THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).
Events in England--The Budgets of 1848--Repeal of the Navigation
Act--The Jewish Disabilities Bill--Election of Baron Rothschild by
the City of London--He is refused the Oath--Election of Alderman
Salomons--He takes his Seat in Spite of the Speaker--Action in
the Court of the Exchequer--The Bill finally passed--Colonial
Self-Government--Lord Palmerston's Foreign Policy censured by
the House of Lords--The Don Pacifico Debate--Testimonial to Lord
Palmerston--Peel's Last Speech--His Death--Testimony as to his
Worth--Honours to his Memory 602
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Garden at Hougomont 1
Napoleon I. 5
The Agents of Britain and Sweden signing the Treaty
against Napoleon 8
Carlton House, London (1812) 9
Marshal Beresford 13
The Fusiliers at Albuera 17
The Conscription in France: recruiting for Napoleon's Wars 21
Assassination of Spencer Perceval 24
Marshal Soult 29
View of Washington from Arlington Heights 33
Invasion of Canada: Red Men on the War Path 36
Duel between the "Guerrière" and the "Constitution" 37
The Cossack's Challenge 41
The Retreat from Moscow 45
Retreat of the French from Russia 49
Napoleon abandoning his Army 53
Marshal Ney 56
Flight of King Joseph Buonaparte from Vittoria 57
Pampeluna 61
Bernadotte (King of Sweden) 65
Napoleon's Interview with Metternich 68
View in Dresden 69
The Palace of Fontainebleau 73
Attempt of the Cossacks to capture Napoleon at Brienne 77
Alexander I. 80
Napoleon signing his Abdication 81
Elba 85
The Congress of Vienna 88
Sir Thomas Picton 93
Waterloo Views 96
Marshal Blucher 97
The Battle of Waterloo 101
James Town, St. Helena 105
Napoleon on Board the "Bellerophon" 109
New Orleans 113
Capture of Murat 116
Lord Castlereagh 117
The Mob of Spenceans summoning the Tower of London 121
The "Nottingham Captain" and the Agitators at the
"White Horse" 125
William Cobbett 129
Old Bailey, London, 1814 132
Beaus and Belles of the Regency Period 133
Gibraltar 137
Surrender of the Peishwa 140
The Mint, London 144
Sir Samuel Romilly 145
The Peterloo Massacre: Hussars charging the People 149
View of Cato Street, London, showing the Stable in
which the Conspirators were captured 153
Surprise of the Cato Street Conspirators 156
Charles, Third Earl Stanhope 161
Costumes at the Beginning of George III.'s Reign 164
St. John's Episcopal Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh 168
Rowland Hill preaching to the Colliers of Kingswood 169
Jane Austen 173
Laurence Sterne 173
Samuel Richardson 173
Oliver Goldsmith 173
Tobias Smollet 173
Dr. Johnson reading the Manuscript of the "Vicar of
Wakefield" 176
Dr. Johnson 177
David Garrick as Richard III. 181
Exterior of the Cottage at Alloway in which Burns was born 185
Interior of Burns's Cottage at Alloway (two views) 186
William Wordsworth 189
John Keats 189
Robert Burns 189
Percy Bysshe Shelley 189
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 189
Waterloo Bridge, London 192
Menai Suspension and Tubular Bridges 193
James Watt 197
Costumes at the end of George III.'s Reign 200
Sir Joshua Reynolds 201
Great Seal of George IV. 205
Queen Caroline entering the House of Lords 209
The Pavilion, Brighton 213
George IV. 217
Landing of George IV. at Howth 220
Lower Castle-Yard, Dublin 221
Sir Walter Scott 225
Dalkeith Palace 228
George IV. holding a Levee in Holyrood Palace 229
Verona 233
The Admiralty, London 240
George III.'s Library, British Museum 241
Scene in Dublin: Painting King William black 245
Mr. Huskisson 249
Election Meeting in Ireland 253
Lisbon 257
Lord Liverpool 260
Devonshire Villa, Chiswick 261
Battle of Navarino: the "Asia" engaging the Ship of the
Capitan Bey and Mohurrem Bey 265
Lord Byron 269
The Clare Contest: Father Murphy leading his Tenants
to the Poll 273
Daniel O'Connell 277
The Four Courts, Dublin 281
The Flight of Lawless 285
Scene at the "Surrender" Banquet in Derry 288
The Marquis of Anglesey 289
Lord Anglesey leaving Ireland: Scene at Kingstown 293
Apsley House, Hyde Park Corner, London 297
The Duke of Wellington's Duel with Lord Winchilsea 300
Lord Eldon 301
Captain Walpole Intercepting the Duke of Saldanha's Ships 305
Mr. Alexander's Levee in King's Bench Prison 309
Virginia Water 313
Revolution in Paris: Capture of the Hôtel de Ville 317
Lord Grey 321
Mob burning a Farm in Kent 325
O'Connell's House in Merrion Square, Dublin 328
Arrest of O'Connell 329
William IV. 333
Jedburgh Abbey 336
Great Seal of William IV. 337
Attack on Sir Charles Wetherell at Bristol 341
Clerkenwell Green, London 342
Earl Grey Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne 344
Lord Brougham 345
Coronation of William IV.: The Royal Procession 349
Scene in Ireland: Visit of the Tithe-Proctor 353
Mr. Stanley (afterwards 14th Earl of Derby) 357
The Cathedral, Tuam 360
Agricultural Labourers at the Period of the First Reform
Parliament 361
Mr. (afterwards Lord) Macaulay 365
Slavery Emancipation Festival in Barbadoes 369
Kennington Common, London, about 1840 373
Burning of the Houses of Parliament 377
Lord Althorp (3rd Earl Spencer) 381
Lichfield House, St. James's Square, London 384
Sir Robert Peel 385
The Mansion House, London 389
Conference between the Houses of Parliament, 1835 393
Irish Prisoners liberated during Lord Mulgrave's Progress 397
Joseph Hume 401
Irish Tramps 405
British Line-of-Battle Ships (1836) 408
Ripon Cathedral 409
Deputation of Constitutionalists before the Queen of
Portugal 413
Arrival of the Mail Coach 417
Bell's "Comet" 420
Sir James Mackintosh 421
The Overland Route: Scene at Boulak 425
Dr. Chalmers 429
Joseph Mallord William Turner 432
Abbotsford and the Eildon Hills 433
St. George's Cathedral, Southwark 436
Thomas Moore 437
The Duke of Wellington at Almack's 440
Rotten Row in 1830 441
Niagara Falls 445
The Capture of the _Caroline_ 449
The Coronation of Queen Victoria 453
Chartists at Church 457
Buckingham Palace, from the Garden 461
Sir Rowland Hill, 1847 465
Marriage of Queen Victoria 473
Attack on the Chinese Junks 477
Queen Victoria 480
Dunford, near Midhurst, where Cobden was born 481
The Mob boarding the Grain Ship at Garry Kennedy 485
Richard Cobden 489
Seizure of Sir William Macnaghten 493
Arrival of Dr. Brydon at Jelalabad 497
Rescue of the British Prisoners from Akbar Khan 501
Whitehall Gardens, London 505
Capt. Thomas Drummond, Under-Secretary for Ireland 509
Free Trade Hall, Manchester 513
Charles Pelham Villiers 517
Maynooth College 521
The Great Seal of Victoria 525
O'Connell at the Meeting at Trim 528
Sir James Graham 529
O'Connell returning Home from Prison 533
Father Mathew and the Famine-stricken Poor 537
Father Mathew 540
On board an Emigrant Ship at the time of the Irish Famine 541
Fighting at the Barricades in Paris 545
Louis Philippe hears of the Revolution 549
Louis Blanc 553
Somerset House, London (River Front) 557
Trinity College, Dublin 561
Muster of the Irish at Mullinahone 565
Smith O'Brien 569
The Queen at Kilmainham Hospital 573
Frankfort 576
Louis Kossuth 577
Assassination of Count Lamberg 581
Giuseppe Garibaldi 584
Pius IX. quitting the Vatican in Disguise 585
The Chandni Chowk, Delhi 589
The Charge of the Cavalry at Meeanee 593
Thackwell at Sobraon 596
Arrival of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh at the British Camp 601
Benjamin Disraeli 604
Arrest of British Sailors by Greek Soldiers 605
COLOURED PLATES.
THE FORLORN HOPE AT BADAJOS. (_By
Vereker M. Hamilton_) _Frontispiece_
PRISONERS OF WAR. (_By W. F. Yeames, R.A._) _To face p._ 18
MEN OF WAR OFF PORTSMOUTH. (_By Clarkson
Stanfield, R.A._) " 34
THE FLIGHT OF THE FRENCH THROUGH VITTORIA,
JUNE 21ST, 1813. (_By Robert Hillingford_) " 58
MAP OF THE STATES OF EUROPE IN 1815. " 87
QUATRE BRAS. (_By Vereker M. Hamilton_) " 97
THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO: FRENCH CUIRASSIERS CHARGING A
BRITISH SQUARE. (_By P. Jazet_) " 98
ON THE ROAD FROM WATERLOO TO PARIS.
(_By Marcus Stone, A.R.A._) " 102
ON THE EVENING OF THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.
(_By Ernest Crofts, R.A._) " 113
A VILLAGE HOLIDAY OF THE OLDEN TIME.
(_By F. Goodall, R.A._) " 157
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. (_By George Wright_) " 194
A VILLAGE MERRYMAKING. (_By W. P. Frith, R.A._) _To face p._ 200
THE CORONATION OF GEORGE IV. (_By Pugin and Stephanoff_) " 214
SOLICITING A VOTE. (_By R. W. Buss_) " 250
THE FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
(_By D. O. Hill, R.S.A._) " 429
THE "FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE" TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE
BROKEN UP. (_By J. M. W. Turner, R.A._) " 441
THE QUEEN'S FIRST COUNCIL. (_By Sir David Wilkie, R.A._) " 444
QUEEN VICTORIA IN THE CORONATION ROBES, 1838.
(_By C. R. Leslie, R.A._) " 449
H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT. (_By F. X. Winterhalter_) " 466
RECEPTION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE BY QUEEN VICTORIA.
(_By F. X. Winterhalter_) " 524
AN IRISH EVICTION. (_By F. Goodall, R.A._) " 569
[Illustration:
_Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._
THE FORLORN HOPE AT BADAJOS.
FROM THE PAINTING BY VEREKER M. HAMILTON]
[Illustration: THE GARDEN AT HOUGOMONT.]
CASSELL'S
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
REIGN OF GEORGE III. (_continued_).
