THREE:The Church Temporalities Bill, with some alterations, passed the Lower House; it encountered strong opposition in the Lords, who defeated the Ministry on one important amendment, but it ultimately passed, on the 30th of July, by a majority of fifty-four, several peers having recorded their protests against it, among whom the Duke of Cumberland was conspicuous. The Commissioners appointed under the Bill were the Lord Primate, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Chancellor and Chief Justice of Ireland, and four of the bishops, and some time afterwards three laymen were added. The following were the principal features of this great measure of Church Reform: Church Cess to be immediately abolishedthis was a direct pecuniary relief to the amount of about 80,000 per annum, which had been levied in the most vexatious mannerand a reduction of the number of archbishops and bishops prospectively, from four archbishops and eighteen bishops to two archbishops and ten bishops, the revenues of the suppressed sees to be appropriated to general Church purposes. The archbishoprics of Cashel and Tuam were reduced to bishoprics, ten sees were abolished, the duties connected with them being transferred to other seesDromore to Down, Raphoe to Derry, Clogher to Armagh, Elphin to Kilmore, Killala to Tuam, Clonfer to Killaloe, Cork to Cloyne, Waterford to Cashel, Ferns to Ossory, Kildare to Dublin. The whole of Ireland was divided into two provinces by a line drawn from the north of Dublin county to the south of Galway Bay, and the bishoprics were reduced to ten. The revenues of the suppressed bishoprics, together with those of suspended dignities and benefices and disappropriated tithes, were vested by the Church Temporalities Act in the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to be applied by them to the erection and repairs of churches, to the providing for Church expenses hitherto defrayed by vestry rates, and to other ecclesiastical purposes. The sales which were made of perpetuities of Church estates, vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, produced upwards of 631,353; the value of the whole perpetuities, if sold, was estimated at 1,200,000. The total receipts of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1834 were 68,729; in 1835 they amounted to 168,027; and in 1836 they reached 181,045. The cost of the official establishment was at one time 15,000; during the later years, however, it averaged less than 6,000. Its total receipts, up to July, 1861, were 3,310,999. The Church Temporalities Act imposed a tax on all benefices and dignities whose net annual value exceeded 300, graduated according to their amount, from two and a half to five per cent., the rate of charge increasing by 2s. 6d. per cent. on every additional 10 above 405. All benefices exceeding 1,195 were taxed at the rate of fifteen per cent. The yearly tax imposed on all bishoprics was graduated as follows:Where the yearly value did not exceed 4,000 five per cent.; not exceeding 6,000, seven per cent.; not exceeding 8,000, ten per cent.; and not exceeding 10,000, twelve per cent. In lieu of tax the Archbishopric of Armagh was to pay to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners an annual sum of 4,500, and the see of Derry to pay 6,160. The exact net incomes of the Irish bishops were as follows:Armagh, 14,634; Meath, 3,764;[361] Derry, 6,022; Down, 3,658; Kilmore, 5,248; Tuam, 3,898; Dublin, 7,636; Ossory, 3,874; Cashel, 4,691; Cork, 2,310; Killaloe, 3,310; Limerick, 3,987total, 63,032. The total amount of tithe rent-charge payable to ecclesiastical personsbishops, deans, chapters, incumbents of benefices, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was 401,114. The rental of Ireland was estimated, by the valuators under the Poor Law Act, at about 12,000,000this rental being about a third part of the estimated value of the annual produce of the land.In the autumn the great Congress of Sovereigns assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle. We have already anticipated their chief objectthe final evacuation of France by the Allied troops, and the settlement of compensations. They assembled about the middle of September, and remained together till the middle of November. Their business conferences, however, did not commence till the 30th of September. With regard to the evacuation of France, we need only state that it was greatly promoted by the exertions of the Duke of Wellington. Robert Owen was there to endeavour to enlist the Sovereigns in his schemes of social reform, but did not make any proselytes amongst the crowned heads, though the Czar Alexander told him he fully entered into his views, as he was generally accustomed to tell all reformers and religious professors, leaving them in the pleasing delusion that they had won him to their opinions. Clarkson was there to engage them to sanction the suppression of the slave trade, but with as indifferent a result. This was the closing scene of the great European drama, which opened with the French Revolution and terminated with the capture of Buonaparte. The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle may be regarded as the recital of the epilogue.
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THREE:Buonaparte had arrived at Vittoria on the 8th of November, between the defeat of Blake at Espinosa and his dispersion at Reynosa, and he immediately dispatched Soult to attack Belvedere. This self-confident commander of two-and-twentysurrounded by as self-confident students from Salamanca and Leoninstead of falling back, and forming a junction with Casta?os, stood his ground in an open plain in front of Burgos, and was scattered to the winds. Between three and four thousand of his men were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, and all his cannon and baggage captured. Buonaparte had now only to beat Casta?os, and there was an end to the whole Spanish force. That general was much more cautious and prudent than the rest, and he fell back on the approach of Marshal Lannes, at the head of thirty thousand men, to Tudela. But Buonaparte had sent numerous bodies of troops to intercept his course in the direction of Madrid, and, unfortunately for Casta?os, he was joined by Palafox, who had made so successful a stand against the French at Saragossa. Casta?os was for retreating still, to avoid Lannes in front, and Ney and Victor, who were getting into his rear; but Palafox, and others of his generals, strongly recommended his fighting, and a commissioner sent from the Junta in Madrid, in the French fashion, to see that he did his duty, joined in the persuasion, by hinting that to retreat would give suspicion of cowardice and treachery. Against his better judgment, Casta?os, therefore, gave battle on the 22nd of November, at Tudela, and was completely routed. Palafox hastened back to Saragossa, which was destined to surrender after another frightful siege. The road was now left open to Madrid, and the French troops had orders to advance and reduce it; and they did this with a fiendish ferocity, burning the towns and villages as they proceeded, and shooting every Spaniard that they found in arms.
