 Godwin, Mary Wolstonecraft, Paley, Bishops 
 Watson, Horsley, and Porteus, Priestley, Price, 
 Dr. Geddes, Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen, Dr. Mac- 
 Knight of Edinburgh, Dr. Blair, &c. Thomas 
 Paine’s three dexterous and smartly-written 
 works, his ‘Common Sense, published in 1776, 
 his ‘Rights of Man, in 1791-2, and his ‘ Age of 
 Reason,’ in 1794-5, have been already animad- 
 verted upon (vol. v., pp. 159, 160). Mary Wol- 
 stonecraft’s more declamatory ‘ Vindication of 
 the Rights of Women’ came forth immediately 
 after the First Part of Paine’s Rights of Man— 
 not unlike the hollow but imposing thunder of 
 the artillery following the flash. Godwin’s more 
 systematic exposition of the new philosophy (not 
 destined ever to grow old), his ‘ Inquiry con- 
 cerning Political Justice, and its Influence on 
 General Virtue and Happiness, appeared in 1793. 
 Bishop Watson, who, besides five volumes of 
 ‘Chemical Essays,’ and a variety of charges, 
 sermons, addresses, and other occasional publi- 
 cations, had defended the cause of religion against 
 the subtle learning of Gibbon in his ‘ Apology for 
 Christianity’ in 1776, twenty years later wrote his 
 ‘Apology for the Bible’ in answer to the bold 
 ignorance of Paine. All these performances, 
 however, attacks and defences alike, having 
 served each its temporary purpose, are already 
 passed or fast passing away into forgetfulness, 
 
 PALEY. 
 
 Not so with Archdeacon Paley’s works: his 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 ‘Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy,’ 
 published in 1785; his ‘Hore Pauline,’ in 1790; 
 his ‘View of the Evidence of Christianity, in 
 1794; and his ‘ Natural Theology, in 1802—all 
 of which are characterised by a matureness in the 
 conception, and a care and sterling ability in the 
 execution, that will make it long before they are 
 superseded. Finally, we ought not to omit to 
 natice that the first edition of Mr, Malthus’s 
 celebrated ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’ 
 was published in 1798 in an octavo pamphlet, 
 although it differed hardly more in size than it 
 did in substance from the next edition, expanded 
 into a quarto volume, which appeared in 1803, 
 
 In resuming the History of the Fine Arts during 
 the last forty years of the eighteenth century, it is 
 necessary to take up the subject of Architecture 
 from the beginning of that space of time. 
 
 The paramount influence exercised by the 
 accomplished Earl of Burlington, during the reign 
 of George II.,* over the professors as well as the 
 patrons of architecture, would scarcely have been 
 conceded to his eminence as an architect, had it 
 not been supported by rank and wealth, and the 
 open and generous spirit with which he encour- 
 aged the art he so highly esteemed and so assi- 
 duously studied. Lord Burlington, however, took 
 a narrow view of architecture, and in directing his 
 energies against the corruptions which had accu- 
 mulated upon the classical styles, and of which the 
 works of the contemporary of his earlier years, 
 Vanbrugh, afforded but too many examples for 
 animadversion, he forgot that he was dealing with 
 an art which, uniting usefulness with beauty, and 
 addressing itself to the wants as well as to the 
 tastes of mankind, is essentially influenced by the 
 moral and physical habits of society, and the 
 varied modes of existence which attend the pro- 
 gress of the human race, Whenever a people have 
 shown themselves capable of an original mode of 
 thinking, they have in nothing exerted it more 
 powerfully than in adapting their buildings to 
 their climate, their customs, their religion, and the 
 spirit of their public institutions, Under various 
 combinations of such influences, a perpetual state 
 of transition has ever been an essential condition 
 of the existence of architecture as an art, and at 
 successive periods, both in ancient and modern 
 times, and in different localities, architecture has 
 diverged from a common point of departure into 
 the most distant extremes, and even into the most 
 opposite principles, of taste; and yet each modi- 
 fication may command unqualified applause when 
 judged with reference to the circumstances under 
 which it was produced. This view of the subject 
 was overlooked by Lord Burlington when he 
 transplanted the Villa Capra to the banks of the 
 Thames, and reduced the study of architecture to 
 imitation—a principle which his followers confined 
 within its narrowest limits. 
 
 * See Pict, Hist. of England, vol. iv., pp. 700, 701. 
 +See Sir Joshua Reynolds on the right and wrong use of 
 imitation in the arts; Discourses, No. 6. 
 
 fi. 
 Sy 
 4 
 is 
 
 : 
 G 
 
- Cuap. XIT.] 
 
 During the seven centuries which had elapsed 
 from the establishment of the Norman dynasty to 
 the period now under consideration, England had 
 maintained an eminent place among the people 
 of modern Europe in the cultivation of a charac- 
 teristic national architecture. Throughout the 
 transitions of the middle ages we thought for our- 
 selves, and thought well. The later Gothic archi- 
 tecture of England is national and peculiar, and 
 shows in unrivalled purity and beauty by the side 
 of the depraved contemporary styles of the con- 
 tinent. We have modes of composition peculiar 
 to ourselves, in the transition which universally 
 accompanied the revival of classical architecture, 
 and the name of Inigo Jones, by whom the change 
 was finally accomplished in England, stands in 
 the first rank of those whose genius has rendered 
 them illustrious in art, The inventive talents of 
 Wren and Vanbrugh, working upon the style 
 which had long proved its fitness, in the hands of 
 original thinkers, to meet every exigency of society, 
 and to assume every characteristie of design, from 
 the sublime to the graceful and gay, maintained to 
 the eighteenth century the claims of England to an 
 independent school of architecture.* 
 
 The merits of Vanbrugh were such as neither 
 Burlington, nor the polished literati who supported 
 him in his war against the architect of Blenheim 
 and Castle Howard, were able to appreciate. It 
 has been well observed, that “in the arts there is 
 always to be found room for a man upon whom 
 nature has bestowed the faculty of seeing, feeling, 
 and thinking for himself”’ Burlington was not 
 that man—far less so were any of those who 
 adopted his tastes and opinions at secondhand. 
 The English school, as it was constituted at the 
 accession of George III., could devise no correction 
 of the errors of their predecessors but by resorting 
 to crude imitations of Palladio—a recurrence to 
 forms and combinations established under modes 
 of existence totally differing from their own, at 
 another period, and in another climate, Neither 
 their discriminating taste in the selection of the 
 beautiful, nor their profound knowledge of the 
 practice of the Italian schools, can redeem the 
 want of fitness which characterizes their produc- 
 tions, their disregard to the exigencies of our 
 climate, and their inattention to our domestic 
 habits; for in many cases their plans, as well 
 as their elevations, are borrowed from the Italian, 
 The consequences were fatal. They had rooted 
 up a vigorous plant, for an exotic which they 
 wanted skill to naturalize; it perished, therefore, 
 leaving nothing in its place, and another half- 
 century found architecture in England reduced to 
 a condition unprecedented since its first develop- 
 ment as an art, devoid of unity, character, and 
 principles. 
 
 The description of the far-famed villa at 
 Chiswick, by one of the greatest admirers of the 
 master, will bear a general application to the 
 
 * For the progress of architecture in England from the Saxon 
 period, see the Pictorial History of England, 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 863 
 
 works of the disciples. “It is a model of taste,” 
 says Walpole, “though not without faults, some 
 of which are occasioned by too strict an adherence 
 to rules and symmetry, Such are too many corre- 
 spondent doors in spaces too contracted—chimneys 
 between windows, and, what is worse, windows 
 between chimneys—and vestibules, however beau- 
 tiful, but too little secured from the damps of the 
 climate. The ground apartment is rather a dimi- 
 nutive catacomb than a library in a northern lati- 
 tude,” The whole school seem, by some strange 
 fatality, to have adopted a mode of the Italian 
 practice the least suited for adaptation to our cli- 
 mate and habits, A large collection of the man- 
 sions of the last and present reign, down to the 
 year 1771, may be referred to in the continuation 
 of the ‘ Vitruvius Britannicus,’* bearing the names 
 of Kent, Leoni,t Paine, Oarr, Vardy, Morris, 
 Hiorne, Wright, Ware, Wood, Donowell, Pickford, 
 Leadbetter, Smith, Sanderson, Adam, and Cham- 
 bers—names now mostly obscure. Out of about 
 forty mansions of the same class represented in 
 this work, the principal floors of three-fourths of 
 
 | the number are raised on basements from two- 
 
 fifths to one-third of the superstructure in height, 
 the entrance being approached by flights of steps, 
 seldom less than twenty in number, open to all the 
 vicissitudes of the weather ; in deference to which 
 there is generally the alternative of creeping into 
 “the diminutive catacomb” below by a door under 
 the steps. The effect of such an arrangement may 
 be observed at the Mansion House in London, 
 which is never appropriated to the especial pur- 
 pose for which it was built without the erection of 
 a sloping canvas passage to the portico. Some- 
 times there are the steps without the basement 
 door, and sometimes there is the door without the 
 steps. Inigo Jones has been charged as an autho- 
 rity for these solecisms ; but they occur in few of 
 his works. His basements are for the most part 
 of a proportion to form a complete ground-floor, 
 and, if the principal apartment is on a higher level, 
 it is at least approached under cover, and by a 
 staircase, the dignity of which may be a sufficient 
 apology for the trouble of ascending it. 
 
 With the exception of the last two, who will 
 claim some more lengthened observations, the 
 most eminent architects in the foregoing list now 
 to be noticed, as belonging to the reign of 
 George III., are James Paine, and John Carr of 
 York. ‘The former seems to have imitated the 
 peculiarities in the style of Kent, and sometimes 
 to have mixed with them the flimsy decoration 
 which was coming into fashion before he quitted 
 the stage ; but his most important works do great 
 honour to his abilities. Worksop Manor, in Not- 
 tinghamshire, and Keddlestone, in Derbyshire, are 
 in a style of much grandeur, The former was 
 never completed, and the latter is usually assigned 
 to Robert Adam, who carried on the works at a 
 later period ; but Paine is entitled to the credit of 
 
 * Vitruvius Britannicus, vols, iv. and v., by Woolfe and Gandon., 
 + See Pictorial History of England, vol. iv. pp. 700, 701. 
 
864 
 
 the magnificent hall of entrance and the principal 
 front. It is impossible not to distinguish his sound 
 Roman style from the gingerbread of his successor. 
 The works of John Carr are extremely numerous. 
 Harewood House is one of his most important 
 productions, and also one of his best. The general 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 i 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 characteristic of his style is a certain thinness 
 produced by an effort to be light. Heavy was the 
 grand reproach levelled at Vanbrugh by the 
 Burlington faction, and the pupils were beginning 
 to better the instruction. John Wood, of Bath, 
 was the son of the eminent architect of Prior 
 
 i 
 f TTL 
 
 Harewoop House, YORKSHIRE. 
 
 Park and the Exchange at Bristol, who died in 
 1754, To the father and son we are in one sense 
 indebted for the modern city of Bath, which is said 
 to have been enlarged to three times its original 
 size from their designs, They built the Crescent, 
 
 Queen Square, the Parades, &c., in no mean style 
 of street architecture, much favoured by the mate- 
 rials at their command. Miorne was an artist of 
 great promise, but died young. He built the 
 Sessions House at Warwick. Isaac Ware built 
 
 THE CxescEnt, BATH. 
 
 Mr Byng’s house near Mims, and Chesterfield 
 House in London. He is better known by the 
 publication of a treatise on architecture, embodying 
 some unpublished works of Inigo Jones. 
 Conspicuous among his contemporaries for a pure 
 taste and an original mode of treating the Italian 
 style of architecture, appears Sir Robert Taylor. 
 
 This artist was born in 1714, and began life asa | 
 sculptor, but the accession of George III. found | 
 him in extensive practice as an architect, About = 
 1785 he completed the most important of his publie | 
 works, the extension of the Bank of England, which | 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 
 Sampson, of whose work the hall is the only 
 part now remaining unaltered; and, with the 
 exceptions of the court-room and the west quad- 
 rangle, the additions of his successor are equally to 
 be numbered with the things that have been. The 
 Rotunda, which Taylor first erected, has not been 
 restored for the better, and his plan of the Reduced 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 865 
 
 Annuity Office became the general model in the 
 reconstruction of the building by Sir John Soane, 
 as uniting, in an eminent degree, convenient 
 arrangement, ample light, and good architectural 
 effect. In the Transfer Offices he committed the 
 error by which Gibbs has deformed the interior of 
 St. Martin’s Church, profiling the entablatures over 
 
 THE BANK OF ENGLAND IN 1785. 
 
 single columns supporting arches; and he has 
 generally been considered unhappy in imitating 
 the inclosure of the Belvedere Garden in the 
 Vatican for his exterior. In villa architecture, a 
 style which may be considered to have taken its 
 rise at this period—a circumstance strongly illus- 
 trative of the dependence of architecture on the 
 wants of society—Taylor was eminently successful. 
 Previously to this time, country-houses ranking’ in 
 the class below mansions were something in the 
 style of what Voltaire calls “un chateau ayant une 
 porte et des fenétres.” To apply the exterior 
 graces of the Italian casino to moderate dwellings 
 meant for convenience, and not for show, was a 
 novelty. The villa built for Sir Charles Asgill, at 
 Richmond, and Danson, in Kent, for Sir John 
 Boyd, are excellent specimens of the talents of the 
 architect, though the latter has the fault of an 
 inconvenient flight of steps; and in some of his 
 designs of less pretension in the same class he has 
 accomplished the difficult task of uniting a sound 
 architectural character with great simplicity, and 
 of consulting economy without producing the effect 
 of meanness. Of his skill in street architecture, 
 Ely House, in Dover Street, is an example. Sir 
 Robert Taylor died in 1788. 
 
 The mention of villas suggests the name of 
 Lancelot Browne, who ruled during this period 
 over landscape-gardening, as despotically as Kent 
 in the preceding generation. The park at Blenheim 
 is a lasting monument of Browne's talents in the 
 construction of artificial scenery; but, like most 
 persons who have foundéd a system, he was apt 
 to mistake its application, and the “belts” and 
 “clumps” with which he and his followers re- 
 placed the stately avenues of former days have 
 become a by-word for their monotonous irregula- 
 rity. His plan in domains of smaller extent—of 
 bringing the pleasure-ground, displaying art with- 
 out its formality, and nature without its asperities, 
 into immediate connection with the house—had a 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 reciprocal influence upon the style of that class 
 of mansions to which it was peculiarly adapted. 
 The close approach of the plantation to the building 
 in irregular masses facilitated the arrangement of 
 uniting the principal rooms into a compact corps de 
 logis, and extending the offices in a wing on one 
 side, to be concealed by the trees. This plan, 
 recommended by the advantage of leaving three 
 sides of the house clear of all obstruction, and of 
 not hampering the arrangement or extent of the 
 offices or subordinate apartments by any considera- 
 tions of symmetry, or by the necessity of condensing 
 them into a basement, soon became general, and 
 was abused in its application through the influence 
 of an increasing taste for economy, where its only 
 effect was to reduce to apparent insignificance 
 mansions important in their real extent. The 
 continuation of the ‘ Vitruvius Britannicus’ by 
 Richardson, in which the series of English houses 
 is brought down to 1802, contains many plans thus 
 arranged. A reference to this work, commencing 
 with the original volumes by Campbell, will not 
 only exhibit to the reader the progressive changes 
 in our architecture of this class throughout the 
 whole of the eighteenth century, but the objects 
 selected for illustration will also indicate the 
 prevailing fashion at the date of each successive 
 publication. 
 
 Sir William Chambers, who professed the 
 science of planting, attacked Browne, who took 
 upon himself to dabble in architecture, in the pre- 
 face to his ‘Dissertation on Oriental Gardening,’ 
 published in 1772. The result was, Mason’s 
 ‘Heroic Epistle, * famous in the literature of art 
 in which the wild vagaries which the knight pro- 
 pounds as the theory and practice of the Chinese, 
 are cleverly ridiculed, by supposing them Angli- 
 cised and carried into execution in the royal 
 gardens at Kew, laid out by Chambers a few years 
 
 \ * See vol. y. p. £03; and vol. vi. p. 855. 
 30 
 
866 
 
 before, As an architect, the name of Sir William 
 Chambers, one of the original founders of the 
 Royal Academy, stands in the first rank. This 
 distinguished artist, on his return from his pro- 
 fessional studies in Italy, was introduced on the 
 recommendation of Carr of York as a tutor in 
 architecture to the Prince, afterwards George ITI. 
 His first considerable work was Lord Besborough’s 
 villa at Roehampton, a building of fine propor- 
 tions and great purity of detail, though not, like 
 the great majority of his later works, exemplifying 
 strictly his own precept—“ that, in providing the 
 elegant and the durable, the comfortable and com- 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 modious may be secured,” This golden rule occurs 
 
 in his ‘Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil 
 Architecture, the most valuable elementary work 
 on the art, so far as it professes to treat upon it, in 
 the English or any other language, in which the 
 author’s intimate knowledge of the productions of 
 the Italian and French schools is wrought into 
 
 a digest of the practice of the great masters in. 
 
 attaining that harmony and good keeping which 
 essentially characterise their works, and, it may be 
 added, his own. Being promoted to the office 
 of surveyor-general, he commenced in 1776 his 
 great work, Somerset House, “in which,” to bor- 
 
 i} . 
 
 THE QUADRANGLE, SOMERSET House. 
 
 row the words of Gwilt, “though there be many 
 faults, yet so well did he understand his art, that 
 it is a matter of no small difficulty, and indeed 
 requires hypercriticism, to find anything offensive 
 to good taste in the detail.” The character of the 
 street front is truly palatial; the vestibule of 
 entrance in the highest degree scenic and pictu- 
 resque, and the proportions and distribution of the 
 quadrangle leave nothing wanting to satisfy both 
 the eye and the judgment. The river front is more 
 liable to exception. The disproportionate height 
 of the terrace is injudiciously aggravated by the 
 introduction of columns, which unduly diminish 
 the order of the superstructure, and the fagade of 
 six hundred feet extends in unbroken monotony, 
 while the grove of chimneys is suffered to deform 
 the roof, instead of being called into play to vary 
 the outline. A multiplicity of parts is the chief 
 blame which has fallen on this, as on Chambers’s 
 works in general; but, with all its imperfections 
 on its head, Somerset House holds a high place 
 among the public buildings of Europe. Chambers 
 died in 1796. His most distinguished pupil was 
 
 James Gandon (before named as the editor of 
 the ‘ Vitruvius Britannicus’), architect of the Par- 
 liament House (now the Bank of Ireland), the 
 Four Courts, and other buildings, at Dublin. 
 
 We may conclude our account of what may be 
 called the old school of architecture in England 
 
 with Robert Mylne, the architect of the most _ 
 
 beautiful of modern bridges, Blackfriars, com- 
 
 menced in 1760, and completed in eight years—a 
 work unsurpassed by the skill with which the 
 graceful, the classical, and the picturesque are 
 
 combined in a species of structure to which a — 
 knowledge of architecture in its most fundamental _ 
 
 and important sense, the union of beauty with 
 
 utility, has seldom been applied.* ‘ae 
 “L’ennui du beau,” says the French prove 
 
 “méne au singulier,” and the aphorism is no inapt 
 
 exponent of the new school of architecture which 
 was destined to prevail against the example ant 
 precepts of Taylor and Chambers. 
 thought that the various publications which made 
 
 * These observations refer to Blackfriars Bridge as it was, but is 
 no longer. . aes Ss 
 
 It might be — 
 
Cuap. XII] 
 
 their appearance soon after the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, revealing to architects treasures 
 of antiquity hitherto unknown, or known but 
 imperfectly, would tend to enlarge the sphere of 
 thought, and stimulate the powers of invention. 
 Wood and Dawkins had surveyed and published 
 the Remains of Palmyra in 1753, and of Baalbec in 
 1757. In 1762 appeared the first volume of James 
 Stuart’s ‘Antiquities of Athens, a work upon 
 which terms of praise might be exhausted, without 
 surpassing the just appreciation ofits merits, The 
 ‘Ruins of Spalatro’ appeared in 1764, from the 
 pencil of Robert Adam, an architect, of whom 
 there will be more to say; and a second visit to 
 Greece by Nicolas Revett, the coadjutor of Athenian 
 Stuart, at the cost of the Dilettanti Society, pro- 
 duced the ‘Ionian Antiquities’ in 1769, Here 
 was a fund of materials which might at once have 
 varied, enriched, and purified our style; but the 
 good seed fell on an ungrateful soil. Wearied by 
 the insipidity of the imitations of the imitators of 
 Palladio, the public taste was by this time bent 
 upon novelty at any price, and Robert Adam, 
 who with the depraved architecture of the dregs 
 of the Roman empire appeared first in the field, 
 was the successful candidate for its applause, 
 which he maintained triumphantly to the end of 
 his career, Robert Adam (his brother, James 
 Adam, is associated with him in his works) had, 
 nevertheless, some of the qualities requisite to 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 867 
 
 form an architect, and his rapid and extensive 
 popularity, which dates from the beginning of the 
 reign of George III., was not destitute of a solid 
 foundation. In the distribution of his plans for 
 convenience and comfort he is unrivalled. From 
 the fully developed mansion, with its centre and 
 wings, to the London house, where he has to 
 contend with a site four times as deep as the street 
 frontage, his dispositions are masterly ; but in the 
 general composition of his elevations we shall seek 
 in vain for anything striking or original, and in 
 their treatment decoratively, including in the 
 application of those terms the orders of architec- 
 ture, he falls into proportions and _ profiles 
 which set at defiance the immutable principles 
 of adjustment which have been proved to govern 
 the practice of the ancients, and from which 
 no striking departure has ever been effected 
 with success. An extravagant affectation of Zight- 
 ness has resulted in a meagreness and poverty 
 unexampled in any style pretending to be regular 
 architecture. “ Spindle columns, bald capitals, 
 wide intercolumniations and scanty entablatures,” 
 says Mr. Payne Knight, alluding to the works of 
 Adam, “ form a sort of frippery trimming, fit only 
 to adorn a brick clamp, which is indeed the usual 
 application of them.” In his decorations, Adam 
 
 is lavish of ornament, but so thin and wiry in 
 character, and so ill distributed, that it never 
 produces the effect of richness, 
 
 His interiors are 
 
 ) < Y 
 “ina te % / va AN 
 "ay SILEIN 
 
 CAEN Woop. 
 
 more to be commended than his elevations. Some 
 of his halls and saloons are well composed for 
 picturesque architectural effect, when they are not 
 marred by the paltry character of the decoration. 
 In the introduction of colour in his ceilings he was 
 especially unhappy. Adam published his works. 
 The first part appeared in 1768, and in the prefaces 
 to that and the succeeding portions he dweils with 
 
 much complacency on the influences of his per- 
 formances on the taste of the day—a claim unfor- 
 tunately but too well founded. His style had 
 become the fashion, and set the mode not only for 
 houses, but for carriages, plate, picture-frames, and 
 furniture of every description, and all in the same 
 manner of overloaded flimsy ornament. One 
 assumption for which he takes credit to himself 
 
868 
 
 may be allowed to him—that he has not “ trod 
 in the paths of others, nor derived aid from their 
 labours.” “He who resolves never to ransack any 
 mind but his own,” says Sir Joshua Reynolds,* 
 “will soon be reduced from mere barrenness to 
 the poorest of all imitations—he will be obliged to 
 imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before 
 repeated.” Adam’s buildings are in fact as tire- 
 some from their sameness as they are displeasing 
 from the frivolity of their style. 
 
 The works of Adam are extremely numerous, 
 not only in England, but in Scotland, his native 
 country. Gosford House, in Hast Lothian, is an 
 example of his skill in plans;+ and the Register 
 Office, in Edinburgh, is in every respect one of his 
 best works. Caen Wood, at Hampstead, contri- 
 buted much to his reputation, although (perhaps 
 because) it displays as much of his defects as of 
 his merits. The alterations at Sion House are 
 admirably conceived, but no caricature of all his 
 habitual sins against good taste, collected into one 
 focus, could surpass the entrance gate to the park. 
 In London he effected, on his own speculation, the 
 important improvement of the terrace and build- 
 ings of the Adelphi. Portland-place is also from 
 his designs, where he has endeavoured, by excess 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 of width, to produce the grandeur of effect which 
 our habits of building seem to preclude in our 
 street architecture. In the screen at the Admiralty 
 he has surpassed himself. It is a work of great 
 beauty, independently of being remarkable as the 
 only instance in which Adam has adopted a 
 recognised style in the detail, an aberration for 
 which he thinks it necessary to apologize in his 
 book. Let it, however, be observed, that this work 
 stands an example of the futility of beauty in 
 architecture irrespective of fitness, since the want 
 of convenient access to the court led to its mutila- 
 tion some years ago. Robert Adam died in 1792. 
 
 Another of the family, William Adam, was 
 extensively employed in Scotland. His works 
 may be seen in the ‘ Vitruvius Scoticus’ They 
 have no trace of the peculiarities of his brothers, 
 nor are they of the Palladian school; but rather 
 in the old French style. 
 
 The next influential name in the history of the 
 art in England is that of James Wyatt, who, about 
 the year 1766, entered upon a long and successful 
 career of forty-eight years. His first important 
 work was the Pantheon ball and concert room, in 
 Oxford-street, where he displayed a knowledge of © 
 the antique, and an original taste and tact in its 
 
 INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON, 1771 
 
 adaptation, which at once placed him high in his 
 profession. Never, perhaps, was so great a reputa- 
 tion earned by a first work. The principal room 
 
 * Discourses, No. 6. 
 + See Richardson’s new Vitruvius Britannicus. 
 + See the works of Robert and James Adam. 
 
 was a noble conception : it has long since perishall 
 by fire. The two fronts, that toward Oxford-street ; 
 much altered, are all that remain of this celebrated — 
 building. The works of James Wyatt in general 
 exhibit a lively imagination and a classical feeling; 
 yet his taste was by no means uninfluenced by the © 
 
Cuap. XII] 
 
 passing fashion, which is evidenced by a certain 
 fanciful treatment of the orders, and a too frequent 
 intrusion of tablets and medallions into his decor- 
 ations. It is not therefore surprising that his 
 reputation has waned a little. In the dispositions 
 of his plans he was consummately skilful. But 
 James Wyatt’s chief claim to a prominent station 
 in the history of art, is due to the part he took in 
 the revival of the Gothic style of architecture, 
 
 which began before the close of the eighteenth 
 
 century, to dispute for ascendency, in the conflict 
 of styles, over the fallen Palladian. ‘The only 
 artist who had hitherto succeeded in understand- 
 ing even the details of the Gothic style was James 
 Essex, who restored the lantern at Ely cathedral 
 and made considerable repairs at“Lincoln. He was 
 also much employed at Cambridge, where his stall- 
 work in King’s College Chapel betrays itself; but 
 for the most part his restorations escape notice, 
 which is no small merit. Essex died in 1784. 
 Wyatt took up the Gothic style with a view to 
 reproduce it. He speedily mastered its expression 
 and details, and showed that they were to be 
 acquired, like those of any other style, by the study 
 and measurement of original examples, and by no 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 869 
 
 other means. Of his proficiency thus far the exten- 
 sive repairs and alterations which he executed in 
 some of the principal colleges at Oxford, before the 
 end of the eighteenth century, afford convincing 
 proofs ; but it may be doubted whether he. ever 
 understood the broad principles of the Gothic style 
 in its various modifications, as applied to civil, 
 military, and ecclesiastical purposes, however well 
 he may have been acquainted with its individual 
 features. In 1789 he was employed to restore 
 Salisbury Cathedral, upon which he proceeded 
 according to his own notions of architectural effect, 
 and of the innate beauty of wnzty, by reducing the 
 whole edifice, as far as possible, to an empty room, 
 thereby stultifying the architects of the middle 
 ages, who showed their skill in nothing more 
 strikingly than in the gradual and distinct develop- 
 ment of the numerous members which constitute 
 the complicated pile of a Gothic cathedral. Re- 
 monstrances poured in upon the rash architect and 
 his employers—too late to save the eleven chapels, 
 the two porches, the bell-tower, and the illumin- 
 ations on the roof and walls, which then and there 
 perished, but happily in time to prevent, it is to be 
 hoped for ever, similar devastation elsewhere. At 
 
 Ae t= 
 - ex w 2 
 —_ 
 RE eel = 
 ae “wes WE ZE 
 
 =e] 
 Ste 
 
 FonrHILLE. 
 
 Fonthill, which he began in 1795, he committed 
 the error of representing an abbey, not as an habit- 
 able building combined with a church, but as a 
 house in the shape of a church, and of endeavour- 
 ing by colossal dimensions alone to produce effects 
 which are unattainable, especially in the Gothic 
 style, without the accompaniment of a fit modifi- 
 cation of the proportions and deiails. 
 
 As we must return to the works of James Wyatt 
 in the next section, it is necessary only to add, in 
 this place, that he was appointed surveyor-general 
 on the death of Sir William Chambers; and, in 
 the year 1800, made the first step towards restoring 
 Windsor Castle to its original character, which had 
 been nearly obliterated by the alterations of Sir 
 Christopher Wren. ‘The vestibule and staircase 
 
870 
 
 to the state apar tments, the greater part of which 
 has yielded in its turn to later innovators, were 
 characterized, like his Gothic works in general, 
 by correctness of form and detail, but partook too 
 much of the ecclesiastical style. 
 
 In the present day, with the experience of 
 another half century passed in the study of Gothic 
 (if of nothing else), it is easy for architectural criti- 
 cism to expatiate on the faults of James Wyatt ; 
 but his acquirements will be estimated at their 
 proper value when we recollect how the front of 
 the Guildhall, in London, was Gothicised as late as 
 1789 by George Dance, who held the office of 
 Surveyor to the City. Dance, however, occupies 
 an honourable place among the architects of the 
 period. Newgate and St. Luke’s Hospital will 
 not easily be surpassed in the essential quality 
 of character. He also built the Giltspur-street 
 Compter, and in a more decorative style has left 
 us the Shakspeare (now the British) Gallery in 
 Pall Mall. Dance was willing, like his contem- 
 poraries, to do something new, and devised the 
 expedient of varying his outline by Greek sepul- 
 chral ornaments; but he seems to have wanted 
 the imagination necessary to take advantage of his 
 own idea, which was afterwards appropriated with 
 great success by his pupil, John Soane. Dance 
 would also appear, from his designs, to have the 
 honour of the invention, once popular, of pilasters 
 without capitals or bases, panelled or fluted like 
 joiner’s-work. He has used them in the front of 
 the theatre at Bath. 
 
 Although Sir John Soane published a collection 
 of his works as early as 1788, and was appointed 
 Architect to the Bank of England in the same 
 year, yet, as he long stood confessedly at the head 
 of his profession, and exercised a very powerful 
 influence over the arts, in the nineteenth century, 
 the consideration of his public works more pro- 
 perly belongs to the nextsection. The publication 
 referred to consists entirely of private dwellings, 
 mostly of the villa class, meagre in style, according 
 to the fashion of the day, and without the slightest 
 trace of that peculiar character by which the 
 architect so remarkably distinguished himself at a 
 later period. The plans, for the most part, exhibit 
 a defect which has since, from notions of economy, 
 become too common—the substitution of a wretched 
 lobby for that characteristic feature of a country- 
 house, the hall: in other respects they are well 
 distributed. 
 
 Our review of the history of this branch of the 
 fine arts may be concluded with a notice of some 
 other artists, to whom it will not be necessary to 
 recur, 
 
 Of these, Henry Holland was distinguished by 
 the patronage of George Prince of Wales, who 
 prefigured the sort of encouragement the future 
 monarch was likely to bestow upon the arts, by 
 employing him upon that extensive structure of 
 lath and tiles, the Pavilion at Brighton. In 1784, 
 he altered Carlton House, and to him was due the 
 facade, pleasing and harmonious in all its propor- 
 
 ——$_—— 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. | 
 tions and details, with its beautiful portico, turned | 
 to a legitimate purpose by affording shelter for 
 carriages. Holland built Drury-lane Theatre, — 
 destroyed by fire in 1809; and the fagade and | 
 hall of Melbourne House at Whitehall, which | 
 remains a memorial of his refined taste. He was | 
 likewise the author of the India House, usually 
 attributed to Jupp, who was surveyor to the 
 Company at the time it was built. It is a com- | 
 mon-place design, and the portico ill assorted to | 
 the wings; but porticoes were now coming into — 
 a vogue which made the propriety or impropriety — 
 of their association a matter of no importance. 
 Honourable mention must be made of Freemasons’ | 
 Hall, erected by Thomas Sandby, Professor of | 
 Architecture at the Royal Academy, 1775; and } 
 the Italian Opera-House, celebrated among the ~ 
 great theatres of Europe for its elegant form and } 
 its acoustic qualities, by Novosielsky, in 1789. To | 
 these may be added the Sessions-House at Clerken- 
 well, by Thomas Rogers, in 1779; and the 
 diy inity-House, by Samuel Wyatt, the brother of — 
 James Wyatt, and a close follower of his style,in | 
 1797—and we shall have noticed most of the — 
 public buildings worthy of remark at the close of | 
 the present period. As for Church Architecture, — 
 it lay in a catalepsy, to wake in an atrophy in the © 
 nineteenth century. 7 
 We must now look back to the beginning of the — 
 reign of George III., to recall the memory of an — 
 architect, who, if he executed few plans, left many — 
 to be executed, and to make a reputation for | 
 others, John Gwynn, who built the Magdalen ~ 
 Bridge at Oxford, published, in 1766, his ‘London | 
 and Westminster Improved ;’ in which he has so | 
 well considered the topographical defects of the | 
 metropolis, and the means of applying remedies to | 
 them, that there is scarcely an improvement in | 
 our public ways, either effected or proposed during | 
 the present century, of which he is not really the — 
 author and originator. The opening from the — 
 Mansion-House to London Bridge (King William- — 
 street) is perhaps the only one not directly sug- 
 gested by his maps, four of which accompany his — 
 book, Passing over his observations on street — 
 architecture in general, his proposals for regulating | 
 the new quarters then springing up to the north of — 
 Oxford-street, and his alarm at the unrestrained | 
 increase of the metropolis, it may interest the — 
 general reader to compare a few leading pointsin | 
 his plans with what has actually been done or is © 
 still in contemplation. The bridge at the Savoy — 
 (Waterloo Bridge), with its approaches from the — 
 north and south—the removal of Fleet Market, 
 and continuation of the line from Blackfriars | 
 Bridge to the North Road—the general ee 
 and widening of the Strand, and the isolation of | 
 St. Clement’s Chur ch—Moorgate-street, the widen-- 
 ing of Lothbury, and the formation of squares in | 
 Moorfields—the disincumbrance of Westminster 
 Abbey and the erection of a Sessions-House in the 
 open space—all these are on the plans of John 
 Gwynn. In Regent-street has been carried into 
 
 ~ a r  eeme —y 
 
Cua. XII] 
 
 effect one of several suggestions, or rather a 
 combination of two of them, for opening com- 
 munications through the metropolis from north 
 and south; and the collateral improvements in 
 the same quarter, the continuation of Marlborough- 
 street, Jermyn-street, and Charles-street, widening 
 the east end of Pall Mall, opening St. Martin’s 
 Church, and making a square on the site of the 
 King’s Mews, are all, with some variations, his 
 designs. So is the continuation of Covenitry-street 
 through Leicester-square, and the clearance be- 
 tween the Bank and Cornhill to throw open the 
 Exchange. Gwynn’s book has been, and will 
 be for generations to come, a valuable legacy to 
 posterity. 
 
 The spirit of nations may be traced in their 
 works of art in all its branches. From the 
 sublime of the Italians to the homely matter- 
 of-fact of the Dutch, the characteristics of the 
 Kuropean schools of painting have been im- 
 pressed upon each by influences as far beyond 
 human control as those which have dictated the 
 progress of the moral and political institutions of 
 the people; and art, whether ancient or modern, 
 has reached its most exalted condition only when 
 it has grown with the growth, and strengthened 
 with the strength, of the state in which it has 
 flourished. It is only in the nineteenth century 
 that the British school of painting has been 
 - established on the solid basis of national habits 
 and modes of thinking; but these influences 
 (independently of which no genuine art ever has 
 existed, or ever can exist) have finally triumphed, 
 and though they have failed in our own case to 
 place art on its loftiest pinnacle, we may be justly 
 proud both of the number and of the excellence 
 of the artists by whom our poetry and history 
 have been illustrated, the changeful effects of our 
 atmosphere and the picturesque antiquities which 
 . characterise our landscapes fixed and perpetuated, 
 the incidents of our moral and domestic life 
 brought home to our sympathies, the results of 
 foreign travel and enterprise displayed, and the 
 living forms of the great, the learned, the noble, 
 and the beautiful transmitted to posterity. If the 
 British school of the present day be reproached 
 with following art in its inferior paths only, let 
 it be remembered that its general diffusion, aided 
 by the use of water-colours and the unrivalled 
 school of engravers who have rendered pictorial 
 representation of every class familiar to all ranks, 
 cannot but be calculated to prepare the public 
 mind for the encouragement of higher efforts, 
 whenever circumstances may be more favourable 
 to their development. That the commercial spirit 
 of the British character enters largely into our 
 actual state of art is not to be denied; and it 
 might perhaps be argued, from past experience of 
 the controlling influences over national styles, that 
 an indigenous school could hardly flourish in Great 
 Britain on any other terms. Whatever theories 
 may be formed on this subject, the fact is certain, 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 871 
 
 that the grand style of art, which neither the 
 precepts of Reynolds, the example of West, nor 
 the enthusiasm of Barry could sustain, repulsed 
 by the Church and hopeless of any other asylum, 
 was enabled, during the last fifteen years of the 
 eighteenth century, to make a final struggle for 
 pre-eminence through the aid of a mercantile 
 speculation ; and although the enterprise failed in 
 the proposed result of establishing that class of 
 painting on a national basis, yet it had the effect 
 of confirming the intimate alliance of Art with 
 Commerce, by which, whether finally for good or 
 evil (and the question has been fiercely debated), 
 it has since been so materially influenced. The 
 foundation of “the Shakspeare Gallery” is an 
 important event in the history of British art, 
 
 BoOyYDELL. 
 
 John Boydell, citizen and alderman of London, 
 was bred an engraver, and published his first 
 works about 1746. Although he never attained 
 any eminence in his pursuit, he soon enabled 
 himself, by his industry, to become a publisher of 
 the engravings of others; and he secured in his 
 employment the best artists, whose talents he 
 was well able to appreciate and well inclined to 
 remunerate liberally. The Niobe and Phaéton 
 by Woollet after Wilson, the Liber Veritatis by 
 Earlom, the drawings of Guercino in the Royal 
 Collection by Bartolozzi, and the Houghton Gallery 
 by the same and other eminent engravers, may be 
 mentioned among the important works which 
 were thus brought before the world. It is but 
 justice to the well-known character of this dis- 
 tinguished citizen to believe that he was influenced 
 no less by an enthusiastic desire to fix the national 
 taste on the highest department of painting than 
 by the spirit of trade, when, in 1787, he entered 
 into the plan for an edition of Shakspeare which 
 should carry to perfection the arts of typography 
 and engraving, and display in its illustrations 
 whatever the talents of the historical painters 
 of the English school could produce, under the 
 inspiration of the works of the immortal bard. 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds might be inclined to consider 
 such patronage unsuited to the dignity of high art, 
 and he received the first proposition coldly; but 
 
872 
 
 his scruples were overcome, and the list of the 
 
 painters engaged on the work includes, without 
 
 exception, every one of whom either the Royal 
 Academy or the nation at large could conceive 
 they had any reason to boast. Never were the 
 talents of artists more fairly put to the test. Tlie 
 subjects to be treated were assuredly worthy to 
 call forth the most strenuous efforts of the mind. 
 The artists were encouraged to paint on any 
 scale which they believed best suited to the 
 development of their powers. The Shakspeare 
 Gallery in Pall Mall was built for the purpose of 
 receiving their works, and exhibiting them to the 
 public ; and in addition to prospects of fame and 
 the consideration which accompanies it, the 
 more solid incentive to exertion was unsparingly 
 administered. The results can hardly be deemed 
 worthy of the occasion and of the preparation ; 
 and it is to be observed that, among the new 
 candidates for the honours of the historical and 
 poetical pencil, above a score in number, there are 
 but few who can justly claim any rank in that 
 style of art. The nature of the work, however, 
 admitted of some variety, and we shall have 
 occasion to notice one or two artists of merit, 
 who acquitted themselves honourably in other 
 departments. 
 
 To the Shakspeare Gallery, Reynolds contributed 
 three pictures—Puck, Macbeth at the Caldron, 
 and the Death of Cardinal Beaufort. The Puck is 
 the very incarnation of the mischievous spirit; but 
 in the other two subjects it must be admitted 
 there is a want of dignity which it requires the 
 magic of the artist's colour and execution to 
 redeem. They must both, however, rank as 
 great works. Barry contributed but one—Lear 
 with the dead body of Cordelia. From the pencil 
 of Opie there were five, all strongly marked with 
 the just and forcible expression which he so faith- 
 fully transcribed from nature. The Incantation 
 Scene in the Second Part of Henry VI. is the 
 most striking: it is even grand. The bold vigour 
 of Romney was displayed with pre-eminent 
 success in two allegories—Shakspeare nursed by 
 Tragedy and Comedy, and attended by Nature and 
 the Passions; and in the fine figure of Cassandra 
 raving—the latter inspired, like many others of 
 his pictures of the same class, by the charms of 
 the celebrated Lady Hamilton. Angelica Kauff- 
 man and Wright of Derby contributed each two 
 pictures ; the former in her usual tame manner, 
 and the latter in a style remarkable for nothing 
 but the bad taste of the costume. West’s Lear 
 in the Storm is a picture well worthy of his 
 reputation: his Ophelia is less satisfactory. Of 
 these artists it is unnecessary to say more; but in 
 enumerating those who have not come under our 
 observation in a former Book, such particulars 
 will be noticed as may be requisite to convey to 
 
 the reader some general estimate of their merits | 
 
 or pretensions. 
 The name of Henry Fuseli undoubtedly claims 
 the first place among those of the historical painters 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ‘AZ 
 
 Pie: 
 
 * 
 
 who had risen up in England since the formation 
 of the Royal Academy, and who now put forth 
 their exertions in the Shakspeare Gallery. This 
 extraordinary man was a native of Zurich, and 
 came to England in pursuit of literary distinction 
 in 1763; but he soon felt another vocation, and, 
 after a residence of eight years in Rome, as a 
 votary of the arts, settled himself in London in 
 
 1779. An enthusiastic admirer of Michael Angelo, — 
 
 Fuseli possessed powers of imagination, and a 
 feeling for the sublime, which justified his ambi- 
 tion to figure in the highest walks of painting ; 
 and it is no profanation of the name of the mighty 
 Florentine to admit that of Fuseli among his fol- 
 lowers—a distinction to which no other modern 
 painter can advance a pretension of a claim. His 
 compositions occupy an eminent place in the class 
 to which he aspired. No artist has approached 
 him in the success with which he has embodied 
 the spirit as well as the forms suggested by the 
 pages of Shakspeare and Milton, but as a painter 
 he was too impatient and impetuous to do full 
 justice to his own conceptions. His execution is 
 careless, and he treats colour as if he despised it, 
 although his cold, cadaverous tones are well cal- 
 culated for the effect of the subjects in which he 
 delighted. His strength lay in those supernatural 
 and shadowy delineations which fixed upon him 
 the sobriquet of “ Painter in ordinary to the 
 Devil.” The appearance of the Ghost in the first 
 act of Hamlet is one of the sublimest productions 
 of the art: it is, in truth, the “majesty of buried 
 Denmark” which “stalks away.” The Witches 
 in Macbeth are fearful; and two scenes from the 
 Midsummer Night’s Dream display, beyond all 
 comparison with his fellows, the fertility of his 
 imagination and the vigour of his drawing. In 
 dealing with mere mortal subjects, he runs into 
 exaggerated action; his women are apt to be 
 strange specimens of the sex, and he has some- 
 times scarcely avoided the bounds which separate 
 the sublime from the ridiculous. The “ Milton 
 Gallery,” which he painted singly in rivalry with 
 the Shakspeare, occupied him from 1791 to 1800, 
 It consisted of forty-seven pictures, and although 
 in some of the subjects the grave, majestic solem- 
 nity of the poet has been too much for the painter, 
 the series comprehends several of his finest works. 
 The Lazar-House is a high effort of genius; and 
 Satan starting up at the Touch of Ithuriel’s Spear, 
 one of the most remarkable of the set; not more 
 for the magnificent characterization of the arch- 
 fiend, than for the grace and beauty which he has 
 unexpectedly thrown over the repose of our first 
 parents. Another of his works which deserves 
 peculiar notice is the Infernal Knight, from 
 Boccaccio’s Theodore and Honoria. It has been 
 well said, “that, if ever a spirit visited the earth, 
 it must have appeared to Fuseli.” This admirable 
 painter and accomplished scholar died in 1825, 
 Keeper of the Royal Academy and Professor of 
 Painting. His lectures do great honour to his 
 literary abilities. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 OS SLES SMS AT LS TS ESE PAT PT RS TT A LTRS ST eh ES EBLE RINT I ae NE ETE ES Se t seas 
 
Cuap. XII. ] 
 
 James Northcote was a pupil of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, but devoted himself to the highest style 
 of painting, and produced many meritorious and 
 well-known illustrations of English history. He 
 contributed largely to the Shakspeare Gallery. 
 The scenes of Hubert and Prince Arthur, and the 
 Death of the Princes in Richard III., are works 
 deservedly popular. Northcote’s paintings hold a 
 respectable place in their class. It is true that his 
 composition is artificial, his drawing defective, and 
 his colouring opaque, but he has the merit of 
 telling his story well, and has succeeded in the 
 difficult task of uniting in his heads much dignity 
 with strong individuality. Northcote was a 
 member of the Academy, and died at an advanced 
 age in 18381. . 
 
 William Hamilton and Francis Wheatley were 
 both members of the Royal Academy, but their 
 employment upon the Shakspeare Gallery seems 
 to indicate a dearth of better talent. The latter 
 was a painter of rural and domestic scenes, and 
 in great request as a designer for book-plates, but 
 shows to little advantage in Shakspeare, although 
 the subjects allotted to him are such as are best 
 fitted to the style he professed. Hamilton’s com- 
 positions are to be noticed only for their uniform 
 insipidity. The Rev. Wm. Peters feebly supported 
 the honours of the Academy and the Shakspeare 
 Gallery, though there is some character in his 
 scenes from the Merry Wives of Windsor. The 
 comic illustrations, however, fell principally to 
 the share of an artist who has done them greater 
 justice, and the humour of Dogberry, Slender, 
 Christopher Sly, and even Falstaff himself, derives 
 a new zest from the visible forms in which these 
 personages have been clothed by Robert Smirke. 
 The Arabian Nights were illustrated by this artist 
 with equal success, Henry Tresham contributed 
 one picture only to this collection. He was 
 esteemed an accomplished artist by his contem- 
 poraries, but has left little likely to attract the 
 notice of posterity. Two subjects, in which the 
 landscape is made the principal feature, served to 
 exercise the talent of William Hodges, a pupil of 
 Wilson, whose landscapes will always be distin- 
 guished in the English school. Although defective 
 in his forms, and inaccurate in his general design, 
 his execution is masterly, and his colouring rich 
 and harmonious. Hodges was appointed draughts- 
 man to the expedition in Cook’s second voyage of 
 discovery, and afterwards visited the West Indies, 
 the scenery of which forms the subject of some of 
 his best works. 
 
