About four months passed happily away, when another event occurred which was very near furnishing a startling illustration of the truth that there is no certain tenure of human happiness. On the night of Wednesday, the 10th of June, London was agitated by a report of an attempt upon the life of the Queen. Next day an investigation took place at the Home Office, from which the public and the reporters of the daily press were excluded. The following are the facts:At a quarter past six on Wednesday evening, the Queen, accompanied by Prince Albert, left Buckingham Palace, in a very low, open phaeton, to take her customary drive in Hyde Park before dinner. The carriage had proceeded a short distance up the road when a young man, who had been standing with his back to the Green Park fence, advanced to within a few yards of the carriage, and deliberately fired at the Queen. The postilions paused for an instant. The Prince ordered them, in a loud voice, to drive on. "I have got another!" exclaimed the assassin, who discharged a second pistol, aimed at the carriage, which also proved harmless. The Queen and the Prince went as far as Hyde Park Corner, and then turned to the Duchess of Kent's mansion, in Belgrave Square. Meanwhile, the assassin remained near the spot, leaning against the park fence, with the weapons in his hand. Several persons laid hold of him, and he was conveyed by two policemen to the Gardener's Lane station-house. After staying a short time with the Duchess of Kent, in Belgrave Square, the Queen and her husband proceeded to Hyde Park, where an immense concourse of persons, of all ranks and both sexes, had congregated. The reception of the royal pair was so enthusiastic as almost to overpower the self-possession of the Queen. They soon returned to Buckingham Palace, attended by a vast number of the nobility and gentry, in carriages and on horseback. A multitude of persons collected at the entrance to the palace, and vehemently cheered the Queen, who, though pale and agitated, repeatedly bowed and smiled in return.The Directory began its campaigns of 1796 with much spirit and ability. The plans which had been repeatedly pointed out by Dumouriez, Pichegru, Moreau, and more recently by Buonaparte, of attacking the Austrians in Germany and Italy simultaneously, and then, on the conquest of Italy, combining their armies and marching them direct on the Austrian capital, were now adopted. Pichegru, who had lost the favour of the Directory, was superseded by Moreau, and that general and Jourdain were sent to the Rhine. Jourdain took the command of sixty-three thousand foot and eleven thousand horse, at Coblenz, and immediately invested the famous fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the opposite bank of the river. Moreau was sent to lead the army at Strasburg, consisting of seventy-two thousand foot and nearly seven thousand horse. Jourdain found himself soon menaced by the Archduke Charles, the Emperor's brother, the ablest and most alert general that the Austrians possessed at that period. He advanced rapidly on Jourdain's position with seventy thousand foot and twenty thousand horse, defeated a division of Jourdain's army under General Lefebvre, and compelled Jourdain himself to raise the siege. But the archduke, out of too much anxiety for Wurmser, who was opposed to[452] Moreau with much inferior forces, ascended the Rhine to support him, and Jourdain immediately availed himself of his absence to advance and seize Frankfort on the Main, Würzburg, and other towns. Moreau advanced to drive back Wurmser and the archduke, till a union with Jourdain would enable them to fall conjointly on the Austrians. But the archduke perceived that, in consequence of the orders of the Directory, Moreau was spreading his army too wide, and he retreated so as to enable Wurmser to join him. This retrograde movement was mistaken, both by friends and enemies, for a sign of weakness; and whilst Moreau advanced with increased confidence, many of the raw contingents of the archduke's army deserted, and several of the petty States of Germany sued to the Directory for peace. But the moment for the action of the archduke had now arrived. Whilst Moreau was extending his lines into Bavaria, and had seized Ulm and Donauw?rth, and was preparing to occupy the defiles of the Tyrol, the Archduke Charles made a rapid detour, and, on the 24th of August, fell on Jourdain, and completely defeated him. He then followed him to Würzburg, and on the 3rd of September routed him again. With a velocity extraordinary in an Austrian, the archduke pushed on after Jourdain's flying battalions, and on the 16th of September gave him a third beating at Aschaffenburg, and drove his army over the Rhine. Moreauleft in a critical position, so far from the frontiers of France, and hopeless of any aid from Jourdain, who had lost twenty thousand men and nearly all his artillery and baggagemade haste to retrace his steps. Thus both of the French armies were beaten back to the left bank of the Rhine, and Germany was saved.In Lancashire and Cheshire the principal roads were paved; but as there grew a necessity for more rapid transit of mails and stage-coaches, we find, from a tour by Adam Walker to the Lakes in 1792, that a better system had been introduced; the paved roads were in many places pulled up, and the stones broken small; and he describes the roads generally as good, or wonderfully improved since the "Tours" of Arthur Young. Except in the county of Derby, the highways were excellent, and broken stones were laid by the roadsides ready for repairs.
