The fame of Wren must rest on St. Paul's, for in palaces he was less happy than in churches. His additions to Windsor Castle and St. James's Palace, and his erection of Marlborough House are by no means calculated to do him high honour, whilst all lovers of architecture must deplore the removal of a great part of Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court to make way for Wren's structure. A glorious view, if old drawings are to be believed, must all that vast and picturesque variety of towers, battlements, tall mullioned windows, cupolas, and pinnacles, have made, as they stood under the clear heaven glittering in the sun. The writers who saw it in its glory describe it in its entireness as the most splendid palace in Europe. Of the campaniles of Wren, that of St. Bride's, Fleet Street; of Bow Church, Cheapside; of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East; and the tower of St. Michael's, Cornhill, are the finest. The last is almost his only Gothic one, and would have been a fine tower had the ornament been equally diffused over it, and not all been crowded too near the top. Wren was thwarted in his design for the London Monument. He drew a plan for one with gilt flames issuing from the loop-holes, and surmounted by a ph?nix, but as no such design could be found in the five Orders, it was rejected, and the existing commonplace affair erected. One of his last undertakings was the repair of Westminster Abbey, to which he added the towers at the west end, and proposed to erect a spire in the centre. Sir Christopher left a large quantity of drawings, which are preserved in All Souls' College library, Oxford.The king left Scotland on the 29th, taking a route different from that by which he entered. On his way to the place of embarkation he visited the Earl of Hopetoun, at whose house he conferred the honour of knighthood on Mr. Raeburn, the celebrated portrait-painter. At Queensferry the country people assembled to testify their loyalty with a last look and a parting cheer. The roar of cannon from all the surrounding hills, and the shouts of the multitude, greeted him on his embarkation at Port Edgar. The royal squadron arrived safely on the 1st of September at Greenwich, where he was cordially welcomed home.BY THOMAS DAVIDSON.
ONE:BOSTON "BOYS" DISGUISED AS INDIANS THROWING THE TEA CHESTS INTO THE HARBOUR. (See p. 210.)
TWO:High duties were not the only evils that had been strangling the silk trade. Its chief seat was at Spitalfields, where by the Act of 1811 and other legislation the magistrates had been empowered to fix the rate of wages, and to subject to severe penalties any masters who employed weavers in other districts. The result, said a manufacturers' petition in 1823, is, "that the removal of the entire manufacture from the metropolis is inevitable, if the Acts are to continue any longer in force." However, the journeymen declared that a repeal of the Acts would be followed by the reduction of their wages and the increase of the poor rates. No less than 11,000 petitioned against Huskisson's motion for a repeal, and,[242] though the Bill passed the House of Commons by small majorities, it was so altered by amendments in the Lords that it was abandoned for the Session. But in this remarkable Session of 1824 it was reintroduced and passed through all its stages. As a result the Combination Acts directed against meetings of workmen to affect wages, the Acts which prevented the emigration of artisans, and the laws against the exportation of machinery were brought under discussion by Joseph Hume. The last question was waived for the present, but the laws interfering with the emigration of artisans were repealed without a voice being raised in their favour. As for the Combination Acts, it was ordained that no peaceable meeting of masters or workmen should be prosecuted as a conspiracy, while summary punishments were enacted on those "who by threats, intimidation, or acts of violence interfered with that freedom, which ought to be allowed to each party, of employing his labour or capital in a manner he may deem most advantageous." In consequence, however, of the outrages which occurred during the Glasgow strikes of 1824, during which a workman who disregarded the wishes of his union was shot, and men of one trade were employed to assassinate the masters of another, further legislation was necessary. By the Act of 1825 all associations were made illegal, excepting those for settling such amount of wages as would be a fair remuneration to the workman. Any other combination either of men against masters or of masters against men, or of working men against working men, was made illegal. The law thus framed continued to regulate the relations of capital and labour for nearly half a century.[See larger version]
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ONE:[See larger version]
TWO:At the approach of the new French levies, Eugene Beauharnais retreated from Magdeburg, and joined them on the Saale. The Allies and Napoleon now lay face to face, the Allies cutting off his advance towards Leipsic and thence to Dresden. He resolved to make a determined attack upon them, and demoralise them by a blow which should make him master of Leipsic, Dresden, and Berlin at once, and give its impression to the whole campaign. In the skirmishes which took place previous to the general engagement at Weissenfels and Poserna on the 29th of April and the 1st of May, Buonaparte gained some advantages; but in the latter action his old commander of the Imperial Guard, Marshal Bessires, was killed. His death was deeply lamented, both by his men, who had served under him from the very commencement of Buonaparte's career, and by Buonaparte himself.