Napoleon's Desire for an Heir--The Archduchess Maria Louisa--The
Divorce determined upon--The Marriage--Napoleon quarrels
with his Family--Abdication of Louis Buonaparte--Napoleon's
bloated Empire--Affairs of Sweden--Choice of Bernadotte as
King--He forms an Alliance with Russia and Britain--His
Breach with Napoleon--Insanity of George III.--Preparations
for a Regency--Restrictions on the Power of the
Regent--Futile Negotiations of the Prince of Wales with
Grey and Grenville--Perceval continued in Power--The King's
Speech--Reinstatement of the Duke of York--The Currency
Question--Its Effect on the Continent--Wellington's
Difficulties--Massena's Retreat--His Defeat at Sabugal--Surrender
of Badajoz to the French--Battle of Barrosa--Wellington and
Massena--Battles of Fuentes d'Onoro and Albuera--Soult's
Retreat--End of the Campaign--Our Naval Supremacy continues--Birth
of an Heir to Napoleon--Elements of Resistance to his
Despotism--Session of 1812--Discussions on the Civil List--Bankes's
Bill--Assassination of Perceval--Renewed Overtures to Grey and
Grenville--Riots in the Manufacturing Districts--Wellington's
Preparations--Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz--Wellington
and Marmont--Battle of Salamanca--Wellington enters
Madrid--Victor's Retreat--Incapacity of the Spaniards--The Sicilian
Expedition--Wellington's Retreat--Its Difficulties--Wellington's
Defence of his Tactics--A Pause in the War.
The spring of 1810 witnessed one of the most important events of the
reign of Napoleon, and one which, no doubt had a decided influence
on his fate--his divorce from Josephine and his marriage with Maria
Louisa, the archduchess of Austria. It had long been evident to those
about Napoleon that a change of this kind would take place. Josephine
had brought the Emperor no child, and, ambitious in every way, he
was as much so of leaving lineal successors to the throne and empire
which he had created, as he was of making that empire co-extensive
with Europe. Josephine, strongly attached to him, as well as to the
splendour of his position, had long feared such a catastrophe, and
had done all in her power to divert his mind from it. She proposed to
him that he should adopt an heir, and she recommended to him her own
son, Eugene Beauharnais. But this did not satisfy Buonaparte. She then
turned his attention to a child of her daughter, Hortense Beauharnais,
by his brother Louis, the King of Holland. This would have united her
own family to his, and to this scheme Buonaparte appeared to consent.
He showed much affection for the child, and especially as the boy
displayed great pleasure in looking at arms and military manœuvres;
and on one occasion of this kind Buonaparte exclaimed, "There is a
child fit to succeed, perhaps to surpass me!" But neither was this
scheme destined to succeed. The child sickened and died, and with it
almost the last hope of Josephine. Whilst at Erfurt with the Emperor
Alexander, in 1808, Buonaparte had actually proposed for a Russian
archduchess; nay, in 1807 he had made such overtures at the Treaty of
Tilsit. Thus the idea had been settled in his mind three years, at
least, before it was realised. The Russian match had on both occasions
been evaded, on the plea of the difference of religion; but the truth
was that the notion of such an alliance was by no means acceptable
to the Imperial family of Russia. The Empress and the Empress-mother
decidedly opposed it; and though the plea of difference of religion
was put forward, Buonaparte could not but feel that the real reasons
were very different--that he was looked on as a successful adventurer,
whose greatness might some day dissolve as speedily as it had grown,
and that, be this as it might, the Russian family were not disposed to
receive him, a _parvenu_ monarch, into their old regal status.
The Austrian campaign, and Buonaparte's sojourn at Schönbrunn, gave him
a sight of the Archduchess Maria Louisa, and determined his conduct.
The house of Hapsburg, however ancient and however proud, was under
the foot of the conqueror, and the sacrifice of an archduchess might
be considered a cheap one for more favourable terms than Austria
was otherwise likely to receive. It had the fate of Prussia before
its eyes, and the bargain was concluded. It might have seemed to
require no little courage in an Austrian princess to venture on
becoming Empress of France after the awful experience of her aunt
Marie Antoinette. But Maria Louisa was scarcely eighteen. She had
seen Buonaparte, who had endeavoured to make himself agreeable to
her; and so young a girl, of a military nation, might be as much
dazzled with the conqueror's glory as older, if not wiser, heads. She
made no objection to the match. In appearance she was of light, fair
complexion, with light-brown hair, of a somewhat tall figure, blue
eyes, and with a remarkably beautiful hand and foot. Altogether, she
was an animated and agreeable young lady.
Buonaparte apparently lost no time, after his return to Paris from
Schönbrunn, in communicating to Josephine the fact that the business
of the divorce and the new marriage was settled. On the 30th of
November, 1809, he opened the unpleasant reality to her in a private
interview, and she fell into such violent agitation, and finally into
so deep a swoon, as to alarm Napoleon. He blamed Hortense for not
having broken the matter to her three days before, as he had desired.
But however much Napoleon might be affected at this rude disruption
of an old and endeared tie, his feelings never stood in the way of
his ambitious plans. The preparations for the divorce went on, and on
the 15th of December a grand council was held in the Tuileries on the
subject. At this important council all the family of Napoleon, his
brothers and sisters, now all kings and queens, were summoned from
their kingdoms to attend, and did attend, except Joseph from Spain,
Madame Bacciochi--that is, Elise--and Lucien, who had refused to be
made a king. Cambacérès, now Duke of Parma and arch-chancellor of the
Empire, and St. Jean d'Angély, the Minister of State, attended to take
the depositions. Napoleon then said a few words expressive of his
grief at this sad but necessary act, of affection for and admiration
of the wife he was about to put away, and of his hope of a posterity
to fill his throne, saying he was yet but forty, and might reasonably
expect to live to train up children who should prove a blessing to the
empire. Josephine, with a voice choked with tears, arose, and, in a
short speech, made the act a voluntary one on her part. After this the
arch-chancellor presented the written instrument of divorce, which they
signed, and to which all the family appended their signatures. This act
was presented to the Senate the very next day by St. Jean d'Angély,
and, strangely enough, Eugene Beauharnais, Josephine's son, was chosen
to second it, which he did in a speech of some length. The Senate
passed the necessary _Senatus Consultum_, certifying the divorce, and
conferring on Josephine the title of empress-queen, with the estate of
Navarre and two millions of francs per annum. They also voted addresses
to both Napoleon and Josephine of the most complimentary character.
This being done, Napoleon went off to St. Cloud, and Josephine retired
to the beautiful abode of Malmaison, near St. Germains, where she
continued to reside for the remainder of her life, and made herself
beloved for her acts of kindness and benevolence, of which the
English _détenus_, of whom there were several at St. Germains, were
participants.
Another council was immediately summoned to determine on the choice
of a new Empress. All had been arranged before between the House of
Austria and Napoleon, and the cue was given to the council to suggest
accordingly. Eugene Beauharnais was again strangely appointed to
propose to Prince Schwarzenberg for the hand of the archduchess, and,
having his instructions, his proposal was accepted, and the whole of
this formality was concluded in four-and-twenty hours. Josephine set
out for her new estate in Navarre, and Marshal Berthier was appointed
to act as proxy for his master in the espousals of the bride at Vienna.
There were difficulties in the case which, strictly Catholic as the
Hapsburg family is, it is surprising that they could be so easily
got over, and which show how much that Imperial family was under
the control of "the Upstart," as they familiarly styled him amongst
themselves. The Pope had been too grievously insulted and persecuted
by Buonaparte for it to be possible for him to pronounce the former
marriage invalid; had it not been also contrary to the canons of the
Church to abrogate marriage, which it regards as an entirely sacred
and indissoluble ceremony. To remove this difficulty, it was stated to
the Austrian family that Buonaparte's marriage with Josephine had been
merely a revolutionary marriage before a magistrate, and therefore no
marriage at all--the fact being originally true, but it had ceased to
be so some days previous to Buonaparte's coronation, when, to remove
the Pope's objection, they had been privately married by Buonaparte's
uncle, Cardinal Fesch. The wedding took place at Vienna, on the 11th
of March, 1810, and a few days afterwards the young Empress set out
for France, accompanied by the Queen of Naples. Buonaparte, who
maintained the strictest etiquette at his Court, had had all the
ceremonies which were to attend his marriage in Paris arranged with the
most minute exactness. He then set out himself to meet his Austrian
bride, very much in the manner that he had gone to meet the Pope. Near
Soissons--riding alone, and in an ordinary dress--Buonaparte met the
carriage of his new wife, got in, and went on with her to Soissons and
thence to the old château of Compiègne.
Soon after his marriage Buonaparte made a tour with his Imperial bride.
It was very much the same that he had made with Josephine shortly
before their coronation--namely, through the northern provinces of
France, through Belgium and Holland. He decided, during this journey,
on the occasion of his uniting the part of the Low Countries called
Zealand with the Department of the Mouths of the Scheldt, on annexing
the whole country to France for ever. But whilst conversing with Louis
Buonaparte, his Holland king-brother at Antwerp, he suddenly stumbled
on a discovery of some daring proceedings of Fouché, his Minister of
Police, which sent him back to Paris in haste, and ruined that subtle
diplomatist with him. The arbitrary disposition displayed in this
arrangement very soon produced consequences between Napoleon and his
brothers which made more than ever manifest to the world that no law or
consideration could any longer influence Napoleon; that his self-will
was, and must be, his only guide. His brother Lucien, who had from
the first refused to become one of his puppets, and who was leading a
private life in Italy, received an intimation from Fouché that Napoleon
meant to arrest and shut him up. In consequence of this friendly hint,
Lucien fled from the Continent, and ultimately took refuge in England,
where he purchased an estate near Ludlow, and there resided till 1814,
when the fall of his brother permitted him to return to France. Lucien
Buonaparte (the ablest of the family next to Napoleon), now styled the
Prince of Canino, from an estate which he purchased in Italy, and which
the Pope raised to a principality, spent the three years in England in
writing a poem entitled "Charlemagne; or, the Church Delivered."
But if Lucien, who had rendered Napoleon such essential services in
enabling him to put down the French Revolution, could not escape this
meddling domination as a private man, much less could his puppet-kings,
whether brothers or brothers-in-law. He was beginning to have violent
quarrels with Murat and his sister Caroline, king and queen of Naples;
nor could the mild and amiable temper of Louis, king of Holland,
protect him from the insults and the pressure of this spoiled child of
fortune.