 It would be but an unprofitable task to pursue 
 further the catalogue of the artists engaged in the 
 Shakspeare Gallery, since not even the title of 
 R. A., appertaining to some who remain behind, 
 has served to rescue their names from obscurity 
 even at this short distance of time. Two only 
 must be excepted as having contributed in an 
 eminent degree to the illustration of English liter- 
 ature. The romantic and poetical compositions of 
 Richard Westall and Thomas Stothard have ever 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 873 
 
 been among the most popular of their class for 
 their gracefulness and elegance, though exhibiting 
 very dissimilar modifications of those qualities, 
 and very unequal degrees of merit. The grace of 
 Westall is that of the ballet-master. On the figures 
 of Stothard it sits unaffected and unfelt, the gift of 
 heaven. Westall’s skill in grouping and manage- 
 ment of light and shade impart a highly agreeable 
 character to his compositions, but his mannerism 
 is wearisome, and nothing can relieve the mono- 
 tonous repetition of the family likeness which per- 
 vades his heads. Even in his illustrations of 
 Milton the same conventional forms appear on the 
 scene, whatever be its character. The compositions 
 of Stothard are not free from the charge of man- 
 nerism, but they teem with fancy, variety, taste, and 
 feeling, and truth and nature are the distinguishing 
 marks of his character and expression. He has 
 embellished the pages of literature in every class, 
 feeling the influence of poetry with a congenial 
 mind. His works are innumerable, and confer the 
 highest honour on the British school of design. He 
 has embodied to perfection the exquisite groups of 
 the Decamerone, and the Canterbury Pilgrimage 
 alone might support his claims to a distinguished 
 place in art. His works are mostly small, and 
 those in oil are handled with a simplicity unfitted 
 for expansion. Hence he has added little to his 
 reputation by his large paintings on the staircase 
 at Burleigh. Stothard died in 1834. 
 
 It was the intention of Alderman Boydell to 
 have presented the Shakspeare paintings to the 
 public, as a monument of the arts of the eighteenth 
 century and the nucleus of a national gallery. But 
 the French revolutionary war, by cutting off the 
 resources of foreign commerce, injured the fortunes 
 of the munificent citizen to a degree which finally 
 compelled the sale of the pictures. Their disper- 
 sion in 1805 may be considered as the final blow 
 to all hopes of establishing a native school of his- 
 torical art on the grand scale, and the prices which 
 they then commanded, whether the fault lay in 
 the demerits of the artists or the apathy of the 
 public, show how little had been achieved by the 
 efforts of nearly half a century.* 
 
 In the meantime painting flourished in other 
 branches, and artists were rising who were destined 
 to sustain the reputation of the British school, and 
 to open new paths to its progress. The star of 
 Lawrence already shone brightly at the death of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, in 1792, But this distinguished 
 painter will be more conveniently noticed in the 
 next section, and we must turn to those of older 
 reputation, who more properly belong to the 
 present period. Of these, John Hoppner is pre- 
 
 * Reynolds’s pictures fetched the largest prices, as might be ex- 
 pected, but the Macbeth, for which Boydell had paid the painter 
 1000 guineas, produced only 378. Its size was embarrassing. 
 West’s Lear brought 200 guineas, and all his pictures sold com- 
 paratively well. Some of Smirke’s brought large prices—his Seven 
 Ages, 252/. After these, Northcote and Hodges make the best 
 figure. Tresham’s Antony and Cleopatra brought 100/. 16s. 
 Hamilton’s Leontes and Hermione, Hoppner’s Pisanio and Imogen, 
 and the two by Fuseli from the Midsummer Night's Dream, are 
 the only other pictures which went beyond 50/., and a very con- 
 siderable number fell under 20/.! 
 
874 
 
 eminent in portrait, and had secured a consider- 
 able share of royal and noble patronage, even 
 during the lifetime of Reynolds. His colouring is 
 natural, fresh, and harmonious, his effects of light 
 and shade forcible, and, as he excelled also in 
 landscape, his backgrounds are remarkable for 
 their beauty and taste. In his best works, as in 
 the Sleeping Nymph, formerly in the collection of 
 Lord de Tabley, he is scarcely surpassed by any 
 master in the delicacy and truth of the flesh-tints, 
 Hoppner contributed a picture to the Shakspeare 
 Gallery. A few of the portraits of William Owen 
 rank high for their vigorous style of colouring, but 
 he is extremely unequal, and always drew feebly. 
 He was most successful in female heads. Sir 
 William Beechey cannot be classed very high as a 
 painter, but he was fortunate enough to obtain a 
 large share of royal patronage, and the subjects 
 of some of his works, as the equestrian group of 
 George III. and his elder sons, now at Hampton 
 Court, secured their popularity through the 
 medium of the graver. The list of portrait- 
 painters may be concluded with the names of 
 Richard Cosway and Ozias Humphry, who carried 
 the art of miniature to great perfection, and 
 infused into that style much of the higher qualities 
 of art. They were both accomplished draughtsmen 
 and fine colourists. 
 
 *} George Morland is one of those sons of genius 
 who vindicate the claims of his country to indi- 
 genous talent in the arts. Engaged in the practice 
 of painting from early youth, Morland had neither 
 opportunity nor inclination for academical study ; 
 but he knew the extent of his own powers, and 
 confined himself to the representation of objects 
 demanding little skill in drawing and little com- 
 bination of effect. Asa painter of domestic animals 
 and the humble scenes of rustic life he has seldom 
 been excelled. Pigs, sheep, asses, shaggy ponies— 
 the common incidents of English scenery—the 
 barn-door, the pond, the hedge, the clay bank—in 
 these and similar subjects the works of Morland 
 may claim companionship with those of any artist 
 of any school, for their perfect truth to nature, and 
 their original and appropriate mode of treatment. 
 Morland unhappily closed a dissolute life at the 
 age of forty, in 1804. 
 
 The name of James Philip de Loutherbourg, a 
 native of Strasbourg, who settled in England at 
 this period, and became a member of the Academy, 
 must not be omitted. He was a painter of battles, 
 sea-pieces, and landscapes with figures and cattle. 
 He possessed a great talent for composition and 
 superior facility of pencil, but his colouring is 
 sometimes meretricious, and want of breadth is his 
 prevailing fault. The works of Loutherbourg tell 
 best in the engravings. Those of Lord Howe’s 
 Victory and the Siege of Valenciennes are well 
 known. He died in 1812. 
 
 The present notice may be concluded with the 
 - mention of two Scottish painters of talent—David 
 Allan and Sir Henry Raeburn, who may be con- 
 sidered the founders of a resident school of art in 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 their own country. The former established him- 
 self at Edinburgh in 1780, and took the direction 
 of the Academy in that metropolis. He died in 
 1796. The latter was an eminent portrait-painter, 
 who returned from Italy in 1787, and lived to 
 receive the honour of knighthood on the visit of 
 his majesty George IV. to Scotland. He was also 
 a member of the Royal Academy. 
 
 In the art of sculpture the reputation of the 
 British school was raised to an eminent pitch 
 during the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
 by Banks, Nollekens, Bacon, and Flaxman. 
 
 Upon few mortals has the gift of genius been 
 more unequivocally bestowed than upon Thomas 
 Banks. Born in 1735, he was pursuing his studies 
 
 at a period when the art throughout Europe was 
 
 still under the influence of the school of Bernini, 
 and when there was not in existence a sculptor 
 from whom he could have derived the pure taste 
 which characterizes even the earliest of his works.* 
 At the opening of the Royal Academy his models 
 attracted immediate notice, and Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds pronounced him the first English sculptor 
 who had produced works of classic grace. It was 
 not until 1772 that he visited Italy at the expense 
 of the Academy. On his return to England he 
 
 ee FT ee BL ie 
 
 SOROS RE, Ont A gan ago 
 
 nA pam act isin naman taste 
 
 found himself anticipated by Bacon and Nollekens | 
 in the favour of the public, and in the tardy patron- — 
 
 age which the government was at last inclined to | 
 bestow on the arts, in the shape of commissions | 
 
 for public cenotaphs; and, with a talent which 
 threw all rivalry into the shade until the appear- 
 
 ance of Flaxman, he took refuge among the | 
 
 Russians from the indifference of his contempor- 
 aries. He soon, however, discovered the base 
 
 metal in the composition of those lacquered bar- | 
 barians, and was content to devote the remainder | 
 of his life to his own country. The first work he © 
 
 produced on his return to England was the noble 
 
 statue of Achilles now in the hall of the British — 
 
 Gallery. 
 
 * 
 
 * According to Allan Cunningham, he studied under Kent; but ’ 
 | Kent died in 1748, when Banks was but thirteen years of age. He — 
 
 is believed to have been a carver in wood, and certainly excelled 
 
 in handling that material, though of course he seldom practised | 
 
 upon it. 
 
en 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 875 
 
 Cuap. XII] 
 
 With an original mind for beauty and expression 
 in sculpture worthy an ancient Greek, it is unfor- 
 tunate that Banks lacked invention to carry him 
 with success through his laudable endeavours to 
 introduce a more poetic feeling into our monu- 
 mental sculpture. In seeking an adaptation of 
 Greek form and sentiment to the purpose of com- 
 memorating the valour and genius of our own 
 days, he has only accompanied his contemporaries 
 into the dreary mazes of allegory. To the use of 
 personification in art, if judiciously regulated, 
 there can be no objection: it has been employed, 
 sometimes in better taste, sometimes in worse, 
 throughout the whole range of modern sculpture ; 
 but never has the resource been so abused as in 
 the ambitious groups of the English school. “These 
 medley works,” says Allan Cunningham, speaking 
 of our public cenotaphs, “like mixed metaphors, 
 are manufactured on every public occasion ; and, 
 when the commissioners of national monuments 
 demand designs, fifteen out of twenty of the rival 
 sketches are sure to be of this nature. It is 
 no uncommon thing to see a man standing on a 
 monument in regimentals ; his Genius, as large as 
 himself, on one side ; his Wisdom comforting him, 
 in the shape of Minerva, on the other; and his 
 Valour busy in the batile-field with his sword and 
 buckler.” The application of this picture is but 
 too universal, and the works of Banks are no 
 exception to its truth. The monuments of Sir 
 Kyre Coote in Westminster Abbey, and of Captains 
 Westcott and Burgess in St. Paul’s, have each its 
 
 full-grown Victory, raising a trophy, bestowing a 
 
 crown, and presenting a sword. In the latter the 
 artist has avoided the reproach of the costume by 
 representing the English naval commander in a 
 state of nudity. 
 
 With all allowance for this prevailing fault, the 
 merits of Banks as an artist are of the highest 
 class, The Achilles already referred to is perhaps, 
 without exception, the finest heroic statue in the 
 whole range of modern art. The Falling Giant in 
 the Royal Academy condenses into a small com- 
 pass the grandeur of the antique, and the Indian 
 on the monument of Sir Eyre Coote has ever been 
 the admiration of all competent judges of art, for 
 its fine proportion and expression, and its perfect 
 anatomy. The relievo of Thetis and her Nymphs 
 rising from the Sea is well known through the 
 medium of plaster casts, and is a model of grace 
 both in composition and form; and the monument 
 to the daughter of Sir Brooke Boothby, a sleeping 
 child, is perfect in nature and pathos. Banks also 
 executed the relievo of Shakspeare supported by 
 Painting and Poetry on the front of the British 
 Gallery. 
 
 Next in seniority to Banks comes Joseph Nolle- 
 kens, who, with scarcely the rudiments of general 
 education, attained eminence in the art by dint of 
 a close study of nature, corrected by an innate 
 feeling for the beauty of the antique. In early 
 youth Nollekens studied under Scheemakers. In 
 1759 and 1760 he gained three premiums at the 
 
 Society of Arts, and, in the latter year, proceeded to 
 Rome, where Garrick sat to him for his first bust. 
 In the eternal city he was encouraged by the 
 liberal patronage of his countrymen to remain for 
 ten years, On his return to England, his marble 
 portraiture maintained a long rivalry with the 
 canvas of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and it is upon his 
 busts that his fame will rest. In that department 
 of the art none of his contemporaries contested 
 his pre-eminence. The treatment of his heads 
 is peculiarly his own, and yet entirely free from 
 the vice of mannerism. “They are unaffected 
 and elegant. There is no attempt to raise 
 ordinary heads into the regions of the heroic, nor 
 to give even eminent mortals the looks of gods. 
 The best are simple without weakness, and serene 
 without austerity. In woman he took beauty as 
 he found it, and of man he gave the mind, and 
 no more, which was spread visibly before him. 
 There is little dignity, but much truth—sometimes 
 mechanic vigour—never exaggeration.” * 
 
 His monuments and poetical statues are also 
 numerous. Destitute of imagination and senti- 
 ment, it cannot be supposed that the former con- 
 tribute much to his reputation. His cenotaph to 
 the three commanders who fell in Rodney’s action, 
 is composed on the received principle. “His 
 heathen progeny,” says Cunningham, “differs in 
 nothing from the accredited forms.’ In monu- 
 ments of a more domestic character he has 
 sometimes been more successful. That to Mrs. 
 Howard, of Corby Castle, may be considered one 
 of the best works of its class, His poetic 
 sculptures, among which are to be reckoned 
 several varieties of the nymph and Venus tribe, 
 are everything that careful study and mechanical 
 skill can effect; but to pass these boundaries, 
 destitute of a poetical mind, and ignorant of the 
 classics, Nollekens was incapable. He became a 
 royal academician in 1772, and died in 1828, at the 
 age of eighty-six, 
 
 John Bacon, far less gifted than his contempor- 
 ary Banks, was, like him, indebted to himself for 
 his education as a sculptor. His début in the 
 
 * Allan Cunningham, Life of Nollekens. 
 
876 
 
 arts was as a maker of the shepherdesses in long 
 stays and high-heeled shoes, and other figures of 
 the like class, which it was then the fashion to 
 execute in coloured porcelain; but, at the age of 
 nineteen, inspired, as it is said, by the works of 
 the artists who sent their clay models to the 
 manufactory to be baked, he had qualified himself 
 to obtain a premium from the Society of Arts. 
 He afterwards became the principal modeller for 
 Coade’s artificial stone, and contributed greatly 
 by his talents to the reputation of that manufac- 
 ture. In 1766, he gained the first gold medal 
 awarded for sculpture by the Royal Academy. 
 His statue of Mars, in the possession of the 
 Society of Arts, although its rank is but that of 
 a clever academical model, obtained for him, not 
 merely the gold medal of that institution, but also 
 the patronage of the Archbishop of York, Dr. 
 Markham, through whose influence he was em- 
 ployed to execute a marble bust of the king; and 
 his success in this undertaking opened to him a 
 road to fame and fortune, of which he was not 
 slow to take advantage. He was shortly afterwards 
 intrusted with the monument of Chatham, in 
 Guildhall; and in 1780, “ but a few years removed 
 from the time when he was an obscure labourer 
 in the manufactory of Coade, his reputation had 
 spread through the land, his works had found their 
 way into cathedrals, collections, and galleries, and 
 he had become a member of the Royal Academy 
 and the companion of princes and peers.” * 
 Worldly wisdom and the art of rising formed a 
 considerable ingredient in the talent of Bacon. 
 He never risked a check to his full tide of success 
 by quitting his native land in search of improve- 
 ment, nor interrupted the gainful pursuit of 
 chiselling monuments for the barren reputation 
 to be won by that of the heroic and poetical. 
 In his great monuments, of which he obtained 
 his full share in competition with his fellow- 
 artists, he affected a style which dispensed with 
 the severe study necessary for the attainment of 
 the high class of sculpture, and was calculated to 
 lead by the shortest path to immediate popularity 
 and profit; he sought the picturesque—a style 
 which cannot be considered legitimate in sculpture. 
 To this end he heaped up allegorical figures, pos- 
 sessing, indeed, the merit of telling their own 
 meaning, but confused with redundant action and 
 superfluous draperies. The monument toChatham, 
 before mentioned, is one of the most striking 
 examples of his peculiar style of composition. 
 His full-length portraits are of a much higher 
 order of merit, and he may be suspected of 
 sinning against conviction in his other works, 
 when we find that it was upon them he rested 
 his hopes of future fame. The characteristics 
 of Bacon as a sculptor cannot be better summed 
 up than in the words of Allan Cunningham :— 
 “Bacon felt where his strength lay, when he 
 said his statues were his best works, He infused 
 
 * Allan Cunningham, Life of Bacon. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 more good English sense into his sculptures than 
 any preceding artist. Having little imagination, 
 he willingly welcomed those figures which Spenser 
 calls ‘dark conceits,’ because they came without 
 study or meditation. His style of sculpture was, 
 with the exception of his single statues, decidedly 
 of that kind called the picturesque. The result of 
 the whole is sometimes magnificent, The figures 
 are well placed and commanding ; the auxiliary 
 symbols are scattered with profuse liberality ; and 
 the workmanship is ever neat, skilful, and elabo- 
 rate. But aman can only infuse genius into his 
 works in proportion as he possesses it himself, 
 and the genius of Bacon is not of a high order, 
 There is much external grace and lavish pretti- 
 ness ; but we have few of those bright shapes and 
 vivid sentiments which denote the hand of the 
 inspired master. The manufacturer of images in 
 a pottery is visible in many of his works; a good 
 shape and interesting posture alone are aimed at. 
 His natural strength exerted itself and shook off 
 the fetters imposed by this sort of education, when- 
 ever he was commissioned to make a statue of 
 one whom he had familiarly known. He placed, 
 as it were, the images, mental and bodily, of 
 Johnson and Howard before him, and thought of 
 them alone till he had finished his work: this is 
 sufficiently visible in those fine statues—there, all 
 is original and unborrowed.” 
 
 Besides the monuments already incidentally 
 noticed, Bacon executed those to Lord Halifax, 
 to Chatham, and to the captains who fell in the 
 victory of the Ist of June, in Westminster Abbey, 
 and the statue of Sir William Jones, in St. Paul’s ; 
 the monument to Mrs. Draper, in Bristol Cathedral, 
 is also his work, and added much to his repu- 
 tation. Among his other works are the bronze 
 group in the court of Somerset House, and the 
 stone figures on the front; the statues of the — 
 founder of Guy’s Hospital, of Judge Blackstone - 
 for All Souls College, Oxford, and Henry VI. for 
 Eton. In the works of Bacon, a progression may 
 be distinctly traced in compliance with the 
 changing taste of the period. He had none of the 
 intuitive feeling of Banks for the pure and severe, 
 and his early monumental works are tinged 
 strongly with the fashion of the old school. Bacon 
 died in 1799. 
 
 John Flaxman was born in 1755, twenty years 
 after Banks, and came before the public as an 
 artist at a period when he could add to an intuitive 
 perception of the great and graceful, at least equal 
 to that of his senior, the advantages arising from 
 the general appreciation of the forms of Greek art, 
 and the inquiries into its principles and practice, 
 which had followed the publication of Stuart’s 
 Athens. There are few biographies in art more 
 interesting than that of this distinguished English- | 
 man. His father was a modeller, and dealer in ~ 
 plaster figures, in humble circumstances. 
 demned by physical infirmities to bodily inactivity 
 during the first years of his life, John Flaxman 
 was, from his infancy, thrown for occupation and 
 
 Con- | 
 
Cuar. XII.] 
 
 amusement upon the resources of a mind in the 
 highest degree studious, contemplative, and pious, 
 
 FLAXMAN, 
 
 and his pursuits were determined so early by the 
 influence of the objects in the midst of which he 
 passed his days, and an intense love of reading, 
 that even in his childhood he had felt the inspira- 
 tion of the Greek poets, and made his first attempts 
 to embody their characters and descriptions. At 
 the age of fifteen, when he became a student of 
 the Royal Academy, he had already secured 
 patrons by the merit of his juvenile sketches. He 
 had no opportunity of visiting Italy until 1787, 
 having then earned a high distinction through 
 several of those private monuments, which rank 
 not only among the most successful of his own 
 works, but also among the finest productions of 
 modern sculpture. It was a principle with Flax- 
 man, “that the Christian religion presents person- 
 ages and subjects no less favourable to painting 
 and sculpture than the ancient classics ;” and well 
 has he supported his dictum by the works in which 
 the Christian virtues of the dead are commemorated 
 
 ——— (4 sapeeaes | 
 
 Se aS 
 ra eS ——_ Cage 
 8 \\) oe ~: (Bizz 
 FR = SB BU-y 
 Bs 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 877 
 
 by sculptured illustrations of the poetical and 
 divine sentiments of the Old and New Testaments, 
 conceived and executed, not merely with the pure 
 outlines of the Greek form, but with the deep 
 intellectual power of the Greek mind, Flaxman 
 would willingly have dedicated his talents to 
 works of morality and devotion; and, although 
 it was not possible for him to accomplish this 
 purpose to its full extent, he yet did much, and it 
 is in this class of art especially that his works 
 are beyond all praise. 
 
 During his sojourn in Rome, Flaxman produced 
 those compositions which have conferred upon 
 him the widest reputation ever achieved by a 
 British sculptor. The dissemination of the engray- 
 ings after his illustrations of Homer, Alschylus, 
 Dante, and Hesiod is co-extensive with the know- 
 ledge of the fine arts. “He has penctrated into 
 the Iliad and Odyssey,” says an able critic, in 
 reference to these works, “with a far deeper sense 
 of the majesty of Homer than his great contem- 
 porary Canova, who dedicated his whole life to the 
 renovation of the antique; but, indeed, he never 
 failed to catch the peculiar inspiration of whatever 
 poet his fancy selected for illustration. We own 
 the groups at once as the offspring of Homer, 
 J&schylus, or Dante.” * One of the compositions 
 from Hesiod, the group of Mercury conveying 
 Pandora from Heaven to Earth, with which he 
 was himself so well satisfied that he modelled it in 
 relievo, has elicited even from English apathy a 
 tribute to its surpassing beauty. It is sometimes 
 seen as a decoration upon the walls of our 
 dwelling-houses, > 
 
 The reputation with which Flaxman returned 
 to his own country secured to him the execution 
 of several public monuments ; but in this class of 
 art his success, with one splendid exception, has 
 been by no means equal to that which attended 
 his religious and poetical compositions, to which he 
 has never failed to impart a purity and simplicity, 
 
 \y 
 
 IIIMHW 
 HAs 
 
 ML, 
 
 Zin 
 
 —S* 
 
 4 
 i 
 
 is 
 
 ** Saturnia whipt her horse, 
 And heaven-gates, guarded by the Hours, op’d of their proper force.”—Iliad, Book viii. 
 
 united with a vigour of sentiment, unrivalled in 
 modern sculpture. In commemorating our naval 
 and military heroes he has been driven to allegory, 
 which has nothing to distinguish it from the alle- 
 gory of inferior artists. Victory, History, and 
 
 Britannia mingle in familiar juxtaposition with 
 the personages they are assembled to celebrate, 
 and, as it is admitted that the sculptor was deficient 
 
 * Quarterly Review, No. 67. 
 
878 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ** Thad been much distress’d 
 Had Thetis and Eurynome in either’s silver breast 
 Not rescued me.”—Jliad, Book xviii. 
 
 in the mechanical processes necessary for handling 
 large statues in marble, these works have in 
 general added but little to his renown. In one 
 work of this class he has, however, distanced all 
 competition—the monument to Lord Mansfield in 
 Westminster Abbey—for which he received the 
 commission while yet in Italy, and which was the 
 first work he executed on his return, The judge is 
 seated in a curule chair, raised on a pedestal 
 supported by the figures of Wisdom and Justice ; 
 behind is a Genius, emblematical of Death. The 
 general composition of this design, calculated to be 
 viewed on all sides, may challenge criticism ; 
 the individual statues are of the highest class, and 
 the judicial costume of the principal figure fur- 
 nishes a proof of the power of genius to defy the 
 most formidable extrinsic difficulties. When Banks 
 saw this monument he said: “ This little man cuts 
 us all out.” 
 
 Flaxman became a member of the Royal 
 Academy in 1797. In 1810 he was appointed 
 professor of sculpture. His lectures, which are 
 published, are a valuable addition to the literature 
 of art. The greater part of Flaxman’s public 
 works belong to the nineteenth century. His 
 Shield of Achilles, modelled for Messrs. Rundell 
 and Bridge, and executed both in gold and silver, 
 was produced in 1818. He died in 1826. 
 
 From the latter years of the eighteenth century 
 may be dated that revolution in the condition of 
 Engraving which is one of the most remarkable 
 effects of the establishment of an English school 
 of art. During the whole of its previous history, 
 the higher kind of engraving had been considered 
 as the handmaid of painting, and as the means 
 
 ‘ of multiplying such productions of the pencil as 
 
 might be worthy of that distinction, either from 
 
 their excellence as works of art, or from their, 
 
 * 
 
 popular qualities, as in the case of portraits and 
 contemporary history. Hence the best works of 
 the most eminent engravers consisted, for the most 
 part, of single plates, which were esteemed not 
 merely for the mechanical skill they might exhibit, 
 but were also valued in proportion to the fidelity 
 with which they transmitted the mind and spirit 
 of the original masters. Occasionally a series of 
 illustrations might be produced with all the luxury 
 of art; but in providing works of the graver for 
 general circulation, there was seldom found a 
 medium between those of the highest class and the 
 wretched book-plates to which reference has been 
 made in a former Book. In the present day, the 
 demand of the public taste for illustrated works 
 has raised the supply both in quantity and quality 
 (the phrases of trade are strictly appropriate) to a 
 pitch hitherto unprecedented. The invention of 
 steel-plates has left no temptation to practise in 
 any style inferior to line-engraving. The quality 
 of effect, at once the beauty and the vice of the 
 modern English school, is not difficult of trans- 
 ference. The use of mechanical processes insures 
 clearness and precision ; and the joint labours of 
 the draughtsman, the engraver, and the bookseller 
 manufacture and circulate throughout the country, 
 by tens of thousands, engravings superior to any 
 which existed previously to the last twenty years 
 of the eighteenth century, except in the portfolios 
 of the few and fastidious. It is not to be doubted 
 that the speculations of Alderman Boydell contri- 
 buted greatly to this general diffusion of works 
 of engraving; but he was preceded by another 
 publisher, Harrison, whose voluminous editions of 
 the British classics and novels, with the names of 
 Stothard for the designs and James Heath and 
 Angus for the engraving, among those who contri- 
 buted to the illustrations, took the lead, with Bell’s _ 
 British Poets, in providing a superior class of | 
 
Cuar. XII.] 
 
 book-plates for general circulation. Boydell’s 
 Shakspeare and Milton followed, rivalled by 
 Macklin’s Bible, and accompanied by a host of 
 publications less ambitious in their pretensions, 
 and therefore more perfect in their degree. As 
 a specimen of the English school of engraving, 
 the Boydell Shakspeare must be pronounced a 
 failure. It is principally executed in the inferior 
 and now exploded style of dot engraving, which 
 had been introduced from France by William 
 Ryland, and unfortunately adopted and brought 
 into fashion by Bartolozzi, under the temptation 
 of its greater facility and rapidity of execution, 
 qualities not to be overlooked in a publishing 
 speculation so extensive as the Shakspeare. Much 
 as this style was then in vogue, it has conferred 
 little reputation on any of those by whom it was 
 practised. Peter Simon, one of the numerous 
 French artists entertained by Boydell, Caroline 
 Watson, Antony Cardon, B. Smith, Ryder, Scriven, 
 and Holl, may be particularized. The last 
 mentioned is remarkable for his skill in the then 
 fashionable style of imitating chalk-drawings, 
 Caroline Watson also excelled in mezzotint. 
 
 In the superior department of line-engraving, 
 the English school may assert, during this period, 
 an indisputable superiority over all others, The 
 works of William Sharpe rank among the finest 
 which ever proceeded from the graver. His style 
 is distinguished ‘for its beautiful ¢ooling, both of 
 the flesh and the drapery. The Doctors of the 
 Church after Guido, and the portrait of John 
 Hunter after Reynolds, have never been surpassed. 
 John Sherwin was a pupil of Bartolozzi, and has 
 the credit of engraving the Clytie, one of the 
 finest works bearing the name of the master. His 
 Death of Lord Robert Manners, and some of the 
 plates in the large illustrations to Cook’s Voyages, 
 especially the portrait of the Sandwich Island 
 Girl, may also be cited as specimens of the 
 highest ability. James Fittler is remarkable for 
 the neatness of his execution, without losing in 
 finish any of the higher qualities of art. He 
 engraved much after Loutherbourg, and many of 
 the plates in Macklin’s Bible are from his hand. 
 James Heath engraved innumerable book-plates 
 in a very superior style, and likewise produced 
 large engravings of the highest merit. Among 
 these are the Death of Major Pierson, the 
 Drowned Fisherman, the Dead Soldier, and the 
 Riots of London after Wheatley. Heath is greatly 
 esteemed among artists for his technical skill in 
 handling white drapery. Anker Smith was also an 
 excellent artist, and, in conjunction with J. Neagle, 
 engraved many plates after Fuseli. Wilson 
 Lowry excelled in architecture and machinery, 
 He invented an instrument by which he carried 
 the engraving of geometrical subjects of this 
 description, plans, maps, &c., to a degree of 
 precision never before attained. His engravings 
 for scientific works are well known. Lowry’s 
 instrument was improved at a later period by his 
 pupil Turrell, and in the present day its use has 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 879 
 
 crept into picturesque engraving, doubtless to the 
 advantage of a clear and minute style, but to the 
 total destruction of all the feeling and freedom 
 essential to the constitution of a real work of art. 
 John Scott excelled in animals, He executed a 
 work on sporting-dogs, another on horses, and 
 several large plates after Snyders with great 
 success. Louis Schiavonetti, a native of Bassano, 
 who studied in England under Bartolozzi, may be 
 named in this place, although his best works were 
 executed subsequently. He engraved the Cartoon 
 of Pisa after Michael Angelo, and the plates to 
 Blair’s Grave after the designs of Blake. His last 
 work was the etching of Stothard’s Canterbury 
 Pilgrimage. The names of Parker, Collyer, 
 Legat, and Stow may be added as artists of great 
 merit. 
 
 The landscape line-engravers of this period are 
 also numerous and excellent. At the head of this 
 class stands Samuel Middiman, and the landscape 
 with the Wounded Stag (in As You Like It), in 
 the Boydell Shakspeare, is a fine example of his 
 talents. He executed a set of sixty-nine views of 
 picturesque English scenery, to meet the growing 
 popular demand for engravings of a superior class, 
 James Watts and William Angus are each the 
 author of a series of views of noblemen’s and 
 gentlemen’s seats in the same style. The former 
 executed the architecture with peculiar neatness, 
 Thomas Milton engraved a set of views in Ireland: 
 he was also an excellent engraver of natural 
 history, and did the plates for Cotton’s edition of 
 Buffon, and at a later period many in the same 
 class in Rees’s Encyclopedia. Pouncey is dis- 
 tinguished for the superior handling of his trees, 
 Peake by the brightness and clearness of his 
 effects, and Taylor for his skill in etching. To 
 the list of the popular works of the period may 
 be added an extensive series of landscape engray- 
 ings from the drawings of Paul Sandby, on which 
 the best artists were employed. 
 
 In mezzotint engravings the credit of the English 
 school was ably supported by Earlom, B. Smith, 
 Faber, Ryder, Peltro, Say, Turner, and Reynolds. 
 Richard Earlom confessedly stands at the head of 
 this branch of the art. His two flower-pieces after 
 Van Huysum are beyond all rivalry. He also 
 engraved the Liber Veritatis with a profound feel- 
 ing of the original. Samuel Reynolds is the father 
 of the present school of mezzotint engraving both 
 in England and France. He introduced the prac- 
 tice of varying the surface and texture of mezzotint 
 by a mixture of etching, which has latterly been 
 carried to such great perfection in the hands of 
 Cousins and Lucas. William Westall, Sutherland, — 
 Medland, Stadler, and William and Thomas 
 Daniell, practised at this time in aquatint (a style 
 in which there is no medium between the very 
 good and the very bad) with a success which ranks 
 them high among engravers. William Daniell 
 was in fact an eminent Jandscape painter and 
 Member of the Royal Academy, but he is best 
 known by the aquatint engravings from his own 
 
 a 
 
880 
 
 Views in India, and the Oriental Field-sports, in 
 which he applied the art to printing in colours, 
 and has produced the most satisfactory imitations 
 of water-colour drawings in the style then prac- 
 tised. Sutherland and Westall also excelled in 
 the difficult mechanical process of adapting the 
 grain of aquatint to the various distances and 
 surfaces of the picture. 
 
 The name of William Blake has been reserved 
 to the last place, as that of an artist forming a class 
 by himself. He should perhaps be rated among 
 painters, as he engraved exclusively from his own 
 designs, which exhibit a power of imagination 
 scarcely surpassed by that of Fuseli. But it is not 
 denied that this vigorous mind was diseased, and, 
 as he was either deficient in the technical skill 
 necessary to make his engravings acceptable to the 
 public, or indulged his own speculations in the 
 style he adopted, his works will for ever remain 
 “caviare to the multitude,’ who look at their 
 surface only. To those who penetrate more deeply, 
 they possess, especially his illustrations of the 
 Book of Job, the elements of the sublime. 
 
 It would be easy to extend to a greater length 
 the list of the English engravers of this period, but 
 such is the general proficiency which appears 
 throughout their productions, that, with much to 
 commend in each, they would be as difficult to 
 discriminate as the strong Gyas from the strong 
 Cloanthus. Attention to middle-tint and variety 
 of surface, powerful indication of colour, and free- 
 dom from that metallic glare in the lights which 
 disfigures the best modern French engravings, are 
 the high qualities of the English school, and the 
 characteristics which distinguish it from all its 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The coinage of the reign of George III., down 
 to the end of the eighteenth century, is, with 
 reference to art, one of the most disgraceful pro- 
 ductions of any mint in modern times, The decline 
 of the Roman empire can exhibit little worse than 
 the silver coinages of 1778 and 1787. It was not 
 until 1797 that the copper pence struck for the 
 government by Messrs Boulton and Watt at Soho 
 exhibited a better feeling for art. 
 
 The history of Wood Engraving in this country, 
 down to the present period, has been traced in the 
 preceding Book, where the commencement of its 
 revival under Thomas Bewick is recorded. Prob- 
 ably no single work effected so much in rendering 
 the long-neglected art popular, and in restoring it 
 to a suitable place among these denominated the 
 fine arts, as the celebrated volume on the Natural 
 History of Quadrupeds, published by Bewick, in 
 connexion with his partner and former master, 
 Mr. Beilby, in 1790. Even the literary merits of 
 this work, the simple and agrecable style of which 
 also made the science of zoology more popular than 
 it had been before, are sufficient to entitle it to 
 respect ; but its great charm consisted in the 
 spirited and generally accurate cuts of the animals 
 described, and in the amusing vignettes freely 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 interspersed as tail-pieces, the designs or concep- 
 tions of which display as much the quaint humour 
 of Bewick, who, to adopt the language of one of his 
 admirers, gave “a moral in every tail-piece—a 
 sermon in every vignette,’ as their execution does 
 credit to his artistic skill. Mr Beilby’s assistance 
 was rendered chiefly in collecting and arranging 
 materials for the literary portion of the work, but 
 even in this department Bewick himself took part. 
 So popular did the work immediately become, 
 that second and third editions were called for in 
 
 °1791 and 1792; and its sterling value occasioned 
 
 a continued demand, notwithstanding a great 
 increase of price; the demy octavo copies of the 
 first edition, 1500 in number, having been sold at 
 8s., while those of the eighth edition, published in 
 1825, were charged a guinea. The tail-pieces, 
 which lend such a peculiar charm to the work, 
 were much more sparingly introduced in the first 
 than in the subsequent editions. The great success 
 of this work induced Bewick, in 1791, to com- 
 mence a similar one on British Birds, of which the 
 first volume, embracing the land-birds, appeared 
 in 1797 ; the descriptions in this, as in the ‘ Quad- 
 rupeds, being chiefly written by Mr. Beilby, 
 whose partnership with Bewick was shortly after- 
 wards dissolved. The second volume, containing 
 the water-birds, was therefore written, as well as 
 illustrated, by Bewick. Its publication, which took 
 place in 1804, “formed,” observes Mr. Chatto,* 
 
 “the keystone of Bewick’s fame as a designer and — 
 
 engraver on wood; for, though the cuts are not 
 
 superior to those of the first, they are not excelled, — 
 
 or indeed equalled, by any that he afterwards 
 executed.” 
 
 John Bewick, the younger brother and pupil of 
 Thomas, left Newcastle-upon-Tyne and settled in 
 London about the year 1790, where he executed 
 woodcuts to illustrate several works, the best being 
 those published in a thin quarto volume of ‘Poems 
 by Goldsmith and Parnell, issued by Bulmer from 
 the Shakspeare Press, in 1795; a work which, 
 according to the advertisement prefixed, was 
 “meant to combine the various beauties of print- 
 
 a | 
 i 
 i 
 aw 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 | 
 
 1 
 
 % 
 s 
 
 | 
 i 
 : 
 
 SE EOS a RS TT ea 
 
 ae 
 
 2 FPA aN eee a ie 
 
 ing, type-founding, engraving, and paper-making; | 
 
 as well with a view to 
 
 ascertain the near | 
 
 approach to perfection which those arts have | 
 
 attained in this country, as to invite a fair compe- 
 
 tition with the best typographical productions of | 
 other nations,” This volume, which contains only | 
 the ‘Traveller’ and the ‘Deserted Village, by | 
 Goldsmith, and the ‘Hermit’ of Parnell, excited | 
 
 the interest of George ILI. so strongly, that he | 
 
 ry 
 
 desired to inspect the blocks from which the | 
 
 p 
 
 illustrations were printed, which were accordingly | 
 
 laid before him by Mr. George Nicol. While, how- 
 
 tell 
 ft 
 a | 
 
 ever, their beauty is said to have excited the | 
 
 incredulity of his majesty, until he was convinced 
 
 that they were really printed from wood, by the | 
 
 Jackson, p. 581. 
 indebted for most of the facts in the above notice of the art on 
 which it treats. ; 
 
 | 
 
 * Treatise on Wood Engraving, with Illustrations by John | 
 To this valuable and beautiful work we are | 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 
 actual inspection of the blocks, these illustrations, 
 which are in a free and effective style, are only 
 remarkable as specimens of wood engraving at 
 a time when it had fallen into a very low state. 
 Both of the Bewicks, Robert Johnson, an artist 
 who drew, but did not himself engrave, on wood, 
 and Charlton Nesbit, an engraver who long held 
 an elevated position among the professors of this 
 art, were engaged upon the above work, which 
 was followed, in the succeeding year, by a similar 
 edition of Somerville’s ‘Chase, with illustrations 
 designed by John Bewick, who died December 5, 
 1795, and engraved principally by his brother. 
 
 Two wood engravings of this period claim special 
 notice as indications of a desire to apply the re- 
 vived art to the production of prints of a more 
 ambitious character than those used as illustrations 
 to books. The first of these is an engraving 
 executed by Thomas Bewick about the year 1789, 
 of one of the wild oxen kept in Chillingham Park, 
 of the then unusual size of nearly eight inches by 
 five inches and a half, independent of an orna- 
 mental border by which it was surrounded. Owing 
 to the carelessness of the printers, the block split 
 after a few impressions were taken (one of which 
 is preserved in the collection of George III., now 
 in the British Museum), but some years afterwards 
 it was repaired. Though this engraving has been 
 called Bewick’s masterpiece, it is by no means 
 equal in execution to some of the small cuts in 
 the ‘ British Birds” The other engraving referred 
 to, is a view of the church of St. Nicholas, at 
 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, about fifteen inches long 
 and twelve inches high, drawn by Robert Johnson, 
 and engrayed by Charlton Nesbit, an impression of 
 which may also be seen in the British Museum. 
 This large engraving was executed upon twelve 
 pieces of box-wood, cramped together, and mounted 
 on a plate of cast iron: and it was published in 
 1799. For this engraving Mr Nesbit received a 
 silver palette from the Society of Arts in 1798; 
 and in 1802 he was again rewarded by the Society 
 for engravings on wood.* : 
 
 The Commemoration of Handel in 1784 com- 
 pletely revived in England that taste for Music 
 which had been almost extinguished nearly a cen- 
 tury and a half before, during the age of Puritanism, 
 and was but very slowly returning when it received 
 this fresh and powerful stimulus, the immediate 
 effect of which may in some degree be estimated 
 by the comparative results of the triennial musical 
 festivals at Birmingham in 1781 and 1784. The 
 profits of the former year amounted to only 1402, of 
 the latter to upwards of 7007. In 1802 they had by 
 a gradual increase reached the sum of 23802.+ The 
 
 performances in Westminster Abbey were annually ° 
 
 repeated till 1789, the band being enlarged every 
 year till it reached the prodigious number of 1000, 
 They were then suspended on account of the king’s 
 
 _ * Transactions, xvi. 366; xx. 388. 
 + In the year 1823 the net profits of the Birmingham Festival, for 
 the benefit of the hospital, amounted to 5806/. 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1785-1801. 
 
 881 
 
 illness, but resumed in 1790, and were given one 
 more season, when they were finally discontinued, 
 the French revolution and the agitated state of the 
 country indisposing the public mind for such tran- 
 quil enjoyments on so large a scale. 
 
 The Ancient Concerts, however, were carried on 
 with great spirit, and not only kept alive, but more 
 widely diffused that taste for the grand and sub- 
 lime in music to which the performances in the 
 Abbey may be said to have given a second birth. 
 The royal family never ceased to attend these con- 
 certs regularly, till the state of the king’s health 
 rendered his seclusion necessary; and the royal 
 patronage brought with it, as a sure consequence, 
 that of many families of the highest rank in the 
 kingdom. But the bulk of the fashionable world 
 are doomed to suffer a continual thirst for novelty; 
 hence other concerts, in which new compositions 
 were the chief attraction, and formed the principal 
 feature, were established, and all met with support 
 while they were fresh, and able to furnish a supply 
 of that aliment which a morbid appetite demanded. 
 Among these were the ‘Pantheon Concerts’ and 
 the ‘ Professional Concerts ;? the former held in a 
 beautiful building which was afterwards destroyed 
 by fire in 1792, the latter in the Hanover-square 
 Rooms. These, offering scarcely any but ephemeral 
 productions, had their short-lived day, and left 
 only the bare record of their existence. 
 
 The year 1791 makes another era in the musical 
 history of this country. Salomon, a very distin- 
 guished violinist, then instituted those concerts, 
 known by his name, for which the twelve grand 
 symphonies of Haydn were composed. No new 
 orchestral music of a high order had been produced 
 here since the time of Handel, except some few of 
 Haydn’s earlier works; all of which, however, 
 departed widely from the old style, and many of 
 which were as remarkable for effect as for origina- 
 lity. But his last twelve symphonies as far excel 
 all his other works of the same class, as his earlier 
 ones surpassed those of all preceding composers. 
 That they might be heard for the first time under 
 every advantage, the composer himself came to 
 London in the above-named year, and also in 1794, 
 to superintend their performance in person, In- 
 deed some of them were composed in the British 
 metropolis, and all were completed here; we may 
 therefore at least claim the merit of having caused 
 the production of works which have exalted the 
 art, are listened to with admiration in every part 
 of the civilized world, and will last while music 
 has power to charm, In 1792 Harrison, the cele- 
 brated tenor, and the elder Knyvett,* commenced 
 the ‘ Vocal Concerts, consisting of glees, songs, &c., 
 with a bare pianoforte accompaniment. Bartleman, 
 the eminent base, and Greatorex,+ joined after- 
 wards in the management of these performances, 
 for which several of our best glees were composed. 
 
 * A gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and subsequently organist 
 of that establishment. 
 + The successor of Joah Bates, Esq., as conductor of the Ancient 
 Concerts, and afterward organist of Westminster race 
 D 
 
882 
 
 They became the resort of the fashionable world, 
 and during many years were very successful. Some 
 very good and well-attended subscription concerts 
 were also given in the great room of the King’s 
 Theatre during the seasons of 1795 and three 
 following years. 2 
 
 The King’s Theatre, or Italian Opera, con- 
 tinued to be well supported by the upper classes. 
 Sometimes well and sometimes ill conducted, it 
 proved either the source of considerable profit or 
 loss to the managers; but during the present 
 period many excellent operas and some of the 
 greatest singers that Europe ever produced were 
 heard on this stage. Among the former were 
 Paisiello’s Molinara, Barbiere, Elfrida, and Nina ; 
 Gluck’s Jfigenia in Tauride, Orfeo, and Alceste ; 
 Sacchini’s Zvelina; Gretry’s Zemira ed Azor; 
 Sarti’s Giulio Sabino; and Martini’s Cosa Rara. 
 Of the latter were Mesdames Mara, Banti, Billing- 
 ton, and Signora Storace; Signors Pacchierotti, 
 Tenducci, Rubinelli, and Marchesi (sopranos) ; 
 Viganoni, Rovedino, and Morelli, and Mr. Braham. 
 ‘ The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1789, and 
 rebuilt the following year, but not opened for 
 operas till 1792, in consequence of a dispute 
 between the Lord Chamberlain and the proprie- 
 tors. In the interim, the Pantheon, fitted up 
 for the purpose, was converted into an opposition 
 opera-house ; and this was, in 1792, burnt to the 
 ground, 
 
 The increasing love of music was nowhere more 
 discernible than in our national theatres. Opera, 
 which, during the early portion of the present 
 reign, was treated as a mere accessory, and only 
 admitted for the sake of variety, now began to 
 assume a much more important character, and to 
 divide, with tragedy and comedy, the favour of 
 the town. The composers for the English stage 
 who most distinguished themselves were Arnold,* 
 Shield,t and Storace. For beautiful melody, and 
 for judgment in setting poetry to music, the first 
 two will always be admired. The Castle of 
 Andalusia, Incle and Yarico, The Surrender of 
 Calais, and The Mountaineers of Arnold, and the 
 Rosina, The Poor Soldier, The Woodman, and The 
 Farmer, of Shield, are composed of materials of 
 so durable a nature, that they never can be worn 
 out, though capricious fashion may for a while lay 
 them aside. Stephen Storace combined the foreign 
 with the English schools, and made invaluable 
 additions to our stock of dramatic music. His 
 Haunted Tower, No Song No Supper, Pirates, Iron 
 Chest, Mahmoud, together with a portion of The 
 Siege of Belgrade and Lodoiska, will secure to him 
 a lasting place in musical history ; and, had he not 
 died at so early an age, when his genius was just 
 beginning to display its full power, it is probable 
 that he would have stood foremost among the 
 greatest musicians of any time or country.t As 
 
 ' & See ante, vol. v., p. 530. 
 
 + One of the musicians in ordinary to the king, and latterly 
 master of the state-band. 
 
