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ONE:Such was the state of things in Canada which the Imperial Parliament was called upon to consider in the spring of 1838. The first feeling which the news of the insurrection produced in Britain was one of alarm; the next was that all the forces that could be spared should be immediately dispatched for the purpose of crushing the revolt; and a ship of the line was employed for the first time in carrying a battalion of 800 Guards across the Atlantic. The Duke of Wellington censured the Government for not having had a sufficient military force to preserve the peace in Canada, and used the oft-repeated expression that was stultified on several occasions during the latter portion of Victoria's reign, that a great nation cannot make a little war. On the 22nd of January Lord John Russell moved[447] for leave to bring in a Bill suspending the Constitution in Lower Canada for three years, and providing for the future government of that province, with a view to effecting a satisfactory settlement of the affairs of the colony. He stated that her Majesty's Government had resolved to send out an experienced statesman, of high character and position, and of well-known popular sympathies, with ample powers, and that Lord Durham had consented to go. The Government measure was carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 262 to 16, and unanimously in the Lords. TWO:It was during the year 1838 that the Chartists became an organised body. The working classes had strenuously supported the middle classes in obtaining their political rights during the agitation for the Reform Bill, and they expected to receive help in their turn to obtain political franchises for themselves, but they found Parliament indifferent or hostile to any further changes in the representation, while the middle class, satisfied with their own acquisitions, were not inclined to exert themselves much for the extension of political rights among the masses. The discontent and disappointment of the latter were aggravated by a succession of bad harvests, setting in about 1835. The hardships of their condition, with scanty employment and dear provisions, the people ascribed to their want of direct influence upon the[456] Government. This gave rise to a vigorous agitation for the extension of the franchise, which was carried on for ten years. In 1838 a committee of six members of Parliament and six working men prepared a Bill embodying their demands. This was called the "People's Charter." Its points were six in number:First, the extension of the right of voting to every male native of the United Kingdom, and every naturalised foreigner resident in the kingdom for more than two years, who should be twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and unconvicted of crime; second, equal electoral districts; third, vote by ballot; fourth, annual Parliaments; fifth, no property qualification for members; sixth, payment of members of Parliament for their services.Some faint endeavours were made to shake off the yoke. Encouraged by France, they summoned the Turks to their aid and cut to pieces several detachments of the Russians. They proclaimed Poniatowski deposed, and called on the people to aid them to drive out the invaders. But the people, long used to oppression from their own lords, did not answer to the call. In France, Choiseul had been hurled from power, and France left the Poles to their fate. It was now that Frederick of Prussia proposed to Austria to combine with Russia and share Poland between them. At this robber proposition, so in character with Frederick, who had all his life been creating a kingdom by plundering his neighbours, Maria Theresa at first exclaimed in horror. But she was now old and failing, and she gave way, declaring that, long after she was dead and gone, people would see what would happen from their having broken through everything which had, till then, been deemed just and holy. Frederick of Prussia took the surest way to compel the Austrians to come in for a share of the spoils of Poland. He marched a body of soldiers out of Silesiathe territory which he had rent from Austriainto Posen, and Austria, not to be behind, had marched another army into the Carpathian Mountains.
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ONE:Lord Grey moved that it should be referred to the judges to determine whether adultery committed out of the country with a foreigner amounted to high treason. The motion was carried. The judges retired, and, after an absence of twenty minutes, returned, with their decision announced by Chief Justice Abbott, which was, that the crime in question was not punishable as high treason, under the Statute of Edward III. Counsel on both sides were admitted; Brougham and Denman, for the queen, sitting on the right of the bar, and the Attorney- and Solicitor-General on the left. Mr. Brougham prayed to be heard against the principle of the Bill. Permission was granted, and he addressed their lordships in a strain of impressive eloquence, demonstrating that the mode of proceeding now adopted was in the highest degree unjust to his illustrious client. He concluded by imploring their lordships to retrace their steps, and thus become the saviours of their country. TWO:CHAPTER V. REIGN OF GEORGE II.(concluded).
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ONE: TWO:The war in Germany grew more and more bloody. Russia and Austria came down upon Frederick this year with great forces. Daun entered Saxony; Laudohn and Soltikow, Silesia. Laudohn defeated Fouqu at Landshut, and took the fortress of Glatz, and compelled Frederick, though hard pressed by Daun, to march for Silesia. The month was July, the weather so hot that upwards of a hundred of his soldiers fell dead on the march. Daun followed him, watching his opportunity to fall upon him when engaged with other troops, but on the way Frederick heard of the defeat of Fouqu and the fall of Glatz, and suddenly turned back to reach Dresden before Daun, and take the city by storm; but as Daun was too expeditious for him, and Maguire, the governor, an Irishman, paid no heed to his demands for surrender, Frederick, who had lately been so beautifully philosophising on the inhumanities of men, commenced a most ferocious bombardment, not of the fortress but of the town. He burnt and laid waste the suburbs, fired red-hot balls into the city to burn it all down, demolished the finest churches and houses, and crushed the innocent inhabitants in their flaming and falling dwellings, till crowds rushed from the place in desperation, rather facing his ruthless soldiers than the horrors of his bombardment.
