TWO:WELFEN CASTLE, HANOVER.
FORE:But a month only elapsed when fresh differences arose in the Cabinet leading to further[373] resignations, and ending in the retirement of Lord Grey from public life. Again Ireland was the rock on which the Cabinet struck and went to pieces. The Irish Coercion Act, which had been passed for one year only, was to be renewed, with modifications, for which purpose a Bill was introduced into the Lords about the middle of June. A large number of the Liberal members of England and Scotland, as well as Ireland, required the omission of the clauses enabling the Lord-Lieutenant to suppress public meetings by proclamationa power which Lord Wellesley was induced by his meddlesome advisers, Mr. Littleton and Lord Brougham, to declare he did not require. His opinion, however, was overruled in the Cabinet, and they agreed to support the Bill as it stood. Lord Althorp had very reluctantly yielded the point, more especially as the necessity for the extra-constitutional powers was denied by the Irish executive and by the Lord Chancellor. Mr. Littleton, the Irish Secretary, having indiscreetly made O'Connell aware of the division in the Cabinet, and of the fact that several of its members were supporting the clause contrary to their convictions, the Irish leader used the knowledge thus obtained with tremendous effect. While sitting under the fierce invectives of his opponent, Lord Althorp felt his position to be intolerable. On quitting the House, after a long and harassing discussion, on the 7th of July, he wrote to the Prime Minister, announcing this fact. Next morning there was a conference, after which Lord Grey transmitted to the king his resignation, with that of Lord Althorp; and on the recommendation of Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne was appointed to the office of Prime Minister, being succeeded in the Home Office by Lord Duncannon; while Lord Althorp, relieved from his obligation with regard to the Coercion Bill, consented to resume the post he had just resigned.Here the Americans assert that when the minute-men did not retire on the first order, the English fired on them and killed eight of them. The English, on the other hand, declare that the Americans, in retiring, no sooner reached the shelter of a wall than they fired on the British; that the firing came also from some adjoining houses, and shot one man, and wounded Major Pitcairn's horse in two places; that then the English were ordered to fire, that they killed several, wounded others, and put the body, about a hundred in number, to flight. By this time the alarm had spread, the minute-men came running from all places, and as the English, having executed their commission, began to retire, the Americans shouted, "The lobsters run!" The minute-men now rushed over the bridge after them, and firing from behind trees and walls, killed a considerable number of them. The Americansexcellent shots with their riflescould only be seen by the smoke of these rifles, and the English, tired with their long night march, instead of halting to hunt them out, kept on their way towards Lexington. The whole march was of this description: the English, unable to get a good shot at their enemies, the minute-men pressing on their rear, still sheltered by trees and walls. The result would have been more disastrous had not General Gage sent on to Lexington another detachment of foot and marines, consisting of about sixteen companies, under command of Lord Percy. In this first bloodshed between the colonists and the mother country, the British found they had lost sixty killed, forty-nine missing, and one hundred and thirty-six wounded.[218] The Americans admitted that they had a loss of sixty, of whom two-thirds were killed.
