Chapter XIX: THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued) (2)

Having put Prussia under his feet, Buonaparte proceeded to settle the fate of her allies, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. Saxony, which had been forced into hostilities against France by Prussia, was at once admitted by Buonaparte to his alliance. He raised the prince to the dignity of king, and introduced him as a member of the Confederacy of the Rhine. The small states of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Gotha were admitted to his alliance on the same terms of vassalage; but Hesse-Cassel was wanted to make part of the new kingdom of Westphalia, and, though it had not taken up arms at all, Buonaparte declared that it had been secretly hostile to France, and that the house of Hesse-Cassel had ceased to reign. Louis Buonaparte had seized it, made it over to the keeping of General Mortier, and then marched back to Holland. Mortier then proceeded to re-occupy Hanover, which he did in the middle of November, and then marched to Hamburg. He was in hopes of seizing a large quantity of British goods, as he had done at Leipzic, but in this he was disappointed, for the Hamburg merchants, being warned by the fate of Leipzic, had made haste, disposed of all their British articles, and ordered no fresh ones. Buonaparte, in his vexation, ordered Mortier to seize the money in the banks; but Bourrienne wrote to him, showing him the folly of such a step, and he refrained.

But his great measure, at this period, was the blow aimed at the commerce of Britain, and comprised in his celebrated Berlin Decrees, promulgated on the 21st of November. He had subjugated nearly the whole of the European Continent. Spain, Portugal, Italy to the south of France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Prussia to the north, with nearly the whole seaboard of Europe, were under his hand and his armies. He had found that he could not invade England; her fleet had risen triumphant, his own fleet had disappeared like a vapour at Trafalgar. As, therefore, he could not reach her soil, he determined to destroy her by destroying her commerce, on which he imagined not merely her prosperity but her very existence depended. As he was master of nearly all Continental Europe, he supposed it as easy for him to exclude by his fiat the merchandise of Britain, as to put down old dynasties and set up new ones. He had yet to learn that commerce has a conquering power greater than that either of martial genius or of arms.

These were his first decrees:--I. The British Isles were declared in a state of blockade. II. All commerce and correspondence with Britain was forbidden. All British letters were to be seized in the post-houses. III. Every Englishman, of whatever rank or quality, found in France, or the countries allied with her, was declared a prisoner of war. IV. All merchandise or property of any kind belonging to British subjects was declared lawful prize. V. All articles of British manufacture, and articles produced in her colonies, were, in like manner, declared contraband and lawful prize. VI. Half of the produce of the above confiscations was to be employed in the relief of those merchants whose vessels had been captured by British cruisers. VII. All vessels coming from Britain or British colonies were to be refused admission into any harbour in or connected with France. These decrees were to be binding wherever French power extended, but they had no effect in checking the commerce of Britain; the distress to Continental merchants, however, and the exasperation of the people deprived of British manufactures, grew immediately acute. Bourrienne says that the fiscal tyranny thus created became intolerable. At the same time, the desire of revenue induced Buonaparte to allow his decrees to be infringed by the payment of exorbitant licences for the import of British goods. French goods, also, were lauded with incredible impudence, though they were bought only to be thrown into the sea. Hamburg, Bordeaux, Nantes, and other Continental ports solicited, by petitions and deputations, some relaxation of the system, to prevent universal ruin. They declared that general bankruptcy must ensue if it were continued. "Be it so," replied Buonaparte, arrogantly; "the more insolvency on the Continent, the more ruin in England." As they could not bend Buonaparte, merchants, douaniers, magistrates, prefects, generals, all combined in one system of fraudulent papers, bills of lading or certificates, by which British goods were admitted and circulated under other names for sufficient bribes. The only mischief which his embargo did was to the nations of the Continent, especially Holland, Belgium, Germany, and to himself; for his rigour in this respect was one of the things which drove the whole of Europe to abominate his tyranny, and rejoice in his eventual fall.

_Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._

CRIPPLED BUT UNCONQUERED, 1805.

FROM THE PICTURE BY W. L. WYLLIE, R.A.

BREAKING INTO THE MIDST OF THE ENEMY'S LINES, THE "BELLEISLE"
WAS SURROUNDED ON ALL SIDES.... RAKED FORE AND AFT AND THUNDERED
AT FROM ALL QUARTERS, EVERY MAST AND SPAR OF THE GALLANT
"SEVENTY-FOUR" WAS SHOT AWAY, HER HULL KNOCKED ALMOST TO PIECES,
AND THE DECKS CUMBERED WITH DEAD AND DYING. STILL THE UNEQUAL
FIGHT WENT ON, TILL AT LAST THE "SWIFTSURE," BURSTING THROUGH THE
MÊLÉE, PASSED CLOSE UNDER THE STERN OF THE BATTERED WRECK, GIVING
THREE HEARTY CHEERS WHEN A UNION JACK WAS WAVED FROM A PIKE TO SHOW
THAT, THOUGH CRIPPLED THE "BELLEISLE" WAS STILL UNCONQUERED.--_An
Incident at Trafalgar._
]