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ONE:The second reading of the Bill was not opposed, but Lord Francis Egerton, with Sir Robert Peel's concurrence, moved that the committee should be empowered to make provision for the abolition of corporations in Ireland, and for securing the efficient and impartial administration of justice, and the peace and good government of the cities and towns in that country. The Tories thought it better that there should be no corporations at all, than that their privileges should be enjoyed by the Roman Catholics. The motion was lost by a majority of 307 to 64, and the Bill ultimately passed the Lower House by a majority of 61. In the Upper House a motion similar to that of Lord Francis Egerton was moved by Lord Fitzgerald, and carried in a full House by a majority of 84. Other amendments were carried, and it was sent back to the Commons so changed that it was difficult to trace its identity. Lord John Russell said that it contained little or nothing of what was sent up: out of 140 clauses, 106 had been omitted or altered, and 18 new ones introduced. He moved that the amendments of the Lords be rejected, and that the Bill be sent back to the Upper House. The motion was carried by a majority of 66, the numbers being 324 to 258. But the Lords refused by a majority of 99 to undo their work; and upon the Bill being returned to the Lower House in the same state, Lord John Russell got rid of the difficulty by moving that the Bill should be considered that day three months.
TWO:It was agreed between the Catholic Powers that the Papal territory should be invaded at the same time by Neapolitan, Austrian, and French troops. France was determined to have the chief part, and, if possible, all the glory of the enterprise. Odillon Barrot, President of the Council, explained the objects of the French expedition, on the 16th of April. The Minister demanded extraordinary credit for the expenses of the expedition. It was promptly voted without any opposition, save some murmurs from the Left. An expedition was immediately organised, and an army, 6,000 strong, was embarked at Marseilles, with astounding celerity, on the 22nd of April, 1849, under the command of General Oudinot. But the Romans had no confidence in their professed protectors. On the contrary, they set about making all possible preparations for the defence of the city. In consequence of the hints he had got, however, Oudinot sent forward a reconnoitring party, which was saluted with a fire of artillery, certainly not meant as a feu de joie. The French general then ordered an attack upon two gates, the Portese and San Pancrazio, both on the right bank of the Tiber. The Romans repelled them at both points with a discharge of grape-shot, and they were compelled to retire with heavy loss; General Garibaldi, with his Lombard legion, having surrounded a retreating column, and made 200 prisoners. After this mortifying repulse, Oudinot retired to Palo, near Civita Vecchia, to await reinforcements, in order to enable him to vindicate the honour of the French arms, which could now be done only by the capture of Rome; and the French Government were probably not sorry to have this pretext for their unwarrantable course of aggression. In the meantime reinforcements were rapidly sent from Toulon. During this period a Neapolitan army, 16,000 strong, commanded by the king in person, had entered the States of the Church. Garibaldi, disregarding the orders of Roselli, went forth to meet the invaders, fell upon them with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, won a victory over them, and compelled them to retreat. All negotiations having failed, the French general commenced a regular siege. The city was cannonaded from the 11th to the 21st of June, when Garibaldi assured the Triumvirs that the defence was no longer possible. So Pius IX. was restored by foreign bayonets. Shortly after, the Pope issued a decree, proprio motu, containing a programme of "liberal institutions," so far as they were compatible with an absolute authority, enjoyed in virtue of Divine Right. The people were up for a brief period; they were now down, and would be kept down, if possible. They had presumed to think that they were the source of political power; that they could give their representatives the right of making laws and dethroning kings; but they must now learn that their business was to obey, and submit to anything which their superiors might think proper, of their own will and pleasure, to ordain.But his great measure, at this period, was the blow aimed at the commerce of Britain, and comprised in his celebrated Berlin Decrees, promulgated on the 21st of November. He had subjugated nearly the whole of the European Continent. Spain, Portugal, Italy to the south of France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Prussia to the north, with nearly the whole seaboard of Europe, were under his hand and his armies. He had found that he could not invade England; her fleet had risen triumphant, his own fleet had disappeared like a vapour at Trafalgar. As, therefore, he could not reach her soil, he determined to destroy her by destroying her commerce, on which he imagined not merely her prosperity but her very existence depended. As he was master of nearly all Continental Europe, he supposed it as easy for him to exclude by his fiat the merchandise of Britain, as to put down old dynasties and set up new ones. He had yet to[528] learn that commerce has a conquering power greater than that either of martial genius or of arms.
