Part 7

"Captain Fellowes executed the part allotted to him perfectly, and with the able assistance of his little but brave detachment, saved the _Syrene_ from being burnt by the fire vessels. And the _Cambrian_, _Glasgow_ and _Talbot_, following the fine example of Capitaine Hugon, of the _Armide_, who was opposed to the leading frigate of that line, effectually destroyed their opponents, and also silenced the batteries. This bloody and destructive battle was continued with unabated fury for four hours, and the scene of wreck and devastation which presented itself at its termination was such as has seldom been witnessed. As each ship of our opponents became effectually disabled, such of her crew as could escape from her endeavoured to set her on fire; and it is wonderful how we avoided the effects of their successive and awful explosions.

"I contemplate, as I do with extreme sorrow, the extent of our loss, I console myself with the reflection that the measure which produced the battle was absolutely necessary for obtaining the results contemplated by the treaty, and that it was brought on entirely by our opponents.

"When I found the boasted Ottoman's word of honour made a sacrifice to wanton savage devastation, and that a base advantage was taken of our reliance upon Ibrahim's good faith, I own I felt a desire to punish the offenders. But it was my duty to refrain, and refrain I did; and I can assure his Royal Highness, that I would still have avoided this disastrous extremity if other means had been open to me.

"Total killed, 75; total wounded, 197.

"_Killed and wounded on board the French ships_: Killed, 43; 79 severely wounded; 65 wounded.

"Accounts have been received from Constantinople of a date subsequent to the arrival of the above news at that city. The Divan appeared to be in a state of consternation; and the Ambassadors of the three allied powers were urgently pressing the subject of their intended negociations. The haughty tone of the Porte seems to be in some measure subdued; and, contrary to general expectation, there has been no popular commotion excited against the resident Christians."

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION (1828).

=Source.=--_Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel_, by Stanhope and Cardwell. London, 1856. Pt. I. p. 35.

_Extracts from Lord Anglesey's Letter to Lord Francis Leveson Gower._

"I will give you my opinion upon the state of things and upon the great question.

"I begin by premising that I hold in abhorrence the Association, the agitators, the priests, and their religion; and I believe that not many, _but that some_ of the Bishops, are mild, moderate and anxious to come to a fair and liberal compromise for the adjustment of the points at issue. I think that these latter have very little, if any, influence with the lower clergy and the population.

"Such is the extraordinary power of the Association, or rather of the agitators, of whom there are many of high ability, of ardent mind, of great daring (and, if there was no Association, these men are now too well known not to maintain their power under the existing order of exclusion), that I am quite certain they could lead on the people to open rebellion at a moment's notice; and their organization is such, that, in the hands of desperate and intelligent leaders, they would be extremely formidable. The hope, and indeed the probability of present tranquillity, rests upon the forbearance and the not very determined courage of O'Connell, and on his belief, as well as that of the principal men amongst them, that they will carry their cause by unceasing agitation, and by intimidation, without coming to blows. I believe their success inevitable--that no power under heaven can arrest its progress. There may be rebellion, you may put to death thousands, you may suppress it, but it will only be to put off the day of compromise; and in the meantime the country is still more impoverished, and the minds of the people are, if possible, still more alienated, and ruinous expense is entailed upon the empire.

"But supposing that the whole evil was concentrated in the Association, and that if that was suppressed all would go smoothly; where is the man who can tell me how to suppress it? Many, many cry out that the nuisance must be abated; that the Government is supine; that the insolence of the demagogues is intolerable; but I have not yet found one person capable of pointing out a remedy. All are mute when you ask them to define their proposition. All that even the most determined opposers to emancipation say is that it is better to leave things as they are than to risk any change. But will things remain as they are? Certainly not. They are bad; they must get worse; and I see no possible means of improving them but by depriving the demagogues of the power of directing the people; and by taking Messrs. O'Connell, Sheil, and the rest of them from the Association, and placing them in the House of Commons, this desirable object would be at once accomplished.

"July 3rd. The present order of things must not, cannot last. There are three modes of proceeding:

"1st. That of trying to go on as we have done.

"2nd. To adjust the question by concession, and such guards as may be deemed indispensable.

"3rd. To put down the Association, and to crush the power of the priests.

"The first I hold to be impossible.

"The second is practicable and advisable.

"The third is only possible by supposing that you can reconstruct the House of Commons; and to suppose that is to suppose that you can totally alter the feelings of those who send them there.

"I believe nothing short of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and Martial Law will effect the third proposition. This would effect it during their operation, and perhaps for a short time after they had ceased, and then every evil would return with accumulated weight.

"But no House of Commons would consent to these measures until there is open rebellion, and therefore until that occurs it is useless to think of them. The second mode of proceeding is then, I conceive, the only practicable one, but the present is not a propitious time to effect even this.

"I abhor the idea of truckling to the overbearing Catholic demagogues. To make any movement towards conciliation under the present excitement and system of terror would revolt me; but I do most conscientiously, and after the most earnest consideration of the subject, give it as my conviction that the first moment of composure and tranquillity should be seized to signify the intention of adjusting the question, lest another period of calm should not present itself."

IRISH UNREST (1828).

=Source.=--_Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel_, by Stanhope and Cardwell. London, 1856. Pt. I. p. 35.

_Irish Police Reports, January and February, 1828._

_Sligo._--Generally quiet; 1 murder; 7 outrages.

_Mayo._--Perfectly quiet; 1 murder; 1 outrage.

_Roscommon._--Rockites rather busy; apprehensive of their extending their operations; 2 murders; 11 outrages.

_Clare._--Quiet; apprehensive of Ribbon spirit extending; 9 outrages.

_Leitrim._--Much disturbed; the sway of the Rockites formidable; magistrates supposed to be deficient in energy; 36 outrages.

_Galway._--Perfectly quiet; 1 murder; 6 outrages.

_Antrim._--Disturbed; robberies of fire-arms; not insurrectionary; 3 murders; 7 outrages.

_Armagh._--Quiet; 1 outrage.

_Cavan._--Strong political feeling ready to develop itself; 9 outrages.

_Donegal._--Not tranquil; 2 murders; 4 outrages.

_Down._--Quiet; 2 outrages.

_Fermanagh._--Tranquil; 6 outrages.

_Londonderry._--Generally quiet; 1 murder; 4 outrages.

_Monaghan._--Disturbed; party violence runs high; 1 murder; 6 outrages.

_Ulster_ may be considered tolerably tranquil, with the exception of some baronies in the counties of Donegal and Monaghan.

_Tipperary._--Whiteboy system prevails very generally; no organized insurrectionary system founded upon political feeling; 4 murders; 75 outrages.

_Cork._--Generally quiet; 1 murder; 4 outrages.

_Waterford._--Quiet; 3 outrages.

_Kerry._--Quiet; 3 outrages.

_Roscrea._--Dissatisfied spirit excited by inflammatory speeches.

_Limerick._--Satisfactory state; 9 outrages.

_Wicklow._--Western division disturbed; considered necessary to increase the constabulary force by ordering three men to Dunlavin, and three more to another disturbed point; Talbotstown the most disturbed; 3 outrages.

_Kildare._--Nothing to notice.

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION (1829).

=Source.=--_Annual Register for 1829_, p. 94.

_Duke of Wellington's Speech._

[The attitude of the Ministry was set forth in a brief speech by the Duke of Wellington at the close of the debate. While there is little in the utterance beyond a personal explanation of the secrecy maintained, it is inserted as being the final word on the great question which had for so many years troubled the heart of England.]

The debate was closed by a brief reply from the Duke of Wellington. The apprehended danger to the Irish Church from the admission of a few Catholics into Parliament, he treated as futile, considering that the throne would be filled by a Protestant. Moreover, a fundamental article of the Union between the two countries was the union of the two Churches; and it was impossible that any mischief could happen to the Irish branch of this united Church, without destroying the union of the two countries. "A different topic," said his grace, "to which I wish to advert is a charge brought against several of my colleagues, and also against myself, by the noble earl on the cross-bench, of a want of consistency in our conduct. My lords, I admit that many of my colleagues, as well as myself, did on former occasions vote against a measure of a similar description with this; and, my lords, I must say, that my colleagues and myself felt, when we adopted this measure, that we should be sacrificing ourselves and our popularity to that which we felt to be our duty to our sovereign and our country. We knew very well, that if we put ourselves at the head of the Protestant cry of 'No Popery,' we should be much more popular even than those who had excited against us that very cry. But we felt that in so doing we should have left on the interests of the country a burthen which must end in bearing them down, and further that we should have deserved the hate and execration of our countrymen. Then I am accused, and by a noble and learned friend of mine, of having acted with great secrecy respecting this measure. Now I beg to tell him, that he has done that to me in the course of this discussion which he complains of others having done to him--in other words, he has, in the language of a right hon. friend of his and mine, thrown a large paving-stone, instead of throwing a small pebble. I say, that if he accuses me of acting with secrecy on this question, he does not deal with me altogether fairly. He knows as well as I do how the Cabinet was constructed on this question; and I ask him, had I any right to say a single word to any man whatsoever upon this measure, until the person most interested in the kingdom upon it had given his consent to my speaking out? Before he accused me of secrecy, and of improper secrecy too, he ought to have known the precise day upon which I received the permission of the highest personage in the country, and had leave to open my mouth upon this measure. There is another point also on which a noble earl accused me of misconduct; and that is, that I did not at once dissolve the Parliament. Now I must say that I think noble lords are mistaken in the notion of the benefits which they think that they would derive from a dissolution of Parliament at this crisis. I believe that many of them are not aware of the consequences and of the inconveniences of a dissolution of Parliament at any time. But when I know, as I did know, and as I do know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland--when I recollected the number of men it took to watch one election which took place in Ireland in the course of last summer--when I knew the consequences which a dissolution would produce on the return to the House of Commons, to say nothing of the risks which must have been incurred at each election--of collisions that might have lead to something little short of a civil war--I say, that, knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in duty to my sovereign and to my country, if I had advised his Majesty to dissolve his Parliament."

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S SUPPOSED DESIGNS ON THE CROWN (1830).

=Source.=--_The Life of the Duke of Wellington_, by J. R. Gleig.

_Letter from Col. Fairman to the Editor of the "Morning Herald," April 6, 1830._

"Dear Sir,

"From those who may be supposed to have opportunities of knowing 'the secrets of the castle,' the King is stated to be by no manner in so alarming a state as many folks would have it imagined. His Majesty is likewise said to dictate the bulletins of his own state of health. Some whisperings have also gone abroad, that in the event of a demise of the crown, a regency would probably be established, for reasons which occasioned the removal of the next in the succession from the office of high-admiral. That a maritime government might not prove consonant to the views of a military chieftain of the most unbounded ambition, may admit of easy belief; and as the second heir-presumptive is not alone a female, but a minor, in addition to the argument which might be applied to the present, that in the ordinary course of nature it was not to be expected that his reign could be of long duration, in these disjointed times it is by no means unlikely a vicarious form of government may be attempted. The effort would be a bold one, but after the measures we have seen, what new violations should surprise us? Besides, the popular plea of economy and expedience might be urged as the pretext, while aggrandisement and usurpation might be the latent sole motive. It would only be necessary to make out a plausible case, which, from the facts on record, there could be no difficulty in doing, to the satisfaction of a pliable and obsequious set of ministers, as also to the success of such an experiment.

"Most truly yours,

"W. B. F."

NOTE.--_Colonel Fairman was an Orangeman. After the Emancipation Bill became law, the Orangemen gave vent to their wrath upon the Duke of Wellington._

HEAVY TAXATION OF THE WORKING CLASSES (1830).

=Source.=--William Cobbett's _Rural Rides_, ed. by Mr. Pitt Cobbett, 1885.

"Leicester, 26th April, 1830.

"At the famous city of Lincoln, I had crowded audiences, principally consisting of farmers, on the 21st and 22nd; exceedingly well-behaved audiences, and great impression produced. One of the evenings, in pointing out to them the wisdom of explaining to their labourers the cause of their distress, in order to ward off the effects of the resentment which labourers now feel everywhere against the farmers, I related to them what my labourers at Barn-Elm had been doing since I left home; and I repeated to them the complaints that my labourers made, stating to them, from memory, the following parts of that spirited petition:

"That your petitioners have recently observed that many great sums of money, part of which we pay, have been voted to be given to persons who render no services to the country; some of which sums we will mention here; that the sum of £94,000 has been voted to disbanded _foreign_ officers, their _widows_ and _children_; that your petitioners know that ever since the peace this charge has been annually made; that it has been on the average, £110,000 a year, and that, of course, this band of foreigners have actually taken away out of England, since the peace, one million and seven thousand pounds; partly taken from the fruit of our labour; and if our dinners were actually taken from our table and carried over to Hanover, the process could not be more visible to our eyes than it now is; and we are astonished that those who fear that we, who make the land bring forth crops, and who make the clothing and the houses, shall swallow up the rental, appear to think nothing at all of the swallowings of these Hanoverian men, women, and children, who may continue thus to swallow for half a century to come.

* * * * *

"That your petitioners know that more than one half of their wages is taken from them by the taxes; that these taxes go chiefly into the hands of idlers; that your petitioners are the bees, and that the tax receivers are the drones; but that your petitioners hope to see the day when the checking of the increase of the drones, and not of the bees, will be the object of an English parliament.

