Augustus, exercising to the full all those cruelties which made
him deserve the name of butcher, while the most fortunate of his
enemies escaped with great difficulty, Prince Charles Edward, as
his grand-uncle, King Charles II., had formerly done after the
battle of Worcester, wandered from hiding-place to hiding-place,
exhausted, dying of hunger, a hundred times recognized, forced to
trust to the poorest people, to the most powerless of his
friends, yet everywhere served, assisted, defended, with a
devotion which was proof against everything. He had taken refuge
in the little archipelago which bears the name of Long Island.
The English vessels cruised along the coasts; houses were
incessantly searched; peasants were arrested; the danger was
increasing every day. A young girl, Miss Flora Macdonald, who was
on a visit in the Isle of Wight succeeded in procuring herself a
passport for the Isle of Skye. She disguised the prince, and,
taking him in her suite as a lady's maid, went for refuge to the
house of her cousin, Sir Alexander Macdonald, who had been
constantly adverse to Charles Edward's attempt, and had ended by
actively opposing it. His wife, Lady Margaret, seconded Flora's
efforts. The castle was filled with militia officers, but she
succeeded in effecting the prince's escape. Some days later he
crossed to the Isle of Rosay, almost at the moment when his
deliverer, Flora Macdonald, was arrested and conducted to London,
where her detention lasted about a year. Some people found fault
with Lady Margaret's conduct, the Princess of Wales being of the
number. "In such a case would you not have done as much?" said
her husband, turning quickly upon her. "I hope so; I am sure of
it." The persevering fidelity of the Jacobites endowed Flora
Macdonald. After five months of perils and sufferings
courageously endured, the fugitive prince at last set foot in
France. He embarked on the 20th of September at Lochmanagh,
almost at the same place where he had formerly landed full of the
most joyous and brilliant hopes.
{217}
"Nothing troubled him, neither fatigues nor privations," said one
of the temporary companions of his flight. "He alone should
suffer," he said; but when he thought of all those who were in
peril for his sake, his heart was strained and on the verge of
losing courage. His name long dwelt in the popular songs of the
highlands, which remained persistently faithful to the
remembrance of common efforts and dangers.
"I have had sons; I no longer have any. I have brought them up
with difficulty, but I would be willing to bear them all again
and to lose them for love of Charles."
Whilst the prince, the object of a devotion so passionately
disinterested, was receiving at the court of Louis XV. a welcome
as impressive as it was vain, his illustrious partisans thronged
the prisons and scaffolds, while their lands were laid waste by
the English soldiers. In vain did Duncan Forbes claim the
application of laws. "Laws!" replied the conqueror; "I will make
laws with a brigade." Colonel Townley and his companions had
already endured their horrible sentence at Kennington Common in
sight of an eager and terrified crowd. Lord Cromarty, Lord
Kilmarnock, and Lord Balmerino were confined in the Tower. When
they were brought before the Court of Peers the first two pleaded
guilty. Lord Cromarty implored the compassion of his judges for
his wife and eight children. Lord Balmerino pleaded not guilty.
"I wish to be judged by God and my peers," said he proudly. All
three were condemned to the punishment of traitors; Lord Cromarty
alone obtained pardon. "I do not consider him worthy of life who
is not ready to die," said Lord Balmerino when his sentence was
confirmed.
{218}
As the sheriff pronounced the customary formula, "God save King
George," Kilmarnock uttered an "Amen." Balmerino raised his head.
"So God save King James," exclaimed he; "if I had a thousand
lives I would give them all for this cause." He knelt down on the
scaffold. "My God, reward my friends, forgive my enemies, bless
King James, and receive my soul," he uttered in a loud voice. The
agitated executioner had scarcely strength to cut his head off.
Last of all, Lord Lovat had suffered the punishment merited by
his entire life rather than by his part in the Jacobite
rebellion. A coward and a suppliant as long as he believed pardon
possible, he recovered on the day before his death the theatrical
pride of his best days, and even on the scaffold he murmured the
line of Horace: "_Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori._"
Legal measures had followed these bloody executions; the
highlanders were disarmed; hereditary jurisdictions were
abolished; their national costume was forbidden to the
mountaineers. Along with the power of the Jacobites the feudal
spirit was slowly extinguished in Scotland. Keppoch had
sorrowfully said on the battle-field of Culloden, when he saw the
Macdonalds quietly retire without fighting, "Have I lived long
enough to see myself deserted by the children of my people?"
Death had seconded fatigue and private grudges. "It is to the
Duke of Cumberland that we owe this peace," was what was written
on the monument of Culloden battle-field.
{219}
The anger and harshness of the English government in regard to
the Jacobites multiplied the checks that the coalition had
encountered everywhere on the continent, with the exception of
Italy. At the moment when the Duke of Cumberland was defeating
Charles Edward at Culloden, Antwerp surrendered to Louis XV. in
person. Mons, Namur, and Charleroi were not long in yielding. The
victory of Raucoux in 1746, and that of Lawfelt in 1747, had
carried the glory of Marshal Saxe to its height. Originally a
foreigner like him, like him serving France gloriously, the Count
Lowendall hard pressed the Dutch, who were against their
inclination engaged in the struggle. He had already taken Ecluse
and Sas de Gand; Berg-op-Zoom was besieged. As in 1672, the
French invasion had given rise to a political revolution in
Holland. The aristocratic _bourgeoisie_, which had regained
power, yielded to the efforts of the popular party, directed by
the House of Nassau and sustained by England. "The republic needs
a chief to oppose an ambitious and perfidious neighbor who makes
game of the faith of treaties," said a deputy of the
States-General on the day when the stadtholdership was
proclaimed, which was re-established in favor of William IV.,
grand-nephew of the great William III. and son-in-law of George
II. King of England. The young prince immediately took command of
the Dutch troops, but a good understanding did not long exist
between him and the Duke of Cumberland. "Our two young heroes
scarcely understand one another," wrote Mr. Pelham on the 14th of
August, 1747. "Ours is open, frank, resolute, and a little
hot-headed; the other is presumptuous, pedantic, argumentative,
and obstinate; in what a situation do we find ourselves? We must
ask God to come to our aid, for we can direct nothing. There is
nothing to be done but appease quarrels and obtain time to
breathe. Perhaps somebody will recover common sense."
{220}
Marshal Saxe had said to Louis XV., "Sire, peace is in
Mæstricht." The place was invested on the 9th of April, 1748,
before the thirty-five thousand Russians promised to England by
the Czarina Elizabeth had time to arrive. The Dutch were alarmed,
and vigorously insisted on peace. Philip V. was dead. His
successor, Ferdinand VI., who was less faithful to the House of
Bourbon, made overtures to England. For a long time the prime
minister, Henry Pelham, was disposed to peace. His brother, the
Duke of Newcastle, opposed it out of servile deference to the
king. Lord Chesterfield, lately become a member of the cabinet,
and who was intelligent and sagacious in spite of his worldly
unconcern, being dissatisfied with the conduct of the court
towards him, had just given in his resignation. Notwithstanding
her successes, France was, like her adversaries, weary. Marshal
Saxe himself made pacific proposals. The preliminaries of the
peace were signed on the 30th of April. Austria and Spain were
not slow in giving their adhesion to it. On the 18th of October
the final treaty was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. After so much
blood spilt and treasure squandered, France gained from the war
no other advantage than the guarantee of the duchies of Parma and
Plaisance to the infant Don Philip, son-in-law of Louis XV.