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FORE:Besides the miscellaneous poets, the dramatic ones numbered Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Colley Cibber, Nicholas Rowealready mentionedSavage, Lansdowne, Ambrose Philips, and others. In many of the plays of these authors there is great talent, wit, and humour, but mingled with equal grossness. Congreve's dramas are principally "The Old Bachelor," "The Incognita," "The Double Dealer," "The Way of the World," comedies, and "The Mourning Bride," a tragedy. Vanbrugh, the celebrated architect, produced "The Relapse," "The Provoked Wife," "The Confederacy," "The Journey to London," and several other comedies. Farquhar's principal plays are "The Beaux's Stratagem," "Love and a Bottle," and "The Constant Couple." Savage was the author of the tragedy of "Sir Thomas Overbury;" Nicholas Rowe, of five or six tragedies and one comedy, the most popular of which are "The Fair Penitent" and "Jane Shore." Rowe also translated Lucan's "Pharsalia." As for Colley Cibber, he was a mere playwright, and turned out above two dozen comedies, tragedies, and other dramatic pieces. Lord Lansdowne was the author of "The She-gallants," a comedy, and "Heroic Love," a tragedy of some merit; and John Hughes wrote "The Siege of Damascus," a tragedy, which long remained on the stage.The two rival Ministers of England became every day more embittered against each other; and Bolingbroke grew more daring in his advances towards the Pretender, and towards measures only befitting a Stuart's reign. In order to please the High Church, whilst he was taking the surest measures to ruin it by introducing a popish prince, he consulted with Atterbury, and they agreed to bring in a Bill which should prevent Dissenters from educating their own children. This measure was sure to please the Hanoverian Tories, who were as averse from the Dissenters as the Whigs. Thus it would conciliate them and obtain their support at the[19] very moment that the chief authors of it were planning the ruin of their party. This Bill was called the Schism Bill, and enjoined that no person in Great Britain should keep any school, or act as tutor, who had not first subscribed the declaration to conform to the Church of England, and obtained a licence of the diocesan. Upon failure of so doing, the party might be committed to prison without bail; and no such licence was to be granted before the party produced a certificate of his having received the Sacrament according to the communion of the English Church within the last year, and of his having also subscribed the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy.
FORE:On the 23rd of June the king sent down a message to the Commons, recommending them to[301] take into consideration a separate establishment for the Prince of Wales, who had arrived at the age of twenty-one. This young man, whose whole career proved to be one of reckless extravagance and dissipation, was already notorious for his debauched habits, and for his fast accumulating debts. He was a great companion of Fox, and the gambling rous amongst whom that grand orator but spendthrift man was accustomed to spend his time and money, and therefore, as a pet of this Coalition Ministry, the Duke of Portland proposed to grant him one hundred thousand pounds a year. The king, alarmed at the torrent of extravagance and vice which such an income was certain to produce in the prince's career, declared that he could not consent to burden his people, and encourage the prince's habits of expense, by such an allowance. He therefore requested that the grant should amount only to fifty thousand pounds a year, paid out of the Civil List, and fifty thousand pounds as an outfit from Parliamentary funds. The Ministers were compelled to limit themselves to this, though the saving was merely nominal, for the debts on the Civil List were again fast accumulating, and the prince was not at all likely to hesitate to apply to Parliament to wipe off his debts, as well as his father's when they became troublesome to him. Resenting, however, the restraint attempted to be put upon him by his father, the prince the more closely connected himself with Fox and his party, and the country was again scandalised by the repetition of the scenes enacted when Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III., was the opponent of his own father, George II., and the associate of his opponents. Such, indeed, had been the family divisions in every reign since the Hanoverian succession. On the 16th of July Parliament was prorogued.
