CHAP. LXXXV. - - Gloomy aspect of affairs in Great Britain.—Meeting of parliament. Provision for the royal household. Bill for improving ecclesiastical courts. — Returns under the popu lation act. Measures for suppressing disturbances in the manufacturing districts. Currency act amended. — Renewal of the bill against the grant of offices in reversion.-Discussion respecting colonel Mahon.- Overture to lords Grey and Grenville. - Marquis of Wellesley resigns. — Assassination of Mr. Perceval.-Negociations for the formation of a new cabinet. - Conference of earl Moira with lords Grey and Grenville.-Lord' Liverpool prime minister.-Catholic affairs. Conditional revocation of the orders of council.-The United States declare war against Great Britain.- Budget. -Dissolution of parliament. Spanish campaign. - Lord Wellington takes Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.-His victory at Salamanca. Enters Madrid. - Marches to Burgos. Retires to the Portugueze frontier. - Events of the war with the United States. East Indies. Capture of Palembang. -Bonaparte's expedition to Russia.- Battle of Borodino.-Conflagration of Moscow. Retreat of the French.-Passage of the Beresina.- The Russians advance to Wilna.- Bonaparte escapes to Paris. LXXXV. 1812. THE affairs of Great Britain were now approach- CHAP. ing to a crisis. The contest in Spain was still doubtful; the protracted dispute with America threatened an open rupture; and France was preparing, Gloomy for the subjugation of Russia, a mightier armament aspect of afthan had ever been collected in Europe. At home, Great Brithe décline of commerce produced severe distress among the people; secret combinations were formed in one of the midland counties, for the destruction of machinery, and serious apprehensions were entertained that an organised insurrection would spread tain. CHAP. spread through all the manufacturing districts. LXXXV. Amidst these difficulties the country might desire, 1812. but had little cause to expect, an union of the two great parties in the state; for while ministers persisted in recommending a vigorous prosecution of the war, their opponents condemned it as impolitic, improvident, and ruinous. Meeting of parliament. Provision for the royal PARLIAMENT was opened by commission on the 7th of January. At an early period of the session Mr. Perceval proposed a plan for the arrangement of the royal household, and recommended such an addition to the civil list as might support the separate establishments, now become necessary for. the regent and the king. He likewise suggested an addition of 10,000l. a year to the queen's income, to household. meet the extraordinary expenditure, which her majesty might be likely to incur. When the bills for these purposes had been passed, an annuity of 36,000l. was granted as a provision for the four princesses, each of whom was to receive 90007. a year exclusive of 4000l. from the civil list: on the demise of one, the survivors were to have 10,000l. each, the same to be continued when there should be two survivors: the proportion for the sole survivor was fixed at 12,000l. Bill for ecclesiasti A BILL for improving the ecclesiastical courts in improving England was introduced by sir William Scott, andrecal courts. ceived the sanction of the legislature. Its objects were to abolish excommunication, and to remove the civil consequences attendant on that process, except in cases of great enormity; to diminish the number of inferior tribunals, and to remove the proceedings which belonged to them into the diocesan Returns under the population act. courts. RETURNS under the population act passed in the last session were laid before the house of commons, from which it appeared that since the census of 1801, there had been an increase of more than one million and a half in Great Britain, in the ratio of fourteen LXXXV. 1812. fourteen per centum in England, thirteen in Scot- CHAP. land, and twelve in Wales. The total population of Great Britain in 1801 was 10,472,048; in 1811 it was 11,911,644, making an increase of 1,439,596 persons, actually resident in the country; which, added to the number serving in the army and navy abroad, made a total amount of 1,609,498. These results revived the very important question, in what degree the means of subsistence increased with the population. By accounts which were produced about this time, it appeared that during eleven years, from 1775 to 1786, the average quantity of grain imported was 564,413 quarters; from 1787 to 1798, 1,136,101 quarters; from 1799 to 1810, including three years of scarcity, 1,471,003 quarters. The average prices were 30s. per quarter in the first period; 40s. in the second; and 60s. in the third. During the last year not less than 4,271,000l. went out of the country for the sustenance of its inhabitants; a fact of most serious importance to the public interest. for sup pressing manufac