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THREE:Since the year 1833 the sum of ￡20,000 was all that had been granted by Parliament for popular education. Up to this time the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society had, without distinction of party, enjoyed an equitable proportion of the benefit of this grant. The Government were now about to propose an increase, but they determined at the same time to change the mode of its distribution, and their plan gave rise to a great deal of discussion on the subject during the Session. The intentions of the Government were first made known by Lord John Russell on the 12th of February when he presented certain papers, and gave an outline of his views. He proposed that the President of the Council and other Privy Councillors, not exceeding five, should form a Board, to consider in what manner the grants made by Parliament should be distributed, and he thought that the first object of such a Board should be the establishment of a good normal school for the education of teachers. Lord John said that he brought forward the plan not as a faultless scheme of education, but as that which, on consideration, he thought to be the most practical in the present state of the country. The new committee on the 3rd of June passed several resolutions, one of which was that in their opinion the most useful applications of any sums voted by Parliament would consist in the employment of those moneys in the establishment of a normal school, under the direction of the State, and not under the management of a voluntary society. They admitted, however, that they experienced so much difficulty in reconciling the conflicting views respecting the provisions they were desirous of making—in order that the children and teachers instructed in the school should be duly trained in the principles of the Christian religion, while the rights of conscience should be respected—that it was not in their power to mature a plan for the accomplishment of their design without further consideration. Meanwhile the committee recommended that no grant should thenceforth be made for the establishment or support of normal schools, or any other schools, unless the right of inspection were retained, in order to secure a conformity to the regulations and discipline established in the several schools, with such improvements as might from time to time be suggested by the committee. The day after the committee had adopted these resolutions Lord Ashley moved a call of the House for the 14th of June, when Lord John Russell, in seconding the motion, stated that Government did not intend to insist upon their proposal to found a normal school. This was a weak concession to the Church party, but it did not prevent Lord Stanley, the author of a similar measure for Ireland, from attacking the Bill with the full violence of his eloquence. The vote was to be increased to ￡30,000. The House, after a debate of three nights, divided, when the grant was voted by a majority of only two. On the 5th of July the subject of education was introduced to the notice of the Lords by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who defended the Church, and objected to the giving of Government grants in a manner calculated to promote religious dissent. He[464] was answered by the Marquis of Lansdowne. The Bishop of Exeter, the Bishop of London, and several other prelates addressed the House, and gave their views on this great question. The Archbishop of Canterbury had brought forward a series of resolutions embodying the Church views of the subject. These Lord Brougham vigorously opposed. The House divided on the previous question, when the first resolution, the only one put to the vote, was carried by a majority of 111. This resolution condemned the Order in Council, and in consequence of it the Lords went in a body to the Queen to offer their remonstrance against the proposed change in the mode of distributing the grant. The remaining resolutions were voted without a division. Nevertheless the Ministry succeeded in carrying a modified scheme, by which it was provided that the inspectors to be appointed by the Committee of the Privy Council should be chosen with the approval of the Bishops, and should present their reports to the bishop of their diocese as well as to the Committee of the Privy Council. Thus the Church practically monopolised the grant.Cope had landed his force at Dunbar on the very day that the prince entered Edinburgh. His disembarkation was not completed till the 18th. Lord Loudon had joined him at Inverness with two hundred men, and now he met the runaway dragoons, six hundred in number, so that his whole force amounted to two thousand two hundred men—some few hundreds less than the Highlanders. Sir John took the level road towards Edinburgh, marching out of Dunbar on the 19th of September. Next day Lord Loudon, who acted as adjutant-general, rode forward with a reconnoitring party, and soon came back at a smart trot to announce that the rebels were not approaching by the road and the open country to the west, but along the heights to the south. Sir John, therefore, altered his route, and pushed on to Prestonpans, where he formed his army in battle array. He placed his foot in the centre, with a regiment of dragoons and three pieces of artillery on each wing. His right was covered by Colonel Gardiner's park wall and the village of Preston; his left extended towards Seaton House, and in his rear lay the sea, with the villages of Prestonpans and Cockenzie. Between him and the Highlanders was a deep morass.