 ¢ Storace was born in London in 1763, and died in 1795. His 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 connected with the stage, Charles Dibdin belongs © 
 to a former period; but as a true representative 
 of the bards of old—as poet, composer, and singer 
 —this is the place in which he claims to be noticed. 
 Of ancient bards, our only knowledge is derived 
 from vague tradition ; but of Dibdin we do know, 
 and may assert, without fear of contradiction, 
 that no poet of modern times ever operated more 
 powerfully upon a whole people than he did; 
 that no musician ever excelled him in sweetness 
 of melody, and just adaptation of sound to sense; 
 and that no singer ever rivalled him in the effect 
 he gave to his own patriotic and spirit-stirring 
 productions,* 
 
 That social and delightful species of music which 
 may be said to be indigenous to the British isles, 
 the Glee, had many able cultivators in the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century. Two already 
 mentioned, Webbe and Danby,t still continued 
 to labour in the same field, and were joined by 
 younger candidates for fame, among whom the 
 names of Callcott,{ Stevens,§ and Spofforth|| 
 stand conspicuous ; and a large proportion of their 
 numerous compositions maintain their high ground 
 in the public estimation, without incurring the 
 slightest risk of ever losing it. Callcott gained 
 many prize-medals from the -Catch-Club, and 
 the two others whom we have named with him 
 received more than once the same acknowledg- 
 ment of their talents. That club continued to 
 flourish, though, from the enormous expense 
 incurred in ¢rying the compositions sent in by 
 candidates for the prizes, the members ceased 
 in 1793 to give medals. % 
 
 In 1787, the GurE-CLuB was established on the 
 plan of the Catch-Club, inasmuch as it consisted 
 of subscribing and professional, or honorary, mem- 
 bers, who met at dinner periodically, and passed 
 the evening in the enjoyment of that vocal har- 
 mony from which the society derived its name. 
 But the meetings, instead. of taking place weekly, 
 were limited to twelve in the season, and no prizes 
 were offered ; consequently, the expense incurred 
 was far less than in the elder club, and the mem- 
 bers, though of high respectability, were not neces- 
 sarily chosen from the most wealthy classes.7 
 
 father was a Neapolitan, long engaged as a performer in our 
 theatres. His mother was an Englishwoman: so we may justly 
 claim this highly endowed composer as a Briton. | 
 * This distinguished poet-musician was born at Southampton | 
 in 1745, and died in 1814. It is with pain we add, thathe, to whom | 
 even the glory of our navy may be in some degree ascribed, was 
 allowed to breathe his last amidst all the inconveniences of 
 poverty !—See Harmonicon, vol. ii., p. 65. 
 + See ante, vol. v., p. 530. 
 ¢ John Wall Callcott, Mus. Doc., a learned and accomplished 
 man; born in 1766, died in 1821. | 
 § Richard James Samuel Stevens, Professor of Music at | 
 Gresham College, and Organist of the Charter House; born in | 
 1753, died in 1837. Br. 
 | Reginald Spofforth, a teacher of music; born in 1768, diedin | 
 1826. ; 
 
 ae 
 
 q Among the original subscribing members of this club were— 
 Dr. Arnold (President); Dr Bever, the civilian; the Rey. James 
 Hinckes; T. S. Dupuis, Esq. (afterwards Mus. Doc.); Charles 
 Wright, Esq., Secretary of the Admiralty; Dr. Ayrton; James | 
 Haseltine, Esq., of Doctors’ Commons; Thomas Linley (sen-),; | 
 Esq.; Theodore Aylward, Esq.; Luffman Atterbury, Esq.; Giffin — 
 Wilson, Esq.; Matthew Raine, D.D.; E. G. Boldero, Esq., &c, 
 
 Among the honorary members were Messrs, Samuel Webbe, 
 
 ce 2 f- 
 as 
 
| Ouar. XIT.] 
 
 Of the sacred music to which the present period 
 gave birth, Zhe Shunamite Woman, an oratorio 
 by Dr. Arnold, was repeatedly performed and 
 universally approved ; though, not being printed, 
 we can only speak of its merits on the authority 
 of contemporary hearers and writers. Dr, John 
 Clark (who afterwards took the name of Whit- 
 field)* published two volumes of Services and 
 Anthems, which prove him to have been an excel- 
 lent musician of the most orthodox school, The 
 official composers of the Chapel Royal+ continued 
 to perform the duties of their office with ability 
 and zeal, as the choir-books will testify: but for 
 want of that encouragement which was once given 
 by deans and chapters, when they were compara- 
 tively poor, to composers for the church, but 
 withheld when those reverend bodies became 
 rich, this most important branch of the art stood 
 
 still during the general advance; and much that_ 
 
 was written remained in manuscript from the 
 fear, not unreasonably entertained by the authors, 
 of the risk incurred by publishing. But a well- 
 digested book of psalmody, by Dr. Miller of Don- 
 caster, appeared, and was immediately adopted by 
 nearly every parochial congregation in the king- 
 dom. The claim of this work to notice is founded 
 on its haying directed public attention to the 
 subject, and thus proving the source of that 
 improvement in the service which has ever since 
 been gradually advancing. 
 
 The far-famed musical celebrations in West- 
 minster Abbey, to which we have repeatedly 
 adverted, drew the attention of foreign artists to 
 this country, and a number of performers of the 
 first rank sought our shores. Those of the vocal 
 kind have already been mentioned, Of instru- 
 mentalists, Dussek and Steibelt, who long resided 
 in London, contributed much to the improvement 
 of all performers on the pianoforte. 
 branch we owe still more to Muzio Clementi and 
 John Cramer, both of whom were denizens, and 
 may morally be considered as natives, of Great 
 Britain ; for the one came to us when only ten 
 years of age, and passed a long life in our island, 
 and the other arrived in his infancy, and has made 
 this his country by adoption. These names lead 
 us to speak of the instrument which called forth 
 their best powers—an instrument now to be found 
 in the house of nearly every one who is not destined 
 to live by bodily labour—the Pianoforte. 
 
 About the time when the present portion of our 
 history commences, the harpsichord was in general 
 use ; but the instrument destined to supersede and 
 finally annihilate it was, though in an infant state, 
 making some progress. The great superiority of 
 the pianoforte, even in its early stage, became so 
 undeniable, that the older professors were obliged 
 
 J. W. Calleott (afterwards Mus. Doc.), James Bartleman, Samuel 
 Harrison, and §. Webbe, jun. The club met at first at the houses 
 of the members, and this “ wandering” state is alluded to in the 
 glee, ‘Glorious Apollo,’ written and composed for the club by 
 Mr. Webbe, after it had chosen a fixed place of meeting. 
 
 * Professor of Music to the University of Cambridge. He was 
 
 author also of much popular vocal music. He died in 1836. 
 + See ante, vol. v., p. 530, 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 But in this {| 
 
 883 
 
 either to confess its advantages, or tacitly submit 
 
 to its introduction. Shudi, a German, settled in 
 London, was one of the most famous harpsichord- 
 makers of the day. His daughter married John 
 Broadwood, a native of Scotland, who at first 
 joined his father-in-law in business ; but his acute 
 mind soon enabled him to perceive that the old 
 instrument was rapidly approaching deposition, 
 and that the reign of the new one was-on the 
 eve of commencing. Enterprising and active, he 
 speedily resolved to employ all his ability, which 
 was of a high order, in the manufacture of piano- 
 fortes; and, aided by unwearied industry and 
 undeviating _perseverance—sustained, too, by a 
 character for the strictest probity, which he main- 
 tained unsullied during a long life—he brought to 
 perfection an instrument, in the able construction 
 of which he had no rival, by which he honourably 
 amassed a noble fortune, and left a name to his 
 successors that is everywhere known and respected, 
 and a business which enables the firm of “ Broad- 
 wood and Sons” to rank with the first commercial 
 houses in the world. 
 
 Oratorios continued to be given at Drury Lane 
 Theatre, under the management of Mr. Linley and 
 Dr. Arnold; and Covent Garden Theatre soon 
 entered into competition with a concern which 
 originated with Handel himself, and had been 
 regularly transmitted to the above proprietors, 
 A few of the least known of the great master’s 
 oratorios were, during two or three seasons, 
 given by the directors of the Ancient Concerts, 
 at the Tottenham Street Rooms, which were 
 regularly attended by the royal family. All these 
 contributed their share towards the propagation 
 of the art, the advance of which was evident in 
 all parts of the two kingdoms, 
 
 Seconp Section: 1801-1814.—It would almost 
 seem as if there were something in the impressive- 
 ness of the great chronological event formed by 
 the termination of one century and the commence- 
 ment of another, that had been wont to act with 
 an awakening and fructifying power upon literary 
 genius in this island. Of the last three great 
 sunbursts of our literature, the first, making what 
 has been called the Elizabethan age of our dramatic 
 and other poetry, threw its splendour over the 
 last quarter of the sixteenth and the first of the 
 seventeenth century; the second, famous as the © 
 Augustan age of Anne, brightened the earlier 
 years of the eighteenth; the nineteenth century 
 was ushered in by the third. At the termination 
 of the reign of George III, in the year 1820, there 
 were still among us, not to mention minor names, 
 at least nine or ten poetical writers, each (whatever 
 discordance of opinion there may be about either 
 their relative or their absolute merits) command- 
 ing universal attention from the reading world to 
 whatever he produced: Crabbe (to take them in 
 the order of their seniority), Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
 Southey, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, Shelley, 
 and perhaps we ought to add Keats, though rather 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 for what he promised to do if he had lived than 
 for what he had actually done. Many other voices 
 there were from which divine words were often 
 heard, but these were oracles to whom all listened, 
 whose inspiration all men acknowledged. For 
 the greater part of the present period we had the 
 whole of these lights, with the exception only of 
 the two last named, shining in our sky together; 
 of the rest, indeed, Byron was the only one who 
 had not appeared above the horizon before the 
 century began. It is such crowding and clustering 
 of remarkable writerss that has chiefly distin- 
 guished the great literary ages in every country. 
 However it is to be explained or accounted for, it 
 does look as if nature in this, as in other things, 
 had her times of production and of comparative 
 rest and inactivity—her autumns and her winters 
 —or, as we may otherwise conceive it, her alter- 
 nations of light and darkness, of day and night. 
 After a busy and brilliant period of usually some 
 thirty or forty years has always followed in every 
 country a long term during which the literary 
 spirit, as if overworked and exhausted, has mani- 
 fested little real energy or power of life, and even 
 the very demand and taste for the highest kind 
 of literature, for depth, and subtlety, and truth, 
 and originality, and passion, and beauty, has, in a 
 great measure, ceased with the supply—a sober and 
 slumbrous twilight of imitation and mediocrity, 
 and little more than mechanical dexterity in book- 
 making, at least with the generality of the most 
 popular and applauded writers. After all, the 
 re-awakening of our English literature, on each of 
 the three occasions we have mentioned, was prob- 
 ably brought about mainly by the general political 
 and social circumstances of the country and of the 
 world at the time. The poetical and dramatic 
 wealth and magnificence of the era of Elizabeth 
 and James came, no doubt, for the most part, out 
 of the passions that had been stirred and the 
 strength that had been acquired in the mighty 
 contests and convulsions which filled, here and 
 throughout Europe, the middle of the sixteenth 
 century; another breaking up of old institutions 
 and re-edification of the state upon a new founda- 
 tion and a new principle, the work of the last sixty 
 years of the seventeenth century, if it did not 
 contribute much to train the wits and fine writers 
 of the age of Anne, at least both prepared the 
 tranquillity necessary for the restoration of elegant 
 literature, and disposed the public mind for its 
 enjoyment; the poetical dayspring, finally, that 
 came with our own century was born with, and 
 probably in some degree of, a third revolution, 
 which shook both established institutions and the 
 minds and opinions of men throughout Europe 
 as much almost as the Reformation itself had 
 done three centuries and a half before. It is 
 also to be observed that on each of these three 
 occasions the excitement appears to have come 
 to us in part from a foreign literature which had 
 undergone a similar re-awakening, or put forth a 
 new life and vigour, shortly before our own: in 
 
 the Elizabethan age the contagion or impulse was 
 caught from the literature of Italy; in the age of 
 Anne, from that of France ; in the present period, 
 from that of Germany. 
 
 This German inspiration operated most directly, 
 and produced the most marked effect, in the poetry 
 of Wordsworth. Wordsworth has preserved in 
 the editions of his collected works some of his 
 verses written so long ago as 1786; and he has 
 also continued to reprint the two earliest of his 
 published poems, entitled ‘An Evening Walk, 
 addressed to a Young Lady, from the Lakes of 
 the North of England, and ‘ Descriptive Sketches, 
 taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps,’ 
 both of which first appeared in 1793. The 
 recollection of the former of these poems probably 
 suggested to somebody, a few years later, the 
 otherwise not very intelligible designation of the 
 Lake School, which has been applied to this writer 
 and his imitators, or supposed imitators, But the 
 ‘Evening Walk’ and the ‘ Descriptive Sketches, 
 which are both written in the usual rhyming ten- 
 syllabled verse, are themselves perfectly orthodox 
 poems, according to the common creed, in spirit, 
 manner, and form. The peculiarities which are 
 conceived to constitute what is called the Lake 
 manner first appeared in the ‘ Lyrical Ballads ;’ 
 the first volume of which was published in 1798, 
 the second in 1800. In the preface to the second 
 volume of the ‘Lyrical Ballads,” the author 
 himself described his object as being to ascertain 
 how far the purposes of poetry might be fulfilled 
 “by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection 
 of the real language of men in a state of vivid 
 sensation.’ In other words, he proclaimed his 
 belief to be that poetry was nothing more than 
 the natural language of passion corrected and 
 rendered metrical; and we are not aware that 
 he has ever announced any retractation, or even 
 modification or correction, of this doctrine. It is 
 an account of the matter which is scarcely worth 
 refuting, even if the present were the place for 
 entering into an examination of it; in fact, it 
 refutes itself, for if, as is implied, passion, or 
 ‘vivid sensation, always speaks in poetry, the 
 metrical arrangement and the selection are un- 
 necessary and unwarrantable ; if these operations 
 be indispensable, the language of vivid sensation 
 is not always poetry. It might as well be said 
 that the Christian revelation is the language of the 
 inspired writers selected and made metrical, or set 
 to music. But, after all, this has been always 
 
 much more Wordsworth’s theory, or profession of | 
 
 poetical belief, than his practice; and is as much 
 
 contradicted and confuted by the greater part of | 
 
 his own poetry as it is by that of all languages 
 and all times in which poetry has been written, 
 or by the universal past experience of mankind 
 in every age and country. He is a great poet, and 
 
 | has enriched our literature with much beautiful | 
 and noble writing, whatever be the method or | 
 principle upon which he constructs, or fancies that | 
 
 he constructs, his compositions. His ‘ Laodamia, 
 
— A 
 
 Cuap. XII.] 
 
 without the exception of a single line, his ‘ Lonely 
 Leech-gatherer, with the exception of very few 
 lines ; his ‘Ruth,’ his ‘ Affliction of Margaret,’ his 
 ‘Tintern Abbey, his ‘Feast of Brougham,’ the 
 ‘Water Lily, the greater part of the ‘ Excursion,’ 
 most of the ‘Sonnets, his great ‘Ode on the 
 Intimations of Immortality in Early Childhood,’ 
 and many of his shorter lyrical pieces, such as 
 the three on the Yarrow, and numbers more, are 
 as unexceptionable in diction as they are deep 
 and true in feeling, judged according to any rules 
 or principles of art that are now patronized by 
 anybody. Of all his English contemporaries, 
 Wordsworth stands foremost and alone as the poet 
 of common life. It is not his only field, nor 
 perhaps the field in which he is greatest ; but it 
 is the one which is most exclusively his own. He 
 
 has, it is true, no humour or comedy of any kind . 
 
 in him (which is perhaps the explanation of the 
 ludicrous points that are sometimes found in his 
 serious poetry), and therefore he is not, and seldom 
 attempts to be, what Burns was for his countrymen, 
 the poetic interpreter, and, as such, refiner as well 
 as embalmer, of the wit and merriment of the 
 common people: the writer by whom that title 
 is to be won is yet to arise, and probably from 
 among the people themselves: but of whatever is 
 more tender or more thoughtful in the spirit of 
 ordinary life in England, the poetry of Wordsworth 
 is the truest and most comprehensive transcript 
 we possess. Many of his verses, embodying as they 
 do the philosophy as well as the sentiment of this 
 everyday human experience, have a completeness 
 and impressiveness, as of texts, mottoes, proverbs, 
 the force of which is universally felt, and has 
 already worked them into the texture and sub- 
 stance of the language to a far greater extent, we 
 apprehend, than has happened in the case of any 
 contemporary writer. Yet surely Wordsworth 
 cannot take a high rank for the formal qualities 
 of his poetry, upon any theory of the art. that 
 may be proposed. In most of his compositions 
 his diction has merely the merit of being direct 
 and natural; in others, it swells out into consider- 
 able splendour and magnificence ; but it has rarely 
 or never any true refinement or exquisiteness. In 
 only a very few of his poems is it even throughout 
 of any tolerable elaboration and exactness; gener- 
 ally, both in his familiar and his loftier style, it is 
 diffuse and unequal, a brittle mixture of poetical 
 and prosaic forms, like the image of iron and clay 
 in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The music of his 
 verse, too, though generally pleasing, and some- 
 times impassioned or majestic, is always common- 
 place, and equally destitute of subtlety as of 
 originality. 
 
 In all that constitutes artistic character, the 
 poetry of Coleridge is a contrast to that of Words- 
 worth. Coleridge, born in 1772, published the 
 earliest of his poetry that is now remembered in 
 1796, in a small volume containing also some 
 
 -pieces by Charles Lamb, to which some by 
 
 Charles Lloyd were added in a second edition the 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 885 
 
 following year. In 1800 appeared his ‘ Ancient 
 Mariner,’ ‘Foster Mother’s Tale, ‘Nightingale,’ 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 and ‘Love.’ Coleridge’s poetry is remarkable for 
 the perfection of its execution, for the exquisite art 
 with which its divine informing spirit is endowed 
 with formal expression. The subtly woven words, 
 with all their sky colours, seem to grow out of the 
 thought or emotion, as the flower from its stalk, 
 or the flame from its feeding-oi]l. The music of 
 his verse, too, especially of what he has written 
 in rhyme, is as sweet and as characteristic as 
 anything in the language, placing him for that 
 rare excellence in the same small band with 
 Shakspeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher (in 
 their lyrics), and Milton, and Collins, and Shelley, 
 and Tennyson. It was probably only quantity 
 that was wanting to make Coleridge the greatest 
 poet of his day. Certainly, at least, some things 
 that he has written have not been surpassed, 
 if they have been matched, by any of his contem- 
 poraries, And (as indeed has been the case with 
 almost all great poets) he continued to write better 
 and better the longer he wrote; some of his 
 happiest verses were the produce of his latest 
 years. Coleridge survived to the year 1834. 
 
 If Coleridge wrote too little, Southey may be 
 said to have written too much and too rapidly. 
 Southey, as well as Coleridge, has been popularly 
 reckoned one of the Lake poets; but it is difficult 
 to assign any meaning to that name which should 
 entitle it to comprehend either the one or the 
 other. Southey, indeed, was, in the commence- 
 
 -ment of his career, the associate of Wordsworth 
 
 and Coleridge; a portion of his first poem, his 
 ‘Joan of Arc, published in 1796, was written by 
 Coleridge; and he afterwards took up his resi- 
 dence, as well as Wordsworth, among the lakes of 
 Cumberland. But, although in his first volume of 
 minor poems, published in 1797, there was some- 
 thing of the same simplicity or plainness of style, 
 and choice of subjects from humble life, by which 
 Wordsworth sought to distinguish himself about 
 the same time, the manner of the one writer bore 
 only a very superficial resemblance to that of the 
 
886 
 
 other ; whether it was something quite original, or 
 only, in the main, an inspiration caught from the 
 Germans, that gave its peculiar character to 
 Wordsworth’s poetry, it was wanting in Southey’s ; 
 
 he was evidently, with all his ingenuity and fer- 
 tility, and notwithstanding an ambition of origin- 
 ality which led him to be continually seeking 
 after strange models, from Arabian and Hindoo 
 mythologies to Latin hexameters, of a genius 
 radically imitative, and not qualified to put forth 
 its strength except while moving in a beaten track 
 and under the guidance of long established rules. 
 Southey was by nature a conservative in literature 
 as well as in politics, and the eccentricity of his 
 ‘Thalabas’ and ‘Kehamas’ was as merely spasmodic 
 as the Jacobinism of his ‘Wat Tyler.” But even 
 ‘Thalaba’ and ‘ Kehama,’ whatever they may be, 
 are surely not poems of the Lake school. And 
 in most of his other poems especially in his last 
 and best long poem, ‘ Roderick, the Last of the 
 Goths,’ Southey is in verse what he always was in 
 prose, one of the most thoroughly and unaffectedly 
 English of our modern writers. The verse, how- 
 ever, is too like prose to be poetry of a very high 
 order ; it is flowing and eloquent, but has little of 
 the distinctive life or lustre of poetical composition. 
 What foreign inspiration there was in Southey’s 
 poetry he drew, not from the modern literature of 
 Germany, but from the old ballad and romantic 
 poetry of Spain, 
 
 Walter Scott was never accounted one of the 
 Lake poets; yet he, as well as Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge, was early a drinker at the fountain of 
 German poetry ; his commencing publication was 
 a translation of Biirger’s ‘Lenore’ (1796), and the 
 spirit and manner of his original compositions 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 were, from the first, evidently and powerfully 
 influenced by what had thus awakened his poetical 
 faculty. His robust and manly character of mind, 
 however, and his strong nationalism, with the 
 innate disposition of his imagination to live in the 
 past rather than in the future, saved him from 
 being seduced either into the puerilities or extra- 
 vagances to which other imitators of the German 
 writers among us were thought to have, more or 
 less, given way; and, having soon found in the 
 old ballad poetry of his own country all the quali- 
 ties which had most attracted him in his foreign 
 favourites, with others which had an equal or still 
 greater charm for his heart and fancy, he hence- 
 forth gave himself up almost exclusively to the 
 more congenial inspiration of that native min- 
 strelsy. His poems are all lays and romances of 
 chivalry, but infinitely finer than any that had 
 ever before been written, With all their irregu- 
 larity and carelessness (qualities which in some 
 sort are characteristic of and essential to this kind 
 of poetry), the element of life in all writing which | 
 comes of the excited feeling and earnest belief of — 
 the writer is never wanting; this animation, | 
 fervour, enthusiasm, call it by what name we will, 
 exists in greater strength in no poetry than in 
 that of Scott, redeeming a thousand defects, and 
 triumphing over all the reclamations of criticism. 
 It was this, no doubt, more than anything else, 
 which at once took the public admiration by — 
 storm. All cultivated and perfect enjoyment of | 
 poetry, or of any other of the fine arts, is partly | 
 emotional, partly critical; the enjoyment and 
 appreciation are only perfect when these two | 
 qualities are blended ; but most of the poetry that | 
 had been produced among us in modern times had 
 aimed at affording chiefly, if not exclusively, a 
 critical gratification. The ‘ Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel’ (1805) surprised readers of all degrees — 
 with a long and elaborate poem, which carried | 
 them onward with an excitement of heart as well — 
 as of head which they had scarcely ever expe- — 
 rienced before in the perusal of poetry. The 
 narrative form of the poem no doubt did much to — 
 produce this effect, giving to it, even without the — 
 poetry, the interest and enticement of a novel; but | 
 all readers, even the least tinctured with a literary — 
 taste, felt also, in a greater or less degree, the ~ 
 charm of the verse, and the poetic glow with | 
 which the work was all alive. ‘Marmion’ (1808) — 
 carried the same feelings to a much higher pitch ; 
 it is undoubtedly Scott’s greatest poem, or the one — 
 at any rate in which the noblest passages are | 
 found ; though the more domestic attractions of — 
 the ‘Lady of the Lake’ (1810) made it the most — 
 popular on its first appearance. Meanwhile, his 
 success, the example he had set, and the tastes 
 which he had awakened in the public mind, had | 
 affected our literature to an extent in various | 
 directions which has scarcely been sufficiently | 
 appreciated. Notwithstanding the previous appear- — | 
 ance of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and some | 
 other writers, it was Scott who first in his day | 
 
 &} 
 
Cuar. XII.) 
 
 made poetry the rage, and with him properly 
 commences the busy poetical production of the 
 period we are now reviewing: those who had been 
 in the field before him put on a new activity, and 
 gave to the world their principal works, after his 
 appearance; and it was not till then that the 
 writer who of all the poets of this period attained 
 the widest blaze of reputation, eclipsing Scott him- 
 self, commenced his career. But what is still more 
 worthy of note is, that Scott’s poetry impressed its 
 own character upon all the poetry that was pro- 
 duced among us for many years after: it put an 
 end to long works in verse of a didactic or merely 
 reflective character, and directed the current of all 
 writing of that kind into the form of narrative. 
 Even Wordsworth’s ‘Excursion’ (1814) is for the 
 most part a collection of tales. If Scott's own 
 genius, indeed, were to be described by any single 
 epithet, it would be called a narrative genius. 
 Hence, when he left off writing verse, he betook 
 himself to the production of fictions in prose, 
 which were really substantially the same thing 
 with his poems, and in that freer form of composi- 
 tion succeeded in achieving a second reputation 
 still more brilliant than his first. 
 
 Crabbe, Campbell, and Moore were all known 
 as poetical writers previous to the breaking forth 
 of Scott’s bright day: Crabbe had published his 
 first poem, ‘The Library,’ so far back as in 1781, 
 ‘The Village’ in 1783, and ‘The Newspaper’ in 
 1785; Campbell, his ‘ Pleasures of Hope’ in 
 1799; Moore, his ‘ Anacreon’ in 1800. But 
 Campbell alone had before that epoch attracted 
 any considerable share of the public attention ; 
 and even he, after following up his first long poem 
 with his ‘ Hohenlinden, his ‘ Battle of the Baltic, 
 his ‘ Mariners of England,’ and a few other short 
 pieces, had laid aside his lyre for some five or six 
 years. Neither Crabbe nor Moore had as yet 
 produced anything that gave promise of the high 
 station they were to attain in our poetical litera- 
 ture, or had even acquired any general notoriety 
 as writers of verse. No one of the three, however, 
 can be said to have caught any part of his manner 
 from Scott. Campbell’s first poem, juvenile as its 
 execution in many respects was, evinced in its 
 glowing impetuosity and imposing splendour of 
 declamation, the genius of a true and original poet, 
 and the same general character that distinguishes 
 his poetry in its maturest form, which may be 
 described as a combination of fire and elegance ; 
 and his early lyrics, at least in their general effect, 
 have not been excelled by anything he has since 
 written, although the tendency of his style towards 
 greater purity and simplicity has been very marked 
 in all his later compositions, It was with a narra- 
 tive poem—his “ Pennsylvanian tale” of ‘Gertrude 
 of Wyoming’—that Campbell (in 1809) returned 
 to woo the public favour, after Scott had made 
 poetry, and that particular form of it, so popular ; 
 and, continuing to obey the direction which had 
 been given to the public taste, he afterwards pro- 
 duced his exquisite ‘O’Connor’s Child’ and his 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 887 
 
 ‘Theodoric’ (the latter, however, not till after the 
 close of the period we are reviewing). Crabbe, 
 in like manner, when he at last, in 1807, broke 
 his silence of twenty years, came forth with a 
 volume, all that was new in which consisted of 
 narrative poetry, and he never afterwards 
 attempted any other style. Narrative, indeed, 
 had formed the happiest and most characteristic 
 portions of Crabbe’s former compositions ; and he 
 was probably led now to resume his pen mainly 
 by the turn which the taste and fashion of the 
 time had taken in favour of the kind of poetry 
 to which his genius most strongly carried him. 
 His narrative manner, however, it is scarcely 
 necessary to observe, has no resemblance either 
 to that of Scott or to that of Campbell. Crabbe’s 
 poetry, indeed, both in its form and in its spirit, 
 is of quite a peculiar and original character. It 
 might be called the poetry of matter of fact, for 
 it is as true as any prose, and, except the rhyme, 
 has little about it of the ordinary dress of poetry ; 
 but the effect of poetry, nevertheless, is there in 
 great force, its power both of stirring the affections 
 and presenting vivid pictures to the fancy. Other 
 poets may be said to exalt the truth to a heat 
 naturally foreign to it in the crucible of their im- 
 agination ; he, by a subtler chemistry, draws forth 
 from it its latent heat, making even things that 
 look the coldest and deadest sparkle and flash with 
 passion. It is remarkable, however, in how great 
 a degree, with all its originality, the poetical genius 
 of Crabbe was acted upon and changed by the 
 growth of new tastes and a new spirit in the times 
 through which he lived—how his poetry took a 
 warmer temperament, a richer colour, as the age 
 became more poetical. As he lived, indeed, in 
 two eras, so he wrote in two styles: the first, a sort 
 of imitation, as we remarked in the last section, of 
 the rude vigour of Churchill, though marked from 
 the beginning by a very distinguishing quaintness 
 and raciness of its own, but comparatively cautious 
 and commonplace, and dealing rather with the 
 surface than with-the heart of things; the last, 
 with all the old peculiarities retained, and perhaps 
 exaggerated, but greatly more copious, daring, and 
 impetuous, and infinitely improved in penetration 
 and general effectiveness. And his poetical power, 
 nourished by an observant spirit and a thoughtful 
 tenderness of nature, continued to grow in strength 
 to the end of his life; so that the last poetry he. 
 published, his ‘Tales of the Hall, is the finest he 
 ever wrote, the deepest and most passionate in 
 feeling as well as the happiest in execution. In 
 Crabbe’s sunniest passages, however, the glow is 
 still that of a melancholy sunshine ; compared to 
 what we find in Moore’s poetry, it is like the 
 departing flush from the west, contrasted with the 
 radiance of morning poured out plentifully over 
 earth and sky, and making all things laugh in 
 light. Rarely has there been seen so gay, nimble, 
 airy a wonder-worker in verse as Moore ; rarely 
 such a conjuror with words, which he makes to 
 serve rather as wings for his thoughts than as the 
 
888 
 
 gross attire or embodiment with which they must 
 be encumbered to render them palpable or visible. 
 His wit is not only the sharpest and brightest to 
 be almost anywhere found, but is produced appa- 
 rently with more of natural facility, and shapes 
 itself into expression more spontaneously, than that 
 of any other poet. But there is almost as much 
 humour as wit in Moore’s gaiety ; nor are his wit 
 and humour together more than a small part of his 
 poetry, which, preserving in all its forms the same 
 matchless brilliancy, finish, and apparent ease and 
 fluency, breathes in its tenderer strains the very 
 soul of sweetness and pathos. Moore, after having 
 risen to the ascendant in his proper region of the 
 poetical firmament, at last followed the rest into 
 the walk of narrative poetry, and produced his 
 ‘Lalla Rookh’ (1817): it is a poem, with all its 
 defects, abounding in passages of great beauty and 
 splendour ; but his Songs are, after all, probably, 
 the compositions for which he will be best remem- 
 bered. 
 
 Byron was the writer whose blaze of popularity 
 it mainly was that threw Scott’s name into the 
 shade, and induced him to abandon verse. Yet the 
 productions which had this effect—the ‘ Giaour,’ 
 the ‘ Bride of Abydos, the ‘ Corsair,’ &c., published 
 
 mS ¥ 
 ~S 
 \. A 
 
 Lf 
 ‘Ys, 
 Lea hes 
 
 in 1813 and 1814 (for the new idolatry was scarcely 
 kindled by the two respectable, but somewhat 
 tame cantos of ‘Childe Harold,’ written in quite 
 another style, which appeared shortly before these 
 effusions), were, in reality, only poems written in 
 what may be called a variation of -Scott’s own 
 manner—Oriental lays and romances, Turkish 
 Marmions and Ladies of the Lake. The novelty 
 of scene and subject, the exaggerated tone of 
 passion in the outlandish tales, and a certain 
 trickery in the writing (for it will hardly now be 
 called anything else), materially aided by the 
 mysterious interest attaching to the personal 
 history of the noble bard, who, whether he sung 
 of Giaours, or Corsairs, or Laras, was always 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 — eee ee 
 
 [Book X. 
 popularly believed to be “ himself the great sublime 
 he drew,” wonderfully excited and intoxicated the 
 public mind at first, and for a time made all other 
 poetry seem tame and wearisome ; but, if Byron 
 had adhered to the style by which his fame was 
 thus originally made, it probably would have 
 proved transient enough. Few will now be found 
 to assert that there is anything in these earlier 
 poems of his comparable to the great passages in 
 those of Scott—to the battle in ‘Marmion,’ for 
 instance, or the raising of the clansmen by the fiery 
 cross in the ‘Lady of the Lake,” or many others 
 that might be mentioned. But Byron’s vigorous 
 and elastic genius, although it had already tried 
 various styles of poetry, was, in truth, as yet only 
 preluding to its proper display. First, there had 
 been the very small note of the ‘ Hours of Idle- 
 ness ;’ then, the sharper, but not more original or 
 much more promising, strain of the ‘ English 
 Bards and Scotch Reviewers’ (a satirical attempt 
 in all respects inferior to Gifford’s ‘Bayiad and 
 Meeviad, of which it was a slavish imitation); next, 
 the certainly far higher and more matured, but 
 quiet and somewhat common-place, manner of the 
 first two cantos of ‘ Childe Harold ;’ after that, sud- 
 denly the false glare and preternatural vehemence 
 of these Oriental rhapsodies, which yet, however, 
 with all their hollowness and extravagance, 
 evinced infinitely more power than anything he 
 had previously done, or rather were the only 
 poetry he had yet produced that gave proof of 
 any remarkable poetic genius. The ‘ Prisoner of 
 Chillon’ and ‘ Parisina,’ the ‘ Siege of Corinth’ and 
 ‘Mazeppa, followed, all in a spirit of far more 
 truth, and depth, and beauty than the other tales 
 that had preceded them ; but the highest forms of 
 Byron’s poetry must be sought for in the last two 
 cantos of ‘Childe Harold,” in his ‘Cain’ and 
 ‘Manfred,’ and, above all, in his ‘Don Juan.’ The 
 last-mentioned extraordinary work, unfinished as 
 it is, is probably to be accounted, on the whole, 
 the greatest English poem produced in this age. 
 Yet the highest poetical genius of the time, if 
 it was not that of Coleridge, was, perhaps, that 
 of Shelley. Byron died in 1824, at the age of 
 thirty-six ; Shelley in 1822, at that of twenty- 
 nine. What Shelley produced during the brief 
 term allotted to him on earth, much of it passed 
 in sickness and sorrow, is remarkable for its 
 quantity, but much more wonderful for the 
 quality of the greater part of it. His ‘ Queen 
 Mab, written when he was eighteen, crude and 
 defective as it is, and unworthy to be classed with 
 what he wrote in his maturer years, was probably 
 the richest promise that was ever given at so early 
 an age of poetic power, the fullest assurance that 
 the writer was born a poet. From the date of his 
 first. published poem, ‘ Alastor, or the Spirit of 
 Solitude, to his death, was not quite seven years. 
 ‘The Revolt of Islam, in twelve cantos, or books, 
 the dramas of ‘ Prometheus Unbound, ‘ The 
 Cenci” and ‘Hellas’ the tale of ‘Rosalind and 
 Helen,’ ‘The Masque of Anarchy,’ ‘ The Sensitive 
 
 a 
 
Cuap. XIT.] 
 
 Plant, ‘Julian and Maddalo, ‘The Witch of 
 Atlas, ‘Epipsychidion,’ ‘ Adonais,’ ‘The Triumph 
 of Life,’ the translations of Homer’s ‘Hymn to 
 Mercury,’ of the ‘Cyclops’ of Euripides, and of 
 the scenes from Calderon and from Goethe’s 
 ‘Faust, besides many short poems, were the 
 additional produce of this springtime of a life 
 destined to know no summer. So much poetry, 
 so rich in various beauty, was probakly never 
 poured forth with so rapid a flow from any other 
 mind. Nor can much of it be charged with either 
 immaturity or carelessness; Shelley, with all his 
 abundance and facility, was a fastidious writer, 
 scrupulously attentive to the effect of words and 
 syllables, and accustomed to elaborate whatever he 
 wrote to the utmost; and, although it is not to be 
 doubted that if he had lived longer he would have 
 developed new powers and a still more masterly 
 command over the different resources of his art, 
 anything that can properly be called unripeness 
 in his composition had, if not before, ceased with 
 his ‘ Revolt of Islam, the first of his poems which 
 he gave to the world, as if the exposure to the 
 public eye had burned it out. Some haziness of 
 thought and uncertainty of expression may be 
 found in some of his later, or even latest, works ; 
 but that is not to be confounded with rawness ; it 
 is the dreamy ecstasy, too high for speech, in which 
 his poetical nature, most subtle, sensitive, and 
 voluptuous, delighted to dissolve and lose itself. 
 Yet it is marvellous how far he had succeeded in 
 reconciling even this mood of thought with the 
 necessities of distinct expression: we would quote 
 his ‘Epipsychidion’ (written in the last year of 
 his life) as his crowning triumph in that kind of 
 writing, and as, indeed, for its wealth and fusion 
 of all the highest things—of imagination, of 
 expression, of music—one of the greatest miracles 
 ever wrought in poetry. In other styles, again, 
 all widely diverse, are the ‘Cenci, the ‘Masque 
 of Anarchy,’ the ‘Hymn to Mercury’ (formally a 
 translation, but essentially almost as much an 
 original composition as any of the others). It is 
 hard to conjecture what would have been impos- 
 sible to him by whom all this had been done. 
 Keats, born in 1796, died the year before Shelley, 
 and, of course, at a still earlier age. But his poetry 
 is younger than Shelley’s in a degree beyond the 
 difference of their years. He was richly endowed 
 by nature with the poetical faculty, and all that he 
 has written is stamped with originality and power ; 
 it is probable, too, that he would soon have sup- 
 plied, as far as was necessary or important, the 
 defects of his education, as indeed he had actually 
 done to a considerable extent, for he was full of 
 ambition as well as genius; but he can scarcely 
 be said to have given assurance by anything he has 
 left that he might in time have produced a great 
 poetical work. The character of his mental con- 
 stitution, explosive and volcanic, was adverse to 
 every kind of restraint and cultivation ; and his 
 poetry is a tangled forest, beautiful indeed and 
 glorious with many a majestic oak and sunny 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 a a a we 
 
 889 
 
 glade, but still with the unpruned, untrained 
 
 savagery everywhere, which it could not lose 
 without ceasing altogether to be what it is. 
 Keats’s ‘Endymion’ was published in 1817; his 
 ‘Lamia,’ ‘ Isabella” ‘The Eve of St. Agnes,’ and 
 ‘Hyperion,’ together in 1820. 
 
 These are the greatest ; but many more names 
 also brighten this age of our poetical literature, 
 which must here be dismissed with a mere enu- 
 meration: Rogers, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, Pro- 
 fessor Wilson, the Ettrick Shepherd (Hogg), Allan 
 Cunningham, Tennant (the author of ‘ Anster 
 Fair’), Hector MacNiel, Grahame (the author of 
 the ‘Sabbath’), Robert Bloomfield, Henry Kirke 
 White, James Montgomery, Lord Thurlow, Lord 
 Strangford, Sir Egerton Brydges, Shee, Sotheby, 
 Frere, Maturin, Proctor (Barry Cornwall), Milman, 
 Miss Baillie, Mrs. Hunter, Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Opie, 
 Miss Mitford, Mrs. Hemans, &c. Some of these, 
 
 | indeed, may merit no higher designation than that 
 
 of agreeable or elegant versifiers ; but others, both 
 among those that have passed away and those that 
 are still among us, will live in the language as true 
 poets, and will be allowed to have received no 
 stinted measure of the divine gift of song. 
 
 One general remark may be made upon the 
 poetry of this period as compared with the direc- 
 tion which poetical production has more recently 
 taken among us: a much more inconsiderable 
 portion of it ran into a dramatic form. Coleridge, 
 indeed, translated ‘ Wallenstein, and wrote his 
 tragedies of ‘ Zapolya’ and ‘The Remorse ;’ Scott 
 (but not till after the close of the period) produced 
 what he called his “dramatic sketch” of ‘ Halidon 
 Hill, and his three-act plays of ‘The Doom of 
 Devorgoil’ and the ‘Ayrshire Tragedy’—in all of 
 which attempts he seemed to be deserted both by 
 his power of dialogue and his power of poetry ; 
 Byron, towards the close of his career, gave new 
 proof of the wonderful versatility of his genius 
 by his ‘Marino Faliero” his ‘Two Foscari, his 
 ‘Sardanapalus, and his ‘Werner,’ besides his 
 ‘Manfred’ and his mystery of ‘Cain’ in another 
 style; and in 1819 was published, perhaps, the 
 greatest of modern English tragedies, the ‘ Cenci’ 
 of Shelley. There was also Maturin’s half-German, 
 half-Irish melodrama of ‘ Bertram.’ But the imi- 
 tation of the old Elizabethan drama, of which we 
 have since had so much, only began in the latter 
 years of this period. Lamb’s tragedy of ‘John 
 Woodvil, indeed—which the Edinburgh Review 
 profanely said might “be fairly considered as 
 supplying the first of those lost links which 
 connect the improvements of Aischylus with the 
 commencement of the art’—was published so 
 early as 1802; but it attracted little notice at the 
 time, though both by this production, and much 
 more by his ‘Specimens of English Dramatic 
 Poets,’ first published in 1808, Lamb had a prin- 
 cipal share in reviving the general study and love 
 of our early drama, <A good deal, we believe, was 
 also done to spread the fashion of that sort of 
 reading by the fictitious quotations from old 
 
890 
 
 plays which headed the chapters of several of the 
 Waverley novels. But, perhaps, Mr. Milman’s 
 tragedy of ‘Fazio,’ which appeared in 1815, was 
 the first dramatic work studiously composed in 
 imitation of the language of the Elizabethan 
 drama which excited general attention. 
 
 Of the prose literature of this period, some of its 
 chief poetical writers were also among the most 
 distinguished ornaments, Southey and Scott were 
 two of the most voluminous prose writers of their 
 day, or of any day; Coleridge also wrote much 
 more prose than verse ; both Campbell and Moore 
 were considerable authors in prose; there are several 
 prose pieces among the published works of Byron, 
 of Shelley, and of Wordsworth ; both Leigh Hunt 
 and Wilson have perhaps acquired more of their 
 fame, and given more delight, as prose writers 
 than as poets; Charles Lamhb’s prose writings, his 
 golden ‘ Essays of Elia,’ and various critical disqui- 
 sitions and short notices, abounding in original 
 views and the deepest truth and beauty, have made 
 his verse be nearly forgotten. This may be in 
 part the cause of the more poetical complexion 
 which our prose writing has generally assumed 
 within the last thirty or forty years. Among the 
 other most brilliant or otherwise conspicuous prose 
 writers of the period we are reviewing may be 
 mentioned, in general literature, Sidney Smith, 
 Hazlitt, Jeffrey, Playfair, Stewart, Alison, Thomas 
 Brown ; in political disquisition, Erskine, Cobbett, 
 Brougham, Mackintosh, Bentham ; in theological 
 
 BENTHAM, IN HIS OLD AGE. 
 
 eloquence, Horsley, Wilberforce, Foster, Hall, 
 Chalmers ; in fictitious narrative, Miss Edgeworth, 
 Mrs, Opie, Miss Owenson (Lady Morgan), Mrs. 
 Brunton, Miss Austen, Madame D’Arblay, Godwin, 
 Maturin ; in history, Fox, Mitford, Lingard, Mill, 
 Hallam, Turner. The most remarkable prose 
 works that were produced were Scott’s novels, 
 the first of which, ‘Waverley,’ appeared in 1814, 
 A powerful influence upon literature was also 
 exerted from the first by the Edinburgh Review, 
 begun in 1802; the Quarterly Review, begun in 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 1809; and Blackwood’s Magazine, established in 
 1817. 
 
 Only a few of the most memorable facts con- 
 nected with the progress of scientific discovery in 
 Kingland, during this period, can be very briefly 
 noted. In astronomy, Herschel continued to pur- 
 sue his observations, commenced a short time 
 before 1781, in which year he discovered the planet 
 Uranus: in 1802, appeared in the Philosophical 
 Transactions his catalogue of 500 new nebule and 
 nebulous stars; in 1803 his announcement of the 
 motions of double stars around each other; and a 
 long succession of other important papers, illus- 
 trative of the construction of the heavens, followed 
 down to within a few years of his death, at the age 
 of eighty-four, in 1822. In chemistry, Davy, who 
 had published his account of the effects produced 
 by the respiration of nitrous oxide (the laughing 
 gas) in 1800, in 1807 extracted their metallic bases 
 from the fixed alkalies, in 1808 demonstrated the 
 similar decomposibility of the alkaline earths, in 
 1811 detected the true nature of chlorine (oxy- 
 muriatic acid), and in 1815 invented his safety- 
 lamp ; in 1804 Leslie published his Experimental 
 Inquiry into the Nature and Properties of Heat ; 
 in 1808 the Atomic Theory was announced by 
 Dalton; and in 1814 its development and illustra- 
 tion were completed by Wollaston, to whom both 
 chemical science and optics are also indebted for 
 various other valuable services. 
 
 The period now under consideration is so limited, 
 and so much which properly belongs to its history 
 as regards the Fine Arts has necessarily been 
 anticipated in the preceding section, that our 
 notice of this subject must be short, and in some 
 particulars incomplete. 
 
 The first years of the nineteenth century were 
 eminently unfavourable to Architecture. Neither 
 the attention nor the resources of a government 
 ever backward in the active encouragement of the 
 arts was likely to be extended to them at this 
 great political crisis. The erection of public build- 
 ings was for a time almost suspended, and there 
 was little hope that the retrograde movement in 
 architecture which marks the former portion of 
 the reign of George III. would change its course, 
 at a moment when the last professors of a legiti- 
 mate school had disappeared from the world, and 
 the rising generation were shut out from the pur- 
 
 suit of knowledge in those classic regions from 
 whence alone fresh and healthy inspirations of art 
 
 can be drawn. 
 
 At the beginning of the present period the diffu- — 
 sion of a taste for the Greek style had imparted a — 
 
 new character to art throughout Hurope, and, 
 
 paradoxical as it may appear, its influence, in at — 
 
 least two instances, was for a time decidedly per- 
 nicious. 
 
 Greek art, it was speedily checked by the false 
 
 If painting in France and architecture in < 
 England received an impulsion from the study of | 
 
 hee ey. aaa 
 
 eee 
 
 views and principles by which it was accompanied. | 
 In both cases the arts were in a state which called | 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 
 loudly for reformation: in both, Greek art was 
 assumed as the basis of a new style: in neither 
 was the right path pursued which should have 
 led to success. In France, the mechanical David, 
 supported in the public esteem by the irresistible 
 fascination of his political character, established, 
 for a quarter of a century, a school which seems to 
 have aimed at reducing the whole art of historical 
 painting to an imitation of basso-relievo and the 
 figures on Greek vases; and something closely 
 analogous may be found in the compilations of 
 the English school of architecture during the same 
 period. 
 