tricts. THE alarming disturbances in the manufacturing Measures districts demanded prompt measures for their suppression. An act was passed, by which the breaking disturb of frames used in the hosiery manufacture, was ances in the declared a capital offence; and it was followed by turing disanother, which attached the same criminality to the taking or administering of an oath, binding the party to the commission of a crime; with a proviso, that any person, who, after taking such oath, should come forward before a charge was made against him, confess his guilt before a magistrate, and take the oath of allegiance, should be saved from the penalty. A bill was also enacted, to preserve the public peace in the disturbed counties, by giving additional powers to the magistrates for a limited time. IN support of the regulations respecting the Currency currency, made in the last session, an act was act passed, act amend ed CHAP passed, by which payments of bank notes, whether LXXXV. in or out of court, were declared legal, to the effect of staying an arrest; and the provisions of this statute were extended to Ireland. 1812. Bill for prohibiting THE act for prohibiting the grant of offices in the grant of reversion was renewed for two years. A bill was offices in introduced for abolishing sinecure offices executed renewed. by deputy, and for creating from the profits reversion Mahon. of these offices, as they should fall in, a fund, from which the civil servants of the public might after a certain time, be provided with penDiscussion sions according to their merits. In the discussions respecting colonel on this subject, the office of paymaster of widows' pensions, which had thirty years before been noticed by the commissioners of public accounts, as a useless sinecure, was abolished. The regent's confi-. dential servant, colonel Mahon, by whom it was held, was appointed keeper of the privy purse, and private secretary to his royal highness. Strong animadversions were made on the latter office, and, though a motion for the production of the appointment was negatived, it was found expedient to adopt the suggestion of Mr. Wilberforce, that the salary should be paid out of the regent's privy Overture to purse. It was generally expected that, on the expirlords Grey ation of the restrictions imposed by the regency bill ville. some important changes would take place in the and Gren cabinet. On the 13th of February, the prince addressed a letter to the duke of York, in which, after stating his satisfaction with the measures adopted by those ministers, whom, from a sense of duty to his royal father, he had retained in office, he expressed a wish that some of the persons with whom the habits of his early life had been formed, would strengthen his hands and constitute a part of his government. The letter concluded by authorising the duke of York to communicate the sentiments of the prince regent to lord Grey, who who would doubtless make them known to lord CHAP. Grenville; and a copy of the letter was at the LXXXV. same time sent to Mr. Perceval. swer. 1812 In their answer to the duke of York, lords Grey Their anand Grenville declared that no sacrifices, except those of honour and duty, could appear to them too great to be made for the purpose of healing the divisions of the country, and uniting both its government and people. They disclaimed all personal exclusion, and and expressed on public grounds alone the impossibility of their uniting with the existing government. Their differences of opinion embracing almost all the leading features of the actual policy of the empire, were too important to admit of such an union. On one subject their sentiments were especially at variance with those of his majesty's ministers: they were firmly persuaded of the necessity of a total change in the system of governing Ireland, and of the immediate repeal of those civil disabilities, under which so large a portion of the people laboured on account of their religious opinions. To recommend to parliament that repeal would be the first advice which they would feel it their duty to offer to his royal highness. An answer so decisive precluded all hope that these eminent statesmen, or any of those "early friends," for whom, as it should seem, they were authorised to decide, would constitute a part of the existing government; and it is remarkable that their refusal was almost immediately followed by the resignation of the marquis Marquis Wellesley, who was succeeded in the office of secre- resigns, and Wellesley tary for foreign affairs by lord Castlereagh. An is succeedattempt however was made to accomplish the coa- Castlelition which had been so anxiously desired. On reagh. the 19th of March, lord Boringdon, in the house of peers, moved for an address to the prince regent, to represent to his royal highness, that the administration, to which he might be pleased to commit ed by lord |