FORE:"O Richard! o mon Roi!The Irish delegates described the condition of Ireland as most deplorable. They said that the Government interest, through the landed aristocracy, was omnipotent; that the manufacturers were unemployed; that an infamous coalition had taken place between the Irish Opposition and Ministry; that the Catholics had been bought up so that all parties might combine to crush Reform; that the United Irishmen were everywhere persecuted, and that one of them had only just escaped from a six months' imprisonment.
FORE:To any one viewing the situation of Buonaparte at this moment, it can appear nothing but an act of madness to invade Russia. The British, in Spain, were now defeating his best generals, and this would at an earlier period have caused him to hasten to that country and endeavour to settle the war in person. It is remarkable that he was not desirous to cope with Wellington himself, all his ablest generals having failed. But to leave such an enemy in his rear when he proceeded to the North, impresses us with the idea that his enormous success had now turned his head, and that the term of his career had been reached. Besides Spain, too, there were Prussia and Austria, with whom it was only politic to enter into some terms of security; for assuredly, if his arms suffered a reverse in Russia, all these would rise and join his enemies.
FORE:Napoleon also exerted himself to excite a rebellion in Ireland. He was the more bent on this, because he saw that it was hopeless to make a direct descent on England itself. He had collected a great fleet in the harbours of Boulogne, Dieppe, Havre, Dunkirk, Ostend, and other smaller ports, many of them capable only of receiving the gunboats in which he proposed to transport his soldiers. He had assembled a very fine army on the heights above Boulogne, called the Army of England, and there continually exercised it, under the inspection of Soult, Ney, Davoust, and Victormen, the pride of his army; but he saw such powerful fleets crowding the Channel, blockading his very ports, cutting out, every now and then, some of his gunboats under the very batteries, and the war-ships of Britain even standing in and firing at him and his suite as they made observations from the cliffs, that, combined with the information that England was almost all one camp, he abandoned the project, for the present, in despair. But Ireland he deemed vulnerable, from the treason of her own children. He assembled all the Irish refugees in Paris, formed the Irish Brigade into the Irish Legion, and sent over active agents to arouse their countrymen in Ireland. Amongst these were Quigley and Robert Emmett, who had been engaged in the Rebellion of 1798. Quigley had been outlawed, and Emmett had been so deeply implicated in that Rebellion with his brother Thomas, who was banished, that he had found it necessary to quit the country. These emissaries soon collected around them, in Dublin, disaffected associates, amongst them being Dowdall, Redmond, and Russell. They formed a central committee, and corresponded with others in different towns, and especially with one Dwyer, who had also been in the former Rebellion, and had ever since maintained himself and a knot of desperate followers in the mountains of Wicklow. The Government received, from time to time, information of the proceedings of these foolish menEmmett being a rash youth of only twenty-two or twenty-three years of agebut they took no precautions; and when, on the 23rd of July, the eve of the Festival of St. James, these desperadoes rushed, at evening, into the streets of Dublin, armed with pikes, old guns, and blunderbusses, the authorities were taken entirely by surprise. There were from two thousand to three thousand soldiers in the Castle, but neither police, soldier, nor officer appeared till the mob had murdered Colonel Brown, who was hastening to the Castle to arouse the troops, and Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice, whom they dragged from his carriage as it passed, and killed, along with his nephew, but, at the same time, they allowed the Chief Justice's daughter, who was with them, to depart. Soon after thisbut not before the insurgents had severely wounded a Mr. Clarke, a manufacturer, who was riding to alarm the Castlethe soldiers appeared, and the mob fled at their very sight. The same day