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ONE: TWO:DEATH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. (From the Painting by J. S. Copley, R.A., in the National Gallery, London.)
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ONE:Windham, on the 3rd of April, proposed his plan for the improvement of the army. Till this time enlistments had been for life, which gave men a strong aversion to enter it, and made it the resort chiefly of such as were entrapped in drink, or were the offscouring of society, who became soldiers to enjoy an idle life and often to escape hanging for their desperate crimes. He said that we could not have recourse to conscription in this country, and to get men, and especially a better class of men, we must limit the term of service and increase the pay. To prepare the way for his contemplated regulations, he first moved for the repeal of Pitt's Additional Force Bill. This was strongly opposed by Castlereagh and Canning, who contended that nothing could be better or more flourishing than the condition of the army; and that the repeal of Pitt's Bill was only meant to cast a slur on his memory. Notwithstanding this,[519] the Bill was repealed by a majority, in the Commons, of two hundred and thirty-five against one hundred and nineteen, and in the Lords by a majority of ninety-seven against forty. Windham then moved for a clause in the annual Mutiny Bill, on the 30th of May, for limiting the terms of service. In the infantry, these terms were divided into three, of seven years each; and in the cavalry and artillery three also, the first of ten, the second of six, and the third of five years. At the end of any one of these terms, the soldier could demand his discharge, but his privileges and pensions were to be increased according to the length of his service. Notwithstanding active opposition, the clause was adopted and inserted. He then followed this success by a series of Bills: one for training a certain number of persons liable to be drawn from the militia, not exceeding two hundred thousand; a Bill suspending the ballot for the militia for England for two years, except so far as should be necessary to supply vacancies in any corps fallen below its quota; a Bill, called the Chelsea Hospital Bill, to secure to disabled or discharged soldiers their rightful pensions; a Bill for augmenting the pay of infantry officers of the regular line; and one for settling the relative rank of officers of troops of the line, militia, and yeomanry. To these Bills, which were all passed, was added a vote for the increased pay of sergeants, corporals, and privates of the line, and an augmentation of the Chelsea pensions, and the pensions of officers' widows. Lord Howick moved that the same benefits should be extended to the officers, petty officers, and seamen of the navy, and to the Greenwich pensioners, which was carried. These were, undoubtedly, most substantial measures of justice to the two services; and the results of them soon became apparent enough in their beneficial effects on the condition of the army and navy. TWO:The next morning London was thrown into consternation by the announcement of this conspiracy, and by a reward of one thousand pounds being offered in the Gazette for the apprehension of Thistlewood. He was captured before eight o'clock that morning, whilst in bed, at the house of a comrade, in Moorfields. But his arrest did not diminish the wild alarms which not only seized the capital but the country. This was immediately believed to be only the centre of that universal conspiracy of which Government had taken so much pains to propagate an impression. People everywhere were arming for the defence of their own neighbourhoods, and magistrates and yeomanry were turning out by night to keep watch against a surprise, whilst people in town took great care to lock and barricade their houses against the invisible foe. Thistlewood and nine others were put upon their trial on the 13th of April, and, after a trial of three days, he and eight of them were pronounced guilty, and himself and four of the most desperate were condemned to death; the others were sentenced to transportation for life; but one man, who was proved to have been amongst them without being aware of their object, was pardoned. Thistlewood and the four others were executed on the 1st of May. The next day Alderman Wood moved in the House of Commons for an inquiry into the conduct of Edwards, but it was rejected by a large majority. On the 19th he again returned to the subject, and supported his motion by producing depositions from many persons brought before him as a magistrate, demonstrating, in the plainest manner, that Edwards had recommended to them the murder of Ministers and the destruction of Parliament, had furnished plans for these objects, and had done all in his power to seduce needy men into these measures. He proved, also, from the same depositions, that Edwards himself had been living for six weeks in great affluence in the house of a schoolmaster in St. George's Street, Hanover Square, who was not aware of the occupation of Edwards till the wretch himself informed him of it. Alderman Wood called on Parliament to act on this unquestionable evidence, and purge itself of any sanction of such disgraceful transactions. But Ministers again resisted all inquiry, and their friends openly defended them in the use of such means, even ridiculing Alderman Wood, and those who supported his motion, for supposing that Lord Sidmouth would proceed against Edwards through any depositions furnished by magistrates. The motion was, of course, thrown out.
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