There was still a fair chance for the AustriansBritain had furnished them with moneyand two fresh armies were descending from the hills. One of these, amounting to thirty thousand, was led by a brave officer, General Alvinzi; the other of twenty thousand, under Davidowich, was marching from the Tyrol to meet Alvinzi near Verona, who was coming from Carinthia by Belluno. Buonaparte did not allow them to meet. He attacked Alvinzi on the 6th of November, and met with a terrible repulse. A detachment of French under Vaubois had been dispatched to impede the march of Davidowich, but was also in retreat. Buonaparte again attacked Alvinzi near Verona, and again was repulsed. Had the Austrians united their two new armies before entering Italy, or had Wurmser marched from Mantua to support Alvinzi, the French must have been utterly annihilated. As it was, Napoleon was dreadfully disheartened, and wrote a despairing letter to the Directory, saying his best officers were killed, and his men exhausted from fighting and severe marches. But his pride and dogged pertinacity came to his aid. He made a rapid march and got into the rear of Alvinzi, but found himself stopped by a narrow bridge over the Alpone at Arcole. The country on each side was a marsh, and the only approach to the bridge was by long narrow causeways. As the French advanced along the causeway on their side to storm the bridge, they were swept down by hundreds by the Austrian cannon. Time after time, Buonaparte drove his columns along the causeway, but only to see them mown down by grape shot. His men fled into the very marshes to save themselves, and he himself was thrown from his horse into the marsh, and had to be dragged from the mire. Bodies of Hungarians and Croats made a final sally along the causeway, cutting down all before them, and it was marvellous that he escaped them. By this time Alvinzi had brought up his main body to the neighbourhood of the bridge, and the battle raged obstinately there for three days. Seeing it impossible to carry the bridge against that solid mass of troops, Buonaparte dispatched General Guyeuse to cross the Adige at the ferry of Albaredo, below the confluence of the Alpone, and take Alvinzi in flank. Guyeuse succeeded in crossing, but was repulsed on the other side by the Austrians. Buonaparte again, on the 16th, made one more desperate rush at the bridge, but only to receive another bloody defeat. The next day he threw a bridge over the Alpone, just above its confluence with the Adige, and sent over Augereau with a powerful force, whilst he again assailed the bridge from his side. These combined operations succeeded. Alvinzi was compelled to retreat to Vicenza and Bassano. Scarcely had he given way, when Davidowich, who ought to have joined him long before, came down the right bank of the stream. He now came only to experience a severe defeat, whereas his timely arrival might have insured a complete victory. He again had recourse to the security of the hills. The belligerents then went into winter quarters, leaving the French victorious.When Ney and Caulaincourt saw Marmont at Essonnes, he informed them that he had entered into a convention with the Allied sovereigns on his own account. They begged him to suspend it and accompany them, and he consented. Whilst the three commissioners were with the Emperor Alexander, news was brought that Count Souham, with whom Marmont had left the command of his troops, had gone over, and marched the division into the lines of the Allies. On this the Emperor said they had better return to Napoleon, and assure him that the Allies would accept nothing short of an absolute and unqualified abdication. When they announced this to him, to their surprise, he exclaimed, "But what provisions are made for me? How am I to be disposed of?" They replied that it was proposed by the Emperor Alexander that he should retain the title of Emperor; should have the island of Elba, a guard, a small fleet, and all the attributes of royalty, with a suitable income. With a mood of mind incomprehensible in any other person, he immediately called for maps and books about Elba, and began contemplating his future position, as though he had only been changing one France for another; but there can be no doubt that he, in reality, was weighing the facilities of the place for that effort to regain the empire of France, which he certainly never renounced for a moment. On the 11th of April he drew up a form of unconditional abdication, signed, and dispatched it. Ney, Macdonald, and Caulaincourt arrived with the treaty to which the Allied sovereigns had agreed. Elba was assigned to himan island twenty leagues in extent, with twelve thousand inhabitantsand he was to have an income of six millions of francs, besides the little revenue of the island. Two millions and a half more were assigned as annuities to Josephine, and the other members of his family. The Empress was to be created Duchess of Parma, Placentia, and Guastella, in full sovereignty. The marshals and other officers of his army were received into the same ranks and dignities in the army of the Bourbon sovereign. Lord Castlereagh, who had arrived after the conclusion of this treaty, pointed out the folly of it, which must have been apparent to every man of the slightest reflection; for, to a certainty, Napoleon would not for a day longer than he was compelled observe it in a place like Elba, in the very vicinity of France. He declined, on the part of Great Britain, any concern in it; but to avoid a renewal of the war, he offered no formal opposition. Napoleon arrived at Elba on the 4th of May.