The Emperor of Russia was now fast advancing towards the Vistula in support of Prussia, and the contest appeared likely to take place in Poland; and Buonaparte, with his usual hollow adroitness, held out delusive hopes to the Poles of his restoring their unity and independence, in order to call them into universal action against Russia and Prussia. Amongst the most distinguished of these was the General Dombrowski. Buonaparte sent for him to headquarters, and employed him to raise regiments of his countrymen. By such lures he obtained a considerable number of such men; but his grand scheme was to obtain the presence and the sanction of the great and popular patriot, Kosciusko. If he were to appear and call to arms, all Poland would believe in its destinies, and rise. Kosciusko was living in honourable poverty near Fontainebleau, and Buonaparte had made many attempts to engage him in his service, as he had done Dombrowski; but Kosciusko saw too thoroughly the character of the man. He pleaded the state of his wounds and of his health as incapacitating him for the fatigues of war, but he privately made no secret amongst his friends that he regarded Napoleon as a mere selfish conqueror, who would only use Poland as a tool to enslave other nations, never to enfranchise herself. In vain did Buonaparte now urge him to come forward and fight for his country; he steadfastly declined; but Buonaparte resolved to have the influence of his name, by means true or false. He sent him a proclamation to the Poles, requesting him to put his name to it. The patriot refused, at the risk of being driven from France; but Buonaparte, without ceremony, fixed his name to the address, and published it on the 1st of November. It declared that Kosciusko was coming himself to lead his countrymen to freedom. The effect was instantaneous; all Poland was on fire, and, before the cheat could be discovered, Dombrowski had organised four good Polish regiments.

Napoleon now called up his auxiliary forces from Saxony, Würtemberg, Bavaria, and from all the Confederation of the Rhine, as well as new battalions from France, and advanced against the Russians. In the first place, the French, who had completed the subjugation of the Prussian states east of the Oder, pushed forward towards Poland, to attack the Russian general, Benningsen, who advanced to Warsaw, and occupied it in conjunction with the Prussians. Benningsen, however, finding the Prussians few and dispirited, fell back beyond the Vistula, and Murat, at the head of the French vanguard, entered Warsaw on the 28th of November. He was soon after joined there by Buonaparte, and Warsaw being put into a state of defence, the French army advanced to the Vistula and the Bug, in spite of the lateness of the season. Benningsen again retreated behind the Wkra, where he united his forces with those of Generals Buxhowden and Kaminskoi. Kaminskoi took the supreme command. When Napoleon arrived at the Wkra on the 23rd of December, he formed his army into three divisions, and forced the passages of the river. Kaminskoi fell back behind the Niemen, and the French pursued him, committing some injury on him. This trifling advantage Napoleon converted, in his bulletins to Paris, into the rout and general defeat of the Russians. It was true that the Russians were destitute of stores, having applied to Britain for money, and obtained only eighty thousand pounds. They fought, therefore, under great disadvantages, against an army furnished with everything. Notwithstanding, Benningsen, who was by far the most vigorous of their generals--for Kaminskoi was fast falling into lunacy--posted himself strongly behind Pultusk, his right led by Barclay de Tolly, and his left by Ostermann. Kaminskoi ordered Benningsen to retreat, but he refused, and stood his ground. At first Tolly was driven back by Lannes and Davoust, but Benningsen converted this disadvantage into a _ruse_, ordering Tolly to continue his retreat, till the French were drawn on, so that he could bring down his left wing on them. This he did with such effect that he killed and wounded nearly eight thousand of them, having, however, himself five thousand killed and wounded. Lannes and five other generals were amongst the wounded. The French seized the opportunity of darkness to retreat with such speed, that the next morning not a trace of them could be seen near Pultusk. Prince Galitzin fought another division of the French the same day at Golynim, and with the same success. Had Benningsen had the chief command, and brought down the whole united Russian army on Napoleon, the victory must have been most decisive; as it was, it taught the French that they had different troops to Prussians or Austrians to contend with. They drew off, and went into winter quarters at Warsaw and the towns to the eastward. The chief command of the Russian army was now conferred on Benningsen, and so far from Buonaparte having, as he boasted, brought the war to a close with the year, we shall find Benningsen, at the head of ninety thousand men, soon forcing him into a winter campaign.

On the 13th of September Charles James Fox died at Chiswick House, the residence of the Duke of Devonshire. He had been for a considerable time suffering from dropsy, and had got as far as Chiswick, in the hope of gathering strength enough to reach St. Anne's Hill, near Chertsey, his own house. But his days were numbered. He was only fifty-eight years of age. During his illness his colleagues and so-called friends, with that strange coldness and selfishness which always distinguished the Whigs, with very few exceptions, never went near him. Those honourable exceptions were the Duke of Devonshire, who had offered him his house, the Prince of Wales, his nephew, Lord Holland, his niece, Miss Fox, and his old friend, General Fitzpatrick. Still, Fox was not deserted by humbler and less known friends. Lords Grenville and Howick, his colleagues, rarely went near him, and all the Ministry were too busy anticipating and preparing for the changes which his decease must make. When this event took place there was a great shifting about, but only one new member of the Cabinet was admitted, Lord Holland, and only one resigned, the Earl Fitzwilliam. Lord Howick took Fox's department, that of Foreign Affairs; Lord Holland became Privy Seal; Grenville, First Lord of the Admiralty; and Tierney, President of the Board of Control. Sidmouth, afterwards so prominent in Tory Cabinets, still sat in this medley one as President of the Council, and Lord Minto was gratified by the Governor-Generalship of India. As Parliament was not sitting at the time of Fox's death, Ministers ordered his interment in Westminster Abbey, and he was carried thither on the 10th of October, the twenty-sixth anniversary of his election for Westminster, and laid almost close to the monument of Chatham, and within a few inches of the grave of his old rival, Pitt.