England yielded to France Cape Breton and the colony of
Louisburg, the only territory that she had preserved after her
numerous expeditions against our colonies, and the immense injury
she had done our commerce. This clause excited much ill-feeling
among the English people. Hostages had been promised. Prince
Charles Edward was in Paris when they arrived. He was seized with
an access of patriotic anger. "If ever I remount the throne of my
fathers," he exclaimed, "Europe will witness my constant
endeavors to oblige France in turn to send hostages to England."
{221}
Prince Charles Edward was himself an inconvenient and
compromising hostage whom France engaged in expelling from her
territory. Vainly, since his return from Scotland, the young
Pretender had obstinately sought to rekindle a flame which was
forever extinguished. "If I had received only half of the money
that your Majesty sent me," he wrote to Louis XV. on the 10th of
November, 1746, "I would have fought the Duke of Cumberland with
equal numbers, and I would have certainly defeated him, since
with four thousand men against twelve thousand I held victory in
the balance for a long time. These disasters can yet be repaired
if your Majesty is willing to intrust me with a body of from
eighteen to twenty thousand men. The number of warlike subjects
has never failed me in Scotland. I have needed at once money,
provisions, and a handful of regular troops. With one of these
three aids alone I would still be to-day master of Scotland, and
probably of all England." Louis XV. had remained deaf to this
appeal, which no longer found an echo in Spain. The Duke of York,
second son of the Chevalier de St. George, had just taken orders.
The Court of Rome had forthwith made him a cardinal, to the
violent indignation of his brother. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
removed from the unfortunate Stuarts that asylum which France had
with so much pomp lately offered them. Charles Edward refused to
understand the notice which the ministers of Louis XV. had
conveyed to him. "The king is bound to my cause by his honor,
which is worth all treaties," said he. In vain had his father
counselled him to yield to necessity and not to provoke a monarch
who could be useful to him. The prince was determined to remain
in France, and at Paris.
{222}
On the 11th of December, as he arrived at the opera, his carriage
was surrounded by police agents. M. de Vaudreuil, major in the
guards, presented himself before the prince. "I arrest you in the
name of the king, my master," said he. "The manner is a little
cavalier," coolly replied the young man. When the major asked for
his arms, "Let them take them," said he, freeing himself from the
hands of the police officers. They bound his hands with silken
cords, the last sign of respect accorded to the heir of a house
forever fallen, and he was conducted from stage to stage as far
as the frontier. He would never see France again. Twice he
reappeared secretly in England: in 1753, on the occasion of a
projected surprise on the person of George II., which he himself
deemed impossible; and in 1761, amid the festivities at the
coronation of George III. Twice the kings of the House of Hanover
were not ignorant of the presence of their enemy in the capital;
they made no effort to seize him, and wisely allowed him to set
out again for an exile, the long weariness of which had mortally
affected his mind as well as his heart. Deprived by his faults of
the pure joys of family life, he had lowered himself so far as to
seek forgetfulness in drunkenness. He was old and almost
forgotten when he died at Rome in 1788. Only the inscription on a
tomb recalls the name of the last three Stuarts, and it was King
George IV. who caused it to be engraved as a souvenir of extinct
passions: "To James III., son of James II., King of England; to
Charles Edward, and to Henry, Cardinal of York, last scion of the
House of Stuart, 1819."
[Image]
Arrest Of Charles Edward.
{223}
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had, with good reason, excited more
discontent in France than in England. We alone had gained
brilliant victories and made great conquests. We alone preserved
no increase of territory. The great Frederick kept Silesia, and
the King of Sardinia the domains already ceded by Austria.
Humorous lampoons were sung in the streets of Paris, and "_Bête
comme le paix_," was a customary expression.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that of
barrenness; it was not and could not be lasting. England had
proved her power on the sea. She had battled against our ruined
navy, and against enfeebled Spain. Holland, her ally after having
been her rival, could no longer dispute the sovereign empire with
her. She became daily more eager for the conquest of the distant
colonies that we did not know how to defend. The peace had left
in suspense disputed points which would soon serve as a pretext
for new aggressions. In proportion as the ancient influence of
Richelieu and Louis XIV. on European politics grew weaker,
English influence, based on the growing power of a free country
and government, was strengthening. Without any other allies than
Spain, who was herself shaken in her fidelity, we stood exposed
to the enterprises of England, henceforth freed from the phantom
of the Stuarts. "The peace concluded between England and France
in 1748 was only a truce," said Lord Macaulay; "it was not even a
truce on other parts of the globe." It was there that the two
nations were about to measure themselves, and that the burden of
its government's shortcomings would cause France to lose that
empire of the Indies and those Canadian colonies which had been
founded and so long sustained by eminent men, one after another,
victims to their patriotic devotion which was as hopeless as it
was without results.
{224}
Frederick, Prince of Wales, died on the 20th of March, 1751.
Having caught a slight cold, without being alarmed at his
illness, he soon felt seriously affected. "I feel death," he had
said. The dispute which reigned in the royal family did not cease
at the grave; the project of the Regency law had occasioned some
bitter passages between the dowager princess, mother of the new
Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cumberland. The prince was not
popular. "I do not know why," said King George II. "This nation
is capricious. The Scotch and the Jacobites think ill of him; and
the English do not like discipline." On the 6th of March, 1754,
Henry Pelham unexpectedly died. His administration had been just
and intelligent, without vigor, but without disturbance. "I shall
have no more peace," exclaimed the old king when he learned of
his minister's death. As clever in court finesse as he was
incapable of directing with grandeur general policy, the Duke of
Newcastle knew how to seize the high rank that escaped the dying
hands of his brother. William Pitt bided his time.
It was in the midst of this administrative weakness and
intellectual stagnation that a religious movement had begun, and
was spreading, which was destined to reanimate moral life in
England, to purify manners, and to give it strength to resist the
fatal impulse of the French Revolution. Under the influence of
examples which originated in the court of Charles II., and which
since then had been fostered by numerous scandals, English
society was gradually corrupted in high places, and the contagion
of moral evil was beginning to make itself felt even in the most
remote provinces. Religious faith, enfeebled by the indifference
of the clergy as well as by the theories of philosophers, was
struggling faintly against the depravity of manners. The Anglican
Church had fallen into a respectable languor; the old dissenting
sects, having escaped from the tight bonds of persecution, had
lost their ancient fervor.
[Image]
William Pitt--Lord Chatham.
{225}
The religious sentiment yet existed in a latent condition among
the lower and middle classes. Here it was that it awakened with
an unexpected ardor at the eloquent voice of John Wesley and
George Whitefield. Both students of Oxford, both destined to
embrace the holy ministry, both consecrated in the Anglican
Church, they undertook with enthusiasm a sacred crusade for the
salvation of souls and the destruction of moral evil. Whitefield,
who was more ardently eloquent, less contained, and of a less
tolerant spirit than Wesley, now travelled over the country,
preaching to the miners, who came out of their gloomy retreats in
thousands in order to hear his fervent exhortations, and now
assembled at the house of the Countess of Huntington the
_élite_ of the worldly society of London. Strong workingmen
sobbed and groaned under his pathetic appeals; peasants fell to
the earth as though stricken with inward convulsions;
philosophers tranquilly admired an eloquence of which they
recognized the power as well as the sincerity. "All appeared
moved to some extent," said Whitefield in writing of a piously
worldly assembly. "Lord Chesterfield thanked me, saying, 'Sir, I
will not say to you, what I say of you to others, how much I
commend you.' Lord Bolingbroke assisted at the meeting. He was
seated like an archbishop, and did me the honor to say that in my
discourse I had done justice to the divine attributes." Some
years later the eloquence of Whitefield was to draw from the
economical hands of Franklin the whole contents of his purse. But
already the ardor of his zeal had closed to him the pulpits of
the Anglican Church. He had sought sympathy for his cause even in
America.