ONE:CHAPTER XVI. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued).
DANIEL PRATT
TWO:The first Session of the National Assembly was opened by the king in person on the 22nd of[577] May, but it did not conduct itself in a manner to recommend universal suffrage, or to make the friends of orderly government enamoured of revolution. Eventually it was dispersed by force. The new Chambers were opened on the 26th of February by the king in person, Count Brandenburg having led him to the throne. He stated that circumstances having obliged him to dissolve the National Assembly, he had granted to the nation a Constitution which by its provisions fulfilled all his promises made in the month of March. This Constitution was modelled after that of Belgium. The House was to consist of two Chambers, both electivethe former by persons paying 24s. a year of direct taxes, and the latter by a process of double election: that is, the deputies were chosen by delegates, who had themselves been elected by universal suffrage, there being one deputy for every 750 inhabitants. All Prussians were declared equal in the eye of the law, freedom of the press was established, and all exclusive class privileges were abolished. The judges were made independent of the Crown, and no ordinance was to have the force of law without the sanction of the Assembly.
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ONE:"I confess that, on the general subject, my views have, in the course of twenty years, undergone a great alteration. I used to be of opinion that corn was an exception to the general rules of political economy; but observation and experience have convinced me that we ought to abstain from all interference with the supply of food. Neither a Government nor a Legislature can ever regulate the corn markets with the beneficial effects which the entire freedom of sale and purchase are sure of themselves to produce.
ONE:This proclamation was speedily followed by the steady march of soldiers to various quarters. At one moment was heard the loud roar of innumerable voices in the full commission of outrage, and at the next the rattle of musketry and the shrieks of the wounded and dying, followed by a strange silence. The first troops who commenced the bloody duty of repression were the Northumberland militia, who had come that day by a forced march of twenty-five miles, and who were led by Colonel Holroyd against the rioters at Langdale's distillery in Holborn. A detachment of the Guards at the same time drove the mob from the possession of Blackfriars Bridge. Numbers were there killed, or were forced by the soldiers or their own fears over the parapet of the bridge, and perished in the Thames. Where the mob would not disperse, the officers now firmly gave the word of command, and the soldiers fired in platoons. Little resistance was offered; in many quarters the inhabitants, recovering their presence of mind, armed themselves, and came forth in bodies to assist the soldiers. The number of troops now assembled in and around London amounted to twenty-five thousand, and before night the whole city was as quietfar quieter, indeedthan on ordinary occasions, for a sorrowful silence seemed to pervade it; and besides two hundred men shot in the streets, two hundred and fifty were carried to the hospitals wounded, of whom nearly one hundred soon expired. But these bore no proportion to the numbers who had fallen victims to their own excesses, or who had been buried under the ruins of falling buildings, or consumed in the flames in the stupor of intoxication. The king's decision had saved London.
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THREE:During this long period Sir Christopher had been busily employed in raising many other buildings; amongst these, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich; St. Bride's; St. Swithin's; the Gateway Tower, Christ Church, Oxford; St. Antholin's, Watling Street; the palace at Winchester, never completed; Ashmolean Museum, and Queen's College Chapel, Oxford; St. James's, Westminster; St. Clement's, Eastcheap; St. Martin's, Ludgate Hill; St. Andrew's, Holborn; Christ Church, Newgate Street; Hampton Court Palace, an addition; Morden College, Blackheath; Greenwich Hospital; St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, tower and spire; Buckingham House, since pulled down; and Marlborough House.