Parliament was suddenly dissolved by the All the Talents Ministry, in the hope of acquiring a better majority, but this hope was not brilliantly realised. The new Parliament assembled on the 19th of December, and, as all now saw that war must go on, both Houses prepared themselves for large votes of supply. According to Windham's statement, we had 125,631 regulars in the army, of whom 79,158 were employed in defending our West India Islands, 25,000 in India, and upwards of 21,000 foreigners in our pay. Besides this, for home defence we had 94,000 militia and fencibles, and 200,000 volunteers; so that altogether we had 419,000 men under arms. It was, therefore, contended, and with reason, that as we had so deeply engaged ourselves in fighting for our Allies on the Continent, with such a force we might have sent 20,000, with good effect, to unite with Alexander of Russia against Buonaparte, and not have let him be repulsed for want of both men and money. This, indeed, was the disgrace of All the Talents, that they put the country to the expense of an enormous war establishment, and did no real service with it. The supplies, however, were freely voted. There were granted, for the navy, £17,400,337; for the regular army, £11,305,387; for militia, fencibles, volunteers, etc., £4,203,327; ordnance, £3,321,216. The number of sailors, including 32,000 marines, was fixed at 130,000.

The manner in which a great deal of these vast sums, so freely voted, was spent, was, at this very moment, staring the public most fully in the face, through the military inquiry set on foot under the administration of Pitt, and continued under the present Ministry. It appeared that one Davison, being made Treasurer of the Ordnance by Pitt, had been in the habit of drawing large sums from the Treasury long before they were wanted, and had generally from three million to four million pounds of the national funds in his hands to trade with, of which the country lost the interest! Nor was this all: there had been an understanding between himself, Delauny, the Barrackmaster-General, and Greenwood, the army agent. All these gentlemen helped themselves largely to the public money, and their accounts were full of misstatements and overcharges. Those of Delauny were yet only partly gone through, but there was a charge of ninety thousand pounds already against him for fraudulent entries and impositions. As for Davison, there was found to be an arrangement between him and Delauny, by which, as a contractor, he was to receive of Delauny two-and-a-half per cent. on beds, sheets, blankets, towels, candles, beer, forage, etc., which he furnished for barrack use. Besides this, he was to supply the coals as a merchant. Having always several millions of the country's money in hand, he bought up the articles, got his profit, and then his commission, without any outlay of his own. Lord Archibald Hamilton gave notice of a motion for the prosecution of Davison at common law, but Ministers said they had put the matter into the proper hands, and that Davison had been summoned to deliver up all his accounts that they might be examined, and measures taken to recover any amount due by him to the Treasury. But Lord Henry Petty talked as though it was not certain that there were sufficient proofs of his guilt to convict him. The Attorney-General, however, was ordered to prosecute in the Court of King's Bench, but the decision did not take place till April, 1809, more than two years afterwards, and then only the miserable sum of eighteen thousand one hundred and eighty-three pounds had been recovered, and Davison was condemned to twenty-one months' imprisonment in Newgate.

But the great glory of this session was not the exposure of Davison and his fellow thieves, but the stop put to the operations of a much larger class of rascals. The death of Fox had been a sad blow to Wilberforce and the abolitionists, who had calculated on his carrying the prohibition of the slave trade; but Lord Grenville and his Cabinet seemed to have made up their minds to have the fame of achieving the grand object of so many years' exertion for the suppression of the African slave trade. Wilberforce, to his inconceivable joy, discovered that Spencer Perceval, the leader of the Opposition, and his party were willing to co-operate for this purpose. The king and royal family alone remained as adverse to the abolition of slavery as they were to the emancipation of the Catholics. The abolitionists, however, had so imbued the country with the sense of the barbarity and iniquity of the traffic, that royal prejudice could no longer swamp the measure, nor aristocratic apathy delay it. Lord Grenville brought in a Bill for the purpose into the Peers on the 2nd of January, 1807: the 12th was fixed for the second reading. Before this took place, counsel was heard at the bar of the House against the measure, who repeated all the terrible prognostics of ruin to the West Indies and to Britain from the abolition, with which the planters and proprietors of the West Indies, the merchants and slave captains of Liverpool and Bristol, had so often endeavoured to alarm the nation. The emptiness of these bugbears had, however, been now too fully exposed to the people by the lectures, speeches, and pamphlets of the Abolition Society, and Wilberforce had all along merely to use the arguments in Parliament with which they had abundantly furnished him. Lord Grenville now introduced the second reading by an elaborate speech, in which he condensed and summed up these arguments. He was warmly supported by the Duke of Gloucester--a liberal exception to his family--by Lords King, Selkirk, Rosslyn, Northesk, Holland, Suffolk, Moira, and the Bishops of Durham, London, and others. The Dukes of Clarence and Sussex as zealously opposed him, as well as Lords Sidmouth, Eldon, Ellenborough, Hawkesbury, St. Vincent, and many others. The second reading was carried, after a debate which continued till five o'clock in the morning, by one hundred against thirty-six. The third reading was also carried with equal ease, and the Bill was brought down to the Commons on the 10th of February. Lord Howick proposed its reading in an eloquent speech, and it was opposed, with the usual prediction of ruin, by Mr. George Hibbert, Captain Herbert, and General Gascoyne, who said the nation was carried away by sentimental cant, the result of an enormous agitation by the Quakers and Saints. The first reading, however, passed without a division, and the second on the 24th of February, by two hundred and eighty-three against sixteen. The House gave three cheers. Seeing the large majority, and that the Bill was safe, Lord Grenville recommended Wilberforce to strengthen it by inserting the penalties, which he did; but they left a great advantage to the slave merchants by allowing them to clear out their vessels from Great Britain by the 1st of May, and gave them time to deliver their human cargoes in the West Indies till the 1st of January, 1808--a liberty which was sure to create a great sending out of vessels for the last occasion, and a fearful crowding of them. However, the accursed trade was now doomed, as far as British merchants could go, though it was soon found that it was not so easy to suppress it. When it was seen that the Bill must pass, Lords Eldon, Hawkesbury, and Castlereagh, who had hitherto opposed it, declared themselves in favour of it. It was carried in both Houses by large majorities, and received the royal sanction on the 25th of March. So easily was the Bill passed, at last, that Lord Percy, the day after it had left the Commons, moved in that House for leave to bring in a Bill for the gradual emancipation of the slaves; but this being deemed premature, and calculated to injure the operation of the Bill for the abolition of the trade, and to create dangerous excitement in the West Indies, the motion was discouraged, and so was dropped.