FORE:Marshal Villars, like the French plenipotentiaries, had made a great display of forces, pretty certain, from private information, that there was little fear of being attacked. The Allies had a fine army of one hundred and twenty thousand men opposed to him; but so far as the English were concerned, their commander had his hands tied. The Duke of Ormonde was sent to take the place of the Duke of Marlborougha certain indication that he was meant only for a mere show general. He was a staunch Jacobite, but no general of talents or experience fit to succeed a man like Marlborough. On arriving at the Hague he assured the States General that his instructions were to act zealously with the Allies, and especially the Dutch, and from his letters it would appear that such were his orders. But before his arrival, Mr. Thomas Harley, a relative of Oxford's, and the Abb Gualtier, had reached the Hague, and had assured the plenipotentiaries that the Government had determined on peace, and would not allow the army to fight. They also brought over with them the scheme of the Treaty, which was not yet to be made known to the Dutch. But the States General were too well aware of the hollow proceedings of the English Court, and, disgusted at the withdrawal of Marlborough and the substitution of Ormonde, they would not entrust their troops to him, but appointed Eugene as their own general. Thus, instead of one generalissimo of consummate genius, the army was divided under two chiefs, the abler chief, the Prince Eugene, having the utmost contempt for the martial talents of his colleague. All on the part of England, both in the conference and in the army, was hollow, treacherous, and disgraceful. Yet, though there was to be no fighting, the pretence of it was kept up. The Earl of Albemarle marched with a detachment of the army to Arras, where he burnt and destroyed some magazines of the French. Ormonde, too, joined Prince Eugene on the 26th of May, and the united army passed the Scheldt, and encamped between Haspres and Solennes. Eugene proposed to attack Villars in his lines, and Ormonde consented to it, but he immediately received a peremptory order from Mr. Secretary St. John against engaging in any siege or battle, and he was directed to keep this order profoundly secret from the Allies. Ormonde was also instructed that if Villars should intimate that he was aware of these secret proceedings, he was to take no notice of them; nor was Villars long in letting him know that they might now consider each other as friends. The situation of Ormonde thus became one of extreme embarrassment. On the one hand, Eugene urged him to prepare for an engagement; on the other, the Dutch were impatient to see some stroke which should humble the French and make negotiation more easy; but Ormonde was as unable to move, notwithstanding previous assurances, as if he had been a mere image of wood. He wrote to St. John, expressing in strong terms the embarrassing nature of his situation, assuring him that the Dutch were exclaiming that they were betrayed; but St. John encouraged him to hold out as well as he could, and Ormonde condescended to play this false and degrading part, equally disgraceful to him as a general and a man of any pretences to honour. The prince urged forward the necessity of laying siege to Quesnoy, and Ormonde was allowed, for the sake of keeping up appearances, to furnish a considerable detachment for the purpose. But there was so evident a backwardness in the duke's movements, that the Dutch deputies complained vehemently to the English plenipotentiaries at Utrecht of his refusal to act in earnest against the enemy. Thereupon Robinson, the bishop, took high ground, and retorted that the States General had met the queen's proposals for peace so strangely, that her Majesty now felt herself released from any further obligation to maintain the treaties and engagements between herself and them. This roused the States to great and indignant activity. They entered into communication with the Electors of Hanover, of Hesse-Cassel, and other princes of the Empire, regarding the effective service of their troops in the pay of Great Britain. They sent off warm remonstrances to the Queen of England, and Anne was obliged to summon a council, in which it was agreed that Ormonde should appear as much as possible to concur with Eugene in the siege.
FORE:On the 12th of April Wellington entered Toulouse amid the acclamations of the people. But Lord Wellington was accused by the French of fighting the battle five days after the abdication of Buonaparte, and therefore incurring a most needless waste of life. The fact was, that it was not till the afternoon of the 12th of April that Colonel Cooke and the French Colonel, St. Simon, arrived at Toulouse, bringing the official information that Buonaparte had abdicated at Fontainebleau on the 4th. Thus it happened that the battle was fought a week before the knowledge of the peace was received. Moreover, we have the evidence of Soult's own correspondence, that on the 7th of April, after he had heard of the entrance of the Allies into Paris, he was determined to fight another battle, and for the very reason that the Allies had entered Paris. When the English and French colonels arrived at Soult's camp with the same news that they had communicated to Wellington, Soult refused to submit to the Provisional Government until he received orders from Napoleon; nor did he acknowledge this Government till the 17th, when Wellington was in full pursuit of him towards Castelnaudary. On the 18th a convention was signed between Wellington and Soult, and on the following day a like one was signed between Wellington and Suchet. On the 21st Lord Wellington announced to his army that hostilities were at an end, and thanked them "for their uniform discipline and gallantry in the field, and for their conciliatory conduct towards the inhabitants of the country."