{226}
On his return to England some difference of opinion had separated
him from Wesley. Henceforth each worked for his reward in the
vast field of unbelief, indifference, and moral corruption. Both,
however, pursued the same work, following the bent of natural
disposition, which was more ardent and dissenting with Whitefield
and the Methodist sects born under his inspiration, more moderate
and conservative with Wesley as with the innumerable adherents
who yet do themselves the honor of bearing his name.
Never was the author of a great and lasting popular movement
further removed than Wesley from all revolutionary tendency. The
spirit of government and organization, attachment to ancient and
venerated forms, a lofty and calm judgment united to an ascetic
nature, a slight leaning towards mysticism--such were the
characteristic and necessary traits of a reformer and religious
founder in the eighteenth century. Wesley was tenderly attached
to the Anglican Church; he only separated himself from it with
regret, constrained by the ecclesiastical dislike which closed
the pulpits to him, and compelled, little by little, and against
his inclination, to accept the vault of heaven for his temple,
and the laity for his fellow laborers, as Whitefield had done
since the beginning. During his long apostolate, which lasted
from 1729 to 1791, from the prayer-meetings in his room at Oxford
to the complete and strong organization of the sect he had
founded, Wesley exercised an absolute authority over his numerous
subjects. "If you mean by an arbitrary power, a power which I
alone exercise," he said, with a tranquil simplicity, "it is
certainly true; but I see no harm in it." However, in
courageously accomplishing his work, Wesley did more than he
intended; he had founded a religious society; he had not had the
intention of founding a sect.
{227}
A minister of the Anglican Church, and a witness of its
shortcomings, he had felt that in order to awaken the parish
clergy it was necessary to create a kind of regular clergy; that
in order to announce the Gospel to those who did not go to
church, or who only heard these cold exhortations, it was
necessary to organize an army of ardent missionaries; that in
order to touch the heart of the masses it was necessary to seek
them in the fields, the markets, and the byways, and to address
them in their own common language. Wesley was forced to separate
himself from the Anglican Church, but his disciples have
constantly remained respectful to her, and as an intermediate
body between her and dissenters, they have, from without,
rendered her most important services. Wesley and Whitefield have
reawakened religious life in England, and no religious society
has profited by it so much as the Anglican Church herself.
Movements of various kinds, all serious and sincere, have
manifested themselves in her wide bosom. She has sufficed to
foster much warmth, to satisfy minds and hearts widely
dissimilar, but all beset by veritable religious needs; she has
united herself to the most noble attempts of modern philanthropy,
the worthy fruits of awakened and revived Christian faith. It is
to the great religious movement created in the eighteenth century
by Wesley and Whitefield that England has owed the glorious
efforts of Clarkson and Wilberforce for the emancipation of
slaves, and the prison reform of John Howard.
{228}
England had need of all her forces, ancient and new, moral,
religious, and patriotic, for she was approaching an era of
blended glory and danger, agitated and tempestuous even in
victory. The war with France, long sustained on distant seas
without preliminary declaration, and with enormous detriment to
French commerce, which was everywhere interrupted and ruined,
became at last patent and officially inevitable. In the Indies as
well as in Canada, it had not ceased for a single day. In the
month of March, 1755, the ministers asked Parliament for an
increase of forces for the defence of the American possessions
threatened by the French. The governor of Canada, the Marquis
Duquesne, had erected a series of forts in the valley of the
Ohio. M. de Contrecœur, who commanded in that region, learned
that a body of English troops was marching upon him under the
orders of young Colonel Washington. He immediately detailed M. de
Jumonville along with thirty men, to call upon the English to
retire and evacuate the French territory. At break of day on the
18th of May, 1754, Washington's corps surprised De Jumonville's
little encampment. The attack was unforeseen; the French envoy
was killed along with nine of his troop. The irritation caused by
this event precipitated the commencement of hostilities. A band
of Canadians, reinforced by some savages, marched against
Washington, who had intrenched himself in the plain. It was
necessary to attack him with cannon shot. In spite of his
bravery, the future conqueror of American independence was forced
to capitulate. The colonies were keenly excited; they formed a
sort of confederation against the French power in America. They
especially raised militia. In January, 1755, General Braddock was
already in Virginia with regular troops. In the early part of
May, Admiral Boscawen, after a desperate combat, captured several
vessels which had been separated by bad weather from the squadron
of Admiral Dubois de la Motte. Three hundred merchant vessels
fell into the hands of the English navy.
{229}
War was finally declared, to the secret uneasiness of the two
governments as well as of the two nations. "What is the use of
having plenty of troops and money," wrote the lawyer Barbier, "if
we only wage war with the English by sea? They will one after
another take all our vessels, get hold of all our American
settlements, and manage all the commerce. Some division in the
English nation itself must be hoped for, because the king
personally does not desire war."
King George II. was uneasy on account of Hanover--a point of
attack naturally pointed out to the armies of King Louis XV. The
English nation dreaded the landing so often and so vainly
announced. "What I wish," exclaimed Pitt, "is to snatch this
country from a state of enervation which makes it tremble before
twenty thousand Frenchmen." Being a member of the administration,
as well as paymaster-general of the forces, he violently attacked
the treaties of subsidies and alliance, which the king had just
concluded with Prussia and Hesse. For the first time, his
eloquence swayed the House. "He has surpassed himself," wrote
Horace Walpole. "Do I need to tell you that he has surpassed
Demosthenes and Cicero? What figure would their solemn,
elaborate, studied harangues have cut beside this manly vivacity
and this impetuous eloquence which, all at once, at one o'clock
in the morning, after eleven hours' session, pierced the stifling
atmosphere." Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had, like
Pitt, refused his assent to the treaties. Both were replaced, and
Pitt was thrown into the opposition, which rallied round the
princess dowager and the young Prince of Wales. "This day will, I
hope, give the key-note to my life," he had rightly said in his
great speech.
{230}
The weakness of the English government became more apparent every
day. "I say it with regret on account of my friend Fox," wrote
Horace Walpole, "but the year 1756 was, perhaps, that of the
worst government I have ever seen in England: the incapacity of
Newcastle had fair play." In spite of their inadequate resources
the Canadians defended themselves heroically and not
unsuccessfully against the efforts of the American colonies
backed by the mother-country. Acadia, a strip of neutral country
between the English and French territories, the inhabitants of
which had constantly refused to take the oath of allegiance to
England, was invaded by the American troops, the population swept
off, and the houses pillaged. General Braddock encountered more
resistance in the valley of the Ohio. He proposed to surprise
Fort Duquesne, and forced the march of his little corps. "I never
saw a finer sight than that of the English troops on the 9th of
July, 1755," wrote Colonel Washington, who was commanding under
the orders of Braddock. But soon the English advance-guard was
stopped by a heavy discharge of artillery; the enemy did not
appear; the foremost ranks were disordered and recoiled on the
body of the army. The confusion became extreme; the regular
troops, little used to this sort of fighting, refused to rally
round the general, who would have wished them to manœuvre as on
the plains of Flanders. The Virginia militia alone, being
scattered in the woods, answered the fire of the French or Indian
sharpshooters without showing themselves. General Braddock soon
received a mortal wound; Colonel Washington, reserved by God for
other destinies, sought in vain to rally the soldiers.
