Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
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Title: Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
Author: Various
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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCLXVI. APRIL, 1846. VOL. LIX.
CONTENTS.
THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY, 385
LETTER TO EUSEBIUS, 408
THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA. PART VI., 419
HOW THEY MANAGE MATTERS IN "THE MODEL REPUBLIC," 439
ANTONIO PEREZ, 450
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LOVER OF SOCIETY, 463
THE "OLD PLAYER," 473
THE CRUSADES, 475
THE BURDEN OF SION. BY DELTA, 493
RHYMED HEXAMETERS AND PENTAMETERS, 496
THE SURVEYOR'S TALE, 497
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCLXVI APRIL, 1846. VOL. LIX
THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY.
The revival of noble recollections, the record of great actions, and the
history of memorable times, form one of the highest services which a
writer can offer to his country. They mould the national Character, and
upon the character depends the greatness of every nation. Why have the
mighty kingdoms of the East perished without either general reverence or
personal value, but from the absence of Character in their people; while
Greece in all its ancient periods, and Rome throughout the days of its
republic, are still the objects of classic interest, of general homage,
and of generous emulation, among all the nobler spirits of the world? We
pass over the records of Oriental empire as we pass over the ruins of
their capitals; we find nothing but masses of wreck, unwieldy heaps of
what once, perhaps, was symmetry and beauty; fragments of vast piles,
which once exhibited the lavish grandeur of the monarch, or the colossal
labour of the people; but all now mouldered and melted down. The mass
essentially wants the interest of individuality. A nation sleeps below,
and the last memorial of its being is a vast but shapeless mound of
clay.
Greece, Rome, and England give us that individuality in its full
interest. In their annals, we walk through a gallery of portraits; the
forms "as they lived," every feature distinct, every attitude preserved,
even the slight accidents of costume and circumstance placed before the
eye with almost living accuracy. Plutarch's _Lives_ is by far the most
important work of ancient literature; from this exhibition of the force,
dignity, and energy attainable by human character. No man of
intelligence can read its pages without forming a higher conception of
the capabilities of human nature; and thus, to a certain extent,
kindling in himself a spirit of enterprise.
It is in this sense that we attach a value to every work which gives us
the biography of a distinguished public character. Its most imperfect
performance at least shows us what is to be done by the vigorous
resolution of a vigorous mind; it marks the path by which that mind rose
to eminence; and by showing us the difficulties through which its
subject was compelled to struggle, and the success by which its gallant
perseverance was crowned, at once teaches the young aspirant to struggle
with the difficulties of his own career, and cheers him with the
prospect of ultimate triumph.
Of the general execution of these volumes, we do not desire to speak.
They have been professedly undertaken as a matter of authorship. We
cannot discover that the author has had any suggestion on the subject
from the family of the late Marquess, nor that he has had access to any
documents hitherto reserved from the public. He fairly enough states,
that he derived his materials largely from the British Museum, and from
other sources common to the reader. His politics, too, will not stand
the test of grave enquiry. He adopts popular opinions without
consideration, and often panegyrizes where censure would be more justly
bestowed than praise. But we have no idea of disregarding the labour
which such a work must have demanded; or of regretting that the author
has given to the country the most exact and intelligent biography which
he had the means of giving.
The Wellesley family, rendered so illustrious in our time, is of remote
origin, deriving its name from the manor of Welles-leigh, in the county
of Somerset, where the family had removed shortly after the Norman
invasion. A record in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, traces the
line up to A.D. 1239, to Michael de Wellesleigh. The family seem to have
held high rank or court-favour in the reign of Henry I., for they
obtained the "grand serjeanty" of all the country east of the river
Perrot, as far as Bristol Bridge; and there is a tradition, that one of
the family was standard-bearer to Henry I. in the Irish invasion. In
England, the family subsequently perished; the estates passing, by a
daughter, into other families.
The Irish branch survived in Sir William de Wellesley, who was summoned
to Parliament as a baron, and had a grant by patent, from Edward III.,
of the castle of Kildare. In the fifteenth century, the family obtained
the Castle of Dangan by an heiress. The _de_ was subsequently dropped
from the family name, and the name itself abridged into Wesley--an
abbreviation which subsisted down to the immediate predecessor of the
subject of this memoir; or, if we are to rely on the journals of the
Irish Parliament, it remained later still. For in 1790 we find the late
Lord Maryborough there registered as Wesley (Pole,) and even the Duke is
registered, as member for the borough of Trim, as the Honourable Arthur
_Wesley_.
Richard Colley Wesley, the grandfather of the Marquess, having succeeded
to the family estate by the death of his cousin, was in 1746 created a
peer. He was succeeded by his son Garret, who was advanced to the
dignities of Viscount Wellesley of Dangan Castle, county Meath, and Earl
of Mornington. He was a privy councillor in Ireland, and _custos
rotulorum_ of the county of Meath. He married Anne, eldest daughter of
Arthur Hill Trevor, first Viscount Duncannon, by whom he had six sons
and two daughters.
The Earl was a man of accomplished tastes; he had travelled, adopted
_dilettante_ habits, and expended more money in the decoration of his
mansion and demesne than his fortune could well bear. But he would have
been eminent if he had been compelled to make music his profession; his
glee of "Here, in cool grot and mossy cell," has no rival in English
composition for the exquisite feeling of the music, the fine adaptation
of its harmony to the language, and the general beauty, elegance, and
power of expression. He died on the 22d of May 1781.
Richard Colley Wellesley, afterwards the Marquess Wellesley, was born on
the 20th of June 1760, in Ireland. At the age of eleven he was sent to
Eton, under the care of the Rev. Jonathan Davis, afterwards head-master
and provost of Eton. He soon distinguished himself by the facility and
elegance of his Latin versification. He was sent to Oxford, and
matriculated as a nobleman at Christ Church, in December 1778. In his
second year at the college, he gained the Latin verse prize on the death
of Captain Cook. His tutor was Dr William Jackson, afterwards Bishop of
Oxford. In 1781, on the death of his father the Earl of Mornington, the
young lord was called away to superintend the family affairs in Ireland,
without taking his degree. On his coming of age, which was in the
ensuing year, his first act was to take upon himself the debts of his
father, who had left the family estates much embarrassed. His mother,
Lady Mornington, survived, and was a woman of remarkable intelligence
and force of understanding. To her care chiefly was entrusted the
education of her children; and from the ability of the mother, as has
been often remarked in the instance of eminent men, was probably derived
the talent which has distinguished her memorable family. At the period
of their father's death, the brothers and sisters of the young Earl
were, William Wellesley Pole, (afterwards Lord Maryborough,) aged
eighteen; Anne, (afterwards married to Henry, son of Lord Southampton,)
aged thirteen; Arthur, (the Duke of Wellington,) aged twelve; Gerald
Valerian, (prebendary of Durham,) aged ten; Mary Elizabeth, (Lady
Culling Smith,) aged nine; and Henry, (Lord Cowley,) eight years old.
The period at which the young Earl took his seat in the Irish House of
Lords was one of remarkable anxiety. The success of the American revolt
had filled the popular mind with dreams of revolution. The success of
opposition in the Irish Parliament had fixed the national eyes upon the
legislature; and the power actually on foot in the volunteer force of
Ireland, tempted the populace to extravagant hopes of national
independence and a separation from England, equally forbidden by sound
policy and by the nature of things. Ireland, one thousand miles removed
into the Atlantic, might sustain a separate existence; but Ireland,
lying actually within sight of England, and almost touching her coasts,
was evidently designed by nature for that connexion, which is as
evidently essential to her prosperity. It is utterly impossible that a
small country, lying so close to a great one, could have a separate
government without a perpetual war; and, disturbed as Ireland has been
by the contest of two antagonist religions, that evil would be as
nothing compared with the tremendous calamity of English invasion.
Fortunately, the peaceful contest with the English minister in the year
1780, had concluded by recognizing the resolution, "that the King's most
excellent Majesty, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only
power competent to make laws to bind Ireland." It is unnecessary now to
go further into this topic than to say, that this was a mere triumph of
words so far as substantial advantages were regarded, while it was a
triumph of evil so far as the existence of a national Parliament was a
benefit. It gained no actual advantage whatever for Ireland; for all
that Ireland wanted for progressive prosperity was internal quiet. On
the other hand, it inflamed faction, even by its nominal success; it
told the multitude that every thing might be gained by clamour, and in
consequence clamour soon attempted every thing.
The orators of Opposition will never be without a topic. Public
disturbance is the element in which they live. They must assault the
government, or perish of inanition; and they must stimulate the mob by
the novelty of their demands, and the violence of their declamation, or
they must sink into oblivion. The Irish opposition now turned to another
topic, and brought forward the Roman Catholics for the candidateship of
the legislature.
It is not our purpose to go into the detail of a decision of which
England now sees all the evil. But there can be no question whatever,
that to bring into the legislature a man all whose sentiments are
distinctly opposed to the Church and the State--who in the instance of
the one acknowledges a foreign supremacy, and in the instance of the
other anathematizes the religion--is one of the grossest acts that
faction ever committed, or that feebleness in government ever complied
with. Self-defence is the first instinct of nature; the defence of the
constitution is the first duty of society; the defence of our religion
is an essential act of obedience to Heaven. Yet the permission given to
individuals, hostile to both, to make laws for either, was the second
triumph at which Irish action aimed, and which English impolicy finally
conceded.
As an evidence of the royal satisfaction at the arrangements adopted by
the lords and commons of Ireland, the king founded an order of
knighthood, by the title of the Knights of the Illustrious Order of St
Patrick, of which the king and his heirs were to be sovereigns in
perpetuity, and the viceroys grand masters. The patent stated as the
general ground of this institution, "that it had been the custom of wise
and beneficent princes of all ages to distinguish the virtue and loyalty
of their subjects by marks of honour, as a testimony to their dignity,
and excellency in all qualifications which render them worthy of the
favour of their sovereign, and the respect of their fellow-subjects;
that so their eminent merits may stand acknowledged to the world, and
create a virtuous emulation in others to deserve such honourable
distinctions." All this may be true, and marks of honour are undoubtedly
valuable; but they can be only so in instances where distinguished
services have been rendered, and where the public opinion amply
acknowledges such services. Yet, in the fifteen knights of this order
appointed in the first instance, there was not the name of any one man
known by public services except that of the Earl of Charlemont, an
amiable but a feeble personage, who had commanded the volunteers of
Ireland. The Earl of Mornington was one of those, and he had but just
come into public life, at the age of three-and-twenty; before he had
done any one public act which entitled him to distinction, and when all
his political merits were limited to having taken his seat in the House
of Lords.
In the course of the year we find the young lord occupying something of
a neutral ground in the House, and objecting to the profusion of the
Irish government in grants of money for public improvements; those
grants which we see still about to be given, which are always clamoured
for by the Irish, for which they never are grateful, of which nobody
ever sees the result, and for which nobody ever seems to be the better.
It is curious enough to see, that one of the topics of his speech was
his disapproval of "great sums given for the ease and indolence of great
cotton manufacturers, rather than the encouragement of manufacture."
Such has been always the state of things in Ireland, concession without
use, conciliation without gratitude, money thrown away, and nothing but
clamour successful. But while he exhibited his eloquence in this
skirmishing, it was evident that he by no means desired to shut himself
out from the benefits of ministerial friendship. The question had come
to a point between the government and the volunteers. The military use
of the volunteers had obviously expired with the war. But they were too
powerful an instrument to escape the eye of faction.
Ireland abounded with busy barristers without briefs, bustling men of
other professions without any thing to do, and angry haranguers, down to
the lowest conditions of life, eager for public overthrow. The
volunteers were told by those men, that they ought not to lay aside
their arms until they had secured the independence of their country.
With the northern portion of Ireland, this independence meant
Republicanism, with the southern, Popery. The heads of the faction then
proceeded to hold an assembly in the metropolis, as a rival and
counterpoise to the parliament. This was then regarded as a most
insolent act; but the world grows accustomed to every thing; and we have
seen the transactions of the League in London, and of Conciliation Hall
in the Irish capital, regarded as matters of perfect impunity.
But more vigorous counsels then prevailed in Ireland. The volunteers
were put down by the determination of government to check their factions
and foolish assumption of power. They were thanked for their offer of
services during the war; but were told that they must not be made
instruments of disturbing the country. This manliness on the part of
government was successful, as it has always been. If, on the other hand,
government had shown any timidity, had for a moment attempted to coax
them into compliance, or had the meanness to compromise between their
sense of duty and the loss of popularity; they would have soon found the
punishment of their folly, in the increased demands of faction, and seen
the intrigues of partisanship inflamed into the violence of
insurrection. The volunteers were speedily abandoned by every friend to
public order, and their ranks were so formidably reduced by the
abandonment, that the whole institution quietly dissolved away, and was
heard of no more.
In 1784, the young nobleman became a member of the English Parliament,
as the representative of Beeralston, in Devonshire, a borough in the
patronage of the Earl of Beverley--thus entering Parliament, as every
man of eminence had commenced his career for the last hundred years; all
being returned for boroughs under noble patronage. In 1786, he was
appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury.
The period of his introduction into the English Parliament was a
fortunate one for a man of ability and ambition. The House never
exhibited a more remarkable collection of public names. He nightly had
the opportunity of hearing Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Grey; and others,
who, if not equal, followed with vigorous emulation. He took an
occasional part in the debates, and showed at least that he benefited by
example. In 1788, he was elected for the royal borough of Windsor. The
great question of the regency suddenly occurred. The royal malady
rendered a Parliamentary declaration necessary for carrying on the
government. The question was difficult. To place the royal power in any
other hands than the King's, even for a temporary purpose, required an
Act of Parliament. But the King formed an essential portion of the
legislature. He, however, now being disabled by mental incapacity from
performing his royal functions, where was the substitute to be found?
Fox, always reckless, and transported with eagerness to be in possession
of the power which would be conferred on him by the regency of the
Prince of Wales, was infatuated enough to declare, that the Prince had
as express a right to assume the reins of government, and exercise the
powers of sovereignty, during the royal incapacity, as if the King had
actually died. This doctrine, so contrary to common sense, and even to
Whig principles, astonished the House, and still more astonished the
country. Pitt fell upon him immediately, with his usual vigour. The
leader of Opposition had thrown himself open to attack, and his
assailant was irresistible. Pitt dared him to give a reason for his
doctrine; he pronounced it hostile to the law of the land, contradictory
to the national rights, and, in fact, scarcely less than treason to the
constitution.
On the other hand, he laid down with equal perspicuity and force the
legal remedy, and pronounced, that where an unprovided difficulty of
this order arose, the right of meeting it reverted to the nation, acting
by its representatives the two Houses of Parliament, and that, so far as
personal right was in question, the Prince had no more right to assume
the throne than any other individual in the country.
Such is the blindness of party, and passion for power, that Fox, the
great advocate of popular supremacy, was found sustaining, all but in
words, that theory of divine right which had cost James II. his throne,
whose denial formed the keystone of Whig principles, and whose
confirmation would have authorized a despotism.
The decision was finally come to, that the political capacity of the
monarch was constitutionally distinguished from his personal; and that,
as in the case of an infant king, it had been taken for granted that the
royal will had been expressed by the Privy Council, under the Great
Seal; so, in the present instance of royal incapacity, it should also be
expressed by the Privy Council, under the Great Seal. The question of
right now being determined, the Chancellor was directed to affix the
Great Seal to a bill creating the Prince of Wales Regent, with limited
powers.
Those limitations were certainly formidable; and the chief matter of
surprise now is, that the Whigs should have suffered the Regent to
accept the office under such conditions. They prevented him from
creating any peerage, or granting any office in reversion, or giving any
office, pension, or salary, except during the royal pleasure, or
disposing of any part of the royal estate. They took from him also the
whole household, and the care of the King's person, his majesty being
put in charge of the Queen, with power to remove any of the household.
But the whole question has now passed away, and would be unimportant
except for its bearing on the position of Ireland.
In 1789, the zeal of the Irish opposition, and the flexibility of some
members of the Government combining, the Irish Parliament voted the
regency to the Prince without any limitation whatever. This naturally
directed the attention of ministers to the hazard of a collision between
the two Parliaments. The King's fortunate recovery prevented all
collision; but the danger was so apparent if the royal incapacity had
continued, and opinion became so strongly inflamed in Ireland, that from
this period must be dated the determination to unite both Parliaments in
one legislature. For it was justly argued, that if the Irish Parliament
might invest one individual with powers different from those intrusted
to him by the English Parliament, it might in the same manner invest a
different individual, the result of which might be a civil war, or a
separation.
This rash resolution was, however, strongly opposed. Twenty-three of the
peers, among whom was Lord Mornington, signed a protest against it, and
the viceroy, the Marquess of Buckingham, refused to transmit the address
to England. This increased the confusion: not only were the two
legislatures at variance, but the Irish legislature passed a vote of
censure on the viceroy.
The King's recovery extinguished the dissension at once, and the hand of
government fell with severe but well-deserved penalty on its deserters
in the season of difficulty. The rewards of the faithful were
distributed with equal justice. Lord Mornington's active support of the
viceroy was made known to the monarch, and he was evidently marked for
royal favour. From this period he took a share in all the leading
questions of the time. He supported Mr Wilberforce's motions for the
abolition of the slave-trade.
The bold and sagacious conduct of Pitt, in protecting the royal rights
in the Regency, had established his power on the King's recovery. The
Whigs had lost all hope of possession, and they turned in their despair
to the work of faction. Their cry was now Parliamentary Reform. No cry
was ever more insincere, more idly raised, carried on in a more utter
defiance of principle, or consummated more in the spirit of a juggler,
who, while he is bewildering the vulgar eye with his tricks, is only
thinking of the pocket. The Reform Bill has since passed, but the moral
of the event is still well worth our recollection. The Whigs themselves
had been the great boroughmongers; but boroughmongering had at length
failed to bring them into power, and they had recourse to clamour and
confederacy with the rabble. Still, in every instance when they came in
sight of power, the cry was silenced, and they discovered that it was
"not the proper time." At length, in 1830, they raised the clamour once
more; the ministry, (rendered unpopular by the Popish question,) were
thrown out; the Whigs were, for the first time, compelled to keep their
promise, and the whole system of representation was changed. But the
change was suicidal: the old champion of Reform, Lord Grey himself, was
the first to suffer. The Reform ministry was crushed by a new power, and
Lord Grey was crushed along with it. Whiggism was extinguished; the Whig
of the present day has no more resemblance to the Whig of Fox's day,
than the squatter has to the planter. The rudeness and rashness of
Radicalism supplies its place, and the stately and steady march of the
landed interest exists no more.
Lord Mornington's speech, in 1793, placed the question in its true point
of view. He declared that the consequence of the proposed measure of
Reform must be, to change the very genius and spirit of the British
government; to break up the combination of those elementary principles
of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which, judiciously associated,
formed the constitution. He then referred, with great force, to the
practical working of that constitution which this measure was intended
to overthrow. "Never," said he, and his language was at once eloquent
and true, "have the natural ends of society been so effectually
accomplished, as under the government which is thus to be subverted.
Under the existing constitution, the life of every individual is sacred,
by the equal spirit of the law; by the pure administration of justice;
by the institution of juries; and by the equitable exercise of that
prerogative which is the brightest ornament of the crown--the power of
mitigating the rigour of criminal judgments, and of causing justice to
be executed in mercy."
He forcibly pronounced the constitution to contain all "the principles
of stability; for it could neither be abused by the subject, nor invaded
by the crown." It provided, in an unexampled degree, for the protection
of life, liberty, and property. In its legislative action it impartially
allowed every public interest to have its representative in Parliament;
in its national action it insured the prosperity of the empire; for that
prosperity had never been so distinguished as since the constitution had
assumed full power; and, by protecting every man in the exercise of his
industry, it had given a spur to national and intellectual enterprise
and activity, of which the world had never before seen an example. And
was this all to be hazarded for the sake of gratifying a party, who
always shrank from the measure when in power, and who always renewed it
only as a means of recall from their political exile?
