The Leading Facts of English History Part 55

The trial was continued at intervals for over seven years. It resulted in the acquittal of the accused (1795); but it was proved that the chief business of those who went out to India was to wring fortunes from the natives, and then go back to England to live like "nabobs," and spend their ill-gotten money in a life of luxury. This fact, and the stupendous corruption that was shown to exist, eventually broke down the gigantic monopoly, and British India was thrown open to the trade of all nations.[1]

[1] See Macaulay's "Essay on Warren Hastings"; also Burke's "Speeches."

556. Liberty of the Press; Law and Prison Reforms; Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Since the discontinuance of the censorship of the press (S498), though newspapers were nominally free to discuss public affairs, yet the Government had no intention of permitting any severe criticism. On the other hand, there were men who were determined to speak their minds through the press on political as on all other matters. In the early part of the reign, John Wilkes, an able but scurrilous writer, attacked the policy of the Crown in violent terms (1763). Some years later (1769), a writer, who signed himself "Junius," began a series of letters in a daily paper, in which he handled the King and the "King's friends" still more roughly. An attempt was made by the Government to punish Wilkes and the publisher of the "Junius" letters, but it signally failed in both cases. Public feeling was plainly in favor of the freest political expression,[2] which was eventually conceded.

[2] Later, during the excitement caused by the French Revolution, there was a reaction from this feeling, but it was only temporary.

Up to this time parliamentary debates had rarely been reported. In fact, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, members of Parliament would have run the risk of imprisonment if their criticisms of royalty had been made public; but now, in 1771, the papers began to contain the speeches and votes of both Houses on important questions. Every effort was made to suppress these reports, but again the press gained the day. Henceforth the nation could learn how far its representatives really represented the will of the people, and so could hold them strictly accountable,--a matter of vital importance in every free government.[3]

[3] See Summary of Const.i.tutional History in the Appendix, p. xxvi, S30.

Another field of reform was also found. The times were brutal. The pillory still stood in the center of London;[4] and if the unfortunate offender who was put in it escaped with a shower of mud and other unsavory missiles, instead of clubs and brickbats, he was lucky indeed. Gentlemen of fashion arranged pleasure parties to visit the penitentiaries for women to see the wretched inmates whipped. The whole code of criminal law was savagely vindictive. Capital punishment was inflicted for about two hundred offenses, many of which would now be thought to be sufficiently punished by one or two months'

imprisonment in the house of correction.

[4] The pillory (S531) was not abolished until the accession of Queen Victoria.

Not only men, but women and children even, were hanged for pilfering goods or food worth a few shillings.[1] The jails were crowded with poor wretches whom want had driven to theft, and who were "worked off"

on the gallows every Monday morning in batches of a dozen or twenty, in sight of the jeering, drunken crowds who gathered to witness their death agonies.

[1] Five shillings, or $1.25, was the hanging limit; anything stolen above that sum in money or goods might send the thief to the gallows.

Through the efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly, Jeremy Bentham, and others, a reform was effected in this b.l.o.o.d.y code. Next, the labors of the philanthropic John Howard, and later of Elizabeth Fry, purified the jails of abuses which had made them not only dens of suffering and disease, but schools of crime as well.

The laws respecting the pubishment for debt were also changed for the better, and thousands of miserable beings who were without means to satisfy their creditors were set free, instead of being kept in useless lifelong imprisonment. At the same time Clarkson, Wilberforce, Fox, and Pitt were endeavoring to abolish that relic of barbarism, the African slave trade. After twenty years of persistent effort both in Parliament and out, they at last accomplished that great and beneficent work in 1807.

557. War with France (1793-1805); Battle of the Nile; Trafalgar, 1805.

Near the close of the century (1789) the French Revolution broke out.

It was a violent and successful attempt to destroy those feudal inst.i.tutions which France had outgrown, and which had, as we have seen, disappeared gradually in England after the rebellion of Wat Tyler (SS250, 252). At first the revolutionists received the hearty sympathy of many of the Whig party (S479), but after the execution of Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette,[1] England became alarmed not only at the horrible scenes of the Reign of Terror but at the establishment of the French democratic republic which seemed to justify them, and joined an alliance of the princ.i.p.al European powers for the purpose of restoring monarchy in France.

[1] See "Death of Marie Antoinette," in Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution."

Napoleon had now become the real head of the French nation, and seemed bent on making himself master of all Europe. He undertook an expedition against Egypt and the East, which was intended as a stepping-stone toward the ultimate conquest of the English empire in India, but his plans were frustrated by Nelson, who completely defeated the French fleet at the battle of the Nile (1798).

With the a.s.sistance of Spain, Napoleon next prepared to invade England, and was so confident of success that he caused a gold medal to be struck, bearing the inscription, "Descent upon England." "Struck at London, 1804." But the English warships drove the French and Spanish fleets into the harbor of Cadiz, and Napoleon had to postpone his great expedition for another year.[2] In the autumn of 1805, the French and Spanish fleets sallied forth determined to win. But Lord Nelson, that frail little man who had lost his right arm and the sight of his right eye fighting his country's battles, lay waiting for them off Cape Trafalgar,[3] near by.

[2] In 1801 Robert Fulton, of Pennsylvania, proposed to Napoleonthat he should build warships propelled by steam. The proposal was submitted to a committee of French scientists, who reported that it was absurd. Had Napoleon acted on Fulton's suggestion, his descent on England might have been successful.

[3] Cape Trafalgar, on the southern coast of Spain.

Two days later he descried the enemy at daybreak. Both sides felt that the decisive struggle was at hand. With the exception of a long, heavy swell the sea was calm, with a light breeze, but sufficient to bring the two fleets gradually within range.

"As they drifted on their path There was silence deep as death; And the boldest held his breath For a time."[4]

[4] Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic," but applicable as well to Trafalgar.

Just before the action Nelson ran up this signal to the masthead of his ship, where all might see it: "England explects Every Man to do his Duty." The answer to it was three ringing cheers from the entire fleet, and the fight began. When it ended, Napoleon's boasted navy was no more. Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London, with its tall column bearing aloft a statue of Nelson, commemorates the decisive victory, which was dearly bought with the life of the great admiral.

The battle of Traflagar snuffed out Napoleon's projected invasion of England. He had lost his ships, and their commander, in his despair, committed suicide. The French Emperor could no longer hope to bridge "the ditch," as he derisively called the boisterous Channel, whose waves rose like a wall between him and the island which he hated (S14). A few years later, Napoleon, who had taken possession of Spain and placed his brother on the throne, was driven from that country by Sir Arthur Wellesly, destined to be better known as the Duke of Wellington, and the crown was restored to the Spanish nation.

558. Second War with the United States, 1812-1815.

The United States waged its first war with Great Britain to gain an independent national existence; in 1812 it declared a second war to secure its rights upon the sea. During the long and desperate struggle between England and France, each nation had prohibited neutral powers from commercial intercourse with the other, or with any country friendly to the other.

Furthermore, the English Government had laid down the principle that a person born on British soil could not become a citizen of another nation, but that "once an Englishman always an Englishman" was the only true doctrine. In accordance with that theory, it claimed the right to search American ships and take from them and force into their own service any seaman supposed to be of British birth. In this way Great Britian had seized more than six thousand men, and notwithstanding their protest that they were American citizens, either by birth or by naturalization, had compelled them to enter the English navy.

Other points in dispute between the two countries were in a fair way of being settled amicably, but there appeared to be no method of coming to terms in regard to the question of search and impressment, which was the most important of all, since though the demand of the United States was, in the popular phrase of the day, for "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," it was the last which was especially emphasized.

In 1812 war against Great Britain was declared, and an attack made on Canada which resulted in the American forces being driven back.

During the war British troops landed in Maryland, burned the Capitol and other public buildings in Washington, and destroyed the Congressional Library.

On the other hand, the American navy had unexpected and extraordinary successes on the ocean and the lakes. Out of fifteen sea combats with approximately equal forces, the Americans gained twelve. The contest closed with the signal defeat of the English at New Orleans, when General Andrew Jackson (1815) completely routed the forces led by Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington. The right of search was thenceforth dropped, although it was not formally abandoned by Great Britain until more than forty years later (1856).

559. Battle of Waterloo, 1815.

In the summer of 1815, the English war against Napoleon (S557), which had been carried on almost constantly since his accession to power, culminated in the decisive battle of Waterloo.[1] Napoleon had crossed the Belgian frontier in order that he might come up with the British before they could form a junction with their Prussian allies. All the previous night rain had fallen in torrents, and when the soldiers rose from their cheerless and broken sleep in the trampled and muddy fields of rye, a drizzling rain was still falling.

[1] Waterloo, near Brussels, Belgium.