The Grenville Ministry was approaching its extinction. It had done a great work in the abolition of the Slave Trade, but there was another species of abolition which they were disposed to further which was not quite so acceptable. They had supported Wilberforce and his party in their measure for the negroes, but Wilberforce and his friends were by no means willing to support them in liberating the Catholics from their disabilities. Grenville and Fox had made no particular stipulation, on taking office, to prosecute the Catholic claims, but they were deeply pledged to this by their speeches of many years. It was, therefore, highly honourable of them, though very impolitic, to endeavour to do something, at least, to show their sincerity. Though the king was obstinately opposed to any relaxation of the restraints on this class of his subjects, yet the Fox and Grenville Ministry had introduced a milder and more generous treatment of the Catholics in Ireland. The Duke of Bedford, as Lord-Lieutenant, had discouraged the rampant spirit of Orangeism, and admitted Catholics to peace and patronage. He had abandoned the dragooning system, and had managed to settle some disturbances which broke out in the autumn of 1806, without even proclaiming martial law. These measures had won the cordial attachment of the Catholics both in Ireland and England, but, in the same proportion, had exasperated the Church and War party against them in both countries. Their adding another three-and-a-half per cent. to the income and property taxes had still further embittered these parties, and the antagonism to them was every day becoming stronger. Yet they resolved, in spite of all this, to make an attempt to do some justice to the Catholics. They managed to carry an additional grant to the College of Maynooth, and on the 4th of March, when this grant was debated, Wilberforce, though wanting the support of Ministers for his Slave Trade Bill, made a violent speech against all concessions to the Catholics. He declared the Protestant Church the only true one, and, therefore, the only one which ought to be supported. "He did not profess," he said, "to entertain large and liberal views on religious subjects; he was not, like Buonaparte, an honorary member of all religions." Undeterred by these tokens of resistance, Lord Howick, the very next day, moved for leave to bring in a Bill to enable Catholics to hold commissions in the army and navy on taking a particular oath. He said that it was a strange anomaly that Catholics in Ireland could hold such commissions since 1793, and attain to any rank except that of Commander-in-Chief, of Master-General of the Ordnance, or of General of the Staff, yet, should these regiments be ordered to this country, they were, by law, disqualified for service. A clause had already been added to the Mutiny Bill to remove the anomaly. He proposed to do away with this extraordinary state of things, and enable his Majesty, at his pleasure--for it only amounted to that, after all--to open the ranks of the army and navy to all subjects, without distinction, in Great Britain as well as Ireland.

No sooner was this motion made than Spencer Perceval rose to oppose it. Sidmouth worked upon the king's feelings by sending in his resignation, and the Duke of Portland had offered to form a Ministry in accordance with the king's feelings. The Bill was, notwithstanding, brought in, read a first time, and the second reading fixed for the 12th of March. But now it was found that the king, who had previously received the Ministerial proposal without any comment, seeing his way clear with another Ministry, refused even his qualified consent to the prosecution of the measure. The Ministers postponed the second reading to the 18th, promising an after-statement of their reasons. But their reasons were already well known in both Houses of Parliament through the private communications of the embryo Cabinet. On the 25th of March there were motions made in both Houses for an adjournment: this was to allow the new Ministry to be announced in the interval. In the Lords, Earl Grenville seized the opportunity to make some observations in defence of the conduct of his Cabinet during its possession of office. He said they had entered it with the determination to carry these important measures, if possible: the Sinking Fund, the abolition of the Slave Trade, and the relief of the Catholics. He was happy to say that they had carried two of them; and though they had found the resistance in a certain quarter too strong for them to carry the third, they conceived that never did the circumstances of the times point out more clearly the sound policy of granting it. France had wonderfully extended her power on the Continent; peace between her and the nations she had subdued would probably lead Buonaparte to concentrate his warlike efforts on this country. What so wise, then, as to have Ireland attached to us by benefits? With these views, the king, he said, had been induced to allow Ministers to make communications to the Catholics of Ireland through the Lord-Lieutenant, which he had seemed to approve; yet when these communications as to the intended concessions had been made, his Majesty had been induced to retract his assent to them. Ministers had then endeavoured to modify the Bill so as to meet his Majesty's views; but, not succeeding, they had dropped the Bill altogether, reserving only, in self-justification, a right to make a minute on the private proceedings of the Cabinet, expressing their liberty to bring this subject again to the royal notice, as circumstances might seem to require; but now his Majesty had called upon them to enter into a written obligation never again to introduce the subject to his notice, or to bring forward a measure of that kind. This, he said, was more than could be expected of any Ministers of any independence whatever. The point was, of course, of some constitutional importance, but there was much truth in Sheridan's remark: "I have often heard of people knocking out their brains against a wall, but never before knew of anyone building a wall expressly for the purpose."