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THREE:Under the operation of the Corn Laws the price of wheat rose to one hundred and fifty-six shillings a quarter in 1801, and the enclosure of waste lands kept pace accordingly; and upwards of a million of acres were enclosed every ten years. From 1800 the amount of enclosure in ten years was a million and a half of acres. The rapid increase of population, through the growth of manufactures, and the introduction of canals, as well as the fact that the people at large began to abandon the use of oats and rye in bread, and to use wheat, promoted the growth of that grain immensely. In 1793 Sir John Sinclair established the Board of Agriculture, which was incorporated, and received an annual grant from Parliament. The indefatigable Arthur Young was elected its secretary, and agricultural surveys of the kingdom were made. The reports of these were published, adding greatly to a comprehension of the real state of cultivation. In 1784 Young had commenced the publication of the "Annals of Agriculture," by which invaluable information was diffused, and new prizes were offered by the Board for improvements, and great annual sheep-shearings were held at Woburn and Holkham, by the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Coke, afterwards Lord Leicester, which tended to stimulate the breed of better sheep. The king himself had his model farms, and introduced merino sheep from Spain. It was long, however, before the better modes of ploughing could be introduced amongst the farmers. The Scots were the first to reduce the number of the horses which drew the plough, using only two, whilst in England might still be seen a heavy, clumsy machine drawn by from four to six horses, doing less work, and that work less perfectly.
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ONE:Nelson fell about the middle of the action, and for hours it continued with terrible fury. Whole masses of ships lay jammed together, pouring into one another the most tremendous broadsides. When all was over, the vessels on both sides appeared mere ruins. Nineteen ships of the line were taken, but some of them were so battered that they were useless, and incapable of moving. Six or seven of the enemy's ships immediately went down or were burnt. The Spanish admiral, Gravina, was mortally wounded; the rear-admiral, Cisneros, was taken, and the French admiral, Villeneuve. The French and Spaniards, in the few ships which had escaped into Cadiz, seeing the helpless condition of many of the British vessels, made a sortie, and re-captured two of the prizes, and carried them into port. The Algeciras, another of the captured ships, was also rescued, and carried into Cadiz by her crew, who rose the next morning on the English lieutenant and prize party in charge of her during a gale, the English having taken off the hatches to give the Spaniards a chance for their lives, should she drive on shore. In the end, the prizes were found so riddled by shot that they were burnt; so that, with some of them running on shore in the gale, only four of the wholethree Spanish and one Frenchwere saved, and brought to England as trophies. But the French and Spanish navies might be said to be annihilated; and, whatever might happen on the Continent, for the remainder of Napoleon's career England was for ever put beyond his reach. Nelson had indeed finished his mission. He had revived all the maritime glory of the days of Drake and Blake, and shown that, with a man like him at the head of her fleet, Britain might sit on her ocean throne, and smile at the hostile efforts of a world combined to crush her.
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THREE:Scarcely was the Rockingham Administration formed when they determined to recall England's ablest admiral, Sir George Rodney, and they carried this into execution in May of this year, and appointed Admiral Pigott in his stead. Lord Keppel, who had shown himself so sensitive in his own case, now he was at the head of the Admiralty not only recalled Rodney because he was of another party, but he did it in the coldest and most direct manner, through his secretary, Mr. Stephen. However, before this order of recall was issuedthe 1st of MayRodney had fought one of the greatest and most decisive battles which adorn the history of our navy. He had gone in all haste to the West Indies, with fourteen ships of the line, to join Sir Samuel Hood, who was vainly contending against the fleet of De Grasse and a strong land force at St. Christopher's. But, as De Grasse had landed eight thousand men, under De Bouill, and Hood had no land troops, he could not save the island. After its capture Rodney fell in with him, and their united fleet amounted to thirty-six ships of the line. It was well, for Hood informed Rodney that De Grasse was intending to join the Spanish general, Galvez, at St. Domingo, where they were to sail for a grand attack on the chief of the British West India Islands, Jamaica, almost the only island, excepting Barbadoes and Antigua, which Britain now owned in that part of the globe. On the 8th of April he was signalled that the French fleet was unmoored and proceeding to sea. Rodney instantly put out, and the next morning discovered this fleet under Dominica. The wind being in favour of De Grasse, he stood away for Guadeloupe; but Rodney gave chase, and Hood's squadron getting far in advance, De Grasse veered round in the hope of beating him before the rest of Rodney's fleet could come up. Hood received the fire of three men-of-war in the Barfleur, his ship, for some time; but he stood bravely to the enemy, and the wind now favouring Rodney, he came up and joined in the engagement. Several ships on each side were so much damaged that they were almost useless, and Captain Bayne, of the Alfred, was killed. The next morning the French were nearly out of sight; but Rodney pressed after them, for he knew that if they succeeded in joining the Spaniards, he should have sixty sail, instead of thirty-six, to contend with.
