TWO:The conditions first agreed upon were, that both England and France were to withdraw their support, either by men or money, to the war in Germany. France was to evacuate the few towns that she held there, as well as Cleve and Guelders. Minorca was to be restored in exchange for Belleisle, which thus fully justified Pitt's capture of that little and otherwise useless island. The fortifications of Dunkirk were to be reduced to the state required by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
FORE:In the House of Lords the Earl of Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary in the late Government, strongly censured our foreign policy with regard to Northern Italy. He spoke with delight of the brilliant victories and rare generosity of Radetzky, and warmly eulogised the administration of the Austrian dominions in Italy. Lord Brougham spoke strongly on the same side with Lord Aberdeen, indignantly condemning the Italian policy of the Government. On the 20th of July he moved[588] a set of resolutions on the subject, in which he also praised Austria, as being just and moderate, while Sardinia was aggressive and faithless. He spoke of "the terrible tyranny established by those firebrands of revolution, Mazzini and Garibaldi." He considered that an eternal debt of gratitude was due to General Oudinot, for conducting the siege in such a manner as to avoid any waste of blood, and to preserve the treasures of art of which that city was the repository. With reference to Southern Italy he protested against the conduct, not only of our regular diplomatic body, but of "that mongrel sort of monsterhalf nautical, half politicaldiplomatic vice-admirals, speculative ship captains, observers of rebellions, and sympathisers therewith;" the officers alluded to being Lord Napier, Sir William Parker, and Captain Codrington. The Earl of Carlisle, in reply to Lord Brougham, ably defended the conduct of our diplomatists and officers throughout the Sicilian contest, and repelled the sarcasms with which they were assailed. He vindicated the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, and called upon the House to reject "the illogical and unmeaning" resolutions of Lord Brougham. Lord Minto, also, at length defended the course he had taken. The Marquis of Lansdowne, while willing to rest the defence of the Government upon the able speech of Lord Carlisle, made some remarks in answer to the charge of partiality brought by the Earl of Aberdeen against Lord Minto, after which the House divided, when the resolutions of Lord Brougham were rejected by a majority of 12.Marlborough landed at Dover on the day of the queen's death, where he was received with the warmest acclamations and tokens of the highest popularity. He was met on his approach to London by a procession of two hundred gentlemen, headed by Sir Charles Coxe, member for Southwark. As he drew nearer this procession was joined by a long train of carriages. It was like a triumph; and Bothmar, the Hanoverian Minister, wrote home that it was as if he had gained another battle at H?chst?dt (Blenheim) that he would be of great service in case the Pretender should make any attempt, but that he was displeased that he was not in the regency, or that any man except the king should be higher in the country than he. He went straight to the House of Lords to take the oaths to the king; but at Temple Bar his carriage broke down, to the great delight of the people, because it compelled him to come out and enter another, by which they got a good view of him. Having taken the oaths, he retired into the country till the arrival of the king, disgusted at his not being in the regency.
FORE:The Government of Spain was sunk into the very deepest degradation and imbecility. Charles IV. was one of the weakest of Bourbon kings. He was ruled by his licentious wife, Maria Luiza, and she by Manuel de Godoy, a young and handsome man, who, about the year 1784, had attracted her eye as a private in the Royal Guards. By her means he was rapidly promoted, and at the age of twenty-four was already a general. He was soon created a Grandee of Spain, and the queen married him to a niece of the king. He was made Generalissimo of all the Spanish Forces, and, in fact, became the sole ruling power in the country. He was styled the Prince of the Peacea title acquired by his having effected the pacification of Basle, which terminated the Revolutionary War between France and Spain. By the subsequent Treaty of St. Ildefonso he established an offensive and defensive alliance with France, which, in truth, made Spain entirely subservient to Napoleon.The news, when it reached England, produced a transport of exultation. Bells were rung, cannon fired, and great rejoicings made, anticipatory of fresh tidings of wonderful success. But very different was the reality. Wentworth called on Vernon to bombard Carthagena from the harbour, whilst he assailed it on land; but Vernon replied that he could not get near enough to attack the town effectually, and that Wentworth must attempt the reduction of the Fort San Lazaro, which commanded the town, and might be taken by escalade. This was[76] attempted, and while our men were thus standing under a murderous fire, they discovered, to their consternation, that their scaling ladders were too short. But the escalade was persisted in: they remained splicing their ladders, and a detachment of Grenadiers, under Colonel Grant, reached the top of a rampart; but Grant was instantly killed, and the Grenadiers hurled back over the wall. Still, the bull-dog spirit of the English made them persist in this desperate attempt, till six hundredthat is, half of them, lay dead, when they drew off.