ONE:Thus was the man who had been put down by all the assembled armies of Europe not twelve months before, who had quitted Paris weeping like a woman, and threatened, in his exile southward, with being torn limb from limbthus was he as it were miraculously borne back again on men's shoulders, and seated on the throne of the twice-expelled Bourbons! It was far more like a wild romance than any serious history. The peace of the world had again to be achieved. The Bourbons had been worsted everywhere, even in loyal Vende, and in Marseilles, which had so recently set a price on Buonaparte's head. The Duke of Angoulme was surrounded in Marseilles, and surrendered on condition of quitting France. The Duke of Bourbon found La Vende so permeated by Buonapartism that he was obliged to escape by sea from Nantes; and the Duchess of Angoulme, who had thrown herself into Bordeaux, found the troops there infected by the Buonaparte mania, and, quitting the place in indignation, went on board an English frigate.It was five o'clockthe House densely crowded; for Lord Surrey was going to make the great Opposition motion of want of confidence, and only waited for the arrival of the Minister. As North hurried up the House, there were loud cries of "Order! order! Places! places!" North no sooner reached the Treasury bench than he rose to make his important disclosure; but the Opposition called vociferously for Lord Surrey, while the Ministerial members called for Lord North. Fox then moved that "Lord Surrey do speak first," but North instantly exclaimed, "I rise to speak to that motion." Being now obliged to hear him, for he was perfectly in order, he observed, that, had they suffered him at once to proceed, he might have saved them much useless noise and confusion, for, without any disrespect to the noble lord, he was going to show that his motion was quite unnecessary, as the Ministers had resigned, and that that resignation was accepted by the king! He had only wanted to announce that fact, and to move an adjournment of a few days, in order to make the necessary arrangements for the new Administration. Never was there a more profound surprise. The House was adjourned for five days, and the members prepared to depart and spread the news. But it proved a wild, snowy evening; the carriages had not been ordered till midnight, and whilst the members were standing about in crowds waiting for their equipages, rather than walk home through the snow, Lord North, who had kept his carriage, put three or four of his friends into it, and, bowing to the other members, said, laughingly, "You see, gentlemen, the advantage of being in the secret. Good night!"
ONE:In prosecution, however, of his unrighteous engagement to Catherine, he mustered the large army he had engaged to bring against Turkey, and in February, 1788, he made a formal proclamation of war, having no cause of hostility to assign of his own, but merely that his alliance with Russia demanded that he should support that power in its equally lawless invasion of Turkey. The Prince of Saxe-Coburg, who commanded one division of Joseph's army, entered Moldavia, and spent the whole campaign nearly in the siege and reduction of the fortress of Choczim. The Emperor himself accompanied another division, the destination of which was the renewal of the siege of Belgrade. He had been led by Catherine to hope, as his reward for the co-operation, the recovery of Bosnia and Servia, the acquisition of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the extension of his boundaries to the Dnieper. But, having waited some time for the junction of the Russians, Joseph's army assembled on the banks of the Danube in February, and occupied itself in securing the banks of that river and of the Save. Joseph himself joined it in April, accompanied by his favourite marshal and counsellor, Lacy, and having also with him, but paying little attention to him or his advice, the brave and able Laudohn, who had so successfully coped with Frederick of Prussia in Silesia. On the 24th he took the little fortress of Szabatch, whilst another part of his army suffered a defeat from the Turks at Dobitza. He then sat down before Belgrade, but carried on the siege with such slackness as to disgust his own troops and astonish all Europe. He was at length roused by the advance of the vizier, Yussuff, who was coming rapidly down upon him. At his approach, Joseph precipitately retreated behind the Save, while Yussuff threw bridges over the Danube at Cladova, broke the Austrian cordon by the defeat of a portion of the forces of General Wartesleben on the heights of Meadiha, and swept through the banat of Temeswar, Joseph's own territory, which he held, and threatened to invade Hungary. Joseph hastened with forty thousand men to support Wartesleben, leaving General Laudohn to conduct the war in Croatia. The army was delighted to have Laudohn at their head instead of the Emperor. He led it on the very day of his arrival against the fortress of Dobitza, which he took; he then passed the Save, drove the Turks before him, defeated seven thousand of the enemy before Novi, and took that place, where his operations were suspended by the winter. Joseph gained little credit by his junction with Wartesleben. The Turks attacked him, and, though they were for the moment repulsed, the Emperor retreated