FORE:Britain was anxiously appealed to for aid; but Pitt, who had raised so powerful an armament to check the attacks of Russia on Turkey, was not disposed to denounce the attempts of Russia on Poland. He might be blamed for refraining from exerting the moral power of Britain in condemnation of the unprincipled aggression of Russia, but he could not be expected to take arms in defence of Poland, so far removed from the influence of a maritime nation. Colonel Gardiner, our Minister at Warsaw, was instructed by our Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Grenville, to express a friendly interest towards Poland, but to take care to avoid raising hopes of assistance. The Poles, repelled by Prussia and Austria, and finding no warmth of sympathy in the agent of Britain, dispatched Count Bukaty in June to London to plead for aid. But Pitt was cold and immovable, though he saw with regret that the absorption of this large country, in the centre of Europe, would formidably increase that preponderance of Russia, which he had attempted to prevent when there was a question of the absorption of Turkey. He adopted an attitude of strict neutrality. No motion condemnatory of Russia's grasping schemes was made in Parliament; it seemed to Britain a matter of no moment that one of the chief nations of Europe should be torn in pieces by rapacious Powers, contrary to all moral and international law. The Whigs, those warm advocates of revolution and of popular freedom, were dumb. In fact, what could they say? Fox and his admirers had all along been lauding the Russian Empress as one of the greatest, ablest, and most innocent of monarchs, simply in opposition to Pitt and his endeavours to repress her schemes of aggrandisement. Fox had even sent Mr. Adair as his emissary to St. Petersburg, to congratulate her on her successes, and to assure her of the admiration of Englishmen. Such are the perversities into which men are driven by party spirit! At this very moment Fox and the Whigs were flattering and patting Catherine on the back, when her bandit armies had already their feet on the doomed soil of Poland, and they were still applauding the Revolutionists of France, when they were already beyond the Rhine, on that crusade of conquest which plunged Europe into more than twenty years of the most horrible bloodshed. They saw all this when too late. For the present, what was done for Poland was to call a meeting at the Mansion House and open a subscription for the suffering Poles.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
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Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
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Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
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Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:As to the silk and wool trades, in the ten years preceding 1824 the quantity of raw and thrown silk used by our manufacturers was on an average of 1,882,311 lbs. per annum. In the ten succeeding years the average was nearly double, viz. 95 per cent. higher; and in the sixteen years which ended in 1849 there was an increase of 120 per cent. over the quantity used under the restrictive system. According to the report of the inspectors of factories, there were, in 1835, 231 silk factories in England, six in Scotland, and one in Ireland. The total number of females thus employed was over 20,000, and the total number of both sexes was about 31,000. The total number of woollen and worsted factories at work in 1835 was returned by the inspectors of factories as being 1,313, showing an increase of ten per cent. in four years. The total number of persons employed in them in 1835 was 71,274, on which there was an increase of twenty per cent. up to 1839. There was a general depression in the price of British wool, in consequence of which a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the causes. From the evidence which they received, it appeared that the actual number of sheep in England and Wales had increased one-fifth since the year 1800, when it was 19,000,000, yielding about 95,000,000 lbs. of wool, or about five pounds[419] for each fleet. It was estimated that the quantity used for manufacturing purposes increased during the first half of the nineteenth century by 115 per cent. Yorkshire is the chief seat of the woollen manufacture, and the best proof of its progress, perhaps, is presented in the state of the population, which in the whole of the West Riding increased during the first forty years of the century at the rate of 104 per cent. At the census of 1801 it was 563,953, while the census of 1841 showed it to be 1,154,101.This was a blow which for a time completely prostrated the Prussian monarch. Nothing but the most indomitable spirit and the highest military talent could have saved any man under such circumstances. But Frederick had disciplined both his generals and soldiers to despise reverses, and he relied on their keeping at bay the host of enemies with which he was surrounded till he had tried a last blow. On the field of Rosbach, near the plain of Lützen, where Gustavus Adolphus fell, after having relieved Marshal Keith at Leipsic, Frederick gave battle to the united French and Austrians. The French numbered forty thousand men, the Austrians twenty thousand; yet, with his twenty thousand against sixty thousand, Frederick, on the 5th of November, took the field. His inferior numbers favoured the stratagem which he had planned. After fighting fiercely for awhile, his troops gave way, and appeared to commence a hasty retreat. This, however, was continued only till the French and Austrians were thrown off their guard, when the Prussians suddenly turned, and received the headlong squadrons with a murderous coolness and composure. The Austrians, confounded, fled at once; and Soubise, a general of the princely House of Rohan, who owed his appointment to Madame Pompadour, was totally incapable of coping with the Prussian veterans. He saw his troops flying in wild rout, and galloped off with them, leaving a vast number of slain, seven thousand prisoners, and the greater part of his baggage, artillery, and standards in the hands of the enemy.