Russell had turned out at Belfast, and Quigley at Kildare, but with as little success. Emmett had escaped to the Wicklow mountains to join Dwyer; but having assumed the fatal disguise of French officers, the country people, who hated the French since their appearance under General Humbert, when they had ridiculed the Catholic religion, drove him and twelve of his companions back. In a short time, Emmett, Russell, Redmond, and others were all secured and executed. Dowdall escaped, with Allen and others, out of Ireland; Quigley and Stafford, one of his companions, were admitted as king's evidence, and thus escaped. The project of Napoleon had thus entirely failed, with the sacrifice of some of his leading agents.The great car which bore Feargus O'Connor and his fortunes was of course the central object of attraction. Everything about it indicated that some great thing was going to happen, and all who could get within hearing of the speakers were anxiously waiting for the commencement of the proceedings. But there was something almost ludicrous in the mode of communication between the tremendous military power which occupied the metropolis, waiting the course of events, in the consciousness of irresistible strength, and the principal leader of the Chartist convention. Immediately after the two cars had taken their position, a police inspector, of gigantic proportions, with a jolly and good-humoured expression of countenance, was seen pressing through the crowd toward Mr. O'Connor. He was the bearer of a message from the Police Commissioners, politely desiring Mr. O'Connor's attendance for a few minutes at the Horns Tavern. Mr. O'Connor immediately alighted and followed the inspector, whose burly form made a lane through the mass of people as if he were passing through a field of tall wheat. Murmurs were heard through the crowd. What could this mean? Was their leader deserting, or was he a prisoner? A rush was made in the direction which they had taken, and it was said that their faces were blanched with fear, and that at one time they were almost fainting. Protected by those who were near them, they reached Mr. Commissioner Mayne in safety. The commissioner informed Mr. O'Connor that the Government did not intend to interfere with the right of petitioning, properly exercised, nor with the right of public meeting; therefore they did not prevent the assemblage on the Common; but if they attempted to return in procession, they would be stopped at all hazards; and that there were ample forces awaiting orders for the purpose. The meeting would be allowed to proceed, if Mr. O'Connor pledged himself that it would be conducted peaceably. He gave the pledge, shook hands with the commissioner, and returned to his place on the car. He immediately announced to his colleagues the result of his interview, and the whole demonstration collapsed as suddenly as a pierced balloon. Some brief, fiery harangues were delivered to knots of puzzled listeners; but the meeting soon broke up in confusion. Banners and flags were pulled down, and the monster petition was taken from the triumphal car, and packed up in three cabs, which were to convey it quietly to the House of Commons. The masses then rolled back towards the Thames, by no means pleased with the turn things had taken. At every bridge[558] they were stopped by the serried ranks of the police and the special constables. There was much pressing and struggling to force a passage, but all in vain. They were obliged to move off, but after a while they were permitted to pass in detached parties of not more than ten each. About three o'clock the flood of people had completely subsided. Had the movement been successful to any extent, it would have been followed by insurrections in the provincial towns. Early on the morning of the 10th the walls of the city of Glasgow were found covered with a placard, calling upon the people, on receipt of the news from London, "to rise in their thousands and tens of thousands, and put an end to the vile government of the oligarchy which had so long oppressed the country." Another placard was issued there, addressed to soldiers, and offering 10 and four acres of land to every one of them who should join the insurgents. Strange to say, the printers' names were attached to both these treasonable proclamations. They were arrested, but not punished.
