FROM THE PICTURE BY C. R. LESLIE, R.A., IN THE POSSESSION OF THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.Munster 2,396,161 3,777,103 1,013,826 671,554
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ONE:On the 23rd of December the committee met again in Fishamble Street, and resolved to address the Prince Regent on the invasion of their right to petition, appointing a general committee to meet again in Dublin on the 28th of February, 1812. In January, and at the commencement of February, Earl Fitzwilliam introduced the consideration of the state of Ireland, and Lord Morpeth proposed the same subject to the Commons, but both motions were rejected.[See larger version]
TWO:Howe's real intention had been to enter the Delaware, and proceed up it direct to Philadelphia; but, understanding that the Americans had placed enormous impediments in the river, he stood away for the mouth of the Elk, in Chesapeake Bay. He was tediously detained by the contrary winds that always prevail on that course in that season, and it was the 28th of August before he entered the Elk, and reached the Elk head, where he landed his troops. On the 2nd of September (1777) he began his march for Philadelphia. He soon came upon a body of Washington's army at Iron Hill, which he charged and drove from the hill. On the 11th he came in sight of Washington's main army, strongly posted and fortified on the forks of the Brandywine river. Here Howe's dispositions were excellent. He sent forward, under General Knyphausen, the second division, which advanced to a ford called Chad's Ford, and drove a detachment of Americans across it. Howe then advanced, and, planting his cannon along the bank of the river, he engaged the Americans in a brisk cannonade across the stream. Meanwhile, Lord Cornwallis was silently marching in the rear of Howe's troops, round to another ford at the forks of the Brandywine, which he crossed, and took Washington's army in the rear. On firing his signal gun, the Americans were thrown into consternation, and at the same moment Knyphausen dashed across Chad's Ford, and drove the surprised Americans from their batteries and entrenchments at the point of the bayonet. The batteries were instantly turned against them, and Cornwallis, who had been checked by a division under Sullivan, coming up, there was a general rout. The Americans fled in utter confusion, having lost three hundred killed, six hundred wounded, and four hundred taken prisoners. The English had one hundred killed and four hundred wounded.CORONATION OF WILLIAM IV.: THE ROYAL PROCESSION. (See p. 343.)
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ONE:Meanwhile, in America military intrigues were on foot against Washington. Amongst these endeavours was one for alienating from him Lafayette. For this purpose an expedition was planned against Canada, and Lafayette, as a Frenchman, was appointed to the command, hoping thus to draw to him the Frenchmen of Canada. Not a word was to be breathed of it to Washington; and Conway and Starke, two of the most malicious members of the cabal, were to take command under Lafayette. On the 24th of January, 1778, Washington received a letter from Gates, the President of the Board of War, commanding him to send one of his best regiments to Albany, on the Hudson, for a particular service, and enclosing another to Lafayette, requiring his immediate attendance on Gates. Gates found, however, that Lafayette was not to be seduced from his attachment to Washington. He would not accept the command, otherwise than as acting in subordination to his Commander-in-Chief; and he should send all his despatches and bulletins to him, at the same time that he furnished copies to Congress. The vain Frenchman verily believed that he was going to restore Canada, not to America, but to the French Crowna fear which began to haunt Congress after he had set out; but the fear was needless. When Lafayette reached his invading army, instead of two thousand five hundred men, it amounted to about one thousand two hundred, and the militia were nowhere to be heard of. Clothes, provisions, sledges, were all wanting, and, instead of leading his troops, as he was directed, to Lake Champlain, whence he was to proceed to ?le-aux-Noix to blow up the English flotilla, and thence, crossing the Sorel, to descend the St. Lawrence to Montreal, he gave up the expedition with a sigh, and returned to the camp of Washington.
TWO:Whilst these contentions were going on, Wren had entered fairly on his profession of architect. He built the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, begun in 1663, and completed in 1669; and the fine library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the beautiful square, Neville's Court, to the same college. He also built the chapels of Pembroke and Emmanuel Colleges, in the same university. In the erection of these, he suffered, from the conceit and conflicting opinions of parties concerned, a foretaste of the squabbles and contradictions which rendered the whole period of the building of St. Paul's miserable. In 1665 he found leisure to visit Paris, and study the magnificent palaces and churches with which Louis XIV. was embellishing his capital. There he got a glimpse of the design for the Louvre, which Bernini, the architect, showed him, but only for a moment; and he was in communication with Mansard, Le Vau, and Le Pautre.