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THREE:Better to die than wed:The great maritime struggle of the year was at Toulon. The south of France was then in active combination against the Convention and the Jacobin faction. There was a determination in Toulon, Marseilles, and other places on the coast to support the Royalist party in Aix, Lyons, and other cities. For this purpose they invited the British to co-operate with them. Lord Hood, having obtained from the people of Toulon an engagement to surrender the fleet and town to him, to be held for Louis XVII., arrived before that port in July, with, however, only seven ships of the line, four frigates, and some smaller vessels. Nearly all the old Royalist naval officers were collected in Toulon, and were so eager for revenge on the Jacobin officers and sailorswho had not only superseded them, but had persecuted them with all the savage cruelty of their factionthat they were all for surrendering their fleet to Lord Hood, and putting him in possession of the forts and batteries. There was a firm opposition to this on the part of the Republicans, both in the fleet and the town, but it was carried against them. Besides the Royalist townsmen, there were ten thousand Proven?als in arms in the town and vicinity. As General Cartaux had defeated the Royalists at Marseilles, taken possession of the town, and, after executing severe measures on the Royalists there, was now in full march for Toulon, there was no time to be lost. Lord Hood landed a body of men under Captain Elphinstone, to whom the forts commanding the port were quietly surrendered. Lord Hood was thus at once put into possession of the best French port in the Mediterranean, and a great fleet, with all the stores and ammunition. But he knew very well that the place itself could not long be maintained against the whole force of Republican France. He resolved, however, to defend the inhabitants, who had placed themselves in so terrible a position with their merciless countrymen, to the utmost of his power. He therefore urged the Spaniards to come to his assistance, and they sent several vessels, and three thousand men. He received reinforcements of ships and men from Naplesthe queen of which was sister to Marie Antoinetteand from Sardinia. Fresh vessels and men also arrived from England. Lord Mulgrave arrived from Italy, and at Lord Hood's request assumed command, for the time, of the land forces.
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[See larger version]But the royal family put no faith in these professions; they resolved not to wait the arrival of the French, but to muster all the money and valuables that they could, and escape to their South American possessions. Whilst these preparations were being made in haste, the British traders collected their property and conveyed it on board British vessels. The inhabitants of the British factory, so long established in Lisbon, had quitted it on the 18th of October, amid the universal regret of the people. The ambassador, Lord Strangford, took down the British arms, and went on board the squadron of Sir Sidney Smith, lying in the Tagus. On the 27th of November the royal family, amid the cries and tears of the people, went on board their fleet, attended by a great number of Portuguese nobility; in all, about one thousand eight hundred Portuguese thus emigrating. The Prince Regent accompanied them, sensible that his presence could be of no service any longer. The fleet of the royal emigrants was still in the Tagus, under the safe[548] protection of Sir Sidney Smith's men-of-war, when Junot and his footsore troops entered Lisbon, on the 1st of December. He was transported with rage when he saw their departing sails, for he had received the most imperative injunctions to secure the person of the Prince Regent, from whom Napoleon hoped to extort the cession of the Portuguese American colonies. Junot declared that the Prince Regent and royal family, having abandoned the country, had ceased to reign, and that the Emperor Napoleon willed that it should henceforth be governed, in his name, by the General-in-chief of his army. This proclamation of the 2nd of February set aside at once the conditions of the Treaty of Fontainebleau; the