THREE:The English Dissenters were led, notwithstanding the difference in creed, to sympathise to a considerable extent with Irish Catholics in their agitation against the Church establishment. Dissenters felt particularly aggrieved by the tests which debarred them from obtaining University degrees, which, they justly contended, should be attainable as a matter of right on equal grounds by citizens of all denominations. A petition was presented by Lord Grey on the 21st of March in the Upper House, and by Mr. Spring-Rice on the 24th in the Commons; but no step was taken in consequence till after the Easter recess, when Colonel Williams moved an Address to the Crown, praying that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge should no longer act under the letters of James I. Mr. Wood moved an amendment to the effect that it was more advisable to proceed by Bill, which was carried by a large majority; but before anything could be done the exclusive spirit of both Universities was roused to a pitch of violent excitement, and in the midst of the controversial storm the quiet voice of reason could not be heard. Mr. Stanley could not see why a man should sign the Thirty-Nine Articles in order to obtain a literary degree, and he deprecated the idea that such a subscription should be regarded as a mere matter of form. Sir Robert Peel was not yet prepared to carry out fully the principle of religious equality. The Bill, he argued, would give to Jews, infidels, and atheists a statutable right of demanding admission into our Universities. Dissenters had been freed from all civil disabilities by the repeal of the Test Acts, and the Roman Catholics by the Emancipation Act; a vast change had been effected in the constitution of Parliament by the Reform Act: and after all those concessions, were they now to be deprived of an Established Church? What was the essence of an Established Church? What but the legislative recognition of it on the part of the State? Parliament was therefore entitled to say to the Dissenters, "With that legislative recognition you shall not interfere." In a brief speech, full of sound sense, Lord Althorp showed the absurdity of those arguments and apprehensions. The second reading of the Bill was carried by a majority of 321 to 194. It was opposed by the Speaker in committee, but having there received some amendments, it was read a third time and passed on the 28th of July by a majority of 164 against 75. In the Lords it was denounced by the Duke of Gloucester, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, who moved that it be read a second time that day six months. He was followed by the Duke of Wellington, Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Lord Brougham ably defended the measure, but in vain. The Bill was rejected by a majority of 187 against 85. An attempt made by Lord Althorp to abolish church-rates, and to grant in lieu thereof the sum of 250,000 from the land-tax, to effect a[376] commutation of tithes, and to allow Dissenters to get married in their own chapels, was equally unsuccessful.
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THREE:Meanwhile Brigadier Wild occupied a position of great difficulty at Peshawur. He had four native infantry regiments, containing a large number of young soldiers, whom the mutinous Sikhs had impressed with a great horror of the Khyber Pass. The only cavalry he had was a troop of irregular horse, and the only guns, four pieces of Sikh artillery. Besides, the owners of the camels, which had been hired at Ferozepore to proceed as far as Jelalabad, refused to advance farther than Peshawur. It was in these circumstances that Sale and M'Gregor earnestly urged the advance of the brigade for the relief of that place. The fortress of Ali Musjid, regarded as the key to the Khyber Pass, is situated about[498] twenty-five miles from Peshawur: and as it lay between the two positions of Sale and Wild, it was of the utmost importance that it should be occupied. It was accordingly resolved that one-half of Wild's brigade should be dispatched for this service. On the 15th of January Colonel Moseley, with the 53rd and 64th Sepoy Regiments, started under cover of the night, and reached their destination early in the morning. The fortress was about five miles up the Pass. Soon after they had taken up their position they discovered to their dismay that owing to some mistake, instead of 350 supply bullocks, which had been ordered, only fifty or sixty had arrived. Here, then, were two regiments shut up in an isolated fortress without provisions. Day after day passed and no succour came. Wild made an effort to send forward supplies, but the attempt was a disastrous failure. The Sikh auxiliaries mutinied to a man, and refused to enter the Pass. There being no prospect of relief, Colonel Moseley determined to evacuate the fortress. Captain Burt and Captain Thomas offered to remain and keep possession of so important a position, if only 150 men would volunteer for the service. But none were found willing to undertake the perilous duty, and so Ali Musjid was abandoned and suffered to fall into the hands of the Afreedis. The brigade had some fighting on its way back. Some of its officers were killed, some wounded and sick were abandoned, and some baggage was lost.An active warfare had been going on at the same time in North Carolina. Lord Cornwallis had, however, no longer to compete with the inefficient Gates, but with General Greene, a much more vigorous man. On the 17th of January, Colonel Tarleton, who had been dispatched with a thousand men, horse and foot, to attack a body of Americans under General Morgan, came up with them at a place called Cowpens. Tarleton's troops were worn out by their long march, but that impetuous officer gave them no time to rest themselves, but fell on the enemy with loud shouts. The militia fled at once, and the advance of the English endangered the flanks of the Continentals, and it became necessary to make a retrograde movement. This Tarleton mistook for a retreat, so accustomed was he to carry all before him, and his men were rushing on without regard to order, when the Americans suddenly faced about, poured a deadly fire into the British at thirty yards' distance, and then,[280] briskly charging, broke their already disorderly line. Being closely pursued, they lost, in killed and wounded, upwards of five hundred men.
THREE:At this news the Highlanders were filled with exuberant joy. They demanded permission to pursue and attack Cope's soldiers; but the chiefs saw too clearly the grand advantage offered them of descending suddenly into the Lowlands by the road thus left open. Whilst Sir John was making a forced march to Inverness, which he reached on the 29th of August, the Highlanders were descending like one of their own torrents southwards. In two days they traversed the mountains of Badenoch; on the third they reached the Vale of Athol.
THREE:'Celsa sedet ?olus arce,But the more the mystery, the greater was the rage of the English Government. On the opening of the Session of Parliament for 1737, a Bill was brought in of a most frantic and unwise character:"To abolish the charter of the City of Edinburgh, to rase the city gates, disband the City Guard, and declare Mr. Wilson, the Provost, incapable of again holding any public office." Nothing so furious and unstatesmanlike could ever have been imagined possible in the eighteenth century. Witnesses were called to the bar of both Houses, and amongst them three Scottish judges, in their robes, were subjected to a sharp cross-examination. Nothing, however, could be elicited except some degree of carelessness on the part of the city magistrates. The Scottish nation, with its usual spirit, highly resented the menaces of this impolitic Bill. The Duke of Argyll in the Lords, and various members of the Commons, denounced it as equally insulting and unjust. They were zealously supported by many English members, especially by Wyndham and Sir John Barnard, and the Bill gradually shrank into an Act disabling Mr. Provost Wilson from holding any office in future, and fining the city two thousand pounds for the benefit of the widow of Captain Porteous; and, alluding to her original station, it was jocosely said, therefore, that all this terrible menace ended in making the fortune of an old cookmaid.