On the 1st of February the inquiry into the crimes of Warren Hastings was renewed. The third charge of the impeachment, the treatment of the Begums, was undertaken by Sheridan, as the first was by Burke, and the second by Fox. We have stated the facts of that great oppression, and they were brought out in a most powerful and dramatic light by Sheridan in a speech of nearly six hours. Sheridan had little knowledge of India; but he was well supplied with the facts from the records of the India House and the promptings of Francis, who was familiar with the country and the events. The effect of Sheridan's charge far exceeded all that had gone before it. When he sat down almost the whole House burst forth in a storm of clappings and hurrahs. Fox declared it the most astounding speech that he had ever heard, and Burke and Pitt gave similar evidence. The wit and pathos of it were equally amazing; but it was so badly reported as to be practically lost. The following remark, however, seems to be reported fairly accurately:"He remembered to have heard an honourable and learned gentleman [Dundas] remark that there was something in the first frame and constitution of the Company which extended the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive operations, connecting with their civil policy, and even with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar and the profligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and the military line could be observed auctioneering ambassadors and trading generals; and thus we saw a revolution brought about by affidavits; an army employed in executing an arrest; a town besieged on a note of hand; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was they exhibited a government which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre and the little traffic of a merchant's counting-housewielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking a pocket with the other." The debate was adjourned to the next day, for the House could not be brought to listen to any other person after this most intoxicating speech. The motion was carried by one hundred and seventy-five votes against sixty-eight.
Whilst these scenes were going on all around, and the city was menaced every moment by troops, by the raving multitude, and by whole squadrons of thieves and assassins, the electors were busily employed in organising a City Guard. But, previous to entering on this task, it was necessary to[364] establish some sort of municipal authority more definite and valid than that of the electors at large. A requisition was then presented to the provost of trades (prv?t des marchands) to take the head. A number of electors were appointed his assistants. Thus was formed a municipality of sufficient powers. It was then determined that this militia, or guard, should consist of forty-eight thousand men furnished by the districts. They were to wear not the green, but the Parisian cockade, of red and blue. Every man found in arms, and wearing this cockade, without having been enrolled in this body by his district, was to be apprehended, disarmed, and punished. And thus arose the National Guard of Paris.THE PORTEOUS MOB. (See p. 67.) [After the Painting by James Drummond, R.S.A.]In this wild but confident manner did this now pride-blinded man talk. And all the time he had no intention whatever of re-establishing the Poles; he meant only to use them. Once more, however, he sent General Lauriston and the Count Narbonne to the Emperor Alexander at Wilna. The pretext was to invite him to Dresden, "where," he said, "all might be arranged;" the real object was to spy out the forces and preparations of the[41] Czar. Alexander refused to see Lauriston, and gave to Narbonne a very curt and warlike answer. The French emissaries found the Russians neither depressed nor elated, but quietly cheerful and determined.
FORE:On the very day that this report was being read in the House died one of the accused, James Craggs, Secretary of State. His complaint was smallpox; but the state of mind induced by this exposure is supposed to have rendered the malady fatal. His father, who was Postmaster-General, was so shamefully involved in the same dishonest proceedings, that he took poison.
ONE:But whilst these conflicts were taking place, the Revolution was marching on at full speed, and had reached its heightthe Declaration of Independence. The Continental Congress, on the 15th of May, passed a resolution that it was necessary for such of the States as had not framed for themselves such constitutions as were required by the altered circumstances of the country, to forthwith frame such as should be conducive to their safety and welfare. This was published in all the newspapers, accompanied by a statement that, as the King of England, in concurrence with his Parliament, had excluded the people of those colonies from his protection, it became indispensable to abolish the constitution established by that power, and frame one for themselves. Here was a plain declaration; there was no longer any mistake.
