ONE:During this momentous struggle, Russia was munificently supported by Great Britain. The peace which Mr. Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, our ambassador at Constantinople, had been the means of effecting between Turkey and Russia, released Admiral Tchitchagoff and his army of thirty thousand men to march against Buonaparte; and had not that stupid personage suffered himself to be so grossly deceived by the French Emperor at the Beresina, neither Buonaparte nor a man of his army had ever got across that river. At the same time peace was made with Russia by Great Britain, and Russia sent her fleet, for security, to an English port during the invasion. Peace also was ratified between Great Britain and Sweden; and Bernadotte was at liberty to pursue his plans for aiding in the general movement of the North for the final extinction of the Buonaparte rule. Great Britain also bountifully supplied the Russians with money and arms, and other necessaries, so that a French officer who accompanied General Lauriston to the headquarters of the Russian army was astonished to find abundance of British money circulating and in the highest esteem, though Buonaparte had represented Great Britain as on the verge of bankruptcy. "When I saw British bank-notes passing," he said, "as if they were gold, I trembled for our daring enterprise."
THREE:THE AGENTS OF BRITAIN AND SWEDEN SIGNING THE TREATY AGAINST NAPOLEON. (See p. 7.)
THREE:The name of the leader of the new movement, however, had not yet been added to the list. Mr. Bright, whose residence was at Rochdale, had not begun to give personal aid to the cause, and was scarcely known out of his native town, where his efforts to improve the moral and social condition of the working classes had, however, long made him conspicuous among his fellow-townsmen. The name of Richard Cobden, which appears in the additional list of the committee published a short time afterwards, was one more familiar in Manchester ears. Mr. Cobden was the son of a yeoman at Dunford, near Midhurst, in Sussex. Beginning with small advantages, he had become a successful tradesman. In the course of 1835 a pamphlet was published by him under the title, "England, Ireland, and America." It was followed by a second pamphlet entitled "Russia; by a Manchester Manufacturer." In these writings he advocated peace and retrenchment, and reprobated a panic fear of Russia. But he was soon to advocate more important reforms.It is a curious fact, that whilst Cowper was haunted by the most agonising terrors of a nervous temperament, even to despair, his poetry breathes the most consolatory tone. Whilst his mind was often wandering in insanity, there is no composition so sane and so sound in intellectual substance as his. Though seldom indulging in high flights of imagination, yet his verse frequently rises into a richness and nobility of voice nearly equal to the prophetic. The "Lines on his Mother's Picture" exhibit the deep feeling of Cowper, and the ballad of "John Gilpin" the genuine mirth which often bubbled up in a heart so racked and tried with melancholy.
THREE:At this juncture, while daily desertions thinned Mar's army at Perth, arrived the Pretender. He landed at Peterhead on the 22nd of December. On the 6th of January, 1716, he made his public entry into Dundee, at the head of his cavalcade, the Earl of Mar riding on his right hand, and the Earl Marshal on his left, and about three hundred gentlemen following. His reception was enthusiastic. The people flocked round him to kiss his hands; and to gratify this loyal desire he remained an hour in the market-place. On the 8th he arrived at Scone, and took up his residence in the ancient palace of his ancestors. There he was only two miles from the army, and having established a council, and issued six proclamations, ordering a public thanksgiving for the "miraculous providence" of his safe arrival, for prayers in the church, for the currency of foreign coin, for a meeting of the Convention of Estates, for all fencible men from sixteen to sixty to repair to his standard, and for his coronation on the 23rd of January, he presented himself before the army. But here the scene was changed. Instead of enthusiasm there was disappointmentdisappointment on both sides. The soldiers, who expected to see a royal-looking, active-looking man, likely to encourage them and lead them on their career, beheld a tall, thin, pale, and dejected sort of person, who evidently took no great interest in them. That the Pretender should not exhibit much vivacity was no wonder. He had been assured by Mar that his army had swelled to sixteen thousand men; that the whole North was in his favour; and that he had only to appear to carry everything before him. On inquiring into the force, it turned out to be so miserably small, that the only desire was to keep it out of sight. The spirits of the Pretender fell, and though not destitute of ability, as is manifest by his letters, he had by no means that strength of resolution demanded by such an enterprise.
