Another matter which he was eager to set right was the captivity of the King of Spain. He had one hundred thousand of his best disciplined and most seasoned troops in Spain, and he was anxious to get them out to meet the approaching[75] Allies. Besides this, he was equally anxious to render the stay of Wellington in the south of France indefensible. To effect these purposes, he determined not only to liberate Ferdinand of Spain, but to send him home under the conditions of a treaty, by which a full exchange of prisoners should be effected, and the continuance of the British there be declared unnecessary. Nay, he did all in his power to embroil the Spaniards with their deliverers, the British. By a treaty Buonaparte recognised Ferdinand VII. and his successors as King of Spain and the Indies, and Ferdinand, on his part, bound himself to maintain the integrity of his empire, and to oblige the British immediately to evacuate every part of Spain. The contracting powers were to maintain their maritime rights against Great Britain; and whilst Buonaparte surrendered all fortresses held by him in Spain, Ferdinand was to continue to all the Spaniards who had adhered to King Joseph the rights, privileges, and property they had enjoyed under him.
On the 10th of September the Prussians began to examine the passes of the forest; and finding them defended, they attacked the French entrenchments but were everywhere repulsed. On the 11th, they concentrated their efforts on the pass of Grand-Pr, defended by Dumouriez himself, and were again repulsed by General Miranda at Mortaume, and by General Stengel at St. Jouvion. The Allies, thus unexpectedly brought to a check, for they had been led by the Emigrants to expect a disorganised or as yet undisciplined army, determined to skirt the forest and endeavour to turn it near Sedan. Whilst engaged in this plan, the Austrians discovered the weakness of the force in the defile of Croix-aux-Bois, where only two battalions and two squadrons of volunteers were posted, for Dumouriez had not examined the pass himself and was assured that this force was amply sufficient. Once aware of this mistake, the Austrians, under the Duke de Ligne, briskly attacked the position and drove the French before them. Dumouriez, informed of this disorder, ordered forward General Chasot with a strong force, who defeated the Austrians, killed De Ligne, and recovered the pass. But the advantage was but momentary; the Austrians returned to the charge with a far superior force, and again cleared the pass and remained in possession of it. Thus Dumouriez saw his grand plan of defence broken up; and finding that Chasot, who had fallen back on Vouziers, was cut off from him on his left along with Dubouquet, he saw the necessity of falling back himself into the rear of Dillon, on his right, who was yet master of the Islettes and the road to St. Menehould. He then sent messages to Chasot, Dubouquet, and to Kellermann, to direct their march so as to meet him at St. Menehould.On this day all Paris was astir. The drums were beating in all quarters; the National Guard were assembling at their different posts; the Insurrectional Committee had divided itself into three sections. One took its station in the Faubourg St. Marceau, with Fournier at its head; another in the Faubourg St. Antoine, headed by Westermann and Santerre; whilst Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Carra, were at the Cordeliers. About twelve o'clock the tocsin began to ring out from the H?tel de Ville, and was quickly followed by the bells in every church tower in Paris. By one o'clock the palace was surrounded by vast throngs of armed people. They could be seen by the inmates of the palace through the old doors of the courts, and from the windows. Their artillery was visibly pointed at the palace, and the noise of their shouting, beating of drums, and singing of insurrectionary songs, was awful. The king had issued an order that the Swiss and Guards should not commence the attack, but should repel force by force. It was now recommended that the king also should go down, and by showing himself, and addressing a few words to them, should animate them in their duty. The queen, her eyes inflamed with weeping, and with an air of dignity, which was never forgotten by those who saw her, said also, "Sire, it is time to show yourself." She is said to have snatched a pistol from the belt of old General d'Affry, and to have presented it in an excitement that scarcely allowed her to remain behind. Could she have changed places, had she been queen in her own right, there would soon have been a change of scene. As for Louis, with that passive courage which he always possessed, and so uselessly, he went forward and presented himself to view upon the balcony. At the sight of him, the Grenadiers raised their caps on the points of their swords and bayonets, and there were cries of "Vive le Roi!" the last that saluted him in his hereditary palace. Even at this cry, numbers of the National Guard took alarm, imagining that they were to be surrendered to the knights of the dagger, and that they had been betrayed. The gunners, joining in the panic, turned their guns towards the palace, but the more faithful Guard drove them from the guns, disarmed them, and put them under watch.
