TWO:Sir Hercules Langrishe " " 45,000This report was published in the Moniteur on the morning of Monday, July 26th. On the same day, and in the same paper, appeared the famous Ordonnances, signed by the king, and countersigned by his Ministers. By the first the liberty of the press was abolished, and thenceforth no journal could be published without the authority of the Government. By the second the Chamber of Deputies, which was to meet in the ensuing month, was dissolved. By the third a new scheme of election was introduced, which destroyed the franchise of three-fourths of the electors, and reduced the number of deputies to little more than one half. Thus the whole Constitution was swept away by a stroke of the royal pen. As soon as these Ordonnances became generally known throughout the city the people were thrown into a state of violent agitation. The editors and proprietors of twelve journals assembled, and having resolved that the Ordonnances were illegal, they determined to publish their papers on the following day. A statement of their case, signed by thirty-eight persons, was published in the Nationale. They said: "In the situation in which we are placed, obedience ceases to be a duty. We are dispensed from obeying. We resist the Government in what concerns ourselves. It is for France to determine how far her resistance ought to extend." In pursuance of this announcement the journalists were preparing to issue their papers when the police entered the offices and began to scatter the type and break the presses. In some of the offices the workmen resisted, and the locks of the doors had to be picked; but no smith could be got to do the work except one whose business it was to rivet the manacles on galley slaves. There was a meeting of the electors of Paris, who quickly decided upon a plan of operations. Deputations were appointed to wait on the manufacturers, printers, builders, and other extensive employers, requesting them to discharge their workpeople, which was done, and on the 27th 50,000 men were assembled in different parts of the town, in groups, crying, "Vive la Charte!" About thirty deputies, who had arrived in town, met at the house of M. Casimir Perier, and resolved to encourage the rising of the people. The troops were under arms; and it is stated that without any provocation from the people except their cries, the military began to sabre the unarmed multitude. The first shot seems to have been fired out of a house, by an Englishman, named Foulkes, who was fired on by the military, and killed. Alarming reports spread through the city that the blood of the people was being wantonly shed, and that women were not spared. The black flag was raised in various quarters, ominous of the desperate nature of the struggle. The night of the 27th was spent in preparation. The shops of the armourers were visited, and the citizens armed themselves with all sorts of weaponspistols, sabres, bayonets, etc. In every street men were employed digging up the pavements, and carrying stones to the tops of the houses, or piling them behind the barricades, which were being constructed of omnibuses and fiacres at successive distances of about fifty paces. The fine trees of the Boulevards were cut down and used for the same purpose. The garrison of Paris was commanded by General Marmont. It consisted altogether of 11,500 men. At daybreak on the 28th the citizens were nearly ready for battle. Early in the morning national guards were seen hastening to the H?tel de Ville, amidst the cheers of the people. Parties of cavalry galloped up and down, and occasionally a horseman, shot from a window, fell back out of his saddle. At ten o'clock Marmont formed six columns of attack, preceded by cannon, which were to concentrate round the H?tel de Ville. The insurgents retired before the artillery, and the troops, abandoning the open places, took shelter in the houses and behind barriers. In the meantime a desperate fight raged at the H?tel de Ville, which was taken possession of, and bravely defended by the National Guard. Their fire from the top of the building was unceasing, while the artillery thundered below. It was taken and retaken several times. It appears that hitherto the Government had no idea of the nature of the contest. The journals had proclaimed open war. They declared that the social contract being torn, they were bound and authorised to use every possible mode of resistance, and that between right and violence the struggle could not be protracted. This was on the 26th; but at four o'clock p.m., on the 27th, the troops had received no orders; and when they were called out of barracks shortly after, many officers were absent, not having been apprised that any duty whatever was expected. The night offered[317] leisure to arrange and opportunity to execute all necessary precautions. The circumstances were urgent, the danger obvious and imminent; yet nothing at all was done. The contest lasted for three days with varying fortunes. Twice the palace of the Tuileries was taken and abandoned; but on the third day the citizens were finally victorious, and the tricoloured flag was placed on the central pavilion. Marmont, seeing that all was lost, withdrew his troops; and on the afternoon of the 29th Paris was left entirely at the command of the triumphant population. The National Guard was organised, and General Lafayette, "the veteran of patriotic revolutions," took the command. Notwithstanding the severity of the fighting, the casualties were not very great. About 700 citizens lost their lives, and about 2,000 were wounded. It was stated that the troops were encouraged to fight by a lavish distribution of money, about a million francs having been distributed amongst them, for the purpose of stimulating their loyalty. The deputies met on the 31st, and resolved to invite Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to be lieutenant-general of the kingdom. He accepted the office, and issued a proclamation which stated that the Charter would thenceforth be a truth. The Chambers were opened on the 3rd of August; 200 deputies were present; the galleries were crowded with peers, general officers of the old army, the diplomatic body, and other distinguished persons. The duke, in his opening speech, dwelt upon the violations of the Charter, and stated that he was attached by conviction to the principles of free government. At a subsequent meeting the Chamber conferred upon him the title of the King of the French. He took the oath to observe the Charter, which had been revised in several particulars. On the 17th of August Charles X. arrived in England; and by a curious coincidence there was a meeting that day in the London Tavern, at which an address to the citizens of Paris, written by Dr. Bowring, congratulating them on the Revolution of July, was unanimously adopted. Meetings of a similar kind were held in many of the cities and towns of the United Kingdom. Feelings of delight and admiration pervaded the public mind in Britain; delight that the cause of constitutional freedom had so signally triumphed, and admiration of the heroism of the citizens, and the order and self-control with which they conducted themselves in the hour of victory. Thus ended the Revolution of July, 1830. It was short and decisive, but it had been the finale of a long struggle. The battle had been fought in courts and chambers by constitutional lawyers and patriotic orators. It had been fought with the pen in newspapers, pamphlets, songs, plays, poems, novels, histories. It had been fought with the pencil in caricatures of all sorts. It was the triumph of public opinion over military despotism. To commemorate the three days of July it was determined to erect a column on the Place de la Bastille, which was completed in 1840.
FORE:Melville was now permitted by the House of Peers to go down to the House of Commons, notwithstanding their conclusion on the subject, to make his defence, and he made a very long speech, contending that he had not embezzled a farthing of the public money, and exalting his services to the country, especially in his India administration. But on the head of Secret Service Money he was as close as the grave. He declared that "if he had disclosed any of these transactions he should have felt himself guilty not only of a breach of public duty, but of a most unwarrantable breach of private honour." There were twenty thousand pounds which he never did, and never could, account for on this ground, and there were forty thousand pounds drawn at once by Pitt from the Navy Fund. He said he knew very well for what purposes these sums had been paid, but that nothing would compel him to disclose it. When it was asked him whether Mr. Trotter had not kept large sums belonging to the Navy Fund in Coutts's Bank, and speculated with them to his own great enrichment, he admitted that Trotter had had such sums for considerable times in Coutts's Bank, but that they were always forthcoming when wanted, and that no single payment had been delayed on that account; and that out of the one hundred and thirty-four millions which had passed through his hands, nothing had been lost. He praised Trotter in the highest manner, but was silent as to the private use that he had so long, and to such advantage to himself, made of the public money. He admitted that he had himself held considerable sums of this money at different times in his own hands, but had repaid the whole before quitting[503] office, and this was all that the Act of 1785 required. He seemed to admit that he had paid money out of the Navy Fund for other than naval objects, and for these secret service purposes. Some of these were in Scotland, of which, also, he had the administration to a certain degree. And here the public called to mind that Watt, the spy and informer against the Scottish Reformers, had acknowledged to have been employed and paid by Dundas, so that it was clear whither some of the Navy Fund had gone. Melville entered into long explanations regarding a written release which had passed reciprocally between him and Trotter on winding up their affairs, in which they agreed to destroy all their vouchers for the sums paid away. This looked very black, but Melville contended that it was only a matter of coursea thing constantly done by officials in like circumstances, which, if true, made the matter all the worse for the country. But Melville contended that this clause in the release was merely a form; that it did not mean that they should literally destroy the vouchers, but only that they should be rendered invalid as evidence in any prosecution, which very little mended the matter. Melville declared that he had not, in consequence of the clause, destroyed a single paper.[65]
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FORE:The result of these victories was that the Punjab was annexed to our Indian Empire, the reasons for this step being explained by the Governor-General in a proclamation, which announced favourable terms for the conquered people. Henry Lawrence, as is well known, was against the annexation, but his arguments were overridden by the strenuous Governor-General, and he became chief of the Commission, with his brother John as a member, for the administration of the Punjab. Moolraj was subsequently tried for the murder of Mr. Agnew and Mr. Anderson, and being found guilty, he was sentenced to death. The sentence was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life.It was at this crisis, when Hastings was just recovering his authority in the Council, that the news arrived in India, and spread amongst the native chiefs, that in Yenghi Dunia, or the New World, the Company Sahibfor the East Indians could never separate the ideas of the East India Company and England itselfthere had been a great revolution, and the English driven out. This, as might be expected, wonderfully elated the native chiefs, and especially those in the south. There the French of Pondicherry and Chandernagore boasted of the destruction of the British power, and that it was by their own hands. Hastings, who was as able and far-seeing as he was unprincipled in carrying out his plans for the maintenance of the British dominion in India, immediately set himself to counteract the mischievous effects of these diligently-disseminated rumours, and of the cabals which the French excited. These were most to be feared amongst the vast and martial family of the Mahrattas. The Mahrattas had risen on the ruins of the great Mogul empire. They now extended their tribes over a vast space of India from Mysore to the Ganges. The Peishwa, as head of these nations, held his residence at Poonah. Besides his, there were the great houses of Holkar and Scindia; the Guicowar, who ruled in Guzerat; the Bonslah, or Rajah of Berar, a descendant of Sivaji. The Mahrattas were, for the most part, a rude, warlike race, rapacious and ambitious, and living in the most primitive style. To destroy the confidence of these fierce warriors in the French, Hastings gave immediate orders, on receiving the news of the proclamation of war in Europe, for the seizure of the French settlements. This was on the 7th of July, 1778; on the 10th he had taken Chandernagore, and ordered Sir Hector[329] Munro to invest Pondicherry. That was soon accomplished, and the only remaining possession of France, the small one of Mah, on the coast of Malabar, was seized the next spring.
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