 In the preceding section, the last professors of 
 the Italian school of architecture in England were 
 traced from the immediate successors of Lord 
 Burlington down to Sir William Chambers; and 
 if during the last twenty years of the reign of 
 George III. there yet remained any descendants of 
 this school capable of developing an architectural 
 composition in a sound Italian style, they are not 
 to be found among those who occupied the prin- 
 cipal share of public consideration and patronage. 
 The exquisite refinement of Greek art, as it had 
 been revealed by the great work of Athenian 
 Stuart, and the other researches and publications 
 
 to which it had given rise, had suddenly affected 
 
 the public mind in a manner which left little 
 room for the exercise of the judgment, and Greek 
 art was unfortunately adopted, not as a principle, 
 but as a fashion. The reproduction of its forms 
 was demanded without reference to the propriety 
 of their application, or to the relations which 
 essentially constitute the beauty of architecture. 
 A system which reduced the art and science of 
 architecture to the appropriation of ready-made 
 temples, and dispensed with so much of the burden 
 of study and thought—a faith in art whose yoke 
 was so easy—could scarcely fail to attract disciples ; 
 and Greek architecture (so called) came into 
 existence in England in the most abortive shape 
 in which the narrowest spirit of imitation could 
 produce it.* 
 
 What the Romans did: for the architecture of 
 the Greeks, and what the great Italian masters did 
 for that of the Romans, and might have done for 
 the purer style had they been able to advert to it 
 —the consistent and harmonious adaptation of the 
 original elements to new combinations suggested 
 by new institutions and habits—are lessons which 
 appear to have been all but universally overlooked 
 in the revival of Greek architecture in England ; 
 and that much was accomplished in the right 
 direction by one who had the courage to think for 
 himself, and to bring to the undertaking the mind 
 of an artist and the perseverance of an enthusiast, 
 is a bitter reproach to those who have coldly 
 repelled every opportunity of doing more. The 
 early works of Sir John Soane and their general 
 
 * As early as1773, James Wyatt had used fluted Doric columns 
 without bases in the Canterbury gate at Christchurch, Oxford; 
 with what view, except as a popular novelty, it is difficult to 
 imagine, 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 891 
 
 character have already been referred to. It was 
 not until the Bank of England was placed in his 
 hands * that his ambition to be original appears to 
 have been thoroughly awakened; but from that 
 time he seems to have given himself to the study 
 of new combinations in architecture, fitted to 
 modern exigencies, and adapted to the spirit and 
 character of the Greek style; with what success 
 will be testified to generations to come in that vast 
 pile of building which occupied the remainder of 
 his life, either in enlarging its boundaries or 
 replacing the work of his predecessors. The result 
 of this great labour is described by an eminent 
 French architect+ as “a work admirable for 
 solidity and grandeur, elegance of detail, decoration 
 rich without excess, and a harmony which attests 
 the talent and judgment of the architect.”. . .“ Vast 
 halls,” continues this critic, “spacious courts of” 
 different forms and dimensions, present the most 
 picturesque and varied effects. There are several 
 domed apartments of the most noble simplicity, 
 and both the eye and the judgment are struck with 
 the ingenuity of the means employed for the dis- 
 tribution of light. The effects produced by these 
 means, and by proportions adapted to the localities, 
 and to the characteristics of the architecture, are 
 often marvellous,” 
 
 It might convey much instruction to those who 
 refer proficiency in art to the spontaneous inspira- 
 tion of genius, to examine the process by which 
 such results have been achieved. It was not with- 
 out severe study that Soane developed his style, 
 nor without long experience that he wrought it up — 
 to consistency, nor without extreme caution that 
 he resolved to apply it to a great public work. It 
 was not for some years after his appointment to 
 the Bank that he commenced his operations on the 
 exterior, and the first of a progressive series of 
 designs for the north side{ exhibits a timid 
 composition garnished with Greek Doric columns, 
 without a trace of the character of the existing 
 building. As little of the peculiarities which he 
 afterwards so freely introduced into his street 
 architecture is to be seen in Buckingham House, 
 Pall Mall, built in 1790. His treatment of inte- 
 rior decoration was developed sooner ; and in the 
 old vestibule§ to the Rotunda at the Bank, the 
 first part of his great work actually executed, 
 nothing remains of the meagre style of ornament 
 which, in his early works, he had shared with his 
 contemporaries. The designs for the Lothbury 
 Court were made in 1797, and in 1805 he executed 
 the north-west corner of the edifice, in which he 
 seems to have realised to its fullest extent his own 
 conception of the style he had created, and in 
 which its beauties and capabilities are certainly 
 displayed to the best advantage. The subject was 
 fortunate. The extent of blank.wall which flanks 
 the columns is closely associated with what is 
 popularly understood of the character of Greek 
 
 * See ante, p. 870. + M. Hittorf. 
 + Preserved in the Soane Museum. 
 
 § Now part of the Treasury. 
 
892 
 
 architecture, and the beautiful Corinthian order, 
 which the architect chose as the basis of his style, 
 had the advantage of novelty, as well as the 
 authority of the antique ; but the skill with which 
 the irregular conformation of the building is 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 a nn en ee SUE UUUEE Un EEIERIEIRSEEESREEEEEE SEES SOE ae 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 masked, the original and picturesque variety of 
 the outline, the play of light and shade, the judi- 
 cious distribution of the ornament, and, above all, 
 the perfect harmony with which all the elements 
 are blended together—these are beauties of his 
 
 as: 
 
 tL LN 
 
 { 
 tT er 
 ; =! 
 
 Bank OF ENGLAND: NortTH-WEST VIEW. 
 
 own creation, which well merit the utmost eulo- 
 gium ever passed upon the work, and fully redeem 
 some solecisms in composition, which are not to 
 be denied. 
 
 The indisputable eminence of Soane in his 
 profession opened to him a considerable share of 
 employment. His works, both public and private, 
 are numerous; and although his peculiar style 
 died with him, it is not to be doubted that his 
 example, in abolishing the flimsy decoration which 
 continued to taint even the works of James 
 
 Wyatt, and developing original principles in. 
 
 composition, has had an important and durable 
 effect upon art—a result more to his honour than 
 if he had left behind him a host of imitators. We 
 can indicate only a few of his works, especially as 
 many of them belong to a date beyond the reign 
 of George III. His own house in Lincoln’s Inn 
 Fields, which, with the collection of art contained 
 within it, he munificently bestowed upon the 
 public, was built in 1812; the picture gallery at 
 Dulwich in the same year ; the National Debt 
 Office in 1818; the Law Courts from 1820 to 
 1822; the scala regia at the late House of Lords 
 in 1822; Trinity Church, Marylebone, in 1824; 
 and the State Paper Office in 1829. One of 
 his latest works was the Treasury buildings at 
 Whitehall, a fragment of an extensive design, and 
 therefore not to be understood in its present state. 
 
 Soane became a Royal Academician in 1802, 
 and in 1806 succeeded to the professorship of 
 architecture, an office which he filled with eminent 
 success, although from adverse circumstances his 
 lectures were few and far between, and their scope 
 limited. In 1815 he was attached to the Office 
 of Works; and in 1831 he received the honour of 
 knighthood. He died in 1837. 
 
 By William Wilkins, Greek architecture was 
 adopted in another spirit. His aim appears to 
 have been to purify architectural composition by 
 confining it to the reproduction of the most simple 
 combinations of antiquity ; with what success might 
 be safely predicated, even without the evidence 
 afforded by his works. The abuse of porticoes, 
 the forms and proportions of which, being con- 
 sidered perfect, are supposed to bestow something 
 approaching perfection upon everything to which 
 they can be attached, is the principal characteristic 
 of the school which Wilkins may be held to 
 represent ; and it would be difficult to name any 
 description of building to which porticoes have not 
 been appended—crude copies, most of them, from 
 Greek temples, without discrimination of character, 
 or an attempt at that skilful adaptation to the other 
 conditions of the edifice, which appears in some 
 modern porticoes of an earlier date, deeply con- 
 demned by artists of this school for want of 
 “purity.” At Hayleybury College, as the mono- 
 
Cuap. XII. ] 
 
 tonous length of wall is too great to be relieved by 
 one portico, Wilkins has given us three ; and, with 
 a little inconsistency, the principal and most con- 
 spicuous has no door within it. In the design for 
 Downing College, at Cambridge (only partially exe- 
 cuted), five Greek porticoes are grouped together, 
 and the most elaborately ornamented example of 
 the Ionic order is associated with ranges of win- 
 dows destitute even of an architrave. Even in his 
 villas and country-houses the one idea, the inexo- 
 rable Greek portico, is the unfailing feature. Upon 
 Wilkins’s later works it does not come within our 
 province to remark ; but it may be observed, that 
 in the National Gallery he has found himself under 
 the necessity of departing widely from his estab- 
 lished notions, without being able to substitute 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 893 
 
 anything of value in their place. Wilkins died in 
 1839. He was a man of the highest attainments 
 and accomplishments, and seems to have been 
 qualified to shine in any pursuit connected with 
 the liberal sciences, rather than that which he 
 adopted ; but he derived an extensive employment 
 from his authority as a scholar and a critic; and, 
 little as he may have done to secure the applause 
 of posterity, he holds an important place among 
 the architects of his day. 
 
 Covent Garden Theatre, erected in the Greek 
 style in 1809, was the first public work of Sir 
 Robert Smirke, who rapidly attained eminence, 
 and in 1815 was associated with Soane and Nash, 
 both greatly his seniors, in the Board of Works. 
 
 The works of this architect are far more numerous 
 
 GraNGE Park, Hants. 
 
 than those of any of his contemporaries ; and it 
 must suffice to enumerate, as examples of various 
 classes of buildings, the Mint, the Library and 
 other new rooms at the British Museum, the Post- 
 Office, the church in Wyndham Place, the College 
 of Physicians, the Union, Junior United Service, 
 and Carlton club-houses, the law courts at 
 Gloucester, and Lowther Castle. 
 
 It is unnecessary to pursue the subject of the 
 Anglo-Greek school of architecture further than to 
 observe, that the great majority of the edifices 
 which it may claim for its own are in a style apart 
 from either the originality of Soane or the aca- 
 demical system of Wilkins, a consequence which 
 arises out of the summary process of applying the 
 Greek orders and detail to the old-established 
 modes of composition, Thus, in churches, we have 
 the outlines of Gibbs; and in every other class of 
 building, where a portico is dispensed with, the 
 commonplace of the Italian and French schools, 
 from the best of the one to the worst of the other— 
 from the basement and loggia of the Palladian 
 villa to the disproportioned frame of pilasters of 
 
 the garden of the Palais Royal—but with Greek 
 ante substituted for pilasters, and the most dreary 
 monotony in the details and decorations which can 
 result from a perpetual repetition of the few com- 
 ponent parts and ornaments to be found in Stuart’s 
 ‘Athens,’ or at second-hand in ‘The Carpenter’s 
 Guide.’ Whether the details which the Greeks 
 adapted to the severe and uniform simplicity of 
 outline which characterises their temples are 
 sufficiently varied and flexible to amalgamate with 
 modes of composition so totally different, is a ques- 
 tion which does not seem to have been generally 
 propounded in the reign of George ITI. 
 Contemporary with Soane and Wilkins was 
 John Nash, an architect of a very different stamp 
 from either, but who held for several years that 
 ascendency which royal patronage never fails to 
 bestow. Nash inherited from Sir Robert Taylor, 
 under whom he studied, an elegant taste in villa 
 architecture, and some of his early works of this 
 class possess a high degree of merit. Beyond these 
 Nash has left little that can command praise, for 
 he was a total stranger to the study of architecture 
 
894 
 
 as a fine art, beyond the mere routine of a profes- 
 sional education. At the commencement of the 
 regency, the encouragement of the fine arts was 
 promised as one of the important benefits to result 
 from a new court; but the establishment in the 
 royal favour of an architect content to lend himself 
 to the fashion of the hour augured little for the 
 cause of architecture, or for the successful termina- 
 tion of a question which then began to be generally 
 agitated, of providing a national palace conform- 
 able to the dignity of the British sovereign—a 
 question which began, as far as Nash was con- 
 cerned, with a design for spreading out Holland’s 
 beautiful casino of Carlton House, by a colonnade 
 on one side, and a Gothic fagade on the other, was 
 continued by the amplification of the Pavilion 
 at Brighton to its present extent, and ended in the 
 half measure of converting Buckingham Palace 
 into a form of which considerable modifications 
 have since been found necessary. 
 
 Nevertheless, Nash was a man of high talent 
 and energy, and to none of his profession do 
 posterity owe more gratitude. Regent Street and 
 the Regent’s Park are his lasting monuments, not 
 for the architectural character of the buildings 
 with which they are lined, but for the enlarged 
 views under which he devised, and the indomitable 
 perseverance and public spirit with which he 
 carried out, his plans for the improvement of the 
 metropolis, realising all that had been dreamed of 
 the benefits to be derived from combined opera- 
 tions in regulating the growth of this modern 
 Babylon, and, with the zeal of an artist and the 
 skill of a financier, basing the-creation of magnifi- 
 cent thoroughfares upon the improvement of the 
 public revenue, It is necessary only to consider 
 the timid and limited character of metropolitan 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 aac eT eee gs: EAE CRRA ea EE RTE EAT TT AIT Ti NRE SEES a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 and the vast scale upon which it has since been 
 executed and contemplated, to appreciate the value 
 of the example which he was mainly instrumental 
 in establishing. Nor is the advancement of our 
 street architecture less due to his influence. What- 
 ever may be thought of his own performances 
 in that department, he banished the unmitigated 
 brick walls which deform some of the best quarters 
 of modern London, and laid the foundation of 
 a class of architecture which has of late assumed a 
 high and firm position in art. To the talent of 
 Nash we also owe the conversion of the inaccessible 
 swamp of St, James’s Park into the pleasure-ground 
 afterwards open for the recreation and gratification 
 of the public. Nash died at an advanced age in 
 1835. 
 
 During this period of architectural experiment, 
 the study of Gothic architecture (we may pass over 
 the Egyptian and Hindostanee, both of which had 
 their day) was pursued under more favourable 
 auspices than had generally attended the Greek 
 fashion, The well-known essay, by the Rey. 
 James Bentham, on the progression of styles 
 which marks the English architecture of the 
 middle ages, first published in 1771, had estab- 
 lished a sound principle upon which it might be 
 classified and investigated ; and the graphic labours 
 of John Carter had now illustrated the researches 
 pursued in the writings of Warton, Milner, and 
 Whittington. The voluminous publications of 
 John Britton, commenced in 1807, opened an 
 invaluable fund of materials and information to 
 the architect and antiquary; and in 1816 John 
 Rickman, by his ‘Attempt to discriminate the 
 Styles of English Architecture, fixed its revival 
 on the most solid basis upon which art can rest, 
 by popularizing its study, and placing the means 
 
 improvement before the formation of Regent Street, | of judging well within the general view. Thus 
 
 REGENT STREET, FROM WATERLOO PLACE. ae 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 
 was the theory of Gothic architecture developed ; 
 but its practical advance was more tardy, especially 
 in the domestic styles. In this branch of archi- 
 tecture James Wyatt maintained his position until 
 his death in 1815, and between 1808 and 1814 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 895 
 
 erected Ashridge, in Buckinghamshire, one of 
 the most extensive and successful of his works, 
 although not without his usual faults. The great 
 staircase, with all the magnificence that space 
 and fine detail can effect, still betrays in its 
 
 ASHRIDGE, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 
 
 composition a deficiency of appreciation of the 
 genuine characteristics of the style. Yet the 
 merits of James Wyatt were such as to justify 
 his influence, and he lived to see at least the 
 promise of that preponderance which has since 
 been acquired for the taste he contributed so 
 greatly to create. 
 
 In the hands of other architects of the period, 
 the Gothic style exhibits too much of the spirit of 
 undiscriminating imitation, The immense and 
 magnificent pile of Eaton Hall, Cheshire, built by 
 William Porden, early in the nineteenth century, 
 is a collection of parts proper to ecclesiastical 
 architecture, combined in a manner foreign to any 
 principle of Gothic composition; and about the 
 same time, two eminent architects disputed for the 
 honour of having designed a centre to Corsham 
 House, professedly imitated from the apsis of 
 Henry VII.’s chapel. These examples are but 
 types of many less important edifices of the same 
 class. Nash built castles with a picturesque 
 feeling and knowledge of detail superior to any of 
 his contemporaries except Wyatt; but his turrets 
 are clustered in a profusion characteristic of the 
 toy-shop rather than of the feudal ages, and his 
 machicoulis frowns over verandahs and French 
 casements, 
 
 Thomas Harrison, of Chester, must not be 
 omitted in a notice of the architecture of this 
 period. He enjoyed an extensive reputation, and 
 
 has been peculiarly happy in his adaptation of the 
 Greek style in the entrance to the public buildings 
 which he erected on the site of Chester Castle. To 
 Harrison is attributed the credit of having called the 
 attention of Lord Hlgin to the Athenian marbles. 
 
 Waterloo Bridge, commenced in 1811, under Sir 
 John Rennie; Drury Lane Theatre, erected in the 
 same year, by Benjamin Wyatt, on the destruction 
 of Holland’s building by fire; the Custom-House, 
 in 1813, by David Laing (since altered by Sir R. 
 Smirke) ; and Bethlehem Hospital, by James Lewis, 
 in 1815—are to be noticed as the most important 
 public works not yet incidentally mentioned of 
 the latter years of George III. Pancras Church 
 may be added as a model of the academical school 
 of Greek architecture. 
 
 The progress made in architecture since the 
 reign of George III., so far as it may be due to the 
 increased liberality displayed in providing for the 
 erection of public buildings, may be dated from 
 the period when the resources of the country could 
 be turned in the direction of the fine arts. A step 
 of the most vital importance to the arts in general, 
 and to the honour and dignity of the nation as 
 connected with their encouragement, was taken in 
 1816, by the purchase of the Higin marbles for the 
 British Museum (where the nucleus of the present 
 collection of ancient art had been formed by the 
 purchase of the Townley marbles in 1805), In 
 1818 the appointment of a commission for the 
 
896 
 
 erection of new churches, aided by the parlia- 
 mentary grant of a million sterling, opened to 
 architecture in particular a new field for its 
 development. How the magnificent anticipations 
 excited by this proceeding of the legislature have 
 been realised, is a subject not within the range of 
 the present review. 
 
 In Painting, the establishment of the English 
 school of water-colours, so honourable to our 
 country, and so influential upon art in general, is 
 one of the most interesting events in the history 
 of the arts during the early years of the nineteenth 
 century. The name of Paul Sandby has already 
 been mentioned in connection with this subject, 
 but there is an interval of progressive advance- 
 ment between the works of that accomplished 
 draughtsman and the full development of panting 
 in water-colour, as it is understood in the present 
 day ; and it is necessary to take a short retrospect 
 of the origin and progress of the art. 
 
 The claims of Sandby as “the father of water- 
 colour painting” are well founded. He was the 
 first to lead the way in that branch of drawing 
 to which water-colours have been the most 
 extensively applied, and which has been named 
 “Topographical Art”—the representation with 
 fidelity and truth of local scenery and buildings, 
 with due attention to the detail and linear 
 perspective; strange as it may appear, that this 
 fascinating style should have remained so long in 
 abeyance in a country so favourable for its 
 development, notwithstanding the example of the 
 Dutch and Flemish painters, and of Hollar, who 
 may almost be considered our own countryman. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 Still, for colour, and for those forcible and 
 harmonious effects which constitute the charm of 
 the English school of water-colour, Sandby effected 
 little. He drew with a firm penned outline, 
 produced a simple effect of light and shade with 
 Indian ink, and added an indication of the local 
 tints with thin washes of transparent colour. 
 Michael Angelo Rooker, the son of Edward 
 Rooker,* and also an eminent topographical 
 engraver, prepared his own drawings for some of 
 his best works, and went a step further in the 
 treatment of local colour, especially in representing 
 with picturesque effect the weather-stained char- 
 acter of old buildings. The topographical labours 
 of Hearne and Byrne have been already noticed, 
 The drawings for the work which bears their joint 
 names were the production of Hearne; and though 
 they cannot be cited as specimens of colouring, 
 they derive a superior degree of harmony from 
 being tinted over cold and warm grays. He also 
 used the pen with more judgment than Sandby, 
 making it subservient to the expression of the 
 detail, a system which may be traced in some 
 of the most masterly productions of our living 
 painters Of architecture. John Clevely, who 
 accompanied the first Lord Mulgrave on his 
 northern expedition in 1773, and afterwards 
 attended Sir Joseph Banks to Iceland, drew 
 marine views with great accuracy; but none of 
 these artists appear to have imagined transparent 
 water-colour to be a material capable of displaying 
 pictorial effects, and the early development of its 
 
 * See ante, vol. v. p. 527. 
 
 ime 
 
 ‘ cB 
 : : 
 = R=S2 
 f 1 
 :Y t e 
 he a 
 n 
 
 Eaton HA, CuEsnrRre. 
 
 _— 
 
 a ee oe eer 
 
Cuar. XII. ] 
 
 powers in this respect is due to John Smith, 
 William Payne, and John Cozens. The first 
 named, who visited Italy under the patronage of 
 the late Earl of Warwick, though he still followed 
 the system of tinting over grays, succeeded in 
 obtaining considerable force of effect, and far 
 surpassed all his predecessors in the union of 
 colour with light and shade. William Payne, 
 of Plymouth, continued the same process of 
 execution, but rendered it further available in 
 producing vivid effects of sunshine. These artists, 
 by excluding the pen altogether, gave to their 
 works more of the character of pictures, and 
 Payne’s drawings are said to have excited the 
 admiration of Sir Joshua Reynolds as something 
 new in art. Payne’s style was followed by John 
 Glover, who imparted to it the utmost perfection 
 of which it can be conceived capable, and his 
 magical effects of daylight, atmosphere, and 
 transparent water contested for pre-eminence in 
 the favour of the public, for years after the system 
 upon which he worked had been exploded by a 
 new race of artists. John Cozens, who died in 
 1799, may be considered the immediate predecessor 
 of the modern school; for though his drawings 
 still consist of a gray chiaro scuro, brought into 
 harmony by flat tints, he made an advance in the 
 management of colour, which proved the material 
 to be equal to the production of landscape, in all 
 its charms of incidental lights and aérial per- 
 spective. In this stage of its progress, transparent 
 water-colour was taken up by Thomas Girtin, and 
 Joseph Mallard William Turner, who established 
 upon it the school which has spread the name 
 and fame of British art throughout the civilised 
 world. In this branch of art, at least, our 
 claims to priority and superiority have never been 
 disputed. 
 
 The essential improvement which the mecha- 
 nical process of water-colour painting received 
 from these eminent artists, under whose genius the 
 weak powers of tinting broke down, consisted in 
 the adoption of dead colouring for the local tints, 
 and the production of depth and texture by freely 
 washing and working up the surface of the paper, 
 which it had been the care of the older artists to 
 preserve smooth and intact; and in their hands, 
 and those of the other painters who speedily 
 -availed themselves of the new art (for so it may be 
 justly called), water-colour was at once raised from 
 the rank it had hitherto occupied, of an inferior 
 and imperfect vehicle, into a successful competition 
 with oil. In 1804 the professors of water-colour 
 painting felt themselves strong enough to assert 
 the importance and independence of their art, and 
 the foundation of the Water-Colour Society was 
 effected; but neither Girtin nor Turner was found 
 among its members. The former had departed 
 this life in 1802, at the age of twenty-seven, leaving 
 a name which few have acquired to whom time 
 has been allotted to do so little; but he was a 
 genius of the highest order, and had achieved 
 works to which nothing could be compared which 
 
 VOL. VI, 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 897 
 
 had preceded them. He was equally great in 
 landscape and buildings, and the epithets of “the 
 Wilson” and “the Canaletti of water-colours” 
 attest the admiration of his contemporaries. 
 Turner, without neglecting the improvement of 
 water-colours, had given himself to oil-painting, 
 and had already founded his reputation in that 
 style of art. The list of the Water-Colour Society 
 at its first exhibition in 1805 contains nevertheless 
 the names of artists who have not been surpassed 
 in their several departments during a competition 
 of nearly forty years—of John Varley, who shares 
 with Girtin and Turner the credit of founding the 
 new style, and whose latter works are equalled in 
 the grandeur of their colouring by nothing in art 
 but the landscape backgrounds of Titian; of George 
 Barret, unrivalled in the effects of sunset and 
 twilight ; and of Robert Hills, pre-eminent as an 
 animal painter, but most especially in the fidelity 
 with which he has represented the character and 
 habits of deer. Glover has been already men- 
 tioned. These, with Stephen Rigaud, son of the 
 Royal Academician of the same name, William 
 Sawrey Gilpin (the son of Sawrey Gilpin the ani- 
 mal painter), celebrated as a landscape gardener 
 no less than as an artist, Cornelius Varley, Joshua 
 Cristall, William Havell, and Nicholas Pocock, 
 were among the early members of the Society of 
 Painters in Water-Colours. Architectural draw- 
 ings (in the picturesque sense of the term), which 
 now form so large a proportion of the works of 
 the school, make but little figure in the early cata- 
 logues of the society, and no artist in that branch 
 joined it at its formation, though the names of two, 
 who attained high eminence, appear as exhibitors 
 —Charles Wild, whose pencil has so ably illus- 
 trated the ecclesiastical architecture of England 
 and France, and Augustus Pugin, to whom Gothic 
 architecture is deeply indebted for the publications 
 which have made its details accessible and familiar 
 to the student. 
 
 Notwithstanding a moment of weakness in which 
 the professors of water-colour seemed disposed to 
 doubt of their art, and to reduce it to a stepping- 
 stone to the practice of oil,* it rose rapidly in 
 importance, and within the reign of George III. 
 many of the ablest masters who have yet appeared 
 were added to its lists. Among the early names 
 appears that of Thomas Heaphy, who rendered the 
 scenes and characters of familiar life in a spirit 
 and with a finish akin to the Dutch school. ‘The 
 Fish-Market, his most elaborate work, com- 
 manded the high price of four hundred guineas,+ 
 Louis Francia, an excellent artist for marine sub- 
 jects, was a fellow-student with Girtin and Turner. 
 Richard Westall, whose name has appeared in the 
 former section, must be noticed again as having 
 
 * In 1813, when the ambition of some of the members of the 
 society conferred on it the title of ‘Painters in Oil and Water- 
 Colours,’ and associated their-exhibition with Haydon’s ‘ Judgment 
 of Solomon’ and a large monumental group by Chantrey. Fortu- 
 nately this hallucination soon passed away. 
 
 + Bought by the late Mr. Wheeler, of Gloucester-place. Glover 
 once obtajned five hundred guineas for a landscape. 2 
 
 E 
 
898 
 
 struck out an independent path in the same 
 direction as the acknowledged founders of the 
 modern water-colour practice. His drawings 
 were executed upon a similar system at a 
 period when he must undoubtedly have estab- 
 lished it for himself. Thomas Uwins, since 
 distinguished in another branch of art, and a 
 member of the Royal Academy, and William 
 Westall, an associate of that body, were mem- 
 bers of the Water-Colour Society, and joined 
 it about 1812, as did Peter Dewint, who has 
 represented with the most perfect truth the cool 
 freshness of English domestic landscape. They 
 were followed two years later by Frederick 
 Mackenzie, Copley Fielding, and George Robson, 
 The first brought to the department of architec- 
 tural drawing a technical and critical knowledge, 
 which renders his works beyond those of any of 
 his contemporaries a reflex of the forms they 
 represent. By Fielding and Robson the peculiar 
 texture and tone of water-colour have been made 
 available for the display of effects unattainable by 
 other means. ‘The sea-storms of Fielding exhibit 
 the most perfect transcript of nature under the 
 most difficult aspects. The clouds which hang 
 over the troubled waters like a curtain are dark- 
 ened to inky blackness without ever losing their 
 vaporous quality; and the Highland scenery of 
 Robson unites the utmost clearness of delineation 
 with the most intense depth and solemnity of 
 effect. Two more artists in the department of 
 architectural drawing remain to be noticed as 
 coming within the present period—Samuel Prout, 
 whose slight and masterly touch imparts an unfail- 
 ing charm to his lively delineations of foreign 
 cities, and Joseph Gandy, whose works display an 
 imagination of no common fertility, and a splendid 
 though somewhat artificial feeling for colour, 
 which he exercised on compositions founded on 
 the purest style of Greek art. He executed many 
 drawings for Sir John Soane, of whose collection 
 his ‘ Restoration of Eleusis’ is a conspicuous 
 ornament. 
 
 To enter upon the merits of the artists by whose 
 talents the English school of water-colour has since 
 been supported and extended, and disseminated 
 throughout Europe, would lead us beyond our 
 limits; but it must be observed, that to Richard 
 Parkes Bonnington, who visited Paris in 1816, 
 and resided there during the greater part of his 
 life, which terminated at an early age in 1828, the 
 French are indebted for their first appreciation of 
 the English school of landscape, and of the art of 
 water-colour, which they have since cultivated 
 extensively and successfully. Of the most eminent 
 late and living water-colour painters it must suffice 
 to add the names only of Lewis, Hunt, Stephanoff, 
 Miss Setchell, and Miss F. Corbaux (for figures) ; 
 Frederick Nash, Essex, Cotman, and Thomas 
 Boys (for architecture) ; Cattermole, Haghe, and 
 Joseph Nash (architecture and figures); Linnell, 
 Gastineau, Cox, and Callow las Harding 
 (landscape, buildings, and figures); Austin and 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 (nee ec Le a 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 Bentley (marine); and Frederick Taylor (horses 
 and figures), 7 
 
 With reference to the art of painting in general, 
 the present period is remarkable, beyond any that 
 preceded it, for the efforts made for the promotion 
 of that art by those who hold the most direct means 
 of encouragement in their hands. In 1805, the 
 British Institution was founded, and its gallery 
 opened, for the exhibition and sale of the works 
 of living artists, accompanied by substantial marks 
 of approbation to those who might distinguish 
 themselves in any branch of the art independent 
 of portrait-painting. In 1813, the directors of this 
 association took the most important step ever 
 effected, until the establishment of the National 
 Gallery in 1824, to spread a general knowledge 
 and discriminating taste in painting, by opening 
 an annual exhibition of pictures by the old mas- 
 ters, and making the chefs-d’euvre liberally con- 
 tributed from the royal galleries, and the best 
 collections of the nobility and gentry, available 
 to multitudes, who, in the absence of any public 
 means of improvement (unless it were the 
 Dulwich Gallery, which was opened at about 
 the same period), were shut out from all oppor- 
 tunity of cultivating a sound judgment in art. 
 The public taste thus generated was shortly after- 
 wards gratified by the opening, on an extensive 
 scale of admission, of the Stafford, Grosvenor, 
 and Angerstein galleries,* and that of Sir John 
 Leicester, afterwards Lord de Tabley, composed 
 exclusively of the works of British artists, most 
 of them then living. The catalogue of the col- 
 lection formed by this patriotic and munificent 
 nobleman is an index to the best native talent 
 flourishing at a period which, though short, adds 
 several names to those which will for ever do 
 honour to the British school.+ 
 
 For the revival of the highest class of painting, 
 the time had not yet arrived. West, who had 
 occupied the chair of the Royal Academy since 
 the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, held the even 
 tenor of his way, though with little encourage- 
 ment beyond that of his royal patron,t and lost 
 
 nothing, and certainly deserved to lose nothing, — 
 
 in the public estimation, when the peace of 1815 
 placed his works in comparison with those of his 
 French contemporaries. William Hilton brought 
 to the exercise of the historical style a knowledgé 
 of drawing which would have distinguished him 
 
 in any school of art, and which places him alone — 
 
 in one where that accomplishment has been too 
 generally neglected. The fascination of an ori- 
 ginal style of colouring, which in grandeur and 
 
 harmony makes a near approach to the master- — 
 pieces of the Venetian school, has stamped a wider | 
 
 * The Angerstein collection formed the nucleus of the National 
 Gallery. It was purchased at the death of its owner for 57,0001. 
 
 + At the dispersion of Lord de Tabley’s gallery in 1827, Hopp- 
 
 ner’s ‘Sleeping Nymph’ produced the sum of 472/.; Wilson’s 
 * View on the Arno,’ 493/.; Gainsborough’s ‘ Cottage Door,’ 5251.3 
 Turner's ‘Dutch Fishing-boats,’ 514/.; Hilton’s * Europa,’ 3151.3 
 Howard’s ‘ Pleiades,’ 2201. 
 
 +The British Institution, however, purchased his * Christ 
 Healing the Sick’ for 3000 guineas. 
 
Cuap. XII] 
 
 popularity on the historical and poetical works of 
 William Etty. Benjamin Richard Haydon devoted 
 himself to the highest class of this department 
 of painting. He executed several large pictures 
 with success, and undertook to found a school 
 upon the principle of those which flourished in 
 the palmy days of Italian art, when a crowd of 
 pupils were led by the example and inspired by 
 the genius of a great master. But it failed. It is 
 to be lamented that the talent of Henry Peyronet 
 Briggs should have been diverted from this class 
 of art. In a vigorous and sound style of execution 
 he has been surpassed by no modern artist; and 
 his ‘Seizure of Guy Fawkes,’ exhibited in 1823, 
 is one of the best pictures ever produced in the 
 English school. 
 
 In portrait-painting, Sir Thomas Lawrence had 
 succeeded to the position attained by Reynolds in 
 the last century, and another generation of the 
 rank and beauty of England lives on his canvas. 
 It is difficult to name these great artists together, 
 without drawing a comparison between their 
 works. In the influence and consideration which 
 he enjoyed during at least twenty years of a career 
 which dates from 1787, and ended only with his 
 life in 1830, Lawrence could scarcely have been 
 surpassed by his predecessor; but they will be 
 differently classed in the estimation of posterity. 
 Independently of the superior depth and harmony 
 of his colouring, the portraits of Reynolds indicate 
 the mind, Those of Lawrence seldom present to 
 us more than the external man or woman, Both 
 are pre-eminent in the representation of female 
 and infantine grace; but with Reynolds it is the 
 grace of nature, with Lawrence that of the fashion 
 and of education. But, whatever Lawrence may 
 represent, it is done with consummate elegance ; 
 and if his drawing is often feeble, and his colouring 
 sometimes verges on the meretricious, such faults 
 are lost in the charm of his execution. No painter 
 ever better appreciated, or more assiduously prac- 
 tised, the care and study necessary to produce a 
 finished work of art; but his last touches were 
 directed to efface the appearances of labour from 
 his pictures; and, whatever may be the result of 
 this process in his own hands, its brilliancy has 
 proved a light to lead astray, the effects of which 
 will be long felt in the English school of portrait. 
 
 The talent of Lawrence was so precocious, that 
 he had distinguished himself by his copies from 
 the old masters in crayons before he was twelve 
 years old, and at the age of eighteen his name 
 appears in the exhibition of the Royal Academy 
 to seven pictures, Two years later (in 1789) his 
 contribution amounts to no less than thirteen, 
 including a portrait of the Duke of York. In 
 1790, the queen and the Princess Amelia were in 
 the number of his sitters; and in 1792 he suc- 
 ceeded Reynolds as painter in ordinary to the 
 king. It is probable that some of Lawrence’s 
 deficiencies and mannerisms may be traced to 
 ‘this early success, which left him neither time 
 nor inclination for elementary study. 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 899 | 
 
 In 1817, Lawrence received from the prince 
 regent the commission to paint the series of 
 portraits known as the “Waterloo Gallery” at 
 Windsor Castle, and for this purpose he visited 
 the capitals of our allies in the late war. These 
 pictures include some of his best works. The 
 portraits of the Emperor of Austria, Pope 
 Pius VII., and Cardinal Gonsalvi take a very 
 high rank in their class; and that of Prince 
 Hardenburg is one of the finest efforts of Law- 
 rence’s pencil. Lawrence was knighted in 1815, 
 on the occasion of painting the portraits of the 
 sovereigns who visited London ; and at the death 
 of West in 1820, he became president of the 
 Royal Academy, a distinction to which his claim 
 was undisputed. 
 
 Among the other artists in this class who come 
 within the present period must be noted John 
 Jackson, whose talent was limited to heads, but. 
 some of whose productions thus far are surpassed 
 by those of Reynolds alone; Thomas Phillips, 
 excellent for the truth of his colouring and effect, 
 especially in his female portraits; Sir Martin 
 Archer Shee, the successor of Lawrence as presi- 
 dent of the Royal Academy, distinguished for the 
 firmness and precision of his style, qualities espe- 
 cially valuable in the English school; and, though - 
 last, not least, in the exercise of a clear pencil and 
 elegant taste, Mr. W. Carpenter. John Harlow, 
 whose premature death in 1819 was a heavy loss 
 to the arts, must also be classed in this department, 
 although he gave the promise of ascending into 
 another sphere had his life been prolonged. He 
 is well and popularly known by his ‘ Trial of Queen 
 Katharine.’ ; 
 
 The year 1806 is to be noted for the first public 
 
 Sir D, Witere, R.A. 
 
 appearance of Sir David Wilkie, whose fame was 
 permanently established the year following by his 
 ‘Blind Fiddler’ Wilkie has been called “the 
 
900 
 
 British Teniers;” no compliment to either painter. 
 
 The domestic scenes of Wilkie exhibit a dramatic 
 power, a moral purpose, a discrimination of cha- 
 racter, and a mastery of expression, which it was 
 no part of the system of Teniers to attempt, while 
 he ranks immeasurably below the Fleming in 
 almost every other quality of a painter, to say 
 nothing of the marvellous handicraft skill in which 
 Teniers is unapproachable. Wilkie was, in fact, 
 singularly deficient, for so great an artist, in any 
 fixed principles of execution; and his pictures 
 might almost be considered a series of experiments, 
 more or less successful, upon colour and handling. 
 Ata later period of his life Wilkie visited Spain, 
 and on his return gave evidence of his ability in a 
 graver style of art; but.it is upon his earlier works, 
 his ‘Rent Day, his ‘ Village Festival,’ his ‘ Read- 
 ing the Will, his ‘Distraining for Rent,’ his 
 ‘Chelsea Pensioners, his ‘Parish Beadle, that 
 his fame will rest ; and his merits in this class of 
 painting are of an order which will for ever main- 
 tain his place among the eminent in art, without 
 distinction of school or country. Wilkie died in 
 1841 on his voyage from the Levant, which he 
 had visited in search of new materials for the 
 exercise of his pencil. 
 
 In the same department must be mentioned 
 William Mulready: second only to Wilkie in the 
 representation of familiar domestic scenes, he sur- 
 passes him in the requisites of a sound style of 
 painting. The success of these artists has given 
 rise to a numerous and meritorious class of what 
 the French call tableaux de genre, which it would 
 be beyond our limits to particularise. 
 
 In landscape, the honour of the English school 
 was supported by Turner and Calcott. The former 
 has already been noticed with reference to water- 
 colours, but his success in that branch of painting 
 was eclipsed by his pre-eminence in oil. There is 
 no style of landscape, from the heroic to the most 
 familiar, in which Turner may not claim a place 
 in the first class, and in those styles which afford 
 room for the indulgence of a vivid fancy he stands 
 alone. ‘Tasteful combinations of form, unity of 
 composition, breadth, richness, harmony, and the 
 most perfect effects of aérial perspective, are the 
 characteristics of the landscapes of Turner in every 
 class. In a profound knowledge of nature he is 
 unrivalled, and, if a desire to produce new and 
 surprising combinations of colour and effect have 
 too often led him to represent her under extraordi- 
 nary appearances, those who are disposed to con- 
 sider such appearances as extravagant may confide 
 in the artist’s acute powers of observation for their 
 truth, whatever may be thought of his judgment 
 in selecting them. His close attention to truth may 
 be seen in his marine views, No painter has ever 
 studied more minutely the details of shipping 
 under all its contingencies, and some of his pictures 
 in this class may compare with the finest works of 
 the Dutch masters, save only in the exquisite finish 
 which they alone have attained without sacrificing 
 for it any of the higher qualities of art, The latter 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 works of Turner, in which he has attempted 
 pictures with colour and effect alone, of the many 
 qualities necessary to constitute a work of art, may 
 be passed over, as going beyond the limits of the 
 reign of George ITI. 
 
 With little of the vigorous imagination of Turner, 
 the taste of Sir Augustus Calcott is more pure, and 
 his style more even. Some weakness in defining 
 the objects nearest to the eye is the principal defect 
 to be noticed in his pictures; but for the firm, 
 careful, and intelligent handling of his distances 
 he is eminent in a school of landscape where 
 breadth is too often produced by the sacrifice of 
 form, and indistinctness mistaken for aérial per- 
 spective ; for such are the prevailing faults which 
 have grown up in the English school, through the 
 influence of the defects of Turner, and the seduc- 
 tive facility of water-colours. The “magic of 
 verdure and rill” which distinguishes the land- 
 scapes of John Constable, a painter who may be 
 considered English par excellence, is scarcely 
 sufficient to redeem the slovenly mannerism of his 
 foregrounds. 
 
 In the union of landscape with figures no artist 
 of this period equalled William Collins. His 
 sea-coast views are not more to be admired for 
 their pictorial effect than for the characteristic 
 groups by which they are animated, and some of 
 his rural incidents are designed with an expression 
 which classes them with the works of Wilkie and 
 Mulready. ; 
 
 Our notice of painting must conclude by passing 
 rapidly over the names of several artists of high 
 degree. Edwin Landseer can hardly be included 
 within this period, since it was not until nearly 
 its close that he gave the youthful promise of the 
 talent which has since placed him in the first 
 order of animal painters, a station in which, it may 
 be safely predicted, time will only confirm him, 
 John Martin and William Danby may be classed 
 together, as having both treated art in a manner 
 perfectly original, in aiming, and not without 
 success, at sublimity. In grandeur of composition 
 Martin is unequalled. His power of representing 
 immensity of space is peculiar to himself; the 
 interminable halls and the countless multitude 
 which people them in ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast, and 
 the Pandemonium in his illustrations of Milton, 
 with its widening orbits of light appearing to lose 
 themselves in infinity, are sublime from their 
 vastness. In drawing, and the process of execu- 
 tion on canvas, Martin is defective. Danby is 
 far the better painter, and his effects, scarcely less 
 surprising than Martin’s, are more dependent on | 
 the management of light and colour. In his © 
 ‘Passage of the Red Sea,’ in the Stafford gallery, | 
 he seems to have dipped his pencil in a sun-beam, | 
 so luminous, and yet so soft, is the pillar which | 
 casts its rays upon the Israelites. Lastly, we 
 must note the classical and poetical compositions of 
 Henry Howard, the horses and cavalry skirmishes | 
 of Abraham Cooper, and the illustrations of Cer- | 
 vantes, and other writers in the highest walk of 
 
Cuap. XII. ] 
 
 fiction, by C. R. Leslie. The name of Henry Bone 
 must be added as distinguished in the art of enamel 
 painting. 
 
 The numerous memorials erected from the 
 public funds in honour of the naval and military 
 commanders who fell in battle during the war, 
 continued to afford some encouragement to Sculp- 
 ture beyond that which fell to the share of the 
 sister arts. The taste which pervaded the monu- 
 mental class of art, and marked it generally 
 throughout the present period, has been noticed 
 -and considered in the preceding section; and 
 there is little to be now added beyond recording 
 the names of the artists not already mentioned 
 who distinguished themselves in sculpture down 
 to the end of the reign of George III. Of these, 
 Charles Rossi claims the first place in seniority, 
 if not in merit. In the knowledge of the human 
 figure, Rossi surpassed all his contemporaries, 
 and his style, founded on an assiduous study of 
 the antique, is pure and classical. The monu- 
 ment of Lord Cornwallis in St. Paul’s is one of 
 his best works, grand and harmonious in com- 
 position, and effecting with more than common 
 success the difficult union of the real with the 
 ideal. The cenotaph to Captains Mosse and Riou 
 in the same cathedral is an excellent example of 
 a style too much neglected in modern monumental 
 composition, in which the graces of sculpture are 
 blended with the symmetry which belongs to 
 architecture. There is a happy contrast of lines 
 in this work, and the heads of the allegorical 
 figures are in a high style of art. But Rossi was 
 deficient in originality, and, while his works exhibit 
 a profound knowledge and appreciation of the 
 models of antiquity, the spirit is absent by which 
 they should be animated, and a certain heaviness 
 and want of vitality are their obvious defects. 
 Fine form, graceful composition, and the feeling 
 of a poetical mind, mingled with a taste for the 
 picturesque, which, however chastened, still some- 
 times prevails too far for the simplicity essential to 
 a high style of sculpture, are the characteristics 
 of the works of Sir Richard Westmacott. His 
 statue of Francis Duke of Bedford, in Russell 
 Square, executed in 1809, was the first of the 
 public memorials of its class erected during the 
 present century, and exhibits both the merits 
 and defects of the artist in a strong light. The 
 composition is admirably grouped and balanced ; 
 the principal figure at once graceful and dignified ; 
 but the accessories are conceived in the spirit of 
 a painter rather than a sculptor, and verge on 
 the line where the characteristics of the two arts 
 are in danger of being confounded, ‘The figure 
 of the ‘Distressed Mother, on the tomb of Mrs. 
 Warren in Westminster Abbey, is open to a 
 similar remark ; and its pure nature and pathos 
 only render more objectionable the stick, the 
 bundle, and the mechanical treatment of the 
 drapery. Westmacott was the first sculptor of 
 this period to break through the trammels of 
 allegory. The cenotaph to Sir Ralph Abercrombie 
 
 ae 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 ee... O0 ll 
 
 * 
 
 901 
 
 in St. Paul’s, representing the warrior falling 
 from his horse into the arms of one of his brave 
 Highlanders, is more simple and truthful in its 
 motive than any other group of equal magnitude 
 executed in England either before or since. In 
 the monument to Lord Collingwood the recog- 
 nised accessories are introduced, but disposed in a 
 manner equally original and effective. Among the 
 other public works of Sir R, Westmacott may be 
 mentioned the colossal equestrian statue of George 
 III. at Windsor; the statue of Fox, in Bloomsbury 
 Square; of Canning, in Palace Yard; and of the 
 Duke of York, on the column in Carlton Gardens 
 —all of bronze. He was also employed in casting, 
 from the antique, the colossal ‘ Achilles, as it is 
 called, in Hyde Park, which, as long as it records 
 the victories of the Duke of Wellington, will no 
 
 -less commemorate the pedantry of those by whom 
 
 its execution was dictated. The erection of a 
 work so foreign to its ostensible purpose, forced 
 upon an artist so capable of doing justice to the 
 subject from his own resources, was owing to a 
 remnant of the worn-out bigotry which had so 
 long checked the progress of English art—that 
 narrow and fastidious distrust of native talent 
 which its possessors mistake for the discrimination 
 of cultivated taste—and the blind preference for 
 anything foreign, however mediocre, or anything 
 antique, however inapplicable. When Canova, 
 some years previously, had been solicited to 
 execute a public statue for England, he nobly 
 called the applicants to a sense of the high talent 
 they might employ at home; and the statue of 
 Pitt, in the senate-house at Cambridge, came in 
 consequence from the hands of Nollekens. This 
 lesson, if ever they heard of it, was lost upon the 
 patrons of the ‘ Achilles,’ although they so far had 
 their misgivings upon the propriety of their design, 
 that the sculptor narrowly escaped a commission 
 to place the head of the Great Captain on the 
 shoulders of the naked Greek! Such was the 
 select taste of the end of the reign of George IIL, 
 and such the history of a monument at which 
 posterity will 
 
 « Wonder how the devil it got there.” 
 
 In accordance with the predilection, which has 
 ever obtained in England, for the art of portrait, 
 no artist of this period, with the exception of 
 Lawrence, acquired the living pre-eminence of Sir 
 Francis Chantrey. It was, however, the monument 
 to the two children of the Rev. Wm. Robinson, 
 in Lichfield Cathedral, exhibited at the Royal 
 Academy in 1818, which confirmed his growing 
 fame, and raised him to that high place in the 
 public estimation, from which he never afterwards 
 receded; but it is remarkable that this work, upon 
 which his reputation in the class of art to which it 
 belongs was founded, is that upon which it still 
 rests, standing nearly alone among the productions 
 of his chisel, as the indication of a poetical feeling 
 in the artist. It has, in fact, little claim to origi- 
 nality. The composition, it is well known, is due 
 
 Me eR AC EE TC CG A LE CE LE AG A 
 
902 
 
 to the elegant pencil of Stothard, and the Boothby 
 monument by Banks has contributed both to the 
 design and expression. The real strength of 
 Chantrey lay in portrait, and especially male 
 portrait—for he had little feeling for beauty—and 
 in this branch of sculpture the decline of Nolle- 
 kens opened to him a career in which none could 
 pretend to rival him. To represent the living man 
 without affectation and without disguise, to dignify 
 the action and bearing, and to impress the mind 
 upon the countenance—these powers, aided by a 
 skill in execution, which invests the marble with 
 the texture of flesh, constitute the excellence of 
 Chantrey. He grappled fearlessly and successfully 
 with the modern costume, and his least felicitous 
 works are among those in which he has the most 
 endeavoured to evade this formidable difficulty. Of 
 the ideal and poetical Chantrey possessed but little, 
 and he knew it, and eschewed them; and his works 
 are few in any class in which these elements are 
 called into requisition. Confining himself princi- 
 pally, therefore, to the limits within which he reigned 
 paramount, his superiority was seldom to be ques- 
 tioned, and the prestige of uniform success was at- 
 tended with an influence which rendered his works 
 a standard for the judgment, and produced a marked 
 revolution in the taste of the public in the art of 
 sculpture. Our public memorials have long been 
 confined to single statues, and the abuse, not to be 
 denied, of the poetic license has been too severely 
 corrected by its suppression. 
 
 Sir F. CHANTREY. 
 
 To attempt an enumeration even of the remark- 
 able works of Chantrey would be in vain. The 
 statues of Francis Horner and James Watt, both 
 in Westminster Abbey, may be cited as among 
 those which display in the highest degree the tran- 
 scendant talent of the sculptor in his own depart- 
 ment; but in the latter instance he has stultified 
 his work by the unfavourable situation in which 
 uate suffered it to be placed. Chantrey died in 
 
 841. 
 
