The Irish Union question received its final shape during the year 1800. It was bitterly opposed in the Irish Parliament. Henry Grattan, who was carried to the House from a sick-bed, spoke with more than his wonted fire against the measure. Isaac Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, replied to him; the debate of eighteen hours ended with a division in favour of union. The majority was secured by wholesale bribery, in the shape both of money and of titles. In the British Parliament the opposition to the measure was very slight. Fox objected to it, but did not take the trouble to record an opposing vote. The act came into force on the 1st of January 1801, after which the king met a threefold legislature, entitled the Imperial Parliament. Jan. 1, 1801 In that Parliament Ireland was represented by one hundred Commoners (now one hundred and three), and by twenty-eight peers elected for life by the peers of Ireland. The Episcopal Church of Ireland was united to the Church of England by agreement in doctrine, worship, and discipline. The privileges of trade and navigation enjoyed by British subjects were extended to Irish merchants. The taxation and expenditure were henceforward to be levied and defrayed according to a certain regular proportion. All laws and courts were to remain as before in both kingdoms, subject to any alteration which Parliament might enact. It was at this time that Pitt renounced his early views on the reform of the representation. He thought, however, that the Union with Ireland would be more complete and lasting if the Roman Catholics were "emancipated;" that is to say, if they were allowed to sit in Parliament and to hold public offices like their fellow-citizens. As the king refused to listen to these proposals, Pitt resigned, after 1801 having held office for upwards of seventeen years. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by Henry Addington, afterwards Lord Sidmouth (February). CHAPTER XVI. THE CONTINENTAL WARS. A new coalition-Malta-The Northern League-Copenhagen-Treaty of Amiens-Robert Emmett-Threatened invasion- Pitt again in officeTrafalgar-Death of Nelson-Death of Pitt-Grenville cabinet-Death of Fox-The Berlin Decree--The Orders in Council-The Portland ministry-Arthur Wellesley--Destruction of the Danish fleet. TELSON'S great victory at the Nile (1798) had enabled NE PONO forent victond Coalition against France (1799), in which Great Britain was joined by Russia, Austria, Portugal, Turkey, and Naples. Three months after that arrangement was completed, Bonaparte suddenly returned from the East, as has been mentioned already, overthrew the Directory, and established the Consulate. He was made First Consul for ten years, and wishing to consolidate his government, he wrote to King George proposing peace. Pitt rejected his overtures, and the war continued. Bonaparte then hurled his legions once more against Austria. With thirty-six thousand men 1800 he crossed the Great St. Bernard,* *and poured his army like an avalanche on the plains of Lombardy. Austria, humbled on the fields of Marengo † (June) and Hohenlinden (December), was constrained to accept of terms of peace at Luneville § early in 1801. * Great St. Bernard, a pass in the Alps leading from Switzerland to Italy. Hohenlinden, in Bavaria. § Luneville, in France, fifteen miles south-east of Nancy. Meanwhile Bonaparte had succeeded in detaching Russia from the coalition. Malta, which had been captured by Bonaparte on his way to Egypt, surrendered to Great Britain in September 1800. The island had been in the possession of the Knights of St. John for two centuries and a half. The Czar Paul, as titular Grand Master of the Order, thought himself entitled to it, and was much annoyed that the British retained it. He also objected to the right claimed by Britain to search neutral ships. On these pretexts the czar revived, with Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the Armed Neutrality League of the Northern Powers. Britain was thus left almost alone in the struggle with France. The occasion brought forth the man fit to deal with it. A fleet of eighteen sail under Sir Hyde Parker and Admiral Nelson left Yarmouth Roads for the Sound on the 12th of March. Sir Hyde was a nervous, undecided man; but his colleague was made of sterner stuff. Nelson undertook to reduce the batteries of Copenhagen with ten ships, and, having got twelve, proceeded to take soundings and lay down buoys in the winding channel which led up to the Danish position. In the thick of the cannonade a signal fluttered on the topmast of Parker's ship, commanding Nelson to cease