commanded by Captain Cottineau, seems to have done her duty. She
engaged the Countess of Scarborough, and captured her after an hour's
close action. The Pallas was a frigate of thirty-two guns, and the
Countess of Scarborough a single-decked ship, mounting twenty
six-pounders. The Alliance, in the course of the night, also fired into
the Pallas and the Countess of Scarborough, while engaged, and killed
several of the Pallas' men. Subsequent to the engagement it was attested
by the mass of officers in the squadron that, about eight o'clock, the
Alliance raked the Bonhomme Richard with grape and cross-bar, killing a
number of men and dismounting several guns. He afterward made sail for
where the Pallas and the Scarborough were engaged, and after hovering
about until the latter struck, communicated by hailing with both
vessels, and then stood back to the Richard, and coming up on her
larboard quarter, about half-past nine, fired again into her; passing
along her larboard beam, he then luffed up on her lee bow, and renewed
his raking fire. It was proved that the Alliance never passed on the
larboard side of the Serapis, but always kept the Richard between her
and the enemy. The officers of the Richard were of opinion that Landais'
intention was to kill Jones and disable his ship, so as afterward to
have himself an easy victory over the Serapis. As it was, he
subsequently claimed the credit of the victory, on the plea of having
raked the Serapis. There can be little doubt that he was actuated by
jealous and treacherous feelings toward Jones, and by base cowardice.
The Vengeance also behaved badly; neither she nor the Alliance made any
prizes from among the fleet of merchantmen, and the whole escaped under
cover of Flamborough Head and the adjacent harbors. Lieutenant Henry
Lunt, who was absent in the pilot-boat with fifteen of the Richard's
best men, lay in sight of the Richard during the action, but "thought it
not prudent to go alongside in time of action." His conduct at least
involved a great error of judgment, which no doubt he lived to repent.
The conduct of Jones throughout this battle displayed great skill and
the noblest heroism. He carried his ship into action in the most gallant
style, and, while he commanded with ability, excited his followers by
his personal example. We find him, in the course of the action, himself
assisting to lash the ships together, aiding in the service of the only
battery from which a fire was still kept up, and, when the Serapis
attempted to board, rushing, pike in hand, to meet and repel the
assailants. No difficulties or perplexities seemed to appal him or
disturb his judgment, and his courage and skill were equalled by his
immovable self-composure. The achievement of this victory was solely due
to his brilliant display of all the qualities essential to the formation
of a great naval commander.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] The Alliance had deliberately separated from the squadron. As to
the other vessels, the Pallas was a French frigate weaker than the
Richard, but much stronger than the second English ship, which she
captured. The Vengeance was only a sloop of twelve guns, and took no
part in the contest.--ED.
JOSEPH II ATTEMPTS REFORM IN HUNGARY[28]
A.D. 1780
ARMINIUS VAMBERY
As King of Hungary and Bohemia, and as Germanic Emperor,
Joseph II, a man of ideals, found himself hampered by
hereditary institutions and traditions. The attempted
reforms of this ruler, though too advanced for their times,
are justly deemed worthy of commemoration by historians.
Like the work of all leaders who aim at improvement before
the world is ready, they were prophetic of a better day.
Joseph II, son of Francis I, Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire, and Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen
of Hungary and Bohemia, was born at Vienna in 1741. He
succeeded to the possessions of the house of Austria on the
death of his mother in 1780. The troubles of his reign,
especially in Hungary, were due to his own progressive and
technically illegal acts on the one hand, and to the narrow
conservatism of the people, and the illiberality of the
nobles, on the other.
By most of the historians of Hungary and Bohemia the reign
of Joseph II is described as disastrous for both countries.
But a more philosophical view than those historians often
furnish is presented by Vambery, the great Hungarian writer,
who gives to the endeavors of Joseph the credit of enduring
significance.
The royal crown of Hungary has ever been, from the time it encircled the
brow of St. Stephen, an object of jealous solicitude and almost
superstitious veneration with the nation. It continued to loom up as a
brilliant and rallying point in the midst of the vicissitudes and
stirring events of the history of the country during all the centuries
that followed the coronation of the first king. The people looked upon
it as a hallowed relic, the glorious bequest of a long line of
generations past and gone, and as the symbol and embodiment of the unity
of the state. The different countries composing Hungary were known under
the collective name of the "Lands of the Sacred Crown," and, at the
period when the privileged nobility was still enjoying exceptional
immunities, each noble styled himself _membrum sacrae coronae_ ("a member
of the sacred crown"). In the estimation of the people it had ceased to
be a religious symbol, and had become a cherished national and political
memorial, to which the followers of every creed and all the classes
without distinction might equally do homage. Nor was the crown an
every-day ornament to be displayed by royalty on solemn occasions of
pageant. The King wore it only once in his life, on the day of his
coronation, when he was bound solemnly to swear fidelity to the
constitution, before the high dignitaries of the state, first in church,
and to repeat afterward in the open air his vow to govern the country
within the limits of the law. Thus in Hungary it has ever been the
ancient custom, prevailing to this day, that, on the king's accession to
the throne, it is he who, on his coronation, takes the oath of fidelity
to his people, instead of the latter swearing fealty to the king. The
right of succession to the throne is hereditary, but the lawful rule of
the king begins with the ceremony of coronation only. It requires this
ceremonial, which to this day is characterized by the attributes of
mediaeval pomp and splendor, to render the acts of the ruler valid and
binding upon the people; without it every public act of such ruler is a
usurpation.