His biographer rashly denies the reality of those dangers, and says,
that the Reform Act has not produced any of the calamities which his
lordship then saw in such ominous prospect. But to this the natural
answer is, that the Reform Bill is little more than a dozen years old;
that though the power of property in so great a country as England, and
the voice of common sense in a country of such general and solid
knowledge, could not be extinguished at once; and though the national
character forbade our following the example and the rapidity of a French
revolution; still, that great evil has been done--that a democratic
tendency has been introduced into the constitution--that Radicalism has
assumed a place and a shape in public deliberations--that faction beards
and browbeats the legitimate authorities of public counsel--that low
agitators are suffered to carry on the full insolence of intrigue with a
dangerous impunity--and that the pressure from without too often becomes
paramount to the wisdom from within.
At the same time, we fully admit that there were abuses in the ancient
system, offensive to the natural sense of justice; that the sale of
seats was contrary to principle; and that the dependence of members on
individual patrons was a violation of legislative liberty. But whose was
the criminality? not that of the constitution, but of the faction; not
that of the enfeebled law, but of the local supremacy of Whig influence.
Property is the true, and in fact the only safe pledge of legislative
power; and if Manchester and the other great manufacturing towns had
possessed, five hundred years ago, the property which they have acquired
within the last fifty there can be no doubt that representatives would
have been allotted to them. There can be as little doubt, that in 1830,
or in a quarter of a century before, they ought to have had
representatives; but the true evil has been in the sweeping nature of
the change. Still, we will hope the best; we have strong faith in the
fortunes of England, and shall rejoice to see that our fears have been
vain.
The young senator's exertions, on this occasion, confirmed the opinion
already entertained of him in high quarters. He was shortly after sworn
in as a member of the Privy Council in England, and was made one of the
commissioners for the affairs of India. Pitt's memorable India Bill, in
1784, had appointed a board of six commissioners for Indian affairs, who
were to be privy councillors, with one of the secretaries of state at
their head. The board were to be appointed by the King, and removable at
his pleasure. They were invested with the control of all the revenue,
and civil and military officers of the Company. The directors were
obliged to lay before them all papers relative to the management of
their affairs. The commissioners were to return the papers of the
directors within fourteen days, if approved of, or if not, to assign
their reasons. The despatches so agreed on, were then to be sent to
India.
It seems not improbable that this appointment was intended as the
preparative of the Earl for higher objects in the same department. At
all events, it directed his attention to Indian topics, and gave him the
due portion of that practical knowledge, without which genius only
bewilders, and enterprise is thrown away.
We have to fight our way against this biographer, who takes a rambling
and revolutionary view of all the chief transactions of the time. In
this spirit, he denies or doubts the necessity of the French war. We
deny that it was possible to avert it. It may be true, that if England
had been faithless to her compacts, and had suffered her allies to be
trampled on, she might, for awhile, have avoided actual collision. But,
could this have been done with honour; and what is national honour but a
national necessity? Holland, the old ally of England, was actually
invaded; and the first English troops that set foot upon the Continent,
were sent in compliance with our treaty, and for the simple protection
of our ally. No one will contend, and no one has ever contended, that
England had a right to make a government for France; or that the fury of
her factions, however they might startle and disgust mankind, was a
ground for teaching morality at the point of the sword. But there can be
no more legitimate cause of war than the obligations of treaties, the
protection of the weak against the powerful, and the preservation of the
general balance of European power.
In the instance of Holland, too, there was the additional and most
efficient reason, viz. that the possession of her ports and arsenals by
France must largely increase the danger of England. But when it is
further remembered, that France declared the determination to make war
upon all monarchies, that she aimed at establishing an universal
republic, that she pronounced all kings tyrants and all subjects slaves;
and that, offering her assistance to every insurrectionary people, she
ostentatiously proclaimed her plan of revolutionizing the world--who can
doubt that national safety consisted in resisting the doctrines, in
repelling the arms, and in crushing the conspiracies which would have
made England a field of civil slaughter, and left of her glory and her
power nothing but a name?
It is, however, a curious instance of personal zeal, to find the
biographer applauding as the sentiments of his hero, the opinions which
he deprecates as the policy of England; and admitting that the war was
wise, righteous, and inevitable; that it raised the name of England to
the highest rank: and that it preserved us from "the pest of a godless,
levelling democracy."
It has been the habit of writers like the present, to conceive that the
French Revolution was hailed with general joy by England. Even before
the death of the king, the contrary is the fact: the rabble, the
factions, and the more bustling and bitter portion of the sectaries,
unquestionably exulted in the popular insurrection, and the general
weakening of the monarchy. But all the genuinely religious portion of
the people, all the honest and high-minded, all the travelled and
well-informed, adopted a just conception of the whole event from the
beginning. The religious pronounced it atheistic, the honest illegal,
and the travelled as the mere furious outburst of a populace mad for
plunder and incapable of freedom. But the death of the king excited a
unanimous burst of horror; and there never was a public act received
with more universal approbation than the dismissal of the French
ambassador, M. Chauvelin, by a royal order to quit the country within
eight days. The note was officially sent by Lord Grenville, but was
stamped with the energy of Pitt. It was as follows:--
"I am charged to notify to you, sir, that the character with which
you have been vested at this court, and the functions of which have
been so long suspended, being now utterly terminated by the fatal
death of his most Christian Majesty, you have no more any public
character here, the King can no longer, after such an event, permit
your residence here; his Majesty has thought fit to order that you
should retire from this kingdom within the term of eight days. And
I herewith transmit to you a copy of the order, which his Majesty,
in his Privy Council, has given to this effect. I send you a
passport for yourself and your suite, and I shall not fail to take
all the necessary steps, in order that you may return to France
with all the attentions which are due to the character of
minister-plenipotentiary, which you have exercised at this court. I
have the honour to be, &c.
"GRENVILLE.
"Dated Whitehall, Jan. 4, 1793."
On the opening of Parliament, in January 1794, a debate of great
importance commenced on the policy of the war. On this occasion, Lord
Mornington and Sheridan took the lead in the debate, and both made
speeches of great effect. Lord Mornington's speech was published under
his own inspection immediately after, and it still remains among the
most striking records of the republican opinions, and the mingled
follies and blasphemies of a populace suddenly affecting the powers of a
legislature. Every thing in France, at this period, was robbery; but
even the robbery exhibited the national taste for "sentiment." Their
confiscation of property was pronounced to be, "not for the sake of its
possession," but for their abhorrence of the precious metals. Lord
Mornington, in the course of his speech, read extracts of a letter from
Fouché, afterwards so well known as the minister of imperial police, but
then commissioner in the central and western departments. In this
sublime display of hypocrisy, Fouché pronounces gold and silver to have
been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not,"
says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in
the hands of suspected persons. Let us degrade and vilify gold and
silver, let us fling those deities of monarchy in the dirt, and
establish the worship of the austere virtues of the republic," adding,
by way of exemplification of his virtuous abhorrence, "I send you
seventeen chests filled with gold, silver, and plate of all sorts, the
spoil of churches and castles. You will see with peculiar pleasure, two
beautiful crosiers and a ducal coronet of silver, gilt." But the portion
of his speech which attracted, and justly, the deepest attention, was
that in which he gave the proofs of the dreadful spirit of infidelity,
so long fostered in the bosom of the Gallican church. An address, dated
30th of October, from the Rector of Villos de Luchon, thus expatiates in
blasphemy:--"For my part, I believe that no religion in any country in
the world is founded on truth. I believe that all the various religions
in the world are descended from the same parents, and are the daughters
of pride and ignorance." This worthy ecclesiastic finished by declaring,
that thenceforth "he would preach in no other cause than that of liberty
and his country." The Convention decreed, that this and all similar
addresses of renunciation should be lodged with the Committee of Public
instruction, evidently as materials for training the rising generation.
A motion then followed, that all those renunciations of religion should
be "translated into the languages of all foreign countries."
Then followed a scene, which gave reality to all those hideous
declarations. The Archbishop of Paris entered the hall of the
Convention, accompanied by a formal procession of his vicars, and
several of the rectors of the city parishes. He there addressed the
Assembly in a speech, in which he renounced the priesthood in his own
name, and that of all who accompanied him, declaring that he acted thus
in consequence of his conviction, that no national worship should be
tolerated except the worship of Liberty and Equality! The records of the
Convention state, that the archbishop and his rectors were received with
universal transport, and that the archbishop was solemnly presented with
a red cap, the day concluding with the worthy sequel, the declaration of
one Julien, who told the Assembly that he had been a Protestant minister
of Toulouse for twenty years, and that he then renounced his functions
for ever. "It is glorious," said this apostate, "to make this
declaration, under the auspices of reason, philosophy, and that sublime
constitution which has already overturned the errors of superstition and
monarchy in France, and which now prepares a similar fate for all
foreign tyrannies. I declare that I will no longer enter into any other
temple than the sanctuary of the laws. Thus I will acknowledge _no other
God_ than liberty, _no other worship_ than that of my country, _no other
gospel_ than the republican constitution."
Then followed a succession of addresses and letters from the various
commissioners in the departments, blaspheming in the same atrocious
strain. The municipality of Paris, which was one of the chief governing
powers, if not the actual ruler of France, followed this declamation by
an order, that all the churches should be shut, let their denomination
of worship be what it might, and that any attempt to reopen one should
be punished by arrest. The decree was put into immediate effect. The
church of Notre Dame and all the other churches of the capital were
closed. The popular measures were now carried on in a kind of rivalry of
destruction. The "Section of the Museum," a portion of the populace,
announced that they had done execution on all Prayer-books, and burnt
the Old and New Testaments. The Council-General of Paris decreed that a
civic feast should be held in the cathedral of Notre Dame, and that a
patriotic hymn should be chanted before the statue of liberty. The
Goddess of Reason was personated by a Madame Momarro, a handsome woman
of profligate character, who was introduced into the hall of the
Convention, received with "the fraternal embrace" by the president and
secretaries, and was then installed by the whole legislature in the
cathedral, which was called the "Regenerated Temple of Reason." In this
monstrous profanation, the apostate archbishop officiated as the high
priest of Reason, with a red cap on his head, and a pike in his hand;
with this weapon he struck down some of the old religious emblems of the
church, and finished his performance by placing a bust of Marat on the
altar. A colossal statue was then ordered to be placed "on the ruins of
monarchy and religion."
This desperate profanation was emulated in the provinces. Fouché, in
Lyons, ordered a civic festival in honour of one Chalier. An ass, with a
mitre on its head, and dragging a Bible at its tail, formed a
characteristic portion of the ceremony; the Bible was finally burnt, and
its ashes scattered to the winds.
"Thus Christianity," said the noble speaker, "was stigmatized, through
the president of the Convention, amid the applauses of the whole
audience, as a system of murder and massacre, incapable of being
tolerated by the humanity of a republican government. The Old and New
Testaments were publicly burnt, as prohibited books. Nor was it to
Christianity that their hatred was confined; the Jews were involved in
this comprehensive plan. Their ornaments of public worship were
plundered, and their vows of irreligion were recorded with enthusiasm.
The existence of a future state was openly denied, and modes of burial
were devised, for the express purpose of representing to the popular
mind, that death was nothing more than an everlasting sleep; and, to
complete the whole project, doctrines were circulated under the eye of
the government, declaring that 'the existence of a Supreme God was an
idea inconsistent with the liberty of man.'"
In England, we are verging on democracy from year to year. We have begun
by unhinging the national respect for the religion of the Scriptures, in
our zeal to introduce the religion of the Council of Trent into the
constitution. The malecontents in the Established Church are
contributing their efforts to bring Protestantism into contempt, by
their adoption of every error and every absurdity of the Papist. The
bolder portion of these malecontents have already apostatized. The
Church once shaken, every great and salutary support of the constitution
will follow, and we shall have a government impelled solely by faction.
When that time arrives, the minister will be the mere tool of the
multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the
faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle,
the desperate, and the rapacious--Law will be a dead letter--Religion a
mockery--Right superseded by violence--and the only title to possession
will be the ruffian heart and the sanguinary hand.
We are perfectly aware, that a large portion of the country cannot be
persuaded that it is necessary for them to disturb their own comfort,
quiet, and apathy, for any possible reason--that they believe all change
to be of too little moment to demand any resistance on their part; and
that, at all events, they trust that the world will go on smoothly for
their time, whatever may be the consequence of their scandalous and
contemptible apathy hereafter. But, such thinkers do not deserve to have
a country, nor to be protected, nor to be regarded as any thing but as
the cumberers of the earth. On such men no power of persuasion can act;
for no argument would convince. They wrap themselves up in their snug
incredulity, leave it to others to fight for them, and will not hazard a
shilling, nor give a thought, for the salvation of their country! Yet
even they are no more secure than the rest. The noble, the priest, and
the man of landed wealth, are not those alone on whom the heavy hand of
rabble robbery will fall. We give them, on this head, a fragment from
the report of the well-known Barrère, from the "Committee of Public
Welfare," constituting, in fact, the rule of conduct to the Republic. It
begins by declaring the "necessity of abandoning the idea of _mercy_ in
republican government." It pronounces the necessity of the law to act,
for the "arrest of _suspected_ persons." It declares every "remnant of
the _gentry_ of France to be an object of suspicion." It declares the
"_business of bankers_ to render them objects of suspicion." It declares
"their reluctance to receive assignats, and their sordid _attachment to
their own interests_," to make all merchants objects of suspicion. It
declares "all the _relatives_ of emigrants" to be objects of suspicion.
It declares "all the clergy who have refused the constitutional oath,
and all the former magistracy," to be objects of suspicion. All those
classes of society are to be sentenced at once, "_without being heard_."
Let us strike at once, says this desperate document, "_without trial_
and _without mercy_. Let us banish all compassion from our bosoms. Oh!
what innumerable mischiefs may be produced by a false sentiment of
pity?"
This decree, which made every man a victim who had any thing to lose,
instantly crowded the French prisons with the merchants, the bankers,
and the whole monied class in France. Those who could be plundered no
longer, were sent to execution. In Paris alone, within six months, a
thousand persons of the various professions had been murdered by the
guillotine. During the three years of the democracy, no less than
eighteen thousand individuals, chiefly of the middle order, perished by
the guillotine.
This frightful catalogue closed with a remark on the belligerent
propensities which such a state of society must produce. "It must be the
immediate interest of a government, founded on principles wholly
contradictory to the received maxims of all surrounding nations, to
propagate the doctrines abroad by which it subsists at home; to
assimilate every neighbouring state to its own system; and to subvert
every constitution which even forms an advantageous contrast to its own
absurdities. Such a government must, from its nature, be hostile to all
governments of whatever form; but, above all, to those which are most
strongly contrasted with its own vicious structure, and which afford to
their subjects the best security for the maintenance of order, liberty,
justice, and religion."
Sheridan made a speech, of great beauty and animation, in reply. But his
whole argument consisted in the sophism, that the French had been
rendered savage by the long sense of oppression, and that the blame of
their atrocities, (which he fully admitted,) should be visited on the
monarchy, not on the people.
Lord Mornington's was acknowledged to be the ablest speech on the
ministerial side; and though eclipsed by the richness and power of
Sheridan--and what speaker in the records of English eloquence ever
excelled him in either?--it yet maintained a distinguished superiority
in the force of its reasoning, and the fulness of its statements.
Sheridan, in his peroration, had thrown out some bitter pleasantries on
the ministerial favours, whose prospect he regarded as the only motive
of those abandonments which had left the Whig party suddenly so feeble.
"Is this a time," exclaimed the orator, "for selfish intrigues and the
little traffic of lucre? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious
doctrine, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician
has his price? Nay, even for those who have no direct object, what is
the language which their actions speak? 'The throne is in danger'--'we
will support the throne; but let us share the smiles of royalty.' 'The
order of nobility is in danger'--'I will fight for nobility,' says the
viscount. 'But my zeal would be much greater, if I were made an earl.'
'Rouse all the marquess within me!' exclaims the earl, 'and the peerage
never turned out a more undaunted champion in the cause.' 'Stain my
green riband blue,' cries out the gallant knight, 'and the fountain of
honour will have a fast and faithful servant.' But, what are the people
to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our
professions? It there nothing which whispers to that right honourable
gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic,
to be ruled by the hackneyed means of ordinary corruption?"
Wyndham pronounced, that the speech of the noble lord had recapitulated
the conduct of France in a manner so true, so masterly, and so alarming,
"as to fix the attention of the House and the nation." Pitt spoke in
terms still more expressive. "The speech of my noble friend," said he,
"has been styled declamatory; on what principle I know not, unless that
every effort of eloquence, in which the most forcible reasoning was
adorned and supported by all the powers of language, was to be branded
with the epithet declamatory." This debate was decisive; two hundred and
seventy-seven voted for the vigorous prosecution of the war: for Fox's
amendment, _only_ fifty-seven. We have now to follow the career of the
noble lord to another quarter of the globe, where his presence was more
essential, and where his capabilities had a still wider field.
The resignation of Sir John Shore had left the government of India
vacant; and the conspicuous exertions of Lord Mornington in the late
debates had placed him in a high position before the ministerial eye. He
was now fixed on for the Governor-generalship. His connexion with Indian
affairs as a member of the Board of Control, had given him official
knowledge; his education had given him the accomplishment suited to
diplomatic distinction; and his abilities, his ardour, and his time of
life, rendered him the fittest man for the arduous government of India.
The period demanded all the qualities of government. France was
notoriously intriguing to enlist the native princes in a general attack
on the British power; a large French force was already organized in the
territories of the Nizam, and Tippoo Saib had drawn together an army
with seventy guns in the Mysore. The Indian princes, always jealous of
the British authority, which had checked their old savage depredations
on each other, and had presented in its own dominions a noble contrast
to the ravaged and wretched condition of their kingdoms were all
preparing to join the alliance of the French; and the first shock of a
war, now almost inevitable, would probably involve all India. At this
period Lord Mornington, who had been raised to an English barony, was
appointed governor-general in October 1797; and such was his promptitude
that he sailed on the 7th of the month following. In the April of 1798,
he arrived on the coast of Coromandel, and landed at Madras, accompanied
by his brother, the Hon. Henry Wellesley, as private secretary, (now
Lord Cowley.) On the 17th of May he arrived at Calcutta, where he found
his brother, since so memorable, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, and Sir
Alured Clarke, the commander-in-chief.
Lord Mornington had been sent to India in anticipation of French
attempts on the British dominions, and there could be no doubt of the
intentions of the French Directory. But the blow came sooner, and was
more openly struck than an European public man could have surmised. It
exhibited all that arrogant contempt of an enemy which once
characterised Eastern supremacy; and would have been worthy of Gengis,
proclaiming his sovereign will. It was a proclamation from the French
governor of the Mauritius, on the 30th of June; announcing, without any
attempt at disguise, that two ambassadors from Tippoo Sultaun had
arrived there with letters for the governor, and despatches for the
government of France; and that the object of the embassy was, to form an
alliance, offensive and defensive, with France, and to demand a
subsidiary force, for the purpose of expelling the English from India.
The proclamation further invited all Frenchmen, in the isles of France
and Bourbon, to volunteer for the sultaun's service, and promised to
secure them pay under the protection of the Republic.
The daring insolence of this proclamation, and the palpable rashness of
making the designs of Tippoo public, before any direct preparation for
attack, were so unlike the usual forms of diplomacy, that the
governor-general, in the first instance, was inclined to doubt its
authenticity. But it awoke his vigilance, and he wrote without delay to
General Harris, then commanding at Madras, and governor for the time, to
be on his guard. "If Tippoo," said his letter, "should choose to avow
the objects of his embassy to be such as are described in this
proclamation, the consequences may be very serious, and may ultimately
involve us in the calamity of war. I wish you to be apprised of my
apprehensions on the subject, and to prepare your mind for the possible
event. You will, therefore, turn your attention to the means of
collecting a force, if necessity should unfortunately require it. But it
is not my desire that you should proceed to take any public steps
towards the assembling of the army, before you receive some further
information from me."