{231}
"I have been protected by the all-powerful intervention of
Providence," he wrote to his brother after the action; "I
received four bullets in my coat, and I have had two horses
killed under me; however, I have got out of it safe and sound,
while death swept off all our comrades around me. We have been
beaten, shamefully beaten, by a handful of Frenchmen, who only
anticipated hindering our march. A few moments before action we
believed our forces almost equal to all those of Canada, and now,
contrary to all probability, we have been completely defeated,
and have lost everything." The little French corps, sent out from
Fort Duquesne under the command of M. de Beaujeu, numbered but
two hundred Canadians and six hundred Indians. It was only three
years later, when Canada, exhausted and dying, succumbed beneath
the burden of a war which it had sustained almost without aid,
that Fort Duquesne, destroyed by its defenders themselves, fell
into the hands of the English. They gave it the name of
Pittsburg, in honor of the great minister who was in power--a
name which a prosperous city bears even to-day.
While the Marquis de Montcalm was successfully sustaining the war
against the English in America, Marshal Richelieu, a clever,
prodigal, and corrupt courtier, had the good luck to achieve the
only happy stroke of the Seven Years' War, the remembrance of
which should remain firm in the mind of posterity. On the 17th of
April, 1756; a French squadron under the command of M. de la
Galissonière attacked the Island of Minorca, an important
military point in the Mediterranean to which the English attached
a high Value. Chased from Ciudadela and Port Mahon, the garrisons
had taken refuge in Fort St. Philip. They relied on the help of
the English fleet. The Admiral who commanded it attacked M. de la
Galissonière on the 10th of May.
{232}
The English were repulsed and could not effect a landing. The
ships had suffered a good deal, and the English forces were
inferior to those of France. Byng feared defeat; he consulted his
council of war and fell back on Gibraltar. General Blakeney, shut
up in the fortress, sick, and without hope of aid, defended
himself weakly against the impetuous assault of the French. Fort
St. Philip was taken, and the Duke de Fronsac, eldest son of the
Duke de Richelieu, hastened to Paris to convey the news to King
Louis XV.
The rage and humiliation, like the joy and pride of France,
exceeded the extent and importance of the success. Admiral Byng,
peremptorily recalled, was with great difficulty brought safe and
sound to London, so strong was the anger of the mob. The
government made no effort to protect him. On the first
representations being made to him against the admiral, who was
honest and brave, but a blind slave of rule and badly provided
alike with ships and sailors, the Duke of Newcastle hastily
replied, "Oh! certainly, certainly; he will be judged
immediately; he will be hanged immediately." In spite of the
efforts made in his favor in the Houses, as well as by Marshal
Richelieu and Voltaire, Byng expiated with his life the check he
had sustained and the wounded pride of his country. The Duke of
Newcastle was at last overcome by his notorious incapacity.
William Pitt seized the reins of power for a short time, of which
the aversion of the king was not long in depriving him. The great
orator had refused to come to an understanding with Mr. Fox, who
bitterly reproached him with afterwards sustaining the treaties
of subsidies and alliances which he had lately attacked so
passionately.
{233}
France had just entered into an alliance with Maria Theresa; the
houses of Bourbon and Austria were making common cause; all the
available forces of England were engaged in the struggle, and
Pitt did not hesitate to recruit in the highlands. "Men are never
wanting to a good cause," he said afterwards. "I have lately
employed the very rebels in the service and defence of the
country. Being thus brought back to us, they have fought for us,
and have gladly shed their blood to protect those liberties which
in the past they wished to destroy."
It was in vain that George II. still strove against the minister,
who imposed the national will on him as the favor of heaven. In
vain, making use of the royal prerogative against him, did he
force him to yield up the seals of office from the beginning of
April, and involve in his disgrace Lord Temple, his
brother-in-law. In vain did he seek to form a new cabinet, with
the insatiable thirst of the Duke of Newcastle for the nominal
side of power, and the desire which Fox felt to actually govern.
Parliament as well as the people demanded the powerful hand which
could guide them through the bursting storm. On the 29th of June,
1757, Pitt was named secretary of state, and rallied around him
some illustrious names, but he was the sole efficient master of
the government, and was resolved to bear alone the whole burden
of it. The most sagacious observers interchanged gloomy
forebodings. "England has no longer any course but to cut her
cables and set sail towards an unknown ocean," wrote Horace
Walpole. "It matters little who may be in power," said Lord
Chesterfield; "we are lost at home and abroad--at home by our
debts and our growing expenses; abroad by our incapacity and bad
luck. ... We are no longer even a nation."
{234}
It is sometimes the good fortune and glory of great men, under
the hand of God, to baffle the doleful prognostications of their
contemporaries. As a constitutional minister, the first William
Pitt should occupy a lower position than the noble career of his
son. He was overbearing, whimsical, personal, and theatrical.
Abroad he could push national pride as far as the most impolitic
insolence. He sacrificed his country's interests for the sake of
humiliating her enemies. He made England feared, but he isolated
her in Europe and in the world by a proud and obdurate policy,
for which he was to pay cruelly later. At home he was unbalanced
and violent, carried away by opposing and always extreme
passions, without limit and without foresight. The greatness of
his mind, ability, and character, however, overcame all his
defects. He governed his country through a long and difficult war
in stormy times which demanded painful sacrifices, making
constant appeals to the most noble passions of the human soul by
the prestige of eloquence, rectitude, patriotism, and glory. It
is his honor to have re-established the fortune of England in the
war; it is no less a service to have lifted hearts to the level
of fortune in order to sustain a great cause.
Pitt's first warlike efforts were not happy. An expedition
attempted against Rochefort was unsuccessful. The King of
Prussia, lately victorious in Saxony, whence he had driven the
elector, the King of Poland, found himself in turn closely
pressed by the Austrian Marshal Daun, who had conquered him at
Cologne. Marshal d'Estrèes, slowly occupying Westphalia, had
entrapped the Duke of Cumberland on the Weser. On the morning of
the 23d of July, 1757, the marshal summoned his lieutenant-generals.
"Gentlemen," said he, "I do not assemble you to-day to
ask you whether we must fight M. de Cumberland and invest Hameln.