 Edward Hodges Baily and William Behnes 
 
 had both founded their reputation within this period, : 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 tes 
 
 The busts of the latter hold a high rank in art, 
 and the former has added to those in the class of 
 portrait many graceful and classical works of 
 imagination. William Theed, who died in 1818, 
 was an exquisite modeller in small. ‘The state 
 salt-cellars, at Windsor, may be cited among his 
 numerous designs for gold and silver plate. We 
 may conclude with the name of George Garrard, 
 an artist of older reputation, as an admirable mo- 
 deller of cattle. 
 
 The year 1818 is remarkable for the issue of an 
 entirely new coinage, the first during the reign of 
 George III., except the copper of 1797 and 1806, 
 which is entitled to any notice as a work of art. 
 Although some of the specimens of medalling pro- 
 duced on this occasion display considerable merit, 
 it may be doubted whether the means were taken 
 which might have rendered the work most credit- 
 able to the arts of the country, or whether the 
 different qualifications which might have been 
 brought to bear upon the design and execution were 
 sufficiently considered. The whole conduct of the 
 work was intrusted to the Italian medallist Pis- 
 trucci, an accomplished imitator of the antique, who 
 was placed for that purpose at the head of the 
 artistic department of the mint. Unfortunately 
 his talent proved the weakest when the most was 
 demanded of it, and some of the heads on this 
 coinage, especially that on the crown piece, are not 
 above mediocrity; but the reverses, both of the 
 crown and the sovereign (the St. George) are de- 
 signed and executed with great skill. It is to be 
 regretted, nevertheless, that Flaxman should have 
 been overlooked in a work of this national im- 
 portance. His designs would have met with full 
 justice in the hands of Thomas Wyon, who has 
 been surpassed by no modern artist in the executive 
 branch of medalling, and by whom the greater 
 part of the silver of 1818 was in fact engraved after 
 the models of Pistrucci. 
 
 The beginning of the nineteenth century adds 
 many names of high repute to the list of English 
 line-engravers, especially in ‘‘ topographical art,”’ 
 a department which may be considered almost new 
 in the wide diffusion and general excellence it then 
 attained. The time had not yet arrived when it 
 was necessary to substitute a manufacture for an 
 art, in administering to the popular taste for cheap 
 engraving ; and it is among the periodical publica- 
 tions of this date that we may seek for some of the 
 most beautiful specimens of the modern school. 
 Among these, the series of illustrations of the Eng- 
 lish architecture of the middle ages, produced 
 through the taste, enterprise, and industry, of the 
 indefatigable John Britton, may be more particu- 
 larly referred to, not only as the best of their class, 
 but as having contributed in an eminent degree to 
 fix that high standard of merit which is now de- 
 manded in works of this description. The ‘ Archi- 
 
 ; tectural’ and ‘Cathedral Antiquities,’ the former 
 
 commenced in 1807, and the latter in 1816, haye 
 displayed the talents of some of our most eminent 
 
Cuap. XII.] 
 
 artists both as draughtsmen and engravers, and 
 have originated, more or less directly, an innu- 
 merable race of publications, striving to emulate 
 them. Many of the plates in the ‘ Architectural 
 Antiquities,’ and most of those in the early volumes 
 of the ‘Cathedrals,’ are the productions of John 
 and Henry Le Keux, who have no equals in this 
 branch of engraving; and their works after the 
 drawings of Mackenzie, in the volume on Salis- 
 bury, will probably never be surpassed. The en- 
 gravings of John Le Keux are in a style of unri- 
 valled brilliancy ; and those of Henry display a 
 superior neatness and finish, which is exhibited in 
 great perfection in his plate of the interior of 
 Norwich Cathedral. The Le Keux were pupils 
 of Basire ; and a comparison of the works of the 
 master, who was an engraver of talent, with those 
 of the scholars will indicate the general no less 
 than the individual progress which had been made 
 in works of this class. Robert Sands, Joseph Lam- 
 bert (both also pupils of Basire), John Roffe, 
 Thomas Ranson, and John Scott, are all to be 
 distinguished in the same branch of engraving, 
 and as having contributed many plates to the early 
 volumes of the ‘ Cathedral Antiquities.’ In the 
 same department must be noticed William Wool- 
 noth, author of a work on Canterbury cathedral ; 
 Joseph Skelton, well known for his ‘ Antiquities 
 of Oxfordshire ;? and James Storer and J. Greig, 
 who produced, in conjunction with a numerous 
 class of pupils, some of whom have at a later 
 period risen into eminence, many topographical 
 works on a smaller scale, the ‘ Cathedrals,’ the 
 * Antiquarian Cabinet,’ the ‘ Excursions,’ &c. In 
 the department of landscape, William and George 
 Cooke introduced a new style, characterised by 
 great brilliancy and freedom of handling. They 
 are the authors of the ‘ Illustrations of the Thames,’ 
 the ‘Southern Coast,’ and other works displaying 
 especial merit in the representation of sea and 
 shipping. William and Edward Finden, John 
 Byrne, and John Pye must also be noticed in the 
 department of landscape. The latter engraved the 
 large plate of Tivoli, after Turner, and many of 
 the illustrations of Hakewill’s ‘Italy.’ The Fin- 
 dens haye also engraved in other branches with 
 success; and the portrait of George IV. on the 
 sofa, after Lawrence, is from the graver of William 
 Finden. 
 
 In-the class of history, portrait, and figure en- 
 graving in general, the high reputation of the 
 English school during the latter part of the eigh- 
 teenth century leaves little room for remark, further 
 than to record the names of those artists who, in 
 another generation, contributed to maintain it. 
 Some of the best works of the most eminent en- 
 gravers of the period, and of some who have been 
 mentioned in the former section, may be referred 
 to in ‘The British Gallery of Engraving, a work 
 designed to exhibit the best talent of the English 
 school, published in 1809, Charles Heath, the 
 son of James Heath, first established his reputa- 
 tion in this work by his ‘Infant Hercules,’ after 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 903 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ostade and Gerard Douw 
 are well illustrated by John Taylor; Abraham 
 Raimbach contributed the ‘ Holy Family,’ after 
 Lud. Caracci, and the ‘ Ugolino,’ after Reynolds. 
 This artist, remarkable for the richness and round- 
 ness of his style, is well known for his admirable 
 engravings after Wilkie. The talent of William 
 Skelton is shown in two heads from the Venetian 
 school, and that of John Burnett by the ‘ Letter 
 Writer,’ after Metzu, and ‘the Cat,’ from Gerard 
 Douw, both to be noticed even in the English 
 school for their strong expression of colour. Bur- 
 nett, however, was ambitious of the reputation of 
 apainter, and engraved principally after his own 
 pictures, in which he has taken Wilkie for his 
 model. William Bromley engraved for the same 
 work ‘The Woman taken in Adultery,’ after 
 Rubens, and is the author of the tasteful series of 
 illustrations of the terra cottas in the British 
 Museum. ‘To these names may be added those of 
 E. Golding, who engraved the portrait of the Prin- 
 cess Charlotte, after Lawrence ; C. Doo (portrait) ; 
 J. C. Robinson, the engraver of ‘The Wolf and 
 the Lamb,’ after Mulready ; and Charles Warren, 
 eminent in small book-plates. F. C. Lewis, ori- 
 ginally an engraver in aquatint, distinguished him- 
 self by his close transcripts of Lawrence’s masterly 
 sketches in crayon. In mezzotint may be men- 
 tioned George Clint, who engraved Harlow’s 
 €Trial of Queen Katharine ;’ his pupil Thomas 
 Lupton, and Charles Turner. We may conclude 
 with Henry Moses, distinguished for the clearness 
 of his etchings in outline. 
 
 The present period exhibits great extremes of 
 inferiority and excellence in two important depart- 
 ments of Music, and a stationary, if not a retrograd- 
 ing, condition in other branches. That selfishness of 
 deans and chapters before alluded to,* which prompt- 
 ed them to appropriate nearly the whole of the funds 
 of their respective churches to themselves, leaving 
 their working members, namely, the subordinate 
 clergy, the organists, and the lay-clerks, in a state of 
 comparative poverty, continued unabated till long 
 after the time which brings our history to aclose. It 
 is true that in two out. of the three metropolitan 
 choirs—the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey 
 —the names of Bartleman, W. Knyvett, Vaughan, 
 and Sale appeared, but they attended only occa- 
 sionally, were unsupported when present, and 
 seemed as lights to show the dreariness that sur- 
 rounded them.t The performance of sacred music 
 continued to be encouraged in the provinces. The 
 “‘ Meetings” at Worcester, Gloucester, and Here- 
 ford were most laudably kept up, but with varying 
 
 * See ante, p. 883. 
 
 + In justice, however, to those who have had the government of our 
 choirs at a later period, it is right to say thata great improvement 
 has now taken place. St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, led the way 
 about a dozen years ago; Exeter and Canterbury followed; and West- 
 minster Abbey has become a model which ought to be imitated in ald 
 British cathedrals where there is a wish to attract congregations, and 
 to give due effect to that admirable music composed for them, and 
 which can only in such structures be heard to full advantage. The 
 choir service is now spreading widely over the kingdom, and its 
 beneficial results are generally felt and acknowledged. 
 
904 
 
 success; and the triennial “ Festival” at Bir- 
 mingham never failed to add largely to the funds 
 of the great hospital of that important town. The 
 Oratorios, as they still were called, were carried 
 on at one or other of the winter theatres, and 
 sometimes at both, but had degenerated into con- 
 certs of a hybrid kind, in which was intermixed a 
 large proportion of what at that time pleased the 
 multitude, and drove away all who had any pre- 
 tensions to musical taste. Now and then, how- 
 ever, a better spirit shed its influence over the 
 managers, and to one of them * we are indebted 
 for the first performance in this country of the 
 ‘Messiah,’ with Mozart’s modest but exquisite 
 additional accompaniments, and for Beethoven’s 
 greatest vocal work, ‘The Mount of Olives.’ 
 
 The noble directors of the Ancient Concerts did 
 not relax in their efforts to uphold the dignity and 
 promote the usefulness of the institution. The 
 royal family never failed to attend, so long as the 
 mental health of the king, a great lover of Handel’s 
 music, permitted. But, though the prince regent 
 —who could not endure the restraint imposed on 
 him by an appearance in public—never honoured 
 these performances by his presence, they were not 
 the less attended by the higher orders, and conti- 
 nued, as it isto be hoped they will long remain, 
 the bulwark against the attacks of capricious 
 fashion. The Vocal Concerts went on, supported 
 by the admirers of glees, and of the lighter kind of 
 vocal music. ‘The managers, however, after a 
 time split into two parties, and commenced a 
 public competition. But the unprofitableness of 
 this soon became apparent; the rivals + entered 
 into a coalition, and carried on the performances to 
 the end of the season of 1815, when they alto- 
 gether ceased. The public had begun to manifest 
 symptoms of weariness at the sameness which they 
 had long only tolerated; but the Vocal Concerts 
 received their death-wound from a new institution 
 which suddenly rose up, and as suddenly com- 
 manded the support of nearly all the real connois- 
 seurs that the metropolis contained. 
 
 This institution, which speedily was, by uni- 
 versal consent, ranked as the first in Europe, and 
 soon became the parent of many concerts esta- 
 blished not only in England but in several of the 
 continental cities, assumed the appellation of ‘ The 
 Philharmonic Society.” Its primary aim was to 
 revive a taste for instrumental music of a high 
 order, which, on the cessation of Salomon’s con- 
 certs, had fallen into neglect, and to make known 
 to this country, and render generally appreciable, 
 those grand orchestral works of the great masters 
 which had either never been heard in London or 
 so performed as to be scarcely intelligible. The 
 society was formed in the early part of the year 
 1813, and consisted of thirty of the principal 
 members of the musical profession, who “ not only 
 agreed to give the gratuitous aid of their united 
 
 * Sir George Smart. 
 7 Messrs. Harrison, Bartleman, Greatorex, and three Knyvetts.— 
 See ante, p, 881, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 nn nnn nnn nnn a ee 
 
 _ {Book X. 
 
 services, but entered into a subscription to meet 
 the incidental expenses.’’* The first concert took 
 place on the 8th of March, 1813, and produced a 
 sensation that had never been equalled since the 
 Commemoration of Handel in 1784. The con- 
 certs were held at the old Argyll Rooms; and, 
 when, on the formation of Regent-street, these 
 rooms were rebuilt on a large scale and in a splen- 
 did manner, the performances were continued 
 there, the band was augmented, and the number of 
 auditors was doubled.{ During a period of more 
 than twenty years a subscription ticket of admit- 
 tance was not obtained but with great difficulty, 
 and the most celebrated performers, from every 
 part of the world, were emulous of exhibiting their 
 talents at a concert which conferred a reputation 
 on all who were heard at it. In its third year a 
 schism threatened the permanence of the society, 
 and an opposition was, for a single season—that of 
 1816—attempted, under the revived name of ‘ The 
 Professional Concert ;’ but it was vigorously re- 
 sisted, and the few seceders from the parent society 
 were glad to be received again into its bosom.§ 
 During the eighteen years over which the pre- 
 sent portion of our history spreads, the Italian 
 Opera exhibited those fluctuations common to this 
 theatre, which partly are attributable to the mcon- 
 stancy of fashion, but far more to the ability or 
 the unskilfulness of its managers. Mad. Banti, a 
 grand singer, though an indifferent musician, kept 
 possession of the stage till the close of the season 
 of 1802. In her last year she was joined by Mrs. 
 Billington, whose powers of execution and refined 
 taste have never been surpassed. In 1804 Mad. 
 Grassini was added to the company. Her voice 
 was a rich contralto, her figure and action were 
 noble, and her pathos was deeply affecting. Such 
 a pair, aided by Braham, Viganoni, and Rovedino, 
 enabled the manager to produce, in the most 
 efficient manner and under the composer’s direc- 
 tion, Winter’s charming operas, Proserpina, Ca- 
 lypso, and Zaira; as also Cimarosa’s Orazi e 
 Curtazt, and the 7ito of Mozart, whose name now 
 for the first time appeared at the king’s theatre, 
 an introduction for which the subscribers were in- 
 debted to Mrs. Billington, a thoroughly educated 
 musician, who produced that fine opera for her 
 benefit in 1806. But the public were not yet pre- 
 
 * Harmonicon, xi. 4.—*‘ The direction of the concert for the first 
 season was confided to Messrs. Ayrton, Bishop, Clementi, Corri, 
 J.B. Cramer, F. Cramer, and Dance, Virtuosi who could elsewhere 
 appear only as leaders here took in their turns the subordinate 
 stations; and such masters of their art as Salomon, Viotti, F. Cramer, 
 Shield, Spagnoletti, Vaccari, Yaniewicz, &c., were seen vying with 
 each other which should contribute most to the general effect of the 
 performances,”’—Ibid. 
 
 + See Morning Chronicle, March 10, 1813. 
 
 } The original Argyll Rooms, constructed by Colonel Greville for 
 the Pic-Nic Society, accommodated about 400 persons. 
 rebuilt in 1820, under the direction of Mr. Nash, by a company of 
 twenty professors of music, at an enormous expense, and were in an 
 unaccountable manuer destroyed by fire in 1830. The Philharmonic 
 Society then removed to the great room in the King’s Theatre, and 
 afterwards to the Hanover Square Rooms, where its performances are 
 still carried on, ! 
 
 § This dissension was fomented by a most unworthy member, who 
 shortly after was obliged to abscond to America. His confederate in 
 the business (not a member) decamped, a few years later, to Paris, 
 pole ng betrayed the trust reposed in him as a public officer, and there 
 
 ied. 
 
 They were — 
 
Cuap. XII.) 
 
 pared for a work of so high an order ; and the Ita- 
 lians have ever abhorred music that cost them some 
 trouble to learn: it was, therefore, altered to meet 
 the general wish, as well as to adapt it to the 
 means which the orchestra then afforded; and, 
 after all, it yielded in attraction to a pasticcio, Il 
 Fanatico per la Musica, in which the buffo, 
 Naldi, made his début. The season 1806-1807 
 was remarkable for the first appearance of Madame 
 Catalani, a singer who, “‘ take her for all in all,” 
 says an experienced critic, ‘“‘ her perfections and 
 errors weighed against each other, has had no 
 equal in our time. . . . . Into whatever she 
 did she threw her whole soul; imparted her emo- 
 tions to the breasts of her hearers, aud carried them 
 away, willing and delighted captives to her en- 
 chantments.”* Her demands at length became so 
 startling, and her conditions so despotic, that the 
 manager resolved, in the seasons of 1809 and 1810, 
 to decline her services; but he had cause to regret 
 his temerity, and, during three more years, the 
 “ admired of all”? reigned triumphant. In 1811 
 Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and Zauberflite were 
 heard for the first time on this stage; but, though 
 both were given under many disadvantages, 
 the latter particularly, yet no blunders in the 
 getting-up, no imperfections in the singers, could 
 so disguise such works as to conceal charms that 
 threw all other composers into the shade. In 
 1812 the Nozze di Figaro of the same master 
 was brought out, Catalani as Susanna, who now 
 also took the part of Vileldia,in Tito, and with her 
 accustomed success; though both operas suffered 
 severely by her arbitrary mode of treating them. 
 This extraordinary artiste retiring at the close of 
 the season of 1813, the theatre lost its chief attrac- 
 tion, and the three following years proved blanks, 
 so far as relates to music; and the two last very 
 materially damaged the new entrepreneur (a man 
 wholly unqualified for the task), both in purse 
 and reputation. In preparing, therefore, for the 
 season of 1817, he called to his assistance a gen- 
 tleman}t who had bestowed much of his attention 
 on the Italian opera, and the affairs of the king’s 
 theatre. Under the title of ‘‘ Director,’ he under- 
 took the management of the opera for the season 
 of 1817, and, collecting abroad a company which, 
 as a whole, had never before been equalled in this 
 country,t was successful in retrieving both the 
 pecuniary affairs and the character of the theatre. 
 The great feature of the season, and the triumph 
 of the Italian opera, was Mozart’s Don Giovanni, 
 a work which, from the complexity of some of its 
 parts, and the difficulty of the whole, had baffled 
 all attempts—except when given at Prague, under 
 the composer’s superintendence—to perform it as 
 originally written. An intrigue was got up to 
 prevent the production of this chef-d’euvre, and 
 the director had to encounter many harassing im- 
 
 * Harmonicon, vol, viii. p. 72. 
 
 + Mr. Ayrton. 
 
 ~ Mesdames Fodor, Camporese, and Pasta; Signors Crivelli (the 
 
 elder), Naldi, Ambrogetti, and Augrisani. Mr. Weichsel was Te- 
 stored as leader of the band, and Signor Liverati was conductor. 
 
 ne a er ote ee 
 
 LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND FINE ARTS :—1801-1814. 
 
 905 
 
 pediments ; but, determined to attain his object, 
 and aided by the zealous co-operation of nearly all 
 the performers, he overcame every difficulty, and 
 accomplished his design.* Besides this immortal 
 work, three other operas by the same master were 
 given in their perfect state; and Agnese, Paer’s 
 masterpiece, was produced for the first time in 
 England.t The following three years witnessed 
 an attempt to go on without the assistance of a 
 director; and, though two of Rossini’s best operas 
 were given, and were not only novelties, but va- 
 luable ones, the general management was so un- 
 satisfactory that the subscribers became discon- 
 tented, and, at a public meeting convened for the 
 purpose, remonstrated ; many withdrew: each 
 season proved worse than the preceding one; that 
 of 1820 terminated abruptly ; and the unfortunate 
 proprietor retired to the Continent, whence he 
 never returned.t 
 
 Drury-lane did not, during the whole of this 
 period, produce one entire musical work capable 
 of sustaining a permanent reputation; though 
 several pieces in Mr. Braham’s operas will, in a 
 detached form, long retain a portion of that popu- 
 larity which they at first enjoyed, and which has 
 rarely been equalled.§ Very different was the fate 
 of Covent-garden, in which Mr. Bishop’s talent was 
 chiefly exhibited, and where he continued to dis- 
 play his abilities till far beyond the close of the 
 period under review. Of his numerous operas 
 there is scarcely one that does not contain com- 
 positions which will transmit his name to pos- 
 terity. The Lyceum theatre, in the Strand, was 
 licensed in 1809 for the exclusive performance of 
 English operas during the summer season. The 
 attempt of the proprietor, Mr. Arnold, was highly 
 laudable, but only negatively successful. The 
 theatre was rebuilt, in a very commodious hand- 
 some manner, in 1816, and its proposed object 
 pursued for a time with more activity and con- 
 sistency than profit.|| 
 
 The two clubs established for the encourage- 
 ment of our truly national harmony, the English 
 glee, continued in full activity; but except some 
 very fine additions to their stock, contributed by 
 Mr. Horsley, and a few by Mr. Attwood and Mr. 
 Bishop, the catalogue of these social and delightful 
 compositions was not swelled out to any extent 
 worth mentioning. 
 
 * The most efficient of the performers on this occasion was Signor 
 Ambrogetti, who, as an actor, was allowed to be the greatest ornament 
 that the Italian stage ever had boasted. 
 
 + This work promised a most successful career; but the principal 
 character, Uberto, a maniac, created such painful associations in more 
 than one royal breast, and in the minds of many attached friends of 
 the suffering monarch, that it was after a few representations with- 
 drawn. The acting of Signor Ambrogetti in this, as the distracted 
 father, was declared by Mrs, Siddons to be the perfection of the his- 
 trionic art. 
 
 t It is calculated that the law expenses of the King’s Theatre had 
 amounted, in 1840, to more than twice the value of the estate !—never- 
 theless, though fortunes have been lost in that house, it has enriched 
 the few who knew how to manage it. 
 
 § Drury-lane theatre was burnt down in February, 1809, and was 
 rebuilt and opened in 1812, under the management of Mr. Arnold. 
 Covent-garden had met the same fate in September, 18c8 It was re- 
 built and opened in 1810. : 
 
 | In 1830 this elegant theatre was destroyed by fire. The present 
 handsome structure was erected and opened in 1834. 
 
CHAPTER XIIL 
 THE HISTORY OF MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 1785-1801. 
 
 HE time which elapsed 
 between the recognition 
 =— of American independ- 
 ’ ence and the peace of 
 Amiens was too brief to 
 admit of any of those 
 glaring changes in national 
 customs and manners which 
 t catch the eyes of the most 
 =} unobservant; but, to those who 
 observe more minutely, this 
 period is interesting on account of the great 
 alteration which was silently being brought 
 about, amid the tempestuous political discussions 
 which diverted attention from it. 
 
 The court continued domestic in its habits, 
 homely almost in its tastes. The Diary of Ma- 
 dame D’Arblay, who at the commencement of 
 this period was a personal attendant of the queen, 
 has thrown considerable light upon the pursuits 
 and etiquette of the circle immediately surround- 
 ing royalty. The king was illiterate; he relished 
 neither poetry nor science. His patronage of the 
 arts of design was little more than an exercise of 
 his strong self-will, For music alone of all the 
 fine arts can he be said to have had a taste, and it 
 was with him a passion. He was a keen sports- 
 man, an enthusiastic farmer, a great gossip. His 
 narrow-minded but sincere piety kept him strictly 
 decorous in regard to social morals; and his strong 
 sense of kingly dignity prevented his gossiping 
 habits from being carried to an extent that would, 
 as in the case of James L, have rendered the 
 wearer of the crown ridiculous. The queen’s 
 character has scarcely had justice done to it. 
 Her letter to the King of Prussia when quite a 
 girl, indicates a vein of romance in her character. 
 She had a taste for literature and science, and 
 indulged in it. Bryant was a favourite; De 
 Luc was her constant attendant—“the queen’s 
 philosopher,’ as the Duke of Clarence called 
 him: she chose the author of Evelina for her 
 bedchamber-woman; and, when that lady retired 
 on account of ill-health, her successor was a 
 niece of the celebrated Jacobi. The queen was 
 fond of being read to, and of reading aloud 
 herself; and De Lucs ‘Lettres Physiques et 
 Morales,’ which were addressed to her, convey 
 a favourable idea of her tastes and intelligence. 
 But her education as daughter of the poor 
 
 prince of an inconsiderable territory had impressed 
 her with views of economy which, however praise- 
 worthy they might have been in a private indivi- 
 dual, were a vice in a queen; and through force of 
 habit they grew stronger as she advanced in years. 
 She considered it her duty as a wife and a subject to 
 acquiesce implicitly in the tastes and opinions of 
 her husband, and she exerted a will as powerful and 
 pertinacious as his own to render this obedience 
 perfect. The entire union of two such strong-willed, 
 decorous, and narrow-minded characters gave the 
 tone at court. Save for particular favourites and 
 immediate attendants of royalty it was not easily 
 accessible. The king and queen were frequent in 
 their attendance at church, the theatres, and other 
 public places; levees and drawing-rooms were 
 duly held, and on these occasions of exhibition all 
 the formality and state of the preceding reigns 
 were kept up. But the royal pair had a different 
 character when they laid aside their robes of state ; 
 when the crowd was shut out they were plain, even 
 parsimonious, in their domestic economy. ‘Their 
 household differed only from that ot any wealthy 
 nobleman in the almost Spanish stiffness with 
 which the characters of king and queen were never 
 for a moment laid aside. 
 
 Perhaps no line of conduct could have done 
 more to secure the throne at that epoch. The 
 domestic and unostentatious habits of the king and 
 queen flattered the middle class; their exclusive- 
 ness kept their homely court as much an object of 
 distant awe as a more gorgeous one could have 
 been ; and their severe decorum contrasted favour- 
 ably with the licentiousness of foreign courts, and 
 the equal licentiousness of the democratic leaders 
 of France, in the eyes of the British people, in 
 whom the rival efforts of the dissenters and 
 Wesleyans had kept alive or rather re-created a 
 strong admixture of puritanism. The deportment 
 of the king and queen was something so new in 
 crowned heads, that at the commencement of the 
 reign it rather occasioned coldness and dislike on 
 the part of the people. But as it became an old 
 familiar thing men were at last reconciled to it. 
 The convulsions of France induced the timid and 
 the quiet to cling more closely to the throne. 
 And, lastly, the awful visitation of mental obscurity 
 with which the king was visited, blending com- 
 passion with other feelings, rendered the royal 
 pair eminently popular. Two of the many in- 
 
nm rrr eet err Sn a RET aE EO BTS 
 
 Cuap. XIII.] 
 
 stances of this popularity recorded by Madame 
 a’Arblay will serve to indicate the fervent loyalty 
 of the people (from which the influence of the 
 court over the imitative propensities of men may 
 be inferred), and also the taste and intelligence of 
 the masses at that time. 
 
 In July, 1789, Madame d’Arblay, then in at- 
 tendance on the queen, followed the court to 
 Weymouth :—“ His majesty is in delightful health. 
 The loyalty of all this place is excessive: they 
 have dressed out every street with labels of ‘ God 
 save the king;’ all the shops have it over their 
 doors ; all the children wear it in their caps ; all 
 the labourers in their hats; and all the sailors in 
 their voices, for they never approach the house 
 without shouting it aloud, nor see the king or his 
 shadow without beginning to huzza, and going on 
 into three cheers. The bathing-machines make it 
 their motto over all the windows; and those 
 bathers who belong to the royal dippers wear it 
 in bandeaus on their bonnets to go into the sea, 
 and have it again in large letters round their 
 waists to encounter the waves. Flannel dresses 
 tucked up, and no shoes or stockings, with ban- 
 deaus and girdles, have a most singular appear- 
 ance; and when first I surprised these loyal 
 nymphs it was with some difficulty I kept my 
 features in order. Nor is this all. Think but of 
 the surprise of his majesty, when, the first time of 
 bathing, he had no sooner popped his royal head 
 under water than a band of music, concealed in a 
 neighbouring machine, struck up ‘ God save great 
 George our king.” In August, 1791, the same 
 lady, after resigning her appointment about the 
 queen’s person, visited Sidmouth, and there 
 gleaned from the life of the poorer classes their 
 feelings and conduct in 1789. ‘* A poor woman 
 said ‘ she had holiday enough upon the king’s re- 
 covery, fox there was such a holiday then, as the 
 like was not in all England. A baker-woman 
 baked 110 penny-loaves for the poor ; the gentry 
 roasted a bullock whole; we had a sermon made 
 us all cry.2 They had ‘the king drawn and 
 dressed up all in gold and laurels, and put him in 
 a coach and eight horses, and carried him about ; 
 and all the grand gentlemen in the town came in 
 their own carriages to join.” And they had the 
 finest band of music in all England, singing ‘God 
 save the king;’? and every soul joined in the 
 chorus, and all ‘ not so much because he was a 
 king, but because they said he was such a worthy 
 gentleman, and the like of him was never known 
 in this realm before ; so we all subscribed for the 
 illuminations for that reason—some one shilling, 
 some one guinea, and some a penny—for no one 
 begrudged it as a was such a worthy person.’ ”’ 
 
 The higher aristocracy began about this time to 
 withdraw themselves more and more from the 
 public eye. The old houses kept aloof from the nu- 
 merous new creations, and nourished, in the quiet 
 way which becomes a country with a tolerably 
 strong police, their old family feuds. Mixing less 
 frankly than formerly with the public, they did not 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1785-1801. 
 
 associate with each other, but every family groupe 
 
 Er a a er ee oe ae Hd ere Se 
 
 907 
 
 maintained a kind of isolated state. The external 
 badges of rank were in a great measure laid aside 
 as inconsistent with the prevailing tone of society. 
 The great wealth of the nobility, their influence as 
 legislators, and occupants of administrative posts 
 in the provinces, rendered them still powerful ; 
 and this withdrawing in a manner from public 
 observation when democratic views were rife ren- 
 dered them less obnoxious. ‘The domesticity of 
 the nobles, like that of the king, preserved their 
 influence at that crisis. Itat the same time served 
 to strengthen an unostentatious citizenlike deport- 
 ment, and citizen standard of morality among all 
 the easy classes, which, from various causes, was 
 rapidly spreading through society. 
 
 The representatives of the gay and courtly 
 circles of former days still occupied a large space 
 in the public eye, but, being now something apart 
 from the court and the old nobility, they were 
 more objects of wonder than of imitation. <A few 
 members of the great families—some so long ac- 
 customed to dissipation that they could not accom- 
 modate themselves to the tone of the new world, 
 some young and light-hearted and carried away 
 by their volatile spirits—were to be found among 
 them. But the mass of this circle was composed 
 of the wearers of new titles, the rich parvenus, 
 the busy political intriguers, and such other noto- 
 rieties. A good deal of the coarseness and licen- 
 tiousness which had characterised the fashionables 
 of the preceding generation still clung to this class, 
 though even in them it was held in check by the 
 growing decorum of general society, and the in- 
 creased daring of the personalities of the press and 
 print-shop. The alien temper of the court had 
 the effect of making opposition politics to a great 
 extent fashionable with this gay class. ‘The appe- 
 tite for pleasure, and aversion to control, natural 
 to youth, rendered this kind of society attractive 
 to the young princes. The injudicious severity 
 of their parents for a time converted this dif- 
 ference of tastes into an overt rebellion. The 
 fashionable world rejoiced to increase its influence 
 by enlisting into its ranks the heir of the throne 
 and his brothers. The political rouds played a 
 double game; they identified themselves with 
 fashionable follies at once as a matter of taste and 
 in the hope that it would ingratiate them with the 
 future monarch. 
 
 Among those who lent a charm to this circle by 
 their wit and talents the most prominent perhaps 
 at this time were Fox and Sheridan. Burke and 
 Windham seceded on account of their political 
 differences during the period now under review. 
 But the most dazzling figure of the group was the 
 accomplished, high-spirited, beautiful, and daring 
 Duchess of Devonshire.* Madame D’Arblay, by 
 no means partial to any thing or person not in fa- 
 
 * Who blessed the chapel, blessed the platform wild 
 Where once the Austrian fell 
 Beneath the shaft of Tell; 
 and kissed a chimney-sweep to gain the election of her favourite can- 
 didate. 
 
908 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 vour at court, describes the impression made upon 
 her by this lady at two visits—one in the month of 
 August, 1791: ‘I did not find so much beauty in 
 her as I expected, notwithstanding the variation 
 of accounts; but I found far more of manner, po- 
 liteness, and gentle quiet. She seems by nature 
 to possess the highest animal spirits, but she ap- 
 peared to me not happy. I thought she looked 
 oppressed within, though there is a native cheer- 
 fulness about her which [I fancy scarce ever deserts 
 her. There is in her face, especially when she 
 speaks, a sweetness of goodhumour and obliging- 
 ness that seem to be the natural and instinctive 
 qualities of her disposition; joined to an openness 
 of countenance that announces her endowed by 
 nature with a character intended wholly for ho- 
 nesty, fairness, and good purposes.” In the Sep- 
 tember immediately following, “1 now saw the 
 duchess far more easy and lively in her spirits, 
 and consequently far more lovely in her person. 
 Vivacity is so much her characteristic that her 
 style of beauty requires it indispensably; the 
 beauty, indeed, dies away without it. I now saw 
 how her fame for personal charms had been ob- 
 tained ; the expression of her smiles is so very 
 sweet, and has an ingenuousness and openness so 
 singular that, taken in these moments, not the 
 most rigid critic could deny the justice of her per- 
 sonal celebrity. She was quite gay, easy, and 
 Charming; indeed the last epithet might have 
 been coined for her.” A strange groupe clustered 
 around this being, meant by nature for something 
 better than a mere queen of fashion. On a foot- 
 ing of equality were such characters as the mascu- 
 line-minded scheming Duchess of Gordon, and the 
 Countess of Buckinghamshire, divided between 
 private theatricals and faro. ‘The present is the 
 latest period at which habitual high play noto- 
 riously retained a footing in the private houses of 
 the nobility. The caricatures of Gilray record its 
 latest devotees among the females of fashion. But 
 the more prosaic annals of the police-office also 
 tell their tale:—‘‘ 11th March, 1797. At the po- 
 lice-office in Marlborough-street, Lady Buck- 
 inghamshire, Lady E. Luttrell, and Mrs. Sturt, 
 were convicted before N. Conant and T. Robin- 
 son, Esqs., in the penalty of 50/. each for playing 
 at the game of faro; and Henry Martindale was 
 convicted in the sum of 200/. for keeping the faro- 
 table in Lady Buckinghamshire’s house. The 
 witnesses were two ci-devant servants of Lady 
 Buckinghamshire. There were informations 
 against Mr. Carcannon and O’Byrne for similar 
 offences. Both the defendants paid the penalty.’* 
 Some remarks made by Lord Kenyon in summing 
 up a case in 1796 have been quoted as a proof that 
 gaming among the upper classes was on the in- 
 crease at this time. The words were, ‘Gaming 
 is prevalent among the highest ranks of society, 
 who have set the example to their inferiors, and 
 who, it seems, are too great for the law;”? and “If 
 any prosecutions are fairly brought before me and 
 * Annual Register for 1797. 
 
 De ELIANA OEE OE Rg Ot VN ae 
 
 rank or station in the country, be they the highest 
 ladies in the Jand, they shall certainly exhibit 
 themselves in the pillory.”? There was quite as 
 much of the courtier as the austere judge in these 
 remarks, for not only was the vice denounced dis- 
 countenanced at court, but the circle to which it was 
 confined—small in proportion to that of gamesters 
 in any previous age—were personally distasteful 
 to the king and queen, and on the other hand un- 
 popular with the general public. The speech was 
 merely one among many proofs that society had 
 grown ashamed of the vice, that its hold on men 
 was weakened. At comparatively humble distance, 
 and in character still more remote from the better 
 natures, like the Duchess of Devonshire, who lent 
 a grace to this gay circle, were the last examples 
 of a class who, under the last of the Stuarts and 
 even the first Georges, had brazened it at court. 
 A ludicrous example of their tastes and» pursuits 
 occurs in a newspaper paragraph of 1802, con- 
 nected with a name which, however unworthily, 
 will live as long as that of one of Britain’s most 
 cherished heroes. ‘* 8th March, 1802. The epi- 
 cures are probably to be gratified by Lady Ha- 
 milton as much as antiquarians have been by Sir 
 William’s researches in Italy, by her reviving an 
 ancient dainty. Inthe manifest of the ‘ Shelburne,’ 
 Captain Happs, from Sicily and Mahon, entered 
 at the custom-house, there appears a case of sow’s 
 udders, a present for Lady Hamilton.” Lady 
 Hamilton’s first appearance before the British 
 public was about the year 1783, when in the em- 
 ployment of Graham, the famous quack, she, as 
 ** Hebe Vestina, delivered a lecture from the elec- 
 trical throne of health in London.” ; 
 The motley classes composing the gay world 
 had their influence on the tone of society weakened 
 by their being out of favour at court. On the other 
 hand, it was undermined by the operation of two 
 widely different principles, which conspired to 
 spread the pursuits and standard of morals, 
 hitherto deemed characteristic of citizens, upwards 
 into the ranks of aristocracy. The devotional cha- 
 racter of Methodism had become much sobered 
 among its wealthier professors, and had assumed a 
 more practical turn. Mrs. Hannah More’s writ- 
 ings and Mrs. Trimmer’s Sunday-schools were a 
 consequence of this change. These ladies were 
 countenanced by the court originally from pure 
 sympathy with their views and feelings. In 1790 
 Mrs. Trimmer was honoured by the queen with an 
 interview at Windsor. Congenial tastes and the 
 approbation of royalty confirmed the loyal senti- 
 ments of this portion of the religious public, and 
 at the same time rendered them fashionable. The 
 political influence of Wilberforce and others of 
 their leaders made them powerful. Their exam- 
 ple, their conversation and writings, raised the 
 standard of public decorum, and spread the taste 
 for domestic pursuits, or affectation of it, recom- 
 mended by the example of this court. This fashion 
 was not, however, confined to the court party; 
 
 ea I ie a ee 
 
 the parties are convicted, whatever may be their 
 
 SE ee 
 
 | 
 | 
 
Cuap. XIII. ] 
 
 one of the most amiable examples of this class was 
 the mother of the dashing Duchess of Devonshire, 
 a lady whose pursuits and whose character, both 
 in its strength and weakness, have been truly 
 and pleasingly drawn by Madame D’Arblay. 
 “ Lady Spencer”—the date is 1791—“‘ named with 
 much regard Miss Trimmer, eldest daughter of the 
 exceedingly worthy Mrs. Trimmer, with a regard 
 that seemed quite affectionate. She told me that 
 this young lady had the care of the young Lady 
 Cavendishes, but was in every respect treated as 
 one of themselves. The name of Mrs. Trimmer 
 led us to the Sunday-schools and schools of in- 
 dustry. They are both in a very flourishing state 
 at Bath, and Lady Spencer has taken one school 
 under her own immediate patronage. On Sunday 
 she sent me a message upstairs to say she would 
 take me to the Sunday-school if I felt well enough 
 to desire it...... It was a most interesting sight, 
 such a number of poor innocent children all put 
 in a way of right, most taken immediately from 
 every way of wrong, lifting up their little hands to 
 heaven, and joining in those prayers for mercy and 
 grace, which, even if they understood not, must at 
 least impress them with a general idea of religion, 
 a dread of evil and a love of good........ Lady 
 Spencer is a sensible and sagacious character, in- 
 telligent, polite, and agreeable; and she spends 
 her life in such exercises of active charity and zeal, 
 that she would be one of the most exemplary wo- 
 men of rank of the age had she less of show in her 
 exertions and more of forbearance in publishing 
 them. My dear oracle [Mrs. Delany], however, 
 once said, vain-glory must not be despised or dis- 
 couraged when it operated but as a human engine 
 for great or good ends.” 
 
 The other principle alluded to as actively con- 
 tributing to diffuse the homely citizen tone through 
 society, was the universally prevalent taste for me- 
 chanical inquiries and pursuits. That portion of 
 the Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth which 
 was written by himself contains the most graphic 
 picture of its influence. Common intellectual 
 
 tastes formed a bond of union between the gentry . 
 
 who, like Edgeworth, were passionately fond of 
 mechanics, or, like Sir John Sinclair, of agricul- 
 ture, and the wealthier plodding manufacturers and 
 agriculturists. Day, Darwin, Priestley, and others, 
 who combined speculative views in morals with a 
 taste for mechanical science, struck out a moral 
 and political creed which became common both to 
 the aristocratical and democratical sections of this 
 class, and promoted their fusion. Under such in- 
 fluence were moulded the opinions, tastes, and 
 habits of a third section of society, equally distinct 
 from the decorous loyalists who took their tone 
 from the court, and the rouds and demireps of the 
 liberal aristocratical school, the last representatives 
 of the courtiers of the reigns of Charles and Anne. 
 The old puritan party was the nucleus of this sec- 
 tion, and its leanings were more or less decidedly 
 republican: it affected the views and manners of 
 the French Girondists. In politics the allies of 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1785-1801. 
 
 909 
 
 the gay party opposed to the court, in morals sym- 
 pathising with the court party, they could blend 
 with neither. 
 
 The progress of events in France contributed by 
 external pressure to combine these heterogeneous 
 elements inte one general conventional system of 
 exclusively English manners. The staid citizens 
 were startled by the fierce revolutionary energies 
 of France, and sought refuge from them by cling- 
 ing to the throne. The more timid of the oppo- 
 sition party of the aristocracy followed a similar 
 course. A strongly pronounced sentiment of ~na- 
 tionality was found to be the most conducive to 
 harmony among the new allies. The emigrants 
 who flocked from France were received coldly in 
 the domestic circles of England. The gay liber- 
 tinism of the old courtiers was repulsive to the 
 prudery of the English court. The most moderate 
 of the liberal nobility were shunned because they 
 were looked upon as having helped to bring about 
 the revolution. The emigrants who, like Talley- 
 rand and Madame de Genlis, were identified 
 with its excesses, were publicly insulted. French 
 royalists, constitutionalists, and Jacobins found 
 themselves alike under the ban of English 
 society. With the exception of a few political 
 leaders and the mass of the suffering and dis- 
 contented, the insular exclusiveness of John Bull 
 was exaggerated to a pitch it had never previously 
 attained. 
 
 Some idea of the extent to which the isolation of 
 the exceptional parties was carried may be formed 
 from the close of a letter from Dr. Burney to his 
 daughter, written in the end of January, 1793, a 
 few days after the arrival of the news of the execu- 
 tion of Louis XVI. :— At the club (the Literary 
 Club), on Tuesday, the fullest I ever knew, con- 
 sisting of fifteen members, fourteen seemed all of 
 one mind, and full of reflections on the lute trans- 
 actions in France; but, when about half the com- 
 pany were assembled, who should come in but 
 Charles Fox! There were already three or four 
 bishops arrived, hardly one of whom, I believe, 
 could look at him without horror. After the first 
 bow and cold salutation, the conversation stood 
 still for several minutes. During; dinner Mr. 
 Windham and Burke, jun. came in, who were 
 obliged to sit at a side-table. All were boutonnés, 
 and not a word of the martyred king, or politics of 
 any kind was mentioned; and, though the com- 
 pany was chiefly composed of the most eloquent 
 and loquacious men in the kingdom, the conversa- 
 tion was the dullest and most uninteresting I ever 
 remember, at this or any such large meeting. 
 Mr. Windham and Fox, civil—young Burke and 
 he never spoke; the Bishop of Peterborough as 
 sulky as the devil ; the Bishop of Salisbury, more 
 a man of the world, very cheerful; the Bishop of 
 Dromore frightened as much as a barn-door fowl 
 at the sight of a fox; Bishop Marlow preserved 
 his usual pleasant countenance. Steevens in the 
 chair; the Duke of Leeds on his right, and Fox on 
 his left, said not a word. Lords Ossory and 
 
910 
 
 Lucan—formerly much attached, seemed silent 
 and sulky.’’* 
 
 It became the fashion to look down upon every 
 other land as worthless; the conventional domestic 
 morals and manners of Britain were esteemed per- 
 fect and alone in the world. Apprehensions of in- 
 vasion, which brought the whole of the upper and 
 middle classes under arms, lent strength and energy 
 to this feeling. The awkward citizen soldiers were 
 then and still are laughed at. The ignorant contempt 
 entertained for other nations has justly drawn upon 
 the English nationality of that day many a pier- 
 cing arrow of sarcasm. The prevailing tone of 
 morality was eminently sectarian, narrow, and 
 unelevated. But there was an energy in the peo- 
 ple which has rendered it respected; and in its 
 higher and more widely-spread tone of domestic 
 purity, in its humane regard for the poor, the ig- 
 norant, and even the criminal, and in its chivalrous 
 martial spirit there was much that entitled it to 
 respect. In this new tone of national manners the 
 most discordant ingredients were fused into a har- 
 monious whole—the affected homeliness of the 
 modern republican, the quietism of the Moravian, 
 and the martial loyalty of the cavalier. 
 
 The public amusements of the period were 
 scarcely changed in name or form, but greatly mo- 
 dified in spirit. The theatre had become more 
 chaste and decorous. Among places of public 
 resort, Ranelagh was closed before the termination 
 of the century ; the Pantheon became a mere con- 
 cert room; and Vauxhall was abandoned to the 
 citizens. The increased domesticity of men’s ha- 
 bits, and the abandonment of external distinctions 
 of rank, created a distaste for miscellaneous assem- 
 blies and generated what has been called the ‘‘ ex- 
 clusive”? spirit. Routes and assemblies were 
 externally much the same as formerly, except in 
 regard to dress: in which the more convenient 
 habiliments of daily use which came gradually to 
 differ widely from those worn on state occasions 
 more frequently elbowed them in the meetings of 
 the gay and fashionable. The “court dress,” as 
 it is called, came to be reserved not merely for 
 the court, but-for public levees and drawing-rooms. 
 The change by which the modern dress superseded 
 the ancient, at balls and parties, was slow, and a 
 motley appearance was occasioned by the lingering 
 process of transition. The innovations in the forms 
 and arrangements of social intercourse were trivial, 
 as will appear from the following examples. 
 
 Madame D’Arblay’s Diary contains an account 
 of a “very fine public breakfast, given by Mrs. 
 Montague,” in May, 1792, which was then a no- 
 velty. The company first entered “the Feather 
 room,” which Cowper’s verse has immortalized ; 
 and “then made for the dining-room, which was 
 filled for a breakfast upon this occasion, and very 
 splendidly ; though to me, who have been long 
 familiar to sights and decorations, no show of this 
 sort is new or striking. The table was not a 
 
 * On the subject of the general horror excited in London by the 
 execution of Louis, see vol. v., p. 897. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 matter of indifference to the guests at large; and 
 it was so completely occupied by company seated 
 round it, that it was long before one vacant chair 
 could be seized, and this fell to the lot of Miss 
 Ord. The crowd of company was such that we 
 could only slowly make way in any part. There 
 could not be fewer than four or five hundred peo- 
 ple. It was like a full Ranelagh by daylight.... 
 We went round the rooms, which were well worth 
 examination and admiration, and we met friends 
 and acquaintances every other step... .. . Dr. 
 Russell was in high spirits, and laughed heartily 
 at seeing the prodigious meal most of the company 
 made of cold chicken, ham, fish, &c., and said he 
 should like to see Mrs. Montague make the expe- 
 riment of inviting all the same party to dinner, at. 
 three o’clock. ‘Oh! they would cry, ‘three 
 o’clock! What does she mean? who can dine at 
 three o’clock?—one has no appetite—one can’t 
 swallow a morsel— it’s altogether impossible !? 
 Yet, let her invite the same people, and give them 
 a dinner, while she calls it a breakfast, and see 
 but how prettily they can find appetites.”’ 
 
 The newspapers of March, 1802, record another 
 
 | innovation :—‘‘ This season has been marked by a 
 
 new species of entertainment common to the 
 fashionable world, called a Pic-nic supper. Of 
 the derivation of the word or who was the inventor, 
 we profess ourselves ignorant; but the nature of it 
 we can inform our readers, is as follows:—A Pic- 
 nic supper consists of a variety of dishes. The 
 subscribers to the entertainment have a bill of fare 
 presented to them, with a number against each 
 dish. The number of the lot which each draws 
 obliges him to provide the dish named against it, 
 and this he takes with him in his carriage or sends 
 by a servant. The proper variety is insured by 
 the talents of the maitre d’hétel, who draws up the 
 bill of fare.” 
 
