THREE:Parliament was prorogued on the 31st of May, 1826, and two days afterwards dissolved. It had nearly run its course. It was the sixth Session, which had been abridged with a view of getting through the general election at a convenient season. But though short, the Session had much work to show of one kind or another, including some useful legislation. The Parliamentary papers printed occupied twenty-nine folio volumes, exclusive of the journals and votes. The Parliament whose existence was now terminated had, indeed, effected the most important changes in the policy of Great Britain, foreign and domestic. Mr. Canning had severed the connection, unnatural as it was damaging, between England and the Holy Alliance. The Government of the freest country in the world, presenting almost the only example of a constitution in which the power of the people was represented, was no longer to be associated in the councils of a conclave of despots; and this change of direction in its foreign policy was cordially adopted by the House of Commons and by the nation. Another great and vital change in national policy was the partial admission of the principles of Free Trade, which the Tories regarded, not without reason, as effecting a complete revolution, which extended its influence to the whole legislation and government.Indeed, the perusal of the debates, in connection with the Royal Speech, threw the whole United Kingdom into a ferment of agitation. Public meetings were held to express indignation at the anti-Reform declaration of the Duke of Wellington. Petitions were presented, pamphlets were published, harangues were delivered, defiances were hurled from every part of the country. It was[323] in these circumstances that the king was invited to honour the City with his presence at the Lord Mayor's banquet, which was to be held on the 9th of November, the day on which the new Lord Mayor enters upon his office. It had been the custom for a new Sovereign to pay this compliment to the City, and William IV. was advised by his Ministers to accept the invitation. The Metropolitan Police force had been recently established. It was a vast improvement upon the old body of watchmen, in whose time thieves and vagabonds pursued their avocations with comparative impunity. The new force, as may be supposed, was the object of intense hatred to all the dangerous classes of society, who had organised a formidable demonstration against the police, and the Government by which the force was established, on Lord Mayor's Day. Inflammatory placards had been posted, and handbills circulated, of the most exciting and seditious character, of which the following is a specimen:"To arms! Liberty or death! London meets on Tuesday next an opportunity not to be lost for revenging the wrongs we have suffered so long. Come armed; be firm, and victory must be ours.... We assure you, from ocular demonstration, 6,000 cutlasses have been removed from the Tower for the immediate use of Peel's bloody gang. Remember the cursed Speech from the Thronethesepolice are to be armed. Englishmen! will you put up with this?" Appeals of this kind, and sinister rumours of all sorts, industriously circulated, created the greatest alarm throughout London. It was reported that a conspiracy of vast extent had been discoveredthat society was on the eve of a terrible convulsionthat the barricades would immediately be up in the Strand, and that there would be a bloody revolution in the streets. The inhabitants prepared as well as they could for self-defence. They put up iron blinds and shutters to their windows, got strong bolts to their doors, supplied themselves with arms, and resolutely waited for the attack. So great was the public consternation that the Funds fell three-and-a-half per cent. in two hours. This panic is not a matter of so much astonishment when we consider that the three days' fighting in the streets of Paris was fresh in the recollection of the people of London. The Lord Mayor Elect, Alderman Key, had received so many anonymous letters, warning him of confusion and riot if his Majesty's Ministers should appear in the procession, that he became alarmed, and wrote to the Duke of Wellington, pointing out the terrible consequences of a nocturnal attack by armed and organised desperadoes in such a crowded city as London. The Duke, thinking the danger not to be despised, advised the king to postpone his visit. Accordingly, a letter from Sir Robert Peel, as Home Secretary, appeared posted on the Exchange on the morning of the 9th. The multitude of sightseers, disappointed of their pageant, were excited beyond all precedent, and execrations against the Government were heard on every side. In fact, this incident, concerning which no blame whatever attached to the Ministers, exposed the Duke of Wellington and his colleagues to a hailstorm of popular fury. The two Houses of Parliament hastily met, in a state of anxiety, if not alarm. Unable to restrain their feelings until the arrival of Ministers to give explanations, they broke forth into vehement expressions of censure and regret. Lord Wellesley more justly described it as "the boldest act of cowardice of which he had ever heard."
