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THREE:But fresh light continued to break on the all-pervading corruption. The Commissioners of Naval Inquiry presented a fresh report, abounding with proofs of the villainies that had been going on in that department. The Military Commissioners had a like frightful exposure to make of frauds and peculations which had been going on wholesale, especially in the West Indies. The same result followed the investigations of the committee that inquired into the appointment of cadets to the East India Service. There was abundance of proofs of the sale of such places, and even Lord Castlereagh was implicated. It was found that as President of the Board of Control��the Minister, in fact, for Indian Affairs��he had presented a writership to his friend, Lord Clancarty, which Clancarty had bartered with a Mr. Reding for a seat in Parliament, and which Reding immediately sold for three thousand pounds. Lord Archibald Hamilton immediately moved that Lord Castlereagh had been guilty of an abuse of his authority as President of the Board of Control. Castlereagh replied that, when he presented his friend, Lord Clancarty, with the writership, he had no notion that Reding was a regular broker in parliamentary seats, though he did not deny that Reding had told him that he meant to make over the place to a Member of Parliament who had a nephew whom he wished to send to India, and that this Member of Parliament would vote accordingly. The virtuous Wilberforce seemed to hold this easy-going morality, for he voted for Lord Castlereagh, and, in spite of the denunciations of Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. W. Smith, and others, Lord Archibald Hamilton's motion was rejected by two hundred and sixteen against a hundred and sixty-seven��and Lord Castlereagh walked away scathless. There was immediately another charge brought against him, in company with the Honourable Henry Wellesley, the brother of General Wellesley, and late Secretary of the Treasury, for corrupt practices in the election of members of Parliament; but the ministerial majority outvoted Mr. Madox, the mover. About the same time Mr. Curwen brought in a Bill to prevent such practices, and to obtain purity of Parliament by extinguishing bribery, and this was suffered to pass when all vitality had been taken out of it. On the 15th of June Sir Francis Burdett also made a motion for extensive parliamentary Reform; but the greater part of the members of Parliament had already left town, and the motion was rejected by seventy-four against fifteen. On the 21st the Session was closed with a speech which took a hopeful view of the war in Spain, and also of that which Austria had again commenced. We may now return to the details of these great contests on the Continent.

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THREE:Lord Auckland was then Governor-General of India, but the period of his tenure of office was drawing to a close. He hoped it would end brightly, that the war for the restoration of an imbecile and puppet king would have ended triumphantly, and that he would return to his native land bearing something of the reflected glory of the conquerors of Afghanistan. He had been cheered by the despatches of the too sanguine envoy in the month of October, who spoke only of the continued tranquillity of Cabul. November passed, however, without any intelligence, and all was anxiety and painful suspense. Intelligence at last came confirming the worst anticipations. Calcutta was astounded at the news that Afghanistan, believed to be prosperous and grateful for British intervention, was in arms against its deliverers. Suddenly the tranquillity of that doomed country was found to be a delusion. "Across the whole length and breadth of the land the history of that gigantic lie was written in characters of blood." Confounded and paralysed by the tidings of so great a failure, which he had not energy to retrieve, he thought only of abandoning the vicious policy of aggression that had ended so miserably, and given such a terrible blow to the prestige of British power in India, on which our dominion in the East so much depended. He had owed his appointment to the Whigs; and the Conservatives, who were now in office, had opposed the policy of the Government regarding the Afghan war. But no one seemed more sick of the policy of aggression than the Governor-General himself. He became thoroughly convinced of the folly of placing a detached force in a distant city which could be reached only through dangerous defiles occupied by an ever-watchful enemy, depending for supplies upon uncertain allies, and without any basis of operations. The expedition had proved enormously expensive, and had drained the Indian treasury of funds that should have been employed in developing the resources of our Indian possessions. When all this had ended in disastrous failure and national disgrace��when he recollected that the directors of the Company, as well as the Government, had expressed intense dissatisfaction at his policy, feeling conscious that their complaints were just, and that their worst forebodings had been realised, his spirit seems to have been completely broken; instead of any attempt at retrieving the[497] misfortunes of his Government, he thought only of saving, if possible, what remained of the forces that he had sent across the Indus. Writing to the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Jaspar Nicolls, who was then on a tour through the Upper Provinces of India, with reference to the sending forward of reinforcements, he said he did not see how the sending forward of a brigade could by any possibility have any influence on the events which it was supposed were then passing at Cabul, which they could not reach before April. In his opinion they were not to think of marching fresh armies to the reconquest of that which they were likely to lose. He feared that safety to the force at Cabul could only come from itself. The Commander-in-Chief himself had been always of opinion that the renewed efforts of the Government to support Shah Sujah on his throne, and to establish a permanent influence in Afghanistan, was a great mistake. However, owing to the energy of Mr. George Clarke, the Governor-General's agent on the north-west frontier, and his assistant, Captain, afterwards Sir, Henry Lawrence, forces were dispatched from that quarter, under the command of General Pollock, who had commanded the garrison of Agra, having been in the Indian service since 1803, and having distinguished himself under General Lake. This appointment gave the greatest satisfaction, as it was believed that he was selected solely for his merit, and not through aristocratic influence. While he was preparing to advance, Lord Auckland was recalled, and Lord Ellenborough, the new Governor-General, arrived at Calcutta.