FORE:Sir John Malcolm and Captain Grant pursued the fugitives along the banks of the Seepra, killing numbers, and seizing immense booty, including elephants and numerous camels. He left them no time to reassemble, but advanced rapidly on the capital of Holkar, joined by reinforcements from the Bombay army under Major-General Sir William Keir. Alarmed at this vigorous action, the Holkar Mahrattas hastily concluded peace, gave up all their forts, and placed their territories under British protection. Some Pathan chiefs attempted to resist, trusting to the defences of Rampoora; but General Brown soon stormed that place, and the whole country of the Holkar Mahrattas was reduced to obedience. No respite was granted to the Pindarrees. Cheetoo was followed from place to place by the Gujerat army under Sir William Keir, and sought refuge in vain amongst the hills and jungles of Malwa and along the Nerbudda. At length, in January, 1818, Cheetoo's last camp was surprised and cut to pieces. After seeking refuge amongst various tribes, Cheetoo was ultimately found in the jungle near the fort of Aseerghur, torn to pieces by a tiger, his horse grazing not far off, safe, and a bag on his saddle containing his remaining jewels and two hundred and fifty rupees. And thus ended the existence of the long formidable hosts of the Pindarrees.Scarcely had Parliament ceased to sit, and the king was gone to spend the summer months in Germany, when the vigilance of the Ministry was demanded to ward off a fresh invasion. Alberoni, defeated in his schemes on France, and his hopes of the invasion of England by Charles XII. crushed by that monarch's death, determined now to make a grand effort to support the Pretender himself. For this purpose, he invited him to Spain, and at the same time began the equipment of a formidable fleet to carry over a Spanish force, under the command of the Duke of Ormonde, to the shores of Britain. The Pretender was not intended to accompany the expedition, but to be in readiness to follow on the first news of its[43] successful landing. But it was no more destined to reach these shores than the Grand Armada. It has always been the fate of invading squadrons to encounter providential tempests in coming hitherward, and the usual hurricane was ready to burst. Scarcely, indeed, had the fleet lost sight of Cape Finisterre before the storm swooped down upon it. For twelve days the terrible Bay of Biscay was swept by a frightful wind, which drove the vessels in all directions, and rendered it impossible to manage them. Fortunate would it have been if every vessel had failed to reach the shores at which they aimed; but two vessels, on board of which were the Earls Marshal and Seaforth, and the Marquis of Tullibardine, accompanied by about three hundred Spanish soldiers, reached Scotland, and landed, on the 16th of April, at Kintail, in Ross-shire. In the hope that Ormonde would still reach England, this small force lay quiet for some time, and so little did they excite notice, that the Government imagined that they had re-embarked. Their presence there, however, had the mischievous effect of exciting some few of the Highlanders to join them. They seized Donan Castle, and thus attracted the attention of the English. Some vessels of war arrived upon the coast. The castle was speedily retaken, and Lord Carpenter, the commander of the forces in Scotland, sent some troops from Inverness against them. General Wightman, the officer thus despatched, was attended by about a thousand men, and found the enemy, now swollen to about two thousand, strongly posted at Glenshiel. He immediately attacked them, and the miscellaneous force speedily dispersed. The Highlanders, who knew the country, rapidly disappeared amongst the hills, and the Spaniards had no other resource than to lay down their arms.
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TWO:This destruction accomplished, the mob marched away to the house of Priestley, which was at Fair Hill, where they utterly burned and destroyed all the invaluable library, philosophical instruments, and manuscripts, containing notes of the doctor's further chemical experiments and discoveries. Fire-engines were called out to prevent the flames of the meeting-houses from spreading to the adjoining houses, but they were not suffered to play on the meeting-houses themselves, nor does any effort appear to have been made to save Priestley's house. The doctor and his family had made a timely retreat. He himself passed the first two nights in a post-chaise, and the two succeeding on horseback, but less owing to his own apprehensions of danger than to those of others. An eye-witness said that the high road for fully half a mile from his house was strewed with books, and that, on entering the library, there were not a dozen volumes on the shelves; while the floor was covered several inches deep with torn manuscripts. This was the work of the night of the 14th of July, and the riots continued from Thursday to Sunday; among the buildings destroyed being the paper warehouse of William Hutton, the historian of the place, and the author of several antiquarian treatises. Hutton was a man who had raised himself from the deepest poverty, for his father was a poor stocking-weaver of Derby. He had found Birmingham without a paper warehouse; had opened one, and, by that[385] shrewdness and carefulness in business, which are so conspicuous in his "Autobiography," and afford a valuable study for young men, had acquired a competence. He was not only an honour to the town by his upright character, and reputation as a self-taught author, but he had been an active benefactor to it. He had been the first to establish a circulating library in the town; was always an advocate and co-operator in works and institutions of improvement, and was the most active and able commissioner of the Court of Requests. His only crime was that of being a Nonconformist, and an advocate of advanced principles.
THREE:(From the Picture by Franz Defregger.)
THREE:[See larger version]When the visitors entered a village, their first question was, "How many deaths?" "The hunger is upon us," was everywhere the cry; and involuntarily they found themselves regarding this hunger as they would an epidemic, looking upon starvation as a disease. In fact, as they passed along, their wonder was, not that the people died, but that they lived; and Mr. W. E. Forster, in his report, said, "I have no doubt whatever that in any other country the mortality would have been far greater; and that many lives have been[539] prolonged, perhaps saved, by the long apprenticeship to want in which the Irish peasant has been trained, and by that lovely, touching charity which prompts him to share his scanty meal with his starving neighbour. But the springs of this charity must be rapidly dried up. Like a scourge of locusts, the hunger daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all before it. One class after another is falling into the same abyss of ruin."
THREE:But, undiscouraged, Lord Wellington ordered General Hill, who had already crossed the Tagus, to hasten onward, and he then carefully fell back, and took his position on the grim and naked ridges of Busaco, a sierra extending from Mondego to the northward. Behind this range of hills lay Coimbra, and three roads led through the defiles to that city. These, and several lesser ravines used[604] by the shepherds and muleteers, he thoroughly fortified; and, posting himself on these difficult heights, he calmly awaited the advance of Massena. The ascents by which the French must reach them were precipitous and exposed; and on the summit, in the centre of the range, Wellington took up his headquarters at a Carmelite convent, whence he could survey the whole scene, having upwards of thirty thousand men disposed along these frowning eminences.
