ONE:Amongst the foremost of the promoters of science, and the most eloquent of its expounders, was Sir David Brewster, who died full of years and of honours in 1868. Arrived at manhood at the opening of the present century, having been born in 1781, he continued his brilliant course during fifty years, pursuing his investigations into the laws of polarisation by crystals, and by the reflection, refraction, and absorption of light, in which he made important discoveries. The attention of the British public was forcibly arrested by an able treatise on "Light," contributed by Sir John Herschel, in 1827, to the "Encyclop?dia Metropolitana." Its excellent method and lucid explanations attracted to the theory of Young and Fresnel men of science who had been deterred by the fragmentary and abstruse style of the former. This was followed four years later by a most able and precise mathematical exposition of the theory, and its application to optical problems, by Professor Airy, who became Astronomer-Royal in 1835.To contend against this enormous force, Buonaparte, by the most surprising exertions, had again collected upwards of two hundred thousand men of considerable military practice; but he dared not to name the conscription to a people already sore on that point; and he endeavoured to raise further reinforcements by an enrolment of National Guards all over France. For this purpose commissioners were sent down into the Departments, on the authority of an Imperial decree of April the 5th; and he proposed to raise as many federates, or volunteers of the lower ordersthe only class which had raised a cheer for him on his return. But these schemes proved, for the most part, abortive. In the northern Departments, where heretofore the commands of Buonaparte had been most freely obeyed, the inhabitants showed a sullen and dogged resistance, and the same was the case in Brittany. Farther south matters were worse. In the Departments of Gard, Marne, and Nether Loire, the white flag and cockade were openly displayed; and wherever the tree of liberty was plantedfor it was now the trick of Buonaparte to associate the sacred name of liberty with his, a name and a thing on which he had so uniformly trampledit was cut down and burnt. It was in such circumstances that Buonaparte had to put his frontiers into a state of defence against the advancing hosts. He had defended the northern side of Paris with a double line of fortifications; strongly fortified Montmartre, and on the open southern side cast up some field-works, relying, however, on the Seine as the best barrier. Paris he placed under the command of General Haxo; and the fortresses on the side of Alsace, the Vosges, and Lorraine were all strongly garrisoned. Lyons, Guise, Vitry, Soissons, Chateau-Thierry, Langres, and other towns were made as strong as forts, redoubts, field-works, and garrisons could make them; and trusting by these to retard the slow Austrians, and even the Russians, till he could have given a desperate blow to the Allies in the Netherlands, of whom he was most afraid, on the 11th of June he quitted Paris, saying, "I go to measure myself with Wellington!"
TWO:In this battle the Allies lost in killed and wounded ten thousand men, the French not less than fifteen thousand. The French generals Bruyres, Kirchner, and Duroc were amongst the killed. Duroc had long been one of the most intimate friends and attendants of Buonaparte, who was so much cut up by his loss that for the first time in all his terrible campaigns he became unable to attend to further details, but answered every call for orders with "Everything tomorrow!" When he came to find that not a gun, not a prisoner was left behind by the Germans and Russians, Napoleon seemed to comprehend the stern spirit in which they were now contending, and exclaimed, "How! no result after such a massacre? No prisoners? They leave me not even a nail!" He advanced to Breslau, various slight conflicts taking place on the way, and on the 1st of June he entered that city, the princesses of Prussia removing thence into Bohemia.These acquisitions were more valuable for the defence which they afforded the British than for the direct income, which did not amount to more than half a million sterling a year; but they included all Tippoo's dominions on the coast of Malabar, thus cutting off his mischievous communications with the French by sea. It would have been easy at this time to have stripped Tippoo of the whole of Mysore, but it was not deemed politic. We were far from having great faith in the continued fidelity of the Mahrattas, and it was thought necessary not to remove the check which the existence of Tippoo's power, and his desire for revenge on the Mahrattas, presented. Besides, the finances of India were in a very embarrassed state, and the question of Indian war was unpopular in Britain. With all the territory resigned to the Indian allies, Lord Cornwallis could not avoid giving deep offence to the Mahrattas, who desired to obtain a regiment of British troops in pay. The ill-concealed jealousy between them and the Nizam made an outbreak between these States very possible; and the moody resentment of Tippoo, who writhed under his humiliation, added greatly to the uncertainty of long-continued peace. On the other hand, the soldiers were highly discontented at not having had the opportunity of plundering the opulent city of Seringapatam; and to soothe them Cornwallis and General Medows, the second in command, surrendered to them their shares of prize money, and the former ordered them, besides, six months' batta out of the money paid by Tippoo.
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