Louis was a conscientious man, who was sincerely desirous of studying
the comfort and prosperity of the people over whom he was placed. But
the system of Buonaparte went to extinguish the welfare of Holland
altogether. To insist upon the Dutch shutting out the manufactures of
Great Britain, upon which the large trade of Holland subsisted, was
to dry up the very means by which Holland had made itself a country
from low-lying sea-marshes and sand-banks. Louis knew this, and
winked, as much as possible, at the means by which the trade of his
subjects was maintained with England. This produced extreme anger on
the part of Napoleon, who used terms towards his brother of rudeness
and even brutality. Relations between Louis, and his queen, Hortense,
the daughter of Josephine, had grown unbearable. In fact, they had
made a mutual, though not a legal separation; and in 1809 they each
demanded that a legal separation should take place. There was such an
intimate connection between Buonaparte and Queen Hortense that Louis
deemed it a matter that concerned his honour as well as his quiet.
But Napoleon bluntly refused to allow such a legal dissolution of the
marriage, and insulted his brother by calling him an ideologist--a man
who had spoiled himself by reading Rousseau. He did not even return a
written answer to Louis's demand, but satisfied himself with a verbal
one. Champagny, the Duke of Cadore, who had succeeded Talleyrand as
Minister, stated in a report that the situation of Louis was become
critical from the conflicting sentiments in his heart of duties towards
France and duties towards his own subjects; and Buonaparte intimated
his intention to recall Louis to France, and to unite Holland, as a
province, to the empire. Louis, on his part, intimated that unless the
Dutch were allowed to avoid universal ruin by the prosecution of their
commerce, he would abdicate. Buonaparte had already annexed Zealand to
France, and Louis displayed a remarkable indifference to retaining the
remainder. On this, Buonaparte seemed to pause in his menaces; but for
all that he did not suspend his resolution to compel an utter exclusion
of British goods. The Dutch, who esteemed Louis for his honest regard
for their rights, were alarmed at the idea of losing him; for it could
only be for Holland to be united to France, and put under the most
compulsory system. For some time they and Louis contemplated laying
the whole country under water, and openly repudiating the influence of
Napoleon. But cool reflection convinced them that such resistance was
useless; and in March of this year Louis submitted to a treaty by which
the Continental system was to be strictly enforced. Not only Zealand,
but Dutch Brabant and the whole course of the Rhine on both its banks
were made over to France. Louis signed the treaty on the 1st of July,
but significantly added, "as far as possible."
But no such easy rendering of the contract was contemplated by
Buonaparte. He did not even adhere to the letter of it. French officers
were to be placed in all the Dutch garrisons, and eighteen thousand
troops were to be maintained, of whom six thousand were to be French.
Instead of six thousand soldiers, General Oudinot appeared at the
head of twenty thousand at Utrecht. These, Buonaparte informed Louis,
were to occupy all the strong posts of the country, and to have their
headquarters at Amsterdam, his capital. Louis determined to be no party
to this utter subjugation of the country, nor any longer to play the
part of a puppet sovereign. On the 1st of July he executed a deed of
abdication in favour of his son, Napoleon Louis, expressing a hope
that, though he had been so unfortunate as to offend the Emperor, he
trusted he would not visit his displeasure on his innocent family.
He then drew up a vindication of his conduct, saying that he was
placed in an impossible situation, and that he had long foreseen this
termination of it. He sent this to be published in England, the only
place in which it could appear; and he then gave an entertainment to a
number of his friends at his palace at Haarlem, and at midnight entered
a private carriage and drove away. He proceeded to Graz, in Styria,
where he devoted his leisure to the instruction of his children, and
to literature, and wrote "_Documens Hìstoriques et Réflexions sur le
Gouvernement de la Holland_"--being an account of his administration
of the government of that country--and also a novel, called "_Marie,
ou les Hollandaises_." His wife, Hortense, went to Paris, where she
became a great leader in the world of fashion. On the 9th of July,
only eight days after the abdication of Louis, Buonaparte issued a
decree declaring Holland "re-united to France!" Oudinot marched into
Amsterdam, and took possession of it in the name of his master. It was
declared the third city of the French empire. The French Ministers
issued reports to vindicate this annexation, which was a disgraceful
breach of Napoleon's pledge to the Senate--that the Rhine should
be the boundary of France--and also of his repeated assurances that
Holland should remain an independent kingdom.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON I. (_From the Portrait by Paul Delaroche._)]
This conviction of all Europe that the ambition of Buonaparte would
swell till it burst in ruin, quickly received fresh confirmation. The
trans-Rhenish provinces of Holland did not form a proper frontier for
him. He immediately gave orders to form Oldenburg, Bremen, and all the
line of coast between Hamburg and Lübeck, into additional Departments
of France, which was completed by a _Senatus Consultum_ of the 13th
of December of this year. Thus the French empire now extended from
Denmark to Sicily; for Naples, though it was the kingdom of Joachim
Murat, was only nominally so; for the fate of the kingdom of Holland
had dissipated the last delusion regarding the reality of any separate
kingdom of Napoleon's erection. Italy, Jerome's kingdom of Westphalia,
the Grand Duchy of Berg--now given to the infant son of Louis--all
the territories of the Confederation of the Rhine, and Austria itself
were really subject to Buonaparte, and any day he could assert that
dominion. More than eighty millions of people in Europe owned this
quondam lieutenant of artillery as their lord and master, whose will
disdained all control. No such empire had existed under one autocrat,
or under one single sceptre, since the palmiest days of the Roman
supremacy. Denmark retained its nominal independence only by humbly
following the intimations of the great man's will. And now Sweden
appeared to add another realm to his vast dominions; but, in reality,
the surprising change which took place there created a final barrier
to his progress in the North, and became an immediate cause of his
utter overthrow. The story is one of the most singular and romantic in
all the wonderful events of the Napoleonic career.
Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden--with all the military ardour of
Charles XII., but without his military talent; with all the chivalry
of an ancient knight, but at the head of a kingdom diminished and
impoverished--had resisted Buonaparte as proudly as if he were monarch
of a nation of the first magnitude. He refused to fawn on Napoleon; he
did not hesitate to denounce him as the curse of all Europe. He was
the only king in Europe, except that of Great Britain, who withstood
the marauder. He was at peace with Great Britain, but Alexander of
Russia, who had for his own purposes made an alliance with Napoleon,
called on him to shut out the British vessels from the Baltic. Gustavus
indignantly refused, though he was at the same time threatened with
invasion by France, whose troops, under Bernadotte, already occupied
Denmark. At once he found Finland invaded by sixty thousand Russians,
without any previous declaration of war. Finland was lost, and
Alexander saw his treachery rewarded with the possession of a country
larger than Great Britain, and with the whole eastern coast of the
Baltic, from Tornea to Memel; the Åland Isles were also conquered and
appropriated at this time. The unfortunate Gustavus, whose high honour
and integrity of principle stood in noble contrast to those of most of
the crowned heads of Europe, was not only deposed for his misfortunes,
but his line deprived of the crown for ever. This took place in March,
1809. The unfortunate monarch was long confined in the castle of
Gripsholm, where he was said to have been visited by the apparition of
King Eric XIV. He was then permitted to retire into Germany, where,
disdainfully refusing a pension, he divorced his wife, the sister of
the Empress of Russia, assumed the name of Colonel Gustavson, and went,
in proud poverty, to live in Switzerland. These events led to the last
of Sweden's great transactions on the field of Europe, and by far the
most extraordinary of all.
Alexander of Russia, having obtained all that he hoped for from
the peace of Tilsit and the alliance with Napoleon by the conquest
of Finland, was looking about for a new ally to aid him in freeing
himself from the insolent domination of Buonaparte, who was ruining
Russia as well as the rest of Europe by his Continental system, when
these unexpected events in Sweden opened up to him a sudden and most
marvellous ally. The Swedes had chosen the Duke of Sudermania, the
uncle of the deposed king. Charles XIII., the brother of Gustavus III.
(assassinated by Count Anckarström in 1792), was old, imbecile, and
childless. A successor was named for him in the Duke of Augustenburg,
who was extremely popular in Norway, and who had no very distant
expectations of the succession in Denmark. This prince--a member of an
unlucky house--had scarcely arrived in Sweden when he died suddenly,
not without suspicion of having been poisoned; in fact, various
rumours of such a fate awaiting him preceded his arrival. Russia, as
well as a powerful party in Sweden, was bent on restoring the line of
Vasa. Alexander was uncle to the young prince, who, by no fault of
his own, was excluded from the throne. Whatever was the real cause,
Augustenburg died, as had been predicted; and while the public mind
in Sweden was agitated about the succession, the aged king, Charles
XIII., applied to Napoleon for his advice. But Napoleon had bound
himself at Tilsit to leave the affairs of the North in the hands of
Alexander, and especially not to interfere in those of Sweden. He
therefore haughtily replied:--"Address yourself to Alexander; he is
great and generous"--ominous words, which were, ere long, applied, to
his astonishment and destruction.
Yet, on the first view of the case, the selection of the Swedes augured
anything but a Russian alliance; and showed on the surface everything
in favour of Napoleon and France, for it fell on a French general and
field-marshal, Bernadotte. The prince royal elect made his public
entry into Stockholm on the 2nd of November. The failing health of the
king, the confidence which the talents of Bernadotte had inspired,
the prospect of a strong alliance with France through him--all these
causes united to place the national power in his hands, and to cast
upon him, at the same time, a terrible responsibility. The very crowds
and cries which surrounded him expressed the thousand expectations
which his presence raised. The peasantry, who had heard so much of his
humble origin and popular sentiments, looked to him to curb the pride
and oppression of the nobles; the nobles flattered themselves that he
would support their cause, in the hope that they would support him;
the mass of the people believed that a Republican was the most likely
to maintain the principles of the Revolution of 1809; the merchants
trusted that he would be able to obtain from Napoleon freedom for trade
with Great Britain, so indispensable to Sweden; and the army felt
sure that, with such a general, they should be able to seize Norway
and re-conquer Finland. Nor was this all. Bernadotte knew that there
existed a legitimist party in the country, which might long remain
a formidable organ in the hands of internal factions or external
enemies. How was he to lay the foundation of a new dynasty amid all
these conflicting interests? How satisfy at once the demands of France,
Britain, and Russia? Nothing but firmness, prudence, and sagacity
could avail to surmount the difficulties of his situation; but these
Bernadotte possessed.
Napoleon, seeing that Bernadotte was become King of Sweden contrary
to his secret will and to his expectations, determined, however,
that he should still serve him. He gave him no respite. He demanded
incessantly, and with his usual impetuosity, that Bernadotte should
declare war against Great Britain and shut out of the Baltic both
British and American merchandise. Alexander regarded him first with
suspicion but his spies soon dissipated his fears. They soon perceived
that Bernadotte was not disposed to be at once master of a powerful
kingdom and the vassal of France. Alexander made offers of friendship;
they were accepted by Bernadotte with real or affected pleasure, and
his course became clearer. For the next two years there was a great
strife to secure the alliance of the Crown Prince; and the proud,
disdainful, imperious temper of Napoleon, who could not brook that one
who had been created by him out of nothing but a sergeant of marines
should presume to exercise an independent will, threw the prize into
the hands of the more astute Russian, and decided the fate of Europe
and of himself.
