ONE:Stanhope appears to have done his best to break Townshend's fall. He represented to the king the high character of that minister, his real services, and the injustice and impolicy of disgracing him; that he might remove him to another office, and thus answer every purpose. He could take the chief direction of affairs out of his hands, even while appearing to promote him. He therefore advised that Townshend should, without a word of dismissal or disapprobation, be offered the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, instead of the Secretaryship of State, and to this the king consented. Accordingly Stanhope was directed to write to Townshend, and also to Secretary Methuen, and he did so on the 14th of December, conveying in most courteous terms the king's desire that he should accept the Lord-Lieutenancy, and this without a syllable of discontent on the part of his Majesty. Townshend at first refused, but on the arrival of George in London he received Townshend very cordially, and so softened him as to induce him to accept the Lord-Lieutenancy, and to do the very thing he had declared it was not[36] common honesty to doaccept the post and still remain in London, acting with the rest of the Cabinet. His political adherents, including Methuen, Pulteney, the Walpoles, Lord Orford, and the Duke of Devonshire, were contented to remain in office. The only change was that Methuen was made one of the two Secretaries along with Stanhope. It was thus imagined that the great schism in the Whig party was closed; but this was far from being the case: the healing was only on the surface. It was during this brief reconciliation that the great Triple Alliance between England, France, and Holland, was concluded. [Secret.] "Colonial Office, November 2, 1845.
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ONE:Whilst this extirpation of the Pindarrees had been going on, the cholera broke out at Jessore, in the low lands of the Delta of the Ganges. This fatal disease has been supposed by medical men to receive its force, if not its origin, from the want of salt in this unhealthy district. Salt being one of the monopolies of the East India Company, it was not permitted, though abundant in Madras, to be carried into Bengal except on payment of a duty of two hundred per cent. The natives, therefore, who subsisted on a rice diet, not being able to procure this necessary antiseptic, frequently fell victims to the terrible scourge of cholera. From this centre, where it may fairly be said to have raged in perpetuity, it now spread rapidly up the course of the Ganges, the Jumna, and their confluent rivers, and if the British impost on salt had anything to do with the prevalence of the epidemic, a severe retribution now fell upon those who profited by it. The Marquis of Hastings, the Governor-General, was posted in Bundelcund with his army, when it appeared there and swept away thousands. The very men attending on the Governor-General at dinner dropped down behind his chair and died. To seek a healthier region, he marched eastward, but all the way the pest pursued him, and when he reached the healthy station of Erich, on the right bank of the Betwah river, towards the end of November, one-tenth of the force had fallen under its ravages. The scourge did not stop there, but for a number of years continued to spread at an amazing speed, and eventually overspread Europe with its horrors.No sooner, therefore, had the Parliament closed and the king set out to Hanover, than Ministers sent off William Stanhope to Madrid to procure a treaty of peace without any mention of Gibraltar. On arriving at Madrid he found that the Court had removed to Seville, in Andalusia. This had been done by the influence of the queen, in order to draw Philip from the Council of Castile, which was doing all it could to prevail on him again to abdicate. Stanhope followed the Court to Seville, and laboured with such effect that he obtained the signing of a treaty of defensive alliance between England, Spain, and France, to which Holland afterwards acceded (November 9, 1729). By this treaty Spain revoked all the privileges granted to Austria by the treaties of Vienna, and re-established the British trade with her American colonies on its former footing, restored all captures, and made compensation for losses. The Assiento was confirmed to the South Sea Company. Commissioners were appointed to adjust all claims of Spaniards for ships taken in 1718, and to settle the limits of the American trade. The succession of Don Carlos to Parma and Tuscany was recognised, with the right to garrison the ports of Leghorn, Porto Ferrajo, Parma, and Placentia with six thousand Spanish troops. Not a word was said of Gibraltara silence amounting to a renunciation of its demand by Spain; and that Philip regarded it as such was evidenced by his[60] beginning to construct the strong lines of San Roque, and thus to cut off all communication with the obnoxious fortress by land.
FORE:In the House of Lords several discussions took place on the dismissal of the Repeal magistrates. Lord Clanricarde, on the 14th of July, moved resolutions declaring that act of the Lord Chancellor "unconstitutional, unjust, and inexpedient." The Duke of Wellington met the motion by a direct negative. "These meetings," he said, "consisting of 10,000, 20,000, or 100,000 menno matter the number of thousandshaving been continued, I wish to know with what object they were continued? With a view to address Parliament to repeal the union? No, my lords; they were continued in order to obtain the desired repeal of the union by the terror of the people, and, if not by terror, by force and violence; and the persons calling these meetings were magistrates, the very men who must have been employed by the Government to resist such terror and violence, and to arrest those who were guilty of such breaches of the peace. That is the ground on which the Lord Chancellor of Ireland said to the magistrates, 'You must be dismissed if you attend, or invite attendance at such meetings.'" The Duke "regretted to learn there was poverty in Ireland; but," he asked, "was that poverty relieved by a march of twenty-five and thirty miles a day in spring and summer to hear seditious speeches? Was poverty relieved by subscribing to the Repeal rent?" The resolutions were negatived by a majority of 91 to 29. In a subsequent debate, arising out of a petition presented by Lord Roden from 5,000 Ulster Protestants, complaining that they had been prevented from celebrating the Orange anniversary, while the most flagrant breaches of the law were passed over in the case of those who wanted to overthrow the Constitution, which the Orangemen were sworn to defend, the Duke of Wellington, on that occasion, said that "nothing had been neglected by the Government that was necessary to preserve the peace of the country, and to meet all misfortunes and consequences which might result from the violence of the passions of those men who unfortunately guided the multitude in Ireland. He did not dispute the extent of the conspiracy or the dangers resulting from it; he did not deny the assistance received from foreigners of nearly all nationsdisturbed and disturbing spirits, who were anxious to have an opportunity of injuring and deteriorating the great prosperity of this countrybut he felt confident that the measures adopted by the Government would enable it to resist all, and preserve the peace."