The king now announced to Ministers his fixed resolve to call in another Cabinet, though the Whigs had endeavoured to keep office by dropping the Bill, and on the 25th of March they delivered to the king their seals of office. Erskine alone retained his for a week, that he might pronounce his decrees on the Chancery suits which had been heard by him; and two days before he parted with the Seal, he took the opportunity to make his son-in-law, Edmund Morris, a Master in Chancery. This was regarded as a most singular act, Erskine being no longer _bonâ fide_ Chancellor, but only holding the Seal for a few days after the resignation of his colleagues, to complete necessary business. The House adjourned to the 8th of April, and before this day arrived the new appointments were announced. They were--the Duke of Portland, First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Hawkesbury, Secretary of the Home Department; Canning, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Lord Castlereagh, Secretary for War and the Colonies; the Earl of Chatham, Master of the Ordnance; Spencer Perceval, Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer; Lord Camden, Lord President of the Council; Lord Bathurst, President of the Board of Trade, with George Rose as Vice-President; the Earl of Westmoreland, Keeper of the Privy Seal; Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor; and the Duke of Richmond, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. As the Duke of Portland's health was bad, the real Prime Minister was Mr. Perceval.

Before the re-assembling of Parliament the new Ministers had done all in their power to arouse a "No Popery!" cry in the country, because they intended to advise a dissolution of Parliament--although this had only sat four months--in order to bring in a more anti-Catholic and anti-Reform body. On the 9th of April, the day following the meeting of Parliament, Mr. Brand moved a resolution, that it was contrary to the first duties of the confidential advisers of the Crown to bind themselves by any pledge to refrain from offering the king such counsel as might seem necessary to the welfare of the kingdom. The new Ministers, who had entered office without any such pledge being demanded, for their sentiments were too well known to the king, yet, seeing that this resolution was the first of a series intended to end in a vote of want of confidence in them, at once opposed it, and threw it out by two hundred and fifty-eight to two hundred and twenty-six. The Marquis of Stafford made a similar motion in the Lords, and Sidmouth now spoke and voted against his late colleagues, to whom he must have been throughout opposed on all points; but the strangest thing must have been to hear Erskine, whilst supporting the motion, avowing his great repugnance to the Catholics, as people holding a gross superstition, the result of the darkness of former ages, and declaring that he never thought of encouraging them, but rather that they might feel inconvenience, though suffering no injustice; as if this were possible; for if they suffer no injustice they could feel no inconvenience. And this, after assuring the king that he would never again enjoy peace if he dismissed his Ministers for desiring to encourage them! The Marquis of Stafford's motion was rejected by a hundred and seventy-one against ninety.

Parliament was prorogued on the 27th of April, for the avowed purpose of a dissolution; and in the speech by commission, Ministers stated that it was necessary the people should be appealed to as soon as possible, whilst the effect of "the late unfortunate and uncalled-for agitation was on their minds." Immediate preparations were made for a most determined contest. Money was spent on both sides most prodigally, but the new Ministers had the greater command of it--their opponents said, out of the king's privy purse. But whether that were so or not, on the system then in vogue, of Ministers in different departments drawing even millions from the Treasury long before they were legitimately wanted, they could have no lack of means of corruption; and this corruption, in bribery and in purchasing of seats, never had been carried further than on this occasion. It was calculated that it would cost Wilberforce eighteen thousand pounds to get in again, and this sum was at once subscribed by his friends. Tierney offered ten thousand pounds for two seats, and could not get them. Romilly, who was utterly averse from this corruption, was compelled to give two thousand pounds for a seat for the borough of Horsham, and then only obtained it through favour of the Duke of Norfolk. Seats, Romilly says, might have been expected to be cheap after a Parliament of only four months' duration, but quite the contrary; never had they reached such a price before. Five and six thousand pounds was a common sum given, without any stipulation as to the chance of a short Parliament. The animus which was excited in the public mind against the Catholics by the incoming Ministers, for party purposes, was terrible. The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and other religious associations took the lead in the outcry. The Catholics of England, alarmed at the violence of the sensation stirred up against them, and fearing a repetition of the Gordon riots, published an address to their fellow-countrymen, protesting their entire loyalty to the Crown and Constitution. Henry Erskine, Lord Erskine's brother, wittily said, that if Lord George Gordon were but alive, instead of being in Newgate he would be in the Cabinet. The Ministers found that they had obtained a powerful majority by these means, and when Parliament met, on the 22nd of June, they were enabled to reject an amendment to the Address by a hundred and sixty against sixty-seven in the Lords, and by three hundred and fifty against a hundred and fifty-five in the Commons. One of the very first things which the Ministers did was to reverse the mild system of the late Cabinet in Ireland, and to restore the old _régime_ of coercion. A Bill was brought into the Commons by Sir Arthur Wellesley, now again Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, giving authority to the latter functionary to proclaim counties in a state of insurrection, and to prohibit any person from being out of his house between sunset and sunrise, under severe penalties. Then followed another Bill, compelling all persons to register what arms they had, and authorising, on the part of the magistracy, domiciliary visits in search of arms. Education of the people, both there and in England, was discouraged. A Bill for establishing a school in every parish in England, introduced by Whitbread, was allowed to pass the Commons, but was thrown out in the Lords. Parliament was then prorogued on the 14th of August.

