On the arrival of this news the French Court complained bitterly of the violation of the peace, to which the Court of St. James's replied that the French had too prominently set the example, and the ambassadors on both sides were recalledan equivalent to a declaration of war, though none on either side yet followed. We had soon a severe reverse instead of a victory to record. General Braddock had been despatched against Fort Duquesne, and had reached Great Meadows, the scene of Washington's defeat in the preceding summer. Braddock was a general of the Hawley schoolbrave enough, but, like him, brutal and careless. His soldiers hated him for his severity. The Indians resented so much the haughtiness with which he treated them, that they had most of them deserted him; and, as was the fatal habit of English commanders then and long afterwards, he had the utmost contempt for what were called "Provincials" (that is, Colonists), supposing that all sense and knowledge existed in England, and that the English, just arrived, knew more about America than natives who had spent their lives in it. He therefore marched on into the woods, utterly despising all warnings against the Indians in alliance with the French. At Great Meadows he found it necessary, from the nature of the woods and the want of roads, to leave behind him all his heavy baggage, and part of his troops to guard it, and he proceeded with only one thousand two hundred men and ten pieces of artillery. On the 9th of July, 1755, having arrived within ten miles of Fort Duqnesne, he still neglected to send out scouts, and thus rashly entering the mouth of a deep woody defile, he found himself assaulted by a murderous fire in front and on both flanks. His enemies were Indians assisted by a few French, who, accustomed to that mode of fighting, aimed from the thickets and behind trees, and picked off his officers, whom they recognised by their dress, without themselves being visible. Without attempting to draw out of the ambush, and advance with proper precautions, Braddock rushed deeper into it, and displayed a desperate but useless courage. Now was the time for his Indians to have encountered his enemies in their own mode of battle, had his pride not driven them away. After having three horses killed under him, in the vain endeavour to come at his foes, he was shot, and his troops retreated in all haste, leaving behind them their artillery and seven hundred of their comrades on the ground. Their retreat was protected by the "provincial" George Washingtonwhose advice had been unheededor the slaughter would have been greater.
ONE:Meanwhile Lord Palmerston had been constant in his appeals to the Austrian Court. When the Hungarian cause became desperate, he had urged Austria to consent to some arrangement which, while maintaining unimpaired the union with the House of Hapsburg, would satisfy the national feelings of the Hungarians. After the surrender of Comorn, he urged the Government to "make a generous use of the successes which it had obtained," and to pay "due regard to the ancient constitutional rights of Hungary." But he received from Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Minister, a scathing reply. "The world," he wrote, "is agitated by a spirit of subversion. England herself is not exempt from this spirit; witness Canada, the island of Cephalonia, and finally unhappy Ireland. But, wherever revolt breaks out within the vast limits of the British Empire, the English Government always knows how to maintain the authority of the law, were it even at the price of torrents of blood. It is not for us to blame her.... We consider it our duty to refrain from expressing our opinion, persuaded as we are that persons are apt to fall into gross errors in making themselves judges of the often so complicated position of foreign affairs."
ONE:This was wormwood to the Government; and Wilkes did not leave them many days in quiet. He had declared that, on returning to England, he would surrender himself under his outlawry on the first day of the next term. Accordingly, on the 20th of April, he presented himself to the Court of King's Bench, attended by his counsel, Mr. Glynn, and avowed himself ready to surrender to the laws. Lord Mansfield declared that he was not there by any legal process, and that the court could not take notice of him; but in a few days he was taken on another writ, and on the 8th of June he was again brought before Lord Mansfield, who declared the outlawry void through a flaw in the indictment; but the original verdict against him was confirmed, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for twenty-two calender months, and two fines of five hundred pounds eachone for the North Briton, and the other for the "Essay on Woman."Grattan determined to call these Acts in question in the Irish Parliament, and at least abolish them there. This alarmed even Burke, who, writing to Ireland, said, "Will no one stop that madman, Grattan?" But Grattan, on the 19th of April, 1780, submitted to the Irish House of Commons a resolution asserting the perfect legislative independence of Ireland. He did not carry his motion then, but his speechin his own opinion, the finest he ever madehad a wonderful effect on the Irish public. Other matters connected with sugar duties, and an Irish Mutiny Bill, in which Grattan took the lead, fanned the popular flame, and the Volunteer body at the same time continued to assume such rapidly growing activity that it was deemed necessary by Government to send over the Earl of Carlisle to supersede the Earl of Buckinghamshire, and to give him an able secretary in Mr. Eden. But this did not prevent the Irish Volunteers from meeting at Dungannon on the 15th of February, 1782. There were two hundred and forty-two delegates, with their general-in-chief, Lord Charlemont, at their head, and they unanimously passed a resolution prepared by Grattan, "That a claim of any body of men other than the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to bind this kingdom, is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance." On the 22nd, Grattan moved a similar resolution in the Irish House of Commons, which was only got rid of by the Attorney-General asking for some time to consider it. Two days only before Grattan had made his motion on Irish rights, that is, on the 20th of February, he seconded a Bill for further relief of Roman Catholics in Ireland, introduced by Mr. Gardiner. The Bill was passed, and wonderfully increased the influence of Grattan by adding the grateful support of all the Catholics. Such was the tone of Ireland, and such the transcendent influence of Grattan there, when the new Whig Ministry assumed office.
The question of the regency was again brought forward, on the 6th of July, by Mr. Robert Grant, in pursuance of a notice he had previously given. The unbounded personal popularity of the kingwho, unlike his predecessor shut up in seclusion and resembling Tiberius, went about sailor-like through the streets, frank, talkative, familiar, good-humoured, delighting the Londoners with all the force of pleasant contrastrendered it increasingly difficult and delicate on the part of the Opposition to propose any measure disagreeable to a Sovereign who was the idol of the multitude, from whom no evil could be apprehended, and whose death, even in the ordinary course of Providence, it seemed something like treason to anticipate as likely to occur within a few months. They were, therefore, profuse in their declarations of respect, of admirationnay, almost of venerationfor a monarch whom a beneficent Providence had so happily placed upon the Throne of Great Britain. The division on Mr. Grant's motion was still more decidedly favourable to the Government, the numbers beingAyes, 93; noes, 247majority, 154.On the 9th of June, when the House of Commons went into committee on the Bill, a large number of merchants desired to be heard against it. For several days their statements were heard, and the Portuguese Ambassador also presented a memorial declaring that should the duties on French wines be lowered to those of Portugal, his master would renew the woollen and other duties on the products of Great Britain. This seemed to enforce the mercantile opinions; the sense of the whole country was against the treaty, and the speech of Sir Thomas Hanmer, a Tory, made a deep impression. There was, however, a growing rumour, during the latter days of the debate, that Oxford had given the treaty upa rumour probably not without foundation, for Oxford and Bolingbroke were no longer in unity. The latter, ambitious and unprincipled, was intriguing to oust his more slow and dilatory colleague; and, as the Bill was ostensibly the work of Bolingbroke, probably Oxford was by no means unwilling that it should be thrown out to damage him. When the question, therefore, was put on the 18th of June,[11] that the Bill be engrossed, it was negatived by a majority of one hundred and ninety-four to one hundred and eighty-five. Thus the commercial treaty was lost, much to the joy of the nation, and certainly to its immediate benefit.
