ONE:On the 18th of January, 1815, commenced the final retreat of the British to their ships. They were allowed to march away without molestation, taking all their guns and stores with them, except ten old ship guns of no value, which they rendered useless before they abandoned them. Andrew Jackson, afterwards President of the United States, commanded in this defence of New Orleans, and loud were the boastings of his prowess all over the States, when, in fact, he had not risked a man. His merit was to have shown what excellent shots his countrymen were, and how careful they were to keep out of the reach of shot themselves. So far as the British were concerned, they had shown not only their unparalleled bravery, but also, as on many such occasions, their great want of prudence. This sacrifice of life would have been spared by a single and much more effectual blockade, and the most lamentable part of the business was, that all the time peace had been made, though the news of it had not reached them.
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ONE:But the loss of the Allies had also been perfectly awful. The Prussians, besides the great slaughter at Ligny, had been engaged in a bloody struggle at Planchenoit, and the British and their Allies had lost in the battle of Waterloo two thousand four hundred and thirty-two killed, and nine thousand five hundred and twenty-eight wounded; these, added to the numbers killed and wounded at Quatre Bras, raised the total to fifteen thousand. Of British and Hanoverian officers alone six hundred were killed or wounded at Waterloo. The Duke of Brunswick fell at the head of his troops at Quatre Bras, without having the satisfaction of witnessing the final ruin of Buonaparte. So many of Wellington's staff were disabled that he had at one time no officer to dispatch with a pressing order. A young Piedmontese, of the family of De Salis, offered himself. "Were you ever in a battle before?" asked the Duke. "No, sir," he replied. "Then," said the Duke, "you are a lucky man, for you will never see such another." When the Duke, who had witnessed so many bloody battles, saw the carnage of Waterloo, and heard, one after another, the losses of so many companions in arms, he was quite overcome. In his despatches he says: "I cannot express the regret and sorrow with which I look round me, and contemplate the losses that we have sustained." And again, "The losses I have sustained have quite broken me down, and I have no feeling for the advantages we have gained."In pursuance of this resolution, Lord John Russell, soon after the meeting of Parliament in 1851, introduced his Jewish Emancipation Bill once more. The usual arguments were reiterated on both sides, and the second reading was carried by the reduced majority of 25. In the House of Lords the second reading was moved by the Lord Chancellor, on the 17th of July, when it was thrown out by a majority of 36. In the meantime Alderman Salomons had been returned as member for Greenwich, and, following the example of Baron Rothschild, he appeared at the bar, and offered to take the oath on the Old Testament, omitting the phrase, "on the true faith of a Christian." The Speaker then desired him to withdraw; but he took a seat, notwithstanding. The order of the Speaker was repeated in a more peremptory tone, and the honourable member retired to a bench behind the bar. The question of his right to sit was then debated. Sir Benjamin Hall asked the Ministers whether they were disposed to prosecute Mr. Salomons, if he persisted in taking his seat, in order to test his legal right. Lord John Russell having answered in the negative, Mr. Salomons entered the House, amidst loud cries of "Order!" "Chair!" the Speaker's imperative command, "Withdraw!" ringing above all. The Speaker then appealed to the House to enforce his order. Lord John Russell then moved a resolution that Mr. Salomons should withdraw. Mr. Bernal Osborne moved an amendment. The House became a scene of confusion; and in the midst of a storm of angry cries and counter-cries, Mr. Anstey moved the adjournment of the debate. The House divided and Mr. Salomons voted with the minority. The House again divided on Mr. Bernal Osborne's amendment, that the honourable gentleman was entitled to take his seat, which was negatived by 229 against 81. In defiance of this decision, Mr. Salomons again entered and took his seat. He then addressed the House, stating that it was far from his desire to do anything that might appear contumacious or presumptuous. Returned by a large constituency, he appeared in defence of their rights and privileges as well as his own; but whatever might be the decision of the House, he would not abide by it, unless there was just sufficient force used to make him feel that he was acting under coercion. Lord John Russell called upon the House to support the authority of the Speaker and its own dignity. Two divisions followedone on a motion for adjourning the debate, and another on the right of Mr. Salomons to sit, in both of which he voted. The latter was carried by a large majority; when the Speaker renewed his order to withdraw, and the honourable gentleman not complying, the Serjeant-at-Arms touched him lightly on the shoulder, and led him below the bar. Another long debate ensued on the legal question; and the House divided on two motions, which had no result. The discussion of the question was adjourned to the 28th of July, when petitions from London and Greenwich, demanding the admission of their excluded representatives, came under consideration. The Speaker announced that he had received a letter from Alderman Salomons, stating that several notices of actions for penalties had been served upon him in consequence of his having[604] sat and voted in the House. A motion that the petitioners should be heard at the bar of the House was rejected; and Lord John Russell's resolution, denying the right of Mr. Salomons to sit without taking the oath in the usual form, was carried by a majority of 55. And so the vexed question was placed in abeyance for another year so far as Parliament was concerned. But an action was brought in the Court of Exchequer, against Alderman Salomons, to recover the penalty of 500, for sitting and voting without taking the oath. The question was elaborately argued by the ablest counsel. Judgment was given for the plaintiff. There was an appeal from this judgment, by a writ of error, when the Lord Chief Justice Campbell, with Justices Coleridge, Cresswell, Wightman, Williams, and Crompton, heard the case again argued at great length. The Court unanimously decided that the words, "on the true faith of a Christian," formed an essential part of the oath; and that, according to the existing law, the Jews were excluded from sitting in either House of Parliament. This judgment was given in the sittings after Hilary Term, in 1852.