FORE:The town of Charleston being now in his[274] possession, Sir Henry Clinton proceeded to reduce the whole province to obedience. He issued proclamations, calling on the well-affected young men to form themselves into military bodies, and to act in support of the king's troops, pledging himself that they should never be called upon to march beyond the frontiers of North Carolina on the one side, or those of Georgia on the other; and he assured the inhabitants at large of the utmost protection of person and property, so long as they continued peaceable and loyal subjects of the Crown. In the meantime, Lord Cornwallis continued to enforce these proposals by the movements of his troops. Could Sir Henry Clinton have remained in this quarter, he would without doubt have steadily carried his victorious arms northward till he had everywhere restored the rule of England. But he was completely crippled by the wretched management of the miserable Government at home, who seemed to expect to reconquer America without an army. At this crisis he received news that the Americans were mustering in strong force on the Hudson, and that a French fleet was daily expected on the coast of New England to co-operate with them. He was now compelled to embark for New York, leaving Lord Cornwallis to maintain the ground obtained in South Carolina as well as he could with a body of four thousand men. His second in command was Lord Rawdon, a young officer who had distinguished himself greatly at the battle of Bunker's Hill, and who, like Cornwallis, his chief, was destined, in after years, to occupy the distinguished post of Governor-General of India, with the successive titles of Earl Moira and Marquis of Hastings. The chief business of Cornwallis was to maintain the status gained in South Carolina, but he was at liberty to make a move into North Carolina if he thought it promising.Amongst the most distinguished persons captured were Lords Kilmarnock, Cromarty, Balmerino, Mordington, and Lovat. Cromarty, Balmerino, and Kilmarnock were brought to trial before the peers in Westminster Hall on the 28th of July. "Cromarty," says Horace Walpole, "was a timid man, and shed tears; and Kilmarnock, though behaving with more dignity, pleaded guilty, both expressing remorse for their past conduct, and their fervent good wishes for the person and government of the king." But old Balmerino, the hero of the party, pleaded not guilty, and took exceptions to the indictment. "He is," writes Walpole, "the most natural, brave old fellow I ever saw; the highest intrepidity, even to indifference." All these noblemen were pronounced guilty. Cromarty pleaded piteously the condition of his wife and family: that he left his wife enceinte, and eight innocent children to suffer for his fault. His wife's entreaties and the interest of the Prince of Wales saved him; Kilmarnock and Balmerino were beheaded.
FORE:GREAT SEAL OF GEORGE II.
FORE:I forged the letterI disposed the picture
FORE:Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the state of mathematical science was very low in England. The commencement of a better era originated with Woodhouse at Cambridge and Playfair in Edinburgh, by both of whom the Continental methods were introduced into the studies of their respective Universities. About 1820 the translation of La Croix's "Differential Calculus," superintended by Sir John Herschel and Dean Peacock, came into use as a text-book. Soon afterwards the writings of Laplace and Poisson were generally read in the Universities; and a few men of active and daring minds, chiefly of the Cambridge school, such as Professor Airy and Sir John Lubbock, grappled with the outstanding difficulties of physical astronomy; whilst a larger number applied themselves to the most difficult parts of pure analysis, and acquired great dexterity in its use, in the solution of geometrical and mechanical problems.ARREST OF MAJOR ANDR. (See p. 278.)