ONE:Amid this melancholy manifestation of a convicted, yet dogged, treason against the people on the part of their rulers, many motions for reform and improvements in our laws were brought forward. On the part of Mr. Sturges Bourne, a committee brought in a report recommending three Bills for the improvement of the Poor Law: one for the establishment of select vestries, one for a general reform of the Poor Law, and one for revising the Law of Settlement. On the part of Henry Brougham, a Bill was introduced for appointment of commissioners to inquire into the condition of the charities in England for the education of the poor. There were many attempts to reform the Criminal Law, in which Sir Samuel Romilly especially exerted himself. One of these was to take away the penalty of death from the offence of stealing from a shop to the value of five shillings, another was to prevent arrests for libel before indictment was found, and another, by Sir James Mackintosh, to inquire into the forgery of Bank of England notes. There was a Bill brought in by Mr. Wynn to amend the Election Laws; and one for alterations in the Law of Tithes, by Mr. Curwen; another by Sir Robert Peel, father of the great statesman, for limiting the hours of labour in cotton and other factories; a Bill to amend the Law of Bankruptcy, and a Bill to amend the Copyright Act, by Sir Egerton Brydges; and finally a Bill for Parliamentary Reform, introduced by Sir Francis Burdett, and supported by Lord Cochrane, subsequently the Earl of Dundonald. All of these were thrown out, except the select Vestries Bill, Brougham's Bill to inquire into the public charities, a Bill for rewarding apprehenders of highway robbers and other offenders, and a Bill granting a million of money to build new churches. The cause of Reform found little encouragement from the Parliamentary majorities of the Sidmouths, Liverpools, and Castlereaghs. This list of rejections of projects of reform was far from complete; a long succession followed. The Scots came with a vigorous demand, made on their behalf by Lord Archibald Hamilton, for a sweeping reform of their burghs. Municipal reform was equally needed, both in Scotland and England. The whole system was flagrantly corrupt. Many boroughs were sinking into bankruptcy; and the elections of their officers were conducted on the most arbitrary and exclusive principles. The Scots had agitated this question before the outbreak of the French Revolution, but that and the great war issuing out of it had swamped the agitation altogether. It was now revived, but only to meet with a defeat like a score of other measures quite as needful. Lord Archibald Hamilton asked for the abolition of the Scottish Commissary Courts in conformity with the recommendation of a commission of inquiry in 1808; General Thornton called for the repeal of certain religious declarations to be made on taking office; and Dr. Phillimore for amendment of the Marriage Act of 1753; and numerous demands for the repeal of taxes of one kind or another all met the same fate of refusal.
TWO: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.When the resolutions of the Committee were reported two days afterwards, the debate was renewed with all its vehemence, and Pulteney unveiled another view of the case, which had much real truth and warning in it. "It is well known," he said, "that every one of the public officers have already so many boroughs or corporations which they look on as their properties. There are some boroughs which are called Treasury boroughs; there are others which may be called Admiralty boroughs; in short, it may be said that nearly all the towns upon the sea-coast are already seized upon, and in a manner taken prisoners by the officers of the Crown. In most of them they have so great an influence that none can be chosen members of Parliament but such as they are pleased to recommend. But, as the Customs are confined to our seaports, as they cannot travel far from the coast, therefore this scheme seems to be contrived in order to extend the laws of Excise, and thereby to extend the influence of the Crown over all the inland towns and corporations of England."
THREE:ANNE MAKING THE DUKE OF SHREWSBURY LORD TREASURER. (See p. 22)
TWO:Contemporary with Cowper was Mrs. Tighe, the author of "Psyche," an allegorical poem, in which the beauty of the sentiment made acceptable that almost exploded form of composition. But there was at this period a number of writers who had much more false than true sentiment. The euphuism of the reign of Queen Elizabeth broke forth in another fashion. A kind of poetical club was formed at Batheaston, the residence of Lady Miller, near Bath. She and her guests, amongst whom was Miss Seward, wrote verses, which they published under the title of "Poetical Amusements." A still more flaunting school set themselves up amongst the English at Florence, one of whom, a Mr. Robert Merry, dubbed himself "Della Crusca," whence the clique became known as the "Della Cruscan School." Amongst the members of it figured Mrs. Piozzi, the widow of Thrale the brewer, Boswell, Johnson's biographer, Mary Robinson, the younger Colman, and Holcroft, the dramatist, with others of less name. They addressed verses to each other in the most florid and extravagant style under the names of "Rosa Matilda," "Laura Maria," "Orlando," and the like. The fashion was infectious; and not only were the periodicals flooded by such silly mutual flatteries, but volumes were published full of them. Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, and translator of Juvenal, attacked this frenzy in a satire called the "Baviad," and continued the attack in the "M?viad," which, however, was more particularly a censure on the degraded condition of the drama. This put an end to the nuisance, and Gifford won great fame by it; though, on referring to his two celebrated satires, we are surprised at their dulness, and are led to imagine that it was their heaviness which crushed these moths of literature. Gifford had himself a great fame in his day, which was chiefly based on his formidable position as editor of the Quarterly Review.
TWO:General Lake had no sooner seen Delhi clear of the enemy than he marched to Agra, which he reached on the 4th of October, and carried on the 17th. But Scindiah had availed himself of his absence, and made a sudden rush on Delhi, with[493] seventeen well-disciplined battalions of infantry and between four thousand and five thousand cavalry. The Mahratta troops had been well trained by the French, who hoped, by their means, to crush the power of the British in India, and had shown throughout this war wonderfully increased efficiency, yet General Lake did not hesitate, with his small force, to go in quest of them. He started on the 27th of October, and after marching in heavy rains and through dreadful roadsthe country having been purposely inundated by Scindiah's officers cutting down the banks of reservoirshe came upon the Mahrattas on the 31st, near the village of Laswaree, their left flanked by that village, their right by a stream, and their front protected by seventy-two pieces of cannon. A furious battle took place, in the course of which Lake's troops were repeatedly repulsed, but returned to the attack undauntedly, and the successive charges by the bayonet, and the gallant conduct of the cavalry, at length, in the face of terrible discharges of grape-shot and canister, drove the Mahrattas from all their positions. The enemy had fought desperately, and step by step only had given way, but in the end the rout was completecannon, baggage, and almost everything, being left in the hands of the British (November 1st, 1803). This division of Scindiah's army was thus annihilated, and all the territory watered by the Jumna left in the hands of the British.