The governor-general has been charged with precipitancy in making war on
Tippoo. But the charge is refuted by dates. The French proclamation was
dated 10th Pluviose, sixth year of the Republic, (30th January 1798.)
Its truth or falsehood was carefully enquired into, until the evidence
was completed by despatches from the British governors of the Cape and
Bombay, the admiral at the Cape, the testimony of prisoners, and finally
by the actual landing of a corps of French volunteers from the
Mauritius. It was not till six months after the date of the
proclamation, that the governor-general wrote thus (20th of June) to
General Harris:--"I now take the earliest opportunity of acquainting you
with my final determination. I mean to call upon the allies without
delay, and to assemble the army upon the coast with all possible
expedition. You will receive my public instructions in the course of a
few days. Until you have received them, it will not be proper to take
any public steps for the assembling of the army. But whatever can be
done without a disclosure of the ultimate object, I authorize you to do
immediately; intending to apprise you, by this letter, that it is my
positive resolution to assemble the army upon the coast."
The Mysore dynasty was one of the natural productions of Indian
sovereignty. They had each been founded by a successful soldier, had
made conquests of prodigious extent, had devastated the land with
frightful rapidity; and then, after a generation or two of opulent
possession, had seen their provinces divided by rebellious viceroys;
until some slave, bolder than the rest, sprang up, broke down the
tottering viceroyalties, and seized the supreme throne. Hyder Ali, the
father of Tippoo, had been a common trooper in the service of the Rajah
of Mysore--by his intrepidity he became the captain of one of those
bands, half soldier and half robber, which form the irregulars of an
Asiatic army. By his address as a courtier, he rose into favour with the
rajah, who gave him the command of his army. By the treachery which
always surrounds and subverts an Asiatic throne, he finally took the
sovereign power to himself. Disputes of the new rajah with the Company's
agents produced a war, and the cavalry of this daring adventurer rode
up to the gates of Madras. Peace was at length proclaimed, and Hyder
acquired a vast reputation among the natives as the champion of India.
In 1770, an invasion of the Mahrattas, a robber nation, but the most
renowned of Indian plunderers, determined to crush the new power, and
poured down upon Mysore. Hyder now applied for assistance to Madras; but
the settlement had no assistance to give, and Hyder was forced to make a
disadvantageous treaty. He now loudly protested against the failure of
the English contingent, which he declared to have been the subject of a
treaty, and resolved on revenge. The plunder of the merchants' stores at
Madras was the more probable motive to his next desperate attack. The
half military, half commercial government of the Company, at that
period, paralyzed all measures of effective resistance; and while the
garrison urged vigorous proceedings, and the inhabitants dreaded
mercantile loss, the plains surrounding Madras were deluged by an
invasion from the Mysore. Hyder ranged in line seventy thousand horse
and twenty thousand regular infantry! with all the marauders of India in
his train, and all the Indian sovereigns ready to rise. At Madras all
was confusion. Some detachments of Europeans and Sepoys, scattered
through the country, were surrounded, fought gallantly, and were cut to
pieces. Warren Hastings, the most indefatigable of Indian governors, now
came in person to the seat of war; but such was the feebleness of the
British means, that he could bring with him but five hundred Europeans
and five hundred Sepoys. But he brought the more effectual aid of an
officer of decision and sagacity, the celebrated Sir Eyre Coote. This
brave man, struggling with difficulties of every kind, was, in almost
all instances, victorious, and the last hours of Hyder's daring career
were embittered by defeat at Arriee. In a few months after, at the age
of eighty-two, this great chieftain, but barbarous and bloody warrior,
died; leaving his son Tippoo, who had commenced his warfare at eighteen,
and had followed him in all his battles, the possessor of his throne.
Tippoo was the heir of his father's bravery, but not of his
intelligence. Hyder had a mean opinion of his understanding, and
evidently regarded him as little better than a royal tiger. "That boy,"
said he, "will overthrow all that it has cost me a life to raise, and
will ruin himself."
The war continued, carried on by detachments on the part of the English,
and by marauding expeditions on the part of Tippoo; time, life, and
treasure were thus thrown away on both sides. But at length the news of
peace between England and France reached India, and peace was concluded
between the Company and the Mysore on the 11th of March 1784.
Some conception of the resources of India may be formed from the
military means which the single state of Mysore was able to accumulate,
under all the pressure of a long war. At the peace, the treasure of
Tippoo was calculated at eighty millions sterling; he had six hundred
thousand stand of arms, two thousand cannons, with a regular force of
artillery, cavalry, and infantry, of little less than one hundred
thousand men!
The history of the Mysore dynasty would form a brilliant poem; and, if
India shall ever have a poet again, he could not choose a more varied,
animating, and splendid theme. Tippoo, in peace, turned saint, and,
following the example of his prophet, forced one hundred thousand
Hindoos, at the sword's point, to swear by the Koran. We pass over the
remaining features of his fierce history. Restless with ambition, and
plethoric with power, in 1790 he invaded Travancore. The rajah called
upon his English allies for protection. The war began by the appearance
of Tippoo in the field at the head of another deluge of cavalry. But the
genius of Hyder was in the tomb; and the English army, under Cornwallis,
forced its way to the ramparts of Seringapatam. A peace stripped the
Mysore of half its territory, of three millions and a half for the
expenses of the war, and of the two sons of Tippoo as hostages. But the
rajah constantly looked for revenge; and the successes of the French
Republic urged him to a contest, in which every thing was to be lost to
him but his daring name.
The first step of the governor-general exhibited singular decision, and
was attended with singular success. The Nizam had raised a regular corps
of eleven thousand men, disciplined by French officers. It was
ascertained that those officers held a correspondence with Tippoo, and
there was every probability of their either forcing the Nizam into his
alliance, or of their marching to join him. A British force was now
ordered to move towards the capital of the Nizam, without any intimation
of its object or its approach. On its arrival, a distinct demand was
made for the dismissal of the French. The Nizam hesitated; but the
officer commanding the British declared, that if there was any further
delay, he would attack the battalions in their camp. The Nizam then gave
his consent, and the battalions were informed that hesitation would
expose them to the penalties of treason. A negotiation then began, in
the presence of the British troops and the Nizam's horse. The French
officers were promised protection, the possession of their personal
property, their arrears, and a passage to France; the battalions were
promised pay and future employment. The terms were accepted, and the
British officer had the satisfaction to see the eleven thousand lay down
their arms! This event struck all India with surprise. The measure had
been conducted so noiselessly, that the result was wholly unexpected. It
gave a prodigious _prestige_ to the character of the governor-general
throughout the "golden peninsula."
The war began. The seizure of Egypt by Bonaparte had inflamed Tippoo
with the hope of conquest; and, on the 13th of February 1799, he crossed
his own frontier at the head of 12,000 horse, and attacked the Bombay
force, of six thousand men, under General Stuart. He was repulsed after
some charges, and recrossed his frontier. This battle occurred _five
days_ before General Harris's invasion of Mysore. But another eminent
soldier was here to acquire his first distinction. Tippoo, manoeuvring
to prevent the junction of Generals Harris and Stuart, fell upon the
British at the lines of Malavelly. "Colonel Arthur Wellesley" there
commanded the 33d regiment, and the Nizam's force. A strong body of
horse charged the 33d. The soldiers were ordered to reserve their fire
till within pistol-shot; they then fired, and charged with the bayonet.
A general charge of the British dragoons took place, and the Mysore
troops were routed, with the loss of two thousand men.
On the 30th of April the breaching battery opened against Seringapatam.
Terms had been offered to Tippoo, by which he was to cede half his
territories, to pay two millions sterling, to renounce the French
alliance, and to give up four of his sons, and four of his generals, as
hostages. Those terms were merciful, for he was now reduced to his last
extremity, and it was palpable that there could be no hope of peace
while he retained the power of making war. His conduct, at this period,
seems to have been the work of infatuation. It was said that he had some
superstitious belief, that as the English had before retired from the
walls, the city was destined never to be taken. It had provisions for a
long defence, and a garrison of twenty-two thousand regular troops. But,
by shutting himself up in the fortress, he transgressed one of the first
rules of national war--that the monarch should never be compelled to
stand a siege. Tippoo, in the field, might have escaped, to wait a
change of fortune; but within walls he must conquer, or be undone.
On the 4th of May, at one in the afternoon, the stormers, commanded by
Baird, advanced. He, with some other officers of the 71st, had once been
a prisoner, and been cruelly treated in the fortress. The column
consisted of two thousand five hundred English, and one thousand eight
hundred Sepoys. They crossed the Cavery, the river of Seringapatam; and
in ten minutes the British flag was on the top of the rampart! The
column now cleared the ramparts to the right and left, and after a
gallant but confused resistance by the garrison, this famous fortress
was taken. Tippoo, after having his horse killed under him, and
receiving two wounds, attempted to make his escape on foot. A soldier,
attracted by his jewels, rushed to seize him; Tippoo gave him a cimeter
wound in the knee, the soldier then fired, and Tippoo fell dead. The
fortress was strongly provided. Its works mounted two hundred and eighty
guns. In its arsenal were found four hundred and fifty-one brass guns,
and four hundred and seventy-eight iron guns. Stores of every kind were
found in abundance. The storm scarcely exceeded an hour. Thus fell the
dynasty of the great Hyder Ali; and thus was extinguished a dream of
conquest, which once embraced the Empire of Hindostan.
Thus, by promptitude of action and sagacity of council, this formidable
war was extinguished in little more than eight weeks; a territory
producing a million sterling a-year was added to the Company's
dominions; and the whole fabric of a power which it had cost the genius
of Hyder a life to raise, and which once threatened to overthrow the
empire of the English in India, was broken down and dismantled for ever.
But Mysore was given to the family of its former Hindoo Rajah, and
simply reduced to the limits of its original territory; the conquests of
Hyder having been alone lopped away.
In England, the thanks of Parliament were given to the governor-general
and the army, and the former was made a marquess. The treasure taken in
Seringapatam, with the various arms and stores, was subsequently valued
at forty-five millions of star pagodas, (the pagoda being about eight
shillings sterling;) General Harris, as commander-in-chief, receiving an
eighth of the whole, or three hundred and twenty-four thousand nine
hundred and seven pagodas. His right to this sum was afterwards disputed
at law, but the claim was ultimately allowed. One hundred thousand
pounds was offered by the army to the Marquess, but honourably declined
by him as encroaching on the general prize-money. But the Court of
Directors, in recompense, voted him five thousand pounds a-year for
twenty years.
We now come to another important period in the career of this
distinguished servant of the crown. The French expedition to Egypt had
been expressly aimed at the British power in India. The Marquess
Wellesley instantly conceived the bold project of attacking the French
in the rear, by the march of an Indian army to Egypt, to co-operate with
an army from home.
The question of occupying Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, was then
discussed; and objected to by the marquess, on the several grounds of
its unfitness for a naval station, for a commercial station, and for
maintaining an influence on the coast. The admiral's opinion was
strongly against it, and the design was abandoned. It has been since
adopted; but the difference of circumstances must be remembered. We had
then no regular overland communication, no steamers on the Red Sea, and
thus no necessity for either a harbour or a depot of coals. Aden as a
garrison may be of little comparative value, but as a rendezvous for the
steam navy, it is of obvious importance, and not less as a means of
guarding the overland communication for the general benefit of Europe.
The advantages of this station may be the more appreciated, from the
following letter of the governor-general to the chairman of the Court of
Directors, (October 6, 1800,)--"In the present year I was nearly _seven
months_ without receiving one line of authentic intelligence from
England. My distress and anxiety of mind were scarcely supportable.
Speedy, authentic, and _regular_ intelligence from Europe, is
_essential_ to the trade and government of this empire. If the sources
of information be obstructed, no conscientious man can undertake this
weighty charge."
In 1800, the army under Abercromby landed in Egypt, and defeated the
French under Menou. General Baird, at the head of six thousand of the
Indian army, reached Egypt. General Belliard surrendered in Cairo with
thirteen thousand men. The Indian army then joined the British, and the
siege of Alexandria was begun. Menou immediately capitulated, and thus
the whole French expedition was undone--the fleet having been destroyed
by Nelson, and the army having been captured by Hutchinson--the French
army, amounting in the whole to twenty-four thousand men, and their
captors only to nineteen thousand British; the Indian army making up
the general number to twenty-five thousand six hundred and eighteen.
In July 1801, the Addington cabinet was formed. Peace with France was
signed at Amiens, March 27, 1802. Orders were now sent out to India to
restore the French possessions. But the Marquess, by his personal
sagacity, anticipated another war; and delayed the measure until he
should receive further intelligence. The result was, that when Linois
arrived with a French squadron to take possession of Pondicherry, Lord
Clive answered, "that he had not received any orders from the
governor-general." A despatch from Downing Street, of the 18th of March
1803, communicated to him the King's message to parliament declaring
war!
It is beyond our limits to enter into the disputes with the directors,
which preceded the return of the governor-general to Europe. He was
charged with lavishness of living, with the affectation of being the
director of the directors, with extravagance in the erection of the
palace at Calcutta, and with equal extravagance in the establishment of
the Indian college. But these charges have long since been forgotten;
they speedily vanished; investigation did justice to the character of
the Marquess; and the only foundation for those vague and wandering
charges actually was, that he was a man of high conceptions, fond of the
sumptuousness belonging to his rank, adopting a large expenditure for
its effect on the native mind, and justly thinking that the noblest
ornament of an empire is accomplished by literature.
He returned to England in January 1806, and found the great minister
dying. On his arrival he wrote to Pitt, who replied by the following
letter, dated from Putney:--
"MY DEAR WELLESLEY,
"On my arrival here last night I received, with inexpressible
pleasure your most friendly and affectionate letter. If I was not
strongly advised to keep out of London till I have acquired a
little further strength, I would have come up immediately, for the
purpose of seeing you at the first possible moment. As it is, I am
afraid I must trust to your goodness to give me the satisfaction of
seeing you here, the first hour you can spare for the purpose. If
you can, without inconvenience, make it about the middle of the
day, (in English style between two and four,) it would suit me
rather better than any other time, but none can be inconvenient.
"I am recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints,
followed by severe attacks of gout; but I believe I am in the way
of real amendment. Ever most truly and affectionately yours,
"W. PITT."
The great minister was unfortunately lost to his country and mankind
within a week!
Lord Brougham, in his _Memoirs of British Statesmen_, records the
testimony of the Marquess against the common report, that Pitt died of a
broken heart in consequence of the calamities of Austria and the
breaking up of the continental coalition. The Marquess declares, that
Pitt, though emaciated, retained his "gaiety and constitutionally
sanguine disposition" to the last, expressing also "confident hopes of
recovery."
The biographer gives a passing touch of disapproval to Pitt's
administration, though he imputes all his ministerial delinquencies "to
sordid and second-rate men round him." But this is wholly contrary to
the character of the man--never individual less acted on the suggestions
of others than Pitt. The simple fact is, the biographer knows nothing on
the subject, and would have much more wisely avoided giving us his
opinions altogether.
We shall notice but one charge more against the Marquess on his return.
It was made by a low fellow of the name of Paul, who had been a tailor,
but had by some means or other obtained an office in India. No man could
have held the highest power in India so long without making enemies
among the contemptible; and this Paul, determined to figure as a public
accuser, attacked the character of the Marquess with respect to his
compelling the Nabob of Oude to pay his debts to the Company. Every one
knows the degraded state of Indian morality, especially in pecuniary
transactions; and the measures necessary in this instance were charged
as the extreme of tyranny. But those charges were never substantiated;
they came before the House of Commons in the shape of resolutions, and
were negatived by a large majority, 182 to 31. Paul, in a struggle to
become a popular character, and as a candidate for Westminster, involved
himself in an unfortunate duel with Sir Francis Burdett, in which both
were wounded; but Paul's wound, suddenly turning to mortification, he
died.
After the vote on the resolutions, Sir John Anstruther, who had been
chief-justice in Bengal, moved "that the Marquess's conduct in Oude was
highly meritorious." The resolution was triumphantly carried.
We are now to regard the Marquess in the character of a British
statesman. In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain. His purpose was, to make
Spain the basis of an invasion of England. No act of the French Emperor
exhibited more of the mingled subtlety and ferocity of his nature; and
yet it should be remembered, for the benefit of mankind, that no act
more distinctly exhibited the rashness with which avarice or power
overlooks obstacles, and the folly with which the desire of entrapping
others frequently outwits itself. Napoleon already, through the weakness
of the king and the treachery of his minister, had all the resources of
Spain at his disposal. But, not content with the reality, he resolved to
arrogate the title; and he thus eventually lost the Peninsula. Under the
pretext of settling the disputes of the royal family, the Emperor, in
1808, marched ninety thousand men into Spain, obtained possession of its
principal fortresses, and established a garrison in the capital. The
Spanish nation, always disdaining a foreign master, and yet accustomed
to foreign influence, was roused by the massacre of Madrid on the 2d of
May. Every province rose in arms, elected a governing body, and attacked
the French. On the 6th of June 1808, Joseph Bonaparte was appointed King
of Spain and the Indies.--On the same day, the Supreme Junta at Seville
proclaimed war against France! Deputations from the provinces were sent
to England, and they were answered by the dispatch of an army, under Sir
Arthur Wellesley, to the coast of Portugal. The British general then
commenced that series of victories which finished only in the
capitulation of Paris, and the downfall of Napoleon.
On the 21st of August Sir Arthur Wellesley beat the French army of
Portugal at Vimeira, and would have inevitably forced the French marshal
to capitulate on the field, but for the singular and unfortunate blunder
by which two officers, superior in rank, had been inadvertently sent to
join the expedition, by whom he was of course superseded; General
Burrard arriving during the action, though he did not take the command
until the day was over; and General Dalrymple arriving within a few
days, to supersede General Burrard. The consequence was, that the whole
operation was paralysed, and the French army, instead of being
extinguished on the field, was allowed by a convention to retire from
the country. Sir John Moore then, superseding them all, took the
command. In the mean time, Austria had renewed the war, and been
defeated in the decisive battle of Wagram. Napoleon now threw the whole
force of France upon the Peninsula.
It was obvious that Spain was the field in which the great battle of
Europe was now to be fought; but the inefficiency of public men in
Spain, and the divisions of the provincial governments, rendered it
necessary that some superintending mind should be sent to conduct the
national affairs. Early in 1809, Mr Canning, then secretary for foreign
affairs, received the royal commands to propose the appointment of
ambassador-extraordinary to the Marquess Wellesley. On the 1st of April,
Sir Arthur Wellesley was appointed commander of the British forces in
the Peninsula. The Marquess arrived in Cadiz on the 4th of July, four
days after the battle of Talavera.
The first year of the Spanish campaign was, in one sense of the word,
disastrous. Sir Arthur Wellesley, after fighting the desperate battle of
Talavera, was forced to retire into Portugal, through the neglect of the
Spanish government to supply his troops with the means of subsistence.
They were actually starved out of the field. The Spanish armies had now
been utterly broken; the great expedition of Walcheren had terminated in
the capture of a fishing town, and the loss of some thousand men by the
marsh fever. At this period, Spain seemed utterly helpless; Austria had
been forced into peace; Russia was on the closest terms of alliance with
France; and in England the two cabinet ministers, Lord Castlereagh and
Mr Canning, had fought a duel with each other. The cabinet was now
broken up, and reconstructed, the three secretaries of state being, the
Marquess of Wellesley for foreign affairs, Lord Liverpool for the
colonies, and the Hon. R. Ryder for the home department; Mr Perceval,
first lord of the treasury and prime minister.
In the year 1810, on the invasion of Portugal by Marshal Massena at the
head of eighty thousand men, while Wellington had but thirty thousand,
the declaimers of Opposition had produced so depressing an effect on
public opinion, that a cabinet despatch actually left it to the decision
of the British general, then Lord Wellington, whether the army should
remain or return to England! On that occasion, the British general
returned the following gallant and decisive answer:--"From what I have
seen of the objects of the French government, and the sacrifices they
make to accomplish them, I have no doubt, that if the British army were
for any reason withdrawn from the Peninsula, and the French government
were relieved from the pressure of military operations on the Continent,
they would incur all risks to land an army in his Majesty's dominions.