in a dark night, and Turks and Austrians resumed their former positions. After taking Verplanka, the campaign ended with a three months' truce. But the Austrians had suffered more severely from the miasma of the marshes of the Danube and Save than from the Turks.Whilst these scenes were going on all around, and the city was menaced every moment by troops, by the raving multitude, and by whole squadrons of thieves and assassins, the electors were busily employed in organising a City Guard. But, previous to entering on this task, it was necessary to[364] establish some sort of municipal authority more definite and valid than that of the electors at large. A requisition was then presented to the provost of trades (prv?t des marchands) to take the head. A number of electors were appointed his assistants. Thus was formed a municipality of sufficient powers. It was then determined that this militia, or guard, should consist of forty-eight thousand men furnished by the districts. They were to wear not the green, but the Parisian cockade, of red and blue. Every man found in arms, and wearing this cockade, without having been enrolled in this body by his district, was to be apprehended, disarmed, and punished. And thus arose the National Guard of Paris.
THREE:The year 1844 brought little progress to the Free Traders in Parliament. The members of the House of Commons had been elected in 1841, in the teeth of the Free Trade cry raised by the Whigs, and before the League had made its power felt in the elections. Unless the Minister were compelled to dissolve Parliament, they were irremovable for four years longer, and could safely wait. Parliament met on the 1st of February. The Queen's Speech congratulated the country on the improved condition of the trade and manufactures of the country, and the increased demand for labour, from which it was easily prognosticated that no further concessions were intended that Session. Sir Robert Peel declared that the Government "did not contemplate and had never contemplated any change in the existing Corn Laws." At recent public meetings influential members of the Tory party had openly threatened the Minister with expulsion unless he maintained those laws for their benefita fact which drew from Mr. Villiers the remark that he regretted that the Prime Minister had not "the spirit to turn round upon these people, and show them their utter helplessness without him, their utter inability to administer, without him, the government upon their own system." Indeed, it began now to be assumed by all persons favourable to Free Trade that the Minister's opinions were really far in advance of his own party, and that he needed only a favourable opportunity to declare himself openly at variance with their views. The great meetings at Covent Garden Theatre, immediately before the opening of Parliament, kept the subject before the public.
THREE:At length Argyll, whose movements had been hastened by the arrival of General Cadogan, prepared to march northwards through deep snow and villages burnt by the Pretender's order. On the 30th of January the rebel army retreated from Perth, the Highland soldiers, some in sullen silence, others in loud curses, expressing their anger and mortification at this proceeding. The inhabitants looked on in terror, and bade adieu to the troops in tears, expecting only a heavy visitation for having so long harboured them. Early the next morning they crossed the deep and rapid Tay, now, however, a sheet of solid ice, and directed their march along the Carse of Gowrie towards Dundee.On the 8th of February Lord John Russell brought forward the paragraph of the Speech relating to agricultural distress, and moved for a select committee to inquire into the causes of the depression of the agricultural interest, although he confessed that he did not anticipate any satisfactory result from the investigation. In this the noble lord did not miscalculate, for after sitting for eight months the committee could not agree to any report, and all the benefit they conferred upon the public was an outline of the evidence which was laid before the House at the end of the Session. On the 9th and the 12th the same Minister submitted three measures to the House, which were passed into law this Sessionnamely, a Bill for the Commutation of Tithes in England; a Bill for a General Registration of Marriages, Births, and Deaths; and another for the amendment of the Law of Marriage. On the 16th of this month Mr. Hardy brought before the House of Commons the case of Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Raphael. The latter gentleman was one of the sheriffs of London, and he wished to represent an Irish constituency. Mr. O'Connell thought it was possible to get him in for the borough of Carlow; but he warned him that the expenses would be 2,000, and that this sum should be deposited in a bank as a preliminary, "say 2,000." It was alleged that this was a corrupt bargain, and Mr.[401] O'Connell was accused of selling a Parliamentary seat. Mr. Hardy, therefore, moved for a select committee to investigate the transaction. The committee was obtained, and the result was a complete acquittal of Mr. O'Connell. So strong, however, was the feeling against him that no less than sixty members of Brooks's Club resigned, having failed to procure his expulsion.