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ONE:
ONE:On the 6th of April Whitbread brought forward these charges against Melville in the House of Commons, as detailed in the tenth report of the Naval Commissioners. In doing so, he paid a high compliment to the manner in which the naval affairs had been conducted since Lord St. Vincent became head of that Department; but he charged Lord Melville with having applied the public money to other uses than those of the Naval Department, in contempt of the Act of 1785an Act which Melville himself, then Dundas, had supported: that he had connived at a system of peculation in the Treasurer of the Navy, Mr. Trotter, an individual for whom he was responsible. The salary of this Mr. Trotter had been fixed by the Act of 1785 at four thousand pounds a year, but he contended that Dundas had allowed Trotter to draw large sums from the Bank of England out of the navy deposit, pay them into Coutts's Bank, and use them for his own benefit; and that, moreover, he had participated in the profits of this system. This charge called forth a vehement contest of parties. Tierney, who had been Treasurer of the Navy under Addington, declared that he had found no inconvenience in complying with the Act of 1785, whilst holding that office. Fox, Grey, Ponsonby, Windham, Wilberforce, Lord Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, supported Whitbread's charges, and Pitt, Canning, and Lord Castlereagh defended Melville. On putting the resolutions moved by Whitbread, after a debate till quite late in the morning, they were carried by the casting vote of the Speaker. The scene, which is one of the most striking in our Parliamentary annals, has frequently been described, notably by Lord Fitzharris:"I sat edged close to Pitt himself," he wrote, "the night when we were two hundred and sixteen, and the Speaker, Abbot, after looking as white as a sheet, and pausing for ten minutes, gave the casting vote against us. Pitt immediately put on the little cocked hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the evening, and jammed it down deeply over his forehead, and I distinctly saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. We heard one or two, such as Colonel Wardle, say they would see 'how Billy looked after it'! A few young ardent followers of Pitt, with myself, locked their arms together and formed a circle, in which he moved, I believe unconsciously, out of the House, and neither the colonel nor his friends could approach him." But the Opposition were not content with the vote of censure. Whitbread moved that an Address should be presented to his Majesty, praying him to remove Lord Melville for ever from his councils and presence, but the motion was withdrawn as soon as Melville's resignation was known. On the 6th of May Whitbread was about to move a resolution that his Majesty should be requested to erase the name of Lord Melville from the list of the Privy Council, but Pitt rose and said that the motion was unnecessary, as his Majesty had already done it.
ONE:The Ministers and the Prince Regent, indeed, fully approved of the conduct of these magistrates, and that was to be expected, for neither of these parties ever evinced much sympathy for the people, and consequently received very little regard in return. There was a disposition to rule by the high hand in both the Prince and the Cabinet, which eventually brought them into extreme odium, and warned them that very different times were approaching. On the reassembling of Parliament Lord Sidmouth made the most candid statement of the full and entire approbation of himself and his colleagues of this cruel and dastardly transaction. He said that the news of the event reached town on the Tuesday night; and that it was followed on the Wednesday by two gentlemen from Manchester, one of them a magistrate, to give the Government the most minute particulars regarding it; that a Cabinet Council was immediately summoned, at which the two Manchester gentlemen attended, and entered into the fullest details of all that had taken place; and that the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, then present, gave it as their opinion that the proceedings were perfectly justified by the necessity of the case. The statement of all particulars was then dispatched to the Prince Regent, who was yachting off Christchurch, and, on the 19th, the Prince replied, by the hand of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, expressing his "high approbation and commendation of the conduct of the magistrates and civil authorities at Manchester, as well as of the officers and troops, both regular and yeoman cavalry, whose firmness and effectual support of the civil power preserved the peace of the town on that most critical occasion." To most people this appeared to be giving commendation, not for preserving, but for disturbing the peace of the town; but Lord Sidmouth, having received this sanction, addressed letters, on the 21st, to the Lords-Lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, the Earls of Derby and Stamford, requesting them to convey to the magistrates of the two counties, who were present at Manchester on the 16th, "the great satisfaction derived by his Royal Highness from their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public tranquillity." Hunt and his confederates were charged with high treason; but, on the circumstances being examined, they were found not to bear out this charge, and Hunt and his friends were indicted only for a treasonable[152] conspiracy; and true bills to the extent of this mitigated charge were proved against Hunt and nine others at the summer assizes for the county of Lancaster.