THREE:Still, Fox took the opportunity to sound the French Government as to the possibility of peace. In a correspondence with Talleyrand he said that Britain would be willing to treat on reasonable terms, the first condition of which was that the Emperor Alexander should be admitted to the treaty. This was at once refused; yet Fox did not give up the attempt, and at length the French Government proposed that a British ambassador should go to Paris, to endeavour to arrange the principles of an agreement. Fox complied. Before a British plenipotentiary was[518] permitted to proceed to Paris, the great points of the negotiation should have been brought forward, and it should have been seen whether there was a probability of agreeing. It should have been understood whether Buonaparte was disposed to surrender Naples again, which Britain demanded; to require the retirement of the Prussians from Hanover, even if nothing was said of Holland and Switzerland. To send a plenipotentiary without having ascertained these points was simply to enable Buonaparte to boast that he had sought to conciliate, and that British rapacity and ambition rendered all his overtures useless. This was exactly what occurred. Lord Yarmouth, late Marquis of Hertford, who had been residing for years in France as one of Buonaparte's détenus at the Peace of Amiens, was first sent. Lord Yarmouth arrived in Paris towards the end of May, and though it had been settled that the negotiations should, for the present, remain secret, the French had taken care to make every Court in Europe well acquainted with the fact. Then one of the very first demands—having got the ambassador there—was for the recognition, not only of Buonaparte as emperor, but also of all his family as princes and princesses of the blood. Next they came to the surrender of Naples, but Talleyrand assured Lord Yarmouth that the Emperor, so far from giving up Naples, or any part of Italy, must have Sicily, which was in possession of the British, because Joseph Buonaparte, now made King of Naples, declared that it could not be held without Sicily. France, Talleyrand said, would consent to Britain holding Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, which we had taken again, and would not only restore Hanover to us, but also allow us to seize on the Hanse Towns and Hamburg! We were in fact, to be permitted to set up for marauders, like themselves, and invade neutral States, and appropriate them; but, as for Naples or Sicily being restored, that was impossible. Lord Yarmouth also demanded that Dalmatia, Istria, and Albania should be restored, the last to the Turks, whose empire should regain its entirety. These points were equally resisted. Meanwhile, Prussia had taken the alarm about Hanover, and Russia, fearful of our treating without her, sent to Paris Count d'Oubril. Talleyrand managed to excite jealousies between the British and Russian envoys, to such a degree, that d'Oubril quitted Paris hastily, and returned to St. Petersburg. Instead of peace, the elements of new heartburnings and wars every day developed themselves. Finding that Lord Yarmouth did not succeed. Fox sent over the Earl of Lauderdale, but he got on no better. Buonaparte insisted that Sicily should be given up to Naples, and a little mock monarchy should be created for Ferdinand, the ex-king, in the Balearic Isles, which were to be taken unceremoniously from Spain. Lord Lauderdale, after a month's waste of words, demanded his passports, and returned; and Fox had now had ample proof that no peace was to be effected with Napoleon, except upon the terms of leaving the Continent to his dictation.Tillotson and South were the great authors of sermons of this period. Tillotson was one of the most popular preachers of the time, but may be said to have done more good by his liberal and amiable influence at the head of the Church than by his preaching. There is a solid and genuinely pious character about the sermons of Tillotson which suited the better-trained class of mind of his age, but which would now be deemed rather heavy. South has more life and a more popular style; he was therefore more attractive to the courtiers of his day than to the sober citizens, and he has larded his text with what were then deemed sprightly sallies and dashing phrases, but which are now felt as vulgarisms. Both divines, however, furnished succeeding preachers with much gleaning.

THREE:Caulaincourt, who had been sent by Buonaparte from Fontainebleau to the Allied sovereigns to treat on his behalf, returned, and informed Buonaparte of all these events. He declared that he would march on Paris; and the next day, the 4th of April, he reviewed his troops, and told them that some vile persons had insulted the tricolour cockade in Paris, and they would march there at[83] once and punish them. The soldiers shouted, "Paris, Paris!" but, after the review, the marshals produced the Moniteur, told him what had taken place, and that it was necessary that he should submit. He appeared greatly agitated, and asked them what they wished. Lefebvre said, bluntly, that he had been advised by his best friends to make peace in time, when he would have saved everything; there was nothing for it now but to abdicate. Napoleon then called for a pen, and abdicated in favour of his son. Caulaincourt and Ney were to carry this to the Allied sovereigns. They inquired what terms they should ask for himself. He replied—"None: I ask nothing." Yet, the moment the commissioners were gone, he started up and vowed that he would fight with Marmont's corps and the Guards, and would be in Paris on the morrow.HANDEL.