SCENE AT THE "SURRENDER" BANQUET IN DERRY. (See p. 287.)Arnold had not been able to bring any artillery with him; Montgomery had a little. They had about twelve hundred men altogether; and with this force they now marched upon Quebec. On the 20th of December they commenced firing on the town from a six-gun battery; but their cannon were too light to make much impressionthey had no guns heavier than twelve-pounders, and these were soon dismounted by Colonel Maclean and his sailors. The Americans withdrew their guns to a safer distance; and their troops were desirous to abandon the enterprise as impracticable, but the commanders engaged them to continue by holding out a prospect of their plundering the lower town, where all the wealth lay. On the last day of the year, soon after four in the morning, the attack was commenced. Two divisions, under Majors Livingstone and Brown, were left to make feigned[222] attacks on the upper town, whilst the rest, in two lines, under Montgomery and Arnold, set out amid a blinding snow-storm to make two real attacks on the lower town. Montgomery, descending to the bed of the St. Lawrence, wound along the beach to Cape Diamond, where he was stopped by a blockhouse and picket. Haying passed these, he again, at a place called Pot Ash, encountered a battery, which was soon abandoned. Montgomery then led his troops across huge piles of ice driven on shore; and no sooner had they surmounted these than they were received by a severe fire from a battery manned by sailors and Highlanders. Montgomery fell dead along with several other officers and many men; and the rest, seeing the fate of their commander, turned and fled back up the cliffs. Arnold, at the same time, was pushing his way through the suburbs of the lower town, followed by Captain Lamb with his artillerymen, and one field piece mounted on a sledge. After these went Morgan with his riflemen; and as they advanced in the dark, and muffled in the falling snow, they came upon a two-gun battery. As Arnold was cheering on his men to attack this outpost, the bone of his leg was shattered by a musket-ball. He was carried from the field; but Morgan rushed on and made himself master of the battery and the guard. Just as day dawned, he found himself in front of a second battery, and, whilst attacking that, was assailed in the rear and compelled to surrender, with a loss of four hundred men, three hundred of whom were taken prisoners. Arnold retreated to a distance of three or four miles from Quebec, and covered his camp behind the Heights of Abraham with ramparts of frozen snow, and remained there for the winter, cutting off the supplies of the garrison, and doing his best to alienate the Canadians from the English.Besides the general compact, there was a particular one, which engaged that, should England and France remain at war on the 1st of May, 1762, Spain should on that day declare war against England, and should at the same time receive possession of Minorca. The existence of these compacts was kept with all possible secrecy; but Mr. Stanley penetrated to a knowledge of them in Paris, and his information was fully confirmed from other sources. If these, however, had left any doubt, it would have been expelled by the receipt of a French memorial through M. Bussy, to which a second memorial on Spanish affairs was appended. Pitt received the proposition with a tone of indignation that made it manifest that he would suffer no such interference of a third partywould not yield a step to any such alliance. He declared, in broad and plain terms, that his majesty would not permit the affairs of Spain to be introduced by France; that he would never suffer France to presume to meddle in any affairs between himself and Spain, and that he should consider any further mention of such matters as a direct affront. A similar message was dispatched to the Earl of Bristol in Spain, declaring that England was open to any proposals of negotiation from Spain, but not through the medium of France. This was, in fact, tantamount to a defiance to both France and Spain, and would undoubtedly have put an end to all further negotiation had there not been a purpose to serve. The Spanish treasure ships were yet out at sea on their way home. Any symptoms of hostility would insure their capture by the British, and cut off the very means of maintaining a war. General Wall, therefore, concealed all appearance of chagrin; admitted that the memorial had been presented by France with the full consent of his Catholic majesty, but professed the most sincere desire for the continuance of peaceful relations.