Great Britain, which had made some show of restoring the legitimate
prince, soon became satisfied that Bernadotte would lean to its
alliance. Meanwhile Alexander of Russia displayed more and more decided
symptoms of an intention to break with France. He hastened to make
peace with the Turks, and to pour his sentimental assurances into
the ear of Count Stadingk, the Swedish ambassador. As he called God
to witness, in 1807, that he had no wish to touch a single Swedish
village, so now he professed to be greatly troubled that he had been
obliged to seize all Finland. "Let us forget the past," said the Czar.
"I find myself in terrible circumstances, and I swear, upon my honour,
that I never wished evil to Sweden. But now that unhappy affair of
Finland is over, and I wish to show my respect to your king, and my
regard for the Crown Prince. Great misfortunes are frequently succeeded
by great prosperities. A Gustavus Adolphus issued from Sweden for the
salvation of Germany, and who knows what may happen again?" And he
began to unveil his disgust at the encroachments of Buonaparte. "What
does he mean," he said, "by his attempt to add the north of Germany to
his empire, and all its mercantile towns? He might grasp a dozen cities
of Germany, but Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen--'our Holy Trinity,' as
Romanoff says--I am weary of his perpetual vexations!" The result was
the offer of Norway to Sweden as the price of Bernadotte's adhesion
to the proposed alliance. Great Britain also offered to Sweden as a
colony, Surinam, Demerara, or Porto Rico.
But all this could not have prevailed with Bernadotte--who leaned
fondly and tenaciously towards France from old associations--had not
the unbearable pride, insolence, and domineering spirit of Napoleon
repelled him, and finally decided his course. So late as March, 1811,
Bernadotte used this language to M. Alquier, the French ambassador,
when pressed by him to decide for France:--"I must have Norway--Norway
which Sweden desires, and which desires to belong to Sweden, and I can
obtain it through another power than France." "From England, perhaps?"
interposed the ambassador. "Well, yes, from England; but I protest
that I only desire to adhere to the Emperor. Let his majesty give me
Norway; let the Swedish people believe that I owe to him that mark of
protection, and I will guarantee all the changes that he desires in
the system and government of Sweden. I promise him fifty thousand men,
ready equipped by the end of May, and ten thousand more by July. I will
lead them wherever he wishes. I will execute any enterprise that he
may direct. Behold that western point of Norway. It is separated from
England only by a sail of twenty-four hours, with a wind which scarcely
ever varies. _I will go there if he wishes!_"
But Napoleon would not listen to the transfer of Norway; that was
the territory of his firm ally, Denmark: Finland he might have, but
not Norway. In October of the same year an English agent landed at
Gothenburg, eluded the French spies, traversed, by night, woods, bogs,
and hills, and, in a small village of the interior of Sweden, met a
Swedish agent, where the terms of a treaty were settled, in which
Russia and Turkey, Britain and Sweden, were the contracting powers;
by which Sweden was to receive Norway, and renounce for ever Finland;
and Alexander and Bernadotte were to unite all their talents, powers,
and experience against France. In the following January the sudden
invasion of Swedish Pomerania by the French showed that the crisis was
come, and that henceforth Napoleon and Bernadotte were irreconcilable
opponents. From that time offers of alliance and aid poured in from all
quarters. Prussia sent secret messages, and concerted common measures
with Russia. The insurgents of Spain and Portugal, where Wellington
was in active operation--even the old Bourbon dynasty--paid court to
him. Moreau returned from America to fight under his banners, and
emigrants flocked from all quarters to combine their efforts against
the universal foe--Napoleon.
[Illustration: THE AGENTS OF BRITAIN AND SWEDEN SIGNING THE TREATY
AGAINST NAPOLEON. (_See p._ 7.)]
In England a remarkable event closed the year 1810--the appointment
of a Regency. For some time the old malady of the king had returned
upon him. He had not attended to open and close the last Session of
Parliament, and there was a general impression as to the cause. But on
the 25th of October, when Parliament had voted the celebration of a
general jubilee, on the king's entrance upon the fiftieth year of his
reign, it was announced publicly that his Majesty was no longer capable
of conducting public business, and the House of Commons adjourned for
a fortnight. This was a melancholy jubilee, so far as the king and his
family were concerned; but the nation celebrated it everywhere with an
affectionate zeal and loyalty. The royal malady had been precipitated
by the death of his favourite daughter Amelia. On the 20th or 21st of
October he visited her on her death-bed, and she put on his finger a
ring, containing her own hair, and with the motto, "Remember me when
I am gone." This simple but sorrowful act completed the mischief in
progress, and George retired from the bedside of his dying daughter a
confirmed lunatic. The princess died on the 2nd of November, but her
father was past consciousness of the event.
At the end of the fortnight Lord Grenville and Lord Grey pointed out
the necessity of proceeding to appoint a regent. Ministers replied
that the physicians were confident of the king's speedy recovery; but
as there were repeated adjournments and the reports of the physicians
still held the same language, the sense of Parliament prevailed. On
the 17th of December Mr. Perceval moved that on the 20th they should
go into committee on the question of the Regency; and on that day the
same resolutions were passed as had been passed in 1788--namely, that
the Prince of Wales should be Regent under certain restrictions; that
the right of creating peerages, and granting salaries, pensions, and
offices in reversion, should be limited specifically, as in 1788. The
royal dukes made a protest against these limitations; but on the 30th
they were confirmed by both Houses, with additional resolutions for the
care of his Majesty's person and the security of his private property,
which were passed on the last day of the year 1810.
[Illustration: CARLTON HOUSE, LONDON (1812).]
The business of the Regency was so important that Parliament--without
adjourning, as usual, for the Christmas holidays--opened the year 1811,
on the very first of January, by proceeding with it. An alteration
in the fifth resolution, somewhat reducing the expense of the royal
household, and also limiting more strictly the authority of the
Queen, was proposed, and carried against Ministers, by two hundred
and twenty-six votes against two hundred and thirteen. Perceval in
the Commons, and Lord Liverpool in the Lords, moved amendments on
this change but without effect. Another alteration was proposed by
Lord Grenville, that the Regent should be allowed to elevate lawyers
and other civilians to the peerage, as well as military men; and this
was readily agreed to. The remaining restrictions were to terminate
in February, 1812, if the House had been sitting then six weeks, or
otherwise, after the sitting of the House for six weeks after its next
assembling. Deputations were appointed by both Houses to announce
these resolutions to the Regent and the Queen. The Regent complained
of the restrictions, but the Queen expressed herself quite satisfied.
The Great Seal was then affixed to a commission for opening Parliament
under the Regent, after some opposition by Lord Grey. The House then
adjourned till the 15th of January.
It was now expected by the Whigs, and by a great part of the public,
that they should come into office. At first the conduct of the Prince
Regent favoured this supposition. He applied to Grey and Grenville to
draw up the answer that he should return to the two Houses on their
addresses on his appointment. But he did not quite like this answer,
and got Sheridan to make some alterations in it. He then returned the
paper to Grey and Grenville, as in the form that he approved. But
these noblemen declared that they would have nothing more to do with
the paper so altered; and Sheridan, on his part, suggested to the
prince that he would find such men as Ministers very domineering and
impracticable. Nor was this all--Lord Grenville and his family held
enormous patronage. Like all the Whigs, the Grenvilles, however they
might study the interests of the country, studied emphatically their
own. Grenville had long held, by a patent for life, the office of
Auditor to the Exchequer; and in accepting office in "All the Talents"
Ministry, he managed to obtain also the office of First Lord of the
Treasury. The Auditorship of the Exchequer was instituted as a check
on the Treasury, but neither Lord Grenville nor his friends saw any
impropriety in destroying this check by putting both offices into the
same hands. They declared this union was very safe and compatible, and
a Bill was brought in for the purpose. But when the King had become
both blind and insane, and no Regent was yet appointed, Lord Grenville,
being no longer First Lord of the Treasury, but Perceval, he suddenly
discovered that he could not obey the order of the Treasury for the
issues of money to the different services. It was strictly necessary
that the Great Seal, or the Privy Seal, or the Sign Manual, should be
attached to the Treasury orders, or, failing these, that they should
be sanctioned by an express Act of Parliament. As neither Great nor
Privy Seal, nor Sign Manual was possible until a regent was appointed,
Lord Grenville's conscience would not let him pass the orders of the
Treasury, and all payments of army, navy, and civil service were
brought to a stand. Perceval, after in vain striving hard to overcome
the scruples, or rather the party obstinacy of Grenville, was compelled
to go to the House of Parliament, and get the obstacle removed by a
resolution of both Houses. The notice of the public being thus turned
by Grenville to his holding of this office, and his readiness to unite
the two offices in his own person, which his pretended scruples of
conscience now invested with so much danger, produced a prejudice
against him and his party, which was hostile to their coming into
power. Besides this, the Opposition were greatly divided in their
notions of foreign policy. Grey and his immediate section of the party
felt bound, by their advocacy of Fox's principles, to oppose the war;
Grenville and his friends were for a merely defensive war, and for
leaving Portugal and Spain, and the other Continental nations, to fight
their own battles; whilst Lord Holland, who had travelled in Spain, and
was deeply interested in its language and literature, was enthusiastic
for the cause of the Peninsula, and the progress which Wellington
was making there. It was utterly impossible that, with such divided
views, they could make an energetic Ministry at this moment, and it was
equally certain that they could not again form an "All the Talents" by
coalition with the Conservatives. And, beyond all this, it does not
appear that the Regent was anxious to try them. Like all heirs-apparent
of the house of Hanover, he had united with the Opposition during his
youth, but his friendship appeared now anything but ardent. Sheridan
still possessed something of his favour, and the Earl of Moira was high
in it; but for the rest, the prince seemed quite as much disposed to
take the Tories into his favour; and he, as well as the royal dukes,
his brothers, was as much bent on the vigorous prosecution of the war
as the Tories themselves. No Ministry which would have carried that on
languidly, still less which would have opposed it, would have suited
him any more than it would have done his father. The King, too, was
not so deeply sunk in his unhappy condition but that he had intervals
lucid enough to leave him alive to these questions, and he showed so
much anxiety respecting the possible change of the Ministry, and fresh
measures regarding the war, that his physicians declared that such a
change would plunge him into hopeless madness and probably end his
life. The Queen wrote to the prince, saying how much satisfaction his
conduct in regard to these matters had given to his father, and he
wrote to Mr. Perceval, declaring that this consideration determined him
not to change the Ministry at all. At the same time he expressed to
the Minister his dissatisfaction with the restrictions which had been
imposed upon him. Perceval, even at the risk of offending the prince,
justified the conduct of Ministers and Parliament. In this he might be
the more bold, as it was clear that there was no longer any danger of
a Whig Government.
