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commenced at Portsmouth. 1755, March 4. Admiral Byng executed. This unfortunate and severely-used officer was shot on board the Monarque, in pursuance of the sentence of the court martial who tried and condemned him, for "not doing his utmost to engage the enemy." June 23. Mr. Pitt made secretary of state. 1759, Sept. 13. DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE. 1760, May 5. Lord Ferrers executed at Tyburn for the murder of his steward. Oct. 25. The king died.

Smollett, speaking of the prosperity of the country at this time says, "Commerce and manufacture flourished again to such a degree of increase as had never been known in this island; but this advantage was attended with an irresistible tide of luxury and excess, which flowed through all degrees of the people, breaking down all the mounds of civil policy, and opening a way for licentiousness and immorality. The highways were infested with rapine and assassination; the cities teemed with the brutal votaries of lewdness, intemperance, and profligacy. The whole land was overspread with a succession of riot, tumult, and insurrection, excited in different parts of the kingdom by the erection of new turnpikes, which the legislature judged necessary for the convenience of inland carriage. In order to quell these disturbances recourse was had to the military power; several individuals were slain, and some were executed as examples."

The rage, too, for drinking GIN exceeded all bounds. The populace of London were sunk into the most brutal degeneracy by drinking to excess this pernicious spirit, which was sold so cheap that the lowest classes could afford to indulge themselves in one continued state of intoxication, to the destruction of all morals, health, and industry. Such a shameful degree of profligacy prevailed, that the retailers of this poisonous compound set up painted boards in public, inviting people to be drunk for the small expense of one penny, assuring them they might be dead drunk for twopence, and have straw for nothing. They accordingly provided cellars and places strewed with straw, to which they conveyed these miserable wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxication. In these dismal caverns they lay till they had recovered some use of their faculties, and then they had recourse to the same mischievous potion, thus consuming their health, and ruining their families, in hideous receptacles of the most filthy vice, resounding with riot and execration. A law was introduced to regulate the madness of gin drinkers, by imposing higher duties on this favourite liquor; but with little success; and GIN continues the favourite beverage of the Londoners unto this day.

The powers of the human mind were freely and fully exercised in this reign. Considerable progress was made in mathematics and philosophy by divers individuals; among whom are numbered Sanderson, Bradley, Maclaurin, Smith, and the two Simpsons. Natural philosophy became a general study, and the curious phe nomena of electricity began to excite attention. The study of alchemy was exploded, and chemistry began to be applied to its legitimate objects—arts, agriculture, and manufactures.

Though the age was not remarkable for the appearance of any extraordinary genius, yet there were many writers of eminence and ability: Young still survived, a venerable monument of poetical genius; Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, excelled in describing the beauties of nature; Akenside and Armstrong excelled in didactic poetry; Glover in his Leonidas aspired to the dignity of the epic; the genius of Cervantes was tranfused into the novels of Fielding, who painted the characters and ridiculed the follies of life with equal strength, humour, and propriety. The field of history was cultivated by Hume, Robertson, and Smollett; but the fame of the latter must rest upon his inimitable novelsRoderick Random, Humphrey Clinker, and Peregrine Pickle. Robertson is eminent for his learning and elegance. Hume, penetrating, ingenious, and comprehensive, abating his aristocratical prejudices, must be considered the first of historians and philosophers. Johnson was inferior to none in classical learning, as a philologist and essayist, but was too bigoted, prejudiced, and superstitious to merit the praise of a philosopher, or man of enlarged views. Music became a fashionable study, and its professors were much patronised. Private concerts were formed in every corner of the metropolis. The compositions of Handel were universally admired. Painting, which had hitherto been little cultivated in England, now produced some artists of extraordinary merit. Hogarth excelled all the world in exhibiting the scenes of ordinary life in humour, character, and expression Reynolds and Ramsey principally excelled as portrait painters. Wootton, Seymour, and Smith excelled in landscape.

REIGN OF GEORGE III.

FROM 1760 TO 1820-59 YEARS, 3 MONTHS, 4 DAYS

THE AMERICAN WAR.

The fatal project of taxing America had many years since been proposed by Sir R. Walpole, but that cautious statesman replied, "that it was a measure too hazardous for him to venture upon, he should therefore leave it to some more daring successor." For Mr. Greville, therefore, the experiment was reserved, 1764. His resolution imported that it would be proper to impose certain STAMP DUTIES in the colonies and plantations of America, for the purpose of raising an American revenue, payable into the British exchequer. The prospect of being relieved by the taxation of America from a portion of the national burdens was so agreeable to the interest, and unlimited authority so flattering to the pride of the Commons, that the resolution passed the house with no violent or unusual opposition. The ministers deeming the measure of importance, reserved the execution of it till the next year. The result is well known: the Stamp Act was abandoned, but

other duties equally oppressive were imposed to supply its place. Great was the ferment on the other side of the Atlantic. The leaders of the people met in Congress; flags were hoisted on masts and steeples, as on occasions of mourning; and it was decreed, as if by the will of one man, that no commercial nor legal intercourse could be maintained with Great Britain while the obnoxious laws should continue in force. It happened that at this period there existed a bitter feud between the inhabitants of Boston and their governors; the former were therefore ripe for almost any extravagances; and as the first eargoes subject to duties chanced to be conveyed to their harbour, a body of young men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, suddenly boarded the ships. They soon overcame the opposition of the crews, and bursting open the holds, seized the tea, with which the vessels were loaded, and in spite of a fire of artillery from the batteries, cast it into the sea. A prodigious sensation was created both at home and abroad by this daring act. In America public opinion ran strongly in its favour; and in every colony there were leaders ready and willing to prompt even to more daring exploits. The British government resolved to reduce the colonists by force; the Americans met that resolution with defiance, and taking up arms, prepared to assert their independence. War was now proclaimed; and on the 4th July, 1776, the Congress issued their famous declaration of independence, abjuring their allegiance to the crown of Britain. Their declaration began with an assertion of the general rights of man, of the purposes for which governments were instituted, and of the right of changing them when they no longer answered those purposes. It enumerated the wrongs alleged to have been received from the mother country, and concluded with asserting in the name of the people, and the thirteen colonies-" are and of right ought to be free and independent states. After a disastrous struggle of eight years' duration the treaty of peace signed at Versailles, on the 3rd Sept., 1783, confirmed the declaration of the states, and America was for ever severed from Britain, to become in scarcely two-thirds of a century one of the greatest and most formidable nations in the world. Kings of England, p. 235.

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SPEECH OF LORD CHATHAM ON THE WAR. I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous

*On the 30th May, 1777, Lord Chatham, after a long absence, came down to the House of Lords, wrapped in flannel, and in a speech distinguished by his usual fervid eloquence, moved an address to the king to put an end to the hostilities in America by the removal of grievances. Referring to the expectations that were entertained of success in the present campaign, he remarked that as for the conquest of America, the gaining of ten pitched battles would do nothing towards it. "You talk," he exclaimed, "of your numerous friends to annihilate the Congress, and of your powerful forces to disperse their army; I MIGHT AS WELL TALK OF DRIVING THEM BEFORE ME WITH THIS CRUTCH.'

moment. It is not a time for adulation: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if pos sible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelop it, and dis play, in its full danger, and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt!" But yesterday and Britain might have stood against the world, now none so poor as to do her reverence." The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy, and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the British troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I would never lay down my arms-never, never, never!

But, my lords, who is the man, that in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage?-to call into civilised alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitants of the woods? -to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights ?-and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed-to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members

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of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity!-"That God and nature has put into our hands." What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain I know not, but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife! to the cannibal, savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. These abominable principles, and the more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn-upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country; in vain did he defend the liberty, and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than Popish cruelties, and Inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom?-your Protestant brethren!-to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible hounds of war! Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. She armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs of war against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure the indelible stigma of Public Abhorrence. More particularly, I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this iniquity; let them perform a lustration to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous principles.*

Speech of Lord Chatham in the House of Peers against the
American War, and against employing the Indians in it.

*On the 7th April, 1778, this distinguished orator and statesman being brought to the House of Lords, in a pitiable state of emaciation and decrepitude, to attend a debate on the American question, fell back, in a convulsive fit, in the arms of his son, Mr. William Pitt, and was carried out insensible. He survived but .hirtyfour days, and expired at his favourite seat of Hayes, in Kent, on the 11th May, in the 70th year of his age.

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