ONE:THE FUSILIERS AT ALBUERA. (See p. 18.)
TWO:In the face of such facts it was clear that something must be done, even by a Protectionist Ministry, to diminish the effect of the growing belief that bad legislation was at the bottom of the country's difficulties. In the spring men had looked eagerly for the Budget of the new Ministry. It had been bitterly remarked that at the time when Parliament was prorogued there were nearly 21,000 persons in Leeds whose average earnings were only 11-3/4 d. per weekthat in one district in Manchester alone a gentleman had visited 258 families, consisting of 1,029 individuals, whose average earnings were only 7? d. per head a week; and that while millions were in this deplorable condition, the duty on wheat stood at 24s. 8d. a quarter, and Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues demanded four months' leisure at their country abodes before they would permit the Legislature to take the distress of the people into consideration. At length came the meeting of Parliament, at which the Queen in person read the Speech prepared by her Ministers. It acknowledged with deep regret "the continued distress in the manufacturing districts," and that the sufferings and privations which had resulted from it had been "borne with exemplary patience and forbearance." Finally, her Majesty recommended to the consideration of both Houses "the laws which affect the import of corn and other articles." What was the intention of the Ministers was not then known; but it was already understood that, unlike their rivals, who had proposed a fixed duty, the new Government would attempt some modification of the sliding scale. In the account of these transactions which Sir Robert Peel left to be published by his executors after his death, he says:"One of the first acts of the Government over which I presided (the Government of August, 1841) was to propose a material change in the Corn Law of 1828. I brought the subject under the consideration of my colleagues by means of written memoranda, in preference to proposals made verbally. In the first of these memoranda I recommended my colleagues to undertake the revision of the Corn Laws of 1828, as an act of the Government. In the second, after I had procured their assent to the principle of revision, I submitted a proposal in respect to the extent to which such revision should be carried, and to the details of the new law." Then were seen the first symptoms of that estrangement from his party which reached its climax in 1846. Glaring as was the necessity for change, and evident as it was, even to the body of the landowners, that they must choose between the mild reform of Peel and the more objectionable measure of his antagonists, there were members of the Cabinet who would still have held out for no concession. The Duke of Buckingham retired from the Ministry, and the Duke of Richmond refused to allow his son to move the Address.Lord Grey declared that when he entered office in November, 1830, he found the counties round London in open insurrection, and that no measures had been taken by the late Government to put down these disturbances. This was true so far as incendiary fires were concerned. A system of outrage commenced in Kent before the harvest was fully gathered in. The disturbers of the peace did not generally assume the form of mobs, nor did they seek any political object. Threatening letters were circulated very freely, demanding higher wages and denouncing machinery, and the attacks of the rioters were directed entirely against private property. In the day armed bands went forth, wrecking mills and destroying machinery, especially threshing-machines. At night, corn-stacks, hayricks, barns, and farm buildings were seen blazing in different parts of the county. Even live stock were cruelly burned[326] to death. In addition to this wholesale destruction the rioters plundered the houses of the farmers as they went along. These disorders extended into Hants, Wilts, Bucks, Sussex, and Surrey, and they continued during the months of October, November, and December. In fact, life and property in those counties were, to a great extent, at the mercy of lawless men. Lord Melbourne lost no time in announcing his determination to punish sternly those disturbers of the peace, and to restore at every cost the dominion of law and order. He would give his most anxious attention to measures for the relief of distress, but it was his determined resolution, wherever outrages were perpetrated or excesses committed, to suppress them with vigour. In pursuance of this determination, two special commissions were issued to try the offenders. They finished their painful duties early in January. On the 9th of that month judgment of death was recorded against twenty-three persons for the destruction of machinery in Buckinghamshire. In Dorset, at Norwich, at Ipswich, at Petworth, at Gloucester, at Oxford, at Winchester, and at Salisbury, large numbers were convicted of various outrages; altogether, upwards of 800 offenders were tried, and a large proportion of them capitally convicted. Only four, however, were executed; the rest were all sentenced to various terms of transportation or imprisonment. The prosecutions were conducted with firmness, but with moderation, and they were decidedly successful in restoring public tranquillity.