TWO:On the 30th of August they reached Blair Castle. The Duke of Athol, the proprietor, fled at their approach, and old Tullibardine resumed his ancestral mansion, and gave a splendid banquet there to Charles and his officers. On the third day they resumed their march, and reached Perth on the 4th of September, which the prince entered on horseback, amid loud acclamations. Whilst at Perth he received two valuable accessions to his partythe titular Duke of Perth, who brought with him two hundred men, and Lord George Murray, the brother of the Duke of Athol, and a man of considerable military experience.The greater part of the House, as well as the public out of doors, were captivated with the scheme, which promised thus easily to relieve them of the monster debt; but Sir Grey Cooper was the first to disturb these fairy fancies. He declared that the whole was based on a fallacious statement; that it was doubtful whether the actual surplus was as described; but even were it so, that it was but the surplus of a particular year, and that it was like the proprietor of a hop-ground endeavouring to borrow money on the guarantee of its proceeds in a particularly favourable year. Fox, Burke, and Sheridan followed in the same strain. They argued that, supposing the assumed surplus actually to exist, which they doubted, it would immediately vanish in case of war, and a fresh mass of debt be laid on.[315] Sheridan said, the only mode of paying off a million a year would be to make a loan of a million a year, for the Minister reminded him of the person in the comedy who said, "If you won't lend me the money, how can I pay you?" On the 14th of May he moved a string of fourteen resolutions unfavourable to the report of the Committee, which he said contained facts which could not be negatived; but the House did negative them all without a division, and on the 15th of May passed the Bill. In the Lords it met with some proposals from Earl Stanhope, which were to render the violation of the Act equivalent to an act of bankruptcy, but these were negatived, and the Bill was passed there on the 26th. It was not until 1828 that the fallacy on which the Bill rested was finally exposed by Lord Grenville, who, curiously enough, had been chairman of the Committee which recommended its adoption.
Progress of the French RevolutionDeath of MirabeauAttempted Flight of the King from ParisAttitude of the Sovereigns of EuropeThe Parties of the Right and of the LeftThe GirondistsDecrees against the EmigrantsNegotiations between Marie Antoinette and PittCondition of the French ArmySession of 1792; Debates on Foreign AffairsMarriage of the Duke of YorkThe Prince of Wales's AllowanceThe BudgetThe Anti-Slavery MovementMagistracy BillAttempts at ReformThe Society of the Friends of the PeopleProclamation against Seditious WritingsFox's Nonconformist Relief BillProrogation of ParliamentAssociations and Counter-AssociationsLord Cornwallis's War against Tippoo SahibCapture of SeringapatamPeace with TippooEmbassy to ChinaDesigns of the Powers against PolandCatherine resolves to strikeInvasion of PolandNeutrality of EnglandConquest of PolandImminence of War between France and AustriaIt is declaredFailure of the French TroopsThe Duke of Brunswick's ProclamationInsurrection of the 10th of AugustMassacre of the SwissSuspension of the KingAscendency of JacobinismDumouriez in the Passes of the ArgonneBattle of ValmyRetreat of the PrussiansOccupation of the Netherlands by the French TroopsCustine in GermanyOccupation of Nice and SavoyEdict of FraternityAbolition of RoyaltyTrial and Death of the KingEffect of the Deed on the ContinentThe Militia called out in EnglandDebates in Parliament on War with FranceThe Alien BillRupture of Diplomatic Relations with FranceWar declared against BritainEfforts to preserve the PeaceThey are Ineffectual.Whilst the English Court was distracted by these dissensions, the Emperor was endeavouring to carry on the war against France by himself. He trusted that the death of Queen Anne would throw out the Tories, and that the Whigs coming in would again support his claims, or that the death of Louis himself might produce a change as favourable to him in France; he trusted to the genius of Eugene to at least enable him to maintain the war till some such change took place. But he was deceived. The French, having him alone to deal with, made very light of it. They knew that he could neither bring into the field soldiers enough to cope with their arms, nor find means to maintain them. They soon overpowered Eugene on the Rhine, and the Emperor being glad to make peace, Eugene and Villars met at Rastadt to concert terms. They did not succeed, and separated till February; but met again at the latter end of the month, and, on the 3rd of March, 1714, the treaty was signed. By it the Emperor retained Freiburg, Old Briesach, Kehl, and the forts in the Breisgau and Black Forest; but the King of France kept Landau, Strasburg, and all Alsace. The Electors of Bavaria and Cologne were readmitted to their territories and dignities as princes of the Empire. The Emperor was put in possession of the Spanish Netherlands, and the King of Prussia was permitted to retain the high quarters of Guelders.
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