During eight centuries all the kings and queens, without exception, had
been eager to place the crown on their heads, in order to come into the
full possession of their regal privileges. Joseph II was the first king
who refused to be crowned. He felt a reluctance to swear fidelity to the
constitution, and to promise, by a solemn oath, to govern the country in
accordance with its ancient usages and laws. The people, therefore,
never called him their crowned king; he was either styled "Emperor" by
them, or nicknamed the _kalapos_ ("hatted") king. His reign was but a
series of illegal and unconstitutional acts, and a succession of bitter
and envenomed struggles between the nation and her ruler. The contest
finally ended with Joseph's defeat. He retracted on his death-bed all
his arbitrary measures, and conceded to the people the tardy restoration
of their ancient constitution. The conflict, however, had left deep
traces in the minds of his Hungarian subjects. It roused them from the
dormant state into which they had been lulled by the gentle and maternal
absolutism of Maria Theresa. Thus Joseph's schemes not only failed, but,
in their effects, they were destined to bring about the triumph of
ideas, fraught with important consequences, such as he had hardly
anticipated. The nation, waking from her lethargy, gave more prominence
than ever to the idea of nationality, an idea which, as time advanced,
increased in potency and intensity.
Yet this ruler, who on ascending the throne disregarded all
constitutional obligations and waged a relentless war against the
Hungarian nationality, must be, nevertheless, ranked among the noblest
characters of his century. Thoroughly imbued with the enlightened views
of the eighteenth century, and those new ideas which had triumphed in
the War of Independence across the ocean, he was ever in pursuit of
generous and exalted aims. He sincerely desired the welfare of the
people, and in engaging in this fruitless conflict he was by no means
actuated by sinister intentions or by a despotic disposition. To
introduce reforms, called for by the spirit of the age, into the Church,
the schools, and every department of his Government, was the lofty task
he had imposed upon himself. A champion of the oppressed, he freed the
human conscience from its mediaeval fetters, granted equal rights to the
persecuted creeds, protected the enslaved peasantry against their
arbitrary masters, and enlarged the liberty of the press. He endeavored
to establish order and honesty in every branch of the public service,
being mindful at the same time of all the agencies affecting the
prosperity of the people. In a word, his remarkable genius embraced
every province of human action where progress, reforms, and
ameliorations were desirable.
Unhappily for his own peace of mind and for the destinies of the nation
he was called upon to rule, he committed a fatal error in the selection
of the methods for accomplishing his humane and philanthropic objects.
He desired to render Hungary happy, yet he excluded the nation from the
direction of her own affairs. He wished to enact salutary laws, yet he
reigned as an absolute monarch, unwilling to call the Diet to his aid in
the great work of reformation, ignoring and disdaining the constitution
and laws of the country. He was impolitic enough to attack a
constitution which, thanks to the devotion of the people, had withstood
the shock of seven centuries. He was unwise enough to suppose that the
people, in whose hearts the love of their ancient constitution had taken
deep root, for the defence of which rivers of blood had been shed,
could be prevailed upon to relinquish it to satisfy a theory of royalty.
The old political organization was eminently an outgrowth of the
Hungarian nationality, and all classes of the people, including the very
peasantry to whom the ancient constitution meant only oppression, clung
to it with devoted fervor. The people were as anxious for reforms as
Joseph himself, but they wanted them by lawful methods, and with the
cooperation of the nation and their Diet. Joseph might have become the
regenerator and benefactor of Hungary if he had availed himself, for the
realization of his grand objects, of the national and lawful channels
which lay ready to his hand. But he unfortunately preferred attempting
to achieve his purpose out of the plenitude of his own power, by
imperial edicts and arbitrary measures, thus conjuring up a storm
against himself which wellnigh shook his throne, and plunging the nation
into a wild ferment of passion bordering on revolution.
The people presented a solid phalanx against Joseph's attack upon their
nationality and language, which to them were objects dearer than
everything else. They little cared for the Emperor's well-intentioned
endeavors to make them prosperous and happy as long as he asked, in
exchange, for the relinquishment of their nationality. And this, above
all, was his most ardent wish. He wanted Hungary to be Hungarian no
more, and wished its people to cast off the distinctive marks of their
individuality, and to adopt the German language, instead of their own,
in the schools, the public administration, and in judicial proceedings.