THREE:The Spanish Revolution had a marked effect on French politics. M. Thiers and his colleagues had been pressing for an effective intervention against Don Carlos; but they were unable to overcome the reluctance of the king to send a French army into Spain, even to sustain the régime which the king had recognised and approved. This was completely superseded by the changes that had just taken place. He should now interpose, not to protect the reigning dynasty against pretenders, but to take part in a war between Constitutionalists and Liberals of different shades. When, therefore, Louis Philippe was asked to send aid to the French legion of volunteers serving as auxiliaries in Spain, and to adopt other measures against the Carlists, as the only means of preventing the queen's Government from being carried away by the torrent of revolution, he positively refused. Lord Palmerston, influenced by the continued ill-success of the Spanish Legion, made overtures to[413] the same effect, but without result. Louis Philippe was, in fact, listening to the overtures of Metternich, and inclined to desert the British alliance.Another cause of the general uneasiness and[344] depression of the public mind was the appearance, in the autumn of this year, of the mysterious visitant, cholera morbus. This disease had been long known in India, but it was only of late years that it began to extend its ravages over the rest of the world. Within two years it had carried off nearly a million of people in Asia. It made its first appearance in England at Sunderland, on the 26th of October, 1831. Its name had come before, spreading terror in every direction. It appeared in Edinburgh on February 6th, 1832, at Rotherhithe and Limehouse on February 13th, and in Dublin on March 3rd, 1832. In all these places, and in many others, the mortality was very great. But it was still more severe on the Continent. We know now that cholera could have been in a great measure averted, and that its mystery lay in our ignorance. We know that it always fell most heavily on the inhabitants of towns, hamlets, or houses where deficient drainage and ventilation, accumulations of putrescent matters, intemperance, and want of personal cleanliness most prevailed. It selected for the scenes of its habitation and its triumphs the usual haunts of typhus fever; and it effected its greatest ravages in the neighbourhoods of rivers and marshes. In London it was most virulent on the level of the Thames, and lost its power in exact arithmetical ratio to the height of the districts above that level. If it attacked a town or an army, and the inhabitants or the soldiers decamped, and scattered themselves over the country, in the clear air and pure sunshine, they escaped. It was possible, therefore, to guard against its power by a proper system of drainage and sewage; by proper ventilation; by personal cleanliness, temperance, and regularity; by the abolition of nuisances, stagnant pools, and open ditches; and by wholesome regimen and regular exercise in the open air. As it was, a general fast was appointed and the Privy Council issued stringent regulations which were not of much effect.

THREE:Two British columns advancing by night—one by the shore road and the other over the hills—managed to capture the patrols and approach the outposts of the Americans. Washington having been all day engaged in strengthening his lines, had returned to New York. Putnam was posted on the left; and General Stirling was posted on the right on the seashore, near the part called the Narrows. On the hills Sullivan occupied one of the passes towards the left. The column on the British right, consisting of Hessians, under General Von Heister, seized on the village of Flat Bush, nearly opposite to Sullivan. At the same time, Sir Henry Clinton and Sir William Erskine reconnoitred Sullivan's position and the rest of the line of hills, and sent word to General Howe that it would not be difficult to turn Sullivan's position where the hills were low, near the village of Bedford. Howe immediately ordered Lord Percy to support Clinton with his brigades, in the direction of Bedford, and General Grant to endeavour to turn the position of General Stirling, whilst the Hessians were ready to attack Sullivan in front. At a signal, Howe himself marched along with one of the divisions. In order to draw the enemy's attention from the movements of General Clinton, Grant made a direct attack upon Stirling's position, which brought to his aid a great part of Sullivan's forces, thus deserting their own ground. Grant maintained his attack till daylight, by which time Clinton had, by a slight skirmish, crossed the line on his side. The attention from his march was diverted by Von Heister attacking Putnam's position on the direct way to Brooklyn, and Lord Howe, from his ships, opening a cannonade on Governor's Island and Red Hook, in the rear of that town. About eight o'clock came a fire from Clinton's column, which had now forced its way into the rear of Putnam and between the Americans and Brooklyn. On this discovery they endeavoured to make a way to their lines before that town, but were driven back by Clinton only to find themselves assailed in the rear by Von Heister. Thus hemmed in, they fled in confusion. This action in their rear alarmed both Sullivan and Stirling, yet they maintained their ground against Grant till they learned the total rout of their comrades opposed to Clinton and Heister, when they laid down their arms and ran for it. Knowing the ground better than the British, many of them managed to escape to Brooklyn; but one thousand and ninety-seven prisoners were taken, and from one thousand two hundred to one thousand five hundred Americans were killed or wounded. The English lost only about four hundred killed and wounded.Mother has sold her bed;