FORE:INVASION OF CANADA: RED MEN ON THE WAR PATH. (See p. 35.)
FORE:[438]
FORE:Before the conclusion of the reign of George II. a new school of fiction had appeared. De Foe had, besides his "Robinson Crusoe," opened up the inexhaustible field of incident and character existing in actual life in his "Colonel Jack," "Moll Flanders," "Roxana," and other novels, and Fielding and Richardson extended it. Fielding, too, died six years before the beginning of this reign, and Richardson in the first year of it. But their works were in full circulation, and extended their influence far into this period. They have, therefore, been left to be noticed here in connection with the class of writers to whom they gave origin, and to whom they properly belong. Richardson (b. 1689; d. 1761) seems to have originated the true novel of real life in his "Pamela," which was the history of a servant, written with that verisimilitude that belongs to biography. This was commenced in 1740, and brought to a conclusion in 1741. The extra-ordinary sensation which it created was sufficient proof that the author had struck into the very heart of nature, and not only knew where the seat of human passion lay, but had the highest command over it. It was not, in fact, from books and education, but from native insight and acute observation, that he drew his power. He was born in Derbyshire, and received his education at a common day-school. He was then apprenticed as a printer in London, and established himself as a master in that business, which he continued to pursue with great success. His "Pamela" ran through five editions in the first year. In 1748[172] appeared his "Clarissa Harlowe," and wonderfully extended his reputation, which reached its full blaze in his "Sir Charles Grandison," in 1754. In all these works he showed himself a perfect analyst of the human heart, and detector of the greatest niceties of character. Though he could have known little or nothing of aristocratic life, yet, trusting to the sure guidance of nature, he drew ladies and gentlemen, and made them act and converse as the first ladies and gentlemen of the age would have been proud to act and speak. A more finished gentleman than Sir Charles Grandison, or correcter lady than Miss Byron, was never delineated. The only thing was, that, not being deeply versed in the debaucheries and vulgarisms of the so-called high life of the time, he drew it as much purer and better than it was. It is in the pages of Fielding and Smollett that we must seek for the darker and more real character of the age. The fault of Richardson was his prolixity. He develops his plot, and draws all his characters, and works out his narrative with the minutest strokes. It is this which prevents him from being read now. Who could wade through a novel of nine volumes? Yet these were devoured by the readers of that time with an avidity that not even the novels of Sir Walter Scott were waited for in the height of his popularity.The Reformers made repeated and strenuous efforts to obtain a parliamentary expression of the desirableness of this country refraining from interfering with the internal affairs of France, and of making specific arrangements with that country. Earl Stanhope made such a motion in the Lords[441] on the 6th of January, and the Duke of Bedford made a similar one on the 27th of February. Lord Grey had moved the same thing on the day before, but all these endeavours were rendered abortive by Pitt's standing majority. It was replied that France had no government that could be treated with, and Lord Mansfield asserted that we had a right to interfere in the internal affairs of any country that acted on principles dangerous to its neighbour. Fox, on the 24th of March, moved for a committee of the whole House to inquire into the state of the nation, but this was rejected on the ground that the times were too critical, and Canning adduced the condition of Ireland, just on the verge of rebellion, as a sufficient cause for not ascertaining our actual state.
FORE:
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