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TWO:
FORE:The impeachment of Oxford followed. On the 9th of July, 1715, Lord Coningsby, attended by many of the Commons, carried up to the Lords the articles against him, sixteen in number, to which afterwards six more were added. The first fifteen related to the Peace of Utrecht; the sixteenth to the sudden creation of twelve peers in 1711, in order to create a Tory majority, by which it charged him with highly abusing the constitution of Parliament and the laws of the kingdom. When the Articles had been read, it was doubted whether any of the charges amounted to high treason. To decide this as a legal point, it was moved that the judges should be consulted; but this motion was rejected, and another was made to commit Oxford to the Tower; and, though reprieved a few days on account of an indisposition, he was committed accordingly, having made a very solemn plea of his innocence, and of having only obeyed the orders of the queen, without at all convincing the House. He continued to lie in the Tower for two years before he was brought to trial, matters of higher public interest intervening. Eventually the impeachment was dropped, the documentary evidence being considered insufficient.
FORE:As for Wilkes, he counselled them earnestly to introduce a paragraph into their Address to the king, stating their conviction that the chief discontents of the nation arose from the violation of the rights of representation in his expulsion from the Commons. "I am," said the eloquent earl, "neither moved by his private vices nor by his public merits. In his person, though he were the worst of men, I contend for the safety and security of the best; and God forbid that there should be a power in this country of measuring the civil rights of the subject by his moral character, or by any other rule than the fixed laws of the land."
FORE:[See larger version]Washington, who had witnessed the battle, saw, to his infinite mortification, the British pursuing his flying troops almost up to their entrenchments. The ardour of the English soldiers was such that they would speedily have stormed and carried the lines, and not a man of the American army on Long Island would have escaped being taken or killed. But General Howe, with that marvellous stupidity which marked all our generals in this war, ordered them back, saying that the lines could be taken with less loss of life by regular approach. The next morning they began throwing up trenches near one of the American redoubts, from which to cannonade it; but Washington was much more aware of the untenable nature of his position than Howe, and, under favour of darkness, and of a thick fog in the morning, he had been for hours busily transporting his forces over the East River to New York. All that day, and in the night of the 29th, he continued, with all possible silence, conveying over his troops, artillery, and stores, expecting every moment that General Howe would burst through his lines at Brooklyn, and attack him in the rear, whilst Lord Howe, with his ships, would advance, and blow all his fragile transports into the water. Soon, however, Washington saw there was no maintaining his position there. He found the British fast enclosing him on all sides, too; and on the 12th of September he began to evacuate the place in such haste as to leave behind him a great quantity of his artillery and stores. The English landed on York Island without the loss of a man. Three thousand men had placed themselves ready to attack the British as they landed, and before they could form; but the sight of two companies of grenadiers, already in position, had such an effect on them, that they fled, leaving their blankets and jackets, which they had thrown off in certainty of beating the English.
FORE:[349]The real fact was, that exertions equally strenuous were all this time being made on the part of the Pretender. As the state of Anne's health became more and more precarious, both parties increased their efforts to secure their ground, and there was a most active and incessant struggle going on round the throne to enable the head of either party to step into it the moment it became vacant. It was considered essential for the claimant to be on the spot, and, therefore, every means was used to induce the queen to admit the Pretender as well as a member of the Electoral House to Court. It was a scheme of the Duke of Berwick, which he communicated to Oxford through the Abb Gualtier, that the queen should be induced to consent to do her brother justice; that he should go to St. James's, and that on the understanding that he consented to allow liberty of the subject and of religion, the queen should pass such Acts as were necessary for the public security on these heads, and that then she should suddenly introduce him in full Parliament.