imaginary princedom of Godoy was no more heard of, and the kingdom erected for the King of Etruria remained a mere phantom at the will of Buonaparte. The property of the royal family, and of all who had followed them, was confiscated; a contribution of four million five hundred thousand pounds sterling was laid on a people of less than three millions, and as there was not specie enough to pay it, plate and every kind of movable property was seized in lieu of it, without much regard to excess of quantity. The officers became money-brokers and jobbers in this property, much of which was sent to Paris for sale, and the whole unhappy country was a scene of the most ruthless rapine and insult.Besides succeeding to the government of a country whose chief province was thus exhausted, the finances of the Company were equally drained, both in Calcutta and at home, and the Directors were continually crying to Hastings for money, money, money! As one means of raising this money, they sent him a secret order to break one of their most solemn engagements with the native princes. When they bribed Meer Jaffier to depose his master, by offering to set him in his seat, and received in return the enormous sums mentioned for this elevation, they settled on Meer Jaffier and his descendants an annual income of thirty-two lacs of rupees, or three hundred and sixty thousand pounds. But Meer Jaffier was now dead, and his eldest son died during the[324] famine. The second son was made Nabob, a weak youth in a weak government, and as the Company saw that he could not help himself, they ordered Hastings to reduce the income to one-half. This was easily done; but this was not enough, disgraceful as it was. Mohammed Reza Khan, who had been appointed by the Company the Nabob's Minister, on the ground that he was not only a very able but a very honest man, they ordered to be arrested on pretended pleas of maladministration. He and all his family and partisans must be secured, but not in an open and abrupt way, which might alarm the province; they were to be inveigled down from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, on pretence of affairs of government, and there detained. Nuncomar, the Hindoo, who had been displaced, in order to set up Mohammed, who was a Mussulman, and who had been removed on the ground of being one of the most consummate rogues in India, was to be employed as evidence against Mohammed. Hastings fully carried out the orders of the secret committee of the India House. He had Mohammed seized in his bed, at midnight, by a battalion of sepoys; Shitab Roy, the Minister of Bahar, who acted under Mohammed at Patna, was also secured; and these two great officers and their chief agents were sent down to Calcutta under guard, and there put into what Hastings called "an easy confinement." In this confinement they lay many months, all which time Nuncomar was in full activity preparing the charges against them. Shitab Roy, like Mohammed, stood high in the estimation of his countrymen of both faiths; he had fought on the British side with signal bravery, and appears to have been a man of high honour and feeling. But these things weighed for nothing with Hastings or his masters in Leadenhall Street. He hoped to draw large sums of money from these men; but he was disappointed. Though he himself arranged the court that tried them, and brought up upwards of a hundred witnesses against them, no malpractice whatever could be proved against them, and they were acquitted. They were therefore honourably restored, the reader will think. By no means. Such were not the intentions of the Company or of Hastings. Whilst Mohammed and Shitab Roy had been in prison, Hastings had been up at Moorshedabad, had abolished the office of Minister in both Patna and Moorshedabad, removed all the government business to Calcutta, cut down the income of the young Nabob, Muharek-al-Dowla, to one half, according to his instructions, and reduced the Nabob himself to a mere puppet. He had transferred the whole government to Calcutta, with all the courts of justice, so that, writes Hastings, "the authority of the Company is fixed in this country without any possibility of competition, and beyond the power of any but themselves to shake it."