The foreign expeditions planned by the Grenville Ministry were, this year, attended by disgraceful results, and the news of their failure arrived in time to enable the new Ministry to throw additional odium upon their foes. The news of the seizure of Buenos Ayres by Sir Home Popham and General Beresford had induced the late Cabinet to overlook the irregular manner in which their enterprise had been undertaken. They sent out Admiral Sir C. Stirling to supersede Sir Home Popham, who was to be brought before a court-martial, but he took out with him a fresh body of troops, under General Auchmuty. These troops landed at Monte Video on the 18th of January, and, after a sharp contest against six thousand Spaniards, and the loss of five hundred and sixty British killed and wounded, the place was taken on the 2nd of February. Soon afterwards General Whitelocke arrived with orders to assume supreme command and to recapture Buenos Ayres, which the inhabitants had succeeded in recovering. Whitelocke reached Monte Video towards the end of May, and found the British army, with what he brought, amounting to nearly twelve thousand men, in fine condition. With such a force Buenos Ayres would have soon been reduced by a man of tolerable military ability. But Whitelocke seems to have taken no measures to enable his troops to carry the place by a sudden and brilliant assault. It was not till the 3rd of July that he managed to join Major-General Gore, who had taken possession of a commanding elevation overlooking the city. The hope of success lay in the rapidity with which the assault was made: all this was now lost. The rain poured in torrents, and the men had no shelter, and were half starved. All this time the Spaniards had been putting the city into a state of defence. Still, on the morning of the 5th of July the order was issued to storm. The troops advanced in three columns from different sides of the town, headed severally by Generals Auchmuty, Lumley, and Craufurd. Whitelocke said that it could be of no use to delay the advance towards the centre of the town by attacking the enemy under cover of their houses; it could only occasion the greater slaughter. The command, therefore, was to dash forward with unloaded muskets, trusting alone to the bayonet. Much blame was cast on Whitelocke for this order, but there seems strong reason in it, considering the wholly uncovered condition of the troops against a covered enemy, and that the only chance was for each division to force its way as rapidly as possible to certain buildings where they could ensconce themselves, and from whence they could direct an attack of shot and shells on the Spaniards. General Auchmuty, accordingly, rushed on against every obstacle to the great square--Plaza de Toros, or Square of Bulls--took thirty-two cannon, a large quantity of ammunition, and six hundred prisoners. Other regiments of his division succeeded in getting possession of the church and convent of Santa Catalina, and of the residencia, a commanding post; Lumley and Craufurd were not so fortunate. The 88th was compelled to yield; and the 36th, greatly reduced, and joined by the 5th--which had taken the convent of Santa Catalina--made their way to Sir Samuel Auchmuty's position in the Plaza de Toros, dispersing a body of eight hundred Spaniards on their way and taking two guns. Craufurd's division capitulated at four o'clock in the afternoon. In the evening Whitelocke resolved to come to terms. The conditions of the treaty were--that General Whitelocke's army, with its arms, equipage, and stores, was to be conveyed across the La Plata to Monte Video; his troops were to be supplied with food; and that at the end of two months the British were to surrender Monte Video, and retire from the country. Such was the humiliating result of the attempt on Buenos Ayres. Nothing could exceed the fury of all classes at home against Whitelocke on the arrival of the news of this disgraceful defeat. It was reported that he had made the men take their flints out of their guns before sending them into the murderous streets of Buenos Ayres; and had he arrived with his despatches, his life would not have been safe for an hour. There was a general belief that the Court was protecting him from punishment; and, in truth, the delays interposed between him and a court-martial appeared to warrant this. It was not till the 28th of January, 1808, that he was brought before such a court at Chelsea Hospital, when he was condemned to be cashiered, as wholly unfit and unworthy to serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatever.