FORE:The Pope had been labouring to satisfy his subjects by effecting some mitigation of the ecclesiastical system of government. He had promulgated a plan for the organisation of the executive in nine departments; the chiefs of which were to compose the Council of Ministers, to consist partly of laymen, with a cardinal as secretary. The populace, however, became gradually more unmanageable. The cardinals were insulted wherever they appeared in the streets. In the new Administration, Count Rossiformerly Ambassador from Franceoccupied the post of Prime Minister. He was the object of popular distrust; and it was supposed that by his temporising policy, and the feint of practical reforms, he was merely trying to gain time, and to delude the peopleso, at least, thought the revolutionary party. The 15th of November was the day appointed for the opening of the Chambers, and on that day he was murdered on the steps of the Cancellaria. The mob obtained the upper hand with surprising rapidity. Thenceforth the Pope took no part in public affairs, and remained a prisoner in his palace, though the Government was still carried on in his name. It was not to be expected that the head of the Roman Catholic Church would remain long in that position. But the difficulty was to get out of the city unobserved. However, he escaped in disguise to Gaeta. Garibaldi, who had returned from South America, and had been serving with the army of Charles Albert as a guerilla leader, now appeared on the Roman stage. He had collected together about 3,000 volunteers and refugees, with whom he arrived in Rome at the end of January, 1849. A constituent Assembly was convoked, by which the Pope was dethroned, and a republic proclaimed, at the head of which was a triumvirate composed of Mazzini, Armellini, and Saffi.
TWO:Goldsmith was in his poetry, as in his prose, simple, genuine, and natural. His "Deserted Village" and "Traveller" were in the metre of Pope, but they were full of the most exquisite touches of pathos, of truth, and liberty; they were new in spirit, though old in form. Charles Churchill, the satirist, was full of flagellant power. He has been said to have formed himself on Dryden; but it is more probable that his models were Lucian and Juvenal. He was a bold and merciless chastiser of the follies of the times. He commenced, in the "Rosciad," with the players, by which he stirred a nest of hornets. Undauntedly he pursued his course, attacking, in "The Ghost," the then all-powerful Dr. Johnson, who ruled like a despot over both literary men and their opinions. These satires, strong and somewhat coarse, were followed by "The Prophecy of Famine," an "Epistle to Hogarth," "The Conference," "The Duellist," "The Author," "Gotham," "The Candidate," "The Times," etc. In these Churchill not only lashed the corruptions of the age, but the false principles of nations. He condemned the seizure of other countries by so-called Christian powers, on the plea of discovery. It was only to be lamented that Churchill, who was a clergyman, in censuring his neighbour's vices did not abandon his own.
TWO:The suggestions of Murat had failed to induce Ferdinand to leave his capital and go to meet Napoleon; but a more adroit agent now presented himself in the person of Savary, the delegated murderer of the Duke d'Enghien. Savary paid decided court to Ferdinand. He listened to all his statements of the revolution of Aranjuez and the abdication of the king. He told him that he felt sure Napoleon would see these circumstances in the same favourable light as he did, and persuaded him to go and meet the Emperor at Burgos, and hear him salute him Ferdinand VII., King of Spain and of the Indies.
TWO:In May the gingham-weavers of Carlisle and that neighbourhood held a similar gathering, and in June meetings were held on Hunslet Common, near Leeds, at Glasgow, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other places. The meeting at Glasgow, on the 16th of June, was held on the Green, and amounted to thirty or forty thousand people. They complained of the low wages for cotton-weaving, and proposed a petition to the Prince Regent, praying that he would enable them to get over to Canada, promising that all such as received that favour should repay the outlay by yearly instalments. But the bulk of the assembly protested against emigration, asserting that the remedy for their distresses lay in annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the consequent reduction of taxation; and they proposed that they should march up to London in a body, and present their petition to the Prince Regent in person. At Ashton the chair was taken by the Rev. Joseph Harrison, and the strange creature called Dr. Healey, of whom Bamford gives an extraordinary account in his "Life of a Radical," made a most wild and seditious harangue. At a great meeting at Stockport, on the 28th of the same month, a very different personage presided. This was Sir Charles Wolseley, of Wolseley Park, in Staffordshire. Sir Charles said that he had been engaged in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and had assisted in the taking of the Bastille, and that he would spend his last drop of blood, if it were necessary, in destroying the Bastilles of his own country. The acquisition of such an advocate of Reform was not likely to be received with apathy. Sir Charles was invited to preside at a similar meeting at New Hall, near Birmingham, on the 12th of July. At this meeting he was elected "legislatorial attorney and representative" for that town. This was a circumstance that excited the alarm of Government. They immediately issued warrants for the apprehension both of Sir Charles and of Dr. Harrison for seditious expressions used at the Stockport meeting. Sir Charles was arrested at his own house, at Wolseley Park; and Harrison was taken on the platform of a public meeting, at Smithfield, in London, on the 21st of July, at which Hunt was presiding. On conveying Harrison to Stockport, the constable who arrested him was attacked by the mob, and a pistol was fired at him, the ball of which lodged in his body.