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THREE:The sum of twenty millions was divided into nineteen shares, one for each of the colonies, proportioned to the number of its registered slaves, taken in connection with the market price of slaves in that colony, on an average of eight years, ending with 1830. But no money was payable in any colony until it should have been declared by an Order in Council that satisfactory provision had been made by law in such colony for giving effect to the Emancipation Act. Two of them were so perverse as to decline for several years to qualify for the reception of the money; but others acted in a different spirit. Believing that the system of apprenticeship was impolitic, they declined to take advantage of it, and manumitted their slaves at once. Antigua was the first to adopt this wise course. Its slaves were all promptly emancipated, and their conduct fully justified the policy; for on Christmas Day, 1834, for the first time during thirty years, martial law was not proclaimed in that island. Thus, the effect of liberty was peace, quietness, and confidence. Bermuda followed this good example, as did also the smaller islands, and afterwards the large island of Barbadoes; and their emancipation was hailed by the negroes with religious services, followed by festive gatherings. Jamaica, and some other islands, endeavoured to thwart the operation of the new law, as far as possible, and took every advantage in making the apprentices miserable, and wreaking upon them their spite and malice. They met with harsher treatment than ever, being in many instances either savagely ill-used or inhumanly neglected. Considering their provocations, it was generally admitted that they behaved on the whole very well, enduring with patience and resignation the afflictions which they knew must come to an end in a few years. The total number of slaves converted into apprentices on the 1st of August, 1834, was 800,000. The apprenticeship did not last beyond the shorter time prescribed, and on the 1st of August, 1838, there was not a slave in existence under the British Crown, save only in the island of Mauritius, which was soon required by instructions from the Home Government to carry the Act into effect."But perhaps it might be possible to get a Bill passed to disfranchise the Irish forty-shilling freeholders��a class of voters who, as they had been created for acknowledged purposes of corruption in the Irish Parliament, would have nobody to stand up for them in high places, now that they refused to play their patrons' game. This was quite as improbable an issue as the other. The disfranchisement of forty-shilling freeholders had, indeed, been talked of in former years; but, if effected at all, it was to be in connection with a measure of Catholic Emancipation. To propose it now for the avowed purpose of rendering Catholic Emancipation impossible would be to insure the rejection of the Bill. That plan, therefore, fell at once to the ground; and there remained but two others.

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THREE:In Parliament, business was brought almost to a stand by the neutralising influences of the partisans of "All the Talents." Excepting on one or two points, no great majority could be obtained on any question. There was an attempt to censure the introduction of Lord Ellenborough, as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, into the Cabinet. It was contended that it was contrary to the principle, if not the letter, of the Constitution; that, besides a judge having enough to do on the Bench, he would have to sit as a judge on such appeals to the Privy Council which might be made thither against his own decisions; that, moreover, Lord Ellenborough had suddenly changed the whole principles of his life for the sake of advancement, and in the practice of his court had, by the most rude and insolent language, never hesitated to carry causes in favour of the Government and against the popular liberties. On the part of Government it was argued that, both in Queen Anne's reign and in that of George II., the Chief Justices had had a place in the Cabinet; and the subject was evaded by carrying the previous question.In Ireland the effervescence assumed the shape of resistance to commercial injustice. It was, indeed, impossible to condemn too strongly the injustice which that country had endured for ages, and in nothing more than in the flagrant restrictions heaped upon its commerce and manufactures in favour of English interests. The Irish now seized on the opportunity while America was waging war against the very same treatment to imitate the American policy. They formed associations in Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, and other[259] places, for the non-importation of British goods which could be manufactured in Ireland, till England and Ireland were placed on an equal footing in all that related to manufactures and commerce. Ministers, who had turned a deaf ear for years, and almost for ages, to such complaints, were now alarmed, especially as there was a rumour of French invasion, which might be so materially aided by disaffection in Ireland. They therefore made a pecuniary grant to relieve the commercial distress in Ireland, and passed two Acts for the encouragement of the growth of tobacco and hemp, and the manufacture of linen in that island. These concessions, however, were not deemed sufficient, and the people formed themselves into Volunteer Associations, appointing their own officers, and defraying the cost of their own equipments. This was done under the plea of the danger of invasion; but Government knew very well that American agents had been very busy sowing discontent in Ireland, and they saw too much resemblance in these things to the proceedings on the other side of the Atlantic not to view them with alarm. The Marquis of Rockingham, who had been well instructed in the real grievances of Ireland by Burke, moved in the House of Lords, on the 11th of May, for the production of all papers necessary to enable the House to come to a full understanding of the trade of Ireland and of mercantile restrictions on it with a view to doing impartial justice to that kingdom. Lord Gower promised that these should be ready for production next Session.

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