Another expedition, planned by the Grenville Ministry, produced no favourable result. This was to Constantinople. Buonaparte had sent thither the artful Sebastiani, and General Andreossi, to destroy British influence, and to engage the Sultan in war with Russia, so as to act as a most effectual diversion of the Russian forces, whilst he himself was occupied with the Czar in the North. The French agents had completely succeeded in their plans against Russia. The Sultan assumed an attitude which compelled Alexander to keep a strong army on the Lower Danube, thus weakening his force against Napoleon, and distracting his attention. There appeared every probability that British influence would be equally swamped in Turkey by the French, and it was determined to send a naval squadron to Constantinople to overawe the Sultan Selim, and to compel the removal of the French intriguants. Had this expedition been committed to such a man as Sir Sidney Smith, there is little doubt but that it would have been entirely successful; but it was altogether most miserably mismanaged, and therefore failed. To have been effectual it should have been sudden. There should have been no previous negotiation about it; the ships should have appeared off Constantinople, and then and there the ambassador should have stated his terms and have insisted on them. Instead of this, our ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot, commenced his negotiations for the strengthening of the British alliance in conjunction with Russia, and for the restriction of the French influence. But, excepting Britain, Russia had no advocates with the Porte, which had already declared war. The victories of Buonaparte now in Austria and Prussia gave the French great _éclat_ with the Turks, and Sebastiani made the utmost of this advantage. He was zealously supported by Spain and Holland. In the midst of these negotiations, Admiral Louis appeared off Constantinople with one ship of the line and one frigate. Had it been a whole fleet, the effect would have been decisive. As it was, there was immediately a rumour that a great British fleet was on the way, and accordingly the Turks were in a hurry to strengthen their fortifications, and make every arrangement for defence. They were ably assisted in these measures by Sebastiani, Andreossi, and a number of French engineer officers. On the 10th of February Sir John Duckworth appeared off the Dardanelles, and, joining his squadron with that of Admiral Louis, the British fleet now consisted of eight line-of-battle ships, two frigates, and two bombs. But on the 14th the _Ajax_, one of the men-of-war, took fire, and blew up, killing two hundred and fifty of the people on board. They had then to wait till the 19th for a breeze that would carry them through the strait. The British ships passed the batteries under a brisk fire, without replying, and on the 20th of February Sir John Duckworth came to anchor off Prince's Islands, opposite to Constantinople, and at about ten miles' distance. Now was the time to have struck an effectual terror by demanding the immediate dismissal of the French, and to have begun storming the town unless the demand was at once complied with. The whole population was in an astounding panic, expecting every moment the commencement of the bombardment; and the Sultan sent Ismail Bey to request Sebastiani and his suite to quit Constantinople without delay. But Sebastiani replied that there was no cause of alarm from the British, he was perfectly indifferent to their presence, and that, as he was under the protection of the Porte, he should not quit Constantinople without an express order from the Sultan. Had Sir Sidney Smith been in command, Sebastiani would soon have received this order, for he would have quickened the Sultan's movements by some shot and shells sent into the Seraglio; but Duckworth was made of much more phlegmatic stuff. The wind on the 21st was fair, and the whole fleet expected the order to put across and commence bombarding the city. Instead of that, however, Sir John sent a fresh message and menace. As this received no answer, and yet was followed by no prompt action, the Turks at once took heart, went on fortifying and planting batteries, and continued to amuse Sir John from day to day with hopes of treating, employing the time only to make their defences, under the supervision of Sebastiani and the French engineers, the more perfect. It is almost impossible to imagine a British admiral so besotted as to continue this course for ten days; yet this was precisely what Sir John Duckworth did, and that in spite of the orders of Admiral Collingwood. By this time every possible point of defence had its batteries, soldiers had poured into Constantinople, and every male inhabitant was armed, and foaming with fury at the British. On the morning of the 1st of March Sir John weighed anchor to return from his ignominious, abortive mission. The wind was fair for him, but his return was now not so easy a matter. Whilst he had been wasting his time before Constantinople, Turkish engineers, who had studied under the French, had been sent down to the Dardanelles with two hundred well-trained cannoneers. Numbers of troops had been collected on each side of the strait, and the batteries were supplied with enormous cannons, capable of carrying granite balls of seven or eight hundred pounds' weight. Towards nightfall he dropped down towards the strait, and the next day cast anchor before passing the castles and batteries, that he might sail through by daylight, when the enemy could best see him. On the morning of the 3rd he accordingly sailed through the strait, and was sharply assailed by the cannon of the forts and batteries, the stone shot doing some of his ships damage, and the loss of men being twenty-nine killed and a hundred and forty wounded. The object of the expedition failed, and the only resource was to keep the Turkish fleet blockaded.

But Sir John Duckworth was to play a leading part in a still more abortive enterprise. There was a rumour that Buonaparte had promised the Grand Turk to aid him in recovering the provinces which Russia had reft from Turkey on the Danube, in the Crimea, and around the Black Sea, on condition that Egypt was given up to him. To prevent this, an expedition was fitted out to seize on this country. Between four and five thousand men were sent from our army in Sicily, under Major-General Mackenzie Frazer. They embarked on the 5th of May, and anchored off Alexandria on the 16th. The following morning General Frazer summoned the town to surrender, but the governor of the Viceroy Mehemet Ali replied that he would defend the place to the last man. On that day and the following a thousand soldiers and about sixty sailors were landed, and, moving forward, carried the advanced works with trifling loss. Some of the transports which had parted company on the voyage now arrived, the rest of the troops were landed; and, having secured the castle of Aboukir, Frazer marched on Alexandria, taking the forts of Caffarelli and Cretin on the way. On the 22nd Sir John Duckworth arrived with his squadron; the British army expected to hear that he had taken Constantinople, and his ill news created a just gloom amongst both officers and men. The people of Alexandria appeared friendly; but the place was, or seemed to be, destitute of provisions; and the transports had been so badly supplied that the men were nearly starved before they got there. The Alexandrians assured General Frazer that, in order to obtain provisions, he must take possession of Rosetta and Rahmanieh. Frazer, therefore, with the concurrence of Sir John Duckworth, dispatched Major-General Wauchope and Brigadier-General Mead to Rosetta, with one thousand two hundred men. The troops were entangled in the streets and shot down. A subsequent effort was made to besiege Rosetta in form. The troops reached Rosetta on the 9th of April, and posted themselves on the heights above it. They summoned the town formally to surrender, and received an answer of defiance. Instead of proceeding to bombard the town at once, Major-General Stewart waited for the arrival of a body of Mamelukes. The Mamelukes had been in deadly civil strife with Mehemet Ali, and had promised to co-operate with the British; and this was one of the causes which led the British Government to imagine that they could make themselves masters of Egypt with so minute a force. But the Mamelukes did not appear. Whilst waiting for them, Colonel Macleod was sent to occupy the village of El Hammed, to keep open the way for the expected succour; but Mehemet Ali had mustered a great force at Cairo, which kept back the Mamelukes; and, at the same time, he was reinforcing both Rosetta, and Rahmanieh. Instead of the Mamelukes, therefore, on the morning of the 22nd of April a fleet of vessels was seen descending the Nile, carrying a strong Egyptian force. Orders were sent to recall Colonel Macleod from El Hammed; but too late; his detachment was surrounded and completely cut off. The besieging force--scattered over a wide area, instead of being in a compact body--were attacked by overwhelming numbers; and, having no entrenched camp, were compelled to fight their way back to Alexandria as well as they could. When Stewart arrived there he had lost one half of his men. Mehemet Ali, in proportion as he saw the British force diminished, augmented his own. He collected and posted a vast army between Cairo and Alexandria, and then the Alexandrians threw off the mask and joined their countrymen in cutting off the supplies of the British, and murdering them on every possible occasion at their outposts. Frazer held out, in the vain hope of aid from the Mamelukes or from home, till the 22nd of August, when, surrounded by the swarming hosts of Mehemet Ali, and his supplies all exhausted, he sent out a flag of truce, offering to retire on condition that all the British prisoners taken at Rosetta, at El Hammed, and elsewhere, should be delivered up to him. This was accepted, and on the 23rd of September the ill-fated remains of this army were re-embarked and returned to Sicily.