Accession of George IV.Meeting of ParliamentGeneral ElectionOpening of the New SessionDulness of AffairsBrougham on EducationQueen CarolineOmission of her Name from the LiturgyShe rejects the King's Proposals, and arrives in EnglandAttempts at a CompromiseThe King orders an InquiryThe Secret CommitteeThe Bill of Pains and PenaltiesArrival of the Queen in the House of LordsDiscussions on the Form of ProcedureSpeeches of Denman and the Attorney-GeneralEvidence for the ProsecutionBrougham's SpeechAbandonment of the BillGeneral RejoicingsViolence of Party FeelingPopularity of the QueenHer Claim to be crowned refusedThe Queen's Attempt to enter the AbbeyIndiscretion of the ActThe Coronation and the BanquetThe subsequent ScrambleDeath of the QueenDeparture of her BodyThe King's Visit to IrelandA Royal Oration and its enthusiastic ReceptionThe King and Lady ConynghamChanges in the GovernmentDiscontent of EldonWellesley in IrelandAlarming State of the CountryCanning's Speech on Catholic EmancipationParliamentary ReformAgricultural Distress and FinanceEldon's Outbreak on the Marriage BillSuicide of Lord LondonderryScene at his FuneralVisit of George IV. to ScotlandLoyalty of Sir Walter ScottAccount of the FestivitiesPeel's Letter to ScottReturn of the KingCanning takes the Foreign Office and Leadership of the House of CommonsHuskisson joins the CabinetThe Duke of Wellington sent to VeronaHis InstructionsPrinciples of the Holy AllianceThe Spanish ColoniesFrench Intervention in SpainThe Duke's Remonstrances with the French KingHis Interview with the CzarThe Congress of VeronaFailure of Wellington to prevent Intervention in SpainVindication of Canning's Policy in the CommonsHe calls the New World into Existence.Delay was demanded, to hear what was the feeling of merchants and manufacturers in England, and these soon poured in petitions against these concessions, from Liverpool, Manchester, and other places; one of them, from the Lancashire manufacturers, being signed by eighty thousand persons. After two months had been spent in receiving these petitions, hearing evidence and counsel, Mr. Pitt introduced his propositions on the 12th of May. It was then found that British interests, as usual, had triumphed over the Ministerial intentions of benefiting Ireland. Not only was Ireland to be bound to furnish, in return for these concessions, a fixed contribution out of the surplus of the hereditary revenue towards defraying the expenses of protecting the general commerce, but to adopt whatever navigation laws the British Parliament might hereafter enact. Lord North and Fox opposed these propositions, on the ground that the cheapness of labour in Ireland would give that country an advantage over the manufacturers in this. The[312] resolutions were at length carried both in the Committee and in the House at large on the 25th of July.[See larger version]At this juncture Sir Henry Pottinger succeeded Captain Elliot, with orders to bring the war to a satisfactory conclusion. His measures were prompt; Amoy fell on the 26th of August, Chusan, which had been abandoned, was recaptured in September, and the Chinese experienced further reverses in 1842. At length the Chinese saw that resistance was vain, and that they must come to terms, as the "barbarians" could not be exterminated. Full powers had been given to three Commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace, which, after various conferences, was concluded on the 26th of August, 1842. It embraced the following stipulations:The payment by the Chinese of an indemnity of 4,375,000 in addition to the ransom of 1,250,000 already surrendered; the opening of the new ports of Canton, Amoy, Fou-chow-fou, Ning-po, and Shang-hai to British merchants, with permission to consular officers to reside there; the cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British in perpetuity; correspondence to be conducted on terms of perfect equality between the officers of both Governments; and the islands of Chusan and Ku-lang-su to be held by the British until the money payments were made, and arrangements for opening the ports were completed.
TWO:
