as the Prince had handed down the Duchess d’Angoulême, and the King of
France handed the Duchess of York, Monsieur with Princess Sophia of
Gloucester, &c., all other persons were stopped at the door who did not
present their tickets.
Luckily for me, during the hour of waiting, I found myself close to Lord
Chichester; and upon communication we found ourselves ticketed, and
without any lady attached to either, so we agreed to make common cause.
Lady Chichester not being in a state of bustle, had by the Prince’s
gracious permission, seen all the preparations in the morning.
Upon descending into the conservatory, Perceval, Lord Chichester, and
myself, after some difficulty of finding places, separated, and it ended
in my going with Lord Chichester to the vacant end of the Prince’s long
table, which could not be less than 200 feet long. My children would
have been amused with the river of water and the little gudgeons
swimming about in the whole length of this table; and all the _grown_
children were equally delighted.
Tierney said to me in the course of the evening that he had previously
seen and admired the whole spectacle, except that Sadler’s Wells
business of the rivulet and the swimming fishes.
Nevertheless it was oriental and fanciful, towards the Prince’s end
particularly; for in that part the table widened, and the water also,
and fell by a succession of cascades into a circular lake surrounded
with architectural decorations, and small vases, burning perfumes, which
stood under the arches of the colonnade round the lake.
Behind the Prince’s end of the table there was a magnificent sideboard
of gilt plate three stories high.
A band in the garden, not seen by the company, played the whole time.
After the supper was well ended, and before the company rose to go
upstairs, there was a grand crowd from the supper room beyond the brass
railing, of fine ladies and gentlemen, who came to lean against and look
over the railing at our superior lot, and to endeavour at descrying the
gudgeons in our river. “There, I see them;” “Look, look;” “Don’t you?”
&c., by all the Misses and company, old and young, not to mention Lady
Mansfield, Lady Buckingham’s niece, old Mr. Hastings, and many other
souls old and young, whose eager and ridiculous curiosity was very
entertaining.
At length the royals all rose and went upstairs; Lord Chichester had
undertaken to pilot me all round the rest of the supper apartments; Lady
Chatham and a young lady of her family were tacked on to us, and so we
proceeded.
A few minutes so completely filled the conservatory in which the
Prince’s table was placed, that before we got fairly round, the crowd
and pressing was beyond anything I ever saw or felt; until, not without
an intolerable cram and jam, we made our way with one tide which bore
down another tide, and thus we saw the other six rooms all in
continuation of the same line as the conservatory. The furthest room was
seven or eight steps higher than the rest, and commanded a long but
indistinct view of tables and tables not less than 500 feet in distance.
Besides these rooms there was supper under tents in the gardens.
Certainly, the supply, waiting, and arrangements seemed to be admirable.
No delays in arrivals, no difficulties, no accidents.
WEAVING MACHINES (1812).
=Source.=--Byron’s _Works_, 1898. Letters and Journals. Vol. ii., p. 424.
_Debate on the Framework Bill, in the House of Lords, February 27,
1812._
The order of the day for the second reading of this Bill being read,
Lord Byron rose, and (for the first time) addressed their Lordships as
follows:--
My Lords,--The subject now submitted to your Lordships for the
first time, though new to the House, is by no means new to the
country. I believe it had occupied the serious thoughts of all
descriptions of persons, long before its introduction to the notice
of that legislature, whose interference alone could be of real
service. As a person in some degree connected with the suffering
county, though a stranger not only to this House in general, but to
almost every individual whose attention I presume to solicit, I
must claim some portion of your Lordships’ indulgence, whilst I
offer a few observations on a question in which I confess myself
deeply interested.
To enter into any detail of the riots would be superfluous: the
House is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed
has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of the frames
obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected
with them, have been liable to insult and violence. During the
short time I recently passed in Nottinghamshire, not twelve hours
elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on the day I left
the county I was informed that forty frames had been broken the
preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without
detection.
Such was then the state of that county, and such I have reason to
believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be
admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that
they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled
distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their
proceedings tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could
have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the
people, into the commission of excesses, so hazardous to
themselves, their families, and the community. At the time to which
I allude, the town and county were burdened with large detachments
of the military; the police were in motion, the magistrates
assembled; yet all the movements, civil and military, had led
to--nothing. Not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension
of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom
there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. But the
police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious
delinquents had been detected,--men, liable to conviction, on the
clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had
been nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several children,
whom, thanks to the times! they are unable to maintain.
Considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the
improved frames. These machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch
as they superseded the necessity of employing a number of workmen,
who were left in consequence to starve. By the adoption of one
species of frame in particular, one man performed the work of many,
and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of employment. Yet it
is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior in
quality; not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a
view of exportation. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by
the name of “Spider-work.” The rejected workmen, in the blindness
of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in
arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be
sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. In the foolishness of
their hearts they imagined that the maintenance and well-doing of
the industrious poor were objects of greater consequence than the
enrichment of a few individuals by any improvement, in the
implements of trade, which threw the workmen out of employment, and
rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire. And it must be
confessed that although the adoption of the enlarged machinery in
that state of our commerce which the country once boasted might
have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the
servant; yet, in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting
in warehouses, without a prospect of exportation, with the demand
for work and workmen equally diminished, frames of this description
tend materially to aggravate the distress and discontent of the
disappointed sufferers. But the real cause of these distresses and
consequent disturbances lies deeper. When we are told that these
men are leagued together not only for the destruction of their own
comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that
it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare of the last
eighteen years, which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort,
all men’s comfort? that policy, which, originating with “great
statesmen now no more,” has survived the dead to become a curse on
the living, unto the third and fourth generation! These men never
destroyed their looms till they were become useless, worse than
useless; till they were become actual impediments to their
exertions in obtaining their daily bread. Can you, then, wonder
that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and
imputed felony are found in a station not far beneath that of your
Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the
people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become
only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the
exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital
punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for
the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were
willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not
ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means
of subsistence were cut off, all other employments preoccupied; and
their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be
subject of surprise.
BADAJOZ (1812).
=Source.=--_Selections from the Wellington Despatches._ Gurwood. P. 581.
_To the Earl of Liverpool._
BADAJOZ,
_7th April, 1812_.
My dispatch of the 3rd instant will have apprised your Lordship of the
state of the operations against Badajoz to that date; which were brought
to a close on the night of the 6th, by the capture of the place by
storm.
The fire continued during the 4th and 5th against the face of the
bastion of La Trinidad, and the flank of the bastion of Sta Maria;
and on the 4th, in the morning, we opened another battery of 6 guns in
the second parallel against the shoulder of the ravelin of San Roque,
and the wall in its gorge.
Practicable breaches were effected in the bastions above mentioned on
the evening of the 5th; but as I had observed that the enemy had
entrenched the bastion of La Trinidad, and the most formidable
preparations were making for the defence, as well of the breach in that
bastion as of that in the bastion of Sta Maria, I determined to delay
the attack for another day, and to turn all the guns in the batteries in
the second parallel on the curtain of La Trinidad; in hopes that by
effecting a third breach, the troops would be enabled to turn the
enemy’s works for the defence of the other two; the attack of which
would besides be connected by the troops destined to attack the breach
in the curtain. This breach was effected in the evening of the 6th, and
the fire of the face of the bastion of Sta Maria and of the flank of
the bastion of La Trinidad being overcome, I determined to attack the
place that night.
I had kept in reserve in the neighbourhood of this camp, the 5th
division under Lieut.-General Leith, which had left Castille only in the
middle of March, and had but lately arrived in this part of the country;
and I brought them up on that evening. The plan for the attack was that
Lieut.-General Picton should attack the castle of Badajoz by escalade
with the 3rd division; and a detachment from the guard in the trenches
furnished that evening by the 4th division, under Major Wilson of the
48th regt., should attack the ravelin of San Roque upon his left, while
the 4th division under Major-General the Hon. C. Colville, and the Light
division under Lieut.-Colonel Barnard, should attack the breaches in the
bastions of La Trinidad and Sta Maria, and in the curtain by which
they are connected. The 5th division were to occupy the ground which the
4th and Light divisions had occupied during the siege; and
Lieut.-General Leith was to make a false attack upon the outwork called
the Pardaleras; and another on the works of the fort towards the
Guadiana, with the left brigade of the division under Major-General
Walker, which he was to turn into a real attack, if circumstances should
prove favourable; and Brig.-General Power, who invested the place with
his Portuguese brigade on the right of the Guadiana, was directed to
make false attacks on the _tête-de-pont_, the Fort San Christoval, and
the new redoubt called Mon Cœur.
The attack was accordingly made at 10 at night; Lieut.-General Picton
preceding by a few minutes the attack by the remainder of the troops.
Major-General Kempt led this attack, which went out from the right of
the first parallel. He was unfortunately wounded in crossing the river
Rivillas below the inundation; but notwithstanding this circumstance,
and the obstinate resistance of the enemy, the castle was carried by
escalade, and the 3rd division established in it at about half-past 11.
While this was going on, Major Wilson of the 48th carried the ravelin of
San Roque by the gorge, with a detachment of 200 men of the guard in the
trenches; and with the assistance of Major Squire, of the engineers,
established himself within that work.
