FORE:When Sir Robert Peel delivered up the seals of office, the first thing the king did was to send for Earl Grey, who declined the task of forming an Administration. He advised his Majesty to entrust it to Viscount Melbourne. The business, therefore, devolved upon Melbourne, and he hastened to complete it out of such materials as he had at his command. These were substantially the same as those which composed his former Administration. Lord Brougham, however, was now left out, as Lord Melbourne, in a series of plain-spoken letters, had already informed him he would be; also Lord Althorp, who, being in the Upper House[386] as Earl Spencer, did not seem to have any ambition for the toils and honours of office. Lord Howick, the eldest son of Earl Grey, became a member of the Cabinet. There was no Lord Chancellor appointed for the present, out of consideration for Brougham's feelings. The Great Seal was put in commission, the three Commissioners being the Master of the Rolls, the Vice-Chancellor, and Mr. Justice Bosanquet. The offices were distributed as follows:Lord Melbourne, Premier; the Marquis of Lansdowne, President of the Council; Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary; Lord John Russell, Home Secretary; Mr. Charles Grant, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Spring-Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Viscount Duncannon, Lord Privy Seal and Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests; Lord Auckland, First Lord of the Admiralty; Sir John Hobhouse, President of the Indian Board; Mr. Poulett Thompson, President of the Board of Trade; Lord Howick, Secretary-at-War; Lord Holland, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The appointments not in the Cabinet wereSir Henry Parnell, Paymaster of the Forces; Mr. Charles Wood, Secretary to the Admiralty; Sir George Grey, Under-Secretary of the Colonies; the Honourable Fox Maule, Under-Secretary for the Home Department; Mr. Labouchere, Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint; Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell; Solicitor-General, Mr. Rolfe. The Irish appointments wereThe Earl of Mulgrave, Lord-Lieutenant; Lord Morpeth, Chief Secretary; Lord Plunket, Chancellor.
FORE:General Montgomery reached the St. Lawrence, and detached six hundred men to invest Fort Chambly, situated on the river Sorel, about five miles above Fort St. John. The menaced condition of Quebec compelled General Carleton to abandon Montreal to its fate, and to hasten to the capital, and Montgomery immediately took possession of it. So far all succeeded with the American expedition. Carleton, to reach Quebec, had to pass through the American forces on the St. Lawrence. He went in disguise, and dropped down the river by night, with muffled oars, threading the American craft on the river, and so reached Quebec alone, but in safety. Montgomery was determined to fall down the St. Lawrence too, to support Arnold; but his position was anything but enviable. He had been obliged to garrison Forts Chambly and St. John's, and he was now compelled to leave another garrison at Montreal. This done, he had only four hundred and fifty men left, and they were in the most discontented and insubordinate condition. As he proceeded, therefore, he found them fast melting away by desertion; and, had he not soon fallen in with Arnold and his band at Point aux Trembles, he would have found himself alone.
FORE:Sheridan introduced the subject on the 18th of April, and Fox ably supported him; but the motion was negatived. But this defeat only appeared to stimulate the reformers to higher exertions. On the 28th of April a new Reform society, entitled the Society of the Friends of the People, was formally inaugurated by the issue of an address, which was signed by no less than twenty-eight members of the House of Commons, and a considerable number of Lords, amongst them the Lords Lauderdale, John Russell, Stanhope, and Fitzgerald. Their title was unfortunate, for, though they were united only for Parliamentary reform, this cognomen was so much in the French style as to create suspicion and alarm. Many of the members were known to be admirers of the French Revolution, and about the same time another and decidedly French-admiring society was started, calling itself the Corresponding Society, and prosecuting a zealous intercourse with the Girondists and Jacobins. The admiration of French political principles rendered the conservative portion of the population quite determined to resist all innovations; and as this Society of the Friends of the People was regarded as a direct imitation of the Jacobin Club, it was violently opposed and stigmatised. On the 30th of April Mr. Grey, as representative of this Society, rose to announce that in the next Session he meant to introduce a regular measure for the reform of Parliament; that it was necessary, he said, had long been asserted by the two leading men of the HousePitt and Fox. Pitt rose on this, and declared himself still the friend of Reform; but he contended that this was not the time to attempt it. He had only, he said, to point to[392] the state of things in France, and to the effervescence which those principles of anarchy had produced in Britain, to show the necessity of remaining quiet for the present; neither did he believe that the mass of the English people would support any change in our Constitution. Fox upbraided Pitt with the abandonment of his former sentiments, and contended that we had only to look at the money spent lately in the armament against Russia, money thus spent without any consent of the people, to perceive the necessity of reform in our representation. He referred to Pitt's remarks on revolutionary books and pamphlets recently published, and declared that he had read very few of them. He had only read one of the two books of Thomas Paine, the "Rights of Man," and did not like it. Burke replied to him, and drew a most dismal picture of the condition of France under her Revolutionists. He said that the French Assembly was composed of seven hundred persons, of whom four hundred were lawyers, and three hundred of no description; that he could not name a dozen out of the whole, he believed, with one hundred pounds a-year; and he asked whether we should like a Parliament in Great Britain resembling it. In this debate, the further dissolution of the Whig party became obvious when Windham and others took the side of Burke.
FORE:[See larger version]The prisoners were at once sent to Richmond[532] Bridewell, on the South Circular Road, where the Governor did all in his power to make them comfortable. Good apartments were assigned to them. They dined together every day, and they were permitted to receive, without restriction, the visits of their friends and admirers. The Government was the less disposed to interfere with these indulgences, as their object was not so much punishment as prevention, and besides, the traversers had appealed against the sentence. A majority of the twelve English judges affirmed the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, while condemning the counts on which the Irish court relied. An appeal was then made to the House of Lords. The decision was left to the five law lordsLyndhurst, Brougham, Cottenham, Denman, and Campbell. The first two were for a confirmation of the judgment, the last three for reversal. Lord Denman, in pronouncing judgment, said, referring to the tampering with the panel, "If such practices as had taken place in the present instance in Ireland should continue, the trial by jury would become a mockery, a delusion, and a snare," a sentence which was hackneyed by repetition for years afterwards. The news of the reversal reached Dublin on the afternoon of the 5th of September. Great crowds had assembled on the pier at Kingstown, and tremendous cheers broke forth from the multitude when the Holyhead packet approached, and they saw held up a white flag, with the inscription, "Judgment reversed by the House of Lords. O'Connell is free!" The news was everywhere received by the Roman Catholics with wild excitement.
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