FORE:On the morning of the next day, Sunday, the 12th of July, the news was all over Paris that Necker was dismissed. The alarm was intense. Paris was in an uproar. The Palais Royal was choked with people in a frenzy of excitement. All at once a young man leaped upon a table and shouted, "To arms! to arms! Whilst we are talking, foreign troops are gathering round us to massacre us!" This orator, whose loud voice and dramatic action stopped in a moment the buzz of tongues and the voices of lesser orators, mounted on chairs and tables, was Benoit Camille Desmoulins, already a favourite orator of the people on this spot. This fanatic revolutionist now held up a brace of pistols; and, snatching a green twig from a tree, stuck it into his hat as a cockade. There was an instantaneous imitation of the act by the whole mass of people. The trees were all stripped, and a woman brought out a great roll of green ribbon, and cut off cockades for the patriots as far as it would go. The mob, armed with pistols, clubs, swords, and axes, continued their procession along the Rue Richelieu; then turning on the Boulevard, along the Rues St. Martin, St. Denis, St. Honor, to the Place Vend?me. There a German squadron was drawn up before the hotel of the farmers of the taxes, and attacked the crowd, destroyed the busts, and killed a soldier of the French Guard who stood his ground. The commandant, Besenval, remained inactive in the cole Militaire; he was without orders from Broglie; and, besides, dared not trust the French Guard, but kept them close in their barracks. But he had three foreign regiments at his disposal, one of Swiss and two of German cavalry. Towards afternoon, seeing the disorder increase, he sent the Swiss into the Champs Elyses with four pieces of cannon, and the German cavalry into the Place Louis Quinze, adjoining. As Prince Lambesc, with the Germans, was marching along the Chausse d'Antin, he was met by a body of the French Guard, who had escaped from their barracks to avenge their slain comrade. They fired on him and killed three of the German cavalry, and wounded numbers more. They then advanced with fixed bayonets to the Place Louis Quinze, where the Swiss Guard were posted. There they and the Swiss remained facing each other under arms all night, the people feasting and encouraging the French Guard; who, however, did not come to blows with the Swiss. Lambesc had continued his route to St. Cloud, leaving the city all night in the hands of the mob, who burnt the barriers at the different entrances, so as to allow free access to the people from the country; and broke open the gunsmiths' shops, and carried off the arms. During the whole of the next day the city was in the hands of the mob.
FORE:VIEW OF WASHINGTON FROM ARLINGTON HEIGHTS.
FORE:But the Czarina, though mistress of Oczakoff, was far from the end of her designs. She contemplated nothing but the subjugation of the Turkish empire. For this purpose she determined to excite insurrection in all the tributary states of that empire. Her agents had excited the Montenegrins to an outbreak; they had prepared the Greeks for the same experiment, and the Mameluke Beys in Egypt. She determined to send a powerful fleet into the Mediterranean to co-operate with these insurgents, to seize on the island of Crete, to ravage the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and to force the passage of the Dardanelles, or, if that were not practicable, to blockade them. Thus opening the communication between her forces in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea, she considered that Turkey would lie helpless at her feet. To give the necessary ascendency to her fleet, she had long been encouraging English naval officers to take commands in it. At the famous battle of Chesm, it was the British Admirals Elphinstone, Greig, and others who had made Potemkin victorious. Greig was now at the head of the fleet that was being prepared at Cronstadt for this Mediterranean enterprise. She had also managed to engage eighteen British ships to serve as transports of troops, artillery, and stores.
TWO:With the same want of sagacity which was driving Ministers and Parliament to the loss of America, they were still persecuting Wilkes into popularity. On the 14th of November, 1768, Sir Joseph Mawby, member for Southwark, presented a petition from Wilkes, reciting all the proceedings of Government against him, and praying for his being heard at the bar of the House. Wilkes appeared before the House on the 31st of January, where he took exception to the word "blasphemous" as applied to the "Essay on Woman." Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor, a most swearing, blaspheming man, protested that if the House did not declare it blasphemous, it would be a disgrace to it. However, the words "impious" and "obscene" were substituted. On the 1st of February the House determined that his petition was frivolous. The next day the House went into another charge against Wilkes. In the preceding April Lord Weymouth, previous to the riots in St. George's Fields, had issued a letter, as Secretary of State, to the magistrates of Lambeth, warning them of the danger of riots taking place in the endeavour to free Wilkes from prison, and offering them the aid of the military. Wilkes, while in the King's Bench, had obtained a copy of this letter, and sent it to the St. James's Chronicle with his own comments, styling it a "hellish project," and as the direct cause of that "horrid massacre." Weymouth complained to the House of Lords that this was a breach of privilege. A conference was had with the Commons; Wilkes was brought to the Bar, where Baldwin, the printer, had acknowledged the letter to be his, and then, so far from denying it, claimed the thanks of the country for having exposed that "bloody scroll." The Commons decided that he was guilty of an insolent and seditious libel, and on the following day, February 3rd, on the motion of Lord Barrington, he was expelled the House, by a majority of two hundred and nineteen to one hundred and thirty-seven. The king had directly asked for such a verdict by a letter to Lord North, declaring that Wilkes's expulsion was "highly expedient and must be effected."