Thus was destroyed in Egypt all the prestige of the battles of Alexandria and Aboukir Bay. The consequence of these two badly-planned and worse-executed expeditions was the declaration of war against Britain by the Porte, the seizure of all British property in the Turkish dominions, and the formation of a close alliance between Turkey and France. But the triumph over the British had not relieved the Turks of the Russians. Admiral Siniavin still blockaded the Dardanelles, and another Russian squadron, issuing from the Black Sea, blockaded the mouth of the Bosphorus. The Turks came boldly out of the Dardanelles and attacked Siniavin on the 22nd of May and on the 22nd of June; but on both occasions they lost several ships, and were expecting heavier inflictions from the Russians, when they were suddenly relieved of their presence by the news of the Treaty of Tilsit, which had been contracted between Alexander of Russia and Buonaparte. Alexander, by this, ceased to be the ally, and became the enemy of Britain. It was necessary, therefore, for Siniavin to make all speed for the Baltic before war could be declared between the two nations, after which his return would be hopeless. The Russian admiral, however, before quitting the Mediterranean, had the pleasure of taking possession of Corfu, which Buonaparte had made over to Alexander.

One of the events of the early part of this year was the capture of the Dutch island of Curaçoa, by a squadron under Captain Brisbane; but by far the most prominent naval transaction of the year was the seizure of the Danish fleet off Copenhagen--a proceeding which occasioned severe censures on Britain by Buonaparte and the Continental nations under his domination. The Opposition at home were equally violent in the outcry against this act, as in open violation of the laws of nations, Denmark then being nominally at peace with us. But, though nominally at peace, Denmark was at heart greatly embittered against us by our bombardment of its capital in 1801, and it was quite disposed to fall in with and obey the views of Napoleon, who was now master of all Germany, at peace with Russia through the Treaty of Tilsit, and, therefore, able any day to overrun Denmark. Buonaparte was enforcing his system of the exclusion of Britain from all the ports of the Continent, and it was inevitable that he would compel Denmark to comply with this system. But there was another matter. Denmark had a considerable fleet and admirable seamen, and he might employ the fleet greatly to our damage, probably in endeavouring to realise his long-cherished scheme of the invasion of England; at the least, in interrupting her commerce and capturing her merchantmen. The British Ministers were privately informed that Buonaparte intended to make himself master of this fleet, and they knew that there were private articles in the Treaty of Tilsit between Russia and France, by which he contemplated great changes in the North, in which Denmark was believed to be involved. Upon these grounds alone the British Government was justified, by the clearest expressions of international law, in taking time by the forelock, and possessing themselves of the fleet to be turned against them; not to appropriate it, but to hold it in pledge till peace. Grotius is decisive on this point:--"I may, without considering whether it is manifest or not, take possession of that which belongs to another man, if I have reason to apprehend any evil to myself from his holding it. I cannot make myself master or proprietor of it, the property having nothing to do with the end which I propose; but I can keep possession of the thing seized till my safety be sufficiently provided for." This view would fully have justified the British Government, had nothing further ever become known. But subsequent research in the Foreign Office of France has placed these matters in their true light. The Treaty of Tilsit contains secret articles by which Alexander was permitted by Napoleon to appropriate Finland, and Napoleon was authorised by Alexander to enter Denmark, and take possession of the Danish fleet, to employ against us at sea. These secret articles were revealed to the British Government. No man at this time was so indignant as Alexander of Russia at our thus assailing a power not actually at war. He issued a manifesto against Britain, denouncing the transaction as one which, for infamy, had no parallel in history, he himself being in the act of doing the same thing on a far larger scale, and without that sufficient cause which Britain could show, and without any intention of making restitution. We only seized a fleet that was on the point of being used against us, and which was to be returned at the end of the war; the horrified Czar invaded Sweden, while at peace, and, without any declaration of war, usurped a whole country--Finland, larger than Great Britain. Russia, in fact, had brought Denmark into this destructive dilemma by its insidious policy; but, having seized Finland, in five years more it committed a still greater robbery on Denmark than it had done on Sweden, by contracting with Bernadotte to wrest Norway from Denmark, and give it to Sweden.