TWO:"The Earl of Chatham, with his sword drawn,
THREE: The Repeal AgitationDebate in the Dublin CorporationThe Monster MeetingsO'Connell's Speech at TaraThe Arms BillDismissal of the Repeal MagistratesSpeeches of the Duke of WellingtonThe Arms Bill becomes LawProclamation of the Clontarf MeetingO'Connell's Counter-ProclamationArrest and Trial of O'ConnellThe SentenceIt is reversed by the House of LordsRejoicings on O'Connell's LiberationThe Excitement at CorkDecline of O'ConnellHis Breach with the Young Ireland PartyIrish Debates in ParliamentApproach of the Irish FamineThe Devon CommissionIts ReportArrival of the Potato DiseaseThe FamineThe Relief Committee of the Society of FriendsThe Famine in UlsterA Description of Cork and SkibbereenDemoralisation of the PopulationPolicy of the Whig CabinetLord George Bentinck's Railway PlanFailure of the new Poor Law and of the Public WorksThe Temporary Relief ActFather MathewPrivate BenevolenceMunificence of the United States.
FORE:At first victory seemed to attend the French. Lefebvre defeated the Spaniards in Aragon, on the 9th of June, and General Bessires beat the insurgents, in several partial actions, in Navarre and Biscay. But his great success was over the united forces of Generals Cuesta and Blake, on the 14th of June, at Medina de Rio Seco, a few leagues from the city of Valladolid. Duchesne thought he should be able to send reinforcements to assist in reducing Valencia and Aragon; but he soon found that he had enough to do in his own district. Marshal Moncey, all this time expecting the co-operation of Duchesne, had advanced into Valencia. For a time the country seemed deserted; but as he advanced he found the hills and rocks swarming with armed people, and he had to force his march by continual fighting. There were Swiss troops mingled amongst the Spanish ones opposed to him, and whilst they attacked him in front, the Spaniards assaulted his flanks and rear. When he arrived before the city of Valencia, on the 27th of June, he found the place well defended. On the 29th Moncey retired from before the walls, despairing of the arrival of Duchesne. Moncey, like Bessires, now found himself called to Madrid to defend the new king, who, it was clear, could not long remain there; and already the British were landing on the shores of the Peninsula, to bring formidable aid to the exasperated inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Colonel Thornton, though delayed, and with only a handful of men, still pushed on towards the battery, surprised the Americans, who expected no attack in that quarter, and carried it against overwhelming numbers. When about to turn the captured guns against the enemy, a messenger came in haste to say that Pakenham had fallen, and the attacking force had retired. But Thornton would not retrace his steps without carrying off a good quantity of the artillery, amongst which was a howitzer, inscribed, "Taken at the surrender of Yorktown, 1781." On his return to the main body, which he did without any pursuitfor even so small a band the Americans did not venture to pursueit was found that he had had but three men killed and forty wounded, he himself being amongst the latter.During the recess of Parliament there was an active contest between the new French opinions and the old constitutional ones. One called forth and provoked the other. Clubs and societies for Reform were more after the model of the wholesale proceedings of France than the old and sober ones of England. The Society of the Friends of the People was compelled to disclaim all connection with the Society for Constitutional Information in London, which was in open correspondence with[394] the Jacobins of Paris. It was forced to disown societies in the country of the same stamp, and especially to check a branch of the Society for Constitutional Information in Sheffield, which, in May of the present year, called on the Society of the Friends of the People to establish a Convention in London. To allow of no mistake as to their principles, the Society of the Friends of the People held a great meeting on the 5th of May, in which they announced that they had no other object but to obtain Parliamentary Reform by strictly legal and constitutional means, and that after this end had been secured they should dissolve themselves. Yet, notwithstanding this, there were those in the Society who deemed that they were in connection with persons and associations whose views went farther than their own, and, on this ground, on the 9th of June, Mr. Baker, who had been the chairman at the late meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern, Lord John Russell, who had been deputy-chairman, Dudley North, Mr. Curwen, and Mr. Courtney, withdrew from it.Better to die than wed:
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