{235}
The honor of the king's arms, his wish, his express orders, the
interest of a common cause, bind us to take the firmest
resolutions. I only seek, therefore, to profit by your light, and
to concoct with you the best means of successful attack." The
Duke of Cumberland's troops were of various races. He had not
under his command any English regiment. His warlike spirit was
not sufficient to compensate for the defects of his military
organization. On the 26th of July Marshal d'Estrèes forced him
into the intrenchment at Hastenbeck. He retreated, without being
pursued, to the marshes at the mouth of the Elbe, under the
protection of English vessels. Marshal d'Estrèes was recalled by
a court intrigue. Marshal Richelieu and the Duke de Soubise
divided the command. Richelieu systematically pillaged Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel, and Brunswick. He threatened the position of the
Duke of Cumberland, and the latter asked to capitulate. On the
8th of September, by the intervention of the Count de Lynar, the
minister of the King of Denmark, who remained neutral between the
belligerents, the Duke of Cumberland and Marshal Richelieu
signed, at the advance posts of the French army, the famous
capitulation of Closter-Severn. The troops of King Louis XV.
occupied all the conquered country; those of Hesse, Brunswick,
and Saxe-Gotha were to return to their quarters. The great
Frederick had already recalled the Prussians; the Hanoverians
were to remain fortified in the neighborhood of Stade. In his
presumptuous levity the marshal had not even thought of exacting
their disarming.
{236}
However incomplete as was this convention, which was severely
judged by the Emperor Napoleon I. in his memoirs, it excited
great anger in England as well as in Prussia. When the Duke of
Cumberland presented himself before his father, the old king
greeted him with this startling sentence: "There is my son who
has dishonored himself whilst ruining me." Wounded and
discouraged, the duke officially renounced his command and handed
in his resignation of all his offices, to linger yet some years
in obscurity, and finally die in 1765, at the age of forty-six
years. Pitt alone of the ministers had defended him. When the
king repeated that he had never authorized his son's conduct, the
prince's constant antagonist replied in an honest spirit of
justice: "It is true, Sire; but his powers were extensive, very
extensive!"
The King of Prussia remained alone opposing the allies. Every day
his force diminished, affected by desertion as much as by death.
The Russian army had invaded the Prussian provinces and beaten
General Schouvaloff near Memel; twenty-five thousand Swedes had
just landed in Pomerania. For a moment Frederick II. thought of
killing himself, but the indomitable strength of his soul, a
strange mingling of corruption and heroism, constantly drew him
back to battle with fresh efforts of ability and resolve. The
favor of Madame de Pompadour had reserved for the Prince Soubise
the honor of crushing the King of Prussia. The two armies met on
the 5th of November, 1757, on the banks of the Saale, near
Rosbach. That evening the French army, utterly defeated, fled to
Erfurt. It left on the field of battle eight thousand prisoners
and three thousand dead. A month later the Austrians were in turn
vanquished at Lissa. The glory of the great Frederick, obscure
for a time, shone forth anew in all its splendor; he became the
national hero of Germany. The Protestant powers, lately engaged
against him, made approaches to the conqueror.
{237}
In England enthusiasm was at its height; Pitt concluded a new
agreement with Prussia. Parliament, without difficulty, voted a
subsidy of sixty-seven thousand pounds sterling. King George II.,
as Elector of Hanover, had refused to ratify the capitulation of
Cloister-Severn, and his troops were already renewing the
campaign under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick.
Being clever and honest, he had soon gained possession of the
country of Luneberg, of Zell, of a part of Brunswick and of
Bremen. In order to maintain the struggle in Germany, King Louis
XV. and Madame de Pompadour had just put the Count de Clermont at
the head of the French troops.
The Zaporogue Cossacks inundated Prussia, and Frederick II. had
scarcely beaten the Russians on the bloody day of Zorndorff when
he was himself conquered at Hochkirch by Marshal Daun and forced
to evacuate Saxony. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick had just won
the important victory of Crevelt over the new French general. The
Count de Clermont had given evidence of the most distressing
incapacity; his army escaped every day more and more from under
the yoke of discipline. It was discontented, humiliated, and
without confidence in the chiefs who successively headed it,
being exalted to the command by court intrigues or manœuvres. The
Marquis de Contades had succeeded M. de Clermont. At Versailles
the Count de Stainville, created Duke de Choiseul, had become
Minister of Foreign Affairs in place of Cardinal de Bernis, who
was always inclined to pacific counsels. The second treaty of
Versailles had united France to Maria Theresa more firmly than
ever. The English had on two occasions unsuccessfully attempted
an attack on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany.
{238}
The Duke d'Aiguillon, governor of that province, had taken to
himself the honor of having repulsed the invasion; a single
unimportant battle had taken place, and this formed the pretext
for a grand project of descent on the English coasts. The Prince
de Soubise was recalled from Germany in order to direct the
invading army. The expedition was ready, and only awaited the
signal to issue from the port, but Admiral Hawke was cruising in
front of Brest, Admiral Rodney had just bombarded Havre, and it
was only in the month of November, 1759, that the Marquis de
Conflaus, who commanded the fleet, was able to put to sea with
twenty-one vessels of the line and four frigates. The English
forces were superior to his, and immediately set out in pursuit.
M. de Conflaus thought he would find refuge in the tortuous
passages at the mouth of the Vilaine.
The English penetrated there after him. Sir Edward Hawke engaged
the _Soleil Royal_, which was commanded by the French
admiral. His pilot represented to him the danger of navigating.
The brave seaman let him talk. "Very well," he answered; "you
have done your duty, now you have only to obey me; manage so as
to place me alongside the _Soleil Royal_." The battle thus
waged in the various narrow passages became disastrous to the
French vessels. The commander of the rear guard, M. Saint-André
du Verger, let it be raked by the enemy's cannon in order to
cover the retreat. The admiral ran aground in the Bay of Croisic,
and himself burned his vessel. Seven French and two English ships
remained engaged in the Vilaine. M. de Conflaus' day, as the
sailors named the episode, dealt a fatal blow to the unfortunate
remnant of the French navy. The English triumphed everywhere on
the sea, and even in our own waters.
{239}
They also triumphed at a distance in our colonies, entirely
abandoned to their forces, which prolonged in a heroic struggle
the throes of their agony. Pitt had determined to achieve the
conquest of Canada. Already the outposts of Louisburg and Cape
Breton had succumbed beneath the attacks of the English. The
Anglo-American forces were increased during the campaign of 1758
to sixty thousand men. The entire population of Canada was not
more numerous. In 1759, three armies invaded the French territory
at once. On the 29th of June, a considerable fleet carried to the
Island of Orleans, fronting Quebec, General Wolfe, a young
officer of great promise who had distinguished himself at the
siege of Louisburg. Pitt believed that he discerned in him the
elements of superior merit. In spite of the blundering--
sometimes presuming, and again depressed--of Wolfe, he had
resolved to confide to him the direction of the great expedition
he contemplated. "If the Marquis de Montcalm succeeds again this
year in deceiving our hopes," said the new general, "he can pass
for a clever man: either the colony has resources that are
unknown, or our generals are worse than ordinary."
Quebec occupied an advantageous position, but the fortifications
were bad; the loss of the place involved that of Canada. "If the
Marquis were shut up there," said Wolfe, "we should soon have
triumphed; our artillery would have made short work of the
walls." An intrenched camp stretched before Quebec. The Indian
tribes, hitherto ardently attached to France by the habitual
kindness of its commerce, were decimated by the war, or had
silently withdrawn, gained over by the money as well as the
success of England. The two great European nations did not
hesitate to wage war by means of the cruel or perfidious
proceedings of their Indian allies.