On the 12th of February Parliament was opened by a speech, not from
the Prince Regent in person, but by commission, the commissioners
being the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of
Montrose, and the Earls Camden and Westmoreland. The speech was of
the most belligerent character, recounting the success of our arms
in the Indian seas, in repelling the attack of the Neapolitans on
Sicily, and, above all, in the Peninsula. Lord Grenville opposed the
address, considering the war as hopeless, and as mischievous to our
interests. It was carried in both Houses without a division. Perceval,
on the 21st, announced that the prince was desirous not to add any
fresh burdens to the country in existing circumstances, and therefore
declined any addition to his establishment as Regent.
One of the first things which the Regent did was to re-appoint the
Duke of York to the post of Commander-in-chief of the Forces. Old Sir
David Dundas, as thoroughly aware of his unfitness for the office as
the army itself was, had requested leave to retire, and on the 25th of
May the appointment of the duke was gazetted. There was a considerable
expression of disapproval in the House of Commons of this measure. Lord
Milton moved that it was highly improper and indecorous, and he was
supported by Lord Althorp, Mr. Wynn, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Whitbread, and
others; but the facts which had come to light through Mrs. Clarke's
trials, both regarding her and her champion, Colonel Wardle, had
mitigated the public feeling towards the duke so far, that the motion
was rejected by a majority of two hundred and ninety-six against
forty-seven. It is certain that the change from the duke to Sir David
Dundas, so far as the affairs of the army were concerned, was much
for the worse. The duke was highly popular in that office with the
soldiers, and he rendered himself more so by immediately establishing
regimental schools for their children on Dr. Bell's system.
The unnatural state of things induced by the war had now brought
about a great change in our currency. As we could manage to get in
our goods to the Continent by one opening or another, but could not
get the produce of the Continent in return, it would have appeared
that we must be paid in cash, and that the balance of specie must be
in our favour; but this was not the case. By our enormous payments
to our troops in Spain, Portugal, and Sicily, as well as in the East
and West Indies, and by our heavy subsidies, gold had flowed out of
the country so steadily that there appeared very little left in it,
and bank paper had taken its place. On the Continent, impoverished as
they were, the people tenaciously clung to their gold, and Buonaparte
alone could draw it from them in taxes. He always took a heavy military
chest with him on his expeditions, and his officers also carried the
money necessary for themselves in their belts, or otherwise about their
immediate persons. The gold being enormously diminished in quantity
in England, was carefully hoarded on all hands, thus again increasing
the scarcity, and raising the value of it. The price of bullion had
risen from twenty to thirty per cent., and here was a further strong
temptation to hoard or send guineas to the melting-pot. This state of
things led a certain class of political economists to call for a repeal
of the Act for suspension of cash payments, and Francis Horner obtained
a committee of inquiry into the causes of the decrease of gold and the
increase of paper: and this committee came to the conclusion that the
true cause of the evil lay in the excess of paper, and that the way
to restrain it would be to allow the demand for gold at the Bank. But
the truth was that the cause of the evil was not the excess of paper,
but the enormous diminution of gold; and to have opened a legal demand
for gold which could not be had would only have produced a panic, and
a complete and horrible assassination of all credit and all business.
But there were clearer-sighted men in Parliament, who declared that,
though bullion had risen in price, bank-notes would still procure
twenty shillings' worth of goods in the market, and that they were not,
therefore, really depreciated in value. That was true, but guineas had,
notwithstanding, risen to a value of five- or six-and-twenty shillings,
and might be sold for that. Gold had risen, but paper had not fallen;
and gold could not take the place of paper, because it did not, to any
great extent, exist in the country; if it had, paper must have fallen
ruinously. Mr. Vansittart and his party, therefore, moved resolutions
that the resumption of cash payments being already provided for six
months after the conclusion of peace, was an arrangement which answered
all purposes, and ought not to be disturbed; that this would keep all
real excess of paper in check, and leave gold to resume its circulation
when, by the natural influence of peace, it flowed again into the
country. These were, accordingly, carried.
But the bullionists were still bent on forwarding their scheme, or
on throwing the country into convulsions. Lord King announced to his
tenants in a circular letter that he would receive his rents in specie
or in bank-notes to an amount equalling the advanced value of gold.
This raised a loud outcry against the injustice of the act, which
would have raised the rents of his farms twenty or more per cent.;
and Lord Stanhope brought in a Bill to prevent the passing of guineas
at a higher value than twenty-one shillings, and one-pound banknotes
at a less value than twenty shillings. There was a strenuous debate
on the subject in both Houses. In the Lords, Lord Chancellor Eldon
demonstrated the enormity of people demanding their rents in gold
when it did not exist, and when, if the person who could pay in notes
carried these notes to the Bank of England, he could not procure gold
for them. He denominated such a demand from landlords as an attempt
at robbery. Yet the Bill was strongly opposed in both Houses--in the
Commons by Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Samuel Romilly, Brougham, and
others. It underwent many modifications, but it passed, maintaining
its fundamental principles, and landlords were obliged to go on taking
their rents in paper.
But the agitation of this question produced a strong sensation on
the Continent. Buonaparte, who watched every movement of the British
Parliament and Government with the deepest anxiety, immediately seized
on the discussion as a proof that Great Britain was fast sinking under
his Continental system. That system, indeed, was rapidly prostrating
the Continent. From all sides complaints had long been pouring in upon
him that the suppression of commerce was ruining the great mercantile
cities--Hamburg, Bremen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Naples, Genoa,
and the other parts of Italy; and that it was diffusing universal
poverty and distress. The breach which the Emperor Alexander had made
in it, and the determined resistance which the Swedes made to it, had
caused him to feel the necessity of relaxing the rigour of his system.
But now he took fresh courage. He believed that Great Britain was at
her last gasp; that there would speedily be universal rebellion within
her from starving citizens; and he held on in his plan, and this proved
his ultimate destruction; for it made him all the more determined to
coerce Russia, and thus precipitated his fatal campaign against that
country.
After violent debates on the subject of Catholic emancipation, but
with the usual negative result, Parliament was prorogued on the 24th
of July. Ministers proceeded to prosecute the war in the Peninsula
with increased vigour. Lord Wellington needed all the support they
could give him. Notwithstanding his success and the millions of money
that Great Britain was sending to Portugal, the Portuguese Government
continued to annoy him, and showed itself as ignorant, as meddling
and as unthankful as the Spaniards had done. Though he and his army
were the sole defence of the country, which would at once have been
overrun by the French were he not there, and though he was fighting
their battles and defending their persons at the expense of England,
they appeared to have not the slightest sense of these obligations, but
continued to pester him on every possible occasion. They endeavoured
to compel him to maintain the Portuguese army, too, by themselves
neglecting to furnish it with pay and provisions. They demanded to have
the expenditure of the very money remitted for the needs of the British
forces. They raised a vast clamour because the soldiers cut down timber
for firewood. To all these disgraceful annoyances Lord Wellington
replied with a wonderful command of temper, but with firmness and
plain-spokenness. His dispatches abound with complaints of the scurvy
treatment of the Portuguese authorities. The aspect of things in Spain
was worse. There the Spaniards continued to lose every force that they
raised, but nevertheless to criticise all the movements of Wellington
as if they knew, or had shown, that they understood the management
of campaigns better than he did. In fact, if the interests of Spain
and Portugal alone had been concerned, the best thing would have been
to have quietly withdrawn, and have left the French to trample on
them, as a proper punishment for their stupid and ignorant pride. But
the attention which Wellington compelled Buonaparte to give to the
Peninsula, and the constant drain which this war was to him of men and
money, were enabling Russia, and Sweden, and the north of Germany to
prepare for another and decisive struggle with the oppressor.
[Illustration: MARSHAL BERESFORD. (_From the Portrait by Sir W.
Beechey, R.A._)]
We left Wellington occupying his impregnable lines at Torres Vedras
during the winter, and Massena occupying Santarem. Buonaparte thought
he could suggest a mode of putting down the provoking English general
which Massena did not seem able to conceive. After studying the
relative situations of the belligerents, he sent word to Soult to make
a junction with Massena by crossing the Tagus, and then, as he would
be much superior in strength, to continually attack Wellington, and
cause him, from time to time, to lose some of his men. He observed
that the British army was small, and that the people at home were
anxious about their army in Portugal, and were not likely to increase
it much. Having thus weakened Wellington, as soon as the weather
became favourable they were to make an attack from the south bank of
the Tagus. But there were two difficulties to overcome of no trivial
character in this plan. Wellington was not the man to be drawn into
the repeated loss of his men, and the Tagus was too well guarded by
our fleet and by batteries for any chance of taking him in the rear.
However, Napoleon sent Massena a reinforcement, under General Drouet,
who carried along with him a great supply of provisions: he assembled
an army in the north of Spain, under Bessières, of seventy thousand
men, and Soult moved from Cadiz, leaving Sebastiani to continue the
blockade, and advanced to make the ordered junction with Massena. But
he deemed it necessary, before crossing into southern Portugal, to take
possession of Badajoz. In his advance, at the head of twenty thousand
men, he defeated several Spanish corps, and sat down before Badajoz
towards the end of February. Could Massena have maintained himself at
Santarem, this junction might have been made; but, notwithstanding
the provisions brought by Drouet, he found that he had no more than
would serve him on a retreat into Spain. He had ten thousand of his
army sick, and therefore, not waiting for Soult, he evacuated Santarem
on the 5th of March, and commenced his march Spain-ward. Wellington
was immediately after him, and the flight and pursuit continued for
a fortnight. To prevent Massena from finding a temporary refuge in
Coimbra, Wellington ordered Sir Robert Wilson and Colonel Trant to
destroy an arch of the bridge over the Mondego, and thus detain him
on the left bank of that river till he came up. But Massena did not
wait; he proceeded along a very bad road on the left bank of the river
to Miranda, on the river Coira. Along this track Massena's army was
sharply and repeatedly attacked by the British van under Picton, and
suffered severely. Ney commanded the rear-division of the enemy, and,
to check the advance of the British, he set fire to the towns and
villages as he proceeded, and, escaping over the bridge on the Coira,
he blew it up. But before this could be effected, Picton was upon him,
accompanied by Pack's brigade and a strong body of horse, and drove
numbers of the French into the river, and took much baggage. Five
hundred French were left on the ground, and to facilitate their flight
from Miranda, which they also burnt, they destroyed a great deal more
of their baggage and ammunition. Lord Wellington was detained at the
Coira, both from want of means of crossing and from want of supplies;
for the French had left the country a black and burning desert. The
atrocities committed by the army of Massena on this retreat were never
exceeded by any host of men or devils. The soldiers seemed inspired
with an infernal spirit of vengeance towards the Portuguese, and
committed every horror and outrage for which language has a name. The
Portuguese, on the other hand, driven to madness, pursued them like so
many demons, cutting off and destroying all stragglers, and shooting
down the flying files as they hurried through the woods and hills. The
whole way was scattered with the carcases of the fugitives.
A quarrel took place between Massena and Ney on the subject of
attacking the British and Portuguese who invested Almeida, where
was a French garrison, and Ney threw up his command, and retired to
Salamanca. Massena was daily expecting the junction of Soult, who had
taken Badajoz; but Wellington did not give time for this junction. He
attacked Massena at Sabugal on the 3rd of April, and defeated him with
heavy loss. Massena then continued his retreat for the frontier of
Spain, and crossed the Agueda into that country on the 6th. Wellington
then placed his army in cantonments between the Coa and the Agueda, and
made more rigorous the blockade of Almeida.
Having, for the third time, expelled the French from Portugal, with
the exception of the single fortress of Almeida, Wellington proceeded
to reconnoitre the situation of affairs in Spain. Whilst on his
march after Massena he had sent word to General Menacho to maintain
possession of Badajoz, promising him early assistance. Unfortunately,
Menacho was killed, and was succeeded in his command by General Imaz,
who appears to have been a regular traitor. Wellington, on the 9th
of March, had managed to convey to him the intelligence that Massena
was in full retreat, and that he should himself very soon be able to
send or bring him ample assistance. Imaz had a force of nine thousand
Spaniards, and the place was strong. He was besieged by about the same
number of French infantry and two thousand cavalry, yet the very next
day he informed Soult of Wellington's news, and offered to capitulate.
Soult must have been astonished at this proceeding, if he had not
himself prepaid it in French money--the surrender of Badajoz, under the
imminent approach of Wellington, being of the very highest importance.
On the 11th the Spaniards were allowed to march out with what were
called the "honours of war," but which, in this case, were the infamies
of treachery, and Soult marched in. He then gave up the command of the
garrison to Mortier, and himself marched towards Seville.
During his absence from the extreme south, General Graham, with about
four thousand British and Portuguese, had quitted Cadiz by sea, and
proceeded to Algeçiras, where he landed, intending to take Victor, who
was blockading Cadiz, in the rear. His artillery, meanwhile, was landed
at Tarifa; and on marching thither by land, over dreadful mountain
roads, he was joined, on the 27th of February, by the Spanish General
Lapeña, with seven thousand men. Graham consented to the Spaniard
taking the chief command--an ominous concession; and the united
force--soon after joined by a fresh body of about one thousand men,
making the whole force about twelve thousand--then marched forward
towards Medina Sidonia, through the most execrable roads. Victor was
fully informed of the movements of this army, and advanced to support
General Cassagne, who held Medina Sidonia. No sooner did he quit his
lines before Cadiz than the Spanish General De Zogas crossed from the
Isle de Leon, and menaced the left of the French army. On this Victor
halted at Chiclana, and ordered Cassagne to join him there. He expected
nothing less than that Lapeña would manage to join De Zogas, and
that fresh forces, marching out of Cadiz and the Isle of Leon, would
co-operate with them, and compel him to raise the siege altogether. But
nothing so vigorous was to be expected from a Spanish general. Lapeña
was so slow and cautious in his movements that Graham could not get
him to make any determined advance; and on arriving at the heights of
Barrosa, which a Spanish force had been sent forward to occupy, this
body of men had quitted their post, and Victor was in possession of
these important positions, which completely stopped the way to Cadiz
and at the same time rendered retreat almost equally impossible. Lapeña
was skirmishing, at about three miles' distance, with an inconsiderable
force, and the cavalry was also occupied in another direction. Seeing,
therefore, no prospect of receiving aid from the Spaniards, General
Graham determined to attack Marshal Victor, and drive him from the
heights, though the latter's force was twice as strong as the former's.
This Graham did after a most desperate struggle. Had Lapeña shown any
vigour or activity, Victor's retreating army might have been prevented
from regaining its old lines; but it was in vain that Graham urged
him to the pursuit. Lord Wellington eulogised the brilliant action of
the heights of Barrosa, in a letter to Graham, in the warmest terms,
declaring that, had the Spanish general done his duty, there would have
been an end of the blockade of Cadiz. As it was, Victor returned to his
lines and steadily resumed the siege. In the meantime, Admiral Keats,
with a body of British sailors and marines, had attacked and destroyed
all the French batteries and redoubts on the bay of Cadiz, except that
of Catina, which was too strong for his few hundred men to take.
Another attempt of the French to draw the attention of Wellington from
Massena was made by Mortier, who marched from Badajoz, of which Soult
had given him the command, entered Portugal, and invested Campo Mayor,
a place of little strength, and with a very weak garrison. Marshal
Beresford hastened to its relief at the head of twenty thousand men,
and the Portuguese commandant did his best to hold out till he arrived;
but he found this was not possible, and he surrendered on condition
of marching out with all the honours of war. Scarcely, however, was
this done when Beresford appeared, and Mortier abruptly quitted the
town, and made all haste back again to Badajoz, pursued by the British
cavalry. Mortier managed to get across the Guadiana, and Beresford
found himself stopped there by a sudden rising of the water and want of
boats. He had to construct a temporary bridge before he could cross, so
that the French escaped into Badajoz. Mortier then resigned his command
to Latour Maubourg, and the British employed themselves in reducing
Olivença, and some other strong places on the Valverde river, in the
month of April. Lord Wellington made a hasty visit to the headquarters
of Marshal Beresford, to direct the operations against Badajoz,
but he was quickly recalled by the news that Massena had received
reinforcements, and was in full march again to relieve the garrison in
Almeida. Wellington, on the other hand, had reduced his army by sending
reinforcements to Beresford, so that while Massena entered Portugal
with forty thousand foot and five thousand cavalry, Wellington had,
of British and Portuguese, only thirty-two thousand foot and about
one thousand two hundred horse. This force, too, he had been obliged
to extend over a line of seven miles in length, so as to guard the
avenues of access to Almeida. The country, too, about Almeida was
particularly well adapted for cavalry, in which the French had greatly
the superiority. Notwithstanding, Wellington determined to dispute his
passage. He had no choice of ground; he must fight on a flat plain, and
with the Coa flowing in his rear. His centre was opposite to Almeida,
his right on the village of Fuentes d'Onoro, and his left on fort
Concepcion.
On the 5th of May, towards evening, Massena attacked the British right,
posted in Fuentes d'Onoro, with great impetuosity, and the whole fury
of the battle, from beginning to end, was concentrated on this quarter.
At first the British were forced back from the lower part of the town,
driven to the top, where they retained only a cluster of houses and
an old chapel. But Wellington pushed fresh bodies of troops up the
hill, and again drove down the French at the point of the bayonet, and
over the river Das Casas. The next day the battle was renewed with the
greatest desperation, and again the British, overwhelmed with heavy
columns of men, and attacked by the powerful body of cavalry, seemed
on the point of giving way. The cannonade of Massena was terrible,
but the British replied with equal vigour, and a Highland regiment,
under Colonel Mackinnon, rushed forward with its wild cries, carrying
all before it. The battle was continued on the low grounds, or on
the borders of the river, till it was dark, when the French withdrew
across the Das Casas. The battle was at an end. Massena had been
supported by Marshal Bessières, but the two marshals had found their
match in a single English general, and an army as inferior to their
own in numbers as it was superior in solid strength. Four hundred
French lay dead in Fuentes d'Onoro itself, and the killed, wounded,
and prisoners amounted, according to their own intercepted letters, to
over three thousand. The British loss was two hundred and thirty-five
killed--amongst whom was Colonel Cameron,--one thousand two hundred
and thirty-four wounded, and three hundred and seventeen missing, or
prisoners. Almeida was at once evacuated; the garrison blowing up
some of the works, then crossing the Agueda, and joining the army of
Massena, but not without heavy loss of men, besides all their baggage,
artillery, and ammunition.
The fame of this battle, thus fought without any advantage of ground,
and with such a preponderance on the side of the French, produced a
deep impression both in Great Britain and France. The major part of the
British side was composed of British troops, most of the Portuguese
having been sent to Marshal Beresford, and this gave a vivid idea
of the relative efficiency of British and French troops. Buonaparte
had already satisfied himself that Massena was not the man to cope
with Wellington, and Marshal Marmont was on the way to supersede him
when this battle was fought, but he could only continue the flight
of Massena, and take up his headquarters at Salamanca. With Massena
returned to France also Ney, Junot, and Loison; King Joseph had gone
there before; and the accounts which these generals were candid enough
to give, in conversation, of the state of things in Spain, spread a
very gloomy feeling through the circles of Paris.
On the return of Wellington to the north, Beresford strictly blockaded
Badajoz, and made all the preparations that he could for taking it
by storm. But he was almost wholly destitute of tools for throwing
up entrenchments, and of men who understood the business of sapping
and mining. He was equally short of artillery, and the breaching-guns
which he had, had no proper balls. The howitzers were too small for his
shells, and he had few, if any, well-skilled officers of artillery.
Besides this, the ground was very rocky, and the enemy, owing to their
slow progress in the works, were able to make repeated sorties, so that
they had killed four or five hundred of our men. In this situation,
on the 12th of May, Beresford received the intelligence that Soult
was advancing against him with nearly thirty thousand infantry and
four thousand horse. Soult had been set at liberty to leave Seville
by the conclusion of Graham's and Lapeña's expedition, and he had
received reinforcements both from Sebastiani and from Madrid. Beresford
immediately raised the siege, but instead of retiring he advanced
against Soult to give him battle. Beresford had about twenty-five
thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, but unfortunately ten
thousand of these were Spaniards, for Castaños had joined him. Castaños
was one of the best and most intelligent generals of Spain, and had a
mind so far free from the absurd pride of his countrymen that he was
willing to serve under Beresford. Blake was also in his army with a
body of Spanish troops; but Blake was not so compliant as Castaños, and
their troops were just as undisciplined as ever.
On the morning of the 16th of May Beresford fell in with the French at
Albuera, a ruined village, standing on ground as favourable for horse
as that at Fuentes d'Onoro. Blake's corps occupied the right wing of
the allied army, the British the centre, opposite to the village and
bridge of Albuera. Soult advanced in great strength towards the centre;
but Beresford soon saw that the attack was not intended to be made
there, but on the division of Blake on the right. He sent to desire
Blake to alter his front so as to face the French, who would else
come down on his right flank; but Blake thought he knew better than
the British general, and would not move, declaring that it was on the
British centre where the blow would fall. But a little time showed the
correctness of Beresford's warning, and Blake, attempting to change
his front when it was too late, was taken at disadvantage and rapidly
routed.