19 August 2015, John Doe
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THREE:
THREE:In the galaxy of illustrious names that shed light upon this age, not the least conspicuous is that of Mary Somerville, who is known in British[431] science not only as the able commentator of Laplace's "Mcanique Cleste," but as the author of some ingenious experiments on the magnetising power of the violet ray, and on the permeability of different bodies to the chemical rays, similar to those of Melloni on the heating rays; and she found great and seemingly capricious variations in this respect. The beautiful invention of the stereoscope, one of the most interesting contributions made to the theory of vision, was the work of Mr. Wheatstone, who published an account of it in the "Philosophical Transactions" of 1838. In connection with experiments of this class should be mentioned the invention of the daguerreotype, or the production of permanent pictures on plated copper, in 1825, which was brought to perfection in 1839 by Daguerre, whose name it bears. About the same time Henry Fox Talbot applied himself to similar experiments, and invented the calotype, or the production of permanent pictures on paper; and by a subsequent invention he obtained what he justly called "an instantaneous process." The science of photography was, however, in its infancy.
THREE:Earl Grey had lived to witness the triumphant realisation of all the great objects for which throughout his public life he had contended, sometimes almost without hope. Catholic Emancipation had been yielded by his opponents as a tardy concession to the imperative demand of the nation. In the debates on that question in the House of Lords, Lord Grey was said to have excelled all others, and even himself. The long dormant question of Parliamentary Reform was quickened into life by the electric shock of the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Wellington, with equal honesty and rashness, affirmed that the existing system of representation enjoyed the full and entire confidence of the country. This declaration raised a storm before which he was compelled to retire, in order to make way for a statesman with keener eye and firmer hand, to hold the helm and steer the vessel in that perilous crisis of the nation's destiny. Throughout the whole of that trying time Earl Grey's wisdom, his steadfastness, the moral greatness of his character, and the responsibility of his position, made him the centre of universal interest, and won for him the respect and admiration of all parties in the nation. Baffled again and again in the struggle for Reform, undismayed by the most formidable opposition, not deterred or disheartened by repeated repulses, he renewed his attacks on the citadel of monopoly and corruption, till at last his efforts were crowned with victory. And well did he use the great power for good which the Reform Parliament put into his hands. The emancipation of the slaves, the reform of the Irish Church, and the abolition of the gigantic abuses of the Poor Law system, were among the legislative achievements which he effected. His foreign policy, in the able hands of Lord Palmerston, was in harmony with his own domestic policybold, just, moderate, true to the cause of freedom abroad, while vigilantly guarding the national honour of his own country. By his vigorous diplomacy he had saved Belgium from being overwhelmed by the Dutch, and at the same time kept her independent of France. A capable Sovereign had been provided for her in Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widowed husband of Charlotte of England. Finally, when the Dutch declined to give way to the remonstrances of the Western Powers, a joint Anglo-French expedition was dispatched, which compelled the citadel of Antwerp to capitulate on December 23rd, 1832. Nevertheless, such was the obstinacy of the Dutch that the question remained unsettled on the fall of the Grey Ministry. Lord Palmerston's foreign policy was equally noteworthy in other quarters of the globe. If he could do little for the revolution in Poland, he could at least preserve constitutionalism in the Peninsula, where it was threatened by Dom Miguel in Portugal, and, after the death of Ferdinand in 1833, by Don Carlos in Spain. On the 22nd of April, 1834, Palmerston, in concert with Talleyrand, now French Minister in London, drew up the Quadruple Treaty, by which the two Powers undertook to deliver the Peninsula from the Absolutist pretenders. Its effect for the time being was remarkable; they both fled from the country, and constitutionalism was restored.