In a word, he made German the official language of the country, and was
bent on forcing it upon the people.
Henceforth every reform coming from Joseph became hateful to the people.
The oppressed classes themselves spurned relief which involved the
sacrifice of their sweet mother-tongue. By proclaiming equal rights and
equal subjection to the burdens of the state, he arrayed the privileged
classes against his person. The Protestants and the peasantry, who had
hailed him in the beginning as their new messiah, and fondly saw in his
innovations the dawn of brighter days, also turned from him as soon as
he attacked them in what they prized even more than liberty and justice.
It was not long before the whole country, without distinction of class,
social standing, or creed, combined to set at naught the Germanizing
efforts of Joseph. The hard-fought struggle roused the people, hitherto
divided by antagonisms of class and creed, to a sense of national
solidarity. It was during the critical days of these constitutional
conflicts that the foundations of the modern homogeneousness of the
Hungarian nation and society were laid down.
The privileged classes looked upon Joseph, on his advent to the throne,
with distrust. They foresaw that he would not allow himself to be
crowned, in order to avoid taking the oath of fidelity to the
Constitution of Hungary. The first measures of his reign concerned the
organization of the various churches of the country. He extended the
religious freedom of the Protestant Church. By virtue of the apostolic
rights of the Hungarian kings, he introduced signal reforms into the
Catholic Church, especially regarding the education of the clergy, which
proved, in part, exceedingly salutary.
He abolished numerous religious orders, especially those which were not
engaged either in teaching or in nursing the sick. One hundred forty
monasteries and nunneries were closed by him in Hungary. The ample
property of these convents he employed for ecclesiastical and public
purposes and for the advancement of instruction. He exerted himself
strenuously and successfully in the establishment of public schools and
in the interest of popular education. He removed the only university of
which the country could then boast from Buda to Pesth, a city which was
rapidly increasing, and added a theological department to that seat of
learning. All these innovations met with the approval of the enlightened
elements of the nation, while the privileged classes and the clergy
opposed them with sullen discontent. The opposition was all the more
successful, as the Emperor had contrived to insult the moral
susceptibilities of the common people by some of his measures.
Thus, with a view to economizing the boards required for coffins, he
ordered the dead to be sewed up in sacks and to be buried in this
apparel. This uncalled-for meddling with the prejudices of the lower
classes had the effect of creating a great indignation among them and of
driving them into the camp of the opposition. Trifling and thoughtless
measures of a similar nature impaired the credit of the most salutary
innovations. The people looked with suspicion at every change, and,
heedless of the lofty endeavors of the Emperor, everybody, including the
officials themselves, rejected the entire governmental system of Joseph.
The Emperor also wounded the national feeling of piety by his action
concerning the crown he had spurned. According to ancient custom and law
the sacred crown was kept in safety in Presburg, in a building provided
for that purpose. In 1784 the Emperor ordered the crown to be removed to
Vienna, in order to be placed there in the royal treasury side by side
with the crowns of his other lands. The nation revolted at this
profanation of their hallowed relic, and the highest official
authorities throughout the land protested against a measure which, while
it created such widespread ill-feeling, was not justified by any
necessity. A dreadful storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, was
raging when the crown was removed to Vienna, and the people saw in this
a sign that Nature herself rebelled against the sacrilege committed by
the Emperor. The counties continued to urge the return of the crown, in
addresses which were sometimes humbly suppliant in their tone and
sometimes threatening, but Joseph did not yield either to supplications
or menaces.
When the edict which made German the official language of the country
was published, the minds of men all over the country were greatly
disturbed. It is true that hitherto the Latin, and not the Hungarian,
language had been the medium of communication employed by the state. But
the national spirit and the native tongue, which during the first
seventy years of the eighteenth century had sadly degenerated, were
awakening to new life during Joseph's reign. The literature of the
country began to be assiduously cultivated in different spheres. Royal
body-guards belonging to distinguished families, gentlemen of
refinement, clergymen of modest position, and other sons of the native
soil labored with equal zeal and enthusiasm to foster their cherished
mother-tongue.
It would, therefore, have been an easy matter for Joseph to replace the
Latin language, which had become an anachronism, by the Hungarian, and
thus to restore the latter to its natural and legal position in the
state. He was perfectly right in ridding the country of the mastery of
a dead tongue, but he committed a most fatal error in trying to
substitute for it the German, an error which avenged itself most
bitterly. Joseph entertained a special antipathy to the Hungarian
tongue, a dislike which betrayed him into omitting the teaching of the
native language from the course of public instruction, and refusing to
allow an academy of sciences to be established which had its cultivation
for its object.