Then, indeed, would commence an expensive contest, then would his
Majesty's subjects discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by
the blessing of God, they have hitherto had no knowledge; and the
cultivation, the beauty, and the prosperity of the country, and the
virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed, whatever
might be the results of military operations. God forbid that I should be
a witness, much less an actor, in the scene! And I only hope that the
King's government will consider well what I have stated to your
lordship; will ascertain, as it is in their power, the actual expenses
of employing a certain number of men in this country, beyond that of
employing them at home or elsewhere; and will keep up their force here
on such a footing, as will, at all events, ensure their possession,
without keeping the transports; if it does not enable their commander to
take advantage of events, and assume the offensive." This letter decided
the fate of the Peninsula. Massena was driven out of Portugal before the
close of the year, and the question of French conquest was at an end!
In 1811, the Marquess Wellesley retired from the cabinet. He had
expressed opinions on the abilities of Mr Perceval, which rendered it
necessary that either one or other should resign. The nominal cause of
difference was the Roman Catholic question; on which Perceval was as
well-informed and principled, as the Marquess was ignorant and fanciful;
his chief argument being, that the Protestant Church in Ireland was
feeble--an argument which should have led him to look for the remedy in
giving it additional strength. But the only view which reasoners like
the Marquess have ever taken on the subject is, the force of
numbers--"The Roman Catholics are three times as numerous as the
Protestants." An argument which would have been equally valid against
the original attempt to spread Christianity among the heathen nations,
and would be equally valid still, for Paganism is still more populous
than Christendom. In fact, the argument would be equally valid against
any attempt whatever to enlighten mankind; for the ignorant are always
the overwhelming majority. The true enquiry would have been, are the
opinions of the Roman Catholics consistent with a Protestant throne? is
their divided allegiance perilous or not to a Protestant government? are
their religious prejudices consistent with the rights of the national
religion? We have now the melancholy proof of the shallowness of all the
declamation on the subject. We see that power has been used only for
public disturbance; that pledges are scoffed at; and that, in the
fifteenth year of this boasted conciliation, Ireland is more turbulent,
faction more violent, prejudice more envenomed, and life more in hazard
than ever.
The unfortunate death of Mr Perceval by the hand of a half-frantic
ruffian, who was resolved to shoot one of the ministry, and in whose
way the prime minister unhappily came, threw open the cabinet once more.
A long negotiation followed, in which Lords Wellesley and Moira having
failed to form an administration, Lord Liverpool was finally appointed
premier, and retained power until 1827; a period of fifteen years, when
he was struck by apoplexy, and died in December of the following year.
The policy towards Ireland was now sinking into that feeble and flexible
shape, which has always characterised the predominance of Whig councils.
The Marquess Wellesley had made some showy speeches on emancipation; and
in 1822, and as if with the object of showing him the utter vanity of
attempting to reform the bitterness of Popish faction by any measures of
concession, the Popish advocate was sent to govern Ireland. He found the
country in a state of the most frightful disturbance; half a century of
weak and unstatesmanlike compliances had produced their natural effect,
in party arrogance; and demands and conspiracy at once threw the
ministry into confusion, and set the law at defiance. But the Marquess
was received with national cordiality by the people. The city was
illuminated on his arrival; the different public bodies gave him
banquets; and, known as his opinions were on the Popish question, the
Protestants forgot his prejudices in the recollection that he was an
Irishman. But there was a faction still to be dealt with, which, having
no real connexion with the substantial interests of the country, and
living wholly on public credulity, uttered its ominous voice in the
midst of all those acclamations. A paper from that faction lost no time
in "reminding the Irish Catholics of the tantalizing and bitter
repetition of expectations raised only to be blasted, and prospects of
success opened to close on them in utter darkness;" finishing by a
significant warning, "not to rely too much on the liberal intentions of
the Marquess Wellesley."
The result of his lordship's government may be easily told. His personal
favours to the Papists were received in the usual style of instalments;
while the Protestant corporation stood aloof, and drank with renewed
potations "the glorious and immortal memory of William III." Such is the
dignity of politics in Irish deliberations. At length the unlucky
conciliator had his eyes opened by the nature of things, and was
compelled to apply to parliament for the insurrection act. The
Attorney-general Plunket, the ablest advocate of the Papists, was
compelled, by a similar necessity, to write a long official letter, in
which he stated--"That he feared in five or six counties, great numbers
indeed of the lower classes had been involved in the conspiracy; some of
them from a love of enterprise and ready disposition for mischief; some
of them on a principle of counteraction to associations of an opposite
description; but most of them, he should hope, from terror on the one
hand, and the _expectation of impunity_ on the other." There was the
point, which no man comprehended better in theory than this clever
law-officer, and none better in practice than the Popish peasant. "This
_expectation_, however," he observes, "must now be effectually removed,
and the terror of the law, I trust, be substituted in place of the
terror of the conspirators." Adding, "your Excellency will observe with
regret, that the association has been founded on a principle of
_religious exclusion!_"
Such had been the fruit of concession. The opposite plan, so often
suggested, and so essentially necessary, was then tried; and its fruits
too followed. Almost the whole of Ireland became instantly
tranquillized; men were no longer murdered in open day; cattle no longer
maimed; houses no longer burned. The Marquess thus writes the English
government:--"During the summer and autumn of 1822, the measures
sanctioned by Parliament for the restoration of tranquillity, combined
with other causes, have produced such a degree of quiet, that no
necessity existed for my _usual_ communications."
We pass rapidly over the contemptible squabbles of the party mobs which
fill up the modern history of Irish politics, and which must have deeply
disgusted a statesman who had seen public life on the stately scale of
Indian government and English administration. But he was now far
advanced in years, and he was betrayed into the absurdity of suffering
these squabbles to reach to himself. The decoration of the statue of
William the Third, in one of the principal streets of the city, on his
birthday, the 4th of November, had been an annual custom for upwards of
a hundred years. But now the Papists resolved to regard the placing of a
few knots of orange riband on this equestrian figure as a matter of
personal offence, and prohibited the decoration. A patrol of horse
surrounded the statue, and the decoration could not be accomplished. A
letter from the secretary approved of the conduct of the civic
authorities. Unluckily, within a few days after, the Marquess went in
state to the theatre. The public disapprobation now vented itself in
unmeasured terms. The uproar was incessant, and, in the height of the
disturbance, a bottle was thrown by some drunken ruffian from the
gallery into the viceregal box, but with so direct an aim, that it
glanced close to the Marquess's head. A watchman's rattle, and several
other missiles, were said to have followed the bottle. The unlucky
result was, an indictment against several individuals for conspiracy by
the Attorney-general; but the grand jury having ignored the bills, the
case fell to the ground.
At this period, the Marquess, who had in early life married a
Frenchwoman, fixed his regards on an American, the widow of Mr Patterson
of America. In matters of this order public opinion can have no direct
right to interfere. But the bride was a Roman Catholic. The marriage was
solemnized by a Romish bishop, as well as by the Irish primate. The
royal equipages were seen in regular attendance, subsequently, at her
ladyship's place of worship; and, when the critical balance of public
opinion at that period is considered, there was evidently more of the
ardour of the lover than the wisdom of the statesman, in suffering that
marriage to take place, at least _before_ his retirement from the
viceroyalty of Ireland.
On the formation of the Wellington cabinet, the illustrious brothers
differing on the Romish question, the Marquess retired. In the debate on
that occasion, the Duke of Wellington made one of those strong,
_declaratory_ speeches and renewed those pledges to the Protestant
constitution in Church and State, which he made so solemnly before. The
duke, after gracefully expressing his regret at being compelled to
differ on the sentiments of his distinguished relative, said, "I wish,
as much as my noble relation can do, to see this question brought to an
amicable conclusion, although I do not see the means of bringing it to
that conclusion by this resolution, (Lord Lansdowne's motion on the
Catholic claims.) I _agree with_ the noble and learned Earl (Eldon) who
has recently addressed your lordships, that we ought to see _clear and
distinct securities_ given to the state, before we can give our vote in
the affirmative of the question. My noble relative says, that our
security will be found in the removal of the securities which now exist.
I say, that the securities which we now enjoy, and which for a length of
time we have enjoyed, are _indispensable to the safety of Church and
State!_ I should be glad to see the disabilities of the Roman Catholics
removed; but before I can consent to their removal, I must see something
in their stead which will _effectually protect our institutions_."
Yet, within one twelvemonth! the Popish Bill was carried by the
Wellington ministry! Its immediate result was, to introduce into the
legislature a party whose aid to the Whigs carried the Reform Bill. The
Reform Bill, in its turn, introduced into influence a party who demand
implicit obedience from every minister, and whose declared object, at
this hour, is the abolition of the whole system of commercial,
manufacturing, and agricultural laws, under which England has become the
greatest commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural country in the
world. All power now threatens to fall into the hands of the populace;
and, if that result shall follow, England will be revolutionized. With
all our knowledge of the strength of England, of the vigour of educated
opinion, of the gallant principle existing among our nobles and
gentlemen, and, above all, of the religious integrity of a large portion
of the empire, we still cannot disguise our apprehension of general
change. The ferocity, recklessness, and insatiability of the democratic
spirit, have been hitherto withheld from the sight of our fortunate
country, by the vigour of our government and the wisdom of our laws. But
they exist; they lie immediately under the surface of the soil; and,
once suffered to be opened to the light, the old pestilence will rise,
and poison the political atmosphere.
The agriculture of England is the true treasury of England. We may exist
with diminished manufactures, and we must prepare for their diminution,
from the universal determination of other countries to manufacture for
themselves. But we cannot exist without food; and, from the moment when
the discouragement of tillage shall leave England in necessity, we shall
see the cheap corn of Russia and Poland taxed by the monarch, raised to
a famine price, all the current gold of the country sent to purchase
subsistence in Russia, and our only resource a paper currency, followed
with an enormous increase of expense in every common necessary of life.
Throw a fourth of the land of England out of cultivation, and what must
become of the labourers? They now complain of low wages; then they will
have none. What must be the condition of Ireland, wholly agricultural,
and ruined by a flood of foreign corn, at half the price for which the
Irish farmer can bring it to market? These consequences are so
notorious, that nobody attempts to dispute them. They are coolly taken
as inevitable things; and the whole dependence, even of the mob
advocates, is upon chance: "Oh, something will turn up! Things won't be
so bad as you think!"
But the true conspirators see deeper. They know, that a revolution in
the food of the people is the immediate forerunner of a revolution in
the state. From the moment when foreign corn is admitted free of
restraint, the confidence of the farmer must be shaken. From the farmer,
the shock will instantly reach the landlord; his rent must be
diminished. To one-half of the great proprietaries of the kingdom, a
diminution of rent, even by a third, would make their possessors
personally bankrupt. Their mortgages and loans must be repaid; and
nothing would remain. The landlord now pays the Church. If he is ruined,
the whole Church income, independent of the small portions of glebe
land, must perish with him.
Then will come the agitation for a still more daring purpose. It will be
asked why must the system of English life be artificial?--Because we
have twenty-eight millions sterling of interest to pay, and for this we
must have taxes. But, why not sweep the national debt away, as France
did in her day of royal overthrow? A single sitting of the Convention
settled that question. Why not follow the example? Then will come the
desperate expedient, and all will be ruin on the heads of the most
helpless of the community; for the national debt is only a saving bank
on a larger scale, and nine-tenths of its creditors are of the most
struggling order of the empire.
Of course, we do not anticipate this frightful catastrophe under the
existing government, nor, perhaps, under its immediate successors, nor
under any government which knows its duty. But, let the "pressure from
without" be once an acknowledged principle; let agitation be once
suffered as a legitimate instrument of public appeal; let the clamour of
the streets be once received with the slightest respect, and the game is
begun; property is the chase, the hounds are in full cry, and the prey
will be torn down.
We believe that the majority of the empire are honest and true, but we
know that faction is active and unscrupulous; we believe that there is
in the country a genuine regard for the constitution, but we know that
there are men within the circumference of England, whose nature is as
foul as that of the blackest revolutionist of France in 1793; whose
craving for possession is treacherous and tigerish, whose means are
intrinsic and unadulterated mischief, whose element is public
disturbance, and whose feverish hope of possession is in general
overthrow. Against those we can have no defence but in the vigour, the
caution, and the sincerity of the national administration.
The Marquess Wellesley, on the formation of Lord Grey's cabinet in 1830,
accepted the office of Lord Steward. He had begun his political life as
a high Tory, and the friend and follower of Pitt.--In 1793, he had
fought boldly against the Reform question. This was at the period when
he retained the generosity of youth, and the classic impressions of his
university; but he had now been trained to courts, and he became a
reformer, with a white rod in his aged hand! In 1833, he was
re-appointed to the government of Ireland; he returned full of the same
innocent conceptions which had once fashioned Ireland into a political
Arcadia. But he was soon and similarly reduced to the level of
realities. He found confusion worse confounded, and was compelled to
exert all his power to suppress "agitation," and exert it in vain; a
Coercion Bill alone pioneered his way, a quarrel in which the Irish
Secretary was involved with the Agitator, produced the resignation of
the secretary, Littleton, though the Marquess's son-in-law.--Lord Grey,
like Saturn, rebelled against by his own progeny and overthrown by the
impulse of Reform, resigned, (July 9, 1834.) The Whig government fell
within the year, and the Marquess left Ireland. In England he
condescended to accept the office of Lord Chamberlain; but, within a
month, retired altogether from public life. It was full time: he was now
seventy-five.
The East India Company, in 1837, voted him £20,000, and in 1841
honourably proposed to place his statue in the India House. His
remaining years were unchequered. He died in Kingston House, Brompton,
on the 26th of September 1842, in his eighty-third year.
The Marquess Wellesley, on the whole view of his qualifications, was an
accomplished man; and, on a glance at his career, will be seen to have
been singularly favoured by fortune. Coming forward at a period of great
public interest, surrounded by the most eminent public men of the last
hundred years, and early associated with Pitt, the greatest of them all;
he enjoyed the highest advantages of example, intellectual exercise, and
public excitement, until he was placed in the government of India.
There, the career of every governor has exactly that portion of
difficulties which gives an administrator a claim on public applause;
with that assurance of success which stimulates the feeblest to
exertion. All our Indian wars have finished by the overthrow of the
enemy, the possession of territory, and the increase of British
power--with the single exception of the Affghan war, an expedition
wholly beyond the natural limits of our policy, and as rashly undertaken
as it was rashly carried on. The Marquess returned to Europe loaded with
honours, conspicuous in the public eye, and in the vigour of life. No
man had a fairer prospect of assuming the very highest position in the
national councils. He had the taste and sumptuousness which would have
made him popular with the first rank of nobility, the literature which
gratified the learned and intelligent, the practical experience of
public life which qualified him for the conduct of cabinets and
councils, and the gallantry and spirit which made him a favourite with
general society. He had, above all, a tower of strength in the talents
of his illustrious brother. Those two men might have naturally guided
the councils of an empire. That a man so gifted, so public, and so
ambitious of eminent distinction, should ever have been the subordinate
of the Liverpools, the Cannings, or the Greys, would be wholly
incomprehensible, but for one reason.
In the commencement of his career, he rashly involved himself in the
Catholic question. It was a showy topic for a young orator; it was an
easy exhibition of cheap patriotism; it gave an opportunity for
boundless metaphor--and it meant nothing. But, no politician has ever
sinned with Popery but under a penalty--the question hung about his neck
through every hour of his political existence. It encumbered his English
popularity, it alienated the royal favour, it flung him into the rear
rank of politicians. It made his English ambition fruitless and
secondary; and his Irish government unstable and unpopular. It
disqualified him for the noblest use of a statesman's powers, the power
of pronouncing an unfettered opinion; and it suffered a man to
degenerate into the antiquated appendage to a court, who might have been
the tutelar genius of an empire.
_Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess
Wellesley._ By ROBERT B. PEARCE, Esq. 3 vols. London: Bentley.
LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.
MY DEAR EUSEBIUS,--I have received yours from the hands of the bearer,
and such hands! Why write to consult me about railroads, of all things?
I know nothing about them, but that they all seem to tend to some
Pandemonium or another; and when I see of a dark night their
monster-engines, with eyes of flame and tongues of fire, licking up the
blackness under them, and snuffing up, as it were, the airs from Hades,
I could almost fancy the stoker a Mercury, conducting his hermetically
sealed convicts down those terrible passages that lead direct to the
abominable ferry. I said, "I know nothing of them;" but now I verily
believe you mean to twit me with my former experiment in railway
knowledge, and have no intention to purchase shares in the La Mancha
Company (and I doubt if there be any such) to countenance your Quixotic
pleasantry. I did speculate once, it is true, in one--London and
Falmouth Scheme--with very large promises. I was then living at W----,
when one day, just before I was going to sit down to dinner, a chaise
stops at my door, out steps a very "smart man," and is ushered into my
library. When I went into the room, he was examining, quite in a
connoisseur attitude, Eusebius, a picture; he was very fond of pictures,
he said; had a small but choice collection of his own, and I won't say
that he did not speak of the Correggiosity of Correggio. I was upon the
point of interrupting him, with the intimation that I did not mean to
purchase any, when, having thus ingratiated himself with me by this
reference to my taste, he suddenly turns round upon me with the most
business-like air, draws from under his cloak an imposingly official
portfolio, takes out his scrip, presenting me with a demand for fifty
pounds, the deposit of so many shares, looking positively certain that
in a few seconds the money would be in his pocket. People say, Eusebius,
that the five minutes before a dinner is the worst time in the world to
touch the heart, or to get any thing out of a man's pocket for
affection; but I do not know if it be not the best time for an attack,
if there be a speculation on foot which promises much to his interest,
for at that time he is naturally greedy. Had Belisarius, with his dying
boy in his arms, himself appeared at my gate, as seen in the French
print, crying, "Date obolum Belsario," I should have pronounced him at
once an impostor, and given him nothing, and, indeed, not pronounced
wrongly, for the whole story is a fiction. But at this peculiar moment
of hunger and of avarice, I confess I was too ready, and gave a check
for the amount. I had no sooner, however, satisfied myself with what
Homer calls [Greek: edêtnos êde potêtos], and we moderns, meat and
potatoes--than I began to suspect the soundness of the scheme, or the
company, who had gone to the expense of a chaise for eight miles merely
to collect this subscription of mine; and I was curious the next day to
trace the doings of this smart gentleman, when I found he had dined at
the inn at B---- on turtle, ducks, and green peas, and had recruited the
weariness of his day's journey with exhilarating champagne. I knew my
fate at once, and from that day to this have heard nothing of the London
and Falmouth project. Now, Eusebius, as you publish my letters, if this
should catch the eye of any of the directors of that company still
possessing any atom of conscience, I beg to remind them that I am still
minus fifty pounds; and as all claim seems to be quite out of the
question, excepting on their "known and boundless generosity," I beg to
wind up this little narrative of the transaction in the usual words of
the beggar's petition, "The smallest donation will be thankfully
received."
But the bearer, who was to consult me for your benefit--he hadn't a word
to say to me on the subject, but that he would call and consult with me
to-morrow. I found it in vain to question him, and I suspect it is a
hoax. But what a rural monster you have sent me! "Cujum pecus?--an
Melibei?" He cannot possibly herd with Eusebius; he had no modest
bearing about him. I had just opened your letter, and found you called
him a friend of yours, who had many observations to make about
poetry--so, as we were just going to tea, he was invited. It was most
fortunate I did not offer him a bed, for I should then have been bored
with him at this moment, when I am sitting down to write to you some
little account of his manners and conversation, which you know very
well, or you would not have sent him to me. I only now hope I shall not
see him to-morrow; and should I learn that he shall have departed in one
of those Plutonian engines to the keeping of Charon himself, I should
only regret that I had not put an obol into his hand, lest he should be
presented with a return-ticket. What did he say, and what did he not
say? He called my daughter "Miss," and said he should like music very
well but for the noise of it; and as to his ideas of poetry, that you
speak of, he treated it with the utmost contempt, and as a "very
round-about-way of getting to matter of fact." What else could I have
expected of him?--with his tight-drawn skin over his distended cheeks,
from which his nose scarcely protruded, as defying a pinch, with a
forehead like Caliban's, as villanously low, with his close-cut hair
sticking to it, and his little chin retiring, lest a magnanimous thought
should for a moment rest upon it. Such was never the image that
Cassandra had in her mind's eye when she cried, "O, Apollo--O, Apollo!"
And this was your friend, forsooth, with his novel ideas upon poetry!
Yet this vulgar piece of human mechanism is not without a little cunning
shrewdness, characteristically marked in his little pig-eye; and I must
tell you one piece of criticism of his, and an emendation, not unworthy
the great Bentley himself. Yet I know not why I tell you, for you know
it well already, I suspect; for he told me he had been talking with you
about a letter which you had published, and told him was written by me,
and which he had read while waiting in your library till you could see
him. He said he thought a little common sense, observation, and plain
matter of fact, would often either throw light upon or amend many
obscure passages of poets; for that even those of most name either made
egregious blunders, or they were made for them. I could not deny that
truth, Eusebius, and yet he wasn't a man to grant any thing to, if you
could help it; but I saw there was something rich to come, so I
encouraged him; and this remark of his, Eusebius, reminded me of a
misery occasioned in the mind of a very sensitive and reverend poet, who
preached weekly to a very particular congregation, by the printer's
devil mistaking an erasure for a hyphen, which gave to his sonnet a most
improper expression. It made him miserable then, and will ever give him
a twinge lest he should have suffered in reputation. He has so much
reason to be happy now, that to remind him of it, should he happen to
read this, is only to make his happiness the greater, by somewhat
reducing its quality; as the very atmosphere must be tempered for man's
use and health, by somewhat of a noxious ingredient. But I must return
to your friend. His cheeks seem ready to burst with common sense, and
polished with ruddy conceit. "Do you remember," said I, "any particular
passage upon which your observations will bear?" "Why," said he, "there
was one in that paper which first struck me as utter nonsense; but a
little alteration easily sets it to rights. There was a quotation from
Milton: I wasn't very well acquainted with his poems, but I have read
since, with much trouble to understand it, that whole scene and passage;
it is in a play of his called 'Comus;'--and, by the by, all that part of
the prose in the letter relating to the seashore and its treasures, is
all stuff; all the roads about the country are made and mended with
those pebbles--they are worth nothing. What Milton is supposed to have
said, when they wrote down for him, that the billows of the Severn "roll
ashore"--"the beryl and the golden ore"--never could have been written
by any one who knew the Severn. A beryl is a clear crystal, isn't it?
and if the billows should roll one ashore in the muddy Severn, I should
like to know who could find it! There are no billows but from the
Bristol Channel, and that's mud all the way, miles and miles up;--pretty
shores for a beryl to be _rolled_ on. Besides, now, what man of common
sense would talk of rolling a bit of a thing, not half so big as a
nutmeg, and that upon mud, in which it would sink like a bullet? _He_
would have said 'washed ashore;' but I'll tell you what it was: I
understand Milton was blind, and his daughters wrote what he dictated:
they say, too, he had a good deal of knowledge of things, and, without
doubt, knew very well the trade of the Bristol Channel, and from the
Severn into the Avon; and certainly meant '_barrel_ and the golden ore,'
and this word suggested the precious ornament which most women like to
think of, and as she, his daughter, minced it in her own mouth, a beryl
dropped from her pen. Now, only consider what was the great trade in
those parts; the West India and the African trade were both at their
height, and didn't one bring _barrels_ of sugar, and the other gold
dust--what can be clearer? There you see how proper the word _rolling_
is, for you must have often seen them rolling their _barrels_ from their
ships upon planks, and so on their quays; and the golden ore speaks for
itself, as plain as can be, gold dust; and there you have a reading that
agrees with fact. I don't exactly know _when_ Milton wrote; but I dare
say it was at the very time of that notorious merchandize; and don't you
think, sir, that the next edition of Milton ought to have this
alteration? I do. I forgot to say that the gold dust came over in little
barrels too; for no man in his senses would have thought of rolling or
washing dust ashore, excepting in a keg or barrel, and so it was, I make
no doubt."
I perfectly assented to every thing he said, Eusebius, by which happy
concession on my part, having no food for an obstinate discussion, he
soon withdrew. I sat awhile thinking, and now write to you. At least
make a marginal note in your Milton of this criticism; and when
posterity shall discover it, and forget that _Comus_ was written when
Milton was a young man, and had no daughters to write for him, then it
will be adopted, and admired as a specimen of the critical acumen of the
great and learned Eusebius.
It reminds me to tell you, that being the other day at the sea-side, and
wanting a Horace, I borrowed one from a student of Cambridge. It was a
Paris edition. I never should have dreamed of seeing an expurgated or
emasculated edition from French quarters; but so it was. I looked for
that beautiful little piece, the quarrel between Lydia and Horace. It
was not there.
"Donec gratus eram tibi,
Nec quisquam potior brachia candide
Cervici juvenis dabat."
I suppose the offence lay in these lines, which appear no worse than
that old song, (the lovers' quarrel too,)
"I've kiss'd and I've prattled with fifty fair maids."
An American lady must not be shocked with the word _leg_, and we are
told they put flounces upon those pedestals of pianofortes; but that a
lover throwing his arms around his mistress's neck should offend a
Frenchman, is an outrageous prudery from a very unexpected quarter. We
can imagine a scholar tutored to this affected purity, who should escape
from it, and plunge into the opposite immoralities of our modern French
novels, like him
"Qui frigidus Ætnam
Insiluit."
"Plunged cold into Ætnean fires."
There were many emendations, most of which I forget; but I could not
help laughing at an absurdity in the following ode:--
"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus."
The word _puellis_ is altered to _choreis_, which nevertheless, as a
mark of absurdity, ought to be supposed to contain the _puellis_; for to
say,
"I lately lived for dances fit,"
surely implies that the sayer had some one to dance with; or is there
any dancing sect of men in France so devoted to celibacy that they will
only dance with each other? We are certainly improved in this country,
where it should seem that once a not unsimilar practice was compulsory
upon the benchers, as will be seen from the following quotation from
_The Revels at Lincoln's Inn_:--
"The exercise of dancing was thought necessary, and much conducing to
the making of gentlemen, more fit for their books at other times; for by
an order (_ex Registro Hosp. sine._ vol. 71, 438 C) made 6th February, 7
Jac., it appears that the under barristers were, by decimation, put out
of Commons for example sake, because the whole bar offended by not
dancing on Candlemas-day preceding, according to the ancient order of
this Society, when the judges were present; with this, that if the like
fault was committed afterwards, they should be fined or disbarred."--(D,
_Revels at Lincoln's Inn_, p. 15.) Eusebius, you would go on a
pilgrimage, with unboiled peas, to Pump Court or more favourable
locality, for these little "brief authorities."
"To see how like are courts of law to fairs,
The dancing barristers to dancing bears;
Both suck their paws indulgent to their griefs,
These lacking provender, those lacking briefs."
Shame to him who does not agree with our own delightful Robert Burns, of
glorious memory, who "dearly lo'ed the lasses O!" So only "Let the merry
dance go round."
And now, as the dancers are off the stage, and it is the more proper
time for gravity and decorum, I feel that irresistible desire to be as
wicked as possible--a desire which I have heard you say tormented you in
your childhood; for, whenever you were admonished to be remarkably good,
you were invariably remarkably bad. So I yield to the temptation, and
voluntarily, and with "malice prepense" throw myself into the wickedness
of translating (somewhat modernizing I own) the "Tabooed" ode, in
defiance of, and purposely to offend, the Parisian, or other editor or
editors, who shall ever show themselves such incomparable ninnies as to
omit that or any other ode of Horace. Accept the following.
"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus."
CARMEN, 26, lib. iii.
For maiden's love I once was fit,
But now those fields of warfare quit,
With all my boast, content to sit
In easy-chair;
And here lay by (a lover's lances)
All poems, novels, and romances.
Ah! well a-day! such idle fancies
I well might spare.
There--on that shelf, behind the door,--
By all those works of Hannah More
And Bishop Porteus--Let a score
Of lectures guard them;
Take Bulwer, Moore, and Sand, and Sue,
The Mysteries, and the Wandering Jew;
May he who gives to all their due,
The Deil, reward them.
And Venus, if thou hast, as whilom,
For parted lovers an asylum,
To punish or to reconcile 'em,
Take Chloe to it;
And lift, if thou hast heart of flint,
Thy lash, and her fair skin imprint--
But ah! forbear--or, take the hint,
And let me do it.
Not a word, Eusebius, I know what you are going to say,--no shame at
all. You have all your life acquitted Horace; and if he never intended
Chloe to have a whipping, you may be quite sure the little turn that I
have ventured to give the affair, won't bear that construction; and
there will be no occasion to ask the dimensions of the rod, as the
ladies at the assize-town did of Judge Buller, requesting of him, with
their compliments, to send them the measure of his thumb.
Why should I not attempt this rejected ode? Here goes for the honour of
Lydia. "Kiss and be friends" be ever the motto to lovers' quarrels.
_"Donec gratus eram tibi."_
HORACE.
When I was all in all to you,
Nor yet more favour'd youthful minion
His arms around your fair neck threw;
Not Persia's boasted monarch knew
More bless'd a state, more large dominion.
LYDIA.
And whilst you loved but only me,
Nor then _your_ Lydia stood the second,
And Chloe first, in love's degree;
I thought myself a queen to be,
Nor greater Roman Ilia reckon'd.
HORACE.
Now Cretan Chloe rules me quite;
Skill'd in the lyre and every measure,
For whom I'd die this very night,
If but the Fates, in death's despite,
Would Chloe spare, my soul's best treasure.
LYDIA.
Me Caläis, Ornytus' young heir!
(The flame is mutual _we_ discover,)
For whom to die _two_ deaths I'd dare,
If the stern Fates would only spare,
And _he could_ live, my youthful lover.
HORACE.
What--if our former love restore
Our bonds, too firm for aught to sever,--
I shake off Chloe; and the door
To Lydia open flies once more;
Returning Lydia, and for ever.
LYDIA.
He, though a beauteous star--you light
As cork, and rough as stormy weather,
That vexes Adria's raging might,
With you to live were my delight,
And willing should we die together.
So this is the offending ode! Was the proposition to be constant not
quite agreeable to the French editor? Or was he in Horace's probable
condition, getting a little up in years? See you, it is a youthful
rival, Juvenis, who troubles him. And Lydia takes care to throw in this
ingredient, the "sweet age." He is not _old_ Ornytus--a hint of
comparison with Horace himself--but his son; indeed, he is hardly
Juvenis, for she soon calls him her dear boy, as much as to say, "_You_
are old enough to be his father!" She carries out this idea, too,
seeming to say, "You may love Chloe--I dare say you do; but, does Chloe
love you? Whereas _our_ passion is mutual."
Our poet, delightful and wise as he generally is, was not wise to match
his wit against that of a woman, and an offended beauty. How miserably
he comes off in every encounter! He would die, forsooth! once--she would
die twice over! There is a hit in his very liver! And as to the
survivorship of Chloe, that she suggests, considering their ages, might
be very natural--but she doubts if her youth _could_ survive should
_she_ die; though she even came to life again, a second time to die, it
would be of no use. What could the foolish poet do after that?
Nothing--but make up the quarrel in the best way he might. He drops his
ears, is a little sulky still--most men are so in these affairs--seldom
generous in love. To pretend to be so is only to encroach on woman's
sweet and noble prerogative, and to assume her great virtue. No man
could keep it up long; he would naturally fall into his virile sulks. So
Horace does not at once open his arms that his Lydia may fall into
them--but stands hesitatingly, rather foolish, his hands behind him, and
puts forward the supposition _If_--that graceless peace-maker. Lydia, on
the contrary--all love, all generosity, is in his arms at once; for he
must at the moment bring them forward, whether he will for love or no,
or Lydia would fall. It is now she looks into his very eyes, and only
playfully, as quizzing his jealousy, reminds him of her Caläis, her star
of beauty; thus sweetly reproving and as sweetly forgiving the temper of
her Horace--for he is her Horace still--and who can wonder at that? She
will bear with all--will live, will die with him. I look, Eusebius, upon
this ode as a real consolation to your lovers of an ambiguous and
querulous age. Seeing what we are daily becoming, it is a comfort to
think that, should such untoward persons make themselves disagreeable to
all else of human kind, there will be, nevertheless, to each, one
confiding loving creature, to put them in conceit with themselves, and
make them, notwithstanding their many perversities, believe that they
are unoffending male angels, and die in the bewildering fancy that they
are still loveable.
I have little more to say, but that, having been lately in a versifying
mood, I have set to rhyme your story of the cook and the lottery ticket;
and herein I have avoided that malicious propensity of our numerous
tellers of stories, whose only pleasure, as it appears to me, lies in
the plunging the heroes and heroines of their tales into inextricable
troubles and difficulties, and in continuing them in a state of
perplexity beyond the power of human sufferance; and who slur over their
unexpected, and generally ill-contrived escape, as a matter of small
importance; and with an envy of human happiness, like the fiend who sat
scowling on the bliss of Eden, either leave them with sinister
intentions, or absolutely drive them out of the Paradise which they have
so lately prepared for them.
I have lately been reading a very interesting, well conceived in many
respects, and pathetic novel, which, nevertheless, errs in this; and I
even think the pathos is injured by the last page, which is too painful
for _tenderness_, which appears the object of the able author. A
monumental effigy is but the mockery of all life's doings, which are
thus, with their sorrows and their joys, rendered nugatory; and all that
we have been reading, and are interested about, is unnecessarily
presented to us as dust and ashes. Such is the tale of Mount Sorrel.
Perhaps, too, I might say of this, and of other novels of the same kind,
that there is in them an unhealthy egotism; a Byronism of personal
feelings; an ingenious invention of labyrinth meandering into the mazes
of the mind and of the affections, in which there is always
bewilderment, and the escape is rather lucky than foreseen. Such was not
the mode adopted heretofore by more vigorous writers, who preferred
exhibiting the passions by action, and a few simple touches, which came
at once to the heart, without the necessity of unravelling the mismazes
of their course. If Achilles had made a long speech in Elysium about his
feelings, and attempted to describe them, when his question, if his son
excelled in glory, was happily answered, we should have thought less of
him for his egotism, and had much less perfect knowledge of the real
man's heart and soul. Homer simply tells us, that he walked away, with
great strides, greatly rejoicing. I can remember, at this moment, but
one tale in which this style of descriptive searchings into the feelings
is altogether justifiable--Godwin's "_Caleb Williams_;" for there the
ever instant terror, varying by the natural activity and ingenuity of
the mind, which, upon the one pressing point, feverishly hurries into
new, and all possible channels of thought, requires this pervading
absolutism. It is the Erynnis of a bygone creed, in a renovated form of
persecuting fatalism, brought to sport with the daily incidents and
characters of modern life.
I do not wish to be tempted by this course of thought into lengthened
criticism; which I should not have touched upon, had I not thought it
proper to tell you that I have added a conclusion to your tale. Ever
wishing a continuation of the happiness of two human beings, beyond that
location in the story, where most spiteful authors leave them, the
Church door.
* * * * *
I have been reading, too, over again two of Sir Walter Scott's novels,
"Guy Mannering" and "Ivanhoe." How different they are, both in design
and execution! The former, in all respects perfect--the latter, in
design common-place, and but little enlarged from the old ballad tales
of Robin Hood, and histories of the Crusaders; very slovenly in diction,
and lengthened out by tiresome repetitions; the same things being told
in protracted dialogues which had been previously narrated in the
historic course. Then there are very ill-timed interruptions, and
wearisome disquisitions, just where they should not be. Yet are there
passages of perfect excellence, that prove the master-hand of the
author. The novel of "Ivanhoe" seems to resemble some of those plays
which, though doubtful, are called Shakspeare's, because it is evident
that the master-hand has passed over them, and left touches both of
thought and character which justify the position which they enjoy.
Rebecca is all in all. The other characters somewhat fail to interest.
Ivanhoe himself says but little, and is in fact not much developed. We
are disgusted, and unnecessarily, at every turn with Athelstane--there
was no occasion for making him this degraded glutton. It seems a clumsy
contrivance to break off his marriage with Rowena; and surely the boast
of his eating propensities, when he shows himself to his astonished
mourners escaped from the death and tomb prepared for him, is unnatural,
and throws a contempt and ridicule over the whole scene. Richard and
Robin Hood (or Locksley) are not characters of Sir Walter's
creation--Richard is, we may suppose, truly portrayed. My friend S----,
Eusebius, who, while I was suffering under influenza, read these novels
out to me, was offended at a little passage towards the end, where the
author steps out of the action of his dramatic piece, to tell you that
King Richard did not live to fulfil the benevolent promises he had a
line or two before been making; and I entirely agree with S----, and
felt the unseemly and untimely intelligence as he read it. This would
scarcely be justifiable in a note, but in the body of the work it shocks
as a plague-spot on the complexion of health. This practice, too common
in novelists, especially the "historical," becoming their own marplots,
deserves censure. To borrow from another art, it is like marring a
composition, by an uncomfortable line or two running out of the picture,
and destroying the completeness. I know not if that fine scene, perhaps
the most masterly in Ivanhoe, has ever been painted, where, after the
defeat of De Bois-Guilbert, and after that Richard had broken in upon
the court, the Grand Master draws off in the repose of stern submission
his haughty Knights Templars. The slow procession finely contrasts with
the taunting violence of Richard; and what a background is offered to
the painter--the variously moved multitude, the rescued Rebecca, and the
dead (though scarcely defeated) Templar!
Sir Walter, although an antiquarian, was not perhaps aware that he was
somewhat out in his chronology in connecting Robin Hood and his men with
Richard the First. It is made very clear in an able essay in the
_Westminster Review_, that Robin Hood's name and fame did not commence
till after the defeat of Simon de Montfort in the battle of Evesham. In
fact, Robin Hood was more of a political outlaw--one of the outlawed,
after that defeat, than a mere sylvan robber. Sir Walter Scott has taken
advantage of the general belief, gathered from many of our old ballads,
in an intercourse between Robin Hood and England's king. But according
to the oldest of the ballads, (or rather poems, for it is too long for a
ballad, and composed of many parts,) _The Lyttel Geste of Robin Hood_,
this king of England was Edward the First; so that the existence of the
"bold outlaw" is antedated by the author of _Ivanhoe_ upwards of seventy
years. This, however, does not affect the story, excepting to those who
entertain the fond fancy, that when they read an historical novel they
read history.[1] Do you wonder, Eusebius, at my chronological learning?
You well may; it must appear to you a very unexpected commodity. The
truth is, my attention has been directed to this very matter by my
antiquarian friend M'Gutch of Worcester, who not only pointed out to me
the essay in the _Westminster_, but, finding my curiosity excited, sent
me many of the ballads, Robin Hood's garlands, and _The Lyttel Geste_,
together with an able introduction of his own to a new edition of the
collection he is about to produce, with which you will be delighted, and
learn all that is to be known; and it is more than you would expect to
meet with about this "gentle robber."
S----, to whom I read the foregoing remarks on _Ivanhoe_, said, I ought
to do penance for the criticism. I left the penance to his choice; and,
like a true friend, he imposed a pleasure; I do not say, Eusebius, that
if left to myself I should have been a Franciscan. He took up _Marmion_,
and read it from beginning to end. It is indeed a noble poem. Will not
the day come, when Sir Walter's poems will be more read than his novels,
good though they be?
In his poetry Scott always reminds me of Homer. There is the same energy
ever working to the one simple purpose--the same spontaneity and belief
in its own tale; and diversity of character for relief's sake is common
to both. In reading Homer we must discard all our school notions; we
began to read with difficulty; the task was a task, though it was true
we warmed in it--the thread was broken a thousand times; and we too
often pictured to ourselves the old bard in his gravity of beard and
age--not in that vigour, that freshness of manhood, which is conspicuous
in both poems, at whatever age they were composed.
I have had the curiosity, Eusebius, to enquire of very many real
scholars, who have professed to keep up their Greek after leaving the
universities, if they have re-read Homer in Greek, and almost all have
confessed that they had not. They read him in Pope and Cowper. Let them
read him offhand, and fluently, continuously, as they do _Marmion_, or
the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and I cannot but think they will be
struck with the Homeric resemblance in the poems of Sir Walter Scott.
Both great poets had, too, the same relish for natural scenery, the same
close observation; did we not pass over such passages lightly, we
should, I am persuaded, find in both the same nice discriminations in
characters of outward scenes, that we do in those of men. In both there
is the same kind of secret predominance of female character the same
delicacy, tenderness, (a wondrous thing in the age of Homer, or rather,
perhaps, showing we know nothing about that age, not even so much as we
do about those ages which we choose to call dark.) It must, however, be
noted, that Sir Walter Scott has limited himself to more confined
fields. There is not the same room for genius to work in--the production
is, therefore, in degree less varied, and less complete; but is there
not a likeness in kind? Is it too bold, is it merely fanciful, Eusebius,
to say, too, that there is a something not dissimilar in the measures
adopted by these ancient and modern poets. Homer possibly had no choice;
but in the hexameter there is the greatest versative power. How
different, for instance, are the first lines of the "Tale of Troy
Divine," and the more familiar adventures of Ulysses. The _ad libitum_
alternation of dactyl and spondee make the lively or the grave; and the
whole metrical glow is all life and action, without hitch or hindrance.
Our heroic measure is at once too long and too short--for, take the
cæsura as a division of the line, (and what is it if not that?) and the
latter part of the line is too short for any effective power--a fault
that does not exist in the Greek hexameter. Without the cæsura, or with
a very slight attention to it, the line is too long, and made tiresome
by the monotony which the necessary pause of the rhyme imposes. Besides,
how do we know, after all, that the Greeks did not read their one
hexameter like two lines, with a decided pause at the cæsura, with the
additional grace of the short syllable at its end often passing the
voice into the second part, or, as we may call it in the argument, the
second line? Try, Eusebius; read off a dozen lines any where in Homer
with this view, and tell me what you think of the _possible_ short
measure of Homer. It is true our measures are of the iambic character,
which Horace says is the fittest for action--and therefore, in the
Greek, the dramatic. The trimeter iambic is a foot longer than our
heroic measure. But then it has the double ictus; and, as the word
implies, is divisible into three parts, thus giving a quickness and
shortness where wanted. Take away, however, the first cæsura, rest only
on the second, (and then you have exactly one short measure, that of
"Marmion,") and how superfluous the last division of the trimeter
appears! as weak and ineffective as the latter part of our long measure,
if we read it as wanting the additional foot of the hexameter. For
example,
"[Greek: ô techna thô palou]"--
There is the measure of Scott--the Greek iambic, however, is lengthened
by two feet--[Greek: nea trophê]; so that to the Greek the three ictuses
(at least to English ears, accustomed to our short measure) are
necessary. That this short measure wants not power in any respect,
_Marmion_ alone sufficiently shows. I, however, wished only to show that
it had something of an Homeric character; and the facility with which
you can read the hexameter of Homer as two lines, you will, perhaps,
more than suspect, tends to confirm this opinion. I think, somewhere,
Sir Walter Scott recommends the translating Homer into short
measure--you forget, perhaps, my making the trial upon the two first
books of the Odyssey which I sent to you, and you returned, _condemned_;
although, to tell you the truth, I was not displeased with my attempt,
and expected your flattering commendation, and would even now deceive
myself into a belief that you were not prepared for the novelty. Admire
the candour that proclaims the failure. It is enough that Eusebius
admitted my other Homeric translations.
You will easily detect that this letter is written at intervals. I told
you what a kind reader I have found in S----, during my indulgence in
the luxurious indolence for which influenza apologizes, and a growing
convalescence renders a pleasing hypocrisy. He has been repeating, from
memory, some lines of his favourite Collins. I remembered them not. He
could not put his hand on an edition of Collins, but referred to the
"Elegant Extracts," and could not find his admired stanza. He remembered
reading it in "The Speaker." The lines are in the Ode to "Evening." In
the "Elegant Extracts" we have--
"Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams."
These lines are substituted for the better lines--
"Then lead, dear votress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow'd pile,
Or upland fallows grey
Reflect the last cool gleam."
Why should this beautiful stanza be lost? Is the substitute to be
compared with it? Ask the landscape painter! He will admire the one--he
will enjoy the other. Who substituted the one for the other? Did Collins
write both, and was dubious which should stand; or do you discover the
hand of an audacious emendator? Who would lose the sheety lake in which
nothing is reflected but evening's own sky, and the "upland fallows
grey," and the last _cool_ gleam!
Odious, odious politics! While I am writing, there is an interruption, a
sad interruption, to thoughts of poetry and snatches of criticism. It is
like a sudden nightmare upon pleasant and shifting dreams. Here are
three visitors new from reading Sir Robert Peel's speech. Two very
indignant--one a timid character--apologetic. What, cries one--a
statesman so egotistical and absolute in his vanity, as, at such a time
as the present, to throw the many interests of this great country into
peril, and some into sure difficulty, lest, as he himself confesses, he
should be thought to have borrowed on Lord John Russell? What business
has a statesman to think of himself at all? It is frightful, said
another. There are two astounding things--one, that a minister should
suddenly turn round upon the principles and the party who brought him
into power upon them, confessing he had been changing his opinion three
years, and yet last July he should have spoken against the measure
which, at the time of speaking, in his heart he favoured, and which he
now forces upon a reluctant Parliament; the other astounding thing is,
that a Parliament created to oppose this very measure, should show such
entire subserviency as to promise a large majority to the minister. May
we not expect one who so changes may suddenly some day join O'Connell
and grant Repeal? We are to be governed by a minister, not by King,
Lords, and Commons. The apologetic man urges expediency, public
(assumed) opinion--any thing for peace sake, and to get rid of
agitation. So, to avoid agitation, Eusebius, I scrambled up my papers
and this letter to you, and left the room; and now, in one more quiet,
resume my pen. With a mind not a little confused between politics,
poetry, and classical reminiscences, I, however, rested a while to give
scope to reflection; and meditation upon this "corn question," brought
to mind the practical advice of the tyrant of Syracuse to Periander, to
get rid of his aristocracy, which was shown by the action of cutting off
the heads of the grain that grew highest in the field. A tyranny was the
result, (not in the Greek sense of the word,) and it matters little
whence the tyranny comes. With this idea prevalent, I looked for a copy
of a Greek MS., taken from a palimpsest discovered in the Ambrosian
library, and sat down to translate it for you--you may have the Greek
when you like. In the meanwhile, be content with the following version
of the apologue, and be not too critical.
THE STORY OF PERIANDER.
"When Periander had now reigned some years at Corinth, the Tyrant of
Syracuse sent thither an ambassador, a man of great penetration, to
enquire how the maxims of government, in which he had instructed him,
had answered.
"The ambassador found Periander in the midst of his courtiers. After
receiving him in such manner as it became him to receive a messenger
from so excellent a friend, from whom he had obtained the best advice,
and after hearing the object of his embassy:--'See,' said Periander, 'to
what degree I have prospered. These gentlemen,' pointing to his
courtiers, 'have been telling me that my people, and the universal
opinion of mankind, enrol me one of the seven wise men of Greece.'
"'Indeed!!!' quoth the ambassador; 'that will delight the king, my
master, exceedingly; who will, without doubt, enquire if I have seen
with my own eyes the happiness of a people who are so fortunate, and are
possessed of so sound a judgment. As yet, I have seen none but those who
immediately conducted me hither.'
"'We will take a short circuit,' said Periander, 'and these gentlemen
shall accompany us, and we shall see if what they report be true,'
looking a little suspiciously at his courtiers, as if to say, 'I verily
think you are but flattering knaves.'
"As they passed through the great hall, the officers of state, and the
officers of the household, shouted, 'There are but seven wise men, and
Periander is the wisest.'
"Periander, the ambassador, and the courtiers, soon left the vestibule,
and found themselves in the streets of Corinth. Not a citizen was to be
seen. On, and on they went--and still no one was in sight. 'Your
majesty's subjects are somewhat more scarce than they were wont to be,'
said the ambassador of Syracuse. Periander bit his lips. On, and on they
went--and still no one was to be seen--till, turning the corner of
another street, they saw, for an instant only, the backs of a few
people, who suddenly disappeared into their houses, and a fierce dog
flew out upon them, barking furiously, and would have bitten Periander
by the leg had he not been rescued by the ambassador.
"'Am I to tell my lord the King of Syracuse,' said the ambassador, 'that
I have seen one class of your majesty's subjects, and heard their
opinion?' Periander knit his brows, and looked daggers at his courtiers.
"They went on a little further, when a laden ass, whose owner had fled,
stood directly in their way. The ass put out his ugly head and brayed in
the very face of Periander.
"'Do I hear,' said the ambassador, 'the voice of another class of your
majesty's subjects?'
"Periander now could not forbear smiling, as he struck the ass, who
kicked at him as he beat him out of the path.
"Well! they went on still a little further, and had now reached the
suburbs, where they met a boy driving a flock of geese and goslings into
a pond. The boy, as all the rest had done, fled.
"But the big gander, as they approached, waddled up with extended wings
to Periander, and hissed at him.
"'The voice of your people,' said the ambassador, 'is indeed unanimous.'
"'At least,' said Periander, 'I will show my wisdom here, by roasting
that fellow and eating him for supper.' Whereupon one of his courtiers,
who, in matters of this kind take slight hints for mandates, ran the
poor gander through the body; and Periander, in reward he said for so
brave an action, bade him throw the creature round his neck[2] as a
trophy, and carry him home for supper.
"But by this time the old goose, too, fearing for her goslings, came
furiously upon Periander, and flapping and beating him with her wings,
put him into a sad straight. On this occasion one of his courtiers came
to his rescue, and he escaped; and seeing what a ridiculous figure he
made, leaned against a wall, and burst into an immoderate fit of
laughter.
"'It is enough,' said the ambassador from the Tyrant of Syracuse; 'I am
now enabled to inform the king, my master, of the character, manners,
and perfect felicity of your majesty's people, from my own observation.
That they are of three classes. The first are dogs, the second are
asses, and the third are geese; only I perceive that the geese are the
more numerous.'
"They returned to the palace, but did not enter by the great vestibule,
as Periander made use of a key for a private entrance, which led him
into the interior of the building, at the end of the great hall.
Hereupon, the officers of state, and the officers of the household who
stood near the vestibule, waiting their return, seeing Periander, the
ambassador, and the courtiers at the other end, hastened towards them,
shouting as before--'There are but seven wise men, and Periander is the
wisest.' Periander ordered them to be beaten with stripes; then,
retiring into his private apartment with the ambassador, he conversed
freely with him, and dismissed him with many and large presents.
"The ambassador returned to Syracuse, and was immediately ordered into
the royal presence, where he narrated, amidst the laughter of the
courtiers, and of the Tyrant himself, the whole affair as it had
happened. When the laughter had a little subsided, the king said, 'Let
it be written in a book, how one of the seven wise men had wellnigh been
beaten by a goose, who certainly had been too much for him, had not
another come to the rescue. Truly a goose is a foolish bird, too much
for one, but not enough for two.'"
* * * * *
N.B.--Hence it will be seen that this saying is of more antiquity than
is generally believed, and has no relation to modern gluttony, and was
in fact a saying of the Tyrant of Syracuse, when he heard the story told
by his ambassador. This story, which will be Greek to many, will,
perhaps, be no Greek at all to you. In that case go yourself to the
Ambrosian library; or, in criticising what I may send, you may be as
unfortunate as the great scholar who unconsciously questioned the Greek
of Pindar. But, both for the moral and Greek, I will but add--
"Verbum sat sapienti."
Dear Eusebius, ever yours,
----.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: It is a dangerous thing to touch upon chronology. It is
said of the great Duke of Marlborough, that in a conversation respecting
the first introduction of cannon, he quoted Shakspeare to prove that it
was in the reign of John.
"O prudent discipline from north to south,
Austria and France _shoot_ in each other's mouth."
Yes, said his adversary, but you quote Shakspeare, not history.]
[Footnote 2: Is it possible that Coleridge may have seen this apologue
when he wrote his "Ancient Mariner," and introduced a similar incident
of the albatross?]
THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA.
Part VI.
A la lid, nacionales valientes!
Al combate á la gloria volad!
Guerra y muerte á tiranos y esclavos,
Guerra y despues habra paz!
_Himno de Valladolíd._
It still wanted an hour of daybreak, on the 16th day of July 1835, when
the stillness, that during the previous four or five hours had reigned
undisturbed in the quiet streets of Artajona, was broken by the clang of
the _diana_. But a few notes of the call had issued from the brazen
throats of bugle and trumpet, when a notable change took place in the
appearance of the town. Lights, of which previously only a solitary one
had here and there proceeded from the window of a guard-room, or of some
early-rising orderly-sergeant, now glimmered in every casement; the
streets were still empty, save of the trumpeters, who stood at the
corners, puffing manfully at their instruments; but on all sides was
audible a hum like that of a gigantic bee-hive, mingled with a slight
clashing of arms, and with the neighing of numerous horses, who, as well
as their masters, had heard and recognized the well-known sounds. Two or
three minutes elapsed, and then doors were thrown open, and the deserted
streets began to assume a more lively appearance. Non-commissioned
officers, their squad-rolls in their hands, took their station in front
of the houses where their men were billeted; in the stables, dragoons
lighted greasy iron lamps, and, suspending them against the wall,
commenced cleaning and saddling their horses; the shutters of the
various wine-houses were taken down, and drowsy, nightcapped
_taberneros_ busied themselves in distributing to innumerable applicants
the tiny glassful of _anisado_, which, during the whole twenty-four
hours, is generally the sole spirituous indulgence permitted himself by
the sober Spanish soldier. A few more minutes passed; the _revéille_ had
ceased to sound, and on the principal square of the town a strong
military band played, with exquisite skill and unison, the beautiful and
warlike air of the hymn of Valladolid.
"A la lid, nacionales valientes!
Al combate, á la gloria volad!"
"To the strife, brave nationals; to the strife, and to glory!" sang many
a soldier, the martial words of the song recalled to his memory by the
soul-stirring melody, as, buckling on sabre or shouldering musket, he
hurried to the appointed parade. The houses and stables were now fast
emptying, and the streets full. The monotonous "_Uno, dos_," of the
infantry, as they told off, was drowned in the noise of the horses' feet
and the jingle of accoutrements of the cavalry-men clattering out of
their stables. By the light of a few dingy lanterns, and of the stronger
illumination proceeding from the windows, whole battalions were seen
assembled, resting on their arms, and presently they began to move out
of the town. Outside of Artajona, the right wing of the army, under
command of General Gurrea, formed up, and marched away in the direction
of Mendigorria.
The sun had but just risen when this division, after driving in the
Carlist cavalry pickets, which had been pushed up to within half a
league of Artajona, halted and took position to the right of the
high-road between that town and Mendigorria. The ground thus occupied is
level, and opposite to nearly the centre of a line of low hills, which,
after running for some distance parallel to the Arga, recedes at either
extremity, thus forming the flattened arc of a circle, of which the
river is the chord. Between the hills, which are inconsiderable and of
gradual slope, and the river, runs the high-road from Puente de la Reyna
to Larraga; and in rear of their more southerly portion, known as La
Corona, opposite to the place where the road from Artajona passes
through a dip or break in their continuity, are the town and bridge of
Mendigorria. Upon these hills the Carlists, who had passed the night in
the last-named town, now formed themselves, their main body upon the
eastern slope, their reserves upon the western or reverse side. They
were still bringing their masses into position, when the Christino right
came upon the ground, and for awhile, although the distance between the
hostile forces was not great, no shot was fired on either side. By and
by, however, the dark figures of the Carlist guerillas were seen racing
down the hills, the Christino skirmishers advanced to meet them, and
soon a sharp irregular fire of musketry, and the cloud of smoke which
spread over the middle ground between the armies, announced that the
fight, or at least the prelude to it, had begun. This desultory sort of
contest was of short duration. Several Carlist battalions moved forward,
a gallant attack was made on the Christino position, and as gallantly
repelled: commanded by a brave and skilful officer, and favoured by a
judicious choice of ground, the Queen's troops, although opposed to
vastly superior numbers, and without their cavalry, which had remained
with the reserve, repulsed repeated assaults, and held their own without
serious loss, until, towards ten o'clock, the heads of columns of the
centre of the army, under the commander-in-chief himself, made their
appearance from the direction of Artajona. Almost at the same time, the
left wing, with Espartero at its head, arrived from Larraga, where it
had slept. Some little manoeuvring took place, and then the whole
Christino army appeared formed up, Cordova on either side of the
high-road, Espartero on his left, nearer to the Arga, Gurrea on his
right. By a rather singular arrangement, the whole force of cavalry,
under General Lopez, was left in reserve, considerably in rear of the
left wing, and at a full mile and a half from the centre; with the
exception of one squadron, which, as well as his habitual escort, had
accompanied General Cordova. That squadron was commanded by Luis
Herrera.
A stranger who, on the morning referred to, should, for the first time,
have walked through the ranks of the Carlist army, would have found much
that was curious and interesting to note. The whole disposable military
force of what the Christinos called the Faction, was there assembled,
and a motley crew it appeared. Had stout hearts and strong arms been as
rare in their ranks as uniformity of garb and equipment, the struggle
would hardly have been prolonged for four years after the date we write
of. But it would be difficult to find in any part of Europe, perhaps of
the world, men of more hardy frame, and better calculated to make good
soldiers, than those composing many of the Carlist battalions. Amongst
them the Navarrese and Guipuzcoans were pre-eminent; sinewy,
broad-chested, narrow-flanked fellows, of prodigious activity and
capacity for enduring fatigue. The Guipuzcoans especially, in their
short grey frocks and red trousers, their necks bare, the shirt-collar
turned back over their shoulders, with their bronzed faces and wiry
mustaches, leathern belts, containing cartridges, buckled tightly round
their waists, and long bright-barrelled muskets in their hands, were the
very _beau-idéal_ of grenadiers. Beside these, the Biscayans and some of
the Castilians, undersized and unsoldierly-looking, showed to much
disadvantage. Other battalions were composed in great part of Christino
prisoners, who, having had the choice given them between death and
service under Don Carlos, had chosen the latter, but who now seemed to
have little stomach for a fight against their former friends. The whole
of the Carlist cavalry, even then not very numerous, was also there. The
grim-visaged priest Merino, ever the stanchest partisan of absolutism,
bestrode his famous black horse, and headed a body of lancers as fierce
and wild-looking as himself; Pascual Real, the dashing major of
Ferdinand's guard, who in former days, when he took his afternoon ride
in the Madrid prado, drew all eyes upon him by the elegance of his
horsemanship, marshalled the Alavese hussars; and, in a third place,
some squadrons of Navarrese, who had left the fat pastures of the valley
of Echauri to be present at the expected fight, were ranged under the
orders of the young and gallant Manolin.
But whoever had the opportunity of observing the Carlist army on that
day and a month previously, saw a mighty difference in the spirit
pervading it. He who had been its soul, whose prestige gave confidence
to the soldier, and whose acknowledged superiority of talent prevented
rivalry amongst the chiefs, was now no more; his death had been followed
by a reverse, the only really serious one the Carlists had yet
encountered, and dissension was already springing up amongst the
followers of the Pretender. Intrigue was at work, rival interests were
brought into play; there was no longer amongst the officers that unity
of purpose which alone could have given the cause a chance of success;
nor amongst the men that unbounded confidence in their leader, which on
so many occasions had rendered them invincible. The spring of '35 had
been a season of triumph for the Carlists; the summer was to be one of
disasters.