By this dispersion of the Spaniards the British battalions were wholly
exposed, and the whole might of Soult's force was thrown upon them.
A tremendous fire from the hills, where the Spaniards ought to have
stood, was opened on the British ranks, and several regiments were
almost annihilated in a little time. But the 31st regiment, belonging
to Colborne's brigade, supported by Horton's brigade, stood their
ground under a murderous fire of artillery, and the fiery charge of
both horse and foot. They must soon have fallen to a man, but Beresford
quickly sent up a Portuguese brigade, under General Harvey, to round
the hill on the right, and other troops, under Abercrombie, to compass
it on the left; while, at the suggestion of Colonel (afterwards Lord)
Hardinge, he pushed forward General Cole with his brigade of fusiliers
up the face of the hill. These three divisions appeared on the summit
simultaneously. The advance of these troops through the tempest
of death has always been described as something actually sublime.
Moving onward, unshaken, undisturbed, though opposed by the furious
onslaught of Soult's densest centre, they cleared the hill-top with
the most deadly and unerring fire; they swept away a troop of Polish
lancers that were murderously riding about goring our wounded men, as
they lay on the ground, with their long lances.
[Illustration: THE FUSILIERS AT ALBUERA. (_See p._ 18.)]
Napier, in his "History of the Peninsular War," describes the scene
with the enthusiasm of a soldier:--"Such a gallant line issuing from
the smoke, and rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken
multitude, startled the enemy's heavy masses, which were increasing and
pressing onwards as to an assured victory. They wavered, hesitated,
and then, vomiting forth a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to
enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all
their artillery whistled through the British ranks. Sir William
Myers was killed; Cole, and three colonels--Ellis, Blakeney, and
Hawkshawe--fell wounded; and the Fusilier battalions, struck by the
iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships. Suddenly and
sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, and then was
seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In
vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; in vain
did the hardiest veterans, extricating themselves from the crowded
columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on
such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely
arising, fire indiscriminately on friends and foes, while the horsemen,
hovering on the flank, threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing
could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined
valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weakened the stability of their order.
Their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front; their
measured step shook the ground; their dreadful volleys swept away
the head of every formation; their deafening shouts overpowered the
dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as
foot by foot, and with a horrid carnage, it was driven by the incessant
vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the
French reserves, joining with the struggling multitudes, endeavour
to sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the irremediable
confusion, and the mighty mass, giving way like a loosened cliff, went
headlong down the ascent. The rain flowed after in streams discoloured
with blood, and one thousand five hundred unwounded men--the remnant
of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers--stood triumphant on
the fatal hill." The loss on both sides was fearful, for no battle had
ever been more furiously contested. The French are said to have lost
nine thousand men; the allies, in killed and wounded, seven thousand,
of whom two-thirds were British. The French had two generals killed and
three wounded. Some persons were inclined to blame Marshal Beresford
for risking a battle in the circumstances; but Wellington gave him
the highest praise, and declared that the frightful loss was owing to
the utter failure of the Spaniards; that their discipline was so bad
that it was found impossible to move them without throwing them into
inextricable confusion; that at both Talavera and Albuera the enemy
would have been destroyed if the Spaniards could have been moved; and
that the same course had prevented Lapeña from supporting Graham at
Barrosa. Beresford maintained his position for two days in expectation
of a fresh attack by Soult; but, no doubt, that general had heard that
Lord Wellington was rapidly advancing to support Beresford; and on
the morning of the 18th Soult commenced his retreat to Seville. With
his small handful of cavalry Beresford pursued him, and cut off a
considerable number of his rear, and, amongst them, some of the cavalry
itself at Usagnè, taking about a hundred and fifty of them prisoners.
Had we had a proper body of horse, the slaughter of the flying army
would have been awful. Soult did but quit the ground in time; for, the
very day after, Wellington arrived at Albuera with two fresh divisions.
The siege of Badajoz was again resumed, but with the same almost
insurmountable obstacle of the deficiency of the requisite material
for siege operations; and on the 10th of June, learning that Marmont,
the successor of Massena, was marching south to join Soult, who was
also to be reinforced by Drouet's corps from Toledo, Wellington fell
back on Campo Mayor, gave up the siege of Badajoz, and gathered all his
forces together, except a considerable body of British and Portuguese,
whom he left at Alemtejo. Marmont, observing Wellington's movement,
again retired to Salamanca. Some slight manœuvring followed between the
hostile commanders, which ended in Wellington resuming his old quarters
on the river Coa. On this, Soult also retired again to Seville.
[Illustration: PRISONERS OF WAR.
FROM THE PICTURE BY W. F. YEAMES, R.A.]
On the 28th of October General Hill surprised a French force, under
General Drouet, near Estremadura, and completely routed it, taking
all the baggage, artillery, ammunition, and stores, with one thousand
five hundred prisoners. By this action the whole of that part of
Estremadura except Badajoz was cleared of the French. This done,
General Hill went into cantonments, and the British army received no
further disturbance during the remainder of the year. Thus Wellington
had completely maintained the defence of Portugal, and driven back the
French from its frontiers. Wherever he had crossed the French in Spain,
he had severely beaten them too.
But the most discouraging feature of this war was the incurable pride
of the Spaniards, which no reverses, and no example of the successes
of their allies could abate sufficiently to show them that, unless
they would condescend to be taught discipline, as the Portuguese had
done, they must still suffer ignominy and annihilation. Blake, who had
been so thoroughly routed on every occasion, was not content, like
the British and Portuguese, to go into quarters, and prepare, by good
drilling, for a more auspicious campaign. On the contrary, he led his
rabble of an army away to the eastern borders of Spain, encountered
Suchet in the open field on the 25th of October, was desperately
beaten, and then took refuge in Valencia, where he was closely
invested, and compelled to surrender in the early part of January next
year, with eighteen thousand men, twenty-three officers, and nearly
four hundred guns. Such, for the time, was the end of the generalship
of this wrong-headed man. Suchet had, before his encounter with Blake,
been making a most successful campaign in the difficult country of
Catalonia, which had foiled so many French generals. He had captured
one fortress after another, and in June he had taken Tarragona, after
a siege of three months, and gave it up to the lust and plunder of his
soldiery.
Whilst our armies were barely holding their own in Spain, our fleets
were the masters of all seas. In the north, though Sweden was nominally
at war with us, in compliance with the arrogant demands of Buonaparte,
Bernadotte, the elected Crown Prince, was too politic to carry out his
embargo literally. The very existence of Sweden depended on its trade,
and it was in the power of the British blockading fleet to prevent a
single Swedish vessel from proceeding to sea. But in spite of the angry
threats of Napoleon, who still thought that Bernadotte, though become
the prince and monarch elect of an independent country, should remain a
Frenchman, and, above all, the servile slave of his will, that able man
soon let it be understood that he was inclined to amicable relations
with Great Britain; and Sir James de Saumarez, admiral of our Baltic
fleet, not only permitted the Swedish merchantmen to pass unmolested,
but on various occasions gave them protection. Thus the embargo system
was really at an end, both in Sweden and in Russia; for Alexander also
refused to ruin Russia for the benefit of Buonaparte, and both of
these princes, as we have seen, were in a secret league to support one
another. Denmark, or, rather, its sovereign, though the nephew of the
King of Great Britain, remained hostile to us, remembering not only
the severe chastisements our fleets had given Copenhagen, but also the
facility with which Napoleon could, from the north of Germany, overrun
Denmark and add it to his now enormous empire. In March of this year
the Danes endeavoured to recover the small island of Anholt, in the
Cattegat, which we held; but they were beaten off with severe loss,
leaving three or four hundred men prisoners of war.
In the East Indies we this year sent over from Madras an army and
reduced Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East India settlements, and
the island of Java, as well as the small island of Madura, so that the
last trace of the Dutch power was extinguished in the East, as it was
at home by the domination of Buonaparte. In the West Indies we had
already made ourselves masters of all the islands of France, Denmark,
and Holland; and our troops there had nothing to do but to watch
and keep down the attempts at insurrection which French emissaries
continued to stir up in the black populations. We had some trouble of
this kind in St. Domingo and in Martinique, where the negroes, both
free and slaves, united to massacre the whites, and set up a black
republic like that of Hayti. But the French settlers united with the
English troops in putting them down, and a body of five hundred blacks,
in an attempt to burn down the town of St. Pierre, were dispersed with
great loss, and many were taken prisoners, and fifteen of them hanged.
There was little for our fleets in various quarters to do but to watch
the coasts of Europe where France had dominions for any fugitive French
vessel, for the ships of France rarely dared to show themselves out of
port. In March, however, Captain William Hoste fell in with five French
frigates, with six smaller vessels, carrying five hundred troops up the
Adriatic, near the coast of Dalmatia, and with only four frigates he
encountered and beat them. Captain Schomberg fell in with three French
frigates and a sloop off Madagascar, seized one of them, and followed
the rest to the seaport of Tamatave, in the island of Madagascar, of
which they had managed to recover possession. Schomberg boldly entered
the port, captured all the vessels there, and again expelled the French
from Tamatave. On the American coast our ships were compelled to watch
for the protection of our merchantmen and our interests, in consequence
of the French mania which was prevailing amongst the North Americans,
and which was very soon to lead to open conflict with us.
Such were the circumstances of France in every quarter of the globe,
except on the Continent of Europe; and there already, notwithstanding
the vast space over which Buonaparte ruled by the terror of his arms,
there were many symptoms of the coming disruption of this empire of
arms, which sprang up like a tempest and dispersed like one. Spain and
Portugal, at one end of the Continent, were draining the very life's
blood from France, and turning all eyes in liveliest interest to the
spectacle of a successful resistance, by a small British army, to this
Power so long deemed invincible. In the North lowered a dark storm, the
force and fate of which were yet unsuspected, but which was gathering
into its mass the elements of a ruin to the Napoleonic ambition as
sublime as it was to be decisive. In France itself never had the
despotic power and glory of Buonaparte appeared more transcendent.
Everything seemed to live but at his beck: a magnificent Court,
Parliament the slave of his will, made up of the sham representatives
of subjected nations, the country literally covered with armies, and
nearly all surrounding nations governed by kings and princes who were
but his satraps. Such was the outward aspect of things; and now came
the long-desired event, which was to cement his throne with the blood
of kindred kings, and link it fast to posterity--the birth of a son.
On the 20th of March it was announced that the Empress Maria Louisa
was delivered of a son, who was named Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph,
Prince of the French Empire, and King of Rome.
