The people having collected in great crowds in the neighbourhood of the Council House, Dalton ordered out a company of soldiers, under a young[355] ensign, to patrol the streets, and overawe any attempts at demonstrations in support of the Council. The young ensign, having a stone flung at him, without further ceremony ordered his men to fire into the crowd, and six persons were killed, and numbers of others wounded. No sooner did Joseph hear of this rash and cruel act, than he wrote highly approving of it, and promoting the ensign. The people, greatly enraged, rose in the different towns, and were attacked by the Imperial troops, and blood was shed in various places. With his usual disregard of consequences, Joseph was at this moment endeavouring to raise a loan in the Netherlands, to enable him to carry on the war against Turkey. But this conduct completely quashed all hope of it; not a man of money would advance a stiver. Trautmansdorff continued to threaten the people, and Dalton was ready to execute his most harsh orders. It was determined to break up the University of Antwerp, and on the 4th of August, 1789, troops were drawn up, and cannon planted in the public square, to keep down the populace, whilst the professors were turned into the streets, and the college doors locked. Here there occurred an attack on the unarmed people, as wanton as that which took place at Brussels, and no less than thirty or forty persons were killed on the spot, and great numbers wounded. This Massacre of Antwerp, as it was called, roused the indignation of the whole Netherlands, and was heard with horror by all Europe. The monks and professors who had been turned out became objects of sympathy, even to those who regarded with wonder and contempt their bigotry and superstition. But Joseph, engaged in his miserable and disgraceful war against the Turks, sent to Dalton his warmest approval of what he called these vigorous measures.[See larger version]
ONE:CHARLES PELHAM VILLIERS.But, notwithstanding these partial advantages, and though the duke and his army were enduring all the severities of a Highland winter, exposed to the cutting east winds on that inclement coast, and compelled to keep quarters for some time, Cumberland was steadily seizing every opportunity to enclose the Highlanders in his toils. His ships cut off all supplies coming by sea. They captured two vessels sent from France to their aid, on board of one of which they took the brother of the Duke of Berwick. The Hazard, a sloop which the Highlanders had seized and sent several times to France, was now pursued by an English cruiser, and driven ashore on the coast of Sutherland: on board her were a hundred and fifty men and officers, and ten thousand pounds in gold, which the clan Mackay, headed by Lord Reay, got possession of. This last blow, in addition to other vessels sent out to succour him being compelled to return to France, reduced Charles to the utmost[105] extremities. He had only five hundred louis-d'ors left in his chest, and he was obliged to pay his troops in meal, to their great suffering and discontent. Cumberland was, in fact, already conquering them by reducing them to mere feeble skeletons of men. The dry winds of March rendered the rivers fordable, and, as soon as it grew milder, he availed himself of this to coop the unhappy Highlanders up still more narrowly in their barren wilds, and stop all the passes into the Lowlands, by which they might obtain provisions. He himself lay at Aberdeen with strong outposts in all directions; Mordaunt at Old Meldrum, and Bland at Strathbogie. As soon as he received an abundance of provisions by a fleet of transports, along with Bligh's regiment, hearing that the Spey was fordable, on the 7th of April he issued orders to march, and the next day set forward himself from Aberdeen with Lord Kerr's dragoons and six regiments of foot, having the fleet still following along the shore with a gentle and fair wind. On reaching the Spey Lord John Drummond disputed their passage, having raised a battery to sweep the ford, and ranged his best marksmen along the shore. But the heavier artillery of the duke soon drove Lord John from the ground; he set fire to his barracks and huts, and left the ford open to the enemy, who soon got across. On Sunday, the 13th of April, the English advanced to Alves, and on the 14th reached Nairn. As the van, consisting of the Argyllshire men, some companies of Grenadiers, and Kingston's Light Horse, entered Nairn, the rear of Lord John Drummond had not quitted it, and there was skirmishing at the bridge. The Highlanders still retreated to a place called the Lochs of the Clans, about five miles beyond Nairn, where the prince came up with reinforcements, and, turning the flight, pursued the English back again to the main body of their army, which was encamped on the plain to the west of Nairn.
TWO:Whilst the debate was proceeding, great crowds gathered round the House, and became even more numerous and more agitated. Walpole, irritated by the persuasion that these throngs were collected by the arts of the Opposition, threw out a remark which he afterwards deeply repented. He said gentlemen might call themselves what they liked, but he knew whom the law called "Sturdy Beggars." This phrase, carried out of doors, highly incensed the crowd, who considered that it was meant to cast contempt on the people at large. At two o'clock in the morning, and after thirteen hours' debate, on division there appeared two hundred and sixty-six for the measure, and two hundred and five against. The great increase of the minority struck Walpole with surprise and alarm.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:
TWO:Thus the Cabinet was evidently fast breaking up, when Mr. Littleton introduced his Tithe Bill. Its object was much the same as Mr. Stanley's Act of 1832 for the Compulsory Commutation of Tithe. This last Act had been a failure, and Mr. Littleton was compelled to ask Parliament to grant the sum of 1,000,000 to pay the arrears. He hoped to remedy its defects by reducing the number of people who were liable to tithe, and then, after the 1st of November, to commute the tithe into a land tax, payable to the State, to reduce its amount by one-fifth, and to allow any person having a substantial interest in the estate to redeem the residue of it, after five years had expired, on easy terms. After a number of stormy debates the progress of the measure seemed assured, when Lord John Russell went out of his way to express his views in favour of the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to secular purposes. Stanley wrote to Graham the laconic note, "Johnny has upset the coach." Indeed, the declaration was the more indiscreet because the Cabinet was hopelessly divided on the point.Scarcely had Lord Cornwallis commenced his march into the interior of North Carolina, and scarcely had he dispatched Major Ferguson with a corps of American Royalists, to advance through the country towards the frontiers of Virginia, when this corps received another proof of the wisdom of keeping out of the woods and hills. Major Ferguson was attacked near the pass of King's Mountain by swarms of riflemen, many of them mounted, from Virginia, Kentucky, and the Alleghanies who shot down and exterminated his followers almost to a man, the major falling amongst the rest. The victors gave a prompt proof of their apt adoption of Lord Cornwallis's teaching, by hanging ten of the prisoners. Lord Cornwallis was harassed by similar hordes of flying and creeping skirmishers. Hearing the news of the slaughter of Ferguson's force, he returned to Charlotte, retracing his march through most rainy weather, terrible roads, and almost totally destitute of provisions. Cornwallis fell ill on the road, and Lord Rawdon had to assume the command. It was not till the 29th of October that the army resumed its original position near Camden; and General Leslie, who had been also dispatched to co-operate with Cornwallis in Virginia, was recalled, but was obliged to return by sea.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:[See larger version]Soult, on the retreat of Sir John Moore, had taken possession of Ferrol, Bilbao, and the other principal towns in the north of Spain. He had then entered Portugal, and had marched to Oporto, which he took after a resistance of only two days; and Sir J. Cradock had retired to Lisbon. Soult was prevented from advancing farther by the rising of the Spaniards behind him in Galicia, who retook Vigo and other places; whilst Silviera, the Portuguese general, interposed between him and Galicia, and formed a junction with the Spaniards. Wellesley determined to expel Soult from Oporto, and did not hesitate to say that the French general could not long remain in Portugal. Leaving a division in Lisbon to guard the eastern frontiers of Portugal against the forces of Victor, who lay in Spanish Estremadura, Sir Arthur advanced towards Oporto with a celerity that astonished the French. He quitted Lisbon on the 28th of April, reached Coimbra, driving the French before him, and on the 9th of May he was advancing from that city on Oporto. By the 11th he was occupying the southern bank of the Douro, opposite to that city. Soult had broken down the bridges and sent away the boats, so that he might be able to retire at leisure into Galicia; but Sir Arthur managed to send across General Murray with a brigade, a few miles above Oporto, and a brigade of Guards also passed at the suburb of Villanova, and he discovered sufficient boats to carry over his main army just above the town. The French commenced a fierce attack on the British forces as they landed; but the first battalion, the Buffs, got possession of a large building called the Seminario, and held it till the other troops arrived. Major-General Hill soon brought up the 48th and 66th regiments; General Sherbrooke, who crossed the river below the town with the brigade of Guards and the 29th regiment, entered the town amid the acclamations of the people, and charged the French in the rear; and General Murray, about the same time, showed himself on the French left, above the town. Soult fled, leaving behind him his sick and wounded, and many prisoners, besides much artillery and ammunition. This taking of Oporto, in the face of a French force of ten thousand men, coupled with his having to cross the broad Douro, and that with very defective means of transit, was a most brilliant affair; and the most astonishing thing was, that Wellesley lost only twenty-three killed and ninety-eight wounded, whilst Soult's troops suffered severely.
TWO:Before the termination of the reign there were active preparations for putting steam-engines on all iron railroads. So early as 1758, Watt, who afterwards did so much in the construction of steam-engines, had an idea that locomotive engines might be put on such roads. In 1770 such an engine was actually made and worked by John Theophilus Cugnot, in Paris, but he had not discovered sufficient means of controlling it. In 1802 Messrs. Trevethick and Vivian exhibited such an engine running along the streets in London. In 1805 the same gentlemen again exhibited one of their engines working on a tram-road at Merthyr Tydvil, drawing ten tons of iron at the rate of five miles an hour; and in 1811 Mr. Blenkinsop was running an engine on the Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, drawing a hundred tons on a dead level at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, and going at the rate of ten miles when only lightly loaded. Blenkinsop had made the wheels of his engines to act by cogs on indented rails; for there was a strong persuasion at that period that the friction of plain wheels on plain rails would not be sufficient to enable the engine to progress with its load. The folly of this idea had already been shown on all the colliery lines in the kingdom, and by the engine of Trevethick and Vivian at Merthyr. The fallacy, however, long prevailed. But during this time Thomas Gray was labouring to convince the public of the immense advantages to be derived from steam trains on railways. In five editions of his work, and by numerous memorials to Ministers, Parliament, lord mayors, etc., he showed that railroads must supersede coaches for passengers, and waggons and canals for goods. He was the first projector of a general system of railroads, laid down maps for comprehensive general lines for both England and Ireland, invented turn-tables, and very accurately calculated the cost of constructing lines. For these services he was termed a madman, and the Edinburgh Review recommended that he should be secured in a strait jacket. In his "Life of George Stephenson" Dr. Smiles takes exception to the statement that Thomas Gray was the originator of railways, and transfers that term to Stephenson. Let us be correct; Gray was the projector, Stephenson the constructor of railways. But it is not to be supposed that Gray had sold five editions of his work without Stephenson, and perhaps every engineer, having read and profited by it. Yet, so little had Stephenson any idea of the real scope and capacity of railways, that it was not till five years after the running of his engines on such lines, by Dr. Smiles's own showing, that he ever imagined such a thing as their becoming the general medium of human transit. He tells us Mr. Edward Pease suggested to him to put an old long coach on the Darlington and Stockton line, attached to the luggage trucks, and see if people might not wish to travel by it. Gray had demonstrated all this long before. He stood in the place of the architect, Stephenson only of the builder who carries out the architect's design. Seven years only after the death of George III. the railway line between Manchester and Liverpool was commenced, and from its successful opening, on the 15th of September, 1830, dates the amazing development of the present railway system.THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
TWO:[See larger version]
FORE:Quippe ferant rapidi secum verrantque per auras.'
FORE:In Ireland there was severe distress prevailing over an extensive district along the western coastno unusual visitation, for the peasantry depended altogether on the potato, a precarious crop, which sometimes failed wholly, and was hardly ever sufficient to last till the new crop came in. The old potatoes generally disappeared or became unfit for human food in June, and from that time till September the destitution was very great, sometimes amounting to actual famine. There was a partial failure of the crop in 1830, which, coupled with the rack-rents extorted by middlemen, gave to agitators topics which they used with effect in disquieting the minds of the peasantry.Notwithstanding that Hyder had established his camp soon after in a strong position near the village of Pollilore, he was attacked on the 27th of August by Eyre Coote. On this occasion Sir Hector Munro warned Coote of the disadvantages of ground under which he was going to engage, and the inevitable sacrifice of life. Coote replied angrily, "You talk to me, sir, when you should be doing your duty!" His warning, however, was just. Coote did not succeed in driving Hyder from his post without severe loss. But again, on the 27th of September, another battle was fought between them in the pass of Sholinghur, near Bellore, in which Coote defeated Hyder with terrible loss. This battle relieved the English garrison in Bellore, and the rainy season put an end to operations, but the Carnatic was saved.
FORE:Mr. Lamb, the Chief Secretary, wrote to Mr. Peel to the same effect. The Act, he said, had failed in fulfilling its main object, as well as every other advantageous purpose. To re-enact it would irritate all parties, and expose the Ministry to odium. He alluded to sources of dissension that were springing up in the Roman Catholic body, particularly the jealousy excited in the Roman Catholic prelates by the power which the Association had assumed over the parochial clergy. On the whole, his advice was against renewing the Statute. On the 12th of April Lord Anglesey wrote a memorandum on the subject, in which he pointed out the impolicy of any coercive measure, which, to be effective, must interfere with the right of public meeting, and make a dangerous inroad on the Constitution, at the same time displaying the weakness of the Government, which is shown in nothing more than passing strong measures which there was not vigour to enforce. His information led him to believe that the higher orders of the Roman Catholic clergy had long felt great jealousy of the ascendency that the leaders of the Association had assumed over the lower priesthood. Besides, many of the most respectable of the Catholic landlords were irritated at their tenantry for continuing to pay the Catholic rent, contrary to their injunctions; and sooner or later he believed the poorer contributors must consider the impost as onerous, arbitrary, and oppressive. These matters he regarded as seeds of dissolution, which would be more than neutralised by any coercive attempt to put down the Association. He felt confident that no material mischief could result from allowing the Act quietly to expire, supported as the Government was by "the powerful aid of that excellent establishment, the constabulary force, already working the greatest[270] benefit, and capable of still further improvement, and protected as this force was by an efficient army, ably commanded."Perhaps a still more remarkable man of the same denomination was William Huntington, originally a coalheaver, struggling with severe poverty; yet, believing himself called to the ministry, he boldly followed his conceived duty, through much discouragement and persecution. He has left an autobiography, in which his perfect faith in and reliance on God are justified by the most remarkable supply of all his wants, and support in a widely extended and useful ministry. After the death of his first wife he married the wealthy widow of Sir James Sanderson, a London alderman, and passed his latter years in affluence.
FORE:The Parliament of England met on the 13th of October. Pitt, not without cause, assumed much merit from the successes of the year; and, in truth, so far as military matters went, rarely had this country reaped such fame. We had triumphed in every quarter of the world. In January came the news of the capture of Goree; in June, of Guadeloupe; in August, that of the victory of Minden; in September, of the victory off Lagos; in October, of the conquest of Quebec; in November, of Hawke's victory off Quiberon. Horace Walpole said, "victories came so thick, that every morning we were obliged to ask what victory there was, for fear of missing one." At the same time, the condition of our trade warranted the inscription afterwards placed on Chatham's monument in the Guildhall, that he caused commerce to flourish with war.[46]
FORE:The Church Temporalities Bill, with some alterations, passed the Lower House; it encountered strong opposition in the Lords, who defeated the Ministry on one important amendment, but it ultimately passed, on the 30th of July, by a majority of fifty-four, several peers having recorded their protests against it, among whom the Duke of Cumberland was conspicuous. The Commissioners appointed under the Bill were the Lord Primate, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Chancellor and Chief Justice of Ireland, and four of the bishops, and some time afterwards three laymen were added. The following were the principal features of this great measure of Church Reform: Church Cess to be immediately abolishedthis was a direct pecuniary relief to the amount of about 80,000 per annum, which had been levied in the most vexatious mannerand a reduction of the number of archbishops and bishops prospectively, from four archbishops and eighteen bishops to two archbishops and ten bishops, the revenues of the suppressed sees to be appropriated to general Church purposes. The archbishoprics of Cashel and Tuam were reduced to bishoprics, ten sees were abolished, the duties connected with them being transferred to other seesDromore to Down, Raphoe to Derry, Clogher to Armagh, Elphin to Kilmore, Killala to Tuam, Clonfer to Killaloe, Cork to Cloyne, Waterford to Cashel, Ferns to Ossory, Kildare to Dublin. The whole of Ireland was divided into two provinces by a line drawn from the north of Dublin county to the south of Galway Bay, and the bishoprics were reduced to ten. The revenues of the suppressed bishoprics, together with those of suspended dignities and benefices and disappropriated tithes, were vested by the Church Temporalities Act in the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to be applied by them to the erection and repairs of churches, to the providing for Church expenses hitherto defrayed by vestry rates, and to other ecclesiastical purposes. The sales which were made of perpetuities of Church estates, vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, produced upwards of 631,353; the value of the whole perpetuities, if sold, was estimated at 1,200,000. The total receipts of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1834 were 68,729; in 1835 they amounted to 168,027; and in 1836 they reached 181,045. The cost of the official establishment was at one time 15,000; during the later years, however, it averaged less than 6,000. Its total receipts, up to July, 1861, were 3,310,999. The Church Temporalities Act imposed a tax on all benefices and dignities whose net annual value exceeded 300, graduated according to their amount, from two and a half to five per cent., the rate of charge increasing by 2s. 6d. per cent. on every additional 10 above 405. All benefices exceeding 1,195 were taxed at the rate of fifteen per cent. The yearly tax imposed on all bishoprics was graduated as follows:Where the yearly value did not exceed 4,000 five per cent.; not exceeding 6,000, seven per cent.; not exceeding 8,000, ten per cent.; and not exceeding 10,000, twelve per cent. In lieu of tax the Archbishopric of Armagh was to pay to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners an annual sum of 4,500, and the see of Derry to pay 6,160. The exact net incomes of the Irish bishops were as follows:Armagh, 14,634; Meath, 3,764;[361] Derry, 6,022; Down, 3,658; Kilmore, 5,248; Tuam, 3,898; Dublin, 7,636; Ossory, 3,874; Cashel, 4,691; Cork, 2,310; Killaloe, 3,310; Limerick, 3,987total, 63,032. The total amount of tithe rent-charge payable to ecclesiastical personsbishops, deans, chapters, incumbents of benefices, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was 401,114. The rental of Ireland was estimated, by the valuators under the Poor Law Act, at about 12,000,000this rental being about a third part of the estimated value of the annual produce of the land.
FORE:LORD ELDON. (After the Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.)
FORE:MUSTER OF THE IRISH AT MULLINAHONE. (See p. 568.)
FORE:There was no difficulty in these negotiations as to the full and entire recognition of the independence of the States. The difficult points were but twoone regarding the fishery, and the other regarding the interests of the Royalists or Tories. The British Commissioners stood out strongly for the free permission of all who had been engaged in the war on the English side to return to their homes, and for the restitution of all property confiscated in consequence of such partisanship. The American Commissioners endeavoured to meet this demand by saying the recommendations of Congress would have all the effect that the English proposed. This the Commissioners regarded as so many words, and they insisted so determinedly on this head, that it appeared likely the negotiation would be broken off altogether. At last Franklin said they would consent to allow for all losses suffered by the Royalists, on condition that a debtor and a creditor account was opened, and recompense made for the damages done by the Royalists on the other side; commissioners to be appointed for the purpose of settling all those claims. The English envoys saw at once that this was a deception, that there would be no meeting, or no use in meeting, and they therefore abandoned the point; and the question of the fishing being in part conceded, the provisional articles were signed on the 30th of November, by the four American Commissioners on the one side, and by Mr. Oswald on the other. In the preamble it was stated[298] that these articles were to be inserted in, and to constitute, a treaty of peace, but that the treaty was not to be concluded until the terms of peace had also been settled with France and Spain.The new Administration arranged itself as follows:The Duke of Portland, First Lord of the Treasury; Lord North, Home Secretary; Fox, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; the Earl of Carlisle, Privy Seal; Lord John Cavendish, again Chancellor of the Exchequer; Admiral Lord Keppel, the head of the Admiralty again; Lord Stormont, President of the Council; the great stumbling block, Thurlow, removed from the Woolsack, and the Great Seal put into commission; Burke again Paymaster of the Forces, and his brother Richard as Secretary to the Treasury in conjunction with Sheridan. Such was this strange and medley association, well deserving Burke's own description of a former Administration, as of a strange assemblage of creatures, "all pigging together in one truckle-bed." Those who formed exclusively the Cabinet were Portland, North, Fox, Cavendish, Carlisle, Keppel, and Stormont, so that the great Whigs had taken care again to shut out Burke, who was only a man of genius. Such an incongruous company could not long hold together. The king did not conceal his indignation at seeing Fox in office; the whole Court openly expressed its loathing of the anomalous union; the country had no confidence in it; Fox felt that he had wounded his popularity by his sudden and violent change.
TWO:A remarkable conflict took place this year between the jurisdiction of the House of Commons and that of the Court of Queen's Bench, which excited great interest at the time, and has important bearings upon the constitutional history of the country. The following is a brief narrative of the facts out of which it arose:In the year 1835 a Bill was proposed in the House of Lords by the Duke of Richmond for the purpose of appointing inspectors of prisons. The inspectors were appointed, and, in the discharge of their duty, reported on the state of Newgate. The House ordered the report to be printed and sold by the Messrs. Hansard. In this report it was stated that the inspectors of that gaol found amongst the books used by the prisoners one printed by John Joseph Stockdale in 1827, which they said was "a book of the most disgusting nature, and the plates are obscene and indecent in the extreme." On the 7th of November, 1836, Stockdale[469] brought an action for libel against the Messrs. Hansard for the sale of this report, which was alleged to be false. Sir John Campbell, who was counsel for the defendants, argued that the report was a privileged publication, being printed by the authority of the House of Commons, and on that ground they were entitled to a verdict. But Lord Denman, in his charge to the jury, said: "I entirely disagree from the law laid down by the learned counsel for the defendants. My direction to you, subject to a question hereafter, is, that the fact of the House of Commons having directed Messrs. Hansard to publish all the Parliamentary Reports is no justification for them, or for any bookseller who publishes a Parliamentary Report containing a libel against any man." In addition, however, to the plea of "Not Guilty," there was a plea of justification, on the ground that the allegations were true, and on this the jury found a verdict for the defendants. On the 16th of February, 1837, the Messrs. Hansard communicated the facts to the House of Commons. A select Committee was consequently appointed to examine precedents, and report upon the question of its privileges in regard to the publication of its reports and other matters. They reported in favour of the privilege which would protect any publication ordered by the House of Commons, and resolutions based upon the report were adopted.