Subsequent events sufficiently proved that Cordova was not the man to
command an army. Diplomacy was his forte; and he might also, as a
general, claim some merit for combinations in the cabinet. It was during
his command that the plan was formed for enclosing the Carlists within
certain fortified limits, in hopes that they would exhaust the resources
of the country, and with a view to preserve other provinces from the
contagion of Carlism.[3] Great credit was given him for this scheme,
which was carried out after many severe fights, and at great expense of
life; but neither of the advantages expected from it was ever realized.
In the field, Cordova was not efficient; he lacked resource and
promptitude; and the command of a division was the very utmost to which
his military talents entitled him to aspire. As before mentioned,
however, his confidence and pretensions were unbounded, his partisans
numerous, and the event of this day's fight was such as greatly to
increase the former, and raise the admiration of the latter.
It was eleven o'clock before the two armies were drawn up opposite to
each other in order of battle, and even then neither party seemed
inclined immediately to assume the offensive. Clouds of skirmishers were
thrown out along the whole line, bodies of troops advanced to support
them, the artillery began to thunder, but still a fight was for a short
time avoided, and, like wary chess-players at the commencement of a
game, the two generals contented themselves with manoeuvres.
Presently, however, from the Carlist centre a column of cavalry
advanced, and forming front, charged a regiment of the royal guard, the
foremost of Cordova's division. The guards were broken, and suffered
considerably; those who escaped the sabres and lances of the horsemen
being driven back, some to the centre and some upon the left wing. The
cavalry seemed, for a moment, disposed to push their advantage; but the
steady fire with which they were received by several squares of
infantry, thinned their ranks, and, in their turn, they retreated in
disorder. They had scarcely rejoined the main body when the advance was
sounded along the whole Christino line, and the army moved forward to a
general charge. At first the Carlists stood firm, and opened a
tremendous fire upon the advancing line, but the gaps that it caused
were speedily filled up; the Christinos poured in one deadly volley,
gave a fierce cheer, and rushed on with the bayonet. The Carlists
wavered, their whole army staggered to and fro; first companies, then
battalions disbanded themselves, and pressed in confusion to the rear,
and at last the entire line gave way; and the numerous host, seized with
a panic, commenced a hasty and tumultuous retreat. The reserves on the
opposite side of the hill were broken by the stream of fugitives that
came pouring down upon them; the cavalry, who endeavoured to make a
stand, were thrown into disorder, and pushed out of their ranks in the
same manner. In vain did the Carlist officers exert themselves to
restore order--imploring, threatening, even cutting at the soldiers with
their swords. Here and there a battalion or two were prevailed upon to
turn against the foe; but such isolated efforts could do little to
restore the fortune of the day. The triumphant tide of the Christinos
rolled ever forwards; the plunging fire of their artillery carried
destruction into the ranks of the discomfited Carlists; the rattling
volleys of small-arms, the clash of bayonets, the exulting shouts of the
victors, the cries of anguish of the wounded, mingled in deafening
discord. Amidst this confusion, a whole battalion of Carlists, the third
of Castile, formed originally of Christino prisoners, finding
themselves about to be charged by a battalion of the guard, reversed
their muskets, and shouting "Viva Isabel!" ranged themselves under the
banners to which they had formerly belonged, taking with them as
prisoners such of their officers as did not choose to follow their
example. Generals Villareal and Sagastibelza, two of the bravest and
most respected of the Carlist leaders, were severely wounded whilst
striving to restore order, and inspire their broken troops with fresh
courage. Many other officers of rank fell dead upon the field while
similarly engaged; the panic was universal, and the day irretrievably
lost.
"The cavalry! the cavalry!" exclaimed a young man, who now pressed
forward into the _mêlée_. He wore a long, loose civilian's coat, a small
oilskin-covered forage cap, and had for his sole military insignia an
embroidered sword-belt, sustaining the gilt scabbard of the sabre that
flashed in his hand. His countenance was pale and rather sickly-looking,
his complexion fairer than is usual amongst Spaniards; a large silk
cravat was rolled round his neck, and reached nearly to his ears,
concealing, it was said, the ravages of disease. His charger was of
surpassing beauty; a plumed and glittering staff rode around him; behind
came a numerous escort.
"The cavalry! the cavalry!" repeated Cordova, for he it was. "Where is
Lopez and the cavalry?"
But, save his own escort and Herrera's squadron, no cavalry was
forthcoming. Lopez remained unpardonably inactive, for want of orders,
as he afterwards said; but, under the circumstances, this was hardly an
extenuation. The position of the Carlists had been, in the first
instance, from the nature of the ground, scarcely attackable by horse,
at least with any prospect of advantage; but now the want of that arm
was great and obvious. Cordova's conduct in leaving his squadrons so far
in the rear, seems, at any rate, inexplicable. It was by unaccountable
blunders of this sort, that he and others of the Christino generals drew
upon themselves imputations of lukewarmness, and even of treachery.
An aide-de-camp galloped up to Herrera, whose squadron had been
stationed with the reserve of the centre. His horse, an
Isabella-coloured Andalusian, with silver mane and tail, of the kind
called in Spain _Perla_, was soaked with sweat and grey with foam. The
rider was a very young man, with large fiery black eyes, thin and
martially-expressive features, and a small mustache shading his upper
lip. He was a marquis, of one of the noblest families in Spain. He
seemed half mad with excitement.
"Forward with your squadron!" shouted he, as soon as he came within
earshot. The word was welcome to Herrera.
"Left wheel! forward! gallop!"
And, with the aide-de-camp at his side, he led his squadron along the
road to Mendigorria, which intersects the hills whence the Carlists were
now being driven. They had nearly reached the level ground on the other
side, when they came in sight of several companies of infantry, who made
a desperate stand. Their colonel, a Navarrese of almost gigantic
stature--his sword, which had been broken in the middle, clutched firmly
in his hand, his face streaming with blood from a slash across the
forehead, his left arm hanging by his side, disabled by a severe
wound--stood in front of his men, who had just repulsed the attack of
some Christino infantry. On perceiving the cavalry, however, they showed
symptoms of wavering.
"Steady!" roared the colonel, knitting his bleeding brow. "The first man
who moves dies by my hand!"
In spite of the menace, two or three men ventured to steal away, and
endeavoured to leave the road unobserved. The colonel sprang like a
tiger upon one of them.
"_Cobarde! muera!_" cried the frantic Carlist, cleaving the offender to
the eyes with the fragment of his sword. The terrible example had its
effect; the men stood firm for a moment, and opened a well-aimed fire on
the advancing cavalry.
"_Jesus Cristo!_" exclaimed the young aide-de-camp. Herrera looked at
him. His features were convulsed with pain. One more name which he
uttered--it was that of a woman--reached Herrera's ears, and then he
fell from his saddle to the earth; and the dragoons, unable to turn
aside, trampled him under foot. There was no time for reflection.
"Forward! forward!" was the cry, and the horsemen entered the smoke. On
the right of the Carlists, in front, stood their dauntless colonel,
waving his broken sabre, and shouting defiance. Firm as a rock he
awaited the cavalry. Struck by his gallantry, Herrera wished to spare
his life.
"_Rinde te!_" he cried; "yield!"
"_Jode te!_" was the coarse but energetic reply of the Carlist, as he
dealt a blow which Herrera with difficulty parried. At the same moment a
lance-thrust overthrew him. There were a few shouts of rage, a few cries
for mercy; here and there a bayonet grated against a sabre, but there
was scarcely a check in the speed; such of the infantry as stood to
receive the charge were ridden over, and Herrera and his squadron swept
onwards towards the bridge of Mendigorria.
Now it was that the Carlists felt the consequences of that enormous
blunder in the choice of a position, which, either through ignorance or
over confidence, their generals had committed. With the Arga flowing
immediately in their rear, not only was there no chance of rallying
them, but their retreat was greatly embarrassed. One portion of the
broken troops made for the bridge, and thronged over it in the wildest
confusion, choking up the avenue by their numbers; others rushed to the
fords higher up the stream, and dashing into the water, some of them,
ignorant of the shallow places, were drowned in the attempt to cross.
Had the Christino cavalry been on the field when the rout began, the
loss of the vanquished would have been prodigious; as it was, it was
very severe. The Christino soldiery, burning to revenge former defeats,
and having themselves suffered considerably at the commencement of the
fight, were eager in the pursuit, and gave little quarter. In less than
two hours from the beginning of the action, the country beyond the Arga
was covered with fugitives, flying for their lives towards the mountains
of Estella. Narrow were the escapes of many upon that day. Don Carlos
had been praying during the action in the church at Mendigorria; and so
sudden was the overthrow of his army, that he himself was at one time in
danger of being taken. A Christino officer, according to a story current
at the time, had come up with him, and actually stretched out his hand
to grasp his collar, when a bullet struck him from his saddle.
Dashing over the bridge, Herrera and his squadron spurred in pursuit.
Their horses were fresh, and they soon found themselves amongst the
foremost, when suddenly a body of cavalry, which, although retiring,
kept together and exerted itself to cover the retreat, faced about, and
showed a disposition to wait their arrival. The Carlists were superior
in numbers, but that Herrera neither saw nor cared for; and, rejoicing
at the prospect of opposition to overcome, he waved his sword and
cheered on his men. At exactly the same moment the hostile squadrons
entered the opposite sides of a large field, and thundered along to the
encounter, pounding the dry clods beneath their horses' hoofs, and
raising a cloud of dust through which the lance-points sparkled in the
sunlight, whilst above it the fierce excited features of the men were
dimly visible. Nearer they came, and nearer; a shout, a crash, one or
two shrill cries of anguish--a score of men and horses rolled upon the
ground, the others passed through each other's ranks, and then again
turning, commenced a furious hand-to-hand contest. The leader of the
Carlists, a dark-browed, powerful man, singled out Herrera for a fierce
attack. The fight, however, lasted but a few moments, and was yet
undecided when the Christino infantry came up. A few of the surviving
Carlists fled, but the majority, including their colonel, were
surrounded and made prisoners. They were sent to the rear with an
escort, and the chase was continued.
It was nightfall before the pursuit entirely ceased, and some hours
later before Herrera and his dragoons, who, in the flush of victory,
forgot fatigue, arrived at Puente de la Reyna, where, and at
Mendigorria, the Christino army took up their quarters. Sending the
squadron to their stables, Herrera, without giving himself the trouble
to demand a billet, repaired to an inn, where he was fortunate enough to
obtain a bed--no easy matter in the crowded state of the town. The day
had been so busy, that he had had little time to reflect further on the
intelligence brought by Paco, of whom he had heard nothing since the
morning. And now, so harassed and exhausted was he by the exertions and
excitement of the day, that even anxious thoughts were insufficient to
deprive him of the deep and refreshing slumber of which he stood in such
great need.
The morning sun shone brightly through the half-closed shutters of his
apartment, when Herrera was awakened by the entrance of Paco. In the
street without he heard a great noise and bustle; and, fearful of having
slept too long, he sprang from his bed and began hastily to dress.
Without saying a word, Paco threw open the window and beckoned to him.
He hastened to look out. In front of the inn was an open _plaza_, now
crowded with men and horses. A large body of troops were drawn up under
arms, officers were assembled in groups, discussing the victory of the
preceding day; and in the centre of the square, surrounded by a strong
guard, stood several hundred Carlist prisoners. On one side of these
were collected the captured horses both of men and officers, for the
most part just as they had been taken, saddled and bridled, and their
coats caked with dry sweat. Paco drew Herrera's attention to a man in
officer's uniform, who stood, with folded arms and surly dogged looks,
in the front rank of the prisoners. His eyes were fixed upon the ground,
and he only occasionally raised them to cast vindictive glances at a
party of officers of the Christino guards, who stood at a short distance
in his front, and who seemed to observe him with some curiosity.
"You see yonder colonel?" said Paco to Herrera. "Do you know him?"
"Not I," replied Herrera. "Yet, now I look again--yes. He is one of my
prisoners of yesterday. He commanded a body of cavalry which charged
us."
"Likely, likely," said Paco. "Do you know his name?"
"How should I?" answered Herrera.
"I will tell it you. It is Baltasar de Villabuena."
Herrera uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Impossible!" said he.
"Certain; I have seen him too often to mistake him."
Herrera made no reply. His hasty toilet finished, he bade Paco remain
where he was, and descended to the street. He approached the group of
guardsmen already mentioned.
"Your next move, gentlemen?" said he, after the usual salutation.
"To Pampeluna with the prisoners," was the reply. "A reconnoissance _en
force_ has gone out, but it may go far, I expect, before meeting with a
Carlist. They are completely broken, and at this moment I doubt if there
is one within a day's march."
"Yes," said another officer, "they are far enough off, if still running.
Caremba! what legs the fellows have! We caught a few, though, yesterday
afternoon, in spite of their powdering along. Old acquaintances, too,
some of them," he added.
"Indeed!" said Herrera.
"Yes; fellows who have served and marched side by side with us. Look
there, for instance; do you see that sullen, black-looking dog squinting
at us with such a friendly expression?"
"Who is he?" enquired Herrera.
"Baltasar de Villabuena, an old captain of our's before the war. He
resigned when Zumalacarregui took the field, and joined the Carlists,
and it seems they've made him a colonel. A surly, ill-conditioned cur he
always was, or we should not be standing here without a word of kindness
or consolation to offer him."
To the surprise of the guardsmen, Herrera, before the officer had done
speaking, walked up to the prisoner in question.
"Colonel Villabuena?" said he, slightly touching his cap.
"That is my name," replied the prisoner, sullenly.
"We met yesterday, I believe," said Herrera, with cold politeness. "If I
am not mistaken, you commanded the squadron which charged mine in the
early part of the retreat."
Baltasar nodded assent.
"Is your horse amongst those yonder?" continued Herrera.
"It is," replied Baltasar, who, without comprehending the drift of these
questions, began to entertain hopes that his rank and former comradeship
with many officers of the Christino army were about to obtain him an
indulgence rarely accorded, during that war, to prisoners of any
grade--the captured Carlists being looked upon by their adversaries
rather as rebels and malefactors than as prisoners of war, and treated
accordingly. He imagined that his horse was about to be restored to him,
and that he would be allowed to ride to Pampeluna.
"Yonder bay stallion," said he, "with a black sheepskin on the saddle,
is mine."
Herrera approached the officer commanding the guard over the prisoner,
spoke a few words to him, and returned to Baltasar.
"You will please to accompany me," said he.
Baltasar complied, and captive and captor advanced to the horses.
"This is mine," said Colonel Villabuena, laying his hand upon the neck
of a powerful bay charger.
Without saying another word, Herrera raised the sheepskin covering the
holsters, and withdrew from them a brace of pistols, which he carefully
examined. They were handsomely mounted, long-barrelled, with a small
smooth bore, and their buts were inlaid with a silver plate, upon which
a coronet and the initials E. de V. were engraved.
"These pistols, I presume, are also yours?"
"They are so," was the answer.
"You will observe, sir," continued Herrera, showing the pistols to the
officer on guard, who had followed him, "that I have taken these pistols
from the holsters of this officer, Colonel Baltasar de Villabuena, who
acknowledges them to be his. Look at them well; you may have to
recognise them on a future day. I shall forthwith explain to the
general-in-chief my motives for taking possession of them."
The officer received the pistols, examined them carefully, and returned
them to Herrera. Baltasar looked on with a perplexed and uneasy air.
Just then the brigadier, who was to command the column proceeding to
Pampeluna, rode into the plaza. The drums beat, and the troops stood to
their arms.
"Return to your place," said Herrera, sternly, to the prisoner. "We
shall shortly meet again."
And whilst Baltasar, alike disappointed and astonished at the strange
conduct of the Christino officer, resumed his place in the captive
ranks, Herrera betook himself to the quarters of the commander-in-chief.
This time Torres made no difficulty about introducing his friend into
the general's apartment. Cordova was lying at length upon a sofa in a
large cool room, a cigar in his mouth, a quantity of despatches on a
table beside him, two or three aides-de-camp and secretaries writing in
an adjoining chamber. He received Herrera kindly, complimented him on
his conduct in the preceding day's fight, and informed him that
particular mention had been made of him in his despatch to Madrid. After
an interview of some duration, Herrera left the house, with leave of
absence for a fortnight, signed by Cordova himself, in his pocket.
Proceeding to the barracks, he made over the squadron to his second in
command; and then mounting his horse, attended by Paco, and followed by
half a dozen dragoons, he took the road to the Ebro.
In a street of Logroño, not far from the entrance of the town, stands
one of those substantial and antiquated dwellings, remnants of the
middle ages, which are of no unfrequent occurrence in Spain, and whose
massive construction seems to promise as many more centuries of
existence as they have already seen. It is the property, and at times
the abode, of the nobleman whose arms are displayed, elaborately carved
on stone, above the wide portal--a nobleman belonging to that section of
the Spanish aristocracy, who, putting aside old prejudices, willingly
adhered to the more liberal and enlightened order of things to which
the death of Ferdinand was the prelude. In a lofty and spacious
apartment of this mansion, and on the evening of the first day after
that of Herrera's departure from Puente de la Reyna, we find Count
Villabuena reclining in an easy-chair, and busied with thoughts, which,
it might be read upon his countenance, were of other than a pleasant
character. Since last we saw him, full of life and strength, and still
active and adventurous as a young man, encountering fatigues and dangers
in the service of his so-called sovereign, a great and sad change had
taken place in the Count, and one scarcely less marked in his hopes and
feelings. The wound received by him in the plains of Alava, although
severe and highly dangerous, had not proved mortal; and when Herrera
sought his body with the intention of doing the last mournful honours to
the protector of his youth, and father of his beloved Rita, he
perceived, to his extreme joy, that life had not entirely fled. On a
litter, hastily and rudely constructed of boughs, the Count was conveyed
to Vittoria, where he no sooner arrived, than by the anxious care of
Herrera, half the surgeons in the town were summoned to his couch. For
some days his life was in imminent peril; but at last natural strength
of constitution, and previous habits of temperance, triumphed over the
wound, and over the conclave of Sangrados who had undertaken his case.
The Count recovered, gradually it is true, and without a prospect of
ever regaining his former firm health; but still, to Herrera's great
delight, and owing in a great measure to the care he lavished upon him,
his life was at last pronounced entirely out of danger.
Upon arriving at Vittoria with his sorely wounded friend, duty had
compelled Herrera to report his capture; but although the prisoner was
considered a most important one, his state was so hopeless, that Luis
had little difficulty in obtaining permission to become his sole jailer,
pledging himself to reproduce him in case he should recover. When the
Count got better, and became aware of his position, he insisted upon
Herrera's informing the authorities of his convalescence, and of his
readiness to proceed to any place of confinement they might appoint.
Herrera's high character and noble qualities had made him many friends,
some of them persons of influence, and he now successfully exerted
himself to obtain a favour which was probably never before or afterwards
conceded to a prisoner during the whole course of that war. Count
Villabuena was allowed his parole, and was moreover told, that on
pledging himself to retire to France, and to take no further share,
direct or indirect, in the Carlist rebellion, he should obtain his
release. One other condition was annexed to this. Two colonels of the
Queen's army, who were detained prisoners by the Carlists, were to be
given up in exchange for his liberty.
When these terms, so unexpectedly favourable, were communicated to the
Count, he lost no time in addressing a letter to Don Carlos, informing
him of his position, and requesting him to fulfil that portion of the
conditions depending on him, by liberating the Christino officers. With
shattered health, he could not hope, he said, again to render his
Majesty services worth the naming; his prayers would ever be for his
success, but they were all he should be able to offer, even did an
unconditional release permit him to rejoin his sovereign. In the same
letter he implored Don Carlos to watch over the safety of his daughter,
and cause her to be conducted to France under secure escort. This letter
dispatched, by the medium of a flag of truce, the Count sought and
obtained permission to remove to the town of Logroño, where an old
friend, the Marquis of Mendava, had offered him an asylum till his fate
should be decided upon.