{240}
For more than a month the town had borne the enemy's fire. The
churches and convents were in ruins, and the French had not
stirred from their camp of _l'Ange-Gardien._ Skirmishes were
frequent. "Old men of seventy and children of fifteen years fire
on our detachments," wrote Wolfe. "Our men are wounded at every
border of the forest." The anger of the English soldiers had
little by little reduced to a desert both banks of the St.
Lawrence. In every direction villages and scattered dwellings
were given to the flames.
Generals Amherst and Johnson, who had been charged with distant
expeditions against Niagara and Ticonderoga, had succeeded in
their enterprises, but had not rejoined Wolfe according to Pitt's
plan. The latter bore on his shoulders all the responsibility of
final success. Being repulsed before the French camp on the 31st
of July, Wolfe fell sick from vexation and spite. "There only
remains to me the choice of difficulties," he wrote to the
English cabinet. "I have regained sufficient health to do my
work, but my constitution is destroyed without my having the
consolation of having rendered, or being able to render,
considerable service to the state." Three days after the date of
this letter. General Wolfe suddenly advanced on the banks of the
St. Lawrence. On the night of the 12th of September he landed on
the creek of the Foulon. The officers had responded in French to
the "_Qui vive?_" of the sentinels, who believed that they
beheld a long expected convoy of provisions passing. Twice did
the boats, which were insufficient in number, silently cross the
stream. Wolfe alone repeated in an undertone the poet Gray's
"Elegy in a Country Churchyard." He was touching land, when he
turned to say to his lieutenants, "I would prefer to be the
author of that poem than to take Quebec."
{241}
Day was scarcely breaking when the English army occupied the
Heights of Abraham. A skirmish had sufficed to put to flight the
French detachment charged with guarding them. The Marquis de
Montcalm viewed his enemies from afar. "I see them plainly where
they ought not to be," said he, "but if we fight with them I
shall crush them." The English were already on the march; before
the break of day the French were routed, Montcalm was dying, and
Quebec was lost.
General Wolfe had murmured the last of Gray's lines--"The path
of glory leads but to the grave." He had received three mortal
wounds as he was encouraging his grenadiers to charge. Already
his eyes were veiled by the eternal shadows, when an officer who
was attending him exclaimed, "See, they fly!" "Who?" asked Wolfe,
raising himself up painfully. "The enemy; they yield at all
points." The hero let himself fall back on his couch. "God be
praised," said he; "I die content." He was not yet thirty-four
years of age.
Montcalm died also, eager even to the last moment to give his
orders and arouse the courage of his soldiers. "All is not lost,"
he repeated. When the surgeons announced to him that he had only
some hours to live, "So much the better," said he; "I shall not
see the surrender of Quebec." He was buried in the hole scooped
by a ball in the middle of the Ursuline church. It is there he
still sleeps. On one of the squares of the town, which became
English without the effacement of the tender memory of France,
Lord Dalhousie had a marble obelisk erected bearing the names of
Wolfe and Montcalm, with this inscription: "_Mortem virtus
communem, famam historia, momumentum posteritas dedit_." Their
courage has given them a common death; history, renown;
posterity, a monument.
{242}
Parliament decreed a magnificent tomb in Westminster Abbey to the
great conqueror of Quebec. The whole of England wore mourning.
With Quebec France had lost Canada. The impotent despair of M. de
Vaudreuil and the Duke de Levis, who were incapable of defending
Montreal, led them vainly to attempt to again seize the capital.
For a second time the Heights of Abraham were witnesses of a
bloody combat. The French troops blockaded the place. On both
sides, the arrival of reinforcements asked from Europe was being
awaited. The invincible hopefulness of our nation deluded the
Canadians. The English vessels entered the river. On the night of
the 16th to the 17th of May, the little French army raised the
siege; on the 8th of September, Montreal, in its turn, fell into
the hands of the conquerors.
At the same period, after long alternations of success and
reverse, England achieved a conquest in India which assured to
her forever the European empire of the East. An entire people,
passionately attached to the mother-country, had struggled in
Canada. In India, some eminent men had dreamed of establishing
the French power on the most solid foundations. They had
prosecuted their aims at the cost of all sacrifices, and one
after another they had fallen victim to their devotion as well as
to their reciprocal jealousy. Mahé de la Bourdonnais, governor of
the Isle of France, a clever, enterprising, honest man, and the
conqueror of Madras in 1746, had unfortunately engaged in a
rivalry with Dupleix, then governor-general of Pondicherry, which
had led both into grave errors.
[Image]
Death Of Wolfe.
{243}
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Madras to the English, but La
Bourdonnais, destitute, suspected, and consigned to the Bastile,
finally died of vexation, having used the last remnants of his
energy to disseminate suspicions against Dupleix, which were soon
to bear fruits fatal to that French greatness in India to which
M. de la Bourdonnais had formerly consecrated his life.
Joseph Dupleix, born of a Gascon family, the son of the
controller-general of Hainant, had settled in India from his
youth. He had married there, and had learned to know all the
tortuous policy of the Indian princes, whose language his wife,
the princess Jeanne, as she was called, knew, and whose secrets
she divined. Not over-scrupulous, ambitious and daring for his
country's sake even more than his own, he had foreseen and
prosecuted this European empire of India which was soon to fall
into more fortunate if not more clever hands. In 1748 he had
defended Pondicherry against Admiral Boscawen. The peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, while changing the name of the belligerents, had
not put an end to hostilities. The two commercial companies, the
French and the English, had continued the war hitherto sustained
in the name of their sovereigns. Dupleix entered more and more
into the internal intrigues of India. In the Dekhan he had
supported Murzapha Jung against Nazir Jung, and in the Carnatic,
Tchunda Sahib against Anaverdy Khan. His adroit patronage had
brought good fortune to his proteges. In their solicitous
gratitude they had conceded vast territories to France. A third
of India was already obedient to Dupleix, and the Great Mogul,
the invisible sovereign who silently granted degrees of
investiture, had just recognized his supremacy. Dupleix thought
that he had arrived at the goal of all his dreams. He had taken
no account of the improvident weakness of the French government.
{244}
Already Dupleix's success had alarmed King Louis XV. and his
ministers, who were more uneasy in respect of new embarrassments
which might be created for them than solicitous for the greatness
of France in India. England was irritated and perturbed. Her
affairs had been for a long time badly managed in India, but she
remained there vital, active, and sustained by the indomitable
ardor of a free people. At Versailles Dupleix was refused the
help he asked; the confirmation of his conquests was delayed. The
man who was to establish for England the empire of India over the
ruins of Dupleix's work, had just arisen. Robert Clive, born in
1725, of a family of small Shropshire landholders, had been
placed while very young in the offices of the India Company. His
nature was turbulent. The assiduous work of a copying clerk did
not admit of any title for him: he was a born general, and
already his counsels were listened to by the chiefs of the
company. In the peril which menaced it in consequence of
Dupleix's triumphs, young Clive was placed at the head of an
expedition which he had planned against Arcatan, the capital of
the Carnatic. Having become master of the place by a bold stroke
in the month of September, 1751, he was soon attacked there by
Tchunda Sahib. During fifty days he withstood in the fortress the
efforts of the Indians and the French. Provisions gave out, the
rations became more insufficient every day; but Clive knew how to
inspire in those who surrounded him the heroic resolution which
animated himself. "Give the rice to the English," the sepoys came
and said to him; "we will content ourselves with the water in
which it has been boiled."
{245}
A body of Mahrattas, allies of the English, caused the siege to
be raised. Clive pursued the French in their retreat; he twice
defeated Tchunda Sahib and razed the town and the monument that
Dupleix had erected in remembrance of his victories. When he had
effected his junction with Governor-General Lawrence he broke the
blockades of Trichinapolis and delivered Mahomet Ali, the son and
successor of Anaverdy Khan. Tchunda Sahib, for his part, being
confined at Tcheringham, was given up to his rival by a chief of
Tanjore to whom he had trusted himself His throat was cut. The
French commandant, a nephew of Law, gave himself up to the
English. Clive had destroyed two French corps and was pressing
the third army hard. Bussy-Castelnau, the faithful lieutenant of
Dupleix, was fighting on the Dekhan and could not come to its
aid. In vain did the indomitable energy of the governor-general
triumph over all obstacles. Dupleix had found troops and money,
and was resisting Clive, whose health was shaken when the news of
his dismissal arrived from Europe. His temporary reverses of
fortune had achieved the work begun by the suspicions which M. de
la Bourdonnais had sown; the ministers of Louis XV. had taken
fright. M. Godehen, one of the directors of the company, had been
accused of treating with the English. Dupleix re-entered France,
sad and irritated, but filled even yet with dreams and hopes.
Since the time of his landing from the East he was hailed by the
acclamations of the crowd, but the government was opposed to him.
He had embarked his entire personal fortune in the service of his
great patriotic designs; his claims were not listened to; his
wife died of vexation, and he finally, in poverty and despair,
succumbed in 1763.
{246}
"I have sacrificed my youth, my fortune, my life," he exclaimed,
with just bitterness; "I have wished to load my nation with
honors and riches in Asia. Unfortunate friends, too confiding
relatives, virtuous citizens, have consecrated their wealth to
make my projects succeed; they are now in misery. ... I demand
what is due me as the last of the creditors. My services are
fables; my demands are ridiculous; I am treated as the vilest of
men. The little property that remains to me is seized. I have
been obliged to apply for writs of suspension, so as not to be
dragged to prison." History has avenged Dupleix by doing justice
to his services. He was the most illustrious victim of those
mighty French ambitions in India, without being the last or the
most tragical of them.
After being detained some time in England by the care of his
health. Clive returned to India in 1755, strong in his past glory
and freed henceforth from the indomitable energy and clever
intrigues of Dupleix. He cast his glances at Bengal, the
sovereign of which, Surajah Dowlah, was hostile to the English
rule. The Indian prince had just taken the initiative in
hostilities by attacking Fort William, which formed the defence
of the rising town of Calcutta. The governor took fright, and the
place fell into the hands of Surajah Dowlah, who shut up the
English prisoners in the dungeon of the garrison;--a terrible
"black hole," scarcely sufficient to contain two or three
delinquents. One hundred and forty-six unfortunates were crammed
there in a stifling heat. In the morning when the door was
opened, the cries of suffering, the rending appeals, had ceased.
Twenty-three survivors, panting and dying, had scarcely strength
to drag themselves out of the horrible place, the witness of
their punishment.
{247}
The nabob, indifferent and triumphant, gave Calcutta the name of
Alinagore, or Port of God. He returned to his capital of
Moorshedabad, occupied in torturing men, as in his childhood he
had taken pleasure in torturing birds.
The anger of the English had placed Clive at the head of a little
army. Surajah Dowlah called to his aid the French established at
Chaudernagore. Dupleix was no longer there, busy to profit by all
military or political complications. The French merchants refused
to take part in the hostilities, although the Seven Years' War
had just broken out in Europe. Everywhere the arms of France were
opposed to those of England. Chaudernagore did not escape the
common lot. The English seized it after Clive had repaired
Calcutta and Fort William. The decadence of France in India was
marching with rapid steps; the treaty concluded by Godehen had
dealt a death-blow to its empire, and all the conquests of
Dupleix had been abandoned.
Upright and sincere in his relations with Europeans, Clive had
contracted the fatal habit of different morality in regard to the
Hindoos. Treaties concluded and violated, conspiracies encouraged
in all directions, shameful and flagrant perfidies, mark with a
black stain, in the life of the great general, his relations with
the cruel nabob of Bengal. The victory of Plassey, which he
finally gained on the 23d of June, 1757, terminated brilliantly a
campaign of mingled heroism and crimes. Henceforth Bengal
belonged to England. Bussy, summoned too late by Surajah Dowlah,
had not been able to arrest Clive's success. He revenged himself
for it by sweeping off all the English factories on the coast of
Orissa, and closing to them the road between the coast of
Coromandel and Bengal.
{248}
On the day after Clive's triumph in India, a bold and improvident
soldier, of indomitable courage and will, passionately attached
to France, which had received him and his cause--M.
Lally-Tollendal, of Irish origin, and already known by his
conduct, first in England and then in Scotland, during the
expedition of Prince Charles Edward--proposed to the ministers of
Louis XV. a new attempt to re-establish France's situation in the
East. The directors of the India Company sustained his proposal.
The king had promised troops. M. d'Argenson knew Lally's
character, and hesitated. The representations of the company won
him. When M. de Lally landed at Pondicherry in 1757, the treasury
was empty, the arsenals unprovided with arms and munitions, and
the English were pressing on the French possessions at all
points. The ardor of the general sufficed to remove all
obstacles. Lally marched on Gondalem, which he razed on the
sixteenth day. Shortly afterward he invested Fort St. David, the
most notable of the English fortresses in India. The first
assault was repulsed. The count had neither cannons nor beasts of
burden to bring them. He hastened to Pondicherry and attached the
Hindoos to the trains of artillery, taking indiscriminately the
men who came to hand, without troubling himself as to rank or
caste, thus imprudently wounding the dearest prejudices of the
country that he came to govern. Fort St. David was taken and
razed. Devicotch, hardly besieged, opened its gates. Lally had
been scarcely a month in India, and already he had chased the
English from the south coast of Coromandel. "My whole policy is
contained in these five words, but they are sacramental: 'No
English in the peninsula,'" wrote the general. He had sent orders
to Bussy to rejoin him at Madras.
{249}
The ardent heroism of M. de Lally had for a time troubled the
English by restoring courage to the remnants of the French
colony. The grave defects of his character soon seconded the
efforts of his adversaries by surrounding him with enemies,
secret or declared, among his compatriots themselves. Being badly
backed by M. d'Aché, who was in command of the French fleet, and
who was twice beaten by the English, he attacked Madras in the
month of September, 1758, with an undisciplined army, addicted to
the most frightful debauchery, and commanded by chiefs who were
either angry or discontented. Bussy could not console himself for
having been obliged to abandon the Dekhan to the feeble hands of
the Marquis de Conflaus. The black town had been stormed; the
white town resisted valiantly. On the 18th of February, 1759,
Lally was obliged to raise the siege; Colonel Coote had just
taken possession of the fortress of Wandewash. The general wished
to regain it. The battle which was fought on the 22d of January,
1760, was fatal to the French; M. de Bussy was made prisoner and
immediately sent to Europe. "To him alone did the capacity belong
to have continued the war for ten years," said the Hindoos.
Karikal was in the hands of the English. They were marching on
Pondicherry.