Another successful expedition this year was one against the Cape of Good Hope. This settlement, so desirable for Britain, with her Indian possessions, had been yielded up by the Addington Administration, at the Peace of Amiens, most[522] imprudently. A body of five thousand men was dispatched for its recovery, under Sir David Baird, in a fleet commanded by Sir Home Popham. They arrived in January, and the Dutch soldiers fled at the first attack. Retiring into the interior, General Beresford was dispatched after them, whereupon they surrendered, on condition that they should be sent to Holland without being deemed prisoners of war.By this dispersion of the Spaniards the British battalions were wholly exposed, and the whole might of Soult's force was thrown upon them. A tremendous fire from the hills, where the Spaniards ought to have stood, was opened on the British ranks, and several regiments were almost annihilated in a little time. But the 31st regiment, belonging to Colborne's brigade, supported by Horton's brigade, stood their ground under a murderous fire of artillery, and the fiery charge of both horse and foot. They must soon have fallen to a man, but Beresford quickly sent up a Portuguese brigade, under General Harvey, to round the hill on the right, and other troops, under Abercrombie, to compass it on the left; while, at the suggestion of Colonel (afterwards Lord) Hardinge, he pushed forward General Cole with his brigade of fusiliers up the face of the hill. These three divisions appeared on the summit simultaneously. The advance of these troops through the tempest of death has always been described as something actually sublime. Moving onward, unshaken, undisturbed, though opposed by the furious onslaught of Soult's densest centre, they cleared the hill-top with the most deadly and unerring fire; they swept away a troop of Polish lancers that were murderously riding about goring our wounded men, as they lay on the ground, with their long lances.On the 26th the Houses adjourned for a month, for the Christmas recess, and during this time the treaties with France and Spain made rapid progress. The fact of America being now withdrawn from the quarrel, coupled with the signs of returning vigour in EnglandRodney's great victory and the astonishing defence of Gibraltaracted as a wonderful stimulant to pacification. Spain still clung fondly to the hope of receiving back Gibraltar, and this hope was for some time encouraged by the apparent readiness of Lord Shelburne to comply with the desire, as Chatham and Lord Stanhope had done before. But no sooner was this question mooted in the House of Commons than the public voice denounced it so energetically, that it was at once abandoned. On the 20th of January, 1783, Mr. Fitzherbert signed, at Versailles, the preliminaries of peace with the Comte de Vergennes, on the part of France, and with D'Aranda, on the part of Spain. By the treaty with France, the right of fishing off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was restored, as granted by the Treaty of Utrecht; but the limits were more accurately defined. The islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, on the coast of Newfoundland, were ceded for drying of fish. In the West Indies, England ceded Tobago, which France had taken, and restored St. Lucia, but received back again Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Kitt's, Nevis, and Montserrat. In Africa, England gave up the river Senegal and the island of Goree, but retained Fort St. James and the river Gambia. In India, the French were allowed to recover Pondicherry and Chandernagore, with the right to fortify the latter, and to carry on their usual commerce. They regained also Mah and the factory of Surat, with their former privileges. The articles in the Treaty of Utrecht, regarding the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk, were abrogated. Spain was allowed to retain Minorca and both the Floridas, but she agreed to restore Providence and the Bahamas. The latter, however, had already been retaken by us. She granted to England the right of cutting logwood in Honduras, but without the privilege of erecting forts or stock-houses, which rendered the concession worthless, for it had always been found that without these it was impossible to carry on the trade. With the Dutch a truce was made on the basis of mutual restoration, except as concerned the town of Negapatam, which Holland ceded. The preliminaries, however, were not settled till nearly eight months afterwards.
TWO:
