for authority seemed to have died out, and there was every appearance of a separation into hostile "classes," which would have broken through the glorious traditions of so many hundred years, during which the different ranks of society were united by the sameness of their interests and hereditary good feeling. We shall see how the gradual elevation of the "worker" and the kinder disposition of the "thinker" have renewed that reciprocal trust on the still surer grounds of liberality and mutual respect.

§ 44. A failure in the direct succession to the crown was another source of uneasiness. The Princess Charlotte, sole daughter of the Regent, had married Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg in 1816, with the universal approbation of the nation; and dark and sincere was the sorrow in every household in the land when it was known, in November of the following year, that the heiress to the throne and her newborn infant were dead. The Prince Regent had continued his enmity to his wife, and even the princess had failed to be a bond of union. The other sons of George III. were requested by Parliament to marry, and in obedience to this constitutional motion, the Duke of Kent had the good fortune to win the hand of the widowed Princess of Leiningen, and the greater happiness still to be the father of Victoria.

§ 45. Before we close this chequered reign, we ought to dwell on the most painful of all its incidents-the quarrel with America in 1812; but the task is so disagreeable, to write or to hear of that fratricidal contest, that we may be excused if we only glance at it for a moment. The ignorant obstinacy of the English administration and the fiery impetuosity of the American people magnified an easily-avoided dispute into a cause of war. England claimed the right of visiting vessels of war in search of her runaway sailors; America thought it would forfeit her independence to submit to the visitation. There were dispatches and protocols, and all the apparatus of diplomacy; but nothing, not even the with

A.D. 1812-1814.]

WAR WITH AMERICA.

759

drawal of the measure she objected to, would keep the young republic from trying her sacrilegious sword against her old mother's shield; and partly to vindicate her honour, but principally with the hope of making a dash at Canada while England was confronting the hosts of Napoleon and braving all the military monarchies of Europe, she uttered the fatal word, and Liverpool and Boston, Glasgow and New York equally went into mourning. Flags were hoisted half-mast high in all the ports, and hopes, even while cannon were resounding on the sea, were entertained of a termination of the unnatural strife.

But the war spirit awoke as the war went on. By launching ships of enormous size and great weight of metal, and calling them frigates or sloops, an easy triumph was obtained by the Americans over British vessels nominally of the same rate. Their attempt, however, on Canada failed, leaving on them the distressing impression that the colonists north of the St. Lawrence were affectionately attached to the British crown. On the soil of America itself the superiority of regular soldiers was seen. Three thousand five hundred men marched from the Atlantic shore to Washington, defeating every force that opposed them on their way, and finally taking possession of the capital. Relying too much, perhaps, on this superiority, an attack was made by a small army of six thousand men on the great city of New Orleans, which was defended by twelve thousand armed combatants, and so strengthened with ditches and fortifications as to render the assault hopeless for so inadequate a force. Nothing daunted, however, the British advanced on both sides of the Mississippi. On the left General Pakenham marched forward to within a few paces of the walls, and was received by so tremendous a fire from the skilled militia-men safely ensconced behind bags of cotton and other defences, that his men fell by the hundred at a time; and, though some companies forced their way within the lines, the slaughter was too deadly; and the successor of the gallant

Pakenham, who was killed in the advance, withdrew from the unequal contest. With this abortive but not inglorious achievement, the war came to a close—a war as unjustifiable in its origin as calamitous to both parties in its course, and we turn from the contemplation of it with the only bright feature of its duration, the kindness and generosity shown by General Jackson, who had conducted the defence, to the sick and wounded, whom the retreating English left to his care.

§ 46. Unconscious of all these great events, the poor old king lingered on in blindness and insanity till the year 1820. His longevity and absence from public business had already invested him with the character of a sovereign who had belonged to another period. Men canvassed his acts with kindness, and dwelt on the private virtues of his life in sad and perhaps invidious contrast to the open vices of his son. The faults of his disposition, his obstinacy, narrowness, and duplicity were forgotten, and his joyous visits to the theatre, where he laughed the loudest of all at the eccentricities of the comedians; his pertinacious adherence to top-boots and boiled mutton; his simple pleasures at Weymouth, and honest, blunt insensibility to flattery on all occasions, were looked upon as the true characteristics of a constitutional king. Four generations had lived under his patriarchal sway; and long after he was secluded from the public view, and long after he was carried to the royal tomb at Windsor, the middleaged portion of his subjects, who had celebrated his birthday since their earliest youth, kept up the commemoration of the 4th of June as an anniversary that their fathers and grandfathers had looked forward to as the happiest of the year.