ONE:On the other hand, Barclay de Tolly, anxious to unite with Bagration and reach Smolensk, abandoned the strong encampment at Drissa, leaving Wittgenstein near there to watch the enemy and cover the road to St. Petersburg. The French pursued him with great rapidity, which, though it endangered his immediate union with Bagration at Vitebsk, yet served the Russian policy of drawing the enemy into the interior. Murat continually rushed forward with his cavalry to attack the rear-guard of De Tolly; but the Russian infantry maintained steady order, and continually withdrew before him. Every evening he was close upon them; every morning he found himself again distanced. The Russians appeared in full vigour, and well supplied with everything; the French were sinking with famine and fatigue. At Polotsk the Emperor Alexander left De Tolly, and hastened on to Moscow to prepare the inhabitants for that grand catastrophe which he already foresaw, and had resolved upon.ATTACK ON THE CHINESE JUNKS. (See p. 474.)
THREE:Thus the Cabinet was evidently fast breaking up, when Mr. Littleton introduced his Tithe Bill. Its object was much the same as Mr. Stanley's Act of 1832 for the Compulsory Commutation of Tithe. This last Act had been a failure, and Mr. Littleton was compelled to ask Parliament to grant the sum of 1,000,000 to pay the arrears. He hoped to remedy its defects by reducing the number of people who were liable to tithe, and then, after the 1st of November, to commute the tithe into a land tax, payable to the State, to reduce its amount by one-fifth, and to allow any person having a substantial interest in the estate to redeem the residue of it, after five years had expired, on easy terms. After a number of stormy debates the progress of the measure seemed assured, when Lord John Russell went out of his way to express his views in favour of the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to secular purposes. Stanley wrote to Graham the laconic note, "Johnny has upset the coach." Indeed, the declaration was the more indiscreet because the Cabinet was hopelessly divided on the point.On the day appointed for the trial of Warren Hastings there was a wonderful crowding into the great hall at Westminster. The walls had been in preparation hung with scarlet, and galleries raised all round for the accommodation of spectators. The seats for the members of the House of Commons were covered with green cloth, those for the lords and all the others with red. Galleries were set apart for distinguished persons, and for the members of the foreign embassies. When the lords, nearly one hundred and seventy in number, entered in procession, the vast hall presented a striking scene, being crowded, with the exception of the space in the centre for the peers, with all who were noted in the land, from the throne downwards. The lords were all in their robes of gold and ermine, marshalled by the king-at-arms and the heralds. First entered Lord Heathfield, the brave old Elliot of Gibraltar, as the junior baron, and the splendid procession was closed by the Earl Marshal of England, the Duke of Norfolk, and by the brothers and sons of the king, the Prince of Wales last of all. The twelve judges attended to give their advice on difficult points of law, and the Managers were attended also by their counsel, Drs. Scott and Lawrence, and Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Pigot, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Douglas. The galleries blazed with the rich array of ladies and foreign costumes. There were seen the queen with her daughters, and the Princesses Elizabeth, Augusta, and Mary, the Duchess of Gloucester, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, Sheridan's handsome wife, and the great actress, Mrs. Siddons. Gibbon the historian, Dr. Parr, Mr., afterwards Sir, James Mackintosh, and numbers of distinguished artists, amongst them Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough, were also present.
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THREE:[See larger version]Nelson, who had returned to England, by the 15th of September was on board of his old flagship, the Victory, and immediately sailed for Cadiz, accompanied only by three other ships of war. On the 29th he arrived off Cadiz, and was received by the fleet with enthusiastic acclamation. It was his birthday. He posted himself about twenty leagues to the west of Cadiz, in hope that the French fleet would come out. He knew that it was in great distress for provisions, because Napoleon, intending the fleet to assemble at Brest, had laid in the necessary stores there, and could not convey them, in any reasonable time, to Cadiz. Still more, it was believed that Napoleon refused to send any supplies there, having given Villeneuve imperative orders to make his way to Brest. But it is also asserted, by French authorities, that Napoleon had ordered the Minister of Marine to take the command from Villeneuve, and that the admiral was piqued to show the Emperor, by a daring exploit, that he had done him injustice. Under these or similar motives, Villeneuve determined to sail out, and encounter the British fleet. Nelson was watching for him behind Cape St. Mary, like a cat watching a mouse, as he said in a letter to the Abb Campbell, of Naples, a friend of his and of Lady Hamilton's. On the 9th of October, certain that the enemy would soon come out, Nelson sent to Lord Collingwood his plan of the battle. It was to advance in two lines of sixteen ships each, with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest-sailing two-decked ships. They were thus to break the enemy's line in three places at once. Nelson was to aim at the centre; Collingwood, leading the second line, to break through at about the twelfth ship from the rear; and the light squadron, at three or four ships from the centreNelson's point of attack. "I look," wrote Nelson, "with confidence to a victory before the van of the enemy can succour their rear; and then the British fleet will, most of them, be ready to receive their twenty sail of the line, or to pursue them, should they endeavour to make off. If the van of the enemy tack, the captured ships must run to the leeward of the British fleet; if the enemy wear, the British must place themselves between them and the captured and disabled British ships, and, should the enemy close, I have no fear for the result. The second in command will, in all possible things, direct the movements of his line by keeping them as compact as the nature of the circumstances will admit. Captains are to look to their particular line as their rallying-point; but, in case signals cannot be clearly seen or understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy!" Such were Nelson's general orders, and they were entirely approved by Lord Collingwood.
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THREE:But this large infusion of Whiggery did not[439] render the Administration any the more liberal. It was determined to bring the politically accused, now out on bail, to trial. On the 6th of October true bills were found by the grand jury of Middlesex against Thomas Hardy, the secretary of the Corresponding Society, John Horne Tooke, John Augustus Bonney, Stewart Kyd, the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, Thomas Wardle, Thomas Holcroft, John Richter, Matthew Moore, John Thelwall, Richard Hodgson, and John Baxter, for high treason. Hardy was put upon his trial first at the Old Bailey, October 29th, before Chief Justice Eyre, a judge of noted severity, Chief Baron Macdonald, Baron Hotham, Mr. Justice Buller, and Mr. Justice Grose, with other judges. Sir John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, as Attorney-General, opened the case against him in a speech of nine hours. In this he laboured to represent the Corresponding Society, and Hardy as its secretary, as guilty of a treasonable intercourse with the French revolutionists, and read numbers of documents expressing great admiration of the French institutions. But these were merely the documents which had long and openly been published by the Society, and were well known through insertion in the newspapers. There was nothing clandestine about them, nothing suggestive of a concealed and dangerous conspiracy. Their invariable burthen was the thorough reform of Parliament, and the utter disfranchisement of the rotten boroughs, by which the whole representation of the country was transferred to the aristocracy. Next a strong attempt was made to connect the secretary of the Society with the men lately condemned in Scotland, especially Margarot, with whom, as all undoubtedly engaged in the same object of Reform, Hardy, as secretary, had considerable correspondence. The whole failed to impress an English jury, and Hardy was acquitted after a trial of eight days.At this juncture, when the eyes of all Europe were turned on the new Republic of America, Congress gave a proof of its utter contempt of those principles of honour which are regarded as the distinguishing characteristics of civilised nations. The convention on which General Burgoyne's army had surrendered was deliberately violated. It had been stipulated that his troops should be conveyed to Boston, and there suffered to embark for England in British transports to be admitted to the port for that purpose. But no sooner did Congress learn this stipulation than it showed the utmost reluctance to comply with it. It was contended that these five thousand men would liberate other five thousand in England to proceed to America. It was therefore determined to find some plea for evading the convention. An article of the convention provided that the English officers should be quartered according to their rank; but they complained that six or seven of them were crowded into one small room, without regard either to rank or comfort. But Burgoyne, finding remonstrance useless at Boston, wrote to Gates reminding him of his engagements in the convention, and declaring such treatment a breach of public faith. This was just one of those expressions that Congress was watching for, and they seized upon it with avidity. "Here," they said, "is a deep and crafty schemea previous notice put in by the British General to justify his future conduct; for, beyond all doubt, he will think himself absolved from his obligation whenever released from his captivity, and go with all his troops to reinforce the army of Howe." Burgoyne offered at once to give Congress any security against such imagined perfidy. But this did not suit Congressits only object was to fasten some imputation on the English as an excuse for detaining them contrary to the convention, and they went on to raise fresh obstacles.
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