firing." The hero turned his 66 April 2, 1801 telescope toward the flag, but held it to his sightless eye, and went on with the attack, desiring his own signal for "closer action" to be nailed to the mast. At about two in the afternoon the Danish fire slackened and then ceased. Some of the ships that had struck fired on boats pulling to take possession of them; on which Nelson wrote as follows to the Crown Prince :-"ViceAdmiral Lord Nelson has been commanded to spare Denmark when she no longer resists. The line of defence which covered her shores has struck to the British flag; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, he must set on fire all the prizes that he has taken, without having the power of saving the men who have so nobly defended them. The brave Danes are the brothers, and should never be the enemies, of the English." This humane and dignified remonstrance had its effect. A flag of truce came off the shore, and next day the victor landed to tell the Crown Prince why the battle had been fought. This "glorious disobedience" was rewarded with promotion to the rank of viscount. Mar. 27, 1802 A second and fatal blow to the Northern League was the death of its originator, the Czar Paul, who was assassinated by the governor of St. Petersburg and other malcontents. His successor, Alexander, formed a treaty with Great Britain, to which Denmark and Sweden acceded. The way being thus smoothed for a general peace, Amiens was appointed as the place for its discussion. After some wrangling about Malta, the treaty of Amiens was concluded and signed on the 27th of March 1802. The parties to it were Britain, France, Spain, and Holland. France gained unduly, both in Flanders and in the East. Yet it was well known that the peace was a shallow pretence on the part of Bonaparte, and every one regarded it as merely an armed truce. The war had raised the British National Debt to £520,000,000 sterling. The peace was of short duration. The British Government knew well that Bonaparte (now First Consul for life) continued his preparations for war. He did his utmost, by slights and insults, to provoke Britain to a declaration of hostility. On one thing Britain was resolved-that Malta should not be evacuated until it was certain that Bonaparte would not seize it for himself. The government proposed to hold it for ten years, and then restore it to the natives. This ultimatum being rejected, war with France was declared by the king on the 18th of May 1803. Four days later a decree of the First Consul threw into prison several thousand British tourists, whom the peace had induced to cross the Channel. 1803 * Amiens, on the Somme, seventy-one miles north of Paris. In Ireland an outbreak, which might have been serious had it not been premature, took place on the 23rd of July. Its leader was Robert Emmett, a Protestant, around whose unhappy fate a love-story,* celebrated in poetry and romance, has thrown a pathetic light. A store of gunpowder having exploded, the rebels were forced into unripe action, and, breaking into various bands in the streets which branch from the Castle of Dublin, were dispersed by the fire of the military and the police. The murder of Chief-Justice Kilwarden degraded their pseudopatriotic enterprise. Seized in his lurking-place amongst the hills of Wicklow, Emmett was brought to trial, condemned and executed-a doom which was shared by seventeen of his accomplices. The great terror of a French invasion, which had been looming on the opposite shore of the Channel since the Revolution, took a very distinct shape in the summer of 1803. One hundred thousand men lay encamped at Boulogne, and the wings of this great central body spread to the number of fifty thousand more from Brest on the one hand to Antwerp on the other. The building of boats to carry the troops over was carried on ceaselessly along the whole line of coast. Quietly and resolutely Britain collected her energies for the conflict. Money, soldiers, sailors, ships, were forthcoming; but above all, a force of volunteers begirt her with a ring of defence. Civilians to the number of three hundred thousand went to drill and learned the use of arms. Gunboats also clustered along the line of the Cinque Ports, ancient enemies of France. The watchfulness of Collingwood and Nelson prevented the invasion. Suddenly "the army of England" was marched to the Danube to oppose Austria. When the Addington ministry broke down in 1804, the king commissioned Pitt to form a new cabinet, under the special *It is the subject of Moore's Irish melody beginning "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps." |