 The increased spirit of gentleness and decorum 
 which characterized the easier classes had extended 
 itself much further. The gladiatorial displays of 
 prize-swordsmen had ceased. Bull-baiting and 
 pugilistic exhibitions survived, and the wayward- 
 ness of patrician youth resuscitated the latter and 
 carried it perhaps, for a time, to a greater excess 
 than it had ever before attained; but on the whole, 
 the taste for these rude amusements had become 
 
 so weak, even with the rabble, as to admit of their - 
 
 being in a great measure suppressed. The special 
 pleading of Windham in the House of Commons, 
 that they ought to be encouraged, was in itself a 
 proof that their day had gone past. 
 language of a theorist who had had few or no op- 
 portunities of witnessing their practical effects, and 
 therefore an indirect proof that they had become of 
 comparatively rare occurrence. Windham ad- 
 mired bull-baiting as Sir Walter Scott admired 
 Jacobitism, because he sawit from a distance with 
 its harsh features rendered indistinct. 
 
 During the whole of this period the assimilation 
 of the manners and customs of Scotland with those 
 of England had been advancing at a rapid rate. 
 
 It was the - 
 
Cuar. XII] 
 
 The youth of Sir Walter Scott witnessed the last 
 strongly distinctive marks, and much even of what 
 he has preserved he received from the traditions 
 of the preceding generation. ‘Two circumstances 
 promoted this change: the progress of trade and 
 manufactures, and the revolutionary war. The 
 pastoral countries of the south of Scotland and the 
 Highlands supplied more than their fair average of 
 soldiers, and the commissariat department, both of 
 the army and navy, was particularly attractive to 
 the sons of the burgesses in the smaller royal 
 burghs of Scotland. ‘This class had from the be- 
 ginning cherished more inclination for connecting 
 itself by traditionary pedigrees with the land-owning 
 class than was the case in England, and since the 
 Revolution a new class of landowners had sprung 
 into existence and importance, most of whom were 
 sprung from burgesses. The difference of caste 
 between the “ laird’ and the thriving “ burgess ”’ 
 was less than existed between the “squire”? and 
 the manufacturer. The quicker conveyance of 
 female gauds and fashions from the metropolis 
 to the country towns and rural parishes of Scot- 
 land, through the instrumentality of the half-war- 
 like, half-trading class alluded to, was peculiarly 
 instrumental in smoothing down external differ- 
 ences. At the same time, however, that the Scotch 
 were becoming more English, circumstances con- 
 spired to keep them English of an earlier date. 
 On the one hand the moral influence of the court 
 was less felt in the remoter districts of the king- 
 dom: on the other the secession of the severer 
 Calvinists from the Kirk had left amore accommo- 
 dating clergy. The young blood of Scotland, at 
 least among the gentry, was at this period subjected 
 to less restraint than it had ever formerly been. 
 The consequence was that, as the aristocracy of 
 England grew more moral, the aristocracy of Scot- 
 land grew less so. The country began to sow its 
 wild oats at too advanced anage. ‘The incidental 
 pictures of excess scattered through the biographies 
 and writings of Burns are not exaggerated. 
 
 In Ireland, which still retained a legislature as 
 well as a vice-regal government of its own, there 
 remained a more marked character of distinctive 
 nationality. The manners and customs of Ireland 
 during the period now under review were in little 
 if in anything altered from those of the preceding. 
 They may therefore be passed over without de- 
 scription. Faithful pictures of them will be found 
 in the writings of Miss Edgeworth, and clever 
 caricatures in those of most Irish novelists who 
 have succeeded her. 
 
 Although the period comprised in this portion 
 of our work extends only over sixteen years, an 
 almost entire change took place in costume during 
 the course of it. The French Revolution, which 
 broke out in 1789,- affected the fashionable as 
 much as the political world, and introduced the 
 modern muslin cravat,in which the chin was 
 sometimes buried, the stand-up collar, pantaloons 
 and Hessian boots, which we find caricatured in 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1785-1801. 
 
 911 
 
 1799, and round hats, which had been occasionally 
 worn in morning dress as early as the year 1780, 
 Scarlet coats were much in vogue about 1784-5. 
 An anecdote in the ‘ Life of Sir Astley Cooper,’ 
 lately published by his nephew, represents the 
 former as returning from a dancing academy 
 dressed in a scarlet coat, a three-cocked hat, a 
 black glazed stock, nankeen knee-breeches, and silk 
 stockings. Wigs had begun-to go out of fashion 
 as early as 1763, in which year the wig-makers 
 petitioned the king to support the trade by his 
 example. ‘The hair was a long time,” says 
 Malcolm, ‘ dressed or frizzed high on the head 
 like a negro’s wool, and perfectly whitened with 
 powder, and alternately plaited and turned up or 
 queued behind. ‘The powder-tax occurred, and 
 thousands of heads became in an instant black and 
 brown ; and, as the revolution in France deserved 
 imitation, the fierce republican head of Brutus 
 stared us full in the front.””* | 
 
 In 1785 the ladies wore gowns very nearly of 
 the same fashion as those of the present day, the 
 tight sleeve to the wrist, the waist rather long, 
 and the bell or pocket hoop giving scarcely more 
 amplitude to the skirts than is now imparted by 
 the crinolins and corded petticoats. The hair, 
 intensely powdered, was dressed, however, in 
 1785-6 in a most singular manner, presenting a 
 perfectly square appearance, whilst from behind a 
 quantity of ringlets fell as out of a frame upon the 
 shoulders. The hats became exceedingly broad 
 in the brims, and were profusely ornamented with 
 ribbons and sometimes with feathers. Very broad 
 sashes were worn round the waist, tied in large 
 bows behind, especially by young girls and chil- 
 dren. The years 1787 and 1788 present us with 
 heads dressed more in the cauliflower style, whilst 
 in some instances ringlets appear in front, and an 
 enormously long queue hangs down behind. About 
 this period, however, an improvement becomes 
 visible, which has been attributed to the taste of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica Kauffman, Hoppner, 
 and other portrait-painters of that day—the hair 
 being worn full and flowing in natural curls, but 
 still powdered. In 1789 we see the bouffante 
 or neckerchief so arranged as to give all the ladies 
 the appearance of pouter pigeons. In the example 
 we give, the lady’s hair is confined by a ribbon 
 inscribed ‘* Long live the king ;” his majesty 
 George III. having in that year, on the 23rd of 
 April, gone in public procession to St. Paul’s to 
 return thanks for his restoration to health. A hat 
 with a most absurd chimney-pot crown is visible 
 in the fashions of the same year. In 1790 we be- 
 gin to perceive the influence of the French Revo- 
 lution. Two of the caps of that date, of which we 
 give engravings, are exactly similar to those still 
 worn by the French peasantry. In 1793 hair-pow- 
 der was discarded by Queen Charlotte and the 
 Princesses. In 1795 and 11796, perhaps out of com- 
 pliment to the Prince of Wales, who was married 
 in the former year, we perceive the triple plume 
 
 * Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 356. 
 
912 
 
 of ostrich feathers in the hats of the ladies, and in 
 their turbans, another introduction of this period 
 when in court or ball costume. Some were con- 
 tent with a single upright feather. The spencer 
 appears about this time as a riding-habit, and 
 modern bonnets begin to supersede the hats. They 
 are exceedingly small, and some very ugly, like 
 jockey-caps, are seen in the fashions for 1799 and 
 1800. After 1796 the waist began to get much 
 shorter. Hoops were entirely discontinued except 
 at court. ‘Silks became unfashionable, and 
 printed calicoes and the finest white muslins were 
 substituted.”’ And, instead of the stiff corsages of 
 their mothers and grandmothers, the ladies rushed 
 almost into the opposite extreme, and wore scarcely 
 any stays at all. At the close of the eighteenth 
 century, indeed, England entered what may be 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 called a transition state of costume, which lasted 
 during the first twenty years of the present cen- 
 tury, our remarks upon which we of course re- 
 serve for our next Chapter on this subject. 
 
 With respect to the army, trifling changes were 
 continually taking place in the uniforms of the 
 different regiments ; but the general appearance of 
 the infantry towards the end of this century is 
 given in our engraving at page 78, ‘The cocked 
 hat was exchanged for a cap with a shade and a 
 brass plate in 1800. Some of the dragoon guards 
 wore short-skirted coatees in 1799. 
 
 So little alteration took place in the style of 
 English furniture till after the breaking out of the 
 French Revolution, that we shall reserve our re- 
 marks for our next section. 
 
 FASHIONS FROM 1785 TO 1801. 
 
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Cuap. XIII. ] . MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1785-1801. 
 
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HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
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 HISTORY OF ENGLA!? 
 
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Cuar. XIII] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1785-1801. 917 
 
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918 
 
 1801-1814.—The period at which our history 
 has now arrived is so recent—its habits and 
 modes of thought differ by such fine and scarcely 
 perceptible shades from our own—that the subject 
 of manners may be handled with more breadth 
 and generality than was possible on former 
 occasions, It was then necessary to dwell upon 
 many minutie, in order to transport the imagi- 
 nation of the reader back to the times described, 
 and call up their bodily presence before him. 
 Now we may assume that the more prominent 
 characteristics of the manners of the regency are 
 so much the same with those which still prevail 
 as to render such preparation unnecessary. 
 Perhaps the most striking change in the social 
 tone of Great Britain in progress during the 
 period which elapsed from the peace of Amiens 
 to the death of George III. was the result of the 
 renewed intercourse with the Continent. At the 
 commencement of the century there was an 
 almost complete cessation of intercourse between 
 the general publics of Great Britain and the 
 Continental states, This state of affairs continued, 
 and was indeed aggravated, during the empire 
 of Napoleon. The consequence was that the 
 self-admiration, the defiance and contempt of all 
 foreign modes and opinions, which has always 
 been a characteristic of John Bull, was probably 
 carried to a greater excess at the close of the 
 eighteenth andthe beginning of the nineteenth 
 centuries than at any former period. It was not 
 so boobyish and unintellectual a self-worship as 
 is portrayed in the country squires of Fielding 
 and Smollett; it had been polished by the minor 
 morals of Addison and Chesterfield ; but it was 
 quite as intense. This narrow-minded spirit first 
 began to give way during the Peninsular campaigns 
 of the Duke of Wellington. Curious civilians 
 occasionally ventured to follow in the rear of the 
 army; and there was always a floating balance 
 of Peninsular officers, dispatched on business or 
 invalided, passing between Spain and England. 
 By such agencies the sympathies of England and 
 the southern continent were in a manner re-knit. 
 As Russia, Germany, and Sweden successively fell 
 off from the French alliance or subjection, a 
 wider and wider field opened to tourists; and the 
 renewed opportunities of travelling were embraced 
 with an eagerness the natural consequence of 
 long privation. After the first abdication of 
 Napoleon, and still more after the battle of 
 Waterloo, the fashion of travelling became a 
 positive epidemic, and all classes of English 
 above the mere mechanic precipitated themselves 
 in crowds upon the Continent. The vacillating 
 value of property, occasioned by the revulsion 
 from war to peace and other causes, increased 
 the disposition to visit the Continent; but this 
 cause only came into operation at a later period. 
 Even whilst the English public continued to be 
 excluded from the Continent, agencies were at 
 work preparing public opinion to facilitate the 
 approximation of the tastes and customs of 
 
 rn 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 eee 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 England to those of the Continent. The labours 
 of William Taylor of Norwich, the Nestor of the 
 students of German literature in this country, had 
 formed a body in the reading public who looked 
 to Germany as a sort of promised land. Frere 
 and others had done the same for Spain and Italy. 
 The taste for French literature, and a traditional 
 admiration of the brilliant society of Paris, had 
 not become entirely obsolete. The sturdy anti- 
 continental spirit thawed more easily than could 
 have been anticipated. Perhaps its very exagger- 
 ation, if rightly interpreted, might have presaged 
 this result, 
 
 The less favourable phases of this change in 
 public feeling were, as usual, most commented 
 upon. ‘The silly affectation of foreign modes 
 merely because they were foreign—the awkward- 
 ness and ungainliness of the imitators—the 
 disposition to adopt some of the worst laxities of 
 the conventional code of morals of the Continent 
 —were denounced by satirists. But though 
 examples of such foolish aping of novelties 
 undoubtedly abounded, they were proportionally 
 less than in former times, The tremendous 
 struggle through which Great Britain had passed, 
 as remarked in the chapter on manners of the 
 preceding period, had braced the national mind 
 —had communicated to it an elevated and manly 
 
 tone, which was not relaxed in peace. - The _ 
 
 principal difference which is to be detected, in 
 looking dispassionately back at this distance of 
 time upon the manners of England in 1800 and 
 in 1820, consists in a relaxation of the formality 
 of social intercourse, and in a growing relish for 
 the more intellectual pleasures. This latter charac- 
 teristic had been gradually developing itself for 
 some time previously ; but undoubtedly the emu- 
 lation awakened by more unreserved intercourse 
 with Germany and France accelerated its growth. 
 
 The tone which society caught from court circles 
 at this time was of a more dubious character. 
 There is frequently a spirit of antagonism between 
 parent and child even in domestic life. Parents 
 who are strict disciplinarians, both towards 
 themselves and their families, are apt to increase 
 the appetite for pleasure in their children, instead 
 of subduing it, On the contrary, the example 
 of lax parents has sometimes acted as a warning, 
 and inspired a high and resolute spirit of self- 
 control into their children, This antagonism 
 was strongly marked in the case of the sons of 
 George III. The eagerness with which they gave 
 the reins to self-indulgence contrasted startlingly 
 with the citizen-like decorum of the old king; 
 and as none of them, any more than their father, 
 were endowed with very vigorous or compre- 
 
 hensive minds, or a decided taste for the elevated | 
 
 pursuits of imagination or intellect, their indul- 
 gences were in most cases as gross as they were 
 unbridled. They were predisposed to contract 
 intimacies with the relics of the gross sensualists 
 of a former age, banished from the court while 
 George III. was in his vigour, and, in the eclipse 
 
 ee a a ee 
 
 a aN ee eee 
 
Cuap. XIII. ] 
 
 of court favour or tolerance, gradually dying 
 out. For a time, when the king was withdrawn 
 from the gaze of his subjects, England seemed 
 threatened with the recurrence of a dissolute era, 
 But the pride of the regent, which made him 
 withdraw within the decorums of his station 
 whenever his boon companions pushed their 
 familiarity too far, and still more his shattered 
 nerves, which imposed a check upon his pleasures, 
 diminished the danger. In justice to the age, 
 too, it must be remarked that the earnest char- 
 acter communicated to all classes by the struggle 
 against a banded world, the ascendency which 
 the religious portion of society had obtained over 
 the public mind, and the growing taste for pro- 
 moting education and taking an interest in public 
 discussions and philanthropic exertions, might 
 have bidden defiance to the example even of a 
 gay and licentious court. If future ages were 
 to take their ideas of the standard of manners 
 and morals under the regency from Moore or 
 Byron, they would err widely. The pen of the 
 former was impelled by personal animosity, and 
 the diatribes of the latter have all the exaggera- 
 tion of a man, the day after a debauch, railing 
 against his own folly, and attributing it to all the 
 world besides. 
 
 The diversity of manners, which has been noted 
 in former periods as distinguishing different parts 
 of the empire and different classes of society, was 
 much diminished at the time now under review. 
 The legislative union of Ireland with Great 
 Britain brought the wealthier Irish families more 
 frequently in contact with those of England, 
 assimilating their opinions and manners, The 
 number of Irish officers, too, who distinguished 
 themselves during the war, and their familiar 
 intercourse with their English and Scotch com- 
 rades in arms, tended to break down the barriers 
 of national peculiarities. In Ireland, however, 
 the assimilation of manners between the different 
 classes of society not only did not advance so 
 rapidly as in other parts of the empire, but, on 
 the contrary, would almost appear to have retro- 
 graded. The flocking of the wealthier families 
 to England, by diminishing the frequency of 
 their intercourse with the middle classes and the 
 peasantry, prevented their Anglicised tone from 
 spreading through society. The progress of the 
 struggle for Catholic emancipation kept alive and 
 strengthened an anti-English spirit in the mass 
 of the resident population. And the establish- 
 ment of Maynooth—intended to prevent the 
 growth of an alien priesthood, a priesthood trained 
 in foreign manners and interests, but creating a 
 yet more dangerous provincial priesthood, “more 
 Catholic than the pope”—supplied the class 
 of society destined to take the place of the 
 absentee land-owners and moneyed aristocracy 
 of Ireland, and preserve a tone of feeling and 
 manners in that quarter of the empire harshly 
 contrasting with what prevailed elsewhere, In 
 England and Scotland, however, the obliteration 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1801-1814. 
 
 919 
 
 _of provincial and class peculiarities proceeded 
 
 rapidly under the equalising influence of edu- 
 cation. Except in the Celtic districts of Wales 
 and Scotland, few ancient peculiarities of any 
 moment retained their ground; and every year 
 witnessed the circle inhabited by the English- 
 speaking race widening and encroaching on the 
 domains of those who clung to the aboriginal 
 language. ; 
 In trying to form an estimate of the general 
 manners of a nation, it is necessary to concentrate 
 attention on the idea of what is proper and 
 becoming which has been adopted as a standard 
 by the nation, rather than upon the degree to 
 which it is realised either by individuals or circles 
 of society, The economical circumstances, the | 
 education, the professional pursuits, the natural 
 dispositions of individuals, occasion an unlimited 
 variety of characteristic peculiarities; but the 
 idea which has taken hold of the national mind, 
 which is recognised as the test of elegance in 
 deportment and conduct—that influences all in 
 some degree or other, and is the source of the 
 similarity which constitutes national character, 
 The dominating idea which gives form and bear- 
 ing to the manners of Great Britain is English: 
 before it all provincial peculiarities are giving 
 way; to it Scotch and Irish manners are con- 
 forming, It is the mould in which all are cast, 
 though its impress is less distinct and sharp, in 
 many cases, from the unfavourable nature of the 
 materials, or of the circumstances under which 
 they have been passed through it. An Hnglish- 
 man’s zdeal of manners is not inaptly typified by 
 his ¢deal of dress and equipage. There is in his 
 choice of all three a shunning of the gaudy, or 
 anything that appears to approach to it, which 
 amounts even to affectation. There is combined 
 with this an intense anxiety that the quality of 
 the article should be excellent, and its finish, with 
 all the plainness of its form, exquisite. The 
 English gentleman, if addicted to show, lavishes 
 it not on his own person, but on his domestics ; 
 and even with regard to them he wishes their 
 appearance to be rich rather than gaudy. His 
 plain carriage must be as neat as tools and 
 varnish can make it, and as commodious; his 
 horses must strike by their blood and high 
 keeping; the harness must be such as to pass 
 unnoticed. And the standard of taste to which 
 the deportment of the English gentleman must 
 conform is strictly analogous. His amusements 
 are manly, with a strong dash of the useful ; his 
 taste is, to make himself comfortable. He is a 
 hunter, a votary of the turf, a cricketer, a yachter, 
 and in all of these pursuits he prides himself 
 upon being a master of the mechanical details. 
 He is fond of farming, or of reading, or of taking 
 a part in public business, But these serious 
 pursuits he affects to treat as amusements ; even 
 though an enthusiast in them, he must talk 
 lightly of them, On the other hand, he must 
 
 affect a passionate interest in the pleasures of the 
 
nS per 
 
 920 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 table and similar trifles. He will be pardoned, 
 too, for being passionately attached to them, so 
 long as they do not render him effeminate, so 
 long as he combines with.them a relish for 
 manly sports. The English gentleman is hardy, 
 endowed with a healthy relish for pleasure, and 
 has a high sense of honour. ‘This ideal of the 
 high-bred gentleman communicates its sentiment 
 to the whole of society. Even the ladies catch 
 something of its self-dependent, elastic tone, 
 without diminution of or injury to their perfectly 
 feminine graces. ‘This model is emulated through- 
 out society, in sufficiently gross and awkward 
 caricatures sometimes, but still so that lineaments 
 of what is imitated can be detected, Even the 
 ruffanry of the ring, to which a paradox of 
 Windham’s lent a short lease of prolonged 
 existence, was obliged to affect something of this 
 character. The nuisance of Tom and Jerryism 
 could not have gained even its ephemeral popu- 
 larity but for this reason. That England at the 
 close of the reign of George III. had much to 
 learn in the philosophy of social intercourse— 
 that it has still much to learn—cannot be denied ; 
 but its social habits and modes of thought are 
 immeasurably superior to what they were at the 
 first dawn of our history, and may challenge com- 
 parison with those of any other nation in Europe. 
 They are a source of justifiable pride, and of good 
 augury for the future. 
 
 Our notice of the fashions in dress which 
 obtained during this last period must necessarily 
 be brief, as well as uninteresting to the present 
 generation. The French Revolution having intro- 
 duced round hats, pantaloons, &c., and wigs and 
 powder having been discarded by the beaux of the 
 nineteenth century, the only great innovation was 
 the introduction of frock-coats with loose trowsers 
 and short boots worn underneath them; and, 
 when we record such appellations as Wellingtons, 
 Cossacks, and Bluchers, we need scarcely point to 
 the date at which they were adopted. Black 
 handkerchiefs and trowsers for evening dress had 
 not become fashionable in 1820, 
 
 With respect to the ladies, their fashions have 
 been more mutable; the most striking and the 
 most hideous, however, being the rage for shorten- 
 ing the waist. The bonnet, that last and most 
 enduring novelty in female costume, introduced 
 towards the middle of the last century, underwent 
 almost annual alterations in form; now extrava- 
 gantly large, now absurdly small, at one time 
 rivalling the most gigantic coal-scuttle (the Olden- 
 burgh to wit), and at another scarcely shading the 
 fair brows of the capricious wearers; now laden 
 with ribbons or flowers, curtained with lace, or 
 overshadowed by plumage, and the next month, 
 perchance, denuded of almost every ornament: 
 but we must beg to refer our fair readers to the 
 few specimens we can afford to give of the most 
 remarkable of these yet unforgotten “thick-coming 
 fancies.” 
 
 In the army, the principal alterations were the 
 abolition of hair-powder, pomatum, and pigtails 
 (1808), of the cocked-hats (1812), and the reintro- 
 duction of “breast and back plates” for the Life- 
 guards and Royal Horse-guards (blue) after the 
 battle of Waterloo. The other changes which 
 ultimately produced the present uniforms took 
 place at various periods since the year at which 
 our work terminates. | 
 
 The furniture of the reign of George III. pre- 
 sents us with no important addition to the list of 
 articles which had been gradually increasing from 
 the time of the Conquest. But in form and 
 material considerable changes took place, and the 
 influence of the French Revolution affected in a 
 remarkable degree the productions of our cabinet- 
 makers and upholsterers. In Paris, the man whose 
 hair was dressed & la Brutus could not condescend 
 to be seated in anything less Roman than a curule 
 chair, and the lady who had adopted an Athenian 
 costume must needs recline on a Grecian couch, 
 the coverings of which were ornamented with 
 honeysuckle or key borders. The fauteuil and the 
 sofa a la duchesse were abolished with the chapeau 
 a cornes and the perruque aux ailes de pigeon. 
 Everything was to be strictly classical, and the 
 substantial, gorgeous, and comfortable furniture of 
 the ancien régime was supplanted by imitations of 
 Greek and Roman models, in which, as in imita- 
 tions in general, the defects of the originals were 
 more closely copied than the beauties. Occasionally 
 a successful attempt was to be seen, and window 
 and bed curtains, supported by gilt lances or the 
 Roman fasces, were tastefully arranged, and pro- 
 duced a good effect ; but to any eye accustomed to 
 the richness and solidity of the furniture of the 
 eighteenth century, the general aspect was cold 
 and meagre. It looked like what it was—a mere 
 affectation—and not like a style revived upon 
 sound principles, or one that had been gradually 
 developed by the progress of taste and art, and 
 which might itself in after-times form a model for 
 imitation. In England matters were worse ; for, 
 as usual, instead of resorting to original authorities, 
 the French copies were recopied, our workmen 
 being also at that time notoriously inferior in point 
 of taste to their Gallic brethren. About the com- 
 mencement of the nineteenth century a rival 
 
 material jostled the lately admired mahogany 
 
 completely out of our English drawing - rooms. 
 
 Chairs, tables, sofas, piano-fortes,* commodes—all 
 
 were to be of rosewood ; and mahogany was voted 
 vulgar, except for the dining-parlour or the bed- 
 chamber. In France this distinction does not 
 appear to have been introduced, and, therefore, 
 mirabile dictu, it must have been a fashion dnvented 
 in England, and we can only account for such a 
 curiosity by her isolated position during the long 
 
 * The piano-forte, though a musical instrument, has surely a 
 right to take rank as a piece of furniture, considering how pro- 
 minent a feature it has lately become in almost every drawing- 
 room. Indeed, we ought to have mentioned its venerable 
 predecessors, the harpsichord and the spinet, in their proper 
 places, and beg to apologise for the omission, 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 ae 
 
 | 
 | 
 | 
 
Cuar. XIII.J 
 
 struggle against Napoleon, which threw her com- 
 pletely on her own resources, and produced, 
 amongst other monstrosities, the long-waisted 
 spencers and little straw bonnets immortalised by 
 Brunet and Vernet in “ Les Anglaises pour rire.” 
 The same period has to answer for the introduc- 
 tion of slender-legged scroll-backed chairs, with 
 cane bottoms, jitted, as we will for courtesy’s sake 
 term it, with thin cushions covered with cloth, 
 merino, or calico, and tied to the seat by tapes 
 passing round the slender legs aforesaid. Also for 
 stuffed horse-hair sofas, with scroll ends and hard 
 round bolsters, and chairs to match, bound with 
 brass mouldings or fillets, specimens of which are 
 still to be found in second rate lodging-houses and 
 commercial hotels, If to these we add Pembroke 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1801-1814. 
 
 921 
 
 tables, register stoves, Argand lamps, the modern- 
 shaped sideboard with its cellaret or sarcophagus, 
 some varicties in the way of ladies’ work-tables, 
 canterburies, what-nots, Venetian and spring 
 blinds, muslin curtains, &c., we shall complete, 
 we believe, the list of articles, useful and orna- 
 mental, which were generally to be seen in 
 “genteelly furnished apartments” during the latter 
 years of the reign of George III. Thanks to the 
 throwing open of the Continent, taste and art 
 have lately made rapid strides in England. 
 Another “renaissance” has occurred, and ele- 
 gance and comfort were perhaps never more 
 happily blended than they may be seen at pre- 
 sent in the mansion of almost every English 
 gentleman, 
 
 FASHIONS, AND MILITARY COSTUME, 
 
 1800—1820. 
 
 ITI 
 
 MOUVAL 
 - ee 
 
 Wy WV) 
 
 1805, 
 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
Cuar. XIII.] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS :—1801-1814. 923 
 
 lst Foot Guards, 1815. 42nd Royal Highlanders, 1815. : Royal Marines, 1815. 
 
CHAPTER Xi 
 HISTORY OF THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 1785-1801. 
 
 F the circumstances or 
 causes that ordinarily 
 most affect the econo- 
 mical condition of the 
 ereat body of the po- 
 pulation, the first and 
 greatest is the produce 
 of the harvest. At 
 —~ least with a law pro- 
 @y) \%, hibiting or restraining 
 
 “Se the importation of corn 
 from abroad, it may be safely affirmed that the 
 quantity of the grain raised at home in any year is 
 singly more influential upon the whole social sys- 
 tem of the community than all other ordimary causes 
 taken together. No diminution of the profits of 
 our foreign trade in any one year has probably 
 ever equalled the amount of loss that has been often 
 sustained through a deficient harvest. And, even 
 if the pecuniary amount in the former case were 
 as great as in the latter, the loss would not come 
 home to the mass of the population so immediately 
 and directly. It would fall in the first instance upon 
 capital, and its force would be broken before it 
 reached the producing classes. An adverse foreign 
 trade may tend to create a scarcity of employment, 
 but that usually comes on gradually, and, if the 
 loss be only upon a single year, although the effect 
 must always, of course, be suffered m some way 
 or other, it may be diffused over so considerable a 
 space of time as hardly to be felt. A scanty har- 
 vest is instantly, to the masses, a deprivation of 
 bread. Nothing can prevent it from having this 
 effect. It falls upon them at once with its full 
 weight in that conclusive shape: there is no inter- 
 mediate barrier to slacken its descent ; no accu- 
 mulated power anywhere to sustain its first rude 
 shock, and ward it off from them at least till it 
 has lost its impetus and subsided into a mere pres- 
 sure. It strikes sharp and hard at the health and 
 strength, in other words, at the very life of the 
 people, reducing them infallibly to a subsistence 
 either insufficient in quantity or inferior in qua- 
 lity. 
 
 The succession of good and bad seasons in 
 England from 1785 to 1801 inclusive, appears to 
 have been as follows:-—After an uninterrupted 
 course of deficient harvests from 1765 to 1774, 
 
 a 
 
 — 
 
 and a mixture of good and bad years from 1775 to 
 1784, ending, however, with three of the latter 
 description, the crops for 1785, 1786, 1787, and 
 1788 were all at least of average amount. ‘That 
 of 1789, again, was deficient, and that of 1790 
 still more so. The season of 1791 was one of 
 great abundance, that of 1792 of considerable de- 
 ficiency ; in 1793 the crop was only a moderate 
 one; in 1794 it was not even that; and in 1795, 
 although it was got in in good order, it was still 
 more deficient in quantity. The harvest of 1796, 
 however, was abundant. That of 1797 was rather 
 deficient ; that of 1798 moderately good. Finally 
 came the two miserably bad harvests of 1799 and 
 1800, followed by the tolerably good one of 1801. 
 Thus, in the seventeen years, there were only two 
 abundant crops (those of 1791 and 1796) ; seven 
 were of average character (those of 1785, 1786, 
 1787, 1788, 1793, 1798, and 1801); four were 
 rather deficient (those of 1789, 1792, 1794, and 
 1797); and four were decidedly bad (those of 
 1790, 1795, 1799, and 1800.)* 
 
 The way in which the harvest affects the con- 
 dition of the great body of the people is, of course, 
 by influencing the price of food. The mean price 
 for the whole year, of the quarter of wheat (Win- 
 chester measure) varied throughout the present 
 period as follows, according to the register kept in 
 the Audit Books of Eton College :—in 1785, 48s. ; 
 in 1786, 42s. 23d.; in 1787, 45s. 9td.; in 1788, 
 49s. 4d.; in 1789, 56s. 1?d.; in 1790, 56s. 23d.; 
 in 1791, 49s. 4d.; in 1792, 47s. ltd.; in 1793, 
 49s. 63d.; in 1794, 54s.; in 1795, Sls. 6d.; in 
 1796, 80s. 3d.; in 1797, 62s.; in 1798, 54s.; in 
 1799, 75s. 8d. ; in 1800, 127s.; in 1801, 128s. Ga. 
 
 These mean prices for the whole year are what. 
 
 * We have deduced this brief enumeration, as well as we could, 
 from the detailed statements collected by Mr. Tooke, in his History 
 of Prices, vol. i. pp. 62-86, 179-188, and 213-225. At the same time 
 it is proper to observe that the epithets we have used are in some 
 cases only the general terms which appeared to us best to express the 
 amount or result of Mr. Tooke’s details. It is also to be remembered 
 that in matters of this kind the facts are always to a certain extent 
 inferential, and therefore matter of controversy. It may seem strange 
 that there should be any difliculty in ascertaining whether, in a parti- 
 cular year half a century ago, the harvest was good or bad; but the 
 fact belongs to a class of which no authentic register has ever been 
 made or attempted in this country ; and, besides, it is one scarcely ad- 
 mitting of perfect registration. ‘The quantity of each of the different 
 kinds of grain yearly produced in the country might, perhaps, be ccl- 
 lected and recorded (although even that has never yet been done); 
 but the quality of the grain, which is also so impor‘ant an element in 
 the character of the crop, could not be subjected to precise admea- 
 surement. 
 
Cuarp. XIV.] 
 
 best indicate the pressure upon subsistence ; but it 
 is to be recollected, in comparing the series of 
 figures with the preceding account of the succes- 
 sion of good and bad seasons, that the mean price 
 for the year will often differ widely from the actual 
 price at any particular time of the year. Prices, 
 too, are always influenced by the prospect of the 
 coming harvest, as well as by the quantity and qua- 
 lity of the crop after it has been gathered in. 
 
 As the effect of a bad harvest is more imme- 
 diately felt by the people than that of any of the 
 other ordinary influences of an unfavourable kind 
 acting upon their economical condition, soa gocd 
 harvest also brings them whatever measure of re- 
 lief it is fraught with at once. The measure may 
 be great or small; the bounty of heaven may be 
 in part counteracted by the legislation of man ; 
 but still it is impossible for any social arrange- 
 ments altogether to intercept this blessing, or to 
 prevent it from being immediately, if not fully, 
 enjoyed by the mass of the population. Nor will 
 it be found, we apprehend, that there is anything 
 else which operates so surely and instantaneously 
 in putting a spirit of life even into commercial 
 and manufacturing enterprise as an abundant 
 harvest. 
 
 It appears, then, that down to the year 1795, or 
 for the first ten years of the present period, the 
 price of wheat kept within what may be called a 
 moderate range, nearly the same range, in fact, 
 which it had taken ever since 1765, or from about 
 the time when the country had ceased to produce 
 more corn than sufficed for its own consumption. 
 From 1795 to 1801 inclusive, however, prices took 
 another and much higher range; having in only 
 one of these seven years, 1798, declined so low as 
 the highest point they had reached in the preceding 
 ten, or indeed ever since the year 1710. The 
 average mean price for the year of the Winchester 
 quarter of wheat was about 49s. 9d. from 1785 to 
 1794, and about 87s. from 1795 to 1801. 
 
 To this account we may add another, of the 
 contract prices of various articles of provision, &c., 
 as supplied to Greenwich Hospital at various 
 dates. Butchers’ meat, which in 1770 was pur- 
 chased for 108s. 6d. per cwt., and in 1775 for 
 113s. 5d., cost 117s. 64d. in 1785, 202s. 10d. in 
 1795, and 304s.4d. in 1800; butter, which had 
 been 54d. per pound in 1765, was 63d. in 1785, 
 Std. in 1795, and 1ltd.in 1800; cheese was 
 33d. per pound in 1785, and 6td. in 1800; peas 
 were 3s.6d. per bushel in 1765, 7s.67. in 1775, 
 the same in 1790, 9s. 6d. in 1795, 13s.5d. in 
 1800; beer was 5s. 10d. per barrel in 1770, 
 Ts. 3d. in 1780, 8s.7d. in 1790, 10s. 44d. in 
 1795, and 20s. 44d. in 1800; candles were 6s. 6d. 
 per dozen pounds in 1785, 7s. 9d. in 1790, 9s. 2d. 
 in 1795, 10s.4d. in 1800; coals were 34s. 24d. 
 per chaldron in 1785, 39s. 9d. in 1795, 51s. 7d. 
 in 1800; shoes were 4s. in 1770, 3s. 6d. in 1785, 
 4s. in 1795, 5s. Sd. in 1800.* Other articles of 
 
 * Seo table, extracted from Parliamentary Papers, in M‘Culloch’s 
 Dictionary of Commerce, pp. 952, 953. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE :—1785-1801. 
 
 i 
 
 EEE SC OO 
 
 925 
 
 clothing, however, do not appear to have generally 
 increased in nominal price or money value from 
 the middle of the century; in fact, the great im- 
 provements that had been made in the cotton and 
 other manufactures had materially diminished the 
 real cost of most articles of that description, and 
 if money had retained the same value in relation 
 to commodities, their nominal prices would have 
 also been considerably reduced. 
 
 With the single exception of articles of clothing, 
 then, it appears that the prices of all necessaries 
 continued to rise in this country from the com- 
 mencement to the close of the present period— 
 more slowly in the first nine or ten years, by a 
 more rapid movement in the last seven or eight. 
 With regard to foreign and colonial produce the 
 case was nearly the same, although the fluctuation 
 of prices followed a somewhat different course. 
 First, according to Mr. Tooke, there was a general 
 fall of prices in 1793 and the greater part of 1794, 
 the two first years of the war: it is sufficient for 
 our present purpose to note the fact, without in- 
 quiring into its cause or causes; but they may be 
 found explained in the authority to which we have 
 just referred.* ‘*In 1795,” continues Mr. Tooke, 
 ‘several circumstances combined to o¢casion a 
 range of high prices, besides those of provisions. 
 Two successive bad seasons on the continent of 
 Europe, as well as in this country, had rendered 
 all European agricultural produce scarce and dear, 
 such as linseed and rapeseed, olive-oil, and tallow. 
 Silk in Italy, and the vintages in France, had suf- 
 fered from the inclemency of the season. There 
 was an extraordinary competition between our 
 covernment and that of France in the purchase of 
 naval stores in the uorth of Europe, thus greatly 
 raising the prices of hemp, flax, iron, and timber. 
 The prospect of a war with Spain, which broke 
 out in the year following, affected several descrip- 
 tions of Spanish produce. Colonial produce, of 
 which a scarcity consequent on the failure of the 
 supplies from St. Domingo was now generally felt 
 throughout Europe, experienced a fresh rise. All 
 these classes of commodities continued to rise 
 through 1795 and part of 1796. Those which 
 were affected by the seasons in Europe fell in the 
 latter part of 1796 and in 1797, although, from 
 the increased cost of production, and in the case 
 of naval and military stores from the increasing 
 demand, not to their former level.” + ‘* But,”’ he 
 adds, ‘‘a very important class of articles, viz., 
 coffee, sugar, indigo, pepper, cotton, cochineal, and 
 other articles of colonial produce, which had begun 
 to rise in 1795, continued to advance till the close of 
 1798, insomuch that at the end of the latter year 
 (and in the first two or three months of 1799) 
 they attained a greater height than at any subse- 
 quent period between that and 1814. It is further 
 to be observed, that this large class of articles was 
 rising while corn was falling; and that they at- 
 tained at the close of 1798 some a little less and 
 
 ® History of Prices, i. 178, 
 + Id. a 189, 
 
926 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 some a great deal more than 100 per cent. above 
 their previous rate, while corn had fallen 50 per 
 cent. below the rate which it had attained in 
 1795-6.2* Mr. Tooke afterwards shows that, 
 although in a few instances the rise which had 
 thus been going on since 1796 was continued 
 through the first three months of 1799, yet gene- 
 rally from the close of 1798 the prices of colonial 
 produce began to fall, and underwent a great de- 
 pression between the spring of 1799 and_ the 
 spring of 1801, being the very time during which 
 an unprecedented rise was taking place in the 
 price of corn.+ We believe, as we have stated in 
 a former chapter, that the fall in the one descrip- 
 tion of prices was in great part the effect of the 
 rise in the other—that the dearth of the first ne- 
 cessary of life withdrew the means of purchasing 
 colonial luxuries, or only half necessaries, and so 
 brought down their price by diminishing the de- 
 mand for them. The high price of bread, in fact, 
 
 appears to have brought down other prices as well 
 
 as those of colonial produce. Mr. Tooke further 
 states that “the prices of most of our manufac- 
 tured articles likewise experienced a considerable 
 fall in the interval from 1799 to 1801.” The 
 people, unable to procure a sufficiency of bread, 
 had no money to throw away upon Coventry 
 ribands, and even much less than they had been 
 wont to have wherewith to purchase the woollens 
 of Yorkshire. But on the other hand, between 
 the close of 1798 and the spring of 1801, not only 
 did there take place the enormous rise in the 
 prices of provisions to which we have already ad- 
 verted, ‘but,’ says Mr. Tooke, “many other 
 articles of European raw produce had experienced 
 a simuitaneous advance, partly as the consequence 
 of the same inclemency of the seasons which had 
 prevailed in this country, and partly from the ex- 
 traordiniary obstructions to importation from poli- 
 tical causes. Thus wool and tallow rose from the 
 twofold cause of the seasons in diminishing both 
 the home and foreign produce, and flax, hemp, 
 timber, foreign iron, linseed, in short all articles 
 for our supply of which we are dependent, wholly 
 or in part, on importation from the Baltic, expe- 
 rienced a very considerable rise, not only in con- 
 sequence of the embargo in Russia in the autumn 
 of 1800, but also in consequence of the threatened 
 hostility of Denmark, which was likely to close 
 against us the passage of the Sound. In addition 
 to this extensive dearth ef raw produce was the 
 dearness of many articles of general consumption, 
 occasioned by the progress of taxation, such as the 
 heavy duties of excise on salt, soap, candles, and 
 leather, which may be considered as necessaries, 
 and on malt and beer, sugar, tea, and tobacco and 
 spirits, which are secondary necessaries, or per- 
 haps, more correctly speaking, necessaries to all 
 the classes above the very poorest. Fuel of every 
 description had risen considerably from the same 
 general causes.’’ § 
 * History of Prices, i. p. 190. 
 + Id. p. 235, t Ibid. § Id. p. 225. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 Here, then, we have a general rise in the money 
 prices of all the ordinary articles of consumption. 
 The price of bread, as we have seen, the first ne- 
 cessary of life, had nearly doubled in the course 
 of the seventeen years which make up the present 
 period ; all other kinds of provision had also be- 
 come greatly enhanced in price ; only the materials 
 of clothing and some other manufactured articles 
 had not become dearer. On the whole, the increase 
 in the expense of subsistence and housekeeping to 
 the poor man cannot well be estimated to have 
 been less than fifty per cent.; or, in other words, 
 his three shillings at the close of this period would 
 not go farther than his two shillings would haye 
 done at its commencement. : ; 
 
 The question, therefore, of whether the condition 
 of the great body of the people was better or worse 
 in the latter than it was in the early part of the 
 period will be answered if we can ascertain whe- 
 ther every man really had three shillings to spend 
 in 1800 for every two which he had in 1785— 
 that is to say, whether wages had risen fifty per 
 cent., or thereahout, between those two years as 
 well as prices. Or, as prices were nearly sta- 
 tionary down to 1795, we may take that year, in- 
 stead of 1785, as our starting-point. ‘Such and 
 so great,’ observes Mr. Tooke, “ being the rise of 
 prices of provisions and of nearly all consumable 
 commodities, it was quite impossible that the 
 lowest of the working classes could, upon their 
 wages at the rate of what they were before 1795, 
 obtain a subsistence for themselves and their fami- 
 lies, on the lowest scale requisite to sustain human 
 existence; and the classes above the lowest, in- 
 cluding some portion of skilled labourers, could do 
 little, if at all, more than provide themselves with 
 food, clothing, and shelter, without any of the in- 
 dulgences which habit had rendered necessaries. 
 If, under these circumstances, there had been no 
 rise of wages, no contributions by parishes and by 
 individuals in aid of wages, great numbers of the 
 people must have actually perished, and the classes 
 immediately above the lowest would with difficulty 
 have preserved themselves from the same fate. 
 In such case, the suffering from dearth would have 
 been correctly designated as a famine—a term 
 which has been somewhat loosely applied to the 
 period under consideration. For, severe and in- 
 tense as were the sufferings and privations of the 
 people of this country in the dearths of 1795 and 
 1796, and of 1800 and 1801, there were few re- 
 corded instances of death from actual destitution. 
 A rise of wages was imperatively called for by the 
 urgency of the case, and was complied with, to 
 some extent, in most of the branches of industry, 
 the claims for increase being aided by the resource 
 which workmen and labourers had of enlisting in 
 the army and navy.”* 
 
 Upon the subject of wages the Greenwich Table 
 of Contract Prices gives us the following informa- 
 tion:—The daily wages of carpenters continued 
 at 2s. 6d. from 1730 (at which year this part of 
 
 * History of Prices, is p. 226. 
 
 ~ 
 
 —. § 
 
 Cuap. XIV.)4 
 
 the table begins) till 1795 ; but in 1800 (the next 
 year given in the abstract) they are stated at 2s. 
 10d. Those of joiners were 2s. 8d. in 1735, and 
 -were no higher in 1785; but in 1790 they were 
 2s. 10d., and in 1800 they were3s.2d. By 1805, 
 however, the wages of both joiners and carpenters 
 had advanced to 4s. 6d. per day. Those of brick- 
 layers, which were 2s. 6d. in 1760, are stated at 
 only 2s. 4d. in 1780, and at only 2s.in 1785; 
 but in 1790 they had again risen to 2s. 4d., and 
 they were 3s. in 1795, and the same in 1800. In 
 1805 they were 4s. 10d., or more than twice what 
 they had been only fifteen years before. ‘Those 
 of masons, which in 1735 were 2s. 6d., and which 
 stood at 2s. 8d. from 1740 to 1770, had reached 
 2s. 10d. by 1775, but remained at the same amount 
 in 1800; by 1805, however, they were 5s. Those 
 of plumbers, which had been 3s. from 1730 to 
 1740, were only 2s. 6d. from 1745 to 1760; but 
 were again 3s. from 1765 to 1780; and were 3s. 
 3d. from 1785 to 1800. By 1805 they had risen 
 to 4s. 6d. The most considerable advance, there- 
 fore, in all these cases, appears to have taken place 
 after 1800: how much of the difference between 
 the wages of 1800 and those of 1805 may have 
 been an addition made immediately after the 
 former of these years, the abstract of the Green- 
 wich accounts does not indicate. 
 
 There was, however, some advance of wages in 
 1800 and 1801, as well as in 1795 and 1796; 
 but there appears to be no doubt that both these 
 advances together were far from being sufficient 
 to compensate for the advance which had in the 
 mean time taken place in the prices of all the 
 principal necessaries of life. Mr. Tooke quotes 
 a statement of Arthur Young’s, from the ‘ Annals 
 of Agriculture’ for 1801, in which that writer 
 affirms that alabourer was then living in the vi- 
 cinity of Bury, in Suffolk, who, when his week’s 
 wages were only 5s., could purchase with that 
 sum a bushel of wheat, a bushel of malt, 1 lb. of 
 butter, 1 lb. of cheese, and a pennyworth of to- 
 bacco; whereas in 1801 the same purchases 
 would have cost him not less than 26s. 5d., while 
 his week’s wages had only risen to 9s. If we 
 were to judge by this instance, then, it would 
 appear that, in the course of perhaps fifty or sixty 
 years, the condition of the working man had been 
 depressed, in so far as it was to be measured by 
 his rate of wages, to a point in the scale of com- 
 fort, or of command over the good things of life, 
 only about one-third as high as that at which it 
 originally stood. His wages in 1801 could purchase 
 scarcely more than athird-part of the quantity of 
 provisions which they could formerly purchase. 
 Here, however, it is probable, we have a very cheap 
 year placed against a very dear year, which is not 
 a fair way of representing the difference between 
 the two eras. Still there is abundance of other 
 evidence to show that the wages received by all 
 classes of labourers at the close of the present pe- 
 riod were far from sufficient to purchase the same 
 quantity of necessaries as the lower wages which 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE :—1785-1801. 
 