But this prosperity lay only on the surface, and scarcely even there
or anywhere but in the pride and lying assertions of Buonaparte. If
we contemplate merely the map of Europe, the mighty expanse of the
French empire seemed to occupy nearly the whole of it, and to offer an
awful spectacle of one man's power. This empire, so rapidly erected,
had absorbed Holland, Belgium, part of Switzerland--for the Valais was
united to France,--a considerable part of Germany, with Austria and
Prussia diminished and trembling at the haughty usurper. Italy was
also made part of the great French realm, and a fierce struggle was
going on for the incorporation of Spain and Portugal. From Travemünde
on the Baltic to the foot of the Pyrenees, from the port of Brest to
Terracina on the confines of Neapolitan territory, north and south,
east and west, extended this gigantic empire. Eight hundred thousand
square miles, containing eighty-five millions of people, were either
the direct subjects or the vassals of France. The survey was enough
to inflate the pride of the conqueror, who had begun his wonderful
career as a lieutenant of artillery. But this vast dominion had been
compacted by too much violence, and in outrage to too many human
interests, to remain united, or to possess real strength, even for the
present. The elements of dissolution were already actively at work in
it. The enormous drafts of men to supply the wars by which the empire
had been created had terribly exhausted France. This drain, still kept
up by the obstinate resistance of Spain and Portugal, necessitated
conscription on conscription, and this on the most enormous scale. The
young men were annually dragged from the towns, villages, and fields,
from amid their weeping and despairing relatives, to recruit the
profuse destruction in the armies, and there scarcely remained, all
over France, any but mere boys to continue the trade and agriculture
of the country, assisted by old men, and women. Beyond the boundaries
of France, the populations of subdued and insulted nations were
watching for the opportunity to rise and resume their rights. In
Germany they were encouraging each other to prepare for the day of
retribution; and in numerous places along the coasts bands of smugglers
kept up a continual warfare with the French officers of the customs,
to introduce British manufactures. The contributions which had been
levied in Holland and the Hanse Towns before they were incorporated
in the Gallic empire were now not readily collected in the shape of
taxes. Beyond the Continent ceased the power of Napoleon; over all seas
and colonies reigned his invincible enemy, Great Britain. There was
scarcely a spot the wide world over where the French flag, or those
of the nations whom he had crushed into an odious alliance, waved on
which Great Britain had not now planted her colours. She cut off all
colonial supplies, except what she secretly sold to his subjects in
defiance of his system. She was now victoriously bearing up his enemies
in Spain, Portugal, and Sicily against him, and encouraging Russia,
Sweden, Prussia, and Austria to expect the day of his final overthrow.
There was scarcely a man of any penetration who expected that this vast
and unwieldy government could continue to exist a single day after him
who had compelled it into union, rather than life; but, perhaps, none
suspected how suddenly it would collapse. Yet the very birth of a son
was rather calculated to undermine than to perpetuate it. His great
generals, who had risen as he had risen, were suspected of looking
forward, like those of Alexander of Macedon, to each seizing a kingdom
for himself when the chief marauder should fall. It was certain that
they had long been at enmity amongst themselves--a cause of weakness to
his military operations, which was especially marked in Spain.
[Illustration: THE CONSCRIPTION IN FRANCE: RECRUITING FOR NAPOLEON'S
WARS. (_See p._ 20.)]
On the other hand, the kings whom he had set up amongst his brothers
and brothers-in-law added nothing to his power. Joseph proved a mere
lay figure of a king in Spain; Louis had rejected his domination in
Holland, and abdicated; Lucien had refused to be kinged at all; Murat
managed to control Naples, but not to conciliate the brave mountaineers
of the country to French rule. The many outrages that Buonaparte had
committed on the brave defenders of their countries and their rights
were still remembered to be avenged. Prussia brooded resentfully over
the injuries of its queen; the Tyrol over the murder of Hofer and his
compatriots. Contemptible as was the royal family of Spain--the head
of which, the old King Charles, with his queen, made a long journey
to offer his felicitations on the birth of the king of Rome,--the
Spaniards did not forget the kidnapping of their royal race, nor the
monstrous treatment of the Queen of Etruria, the daughter of Charles
IX. and the sister of Ferdinand. Buonaparte first conferred on her the
kingdom of Etruria, and then took it away again, to settle Ferdinand in
it instead of in Spain; but as he reduced Ferdinand to a prisoner, he
reserved Etruria to himself, and kept the Queen of Etruria in durance
at Nice. Indignant at her restraint, she endeavoured to fly to England,
as her oppressor's brother, Lucien, had done. But her two agents were
betrayed, and one of them was shot on the plain of Grenelle, and the
other only reprieved when the fear of death had done its work on him,
and he only survived a few days. She herself was then shut up, with her
daughter, in a convent.
But of all the parties which remembered their wrongs and indignities,
the Roman Catholic clergy were the most uncomplying and formidable.
They had seen the Pope seized in his own palace at Rome, and forced
away out of Italy and brought to Fontainebleau. But there the resolute
old man disdained to comply with what he deemed the sacrilegious
demands of the tyrant. Numbers of bishoprics had fallen vacant,
and the Pontiff refused, whilst he was held captive, to institute
successors. None but the most abandoned priests would fill the vacant
sees without the papal institution. At length Buonaparte declared
that he would separate France altogether from the Holy See, and would
set the Protestant up as a rival Church to the Papal one. "Sire,"
said the Count of Narbonne, who had now become one of Buonaparte's
chamberlains, "I fear there is not religion enough in all France to
stand a division." But in the month of June Buonaparte determined
to carry into execution his scheme of instituting bishops by the
sanction of an ecclesiastical council. He summoned together more
than a hundred prelates and dignitaries at Paris, and they went in
procession to Notre Dame, with the Archbishop Maury at their head.
They took an oath of obedience to the Emperor, and then Buonaparte's
Minister of Public Worship proposed to them, in a message from the
Emperor, to pass an ordinance enabling the archbishop to institute
prelates without reference to the Pope. A committee of bishops was
found complying enough to recommend such an ordinance, but the council
at large declared that it could not have the slightest value. Enraged
at this defiance of his authority, Buonaparte immediately ordered the
dismissal of the council and the arrest of the bishops of Tournay,
Troyes, and Ghent, who had been extremely determined in their conduct.
He shut them up in the Castle of Vincennes, and summoned a smaller
assembly of bishops as a commission to determine the same question.
But they were equally uncomplying, in defiance of the violent menaces
of the man who had prostrated so many kings but could not bend a few
bishops to his will. The old Pope encouraged the clergy, from his cell
in Fontainebleau, to maintain the rights of the Church against his and
its oppressor, and thus Buonaparte found himself completely foiled.
The year 1812 opened, in England, by the assembling of Parliament on
the 7th of January. The speech of the Regent was again delivered by
commission. The great topic was the success of the war in Spain under
Lord Wellington, whose military talents were highly praised. There was
a reference also to the disagreements with America, and the difficulty
of coming to any amicable arrangement with the United States. Lords
Grey and Grenville, in the Peers, pronounced sweeping censures on the
continuance of the war with France, and on the policy of Ministers
towards America, from which source they prognosticated many disasters.
In the Commons, the Opposition used similar language; and Sir Francis
Burdett took a very gloomy view of our relations both with France and
North America, and declared that we could anticipate no better policy
until we had reformed our representative system.
Another topic of the speech was the mental derangement of the king,
which was now asserted, on the authority of the physicians, to be
more hopeless; Mr. Perceval argued, therefore, the necessity of
arranging the Royal Household so as to meet the necessarily increased
expenditure. Resolutions were passed granting an addition of seventy
thousand pounds per annum to the queen towards such augmented
expenditure, and to provide further income for the Prince Regent. Two
Courts were to be maintained, and the Regent was to retain his revenue
as Prince of Wales. The Civil List chargeable with the additional
seventy thousand pounds to the queen was vested in the Regent; and no
sooner were these particulars agreed to than he sent letters to both
Houses, recommending separate provision for his sisters; so that the
Civil List was at once to be relieved of their maintenance and yet
increased, simply on account of the charge of a poor blind and insane
old man, who could only require a trusty keeper or two. The separate
income agreed to for the princesses was nine thousand pounds a-year
each, exclusive of the four thousand pounds a-year each already derived
from the Civil List--so that there was needed an annual additional
sum of thirty-six thousand pounds for the four princesses, besides
the sixteen thousand pounds a-year now being received by them. Some
members observed that the grant to the Regent, being retrospective,
removed altogether the merit of his declaration during the last Session
of Parliament that, "considering the unexampled contest in which the
kingdom was now engaged, he would receive no addition to his income."
In fact, little consideration was shown by any part of the royal family
for the country under its enormous demands. It was understood that
there was once more a deficiency in the Civil List, which would have to
be made up.
Mr. Bankes again introduced his Bill--which was about to expire--for
prohibiting the grant of offices in reversion; and he endeavoured again
to make it permanent, but, as before, he was defeated on the second
reading in the Commons. He then brought in a Bill confined to two years
only, and this, as before, was allowed to pass both Houses. Great
discussion arose on the grant of the office of paymaster of widows'
pensions to Colonel MacMahon, the confidential servant of the Prince
Regent. This was a mere sinecure, which had been held by General Fox,
the brother of Charles James Fox; and it had been recommended that,
on the general's death, it should be abolished; but Ministers--more
ready to please the Regent than to reduce expenditure--had, immediately
on the general's decease, granted it to Colonel MacMahon. Ministers
met the just complaints of the Opposition by praising the virtues
and ability of MacMahon--as if it required any ability or any virtue
to hold a good sinecure! But there was virtue enough in the Commons
to refuse to grant the amount of the salary, Mr. Bankes carrying a
resolution against it. But Ministers had their remedy. The prince
immediately appointed MacMahon his private secretary, and a salary of
two thousand pounds was moved for. But Mr. Wynne declared that any such
office was unknown to the country--that no regent or king, down to
George III., and he only when he became blind, had a private secretary;
that the Secretary of State was the royal secretary. Ministers replied
that there was now a great increase of public business, and that a
private secretary for the Regent was not unreasonable; but they thought
it most prudent not to press the salary, but to leave it to be paid out
of the Regent's privy purse.
On the 19th of February Lord Wellesley resigned his office of Secretary
of Foreign affairs, because he did not approve of the employment of
some of his colleagues. The Prince Regent now showed that he had no
intention of dismissing the present administration. He proposed to
Lords Grey and Grenville to join it, but they absolutely declined,
knowing that, with the difference of the views of the two parties on
many essential questions, especially on those of the Catholic claims,
of the prosecution of the war, and of our relations with America, it
was impossible for any coalition Cabinet to go on. Lord Castlereagh
succeeded the Marquis of Wellesley in the Foreign Office, but on the
11th of May a fatal event put an end to the Ministry and the life of
Spencer Perceval.