"That, in consequence of taxes, your petitioners pay sixpence for a pot of worse beer than they could make for one penny; that they pay ten shillings for a pair of shoes that they could have for five shillings; that they pay sevenpence for a pound of soap or candles that they could have for threepence; that they pay sevenpence for a pound of sugar that they could have for threepence; that they pay six shillings for a pound of tea which they could have for two shillings; that they pay double for their bread and meat, of what they would have to pay if there were no idlers to be kept out of the taxes; that, therefore, it is the taxes that make their wages insufficient for their support, and that compel them to apply for aid to the poor-rates; that, knowing these things they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as _paupers_, while so many thousands of idlers, for whose support they pay taxes, are called _noble Lords_ and _Ladies_, _honourable Gentlemen_, _Masters_, and _Misses_; that they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as a nuisance to be got rid of, while the idlers who live upon their earnings are upheld, caressed, and cherished, as if they were the sole support of the country."

Having repeated to them these passages, I proceeded: "My workmen were induced thus to petition, in consequence of the information, which I, their master, had communicated to them; and, gentlemen, why should not your labourers petition in the same strain? Why should you suffer them to remain in a state of ignorance, relative to the cause of their misery? The eyes sweep over in this country more riches in one moment than are contained in the whole county in which I was born, and in which the petitioners live. Between Holbeach and Boston, even at a public house, neither bread nor meat was to be found; and while the landlord was telling me that the people were become so poor that the butchers killed no meat in the neighbourhood, I counted more than two thousand fat sheep lying about in the pastures in that richest spot in the whole world. Starvation in the midst of plenty; the land covered with food, and the working people without victuals: everything taken away by the tax-eaters of various descriptions: and yet you take no measures for redress; and your miserable labourers seem to be doomed to expire with hunger, without an effort to obtain relief. What! cannot you point out to them the real cause of their sufferings; cannot you take a piece of paper and write out a petition for them; cannot your labourers petition as well as mine, are God's blessings bestowed on you without any spirit to preserve them; is the fatness of the land, is the earth teeming with food for the body and raiment for the back, to be an apology for the waste of that courage for which your fathers were so famous; is the abundance which God has put into your hands to be the excuse for your resigning yourselves to starvation? My God! is there no spirit left in England except in the miserable sandhills of Surrey?"

RAILWAY CARRIAGES (1830).

=Source.=--_The Gentleman's Magazine_, Vol. 100, p. 552.

_Railway Carriages--June 14._

The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway made their first public exhibition upon the line, and the experiment proved most successful. The Arrow steam engine drew a carriage with twelve inside passengers, another with thirty outside, and seven carriages loaded with thirty-four tons of rough stone. The journey from Liverpool to Manchester (rather more than thirty miles) was performed in two hours 23½ minutes, including stoppages for water, which occupied 13½ minutes. They left Manchester again for Liverpool about half-past four o'clock, at the rate of about 25 miles the hour, drawing two very large carriages with upwards of fifty passengers, and performed the whole distance in one hour 46½ minutes, including 12 minutes watering and to set down a passenger.

The introduction of Railways is likely to be as beneficial in improving the accommodation afforded to travellers, as in increasing the expedition with which they will be conveyed. Some of the carriages which have been made at the manufactory of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, for the public conveyance of passengers on the Railway, give quite a new idea of the ease and luxury with which persons may in future travel. Most of the carriages to be used as public coaches consist, like the French diligences, of two or three bodies joined together. Some are intended to accommodate four persons in each body, and others six. Between the sittings is a rest for the arms, and each passenger has a cushion to himself; the backs are padded and covered with fine cloth, like a private carriage.

There are at present exhibiting in Edinburgh three large models, accompanied with drawings of railways and their carriages, invented by Mr. Dick, who has a patent. These railways are of a different nature from those hitherto in use, inasmuch as they are not laid along the surface of the ground, but elevated to such a height as when necessary to pass over the tops of houses and trees. The principal supports are of stone, and, being placed at considerable distances, have cast iron pillars between them. The carriages are to be dragged along with a velocity hitherto unparalleled, by means of a rope drawn by a steam-engine, or other prime mover--a series being placed at intervals along the railway. From the construction of the railway and carriages the friction is very small.

DEATH OF HUSKISSON (1830).

=Source.=--_The Gentleman's Magazine_, Vol. 100, p. 264.

_September 15._