The 4th and Light divisions moved to the attack from the camp along the
left of the river Rivillas, and of the inundation. They were not
perceived by the enemy, till they reached the covered-way; and the
advanced guards of the 2 divisions descended without difficulty into the
ditch, protected by the fire of the parties stationed on the glacis for
that purpose; and they advanced to the assault of the breaches led by
their gallant officers, with the utmost intrepidity. But such was the
nature of the obstacles prepared by the enemy at the top and behind the
breaches, and so determined their resistance, that our troops could not
establish themselves within the place. Many brave officers and soldiers
were killed or wounded by explosions at the top of the breaches; others
who succeeded to them were obliged to give way, having found it
impossible to penetrate the obstacles which the enemy had prepared to
impede their progress. These attempts were repeated till after 12 at
night; when, finding that success was not to be attained, and that
Lieut.-General Picton was established in the castle, I ordered that the
4th and Light divisions might retire to the ground on which they had
been first assembled for the attack.
In the mean time, Lieut.-General Leith had pushed forward Major-General
Walker’s brigade on the left, supported by the 38th regt. under
Lieut.-Colonel Nugent, and the 15th Portuguese regt. under Colonel Do
Rego, and he had made a false attack upon the Pardaleras with the 8th
caçadores under Major Hill. Major-General Walker forced the barrier on
the road of Olivença, and entered the covered way on the left of the
bastion of San Vicente, close to the Guadiana. He there descended into
the ditch, and escaladed the face of the bastion of San Vicente.
Lieutenant-General Leith supported this attack by the 38th regt. and
15th Portuguese regt.; and our troops being thus established in the
castle, which commands all the works of the town, and in the town; and
the 4th and Light divisions being formed again for the attack of the
breaches, all resistance ceased; and at daylight in the morning, the
Governor, General Philippon, who had retired to Fort San Christoval,
surrendered, together with General Vieland, and all the Staff, and the
whole garrison. I have not got accurate returns of the strength of the
garrison, or of the number of prisoners. But General Philippon has
informed me that it consisted of 5,000 men at the commencement of the
siege, of which 1,200 were killed or wounded during the operations;
besides those lost in the assault of the place. There were 5 French
battalions, besides 2 of the regiment of Hesse Darmstadt, and the
artillery, engineers, &c.; and I understand there are 4,000 prisoners.
It is impossible that any expressions of mine can convey to your
Lordship the sense which I entertain of the gallantry of the officers
and troops upon this occasion. The list of killed and wounded will show
that the General officers, the Staff attached to them, the commanding
and other officers of the regiments, put themselves at the heads of the
attacks which they severally directed, and set the example of gallantry
which was so well followed by their men.
Marshal Sir W. Beresford assisted me in conducting the details of this
siege; and I am much indebted to him for the cordial assistance which I
received from him, as well during the progress, as in the last operation
which brought it to a termination. The duties in the trenches were
conducted successively by Major-General the Hon. C. Colville,
Major-General Bowes, and Major-General Kempt, under the superintendence
of Lieut.-General Picton. I have had occasion to mention all these
officers during the course of the operations; and they all distinguished
themselves, and were all wounded in the assault. I am particularly
obliged to Lieut.-General Picton for the manner in which he arranged the
attack of the castle; for that in which he supported the attack, and
established his troops in that important post.
Lieut.-General Leith’s arrangements for the false attack upon the
Pardaleras, and that under Major-General Walker, were likewise most
judicious; and he availed himself of the circumstances of the moment, to
push forward and support the attack under Major-General Walker, in a
manner highly creditable to him. The gallantry and conduct of
Major-General Walker, who was also wounded, and that of the officers and
troops under his command, were conspicuous.
The arrangements made by Major-General the Hon. C. Colville for the
attack by the 4th division were very judicious; and he led them to the
attack in the most gallant manner. In consequence of the absence, on
account of sickness, of Major-General Vandeleur, and of Colonel
Beckwith, Lieut.-Colonel Barnard commanded the Light division in the
assault, and distinguished himself not less by the manner in which he
made the arrangements for that operation, than by his personal gallantry
in its execution.
I have also to mention Brig.-General Harvey of the Portuguese service,
commanding a brigade in the 4th division, and Brig.-General Champelmond,
commanding the Portuguese brigade in the 3rd division, as highly
distinguished. Brig.-General Harvey was wounded in the storm.
MURDER OF PERCEVAL (1812).
=Source.=--_Diary of Lord Colchester_, 1861. Vol. ii., p. 379.
[_May_] _11th_.--The House of Commons being in Committee hearing
evidence on the Orders in Council, at a few minutes after five, I was
called down from my room into the House by a message that
Mr. Perceval was shot in the lobby.
As soon as I had taken the chair, the assassin, a bankrupt Liverpool
merchant, John Bellingham, was forcibly brought to the bar. I detained
him till a Magistrate was brought, who came almost instantly; and then
the assassin was conducted to the prison room belonging to the
Serjeant-at-Arms, where he was examined before Mr. White, a Westminster
Justice; and Mr. Alderman Combe and Mr. Taylor, two Members who were
also Justices, and thereupon committed to Newgate for murder.
Mr. Perceval’s body (for he fell lifeless after he had staggered a few
paces into the lobby) was brought into my house, and remained in the
first picture room till the family removed it (for privacy) at one
o’clock in the morning to Downing Street.
_12th._--I wrote to invite Ponsonby, Whitbread, Lord Castlereagh, Ryder,
Canning, Master of the Rolls, Wilberforce, &c. &c., to meet here at
three o’clock, and consult upon the proper course of recommending
Perceval’s family to the protection of the Crown. There came also
Elliott, Adair, Wellesley Pole, &c. &c.: and Lord Castlereagh stated the
Regent’s intention to send a message on the subject; in answer to which
Ponsonby, Whitbread, Canning, and Bankes fully and at length declared
their unqualified assent. Finding Tierney not present, I wrote to him
before I went into the House to excuse the omission, on the score of
believing that through Ponsonby or Whitbread I should have seen him; and
that the scenes and thoughts which for the preceding eighteen hours had
surrounded me and occupied me must be my apology for this and, I feared,
many other omissions.
I found afterwards that he had taken the omission heinously ill; but on
Wednesday when he came into the House he appeared to be quite appeased
by my letter.
In the House of Commons, by common consent, no other business was done.
Lord Castlereagh presented the Message, and moved the Address. In most
faces there was an agony of tears; and neither Lord Castlereagh,
Ponsonby, Whitbread, nor Canning could give a dry utterance to their
sentiments.
The House resolved by common acclamation to present the Address “as a
House,” and not by Privy Councillors.
All other business was put off for distant or nominal days.
_13th._--House of Commons. Unanimous votes in Committee upon the
Regent’s Message, to grant 50,000_l._ among the children, and 2,000_l._
a year to Mrs. Perceval for her life. A debate and division by which a
further resolution was carried for 2,000_l._ a year to Mr. Perceval’s
eldest son; but great ill-will towards this third proposition, which was
moved by Mr. Sumner, and at first resisted by Ministers.
SHERIDAN’S LAST UTTERANCES IN THE HOUSE (1812).
=Source.=--Moore’s _Life of Sheridan_, 1825. P. 677.
My objection to the present Ministry is, that they are avowedly arrayed
and embodied against a principle,--that of concession to the Catholics
of Ireland,--which I think, and must always think, essential to the
safety of this empire. I will never give my vote to any administration
that opposes the question of Catholic Emancipation. I will not consent
to receive a furlough upon that particular question, even though a
Ministry were carrying every other that I wished. In fine, I think the
situation of Ireland a paramount consideration. If they were to be the
last words I should ever utter in this House, I should say, “Be just to
Ireland, as you value your own honour;--be just to Ireland, as you value
your own peace.”
His very last words in Parliament, on his own motion relative to the
Overtures of Peace from France, were as follows:
“Yet, after the general subjugation and ruin of Europe, should
there ever exist an independent historian to record the awful
events that produced this universal calamity, let that historian
have to say,--‘Great Britain fell, and with her fell all the best
securities for the charities of human life, for the power and
honour, the fame, the glory, and the liberties, not only of
herself, but of the whole civilized world.’”
SIR STAPLETON COTTON’S MILITARY SERVICES (1813).
=Source.=--_Diary of Lord Colchester_, 1861. Vol. ii., p. 440.
[_March_] _9th_.--Sir Stapleton Cotton,[13] having on the 5th announced
to me his arrival in London, I delivered to him the thanks of the House,
in the following speech:
Lieutenant-General Sir Stapleton Cotton, in this interval between the
active seasons of war, your proper sphere of duty is within these walls;
and we hail with pride and pleasure your return among us, bringing with
you fresh marks of royal[14] favour, the just reward of fresh services
and triumphs.
Descended from a long line of ancestors, whose names are recorded in the
earliest ages of our history, and characterized with those qualities of
prudence, generosity, and valour, which have laid the foundations of
English greatness, your race has exhibited many a model of that splendid
worth which dignifies the gentlemen of England; always prompt to
discharge the laborious duties of civil life, and never slow to take up
arms at the call of their country. Such, in an eminent degree, was that
venerated person from whom you have immediately derived your own
hereditary honours, endeared by his active virtues to the public men of
his own time, not unknown to some who still sit among us, and ever
remembered by myself with the sincerest sentiments of respect and
affection.