The Emperor's attack upon the language of the nation irremediably broke
the last tie between him and the country, and henceforth the relations
between them could be only hostile. The counties assumed a threatening
attitude, some of them refusing obedience altogether. Thus most of them
declined to give their official cooperation to the army officers who had
been delegated by the Emperor to take the census. The count,
nevertheless, proceeded, but in many places the inhabitants escaped to
the woods, and in some there were serious riots in consequence of the
opposition to the commissioners of the census.
A rising of a different character took place among the Wallachs. The
Wallachs, smarting under abuses of long standing, buoyed up by
exaggerated expectations consequent upon the Emperor's innovations, and
stirred up by evil-minded agitators, took to arms and perpetrated the
most outrageous atrocities against their Hungarian landlords. The
ignorant common people were assured by their leaders, Hora and Kloska,
that the Emperor himself sided with them. The Wallach insurgents
assassinated the Government's commissioners sent to them, destroyed
sixty villages and one hundred eighty-two gentlemen's mansions, and
killed four thousand Hungarians before they could be checked in their
bloody work. Although they were finally crushed and punished, a strong
belief prevailed in the country that the court of Vienna had been privy
to the Wallach rising.
Joseph subsequently laid down most humane rules regulating the relations
between the bondmen and their landlords. But the country could not be
appeased by any boon, especially as the high protective tariff, just
then established for the benefit of the Austrian provinces, was
seriously damaging the prosperity of the people. Joseph's foreign policy
tended to increase the domestic disaffection. In 1788 he declared war
against Turkey, but the campaign turned out unsuccessful, and nearly
terminated with the Emperor's capture. The nation, emboldened by his
defeat, urged now more emphatically her demands, and requested the
Emperor to annul his illegal edicts, to submit to be crowned, and to
restore the ancient constitution. Joseph continuing to resist her
demands, most of the counties refused to contribute in aid of the war
either money or produce. In addition to their recalcitrant attitude,
they most energetically pressed the Emperor to convoke the Diet at Buda,
a few counties going even so far as to insist upon the chief justice's
convoking it, if the Emperor failed to do so before May, 1790.
The courage of the nation rose still higher when the news of the
Revolution in France and the revolt in Belgium reached the country. The
people refused to furnish recruits and military aid, and the Emperor was
compelled to use violence in order to obtain either. The counties
remained firm and continued to remonstrate in addresses characterized by
sharp and energetic language. Joseph yielded at last. He was prostrated
by a grave illness, and, feeling his end approaching, he wished to die
in peace with the exasperated nation he had so deeply wounded. On
January 28, 1790, he retracted all his illegal edicts, excepting those
that had reference to religious toleration, the peasantry, and the
clergy, and reestablished the ancient constitution of the country. Soon
after he sent back the crown to Buda, where its return was celebrated
with great pomp, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the people. Before he
could yet convoke the Diet death terminated the Emperor's career on
February 20th.
The world lost in him a great and noble-minded man, a friend to
humanity, who, however, had been unable to realize all his lofty
intentions. The effect of his reign was to rouse Hungary from the apathy
into which it had sunk, and at the time of Joseph's death the minds of
the people were a prey to an excitement no less feverish than that which
had seized revolutionary France at the same period. But while in Paris
democracy was victorious over royalty, the latter had to yield in
Hungary to the privileged nobility. The restored constitution was a
charter of political privileges for the nobles only, and as such was
most jealously guarded by them. This class kept a strict watch over the
liberal tendencies of the age, preventing the importation of democratic
ideas from France from fear of harm to their exclusive immunities.
Joseph was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II, who until now had been
Grand Duke of Tuscany. The new ruler was as enlightened as his
predecessor, and had as much the welfare of the people at heart; but he
respected, at the same time, the laws and the constitution. He
immediately convoked the Diet in order to be crowned, and by this act he
solemnly sealed the peace with the nation. The people hailed with joy
this first step of their new King, and there was nothing in the way of
their now obtaining lawfully from the good-will of the King the salutary
legislation which Joseph had attempted to force arbitrarily upon them.
But the fond hopes in this direction were doomed to disappointment. The
national movement had not helped to power those who were in favor of
progress, equality of rights, and democracy.
No doubt there were people in the country who differed from the men in
authority, who were sincerely attached to the doctrines of the French
Revolution and eager to supplant the privileges of the nobles by the
broader rights belonging to all humanity. The national literature was in
the hands of men of this class. They combated the reactionary spirit of
the nobility, and contended for the recognition of the civil and
political rights of by far the largest portion of the people, the
non-nobles. They boldly and with generous enthusiasm wielded the pen in
defence of those noble ideas, and indoctrinated the people with them as
much as the restraints placed upon the press allowed it at that period.
They succeeded in obtaining recruits for their ideas from the very ranks
of the privileged classes, and many an enlightened magnate admitted that
the time had arrived for modernizing the Constitution of Hungary by an
extension of political rights.