ONE:Melbourne returned to town that evening, the bearer of a letter to the Duke. He communicated the state of affairs to Brougham under pledge of secrecy, but the Lord Chancellor promptly went to the Times and gave the editor a report of the circumstances, with the malicious addition"The queen has done it all." The king, furious at the insult, came up to town, and dismissed his Ministers before their successors were appointed. Meanwhile, the Duke went to Brighton on Sunday, and advised the king to send for Sir Robert Peel, who was then in Italy. A messenger was immediately despatched, who in ten days arrived at Rome, and surprised Sir Robert Peel with the announcement of the king's wish that he should return to England forthwith. Next morning the right honourable baronet started for home, and arrived in London on the 9th of December. The Duke of Wellington details the circumstances of this Ministerial crisis in a letter to the Duke of Buckingham. According to his account, the death of the Earl Spencer, which removed Lord Althorp from the House of Commons, from the management of the Government business in that assembly, and from the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, occasioned the greatest difficulty and embarrassment. His personal influence and weight in the House of Commons were the main foundation of the strength of the late Government; and upon his removal it was necessary for the king and his Ministers to consider whether fresh arrangements should be made to enable his Majesty's late servants to conduct the affairs of the country, or whether it was advisable for his Majesty to adopt any other course. The arrangements in contemplation must have reference, not only to men, but to measures, to some of which the king felt the strongest objection. He had also strong objections to some of the members of the Cabinet. The Duke was therefore requested to form an Administration, but he earnestly recommended Sir Robert Peel as the fittest man for the office of Prime Minister. In the meanwhile he offered to hold the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Home Secretary until Sir Robert Peel's return, Lord Lyndhurst holding the Great Seals temporarily, subject, with all the other arrangements, to Sir Robert Peel's approbation. On the 21st Lord Lyndhurst was gazetted as Lord Chancellor, holding in the interim his office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, which Lord Brougham, dreading the prospect of idleness, offered to fill without salary, thus saving the country 12,000 a year, an offer which exposed him to censure from his own party, and which he afterwards withdrew.
It Is very likely that your best photograph has not yet been captured
- imperdiet doming
THREE:It would seem that the law officers of the Crown despaired of proceeding in the old way, but they, or the Ministers themselves, hit on a new and more daring one. On the 27th of March the Secretary of State addressed a circular letter to the lords-lieutenant of counties, informing them that the Law Officers were of opinion that a justice of the peace may issue warrants to apprehend persons charged with the publication of political libels, and compel them to give bail; and he required the lords-lieutenant to communicate this opinion to the ensuing Quarter Sessions, that all magistrates might act upon it. This was the most daring attack on the liberty of the subject which had been made in England since the days of the Stuarts. Lord Grey, on the 12th of May, made a most zealous and able speech in the House of Lords against this proceeding, denouncing the investment of justices of the peace with the power to decide beforehand questions which might puzzle the acutest juries, and to arrest and imprison for what might turn out to be no offence at all. He said:"If such be the power of the magistrate, and if this be the law, where, I ask, are all the boasted securities of our independence and freedom?" But it appears from the correspondence of Lord Sidmouth, that he was at this moment glorying in this expedient and triumphing in its imagined success. He said the charge of having put such power into the hands of magistrates, he would do his best and most constant endeavour to deserve; and that already the activity of the dealers in libellous matter was much diminished. He had, in truth, struck a deadly terror to the hearts of the stoutest patriots, who saw no prospect but ruin and incarceration if they dared to speak the truth. Cobbett then fled, and got over to America. In taking leave of his readers, in his Register of March 28th, he gave his reasons for escaping from the storm:"Lord Sidmouth was 'sorry to say' that I had not written anything that the Law Officers could prosecute with any chance of success. I do not remove," he continued, "for the purpose of writing libels, but for the purpose of being able to write what is not libellous. I do not retire from the combat with the Attorney-General, but from a combat with a dungeon, deprived of pen, ink, and paper. A combat with the Attorney-General is quite unequal enough; that, however, I would have encountered. I know too well what a trial by special jury is; yet that, or any sort of trial, I would stand to face. So that I could be sure of a trial of whatever sort, I would have run the risk; but against the absolute power of imprisonment, without even a hearing, for time unlimited, in any gaol in the kingdom, without the use of pen, ink, and paper, and without communication with any soul but the keepersagainst such a power it would have been worse than madness to attempt to strive."[See larger version]
THREE:General Cartaux arrived and took up his position in the villages around Toulon. He was reinforced by General Doppet, from the Rhone, and General Dugommier, from the Var; and the latter had in his corps-d'arme a young lieutenant of artillery, who contained in his yet unknown person the very genius of warnamely, Napoleon Buonaparte. Cartaux was a man who had risen from the ranks; Doppet had been a physician in Savoy; and Dugommier was acting on a plan sent from the Convention. Buonaparte suggested what he thought a much superior plan. "All you need," he said, "is to send away the English; and to do that, you have only to sweep the harbour and the roadstead with your batteries. Drive away the[423] ships, and the troops will not remain. Take the promontory of La Grasse, which commands both the inner and outer harbour, and Toulon will be yours in a couple of days." On this promontory stood two forts, Equilette and Balaquier, which had been much strengthened by the English. It was resolved to assault these forts, and batteries opposite to them were erected by the French under Buonaparte's direction. After much desperate fighting, vast numbers of troops being pressed against the forts, that of Balaquier was taken. This gave the French such command of the inner harbour, that Lord Hood called a council of war, and showed the necessity of retiring with the fleet, and thus enabling the Royalists to escape, who would otherwise be exterminated by their merciless countrymen. This was agreed to, and it was resolved to maintain the different forts till the ships had cleared out. The Neapolitans behaved very ill, showing no regard for anything but their own safety. They held two fortsone at Cape Lebrun, and the other at Cape Lesset; these, they said, they would surrender as soon as the enemy approached. They made haste to get their ships and men out of harbour, leaving all else to take care of themselves. The Spaniards and Piedmontese behaved in a much nobler manner. They assisted willingly all day in getting on board the Royalistsmen, women, and children. All night the troops began to defile through a narrow sallyport to the boats under the guns of the fort La Malaga. This was happily effected; and then Sir Sidney Smith, who had recently arrived at Toulon, and had volunteered the perilous office of blowing up the powder-magazines, stores, arsenals, and the ships that could not be removed, began his operations. He succeeded in setting fire to the stores and about forty ships of war that were in the harbour.The report was agreed to, the impeachment was voted, and Burke, attended by the majority of the House, on the 10th of May, carried it up to the Lords. On the motion of Burke, Warren Hastings was then taken into custody, and delivered over to the Lords, who bound him to appear to take his trial, when called upon, in a bond of twenty thousand pounds himself, and Messrs. Sullivan and Sumner as his sureties in ten thousand pounds each.
THREE:The officers who had served under Prevost had too long withheld their remonstrances, expecting that the British Government would see plainly enough the wretched incompetence of the man. But now Sir James Yeo made a formal and plain-spoken charge against him, and especially for his wicked abandonment of Captain Downie and his squadron to destruction. He was recalled; but it was too late: a natural death had, in the meantime, rescued him from that punishment which he so richly deserved. It could not, however, rescue him from the disgrace which must hang on his memory so long as the history of these transactions remains.