FORE:The nobles rose in a body and quitted the Assembly; but Gustavus continued his speech to the three remaining Orders. He declared it necessary, for the salvation of the country, for him to assume almost despotic powers, and he called on the three Estates to support him in punishing the traitorous nobles, promising to secure the liberties of the country as soon as this was accomplished. Not only the three Orders, but the public at large zealously supported him. Stockholm was in a state of high excitement. Gustavus surrounded the houses of the chief nobility with his brave Dalecarlians; secured twenty-five of the principal nobles, including the Counts Brah, Fersen, Horne, and others, who were consigned to the castle. He had already arrested nine of the leaders of the insurrection in the army in Finland, and these officers were[353] now also confined in the castle; others had escaped and fled to their patroness in St. Petersburg. To intimidate the king, nearly all the officers of the army, the fleet, and the civil department threw up their commissions and appointments, believing that they should thus completely paralyse his proceedings. But Gustavus remained undaunted. He filled up the vacancies, as well as he could, from the other Orders of the State; he brought the nobles and officers to trial, and numbers of them were condemned to capital punishment, for treason and abandonment of their sworn duties. Some few examples were made; the rest, after a short confinement, were liberated, and they hastened to their estates in the country. But it was found there, as everywhere else, that rank confers no monopoly of talent. The three other Orders warmly supported Gustavus, and he remodelled the Diet, excluding from it almost all the most powerful nobles, and giving greater preponderance to the other three Orders. In return for this, these Orders sanctioned an act called the Act of Safety, which conferred on the king the same power which is attached to the British Crown, namely, that of making peace or war. They granted him liberal supplies, and he quickly raised an army of fifty thousand men. As he considered the reduction of the restless and lawless power of Russia was equally essential to Britain, Holland, and Prussia, as to Sweden, Gustavus called on them to second his efforts. But Pitt would do nothing more than guarantee the neutrality of Denmark; and even this guarantee he permitted to become nugatory, by allowing the Danish fleet to give protection to the Russian fleet in the Baltic. A second Russian squadron, commanded by Dessein, a French admiral, descended from Archangel, entered the Baltic, menaced Gothenburg, and by the aid of the Danish ships was enabled to join the other Russian fleet at Cronstadt.CHARLES PELHAM VILLIERS.
FORE:In the House of Lords on the 24th of January, 1721, five directors who had been called before them were arrested and their papers seized. By what had been drawn from them, it appeared that large sums had been given to people in high places to procure the passing of the South Sea Bill. Lord Stanhope rose and expressed his indignation at such practices, and moved that any transfer of stock for the use of any person in the Administration without a proper consideration was a notorious and dangerous corruption. The motion was seconded by Lord Townshend, and carried unanimously. The examination being continued on the 4th of February, Sir John Blunt refused to answer their lordships, on the plea that he had already given his evidence before the Secret Committee. A vehement debate arose out of this difficulty, during which the Duke of Wharton, a most profligate young nobleman, and president of the Hell-fire Club, made a fierce attack on Stanhope, accused him of fomenting the dissensions between the king and his son, and compared him to Sejanus, who had sown animosities in the family of Tiberius, and rendered his reign hateful to the Romans. Stanhope, in replying to this philippic, was so transported by his rage, that the blood gushed from his nostrils. He was carried from the House, and soon afterwards expired.Being conveyed to St. John's, Burgoyne there disembarked, and on the 16th of June he commenced his march for Crown Point, the shipping following him by the lake. On the 1st of July he appeared before Ticonderoga. The place required ten thousand troops effectually to defend it; but St. Clair who commanded them had only three thousand, very indifferently armed and equipped. St. Clair saw at once that he must retire, as the Americans had already done, at Crown Point; but he sought to do it unobserved. Accordingly, in the night of the 5th of July the flight took place; but St. Clair's orders were immediately disobeyed; the soldiers fired the house which had been occupied by General de Fermoy, and the British were at once apprised of the retreat. The sailors soon broke up the obstructions at the mouth of the river, and a fleet of gunboats was in instant pursuit. They overtook the Americans near the falls of Skenesborough, and quickly mastered the protecting galleys, and destroyed the vessels. General Burgoyne followed with other gunboats containing troops, and at the same time dispatched Generals Fraser and Reisedel by land after St. Clair.
FORE:THE PRINCE CONSORT.
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