ONE:'Celsa sedet ?olus arce,[See larger version]
TWO:On Monday, the 17th, Fox renewed the discussion, supported by Mr. Grey, who complained that at a so-called loyal meeting held at Manchester, the people had been incited to attack the property of those of more liberal views; and that an association had been formed in London, at the "Crown and Anchor" Tavern, which had issued a paper called "A Pennyworth of Truth from Thomas Bull to his Brother John," containing most unfounded censures on the Dissenters, whom it charged as being the authors of the American war. He declared that this paper was far more inflammatory than Paine's "Rights of Man," and he desired that it might be read at the table. Fox severely criticised the conduct of the loyal associations, and the means taken by the subscription papers to mark out those who maintained Liberal opinions; all such marked persons, he said, were in danger, on any excitement, of having their persons or houses attacked. He mentioned one paper concluding with the words, "Destruction to Fox and all his Jacobin crew!" This was, he thought, pretty plainly marking him out for such treatment as Dr. Priestley and Mr. Walker had received. The motion was rejected.On the 21st of January, 1772, the king opened Parliament, and the two divisions of the Opposition under the leadership of Rockingham and Chatham were found to be divided and dispirited. The chief proceeding of this session was one of a very remarkable character. The boasted morals of George III. and of his queen had not defended his family from gross crimes and corruptions. Very notorious was the life of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland. Amongst his licentious intrigues was one with Henrietta Vernon, Lady Grosvenor, a young and beautiful woman, whom he seduced, following her into Cheshire, when her husband took her from town, and meeting her in various disguises. In 1770 Lord Grosvenor brought an action against him and obtained a verdict of ten thousand pounds. With a rapidity of fickleness almost unexampled, he was immediately afterwards paying suit to Mrs. Horton. Cumberland went over to Calais with Mrs. Horton, and there married her according to the[206] rites of the Church of England (October 2, 1771). The Duke of Gloucester also now confessed to a secret marriage (September 6, 1766) with the Countess Dowager Waldegrave. A Bill was brought into Parliament in 1772, since well known as the Royal Marriage Act, by which every prince or princess, descendant of George II., except only the issue of princes married abroad, was prohibited from marrying until the age of twenty-five without the king's consent. After that age they might apply to the Privy Council, and if within a year of such announcement both Houses of Parliament should not express disapprobation of the intended marriage, it might then be lawfully solemnised. The Bill did not pass without violent opposition.
ONE:The plot thickened as it proceeded. It was suspected that the Conservative section of the Whigs wished for office, and that Sir Robert Peel wished to have them. Mr. Stanley (now Lord Stanley in consequence of the death of his grandfather, the Earl of Derby), Sir. J. Graham, and the Duke of Richmond had a meeting at the Duke of Sutherland's, to consider what they should do, in consequence of proposals made to them to join the Administration. But as they would not pledge themselves to forward Conservative measures to the extent required, Sir Robert Peel was obliged to form a Government of Tories exclusively. On the 10th of the month the arrangements were completed, and the following were announced as the members of the Cabinet:First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Peel; Lord Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst; Privy Seal, Lord Wharncliffe; Secretary of the Home Department, Mr. Goulburn; Secretary of the Foreign Department, Duke of Wellington; Secretary of the Colonial Department, Lord Aberdeen; First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl Ripon; Secretary for Ireland, Sir H. Hardinge; President of the Board of Control, Lord Ellenborough; President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, Mr. Baring; Paymaster of the Forces, Mr. E. Knatchbull; Secretary at War, Mr. Herries; Master-General of the Ordnance, Sir G. Murray.
TWO:[122]During the spring of 1794 the British, under Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Grey, took the French island of Martinique, in which attempt the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, distinguished himself. They also took St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, and its dependencies, Marie-Galante, Deseada, and the Saintes. But they were not so successful in assisting the French Royalists in St. Domingo to expel the Republicans. They beat the French in three successive battles, but[431] our troops were then attacked by the yellow fever. General Whyte made himself master of the French capital, Port-au-Prince; but General Dundas, who was appointed governor, was carried off by the fever, as also were numbers of the troops. The French general also fell a victim to the fever; but at this juncture arrived the Jacobin Commissioner, Victor Hugues, with a reinforcement of from fifteen hundred to two thousand men. He immediately assumed the command, proclaimed freedom to all the blacks, and the plunder of the Royalists. The Royalists, terrified, submitted, or only feebly supported their British allies, who were thereupon compelled to yield them to their fate. Hughes, one of the bloodiest of the French revolutionists, set the guillotine to work in the hands of the negroes. The Royalists were beheaded or fusilladed in troops, their houses burnt, and their estates ravaged. Before the end of the year this monster had reduced the island to a dreadful desert. In his ferocious fury, he had caused the very sick and wounded in the hospitals to be massacred, and the dead to be thrown out of their graves. Amongst these were the remains of General Dundas, and the other dead British officers, which were flung into the river. Hugues also recovered Guadeloupe, and perpetrated the same cruelties and abominations there.