Long and anxiously did the Count await a reply to his letter, but weeks
passed without his receiving it. Three days before the battle of
Mendigorria, the Christino army passed through Logroño on its way
northwards, and the Count had the pleasure of a brief visit from
Herrera. A few hours after the troops had again marched away, a courier
arrived from Vittoria, bringing the much wished-for answer. It was cold
and laconic, written by one of the ministers of Don Carlos. Regret was
expressed for the Count's misfortune, but that regret was apparently not
sufficiently poignant to induce the liberation of two important
prisoners, in order that a like favour might be extended to one who
could no longer be of service to the Carlist cause.
Although enveloped in the verbiage and complimentary phrases which the
Spanish language so abundantly supplies, the real meaning of the
despatch was evident enough to Count Villabuena. Courted when he could
be of use, he was now, like a worthless fruit from which pulp and juice
had been expressed, thrown aside and neglected. It was a bitter pang to
his generous heart to meet such ingratitude from the prince whom he had
so much loved, and for whose sake he had made enormous sacrifices. To
add to his grief, the only answer to his request concerning his daughter
was a single line, informing him that she had left Segura several weeks
previously, and that her place of abode was unknown.
Depressed and heartsick, the Count lay back in his chair, shading his
eyes with his hand, and musing painfully on the events of the preceding
two years. His estates confiscated, his health destroyed, separated from
his only surviving child, and her fate unknown to him, himself a
prisoner--such were the results of his blind devotion to a worthless
prince and a falling principle. Great, indeed, was the change which
physical and mental suffering had wrought in the Conde de Villabuena.
His form was bowed and emaciated, his cheek had lost its healthful
tinge; his hair, in which, but a short three months previously, only a
few silver threads were perceptible, telling of the decline of life
rather than of its decay, now fell in grey locks around his sunken
temples. For himself individually, the Count grieved not; he had done
what he deemed his duty, and his conscience was at rest; but he mourned
the ingratitude of his king and party, and, above all, his heart bled at
the thought of his daughter, abandoned friendless and helpless amongst
strangers. The news of the preceding day's battle had reached him, but
he took small interest in it; he foresaw that many more such fights
would be fought, and countless lives be sacrificed, before peace would
revisit his unhappy and distracted country.
From these gloomy reflections Count Villabuena was roused by the sudden
opening of his door. The next instant his hand was clasped in that of
Luis Herrera, who, hot with riding, dusty and travel-stained, gazed
anxiously on the pale, careworn countenance of his old and venerable
friend. On beholding Luis, a beam of pleasure lighted up the features of
the Count.
"You at least are safe!" was his first exclamation. "Thank Heaven for
that! I should indeed be forlorn if aught happened to you."
There was an accent of unusually deep melancholy in the Count's voice
which struck Herrera, and caused him for an instant to imagine that he
had already received intelligence of his cousin's treachery, and of
Rita's captivity. Convinced, however, by a moment's reflection, that it
was impossible, he dreaded some new misfortune.
"You are dejected, sir," he said. "What has again occurred to grieve
you?--The reverse sustained by your friends"--
"No, no," interrupted the Count, with a bitter smile--"not so. My
friends, as you call them, seem little desirous of my poor sympathy.
Luis, read this."
As he spoke, he held out the letter received from the secretary of Don
Carlos.
"It was wisely said," continued the Count, when Herrera had finished its
perusal, "'put not your trust in princes.' Thus am I rewarded for
devotion and sacrifices. Hearken to me, Luis. It matters little,
perhaps, whether I wear out the short remnant of my days in captivity or
in exile; but my daughter, my pure, my beautiful Rita, what will become
of her--alas! what has become of her? My soul is racked with anxiety on
her account, and I curse the folly and imprudence that led me to
re-enter this devoted land. My child--my poor child--can I forgive
myself for perilling your defenceless innocence in this accursed war!"
His nerves unstrung by illness, and overcome by his great affliction,
the usually stern and unbending Villabuena bowed his head upon his
hands and sobbed aloud. Inexpressibly touched by this outburst of grief
in one to whose nature such weakness was so foreign, Herrera did his
utmost to console and tranquillize his friend. The paroxysm was short,
and the Count regained his former composure. Although dreading the
effect of the communication, Herrera felt it absolutely necessary to
impart at once the news brought by Paco. He proceeded accordingly in the
task, and as cautiously as possible, softening the more painful parts,
suggesting hopes which he himself could not feel, and speaking
cheeringly of the probability of an early rescue. The Count bore the
communication as one who could better sustain certain affliction than
killing suspense.
"Something I know," said he, when Herrera paused, "of the convent you
mention, and still more of its abbess. Carmen de Forcadell was long
celebrated, both at Madrid and in her native Andalusia, for her beauty
and intrigues. Her husband was assassinated by one of her lovers, as
some said, and within three years of his death, repenting, it was
believed, of her dissolute life, she took the veil. Once, I know,
Baltasar was her reputed lover; but whatever may now be his influence
over her, I cannot think she would allow my daughter to be ill treated
whilst within her walls. No, Herrera, the danger is, lest the villain
may remove my Rita, and place her where no shield may stand between her
and his purposes."
"Do not fear it," replied Herrera, in his turn reassured by the Count's
moderation. "Your cousin was taken in the action of the 16th, and is now
a prisoner at Pampeluna."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the Count, his face brightening with satisfaction.
"It is good news, indeed."
"Better than you even think, perhaps. You have preserved the ball that
was extracted from your wound?"
"I have," replied the Count, "at your request. What of it?"
"So long," said Herrera, "as no advantage could be gained from my
communication, I would not shock you with a statement that even now will
cause you serious pain. You remember, sir, that at the time of receiving
your wound you were at a very short distance from me, and that your
cousin was at a still less one from you, in your rear. As you advanced
towards the intervening stream, my eyes, conducted by chance, or
something better, fixed on your cousin, who at the moment drew a pistol
from his holster. You were but a few paces from him, when I saw him
deliberately--I could not be mistaken--deliberately vary his aim from
myself to you. The pistol was fired--you fell from your horse, struck by
his hand. You seem surprised. The deed was as inexplicable to me until
from your own lips I heard who the officer was--that there had been
serious disagreement between you--and that his temper was violent, and
character bad. Coupled with what my own eyes saw, the bullet itself, far
too small for a carbine ball, convinced me that it had proceeded from a
pistol. Instinctively, rather than from any anticipation of its being
hereafter useful, I requested you to preserve the ball, and to-day an
extraordinary chance enables me to verify my suspicions. Let the bullet
be now produced."
Astounded by what he heard, but still incredulous, the Count summoned
his attendant.
"Bring me the bullet that I bade you keep," said the Count.
"And desire my orderly," added Herrera, "to bring me the brace of
pistols he will find in my valise."
In a few moments both commands were obeyed. The bullet was of very small
calibre, and, not having encountered any bone, had preserved its
rotundity without even an indentation.
"Do you recognize these pistols?" said Herrera, showing the Count those
which he had taken from Baltasar's holsters. "This coronet and initials
proclaim them to have been once your own."
"They were so," replied the Count, taking one of them in his hand--"a
present to my cousin soon after he joined us. I remember them well; he
carried them on the day that I was wounded."
"Behold!" said Herrera, who placed the bullet in the muzzle of the
pistol, into the barrel of which it slid, fitting there exactly.
Shocked and confounded by this proof of his kinsman's villany, the Count
dropped the other pistol and remained sad and silent.
"You doubt no longer?" said Herrera.
"May it not have been accident?" said the Count, almost imploringly. "No
Villabuena could commit so base and atrocious a crime."
"None but he," said Herrera. "I watched him as he took his aim, not
twenty paces from you. With half a doubt, I would have bitten my tongue
from my mouth before an accusation should have passed it against the man
in whose favour indeed I have no cause to be prejudiced. Count
Villabuena, the shot was fired with intent. For that I pledge my honour
and salvation."
There was a pause.
"But my daughter," said the Count; "you forget her, Luis. She must be
rescued. How does this fiend's imprisonment render that rescue easier?"
"Thus," replied Herrera. "Yesterday I had an interview with Cordova, and
told him every thing; the abduction of Rita, and Baltasar's attempt on
your life. Of the latter I engaged to furnish ample proofs. Cordova, as
I expected, was indignant, and would have shot the offender had I
consented to the act. Upon reflection, however, he himself saw
reasonable objections to a measure so opposed to the existing treaty for
exchange of prisoners, and feared retaliation from the enemy. After some
discussion it was agreed that the proof of Baltasar's attempt upon your
life should be submitted, and, if found satisfactory, that the prisoner
should be placed at my disposal. In that event his liberty, nay, his
life, must depend upon his consenting, unreservedly, to write to the
convent, to desire the abbess to set Rita at liberty, and to provide for
her safe conduct into France. Until then, Baltasar, by the general's
order, remains in solitary confinement at Pampeluna."
"Good," said the Count approvingly.
"I had a threefold object in coming hither," continued Herrera. "To
obtain proof of Baltasar's guilt, to comfort you with the hopes of
Rita's safety, and to take you with me to Pampeluna. Baltasar of course
believes you dead; he will the more readily abandon his designs when he
finds that you still live."
"Rightly reasoned," said the Count. "Why should we now delay another
instant? Your news, Herrera, has made me young and strong again."
"We will set out to-morrow," said Herrera. "A column of troops march at
daybreak for Pampeluna, and we can avail ourselves of their escort."
His hopes revived and energies restored by the intelligence Luis had
brought, the Count would have preferred starting without a moment's
delay; but Herrera, although not less impatient, insisted on waiting
till the next day. Although the principal force of the Carlists had been
driven back into Western Navarre, the road to Pampeluna was not safe
without a strong escort, and Herrera himself had incurred no small risk
in traversing it as he had done, with only half a dozen dragoons. Count
Villabuena yielded to his representations, and the following morning
witnessed their departure.
Three days' marching brought the Count and Herrera to Pampeluna, whither
Cordova and his victorious army had preceded them. Count Villabuena had
reckoned too much upon his lately recovered strength; and, although the
marches had not been long, he reached Pampeluna in a very exhausted
state. It was evening when they arrived, and so crowded was the town
with troops that they had some difficulty in obtaining quarters, which
they at last found in the house of one of the principal tradesmen of the
place. Leaving the Count to repose from his fatigues, Herrera went to
visit Cordova, whom he informed of the positive certainty he had now
obtained of Baltasar's culpability. The proofs of it might certainly, in
a court of law, have been found insufficient, but Cordova took a
military view of the case; his confidence in Herrera was great, his
opinion of Baltasar, whom he had known in the service of Ferdinand, very
bad; and finally, the valid arguments adduced by Luis left him no moral
doubt of the prisoner's guilt. He gave the necessary orders for the
admission of Herrera and Count Villabuena into the prison. The next
day, however, the Count was still so fatigued and unwell from the
effects of his journey, that it was found necessary to call in a
physician, who forbade his leaving the house. The Count's impatience,
and the pressing nature of the matter in hand, would have led him to
disregard the prohibition, and at once proceed to the prison, which was
at the other extremity of the town, had not Herrera, to conciliate his
friend's health with the necessity for prompt measures, proposed to have
the prisoner brought to him. An order to that effect was readily granted
by Cordova, and, under proper escort, Don Baltasar was conducted to the
Count's quarters.
It would be erroneous to suppose, that, during the late war in Spain,
adherents of Don Carlos were only to be found in the districts in which
his standard was openly raised. In many or most of the towns best
affected to the liberal cause, devoted partisans of the Pretender
continued to reside, conforming to the established order of things, and
therefore unmolested. In most instances their private opinions were
suspected, in some actually known; but a few of them were so skilful in
concealing their political bias and partialities, as to pass for steady
and conscientious favourers of the Queen's government. Here was one and
no unimportant cause of the prolongation of the war; the number of spies
thus harboured in the very heart of the Christino camp and councils. By
these men intelligence was conveyed to the Carlists, projected
enterprises were revealed, desertion amongst the soldiery and
disaffection amongst the people, stimulated and promoted. Many of these
secretly-working agents were priests, but there was scarcely a class of
the population, from the nobleman to the peasant, and including both
sexes, in which they were not to be found. Innumerable were the plans
traversed by their unseen and rarely detectable influence. On many a
dark night, when the band of Zurbano, El Mochuelo, or some other
adventurous leader, issued noiselessly from the gates of a town, opened
expressly for their egress, to accomplish the surprise of distant post
or detachment, a light in some lofty window, of no suspicious appearance
to the observer uninformed of its meaning, served as a beacon to the
Carlists, and told them that danger was abroad. The Christinos returned
empty-handed and disappointed from their fruitless expedition, cursing
the treachery which, although they could not prove it, they were well
assured was the cause of their failure.
One of the most active, but, at the same time, of the least suspected,
of these subtle agents, was a certain Basilio Lopez, cloth-merchant in
the city of Pampeluna. He was a man past the middle age, well to do in
the world, married and with a family, and certainly, to all appearance,
the last person to make or meddle in political intrigues of any kind,
especially in such as might, by any possibility, peril his neck. Whoever
had seen him, in his soberly cut coat, with his smooth-shaven, sleek,
demure countenance and moderately rotund belly, leaning on the half-door
of his Almacen de Paños, and witnessed his bland smile as he stepped
aside to give admission to a customer or gossip, would have deemed the
utmost extent of his plottings to be, how he should get his cloths a
real cheaper or sell them at a real more than their market value. There
was no speculation, it seemed, in that dull placid countenance, save
what related to ells of cloth and steady money-getting. Beyond his
business, a well-seasoned _puchero_ and an evening game at loto, might
have been supposed to fill up the waking hours and complete the
occupations of the worthy cloth-dealer. His large, low-roofed, and
somewhat gloomy shop was, like himself, of respectable and business-like
aspect, as were also the two pale-faced, elderly clerks who busied
themselves amongst innumerable rolls of cloth, the produce of French and
Segovian looms. Above the shop was his dwelling-house, a strange,
old-fashioned, many-roomed building, with immensely thick walls, long,
winding corridors, ending and beginning with short flights of steps,
apartments panneled with dark worm-eaten wood, lofty ceilings, and queer
quaintly-carved balconies. It was a section of a line of building
forming half the side of a street, and which, in days of yore, had been
a convent of monks. Its former inmates, as the story went, had been any
thing but ascetics in their practices, and at last so high ran the
scandal of their evil doings, that they were fain to leave Pampeluna and
establish themselves in another house of their order, south of the Ebro.
Some time afterwards the convent had been subdivided into
dwelling-houses, and one of these had for many years past been in the
occupation of Basilio the cloth-merchant. Inside and out the houses
retained much of their old conventual aspect, the only alterations that
had been made consisting in the erection of partition walls, the opening
of a few additional doors and windows, and the addition of balconies.
One of the latter was well known to the younger portion of the officers
in garrison at Pampeluna; for there, when the season permitted, the two
pretty, black-eyed daughters of Master Basilio were wont to sit, plying
their needles with a diligence which did not prevent their sometimes
casting a furtive glance into the street, and acknowledging the
salutation of some passing acquaintance or military admirer of their
graces and perfections.
In this house was it that Herrera and the Count had obtained quarters,
and thither, early upon the morrow of their arrival at Pampeluna,
Baltasar was conducted. The passage through the streets of a Carlist
prisoner, whose uniform denoted him to be of rank, had attracted a
little crowd of children and of the idlers ever to be found in Spanish
towns; and some of these loitered in front of the house after its door
had closed behind Baltasar and his escort. The entrance of the prisoner
did not pass unnoticed by Basilio Lopez, who was at his favourite post
at the shop-door. His placid physiognomy testified no surprise at the
appearance of such unusual visitors; and no one, uninterested in
observing him, would have noticed that, as Baltasar passed him, the
cloth-merchant managed to catch his eye, and made a very slight, almost
an imperceptible sign. It was detected by Baltasar, and served to
complete his perplexity, which had already been raised to a high pitch
by the different circumstances that had occurred during his brief
captivity. He had first been puzzled by Herrera's conduct at Puente de
la Reyna; the importance attached by the Christino officer to the
possession and identification of his pistols was unaccountable to him,
never dreaming of its real motive. Then he could not understand why he
was placed in a separate prison, and treated more as a criminal than as
a prisoner of war, instead of sharing the captivity and usage of his
brother officers. And now, to his further bewilderment, he was conducted
to a dwelling-house, before entering which, a man, entirely unknown to
him, made him one of the slight but significant signs by which the
adherents of Don Carlos were wont to recognise each other. He had not
yet recovered from this last surprise, when he was ushered into a room
where three persons were assembled. One of these was an aide-de-camp of
Cordova, Herrera was another, and in the third, to his unutterable
astonishment and consternation, Baltasar recognized Count Villabuena.
There was a moment's silence, during which the cousins gazed at each
other; the Count sternly and reproachfully, Baltasar with dilated
eyeballs and all the symptoms of one who mistrusts the evidence of his
senses. But Baltasar was too old an offender, too hardened in crime and
obdurate in character, to be long accessible to emotion of any kind. His
intense selfishness caused his own interests and safety to be ever
uppermost in his thoughts, and the first momentary shock over, he
regained his presence of mind, and was ready to act his part. Affecting
extreme delight, he advanced with extended hand towards the Count.
"Dare I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed. "A joyful surprise, indeed,
cousin."
"Silence, sir!" sternly interrupted the Count. "Dissimulation will not
serve you. You are unmasked--your crimes known. Repent, and, if
possible, atone them."
Baltasar recoiled with well-feigned astonishment.
"My crimes!" he indignantly repeated. "What is this, Count? Who accuses
me--and of what?"
Without replying, Count Villabuena looked at Herrera, who approached the
door and pronounced a name, at which Baltasar, in spite of his
self-command, started and grew pale. Paco entered the apartment.
"Here," said the Count, "is one witness of your villany."
"And here, another," said Herrera, lifting a handkerchief from the table
and exhibiting Baltasar's pistols.
The Carlist colonel staggered back as if he had received a blow. All
that he had found inexplicable in the events of the last few days was
now explained; he saw that he was entrapped, and that his offences were
brought home to him. With a look of deadly hate at Herrera and the
Count, he folded his arms and stood doggedly silent.
In few words Herrera now informed Baltasar of the power vested in him by
Cordova, and stated the condition on which he might yet escape the
punishment of his crimes. These, however, Baltasar obstinately persisted
in denying; nor were any threats sufficient to extort confession, or to
prevail with him to write the desired letter to the abbess. Assuming the
high tone of injured innocence, he scoffed at the evidence brought
against him, and swore solemnly and deliberately that he was ignorant of
Rita's captivity. Paco, he said, as a deserter, was undeserving of
credit, and had forged an absurd tale in hopes of reward. As to the
pistols, nothing was easier than to cast a bullet to fit them, and he
vehemently accused Herrera of having fabricated the account of his
firing at his cousin. A violent and passionate discussion ensued, highly
agitating to the Conde in his then weak and feverish state. Finding, at
length, that all Herrera's menaces had no effect on Baltasar's sullen
obstinacy, Count Villabuena, his heart wrung by suspense and anxiety,
condescended to entreaty, and strove to touch some chord of good
feeling, if, indeed, any still existed, in the bosom of his unworthy
kinsman.
"Hear me, Baltasar," he said; "I would fain think the best I can of you.
Let us waive the attempt on my life; no more shall be said of it. Gladly
will I persuade myself that we have been mistaken; that my wound was the
result of a chance shot either from you or your followers. Irregularly
armed, one of them may have had pistols of the same calibre as yours.
But my daughter, my dear poor Rita! Restore her, Baltasar, and let all
be forgotten. On that condition you have Herrera's word and mine that
you shall be the very first prisoner exchanged. Oh, Baltasar, do not
drive to despair an old man, broken-hearted already! Think of days gone
by, never to return; of your childhood, when
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