[See larger version]But the royal family put no faith in these professions; they resolved not to wait the arrival of the French, but to muster all the money and valuables that they could, and escape to their South American possessions. Whilst these preparations were being made in haste, the British traders collected their property and conveyed it on board British vessels. The inhabitants of the British factory, so long established in Lisbon, had quitted it on the 18th of October, amid the universal regret of the people. The ambassador, Lord Strangford, took down the British arms, and went on board the squadron of Sir Sidney Smith, lying in the Tagus. On the 27th of November the royal family, amid the cries and tears of the people, went on board their fleet, attended by a great number of Portuguese nobility; in all, about one thousand eight hundred Portuguese thus emigrating. The Prince Regent accompanied them, sensible that his presence could be of no service any longer. The fleet of the royal emigrants was still in the Tagus, under the safe[548] protection of Sir Sidney Smith's men-of-war, when Junot and his footsore troops entered Lisbon, on the 1st of December. He was transported with rage when he saw their departing sails, for he had received the most imperative injunctions to secure the person of the Prince Regent, from whom Napoleon hoped to extort the cession of the Portuguese American colonies. Junot declared that the Prince Regent and royal family, having abandoned the country, had ceased to reign, and that the Emperor Napoleon willed that it should henceforth be governed, in his name, by the General-in-chief of his army. This proclamation of the 2nd of February set aside at once the conditions of the Treaty of Fontainebleau; the imaginary princedom of Godoy was no more heard of, and the kingdom erected for the King of Etruria remained a mere phantom at the will of Buonaparte. The property of the royal family, and of all who had followed them, was confiscated; a contribution of four million five hundred thousand pounds sterling was laid on a people of less than three millions, and as there was not specie enough to pay it, plate and every kind of movable property was seized in lieu of it, without much regard to excess of quantity. The officers became money-brokers and jobbers in this property, much of which was sent to Paris for sale, and the whole unhappy country was a scene of the most ruthless rapine and insult.Besides succeeding to the government of a country whose chief province was thus exhausted, the finances of the Company were equally drained, both in Calcutta and at home, and the Directors were continually crying to Hastings for money, money, money! As one means of raising this money, they sent him a secret order to break one of their most solemn engagements with the native princes. When they bribed Meer Jaffier to depose his master, by offering to set him in his seat, and received in return the enormous sums mentioned for this elevation, they settled on Meer Jaffier and his descendants an annual income of thirty-two lacs of rupees, or three hundred and sixty thousand pounds. But Meer Jaffier was now dead, and his eldest son died during the[324] famine. The second son was made Nabob, a weak youth in a weak government, and as the Company saw that he could not help himself, they ordered Hastings to reduce the income to one-half. This was easily done; but this was not enough, disgraceful as it was. Mohammed Reza Khan, who had been appointed by the Company the Nabob's Minister, on the ground that he was not only a very able but a very honest man, they ordered to be arrested on pretended pleas of maladministration. He and all his family and partisans must be secured, but not in an open and abrupt way, which might alarm the province; they were to be inveigled down from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, on pretence of affairs of government, and there detained. Nuncomar, the Hindoo, who had been displaced, in order to set up Mohammed, who was a Mussulman, and who had been removed on the ground of being one of the most consummate rogues in India, was to be employed as evidence against Mohammed. Hastings fully carried out the orders of the secret committee of the India House. He had Mohammed seized in his bed, at midnight, by a battalion of sepoys; Shitab Roy, the Minister of Bahar, who acted under Mohammed at Patna, was also secured; and these two great officers and their chief agents were sent down to Calcutta under guard, and there put into what Hastings called "an easy confinement." In this confinement they lay many months, all which time Nuncomar was in full activity preparing the charges against them. Shitab Roy, like Mohammed, stood high in the estimation of his countrymen of both faiths; he had fought on the British side with signal bravery, and appears to have been a man of high honour and feeling. But these things weighed for nothing with Hastings or his masters in Leadenhall Street. He hoped to draw large sums of money from these men; but he was disappointed. Though he himself arranged the court that tried them, and brought up upwards of a hundred witnesses against them, no malpractice whatever could be proved against them, and they were acquitted. They were therefore honourably restored, the reader will think. By no means. Such were not the intentions of the Company or of Hastings. Whilst Mohammed and Shitab Roy had been in prison, Hastings had been up at Moorshedabad, had abolished the office of Minister in both Patna and Moorshedabad, removed all the government business to Calcutta, cut down the income of the young Nabob, Muharek-al-Dowla, to one half, according to his instructions, and reduced the Nabob himself to a mere puppet. He had transferred the whole government to Calcutta, with all the courts of justice, so that, writes Hastings, "the authority of the Company is fixed in this country without any possibility of competition, and beyond the power of any but themselves to shake it."