Email: info@yourdomain.com
THREE:The first day of 1839 was marked in Ireland by an atrocious crime. The Earl of Norbury, an amiable nobleman, regarded as one of the most exemplary of his class, both as a man and a landlord, was shot by an assassin in the open day near his own house at Kilbeggan, and in presence of his steward. The murderer escaped. This event deserves special mention, because it was, during the year, the subject of frequent reference in Parliament. There was a meeting of magistrates at Tullamore, at which Lord Oxmantown presided, at which the Earl of Charleville took occasion to animadvert very strongly upon an expression in a letter, in answer to a memorial lately presented by the magistrates of Tipperary, in which Mr. Drummond, the Under-Secretary, uttered the celebrated maxim, that "property had its duties as well as its rights." This, in the circumstances of the country, he felt to be little less than a deliberate and unfeeling insult. He did not hesitate to say that the employment of those terms had given a fresh impulse to feelings which had found their legitimate issue in the late assassination. In the course of the meeting resolutions were proposed and carried to the following effect:"That the answer to the Tipperary magistrates by Mr. Under-Secretary Drummond has had the effect of increasing the animosities entertained against the[459] owners of the soil, and has emboldened the disturbers of the public peace. That there being little hope for a successful appeal to the Irish executive, they felt it their duty to apply to the people of England, the Legislature, and the Throne for protection."The Sovereigns of the Holy Alliance, however, acted on principles and with designs very different. Their general principle was not to tolerate any change in the European Governments that did not emanate from themselves. The Greek Revolution they denounced as a rebellion against the legitimate authority of the Sultan. The actual Government of Spain they regarded as incompatible with the safety of monarchical power, and France called upon the Sovereigns to re-establish the despotism of Ferdinand. Russia, Austria, and Prussia took the same view of the Spanish Revolution, but were unwilling to interfere by force of arms. France was not so scrupulous upon that point. Chateaubriand and other votaries of absolutism in Church and State were busy fomenting conspiracies in Spain, and secretly supplying arms and ammunition to the priest-ridden enemies of constitutional government in that country. An army which during the previous year had been assembled on the frontier, under the ridiculous pretence of preventing the fever at Barcelona from spreading into France, changed its name from that of a sanitary cordon to an army of observation. M. de Villele, the new French Prime Minister, threw off the mask, and in a circular note stated that unless Spain altered her political constitution, France would use force to convert her from her revolutionary theories.
THREE:THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
THREE:The population of Great Britain had thus rapidly increased, and the condition of the people had improved, notwithstanding heavy taxation, and the burden of an enormous National Debt, incurred by one of the most protracted and expensive wars on record, which strained the national energies to the uttermost. How vast, then, must have been the national resources by which all demands were met, leaving the State stronger and wealthier than ever! The extent of these resources is shown in some measure by the amount of our exports. The total declared value of all British and Irish produce and manufactures exported in 1831 was 37,164,372; in 1841 the value of exports had increased to 51,634,623, being at the rate of 38?9 per cent. Another example of the greatly increased commerce of the country is afforded by the returns of shipping. In 1831 the number of ships, British and foreign, engaged in the colonial and foreign trades was 20,573, of which the total tonnage amounted to 3,241,927. In 1841 the number of ships had increased to 28,052, and the tonnage to 4,652,376, giving an increase of 43 per cent. In the former year the tonnage employed in our coasting trade amounted to 9,419,681; in the latter it had increased to 11,417,991, showing an increase of 20 per cent. But other indications of national wealth were referred to by the Census Commissioners of 1841. During the same period the accumulations in savings-banks were very large, and went on increasing. In 1831 there were nearly 500,000 depositors, whose deposits amounted to about 14,000,000. In 1841 it was found that both the depositors and the amount deposited had very nearly doubled. From the[418] proceeds of the property tax, which in 1815 was about 52,000,000, and in 1842 over 82,000,000, an estimate has been formed, in the absence of returns, for the years 1831 and 1841, which sets down the increase of real property during that period as not less than from 20 to 25 per cent. In 1815 the annual profits of trades in England and Wales were assessed at 35,000,000 in round numbers, and in 1841 they had increased to 50,000,000. During the decennial period, 1831-41, legacy duty had been paid upon a capital of about 423,000,000, or more than one-half the aggregate amount upon which the duty had been paid in the thirty-four preceding years. The stamp duties, also, upon probates of wills and letters of administration in the United Kingdom amounted to upwards of 1,000,000, having increased in ten years at the rate of 10 per cent.