TWO:When Parliament met on the 20th of February, this conspiracy was laid before it and excited great indignation. The two Houses voted cordial addresses to his Majesty, and for a while there was an air of harmony. But the fires of discontent were smouldering beneath the surface, and, on a motion being made in April, in consequence of a royal message, to grant the king an extraordinary Supply in order to enable his Majesty to contract alliances with foreign powers, that he might be prepared to meet any attempts at invasion which the Swedes might, after all, be disposed to make, the heat broke forth. The Supply moved for was fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It was expected that Walpole, having had his name suspiciously mentioned in Gyllenborg's correspondence, would take this opportunity to wipe off all doubt by his zeal and co-operation. On the contrary, he never appeared so lukewarm. Both he and his brother Horace, indeed, spoke in favour of the Supply, but coldly; and Townshend and all their common friends openly joined the Tories and Jacobites in voting against it; so that it was carried only by a majority of four. This could not pass; and the same evening Stanhope, by the king's order, wrote to Townshend, acknowledging his past services, but informing him that he was no longer Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
On the 3rd of February the Commons attended to hear the commission read at the bar of the Lords, which was done by Earl Bathurst, in the absence of Thurlow. On returning to their House now as an authorised Parliament, the Commons read the Bill for the first time without a division, but on the second reading, on the 6th of February, Burke attacked it with unabated ferocity. He wanted to know how they were to determine when the king was sane again. Who was to inform them of it? Who was to certify it? He asserted the utter impossibility of adducing proof whether a person who had been insane were perfectly recovered or not. If this doctrine had been established, the regency must have become permanent. But this mode of reasoning was too metaphysical for the House of Commons; the debate passed on, and the Bill was committed. The clause providing against the non-residence of the prince, and against his marrying a papist, again brought up Mr. Rolle. He said that he had given his assent to the appointment of the prince regent on the assurance of his friends, that he was not married to a certain lady, either in law or in fact; but that he had since read a famous pamphlet, which affirmed that the facts were in opposition to those avowals. This was a brochure of Horne Tooke's, in the shape of a letter to a friend, in which he declared his positive knowledge of the prince's marriage with "the late Mrs. Fitzherbert," who, he contended, in spite of the Marriage Act, was his lawful wife. Rolle was answered by Lord North, who declared that the object of the pamphleteer was simply to make mischief by throwing out assertions that he never meant to prove, and Welbore Ellis called for the reading of the Royal Marriage Act, and showed that no royal marriage could be valid without the king's consent, and that, therefore, whatever was the case, all those objections were a mere waste of words. Rolle did not press the question to a division. The other clauses of the Bill raised much debate, but were all passed, and on the 10th of February the council was appointed to assist the queen in her charge, and Pitt named as members of it[347] the four principal officers of the household, the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, the Master of the Horse, and the Groom of the Stole, with the addition of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor Thurlow, the Archbishop of York, and Lord Kenyon. The names of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, several of the other princes, the Lord Mayor of London, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, were all strongly urged upon Parliament as persons who ought to be members of this council, but they were, to a man, rejected by a majority of about fifty.Trautmansdorff now hastened to conciliate in earnest. He issued two-and-twenty separate proclamations, made all kinds of fair promises, restored the arms of the citizens, and liberated the imprisoned patriots. But it was too late. The insurgents, under Van der Mersch, were fast advancing towards Brussels, and Dalton marched out to meet them; but he was confounded by the appearance of their numbers, and entered into an armistice of ten days. But this did not stop the progress of insurrection in Brussels. There the people rose, and resolved to open the gates to their compatriots. Women and children tore up the palisades, and levelled the entrenchments. The population assumed the national cockade, and the streets resounded with cries of "Long live the Patriots!" "Long live Van der Noot!" Dalton retreated into Brussels, but found no security there. The soldiers began to desert. The people attacked those who stood to their colours, and Dalton was glad to secure his retreat by a capitulation. In a few days the insurgents from Breda entered, Trautmansdorff having withdrawn at their approach, and the new federal union of the Netherlands was completely established. The State of Luxembourg was the only one remaining to Joseph, and thither Dalton retired with his forces, five thousand in number.
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