Napoleon planned the battle for the purpose of destroying first the English and then the Prussian forces, but Wellington held his own against the furious attacks of the French. It was evident, however, that even the "Iron Duke," as he was called, could not continue to withstand the terrible a.s.saults many hours longer.

As time pa.s.sed on, and he saw his solid squares melting away under the murderous French fire, as line after line of his soldiers coming forward silently stepped into the places of their fallen comrades, while the expected Prussian reenforcements still delayed their appearance, the English commander exclaimed, "O that night or Blucher would come!" At last Blucher with his Prussians did come, and as Grouchy, the leader of a division on which Napoleon was counting, did not, Waterloo was finally won by the combined strength of the allies.

Not long afterwards Napoleon was sent to die a prisoner on the desolate rock of St. Helena.

When all was over, Wellington said to Blucher, as he stood by him on a little eminence looking down upon the field covered with the dead and dying, "A great victory is the saddest thing on earth, except a great defeat."

With that victory ended the second Hundred Years' War of England with France, which began with the War of the Spanish Succession (1704) under Marlborough (S508). At the outset the object of that war was, first, to humble the power of Louis XIV that threatened the independence of England; and, secondly, to protect those American colonies which later separated fromthe mother country and became, partly through French help, the republic of the United States.

560. Increase of the National Debt; Taxation.

Owing to these hundred years and more of war (S559) the National Debt of GReat Britain and Ireland (S503), which in 1688 was much less than a million of pounds, had now reached the enormous amount of over nine hundred millions (or $4,500,000,000), bearing yearly interest at the rate of more than $160,000,000.[1] So great had been the strain on the finances of the country, that the Bank of England (S503) suspended payment, and many heavy failures occurred. In addition to this, a succession of bad harvests sent up the price of wheat to such a point that at one time an ordinary-sized loaf of bread cost the farm laborer more than half a day's wages.

[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica, under "National Debt."

Taxes had gone on increasing until it seemed as though the people could no longer endure the burden. As Sydney Smith declared, with entire truth, there were duties on everything. They began, he said, in childhood, with "the boy's taxed top"; they followed to old age, until at last "the dying Englishman, pouring his taxed medicine into a taxed spoon, flung himself back on a taxed bed, and died in the arms of an apothecary who had paid a tax of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death."[1]

[1] Sydney Smith's Essays, "Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States."

561. The Irish Parliament; the Irish Rebellion (1798).

For a century after the battle of the Boyne (S500) Ireland can hardly be said to have had a history. The iron hand of English despotism had crushed the spirit out of the inhabitants, and they suffered in silence. During the first part of the eighteenth century the dest.i.tution of the people was so great that Dean Swift, in bitter mockery of the government's neglect, published what he called his "Modest Proposal." He suggested that the misery of the half-starved peasants might be relieved by allowing them to eat their own children or else sell them to the butchers.

But a new attempt was now made to improve the political condition of the wretched country. That distinguished statesman, Edmund Burke (S550), had already tried to secure a fair measure of commercial liberty for the island, but without success. Since the reign of Henry VII the so-called "free Parliament" of Ireland had been bound hand and foot by Poynings's Act (S329, note 1). The eminent Protestant Irish orator, Henry Grattan, now urged the repeal of that law with all his impa.s.sioned eloquence. He was seconded in his efforts by the powerful influence of Fox in the English House of Commons. Finally, the obnoxious act was repealed (1782), and a, so-called, independent Irish Parliament, to which Grattan was elected, met in Dublin.

But although more than three quarters of the Irish people were Catholics, no person of that faith was permitted to sit in the new Parliament or to vote for the election of a member. This was not the only injustice, for many Protestants in Belfast and the north of Ireland had no right to be represented in it. Such a state of things could not fail to excite angry protest, and Grattan, with other Protestants in Parliament, labored for reform. The discontent finally led to the organization of an a.s.sociation called the "Society of United Irishmen." The leaders of that movement hoped to secure the cooperation of Catholics and Protestants, and to obtain fair and full representation for both in the Irish Parliament. A measure of political reform was secured (1793), but it did not go far enough to give the relief desired.

Eventually the Society of United Irishmen became a revolutionary organization which sought, by the help of the French, to make Ireland an independent republic. The sprigs of shamrock or shamrock-colored badges displayed by these men gave a new significance to "the wearing of the green."[1] By this time many Protestants had withdrawn from the organization, and many Catholics refused to ask help from the French revolutionary party, who were hostile to all churches and to all religion.