 927 
 
 they had received at its commencement. Thus, 
 the wages of journeymen tailors had from 1777 to 
 1795 been 21s. 9d. per week, which would then 
 purchase thirty-six quartern loaves ; they had been 
 advanced in 1795 to 25s., and in 1801 to 27s. per 
 week, but the latter sum would only purchase 
 eighteen loaves and a half in that year of scarcity. 
 So also with the wages of printers’ compositors, 
 which had been advanced from 24s. to 27s. in 
 1795, and to 30s. in 1801: the advance was to 
 the extent of 25 per cent. in all, but the advance in 
 the price of bread had been above 140 per cent. 
 It is true, indeed, that this very high price of 
 bread was. only temporary, and that the rise of 
 wages not only maintained itself after bread fell in 
 price, but even went on and increased. If it had 
 not done so, if so much of buoyant energy had not 
 manifested itself in the social system, it might have 
 been apprehended that the principle of general de- 
 cay was already at work, and that, whatever show 
 there might be of health and growth, the real 
 strength of the system *and its spirit of life were 
 on the decline. Where there is no tendency to 
 advance evinced by the body of the people, it 
 seems impossible that any other advance can be 
 permanent, or can operate otherwise than to break 
 up society by separating it into two alienated and 
 repugnant portions. ‘The continuance of the rise 
 of wages, or of their tendency to rise, after the ex- 
 treme prices of 1801 had somewhat given way, 
 was a natural consequence of the generally ad- 
 vancing state of the nation ; and, besides, the same 
 principle which had originally impressed this up- 
 ward direction upon wages was still at work, and 
 urging on their movement so long as the old rela- 
 tion between their amount and the price of provi- 
 sions remained unrecovered. Prices commonly 
 both rise and fall much more suddenly or rapidly 
 than wages ; the nature of wages is rather to follow 
 the movement of prices at some distance than to 
 run by their side. In the present case, even if it 
 should be contended that wages, by continuing to 
 rise after 1801, did at last nearly recover their 
 former relation to the price of food, still it is not 
 to be questioned that for the seven years preceding 
 that date any rise that they experienced was far 
 from adequate to sustain the labouring population 
 in the position which they had held before 1795. 
 The great rise in the price of corn, as we have 
 seen, began in that year. The price of the Win- 
 chester quarter of wheat, according to the Eton 
 Cellege accounts, was 45s. O$d. at Michaelmas 
 1793, 52s. at Lady-day 1794, 56s. at Michaélmas 
 1794, 71s. at Lady-day 1195, 92s. at Michaelmas 
 1795, 96s. at Lady-day 1796; having thus, by 
 an uninterrupted ascent, more than doubled its 
 height in the course of two years, while it still con- 
 tinued to mount up. Its progress, however, had 
 been comparatively gradual at first : the transition 
 from the old range of prices to quite a new range 
 may be said to have taken place in the twelve 
 months between Michaelmas 1794 and Michaelmas 
 1795, during which the quarter of wheat rose very 
 
928 
 
 nearly 70 per cent., and at the end of the term 
 still retained its tendency to go on in the same 
 direction. By the time that parliament met, in the 
 end of October, the general distress had reached 
 such a point that it formed the subject of a pro- 
 minent paragraph in the king’s speech; and on 
 the 3rd of November the House of Commons, on 
 the motion of Mr. Pitt, resolved itself into a com- 
 mittee to take into consideration the high price of 
 corn. On this occasion Mr. Lechmere, member 
 for the city of Worcester, endeavoured to show 
 that the scarcity had arisen from other causes than 
 the deficiency of the late harvest, which he de- 
 scribed to have been as plentiful a one as the great 
 Author of all blessings had ever given us—a mis- 
 take, as very soon became apparent enough. “ The 
 poor man, nevertheless,” added the honourable 
 member, “ who ploughed the earth which pro- 
 duced that plenty was starving, or driven to very 
 great distress indeed, and entirely unable to sup- 
 port his family.’ Lechmere thought that the 
 system of great farms—what he called “ the mo- 
 nopoly of farms’’—ought to be put down, or at least 
 prevented from extending itself. ‘* It was notori- 
 ous,” he said, “ that there were now farms occupied 
 by one man which formerly supported twelve or 
 fourteen families.’ The jobbers in corn and 
 horned cattle, he also thought, were instruments 
 of great oppression to the people. Fox also 
 doubted if the scarcity had really been occasioned 
 by the defective produce of the two last harvests. 
 Meat, he observed, and the produce of dairy-farms, 
 had advanced in price to the same extent as bread ; 
 ** but what affords,’ he went on, ‘‘ the most strik- 
 ing proof that the high price does not arise merely 
 from the deficiency of the harvest, is, that with 
 respect to barley, the produce of which is ad- 
 mitted this season to have been plentiful beyond 
 example, a similar advance of: price has taken 
 place.” We are not here concerned with these 
 reasonings as to the causes of the dearth; we 
 bring them forward only as involving evidence 
 of its character and extent: but surely there 
 was nothing to occasion surprise in the cir- 
 cumstance that the scarcity of wheat should have 
 raised the price of barley—that in their ina- 
 bility to purchase the dearer grain, upon which 
 they had been wont to subsist, the people, or a 
 portion of them, should resort to the cheaper, and 
 so its price be raised by the increase of the cus- 
 tomary demand. In fact, it will be found that, 
 under the operation of this principle, whenever the 
 price of any chief article of subsistence rises, the 
 prices of all other kinds of provision that can be 
 in any measure employed as its substitutes will 
 rise along with it. Fox was inclined to attribute 
 the scarcity partly, but not solely, to thewar. “I 
 admit, even,” he added, “that part of the causes 
 to which it may be traced may be connected with 
 a certain state of prosperity of the country. The 
 war certainly has had a most decided effect, so far 
 as it has tended to increase the consumption, to 
 diminish the production, and to preclude the pos- 
 
 ee a a ee oe ea i SS 5 J Oo ey 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 sibility of obtaining supplies, which might have 
 been drawn from other quarters. But, if there 
 are other circumstances which have operated along 
 with those arising from the war—if the evil has 
 proceeded from many and complicated causes— 
 nothing can be more mischievous than to ascribe 
 it solely to one cause, and to proceed as if that 
 were the fact.”? The state of wages had already, it 
 appears from Mr. Fox’s speech, begun to attract 
 attention. ‘*There arc some,’’ he said, ‘* who 
 think that the price of labour has not kept pace 
 with the increased price of provisions. I am afraid 
 that this disproportion too much takes place in 
 almost all the counties of England, and that, while 
 provisions have been rapidly rising to an unexam- 
 pled height, labour has been by no means ad- 
 vanced in proportion. It is mdeed a melancholy 
 and alarming fact, that the great majority of the 
 people of England—an enormous and dreadful 
 majority—are no longer in a situation in which 
 they can boast that they live by the produce of 
 their labour; and that it does regularly happen, 
 during the pressure of every inclement season, 
 that the industrious poor are obliged to depend 
 for subsistence on the supplies afforded by the 
 charity of the rich.” On the 9th of December 
 following, Mr. Whitbread brought in a bill to ac- 
 complish the extraordinary purpose of fixing a rate 
 below which wages should not be suffered to be 
 paid. On the 12th of February, 1796, on the 
 order of the day being read for the second reading 
 of this bill, Whitbread entered into some details 
 on the subject of the existing distress. ‘‘In most 
 parts of the country,” he said, “‘the labourer had 
 long been struggling with increasing misery, till 
 the pressure had become almost too grievous to 
 be endured, while the patience of the sufferers under 
 their accumulated distresses had been conspicuous 
 and exemplary... Were it necessary to refer to any 
 authority, he could quote the writings of Dr. Price, 
 in which he showed that in the course of two cen- 
 turies the price of labour had not increased more 
 than three or at most four fold; whereas the price 
 of meat had increased in the proportion of six or 
 seven, and that of clothing no less than fourteen 
 or fifteen fold, in the same period.” Dr. Price’s 
 calculations upon this as well as upon other sub- 
 jects may be regarded as more curious than con- 
 clusive; but the honourable member went on to 
 observe :—“ The poor-rates, too, had increased 
 since the beginning of this century from 600,000/., 
 at which they were then estimated, to upwards of” 
 3,000,000/. Nor was this prodigious increase in 
 the poor-rates to be ascribed to the advance of po- 
 pulation ; for it was doubtful whether any such 
 increase had taken place. At the present period 
 the contrary seemed to be the case. By the pres- 
 sure of the times marriage was discouraged; and 
 among the laborious classes of the community the 
 birth of a child, instead of being hailed as a 
 blessing, was considered as a curse.’? The motion 
 for the second reading of the bill was lost; and at 
 the present day it is scarcely necessary to remark 
 
‘Cuap. XIV.) 
 
 that Whitbread’s idea, if it had been attempted to 
 be carried into execution, would only have aggra- 
 vated the evil it was designed to cure or diminish. 
 The establishment of a minimum of wages would 
 have been a condemnation to starvation of all who 
 could not find employment at the rate fixed, al- 
 though they might have found it at a lower rate. 
 Mr. Whitbread, however, again brought forward 
 his plan in the next parliament, on the 11th of 
 February, 1800, when he observed that what first 
 put it into his head was the situation to which the 
 poor were reduced in 1795, when their distresses 
 were nearly the same as they still continued. The 
 bill, as before, was thrown out on the second 
 reading. 
 
 A few days after this, on the 18th of Fe- 
 bruary, Lord Hawkesbury, in moving for leave 
 to bring in a bill to regulate the assize of 
 bread, stated to the House some interesting facts 
 relating to the habits of the people and the 
 economical condition of the country. ‘The num- 
 ber of consumers of wheaten bread,’’ he ob- 
 served, “depended much upon the abundance of 
 the crop, and the consequent price of wheaten 
 bread. On an average, one-third of the people 
 did not consume wheaten bread. A great majority 
 of the people in Scotland, Westmoreland, Cum- 
 berland, the North Riding of Yorkshire, part of 
 Lancashire, of Wales, Cornwall, and the northern 
 parts of Devonshire, consumed bread made of oats, 
 barley, and other grain. Now, as to the quantity 
 of wheat consumed, a quarter of wheat in the year 
 for each man was the general calculation. This 
 allowance would require between eight and nine 
 millions of quarters to supply the country for a 
 year. The produce of the country varied in differ- 
 ent years; but the average... did not feed the 
 country ; for the average importation for several 
 years back might be estimated at one-twentieth of 
 the whole consumption.” The deficiency of the 
 late crop Lord Hawkesbury estimated at one-third 
 of an average crop; so that the quantity of wheat 
 necessary to be imported would be this third added 
 to the usual importation of one-twentieth of the 
 consumption, deducting only the stock on hand. 
 All things considered, he calculated that the pro- 
 bable amount of the importation necessary for the 
 present season would be above 600,000 quarters ; 
 whereas in 1796 the quantity imported was more 
 than 800,000.. The quantity of wheat and flour 
 actually brought from abroad, however, in this 
 year was above 1,200,000 Winchester quarters. 
 
 In the state to which the people were thus re- 
 duced, the pressure upon the poor-rates neces- 
 sarily became greatly augmented. 
 
 The history of the legislation on the subject of 
 the poor-laws has been brought down in the last 
 Book to the passing of Mr. Gilbert’s Act for the 
 erection of union workhouses, in 1782.* By an 
 Act passed in 1790, justices of peace were em- 
 powered to visit the workhouses within their juris- 
 “diction, and, having examined the state of the 
 * See ante, vol. v., p. 582 (where the date is misprinted 1781), 
 
 VOL. VI. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE:—1785-1801. 
 
 929 
 
 houses, of the paupers therein, and of their food, 
 clothing, and bedding, to report the result of their 
 inquiries to the next quarter-sessions; and also to 
 summon the masters of workhouses to appear at 
 the sessions to answer complaints made against 
 them. And justices at the quarter-sessions were 
 authorised to make the necessary orders and re- 
 culations for the removing of any cause of com- 
 plaint. The visiting justices were also empowered, 
 if they found the poor in any workhouse affected 
 with any contagious or infectious disease, to order 
 that medical or other assistance should be imme- 
 diately procured, or proper food provided for 
 them, or that the sick should be separated and 
 removed, until further order could be taken at the 
 next quarter-sessions. But the most important 
 of the Acts relating to the poor, passed within the 
 present period, was that passed in 1795 (the 35 
 Geo. III. c. 101), which repealed so much of the 
 Act of the 13 and 14 Char. II. c. 12, as autho- 
 rised justices to order the removal of persons 
 likely to become chargeable to parishes, and pro- 
 vided that no poor persons should be removed 
 from any parish in which they might be resident, 
 until they should have become actually chargeable. 
 Thus was at length removed from the statute- 
 book, and the constitution of the country, after it 
 had been in force for more than a hundred and 
 thirty years, a most tyrannical power by which the 
 labouring classes were, in point of fact, reduced to 
 the condition of adscript: glebe, with this differ- 
 ence only, that they were confined each to a par- 
 ticular parish, instead of to a particular estate.* 
 The law regulating the management of pauperism 
 was therefore considerably improved during the 
 present period ; but, on the other hand, very serious 
 abuses in practice were introduced, Under the first 
 pressure of the high prices of 1795, the magistrates 
 of Berkshire and some other southern counties 
 published tables of the rates of wages which in 
 their opinion labourers ought to receive, according 
 to the price of bread and the numbers of their fa- 
 milies, and directed that the parish officers should 
 in all cases make up the wages of the labourer to 
 the allowance so set down for him. This example 
 was followed in other parts of the kingdom ; and, 
 an act having been passed the following year (the 
 36 Geo. III. c. 35), permitting relief to be given 
 to the poor, under certain circumstances, and in 
 certain cases, at their own houses, various expe- 
 dients were adopted by parishes for carrying the 
 new principle into effect. The most common mode 
 was by what was called the roundsman (or other- 
 wise the house row, billet, ticket, or stem) system, 
 which consisted, as defined in the Report made by 
 the Poor Law Commission in 1834, in “ the parish 
 paying the occupiers of property to employ the ap- 
 plicants for relief at a rate of wages fixed by the 
 parish, and depending, not on the services, but on 
 the wants of the applicants, the employer being 
 repaid out of the poor-rate all that he advances in 
 wages beyond a certain sum.” The roundsman 
 
 * See ante, iv. 900, 
 3G 
 
930 
 
 system, however, had been known in various parts 
 of the country before this date. Sir Frederick Eden 
 speaks of it as having been general in Buckingham- 
 shire and many of the midland counties before the 
 publication of Sir William Young’s proposal for 
 the amendment of the poor-laws in 1788.* In 
 his Report on the parish of Winslow, in Bucks, 
 dated September, 1795, he says, ‘“‘ There seems to 
 be here a great want of employment: most la- 
 bourers are (as it is termed) on the rounds ; that 
 is, they go to work from one house to another 
 round the parish. In winter sometimes forty 
 persons are on the rounds. They are wholly paid 
 by the parish, unless the householders choose to 
 employ them ; and, from these circumstances, 
 labourers often become very lazy and impe- 
 rious.’ And again, in the report on the parish 
 of Kibworth-Beauchamp in Leicestershire, dated 
 August, 1795 :—“In the winter, and at other 
 times, when a man is out of work, he applies to 
 the overseer, who sends him from house to house 
 to get employ: the housekeeper who employs him 
 is obliged to give him victuals and 6d. a day, and 
 the parish adds 4d. (total 10d. a day), for the 
 support of his family: persons working in this 
 manner are called roundsmen, from their going 
 round the village or township for employ.”’t The 
 Report of the Commission on the Poor Lawstates that 
 the general practice, where the roundsman system 
 was adopted, had come to be, for the parish to 
 
 make an agreement with a farmer to sell to him | 
 
 the labour of one or more paupers, at a certain 
 price, and to pay to the pauper out of the rates the 
 difference between such wages and his proper 
 allowance according to the Table. “It has re- 
 ceived the name of the billet or ticket system,” 
 continues the Report, “from the ticket signed by 
 the overseer, which the pauper in general carries to 
 the farmer as a warrant for his being employed, 
 and takes back to the overseer, signed by the 
 farmer, as a proof that he has fulfilled the condi- 
 tions of relief. In other cases the parish contracts 
 with some individual to have some work performed 
 for him by the paupers at a given price, the parish 
 paying the paupers.” It is added, that in many 
 places the roundsman system was effected by 
 means of an auction. In Sulgrave, Northampton- 
 shire, the old and infirm were then (in 1834) sold 
 once a month to the best bidder, at prices varying, 
 according to the time of the year, from ls. 6d. to 
 3s. a week. At Yardley, Hastings, all the unem- 
 ployed men were put up to sale weekly; and the 
 clergyman of the parish told the commissioner that 
 he had seen ten men, the week before, knocked 
 down to one of the farmers for 5s., and that, out of 
 170 male paupers belonging to the parish, there 
 were then about 70 let out in this manner.§ 
 
 One effect of the roundsman system, therefore, 
 was to throw an unfair share of the burthen of 
 supporting the poor upon such rate-payers as did 
 
 * See his State of the Poor, i. 397. 
 + Id. ii. 30. 
 § Report, p. 32. 
 
 ¢ Id. p. 384, 
 
 SR ci tS ete meie ship sensenssaebsne= 
 
 a 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 pie eee SS Se nae 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 not employ labourers in proportion to their rates, 
 The farmer got back his assessment, or part of it, 
 in the form of cheap labour: the labour he re- 
 quired was in part paid for him by those of the 
 inhabitants who employed less labour in propor- 
 tion to their rates than himself. It is evident that 
 this plan could operate no diminution of the entire 
 burthen of the rates ; and that it had as little ten- 
 dency to lessen the amount or check the spread of 
 pauperism. On the contrary, by increasing the 
 allowance to the pauper in proportion to the price 
 of bread and the number of his children, it tended 
 to destroy all habits of providence and economy, 
 to counteract those arrangements of nature by 
 which in years of scarcity the smaller quantity of 
 food that there is to be divided is made to go 
 farther than it would have done or have needed to 
 do in a time of greater plenty, and to encourage 
 by a premium the propagation of poverty and des- 
 titution. 
 
 The total amount raised under the name of 
 parochial and county rates in England and Wales 
 in the year 1785 was, as we have seen in the last 
 Book, 2,184,904/. The average expenditure 
 upon the poor for the three years 1783-4-5 was 
 2,004,239/. The next year for which we have 
 any account is 1801, in which the sum expended 
 for the relief of the poor was 4,017,871/., or more 
 than double what it had been seventeen or eighteen 
 years before. The average of the total sum levied 
 for poor-rates and county-rates in the three years 
 1801-2-3 was 53,48,205/., or nearly two and a 
 half times as much as had been so levied in 
 1783-4-5. 
 
 The population of England and Wales was pro- 
 bably about 8,000,000 in 1785, and about 
 9,000,000 in 1801. The census taken in the lat- 
 ter year made it 8,872,980. The increase of the 
 poor-rates, therefore, in the course of the present 
 period would appear to have been nearly ten times 
 as great as the increase of the population. A por- 
 tion of the additional amount of money expended 
 on the poor is, no doubt, to be assigned to the aug- 
 mented price of provisions; but certainly not more 
 than one-half of the increase in the rates can be so 
 accounted for. At least 50 per cent. of the increase, 
 which was 100 per cent. in all, must be set down, 
 it is to be apprehended, to the increase of pau- 
 perism ; in other words, while the general popula- 
 tion had been augmented by an eighth, the pauper 
 population had been augmented by a half, or by 
 four times as great a proportional accession. And 
 the probability is, that this latter augmentation had 
 taken place in less than half the time that the other 
 had been going on—that it was chiefly the growth 
 of the seven years from 1794, or, at most, of the 
 nine from 1792, to 1801. . 
 
 During the earlier part of the present period, 
 indeed, the condition of the labouring classes, as 
 well as of the rest of the community, was probably 
 one of decided and even rapid advancement. 
 “There can be little doubt,’? as Sir Frederick 
 Eden has observed, writing in 1797, “that the ten 
 
Cuap. XIV.] 
 
 years ending in January, 1793, exhibit the most 
 flattering appearances, in every circumstance that 
 has been considered by political economists as de- 
 monstrative of national prosperity.” * Sir Frederick 
 is even disposed to hesitate before admitting that 
 the great augmentation of the poor-rate was an 
 unequivocal proof of the inability of labourers, at 
 the time when he wrote, to maintain themselves on 
 the ordinary wages of labour. “ Before this can 
 be admitted,’ he argues, “it should be proved 
 that more persons are maintained by the present 
 poor-rate, which probably exceeds three millions 
 sterling, than were by half that sum twenty years 
 ago.” And he goes on: “Even allowing this to 
 be the fact, it by no means proves that the able- 
 bodied labourer, whom it has been the fashion of 
 late years, upon benevolent though mistaken prin- 
 ciples of policy, to quarter on the parish, would, 
 if unassisted by the overseer, have been unable to 
 benefit himself, whilst his employer was getting 
 riches by his labour.” “The fact,” he concludes, 
 “seems to have been, that, instead of an advance 
 in wages proportioned to the increased demand for 
 labour, the labourer has received a considerable 
 part of that portion of his employer’s capital which 
 was destined for his maintenance in the form of 
 poor-rate (the very worst that it could assume), 
 instead of being paid it as the fair, well-earned 
 recompense of equivalent labour.” “This,” Sir 
 Frederick well says, “is a deplorable evil, which 
 has fallen heavier on the poor than on the rich.” t 
 
 Second Section, 1801-1814.—In the period of 
 about eighteen years that elapsed between the 
 peace of Amiens (27th March, 1802) and the end of 
 the reign of George III. (29th January, 1820), there 
 occurred at least three seasons of great suffering 
 among the working classes; namely, the years 
 1811-12, 1816-17, and 1819. The year 1812 was 
 distinguished by the outrages of the Luddites, or 
 destroyers of machinery, which began at Notting- 
 ham in November, 1811, and, extending through 
 Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Cheshire, Lancashire, 
 Cumberland, and Yorkshire, were continued 
 throughout the following spring and summer. A 
 scarcity of employment, and consequent fall of 
 wages, erroneously attributed to machinery, but 
 really the consequence of the commercial stagna- 
 tion and discredit of the two preceding years, 
 conspiring with an extraordinary rise in the price 
 of food,§ produced the general distress among the 
 manufacturing population of which these dis- 
 turbances were the symptom or natural expression. 
 Again, in 1816, similar causes, which this time, 
 however, involved the agricultural as well as the 
 manufacturing and commercial classes, inflicting 
 the severest privations upon the working people 
 in almost all parts of the kingdom, gave rise to the 
 spread of Hampden and Union clubs, Spencean 
 societies, and other revolutionary combinations 
 throughout Lancashire, Leicestershire, Notting- 
 
 * State of the Poor, i. 574. 
 
 +I1d., p. 575, 
 $ See ante, pp. 813, 814. 
 
 § See ante, p. 814. 
 
 a ce 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE:—1801-1814. 
 
 hamshire, Derbyshire, and Lanarkshire, and at 
 last, in December, resulted in the great riots at 
 Spafields, London, and other excesses, which were 
 followed in the beginning of the next year by the 
 suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and other 
 measures of coercion, Lastly, in 1819, another 
 season of manufacturing and commercial depres- 
 sion, occasioned by extensive failures among the 
 importers of cotton and other speculators in foreign 
 trade, by throwing great numbers of workmen out 
 of employment, although unaccompanied by any 
 rise in the prices of the necessaries of life, but 
 rather the contrary, produced similar effects, the 
 wide-spread cry for radical reform, the tumultuous 
 meetings at Manchester and elsewhere, the suppres- 
 sion of disorder by military force, and the famous 
 Six Acts. In reviewing the economical history of 
 the period, these three portionsof it may therefore be 
 considered as ofa distinct and exceptional character. 
 Of the general movement of the circumstances 
 affecting the condition of the great body of the 
 people throughout the rest of the period, the sub- 
 joined notices will afford us the clearest views :— 
 1, WacrEs.—It was stated in the first section that 
 an advance of wages took place in most depart- 
 ments of industry in 1795 and 1796, and a further 
 advance in 1800 and 1801.* A third movement 
 in the same direction began in 1804, and continued 
 to the close of 1808, by which time, according to 
 Mr. Tooke, the price of labour, more especially of 
 artizan labour, had attained nearly its maximum 
 height,t though in some occupations this had 
 scarcely happened till about 1812: indeed, the 
 most considerable rise in the wages of manufac- 
 turing industry did not take place till 1813 and 
 1814.8 According to the Greenwich Hospital ac- 
 counts of the weekly wages of the various descrip- 
 tions of operatives employed by that establishment, 
 those paid to carpenters were 18s. in 1800, 27s. in 
 1805, 34s. in 1810, 33s. in 1815, 31s. in 1816, 
 dls, 6d. in 1819; those of bricklayers were also 
 18s. in 1800, and rose to 29s. in 1805, to 31s. in 
 1810, and to 32s. 6d. in 1811, and were still 
 30s. 6d. in 1819; those of masons were 17s. in 
 1800, 30s. in 1805, 34s. 6d. in 1811, and 3ls. 6d. 
 from 1816 to 1820; those of plumbers were 
 19s. 6d. in 1800, 27s. in 1805, 34s. 6d. in 1810, 
 and were still the same in 1819, having only in 
 1816 fallen to 32s. 6d. These are almost the 
 only departments of labour in which we have any 
 complete account of the progress or fluctuation of 
 wages during this period, if we except that of 
 hand-loom weaving, where of course the competi- 
 tion of machinery had a decidedly depressing effect, 
 reducing the weekly amount of wages at Glasgow, 
 for example, from 13s..1d. in 1800, and 17s. 8d. 
 in 1806, to 7s. 6d. in 1811, and then, after an ad- 
 vance which reached the height of 13s, in 1814, to 
 5s. 6d. in 1816, and to 5s. in 1819.|| With this 
 
 * See ante, pp. 926, 927. 
 £1d., p. 329. 
 
 + Hist. of Prices, i. 288. 
 3 Id., vol. ii. pp. 5, 6. 
 
 || See Table of the weekly wages of artizans, &c., in Mr. Porter’s 
 Progress of the Nation, vol. ii. pp. 251-254. It is somewhat remark- 
 
932 
 
 exception, the rise of wages, and the same thing is 
 true of salaries and professional fees, generally 
 maintained throughout the remainder of the period, 
 and indeed has done so ever since, very nearly 
 the maximum which it had reached about 1810 or 
 1812. We have already had occasion to notice 
 this tendency of a rise of wages to maintain itself 
 after the partial orentire removal of the cause by 
 which it had been originally produced.* 
 
 2. Pricrs.—The main, if not the exclusive, 
 cause, undoubtedly, of the advance of wages which 
 took place in all departments of industry, where it 
 was not counteracted by peculiar circumstances, 
 between 1794 and 1814, was the still greater rise 
 which took place in the same period in the prices 
 of provisions and of the necessaries of life. The 
 mean price for the year of the Winchester quarter 
 of wheat, which (according to the audit books of 
 Eton College) was only 54s. in 1794, and had very 
 seldom before been higher or so high, was 81s. 6d. 
 in 1795, 127s. in 1800, 88s. in 1805, 106s. in 1809, 
 112s. in 1810, 118s. in 1812, 120s. in 1813, 116s. 
 in 18117, and 78s. in 1819; ever since which time 
 prices have been confined within a much lower 
 range. Generally, therefore, it may be said that 
 both prices and wages (which are the price of 
 labour) continued to rise down to 1814, but prices 
 at a greater rate than wages; and that during the 
 remainder of the period wages maintained the ele- 
 vation they had gained, while prices rather receded 
 than advanced; so that, on the whole, the relation 
 of wages to the prices of food was probably restored 
 by 1820 to nearly what it had been in 1793. 
 
 3. Consumption.—The fullest accounts that 
 have been laid before the public of the consumption 
 of various articles of necessity and luxury by the 
 inhabitants of the United Kingdom during the 
 period now under consideration are those collected 
 by Mr. Porter in his valuable work entitled ‘ The 
 Progress of the Nation.?+ The following are 
 some of the most important results which Mr. 
 Porter’s statements and calculations present. The 
 average number of inhabitants to a house in Eng- 
 land appears to have increased from 5°67 in 1801 to 
 5°68 in 1811, and to 5°76 in 1821. The total 
 number of male domestic servants kept in Great 
 Britain was 86,093 in 1812, and only 85,757 in 
 1821 (when, if it had kept pace with the increase 
 of the population, it ought to have been 96,966) : 
 there was a very slight increase in the number kept 
 by persons keeping only one or two, but a diminu- 
 tion in the numbers of those belonging to all larger 
 establishments. The increase in the number of 
 four-wheeled carriages between 1812 and 1821, 
 was only from 16,596 to 17,555, or 5°77 per 
 cent. ; while the increase of the population was 
 13 per cent.; and here, too, there was an actual 
 falling off in the number of those kept where more 
 
 able, however, that, while the wages of hand-loom weavers according 
 to this table were in 1816 only 5s._6d. at Glasgow, they were 13s. 2d. 
 at Manchester, and 12s. at Arbroath. In 1819 they are represented 
 as being still 9s. 6d. at Manchester, and 12s, at Arbroath, while they 
 were only 5s, at Glasgow. 
 * See ante, p. 927. 
 ¢ Vol, iii., Lon, 18435; sect. v., pp. 1-116, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [ Boox X. 
 
 than two were kept. The number of two-wheeled 
 carriages, however, increased from 27,286 in 1812 
 to 30,743 in 1821, being at the rate of 12°67 per 
 cent., or very nearly that of the increase of the 
 population. The number of carriages let for hire, 
 on the other hand, was reduced from 5544 to 
 5480. The quantity of gold plate upon which 
 duty was paid was 5174 ozs. in 1801, 6036 ozs. 
 in 1808, and rose to 7333 ozs. in 1811; after 
 which it declined somewhat gradually and irre- 
 gularly to 6166 ozs. in 1817, and then suddenly 
 to 3826 ozs. in 1818, to 3374 ozs. in 1819, to 
 4430 ozs. in 1820, and to 2916 ozs.in 1821. The 
 quantity of silver plate was 760,261 ozs. in 1801, 
 1,009,899 ozs. in 1808, 1,254,128 ozs. in 1811; 
 from which quantity it declined to 824,860 ozs. in 
 1817, but rose again to 1,194,709 ozs. in 1819, 
 and to 1,113,597 ozs. in 1820. The quantity of 
 sugar consumed by each individual in Great Bri- 
 tain is calculated by Mr. Porter to have been 
 30 Ibs. 92 ozs. in 1801, and to have fallen to 
 29 lbs. 44 ozs., or, deducting what was employed 
 in the distilleries, to 24 lbs. 9 ozs. in 1811, and to 
 19 lbs. 3% ozs. in 1821. In Ireland the con- 
 sumption of each individual appears to have been 
 6 lbs. 3 ozs. on the average of the three years 
 ending 25th of March, 1800; 7 lbs. 144 ozs. on 
 the average of the three years ending 5th January, 
 1810; and 6 lbs, 43 ozs. in 1821.* The average 
 consumption of coffee in Great Britain was at the 
 rate of 1°09 oz. for each individual in 1801, when 
 the duty was ls. 6d. perlb.; of 8°12 ozs. in 1811, 
 when the duty was reduced to Td. ; and of 8°01 ozs. 
 in 1821, when the duty had been again raised to 
 ls. Of tea the average consumption of each in- 
 dividual in the United Kingdom appears to have 
 been 1 lb. 3°75 ozs. in 1801, when the duty was 
 20 per cent. on cheap, and 50 per cent. on high- 
 priced teas; and to have fallen to 1 lb. 1°10 oz. 
 in 1811, when the duty was 96 per cent. on the 
 value; andto 1 lb. 0°52 oz. in 1821, under an ad 
 valorem duty of 100 per cent. upon the higher 
 priced sorts. Of malt, the quantity consumed by 
 each individual in the United Kingdom rose from 
 1:20 bushels in 1801 to 1°60 in 1811, and fell, 
 notwithstanding a diminution of the duty, to 
 1:38 bushels in 1821: in England, where the 
 consumption has always been much more con- 
 siderable than in Scotland or Ireland, it rose, in 
 the face of nearly a quadrupling of the duty, from — 
 1°92 bushels in 1801 to 2°40 bushels in 1811, 
 and fell, notwithstanding a diminution of the duty 
 by nearly one-fourth, to 2°12 bushels in 1821. 
 The contribution, per head, to the revenue by the 
 consumers of malt in England appears in fact to 
 have been 2s. 7d. in 1801, 10s. 9d. in 1811, and 
 ‘Ts. 8d. in 1821. The consumption of spirits did 
 not fall off to the same extent: it was, in the 
 United Kingdom, at the rate of 0°56 gallon for 
 each individual in 1802, 0°49 in 1812, and 0°46 
 in 1821; in England it was 0°36 gallon in 1802, 
 0°33 in 1812, and the same in 1821; in Scotland 
 * Progress of the Nation, iii. 32. 
 
Cuap. XIV.] 
 
 it was 0°71 gallons in 1802, 0°86 in 1812, and 
 1°14 in 1821; in Ireland it was 0°86 gallons in 
 1802, 0°66 in 1812, and 0°48 in 1821. Both in 
 Scotland and Ireland, moreover, especially in the 
 latter, there was no doubt a large additional con- 
 sumption of illicit spirits. Of rum the average 
 consumption of each individual was in England 
 0°23 gallons in 1802, 0°29 in 1812, notwithstand- 
 ing an increase of 50 per cent. on the duty, and 
 only 0°17 in 1821, the duty remaining unaltered ; 
 in Scotland, 0°29 gallons in 1802, 0°15 in 1812, 
 and 0°06 in 1821; in Ireland, 0°12 gallons in 1802, 
 0°04 in 1812, and 0:003 in 1821. Of foreign 
 spirits (brandy and Hollands) the average con- 
 sumption, per head, in England, was reduced from 
 0:209 gallons in 1802 to 0-015 in 1812 (the effect 
 of the war), and had risen only to 0'079 in 1821. 
 Of foreign wines of all kinds the average consump- 
 tion per head, in the United Kingdom, declined 
 from 0°431 gallons in 1801 to 0°304 in 1811 
 (the duties having in the mean time been con- 
 siderably augmented), and to 0°221 in 1821. Of 
 beer the average consumption for each individual 
 in England and Wales (exclusive of that brewed 
 in private families) rose from 24°76 gallons in 
 1801, in the face of an increased duty, to 25°19 
 gallons in 1811, and had fallen to 20°53 gallons in 
 1821. Of tobacco the average individual con- 
 sumption in Great Britain rose in like manner, 
 under an increase of duty, from 15°37 ozs. in 1801 
 to 18°95 ozs. in 1811, and then declined, the duty 
 having been further increased, to 14°43 ozs. in 
 1821. In Ireland it declined from 17°35 ozs. in 
 1811 to 6°15 ozs. in 1821. One of the few articles 
 the consumption of which was progressive through- 
 out the whole period, was paper, of which there 
 were 31,699,537 lbs. charged with duty in 1803, 
 38,225,167 lbs. in 1811, and 48,204,927 in 1821, 
 the duty remaining unaltered. Of soap, also, the 
 total number of pounds consumed rose from 
 52,947,037 in 1801 to 73,527,760 in 1811, and 
 to 92,941,326 in 1821; but this article is exten- 
 sively used in the silk, cotton, linen, woollen, and 
 many other manufactures, so that its consumption 
 cannot be taken as any index of the economical 
 condition of the people. The consumption of can- 
 dles in Great Britain, including all sorts, only 
 increased from 66,999,080 lbs. in 1801 to 
 78,640,555 Ibs. in 1811, and to 94,679,189 Ibs. 
 in 1821, or at about the same rate with the popu- 
 lation. It thus appears that the general bearing 
 of these facts and figures is all in one direction ; 
 and it would seem impossible to resist the testi- 
 mony borne by such an array and concurrence of 
 particulars to the conclusion that the economical 
 progress of the great body of the people must have 
 received a considerable check in the latter part of 
 the present period. 
 
 4, Popotation.— Under this head we will col- 
 lect the principal facts relating to both the numbers 
 of the people and to the other circumstances more 
 immediately connected with that matter. The 
 
 three successive enumerations of the people that 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE :—1801-1814. 
 
 933 
 
 were taken in 1801, 1811, and 1821, show the 
 following general results :—In 1801 the population 
 of England and Wales was 8,872,980; that of 
 Scotland, 1,599,068; that of Great Britain, 
 10,472,048 (exclusive of the army and navy, 
 amounting to 470,598). In 1811 the population 
 of England and Wales was 10,163,676; that of 
 Scotland, 1,805,688; that of Great Britain, 
 11,969,364 (exclusive of the army and navy, 
 amounting to 640,500). In 1821 the population 
 of England and Wales was 11,978,875 ; that of 
 Scotland, 2,093,456; that of Great Britain, 
 14,072,331 (exclusive of the army and navy, 
 amounting to 319,300). The increase per cent. 
 in the ten years between 1801 and 1811 was thus 
 14°5 in England and Wales, very nearly 13 in 
 Scotland, and 14°3 in Great Britain; in the ten 
 years between 1811 and 1821 it was 17:8 in 
 England and Wales, 15°8 in Scotland, and 17°5 
 in Great Britain. The first actual enumeration 
 of the people of Ireland was taken in 1813; but 
 it did not include the whole country, and it was 
 rather calculated or conjectured than ascertained 
 that the entire population then amounted to 
 5,937,858; in 1821 the number was found to be 
 6,801,827. The annual number of births, or at 
 least of baptisms, continued to increase, with the 
 population, throughout the period: in the year of 
 scarcity, 1801, it had been in England and Wales 
 only 237,029; but in 1802 it was 273,837, in 
 1803 it was 294,108, in 1811 it was 304,857, in 
 1821 it was 355,307. The rate of the increase of 
 marriages was still more irregular: in 1801 the 
 number was only 67,288; but in 1802 it was 
 90,396, and in 1803 it was 94,379, after which it 
 was not again so high for the next eleven years ; 
 being only 86,389 in 1811, 92,779 in 1818, and 
 not more than 96,883 in 1820: in 1821 it was 
 100,868. The most curious and illustrative of 
 this class of facts, however, is that of the number 
 of deaths at different dates throughout the period. 
 According to the same parish registers from which 
 the numbers of baptisms and marriages have been 
 taken, the number of deaths, or rather of burials, 
 was 204,434 in 1801, 199,889 in 1802, 203,728 
 in 1803, 181,177 in 1804, 208,184 in 1810, 
 188,543 in 1811, 208,349 in 1820, 212,352 in 
 1821. By comparing the actual numbers of the 
 population in each year, as calculated from the 
 decennial enumerations, with the numbers of re- 
 gistered burials corrected by an allowance being 
 made for unregistered deaths, it would appear that 
 during the five years ending with 1805 the annual 
 rate of mortality was 1 in every 45 of the popula- 
 tion; that during the five ending with 1810 it 
 was reduced to 1 in every 474; in the five ending 
 with 1815 to 1 in every 52; in the five ending 
 with 1820 to 1 in every 53; and that in the next 
 five years, ending with 1825, it increased to 1 in 
 every 52; and in the next five, ending with 1830, 
 to 1 in every 50.* The data upon which these 
 
 * These calculations are made upon the table given at p. 454 of the 
 Official Tables of the'Board of Trade, Part iil., fol. 1834. The state- 
 
934 
 
 deductions are founded are not entitled to perfect 
 confidence, and to afford a complete elucidation 
 of the matter the calculations would obviously 
 require to be made upon a classification of the 
 deaths according to ages; but, taking the facts in 
 the imperfect state in which we have them, we 
 should evidently not be justified in inferring, from 
 the increased mortality not having manifested itself 
 till after 1820, that the economical depression in 
 which it may be supposed to have originated was 
 necessarily also of that date. It is much more 
 probable, on general considerations, that the rate 
 of mortality in a country at any particular time 
 (with the exception of seasons of actual famine or 
 the prevalence of destructive epidemics) is prin- 
 cipally affected by causes that have been in opera- 
 tion for a considerable time before, or that may 
 have even ceased to exist before the effect in ques- 
 tion shall have begun, to show itself. In the pre- 
 sent case all the other indications of the economical 
 condition of the people are much more favourable 
 both in the series of years immediately preceding 
 1815, and in that from 1820 to 1830, than in that 
 from 1815 to 1820, during which last space, ne- 
 vertheless, the actual rate of mortality is calculated 
 to have been at the lowest. Mr. MacCulloch ob- 
 serves that this apparent increase in the rate of 
 mortality between 1815 (at ought rather to be 
 1821 or 1822) and 1830 “ probably was only, in 
 part at least, a temporary effect, caused by the 
 distress resulting from the sudden transition from 
 a state of war to one of peace; and by the severe 
 shock that the fall of prices in 1815, and the de- 
 struction of country banks and of country bank 
 paper in that year, gave to almost every species of 
 industry.”* He adds that, if the increased mor- 
 tality be still maintained, the causes that have 
 produced it will afford matter for interesting in- 
 vestigation ; and he suggests that it will perhaps 
 be found that the increased immigration from Ire- 
 land of late years has had a good deal to do in 
 bringing it about. It may be remarked that the 
 registered numbers of births as compared with 
 those of burials are far from accounting for the 
 whole of the increase which each successive census 
 of the population has exhibited. The increase in 
 the ten years between 1801 and 1811 is greater 
 than would be thus accounted for by 303,878 
 souls; that between 1811 and 1821 by 447,581; 
 that between 1821 and 1831 by 550,356.+ —Pro- 
 bably both the registers were kept and the enume- 
 rations taken with greater accuracy in the latter 
 than in the former portion of these thirty years ; 
 so that we may safely assume from the above 
 figures that the increase of the population of 
 England by immigration from Ireland (the only 
 quarter from which there is any considerable 
 immigration) had been proceeding at a growing 
 rate, a fact indeed which, independently of in- 
 vestigation, was sufficiently visible to all the 
 
 ment given by Mr. MacCulloch in his Statistics of the British Empire 
 (1st edit.), vol. i. p. 417, is somewhat different. 
 
 * Statistics of the British Empire, i. 419. 
 
 + Official Tables of Board of Trade, Part iii. p. 454, 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Book X. 
 
 world, and universally admitted. The fact is the 
 samne with regard to the population of Scotland ; 
 and it is one of no light account in reference to 
 the condition of the people, both physical and 
 moral, in either country. Mr. MacCulloch, writing 
 in 1837, states that it was believed that at that 
 date about a fourth part of the population of Man- 
 chester and Glasgow consisted either of native Irish 
 or of their descendants; that in various other 
 places the proportion of Irish blood was still 
 greater ; and that the influx was still increasing 
 instead of diminishing. It ‘* threatens,” he ob- 
 serves, “to entail very pernicious consequences on 
 the people of England and Scotland. ‘The wages 
 of the latter are reduced by the competition of the 
 Irish; and, which is. still worse, their opinions as 
 to what is necessary for their comfortable and de- 
 cent subsistence are lowered by the contaminating 
 influence of example, and by familiar intercourse 
 with those who are content to live in filth and 
 misery. It is difficult to see how, if things be 
 allowed to continue on their present footing, the 
 condition of the labouring classes in the two coun- 
 tries should not be pretty much approximated ; 
 and there is but too much reason to think that the 
 equalization will be brought about rather by the 
 degradation of the English than by the elevation 
 of the Irish.* Hitherto the latter have been very 
 little, if at all, improved by their residence in 
 England; but the English and Scotch with whom 
 they associate have been certainly deteriorated.’’”* 
 5. Poor-Rates.—The poor-rates may be con- 
 sidered as an index of the increase or diminution 
 of that portion of the population which, possessing 
 no property, earns nothing, and whose subsistence 
 constitutes a burden upon the earnings and other 
 incomes of the rest of the community. A high 
 rate of wages, generally connected as it is with 
 abundance of employment, obviously has a ten- 
 dency in ordinary circumstances to reduce the 
 number of paupers; but the two things have no 
 absolutely necessary or constant connexion, and it 
 is quite possible that, under certain arrangements 
 or the operation of peculiar influences, an advanc- 
 ing rate of wages may subsist simultaneously with 
 an increasing pauper population. For the rate of 
 wages is not determined exclusively by the num- 
 bers of the people, but partly also by the habits or 
 notions which prevail in the country as to the 
 mode of living proper for the working man, who, 
 rather than labour for wages which will not main- 
 tain him at that established or customary point of 
 comfort and decency, may choose to refuse to con- 
 tinue a labourer, and transfer himself to the class 
 of paupers. It is very evident that, from this or 
 other causes, there must have been going on during 
 the first twenty years of the present century, not- 
 withstanding the rise of wages, which for a part 
 of the period at least was real as well as nominal, 
 and was unaccompanied by any corresponding 
 enhancement. of the prices of provisions and other 
 necessaries, the absorption of a constantly in- 
 * Statistics of the British Empire, i. 401. 
 
Cuap. XIV. ] 
 
 creasing portion of the population into the gulf of 
 pauperism. The sum annually expended for the 
 relief of the poor in England and Wales, which 
 was only 4,017,871. (equivalent to the price of 
 693,234 quarters of wheat) in 1801, and only 
 4,0717,891/. (equivalent to ¥,428,751 quarters of 
 wheat) in 1803, had by 1820 risen to 7,330,256/. 
 (equivalent to 2,226,913 quarters), and in 1821 
 was 6,959,249/. (equivalent, at the prices of that 
 year, to 2,557,763 quarters of wheat).* Thus, 
 while the population had increased by only about 
 30 per cent., the money amount of the poor-rates 
 had increased by nearly 75 per cent., and their 
 amount, measured in wheat, by not much short of 
 400 per cent. if we compute from 1801, and even 
 if we set aside that extraordinary year, and make 
 our calculation from the expenditure of 1803, by 
 nearly 80 per cent. The sum annually expended 
 for the relief of the poor, which was 4,077,891. 
 on the average of the years 1801-2-3, had risen to 
 6,656,106/. in 1812-13, and was 17,870,801/. in 
 1817-18, 7,516,704/. in 1818-19, and 7,330,254. 
 in 1819-20. ‘The legislation upon the subject of 
 the poor during the present period was certainly 
 not calculated to check the increase of pauperism. 
 In 1815 the act called East’s Act was passed (the 
 55 Geo. III. c. 137), which relaxed the ancient 
 regulations so far as to empower justices to order 
 relief for any length of time they chose, not exceed- 
 ing three months, and to enact that the pauper 
 should no longer be required to come into any 
 workhouse, but should receive his or her allowance 
 in money at his or her home or house. A more 
 familiarly known measure, Sturges Bourne’s Act 
 (the 59 Geo. III. c. 12), passed in 1819, while it 
 provided for the establishment of select vestries 
 and the appointment of assistant overseers, faci- 
 litated the erection of workhouses, and also recog- 
 nised, though with little practical effect, the old 
 and, as far as it can be carried out, sound principle 
 of setting the paupers to work. At the same time, 
 however, it surely evinced a strange misconception 
 or forgetfulness of the purpose and essential cha- 
 racter of a compulsory provision for the poor, 
 when it required the churchwardens and overseers 
 to pay to such paupers as they might employ rea- 
 sonable wages for their labour, and gave to the 
 said pauper labourers ‘‘ such and the like remedies 
 for the recovery of their wages as other labourers 
 in husbandry have.” 
 
 6. Crime.—There is a still lower grade of the 
 population than that which is supported by the 
 poor-rates, the portion of the community consti- 
 tuting the lowest layer of all in the social pyramid, 
 which supports itself by the violation of the laws 
 and the commission of crime. The increase or 
 diminution of this class is still less exclusively de- 
 pendent than is the numerical movement of the 
 pauper population, upon the high or low, or the 
 
 * See Table in Mr. Porter's Progress of the Nation, vol. i. p. 82. 
 It is, however, difficult to understand how in a year of such scarcity 
 as 1801 the poor should have been supported by an outlay (measured 
 
 in quarters of wheat) not half so large as was required for that pur- 
 pose two years later, when the scarcity had completely passed away, 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE :—1801-1814. 
 
 a 0000009090000 
 
 935 
 
 rising or falling, rate of wages, though certainly 
 far from being altogether withdrawn from the 
 action of that almost universally influential element 
 in the economical condition of a community. The 
 number of persons annually convicted of crimes in 
 England and Wales proceeded in a constantly aug- 
 menting ratio to the entire population throughout 
 the present period; having been 2783 in 1805, 
 3163 in 1811, 4883 in 1815, and 9510 in 1819. 
 The progress of crime, therefore, was nearly three 
 times as rapid as the progress of population. It 
 is true that the character of crime was changed, 
 and perhaps for the better; crimes of violence had 
 probably not increased in the same proportion as 
 crimes against property ; in some important re- 
 spects there was an absolute diminution of the 
 open outrage and insecurity of life and person 
 which most ruffle the surface of society, and seem 
 the most completely to set the law at defiance. But 
 the great fact remains, that a prodigious aug- 
 mentation was made to the proportion of the popu- 
 lation disowning the law and subsisting upon 
 crime. Some of the persons convicted even of the 
 most heinous crimes were no doubt not habitual 
 criminals, but these are the exceptional cases; the 
 great mass of the men, women, and children who 
 furnish such constant occupation to our courts of 
 justice are a part, and but a small part, of a 
 population whose only means of existence is the 
 commission of crime. The disbanding of the arm 
 after the war probably made a considerable addi- 
 tion tothe numbers of this class; the economical 
 pressure of the next five or six years may be sup- 
 posed to have still further strengthened it; in or- 
 dinary circumstances it maintains its own force, 
 like any other class of the community, and is more 
 likely to do so than most other classes, seeing that, 
 while it derives continual accessions from the rest 
 of society, and more especially from those portions 
 of the population to which it is in a manner con- . 
 tiguous, it renders none in return to any other 
 class: the rise even to the condition of the hum- 
 blest common labourer, of the man who has been 
 born and bred in this lowest region of the social 
 system, is a phenomenon almost unheard of. Even 
 those who have stepped down into it from a supe- 
 rior station as rarely re-emerge as did the fabled 
 visitors of the realms of death, in the old heathen 
 mythology :— 
 “ facilis descensus Averni ; 
 
 Sed revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras, 
 
 Hoc opus, hie labor es¢.’’ 
 
 What, then, are the general conclusions to which 
 these various indications agree in conducting us? 
 A community may be considered as divided by 
 lines, more or less definite, into the following 
 orders :—1. Those who live upon their property or 
 capital (the natural Nobility of a country) ; 2. Those 
 who earn a subsistence by the labour of their heads 
 (the Clergy, or Clerisy, in the most extensive sense 
 of the term); 3. Those who support themselves by 
 the labour of their hands :—and then, lying, as it 
 were, beyond the proper limits of the social system, 
 
936 
 
 4. Paupers, maintained by public charity; 5. The 
 criminal population, subsisting upon plunder and 
 fraud. These appear to be the distinctions which 
 may be most clearly read, at least in the modes of 
 thinking and habits of. society which have always 
 prevailed in this and in all other Gothic or Teu- 
 tonic countries. There is, of course, some fading 
 of the adjacent colours into one another: the great 
 merchant is often also a great proprietor; the 
 upper range of artizans and shopkeepers touches 
 the lowest range of professional men and mer- 
 chants; the modern feelings and usages of society 
 may make little or no distinction in ordinary cases 
 between persons belonging to the first and persons 
 belonging to the second of the five orders; but 
 still, in what we may call their types at least, that 
 is to say, in the instances in which the peculiar 
 characteristic of each order is developed m a 
 marked or conspicuous manner, they are univer- 
 sally discriminated. At all events, what we may 
 call the main body of the population, forming not 
 only the bulk, but the bone and muscle, the mar- 
 row and strength of the community, and the por- 
 tion of the social system upon which the welfare of 
 the whole principally depends, is sufficiently dis- 
 tinguished both from what is above it and what is 
 below it, as the third order (the Tiers Etat), com- 
 prehending all the various descriptions commonly 
 known under the designation of the industrial 
 classes. 
 
 It appears pretty clearly, that at least the most nu- 
 merous portion of this most important order, or what 
 is distinctively called the working population, did not 
 preserve, during any part of this period, the same 
 amount of economical prosperity, or command over 
 the necessaries and more indispensable accommoda- 
 tions of life, to which it had previously attained. This 
 seems to be proved by the lowered ratio of wages 
 to the price of food throughout the present period, 
 as compared with the preceding half-century ; and 
 the inference may be considered to be strengthened 
 by the great increase both of pauperism and of 
 crime—an increase in both cases, doubtless, mainly 
 produced by the conversion of labourers into pau- 
 pers and criminals. To the mere labourer the 
 relation between the rate of wages and the price of 
 _ the necessaries of life is, in a manner, everything ; 
 it is the expression of his entire economical con- 
 dition. The only advantage, at least as affecting 
 their material circumstances, which the labouring 
 classes of this age appear to have had over those 
 of the preceding generation was that they could 
 buy cotton stuffs for clothing somewhat cheaper. 
 But this was certainly far from compensating for 
 the degree in which the rise in the price of food 
 had outrun the rise in the rate of wages. Per- 
 haps the way in which it operated with the most 
 effect, and most beneficially, was in promoting a 
 taste for a higher degree of neatness and decora- 
 tion in dress, which was principally called forth, 
 where, indeed, it was most desirable that it should 
 Show itself, among the female portion of the labour- 
 ing population and of the industrial classes gene- 
 
 SE AE ST ASSL A EE NLA Ce NS LN 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 [Boox X. 
 
 rally, and which would naturally connect itself 
 with improved habits of cleanliness, order, and de- 
 cency. If there really was any reduction of the rate 
 of mortality among the great body of the people, it 
 would seem to be attributable, not to their circum- 
 stances being easier, but to their having, carried 
 along by the general progress of the times, gra- 
 dually abandoned some old pernicious arrange- 
 ments in their dwellings and modes of living, to 
 some improvement in the construction of their 
 houses, their being kept in somewhat better repair 
 and being a little better ventilated and drained, to 
 the diminution of gross intemperance, to the im- 
 proved police of towns, to the extension of cultiva- 
 tion, and the consequently higher general salubrity 
 of the country, and to the more advanced state of 
 medicine and surgery, the extirpation almost of some 
 destructive diseases, and the great mitigation of 
 others. The introduction of Vaccination, the great 
 discovery of Jenner, dates from about the com- 
 mencement of the present century. In the latter 
 part of the period, especially, or after 1814, all the 
 facts that serve as indices of the economical con- 
 dition of the great body of the people are, without 
 any exception, unfavourable :—diminished con- 
 sumption, increasing pauperism and crime, and 
 even the apparently declining movement of the 
 rate of mortality arrested or reversed. 
 
 It is true that, at least for a considerable part 
 of the time we are reviewing, certain of the classes 
 belonging to this largest division of the com- 
 munity were in the enjoyment of great and unpre- 
 cedented prosperity. The farmers, in particular, 
 who, with few exceptions, must be regarded as 
 having hitherto held much the same social station 
 with master-tradesmen and shopkeepers, shared 
 so largely with the proprietors of the soil in the 
 unusual gains derived from the high range of the 
 prices of agricultural produce, that many of them 
 became considerable capitalists, and a section of 
 the body may be almost said to have risen into the 
 rank of gentry. So likewise an effect of the vast 
 growth of manufactures under the application of 
 machinery was to create a new and numerous class 
 of spinning and weaving capitalists, whose wealth, 
 and position in all other respects, placed them by 
 the side of the great merchant. : 
 
 It is true also that, even in regard to the labour- 
 ing population, the principal economical indica- 
 tions become much more favourable when we get 
 beyond the year 1818 or 1819. If the rate of 
 mortality, instead of diminishing, appears to have 
 somewhat increased after that date, that is an 
 effect which, as we have already endeavoured to 
 show, is probably to be ascribed to the declension 
 and pressure experienced some years before. 
 After 1819 the price of food assumed a lower 
 range, without the change being accompanied by 
 any fall of wages; and the rate of consumption, 
 which, as we have seen, had been generally de- 
 clining for the preceding six or eight years, 
 acquired as to almost all descriptions of articles 
 an ascending movement. 
 
eal eectvlecepateesgegngntcdetbtierd comet caleba tcc anignlinbhieeadahidianiitanaienibitereethiaamelindanandssnsanisapmmessetiesiimintaat aii 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE:—1801-1814. 
 
 Cuap. XIV.] 
 
 There can be no doubt, moreover, independently 
 of this last-mentioned fact, that the command 
 which is possessed by all classes at the present 
 day over certain of what may be styled the accom- 
 modations and luxuries of life, is very much 
 greater than it was at the beginning of the present 
 century. This is a consequence of the general 
 progress of civilization, of the advance of the arts, 
 of the accumulation of capital, and of the products 
 of all kinds which capital helps to call into exist- 
 ence. The houses, the furniture, the clothing, of 
 all classes, except perhaps the very lowest, are of 
 a superior description to what they were forty 
 years ago. And how many facilities and sources 
 of enjoyment are open to the poorest man, in the 
 way of cheap and rapid travelling by sea and 
 land, mechanics’ institutes and other schools and 
 places of instruction for young and old, cheap news- 
 papers and periodical publications, lecture-rooms, 
 reading-rooms, coffee-houses, public baths, parks, 
 gardens, museums, picture galleries, and other 
 gratuitous exhibitions, which did not exist in former 
 days ! 
 
 On some points, however, there must still be 
 
 937 
 
 much of question and anxious speculation. These 
 things, which have thus been gained by the people, 
 are, after all, but the embellishments of existence ; 
 and their presence is no proof that the necessaries 
 of existence are more plentiful than formerly— 
 that the labouring classes have not more difficulty 
 than they were wont to have to find bread to eat— 
 that all classes have not a more arduous struggle 
 than ever to maintain their social position. Or, 
 if it should be admitted that society has made a 
 step in advance in all respects, and a step in the 
 solid advantages of which all classes have more or 
 less participated, the effect still may have been to 
 alter for the worse the relative position of the 
 labouring population, even while their positive 
 position has been improved. Nay, it may have 
 happened that in every class an absolute increase 
 of command over the necessaries and accommoda- 
 tions of life may be so much less equally distri- 
 buted than formerly, as to produce greater abun- 
 dance and greater penury at the same time. ‘The 
 benefit of an increase of wealth to a community 
 must always depend as much upon its proper dis- 
 tribution as upon its amount. 
 
INDE X., 
 
 PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND—VOLUME VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 ABERCROMBY, Sir Ralph, a British general, 141, 166-168 
 Aboukir, Battle of, fought July 25,1799, . may 
 Acre, siege of, by Bonaparte, . ° - 141, 142 
 Acts. See Parliament. 
 
 ApaMm, Robert, an eminent architect, 
 
 AppineTon, Mr, id aliens e 
 Agriculture, . . 811, 818-820 
 ALEXANDER, emperor of Russia, 163, 894, 503, 504, 686-690 
 
 . 863, 867, 868 
 761 
 
 Alexandria, Battle of, fought March 21, 1801, 166-168 
 Algiers, View of, . - ° ~ sh pee 
 Almeida, View of, ° 541 
 America, history of the United States, &e. a 624-635 
 Amiens, Treaty of, . . ; - 170, 636 
 Aqueduets, . ° ° ° 7) eee 
 Architecture, . ‘ . 862-871, 890-S96 
 Arcole, Bridge of, Bonaparte’ s losses at ‘the, . 205 
 ARKWRIGHT, the ‘mechanist, ° 840 
 ARTOIS, Count d’, brother of Louis XVIIL, - 689 
 Arts and Manufactures, ‘ 817-848 
 
 —, the Fine. See Literature, Science, &e., 850-905 
 Ashridge, Bucks, the work of James Wyatt, - 895 
 Aspern, Battle of, fought May 21 and 22, 1809, 509 
 Astronomy, . : : ° « 890 
 Atomic Theory, the, : . 890 
 
 AUCKLAND, Lord, formerly Mr William Eden, - 96 
 Austerlitz, Battle of, fought December 2,1805, 278, 279 
 Austria, Charles archduke of, 118, 140, 276, 508-511 
 » John archduke of; Portrait of, 152, 511-514 
 » Maria Louisa, archduchess of, 556-559, 590, 686 
 
 Bacon, John, an eminent sculptor; Portrait of, 875, 876 
 Badajoz, View of . 579, 584, 602, 603 
 Barrp, Sir David, retakes the Cape of Geod Hope, 329 
 Bank of England; Views of, &c.— 
 
 110, 792-794, 806, 810, 814-817, 865, 892 
 Bankruptcies, . : 802, 803, 809, 813-816 
 Banks, Thomas, an eminent English sculptor, 
 
 874, 875 
 Barras, a French revolutionist; Portrait of, : 58 
 Bastia, in Corsica, View of, “ p 41 
 Bayonne, View of, . Ore 
 Beavroy, Mr; his exer tions for Dissenters, 748, 749 
 
 BrAUHARNAIs, Eugene de; Portrait of, 510-514, 661, 663, 694 
 BELL, Henry; his connection with steam-navigation, 830, 831 
 BELLINGHAM, shoots Mr Percival, M.P., ~ 097, 598 
 BentTHuAM, Jeremy, Portraits of,  . : 784, 890 
 Bentinck, Lord William, 616-628, 658, 659, 692-694 
 BeREsForD, Marshal, a brave British general— 
 
 584-586, 607, 678, 679 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, View of, . - 81 
 Berlin, View of, . 
 BERNADOTTE. See Cuartes XIII. 
 
 : 343 
 
 Bewicx, Thomas; his improvements on wood engraving, 880 
 Bible Society, British and Foreign; its revenues, . 765 
 Blackfriars Bridge, 
 
 . ° : ; 823 
 
 PAGE 
 Bleaching, process of, . ° . 843 
 
 Blockade, Bonaparte’s celebr ated, : : 
 Biicuer, the eminent Prussian general— 
 663, 665, 686, 704, 708 
 Bonaparte, Jerome, king of Westphalia, . 2 AOS 
 ——, Joseph, king of Naples— 
 321, 322, 412, 424, 608, 611-615, 641-643 
 , Louis, king of Holland, . 338, 560, 561 
 —__—_—., Lucien; Portrait of, . 187, 560 
 , Napoleon, the Great, 8, 10, 51, 93, 105-108, 
 119, 135, 141-143, 150, 151, 170-721 
 ——, Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph, king 
 of Rome, . : : “ 7 - 890 
 Borodino, Battle of, fought 1812, ° 638 
 
 811, 812 
 
 Boulogne, View of, . . 285 
 BoybeELt, John, an English engr aver, 87 1-873, 878, 879 
 Brav.ey, Mr, his gun improvements, . 837, 838 
 BRAMAH, Joseph, his famous locks, " 7 ae “BSG 
 Bribery at elections, ° . : eek 
 Bridges, erection of, : : - 820-823 
 BripGEWwATER, Duke of, his colliery tunnels, .. ‘oa¢ 
 BRINDLEY, an eminent engineer, - . 818, 826 
 Brissot, head of the Girondists, . - 11-14, 17, 18 
 Broke, captain of the Shannon frigate, : 733 
 Broruers, Richard, an insane fanatic, ? 757, 758 
 
 BroveuaM, Lord, his sketches of eminent lawyers, 788-790 
 Brown, Lancelot, a celebrated landscape gardener, 865 
 
 Bruce, Michael; his assistance to Lavalette, . 725, 727 
 Brunswick, Duke of, killed at Quatre Bras, co e00 
 Brussels, View of, “. ; : A 702 
 Buckle manufacture, : - . - 838 
 Buenos Ayres, View of, . ° . : 330 
 Bullion Committee, . ‘ ° . 813, 814 
 
 Butow, a Prussian general, * 707 
 BurvETt, Sir Francis ; confined in the Tower, 527-533 
 Burgos, View of, . F - 612 
 Burke, Edmund, a writer, orator, and statesinan, 97, 752 
 BuRLINGTON, Lord, his great influence on ar chitecture, 862 
 Burns, Robert, a celebrated Scottish et ; Portrait, 858, 859 
 Buttons, manufacture es - - 838 
 Byron, Lord, a poet of splendid genius, - 883, 888 
 
 Caen Wood, Hampstead, View of, . 867 
 
 CALDER, Sir Robert, severely reprimanded by court- 
 martial, . ° - «287 
 Calendar, the French Revolutionary, : . 22 
 Calico-pri inting, 4 ‘ 843, 844 
 CAMPBELL, Thomas, a distinguished poet, 4 887 
 Campo Formio, Treaty of, concluded in 1797, Panay 
 Canals, f F 820, 826 
 CANNING, secretary for foreign affairs, ; - 3862, 522 
 CaRro.uinE, queen of George IV.,  . ° a i. 
 
 Carr, John, an eminent architect, 
 CARRIER, inventor of the mariages ' républicains, 21, 22,61, 62 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 CartwriGut, inventor of the first power-loom, 842, 845 
 Cash-payments, suspension of, 806, 807, 810, 813-817 
 
 Cassano, Battle of, fought April 27; 1799, “ e eLd0 
 Castello Branco, View of, - ° = 549 
 CasTLEREAGH, Lord, secretary-at-war, ‘ 362, 522 
 CaTatant, Madame, the eminent vocalist, 7 905 
 Catucart, William Shaw, earl, ° 385-388 
 CATHELINEAD, a leader of the Vendeans, : 20, 21 
 CATHERINE, empress of Russia, : ° -- 808 
 Catholic Committee, the, é si SRB 28 
 
 Emancipation, Roman, _. 771-774 
 Catholics, Roman; movements in their favour, 753-774 
 CHAMBERS, Sir William, an eminent architect, 865, 866 
 Chancery, abuses in the. Court of, . . 790 
 Crantrey, Sir Francis, an eminent sculptor, 901, 902 
 CuARETTE, a leader of the Vendeans; Portrait of, . 20 
 Crarits IV., king of Spain, as 48, 401-404, 411 
 
 — XII, Bernadotte, king of Sereda 
 589, 635, 640, 665, 670, 690, 691 
 CnHartotra Auausta, eldest daughter of George III., 111 
 
 Chemical manufactures, ; . Baz 
 Christian Knowledge, Society for Promoting, ; 765 
 Chronometer, the, . , 2 B39 
 Ciudad Rodrigo; View of the Fortress, " 539, 540, 601 
 Clocks and watches, «1 838 
 Coal-gas, first used ‘for illuminating streets and build- 
 
 ings in 1792, . 832 
 
 Cochrane, Sir Alex., an English admiral, " 388, 507, 740 
 CockBuRw, Sir George, conveys Napoleon to St Helena, 717 
 
 Coimbra, View of, . . . 843 
 Coinage in the reign of George IIL, F . 817, 880 
 Coining, - . : 817, 838 
 COLERIDGE, an English poet, : . 858, 883, 885 
 Collieries, . ‘ A . 8382 
 CoLLinGwoon, Admiral ; Portrait of, 285, 295, 506 
 Commercial treaties, ‘ . . 796, 805, 806 
 Commons, House of. See Parliament. 
 Conciergerie, Paris, View of the, . : 16, 17 
 Conporcet, John, marquis de, ° ° “ 19 
 Consolidated Fund, : ° - ; 791 
 Constantinople, View of, . . - 380 
 Constitution, Government, and Laws, 4 « 415-794 
 Constitutional Legislation, . A 774-779 
 ConTERIE, a leader of the Vendeans, : _ 20 
 Copenhagen, Battle of, fought April 2, 1801, 161-163 
 , bombarded by the English fleet, 385, 388 
 Copper manufactures, ; ‘ . 837 
 Corpay, Charlotte, assassinates Mar at, ; 15 
 Corn, its importation, 816, 818 
 Corsica annexes itself to Gr eat Britain, . “ 39 
 Corunna, View of, . “ 456 
 Costume, - . : 78, 911- 917, 920-923 
 Cotton manufactures, A 840-843 
 
 CowPeER, William, a distinguished poet, . 849-851 
 CraBBE, Rey. George, a distinguished poet, 849, 883, 887 
 
 Crescent, Bath, View of the, : d - 864 
 Crime in 19th century, . A 2 ; 935 
 Criminal or penal legislation, ‘ ‘ 782-790 
 Cuenort, a Frenchman, his steam-carriage, . 825 
 CuLLEY, an improver of live-stock, . ~ 2m 8h8 
 Customs duties, . ° F ° o -792,. 797 
 Cutlery, ° ° ° ° . . 836 
 Dar, Mr David, his cotton-works, . ° ve EE 
 DAtRYMPLE, Sir Hew, . e . 437-441 
 Daton announces the atomic theory, : « 890 
 Danton, a French revolutionist ; Portrait of, . 4 
 Darwin, Dr Erasmus, a physician and poet, 851-853 
 Davison, fined for defrauding the government, 364, 355 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, . : . - 833, 890 
 Delhi, View of, ‘ = ° 218, 304 
 Della Cruscan school, writers of, ° - 853-855 
 Demerara, View of, . J f . 233 
 
 Desparp, an officer in the English army ; ; tried and 
 
 executed for high treason ; Portrait of, 196-198 
 DEwInNT, an excellent painter in water-colours, . 898 
 Disprin, Charles, a.celebrated poet and composer, 882 
 
 Dieppe, View of, . ae . : 3 he 
 
 nrc IONS 
 
 939 
 
 PAGE 
 Dissenters, the, . ‘ . 748, 768-770 
 Dopp, Mr, his remarkable steam-voyage, . 831, 832 
 Dower, English law of, . nett 786 
 DownIE, Captain, killed i in harbour of Plattsburg, 742 
 Drama, the, 3 ° - Z 860 
 Duckworth, Sir John, : ‘ 371-379 
 Duncan, Viscount, victor of Camperdown, o L1G, 117 
 Dunpas, Mr Robert, lord advocate, 756 
 Duroc, General, favourite aide-de-camp of Napoleon, 664 
 Dyeing, improvements in the art of, . - 843, 844 
 East India Company, : 800, 801, 804, 810, 816, 834 
 Eaton Hall, Cheshire, View of, - 896 
 El Arish, Treaty of, concluded, Jan. 24, 1800, ° 165 
 
 Epon, John Scott, lord chancellor ; Portrait of, (>) Ces 
 ELLENBOROUGH, Edward Law, lord; Portrait, 781, 782, 790 
 Exxiot, Sir Gilbert, his defence of Scottish dissenters, 753 
 Emmett, one of the Association of United Irishmen, 127 
 
 —, Robert, son of Dr Emmett, executed, 214-217 
 Enclosure Act, passed 1800-1, > 2 BTSL 
 ENGHIEN, Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, duke a, 238-243 
 Engraving, - 878-881 
 Erit, Melzi d’, vice-president of Cisalpine Republic, 173 
 Erskine, Dr John; Portrait of, ; - 766, 767 
 
 ~, Hon. Thomas; Portrait of, ‘ - 785 
 Escorquiz, the canon, . - 406-409 
 
 Espana, Don Carlos de, a brave Spanish commander, 655 
 Exchequer bills, parliamentary advance of, . . 803 
 Export trade of Great Britain,795, 802, 804, 805, 808,809-815 
 
 Farm-rents, great rise in, - - . 814, 819 
 Female whipping, abandoned, : : a. FBS 
 Ferpinanp IV., king of N aples, 3 . 616-623 
 
 VIL, king of Spain, . 401-413, 674-696 
 Financial legislation, . , : . 790-794 
 Firearms, manufacture of, . ° 837, 838 
 Fisheries, ° . - 799, 800 
 FITZGERALD, Lord Edward, : 97, 123, 125, 127 
 Flannels, manufacture of, ° ‘ . 844, 845 
 Flax manufactur es, . . 844 
 FLAxMAn, John, an eminent ‘sculptor; Portrait of, 876-878 
 Fonthill, View of, : ° d ° - 869 
 Foreign trade, . , ‘ ‘ : 795 
 Forgery, statutes concerning, F ‘ - 784 
 
 Fox, Charles James, an eminent statesman— 
 1,.174, 181, 307, 314, 315, 349, 350, 749-794 
 
 Francis IL, ae or of Germany, < 43, 280 
 FREDERICK. VI., king of Denmark and Duke of 
 Holstein, 3 - 670, 691 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM IL, king of Pr ussia, 5, 6, 81 
 Ill, king of Prussia. Sce also 
 
 Bonaparte, J : ; ; . 686 
 French Revolution. See Louis XVI. and Napoleon 
 
 Bonaparte. 
 Friedland, Battle of, fought June 14, 1807, BOS 
 Futon, Robert; his efforts for steam-navigation, 830, 831 
 Furniture, . - §920 
 Fuseui, Henry, an eminent historical painter, 2 872 
 
 GamBIER, James, lord, a British admiral, 385-388, 507 
 Gas-lighting, . - 832 
 Gentis, Madame, her flight fr om Paris, 3 4 
 GeorcE IIL, king of Great Br itain, « 1-747 
 —I1V., king of Great Britain, 7 6-78, 565-747 
 GILL, Thomas ; his improvements in sword-cutlery, 836 
 Glass, English glass- works imitated in France, - 840 
 Glee Club, the, established in 1787, ; 882 
 Gospel, Society for Propagating in "Foreign Par ts, ote FOE 
 
 Government. See Constitution, &e. 
 
 Grange Park, Hants, View of, = . 898 
 Grant, Sir William, an eminent lawyer, “t 789 
 Granville, View of, . oe QE 
 GRatTAn; his speech on Catholic Emancipation, 771 
 GRENVILLE, William Windham, lord, 307-320, 350, 355-362 
 Grovucuy, a French marshal, - . 704-709 
 Guinea, depreciation of the, : é - 807, 817 
 Guns, manufacture of, in Birmingham, ‘ 837, 838 
 Gwynn, John, his architectural plans, . ° 870 
 
940 
 
 PAGE 
 HApFIELD, a maniac, his attempt to shoot the king, 147 
 Hauer, Lord Chief-justice, quoted, . é oe TIE 
 Hatuep, Mr, a disciple of Richard Brothers, . 757 
 Hatt, Rev. Robert, an eloquent preacher, . eo FTO 
 Hamburg, View of, a - 345 
 Hamitton, Dr, his work on the National Debt, 793; 794 
 
 -, Sir Charles, captures the island of Goree, 153 
 
 Harewood House, View of, . . ; - 864 
 HEBERT, a French revolutionist, ’ é 54-56 
 Herring-fisheries, . ° - 800 
 HerscneEt, Sir William, the ‘astr onomer, 890 
 
 Hixx, General Sir Rowland, 580, 588, 603, 642, 643, 657 
 Hohenlinden, Battle of, fought December 2, 1800, 152 
 Hoxxar, Jeswunt Rao, a Mahratta chief, 218-225, 299-305 
 
 Home, Dr, his bleaching improvements, . . 843 
 Hoop, Samuel, Viscount, reduces Bastia, - 41 
 Horr, Sir John; his bravery at St Jean de Luz, 657, 681. 
 Horstey, Samuel; Portrait, . ° 751-756 
 Hosiery manufactures, . ° : » 844, 845 
 Horuam, Vice-admiral, : ° ‘ . 84, 85 
 Hougoumont, Chateau of, 706 
 How: BE, Richard, earl, an English admiral, 
 
 8, 9, 33-87, 114 
 Hvuaves, Victor, the ‘republican, ° ‘ . 86 
 
 Import trade of Great Britain, 795,802,804,805,808,809-815 
 Inclosure Act, passed 1800-1, «aeeves 
 Income-tax, carried through Parliament i in 1799, 138, 793 
 
 India, .. 144, 217-226, 299-305 
 Industry, History of the National, . 795-848 
 Insurance, law of, : . 780 
 Ionian Islands, captured ‘by English in 1809-10, . 500 
 IRELAND, William; his Shakspeare forgeries, . 855 
 Iron-mining and Ironworks, é * 835-837 
 Jackson, General, president of United States, . 746 
 Jacobin Club, suppressed October 18, 1794, ‘ 61 
 Jay, Mr, the American ambassador, . ‘ 806 
 Jones, John Gale, . ° « 626, 527, 534 
 
 , Sir William, an eminent scholar,. * 857, 860, 861 
 
 JourDAN, Marshal, a skilful republican general, 105, 642 
 Juries, right of, . ° : ° ~ 785 
 Keats, John, a distinguished poet, ‘ é 889 
 
 Kinwarpben, Lord, chief-justice of Ireland, murdered, 216 
 KosciuszKo, Thaddeus, an eminent Polish warrior, 62-67 
 Kurvusorr, a famous Russian general, 278, 279 
 
 LABEDOYERE, tried and condemned for high treason, 723 
 LAKE, Gerard, Viscount, 217-225, 299-805 
 La PLAcE, a great French philosopher » assists in 
 
 formation of Republican Calendar, . 22 
 LAVALETTE, postmaster-general under Bonaparte, 724~727 
 LAVOISIER, the eminent chemical philosopher, : 56 
 LAWRENCE, Sir Thomas, an eminent painter, . 873, 899 
 Leaden manufactures, ° . : » 837 
 Leather manufactures, 4 846 
 
 Lesron, the French foreign minister, guillotined 
 during Reign of Terror, . 2,11, 19 
 
 Legacies, imposition of stamp- -duty on receipt of, . 780 
 
 Leghorn, French take possession of port of, . 805 
 
 Leipzig, Battle of, fought Oct. 16 and 18, 1813, 665, 666 
 Libel, cases of, 781, 785 
 Linen manufacture in n Scotland and Ir eland, é 844 
 Lisbon, View of, i, F - 470 
 Literature, Science, and the Fine Ar ts; . » 850-905 
 Locks, manufacture of, ; - 836 
 Lodi, Battle of, fought May 10, 1796, ‘ . 106 
 LONDONDERRY, Sir Charles Stewart, marquis of, . 665 
 LovuGHBorovcH, Alex. Wedderburn, lord, é 780 
 Louis XVI., king of France, “ . 2-169 
 
 XVII. , king of France, his death, “ 16, 93 
 
 XVIIL, Stanislaus Xavier— 
 93, 689, 699, 700, 713, 714, 723, 724, 732 
 Louis Puiiipre; his flight from Paris as Duke of 
 Chartres, . ‘ : 4 
 LovvERTURE, Toussaint, Portrait of, ° . 191 
 Lowe, Sir Hudson, governor of St Helena, . 718-721 
 Luddites ; their destruction of machinery, ‘ 931 
 
 a 
 INDEX. 
 
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 PAGE 
 Lunéville, Treaty of, concluded Feb. 9, 1801, were? 
 
 Lynepocu, Sir Thomas Graham, lord, 581,604,643, 673, 690 
 8 
 
 Lyon, Siege of, 1793, ° : ° ° 
 MacApaM, his improvements in road-making, . 822 
 Macx, General, his surrender at Ulm, » 275 
 MacpHerson, quoted, 805, 807, 808, 810, 835, 840, 848 
 Macziewice, Battle of, fought ‘Oct. 4, 1794, ‘ 67 
 Madrid, View of, . r . é 608, 609 
 Manmovup II. , Sultan, : e . 383, 503, 504 
 Mail-coaches, ° : : 821 
 MAITLAND, captain of the Bellerophon, ‘ 714, 715 
 —- » General, at Quatre Bras, . . 704 
 MarMspoury, James Harris, earl of,_. . 98, 119 
 Malta, island of; View of, P - 162, 499 
 Maxruvs, Mr; his celebrated “ Essay; ‘eo > 862 
 Manners and Customs, : ‘ ‘i 906-923 
 Manufactures and Arts, ‘ 2 817-848 
 Marat, a French revolutionary journalist, ° 3-15 
 Marengo, Battle of, fought June 14, 1800, . - 156 
 Manrie-ANTOINETTE, queen of France, ; ‘ 16-18 
 Marmont, marshal of the French empire. See also 
 Wellington, ; J 585, 606 
 Marseille, View of the modern city of, é ‘ 9 
 Massena, Andrew, prince of Essling, 510, 511, 539-584 
 MELVILLE, Henry ‘Dundas, viscount, . 258, 315-317 
 Metalline manufactures, 3 : 837-839 
 Methodism, alarm of clergy at spread of, é 765 
 Mippiman, Samuel, a landscape line-engraver, ~ 879 
 Mitpay, Sir Henr y, his remarks on monastic and 
 conventual institutions, . «768 
 Mituter, Mr Patrick, an Edinburgh banker, his 
 steam-boat experiments, . a ; « 829 
 Milton Gallery, the, . . . ° 872 
 Mining, . - 832-835 
 Minto, Gilbert Eliot, ear] of, . . ~ 42,100 
 MrraBEAv, a French revolutionist, : . 61 
 Miscellaneous manufactures, - 846-848 
 
 MitrForp, Mr, his bill in favour of the Catholics, . 754 
 Monastic Institutions’ Bill, discussions regarding, 759-761 
 Moors, Sir John, . % 4 441-461 
 , Thomas, a poet, é . 858, 883, 887, 888 
 MoreEav, Jean Victor, a French general— 
 
 105, 152, 244-248, 666 
 Murr, Thomas, 4 . . . 25-27 
 
 Morar, Joachim, a French general, 412, 493-499, 661, 
 
 681, 691-695, 701, 702, 728, 731, 732 
 Mvrpocn, William, a Cornish engineer, - 825, 833 
 Murray, Sir John, . . S ° 658-660 
 Music, English, . ‘ . . - 881-883 
 Muslins, manufacture of, 842, 843 
 
 Mustapna, Sultan, of Turkey, . F 383, 500, 502 
 MytyeE, Robert, architect of Blackfriars Bridge, . 866 
 
 Nantes, attack on, by the Vendeans, . 21 
 Napier, Mr Dayid; his improvements in steam: . 
 navigation, ‘ ° . ‘ - 832 
 Naples, republic of, . ° - 139, i41 
 Nasu, John, an eminent architect, : 3 893, 894 
 National Industry, history of the. See Industry. 
 — School Society, founded 1811, . . 765 
 Navigation Act, . . ahd OE 
 
 , increase of, . 795, 796, 799, 802, 805, 809 
 Netson, Horatio, viscount, the celebrated British 
 
 admiral, 41, 42, 84, 99, 100, 116, 117, 186, 137, 141, 
 160-164, 282, 287-296, 298 
 
 Newspapers, Sunday; their first appearance, ot TSO 
 Ney, Michael, a French marshal, : 700, 723, 724 
 Nile, Battle of the, fought August 1, 1798, - 136, 137 
 Nimmo, Mr, an eminent engineer, . s .7838 
 NoLuEeKEns, Joseph, a celebrated sculptor, . 875 
 NortH, Lord, his speech against the Test Acts, . 748 
 Oaths, act against, . » 784 
 O’ConnELL, Mr, leader of the Irish Catholics, ; 774 
 O’Hara, General, . ° e . 10 
 Olivenza, Treaty ‘of, June 1801, . . 169 
 
 Opera, Italian, ° ‘ . - 882 
 
INDEX. 941 
 PAGE PAGE 
 Oporto, View of, ; ° 472 | Ribbon Societies, formation of, oe i 
 ORANGE, Prince of, . , 669, 67 0, 690, 691 | Roads; improvements of Telford and MacAdam, 820-823 
 Orange Societies, established i in England in 1813, . 774 ROBESPIERRE, the French revolutionist, 12-18, 54-61 
 Orteans, Philippe Egalité, duc d’, 7 18 | RocHAMBEAU, a French general, . so 192 
 Oxymuriatic acid, or chlorine, discover ed in 1774, . 848 | RocnE-JAQUELEI, a leader of the Vendeans, 20, 21, 90 
 Roxranp, Madame, guillotined, i 3 19 
 Paring, James, an eminent architect, . ‘ 863 | Romiuty, Sir Samuel; Portrait of, ° A ql 87, 790 
 , Thomas, the deist, 62, 862 | Rope manufactures, F 6 BAT 
 Painting, 871-874, 896-901 Ross, Major-general, takes Washington, . 740 
 PAKENHAM, General, Sir Edward, ‘ 743, 744 | Rossi, Charles, an eminent sculptor, sein QE 
 Palermo, View of, é 3822 | Rowan, Hamilton, a leader of the United Irishmen, 28, 124 
 Pauey, William, the philosopher ; ; Portr ait of, . 862 
 Pamplona, View of, : . 645,655 | Sarnt-Fonp, a French traveller, 821,824,832, 837, 838, 844 
 Pantheon, View of ‘the inter ior of the, : . 868 | Sr Just, Anthony, a French revolutionist, - 17, 55-60 
 Paout, Pasquale de, the Corsican ; Portrait bf, 5 39, 40 | Sr Vincent, John Jervis, ear], : ; 116, 159 
 Paper manufacture, . ° i ° . 847 | Salamanca, View of the City of, ° : 606 
 Papists. See Catholics. Salt, e% . 839 
 Paris, Peace of, &c., ; 686, 689-701 | San "Sebastian, taken by stor m, 1813, ‘ 647, 652, 655 
 ParKER, Sir Hyde, commander-in-chief at the Battle Savary, General; his mission to Madrid, &e., . 405, 408 
 of Copenhagen, . ° ‘ 161, 164 | ScHEErLE, a celebrated Swiss chemist, ‘ . 843 
 PaRkeER, Richard, the mutineer, 3 . 115,116 | ScHwartzENnBERG, Prince, F 684 
 Parliament, Statutes of, ’ 3 748, 756, 775-794 | Science, progress of. See Literature, &e. oy 850-905 
 Partition Treaty of Poland; dismemberment, 67,68 | Scort, Sir Walter ; bust of, d é 883, 886-890 
 Paut I., emperor of Russia, . 188, 163, 809 | Sculpture, . 874-878, 901, 902 
 
 Penal Code, acts for mitigating the, . . 787, 788 
 Penitentiary House, Millbank, act for erection of, 7 84, 785 
 
 Penthiévre, Fort, View of, . f é 91 
 People, History of the Condition of the, - 924-937 
 PeRcIvaL, Right Hon. Spencer, murdered, . 597, 778 
 Personal disability introduced, . ; ‘ 778 
 P£TION DE VILLENEUVE, Jerome, é - 12,19 
 Perry, Lord Henry, his new financial scheme, ‘ 793 
 Philharmonic Society, formed 1813, % - 904 
 
 Pianoforte supersedes the har psichord, . ¥ 883 
 PicuHEGRU, Charles, a French general, 92, 120, 121, 243-249 
 
 Picnic supper, nature of a, . en Qke 
 Proton, Sir Thomas, killed at Waterloo, 704, 708 
 Pilchards, demands for, in the Italian States, oak e Qo 
 Pillory, Act to abolish punishment of the, 3 786 
 
 Pirt, William, the British paruned 138, 154-159, 176, 177, 
 
 226-234, 267, 305-307, 749-794 
 
 Prius VI., Pope; Portrait of, . 107, 134, 141 
 VIL, Pope, . 141,185, 398, 899, 514, 515, 693 
 Plough of ‘isth century, : : - 5 S19 
 Poland, partitions of, Xc., 5, 6; 62, 63, 66-68 
 Pondicherry, captured by the British, ~ - 805 
 Ponsonsy, General Sir William, 4 708 
 Pont-y-Cysylte; View of, . . : 826, 827 
 Poor-laws, A : - : 929 
 -rates, . . S = J 934, 935 
 Poruam, Sir Home, A 5 g 128, 329 
 
 Population, . . 930, 933, 934 
 Portevs, Beilby, bishop of London ; Por trait eee | 63, 765 
 
 PortLAND, William, duke of, : 68 
 Posteoffice ; growth of its revenues, 2 : 801, 810 
 Pottery; manufacture of crucibles and retorts, . 889 
 “loom, first invented by Dr Cartwright, ‘ 842 
 Evost, Sir George; his conduct in Canada, 786-742 
 RIESTLEY, Joseph, an eminent philosopher, , 30 
 Printing, information about, 4 847, 848 
 Property, legislation relating to real and personal, 77 9-7 82 
 Provisions, rise in prices of, é ea 
 Prussia, Portraits of king and queen of, . 88, 341 
 Pyr amids, Battle of the, ; * : oo tali& 
 Quakers, bill for the relief of, &c., 751, 758, 769 
 Quarantine laws, acts passed for settlement of, 787 
 Quatre Bras, Battle of, fought June 16, 1815, oe 704 
 Railroads, progress of, - o 824-826 
 Reason, Festival of, celebrated i in France, ‘ 22 
 Repersps.e, John Freeman Mitford, : <eatbs 
 
 Reece, Dr John, his pamphlet on Joanna Southcote, 775 
 Regent Street, from Waterloo Place, View of, . 894 
 Religion, History OG 23 . ° . 
 Rennie, John; Portrait ofs; 823 
 Revolution, French. See Louis XVL and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 Sexi IIL, sultan of Turkey, . 
 
 371-877, 380-383, 500 
 
 Seville, View of, 3 - A. opesboe 
 SEWARD, Miss Anna, a poetess, : ‘ 853 
 Shakspeare Gallery, the, . ‘ F 0! Bee 
 Sheffield, its manufactures, : F - 835-837 
 SHELLEY, a distinguished poet, : - _888 
 
 SHERIDAN, the statesman, wit, and dramatist, 23, 72, 756 
 SipmourH, Henry Addington, viscount, - 159, 171-307 
 Silk manufactures, 844-846 
 Srnciarr, Sir J ohn, his plan about Exchequer bills— 
 
 803, 804, 819 
 Sinking fund, the, ¢ ; « 791-794 
 SKERRETT, Colonel, bravely defends Tarifa, 603, 608 
 
 Slave-trade, . 231, 258, 314, 315, 355-357, 787, 801 
 Situ, Sir Sidney; Portrait of, j 10, 165 
 Soang, Sir John, an eminent architect, ‘ 865, 891, 892 
 Sombref, Battle of, fought June 16,1815, . - 704 
 Somerset House; View of the Quadrangle, ‘ 866 
 Sourr, Marshal, a French general, 579, 585, 586, 608, 641, 
 
 646-651, 655, 656, 676-680 
 SourHcoore, Joanna, an extravagant fanatic, 774, 775 
 Souruey, an eminent poet, . . 883, 885, 886 
 
 Southwark Bridge, é > : 823 
 Sovereigns, first issued in 1816, : . sansl? 
 Stamp Act, the, of 1814-15, . ‘ cf 781 
 
 — laws, . . sie (ae 
 
 SranHope, Charles, earl, : 749-75 2, 769, 847, 848 
 State-paper ofiice, erected in 1829 by Sir John Soane, 892 
 Statutes. See Parliament. 
 Steam, applied to manufacturing industry, . rere 9°! 
 -boats, invented by Livingstone and Fulton, 830, 851 
 -carriage, model of, exhibited in France by John 
 
 T. Cugnot, ; : : oo eee 
 Steam-engine, applied to navigation, 829-832 
 Steel, cast, Huntsman the first manufacturer of, . 836 
 STEPHENSON, George, 824-826, 833 
 
 Stereotyping, revived by Mr Tilloch i in 1780, oo AT 
 Stocking manufactur Gis . 846 
 SrowE Lt, Lord, formerly Sir William Scott, ° one 
 STRUTT, Jedediah ; Portrait of, . - < 84] 
 Sruart, Sir John, . e 301, 352 
 Sugar manufacture of the West Indies, 3 847 
 Suspension Bill, passed in 1794,« . ° ° 32 
 eS ides, = ° ° 823 
 Sussex, Augustus-Frederick, duke of, ° ‘ 75 
 SUVAROFF, Alexander, a Russian general, 66, 67, 140 
 Swep1AuR, Dr, his sea-salt-works at Prestonpans, 847 
 Switzerland, entered by the Freneh in 1798, . 129 
 Swords, Thomas Gill the modern improver of, . 836, 83 
 SyMINGTON, William, his steam-boat essays, - 830 
 Talavera, Battle of, fought July 27, 1809, - 477-479 
 TALLEYRAND, prime-minister to Napoleon, : vig nOQZ 
 Tay.or, Sir Robert, an eminent architect, - 864, 865 
 
942 INDEX. 
 PAGE FAGE 
 
 Tea-trade, duties on, < : 790, 800 | WALKER, Adam, ; : 821 
 TELFORD, the enginecr, i 818, 822, 823, 826, 828 | Wasuinaton, George, first president of the United 
 Thames tunnel, its projectors, &c., . 827, 831 States, ‘ . ° - 624, 625 
 Thellusson Act, passed in 39th and 40th Geo. iil; 779 | Watches, English, 4 ‘ ° j - 839 . 
 Tuerort, Catherine, a French maniac who prophesied Water-colouring, ». 896-898 - 
 
 the immediate appearance of the Second Advent, 58 | Waterloo, Battle of, fought J une 18, 1815, ‘ 706-708 
 Tuurtow, Edward; Portrait of, . . 702, 755, 777 Bridge, . “« $18, 823 
 Tilsit, Treaty of, oe 1807, ; ‘ ‘ 394 | Watson, Bishop of Llandaff; Por trait of, ‘ » 765 
 Tin, . . . 834, 837 | Wart, James, the improver of the steam-engine— 
 Tiproo SaIn, sovercign of we sore, > ‘ 144 ; 818, 825, 828; 829 
 Tithes, discussions on, ° 764, 766 | Wart, Robert, found guilty of high ewe . 69,70 
 Tobago, British take possession of island Ort. 4 805 | Warts, a plumber of Bristol, . ° 837 
 Tonnage of Great Britain, . 796 | Wepewoop, his improv ements in pottery Fain - 839 
 Tooke, Rey. John Horne, 69, 70, 761, 779, 810, 814-817, 861 | WELLEsLEY, Marquis of— 
 Toulouse, View of, . : y ‘ sa GTO 218-226, 299-305, 321, 400, 483, 484, 596 
 Trade and Commerce, . - 795-817 | Wentrnaton, Arthur Wellesley, duke of— 
 Trafalgar, Battle of, fought October 21, "1805, 289-296 218-224, 299-505, 321, 385-888, 400, 401, 432, 
 Tramroads and Railways, 824-826 433, 486, 440, 441, 470, 471, 479-487, 539-549, 
 
 Treason, amelioration of punishment of i in 1814, - 784 
 Treating Resolution, passed 1677, ° 779 
 TREVITHICK and VIVIAN, their new steam-carr iage, 825, 829 
 Truauet, Admiral, attempts the conquest of Sardinia, 8 
 
 Tunnelling, . , : : : . 826 
 Turnpike-roads, . ; . . 821-823 
 TyTLER, James; he is outlawed, . ° ‘ 24 
 Ulm, View of, ° . 274 
 Union with Ireland, Act of, , . " 149, 777, 778 
 
 Workhouses, . ; ° ; 0 Oe 
 Unitarians, persecution of, . : 755, 770 
 Valladolid, View of, : e : wi BOT 
 Vendeans, of France, : . 20, 21, 90-92 
 Vendée, Peace of, February 1795, : ; . 90 
 Veto Act, passed in 1834, 5 . ‘ 767 
 Vienna, View of, . . “46 
 Villeins regardant consider ed real property, ; 786 
 VILLENEUVE, admiral of the Toulon fleet, . 282-297 
 Vincennes, View of, b 242 
 Vittoria, Battle of, fought June 21, 1813, . 642, 643 
 Wages, rate of, . ‘ 811, 815, 931 
 Wagram, Battle of, fought July 6, 1809, . 510, 511 
 WAKEFIELD, Gilbert, a scholar and critic, 861 
 
 576, 579, 582-586, 601-615, 641-657, 676-715 
 
 West Indies, , , - - 798, 799, 801 
 Whale-fishery, the, . ° . ° «-' 800 
 Wheat, price of, j 810, 815 
 WuiTeLocker, General; his expedition to Buenos 
 Ayres, . 5 365-369 
 Writrworrtn, Charles, lord, English: ambassador at 
 Paris; . 199, 200, 207-213 
 
 WILBERFORC rE, W illiam, 33, 229-231, 314, 315, 355-357 
 Witkie, Sir David, an eminent painter; Por trait of, 899 
 Wirkins, William, an eminent architect, 892, 893 
 Witson, Sir Robert, - 480, 482, 725, 726 
 WinpuaM, William ; his Portrait, 174-178, 185, 307, 313,759 
 WInSoR, a German, illuminates Pall Mall with gas, 833 
 Wotcor, John, a humorist, poet, and satirist, - 856 
 Wood engraving, - é - - 880, 881 
 Woollen manufactures, . ° ° 844, 845 
 Worpsworth, an eminent poet, . 858, 883-885 
 Wrarr, James, an eminent architect, 868-870, 892, 895 
 
 York, Frederick, duke of; Portrait of— 
 5, 6, 43, 141, 462-467, 571 
 
 Youne, Arthur, ® ° ° 819, 821, 824 . 
 Zaragoza, View of, . - P a és. 426 
 Zine, manufacture of, . ° ‘ . 837 
 
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