M. de Lally was shut up there, resolved to hold out to the last
in a place which was badly defended, and where he was generally
hated. The siege commenced in the month of March, 1760; on the
27th of November it was changed to a blockade. It was only on the
16th of January, 1761, that the directors of the French Company
at last forced the hand of the general, indomitable in the midst
of ruins.
{250}
"No person can have a higher opinion of General Lally than I,"
wrote Colonel Coote, who had just razed the ramparts and
magazines of Pondicherry. "He has striven against obstacles that
I believed insurmountable, and he has triumphed over them. There
is not in India another man who could have kept on foot so long
an army without pay and without resources on any hand." No aid
had come from France to the last general who still defended her
power and glory in the Indies; the cause was forever lost, and no
one would ever more attempt to revive it. The fate of M. de la
Bourdonnais and that of Dupleix remained as a gloomy proof of the
ingratitude of corrupt and feeble governments; that of M. de
Lally frightened the most courageous hearts and disgusted the
most far-sighted spirits. Shut up in the Bastile of his own will
at the end of the year 1763, he remained there nineteen months
without being examined. When his trial finally began, the
animosities which he had imprudently engendered in India rose up
against him with an irresistible violence. Accused of treason in
regard to the interest of the king and the company, he was
condemned to death on the 6th of May, 1766. Three days later he
expired on the scaffold in the _Placede Greve_, being gagged
like the worst of criminals. At the same moment. Lord Clive,
rich, powerful, and a brilliant member of Parliament, was
returning to the Indies as Governor-General of Bengal, charged
with reforming its entire administration. The contrast is
sorrowful, and explains the frequent checks received by France in
distant enterprises, which, grandly conceived and courageously
pursued by the patriotic devotion of citizens, were yet through
laxity and cowardice abandoned by the government.
{251}
Success so great and so sustained beyond the bounds of Europe
lent new force and zeal to the struggles of England on the
continent. In Germany, the Duke de Broglie had successfully
repulsed the attacks of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick on his
intrenchments at Bergher, on the 13th of April, 1759. The united
armies under M. de Coutades had invaded Hesse and advanced on the
Weser. They were occupying Minden when Prince Ferdinand attacked
them on the 1st of August. The action of the two French generals
was badly concerted, and the rout was complete. The English
infantry played a glorious part in the victory. The cavalry was
commanded by Lord George Sackville, son of the Duke, of Dorset.
Prince Ferdinand gave him orders to advance. Some contradiction
in the terms produced a momentary hesitation on the part of the
English commander, and he resisted the representations of his
aides-de-camp. "The orders are positive," said young Fitzroy;
"the French are flying, and the opportunity is glorious." Lord
Granby put himself in motion; the voice of his superior officer
compelled him to stop. When the scruples of Lord George were
finally satisfied, the battle was won, the enemy in retreat, and
the reputation of the English commander so seriously compromised
that he was obliged to resign from his rank and ask to undergo a
court-martial. The sentence was, like public opinion, severe.
Lord George Sackville was declared unworthy to serve in his
Majesty's armies. He already belonged to the court opposition
which was thronging around the heir to the throne, the princess
dowager, and the Marquis of Bute, the acknowledged favorite of
mother and son. King George II. intimated to his grandson that he
had prohibited Lord George from presenting himself before him.
The day was not far from dawning in which the memories of Minden,
despite their abiding bitterness, could not impede the proud
career of Lord George Sackville.
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Mr. Pitt was triumphant at home as abroad. In spite of the king's
small predilection for his minister, the latter had obtained the
garter for his brother-in-law, Lord Temple. Enormous subsidies
were voted by the House without demur. "It is the wisest economy
to spare nothing in the expenses of war," he had said, without
circumlocution, when he was presenting the budget to Parliament.
His animosity against France was on the increase. "Formerly I
would have been content to see her on her knees," he said, in
privacy; "to-day I wish to see her overturned in the dust."
Notwithstanding the persistent bravery of the French nobles, who
are always ready to die on the battle-field, the disorder of the
troops and the inferiority of the generals who commanded in
opposition to Frederick II. and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick,
sadly subserved the hatred of the great English minister.
The victories of England in both worlds and the triumphant
supremacy of Pitt in the Houses were not sufficient to assure the
success of their allies on the continent. At one time the great
Frederick thought he saw all Germany rallied round him. Now,
defeated and fortified in Saxony during the winter of 1760, he
sought alliances everywhere, and everywhere saw himself repelled.
"There remain to me but two allies," said he; "valor and
perseverance." Repeated victories, earned at the sword's point by
dint of boldness and at extreme danger, could not even protect
Berlin. The capital of Prussia saw itself compelled to open its
gates to the foe, on the sole condition that the Cossacks should
not go beyond its precincts.
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When the regular troops withdrew, the generals had not been able
to prevent the pillage of the town. The heroic efforts of the
King of Prussia only ended in his keeping one foot still in
Saxony. On the 10th of March he wrote to Count Algarotti, "It is
certain that we have only experienced disasters during the last
campaign, and that we have found ourselves nearly in the same
situation as the Romans after Cannes. Unfortunately, toward the
end I had an attack of gout. My left hand and my feet were
disabled, and I could only let myself be carried from place to
place, a witness to my own reverses. Happily, the speech of Barca
to Hannibal can be applied to our enemies, 'You know how to
conquer, but you do not know how to profit by victory.'" The
cruel bombardment of Dresden in the month of August, 1760, was
like an overflowing of the long pent-up rage of Frederick II. He
had lately said, "Miserable fools that we are, we have only an
instant to live, and we make that instant as sorrowful as we can.
We take pleasure in destroying the masterpieces of art that time
has spared us; we seemed resolved to leave behind us the odious
memories of our ravages and of the calamities we have caused."
The monuments and the palaces of Dresden fell beneath the fire of
the Prussian cannon in the face of the flames which devoured the
suburbs.
It is a relief in the midst of the horrors of war and the
ferocious courage there displayed, to recall an act of
disinterested bravery and a devotion which has no other
recompense than glory. Marshall de Broglie, who had become
general-in-chief of the French armies, had detailed M. de
Castries to succor Wesel, which was besieged by the hereditary
Prince of Brunswick. The French corps had just arrived, and was
still in bivouac.
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On the night between the 15th and 16th of October, the Chevalier
d'Assas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent to
reconnoitre. He was marching in front of his men when he just
fell into the midst of a body of the enemy. The Prince of
Brunswick was preparing to attack. All the guns were levelled on
the young captain. "If you stir, you are a dead man," muttered
threatening voices. Without answering, M. d'Assas collected all
his energies. "_A moi Auvergne; voila les ennemis,_" he
cried. He fell immediately, pierced by twenty bullets; but the
action of Klostercamp, thus begun, was glorious for France. The
hereditary prince was obliged to abandon the siege of Wesel and
to recross the Rhine. The French corps maintained their
positions.
The war still continued, bloody, monotonous, and fruitless; but a
great event had just taken place, which was speedily to change
the face of Europe. On the morning of the 25th of October, King
George II. had risen as usual, being as regular and methodical at
seventy-six as he had been in his youth. He asked for the foreign
dispatches, when his servants heard the noise of a fall. They
rushed in. The king was on the ground, and already breathing his
last. When his daughter, the Princess Amelia, was summoned, she
being deaf and very near-sighted bent towards her father in order
to catch his last words. In alarm she started back. King George
II. was dead.
[Image]
George III.
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