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ONE:On the 15th of April, notwithstanding Luttrell's signal defeat, the House of Commons, on the motion of Onslow, son of the late Speaker, voted, after a violent debate, by a majority of fifty-four, that "Henry Lawes Luttrell, Esq., ought to have been returned for Middlesex." The debate was very obstinate. The whole of the Grenville interest, including Lord Temple, was employed against Government, and the decision was not made till three o'clock on Sunday morning. TWO:The next great architect of this period is Sir John Vanbrugh, who, when in the zenith of his fame as a dramatic writer, suddenly started forth as an architect, and had the honour of erecting Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle; Blenheim House, built for the Duke of Marlborough, in reward of his victories; Duncomb Hall, Yorkshire; King's Weston, in Gloucestershire; Oulton Hall, Cheshire; Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire; Eastbury, in Dorsetshire, now destroyed; and Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, since partly destroyed by fire. Besides these, he built the opera house, also destroyed by fire. In all these there is a strong similarity, and as a general effect, a certain magnificence; but, when examined in detail, they too frequently resolve themselves into a row of individual designs merely arranged side by side. This is very much the case with the long fa?ade of Blenheim. There is a barbaric splendour, but it has no pervading unity, and only differs from the Italian manner of Wren by a much bolder and profuser use of the Grecian columns and pilasters. In fact, the architecture of the whole of this period is of a hybrid character, the classical more or less modified and innovated to adapt it to modern purposes and the austerity of a northern climate.[See larger version]
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ONE:On the passage, the squadron of Sir John Warren came in sight of the French fleet of Villaret-Joyeuse, of nine ships of the line, but it bore away, and left them to pursue their course. They entered the Bay of Quiberon on the 25th of June and, after much wrangling as to the best situation for landing, they put the troops ashore at the village of Carnac. There they were immediately joined by Georges Cadoudal, d'Allgre, Dubois-Berthollet, and other Chouan chiefs, with about four thousand or five thousand of their wild and bandit-looking soldiers. Along with the Chouans came troops of peasants, crying "Vive le Roi!" and bringing in abundance of fresh eggs, poultry, and other provisions. Puisaye was delighted, and felt confident that all Brittany was ready to rise. But this delusion was soon dissipated. The Emigrants, accustomed to regular armies, looked with contempt on this wild and ragged band, and they, on their part, were not restrained, on the landing of the arms and uniforms, from seizing and carrying them off, without much exertion on the part of Puisaye. There was danger of bloodshed. At length, in about a couple of days, ten thousand of them were put into red coats, and furnished with muskets. But fatal dissensions prevented all operations. Puisaye proposed to march up the country, seize different towns, such as Vannes and Rennes, and take up their position behind the Mayenne; but d'Hervilly refused to march till the troops were formed into regular regiments, and the Emigrants joined him in despising the Chouans, and in complaining that they had not been taken to La Vende to join Charette. Puisaye and d'Hervilly also disputed the supreme command, and Puisaye had to dispatch letters to London, to Count d'Artois, on the subject. At length, after five days had been wasted in this contention, Puisaye proposed that they should endeavour to carry Fort Penthivre, which stood on a small peninsula on Quiberon Bay, and was united to the main land by a sandy isthmus. To this d'Hervilly consented, and Sir John Warren agreed to support him in the attempt. On the 1st of July Warren began to bombard the fort, and on the 3rd, the place being warmly assailed by both the British and the Chouans, the Republicans surrendered. Meanwhile, Puisaye had sent off emissaries all over Brittany, to rouse Scpeaux, Charette, Stofflet, and the rest of the insurgent chiefs. The news of the landing had flown all over Brittany in a few days, and the Royalists were full of joy.The storm was appeased only by Lord North's condescending to explain his measure in such a manner as deprived it of every particle of generous feeling, and reduced it to the lowest Machiavellian level. He said the real object of the resolution was to divide the Americans, to satisfy the moderate part of them, and oppose them to the immoderate, to separate the wheat from the chaff; that he never expected his proposal to be generally acceptable. On this, Colonel Barr and Burke assaulted him fiercely. Barr branded the whole scheme as founded on that low, shameful, abominable maxim, "Divide et impera." Burke declared that the proposition was at variance with every former principle of Parliament, directly so with the restrictive measures now in progress; that it was mean without being conciliatory. But the resolution passed by two hundred and seventy-four votes against eighteen. TWO:On the 1st of December Bonney, Joyce, Kyd, and Holcroft were brought up, but the evidence was precisely the same against them as against Tooke; they were discharged without trial. Holcroft would have made a speech condemnatory of these prosecutions, but was not allowed. As these gentlemen were removed from the bar, John Thelwall, the well-known elocutionist and political lecturer, was brought up. As the Government thought there were some other charges against him, the trial went on, and lasted four days, but with the same result; and as it was found that it was hopeless to expect verdicts of guilty from English juries for mere demands of Reform, the rest of the accused were discharged. To the honour of the nation, people of all parties appeared to rejoice at the independent conduct of the juries.[See larger version]
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ONE:"Father is gone!Undaunted by his defeat, he immediately offered himself for Middlesex, and there, though the mob could not vote, they could act for him. They assembled in vast numbers, shouting, "Wilkes and Liberty!" They accompanied him to the poll; they stopped all the roads that led to the hustings at Brentford, suffering no one to pass who was not for Wilkes and liberty. His zealous supporters wore blue cockades or paper in their hats, inscribed "Wilkes and Liberty," or "No. 45." At night they assembled in the streets, insisting on people illuminating their houses in honour of Wilkes; abused all Scotsmen they met; scribbled "No. 45" on the panels of carriages as they passed; made the parties in them shout their favourite cry; broke the windows of Lord Bute at the West End, and of Harley, the Lord Mayor, at the Mansion Housethe same Harley, a younger brother of the Earl of Oxford, who, as sheriff, had had to burn No. 45 of the North Briton in Cornhill. By such means the mob managed to return Wilkes at the very head of the poll. TWO:
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ONE:This destruction accomplished, the mob marched away to the house of Priestley, which was at Fair Hill, where they utterly burned and destroyed all the invaluable library, philosophical instruments, and manuscripts, containing notes of the doctor's further chemical experiments and discoveries. Fire-engines were called out to prevent the flames of the meeting-houses from spreading to the adjoining houses, but they were not suffered to play on the meeting-houses themselves, nor does any effort appear to have been made to save Priestley's house. The doctor and his family had made a timely retreat. He himself passed the first two nights in a post-chaise, and the two succeeding on horseback, but less owing to his own apprehensions of danger than to those of others. An eye-witness said that the high road for fully half a mile from his house was strewed with books, and that, on entering the library, there were not a dozen volumes on the shelves; while the floor was covered several inches deep with torn manuscripts. This was the work of the night of the 14th of July, and the riots continued from Thursday to Sunday; among the buildings destroyed being the paper warehouse of William Hutton, the historian of the place, and the author of several antiquarian treatises. Hutton was a man who had raised himself from the deepest poverty, for his father was a poor stocking-weaver of Derby. He had found Birmingham without a paper warehouse; had opened one, and, by that[385] shrewdness and carefulness in business, which are so conspicuous in his "Autobiography," and afford a valuable study for young men, had acquired a competence. He was not only an honour to the town by his upright character, and reputation as a self-taught author, but he had been an active benefactor to it. He had been the first to establish a circulating library in the town; was always an advocate and co-operator in works and institutions of improvement, and was the most active and able commissioner of the Court of Requests. His only crime was that of being a Nonconformist, and an advocate of advanced principles. TWO:
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ONE:On this basis Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 9th of June, produced his Budget. Including the interest on the Debt, the whole annual expenditure amounted to seventy-six million, seventy-four thousand poundsan ominous peace expenditure. Instead, therefore, of the supplies, aided by the draft from the Sinking Fund, leaving a surplus of two million pounds, a fresh loan of twelve million poundsbesides the three million pounds of new taxes on malt, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, tea, British spirits, pepper, and foreign wool was needed. By the hocus-pocus of Exchequer accounts this was made to look like a reduction of the Debt instead of an increase of it; but the country saw with dismay that three years after the peace the incubus of past war was still[145] adding to its burden. Mr. Tierney, on the 18th, moved for a committee to inquire into the state of the nation, but this was negatived by three hundred and fifty-seven votes against one hundred and seventy-eight; and a motion of Sir Henry Parnell on the 1st of July for extensive retrenchments was got rid of in the same manner.The Lord High Commissioner immediately proceeded on his great mission, and after a tedious voyage landed at Quebec on the 29th of May. He took with him, as his private secretary, Mr. Charles Buller, a man of singular ability, an ardent friend of free institutions, gifted with a large mind and generous sympathies, and a spirit that rose superior to all party considerations. A more suitable man could scarcely have been found for such a work. But he also took out with him Mr. Turton and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, men of ability but hopelessly damaged in character. He promptly proceeded to dismiss his Council and to select another of five who had no acquaintance with Canadian politics. He found on his arrival 116 state prisoners, whose trial had been postponed, awaiting his instructions. On the 28th of June the Lord High Commissioner published an ordinance, in which it was stated that Wolfred Nelson, and seven other persons therein named, had acknowledged their guilt, and submitted themselves to her Majesty's pleasure; that Papineau, with fifteen others, had absconded. The former were sentenced to be transported to Bermuda during pleasure, there to be submitted to such restraints as might be thought fit; the latter, if they should return to Canada, were to be put to death without further trial. In each of these cases an unfortunate error was committed. The Lord High Commissioner had no legal authority out of Canada, and could not order the detention of any one at Bermuda; and to doom men to be put to death without further trial, was denounced in Parliament, by Lord Brougham and others, as unconstitutional. Lord Brougham described it as "an appalling fact." Such a proceeding, he said, was "contrary to every principle of justice, and was opposed to the genius and spirit of English law, which humanely supposed every accused party to be innocent until he was proved to be guilty." His reasons for the course he had adopted were given by Lord Durham, in a despatch to the Home Secretary, dated June 29th. The British party, he said, did not require sanguinary punishment; but they desired security for the future, and the certainty that the returning tranquillity of the province would not be arrested by the machinations of the ringleaders of rebellion, either there or in the United States. He said: "I did not think it right to transport these persons to a convict colony, for two reasons; first, because it was affixing a character of moral infamy on their acts, which public opinion did not sanction; and, secondly, because I hold it to be impolitic to force on the colony itself persons who would be looked on in the light of political martyrs, and thus acquire perhaps a degree of influence which might be applied to evil uses in a community composed of such dangerous elements." TWO:"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.
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